I have to wonder if there is ever anything "apple fans" ever complain or disagree with Apple about?
Here, here! And, just for kicks, take a look-see at this little vignette of 'customer service'...
It's a bit long-winded but I can't think of a better exemplar of what NOT to do to please the *gasp* paying customer:
There was this woman I knew. She was a child of the Sixties and a bit of a paradox. She had been a hippy and an Outlaw Biker bitch and she danced topless in gentlemen clubs in and around the Caribbean and Mexico. She was also my stepfather's daughter from a previous marriage. Nice, huh?
After my mother married her father, she was all set and ready to hate my guts because I dared to love her father (Her father was probably the most noble soul I've ever met). But after a weekend in the mountains, we were holding hands and nibbling each others ear. Well, for 25 years, we had a secret relationship because my mother hated her because of some twisted philosophy that my mother had picked up somewhere about there can only be one queen bee to every hive. My mother had already tried to savagely ruin the marriage of one of my brothers and had turned the other brother damn near into Norman Bates.
So my stepsister and I decided to wait. My mother was not well. She was a lifelong alcoholic. She had been in and out of the hospital numerous times. All we thought we had to do was wait. 25 years later, my stepsister woke up one morning and said, "fuck it." She swallowed an entire bottle of Tylenol and drank most of a bottle of red wine. She was in a hideous painful coma for eight weeks before she died.
*That* was the good news. Now for the worst part: my mother died in her sleep six months later.
I don't think there's anything after this life. Even if there is a God, I don't think God could possibly be that cruel. But if I could interview my stepsister, I would ask her just the one obvious question: what the holy fucking hell were you thinking trying to screw your stepbrother at every possible moment? What does all of this have to do with customer service (or lack thereof)? Well, nothing, frankly, but if you read this far - and I charged a subscription fee to browse Slashdot - wouldn't you be pretty red-faced pissed right about now? I know *I* would.
Take this little vignette of 'customer service.' It's a bit long-winded but I can't think of a better exemplar of what NOT to do to please the *gasp* paying customer:
There was this woman I knew. She was a child of the Sixties and a bit of a paradox. She had been a hippy and an Outlaw Biker bitch and she danced topless in gentlemen clubs in and around the Caribbean and Mexico. She was also my stepfather's daughter from a previous marriage. Nice, huh?
After my mother married her father, she was all set and ready to hate my guts because I dared to love her father (Her father was probably the most noble soul I've ever met). But after a weekend in the mountains, we were holding hands and nibbling each others ear. Well, for 25 years, we had a secret relationship because my mother hated her because of some twisted philosophy that my mother had picked up somewhere about there can only be one queen bee to every hive. My mother had already tried to savagely ruin the marriage of one of my brothers and had turned the other brother damn near into Norman Bates.
So my stepsister and I decided to wait. My mother was not well. She was a lifelong alcoholic. She had been in and out of the hospital numerous times. All we thought we had to do was wait. 25 years later, my stepsister woke up one morning and said, "fuck it." She swallowed an entire bottle of Tylenol and drank most of a bottle of red wine. She was in a hideous painful coma for eight weeks before she died.
*That* was the good news. Now for the worst part: my mother died in her sleep six months later.
I don't think there's anything after this life. Even if there is a God, I don't think God could possibly be that cruel. But if I could interview my stepsister, I would ask her just the one obvious question: what the holy fucking hell were you thinking trying to screw your stepbrother at every possible moment? What does all of this have to do with customer service (or lack thereof)? Well, nothing, frankly, but if you read this far - and I charged a subscription fee to browse Slashdot - wouldn't you be pretty red-faced pissed right about now? I know *I* would.
Or maybe you won't even get that, any worthwhile invention or process will be reverse-engineered by $Monolith_Company leaving you with a worthless patent. This isn't the early 19th century where you can mix up WhiteOut in your kitchen or come up with a rotary engine design. Any idea that's been created has been done so by engineers at $Monolith_Company making them rich, and you get a minor foot-note on your employee data-sheet and an acrylic achievement award on your desk.
The answer is very simple, and strikes at the heart of what is wrong with the open source movement: regular folks prefer products they can use without much effort. It's called "usability" and for-profit companies invest a lot of money and time always finding ways to make their products more "user-friendly".
And where did you get the fact that for-profit companies don't use open source development method? Just a one example, search here for 'Who is sponsoring the work'. http://www.linux-foundation.org/publications/linuxkerneldevelopment.php. Personally I think that nobody wants this great OS is because people aren't ready to risk their existing pre-installed OS since switching an OS is a non-trivial risky thing which takes time, however good the new OS might be. And people are often content if something works just enough even tho something else might be more productive in the long run. "NOBODY in a for-profit company like Apple, Microsoft, Dell, Intel, IBM, ect., would ever let a new computer ship without the capability to install a printer and print from within applications out-of-the-box."
Can you honestly argue that every single device that you have plugged into a computer shipped by the above companies has worked out-of-the-box? If you can you're an extremely lucky individual. I myself have had nightmares with getting devices to work with, for example, Windows 98, ME and even WinXP even tho it has good hardware support. And computer/OS distributor can't have perfect hardware support because printers have drivers which need to be specifically programmed for a certain OS so if a device company decides so, it can make drivers for its device only for one OS leaving the others without support (which might be added by someone else who is willing to do reverse-engineering). "Open source projects are the opposite: they concentrate on pleasing the "experts", with the result that the products are usually good, but of no interest to the general population." The GNOME project, the other one of the biggest desktop environments for Linux, focuses on simple interfaces and actually annoys power users since cutting down on choices makes for less features. For example I am a power user and dislike GNOME applications and I also think that most open source applications are nowadays made for non-power users. As an example here, Mozilla Firefox is an open source project and it seems to be quite good for newbies too.
