of course, thats what i was saying. I left of the rest of what I trying to say. But Bleach was a pretty spartan album compared to Nevermind... then again, Butch Vig got big bucks for that record as a producer.
Its not the recording, its the producer. Studio time, at a decent studio runs between $300 - $400 an hour (NYC/LA). Some bands tend to keep within the 60 - 120 hours, so your taling about $50K for a marquee studio. The producer is the killer. If your a "hot item" new band, typically a record company will bring in a "big name producer" to direct traffic and guide the band. If your a veteran band, say like Aerosmith, you can call your own shots and require that the record company get who you want, regardless of the price. Now heres the kicker. Most producers take some upfront money, and depending on the band, will take some money on the "back end". Much like an actor or director, the record producer makes a point or 2 on sales. This of course is all guided by the record company and basically is very broad in terms, both legal and fiscal. Remember, Elvis Costello recorded My Aim is True for under $5,000. But then spent (estimated) over a million dollards on Imperial Bedroom, which was far less of a seller... Nirvana recorded their first album for $800 and it sounded like, Nevermind was MUCH more money as they had a bigtime producer twisting the knobs. So its all relative, and recording costs mean shit.
Its not the cost its the quality.
Another good example: Boston's first record (which I still think is one of the best recorded albums) was recorded in Tom Scholtz's basement, he did a few overdubs at a big studio, but for the most part the recording was free! So there ya go.
I agree the toolset for Java is better, and for business logic, you MIGHT sway me into believing Java has a better way of encapsuling the business logic -- but I'm not completely sold on this. If we're talking a Web application that accesses a database, does some XML and XSL, I have to be honest, I think PHP, Sablotron, Xalan, Apache and Postgresql are a far better application platform choice because of the performance, and its ability to scale vs. Java. IMHO.
Java is a heavy monster that requires a very large footprint on the machine, and I have NEVER seen a jsp or server container site scale all that well. You ever notice why the high traffic sites NEVER use Java (or if they do, they have an array of Sun boxes to make it scale well)? Amazon, Yahoo, ebay, Slashdot, Google, etc. etc. They choose to use the concept of "get in, get out" -- where if a page accesses a database, its very fast and very efficient and a very tiny mode of operation. I think Java is great, but the execution path of a servlet is almost three or four times as much overhead as something like PHP. When your talking PHP and the Postgresql layer, your basically at the bare metal, its going to be faster. I know, The argument is the development environment and is it worth the cost of performance for better development -- For me, And I have over 16 years of doing software development, have never been a fan of trading performance for "easier development". I think the customer has to use the application a lot longer than it takes to develop or maintain it, why make them pay the price for the developers needing easier development tools or a better "language". Sure, I love a great tool or language just like the next guy, but if the customer has to pay the price and watch and hourglass or wait for a page refresh -- that great tool is NOT going to make it onto my development platform.
But here's my thoughts on this:
1. Its not the language, its the design: PHP and Java both support the concept of "classes", arguably, PHP is not as powerful or as robust -- but if your an Object person, and you need them, they are there. To me, I've written so many languages in my life, that its almost a laughable argument as to "what language is better".
2. Java has better tools: Yes, they have MORE tools, I would agree with that. However, and this is where I've actually had to bite my tounge on Java because I think the tools out there pale in comparison to (I can't believe I'm saying this) to Visual Studio. I think the benchmark for good developer tools is actually Visual Studio, which everyone seems to try and mimic, but can't.
I've used JBuilder, Visual Cafe and Eclipse, and you know what? I end up going back to Emacs and the javac because I don't trust the damn tool, or the development environment was unstable or slow. JBuilder, the better of the bunch out there is OK for dialog based stuff, but when we are talking about server-side? Nah, Emacs will do.
Oh, and don't bring up some $10,000 tool, as I'm sure there are great ones out there, but lets face it, we're comparing it to Emacs and "free".
Lastly, I think its a testimoney to Postgresql that we're talking about the tools around it, and not making a fuss about the database itself. Going back to the original thread, I think Postgresql is probably one of the BEST open source products out there and deserves to be hailed as viable Oracle competitor, just as Linux is hailed as a threat to Windows on the server market.
Hmmm... I've done some Jakarta and Java, for that matter and I have to say that as much as I love the language, I find it sloooowww... I think PHP's Postgresql api is fairly easy and fast. I can't think of anything that beats it in performance, and if you've tried JDBC you'll not its not a speed demon.
I think i'd rather do a native C++ PHP module than actually instantiate nine gazillion class libraries in Jakarta/Java/JDBC.
There was a recent article, someplace, that has Yahoo! switching over to PHP. If you know anything about Yahoo, they want speed. They must know something we don't know for them to ditch their propietary C++ stuff in favor of PHP.
Yes its got a very good back up system. pg_dump, which is by far the ONLY way i'd want to back up. Not only does it dump your data, but it dumps your tables, views, stored proc's, etc. And to re-recreate your database, you simply import the script... Now if your talking replication? Thats a different story.
We've been running Postresql in production for over 3 years, we have hudreds of thousands of rows for each customer that uses our product. Fast? Please, it screams. Our initial choice was Oracle, but we couldn't eat the cost, it would have cost about $12,000 just for one server -- nuts if you ask me. We chose PG because it had 90% of what Oracle had and less the fat. Postgresql is far easier to get running and far better on the memory footprint, it runs in around 8mb's... big whoop. If you know anything about Oracle, its hardly good about memory, and one bitch of a product to get running (right). Lastly, I'll say this about Postgres, its in our opinion, and this is from 20 years of experience with Oracle (I go back to the Oracle 6.24 days when I worked for Prime Computer and ported Oracle to the 50 Series machines for Prime), that Postgres is much more stable out of the box on Linux than Oracle could ever be, Oracle is as buggy as it gets, and don't let Larry fool you. Its got bugs.
As far as this dude throwing shit at open source and saying that the commercial counterpart is better? Possibly, on the desktop you might be on to something, but I firmly believe that you CAN'T beat PHP, Apache and Postgresql as an application platform for 99% of the Web world out there. The three products in question that I mentioned are far better products than ANYTHING on the commercial market right now... And yes, they are Open Source.
I'm amazed at all the "parents" that are here, even when the demographic's clearly indicated that most of the folks blabbing stuff are under 22.
When I posted this question, I was asking exactly what it would take to bring linux to my kids without killing their computer experience. I wasn't asking for a Dr's opinion on my children's behaviors and their daycare needs. Wow....
