Also sprach DougMackensie: It'd be cool to see a new Imac with a flat panel.
True, but considering what a 15 inch LCD costs, I don't think it was possible to do that and keep the computer in a similar price-range. OTOH, the LCD prices are dropping, so maybe in December.
I run OS X on a 300 MHz beige G3 (aka Gossamer), the oldest officially-supported Mac. (According to the Apple History site, the machine was available 11/97-1/99, so it's almost a four-year-old model.) It seemed slow, even with 576 MB of RAM, but with each update it has improved. I do know from experience that, for the apps I use, the difference between the G3 and G4 is a lot more than can be accounted for by the MHz gap, even in OS 9, aka Classic. Going from OS X to Classic is not a swift process, but again, it has been improving with each release.
I think one thing that people tend to overlook is that OS X is still in the Beta stage. I can't really blame them for that view, since it's been commercially available for some time, but Apple just started shipping it with new computers in the past couple months, and even then the systems are set up to boot to OS 9.1 as the default. Personally, I think OS X is pretty slick, and given my machine's age, I am ready to get a new system... after I buy a house this fall. (First things first.) We'll see if iCEO Jobs introduces dual-processor G4s today. I hope I hope I hope.
on irc.opensource.net a few people we're seriously talking about killing Katz. They knew where he lives. They would do the world a favor.
No, they shouldn't, for three reasons. One, killing someone for stupidity is wrong, although I sympathize with the impulse of it. Two, stupidity is not illegal. Three, stupidity in others is entertaining, when you look at it the right way. Katz may be a moron who could give lessons in bad logic to Bono, but I will defend to the death his right to be an irritating moron.
Now, if he expects me to *pay* for his being an irritating moron, that's another story.
Ted Kaczynski predicts that humanity will easily drift into a position of such dependence on intelligent machines that it will ultimately have little choice but to accept all the machines' decisions.
Personally, I think humanity went into the chamberpot when we started knapping flint tools. Why, quartz was good enough for our australopithicine ancestors, it should be good enough for us!
Anybody who doesn't see the sarcasm in the above comment will also miss the irony in people making their living off the internet by scaring people worldwide about technology.
That I say that's a joke son! I'm too fast for ya! The porch light's on but nobody's home! I keep pitchin' em and you keep missin' 'em! Missin' 'em, that is.
US government does not exist for the people. It exists for the big corporations.
Uh, no. I realize that many here consider RMS divine, if not dreamy, but he is flat-out wrong. There has never been a government anywhere at any time that did not have as its top priority itself. In all governments, be they communist, democratic, republican, socialist, monarchist, whatever, you will find that it is a government of the government bureaucrat, by the government bureaucrat, for the government bureaucrat.
I was (un)fortunate enough to work for a NASA contractor in DC during the government shutdown a few years ago. We discovered some amazing things. First, we didn't need the civil servants to do our job. Second, without them, we got a lot more work done because they weren't in the way. Third, it was a lot quieter. Fourth, the network was quicker. Fifth, if they are considered 'non-essential', why were they hired in the first place?
Every government action I've ever seen comes down to one of the following:
They have to enforce a silly law that was passed by Congresscritters who believe the government should poke its nose everywhere.
The bureaucracy attempts to expand its wealth and power at the expense fo the wealth, power, and freedom of the taxpayer
The bureaucracy fights to preserve their wealth and power against a mob of angry taxpayers
The bureaucracy blames others (often the evil forces of capitalism if there is no Republican handy) for the problems it creates and perpetuates
And finally, I have no sympathy for those who demand the government do get more power then whine when the government uses that power to do something they don't like. You'd think empirical evidence would tell them otherwise.
I do agree that we should fight the government, good and hard, for our freedoms. But to expect any government to do what's right when the civil servants can't be fired and when government agencies face no competition is to have both your feet planted firmly in the air.
This is, indeed, one of the great charms of America: that all people are free to make fools of themselves, thus entertaining their betters. And I don't have to pay a dime for it! God, I love this country!
... , but on the other hand they [MicroSoft] have set a great standard in the ease of use.
