The best things you can get a geek are some non-stupid-looking clothes, and a course in how to not act like a doofus. If I see one more CS student with a sweat-stained Linux T-shirt, in public, making some snide comment between something and Queen Amidala, I'm going to throw up. I mean really. Some of these people make Comic Book Guy look like James Bond. Maybe get them a plaque for above their monitor that says "Knowing obscure Perl modules won't by itself stop me from appearing retarded."
Probably the most important thing for a Linux beginner is a book on how to withstand infantile criticism by hordes of 17-yr-old nerds with a superiority complex. You'll see a lot of that if you try to learn linux. For not already possessing all the esoteric knowledge, you will be berated and demeaned in the foulest terms. Hopefully you'll encounter enough of the good free-software people to keep you involved. Furthermore I'd suggest reading In the Beginning Was the Command Line by Neal Stephenson. Good layman overview of the history/philosophy.
I should have guessed that linux was used by Star Trek. Just look at that horrible "lcars" interface. An ugly, poorly-designed, garish interface is a dead giveaway that linux is involved.
Of course this is a scam, but I think there's an interesting question here: if they have any kind of setup which stores energy in a worthwhile way, and their patents depend on their explanation of how it works, which is crap, a sub-ground state of hydrogen, might their patents be ineffective at limiting commercial usage of the setup when it turns out the mechanism of operation's different than the patents claim?
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, some of you should stop representing yourselves stupidly. "Sun has listent to their costomers"? Stop reading Arcane CLI Commands Vol III, put on a fresh Queen Amidala T-shirt, and go learn some English.
There are two very different sides to Open Source as it relates to the mainstream. There's haxor open source, and there's red hat open source. haxor open source comes up with arcane and impractical things like emacs. Left to its own devices, that sort of thing will never achieve mainstream popularity, becaues it's not efficient--for the average user it requires too much time and learning, while delivering too little. The very different other aspect is the red hat open source, where there's a company standing between the haxors and the average person. This a) prevents people from seeing, and justifiably running away from, the haxors, and b) enables haxors to be paid to deal with the boring, unsexy issues, like making drivers easier to manage, which otherwise wouldn't happen. This aspect has some chance of success.
I think I'm going to print out copies of a story about this, or the Total Information Awareness plan, or the USA Patriot act, for when people ask me, "Why in the world did you join the ACLU?". Previously I've answered that by telling them that I didn't want a state-imposed religion, but many christians don't see a problem with that.
no, it's on topic, because of this sentence from the story: "More importantly, the findings show how the amount of eye contact one receives in a group will effect the number of turns one can take in a discussion."
Slashdot is my favorite site. It has the best content. That said, I often cringe while reading this site, because the language skills of many techies are borderline-retarded. Not a week goes by that I don't see a story--not a post, but a story--on Slashdot which uses 'effect' for 'affect' or vice-versa. I can easily picture an army of Jeff K's out there: "I am teh computar mastar! I am very smart persan!"
yours is largely a good post, but i question the comment that I will have to pay the full fee every time I change jobs. If I pay the fee, the license is mine, regardless of where I work.
More importantly, you should have a pool to guess which distro will first become as good, usable, and easy to install as Win2k is. My guess is, RedHat, in the year 2007. or maybe 2009.
there's variability in human brains. I wonder whose brain it will rival. We don't need to spend $100,000,000,000 to wind up with an electronic version of Pat Robertson or Rush Limbaugh.
since in the 60's you talked no fewer than 5 computers into self-destructing, could you claim prior art and patent malicious code? Afterward, you could sue every virus writer into oblivion. That's almost as good as saving the galaxy.
thanks,
Steve Story
Raleigh, NC
I don't know much about linux, but seeing these benchmarks suggests that the performance is getting faster confuses me. I recently tried linux again when Mandrake 8 came out, and on a hellafast computer it was taking a long time for basic things to be accomplished. I thought winXP was slow compared to win2k, but this mandrake was taking even longer to do the comparable things like open Konqueror, and open text-editing programs. Is there a simple explanation?
I urge them to make sure they are ready for linux, by checking to see if they have the necessary kanji characters. One for 'Xwindows' and one for 'sucks'.
