As an engineering major I do certainly appreciate the metric system and use it for just about everything except driving, weighing myself, and buying wood.
My comment was, of course, sarcastic and the moderators seem to have recognized it for the joke it was, as you may have.
I just wanted to clarify that I do, in fact, appreciate the merits of the metric system, or SI as it is also known.
Of course, in most cases you're going to be putting it on a TV anyway, which compared to a 1280x1024 pc screen isn't going to show too many slightly fuzzy edges.
Wow, along that line of logic next you're going to tell me that the rest of the world doesn't use the English system of measurements! And I suppose we should switch to metric instead!?
I highly recommend Godel, Escher, Bach -- An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter. I've only read it coming from a math-saturated background, but as it gives the background on how all of basic number theory works, it might actually be a good place to start.
All of this just makes my blood boil. The very fact that something like this has been allowed to continue for so long is astounding. Why hasn't anyone (IBM?) put a stop to it. Who could? RedHat just sits by and posts an obscure message on its website saying that everything is fine.
Why aren't the people with a financial interest combatting the FUD?
I'm wicked fast at LaTeX and take all my engineering notes in it. They come out as beautiful, book-quality PDF documents when I'm done. Worth it to me because I can type nearly twice as fast as I write, and can actually read it afterward.
The only disadvantage is for diagrams, which I usually describe in words rather than drawing...
I take all of my notes on my laptop... in LaTeX. That helps immensely for equations. When I'm done, they're beautiful, look professional, and are easy to read. However, I do still have issues with diagrams.
Or better yet, buy the xbox, and either don't buy any games, or mod it and copy a bunch. Microsoft loses large amounts of money on every xbox sold, which they recoup in game licensing fees.
In the case of software like this, I agree that it's annoying, maybe even troublesome. I also think that if users can't handle keeping their system clean, they deserve the results.
If you don't know how to work something, don't use it in any great capacity until you have learned.
Not words to live by, per se, but my take on this particular subject.
I must admit, I had my doubts about buying an Apple, but the Titanium PowerBook that I'm typing this from has yet to disappoint me. It's running Mac OS 9, OS X, and YDL 2.0 + my own linux modifications. To anyone wishing to attempt this, I very much recommend using Kernel 2.4.7-pre6 which you can find on Hozed.org somewhere around the end of July / early August. You may have to try a few. I have full power management, (including sleeping with the lid closed) my AirPort with a monitor for it in GKrellm, the autosensing Fast Ethernet port and all sorts of other wonders working. If you have questions about it, shoot me an email and I'll see if I can give you a hand. Yeah, it's rather expensive, but it's rather fast, easy to use, and the display is drop-dead gorgeous. Also, one of these days I'll be putting up a guide to getting Linux working on the TiBook on linuxlaptops.org. Hopefully. Anyway, there's my recommendation.
User 448443,
I find your lack of objectivity disturbing. I also find your lack of paragraph breaks disturbing. Finally, I am irritated by your half-truths and assumptions. I shall enumerate:
Microsoft invented (or is it Innovated??) the GUI. Right. I've got this bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you
People hate Microsoft Corporation because they are successful. No. Perhaps some people do. People hate Microsoft for the same reason that some people dislike television. It plays to the lowest common denominator. That does not appeal to me.
Microsoft has stopped bringing substantial advances to market. As mentioned by another/.er, they've merely been 'embracing and extending' continuously. Did they bring us MPeg Layer 3 audio compression codecs? No, but they'd sure like you to think.wma files are much better than MP3's. (Oh, only usable on Microsoft endorsed devices, with Microsoft players.) This is only one tiny example among a larger plethora of issues
Price is an issue. You mention Microsoft's cutting of prices. I think you are confused. Are you aware of the cost of Microsoft software? Their operating systems start at US$150 and go up from there. Microsoft Office, well, that starts at around US$350 or so, and the new leasing program, well, do you want to continually pay for your software? I do not. The last thing I need is to get locked in to some contract in which I keep feeding a company my money.
