Okay, first up, congrats to CmdrTaco/Hemos... I've been a LONG time reader, and this site rocks.
Second: your jock argument: umm.... NO.
A jock gets a scholarship because they ACCOMPLISH something. I am not saying I find it all that meaningful, but they DID SOMETHING. ie. practiced enough to get good at a sport.
Giving a person a scholarship due to their gender is hardly the same. The person in question did not ACCOMPLISH anything, other than being born that gender.
Not that I'd be against more hot chicks in CompSci... lord knows we need them. But still, your argument is fundamentally flawed.
Besides, I'd rather see scholarships given on merit.
Apparently agtofchaos didn't feel it necessary to read my post, considering I mention that I use BeOS right in it. Not to mention that he is hardly representative of the members of the Be community I have had the pleasure (and it is more often a pleasure than not) to meet.
Not to say all BeOS users are perfect, but hey, no large group of individuals exists without some bad apples.
Either way, this agtofchaos needs to take a good hard look at himself before he derides any other OS zealots/advocates.
I use Linux, and I love it. However, at the same time, I run multiple other OSes. I currently run Red Hat Linux 5.2 and 6.0, Debian GNU/Linux 2.1, and Slackware Linux 3.6 and 4.0. I also run Solaris 7, FreeBSD 3.6, and BeOS r4.0.
Why do I run all of these? A few reasons. To name a few:
1) I am interested in OSes in general 2) These OSes in particular interest me 3) All of these OSes are suited to certain tasks.
The third of these reasons is a very important - and oft ignored - fact. If you read the Linux Advocacy HOWTO, there are three lines that I feel are the most important:
Respect the use of other operating systems. While Linux is a wonderful platform, it does not meet everyone's needs.
Don't insist that Linux is the only answer for a particular application. Just as the Linux community cherishes the freedom that Linux provides them, Linux only solutions would deprive others of their freedom.
There will be cases where Linux is not the answer. Be the first to recognize this and offer another solution.
I am so very tired of people who are unwilling to admit that Linux is NOT the only choice out there. So many of these people came to Linux because they resented the lack of choice forced upon them in the Microsoft driven world of computers... and yet now, they seek to take the freedom which they sought out and found from those who seek it as well.
Mutual respect for each others' personal choices is something severely lacking in this community. I choose to run Red Hat. Why should this matter to anybody but myself? And yet, to many it does. Then again, I choose to run Debian and Slackware as well. I even choose to run (horror of horrors) a commercial os: BeOS. Why? Because I like it, and it does what I want it to do. Will it ever replace Linux ? Most likely not. Will Linux ever take over the niche that it fills ? I don't know. It is questionable at best. But for the time being, BeOS does what I need it to do, and that is all that matters.
Linux is NOT the be-all and end-all. BeOS is NOT the be-all and end-all. Solaris is NOT the be-all and end-all. FreeBSD is NOT the be-all and end-all. OpenBSD is NOT the be-all and end-all. NetBSD is NOT the be-all and end-all.
Do you see a pattern here?
No OS is the be-all and end-all. At least not for all users. Sure, Linux may do everything you need to do, and if it does, great. Use Linux for everything then. But this community needs to realize and acknowledge that as human beings are individuals, they in turn have individual needs and wants. Freedom of choice is one of the most basic freedoms. Without the freedom to choose, many things which all of us take for granted, Linux being nowhere near the most important, would not exist.
I believe (AFAIK) that the government is not allowed to use MS OSes anyways. Something to do with security and POSIX compliance I believe. Yet, wouldn't you know it, government agencies still go against the law handed down to them and buy Microsoft.
If that ain't a monopoly, I don't know what is. When the government feels there is nowhere to turn, and breaks its own laws because they believe nothing else exists in the market, THAT is truly a monopoly.
But hey, who cares. Regardless of the ruling, the trial has done more for the technology world than anything else in the past 10 years. Notice that since the trial began, all sorts of technology has been booming? Wonder what would have happened to all this cool tech if MS had not been hindered by a trial...
I might be totally wrong here... but I have an attempt at a guess as to at least one of the causal factors.
From what I know (and I could be wrong), the US has a lot more high-bandwidth connections available at reasonably low cost, be it cable modems, [A]DSL, or just plain university networks. Therefore, it is very much feasible to think that a lot more people in the US just download Red Hat without paying than might download SuSE in Europe, due to the simple fact that it takes too damn long to do so unless you have a good (ie. 128k or higher) connection.
But I could be completely wrong.
On a related note: does cheapbytes ship to Europe? (or similar companies?) If not, that would be another factor.
