When was the last time a video game made you contemplate some deep philosophical point? The thing is with all forms of media (Music, TV, Movies, Games, Books, Graphiti) that 90%+ of them are devoid of all actual content, and serve only an escapist function.
And when some form of media hits the right nerve, and becomes inspirational, it is quickly copied, and cliche-ed, and thus looses all content in retrospect.
And then there is the fact that there does not seem to actually be anything new under the sun, I forgot where I heard it, but there is only a finite number of plots, and the rest is nuance, meaning that most of we get is gonna be the same old crap. The art lies in pulling it off originally, which is getting harder and harder.
Also there is the growing amount of LCDism, the lowest common denominitor is where the money is, and thats what the name of the game is. Why bother being creative, when you can maximize your profits with the least amount of effort? Why risk breaking the mold? Remember that we are not dealing with art, we are dealing with buisness. Film is not art, games are not art, they are a way for people to make money, so creativity should not necissarily be a primary attribute, unless it sells, meaning that the masses clamour for it, which is obviously not the case.
I'm guilty of the sequalitus thing with books, film and movie, too. "I really like the way this is, the universe, it is too short, I want to experience more stuff like this."
Sorry to say, creativity has been pushed to a hidden little niche market, mostly done by small developers, crews. Art hides under the bed of entertainment, like so many insignifigant dust bunnies.
Man you got my hopes up, but according to the webpage it is 29.99, and not 9.99. I just got into the wireless thing, and think it seems fun, but have a hard time finding any free hotspots around my house, or even on my way about town. I think the one in the actual story, though, would be better being it actually gives a brief rundown of the spot, and not just strength, which my laptop seems to do just fine. (though the other computer on my network, which is sitting about 3 feet away, only registers moderate strength...)
And now, IMHO, there is even less advantage to 90% of the population for being a genius. I think the ball lies in the average court still. If your a genius you might think "out-of-the-box" (I hate that expression, BTW), which is frowned upon. We need drones, not more original thinkers.
I think the amount of genius' as compaired to the average joe is a relativly fixed percentage.
This is evolutionary, as related to culture, because above that percentage, your appeal (income, status) drops, and thus your reproductive appeal.
And if you notice, stupid people breed more. Which is all that matters. The educated wait longer for children, and have less. I'm using education as a metric for intelligence, which is slightly flawed, but not too much.
Actually the parent has a good point. WoM, and customer happiness is better than marketing. Not to say that marketing has no place, but once a good amount of people know about your product, if it is worth it's weight in salt, it will sell iself. But we the uberconsumer culture have forgotten this, in our climate of mass marketing for substandard product.
I trust what my freinds tell me (within their expertise) more than what corporate flack tell me. I downloaded (what was then) Phoenix because someone I trusted (and fellow/.er) told me it was a good program. A good portion of my freinds got FF just because I told them that it was good. I bought a Mac, and an iPod because people I knew and trusted told me they were quality, and let me play with them. The point is, if your product can't sell itself, it isn't worth a damn.
If your mechanic/auto-afficionato told you X car was better you would trust him more than they guy at the Ford lot.
Now that FF has more mass recognition, it just becomes easier to get people to consider, informed users are still need to sell it.
Sure Buttwiper spends more on advertising, but I still drink real beer, just because it is better, and people who know their beer reccomend it.
I don't know how the euro -> US$ conversion is, but an airport card costs $75, so it still is pretty much a steal, and a while back they had a $200 discount if you got an iPod. I ended up with an iBook (with AirPort), and a 20g Ipod for about us$1100.
Yeah, right now I'm EXTREMELY biased against XP. Right now the XP box I used for gaming that has been out of commission because of a PSU death, is deciding to force a reinstall (halts, then shuts down randomly) do to something that happened when I installed SP2 before the PSU went dead. I don't think I've ever had OS X upgrades force me to reinstall, nor any Linux distro upgrade.
Windows also has the bloat problem, where performance drops with use, and installing/uninstalling. Where an uninstall is better than extensive registry crawling, better = less time consuming.
But again, this is a gaming box, I get all my work done on OS X (where I do have the guilty pleasure of messing with terminal more than strictly necissary). And the box i'm teaching myself to code on is gonna be running Linux again, shortly, thinking of the new FC, with perhaps Gnome, just to see what the talk is about.
I'm not a linux guru, I still need to look up most commands, and spend more time typing man than doing anything productive. But I still can hack out DOS commands without any thought, which is a useless talent. It does seem easier in OS X to do all of your mounting and such via term too, more transparent, if you will.
