> Futurama was one of those shows that was driven by one character's unrequited love for another.
Actually, you watch the earlier episodes and there's pretty much no sign of any love interest. And it was still a good show.
Of course, there was the whole Nibbler pushing Fry into the freezer bit in the first episode, so they probably knew what they were doing from the start with Fry and Leela.
> The sad truth is we're heading towards a prime time populated entirely by 'reality' programming.
Damn, I wish I can accurately recall the bit from the Daily Show. Barbara Walters or someone was interviewing a bunch of jurors, and she asked them what it was like to be in the court... "It was like reality TV, wasn't it?"
Jon Stewart's comment was something to the effect of: "yes, that's right folks... REALITY has finally become just like a reality TV show..."
> The key to Family Guy's ressurection was not only beating letterman and leno in it's time slot on adult swim [...]
Not to say Family Guy isn't brilliant... because it is... but beating Letterman and Leno isn't saying much, these days.;^)
Admittedly, I used to love Carson, Letterman, and even Leno, back in the day. Looking at them again today, either Letterman and Leno have gone way down hill, or I had much more patience for annoying old men when I was younger.:^)
And honestly, Leno's an insensitive ass, and not very funny. I'd much rather watch the MadTV impersonation of Leno than the ACTUAL Leno.
Oh, and don't get me started on the Daily Show. THAT show kicks f[censored]ing ass! (For those of you at home, I said "f[censored]ing"...)
> "When a new song begins to play, JuK can show its title over the panel for a few seconds. You can even go back or skip ahead!" > For me it is most annoying feature on mozilla firefox (download manager)
Right-click Juk in the systray. Uncheck the "Popup Track Announcement" option.
Or, in the Juk window, click the "Settings" menu. Uncheck the "Popup Track Announcement" option.
Since you weren't AT my presentation at LUGOD, you weren't there to hear me say "You can turn all this stuff on or off.":^)
Ditto with KGet. I'm not sure if I mention it in my slides, but it's completely optional. If you don't want or need to run or even install KGet, Konqueror can download files just fine without it. It's simply an add-on.
> It helps to have a common denominator. Even if this is the as low as it is at the moment (windows)
Which is why when someone at the coffee shops asks if I can help them get onto wireless, it's difficult for me because their Windows XP has a completely different configuration than my work laptop's Windows XP (either because of my wireless card's drivers & software, or their's). Or they're using Windows 2000 or Win98, so it's different. Bleah! >:^(
> Antialiased fonts might be nice on a CRT where fuzziness is the norm, but on an LCD it only makes text blurrier and harder to read. Cleartype is something a little bit worse again.
Actually, while my main excuse is "haven't gotten around to turning AA back on since reinstalling Debian", I think another factor is that I've bumped my screen resolution up another notch, so on my cruddy old monitor, I really don't notice the 'stair-steps' in the fonts as much, and therefore I don't really feel the need for AA as much as I did before...
> IMHO a bad move to put that as the third picture in a user friendliness document, but well. Forgive the nerds...
Well, remember that TECHNICALLY, my audience was a room full of folks at a Linux User Group meeting.
If I had been plugging KDE at a "PC" User Group, or in a 'basics' class, I would definitely have shown different things. Probably fewer things, too.
As I've said before, my point is to show that, from an end-user's perspective (not a programmer, not a server admin, etc.) KDE is chock full of useful capabilities.
I WAS hoping that non-Linux-users or Linux-newbies might show up and soak it all in, and maybe ask some questions. And we did have something like a half dozen first-time visitors pop in for the meeting. (That included a bunch of folks from the FAA who carpooled in.:^) )
I tend to agree. I think the message "Could not play CD. There may be no CD inserted or the disc may be scratched" is a good one, and having the technical hoo-haw exposable with a "More details..." button would be good.
