Up to 2003, I think overselling linux was a real problem. These days I think many here are underselling linux - people are not complete idiots. They may not know how computers inside or out - but many just want a decent browser, a word processor, and many, with kids, want something that little Timmy can't mess up - the little kids not being able to install crapware and killing the computer is a big plus.
Is sweeping your computer for malware with several programs more tolerable? How about slowing it down in general with virus detection. How about running all these programs and still having crap slip through?
You can make Windows secure, but default it isn't. Windows is not some magical utopia where everything works - it is work but people don't recognize it as such - instead it becomes an "inevitable" task - like having to defrag the drive is normal chore on Windows given hardly a thought "why am I doing this crap?"
I think many in the Linux community are selling Linux short by problems that were issues 3 or 4 years ago but not so much today. The last few people I switched were people who had malware infested Windows computers almost beyond repair and they wanted Linux for several reasons - I was asked to help them put it on there, they even specified Ubuntu. These are not computer people.
Most of their printers work seamlessly. Their cameras work seamlessly. Their MFCs work for the most part - though there was one that was a pain in the ass to install for no reason (looking at you brother).
And games? Many don't play games in the first place though I keep their Windows partition around just in case. One guy plays flash games on line a lot - no linux barrier there.
Linux is truly good enough for a large segment of the population out there.
That's probably what I'd do at the commencement - read his book and heard his many interviews - it's discouraging that such a top figure in computing really never had anything inspirational to say - at least pertaining the field.
Anybody else feel the same way? I mean, he's an okay speaker but not really that interesting.
Time to my daily grind: 40 minutes one way. Parking 3 minutes walk to destination. 43 minutes total.
Bus: Have a stop locally - 5 minutes walk. Take bus to a central station - 1 hour 5 minutes. Take second bus, unknown wait, to destination - 40 more minutes. 10 minutes walk to destination. 1h55m minimum.
I would love to have a driverless car: let me get some work or reading done while lounging in the back seat (safer) of my car while it is driving me through the daily rush hour. Because I can get work done, I can either drive off later or am in less of a rush to get where I'm going. No more tedious trips of hours upon hours of driving.
Lower insurance premiums - and if the car has an fender bender, I can point to the manufacturer and hopefully won't be branded as an unsafe driver for life if I didn't do the driving. Safer roads for all. A recent study (posted on/. I think) said humans have trouble paying consistent attention to anything for an extended period of time without having our minds wander:
No traffic tickets - the AI can go closer to the speed limit than I have the patience to (now if they didn't consistently set the speed limit too low in a ton of places just to be asshats and be able to write tickets when they need the money....)
Seriously, this isn't just for the elderly. Driving ceased to be fun for me long ago. If I had to do it only once a week on a nice stretch of fast highway, I might feel differently....
buying votes in Europe. I'm not saying they haven't, but they don't have the system locked up like they do have here.
And America is losing power to influence the world. Most of this is because on the horizon is the vision that they won't be THE dominant player anymore that can strongarm anybody they please, like they were for most of the 20th Century, because of a variety of factors (EU gaining power, China, US own economy and debt).
Microsoft's paid-for Congressman will be doing less good (for them) in the rest of the world as time moves on.
recently came out and said that, even with only a 15% ethanol/85% gasoline mixture - your mpg (due to ethanol's lower power density) gets reduced to the point that $3.20 gallon of pure gas becomes a $3.99 of the mixed type.
So financially and environmentally, it is good to fight the push for ethanol.
This guy was clearing almost $2,000 a week at the peak for a couple years, now he has to get a job. He said he enjoyed fast cars and a nice house - where does the money always go? Why can't people be satisfied with a nice new but still economical honda or something when they make it big? Why always blow it out on frivolous shit?
This is the old tale of the ant and the grasshopper. Tony still could be living well today if he actually squirreled away some of it. I wonder how many people in the late 90's early 00's tech boom were blowing money the same way that have very little to show for it now.
Who would have thought, customers of your illegitimate and illegal goods would leave you out in the cold when a better, cheaper opportunity comes. Especially when they buy said goods from you only because you are cheaper than the real thing, not that you giving them something they can't get elsewhere.
