Some of us don't care about the hood being welded shut.
That's fine; to each his/her own. But my point is that maybe you don't have to go "under the hood" with Linux nearly as much as you assume (or at all). The major distributions make installations and upgrades pretty painless. I used to run Windows, too. I have non-techie friends and relatives who still do; they usually assume that Linux is "too difficult" for them, but when I show them how I use it they're at a loss to tell me exactly why. It seems to boil down to things just being a little different; they've figured out some habitual ways of doing things and they'll resist having to repeat that process in a new environment. It would be much the same migrating in the other direction.
If you have ever coded in one of these languages you would know it increases productivity beyond anything possible in C or C++.
With the right tools, development with C++ can be a satisfying experience as well. I've written a couple of apps with gtkmm (a C++ wrapper around GTK+) and found the experience similar to coding with Java and Swing. Aside from the convenience of garbage collection - the need for which is partly a function of your coding style and habits anyway - the appeal of Java is largely in the class libraries that come with it. The choice of class libraries can easily make or break your experience with C++, as well.
Why are the end-users asked to know what their OS is?
So your Mac binaries are working just fine on your Windows box, are they?
Why should I have to know how to compile (or even know what "compile" is)?
Well, you don't. Just about every app I can think of is available in binary form (e.g., as an RPM file); all you have to do is download and install.
last time I checked, 99.9999% of car drivers out there only know how to fill their gas and windshield cleaner tanks. But they all still own and use their cars.
But unless they have a decent mechanic to maintain and repair it, they won't for very long. It's just a fact of life that those who refuse to learn to do anything for themselves are going to find themselves limited in many ways and dependent on others. That's true whether we're talking computers, cars, plumbing, or brain surgery.
I don't think you're upset because you can't figure out how to download and install a binary for a Linux app; I'll bet you can if you try. What you resent is that the guy down the street can fix his car in his own garage while you have to take yours to the shop for every oil change. Microsoft "welds the hood shut" for everybody, so you'll never have to envy those who are willing and eager to learn.
You won't drink water from the tap anymore unless it's heavily filtered.
Mine's fine, thanks, YMMV...
But a buck a liter? You'd howl if your gasoline cost that much. You do know that you're just getting somebody else's tap/well water, right? Costs next to nothing to filter it, so it must be those costly cosmic vibrations they add... or something. With the right advertising you can make anything seem reasonable, I guess...
You mean the Johnson administration? That was more than a few years ago.
Yes, Johnson wisely knew that Americans would only support a senseless war as long as they weren't made to pay for it. That's how deep even the most strident patriotism runs sometimes.
And I remember the aftermath in the 70s, too: simultaneously soaring interest rates and unemployment. Look for more of the same as the Bushies continue to follow Argentina's example...
since the FBI is funded with everyone American's dollars.
That may have been true a few years ago, but fortunately we now have an administration with the will and wisdom to make our children and grandchildren pay instead. So live it up and just hope you die before the bill shows up!
The ones who fear these things are the ones who really have something to hide.
This is true because, as Authority Figures, our exalted leaders and police officials can be trusted completely to act diligently and with only the public interest in mind. Abuses of power for political or personal reasons are quite impossible, now and evermore. Liberals foolishly fail to understand this simple fact that every Good Dog knows.
The really cool thing about this is that they'll always be able to round up a good number of plausible suspects for anything that might happen, without all the hassle and expense of identifying the actual perpetrator or - what's worse - having to actually prove guilt. That way Ashcroft et.al. get to look like heroes whether any real justice is done or not. We the People insist on no more than that somebody be apprehended. I'd like to have a job like that. I could say, "Lookee here, Mr. Boss-Man, sir. I wrote you a hunnert lines o' code," and Mr. Boss-Man wouldn't even care if it compiled, much less did anything useful.
I dunno about you, but I didn't enjoy the Spain incident.
You're taking a big leap of faith here if you're suggesting that the liberty/safety trade-off is real. Under Hitler, Stalin and Mao, nobody was safe. Don't expect any better here if we hand absolute power to Bush and his minions (or anyone else, for that matter).
