Funnily enough I learnt all you mentioned - from the source control to analysis of other people's code - in a University at Bachelor's level almost 10 years ago now. I didn't learn it _all_ formally but I did learn most of it in the process of doing my coursework.
I think it depends on the university and the course.
Before Shoemaker-Levy hit Jupiter, many scientists were skeptical that impact collisions in the modern solar system could even occur. How quickly people discount things that haven't been demonstrated.
Well the general gist of Linux advocacy under which this article falls certainly are suggesting that we replace Windows with Linux on the desktop. Since it's reasonably rare to wish to add Windows to an existing Linux install and since that is not what these articles are about, how well Windows does it compared to Linux is completely irrelevant. It is most certainly true that sticking with Windows will not increase your risk of losing data, while resizing and installing a Linux partition is a significant risk. An end user that hasn't got much interest in computers will very likely never try a second install of Ubuntu if the first one hoses their existing OS.
In any case have you considered backup can also hose a system? I installed Acronis TrueImage on a computer at one point for a friend and he ran into this error (the post below is not by that friend)
I've also seen Norton Ghost trash a system drive trying to back up partitions. Something funky about support for a particular hard drive controller chipset I think. In any case, hoses is hosed.
The fact is there's no excuse for software that deals with user data being so damned finicky. It's 2007 - how long has NTFS been around? How long has ext2 been around? You can never make anything completely idiot proof but the software should be damn near it by now. It's not.
Note that I'm not skewing this in favour of Windows or against Linux. Don't even get me started on how bad the Windows File Manager is, especially when you try to copy across network shares. (Why is there no resume option if a copy fails for instance? Any time I'm copying large data sets I'm still using robocopy - even the sync toy is buggy and crash prone)
I'd be looking for work elsewhere if I was getting that stressed.
It's a balancing act of course though. Every place you work at, every change of management above you all the way to head honcho. Each time you'll get some things getting better and others getting worse. If they're all getting worse you look elsewhere.
No, he has been told that Windows is more difficult to setup with preinstalled Linux system than Windows being preinstalled and Linux being setup after.
Yes, but you're not trying to advocate that users with Linux pre-installed should switch to Linux, so while you're right about the Windows partitioning software being awful it's a moot point because most people have machines that come with Windows pre-installed and don't deal with it. If the Linux software isn't up to scratch its easier not to try something that can hose their operating system and leave them having to try to work out how both installers work before their computer will run at all.
t calling you a sad troll & a dumbass is both satisfying to me & educational to fellow slashdotters who otherwise might take you seriously.
How does this post get modded insightful with trollish content like that?/. has gone to the dogs!!!
Yeah the GP isn't terribly knowledgable and didn't make his point well, but that's no excuse to hurl abuse at him. Don't get me wrong - on occassion I've been guilty of the same, especially when I've thought the poster was saying something that was actually dangerous. However I'd not expect to be modded insightful for name calling.
The fact is that the GP was sufficiently confused by the installer that he didn't feel comfortable going forward with an install. I'd argue that's the right thing to do. Now I'm not familiar with the Ubuntu installer, but does it make it clear in advance what will happen if you proceed? Even in advanced mode for someone who knows Linux well I'd argue you shouldn't have to have prior knowledge of how the installer is going to behave to avoid hosing an existing partition. This is 2007. Any OS install and partitioning tool should make it very clear what's going to happen. Yes, Windows isn't up to par either.
Does anybody know what is the market penetration of Photoshop? 50%? 20%? 3%? of Windows users? Thanks!
Translation: I don't use it so I don't care about it. Others that use it can just suffer if we switch over.
Thanks for demonstrating the reason Linux hasn't taken off on the desktop: Attitude. What if the one user in your workplace that needs Photoshop happens to do something critical to the business with that software that can't be done with Gimp? The correct solution is to get Gimp up to the same standards before telling us how tired you are of hearing about it.
Re:(sigh) if you RTFA and think that way...
on
'Til Tech Do Us Part
·
· Score: 1
Well put! Thanks for making me laugh.