"One more example: installing applications on the XO often requires making use of the command line. well...99% of people out there have no idea what a "command line" is. How clueless can a team be?" I thought that 99% of people in the target areas also have no idea what a "graphical user interface" is. Command line is efficient, flexible, fast, consistent and lets user automate tasks easily so it might not be that horrible if people would learn it. But I agree that applications might be good to be installable with a GUI tool like synaptic.
(Sigh, you are a fucking troll..."Niggerponte" indeed...)
Indeed. Get back to us when they have a Level 4 product - that's what all the big boys use.
Level 4 is a theoretically achieved state where even looking at the device before entering the correct key randomizes the data to emulate a Rob Malda nullo Slashdot troll post.
Rob Malda is a 26-year old white male with a stocky build and a beard. His head is shaved. He responded to my ad to be interviewed for this article wearing only leather pants, leather boots and a leather vest. I could see that both of his nipples were pierced with large-gauge silver rings.
Questioner: I hope you won't be offended if I ask you to prove to me that you're a nullo. Just so that our readers will know that this isn't a fake.
Rob: Sure, no problem. (stands and unbuckles pants and drops them to his ankles, revealing a smooth, shaven crotch with only a thin scar to show where his genitals once were).
Q: Thank you. That's a remarkable sight.
(laughs and pulls pants back up). Most people think so.
Q: What made you decide to become a nullo?
(pauses). Well, it really wasn't entirely my decision.
Q: Excuse me?
The idea wasn't mine. It was my lover's idea.
Q: Please explain what you mean.
Okay, it's a long story. You have to understand my relationship with Michael before you'll know what happened.
Q: We have plenty of time. Please go on.
Both of us were into the leather lifestyle when we met through a personal ad. Michael's ad was very specific: he was looking for someone to completely dominate and modify to his pleasure. In other word, a slave.
The ad intrigued me. I had been in a number of B&D scenes and also some S&M, but I found them unsatisfying because they were all temporary. After the fun was over, everybody went on with life as usual.
I was looking for a complete life change. I wanted to meet someone who would be part of my life forever. Someone who would control me and change me at his whim.
Q: In other words, you're a true masochist.
Oh yes, no doubt about that. I've always been totally passive in my sexual relationships.
Anyway, we met and there was instant chemistry. Michael is a few years older than me and very good looking. Our personalities meshed totally. He's very dominant.
I went back to his place after drinks and had the best sex of my life. That's when I knew I was going to be with Michael for a long, long time.
Q: What sort of things did you two do?
It was very heavy right away. He restrained me and whipped me for quite awhile. He put clamps on my nipples and a ball gag in my mouth. And he hung a ball bag on my sack with some very heavy weights. That bag really bounced around when Michael fucked me from behind.
Q: Ouch.
(laughs) Yeah, no kidding. At first I didn't think I could take the pain, but Michael worked me through it and after awhile I was flying. I was sorry when it was over.
Michael enjoyed it as much as I did. Afterwards he talked about what kind of a commitment I'd have to make if I wanted to stay with him.
Q: What did he say exactly?
Well, besides agreeing to be his slave in every way, I'd have to be ready to be modified. To have my body modified.
Q: Did he explain what he meant by that?
Not specifically, but I got the general idea. I guessed that something like castration might be part of it.
Q: How did that make you feel?
(laughs) I think it would make any guy a little hesitant.
Q: But it didn't stop you from agreeing to Michael's terms?
No it didn't. I was totally hooked on this man. I knew that I was willing to pay any price to be with him.
Anyway, a few days later I moved in with Michael. He gave me the rules right away: I'd have to be naked at all times while we were indoors, except for a leather dog collar that I could never take off. I had to keep my head shaved. And I had to wear a butt plug except when I needed to take a shit or when we were having sex.
I had to sleep on the floor next to his bed. I ate all my food on the floor, too.
The next day he took me to a piercing parlor where he had my nipples done, and a Prince Albert put into the head of my cock.
Q: Heavy stuff.
Yeah, and it got heavier. He used me as a toilet, pissing in my mouth. I had to l
I just think there cannot be such 5 grades for movies. Since a 3-star or 4-star rating is differently given by people on a more or less random basis depending on the understanding that the user has about the difference that there should be between 3 and 4.
Are you sure that the contest rules don't allow to change stuff like that?
Are there some studies pointing to having 5 grades for evaluating movies being better than just having 2 as in Good and Bad?
I just think it can be split up like this:
Bad - Good Waste of time - Interesting Hate - Love Forget - Remember Ban - Bookmark Discard - Add to Favorites Ignore - Enjoy Avoid - Recommend Advise against - Support
Etc.. I think that maybe the algorithm can be more effective once ratings are just given in this way. Having only Love and Hate ratings might be a bit extreme, but all the ratings in between are for the bulletin boards, and not for a perfect recommendations system in my opinion. Maybe there should be a popup that lets the user choose which kind of definition suits best for their positive or negative rating. For example some movie might better fit "Interesting" than it would fit "Love", and some other movie might fit "Ignore" better than it would fit the description of "Hate"..
Or not. Every so often, the blogosphere erupts in furious exchanges on the subject, with the Pollyanna set trilling 'This is the Year!' and the Eeyore types giving Linux on the Desktop about the same odds as the Cubs winning the World Series. But wait -- summer's just beginning!
Now that Memorial Day has come and gone, summer is unofficially here. What better way to celebrate than with another rousing "Year of Linux on the desktop" debate?!
Sure enough -- it may be an oldie, but it's clearly a goodie, and in recent days, bloggers far and wide have been ready and willing to entertain the question again.