Having done a lot of image analysis work in the past, I have to say that this doesn't look very difficult. The "noise" in this image consists of vertical and horizontal lines of various colors that traverse its entire extent; removal of these is trivial. The characters themselves are very clean and regular. The varying Y-offets add no complexity at all, because it's only the X dimension that matters. This could be cracked in a day by anyone who cares enough to spend a day doing it.
What you need is some non-transparent dependency between the contents of the image and the instructions that go along with it; i.e., the proper interpretation of the image shouldn't be obvious without the instructions. Of course, if it's too complex then some people won't be able to send you mail, but maybe that's not always such a bad thing...
Typical/. hypocrisy. When you misappropriate IP in the form of music, movies, and software, you say it's not "theft" -- but when someone does the same to your website, you call them thieves, and get all up at arms about it...
Damn, the secret's out. Slashdot is really just one person, clacking madly away at the keyboard and pretending to be a vast community. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome will be the end of Slashdot, mark my words.
Do you not think that market dominance is not an appropriate goal for Linux?
The wording of that question makes my head hurt, but to try to answer it anyway: No, I don't think market dominance is - or should be - a goal for Linux. As a long-time Linux user, I sometimes worry that if Linux took more than a fifth or so of all desktops, it would turn into the same kind of user-abusive cesspool that the Windows world has become (although hopefully the GPL would protect us from much of that). Things are pretty nice on this side of the fence as they are...
I just looked at the image and can kind of see what you're referring to. I'd say the pattern is basically random and the structure we think we see is a cognitive artifact, like human faces on martian rocks...
Well, you know, it's possible that both sides are right about many of these things. If we need everything to have a simple connection to "good" or "bad" in our little brains, then we're going to be confused and disappointed by what science has to offer us. Until someone invents a reliable goodometer, that is...
Well, yesterday I read about a study financed by the National Dairy Council concluding that you can keep those excess pounds off of your kids by feeding them lots of milk and cheese. I'd include a link but I haven't had my 3rd cup of coffee yet...
Slashdot Mirror
Wish I'd know that a few days ago...
That's fine; to each his/her own. But my point is that maybe you don't have to go "under the hood" with Linux nearly as much as you assume (or at all). The major distributions make installations and upgrades pretty painless. I used to run Windows, too. I have non-techie friends and relatives who still do; they usually assume that Linux is "too difficult" for them, but when I show them how I use it they're at a loss to tell me exactly why. It seems to boil down to things just being a little different; they've figured out some habitual ways of doing things and they'll resist having to repeat that process in a new environment. It would be much the same migrating in the other direction.
With the right tools, development with C++ can be a satisfying experience as well. I've written a couple of apps
with gtkmm (a C++ wrapper around GTK+) and found the experience similar to coding with Java and Swing. Aside from the convenience of garbage collection - the need for which is partly a function of your coding style and habits anyway - the appeal of Java is largely in the class libraries that come with it. The choice of class libraries can easily make or break your experience with C++, as well.
So your Mac binaries are working just fine on your Windows box, are they?
Why should I have to know how to compile (or even know what "compile" is)?
Well, you don't. Just about every app I can think of is available in binary form (e.g., as an RPM file); all you have to do is download and install.
last time I checked, 99.9999% of car drivers out there only know how to fill their gas and windshield cleaner tanks. But they all still own and use their cars.
But unless they have a decent mechanic to maintain and repair it, they won't for very long. It's just a fact of life that those who refuse to learn to do anything for themselves are going to find themselves limited in many ways and dependent on others. That's true whether we're talking computers, cars, plumbing, or brain surgery.
I don't think you're upset because you can't figure out how to download and install a binary for a Linux app; I'll bet you can if you try. What you resent is that the guy down the street can fix his car in his own garage while you have to take yours to the shop for every oil change. Microsoft "welds the hood shut" for everybody, so you'll never have to envy those who are willing and eager to learn.
Mine's fine, thanks, YMMV...
