Yeah. Nothing will be more fun for him than trying to take back the CPU that doesn't fit his motherboard, or the ram he has no use for since his slots are already filled, or the 20GB ATA66 5400RPM hard drive.
Kids need to learn that downloading is not entirely free. You could have done something constructive in the time it takes you to cozy up to some release group on IRC, find a usable pub, looking for fills, fixing files with CRC errors, etc.
Not to mention the obsessive compulsive facet of downloading where you feel a need to keep your machine downloading at all times for fear of letting perfectly good bandwidth go to waste, at which point you go out to scour the net for something -- anything -- to download.
It is a big time commitment and, like channel surfing, hours fly by like minutes without you having seen anything interesting.
Most regular users who choose, for whatever reason, to use Linux will rely on the installation process to set up the windowing system. So when all distros include it as one of the choices in a few months, regular users will be able to benefit from this.
The other market of regular computer users is the business/corporate users, and if they want to, I am sure their IT staff can compile KDE for them.
Other than that, people who would download and compile KDE already know a bit about linux, and how its software is distributed.
Anyone besides me taken aback that it has already been a year? It seems like it happened, at most, 3 months ago.
Seems to me that an event is etched clear as day in our memory, and a week afterwards we push it aside as we go about our daily lives, and when the memory is brought back, it is so clear that it couldn't possibly have happened a year ago. Where did all this time go?
They have for years pushed their retail product by making it difficult to find download the free one.
From what I know about Real, they sank some serious amounts of cash into developing the protocols. Can you blame them for trying to pay their employees? It is tricky to make money off something that people online expect to have for free. Microsoft is their biggest competition now, and I'd bet they are able to undercut Real's pricing if needbe, so Real is probably having a hard time staying afloat.
Seems fine on OSX. No problems to report here. Listening to a stream for 7 hours and it has a relatively small footprint and runs rock solid. And I'm talking about a beta release.
I don't know how rational they are in their decision to switch formats.
I don't have a problem with RealAudio. Listen to AM feeds a lot and the quality is great with pretty much no buffering.
I am sure that the vocal majority that caused them to make this decision is the whiney kind who believes "everything is their fault."
I never had a problem hitting ^F, typing in "free" and hitting Enter. So it is a bit tricky. Big deal. Try to beat them at their own game and get a sense of accomplishment.
How gullible, ignorant and naive does one have to be to block out all the price tags, dollar signs, and the word "premium" and "unknowlingly" pay for something with a credit card. The numbers don't type themselves in and the Submit button doesn't engage by itself. Their listeners should take responsability for being easy marks and learn not to be one.
Perhaps the parent was looking for something to read on/. on a Saturday morning only to find an article he finds no value in, and and article which he might, rightly so, be displacing a story he might find interest in.
So he has interest in this article in as much as it, in a limited way, prevents him from reading something of value to him.
Updating libraries, fixing missing includes, or paths, is not all that bad. You learn in the process what role libraries and includes and paths play in an environment where software development is encouraged, and some tinkering to compile an application might be required.
The thing I did not like was how hard small things were. Changing the font in xterm. Plugging in an external display. Getting the optimal resolution/refresh rate/color scheme. Laying out your desktop and having the OS remember the layout.
Those things are more annoying than they should be but with OSX, it takes a second to change all of the above, and more.
There is value in knowing how a system operates underneath, but wasting endless hours reading xterm man pages and entering font strings into a config only for them to make no difference is a big waste of time.
OSX still lets you play with the internals but also eliminates the useless functionalities.
"Your server is broken! I'm not getting email from a lot of my coleagues! Fix it!"
"OK, sir. So the sending parties get any sort of an error message, or what is called a bounce?"
"No! I'm losing business because of you!"
"Well I don't really see anything wrong with the server..."
Of course the opposite is also a problem. People seeing those bounces and claiming out mail server is "hacked". But too much information is better than none at all when debugging things like email so I'm not turning off reporting.
Could you elaborate on some of the packages? I don't use RH but we sometimes install them for dedicated/colo servers and it would be nice to know what's going on with RedHat.
My family were driving across the eastern German border one overcast day, so roads were slippery. The entry to the gate was paved with stone so it was especially slippery.
We were in a Russian made Lada and as we stopped for the gate, a Trabant behind was apparently unable to slow down and slammed into the back of us.
Damage on the Lada amounted to a small 5 inch dent.
The Trabant? The entire front was shattered. The poor woman wasn't able to drive it away.
Don't know how people ever got into those things. As kids, we were able to kick in the sides of an abandoned one with not too much effort.
Slashdot Mirror
Hope he didn't build a set to measure his throughput. It might overflow and explode.
It has holes, also to make it go faster.
Uhh... mine is stuck on twirl...
They said all comments would be read, not necessarily taken seriously.
Yeah. Nothing will be more fun for him than trying to take back the CPU that doesn't fit his motherboard, or the ram he has no use for since his slots are already filled, or the 20GB ATA66 5400RPM hard drive.
My advice: let him pick the parts himself.
A year's supply of Mountain Dew.
C'mon. If you're a gamer, Linux is the last platform you look to, right after Windows, consoles, handhelds, cards, dice, and watching paint dry.
My local GameStop says May 4th is the release date. Let's hope he's at least within a week or two of the actual date.