Of course it could just be more people buy SuSE:P
Or it could be the amount of $$$ RH spends on GPL'd r&d.
Only if I can be second:P PWHC came to my college for some talks, and nobody could stop laughing about the name. Whoever came up with Pricewaterhousecoopers??
Oh well. I know people who work for them anyways, and they say they're cool, despite the awful name.
I work primarily off of information stored in Lotus Notes, and really, I'd have to say that if it sucks for you, its due to the people running it. Our notes servers run fine, without a problem, and I have no problems getting all the information I need. When implemented correctly, and used effectively, it can greatly improve productivity. Obviously if you can't get server admins that can keep more than a day of uptime, anything you're running that they are in charge of is going to suck. Even NT can have decent uptimes sometimes (I can't believe I just said that!!), and as sick as it sounds, weekly reboots can solve a lot of your problems.
Personally I'd rather just run the notes server on Linux and never reboot it... but is there a Notes server port to Linux??
Anyways... I don't like NT, in fact I only use it at work, but it isn't as bad as people say if you get somebody who has half a clue, and don't mind spending some time servicing it. Of course, if you go with a more stable OS (Linux, *BSD, etc), you have a lot less maintenence, but it is hard to find people who are proficient in them compared to finding a person to do NT administration, and its much harder to convince management to switch from NT to Linux than it is to convince them to hire somebody who can administer NT effectively.
Okay, now I need to go irradiate myself and burn my clothes... I feel dirty, having defended M$.
I think he was referring more to the fact that originally, if a person was uploading to a web site (html, images, etc) from Frontpage, and the server did not have Frontpage Extensions installed, an message would pop up and tell the user that they might want to switch ISPs due to the fact that the one they were using didn't support frontpage extensions, and therefore their web pages might not work right. After this was found out, MS was made to change it.
I preordered it, and its great:) Definately a good purchase.
If your local CompUSA and such don't have it, consider ordering it online. It costs about the same, and that way you know you're going to get it, as opposed to waiting until the stores decide to carry it.
Am I the only person who feels that anything that manufacturers try to squish between PDA and Notebook size is just DUMB?
A PDA is the perfect size for what it does, and thats ALL it does. I have a Palm IIIx, I LOVE it. It is great for taking memos, keeping track of my calendar, even keeping email on if I need to reference it. Not only that there are a few good games on it for when I'm bored. But in general, I don't use it for long periods of time or for huge amounts of text input.
A notebook is larger, and therefore not as useful while you are walking around unless you have time to sit down, but is much different than a PDA. I wouldn't use a PDA as a notebook, and by the same token I wouldn't use a notebook as a PDA. The notebook (mine is a whopping 486/66 w/8mb of ram running Slackware) is for large amounts of text entry, messing around, even working on programming (compiling is a bit slow!:P).
These two devices serve completely DIFFERENT functions. When you try for the "subnotebook" class, where you're aiming for something similar in size to a PDA but with the power of a Notebook, you get a MONSTROSITY. They have TINY KEYBOARDS, and really not enough HD space to do what a notebook can. They basically turn into hard to use PDAs without text recognition and a really really bad keyboard.
I like expensive toys as much as the next guy, but really, subnotebooks are just plain useless and expensive. I really don't see a need for streaming mp3 audio on a Palm Pilot, nor do I see a need for an all-in-one wonder gadget that does everything but your taxes. People need to acknowledge that having a piece of hardware designed for ONE thing can be a Good Thing (tm). Trying to make it do everything will do nothing but give it the ability to mimic the abilities of about 10 other devices BADLY.
I think what it comes down to is there needs to be a way to differentiate between the levels of "bad" in a post. I personally view at -1, because occasionally there is something amusing, and usually its not that bad. But there needs to be -2, -3, etc, so that we can distinguish between "offtopic but funny" and "lame, unnecessary, and just plain dumb". As it is now, the two get lumped into one category. If we could have people moderated even lower, then we could still see the -1's if we wanted, but the truly useless and/or vulgar and/or offensive posts would go to -2 and beyond. Those who feel like reading -2 and below can if they want.
I guess I just don't like having 5 levels of "good", but only 1 level of "bad". Its not always that clear cut.
a score of -2 should only be visible to moderators. That way, if something was unfairly scored down that far, a moderator could fix it, but otherwise, the 99% of the time that it DESERVED a -2, nobody would ever see it again.