But a buck a liter? You'd howl if your gasoline cost that much. You do know that you're just getting somebody else's tap/well water, right? Costs next to nothing to filter it, so it must be those costly cosmic vibrations they add... or something. With the right advertising you can make anything seem reasonable, I guess...
I know people who pay about the same price for bottled drinking water.
I only enable Flash when I specifically need it. Otherwise, 90% of what comes through for it is annoying crap.
Could be he doesn't own it at all, but is looking for a finders fee when he refers potential buyers to whomever does...
I'm surprised that Dick Cheney hasn't bought one of these. It probably cost at least that much to build his bunker at the Naval Observatory...
Yes, Johnson wisely knew that Americans would only support a senseless war as long as they weren't made to pay for it. That's how deep even the most strident patriotism runs sometimes.
And I remember the aftermath in the 70s, too: simultaneously soaring interest rates and unemployment. Look for more of the same as the Bushies continue to follow Argentina's example...
That may have been true a few years ago, but fortunately we now have an administration with the will and wisdom to make our children and grandchildren pay instead. So live it up and just hope you die before the bill shows up!
I just want something I can shove up my ass to keep my laptop running...
This is true because, as Authority Figures, our exalted leaders and police officials can be trusted completely to act diligently and with only the public interest in mind. Abuses of power for political or personal reasons are quite impossible, now and evermore. Liberals foolishly fail to understand this simple fact that every Good Dog knows.
The really cool thing about this is that they'll always be able to round up a good number of plausible suspects for anything that might happen, without all the hassle and expense of identifying the actual perpetrator or - what's worse - having to actually prove guilt. That way Ashcroft et.al. get to look like heroes whether any real justice is done or not. We the People insist on no more than that somebody be apprehended. I'd like to have a job like that. I could say, "Lookee here, Mr. Boss-Man, sir. I wrote you a hunnert lines o' code," and Mr. Boss-Man wouldn't even care if it compiled, much less did anything useful.
I dunno about you, but I didn't enjoy the Spain incident.
You're taking a big leap of faith here if you're suggesting that the liberty/safety trade-off is real. Under Hitler, Stalin and Mao, nobody was safe. Don't expect any better here if we hand absolute power to Bush and his minions (or anyone else, for that matter).
What you need is some non-transparent dependency between the contents of the image and the instructions that go along with it; i.e., the proper interpretation of the image shouldn't be obvious without the instructions. Of course, if it's too complex then some people won't be able to send you mail, but maybe that's not always such a bad thing...
Damn, the secret's out. Slashdot is really just one person, clacking madly away at the keyboard and pretending to be a vast community. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome will be the end of Slashdot, mark my words.
The wording of that question makes my head hurt, but to try to answer it anyway: No, I don't think market dominance is - or should be - a goal for Linux. As a long-time Linux user, I sometimes worry that if Linux took more than a fifth or so of all desktops, it would turn into the same kind of user-abusive cesspool that the Windows world has become (although hopefully the GPL would protect us from much of that). Things are pretty nice on this side of the fence as they are...
Given the risk of lawsuits from shareholders, maybe they should consider using some of that Microsoft cash to take themselves private...
And this was impossible up until now exactly why?
I use less so much I've almost forgotten about more.
Yes, that's very amusing, but remember that there could be some newbies reading this that just might try it out.
But then, I guess that's what makes it funny...
I just looked at the image and can kind of see what you're referring to. I'd say the pattern is basically random and the structure we think we see is a cognitive artifact, like human faces on martian rocks...
The concentric circles are most likely not you. Probably a gravitational lens, actually.
Well, you know, it's possible that both sides are right about many of these things. If we need everything to have a simple connection to "good" or "bad" in our little brains, then we're going to be confused and disappointed by what science has to offer us. Until someone invents a reliable goodometer, that is...
Well, yesterday I read about a study financed by the National Dairy Council concluding that you can keep those excess pounds off of your kids by feeding them lots of milk and cheese. I'd include a link but I haven't had my 3rd cup of coffee yet...
Caffeine has been an ingredient in many over-the-counter pain relief meds for a long time. Excedrin, for one...