It's amazing how, since Ubuntu hit the scene, that the Linux Desktop has just dramatically improved. Before Ubuntu, things were meandering along without much focus it seems, with the best out of the box experience being Knoppix, which unfortunately was too complicated for the average user to install (being focused as it was as a Live CD).
It seems now that every six months brings as more improvements as Vista has to XP. And for most users, I would consider the Linux desktop as "here", if not for some applications which have little to do with the distro itself but have me asking - when are developers going to step in and provide ports or at least make sure they run fine in Wine without much modification? Do we Linux users have to signal to them that we are more than willing to pay for some things? Will Click-n-Run, when ported to Ubuntu later this year, spur this on? Will CnR maybe bring up a new crop of Linux developers servicing the Linux community with specific pay-for apps in the vacuum of development houses staying loyal to MS? Not every App lends itself to having the developer do support contracts afterall.
It's frustrating to be ignored, I already "converted" 3 people to Ubuntu this year - but these are types who simply want to browse the web and one had their MS OS trashed by malware and wanted something secure but convenient (FYI I don't delete Windows, just shrink the partition if they ever need it). But these are side converts, it really doesn't matter what OS they use - they won't ever go out and buy software - so for all intents and purposes the development houses can ignore them.
Taking a notebook entirely depends on where you are travelling to. If you are travelling in the Europe, US or Australia, then you can happily chug your notebook with you. On the other hand, if you are travelling to Asia, it would depend entirely on your destination. The same goes for parts of Africa and South America.
Actually, there are enough parts of Europe I wouldn't want to chug a notebook with me, unless you are only talking about an available electrical connection and not safety/security.
I would suggest buying a cheapo notebook (seen one perfectly capable unless you are rendering crap for ~$300 at Walmart) that you won't miss if it gets stolen.
Load it up with Ubuntu if you need those apps, dual boot with Windows. Neither is OSX - but it won't hurt as much if it gets stolen or mangled in general.
To prevent scratches on the Mac in case you take it, I suggest some 3M Paint Protection Film. You can buy rolls of it off of ebay.
Right now, Apple has 90% of its value due to the vision of Steve Jobs and the products he helps create. This is not to say that there aren't many people involved in Apple's success nor that he even thinks up of most of the products like iPod - but he does a great job in realizing those products and positioning them in the marketplace.
Unless Intel can keep Jobs and gives him free reign, Apple would soon go rotten from a mediocre vision of someone who just doesn't get the Apple culture and is looking at the spreadsheets when doing products and releasing "Me Too!" items that look and act like everyone elses. Just look at the stagnation of Apple throughout the late 80's and 90's. Intel certainly isn't that company.
And I think Jobs is too much of a control freak to voluntarily hand himself over to some corporate masters just for a few dollars better margin on a few components.
Maybe in the next few generation, we'll get the best of both worlds, much higher capacities and reliability.
Need to check out how Intel is actually backing up it's reliability claim - if they just replace the drive when it stops working - that may be a cheap proposition for them (it fails a year or two later, even a currently highend drive by that time the drive is small to relative current numbers and they can replace it with a cheap one). Hate for this to become a war with who can fiddle with the numbers the best while the overall quaility remains the same in reality.
I agree - science is about universal standards, and this issue gets so confused because in every other context kilo means 1000. Saying that a kilo is 2^10 just because the result (1024) is close to a thousand is arbitrary and confusing.
(And wikipedia seems to agree with the terabyte/tebibyte difference).
Why does it seem kids get little/no homework or a TON of homework? Why not in the middle?
I would have preferred it if my teachers gave me a steady workload, not one extreme or the other.
And I like what some college professors do - give a syllabus in the beginning, sometimes with suggested problems. That would be great to teach kids how to allocate time to homework when they need to, instead of having to completely conform to the teacher's schedule every night.
Don't do it that way. Have a message playing in between the songs about the looming threat. Have several different messages in between songs about what the people can do. (Maybe key person to contact or website to go to.)
A person is more likely to listen more than 30 seconds of the important message if there is some payoff (more music) and a station is more willing to do something like that than lose all or most of their audience to a competitor who isn't doing the blackout thing.
