Well, don't forget that they'll also be tied into their ISP more, because the Google-hosted Service is so much better than that which ISPs traditionally offer. So, basically, they're evil for charging some money for a superior service.
I'm not sure what the article thinks is the better choice-a free, crappy service? i.e the status quo?
Unless you ripped you DVDs to WMV with DRM, you should be able to play them just fine. My Mac plays Div-X and XVid AVIs through QuickTime just fine (using a free plugin, natch). If they're in Ogg Video, download the free VLC, and they'll play fine as well, though not through QT PLayer, which rules out using Front Row to select them.
...this is the kind of thing that will get NASA out of the space business and get people into it who know how to turn a profit on it. In the long run, this is what can make space travel widely accessible, not a government agency.
There's room for both. Let commercial entities fund research and development in order to extract asteroid minerals (or whatever financial benefits emerge). Let NASA tackle the deeper, pure-science research. They'll benefit from the commercial endeavours, because they can use the technology developed by the commercial entities, and can use government funding to focus on the pure science aspects that lack a viable ROI.
Think academia vs. private sector engineering R in academia, we do research that may never have any commercial application, but that is valuable information because it lets us understand the nature of the world better. But at the same time, we use equipment and techniques that are often developed for the commercial world, because it's cheaper and more efficient than developing every single thing in-house
One of the ways thsi could potentially be alleviated is through the intelligent use of a cache/proxy server. I know of one small ISP back in the day (admittedly long before downloadable video was at all common) that elected to invest in just such a server, rather than significantly upgrading their bandwidth. They analysed their traffic and found that there were large swaths of data that were requested by many people (for example today that might be the most popular 20 Google videos, or the images on the Slashdot front page or whatever). By caching these locally, they were able to dramatically cut down on their bandwidth usage to their data provider. The ISP-to-user bandwidth was much cheaper, so this was a great way for them to increase their effective bandwidth without having to pay for massive data pipe upgrades.
Apple could be so much more successful if they would stop being such a-hole control freaks and just sell their products and embrace people wanting to use THE SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE THAT THEY FREAKING OWN the way the want to.
See, I can agree with your principle that you should be able to do whatever you want with your purchased hardware and software. But how can you assert that Apple would be more successful? Apple has $7 billion more than you do, so what evidence are you using to say that they would definitely be more successful? Armchair CEOs love to make such prognostications, but we don't know any better (and probably know much less) than the actual execs. The Apple execs seem to have done pretty well so far. Would they have done better with a fully open, hardware-agnostic approach? Maybe, maybe not. You don't know, neither do I.
Are you basing this assertion on an actual economic theory, or just on the same Slashdot-economics that said Linux and Google would drive Microsoft into the ground several years ago?
And, for that matter, let's look at Microsoft for a minute. Right now, Apple limits its OS to the periphery. What do you think Microsoft would do if Apple tried to take them head-on by going for the white-box PC market? Do you really think they would take it sitting down? Or do you really think there's nothing they could do to ensure Apple's financial ruin in that sector?
In not saying you should never question the moves of execs (Apple's or otherwise), but they seem to have done a pretty bang-up job so far.
I hate to sound like a troll (which I assure you it is not my intent to be), but having seen the furor over the identity cards, and the privacy implications thereof, I still have yet to see a cogent argument as to why they are terrible from a privacy point of view. Now, I have concerns with the pragmatics of the scheme (cost, risk of losing a card which has all the ID on it, the computer security of the government's data banks). That part, I understand.
But, could someone please explain to me, in a reasoned, logical manner* what the concerns are with ID cards from a privacy/1984 scenario. We're talking about data the government has anyway (through drivers licenses, health cards, social insurance cards etc). So, what is the concern with tying all this together? I am serious, again I assure you, I'm not trying to troll, but most of the reactions I've seen have been knee-jerk, "ID cards are evil and so is any government that supports them!" type arguments. So, other than pragmatics, what are the real concerns with a national ID card scheme.
Thanks in advance
*And before I get a million replies aiming for a +5 Funny, please spare me the "You must be new here" jokes. There are, in fact, some well-reasoned people who post to SlashDot. They're the ones from whom I wish to hear.
It seems like the lack of replacement-name indicates that Intel is trying to reinforce the brand of the company (Intel) instead of the brand of the chip (Pentium). This is probably because their lineup has diversified.
