I didn't know that about airplane guages -- but now that you've said it, boy, what a smart idea that is! (Sounds like something from a Don Norman book; I think it's in The Design of Everyday Objects that he points out the utility of having control sticks that actually are very *different* though, which is different from having indicators where a quick glance can reveal deviations from the desired state.
I now wish all the displays in my Subaru worked that way. Temp, oil, gas, speed (well, that one's a special case)... it really would be helpful if their "good" settings were all at least *basically* up, say within a happy green range +/- 15 deg of vertical.
Boy, you've just wrecked my next drive, because I'll be cursing that the whole time;)
timothy
p.s. The other thing I crave on all cars is a separate distance meter (besides the trip meter, which I like to have for other things, and besides the odometer itself) which resets to zero anytime the gas tank is fully filled. If you've ever driven in the desert, no matter how scrupulously you take advantage of chances to refuel, it's comforting to know that you ought theoretically have another 75 miles before you really need to seriously get some gas...
- If you want to live surrounded by serious pollution, free(ish) market countries have nothing on the former Soviet republics. (And the affected people couldn't just sue, either.) The (now) Czech Republic has some especially egregious examples. And, those countries certainly had more soylent-greenism in the large sense (grinding people up, figuratively, officially). At the risk of relying on a tautology, free-market societies don't lead to a lot of soylent green, except from volunteer soylents. That sort of thing usually happens under color of official right.
- Monopolies of the type usually used to justify government interventionism (that is, ones which corner a market, then raise prices) have real trouble staying in business. The government's got a few of its own type of monopoly going though, demonstrating that with enough government attention and special-favoritism, monopolies really can be maintained, for a while.
I did this a lot until the current stretch in law school, which keeps me pretty well stuck in Philadelphia for a while.
However, there are a few things which make it easier that I recommend:
- An outlet splitter. When someone else has dibs on ("sovereignty over") the only electric outlet in a particular place, and your battery life is draining-draining-draining, you may luck out and find that he (or she) is reasonable, sharing-oriented, etc. Or, he (or she) may just be a greedy, sanctimonious ass. If you have an outlet splitter (one plug leading to two female plugs on short leashes), (a) it's hard to turn down your request to share the outlet, (b) it may gain you that cruicial 12 extra inches so's you can actually work on a flat surface and (c) it may let you plug in another device which needs a wallwart -- some of those are very finicky for reasons related to gravity, and it's nice not to block out others with your AC-to-DC bricklet. Just slightly larger, a small powerstrip does the same thing.
- A WiFi detector, if you need WiFi and work from a laptop. There are a few choices out there (I reviewed the Canary version a while back) that will show lots more than that there might be a network around -- ESSID, strength, encryption, etc. Using one of these may save you a lot of battery juice. If you already carry a pocket PC with WiFi built in, this is probably redundant.
- A USB key, kept on your person. Even moreso than in an office or at home, galavanting about with a laptop in vacationland may attract attention of the wrong sort. I've never had a laptop stolen, but sometimes that's been despite my idiocy in preferring to leave it on the table running rather than pack everything into a bag to wait in line for another cup of coffee. Alternatively, the more travel you do, the more opportunities you have to drop your laptop. USB keys are now capacious enough and cheap enough for nearly anyone whose work is mostly *text* oriented to save their important documents frequently, so if the worst happens, you haven't lost all your data. There have been a few Ask Slashdots about the most important apps and data to keep on a USB key, which are worth poring through. You could have a complete Linux distro on there, with quite a bit of room left for documents, too. The other day I saw at Target (in Pennsylvania, USA) 512MB Dane Electric USB drives for $9.99.
- A live Linux distro on CD, if not on USB key or similar. If a hard drive goes south, but you have another otherwise functional laptop, having along a Linux distro can be very handy.
- The idea of laptop-commuting from a tropical isle sounds more idyllic than it necessarily is; one of the big problems of working from "anywhere" is that you don't always get to choose the angle of the sun. For a while I used (though haven't needed and may have now lost it) an item of commercial manufacture which folded down like a diagonally disected cardboard box, made of a plasticy-cardboardy stuff, and which attached with velcro to a laptop to provide a glare blocking semi-enclosure. It folded down to the size of a thickish magazine, weighed just a few ounces. I'm sure you could improvise such a thing out of duct tape, chopsticks, and construction paper...
The cameras-everywhere concept is one I like for private citizens (who, after all, have a State to contend with), but the State should be watched very closely as a matter of course, including (natch) when it's trying to watch its employers.
I wonder whenever I see them: What would happen to such cameras if a laser pointer (or a few at once) were to be aimed straight into its lens for a little while? Anything? Nothing? Not much? Are they sufficiently intelligent to block light that's more than the sensors want to deal with, and can they do it fast enough to matter?
Well, I guess this might ruin the idea of it being unmentionable, but what sex act does "zune" sound like?
And wasn't there an Aretha Franklin song about it?
"Revolution" is one of those words that gets overused, but it's no worse than "xbox" or "360"; "PlayStation" was a stroke of genius, though; if Sony hadn't, someone else would have been required by law to name a console that.
Where are all the guys who earnestly, self-rightously, haughtily, caustically, pretentiously, dismissively, condescendingly hold forth on how bad it is to name a program The GNU Image Manipulation Program? Have they noticed that this game console...
a) does not arrive with an intuitively obvious pronounciation?
b) sounds like a word for urine / urination, according to the apparently correct pronounciation?
c) does not convey any information about what the heck it is?
Not that I care about the console per se, because I don't, but this is a name that even *I* hate (and I happen to like The GIMP, and its name).
a) Sure, of course Lego is pretty neat. You can make things from it.I especially like large-scale models with difficult engineering skills on offer (suspension bridges, etc).
b) Under most circumstances, I really do mean *you* can make things from it. For most purposes, I'd much rather have plain wooden blocks, or tinkertoys, or a box full of random vaguely stackable stuff-thing-items.
Lego are too 90-degrees, snap-to-grid oriented. Just like in a drawing program, snap-to-grid is sometimes nice, but I usually get annoyed by it, and would rather give it up as an option than have it on full-time. Blocks and other things can be manipulated to the degree of precision the user has to apply.
Also, I feel bad about any permantization of lego constructions -- it's like building models out of pennies, then welding them all together. If something's made out of scrap and leftovers, I feel no such compunction.
