The problem I have with Windows 8 is that Microsoft don't know what to do. They've been experimenting with tablets many years before the iPad, but without much success. The first iPad comes along, BAM! Apple have now effectively created a new market even though in theory, Microsoft's years of experience with tablets should have had more of an impact by now. So Microsoft are concerned about what they should do, so they come up with a new interface and platform aimed at touch devices rather than a hacked version of the existing WIMP interface grafted onto a tablet/phone. This makes sense.
BUT... and this is the bit that annoys me... Microsoft seems to believe that the only way they'll get more success with their phone and tablet line is if they FORCE this interface onto their traditional Windows platform, which one normally finds on non-touch desktops and laptop. They removed the Start menu and the ability to easily boot straight into the desktop instead of the Start screen because, well, people naturally will gravitate into doing things the way they've always done them, and will likely not even bother with the Metro functionality if this was possible. Microsoft have to force people to deal with Metro as much as possible because it's the only way they'll be exposed to the interface that Microsoft is using on mobile devices. They won't deal with Metro by choice, because it has few benefits on the desktop.
Microsoft are trapped with Windows 8. If they provide an option to disable all the Metro functionality, people will take the option and nothing will improve for their mobile division (and hence their fear of slipping away into obscurity, a fear I think is overblown to be honest). If they force people to use Metro, like they have, then people will resent them as no-one likes using something which they hate and know was forced onto them simply because the company is failing elsewhere.
I know version numbers are all relative and aren't supposed to have much meaning on their own, but their first official non alpha/beta release being marked as version 0.0.1.0 kinda tells me a lot about what confidence the developers have in terms of the security and functionality of their code.
OK I'll give you that. It'd be nice if it weren't necessary to resort to third-party apps to get functionality which we're used to in previous version of Windows (particularly core components), but at least it's an option. Someone has already come up with a way to enable Windows Vista/7 gadgets in Windows 8 (for which official support has been removed), so it goes to show that people will find ways to get what they want.
Now I have a sneaking suspicion that there is really only one other guy on the site. A 14 year old, pimple faced youth who hates anyone that isnt liberal, atheist, and really really loves cats and bacon
If that's the case then I'm starting to get a little worried every time I visit/r/gonewild.
It has become a reoccurring pattern in the consumer technology world that people often don't like and don't even want freedom. Freedom means more options and more choices, which increases the amount of effort required to choose something which may or may not be the "optimal" choice. At least with Facebook it's easy - everyone uses it, so why use anything else?
It's the same reason why closed systems like iOS-based devices are so popular. Apple are the gatekeepers, so it tends to result in a reasonably high level of app quality and consistency. That's not freedom by any means, but given you can find almost any app for whatever purpose you require, people don't' care because they get what they want without too much effort.
Freedom sucks because for many cases it's not a net benefit, but rather a crutch. Sounds stupid for us, but we're not mainstream technology users. Hell, look at Iraq. I have read interviews with Iraqis who have lived during and after Saddam's rule. The general consensus was that so long as you didn't piss the ruling party off and weren't one of the "undesirables", life was pretty sweet. The streets weren't dangerous because he kept the warlords under control. Now they've got (forced) democracy, and no one in their right mind would want to visit unless they were armed to the teeth. So, by removing Saddam and providing freedom, one thing was traded for another. Whether it's a net positive or not will be left to history.
Nah, you misunderstand me. Like I said, I use Windows predominantly. If it were only a open vs closed source decision I'd logically have to be using Linux since I do prefer the open source concept, but until certain things are resolved in Linux land I don't use Linux because it doesn't serve its purpose to my satisfaction, yet.
When I say closed-mindedness, I'm just saying that it SOUNDS like the people you know don't care about the issue at all. Maybe they do, yet still choose closed source software. That's fine, so long as they know. That's all I was referring to.
So you're saying that Blizzard is having trouble establishing the tone for the game? Reminds me of those amusing Plinkett reviews of the Star Wards prequels, in particular "Revenge of the Sith", where he criticized the movie for not setting the tone and flip-flopping between humorous, tense, light fun, serious, joking, etc. Maybe WoW has the same issues.
