This is not a flying car. This is not a flying car. This is not a flying car. THIS IS NOT A FLYING CAR. THIS! IS! NOT! A! FLYING! CAR!
Let's go back to the Jetsons and think of what we saw in their cartoon. The concept of a flying car is a vehicle in which the general public can transport themselves in the air and start from and end at any point desired. It is currently unsafe, illegal, and HIGHLY not recommended for any such implementation to even happen. The general public would have to be trained on basic air traffic strategies. You'd be adding an entire new dimension to traffic control.
Directly from the creator's website:
Q: Can I take off from the highway? A: No. In addition to power lines, billboards, overpasses, and other obstructions that make this idea unsafe, the Transition® will have to be parked with the engine off in order to deploy the wings and engage the propeller. It is also illegal in most states (emergency landings excluded).
This is a drivable airplane. This means it is able to be transported without additional equipment (i.e.: tow truck, etc) to a destination via public roads rather than be forced to stay at the airport due to its size, speed, fuel costs, etc.
HOWEVER to be honest, a majority of this is more dependent upon the law and intelligence/training requirements of the public rather than design limitations. BUT this doesn't mean the existing design can easily take off from anywhere you wish or land anywhere you wish easily. Still, it's CLOSER to a flying car than nothing.
tl;dr: IT'S NOT A FUCKING FLYING CAR! But it's CLOSER to one than nothing.
I've been using Linux in a server environment for over 10 years as well as desktop on and off during that time, and have a decent amount of knowledge in how to get things to work with it. I really enjoy Linux. I really do. But it's comments like ilikenwf's that REALLY make me hate the community at times. Unless you can explain to somebody's grandmother what to do and get them to successfully do it without your help at a later time, never call somebody a n00b because they can't do it. Just don't. Ever. That comment needs to be more rated -1000 flamebait.
And yes I know I'm replying to flamebait, but my comment is also aimed at OTHERS who have made similar comments. People REALLY need to stop assuming everybody knows the intricacies of a computer and how compiling works and that if you're not using Linux you're an idiot. It does nothing but make the community look bad.
The problem wasn't mostly SP2. It was more the CHANGES in SP2 that other applications and drivers were not ready for. Once they were worked out, everything was fine. If you were "first in line" with SP2, then yes you probably experienced problems.
Streamlining it all. The streamlining of installation and pieces integrating with the system and the management of such setup by the development team. These days, it just doesn't quite work if a distro simply installs GNOME or installs KDE. It needs to tweak the setup a bit and add components and tweak other settings to make it all seamless like it's part of the system.
Is Ubuntu the closest we have to a "ready for the masses" Linux? Yes. I totally agree. I've been using Linux since 1996 and I love it as a server platform. But not until I tried Ubuntu a few months back as a desktop OS was I pleased with it at all as a desktop OS. The only things keeping me from using it on my laptop are that I have some games I have that are best run natively due to the nature of the games (they require EXTREMELY PRECISE TIMING and therefore I'd prefer to run it under optimal conditions to prevent ANY system lag which I have seen under Windows natively), the fact that I still do VB6 development for a paycheck and that I have some hardware that I do wish to keep that doesn't quite work yet.
HOWEVER I still do not believe Linux is ready for masses. For atleast one big reason: Legal licensing of technology. Until users can LEGALLY play a DVD or MP3 files or other media with various codecs WITHOUT (and this is the big key!) needing to do anything more than launch the player from a fresh install, Linux is not ready for the masses. That is _a_ reason. What if a program you want doesn't come with an option but has the capability for it to be put in if one recompiled the package? Will the user understand this concept? There may be things WE as folks who know more about Linux may be able to do with no problem. But next time you try and say it's ready for the masses, think about that one time you had to take an extra step or two to get a program to work. Or think about the last time you had to manually change something.
Mark this down if you wish to as flamebait or troll material. But if you do, you'll only be asserting your position that seems to be true: Hardcore Linux users will often blindly promote the operating system without thinking about what they're really saying and put the blame on the end user if it's something they don't agree with.
Again, do not get me wrong. Linux has some a LONG LONG ways since 10 years ago. Kernel 2.6 is WAY nothing like the 1.2 kernerls I started off with. And same thing with the distributions. But until Linux can do EVERYTHING your average user asks without needing to jump through an extra hoop that will sound confusing or be legally sketchy, it's not ready.
