For anyone who's confused about what this guy's trying to say, I'll translate:
Changing business models doesn't work because constant models fail due to the success of changing business models[?]. Normal people, not enthusiasts, drive the market.
Great insight? If so, I don't get it. I'd guess neither did the mods.
Actually, Gmail's "beta" status explains its failings, but does not justify them. Like how greed explains why someone robbed a bank, but does not justify bank robbery. Case tries to describe the difference between the Gmail hype and the actual Gmail. Everyone hailed it as an email revolution, but in fact it isn't all that great. It's a letdown because of its poor state, signified by its beta status and its badly implemented features. At the end of the day, Gmail's only distinction is its 3GB of space. Which is what Mr. Case says, and perhaps what you missed.
Re:The VAX port stopped working a long time ago
on
NetBSD v3.0 Released
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
...doesn't mean it runs on anything except a few of the common Intel/PPC chip
In other words, it runs on 90% of their users' computers, and the developer time on those architectures was well-spent. Sorry, but pandering to hobbyist users of obscure hardware (yes, today it is) is a waste. In a world of finite resources, tasks must be prioritized. By releasing first for x86, the NetBSD devs demonstrate their sanity by working on the software that would benefit the most users. Today, VAX doesn't matter, so why should they support it at all?
Let me lay it out for you: this is a desktop system that supports the Pentium M (Dothan). It has a 220W power supply, while my 8-year old Pentium 2 450MHz system has a 200W PSU. With that 220W and a 2GHz Pentium M, you could also run a 160GB 7200RPM hard drive, a Geforce 7800GT and an optical drive. Now imagine taking that to the next level; the Yonah is the basically a dual-core version of the Dothan. How many laptop CPUs can power a desktop workstation with half the energy requirements? Not many.
Anand's comparison is not only valid, but timely. CPU performance alone doesn't matter today, in an age when the video card can cost twice as much as the CPU. It's efficiency, instructions per cycle or per watt, that counts in the long run. This paves the way for smaller and more mobile computers, supercomputing clusters with a fraction of their current size and operating costs. The brute force megahertz wars ended years ago; Motorola/Freescale, IBM and now Intel realize this. Reducing the first room-sized digital computers to desktop towers was a revolution; in twenty years, as this power efficiency focus continues, it will happen again.
If you want to learn web design, focus on learning design. The forest, not the trees. Read up on composition, technical communications and page layout. Learn the basics of color theory. You'll then understand the medium better than 90% of teenage webdesigners. After that, teach yourself the tools. XHTML and CSS are a must; both have very good to excellent support among all current browsers (XHTML being effectively refined HTML). With this knowledge alone, you'll have a mature body of knowledge on which to build.
No, you don't need to learn the latest buzzwords to advance as a webdesigner. AJAX can wait. But PHP is very useful for more flexible backend and changing content. Want to code a blog? Use PHP and a MySQL database. It's not that hard, and it's much easier to maintain than the plain XHTML equivalent.
All in all, keep sight of the big picture. Realize that your webpages should look good, but also clear. Minimize design elements, but make the every element count. As in writing, "kill your darlings"; keep the bold pieces of your design that make it stand out, and lose the details that just add noise. Balance clarity and artistry, and you will become a competent webdesigner.
As a web designer of six years, I still love Dreamweaver's coding interface. The CSS and XHTML references are handy, and the tag autocomplete is great. The tabbed interface really helps when you're switching between multiple files, and the button rows give easy access to some XHTML code chunks. The CSS editor is also excellent if you can't remember all of the property names, and Dreamweaver is clever enough to write CSS shorthand code. Overall it's a far more mature application than Bluefish (Bluefish doesn't even have proper syntax highlighting, and the find/replace feature is atrocious), and way more tuned for webdesign than EditPad or Vi. It's sad though that many think of DW as only a WYSIWYG editor; DW's code editor is second to none.
What is with this Slashdot-Economist lovefest? Is this a fad or the definitive "hey, I'm an intellectual" mark on Slashdot? Will I get downmodded because I question this?
Do not ever think that you, a middle class westerner, has ever suffered as any suppressed man in the past. You have experienced nothing and you know nothing. Perhaps most importantly though, you (like millions) will do nothing.
