If you donate hardware to a local school *please* include the condition that only free software is to be run on that hardware.
Otherwise, they'll just use it as another WinNT/CyberPatrol proxy server. (Or at least that's what the highschool in my town does with all better-than-486 donated machines)
Yes, but that means you're redigitising sound which has gone through your hi-fi. Most people don't consider this to be very close to CD quality.
As always, you can make a digital copy of the same quality as the audio that a user will hear. If this is too crappy sounding, the company making the device will have to up the output quality, thus upping the quality of possible copies.
You seem to have missed what I was trying to say. I was comparing the K desktop enviornment with the Mac in the context of ease of use for newbies. (Note that when I refer to KDE, I'm talking about a K only enviornment. I do realize that Xlib only apps need three mouse buttons to even use a scroll bar)
[Maximization]
KDE solves this problem by giving every window a maximize button. You click that button, and it maximizes, click it again and it returns to normal size.
The Mac on the other hand, does not provide this functionality as such. It can be accessed through a hotkey combo, but we all know how much newbies hate hotkey combos. On the other hand, the Mac does offer a feature called the "zoom button" which allows the window to toggle between two arbitrary states. From what I've seen, this just confuses newbies. (They hit the zoom button to maximize, then they resize the window, then they hit the zoom button to maximize - oops, it's not a maximize button)
[Mouse buttons]
The K desktop enviornment makes use of two buttons (although some K apps want three). Left click activates something, while right click provides a context menu. This is always true. It doesn't matter if it's a icon or a button or a hyperlink in KFM. Left click activates, right click provides a context menu. Oh, and if you want to select something, you drag. That's also consistant throughout.
The Mac on the other hand is designed to use one mouse button. To activate some things, like buttons, you single click. To activate other things, like icons, you double click. This confuses the crap out of newbies. I don't know how many times I've heard "Do I single click or double click here." and responded "Uhh, that depends.". In some apps, you can get a context menu by doing an 'extended click'. Uhh, I think it's a hell of a lot easier to deal with two mouse buttons than it is to deal with three different operations on a single mouse button.
[Minimization]
In KDE, you get a nice minimize button on every window, and when you press it you see the window shrink and place ittself in the taskbar at the top, just waiting for you to click to get it back.
On the Mac, there is no minimize button. You can apparently hide an app with hotkeys, (hotkeys don't cut it for newbies), but when you do manage to hide it, it just disapears - leaving no evidence that it's running or how to get it back. To get it back you must eithor use more hotkeys, or you have to access a little menu in the top right corner which provides no visual indication of it's function.
[OS X]
I was referring to a previous slashdot story. Bet you can find it if you search the archives.
If we libertarians are "just a bunch of guys playing with themselves. They have no political power and not likely to get any soon.", then why are we one of the only three officially recognized political parties in Massachussetts?
That's right, when registering to vote in Massachussetts, it's: Please select your political party: [ ] None [ ] Democrat [ ] Republican [ ] Libertarian [ ] Other
If you arn't voting for what you want, you can assume that no-one else is eithor. So get out there and vote!
Have you ever used the K desktop enviornment, by itself, with all KDE apps?
It doesn't solve all the problems of creating a usable and intuitive user interface the same way that Apple does, but it solves them cleanly and in a way that will allow a new user to become an experienced user without sacrificing power at any level.
And the Mac OS has its own problems:
You can't maximize windows - you can toggle between two window shape states, neither of which stays consistant.
Instead of having two mouse buttons with two functions they have one mouse button with two functions (single and double click) - that gives new users more trouble than two buttons from what I've seen.
In order to switch between running programs, you have to use a menu in the upper left corner. There's no convienient way to "minimize" a running app.
What needs to be carefully watched is the hijacking of the software. There is nothing currently preventing a large corporation from taking the software and branching away from the current devlopment efforts and developing it faster (with more bugs) and hyping it more than the community built version. With proper marketing and gimmicks it could become the standard distribution leaving the original package in the shadows, to be harvested periodically for bugfixes and innovation.
What's the problem? If the software is GPLed, they have to release the code of the work that they do, and the origional maintainers can fold any useful changes into their version after bugfixes when and if they want to.
Even in a worst case scenario, what you'll get is a GNU Emacs vs.X-Emacs type split. Doesn't sound like a problem to me...
