Interesting things to note..
on
Linuxnewbie.org
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· Score: 3
Posted by DaJoker:
I just wanted to point out several things, that really don't make this site unique in itself, and really make me question this sites intentions in general.
1. This site has the same principle ideas as http://linuxnewbies.org. Now this isn't in itself bad. Keep reading.. 2. One of the main creators of http://linuxnewbies.org is Joker, and this post came from Jester. Simple coincidence, right? Keep reading.. 3. This same Joker runs a website that is entitled Kung-Fu Linux, and has appeared on the Joe Linux User site at http://themes.org. By going to http://www.linuxnewbie.org we see that you should mail sensei@linuxnewbie.org.
Ok, so you really don't see the coincidence do you? I think it's a sad ripoff, and personally I wouldn't give this site a look, nor contribute to help. This was a sad, shameless attempt of creating a slashdot effect site overnight, and has absolutely no content to back up it's claims as a newbie friendly site. I thumb my nose at Jester and ask him to next time, please use your own ideas and creativity.
So if you want real newbie content, and no shameless plugs on an actual slashdot story, no advertising banners, and the help of people that have been using linux for many years, surf on over to http://linuxnewbies.org and save yourself the time of going to a site that doesn't live up to it's claims.
The best I've been able to do is destroy an older monitor with my new PII 400MHZ, 128 MB, and AGP 2x (w/ 8 megs) while playing a game of Unreal! I almost pissed my pants when the picture tube exploded while I was playing!
Cool! I've been waiting for this...
on
Linuxnewbie.org
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· Score: 1
Posted by Tony Smolar:
...now only one question remains, What is a computer?;)
Well, the first thing I would do is thoroughly read James Hoffman's SQL tutorial at http://w3.one.net/~jhoffman/sqltut.htm. That should get you started quite well with SQL. MySQL has plenty of documentation online, use it.
100+Gig harddisk is very important, that's the minimal capacity for a harddrive-VCR, which is the true first generation of the hybrid of PC and "Joe" appliance.
It seems that most people think deadabase is being threatened because of the use of banners. The truth is that banner advertising was never an issue. We have been in contact with John Barlow and have given him access to our revenue information. Our costs to maintain the web/ftp servers are far greater than our income from banner advertising. I have also been informed that another website, similiar to our own, has received a threatening letter from the same law firm. I'm sure they will be posting information when the time is right. Hopefully this is not a trend that will continuing for very long.
When I was both a scientist and working in the Chicago area I attended conferences and met with researchers at both Fermie and Argonne National Laboratories.
It may be difficult and the time is short, but try calling in and stress your scientific credentials - you just might find yourself invited.
It may be a long shot, given it is a weekend night where making a phone contact may be difficult , but if it's important some effort is warranted.
1) I think Linux is more mature than you think. I've heard from several sources the userbase is larger than Mac OS, but you and me both can decide how seriously we want to take it.
3) I welcome them, if they are sincere.
4) Beats me. I'm sure some are. I'm sure some don't care about the price of success and are willing to give up freedom.
Of course I want Linux to grow. And I am not CmdrTaco. And I am not the biggest GPL freak there is, either. Yes, I have written lots of GPL code. But of course there are uses for other licenses. And I don't care if people port proprietary software. I just hope people are concious of what they are doing when they use it.
OK, maybe "fear" wasn't the best word, but it's accurate. When I said I fear, I meant it would be a shame that they probably won't.
we have spoken with John Barlow, and from what we could gather..the band is in totaly favor of mp3's. it certainly seems like a decision of the management. hopefully, this will all be resolved.
we are doing exactly the same thing that has been done for years. the mp3's we are distributing are legal recordings of live performances...exactly what people have been trading ever since the Dead have been around.
i am one of the people that work on deadabase and i can assure everyone that we definatly do not make a profit from our website. we have spent, and continue to spend, large amounts of money out of our own pockets in order to make available all of the music that we presently have. the letter did not refer to our banners at all. and the banners certainly are not the issue here.