My kids spend maybe 2 hours a week, at the most on the computer (mostly friday nights), as a matter of fact we actually try to encourage them to use it more than watch Sponge Bob. But you know how that goes. I'm not a parent who believes computers, television and MTV are to blame for the decline of America. I blame parents for the decline of America. My two oldest kids are both honor roll students and are happy and fun kids with normal likes and needs. The fact that they watch Cartoon Network, Nick and love computers won't make them stupid. Its up to me and my wife, (actually its our duty as a parents) to ensure that they get the proper education, are well adjusted and develop into productive and loving, compassionate people. I'm pretty sure that computers, tv and music won't be to blame if my children don't turn out to be any of the things that we (or they) aspire to be. We have only ourselves to blame if something doesn't turn out right.
I'd read it again, I wasn't asking for advice for raising my kids.
Incidently, my two eldest children (the topic of this post) are both honors students and read probably more than you or I do. In fact, my oldest son is actually considered an "outstanding student athlete" who received extra credit and future college tuition for his work as a student and Pop Warner play, as well as his musical talent (ouch!) on drums.
Dude, do you have kids? Do you even realize that kids are basically all about computers these days? Before you make dumb-ass statements, have a few kids and be a parent. There is NOTHING worse than a pimply 20 something telling you how to raise kids.
This post is about their interest in computers and how their Dad (me) can save a lot of headaches (and money) by going to an OS that might give them a better experience in the future and give them a slight lesson in technology economics.
On one hand/. people slam PanIP for holding a patent on basically the "air" that the Internet breathes (e-commerce), and we all slam them for having a "stupid patent", screaming that we should "put an to end all IP patents for software..."
On the other hand, this shitty little company has as just as "stupid" of a patent which puts the livelihood of IE in jeopardy and I see people wringing their hands like little children waiting for cake and ice cream after eating their veggies... I mean, people, this is pretty much same damn issue. But because its MS we all get excited.
I'm no MS fan, but I have to be honest here, this is basically bad for everyone.
Let's beat Microsoft with better technology and better service, lets not try to beat them with a legal system that clearly doesn't "get it".
I knew it was over (the Justice Department case) when I picked up a cheapo e-machines computer last week for $399 and realize that the copy of XP Home Edition was basically "married" to that machine and I could NOT use it on another machine -- even though I wiped the hard disk on e-machine and installed Debian. What did I pay for? Where's my copy of XP? Why couldn't I have the choice to buy the damn computer WITOUT XP and save some money?!
I'll agree that some programming errors *could* be fatal, but the one that comes to mind is the "2 line change" from AT&T that essentially knocked out phone service throughout the east and mid-west in 1990. It was the topic if many quality assurance seminars for the better part of the early 90's. I only remember it because it effected my company -- we lost phone service for 2 days. It was also one of those traditional "last minute changes" that someone clearly f*cked on...
We've been using Debian for about 2 1/2 years. We currently run about 15 servers on Debian 3.0 at the moment in an LVS situation--very scalable, very stable.
Prior that we were a Red Hat shop. Since our software is high-performance e-Tailing tools for the Catalog and Mail Order industry we made the "switch" (heh) from Red Hat to Debian because of three words: Stability, Stability, Stability.
Was Red Hat stable? Yes, was it as stable as Debian, maybe. But it was clearly "apt-get" that really sold us as we're consistantly RPMing the crap on our existing RH 6.2 machines, it became clearly a time suck to keep up with patches/updates enhancements of all the software in RH and all the software that we used in our application.
I think its fairly clear that people (outside the Debian circle) are souring on Debian because they don't include the latest release of KDE 3.x, or the installer is clunky, or the package management system isn't like XP or Red Hat. But in the REAL WORLD, we could care less about that stuff.
Hell, I don't think i've ever installed Debian as a desktop as its own beast, if I wanted a distro for a desktop using Debain, I'd go over to Libranet or even Xandro's/Lindows.
But to me, thats stuffs unimportant for my business, so I'm not intrested in it. Debian 3.0 is perfect for a small to mid-sized busines running Linux as an application server or database server. Trust me, its perfect.
First of all, our needs seem to be the needs of a typical Linux shop (server based installations, running Apache, PHP and Java). We aren't a company that believes the desktop for Linux is that radically important. Maybe this is why we chose Debian in the first place -- the graphical wiz-bang installers for us sucked because we would throw marginal video cards into our machine -- text mode, thats what we wanted. Sure, some pundits could "ding it" for not including some later packages (i.e. gcc, latest kernel etc.), but thats not really what you'd want for stability, would you? If you really want those packages -- Just point your sources.list over to some mirror and "apt-friggin'-get" it... I don't understand the fuss, but hey, people love to belly ache.
I believe that Debian fills the holes that other distro's (RH, Mandrake, Suse et. al) seem to leave -- a rock solid distro with a simple text based installation with a great package management system. If your running a large server installation, why would you need anything fancier? I think Red Hat in particular try's to concentrate on the server, but i'm not convinced -- plus, damn to its too expensive, if I wanted to spend that kind of money, I'd run XP Server... Mandrake's cute, and Suse' looks interesting -- again all desktop stuff... Not really where Debian fits in.
Hey look Debian is not a Ferrari, but hell, to me its like that old 1980 Mercedes 300D that you can't stop running and you can STILL get new parts for...;-) Its a workhorse -- its "Diesel babe". Thats what Debian is... we need these distro's out there folks. The flashy, shrink wrapped glizty ones are good to keep Linux chasing Windows in the hopes of catching it, but in the REAL WORLD we need the distro's you can pull of the net' install, and have it work... whats wrong with that?
Everyone is missing the point. H1-B's are here for reasons beyond "needing more tech labor". Thats a bunch of hooey. They're here cause they'll work for 1/16 the hourly wage as an American will work -- I won't go into quality of work, language etc. etc. Thats a different argument.
The point is that people that are here on an H1-B will work for peanuts. People that live here can't afford to work for peanuts. Case-and-point:
During the down turn last year, many companies opted to layoff employees and kept H1-B's (this is actually legal if its done right). Why? Because they work for practically nothing and save companies a boat load of salary! These folks don't have the same standard of living as a "typical" american owning 2 cars and a big fat mortgage with a PS2, X-Box and several hundred DVD's... H1-B folks are here clearly because they know they can do the work and make a lot more doing the work HERE. Plain and simple.
Its not racism, its corporate greed and American "fat cat" mentality thats caused this.