Quality is an issue. I know people who love Windows. They think it is so easy to use, that it's easy to install (they think the 20 questions game Microsoft plays with you to register when booting a new machine is 'installing'), and that they almost never use their computers for anything. How do I know this latter bit? It's quite simple. Anyone who tries to use anything more than Internet Explorer is familiar with instability. (Hell, even that can crash your whole system.) If they made a small, fast, lightweight and thoroughly tested (spend all that R&D money fixing bugs, rather than killing my right-click menus) operating system, that was secure and didn't try to smother me with MS products constantly, all at a decent price, yes I'd buy it. I don't hate Microsoft, I hate how they try to extract their damn tax from me for a shitty product by leveraging their market position.
Arcane filesystems. Did I read correctly? Do you have a problem with read/write permissions? I know I love mine. The last thing I need is some script kiddie getting into my machine (with no account even) and having full write access to command.com. (Do you know what command.com is? Do you even know what.com files are? I bet you think they're websites) Want to talk about arcane filesystems? Let's talk about Microsoft using 16-bit everything while UNIX was already running in 32 bit. Let's talk about inefficiencies in FAT-16 filesystems. Please.
Grandmas. I'll grant you that Linux (and the other *N*X flavors aren't *inherently* the most user-friendly thing out there, but that's improving. Also, when set up properly, it's a lot easier for grandma to kill important files in Windows than it is in a non-root account on a *N*X box. My little sister is computer-inept, but I wanted her to be able to browse my music collection, so I set up an account for her. I let her use an excellent file browser (Nautilus) to preview songs just by placing the mouse cursor over their beautifully rendered icons. Do you know what the best part was? She could copy the songs to her own 'home' folder (Hmm, a concept borrowed in Windows XP? Innovators...bah.) but she couldn't delete them from the shared directory. Arcane filesystems my ass.
Stability. Windows XP will be the end-all-be-all of lack of MS stability. *Laughs* Right, that's what they said with every other release they've done. It's funny how badly they admit it in their XP propaganda. Now, some people I know have no stability issues with Windows on their machines. Hooray for them. I, however, have tons of problems, because Windows seems to be a bit finicky with non-intel hardware. Let's do a small study here. I have three boxes. I install Windows on them. It crashes often. I install Linux on them. They basically never crash. Now, I realize this is not exactly a statistically sound sample, but the evidence points to the crashes as fault of the Operating System, not the hardware. The fact that others I know have shared similar experiences affirms my convictions regarding this.
No more, tonight. My hands are tired from ranting and I've got work in the morning
I hope I've addressed the major issues with your post, and I hope I've been conclusive and not too redundant. Good night.
Unfortunately, like psychadilics, good visualizations have a tendency to keep you and anyone else in proximity drooling at the screen, trasfixied and zombified. I lost many years of my life that way.
I have a friend who is thinking about some unique ways to cool his case. Since he was worried about condensation, we talked about how you might seal the case and then pump it full of CO2, both non-flammable and perfectly dry...
I am *forced* to use the UML in my CS class, but unfortunately it was only presented to us in two forms:
1) Class diagrams
2) Finite state automata
In my experience, Class diagrams have their uses, but FSA is total bullshit, especially when it is required. It is possible to model the same system with just a loop, a line and two states and about 20 forking nodes. All in all, whatever works for you and your counterparts should be best.
Personally, (if I actually watched TV, that is) I would view a TV with a v-chip as a challenge. See, this thing should really be heralded as a training device for all future pre-school 31337 h4x0rs. I can just see the headlines, too: "Canadian preschooler confiscated for hacking his family's tv set to display PBS, which was blocked by his parents due to its obscene nature. This bad/evil/tormented/ hacker will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. He was heard to say, while being arrested, 'but I just wanted to watch Mr.Rogers!' How sad. In other news..."
I can't wait for the web appliances with censoring equipment hardwired right into the damn thing. And then the copy protecting cdrom drives, and the shackles, and the govenment logged email systems...etc, etc, etc...
Slashdot Mirror
As an engineering major I do certainly appreciate the metric system and use it for just about everything except driving, weighing myself, and buying wood. My comment was, of course, sarcastic and the moderators seem to have recognized it for the joke it was, as you may have. I just wanted to clarify that I do, in fact, appreciate the merits of the metric system, or SI as it is also known.
Of course, in most cases you're going to be putting it on a TV anyway, which compared to a 1280x1024 pc screen isn't going to show too many slightly fuzzy edges.
Wow, along that line of logic next you're going to tell me that the rest of the world doesn't use the English system of measurements! And I suppose we should switch to metric instead!?