Nobody that's run both will dispute the fact that FreeBSD's networking code is and always has been faster than Linux's. That's _NOT_ to say that Linux doesn't outperform FreeBSD in most every other area, or that BSD will always be the fastest. I hate Slowlaris with a passion, but that doesn't stop me from buying Sparcs for databases. You go with what works best in each situation [but in the mean time, I still cross my fingers and hope Linux matures and proves itself as a database platform, so I never have to network troubleshoot a box with no `traceroute` and a hobbled `ping` again:)]
I guess Mac's are officially "mainstream" again...
on
EvangeList closes down
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· Score: 1
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
>>Mutiple Monitors: Only really used by people doing graphics arts, etc, and most of them just buy one huge monitor. Very little demand. The PC has always been strictly determined by what people are willing to pay for.>Auto Power on/off: Actually, it's not really that old, and is only slightly older than the ATX form factor, which is fully capable of doing automatic power on/off >SCSI: Well, I could equally say that it took macs a long time to support IDE. It's a matter of which standard was chosen at the beginning. And IDE pretty much always has been and probably always will be cheaper than SCSI, which no doubt had a good bit do do with it being chosen for the PC.>RISC: WGAS? It's not like having a non-RISC processor makes PC's inherently(sp?) inferior.>GUI: Have you ever seen one of the machines Xerox Parc put out? Looks remarkably like a mac, so I don't think mac people are in a position to claim invention there. I learned to use DOS before I was 7, and could copy and move files around, run WordPerfect (4.2 for DOS), play games, etc. It is only very recently in the history of computers that having a GUI was seen as a necessary thing. 90% of what I do with a computer still involves typing things into a text prompt, be it the comment entry in slashdot, or an xterm. I am not a slackware-cli-is-god-all-else-must-die type, and I rather dislike those who are, but nonetheless, I find it much faster to use the keyboard for things. Thus I have keyboard hotkeys for virtually everything. >People bitch about Windows crashing all the time. However, many fail to note what the dialog on the mac that is the equivalent of the GPF dialog in windows looks like. On the mac, it has a bomb icon and a button that says Restart. About 35% of the time, the machine is so hosed that you can't even click on the restart button. In windows, you at least have some hope of recovering from the app crashing. OK, maybe you can recover from an app crashing after a GPF but how often is it that you can't use your mouse or your screen doesn't refresh, or the house of cards falls and you get repeated GPFs? The MacOS way of dealing with program errors is less likely to cause other problems. Like, eg. if the crashed app corrupts your write cache.
Linux is a great server OS, Windoze is a great gaming OS, the MacOS is a great productivity OS.
I'll repeat, there is more to human-computer interaction than 'pretty pictures' and 'cute widgets'.
Yes, to a POWER USER who is the traditional user to Unix.
No, not so. In fact, that mentality is what bugged me enough to post in the first place. There is a LOT more it than icons and widgets.
Here, from www.Iarchitect.com
We begin with the system requirements and a few basic rules:
Software must assist the user perform a task, not become a task in itself
Software must not make the user feel stupid
Software must not make the computer appear to be stupid
I think that helps explain my stance. Before you say it, I am NOT anti-GUI. (I rather quite enjoy X, ad the assorted WMs available (I've tried almost every wm I could get my hands on))
My point? Stop trying to make it so brain-dead a trained monkey could operate it! START trying to make it so simple a reasonably intelligent human being could operate it.
Why? (bold used to separate my qords from yours)
Because people AREN'T trained monkies.
Your reasoning is spurious. There is NO reason not to make an interface simple to the "newbie".
And you;'re a newbie for what? a few weeks, maybe a month? I am in favor of it being newbie-accessable, I am NOT, however, in favor of it being dumbed down soo much that the newbie effectively STAYS a newbie for the duration.
There is NO reason not to make it accessible to the idiot.