We (American's) demand cheap goods (food, gas, computers etc.). We all bark and scream when the price of gas reaches $1.90, or the price of PC memory rises. We demand lower prices, therefore companies need to accomodate.
Its actually fairly simple:
To keep the standard of living, and have these low prices, companies can't afford to pay software engineers $100,000 a year and expect to turn a profit selling software for $90.00 a pop. Think about it. If you've got 12 engineers making over $80K, how many units do you need to sell to recoup that cost??? And thats just an engineers salary.
This is the stuff that company's are battling. This is why we have 650,000 H1-B visa's here.
Also, I don't understand the "racism" thing. If someone is on a visa, they're "guests" of the country under the terms of what being a guest is all about. Regardless of what country they are from. If they have to be sent back for economic or political reason, HOW THE HELL is that racism?
I remember I got laid off from a company 5 years ago, when I looked around, I was the only Italian that got laid off -- should I call in the lawyers?
Its business. Stop bitching racism. Thats just dumb.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately.
What makes Windows so special and why are the PC makers requiring customers to purchase XP/98/2000 with a PC purchase? What's the number one reason people purchase a computer, and what are people using a computer for?
Answer these questions and you start to realize why Microsoft is so powerful. Couple of factors that we do know:
You cannot purchase a PC by the big three without paying for a license of Windows in some way or another. The cost is built into the purchase of every new PC from DELL,Compaq,HP,Gateway etc.
People mainly use a computer for three reasons: Games, burning audio and Web browsing. Yes things like "business" and word processing are important, but games are really driving the technology. If spreadsheets and word processing were the factor, we wouldn't need "honking" processors with oodles of memory. Ok, you need some "ooomf" to do the MP3/Burn thing, but most people with a Celeron 300 can get away with it...
I've been thinking about this a lot because I've setup a couple machines for folks that are "non-computer literate". I've come to the conclusion that most people *do not* need Windows. But they've been forced into Windows to survive.
Case and point:
Not only do they NOT need Windows, they would probably be better served by something like Linux because its cheaper and it gives you more bang for the buck. The unfortunate thing about this? Microsoft has really forced Windows down people's throat and made the OS ubiquitous and very hard to *not* have -- just by the 3rd party applications alone.
One person I helped with a computer problem (a neighbor) actually uses her notebook for her job, shes a court reporter. The interesting part of this story was that she had been using a Toshiba Laptop pre-installed with 95 since 1997 using a customized court reporting package (a $4500.00 piece of crap software that looks no different than Microsoft Works). When the old Toshiba finally died, she went out and bought a new Toshiba pre-installed with Windows XP Home Edition -- a honking machine. When she got it home, she went to install her software *for her job*, and couldn't because the software was not compatible with XP.
Incredibly, the company that makes the software charged her another $750.00 to get a "new version" which was XP compatible (which by the way is NO DIFFERENT than the previous version, other than it looks like they ported some things over to 32bit instead of thunking down to 16bit -- there were no visual changes to the software or features added.)
Did she need Windows? Yes, her software required it. But to her, it was a tool just to get her job done, she barely used anything in the Windows environment beyond the software for her job. However, I firmly believe that if it was Linux, she would not have known the difference. She only knew her application -- thats it. Now, I ask: had that software been on Linux, how much money would have been saved, and were options of purchasing a laptop been better? Its clear to me that if there was a Linux version of her software, she could have bought a used Notebook for far less *without* Windows and installed Linux on that... She didn't need a $1700.00 notebook pre-installed with XP, only to spend another $750.00 to get the "XP version" of her software. Such a shame. Such a scam
If you think about the way you purchase a PC today, most folks think Windows *IS* the PC. This is where Microsoft has completely succeeded. Its almost like people years ago used to say "Hey, I have the Internet, I've got AOL.". They are completely brow beat and marketed too by the power of Microsoft.
There is a perception by most non-techie folks that the only choice is Windows, they have no clue that they're getting robbed and there are other choices, why? Because the PC vendors don't make those choices available or clear to the consumer.
The gating factor for me with Linux on the desktop and its success, is the ability for the general public to be able to "do something" with Linux beyond the ability to browse a web site. Even though I believe for most people, Mozilla and KDE would be fine, for the big PC companies to make the major switch, Linux needs two things on the desktop to succeed: Games and 3rd party application support.
I actually think the 3rd party support is getting there, we now have more options for professional software than we ever did, and it'll get better because of the Apple movement with OSX. How long now before Photoshop and Ill. make it to Linux?
Games? Well, thats an area for debate I guess. I just think the day you can get Medal of Honor for both Win32 and Linux, will be the day that Linux on the desktop succeeds.
The main fear for the PC makers is not pissing of MS. They fear being "dropped a rung on the discount ladder" if they offer something other than the Microsoft product as a choice (i.e. Linux).
The margins are so low on PC's, if they get a crappy price on Windows, it could really eat into their bottom line. Hey, I'm no genius, but I think as a good business move, why not have the customer request the OS that they want and charge them for it!! I mean, it would be really nice to be able to get a Thinkpad and pick the OS from choices like Linux, Windows, BSD etc. Charge the customer! Whats the problem with this? Hell, we buy a car and ask for a custom CD-changer, and we pay, why do we expect to get OS's installed free?
I hate to bring up the Monopoly point again, but PC makers are a victim of Microsoft's power in the OEM world of Windows, and this hurts Linux's success on the desktop.
agreed. its interesting that the artist was a woman. Normally, women would want to censor that stuff. But lets face it, not everybody cares about people... artists are selfish and pretty self centered individuals. You have to be... right?
Incidently, i don't have a problem with you pimply little jackass whacking your self off to porn in the privates of your room -- do what you want, hey, go sell the stuff -- someone has too.
I think if you read what I was saying you'd note that there is a "time and place" for that stuff, and I don't think kids need to see it. Sheesh.
Oh, and my "worldwide what about the children" attitude is a HELL of lot more logical than your fucking flag burning, shave the whales, so-far-left-your-thumb-is-up-your-arse bullshit argument with "I fucking hate kids" BS. Nice, real nice. Whats next and argument promoting child-porn and that its constitutionally YOUR RIGHT to have it? please. grow up and get your head out of the fucking sand.
Exactly the reason why we need a domain to keep you looney nuts busy with... sheesh.
I'm "right-wing" now because I think kids shouldn't see a woman sucking a guy dick when they were trying to get to nick.com.
Or, I'm a "cock sucker" because I think pornography (which I actually don't have a problem with) shouldn't be next to the local Baseball Card shop.
