There are only two pieces of hardware you really need on a bench:
* Multimeter (doesn't have to be too expensive) * Soldering iron (with solder of course, and probably a stand/sponge)
Of course you should probably also have additional bits and bobs as required, but with these two things you can accomplish a heck of a lot of repairs and diagnostics at the very least.
No point. The launchpad pages for Ubuntu are full of legitimate bug reports that never get fixed or even addressed/confirmed. Canonical just don't have the manpower to manage a desktop operating system like Microsoft does.
I've grown tired to writing scripts to manually enable things that a distro could have implemented themselves if they just fucking TRIED once in a while. But they don't, because Unity is more important to them than actual backend improvements. Remember, the shiny is more fun to work on.
Heck no, you don't want these flamewars to happen. What you really want is a respectable level of discourse between the participants. Flamewars are called that because it's all about flaming and not getting to the actual truth about the matter - and for an outsider looking into the discussion, all they see is insults and fanboyism and it gets very hard to know the facts and whether they're actual facts or spin.
Flamewars can be addictive I suppose, but they're the lowest form of "discussion" you can have and aren't productive.
Windows 7 incorporated TRIM support for SSDs back in 2009. I know the Linux kernel can do it with the right mount options and has been able to for some time, but after a while you just assume distros are setting things automatically as expected (there's very few situations where TRIM is a bad idea, particularly on a desktop-focused distro like Ubuntu).
There's a reason I still feel like using a poor-man's system when using Linux on the desktop. They just don't think hard enough about automating stuff. Heck, Ubuntu (and no other distro I believe) doesn't enable Wake-on-lan when you shutdown, whereas Windows 7 and onwards does. This is something you have to script in yourself. Why the fuck aren't distros doing things you can reliably expect in commercials operating systems!?!
I came to Linux because I thought we'd be over this stupid, overblown shit that's really nothing to be concerned about. But it appears you can't have peace anywhere on the net without fan-boys using anything scrap of info as an excuse to ruin things.
I came to Linux at a time when people just wanted to use a quality system and assist each other with learning how to use it effectively and work to improve it. Now that's becomes "mainstream" the community has turned to shit. I suppose the Linux community has always had its fair share of BS politics, but it's too easy to make them front-page news now to the point where it makes us look like a bunch of kids, amateurs no better than the bickering idiots in other fields.
Fair point I suppose. But of course there's complaints, and then there's biased, illogical, emotional complaints that haven't been thought through. And even for the legitimate complaints, there are too many fanboys that will ruin whatever you say by turning your complaints against you, making you seem like the idiot for "not being able to use your console properly", or something like that.
The signal-to-noise ratio on gaming forums is so damn bad it's a wonder people still bother posting sometimes.
In the end though, it's just a GAMING CONSOLE. It's a source of entertainment but ultimately not that important. At least, not important enough to want to insult people who don't like your particular choice of console and prefer something else. That is what I see as the biggest issue these days - the idea that you must take sides, that this is one great big war and that the fanboys are the soldiers fighting against the scum unbelievers. Or something like that anyway.
In the end, there's way too much attention to consoles disproportionate to other things that are more worthy of attention. I take it as a sign that people's lives have becomes so stressful and bad that they see gaming and its offer of escapism with far more importance then they otherwise would. I'm not even been sarcastic - it makes a lot of sense. Games are fun, but too many people treat them with such religions fervor that I have to assume they have nothing else important in their lives to focus their energy on.
Given the system doesn't do pattern recognition and cannot determine the difference between a cat and an inquisitive child, that could cause some problems...
Sometimes I wonder what drives people to be so hateful of things that have proven beneficial for many people. If someone doesn't like something, why do they then post on forums to let everyone ELSE know (particularly those who do find use for the tech) that they don't like it? Very strange.
Interestingly enough, this benefit of the Raspberry Pi (of being so widespread and having side benefits that result from this) is precisely the reason why Windows still reins in the desktop world and why Linux still hasn't and will likely never make much impact.
Using the most widely available version of a particular product in its field (Windows, iPhone, Raspberry Pi) provides the maximum level of support and shouldn't be ignored as a benefit. Doesn't mean the alternatives aren't useful either - sometimes they're better in fact, for various situations. But you don't always need the "best" - often it's better to stick with what everyone else uses, so you can lean on them when necessary.
It's amazing how much trolling there is over a fucking games console though. I understand the psychology of zealously defending something you spend a lot of time and money on (consoles, phones, many things in fact), but this is a sign of weakness and it should be something that we see as a failing, not a virtue, and work to rid ourselves of such behavior. Too many people though do not and ruin gaming forums as a result.
