Oh, I'm not saying they're not useful (I have... 10 of them in a windowmaker dock right now). I'm looking at the eye candy on the desklet guy's website that shows the candy taking up a good 50% of the screen real estate...
I just don't see the desktop enough to make use of it.
True, I didn't think of that, I guess you can hide all your windows to show off when your boys come over.
But I don't like panels either. I have to confess, I do use windowmaker and use dockapps... but 64x64 on a 1600x1200 doesn't take up much space. Ok ok ok, I could get the same using these desk things but someone's already done all the work with the dockapps...
I'm just curious... I'm trying to imagine the case where someone would legitimately have to send out a million emails at a time, and I can't think of one.:)
I'm honestly curious what the attraction is. I guess eye candy is always nice, but when I'm sitting at my machine, I'm/using/ it. And I have windows open doing things... I don't even see my background wallpaper all that often.
Do people really sit around looking at their eye candy?
I guess I can imagine it, but only among the 21 and under crowd (nothing personal guys, I used to be one;)).
So let's see, you think it would be a good idea if all those who had packed the bank were screaming at the top of their lungs over their microphones instead of just pumping text on screen?
That seems like a huge problem to me.
Many people here are bitching that "RPGs were based on voice, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about!" How wrong can you be? The "MMO" part of "MMORPG" precludes using voice. I don't want to hear hundreds of voices around me all the time. I also don't want people to hear me trying to act out a cheesy voice, unless I'm in a nice tight group of good friends.
No, the large number of players destroy the voice concept. Not to mention the fact that it's much easier to type something, realize the verbiage is not quite correct, then change it before sending it out to the group.
This administration had very little to do with giving money to the Taliban. The Tali's were getting money LONG BEFORE this administration came into power.
There are many in government who think supported the lesser of two evils against the greater of two evils is a good thing. You probably think supporting neither is a better option. You are free to think that way, and I essentially agree with you.
Now, given that the world is essentially like a game of Civilization, why shouldn't we try to win? You may not see it that way, and if not, more power to you in trying to change things.
In the meantime, just keep complaining, eventually someone will hear it and do something about it. Or maybe everyone will just keep complaining on/.
You are such a fucking moron, it's not even funny.
Of course there are liars at the head of state. There always have been and there always will be. And you know what, IN AMERICA YOU HAVE THE POWER TO SAY SO!!
That, my pathetic little coward, is what makes you free.
The PNAC happens to be the gang in charge now, WHEEEEE OH NO, the country is doomed! Fucking get your friends to pay attention and vote next time. And before you whine and say "voting doesn't matter" because the machines cheat and put X party in power... give me a freaking break. If the people didn't like what was being sold to them, and enough people voted, someone different (libertarian, green, anyone) would win now and then.
Moron. I'm the kind who doesn't listen to anything "they" say, because I'm too busy with my own daily life to give a shit. You, apparently, have too much free time on your hands and a conspiracy theory in your craw.
I am in the same boat as you. I wanted to like it, I really did. But it took way too long to get a decent system up and running, and gnome whorrrfed all over itself when I was trying to do the ol' emerge -u crap.
Who has time to let their machine just sit and compile for days? But maybe if good things happen with 1.4 I'll try again. I'm a glutton for punishment though... this RH9 system has been nothing but beautiful for me so far.
I spent 1 month with that disaster called Gentoo. If you know nothing about Linux or Unix and you want to learn the innards, then by all means, Gentoo kicks ass.
If you want to get ANYTHING done, use another distro.
(I've been using Linux since about late 1994, and Gentoo totally reminds me of the bad old days... Now I have better things to do with my time than wait 48 frigging hours for KDE to compile (again, because the first time I apparently did something wrong).)
Oh please. It's still a free country and you can disagree with the government all you want. There are ways of doing so that are more effective than others.
Telling people how to make bombs and overthrow the government, putting on your pretty black bandanas and shouting "Hail to the thief"... do not count as effective ways.
I can rail against stupid regulation, stupid laws, stupid restrictions on my speech, my right to own a gun, my right to be the equal of every other man and woman no matter what our respective colors, without having to burn shit down, offer advice on how to build bombs, and so on.
You and all your little friends who think the U.S. is some kind of fascist police state ought to wake up and smell the coffee. Go live in one for a few years then come back and tell me how shitty you think America is.
Wnat proof: The gang at the Sierra Club and MANY other left wing groups are still perfectly free to do their thing.
I find myself tending to agree with you. I just read what Feyman wrote in "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out" about his disappointment in the general rate of progress for humankind. Imagine what we could do if we could spend more time pushing ourselves instead of whining about petty things.
