So why don't you slap a linux distribution together yourself? Everyone's always saying that being able to do something yourself to aid the community is the best thing about open source. (Or free software, I suppose, but don't tell anyone I put those two terms in the same post.) Even if, for instance, you took a major distribution and then set up the front end to only install the limited set of applications that you think would make a good "beginner's" set of programs. Really, I don't think it would be that difficult. I bet you could even get your web site slashdotted.
Right now there's no distribution that limited, because everyone building them likes lots of choices. (For instance, I'd never use a distribution like you describe... after all, I don't use either KDE or netscape, and I have no problem with having lots of different mail programs to mess around with.) But maybe lots of people would be interested.
Well, according to the way Microsoft thinks its users are, they'd never get it. But to be honest, why would someone who's never used a computer before think to take the funny-looking paperweight with a cord on it, slide it around the desk, make the connection that moving the paperweight also moves a little arrow on the screen, and then go to the button labeled 'start' and click on it? (All right, I'm exagerrating here, but not by too much. The Windows UI really isn't much more 'intuitive' than the command prompt; it's just prettier.) And then, 'advanced' users end up getting saddled with these training wheels designed for beginners.
This comparison seemed more like a way to point out Gnome and KDE's similarities to Windows rather than an actual discussion of Whistler. You'll notice that, at every oppertunity, the new features of Whistler were called 'possibly confusing,' while he points out that Gnome and KDE already do the... well, the same things Windows already does, and in the same manner.
In any case, it seems unneccesary to compare something to both Gnome and KDE. After all, the objective of both projects is to provide an environment that works almost exactly like Windows. (Not saying that's bad, of course; my problems with Windows stem mostly from internals and design philosophy, not from UI.) Whatever one does, the other does too. (Generally. I don't know the details, since I haven't used either for very much.)
What would be more interesting would be to compare it to something with a significantly different interface--for instance, I've started using XFce, which works rather differently than Windows. OS X might also be another good choice for a comparison of interfaces. These others may not have the market share of Windows-workalikes, but they'd make for far more interesting reading.
Another problem: Generally, this software is fairly expensive to buy and maintain. Do you really want *any* of your tax money going to buy a worthless product?
The question should be: why would somebody want to change how their browser works (change the UI layout, or whatever) when they want to change the appearance of the program? That's the main thing that has always bothered me about 'themes' and 'skins' -- they seem to get appearance and functionality mixed up together. I always want to be able to move the mouse the same amount and hit a button, no matter what it looks like. In any case, that's why I generally completely avoid themes, just sticking with the default or generic 'themes' for any programs I use.
No; the vote is for (Bush and Cheney) or (Gore and Lieberman). Way back in the day, when the Pres was the winner and VP was the 2nd place, then it could happen (which, of course, ended up being a little divisive.)
You had a TV? You got to go to college? You know what they work call that in most countries besides the US? Depending on the place, you're either middle class, or rich.
Life is tough sometimes. That's just how it goes. But don't ever fool yourself into thinking that you're getting shafted here in the US. We've got it comparitively easy to many places in the world, and anyone -- no matter how hard things get -- can always find some help from our government.
The fact he has a "5 informative" score is truly scary to me./. is slipping...
You know what I find to be the proof that slashdot is going down the toilet? Instead of actually wanting to debate, you just want to have the moderators do the dirty work for you, because he holds opposing views to yours. (Yes, one of his facts is wrong, but the post is well-reasoned and worth reading. I cannot say the same for a post that says that 'Gore scored 1355, Bush scored 1206, anyway, Bush is dumber.' By that logic, I'm more deserving than either of being president.)
Moderation, though often used badly, should never be used to hide an unpopular view. Slashdot is a discussion (and usually argument) forum. Either debunk his post with your own wit, or you'll have to let it stand.
I think that US is one of the most self-centric countries in the world and you should definitely start to look out of your borders. The world does not end there.
