I mean how many MMOGs do we really need to waste our silly little lives away?... flamebait because I express my opinion that MMOGs might not be the most healthy thing in the world?
This from someone who makes nine posts to SlashDot within an hour (more than half of which are on the same parent post). How did that saying go about glass houses or something...?
It seems like the average American's expections of the Internet can be summed up as, "I don't care. I just want the fucking thing to work. I don't want to have to do anything."
If you can remove the recorder, then it can definitely be disabled.
This will definitely be in violation of the DMCA, or the Freedom of FUD Through Misappropriated Safety Information for the Benefit of Consumers By Way of Increased Corporate Corruption Act of 2004 or whatever Screw you, Joe Voter! legislation is on the books at the time.
Holding car drivers to the same standards as aircraft is such a huge leap that the paperwork generated by it could likely employ everyone in America.
While you'll probably get a lot of "not practical/desirable" responses to this, I think you have touched upon a valid point: if these devices do end up making it in every vehicle, understanding exactly what data is recorded and what is considered to be within desired tolerances by manufacturers, insurance companies and law enforcement agencies should not only be made public, but also be part of written driver's license exams.
I can see it now when driver X gets rear-ended by a drunk on a cell phone and the drunk's insurance company downloads driver X's black box data and finds that driver X's radio volume was 0.001dB above what they considered to be acceptable and therefore they deny all claims. Of course, the operator had no way of knowing this ahead of time because it was proprietary information; the drunk walks and the insurance company finds another way to fuck the public.
The problem is having someone to vote for. While most people think of not voting as a form of laziness, there is also conscientiously looking at the cantidates and deciding that none of them deserve a vote. If 'none of the above' were a meaningful option on the ballot, I'd vote a lot more.
Not to be redundant, but this is why I would tend to agree with those posters in favor of compulsory voting with the ability to vote for "none of the above".
I have to admit, I was getting ready to hate this project after reading the summary, but before following any links. But after I saw it and thought about it a while, I love it. I'll never use it myself, but I thought, "what better way to help in the process of using those poor lost windows-only souls than make an environment which is so much like what they're used to that they won't notice the difference?"
From my own anecdotal evidence, I find that computer users can usually be classified in one of three groups:
Experts: these are the people who eat, sleep, live the technology for whatever purpose (hobby, professional choice, curiosity, whatever). They are typically curious and will be delighted by anything that does The Right Thing, or works well, or is just plain cool regardless of the source. These people typically have no problem running two or three operating systems on as many boxes (or more, or even less) under / on / in / near their desks / racks / etc. They are the software engineers, the curious hobbyists, the sys admins of large organizations (e.g., universities), the folks that learned how to program at age 12 "just for fun", etc. In the early industry, these made up most of the user base of computers (large and small).
Intermediates or Power Users: these users are typically very familiar with the end-user features of one (maybe two) OSes. They could tell you all kinds of tricks like how to re-order your Apple menu (anyone remember Mac OS 7-9?) by copying and pasting carriage returns into the first part of directory / file names and how to "unstick" Word when it won't load without having to reinstall Office. They know enough to be dangerous on a network, but not enough to properly care for other users. These are typically the most active in the OS religious (flame) wars. As personal computers became more accessible (enter Apple II, IBM PC, etc.), these users began to dominate the population.
Beginners: these are what BOFHs call lusers. They are the most ignorant of the bunch, and typically have an attitude of, "I just want the damned thing to work, I don't care how". These folks know just enough to do what they want to do on a daily basis, but aren't very good at troubleshooting problems when they occur without help. These make up most of the computer-using population today.
There is nothing inherently superior or inferior about any particular group. It's just how things are. To date, it has been extremely hard to convince members of the last two groups (beginners and intermediates) to go outside of their respective comfort zones (i.e., try new operating systems). I believe the middle group is nearly impossible to convert as there are as many emotional ties to their underlying choices as there are knowledge ones.
However, with this project, I think the conversion of the beginners group just got easier by several orders of magnitude. They don't care, as long as it works. If it looks and acts very similar to what they're already used to (and by very similar, I mean exact for day-to-day use and similar for more infrequent tasks like network configuration, etc.), then they are much less likely to notice that they are running Linux vs. Windows. This is a very good thing. Intermediates and experts can still use sawfish or twm or the console or whatever they choose, but beginners now have hope for a viable (and understandable) interface. This is truly wonderful, as an increased user base will help legitimize the efforts of Linux on the desktop. Kudos and respect to the xpde team for some truly outstanding work.
