I think the real question (and possibly what StripedCow was asking) is why not use the syntax of existing languages, to make it easier to learn and read?
The explanation linked by the ArchWiki article on systemd is very good: Read this forum post.
As an Arch user, I hated systemd at first, for much the same reasons as already stated: the confusing and opaque nature of debugging. I'm now a convert, and I have been ever since I worked out how to do everything I used to be able to do. I now believe people's resistance is just growing pains. Give it a shot; it's easy and good.
now Google have to support not only a web browser but a Pdf viewer
I don't think that's relevant. Each of Google and Adobe have lots of other software that they have to support. The fact that the PDF viewer sits inside the browser doesn't really affect its maintenance.
both have a long history of being insecure
...unlike Adobe Reader?
I would rather think that Google will either drop the ball on either the browser part or the PDF part in the long term.
Why? They're both important and need to be maintained.
Expect to hear news of security exploits in Chrome based on their PDF viewer.
Expect to hear news of security exploits in all popular software. I'm already sick of hearing about exploits in Acrobat.
I think a move towards multiple viewers will help PDF as a standard, and a move away from Adobe's software in particular will mean less resources used to just open a PDF. Personally, I think the likes of Evince and Sumatra are best for lightness and accuracy.
"TRD" does remind me of turd, but all the other examples are absolutely ridiculous.
WIMP is not a product, and it's the only word you can make out of those letters. It's memorable. I think it's a lot better than PWIM. It's not Wince, it's Windows CE. Kia is not Kay-eye-ay, it's Kee-ah. Nestea: interesting. I have never thought of that. Dynasty: not interesting. In fact, the thought of being more reminded of "die nasty" than actual dynasties tells me you need a better education.
all of that information is readily available to just about any business owner or attorney for $50 or less
Is that per person? If it's even $10 per person, GP's point still stands. If they want to collect this data on thousands of people through a broker, that's a serious investment.
US entrepreneur Elon Musk recently unveiled plans for a train that would travel at speeds of up to 1,200 kilometers an hour. As promising as his design might be, skeptics would argue he's merely continuing a long tradition of revolutionary transit concepts which inevitably end up thwarted by reality.
In other words, the article is drawing attention to the idea that current visions of the future might be just as infeasible as those shown in the article.
This is just an opinion, so please don't badger me for evidence. I'm not trying to troll anyone, so do reply if you disagree with me.
It seems to me that Microsoft has no idea why people have been buying their products this whole time. In the last few years, they've been banging on about the "experience" of using Win7/8/Phone, as if the people who buy Microsoft products do so for the unique Microsoft Experience. In other words, that they buy Microsoft products for much the same reason as one might buy an Apple product. I would argue that this hasn't been the case since the excitement of Windows 95. Even XP was only a small step up from 2000 at the time. By and large, people buy their products because a) they believe it to be pretty solid and/or b) it's the standard. If more solid alternatives exist, and the MS product isn't the ad-hoc standard, they don't make a big impact in the market.
Now, you might say that no, they've been talking about the "experience" because that's what all the cool, profitable kids are up to. That may well be the case, but if you watch their adverts, it goes a step further than trying to convince you of a top-quality experience: they tend to allude to "the Windows/Office/MS Bob experience you love", as if it were an existing truth. It's always struck me as curiously arrogant, coming from a company which deliberately strangled the competition to gain its dominant position. What I don't know, however, is whether they've misread the market that badly, or they're trying to get people to believe there already is such a demand for a specifically Microsoft experience, in order to create this demand.
I agree with this. What I'd like to see is equations added in, where helpful, in the same way as small images in a body of text. Then you could put a caption below, just to say something informal but informative about the equation. I think that way it would be easy for people to decide whether they want to read it. Some people aren't going to want to, so it's important that it's not something you have to read through in the article itself.
This question is such nonsense. Who's keeping it a secret? There's an [edit] link above every section of every article. A tagline isn't a full description of an object.
Also, the fact that people track changes on articles, with lots of people tracking popular and worthwhile pages, means that the quality is high on most pages that matter. They're also locked when necessary. It is very easy to tell roughly how reliable a given page is, and starred pages are always good. If I only heard a description of Wikipedia, I would guess that it's open to serious abuse and misinformation, but in fact, the system works.
You are the one who is complaining about lost features, but hasn't given an example. The main example being repeated is network transparency, but I honestly can't work out why I should care. What other differences convince you of X's superiority?
