NetworkManager has been around for quite some time (at least a year and a half--probably more). It's also the biggest piece of junk I have ever had the misfortune of contending with.
I've always thought KDE4 looks good. I'm still using 3.5 on my Gentoo box, and there are some minor annoyances in KDE4 that are somewhat show-stopping for me. However, once those issues are ironed out, I'm switching.
Frankly, I hate Gnome. Their convoluted ideas of user interface design leave a lot to be desired (seriously, that file picker annoys the living Hell out of me). But, it's not just that--Gnome looks terrible. At least KDE 3 and 4 look reasonably well even with much smaller font sizes. Scale things down in Gnome and it just doesn't feel right. While I'll grant that the Gnome folks have been making reasonably decent strides in cleaning things up, it's not a desktop environment I'd ever consider using again--and I used it for a long time before I switched to KDE 3.x back in early 2007 or so. I forget precisely what it was that forced me into making the switch, but I'd imagine if I suffered through Gnome again, I'd remember.
The developer arrogance I've seen in the past also put me off. I don't know if that's change recently, but the attitude of "we don't like this feature anymore so we took it out and if you're using it, too bad!" was already a significant enough annoyance with Pidgin that I wanted to support developers who actually--you know--listened to their users. Maybe KDE is guilty of the same thing, but their design philosophy seems to fit more closely with what I like to use.
Be careful, or one day "Windows" will be the generic term used for "Operating System."
Evidently you've never worked in technical support. If someone doesn't know enough about a computer to recognize what Windows is, they aren't going to have any understanding of what an operating system does. Those sorts of folks probably refer to the computer sitting on their desk as the "box with all the flashing lights," or--more humorously and less correctly--as the "hard disk" or "CPU."
I realize that your comment was more of a sarcastic joke, but I think it's important to point out to those who don't quite recognize this fact that "Xerox," "Kleenex," and now Linux are much more novel terms to describe very specific things. "Kleenex" is used generically for facial tissue, not toilet paper or sanitary napkins.
Plus, since much of the geek community already refers to GNU/Linux and entire distributions as simply "Linux" (much to the dismay of the FSF), it has already entered colloquial use by those in the know.
You should try it with 320+ tabs. It'll freeze for about three minutes while loading and when it's finished, it'll be consuming at least 500MiB--and that's without Flash-related leaks.
Admittedly, this only happens when I incessantly keep opening tabs and forgetting to close old ones (I'll read that later, right?).
As an aside, I'm glad I'm not the only one who has issues with lots of tabs open at a time! Do you periodically spend a half-hour once in a while going through and bookmarking/closing things? I tend to remember only when FF slows to a near crawl...
Please cite any relevant passages of Montana state or Federal law, kthx.
Insightful? Did you bother to read the article?
Article 2, Section 10 of the Montana Constitution reads "the right of individual privacy is essential to the well-being of a free society and shall not be infringed without the showing of a compelling state interest."
Maybe it's a stretch, but it seems to me that this is Montana State law and might very well be applicable to this case!
Ultimately, I can't imagine that the background check form won't be amended shortly, as this is definitely not in keeping with our city's character.
As unfortunate as it is for Bozeman, there is always a silver lining. Remember, sometimes it takes unfortunate circumstances like this to occur on a local level before such issues are addressed nationally. You could be living on the edge of history in the making! I could see something like "The people of Bozeman, Montana have stood up against unfair employment practices and forced the issue with Congress to pass legislation protecting the privacy of employees nationwide."
(I know there are already certain privacy laws in play, but I'm not so sure it covers incidentals like social networking sites...)
I'd encourage you and all Slashdotters living in the US to write your representatives because it's not much of a stretch to imagine this (or something similar) happening elsewhere in the country!
This is something that makes me giggle a little about benchmarks like this: it really doesn't matter much how quickly the browser can render HTML or JS. Another poster in this thread mentioned that user responsiveness is far more important. And really, subjective things like that are much more important. 'Course, there's always the issue with connection latency, hops to the server, and the likes.
That's a very fancy and colourful benchmark, but what exactly does it measure?
That should be nominated for best quote of the day. I love it!
