I've been loudly clammoring for Canonical to ditch the brown for the better part of a decade. On the forums, on IRC, on/., on Reddit, on my blog, literally everywhere, I've been pleading and begging for Shuttleworth et al to pull their heads out of their asses and make something that just generally appeals to a whole lot of people.
Brown doesn't. It was hideous, and somewhat embarrassing, especially when I tried to convince some people who ONLY WANTED FIREFOX that Ubuntu was a superior OS:
"But why is it so UGLY?!?"
"Hold on.... click click click..... Is that better?"
and of course those clicks are always changing the hideous default theme.
That said, this new theme is nearly as bad. Great, getting rid of the brown for.... PURPLE?!?!
Purple and Orange look god damned atrocious. Why don't you just make a better OS, and copy the superior look of just about every other OS on the market.
Points for originality only count if you don't look like shit. This new design, STILL LOOKS LIKE SHIT.
Why not just take a cue from Linux Mint? They actually have a very decent and PLEASING default look that is even original and different compared to Win and OSX.
While you are fixing that, why not go ahead and install superior default apps by default?
VLC is much, much better than any other video player for Linux.
Thunderbird is much better than whatever that crap is you default to.
Deluge is better than Transmission.
Audacious is much better than Rhythmbox.
In fact, other than Open Office, most of the Ubuntu default apps are right crap.
It wouldn't be hard to make 2010 the year of Linux on the desktop. All the tools are here now.
Sadly, all the distros I've seen are still too bulky, too ugly, and have all the worst default apps. Ubuntu is definitely a good example of that.
My guess is NSM Wii won't do that well. It's reviews have largely panned it in favor of the original titles, including SMB 3, arguably the greatest game ever made.
I never understand when somebody buys a console. You can get TONS of great games to play on a computer, including many older console titles in emulation. You can play all those games with better controllers, better graphics, without shuffling for DVDs, etc...
I mean, Wii has a few fun games, and it's cheap enough to at least consider, but then again the Wii emulator runs most of the games nearly perfect if you have a decent machine.
Buying a console is just throwing your money away so you can play the latest games, most of which are inferior to their earlier incarnations.
I'm still playing Civ 2 and Mario Kart 64. Not because I don't have the newer titles, but because the games are more fun!
Nobody is going to follow the increasingly ridiculous IP laws. Nobody. Information should be available to all, free of charge. That was the recommendation of Ben Franklin, and he is certainly smarter than any of the corporate tools they've assembled to put together this inhuman legislation.
Nobody obeys laws that are pointless and stupid. This should be a no-brainer. Talking on the phone is less distracting that talking to a real person. Is THAT going to be illegal?
Patents are stifling battery technology. Further in the case of environmental and health concerns, there should be no patents at all. Additionally, greater minds than mine, such as Benjamin Franklin, a pioneer in the nascent field of electricity and electrical technology suggested that patents IN GENERAL were immoral, selfish, and that innovation should be contributed "For the Greater Good".
But whatever, let's rush the patents on stuff that we need for the planet faster, so that these greedy corporations can charge you more sooner!
It's asinine. We need patent and copyright reform ASAP. I suggest a 10 year limit on any technology or piece of art. If you can't contribute something useful again once a decade, or save your earnings from that decade and live off of that, TOO FUCKING BAD, FUCK YOU!
Now the giant conglomerates just need to start failing one by one, so the government can hand them trillions of dollars for being "Too Big to Fail".
Hey! It worked for the banks!
"Free Market" is THE OPPOSITE of the corporate monopoly system we are currently living in. And this system is bad for every single living thing on the planet, and most importantly the development and prosperity of our own species, humanity.
The whole "waiting" concept is kind of silly. Unless an impending product is coming out THIS WEEK, and will significantly lower the price of another product you were already looking at, waiting more than a week is pretty silly. By your rationale we should all "wait" till there are core 12 GPU/CPU hybrids that run circles around all current hardware.
If we all "wait", current inventory will stop the manufacturers from being able to afford to put out new products.
I would never, ever waste money on a console. At $50 per game, I am more than happy to play the >1000 titles I already own in emulation. I own the roms to most of the best N64, Snes, PSX, and Wii and Gamecube games. I bought almost all of them used. And they all run perfectly in emulation on a decent computer. And at higher resolution, a better interface (no more disk swapping, shelves, cleaning, etc., they are all files on a 16gb USB stick), and with actual wiimotes. Most consoles cost $300 (with all four controllers, usually more), and each game is $50 and not any different/better than the previous version. Even if you want the latest/greatest, many are available for Wii and the Wii emulator works very well for MOST new games.
