I suppose I long for something like the Star-Trek culture, without the geeky nature that this involves. Can't we all just work towards a future that brings happiness for everyone?
We sure can! You go first, and I'll follow your example.
I do not like to use contractions or speak in unnecessarily colloquial language, for I find that doing so tends to deflate others' perceptions of my intelligence. Furthermore, I find that exhibiting excessive emotionality and condescension in my counter-arguments is an effective way of demonstrating my own moral and intellectual superiority.
That's right, nobody has written anything akin to Enlightenment or edie or evas, and thank god. If Mr. Haitzler's coding skill were as good as it is claimed to be, maybe all those rewrites over the years wouldn't have been necessary. Meanwhile WindowMaker, which is almost as old, sails along with code that's clean as a whistle. Here again we see the responsibility-avoidance mentality of the open source advocate who, in response to criticism, has nothing better to say than "it's your fault for not helping" or "you couldn't do any better anyway."
Linux is a good thing because it allows you to be a part of a small clique that is able to feel superior to everyone else by virtue of your fiddling about with a system that was designed by the programmer, for the programmer rather than by the programmer for the user (Windows) or by the user for the user (Apple). The fact that non-geeks find it very difficult to e.g. burn a CD using the Linux command line is a great source of pride to dejected geeks everywhere who reason that, if they can't be accepted by mainstream society (due to their obvious massive intelligence of course, not their shocking lack of social skills), they can at least construct their own alternate reality in which they are of superior intelligence (even if that "intelligence" translates into nothing more than the ability to control a computer using cryptic textual commands).
More like vote/., vote to cut all social services to the less fortunate, and as a matter of fact, vote to cut all government services to everybody but us, so that we have more funds left over to pay for the universal free electricity necessary to power our basement beowulf cluster of dual athlon NTP servers.
The Sony Clit. It's about 3/4 cm cubed, but it shrinks down even smaller than that when not being used. The best part is the built-in "hood" to protect its special touch-sensitive membrane from damage. I hear they're even planning on taking Apple's lead in releasing different "flavors" later on - rumor has it that the first group will include salmon, strawberry, and spring breeze (whatever that is).
My loins quiver just thinking about it.
The compiler Apple provides with its developer tools is a customized version of GCC 2.95.2. It's not super-duper optimized, though, or at least the speed of OS X software compiled with it leads me to believe that it isn't.
How do we compromise between supporting legacy systems, without slowing the pace of tech development in order to accomodate them?
Tie that into the social implications of the acceleration of technology in Western civilization and the widening digital divide segregating old, young, rich, and poor, and boom, you're Jon Katz.
I see your point. I guess I made my remark based upon the dozens (hundreds?) of entries I have in my bookmarks file referencing pieces of Linux software with various weird but cute-once-you-understand-'em names. I navigate through Google all the time, thinking "Argh, I remember hearing about this one app called X - what was the name of it again? Must find Linux software index... must find Linux software index..."
Now that I think about it, though, perhaps Linux isn't any worse than anything else in this regard.
Although the name "Photoshop" can never be beaten by any image editing app, ever.:)
This is sarcasm, right? Is there anyone who will agree with me that although GIMP, LILO, Joe, etc. are cuter, they are actually more difficult to remember? What do gimps have to do with photo editing? What the hell is a lilo? I know a Joe, but he has nothing to do with text editors. I mean, if I want to set up a firewall, I'll look for something called "Firewall Setup" or "Firewall Configuration" or just "Firewall." I'm not an arsonist - firestarter sounds like some kind of script kiddie thing to me.
Who has the balls to voice their agreement with this on/.?
I agree that I am to an extent bound by Apple, but I certainly wouldn't say gagged, as I have voiced my opinions about the negative aspects of OS X (its slow speed, its current state of semi-unfinishedness, etc.) quite loudly before and have not yet been hit with any Apple lawsuits.
I don't want to run Aqua on non-Apple hardware... I don't want to learn about how OS X's features are coded in order to gain understanding from them in an academic sense... I would like to speed up OS X, but I do not possess the skills or the motivation necessary to do so. I suppose you could call me apathetic, or ignorant, or clueless, or stupid, but I guess I just don't care - I want to use my computer as the get-shit-done tool I bought it for, and nothing more. Now, I understand and respect that there are plenty of fine sirs and ma'ams out there who do enjoy, and do have tremendous use for, learning how their software is written, improving it, etc., etc. But that ain't me. It ain't a lot of people. In fact, it ain't most people. (I speak of desktop users, of course.)
