This whole world has basically gone to shit. All we get are news story after news story about how this person or that corporation did something for pure greed. Because that's what people like to hear. Just look at how many articles get posted on slashdot, and how many comments are posted. People love this stuff!!
Gotta get mine -- especially if it makes me a billionaire -- regardless of what it does to anyone else, the environment, or even their own country. Yes, if only there were a system where nobody at all was anti-social, selfish, or chose to work for some reason other than improving the lot of his fellow man. Where everyone worked to his ability to support every other's need! That is truly what we need.
We're fighting a war for, and on behalf of, oil companies. American manufacturers have shipped jobs and technology overseas. The car companies made giant cars knowing full well that they wasted energy and contributed to global warming. Now we have a whole economic sector in crisis due to making loans that people couldn't pay and it is spilling into the rest of the economy. I'll take your word on the oil/gas companies, you must know something I don't. Why is manufacturing overseas necessarily a bad thing? Cheap products are good for Americans too. The car companies make cards people WANT. I for one am thankful that you don't get to control my life (though I guess you want to?)! People taking loans they couldn't afford is equally the fault of people not being personally responsible as it is stupid banks. What annoys me in the discussion is the years of demands that the banking industry help lower income families take out loans to buy homes--when they do and it doesn't work out, it's predatory lending..
Why? Because someone could make a buck off it somehow regardless of what it meant for the long-term health of this country, its citizens, and our economy. Even the world. Ok. Plenty of things have been done and are being done "to make a buck" that are tremendously positive for the long-term health of the country, the world, etc. You're just focusing on the negative because it's easy to do, and that's what people are obsessed with now.
I don't know why I expected anything different from Amazon. What DID you expect from Amazon? I don't get it? They're a business, only that and nothing more.
Well, yes you should. It doesn't take any CPU at all to not render the html on the 29+ tabs that aren't currently being shown. I should think it certainly does take up CPU time to have lots of simultaneous network connections downloading data, parsing or not, loading them into memory, etc. Additionally, most people expect that when you click a background tab that's finished downloading that it shows up instantly. Not saying there's no room for optimization, but i think you're minimizing what's going on.
Just tried this on my mac: "sudo: port: command not found" The process to set up your mac so the command you mentioned works is not that different from the process of installing wine on a linux distro, so it's a fair comparison. Ok, so port is one software package to download (as is fink). Alternatively, you could download and compile bluefish yourself. The point I was making in this regards is that software like bluefish/gtk/etc compiles natively, and runs natively. It's NOT like Wine. It's no different than compiling a port from the ports system on FreeBSD, etc.
I agree re: the finder could use some work.
I guess the thing I mostly found interesting about Roblimo's review is that it totally read like something a non-technical user, a "newb" if you will, would write. Not somebody who has been running linux for a decade plus. Additionally, (and Roblimo even acknowledges this) the "conservatism" / "stuck in your aways" (my use!) is interesting to me, as linux desktops and windows desktops seem to be getting progressively closer UI wise.
So if I leave Javascript turned on, because there are sites that require me to use their Javascript to do the things I want to do there, my browser's open to Evil Javascript on other sites, plus there's enough Bad Javascript out there that after I've done enough browsing, Firefox is burning most of my CPU on leftover broken cruft that I have to kill it. This never happens to me. There are obviously a lot of people out there who feel like you do (and use NoScript, etc) but I've never really gotten it. Where are these websites which kill your browser or do otherwise unwanted things? Is it that huge a problem?
(I use Safari more than Firefox, and while it's improved vastly in its latest versions, Safari has traditionally sucked both speed and correctness with javascript in comparison with FF)
I find very few statements from the "Windows and Mac: Not to my taste at all" section that I can agree with at all. I mean, obviously the taste part is fine, after all a lot of operating system/application choice is merely personal taste. (vi/emacs anyone?), however the overall section seems... inane?
