- Fucked up the sound sub-system even worse than it was 15 years ago
Don't see any evidence for that, but my mind is open. Please elaborate.
- Somehow turned into a religion of hate spouting zealots
There was always an abundance of people stubborn without social skills in the Linux community. That's the geek heritage coming through. It hasn't suddenly gotten worse. In fact I think it's been a little better of late (which is saying something)
- Released a confusing myriad of distributions and versions which absolutely make no sense
Yes the ability to fork and roll your own are both a strength and a weakness. They make no sense because there is more than one single goal and set of interests to satisfy. You are free to ignore all but one or two distros if you choose.
- Gotten Intel to release open source drivers yet still managed to fuck that up
How so? The drivers work or they don't.
- Forked GCC
See my words about multiple distros.
- Claim its greatest accomplishment is Compiz - Wobbly windows, woohoo!
Now you're being childish.
- Somehow manage to be WORSE off than it was in 1999
By what measure?
It's like the captain of the ship's drunk at the helm.
There isn't one captain or one helm. Comparing "Linux" to MS WIndows in this sense is silly. Linux is a myriad of different companies and distros. MS is one entity.
The people complaining about the ribbon without trying it are just looking for an excuse to hate M$. Have you tried to use the ribbon long enough to get used to it (not just long enough to decide you don't like it)? If you answered no, stop complaining.
Also, those who haven't tried jumping off a cliff and are criticising those who do without trying it should stop complaining.
Would you please pull your finger out for long enough to realise that you're being arrogant and insulting. I don't have to try something for weeks or months to decide that I have philosophical and technical objections to a new process compared to the old.
I installed an add-on that put in a tab containing all the usual menus, so it helped the transition, but I found myself using it less over time. Just about every intuitive GUI I've used focuses on buttons over menus.
Nice that you like it. How advanced a user are you? Do you use advanced features - Macros, Comparison, Revisions in Word etc? Do you do complex formulae in Excel?
Regardless of how you do use it, how dare you claim to know what's better for MY use of the product.
I installed an add-on that put in a tab containing all the usual menus, so it helped the transition, but I found myself using it less over time. Just about every intuitive GUI I've used focuses on buttons over menus.
Just how intuitive can a button that moves around be exactly? On the old version of Office you had toolbars, which you could set up as you desired but you also had menus. On the new version the menus are removed. How is this an advantage? How is hacking or adding plugins to get back that functionality a plus? If they'd turned off menus by default I could've lived with that. I'd just turn the back on, but to decide for me that I don't get menus whether I like it or not is arrogant and counter productive.
Did you use the buttons in pre-07 Office? All of those functions can be accesed through the menus, so if you used the buttons you musn't find the menus as useful as you claim. The ribbon just takes the menus and turns most of them into buttons.
The ribbon is awful. Only one set of buttons can be displayed. Toolbars were much better because they allowed me to choose my own most used functions for myself and place them where *I* wanted them. There were default groupings familiar to me on any machine but I could customize as much or as little as I liked quickly instead of having to remember pre-defined groups.
Yes, you have to learn the new layout. No, it is not that hard. If you use Office enough that you think you can navigate the menus faster than someone can click a few buttons on the ribbon I think you can learn the new layout so fast next time you post a M$-bashing post you won't be able to legitimately mention the ribbon. If I'm wrong at least you have more material to work with.
MS bashing? Where? I stated my observations. Most of what I stated a lot of people agree with. Using the $ sign in M$ just makes you look childish. I can just as easily accuse you of being a fan boy who's happy for others to decide what is and isn't good for them rather than being given an option.
I have PLENTY of material to work with because MS felt the need to remove the menu altogether. If it's so much better why not configure the ribbon by default? Are they afraid people will opt out? If it's so fantastic and intuitive and productive, WHY is there such a learning curve? I use new software all the time and can learn buttons and menus well enough for them, so why do this?
Your post implies you readily dismiss responses like this, but I believe I am being reasonable in my argument.
You're not. I presume you live in a free country. Wonderful isn't it? You're free to believe in the tooth fairy, Santa Claus and aliens if you like, just don't expect me to come along for the ride.
