(not a flame; glad you like mplayer, or whatever else other readers happen to like)... doesn't it (mplayer) have the same interface as xine? (or did someone just really futz up the package I downloaded?) I don't have a problem using a mouse and/or keyboard (or even a console window, for the right job). I do however have a problem with the interface appearance/layout being so alien (...no title bar? how the F*CK do I make it just go away? click at random? pull up a console to kill -9 it?...) that, what with the bajillion other things I need to do with my time very limited free time at home, I really don't have time or interest to figure out. That's really what I think this thread's author started talking about. So mplayer has nice keyboard controls? great... but I sure don't already know what they are, and having launched the installed trial of that and getting about the same way-out-experiment graphical interface, I quickly removed it also. I'm glad other people like it and find it useful, but I certainly do not. (And we'll probably never see eye-to-eye, and that's okay, but the developers don't have to look far to understand my lack of desire to understand their super-coolio-funky bitmapped interface.) In honesty, I have a similar gripe with winamp/xmms doing something similar, though at least it is somewhat "similar" in layout, if not appearance, to normal (e.g., classical) interface styles, so I tolerate it for playing music.
The first, usable app I find to play music (as well as xmms does) and/or movies (as well as, well, ?) that uses the native widgets and lets my window manager do my window managing (which I've tweaked to my own needs at great pain) and just does its job with no attempt at self-glamorization will find itself a home on at least a few boxes I use.
if I have to spend more than about 5 to 10 minutes trying to figure out your user interface, I'm going to go find another solution to my problem.
Amen! Professional CAD packages here at work aside (absolutely hellish interface for an absolutely hellish problem), I have to agree. I can even cite a recent personal example that may hit home to people here (or may get me flamed down as a luser; either result will be informative). I found a copy of xine to play video with, as I've heard all about it here on slashdot. After it went in and started up, I just stared at it blankly for about a minute, closed it, removed the program, put my video file on a public samba share, and viewed it in windows using a more-evil-but-more-usable program. *shrug* QED
half of the users scream "more options! more options!" while the other half screams "less options! less options!"
Well, somewhere in my fairly generic installation of Gnome (courtesy of RH7.3), somewhere in either Gnome or Sawfish is a little drop-down knob that can control *how many options are seen* in the configurator. Mine's on 'expert' while my wife's is [still?] on 'basic'. Having the options isn't the problem, as much as providing users who don't want to be swamped with them the ability to, well, not be swamped with them. (Someone several posts up mentioned an old DOS proggie that did this rather well, so it is hardly a new solution to an old problem.)
Think about Animatrix like a list of recommended reading given by a professor. Not strictly required, really, but well worth the extra time to go over. Just my opinion, but it (and to a lesser extent, the game) is required viewing to those who really dig the Matrix storyline and want to know what's going on. Also, if you just want to sample different anime styles, it is worth watching for that, alone. (But if neither Matrix nor anime really float your boat, then just skip it, but know you'll be short of info when your buds discuss it.:) Another opinion of mine is this: even if it is a money grab, the overall Matrix storyline is the only one in a long long time that has really made me *think*, so I'm willing to reward the W. brothers, producers, etc. for this one by watching (buying) the movies. It is a rare thing indeed for me to ever say that. If you have access, just rent it from the local video store, as it's worth the few dollars. Also, if you've got time and reflexes enough, *do* play through the game; at a minimum, you'll have hella fun and probably gain a new respect for just what the on screen characters are going through in their fight vs. the agents and system in general. (Do also note: the game is a parallel of Reloaded from Niobe's team's perspective, not the exact same storyline from Morpheus' team's perspective, so you will see/learn more as the cut-scenes play out.) Yeah, so you caught me: I'm a big fan.;)
But the entire supposition that we would voluntarily scorch the sky is absurd.
...and is why the humans are portrayed as taking it as a last, desperate action in the war versus the machines (or their "nation" called 01 (zero-one))...
Machines should not have the same reaction to nuclear power that many humans do
...quite right. Rent/buy/watch (whatever) Animatrix... the machines apparently won (or were obviously on the verge of it, save for our last desperate act) the war for that very reason...
easily replacable by batteries
...very much the same solution the machines thought of. Rid themselves of two problems at once. Nice and efficient-like. (Current debates about humans providing enough capturable waste power aside... it is an anime-style fiction movie after all:)
While interesting enough on its own, the theory does not dovetail with what we have been told in Animatrix. Particularly _Second Renaissance_ which IIRC was written and approved by the W. brothers, and hence can be taken as canon. That assumption being what it is, no... the Matrix is what the characters have been saying throughout: a system of control (and thereby not a system of preservation). My $0.02. But kudos for an original theory about it just the same. =)
Eh? EQUIVALENCE is the substitute for the lack of pointers that makes FORTRAN usable.