I will say that it's interesting how even with longtime users like Roblimo, the "linux experience" is really becoming the ubuntu/gnome experience and the kubuntu/kde experience. From this review, it sounds like the base operating system could be FreeBSD, solaris, whatever, and Roblimo wouldn't have a clue. I think this is probably a very good thing, but also speaks to the changing skillsets of linux users.
A few statements:
even humble things like the closest application I could come on a Mac to my beloved Bluefish editor cost money, even though they were no better than -- and in many cases not as good as -- the free software to which I had grown accustomed.... There are ways to fiddle some Linux apps into working on Mac OS, much as Wine can make some Windows apps run in Linux, but this is a lot of trouble. Ok, here's what I had to do to install bluefish (which I've never heard of / used before).
open a Terminal window (I use csh) and type "sudo port install bluefish"
That was it. I'm sure fink has a package as well. While X apps are slightly different under osx, I don't think comparing the experience or process to Wine is at all correct.
And here's the funny thing: Windows feels a lot more Linuxlike to me than Mac OS. In many ways it seems as if it's a slightly clumsy knockoff of KDE. Yeah, you think WINDOWS is ripping off KDE? I'm not going to argue that windows is the king of originality, but I think it came about the other way around...
Ditto the way you store and find individual files, for which Windows uses the same "folders and subfolders" metaphor as both KDE and GNOME, and Windows gives me a Linux-style horizontal list of open programs across the bottom of my screen, which Mac OS does not. Confused again. Mac doesn't use folders and subfolders? That's news to me. Horizontal list of open programs--that's called the dock. Ok, so it includes launcher buttons as well, but virtually the same thing.
Backing up my data in Windows is lots harder than backing up a/home or/username directory in Linux, because Windows seems to scatter data all over the place. This is true, though for the past what...7-8 years (since 2k/xp) all of your files+personal registory should live under c:\documents and settings\username -- effectively the same as a/home directory. When you have roaming profiles on a windows network, your user directory gets copied back and forth.
Windows is supposed to be less virus-prone than it was a few years ago, but the only way to keep malware off of Windows (that I know of) is to not connect it to the Internet This was MAYBE true once upon a time. I primarily use my OSX laptop now, but I've never gotten a virus on my PC (don't run software usually) and have never had a malware/adware infection either. Of course I've used firefox/mozilla for years. At my office I've certainly seen my share of adware/etc infections, almost always from people clicking things in email or webpages (and no infections in quite awhile) they shouldn't--which I would hope roblimo doesn't do!!
and one from the next section...
Except for one thing: as far as he knows, he doesn't connect to the Internet or use email software. He connects to AOL, which to him is the Internet. Including email. AOL is indeed the Internet. When you connect to AOL, you're on the internet, and you can ping, use firefox, etc to your heart's content.
I'm not going to argue that Verizon doesn't suck in many ways (because they do) but imho, they do have the best data network which is the most important for me. I use EVDO on laptop and phone all the time. Anyway, my question was, does Verizon still do all those dirty things you mention? My phone--a LG chocolate variant--has full bluetooth, I can use it as a modem via bluetooth, and I've transferred ring tones+pictures to and from the phone. Couldn't ask for much more.
I think the issue is worse than you make it out to be. Compare a million households with dozens of bulbs each to a handful of electrical plants (be they hydro, nuclear, coal, whatever). Which is easier to make sure happens--that each of those million households properly disposes of each bulb, including broken bulbs, etc, or to control/cleanup emissions from a handful of tightly regulated sites?
They are called literals. (I know you OO guys were never taught about them, nothing to be scared of though). Thanks for the poorly attempted ad hominem--I mostly program in C (or scripting languages, but that's another story). You also seem to have misread my post, as I mentioned literals. Thanks though, you really brought the conversation to a new level.