Bwahahahaha!!! Oh, thanks, I needed that after having to do a ton register editting this weekend. "Ease of use", hee-heeee! [INCLUDE SOUND OF THIGH-SLAPPING HERE.]
[Pops up behind ferns, dressed like German soldier]
Veddy intellesting... but stupid!
[It's from Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. Ah, kids dese days, wit deir fax machines and hula-hoops, dey got no idea what humor dere is in saying "You betcher bippie!"]
All seriousness aside, this strikes me as a new variation on an old MS tactic of partnering until you can swipe the code/methods/ideas, then cancelling the partnership and releasing your own competing product. This has happened many times, as when they partnered with Quicken and then released MS Money (or is that MS' Money?). If that seems paranoid, then it is paranoia based on empirical evidence.
T-Bone
"I ain't good-lookin' but I'm some sweet woman's angel-child."
Blind Willie McTell, "Statesboro Blues"
which will protect us from all those ballistic missiles that foreign nations don't have and would be silly to use
How quickly we forget. Did it ever occur to you why China wanted a lot of US firms to locate manufacturing facilities in their nation after years of spying out our nuclear secrets? It's because they have the technology to make the bombs but lack the more mundane know-how of how to deliver them. I hope I'm wrong, but this may not seem too silly in a few years.
And remember, politicians do silly things all the time. Bill Clinton even dabbled in philology when he challenged the meaning of "is".
T-Bone
"There has never been a government bureaucrat anywhere who had a purpose other than trying to justify his job."
- H.L. Mencken, Man vs. Men
All good points, though I would argue that we (the USofA) probably have the best laws on property-rights in the world. Not that they are good, but they suck less than others. The fact that we are free to give away source code or (attempt to) copyright it is proof enough of that; control tends to stay with the creator.
That said, I am reminded of something I read recently in a biography of P.G. Wodehouse (1881-1975). He wrote a friend saying that there must be a way for a writer to sell his works on his own; he mentioned someone who actually did that and made a pretty decent living off of it. It seems that, with e-books and the internet, you could do that very thing today.
Or not.
T-Bone
"It's the greatest one-man thrill in Jack Frost's pageant!"
"I know a better one... Forget I said that."
- MST3K, "Snow Thrills"
Also sprach GroundBounce: Do most of you Mac users really feel this way? Perhaps Mac users have had only one office suite for so long that they have forgotten the improvements that can be had by competition.
Not at all; in fact, Apple is recognized as the choice for Desktop Publishing, so there are quite a few choices out there. In addition of MSOffice, Apple makes AppleWorks (formerly ClarisWorks), Acrobat's there, Corel makes software, etc etc etc. However, there is a big difference between MSOffice for the Mac and MSOffice for Windows. For one thing, it's cheaper on the Mac (at least the last time I was curious enough to look). For another, because it has to fight to become the standard, rather than become the standard by being bundled with the OS, the quality has to be higher; generally it is. From talking to fellow MacHeads who use it, MSOffice for the Mac is much better than the Windows version. (I can't say first-hand; I prefer Acrobat. It does what I need and it seems more portable between versions. Plus the reader is free.)
Now, don't get me wrong, I'd like to see another Office option on the Mac, but this isn't a slamdunk. For one, it's a smaller market. For another, because MSOffice can't piggyback on the OS, there is more competition and thus higher quality software available from MS and its competitors. I'm certainly not saying people shouldn't do this or can't do this, just that they should be forwarned.
T-Bone
It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.
- P.G. Wodehouse, "Lord Emsworth and the Girlfriend"
I hate MicroSoft as much as the NeXT guy, but even I will admit that their Mac products aren't too shabby. This is because they have competition on the Mac.
That said, I prefer Appleworks to Office because of price and needs. Outlook is better on the Mac than on Windows, but that's grading on a curve. As for IE, I'll use it at home when I can't telnet to an account with lynx as a last resort.
And I will back up the review of OmniWeb. I used it years ago when I had a NeXT sitting in my office, and it is a bargain at twice the price.
T-Bone
An original thought. That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them.
