Yes Vancouver can suck a bit in terms of jobs. At least that's my opinion, being a high-tech worker (not software, though hardware, which is even worse in Vancouver). I know a lot of people who don't have the greatest job in Vancouver, I mean they could move to Silicon Valley or Ottawa and easily get paid way more and have a more exciting job...but they prefer Vancouver for other reasons. So it's a bit of a tradeoff. Waterloo-Kitchener, Ottawa, and various other places have good high tech sectors, but the weather usually sucks, there is no good skiing and no ocean nearby. Actually I'd say Alberta is second best, personally, I've only been there once. The weather sucks, but they have the strongest economy in Canada, no sales tax, some decent high tech starting up and close to mountains and pretty nice cities.
I pirated 5.1, 6.0, and then bought Wordperfect 2000 a few years later for cheap, student edition for $25. I don't know why anyone buys MS Office. It is the easiest software in the world to pirate. You can use any CD copier software. They should have at least used some sub-channel data like Blizzard did with Diablo II. That was a bitch, until I discovered CloneCD.
I thought 99.99% of their appeal is based on the fact that they aren't Microsoft.
No way, WordPerfect was way better because of the "reveal codes" feature. I'm not sure if that feature still exists. I was using Wordperfect 2000 I think it was called... I think it still had this feature. The software wasn't very stable, it sometime crashed and the like. But reveal codes rules. It's sort of like editing a Latex document or something (bad example).
I don't remember 5.2, but 5.1 rocked! Back in the days of the "Wordperfect Corp." I think the fact that Wordperfect changed hands so many times really hurt the software (Borland, Lotus?, Corel). I think they should release the codebase into a GPL or variant, and then sell a commercial version with support. I mean clearly Corel is not great at making Wordperfect Office a competive suite, and making it perfectly reliable, but maybe they can make some decent coin from giving support. Maybe if they did this it would take over OpenOffice.org as the most popular open-source office suite. -
I have never talked to any Canadian who wants to go down to the States. I guess it must happen once in a while, but only out of necessity. It is actually more common I think, in fields like nursing and medicine.
We can't forget about the thousands of Iranians, Indians, Russians, and Chinese who come to Canada all the time. (did I leave out any significant minority there?).
And NO Canadians benefit from the brain drain. Living in Canada is much better than living in the States (based on opinion surveys). Just look at stuff like the UN statistics on the best cities in the world to live (you'll find Vancouver near the top), as well as other surveys and you'll find this is the case.
This isn't any different from anywhere else. Every city in Canada is going through this. The ones that had less to begin with probably have a harder time. I'll be glad when Nortel finally packs it in. They were way too big anyways, and was crappy place to work. Ottawa is actually somewhat lucky in that they have a lot of other sectors going on, like the public sector and military which will never go away. They also get a lot of attention from the federal government (every heard of the capital commission) so it will always be a great city to live in, and will have no problem recovering, once the economy, markets, and ventrue capital start to recover.
Ha, did you ever hear the famous quote from Corel's Michael Cowpland? He said that Corel would not be where it is today were it not for software piracy. ie. people pirating Corel's software, which generates more interest, and stimulates more people to actually buy it. He was one of the few company heads to ever come out and admit to the advantage of piracy, as a sort of advertising.
I wish I had the quote exactly. It was on CBC Newsworld or some other Canadian network channel a few years ago.
Can someone please tell me honestly why I should start getting into Nethack? I mean I've clicked on the icon a few times and tried it out but it didn't seem that interesting. I mean, what I am trying to say is, does it get better, more interesting? how many levels are there? What else can you tell me that will make me want to take up this seemingly lame game.
[OT] Playing AVIs in Linux
on
Lego Segway
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
Anyone know what's the quickest way to be able to play AVIs? ie. what program should I download on apt-get
It seems to me that actually making the distro better by fixing errors you would get more users
This is what Debian strives for. I'm not sure if their user base is climbing though, in proportion to Redhat/Mandrake/etc..
It's kind of a nice equilibrium actually. Mandrake/Redhat are always pushing the bar, getting new software out there to the users in a packaged RPM format, which helps the actual developers make their software better because they can get feedback from those users. And Debian polishes packages up until their are ultra-stable and then moves them from "testing" to "stable". So users, as a whole benefit. There is a freedom of distribution...and at the same time software is being improved upon and features are added.
