I don't really care about the gamers who just want to buy the latest blockbusters. They don't even really love games, any more than the person who only wants to watch the latest blockbuster movie really loves movies, or the person who only wants to listen to the latest top 40 hits really loves music.
Like music or movies, once you scratch the surface there's a whole world down there. Any movie buff knows there are hundreds of black and white movies, or foreign movies that are better in many, many ways than the high budget shit we see every day. Any music lover knows that great music was made before Autotune, hell, even before amplification.
Likewise, anyone who really loves games knows that it's not the budget that counts. It's not the special effects. It's the gameplay, and there's loads of that available on Linux. If your interests are too shallow to find it, then use Windows, that's what its for.
Linux has an excellent selection of games available if you're willing to look past the newest blockbuster games. Look past the last two console generations and you have just about ever game available through emulation. Just about every doujin shooter I've tried runs through Wine. There are fantastic adventure games with ScummVM. There's Nethack.
Yes, you have to adjust your expectations a bit. Personally I never run out of things to play on my Linux box. I don't miss Modern Warfare or Starcraft 2 at all. I'm too busy with Dodonpachi and Rome Total War right now. Yeah they're old but they're new to me, and that's what matters.
Also, it's easier to adjust your expectations as to what is fun (which is purely subjective) than your expectations as to what is useful (which is emperical). If Windows is more fun, but has less useful tools it's harder to adjust to that than Linux which might be less fun but has more useful tools.
Confusing distros Just thinking about all the different distros and configurations still gives me a headache
Then don't. Just pick one.
Poor documentation
People don't read documentation anyway.
Software, Software, Software this is the biggest problem, and not so easily dismissed as some fans would pretend. My mom, for example, uses special software to interface with her high-end sewing machine. Is it available for Linux?
Vendor lock-in is not Linux's fault.
Little support (if not openly hostile)
Who has ever called Microsoft for support and gotten anything useful? You're better off just going to their knowledge base. That's not terribly different from going to to the Ubuntu forums for instance, which are honestly more helpful in my experience.
Ways of doing things that are confusing to a Windows user
When in Rome do as the Romans do. Linux is different from Windows because it's not Windows. If you want it to be Windows, use Windows, we won't miss you. Oh, is that the "openly hostile" support you were referring to above? Sorry, if you go to Rome and expect everyone to speak English to you you'll be treated rudely too.
Still too much reliance on the command line interface
The CLI is used because it is superior to the GUI, much like verbal language is superior to pointing and grunting. If learning a new language is too much for you, don't switch to Linux and don't move to Rome.
The issues you describe are mostly ones of culture shock. The fact that you experience culture shock when moving to a new culture doesn't mean that that culture is wrong or bad. It's just different, and it's up to you to be tolerant and learn how things work. If you think the culture should adapt to you instead, that's just a typical American cultural superiority complex. That's not surprising, but people aren't going to be motivated to help.
I need nothing, absolutly nothing exception playable games.
There are tons of playable games available on Linux. What you probably mean is that you need recently released high-budget blockbuster games. They're not the same thing.
That's pretty good so far. Hopefully we can configure the icon bar on the left to hide by default the same way you can hide the task bar on any desktop. Speaking of the task bar, how is task switching accomplished on this thing? I may have missed it in the video. Is there a gesture that does the same thing as Alt-TAB?
My biggest concern, what happens when you want(yes, want) to use the terminal?
It's Nature News, not Nature. It's not supposed to be a research article. If you want that, there's a citation at the bottom. That's more than you can say for 99.99% of the popular science reporting out there.
Okay, I might agree to a point, but based on what you said, who is a real "scientist" in society?
Researchers? Give me a break. The ones I have worked with are WAY more focused on papers at all costs than the doctors I have worked with. (Yes, I am about to start Med school)
That's because publishing is a critical part of the scientific process. That you would even look at that as a criticism shows your lack of understanding of science. Without publishing you don't know what your work is worth, and your work can't influence anything else.
After logging off, revert to the last backup. If there's no data on the computer, there's no personal data on the computer. Anything you need saved goes on removable storage.
A smart evil genius wouldn't create a plague. He or she would be more interested in creating a strain of tomato (or some other benign plant) with THC or cocaine or opium in its leaves.
There is a huge difference between creating something that will blow up your lab if you make a mistake and something that will live and grow outside of your control if you make a mistake.
If it were that easy to create biological weaponry, we'd all be dead by now.
Also, with most Chemistry sets you can't get enough materials to do really dangerous stuff. Most of the bad chemicals are all under strict control or oversight
I repeat, if such restrictions were in place in the 19th century, chemistry would have been set back for decades if not centuries. This is exactly why we shouldn't regulate at home biochemistry.
Friendly robots are sentient. Friendliness is a quality that only sentient beings can have. If your robot is not sentient, then it is only simulating friendliness.
You underestimate the amount of low hanging fruit left. And with the progress of technology, there's even more low hanging fruit now than there was 30 years ago. Yes, you need large grants if you're doing cutting edge research. But if you're doing something that's been ignored by researchers because it's not directly connected to a disease process, for instance, then you might find it relatively cheap to produce novel results.