Isn't it funny that we've got a couple of screenshots of this browser performance benchmark from Futuremark and yet not a word on how exactly it works?
Bah, I'm just cynical today and benchmarks are sometimes so artificial it isn't even funny.
Saying that is like claiming that every Christian believes in Young Earth Creationism or similar rubbish.
Unfortunately, I can think of very few (admittedly quite ignorant) people who don't claim that every Christian believes the universe and Earth is only 6000 years old. Granted, many of these individuals are perhaps a narrow-minded as the religious folk they call out...
I think we're entering an age where anyone with a religious persuasion is automatically viewed as suspect by the non-religious population, regardless of faith. So much for tolerance!:)
Wow, parent got modded troll pretty fast. Apparently the Republican mod-bombers are out in force.
It could've been a Libertarian or even some Democrat who was paid off by him. I realize it's quite popular to blame everything on Republicans these days, but c'mon! There are plenty of nutjob groups on both sides of the fence.
I'm a Republican. I never mod down posts--not even quite hateful ones directed to people like me. 1) It ain't worth it and 2) bigoted speech (even the kind most Slashdotters sadly agree with) should be placed on display so everyone is made well aware of the crap coming out of people from both sides of the political spectrum.
That said, Jindal could have been using it to make a rather comical or sarcastic statement (eruption of money from Washington was pretty funny), but there were PLENTY of other things he could have pointed to in that bill besides monitoring volcanoes as overzealous spending. In my opinion, we need to monitor these things. Why? Because we can save lives the better we understand volcanoes. Well, assuming people living near the darned things actually heed evacuation warnings.;)
Perhaps I'm a little left-leaning in that sense: I see spending on research as a necessity, especially when it could potentially save lives or help us understand our natural environment.
When looking for something specific from a company it's also often faster to type what you're looking for in google instead of searching it at the page. If you want drivers for for your HP 1100 printer, type "hp 1100 drivers" into google rather than going to hp.com and trying to navigate there. It's simply faster. Even if you know what you're doing.
You hit the nail on the head with this one.
Today would've been a great day to have mod points. *sigh*
This is exactly what I do. Say I read something on a specific site I enjoyed (maybe one of O'Reilly's various write-ups or CodeProject): I'm not going to go to the site and search. That's far too annoying, and most built-in site search forms lack the power of Google. It's easier to ask Google and then go to the results I want.
Seconded. Most *advanced* users I know uses Google Search to reach page (if they haven't bookmarked it), because URLs are tiresome to remember (true), and even harder to type correctly on laptop (also true).
This is exactly why I don't type in URLs except for the sites I visit often (and even then, like for Slashdot, that's what saving all previous opened tabs is for!). Half the time--especially these days--I can't remember most esoteric domains much less what TLD they're on. Then there's the whole issue of whether the name is plural or singular, is there a hyphen in the name, is it "lee," "lea," or "li," and so forth. If the site is particularly important to me, it's usually important enough for me to either bookmark it or remember the URL. If I don't visit it more than once a month, I'll never remember any combination of these. Let Google do the work for me.
So, I'd imagine I fall exactly into the demographic you're describing. Please like this either have a very small subset of domains they visit or a very keen memory. For everything else, there's bookmarks and Google.
Using google you get a nice list, so if you mistype it you don't end up on some porn site.
Wish I had some mod points...
I do a fair mix between Googling for a domain and using the address bar. Obvious ones (Wikipedia and various forums I visit regularly) are pretty easy, but like you suggested, it's far safer for one's eyes to just ask Google.
On the other hand, this fits in with the whole domain squatting issue, too! Isn't it better for those of us wanting to deprive them of advertising revenue to not type in a domain if we're uncertain how to spell it (or whether it's a.com,.org, or.net) and simply ask Google for the correct one? Every hit they don't get is advertising money they can't spend on acquiring more domains!
Personally, I've found that the older I get, the less willing I am to bother remembering trivial details like "was there a dash in the name" or "what TLD does it end with?" when I don't happen to visit a particular site more than once a month (or less). The GP is either young and naive--I know plenty of young people who'd rather Google the site for these exact reasons, too!--or has a very small list of sites he visits and doesn't have much need for reading documentation scattered all over!