Hence when teaching someone how to use a computer I keep all my OS disks around, and a USB drive of valuble apps for various systems. When teaching someone you should be prepared. Though I guess when someone gets their first computer, and has no experience, the story is different. I, honestly, don't have much experience or possible empathy in this department (I got my first computer with no experience, got lied to about it, killed it, and somehow ended up a geek in the process). But most people I know have at least me to help them, or someother family/neighborhood geek.
Yes, that would hose OS X, very nicely, BUT, what new user is gonna know that little CLI command? First they would have to KNOW about UNIX, then KNOW that OS X runs on it, then KNOW that and where you can get to it, then know the actual command, and by this, I'm guess that they know what it does. Meaning their is several layers of knowledge complexity involved, decreasing the odds of accidentally killing the OS, and if you do, you should know enough not to. I'm sure it can (and has) happened on accident, but the odds are pretty much nil, unlike a windows box where it can get hosed without the user taking any active step in that direction.
Though, running XPpro, I've managed to average a reinstall a year. Which is about what I get for any OS. My fathers ME box though (/me shudders) I would say needs a good reformat once a month, it just breaks itself through normal use, which is definatly a bad thing.
With OS X they keep the expert mode for experts by obscurity, basically guarenteeing that only real experts can mess with it, and 90% of users will not even know its there.
I haven't used Gnome in a good few years, but as long as the terminal is a needed and prominant feature, your gonna have more problems, since the curve on all linux windowing sys' I've used is pretty good. But then again I'm not a linux guru (unlike most of/.), I only use it to tinker with, and learn, also it is a nice part of my OS collection.
I've noticed that this thread is becomeing a morality/ flaming furry thread. I am not taking part. This is supposed to be tounge in cheek.
Let the furries do what they want, though this should have been marked adult. I can see some poor corporate thrall's boss looking at a log someplace, and going... "foxy earth humping web browser!, NEVER!"
Great, the.00005% of the population into the furry thing are digging Firefox now, just because it has an aminal in the name. I feel dirty. I'm gonna install something else now. Shit... this computer is also running Panther.
The thing is, when I try to teach people how to use computers, the first thing I tell them is "don't worry about breaking it, you can't." Then I sit around while they mess with it, ready to fix software problems.
The (overdone) analogy between computers and cars is deeply flawed. Cars have one layer of complexity, which is firmly meshed with interface (stearing wheel, pedals). Basically a car is completely HARDWARE. Computers have two layers of complexity, hardware (which should have a specialist to fix, being that Joe User is frightened of wires), and software, which is fixable even in the worst circumstance relatively easily. If worse comes to worse there is a reinstall or a reformat to fix it, and this possibility does not work in a car.
Sure, when I let Joe User futz around, I don't let him do it with admin access, he gets a limited user accound like all of us should, which means that he isn't going to mess up valuable internals of an OS.
The point is though, when we require a specialist we start to make computers seem like something serious, that takes some great effort to fix, when we should be busy demystifying the box. People shouldn't be frightened to go inside and tinker, that is how most of us learned afterall. I think in the process of learning to computer I must have hosed HUNDREDS of installs of all the OSs I know. Notice where the analogy breaks down (pun unintended), I can hose my car once, and then pay for it, I can hose my install of XP MILLIONS of times for free, with no serious consiquences.
Hell I've intentionally hosed OS X several times just to see if I could do it, just to see how much I can mess with the internals. My Mac friends hate me and are in awe of it. Back in the day I even wrote a cute little basic program just to hose Dos 5, to see what it would take.
Computers should not be something feared, we should have just enough respect for them to take care of them, and that is it.
Why the hell should professionals mess with my computer? Sure, I'm not Joe User, but there is no reason for it. Most things are all hardware, little black boxes in your kitchen, and all we know is that this box makes toast, this one heats soup, so I can see the need for a technician. bu computers CAN be different. Computers don't NEED to have people who are professional software fixers. A good operating system for the masses should be simple and transparent. As should good software, and make it possible for the most base of users to fix it. OS X does come close to this, XP is damn far, and all the Linux distros I've tried are lightyears away.
So techno is like the Tao? Those who know don't tell, and those who tell don't know? I hate "artforms" designed for the elite (like Pollack, and Warhol). Art should be immediatly recognizable, and have effects on all people who listen to it. There is no exuse for elitism.
The thing we define as real is that which is available. While i'm sure "real" techno is good, and "real" rap is good. In truth the real is what is on TV, what is on the top 100, everything else is an elitest niche. The Real is what the masses get.
Though, if I was feeling particularly post-modern today, I would rant about how there is no Real....
