You can customize the Start menu quite a bit -- I've removed all the tiles, for example, so I have a menu that's quite clean and usable. Cortana is gone too. Simple and easy.
All true.
That does not excuse companies from being misleading for PR reasons.
If companies were up-front about WHY they have the demographics they do -- society does provide female and minority candidates -- it might provide impetuous for change. Hiding reality rarely, if ever, improves anything.
Yes, but in 20 years, we'll have graphics cards that can run 8k monitors at reasonable speed, and software that scales properly. The screen doesn't exist in a vacuum, and right now, even 4k screens at 15.6 inches are performance dogs. And think how ridiculous the price for an 8k monitor will be...
A spinal injury rendered my primary right hand useless. So I write (250k words this year) and code (30k lines C++/C#/Python) using a Logitech Wireless Touchpad and a compact tablet-style keyboard on my PC.
The question is silly.
Which language to choose depends on the task at hand, not arbitrary religion. I was using C++ when it was "C with classes", wrote books and articles about it -- and my answer is to use the tool best suited to a given task and target platform. I've used Objective C when it fits my goal.
I dislike questions asked only to invent false reasons for making a choice.
Perusing this thread will tell anyone why Linux is not a significant player in the OS universe. Too much chaos, to many sharp opinions, jingoism... in the end, all that keeps Linux from being a serious contender beyond cell phones (where it is invisible) and scientists (who have certain needs).
There will never *be* a "Year of Linux".
Yet I'll keep on using customized versions of Linux for my own development needs, just like my wife uses odd and exotic materials media for her artwork. Linux/GNU/etc is an artist's tool, but it will never be mainstream or popular. Deal with it, be glad you have it, and quit bashing each other over the head.
Like most protest movements, anti-Apple activism is likely unproductive and too focused.
HP, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle... do you really think all the other tech companies are innocent in such matters? Given that the problem extends beyond the tech sector -- are you willing to boycott your refrigerator, or your car, or your shirt? Picking on Apple is targeting an easy mark, one that probably has more to do with disliking Apple's image than it does with any real desire to help people.
I don't own or buy Apple products for a lot of reasons. Their use of asian semi-slave factories will not be solved by a boycott, simply because most people don't give a rat's rump. Consumers want their cheap toys, and the "don't give a shitters" outnumber indignant Slashdotters by hundreds of thousands to one.
If you feel that boycotting Apple is some sort of stand against naughtiness, knock yourself out. Delude yourself that buying an Android phone or a Samsung computer makes you holier the Jobs' army..
However, if you want to make a difference, get involved in the political process, as people did with SOPA/PIPA. Make a stink on the broader issue of companies selling product created by near-slave labor in dangerous facilities.Anything less is playing at activism, as if it were a shiney toy, puffing your ego because "I'm doign something" that costs you little and helps the problem even less.
(2) Ask for something else A+B+C, where B and C are even more insane-sounding things and C is pratically unworkable;
(3) Make concessions to get people onside by suggesting that you're prepared to renegotiate on C;
(4) Wait for objections to be made to much of B and a near complete elimination of C;
(5) End up with all of A and a few scraps from B and C.
Notice this pattern in every jurisdiction with every proposed law. Always tackle the principles, which will be in A - you'll probably find that you want to eliminate the bill entirely. (That's at the second reading at the latest, if you're looking at the UK Parliament. Beyond that it's too late unless the increasingly castrated Lords throw up a fuss.)
Congratulations on codifying reality succinctly. Hell, this is how most projects work, political or otherwise: Shoot for the moon, settle for what you need.
Which makes me wonder -- why doesn;t the opposition do this? We need to demand freedom, push for flory, and expect to get bits back incrementally. Hell, we aren't goign to repeal the Federal Code, but we might just take a few bites out of it and start something positive.
Often, the best way to defeat someone is to use their own tactics against them. Vote, demonstrate, get involved, fight. Anythign else is just posturing.
Excuse me, sonny boy, but "younger" isn't the problem. Some of us old folk (aka, fifty in my case) know what the hell is going on here: We're all being frelled by morons and ignorati with this bill and other pieces of stupid legisilation.
I don't give a damn about who's on my lawn (literally, kids walk thru my yard all the time) -- I want these damned politicians out of my head, thank you very much.
