The real point is that, at the time he said it, even Bill Gates could only afford 64k. Most Minicomputers only had 32k address space, and the idea that anyone could actually afford 640k was laughable.
Some of us (BSD people) are old, wizend and experienced. We have found by experience, often personal, that some companies are not actually run by Gollum, and find that it is beneficial to give back improvements so the public source tree has them, and the public maintains the new, improved, code for free.
If software is infrastructure, and not part of your product, this is almost certainly the case - you want the software to work well, but you don't want the cost of maintaining it.
Notwithstanding this, many companies ARE run by Gollum, or arsehats, or corporate lawyers (guaranteed worse than decendents if a illegitimate union of Gollum and arsehats). That is life - suck it up!
If they can't make out the icon, they can't read the text either and should lower the resolution or zoom. However, you're the first one I hear complaining about this, so I think it's just you.
I don't deny having difficulty knowing what many icons are supposed to be, but in fairness, a lot of people I have tried to introduce to Ubuntu with Unity had the same problem.
Fundamentally, 64 pixels icons might work at 72dpi, but at 225dpi, they might as well be squashed insects. As I type this, there is a search bar preceded by a bunch of multi-coloured dots, not unlike a cat's paw print, with each toe a different colour. It is completely meaningless. However, the words "Search with Google" appear next to it - its obvious what that means. There is just no contest. The words may take more space, but they are worth a thousand Icons!
As to lowering the resolution - you can't do PCB layout or schematic capture with piss-poor(tm) resolution, and I really like to ahve two documents open on my screen side by side, that is why I paid for a decent screen. It I wanted piss-poor(tm) resolution, I would still be using my 640x480 POS monitor that is relegated to command-line use in the server room. (Hint:Lawn, off)
The Dollar sign is a picture of the Pillars of Hercules with a ribbon around them. It symbolises "the end of the known world". The word Dollar is a horrible pun on Dinar (abbreviation of Denarius, Latin for a tenth of a pound) and Dolour, (meaning "grief").
Most people recognize images faster than words (once learned), so 3 is out.
IMHO, that is a fail. Most people have not the slightest idea what the icons are, because they are too damn small, and have to mouse-over to get at the text. The entire problem goes away if you use text in the first place. (Literate people can recognise single words every bit as fast as pictures),
A sextant would hardly be recognized today as being related to navigation. It's not like you could use that as an icon for Google navigation on a smartphone.
Well, maybe not in your family. It would certainly work in mine,
Since they were all illiterate, I am fairly sure that would not have worked. Even the pubs had signs because the customers were too pissed to read.
In any case, with only two knights to chose from, or three pubs in the village, the signs did not need to differ much. Computers can (mostly) do more than two or three things, or they could if I could recognise more than two or three of the icons.
Since 1492, most people who can afford a computer, have also learned to read, and drop down text menus work pretty well.
We probably have the same Philips DVD player, but I dont know if this would work on ours, because it has remained in the cupboard for the last 18 months, as we no longer watch DVDs at all. The experience is just too horrible, and the content not worth the pain.
Forgot to say: One of the reboots of the Windows machine installed Norton Virus, and some other crapware, and I was unable to prevent Internet Exploder from using Bing.
Isn't it against the law to install software on other people's machines without their permission?
You seem to forget how much Norton, etc pay to have scumware pre-installed on a Windows machine. At £30 each, it only take three scumware packages to reduce the price of the computer by £100, and quite often you get more than 3 "special offers" (off yours too) on a PC from PC World, etc. If you want better resolution, you may ahve to buy an old model - all the new machines seem to be 1366x768, had have shiney screens (arrrgh)
Why does Slashdot insert a à in front of the £ sign when you post? They are not Australian pounds!
If you think Linux hardware and driver support sucks, you have obviously never tried to install Windows.
I have just tried installing Win 7 and Ubuntu 13.04 on a Thinkpad T43p.