You have an interesting point and I've been feeling the same way for some time. I've been feeling less and less satisfied with just consuming content that others have made and have been taking steps towards creating my own stuff. Right now that's just some hobby coding for a new project, but I have to say it's INCREDIBLY satisfying once you get going.
But... as you said, you need to be motivated. The first step is finding out how to become motivated. Creating something requires far more effort than just consuming something made by someone else, and so it's hardly surprising we are a culture of consumers. Being the time-poor, tired, overworked people we are, there's little motivation at the end of the day to expend effort on a task that may or may not even produce something good at the end. In my case, the allure of gaming made working on my own projects not even an option, because it's easier to chill and play.
However, even if my current project doesn't pan out, the journey is satisfying enough. And I think it's important to know that a balance can be achieved between creating and consuming. All-consuming, barely any creating (except perhaps the mandated stuff for work) eventually pushed me towards a better, healthier outcome.
Well no wonder the US Government's strapped for cash then, if they consider $17 mill "chump change". Perhaps they need to readdress this attitude that most other countries would find unsustainable.
It still has a number of problems. I don't know if it's my browser or operating system or both (Firefox in Windows 7), but the fonts seem way too thing or the hinting is not appropriate, at least compared to the full-body fonts of the traditional Slashdot design. I'm no typography expert but something about them just does things to my eyes that aren't as pleasant to look at compared to the basic fonts that we normally have in the traditional layout.
But you're right - they have definitely worked on it. At least it spreads out horizontally to actually use widescreen displays properly now.
Why do people keep saying this crap? Until such time as Windows forces everyone to use the Windows Store and you cannot run traditional Win32 programs and/or unable to sideload apps, then we'll start talking about Microsoft as a walled garden. Until such time, I'll keep playing Gabriel Knight in DOSBox on Windows 8.1 thankyou.
* Lindsey Lohan -> Lohan was in a film called Mean Girls -> Mean Girls stared Tina Fey -> Tina Fey is popular with geeks and nerds for reasons which I'm not sure of, but they're there
That's a rather board justification. Heck with that logic you can probably justify any story to appear on Slashdot no matter how distant it might be to tech, simply because of some tenuous connection to us geeks/nerds. I'm pretty sure you could find any story out there, complete irrelevant to the kinds of things Slashdot talk about, and it'd be possible to relate it to the typical Slashdot audience in some way. With standards that low, may as well use Slashdot as a dumping ground for any old story.
OT: VortexCortex, you have a very... odd manner in your posts. You write phrases such as "And still you humans teach your young", "Language has been saving your world from", and so on. Consistently you always try to distance yourself from the rest of humanity and the world, almost as if you don't want to acknowledge that you're human and live on this planet like the rest of us. Why? Are you embarrassed to be on of us? I'd really like to know.
You might be knowledgeable in various geeky areas but you don't have to be a dick about it. You're exhibiting various autistic characteristic which I share, but I on the other hand know the value in treating others with measured respect.
Only good news? That means it's MORE stable than the X server. Keep in mind that not everyone will have the desktop server crashing on them regularly, but at least in Windows it's nice to know that if it does, the video subsystem can be restarted automatically without your applications dying. In Linux that's not possible, so you don't have that parachute to use in an emergency.
They call this a "bribe" because there seems to be this assumption that open source developers write code purely out of the greatness of their heats, that this is the status quo, and that adding a financial incentive towards fixing bugs is morally wrong.
The biggest problem I have with a ton of open source software is that the really big issues (particularly usability, but even features to make some software on par with their proprietary counterparts) are either hard, boring, or both. Coding functionality like tables you can resize with your mouse like you can in MS Word, isn't as much fun as writing a Personas feature in LibreOffice to let you use Firefox personas in the UI.
People who code for a livelihood aren't guaranteed to make better code than open source developers. But they are motivated to do the messy shit to solve end-users issues, because there's money on the table.
Indeed, which is why I don't really pay much attention to what RMS says anymore. Sure, he's right most of the time, but since he doesn't provide realistic alternatives that will work (since a lot of the free software won't be satisfactory in terms of features or usability), his words are useless. RMS is about painting an ideal philosophy in a non-ideal world, and it means missing out on too much useful tech because most of it is developed by the very companies RMS is warning people about.
When stuck in a hard place, most people just deal. Free/open-source software has its own problems though, problems that RMS would rather people didn't notice. Fuck I hate that guy. All talk, no answers.
Slashdot Mirror
There are only two pieces of hardware you really need on a bench:
* Multimeter (doesn't have to be too expensive)
* Soldering iron (with solder of course, and probably a stand/sponge)
Of course you should probably also have additional bits and bobs as required, but with these two things you can accomplish a heck of a lot of repairs and diagnostics at the very least.