'Course, there's always bookmarks... I wonder how the GP feels about those? People who use bookmarks must be pretty stupid, too. I mean, good grief, who saves a link to something they like when they could just type the URL like http://www.example.com/?t=11490&p=23409&sec=12. After all, that's really easy to remember.
I agree with much of what you're saying--I merely need to make a point which you likely already know but some readers might not.
On DSL, on the other hand, you've got to send a username/password to connect.
Not all DSL providers require username/password combinations. There are a few that offer bridged connections and you're authenticated by MAC address. However... if the telco were subpoenaed, it would be trivial for them to provide details on when you were using your circuit, MAC address be damned. If it's coming from your port, it's you. So, your point is still entirely valid!
I'd say that for a system that has all sorts of flaws and issues, this is a legitimate case where the system is working as it was intended in a legitimate fashion.
I tend to agree with you.
I would like to add one thing, however. Whenever suits like this are brought up and the companies named as defendants are slapped with a fine, guess who ultimately coughs up the money?
That's right, the consumer. So, while everything else is going up and with prospects of inflation ahead, we can thank Toshiba (if they're successful) for increasing the costs of certain products like DVD-Rs!
This is a really good suggestion, and it brings up a point I've never really understood... Just because they ask you a "secret question" doesn't mean you have to answer it honestly!
Unfortunately, what this proves is that the less savvy users are--again--the ones who bear the unfortunate side-effects of their lack of general understanding. Except, in this case, it's because they're being honest!
Me, I always pick a nonsensical statement, but I really like your suggestion of keying it with the domain of the site asking the question. Though, I'd imagine you'd have to have some memory of the site's previous domain if it were ever bought out or moved.
Question: Why would anti-piracy measures stop you from BUYING this?
If you have to ask the question you don't understand the problem.:)
Here's a little rant for you:
Activation is bad enough, but apparently you don't mind it when a company assumes you're a criminal even if you've forked out a few hundred dollars of your own cash for their products. Sure, you can always call Microsoft up if you change the hardware in your machine and they'll give you a new key--but that's not the point. If I buy it, I should be able to upgrade my system without the assumption that I'm pirating software. Phone calls are time and time is money. Ergo, spending time on the phone with MS to activate a copy of Windows that borked itself, demanding a new key, all from a hardware upgrade is money!
Sadly, it's people like you who scoff at those of us who question things like the WGA are partly responsible for intrusive, anti-piracy measures being forced upon the unwashed masses who don't know enough to understand why it is pretty close to infringing their rights as consumers.
Although it is entirely the fault of the criminal, it is the responsibility of the owner. I should have known how to better protect my property.
What if you thought you locked it and just ran in for a "quick trip" to the bank/store/whatever? Maybe it's your fault for not "better protect[ing] [your] property," but that still doesn't change the fact that--you know--theft is theft.
So if it was a minor natural disaster that destroyed the data, tell me which asshole do you shoot?
Sorry, but anyone who doesn't properly back up 13 years of data is a bloody idiot, and yes it is their fault, because if you are in charge of that much data, it is your job and responsibility to do proper backups. It doesn't even take a genius to think up a few scary "what if" scenarios, nor does it take more than a few seconds, and it only takes a few minutes of Googling to learn the obvious basics.
I agree, but leave the strawman out of the debate.
I would be empathetic that these guys didn't make the correct choices in their backup system regardless of what (or who) was responsible. The appropriate course of action isn't to condemn them for being "bloody idiots" (name calling doesn't achieve much, does it?--regardless of it's true or not) but to learn from their mistakes.
I'm sure they've just learned a rather harsh lesson, too.
In real life, muggers are scum who deserve whatever punishment they get. However, walking through the hood with your wallet dragging along on a string a block behind you doesn't get you a lot of sympathy when it gets stolen.
I agree with most of your post, but I think this bit is a little unfair. They were doing what they felt was best for their circumstance, I am sure. Was it wrong? Yes, absolutely. If you want for a better analogy, perhaps you should have elected for the "unlocked door," e.g.: leaving your car unlocked and coming back an hour later to find your personal property stolen, be it the car or something inside.