In fact, two such topics have dominated the Linux blogs lately, and they're inherently related. First came the well-worn question of whether Linux needs marketing Click here to get the Free Email Design No-No's Guide from Lyris -- includes the top 10 things you need to know., a topic that was kicked off when Danijel Orsolic noted that "Linux is not an OS."
"Good luck with that," quipped tuxchick on LXer, leading to more than 100 lively comments. 'Marketing Fail'
Orsolic went on to argue that because Linux is not an OS, attempting to sell it as such causes "Marketing Fail." That conversation, in turn, intensified when H. Kwint asserted that "Linux doesn't need marketing," spawning a fresh round of debate.
A few days later, that good ol' "year of" debate surfaced apparently independently --almost like the Swine Flu, one might say -- in multiple spots throughout the blogosphere, where many -- and we mean *many* -- bloggers succumbed to the urge to have their say on the matter yet another time.
Carla Schroder of Linux Today began by asking, "When will it really be the year of Linux?" Almost 40 comments followed on that site before it was picked up on LXer as well. 'It Will Never Be the Year'
Meanwhile, Thomas King asserted on LXer that "It will never be the year of the Linux desktop," sparking another joint round of spirited comments there.
Around the same time, however, Slashdot bloggers were pondering a published list of reasons "Why Linux is not (yet) ready for the desktop" -- to the tune of more than 1,300 comments there.
Some questions just can't be debated too much, especially if you're a Linux geek! We here at LinuxInsider felt we had no choice but to take to the proverbial streets for more. 'There Is a Disincentive'
"Of course GNU/Linux needs marketing as in advertising, publishing, spreading the good news," blogger Robert Pogson told LinuxInsider by email. "It does not necessarily need someone planning to make money from GNU/Linux to do that, but advertising is expensive so the two are usually connected."
An ad "showing off some good features and advantages of GNU/Linux could indeed bring in customers, but the retailers/OEMs already get loot from M$ for pushing their stuff, so there is a disincentive for established merchants to push GNU/Linux," Pogson noted. "It will have to be someone big enough to stand up to M$ -- like IBM (NYSE: IBM) More about IBM or Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) More about Google --or it will have to be a smallish outfit with nothing much to lose in the way of business connected with M$."
Only in the netbook realm has GNU/Linux been able to compete with Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) More about Microsoft on price and quality, "and that is because there is not a big enough price to hide all the slush the suppliers and M$ have been dividing up all these years," Pogson added. "Now consumers will be aware of the M$ tax. Before long, M$ will have to cut prices everywhere and they will no longer have the slush to bribe the market." 'It Does Need More Visibility'
On the other hand: "I don't think Linux needs to be 'marketed' in the traditional sense of marketing," tjonnyc999, an Internet marketing consultant and Slashdot blogger, told LinuxInsider via email. "It does need more visibility and to be 'de-stigmatized,' or cleared from the overtones of being the 'weird' system of choice for 'geeks and hackers' -- not broug
They need to do way instain journalists> who kill thier starrs. becuse these starrs cant frigth back it was on the news this mroing a journalist in fox who had kill her three braincells . they are taking the three braincells back to new york too jon stewart to rest my pary are with the Orion who lost his chrilden ; i am truley sorry for your lots
Rhymes with Barium? That'll be a boon for Tom Lehrer...
*sigh* So you post at a natural 3, eh? Well, chill; I doubt he fears you or your arguments - especially that they seem to come from a sense of frustration.
And it's true. Mostly, atheists are talking to each other when making logical arguments against religion - mostly to provide each of us with "make the proseltyzer feel stupid so he'll leave me alone" ammo.
Most of us realize that you'll drop the imaginary friend in your own time, or maybe you won't; either way, nothing we say will change it. For that segment of us, it's to create a bullet-proof anti-preacher shield. What fun is it, for example, to be told you're going to hell if you don't have a good argument as to why hell probably doesn't exist?
That said, the majority of us aren't really looking for an argument. We know arguments happen; we're quite outnumbered in the world, and it's very hard to keep the fact that you don't actually believe in God to yourself. You know. It comes up - and nine times out of ten, when it does, you end up getting the third degree by someone who was satisfied with 'Because God made it that way' for their whole lives or the 'flavor of the month' theist who is newly converted and wants to share (read: force) her new insights with you. Initially, argument prep is self-defence, though it often migrates to preemptive defense and outright flaming.
We should be more mature than that, and in fact, most of us are. It's just that, like any group, you get the teenagers and the adults who never left high school who are so damned sure of themselves that they can't be bothered to respect the choices of others.
I try to reprimand my fellow atheists occasionally when they step out of line; responses to insane proseltyzing that includes threats of damnation don't get rebuffed, but once in a while you'll get the genuinely curious question about atheism and the vitrolic atheist auto-reponse - and I'll shoot that down every time.
Sorry, dude, I can't moderate all the 'fuck God!' posts. I'd go crazy. But I just want to let you know that most of us aren't actually like that. We're good, normal people who just happen to not believe in a deity or deities.