Re:I run KDE1.1.1 on a P166/32meg
on
The KDE Future
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· Score: 2
I personally run KDE 1.1.1 on a p166/48mb and it runs pretty nice. Netscape does suck hard though... its the only app I run that I ever have to forcibly kill.
Gnome.... well, lets just say I suspect some memory leaks are present in the Gnome/E combo. It runs fine at first, but after leaving it running for a few hours or days (which is typical for me), it becomes sluggish, unresponsive, and just plain SLOW.
Oh well. I'm sure it will (hopefully) get better.
And after all, who needs any of these?:P My favorite window manager: Civ:CTP.
On my system, there is a user called 'civ'. His.Xclients looks like this:
#!/bin/sh exec/usr/local/games/CivCTP/civctp
Civilization: Call to Power: it is its OWN window manager dammit!:)
This is a very interesting concept. What it allows for, in a sense, is something of a "mercenary" subculture of programmers. Instead of paying somebody a full time salary and benefits, and dealing with all the hassles that come with hiring somebody, a company could enlist the aid of a "hired gun" to get the job done. Yes, we have contractors now, but this allows for a completely different methodology. Instead of seeking out programmers/contractors, we have basically mercenary "contracts" (bounties even) available to anybody who thinks they can get the job done. Obviously, this means there is a level of trust that:
a) the job will get done by the developer b) the job will get paid for by the company
This is definately a step in the right direction for the Open Source movement. Not only does it allow people to make money, at the same time it still helps to furthur the community by making sure the code is open. The peer review is also a great way of making sure that quality code is produced. Not only that, but now, if a company needs support for certain hardware for a specific OS that doesn't have it, or some similar problem, and just wants it to get done, and does not care about owning the rights to it, it can get done quickly and efficiently.
Now you too can be a merc! Just sign up, hire some nerdy thugs, and make a killing! (figuratively speaking of course)
I can't help thinking of Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries:) God I love(d?) that game!
Almost none of your "bad stuff" has really any validity.
Lets take a look:
Why can't I custom name a civ anymore?
And this affects gameplay how?
Where are the old wonders and most of the old technologies?
Key word being OLD. They needed updating. Would you rather they just repackaged Civ II and called it Civ:CtP ? Instead of the same old wonders, same old tech, same old strategy, you get new wonders, new tech, and whole new strategical values of each.
Where are the catapults?
Another old and not-so-useful unit phased out.
No concieveable socitey, for example, could have knights and samauri.
And this affects gameplay how? So you're saying that all civilizations within the game must conform to exactly how the developed in the real world? It is perfectly feasible that a society could develop with knights AND samurai. Just because it didn't happen doesn't mean it couldn't. The point of the game is to design a NEW CIVILIZATION, not just RECREATE an old one (although you can do that too).
The whole conversion thing is a serious detriment to gameplay
Translation: the whole conversion thing adds a whole new aspect to gameplay that you don't like because it makes the game harder, horror of horrors. Instead of passive AIs who sit there and leave you alone when you have lots of troops, there are AIs who will take over your cities, even if you have a lot of troops in them.
The advisors are gone
Give me a break, the advisors sucked. Who gives a shit what some dumbass who can't act wants to tell you while dressed up like somebody from an ancient civilization? They had no real worth for the game, other than the "we have fmv so we must be cool" factor.
The only thing I might agree with is the opening civilizations. I was a little surprised to see Canada and some other places, but hell, the US is pretty young too and they are in it, so really, where do you draw the line? If the developers want to allow for a lot of players, they need to come up with a lot of civilizations.
CTP is a definate must-buy for any Civ die-hard, and anybody who likes a good multiplayer strategy game. I can't wait till my Linux copy arrives, and until then I'll play it when I can on my friends Windoze box.
The point is more that if given the choice between two jobs, and assuming both pay well enough that you aren't struggling financially, a lot of people would much rather have an interesting job for less pay than an uninteresting job for more pay. If I am going to work 8-5 every day, I'd rather get paid enough to live and be happy and have an interesting job than be paid an enormous sum of money to do some inane task. Why? Because generally you are going to be working the same amount (most people don't get paid by the hour, unless I'm missing something [at least after college they don't]). Why not do something interesting?
Reminds me of Dilbert. Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light, Ruler of all Heck offers Dilbert two choices: He can be fabulously high-paid, but at the end of the day, all of his work will be burned in front of him, or he can be poor the rest of his life, but his work will be useful and benefit mankind. I'd probably pick the second myself. [Of course, for Dilbert, either is more preferable, seeing as currently he is paid almost nothing and his work is ignored/thrown out].
