It's not only laziness. I've tried installing Linux on various PCs over the years, and out of 8-9 tries, got to the desktop only ONCE. Last try, ubuntu 8.10, gives me "snow " when it's time to launch the gnome desktop. On all those machines, XP runs perfectly.
I'm changing PCs soon, and will try once again. I'm growing afraid that, if the basic OS install gives me so many problems, I'll never get to install apps, though. I don't know if it's my skill level (I've fairly used to installin gXP, and a newbie in Linux), code quality (especially drivers), or documentation... Probably a bit of everything; so I'm partly to blame , but still. I won't be recommending/installing Linux for others till I'm confident I can do it for myself.
The lawyers (and politicians, mainly, are ex- and future- lawyers, in the US) have no incentive whatosever to fix the system. On the contrary: they need it as complicated and open to abuse as possible to maximize the present (and , in the case of politicians, future) livelihoods.
The same bould be said about devs: buggy systems to fix are one source of work (and I've seen devs VERY aware that bugs = work = $$)... but still, they can also probably find other projects.
I was under the impression that Ashton Tate's Framework (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framework_(office_suite) ) was the first kinda graphical suite on the PC. I remember using it back it the days... and thinking back, I can't really think of anything I need doing even today that it didn't already do in 1984, without Windows.
the issue with stereotypes is observer's bias. I'm sure the gentleman right before you who says "men don't care as much about colors" DOES care about not having pink clothes.
It's not totally true. The client has to do a lot of work, especially loading the graphical ressources (player skins, buildings, NPCs...), rendering spell effects...
I was playing WoW on a fairly old PC (single-core Athlon XP 2800) until 3.0. I couldn't really do 25-raids after WotLK. I thought it was my graphics card (6600GT), but simply upgrading my CPU to a fairly anemic dual core solved the problem my FPS went up from 1 to 10.
if you have hundreds of players in a single spot doing all sorts of things, I think the hardest task is not so much telling the client who is where and doing what, but rather actually rendering the scene quickly.
The question is why so many people can empathize with killers, but not with rapists. Is there a deep psychological mechanism at work ? Is it social values ? And if so, are they really internalized, or is it just a superficial discourse ?
Arts and music are for many what makes life worth it. Not having a chance at being exposed to those, at least once, in school, would be very sad for many kids who have no chance to look into it at home. I still remember art projects I did in junior high.
History is totally superfluous. Except if you want a chance to stand back and understand what is happening today, and not repeat yesterday's mistakes.
Sport is not only about being fit. It's about social skills, strategy, coordination, getting acquainted or re-aqcuainted with your body... Not eveybody wants to be a gym rat, some do actually want to have fun. Again, kids deserve a chance to try that out.
I do agree about religion... I'd like philosophy instead.
- graphics are no longer a limiting factor for a game's enjoyment. Wireframe spaceships sucked. 100.000-polygons ones instead of 10.000-polygons ones probably don't make a huge difference. On the contrary, too many moving things actually distract. We can go "more lifelike", and blend (pun inteded) the boundary between games and films, but still...
- graphics costs are ballooning, both in terms of creating the ressource files, and programming all the candy/actions. At the same time, the attention is moving to other topics (IA...), and budgets are tight.
- there's probably a limit on how big a PC screen, and how small the dots on it, can be. Actually, most LCD screens don't even render all that many colors anyway.
Which explains why nVidia in particular is desperately trying to find other uses for a GPU. They are the only of the big 3 that don't have much else in their portfolio.
Linux is consistently failing to grab much desktop market share, in spite of MS's numerous goof ups. Android seems to be yet another credible attempt to achieve that (big name backer, supposedly sleek interface, noob-friendly...), so anything "Android" is exciting.
It's not about the OS. I've had Windows servers remain safe for years, and Linux servers be subverted in days.
Security is an eco-system, not an OS, for example: - granting and removing access rights, in a very conservative and up-to-date manner - keeping an audit trail of every access - locking confidential info so it never gets onto a laptop's HD - having backups - securing every cog and wheel of the system: client PCs, routers, servers, backups, admin stations... - locking down the weakest point: users (weak passwords, copied files, printouts, espionage...) - and many more issues.