I admit I bash M$ for humor's sake, but bashing M$ for the sake of bashing M$ is an overdone meme here. You can make Micros
It's your opinion that it's not great yet you admit there are those that find it easy to use... ever thought you were the problem?
No, I don't think I'm the problem at all. I have very good reasons for disliking it and it is a huge and illogical backward step in terms of usability despite the marketing. Those that find it easy to use are not typically power users. They couldn't record a macro to save themselves, and probably know how to do very little beyond change some formatting, save and save as.
The ribbon isnt that bad of an idea, except they got rid of the menus. I bet it works great if you've never used office before.. its just we know where everything was in the menus, so its a nightmare trying to figure out where the heck they put things. It wouldnt be so bad if they just ASKED which one you wanted. Newer users probably do fine with the bloody ribbon.
Well except for the fact that the ribbon reorganises itself so you can't ever find anything.
But how do you measure the success rate of a problem you solved proactively, thus ensuring it never becomes a measurable problem?
An independent estimate based on factual evidence is probably as good as you can get.
That's a particularly hard one but in most cases the problem here isn't the metric. It's actually reasonably easy to measure the number of calls opened, and the time they took to resolve (providing you can get your staff on board to actually record the information). The difficulty is in interpretting the results.
What does it mean when you get more calls? It could mean that your methods need improving, but it could also just mean one or more new and therefore less mature systems have gone online, or that you've rolled out new hardware. The numbers don't capture the context, but decision makers often misinterpret them either accidentally or on purpose to justify a decision they've already made.
An IT-department, IMHO, should be working on making itself obsolete.
Possibly the most unrealistic thing I've ever heard here, and that's saying something. NO GROUP of people is going to work on putting themselves out of a job!
For every person who becomes aware of a problem with the fax server, the IT department loses one point. No more "heroics". The goal is to be as invisible as possible to the end users.
That's a pretty naive thing to say, given that an invisible department is one that gets its staff cut and isn't funded. If the proper people are not aware that you're doing a good job, how do you expect them to justify paying for you???
them to HR: That Archangel Michael guy is a trouble maker. Any time we ask him to do anything he puts obstacles in the way and goes on a rant about how professional he is and what respect he deserves. In the end he doesn't actually DO anything. If we need to let people go, Archangel Michael should go first as he is just dead weight.
As a personal user I wouldn't mind if Microsoft decided to pull an Apple and cut off support for all of their legacy stuff. I don't really use much legacy software anymore, and am just about done with PC gaming. If it would streamline the OS and remove some bugs, I'm all for it and would applaud them instead of criticize.
Well perhaps you're willing to throw out all your old software, but I am not, and nor are a lot of other people. Nor should we have to.
"A method of automatically loading a weapon for repeatedly and regularly firing at one's foot without breaking the rythm".
Microsoft has in the last couple of years:
- Released THE most hated OS since WinMe
- Released a confusing myriad of versions of their latest OS' which seek to differentiate by feature set, ultimately pissing off any customer who buys or is forced by a hardware manufacturer to buy an inferior version of the OS only to find that they must upgrade to get important functionality enabled
- Replaced their Office interface with that goddawful ever changing ribbon which certain geeks continue to defend despite it completely ruining productivity, and now they're incorporating it into every damn program they can
- Fired their Aces game development team ending a long running franchise in flight simulation
- Put just about everyone off side with their nutty Windows Genuine campaign
- Fucked up their Zune software with date based bugs
It's like the captain of the ship's drunk at the helm.
Historically speaking, the Church (Galileo notwithstanding!) and Islam during the medieval period played a very large part in encouraging the development of science, medicine, and the arts. It varied by time period and region, but the link can't be denied.
Galileo is not some isolated incident. Copernicus did not publish for fear of being tortured and killed. Then there was Giordano Bruno. However even today the church tries to prevent stem cell research, argues against contraception on unscientific moral grounds even though failing to use contraception leads to a great deal of death and misery etc.
The church would as it still does support science where it increased it's own power and where it's interests were served, but the scientific method itself was not held in any way sacred. Scientific truth was routinely over-ruled by inane religious doctrine and those who opposed it were routinely tortured or killed or both. These days they're just much subtler.
