According to one source, there are about 1.5 billion Internet users in the world. Another source estimates that maybe 20%, or 300 million of them, are using Firefox.
Now, Mozilla.org says that most popular add-on right now is Video DownloadHelper with about 340K downloads each week. However, its developers have released 32 versions in the last 22 months, so a big chunk of downloads will be for upgraders. Let's assume that a full one-half of all downloads are first-time users and not people upgrading from last week's version, and that 100% of downloaders actually use it. That means that Video DownloadHelper has about 16,000,000 users, or about 5% of Firefox's user base.
You like add-ons. I like add-ons. Objectively, though, we're a very small minority of users. The numbers look even worse for your position when you consider that the majority of Internet users are browsing with Internet Explorer, and therefore wouldn't miss add-ons were they to switch to Chrome.
There are a lot of reasons why people might not be using Chrome. The lack of add-ons is almost certainly not an important one, statistically speaking.
You wait until there is nigerianMalwareEliza V1 that can simultaneously hold several thousand online conversations whilst trawling for peoples information (think: dob, mothers maiden name, first school, pets name) or finding potential scam victims.
You say that as though it would change the status quo.
You know, I'd take a "30% Turing"-rated bot connected to a tech support knowledge base over a flowchart-reading human any day of the week. It doesn't need to be perfect before it can be useful.
BTW, I'm about "this close" to building a sound-activated HERF gun to mount on my backyard fence which faces a largish roadway. If/when that day arrives, the first trucker who ignores the "NO JAKE BRAKES" sign is in for a surprise.
I don't mean to imply that you do this. Most truckers don't - you can watch the quieter trucks roll by all day long. Still, there are enough jackasses to make me daydream revenge.
Re:Building your own kernel these days ain't easy
on
Linux 2.6.27 Out
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· Score: 1
As a general rule, the more parts you have the lower the reliability. So stripping out kernel features and drivers you don't need can also increase reliability.
Give an example of a feature or driver that you can compile out to increase reliability. Bonus points if it's compiled directly in (that is, not as a module) in any popular recent Linux distribution.
Really? How many more miles does he expect to get on that engine before the repeated stress of starting it burns out the starter motor, at a minimum? Seriously, when the engine isn't running, the oil pump isn't running. When the oil pump isn't running, the oil runs down into the drain pan (especially when it's already hot). When you start a car, the cylinders are underlubricated until the oil pump gets things moving again. How many gallons of gas to you have to save to pay for a new engine, both in economic and ecological terms?
Also, keep the jerk in mind the next time you have a smoggy day. What did you think happened to all that unburned gas in the exhaust? Catalytic converters aren't magic, you know.
Re:Building your own kernel these days ain't easy
on
Linux 2.6.27 Out
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· Score: 1
Does your stock ubuntu boot in five seconds?
Who knows? The last time I rebooted was for a kernel upgrade, so it could take 5 minutes for all I care.
Re:This is a huge amount of work
on
Linux 2.6.27 Out
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· Score: 1
It worked under older linux kernels, which means they probably broke something.
Actually, it's more likely that the old driver worked purely by accident, and some code got moved around so that it no longer coincidentally initialized some odd control line in just the right way. It's definitely a regression, but I wouldn't call it a bug so much as a change in undefined behavior.
Having said that, Linux audio has been a train wreck for, well, ever since I picked it up back around RedHat 4.mumble. I much prefer the way this FreeBSD desktop handles it in that multiple audio players can open/dev/dsp simultaneously without jumping through bizarre configuration hoops.
Re:Building your own kernel these days ain't easy
on
Linux 2.6.27 Out
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
The whole point of builing your own is to get a lean efficient kernel, not one that has everything including the sink bundled in plus hundreds of modules to build after.
You know, I spent most of a decade building "lean efficient kernels" a ruthlessly stripping them down to their minimal components.
Then I started benchmarking the results.
Now I just run with whatever Ubuntu ships with, knowing that it's 99% as "lean and efficient" as my best efforts and I automatically get new versions without screwing around with "make oldconfig".
If you want to build your own kernel for the sake of building your own kernel, great! It's fun and instructional. Just don't delude yourself into thinking it makes a measurable difference outside some very specific cases (like targeting an embedded system).
Re:Re-buying peripherals
on
Linux 2.6.27 Out
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· Score: 4, Informative
To pick a random example from my collection of incompatible hardware, Microtek isn't helping the SANE project make drivers for its ScanMaker 4850 flatbed scanner.
Hint: motors don't wear out because they produce torque.
Yeah, they really do. They aren't specced for spinning up, but for maintaining speed. There was a Slashdot article a while back about Ubuntu allowing drives to cycle too quickly. Check that out and follow some of the links for more information.
Slashdot Mirror
Ummm, Python is strongly typed. Try to add "1" and 1 sometime and see what happens. I think you have it confused with Perl.
Is "Bot" the name of the AI, or is that a common name in India? Because frankly I couldn't tell from context.
No add-ons. I want my ad block plus please.
According to one source, there are about 1.5 billion Internet users in the world. Another source estimates that maybe 20%, or 300 million of them, are using Firefox.