As for the cookie example, I realize it wasn't the best, but give me some credit - at least it was better than a car example. Assuming Nieman-Marcus were to stop making these AquaCookies (which sound rather gross by the way), or if it were to put ingredients in them to which I was allergic, well... then yes, I'd be screwed. I used BeOS for a while - I understand what it's like to be screwed. I suppose when I bought my Mac, I bought it on the faith that I would not end up being screwed. I researched the purchase very carefully, and came to the conclusion that, "yes, I could be screwed. However, the chances of me being screwed by Apple are extremely slim, and if I were to be screwed, then, well, this machine does run Linux. In the process of moving to an OS that is so close to the Unix norm, the idea of being "locked in" to Apple is much less relevant now than it used to be.
I am a "slave," and I wish to remain a slave as long as the couches remain so plush, as long as the music is so wonderful, as long as the cage is so slick, and as long as I am enjoying my computing experience half as much as I am now. However, I respect your unwillingness to accept anything but "freedom." I was a Linux user from kernel 2.0.27 to 2.4.16. It more or less met my needs. I learned a lot from it. On my cheap PC, it sure as hell cost a lot less. But it just wasn't for me. It's not for a lot of people, and that's something I hope you will understand. (Yes, I realize that there is more to open source software than just Linux, but please accept the poor generalization.)
Good point, but I don't think Apple was ever aiming to build such a windowing system in the first place. We'll probably never see 128-way multiprocessing support in OS X, either (nevermind the hardware side of things), but for OS X's target market, that's hopefully not such a bad thing.
Alex
Registering does have some benefits. Apple, as opposed to other companies, is actually pretty good about customer privacy. But one arguably neat (some might say privacy-invading) thing about the registration process is that Apple learns your machine's serial number. So if you ever have a registered Apple laptop and it gets stolen, then in addition to calling the police, you can call Apple, and the next time the machine with that serial # uses Software Update, bam!
Alex
Re:Wacky conspiracy theories
on
BeOS For Linux
·
· Score: 0, Redundant
In practicality most people would immedately reformat that partition as another Windows disk (in fact the company making the machine would do well to make this easy),
Just to nitpick, but most people don't know what a partition is. They have no idea what formatting means. They have no idea what an operating system is. They think Windows is just some inherent part of the computer - they don't even question its presence. If you were to tell the average Best Buy shopper that they can use BeOS instead of Windows, here's how the conversation would go:
You: "You know, you can use BeOS instead of Windows on this computer."
Customer: "What is BeOS?"
You: "It's a different operating system which is like Windows, but different.
Customer: "So it's like another application for it?"
You: "For what? It's an operating system. It does what Windows does, but it's not Windows."
Customer: "What do you mean? Computers only have Windows."
You: "This one runs BeOS too."
Customer: "This computer doesn't have Windows?
You: "It does, but you can choose between BeOS and Windows. It's your choice. The computer comes with Windows enabled by default, but you can change it."
Customer: "I don't understand. That's not possible. All computers have Windows. Consumer Reports said make sure you get Windows XP because it's more reliable than Windows Me. Does this computer have Windows XP?"
You: "No, that's not what I..."
Customer: "Okay, so what you mean is, I can click on the start button, go to programs, then the BeOS folder, and I can click BeOS and then what?"
You: "I think you're on the wrong track here..."
Customer: "I need a computer that can run Microsoft Office."
I'm doing to be a little different and say nah, not BeOS on Alpha... Nextstep on MIPS.:) A lovely, elegant OS on top of a good, clean, efficient processor architecture right up there with PPC, or at least it would have been if SGI hadn't been so dumb.
"Do you have the recipe for these great new Nieman-Marcus cookies? Just a question. If so, good job getting it. If not, then you'll never pry it from Nieman-Marcus' grip."
That's nice to know. I'm glad that since there is so much open source software, such as Linux, KDE, GNOME, and XFree86, that its developers really are doing whatever they want with it, "the sky being the limit." It makes me happy to know that soon, the open-source world will be able to say with pride, "we have subpixel antialiased fonts and true alpha-blending." Yes, soon. Any day now. Really.
Some computer magazine wrote a review of the Indigo2 dated 1993. It's a fascinating look back at the days when SGI workstations just totally pissed all over PCs.
"There is a fair amount of price variance among equivalent video cards, so shop aggressively here. If you're on a budget, one easy thing to trade away is bit depth. Manufacturers like to include 16- and 24-bit 'photographic' color as sizzle in their advertisements, but unless you're doing something like specialty photocomposition work or medical graphics you'll never use more than 256. So you can settle for 8-bit color."