Here's a challenge: tell me what is missing, and why it's bad. I am a fair man, and if your reasons are good you'll win me over. But this:
The problem is that what you need isn't necessarily what other people need. There are people who don't use the mouse, would you be happy if Wayland skipped implementation of mouse support?
is total nonsense. If you cover all the usage cases of the old system, why are you replacing it? Some features are more important than others, and it is perfectly sensible to talk about "the average user", since the features needed by different people overlap, with some features needed by very few people (e.g. network transparency), and others by almost all (e.g. mouse support).
For the record, in Ireland, 30mph went to 50kph (up), 50mph went to 80kph (roughly same), 60mph went to 100kph (up), and 70mph went up to 120kph. Despite this, people found plenty to complain about. 40mph was taken out, and many of those roads went down to 50kph. People were mostly better off with the new system, but still kicked up a fuss and tried to stop it. If you tried that in America, I'm guessing people would consider it some kind of violation of their right to freedom.
As cdecoro says below, though, this is just about the last thing that should change. We've used both systems for decades. Nowadays, we measure roads in km but people in feet. Milk is in litres but beer is in pints. Sugar is in kgs, butter in pounds, people in stones. Out of interest, how would Americans react to a dual system on packaging, like 1lb / 454g?
There is absolutely no similarity between feeding bears and providing free healthcare. And the implication that poor people are those who are unwilling to provide for themselves is just laughable.
It's funny how silly the anti-drug slashdotters can be.
No, beer doesn't "make you more creative". What does that even mean? Creativity is not a measurable quantity. It's not something which can be simply turned up. However, - Happiness is important for creativity. Alcohol tends to make people happier. - Varied thoughts are crucial for creativity. Alcohol causes us to think along very different lines. - Relaxing is always good. Alcohol makes us relax. - Sometimes it's important to think less analytically, and alcohol certainly helps that.
I'm sure there are more factors. There are similar arguments (or the same ones) to be made for just about all drugs. Drugs have been central to human creativity since time immemorial. They do not cause creativity in themselves, they are not necessary for creativity and they do not take the burden of creation away from the creator. What they do quite effectively is alter the mind, and many people find that some altered state helps them to create. The notion that people only think that drugs help their creativity is laughable. It's simply not true, no matter how many of you say it.
The way it should go is exactly the way it will go: if the Chinese population in a given area is large enough that the inhabitants cannot ignore the celebration, they will recognise it. That area can be a county, state or country.
While on paper, they've been 'targeted' at the desktop, that's not been the story for a while, although that may change w/ the Windows 8 fiascos.
Are you still talking about the HURD in that sentence? That's pretty funny. Ever since Linux became a viable kernel for the GNU system, the HURD has been targeted squarely at dreamers and unemployed kernel developers.
It's sad how many people here seem to genuinely think that "saving money" is a good reason not to have children. What exactly are you saving money for? Buying your next gadget? There are much more important things in life. And I quite frankly don't see the sense in not leaving a legacy.
Now, today, Microsoft has finished by saying Linux can and will only exist at Microsoft's whim. They hold the keys to the kingdom, and can lock and unlock any OS as they see fit. [...] now we are humbly begging for permission to be allowed to use non-windows on our own computers, while also praying the check clears to buy that capability which should be a natural right. [...] If Microsoft officially claims they have revoked the certificate and thus permission for the Linux preboot loader, then instantly every desktop and server in this country running Linux is in violation of the law. Booting it is a felony.
I emphasized the bits in your post that were sensational nonsense. Microsoft could never revoke the keys for Linux, because it is actually too popular for them to get away with it.
Signed booting absolutely MUST be controlled at the highest level by the owner of the computer. No one else!
Agreed.
This means there should be ZERO keys or certs installed by default, and it should be a very serious crime to try and sneak one in, similar to any other mass scale computer intrusion laws. One should be required to learn how it works, why it works, what the advantages of signing your own boot loader would be, and then using that knowledge to enable it and upload your keys. If someone can't do that, then clearly they don't need this feature.
Now I think you're being ridiculous. You can't expect regular end-users to understand the workings of something just to get to use it. It's not the way most people want technology to work, and it doesn't have to be.
Slashdot Mirror
I think the real question (and possibly what StripedCow was asking) is why not use the syntax of existing languages, to make it easier to learn and read?
The explanation linked by the ArchWiki article on systemd is very good:
Read this forum post.
As an Arch user, I hated systemd at first, for much the same reasons as already stated: the confusing and opaque nature of debugging. I'm now a convert, and I have been ever since I worked out how to do everything I used to be able to do. I now believe people's resistance is just growing pains. Give it a shot; it's easy and good.