With Ubuntu the pain was limited to Unity, and a wierdness whereby the wireless networking configuration dialogue appears, but is covered by another dialogue before you can enter the details, and I could not find any way to get to it. Several steps later, another dialogue appeared, and Iw as able to enter the details, but it soon forgot, and had to have the details entered again. Third time lucky.
With Windows, there was no driver support for a huge number of things, including both the wired and wireless networking, and my external USB hard drive. I had to download the drivers using the Ubuntu machine, and burn a CD to get the drivers on to the Windows machine, and then install them by first unzipping them and then running them. For 15 drivers. On the first three boots, the machine was unusable for 10 minutes while it installed updates, and it too ten minutes to shut down because of installing updates. It is currently unuseable because the product key I had was of dubious origin.
It is certaibly the year of the Linux desktop for me - just as soon as I execute
sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback
If Canonical offered not to install Unity as an option in the install process, Windows would be on its way to the (NetBSD driven) toaster.
I think you have been listening to economists. There is any amount of academic research which shows that the more qualified an economist is, the less accurate his predictions.
Did the sinking of Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac destroy the Dollar?
The fact that one or two users of the Euro are bankrupt does not mean there is a problem with the Euro, any more than the fact that your car is out of petrol means Opec are in trouble.
This was actually a response to the parent, but slashdot servers seem to be hosting some kind of botnet at the moment, and there is no processing power left for me to navigate back.
when the dollar goes up, it is bad, when the dollar goes down it is bad
The Dollar is bad. Its that simple. In fact, Dollar comes from the Latin word "Dolor" which means "grief". Just get rid of them (giving them to me would be a good start).
You have fallen for the Murdock press, paid by the w^Hbankers.
(Assuming you, like me, live in the UK) Almost all the food we eat is imported - mostly from Europe.
We buy it in Pounds, and the Banks convert those Pounds to Euros to pay the producer, in exchange for which they take a miserly commission of 4%. Then we export something of equal value to pay for that food, and get paid in Euros, whihc those very same banks convert into Pounds, for another 4%.
Thusly, the banks have an 8% tax on our food, which you are proud to pay because
a) You have more money than sense,
b) You believe the Murdock Press
c) You understand the banks need to steal your money to fund the lavish lifestyle of the clowns that run them
and/or
d) You do not know when you are being ripped off (If you live in the UK, that is understandable, because it is probably "all the time" anyway)
Do not claim its cos you like having the Queen's head on your banknotes, - if we had Euros, they would have a picture of the queen on too.
Slashdot Mirror
The real point is that, at the time he said it, even Bill Gates could only afford 64k. Most Minicomputers only had 32k address space, and the idea that anyone could actually afford 640k was laughable.
And Quick Launch is?
Hint: whoever you vote for, it is always a politician that gets elected!
If software is infrastructure, and not part of your product, this is almost certainly the case - you want the software to work well, but you don't want the cost of maintaining it.
Notwithstanding this, many companies ARE run by Gollum, or arsehats, or corporate lawyers (guaranteed worse than decendents if a illegitimate union of Gollum and arsehats). That is life - suck it up!
As successes, none of the above can be compared with Netcraft saying you are dying 20 years in a row!
Thats not what my mother told me!
I am a bogeyman, you insensitive clod
I don't deny having difficulty knowing what many icons are supposed to be, but in fairness, a lot of people I have tried to introduce to Ubuntu with Unity had the same problem.
Fundamentally, 64 pixels icons might work at 72dpi, but at 225dpi, they might as well be squashed insects. As I type this, there is a search bar preceded by a bunch of multi-coloured dots, not unlike a cat's paw print, with each toe a different colour. It is completely meaningless. However, the words "Search with Google" appear next to it - its obvious what that means. There is just no contest. The words may take more space, but they are worth a thousand Icons!
As to lowering the resolution - you can't do PCB layout or schematic capture with piss-poor(tm) resolution, and I really like to ahve two documents open on my screen side by side, that is why I paid for a decent screen. It I wanted piss-poor(tm) resolution, I would still be using my 640x480 POS monitor that is relegated to command-line use in the server room. (Hint:Lawn, off)
I (GP) have just bought a T61p off ebay, and installed gnome-panel-fallback but technology is going backwards? WTF?