Rap is talentless idiocy. I don't care which culture likes it, it does not make it good music. It is repetative, it is devoid of any lyrical merit. Most of it endorces the very things that keeps their culture down, guns, drugs, whores, demeaning women. Any type of thing that makes being a violent "thug" seem like a preferable course of action, is completely devoid of merit, unless it has a strong sense of irony. Lets face it, any moron can string together a mindless repetative bass line, then badly rhyme about shootin' yo crack hos to it. Rap is the only music more mindless than techno. Especially now.
And how many black people have been to africa or are from there? I HATE that PCism, let whoever call themselves whatever they want, as long as it is accurate. I am not a Western Europo American. I'm just a white guy, or to be technical a caucasian. But I don't care if people call me a white guy.
Does anything really have practical value? Well, anything artistic or aesthetic? Do we need GUI, CLI works just fine. Do we need art, at all? I would say we do, being that it has been around since we have been, as a species. I would say that all artistic and creative endevour have practical value, perhaps not in the same sense as a ratchet or a computer, but in a more deep psychological sense. And as our societies get more and more complex and stress inducing, I would say that the value of good art increases.
A symphony is better than MOST (not all) video games because of the depth of content, the thought put into it, and the fact that is a deep passive medium (unlike most modern music which is lyrics driven, with minimum musical talent). While some video games have acheived this level of emotional impact (Tetris), for the most part they still lie at the level of reality TV.
In both cases, you experience the thing for a while, then when you're done, you've got nothing to show for it except the experience.
Isn't this true of EVERYTHING in life? You go to school, and all you have later is the experience. You do science, and all you have later is empirical evidence, which is experience. You learn and grow ONLY from experience. I think you try to belittle a VERY big concept. Experience is all we have once genetics stop.
I went to a couple symphonies lately (through my school), and left feeling much better, more at peace, happier. Sure, in a day life caught back up with me and took that feeling away, but when I close my eyes I can still relive it to a point. This is not worthless, this is how we stay sane.
you have to dodge commercials of the recanned and redubbed Japanese game shows to watch it.
I think the parent did mention it, but didn't really feel it worthy to name. That show was actually amusing the first 10 times I watched it, but now it is just boring and empty, completely devoid of any content or real humor.
The average/.er today discovered that hs kids are obsessed with sex. Meanwhile the rest of the world has known this since they themselves were in hs, but being that most of/. was too busy cowering from big bullies in front of their computers, this could rank as genuine news.
In other news, the/. crowd has become obsessed with their new enlightenment.
Okay people, we got the sex aspect of school down. What should be emphasized, IMHO, is that you can make money from it in the future, and yes, involve games (as an industry). Way-back-when, when I was in HS all of my extracurricular activities were mostly based on what I wanted to do with my future (excluding the gaming circle). Highlight the potential profitability of programming (games?),and then being that the average hser has no control over their enviroment emphasize the fact that you can actually CREATE things. Try to make this whole venture into a simple package, with lots of flash (and optional content for the interested), and I think you have a way to cut through the hs ennui and anti-geek sentiments.
Why should the government be forced to enforce open source? I think you should just send the source to the gov't, get your protection, and then do what you will with it, like release it open, or keep it to yourself. Software politics (os vs. cs) really should have nothing to do with gov't, it is an buisness venture, and ONLY buisness.
I also do not agree that software should be copyrighted in the fist place. The patent system is where software firmly belongs. Though, sadly, it doesn't matter, being that it will remain where it is, thanks to the software lobby, and both systems are broken beyond the point of being useful, even if both are good ideas in theory.
Did you really need an anology for that? You could have explained that people use what is familiour to them. simple. One sentence.
My father used to scream at me for being so extreme in my anti-MS and anti-IE views. His ideology followed yours, except with an opposite conclusion. IE and Win gives the computer industry a standard, not some centrally devised one, but a more organic one. With HTML and such I disagree with him, where having, and adhering to, a central standard is probably best. But with Windows, in theory at least, he has a point. What is needed is either univeral cross-platform translation, or one platform. I'm not some Windows drone mind, being that I don't think that we are ready for this yet, being that the viable OS choices are still evolving.
I can see the point though for MS becoming a standard, and that that is not, in theory, a bad thing. In the real world it is, though, being that they are probably one of the worst software companies out there, both in ethics, and in product.
I guess one mans bloat is another mans feature. I'd suggest you switch to Lynx, though, it is about the most featureless, unbloated browser in existence.
Seriously though, when I think of bloat I think of the monolithic suites, like Moz and Netscape. I really don't see FF as bloated, I see it as rather streamlined, and see most of the bloat as features that actually do make browsing more pleasurable/productive.
Why would a minimalist spartin browser be a good thing? Sure, the simplicity aesthetic is nice, but so is functionality. I like the fact that my car has a CD player, even if it is not strictly necissary. I like that I can have all open pages nicely displayed on the top of the window. I like that I can use gestures to save me from sweeping the mouse to the top of the screen, or using keyboard shortcuts. I like the little search app, it saves me typing, and thus time.
