"You are never really aware if the "kernel" (scary) is upt to date or what that means or how to tell."
Some distros (Mint, for one) will keep you aware of updates without having to do anything.
Most others include a program called 'Synaptic'; You run it, it tells you what you need. Or you can just (quickly) learn to use APT.
None of this is rocket science. None of these easy-to-learn-about, easy-to-use features *force you* to do anything, or stop you from what you're doing for hours, or reboot without warning. They are simpler, easier, and more secure than Win.
I'm so used to smelling rat when it comes to corporations and the government and the connections and overseas accounts. Lately I've been smelling hundreds of rats.
The biggest rat so far was when, the day before 9/11, Rumsfeld reported $2.3 trillion missing at the DoD. Neatly done.
I'm beginning to suspect it's possible there are thousands of rats like this Enron rat stuffed into thousands of closets. Once the news has faded away, we forget. Too bad that isn't impossible.
IF I *had* to use Chrome, I'd quit the Web. And if that'd be too painful, I follow after Stallman and have the pages mailed to me.
*That's* how much use I have for Google and the evil crap it's gotten us all sucked into. Every effing site on the web is pulling crap in from all over, loading on the trackers, even orgs that *ought* to know better. A nasty race to the bottom.
MS is in no position to make comments. Everything they've made lately has failed or is an insanely-rigged pile of used-to-be.
A man with $130 in his pocket and $300 shoes walks past a woman holding a sign that reads "Homeless... please help". He reaches into his pocket, puts 2 quarters into her plastic cup, then says "I'll back this way in 3 days, you can pay me back then."
. . . (It was recently reported that MS has over $130B in cash.)
All part of the long-standing program to eliminate the 'analog hole'... which started at about the time boomboxes stopped having audio-out jacks.
They can't win... there are no digital speaker-cones... but that doesn't keep them from trying... and pissing off more and more consumers... who, nevertheless, keep buying products that make hole-plugging easier.
If the programmers have any complaint, its about the Dewey 'system' itself. It's an ad hoc, illogical, non-memorable dire swamp of a 'system'.
Unfortunately for the coming generations, Mr. Dewey inveigled his way in early - heavily promoted his library equipment business - and foisted it on an unsuspecting public.
Were it not for all the equipment Mr. Dewey sold to go with it, and all of the people whose careers were ensnared by it, it would have been tossed out on its worthless ear long ago. (NOT to mention the fact that it remains heavily-guarded PRIVATE IP to this day.) One day soon, I hope, computers will allow it to be whisked away like the toxic disease it is.
I've managed to live quite well without a mobile phone, let alone a 'smart' one. When I see the ridiculous expense, and all the absurdly insecure apps, and all of the problems people have with them... including tensions and dependency... I don't see how the word 'smart' applies.
It's a fucking telephone. It's also a computer with no keyboard and a 'monitor' like a game-boy. REtarded.
It's like high-sugar cereal. And then people bitch when their teeth fall out.
Bill Nye is elderly, distinguished... meh, but he's certainly not a scientist (engineering is not science methinks).
Nonetheless, he's right on this one in so many ways. (And he didn't even mention the radiation.) We can't even protect our citizens who live in the wilderness, and we're going to develop tech that will guarantee a sustainable environment in those conditions????
Kids can dream of space-travel. Adults have to ask: for what?
Couldn't agree more. Ask yourself: where will the energy come from to power this vast expansion? Most of the easily-exploited energy sources have been pillaged and largely wasted, leaving us ready to fight over what's left.
Maybe in a thousand years that option will exist. But where? there are NO other easily colonized locations. Colonies in space? Transporting megatons of physical resources into space? Herding asteroids together... with what? Space mining? Space forging? Space welding?
Women in Europe, where physics was invented, were generally discouraged from pursuing professional work... not just in STEM topics, but also in the arts. For example, Mozart and Mendelssohn both had very musically-talented sisters.
Up until the 20th century, most of the STEM exceptions include female astronomers like Leavitt and Herschel (and a handful of mathematicians). After that, women like Marie Curie and Lisa Meitner were active 'inventors'... and then there's the case of Einstein's first wife....
So there's little doubt that 'men invented' physics to a large extent because women were excluded (except in 'support' positions). Leavitt (like Burnell, later) probably deserved a Nobel. I can completely understand some anger about such a bald assertion.
Interesting. Reminds me of Gödel's incompleteness theorems: any consistent system of axioms contains statements that are unprovable within the system. Equally mindblowing in a way: the Gödel metric
UNFORTUNATELY, much as I've enjoyed using it, a while back (v.26 or 27?) Pale Moon decided to unilaterally disable NoScript, then make updated versions unavailable for installation. I don't quite understand their beef (many accusations, didn't find any evidence), but I know what mine is: I don't need browser-makers deciding what extensions I should use, although I appreciate a heads-up.