I say we should also stop killing each other, but at least there there's a goal in mind. I think inertia prevents all kinds of amazing things from happening... people are just too scared/lazy to change, or try shit out.
This is the most insightful one I've read on this article. They're totally trying to be the best without relying on us (whom they probably hate).
Good luck to them.:)
Maybe they beat us out on something significant, then we can have another president drive us towards a tangible goal (I'm thinking Kennedy and moon shots here). Maybe that'll shake us out of the self-centered malaise we seem to be in...
Companies currently jump on the MS bandwagon because of internal inertia, choice, or ignorance. Neither of those three is caused by MS as a monopoly or not.
Explain to me how Apple, RH, and IBM are not competitors. People are free to choose any OS they want: To claim otherwise is demonstrably false. If MS were a monopoly those choices would not exist at all.
Commercial competitors DO exist for MS, and this is the second of my posts that has mentioned a few of them. Whether not they are the same size as MS does not matter (what matters is that Company X, no matter/it's/ size, could choose to go with Apple or IBM's Linux - see Munich for details). Whether or not a specific percentage of the user base chooses them does not matter. The fact is, they exist, disproving the MS = monopoly hypothesis.
I expect I won't change your mind, and you won't change mine. Either way, I'm adding you to my fan base (big whip, I know:)) just for the decent discussion. Thanks.:)
Sorry to be this pedantic, and it's interesting having this conversation but you're getting farther afield here. Here's the definition I just copied from dictionary.com:
monopoly n. pl. monopolies
1. Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service: "Monopoly frequently... arises from government support or from collusive agreements among individuals" (Milton Friedman).
2. Law. A right granted by a government giving exclusive control over a specified commercial activity to a single party.
3.
1. A company or group having exclusive control over a commercial activity.
2. A commodity or service so controlled.
4.
1. Exclusive possession or control: arrogantly claims to have a monopoly on the truth.
2. Something that is exclusively possessed or controlled: showed that scientific achievement is not a male monopoly.
Can you explain to me where, in there, MS's Operating Systems are today? Whether or not I'm able to convince my CEO to use MS has nothing to do with MS as a monopoly or not.
MS does not have exclusive control or access to any market. They have monopolistic tendencies, sure, but they are surely not a monopoly...
Aside from the point that the IT obviously isn't the guy who makes the final decision on what software will be used in-house, can you explain to me exactly what is impossible about the scenario?
CEO: What does he use that cannot be implemented under Linux? OpenOffice handles most things I can think of (obviously, I'm no CEO, so I surely don't know). Last I checked, though, businesses worked well without MS 15 years ago.
COO: What does he do that's different? Inventory control? There have been Unix-based systems for that kind of thing for ages. I used to help install them using some kind of Concentric Unix thing 10 years ago (i knew very little back then).
Secretary: You may not have been there, but secretaries used to use Wordstar on DOS terminals. And Wordperfect for DOS was outstanding. What, precisely, is not feasible? They can't play solitaire? Pretty desktop pictures? Mail merge can be done in ways other than clicking a button in Word.
Salespeople: Contact managers? Yeah, you're right, you need MS to handle that.
I have no idea what you mean when you claim that it's not "even remotely feasible". Because that's absurd.
"ridiculous"? Hardly. If the boss decided he didn't want MS solutions, he could easily and quickly order his IT guy to install Linux on every machine in that office. There's no market force (monopoly or otherwise) that would stop him from doing so.
Yes, the market fixed the problem. Of course you can't go uprooting huge organizations and installing something else right now. But that has ONLY to do with the cost of doing so, not any force that MS is using against such companies.
New companies certainly have the choice: there is no real barrier to installing something other than MS. I know a number of companies (graphics-related, usually printing) who use Macs almost exclusively.
Now, perhaps you can explain how Linux is not a market solution? Perhaps you mean the OS itself, which obviously is true. Companies like RH and Suse and IBM are the market solutions. How can you argue that they are not competitors to MS?
It used to be that many companies used unix terminals to do data entry and accounting, or VAX systems. They switched over once, what's to prevent them from switching again? Money, obviously. But that's a purely internal business decision. There is no monopoly in OS's.
Any conclusion other than that is simply missing the point of what a monopoly truly is (go read a definition if you're still confused), or an emotional anti-MS rant. The latter I can certainly understand, I hate them as much as anyone...
I think you're reading too much into the term monopoly... I hate MS as much as the next guy, and you're right, in order for things to work in a company with 1 IT guy, he'll likely have to go windows... but there's absolutely no monopoly power telling him he can't standardize on linux!