While the parent continued onward to get Funny mods, this is actually a very insightful remark. Consider how useful a "strict subset" of C would be if you were disallowed the use of pointer/address operators. Not that useful? Go figure. Consider now the millions of lines of code circulating at my company, most of which are in a Fortran version older than I am, and most of which use 'equivalence' statements; ponder how much chance a "strict subset of fortran" is likely to have in being useful. Sure, I applaud the efforts to make learning fortran easier, but really, a teacher can just gloss over "equivalence" (et. al) for first time students just as easily as a C prof can gloss over pointers. *shrug*
I'm almost in your cheering section here. Granted, I don't really write network service code for any sort of a living, but I have toyed with a private utility for my home network and coded it in Java. It was fairly low-feature, and mostly borrowed from various online postings from guru's and whatnot... and after running the service daemon on Linux box "A", it would reliably proceed to completely hang the box (*completely*) requiring nothing less than a power-switch reboot. I felt a little betrayed. Granted, the problem probably isn't/wasn't in the language specification, but on some implemetation of the linux runtime environment, but what do I care about that? I lost part of a filesystem one time when it locked up at a particularly bad time. (Like there's a good time, I guess.;) End-user perspective: it simply didn't work. Sun seemed uninterested in the problem as it took a few days to have a chance for this to happen. Arguably, some work needs to happen on the JRE to increase reliability. Wanna guess what language *that* is in? Ironic, in its way.
My wife must have gotten one of those models.;) Seriously, under Win '98 with updated what-have-you, games are unplayable as the main resolution games like to use have a full couple inches hanging off the side of the screen. (Which side depends on how you've twiddled the scroll... to see the game controls on the left or to see the game controls on the right... no, you can't scroll fast enough to save your bacon while playing.) Not too surprisingly, it works just fine in Linux.
You'll find, when reading comments on IM threads here, that usage of a particular IM network is highly regionalized. Walk next state over in any direction, and people will likely same the reverse, given that personal non-geek friends and family are generally regionalized as well. Yes, there are tons of non-geek frends/family on all networks.. they're just all different people's friends/family. (Personally, my buddy/contact list is a fairly even mixture of nearly everything. *shrug*)
I appreciate your opinion is validly yours to have, but here's mine: I'd love to have page numbering handled properly and even basic table ability. Granted, I don't even write that many papers these days, but my wife still does, and there's no chance with all the crap she has to shove in her head that she'll want to "learn latex" to get what many people, if not you, expect nowadays as "basic features." And so, in the meantime, her system dual-boots to you-know-what to use you-know-who's version of Office. So, what then? A non-CS-geekoid needs to write a 20 pager with foot/end notes and other minimal elements and we're just going to turn them away and say "sorry"? That's not advancing things too well.
It's probably a similar effect as in HD purchases at the local shop. If I should need to replace one of my systems' hard drives, the largest one consuming less than 10 GB (across two OS's), I'll probably have to buy a 40 or 60GB drive. This in that smaller units aren't available anymore, and even if they were, the price differential would probably be so small in comparison that I'd just buy the sizes that are available. For a few percent increase in price, just go ahead get the several percent increase in resources. Its cost effective until you break even.
Right on! I use evolution on RH7.3 (all updated) and have a Palm III (yeah, the original version of the III before USB was thought of as an option), and the sync conduits have never and still do not work properly. I get all manner of the same things as the poster. Assuming the sync actually kicks in (one time in ten) and doesn't freeze the applet (two or three times in ten), then my contacts in evolution *and* the palm are all screwed up. Redundant people listed in evolution contacts folder, and most people's details are scrambled. Odd thing is, the precise nature of how things are/were scrambled seems to be a function of which revision of evo and/or the conduits are installed. But it has never in years worked properly. I have officially written off Linux (or at least gnome/evolution) being able to talk to my 'III'. I've had to fix things too many times.
Fortunately, most charities get the picture when you tell them you're not interested. Unforturnately, the local sheriff's office solicitor for (Middletown) Connecticut did not get the picture. I swear, he was trying some real, high pressure, hard sell tactics worthy, nearly, of a blackmail artist, to get me on to his contribution list. I counted five "no"s before I started getting irate and lost count. "No." "Okay, well, I'll just put you down for a $10 donation if you..." "NO!" At this point, I'm going to go out of my way to jerk around the next person that calls me and not send them a dime. No should mean no, the first time.