You jokers need to have a few kids, or start paying some taxes -- oh wait, that would be aweful hard to do when you haven't left your dorm room in 2 semesters and your parents are still paying your way...
This is actually a fairly simple issue if people would take a step back and think about it.
Having a "place" where adult content is designated is not new concept. This happens in towns and countries all over the place. How many times have you heard of a town or city not wanting a "strip joint" next to the town hall, so they pass a law that says "sure you can have your strip joint, but only where we zone this kind of business". Just as you wouldn't want a department store located on a culda-sac, they make zoning laws that basically have "rules" so you don't have a "hell town" and property values drop...
Now that doesn't mean the street can't be someplace near a smelly dump, but you get the point.
There is NOTHING wrong with this. Jeez, you can't have a strip joint right next to a kids clothing store, its not right and its not appropriate, I don't care how your freedom of speech argument comes into it. Its just not right and if you think about it, its not fair to people to allow for this behavior.
The domain restrictions are a good idea. It prevents misrepresentation and strenghtens the whole notion that the Internet is not just the "wild west" anymore. I'm all for it. The bottom line: If your showing tits and ass on your site, thats adult stuff, and should be designated as such. If your showing art work with T&A, then you've got an issue. But I would also offer the notion that art can also be porn in some peoples minds -- but I think if you ask the artist, he wouldn't really want kids looking at his or her stuff (or if they do, they've got issues beyond freedom of speech). I'm all for shutting down sites that pull BS stuff like whitehouse.com, thats crap, and I think it sucks.
I think what will happen is that you'll see "clearing houses" where you can host your "adult stuff" and then link to it from your site. Almost like secure shopping cart services where you can "rent" an SSL certificate and shopping cart... Sure it costs more, but so doesn't the price of trying to explain to little johnny why that pretty young girl has a big penis in her mouth...
Actually, Hollywood has made Movie Trailer's LGPL. This means that if you remember them, you can recall them, but you can't alter or change them in your mind -- otherwise you'd have to release the memory of the trailer to the public with "your version" of what you remembered.
(AP) - Hollywood Exec's have filed a lawsuit against... All of Mankind.
Hollywood Executives today have filed a lawsuit and a motion to stop all
of Mankind from infringing on what they calling "long-term memory copyright infringment".
It seems that Hollywood fears that Mankind might actually retain copyrighted
material in long-term memory -- which Hollywood claims is a violation of the
digital copyright laws.
Tom Werner has been quoted recently as saying: "We've suspected for a long time
that most people retain what they see on television or in a movie for months, and we
believe that we are losing millions and maybe billions of dollars of revenue
because of this phenomenon. What we'd like to see is that all of Mankind simply
forget what they just saw within in a reasonable time frame, or atleast until
AFTER a show goes into syndication, and NOT steal copyrighted material by holding
it in memory."
The Holywood heavyweight and creator of Friends, a popular televion show which
airs on NBC, has been working closely with lobbyists to try and move a
bill into congress that would mandate all of Mankind to simply erase what
they watched on televsion or saw in a theatre within in a "reasonable time frame" before
they are in a 'copyright violation situation'.
Opponents of the law are having problems the language, mainly around the
terms "reasonable time frame". But insiders believe that eventually Hollywood
will be succesful in moving this law through congress and by doing so it will
require all of Mankind will to eventually forget anything that has been
copyrighted or trademarked. If Mankind does not do so in a "reasonable timeframe",
they (we) could stand to pay another "rental or transaction fee comparable to
the original fee."
The Artist Formally Known As Prince, has issued a
press release by saying, "The System is broken and now they need to find another way to
make more off the work of the actor, artist and musician. The artist is the
real loser in this situation. Now company's want to collect on copyrighted material
that you've remembered? Where and how does the artist get paid for this?
And what if two people want to swap memories? How do they handle that?
I think this will only force more artists to move towards a 'lifetime
memory subscription model', this way it will cut out the middle man and ensure that
the artist gets what he or she deserves."
I'll catch hell for saying this, but MySQL is a "dog with fleas"...
KernelTrap better consider getting off that "toy of a database" and move over to something more stable and scalable like PostgreSQL/DB2 or even (gack) Oracle. I'll never understand why people use that thing over a *real* database...
I see so many app's that are built around MySQL and PHP and I wonder what the HELL people are thinking.
That fact remains, if you want to run a desktop environment on linux, you have to use X right now.
There is not other choice (atleast one that is ready).
Sorry to disappoint you but I run a complete Linux shop here...
I'm just stating "my opinion", why you think that makes me a troll is your own opinion...
Which I can respect.
Hey knuclehead, to point out how silly your post is and how you just didn't "get it":
people aren't talking about the GUI of the browser, they're talking about HOW these browsers work in relation to HTML specifications and other plug-in's. Which some people here have already stated that they don't work very well...
Stop wearing blinders, open your eyes and look around a little.
Alsol, stop calling people trolls when you really have nothing else to say -- it sounds too much like "sour grapes" to me.
Just because you don't agree with someone doesn't mean that they are a troll... sheesh.
I don't disagree with much of what your saying except for the fact that used my analogy to compare Linux and X. Yes, Linux is based on 30 year-old stuff, but we're talking about an OS vs. a windowing environment. Big difference. I think that most people would agree that the graphical advances have far surpassed what advances we've made with OS's over the last 20 years or so...
I agree with your points about IE and the browser companies. I should clarify something: "IE Compatible" simply meant that when I go to a site that uses XSL or Flash (yech!) or Java Applet's -- it should "just work". Also, when you create some HTML/CSS or whatever in these browsers, it displays in them as good as it does in IE. Thats all. Hell, I use Konq, I like it, but there are somethings that I say to myself "wtf, why doesn't that look right...". Then I go over to my Mac or Windows box and sure enough IE looks pretty good.
Its just an observation.
Finally, your points about users not knowing what they want. Well, there was a time when company's could simply dictacted what they got, so the choice was pretty clear (no choice). Now the bar is raised because Microsoft (and Apple to some extent) have given people good and decent products over the years to raise expectations. People actually expect an Office package that "works" and an e-mail client that is fast and free, or a Media player that plays MP3's, DVD etc. You get my point.
All I was saying in my original post was that if Linux was to be a good desktop platform, there needs to be a different approach, thats all.
Oh, and I beat up on X11 because its easy to beat up on something that really wasn't intended to be used the way it IS being used. I don't think the original intention for X11 was for people write these massive desktops on top of X11, i think the original idea was that it was a nice windowed/networked environment that was fairly powerful... Its sort of grown into what it is today because of the Linux community (which is great), but I just have to believe in my heart of hearts that it would make more sense to simply take the desktop into a different direction.