People have been ripping off the Windows (all versions) interface since day one. It shows just what Microsoft deems important.
I'm not a lawyer, but I think there is a precedent here, if anyone in this thread is old enough to remember when Apple sued Microsoft for the exact same thing...and lost. Granted that the two interfaces at the time looked nothing like each other, but they behaved similarly. In the world of themed window managers, "look" can be mirrored quite easily, and "feel" is something that, as far as I know, has already been tested as being able to be copied.
I know your intention was good. But, wouldn't it be easier and cheaper to buy a PC and install Linux.
Wouldn't it be easier to buy a PC and run Windows?
Linux wouldn't be nearly as usable as it is (and there are plenty, myself included, who say it still has a way to go) without this kind of ad hoc HOWTO documentation / advice. Maybe you've never been to tldp.org but for those of us who have, we can certainly appreciate this kind of effort. There needs to be more of it.
Not only was the intention good, but the follow-through as well. This is useful information. It was to me anyway, and I use Linux most of the time. I also use OS X. Why? Because one of the things OS X does better than anything else is movie editing for non professionals (by that I mean something even my wife could use, which is not something I can say about Adobe Premiere), and you don't have to agree to have some big-brother-relinquish-all-privacy EULA to use it. Now that I'm committed to having an OS X box in my home, guess what? NFS and LDAP make user management on my home machines (OS X included) that much easier.
Linux was forged in the spirit of "because I can; I don't need another reason". There are some of us who remain enthusiasts: those who desire to know how something works, or (sometimes even better) how two things can work together just because. From the rest of us, thank you to goombah99 for posting this. And thank you to bdash for posting this. And thank you to all those of you who continue to post poorly- or not-at-all-documented features of every operating system. Thank you for keeping information free and putting it into the hands of as many people as possible. These are the true heros of freedom, because without the freedom of knowledge, all other freedoms wither.
From the guide: You will use Interface Builder to translate your application's visual appearance into the visual appearance of a well-designed Mac OS X application.
You don't need to see his interface specification. These aren't the design elements you're looking for. He can go about his development.
Nagios...doesn't seem to cater well to automating report generation from outside of a web browser.
Out of the box (binary distrobutions), you're right, it doesn't. However, Nagios has an extension to store its logging information in a relational database (MySQL or PostgreSQL). It requires you to run configure and build from the sources. However, once done, this should make it a heckuva lot easier to generate reports using Perl DBI or PHP or something to extract the data from the rows. Here's the skinny on how to do this (from the "Advanced Topics" section of the Nagios Documentation).
It's a good idea for you to tell people to forget KDE for the moment, as it's a much more cohesive and centralized desktop manager than Gnome ever will be.
My comment was not to egg on the religious war between Gnome and KDE. My comment was to highlight what I thought was a good way to solve the simplicity (desired by the average user) vs. configurability (desired by power users) problem. I'm sorry for not making this clear in my earlier comment.
He describes the whole free software world as a windoze deriviative born on x86 by "boring coders" and other uncreative types that lacks "features" of the only true software, Microsoft.
From the article: Long ago, Microsoft recognized that features sell software--not code size, efficiency, or even a pretty interface.
Tell that to the "designers" of XP: all ugly interface fluff.
I don't know about everyone else here, but the number of features availably on my Linux machine are a whole lot more comprehensive than on my Windoze one. At home (using Linux) I'm running: an enterprise-level web server (with support for Java, PHP, Perl, CGI, SSL, you name it), an internal DNS server, a caching DNS server, a highly-configurable router / firewall, an SSH daemon, a mail server (one which serves as both a primary for some domains and a secondary forwarding server for others), two different database servers, a print server (usable by Linux, UNIX, Windoze, OS X), a networked file share (available via NFS and Samba), a networked scanner server, a modem pool, a fax server, a VPN server, a jabber instant messaging server, an add-filtering HTTP proxy, an OGG/MP3 networked jukebox, a tape backup system, an LDAP user directory (with integrated logins for my Windoze/OS X boxes and support for redundant mirrors on other machines), an internal DHCP server, and encrypted file systems.