- Stephen Fry, The Liar
Also sprach Bonker: Let's be honest here. Why is MS Office so popular? A lot of people will say 'ease of use', but it's really just that most people who use it are used to the set of features and mentality that Microsoft has gotten everyone familiar with. Open Office if anything, is easier to use than MS Office.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I think you might have missed one point. In my experience, people buy MS Office because that's what they have at work. Whether they like something else or not, and regardless their opinion of MS, having Office means that they can pretend to do a lot of work from home. I'm not a Mac evangelist, but I do take opportunities to point out to people that the Mac has a heck of a lot of advantages over MS, and most of MS' alleged advantages are largely FUD. No one disagrees, but they still buy MS and then bitch when it is constantly breaking. Why? Because it comes with MS Office and that's what they have at work. In other words, MS Office continues to be the most popular office suite because MS Office is the most popular office suite. MS Office was, and probably still is, the most popular non-Apple app used on Macs. (Hm, maybe I should say "most common" rather than "most popular"...)
Then again, given how some people 'oo' and 'ah' over the Apple products (try running OS X on a TiBook in an airport terminal some time) but still don't buy them, if giving them Open Office for OS X will turn the trick to bring some to the platform, maybe I need to get off my pasty white backside and buy those O'Reilley Carbon and Cocoa books.
T-Bone
"As God is my witness, I though turkeys could fly."
- Gordon Jump, WKRP in Cincinnati
Thank you thank you thank you! Not only did I laugh from this, it also triggered a memory about something that was done on the classic BBC radio show I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again: The Julie Andrews Dirty Songbook (the expurgated version).
I could have BZZT all night,
I could have BZZT all night,
And still have begged for more....
Get stuffed. Look at the map and you may notice that most of the land-mass is north of the equator. Ergo, barring any other information, one would expect that most humans live north of the equator, and since saltwater (unlike form Indy 500 driver Salt Walther) is evil to electronics, few programmers are floating in the oceans. Also, vast areas of land south of the equator is very hostile to human life, like the Australian outback, much of the African continent that is in the south, and the government of Argentina.
Really, if one is going to troll, one should at least get one's facts straight and not use an obviously false name like "Fr. Engels".
Yours sincerely,
Walt Zingmatilda (Mrs.)
P.S. - What idiot made the troller's post a "5 - informative"???? If the moderators are this pathetic, they should give up moderation and do something that is more suited to their intelligence, like voting in Miami-Dade or watching the Eurovision Song Contest.
IBM's VisualAge for Java is downright fantastic, once you get used to it.
Here I must disagree. VisualAge is probably the best IDE out there, but I'd say that's grading on a curve; it sucks less than the rest. Now, in five years, it's going to be one heck of a tool, I'll grant you that. But not yet.
--
T-Bone
"I must say, Headmaster, that your standards are a bit out of date."
"Well of course they're out of date. Standards are always out-of-date. That's what makes them standards."
- Alan Bennet, Forty Years On
Should we not tell the world that the digits in numbers divisible by three add up to three, in case someone tries to patent that too?
Actually, it's the sum of the digits should be divisible by three, which you've already pointed out. And don't forget that a number is divisible by nine if the sum of its digits is divisible by nine.
I think this assumes base 10; does anyone know if it applies to anything like, say, base 13? I think it does, but I've been out of school too long to prove or disprove this.
--
T-Bone
"I will not make an issue of my opponent's youth and inexperience." - Ronald Reagan
Luckily, AFAIK, there are no places in the Eastern time zone that do not follow DST, so it's pretty easy to convert those times. But with Central and Mountain times, it's pretty important to know whether someone else is talking about Daylight Time or not.
This is getting off-topic, but most of Indiana does not observe daylight savings time and is in the Eastern time zone. The exceptions are a few counties near Chicago, Louisville, Cincinnati, and Evansville. When the railroads first created time zones, they put Indiana in the Central. Then the US government decided to get involved and, in their infinite wisdom, put the line between Eastern and Central about three blocks east of the statehouse in Indianapolis. An entire state said "You gotta be kidding me." So as a way to please no one, the state went Eastern and no DST. More or less.
Personally, I'd like to see us go to a half-hour time zone like Newfoundland, if only because it would really confuse Chicagoans.