Right now, 2004, there is no monopoly. At the time MS did the things they got "fact found" on, they probably were. But the market fixed that little problem, it's just a matter of time now companies to move out from their shadow.
Simple, silly example: I standardized my small company (only 20 peeps in 2 offices) on Netscape and Netscape Mail instead of IE/Outlook. It was easy enough.
Ergo, it can be done, and for your spreadsheet, try Gnumeric, it's been grand for me. Ooffice if you have a boss like me who's stupid about sending around powerpoints...
I think your giving DAT/minidisc too much credit. I, for one, never heard of them until years after CDs were "in place".
I never had the choice, but maybe I just missed the boat on that one.
I just think people will use whatever gets marketed like crazy, has some "cool" feature that the other ones don't. I doubt highly that DRM / copy protection will really be that big a deal to most people...
Those are the people who, by their current inaction, disinterest and lack of education (on the matters at hand), demonstrate a distinct lack of interest in free speech and privacy anyway.
So they likely won't really care when DRM constricts them. Sure, they may say, "Gee, how come I can't make my own CDs" but then a new reality show will come on NBC and they'll move on.
In the meantime, those of us who ARE interested in such things as privacy and free speech will continue to fight the good fight, continue to get our non-copy-protected info and hardware, and life will cruise along like it does right now, more or less.
Fair enough, thanks for clarifying, and to boot, I agree with your clarification.
My only addition would be to just simplify taxes, regulations, and all that jazz (get gov't back to a much smaller size). Simplification would make it easier for everyone to operate, and maybe put some lawyers out of work.;)
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, I'm not saying they're not useful (I have... 10 of them in a windowmaker dock right now). I'm looking at the eye candy on the desklet guy's website that shows the candy taking up a good 50% of the screen real estate...
I just don't see the desktop enough to make use of it.
Diff'rent strokes, and all that....
LOL
True, I didn't think of that, I guess you can hide all your windows to show off when your boys come over.
But I don't like panels either. I have to confess, I do use windowmaker and use dockapps... but 64x64 on a 1600x1200 doesn't take up much space. Ok ok ok, I could get the same using these desk things but someone's already done all the work with the dockapps...
I'm just curious... I'm trying to imagine the case where someone would legitimately have to send out a million emails at a time, and I can't think of one. :)
I think half the fun scientists have these days must be getting to name new particles and "excited states" and all that...
/would/ be fun actually...
Lucky guys, I think it
I'm honestly curious what the attraction is. I guess eye candy is always nice, but when I'm sitting at my machine, I'm /using/ it. And I have windows open doing things... I don't even see my background wallpaper all that often.
;)).
Do people really sit around looking at their eye candy?
I guess I can imagine it, but only among the 21 and under crowd (nothing personal guys, I used to be one
So let's see, you think it would be a good idea if all those who had packed the bank were screaming at the top of their lungs over their microphones instead of just pumping text on screen?
That seems like a huge problem to me.
Many people here are bitching that "RPGs were based on voice, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about!" How wrong can you be? The "MMO" part of "MMORPG" precludes using voice. I don't want to hear hundreds of voices around me all the time. I also don't want people to hear me trying to act out a cheesy voice, unless I'm in a nice tight group of good friends.
No, the large number of players destroy the voice concept. Not to mention the fact that it's much easier to type something, realize the verbiage is not quite correct, then change it before sending it out to the group.
You dope.
/.
This administration had very little to do with giving money to the Taliban. The Tali's were getting money LONG BEFORE this administration came into power.
There are many in government who think supported the lesser of two evils against the greater of two evils is a good thing. You probably think supporting neither is a better option. You are free to think that way, and I essentially agree with you.
Now, given that the world is essentially like a game of Civilization, why shouldn't we try to win? You may not see it that way, and if not, more power to you in trying to change things.
In the meantime, just keep complaining, eventually someone will hear it and do something about it. Or maybe everyone will just keep complaining on
Oh yes, the American government is an oppressive regime. Fear them. Sheesh...
You are such a fucking moron, it's not even funny.
Of course there are liars at the head of state. There always have been and there always will be. And you know what, IN AMERICA YOU HAVE THE POWER TO SAY SO!!
That, my pathetic little coward, is what makes you free.
The PNAC happens to be the gang in charge now, WHEEEEE OH NO, the country is doomed! Fucking get your friends to pay attention and vote next time. And before you whine and say "voting doesn't matter" because the machines cheat and put X party in power... give me a freaking break. If the people didn't like what was being sold to them, and enough people voted, someone different (libertarian, green, anyone) would win now and then.