This is the kind of thing people need to be talking about in the kde-quality project, and posting as wishlist items to bugs.kde.org. IMO. (IANA KDE Developer)
Unfortunately, I hadn't turned on AA before I had to put my slides together. One of my HDDs started 'clicking' recently, and I did a fresh install of Debian Woody and KDE 3.2. I haven't done any extra configuration to my XFree86 setup to enable things like AA text, 3D accelleration (if you can call a Voodoo 3 2000 accellerated these days;^) )
With things like DCOP and component-based thingamajigs, I would say that it's EXTREMELY easy to whip up a little app that shows KDE's control center components in a 'category' mode.
> I really believe it's the applications that make a difference in converting a user to a different OS
Perhaps true for converting from one OS to another.
The thing is, though -- and this was one of the whole points of my talk -- is that I, as a Linux user, have begun using KDE's built-in functionalities to avoid actually running a lot of apps!
Why "tar -tzf" to see the contents of a tar file, when I can just browse it (with thumbnails and all!) in Konqueror?
Why bother learning to use some command-line CD ripping tool, when I can literally drag-n-drop to do it?
Now, the Linux geek in me is screaming "this should be at a lower level; closer to the kernel, and outside of Konqueror!"... e.g., so I can "cd" into a tar file, and "cp" MP3s off of my virtual audio CD.
And I'm sure there are tools for these. They just aren't quite as obvious, nor as 'user friendly' (vs 'geeky') as what desktop interfaces like OSX, GNOME and KDE are providing these days.
Honestly, as much as I love Unix command line power, I still love the old PalmOS, Mac OS System 7.5 and my TiVo.:^)
> I'm certainly not going to condemn Bill Gates or the KDE folks to long prison sentences for their colour scheme, however depressing it may be.
Hey! For one, the color scheme is MINE, and not simply KDE's. KDE has a TON of color schemes, and you can obviously make your own.
Secondly, I often use my PC late at night, and find that darker tones are WAY better on my eyes.
On the other hand, I did get sick of the gloomy backgrounds, and since putting together these slides have switched to some nicer ones; then decided my color scheme didn't match, so now I have a pale-blue-ish one with grey.
Some people suggested I should have shown off the various themes you can use in KDE. The point of my slides was really to show the KDE stuff that so many people were unfamiliar with. I imagined most of the non-KDE-using folks in my LUG, and figured they would be neither surprised, nor impressed with the fact that KDE has themes. They already KNEW that!;^)
Anyway, while I have gotten a few comments about my choice of theme and color scheme, and now see them being picked apart here on Slashdot, it still really doesn't matter.:^) The slides seem to be getting the point across that KDE can do a ton of stuff, and has been generally well received. (I can even still stay that after reading a bunch of slashdot comments!)
I'm very glad that my work on this has gone far beyond the ~35 people who made it out to my real, live talk. I initially felt like I was 'copping out' by doing slides, but if I had done a live presentation, I would have (1) easily gone past the allotted time, and (2) noone else would've been able to see any of it after the fact!
(In a John Stewart voice: "Kudos, to me!")
-bill!
For non-Linux using kids/schools/families...
on
A Babe in Tuxland
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· Score: 1
...Remember that a lot of good Open Source software (like my Tux Paint, for example;^) ) do run outside of Linux.
TP runs on Mac OS X, pretty much all 32-bit versions of Windows, BeOS, BSDs, Solaris... etc.:^)
What I've always wanted, though, was a Mac OS classic version. There are still plenty of schools who have older Apple hardware, and just can't use OS X. No reason that should keep them from running Tux Paint!!!:^)
Seriously, though, I hate web sites that make any kind of assumption about the browser I'm using. What if I was viewing that page on my shiny new replacement Zaurus? There is no F5 button!:^P
I was so excited when I saw "Debian" listed on the download page, til I discovered it was about some _POTATO_ packages!:^(
I tried replacing "potato" with "woody" in the apt source URL, but to no avail.:^( Anyone built Audacity 1.2.0 for Woody yet? C'mon! Backports! Backports! I LIVE off 'em!;^)
As a game developer, I need tools like Audacity to make and tweak the lame little sfx in my games.;) Congrats guys and gals!!!