And I was talking fish and fruit. Chicken is packed with hormones; red meat is fatty and has other "bad" elements". If we're suppoed to be eating fish and fruit, that isn't evenly vaguely cheap.
Fish is hideously expensive, as compared to chiecken, beef, and pork.
Same thign for fresh fruit -- I live in a state (Florida) that produces lots of fruit, but the stores have incredibly high prices.
I know people on Food stamps (a large percentage of the U.S.population now, btw) -- and they can't AFFORD to eat healthy. There's a reason poor people are fat -- bad diet, because good food is too expensive.
I was never a huge fan of her works, just a matter of taste -- yet I appreciated her creation of female protagonists, and her depiction of dragons as allies of man.
A computer is a tool. Use the best tool for the job.
Windows is where I do most of the work that pays my bills (currently; that will change next year with a new project). I like Word and Excel -- there is no free alternative that comes even close to Office 2010 in terms of polish and functionality. And I game (WoW, Dragon Age, old games), .
I judge an OS by how much cussing I do while working with it. Right now, I cuss slightly less at a Kubuntu 11.10 box than I do at Windows 7. The difference is not enough for me to dump Windows.
For software development, I use both Linux systems and Visual Studio. Truly, Visual Studio is an amazing product; however, I'm quite happy and comfortable with multiple consoles, editor windows, and working from the console. Specialization is for insects, as Heinlein said. I'm very Buddhist in my approach to computing and software development; I use what works, be it C, C#, Python, or Javascript. My goal is to accomplish things, not fight some endless philosophical war that has no real meaning.
Sure, I could switch to Libre Office and run games under Wine -- but why? Just to make some political point? That would be stupid. Libre Office is clunky, less capable, and ugly when compared to Word 2010. Most of the stuff I do in Excel doesn't work in OpenOffice or Gnumeric -- lots of complex macros and formulas, DDE connections to live data (that is only provided via DDE)... and again, the "open" alternatives are just plain UGLY.
If I could have only one computer, it would be a Kubuntu or other KDE Linux system. Fortunately, I don't need to limit myself.
The Palestinians are hoisting the U.S by it's own petard. The U.S. government passed the 1994 law as a "do what we say or else" measure, under the false belief that this would force the UN to follow U.S. policy. Instead, the Palestinians are being admitted to UN agencies anway, and we're cutting our own throat automatically.
Bethesda is being stupid. Bad PR for them -- although the addicts will buy Skyrim anyway. Most people I know don't call Bethesda's games "Elder Scrolls"; they play "Morrowind" or "Oblivion" or "Skyrim". No one goes looking for "Elder Scrolls IV mods", they look for "Oblivion mods".
And only an idiot would confuse a collectible card game from and indie publisher with a single-player RPG from a major software house. By all the gods, am I going to be sued by Bethesda because my novels have mountains and scrolls in them? Sheesh.
While I'm sure Bethesda doesn't care about my opinion or my money, I will not be buying Skyrim, nor will I purchase any other Bethesda products, or products that they are involved in. I will, however, buy Scrolls from Mojang.
I prefer C, C++, Python, and OCaml. I make much of my living from writing portable code.
That given: Not all code needs to or should be shared. Really. In most business ecosystems, no one gives a rat's ass about Linux or BSD or whatever outside the server room. And for vertical apps and internal code, C# is very nice, sort of a Java with better libraries. Microsoft won't abandon it, no one cares if these apps port, and code development is quick and easy.
Please, you zealots wouldn't even be interested in the C# I write. It's not cool, it's not innovative, it's freaking GUI data entry crap.
Well, okay, I have one C# app on my web site, a nice piece of signal visualization written at the behest of a now defunct company. The original was tied to proprietary hardware with proprietary drivers that only worked on Windows. The company went tits up, but I liked the code so much, I removed the hardware dependencies and released it for fun. That company, however, was creating a commercial product, and I *told* them C#/Windows was a mistake. They're dead now. But that's a different story from where most C# is used, which is for vertical market and internal apps in shops where no one is or will be running anything other than Windows.
I'm revising the signal program, BTW. in portable C++. C# is not a good solution in many cases, but that doesn't make it crap, either.
But I'm sure no facts will lessen the anti-MS zealotry.