Cost to date: hardware + my time. Software cost to date: $0.
All the software I needed (with the exception of the jabber server and the jukebox) came with my distro. I even had a few choices for some of the stuff (sendmail vs. postfix, ipchains vs. iptables vs. whatever else, ssh vs. frees/wan, junkbuster vs. squid, mysql vs. postgres, dhcpcd vs. pump).
Show me a windows machine that can do that all that (on the same machine!) with that cost, and then I'll concede the features point.
There is no way for a single consistent desktop to appease all power users and noobs alike.
There is: sensible defaults with varying levels of customization, and a clear but informative interface by which to perform that customization. I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about (yes, it does exist):
For those of you who have used ximian's gnome distro with the sawfish window manager, you may have already experienced this. Ximian goes to great lengths to make desktop look & feel -- by which I mean the file browser (nautilus) and window manager (sawfish) -- a pretty simple experience for those just getting into it. The first time you log in, you're presented with a few choiced about what you want things to look like (sawfish & gnome themes), but behaviorally, you're given the defaults (reasonable and simple behaviors).
After that, most (at least everything even an advanced user would care about) of the behavioral / visual modifications can be done using one common interface: the gnome control center (please ignore KDE for the point of this discussion for a moment).
If you've ever used this interface to change the behavior of sawfish, you know what I'm talking about. Sawfish has several different screens (for different areas of its behavior & appearance) in the control center. In its "Meta" screen, one can even set the level of complexity regarding the other sawfish configuration screens. If I'm a novice (the default), I am only presented with a few options. More complex options are presented when I choose intermediate or expert.
To me, this is an outstanding way to provide simplicity as the default behavior with the configurability that power users demand. I hate window managers that don't allow me to remap modifier + mouse buttons to different behaviors. I've found a combination which I believe is much more efficient (and intuitive) for three-button mouse users as far as moving, resizing, etc. goes. If I'm not allowed to set this up, then that particular window manager (to me) is bunk.
This is one of the reasons I hate the RedHat 8.0 UI so much. The user interface is one of imposed simplicity. It's really difficult to find out how you can change metacity (if that's even possible). RedHat's new preferences interface is just as lobotomized. What's worse is that if you switch back to sawfish, all kinds of functionality (like logging out of an xession?!) breaks (thanks guys, real slick).
The problem is that power users are in the minority of desktop computer users. This is an unfortunate reality with which I still have not yet come to terms. The problem? Baby-boomers. There are so many people like my parents who are not technically proficient, who "just want the damn thing to work", but "don't want to have to understand or think about it". These are the people with the money, and these are the people to whom companies must market their products.
This is the reason why usability (real usability from the sense of the power user) takes second seat: FFM (Focus Follows Money). I hope sawfish continues to be integrated into the major distros (properly). I hope the technically proficient of the world will continue to donate their time and write free software that is usable by more than the common idiot. I hope that Windows will not define what is included and what is not in the desktop just because most of the desktop users are used to it.
Unless if you're a mp3-junkie and have headphones on all the time the average person only intently listens to music for very short amounts of time.
So how would this be any different than listing to your stereo with a crappy set of speakers or a cheap pair of headphones? Is there any merit to suggesting that if one knows the source of the sound (i.e., the stereo), does this make a difference? I doubt any sound recording can be perfect (just look at the recording degradation of analog magnetic audio tapes). Does this mean we've been susceptible to this since the early days of recorded sound?
The terms of the settlement are that people who bought music CDs, records or cassettes between 1/1/95 and 12/22/00 can apply for a refund of up to $20.
Yeah, capped at $20: ``The number of claims filed will determine the actual amount of the individual refund but will not exceed $20.00 per claimant.'' During those years, I probably bought over 300 CDs. I'm going to get my $20 along with that guy that bought one copy of Paul's Boutique. The lawyers will get the rest.
That's not to mention that it's a settlement. How does this stop the practice from going on? CDs prices still haven't dropped.
That doesn't mean I'm not going to join (I'm lazy), but I don't see how it fixes things.
The hitch? For the time being the maps - paid for as part of the $186 million Hudson River Estuary Plan - are not being published since state officials are nervous about the prospect of so many shipwrecks suddenly being opened up to salvagers on one of the U.S.'s busiest rivers. 'We don't want to ring the dinner bell for people who have ulterior motives and don't behave responsibly'....