The last time I tried Windows 8 (Consumer Preview), the search functionality for the Start screen was not EXACTLY like Windows 7. For example, in Windows 7 if I want to change the mouse options I can just type the word "mouse" or simply "mou" and the Mouse control panel will be the first option shown, at which point hitting enter will bring up the panel. In Windows 8, the search defaults first to Applications I believe, so you'd have to type in "mou" then hit the down arrow a couple of times to change the search category for the Control Panel, at which point you'd get what you'd want. In Windows 7 it was combined with everything, which I found much more useful.
It's little things like this which feel like a regression that perhaps Microsoft didn't think people would notice or didn't notice themselves.
Its a bit more distracting that it goes full screen, but thats about it, and as a result I'm motivated to pin more apps so i use it pretty rarely.
Wouldn't that suggest that the new Start screen is a failure then? The fact you have to pin more apps than normal sounds very much like a workaround for deficiencies which didn't exist in Windows 7. Heck, I have about half of my Superbar in Windows 7 full pinned apps already - the rest I launch from the "recently launched" area of the Start menu (and the remainder via search of course). Does the Windows 8 Start screen have a recently launched area at least?
To be fair, fast boots are achieved in Windows 7 via standby or hibernation anyway. If you're talking about a cool boot, well I've got Windows 7 on an SSD so I'm already familiar with fast boots (though I'll admit Windows 8 seems faster). Windows 7 already has USB install, so that's irrelevant (though you might have been referring to the "Windows To Go" functionality which is new). As for the rest... sounds great, except that I still use the Start menu and prefer glass to flat pastel colours. No wonder people are hardly enthusiastic* about paying for something that seems like a regression.
* exceptions can be found on Neowin.net, where they generally don't believe that Microsoft can do any wrong. Gah, I just wish Linux still didn't fucking such on the desktop so much.
Pandas in WoW for example has had millions of WoW players looking for anything that's almost as good, but without pandas.
Are you certain about that? I've never played WoW in my life (don't want to get addicted, and I'm too easily addicted to gaming as it is) but I did read ArsTechnica's article about the latest expansion (http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/10/impressions-mists-of-pandaria-is-more-than-just-pandas/) and the article plus comments suggests to me that this whole issue about pandas is blown out of proportion, and likely not as damaging as was expected.
That's the thing. If you don't mind Diaspora having about as many active users as Slashdot it's all good but the second you start this open vs closed holy war you're going to alienate the mainstream. The public doesn't care about open source. Fuck, most of the geeks and techs I know don't give a fuck about open/closed source. You can make up as much shit as you want in your head but the fact of the matter is that geekery is not really a selling point, not even to geeks in a lot of cases.
You're right about the public not caring about the open/closed source debate. Which is why I think the whole "Linux on the mainstream desktop" crusade is rather silly - the benefits of Linux are mostly due to its open nature and not its usability or software availability. I would no longer regard most Linux distros as being as competitive a desktop OS compared to Windows 7 for example. If people try to push mainstream desktop success for Linux, it will HAVE to mean sacrificing various open elements as it is the closed nature of certain products that make them appealing to a lot of people.
It's disappointing your geeky colleagues don't have at least an appreciation for open source. To me that shows only a superficial understanding of the software world and too much closed-mindedness, and I say this as a Windows user who's been burnt way too many times on the rough edges of Linux distros. BUT... I use Facebook (somewhat) and see no use for Diaspora as it has no chance of success, open or not.
That IS irony. Coincidence is what is most commonly mistaken for irony, and there's no coincidence here. The irony stems from the fact that people are liking Diaspora in greater numbers on a site which is closed and ideologically-opposite to what Diaspora stands for.
You could argue that Diaspora shouldn't even have a Facebook page if it wishes to be whole consistent in its values, but if you want Facebook users to come over, you need some kinda of presence.
I mean, explain it without appealing to emotion and irrational fear. Like, by using logic and evidence.
Fine.
I have yet to encounter a business which uses BitCoins as a means of payment. They must exist and I could look them up, but I have yet to encounter one as part of my regular Internet usage. None of the big businesses use it, none of the smaller businesses use it, even geeky sites don't use it. This makes BitCoins rather pointless compared to regular coin.