Used to do that. But then new harddrives kept getting new cables standards - so while the old cable worked, it wouldn't allow for the highest speed. Flat screens made the 3-4 CRT monitors laying around obsolete (and much less attractive on a desk). Some of the older ethernet cable from a few years back isn't good enough for gigabyte ethernet that is coming out. Some of the cable isn't good enough. No one uses floppy anymore. PCI video cards are way obsolete. Extra internal modem is laughable. Old sound cards not really better than newer integrated solution - besides all these cards may not have easy to find drivers (in Windows, good old linux supports them). Old USB sticks are way too small for modern needs.
About the only thing that hasn't changed are the case screws. Except for screws, telephone/cat5/cable lines, threw out lots of obsolete hardware last summer. Take up space for no good reason. Buying a new computer is usually cheaper when I consider time involved. Besides, with energy costs, have one computer be the be-all server is more efficient than having several old computers do the various jobs. Better yet, cut down on servers - let google handle email. Modern laser printer costing more than the minimum includes print server too - no need for seperate computer sucking up energy.
The system isn't 200 years old. It has been fundamentally changed since it came into conception.
I would be lying by omission if I said I have been driving the same car for the last 20 years.... and had the motor, transmission, hood, trunk, etcera changed until the only thing that is the same with the original car is the gas guage.
Now, that is an exaggeration on the patent system. But if the Patent system hasn't swayed from it's original need to have a working model, we would not be in this debate. What the guy said is a good PR clip, and yes, some people in the rest of the world (like some in Europe) are clamoring for the US style patent system, but those are idiots to begin with (those who want it, not all Europeans, btw).
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Up to 2003, I think overselling linux was a real problem. These days I think many here are underselling linux - people are not complete idiots. They may not know how computers inside or out - but many just want a decent browser, a word processor, and many, with kids, want something that little Timmy can't mess up - the little kids not being able to install crapware and killing the computer is a big plus.
Is sweeping your computer for malware with several programs more tolerable? How about slowing it down in general with virus detection. How about running all these programs and still having crap slip through?
You can make Windows secure, but default it isn't. Windows is not some magical utopia where everything works - it is work but people don't recognize it as such - instead it becomes an "inevitable" task - like having to defrag the drive is normal chore on Windows given hardly a thought "why am I doing this crap?"
I think many in the Linux community are selling Linux short by problems that were issues 3 or 4 years ago but not so much today. The last few people I switched were people who had malware infested Windows computers almost beyond repair and they wanted Linux for several reasons - I was asked to help them put it on there, they even specified Ubuntu. These are not computer people.
Most of their printers work seamlessly. Their cameras work seamlessly. Their MFCs work for the most part - though there was one that was a pain in the ass to install for no reason (looking at you brother).
And games? Many don't play games in the first place though I keep their Windows partition around just in case. One guy plays flash games on line a lot - no linux barrier there.
Linux is truly good enough for a large segment of the population out there.
I still don't trust that. How about unplugging the electric cord?
That's probably what I'd do at the commencement - read his book and heard his many interviews - it's discouraging that such a top figure in computing really never had anything inspirational to say - at least pertaining the field.
Anybody else feel the same way? I mean, he's an okay speaker but not really that interesting.
because Windows is the most secure OS:
2 1214
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/22/21
Time to my daily grind: 40 minutes one way. Parking 3 minutes walk to destination. 43 minutes total.
Bus: Have a stop locally - 5 minutes walk. Take bus to a central station - 1 hour 5 minutes. Take second bus, unknown wait, to destination - 40 more minutes. 10 minutes walk to destination. 1h55m minimum.
No thanks.
Train? None here. I don't live in the city.
I would love to have a driverless car: let me get some work or reading done while lounging in the back seat (safer) of my car while it is driving me through the daily rush hour. Because I can get work done, I can either drive off later or am in less of a rush to get where I'm going. No more tedious trips of hours upon hours of driving.
/. I think) said humans have trouble paying consistent attention to anything for an extended period of time without having our minds wander:
n dex.php?action=fullnews&id=80157
Lower insurance premiums - and if the car has an fender bender, I can point to the manufacturer and hopefully won't be branded as an unsafe driver for life if I didn't do the driving. Safer roads for all. A recent study (posted on
http://www.localnewswatch.com/skyvalley/stories/i
We'd be more safe.