Geez, with over 200 wrecks, couldn't you just drag an anchor down the river and disturb at least a few? Or would suggesting that make this post a ``troll''?
Jill Taylor, a director of engineering, said Home Depot considered Linux but settled on the "more mainstream" Windows operating system. She said that with Linux, the company would have faced issues such as a lack of drivers and support if it decided to use cross-platform hardware.
Looks like good ol' Jill is either on the dole or is susceptable to MS FUD. Either way, I wouldn't want her working for my company. That's too bad for Home Depot. That just cost them a buttload of $$$. Looks like the cost of my do-it-yourself remodel isn't going down anytime soon....
Next, they'll have them put in your radio. Does anyone see this as analogous to Microsoft's secure computing initiative? Imagine you have to pay for a smart card when all you want to do is listen to NPR or watch PBS. Is this like trying to run Linux on Palladium hardware?
Not "criminal". Criminals are booked and go to jail, or at least are booked. The problem is "terrorists" and "potential criminals", who don't do anything illegal up until they committ an act which harms a good many relatively innocent people.
``There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.''
-- Ferris to Rearden in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged
The information was stolen by getting users to go to a site that LOOKED like an eBay site and get them to give that site the information directly.
CNN is reporting: "HUNDREDS FOOLED AS EBAY SCAM STORY IS POSTED TO FAKE SLASHDOT SITE". The article goes on to say, "Many SlashDot regulars looking for easy karma were duped into posting their carefully crafted trolls and comments to a fraudulent site set up at http://brak.slashdot.org/ officials said early Friday morning. CmdrTaco has been unavailable for comment."
Slashdot Mirror
I mean how many MMOGs do we really need to waste our silly little lives away? ... flamebait because I express my opinion that MMOGs might not be the most healthy thing in the world?
This from someone who makes nine posts to SlashDot within an hour (more than half of which are on the same parent post). How did that saying go about glass houses or something...?
Trademark law affords the greatest protection to words that are fanciful or arbitrary, like Apple....
I never thought of Apples as being fanciful or arbitrary...I just thought of them as a good source of ruffage.
It seems like the average American's expections of the Internet can be summed up as, "I don't care. I just want the fucking thing to work. I don't want to have to do anything."
If you can remove the recorder, then it can definitely be disabled.
This will definitely be in violation of the DMCA, or the Freedom of FUD Through Misappropriated Safety Information for the Benefit of Consumers By Way of Increased Corporate Corruption Act of 2004 or whatever Screw you, Joe Voter! legislation is on the books at the time.
Holding car drivers to the same standards as aircraft is such a huge leap that the paperwork generated by it could likely employ everyone in America.
While you'll probably get a lot of "not practical/desirable" responses to this, I think you have touched upon a valid point: if these devices do end up making it in every vehicle, understanding exactly what data is recorded and what is considered to be within desired tolerances by manufacturers, insurance companies and law enforcement agencies should not only be made public, but also be part of written driver's license exams.
I can see it now when driver X gets rear-ended by a drunk on a cell phone and the drunk's insurance company downloads driver X's black box data and finds that driver X's radio volume was 0.001dB above what they considered to be acceptable and therefore they deny all claims. Of course, the operator had no way of knowing this ahead of time because it was proprietary information; the drunk walks and the insurance company finds another way to fuck the public.
And they can call it...bashWinXP
No, that would never happen. It would be Microsoft bash or mash or something. After all, they invented HTML too.
The problem is having someone to vote for. While most people think of not voting as a form of laziness, there is also conscientiously looking at the cantidates and deciding that none of them deserve a vote. If 'none of the above' were a meaningful option on the ballot, I'd vote a lot more.
Not to be redundant, but this is why I would tend to agree with those posters in favor of compulsory voting with the ability to vote for "none of the above".
I have to admit, I was getting ready to hate this project after reading the summary, but before following any links. But after I saw it and thought about it a while, I love it. I'll never use it myself, but I thought, "what better way to help in the process of using those poor lost windows-only souls than make an environment which is so much like what they're used to that they won't notice the difference?"