Slashdot Mirror
of course, thats what i was saying.
I left of the rest of what I trying to say.
But Bleach was a pretty spartan album compared to Nevermind... then again, Butch Vig got big bucks for that record as a producer.
Its not the recording, its the producer.
Studio time, at a decent studio runs between $300 - $400 an hour (NYC/LA). Some bands tend to keep within the 60 - 120 hours, so your taling about $50K for a marquee studio.
The producer is the killer. If your a "hot item" new band, typically a record company will bring in a "big name producer" to direct traffic and guide the band. If your a veteran band, say like Aerosmith, you can call your own shots and require that the record company get who you want, regardless of the price. Now heres the kicker. Most producers take some upfront money, and depending on the band, will take some money on the "back end". Much like an actor or director, the record producer makes a point or 2 on sales. This of course is all guided by the record company and basically is very broad in terms, both legal and fiscal.
Remember, Elvis Costello recorded My Aim is True for under $5,000. But then spent (estimated) over a million dollards on Imperial Bedroom, which was far less of a seller... Nirvana recorded their first album for $800 and it sounded like, Nevermind was MUCH more money as they had a bigtime producer twisting the knobs. So its all relative, and recording costs mean shit.
Its not the cost its the quality.
Another good example: Boston's first record (which I still think is one of the best recorded albums) was recorded in Tom Scholtz's basement, he did a few overdubs at a big studio, but for the most part the recording was free! So there ya go.
Spoiler? Let me guess, most of the people here watch the movie THEN read the book?
Huh?
I agree the toolset for Java is better, and for business logic, you MIGHT sway me into believing Java has a better way of encapsuling the business logic -- but I'm not completely sold on this. If we're talking a Web application that accesses a database, does some XML and XSL, I have to be honest, I think PHP, Sablotron, Xalan, Apache and Postgresql are a far better application platform choice because of the performance, and its ability to scale vs. Java. IMHO.
Java is a heavy monster that requires a very large footprint on the machine, and I have NEVER seen a jsp or server container site scale all that well. You ever notice why the high traffic sites NEVER use Java (or if they do, they have an array of Sun boxes to make it scale well)? Amazon, Yahoo, ebay, Slashdot, Google, etc. etc. They choose to use the concept of "get in, get out" -- where if a page accesses a database, its very fast and very efficient and a very tiny mode of operation. I think Java is great, but the execution path of a servlet is almost three or four times as much overhead as something like PHP. When your talking PHP and the Postgresql layer, your basically at the bare metal, its going to be faster.
I know, The argument is the development environment and is it worth the cost of performance for better development -- For me, And I have over 16 years of doing software development, have never been a fan of trading performance for "easier development". I think the customer has to use the application a lot longer than it takes to develop or maintain it, why make them pay the price for the developers needing easier development tools or a better "language". Sure, I love a great tool or language just like the next guy, but if the customer has to pay the price and watch and hourglass or wait for a page refresh -- that great tool is NOT going to make it onto my development platform.
But here's my thoughts on this:
1. Its not the language, its the design: PHP and Java both support the concept of "classes", arguably, PHP is not as powerful or as robust -- but if your an Object person, and you need them, they are there. To me, I've written so many languages in my life, that its almost a laughable argument as to "what language is better".
2. Java has better tools: Yes, they have MORE tools, I would agree with that. However, and this is where I've actually had to bite my tounge on Java because I think the tools out there pale in comparison to (I can't believe I'm saying this) to Visual Studio. I think the benchmark for good developer tools is actually Visual Studio, which everyone seems to try and mimic, but can't.
I've used JBuilder, Visual Cafe and Eclipse, and you know what? I end up going back to Emacs and the javac because I don't trust the damn tool, or the development environment was unstable or slow. JBuilder, the better of the bunch out there is OK for dialog based stuff, but when we are talking about server-side? Nah, Emacs will do.
Oh, and don't bring up some $10,000 tool, as I'm sure there are great ones out there, but lets face it, we're comparing it to Emacs and "free".
Lastly, I think its a testimoney to Postgresql that we're talking about the tools around it, and not making a fuss about the database itself. Going back to the original thread, I think Postgresql is probably one of the BEST open source products out there and deserves to be hailed as viable Oracle competitor, just as Linux is hailed as a threat to Windows on the server market.
Hmmm... I've done some Jakarta and Java, for that matter and I have to say that as much as I love the language, I find it sloooowww... I think PHP's Postgresql api is fairly easy and fast. I can't think of anything that beats it in performance, and if you've tried JDBC you'll not its not a speed demon.
I think i'd rather do a native C++ PHP module than actually instantiate nine gazillion class libraries in Jakarta/Java/JDBC.
There was a recent article, someplace, that has Yahoo! switching over to PHP. If you know anything about Yahoo, they want speed. They must know something we don't know for them to ditch their propietary C++ stuff in favor of PHP.
Yes its got a very good back up system.
pg_dump, which is by far the ONLY way i'd want to back up. Not only does it dump your data, but it dumps your tables, views, stored proc's, etc. And to re-recreate your database, you simply import the script...
Now if your talking replication? Thats a different story.
We've been running Postresql in production for over 3 years, we have hudreds of thousands of rows for each customer that uses our product. Fast? Please, it screams. Our initial choice was Oracle, but we couldn't eat the cost, it would have cost about $12,000 just for one server -- nuts if you ask me.
We chose PG because it had 90% of what Oracle had and less the fat. Postgresql is far easier to get running and far better on the memory footprint, it runs in around 8mb's... big whoop. If you know anything about Oracle, its hardly good about memory, and one bitch of a product to get running (right).
Lastly, I'll say this about Postgres, its in our opinion, and this is from 20 years of experience with Oracle (I go back to the Oracle 6.24 days when I worked for Prime Computer and ported Oracle to the 50 Series machines for Prime), that Postgres is much more stable out of the box on Linux than Oracle could ever be, Oracle is as buggy as it gets, and don't let Larry fool you. Its got bugs.
As far as this dude throwing shit at open source and saying that the commercial counterpart is better? Possibly, on the desktop you might be on to something, but I firmly believe that you CAN'T beat PHP, Apache and Postgresql as an application platform for 99% of the Web world out there. The three products in question that I mentioned are far better products than ANYTHING on the commercial market right now... And yes, they are Open Source.
I'm amazed at all the "parents" that are here, even when the demographic's clearly indicated that most of the folks blabbing stuff are under 22.