Use Xsu to get a graphical su login automatically when you need it (configuration varies). Instead of opening a new terminal and typing "su [enter] password [enter] vi/etc/mpd.conf [enter]," you'll just be typing "password [enter]" whenever you need to access something as root.
Use a graphical file explorer like Rox to navigate and sort through directories quickly. Don't rely on ls for everything; it is far faster and more flexible to organize files graphically. Dragging a box and one click-drag can replace dozens of keystrokes across multiple commands.
If you always startup X after you login, then have X startup automatically. No reason to type "startx" every time.
Let normal users halt or reboot the system if appropriate. In many, many cases it's silly to maintain the *nix default behavior of only letting root shutdown/reboot the system. If you're running a server with dozens of remote users then yes, this would be unwise. If it's your personal workstation though, it's completely reasonable.
Use "slocate" instead of "find." Pardon me if this is obvious, but I still see too many *nix diehards waiting for "find" to finish when there's a perfectly up to date slocate DB ready for searching. "find" is nearly obsolete.
Have your drives automounted with Submount. It's pretty sad that something like this is not standard in the 2.6 kernel. Typing a command every time you want to read a CD looks pathetic to the average Windows user used to autorun or clicking "My Computer."
That's all I have for now. Basically, I liberally automate outdated procedures (which many *nix users still tolerate). This makes day-to-day operations much smoother overall, and doesn't disrupt tasks by having to constantly bring up new terminal windows.
Yep, there's a stop-motion photograph of this in Young & Freedman's "University Physics." It's really quite ordinary; you can try it yourself by sitting on a swivel chair and swinging your arms about. Nothing special about it.
Slashdot Mirror
I could never appreciate a music group that discriminated based on color.
Great insight? If so, I don't get it. I'd guess neither did the mods.
Try viewing the printer-friendly page while using a hosts file.
Actually, Gmail's "beta" status explains its failings, but does not justify them. Like how greed explains why someone robbed a bank, but does not justify bank robbery. Case tries to describe the difference between the Gmail hype and the actual Gmail. Everyone hailed it as an email revolution, but in fact it isn't all that great. It's a letdown because of its poor state, signified by its beta status and its badly implemented features. At the end of the day, Gmail's only distinction is its 3GB of space. Which is what Mr. Case says, and perhaps what you missed.
Maybe he works at a law firm.
...doesn't mean it runs on anything except a few of the common Intel/PPC chip
In other words, it runs on 90% of their users' computers, and the developer time on those architectures was well-spent. Sorry, but pandering to hobbyist users of obscure hardware (yes, today it is) is a waste. In a world of finite resources, tasks must be prioritized. By releasing first for x86, the NetBSD devs demonstrate their sanity by working on the software that would benefit the most users. Today, VAX doesn't matter, so why should they support it at all?
Let me lay it out for you: this is a desktop system that supports the Pentium M (Dothan). It has a 220W power supply, while my 8-year old Pentium 2 450MHz system has a 200W PSU. With that 220W and a 2GHz Pentium M, you could also run a 160GB 7200RPM hard drive, a Geforce 7800GT and an optical drive. Now imagine taking that to the next level; the Yonah is the basically a dual-core version of the Dothan. How many laptop CPUs can power a desktop workstation with half the energy requirements? Not many.
Anand's comparison is not only valid, but timely. CPU performance alone doesn't matter today, in an age when the video card can cost twice as much as the CPU. It's efficiency, instructions per cycle or per watt, that counts in the long run. This paves the way for smaller and more mobile computers, supercomputing clusters with a fraction of their current size and operating costs. The brute force megahertz wars ended years ago; Motorola/Freescale, IBM and now Intel realize this. Reducing the first room-sized digital computers to desktop towers was a revolution; in twenty years, as this power efficiency focus continues, it will happen again.
A dual-core CPU with half the power consumption and nearly all the performance of an AMD offering? Now that's intelligent design.
"Reliable sources have further confirmed recently to Think Secret that new iBooks and Mac minis--as well as iPod shuffles--will debut at Macworld Expo San Francisco next month. Apple's new Mac mini and iBook are expected to be among the first--if not the first--systems to feature Intel's new mobile processor, code-named Yonah."
If you want to learn web design, focus on learning design. The forest, not the trees. Read up on composition, technical communications and page layout. Learn the basics of color theory. You'll then understand the medium better than 90% of teenage webdesigners. After that, teach yourself the tools. XHTML and CSS are a must; both have very good to excellent support among all current browsers (XHTML being effectively refined HTML). With this knowledge alone, you'll have a mature body of knowledge on which to build.