With AMD catching up or even outperforming them in sales in many areas of the market, Intel's marketing people probably want people to buy a "genuine" Intel product, and the specifics matter less. Whether they get (what was formerly called) a Pentium, a Centrino, an Itanium or a Celeron matters less; but this brings into the linelight the perceived importance of the company producing the chip. And Intel is still recognised by the average consumer much more than AMD. Whereas they were diluting their brand by having many different chip names.
Furthermore, this throws down the gauntlet for AMD. Previously, all AMD would have to do is get reasonable mindshare for "Athlon" compared to "Pentium". Now they would need to essentially unseat the entire "Intel" brand, which is a much tougher row to hoe.
BlueTooth EDR provides a 3x speedup compared to the original BlueTooth spec. FireWire and USB 2.0 each have transfer rates over 200 times that of BlueTooth EDR.
Syncing even 2 gigs of Data (for the low-end iPod Nano) over BlueTooth would be painful beyond compare. Add to the the necessity for batteries in my headphones (remember, those BlueTooth headsets for phones are low-res mono and are used for a lot less time than I listen to my iPod for), and you have a very untenable proposition!
Furthermore, there's a huge assumption that you would be able to dynamically, and automatically switch the headset from "iPod mode" to "Phone mode". This is a major assertion, and would require a not insignificant engineering effort. It's a lot easier to have one device (iCell, ROKR, whatever) that controls both functions and outputs the sound for whichever function-phone or music-is active at the time.
Somewhere in the Army, someone is just now figuring out that chrome on the grenade pin might have been a bad idea...
Unfortunately, they only have five seconds to tell someone else...
Re:Why put a fake horse in front of the automobile
on
Sony Reader Taking Hold?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
This may be true for you, but other people have different requests. For me, I'd much prefer this solution, were it not for the cost. I have a PDA (a Sony NR-70V with a large, 320x480 screen), and have played around with some e=books on it, but I have issues, many of which this device resolves.
For example, the battery life doesn't last very long on my PDA, since the LCD requires power constantly, and the backlights require power constantly (especially since it's a colour screen)
I find the screen, though high-res, too small. Yes, I can fit the PDA in my pocket, but I actually prefer the readability of a good-softcover-sized book
With the backlight on, I find my PDA gives me eye fatigue after lengthy reading. Whereas paper (or e-paper) with an applied external light source, does not.
Where I see the big application for this is with commuting (where you probably have a laptop bag or backpack anyway), which would give the ability to bring dozens of novels/ technical boks/newspapers/emails with you and vacationing (where you are definitely bringing bags with you anyway). By all means, load e-books onto your PDA; that's still great for spontaneous reading (waiting in line for 20 minutes, or whatnot) or for times when space and weight is at an ultimate premium (as in your stated example of canoe tripping). But I think this technology has promise for a lot of people. It's just too expensive at the moment
You hit on the main thing there: what will kill DRM, if anything does, is when they make it too restrictive, to the point where it interferes with how the general public uses their equipment. For example, I suspect that if iTunes (which I use BTW, so I'm not bashing the technology itself) becomes commonplace, eventually enough people will try to move their music from one computer to another enough times that they run out of legit authorised computers. One at work, one in the home office, two for the kids, and a laptop, and they're done. When they try to copy it to their spouse's laptop and it can't authorise, people will start to notice the restrictions. It's only then that they will take issue with the DRM. Technical descriptions of the problems won't help; it's only when people run into the limits first-hand, with something they used to be able to do, that any protest will occur.
The reason, for those who are about to ask, why this is under the "Apple" category, is that this is really an Apple ad in disguise. The slogan practically writes itself: "iTunes: No WMA and No Justin Timberlake as spokesman. What more proof do you need?"
I'm not saying that I agree with these devices per se (although as one of the sibling posts says, this device really seems to just affect careless speeding), however, your line of argumentation is flawed. A change to the status quo does not require perfection, merely an overall improvement.
What you discuss is a risk. However it is a risk in a comparatively small number of instances. A much higher rate of accidents comes from people who tailgate, speed excessively (i.e. well above the overall flow of traffic) and so forth. If this system can give the majority of accidents less likely, while increasing a small minority of accidents, it's still an overall improvement.