When I posted this question, I was asking exactly what it would take to bring linux to my kids without killing their computer experience. I wasn't asking for a Dr's opinion on my children's behaviors and their daycare needs. Wow....
My kids spend maybe 2 hours a week, at the most on the computer (mostly friday nights), as a matter of fact we actually try to encourage them to use it more than watch Sponge Bob. But you know how that goes.
I'm not a parent who believes computers, television and MTV are to blame for the decline of America. I blame parents for the decline of America. My two oldest kids are both honor roll students and are happy and fun kids with normal likes and needs. The fact that they watch Cartoon Network, Nick and love computers won't make them stupid. Its up to me and my wife, (actually its our duty as a parents) to ensure that they get the proper education, are well adjusted and develop into productive and loving, compassionate people.
I'm pretty sure that computers, tv and music won't be to blame if my children don't turn out to be any of the things that we (or they) aspire to be. We have only ourselves to blame if something doesn't turn out right.
I'd read it again, I wasn't asking for advice for raising my kids.
Incidently, my two eldest children (the topic of this post) are both honors students and read probably more than you or I do. In fact, my oldest son is actually considered an "outstanding student athlete" who received extra credit and future college tuition for his work as a student and Pop Warner play, as well as his musical talent (ouch!) on drums.
Dude, do you have kids? Do you even realize that kids are basically all about computers these days?
Before you make dumb-ass statements, have a few kids and be a parent. There is NOTHING worse than a pimply 20 something telling you how to raise kids.
This post is about their interest in computers and how their Dad (me) can save a lot of headaches (and money) by going to an OS that might give them a better experience in the future and give them a slight lesson in technology economics.
On the other hand, this shitty little company has as just as "stupid" of a patent which puts the livelihood of IE in jeopardy and I see people wringing their hands like little children waiting for cake and ice cream after eating their veggies... I mean, people, this is pretty much same damn issue. But because its MS we all get excited.
I'm no MS fan, but I have to be honest here, this is basically bad for everyone.
Let's beat Microsoft with better technology and better service, lets not try to beat them with a legal system that clearly doesn't "get it".
I knew it was over (the Justice Department case) when I picked up a cheapo e-machines computer last week for $399 and realize that the copy of XP Home Edition was basically "married" to that machine and I could NOT use it on another machine -- even though I wiped the hard disk on e-machine and installed Debian. What did I pay for? Where's my copy of XP? Why couldn't I have the choice to buy the damn computer WITOUT XP and save some money?!
Old issue, but clearly still a valid one.
I'll agree that some programming errors *could* be fatal, but the one that comes to mind is the "2 line change" from AT&T that essentially knocked out phone service throughout the east and mid-west in 1990. It was the topic if many quality assurance seminars for the better part of the early 90's. I only remember it because it effected my company -- we lost phone service for 2 days. It was also one of those traditional "last minute changes" that someone clearly f*cked on...
http://www.soft.com/AppNotes/attcrash.html
Prior that we were a Red Hat shop. Since our software is high-performance e-Tailing tools for the Catalog and Mail Order industry we made the "switch" (heh) from Red Hat to Debian because of three words: Stability, Stability, Stability.
Was Red Hat stable? Yes, was it as stable as Debian, maybe. But it was clearly "apt-get" that really sold us as we're consistantly RPMing the crap on our existing RH 6.2 machines, it became clearly a time suck to keep up with patches/updates enhancements of all the software in RH and all the software that we used in our application.
I think its fairly clear that people (outside the Debian circle) are souring on Debian because they don't include the latest release of KDE 3.x, or the installer is clunky, or the package management system isn't like XP or Red Hat. But in the REAL WORLD, we could care less about that stuff.
Hell, I don't think i've ever installed Debian as a desktop as its own beast, if I wanted a distro for a desktop using Debain, I'd go over to Libranet or even Xandro's/Lindows.
But to me, thats stuffs unimportant for my business, so I'm not intrested in it. Debian 3.0 is perfect for a small to mid-sized busines running Linux as an application server or database server. Trust me, its perfect.
First of all, our needs seem to be the needs of a typical Linux shop (server based installations, running Apache, PHP and Java). We aren't a company that believes the desktop for Linux is that radically important. Maybe this is why we chose Debian in the first place -- the graphical wiz-bang installers for us sucked because we would throw marginal video cards into our machine -- text mode, thats what we wanted. Sure, some pundits could "ding it" for not including some later packages (i.e. gcc, latest kernel etc.), but thats not really what you'd want for stability, would you? If you really want those packages -- Just point your sources.list over to some mirror and "apt-friggin'-get" it... I don't understand the fuss, but hey, people love to belly ache.
I believe that Debian fills the holes that other distro's (RH, Mandrake, Suse et. al) seem to leave -- a rock solid distro with a simple text based installation with a great package management system. If your running a large server installation, why would you need anything fancier? I think Red Hat in particular try's to concentrate on the server, but i'm not convinced -- plus, damn to its too expensive, if I wanted to spend that kind of money, I'd run XP Server... Mandrake's cute, and Suse' looks interesting -- again all desktop stuff... Not really where Debian fits in.
Hey look Debian is not a Ferrari, but hell, to me its like that old 1980 Mercedes 300D that you can't stop running and you can STILL get new parts for... ;-) Its a workhorse -- its "Diesel babe". Thats what Debian is... we need these distro's out there folks. The flashy, shrink wrapped glizty ones are good to keep Linux chasing Windows in the hopes of catching it, but in the REAL WORLD we need the distro's you can pull of the net' install, and have it work... whats wrong with that?
Everyone is missing the point. H1-B's are here for reasons beyond "needing more tech labor". Thats a bunch of hooey. They're here cause they'll work for 1/16 the hourly wage as an American will work -- I won't go into quality of work, language etc. etc. Thats a different argument.
The point is that people that are here on an H1-B will work for peanuts. People that live here can't afford to work for peanuts. Case-and-point:
During the down turn last year, many companies opted to layoff employees and kept H1-B's (this is actually legal if its done right). Why?
Because they work for practically nothing and save companies a boat load of salary! These folks don't have the same standard of living as a "typical" american owning 2 cars and a big fat mortgage with a PS2, X-Box and several hundred DVD's... H1-B folks are here clearly because they know they can do the work and make a lot more doing the work HERE. Plain and simple.
Its not racism, its corporate greed and American "fat cat" mentality thats caused this.