Re:Whoa. Call the NSA. Call the Guiness Book of Re
on
Blaster Writer Caught
·
· Score: 1
Heck... call Jay Leno! Finally some intelligent answers may be forthcoming.
A co-worker pointed me to a site carrying the letter (sorry, I tossed the e-mail with the link). A follow-up editors note pointed out that, in terms of press releases, the SoBig worm wass far more relevant last week than SCO. Now *that* has to hurt.;-)
Yikes! I know you're from the UK, so 'fag' there probably, if I'm informed, means cigarette. But here in the states, it just doesn't have that meaning. I'd *hate* to see someone offering me their homosexual boyfriend, and I *certainly* don't have one of my own.:shudder: (Uh... Go Bears!;-)
So, this raises the question*, who is out there using MSN?
My whole extended family (well, the computer user's amongst them). The thing about IM services is that they get very regional with respect to usage. Oddly, I would doubt that anyone in my extended family area has ever seen (much less touched or contemplated) AOL. *They* could ask you the same question in reverse.
That post deserves a flamebait. I can't get my friends/family to run windows update often enough (or at all), but suddenly you think I need to get them all to abandon MSN, (which for them *is* user friendly and will probably continue to work following a simple click-upgrade), install and setup a new client, and go through the hassle of re-doing buddy lists and what-not? Yeah... I'm sure that'll happen real soon now. *rolls eyes*
This is just the kind of push required for people to shift to an open platform like...
Except, the thing is this: the majority fraction of the people this will affect in any meaningful way are *already using* clients on an open platform. That big section of my family all using MSN on windows will just upgrade their client clickety-click and think nothing of it.
In actual practice, that may be what happened. The critical control system network itself should be (have been) inaccessible from the desktop/laptop network (aside from known secure methods, a la ssh) with the appropriate firewalls on *that* network (at a gateway, and maybe on each host/node). I can only wonder if the submitter/commentator meant/implied this when they asked why such ports were not blocked.
Your analysis is accurate enough. The point being made on my end, though, is less that they are unlikely to install the stuff and more that they don't want to break anything in the process. This attitude at one level or another is why people (1) aren't familiar with the concept of updating windows (in spite of our insistence that they are) or (2) are familiar but are not comfortable doing so. This then, from my way of thinking, is more of a reason for the big unpatched worm-exploitable problem than "people are too lazy to do it" that seems to be a common attitude here and elsewhere in tech circles.
True enough. At the level of a person who knows better, I can only agree with you, but to extend the analogy a bit farther, impact and harm due to car maintenance negligence is a very tangible thing to people. Computers, on the other hand (from the perspective of innocent and/or ignorant people who haven't any better education on such things) "just break down", "go on the fritz", "catch viruses", or whatever, and if rebooting it doesn't help, people just take it to a shop and pay however much to fix it. windows having an auto-update feature will probably do away with this class of ignorance; those tech-saavy people that "know better" to not use it are then in a position of responsibility, but I really cannot fault *everyone* for failing to patch against this (or any other) worm.
You seem to overestimate the common person's knowledge and saavy about even the very need to patch their systems. See this personal account. You would be surprised just how innocent people can be. Start-Windows Update ? Sure, it's there, but if they don't know *why* it is there and it hasn't been scared into them at a personal level, they probably won't play with it, for fear they'll break something and have to pay a repair man at a shop somewhere to fix it.
It isn't people being lazy. At risk of repeating a very recent and lengthy post, read this account of my visit to my relatives last week, where none of them, in spite of the "BIG WINDOWS UDATE LINK" on the start menu, knew what it was for, and so didn't mess with it, ever. Yeah, IE4.0 and OE on dialup, unpatched. Saying people are aware of the update and the need to run it is giving the average person quite more credit than is necessary. (I'm not down on non-tech people, it is just my perspective has recently been changed based on personal experience.)