Moron. I'm the kind who doesn't listen to anything "they" say, because I'm too busy with my own daily life to give a shit. You, apparently, have too much free time on your hands and a conspiracy theory in your craw.
I am in the same boat as you. I wanted to like it, I really did. But it took way too long to get a decent system up and running, and gnome whorrrfed all over itself when I was trying to do the ol' emerge -u crap.
Who has time to let their machine just sit and compile for days? But maybe if good things happen with 1.4 I'll try again. I'm a glutton for punishment though... this RH9 system has been nothing but beautiful for me so far.
This is funny BECAUSE IT'S FRIGGING TRUE.
I spent 1 month with that disaster called Gentoo. If you know nothing about Linux or Unix and you want to learn the innards, then by all means, Gentoo kicks ass.
If you want to get ANYTHING done, use another distro.
(I've been using Linux since about late 1994, and Gentoo totally reminds me of the bad old days... Now I have better things to do with my time than wait 48 frigging hours for KDE to compile (again, because the first time I apparently did something wrong).)
Yeah, except you'd get boned because of one or two minor niggling little problems.
Man, I hate that distro now. It's like "let's all go back to 1995 when we had to figure this shit out the first time!" Whee.
Oh please. It's still a free country and you can disagree with the government all you want. There are ways of doing so that are more effective than others.
Telling people how to make bombs and overthrow the government, putting on your pretty black bandanas and shouting "Hail to the thief"... do not count as effective ways.
I can rail against stupid regulation, stupid laws, stupid restrictions on my speech, my right to own a gun, my right to be the equal of every other man and woman no matter what our respective colors, without having to burn shit down, offer advice on how to build bombs, and so on.
You and all your little friends who think the U.S. is some kind of fascist police state ought to wake up and smell the coffee. Go live in one for a few years then come back and tell me how shitty you think America is.
Wnat proof: The gang at the Sierra Club and MANY other left wing groups are still perfectly free to do their thing.
LOL
/have/ your views changed since then? :)
Reminds me of the binomes in Reboot fleeing impending doom: "Backspace, backspace!!!"
So tell us then, how
I find myself tending to agree with you. I just read what Feyman wrote in "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out" about his disappointment in the general rate of progress for humankind. Imagine what we could do if we could spend more time pushing ourselves instead of whining about petty things.
I say we should also stop killing each other, but at least there there's a goal in mind. I think inertia prevents all kinds of amazing things from happening... people are just too scared/lazy to change, or try shit out.
This is the most insightful one I've read on this article. They're totally trying to be the best without relying on us (whom they probably hate).
:)
Good luck to them.
Maybe they beat us out on something significant, then we can have another president drive us towards a tangible goal (I'm thinking Kennedy and moon shots here). Maybe that'll shake us out of the self-centered malaise we seem to be in...
Correlation does not imply causation.
/it's/ size, could choose to go with Apple or IBM's Linux - see Munich for details). Whether or not a specific percentage of the user base chooses them does not matter. The fact is, they exist, disproving the MS = monopoly hypothesis.
:)) just for the decent discussion. Thanks. :)
Companies currently jump on the MS bandwagon because of internal inertia, choice, or ignorance. Neither of those three is caused by MS as a monopoly or not.
Explain to me how Apple, RH, and IBM are not competitors. People are free to choose any OS they want: To claim otherwise is demonstrably false. If MS were a monopoly those choices would not exist at all.
Commercial competitors DO exist for MS, and this is the second of my posts that has mentioned a few of them. Whether not they are the same size as MS does not matter (what matters is that Company X, no matter
I expect I won't change your mind, and you won't change mine. Either way, I'm adding you to my fan base (big whip, I know
Sorry to be this pedantic, and it's interesting having this conversation but you're getting farther afield here. Here's the definition I just copied from dictionary.com:
monopoly n. pl. monopolies
1. Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service: "Monopoly frequently... arises from government support or from collusive agreements among individuals" (Milton Friedman).
2. Law. A right granted by a government giving exclusive control over a specified commercial activity to a single party.
3.
1. A company or group having exclusive control over a commercial activity.
2. A commodity or service so controlled.
4.
1. Exclusive possession or control: arrogantly claims to have a monopoly on the truth.
2. Something that is exclusively possessed or controlled: showed that scientific achievement is not a male monopoly.
Can you explain to me where, in there, MS's Operating Systems are today? Whether or not I'm able to convince my CEO to use MS has nothing to do with MS as a monopoly or not.