Open Source Variation of this Logo
on
FBI Anti-Piracy Seal
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I couldn't resist creating an Open Source variation of this logo. I mean, I want to have shiny logos on my software, too! It's just all Open Source stuff, though!;^)
Anyway, here you go. ("Don't worry, it's Open Source!")
Today I will be replacing my dad's aged Apple Performa 6215CD Macintosh with a shiny 'new' Pentium II running Debian Woody, KDE 3.2 and OpenOffice.org 1.1.
I spent a little time cleaning up KDE's "K" menu, and installing some fun apps for him (but not TOO much clutter; esp. since the thing's only got a ~2GB hard disk). I'm fairly confident he'll find it quite a nice upgrade, and at least as usable and useful as his old Mac!
I have a site that was getting too much traffic, and costing me money (I used to make money off of it from banner ads, but those days seem to be over). Rather than kill the site (since it literally keeps hundreds of grandmothers entertained), I decided to install the Apache "mod_throttle" module. Now, my bandwidth NEVER goes above a certain point.
Perhaps this, combined with HTTP_REFERER testing, could keep 'unwanted' visitors at bay, while still letting you deal with 'regular customers'...?
Slashdot Mirror
Time and channel do not matter, when you have a TiVo. ;^)
Did they REALLY go back and change the first episode, though? Are they not super-cool awesome writers, like I've been lead to believe!
That would be Bad News, Everybody!
> Futurama was one of those shows that was driven by one character's unrequited love for another.
Actually, you watch the earlier episodes and there's pretty much no sign of any love interest. And it was still a good show.
Of course, there was the whole Nibbler pushing Fry into the freezer bit in the first episode, so they probably knew what they were doing from the start with Fry and Leela.
> The sad truth is we're heading towards a prime time populated entirely by 'reality' programming.
Damn, I wish I can accurately recall the bit from the Daily Show. Barbara Walters or someone was interviewing a bunch of jurors, and she asked them what it was like to be in the court... "It was like reality TV, wasn't it?"
Jon Stewart's comment was something to the effect of: "yes, that's right folks... REALITY has finally become just like a reality TV show..."
> The key to Family Guy's ressurection was not only beating letterman and leno in it's time slot on adult swim [...]
;^)
:^)
Not to say Family Guy isn't brilliant... because it is... but beating Letterman and Leno isn't saying much, these days.
Admittedly, I used to love Carson, Letterman, and even Leno, back in the day. Looking at them again today, either Letterman and Leno have gone way down hill, or I had much more patience for annoying old men when I was younger.
And honestly, Leno's an insensitive ass, and not very funny. I'd much rather watch the MadTV impersonation of Leno than the ACTUAL Leno.
Oh, and don't get me started on the Daily Show. THAT show kicks f[censored]ing ass! (For those of you at home, I said "f[censored]ing"...)
> When you can install an application with out spending hours or days tracking down various RPMs, wrestling with dependencies and conflicts[...]
What exactly does this have to do with KDE?
Once I decided 'spending hours tracking down RPMs' was an irritation, I switched from RedHat to Debian. I haven't gone back yet...
> Why do none of the screenshots have font antialiasing? Makes for a not-so-impressive demo.
The presentation was to demonstrate KDE's functionality. Not whether or not my X server had AA turned on. DUH!
(In other words, not only did no one walk out on my presentation because my sshots didn't have AA text, but no one at the meeting even QUESTIONED it.)
> How do you want to get people using linux instead of windows?
That wasn't the point of my presentation. I did it at a LUG, not a PCUG.
> Look at all these screenshots, they look like shit!
Well f*ck you too. I have eye strain, and decided on a darker theme and color scheme for my desktop.
> "When a new song begins to play, JuK can show its title over the panel for a few seconds. You can even go back or skip ahead!"
:^)
> For me it is most annoying feature on mozilla firefox (download manager)
Right-click Juk in the systray. Uncheck the "Popup Track Announcement" option.