It's simple why I use windows. Anyone can install windows with basically no prior knowledge 99% of the time. Up until very recently you had to have esoteric knowledge to install linux. Video cards, modems, ethernet cards, it all just works in windows 95% of the time. If I want a shortcut on the desktop in windows, i just drag and drop. In linux (until recently) it was a pain in the ass. In windows i can open up a window and click on the diskdrive. Mount a drive? edit Xconfigurator in a command-line text editor? install a driver? If you just want to get something done without spending hundreds of hours learning geek stuff, linux was worthless. Most people aren't interested in devoting a significant percentage of their time to learning a machine, they have other things to do. I just want to get my physics done. Write reports, Graph things in mathematica, send emails. I don't want to have to read books to figure out how to compile my kernal because xwindows isn't working etc etc.
There are computer labs at NCSU with old Sparcs (running SunOS 5.7, for all you geeks in the audience) which seem to be practically equivalent, in ordinary usage terms, to P 200's. There's a huge difference, HUGE, between Maple or Mathematica on these systems, and on the PIII 500 in my office. But there's very little difference, it's almost unnoticeable, between those programs on my office computer, and the same thing on my home computer, an Athlon 1200 mhz. And I've used mathematica on a 1.7 ghz Dell in our office, and again, there's no practical difference. Maybe computing a bunch of Fourier coefficients takes 8 mins on the 500, and 4 mins on the 1.7.
Compared to the average person I do intensive computation, and I feel no pressure to upgrade. For the average user the need to upgrade must be entirely generated by marketing--right now performance improvements in hardware is irrelevant. I wonder what's going to change--assuming anything does--to make us all hunger for faster systems as we used to. I can't think of anything compelling, but i'm unsure because intel etc are spending piles of cash figuring out how to reestablish the need for improvement.
It's exactly the same sort of blather I got on the newsgroup. Instead of helping with a technical problem, the posters assumed they understood what I was trying to do, and condemned it. I have very good reasons for not including a subject line on certain emails, which no one asked for, and which I don't need to submit to their approval. People often criticize without knowing all the relevant information.
Slashdot Mirror
As my profile says, NCSU, not duke.
The best things you can get a geek are some non-stupid-looking clothes, and a course in how to not act like a doofus. If I see one more CS student with a sweat-stained Linux T-shirt, in public, making some snide comment between something and Queen Amidala, I'm going to throw up. I mean really. Some of these people make Comic Book Guy look like James Bond. Maybe get them a plaque for above their monitor that says "Knowing obscure Perl modules won't by itself stop me from appearing retarded."
Probably the most important thing for a Linux beginner is a book on how to withstand infantile criticism by hordes of 17-yr-old nerds with a superiority complex. You'll see a lot of that if you try to learn linux. For not already possessing all the esoteric knowledge, you will be berated and demeaned in the foulest terms. Hopefully you'll encounter enough of the good free-software people to keep you involved. Furthermore I'd suggest reading In the Beginning Was the Command Line by Neal Stephenson. Good layman overview of the history/philosophy.
I should have guessed that linux was used by Star Trek. Just look at that horrible "lcars" interface. An ugly, poorly-designed, garish interface is a dead giveaway that linux is involved.
Of course this is a scam, but I think there's an interesting question here: if they have any kind of setup which stores energy in a worthwhile way, and their patents depend on their explanation of how it works, which is crap, a sub-ground state of hydrogen, might their patents be ineffective at limiting commercial usage of the setup when it turns out the mechanism of operation's different than the patents claim?
Solaris is more esoteric. Therefore a good percentage of /.ers will think you're cooler if you use it.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, some of you should stop representing yourselves stupidly. "Sun has listent to their costomers"? Stop reading Arcane CLI Commands Vol III, put on a fresh Queen Amidala T-shirt, and go learn some English.