MS does not have exclusive control or access to any market. They have monopolistic tendencies, sure, but they are surely not a monopoly...
Aside from the point that the IT obviously isn't the guy who makes the final decision on what software will be used in-house, can you explain to me exactly what is impossible about the scenario?
CEO: What does he use that cannot be implemented under Linux? OpenOffice handles most things I can think of (obviously, I'm no CEO, so I surely don't know). Last I checked, though, businesses worked well without MS 15 years ago.
COO: What does he do that's different? Inventory control? There have been Unix-based systems for that kind of thing for ages. I used to help install them using some kind of Concentric Unix thing 10 years ago (i knew very little back then).
Secretary: You may not have been there, but secretaries used to use Wordstar on DOS terminals. And Wordperfect for DOS was outstanding. What, precisely, is not feasible? They can't play solitaire? Pretty desktop pictures? Mail merge can be done in ways other than clicking a button in Word.
Salespeople: Contact managers? Yeah, you're right, you need MS to handle that.
I have no idea what you mean when you claim that it's not "even remotely feasible". Because that's absurd.
"ridiculous"? Hardly. If the boss decided he didn't want MS solutions, he could easily and quickly order his IT guy to install Linux on every machine in that office. There's no market force (monopoly or otherwise) that would stop him from doing so.
Yes, the market fixed the problem. Of course you can't go uprooting huge organizations and installing something else right now. But that has ONLY to do with the cost of doing so, not any force that MS is using against such companies.
New companies certainly have the choice: there is no real barrier to installing something other than MS. I know a number of companies (graphics-related, usually printing) who use Macs almost exclusively.
Now, perhaps you can explain how Linux is not a market solution? Perhaps you mean the OS itself, which obviously is true. Companies like RH and Suse and IBM are the market solutions. How can you argue that they are not competitors to MS?
It used to be that many companies used unix terminals to do data entry and accounting, or VAX systems. They switched over once, what's to prevent them from switching again? Money, obviously. But that's a purely internal business decision. There is no monopoly in OS's.
Any conclusion other than that is simply missing the point of what a monopoly truly is (go read a definition if you're still confused), or an emotional anti-MS rant. The latter I can certainly understand, I hate them as much as anyone...
I think you're reading too much into the term monopoly... I hate MS as much as the next guy, and you're right, in order for things to work in a company with 1 IT guy, he'll likely have to go windows... but there's absolutely no monopoly power telling him he can't standardize on linux!
Right now, 2004, there is no monopoly. At the time MS did the things they got "fact found" on, they probably were. But the market fixed that little problem, it's just a matter of time now companies to move out from their shadow.
Simple, silly example: I standardized my small company (only 20 peeps in 2 offices) on Netscape and Netscape Mail instead of IE/Outlook. It was easy enough.
Ergo, it can be done, and for your spreadsheet, try Gnumeric, it's been grand for me. Ooffice if you have a boss like me who's stupid about sending around powerpoints...
I think your giving DAT/minidisc too much credit. I, for one, never heard of them until years after CDs were "in place".
I never had the choice, but maybe I just missed the boat on that one.
I just think people will use whatever gets marketed like crazy, has some "cool" feature that the other ones don't. I doubt highly that DRM / copy protection will really be that big a deal to most people...
You are nuts.
I am using RH9 on my desktop RIGHT NOW. To claim that what I am doing is "fundamentally impossible" is just foolish.
Perhaps the mega-corps can't do it now, but that's as much office politics, policies and management issues than technical or monopolistic ones.
Also, just to drive home the point, go look up how many of us work in SMALL companies compared with the number working in LARGE companies. Small wins.
"No Reasonable Alternative" is just horse shit. OpenOffice and Gnumeric allow me to communicate in every way with my co-workers.
Those are the people who, by their current inaction, disinterest and lack of education (on the matters at hand), demonstrate a distinct lack of interest in free speech and privacy anyway.
So they likely won't really care when DRM constricts them. Sure, they may say, "Gee, how come I can't make my own CDs" but then a new reality show will come on NBC and they'll move on.
In the meantime, those of us who ARE interested in such things as privacy and free speech will continue to fight the good fight, continue to get our non-copy-protected info and hardware, and life will cruise along like it does right now, more or less.
Fair enough, thanks for clarifying, and to boot, I agree with your clarification.
;)
My only addition would be to just simplify taxes, regulations, and all that jazz (get gov't back to a much smaller size). Simplification would make it easier for everyone to operate, and maybe put some lawyers out of work.