No, I don't have it backwards, Of the four computers in my office, three run Linux distros as their boot OS; one runs Windows 7. Don't be such an automatic smartass.
Yeah, that's pretty much my thinking -- why would anyone want to do this, outside of very specialized circumstances?
I used virtual machines, of course -- for example, I keep a Fedora 15 install on my Window machines via Virtal Box, and I do run the Win XP that comes with Win 7 Pro. But those are simply conveniences, with only one layer of abstraction, and even with only that, both run highly inefficiently and fail to fully use the hardware I paid for.
I don't understand why people would buy high-powered equipment and then run something that cripples it. What's the advantage or purpose of running Win XP in a browser? I can't think or a single one.
Over a decade ago, a school psychologist noticed "odd" behavior in one of my daughters. Under the guise of "vigilence", they looked for people to put on drugs. My girls, in grades 1 and 3, were interrogated -- without my permissions or knowledge -- by a school psychologist, who diagnose them with various psychotic disorders. Why? Because the girls told wild tales -- one claimed to know how to fly, and the other told dark tales ala Poe and Lovecraft.
This bitch of a psychiatrist demanded that we drug our children, and began the process of forcing us to give the girls "medicine" (i.e., anti-psychotic and ADHD drugs), even when other psychiatrists said that my daughters were fine. When asked why she was so insistent on treating my daughters for something that didn't exist, the offending psychiatrist said:
"I've been taking these drugs most of my life. I know they're good for your kids."
Needless to say, I no longer live in Colorado, where this travesty was legal. My girls are intelligent, creative, productive young adults (with lots of quirks, like any smart person). Now that they're adults, they can chose what the do and do not put in their bodies.
American society is driven by a need by people's to feel like a victim, by fear, and by selfish greed. It is a recipe for disaster.
Slashdot Mirror
You can customize the Start menu quite a bit -- I've removed all the tiles, for example, so I have a menu that's quite clean and usable. Cortana is gone too. Simple and easy.
All true. That does not excuse companies from being misleading for PR reasons. If companies were up-front about WHY they have the demographics they do -- society does provide female and minority candidates -- it might provide impetuous for change. Hiding reality rarely, if ever, improves anything.
Yes, but in 20 years, we'll have graphics cards that can run 8k monitors at reasonable speed, and software that scales properly. The screen doesn't exist in a vacuum, and right now, even 4k screens at 15.6 inches are performance dogs. And think how ridiculous the price for an 8k monitor will be...
Slashdot has fallen far in credibility if it promotes sloppy research like the referenced article.
A spinal injury rendered my primary right hand useless. So I write (250k words this year) and code (30k lines C++/C#/Python) using a Logitech Wireless Touchpad and a compact tablet-style keyboard on my PC.
The question is silly. Which language to choose depends on the task at hand, not arbitrary religion. I was using C++ when it was "C with classes", wrote books and articles about it -- and my answer is to use the tool best suited to a given task and target platform. I've used Objective C when it fits my goal. I dislike questions asked only to invent false reasons for making a choice.
Well "duh". And water is wet.
You're not alone. I like the ribbon.
It's a helluva lot better than a thousand menu layers.
Correction acknowledged and accepted.
Perusing this thread will tell anyone why Linux is not a significant player in the OS universe. Too much chaos, to many sharp opinions, jingoism... in the end, all that keeps Linux from being a serious contender beyond cell phones (where it is invisible) and scientists (who have certain needs).
There will never *be* a "Year of Linux".
Yet I'll keep on using customized versions of Linux for my own development needs, just like my wife uses odd and exotic materials media for her artwork. Linux/GNU/etc is an artist's tool, but it will never be mainstream or popular. Deal with it, be glad you have it, and quit bashing each other over the head.
Fascinating. I'm chagrined to have been ignorant of this. Thanks!
Like most protest movements, anti-Apple activism is likely unproductive and too focused.
HP, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle... do you really think all the other tech companies are innocent in such matters? Given that the problem extends beyond the tech sector -- are you willing to boycott your refrigerator, or your car, or your shirt? Picking on Apple is targeting an easy mark, one that probably has more to do with disliking Apple's image than it does with any real desire to help people.
I don't own or buy Apple products for a lot of reasons. Their use of asian semi-slave factories will not be solved by a boycott, simply because most people don't give a rat's rump. Consumers want their cheap toys, and the "don't give a shitters" outnumber indignant Slashdotters by hundreds of thousands to one.