And the colors! Sure, the enthusiast will have barrels of all the right colors he needs for a 3D Mona Lisa reconstruction, but mostly I've seen piles of cloying, crayon-pack colors. Never enough black, never enough grey, never enough light blue.
Hmm. Maybe I should put in action my plan to buy lego whenever I see them in thrift stores, so I could have enough to not feel bad if they're tied up in one thing rather than another, and to get enough of a decent color choice.
But still, that limited range of motion! The perpendicular angles thing!
Also, I don't know if lego tech has vastly improved, but as a kid I always wanted the interlocking sections to be just slightly grippier. After all, if we're going to live with them, might as well get the maximum benefit! It's too easy for a lego skyscraper to crack in the middle -- they're too susceptible to lateral force!
I guess it wasn't clear; my comment was mostly sarcastic:)
Requiring that web sites meet some artificial standard for "accessability" is a terrible trend, IMO. If a company sees good returns in doing good, then great, I'm all for it! But no one should be punished for what can at worst be described as lack of foresight.
I guess I wasn't clear; my post (the one to which you are responding) was mostly facetious; that's why all the asterices at the bottom:)
My true, strong belief is that people have the right (not just "should be allowed") to sell peacably in a marketplace to whomever they please, and also to exclude whomever they please. That part's *not* facetious:) I'd rather people be able to follow their beliefs / whims / prejudices, and reap the rewards or punishments accordingly.
I suppose you could come up with a hypothetical situation where I'd waver on this, but none spring readily to mind:)
EVERYTHING should be subject to the ADA, and in particular it's easy to see why all websites (commercial or not!) should be required to comply.
- Obviously, we're just talking about electrons here, and electrons are free. It doesn't cost anything to do additional development or testing of a web site, or to pay lawyers to bless a given implementation when one's created.*
- Online retailers don't care about return on investment; they'd happily shut out blind people out of spite. Their vicious prejudice should be punished by making them take a lot of money from the blind customers they'd much rather fool with ugly patterned merchandise.**
- The line between commercial and non-commercial is always and forever a bright one. It's easy to distinguish a site where people gather to discuss news events or solve each other's problems gratis (for whatever version of enlightened self-interest rocks their worlds) from ones where crass and evil market exploiters want to trade money for similar results.***
* Except that this isn't generally true. ** Except that this also isn't generally true. *** Except that this also isn't generally true, either.
I like businesses to be generally accommodating -- because (to garble a metaphor) a rising tide lifts all boats. Wide aisles are pleasant to shop in; ramps are good not only for wheelchair access, but for exiting with bulky packages; lavatories that aren't down stairs at the end of a murky hallway are a welcome luxury. I'm glad when businesses have those things, and I hope they benefit financially from having them.
But imposing some rule-writing committee's view of the best practices to follow gets me all bunchy and defensive. I get the feeling sometimes that a lot of people didn't get a chance to bully anyone on the schoolyard, and have been waiting for the chance to make up for it by trying to trip up people who've managed to put enough life energy into a business to get it off the ground in the first place.
timothy
Re(Mostly) happy with 6.10 RC (forgotten asterisk)
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Ubuntu 6.10 is Out
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· Score: 1
The asterisk I included on "wireless" is there because the wireless networking for me has been flakey; generally *working*, yes, but settings seem to float off into the ether when I'm not looking; I keep re-defining the same location settings only to have them gone in some random number of reboots, etc. Oddly enough, the internal networking card is recognized and works fine at home, but not on my school's network; I can access the school's network (with a WEP key) only using a PCMIA wireless card, no idea why.
All my computers are cursed, of course, or they wouldn't have landed in my possession. So, I'm not surprised that there are a few things I don't like about Ubuntu, but at the moment it seems to be the best thing going for my ThinkPad T40: printing, sound, wireless*, external devices all work nicely. With a bit of the usual hair pulling, encumbered playback (DVD, MP3) works fine, too.
It's a nice system, overall.
My biggest complaint -- can anyone tell me that this has been improved in the final over the RC I have from 6 or so weeks ago? -- is that suspend is an iffy thing. I'd estimate my laptop correctly suspends about 25% of the time, certainly no more than this.
When it doesn't successfully suspend, it's a pretty even split between a kernel panic complete with lots of scrolling text, and a blank screen and a *blinking* sleep indicator (in my case, an LED above the keyboard) but no actual suspending. When either of these happen, the only way path to progress seems to be a hard power-off, which I don't like to do to my poor laptop. OTOH, hey, suspending 25% of the time is a 25% step up from most distros:)
timothy
Re:Close button in the active tab. Argh ! AGREED!
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Firefox 2.0 RC2 Review
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· Score: 1
I'm using Ubuntu 6.10 right now, with the Bon Echo beta 2, and this bugs me. I really like having the "close open tab" X on the far right, and dislike having it on each tab. Waste of space, waste of mouse movement.
Yes, the description is silly: I wouldn't call a laptop with an operating display "off." But c'mon, benefit of the doubt is called for sometimes, or can at least be justified. As in "even while the computer isn't fully active," say.
BUT: if only I could have this feature (small, low-powered auxilliary display) and one more thing -- a an active keyboard input, so I could take notes with it. I'd really like hundreds of hours (instead of just-barely-2-or-so) out of my ThinkPad.
Oh, and have this system operate under some free operating system:)
Sorry, but this comment isn't based on a deep reading of the article; I'm sitting in class ("Federal Income Taxation") right now.
A googleable budget is a good start, but things should go a lot further: I'd like to see a paint color called Taxcolor Green (and a highlight color called Debt Red) which all things paid for by tax dollars would be painted, in proportion to the percentage of tax money used to finance them. (Debt Red would be used in a repeating pattern which conveys the amount of the national debt at the time the money was spent.)
This wouldn't upset the army too much, though the Stealth Bomber program and some others would need to file for some sort of exemption.
Anywho, that's my modest proposal for the day -- need to flesh that out a bit;)
(at least in the sense some people would like them to be).
It's just that some OSes have landed there anyhow, because the telepathic, user-conforming, natural-language, all-seeing, all-knowing, vibrating-massage OS is not here yet.