This really doesn't seem to be about religion to me.
Religious fervor seems perfectly reasonable and rational to the religious.
Part of the thrill of parenting, is the gamble about what kind of child you will end up with.
Perhaps there are others that don't enjoy this "thrill" and find it offputting or at best a trade off that they must currently make in order to be a parent. Just because you seem to enjoy the "gamble" as you put it, is not a good reason for pushing that belief on others. I wonder how in favour of gambling you'd be if your kids had special needs.
Hell, why not just make baby farms as described in the Matrix? If we're going to take the gamble out of genetics, whats left for us?
This is ridiculous. What's left is to raise a healthy child, perhaps one that has features you want. It's an illogical and disingenuous leap to start talking about baby farms or the matrix.
I'd suggest you keep those wires away from your balls. That includes long hair from girlfriends and wives which have a terrible habbit of wrapping around your nuts when you least expect it. It's a very delicate operation to remove it - maybe not quite as hard as polymerising buckyballs but a hell of a lot more important to me personally.
This is a misuse of technology and is very much security theatre. You're more likely to prevent the spread of flu by praying to the spaghetti monster. The thing is that people are panicked over this as it has been overhyped by the media. They're willing to put up with any inconvenience as long as they can trade it for a warm (but not too warm or you'll get scanned) safe feeling.
That simply isn't true. I had an ankle injury that lurked for 15 years with no major effects. It is currently badly arthritic and I'll probably need an ankle fusion in the next few years. With or without that I expect to be on a cane or in a wheel chair in the next 10. I'm not the only one. Disabilities don't always come without any warning.
So far, this new strain is milder than a normal yearly influenza virus. But that was also true about the Spanish flu virus, the first two mutations that went around the globe. The third one was highly lethal and, sadly, 100% lethal to pregnant women.
I don't know where you got 100% lethal but at least that part of your post is incorrect. Here's a better source:
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2008/04/02/youth-survey.html "In the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, one study reported on 1,350 pregnant women who became infected; 27 per cent died from the flu. In the milder Asian flu pandemic in 1957, half the women of reproductive age who died from flu in Minnesota were pregnant."
So a pregnant woman would have had a 3 in 4 chance of surviving. Alarmist nonsense panics people and causes more harm than good.
Well Hot or Not is mainly about breasts and not about fashion. This is what might differ.
Hot or not is mainly about sexual attraction and self esteem. What do you think fashion is about? Did you think that plunging neck line was fashionable because it didn't accentuate breasts?
The frontiers of human knowledge is out of reach to all of us who don't have a billion dollar particle accelerator.
This shows that you lack imagination. There are frontiers that are still open.
For example in Astronomy, you can use nothing more than binoculars or a telescope - not the cheapest tools but well within reach - to contribute to variable star research just by regularly observing stars and using precise methods to determine their brightness by comparing them to other stars. Amateurs are needed for this sort of work because even with computerised surveys there are limitations to what the equipment can do. (Computerised surveys do not work well with very bright or very faint stars). Speaking of computers you can download raw Hubble data and the software to analyse it for free. That's not the only large instrument you can get data and analysis software for. Amateurs can and do make discoveries this way. Occasionally amateurs contribute to scientific papers too.
Do not underestimate the work involved in preparing a new course. I teach for a few weeks every year, and can easily spend several days preparing a new one-hour lesson. Even recycled material needs updating and revising, and the preparation time is at least equal to the teaching time.
I haven't taught in some time, but I do remember that at least for computer science, it's easy to make almost trivial changes to design specs that make turning in someone's work from a previous assignment useless. It's disingenuous to even be talking about preparing new course work as if the professor here needs to come up with a whole new course. You're defending the indefensible.
Slashdot Mirror
- Fucked up the sound sub-system even worse than it was 15 years ago
Don't see any evidence for that, but my mind is open. Please elaborate.
- Somehow turned into a religion of hate spouting zealots
There was always an abundance of people stubborn without social skills in the Linux community. That's the geek heritage coming through. It hasn't suddenly gotten worse. In fact I think it's been a little better of late (which is saying something)
- Released a confusing myriad of distributions and versions which absolutely make no sense
Yes the ability to fork and roll your own are both a strength and a weakness. They make no sense because there is more than one single goal and set of interests to satisfy. You are free to ignore all but one or two distros if you choose.