The summary should read "Being a geek is no advantage in marriage if you're an asshole". Its always amusing how people will give their other half access to half their stuff (in the event the relationship breaks down), the power to poison them (assuming the other half ever cooks), and the power to give them an STD (cheating or lying about sexual history) but worry about a fucking mp3 collection or sharing an account password. Let alone sneaking around behind your spouses back so you can have things your way (changing a netflix order etc.) Talk about having your priorities out of whack and a marriage that's waiting to disintegrate!
"No stops in between Earth and deep space" would be rather limiting on your ability to use a planet's gravity well to accelerate the spacecraft. None of our outer solar system space probes to date could have gotten there without one more more graviational assists.
Dups - A sign that the cycle is nearing its end and/. is due to become extinct.
I honestly don't think the part about increased radiation is new either. They may have more data and analysis but I'm sure it was always blamed on radiation.
Sex isn't the most important thing in the world. However if you've got zero interest in it I'd bet good money you haven't had good sex yet (or you have a medical condition that's preventing you from enjoying sex).
Thanks for the info. I'll look into PEMF. (Taken a quick look already). I don't smoke or drink but am overweight. Statistical probability of long term weight loss if I didn't have a bad ankle is not good. It's even harder when most of the exercise I can do will exacerbate the ankle problem.
I was born flat feet that point outward like a cartoon characters (angle between the feet in my natural stance is about 80-90 degrees). I was never going to be a long distance walker or runner and my shoes wear unevenly but I didn't think too much of it until I tried snow skiing and ice skating. Skiing on normal skiis just wasn't possible. My feet kept spliting and I'd feel it in my groin and go down hard no matter how I tried to point them in. Embarasing and painful.
However the ice skating is what did the damage (or at least its the likely culprit). The very first time I went ice skating just as I was learning to let go of the edge, my skates buckled. I was in agony and had to be dragged off the ice in so much pain I was screaming. Nothing was broken and they couldn't find anything in the X-rays so I was sent home on crutches. After about a week I was walking normally again. That was 17 years ago. From time to time I'd get some pain that would cause me to limp a little - no biggie - I jokingly called it my old war wound. About 4 years ago the pain came on strong and lasted a couple of weeks. I was X-Rayed and told I had very mild arthritis at least one ossicle (bone spur).
Earlier this year the pain came on again and basically doesn't subside for very long at all any more. I say the pain but I actually have several different kinds of pain - searing like a hot knife is stuck in the ankle, blunt pain like I've got something blunt stuck in it, sometimes throbbing when there's no weight on it, pain along the bones leading to the ankle. I did a CAT and an MRI and saw two specialists. One suggested putting off the fusion for a year or two and having an arthroscopy but the other more senior who I went to for a second opinion believes that'd be a total waste of time and I should go in for fusion surgery later this year (after my honeymoon). Apart from arthritis, ossicles, and resulting tissue thickening/fibrosis it looks like when the ankle buckled blood supply to part of the navicular bone was cut off. It's called avascular necrosis and it doesn't even show up in CAT scans for up to some months after the injury. MRIs show it up in a few weeks but they weren't so common 17 years ago. All I had at the time was X-rays. In any case I'm surprised at how primitive ankle surgery really is compared to other kinds.
I've had 17 years out of the ankle since it was injured. My other ankle will no doubt also start to get arthritic. I don't smoke or drink, but I am overweight which is terrible for this. Trouble is finding weight loss excercise which doesn't make the ankle worse is hard (I use to walk part of the way to work!). Hell long term weight loss stats are worse than stats on the op, so while I'm moderating my diet somewhat, I don't expect a sudden loss of weight will give me years more on the ankle. Apart from the pain which is starting to get to me the real issue for me is what effect it'll have on my ability to earn money. I do computer programming and support, but I imagine it'll be harder to get work later on. My understanding is a fusion will eventually turn arthritic too but I'll get from 7-15 years out of it (if it fuses properly. Too bad that'll mean I'm totally borked in my late 30s early 40s. I imagine that'll mean a cane or more likely a wheelchair. I've done a lot of research into this on forums and on PubMed (though there aren't many long term studies on ankle fusions of any kind).
I really wish the pain would just fucking go away. My fiancee's uncle had a heart attack and we went to visit. I had to slow the group down trying to find the hospital and room because I was in agony. I felt like shit about doing that but every step was agon.