No. IANAL, but I DO know that the big difference between a sting and entrapment is one simple thing: peer-pressure. Entrapment requires INDUCING the person to do something they would have otherwise not done. Nobody communicated directly with him and said "man you should totally check this out". He found it on his own. Clicked on it on his own will.
However, whether that in itself is a crime is ANOTHER story. Clicking that link may be a good way to see who they should search. But clicking that link doesn't always translate to being a guilty party.
My old roommates worked in an arcade that had it. I think theirs worked but I'm not too sure. I think they said they had a pain in the ass time with the machine. But it seems like the game was more for somebody who either wanted to pay to bang on drums in an arcade, or pay to show off their drum skills in front of an audience in an arcade.
IANAL, but from my understanding, no it doesn't. Konami can continue to make drummania as is, for example, but apparently they cannot bring it to the US like they were hoping to do because MTV was awarded a patent for drumming games. MTV did have one in the arcade prior to Rock Band. But it just had no "game" feel to it from my understanding.
It SHOULDN'T be cheaper. If you take the same PC that has Windows and DROP Windows, you're not paying for that license. Linux has no cost, except for maybe an installation fee. Of course this depends on how easily they can come up with a HD image to dump onto all of the Linux machines and whether or not they need to recoup the costs of building that, since doing so does take time which means money spent for paying an employee to install Linux and get it optimized for that machine.
> 1) 1.5 hour trip to the nearest "major" airport. When I was in Philadelphia area I was less than 1/2 an hour away. YMMV. Literally.
> 2) 1-2 hour long wait at the security line. Never been more than 1/2 hour for me.
> 3) Rude staff. Almost never had any issues there.
> 4) Lousy amenities. Yeah it can certainly suck. But what would you like from them?
> 5) Destination airport virtually guaranteed to be 1-2 hours drive away from the actual destination. Often when I travel it's for conventions of sorts that are usually very near the airport. Heck one of them was connected to the airport!
> 6) Cramped seat. Ok I can't always speak of good there. But I do like United's Economy plus that gives enough extra room for me to feel comfortable. But I'm more concerned about arm space for me.
I'll agree that local airports do give you more convenience and whatnot, but that can come at a cost depending on where and how you go about it. Whether or not you can/will pay for them is key.
No there ARE graphics that are the same. The "power up" bar is exactly the same and behaves the same way, as is the piece of ice it throws as an example.
Why is parent modded funny and not insightful? It's fairly true. While AOL's service itself is dying, those that do use it heavily and rely on it don't know much about computers or alternatives to services and programs. Also there's still a large existing userbase for AIM that makes it get larger.
Also, if everybody DID move to Y!M, do you think Microsoft would have tried to buy them last month? And while there's a lot of hotmail users, I know very very few folks who use MSN Messenger right now. So no, I think it would appear that people don't "move on", they just adapt to other IM clients as well.
Also, to the grandparent: who the heck moves _ON_ to ICQ? It was good way back, but there's several flaws.
- You have to remember your number (I know mine, but these days, if I got one it'd be probably way too long) - Because it's a number it's way more prone to spamming via brute force - The official client has been a bloated POS longer than most other clients. Even the "lite" version became bloated. Mostly happened when AOL bought them, but it was WORSE than AOL's AIM client at one point IMO.
I can't remember the last time somebody gave me their ICQ number.
BTW apparently, there IS an ongoing (and working) LEGAL method of "sticking it to the man": The users of the forums have taken it upon themselves to report shareaza.com as a forgery site to google, so anybody going to shareaza.com with a browser that can query google.com for forgery sites will get a notice about it.
The summary makes no clear indication of what or why they wanted to shut down. The actual target appears to be the FORUMS due to a specific comment suggesting that the open source project include code to make a small request to shareaza.com, effectively attempting to DDoS it in a forum post apparently titled "suggestions to kill Shareaza.com"
I have no sympathy for the people who took the domain, but do NOT take matters into your own hands like that!...and if you do, don't go publicly announcing it!