From my own anecdotal evidence, I find that computer users can usually be classified in one of three groups:
Experts: these are the people who eat, sleep, live the technology for whatever purpose (hobby, professional choice, curiosity, whatever). They are typically curious and will be delighted by anything that does The Right Thing, or works well, or is just plain cool regardless of the source. These people typically have no problem running two or three operating systems on as many boxes (or more, or even less) under / on / in / near their desks / racks / etc. They are the software engineers, the curious hobbyists, the sys admins of large organizations (e.g., universities), the folks that learned how to program at age 12 "just for fun", etc. In the early industry, these made up most of the user base of computers (large and small).
Intermediates or Power Users: these users are typically very familiar with the end-user features of one (maybe two) OSes. They could tell you all kinds of tricks like how to re-order your Apple menu (anyone remember Mac OS 7-9?) by copying and pasting carriage returns into the first part of directory / file names and how to "unstick" Word when it won't load without having to reinstall Office. They know enough to be dangerous on a network, but not enough to properly care for other users. These are typically the most active in the OS religious (flame) wars. As personal computers became more accessible (enter Apple II, IBM PC, etc.), these users began to dominate the population.
Beginners: these are what BOFHs call lusers. They are the most ignorant of the bunch, and typically have an attitude of, "I just want the damned thing to work, I don't care how". These folks know just enough to do what they want to do on a daily basis, but aren't very good at troubleshooting problems when they occur without help. These make up most of the computer-using population today.
There is nothing inherently superior or inferior about any particular group. It's just how things are. To date, it has been extremely hard to convince members of the last two groups (beginners and intermediates) to go outside of their respective comfort zones (i.e., try new operating systems). I believe the middle group is nearly impossible to convert as there are as many emotional ties to their underlying choices as there are knowledge ones.
However, with this project, I think the conversion of the beginners group just got easier by several orders of magnitude. They don't care, as long as it works. If it looks and acts very similar to what they're already used to (and by very similar, I mean exact for day-to-day use and similar for more infrequent tasks like network configuration, etc.), then they are much less likely to notice that they are running Linux vs. Windows. This is a very good thing. Intermediates and experts can still use sawfish or twm or the console or whatever they choose, but beginners now have hope for a viable (and understandable) interface. This is truly wonderful, as an increased user base will help legitimize the efforts of Linux on the desktop. Kudos and respect to the xpde team for some truly outstanding work.
People have been ripping off the Windows (all versions) interface since day one. It shows just what Microsoft deems important.
I'm not a lawyer, but I think there is a precedent here, if anyone in this thread is old enough to remember when Apple sued Microsoft for the exact same thing...and lost. Granted that the two interfaces at the time looked nothing like each other, but they behaved similarly. In the world of themed window managers, "look" can be mirrored quite easily, and "feel" is something that, as far as I know, has already been tested as being able to be copied.
I know your intention was good. But, wouldn't it be easier and cheaper to buy a PC and install Linux.
Wouldn't it be easier to buy a PC and run Windows?
Linux wouldn't be nearly as usable as it is (and there are plenty, myself included, who say it still has a way to go) without this kind of ad hoc HOWTO documentation / advice. Maybe you've never been to tldp.org but for those of us who have, we can certainly appreciate this kind of effort. There needs to be more of it.
Not only was the intention good, but the follow-through as well. This is useful information. It was to me anyway, and I use Linux most of the time. I also use OS X. Why? Because one of the things OS X does better than anything else is movie editing for non professionals (by that I mean something even my wife could use, which is not something I can say about Adobe Premiere), and you don't have to agree to have some big-brother-relinquish-all-privacy EULA to use it. Now that I'm committed to having an OS X box in my home, guess what? NFS and LDAP make user management on my home machines (OS X included) that much easier.
Linux was forged in the spirit of "because I can; I don't need another reason". There are some of us who remain enthusiasts: those who desire to know how something works, or (sometimes even better) how two things can work together just because. From the rest of us, thank you to goombah99 for posting this. And thank you to bdash for posting this. And thank you to all those of you who continue to post poorly- or not-at-all-documented features of every operating system. Thank you for keeping information free and putting it into the hands of as many people as possible. These are the true heros of freedom, because without the freedom of knowledge, all other freedoms wither.
From the guide: You will use Interface Builder to translate your application's visual appearance into the visual appearance of a well-designed Mac OS X application.