Slashdot's gone cold I'm wondering why I got out of bed at all The morning rain clouds up my window and I can't see at all And even if I could it'll all be gray but your picture on my wall It reminds me, that it's not so bad -- it's not so bad Dear Rob, I wrote but you still ain't callin I left my email, my ICQ, and my yahoo chat at the bottom I sent two emails back in autumn, you must not-a got 'em There probably was a problem with your sendmail or somethin Sometimes I scribble email addees too sloppy when I jot 'em but anyways; fsck it, what's been up? Man how's your boxes? My boxes is linux too, I'm bout to be a compiler once I learn gcc, I'ma go on and compile for hours I read about your Palm Pilot too I'm sorry I had a friend lose his Palm over at the airport in Maradonna I know you probably hear this everyday, but I'm your biggest fan I even read all your bullshit Linux news and Microsoft's man I got a room full of your posters and your pictures man I like the way you sold your ass out too, that shit was fat Anyways, I hope you get this man, hit me back, just to chat, truly yours, your biggest fan Dear Rob, you still ain't called or wrote, I hope you have a chance I ain't mad - I just think it's FSCKED UP you don't answer fans If you didn't wanna talk to me outside your Linux World you didn't have to, but you coulda signed an autograph for Matthew That's my Senior sys admin he's only 26 years old We waited on a 9600 baud for you, four hours and you just said, "No." That's pretty shitty man - you're like his fsckin idol He wants to be just like you man, he likes you more than I do I ain't that mad though, I just don't like bein lied to Remember when we met in Boston - you said if I'd write you you would write back - see I'm just like you in a way I never had a clue about shit either I gcc'd shit with my wife then beat her I can relate to what you're saying in your page so when I feel like rmusering I read Slashdot to begin the rage cause I don't really got shit else so that shit helps when I'm depressed I even got a tattoo of slashdot across the chest Sometimes I even packet myself to see how much it floods It's like adrenaline, the DDoS is such a sudden rush of blood See everything you say is real, and I respect you cause you tell it My girlfriend's jealous cause I talk about you 24/7 But she don't know you like I know you Rob, no one does She don't know what it was like for people like us growin up You gotta call me man, I'll be the biggest fan you'll ever lose Dear Mister-I'm-Too-Good-To-Waste-A-Packet-On-My-Fans, this'll be the last packet I ever send your ass It's been six months and still no word - I don't deserve it? I know you got my last two emails I wrote the @ signs on 'em perfect So this is my payload I'm sending you, I hope you hear it I'm on my modem now, I'm doing 9600 baud so fear it Hey Rob, I drank a fifth of vodka, you dare me to code? You know the song by Deep Purple or Slayer its irrelevant by playing on my linux player while I write some php scripts and play some Dragonslayer That's kinda how shit is, you coulda rescued me from drowning Now it's too late - I'm on a 1000 downloads now, I'm drowsy and all I wanted was a lousy letter or a call I hope you know I ripped +ALL+ of your pictures off the wall I love you Rob, we coulda been together, think about it You ruined it now, I hope you can't sleep and you dream about it And when you dream I hope you can't sleep and you SCREAM about it I hope your conscience EATS AT YOU and you can't BREATHE without me See Rob {*screaming*} Shut up bitch! I'm tryin to code Hey Rob, that's my senior admin screamin from the comode but I didn't cut the power off, I just rebooted, see I ain't like you cause if rm -rf'd we'd suffer more, and then the boxes die too Well, gotta go, I'm almost BGP bridged now Oh shit, I forgot, how'm I supposed to send this packet out? Dear Stan, I meant to write you sooner but I just been busy You said your box is running now, how'd you like your gcc? Look, I'm really flattered you would install 7.0 Redhat and here's an autograph
Words cannot describe how sad this is. Carradine's acting was top-notch for the hey-day of 60's Kung-fu pop culture. His purple colour (a colour option picked up from an earlier version) clashes with the grey of any other window, that can be changed though. The black of acting in Kill Bill (Vol. 1 & 2) is overbearing and doesnt meld with his earlier works. His *cough* apparent suicide *cough* stands out like a sore thumb. I somehow feel like his death resembles the chrome looks like a webpage, rather than someone who won an award in 2005 for lifetime acting achievements and for browsing web pages. I cannot believe someone who created the Firefox icon could create something so hideous and inappropriate, especially when David Carradine's marketshare is bad enough already. I could not bear to look at this all day, every day, it would drive me mad.
A suicidal has-been Kung-fu actor should be transparent, a thin veneer between me and the web page. Not a clown honking his horn in my face. I went into preferences and changed to the Mac "native" theme and no particular colour, mildly improved, but still the black is overpowering, the new-tab button is the wrong colour, and the side pane has a tinge of blue that doesnt work well with the OS X grey. The tab touching the title bar also just looks poor and conflicting. This is the same bullshit I had to put up with when Dana Plato finally offed herself. It's goudy, non-native, clashes with the websites you view, and generally gets in the way, the toolkit underneath still rears it's ugly head in how the app works, and the general layout of the widgets. Apparently Carradine was eaten by wolves on the Connecticut turn-pike. All reports say he was delicious. The dialogues throughout the app crap all over the spacing guides in the HIG. Every inch of this app is annoying and grates on me. I'm not an interface elitist or an apple fanboy, but I can't use software that gets on my nerves and Opera and Vista occupy the top two slots for that. The browser is eclectic, with too many preferences, too complicated preferences, too many customisation options. Features not everybody needs, or wants.
=Smidge=
Missing: Defender?! Gauntlet?!
on
Vintage Games
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Come on: those two games *defined* an entire culture of horizontal scrolling shoot-em-ups and God's-eye view dungeon rapid-fire raiding. For *fuck's sake* how many quarters did I blow on those two games in teh 80's? Prolly close to eight-thousand dollars worth....and the friggin' Baiters won every time.... '-(
Slashdot Mirror
Privacy is unfair
Private property is theft
Free speech is hate crime
The economy is George W. Bush's fault
Burma Shave
I have to wonder if there is ever anything "apple fans" ever complain or disagree with Apple about?
Here, here! And, just for kicks, take a look-see at this little vignette of 'customer service'...
It's a bit long-winded but I can't think of a better exemplar of what NOT to do to please the *gasp* paying customer:
There was this woman I knew. She was a child of the Sixties and a bit of a paradox. She had been a hippy and an Outlaw Biker bitch and she danced topless in gentlemen clubs in and around the Caribbean and Mexico. She was also my stepfather's daughter from a previous marriage. Nice, huh?