If you feel that boycotting Apple is some sort of stand against naughtiness, knock yourself out. Delude yourself that buying an Android phone or a Samsung computer makes you holier the Jobs' army..
However, if you want to make a difference, get involved in the political process, as people did with SOPA/PIPA. Make a stink on the broader issue of companies selling product created by near-slave labor in dangerous facilities.Anything less is playing at activism, as if it were a shiney toy, puffing your ego because "I'm doign something" that costs you little and helps the problem even less.
(1) Expect A;
(2) Ask for something else A+B+C, where B and C are even more insane-sounding things and C is pratically unworkable;
(3) Make concessions to get people onside by suggesting that you're prepared to renegotiate on C;
(4) Wait for objections to be made to much of B and a near complete elimination of C;
(5) End up with all of A and a few scraps from B and C.
Notice this pattern in every jurisdiction with every proposed law. Always tackle the principles, which will be in A - you'll probably find that you want to eliminate the bill entirely. (That's at the second reading at the latest, if you're looking at the UK Parliament. Beyond that it's too late unless the increasingly castrated Lords throw up a fuss.)
Congratulations on codifying reality succinctly. Hell, this is how most projects work, political or otherwise: Shoot for the moon, settle for what you need.
Which makes me wonder -- why doesn;t the opposition do this? We need to demand freedom, push for flory, and expect to get bits back incrementally. Hell, we aren't goign to repeal the Federal Code, but we might just take a few bites out of it and start something positive.
Often, the best way to defeat someone is to use their own tactics against them. Vote, demonstrate, get involved, fight. Anythign else is just posturing.
We'll slip this back into some other bill later on when you sheeple are not paying attention.
Bad laws never go away forever in america. They just keep comming back until they stick.
Ignore the sheeple. They've been around since humans first evolved, and aren't going away anytime soon.
Bad laws do go away, but only with great effort, struggle, and sometimes societal collapse and rebirth. Humanity is due for a good colonic, IMNSHO.
Excuse me, sonny boy, but "younger" isn't the problem. Some of us old folk (aka, fifty in my case) know what the hell is going on here: We're all being frelled by morons and ignorati with this bill and other pieces of stupid legisilation.
I don't give a damn about who's on my lawn (literally, kids walk thru my yard all the time) -- I want these damned politicians out of my head, thank you very much.
You can't buy fast food with food stamps.
And I was talking fish and fruit. Chicken is packed with hormones; red meat is fatty and has other "bad" elements". If we're suppoed to be eating fish and fruit, that isn't evenly vaguely cheap.
I live surrounded on three sides by ocean.
Fish is hideously expensive, as compared to chiecken, beef, and pork.
Same thign for fresh fruit -- I live in a state (Florida) that produces lots of fruit, but the stores have incredibly high prices.
I know people on Food stamps (a large percentage of the U.S.population now, btw) -- and they can't AFFORD to eat healthy. There's a reason poor people are fat -- bad diet, because good food is too expensive.
I was never a huge fan of her works, just a matter of taste -- yet I appreciated her creation of female protagonists, and her depiction of dragons as allies of man.
A computer is a tool. Use the best tool for the job.
Windows is where I do most of the work that pays my bills (currently; that will change next year with a new project). I like Word and Excel -- there is no free alternative that comes even close to Office 2010 in terms of polish and functionality. And I game (WoW, Dragon Age, old games), .
I judge an OS by how much cussing I do while working with it. Right now, I cuss slightly less at a Kubuntu 11.10 box than I do at Windows 7. The difference is not enough for me to dump Windows.
For software development, I use both Linux systems and Visual Studio. Truly, Visual Studio is an amazing product; however, I'm quite happy and comfortable with multiple consoles, editor windows, and working from the console. Specialization is for insects, as Heinlein said. I'm very Buddhist in my approach to computing and software development; I use what works, be it C, C#, Python, or Javascript. My goal is to accomplish things, not fight some endless philosophical war that has no real meaning.
Sure, I could switch to Libre Office and run games under Wine -- but why? Just to make some political point? That would be stupid. Libre Office is clunky, less capable, and ugly when compared to Word 2010. Most of the stuff I do in Excel doesn't work in OpenOffice or Gnumeric -- lots of complex macros and formulas, DDE connections to live data (that is only provided via DDE)... and again, the "open" alternatives are just plain UGLY.