I'm still looking for good quality, flat-black cases... every time I see a post about new "cool looking cases", they are always the brightest damn colors. I don't need my case to be neon green and teal, I just want a simple black case. A little stylization might be nice too (as opposed to the typical square look), but not necessary. Dammit where are they?
The difference is who pays for it. I posted this above but here we go again:
If a person sends you bulk/spam snail mail, they pay the postage. It ends up in your mailbox, which is government owned, and you have paid nothing for it. You see it, toss it in the garbage, and it has cost you about 5 seconds of thought. Admittedly stiil somewhat unfair, but you paid no money for it.
If a person sends you bulk/spam email, there are two situations:
1. you pay for your email account. In this case, you are paying for the space this email is using on your mail server. Not only that, your mail server is paying for the bandwidth it uses, memory it uses, and disk space it uses as well.
2. you get email free. Your mail server admins still pay for the space, bandwidth, etc.
So... the difference comes down to who paid the postage. With email, you are forced to pay the postage, like it or not, and that is wrong. It would be akin to a telemarketer calling you collect, and forcing you to accept the charges to listen to his spiel.
That is a different situation. The difference is this: when a company mails you junk mail, they pay the postage. When a company (or person) sends you junk or spam email, you and whoever runs your email server are forced to pay for the "postage". You pay it because you are paying for your email, or if you get free email, the server admin still pays for it, as they pay for the server, disk space, bandwidth, etc, which is basically what the "postage" cost is.
It seems that we don't get much moderation on stories that garner a lot of interest. I say this because currently there are 215 comments, yet only 9 have been deemed above a "1" (and all 9 are only at "2"). I know there is some flaming going on, but still, there seem to be a good amount of relevant posts. I guess the moderation system DOES have its flaws... mainly that if there is too much interest, moderators would rather post than moderate. [IIRC, moderaters cannot post and moderate in the same story]
You pretty much hit the nail on the head on this one... Debian seems pretty nice, but the install process is HORRENDOUS. Debian users always talk about how great it is that there are 3500 packages available on the distribution CDs, but this is a royal pain in the ass!!
I used Slackware for about 3 years, so I had my fill of tarballs and compiling, and hand-editing dot-files, so about 8 months ago I decided to try something different. I first installed Red Hat 5.1, and tried it out for a while. Then I thought I'd look at Debian to compare and contrast, and choose which I wanted to keep. The Debian install beat me into submission (as you put it), and add in the fact that apparently dselect didn't install some things I told it to, I gave up on Debian after the third failed attempt at installing.
Currently, I'm working on getting Debian up and running correctly on my secondary system, but it isn't going well. I have had a few mishaps, and this coming weekend I'm going to do a reinstall, overseen by a friend of mine who has been using Debian for a long time.
By the way, people tout Debian as extremely stable and bug free. Explain these occurences to me:
1. in dselect, option 0 [Access] mounts the CDROM. then, when you go on to option 1 [Update], it wants to mount the CDROM elsewhere, and fails, because it is already mounted. This is Debian 2.1 by the way. It doesn't happen after the initial install process, but it does happen the first time dselect comes up when installing.
2. dselect has more than once skipped over packages I told it to install.
3. I don't recall telling Debian to make X start automatically and unkillable on bootup, but it decided to do it anyways.
Really, if I want the other 3000 packages I'll go get them. When I install Linux, I have a few priorities:
1. install the absolute base system 2. install X windows and networking 3. install development tools (the BASICS) 4. get online 5. get X working
After those 5 steps are done, THEN I'll give a shit about going and finding everything else that might be nice on my sytem. When I have to go through 300 menus just to get past the install part, it is just too much to deal with. Also, don't just say "use one of the preconfigured installs". I don't trust them to install everything I would find necessary.
I guess what it comes down to is this: Red Hat's install is easier for me mainly because they kept the packages that are included limited to what is REALLY NECESSARY. If, once I have installed everything that I feel is necessary, I want everything else, I will get it myself. I just don't need to deal with going through 3500 packages attempting to figure out which are necessary and which shouldn't have been included in the install in the first place.
Debian developers should be focusing on two things: reducing the packages in the main install, and getting a replacement for dselect. Relegate the 3000 non-critical, not commonly used packages to another CD set, or just don't include them in the base install. Allow them to be available after install, but dammit, leave it for after the critical stuff.
The difference is that Emacs isn't an editor. Emacs is a lisp evaluation environment. It just happens that it edits text well. Most people who revere Emacs revere it for the fact that it does so much. I have a friend who never closes it; it is almost his window manager:)
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The only people who truly believe age has anything to do with maturity after about age 7 are usually the people who are the most immature.