Again, I'm not supporting the device itself, and I lack specific stats to claim which source of accidents is the most common, but there is an ingerent logical fallacy in simply stating that a proposed solution has some flaws. Look instead at the overall balance of harms and benefits.
OK, please explain something to me, because I've never understood this. What is the big deal if a story is a dupe? It should be instantly obvious from the summary that you've read the article before, so why not just skip it? More importantly, why go to all the trouble of clicking on the description of the story you've already read, hitting reply, and then posting a diatribe about how it's a dupe and Slashdot is going further down the drain with every day and so on.
This is especially true given the often-Libertarian nature of many of the comments on Slashdot. Many a time have I seen comments along the lines of "if people don't like violent video games, they should just not play them" etc. So why not apply the same logic to dupes? You see it, recognise it for what it is, and move on. There are plenty of other stories to check out.
Sometimes, I miss the original story (if it was only posted to games.slashdot.org for example and not the front page, or if I just don't happen to click on the original). In those cases, the dupes are helpful. And they really don't seem to harm anyone, so who cares if they pop up from time to time?
Re-read the GP poster. He wasn't saying that credibility was being sacrificed because Microsoft was shown to have a lower TCO. In fact, he even said "you may be 100% correct". The point is that any study funded by one of the companies being compared is going to have the stink of bias on it, whether or not that was true. If Chevy funds a study to see which cars are better (according to whatever metric), Fords or Chevys, anyone who reads the study will question its objectivity. That's what the grandparent poster was saying. Dr. Thompson risks losing some credibility by spearheading a survey that appears biased (regardless of whether it is or not); it has nothing to do with the actual results per se.
If this rumour proves true, it will be an interesting shift for Apple. Apple has traditionally kept its consumer machines at much lower performance levels than its pro machines. The notable exception being the current G5 iMac vs G4 PowerBook. But I can't remember a time when the iBooks would outpace the PowerBooks (or the iMacs outpace the PowerMacs). Yet with the Intel upgrade (as TFA said), a Yonah-iBook would likely perform more strongly (on universal binary apps anyway) than a G4 PowerBook. Interesting times indeed....
Ultimately, I don't think Apple cares much about the geeks hacking away at this. Most of their customers won't bother with any such hacking (especially given Apple's traditional target markets of non-techie creative users in film, image editing etc and the comparatively-neophyte home users). And even if they did get OS X to work on their Dell PC, there would be no drivers for their modem, sound card, video card etc. It just wouldn't be worth the hassle for most people.
What this will do (and this is why it's "tamper-resistant", not "tamper-proof") is make it enough of a pain in the ass that I can't just take my OS X CD and merrily install it on my friend's Dell box. Which will ensure that most users simply won't bother. The geeks can hack away, and Apple will complicitly aloow it by simply not caring that much; we geeks represent too small of a market, and many of us wouldn't be paying for the software anyway. Apple just wants to make sure there aren't hundreds of Mac newbies out there calling their support line with questions like "I bought OS X and installed it on my Dell. Why won't it work?".
Sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear. I was referring to the parent poster of my original post, who was saying there won't be a market for iPod porn because people won't want to watch in public. What I meant to imply was that the only people who WOULD wish to do so are the types who expose themselves in public. This is no doubt a very small minority, but they no doubt exist. Now, exposing yourself with an iPod in one hand and your schwonkenhopper in the other isn't really any worse than just exposing yourself, but nonetheless, I just meant that there would be a very miniscule percentage of people who would, in fact, be potentially interested in iPod porn while taking the subway to work. I wasn't trolling, just not as clear as I intended to be.
The people who would watch porn (with or without jacking off) are probably the same people who expose themselves in public. Some people are just overly-exhibitionist and depraved.
In the case of iPod-porn, it might go even further. Imagine a "Jackass" show or people who just like to disturb others in general, watching porn in public. As it is, some people like to talk about sex or other socially taboo-ish topics very openly, for the express purpose of disturbing those around them. I wouldn't be surprised if public iPod porn was an extension of this.
This is just so the demons can use those teleport pads to beam themselves to Earth. Here's hoping that by the time they arrive, we've figured out how to hold a flashlight AND a gun!
Does anyone know of a good, relatively unbiased comparison of different Linux distros? I'd like to start looking at Linux a bit, but don't have the faintest idea where to start in terms of selecting a distro?