We (American's) demand cheap goods (food, gas, computers etc.). We all bark and scream when the price of gas reaches $1.90, or the price of PC memory rises. We demand lower prices, therefore companies need to accomodate.
Its actually fairly simple:
To keep the standard of living, and have these low prices, companies can't afford to pay software engineers $100,000 a year and expect to turn a profit selling software for $90.00 a pop. Think about it. If you've got 12 engineers making over $80K, how many units do you need to sell to recoup that cost??? And thats just an engineers salary.
This is the stuff that company's are battling.
This is why we have 650,000 H1-B visa's here.
Also, I don't understand the "racism" thing. If someone is on a visa, they're "guests" of the country under the terms of what being a guest is all about. Regardless of what country they are from. If they have to be sent back for economic or political reason, HOW THE HELL is that racism?
I remember I got laid off from a company 5 years ago, when I looked around, I was the only Italian that got laid off -- should I call in the lawyers?
Its business. Stop bitching racism. Thats just dumb.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. What makes Windows so special and why are the PC makers requiring customers to purchase XP/98/2000 with a PC purchase?
What's the number one reason people purchase a computer, and what are people using a computer for?
Answer these questions and you start to realize why Microsoft is so powerful. Couple of factors that we do know:
I've been thinking about this a lot because I've setup a couple machines for folks that are "non-computer literate". I've come to the conclusion that most people *do not* need Windows. But they've been forced into Windows to survive.
Case and point:
Not only do they NOT need Windows, they would probably be better served by something like Linux because its cheaper and it gives you more bang for the buck. The unfortunate thing about this?
Microsoft has really forced Windows down people's throat and made the OS ubiquitous and very hard to *not* have -- just by the 3rd party applications alone.
One person I helped with a computer problem (a neighbor) actually uses her notebook for her job, shes a court reporter. The interesting part of this story was that she had been using a Toshiba Laptop pre-installed with 95 since 1997 using a customized court reporting package (a $4500.00 piece of crap software that looks no different than Microsoft Works). When the old Toshiba finally died, she went out and bought a new Toshiba pre-installed with Windows XP Home Edition -- a honking machine. When she got it home, she went to install her software *for her job*, and couldn't because the software was not compatible with XP.
Incredibly, the company that makes the software charged her another $750.00 to get a "new version" which was XP compatible (which by the way is NO DIFFERENT than the previous version, other than it looks like they ported some things over to 32bit instead of thunking down to 16bit -- there were no visual changes to the software or features added.)
Did she need Windows? Yes, her software required it. But to her, it was a tool just to get her job done, she barely used anything in the Windows environment beyond the software for her job. However, I firmly believe that if it was Linux, she would not have known the difference. She only knew her application -- thats it.
Now, I ask: had that software been on Linux, how much money would have been saved, and were options of purchasing a laptop been better?
Its clear to me that if there was a Linux version of her software, she could have bought a used Notebook for far less *without* Windows and installed Linux on that... She didn't need a $1700.00 notebook pre-installed with XP, only to spend another $750.00 to get the "XP version" of her software. Such a shame. Such a scam
If you think about the way you purchase a PC today, most folks think Windows *IS* the PC. This is where Microsoft has completely succeeded.
Its almost like people years ago used to say "Hey, I have the Internet, I've got AOL.". They are completely brow beat and marketed too by the power of Microsoft.
There is a perception by most non-techie folks that the only choice is Windows, they have no clue that they're getting robbed and there are other choices, why? Because the PC vendors don't make those choices available or clear to the consumer.
The gating factor for me with Linux on the desktop and its success, is the ability for the general public to be able to "do something" with Linux beyond the ability to browse a web site. Even though I believe for most people, Mozilla and KDE would be fine, for the big PC companies to make the major switch, Linux needs two things on the desktop to succeed: Games and 3rd party application support.
I actually think the 3rd party support is getting there, we now have more options for professional software than we ever did, and it'll get better because of the Apple movement with OSX. How long now before Photoshop and Ill. make it to Linux?
Games? Well, thats an area for debate I guess. I just think the day you can get Medal of Honor for both Win32 and Linux, will be the day that Linux on the desktop succeeds.
The main fear for the PC makers is not pissing of MS. They fear being "dropped a rung on the discount ladder" if they offer something other than the Microsoft product as a choice (i.e. Linux).
The margins are so low on PC's, if they get a crappy price on Windows, it could really eat into their bottom line. Hey, I'm no genius, but I think as a good business move, why not have the customer request the OS that they want and charge them for it!! I mean, it would be really nice to be able to get a Thinkpad and pick the OS from choices like Linux, Windows, BSD etc. Charge the customer! Whats the problem with this? Hell, we buy a car and ask for a custom CD-changer, and we pay, why do we expect to get OS's installed free?
I hate to bring up the Monopoly point again, but PC makers are a victim of Microsoft's power in the OEM world of Windows, and this hurts Linux's success on the desktop.
agreed. its interesting that the artist was a woman. Normally, women would want to censor that stuff. But lets face it, not everybody cares about people... artists are selfish and pretty self centered individuals. You have to be... right?
Incidently, i don't have a problem with you pimply little jackass whacking your self off to porn in the privates of your room -- do what you want, hey, go sell the stuff -- someone has too.
I think if you read what I was saying you'd note that there is a "time and place" for that stuff, and I don't think kids need to see it. Sheesh.
Oh, and my "worldwide what about the children" attitude is a HELL of lot more logical than your fucking flag burning, shave the whales, so-far-left-your-thumb-is-up-your-arse bullshit argument with "I fucking hate kids" BS. Nice, real nice. Whats next and argument promoting child-porn and that its constitutionally YOUR RIGHT to have it?
please.
grow up and get your head out of the fucking sand.
Exactly the reason why we need a domain to keep you looney nuts busy with...
sheesh.
I'm "right-wing" now because I think kids shouldn't see a woman sucking a guy dick when they were trying to get to nick.com.
Or, I'm a "cock sucker" because I think pornography (which I actually don't have a problem with) shouldn't be next to the local Baseball Card shop.
You jokers need to have a few kids, or start paying some taxes -- oh wait, that would be aweful hard to do when you haven't left your dorm room in 2 semesters and your parents are still paying your way...
jackasses.
This is actually a fairly simple issue if people would take a step back and think about it.
Having a "place" where adult content is designated is not new concept. This happens in towns and countries all over the place. How many times have you heard of a town or city not wanting a "strip joint" next to the town hall, so they pass a law that says "sure you can have your strip joint, but only where we zone this kind of business". Just as you wouldn't want a department store located on a culda-sac, they make zoning laws that basically have "rules" so you don't have a "hell town" and property values drop...