The parent is one of the downfalls of Linux: distributions generally not being able to earn the money to pay for licenses such as MP3 technology, so it's up to the user to either MANUALLY agree to a specific license (i.e., personal use only), buy a license or not make use of the technology at all. And much of this technology is for things that one would expect a computer to come with these days, so even if the process of adding it is simple, it would confuse many folks and they would simply not wish to deal with more frustrations.
I will admit, however, that while I do like using Linux as a server, I never really liked using it as a desktop environment. Always left me thinking: "Ok, now what?". And I've always had issues trying to configure X just right so that I could get FULL use of my video card and get the right resolution. I recently tried Ubuntu and it seemed to do things right for me. Lots of things were pretty flawless and setup properly from the start or easy to add/configure. I think this is definitely a step in the right direction when it comes to Linux on the desktop for mainstream users. Not completely related, but something I wanted to point out and still somewhat relevant about the current status of Linux on the desktop with Joe Average.
As for the main article itself though: The user doesn't exactly get Windows for "free". It comes at "no additional cost" for the listed computer price. But if the user asked for no OS or some Free As In Beer OS to be installed, the cost of the PC would go down. But does Joe Average know this? Probably not.
But ALSO, how many average PC users even know OF Linux? Or CARE what OS they're using other than for program compatibility? If they DO know they have an alternative, they probably will know there's value beyond the cost of the OS itself. They would also know that Windows is not "free" on their PC and part of the cost of the PC includes software licensing.
This is NOT to say that point of this article isn't valid at all. I could very easily see a consumer feeling that using something that costs money and not having to pay additional money for it is better than using something that is generally free.
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He probably didn't hear the woosh cause it was a directed sonund.
This is not a flying car. This is not a flying car. This is not a flying car. THIS IS NOT A FLYING CAR.
THIS! IS! NOT! A! FLYING! CAR!
Let's go back to the Jetsons and think of what we saw in their cartoon. The concept of a flying car is a vehicle in which the general public can transport themselves in the air and start from and end at any point desired. It is currently unsafe, illegal, and HIGHLY not recommended for any such implementation to even happen. The general public would have to be trained on basic air traffic strategies. You'd be adding an entire new dimension to traffic control.
Directly from the creator's website:
Q: Can I take off from the highway?
A: No. In addition to power lines, billboards, overpasses, and other obstructions that make this idea unsafe, the Transition® will have to be parked with the engine off in order to deploy the wings and engage the propeller. It is also illegal in most states (emergency landings excluded).
This is a drivable airplane. This means it is able to be transported without additional equipment (i.e.: tow truck, etc) to a destination via public roads rather than be forced to stay at the airport due to its size, speed, fuel costs, etc.
HOWEVER to be honest, a majority of this is more dependent upon the law and intelligence/training requirements of the public rather than design limitations. BUT this doesn't mean the existing design can easily take off from anywhere you wish or land anywhere you wish easily. Still, it's CLOSER to a flying car than nothing.
tl;dr: IT'S NOT A FUCKING FLYING CAR! But it's CLOSER to one than nothing.
They have made a much bigger growth in the past. Also, it doesn't say it's a current slump, it's one that they expect to happen soon.
Since when would saying something along the lines of "del infectedprogram.exe" be the same as "format c:"?
I've been using Linux in a server environment for over 10 years as well as desktop on and off during that time, and have a decent amount of knowledge in how to get things to work with it. I really enjoy Linux. I really do. But it's comments like ilikenwf's that REALLY make me hate the community at times. Unless you can explain to somebody's grandmother what to do and get them to successfully do it without your help at a later time, never call somebody a n00b because they can't do it. Just don't. Ever. That comment needs to be more rated -1000 flamebait.
And yes I know I'm replying to flamebait, but my comment is also aimed at OTHERS who have made similar comments. People REALLY need to stop assuming everybody knows the intricacies of a computer and how compiling works and that if you're not using Linux you're an idiot. It does nothing but make the community look bad.
The problem wasn't mostly SP2. It was more the CHANGES in SP2 that other applications and drivers were not ready for. Once they were worked out, everything was fine. If you were "first in line" with SP2, then yes you probably experienced problems.
Why would Russia want Wi-Fi to register YOU?