If I could have only one computer, it would be a Kubuntu or other KDE Linux system. Fortunately, I don't need to limit myself.
The Palestinians are hoisting the U.S by it's own petard. The U.S. government passed the 1994 law as a "do what we say or else" measure, under the false belief that this would force the UN to follow U.S. policy. Instead, the Palestinians are being admitted to UN agencies anway, and we're cutting our own throat automatically.
It's not the Palestinians who should be worried.
Bethesda is being stupid. Bad PR for them -- although the addicts will buy Skyrim anyway. Most people I know don't call Bethesda's games "Elder Scrolls"; they play "Morrowind" or "Oblivion" or "Skyrim". No one goes looking for "Elder Scrolls IV mods", they look for "Oblivion mods".
And only an idiot would confuse a collectible card game from and indie publisher with a single-player RPG from a major software house. By all the gods, am I going to be sued by Bethesda because my novels have mountains and scrolls in them? Sheesh.
While I'm sure Bethesda doesn't care about my opinion or my money, I will not be buying Skyrim, nor will I purchase any other Bethesda products, or products that they are involved in. I will, however, buy Scrolls from Mojang.
I prefer C, C++, Python, and OCaml. I make much of my living from writing portable code.
That given: Not all code needs to or should be shared. Really. In most business ecosystems, no one gives a rat's ass about Linux or BSD or whatever outside the server room. And for vertical apps and internal code, C# is very nice, sort of a Java with better libraries. Microsoft won't abandon it, no one cares if these apps port, and code development is quick and easy.
Please, you zealots wouldn't even be interested in the C# I write. It's not cool, it's not innovative, it's freaking GUI data entry crap.
Well, okay, I have one C# app on my web site, a nice piece of signal visualization written at the behest of a now defunct company. The original was tied to proprietary hardware with proprietary drivers that only worked on Windows. The company went tits up, but I liked the code so much, I removed the hardware dependencies and released it for fun. That company, however, was creating a commercial product, and I *told* them C#/Windows was a mistake. They're dead now. But that's a different story from where most C# is used, which is for vertical market and internal apps in shops where no one is or will be running anything other than Windows.
I'm revising the signal program, BTW. in portable C++. C# is not a good solution in many cases, but that doesn't make it crap, either.
But I'm sure no facts will lessen the anti-MS zealotry.
No, I don't have it backwards, Of the four computers in my office, three run Linux distros as their boot OS; one runs Windows 7. Don't be such an automatic smartass.
Yeah, that's pretty much my thinking -- why would anyone want to do this, outside of very specialized circumstances?
I used virtual machines, of course -- for example, I keep a Fedora 15 install on my Window machines via Virtal Box, and I do run the Win XP that comes with Win 7 Pro. But those are simply conveniences, with only one layer of abstraction, and even with only that, both run highly inefficiently and fail to fully use the hardware I paid for.
I don't understand why people would buy high-powered equipment and then run something that cripples it. What's the advantage or purpose of running Win XP in a browser? I can't think or a single one.
Over a decade ago, a school psychologist noticed "odd" behavior in one of my daughters. Under the guise of "vigilence", they looked for people to put on drugs. My girls, in grades 1 and 3, were interrogated -- without my permissions or knowledge -- by a school psychologist, who diagnose them with various psychotic disorders. Why? Because the girls told wild tales -- one claimed to know how to fly, and the other told dark tales ala Poe and Lovecraft.
This bitch of a psychiatrist demanded that we drug our children, and began the process of forcing us to give the girls "medicine" (i.e., anti-psychotic and ADHD drugs), even when other psychiatrists said that my daughters were fine. When asked why she was so insistent on treating my daughters for something that didn't exist, the offending psychiatrist said:
"I've been taking these drugs most of my life. I know they're good for your kids."
Needless to say, I no longer live in Colorado, where this travesty was legal. My girls are intelligent, creative, productive young adults (with lots of quirks, like any smart person). Now that they're adults, they can chose what the do and do not put in their bodies.
American society is driven by a need by people's to feel like a victim, by fear, and by selfish greed. It is a recipe for disaster.