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User: JabberWokky

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Comments · 2,626

  1. Re:Replace X? on GTK+ 3.8 Released With Support For Wayland · · Score: 3, Informative

    To be fair, whatever Android uses -- and whatever TiVo and other embedded systems use -- are successful, and were never aimed at replacing X. They were aimed at providing graphical output strictly for their devices, and if they hit the market, did so nicely. Android's interface is used by a bunch of software these days.

    The rest were all aimed at general desktop usage as a main priority, and absolutely you're right: X outlived them all. That doesn't imply that will always be the case, merely that it is much more difficult than most people think, for a wide variety of reasons.

    There *does* seem to be much more momentum toward a change recently. It feels a bit like the XFree86 to XOrg leap era.

  2. Re:Control problems on current mobile phones on Meet the Gamers Keeping Retro Consoles Alive · · Score: 1

    While they are an Asian company, I don't think Samsung is what you're talking about when you say "knock-off companies like JXD"... and yet they are releasing a game pad with their Galaxy 4 series:

    http://www.mobilefun.com/38583-genuine-samsung-galaxy-s4-game-pad---ei-gp10nnbeg.htm

    ...and it isn't their first. So there are some top tier companies addressing hardware game controls, even if they are accessories.

  3. Re:OpenOffice on KDE's Calligra Office Suite For Android Released · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You do realize that this uses the exact same file format? Since the interface is necessarily going to change between a phone or tablet interface and a desktop program, just pretend this is LibreOffice on Android and you'll be good.

  4. Re:Misguided fanboism on Google Launches 'Keep' To Rival Evernote · · Score: 1

    People pay for GMail (I do, for my company's App account). I know lots of people pay for Drive, and Keep is part of Drive (we use Dropbox).

    These are not free services... there are just free versions out there with serious limitations. Those limitations are okay for light personal use, but there are lots of people paying monthly for those services, including the one that Keep is part of.

  5. Re: screw google! on Google Launches 'Keep' To Rival Evernote · · Score: 1

    Since it is part of Google Drive, it is less likely. Unless they close Drive, which seems to be a core component for them.

  6. Re:Stop worrying about Google. on Ask Slashdot: Should We Have the Option of Treating Google Like a Utility? · · Score: 5, Informative

    Also see http://www.dataliberation.org/ for how to exit.

    I'm pretty okay with Google at the start of 2013. Always watch for changing behavior, but that's true for everybody, including yourself.

  7. Re:Slowpoke on New Technology Produces Cheaper Tantalum and Titanium · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Slashdot is certainly prone to error, so I'm not going to defend this specific case, but it's not uncommon for a 17 year lapse between having a process progressing from an academic discovery to an industrial implementation. Using your example, it was a decade between the first flight and the first scheduled commercial flight (heck, even four years to the first passenger).

  8. Make it noteworthy on Ask Slashdot: Dealing With an Advanced Wi-Fi Leech? · · Score: 1

    Let your kid or a friend's kid use your network. Then call the cops. They are "trying to hack into a kid's computer".

    You'll get your response.

  9. Re:Non removable battery, no memory card slot. on HTC Unveils Revamped HTC One · · Score: 1

    II want a keyboard (I always have found even "the best" touch screens a hassle)

    You're not alone. The now ancient Epic 4G is still clinging in the top ten Android phones: https://plus.google.com/114278817778674561147/posts/C6Ei9EWZ9Yg

    Kind of shocking, but my wife and I both keep ours and are hoping somebody comes out with a keyboard case for the Note 2.

  10. Re:This just in... on New Hampshire Cops Use Taser On Woman Buying Too Many iPhones · · Score: 1

    No, law enforcement is so scared of lawyers claiming that they used a few ounces more force on that person because of the color of their skin or their gender or age or that they skinned somebody's knee in this takedown but not that one that they have all gone to a very quantified non-variable force applicator.

    We now have the equality we demanded, and the use of judgement is demonized. May Bob have mercy on our souls.

  11. Re:Only me? on KDE 4.10 Beta1 Released · · Score: 5, Informative

    4.1 and 4.10 are not the same thing, as the period in a software version is not a decimal point. Do you think US Thanksgiving falls on 0.5 this year (since 11/22 is 0.5)? For that matter, how do you explain version 4.1.1? That's not even number!

    If you can comprehend dates that use slashes and not divide them out, or subtract ISO style dates (2012-11-22: US Thanksgiving falls on 1979 this year!), then what is the problem with periods as a separator for versions?

    IP addresses and ISBN numbers in books must drive you bug nuts. And I imagine you have problems with entering telephone numbers, since your slavish devotion to "all numbers are math" would cause you to multiply the area code by the exchange minus the subscriber code: (202) 456-1414 goes into your contacts as 95258.

    Or are you just being as silly as these examples?

  12. Re:Another answer on Running Netflix On Linux · · Score: 1

    Ooo! Ooo! Now do the same for TiVo! And ChromeOS!

    And explain how they can have the resources to be releasing for multiple, radically different versions of Linux, just studiously avoiding the desktop. Which is as insecure as the Windows or OSX desktop when it comes to DRM hacks.

    (Note that I'm not calling you or your post out specifically, just commenting that they are actually releasing quite a bit for Linux, just with one very notable gap).

  13. Re:Samsung's accusations on Samsung Accuses Foreman Hogan of Misrepresentation · · Score: 1

    You don't. This is an allegation that he was presenting facts not in evidence in private jury deliberations.