Also, perhaps more importantly, BitCoins has yet to prove itself. Why invest in a shakey implementation of an Internet-based currency when so many other attempts died before it? I'm not going to touch it unless I actually see mainstream usage.
Simply put - I have nothing to lose by not bothering with BitCoins. I also have very little to gain, if anything at the moment, if I did. It's just not worth the time.
hairy, you're having it easy here. You KNOW it's easy to bash Windows/Microsoft here and score 4/5 posts so it seems like you're taking advantage of the free karma every time you post about Windows 8 (even though I happen to agree with most of it anyway).
Then again, you tend to get modded up for anti-Linux comments (which I agree as well) so I'm not sure what your trick is.
Re:Switched to Mate desktop, not going back.
on
GNOME 3.6 Released
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· Score: 2
Why do people insist on living in 2009?
How did you get this far without knowing that newer/= better? Progress is not a guaranteed thing - newer stuff can always run the risk of being a regression if the people behind it acting like idiots.
Seems to me that almost everyone is chasing trends these days - social, cloud, touch. That's OK, it's emerging tech, but that doesn't mean the tech we're already using is worthless and should be abandoned (and that includes traditional desktop interfaces).
All this started turning around in the 80s as demonstrated in the documentary Romper Stomper.
Ah yes, I remember that one. It's worth mentioning that one of the participants of that documentary (Russell Crowe) was a host on another documentary entitled "Fightin' Around the World with Russell Crowe". It was very educational. I remember this altercation:
Man: Oh my God! It's Russell Crowe! Russell Crowe: (taunting) Oh my God, it's Russell Crowe! Oh my blah blah blah blah blah! (normal) Why don't you mind your own business, you scrotum? (attacks him)
Of course I'm already an Aussie so it's in my blood anyway. Time to fight cancer!
I'll be VERY surprised if the verdict is overturned. Why? Because history has shown that geeks absolutely suck when it comes to rooting for someone as far as court cases are concerned.
Evidence: Hans Reiser, Thomas-Rasset, Pirate Bay founders, Apple vs. Samsung. In each of those cases there were plenty of people on Slashdot who supported the defendant(s) and figured there was no way they'd be found guilty, much less with any serious penalties. Yeah about that...
So you can root for Samsung if you want. But I'll be surprised if the verdict is overturned simply because the courts aren't run by Slashdotters. Imagine if they were...
Cool, no worries then. Like I said, was just curious. Sounds like if you're already invested in the Apple ecosystem then the iPhone makes perfect sense. I've always been a Windows/Linux fellow mostly and so I'm more inclined to go Android, but again, your reasons are sound (as if you needed my approval anyway).
I don't like the products that their competitors make, they don't fulfill my needs.
Out of curiosity, what do you believe the iPhone can do that a similarly matched Android phone cannot? What do you, in your estimation, "need" that only an iPhone can satisfy? Is it functionality present in iOS or is it software which is exclusive to the iPhone?
It seems to me that Canonical have chosen this path as a desperate last resort. No-one involved in the open-source world would, in their right mind, attempt to show advertising within their software unless all other sources of revenue had failed. I know Canonical have tried to get OEMs on board, tried their Ubuntu TV approach (of which, apart from its initial announcement, we've seen nothing), have tried to target the enterprise (of which Red Hat has the Linux side of things securely locked up for now), and have even tried a cloud storage solution with Ubuntu One (of which even that failed considering the widespread mindshare of Dropbox, iCloud and even SkyDrive).
So it's come to this. One could argue that Canonical has to do this since Ubuntu is free, and if they tried charging for it, people would move onto something else. This would definitely happen, so what do they do to get a steady stream of revenue before the whole company collapses? I honestly don't know, but Red Hat abandoned the desktop market and surely the corpses of previous attempts at a mainstream Linux desktop distro have shown that it's not financially sustainable and it's a wasted endeavor to try to run a company primarily based off developing a free operating system... UNLESS you have secured a niche somewhere which people are ready to pay decent money for. Red Hat has; Canonical hasn't.
