as I said before, 'choice', or perhaps even better 'freedom', is one of the reasons you install Linux.
Sure, that's why you or I would chose Linux, and it's a good thing for us. I just think that, in general, there's a lot of dumb people out there, and Linux doesn't really cater to them very well.
I completely agree with your comments. You or I would be able to competently recommend and get somebody set up on Linux. But what about that friend/relative/coworker that we help set up? Would they, in turn, be able to set somebody up? And that person?
It's a great system if you have access to an expert. But I still think that some of the things that we know are actually benefits for us, might be seen as obstacles for some people.
I think it's a bad idea to consider the word/phrase you speak for the card to ID your voice a 'password' -- or even to limit it to a single word. People are more familiar with the concept of passwords than voice identification, and you're going to wind up with a lot of people that are worried about others listening into their transaction, trying to overhear their password.
the splintering of hundreds of different distros hasn't helped at all
More than just not helped, I see this as a dominant problem.
If you tell somebody, you should try using Linux as your OS! They'll go to the store and look for a box that says "Linux." They don't see it, instead they see boxes for Red Hat Enterprise, Suse, Lindows, etc. Do they know that these are each incarnations of Linux? Not necessarily. All they know is that more work is now required on their part. The onus of decision is upon them.
Then, depending on the distribution they chose, they take it home and then get to decide between Gnome, KDE, or something else. More work on their part.
Then, if they actually get everything running, and they talk to friends who are also running Linux and tell them about a cool game -- well, now they have to make sure it's available for their distribution *without* them having to compile it themselves (which, for them, is just about the scariest notion there is).
Linux is a terrific OS. Don't think this means I don't like it. But I do the odd tech support for my family and friends, and I can only think of a couple of them that might be ready for Linux. There are too many choices for the average computer user right now.
The way I see it there are two fixes that need to happen. First, as this story's original poster is discussing, the back end of every Linux distribution needs to know how to talk the same language. The way I see it, this goes all the way to including standards on how applications are installed on the system. This will fix some of the problems.
The rest of the problems need to be addressed by educating the public. I'm not just talking about public service announcements. I think that Red Hat, Suse, etc. need to make it very clear on the packaging that they are a offering a distribution of a Linux OS, not an OS all of their own.
So if you're sufficiently nutty (and if you're involved in interpreting the GPL, you will be), using a font in a document is a lot like linking.
Except it's not the document that's doing the linking, it's the program that is displaying the document. So, if I used a GPL font in Word, which uses the MFC font rendering tools, does that mean that Windows is now under the GPL?
If you think it's bad that using certain fonts makes your documents 'open' -- then watch out for those GPL'd words! If you use words like "open," "free," or "fair" or phrases like "as in speech" or "as in beer" then your document will also fall under GPL licensing!
When asked for comments, a Microsoft spokesperson said, "Well, we certainly don't know anything about 'open' or 'free,' and I'm pretty certain our company has never acknowledged the existance of the word 'fair.' We will be opening an investigation to make sure that other communist...uh...GPL'd phrases are not and will not ever appear in our literature."
During the press conference Bush told reporters, "I don't want to see another NASA administrator - appointed on my watch - left to justify a program to Congress based on lies, dis-information, half-truths and sexed up reports."
The way I see it, it's basically commentary on how the WMD reports and the failure to find any. There was a new report that came out a couple of days ago saying that our intelligence was, quote, "dead wrong." I think this is a reference to that report.
Education shows a capacity for real achievement and a PhD is proof - not of intellect - but of perseverence and hard work.
Agreed -- but it's not just the perseverence and hard work itself, but the realization of the value of perseverence and hard work. It's the difference between being stubborn and being motivated. There are very few PhDs around that didn't get that way without a great deal of motivation.
Frankly, we should be blaming all those web 'developers' for their lazy and frankly, filthy, coding. I've worked in quite a few places and only those on the outside or real passionate web programmers care much about anything non-IE.
I think this hits on another point. Most of these sloppy 'developers' are using only the WYSIWYG tools in Dreamweaver, GoLive, or even *gasp* Frontpage. You can create good code with these programs (well, I'm not sure about Frontpage, but I know you can with Dreamweaver and GoLive) if you take over and delve into the code itself, but you can also let the application do all the dirty work with the 'developer' just sitting there, pointing and clicking, copying and pasting....
And the fact is, with this level of interaction, with the application creating most of the code, it's all going to work with IE. Macromedia and Adobe are interested in tools that work everywhere, including IE. These 'developers' aren't going to be helping our case at all, and they certainly won't be convincing MS that they're doing anything they need to change.
It depends on how you define "spam-free." If you mean that nobody is sending spam, posting blog spam, sending spam over chat networks, etc. then I think the chances are rather slim. If you mean that most people will rarely see [email] spam, then I think it's possible.