So, in the interests of everyone's safety, people should keep their gun in hand at all times. Seems fair enough.
now Google have to support not only a web browser but a Pdf viewer
I don't think that's relevant. Each of Google and Adobe have lots of other software that they have to support. The fact that the PDF viewer sits inside the browser doesn't really affect its maintenance.
both have a long history of being insecure
...unlike Adobe Reader?
I would rather think that Google will either drop the ball on either the browser part or the PDF part in the long term.
Why? They're both important and need to be maintained.
Expect to hear news of security exploits in Chrome based on their PDF viewer.
Expect to hear news of security exploits in all popular software. I'm already sick of hearing about exploits in Acrobat.
I think a move towards multiple viewers will help PDF as a standard, and a move away from Adobe's software in particular will mean less resources used to just open a PDF. Personally, I think the likes of Evince and Sumatra are best for lightness and accuracy.
"TRD" does remind me of turd, but all the other examples are absolutely ridiculous.
WIMP is not a product, and it's the only word you can make out of those letters. It's memorable. I think it's a lot better than PWIM.
It's not Wince, it's Windows CE. Kia is not Kay-eye-ay, it's Kee-ah.
Nestea: interesting. I have never thought of that. Dynasty: not interesting. In fact, the thought of being more reminded of "die nasty" than actual dynasties tells me you need a better education.
all of that information is readily available to just about any business owner or attorney for $50 or less
Is that per person? If it's even $10 per person, GP's point still stands. If they want to collect this data on thousands of people through a broker, that's a serious investment.
First paragraph of TFA:
US entrepreneur Elon Musk recently unveiled plans for a train that would travel at speeds of up to 1,200 kilometers an hour. As promising as his design might be, skeptics would argue he's merely continuing a long tradition of revolutionary transit concepts which inevitably end up thwarted by reality.
In other words, the article is drawing attention to the idea that current visions of the future might be just as infeasible as those shown in the article.
Tunnel boring machines, a little slow
But if we tunnelled exciting machines, it could be much faster.
but I'm certainly hobbier than most of my friends.
This is just an opinion, so please don't badger me for evidence. I'm not trying to troll anyone, so do reply if you disagree with me.
It seems to me that Microsoft has no idea why people have been buying their products this whole time. In the last few years, they've been banging on about the "experience" of using Win7/8/Phone, as if the people who buy Microsoft products do so for the unique Microsoft Experience. In other words, that they buy Microsoft products for much the same reason as one might buy an Apple product. I would argue that this hasn't been the case since the excitement of Windows 95. Even XP was only a small step up from 2000 at the time. By and large, people buy their products because a) they believe it to be pretty solid and/or b) it's the standard. If more solid alternatives exist, and the MS product isn't the ad-hoc standard, they don't make a big impact in the market.
Now, you might say that no, they've been talking about the "experience" because that's what all the cool, profitable kids are up to. That may well be the case, but if you watch their adverts, it goes a step further than trying to convince you of a top-quality experience: they tend to allude to "the Windows/Office/MS Bob experience you love", as if it were an existing truth. It's always struck me as curiously arrogant, coming from a company which deliberately strangled the competition to gain its dominant position. What I don't know, however, is whether they've misread the market that badly, or they're trying to get people to believe there already is such a demand for a specifically Microsoft experience, in order to create this demand.
FreeBSD offers a binary Linux compatibility layer to run games at the same (or better) performance as Linux
Or worse. It might be worse, too.
a car phone or a TV larger than 40"
I love my 42" car phone, but it does make it difficult when I have a passenger.
I agree with this. What I'd like to see is equations added in, where helpful, in the same way as small images in a body of text. Then you could put a caption below, just to say something informal but informative about the equation. I think that way it would be easy for people to decide whether they want to read it. Some people aren't going to want to, so it's important that it's not something you have to read through in the article itself.
With a normal operating temperature of -190C, you'd probably need an extra fan or something to overclock it.
This question is such nonsense. Who's keeping it a secret? There's an [edit] link above every section of every article. A tagline isn't a full description of an object.
Also, the fact that people track changes on articles, with lots of people tracking popular and worthwhile pages, means that the quality is high on most pages that matter. They're also locked when necessary. It is very easy to tell roughly how reliable a given page is, and starred pages are always good. If I only heard a description of Wikipedia, I would guess that it's open to serious abuse and misinformation, but in fact, the system works.
You are the one who is complaining about lost features, but hasn't given an example. The main example being repeated is network transparency, but I honestly can't work out why I should care. What other differences convince you of X's superiority?
