Which is stupid. Most UPSs double as surge suppressors. Most people (I'm hoping) already use power bars with surge suppression, but most will just buy cheap $5, 6-plug power strips, and I've seen people who still actually plug their computer into a wall outlet.
Most people have no idea what surge suppression is, but even in "The Western World", there are still brownouts and power surges. I have a small 540-watt UPS that I use to power my printer, computer, monitors, and external hard drives. Its software keeps a log of all events, and since I got it a year or so ago, there have been 2 long (3+ hours) blackouts, 4 brownouts, and 2 power surges. I consider it an investment to protect my hardware. It's also a handy way of finding out how much power various devices are drawing without specialized equipment, if your management software (I use the bundled CD from APC on Windows for my gaming rig, but I've heard there are alternatives for linux) keeps track of that.
But if this raises awareness, full steam ahead. People need to figure out that if they have minute-by-minute updates of where they are and what they are doing, all of which is publically available, they will sooner or later have consequences.
Moreso than robberies: I'm surprised we don't have rapes because of this, i.e. a girl tweeting while drunk.
In all seriousness, what would be truly heroic would be some kind of organized circumvention effort near the borders - people setting up free, public, long-range wifi in the bordering countries and mapping out areas where it's available.
I think in discussions like these we need a new disclaimer: IANAP (I Am Not a Paedophile). However, I doubt anything more than a minority are violent people, just like everyone else. The reality is that the non-violent ones who used child porn will either be harrassed or might be driven to the paedophile stereotype of kidnapping/abusing kids. This does nothing but escalate it, and rather than try to talk to these people and work out their problems or give them a safe way to channel it (sort of like how BDSM was originally regarded as obscene before it developed an almost-universal code of conduct), it is suppressed.
Especially in Europe. East Germany's censorship model failed in most places in the west because people could get signals from West German TV stations. In a place like France, people could easily get wifi signals from Italy, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, etc depending on where they lived.
Of course, Burlesconi will almost certainly jump on this bandwagon, and then France and Italy will try to leverage this on other EU countries.
I don't think anyone could call this bill urgent. This is stating the obvious a bit, but I'm going to call it right now - the French government is trying to force this through as quickly as possible before anti-censorship, net neutrality, and freedom of speech groups get to mount a decent defense and inform the French people about what is happening. Although, the populace could be complicit, sort of like Italy, where Burlesconi has managed to brainwash almost everyone.
DRM aside, I agree. Ubisoft has become, in some ways, worse than EA. EA would take winning series and run them into the ground; Ubisoft takes terrible series (Blazing Angels, the faux-WWII arcade shooters) and makes them worse. If for anything else, they deserve to die simply because of the horrible Tom Clancy games they've shat out over the years.
Which might be a good thing. Most third-party Windows apps are a good sign of how lazy some programmers get about optimizing their code, such as an AV app that takes up 100mb of disk space, etc. Games can be discounted, because most of the space taken up is by images and AFAIK game devs compress as much as they can.
"Oldies", or just people who keep a better eye on efficiency, tend to do much better as firmware programmers, because most embedded systems require very good code to be written for them and for it to be written well the first time.
Exactly. Both Mark Twain and Einstein made disparaging remarks about schooling, but it was a different issue - not an "overload of information", but that they tend to stifle original thought.
For not making the effort? Linux is perfectly fine if you configure it properly. Someone who just tries to run it out of the box will have problems, because the developers prefer to make powerful software rather than idiot-proof software.
Most people make the assertion that, to increase usability, you have to get more "advanced" and bulkier software, for instance Compiz (Compiz still, of course, cannot compare to Aero for sheer bulk). Basically, something that uses up lots of RAM and uses fancy heuristics.
I prefer to build a system from the ground up - take something simple like Openbox, and build it in myself. Key combinations, autostart stuff (which is just added to OB's autostart.sh shell script), customized menu items just by editing the XML file, etc. You just need to know where things are, and it's absurdly easy to configure it. As a result, I have a WM where every action has a hotkey that I've set myself, for instance using the unused Windows/Super key to switch virtual desktops (W + -> / properly, with Windows being the champion above all others (I think the hotkey configuration at the OS level is hidden somewhere and would take a pile of googling just to find out where it's hidden.)
I don't know what you're doing wrong, but my laptop takes ~15 seconds to start up including the time it takes to type in the BIOS and user passwords, and that's with a fair number of daemons and autostarted stuff.