But I think that one would lead to the other. If relatively few people are seeing spam, then suddenly spamming is no longer making money for the spammers, and they would eventually stop actually sending it.
Of course that's an optimistic scenario. It would probably lie somewhere in the middle. Fewer and fewer people see the spam, so spamming itself is less and less cost effective. Fewer and fewer spammers participate, while the remaining ones will have to reduce their fees since there will be fewer views. Fewer spammers and less money mean less innovation. Eventually (hopefully), the entire movement will slow down until spamming is only done by a few recluses targetting only the most oblivious users.
If Google did do a calendar, then I'm betting they would use an XMLHttpRequest object to go forward/backward through the months and days. Which means their search algorithm probably would work off of a flat version -- either through a robots.txt type guide or maybe a custom backend search.
Once an alien civilization sees the crappy products we have here on Earth, they'll never stop here! At least, not the good ones. We'll get plenty of visits from "green trash" bargain shoppers.
So I guess the question in how far can you take this? Does this automatically mean that any spyware is wiretapping? After all, most adware does observe and report a person's internet browsing activity. But I'm sure some people would argue it's a gray line, because is sending URLs really a form of electronic communication? Does spyware 'listen' to enough human-inteprettable language to be considered a wiretap?
In a phone analogy, it's more like listening in on which phone number is being dialed, not the conversation. But in a lot of instances there is more information, thanks to the query string. A URL can tell an adware program what books someone is looking at on Amazon, or what they are searching for at Google.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't blame Microsoft. I think the Slashdot editors abbreviated the actual slogan. The official one is:
Microsoft. It just barely works.
Maybe those people who say, "SPAM doesn't really hurt anybody" will listen to this?
Nah. The people who think that are already too stupid for a 10 point drop in IQ to really make much of a difference.
as I said before, 'choice', or perhaps even better 'freedom', is one of the reasons you install Linux.
Sure, that's why you or I would chose Linux, and it's a good thing for us. I just think that, in general, there's a lot of dumb people out there, and Linux doesn't really cater to them very well.
I completely agree with your comments. You or I would be able to competently recommend and get somebody set up on Linux. But what about that friend/relative/coworker that we help set up? Would they, in turn, be able to set somebody up? And that person?
It's a great system if you have access to an expert. But I still think that some of the things that we know are actually benefits for us, might be seen as obstacles for some people.
Why not do actual piracy on the high seas? There's more liquor and women that way.
Plus if you're caught being an actual pirate, the sentence is much lighter than if you were caught swapping copyrighted material.
I think it's a bad idea to consider the word/phrase you speak for the card to ID your voice a 'password' -- or even to limit it to a single word. People are more familiar with the concept of passwords than voice identification, and you're going to wind up with a lot of people that are worried about others listening into their transaction, trying to overhear their password.
the splintering of hundreds of different distros hasn't helped at all
More than just not helped, I see this as a dominant problem.
If you tell somebody, you should try using Linux as your OS! They'll go to the store and look for a box that says "Linux." They don't see it, instead they see boxes for Red Hat Enterprise, Suse, Lindows, etc. Do they know that these are each incarnations of Linux? Not necessarily. All they know is that more work is now required on their part. The onus of decision is upon them.
Then, depending on the distribution they chose, they take it home and then get to decide between Gnome, KDE, or something else. More work on their part.
Then, if they actually get everything running, and they talk to friends who are also running Linux and tell them about a cool game -- well, now they have to make sure it's available for their distribution *without* them having to compile it themselves (which, for them, is just about the scariest notion there is).
Linux is a terrific OS. Don't think this means I don't like it. But I do the odd tech support for my family and friends, and I can only think of a couple of them that might be ready for Linux. There are too many choices for the average computer user right now.
The way I see it there are two fixes that need to happen. First, as this story's original poster is discussing, the back end of every Linux distribution needs to know how to talk the same language. The way I see it, this goes all the way to including standards on how applications are installed on the system. This will fix some of the problems.
The rest of the problems need to be addressed by educating the public. I'm not just talking about public service announcements. I think that Red Hat, Suse, etc. need to make it very clear on the packaging that they are a offering a distribution of a Linux OS, not an OS all of their own.
So if you're sufficiently nutty (and if you're involved in interpreting the GPL, you will be), using a font in a document is a lot like linking.
Except it's not the document that's doing the linking, it's the program that is displaying the document. So, if I used a GPL font in Word, which uses the MFC font rendering tools, does that mean that Windows is now under the GPL?
If you think it's bad that using certain fonts makes your documents 'open' -- then watch out for those GPL'd words! If you use words like "open," "free," or "fair" or phrases like "as in speech" or "as in beer" then your document will also fall under GPL licensing!
When asked for comments, a Microsoft spokesperson said, "Well, we certainly don't know anything about 'open' or 'free,' and I'm pretty certain our company has never acknowledged the existance of the word 'fair.' We will be opening an investigation to make sure that other communist...uh...GPL'd phrases are not and will not ever appear in our literature."
