If you think it's ugly online, it will be ugly when printed out, and just less useful since you won't be able to find anything quite as easily.
The main advantage of a hardcopy: orders of magnitude more dots-per-inch. You can also earmark pages to find the important stuff and enjoy the pure tactile pleasure of handling something concrete.
After you get in deep shit because of a company mail server losing a mail with a quotation in it, you start printing out every goddamn piece of mail that may or may not get you in trouble.
Usually when you referee a manuscript you can recommend that the manuscript is accepted, accepted with minor revisions, accepted with major revisions or rejected.
These days the reviewers seem to have trouble with two concepts: a) acknowledging that they are not qualified to review a given manuscript and b) they cannot even contemplate the option of rejecting an article. Most scientists are just too kind-hearted to reject a colleague's work no matter how bad it is.
The message the artist tries to convey - either consciously or subconsciously - to the audience is secondary. Art should reflect the essence of the audience - not the artist - back to themselves. Does my work make you happy? Great - why do you think that is? Does it make you hopping mad/afraid/sad? Fantastic. What is it inside you that made you react in such a way?
Great art always shows you something surprising (and not necessarily pleasant) about yourself.
Needless to say, this interpretation of art got me in a world of trouble in the literary class in high school where we supposed to learn the message of a painting or a poem by reading about it.
Every run-of-the-mill grocery store I've been to recently has checked my 20 or 50 euro bills with a blacklight. The blacklight lamp has been placed so that when the clerk takes your bill he'd have to make an effort not to move it under the light.
Both Finns and Swedes (don't know about the Norwegians) design national highways so that parts of them can be used as runways - improves the dispersion of the planes.
That was actually one of the quoted reasons why Finland opted for the Navy version of F-18s: it won't break down if you bring it down hard on a short, bumpy runway.
Lastly, I do not understand people's obsession with x86. Disco died in the early 80's, but we still want to use a computer archetecture from the 70's?
a) With the exception of the black magicians of the embedded systems, people people do not, in general, have to write bit-banging assembler code. Who cares if x86 is shite - and no-one's disputing that here - if the compiler/interpreter hides them nassty, nassty bitses.
b) It is imperative that the legacy code runs fast or that it can be easily recompiled. You mentioned that you've run Alphas. I too had an Alpha 164LX in 1990s and ran Linux on it. It was fine and dandy, but after a while I got tired fixing those stupid-programmer-cast-a-pointer-to-int bugs in order to compile free software. I expect tons and tons of similar problems on Opteron platforms, but on IA64 the problems would probably become ever worse.
I don't think you've read some of the posts in this thread properly. What kind of a relationship is that when the family's "computer guy" feels exhausted by the constant stream of help requests? Already a bad one.
The fact that you still feel good about helping your acquaintances just shows that you're not overworked. It's not selfish to start charging for help/refusing to work fo free when your uncles, cousins and that-guy-you-met-at-a-local-bar calls you and wants you to come over and fix his/her computer.
In short, it's not about money but finding some way to stop people abusing your generosity.
I started using Issue Tracker and forced myself to write a trouble ticket for every stupid little request I was made.... Now I can show him the issue tracker log and show him
That is an excellent idea.
I've always suspected that it is these small, fragmented and seemingly menial tasks that suck in a lot of time and effort. For me, the fragmentation is actually the worst: having to switch from one task context to another all the time. It would help a lot if there were a way to "defrag" these small random tasks into larger more coherrent tasks like "weekly network checkup and maintenance including the printers".
Yeah, I know. I was once one of those nice guys who got taken advantage of all the time. At some point you just have got to learn how to say "no". The best decision of my life, actually.
If the market leader can't get it right, why do you think Mac would be all that much better?
Non-techs (composers, graphical artists, housewives, arts students,...) use Macs extensively and they seem to love the OS/computer. It's quite a contrast to the burning hatred with which most Windows users speak about their platform.
I don't understand why other people - the extended family in particular - seem to think that if you're a doctor/lawyer/expert they're qualified for a free consultation.
I have both lawyers and doctors as friends but I wouldn't even consider asking them for a free advice. It would be... I don't know, so utterily vulgar. If they volunteer an advice, that's perfectly OK, but I'd never ask them.
And it's not just the machines that get older - we get older.
About 10 years ago I had both the interest and skills to build a Linux installation from scratch. I built Alphas, Suns and piles of single- and multi CPU PCs just to experiment with them and then sell them off.
Now I'm too old. I get irritated by the glitches and bugs. These days I get annoyed even with kitchen-and-sink Linux distributions like Mandrake. Sure it installs cleanly and looks smooth but I still have to fiddle with it to get Flash or Real work with Mozilla and so on.
Slashdot Mirror
Being a competitor does not make him automatically wrong. In fact, one might say that he's an expert on the matter.
The legendary internet site, goatse.cx, has been suspended by the registrar as a result of public complaints. Copies of the complaints are available as PDF at the aforementioned site.