In the big picture, the OS is fairly irrelevant. It's only a very small part of the whole system. The whole "we need to be safe - let's switch to Linux" is wrong and shows a tremendous lack of understanding of the issues.
I find train so much more convenient, and usually, in fact, faster. To go from my home in Paris to my parent's in Marseilles (far south of France), I can either - Take the tube (15 min door-to-door) to the railway station, hop on the train (3 hours), take the tube (10 min) = 3h30min - Take the tube, then the tram to the airport (45 mins), run around the airport, do the check-in+waiting+boarding+waiting thing... (45min), fly (1h10), do the disembarking thing (30min), take the bus to town (30min) = 3h45min, with a lot more hassle (changing trains, checking in...), and for more money (special transport to the airport, as opposed to just the tube.
Plus, airplanes are more cramped, more noisy, less eco-friendly, probably more dangerous.
For longer journeys (1.000+kms), airplanes probably start to make sense.
Actually, that's a good point: do we want our lightbulbs to perfectly mimic natural daylight ? Isn't it possibly useful for our brain to differentiate between day and night, even in well-lit environments, and regulate our biological cycles accordingly ? Isn't ambient lighting pretty mcuh the only way for it to spot the difference ?
Yeah for Unpredictable Programming ! That should be fun indeed:-)
Preferred Language = probably PERL, I would guess, but
- variables can only be accessed via pointers to pointers that point to pointers. Sometimes.
- New function: Rand_UP (something): does "something" to "something", not clear what, and sometimes, the other way round. MUST be used at least twice per page.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not only laziness. I've tried installing Linux on various PCs over the years, and out of 8-9 tries, got to the desktop only ONCE. Last try, ubuntu 8.10, gives me "snow " when it's time to launch the gnome desktop. On all those machines, XP runs perfectly.
I'm changing PCs soon, and will try once again. I'm growing afraid that, if the basic OS install gives me so many problems, I'll never get to install apps, though. I don't know if it's my skill level (I've fairly used to installin gXP, and a newbie in Linux), code quality (especially drivers), or documentation... Probably a bit of everything; so I'm partly to blame , but still. I won't be recommending/installing Linux for others till I'm confident I can do it for myself.
this fuel is free ? me want !
not to worry, clearly these jokers are very well equipped to relaunch under a new name: devHissyFit
The lawyers (and politicians, mainly, are ex- and future- lawyers, in the US) have no incentive whatosever to fix the system. On the contrary: they need it as complicated and open to abuse as possible to maximize the present (and , in the case of politicians, future) livelihoods.
The same bould be said about devs: buggy systems to fix are one source of work (and I've seen devs VERY aware that bugs = work = $$)... but still, they can also probably find other projects.
I was under the impression that Ashton Tate's Framework (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framework_(office_suite) ) was the first kinda graphical suite on the PC. I remember using it back it the days... and thinking back, I can't really think of anything I need doing even today that it didn't already do in 1984, without Windows.
the issue with stereotypes is observer's bias. I'm sure the gentleman right before you who says "men don't care as much about colors" DOES care about not having pink clothes.
is it that, or do men like plain colors and women more fancy ones ? wouldn't you be concerned about wearing pink clothes or a having pink laptop ?
It's not totally true. The client has to do a lot of work, especially loading the graphical ressources (player skins, buildings, NPCs...), rendering spell effects...
I was playing WoW on a fairly old PC (single-core Athlon XP 2800) until 3.0. I couldn't really do 25-raids after WotLK. I thought it was my graphics card (6600GT), but simply upgrading my CPU to a fairly anemic dual core solved the problem my FPS went up from 1 to 10.
if you have hundreds of players in a single spot doing all sorts of things, I think the hardest task is not so much telling the client who is where and doing what, but rather actually rendering the scene quickly.
- tested
- offline
- off-site
- several times
anything else is "high-availability", not "backup".
reminds me of "But .. I can't have lost all of my data ! I have RAID 5 !"
for the same reason kids are getting shots against almost-disappeared illnesses ?
The question is why so many people can empathize with killers, but not with rapists. Is there a deep psychological mechanism at work ? Is it social values ? And if so, are they really internalized, or is it just a superficial discourse ?
Same thing about drugs.
Today's juvenile entertainment is tommorrow's old farts's. Same was true about music...