You know there's many articles on DailyWTF that describe so called programmers who want to express every statement as a function There's actually a school of programming thought--taught in some colleges even zomg!--that any group of say 10 lines or more should be its own function. No something I agree with, but it's out there. Thanks for the attempted ad hominem again. I hope you didn't take my original message the wrong way--it was not a personal attack on you, and I don't think you should take disagreement over programming style so personally (jmho though)
So a literal "2008-03-13" within a conditional test is a random magic number ? Sure, I have no idea what 2008-08-13 is from your post, not a clue. I don't know what the event is, and most importantly, is this an event that changes? Is my program going to be checking 2008-08-13 for the next 10 years? How many other places in my code is this same date listed? If I need to change it, how many places am I going to have to search? What if one of them has a typo and I miss changing it in a future revision. Those are serious, and real issues with scattering literals throughout code. If it TRULY is a one time date and this is truly the only check for it in the program and it's not going to change, ever--of course there's no problem with putting it right in the code. Those assumptions need to be checked though!
I suppose with that logic we'd better make constants out of booleans too ? Ok, explain the allegedly "logical" steps you used to get here?
A LITERAL IS NOT AUTOMATICALLY A CONSTANT How is this relevant to the discussion at hand?
Look, it basically boils down to this--the method of programming that you seem to like, is absolutely great for small projects and personal hobby programs. Heck, it's common even in bigger ones. It becomes totally unmanageable though. Look at, for instance, the FreeBSD source code. I did a quick look in/usr/src/sys/kern. By your standards the FreeBSD kernel hackers are the equivalent of dailywtf jerks because they use define statements and macros to both INCREASE readability and IMPROVE maintainability. I really am not sure why you are arguing so hard against this? Of all the points from my original post, you picked a very odd one (and one which has nothing to do with OOP/functional/procedural/whatever language choice) to argue!
Well, I can't directly comment as my knowledge of.net is minimal. However, I would just like to add that you ARE missing one point of the abstraction here--that is, you easily and clearly centralize what the ranges are (by defining the range in one place).
Of course this is possible in every type of language, be it as a variable, constant, enum, #define, whatever (anything BUT a literal!).
Of course, when you do this, you have exactly the same issue when you say
"So instead of being able to see both the variable AND the range it is being tested against IN THE SAME LINE, I now have to go trawling back through the code looking for the place where you created the Range object to find the low and high boundaries of it." You're not really advocating littering your source code with lots of random magic numbers, are you?
I just finished a book on phylloxera, and I find it interesting to see some of the parallels. Apparently 100 years is not enough time to learn from mistakes.... Good book? Care to recommend (or not)?
I was kind of hoping for actual things rather than vast generalizations or platitudes. I mean, I can more or less guess where you're going, but what specific things are you talking about? I don't think anyone you would talk to on the street or elsewhere would disagree that oppression is bad, fascism is bad, nothing lasts forever, etc.
What are they lying about? You never replied to my other post where I asked for info and I'm not hugely expecting an answer to this, but I'd love to hear your facts.
It seems the US is going that way any how. Not that I am arguing, but I am curious what you are talking about--what historical mistakes do you see the US currently repeating?
So instead of saying founding father this and founding father that, why not think for yourselves what is right for THIS age and time. To think that Americans do otherwise is sheer ignorance. The founding fathers are remembered because they got so much right--they designed a system that has survived 200+ years with very few changes. Nobody--originalists included--act or think the way you seem to think they do. While designing the first modern political system from the ground up, the founders and great thinkers of the period had many debates, wrote much, spoke much, and thought much. It would be foolish in the extreme to toss away an ENTIRE body of knowledge and thinking because it does not fit the intellectual trends of a moment (nihilist eh?;-) In a situation like this, the previous poster is pointing out a perfect example of a problem that Washington warned of. Nobody is suggesting that we should keep a static society from the late 18th century, rather we should remember the ideals upon which the entire American society was founded, and be mindful of the past.
You know the old statement--those who forget history are doomed to repeat it?
