Point two: Linux shouldn't be reviewed ever? Bah... ego has been the death of many a good thing. Unlike most gifts, software can be easily modified and improved with criticism. Depending on the goals (much Linux related software is made in the public interest) it's best for the future quality of the experiment to accept comments and weed out the genuinely good ideas within. I don't think one can justify being a bitch about anything, but features should be compared alongside other proprietry software. I don't think having such a thin-skin as a software developer will do you any good for the quality of your work (open source or not). If you're letting other people use it - they will have an opinion and it's best to hear it. Leave your ego at the door.
An effective review of anything ignores possible hurt feelings of the authors. If the gift is awful say so.
This review doesn't appear to have a personal stake and Linux wasn't a gift. In the review many things are incorrect. But the best someone should be when reviewing something awful is tactful, nothing more.
It doesn't really matter - according to the nice census lady on New Zealand's TV1 news it doesn't matter how many sign "Jedi" as a religion - they won't take it seriously.
Hmmm... what rhymes with rolling, and what's slashdot chock-a-block full of... yeah, I KNOW... posting. Nothing rhymes with rolling like posting, yeah - that's good!
Actually it's no more effort than being a meat eater - in my experience.
"The simple fact is, it is easier to have a proper diet eating meat because you don't have to look far and wide for the non animal alternatives that will have what you need" (OT: Fuck it's a wonder Linux ever became popular with that kind of attitude, windows came preinstalled).
Lets just say that it's no more effort for me to pick up a few more extra vegetables at the supermarket than it is to buy meat. Or something.
I don't have to cross mountains or kill ogres to buy some soy based snack. My supermarket (the cheapest one around here) has an ample vegetarian section.
"it is cheaper then some of the foods you would need"
In my experience the reverse is true. Meat, even shitty mince, costs about NZ$6/kilo. I can go knaw on a tree for that price.
"Suffering is life and animals and humans will always suffer in some way"
If "suffering" is happening every day then it's ok for me go kill something? If "suffering" is happening all the time then it doesn't matter?
What?
If you like eating meat, like my girlfriend does, that's ok. But all the pro-meat arguments you've put forward here are arse. Really.
People have been suggesting.xxx or.sex for years now and by my thinking it won't work.
Consider the entrenched pr0n sites that *might* move to.sex or.xxx if there was a good reason (goodness knows they couldn't be forced). They'll all put up "we have moved to purplemonkeydishwasher.sex, you will be forwarded there in a moment", so the new TLD won't categorise content.
Then there's the ones that don't want to move but will get the.xxx and point it back at their.com.
And of course there will be all the sites that use.xxx that don't have anything to do with xxx. The sites on the fringe of porn (Legend Of The Overfiend appreciation club) won't want to be categorised (read:blocked!) along with donkey sex.
It might be TLD polution - not to continue the effort to categorise by TLD - but that war's been lost. Using TLDs to categorise content is kinda screwy - considering the drunken hordes wandering the streets of geocities.com rambling on any topics they see fit.
yahoo.com, and mail.yahoo.com, when yahoo.mail is more accurate.
Well my proxy is configured not to tell any site what browser i'm running (it's usually Mozilla) so what happens if I am using Netscape2 behind it?
Actually, i've been getting sites lately refusing content when they get confused in my proxy. So i'm making my proxy randomly choose several major browsers and get them to cycle my HTTP headers. Huzzah!
Sure this is a trivial example but there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to do this. Shoddy HTML is the only reason why I can't.
nbsp for indenting paragraphs? eh? what's wrong with.. um... CSS p{text-indent:1em} or some such? I read somewhere that Blynx pauses for NBSP as it's considered more purposeful than a breaking space. Many blind people are angry waiting for you!
(still, it's not like they can do anything about it)
Sorry, but you can't complain about the use of the font tag and complain that Netscape 2 won't render the page
Just watch me!:) If I use any HTML standard it still works in older browsers. The uses of font are few (well, none) and when most modern day browsers support CSS you can implement fonts without rubbing the open sore that is the font tag.
This is true, but just because it's CPU-intensive for the browser doesn't necessarily make it bad code
It's CPU intensive for no good reason, good point though. But I was more thinking about slow connections that get drip-fed HTML on a 33.6 or 14.4. I share a 56 dialup and it gets terribly slow. Many times I just quit a page if it's too slow and read what it's got so far (yes, slashdot). Good HTML should have been able to do that throughout the process (or fairly regularly). It also makes my screen wider than it has to be (try reading slashdot on a 500px WebTV, or a 200px PDA or something, or a 320px DOS browser). These types of devices now have a choice of either scrolling all around the page just to read a sentence or ignoring the markup. It's all rather strange.
I think i'll take a lie down.
vaguely neat-looking
Well that merits breaking browsers, eh?