Also, I dislike "as an end user". I am an end user, and I definitely give a shit. You are typifying end users as uncaring, ignorant people such as yourself, which is wrong. Why do I care? Potential. Even if not all open source software is great now, it has the POTENTIAL to be better. Closed-source software only has a certain level of potential, and cannot improve past that point - it will always stay good enough to use but not good enough to be used comfortably.
I usually try to make an attempt to see things from the other person's position, but all I see is a lazy idiot who would rather have crap shoveled down his throat than make an effort to get something much better.
This is where it comes down to users making a choice. Either you choose to improve/support an ideologically better solution, or you give up and use the product which is better now, and allow companies to dominate users unfairly.
Well, Windows knows how to put my tablet into Sleep/Suspend without it crashing.
Is that because of an inherently superior product, or because manufacturers work with Microsoft so that the ACPI settings work perfectly with Windows, yet they ignore everyone else?
You shouldn't use sleep and suspend anyway, just shut the damn thing down.
Some people do, for home servers. Admittedly these are usually on old hardware, have no external net connection, and just fulfil a single purpose with no real eason to go through the process of upgrading. This is why I prefer rolling-release as opposed to versioned systems: you upgrade what you want to and don't have to go through the same crap that is reminiscent of Windows.
This is dick-waving, plain and simple. If someone has fun playing games, then they should play games, not feel guilty because of an absurd artificial obligation to fulfil some kind of imaginary "checklist for life".
Reading the Ubuntu forums isn't a good measure of anything. Most of the people on it are just ex-Windows users who want someone to hold their hand while they use Linux.
all anyone needs to do is read a man page. There is really no excuse for someone to be tech illiterate nowadays, it's usually just refusal to learn, and we shouldn't cater to it.
Slashdot Mirror
You're like the dumb girl who keeps going back to her abusive girlfriend.
Interesting scenario...
Which is stupid. Most UPSs double as surge suppressors. Most people (I'm hoping) already use power bars with surge suppression, but most will just buy cheap $5, 6-plug power strips, and I've seen people who still actually plug their computer into a wall outlet.
Most people have no idea what surge suppression is, but even in "The Western World", there are still brownouts and power surges. I have a small 540-watt UPS that I use to power my printer, computer, monitors, and external hard drives. Its software keeps a log of all events, and since I got it a year or so ago, there have been 2 long (3+ hours) blackouts, 4 brownouts, and 2 power surges. I consider it an investment to protect my hardware. It's also a handy way of finding out how much power various devices are drawing without specialized equipment, if your management software (I use the bundled CD from APC on Windows for my gaming rig, but I've heard there are alternatives for linux) keeps track of that.
But if this raises awareness, full steam ahead. People need to figure out that if they have minute-by-minute updates of where they are and what they are doing, all of which is publically available, they will sooner or later have consequences.
Moreso than robberies: I'm surprised we don't have rapes because of this, i.e. a girl tweeting while drunk.
It depends. State of Europa, anyone?
In all seriousness, what would be truly heroic would be some kind of organized circumvention effort near the borders - people setting up free, public, long-range wifi in the bordering countries and mapping out areas where it's available.
I think in discussions like these we need a new disclaimer: IANAP (I Am Not a Paedophile). However, I doubt anything more than a minority are violent people, just like everyone else. The reality is that the non-violent ones who used child porn will either be harrassed or might be driven to the paedophile stereotype of kidnapping/abusing kids. This does nothing but escalate it, and rather than try to talk to these people and work out their problems or give them a safe way to channel it (sort of like how BDSM was originally regarded as obscene before it developed an almost-universal code of conduct), it is suppressed.
Exactly. The French government is obviously trying to force it through before their people are as educated about it as they are in other countries.
Especially in Europe. East Germany's censorship model failed in most places in the west because people could get signals from West German TV stations. In a place like France, people could easily get wifi signals from Italy, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, etc depending on where they lived.
Of course, Burlesconi will almost certainly jump on this bandwagon, and then France and Italy will try to leverage this on other EU countries.
I don't think anyone could call this bill urgent. This is stating the obvious a bit, but I'm going to call it right now - the French government is trying to force this through as quickly as possible before anti-censorship, net neutrality, and freedom of speech groups get to mount a decent defense and inform the French people about what is happening. Although, the populace could be complicit, sort of like Italy, where Burlesconi has managed to brainwash almost everyone.