You don't get to bleat about "bias" when one side is 100% full of shit. Well, unless you're a fan of for instance the Fairness Doctrine, you can actually "bleat" about whatever you want--you seem to:)
Buscho started the warrantless wiretapping BEFORE 911 Really? Any links about this info? As far as I know all the executive orders came after 911?
The blathering about "protect telecos that helped us after 911" is also bullshit because if the gvt had followed the law and gotten a warrant, the telecos would have no choice but to comply. Well the question is one of speed, with regards to warrants. On the question of immunity, if the government OFFICIALLY asks a business to do something (and backed by presidential order, etc), and the business does as asked, why should the business suffer? The legality of these cases are still up in the air--I'm personally very glad we don't follow your standard presumption of guilt before innocence.
Seems to me that slashdot editors have figured out that "geeks" in the loosest sense of the term (and including the huge young generation of upper-middle-class internet junkies) are a far bigger market than the original hardcore science/computer/linux/whatever nerds that slashdot used to focus on. Makes sense--just look at the politics articles, they're the most commented on.
Can't say I like the slashdot editors objectively unobjective stands, but hey, it's what makes them money, I can't really complain about that.
In the universally preferred notation (except for those who take being non-conformist to absurd levels), I find the fact that you care so much about how some people write dates (and seek to apply odd psychological profiles to them!) mildly disturbing.
Spending money is for people who don't know how to get things for free. I also have 2 PSPs. I paid for one PSP, the rest of the equipment I got for free, either via competitions, or other deals where gift vouchers or equipment were thrown in as incentives. Haha, nice. So you're claiming to have gotten a PSP, a wii, and PS3 for free? I mean, I know it's slashdot, but maintain SOME credibility!!
Deducing that I believe Linux users to be superior is a jump of logic that would win an olympic award, if awards were given for such things. I never said that Linux users were superior, merely that we're different in how we look for our fun. Right, and I said that the original way you phrased your statement sounded elitist, especially right after you listed your extensive collection of gaming equipment.
I think the Linux games don't sell because most Linux users who are also gamers tend to have a Windows partition they boot to to play. I completely agree.
I really feel you kind of missed the point I was trying to make. I did misunderstand. I think we agree on the gaming partition though.
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So when I open 30+ tabs I should be surprised that my CPU is chugging and firefox is sucking ram? And I'm supposed to blame javascript? I dunno..
The process to set up your mac so the command you mentioned works is not that different from the process of installing wine on a linux distro, so it's a fair comparison. Ok, so port is one software package to download (as is fink). Alternatively, you could download and compile bluefish yourself. The point I was making in this regards is that software like bluefish/gtk/etc compiles natively, and runs natively. It's NOT like Wine. It's no different than compiling a port from the ports system on FreeBSD, etc.
I agree re: the finder could use some work.
I guess the thing I mostly found interesting about Roblimo's review is that it totally read like something a non-technical user, a "newb" if you will, would write. Not somebody who has been running linux for a decade plus. Additionally, (and Roblimo even acknowledges this) the "conservatism" / "stuck in your aways" (my use!) is interesting to me, as linux desktops and windows desktops seem to be getting progressively closer UI wise.
(I use Safari more than Firefox, and while it's improved vastly in its latest versions, Safari has traditionally sucked both speed and correctness with javascript in comparison with FF)
Correct, however, the real equivalent is
C:\Documents and Settings\username
I think in Vista it's:
C:\users\username
but I have no intention of using vista, so I'm not sure.
I will say that it's interesting how even with longtime users like Roblimo, the "linux experience" is really becoming the ubuntu/gnome experience and the kubuntu/kde experience. From this review, it sounds like the base operating system could be FreeBSD, solaris, whatever, and Roblimo wouldn't have a clue. I think this is probably a very good thing, but also speaks to the changing skillsets of linux users.