At this stage I'm just coping, and the only pain killers I occassionally take are over the counter headache pain pills (paracetamol, and very occassionally ibuprofen). I don't honestly believe pain meds are a good answer. I just try to avoid long periods of standing or walking. I'd have to be on them permanently. I'm also on glucosamine which is an over the counter health food supplement that's suppose to be good for arthritis. (The specialists put me onto it, I'm not sure it's doing any good).
That's the whole story. My advice: Don't let your ankle get damaged if you can help it.
Antisocial people can make music by themselves without the need for the Internet. Sociable people will make music together with or without the Internet and may even use the Internet to help communicate when collaborating on a project.
Well I always find making beautiful music works much better with 2 people, and Mrs Palmer and her 5 daughters don't count.
I'm looking at having a mid-foot fusion sometime in the next year. Nasty operation. 3 months off my feet (and off work), only to be repeated a second time if it fails. Any weight on the joint in the first 6 weeks ruins the operation completely. Non-union's a 10-15% risk anyway, and there's also the risk of instability in the joint. I don't want to do it, but I'm told if I leave it too long I won't be able to walk and that in the medium term I have no other options. Once fused the bones can't be un-fused with current medical techniques. One of the bones I'm having fused looks like swiss cheese in the MRI and CAT scans. I'm worried that even if the fusion is a success it'll crumble in the long term. From a technical point of view the whole op seems like a really bad idea - it's just all they have to offer. Ever since I found out I've thought the best way would be to replace bad/worn out bone. I wonder if I've just been born a little early for proper bone replacement to be an option.
Unlike hip and knee replacements ankle surgery (especially replacements - thankfully not what I'm dealing with) don't have a high success rate. I wonder if this'll do anything to improve that.
We're using this between offices at work. Please tell me what possible use I could have for a love heart emoticon here. No offence to my co-workers but have you got any idea how offputting even the thought of using it is. Ewwww!
That's all you're doing here transcoding one kind of information to another.
What's the point in encouraging people to invent shit if they get to lock it up for several lifetimes? What you'll get from this is one really bad DNA->music encoder, and every bit of competition locked out of the race for decades.
If the patent system were a car it'd be a rusted out common piece of shit from the 70s that isn't even worth salvaging as scrap metal.
My friend uses OOo Calc for her assignments and I believe she is attending FSU. So if it's good enough for them then I imagine it's fine for whatever high school assignment you need.
Yes because we all know that if one person (of unknown skill) doing one degree in one way doesn't require a feature to do their job no one else will need it.
Honestly I've known incompetent coders who literally didn't understand iteration (could grasp the syntax of a for loop in a pascal like language). That doesn't mean we should do away with iteration in all modern programming languages.
I've tried OO calc and while some stuff was there and ready to use there's plenty that's missing and that I'm use to in Excel. Oh and by the way I've used Excel to do astrophysics homework at Masters level.
People very rarely use MS Word beyond the functionality that Wordpad offers. And they very rarely use MS Excel as anything but a way to arrange text in columns and rows
Yes and people very rarely use the brakes on their car (they're only applied 10% of the time or less if you're driving smoothly). Lets save money by designing cars without brakes.
I think you've made way too broad a generalization here. I use Word to do complex formating, track revisions etc. every day at work. I also use Excel well beyond it's text abilities. For all my distaste regarding MS, Excel still is one of the most versatiles tools I've ever used. For a long time in my early 20s I used it for a contact manager. In my late 20s it helped me do astrophysics assignments when everyone else doing the masters course was using a calculator and having to repeat everything 6 times to makes ure they get it right. In fact rightly or wrongly (and I'd say wrongly) I've seen Excel used at a corporate levels to do work that should have been done by a much more specialized system. Call me atypical, but I've seen plenty of others in IT, and business (finance/banking/insurance) use more than couple of features you describe.
Slashdot Mirror
Funnily enough I learnt all you mentioned - from the source control to analysis of other people's code - in a University at Bachelor's level almost 10 years ago now. I didn't learn it _all_ formally but I did learn most of it in the process of doing my coursework.
I think it depends on the university and the course.
Before Shoemaker-Levy hit Jupiter, many scientists were skeptical that impact collisions in the modern solar system could even occur. How quickly people discount things that haven't been demonstrated.