We certainly are. But what's even more amusing:
All these other contries (Within a page of you, I see comments about Germany and Brazil) are talking about the US election. It's important to them. However, pick anyone in the US, even the well-educated, and ask them who the presidential candidates (or their counterparts) in another country are. Very few people will know.
Now, how about those people in Germany? Do they know about the government of Brazil? Betcha they don't. So why do we have this view that the world revolves around the US? Let me give you a hint -- we're not the only ones who seem to think so.
Here in Arizona, we had voting over the internet... I believe it was in the Democrat primary race. (Needless to say, I did not participate:) However, many people started whining about it, saying that it unfairly tilts the balance, because minorities might still have to go to the polls, or down to the library, while all those rich white people vote from home. I suppose that if one person is going to be inconvenienced, we all ought to be, right?...
Anyway, I don't think it will happen for a few more elections to come, but eventually it will. And then, even the civically responsible will never have to leave their homes...
Yeah, the american election. The same country Slashdot's primary readership lives. The country represented by the flag icon that Taco explained, way back in the day, that you could ignore if you didn't care about US politics. Because he was just as sick as the rest of us about people who think that it's clever to point out that they don't live in the US.
Really, it's as bad as the people who post to the Jon Katz articles about how much they hate to read his stuff, even though they're the nitwits who sat around and read it anyway, because of a lack of anything better to do. Fortunately, I suppose that this crap will drop to normal levels once the election's over.
As sad as it is, the publishers would rather let these games vanish, rather than letting us play them for free. After all, they may put out a compilation of classics someday, so they want to protect their rights. At least I assume that is their reasoning.
No, that's not their reasoning. The fact is that they know that people would often rather play the old games, rather than the latest glossy-graphics mindless first-person shooter. Their economic model doesn't involve creating games that last; it involves creating something that sells for a couple weeks, and then superceding it with something else.
If they wanted continued revenues, they'd continue selling their games. Like you said, compilations are always nice -- but only show up very rarely. It seems that most of the abandonware gamers are fairly responsible people -- I think that most of them would buy a compilation of old games, unlike the standard warez crowd. They 'pirate' the games because there's no alternative way to get them, not because they're too cheap to pay for them.
No, some teachers are incompetant. (I had my share of those while in school.) But there's no way they're overpaid. The starting salary where I live (IIRC), is about $23,000. If there started close to $40,000, it would be fine, but not many people are willing to work the extremely long hours, on starvation wages. That's why there's such a shortage of teachers, and many of the ones we have don't have a clue... because they can't get anyone else.
Most of the administrators are grossly overpaid and completely inept. In high school, my principal was completely clueless, and perpetually drunk. She caused nothing but trouble, and all the teachers hated her. (I was fortunate to have quite a few very good teachers, but that's the exception rather than the rule.) The brand-new school superintendant is making well over $200,000 a year. (He gets paid as much as 8 teachers put together for showing up to meetings and saying things like, "I think that we should try to have a 100% graduation rate." Not exactly the correct wording, but that's what he said.) My high school physics teacher taught 7 classes a day, with 35-40 students in each class, as well as being the head of the science department, because they couldn't be bothered to hire someone else to take some of the load.
It's depressing that conditions never get better, even though politicians keep on claiming that they're constantly raising school budgets. In truth, there's so much corruption in the public school system that it will never get better until we get rid of the pork and the overhead that sucks up every available dollar.
The value of data alone that the probe is obtaining is well worth the value of increasing the transmission ability.
Well, I'm sure that a lot of people would love to increase its transmission ability. But one slight problem... exactly how do you intend to make this upgrade?
It would be really nice if we could consistently create probes with this kind of durability and usefulness. If we're getting this kind of data with 1989 (?) technology, then wouldn't it be a good idea to spell off the old probe with something with better instruments?
I had to go though DARE a few times, and... well, of course, I hated it (except for the fact that we didn't have to go to class during those times.) However, various studies have been done to show that it and other drug education programs can be at least somewhat effective.