BTW - I'm not saying Canonical are trying to get rich off of Ubuntu (although as a business it would be nice). The problem is that developing a mainstream desktop is fucking hard work, what with all the potential configurations and hardware out there. Even with community help it's a herculean effort that only megacorps like Microsoft and Apple could really tackle. Canonical simply doesn't have the resources... but they try. But it still needs SOME sort of revenue to keep people employed to work on things, and obviously what they're getting right now is not enough, if they've had to resort to affiliates in this way. This is going to be the final straw though.
Mass insanity exists when people have become conditioned to believe in something which might not be true or correct or completely accurate, and they find themselves hanging out with people (in real life or on the Net) who have the same opinions as themselves and hence feed of each other's energy, and so the lie continues. It exists when you don't want to challenge your preconceptions since everyone in your circle of buddies thinks like you do. It becomes your reality, even if it's not healthy as you're rejecting the experiences of others as they don't fit your view.
It's bloody narrow mindedness and honestly, the realization that the alternative (which in this case is Windows) isn't so bad after all is worse than sticking with what you know (right or wrong) - and geeks are some of the worst at following this despite believing themselves to be more intelligent than the rest of the population.
I wouldn't consider it a troll. Trolls post stuff to deliberately rile people up (e.g. Linux vs Windows flamewars), whereas as this fellow is making a joke about Slashdot's new owners. Everyone knows he's joking, or at least enough people do, hence the Funny mod. Trolls don't normally get funny mods.
I think the classic example is OCR, where FOSS options are severely limited (I'd love to be proved wrong, but it sure seems that way).
Funny you mention OCR - I actually investigated that yesterday to see what FOSS options were available. Turns out that Tesseract (http://code.google.com/p/tesseract-ocr/) is pretty damn awesome. It's command line only, but I've found you can use gImageReader (http://sourceforge.net/projects/gimagereader/) as a frontend. Tesseract itself provides surprisingly good recognition of English at least, while gImageReader allows you to load up multi-page PDFs for analysis, as well as being able to select a rectangular region of a PDF or image and just OCR that area. You can then spellcheck the results before saving to a.txt. file.
As nice as this is though, Adobe Acrobat is fucking amazing. Got it installed at work, so I tried a scanned PDF and after it performed its analysis it could turn those printed graphical words into highlightable regions of text, including making them searchable. It's a brilliant feature but it would have been hell to develop, so I can understand why someone might prefer if you needed this feature. But for pulling plain text out of a bitmap, Tesseract is your best option.
Well on the plus side, she did ask me once what "that alternative to Office" was (i.e. LibreOffice), as one of her students didn't have Microsoft Office and my wife already knew from my experiences that it can work with MSO formats reasonably well. So hey, it's possible I enlightened a single student indirectly.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem I have with Windows 8 is that Microsoft don't know what to do. They've been experimenting with tablets many years before the iPad, but without much success. The first iPad comes along, BAM! Apple have now effectively created a new market even though in theory, Microsoft's years of experience with tablets should have had more of an impact by now. So Microsoft are concerned about what they should do, so they come up with a new interface and platform aimed at touch devices rather than a hacked version of the existing WIMP interface grafted onto a tablet/phone. This makes sense.
BUT... and this is the bit that annoys me... Microsoft seems to believe that the only way they'll get more success with their phone and tablet line is if they FORCE this interface onto their traditional Windows platform, which one normally finds on non-touch desktops and laptop. They removed the Start menu and the ability to easily boot straight into the desktop instead of the Start screen because, well, people naturally will gravitate into doing things the way they've always done them, and will likely not even bother with the Metro functionality if this was possible. Microsoft have to force people to deal with Metro as much as possible because it's the only way they'll be exposed to the interface that Microsoft is using on mobile devices. They won't deal with Metro by choice, because it has few benefits on the desktop.
Microsoft are trapped with Windows 8. If they provide an option to disable all the Metro functionality, people will take the option and nothing will improve for their mobile division (and hence their fear of slipping away into obscurity, a fear I think is overblown to be honest). If they force people to use Metro, like they have, then people will resent them as no-one likes using something which they hate and know was forced onto them simply because the company is failing elsewhere.