I think that there is an optimal level between features and bloat. If you have enough features, or keep them optional (ala FF), then you have a good browser that meets the needs of the user, but if you start adding features that only the developers find neat, and no one else cares, then you run into bloat. I like the extension ideology of firefox though, where you let the user decide what is neat. There are times where I have bloated FF to hell on my own, and there are other times when I get down to the bare minimum needed for comfortable browsing (mouse gestures).
I really find your opinion ungrounded, though. You are such a small market that you should think about programming your own. A majority of people would opt for pleasure over strict minimalism. Strict minimalism serves some intangible good, I'm sure, but no one really cares. And who can blame them?
Last time I checked my Macs default browser was Safari, and default mail app was.. er... mail.app. Okay, IE did come bundled with it because I'm sure there are some icky pages out there that will not render in Safari.
The first thing I did with my "cage" of an OS is install Firefox and Tbird, though I still use Safari from time to time for a change.
On my Windows Box I use Firefox only, with TBird and Gmail for email. Sure IE came bundled with it, but that doesn't actually mean anything except Microsoft promoting there own self interest, that does not mean that it is a usable, safe, freindly, product.
Great, so we must resort to the tyranny of the masses, since when have the masses been right? I doubt, and have some empirical data to back this, that most IE users would use IE is they were given, or knew of, a proper choice.
I really don't believe that you said "standard" and IE in the same sentence. IE doesn't like standards, it likes breaking them.
I don't think that the browser (or OS) question has anything to do with being different. It has to do with personal preference. I'm sure your against that as well, but that is one of the great things of the post industrial age, we can CHOOSE what product fits us. Right now I have 3 flavors of OS running on 2 boxes, and I like each of them for different reasons and applications. How is this being different? Well, as I see it I am more tech savvy than the average dude with a Dell, and thus my preferences are more sophisticated being that I know better what is out there, and better how to use it.
It's like telling people to stick with a $5.00 Cabernet, because that is what most people drink for dinner, and is a good enough standard. It's all a matter of taste. You go drink your Julio Brothers, I'm sure you enjoy it, but someone drinking a nice merlot doesn't hurt you, now, does it? Me running FF doesn't either. Relax, and make sure to virus scan, you could be a risk to us all.
So, I'm guessing (from rought demographics) that neither you nor the original poster are actually black, and thus really cannot be offended by said coment ("bow,nigger"). What you are doing is nothing but a relic of the idiotic PC movement, where upperclass white men decided to become the guardians of good taste (and advocates of a post-modern version of newspeak), and keep all forms of offence from any historically opressed minority group.
I could see the validity of you and the original posters complaints if this was a statment (or command, if you will) that was actually aimed at someone of black decent, or if you, naive from RTFAing, were black and mistakenly thought that/. was commanding you. But being that neither of these are the case, you really have no reason at all to comment.
And by not agreeing with context as being the key to meaning, then you agree that we should censor our language to make minority groups more comfortable, which IMHO is deplorable. If someone can point out genuine offence because of this, I'll shut up, and quietly admit defeat, but being that I really cannot see this, I will not.
Sacraficing mod points for this. I am a new Mac person, and would like to know how you did this? Is this with the standard software, or did you have to buy something?
seeing a little-known niche thing becoming mainstream
I never really saw it that way, wow. Now I actually feel kinda sad, like my child is leaving the nest. I've been sticking with FF since it was Phoenix, participating (via bugzilla, and such, and trolling/.), and then once it got to.7 trying to get everyone and their dog to switch. And now it's like our big communal geek baby is ready for the world...
It kind of a unique feeling, since most of us are responsible for this, each of us reporting bugs, getting people to switch is culminating into this... Not this as in the ad, but this as in FF becoming mainstream. A bunch of lazy geeks, who are getting paid nothing, are creating a cultural artifact almost accidentally, and with no organization, just communal good sense. Hmmm...
I'd much rather be up front with them. I would feel bad just lying to them, like some of the people on this discussion did with a incognito Linux install. My parents are not children, and they coughed up good money for their box, so they should know what I'm doing to it. Especially since the title bar will proudly declair Moz Firefox (though an impromptu install of firesomething would have been funny, if it was still.9 or PR)
I think I will install the new Netscape though, being that it is a tweaked FF, with the silly brandname that they want. It's a greedy corporate browser, it can't be bad!
Slashdot Mirror
Lack of skin cancer*: priceless
*(from never seeing the sun)
When was the last time a video game made you contemplate some deep philosophical point? The thing is with all forms of media (Music, TV, Movies, Games, Books, Graphiti) that 90%+ of them are devoid of all actual content, and serve only an escapist function.