This is the beauty of hindsight: We can crucify people for having made poor choices, never mind that it was the misguided choices of others that brought us here in the first place (namely the individuals committing this act).
What if something corrupted the database? The next day, the mirror (not backup) would be corrupt too. There's no substitute for incremental or otherwise "always at least n days old" copies of data. The backup server should not allow deletion, only addition.
Did you read what the OP wrote?
this really is a pathetic situation. Everybody is hammering these guys for just mirroring their data and saying that they should have had off site backup.........true, they should have.
His point was that, yes, they should have had an off-site backup. There's a lot of things they should have done.
That they didn't back-up their data properly isn't the issue nor does it suddenly make the fact that some malicious individual or individuals felt the need to destroy all of their data any less of a violation of their property. Theft is still theft, even if you forgot to lock your car door.
Slashdot Mirror
NetworkManager has been around for quite some time (at least a year and a half--probably more). It's also the biggest piece of junk I have ever had the misfortune of contending with.
I've always thought KDE4 looks good. I'm still using 3.5 on my Gentoo box, and there are some minor annoyances in KDE4 that are somewhat show-stopping for me. However, once those issues are ironed out, I'm switching.
Frankly, I hate Gnome. Their convoluted ideas of user interface design leave a lot to be desired (seriously, that file picker annoys the living Hell out of me). But, it's not just that--Gnome looks terrible. At least KDE 3 and 4 look reasonably well even with much smaller font sizes. Scale things down in Gnome and it just doesn't feel right. While I'll grant that the Gnome folks have been making reasonably decent strides in cleaning things up, it's not a desktop environment I'd ever consider using again--and I used it for a long time before I switched to KDE 3.x back in early 2007 or so. I forget precisely what it was that forced me into making the switch, but I'd imagine if I suffered through Gnome again, I'd remember.
The developer arrogance I've seen in the past also put me off. I don't know if that's change recently, but the attitude of "we don't like this feature anymore so we took it out and if you're using it, too bad!" was already a significant enough annoyance with Pidgin that I wanted to support developers who actually--you know--listened to their users. Maybe KDE is guilty of the same thing, but their design philosophy seems to fit more closely with what I like to use.
Choice is a good thing, right?
Evidently you've never worked in technical support. If someone doesn't know enough about a computer to recognize what Windows is, they aren't going to have any understanding of what an operating system does. Those sorts of folks probably refer to the computer sitting on their desk as the "box with all the flashing lights," or--more humorously and less correctly--as the "hard disk" or "CPU."
I realize that your comment was more of a sarcastic joke, but I think it's important to point out to those who don't quite recognize this fact that "Xerox," "Kleenex," and now Linux are much more novel terms to describe very specific things. "Kleenex" is used generically for facial tissue, not toilet paper or sanitary napkins.
Plus, since much of the geek community already refers to GNU/Linux and entire distributions as simply "Linux" (much to the dismay of the FSF), it has already entered colloquial use by those in the know.
You should try it with 320+ tabs. It'll freeze for about three minutes while loading and when it's finished, it'll be consuming at least 500MiB--and that's without Flash-related leaks.
Admittedly, this only happens when I incessantly keep opening tabs and forgetting to close old ones (I'll read that later, right?).
As an aside, I'm glad I'm not the only one who has issues with lots of tabs open at a time! Do you periodically spend a half-hour once in a while going through and bookmarking/closing things? I tend to remember only when FF slows to a near crawl...
Insightful? Did you bother to read the article?
Maybe it's a stretch, but it seems to me that this is Montana State law and might very well be applicable to this case!
As unfortunate as it is for Bozeman, there is always a silver lining. Remember, sometimes it takes unfortunate circumstances like this to occur on a local level before such issues are addressed nationally. You could be living on the edge of history in the making! I could see something like "The people of Bozeman, Montana have stood up against unfair employment practices and forced the issue with Congress to pass legislation protecting the privacy of employees nationwide."
(I know there are already certain privacy laws in play, but I'm not so sure it covers incidentals like social networking sites...)