Well...eh...I don't think people ARE idiots...and I believe those that call themselves idiots have some serious issues to work out.
(YES, I/HATE/ those 'for dummies' and 'for idiots' books with a passion)
As for the rest of your little rant...
A perfect system does nt, and WILL NOT exist. That is a plain and simple FACT.
I am very much annoyed now. Why does it seem like EVERYBODY equates
User Friendly == Newbie Friendly
Where
Newbie == Idiot
User Friendly is first, and foremost, a SUBJECTIVE term. It is NOT quantifiable, it CANNOT be measured.
Second, newbie friendliness is only marginally valuable. You're only a newbie for so long, but you're a user forever. (well...if you use it that long;)
Third, these "user friendly" tools can become crutches that prevent real learning about the system.
My point? Stop trying to make it so brain-dead a trained monkey could operate it! START trying to make it so simple a reasonably intelligent human being could operate it.
There is a LOT more to human-computer interaction than just 'pretty pictures' and 'cute widgets'.
Something to remember...
If you tell somone s/he is an idiot over and over and over, s/he is likely to start believing you.
They Might Be Giants is doing the same thing. Their next album, "Long Tall Weekend" will only be available via goodnoise.com for download. It will be on Plain Old MP3 format, and cost about $10. From what I understand, its mostly going to be a "Previously Unreased Stuff" album.
Slashdot Mirror
Posted by DaJoker:
I just wanted to point out several things, that really don't make this site unique in itself, and really make me question this sites intentions in general.
1. This site has the same principle ideas as http://linuxnewbies.org. Now this isn't in itself bad. Keep reading..
2. One of the main creators of http://linuxnewbies.org is Joker, and this post came from Jester. Simple coincidence, right? Keep reading..
3. This same Joker runs a website that is entitled Kung-Fu Linux, and has appeared on the Joe Linux User site at http://themes.org. By going to http://www.linuxnewbie.org we see that you should mail sensei@linuxnewbie.org.
Ok, so you really don't see the coincidence do you? I think it's a sad ripoff, and personally I wouldn't give this site a look, nor contribute to help. This was a sad, shameless attempt of creating a slashdot effect site overnight, and has absolutely no content to back up it's claims as a newbie friendly site. I thumb my nose at Jester and ask him to next time, please use your own ideas and creativity.
So if you want real newbie content, and no shameless plugs on an actual slashdot story, no advertising banners, and the help of people that have been using linux for many years, surf on over to http://linuxnewbies.org and save yourself the time of going to a site that doesn't live up to it's claims.
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
cpu manufacturers will always try to make faster chips, because that is the only way they can keep selling.
Posted by kenmcneil:
The best I've been able to do is destroy an older monitor with my new PII 400MHZ, 128 MB, and AGP 2x (w/ 8 megs) while playing a game of Unreal! I almost pissed my pants when the picture tube exploded while I was playing!
Posted by Tony Smolar:
;)
...now only one question remains, What is a computer?
Posted by Tony Smolar:
I wouldn't doubt that he was FORCED to resign.
Posted by DiegoGuy:
Well, the first thing I would do is thoroughly read James Hoffman's SQL tutorial at
http://w3.one.net/~jhoffman/sqltut.htm.
That should get you started quite well with SQL.
MySQL has plenty of documentation online, use it.
Posted by casp3r:
i have been waiting for something fun to come to texas (i'm in houston) for a while. i'm glad to see this happening.
Posted by My_Favorite_Anonymous_Coward:
100+Gig harddisk is very important, that's the minimal capacity for a harddrive-VCR, which is the true first generation of the hybrid of PC and "Joe" appliance.
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
But probably y2k will happen first.
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
our semiconductor lab- Gordon Moore laborotory
our bio lab- Arnold Beckman lab of behavioral biology
our library- Sherman Fairchild library
Posted by BrianDaMac:
Will anyone be able to post a transcript of the speech tonight?