You took the words right out of my mouth there. "Aids? What?" *click* "Oh, Ads... Wait no, they meant Aids"
Wow nice that URL above set off my avast scanner. Redirects to nimp.org
Streamlining it all. The streamlining of installation and pieces integrating with the system and the management of such setup by the development team. These days, it just doesn't quite work if a distro simply installs GNOME or installs KDE. It needs to tweak the setup a bit and add components and tweak other settings to make it all seamless like it's part of the system.
Is Ubuntu the closest we have to a "ready for the masses" Linux? Yes. I totally agree. I've been using Linux since 1996 and I love it as a server platform. But not until I tried Ubuntu a few months back as a desktop OS was I pleased with it at all as a desktop OS. The only things keeping me from using it on my laptop are that I have some games I have that are best run natively due to the nature of the games (they require EXTREMELY PRECISE TIMING and therefore I'd prefer to run it under optimal conditions to prevent ANY system lag which I have seen under Windows natively), the fact that I still do VB6 development for a paycheck and that I have some hardware that I do wish to keep that doesn't quite work yet.
HOWEVER I still do not believe Linux is ready for masses. For atleast one big reason: Legal licensing of technology. Until users can LEGALLY play a DVD or MP3 files or other media with various codecs WITHOUT (and this is the big key!) needing to do anything more than launch the player from a fresh install, Linux is not ready for the masses. That is _a_ reason. What if a program you want doesn't come with an option but has the capability for it to be put in if one recompiled the package? Will the user understand this concept? There may be things WE as folks who know more about Linux may be able to do with no problem. But next time you try and say it's ready for the masses, think about that one time you had to take an extra step or two to get a program to work. Or think about the last time you had to manually change something.
Mark this down if you wish to as flamebait or troll material. But if you do, you'll only be asserting your position that seems to be true: Hardcore Linux users will often blindly promote the operating system without thinking about what they're really saying and put the blame on the end user if it's something they don't agree with.
Again, do not get me wrong. Linux has some a LONG LONG ways since 10 years ago. Kernel 2.6 is WAY nothing like the 1.2 kernerls I started off with. And same thing with the distributions. But until Linux can do EVERYTHING your average user asks without needing to jump through an extra hoop that will sound confusing or be legally sketchy, it's not ready.
No. IANAL, but I DO know that the big difference between a sting and entrapment is one simple thing: peer-pressure. Entrapment requires INDUCING the person to do something they would have otherwise not done. Nobody communicated directly with him and said "man you should totally check this out". He found it on his own. Clicked on it on his own will.
However, whether that in itself is a crime is ANOTHER story. Clicking that link may be a good way to see who they should search. But clicking that link doesn't always translate to being a guilty party.
My old roommates worked in an arcade that had it. I think theirs worked but I'm not too sure. I think they said they had a pain in the ass time with the machine. But it seems like the game was more for somebody who either wanted to pay to bang on drums in an arcade, or pay to show off their drum skills in front of an audience in an arcade.
> If you really were a Dr Pepper fan, you'd know that there is no period/fullstop in the name. :P
Hey hey the grandparent said an OLD soda bottle. Not a new one!
Having a different opinion is not trolling. Stating a different opinion as fact or asking one that is known to cause anger is trolling.
IANAL, but from my understanding, no it doesn't. Konami can continue to make drummania as is, for example, but apparently they cannot bring it to the US like they were hoping to do because MTV was awarded a patent for drumming games. MTV did have one in the arcade prior to Rock Band. But it just had no "game" feel to it from my understanding.
So we'd have to identify who we are? This can mean but one thing: I'M Sparticus!
It SHOULDN'T be cheaper. If you take the same PC that has Windows and DROP Windows, you're not paying for that license. Linux has no cost, except for maybe an installation fee. Of course this depends on how easily they can come up with a HD image to dump onto all of the Linux machines and whether or not they need to recoup the costs of building that, since doing so does take time which means money spent for paying an employee to install Linux and get it optimized for that machine.
> 1) 1.5 hour trip to the nearest "major" airport.
When I was in Philadelphia area I was less than 1/2 an hour away. YMMV. Literally.
> 2) 1-2 hour long wait at the security line.
Never been more than 1/2 hour for me.
> 3) Rude staff.
Almost never had any issues there.