I'd encourage you and all Slashdotters living in the US to write your representatives because it's not much of a stretch to imagine this (or something similar) happening elsewhere in the country!
But it's shiny, and that makes it important!
This is something that makes me giggle a little about benchmarks like this: it really doesn't matter much how quickly the browser can render HTML or JS. Another poster in this thread mentioned that user responsiveness is far more important. And really, subjective things like that are much more important. 'Course, there's always the issue with connection latency, hops to the server, and the likes.
That should be nominated for best quote of the day. I love it!
Isn't it funny that we've got a couple of screenshots of this browser performance benchmark from Futuremark and yet not a word on how exactly it works?
Bah, I'm just cynical today and benchmarks are sometimes so artificial it isn't even funny.
Unfortunately, I can think of very few (admittedly quite ignorant) people who don't claim that every Christian believes the universe and Earth is only 6000 years old. Granted, many of these individuals are perhaps a narrow-minded as the religious folk they call out...
I think we're entering an age where anyone with a religious persuasion is automatically viewed as suspect by the non-religious population, regardless of faith. So much for tolerance! :)
It could've been a Libertarian or even some Democrat who was paid off by him. I realize it's quite popular to blame everything on Republicans these days, but c'mon! There are plenty of nutjob groups on both sides of the fence.
I'm a Republican. I never mod down posts--not even quite hateful ones directed to people like me. 1) It ain't worth it and 2) bigoted speech (even the kind most Slashdotters sadly agree with) should be placed on display so everyone is made well aware of the crap coming out of people from both sides of the political spectrum.
That said, Jindal could have been using it to make a rather comical or sarcastic statement (eruption of money from Washington was pretty funny), but there were PLENTY of other things he could have pointed to in that bill besides monitoring volcanoes as overzealous spending. In my opinion, we need to monitor these things. Why? Because we can save lives the better we understand volcanoes. Well, assuming people living near the darned things actually heed evacuation warnings. ;)
Perhaps I'm a little left-leaning in that sense: I see spending on research as a necessity, especially when it could potentially save lives or help us understand our natural environment.
With Reiser in jail, the only thing you have left is to blame ext4. :)
Err, excuse me. The application developers.
Maybe zombies can procreate!
Wouldn't that bring a whole new twist?
You hit the nail on the head with this one.
Today would've been a great day to have mod points. *sigh*
This is exactly what I do. Say I read something on a specific site I enjoyed (maybe one of O'Reilly's various write-ups or CodeProject): I'm not going to go to the site and search. That's far too annoying, and most built-in site search forms lack the power of Google. It's easier to ask Google and then go to the results I want.
As a side note, I've always enjoyed your posts.
This is exactly why I don't type in URLs except for the sites I visit often (and even then, like for Slashdot, that's what saving all previous opened tabs is for!). Half the time--especially these days--I can't remember most esoteric domains much less what TLD they're on. Then there's the whole issue of whether the name is plural or singular, is there a hyphen in the name, is it "lee," "lea," or "li," and so forth. If the site is particularly important to me, it's usually important enough for me to either bookmark it or remember the URL. If I don't visit it more than once a month, I'll never remember any combination of these. Let Google do the work for me.
So, I'd imagine I fall exactly into the demographic you're describing. Please like this either have a very small subset of domains they visit or a very keen memory. For everything else, there's bookmarks and Google.
Wish I had some mod points...
I do a fair mix between Googling for a domain and using the address bar. Obvious ones (Wikipedia and various forums I visit regularly) are pretty easy, but like you suggested, it's far safer for one's eyes to just ask Google.
On the other hand, this fits in with the whole domain squatting issue, too! Isn't it better for those of us wanting to deprive them of advertising revenue to not type in a domain if we're uncertain how to spell it (or whether it's a .com, .org, or .net) and simply ask Google for the correct one? Every hit they don't get is advertising money they can't spend on acquiring more domains!
Personally, I've found that the older I get, the less willing I am to bother remembering trivial details like "was there a dash in the name" or "what TLD does it end with?" when I don't happen to visit a particular site more than once a month (or less). The GP is either young and naive--I know plenty of young people who'd rather Google the site for these exact reasons, too!--or has a very small list of sites he visits and doesn't have much need for reading documentation scattered all over!