- Gotten Intel to release open source drivers yet still managed to fuck that up
How so? The drivers work or they don't.
- Forked GCC
See my words about multiple distros.
- Claim its greatest accomplishment is Compiz - Wobbly windows, woohoo!
Now you're being childish.
- Somehow manage to be WORSE off than it was in 1999
By what measure?
It's like the captain of the ship's drunk at the helm.
There isn't one captain or one helm. Comparing "Linux" to MS WIndows in this sense is silly. Linux is a myriad of different companies and distros. MS is one entity.
The people complaining about the ribbon without trying it are just looking for an excuse to hate M$. Have you tried to use the ribbon long enough to get used to it (not just long enough to decide you don't like it)? If you answered no, stop complaining.
Also, those who haven't tried jumping off a cliff and are criticising those who do without trying it should stop complaining.
Would you please pull your finger out for long enough to realise that you're being arrogant and insulting. I don't have to try something for weeks or months to decide that I have philosophical and technical objections to a new process compared to the old.
I installed an add-on that put in a tab containing all the usual menus, so it helped the transition, but I found myself using it less over time. Just about every intuitive GUI I've used focuses on buttons over menus.
Nice that you like it. How advanced a user are you? Do you use advanced features - Macros, Comparison, Revisions in Word etc? Do you do complex formulae in Excel?
Regardless of how you do use it, how dare you claim to know what's better for MY use of the product.
I installed an add-on that put in a tab containing all the usual menus, so it helped the transition, but I found myself using it less over time. Just about every intuitive GUI I've used focuses on buttons over menus.
Just how intuitive can a button that moves around be exactly? On the old version of Office you had toolbars, which you could set up as you desired but you also had menus. On the new version the menus are removed. How is this an advantage? How is hacking or adding plugins to get back that functionality a plus? If they'd turned off menus by default I could've lived with that. I'd just turn the back on, but to decide for me that I don't get menus whether I like it or not is arrogant and counter productive.
Did you use the buttons in pre-07 Office? All of those functions can be accesed through the menus, so if you used the buttons you musn't find the menus as useful as you claim. The ribbon just takes the menus and turns most of them into buttons.
The ribbon is awful. Only one set of buttons can be displayed. Toolbars were much better because they allowed me to choose my own most used functions for myself and place them where *I* wanted them. There were default groupings familiar to me on any machine but I could customize as much or as little as I liked quickly instead of having to remember pre-defined groups.
Yes, you have to learn the new layout. No, it is not that hard. If you use Office enough that you think you can navigate the menus faster than someone can click a few buttons on the ribbon I think you can learn the new layout so fast next time you post a M$-bashing post you won't be able to legitimately mention the ribbon. If I'm wrong at least you have more material to work with.
MS bashing? Where? I stated my observations. Most of what I stated a lot of people agree with. Using the $ sign in M$ just makes you look childish. I can just as easily accuse you of being a fan boy who's happy for others to decide what is and isn't good for them rather than being given an option.
I have PLENTY of material to work with because MS felt the need to remove the menu altogether. If it's so much better why not configure the ribbon by default? Are they afraid people will opt out? If it's so fantastic and intuitive and productive, WHY is there such a learning curve? I use new software all the time and can learn buttons and menus well enough for them, so why do this?
Your post implies you readily dismiss responses like this, but I believe I am being reasonable in my argument.
You're not. I presume you live in a free country. Wonderful isn't it? You're free to believe in the tooth fairy, Santa Claus and aliens if you like, just don't expect me to come along for the ride.
I admit I bash M$ for humor's sake, but bashing M$ for the sake of bashing M$ is an overdone meme here. You can make Micros
It's your opinion that it's not great yet you admit there are those that find it easy to use... ever thought you were the problem?
No, I don't think I'm the problem at all. I have very good reasons for disliking it and it is a huge and illogical backward step in terms of usability despite the marketing. Those that find it easy to use are not typically power users. They couldn't record a macro to save themselves, and probably know how to do very little beyond change some formatting, save and save as.