Truthfully, the games that get played the most on my projector: Mario Kart N64 Bust a Move SNES Urban Terror (Quake 3 Tech) Super Mario All Stars & World SNES Mortal Kombat 4 N64 Civilization II
All play perfectly on ANY computer out today, even on most onboard graphics cards.
Why anybody would throw their money away on a console to play the latest/greatest games that generally aren't as fun as the ones I listed is a real mystery. Especially when any decent quad core and graphics card will emulate the Wii perfectly in addition:
Mario Kart Wii New Super Mario Bros. Super Mario Galaxy Beatles Rock Band
Can we PLEASE just have a truly open source phone yet? This is FOSS's chance to beat out the big crap corporations. AGAIN. Let's not drop the ball this time.
I definitely would advise you to try the latest Mint or Ubuntu. Linux has come a LONG way in the last year or two. It is night and day further along than it was in 2007. Try again!
I have had a couple of Windows 7 crashes. Granted, they are few and far between, but they've happened. I have not had any Mint crashes on a couple of different machines, even after months of constant operation! I'll grant that stability is much less of an issue than in previous Windows OS installations.
Botched? I installed Windows 7 perfectly. All drivers (even missing ones), all apps, whatever they needed. Simply put: there are TOO MANY viruses that Windows users are susceptible to. They were immediately bogged down with viruses within less than a week.
Not all of them, but 50% of them, and that's just way too many.
Why? I don't get it. Sure, Windows 7 is about 100x better than Vista, but it's still buggy, unstable, a late copy cat of other superior OSes that have been out for a while (Mac/Ubuntu), and worst of all: Horribly prone to viruses.
In the last two months I've done 20 reformats and OS installs. Of the 20, 10 were Windows 7 installs, and 7 were Linux Mint installs, and the other 3 were stock Ubuntu. Of the 7 Mint installs, I have gotten NO tech support calls. Not one. Every customer is happy and going about their business happily watching YouTube, making docs in Open Office, and IMing in Pidgin. Literally, not ONE tech support call. I got one tech support call for Ubuntu, the client didn't know how to install flash. I should've done that before I "finished" the job. Kind of my fault.
No less than 5 of the Windows 7 installs have had to be REDONE. 5 of the clients got viruses within the first week, and needed a reformat. I switched 3 of them to Ubuntu 9.10. The other 2 I gave extremely stern lectures about Firefox, and bookmarked redtube on the bookmarks toolbar.
I don't understand why everyone is all over MS in a good way for Windows 7. It is still under-featured, bloated, prone to viruses, slow to boot, and lacking in stability compared to almost every Linux distro out these days. The ONLY reason I install Windows is for gamers. And even for some of them I setup dual boot with Ubuntu or Mint and try to make them boot to Linux for everything BUT gaming.
You should have voted for Kucinich. Or Ron Paul. Obviously Obama was a stuffed shirt and a liar. I particularly like his expansion of the warrantless wire-tapping program. Yay fascism!!!
Sounds like MS actually finished a feature that would make Windows 7 more valuable than XP (I haven't found another one). But of course they had to cut it out because some of their customers would lose revenue because they currently rely on over-charging for WiFi.
This is just yet another example of why we need this functionality in Linux TODAY, and why we all need to switch to Linux IMMEDIATELY.
These corporations are all sucking the life blood out of technology just to make a couple extra bucks, and stifling our advancement as a species for monetary gain. It's absolutely disgusting and embarrassing.
Like many parent posters I would pay 5 cents an episode for news without commercials. However, I would be much more inclined to pay 5 cents per show for news completely without corporate sponsorship:
News about how Monsanto could be potentially devastating the entire food chain with genetic experimentation that has already cross-pollinated into the wild.
News about how Aspartame and other chemicals commonly put in corporate food are toxic and cause cancer.
News about how both the British and American governments are completely run by corporations, generally at odds with the welfare and interest of the common man.
News about how the rest of the corporate news is also generally at odds with the welfare and interest of the common man, and in addition at odds with any factual information or truth whatsoever.
In fact, PBS, and BBC should both be running these news pieces on government subsidy for free to the populace and without corporate sponsorship. Further, they should be offering all video online and for free in open formats like.OGG or.xvid, and easily downloadable via an open source torrent app, like Deluge.
Then we could finally be getting REAL information, FCC be damned. Like who killed JFK? Back and to the Left. Back, and to the Left. Back.... and to the LEFT!!!
Slashdot Mirror
I've been loudly clammoring for Canonical to ditch the brown for the better part of a decade. On the forums, on IRC, on /., on Reddit, on my blog, literally everywhere, I've been pleading and begging for Shuttleworth et al to pull their heads out of their asses and make something that just generally appeals to a whole lot of people.
