What I've always wondered is why not use both clipboard systems.
Have the X clipboard system be the "implicit" clipboard and the windows style one the "explicit" clipboard. By selecting something it is copied to the implicit clipboard. By selecting something and pressing ctl-c (or clicking copy or whatever) things are copied to the explicit clipboard. By clicking the middle button on the mouse whatever is in the implicit clipboard is pasted. By pressing ctl-v whatever is in the explicit clipboard is pasted. Note that there are 2 clipboards. What is in the explicit clipboard may not necessarily be in the implicit clipboard but it could be.
This way everyone is happy. People could use whatever clipboard system they prefer. Personally I would use both. Sometimes I want to do a quick copy&paste for which the X style is better. Sometimes I want to copy and paste something over top of something. for example copy a url, select the current url in my web browser then paste the other one in its place, which is impossible with the X system.
I agree the current KDE system is a mess... why isn't there 2 clipboards?
This article is way too negative, and I'd hate to see people discouraged by it. What potential game makers should take from it is a warning to KISS (if you don't know what that stands for look on the first page of any programming book). I'm working on a game, and some of what this guy says is true.
The important thing is to not be overly optimistic. The game I'm working on is a simple single player game where you are building (and at times defending) a space station. Sorta a SimCity meets Babylon 5. I don't even want to think about how long I've been working on this. Of course I am pretty slack about it, sometimes many months will pass with me not even doing anything with it. Too busy with school (a few years ago), work (now), and having a life (sometimes). Someday it will be complete and it WILL be cool.
I am thinking of doing a MMORPG kinda game but I gotta finish the one i'm working on now. And I agree with the guy when he says that you need help for this.
But I'm doing this for fun, and even if no one else likes this game, I will love it because I put so much hard work into it. And besides, I have learned so much about programming while working on this game (OOP, threading, UI design), which is another benefit to it. I have redesigned the programme three times and changed the library i was using twice (allegro to SDL to one I'm making that uses SDL).
So if you are thinking of making a game, I say go for it. Start with a simple idea that's not gonna take too much time for you to actually see something on the screen or you will get programmer's block (like i have many times). Cut down your game to the bare minimum of complexity, you can always expand it later.
You probably won't get rich off your game but you'll have fun making it, and you will improve your skills.
I seem to recall hearing once that the kidney has certain regenerative abilities that no other organ has. I remember hearign that with only a few cell that scientist were able to grow many more kidney cells like 50 years ago. this was not a working kidney just a bunch of cells. Could someone verify this?
I have a dell and less than a year after I got it the battery stopped working, some rows of keys ocassionally stop working and the hard drive ocassionally makes clicking noises.
I ordered another battery but they were on back order (apparently this must be a common problem), had to take out the screws from the keyboard so i can take it out and twist it when it stops working, and put a huge amount of ram to keep it from paging to disk and working the hard drive.
1. I like to be able to see the product before I buy it. Pick it up, feel how much it weighs, what it looks like
2. I like going out seeing people, meeting new people
3. I don't want to have to wait a month for them to replace my product, if it doesn't work, I want to beable to go back to the store and return it that day.
online retailing won't replace the real thing the same way television didn't replace the movie theatre. Many people, especially women, like shopping.
Online travel is another success in this area. I mean how many of us actually buy airline tickets through an agent anymore?
Not to nitpick, but I always buy through a travel agent. Why? because they have always had better deals. I always check online for the price first then call the agent. The agent is always under by at least 15% and if they are the same or more, then you negotiate, something you can't do online.
Re:Linux needs a "centralized clearinghouse"
on
Linus Does Not Scale
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· Score: 1
I think the folks at IBM and Oracle ought to seriously have a LONG talk with Linux Torvalds himself and convince him to create a true clearinghouse where every improvement is approved by a committee.
committee? yeah that'll make things go faster. If you want a kernel that has been poured over by many separate people, just use the one supplied by your distro. THAT is what the distros DO. If IBM or Oracle wants to check all the changes by committee they can set up their own. This may come to a shock to you but the source to linux is available for free.
just checked the screenshots and it looks like what i need... thanks i'll d/l it tommorow. Now why don't other email client makers know anything about UI design?
I've been looking for a decent email client for windows (not for me, but for my coworkers). I wish I could get something along the lines of Kmail, but so far I can't find any. Eudora is way too bloated for my liking, and most of the others expire. I want someting that's easy to use (nice big "check mail" button, decent address book, not too cluttered). I'm sorry to say that outlook express looks to be my best option so far. Can someone show me (or them, like I said before I use Kmail) the light?