No point. The launchpad pages for Ubuntu are full of legitimate bug reports that never get fixed or even addressed/confirmed. Canonical just don't have the manpower to manage a desktop operating system like Microsoft does.
I've grown tired to writing scripts to manually enable things that a distro could have implemented themselves if they just fucking TRIED once in a while. But they don't, because Unity is more important to them than actual backend improvements. Remember, the shiny is more fun to work on.
Heck no, you don't want these flamewars to happen. What you really want is a respectable level of discourse between the participants. Flamewars are called that because it's all about flaming and not getting to the actual truth about the matter - and for an outsider looking into the discussion, all they see is insults and fanboyism and it gets very hard to know the facts and whether they're actual facts or spin.
Flamewars can be addictive I suppose, but they're the lowest form of "discussion" you can have and aren't productive.
Windows 7 incorporated TRIM support for SSDs back in 2009. I know the Linux kernel can do it with the right mount options and has been able to for some time, but after a while you just assume distros are setting things automatically as expected (there's very few situations where TRIM is a bad idea, particularly on a desktop-focused distro like Ubuntu).
There's a reason I still feel like using a poor-man's system when using Linux on the desktop. They just don't think hard enough about automating stuff. Heck, Ubuntu (and no other distro I believe) doesn't enable Wake-on-lan when you shutdown, whereas Windows 7 and onwards does. This is something you have to script in yourself. Why the fuck aren't distros doing things you can reliably expect in commercials operating systems!?!
Oh no!
*pop*
Or as I used to end up doing...
*pop**pop**pop**pop**pppooopoooppppppppppppppp [Amiga stutters]
I came to Linux because I thought we'd be over this stupid, overblown shit that's really nothing to be concerned about. But it appears you can't have peace anywhere on the net without fan-boys using anything scrap of info as an excuse to ruin things.
I came to Linux at a time when people just wanted to use a quality system and assist each other with learning how to use it effectively and work to improve it. Now that's becomes "mainstream" the community has turned to shit. I suppose the Linux community has always had its fair share of BS politics, but it's too easy to make them front-page news now to the point where it makes us look like a bunch of kids, amateurs no better than the bickering idiots in other fields.
Fair point I suppose. But of course there's complaints, and then there's biased, illogical, emotional complaints that haven't been thought through. And even for the legitimate complaints, there are too many fanboys that will ruin whatever you say by turning your complaints against you, making you seem like the idiot for "not being able to use your console properly", or something like that.
The signal-to-noise ratio on gaming forums is so damn bad it's a wonder people still bother posting sometimes.
In the end though, it's just a GAMING CONSOLE. It's a source of entertainment but ultimately not that important. At least, not important enough to want to insult people who don't like your particular choice of console and prefer something else. That is what I see as the biggest issue these days - the idea that you must take sides, that this is one great big war and that the fanboys are the soldiers fighting against the scum unbelievers. Or something like that anyway.
In the end, there's way too much attention to consoles disproportionate to other things that are more worthy of attention. I take it as a sign that people's lives have becomes so stressful and bad that they see gaming and its offer of escapism with far more importance then they otherwise would. I'm not even been sarcastic - it makes a lot of sense. Games are fun, but too many people treat them with such religions fervor that I have to assume they have nothing else important in their lives to focus their energy on.
Given the system doesn't do pattern recognition and cannot determine the difference between a cat and an inquisitive child, that could cause some problems...
Sometimes I wonder what drives people to be so hateful of things that have proven beneficial for many people. If someone doesn't like something, why do they then post on forums to let everyone ELSE know (particularly those who do find use for the tech) that they don't like it? Very strange.
Interestingly enough, this benefit of the Raspberry Pi (of being so widespread and having side benefits that result from this) is precisely the reason why Windows still reins in the desktop world and why Linux still hasn't and will likely never make much impact.
Using the most widely available version of a particular product in its field (Windows, iPhone, Raspberry Pi) provides the maximum level of support and shouldn't be ignored as a benefit. Doesn't mean the alternatives aren't useful either - sometimes they're better in fact, for various situations. But you don't always need the "best" - often it's better to stick with what everyone else uses, so you can lean on them when necessary.
It's amazing how much trolling there is over a fucking games console though. I understand the psychology of zealously defending something you spend a lot of time and money on (consoles, phones, many things in fact), but this is a sign of weakness and it should be something that we see as a failing, not a virtue, and work to rid ourselves of such behavior. Too many people though do not and ruin gaming forums as a result.