In my opinion, it's something that should be done during elementary school (The last time I had to do it was in... IIRC... 8th grade, and I've heard of high schools doing it too. By that time, most of the students are pretty apathetic, not to mention the fact that class time should be used for instruction in the course in high school.) It's more appropriate there, and more likely to make an impact.
I think that we ought to have a 'lies, damn lies, and statistics' category, or something of the kind, for all of the benchmarks to be put under. Since all benchmarks are is a big field of FUD that no one seems to be able to cross, it would be nice to be able to block the stories.
Of course, since I read, clicked, and then trolled this article, I suppose that I have absolutely no reason to complain. Not that that stops anyone else, so I don't feel too much like a hypocrite for doing it.
No, it jsut means he goes to school in a rich neighborhood. Supposedly money is distributed to the schools equally, but anyone who knows anything about the US public school system knows that the rich places somehow manage to get all the money. My high school was stuffed in the basement of another school's 50-year-old building, while the people in the foothills get brand-new ten-million-dollar buildings.
(Not that I would have wanted to switch schools, by any means, but the fact that the school system is so screwed up really annoys me. Government keeps throwing more and more money into it, and yet because of all the corruption nothing happens.)
But this doesn't necessarily follow...
on
Is Novell Doomed?
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· Score: 2
This question assumes that, if MS doesn't win their case, that the world will suddenly be switching en masse to Linux. While such a thing might be good, I don't see any real evidence why it would happen. Therefore, Novell has no real reason to care if Microsoft wins or loses... in fact, it might be best for them if MS loses, since it might erode their power base some.
A better way to ask this question may have simply been, "Is Novell going to come up with something to keep themselves afloat, or are Linux, MS, and everyone else going to eat them alive?" Of course, that doesn't have the magic MS antitrust, CueCat, or PS2 topics involved, and so probably never would have made the cut.
It's not just the fact that they have land; the important land is that which people want to build on. Yes, you can sell it off to logging industries or whatever (and I think that we should, at the very least, be doing more of that than we are now), but there's nowhere left for new communities to be established. How often do you hear about new towns springing up? (Not counting overgrown suburbs; they're still the same city.) It's not just selling off the land that helped the government's budget; the resulting release of economic pressure played a role as well.
Your link doesn't attempt to do anything to explain why income tax was implemented... apparently, somebody just thought it might be nice, and threw it into the constitution. I somehow don't think it happened quite like that.
Think of the land argument like this: When we still had 'frontier' land, population growth tended to be 'out' rather than 'up'. For small towns, government maintenance is very low, but larger population centers require much more infrastructure. Therefore, not only had the government's primary asset dried up, they were in need of more money.
That's not the only cause, of course, but considering that the early 1900s was about the time that we ran out of 'new land', and it coincides with the beginning of income tax, it seems like a very convenient coincidence.
The US was able to survive without income tax because they owned an extrememly large piece of real estate: all the land west of civilization. You'll notice that once the land dried up, that's when they implemented income tax. Now, perhaps when we take over canada and deport all its residents somewhere else, we'll be able to revert to those days before income tax.
I sort of wonder about this: A lot of people complain that the poor get hit harder by taxes than the rich. What do you think eliminating income tax would do? Essentially, what you have is a tax on the money you spend (sales tax, tarriffs, payment for government services, etc all end up inflating the amount of money you pay.) However, those at the poverty line tend to spend a larger percentage of their income than the rich. Suddenly, you have the same effect as the graduated income tax, but those who make the least money pay the largest percentage. And you think this is a good idea?
As I've mentioned in earlier Slashdot posts, the most simple and elegant solution I've been able to think of is to require porn sites or sites with adult content to have different TDLs like.xxx or maybe.N17 - then filtering programs become unnecessary - you just set browsers not to allow those sites...
As I've said before (and been generally ignored), trying to force sites to enter these domains is useless, since the same rules that apply to filtering will apply to which sites are forced into the TLD. If this was implemented, you'd still have a legion of slashdotters whining about how the sites are being censored.