So what happens when Windows becomes secure (assuming this happens). It'll be a sad day for Linux advocates everywhere is what will happen.
Ahhh but we can always come up with new reasons for linux being better
windows costs money, linux is free. This is not new but as they bundle more and more software with the os, and start.NET, microsoft products will cost more.
Windows is spyware. With XP you must have internet to activate your product and since its closed source it can gather anything it wants about what you are doing without you knowing it.
"digital rights management." Linux doesn't manage your rights, and I like that.
And in addition to these reasons there are always the old standbys like "Microsoft is evil" and "I am 3733+3 cuz I use Linux."
The thing about being a zealot is that you can always find ways to justify your position. Although I think the Linux zealots are closer to the truth than the microsofties, I'm somewhere in between.
True, but I expect linux will become more popular in the next couple of years. With improvements in user interface, ease of installation, and objections to MS's licensing, more users will move to linux. I think a lot of other things have to happen for linux to be popular, but there is a lot of push and pull factors to bring people to linux.
once linux has a large number of users, then game companies will want to make linux ports. Loki has a lot of expertise in this area and could make good money at consulting for these companies. the development of the linux port would coincide with the windows port and people would buy them.
Maybe I'm just being too optimistic but I would like to think there will be a day when microsoft will not rule the PC game world (and not take over the console game world either).
I feel pretty guilty now for not getting any games from loki. I did not pirate any either, but I feel like I should have bought a copy just to support them.
I think the biggest problem about loki is that they were ahead of their time. In another 2 or 3 years I'm sure they would have no problem of making a go of it
I'm sure another company will be able to step in and take over where they left off, expecially since loki has already made all the tools needed.
This seems to be the trend for open source software companies, they make a product go out of business leaving their products available for the community. It's bitter-sweet, but I hope in the coming years that open source will be able to make a profit.
Children don't understand limits enough to be reasonable functioning members of society. Although some people never come to understand those limits, by consensus, our society has decided that generally people achieve sufficient understanding to be allowed to have their full privileges in the 18-21 year old range.
Ok why are children always being tried as adults then? If they are not responsible for their actions then they should not be punished as an adult. The way I see it, if a person can go to prison at 16 then that person is responsible enough to vote, drink, see porno, etc.
I agree with you though that 16 is too young for that. I think that 18 may be too young in fact. It disgusts me that children are being tried as adults. If you are gonna put anyone in jail it should be the parents of these children.
Future versions may have dual control to allow people to drive the cars from the nearest station off the track to their homes. A true replacement for the car!
Could someone explain to me how this is different from having electric cars? with electric cars we wouldn't need the rail system and we can drive them home.
The only interesting thing about this is the fact that if they stayed on the tracks, you wouldn't need as much parking, and people wouldn't have to have massive SUV's to compete with the neighbours. as soon as they can leave the tracks people will want to own their own and they will want one that is bigger (and uses more electricity) than everyone else's. What are we gaining then?
of John Landis's Coming to America [imdb.com] :
They are McDonalds, we are McDowells. They have the Golden Arches, we have the Golden Arcs. They have two all beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions on a sesame seed bun. We also have two all beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions... but they're no seeds in OUR buns.
Hehe... here in Jamaica and there is a McDonald's restaurant that's not the one you probably know. When the american mcdonald's came in they sued to get the jamaican mcdonald's to change their name. The funny part is that they lost. Not only did the Jamaican McDonald's get to keep its name but the American McDonald's wasn't allowed to build with in a mile's radius of the other one.
When Burger King moved in I don't thing they even tried to sue King Burger (home of the whamperer!)
What *I* want (and yes, I am coding this myself) is a system that only knows as much as necessary to get the package from its original source in the rawest form available. Then the system takes the package and builds/installs it using a user account set aside for the purpose of installing non-base software.
I had this idea myself at one time. Mostly because I think that I have a good name. I figured that windows had wizards to install things, So Linux should have a "Sourcerer". Well maybe you don't find that to be as an amusing pun as I did, but I wish you lots of luck in your project.
I recall that the guy who started KDE (what's name again?) once mentioned working on something like this.
I would be interested in help you out on this. I think that my best skill is in designing User Interface, but I can programme as well. If you need some help send me an email...
Re:BZZT! Canada still constitutional monarchy
on
The Drone War
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· Score: 1
When did the Queen cease being the ceremonial head of state in Canada? You have your history mixed up - Canada is still a constitutional monarchy, with the Queen of England as that head.