Posted by hogfoot:
It seems that most people think deadabase is being threatened because of the use of banners. The truth is that banner advertising was never an issue. We have been in contact with John Barlow and have given him access to our revenue information. Our costs to maintain the web/ftp servers are far greater than our income from banner advertising. I have also been informed that another website, similiar to our own, has received a threatening letter from the same law firm. I'm sure they will be posting information when the time is right. Hopefully this is not a trend that will continuing for very long.
Posted by frmChem:
When I was both a scientist and working in the Chicago area I attended conferences and met with
researchers at both Fermie and Argonne National Laboratories.
It may be difficult and the time is short, but try calling in and stress your scientific credentials - you
just might find yourself invited.
It may be a long shot, given it is a weekend night where making a phone contact may be difficult
, but if it's important some effort is warranted.
1) I think Linux is more mature than you think. I've heard from several sources the userbase is larger than Mac OS, but you and me both can decide how seriously we want to take it.
3) I welcome them, if they are sincere.
4) Beats me. I'm sure some are. I'm sure some don't care about the price of success and are willing to give up freedom.
Of course I want Linux to grow. And I am not CmdrTaco. And I am not the biggest GPL freak there is, either. Yes, I have written lots of GPL code. But of course there are uses for other licenses. And I don't care if people port proprietary software. I just hope people are concious of what they are doing when they use it.
OK, maybe "fear" wasn't the best word, but it's accurate. When I said I fear, I meant it would be a shame that they probably won't.
Posted by hogfoot:
we have spoken with John Barlow, and from what we could gather..the band is in totaly favor of mp3's. it certainly seems like a decision of the management. hopefully, this will all be resolved.
Posted by hogfoot:
we are doing exactly the same thing that has been done for years. the mp3's we are distributing are legal recordings of live performances...exactly what people have been trading ever since the Dead have been around.
Posted by hogfoot:
i am one of the people that work on deadabase and i can assure everyone that we definatly do not make a profit from our website. we have spent, and continue to spend, large amounts of money out of our own pockets in order to make available all of the music that we presently have. the letter did not refer to our banners at all. and the banners certainly are not the issue here.
Posted by wclark:
:)]
Nobody that's run both will dispute the fact that FreeBSD's networking code is and always has been faster than Linux's. That's _NOT_ to say that Linux doesn't outperform FreeBSD in most every other area, or that BSD will always be the fastest. I hate Slowlaris with a passion, but that doesn't stop me from buying Sparcs for databases. You go with what works best in each situation [but in the mean time, I still cross my fingers and hope Linux matures and proves itself as a database platform, so I never have to network troubleshoot a box with no `traceroute` and a hobbled `ping` again
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
>>Mutiple Monitors: Only really used by people doing graphics arts, etc, and most of them just buy one huge monitor. Very little demand. The PC has always been strictly determined by what people are willing to pay for.>Auto Power on/off: Actually, it's not really that old, and is only slightly older than the ATX form factor, which is fully capable of doing automatic power on/off >SCSI: Well, I could equally say that it took macs a long time to support IDE. It's a matter of which standard was chosen at the beginning. And IDE pretty much always has been and probably always will be cheaper than SCSI, which no doubt had a good bit do do with it being chosen for the PC.>RISC: WGAS? It's not like having a non-RISC processor makes PC's inherently(sp?) inferior.>GUI: Have you ever seen one of the machines Xerox Parc put out? Looks remarkably like a mac, so I don't think mac people are in a position to claim invention there. I learned to use DOS before I was 7, and could copy and move files around, run WordPerfect (4.2 for DOS), play games, etc. It is only very recently in the history of computers that having a GUI was seen as a necessary thing. 90% of what I do with a computer still involves typing things into a text prompt, be it the comment entry in slashdot, or an xterm. I am not a slackware-cli-is-god-all-else-must-die type, and I rather dislike those who are, but nonetheless, I find it much faster to use the keyboard for things. Thus I have keyboard hotkeys for virtually everything. >People bitch about Windows crashing all the time. However, many fail to note what the dialog on the mac that is the equivalent of the GPF dialog in windows looks like. On the mac, it has a bomb icon and a button that says Restart. About 35% of the time, the machine is so hosed that you can't even click on the restart button. In windows, you at least have some hope of recovering from the app crashing.