.
But hey, just my $.02
Okay, first up, congrats to CmdrTaco/Hemos... I've been a LONG time reader, and this site rocks.
Second: your jock argument: umm.... NO.
A jock gets a scholarship because they ACCOMPLISH something. I am not saying I find it all that meaningful, but they DID SOMETHING. ie. practiced enough to get good at a sport.
Giving a person a scholarship due to their gender is hardly the same. The person in question did not ACCOMPLISH anything, other than being born that gender.
Not that I'd be against more hot chicks in CompSci... lord knows we need them. But still, your argument is fundamentally flawed.
Besides, I'd rather see scholarships given on merit.
I'm glad SOMEBODY said that :)
Apparently agtofchaos didn't feel it necessary to read my post, considering I mention that I use BeOS right in it. Not to mention that he is hardly representative of the members of the Be community I have had the pleasure (and it is more often a pleasure than not) to meet.
Not to say all BeOS users are perfect, but hey, no large group of individuals exists without some bad apples.
Either way, this agtofchaos needs to take a good hard look at himself before he derides any other OS zealots/advocates.
I use Linux, and I love it. However, at the same time, I run multiple other OSes. I currently run Red Hat Linux 5.2 and 6.0, Debian GNU/Linux 2.1, and Slackware Linux 3.6 and 4.0. I also run Solaris 7, FreeBSD 3.6, and BeOS r4.0.
Why do I run all of these? A few reasons. To name a few:
1) I am interested in OSes in general
2) These OSes in particular interest me
3) All of these OSes are suited to certain tasks.
The third of these reasons is a very important - and oft ignored - fact. If you read the Linux Advocacy HOWTO, there are three lines that I feel are the most important:
I am so very tired of people who are unwilling to admit that Linux is NOT the only choice out there. So many of these people came to Linux because they resented the lack of choice forced upon them in the Microsoft driven world of computers... and yet now, they seek to take the freedom which they sought out and found from those who seek it as well.
Mutual respect for each others' personal choices is something severely lacking in this community. I choose to run Red Hat. Why should this matter to anybody but myself? And yet, to many it does. Then again, I choose to run Debian and Slackware as well. I even choose to run (horror of horrors) a commercial os: BeOS. Why? Because I like it, and it does what I want it to do. Will it ever replace Linux ? Most likely not. Will Linux ever take over the niche that it fills ? I don't know. It is questionable at best. But for the time being, BeOS does what I need it to do, and that is all that matters.
Linux is NOT the be-all and end-all. BeOS is NOT the be-all and end-all. Solaris is NOT the be-all and end-all. FreeBSD is NOT the be-all and end-all. OpenBSD is NOT the be-all and end-all. NetBSD is NOT the be-all and end-all.
Do you see a pattern here?
No OS is the be-all and end-all. At least not for all users. Sure, Linux may do everything you need to do, and if it does, great. Use Linux for everything then. But this community needs to realize and acknowledge that as human beings are individuals, they in turn have individual needs and wants. Freedom of choice is one of the most basic freedoms. Without the freedom to choose, many things which all of us take for granted, Linux being nowhere near the most important, would not exist.
Don't take that freedom away.
I believe (AFAIK) that the government is not allowed to use MS OSes anyways. Something to do with security and POSIX compliance I believe. Yet, wouldn't you know it, government agencies still go against the law handed down to them and buy Microsoft.
If that ain't a monopoly, I don't know what is. When the government feels there is nowhere to turn, and breaks its own laws because they believe nothing else exists in the market, THAT is truly a monopoly.
But hey, who cares. Regardless of the ruling, the trial has done more for the technology world than anything else in the past 10 years. Notice that since the trial began, all sorts of technology has been booming? Wonder what would have happened to all this cool tech if MS had not been hindered by a trial...
Take a guess. It's an easy question.
I might be totally wrong here... but I have an attempt at a guess as to at least one of the causal factors.
:P
From what I know (and I could be wrong), the US has a lot more high-bandwidth connections available at reasonably low cost, be it cable modems, [A]DSL, or just plain university networks. Therefore, it is very much feasible to think that a lot more people in the US just download Red Hat without paying than might download SuSE in Europe, due to the simple fact that it takes too damn long to do so unless you have a good (ie. 128k or higher) connection.
But I could be completely wrong.
On a related note: does cheapbytes ship to Europe? (or similar companies?) If not, that would be another factor.
Of course it could just be more people buy SuSE
Or it could be the amount of $$$ RH spends on GPL'd r&d.