OSes churn, because conventional wisdom shifts re: the "best" way to do certain tasks, because meme spreading makes some approaches to controlling bits on a screen seem more intuitive than others (people who first saw the GUI-based Apples in the early 80s can relate), because the advance of hardware makes it imperative to accomodate new devices or relative strengths of the various pieces that make up a personal computer, etc. OSes would probably look different if RAM cost one tenth (or ten times!) what it does now, or if optical drives were 10 times faster. A Live CD (or booting from flash) could be the "normal" / "obvious" way for computers to hold their OS.
There are flaws in Windows (crashes, user-interface failures and inconsistencies), and I don't much like the aesthetics of most Windows systems I've seen. I'm not expert enough (nor interested in spending the time to become expert enough) to get rid of some of the annoyances that even facially non-malicious Windows software likes to impose.
For instance: At the moment, I have an old laptop running Windows XP; I installed a newish, tiny Konika-Minolta laser printer's driver on it, but rather than simply now being able to print, I get two large pop-up messages about the printer's status every time I boot that laptop. I've gone through every menu option I can find to try to disable this annoyance (yeah, I know whether the printer's connected right now or 1000 miles away; thanks), no luck so far. Similarly, I know that my father's Windows machine starts up quite a few programs that he's not specifically asked for every time he boots it up; much Windows software is this way -- arrogant, presumptuous, intrusive -- and people just seem to put up with it, for the most part. By the way, your Virus Protection from McAfee is out of date, can we sell you more?
Linux-based systems aren't perfect, but... for me (a computer dilletante, to put it mildly) there's no question that Linux is nicer to deal with. Much less frequently, but I've certainly over the years seen a number of "crashes" (sometimes less spectacular than on Windows, but if the system becomes unrecoverably unresponsive, well, that's a crash) on Linux systems, too, and depending on your chosen distro, there's usually a great many more interface inconsistencies to choose from than with Windows:) But those are drowned out by the obvious benefits:
1) competition -- some people like to complain about the proliferation of distros, but... why on earth? It's great, and helpful, and instructive, that there are so many different ways people have chosen to combine the Linux kernel with all the other bits that can make a day-to-day computing environment. This is true not just in that there are different complete distributions (hundreds of 'em, maybe thousands by now), but in the case of individual software projects that run on free operating systems, too. KDE v. Gnome? Even if that *were* the only "competition," it would be a good thing; improvements are constantly introduced in each of those environments because of ideas introduced in the other. But the borrowing and idea-generation goes on also with other desktops, because someone has the terrible idea that their priorities are worth spending chunks of their life energy to achieve, and others end up agreeing in whole or in part.
2) Tons of great free software. Debian users have had the longest sustained crowing in software history, perhaps, because of the thought that went into Debian package management. Nowadays, there's a surplus of good package managers and control systems, though, and the users of just about any Linux system can grab new free software (with a net connection) with greater ease than the conventional Windows approach of driver
As others have pointed out, the conclusion here is overstated in the headline and over-mitigated in the research; "number one until not number one" doesn't have an overwhelming ring.
But the idea of "better" when it comes to software is not the simple "A v. B" comparison that some people would like it to be. Whether something's better *to you* is the most important thing, and your reasons may seem like dream-logic to me (or mine might to you), but them's the breaks.
A coarse for-instance: There's lots of griping about when Linux "will be ready for the desktop" -- to which I have to admit bafflement that such a question can even be asked seriously. It's been ready for *my* desktop for the past 8 or so years, ever since I bought my first non-Mac computer on which to run it, and spent 1 kajillion hours frustratedly copying boot/root floppy pairs from a CD that came along with The Linux Bible or similar giant book.
I'm afraid I'll never be a real power user, and I sure run into hurdles all the time, but compared to Windows, the frustration level of Linux is ever so much more bearable, and I like the way the various desktop interfaces let me control the look and behavior of my desktop. (Sloppy focus, auto-raise, multiple desktops... Mac OS X has finally gotten multi-desktops, which is nice) YMMV. I also like the apps I can get (free, open source) for Linux; many of these are cross-platform (GIMP, OO.o), and for others I suspect there are work-a-likes** (and I'm sure some of them inspired the Linux analogs I know and use), so a workable desktop can be made using mostly free software on Windows these days, BUT, my Linux systems all crash less than my Windows computers have, don't need drivers for most mainstream peripherals, don't get cluttered with stupid-ware,* and generally (to my eye) look nicer, whether using fluxbox, KDE, Gnome, Enlightenment, or a few other choices.
Mac OS X fans like to gloat that it "just works," "is more intuitive," etc; maybe that's true for them, and for a lot of people; Apple certainly hires smart people and makes a visually appealing desktop. But until the next version's out, what if the thing I want to just work is "virtual switch to desktop 3?" Or "let windows be selected and automatically raised if the mouse hovers over them"? Or (and this one's not fair, but it's my point) what it I want it to look more like... NeXTstep, or like the GNOME desktop, or like blackbox? OS X is a perfectly nice looking interface, but being able to choose is nicer yet, since there's no accounting for taste. [NOTE: am I wrong about auto-raise? Was stil true when last I used OS X, I think...]
timothy (using the currently ready-for-the-desktop Gnome 2.14 on a ThinkPad, running under Debian/GNU Linux, installed using the ultra-slick, laughably easy Kanotix installer. Hey, it works pretty nicely for me, despite a few glitches. Certainly nicer than the Windows XP which arrived on this machine.)
*(Like the useless "Printer Status" pop-up window that comes up every time on my Windows XP laptop to tell me that... my printer isn't connected. Thanks, I still know that, yes.),
** Still no Tomboy for Windows, though perhaps there's some decent similarly functional program.
I looked through these screenshots last night, and didn't even notice until I spotted this thread that fading-edge treatment. I agree (mostly) that it's not well applied, but it depends which shot.
The deskbar shot, and the Tomboy shot, are actaully enhanced by the faded edges: they show some context; if the taskbar were neatly hacked out into a rectangle, it would be hard to tell how it fits into the desktop, and if the Tomboy notes were shown without the background, it would be harder to tell how the notes fit into the desktop as a whole. The fading makes the background more... backgroundy:)
But in the single-window shots, Yep, they'd look nicer if they were more cleanly presented (esp. without their title bar being half-erased!); I like the look of the first few (they took a hard rectangle, softened and emphasized it a bit with the drop shadow.