I know version numbers are all relative and aren't supposed to have much meaning on their own, but their first official non alpha/beta release being marked as version 0.0.1.0 kinda tells me a lot about what confidence the developers have in terms of the security and functionality of their code.
OK I'll give you that. It'd be nice if it weren't necessary to resort to third-party apps to get functionality which we're used to in previous version of Windows (particularly core components), but at least it's an option. Someone has already come up with a way to enable Windows Vista/7 gadgets in Windows 8 (for which official support has been removed), so it goes to show that people will find ways to get what they want.
If that's the case then I'm starting to get a little worried every time I visit /r/gonewild.
It has become a reoccurring pattern in the consumer technology world that people often don't like and don't even want freedom. Freedom means more options and more choices, which increases the amount of effort required to choose something which may or may not be the "optimal" choice. At least with Facebook it's easy - everyone uses it, so why use anything else?
It's the same reason why closed systems like iOS-based devices are so popular. Apple are the gatekeepers, so it tends to result in a reasonably high level of app quality and consistency. That's not freedom by any means, but given you can find almost any app for whatever purpose you require, people don't' care because they get what they want without too much effort.
Freedom sucks because for many cases it's not a net benefit, but rather a crutch. Sounds stupid for us, but we're not mainstream technology users. Hell, look at Iraq. I have read interviews with Iraqis who have lived during and after Saddam's rule. The general consensus was that so long as you didn't piss the ruling party off and weren't one of the "undesirables", life was pretty sweet. The streets weren't dangerous because he kept the warlords under control. Now they've got (forced) democracy, and no one in their right mind would want to visit unless they were armed to the teeth. So, by removing Saddam and providing freedom, one thing was traded for another. Whether it's a net positive or not will be left to history.
tl;dr - Freedom is overrated.
Nah, you misunderstand me. Like I said, I use Windows predominantly. If it were only a open vs closed source decision I'd logically have to be using Linux since I do prefer the open source concept, but until certain things are resolved in Linux land I don't use Linux because it doesn't serve its purpose to my satisfaction, yet.
When I say closed-mindedness, I'm just saying that it SOUNDS like the people you know don't care about the issue at all. Maybe they do, yet still choose closed source software. That's fine, so long as they know. That's all I was referring to.
So you're saying that Blizzard is having trouble establishing the tone for the game? Reminds me of those amusing Plinkett reviews of the Star Wards prequels, in particular "Revenge of the Sith", where he criticized the movie for not setting the tone and flip-flopping between humorous, tense, light fun, serious, joking, etc. Maybe WoW has the same issues.
The last time I tried Windows 8 (Consumer Preview), the search functionality for the Start screen was not EXACTLY like Windows 7. For example, in Windows 7 if I want to change the mouse options I can just type the word "mouse" or simply "mou" and the Mouse control panel will be the first option shown, at which point hitting enter will bring up the panel. In Windows 8, the search defaults first to Applications I believe, so you'd have to type in "mou" then hit the down arrow a couple of times to change the search category for the Control Panel, at which point you'd get what you'd want. In Windows 7 it was combined with everything, which I found much more useful.
It's little things like this which feel like a regression that perhaps Microsoft didn't think people would notice or didn't notice themselves.
Wouldn't that suggest that the new Start screen is a failure then? The fact you have to pin more apps than normal sounds very much like a workaround for deficiencies which didn't exist in Windows 7. Heck, I have about half of my Superbar in Windows 7 full pinned apps already - the rest I launch from the "recently launched" area of the Start menu (and the remainder via search of course). Does the Windows 8 Start screen have a recently launched area at least?
To be fair, fast boots are achieved in Windows 7 via standby or hibernation anyway. If you're talking about a cool boot, well I've got Windows 7 on an SSD so I'm already familiar with fast boots (though I'll admit Windows 8 seems faster). Windows 7 already has USB install, so that's irrelevant (though you might have been referring to the "Windows To Go" functionality which is new). As for the rest... sounds great, except that I still use the Start menu and prefer glass to flat pastel colours. No wonder people are hardly enthusiastic* about paying for something that seems like a regression.
* exceptions can be found on Neowin.net, where they generally don't believe that Microsoft can do any wrong. Gah, I just wish Linux still didn't fucking such on the desktop so much.