Freed, huh? For jobs like being paid shit to dig coal, with a mandatory target to reach each day not matter how sick you are? and get thrown on a boxcar or even shot (along with your family) when you strike for a better wage? Take a look at history once.
'Productive'. Most people in the US today have no idea what 'productive' work is. And no idea what 'labor' is. Sitting in front of a stack of paper or a computer, working a phone, 'customer service'?
Didn't need a gym or jogging to keep fit. Ate real food.
Freed for *shit jobs* for *shit pay*. (Currently, at least $7.50 per hour) Keep celebrating as you lie to yourself, or try showing some feelings for people who don't have it as good as you do.
What would happen if we started calling Ai 'Fake Intelligence'... Fee Fi Foes?
As I understand the current fashions, AI has a fatal flaw: it's result is non-deterministic... noone can be sure how it arrives at an answer. That might be okay for face recognition, or 'computer art'... but for locating potential automobile collision victims, or deterministically arriving at a sound treatment for a patient? Wrong model.
I'd guess that the 'expert systems' of 20 years back outperform neural nets. Their logic trees were scrutable.
The lame quality of this post, and the lame quality of responses to it, remind me how far Slashdot has slid down the slippery slope.
The 'Tech Industry' is made of human beings... many of whom are nothing to write home about. This is not a revelation, nor something anyone can do anything about, short of running a million volts through them.
Wow. So tearing down 1000 1-GW windmills costs $200million (most parts recycleable). Compare to cost of decommissioning, tear-down and cleanup of a 1-GW nuke. Cheap!
Two years after 16.04, 18.04 arrives. Perceptible *useful* differences, as far as I the end-user can tell?
Miniscule. Again.
So while I'm glad the boys and girls are enjoying their fine-tuning experiences, in my experience, upgrades to 16.04 would have sufficed. The rest basically boils down to make-work.
Righto. What did US private enterprise do to the electric trams that had spread across the US by a century ago? They ganged together (look closely at L.A. for one example) to get them destroyed and replaced with buses, selling engines and tires and... and getting people to abandon them and proliferate private ownership of vehicles, and sell leaded gas. Then they got the government to foot the bill for the Interstate system (socializing the cost, privatizing the profits).
Fast forward a century and what is replacing the carbon-spewing traffic jams? Electric trams, now known as 'light rail'. NOT being paid for by private interests but by the taxpayers. Was that the best possible solution for modern mass transit? NO, but it was best for all of the private contractors... in the same way that NASA paid out way more than SpaceX. Follow the money... always.
'Studies' make the costs go up. 'Inventions' make the costs go down. Your choice, folks.
Good riddance! there are countless warehouses full of old TV's and monitors with these lead-lined monsters in them, and no way to get rid of them. Screw the old arcade games.
just belonging to a politically marginalized group can translate to poorer access.
That's not terribly suspicious. First and foremost, the internet exists to serve the privileged. From those who had/have the time to make it, to those who use its existence to better their own situation in life. Who's worrying about - let's say - it's impact on the education of the young? Clearly not very many people, since ordered, graduated, high-quality writng and tools to access it with are certainly not a substantial part of what's here (apart from, for example, -some- college professors to put -some- of their materials onlilne). It's largely dedicated to insubstantial entertainment for the masses (like the old mass media), as well as specialist forums for the already-educated.
There once existed an FM pioneer who complained "look what you've done to my child!" That early complaint has developed into a perennial pattern seen all across implementations of technology. While it's new and fun, people like Alan Kay and Seymour Papert have big, substantial dreams for it. And then the promise is dissipated, diluted to serve the same old mundanities. We had a chance to keep that from happening, but once again we're stumbling into the same old mental pitfalls that made the 20th century possible.
You can do a little better if you buy a good used car. You can't do much better, though, and there is an element of luck
In my experience, you can do A LOT better if you buy a good used car... which you know how to vet... and learn how to repair and maintain it. Lots of us have made it through a working lifetime without ever buying a shiney new car, saved A LOT on depreciation, and saved A LOT doing our own repairs whenever possible. An easy downgrade from Great Expectations and dedicated following-of-fashion is to get a car with several years left on the drivetrain warranty. By the time that warranty expires, you've saved enough to rinse and repeat. The rest of the money you save can be wisely invested in making your own microbrew... to help you chuckle when you drive by the dealership.
Slashdot Mirror
"You are never really aware if the "kernel" (scary) is upt to date or what that means or how to tell."
Some distros (Mint, for one) will keep you aware of updates without having to do anything.
Most others include a program called 'Synaptic'; You run it, it tells you what you need. Or you can just (quickly) learn to use APT.