I'm really glad to see the official Debian project making good moves on installation; though people gripe about the focus placed on installation ("How many times do you install a frickin' OS?" goes the refrain), it really is important. People who might be interested in and benefit from Free software are under no obligation to spend confusing hours getting things to install; it's true that most OSes get stuck on a machine and stay there for a while, but that doesn't mean that installation can be ignored. With Free Software OSes especially, it's actually really nice to be able to install whenever you want, without worrying about intrusive "validation" procedures, etc -- I know I dabble with various OSes, just to check out what's new.
That said, to install a Debian system by means *other* than the official installer can be a pretty easy process, especially if you're a bit flexible (just for a few seconds, I swear!) about what constitutes Debian. (And since I really am a perpetual newbie, I think that I'm not exaggerating the ease I'm claiming.) A few examples:
Xandros: a mix of commercial / proprietary stuff, but it's based on straight Debian. Easy to install, nicely graphical, supports a lot of hardware, and (I didn't realize until yesterday) can read and write NTFS, which their sales reps say is unique among out-of-the-box commercial Linux distros. That sounds unlikely to me, but I can't think of a counterexample off-hand. You don't have to use their proprietary stuff.
Ubuntu: Yes, there are divergences, but there's no denying that Ubuntu is at heart a Debian operating system.
Knoppix (along with Kanotix, and many of the other Knoppix derivatives)is nicely installable.
The eLive Live CD not only is one of the easiest ways to install a Debian system, but also one of the simplest ways to install and play with Enlightenment.
And of course I've named just a few of the Live CDs based on Debian, a great many of which are installable.
I hate typing absentmindedly (while glancing / copying from a book, for instance, or watching TV in the background) and then looking up to realize that I've been steadily *replacing* text instead of adding to it. On my current most-used keyboard, which I otherwise am very fond of, the DELETE key is far too easy to activate with a stray pinky motion.
&^*&^$%$!!
WHY WHY WHY
Maybe they could slowly transition to the development of an area on the keyboard for stupid keys, and then phase that area out...
"The problem - which you obviously fail to grasp - is that virtual desktops are confusing to users."
I think this depends on how they're implemented. For instance, I would not advise someone totally unfamiliar with virtual desktops to use one based on the auto-flipping paradigm (where moving the mouse to the edge just... keeps on going, and suddenly instead of on the far right, you're on the far *left* of the next workspace over.
Gnome, KDE (and I suspect most other Window Managers / Desktop Environments these days) tend to have a little pager, with either icons or miniature windows showing the state of each virtual desktop, and it's not quite so easy to accidentally flip yourself to the wrong one.
So, Yes, they can be confusing, but as the saying goes, the only intuitive interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned, and with a simple implementation of virtual desktops (which exists in the major DEs I just mentioned), it's far handier than it is confusing to me and to others I've shown it to.
Hey, my comment was snarky, but I apologize if it came off as critical -- just the opposite! In fact, one of the reasons I ditched OS X on my iBook (which, to be fair, is 6 years old and was a decent laptop with OS X or Ubuntu, until recent hard drive noises) is that I don't like the constrained feel of OS X. I always want to zip over to another desktop... which isn't there;)
However, when I visit the Apple corner of the local CompUSA, I am as usual impressed by the hardware; with virtual desktops, one of my main gripes about OS X is gone. (I still prefer Gnome-on-Linux to OS X for now, for both aesthetic and software-freedom reasons, but in matters of taste, there is no disputing;)).
I like computers (and cars, and houses, and clothing...) to be mostly plain -- which is not to say homely. "Sleek" is OK, if it's purpose-driven / purpose-appropriate; adding needless fluff in order to *make* it sleek is disgusting.
Apple's recent computers are all nice looking; so are a lot of mini-ITX machines; so are ThinkPads (except for the ugly metal roofed ones;)).
I want the ports to be well labeled and accessable. I want the interior to be easy to work with and free of dangerous finger guillotines. I want the top to be flat, so I can (if I take this risk upon myself) rest my saucer of pie there, or an external hard drive.
But most intentional "beautification" drives for computers end up looking (IMO) stupid; I think Dell bought Alienware to make the bulk of their lineup look less contrived by comparison.
['[S]ome of the "best" comments (obviously there's some subjectivity to it) are ones that may not be as highly moderated as some decent ones which happen to have been made earlier and therefore had more time to be moderated up.']
"That sounds a lot like "Moderation is broken"."
Well, I guess the way I'd put it is more like "Moderation is imperfect." That's one reason it's constantly being tweaked; it's certainly broken compared to Utopia! But until time can be manipulated like play-doh — or cookie dough, or any kind of dough — older (earlier) comments are always going to have been, just by definition, available longer for moderation to take place. Moderation is helpful, but will never be the one true path to enlightenment:)
Another way of saying it: moderation lets Slashdot function as an extended conversation, not just a shouting match; that's a seemingly low goal to shoot for, but it's a trickier thing to achieve than it sounds, and calls for a lot of juggling. I am very glad that there are clever, thoughtful coders who stew over the details. (And if there's a specific bug you think could be fixed in the moderation system or other parts of the code that runs Slashdot, they take requests.)
Many people never read what may be some of the best comments because a particular story has gone quite a ways down the page by the time they see it. And some of the "best" comments (obviously there's some subjectivity to it) are ones that may not be as highly moderated as some decent ones which happen to have been made earlier and therefore had more time to be moderated up. (Also, some comments might be less interesting alone, but are catalyzed by the presence of surrounding ones.)
So we try to cherrypick some of the ones which would give a reader who'd glanced at (or even hadn't glanced at) the original story a sense of the reaction it inspired, without needing to dig through quite as many pages of comments.
You know, while I'd rather you enjoyed it, it's also easy to avoid (for any logged-in user) by adjusting preferences. Some people do; for any large-scale information feeds (or even medium-scale, like Slashdot), everyone filters *somehow,* whether by glancing past topics they don't like, or by using the provided filtering tools (including moderation threshold and section exclusion). It's not my intent to annoy you:)
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't know that about airplane guages -- but now that you've said it, boy, what a smart idea that is! (Sounds like something from a Don Norman book; I think it's in The Design of Everyday Objects that he points out the utility of having control sticks that actually are very *different* though, which is different from having indicators where a quick glance can reveal deviations from the desired state.