Are you certain about that? I've never played WoW in my life (don't want to get addicted, and I'm too easily addicted to gaming as it is) but I did read ArsTechnica's article about the latest expansion (http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/10/impressions-mists-of-pandaria-is-more-than-just-pandas/) and the article plus comments suggests to me that this whole issue about pandas is blown out of proportion, and likely not as damaging as was expected.
You're right about the public not caring about the open/closed source debate. Which is why I think the whole "Linux on the mainstream desktop" crusade is rather silly - the benefits of Linux are mostly due to its open nature and not its usability or software availability. I would no longer regard most Linux distros as being as competitive a desktop OS compared to Windows 7 for example. If people try to push mainstream desktop success for Linux, it will HAVE to mean sacrificing various open elements as it is the closed nature of certain products that make them appealing to a lot of people.
It's disappointing your geeky colleagues don't have at least an appreciation for open source. To me that shows only a superficial understanding of the software world and too much closed-mindedness, and I say this as a Windows user who's been burnt way too many times on the rough edges of Linux distros. BUT... I use Facebook (somewhat) and see no use for Diaspora as it has no chance of success, open or not.
That IS irony. Coincidence is what is most commonly mistaken for irony, and there's no coincidence here. The irony stems from the fact that people are liking Diaspora in greater numbers on a site which is closed and ideologically-opposite to what Diaspora stands for.
You could argue that Diaspora shouldn't even have a Facebook page if it wishes to be whole consistent in its values, but if you want Facebook users to come over, you need some kinda of presence.
Fine.
I have yet to encounter a business which uses BitCoins as a means of payment. They must exist and I could look them up, but I have yet to encounter one as part of my regular Internet usage. None of the big businesses use it, none of the smaller businesses use it, even geeky sites don't use it. This makes BitCoins rather pointless compared to regular coin.
Also, perhaps more importantly, BitCoins has yet to prove itself. Why invest in a shakey implementation of an Internet-based currency when so many other attempts died before it? I'm not going to touch it unless I actually see mainstream usage.
Simply put - I have nothing to lose by not bothering with BitCoins. I also have very little to gain, if anything at the moment, if I did. It's just not worth the time.
hairy, you're having it easy here. You KNOW it's easy to bash Windows/Microsoft here and score 4/5 posts so it seems like you're taking advantage of the free karma every time you post about Windows 8 (even though I happen to agree with most of it anyway).
Then again, you tend to get modded up for anti-Linux comments (which I agree as well) so I'm not sure what your trick is.
How did you get this far without knowing that newer /= better? Progress is not a guaranteed thing - newer stuff can always run the risk of being a regression if the people behind it acting like idiots.
Seems to me that almost everyone is chasing trends these days - social, cloud, touch. That's OK, it's emerging tech, but that doesn't mean the tech we're already using is worthless and should be abandoned (and that includes traditional desktop interfaces).
Ah yes, I remember that one. It's worth mentioning that one of the participants of that documentary (Russell Crowe) was a host on another documentary entitled "Fightin' Around the World with Russell Crowe". It was very educational. I remember this altercation:
Man: Oh my God! It's Russell Crowe!
Russell Crowe: (taunting) Oh my God, it's Russell Crowe! Oh my blah blah blah blah blah! (normal) Why don't you mind your own business, you scrotum? (attacks him)
Of course I'm already an Aussie so it's in my blood anyway. Time to fight cancer!
I'll be VERY surprised if the verdict is overturned. Why? Because history has shown that geeks absolutely suck when it comes to rooting for someone as far as court cases are concerned.
Evidence: Hans Reiser, Thomas-Rasset, Pirate Bay founders, Apple vs. Samsung. In each of those cases there were plenty of people on Slashdot who supported the defendant(s) and figured there was no way they'd be found guilty, much less with any serious penalties. Yeah about that...
So you can root for Samsung if you want. But I'll be surprised if the verdict is overturned simply because the courts aren't run by Slashdotters. Imagine if they were...