The Dollar sign is a picture of the Pillars of Hercules with a ribbon around them. It symbolises "the end of the known world". The word Dollar is a horrible pun on Dinar (abbreviation of Denarius, Latin for a tenth of a pound) and Dolour, (meaning "grief").
IMHO, that is a fail. Most people have not the slightest idea what the icons are, because they are too damn small, and have to mouse-over to get at the text. The entire problem goes away if you use text in the first place. (Literate people can recognise single words every bit as fast as pictures),
Well, maybe not in your family. It would certainly work in mine,
In any case, with only two knights to chose from, or three pubs in the village, the signs did not need to differ much. Computers can (mostly) do more than two or three things, or they could if I could recognise more than two or three of the icons.
Since 1492, most people who can afford a computer, have also learned to read, and drop down text menus work pretty well.
No one has the slightest idea what the icons are. Now that screens have higher resolutions, they cant see them anyway.
What we need is drop down menus with words in and not that blasted Unity crap.
You want something new out of MS labs on your computer?
Because slapping the customer round the face with a wet fish is the best possible sales tactic!
We probably have the same Philips DVD player, but I dont know if this would work on ours, because it has remained in the cupboard for the last 18 months, as we no longer watch DVDs at all. The experience is just too horrible, and the content not worth the pain.
$50k? You might as well prohibit small companies from holding patents in the firs place.
Isn't it against the law to install software on other people's machines without their permission?
Why does Slashdot insert a à in front of the £ sign when you post? They are not Australian pounds!
and the Chinese Government threatening people selling non-compliant phones with cruel and inhuman treatment.
I have just tried installing Win 7 and Ubuntu 13.04 on a Thinkpad T43p.
With Ubuntu the pain was limited to Unity, and a wierdness whereby the wireless networking configuration dialogue appears, but is covered by another dialogue before you can enter the details, and I could not find any way to get to it. Several steps later, another dialogue appeared, and Iw as able to enter the details, but it soon forgot, and had to have the details entered again. Third time lucky.
With Windows, there was no driver support for a huge number of things, including both the wired and wireless networking, and my external USB hard drive. I had to download the drivers using the Ubuntu machine, and burn a CD to get the drivers on to the Windows machine, and then install them by first unzipping them and then running them. For 15 drivers. On the first three boots, the machine was unusable for 10 minutes while it installed updates, and it too ten minutes to shut down because of installing updates. It is currently unuseable because the product key I had was of dubious origin.
It is certaibly the year of the Linux desktop for me - just as soon as I execute
sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback
If Canonical offered not to install Unity as an option in the install process, Windows would be on its way to the (NetBSD driven) toaster.
Did the sinking of Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac destroy the Dollar?
The fact that one or two users of the Euro are bankrupt does not mean there is a problem with the Euro, any more than the fact that your car is out of petrol means Opec are in trouble.
This was actually a response to the parent, but slashdot servers seem to be hosting some kind of botnet at the moment, and there is no processing power left for me to navigate back.
The Dollar is bad. Its that simple. In fact, Dollar comes from the Latin word "Dolor" which means "grief". Just get rid of them (giving them to me would be a good start).
(Assuming you, like me, live in the UK) Almost all the food we eat is imported - mostly from Europe.
We buy it in Pounds, and the Banks convert those Pounds to Euros to pay the producer, in exchange for which they take a miserly commission of 4%. Then we export something of equal value to pay for that food, and get paid in Euros, whihc those very same banks convert into Pounds, for another 4%.
Thusly, the banks have an 8% tax on our food, which you are proud to pay because
a) You have more money than sense,
b) You believe the Murdock Press
c) You understand the banks need to steal your money to fund the lavish lifestyle of the clowns that run them
and/or
d) You do not know when you are being ripped off (If you live in the UK, that is understandable, because it is probably "all the time" anyway)
Do not claim its cos you like having the Queen's head on your banknotes, - if we had Euros, they would have a picture of the queen on too.