I honestly don't see how that's any more fraudulent than the intended purpose of the card. In either case the tax payer is ripped off and money is going to someone who didn't earn it.
Banks, insurance companies, etc may end up using this kind of data to inform their risk management decisions. Eventually, that may mean that if they don't have this kind of data, you are risky by default. Look at what's happened with the credit bureaus. Technically they are opt out. But if you actually opt out, you put yourself at such a tremendous disadvantage that you can't really do it. You are forced to let these people have all sorts of detailed personal information, if you just want to live your life.
Perhaps we need some sort of data mining fifth amendment, where refusing to provide information cannot be used against you. But that's wishful thinking. In reality, people who just want to be left alone are probably going to be better off not opting out, as that would draw more attention than just blending into the crowd.
These crooks are just the lowest of the low - there've been churches round my way
At least the copper crooks aren't threatening your grandma with eternal damnation if she doesn't pay up. Shit, I don't believe that all of these metal thieves put together do the damage that one wall-street banker or corporate lobbyist does.
Not possible. If a letter threatening the President comes from your IP, you will be investigated by the Secret Service. Even if you segregate your public wifi from your private wifi, that does not clear you from suspicion. There's nothing stopping you from connecting to your own public wifi and pretending to be a neighbor.
What's bad is when people get censored by the government or other powerful groups outside the rightful sphere of influence. Parents should be able to tell their kids what they can and can't read, watch, or say.
Why is one bad but the other not? You don't provide any support for these assertions at all. From the perspective of a child parental authority is very much like governmental authority is to the rest of us. But they don't have any say at all in parental authority, which is often more arbitrary and capricious than governmental authority.
Voluntary censorship within your own organization is fine. Say it with me: "Voluntary censorship within your own organization is fine." Just like BDSM, it's when it's forced upon you that censorship is a problem.
Intentionally limited devices for pedagogical purposes are eminently sensible. It's just that it should be pretty simple to stamp out a TI-83(or 89, the hardware doesn't exactly differ wildly) for absolute peanuts, not $100 a pop.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't really care about the gamers who just want to buy the latest blockbusters. They don't even really love games, any more than the person who only wants to watch the latest blockbuster movie really loves movies, or the person who only wants to listen to the latest top 40 hits really loves music.
Like music or movies, once you scratch the surface there's a whole world down there. Any movie buff knows there are hundreds of black and white movies, or foreign movies that are better in many, many ways than the high budget shit we see every day. Any music lover knows that great music was made before Autotune, hell, even before amplification.
Likewise, anyone who really loves games knows that it's not the budget that counts. It's not the special effects. It's the gameplay, and there's loads of that available on Linux. If your interests are too shallow to find it, then use Windows, that's what its for.
Linux has an excellent selection of games available if you're willing to look past the newest blockbuster games. Look past the last two console generations and you have just about ever game available through emulation. Just about every doujin shooter I've tried runs through Wine. There are fantastic adventure games with ScummVM. There's Nethack.
Yes, you have to adjust your expectations a bit. Personally I never run out of things to play on my Linux box. I don't miss Modern Warfare or Starcraft 2 at all. I'm too busy with Dodonpachi and Rome Total War right now. Yeah they're old but they're new to me, and that's what matters.
Also, it's easier to adjust your expectations as to what is fun (which is purely subjective) than your expectations as to what is useful (which is emperical). If Windows is more fun, but has less useful tools it's harder to adjust to that than Linux which might be less fun but has more useful tools.
Confusing distros Just thinking about all the different distros and configurations still gives me a headache
Then don't. Just pick one.
Poor documentation
People don't read documentation anyway.
Software, Software, Software this is the biggest problem, and not so easily dismissed as some fans would pretend. My mom, for example, uses special software to interface with her high-end sewing machine. Is it available for Linux?
Vendor lock-in is not Linux's fault.
Little support (if not openly hostile)
Who has ever called Microsoft for support and gotten anything useful? You're better off just going to their knowledge base. That's not terribly different from going to to the Ubuntu forums for instance, which are honestly more helpful in my experience.
Ways of doing things that are confusing to a Windows user
When in Rome do as the Romans do. Linux is different from Windows because it's not Windows. If you want it to be Windows, use Windows, we won't miss you. Oh, is that the "openly hostile" support you were referring to above? Sorry, if you go to Rome and expect everyone to speak English to you you'll be treated rudely too.
Still too much reliance on the command line interface
The CLI is used because it is superior to the GUI, much like verbal language is superior to pointing and grunting. If learning a new language is too much for you, don't switch to Linux and don't move to Rome.
The issues you describe are mostly ones of culture shock. The fact that you experience culture shock when moving to a new culture doesn't mean that that culture is wrong or bad. It's just different, and it's up to you to be tolerant and learn how things work. If you think the culture should adapt to you instead, that's just a typical American cultural superiority complex. That's not surprising, but people aren't going to be motivated to help.
