Seriously, one of these days Microsoft is going to invent a REVOLUTIONARY new transport mechanism taking advantage of rotating objects with azimuthal symmetry to support a moving object with little friction and no change in gravitational potential energy.
In the old days, the internet was built on protocols. "Social media" mostly meant things like Usenet and IRC, and people hosted websites by spinning up an Apache instance that spoke HTTP and would serve their content to anyone who asked. And so there was never that big of a stink about censorship-by-nonprovision-of-services, since anyone could run an IRC server. Communities themselves were responsible for their own infrastructure. Don't like a particular IRC client? Use a different one. Don't like the folks who run a particular IRC server? Run your own.
But now that "I have apache running on a linux box in my basement hosting my blog" has given way to these "services", where communication platforms usually involve a for-profit company running all the infrastructure themselves in an opaque way. Aside from all the other issues that come from a corporate advertising-supported model, people are now learning that you can't trust these companies. The people I know who use tumblr as a primary means of communication are all going "gee, I wonder who else we can trust? We thought we could trust these folks."
But... this isn't inevitable, and there's no reason that the next big thing in social networking can't be designed as an open protocol, with no central point of control -- a system where people may choose to provide the infrastructure required to power their Facegram or Instabook or whatever themselves, or (more likely) hire someone replaceable to do it for them. Open protocols can't be sold out and can't be owned.
Hardware capability is through the roof now. My smartphone has more storage, more processing power, and more bandwidth than the machines hosting IRC servers not that many years ago. There are no technical barriers to crowd-hosted social media.
Not the scientific world. Whenever someone in my field wants to author a document it's LaTeX or Markdown. Whenever someone wants a database it's awk/sed/grep/perl/python. On the rare occasions someone wants a spreadsheet it's Libreoffice as often as it is Office.
My XPS 13 seems quite well built. There is a slightly bent corner after a fall from 4 feet onto concrete (ow!), but other than that it's held up to very heavy use for two years. The aluminum seems sturdier than Macs.
There've been no problems with the hardware and it runs (L/K)ubuntu just fine.
People run browsers on laptops, some with soldered-in memory.
My laptop doesn't have soldered-in memory, but only has 8GB; it was a pretty high-spec Dell XPS 13 when I bought it. I don't have swap enabled, since when I got the machine it only had a 128gb SSD, and while I've upgraded that since then I've not bothered to make a swap partition.
I would really prefer my web browser behave itself and not chew up three-quarters of that unless it is absolutely necessary; I'm running Opera at the moment and it seems to behave itself.
One of the best parts about Linux is the split between the OS and particular desktop environments. I think Unity does things in a pretty terrible way and is not at all good for the way I work. So I don't complain about it; I just use lxde instead.
With Windows you don't have that choice, at least not easily. When Microsoft decides that something will suck, there's rarely a supported alternative to the suck.
No, because it's already been in use for 20 years, and thus can't be a Bold New Thing for some team at Microsoft that needs to justify its existence to management.
I mean...... I have different directories for different things, and I know what programs (not "apps", fuck you) go with which files by the letters that come after the little dot in the filename that Windows, in all of its magnificent idiocy-provoking glory, doesn't even bother to show you. It doesn't take a massive amount of intellect to realize that filename.jpg is probably a picture, and that you can app it with whatever apps your appy ass apps appy pictures with. Apps!
(Where is app luddite guy? I admit I only opened the comments here to see what that guy had written.)
Why not stop trying to come up with radical new shapes for wheels ("I know! Maybe pentagons!") and focus on making their software not suck?
I don't like Apple. I don't like the way they do business or the design of their products.
I'm typing this on a Dell laptop running Ubuntu. No skin off my teeth if someone else has a Mac (other than that nobody ever has the right dongles for projectors. "Hey, anyone got a DisplayPort to HDMI adapter? No, the new DisplayPort, not the old one...")
Yes, and I've tried talking to the post office and mail carrier. They insist that they are being paid to deliver junk mail and that no action on my part can make them stop delivering it.
Junk paper mail -- the local grocery stores all sending out circulars to "current resident" telling me how much ham costs -- is a worse plague than anything electronic. There are no laws against it (since the USPS gets cash from the spammers), there's no way to filter it (since it's physical), you're required to constantly check it (or else the box gets full and USPS gets butthurt), and you can't stop using that communication channel (since the government uses it, and if you don't get their shit then they get butthurt and they have guns).
I suspect that the drain on the environment from paper spam is orders of magnitude higher than for e-spam, too.
Slashdot Mirror
Typing this on my XPS 15 -- a fantastic machine for a fraction of the price of Macs.
arandr has been working just fine, thanks.
Seriously, one of these days Microsoft is going to invent a REVOLUTIONARY new transport mechanism taking advantage of rotating objects with azimuthal symmetry to support a moving object with little friction and no change in gravitational potential energy.
In the old days, the internet was built on protocols. "Social media" mostly meant things like Usenet and IRC, and people hosted websites by spinning up an Apache instance that spoke HTTP and would serve their content to anyone who asked. And so there was never that big of a stink about censorship-by-nonprovision-of-services, since anyone could run an IRC server. Communities themselves were responsible for their own infrastructure. Don't like a particular IRC client? Use a different one. Don't like the folks who run a particular IRC server? Run your own.