Brown doesn't. It was hideous, and somewhat embarrassing, especially when I tried to convince some people who ONLY WANTED FIREFOX that Ubuntu was a superior OS:
"But why is it so UGLY?!?"
"Hold on.... click click click..... Is that better?"
and of course those clicks are always changing the hideous default theme.
That said, this new theme is nearly as bad. Great, getting rid of the brown for.... PURPLE?!?!
Purple and Orange look god damned atrocious. Why don't you just make a better OS, and copy the superior look of just about every other OS on the market.
Points for originality only count if you don't look like shit. This new design, STILL LOOKS LIKE SHIT.
Why not just take a cue from Linux Mint? They actually have a very decent and PLEASING default look that is even original and different compared to Win and OSX.
While you are fixing that, why not go ahead and install superior default apps by default?
VLC is much, much better than any other video player for Linux.
Thunderbird is much better than whatever that crap is you default to.
Deluge is better than Transmission.
Audacious is much better than Rhythmbox.
In fact, other than Open Office, most of the Ubuntu default apps are right crap.
It wouldn't be hard to make 2010 the year of Linux on the desktop. All the tools are here now.
Sadly, all the distros I've seen are still too bulky, too ugly, and have all the worst default apps. Ubuntu is definitely a good example of that.
As if we needed any more reasons to put Monsanto out of business. This has got to be one of the most foul organizations on the planet.
Let's provide tech support to the whole country on St. Patrick's Day. They'll be too drunk to notice that we screwed up!
Dear Jane,
Will it still be an ugly Brown?
Thanks,
rhY
Please be quiet about all the virgins, next thing you know slashdot will be overrun with arabs packing high explosive!
My guess is NSM Wii won't do that well. It's reviews have largely panned it in favor of the original titles, including SMB 3, arguably the greatest game ever made.
I never understand when somebody buys a console. You can get TONS of great games to play on a computer, including many older console titles in emulation. You can play all those games with better controllers, better graphics, without shuffling for DVDs, etc...
I mean, Wii has a few fun games, and it's cheap enough to at least consider, but then again the Wii emulator runs most of the games nearly perfect if you have a decent machine.
Buying a console is just throwing your money away so you can play the latest games, most of which are inferior to their earlier incarnations.
I'm still playing Civ 2 and Mario Kart 64. Not because I don't have the newer titles, but because the games are more fun!
Nobody is going to follow the increasingly ridiculous IP laws. Nobody. Information should be available to all, free of charge. That was the recommendation of Ben Franklin, and he is certainly smarter than any of the corporate tools they've assembled to put together this inhuman legislation.
Nobody obeys laws that are pointless and stupid. This should be a no-brainer. Talking on the phone is less distracting that talking to a real person. Is THAT going to be illegal?
You stole my idea for a "green" suppository!!
Patents are stifling battery technology. Further in the case of environmental and health concerns, there should be no patents at all. Additionally, greater minds than mine, such as Benjamin Franklin, a pioneer in the nascent field of electricity and electrical technology suggested that patents IN GENERAL were immoral, selfish, and that innovation should be contributed "For the Greater Good".
But whatever, let's rush the patents on stuff that we need for the planet faster, so that these greedy corporations can charge you more sooner!
It's asinine. We need patent and copyright reform ASAP. I suggest a 10 year limit on any technology or piece of art. If you can't contribute something useful again once a decade, or save your earnings from that decade and live off of that, TOO FUCKING BAD, FUCK YOU!
Now the giant conglomerates just need to start failing one by one, so the government can hand them trillions of dollars for being "Too Big to Fail".
Hey! It worked for the banks!
"Free Market" is THE OPPOSITE of the corporate monopoly system we are currently living in. And this system is bad for every single living thing on the planet, and most importantly the development and prosperity of our own species, humanity.
The whole "waiting" concept is kind of silly. Unless an impending product is coming out THIS WEEK, and will significantly lower the price of another product you were already looking at, waiting more than a week is pretty silly. By your rationale we should all "wait" till there are core 12 GPU/CPU hybrids that run circles around all current hardware.
If we all "wait", current inventory will stop the manufacturers from being able to afford to put out new products.
I would never, ever waste money on a console. At $50 per game, I am more than happy to play the >1000 titles I already own in emulation. I own the roms to most of the best N64, Snes, PSX, and Wii and Gamecube games. I bought almost all of them used. And they all run perfectly in emulation on a decent computer. And at higher resolution, a better interface (no more disk swapping, shelves, cleaning, etc., they are all files on a 16gb USB stick), and with actual wiimotes. Most consoles cost $300 (with all four controllers, usually more), and each game is $50 and not any different/better than the previous version. Even if you want the latest/greatest, many are available for Wii and the Wii emulator works very well for MOST new games.