Cool, no worries then. Like I said, was just curious. Sounds like if you're already invested in the Apple ecosystem then the iPhone makes perfect sense. I've always been a Windows/Linux fellow mostly and so I'm more inclined to go Android, but again, your reasons are sound (as if you needed my approval anyway).
Out of curiosity, what do you believe the iPhone can do that a similarly matched Android phone cannot? What do you, in your estimation, "need" that only an iPhone can satisfy? Is it functionality present in iOS or is it software which is exclusive to the iPhone?
It seems to me that Canonical have chosen this path as a desperate last resort. No-one involved in the open-source world would, in their right mind, attempt to show advertising within their software unless all other sources of revenue had failed. I know Canonical have tried to get OEMs on board, tried their Ubuntu TV approach (of which, apart from its initial announcement, we've seen nothing), have tried to target the enterprise (of which Red Hat has the Linux side of things securely locked up for now), and have even tried a cloud storage solution with Ubuntu One (of which even that failed considering the widespread mindshare of Dropbox, iCloud and even SkyDrive).
So it's come to this. One could argue that Canonical has to do this since Ubuntu is free, and if they tried charging for it, people would move onto something else. This would definitely happen, so what do they do to get a steady stream of revenue before the whole company collapses? I honestly don't know, but Red Hat abandoned the desktop market and surely the corpses of previous attempts at a mainstream Linux desktop distro have shown that it's not financially sustainable and it's a wasted endeavor to try to run a company primarily based off developing a free operating system... UNLESS you have secured a niche somewhere which people are ready to pay decent money for. Red Hat has; Canonical hasn't.
BTW - I'm not saying Canonical are trying to get rich off of Ubuntu (although as a business it would be nice). The problem is that developing a mainstream desktop is fucking hard work, what with all the potential configurations and hardware out there. Even with community help it's a herculean effort that only megacorps like Microsoft and Apple could really tackle. Canonical simply doesn't have the resources... but they try. But it still needs SOME sort of revenue to keep people employed to work on things, and obviously what they're getting right now is not enough, if they've had to resort to affiliates in this way. This is going to be the final straw though.
Mass insanity exists when people have become conditioned to believe in something which might not be true or correct or completely accurate, and they find themselves hanging out with people (in real life or on the Net) who have the same opinions as themselves and hence feed of each other's energy, and so the lie continues. It exists when you don't want to challenge your preconceptions since everyone in your circle of buddies thinks like you do. It becomes your reality, even if it's not healthy as you're rejecting the experiences of others as they don't fit your view.
It's bloody narrow mindedness and honestly, the realization that the alternative (which in this case is Windows) isn't so bad after all is worse than sticking with what you know (right or wrong) - and geeks are some of the worst at following this despite believing themselves to be more intelligent than the rest of the population.
I wouldn't consider it a troll. Trolls post stuff to deliberately rile people up (e.g. Linux vs Windows flamewars), whereas as this fellow is making a joke about Slashdot's new owners. Everyone knows he's joking, or at least enough people do, hence the Funny mod. Trolls don't normally get funny mods.
Funny you mention OCR - I actually investigated that yesterday to see what FOSS options were available. Turns out that Tesseract (http://code.google.com/p/tesseract-ocr/) is pretty damn awesome. It's command line only, but I've found you can use gImageReader (http://sourceforge.net/projects/gimagereader/) as a frontend. Tesseract itself provides surprisingly good recognition of English at least, while gImageReader allows you to load up multi-page PDFs for analysis, as well as being able to select a rectangular region of a PDF or image and just OCR that area. You can then spellcheck the results before saving to a .txt. file.
As nice as this is though, Adobe Acrobat is fucking amazing. Got it installed at work, so I tried a scanned PDF and after it performed its analysis it could turn those printed graphical words into highlightable regions of text, including making them searchable. It's a brilliant feature but it would have been hell to develop, so I can understand why someone might prefer if you needed this feature. But for pulling plain text out of a bitmap, Tesseract is your best option.
Well on the plus side, she did ask me once what "that alternative to Office" was (i.e. LibreOffice), as one of her students didn't have Microsoft Office and my wife already knew from my experiences that it can work with MSO formats reasonably well. So hey, it's possible I enlightened a single student indirectly.