  14. Re:Google Police on Google Nexus 4 Prototype Lost In a Bar · · Score: 1

    Okay, so you'd do things differently. I just hope you're not the one taking off with somebody's lost phone. I doubt most people could jump through your hoops with an associate lying about where their phone is rather than (what is usually the case) just go by the bar where they left it and pick it up.

  15. Re:Google Police on Google Nexus 4 Prototype Lost In a Bar · · Score: 1

    I certainly might. In which case I'd chuck the phone into the bar's lost and found box and leave. I would not take something that had been found at the bar, that I knew was not mine, and that I knew somebody was really trying to get back, with me to my other job and have somebody lie about where I -- and their phone that I had taken with me -- was.

    You would?

  16. Re:WoW! on 17th Century Microscope Book Is Now Freely Readable · · Score: 1

    Either you are not well educated, or you have an odd gap in your knowledge. If you can name a handful of Hellenistic philosophers, know what Avogadro's number relates to, can calculate the circumference of a half circle, and know why the year 1066 is important, you are reasonably educated for a member of today's society, and certainly should have encountered the long S before, so it is merely a mysterious gap in your background. If not, you are certainly educated enough to communicate via the written word, but you probably shouldn't refer to yourself with the qualifier well educated. If you can do things along the lines of reciting the opening lines of Beowulf in the original Old English, give the real name of Currer Bell and her sisters, and can tell a joke involving two different languages and a comparison of Meiji era zaibatsu to the static nature of Roman praenomina, then you are certainly well educated.

    If you look around you and respond simply, "Nobody can do those things", it is a statement on your affiliations, not the level of attainable education. I am not trying to denigrate you in any way, but rather to gently present the possibility that you are overconfident about your level of general knowledge.

    Of course these questions are generalized and presume you answer them without doing research. Otherwise you are merely educated in the use of research tools, not actually educated.

  17. Re:Google Police on Google Nexus 4 Prototype Lost In a Bar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Bartender felt "harassed" so didn't stick around work for what he seemed to think would be a confrontational meeting.

    Seriously? If it were your normal phone with photos of your family, and the person who found it took off -- with your phone, that you owned, would that be considered reasonable?

    Forget everything about it being "unreleased". That is moot as hell. There's no provision of ethics that an object being "really really cool" gives you a different standard when it comes to returning lost property.

  18. Re:It was funny in 1995 on Rare Photos: Gnu Crashing a Windows 8 Launch Event · · Score: 5, Interesting

    you imply that FSF actually matters.

    With not much enthusiasm, I simply note that two decades ago I couldn't run anywhere near the phenomenal library of free and Free software that I do today. Three decades ago, I was closer to being able to, so there was a very serious period of "you must license your software and only companies can own or alter it". I don't have much enthusiasm because it's a pretty non-notable fact these days. If you're coding something new, you first look for libraries or code that does much of what you need, and then use them for free. That's not surprising to say. Two decades ago, it would be.

    So the FSF pretty much won (as did the many many non-FSF coders who contributed). Maybe not in terms of global dominance, but in real terms of "I can use my system and do what I want because I have rights to the software and can alter it at whim". This state of things was not a certain outcome. Now it is simply part of the IT world we take for granted.

  19. Re:It's easy with an IDE on Does Coding Style Matter? · · Score: 1

    JetBrains IDEs allow you to do that... I can't imagine that most don't have context rules for adding blank lines.

  20. Re:GPL Kerfuffle on GPL Kerfuffle Takes Xbian For Raspberry Pi Offline · · Score: 1

    I always mean what I say and say what I mean.

  21. Re:Love eating seaweed on Seaweed is Good for You and Can Be Tasty, Too (Video) · · Score: 1

    Hunh. Growing up on an island, I was taught that seagrass and other such seaweeds were distinct from sargassum and other such algae categorized seaweed. I didn't know the term algae was not related to taxonomy. Still seems off...

  22. Re:Love eating seaweed on Seaweed is Good for You and Can Be Tasty, Too (Video) · · Score: 2

    Heh. I was looking for an SCA link (as that's where I had run into the info), but could only find an RTF. Then I checked Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laver_(seaweed)

    Incidentally, the RTF is here, although it's not a great resource: http://www.florilegium.org/files/PLANTS/seaweed-msg.rtf

  23. Re:Love eating seaweed on Seaweed is Good for You and Can Be Tasty, Too (Video) · · Score: 1

    Actually, laver is algae, and it's popular in Welsh cooking (well, common; traditional foods are seldom "popular"). Seriously. It's common in traditional dishes around the Irish sea. It's related to nori and several other similar algae foods.

  24. Re:Streisand effect? on Side-Effect of the Apple v. Samsung Trial: Increased Sales for Samsung · · Score: 1

    You are absolutely correct. If this were a scientific study, then it would be useless. However, this is an informal discussion, and anecdotes and relating personal stories and positions are part of the point.

    Unless... oh, dear Bob... you're not trying to base business decisions on Slashdot discussions, are you?

  25. Re:Simply amazing on Mario Bros. Clone Released For Atari 2600 · · Score: 1

    Yes, but that's an issue of the other hardware... as he points out, the CPUs in the Atari 2600 and the NES (and several 8 bit computers) are all comparable. The reason some of those systems handle sprites well while others struggle has nothing to do with the specific CPU (the actual single chip). It has to do with the other chips that assisted it. The OP said that the problem was with the disparity in the CPU, and he rightfully pointed out that it had more to do with the other hardware, not the CPU.