I need nothing, absolutly nothing exception playable games.
There are tons of playable games available on Linux. What you probably mean is that you need recently released high-budget blockbuster games. They're not the same thing.
That's pretty good so far. Hopefully we can configure the icon bar on the left to hide by default the same way you can hide the task bar on any desktop. Speaking of the task bar, how is task switching accomplished on this thing? I may have missed it in the video. Is there a gesture that does the same thing as Alt-TAB?
My biggest concern, what happens when you want(yes, want) to use the terminal?
It's Nature News, not Nature. It's not supposed to be a research article. If you want that, there's a citation at the bottom. That's more than you can say for 99.99% of the popular science reporting out there.
Okay, I might agree to a point, but based on what you said, who is a real "scientist" in society?
Researchers? Give me a break. The ones I have worked with are WAY more focused on papers at all costs than the doctors I have worked with. (Yes, I am about to start Med school)
That's because publishing is a critical part of the scientific process. That you would even look at that as a criticism shows your lack of understanding of science. Without publishing you don't know what your work is worth, and your work can't influence anything else.
All proper scientific studies should be quadruple blinded.
After logging off, revert to the last backup. If there's no data on the computer, there's no personal data on the computer. Anything you need saved goes on removable storage.
A smart evil genius wouldn't create a plague. He or she would be more interested in creating a strain of tomato (or some other benign plant) with THC or cocaine or opium in its leaves.
What exactly would be evil about that?
There is a huge difference between creating something that will blow up your lab if you make a mistake and something that will live and grow outside of your control if you make a mistake.
If it were that easy to create biological weaponry, we'd all be dead by now.
Also, with most Chemistry sets you can't get enough materials to do really dangerous stuff. Most of the bad chemicals are all under strict control or oversight
I repeat, if such restrictions were in place in the 19th century, chemistry would have been set back for decades if not centuries. This is exactly why we shouldn't regulate at home biochemistry.
Friendly robots are sentient. Friendliness is a quality that only sentient beings can have. If your robot is not sentient, then it is only simulating friendliness.
You underestimate the amount of low hanging fruit left. And with the progress of technology, there's even more low hanging fruit now than there was 30 years ago. Yes, you need large grants if you're doing cutting edge research. But if you're doing something that's been ignored by researchers because it's not directly connected to a disease process, for instance, then you might find it relatively cheap to produce novel results.
If people like you were around in the 19th century, chemistry would have been set back for decades, if not centuries.
I honestly don't see how that's any more fraudulent than the intended purpose of the card. In either case the tax payer is ripped off and money is going to someone who didn't earn it.
Banks, insurance companies, etc may end up using this kind of data to inform their risk management decisions. Eventually, that may mean that if they don't have this kind of data, you are risky by default. Look at what's happened with the credit bureaus. Technically they are opt out. But if you actually opt out, you put yourself at such a tremendous disadvantage that you can't really do it. You are forced to let these people have all sorts of detailed personal information, if you just want to live your life.
Perhaps we need some sort of data mining fifth amendment, where refusing to provide information cannot be used against you. But that's wishful thinking. In reality, people who just want to be left alone are probably going to be better off not opting out, as that would draw more attention than just blending into the crowd.
These crooks are just the lowest of the low - there've been churches round my way
At least the copper crooks aren't threatening your grandma with eternal damnation if she doesn't pay up. Shit, I don't believe that all of these metal thieves put together do the damage that one wall-street banker or corporate lobbyist does.
Can I configure Opera to act like Vimperator?
Not possible. If a letter threatening the President comes from your IP, you will be investigated by the Secret Service. Even if you segregate your public wifi from your private wifi, that does not clear you from suspicion. There's nothing stopping you from connecting to your own public wifi and pretending to be a neighbor.
Oh wait, that's not scary at all because people don't do that.
What reason do you have to believe that people don't do that?
LOL, middle click buffer strikes again.
Making the rules, no. Having a say, yes. The child hasn't done anything to deserve the loss of their autonomy. The parents did.
Let people raise their kids.
You say that like kids are property.
What's bad is when people get censored by the government or other powerful groups outside the rightful sphere of influence. Parents should be able to tell their kids what they can and can't read, watch, or say.
Why is one bad but the other not? You don't provide any support for these assertions at all. From the perspective of a child parental authority is very much like governmental authority is to the rest of us. But they don't have any say at all in parental authority, which is often more arbitrary and capricious than governmental authority.
Voluntary censorship within your own organization is fine. Say it with me: "Voluntary censorship within your own organization is fine." Just like BDSM, it's when it's forced upon you that censorship is a problem.
so, when censorship is forced upon a child?
It's about time we do something about the looming threat of moral panics. Think of the children!
Intentionally limited devices for pedagogical purposes are eminently sensible. It's just that it should be pretty simple to stamp out a TI-83(or 89, the hardware doesn't exactly differ wildly) for absolute peanuts, not $100 a pop.
So where are the cheap chinese clones?