Both have Sly Stallone, easy mistake to make.
You have an interesting point and I've been feeling the same way for some time. I've been feeling less and less satisfied with just consuming content that others have made and have been taking steps towards creating my own stuff. Right now that's just some hobby coding for a new project, but I have to say it's INCREDIBLY satisfying once you get going.
But... as you said, you need to be motivated. The first step is finding out how to become motivated. Creating something requires far more effort than just consuming something made by someone else, and so it's hardly surprising we are a culture of consumers. Being the time-poor, tired, overworked people we are, there's little motivation at the end of the day to expend effort on a task that may or may not even produce something good at the end. In my case, the allure of gaming made working on my own projects not even an option, because it's easier to chill and play.
However, even if my current project doesn't pan out, the journey is satisfying enough. And I think it's important to know that a balance can be achieved between creating and consuming. All-consuming, barely any creating (except perhaps the mandated stuff for work) eventually pushed me towards a better, healthier outcome.
Well no wonder the US Government's strapped for cash then, if they consider $17 mill "chump change". Perhaps they need to readdress this attitude that most other countries would find unsustainable.
Nah....
It still has a number of problems. I don't know if it's my browser or operating system or both (Firefox in Windows 7), but the fonts seem way too thing or the hinting is not appropriate, at least compared to the full-body fonts of the traditional Slashdot design. I'm no typography expert but something about them just does things to my eyes that aren't as pleasant to look at compared to the basic fonts that we normally have in the traditional layout.
But you're right - they have definitely worked on it. At least it spreads out horizontally to actually use widescreen displays properly now.
Why do people keep saying this crap? Until such time as Windows forces everyone to use the Windows Store and you cannot run traditional Win32 programs and/or unable to sideload apps, then we'll start talking about Microsoft as a walled garden. Until such time, I'll keep playing Gabriel Knight in DOSBox on Windows 8.1 thankyou.
Your example is easy though:
* Lindsey Lohan
-> Lohan was in a film called Mean Girls
-> Mean Girls stared Tina Fey
-> Tina Fey is popular with geeks and nerds for reasons which I'm not sure of, but they're there
There's your connection. :)
That's a rather board justification. Heck with that logic you can probably justify any story to appear on Slashdot no matter how distant it might be to tech, simply because of some tenuous connection to us geeks/nerds. I'm pretty sure you could find any story out there, complete irrelevant to the kinds of things Slashdot talk about, and it'd be possible to relate it to the typical Slashdot audience in some way. With standards that low, may as well use Slashdot as a dumping ground for any old story.
Ben, have you ever considered building Iron Man armor? Bonus points if it's an autonomic prehensile propulsion suit.
OT: VortexCortex, you have a very... odd manner in your posts. You write phrases such as "And still you humans teach your young", "Language has been saving your world from", and so on. Consistently you always try to distance yourself from the rest of humanity and the world, almost as if you don't want to acknowledge that you're human and live on this planet like the rest of us. Why? Are you embarrassed to be on of us? I'd really like to know.
You might be knowledgeable in various geeky areas but you don't have to be a dick about it. You're exhibiting various autistic characteristic which I share, but I on the other hand know the value in treating others with measured respect.
Only good news? That means it's MORE stable than the X server. Keep in mind that not everyone will have the desktop server crashing on them regularly, but at least in Windows it's nice to know that if it does, the video subsystem can be restarted automatically without your applications dying. In Linux that's not possible, so you don't have that parachute to use in an emergency.
They call this a "bribe" because there seems to be this assumption that open source developers write code purely out of the greatness of their heats, that this is the status quo, and that adding a financial incentive towards fixing bugs is morally wrong.
The biggest problem I have with a ton of open source software is that the really big issues (particularly usability, but even features to make some software on par with their proprietary counterparts) are either hard, boring, or both. Coding functionality like tables you can resize with your mouse like you can in MS Word, isn't as much fun as writing a Personas feature in LibreOffice to let you use Firefox personas in the UI.
People who code for a livelihood aren't guaranteed to make better code than open source developers. But they are motivated to do the messy shit to solve end-users issues, because there's money on the table.
Indeed, which is why I don't really pay much attention to what RMS says anymore. Sure, he's right most of the time, but since he doesn't provide realistic alternatives that will work (since a lot of the free software won't be satisfactory in terms of features or usability), his words are useless. RMS is about painting an ideal philosophy in a non-ideal world, and it means missing out on too much useful tech because most of it is developed by the very companies RMS is warning people about.
When stuck in a hard place, most people just deal. Free/open-source software has its own problems though, problems that RMS would rather people didn't notice. Fuck I hate that guy. All talk, no answers.