Thank you. Now I don't feel so bad paying double for my MacBook Pro than what a better equipped Dell XPS costs.
You don't feel bad paying double for hardware because the latest version of an office suite for the alternative sux? That makes no sense!
The ribbon isnt that bad of an idea, except they got rid of the menus. I bet it works great if you've never used office before.. its just we know where everything was in the menus, so its a nightmare trying to figure out where the heck they put things. It wouldnt be so bad if they just ASKED which one you wanted. Newer users probably do fine with the bloody ribbon.
Well except for the fact that the ribbon reorganises itself so you can't ever find anything.
On every aspect the title and summary is just so wrong.
It's getting so that Digg has better, more accurate summaries. Scary.
But how do you measure the success rate of a problem you solved proactively, thus ensuring it never becomes a measurable problem?
An independent estimate based on factual evidence is probably as good as you can get.
That's a particularly hard one but in most cases the problem here isn't the metric. It's actually reasonably easy to measure the number of calls opened, and the time they took to resolve (providing you can get your staff on board to actually record the information). The difficulty is in interpretting the results.
What does it mean when you get more calls? It could mean that your methods need improving, but it could also just mean one or more new and therefore less mature systems have gone online, or that you've rolled out new hardware. The numbers don't capture the context, but decision makers often misinterpret them either accidentally or on purpose to justify a decision they've already made.
An IT-department, IMHO, should be working on making itself obsolete.
Possibly the most unrealistic thing I've ever heard here, and that's saying something. NO GROUP of people is going to work on putting themselves out of a job!
For every person who becomes aware of a problem with the fax server, the IT department loses one point. No more "heroics". The goal is to be as invisible as possible to the end users.
That's a pretty naive thing to say, given that an invisible department is one that gets its staff cut and isn't funded. If the proper people are not aware that you're doing a good job, how do you expect them to justify paying for you???
..by the number of callers left alive at the end of the day.
I don't understand this metric. Should we be aiming for a high number or a low one?
You left out the last nine
them to HR: That Archangel Michael guy is a trouble maker. Any time we ask him to do anything he puts obstacles in the way and goes on a rant about how professional he is and what respect he deserves. In the end he doesn't actually DO anything. If we need to let people go, Archangel Michael should go first as he is just dead weight.
As a personal user I wouldn't mind if Microsoft decided to pull an Apple and cut off support for all of their legacy stuff. I don't really use much legacy software anymore, and am just about done with PC gaming. If it would streamline the OS and remove some bugs, I'm all for it and would applaud them instead of criticize.
Well perhaps you're willing to throw out all your old software, but I am not, and nor are a lot of other people. Nor should we have to.
"A method of automatically loading a weapon for repeatedly and regularly firing at one's foot without breaking the rythm".
Microsoft has in the last couple of years:
- Released THE most hated OS since WinMe
- Released a confusing myriad of versions of their latest OS' which seek to differentiate by feature set, ultimately pissing off any customer who buys or is forced by a hardware manufacturer to buy an inferior version of the OS only to find that they must upgrade to get important functionality enabled
- Replaced their Office interface with that goddawful ever changing ribbon which certain geeks continue to defend despite it completely ruining productivity, and now they're incorporating it into every damn program they can
- Fired their Aces game development team ending a long running franchise in flight simulation
- Put just about everyone off side with their nutty Windows Genuine campaign
- Fucked up their Zune software with date based bugs
It's like the captain of the ship's drunk at the helm.
Historically speaking, the Church (Galileo notwithstanding!) and Islam during the medieval period played a very large part in encouraging the development of science, medicine, and the arts. It varied by time period and region, but the link can't be denied.
Galileo is not some isolated incident. Copernicus did not publish for fear of being tortured and killed. Then there was Giordano Bruno. However even today the church tries to prevent stem cell research, argues against contraception on unscientific moral grounds even though failing to use contraception leads to a great deal of death and misery etc.
The church would as it still does support science where it increased it's own power and where it's interests were served, but the scientific method itself was not held in any way sacred. Scientific truth was routinely over-ruled by inane religious doctrine and those who opposed it were routinely tortured or killed or both. These days they're just much subtler.