Lots of people on the Cooker list were calling for Bugzilla, but the developers insisted that the mailing list works just fine. Can anyone tell us if they've come to their senses? If not, the heck with 'em.
Beta testing Mandrake 9.0 was one of the worst testing experiences because of this system. I hate subscribing to mailing lists...why do I need to hear about bugs which I am not interested in hearing about. The only person that needs to know about a particular bug is the maintainer of the package and any people who have requested to be CC:'s. MandrakeSoft needs to give their head a shake.
I agree whole-heartedly. I was thinking about switching to Redhat...then I switched to Debian. Best thing I ever did in my life...besides switching from Winblow$ to Mandrake in the first place.
I've always been amazed at this installation step. Why doesn't it just ask the user if they have a wheel and be done with it? The fact that they made the mouse jump all over the screen was always an oddity as well. My mouse always worked after this point, though, I never got stuck like this brain-dead reviewer. They could have made a call to the famous hide_mouse function though, to prevent the crazy mouse jumping action...
This was a big problem I remember when people were trying out the release candidates 1,2,3 with Mandrake 9.0. I assumed that this problem had to do with people (newbies) trying to burn the isos on 650MB CDs. But I'm not sure... It was a non existant problem from what I remember, when I was beta-testing 9.0.
Don't give up on Debian so fast! Why won't Debian install for you? Where does it have the problem? Did you use the bf2.4 kernel when you booted from the installation disks? It uses the 2.2 kernel by default, which is missing support for a lot of newer hardware.
I have an Athlon/NVIDIA as well and I just switched from Mandrake to Debian a few months ago. Debian has been a dream so far. Better than Mandrake ever was. So powerful, and remarkably, it is EASIER to use. Most of all, it is more stable.
Crazy. Yeah the Microsoft Student reps at UBC where I did my undegrad were pretty crazy too. They had actually infiltrated the ECE department quite heavily as well. You're right about MS starting to do this kind of thing now that Linux has become more popular...and a key user base for MS is the CS students. They are the future for them, and same goes for Linux. Once someone gets hooked on some development environment, it's tough to change. You get very productive in that one environment, and that's it. On the other hand programmers will have to develop programs that the mass market wants. So if the mass market is using Windows, then they will have to develop Windows Apps and use Windows development tools. So in some ways what CS programmers use it more dictated by the average consumer and what they run on their desktop. Business apps is another story, I guess...
I inferred this in my post...I said that I couldn't say how much exactly Waterloo had to pay Microsoft for this. ie. how much they had to pay in licensing fees. You're right it's not free, but it's basically an unlimited license, so it must have come pretty cheap. Microsoft could have afforded to give it away for free though, if they wanted to. Microsoft is gaining mindshare though...so that in the future, even though the TCO is cheaper for Linux, people will still use Windows because they are used to it, because they were given it to use for free in university. It's all related....I guess one of the main points I was trying to bring up was that TCO doesn't really matter if everyone wants to use Windows XP. Given the choice between free *nix, and free XP, people will choose XP, trust me. It's still the easiest OS to use. Besides OS X.
Windows is actually getting cheaper and cheaper...
For example, at the University of Waterloo, you can get a Windows XP CD for free if you are a student. I'm sorry, but I don't know how much Waterloo paid Microsoft for this... so maybe it isn't quite free. I actually got Windows XP from them. I'm mostly a Linux user, but they sucked me in with the free CD thing. Came with a unique activation ID and everything. How soon will it be before Microsoft starts giving away Windows XP to small businesses, home users, then big businesses. They can still make their main money from Office and other things. I think they're going to have to keep cutting costs, in order to match the cost of Linux.
Basically what I'm trying to say is that Microsoft fully realizes that Linux is a somewhat cheaper system to opearate, and this is one way that it is trying to change that. By giving it away free, they've reduced the cost of running Windows by a lot.