Yes... A nap would do me good. Must find myself a job too.
Well I am a webdesigner so here's what I think of Slashdot's HTML.
It's bloated as fuck.
(and it's badly thoughtout)
The first thing is that practically the entire page is in one big table. Browsers can't render the table until it's got all the text as it never drops to HTML root until the very end (by "HTML root" I mean closing all tags and returning to BODY being your direct parent)
Slashdot could still use a columned layout without table tags by doing the following:
Make the side menus fixed width TABLEs (or DIV's) aligned to either side. By fixed width I mean either pixel, or the more preferable percentage of screen width. Ensure you have no (BR CLEAR=ALL). So you've got two TABLE tags aligned to each side of the page, now put your centre column in. Browsers will render the page as a three column layout but because of your HTML - yet it will all be viewable as it loads. Try doing this 3 column layout with several one cell TABLE tags (hell, if we're going to misuse TABLEs we may as well misuse them in a decent way).
Images are nicely squashed. Occassionally Taco forgets to make a topic image transparent, but images are done well.
Slashdot putting the 3 columns in a TABLE means my screen has to be wider than necessary. This means scrolling all over the place just to read a comment. Try resizing your window to sub-600 pixels or read slashdot on 200px wide PDA. It's fucking terrible to have to scroll right then left just to read a sentence.
Slashdot relies on the background colour white specified in the TABLE to be viewable at all! The BODY tag's BGCOLOR is black with black text. Netscape 2 and lower can't view it at all. Your phroggy.com does the same (nearly black bgcolor and text colour). Try it in Netscape 2 (or 1) then please consider removing your "best viewed in any browser" medal:)
Slashdot uses font tags all over the place: fixed sizes, no user preferences unless you want to screw all font definitions, no fallback fonts families, etc... font is evil.
I use NBSP where necessary too, certainly better than the 1x1 transparent GIF.
HTMLshrinker is a bit excessive in what it removes. But i'd say slashdot's HTML is about 20/30% larger than what it needs to be.
I've got an old IBM something86 server box with a P200 in it. The thing has so much space in it I managed to put a UPS and a multi-plug in there too. People walk in the room, "my that's a big box, must be bloody powerful" to which I reply "yes. yes it is".
Why, big boxes are what seperate us from the animals.
You'll have to define effective use. As you probably know 2 CPU's doesn't mean twice as fast, 3 doesn't mean 3 times as fast.
<p>In my experiences the average CPU load decreases almost linearly by 14-15% per CPU being utilised under linux (on i386). A vague rule for me is: 2 CPUs=200%-(14*2)
<p>Doesn't apply all the time, depends on threaded apps, etc... grain of salt.
I believe he's not talking about the option to use other pieces of software. And 'themeable' UI's usually mean change a colour or a background image. Overwrite the image for the close button, at the most. What this chap is on about, i believe, is the option to have your entire UI standardised and anything in common from app to app be changable in a central location. Move the destructive button to the left of the window rather than beside the resize ones. But then all the sub buttons should be able to be controlled. Do you want just graphics for the buttons with text tooltips? There just aren't any UI's that give a user this power (probably because it means restricting what a programmer can do).
What you're proposing here, I think, is breaking a standard because you can make it better. Admirable motivations but breaking the standard comes with the inability to use the interface in a way that wasn't intended.
How does a blind person use Mozilla? It is an open standard (XUL) but it means all kinds of re-writing of read-out software.
Breaking the standard to make something 'better' also means not inheriting the universal UI settings of your platform - some of which may have been set for important reasons.
By all means theme, but breaking the entire platform's UI should be optional.
Having a "crappy Microsoft UI theme" wouldn't be the same as the Windows UI. It wouldn't inherit the universal UI settings and there's no possible way it can get font size or preferences.
It might look like the default Windows theme but it doesn't behave the same at all. My mother prefers the 'rainy day' colour scheme and Mozilla's theme can't be expected to understand that. Following the base windows UI there is a chance (on that platform) that blind users/visually impaired users could get spoken what each button does via reading out the tooltips - but with each bit of software having it's own way of themeing it does limit scope.
Considering Mozilla's Gecko is entirely seperate though, I see no reason why Netscape/AOL can't just embed their rendering component into a windows interface as an option.
Be offered an email to tell you when R5 was out, and other sites (more concerned with BeOS) covered BeOS's static release date by refreshing the page in the hours til the release date ticked over.
Slashdot played a part - but i'd be interested in Logs for URL referers.
"And generally, are more intellectual games, but that may just be a coincidence."
Well - carefully avoiding the possible backpatting of linux intellect - i'd say Quake and Descent 3 (aka Quakers of the Sky) aren't particularly intellectual.
But then there's the obvious philosophical wank of "Is skill in Quake an intellectual thing anyway. It requires something of a mind and would an efficient killer - no matter how deplorable - use an intellect to be better?"