OK, maybe you can recover from an app crashing after a GPF but how often is it that you can't use your mouse or your screen doesn't refresh, or the house of cards falls and you get repeated GPFs? The MacOS way of dealing with program errors is less likely to cause other problems. Like, eg. if the crashed app corrupts your write cache.
Linux is a great server OS, Windoze is a great gaming OS, the MacOS is a great productivity OS.
LK
Posted by jeremycrabtree:
I'll repeat, there is more to human-computer interaction than 'pretty pictures' and 'cute widgets'.
Yes, to a POWER USER who is the traditional user to Unix.
No, not so. In fact, that mentality is what bugged me enough to post in the first place. There is a LOT more it than icons and widgets.
Here, from www.Iarchitect.com
We begin with the system requirements and a few basic rules:
Software must assist the user perform a task, not become a task in itself
Software must not make the user feel stupid
Software must not make the computer appear to be stupid
I think that helps explain my stance.
Before you say it, I am NOT anti-GUI.
(I rather quite enjoy X, ad the assorted WMs available (I've tried almost every wm I could get my hands on))
Posted by jeremycrabtree:
/HATE/ those 'for dummies' and 'for idiots' books with a passion)
My point? Stop trying to make it so brain-dead a trained monkey could operate it! START trying to make it so simple a reasonably intelligent human being could operate it.
Why?
(bold used to separate my qords from yours)
Because people AREN'T trained monkies.
Your reasoning is spurious. There is NO reason not to make an interface simple to the "newbie".
And you;'re a newbie for what? a few weeks, maybe a month? I am in favor of it being newbie-accessable, I am NOT, however, in favor of it being dumbed down soo much that the newbie effectively STAYS a newbie for the duration.
There is NO reason not to make it accessible to the idiot.
Well...eh...I don't think people ARE idiots...and I believe those that call themselves idiots have some serious issues to work out.
(YES, I
As for the rest of your little rant...
A perfect system does nt, and WILL NOT exist. That is a plain and simple FACT.
As for Windows, Linux isn't Windows.
Posted by jeremycrabtree:
Me a SNOB?!?!1
Sorry, you'll have to come up with a better rebuttal than that. I just don't like systems that treate users like trained circus monkies.
I'll repeat, there is more to human-computer interaction than 'pretty pictures' and 'cute widgets'.
Posted by jeremycrabtree:
;)
(This is in reaction to several earlier posts)
I am very much annoyed now. Why does it seem like EVERYBODY equates
User Friendly == Newbie Friendly
Where
Newbie == Idiot
User Friendly is first, and foremost, a SUBJECTIVE term. It is NOT quantifiable, it CANNOT be measured.
Second, newbie friendliness is only marginally valuable. You're only a newbie for so long, but you're a user forever. (well...if you use it that long
Third, these "user friendly" tools can become crutches that prevent real learning about the system.
My point? Stop trying to make it so brain-dead a trained monkey could operate it! START trying to make it so simple a reasonably intelligent human being could operate it.
There is a LOT more to human-computer interaction than just 'pretty pictures' and 'cute widgets'.
Something to remember...
If you tell somone s/he is an idiot over and over and over, s/he is likely to start believing you.
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
Man that site is lame. And did you see all the links? A collection of tasteless unoriginal trash. Like the dilbert hole, only worse...
Posted by DonR:
They Might Be Giants is doing the same thing. Their next album, "Long Tall Weekend" will only be available via goodnoise.com for download. It will be on Plain Old MP3 format, and cost about $10. From what I understand, its mostly going to be a "Previously Unreased Stuff" album.
---
Donald Roeber