I believe this is also the case in Australia and New Zealand.
Actually I believe that Australia is a republic now (any aussies out there?).
Yes according to our constitution we are a monarchy, but also according to our constitution there is no such thing as a prime minister (if only that were true!). The point is we ignore these things. We don't have some strange religious attachment to our constitution like a certain country to the south. We have a tradition of democracy. The prime minister is our leader because that is the way it always has been as far as anyone can remember. The Queen is just a figurehead she's around because most of our prime ministers are too ugly to put on our coins. The monarchy is a tradition. I don't remember the exact words but Trudeau once said that it would take a lot of effort to get rid of a monarchy that does nothing anyway. That's why canada is a monarchy
Anyways the point is the original poster was trying to make was that we left the british empire through non-violent means. Do you see a british empire around anymore?
The big problem with the left/right view of things, is that it's increadibly Bipolar, and lots of different idealogies get lumped together, Liberalism and communism both are considered 'left wing' yet, in practice they are often diametrically opposed. the left/right thing is nothing more than a 'dumbing down' tool to simplify this stuff, it's the specifics thats important, not what label we give it.
I had a teacher who had an interesting model... it was left and right, but the left and right part of the circle. So moderate left and right were at the bottom of the circle. As you got more radical you moved up and then back the other way. so it ends up that at the very top of the circle is communism and fascism right next to each other. He said the circle was not quite complete since the two never met, but that is debatable. It was a neat model since the left and right wings really looked like the wings of a bird.
Of course I think no model really describes political thought very well. I think it's ok for those in a high school poli sci course, but beyond that it's useless. My own ideas come from all parts of the spectrum so it's hard to say where I am. I guess somewhere between moderate liberal and communist.
Perhaps the best is PHP/APACHE/POSTGRES. Use the PHP PDF support for reports and maybe something like Bluefish (non-gui) or dreamweaver for HTML coding and you have a much better behaved environment the Access will ever have.
as someone who has had to deal with access I agree whole-heartedly. Anything more complicated than a single table and access behaves extremely poorly. I have seen it give errors on certain computers with functions like Now() which is an internal function. From now on, all new databases I'm gonna deal with will be PHP/Apache/PostgreSQL.
If someone asks me to use access I'll simply refuse. Access is just evil.
Actually this exactly what I do for a living
on
Volunteer Work Abroad?
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· Score: 3, Interesting
If you're Canadian, CUSO is always recruiting for IT postions. My first job out of college was a netcorps (6 month) postion in Kingston, Jamaica. Basically building crappy Access databases (if you can consider Access a database) some web pages, and a lot of training. Once here I made some contacts with an organisation (PACT) and 3 or 4 months after I went home they called and had me back as a full CUSO cooperant, with a little extra pay. Now I'm halfway through a 2-year contract and I've been told that I can stay longer if I choose.
Right now I'm developing our web page (www.jamaica-kidz.com
, yeah should be.org but it was already there when I started and we can't afford to alias it) and a Performance Tracking System database (to give funders indicators on the results of the project). This is all to help a nation-wide literacy project.
Overall it's a great job... I travel all over the island working with over 30 organisations, and on the weekends I'm a few hours drive from the nicest beaches in the world. Of course there is some amount of violence here... but after a while you know how to keep safe.
If you are looking for computer related jobs in the third world, there are positions out there. check CUSO, and also VSO (I was gonna take a postion with them before I got a better offer from CUSO).
There are a lot of developing nations where there already is running water, electricity and (in most parts) telephone. In these countries education is a priority and that's where the computers come in. Computers can be used to help people to learn to read. And besides that, do you think it's a good idea to for countries that are already behind to get further behind by neglecting IT? I wish anyone considering this line of work lots of luck.
Slashdot Mirror
Have the X clipboard system be the "implicit" clipboard and the windows style one the "explicit" clipboard. By selecting something it is copied to the implicit clipboard. By selecting something and pressing ctl-c (or clicking copy or whatever) things are copied to the explicit clipboard. By clicking the middle button on the mouse whatever is in the implicit clipboard is pasted. By pressing ctl-v whatever is in the explicit clipboard is pasted. Note that there are 2 clipboards. What is in the explicit clipboard may not necessarily be in the implicit clipboard but it could be.
This way everyone is happy. People could use whatever clipboard system they prefer. Personally I would use both. Sometimes I want to do a quick copy&paste for which the X style is better. Sometimes I want to copy and paste something over top of something. for example copy a url, select the current url in my web browser then paste the other one in its place, which is impossible with the X system.
