>>But if most developers are writing for linux, then more software will start appearing for linux. Companies hiring these linux developers will have software written for linux, and the end user will have to use it.
Why? What does the number of developers have to do with anything? Suppose 1% of software developers work on MS-Office, what is to stop 95% of end users from using MS-Office? I just don't see the connection.
For a too brief period of time, I lived in an RV near the beach, in southern California. I had a health club membership for showers, and a P.O. box.
Perfect weather all year long, and not a care in the world. Every day I just did what ever I felt like doing. My living expenses where about $200 a month. I did a few temp jobs here and there.
But then I had to go to college get a house etc. Now I'm trapped.
I'm saying that bike lanes are a joke. They do *not* protect the bicyclist from a car.
Maybe, if a car hits you, you could win a case a court *maybe* But is that going to do you much good when you're squished underneth a car?
Bicyclists need to be seperated from motorized traffic by more than a stripe painted on the road. There must be some sort of physical barrier.
Unitil that happens, and it never will, I consider it stupid to use a bike as transportation. And it's too bad, because if bikes where used for transportation there would be fewer serious acceidents, we would have less dependence on foriegn oil, and less air pollution, and people would be healthier.
By the way, good luck in court if you are ever hit. The system is completely agaist you.
They don't belong on the streets with cars, they don't belong on the sidewalk with pedestrians, and "bike lanes" are a joke.
Long time ago I lived in Santa Barbara, CA. Probably the bicycly friendly city in the USA. I tried to use a bike as my primary transportation.
But, after being hit by cars twice, having my bike ruined and my colar bone broken both times; I gave up. Both times I was in the bicycly lane. Motorists and police see bicyclists as an annoyance.
Since the first Mac came out, nearly 20 years ago, I don't think there has been that much progress in making computers more usable. Every application works differently, I still have to navigate through menus, and/or remember all sorts of odd key combinations. I would have thought that, by now, computer interfaces would be way past that.
I don't consider this a user vs. developer issue. I have worked in IT over 20 years, but it takes me as long to learn a new application as it would take non-technical person.
I don't consider it an open-source vs. proprietary issue either. The same administration tasks are done differently from the Mandrake GUI vs. the RedHat GUI.
Frankly, I find that in the long run, it's easiest to learn the most primitive interface, and stick with that. I prefer to use *NIX systems from the command line, rather than learn a new GUI every month. I also find it easier to in the long run to edit HTML with a text editor, rather than trying to learn new WSIWIG HTML editors.
When will we be able to just tell the computer what we want, and let the computer handle the details?
>>Information technology, despite its relative youth, has been far slower to approach gender equality
I would love to see more women in IT. In over 20 years of working in IT, I have never seen anything done to keep women out. For whatever reason reason, women just don't *want* to work in IT.
>>Compare our prices to Asia and it will make you weep
In those countries, is broadband subsidized by their governments? Can we say the US telecoms are charging way too much when the US telecoms are going broke? Especially on broadband?
Even after IBM broke off with MS on OS/2 development , IBM would not put OS/2 on their own PCs. Genuine IBM PCs came with MS-Windows installed. I guess it was some sort of licensing agreement.
I thought it made IBM look bad. If OS/2 was "a better DOS than DOS, and a better Windows than Windows." Then why did IBM put DOS and Windows 3.1, on their own machines, instead of OS/2?
Martin Lawrence to 20M for "National Security"
on
New Mad Max Film
·
· Score: 1
At least Mel Gibson is an actual box office draw. What has Martin Lawrence ever done?
>>what they fail to realise is that i only go to the bathroom/kitchen/whatever during the commercials to begin with!
Damn good point. Even the commercials I do watch don't influence me. Often, I don't even know what they're advertising. Not as though I'm paying attention or anything.
OT: it's not just TV advertising either, in a typical day, I do the following, without even giving it a thought:
- delete all spam email - throw away those cards in magazines - close pop-up ads - hang up on telemarketers - send away door-to-door solicitors - do what I can to ignore billboards etc. - turn off radio when the ads start - flip through channels during commercials
The amount of advertising is so overwhelming, I don't see how anybody can do anything except ignore it all.
There was a bond marathon playing here. I watched some of it. I can't help thinking about the same points that were repeatedly made in the austin powers movies.
1) Why doesn't the bad guy just shoot bond? Instead the bad guy bad forces bond - at gunpoint - into some silly trap.
2) If the bad guy just wants money, why doesn't he do so by legitimate means? It would be 100X easier and more profitable.