And when some form of media hits the right nerve, and becomes inspirational, it is quickly copied, and cliche-ed, and thus looses all content in retrospect.
And then there is the fact that there does not seem to actually be anything new under the sun, I forgot where I heard it, but there is only a finite number of plots, and the rest is nuance, meaning that most of we get is gonna be the same old crap. The art lies in pulling it off originally, which is getting harder and harder.
Also there is the growing amount of LCDism, the lowest common denominitor is where the money is, and thats what the name of the game is. Why bother being creative, when you can maximize your profits with the least amount of effort? Why risk breaking the mold? Remember that we are not dealing with art, we are dealing with buisness. Film is not art, games are not art, they are a way for people to make money, so creativity should not necissarily be a primary attribute, unless it sells, meaning that the masses clamour for it, which is obviously not the case.
I'm guilty of the sequalitus thing with books, film and movie, too. "I really like the way this is, the universe, it is too short, I want to experience more stuff like this."
Sorry to say, creativity has been pushed to a hidden little niche market, mostly done by small developers, crews. Art hides under the bed of entertainment, like so many insignifigant dust bunnies.
Man you got my hopes up, but according to the webpage it is 29.99, and not 9.99. I just got into the wireless thing, and think it seems fun, but have a hard time finding any free hotspots around my house, or even on my way about town. I think the one in the actual story, though, would be better being it actually gives a brief rundown of the spot, and not just strength, which my laptop seems to do just fine. (though the other computer on my network, which is sitting about 3 feet away, only registers moderate strength...)
And now, IMHO, there is even less advantage to 90% of the population for being a genius. I think the ball lies in the average court still. If your a genius you might think "out-of-the-box" (I hate that expression, BTW), which is frowned upon. We need drones, not more original thinkers.
I think the amount of genius' as compaired to the average joe is a relativly fixed percentage.
This is evolutionary, as related to culture, because above that percentage, your appeal (income, status) drops, and thus your reproductive appeal.
And if you notice, stupid people breed more. Which is all that matters. The educated wait longer for children, and have less. I'm using education as a metric for intelligence, which is slightly flawed, but not too much.
Actually the parent has a good point. WoM, and customer happiness is better than marketing. Not to say that marketing has no place, but once a good amount of people know about your product, if it is worth it's weight in salt, it will sell iself. But we the uberconsumer culture have forgotten this, in our climate of mass marketing for substandard product.
/.er) told me it was a good program. A good portion of my freinds got FF just because I told them that it was good. I bought a Mac, and an iPod because people I knew and trusted told me they were quality, and let me play with them. The point is, if your product can't sell itself, it isn't worth a damn.
I trust what my freinds tell me (within their expertise) more than what corporate flack tell me. I downloaded (what was then) Phoenix because someone I trusted (and fellow
If your mechanic/auto-afficionato told you X car was better you would trust him more than they guy at the Ford lot.
Now that FF has more mass recognition, it just becomes easier to get people to consider, informed users are still need to sell it.
Sure Buttwiper spends more on advertising, but I still drink real beer, just because it is better, and people who know their beer reccomend it.
I don't know how the euro -> US$ conversion is, but an airport card costs $75, so it still is pretty much a steal, and a while back they had a $200 discount if you got an iPod. I ended up with an iBook (with AirPort), and a 20g Ipod for about us$1100.
Yeah, right now I'm EXTREMELY biased against XP. Right now the XP box I used for gaming that has been out of commission because of a PSU death, is deciding to force a reinstall (halts, then shuts down randomly) do to something that happened when I installed SP2 before the PSU went dead. I don't think I've ever had OS X upgrades force me to reinstall, nor any Linux distro upgrade.
Windows also has the bloat problem, where performance drops with use, and installing/uninstalling. Where an uninstall is better than extensive registry crawling, better = less time consuming.
But again, this is a gaming box, I get all my work done on OS X (where I do have the guilty pleasure of messing with terminal more than strictly necissary). And the box i'm teaching myself to code on is gonna be running Linux again, shortly, thinking of the new FC, with perhaps Gnome, just to see what the talk is about.
I'm not a linux guru, I still need to look up most commands, and spend more time typing man than doing anything productive. But I still can hack out DOS commands without any thought, which is a useless talent. It does seem easier in OS X to do all of your mounting and such via term too, more transparent, if you will.
Hence when teaching someone how to use a computer I keep all my OS disks around, and a USB drive of valuble apps for various systems. When teaching someone you should be prepared. Though I guess when someone gets their first computer, and has no experience, the story is different. I, honestly, don't have much experience or possible empathy in this department (I got my first computer with no experience, got lied to about it, killed it, and somehow ended up a geek in the process). But most people I know have at least me to help them, or someother family/neighborhood geek.