No, you don't need to learn the latest buzzwords to advance as a webdesigner. AJAX can wait. But PHP is very useful for more flexible backend and changing content. Want to code a blog? Use PHP and a MySQL database. It's not that hard, and it's much easier to maintain than the plain XHTML equivalent.
All in all, keep sight of the big picture. Realize that your webpages should look good, but also clear. Minimize design elements, but make the every element count. As in writing, "kill your darlings"; keep the bold pieces of your design that make it stand out, and lose the details that just add noise. Balance clarity and artistry, and you will become a competent webdesigner.
As a web designer of six years, I still love Dreamweaver's coding interface. The CSS and XHTML references are handy, and the tag autocomplete is great. The tabbed interface really helps when you're switching between multiple files, and the button rows give easy access to some XHTML code chunks. The CSS editor is also excellent if you can't remember all of the property names, and Dreamweaver is clever enough to write CSS shorthand code. Overall it's a far more mature application than Bluefish (Bluefish doesn't even have proper syntax highlighting, and the find/replace feature is atrocious), and way more tuned for webdesign than EditPad or Vi. It's sad though that many think of DW as only a WYSIWYG editor; DW's code editor is second to none.
What is with this Slashdot-Economist lovefest? Is this a fad or the definitive "hey, I'm an intellectual" mark on Slashdot? Will I get downmodded because I question this?
Yes, I noticed it. Is badmouthing open source software not allowed? (No, I'm not new around here.)
Do not ever think that you, a middle class westerner, has ever suffered as any suppressed man in the past. You have experienced nothing and you know nothing. Perhaps most importantly though, you (like millions) will do nothing.
When hiring writers, BioWare looks only at your writing; not the areas, not the special scripting, and not the combat.
A semicolon is not a colon.
Use Xsu to get a graphical su login automatically when you need it (configuration varies). Instead of opening a new terminal and typing "su [enter] password [enter] vi /etc/mpd.conf [enter]," you'll just be typing "password [enter]" whenever you need to access something as root.
Use a graphical file explorer like Rox to navigate and sort through directories quickly. Don't rely on ls for everything; it is far faster and more flexible to organize files graphically. Dragging a box and one click-drag can replace dozens of keystrokes across multiple commands.
If you always startup X after you login, then have X startup automatically. No reason to type "startx" every time.
Use Conky for system monitoring.
Let normal users halt or reboot the system if appropriate. In many, many cases it's silly to maintain the *nix default behavior of only letting root shutdown/reboot the system. If you're running a server with dozens of remote users then yes, this would be unwise. If it's your personal workstation though, it's completely reasonable.
Use "slocate" instead of "find." Pardon me if this is obvious, but I still see too many *nix diehards waiting for "find" to finish when there's a perfectly up to date slocate DB ready for searching. "find" is nearly obsolete.
Have your drives automounted with Submount. It's pretty sad that something like this is not standard in the 2.6 kernel. Typing a command every time you want to read a CD looks pathetic to the average Windows user used to autorun or clicking "My Computer."
That's all I have for now. Basically, I liberally automate outdated procedures (which many *nix users still tolerate). This makes day-to-day operations much smoother overall, and doesn't disrupt tasks by having to constantly bring up new terminal windows.
God is dead.
Well, Half-Life's hero is a theoretical physicist. Go video games!
You piece of shit.
It always amazes me how eager slashdotters are to criticize using only half the facts, when they themselves accuse others of the same thing.
Uninformed mass-media? How about uninformed slashdot?
Grade is a measure of terrain slope. The story says that the trains go to high elevations, but not necessarily at steep grades.
I wonder if any of the VIM developers use emacs to develop VIM.
Well I used to wonder what the absolute limit of stupidity wass, but no longer. I think I've found it.
I thought I told you to stop with this nonsense.
Ah, the sobering realization that no one gives a shit about what you say.
No one is forcing you to read his comments, you can ignore it completely if you like.
Yep, there's a stop-motion photograph of this in Young & Freedman's "University Physics." It's really quite ordinary; you can try it yourself by sitting on a swivel chair and swinging your arms about. Nothing special about it.
This is the correct answer.