None of this is rocket science. None of these easy-to-learn-about, easy-to-use features *force you* to do anything, or stop you from what you're doing for hours, or reboot without warning. They are simpler, easier, and more secure than Win.
I'm so used to smelling rat when it comes to corporations and the government and the connections and overseas accounts. Lately I've been smelling hundreds of rats.
The biggest rat so far was when, the day before 9/11, Rumsfeld reported $2.3 trillion missing at the DoD. Neatly done.
I'm beginning to suspect it's possible there are thousands of rats like this Enron rat stuffed into thousands of closets. Once the news has faded away, we forget. Too bad that isn't impossible.
IF I *had* to use Chrome, I'd quit the Web. And if that'd be too painful, I follow after Stallman and have the pages mailed to me.
*That's* how much use I have for Google and the evil crap it's gotten us all sucked into. Every effing site on the web is pulling crap in from all over, loading on the trackers, even orgs that *ought* to know better. A nasty race to the bottom.
MS is in no position to make comments. Everything they've made lately has failed or is an insanely-rigged pile of used-to-be.
Let's scale this down to everyday life.
A man with $130 in his pocket and $300 shoes walks past a woman holding a sign that reads "Homeless ... please help". He reaches into his pocket, puts 2 quarters into her plastic cup, then says "I'll back this way in 3 days, you can pay me back then."
.
.
.
(It was recently reported that MS has over $130B in cash.)
All part of the long-standing program to eliminate the 'analog hole' ... which started at about the time boomboxes stopped having audio-out jacks.
They can't win ... there are no digital speaker-cones ... but that doesn't keep them from trying ... and pissing off more and more consumers ... who, nevertheless, keep buying products that make hole-plugging easier.
If the programmers have any complaint, its about the Dewey 'system' itself. It's an ad hoc, illogical, non-memorable dire swamp of a 'system'.
Unfortunately for the coming generations, Mr. Dewey inveigled his way in early - heavily promoted his library equipment business - and foisted it on an unsuspecting public.
Were it not for all the equipment Mr. Dewey sold to go with it, and all of the people whose careers were ensnared by it, it would have been tossed out on its worthless ear long ago. (NOT to mention the fact that it remains heavily-guarded PRIVATE IP to this day.) One day soon, I hope, computers will allow it to be whisked away like the toxic disease it is.
I've managed to live quite well without a mobile phone, let alone a 'smart' one. When I see the ridiculous expense, and all the absurdly insecure apps, and all of the problems people have with them ... including tensions and dependency ... I don't see how the word 'smart' applies.
It's a fucking telephone. It's also a computer with no keyboard and a 'monitor' like a game-boy. REtarded.
It's like high-sugar cereal. And then people bitch when their teeth fall out.
Bill Nye is elderly, distinguished ... meh, but he's certainly not a scientist (engineering is not science methinks).
Nonetheless, he's right on this one in so many ways. (And he didn't even mention the radiation.) We can't even protect our citizens who live in the wilderness, and we're going to develop tech that will guarantee a sustainable environment in those conditions????
Kids can dream of space-travel. Adults have to ask: for what?
... at least most of the desktop owners realize that the optical drive tray isn't a coffee-cup holder any more....
Couldn't agree more. Ask yourself: where will the energy come from to power this vast expansion? Most of the easily-exploited energy sources have been pillaged and largely wasted, leaving us ready to fight over what's left.
Maybe in a thousand years that option will exist. But where? there are NO other easily colonized locations. Colonies in space? Transporting megatons of physical resources into space? Herding asteroids together ... with what? Space mining? Space forging? Space welding?
Pure fiction, science need not apply.
Women in Europe, where physics was invented, were generally discouraged from pursuing professional work ... not just in STEM topics, but also in the arts. For example, Mozart and Mendelssohn both had very musically-talented sisters.
Up until the 20th century, most of the STEM exceptions include female astronomers like Leavitt and Herschel (and a handful of mathematicians). After that, women like Marie Curie and Lisa Meitner were active 'inventors' ... and then there's the case of Einstein's first wife....
So there's little doubt that 'men invented' physics to a large extent because women were excluded (except in 'support' positions). Leavitt (like Burnell, later) probably deserved a Nobel. I can completely understand some anger about such a bald assertion.
Interesting. Reminds me of Gödel's incompleteness theorems: any consistent system of axioms contains statements that are unprovable within the system. Equally mindblowing in a way: the Gödel metric
UNFORTUNATELY, much as I've enjoyed using it, a while back (v.26 or 27?) Pale Moon decided to unilaterally disable NoScript, then make updated versions unavailable for installation. I don't quite understand their beef (many accusations, didn't find any evidence), but I know what mine is: I don't need browser-makers deciding what extensions I should use, although I appreciate a heads-up.