If Commercial Company Incorporated (TM) wants to make a Linux based OS with X feature (Where X may be user friendlyness or whatever), they can do that.
"Linux" isn't going to do that, it's just a kernel, and no-body's subitted the AI patch to Linus yet.
Linus Torvalds probably won't be doing that, he's got a kernel to maintain.
The KDE Project, or the Gnome project, may do that. That's what they're currently working on. If you want them do do it faster, go bug them... not everyone else.
Remember... the "Linux Operating System" is an extremely complex set of projects, mostly run by volunteers. You can't look at "Linux" the way you can look at "Microsoft", they're completely different things.
The reply that I got when I bothered them was "Well, all the Linux users have Windows too, so there's no reason to do a port."
Well, I don't have Windows, and I'm not going to buy any Windows games. The only O/S I've got is Linux, and so I'll just be happy with CIV:CTP until there's other good games avalible. (Yes, I know there's Quake III, but I don't like FPS's)
If all you other Linux gamers could do this too (only buy Linux games, ditch Windows or MacOS), then we'd see some more Linux games.
Want to go to Mars? Lets go.
on
On to Mars
·
· Score: 2
Ok, lets go do it. Who's with me?
No, really. We have two choices: we can eithor sit on our asses and wait for someone else do do it, or we can just go and do it.
We'd have to get a group of dedicated people together, and we'd have to spend a lot of time and effort on the project, but there's absolutely nothing stopping a small group of Slashdotters from going to Mars.
The only thing is that we'd have to be willing to put in the time and effort to do the thing.
Anyone who's actually interested, say so. We can set up an initial meeting as soon as we have four or five people interested.
Warning: If you're not willing to quit your job, sell your house, and teach yourself advanced physics, don't even bother replying.
Realistically, the only solution is for the person who wants to join in to learn Engilish.
Given that to learn to program your going to have to put a lot of effort into learning to use the computer, learning the programming languages, etc, learning English really isn't that much more to ask, especially considering that, reguardless of how good i18n gets, you're still only going to be able to get most resources in English.
At some point, if people want to work together they have to settle on a standard, and the de-facto standard human language for dealing with computer stuff is English.
As far as Michael Chrighton goes: A Case of Need was good, Rising Sun was good. I'll agree that Disclosure was a little bit lame. Remember that this is a 13 year old we're talking about here. She should me mature enough to handle some few of the realities of the world.
The Lucky Starr books rule. I first read them when I was seven, and I'm still entertained reading them now. He didn't like some stuff he did in the first one, so he cheated and changed it for the other five. He didn't do any of the lame crap that most authors do for a "children's book" - he just made sure he didn't get into anything too complex.
Everyone's giving lists of specific books. I tend to think that's a bit too specific. (Also, I don't want to have to go find the name of all 200 good novels that Asimov wrote =P)
These are the best three sci-fi authors ever (IMNSHO), I reccomend everything they ever wrote (almost):
Asimov - Keep reading, I don't think he ever wrote a bad book.
Robert A Heinlien - Just look out for his sexually explicit later wrightings, if you're afraid of that kind of thing.
Harry Harrison
These authors have written their share of crap, but they've also written some gems:
Anne McCaffrey - Specifically her "Dragon Riders of Pern" series
Larry Nieven
Arthur C Clark - Most of his books aren't actually that great, but they're classics.
Michael Crichton - Yes, his books get on the bestseller lists even if they stink, but some of his books are SciFi, and some of those are good.
I probably left out some important authors, but the wrightings of the authors listed above should give you enough reading for the next 10 years...
It's better to wait to read the difficult, deep, classics.
For example, I read 1984 last summer, and it pissed me off because it was so slow and booring, but I got thorough it, and I think I got the point the author was trying to make.
At the same time, a friend of mine who was 14 was also reading 1984. When he finished and I asked him about it, he replied "It was booring and political, I don't really see what makes it such a good book."
Modern (Well, back at least to the 40's) SciFi is a wonderful genre because it forces the reader to think about deep philosophical questions, while they think they're just reading a fun story.
Well, it wasn't too bad, I just went wget -r ftp://path/to/folder and went do bed... this morning the nice new shiny demo was waiting for me in my home directory.
Slashdot Mirror
If you donate hardware to a local school *please* include the condition that only free software is to be run on that hardware.