....is thinking about how Microsoft had to test this software...
I think this paragraph gives it away:
During the press conference Bush told reporters, "I don't want to see another NASA administrator - appointed on my watch - left to justify a program to Congress based on lies, dis-information, half-truths and sexed up reports."
The way I see it, it's basically commentary on how the WMD reports and the failure to find any. There was a new report that came out a couple of days ago saying that our intelligence was, quote, "dead wrong." I think this is a reference to that report.
(at least, I hope...)
Education shows a capacity for real achievement and a PhD is proof - not of intellect - but of perseverence and hard work.
Agreed -- but it's not just the perseverence and hard work itself, but the realization of the value of perseverence and hard work. It's the difference between being stubborn and being motivated. There are very few PhDs around that didn't get that way without a great deal of motivation.
No, it's Fhoocker
Are you into physics at all? There is a series of audio CDs of Richard Feynman's lectures. Of course, if you can get an audiobook of his Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! too.
Frankly, we should be blaming all those web 'developers' for their lazy and frankly, filthy, coding. I've worked in quite a few places and only those on the outside or real passionate web programmers care much about anything non-IE.
I think this hits on another point. Most of these sloppy 'developers' are using only the WYSIWYG tools in Dreamweaver, GoLive, or even *gasp* Frontpage. You can create good code with these programs (well, I'm not sure about Frontpage, but I know you can with Dreamweaver and GoLive) if you take over and delve into the code itself, but you can also let the application do all the dirty work with the 'developer' just sitting there, pointing and clicking, copying and pasting....
And the fact is, with this level of interaction, with the application creating most of the code, it's all going to work with IE. Macromedia and Adobe are interested in tools that work everywhere, including IE. These 'developers' aren't going to be helping our case at all, and they certainly won't be convincing MS that they're doing anything they need to change.
I thought we only promoted Apple and Google?
Books too?
Web designers get to use Macs to build websites with a "Search the web" Google box.
It's a cool-by-association thing.
Try this:
.somestyle specific formatting
.otherstyle specific formatting
a, a.somestyle, a.otherstyle {
common formatting
}
a.somestyle {
}
a.otherstyle {
}
It's not C style inheritance, but it gives the same advantages
is CSS flawed, and if so, how?
It doesn't conform to Microsoft's version of CSS. They believe that however IE does things, should be the standard. Otherwise, it's flawed.
It's ff killer only if it runs on linux and bsd (seriously).
And since IE7 won't even run on other versions of Windows, I think ff is safe. (XP Service Pack 2, or 2003 Server only!)
I'd be interested in how many job posting were already asking for Ajax experience.
Of course, with the modal intelligence of headhunters I've worked with, most of the adverts probably read:
min. 10 yrs. in A.j.a.x. development REQUIRED
It depends on how you define "spam-free." If you mean that nobody is sending spam, posting blog spam, sending spam over chat networks, etc. then I think the chances are rather slim. If you mean that most people will rarely see [email] spam, then I think it's possible.
But I think that one would lead to the other. If relatively few people are seeing spam, then suddenly spamming is no longer making money for the spammers, and they would eventually stop actually sending it.
Of course that's an optimistic scenario. It would probably lie somewhere in the middle. Fewer and fewer people see the spam, so spamming itself is less and less cost effective. Fewer and fewer spammers participate, while the remaining ones will have to reduce their fees since there will be fewer views. Fewer spammers and less money mean less innovation. Eventually (hopefully), the entire movement will slow down until spamming is only done by a few recluses targetting only the most oblivious users.
If Google did do a calendar, then I'm betting they would use an XMLHttpRequest object to go forward/backward through the months and days. Which means their search algorithm probably would work off of a flat version -- either through a robots.txt type guide or maybe a custom backend search.
Just speculation, of course....
Once an alien civilization sees the crappy products we have here on Earth, they'll never stop here! At least, not the good ones. We'll get plenty of visits from "green trash" bargain shoppers.
I read it twice before I realized it didn't say
"New York Times About to Purchase Buy.com for $410 Million"
So I guess the question in how far can you take this? Does this automatically mean that any spyware is wiretapping? After all, most adware does observe and report a person's internet browsing activity. But I'm sure some people would argue it's a gray line, because is sending URLs really a form of electronic communication? Does spyware 'listen' to enough human-inteprettable language to be considered a wiretap?
In a phone analogy, it's more like listening in on which phone number is being dialed, not the conversation. But in a lot of instances there is more information, thanks to the query string. A URL can tell an adware program what books someone is looking at on Amazon, or what they are searching for at Google.
Just thinking out loud....
CSS Skywalker: Jedi Style Sheets! Cool!
You have a font-weight of bold...
You have a background-color of #EEE...