Or, in the Juk window, click the "Settings" menu. Uncheck the "Popup Track Announcement" option.
Since you weren't AT my presentation at LUGOD, you weren't there to hear me say "You can turn all this stuff on or off."
Ditto with KGet. I'm not sure if I mention it in my slides, but it's completely optional. If you don't want or need to run or even install KGet, Konqueror can download files just fine without it. It's simply an add-on.
> It helps to have a common denominator. Even if this is the as low as it is at the moment (windows)
Which is why when someone at the coffee shops asks if I can help them get onto wireless, it's difficult for me because their Windows XP has a completely different configuration than my work laptop's Windows XP (either because of my wireless card's drivers & software, or their's). Or they're using Windows 2000 or Win98, so it's different. Bleah! >:^(
> Antialiased fonts might be nice on a CRT where fuzziness is the norm, but on an LCD it only makes text blurrier and harder to read. Cleartype is something a little bit worse again.
Actually, while my main excuse is "haven't gotten around to turning AA back on since reinstalling Debian", I think another factor is that I've bumped my screen resolution up another notch, so on my cruddy old monitor, I really don't notice the 'stair-steps' in the fonts as much, and therefore I don't really feel the need for AA as much as I did before...
*shrug*
> unless the title really is "Programming Embedded Svstems..."
:(
:^/
SHH! Damnit! You weren't supposed to notice that! Just like I didn't notice it until I was in the middle of my talk.
*sigh*
Admittedly, that was the FIRST time I EVER tried playing with Kooka and GOCR. So really it's just a matter of me not knowing what I was doing.
> IMHO a bad move to put that as the third picture in a user friendliness document, but well. Forgive the nerds...
:^) )
Well, remember that TECHNICALLY, my audience was a room full of folks at a Linux User Group meeting.
If I had been plugging KDE at a "PC" User Group, or in a 'basics' class, I would definitely have shown different things. Probably fewer things, too.
As I've said before, my point is to show that, from an end-user's perspective (not a programmer, not a server admin, etc.) KDE is chock full of useful capabilities.
I WAS hoping that non-Linux-users or Linux-newbies might show up and soak it all in, and maybe ask some questions. And we did have something like a half dozen first-time visitors pop in for the meeting. (That included a bunch of folks from the FAA who carpooled in.
I tend to agree. I think the message "Could not play CD. There may be no CD inserted or the disc may be scratched" is a good one, and having the technical hoo-haw exposable with a "More details..." button would be good.
This is the kind of thing people need to be talking about in the kde-quality project, and posting as wishlist items to bugs.kde.org. IMO. (IANA KDE Developer)
Unfortunately, I hadn't turned on AA before I had to put my slides together. One of my HDDs started 'clicking' recently, and I did a fresh install of Debian Woody and KDE 3.2. I haven't done any extra configuration to my XFree86 setup to enable things like AA text, 3D accelleration (if you can call a Voodoo 3 2000 accellerated these days ;^) )
With things like DCOP and component-based thingamajigs, I would say that it's EXTREMELY easy to whip up a little app that shows KDE's control center components in a 'category' mode.
:)
I need to get Kommander, I think.
> I really believe it's the applications that make a difference in converting a user to a different OS
:^)
Perhaps true for converting from one OS to another.
The thing is, though -- and this was one of the whole points of my talk -- is that I, as a Linux user, have begun using KDE's built-in functionalities to avoid actually running a lot of apps!
Why "tar -tzf" to see the contents of a tar file, when I can just browse it (with thumbnails and all!) in Konqueror?
Why bother learning to use some command-line CD ripping tool, when I can literally drag-n-drop to do it?
Now, the Linux geek in me is screaming "this should be at a lower level; closer to the kernel, and outside of Konqueror!"... e.g., so I can "cd" into a tar file, and "cp" MP3s off of my virtual audio CD.
And I'm sure there are tools for these. They just aren't quite as obvious, nor as 'user friendly' (vs 'geeky') as what desktop interfaces like OSX, GNOME and KDE are providing these days.