To which I respond "oh fuck it. i shouldn't have started this post. i'm going to get some tea"
Slashdot Mirror
Tog sez: Window's take on the Mac WIMP GUI was to do many widgets the opposite for the sake of being different.
Point two: Linux shouldn't be reviewed ever? Bah... ego has been the death of many a good thing. Unlike most gifts, software can be easily modified and improved with criticism. Depending on the goals (much Linux related software is made in the public interest) it's best for the future quality of the experiment to accept comments and weed out the genuinely good ideas within. I don't think one can justify being a bitch about anything, but features should be compared alongside other proprietry software. I don't think having such a thin-skin as a software developer will do you any good for the quality of your work (open source or not). If you're letting other people use it - they will have an opinion and it's best to hear it. Leave your ego at the door.
This review doesn't appear to have a personal stake and Linux wasn't a gift. In the review many things are incorrect. But the best someone should be when reviewing something awful is tactful, nothing more.
How do you think she should have reviewed it?
It doesn't really matter - according to the nice census lady on New Zealand's TV1 news it doesn't matter how many sign "Jedi" as a religion - they won't take it seriously.
Hmmm... what rhymes with rolling, and what's slashdot chock-a-block full of... yeah, I KNOW... posting. Nothing rhymes with rolling like posting, yeah - that's good!
"The simple fact is, it is easier to have a proper diet eating meat because you don't have to look far and wide for the non animal alternatives that will have what you need" (OT: Fuck it's a wonder Linux ever became popular with that kind of attitude, windows came preinstalled).
Lets just say that it's no more effort for me to pick up a few more extra vegetables at the supermarket than it is to buy meat. Or something.
I don't have to cross mountains or kill ogres to buy some soy based snack. My supermarket (the cheapest one around here) has an ample vegetarian section.
"it is cheaper then some of the foods you would need"
In my experience the reverse is true. Meat, even shitty mince, costs about NZ$6/kilo. I can go knaw on a tree for that price.
"Suffering is life and animals and humans will always suffer in some way"
If "suffering" is happening every day then it's ok for me go kill something? If "suffering" is happening all the time then it doesn't matter?
What?
If you like eating meat, like my girlfriend does, that's ok. But all the pro-meat arguments you've put forward here are arse. Really.
Consider the entrenched pr0n sites that *might* move to .sex or .xxx if there was a good reason (goodness knows they couldn't be forced). They'll all put up "we have moved to purplemonkeydishwasher.sex, you will be forwarded there in a moment", so the new TLD won't categorise content.
Then there's the ones that don't want to move but will get the .xxx and point it back at their .com.
And of course there will be all the sites that use .xxx that don't have anything to do with xxx. The sites on the fringe of porn (Legend Of The Overfiend appreciation club) won't want to be categorised (read:blocked!) along with donkey sex.
It might be TLD polution - not to continue the effort to categorise by TLD - but that war's been lost. Using TLDs to categorise content is kinda screwy - considering the drunken hordes wandering the streets of geocities.com rambling on any topics they see fit.
yahoo.com, and mail.yahoo.com, when yahoo.mail is more accurate.
Categories are best left to web directories.
Actually, i've been getting sites lately refusing content when they get confused in my proxy. So i'm making my proxy randomly choose several major browsers and get them to cycle my HTTP headers. Huzzah!
Sure this is a trivial example but there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to do this. Shoddy HTML is the only reason why I can't.
nbsp for indenting paragraphs? eh? what's wrong with.. um... CSS p{text-indent:1em} or some such? I read somewhere that Blynx pauses for NBSP as it's considered more purposeful than a breaking space. Many blind people are angry waiting for you!
(still, it's not like they can do anything about it)
Sorry, but you can't complain about the use of the font tag and complain that Netscape 2 won't render the page
Just watch me! :) If I use any HTML standard it still works in older browsers. The uses of font are few (well, none) and when most modern day browsers support CSS you can implement fonts without rubbing the open sore that is the font tag.
This is true, but just because it's CPU-intensive for the browser doesn't necessarily make it bad code
It's CPU intensive for no good reason, good point though. But I was more thinking about slow connections that get drip-fed HTML on a 33.6 or 14.4. I share a 56 dialup and it gets terribly slow. Many times I just quit a page if it's too slow and read what it's got so far (yes, slashdot). Good HTML should have been able to do that throughout the process (or fairly regularly). It also makes my screen wider than it has to be (try reading slashdot on a 500px WebTV, or a 200px PDA or something, or a 320px DOS browser). These types of devices now have a choice of either scrolling all around the page just to read a sentence or ignoring the markup. It's all rather strange.
I think i'll take a lie down.
vaguely neat-looking
Well that merits breaking browsers, eh?
Yes... A nap would do me good. Must find myself a job too.
