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User: samf

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Comments · 39

  1. xscreensaver? on Saving Our Video Game Heritage · · Score: 1

    Last I checked, xmame didn't support drawing on the root window. Pity, since I think it would be very cool to have some of these video games as my screensavers via xscreensaver

    Does anyone know if this has changed, or how hard it would be to get a "-root" option to xmame?

  2. OH NO POKEY ITALIANS!!! on One-Finger Keyboarding? · · Score: 1

    Looking at the keyboard, it's obvious to me that it was designed by Pokey's arch-rival, the Italians!

  3. Re:[Q] Web-based version of ledger like GNUCash ?? on Gnucash v1.4.0 Released · · Score: 1

    I know of two.

    I have not used either of them.

  4. Dvorak? on PalmPilot Fullsize Keyboard · · Score: 1

    How easy would it be, given PalmOS or whatever, to remap this thing to Dvorak? Or for that matter, to remap it in general?

  5. Re:Could Sun be this dumb? (Ans: no) on Is Sun Truly A Friend of Linux? · · Score: 1
    Besdies all the people who do real computing and the people the idi^H^H^H average users ask advice of will never go for it. Who wants their typewriter to stop working when the phone does? "Johnny where is your homework?" "Oh, a network card blew at the CO, I think a dog peed on it."

    Oh, come on. You're saying that your phone line is less reliable than your computer? Or that the average idi^H^H^Huser does better backups than a centralized provider would?

    Rag on thin-clients if you want, but if they ever do take off in a home or SOHO environment, I imagine that their reliability will be one of their main advantages.

  6. 3D Glasses on LCD Monitor For Your Eyes Only · · Score: 1

    In high school, my friend removed the appropriate film from his calculator, as others here have described.

    This was in the early '80s, when `Friday the Thirteenth part III in 3-D' was out, as well as other 3D movies that used polarizing glasses. So one eye saw black-on-white and the other eye saw white-on-black.

    Even better, the glasses that he needed to view his calculator were decorated with fireplace-pokers with blood dripping from them, hockey masks, etc. He also had glasses from `Jaws 3 in 3D' and a Molly Ringwald movie called `Space Hunter' (iirc) -- but the two were *combined* into one pair of glasses. So this had shark fins and space ships on it. Man, I envied him.

  7. Re:Dish TV from Echostar of course on Ask Slashdot: The Dish · · Score: 1
    So I throw a question back at the Slashdot readers, What would you want to see in a Linux based set-top satellite receiver?


    A login prompt, and an account where I could login!

    Seriously, it would be very cool if we had this, as well as the ability to write apps that controled the box somewhat. E.g. you could write a perl (or whatever) script that flipped channels at certain times. Heck, I'd prefer `cron' to the usual way I have to program VCR's!

    Just imagine what it would be like if a developer's toolkit did get published. Look at the Palm (Pilot), and all the apps that people develop for it!
  8. Predatory pricing is another name for competition on RMS on Dealing with MS · · Score: 1

    And what is stopping someone else to enter the market once you start "gouging" me?

    And what is stopping the near-monopoly from dropping their prices again as soon as you try to "enter the market"? They only have to do it until you're bankrupt.

    "Entering a market" isn't free. It takes quite a bit of work to start a business, and usually, it takes money. Assuming you're not a bored billionaire, you'll probably have to borrow money to start up. Knowing that your competition can lower prices below the level of making a profit would make me very reluctant to loan you any money.

    ... Any of these niche players will take the opportunity when they start "gouging" and expand their market share.

    Really? That is guaranteed to happen? You sound awfully cock-sure about this.

    Remember also that demand is elastic. I will have to sell a lot of stuff below cost to drive my competition out of business, and then no one will want to buy from me once I drive prices up.

    And a company like Microsoft can sell a lot of stuff below cost. Below cost? They're giving Internet Explorer away for free, for heaven's sake! Do you think their development costs were zero?

    So, Wal-mart or Microsoft or whomever gets their near-monopoly. They raise prices; you say that no one will want to buy from them. So what? What choice do people have? Once a competator comes along, and people do have a choice, they just lower prices again to drive them out of business.

    It's not really that hard to see why this sort of thing is illegal.

    There is also the issue of definition: at what point does fair competition become "predatory pricing?" In practice, it means pretty much whatever the judge involved says it means, which is very bad law.

    No, it really not that fuzzy. If you are dumping your product into a market for less that in costs you to provide that product, then it's illegal. For good reason.

  9. Not a bad mascot... on Lucy Linux, Dressed to Kill · · Score: 1

    It's funny this came up, because I've always thought of the Mac as kind of a cute girl. I like them, but I don't have any desire to be one. Similar for Mac: I like them, I'm glad they're around, but I wouldn't normally use them.

  10. I'M NOT DEAD I'M SLEEPING!!! on The end of Pokey the Penguin · · Score: 1

    Vanilla Ice!