Truthfully, the games that get played the most on my projector:
Mario Kart N64
Bust a Move SNES
Urban Terror (Quake 3 Tech)
Super Mario All Stars & World SNES
Mortal Kombat 4 N64
Civilization II
All play perfectly on ANY computer out today, even on most onboard graphics cards.
Why anybody would throw their money away on a console to play the latest/greatest games that generally aren't as fun as the ones I listed is a real mystery. Especially when any decent quad core and graphics card will emulate the Wii perfectly in addition:
Mario Kart Wii
New Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Galaxy
Beatles Rock Band
Best 5 word Post Ever.
Ad.
Block.
Otherwise, GTFO!
Can we PLEASE just have a truly open source phone yet? This is FOSS's chance to beat out the big crap corporations. AGAIN. Let's not drop the ball this time.
I definitely would advise you to try the latest Mint or Ubuntu. Linux has come a LONG way in the last year or two. It is night and day further along than it was in 2007. Try again!
I have had a couple of Windows 7 crashes. Granted, they are few and far between, but they've happened. I have not had any Mint crashes on a couple of different machines, even after months of constant operation! I'll grant that stability is much less of an issue than in previous Windows OS installations.
Botched? I installed Windows 7 perfectly. All drivers (even missing ones), all apps, whatever they needed. Simply put: there are TOO MANY viruses that Windows users are susceptible to. They were immediately bogged down with viruses within less than a week.
Not all of them, but 50% of them, and that's just way too many.
Why? I don't get it. Sure, Windows 7 is about 100x better than Vista, but it's still buggy, unstable, a late copy cat of other superior OSes that have been out for a while (Mac/Ubuntu), and worst of all: Horribly prone to viruses.
In the last two months I've done 20 reformats and OS installs. Of the 20, 10 were Windows 7 installs, and 7 were Linux Mint installs, and the other 3 were stock Ubuntu. Of the 7 Mint installs, I have gotten NO tech support calls. Not one. Every customer is happy and going about their business happily watching YouTube, making docs in Open Office, and IMing in Pidgin. Literally, not ONE tech support call. I got one tech support call for Ubuntu, the client didn't know how to install flash. I should've done that before I "finished" the job. Kind of my fault.
No less than 5 of the Windows 7 installs have had to be REDONE. 5 of the clients got viruses within the first week, and needed a reformat. I switched 3 of them to Ubuntu 9.10. The other 2 I gave extremely stern lectures about Firefox, and bookmarked redtube on the bookmarks toolbar.
I don't understand why everyone is all over MS in a good way for Windows 7. It is still under-featured, bloated, prone to viruses, slow to boot, and lacking in stability compared to almost every Linux distro out these days. The ONLY reason I install Windows is for gamers. And even for some of them I setup dual boot with Ubuntu or Mint and try to make them boot to Linux for everything BUT gaming.
You should have voted for Kucinich. Or Ron Paul. Obviously Obama was a stuffed shirt and a liar. I particularly like his expansion of the warrantless wire-tapping program. Yay fascism!!!
Sounds like MS actually finished a feature that would make Windows 7 more valuable than XP (I haven't found another one). But of course they had to cut it out because some of their customers would lose revenue because they currently rely on over-charging for WiFi.
This is just yet another example of why we need this functionality in Linux TODAY, and why we all need to switch to Linux IMMEDIATELY.
These corporations are all sucking the life blood out of technology just to make a couple extra bucks, and stifling our advancement as a species for monetary gain. It's absolutely disgusting and embarrassing.
...Slow down my torrents in any way?
And if not, why exactly should I care?
Like many parent posters I would pay 5 cents an episode for news without commercials. However, I would be much more inclined to pay 5 cents per show for news completely without corporate sponsorship:
News about how Monsanto could be potentially devastating the entire food chain with genetic experimentation that has already cross-pollinated into the wild.
News about how Aspartame and other chemicals commonly put in corporate food are toxic and cause cancer.
News about how both the British and American governments are completely run by corporations, generally at odds with the welfare and interest of the common man.
News about how the rest of the corporate news is also generally at odds with the welfare and interest of the common man, and in addition at odds with any factual information or truth whatsoever.
In fact, PBS, and BBC should both be running these news pieces on government subsidy for free to the populace and without corporate sponsorship. Further, they should be offering all video online and for free in open formats like .OGG or .xvid, and easily downloadable via an open source torrent app, like Deluge.
Then we could finally be getting REAL information, FCC be damned. Like who killed JFK? Back and to the Left. Back, and to the Left. Back.... and to the LEFT!!!