Otherwise, they'll just use it as another WinNT/CyberPatrol proxy server. (Or at least that's what the highschool in my town does with all better-than-486 donated machines)
As always, you can make a digital copy of the same quality as the audio that a user will hear. If this is too crappy sounding, the company making the device will have to up the output quality, thus upping the quality of possible copies.
I haven't signed any treaty, have you?
If we form a new country, the treaties that others have signed are completely irrelevent.
You seem to have missed what I was trying to say. I was comparing the K desktop enviornment with the Mac in the context of ease of use for newbies. (Note that when I refer to KDE, I'm talking about a K only enviornment. I do realize that Xlib only apps need three mouse buttons to even use a scroll bar)
[Maximization]
KDE solves this problem by giving every window a maximize button. You click that button, and it maximizes, click it again and it returns to normal size.
The Mac on the other hand, does not provide this functionality as such. It can be accessed through a hotkey combo, but we all know how much newbies hate hotkey combos. On the other hand, the Mac does offer a feature called the "zoom button" which allows the window to toggle between two arbitrary states. From what I've seen, this just confuses newbies. (They hit the zoom button to maximize, then they resize the window, then they hit the zoom button to maximize - oops, it's not a maximize button)
[Mouse buttons]
The K desktop enviornment makes use of two buttons (although some K apps want three). Left click activates something, while right click provides a context menu. This is always true. It doesn't matter if it's a icon or a button or a hyperlink in KFM. Left click activates, right click provides a context menu. Oh, and if you want to select something, you drag. That's also consistant throughout.
The Mac on the other hand is designed to use one mouse button. To activate some things, like buttons, you single click. To activate other things, like icons, you double click. This confuses the crap out of newbies. I don't know how many times I've heard "Do I single click or double click here." and responded "Uhh, that depends.". In some apps, you can get a context menu by doing an 'extended click'. Uhh, I think it's a hell of a lot easier to deal with two mouse buttons than it is to deal with three different operations on a single mouse button.
[Minimization]
In KDE, you get a nice minimize button on every window, and when you press it you see the window shrink and place ittself in the taskbar at the top, just waiting for you to click to get it back.
On the Mac, there is no minimize button. You can apparently hide an app with hotkeys, (hotkeys don't cut it for newbies), but when you do manage to hide it, it just disapears - leaving no evidence that it's running or how to get it back. To get it back you must eithor use more hotkeys, or you have to access a little menu in the top right corner which provides no visual indication of it's function.
[OS X]
I was referring to a previous slashdot story. Bet you can find it if you search the archives.
Apple could just grant themes.org permission to use their trademark in Apple look a like themes.
If we libertarians are "just a bunch of guys playing with themselves. They have no political power and not likely to get any soon.", then why are we one of the only three officially recognized political parties in Massachussetts?
That's right, when registering to vote in Massachussetts, it's:
Please select your political party:
[ ] None
[ ] Democrat [ ] Republican [ ] Libertarian
[ ] Other
If you arn't voting for what you want, you can assume that no-one else is eithor. So get out there and vote!
Why not have all the politically disgruntled techies get together, build an archology in Antarctica, and declare independance from any other nation.
We could use computer assisted democracy as a form of government.
If you think that someone should make a "Newbie Linux" Linux distro, then *do it*.
You're somebody...
Have you ever used the K desktop enviornment, by itself, with all KDE apps?
It doesn't solve all the problems of creating a usable and intuitive user interface the same way that Apple does, but it solves them cleanly and in a way that will allow a new user to become an experienced user without sacrificing power at any level.
And the Mac OS has its own problems:
Mac OS X will merely add more problems to this.
What's the problem? If the software is GPLed, they have to release the code of the work that they do, and the origional maintainers can fold any useful changes into their version after bugfixes when and if they want to.
Even in a worst case scenario, what you'll get is a GNU Emacs vs.X-Emacs type split. Doesn't sound like a problem to me...
"Linux" doesn't "want" anything.
If Commercial Company Incorporated (TM) wants to make a Linux based OS with X feature (Where X may be user friendlyness or whatever), they can do that.
"Linux" isn't going to do that, it's just a kernel, and no-body's subitted the AI patch to Linus yet.
Linus Torvalds probably won't be doing that, he's got a kernel to maintain.