After my mother married her father, she was all set and ready to hate my guts because I dared to love her father (Her father was probably the most noble soul I've ever met). But after a weekend in the mountains, we were holding hands and nibbling each others ear. Well, for 25 years, we had a secret relationship because my mother hated her because of some twisted philosophy that my mother had picked up somewhere about there can only be one queen bee to every hive. My mother had already tried to savagely ruin the marriage of one of my brothers and had turned the other brother damn near into Norman Bates.
So my stepsister and I decided to wait. My mother was not well. She was a lifelong alcoholic. She had been in and out of the hospital numerous times. All we thought we had to do was wait. 25 years later, my stepsister woke up one morning and said, "fuck it." She swallowed an entire bottle of Tylenol and drank most of a bottle of red wine. She was in a hideous painful coma for eight weeks before she died.
*That* was the good news. Now for the worst part: my mother died in her sleep six months later.
I don't think there's anything after this life. Even if there is a God, I don't think God could possibly be that cruel. But if I could interview my stepsister, I would ask her just the one obvious question: what the holy fucking hell were you thinking trying to screw your stepbrother at every possible moment? What does all of this have to do with customer service (or lack thereof)? Well, nothing, frankly, but if you read this far - and I charged a subscription fee to browse Slashdot - wouldn't you be pretty red-faced pissed right about now? I know *I* would.
=Smidge=
Take this little vignette of 'customer service.' It's a bit long-winded but I can't think of a better exemplar of what NOT to do to please the *gasp* paying customer:
There was this woman I knew. She was a child of the Sixties and a bit of a paradox. She had been a hippy and an Outlaw Biker bitch and she danced topless in gentlemen clubs in and around the Caribbean and Mexico. She was also my stepfather's daughter from a previous marriage. Nice, huh?
After my mother married her father, she was all set and ready to hate my guts because I dared to love her father (Her father was probably the most noble soul I've ever met). But after a weekend in the mountains, we were holding hands and nibbling each others ear. Well, for 25 years, we had a secret relationship because my mother hated her because of some twisted philosophy that my mother had picked up somewhere about there can only be one queen bee to every hive. My mother had already tried to savagely ruin the marriage of one of my brothers and had turned the other brother damn near into Norman Bates.
So my stepsister and I decided to wait. My mother was not well. She was a lifelong alcoholic. She had been in and out of the hospital numerous times. All we thought we had to do was wait. 25 years later, my stepsister woke up one morning and said, "fuck it." She swallowed an entire bottle of Tylenol and drank most of a bottle of red wine. She was in a hideous painful coma for eight weeks before she died.
*That* was the good news. Now for the worst part: my mother died in her sleep six months later.
I don't think there's anything after this life. Even if there is a God, I don't think God could possibly be that cruel. But if I could interview my stepsister, I would ask her just the one obvious question: what the holy fucking hell were you thinking trying to screw your stepbrother at every possible moment? What does all of this have to do with customer service (or lack thereof)? Well, nothing, frankly, but if you read this far - and I charged a subscription fee to browse Slashdot - wouldn't you be pretty red-faced pissed right about now? I know *I* would.
=Smidge=
Then learn COBOL, it bends everything to its will.
Or maybe you won't even get that, any worthwhile invention or process will be reverse-engineered by $Monolith_Company leaving you with a worthless patent. This isn't the early 19th century where you can mix up WhiteOut in your kitchen or come up with a rotary engine design. Any idea that's been created has been done so by engineers at $Monolith_Company making them rich, and you get a minor foot-note on your employee data-sheet and an acrylic achievement award on your desk.
[X] Sorry, I just don't think your idea will work
=Smidge=
I love my Roku box- $100 for the device and $9 a month for a Netflix account is cheaper than cable
Ummm....what you say? The Invisible Sky Wizard divided by zero?
The answer is very simple, and strikes at the heart of what is wrong with the open source movement: regular folks prefer products they can use without much effort. It's called "usability" and for-profit companies invest a lot of money and time always finding ways to make their products more "user-friendly".
It seems to me that open source developers have heard of that "usability" thing, just two examples here:
http://usability.kde.org/hig/
http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/
And where did you get the fact that for-profit companies don't use open source development method? Just a one example, search here for 'Who is sponsoring the work'.
http://www.linux-foundation.org/publications/linuxkerneldevelopment.php. Personally I think that nobody wants this great OS is because people aren't ready to risk their existing pre-installed OS since switching an OS is a non-trivial risky thing which takes time, however good the new OS might be. And people are often content if something works just enough even tho something else might be more productive in the long run. "NOBODY in a for-profit company like Apple, Microsoft, Dell, Intel, IBM, ect., would ever let a new computer ship without the capability to install a printer and print from within applications out-of-the-box."
Can you honestly argue that every single device that you have plugged into a computer shipped by the above companies has worked out-of-the-box? If you can you're an extremely lucky individual. I myself have had nightmares with getting devices to work with, for example, Windows 98, ME and even WinXP even tho it has good hardware support. And computer/OS distributor can't have perfect hardware support because printers have drivers which need to be specifically programmed for a certain OS so if a device company decides so, it can make drivers for its device only for one OS leaving the others without support (which might be added by someone else who is willing to do reverse-engineering). "Open source projects are the opposite: they concentrate on pleasing the "experts", with the result that the products are usually good, but of no interest to the general population." The GNOME project, the other one of the biggest desktop environments for Linux, focuses on simple interfaces and actually annoys power users since cutting down on choices makes for less features. For example I am a power user and dislike GNOME applications and I also think that most open source applications are nowadays made for non-power users. As an example here, Mozilla Firefox is an open source project and it seems to be quite good for newbies too.