I know some are easier to install, some have better installation management, some have greater flexibility, some greater security, etc etc etc. But is there a down-to-earth newbie-learning-tool comparison page that can lay out the basics for me of say, the top ten distros?
Slashdot Mirror
Well, don't forget that they'll also be tied into their ISP more, because the Google-hosted Service is so much better than that which ISPs traditionally offer. So, basically, they're evil for charging some money for a superior service.
I'm not sure what the article thinks is the better choice-a free, crappy service? i.e the status quo?
Seriously, who uses the word "hip" anymore?
Uh, I do. It's what connects my legs to my torso.
Unless you ripped you DVDs to WMV with DRM, you should be able to play them just fine. My Mac plays Div-X and XVid AVIs through QuickTime just fine (using a free plugin, natch). If they're in Ogg Video, download the free VLC, and they'll play fine as well, though not through QT PLayer, which rules out using Front Row to select them.
There's room for both. Let commercial entities fund research and development in order to extract asteroid minerals (or whatever financial benefits emerge). Let NASA tackle the deeper, pure-science research. They'll benefit from the commercial endeavours, because they can use the technology developed by the commercial entities, and can use government funding to focus on the pure science aspects that lack a viable ROI.
Think academia vs. private sector engineering R in academia, we do research that may never have any commercial application, but that is valuable information because it lets us understand the nature of the world better. But at the same time, we use equipment and techniques that are often developed for the commercial world, because it's cheaper and more efficient than developing every single thing in-house
One of the ways thsi could potentially be alleviated is through the intelligent use of a cache/proxy server. I know of one small ISP back in the day (admittedly long before downloadable video was at all common) that elected to invest in just such a server, rather than significantly upgrading their bandwidth. They analysed their traffic and found that there were large swaths of data that were requested by many people (for example today that might be the most popular 20 Google videos, or the images on the Slashdot front page or whatever). By caching these locally, they were able to dramatically cut down on their bandwidth usage to their data provider. The ISP-to-user bandwidth was much cheaper, so this was a great way for them to increase their effective bandwidth without having to pay for massive data pipe upgrades.
See, I can agree with your principle that you should be able to do whatever you want with your purchased hardware and software. But how can you assert that Apple would be more successful? Apple has $7 billion more than you do, so what evidence are you using to say that they would definitely be more successful? Armchair CEOs love to make such prognostications, but we don't know any better (and probably know much less) than the actual execs. The Apple execs seem to have done pretty well so far. Would they have done better with a fully open, hardware-agnostic approach? Maybe, maybe not. You don't know, neither do I.
Are you basing this assertion on an actual economic theory, or just on the same Slashdot-economics that said Linux and Google would drive Microsoft into the ground several years ago?
And, for that matter, let's look at Microsoft for a minute. Right now, Apple limits its OS to the periphery. What do you think Microsoft would do if Apple tried to take them head-on by going for the white-box PC market? Do you really think they would take it sitting down? Or do you really think there's nothing they could do to ensure Apple's financial ruin in that sector?
In not saying you should never question the moves of execs (Apple's or otherwise), but they seem to have done a pretty bang-up job so far.
I hate to sound like a troll (which I assure you it is not my intent to be), but having seen the furor over the identity cards, and the privacy implications thereof, I still have yet to see a cogent argument as to why they are terrible from a privacy point of view. Now, I have concerns with the pragmatics of the scheme (cost, risk of losing a card which has all the ID on it, the computer security of the government's data banks). That part, I understand.
But, could someone please explain to me, in a reasoned, logical manner* what the concerns are with ID cards from a privacy/1984 scenario. We're talking about data the government has anyway (through drivers licenses, health cards, social insurance cards etc). So, what is the concern with tying all this together? I am serious, again I assure you, I'm not trying to troll, but most of the reactions I've seen have been knee-jerk, "ID cards are evil and so is any government that supports them!" type arguments. So, other than pragmatics, what are the real concerns with a national ID card scheme.
Thanks in advance
*And before I get a million replies aiming for a +5 Funny, please spare me the "You must be new here" jokes. There are, in fact, some well-reasoned people who post to SlashDot. They're the ones from whom I wish to hear.
It seems like the lack of replacement-name indicates that Intel is trying to reinforce the brand of the company (Intel) instead of the brand of the chip (Pentium). This is probably because their lineup has diversified.