I think that creating a.xxx TLD is a good idea, however, instead of forcing sites to move to it, make it voluntary instead of mandatory, with the restriction that the same organization cannot own a.xxx and the corresponding.com or whatever. The porn sites will jump on the chance to get xxx in their domain names (They already do, after all.) Porn surfers, of course, will then always search for things under the.xxx TLD. Therefore, most of the porn will naturally enter the.xxx TLD, and nobody can complain about the motivations for censorship, since the sites will do the censoring by themselves.
And the stock answer: You don't enforce it. You just set it up, and say that the same organization cannot own the.xxx and a.com,.net, or other variation (Although they will be allowed to move to the.xxx domain for free, and the.com can be forwarded there for a little while.) Ten to one, most porn sites will jump at the chance, because if you're not in the.xxx domain, porn surfers won't go there.
There will be a few holdouts, of course, but few enough that doing it by hand will be doable. What's left are the geocities spammers and so forth... but from my observations, they tend to last about 3 minutes and carry no porn anyway. Also, of course, sites that their owners don't consider to be porn... if someone wants to make the judgement call that those should be censored as well, then they can invest in a censorware product, but it seems that if it's that questionable, then the sites should be available at the library, etc.
You will have a few left getting through, but the number of wrongfully blocked sites will hopefully be dropped down to nearly nil. It seems to me that this doesn't really offer any drawbacks from the current system, and could be beneficial. So why not try it?
Well, at least stuffing the site in the category 'Hacking' makes some sense (After all, one of the things that Peacefire does is post instructions on how to circumvent these filters.) It's certainly better than the blanket all-categories filter that most of the programs seem to do to peacefire. (Of course, I suppose that this program may do the same thing if the admin lifts the restriction on the hacking category. Does anyone know?)
The party is more important than the man. Freedom is better than pseudo-socialism. Vote Republican.
Wow, it's nice to see that someone else realizes this. It doesn't take much to see that the entire presidential campaign (and, indeed, many other political canidates) is full of complete idiots. I don't particularily like Bush, but the Republican platform most accurately describes my views, so there you go. Whatever your political stance is, people, remember that the canidates will generally toe the party line; vote based on platforms rather than the mindless mudslinging.
Slashdot Mirror
Right now there's no distribution that limited, because everyone building them likes lots of choices. (For instance, I'd never use a distribution like you describe ... after all, I don't use either KDE or netscape, and I have no problem with having lots of different mail programs to mess around with.) But maybe lots of people would be interested.
Well, according to the way Microsoft thinks its users are, they'd never get it. But to be honest, why would someone who's never used a computer before think to take the funny-looking paperweight with a cord on it, slide it around the desk, make the connection that moving the paperweight also moves a little arrow on the screen, and then go to the button labeled 'start' and click on it? (All right, I'm exagerrating here, but not by too much. The Windows UI really isn't much more 'intuitive' than the command prompt; it's just prettier.) And then, 'advanced' users end up getting saddled with these training wheels designed for beginners.
In any case, it seems unneccesary to compare something to both Gnome and KDE. After all, the objective of both projects is to provide an environment that works almost exactly like Windows. (Not saying that's bad, of course; my problems with Windows stem mostly from internals and design philosophy, not from UI.) Whatever one does, the other does too. (Generally. I don't know the details, since I haven't used either for very much.)
What would be more interesting would be to compare it to something with a significantly different interface--for instance, I've started using XFce, which works rather differently than Windows. OS X might also be another good choice for a comparison of interfaces. These others may not have the market share of Windows-workalikes, but they'd make for far more interesting reading.
Another problem: Generally, this software is fairly expensive to buy and maintain. Do you really want *any* of your tax money going to buy a worthless product?