Well the general gist of Linux advocacy under which this article falls certainly are suggesting that we replace Windows with Linux on the desktop. Since it's reasonably rare to wish to add Windows to an existing Linux install and since that is not what these articles are about, how well Windows does it compared to Linux is completely irrelevant. It is most certainly true that sticking with Windows will not increase your risk of losing data, while resizing and installing a Linux partition is a significant risk. An end user that hasn't got much interest in computers will very likely never try a second install of Ubuntu if the first one hoses their existing OS.
t -96224.html
In any case have you considered backup can also hose a system? I installed Acronis TrueImage on a computer at one point for a friend and he ran into this error (the post below is not by that friend)
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/archive/index.php/
Loved playing tech support on that one.
I've also seen Norton Ghost trash a system drive trying to back up partitions. Something funky about support for a particular hard drive controller chipset I think. In any case, hoses is hosed.
The fact is there's no excuse for software that deals with user data being so damned finicky. It's 2007 - how long has NTFS been around? How long has ext2 been around? You can never make anything completely idiot proof but the software should be damn near it by now. It's not.
Note that I'm not skewing this in favour of Windows or against Linux. Don't even get me started on how bad the Windows File Manager is, especially when you try to copy across network shares. (Why is there no resume option if a copy fails for instance? Any time I'm copying large data sets I'm still using robocopy - even the sync toy is buggy and crash prone)
Why are we all putting up with this shit?
I'd be looking for work elsewhere if I was getting that stressed.
It's a balancing act of course though. Every place you work at, every change of management above you all the way to head honcho. Each time you'll get some things getting better and others getting worse. If they're all getting worse you look elsewhere.
No, he has been told that Windows is more difficult to setup with preinstalled Linux system than Windows being preinstalled and Linux being setup after.
Yes, but you're not trying to advocate that users with Linux pre-installed should switch to Linux, so while you're right about the Windows partitioning software being awful it's a moot point because most people have machines that come with Windows pre-installed and don't deal with it. If the Linux software isn't up to scratch its easier not to try something that can hose their operating system and leave them having to try to work out how both installers work before their computer will run at all.
t calling you a sad troll & a dumbass is both satisfying to me & educational to fellow slashdotters who otherwise might take you seriously.
/. has gone to the dogs!!!
How does this post get modded insightful with trollish content like that?
Yeah the GP isn't terribly knowledgable and didn't make his point well, but that's no excuse to hurl abuse at him. Don't get me wrong - on occassion I've been guilty of the same, especially when I've thought the poster was saying something that was actually dangerous. However I'd not expect to be modded insightful for name calling.
The fact is that the GP was sufficiently confused by the installer that he didn't feel comfortable going forward with an install. I'd argue that's the right thing to do. Now I'm not familiar with the Ubuntu installer, but does it make it clear in advance what will happen if you proceed? Even in advanced mode for someone who knows Linux well I'd argue you shouldn't have to have prior knowledge of how the installer is going to behave to avoid hosing an existing partition. This is 2007. Any OS install and partitioning tool should make it very clear what's going to happen. Yes, Windows isn't up to par either.
Does anybody know what is the market penetration of Photoshop? 50%? 20%? 3%? of Windows users? Thanks!
Translation: I don't use it so I don't care about it. Others that use it can just suffer if we switch over.
Thanks for demonstrating the reason Linux hasn't taken off on the desktop: Attitude. What if the one user in your workplace that needs Photoshop happens to do something critical to the business with that software that can't be done with Gimp? The correct solution is to get Gimp up to the same standards before telling us how tired you are of hearing about it.
Well put! Thanks for making me laugh.
The summary should read "Being a geek is no advantage in marriage if you're an asshole". Its always amusing how people will give their other half access to half their stuff (in the event the relationship breaks down), the power to poison them (assuming the other half ever cooks), and the power to give them an STD (cheating or lying about sexual history) but worry about a fucking mp3 collection or sharing an account password. Let alone sneaking around behind your spouses back so you can have things your way (changing a netflix order etc.) Talk about having your priorities out of whack and a marriage that's waiting to disintegrate!