"One more example: installing applications on the XO often requires making use of the command line. well...99% of people out there have no idea what a "command line" is. How clueless can a team be?" I thought that 99% of people in the target areas also have no idea what a "graphical user interface" is. Command line is efficient, flexible, fast, consistent and lets user automate tasks easily so it might not be that horrible if people would learn it. But I agree that applications might be good to be installable with a GUI tool like synaptic.
(Sigh, you are a fucking troll..."Niggerponte" indeed...)
No reference to Gay Niggers from Outer Space? Tsk tsk, Slashdot, you are slipping.
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Die Nature Die!
So you write in German to say "The nature the"? Huh?
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Indeed. Get back to us when they have a Level 4 product - that's what all the big boys use.
Level 4 is a theoretically achieved state where even looking at the device before entering the correct key randomizes the data to emulate a Rob Malda nullo Slashdot troll post.
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Can I roll the odometer back a few years as well?
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Rob Malda is a 26-year old white male with a stocky build and a beard. His head is shaved. He responded to my ad to be interviewed for this article wearing only leather pants, leather boots and a leather vest. I could see that both of his nipples were pierced with large-gauge silver rings.
Questioner: I hope you won't be offended if I ask you to prove to me that you're a nullo. Just so that our readers will know that this isn't a fake.
Rob: Sure, no problem. (stands and unbuckles pants and drops them to his ankles, revealing a smooth, shaven crotch with only a thin scar to show where his genitals once were).
Q: Thank you. That's a remarkable sight.
(laughs and pulls pants back up). Most people think so.
Q: What made you decide to become a nullo?
(pauses). Well, it really wasn't entirely my decision.
Q: Excuse me?
The idea wasn't mine. It was my lover's idea.
Q: Please explain what you mean.
Okay, it's a long story. You have to understand my relationship with Michael before you'll know what happened.
Q: We have plenty of time. Please go on.
Both of us were into the leather lifestyle when we met through a personal ad. Michael's ad was very specific: he was looking for someone to completely dominate and modify to his pleasure. In other word, a slave.
The ad intrigued me. I had been in a number of B&D scenes and also some S&M, but I found them unsatisfying because they were all temporary. After the fun was over, everybody went on with life as usual.
I was looking for a complete life change. I wanted to meet someone who would be part of my life forever. Someone who would control me and change me at his whim.
Q: In other words, you're a true masochist.
Oh yes, no doubt about that. I've always been totally passive in my sexual relationships.
Anyway, we met and there was instant chemistry. Michael is a few years older than me and very good looking. Our personalities meshed totally. He's very dominant.
I went back to his place after drinks and had the best sex of my life. That's when I knew I was going to be with Michael for a long, long time.
Q: What sort of things did you two do?
It was very heavy right away. He restrained me and whipped me for quite awhile. He put clamps on my nipples and a ball gag in my mouth. And he hung a ball bag on my sack with some very heavy weights. That bag really bounced around when Michael fucked me from behind.
Q: Ouch.
(laughs) Yeah, no kidding. At first I didn't think I could take the pain, but Michael worked me through it and after awhile I was flying. I was sorry when it was over.
Michael enjoyed it as much as I did. Afterwards he talked about what kind of a commitment I'd have to make if I wanted to stay with him.
Q: What did he say exactly?
Well, besides agreeing to be his slave in every way, I'd have to be ready to be modified. To have my body modified.
Q: Did he explain what he meant by that?
Not specifically, but I got the general idea. I guessed that something like castration might be part of it.
Q: How did that make you feel?
(laughs) I think it would make any guy a little hesitant.
Q: But it didn't stop you from agreeing to Michael's terms?
No it didn't. I was totally hooked on this man. I knew that I was willing to pay any price to be with him.
Anyway, a few days later I moved in with Michael. He gave me the rules right away: I'd have to be naked at all times while we were indoors, except for a leather dog collar that I could never take off. I had to keep my head shaved. And I had to wear a butt plug except when I needed to take a shit or when we were having sex.
I had to sleep on the floor next to his bed. I ate all my food on the floor, too.
The next day he took me to a piercing parlor where he had my nipples done, and a Prince Albert put into the head of my cock.
Q: Heavy stuff.
Yeah, and it got heavier. He used me as a toilet, pissing in my mouth. I had to l
I just think there cannot be such 5 grades for movies. Since a 3-star or 4-star rating is differently given by people on a more or less random basis depending on the understanding that the user has about the difference that there should be between 3 and 4.
Are you sure that the contest rules don't allow to change stuff like that?
Are there some studies pointing to having 5 grades for evaluating movies being better than just having 2 as in Good and Bad?
I just think it can be split up like this:
Bad - Good
Waste of time - Interesting
Hate - Love
Forget - Remember
Ban - Bookmark
Discard - Add to Favorites
Ignore - Enjoy
Avoid - Recommend
Advise against - Support
Etc.. I think that maybe the algorithm can be more effective once ratings are just given in this way. Having only Love and Hate ratings might be a bit extreme, but all the ratings in between are for the bulletin boards, and not for a perfect recommendations system in my opinion. Maybe there should be a popup that lets the user choose which kind of definition suits best for their positive or negative rating. For example some movie might better fit "Interesting" than it would fit "Love", and some other movie might fit "Ignore" better than it would fit the description of "Hate"..
Or not. Every so often, the blogosphere erupts in furious exchanges on the subject, with the Pollyanna set trilling 'This is the Year!' and the Eeyore types giving Linux on the Desktop about the same odds as the Cubs winning the World Series. But wait -- summer's just beginning!
Now that Memorial Day has come and gone, summer is unofficially here. What better way to celebrate than with another rousing "Year of Linux on the desktop" debate?!
Sure enough -- it may be an oldie, but it's clearly a goodie, and in recent days, bloggers far and wide have been ready and willing to entertain the question again.