    - Sam

    p.s. - Is this the end of PPMP?

  11. Without commands, Linus's kernel is also useless. on RMS Immature, Slashdot and Community Arrogant? · · Score: 1

    And if you have the Linux kernel siting on a disk by itself -- what then? You have a box that spits out a few messages about what hardware is on the system and then just sits there, executing the idle process. Not much more useful than the GNU utilities by themselves.

    So what? Without semiconductors, you can't have much of anything either. Should semiconductors be included in the GNU/Linux name, too? I don't think so, and I don't think you do, either.

    I personally give a lot of credit to the GNU tools, and I'll bet that most other people do too. The problem is that this whole "I'm gonna hold my breath until you call it GNU/Linux" thing comes off as so much whining. People call it "Linux" -- get over it.

    And I don't understand your third to the last paragraph (about Solaris being called BSD/XOpen/Sun/SysVR4 would be absurd), where you seem to be arguing against yourself.

    The point is that people already refer to a system with a Linux kernel as just "Linux". Insisting on a different name is just whining at this point; if Hurd hadn't been so delayed, RMS and company might have had more control over what we call things. But Hurd slipped, Linux happened, and life goes on.

    So all this "GNU/Linux" is "technically correct" is hogwash. A name is just a name. And this way of thinking is what's fueling the whole 100%-GNU-free Linux system. At first I thought it was a mildly amusing waste of resources, but now I'm starting to side with the daemon penguin people.

    I've heard that Apple was upset when people started pronouncing SCSI as "scuzzy". Boo hoo. No person I knew ever used the term in a pejorative way, so Apple was just whining about nothing.

  12. Without an OS, GNU's software is useless. on RMS Immature, Slashdot and Community Arrogant? · · Score: 1

    I appreciate the work that the GNU project does. I don't appreciate being TOLD to refer to my system as a GNU system because I use their software in conjunction with Linux.

    Yes. This is what really annoys me about the whole thing.

    And I'm sure someone will say "without a C compiler there'd be no kernel", and this is true. But what about C? I don't hear Dennis Ritchie whining about how he gets no respect. He does get respect, but so does RMS. And I haven't heard Dennis insisting that we call it C/GNU/Linux (thank heaven).

    Come on, RMS! We like you, but quit your whining.

  13. RMS/FSF only being treated like corporate drones on RMS Immature, Slashdot and Community Arrogant? · · Score: 1

    By reputation, it seems that RMS (and maybe much of the FSF) is as far removed from the capitalist, corporate world as you can get. On the other hand, the way RMS/FSF have been treated with the advent of the Linux kernel is pretty typical of how corporate drones (like me) get treated all the time.

    I remember 1990 very well, hearing about how FSF had access to Mach, and this was going to give rise to the GNU Hurd. I was so excited! The potential features that were being discussed, combined with the PC hardware that was cheap even then... I didn't expect anything right away, but...

    Weeks became months, months became one year, two years, year after year... I think I remember something about it being "released" sometime back, but to this day, I don't know one single person running GNU/Hurd, almost ten years later.

    Now, suppose the Hurd project had been run in a corporate setting. You're damned right they'd get dinged for slipping like that! Are there good technical arguments behind their decisions? I'm sure there are. Are the FSF folks good coders? Hell yes! So has their treatment been entirely fair? Probably not; I'd say they deserve more recognition than they get. But they do have my respect, and the respect of a large chunk of the more technical among us.

    However, why is RMS clamoring about how unfair it is for Linus to get all this attention, and forcing (as much as it's possible to force someone) to say GNU/Linux instead of just Linux? These things really do get annoying. People sometimes behave this way in the corporate world, too. It's annoying in both places.

    This, of course, is what's driving things like the 100% FSF-free Linux system. I'm not "mad enough at RMS and company" to participate in it, but I do see where they're coming from.

    Do things like "100% FSF-free Linux" happen in the corporate world? Probably, in the form of political battles between big VPs who don't get along.

  14. Ditto on Pedals for your PC (but not for gaming) · · Score: 1

    I too can vouch for the Kinesis. And, I have also gone Dvorak, but I didn't do this until many months after buying the Kinesis. Of the two changes, I think the Kinesis made the most difference. But I'm an emacs user, and the control and alt keys on each thumb is a huge win.

    Problems people will site are `no one else can use my keyboard' and `I won't be able to use any other keyboard'. With the former, Kinesis sells a `combiner' so that you can have a flat keyboard in tandem, if that's a big worry. For the latter, it's possible to switch back and forth, the flat one is just uncomfortable. (But using Dvorak opens a whole other can of worms!)

    Does it work with Linux? Of course, provided your machine can take a PC keyboard. If not, Kinesis sells adapters for Sun and Mac. They have some software that runs on DOS, but you don't need it, not even for the QWERTY/Dvorak switching.

    I have no financial interest in Kinesis, other than I'd like them to stay in business so I can buy more keyboards when the two I own wear out!