This really doesn't seem to be about religion to me.
Religious fervor seems perfectly reasonable and rational to the religious.
Part of the thrill of parenting, is the gamble about what kind of child you will end up with.
Perhaps there are others that don't enjoy this "thrill" and find it offputting or at best a trade off that they must currently make in order to be a parent. Just because you seem to enjoy the "gamble" as you put it, is not a good reason for pushing that belief on others. I wonder how in favour of gambling you'd be if your kids had special needs.
Hell, why not just make baby farms as described in the Matrix? If we're going to take the gamble out of genetics, whats left for us?
This is ridiculous. What's left is to raise a healthy child, perhaps one that has features you want. It's an illogical and disingenuous leap to start talking about baby farms or the matrix.
I think monkeys are moderating these days.
I'd suggest you keep those wires away from your balls. That includes long hair from girlfriends and wives which have a terrible habbit of wrapping around your nuts when you least expect it. It's a very delicate operation to remove it - maybe not quite as hard as polymerising buckyballs but a hell of a lot more important to me personally.
This is a misuse of technology and is very much security theatre. You're more likely to prevent the spread of flu by praying to the spaghetti monster. The thing is that people are panicked over this as it has been overhyped by the media. They're willing to put up with any inconvenience as long as they can trade it for a warm (but not too warm or you'll get scanned) safe feeling.
Nobody thinks they are going to be disabled.
That simply isn't true. I had an ankle injury that lurked for 15 years with no major effects. It is currently badly arthritic and I'll probably need an ankle fusion in the next few years. With or without that I expect to be on a cane or in a wheel chair in the next 10. I'm not the only one. Disabilities don't always come without any warning.
I find this much more believable than the swill in the slashdot summary.
Take a look at who submitted it. PEBKAC.
So far, this new strain is milder than a normal yearly influenza virus. But that was also true about the Spanish flu virus, the first two mutations that went around the globe. The third one was highly lethal and, sadly, 100% lethal to pregnant women.
I don't know where you got 100% lethal but at least that part of your post is incorrect. Here's a better source:
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2008/04/02/youth-survey.html
"In the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, one study reported on 1,350 pregnant women who became infected; 27 per cent died from the flu. In the milder Asian flu pandemic in 1957, half the women of reproductive age who died from flu in Minnesota were pregnant."
So a pregnant woman would have had a 3 in 4 chance of surviving. Alarmist nonsense panics people and causes more harm than good.
Well Hot or Not is mainly about breasts and not about fashion. This is what might differ.
Hot or not is mainly about sexual attraction and self esteem. What do you think fashion is about? Did you think that plunging neck line was fashionable because it didn't accentuate breasts?
...and rated not so hot by developers, developers, developers the world over!
The frontiers of human knowledge is out of reach to all of us who don't have a billion dollar particle accelerator.
This shows that you lack imagination. There are frontiers that are still open.
For example in Astronomy, you can use nothing more than binoculars or a telescope - not the cheapest tools but well within reach - to contribute to variable star research just by regularly observing stars and using precise methods to determine their brightness by comparing them to other stars. Amateurs are needed for this sort of work because even with computerised surveys there are limitations to what the equipment can do. (Computerised surveys do not work well with very bright or very faint stars). Speaking of computers you can download raw Hubble data and the software to analyse it for free. That's not the only large instrument you can get data and analysis software for. Amateurs can and do make discoveries this way. Occasionally amateurs contribute to scientific papers too.
Do not underestimate the work involved in preparing a new course. I teach for a few weeks every year, and can easily spend several days preparing a new one-hour lesson. Even recycled material needs updating and revising, and the preparation time is at least equal to the teaching time.
I haven't taught in some time, but I do remember that at least for computer science, it's easy to make almost trivial changes to design specs that make turning in someone's work from a previous assignment useless. It's disingenuous to even be talking about preparing new course work as if the professor here needs to come up with a whole new course. You're defending the indefensible.
"...supervolcano was not a technical term used in volcanology. The term megacaldera is sometimes used.."
It's a supervolcano if it wears it's underwear on the outside.