-- Eric S. Raymond, "Building the Perfect Box: How to Design Your Linux Workstation," Dec. 1996
Think about that zinger time you take a fucking idiot like ESR seriously.
Slashdot Mirror
We sure can! You go first, and I'll follow your example.
I do not like to use contractions or speak in unnecessarily colloquial language, for I find that doing so tends to deflate others' perceptions of my intelligence. Furthermore, I find that exhibiting excessive emotionality and condescension in my counter-arguments is an effective way of demonstrating my own moral and intellectual superiority.
That's right, nobody has written anything akin to Enlightenment or edie or evas, and thank god. If Mr. Haitzler's coding skill were as good as it is claimed to be, maybe all those rewrites over the years wouldn't have been necessary. Meanwhile WindowMaker, which is almost as old, sails along with code that's clean as a whistle. Here again we see the responsibility-avoidance mentality of the open source advocate who, in response to criticism, has nothing better to say than "it's your fault for not helping" or "you couldn't do any better anyway."
Linux is a good thing because it allows you to be a part of a small clique that is able to feel superior to everyone else by virtue of your fiddling about with a system that was designed by the programmer, for the programmer rather than by the programmer for the user (Windows) or by the user for the user (Apple). The fact that non-geeks find it very difficult to e.g. burn a CD using the Linux command line is a great source of pride to dejected geeks everywhere who reason that, if they can't be accepted by mainstream society (due to their obvious massive intelligence of course, not their shocking lack of social skills), they can at least construct their own alternate reality in which they are of superior intelligence (even if that "intelligence" translates into nothing more than the ability to control a computer using cryptic textual commands).
Lock up your cats, and hide the vaseline!
More like vote /., vote to cut all social services to the less fortunate, and as a matter of fact, vote to cut all government services to everybody but us, so that we have more funds left over to pay for the universal free electricity necessary to power our basement beowulf cluster of dual athlon NTP servers.
They would? Oh wait, this is Slashdot.
The Sony Clit. It's about 3/4 cm cubed, but it shrinks down even smaller than that when not being used. The best part is the built-in "hood" to protect its special touch-sensitive membrane from damage. I hear they're even planning on taking Apple's lead in releasing different "flavors" later on - rumor has it that the first group will include salmon, strawberry, and spring breeze (whatever that is). My loins quiver just thinking about it.
Someone's not getting any.
They stopped Be...
Well, they stopped providing Be with documentation anyway, which pretty much forced Be to drop Mac hardware. That may be close enough.
Alex
The compiler Apple provides with its developer tools is a customized version of GCC 2.95.2. It's not super-duper optimized, though, or at least the speed of OS X software compiled with it leads me to believe that it isn't.
Alex
Cubic Player? ... I don't know if that was the one, but it rocked anyway. :)
Tie that into the social implications of the acceleration of technology in Western civilization and the widening digital divide segregating old, young, rich, and poor, and boom, you're Jon Katz.
NOBODY disagrees with me! Sit down, shut it! :)
I see your point. I guess I made my remark based upon the dozens (hundreds?) of entries I have in my bookmarks file referencing pieces of Linux software with various weird but cute-once-you-understand-'em names. I navigate through Google all the time, thinking "Argh, I remember hearing about this one app called X - what was the name of it again? Must find Linux software index... must find Linux software index..."
Now that I think about it, though, perhaps Linux isn't any worse than anything else in this regard.
Although the name "Photoshop" can never be beaten by any image editing app, ever. :)
Alex
This is sarcasm, right? Is there anyone who will agree with me that although GIMP, LILO, Joe, etc. are cuter, they are actually more difficult to remember? What do gimps have to do with photo editing? What the hell is a lilo? I know a Joe, but he has nothing to do with text editors. I mean, if I want to set up a firewall, I'll look for something called "Firewall Setup" or "Firewall Configuration" or just "Firewall." I'm not an arsonist - firestarter sounds like some kind of script kiddie thing to me.
Who has the balls to voice their agreement with this on /.?
Alex
I agree that I am to an extent bound by Apple, but I certainly wouldn't say gagged, as I have voiced my opinions about the negative aspects of OS X (its slow speed, its current state of semi-unfinishedness, etc.) quite loudly before and have not yet been hit with any Apple lawsuits.
I don't want to run Aqua on non-Apple hardware... I don't want to learn about how OS X's features are coded in order to gain understanding from them in an academic sense... I would like to speed up OS X, but I do not possess the skills or the motivation necessary to do so. I suppose you could call me apathetic, or ignorant, or clueless, or stupid, but I guess I just don't care - I want to use my computer as the get-shit-done tool I bought it for, and nothing more. Now, I understand and respect that there are plenty of fine sirs and ma'ams out there who do enjoy, and do have tremendous use for, learning how their software is written, improving it, etc., etc. But that ain't me. It ain't a lot of people. In fact, it ain't most people. (I speak of desktop users, of course.)