/.), I only use it to tinker with, and learn, also it is a nice part of my OS collection.
Yes, that would hose OS X, very nicely, BUT, what new user is gonna know that little CLI command? First they would have to KNOW about UNIX, then KNOW that OS X runs on it, then KNOW that and where you can get to it, then know the actual command, and by this, I'm guess that they know what it does. Meaning their is several layers of knowledge complexity involved, decreasing the odds of accidentally killing the OS, and if you do, you should know enough not to. I'm sure it can (and has) happened on accident, but the odds are pretty much nil, unlike a windows box where it can get hosed without the user taking any active step in that direction.
Though, running XPpro, I've managed to average a reinstall a year. Which is about what I get for any OS. My fathers ME box though (/me shudders) I would say needs a good reformat once a month, it just breaks itself through normal use, which is definatly a bad thing.
With OS X they keep the expert mode for experts by obscurity, basically guarenteeing that only real experts can mess with it, and 90% of users will not even know its there.
I haven't used Gnome in a good few years, but as long as the terminal is a needed and prominant feature, your gonna have more problems, since the curve on all linux windowing sys' I've used is pretty good. But then again I'm not a linux guru (unlike most of
Replying to yourself is bad, but I feel I must.
I've noticed that this thread is becomeing a morality/ flaming furry thread. I am not taking part. This is supposed to be tounge in cheek.
Let the furries do what they want, though this should have been marked adult. I can see some poor corporate thrall's boss looking at a log someplace, and going... "foxy earth humping web browser!, NEVER!"
Great, the .00005% of the population into the furry thing are digging Firefox now, just because it has an aminal in the name. I feel dirty. I'm gonna install something else now. Shit... this computer is also running Panther.
DAMN YOU FURRIES!
The thing is, when I try to teach people how to use computers, the first thing I tell them is "don't worry about breaking it, you can't." Then I sit around while they mess with it, ready to fix software problems.
The (overdone) analogy between computers and cars is deeply flawed. Cars have one layer of complexity, which is firmly meshed with interface (stearing wheel, pedals). Basically a car is completely HARDWARE. Computers have two layers of complexity, hardware (which should have a specialist to fix, being that Joe User is frightened of wires), and software, which is fixable even in the worst circumstance relatively easily. If worse comes to worse there is a reinstall or a reformat to fix it, and this possibility does not work in a car.
Sure, when I let Joe User futz around, I don't let him do it with admin access, he gets a limited user accound like all of us should, which means that he isn't going to mess up valuable internals of an OS.
The point is though, when we require a specialist we start to make computers seem like something serious, that takes some great effort to fix, when we should be busy demystifying the box. People shouldn't be frightened to go inside and tinker, that is how most of us learned afterall. I think in the process of learning to computer I must have hosed HUNDREDS of installs of all the OSs I know. Notice where the analogy breaks down (pun unintended), I can hose my car once, and then pay for it, I can hose my install of XP MILLIONS of times for free, with no serious consiquences.
Hell I've intentionally hosed OS X several times just to see if I could do it, just to see how much I can mess with the internals. My Mac friends hate me and are in awe of it. Back in the day I even wrote a cute little basic program just to hose Dos 5, to see what it would take.
Computers should not be something feared, we should have just enough respect for them to take care of them, and that is it.
Why the hell should professionals mess with my computer? Sure, I'm not Joe User, but there is no reason for it. Most things are all hardware, little black boxes in your kitchen, and all we know is that this box makes toast, this one heats soup, so I can see the need for a technician. bu computers CAN be different. Computers don't NEED to have people who are professional software fixers. A good operating system for the masses should be simple and transparent. As should good software, and make it possible for the most base of users to fix it. OS X does come close to this, XP is damn far, and all the Linux distros I've tried are lightyears away.
So techno is like the Tao? Those who know don't tell, and those who tell don't know? I hate "artforms" designed for the elite (like Pollack, and Warhol). Art should be immediatly recognizable, and have effects on all people who listen to it. There is no exuse for elitism.
The thing we define as real is that which is available. While i'm sure "real" techno is good, and "real" rap is good. In truth the real is what is on TV, what is on the top 100, everything else is an elitest niche. The Real is what the masses get.
Though, if I was feeling particularly post-modern today, I would rant about how there is no Real....
Rap is talentless idiocy. I don't care which culture likes it, it does not make it good music. It is repetative, it is devoid of any lyrical merit. Most of it endorces the very things that keeps their culture down, guns, drugs, whores, demeaning women. Any type of thing that makes being a violent "thug" seem like a preferable course of action, is completely devoid of merit, unless it has a strong sense of irony. Lets face it, any moron can string together a mindless repetative bass line, then badly rhyme about shootin' yo crack hos to it. Rap is the only music more mindless than techno. Especially now.