Slashdot Mirror
(not a flame; glad you like mplayer, or whatever else other readers happen to like) ... doesn't it (mplayer) have the same interface as xine? (or did someone just really futz up the package I downloaded?) I don't have a problem using a mouse and/or keyboard (or even a console window, for the right job). I do however have a problem with the interface appearance/layout being so alien (...no title bar? how the F*CK do I make it just go away? click at random? pull up a console to kill -9 it?...) that, what with the bajillion other things I need to do with my time very limited free time at home, I really don't have time or interest to figure out. That's really what I think this thread's author started talking about. So mplayer has nice keyboard controls? great... but I sure don't already know what they are, and having launched the installed trial of that and getting about the same way-out-experiment graphical interface, I quickly removed it also. I'm glad other people like it and find it useful, but I certainly do not. (And we'll probably never see eye-to-eye, and that's okay, but the developers don't have to look far to understand my lack of desire to understand their super-coolio-funky bitmapped interface.) In honesty, I have a similar gripe with winamp/xmms doing something similar, though at least it is somewhat "similar" in layout, if not appearance, to normal (e.g., classical) interface styles, so I tolerate it for playing music.
The first, usable app I find to play music (as well as xmms does) and/or movies (as well as, well, ?) that uses the native widgets and lets my window manager do my window managing (which I've tweaked to my own needs at great pain) and just does its job with no attempt at self-glamorization will find itself a home on at least a few boxes I use.
Think about Animatrix like a list of recommended reading given by a professor. Not strictly required, really, but well worth the extra time to go over. Just my opinion, but it (and to a lesser extent, the game) is required viewing to those who really dig the Matrix storyline and want to know what's going on. Also, if you just want to sample different anime styles, it is worth watching for that, alone. (But if neither Matrix nor anime really float your boat, then just skip it, but know you'll be short of info when your buds discuss it. :) Another opinion of mine is this: even if it is a money grab, the overall Matrix storyline is the only one in a long long time that has really made me *think*, so I'm willing to reward the W. brothers, producers, etc. for this one by watching (buying) the movies. It is a rare thing indeed for me to ever say that. If you have access, just rent it from the local video store, as it's worth the few dollars. Also, if you've got time and reflexes enough, *do* play through the game; at a minimum, you'll have hella fun and probably gain a new respect for just what the on screen characters are going through in their fight vs. the agents and system in general. (Do also note: the game is a parallel of Reloaded from Niobe's team's perspective, not the exact same storyline from Morpheus' team's perspective, so you will see/learn more as the cut-scenes play out.) Yeah, so you caught me: I'm a big fan. ;)
While interesting enough on its own, the theory does not dovetail with what we have been told in Animatrix. Particularly _Second Renaissance_ which IIRC was written and approved by the W. brothers, and hence can be taken as canon. That assumption being what it is, no... the Matrix is what the characters have been saying throughout: a system of control (and thereby not a system of preservation). My $0.02. But kudos for an original theory about it just the same. =)
I'm almost in your cheering section here. Granted, I don't really write network service code for any sort of a living, but I have toyed with a private utility for my home network and coded it in Java. It was fairly low-feature, and mostly borrowed from various online postings from guru's and whatnot... and after running the service daemon on Linux box "A", it would reliably proceed to completely hang the box (*completely*) requiring nothing less than a power-switch reboot. I felt a little betrayed. Granted, the problem probably isn't/wasn't in the language specification, but on some implemetation of the linux runtime environment, but what do I care about that? I lost part of a filesystem one time when it locked up at a particularly bad time. (Like there's a good time, I guess. ;) End-user perspective: it simply didn't work. Sun seemed uninterested in the problem as it took a few days to have a chance for this to happen. Arguably, some work needs to happen on the JRE to increase reliability. Wanna guess what language *that* is in? Ironic, in its way.
My wife must have gotten one of those models. ;) Seriously, under Win '98 with updated what-have-you, games are unplayable as the main resolution games like to use have a full couple inches hanging off the side of the screen. (Which side depends on how you've twiddled the scroll... to see the game controls on the left or to see the game controls on the right... no, you can't scroll fast enough to save your bacon while playing.) Not too surprisingly, it works just fine in Linux.
You'll find, when reading comments on IM threads here, that usage of a particular IM network is highly regionalized. Walk next state over in any direction, and people will likely same the reverse, given that personal non-geek friends and family are generally regionalized as well. Yes, there are tons of non-geek frends/family on all networks.. they're just all different people's friends/family. (Personally, my buddy/contact list is a fairly even mixture of nearly everything. *shrug*)
I appreciate your opinion is validly yours to have, but here's mine: I'd love to have page numbering handled properly and even basic table ability. Granted, I don't even write that many papers these days, but my wife still does, and there's no chance with all the crap she has to shove in her head that she'll want to "learn latex" to get what many people, if not you, expect nowadays as "basic features." And so, in the meantime, her system dual-boots to you-know-what to use you-know-who's version of Office. So, what then? A non-CS-geekoid needs to write a 20 pager with foot/end notes and other minimal elements and we're just going to turn them away and say "sorry"? That's not advancing things too well.