- Some PC users whined endlessly about how DOS was useless unless you learned all those crypic commands. Yeah, there were about 10 commands you had to learn, and they were *so* difficult. For example to copy a file, the command was: "COPY" who could ever figure something so difficult!
- It was a cinch to *completely* delete, remove, or backup an application. For example, to completely move dBase from one PC to another, you could just laplink. In most cases, everything would immidiately work on the target PC. In fact, you could move the entire contents of your HDD this way.
- In most cases you could swap a HDD from one system to another and the target system would work with a hitch.
- Many applications would fit on a floppy, even a 360K floppy.
- There was only one place for an application to autostart: the autoexec.bat. Hence, no flood of background applications, starting from who-knows-where.
- Configuation files were few, small, text, and comprehensible.
IMO: it is a shame that nobody developed a good 32-bit DOS with a good TCP/IP stack; before windows became popular.
>>Just ask Netscape and Corel how unlikely a company is to lose their bread and butter if they start out with a huge market share lead
Netscape couldn't sell a product that was being given away for free. Corel couldn't sell a product that competed against an already established MS product.
But, openoffice is a *free* product competing against a very expensive MS product. And you don't have to change your OS to use openoffice, and openoffice can work with MS files.
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>>But if most developers are writing for linux, then more software will start appearing for linux. Companies hiring these linux developers will have software written for linux, and the end user will have to use it.
Why? What does the number of developers have to do with anything? Suppose 1% of software developers work on MS-Office, what is to stop 95% of end users from using MS-Office? I just don't see the connection.
For a too brief period of time, I lived in an RV near the beach, in southern California. I had a health club membership for showers, and a P.O. box.
Perfect weather all year long, and not a care in the world. Every day I just did what ever I felt like doing. My living expenses where about $200 a month. I did a few temp jobs here and there.
But then I had to go to college get a house etc. Now I'm trapped.
I'm saying that bike lanes are a joke. They do *not* protect the bicyclist from a car.
Maybe, if a car hits you, you could win a case a court *maybe* But is that going to do you much good when you're squished underneth a car?
Bicyclists need to be seperated from motorized traffic by more than a stripe painted on the road. There must be some sort of physical barrier.
Unitil that happens, and it never will, I consider it stupid to use a bike as transportation. And it's too bad, because if bikes where used for transportation there would be fewer serious acceidents, we would have less dependence on foriegn oil, and less air pollution, and people would be healthier.
By the way, good luck in court if you are ever hit. The system is completely agaist you.
They don't belong on the streets with cars, they don't belong on the sidewalk with pedestrians, and "bike lanes" are a joke.
Long time ago I lived in Santa Barbara, CA. Probably the bicycly friendly city in the USA. I tried to use a bike as my primary transportation.
But, after being hit by cars twice, having my bike ruined and my colar bone broken both times; I gave up. Both times I was in the bicycly lane. Motorists and police see bicyclists as an annoyance.
I think they may be coming to an end of life cycle. But, the way things change with PC, 15 years isn't too shabby.
If SCO has a reason to sue, shouldn't they have done so over 10 years ago?
Remember when Xerox tried to sue Apple over the idea of a GUI? I think that suit was thrown out becuase Xerox waited too long.
>>First a moron sues McDonalds for spilling coffee on herself and now we have this!
Don't forget about the 2nd, apparently fat, moron; who sued McDonalds for making him fat. Who knew McDonald's didn't sell health-food?
CompUSA, CircuitCity, and Dell, are all offering 1.6ghz systems for $699 after rebate. And these system include XP home edition.
>>It seems they are after Microsoft, not Linux. More Power to them
I'm sorry, that doesn't sense to me. I think Linux and FreeBSD are encrouching on Sun's territory more than MS.
Since the first Mac came out, nearly 20 years ago, I don't think there has been that much progress in making computers more usable. Every application works differently, I still have to navigate through menus, and/or remember all sorts of odd key combinations. I would have thought that, by now, computer interfaces would be way past that.
I don't consider this a user vs. developer issue. I have worked in IT over 20 years, but it takes me as long to learn a new application as it would take non-technical person.
I don't consider it an open-source vs. proprietary issue either. The same administration tasks are done differently from the Mandrake GUI vs. the RedHat GUI.
Frankly, I find that in the long run, it's easiest to learn the most primitive interface, and stick with that. I prefer to use *NIX systems from the command line, rather than learn a new GUI every month. I also find it easier to in the long run to edit HTML with a text editor, rather than trying to learn new WSIWIG HTML editors.