... it really would be helpful if their "good" settings were all at least *basically* up, say within a happy green range +/- 15 deg of vertical.
;)
...
I now wish all the displays in my Subaru worked that way. Temp, oil, gas, speed (well, that one's a special case)
Boy, you've just wrecked my next drive, because I'll be cursing that the whole time
timothy
p.s. The other thing I crave on all cars is a separate distance meter (besides the trip meter, which I like to have for other things, and besides the odometer itself) which resets to zero anytime the gas tank is fully filled. If you've ever driven in the desert, no matter how scrupulously you take advantage of chances to refuel, it's comforting to know that you ought theoretically have another 75 miles before you really need to seriously get some gas
Late for class, two quick snarky rebuttals:
0 3a/0)
- If you want to live surrounded by serious pollution, free(ish) market countries have nothing on the former Soviet republics. (And the affected people couldn't just sue, either.) The (now) Czech Republic has some especially egregious examples. And, those countries certainly had more soylent-greenism in the large sense (grinding people up, figuratively, officially). At the risk of relying on a tautology, free-market societies don't lead to a lot of soylent green, except from volunteer soylents. That sort of thing usually happens under color of official right.
- Monopolies of the type usually used to justify government interventionism (that is, ones which corner a market, then raise prices) have real trouble staying in business. The government's got a few of its own type of monopoly going though, demonstrating that with enough government attention and special-favoritism, monopolies really can be maintained, for a while.
(Good article tangentially related to this topic: http://www.jstor.org/view/00221821/di974456/97p02
timothy
I did this a lot until the current stretch in law school, which keeps me pretty well stuck in Philadelphia for a while.
...
However, there are a few things which make it easier that I recommend:
- An outlet splitter. When someone else has dibs on ("sovereignty over") the only electric outlet in a particular place, and your battery life is draining-draining-draining, you may luck out and find that he (or she) is reasonable, sharing-oriented, etc. Or, he (or she) may just be a greedy, sanctimonious ass. If you have an outlet splitter (one plug leading to two female plugs on short leashes), (a) it's hard to turn down your request to share the outlet, (b) it may gain you that cruicial 12 extra inches so's you can actually work on a flat surface and (c) it may let you plug in another device which needs a wallwart -- some of those are very finicky for reasons related to gravity, and it's nice not to block out others with your AC-to-DC bricklet. Just slightly larger, a small powerstrip does the same thing.
- A WiFi detector, if you need WiFi and work from a laptop. There are a few choices out there (I reviewed the Canary version a while back) that will show lots more than that there might be a network around -- ESSID, strength, encryption, etc. Using one of these may save you a lot of battery juice. If you already carry a pocket PC with WiFi built in, this is probably redundant.
- A USB key, kept on your person. Even moreso than in an office or at home, galavanting about with a laptop in vacationland may attract attention of the wrong sort. I've never had a laptop stolen, but sometimes that's been despite my idiocy in preferring to leave it on the table running rather than pack everything into a bag to wait in line for another cup of coffee. Alternatively, the more travel you do, the more opportunities you have to drop your laptop. USB keys are now capacious enough and cheap enough for nearly anyone whose work is mostly *text* oriented to save their important documents frequently, so if the worst happens, you haven't lost all your data. There have been a few Ask Slashdots about the most important apps and data to keep on a USB key, which are worth poring through. You could have a complete Linux distro on there, with quite a bit of room left for documents, too. The other day I saw at Target (in Pennsylvania, USA) 512MB Dane Electric USB drives for $9.99.
- A live Linux distro on CD, if not on USB key or similar. If a hard drive goes south, but you have another otherwise functional laptop, having along a Linux distro can be very handy.
- The idea of laptop-commuting from a tropical isle sounds more idyllic than it necessarily is; one of the big problems of working from "anywhere" is that you don't always get to choose the angle of the sun. For a while I used (though haven't needed and may have now lost it) an item of commercial manufacture which folded down like a diagonally disected cardboard box, made of a plasticy-cardboardy stuff, and which attached with velcro to a laptop to provide a glare blocking semi-enclosure. It folded down to the size of a thickish magazine, weighed just a few ounces. I'm sure you could improvise such a thing out of duct tape, chopsticks, and construction paper
timothy
The cameras-everywhere concept is one I like for private citizens (who, after all, have a State to contend with), but the State should be watched very closely as a matter of course, including (natch) when it's trying to watch its employers.
I wonder whenever I see them: What would happen to such cameras if a laser pointer (or a few at once) were to be aimed straight into its lens for a little while? Anything? Nothing? Not much? Are they sufficiently intelligent to block light that's more than the sensors want to deal with, and can they do it fast enough to matter?
timothy
Well, I guess this might ruin the idea of it being unmentionable, but what sex act does "zune" sound like?
And wasn't there an Aretha Franklin song about it?
"Revolution" is one of those words that gets overused, but it's no worse than "xbox" or "360"; "PlayStation" was a stroke of genius, though; if Sony hadn't, someone else would have been required by law to name a console that.
timothy
Where are all the guys who earnestly, self-rightously, haughtily, caustically, pretentiously, dismissively, condescendingly hold forth on how bad it is to name a program The GNU Image Manipulation Program? Have they noticed that this game console ...
a) does not arrive with an intuitively obvious pronounciation?
b) sounds like a word for urine / urination, according to the apparently correct pronounciation?
c) does not convey any information about what the heck it is?
Not that I care about the console per se, because I don't, but this is a name that even *I* hate (and I happen to like The GIMP, and its name).
timothy
a) Sure, of course Lego is pretty neat. You can make things from it.I especially like large-scale models with difficult engineering skills on offer (suspension bridges, etc).
b) Under most circumstances, I really do mean *you* can make things from it. For most purposes, I'd much rather have plain wooden blocks, or tinkertoys, or a box full of random vaguely stackable stuff-thing-items.
Lego are too 90-degrees, snap-to-grid oriented. Just like in a drawing program, snap-to-grid is sometimes nice, but I usually get annoyed by it, and would rather give it up as an option than have it on full-time. Blocks and other things can be manipulated to the degree of precision the user has to apply.