Well I am a webdesigner so here's what I think of Slashdot's HTML.
It's bloated as fuck.
(and it's badly thoughtout)
The first thing is that practically the entire page is in one big table. Browsers can't render the table until it's got all the text as it never drops to HTML root until the very end (by "HTML root" I mean closing all tags and returning to BODY being your direct parent)
Slashdot could still use a columned layout without table tags by doing the following:
Make the side menus fixed width TABLEs (or DIV's) aligned to either side. By fixed width I mean either pixel, or the more preferable percentage of screen width. Ensure you have no (BR CLEAR=ALL). So you've got two TABLE tags aligned to each side of the page, now put your centre column in. Browsers will render the page as a three column layout but because of your HTML - yet it will all be viewable as it loads. Try doing this 3 column layout with several one cell TABLE tags (hell, if we're going to misuse TABLEs we may as well misuse them in a decent way).
Images are nicely squashed. Occassionally Taco forgets to make a topic image transparent, but images are done well.
Slashdot putting the 3 columns in a TABLE means my screen has to be wider than necessary. This means scrolling all over the place just to read a comment. Try resizing your window to sub-600 pixels or read slashdot on 200px wide PDA. It's fucking terrible to have to scroll right then left just to read a sentence.
Slashdot relies on the background colour white specified in the TABLE to be viewable at all! The BODY tag's BGCOLOR is black with black text. Netscape 2 and lower can't view it at all. Your phroggy.com does the same (nearly black bgcolor and text colour). Try it in Netscape 2 (or 1) then please consider removing your "best viewed in any browser" medal :)
Slashdot uses font tags all over the place: fixed sizes, no user preferences unless you want to screw all font definitions, no fallback fonts families, etc... font is evil.
I use NBSP where necessary too, certainly better than the 1x1 transparent GIF.
HTMLshrinker is a bit excessive in what it removes. But i'd say slashdot's HTML is about 20/30% larger than what it needs to be.
Still, good discussions, eh?
(mpegs available upon request)
Goddamnit... cleartype type thing for printers
I've got an old IBM something86 server box with a P200 in it. The thing has so much space in it I managed to put a UPS and a multi-plug in there too. People walk in the room, "my that's a big box, must be bloody powerful" to which I reply "yes. yes it is".
Why, big boxes are what seperate us from the animals.
Oh good god.
You'll have to define effective use. As you probably know 2 CPU's doesn't mean twice as fast, 3 doesn't mean 3 times as fast.
<p>In my experiences the average CPU load decreases almost linearly by 14-15% per CPU being utilised under linux (on i386). A vague rule for me is: 2 CPUs=200%-(14*2)
<p>Doesn't apply all the time, depends on threaded apps, etc... grain of salt.
I believe he's not talking about the option to use other pieces of software. And 'themeable' UI's usually mean change a colour or a background image. Overwrite the image for the close button, at the most. What this chap is on about, i believe, is the option to have your entire UI standardised and anything in common from app to app be changable in a central location. Move the destructive button to the left of the window rather than beside the resize ones. But then all the sub buttons should be able to be controlled. Do you want just graphics for the buttons with text tooltips? There just aren't any UI's that give a user this power (probably because it means restricting what a programmer can do).
How does a blind person use Mozilla? It is an open standard (XUL) but it means all kinds of re-writing of read-out software.
Breaking the standard to make something 'better' also means not inheriting the universal UI settings of your platform - some of which may have been set for important reasons.
By all means theme, but breaking the entire platform's UI should be optional.
It might look like the default Windows theme but it doesn't behave the same at all. My mother prefers the 'rainy day' colour scheme and Mozilla's theme can't be expected to understand that. Following the base windows UI there is a chance (on that platform) that blind users/visually impaired users could get spoken what each button does via reading out the tooltips - but with each bit of software having it's own way of themeing it does limit scope.
Considering Mozilla's Gecko is entirely seperate though, I see no reason why Netscape/AOL can't just embed their rendering component into a windows interface as an option.
It's obviously a cynical view but not a wholy untrue one. Why has this been moderated down, eh?
Slashdot played a part - but i'd be interested in Logs for URL referers.
I assume you mean they're burning someone else's cross, other than their own?
You can and it makes a nice change. But no, for a cup of Earl Gray. The champion's choice.
Well - carefully avoiding the possible backpatting of linux intellect - i'd say Quake and Descent 3 (aka Quakers of the Sky) aren't particularly intellectual.
But then there's the obvious philosophical wank of "Is skill in Quake an intellectual thing anyway. It requires something of a mind and would an efficient killer - no matter how deplorable - use an intellect to be better?"
To which I respond "oh fuck it. i shouldn't have started this post. i'm going to get some tea"
Well, lets hear it then.
Couldn't MS just undercut prices?
Bah!