Now that doesn't mean the street can't be someplace near a smelly dump, but you get the point.
There is NOTHING wrong with this. Jeez, you can't have a strip joint right next to a kids clothing store, its not right and its not appropriate, I don't care how your freedom of speech argument comes into it. Its just not right and if you think about it, its not fair to people to allow for this behavior.
The domain restrictions are a good idea. It prevents misrepresentation and strenghtens the whole notion that the Internet is not just the "wild west" anymore. I'm all for it. The bottom line: If your showing tits and ass on your site, thats adult stuff, and should be designated as such. If your showing art work with T&A, then you've got an issue. But I would also offer the notion that art can also be porn in some peoples minds -- but I think if you ask the artist, he wouldn't really want kids looking at his or her stuff (or if they do, they've got issues beyond freedom of speech). I'm all for shutting down sites that pull BS stuff like whitehouse.com, thats crap, and I think it sucks.
I think what will happen is that you'll see "clearing houses" where you can host your "adult stuff" and then link to it from your site. Almost like secure shopping cart services where you can "rent" an SSL certificate and shopping cart... Sure it costs more, but so doesn't the price of trying to explain to little johnny why that pretty young girl has a big penis in her mouth...
thanks.
Actually, Hollywood has made Movie Trailer's LGPL. This means that if you remember them, you can recall them, but you can't alter or change them in your mind -- otherwise you'd have to release the memory of the trailer to the public with "your version" of what you remembered.
;-)
(AP) - Hollywood Exec's have filed a lawsuit against... All of Mankind.
Hollywood Executives today have filed a lawsuit and a motion to stop all
of Mankind from infringing on what they calling "long-term memory copyright infringment".
It seems that Hollywood fears that Mankind might actually retain copyrighted
material in long-term memory -- which Hollywood claims is a violation of the
digital copyright laws.
Tom Werner has been quoted recently as saying: "We've suspected for a long time
that most people retain what they see on television or in a movie for months, and we
believe that we are losing millions and maybe billions of dollars of revenue
because of this phenomenon. What we'd like to see is that all of Mankind simply
forget what they just saw within in a reasonable time frame, or atleast until
AFTER a show goes into syndication, and NOT steal copyrighted material by holding
it in memory."
The Holywood heavyweight and creator of Friends, a popular televion show which
airs on NBC, has been working closely with lobbyists to try and move a
bill into congress that would mandate all of Mankind to simply erase what
they watched on televsion or saw in a theatre within in a "reasonable time frame" before
they are in a 'copyright violation situation'.
Opponents of the law are having problems the language, mainly around the
terms "reasonable time frame". But insiders believe that eventually Hollywood
will be succesful in moving this law through congress and by doing so it will
require all of Mankind will to eventually forget anything that has been
copyrighted or trademarked. If Mankind does not do so in a "reasonable timeframe",
they (we) could stand to pay another "rental or transaction fee comparable to
the original fee."
The Artist Formally Known As Prince, has issued a
press release by saying, "The System is broken and now they need to find another way to
make more off the work of the actor, artist and musician. The artist is the
real loser in this situation. Now company's want to collect on copyrighted material
that you've remembered? Where and how does the artist get paid for this?
And what if two people want to swap memories? How do they handle that?
I think this will only force more artists to move towards a 'lifetime
memory subscription model', this way it will cut out the middle man and ensure that
the artist gets what he or she deserves."
...hey, its friday
Not hard to
I'll catch hell for saying this, but MySQL is a "dog with fleas"...
KernelTrap better consider getting off that "toy of a database" and move over to something more stable and scalable like PostgreSQL/DB2 or even (gack) Oracle. I'll never understand why people use that thing over a *real* database...
I see so many app's that are built around MySQL and PHP and I wonder what the HELL people are thinking.
flame off.
You and I think alike.
That fact remains, if you want to run a desktop environment on linux, you have to use X right now.
There is not other choice (atleast one that is ready).
excellent observation.
Not a troll... not at all.
Sorry to disappoint you but I run a complete Linux shop here...
I'm just stating "my opinion", why you think that makes me a troll is your own opinion...
Which I can respect.
Hey knuclehead, to point out how silly your post is and how you just didn't "get it":
people aren't talking about the GUI of the browser, they're talking about HOW these browsers work in relation to HTML specifications and other plug-in's. Which some people here have already stated that they don't work very well...
Stop wearing blinders, open your eyes and look around a little.
Alsol, stop calling people trolls when you really have nothing else to say -- it sounds too much like "sour grapes" to me.
Just because you don't agree with someone doesn't mean that they are a troll... sheesh.
I don't disagree with much of what your saying except for the fact that used my analogy to compare Linux and X. Yes, Linux is based on 30 year-old stuff, but we're talking about an OS vs. a windowing environment. Big difference. I think that most people would agree that the graphical advances have far surpassed what advances we've made with OS's over the last 20 years or so...
I agree with your points about IE and the browser companies. I should clarify something: "IE Compatible" simply meant that when I go to a site that uses XSL or Flash (yech!) or Java Applet's -- it should "just work". Also, when you create some HTML/CSS or whatever in these browsers, it displays in them as good as it does in IE. Thats all. Hell, I use Konq, I like it, but there are somethings that I say to myself "wtf, why doesn't that look right...". Then I go over to my Mac or Windows box and sure enough IE looks pretty good.
Its just an observation.
Finally, your points about users not knowing what they want. Well, there was a time when company's could simply dictacted what they got, so the choice was pretty clear (no choice). Now the bar is raised because Microsoft (and Apple to some extent) have given people good and decent products over the years to raise expectations. People actually expect an Office package that "works" and an e-mail client that is fast and free, or a Media player that plays MP3's, DVD etc. You get my point.
All I was saying in my original post was that if Linux was to be a good desktop platform, there needs to be a different approach, thats all.
Oh, and I beat up on X11 because its easy to beat up on something that really wasn't intended to be used the way it IS being used. I don't think the original intention for X11 was for people write these massive desktops on top of X11, i think the original idea was that it was a nice windowed/networked environment that was fairly powerful... Its sort of grown into what it is today because of the Linux community (which is great), but I just have to believe in my heart of hearts that it would make more sense to simply take the desktop into a different direction.
MS troll?
The "We" i speak of is the Linux community in which i'm involved in...
Go back to reading The Onion and eating Suzy-Q's you poor excuse for a human.
There, now I'm getting nasty.