Honestly, as much as I love Unix command line power, I still love the old PalmOS, Mac OS System 7.5 and my TiVo.
> I'm certainly not going to condemn Bill Gates or the KDE folks to long prison sentences for their colour scheme, however depressing it may be.
;^)
:^) The slides seem to be getting the point across that KDE can do a ton of stuff, and has been generally well received. (I can even still stay that after reading a bunch of slashdot comments!)
Hey! For one, the color scheme is MINE, and not simply KDE's. KDE has a TON of color schemes, and you can obviously make your own.
Secondly, I often use my PC late at night, and find that darker tones are WAY better on my eyes.
On the other hand, I did get sick of the gloomy backgrounds, and since putting together these slides have switched to some nicer ones; then decided my color scheme didn't match, so now I have a pale-blue-ish one with grey.
Some people suggested I should have shown off the various themes you can use in KDE. The point of my slides was really to show the KDE stuff that so many people were unfamiliar with. I imagined most of the non-KDE-using folks in my LUG, and figured they would be neither surprised, nor impressed with the fact that KDE has themes. They already KNEW that!
Anyway, while I have gotten a few comments about my choice of theme and color scheme, and now see them being picked apart here on Slashdot, it still really doesn't matter.
I'm very glad that my work on this has gone far beyond the ~35 people who made it out to my real, live talk. I initially felt like I was 'copping out' by doing slides, but if I had done a live presentation, I would have (1) easily gone past the allotted time, and (2) noone else would've been able to see any of it after the fact!
(In a John Stewart voice: "Kudos, to me!")
-bill!
...Remember that a lot of good Open Source software (like my Tux Paint, for example ;^) ) do run outside of Linux.
:^)
:^)
TP runs on Mac OS X, pretty much all 32-bit versions of Windows, BeOS, BSDs, Solaris... etc.
What I've always wanted, though, was a Mac OS classic version. There are still plenty of schools who have older Apple hardware, and just can't use OS X. No reason that should keep them from running Tux Paint!!!
Uh... what does "F5" do? *stupid grin*
:^P
Seriously, though, I hate web sites that make any kind of assumption about the browser I'm using. What if I was viewing that page on my shiny new replacement Zaurus? There is no F5 button!
NASA's the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen.
I was so excited when I saw "Debian" listed on the download page, til I discovered it was about some _POTATO_ packages! :^(
:^( Anyone built Audacity 1.2.0 for Woody yet? C'mon! Backports! Backports! I LIVE off 'em! ;^)
:^P )
I tried replacing "potato" with "woody" in the apt source URL, but to no avail.
-bill!
(yes, yes, I know about apt-pinning
As a game developer, I need tools like Audacity to make and tweak the lame little sfx in my games. ;)
Congrats guys and gals!!!
I couldn't resist creating an Open Source variation of this logo. I mean, I want to have shiny logos on my software, too! It's just all Open Source stuff, though! ;^)
Anyway, here you go. ("Don't worry, it's Open Source!")
Today I will be replacing my dad's aged Apple Performa 6215CD Macintosh with a shiny 'new' Pentium II running Debian Woody, KDE 3.2 and OpenOffice.org 1.1.
I spent a little time cleaning up KDE's "K" menu, and installing some fun apps for him (but not TOO much clutter; esp. since the thing's only got a ~2GB hard disk). I'm fairly confident he'll find it quite a nice upgrade, and at least as usable and useful as his old Mac!
My dad's in his mid-late 60s, BTW...
I have a site that was getting too much traffic, and costing me money (I used to make money off of it from banner ads, but those days seem to be over). Rather than kill the site (since it literally keeps hundreds of grandmothers entertained), I decided to install the Apache "mod_throttle" module. Now, my bandwidth NEVER goes above a certain point.
Perhaps this, combined with HTTP_REFERER testing, could keep 'unwanted' visitors at bay, while still letting you deal with 'regular customers'...?
-bill!