I agree the current KDE system is a mess... why isn't there 2 clipboards?
You actually think that slashdot readers actually read the linked articles? You are a funny man indeed
The important thing is to not be overly optimistic. The game I'm working on is a simple single player game where you are building (and at times defending) a space station. Sorta a SimCity meets Babylon 5. I don't even want to think about how long I've been working on this. Of course I am pretty slack about it, sometimes many months will pass with me not even doing anything with it. Too busy with school (a few years ago), work (now), and having a life (sometimes). Someday it will be complete and it WILL be cool.
I am thinking of doing a MMORPG kinda game but I gotta finish the one i'm working on now. And I agree with the guy when he says that you need help for this.
But I'm doing this for fun, and even if no one else likes this game, I will love it because I put so much hard work into it. And besides, I have learned so much about programming while working on this game (OOP, threading, UI design), which is another benefit to it. I have redesigned the programme three times and changed the library i was using twice (allegro to SDL to one I'm making that uses SDL).
So if you are thinking of making a game, I say go for it. Start with a simple idea that's not gonna take too much time for you to actually see something on the screen or you will get programmer's block (like i have many times). Cut down your game to the bare minimum of complexity, you can always expand it later.
You probably won't get rich off your game but you'll have fun making it, and you will improve your skills.
I seem to recall hearing once that the kidney has certain regenerative abilities that no other organ has. I remember hearign that with only a few cell that scientist were able to grow many more kidney cells like 50 years ago. this was not a working kidney just a bunch of cells. Could someone verify this?
I ordered another battery but they were on back order (apparently this must be a common problem), had to take out the screws from the keyboard so i can take it out and twist it when it stops working, and put a huge amount of ram to keep it from paging to disk and working the hard drive.
Next time I'm gettin a Mac DUDE.
2. I like going out seeing people, meeting new people
3. I don't want to have to wait a month for them to replace my product, if it doesn't work, I want to beable to go back to the store and return it that day.
online retailing won't replace the real thing the same way television didn't replace the movie theatre. Many people, especially women, like shopping.
Not to nitpick, but I always buy through a travel agent. Why? because they have always had better deals. I always check online for the price first then call the agent. The agent is always under by at least 15% and if they are the same or more, then you negotiate, something you can't do online.
committee? yeah that'll make things go faster. If you want a kernel that has been poured over by many separate people, just use the one supplied by your distro. THAT is what the distros DO. If IBM or Oracle wants to check all the changes by committee they can set up their own. This may come to a shock to you but the source to linux is available for free.
just checked the screenshots and it looks like what i need... thanks i'll d/l it tommorow. Now why don't other email client makers know anything about UI design?
I've been looking for a decent email client for windows (not for me, but for my coworkers). I wish I could get something along the lines of Kmail, but so far I can't find any. Eudora is way too bloated for my liking, and most of the others expire. I want someting that's easy to use (nice big "check mail" button, decent address book, not too cluttered). I'm sorry to say that outlook express looks to be my best option so far. Can someone show me (or them, like I said before I use Kmail) the light?
Ahhh but we can always come up with new reasons for linux being better
And in addition to these reasons there are always the old standbys like "Microsoft is evil" and "I am 3733+3 cuz I use Linux."
The thing about being a zealot is that you can always find ways to justify your position. Although I think the Linux zealots are closer to the truth than the microsofties, I'm somewhere in between.
once linux has a large number of users, then game companies will want to make linux ports. Loki has a lot of expertise in this area and could make good money at consulting for these companies. the development of the linux port would coincide with the windows port and people would buy them.
Maybe I'm just being too optimistic but I would like to think there will be a day when microsoft will not rule the PC game world (and not take over the console game world either).
I think the biggest problem about loki is that they were ahead of their time. In another 2 or 3 years I'm sure they would have no problem of making a go of it
I'm sure another company will be able to step in and take over where they left off, expecially since loki has already made all the tools needed.
This seems to be the trend for open source software companies, they make a product go out of business leaving their products available for the community. It's bitter-sweet, but I hope in the coming years that open source will be able to make a profit.
Ok why are children always being tried as adults then? If they are not responsible for their actions then they should not be punished as an adult. The way I see it, if a person can go to prison at 16 then that person is responsible enough to vote, drink, see porno, etc.
I agree with you though that 16 is too young for that. I think that 18 may be too young in fact. It disgusts me that children are being tried as adults. If you are gonna put anyone in jail it should be the parents of these children.
I just posted this a couple of days ago.
Could someone explain to me how this is different from having electric cars? with electric cars we wouldn't need the rail system and we can drive them home.