There are two very different sides to Open Source as it relates to the mainstream. There's haxor open source, and there's red hat open source. haxor open source comes up with arcane and impractical things like emacs. Left to its own devices, that sort of thing will never achieve mainstream popularity, becaues it's not efficient--for the average user it requires too much time and learning, while delivering too little. The very different other aspect is the red hat open source, where there's a company standing between the haxors and the average person. This a) prevents people from seeing, and justifiably running away from, the haxors, and b) enables haxors to be paid to deal with the boring, unsexy issues, like making drivers easier to manage, which otherwise wouldn't happen. This aspect has some chance of success.
Which is still better than the Ashcroft/Heston side, which counts 2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,....
I think I'm going to print out copies of a story about this, or the Total Information Awareness plan, or the USA Patriot act, for when people ask me, "Why in the world did you join the ACLU?". Previously I've answered that by telling them that I didn't want a state-imposed religion, but many christians don't see a problem with that.
no, it's on topic, because of this sentence from the story: "More importantly, the findings show how the amount of eye contact one receives in a group will effect the number of turns one can take in a discussion."
Slashdot is my favorite site. It has the best content. That said, I often cringe while reading this site, because the language skills of many techies are borderline-retarded. Not a week goes by that I don't see a story--not a post, but a story--on Slashdot which uses 'effect' for 'affect' or vice-versa. I can easily picture an army of Jeff K's out there: "I am teh computar mastar! I am very smart persan!"
yours is largely a good post, but i question the comment that I will have to pay the full fee every time I change jobs. If I pay the fee, the license is mine, regardless of where I work.
wonder if i'll be able to get a $130 gridMathematica for Students version. :-)
More importantly, you should have a pool to guess which distro will first become as good, usable, and easy to install as Win2k is. My guess is, RedHat, in the year 2007. or maybe 2009.
And I stand by that. We don't.
there's variability in human brains. I wonder whose brain it will rival. We don't need to spend $100,000,000,000 to wind up with an electronic version of Pat Robertson or Rush Limbaugh.
since in the 60's you talked no fewer than 5 computers into self-destructing, could you claim prior art and patent malicious code? Afterward, you could sue every virus writer into oblivion. That's almost as good as saving the galaxy. thanks, Steve Story Raleigh, NC
I don't know much about linux, but seeing these benchmarks suggests that the performance is getting faster confuses me. I recently tried linux again when Mandrake 8 came out, and on a hellafast computer it was taking a long time for basic things to be accomplished. I thought winXP was slow compared to win2k, but this mandrake was taking even longer to do the comparable things like open Konqueror, and open text-editing programs. Is there a simple explanation?
your post wouldn't have been +5 retarded if you weren't such a fuknut.
I urge them to make sure they are ready for linux, by checking to see if they have the necessary kanji characters. One for 'Xwindows' and one for 'sucks'.
It's simple why I use windows. Anyone can install windows with basically no prior knowledge 99% of the time. Up until very recently you had to have esoteric knowledge to install linux. Video cards, modems, ethernet cards, it all just works in windows 95% of the time. If I want a shortcut on the desktop in windows, i just drag and drop. In linux (until recently) it was a pain in the ass. In windows i can open up a window and click on the diskdrive. Mount a drive? edit Xconfigurator in a command-line text editor? install a driver? If you just want to get something done without spending hundreds of hours learning geek stuff, linux was worthless. Most people aren't interested in devoting a significant percentage of their time to learning a machine, they have other things to do. I just want to get my physics done. Write reports, Graph things in mathematica, send emails. I don't want to have to read books to figure out how to compile my kernal because xwindows isn't working etc etc.
Compared to the average person I do intensive computation, and I feel no pressure to upgrade. For the average user the need to upgrade must be entirely generated by marketing--right now performance improvements in hardware is irrelevant. I wonder what's going to change--assuming anything does--to make us all hunger for faster systems as we used to. I can't think of anything compelling, but i'm unsure because intel etc are spending piles of cash figuring out how to reestablish the need for improvement.
Invalid Bug ID Bug #199684 does not exist. Please press Back and try again.
It's exactly the same sort of blather I got on the newsgroup. Instead of helping with a technical problem, the posters assumed they understood what I was trying to do, and condemned it. I have very good reasons for not including a subject line on certain emails, which no one asked for, and which I don't need to submit to their approval. People often criticize without knowing all the relevant information.