Who knows.
I imagine thats why they have those tinted facemasks on the bunny suits.
;)
Then again, it could be that they are just afraid somebody might recognize them in that getup
Only if I can be second :P PWHC came to my college for some talks, and nobody could stop laughing about the name. Whoever came up with Pricewaterhousecoopers??
Oh well. I know people who work for them anyways, and they say they're cool, despite the awful name.
I work primarily off of information stored in Lotus Notes, and really, I'd have to say that if it sucks for you, its due to the people running it. Our notes servers run fine, without a problem, and I have no problems getting all the information I need. When implemented correctly, and used effectively, it can greatly improve productivity. Obviously if you can't get server admins that can keep more than a day of uptime, anything you're running that they are in charge of is going to suck. Even NT can have decent uptimes sometimes (I can't believe I just said that!!), and as sick as it sounds, weekly reboots can solve a lot of your problems.
Personally I'd rather just run the notes server on Linux and never reboot it... but is there a Notes server port to Linux??
Anyways... I don't like NT, in fact I only use it at work, but it isn't as bad as people say if you get somebody who has half a clue, and don't mind spending some time servicing it. Of course, if you go with a more stable OS (Linux, *BSD, etc), you have a lot less maintenence, but it is hard to find people who are proficient in them compared to finding a person to do NT administration, and its much harder to convince management to switch from NT to Linux than it is to convince them to hire somebody who can administer NT effectively.
Okay, now I need to go irradiate myself and burn my clothes... I feel dirty, having defended M$.
I think he was referring more to the fact that originally, if a person was uploading to a web site (html, images, etc) from Frontpage, and the server did not have Frontpage Extensions installed, an message would pop up and tell the user that they might want to switch ISPs due to the fact that the one they were using didn't support frontpage extensions, and therefore their web pages might not work right. After this was found out, MS was made to change it.
I preordered it, and its great :) Definately a good purchase.
If your local CompUSA and such don't have it, consider ordering it online. It costs about the same, and that way you know you're going to get it, as opposed to waiting until the stores decide to carry it.
Am I the only person who feels that anything that manufacturers try to squish between PDA and Notebook size is just DUMB?
:P).
A PDA is the perfect size for what it does, and thats ALL it does. I have a Palm IIIx, I LOVE it. It is great for taking memos, keeping track of my calendar, even keeping email on if I need to reference it. Not only that there are a few good games on it for when I'm bored. But in general, I don't use it for long periods of time or for huge amounts of text input.
A notebook is larger, and therefore not as useful while you are walking around unless you have time to sit down, but is much different than a PDA. I wouldn't use a PDA as a notebook, and by the same token I wouldn't use a notebook as a PDA. The notebook (mine is a whopping 486/66 w/8mb of ram running Slackware) is for large amounts of text entry, messing around, even working on programming (compiling is a bit slow!
These two devices serve completely DIFFERENT functions. When you try for the "subnotebook" class, where you're aiming for something similar in size to a PDA but with the power of a Notebook, you get a MONSTROSITY. They have TINY KEYBOARDS, and really not enough HD space to do what a notebook can. They basically turn into hard to use PDAs without text recognition and a really really bad keyboard.
I like expensive toys as much as the next guy, but really, subnotebooks are just plain useless and expensive. I really don't see a need for streaming mp3 audio on a Palm Pilot, nor do I see a need for an all-in-one wonder gadget that does everything but your taxes. People need to acknowledge that having a piece of hardware designed for ONE thing can be a Good Thing (tm). Trying to make it do everything will do nothing but give it the ability to mimic the abilities of about 10 other devices BADLY.
I think what it comes down to is there needs to be a way to differentiate between the levels of "bad" in a post. I personally view at -1, because occasionally there is something amusing, and usually its not that bad. But there needs to be -2, -3, etc, so that we can distinguish between "offtopic but funny" and "lame, unnecessary, and just plain dumb". As it is now, the two get lumped into one category. If we could have people moderated even lower, then we could still see the -1's if we wanted, but the truly useless and/or vulgar and/or offensive posts would go to -2 and beyond. Those who feel like reading -2 and below can if they want.
I guess I just don't like having 5 levels of "good", but only 1 level of "bad". Its not always that clear cut.
a score of -2 should only be visible to moderators. That way, if something was unfairly scored down that far, a moderator could fix it, but otherwise, the 99% of the time that it DESERVED a -2, nobody would ever see it again.
I personally run KDE 1.1.1 on a p166/48mb and it runs pretty nice. Netscape does suck hard though... its the only app I run that I ever have to forcibly kill.