But now that "I have apache running on a linux box in my basement hosting my blog" has given way to these "services", where communication platforms usually involve a for-profit company running all the infrastructure themselves in an opaque way. Aside from all the other issues that come from a corporate advertising-supported model, people are now learning that you can't trust these companies. The people I know who use tumblr as a primary means of communication are all going "gee, I wonder who else we can trust? We thought we could trust these folks."
But ... this isn't inevitable, and there's no reason that the next big thing in social networking can't be designed as an open protocol, with no central point of control -- a system where people may choose to provide the infrastructure required to power their Facegram or Instabook or whatever themselves, or (more likely) hire someone replaceable to do it for them. Open protocols can't be sold out and can't be owned.
Hardware capability is through the roof now. My smartphone has more storage, more processing power, and more bandwidth than the machines hosting IRC servers not that many years ago. There are no technical barriers to crowd-hosted social media.
I wish I had mod points for you.
Or their home machines.
The extra rhyme makes this one meta-meta-funny. Good job, app-mocking troll, good job. Here's a cookie.
Email has distinct "From:" and "Reply-To:" headers. Why can't the phone service?
Can you send some of those HMRC agents that will pick up the phone and answer questions about taxes to the IRS?
Not the scientific world. Whenever someone in my field wants to author a document it's LaTeX or Markdown. Whenever someone wants a database it's awk/sed/grep/perl/python. On the rare occasions someone wants a spreadsheet it's Libreoffice as often as it is Office.
If they're batteries they're already DC. Maybe that's the issue?
My XPS 13 seems quite well built. There is a slightly bent corner after a fall from 4 feet onto concrete (ow!), but other than that it's held up to very heavy use for two years. The aluminum seems sturdier than Macs.
There've been no problems with the hardware and it runs (L/K)ubuntu just fine.
Does this mean whenever I start moving the mouse around Firefox is going to madly start running a bunch of javascript, spinning my CPU up to full?
Ye gods. Delay in switching to a new tab is not an issue.
Are you interested in bridges? I have a very fine one I'm selling.
People run browsers on laptops, some with soldered-in memory.
My laptop doesn't have soldered-in memory, but only has 8GB; it was a pretty high-spec Dell XPS 13 when I bought it. I don't have swap enabled, since when I got the machine it only had a 128gb SSD, and while I've upgraded that since then I've not bothered to make a swap partition.
I would really prefer my web browser behave itself and not chew up three-quarters of that unless it is absolutely necessary; I'm running Opera at the moment and it seems to behave itself.
One of the best parts about Linux is the split between the OS and particular desktop environments. I think Unity does things in a pretty terrible way and is not at all good for the way I work. So I don't complain about it; I just use lxde instead.
With Windows you don't have that choice, at least not easily. When Microsoft decides that something will suck, there's rarely a supported alternative to the suck.
What about technical people who have been spoiled by linux systems? Linux "just works" a lot better than Windows these days.
I have an old shitty logitech wireless keyboard that'll do that for you.
INTERN~1 was easily the worst browser of its era...
No, because it's already been in use for 20 years, and thus can't be a Bold New Thing for some team at Microsoft that needs to justify its existence to management.
I mean... ... I have different directories for different things, and I know what programs (not "apps", fuck you) go with which files by the letters that come after the little dot in the filename that Windows, in all of its magnificent idiocy-provoking glory, doesn't even bother to show you. It doesn't take a massive amount of intellect to realize that filename.jpg is probably a picture, and that you can app it with whatever apps your appy ass apps appy pictures with. Apps!
(Where is app luddite guy? I admit I only opened the comments here to see what that guy had written.)
Why not stop trying to come up with radical new shapes for wheels ("I know! Maybe pentagons!") and focus on making their software not suck?
I mean, the modern American Right has a lot of bullies, pedophiles, and trolls in it, and the jihadis just don't call themselves that.
This.
I don't like Apple. I don't like the way they do business or the design of their products.
I'm typing this on a Dell laptop running Ubuntu. No skin off my teeth if someone else has a Mac (other than that nobody ever has the right dongles for projectors. "Hey, anyone got a DisplayPort to HDMI adapter? No, the new DisplayPort, not the old one...")
Congrats to the Dutch for actually making a solution to this.
Yes, and I've tried talking to the post office and mail carrier. They insist that they are being paid to deliver junk mail and that no action on my part can make them stop delivering it.
Junk paper mail -- the local grocery stores all sending out circulars to "current resident" telling me how much ham costs -- is a worse plague than anything electronic. There are no laws against it (since the USPS gets cash from the spammers), there's no way to filter it (since it's physical), you're required to constantly check it (or else the box gets full and USPS gets butthurt), and you can't stop using that communication channel (since the government uses it, and if you don't get their shit then they get butthurt and they have guns).
I suspect that the drain on the environment from paper spam is orders of magnitude higher than for e-spam, too.