The main advantage of a hardcopy: orders of magnitude more dots-per-inch. You can also earmark pages to find the important stuff and enjoy the pure tactile pleasure of handling something concrete.
After you get in deep shit because of a company mail server losing a mail with a quotation in it, you start printing out every goddamn piece of mail that may or may not get you in trouble.
So, Microsoft just can't do anything right, eh?
I'm running XP, Firebird 0.7 and the full version of Acrobat 6.0. Acrobat Reader 5 works just fine.
I always print out the manuals, faqs and howtos I read frequently. I also print out important e-mails.
What else would they do if they're not going to retract their claims on Linux?
Of course they'll have to go after the big names.
Well, as you said, distributed projects are about volunteering. I wouldn't say $10/month for a project like Folding-at-Home is a waste.
These days the reviewers seem to have trouble with two concepts: a) acknowledging that they are not qualified to review a given manuscript and b) they cannot even contemplate the option of rejecting an article. Most scientists are just too kind-hearted to reject a colleague's work no matter how bad it is.
The message the artist tries to convey - either consciously or subconsciously - to the audience is secondary. Art should reflect the essence of the audience - not the artist - back to themselves. Does my work make you happy? Great - why do you think that is? Does it make you hopping mad/afraid/sad? Fantastic. What is it inside you that made you react in such a way?
Great art always shows you something surprising (and not necessarily pleasant) about yourself.
Needless to say, this interpretation of art got me in a world of trouble in the literary class in high school where we supposed to learn the message of a painting or a poem by reading about it.
Every run-of-the-mill grocery store I've been to recently has checked my 20 or 50 euro bills with a blacklight. The blacklight lamp has been placed so that when the clerk takes your bill he'd have to make an effort not to move it under the light.
They're doing it.
$4 billion IPO.
Both Finns and Swedes (don't know about the Norwegians) design national highways so that parts of them can be used as runways - improves the dispersion of the planes.
That was actually one of the quoted reasons why Finland opted for the Navy version of F-18s: it won't break down if you bring it down hard on a short, bumpy runway.
a) With the exception of the black magicians of the embedded systems, people people do not, in general, have to write bit-banging assembler code. Who cares if x86 is shite - and no-one's disputing that here - if the compiler/interpreter hides them nassty, nassty bitses.
b) It is imperative that the legacy code runs fast or that it can be easily recompiled. You mentioned that you've run Alphas. I too had an Alpha 164LX in 1990s and ran Linux on it. It was fine and dandy, but after a while I got tired fixing those stupid-programmer-cast-a-pointer-to-int bugs in order to compile free software. I expect tons and tons of similar problems on Opteron platforms, but on IA64 the problems would probably become ever worse.
Here's the hard part in a short: if you give your product away for free, where's the profit?
I don't think you've read some of the posts in this thread properly. What kind of a relationship is that when the family's "computer guy" feels exhausted by the constant stream of help requests? Already a bad one.
The fact that you still feel good about helping your acquaintances just shows that you're not overworked. It's not selfish to start charging for help/refusing to work fo free when your uncles, cousins and that-guy-you-met-at-a-local-bar calls you and wants you to come over and fix his/her computer.
In short, it's not about money but finding some way to stop people abusing your generosity.
That is an excellent idea.
I've always suspected that it is these small, fragmented and seemingly menial tasks that suck in a lot of time and effort. For me, the fragmentation is actually the worst: having to switch from one task context to another all the time. It would help a lot if there were a way to "defrag" these small random tasks into larger more coherrent tasks like "weekly network checkup and maintenance including the printers".
Did you see this thread already?
Ok, so you do it for some of them.
How do you refuse excessive requests politely? "Come on, why not? I know you did set up your uncle's computer, why won't you do it for me?"
Giving out free service to your extended family is a damn slipperly slope.
Yeah, I know. I was once one of those nice guys who got taken advantage of all the time. At some point you just have got to learn how to say "no". The best decision of my life, actually.
So you don't think it's fair for a doctor to charge a fee for his/her services?
Non-techs (composers, graphical artists, housewives, arts students,...) use Macs extensively and they seem to love the OS/computer. It's quite a contrast to the burning hatred with which most Windows users speak about their platform.
I don't understand why other people - the extended family in particular - seem to think that if you're a doctor/lawyer/expert they're qualified for a free consultation.
I have both lawyers and doctors as friends but I wouldn't even consider asking them for a free advice. It would be... I don't know, so utterily vulgar. If they volunteer an advice, that's perfectly OK, but I'd never ask them.
About 10 years ago I had both the interest and skills to build a Linux installation from scratch. I built Alphas, Suns and piles of single- and multi CPU PCs just to experiment with them and then sell them off.
Now I'm too old. I get irritated by the glitches and bugs. These days I get annoyed even with kitchen-and-sink Linux distributions like Mandrake. Sure it installs cleanly and looks smooth but I still have to fiddle with it to get Flash or Real work with Mozilla and so on.
I just want things to work.
My next computer will be a Mac.