With AMD catching up or even outperforming them in sales in many areas of the market, Intel's marketing people probably want people to buy a "genuine" Intel product, and the specifics matter less. Whether they get (what was formerly called) a Pentium, a Centrino, an Itanium or a Celeron matters less; but this brings into the linelight the perceived importance of the company producing the chip. And Intel is still recognised by the average consumer much more than AMD. Whereas they were diluting their brand by having many different chip names.
Furthermore, this throws down the gauntlet for AMD. Previously, all AMD would have to do is get reasonable mindshare for "Athlon" compared to "Pentium". Now they would need to essentially unseat the entire "Intel" brand, which is a much tougher row to hoe.
Even BlueTooth EDR is painfully slow for song syncing:
BlueTooth EDR Speed: 2.1Mbits/s
FireWire Speed: 400Mbits/s
USB 2.0 High-speed Speed: 480Mbits/s
BlueTooth EDR provides a 3x speedup compared to the original BlueTooth spec. FireWire and USB 2.0 each have transfer rates over 200 times that of BlueTooth EDR.
Syncing even 2 gigs of Data (for the low-end iPod Nano) over BlueTooth would be painful beyond compare. Add to the the necessity for batteries in my headphones (remember, those BlueTooth headsets for phones are low-res mono and are used for a lot less time than I listen to my iPod for), and you have a very untenable proposition!
Furthermore, there's a huge assumption that you would be able to dynamically, and automatically switch the headset from "iPod mode" to "Phone mode". This is a major assertion, and would require a not insignificant engineering effort. It's a lot easier to have one device (iCell, ROKR, whatever) that controls both functions and outputs the sound for whichever function-phone or music-is active at the time.
Unfortunately, they only have five seconds to tell someone else...
This may be true for you, but other people have different requests. For me, I'd much prefer this solution, were it not for the cost. I have a PDA (a Sony NR-70V with a large, 320x480 screen), and have played around with some e=books on it, but I have issues, many of which this device resolves.
Where I see the big application for this is with commuting (where you probably have a laptop bag or backpack anyway), which would give the ability to bring dozens of novels/ technical boks/newspapers/emails with you and vacationing (where you are definitely bringing bags with you anyway). By all means, load e-books onto your PDA; that's still great for spontaneous reading (waiting in line for 20 minutes, or whatnot) or for times when space and weight is at an ultimate premium (as in your stated example of canoe tripping). But I think this technology has promise for a lot of people. It's just too expensive at the moment
OTOH, the first thing that crossed my mind was: "How much for for two of them"
Um, they're $2199 each, the math isn't that hard. See?
You hit on the main thing there: what will kill DRM, if anything does, is when they make it too restrictive, to the point where it interferes with how the general public uses their equipment. For example, I suspect that if iTunes (which I use BTW, so I'm not bashing the technology itself) becomes commonplace, eventually enough people will try to move their music from one computer to another enough times that they run out of legit authorised computers. One at work, one in the home office, two for the kids, and a laptop, and they're done. When they try to copy it to their spouse's laptop and it can't authorise, people will start to notice the restrictions. It's only then that they will take issue with the DRM. Technical descriptions of the problems won't help; it's only when people run into the limits first-hand, with something they used to be able to do, that any protest will occur.
The reason, for those who are about to ask, why this is under the "Apple" category, is that this is really an Apple ad in disguise. The slogan practically writes itself: "iTunes: No WMA and No Justin Timberlake as spokesman. What more proof do you need?"
I'm not saying that I agree with these devices per se (although as one of the sibling posts says, this device really seems to just affect careless speeding), however, your line of argumentation is flawed. A change to the status quo does not require perfection, merely an overall improvement.
What you discuss is a risk. However it is a risk in a comparatively small number of instances. A much higher rate of accidents comes from people who tailgate, speed excessively (i.e. well above the overall flow of traffic) and so forth. If this system can give the majority of accidents less likely, while increasing a small minority of accidents, it's still an overall improvement.
Again, I'm not supporting the device itself, and I lack specific stats to claim which source of accidents is the most common, but there is an ingerent logical fallacy in simply stating that a proposed solution has some flaws. Look instead at the overall balance of harms and benefits.
Hell, it's probably the only BOINCing most of us will ever get to do!