A few statements: even humble things like the closest application I could come on a Mac to my beloved Bluefish editor cost money, even though they were no better than -- and in many cases not as good as -- the free software to which I had grown accustomed.
open a Terminal window (I use csh) and type "sudo port install bluefish"
That was it. I'm sure fink has a package as well. While X apps are slightly different under osx, I don't think comparing the experience or process to Wine is at all correct. And here's the funny thing: Windows feels a lot more Linuxlike to me than Mac OS. In many ways it seems as if it's a slightly clumsy knockoff of KDE. Yeah, you think WINDOWS is ripping off KDE? I'm not going to argue that windows is the king of originality, but I think it came about the other way around... Ditto the way you store and find individual files, for which Windows uses the same "folders and subfolders" metaphor as both KDE and GNOME, and Windows gives me a Linux-style horizontal list of open programs across the bottom of my screen, which Mac OS does not. Confused again. Mac doesn't use folders and subfolders? That's news to me. Horizontal list of open programs--that's called the dock. Ok, so it includes launcher buttons as well, but virtually the same thing. Backing up my data in Windows is lots harder than backing up a
and one from the next section... Except for one thing: as far as he knows, he doesn't connect to the Internet or use email software. He connects to AOL, which to him is the Internet. Including email. AOL is indeed the Internet. When you connect to AOL, you're on the internet, and you can ping, use firefox, etc to your heart's content.
I'm not going to argue that Verizon doesn't suck in many ways (because they do) but imho, they do have the best data network which is the most important for me. I use EVDO on laptop and phone all the time. Anyway, my question was, does Verizon still do all those dirty things you mention? My phone--a LG chocolate variant--has full bluetooth, I can use it as a modem via bluetooth, and I've transferred ring tones+pictures to and from the phone. Couldn't ask for much more.
I think the issue is worse than you make it out to be. Compare a million households with dozens of bulbs each to a handful of electrical plants (be they hydro, nuclear, coal, whatever). Which is easier to make sure happens--that each of those million households properly disposes of each bulb, including broken bulbs, etc, or to control/cleanup emissions from a handful of tightly regulated sites?
Look, it basically boils down to this--the method of programming that you seem to like, is absolutely great for small projects and personal hobby programs. Heck, it's common even in bigger ones. It becomes totally unmanageable though. Look at, for instance, the FreeBSD source code. I did a quick look in
I still don't get it--are you REALLY saying that people should be hardcoding constants scattered throughout source files?
Of course this is possible in every type of language, be it as a variable, constant, enum, #define, whatever (anything BUT a literal!).
is
if(event >= EVENT1_START_DATE && event <= EVENT1_END_DATE)
really that much better?
Of course, when you do this, you have exactly the same issue when you say "So instead of being able to see both the variable AND the range it is being tested against IN THE SAME LINE, I now have to go trawling back through the code looking for the place where you created the Range object to find the low and high boundaries of it." You're not really advocating littering your source code with lots of random magic numbers, are you?
Oh no you didn't!! SNAP
Man, good one!! We on slashdot all aspire only to be so witty.
I was kind of hoping for actual things rather than vast generalizations or platitudes. I mean, I can more or less guess where you're going, but what specific things are you talking about? I don't think anyone you would talk to on the street or elsewhere would disagree that oppression is bad, fascism is bad, nothing lasts forever, etc.
What are they lying about? You never replied to my other post where I asked for info and I'm not hugely expecting an answer to this, but I'd love to hear your facts.
From french via Latin perhaps? Thousand = mille in both french+latin
You know the old statement--those who forget history are doomed to repeat it?
Any good links available? I haven't gotten into the console modification/etc scene before.
Seems to me that slashdot editors have figured out that "geeks" in the loosest sense of the term (and including the huge young generation of upper-middle-class internet junkies) are a far bigger market than the original hardcore science/computer/linux/whatever nerds that slashdot used to focus on. Makes sense--just look at the politics articles, they're the most commented on.
Can't say I like the slashdot editors objectively unobjective stands, but hey, it's what makes them money, I can't really complain about that.