Here's their two cents worth: https://forum.palemoon.org/vie...
I've disabled my PM installer app and won't be updating. I recently DL'd the most recent IceCat; it's still good enough for them.
Freed, huh? For jobs like being paid shit to dig coal, with a mandatory target to reach each day not matter how sick you are? and get thrown on a boxcar or even shot (along with your family) when you strike for a better wage? Take a look at history once.
'Productive'. Most people in the US today have no idea what 'productive' work is. And no idea what 'labor' is. Sitting in front of a stack of paper or a computer, working a phone, 'customer service'?
Didn't need a gym or jogging to keep fit. Ate real food.
Freed for *shit jobs* for *shit pay*. (Currently, at least $7.50 per hour) Keep celebrating as you lie to yourself, or try showing some feelings for people who don't have it as good as you do.
Yeah but ... no health benefits! no retirement! no vacations!
Great deal for the vendors, not so much for their victims.
What would happen if we started calling Ai 'Fake Intelligence' ... Fee Fi Foes?
As I understand the current fashions, AI has a fatal flaw: it's result is non-deterministic ... noone can be sure how it arrives at an answer. That might be okay for face recognition, or 'computer art' ... but for locating potential automobile collision victims, or deterministically arriving at a sound treatment for a patient? Wrong model.
I'd guess that the 'expert systems' of 20 years back outperform neural nets. Their logic trees were scrutable.
The lame quality of this post, and the lame quality of responses to it, remind me how far Slashdot has slid down the slippery slope.
The 'Tech Industry' is made of human beings ... many of whom are nothing to write home about. This is not a revelation, nor something anyone can do anything about, short of running a million volts through them.
Wow. So tearing down 1000 1-GW windmills costs $200million (most parts recycleable). Compare to cost of decommissioning, tear-down and cleanup of a 1-GW nuke. Cheap!
Once you got 'em hooked, you can play 'em like a marlin !!
Two years after 16.04, 18.04 arrives. Perceptible *useful* differences, as far as I the end-user can tell?
Miniscule. Again.
So while I'm glad the boys and girls are enjoying their fine-tuning experiences, in my experience, upgrades to 16.04 would have sufficed. The rest basically boils down to make-work.
Righto. What did US private enterprise do to the electric trams that had spread across the US by a century ago? They ganged together (look closely at L.A. for one example) to get them destroyed and replaced with buses, selling engines and tires and ... and getting people to abandon them and proliferate private ownership of vehicles, and sell leaded gas. Then they got the government to foot the bill for the Interstate system (socializing the cost, privatizing the profits).
Fast forward a century and what is replacing the carbon-spewing traffic jams? Electric trams, now known as 'light rail'. NOT being paid for by private interests but by the taxpayers. Was that the best possible solution for modern mass transit? NO, but it was best for all of the private contractors ... in the same way that NASA paid out way more than SpaceX. Follow the money ... always.
'Studies' make the costs go up. 'Inventions' make the costs go down. Your choice, folks.
Good riddance! there are countless warehouses full of old TV's and monitors with these lead-lined monsters in them, and no way to get rid of them. Screw the old arcade games.
just belonging to a politically marginalized group can translate to poorer access.
That's not terribly suspicious. First and foremost, the internet exists to serve the privileged. From those who had/have the time to make it, to those who use its existence to better their own situation in life. Who's worrying about - let's say - it's impact on the education of the young? Clearly not very many people, since ordered, graduated, high-quality writng and tools to access it with are certainly not a substantial part of what's here (apart from, for example, -some- college professors to put -some- of their materials onlilne). It's largely dedicated to insubstantial entertainment for the masses (like the old mass media), as well as specialist forums for the already-educated.
There once existed an FM pioneer who complained "look what you've done to my child!" That early complaint has developed into a perennial pattern seen all across implementations of technology. While it's new and fun, people like Alan Kay and Seymour Papert have big, substantial dreams for it. And then the promise is dissipated, diluted to serve the same old mundanities. We had a chance to keep that from happening, but once again we're stumbling into the same old mental pitfalls that made the 20th century possible.
You are correct sir.
You can do a little better if you buy a good used car. You can't do much better, though, and there is an element of luck
In my experience, you can do A LOT better if you buy a good used car ... which you know how to vet ... and learn how to repair and maintain it. ... to help you chuckle when you drive by the dealership.
Lots of us have made it through a working lifetime without ever buying a shiney new car, saved A LOT on depreciation, and saved A LOT doing our own repairs whenever possible.
An easy downgrade from Great Expectations and dedicated following-of-fashion is to get a car with several years left on the drivetrain warranty. By the time that warranty expires, you've saved enough to rinse and repeat. The rest of the money you save can be wisely invested in making your own microbrew