I highly recommend Godel, Escher, Bach -- An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter. I've only read it coming from a math-saturated background, but as it gives the background on how all of basic number theory works, it might actually be a good place to start.
Please furnish us a list of all of the related organizations. Send replies to richlawyer@riaa.com -RIAA
All of this just makes my blood boil. The very fact that something like this has been allowed to continue for so long is astounding. Why hasn't anyone (IBM?) put a stop to it. Who could? RedHat just sits by and posts an obscure message on its website saying that everything is fine. Why aren't the people with a financial interest combatting the FUD?
I'm wicked fast at LaTeX and take all my engineering notes in it. They come out as beautiful, book-quality PDF documents when I'm done. Worth it to me because I can type nearly twice as fast as I write, and can actually read it afterward. The only disadvantage is for diagrams, which I usually describe in words rather than drawing...
I got a copy of 2.4.19 (as linked above) just now. I'm pretty sure that's new enough. Man am I ever sick of this crap.
It is in the scolinux directory: ftp://ftp.sco.com/pub/scolinux/server/4.0/updates/ SRPMS/kernel-source-2.4.1kernel-source-2.4.19.SuSE -106.nosrc.rpm9.SuSE-106.nosrc.rpm
And a SuSe rpm no less... Get your copy today. :)
I take all of my notes on my laptop... in LaTeX. That helps immensely for equations. When I'm done, they're beautiful, look professional, and are easy to read. However, I do still have issues with diagrams.
Or better yet, buy the xbox, and either don't buy any games, or mod it and copy a bunch. Microsoft loses large amounts of money on every xbox sold, which they recoup in game licensing fees.
In the case of software like this, I agree that it's annoying, maybe even troublesome. I also think that if users can't handle keeping their system clean, they deserve the results.
If you don't know how to work something, don't use it in any great capacity until you have learned.
Not words to live by, per se, but my take on this particular subject.
I must admit, I had my doubts about buying an Apple, but the Titanium PowerBook that I'm typing this from has yet to disappoint me. It's running Mac OS 9, OS X, and YDL 2.0 + my own linux modifications. To anyone wishing to attempt this, I very much recommend using Kernel 2.4.7-pre6 which you can find on Hozed.org somewhere around the end of July / early August. You may have to try a few. I have full power management, (including sleeping with the lid closed) my AirPort with a monitor for it in GKrellm, the autosensing Fast Ethernet port and all sorts of other wonders working. If you have questions about it, shoot me an email and I'll see if I can give you a hand. Yeah, it's rather expensive, but it's rather fast, easy to use, and the display is drop-dead gorgeous. Also, one of these days I'll be putting up a guide to getting Linux working on the TiBook on linuxlaptops.org. Hopefully. Anyway, there's my recommendation.
I hope I've addressed the major issues with your post, and I hope I've been conclusive and not too redundant. Good night.
Unfortunately, like psychadilics, good visualizations have a tendency to keep you and anyone else in proximity drooling at the screen, trasfixied and zombified. I lost many years of my life that way.
I have a friend who is thinking about some unique ways to cool his case. Since he was worried about condensation, we talked about how you might seal the case and then pump it full of CO2, both non-flammable and perfectly dry...
Incidentally, I've seen a buggy "Hello World" program before.
I am *forced* to use the UML in my CS class, but unfortunately it was only presented to us in two forms: 1) Class diagrams 2) Finite state automata In my experience, Class diagrams have their uses, but FSA is total bullshit, especially when it is required. It is possible to model the same system with just a loop, a line and two states and about 20 forking nodes. All in all, whatever works for you and your counterparts should be best.
Personally, (if I actually watched TV, that is) I would view a TV with a v-chip as a challenge. See, this thing should really be heralded as a training device for all future pre-school 31337 h4x0rs. I can just see the headlines, too: "Canadian preschooler confiscated for hacking his family's tv set to display PBS, which was blocked by his parents due to its obscene nature. This bad/evil/tormented/ hacker will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. He was heard to say, while being arrested, 'but I just wanted to watch Mr.Rogers!' How sad. In other news..." I can't wait for the web appliances with censoring equipment hardwired right into the damn thing. And then the copy protecting cdrom drives, and the shackles, and the govenment logged email systems...etc, etc, etc...
This is pure comedic genius
Of course where I come from we run UNIX and Sun servers. That's why the email system hasn't gone down, etc....