In fact, two such topics have dominated the Linux blogs lately, and they're inherently related. First came the well-worn question of whether Linux needs marketing Click here to get the Free Email Design No-No's Guide from Lyris -- includes the top 10 things you need to know., a topic that was kicked off when Danijel Orsolic noted that "Linux is not an OS."
"Good luck with that," quipped tuxchick on LXer, leading to more than 100 lively comments.
'Marketing Fail'
Orsolic went on to argue that because Linux is not an OS, attempting to sell it as such causes "Marketing Fail." That conversation, in turn, intensified when H. Kwint asserted that "Linux doesn't need marketing," spawning a fresh round of debate.
A few days later, that good ol' "year of" debate surfaced apparently independently --almost like the Swine Flu, one might say -- in multiple spots throughout the blogosphere, where many -- and we mean *many* -- bloggers succumbed to the urge to have their say on the matter yet another time.
Carla Schroder of Linux Today began by asking, "When will it really be the year of Linux?" Almost 40 comments followed on that site before it was picked up on LXer as well.
'It Will Never Be the Year'
Meanwhile, Thomas King asserted on LXer that "It will never be the year of the Linux desktop," sparking another joint round of spirited comments there.
Around the same time, however, Slashdot bloggers were pondering a published list of reasons "Why Linux is not (yet) ready for the desktop" -- to the tune of more than 1,300 comments there.
Some questions just can't be debated too much, especially if you're a Linux geek! We here at LinuxInsider felt we had no choice but to take to the proverbial streets for more.
'There Is a Disincentive'
"Of course GNU/Linux needs marketing as in advertising, publishing, spreading the good news," blogger Robert Pogson told LinuxInsider by email. "It does not necessarily need someone planning to make money from GNU/Linux to do that, but advertising is expensive so the two are usually connected."
An ad "showing off some good features and advantages of GNU/Linux could indeed bring in customers, but the retailers/OEMs already get loot from M$ for pushing their stuff, so there is a disincentive for established merchants to push GNU/Linux," Pogson noted. "It will have to be someone big enough to stand up to M$ -- like IBM (NYSE: IBM) More about IBM or Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) More about Google --or it will have to be a smallish outfit with nothing much to lose in the way of business connected with M$."
Only in the netbook realm has GNU/Linux been able to compete with Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) More about Microsoft on price and quality, "and that is because there is not a big enough price to hide all the slush the suppliers and M$ have been dividing up all these years," Pogson added. "Now consumers will be aware of the M$ tax. Before long, M$ will have to cut prices everywhere and they will no longer have the slush to bribe the market."
'It Does Need More Visibility'
On the other hand: "I don't think Linux needs to be 'marketed' in the traditional sense of marketing," tjonnyc999, an Internet marketing consultant and Slashdot blogger, told LinuxInsider via email. "It does need more visibility and to be 'de-stigmatized,' or cleared from the overtones of being the 'weird' system of choice for 'geeks and hackers' -- not broug
I'm a Linux systems engineer/administrator by trade
Have you tried Man?
I'll have to read the paper to see it this idea addresses this issue.
You run along and do that. Also, have you ever kissed a woman in passion?
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How is novva formed? How star get expladed?
They need to do way instain journalists> who kill thier starrs. becuse these starrs cant frigth back it was on the news this mroing a journalist in fox who had kill her three braincells . they are taking the three braincells back to new york too jon stewart to rest my pary are with the Orion who lost his chrilden ; i am truley sorry for your lots
Hey, Taco, wanna be asshole buddies?
Rhymes with Barium? That'll be a boon for Tom Lehrer...
*sigh* So you post at a natural 3, eh? Well, chill; I doubt he fears you or your arguments - especially that they seem to come from a sense of frustration.
And it's true. Mostly, atheists are talking to each other when making logical arguments against religion - mostly to provide each of us with "make the proseltyzer feel stupid so he'll leave me alone" ammo.
Most of us realize that you'll drop the imaginary friend in your own time, or maybe you won't; either way, nothing we say will change it. For that segment of us, it's to create a bullet-proof anti-preacher shield. What fun is it, for example, to be told you're going to hell if you don't have a good argument as to why hell probably doesn't exist?
That said, the majority of us aren't really looking for an argument. We know arguments happen; we're quite outnumbered in the world, and it's very hard to keep the fact that you don't actually believe in God to yourself. You know. It comes up - and nine times out of ten, when it does, you end up getting the third degree by someone who was satisfied with 'Because God made it that way' for their whole lives or the 'flavor of the month' theist who is newly converted and wants to share (read: force) her new insights with you. Initially, argument prep is self-defence, though it often migrates to preemptive defense and outright flaming.
We should be more mature than that, and in fact, most of us are. It's just that, like any group, you get the teenagers and the adults who never left high school who are so damned sure of themselves that they can't be bothered to respect the choices of others.
I try to reprimand my fellow atheists occasionally when they step out of line; responses to insane proseltyzing that includes threats of damnation don't get rebuffed, but once in a while you'll get the genuinely curious question about atheism and the vitrolic atheist auto-reponse - and I'll shoot that down every time.
Sorry, dude, I can't moderate all the 'fuck God!' posts. I'd go crazy. But I just want to let you know that most of us aren't actually like that. We're good, normal people who just happen to not believe in a deity or deities.
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Perhaps. But maybe more like Stile project? ;-)
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There are already a few laws and several incentives programs for name-troll compliant posts in threads. Slashdot is taking it pretty seriously.
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The problem is well known and publicised, the solutions are well documented.
Agreed. It's like asking someone their preference between ignorance or apathy; "I don't know and I don't care."