:P My favorite window manager: Civ:CTP.
.Xclients looks like this:
/usr/local/games/CivCTP/civctp
:)
Gnome.... well, lets just say I suspect some memory leaks are present in the Gnome/E combo. It runs fine at first, but after leaving it running for a few hours or days (which is typical for me), it becomes sluggish, unresponsive, and just plain SLOW.
Oh well. I'm sure it will (hopefully) get better.
And after all, who needs any of these?
On my system, there is a user called 'civ'. His
#!/bin/sh
exec
Civilization: Call to Power: it is its OWN window manager dammit!
This is a very interesting concept. What it allows for, in a sense, is something of a "mercenary" subculture of programmers. Instead of paying somebody a full time salary and benefits, and dealing with all the hassles that come with hiring somebody, a company could enlist the aid of a "hired gun" to get the job done. Yes, we have contractors now, but this allows for a completely different methodology. Instead of seeking out programmers/contractors, we have basically mercenary "contracts" (bounties even) available to anybody who thinks they can get the job done. Obviously, this means there is a level of trust that:
:) God I love(d?) that game!
a) the job will get done by the developer
b) the job will get paid for by the company
This is definately a step in the right direction for the Open Source movement. Not only does it allow people to make money, at the same time it still helps to furthur the community by making sure the code is open. The peer review is also a great way of making sure that quality code is produced. Not only that, but now, if a company needs support for certain hardware for a specific OS that doesn't have it, or some similar problem, and just wants it to get done, and does not care about owning the rights to it, it can get done quickly and efficiently.
Now you too can be a merc! Just sign up, hire some nerdy thugs, and make a killing! (figuratively speaking of course)
I can't help thinking of Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries
Almost none of your "bad stuff" has really any validity.
Lets take a look:
Why can't I custom name a civ anymore?
And this affects gameplay how?
Where are the old wonders and most of the old technologies?
Key word being OLD. They needed updating. Would you rather they just repackaged Civ II and called it Civ:CtP ? Instead of the same old wonders, same old tech, same old strategy, you get new wonders, new tech, and whole new strategical values of each.
Where are the catapults?
Another old and not-so-useful unit phased out.
No concieveable socitey, for example, could have knights and samauri.
And this affects gameplay how? So you're saying that all civilizations within the game must conform to exactly how the developed in the real world? It is perfectly feasible that a society could develop with knights AND samurai. Just because it didn't happen doesn't mean it couldn't. The point of the game is to design a NEW CIVILIZATION, not just RECREATE an old one (although you can do that too).
The whole conversion thing is a serious detriment to gameplay
Translation: the whole conversion thing adds a whole new aspect to gameplay that you don't like because it makes the game harder, horror of horrors. Instead of passive AIs who sit there and leave you alone when you have lots of troops, there are AIs who will take over your cities, even if you have a lot of troops in them.
The advisors are gone
Give me a break, the advisors sucked. Who gives a shit what some dumbass who can't act wants to tell you while dressed up like somebody from an ancient civilization? They had no real worth for the game, other than the "we have fmv so we must be cool" factor.
The only thing I might agree with is the opening civilizations. I was a little surprised to see Canada and some other places, but hell, the US is pretty young too and they are in it, so really, where do you draw the line? If the developers want to allow for a lot of players, they need to come up with a lot of civilizations.
CTP is a definate must-buy for any Civ die-hard, and anybody who likes a good multiplayer strategy game. I can't wait till my Linux copy arrives, and until then I'll play it when I can on my friends Windoze box.
The point is more that if given the choice between two jobs, and assuming both pay well enough that you aren't struggling financially, a lot of people would much rather have an interesting job for less pay than an uninteresting job for more pay. If I am going to work 8-5 every day, I'd rather get paid enough to live and be happy and have an interesting job than be paid an enormous sum of money to do some inane task. Why? Because generally you are going to be working the same amount (most people don't get paid by the hour, unless I'm missing something [at least after college they don't]). Why not do something interesting?
Reminds me of Dilbert. Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light, Ruler of all Heck offers Dilbert two choices: He can be fabulously high-paid, but at the end of the day, all of his work will be burned in front of him, or he can be poor the rest of his life, but his work will be useful and benefit mankind. I'd probably pick the second myself. [Of course, for Dilbert, either is more preferable, seeing as currently he is paid almost nothing and his work is ignored/thrown out].
I'm still looking for good quality, flat-black cases... every time I see a post about new "cool looking cases", they are always the brightest damn colors. I don't need my case to be neon green and teal, I just want a simple black case. A little stylization might be nice too (as opposed to the typical square look), but not necessary. Dammit where are they?