You don't need to see his interface specification. These aren't the design elements you're looking for. He can go about his development.
Nagios...doesn't seem to cater well to automating report generation from outside of a web browser.
Out of the box (binary distrobutions), you're right, it doesn't. However, Nagios has an extension to store its logging information in a relational database (MySQL or PostgreSQL). It requires you to run configure and build from the sources. However, once done, this should make it a heckuva lot easier to generate reports using Perl DBI or PHP or something to extract the data from the rows. Here's the skinny on how to do this (from the "Advanced Topics" section of the Nagios Documentation).
It's a good idea for you to tell people to forget KDE for the moment, as it's a much more cohesive and centralized desktop manager than Gnome ever will be.
My comment was not to egg on the religious war between Gnome and KDE. My comment was to highlight what I thought was a good way to solve the simplicity (desired by the average user) vs. configurability (desired by power users) problem. I'm sorry for not making this clear in my earlier comment.
He describes the whole free software world as a windoze deriviative born on x86 by "boring coders" and other uncreative types that lacks "features" of the only true software, Microsoft.
From the article: Long ago, Microsoft recognized that features sell software--not code size, efficiency, or even a pretty interface.
Tell that to the "designers" of XP: all ugly interface fluff.
I don't know about everyone else here, but the number of features availably on my Linux machine are a whole lot more comprehensive than on my Windoze one. At home (using Linux) I'm running: an enterprise-level web server (with support for Java, PHP, Perl, CGI, SSL, you name it), an internal DNS server, a caching DNS server, a highly-configurable router / firewall, an SSH daemon, a mail server (one which serves as both a primary for some domains and a secondary forwarding server for others), two different database servers, a print server (usable by Linux, UNIX, Windoze, OS X), a networked file share (available via NFS and Samba), a networked scanner server, a modem pool, a fax server, a VPN server, a jabber instant messaging server, an add-filtering HTTP proxy, an OGG/MP3 networked jukebox, a tape backup system, an LDAP user directory (with integrated logins for my Windoze/OS X boxes and support for redundant mirrors on other machines), an internal DHCP server, and encrypted file systems.
Cost to date: hardware + my time.
Software cost to date: $0.
All the software I needed (with the exception of the jabber server and the jukebox) came with my distro. I even had a few choices for some of the stuff (sendmail vs. postfix, ipchains vs. iptables vs. whatever else, ssh vs. frees/wan, junkbuster vs. squid, mysql vs. postgres, dhcpcd vs. pump).
Show me a windows machine that can do that all that (on the same machine!) with that cost, and then I'll concede the features point.
There is no way for a single consistent desktop to appease all power users and noobs alike.
There is: sensible defaults with varying levels of customization, and a clear but informative interface by which to perform that customization. I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about (yes, it does exist):
For those of you who have used ximian's gnome distro with the sawfish window manager, you may have already experienced this. Ximian goes to great lengths to make desktop look & feel -- by which I mean the file browser (nautilus) and window manager (sawfish) -- a pretty simple experience for those just getting into it. The first time you log in, you're presented with a few choiced about what you want things to look like (sawfish & gnome themes), but behaviorally, you're given the defaults (reasonable and simple behaviors).
After that, most (at least everything even an advanced user would care about) of the behavioral / visual modifications can be done using one common interface: the gnome control center (please ignore KDE for the point of this discussion for a moment).
If you've ever used this interface to change the behavior of sawfish, you know what I'm talking about. Sawfish has several different screens (for different areas of its behavior & appearance) in the control center. In its "Meta" screen, one can even set the level of complexity regarding the other sawfish configuration screens. If I'm a novice (the default), I am only presented with a few options. More complex options are presented when I choose intermediate or expert.
To me, this is an outstanding way to provide simplicity as the default behavior with the configurability that power users demand. I hate window managers that don't allow me to remap modifier + mouse buttons to different behaviors. I've found a combination which I believe is much more efficient (and intuitive) for three-button mouse users as far as moving, resizing, etc. goes. If I'm not allowed to set this up, then that particular window manager (to me) is bunk.
This is one of the reasons I hate the RedHat 8.0 UI so much. The user interface is one of imposed simplicity. It's really difficult to find out how you can change metacity (if that's even possible). RedHat's new preferences interface is just as lobotomized. What's worse is that if you switch back to sawfish, all kinds of functionality (like logging out of an xession?!) breaks (thanks guys, real slick).