Thanks for the link.
He should have refused, and once the virus his it ig, turned in either the writer or the boss.
I wonder how the nondisclosure agreement would affect turning somoene in like that and claiming the reward.
Mod this insightful.
Kids need to learn that downloading is not entirely free. You could have done something constructive in the time it takes you to cozy up to some release group on IRC, find a usable pub, looking for fills, fixing files with CRC errors, etc.
Not to mention the obsessive compulsive facet of downloading where you feel a need to keep your machine downloading at all times for fear of letting perfectly good bandwidth go to waste, at which point you go out to scour the net for something -- anything -- to download.
It is a big time commitment and, like channel surfing, hours fly by like minutes without you having seen anything interesting.
Or so I heard...
Most regular users who choose, for whatever reason, to use Linux will rely on the installation process to set up the windowing system. So when all distros include it as one of the choices in a few months, regular users will be able to benefit from this.
The other market of regular computer users is the business/corporate users, and if they want to, I am sure their IT staff can compile KDE for them.
Other than that, people who would download and compile KDE already know a bit about linux, and how its software is distributed.
By linux becoming popular, they really mean RedHat and Suse. We can still safely use Slackware and raise our noses at the n00b redhat llamas.
Do you have those posted online anywhere?
Anyone besides me taken aback that it has already been a year? It seems like it happened, at most, 3 months ago.
Seems to me that an event is etched clear as day in our memory, and a week afterwards we push it aside as we go about our daily lives, and when the memory is brought back, it is so clear that it couldn't possibly have happened a year ago. Where did all this time go?
They have for years pushed their retail product by making it difficult to find download the free one.
From what I know about Real, they sank some serious amounts of cash into developing the protocols. Can you blame them for trying to pay their employees? It is tricky to make money off something that people online expect to have for free. Microsoft is their biggest competition now, and I'd bet they are able to undercut Real's pricing if needbe, so Real is probably having a hard time staying afloat.
Seems fine on OSX. No problems to report here. Listening to a stream for 7 hours and it has a relatively small footprint and runs rock solid. And I'm talking about a beta release.
I don't know how rational they are in their decision to switch formats.
I don't have a problem with RealAudio. Listen to AM feeds a lot and the quality is great with pretty much no buffering.
I am sure that the vocal majority that caused them to make this decision is the whiney kind who believes "everything is their fault."
I never had a problem hitting ^F, typing in "free" and hitting Enter. So it is a bit tricky. Big deal. Try to beat them at their own game and get a sense of accomplishment.
How gullible, ignorant and naive does one have to be to block out all the price tags, dollar signs, and the word "premium" and "unknowlingly" pay for something with a credit card. The numbers don't type themselves in and the Submit button doesn't engage by itself. Their listeners should take responsability for being easy marks and learn not to be one.
Perhaps the parent was looking for something to read on /. on a Saturday morning only to find an article he finds no value in, and and article which he might, rightly so, be displacing a story he might find interest in.
So he has interest in this article in as much as it, in a limited way, prevents him from reading something of value to him.
Updating libraries, fixing missing includes, or paths, is not all that bad. You learn in the process what role libraries and includes and paths play in an environment where software development is encouraged, and some tinkering to compile an application might be required.
The thing I did not like was how hard small things were. Changing the font in xterm. Plugging in an external display. Getting the optimal resolution/refresh rate/color scheme. Laying out your desktop and having the OS remember the layout.
Those things are more annoying than they should be but with OSX, it takes a second to change all of the above, and more.
There is value in knowing how a system operates underneath, but wasting endless hours reading xterm man pages and entering font strings into a config only for them to make no difference is a big waste of time.
OSX still lets you play with the internals but also eliminates the useless functionalities.
Everyone's a winner!
Now take out your circles of paper.
Customer calls tech support:
"Your server is broken! I'm not getting email from a lot of my coleagues! Fix it!"
"OK, sir. So the sending parties get any sort of an error message, or what is called a bounce?"
"No! I'm losing business because of you!"
"Well I don't really see anything wrong with the server..."
Of course the opposite is also a problem. People seeing those bounces and claiming out mail server is "hacked". But too much information is better than none at all when debugging things like email so I'm not turning off reporting.
Could you elaborate on some of the packages? I don't use RH but we sometimes install them for dedicated/colo servers and it would be nice to know what's going on with RedHat.
I had to send back my PB a few times as well. But hey, at least it comes back really quick. Send it Monday, get it back Wednesday or Thursday.
In my experience, most problems show themselves up in the first few months of ownership and fall under AppleCare.
After that, everything is rock solid. Even my AC adapter cable did not break up to expose the wire inside.
you have to fill in a missing word in a sentence
Oh great. So they're turning the internet into a GRE test now.
My family were driving across the eastern German border one overcast day, so roads were slippery. The entry to the gate was paved with stone so it was especially slippery.
We were in a Russian made Lada and as we stopped for the gate, a Trabant behind was apparently unable to slow down and slammed into the back of us.
Damage on the Lada amounted to a small 5 inch dent.
The Trabant? The entire front was shattered. The poor woman wasn't able to drive it away.
Don't know how people ever got into those things. As kids, we were able to kick in the sides of an abandoned one with not too much effort.