'Course, there's always bookmarks... I wonder how the GP feels about those? People who use bookmarks must be pretty stupid, too. I mean, good grief, who saves a link to something they like when they could just type the URL like http://www.example.com/?t=11490&p=23409&sec=12. After all, that's really easy to remember.
I agree with much of what you're saying--I merely need to make a point which you likely already know but some readers might not.
Not all DSL providers require username/password combinations. There are a few that offer bridged connections and you're authenticated by MAC address. However... if the telco were subpoenaed, it would be trivial for them to provide details on when you were using your circuit, MAC address be damned. If it's coming from your port, it's you. So, your point is still entirely valid!
This has got to be the best post I've ever read on Slashdot. Thank you for sharing this, it really brightens my day!
I tend to agree with you.
I would like to add one thing, however. Whenever suits like this are brought up and the companies named as defendants are slapped with a fine, guess who ultimately coughs up the money?
That's right, the consumer. So, while everything else is going up and with prospects of inflation ahead, we can thank Toshiba (if they're successful) for increasing the costs of certain products like DVD-Rs!
This is a really good suggestion, and it brings up a point I've never really understood... Just because they ask you a "secret question" doesn't mean you have to answer it honestly!
Unfortunately, what this proves is that the less savvy users are--again--the ones who bear the unfortunate side-effects of their lack of general understanding. Except, in this case, it's because they're being honest!
Me, I always pick a nonsensical statement, but I really like your suggestion of keying it with the domain of the site asking the question. Though, I'd imagine you'd have to have some memory of the site's previous domain if it were ever bought out or moved.
If you have to ask the question you don't understand the problem. :)
Here's a little rant for you:
Activation is bad enough, but apparently you don't mind it when a company assumes you're a criminal even if you've forked out a few hundred dollars of your own cash for their products. Sure, you can always call Microsoft up if you change the hardware in your machine and they'll give you a new key--but that's not the point. If I buy it, I should be able to upgrade my system without the assumption that I'm pirating software. Phone calls are time and time is money. Ergo, spending time on the phone with MS to activate a copy of Windows that borked itself, demanding a new key, all from a hardware upgrade is money!
Sadly, it's people like you who scoff at those of us who question things like the WGA are partly responsible for intrusive, anti-piracy measures being forced upon the unwashed masses who don't know enough to understand why it is pretty close to infringing their rights as consumers.
Very nice catch!
See kids, this is why plagiarism isn't such a good thing. Someone, somewhere, will eventually catch you.
For those who are curious or have no idea what wampus is referring to, both of these comments look painfully familiar.
What if you thought you locked it and just ran in for a "quick trip" to the bank/store/whatever? Maybe it's your fault for not "better protect[ing] [your] property," but that still doesn't change the fact that--you know--theft is theft.
I agree, but leave the strawman out of the debate.
I would be empathetic that these guys didn't make the correct choices in their backup system regardless of what (or who) was responsible. The appropriate course of action isn't to condemn them for being "bloody idiots" (name calling doesn't achieve much, does it?--regardless of it's true or not) but to learn from their mistakes.
I'm sure they've just learned a rather harsh lesson, too.
I agree with most of your post, but I think this bit is a little unfair. They were doing what they felt was best for their circumstance, I am sure. Was it wrong? Yes, absolutely. If you want for a better analogy, perhaps you should have elected for the "unlocked door," e.g.: leaving your car unlocked and coming back an hour later to find your personal property stolen, be it the car or something inside.
This is the beauty of hindsight: We can crucify people for having made poor choices, never mind that it was the misguided choices of others that brought us here in the first place (namely the individuals committing this act).
Did you read what the OP wrote?
His point was that, yes, they should have had an off-site backup. There's a lot of things they should have done.
That they didn't back-up their data properly isn't the issue nor does it suddenly make the fact that some malicious individual or individuals felt the need to destroy all of their data any less of a violation of their property. Theft is still theft, even if you forgot to lock your car door.