DRM aside, I agree. Ubisoft has become, in some ways, worse than EA. EA would take winning series and run them into the ground; Ubisoft takes terrible series (Blazing Angels, the faux-WWII arcade shooters) and makes them worse. If for anything else, they deserve to die simply because of the horrible Tom Clancy games they've shat out over the years.
Which might be a good thing. Most third-party Windows apps are a good sign of how lazy some programmers get about optimizing their code, such as an AV app that takes up 100mb of disk space, etc. Games can be discounted, because most of the space taken up is by images and AFAIK game devs compress as much as they can.
"Oldies", or just people who keep a better eye on efficiency, tend to do much better as firmware programmers, because most embedded systems require very good code to be written for them and for it to be written well the first time.
Exactly. Both Mark Twain and Einstein made disparaging remarks about schooling, but it was a different issue - not an "overload of information", but that they tend to stifle original thought.
For not making the effort? Linux is perfectly fine if you configure it properly. Someone who just tries to run it out of the box will have problems, because the developers prefer to make powerful software rather than idiot-proof software.
Oops, it interpreted the rest of the stuff in parenthesis as an HTML tag.
(W + -> and reverse, W + Fx for virtual desktop number.)
Most people make the assertion that, to increase usability, you have to get more "advanced" and bulkier software, for instance Compiz (Compiz still, of course, cannot compare to Aero for sheer bulk). Basically, something that uses up lots of RAM and uses fancy heuristics.
I prefer to build a system from the ground up - take something simple like Openbox, and build it in myself. Key combinations, autostart stuff (which is just added to OB's autostart.sh shell script), customized menu items just by editing the XML file, etc. You just need to know where things are, and it's absurdly easy to configure it. As a result, I have a WM where every action has a hotkey that I've set myself, for instance using the unused Windows/Super key to switch virtual desktops (W + -> / properly, with Windows being the champion above all others (I think the hotkey configuration at the OS level is hidden somewhere and would take a pile of googling just to find out where it's hidden.)
I don't know what you're doing wrong, but my laptop takes ~15 seconds to start up including the time it takes to type in the BIOS and user passwords, and that's with a fair number of daemons and autostarted stuff.
Also, I dislike "as an end user". I am an end user, and I definitely give a shit. You are typifying end users as uncaring, ignorant people such as yourself, which is wrong. Why do I care? Potential. Even if not all open source software is great now, it has the POTENTIAL to be better. Closed-source software only has a certain level of potential, and cannot improve past that point - it will always stay good enough to use but not good enough to be used comfortably.
I usually try to make an attempt to see things from the other person's position, but all I see is a lazy idiot who would rather have crap shoveled down his throat than make an effort to get something much better.
This is where it comes down to users making a choice. Either you choose to improve/support an ideologically better solution, or you give up and use the product which is better now, and allow companies to dominate users unfairly.
Worthwhile effort? Not ultimately. You think too much in the short term and towards personal benefit rather than improving the web as a whole.
Well, Windows knows how to put my tablet into Sleep/Suspend without it crashing.
Is that because of an inherently superior product, or because manufacturers work with Microsoft so that the ACPI settings work perfectly with Windows, yet they ignore everyone else?
You shouldn't use sleep and suspend anyway, just shut the damn thing down.
I think the idea behind the manual camera is to AVOID steps 5-8.
You have to admit that it's a great idea.
Not for long. There's some evidence that they're adding video rentals to Youtube to try and turn it into something Hulu-like.
Some people do, for home servers. Admittedly these are usually on old hardware, have no external net connection, and just fulfil a single purpose with no real eason to go through the process of upgrading. This is why I prefer rolling-release as opposed to versioned systems: you upgrade what you want to and don't have to go through the same crap that is reminiscent of Windows.
This is dick-waving, plain and simple. If someone has fun playing games, then they should play games, not feel guilty because of an absurd artificial obligation to fulfil some kind of imaginary "checklist for life".
Reading the Ubuntu forums isn't a good measure of anything. Most of the people on it are just ex-Windows users who want someone to hold their hand while they use Linux.
ls | grep foo
all anyone needs to do is read a man page. There is really no excuse for someone to be tech illiterate nowadays, it's usually just refusal to learn, and we shouldn't cater to it.