> 4) Lousy amenities.
Yeah it can certainly suck. But what would you like from them?
> 5) Destination airport virtually guaranteed to be 1-2 hours drive away from the actual destination.
Often when I travel it's for conventions of sorts that are usually very near the airport. Heck one of them was connected to the airport!
> 6) Cramped seat.
Ok I can't always speak of good there. But I do like United's Economy plus that gives enough extra room for me to feel comfortable. But I'm more concerned about arm space for me.
I'll agree that local airports do give you more convenience and whatnot, but that can come at a cost depending on where and how you go about it. Whether or not you can/will pay for them is key.
Overall: YMMV. Literally in some cases.
I just got this the other day too in my Yahoo! mail box. This should be interesting in seeing how spam filters detect this.
It's quite doable, but the question is if it can determine if the text is indeed ascii art.
No there ARE graphics that are the same. The "power up" bar is exactly the same and behaves the same way, as is the piece of ice it throws as an example.
Why is parent modded funny and not insightful? It's fairly true. While AOL's service itself is dying, those that do use it heavily and rely on it don't know much about computers or alternatives to services and programs. Also there's still a large existing userbase for AIM that makes it get larger.
Also, if everybody DID move to Y!M, do you think Microsoft would have tried to buy them last month? And while there's a lot of hotmail users, I know very very few folks who use MSN Messenger right now. So no, I think it would appear that people don't "move on", they just adapt to other IM clients as well.
Also, to the grandparent: who the heck moves _ON_ to ICQ? It was good way back, but there's several flaws.
- You have to remember your number (I know mine, but these days, if I got one it'd be probably way too long)
- Because it's a number it's way more prone to spamming via brute force
- The official client has been a bloated POS longer than most other clients. Even the "lite" version became bloated. Mostly happened when AOL bought them, but it was WORSE than AOL's AIM client at one point IMO.
I can't remember the last time somebody gave me their ICQ number.
BTW apparently, there IS an ongoing (and working) LEGAL method of "sticking it to the man": The users of the forums have taken it upon themselves to report shareaza.com as a forgery site to google, so anybody going to shareaza.com with a browser that can query google.com for forgery sites will get a notice about it.
The summary makes no clear indication of what or why they wanted to shut down. The actual target appears to be the FORUMS due to a specific comment suggesting that the open source project include code to make a small request to shareaza.com, effectively attempting to DDoS it in a forum post apparently titled "suggestions to kill Shareaza.com"
...and if you do, don't go publicly announcing it!
I have no sympathy for the people who took the domain, but do NOT take matters into your own hands like that!
Several points I'd like to make.
The parent is one of the downfalls of Linux: distributions generally not being able to earn the money to pay for licenses such as MP3 technology, so it's up to the user to either MANUALLY agree to a specific license (i.e., personal use only), buy a license or not make use of the technology at all. And much of this technology is for things that one would expect a computer to come with these days, so even if the process of adding it is simple, it would confuse many folks and they would simply not wish to deal with more frustrations.
I will admit, however, that while I do like using Linux as a server, I never really liked using it as a desktop environment. Always left me thinking: "Ok, now what?". And I've always had issues trying to configure X just right so that I could get FULL use of my video card and get the right resolution. I recently tried Ubuntu and it seemed to do things right for me. Lots of things were pretty flawless and setup properly from the start or easy to add/configure. I think this is definitely a step in the right direction when it comes to Linux on the desktop for mainstream users. Not completely related, but something I wanted to point out and still somewhat relevant about the current status of Linux on the desktop with Joe Average.
As for the main article itself though: The user doesn't exactly get Windows for "free". It comes at "no additional cost" for the listed computer price. But if the user asked for no OS or some Free As In Beer OS to be installed, the cost of the PC would go down. But does Joe Average know this? Probably not.
But ALSO, how many average PC users even know OF Linux? Or CARE what OS they're using other than for program compatibility? If they DO know they have an alternative, they probably will know there's value beyond the cost of the OS itself. They would also know that Windows is not "free" on their PC and part of the cost of the PC includes software licensing.
This is NOT to say that point of this article isn't valid at all. I could very easily see a consumer feeling that using something that costs money and not having to pay additional money for it is better than using something that is generally free.