Now, Mozilla.org says that most popular add-on right now is Video DownloadHelper with about 340K downloads each week. However, its developers have released 32 versions in the last 22 months, so a big chunk of downloads will be for upgraders. Let's assume that a full one-half of all downloads are first-time users and not people upgrading from last week's version, and that 100% of downloaders actually use it. That means that Video DownloadHelper has about 16,000,000 users, or about 5% of Firefox's user base.
You like add-ons. I like add-ons. Objectively, though, we're a very small minority of users. The numbers look even worse for your position when you consider that the majority of Internet users are browsing with Internet Explorer, and therefore wouldn't miss add-ons were they to switch to Chrome.
There are a lot of reasons why people might not be using Chrome. The lack of add-ons is almost certainly not an important one, statistically speaking.
Are computers getting smarter, or people getting dumber?
That depends. Do computers know what "begging the question actually means?
You wait until there is nigerianMalwareEliza V1 that can simultaneously hold several thousand online conversations whilst trawling for peoples information (think: dob, mothers maiden name, first school, pets name) or finding potential scam victims.
You say that as though it would change the status quo.
You know, I'd take a "30% Turing"-rated bot connected to a tech support knowledge base over a flowchart-reading human any day of the week. It doesn't need to be perfect before it can be useful.
That's not fair, she was feeling vulnerable as she had just broken up with her N'Sync wallposter
Do you have to periodically replace the onion on your belt?
BTW, I'm about "this close" to building a sound-activated HERF gun to mount on my backyard fence which faces a largish roadway. If/when that day arrives, the first trucker who ignores the "NO JAKE BRAKES" sign is in for a surprise.
I don't mean to imply that you do this. Most truckers don't - you can watch the quieter trucks roll by all day long. Still, there are enough jackasses to make me daydream revenge.
As a general rule, the more parts you have the lower the reliability. So stripping out kernel features and drivers you don't need can also increase reliability.
Give an example of a feature or driver that you can compile out to increase reliability. Bonus points if it's compiled directly in (that is, not as a module) in any popular recent Linux distribution.
Really? How many more miles does he expect to get on that engine before the repeated stress of starting it burns out the starter motor, at a minimum? Seriously, when the engine isn't running, the oil pump isn't running. When the oil pump isn't running, the oil runs down into the drain pan (especially when it's already hot). When you start a car, the cylinders are underlubricated until the oil pump gets things moving again. How many gallons of gas to you have to save to pay for a new engine, both in economic and ecological terms?
Also, keep the jerk in mind the next time you have a smoggy day. What did you think happened to all that unburned gas in the exhaust? Catalytic converters aren't magic, you know.
Does your stock ubuntu boot in five seconds?
Who knows? The last time I rebooted was for a kernel upgrade, so it could take 5 minutes for all I care.
It worked under older linux kernels, which means they probably broke something.
Actually, it's more likely that the old driver worked purely by accident, and some code got moved around so that it no longer coincidentally initialized some odd control line in just the right way. It's definitely a regression, but I wouldn't call it a bug so much as a change in undefined behavior.
Having said that, Linux audio has been a train wreck for, well, ever since I picked it up back around RedHat 4.mumble. I much prefer the way this FreeBSD desktop handles it in that multiple audio players can open /dev/dsp simultaneously without jumping through bizarre configuration hoops.
The whole point of builing your own is to get a lean efficient kernel, not one that has everything including the sink bundled in plus hundreds of modules to build after.
You know, I spent most of a decade building "lean efficient kernels" a ruthlessly stripping them down to their minimal components.
Then I started benchmarking the results.
Now I just run with whatever Ubuntu ships with, knowing that it's 99% as "lean and efficient" as my best efforts and I automatically get new versions without screwing around with "make oldconfig".
If you want to build your own kernel for the sake of building your own kernel, great! It's fun and instructional. Just don't delude yourself into thinking it makes a measurable difference outside some very specific cases (like targeting an embedded system).
To pick a random example from my collection of incompatible hardware, Microtek isn't helping the SANE project make drivers for its ScanMaker 4850 flatbed scanner.
That's OK. It looks like they're doing you a favor. If it makes you feel any better, they don't support Vista either.
Does David Archuleta know that Yoko Ono took his song?
Hint: motors don't wear out because they produce torque.
Yeah, they really do. They aren't specced for spinning up, but for maintaining speed. There was a Slashdot article a while back about Ubuntu allowing drives to cycle too quickly. Check that out and follow some of the links for more information.
That's some details of how that nice "hump" is generated when you use the magnification feature. Had you seen specifically that before 1999?
Yeah, when we were studying splines in college. Now please excuse me while I go to patent "scaling icons along a Gaussian".
Links? I'd like to talk to such a bot.
Is Emacs better than Vim?
What do you think?
I want to know your answer.
Why do you say you might want to know my answer?
Because I'm not being tested.
Is it because you are not being tested that you came to me?
M-x viper-mode
I don't think anyone in the community ever thought they could get away with mimicking the dock...
Ummm, why? Everyone mimics everything else, so why wouldn't you think you could "get away" with mimicking this?
Do you really, really trust the RIAA to draw a distinction between backups and usable copies?
Software circumvention of protection can be allowed for personal use in the event that no more then one copy is made
So you don't backup your hard drive?
Let me say this slowly:
If the factory makes it that way, it is not overclocked.
I don't think you can call a one-off design by a no-name manufacture "standard".
video cards come standard overclocked now a days
No they don't.