The question should be: why would somebody want to change how their browser works (change the UI layout, or whatever) when they want to change the appearance of the program? That's the main thing that has always bothered me about 'themes' and 'skins' -- they seem to get appearance and functionality mixed up together. I always want to be able to move the mouse the same amount and hit a button, no matter what it looks like. In any case, that's why I generally completely avoid themes, just sticking with the default or generic 'themes' for any programs I use.
No; the vote is for (Bush and Cheney) or (Gore and Lieberman). Way back in the day, when the Pres was the winner and VP was the 2nd place, then it could happen (which, of course, ended up being a little divisive.)
Life is tough sometimes. That's just how it goes. But don't ever fool yourself into thinking that you're getting shafted here in the US. We've got it comparitively easy to many places in the world, and anyone -- no matter how hard things get -- can always find some help from our government.
You know what I find to be the proof that slashdot is going down the toilet? Instead of actually wanting to debate, you just want to have the moderators do the dirty work for you, because he holds opposing views to yours. (Yes, one of his facts is wrong, but the post is well-reasoned and worth reading. I cannot say the same for a post that says that 'Gore scored 1355, Bush scored 1206, anyway, Bush is dumber.' By that logic, I'm more deserving than either of being president.)
Moderation, though often used badly, should never be used to hide an unpopular view. Slashdot is a discussion (and usually argument) forum. Either debunk his post with your own wit, or you'll have to let it stand.
We certainly are. But what's even more amusing:
All these other contries (Within a page of you, I see comments about Germany and Brazil) are talking about the US election. It's important to them. However, pick anyone in the US, even the well-educated, and ask them who the presidential candidates (or their counterparts) in another country are. Very few people will know.
Now, how about those people in Germany? Do they know about the government of Brazil? Betcha they don't. So why do we have this view that the world revolves around the US? Let me give you a hint -- we're not the only ones who seem to think so.
Anyway, I don't think it will happen for a few more elections to come, but eventually it will. And then, even the civically responsible will never have to leave their homes...
Yeah, the american election. The same country Slashdot's primary readership lives. The country represented by the flag icon that Taco explained, way back in the day, that you could ignore if you didn't care about US politics. Because he was just as sick as the rest of us about people who think that it's clever to point out that they don't live in the US.
Really, it's as bad as the people who post to the Jon Katz articles about how much they hate to read his stuff, even though they're the nitwits who sat around and read it anyway, because of a lack of anything better to do. Fortunately, I suppose that this crap will drop to normal levels once the election's over.
No, that's not their reasoning. The fact is that they know that people would often rather play the old games, rather than the latest glossy-graphics mindless first-person shooter. Their economic model doesn't involve creating games that last; it involves creating something that sells for a couple weeks, and then superceding it with something else.
If they wanted continued revenues, they'd continue selling their games. Like you said, compilations are always nice -- but only show up very rarely. It seems that most of the abandonware gamers are fairly responsible people -- I think that most of them would buy a compilation of old games, unlike the standard warez crowd. They 'pirate' the games because there's no alternative way to get them, not because they're too cheap to pay for them.
Most of the administrators are grossly overpaid and completely inept. In high school, my principal was completely clueless, and perpetually drunk. She caused nothing but trouble, and all the teachers hated her. (I was fortunate to have quite a few very good teachers, but that's the exception rather than the rule.) The brand-new school superintendant is making well over $200,000 a year. (He gets paid as much as 8 teachers put together for showing up to meetings and saying things like, "I think that we should try to have a 100% graduation rate." Not exactly the correct wording, but that's what he said.) My high school physics teacher taught 7 classes a day, with 35-40 students in each class, as well as being the head of the science department, because they couldn't be bothered to hire someone else to take some of the load.
It's depressing that conditions never get better, even though politicians keep on claiming that they're constantly raising school budgets. In truth, there's so much corruption in the public school system that it will never get better until we get rid of the pork and the overhead that sucks up every available dollar.
Well, I'm sure that a lot of people would love to increase its transmission ability. But one slight problem ... exactly how do you intend to make this upgrade?