"No stops in between Earth and deep space" would be rather limiting on your ability to use a planet's gravity well to accelerate the spacecraft. None of our outer solar system space probes to date could have gotten there without one more more graviational assists.
Dups - A sign that the cycle is nearing its end and /. is due to become extinct.
I honestly don't think the part about increased radiation is new either. They may have more data and analysis but I'm sure it was always blamed on radiation.
The robots also have a bad habit of killing anyone that answers the door in the affirmative to the name "Sarah Connor"
I'm sure I've seen this before, possibly found out about it on /.
/ 03/10/MNGFIBN6PO1.DTL
Here's an article from March 2005
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005
It's only one of many theories. The wikipedia page that points to the article above discusses them all
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_extinction
Sex isn't the most important thing in the world. However if you've got zero interest in it I'd bet good money you haven't had good sex yet (or you have a medical condition that's preventing you from enjoying sex).
Man, I wish I was born in the Victorian era. Sigh.
Check the stats on disease, poverty and standard of living, and rethink.
Not sure I agree about 200 year life spans, but thanks for the well wishing - most appreciated.
Thanks for the info. I'll look into PEMF. (Taken a quick look already). I don't smoke or drink but am overweight. Statistical probability of long term weight loss if I didn't have a bad ankle is not good. It's even harder when most of the exercise I can do will exacerbate the ankle problem.
Thanks again.
I was born flat feet that point outward like a cartoon characters (angle between the feet in my natural stance is about 80-90 degrees). I was never going to be a long distance walker or runner and my shoes wear unevenly but I didn't think too much of it until I tried snow skiing and ice skating. Skiing on normal skiis just wasn't possible. My feet kept spliting and I'd feel it in my groin and go down hard no matter how I tried to point them in. Embarasing and painful.
However the ice skating is what did the damage (or at least its the likely culprit). The very first time I went ice skating just as I was learning to let go of the edge, my skates buckled. I was in agony and had to be dragged off the ice in so much pain I was screaming. Nothing was broken and they couldn't find anything in the X-rays so I was sent home on crutches. After about a week I was walking normally again. That was 17 years ago. From time to time I'd get some pain that would cause me to limp a little - no biggie - I jokingly called it my old war wound. About 4 years ago the pain came on strong and lasted a couple of weeks. I was X-Rayed and told I had very mild arthritis at least one ossicle (bone spur).
Earlier this year the pain came on again and basically doesn't subside for very long at all any more. I say the pain but I actually have several different kinds of pain - searing like a hot knife is stuck in the ankle, blunt pain like I've got something blunt stuck in it, sometimes throbbing when there's no weight on it, pain along the bones leading to the ankle. I did a CAT and an MRI and saw two specialists. One suggested putting off the fusion for a year or two and having an arthroscopy but the other more senior who I went to for a second opinion believes that'd be a total waste of time and I should go in for fusion surgery later this year (after my honeymoon). Apart from arthritis, ossicles, and resulting tissue thickening/fibrosis it looks like when the ankle buckled blood supply to part of the navicular bone was cut off. It's called avascular necrosis and it doesn't even show up in CAT scans for up to some months after the injury. MRIs show it up in a few weeks but they weren't so common 17 years ago. All I had at the time was X-rays. In any case I'm surprised at how primitive ankle surgery really is compared to other kinds.
I've had 17 years out of the ankle since it was injured. My other ankle will no doubt also start to get arthritic. I don't smoke or drink, but I am overweight which is terrible for this. Trouble is finding weight loss excercise which doesn't make the ankle worse is hard (I use to walk part of the way to work!). Hell long term weight loss stats are worse than stats on the op, so while I'm moderating my diet somewhat, I don't expect a sudden loss of weight will give me years more on the ankle. Apart from the pain which is starting to get to me the real issue for me is what effect it'll have on my ability to earn money. I do computer programming and support, but I imagine it'll be harder to get work later on. My understanding is a fusion will eventually turn arthritic too but I'll get from 7-15 years out of it (if it fuses properly. Too bad that'll mean I'm totally borked in my late 30s early 40s. I imagine that'll mean a cane or more likely a wheelchair. I've done a lot of research into this on forums and on PubMed (though there aren't many long term studies on ankle fusions of any kind).