The problem is that power users are in the minority of desktop computer users. This is an unfortunate reality with which I still have not yet come to terms. The problem? Baby-boomers. There are so many people like my parents who are not technically proficient, who "just want the damn thing to work", but "don't want to have to understand or think about it". These are the people with the money, and these are the people to whom companies must market their products.
This is the reason why usability (real usability from the sense of the power user) takes second seat: FFM (Focus Follows Money). I hope sawfish continues to be integrated into the major distros (properly). I hope the technically proficient of the world will continue to donate their time and write free software that is usable by more than the common idiot. I hope that Windows will not define what is included and what is not in the desktop just because most of the desktop users are used to it.
But I'm not holding my breath, and I hate it.
Unless if you're a mp3-junkie and have headphones on all the time the average person only intently listens to music for very short amounts of time.
So how would this be any different than listing to your stereo with a crappy set of speakers or a cheap pair of headphones? Is there any merit to suggesting that if one knows the source of the sound (i.e., the stereo), does this make a difference? I doubt any sound recording can be perfect (just look at the recording degradation of analog magnetic audio tapes). Does this mean we've been susceptible to this since the early days of recorded sound?
"There's an enormous segment of the population that are appreciating these ads."
These are probably the same guys that claim that people sign up on fax.com for their own benefit.
The terms of the settlement are that people who bought music CDs, records or cassettes between 1/1/95 and 12/22/00 can apply for a refund of up to $20.
Yeah, capped at $20: ``The number of claims filed will determine the actual amount of the individual refund but will not exceed $20.00 per claimant.'' During those years, I probably bought over 300 CDs. I'm going to get my $20 along with that guy that bought one copy of Paul's Boutique. The lawyers will get the rest.
That's not to mention that it's a settlement. How does this stop the practice from going on? CDs prices still haven't dropped.
That doesn't mean I'm not going to join (I'm lazy), but I don't see how it fixes things.
The hitch? For the time being the maps - paid for as part of the $186 million Hudson River Estuary Plan - are not being published since state officials are nervous about the prospect of so many shipwrecks suddenly being opened up to salvagers on one of the U.S.'s busiest rivers. 'We don't want to ring the dinner bell for people who have ulterior motives and don't behave responsibly'....
Geez, with over 200 wrecks, couldn't you just drag an anchor down the river and disturb at least a few? Or would suggesting that make this post a ``troll''?
Jill Taylor, a director of engineering, said Home Depot considered Linux but settled on the "more mainstream" Windows operating system. She said that with Linux, the company would have faced issues such as a lack of drivers and support if it decided to use cross-platform hardware.
Looks like good ol' Jill is either on the dole or is susceptable to MS FUD. Either way, I wouldn't want her working for my company. That's too bad for Home Depot. That just cost them a buttload of $$$. Looks like the cost of my do-it-yourself remodel isn't going down anytime soon....
Next, they'll have them put in your radio. Does anyone see this as analogous to Microsoft's secure computing initiative? Imagine you have to pay for a smart card when all you want to do is listen to NPR or watch PBS. Is this like trying to run Linux on Palladium hardware?
While the airplane was on approach, the needle swung hard to one side, and the autopilot followed it....
<IncredulousShock>
Are airlines really skimping that much that they're hiring pilots who use autopilot on approach?
</IncredulousShock>
Not "criminal". Criminals are booked and go to jail, or at least are booked. The problem is "terrorists" and "potential criminals", who don't do anything illegal up until they committ an act which harms a good many relatively innocent people.
``There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.''
-- Ferris to Rearden in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged
The information was stolen by getting users to go to a site that LOOKED like an eBay site and get them to give that site the information directly.
CNN is reporting: "HUNDREDS FOOLED AS EBAY SCAM STORY IS POSTED TO FAKE SLASHDOT SITE". The article goes on to say, "Many SlashDot regulars looking for easy karma were duped into posting their carefully crafted trolls and comments to a fraudulent site set up at http://brak.slashdot.org/ officials said early Friday morning. CmdrTaco has been unavailable for comment."
I bet the Catholic Church has some prior art.
On the gift delivery, or the ass reaming?