I don't think there is anything wrong with switching these courses from C++ to something more object-oriented. But I wish they had of switched to Java instead. One of the main reasons is that all the computers in the department will now have to be Windows machines. And what I am REALLY worried about, is Microsoft may have a special license agreement on these computers which they will be paying for, that says that they can't be dual-booted with Linux at all.
I always thought that open source software or free software had a great place in the university setting. Teaching students at an earlier age about the many advantages of open source software is a great thing. Ever since I was introduced to the Solaris workstations, GNU gcc, emacs, I've realized how powerful they are. I wouldn't want tomorrow's students missing that experience.
Well the airlines is certainly a tough business to be operating in. Airlines go out of business in Canada faster than fashions go out of style. Maybe cutting costs in this area would be enough to help their bottom line and bring down costs. It would be incredibly damaging to Linux's reputation though if some systems failed, and chaos or bankrupcy resulted.
But if we create as much unecessary internet traffic as possible, we'll create so much fibre demand that 360Networks may be able to get their stock up to $23 again, and I'll break even. So keep downloading everyone. Download, delete, download, delete.
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Yes Vancouver can suck a bit in terms of jobs. At least that's my opinion, being a high-tech worker (not software, though hardware, which is even worse in Vancouver). I know a lot of people who don't have the greatest job in Vancouver, I mean they could move to Silicon Valley or Ottawa and easily get paid way more and have a more exciting job...but they prefer Vancouver for other reasons. So it's a bit of a tradeoff. Waterloo-Kitchener, Ottawa, and various other places have good high tech sectors, but the weather usually sucks, there is no good skiing and no ocean nearby. Actually I'd say Alberta is second best, personally, I've only been there once. The weather sucks, but they have the strongest economy in Canada, no sales tax, some decent high tech starting up and close to mountains and pretty nice cities.
I pirated 5.1, 6.0, and then bought Wordperfect 2000 a few years later for cheap, student edition for $25. I don't know why anyone buys MS Office. It is the easiest software in the world to pirate. You can use any CD copier software. They should have at least used some sub-channel data like Blizzard did with Diablo II. That was a bitch, until I discovered CloneCD.
No way, WordPerfect was way better because of the "reveal codes" feature. I'm not sure if that feature still exists. I was using Wordperfect 2000 I think it was called... I think it still had this feature. The software wasn't very stable, it sometime crashed and the like. But reveal codes rules. It's sort of like editing a Latex document or something (bad example).
I don't remember 5.2, but 5.1 rocked! Back in the days of the "Wordperfect Corp." I think the fact that Wordperfect changed hands so many times really hurt the software (Borland, Lotus?, Corel). I think they should release the codebase into a GPL or variant, and then sell a commercial version with support. I mean clearly Corel is not great at making Wordperfect Office a competive suite, and making it perfectly reliable, but maybe they can make some decent coin from giving support. Maybe if they did this it would take over OpenOffice.org as the most popular open-source office suite. -
We can't forget about the thousands of Iranians, Indians, Russians, and Chinese who come to Canada all the time. (did I leave out any significant minority there?).
And NO Canadians benefit from the brain drain. Living in Canada is much better than living in the States (based on opinion surveys). Just look at stuff like the UN statistics on the best cities in the world to live (you'll find Vancouver near the top), as well as other surveys and you'll find this is the case.
This isn't any different from anywhere else. Every city in Canada is going through this. The ones that had less to begin with probably have a harder time. I'll be glad when Nortel finally packs it in. They were way too big anyways, and was crappy place to work. Ottawa is actually somewhat lucky in that they have a lot of other sectors going on, like the public sector and military which will never go away. They also get a lot of attention from the federal government (every heard of the capital commission) so it will always be a great city to live in, and will have no problem recovering, once the economy, markets, and ventrue capital start to recover.
I wish I had the quote exactly. It was on CBC Newsworld or some other Canadian network channel a few years ago.
Whoa, you're crazy? How do you have time for your wife?
Can someone please tell me honestly why I should start getting into Nethack? I mean I've clicked on the icon a few times and tried it out but it didn't seem that interesting. I mean, what I am trying to say is, does it get better, more interesting? how many levels are there? What else can you tell me that will make me want to take up this seemingly lame game.