I really wish the pain would just fucking go away. My fiancee's uncle had a heart attack and we went to visit. I had to slow the group down trying to find the hospital and room because I was in agony. I felt like shit about doing that but every step was agon.
At this stage I'm just coping, and the only pain killers I occassionally take are over the counter headache pain pills (paracetamol, and very occassionally ibuprofen). I don't honestly believe pain meds are a good answer. I just try to avoid long periods of standing or walking. I'd have to be on them permanently. I'm also on glucosamine which is an over the counter health food supplement that's suppose to be good for arthritis. (The specialists put me onto it, I'm not sure it's doing any good).
That's the whole story. My advice: Don't let your ankle get damaged if you can help it.
Antisocial people can make music by themselves without the need for the Internet. Sociable people will make music together with or without the Internet and may even use the Internet to help communicate when collaborating on a project.
Well I always find making beautiful music works much better with 2 people, and Mrs Palmer and her 5 daughters don't count.
I'm looking at having a mid-foot fusion sometime in the next year. Nasty operation. 3 months off my feet (and off work), only to be repeated a second time if it fails. Any weight on the joint in the first 6 weeks ruins the operation completely. Non-union's a 10-15% risk anyway, and there's also the risk of instability in the joint. I don't want to do it, but I'm told if I leave it too long I won't be able to walk and that in the medium term I have no other options. Once fused the bones can't be un-fused with current medical techniques. One of the bones I'm having fused looks like swiss cheese in the MRI and CAT scans. I'm worried that even if the fusion is a success it'll crumble in the long term. From a technical point of view the whole op seems like a really bad idea - it's just all they have to offer. Ever since I found out I've thought the best way would be to replace bad/worn out bone. I wonder if I've just been born a little early for proper bone replacement to be an option.
Unlike hip and knee replacements ankle surgery (especially replacements - thankfully not what I'm dealing with) don't have a high success rate. I wonder if this'll do anything to improve that.
We're using this between offices at work. Please tell me what possible use I could have for a love heart emoticon here. No offence to my co-workers but have you got any idea how offputting even the thought of using it is. Ewwww!
...and the standard of proof would be any politician holding or running for office.
That's all you're doing here transcoding one kind of information to another.
What's the point in encouraging people to invent shit if they get to lock it up for several lifetimes? What you'll get from this is one really bad DNA->music encoder, and every bit of competition locked out of the race for decades.
If the patent system were a car it'd be a rusted out common piece of shit from the 70s that isn't even worth salvaging as scrap metal.
WARNING - Alanis Morisette lyrics link. Not Safe For Work!!!
You've got a few too many words there. Let me fix it for you:
WARNING - Alanis Morisette Not Safe !!!
My friend uses OOo Calc for her assignments and I believe she is attending FSU. So if it's good enough for them then I imagine it's fine for whatever high school assignment you need.
Yes because we all know that if one person (of unknown skill) doing one degree in one way doesn't require a feature to do their job no one else will need it.
Honestly I've known incompetent coders who literally didn't understand iteration (could grasp the syntax of a for loop in a pascal like language). That doesn't mean we should do away with iteration in all modern programming languages.
I've tried OO calc and while some stuff was there and ready to use there's plenty that's missing and that I'm use to in Excel. Oh and by the way I've used Excel to do astrophysics homework at Masters level.
People very rarely use MS Word beyond the functionality that Wordpad offers. And they very rarely use MS Excel as anything but a way to arrange text in columns and rows
Yes and people very rarely use the brakes on their car (they're only applied 10% of the time or less if you're driving smoothly). Lets save money by designing cars without brakes.
I think you've made way too broad a generalization here. I use Word to do complex formating, track revisions etc. every day at work. I also use Excel well beyond it's text abilities. For all my distaste regarding MS, Excel still is one of the most versatiles tools I've ever used. For a long time in my early 20s I used it for a contact manager. In my late 20s it helped me do astrophysics assignments when everyone else doing the masters course was using a calculator and having to repeat everything 6 times to makes ure they get it right. In fact rightly or wrongly (and I'd say wrongly) I've seen Excel used at a corporate levels to do work that should have been done by a much more specialized system. Call me atypical, but I've seen plenty of others in IT, and business (finance/banking/insurance) use more than couple of features you describe.