I wish these blocks (Kapla) weren't so expensive:
http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/000620.php
Also, I feel bad about any permantization of lego constructions -- it's like building models out of pennies, then welding them all together. If something's made out of scrap and leftovers, I feel no such compunction.
And the colors! Sure, the enthusiast will have barrels of all the right colors he needs for a 3D Mona Lisa reconstruction, but mostly I've seen piles of cloying, crayon-pack colors. Never enough black, never enough grey, never enough light blue.
Hmm. Maybe I should put in action my plan to buy lego whenever I see them in thrift stores, so I could have enough to not feel bad if they're tied up in one thing rather than another, and to get enough of a decent color choice.
But still, that limited range of motion! The perpendicular angles thing!
Also, I don't know if lego tech has vastly improved, but as a kid I always wanted the interlocking sections to be just slightly grippier. After all, if we're going to live with them, might as well get the maximum benefit! It's too easy for a lego skyscraper to crack in the middle -- they're too susceptible to lateral force!
timothy
Hi!
:)
I guess it wasn't clear; my comment was mostly sarcastic
Requiring that web sites meet some artificial standard for "accessability" is a terrible trend, IMO. If a company sees good returns in doing good, then great, I'm all for it! But no one should be punished for what can at worst be described as lack of foresight.
Cheers,
timothy
I guess I wasn't clear; my post (the one to which you are responding) was mostly facetious; that's why all the asterices at the bottom :)
:) I'd rather people be able to follow their beliefs / whims / prejudices, and reap the rewards or punishments accordingly.
:)
My true, strong belief is that people have the right (not just "should be allowed") to sell peacably in a marketplace to whomever they please, and also to exclude whomever they please. That part's *not* facetious
I suppose you could come up with a hypothetical situation where I'd waver on this, but none spring readily to mind
Cheers,
timothy
EVERYTHING should be subject to the ADA, and in particular it's easy to see why all websites (commercial or not!) should be required to comply.
- Obviously, we're just talking about electrons here, and electrons are free. It doesn't cost anything to do additional development or testing of a web site, or to pay lawyers to bless a given implementation when one's created.*
- Online retailers don't care about return on investment; they'd happily shut out blind people out of spite. Their vicious prejudice should be punished by making them take a lot of money from the blind customers they'd much rather fool with ugly patterned merchandise.**
- The line between commercial and non-commercial is always and forever a bright one. It's easy to distinguish a site where people gather to discuss news events or solve each other's problems gratis (for whatever version of enlightened self-interest rocks their worlds) from ones where crass and evil market exploiters want to trade money for similar results.***
* Except that this isn't generally true.
** Except that this also isn't generally true.
*** Except that this also isn't generally true, either.
I like businesses to be generally accommodating -- because (to garble a metaphor) a rising tide lifts all boats. Wide aisles are pleasant to shop in; ramps are good not only for wheelchair access, but for exiting with bulky packages; lavatories that aren't down stairs at the end of a murky hallway are a welcome luxury. I'm glad when businesses have those things, and I hope they benefit financially from having them.
But imposing some rule-writing committee's view of the best practices to follow gets me all bunchy and defensive. I get the feeling sometimes that a lot of people didn't get a chance to bully anyone on the schoolyard, and have been waiting for the chance to make up for it by trying to trip up people who've managed to put enough life energy into a business to get it off the ground in the first place.
timothy
The asterisk I included on "wireless" is there because the wireless networking for me has been flakey; generally *working*, yes, but settings seem to float off into the ether when I'm not looking; I keep re-defining the same location settings only to have them gone in some random number of reboots, etc. Oddly enough, the internal networking card is recognized and works fine at home, but not on my school's network; I can access the school's network (with a WEP key) only using a PCMIA wireless card, no idea why.
timothy
All my computers are cursed, of course, or they wouldn't have landed in my possession. So, I'm not surprised that there are a few things I don't like about Ubuntu, but at the moment it seems to be the best thing going for my ThinkPad T40: printing, sound, wireless*, external devices all work nicely. With a bit of the usual hair pulling, encumbered playback (DVD, MP3) works fine, too.
:)
It's a nice system, overall.
My biggest complaint -- can anyone tell me that this has been improved in the final over the RC I have from 6 or so weeks ago? -- is that suspend is an iffy thing. I'd estimate my laptop correctly suspends about 25% of the time, certainly no more than this.
When it doesn't successfully suspend, it's a pretty even split between a kernel panic complete with lots of scrolling text, and a blank screen and a *blinking* sleep indicator (in my case, an LED above the keyboard) but no actual suspending. When either of these happen, the only way path to progress seems to be a hard power-off, which I don't like to do to my poor laptop. OTOH, hey, suspending 25% of the time is a 25% step up from most distros
timothy
I'm using Ubuntu 6.10 right now, with the Bon Echo beta 2, and this bugs me. I really like having the "close open tab" X on the far right, and dislike having it on each tab. Waste of space, waste of mouse movement.
timothy
Yes, the description is silly: I wouldn't call a laptop with an operating display "off." But c'mon, benefit of the doubt is called for sometimes, or can at least be justified. As in "even while the computer isn't fully active," say.
:)
BUT: if only I could have this feature (small, low-powered auxilliary display) and one more thing -- a an active keyboard input, so I could take notes with it. I'd really like hundreds of hours (instead of just-barely-2-or-so) out of my ThinkPad.
Oh, and have this system operate under some free operating system
timothy
Sorry, but this comment isn't based on a deep reading of the article; I'm sitting in class ("Federal Income Taxation") right now.
;)
A googleable budget is a good start, but things should go a lot further: I'd like to see a paint color called Taxcolor Green (and a highlight color called Debt Red) which all things paid for by tax dollars would be painted, in proportion to the percentage of tax money used to finance them. (Debt Red would be used in a repeating pattern which conveys the amount of the national debt at the time the money was spent.)
This wouldn't upset the army too much, though the Stealth Bomber program and some others would need to file for some sort of exemption.
Anywho, that's my modest proposal for the day -- need to flesh that out a bit
timothy
(at least in the sense some people would like them to be).