No traffic tickets - the AI can go closer to the speed limit than I have the patience to (now if they didn't consistently set the speed limit too low in a ton of places just to be asshats and be able to write tickets when they need the money....)
Seriously, this isn't just for the elderly. Driving ceased to be fun for me long ago. If I had to do it only once a week on a nice stretch of fast highway, I might feel differently....
But you could always try Plan 9 or one of its derivatives. I was always hoping to see that take off.
Why would anyone want to use ink, even for photos? Just to have it smear? Inkjets doesn't even look that good imo.
For photos, go for a dye sublimination printer, like this company offers:
http://www.hitouchimaging.com/
They work well. Plus no ink that dries/clogs when it isn't used for a couple weeks.
buying votes in Europe. I'm not saying they haven't, but they don't have the system locked up like they do have here.
And America is losing power to influence the world. Most of this is because on the horizon is the vision that they won't be THE dominant player anymore that can strongarm anybody they please, like they were for most of the 20th Century, because of a variety of factors (EU gaining power, China, US own economy and debt).
Microsoft's paid-for Congressman will be doing less good (for them) in the rest of the world as time moves on.
recently came out and said that, even with only a 15% ethanol/85% gasoline mixture - your mpg (due to ethanol's lower power density) gets reduced to the point that $3.20 gallon of pure gas becomes a $3.99 of the mixed type.
So financially and environmentally, it is good to fight the push for ethanol.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."
-Gandhi
This guy was clearing almost $2,000 a week at the peak for a couple years, now he has to get a job. He said he enjoyed fast cars and a nice house - where does the money always go? Why can't people be satisfied with a nice new but still economical honda or something when they make it big? Why always blow it out on frivolous shit?
This is the old tale of the ant and the grasshopper. Tony still could be living well today if he actually squirreled away some of it. I wonder how many people in the late 90's early 00's tech boom were blowing money the same way that have very little to show for it now.
Who would have thought, customers of your illegitimate and illegal goods would leave you out in the cold when a better, cheaper opportunity comes. Especially when they buy said goods from you only because you are cheaper than the real thing, not that you giving them something they can't get elsewhere.
It's amazing how, since Ubuntu hit the scene, that the Linux Desktop has just dramatically improved. Before Ubuntu, things were meandering along without much focus it seems, with the best out of the box experience being Knoppix, which unfortunately was too complicated for the average user to install (being focused as it was as a Live CD).
It seems now that every six months brings as more improvements as Vista has to XP. And for most users, I would consider the Linux desktop as "here", if not for some applications which have little to do with the distro itself but have me asking - when are developers going to step in and provide ports or at least make sure they run fine in Wine without much modification? Do we Linux users have to signal to them that we are more than willing to pay for some things? Will Click-n-Run, when ported to Ubuntu later this year, spur this on? Will CnR maybe bring up a new crop of Linux developers servicing the Linux community with specific pay-for apps in the vacuum of development houses staying loyal to MS? Not every App lends itself to having the developer do support contracts afterall.
It's frustrating to be ignored, I already "converted" 3 people to Ubuntu this year - but these are types who simply want to browse the web and one had their MS OS trashed by malware and wanted something secure but convenient (FYI I don't delete Windows, just shrink the partition if they ever need it). But these are side converts, it really doesn't matter what OS they use - they won't ever go out and buy software - so for all intents and purposes the development houses can ignore them.
Criminal? You know what, if the guy is alleged to commit murder before his stroke, I wouldn't be so willing to give him a free pass.
But considering this isn't a criminal trial, and considering the charges, I am more than willing to give him a free pass. Maybe I'm a bleeding heart.
Actually, there are enough parts of Europe I wouldn't want to chug a notebook with me, unless you are only talking about an available electrical connection and not safety/security.
I would suggest buying a cheapo notebook (seen one perfectly capable unless you are rendering crap for ~$300 at Walmart) that you won't miss if it gets stolen.
Load it up with Ubuntu if you need those apps, dual boot with Windows. Neither is OSX - but it won't hurt as much if it gets stolen or mangled in general.