When will we be able to just tell the computer what we want, and let the computer handle the details?
I remember mandrake 7.2 boasting about having eleven different GUI environments. Eleven! Yeah, that sure simplifies things.
I only pay $5.95 for unlimited dial-up from access4less.net. I think people are crazy to pay over $20/month for aol/msn/earthlink.
This reminds of those: "Oh no, fewer CS graduates!" articles. I would say that less than 25% of people who work in IT have degrees in CS.
Look in any newspaper or job site. IT employers seldom look for CS degrees. And when they do, they will almost always accept the "equivilent"
To be a chemical engineer, you need a degree in chemical engineering. To work in IT, any degree will do, or no degree at all.
>>Information technology, despite its relative youth, has been far slower to approach gender equality
I would love to see more women in IT. In over 20 years of working in IT, I have never seen anything done to keep women out. For whatever reason reason, women just don't *want* to work in IT.
>>Compare our prices to Asia and it will make you weep
In those countries, is broadband subsidized by their governments? Can we say the US telecoms are charging way too much when the US telecoms are going broke? Especially on broadband?
I remember something about the terrorists using that to plan the 9/11 attack.
More damaging than any other "violent" game.
I agree, Linux is strong with servers. Desktops are another story.
Even after IBM broke off with MS on OS/2 development , IBM would not put OS/2 on their own PCs. Genuine IBM PCs came with MS-Windows installed. I guess it was some sort of licensing agreement.
I thought it made IBM look bad. If OS/2 was "a better DOS than DOS, and a better Windows than Windows." Then why did IBM put DOS and Windows 3.1, on their own machines, instead of OS/2?
At least Mel Gibson is an actual box office draw. What has Martin Lawrence ever done?
>>what they fail to realise is that i only go to the bathroom/kitchen/whatever during the commercials to begin with!
Damn good point. Even the commercials I do watch don't influence me. Often, I don't even know what they're advertising. Not as though I'm paying attention or anything.
OT: it's not just TV advertising either, in a typical day, I do the following, without even giving it a thought:
- delete all spam email
- throw away those cards in magazines
- close pop-up ads
- hang up on telemarketers
- send away door-to-door solicitors
- do what I can to ignore billboards etc.
- turn off radio when the ads start
- flip through channels during commercials
The amount of advertising is so overwhelming, I don't see how anybody can do anything except ignore it all.
>>Just because you find something annoying doesn't mean it should be against the law
It's not just annoying, it's misleading. Those ads might not fool you, but they must fool some people, otherwise bonzi wouldn't be able to sell them.
I haven't read the book. But, as I understand it, the ideas have been ripped-off so many times that the movie will have a worn out story and theme.
Hasn't this been done with Commander Data, and "Bicentinal man" and many other such addaptations?
There was a bond marathon playing here. I watched some of it. I can't help thinking about the same points that were repeatedly made in the austin powers movies.
1) Why doesn't the bad guy just shoot bond? Instead the bad guy bad forces bond - at gunpoint - into some silly trap.
2) If the bad guy just wants money, why doesn't he do so by legitimate means? It would be 100X easier and more profitable.
- Some PC users whined endlessly about how DOS was useless unless you learned all those crypic commands. Yeah, there were about 10 commands you had to learn, and they were *so* difficult. For example to copy a file, the command was: "COPY" who could ever figure something so difficult!
- It was a cinch to *completely* delete, remove, or backup an application. For example, to completely move dBase from one PC to another, you could just laplink. In most cases, everything would immidiately work on the target PC. In fact, you could move the entire contents of your HDD this way.
- In most cases you could swap a HDD from one system to another and the target system would work with a hitch.
- Many applications would fit on a floppy, even a 360K floppy.
- There was only one place for an application to autostart: the autoexec.bat. Hence, no flood of background applications, starting from who-knows-where.
- Configuation files were few, small, text, and comprehensible.
IMO: it is a shame that nobody developed a good 32-bit DOS with a good TCP/IP stack; before windows became popular.
>>Just ask Netscape and Corel how unlikely a company is to lose their bread and butter if they start out with a huge market share lead
Netscape couldn't sell a product that was being given away for free. Corel couldn't sell a product that competed against an already established MS product.
But, openoffice is a *free* product competing against a very expensive MS product. And you don't have to change your OS to use openoffice, and openoffice can work with MS files.
I think openoffice can take a bite out of MS.