... for me (a computer dilletante, to put it mildly) there's no question that Linux is nicer to deal with. Much less frequently, but I've certainly over the years seen a number of "crashes" (sometimes less spectacular than on Windows, but if the system becomes unrecoverably unresponsive, well, that's a crash) on Linux systems, too, and depending on your chosen distro, there's usually a great many more interface inconsistencies to choose from than with Windows :) But those are drowned out by the obvious benefits:
... why on earth? It's great, and helpful, and instructive, that there are so many different ways people have chosen to combine the Linux kernel with all the other bits that can make a day-to-day computing environment. This is true not just in that there are different complete distributions (hundreds of 'em, maybe thousands by now), but in the case of individual software projects that run on free operating systems, too. KDE v. Gnome? Even if that *were* the only "competition," it would be a good thing; improvements are constantly introduced in each of those environments because of ideas introduced in the other. But the borrowing and idea-generation goes on also with other desktops, because someone has the terrible idea that their priorities are worth spending chunks of their life energy to achieve, and others end up agreeing in whole or in part.
It's just that some OSes have landed there anyhow, because the telepathic, user-conforming, natural-language, all-seeing, all-knowing, vibrating-massage OS is not here yet.
OSes churn, because conventional wisdom shifts re: the "best" way to do certain tasks, because meme spreading makes some approaches to controlling bits on a screen seem more intuitive than others (people who first saw the GUI-based Apples in the early 80s can relate), because the advance of hardware makes it imperative to accomodate new devices or relative strengths of the various pieces that make up a personal computer, etc. OSes would probably look different if RAM cost one tenth (or ten times!) what it does now, or if optical drives were 10 times faster. A Live CD (or booting from flash) could be the "normal" / "obvious" way for computers to hold their OS.
There are flaws in Windows (crashes, user-interface failures and inconsistencies), and I don't much like the aesthetics of most Windows systems I've seen. I'm not expert enough (nor interested in spending the time to become expert enough) to get rid of some of the annoyances that even facially non-malicious Windows software likes to impose.
For instance: At the moment, I have an old laptop running Windows XP; I installed a newish, tiny Konika-Minolta laser printer's driver on it, but rather than simply now being able to print, I get two large pop-up messages about the printer's status every time I boot that laptop. I've gone through every menu option I can find to try to disable this annoyance (yeah, I know whether the printer's connected right now or 1000 miles away; thanks), no luck so far. Similarly, I know that my father's Windows machine starts up quite a few programs that he's not specifically asked for every time he boots it up; much Windows software is this way -- arrogant, presumptuous, intrusive -- and people just seem to put up with it, for the most part. By the way, your Virus Protection from McAfee is out of date, can we sell you more?
Linux-based systems aren't perfect, but
1) competition -- some people like to complain about the proliferation of distros, but
2) Tons of great free software. Debian users have had the longest sustained crowing in software history, perhaps, because of the thought that went into Debian package management. Nowadays, there's a surplus of good package managers and control systems, though, and the users of just about any Linux system can grab new free software (with a net connection) with greater ease than the conventional Windows approach of driver
... it's the thought-process that goes into it.
... Mac OS X has finally gotten multi-desktops, which is nice) YMMV. I also like the apps I can get (free, open source) for Linux; many of these are cross-platform (GIMP, OO.o), and for others I suspect there are work-a-likes** (and I'm sure some of them inspired the Linux analogs I know and use), so a workable desktop can be made using mostly free software on Windows these days, BUT, my Linux systems all crash less than my Windows computers have, don't need drivers for most mainstream peripherals, don't get cluttered with stupid-ware,* and generally (to my eye) look nicer, whether using fluxbox, KDE, Gnome, Enlightenment, or a few other choices.
... NeXTstep, or like the GNOME desktop, or like blackbox? OS X is a perfectly nice looking interface, but being able to choose is nicer yet, since there's no accounting for taste. [NOTE: am I wrong about auto-raise? Was stil true when last I used OS X, I think ...]
... my printer isn't connected. Thanks, I still know that, yes.),
As others have pointed out, the conclusion here is overstated in the headline and over-mitigated in the research; "number one until not number one" doesn't have an overwhelming ring.
But the idea of "better" when it comes to software is not the simple "A v. B" comparison that some people would like it to be. Whether something's better *to you* is the most important thing, and your reasons may seem like dream-logic to me (or mine might to you), but them's the breaks.
A coarse for-instance: There's lots of griping about when Linux "will be ready for the desktop" -- to which I have to admit bafflement that such a question can even be asked seriously. It's been ready for *my* desktop for the past 8 or so years, ever since I bought my first non-Mac computer on which to run it, and spent 1 kajillion hours frustratedly copying boot/root floppy pairs from a CD that came along with The Linux Bible or similar giant book.
I'm afraid I'll never be a real power user, and I sure run into hurdles all the time, but compared to Windows, the frustration level of Linux is ever so much more bearable, and I like the way the various desktop interfaces let me control the look and behavior of my desktop. (Sloppy focus, auto-raise, multiple desktops
Mac OS X fans like to gloat that it "just works," "is more intuitive," etc; maybe that's true for them, and for a lot of people; Apple certainly hires smart people and makes a visually appealing desktop. But until the next version's out, what if the thing I want to just work is "virtual switch to desktop 3?" Or "let windows be selected and automatically raised if the mouse hovers over them"? Or (and this one's not fair, but it's my point) what it I want it to look more like
timothy (using the currently ready-for-the-desktop Gnome 2.14 on a ThinkPad, running under Debian/GNU Linux, installed using the ultra-slick, laughably easy Kanotix installer. Hey, it works pretty nicely for me, despite a few glitches. Certainly nicer than the Windows XP which arrived on this machine.)
*(Like the useless "Printer Status" pop-up window that comes up every time on my Windows XP laptop to tell me that
** Still no Tomboy for Windows, though perhaps there's some decent similarly functional program.
I looked through these screenshots last night, and didn't even notice until I spotted this thread that fading-edge treatment. I agree (mostly) that it's not well applied, but it depends which shot.