--
T-Bone Work is the curse of the drinking classes. - Oscar Wilde
> Have you just chosen to forget that America was
> populated thousands of years before settlers from
> european countries showed up and exterminated
> them?
Exterminated?! Don't tell that to my sister-in-law!
Look, don't sweat it. Should I show no interest in Chinese mummies because I'm not Chinese? Should I not buy Chieftains albums because I'm not Irish? Is the tendency for computing people to use names from Nordic mythology cultural pillage (no irony there) or something kinda cool?
Different people find different things interesting, and it's part of what makes us all individuals. I wasn't interested in Native American culture until my dad and I found a bunch
of flint arrowheads on a friend's farm.
Slashdot Mirror
It'd be cool to see a new Imac with a flat panel.
True, but considering what a 15 inch LCD costs, I don't think it was possible to do that and keep the computer in a similar price-range. OTOH, the LCD prices are dropping, so maybe in December.
I think one thing that people tend to overlook is that OS X is still in the Beta stage. I can't really blame them for that view, since it's been commercially available for some time, but Apple just started shipping it with new computers in the past couple months, and even then the systems are set up to boot to OS 9.1 as the default. Personally, I think OS X is pretty slick, and given my machine's age, I am ready to get a new system ... after I buy a house this fall. (First things first.) We'll see if iCEO Jobs introduces dual-processor G4s today. I hope I hope I hope.
No, they shouldn't, for three reasons. One, killing someone for stupidity is wrong, although I sympathize with the impulse of it. Two, stupidity is not illegal. Three, stupidity in others is entertaining, when you look at it the right way. Katz may be a moron who could give lessons in bad logic to Bono, but I will defend to the death his right to be an irritating moron.
Now, if he expects me to *pay* for his being an irritating moron, that's another story.
Personally, I think humanity went into the chamberpot when we started knapping flint tools. Why, quartz was good enough for our australopithicine ancestors, it should be good enough for us!
Anybody who doesn't see the sarcasm in the above comment will also miss the irony in people making their living off the internet by scaring people worldwide about technology.
#include
That I say that's a joke son! I'm too fast for ya! The porch light's on but nobody's home! I keep pitchin' em and you keep missin' 'em! Missin' 'em, that is.
Uh, no. I realize that many here consider RMS divine, if not dreamy, but he is flat-out wrong. There has never been a government anywhere at any time that did not have as its top priority itself. In all governments, be they communist, democratic, republican, socialist, monarchist, whatever, you will find that it is a government of the government bureaucrat, by the government bureaucrat, for the government bureaucrat.
I was (un)fortunate enough to work for a NASA contractor in DC during the government shutdown a few years ago. We discovered some amazing things. First, we didn't need the civil servants to do our job. Second, without them, we got a lot more work done because they weren't in the way. Third, it was a lot quieter. Fourth, the network was quicker. Fifth, if they are considered 'non-essential', why were they hired in the first place?
Every government action I've ever seen comes down to one of the following:
- They have to enforce a silly law that was passed by Congresscritters who believe the government should poke its nose everywhere.
- The bureaucracy attempts to expand its wealth and power at the expense fo the wealth, power, and freedom of the taxpayer
- The bureaucracy fights to preserve their wealth and power against a mob of angry taxpayers
- The bureaucracy blames others (often the evil forces of capitalism if there is no Republican handy) for the problems it creates and perpetuates
And finally, I have no sympathy for those who demand the government do get more power then whine when the government uses that power to do something they don't like. You'd think empirical evidence would tell them otherwise.I do agree that we should fight the government, good and hard, for our freedoms. But to expect any government to do what's right when the civil servants can't be fired and when government agencies face no competition is to have both your feet planted firmly in the air.
This is, indeed, one of the great charms of America: that all people are free to make fools of themselves, thus entertaining their betters. And I don't have to pay a dime for it! God, I love this country!
Or C#. I've patented the musical not C# and MS is going down in flames, baby!
Bwahahahaha!!! Oh, thanks, I needed that after having to do a ton register editting this weekend. "Ease of use", hee-heeee! [INCLUDE SOUND OF THIGH-SLAPPING HERE.]