As for the cookie example, I realize it wasn't the best, but give me some credit - at least it was better than a car example. Assuming Nieman-Marcus were to stop making these AquaCookies (which sound rather gross by the way), or if it were to put ingredients in them to which I was allergic, well... then yes, I'd be screwed. I used BeOS for a while - I understand what it's like to be screwed. I suppose when I bought my Mac, I bought it on the faith that I would not end up being screwed. I researched the purchase very carefully, and came to the conclusion that, "yes, I could be screwed. However, the chances of me being screwed by Apple are extremely slim, and if I were to be screwed, then, well, this machine does run Linux. In the process of moving to an OS that is so close to the Unix norm, the idea of being "locked in" to Apple is much less relevant now than it used to be.
I am a "slave," and I wish to remain a slave as long as the couches remain so plush, as long as the music is so wonderful, as long as the cage is so slick, and as long as I am enjoying my computing experience half as much as I am now. However, I respect your unwillingness to accept anything but "freedom." I was a Linux user from kernel 2.0.27 to 2.4.16. It more or less met my needs. I learned a lot from it. On my cheap PC, it sure as hell cost a lot less. But it just wasn't for me. It's not for a lot of people, and that's something I hope you will understand. (Yes, I realize that there is more to open source software than just Linux, but please accept the poor generalization.)
Alex
Good point, but I don't think Apple was ever aiming to build such a windowing system in the first place. We'll probably never see 128-way multiprocessing support in OS X, either (nevermind the hardware side of things), but for OS X's target market, that's hopefully not such a bad thing. Alex
Registering does have some benefits. Apple, as opposed to other companies, is actually pretty good about customer privacy. But one arguably neat (some might say privacy-invading) thing about the registration process is that Apple learns your machine's serial number. So if you ever have a registered Apple laptop and it gets stolen, then in addition to calling the police, you can call Apple, and the next time the machine with that serial # uses Software Update, bam!
Alex
Just to nitpick, but most people don't know what a partition is. They have no idea what formatting means. They have no idea what an operating system is. They think Windows is just some inherent part of the computer - they don't even question its presence. If you were to tell the average Best Buy shopper that they can use BeOS instead of Windows, here's how the conversation would go:
You: "You know, you can use BeOS instead of Windows on this computer."
Customer: "What is BeOS?"
You: "It's a different operating system which is like Windows, but different.
Customer: "So it's like another application for it?"
You: "For what? It's an operating system. It does what Windows does, but it's not Windows."
Customer: "What do you mean? Computers only have Windows."
You: "This one runs BeOS too."
Customer: "This computer doesn't have Windows?
You: "It does, but you can choose between BeOS and Windows. It's your choice. The computer comes with Windows enabled by default, but you can change it."
Customer: "I don't understand. That's not possible. All computers have Windows. Consumer Reports said make sure you get Windows XP because it's more reliable than Windows Me. Does this computer have Windows XP?"
You: "No, that's not what I..."
Customer: "Okay, so what you mean is, I can click on the start button, go to programs, then the BeOS folder, and I can click BeOS and then what?"
You: "I think you're on the wrong track here..."
Customer: "I need a computer that can run Microsoft Office."
You: "This computer can run Microsoft Office..."
Customer: "But you just said it has BeOS."
Alex
I'm doing to be a little different and say nah, not BeOS on Alpha... Nextstep on MIPS. :) A lovely, elegant OS on top of a good, clean, efficient processor architecture right up there with PPC, or at least it would have been if SGI hadn't been so dumb.
Alex (who wants his R18000 and wants it now)
"I love these new Nieman-Marcus cookies."
"Do you have the recipe for these great new Nieman-Marcus cookies? Just a question. If so, good job getting it. If not, then you'll never pry it from Nieman-Marcus' grip."
Cookies want to be free, right?
Alex
Alex
Some computer magazine wrote a review of the Indigo2 dated 1993. It's a fascinating look back at the days when SGI workstations just totally pissed all over PCs.
Alex
SGI has been offering those headers and libraries you speak of for free for several years now.
IRIX 5.3 IDO
IRIX 6.2 IDF/IDL
Alex
-- Eric S. Raymond, "Building the Perfect Box: How to Design Your Linux Workstation," Dec. 1996
Think about that zinger time you take a fucking idiot like ESR seriously.
Alex