Right on! I use evolution on RH7.3 (all updated) and have a Palm III (yeah, the original version of the III before USB was thought of as an option), and the sync conduits have never and still do not work properly. I get all manner of the same things as the poster. Assuming the sync actually kicks in (one time in ten) and doesn't freeze the applet (two or three times in ten), then my contacts in evolution *and* the palm are all screwed up. Redundant people listed in evolution contacts folder, and most people's details are scrambled. Odd thing is, the precise nature of how things are/were scrambled seems to be a function of which revision of evo and/or the conduits are installed. But it has never in years worked properly. I have officially written off Linux (or at least gnome/evolution) being able to talk to my 'III'. I've had to fix things too many times.
Fortunately, most charities get the picture when you tell them you're not interested.
Unforturnately, the local sheriff's office solicitor for (Middletown) Connecticut did not get the picture. I swear, he was trying some real, high pressure, hard sell tactics worthy, nearly, of a blackmail artist, to get me on to his contribution list. I counted five "no"s before I started getting irate and lost count. "No." "Okay, well, I'll just put you down for a $10 donation if you..." "NO!"
At this point, I'm going to go out of my way to jerk around the next person that calls me and not send them a dime. No should mean no, the first time.
Heck... call Jay Leno! Finally some intelligent answers may be forthcoming.
A co-worker pointed me to a site carrying the letter (sorry, I tossed the e-mail with the link). A follow-up editors note pointed out that, in terms of press releases, the SoBig worm wass far more relevant last week than SCO. Now *that* has to hurt. ;-)
Yikes! I know you're from the UK, so 'fag' there probably, if I'm informed, means cigarette. But here in the states, it just doesn't have that meaning. I'd *hate* to see someone offering me their homosexual boyfriend, and I *certainly* don't have one of my own. :shudder: (Uh... Go Bears! ;-)
That post deserves a flamebait. I can't get my friends/family to run windows update often enough (or at all), but suddenly you think I need to get them all to abandon MSN, (which for them *is* user friendly and will probably continue to work following a simple click-upgrade), install and setup a new client, and go through the hassle of re-doing buddy lists and what-not? Yeah... I'm sure that'll happen real soon now. *rolls eyes*
In actual practice, that may be what happened. The critical control system network itself should be (have been) inaccessible from the desktop/laptop network (aside from known secure methods, a la ssh) with the appropriate firewalls on *that* network (at a gateway, and maybe on each host/node). I can only wonder if the submitter/commentator meant/implied this when they asked why such ports were not blocked.
Your analysis is accurate enough. The point being made on my end, though, is less that they are unlikely to install the stuff and more that they don't want to break anything in the process. This attitude at one level or another is why people (1) aren't familiar with the concept of updating windows (in spite of our insistence that they are) or (2) are familiar but are not comfortable doing so. This then, from my way of thinking, is more of a reason for the big unpatched worm-exploitable problem than "people are too lazy to do it" that seems to be a common attitude here and elsewhere in tech circles.
True enough. At the level of a person who knows better, I can only agree with you, but to extend the analogy a bit farther, impact and harm due to car maintenance negligence is a very tangible thing to people. Computers, on the other hand (from the perspective of innocent and/or ignorant people who haven't any better education on such things) "just break down", "go on the fritz", "catch viruses", or whatever, and if rebooting it doesn't help, people just take it to a shop and pay however much to fix it. windows having an auto-update feature will probably do away with this class of ignorance; those tech-saavy people that "know better" to not use it are then in a position of responsibility, but I really cannot fault *everyone* for failing to patch against this (or any other) worm.
You seem to overestimate the common person's knowledge and saavy about even the very need to patch their systems. See this personal account. You would be surprised just how innocent people can be. Start-Windows Update ? Sure, it's there, but if they don't know *why* it is there and it hasn't been scared into them at a personal level, they probably won't play with it, for fear they'll break something and have to pay a repair man at a shop somewhere to fix it.
It isn't people being lazy. At risk of repeating a very recent and lengthy post, read
this account of my visit to my relatives last week, where none of them, in spite of the "BIG WINDOWS UDATE LINK" on the start menu, knew what it was for, and so didn't mess with it, ever. Yeah, IE4.0 and OE on dialup, unpatched. Saying people are aware of the update and the need to run it is giving the average person quite more credit than is necessary. (I'm not down on non-tech people, it is just my perspective has recently been changed based on personal experience.)