It would be really nice if we could consistently create probes with this kind of durability and usefulness. If we're getting this kind of data with 1989 (?) technology, then wouldn't it be a good idea to spell off the old probe with something with better instruments?
In my opinion, it's something that should be done during elementary school (The last time I had to do it was in ... IIRC ... 8th grade, and I've heard of high schools doing it too. By that time, most of the students are pretty apathetic, not to mention the fact that class time should be used for instruction in the course in high school.) It's more appropriate there, and more likely to make an impact.
Of course, since I read, clicked, and then trolled this article, I suppose that I have absolutely no reason to complain. Not that that stops anyone else, so I don't feel too much like a hypocrite for doing it.
(Not that I would have wanted to switch schools, by any means, but the fact that the school system is so screwed up really annoys me. Government keeps throwing more and more money into it, and yet because of all the corruption nothing happens.)
A better way to ask this question may have simply been, "Is Novell going to come up with something to keep themselves afloat, or are Linux, MS, and everyone else going to eat them alive?" Of course, that doesn't have the magic MS antitrust, CueCat, or PS2 topics involved, and so probably never would have made the cut.
Think of the land argument like this: When we still had 'frontier' land, population growth tended to be 'out' rather than 'up'. For small towns, government maintenance is very low, but larger population centers require much more infrastructure. Therefore, not only had the government's primary asset dried up, they were in need of more money.
That's not the only cause, of course, but considering that the early 1900s was about the time that we ran out of 'new land', and it coincides with the beginning of income tax, it seems like a very convenient coincidence.
I sort of wonder about this: A lot of people complain that the poor get hit harder by taxes than the rich. What do you think eliminating income tax would do? Essentially, what you have is a tax on the money you spend (sales tax, tarriffs, payment for government services, etc all end up inflating the amount of money you pay.) However, those at the poverty line tend to spend a larger percentage of their income than the rich. Suddenly, you have the same effect as the graduated income tax, but those who make the least money pay the largest percentage. And you think this is a good idea?
As I've said before (and been generally ignored), trying to force sites to enter these domains is useless, since the same rules that apply to filtering will apply to which sites are forced into the TLD. If this was implemented, you'd still have a legion of slashdotters whining about how the sites are being censored.
I think that creating a .xxx TLD is a good idea, however, instead of forcing sites to move to it, make it voluntary instead of mandatory, with the restriction that the same organization cannot own a .xxx and the corresponding .com or whatever. The porn sites will jump on the chance to get xxx in their domain names (They already do, after all.) Porn surfers, of course, will then always search for things under the .xxx TLD. Therefore, most of the porn will naturally enter the .xxx TLD, and nobody can complain about the motivations for censorship, since the sites will do the censoring by themselves.
There will be a few holdouts, of course, but few enough that doing it by hand will be doable. What's left are the geocities spammers and so forth ... but from my observations, they tend to last about 3 minutes and carry no porn anyway. Also, of course, sites that their owners don't consider to be porn ... if someone wants to make the judgement call that those should be censored as well, then they can invest in a censorware product, but it seems that if it's that questionable, then the sites should be available at the library, etc.
You will have a few left getting through, but the number of wrongfully blocked sites will hopefully be dropped down to nearly nil. It seems to me that this doesn't really offer any drawbacks from the current system, and could be beneficial. So why not try it?
Well, at least stuffing the site in the category 'Hacking' makes some sense (After all, one of the things that Peacefire does is post instructions on how to circumvent these filters.) It's certainly better than the blanket all-categories filter that most of the programs seem to do to peacefire. (Of course, I suppose that this program may do the same thing if the admin lifts the restriction on the hacking category. Does anyone know?)
Wow, it's nice to see that someone else realizes this. It doesn't take much to see that the entire presidential campaign (and, indeed, many other political canidates) is full of complete idiots. I don't particularily like Bush, but the Republican platform most accurately describes my views, so there you go. Whatever your political stance is, people, remember that the canidates will generally toe the party line; vote based on platforms rather than the mindless mudslinging.