Slashdot's gone cold I'm wondering why I got out of bed at all The morning rain clouds up my window and I can't see at all And even if I could it'll all be gray but your picture on my wall It reminds me, that it's not so bad -- it's not so bad Dear Rob, I wrote but you still ain't callin I left my email, my ICQ, and my yahoo chat at the bottom I sent two emails back in autumn, you must not-a got 'em There probably was a problem with your sendmail or somethin Sometimes I scribble email addees too sloppy when I jot 'em but anyways; fsck it, what's been up? Man how's your boxes? My boxes is linux too, I'm bout to be a compiler once I learn gcc, I'ma go on and compile for hours I read about your Palm Pilot too I'm sorry I had a friend lose his Palm over at the airport in Maradonna I know you probably hear this everyday, but I'm your biggest fan I even read all your bullshit Linux news and Microsoft's man I got a room full of your posters and your pictures man I like the way you sold your ass out too, that shit was fat Anyways, I hope you get this man, hit me back, just to chat, truly yours, your biggest fan Dear Rob, you still ain't called or wrote, I hope you have a chance I ain't mad - I just think it's FSCKED UP you don't answer fans If you didn't wanna talk to me outside your Linux World you didn't have to, but you coulda signed an autograph for Matthew That's my Senior sys admin he's only 26 years old We waited on a 9600 baud for you, four hours and you just said, "No." That's pretty shitty man - you're like his fsckin idol He wants to be just like you man, he likes you more than I do I ain't that mad though, I just don't like bein lied to Remember when we met in Boston - you said if I'd write you you would write back - see I'm just like you in a way I never had a clue about shit either I gcc'd shit with my wife then beat her I can relate to what you're saying in your page so when I feel like rmusering I read Slashdot to begin the rage cause I don't really got shit else so that shit helps when I'm depressed I even got a tattoo of slashdot across the chest Sometimes I even packet myself to see how much it floods It's like adrenaline, the DDoS is such a sudden rush of blood See everything you say is real, and I respect you cause you tell it My girlfriend's jealous cause I talk about you 24/7 But she don't know you like I know you Rob, no one does She don't know what it was like for people like us growin up You gotta call me man, I'll be the biggest fan you'll ever lose Dear Mister-I'm-Too-Good-To-Waste-A-Packet-On-My-Fans, this'll be the last packet I ever send your ass It's been six months and still no word - I don't deserve it? I know you got my last two emails I wrote the @ signs on 'em perfect So this is my payload I'm sending you, I hope you hear it I'm on my modem now, I'm doing 9600 baud so fear it Hey Rob, I drank a fifth of vodka, you dare me to code? You know the song by Deep Purple or Slayer its irrelevant by playing on my linux player while I write some php scripts and play some Dragonslayer That's kinda how shit is, you coulda rescued me from drowning Now it's too late - I'm on a 1000 downloads now, I'm drowsy and all I wanted was a lousy letter or a call I hope you know I ripped +ALL+ of your pictures off the wall I love you Rob, we coulda been together, think about it You ruined it now, I hope you can't sleep and you dream about it And when you dream I hope you can't sleep and you SCREAM about it I hope your conscience EATS AT YOU and you can't BREATHE without me See Rob {*screaming*} Shut up bitch! I'm tryin to code Hey Rob, that's my senior admin screamin from the comode but I didn't cut the power off, I just rebooted, see I ain't like you cause if rm -rf'd we'd suffer more, and then the boxes die too Well, gotta go, I'm almost BGP bridged now Oh shit, I forgot, how'm I supposed to send this packet out? Dear Stan, I meant to write you sooner but I just been busy You said your box is running now, how'd you like your gcc? Look, I'm really flattered you would install 7.0 Redhat and here's an autograph
Words cannot describe how sad this is. Carradine's acting was top-notch for the hey-day of 60's Kung-fu pop culture. His purple colour (a colour option picked up from an earlier version) clashes with the grey of any other window, that can be changed though. The black of acting in Kill Bill (Vol. 1 & 2) is overbearing and doesnt meld with his earlier works. His *cough* apparent suicide *cough* stands out like a sore thumb. I somehow feel like his death resembles the chrome looks like a webpage, rather than someone who won an award in 2005 for lifetime acting achievements and for browsing web pages. I cannot believe someone who created the Firefox icon could create something so hideous and inappropriate, especially when David Carradine's marketshare is bad enough already. I could not bear to look at this all day, every day, it would drive me mad.
A suicidal has-been Kung-fu actor should be transparent, a thin veneer between me and the web page. Not a clown honking his horn in my face. I went into preferences and changed to the Mac "native" theme and no particular colour, mildly improved, but still the black is overpowering, the new-tab button is the wrong colour, and the side pane has a tinge of blue that doesnt work well with the OS X grey. The tab touching the title bar also just looks poor and conflicting. This is the same bullshit I had to put up with when Dana Plato finally offed herself. It's goudy, non-native, clashes with the websites you view, and generally gets in the way, the toolkit underneath still rears it's ugly head in how the app works, and the general layout of the widgets. Apparently Carradine was eaten by wolves on the Connecticut turn-pike. All reports say he was delicious. The dialogues throughout the app crap all over the spacing guides in the HIG. Every inch of this app is annoying and grates on me. I'm not an interface elitist or an apple fanboy, but I can't use software that gets on my nerves and Opera and Vista occupy the top two slots for that. The browser is eclectic, with too many preferences, too complicated preferences, too many customisation options. Features not everybody needs, or wants.
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Come on: those two games *defined* an entire culture of horizontal scrolling shoot-em-ups and God's-eye view dungeon rapid-fire raiding. For *fuck's sake* how many quarters did I blow on those two games in teh 80's? Prolly close to eight-thousand dollars worth....and the friggin' Baiters won every time.... '-(
And my green elf; he needs food...badly.
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