... backgroundy :)
The deskbar shot, and the Tomboy shot, are actaully enhanced by the faded edges: they show some context; if the taskbar were neatly hacked out into a rectangle, it would be hard to tell how it fits into the desktop, and if the Tomboy notes were shown without the background, it would be harder to tell how the notes fit into the desktop as a whole. The fading makes the background more
But in the single-window shots, Yep, they'd look nicer if they were more cleanly presented (esp. without their title bar being half-erased!); I like the look of the first few (they took a hard rectangle, softened and emphasized it a bit with the drop shadow.
timothy
I'm really glad to see the official Debian project making good moves on installation; though people gripe about the focus placed on installation ("How many times do you install a frickin' OS?" goes the refrain), it really is important. People who might be interested in and benefit from Free software are under no obligation to spend confusing hours getting things to install; it's true that most OSes get stuck on a machine and stay there for a while, but that doesn't mean that installation can be ignored. With Free Software OSes especially, it's actually really nice to be able to install whenever you want, without worrying about intrusive "validation" procedures, etc -- I know I dabble with various OSes, just to check out what's new.
That said, to install a Debian system by means *other* than the official installer can be a pretty easy process, especially if you're a bit flexible (just for a few seconds, I swear!) about what constitutes Debian. (And since I really am a perpetual newbie, I think that I'm not exaggerating the ease I'm claiming.) A few examples:
Xandros: a mix of commercial / proprietary stuff, but it's based on straight Debian. Easy to install, nicely graphical, supports a lot of hardware, and (I didn't realize until yesterday) can read and write NTFS, which their sales reps say is unique among out-of-the-box commercial Linux distros. That sounds unlikely to me, but I can't think of a counterexample off-hand. You don't have to use their proprietary stuff.
Ubuntu: Yes, there are divergences, but there's no denying that Ubuntu is at heart a Debian operating system.
Knoppix (along with Kanotix, and many of the other Knoppix derivatives)is nicely installable.
The eLive Live CD not only is one of the easiest ways to install a Debian system, but also one of the simplest ways to install and play with Enlightenment.
And of course I've named just a few of the Live CDs based on Debian, a great many of which are installable.
timothy
INSERT / DELETE
...
&%&^%$%!
I hate typing absentmindedly (while glancing / copying from a book, for instance, or watching TV in the background) and then looking up to realize that I've been steadily *replacing* text instead of adding to it. On my current most-used keyboard, which I otherwise am very fond of, the DELETE key is far too easy to activate with a stray pinky motion.
&^*&^$%$!!
WHY WHY WHY
Maybe they could slowly transition to the development of an area on the keyboard for stupid keys, and then phase that area out
timothy
"The problem - which you obviously fail to grasp - is that virtual desktops are confusing to users."
... keeps on going, and suddenly instead of on the far right, you're on the far *left* of the next workspace over.
I think this depends on how they're implemented. For instance, I would not advise someone totally unfamiliar with virtual desktops to use one based on the auto-flipping paradigm (where moving the mouse to the edge just
Gnome, KDE (and I suspect most other Window Managers / Desktop Environments these days) tend to have a little pager, with either icons or miniature windows showing the state of each virtual desktop, and it's not quite so easy to accidentally flip yourself to the wrong one.
So, Yes, they can be confusing, but as the saying goes, the only intuitive interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned, and with a simple implementation of virtual desktops (which exists in the major DEs I just mentioned), it's far handier than it is confusing to me and to others I've shown it to.
Cheers,
timothy
Hey, my comment was snarky, but I apologize if it came off as critical -- just the opposite! In fact, one of the reasons I ditched OS X on my iBook (which, to be fair, is 6 years old and was a decent laptop with OS X or Ubuntu, until recent hard drive noises) is that I don't like the constrained feel of OS X. I always want to zip over to another desktop ... which isn't there ;)
;)).
However, when I visit the Apple corner of the local CompUSA, I am as usual impressed by the hardware; with virtual desktops, one of my main gripes about OS X is gone. (I still prefer Gnome-on-Linux to OS X for now, for both aesthetic and software-freedom reasons, but in matters of taste, there is no disputing
Cheers,
timothy
I like computers (and cars, and houses, and clothing ...) to be mostly plain -- which is not to say homely. "Sleek" is OK, if it's purpose-driven / purpose-appropriate; adding needless fluff in order to *make* it sleek is disgusting.
;)).
Apple's recent computers are all nice looking; so are a lot of mini-ITX machines; so are ThinkPads (except for the ugly metal roofed ones
I want the ports to be well labeled and accessable. I want the interior to be easy to work with and free of dangerous finger guillotines. I want the top to be flat, so I can (if I take this risk upon myself) rest my saucer of pie there, or an external hard drive.
But most intentional "beautification" drives for computers end up looking (IMO) stupid; I think Dell bought Alienware to make the bulk of their lineup look less contrived by comparison.
timothy
['[S]ome of the "best" comments (obviously there's some subjectivity to it) are ones that may not be as highly moderated as some decent ones which happen to have been made earlier and therefore had more time to be moderated up.']
:)
"That sounds a lot like "Moderation is broken"."
Well, I guess the way I'd put it is more like "Moderation is imperfect." That's one reason it's constantly being tweaked; it's certainly broken compared to Utopia! But until time can be manipulated like play-doh — or cookie dough, or any kind of dough — older (earlier) comments are always going to have been, just by definition, available longer for moderation to take place. Moderation is helpful, but will never be the one true path to enlightenment
Another way of saying it: moderation lets Slashdot function as an extended conversation, not just a shouting match; that's a seemingly low goal to shoot for, but it's a trickier thing to achieve than it sounds, and calls for a lot of juggling. I am very glad that there are clever, thoughtful coders who stew over the details. (And if there's a specific bug you think could be fixed in the moderation system or other parts of the code that runs Slashdot, they take requests.)
Cheers,
timothy
The idea is this:
:)
Many people never read what may be some of the best comments because a particular story has gone quite a ways down the page by the time they see it. And some of the "best" comments (obviously there's some subjectivity to it) are ones that may not be as highly moderated as some decent ones which happen to have been made earlier and therefore had more time to be moderated up. (Also, some comments might be less interesting alone, but are catalyzed by the presence of surrounding ones.)
So we try to cherrypick some of the ones which would give a reader who'd glanced at (or even hadn't glanced at) the original story a sense of the reaction it inspired, without needing to dig through quite as many pages of comments.
You know, while I'd rather you enjoyed it, it's also easy to avoid (for any logged-in user) by adjusting preferences. Some people do; for any large-scale information feeds (or even medium-scale, like Slashdot), everyone filters *somehow,* whether by glancing past topics they don't like, or by using the provided filtering tools (including moderation threshold and section exclusion). It's not my intent to annoy you
timothy