And how many black people have been to africa or are from there? I HATE that PCism, let whoever call themselves whatever they want, as long as it is accurate. I am not a Western Europo American. I'm just a white guy, or to be technical a caucasian. But I don't care if people call me a white guy.
Now flame me and mod me down, please.
Does anything really have practical value? Well, anything artistic or aesthetic? Do we need GUI, CLI works just fine. Do we need art, at all? I would say we do, being that it has been around since we have been, as a species. I would say that all artistic and creative endevour have practical value, perhaps not in the same sense as a ratchet or a computer, but in a more deep psychological sense. And as our societies get more and more complex and stress inducing, I would say that the value of good art increases.
A symphony is better than MOST (not all) video games because of the depth of content, the thought put into it, and the fact that is a deep passive medium (unlike most modern music which is lyrics driven, with minimum musical talent). While some video games have acheived this level of emotional impact (Tetris), for the most part they still lie at the level of reality TV.
In both cases, you experience the thing for a while, then when you're done, you've got nothing to show for it except the experience.
Isn't this true of EVERYTHING in life? You go to school, and all you have later is the experience. You do science, and all you have later is empirical evidence, which is experience. You learn and grow ONLY from experience. I think you try to belittle a VERY big concept. Experience is all we have once genetics stop.
I went to a couple symphonies lately (through my school), and left feeling much better, more at peace, happier. Sure, in a day life caught back up with me and took that feeling away, but when I close my eyes I can still relive it to a point. This is not worthless, this is how we stay sane.
you have to dodge commercials of the recanned and redubbed Japanese game shows to watch it.
I think the parent did mention it, but didn't really feel it worthy to name. That show was actually amusing the first 10 times I watched it, but now it is just boring and empty, completely devoid of any content or real humor.
The average /.er today discovered that hs kids are obsessed with sex. Meanwhile the rest of the world has known this since they themselves were in hs, but being that most of /. was too busy cowering from big bullies in front of their computers, this could rank as genuine news.
/. crowd has become obsessed with their new enlightenment.
In other news, the
Okay people, we got the sex aspect of school down. What should be emphasized, IMHO, is that you can make money from it in the future, and yes, involve games (as an industry). Way-back-when, when I was in HS all of my extracurricular activities were mostly based on what I wanted to do with my future (excluding the gaming circle). Highlight the potential profitability of programming (games?),and then being that the average hser has no control over their enviroment emphasize the fact that you can actually CREATE things. Try to make this whole venture into a simple package, with lots of flash (and optional content for the interested), and I think you have a way to cut through the hs ennui and anti-geek sentiments.
Why should the government be forced to enforce open source? I think you should just send the source to the gov't, get your protection, and then do what you will with it, like release it open, or keep it to yourself. Software politics (os vs. cs) really should have nothing to do with gov't, it is an buisness venture, and ONLY buisness.
I also do not agree that software should be copyrighted in the fist place. The patent system is where software firmly belongs. Though, sadly, it doesn't matter, being that it will remain where it is, thanks to the software lobby, and both systems are broken beyond the point of being useful, even if both are good ideas in theory.
Did you really need an anology for that? You could have explained that people use what is familiour to them. simple. One sentence.
My father used to scream at me for being so extreme in my anti-MS and anti-IE views. His ideology followed yours, except with an opposite conclusion. IE and Win gives the computer industry a standard, not some centrally devised one, but a more organic one. With HTML and such I disagree with him, where having, and adhering to, a central standard is probably best. But with Windows, in theory at least, he has a point. What is needed is either univeral cross-platform translation, or one platform. I'm not some Windows drone mind, being that I don't think that we are ready for this yet, being that the viable OS choices are still evolving.
I can see the point though for MS becoming a standard, and that that is not, in theory, a bad thing. In the real world it is, though, being that they are probably one of the worst software companies out there, both in ethics, and in product.
I guess one mans bloat is another mans feature. I'd suggest you switch to Lynx, though, it is about the most featureless, unbloated browser in existence.
Seriously though, when I think of bloat I think of the monolithic suites, like Moz and Netscape. I really don't see FF as bloated, I see it as rather streamlined, and see most of the bloat as features that actually do make browsing more pleasurable/productive.
Why would a minimalist spartin browser be a good thing? Sure, the simplicity aesthetic is nice, but so is functionality. I like the fact that my car has a CD player, even if it is not strictly necissary. I like that I can have all open pages nicely displayed on the top of the window. I like that I can use gestures to save me from sweeping the mouse to the top of the screen, or using keyboard shortcuts. I like the little search app, it saves me typing, and thus time.