The only interesting thing about this is the fact that if they stayed on the tracks, you wouldn't need as much parking, and people wouldn't have to have massive SUV's to compete with the neighbours. as soon as they can leave the tracks people will want to own their own and they will want one that is bigger (and uses more electricity) than everyone else's. What are we gaining then?
Hehe... here in Jamaica and there is a McDonald's restaurant that's not the one you probably know. When the american mcdonald's came in they sued to get the jamaican mcdonald's to change their name. The funny part is that they lost. Not only did the Jamaican McDonald's get to keep its name but the American McDonald's wasn't allowed to build with in a mile's radius of the other one.
When Burger King moved in I don't thing they even tried to sue King Burger (home of the whamperer!)
Sorry, I forgot that we aren't a big corporation
I had this idea myself at one time. Mostly because I think that I have a good name. I figured that windows had wizards to install things, So Linux should have a "Sourcerer". Well maybe you don't find that to be as an amusing pun as I did, but I wish you lots of luck in your project.
I recall that the guy who started KDE (what's name again?) once mentioned working on something like this.
I would be interested in help you out on this. I think that my best skill is in designing User Interface, but I can programme as well. If you need some help send me an email...
I believe this is also the case in Australia and New Zealand.
Actually I believe that Australia is a republic now (any aussies out there?).
Yes according to our constitution we are a monarchy, but also according to our constitution there is no such thing as a prime minister (if only that were true!). The point is we ignore these things. We don't have some strange religious attachment to our constitution like a certain country to the south. We have a tradition of democracy. The prime minister is our leader because that is the way it always has been as far as anyone can remember. The Queen is just a figurehead she's around because most of our prime ministers are too ugly to put on our coins. The monarchy is a tradition. I don't remember the exact words but Trudeau once said that it would take a lot of effort to get rid of a monarchy that does nothing anyway. That's why canada is a monarchy
Anyways the point is the original poster was trying to make was that we left the british empire through non-violent means. Do you see a british empire around anymore?
The Amercian Empire, well that's another story...
Masahiro Mori? It's a trick, It's Dr. Evil... that's just a mask
*pulling Mori's hair*
Oops, sorry my mistake.
I had a teacher who had an interesting model... it was left and right, but the left and right part of the circle. So moderate left and right were at the bottom of the circle. As you got more radical you moved up and then back the other way. so it ends up that at the very top of the circle is communism and fascism right next to each other. He said the circle was not quite complete since the two never met, but that is debatable. It was a neat model since the left and right wings really looked like the wings of a bird.
Of course I think no model really describes political thought very well. I think it's ok for those in a high school poli sci course, but beyond that it's useless. My own ideas come from all parts of the spectrum so it's hard to say where I am. I guess somewhere between moderate liberal and communist.
as someone who has had to deal with access I agree whole-heartedly. Anything more complicated than a single table and access behaves extremely poorly. I have seen it give errors on certain computers with functions like Now() which is an internal function. From now on, all new databases I'm gonna deal with will be PHP/Apache/PostgreSQL. If someone asks me to use access I'll simply refuse. Access is just evil.
Sorry, the url for cuso should be www.cuso.org
If you're Canadian, CUSO is always recruiting for IT postions. My first job out of college was a netcorps (6 month) postion in Kingston, Jamaica. Basically building crappy Access databases (if you can consider Access a database) some web pages, and a lot of training. Once here I made some contacts with an organisation (PACT) and 3 or 4 months after I went home they called and had me back as a full CUSO cooperant, with a little extra pay. Now I'm halfway through a 2-year contract and I've been told that I can stay longer if I choose.
Right now I'm developing our web page (www.jamaica-kidz.com , yeah should be .org but it was already there when I started and we can't afford to alias it) and a Performance Tracking System database (to give funders indicators on the results of the project). This is all to help a nation-wide literacy project.
Overall it's a great job... I travel all over the island working with over 30 organisations, and on the weekends I'm a few hours drive from the nicest beaches in the world. Of course there is some amount of violence here... but after a while you know how to keep safe.
If you are looking for computer related jobs in the third world, there are positions out there. check CUSO, and also VSO (I was gonna take a postion with them before I got a better offer from CUSO).
There are a lot of developing nations where there already is running water, electricity and (in most parts) telephone. In these countries education is a priority and that's where the computers come in. Computers can be used to help people to learn to read. And besides that, do you think it's a good idea to for countries that are already behind to get further behind by neglecting IT? I wish anyone considering this line of work lots of luck.