The difference is who pays for it. I posted this above but here we go again:
If a person sends you bulk/spam snail mail, they pay the postage. It ends up in your mailbox, which is government owned, and you have paid nothing for it. You see it, toss it in the garbage, and it has cost you about 5 seconds of thought. Admittedly stiil somewhat unfair, but you paid no money for it.
If a person sends you bulk/spam email, there are two situations:
1. you pay for your email account. In this case, you are paying for the space this email is using on your mail server. Not only that, your mail server is paying for the bandwidth it uses, memory it uses, and disk space it uses as well.
2. you get email free. Your mail server admins still pay for the space, bandwidth, etc.
So... the difference comes down to who paid the postage. With email, you are forced to pay the postage, like it or not, and that is wrong. It would be akin to a telemarketer calling you collect, and forcing you to accept the charges to listen to his spiel.
That is a different situation. The difference is this: when a company mails you junk mail, they pay the postage. When a company (or person) sends you junk or spam email, you and whoever runs your email server are forced to pay for the "postage". You pay it because you are paying for your email, or if you get free email, the server admin still pays for it, as they pay for the server, disk space, bandwidth, etc, which is basically what the "postage" cost is.
It seems that we don't get much moderation on stories that garner a lot of interest. I say this because currently there are 215 comments, yet only 9 have been deemed above a "1" (and all 9 are only at "2"). I know there is some flaming going on, but still, there seem to be a good amount of relevant posts. I guess the moderation system DOES have its flaws... mainly that if there is too much interest, moderators would rather post than moderate. [IIRC, moderaters cannot post and moderate in the same story]
Just an observation.
You pretty much hit the nail on the head on this one... Debian seems pretty nice, but the install process is HORRENDOUS. Debian users always talk about how great it is that there are 3500 packages available on the distribution CDs, but this is a royal pain in the ass!!
I used Slackware for about 3 years, so I had my fill of tarballs and compiling, and hand-editing dot-files, so about 8 months ago I decided to try something different. I first installed Red Hat 5.1, and tried it out for a while. Then I thought I'd look at Debian to compare and contrast, and choose which I wanted to keep. The Debian install beat me into submission (as you put it), and add in the fact that apparently dselect didn't install some things I told it to, I gave up on Debian after the third failed attempt at installing.
Currently, I'm working on getting Debian up and running correctly on my secondary system, but it isn't going well. I have had a few mishaps, and this coming weekend I'm going to do a reinstall, overseen by a friend of mine who has been using Debian for a long time.
By the way, people tout Debian as extremely stable and bug free. Explain these occurences to me:
1. in dselect, option 0 [Access] mounts the CDROM. then, when you go on to option 1 [Update], it wants to mount the CDROM elsewhere, and fails, because it is already mounted. This is Debian 2.1 by the way. It doesn't happen after the initial install process, but it does happen the first time dselect comes up when installing.
2. dselect has more than once skipped over packages I told it to install.
3. I don't recall telling Debian to make X start automatically and unkillable on bootup, but it decided to do it anyways.
Really, if I want the other 3000 packages I'll go get them. When I install Linux, I have a few priorities:
1. install the absolute base system
2. install X windows and networking
3. install development tools (the BASICS)
4. get online
5. get X working
After those 5 steps are done, THEN I'll give a shit about going and finding everything else that might be nice on my sytem. When I have to go through 300 menus just to get past the install part, it is just too much to deal with. Also, don't just say "use one of the preconfigured installs". I don't trust them to install everything I would find necessary.
I guess what it comes down to is this: Red Hat's install is easier for me mainly because they kept the packages that are included limited to what is REALLY NECESSARY. If, once I have installed everything that I feel is necessary, I want everything else, I will get it myself. I just don't need to deal with going through 3500 packages attempting to figure out which are necessary and which shouldn't have been included in the install in the first place.
Debian developers should be focusing on two things: reducing the packages in the main install, and getting a replacement for dselect. Relegate the 3000 non-critical, not commonly used packages to another CD set, or just don't include them in the base install. Allow them to be available after install, but dammit, leave it for after the critical stuff.
I hope they put together a nice set of update rpms... I don't feel like doing a reinstall. Too much of a pain.
The difference is that Emacs isn't an editor. Emacs is a lisp evaluation environment. It just happens that it edits text well. Most people who revere Emacs revere it for the fact that it does so much. I have a friend who never closes it; it is almost his window manager :)