I think that there is an optimal level between features and bloat. If you have enough features, or keep them optional (ala FF), then you have a good browser that meets the needs of the user, but if you start adding features that only the developers find neat, and no one else cares, then you run into bloat. I like the extension ideology of firefox though, where you let the user decide what is neat. There are times where I have bloated FF to hell on my own, and there are other times when I get down to the bare minimum needed for comfortable browsing (mouse gestures).
I really find your opinion ungrounded, though. You are such a small market that you should think about programming your own. A majority of people would opt for pleasure over strict minimalism. Strict minimalism serves some intangible good, I'm sure, but no one really cares. And who can blame them?
Last time I checked my Macs default browser was Safari, and default mail app was.. er... mail.app. Okay, IE did come bundled with it because I'm sure there are some icky pages out there that will not render in Safari.
The first thing I did with my "cage" of an OS is install Firefox and Tbird, though I still use Safari from time to time for a change.
On my Windows Box I use Firefox only, with TBird and Gmail for email. Sure IE came bundled with it, but that doesn't actually mean anything except Microsoft promoting there own self interest, that does not mean that it is a usable, safe, freindly, product.
Great, so we must resort to the tyranny of the masses, since when have the masses been right? I doubt, and have some empirical data to back this, that most IE users would use IE is they were given, or knew of, a proper choice.
I really don't believe that you said "standard" and IE in the same sentence. IE doesn't like standards, it likes breaking them.
I don't think that the browser (or OS) question has anything to do with being different. It has to do with personal preference. I'm sure your against that as well, but that is one of the great things of the post industrial age, we can CHOOSE what product fits us. Right now I have 3 flavors of OS running on 2 boxes, and I like each of them for different reasons and applications. How is this being different? Well, as I see it I am more tech savvy than the average dude with a Dell, and thus my preferences are more sophisticated being that I know better what is out there, and better how to use it.
It's like telling people to stick with a $5.00 Cabernet, because that is what most people drink for dinner, and is a good enough standard. It's all a matter of taste. You go drink your Julio Brothers, I'm sure you enjoy it, but someone drinking a nice merlot doesn't hurt you, now, does it? Me running FF doesn't either. Relax, and make sure to virus scan, you could be a risk to us all.
Okay, I'm getting kind of sick of this argument.
,nigger"). What you are doing is nothing but a relic of the idiotic PC movement, where upperclass white men decided to become the guardians of good taste (and advocates of a post-modern version of newspeak), and keep all forms of offence from any historically opressed minority group.
/. was commanding you. But being that neither of these are the case, you really have no reason at all to comment.
So, I'm guessing (from rought demographics) that neither you nor the original poster are actually black, and thus really cannot be offended by said coment ("bow
I could see the validity of you and the original posters complaints if this was a statment (or command, if you will) that was actually aimed at someone of black decent, or if you, naive from RTFAing, were black and mistakenly thought that
And by not agreeing with context as being the key to meaning, then you agree that we should censor our language to make minority groups more comfortable, which IMHO is deplorable. If someone can point out genuine offence because of this, I'll shut up, and quietly admit defeat, but being that I really cannot see this, I will not.
Sacraficing mod points for this. I am a new Mac person, and would like to know how you did this? Is this with the standard software, or did you have to buy something?
Is there any online docs on this?
seeing a little-known niche thing becoming mainstream /.), and then once it got to .7 trying to get everyone and their dog to switch. And now it's like our big communal geek baby is ready for the world...
I never really saw it that way, wow. Now I actually feel kinda sad, like my child is leaving the nest. I've been sticking with FF since it was Phoenix, participating (via bugzilla, and such, and trolling
It kind of a unique feeling, since most of us are responsible for this, each of us reporting bugs, getting people to switch is culminating into this... Not this as in the ad, but this as in FF becoming mainstream. A bunch of lazy geeks, who are getting paid nothing, are creating a cultural artifact almost accidentally, and with no organization, just communal good sense. Hmmm...
Since when did chthonic have anything to do with Cthulhu?
Chthonic means UNDERGROUND. Cthulhu is a BIG NASTY who lives UNDERWATER.
sorry.
I'd much rather be up front with them. I would feel bad just lying to them, like some of the people on this discussion did with a incognito Linux install. My parents are not children, and they coughed up good money for their box, so they should know what I'm doing to it. Especially since the title bar will proudly declair Moz Firefox (though an impromptu install of firesomething would have been funny, if it was still .9 or PR)
I think I will install the new Netscape though, being that it is a tweaked FF, with the silly brandname that they want. It's a greedy corporate browser, it can't be bad!