[Pops up behind ferns, dressed like German soldier] ... but stupid!
Veddy intellesting
[It's from Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. Ah, kids dese days, wit deir fax machines and hula-hoops, dey got no idea what humor dere is in saying "You betcher bippie!"]
All seriousness aside, this strikes me as a new variation on an old MS tactic of partnering until you can swipe the code/methods/ideas, then cancelling the partnership and releasing your own competing product. This has happened many times, as when they partnered with Quicken and then released MS Money (or is that MS' Money?). If that seems paranoid, then it is paranoia based on empirical evidence.
T-Bone
"I ain't good-lookin' but I'm some sweet woman's angel-child."
Blind Willie McTell, "Statesboro Blues"
How quickly we forget. Did it ever occur to you why China wanted a lot of US firms to locate manufacturing facilities in their nation after years of spying out our nuclear secrets? It's because they have the technology to make the bombs but lack the more mundane know-how of how to deliver them. I hope I'm wrong, but this may not seem too silly in a few years.
And remember, politicians do silly things all the time. Bill Clinton even dabbled in philology when he challenged the meaning of "is".
T-Bone
"There has never been a government bureaucrat anywhere who had a purpose other than trying to justify his job."
- H.L. Mencken, Man vs. Men
That said, I am reminded of something I read recently in a biography of P.G. Wodehouse (1881-1975). He wrote a friend saying that there must be a way for a writer to sell his works on his own; he mentioned someone who actually did that and made a pretty decent living off of it. It seems that, with e-books and the internet, you could do that very thing today.
Or not.
T-Bone ... Forget I said that."
"It's the greatest one-man thrill in Jack Frost's pageant!"
"I know a better one
- MST3K, "Snow Thrills"
Yeesh. I have a friend in the FBI who once said "Our jurisdiction stops at the banks of the Red River". And to think I laughed.
Do most of you Mac users really feel this way? Perhaps Mac users have had only one office suite for so long that they have forgotten the improvements that can be had by competition.
Not at all; in fact, Apple is recognized as the choice for Desktop Publishing, so there are quite a few choices out there. In addition of MSOffice, Apple makes AppleWorks (formerly ClarisWorks), Acrobat's there, Corel makes software, etc etc etc. However, there is a big difference between MSOffice for the Mac and MSOffice for Windows. For one thing, it's cheaper on the Mac (at least the last time I was curious enough to look). For another, because it has to fight to become the standard, rather than become the standard by being bundled with the OS, the quality has to be higher; generally it is. From talking to fellow MacHeads who use it, MSOffice for the Mac is much better than the Windows version. (I can't say first-hand; I prefer Acrobat. It does what I need and it seems more portable between versions. Plus the reader is free.)
Now, don't get me wrong, I'd like to see another Office option on the Mac, but this isn't a slamdunk. For one, it's a smaller market. For another, because MSOffice can't piggyback on the OS, there is more competition and thus higher quality software available from MS and its competitors. I'm certainly not saying people shouldn't do this or can't do this, just that they should be forwarned.
T-Bone
It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.
- P.G. Wodehouse, "Lord Emsworth and the Girlfriend"
Sorry, my German is rustier than I thought. Perhaps I'd better oil her.
That said, I prefer Appleworks to Office because of price and needs. Outlook is better on the Mac than on Windows, but that's grading on a curve. As for IE, I'll use it at home when I can't telnet to an account with lynx as a last resort.
And I will back up the review of OmniWeb. I used it years ago when I had a NeXT sitting in my office, and it is a bargain at twice the price.
T-Bone
An original thought. That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them.
- Stephen Fry, The Liar
Warum ist das ein Problem, Amerikanischer Schweinhund? Wissen Sie nicht das Englisch ist eine Deutsche Sprache?
T-Bone
"They're German, don't mention the war! I did once, but I think I got away with it."