OK, please explain something to me, because I've never understood this. What is the big deal if a story is a dupe? It should be instantly obvious from the summary that you've read the article before, so why not just skip it? More importantly, why go to all the trouble of clicking on the description of the story you've already read, hitting reply, and then posting a diatribe about how it's a dupe and Slashdot is going further down the drain with every day and so on.
This is especially true given the often-Libertarian nature of many of the comments on Slashdot. Many a time have I seen comments along the lines of "if people don't like violent video games, they should just not play them" etc. So why not apply the same logic to dupes? You see it, recognise it for what it is, and move on. There are plenty of other stories to check out.
Sometimes, I miss the original story (if it was only posted to games.slashdot.org for example and not the front page, or if I just don't happen to click on the original). In those cases, the dupes are helpful. And they really don't seem to harm anyone, so who cares if they pop up from time to time?
Re-read the GP poster. He wasn't saying that credibility was being sacrificed because Microsoft was shown to have a lower TCO. In fact, he even said "you may be 100% correct". The point is that any study funded by one of the companies being compared is going to have the stink of bias on it, whether or not that was true. If Chevy funds a study to see which cars are better (according to whatever metric), Fords or Chevys, anyone who reads the study will question its objectivity. That's what the grandparent poster was saying. Dr. Thompson risks losing some credibility by spearheading a survey that appears biased (regardless of whether it is or not); it has nothing to do with the actual results per se.
If this rumour proves true, it will be an interesting shift for Apple. Apple has traditionally kept its consumer machines at much lower performance levels than its pro machines. The notable exception being the current G5 iMac vs G4 PowerBook. But I can't remember a time when the iBooks would outpace the PowerBooks (or the iMacs outpace the PowerMacs). Yet with the Intel upgrade (as TFA said), a Yonah-iBook would likely perform more strongly (on universal binary apps anyway) than a G4 PowerBook. Interesting times indeed....
It reminds me quite strongly of EPIC 2014, a conceptual animation put out last year that seems eerily prescient in many ways.
Ultimately, I don't think Apple cares much about the geeks hacking away at this. Most of their customers won't bother with any such hacking (especially given Apple's traditional target markets of non-techie creative users in film, image editing etc and the comparatively-neophyte home users). And even if they did get OS X to work on their Dell PC, there would be no drivers for their modem, sound card, video card etc. It just wouldn't be worth the hassle for most people.
What this will do (and this is why it's "tamper-resistant", not "tamper-proof") is make it enough of a pain in the ass that I can't just take my OS X CD and merrily install it on my friend's Dell box. Which will ensure that most users simply won't bother. The geeks can hack away, and Apple will complicitly aloow it by simply not caring that much; we geeks represent too small of a market, and many of us wouldn't be paying for the software anyway. Apple just wants to make sure there aren't hundreds of Mac newbies out there calling their support line with questions like "I bought OS X and installed it on my Dell. Why won't it work?".
Sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear. I was referring to the parent poster of my original post, who was saying there won't be a market for iPod porn because people won't want to watch in public. What I meant to imply was that the only people who WOULD wish to do so are the types who expose themselves in public. This is no doubt a very small minority, but they no doubt exist. Now, exposing yourself with an iPod in one hand and your schwonkenhopper in the other isn't really any worse than just exposing yourself, but nonetheless, I just meant that there would be a very miniscule percentage of people who would, in fact, be potentially interested in iPod porn while taking the subway to work. I wasn't trolling, just not as clear as I intended to be.
The people who would watch porn (with or without jacking off) are probably the same people who expose themselves in public. Some people are just overly-exhibitionist and depraved.
In the case of iPod-porn, it might go even further. Imagine a "Jackass" show or people who just like to disturb others in general, watching porn in public. As it is, some people like to talk about sex or other socially taboo-ish topics very openly, for the express purpose of disturbing those around them. I wouldn't be surprised if public iPod porn was an extension of this.
This is just so the demons can use those teleport pads to beam themselves to Earth. Here's hoping that by the time they arrive, we've figured out how to hold a flashlight AND a gun!
Does anyone know of a good, relatively unbiased comparison of different Linux distros? I'd like to start looking at Linux a bit, but don't have the faintest idea where to start in terms of selecting a distro?
I know some are easier to install, some have better installation management, some have greater flexibility, some greater security, etc etc etc. But is there a down-to-earth newbie-learning-tool comparison page that can lay out the basics for me of say, the top ten distros?