Here's a challenge: tell me what is missing, and why it's bad. I am a fair man, and if your reasons are good you'll win me over. But this:
The problem is that what you need isn't necessarily what other people need. There are people who don't use the mouse, would you be happy if Wayland skipped implementation of mouse support?
is total nonsense. If you cover all the usage cases of the old system, why are you replacing it? Some features are more important than others, and it is perfectly sensible to talk about "the average user", since the features needed by different people overlap, with some features needed by very few people (e.g. network transparency), and others by almost all (e.g. mouse support).
For the record, in Ireland, 30mph went to 50kph (up), 50mph went to 80kph (roughly same), 60mph went to 100kph (up), and 70mph went up to 120kph. Despite this, people found plenty to complain about. 40mph was taken out, and many of those roads went down to 50kph. People were mostly better off with the new system, but still kicked up a fuss and tried to stop it. If you tried that in America, I'm guessing people would consider it some kind of violation of their right to freedom.
As cdecoro says below, though, this is just about the last thing that should change. We've used both systems for decades. Nowadays, we measure roads in km but people in feet. Milk is in litres but beer is in pints. Sugar is in kgs, butter in pounds, people in stones. Out of interest, how would Americans react to a dual system on packaging, like 1lb / 454g?
it seems like MS is shooting themselves in the foot yet again.
They did that long ago when they refused to participate
They did it yet again before? They're on at least 5 times, so.
There is absolutely no similarity between feeding bears and providing free healthcare.
And the implication that poor people are those who are unwilling to provide for themselves is just laughable.
Better?
There is absolutely no similarity between feeding bears and providing free healthcare, you sensationalist nut.
And the implication that poor people are those who are unwilling to provide for themselves is just laughable.
It's funny how silly the anti-drug slashdotters can be.
No, beer doesn't "make you more creative". What does that even mean? Creativity is not a measurable quantity. It's not something which can be simply turned up.
However,
- Happiness is important for creativity. Alcohol tends to make people happier.
- Varied thoughts are crucial for creativity. Alcohol causes us to think along very different lines.
- Relaxing is always good. Alcohol makes us relax.
- Sometimes it's important to think less analytically, and alcohol certainly helps that.
I'm sure there are more factors. There are similar arguments (or the same ones) to be made for just about all drugs. Drugs have been central to human creativity since time immemorial. They do not cause creativity in themselves, they are not necessary for creativity and they do not take the burden of creation away from the creator. What they do quite effectively is alter the mind, and many people find that some altered state helps them to create. The notion that people only think that drugs help their creativity is laughable. It's simply not true, no matter how many of you say it.
Well, we know the answer is no.
The way it should go is exactly the way it will go: if the Chinese population in a given area is large enough that the inhabitants cannot ignore the celebration, they will recognise it. That area can be a county, state or country.
While on paper, they've been 'targeted' at the desktop, that's not been the story for a while, although that may change w/ the Windows 8 fiascos.
Are you still talking about the HURD in that sentence? That's pretty funny. Ever since Linux became a viable kernel for the GNU system, the HURD has been targeted squarely at dreamers and unemployed kernel developers.
Should be scored 5, Informative.
It's sad how many people here seem to genuinely think that "saving money" is a good reason not to have children. What exactly are you saving money for? Buying your next gadget? There are much more important things in life. And I quite frankly don't see the sense in not leaving a legacy.
Now, today, Microsoft has finished by saying Linux can and will only exist at Microsoft's whim. They hold the keys to the kingdom, and can lock and unlock any OS as they see fit. [...] now we are humbly begging for permission to be allowed to use non-windows on our own computers, while also praying the check clears to buy that capability which should be a natural right. [...] If Microsoft officially claims they have revoked the certificate and thus permission for the Linux preboot loader, then instantly every desktop and server in this country running Linux is in violation of the law. Booting it is a felony.
I emphasized the bits in your post that were sensational nonsense.
Microsoft could never revoke the keys for Linux, because it is actually too popular for them to get away with it.
Signed booting absolutely MUST be controlled at the highest level by the owner of the computer. No one else!
Agreed.
This means there should be ZERO keys or certs installed by default, and it should be a very serious crime to try and sneak one in, similar to any other mass scale computer intrusion laws.
One should be required to learn how it works, why it works, what the advantages of signing your own boot loader would be, and then using that knowledge to enable it and upload your keys.
If someone can't do that, then clearly they don't need this feature.
Now I think you're being ridiculous. You can't expect regular end-users to understand the workings of something just to get to use it. It's not the way most people want technology to work, and it doesn't have to be.