- John Cleese, Fawlty Towers
Let's be honest here. Why is MS Office so popular? A lot of people will say 'ease of use', but it's really just that most people who use it are used to the set of features and mentality that Microsoft has gotten everyone familiar with. Open Office if anything, is easier to use than MS Office.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I think you might have missed one point. In my experience, people buy MS Office because that's what they have at work. Whether they like something else or not, and regardless their opinion of MS, having Office means that they can pretend to do a lot of work from home. I'm not a Mac evangelist, but I do take opportunities to point out to people that the Mac has a heck of a lot of advantages over MS, and most of MS' alleged advantages are largely FUD. No one disagrees, but they still buy MS and then bitch when it is constantly breaking. Why? Because it comes with MS Office and that's what they have at work. In other words, MS Office continues to be the most popular office suite because MS Office is the most popular office suite. MS Office was, and probably still is, the most popular non-Apple app used on Macs. (Hm, maybe I should say "most common" rather than "most popular" ...)
Then again, given how some people 'oo' and 'ah' over the Apple products (try running OS X on a TiBook in an airport terminal some time) but still don't buy them, if giving them Open Office for OS X will turn the trick to bring some to the platform, maybe I need to get off my pasty white backside and buy those O'Reilley Carbon and Cocoa books.
T-Bone
"As God is my witness, I though turkeys could fly."
- Gordon Jump, WKRP in Cincinnati
I could have BZZT all night, ....
I could have BZZT all night,
And still have begged for more
Get stuffed. Look at the map and you may notice that most of the land-mass is north of the equator. Ergo, barring any other information, one would expect that most humans live north of the equator, and since saltwater (unlike form Indy 500 driver Salt Walther) is evil to electronics, few programmers are floating in the oceans. Also, vast areas of land south of the equator is very hostile to human life, like the Australian outback, much of the African continent that is in the south, and the government of Argentina.
Really, if one is going to troll, one should at least get one's facts straight and not use an obviously false name like "Fr. Engels".
Yours sincerely,
Walt Zingmatilda (Mrs.)
P.S. - What idiot made the troller's post a "5 - informative"???? If the moderators are this pathetic, they should give up moderation and do something that is more suited to their intelligence, like voting in Miami-Dade or watching the Eurovision Song Contest.
Here I must disagree. VisualAge is probably the best IDE out there, but I'd say that's grading on a curve; it sucks less than the rest. Now, in five years, it's going to be one heck of a tool, I'll grant you that. But not yet.
--
T-Bone
"I must say, Headmaster, that your standards are a bit out of date."
"Well of course they're out of date. Standards are always out-of-date. That's what makes them standards."
- Alan Bennet, Forty Years On
Actually, it's the sum of the digits should be divisible by three, which you've already pointed out. And don't forget that a number is divisible by nine if the sum of its digits is divisible by nine.
I think this assumes base 10; does anyone know if it applies to anything like, say, base 13? I think it does, but I've been out of school too long to prove or disprove this.
--
T-Bone
"I will not make an issue of my opponent's youth and inexperience." - Ronald Reagan
This is getting off-topic, but most of Indiana does not observe daylight savings time and is in the Eastern time zone. The exceptions are a few counties near Chicago, Louisville, Cincinnati, and Evansville. When the railroads first created time zones, they put Indiana in the Central. Then the US government decided to get involved and, in their infinite wisdom, put the line between Eastern and Central about three blocks east of the statehouse in Indianapolis. An entire state said "You gotta be kidding me." So as a way to please no one, the state went Eastern and no DST. More or less.
Personally, I'd like to see us go to a half-hour time zone like Newfoundland, if only because it would really confuse Chicagoans.
-- T-Bone
Work is the curse of the drinking classes. - Oscar Wilde
> Have you just chosen to forget that America was
> populated thousands of years before settlers from
> european countries showed up and exterminated
> them?
Exterminated?! Don't tell that to my sister-in-law!
Look, don't sweat it. Should I show no interest in Chinese mummies because I'm not Chinese? Should I not buy Chieftains albums because I'm not Irish? Is the tendency for computing people to use names from Nordic mythology cultural pillage (no irony there) or something kinda cool?
Different people find different things interesting, and it's part of what makes us all individuals. I wasn't interested in Native American culture until my dad and I found a bunch
of flint arrowheads on a friend's farm.
Having lived three years in Colorado, I'd say bananas are appropriate ...