To prevent scratches on the Mac in case you take it, I suggest some 3M Paint Protection Film. You can buy rolls of it off of ebay.
http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/Scotc
Right now, Apple has 90% of its value due to the vision of Steve Jobs and the products he helps create. This is not to say that there aren't many people involved in Apple's success nor that he even thinks up of most of the products like iPod - but he does a great job in realizing those products and positioning them in the marketplace.
Unless Intel can keep Jobs and gives him free reign, Apple would soon go rotten from a mediocre vision of someone who just doesn't get the Apple culture and is looking at the spreadsheets when doing products and releasing "Me Too!" items that look and act like everyone elses. Just look at the stagnation of Apple throughout the late 80's and 90's. Intel certainly isn't that company.
And I think Jobs is too much of a control freak to voluntarily hand himself over to some corporate masters just for a few dollars better margin on a few components.
Maybe in the next few generation, we'll get the best of both worlds, much higher capacities and reliability.
Need to check out how Intel is actually backing up it's reliability claim - if they just replace the drive when it stops working - that may be a cheap proposition for them (it fails a year or two later, even a currently highend drive by that time the drive is small to relative current numbers and they can replace it with a cheap one). Hate for this to become a war with who can fiddle with the numbers the best while the overall quaility remains the same in reality.
I agree - science is about universal standards, and this issue gets so confused because in every other context kilo means 1000. Saying that a kilo is 2^10 just because the result (1024) is close to a thousand is arbitrary and confusing.
(And wikipedia seems to agree with the terabyte/tebibyte difference).
and I want to apologize for my country's behavior.
Canada - please urge your politicians to tell our politicians to go f*** themselves.
Why does it seem kids get little/no homework or a TON of homework? Why not in the middle?
I would have preferred it if my teachers gave me a steady workload, not one extreme or the other.
And I like what some college professors do - give a syllabus in the beginning, sometimes with suggested problems. That would be great to teach kids how to allocate time to homework when they need to, instead of having to completely conform to the teacher's schedule every night.
Don't do it that way. Have a message playing in between the songs about the looming threat. Have several different messages in between songs about what the people can do. (Maybe key person to contact or website to go to.)
A person is more likely to listen more than 30 seconds of the important message if there is some payoff (more music) and a station is more willing to do something like that than lose all or most of their audience to a competitor who isn't doing the blackout thing.
Used to do that. But then new harddrives kept getting new cables standards - so while the old cable worked, it wouldn't allow for the highest speed. Flat screens made the 3-4 CRT monitors laying around obsolete (and much less attractive on a desk). Some of the older ethernet cable from a few years back isn't good enough for gigabyte ethernet that is coming out. Some of the cable isn't good enough. No one uses floppy anymore. PCI video cards are way obsolete. Extra internal modem is laughable. Old sound cards not really better than newer integrated solution - besides all these cards may not have easy to find drivers (in Windows, good old linux supports them). Old USB sticks are way too small for modern needs.
About the only thing that hasn't changed are the case screws. Except for screws, telephone/cat5/cable lines, threw out lots of obsolete hardware last summer. Take up space for no good reason. Buying a new computer is usually cheaper when I consider time involved. Besides, with energy costs, have one computer be the be-all server is more efficient than having several old computers do the various jobs. Better yet, cut down on servers - let google handle email. Modern laser printer costing more than the minimum includes print server too - no need for seperate computer sucking up energy.
Yada, yada, yada.
Hi,
I see you are stuck in the year 1997 - I probably can't pull you out to our time, but I'll be happy to provide any needed help or news from home.
The system isn't 200 years old. It has been fundamentally changed since it came into conception.
I would be lying by omission if I said I have been driving the same car for the last 20 years.... and had the motor, transmission, hood, trunk, etcera changed until the only thing that is the same with the original car is the gas guage.
Now, that is an exaggeration on the patent system. But if the Patent system hasn't swayed from it's original need to have a working model, we would not be in this debate. What the guy said is a good PR clip, and yes, some people in the rest of the world (like some in Europe) are clamoring for the US style patent system, but those are idiots to begin with (those who want it, not all Europeans, btw).