The KDE Project, or the Gnome project, may do that. That's what they're currently working on. If you want them do do it faster, go bug them... not everyone else.
Remember... the "Linux Operating System" is an extremely complex set of projects, mostly run by volunteers. You can't look at "Linux" the way you can look at "Microsoft", they're completely different things.
You've left your licence unclear. Can a user press keycode = 115 if they've put a merlinsoft tux sticker on it, covering the Microsoft trademark??
Damn, how can you deal with those things? I can't even select a straight line of text with one without using two hands.
I'll stick with my touchpad... at least it lets me do double-tap-drag...
You are reading the appropriate RFC now, yes?
Companies
Network Providers
Everything Else
Slashdot is not misfiled, eh?
Blizz will never port.
The reply that I got when I bothered them was "Well, all the Linux users have Windows too, so there's no reason to do a port."
Well, I don't have Windows, and I'm not going to buy any Windows games. The only O/S I've got is Linux, and so I'll just be happy with CIV:CTP until there's other good games avalible. (Yes, I know there's Quake III, but I don't like FPS's)
If all you other Linux gamers could do this too (only buy Linux games, ditch Windows or MacOS), then we'd see some more Linux games.
Ok, lets go do it. Who's with me?
No, really. We have two choices: we can eithor sit on our asses and wait for someone else do do it, or we can just go and do it.
We'd have to get a group of dedicated people together, and we'd have to spend a lot of time and effort on the project, but there's absolutely nothing stopping a small group of Slashdotters from going to Mars.
The only thing is that we'd have to be willing to put in the time and effort to do the thing.
Anyone who's actually interested, say so. We can set up an initial meeting as soon as we have four or five people interested.
Warning: If you're not willing to quit your job, sell your house, and teach yourself advanced physics, don't even bother replying.
Realistically, the only solution is for the person who wants to join in to learn Engilish.
Given that to learn to program your going to have to put a lot of effort into learning to use the computer, learning the programming languages, etc, learning English really isn't that much more to ask, especially considering that, reguardless of how good i18n gets, you're still only going to be able to get most resources in English.
At some point, if people want to work together they have to settle on a standard, and the de-facto standard human language for dealing with computer stuff is English.
As far as Michael Chrighton goes:
A Case of Need was good, Rising Sun was good. I'll agree that Disclosure was a little bit lame. Remember that this is a 13 year old we're talking about here. She should me mature enough to handle some few of the realities of the world.
The Lucky Starr books rule. I first read them when I was seven, and I'm still entertained reading them now. He didn't like some stuff he did in the first one, so he cheated and changed it for the other five. He didn't do any of the lame crap that most authors do for a "children's book" - he just made sure he didn't get into anything too complex.
Everyone's giving lists of specific books. I tend to think that's a bit too specific. (Also, I don't want to have to go find the name of all 200 good novels that Asimov wrote =P)
These are the best three sci-fi authors ever (IMNSHO), I reccomend everything they ever wrote (almost):
These authors have written their share of crap, but they've also written some gems:
I probably left out some important authors, but the wrightings of the authors listed above should give you enough reading for the next 10 years...
Ok, the only science fiction book I would warn against because of possible sexual content would be Robert A Heinlien's _I will fear no evil_.
But then, I read that when I was 12, and I don't seem to have been harmed by it...
You want to boor this kid out of her mind?
It's better to wait to read the difficult, deep, classics.
For example, I read 1984 last summer, and it pissed me off because it was so slow and booring, but I got thorough it, and I think I got the point the author was trying to make.
At the same time, a friend of mine who was 14 was also reading 1984. When he finished and I asked him about it, he replied "It was booring and political, I don't really see what makes it such a good book."
Modern (Well, back at least to the 40's) SciFi is a wonderful genre because it forces the reader to think about deep philosophical questions, while they think they're just reading a fun story.
I have two answers:
They shouldn't be trying to set precedents, nor should they be trying to make an example - they should be trying to perserve individual human rights.
Perserving individual human rights, that's that they're there for - that's all they're there for.
Yup all of 'em
Now lets all go over and post on the Battle.net suggestion forums...
Well, it wasn't too bad, I just went
wget -r ftp://path/to/folder
and went do bed... this morning the nice new shiny demo was waiting for me in my home directory.
And I've only got a 33.6 modem...