It's just a matter of waiting until Supreme Court judges actually play videogames.
all of it: the chipset is ... a chip, too ?
the OP is probably comparing the radeon 3200 IGP to an intel 945 something. No contest here.
true. alas.
I'm hoping this is a joke ?
Arts and music are for many what makes life worth it. Not having a chance at being exposed to those, at least once, in school, would be very sad for many kids who have no chance to look into it at home. I still remember art projects I did in junior high.
History is totally superfluous. Except if you want a chance to stand back and understand what is happening today, and not repeat yesterday's mistakes.
Sport is not only about being fit. It's about social skills, strategy, coordination, getting acquainted or re-aqcuainted with your body... Not eveybody wants to be a gym rat, some do actually want to have fun. Again, kids deserve a chance to try that out.
I do agree about religion... I'd like philosophy instead.
The school you want is a very dull one.
... only in countries with oil ...
I think we've reached a point where
- graphics are no longer a limiting factor for a game's enjoyment. Wireframe spaceships sucked. 100.000-polygons ones instead of 10.000-polygons ones probably don't make a huge difference. On the contrary, too many moving things actually distract. We can go "more lifelike", and blend (pun inteded) the boundary between games and films, but still...
- graphics costs are ballooning, both in terms of creating the ressource files, and programming all the candy/actions. At the same time, the attention is moving to other topics (IA...), and budgets are tight.
- there's probably a limit on how big a PC screen, and how small the dots on it, can be. Actually, most LCD screens don't even render all that many colors anyway.
Which explains why nVidia in particular is desperately trying to find other uses for a GPU. They are the only of the big 3 that don't have much else in their portfolio.
Linux is consistently failing to grab much desktop market share, in spite of MS's numerous goof ups. Android seems to be yet another credible attempt to achieve that (big name backer, supposedly sleek interface, noob-friendly...), so anything "Android" is exciting.
It seems there is a debate about what casual means:
- rare, short, light gaming sessions: the gaming pattern is what defines "casual"
or
- ages 7-77, easily accessible: the accessibility is what defines "casual"
Anyhooo, I guess casual gaming will kill hardcore gaming the same way family sedans killed sports cars. Slow news day ?
It's not about the OS. I've had Windows servers remain safe for years, and Linux servers be subverted in days.
Security is an eco-system, not an OS, for example:
- granting and removing access rights, in a very conservative and up-to-date manner
- keeping an audit trail of every access
- locking confidential info so it never gets onto a laptop's HD
- having backups
- securing every cog and wheel of the system: client PCs, routers, servers, backups, admin stations...
- locking down the weakest point: users (weak passwords, copied files, printouts, espionage...)
- and many more issues.
In the big picture, the OS is fairly irrelevant. It's only a very small part of the whole system. The whole "we need to be safe - let's switch to Linux" is wrong and shows a tremendous lack of understanding of the issues.
I find train so much more convenient, and usually, in fact, faster. To go from my home in Paris to my parent's in Marseilles (far south of France), I can either
- Take the tube (15 min door-to-door) to the railway station, hop on the train (3 hours), take the tube (10 min) = 3h30min
- Take the tube, then the tram to the airport (45 mins), run around the airport, do the check-in+waiting+boarding+waiting thing... (45min), fly (1h10), do the disembarking thing (30min), take the bus to town (30min) = 3h45min, with a lot more hassle (changing trains, checking in...), and for more money (special transport to the airport, as opposed to just the tube.
Plus, airplanes are more cramped, more noisy, less eco-friendly, probably more dangerous.
For longer journeys (1.000+kms), airplanes probably start to make sense.
2 buzzwords in 1 title, can we do better ?
Actually, that's a good point: do we want our lightbulbs to perfectly mimic natural daylight ? Isn't it possibly useful for our brain to differentiate between day and night, even in well-lit environments, and regulate our biological cycles accordingly ? Isn't ambient lighting pretty mcuh the only way for it to spot the difference ?
Yeah for Unpredictable Programming ! That should be fun indeed :-)
Preferred Language = probably PERL, I would guess, but
- variables can only be accessed via pointers to pointers that point to pointers. Sometimes.
- New function: Rand_UP (something): does "something" to "something", not clear what, and sometimes, the other way round. MUST be used at least twice per page.