Anyone know what's the quickest way to be able to play AVIs? ie. what program should I download on apt-get
This is what Debian strives for. I'm not sure if their user base is climbing though, in proportion to Redhat/Mandrake/etc..
It's kind of a nice equilibrium actually. Mandrake/Redhat are always pushing the bar, getting new software out there to the users in a packaged RPM format, which helps the actual developers make their software better because they can get feedback from those users. And Debian polishes packages up until their are ultra-stable and then moves them from "testing" to "stable". So users, as a whole benefit. There is a freedom of distribution...and at the same time software is being improved upon and features are added.
Yeah, well YellowDog found my cat. Mandrake did not!
Beta testing Mandrake 9.0 was one of the worst testing experiences because of this system. I hate subscribing to mailing lists...why do I need to hear about bugs which I am not interested in hearing about. The only person that needs to know about a particular bug is the maintainer of the package and any people who have requested to be CC:'s. MandrakeSoft needs to give their head a shake.
I agree whole-heartedly. I was thinking about switching to Redhat...then I switched to Debian. Best thing I ever did in my life...besides switching from Winblow$ to Mandrake in the first place.
I've always been amazed at this installation step. Why doesn't it just ask the user if they have a wheel and be done with it? The fact that they made the mouse jump all over the screen was always an oddity as well. My mouse always worked after this point, though, I never got stuck like this brain-dead reviewer. They could have made a call to the famous hide_mouse function though, to prevent the crazy mouse jumping action...
This was a big problem I remember when people were trying out the release candidates 1,2,3 with Mandrake 9.0. I assumed that this problem had to do with people (newbies) trying to burn the isos on 650MB CDs. But I'm not sure... It was a non existant problem from what I remember, when I was beta-testing 9.0.
I have an Athlon/NVIDIA as well and I just switched from Mandrake to Debian a few months ago. Debian has been a dream so far. Better than Mandrake ever was. So powerful, and remarkably, it is EASIER to use. Most of all, it is more stable.
The best thing about the website linked above is that the picture of the contributor is shown on each article. Could that be implemented in Slashdot?
Crazy. Yeah the Microsoft Student reps at UBC where I did my undegrad were pretty crazy too. They had actually infiltrated the ECE department quite heavily as well. You're right about MS starting to do this kind of thing now that Linux has become more popular...and a key user base for MS is the CS students. They are the future for them, and same goes for Linux. Once someone gets hooked on some development environment, it's tough to change. You get very productive in that one environment, and that's it. On the other hand programmers will have to develop programs that the mass market wants. So if the mass market is using Windows, then they will have to develop Windows Apps and use Windows development tools. So in some ways what CS programmers use it more dictated by the average consumer and what they run on their desktop. Business apps is another story, I guess...
I inferred this in my post...I said that I couldn't say how much exactly Waterloo had to pay Microsoft for this. ie. how much they had to pay in licensing fees. You're right it's not free, but it's basically an unlimited license, so it must have come pretty cheap. Microsoft could have afforded to give it away for free though, if they wanted to. Microsoft is gaining mindshare though...so that in the future, even though the TCO is cheaper for Linux, people will still use Windows because they are used to it, because they were given it to use for free in university. It's all related....I guess one of the main points I was trying to bring up was that TCO doesn't really matter if everyone wants to use Windows XP. Given the choice between free *nix, and free XP, people will choose XP, trust me. It's still the easiest OS to use. Besides OS X.
For example, at the University of Waterloo, you can get a Windows XP CD for free if you are a student. I'm sorry, but I don't know how much Waterloo paid Microsoft for this... so maybe it isn't quite free. I actually got Windows XP from them. I'm mostly a Linux user, but they sucked me in with the free CD thing. Came with a unique activation ID and everything. How soon will it be before Microsoft starts giving away Windows XP to small businesses, home users, then big businesses. They can still make their main money from Office and other things. I think they're going to have to keep cutting costs, in order to match the cost of Linux.
Basically what I'm trying to say is that Microsoft fully realizes that Linux is a somewhat cheaper system to opearate, and this is one way that it is trying to change that. By giving it away free, they've reduced the cost of running Windows by a lot.
I always thought that open source software or free software had a great place in the university setting. Teaching students at an earlier age about the many advantages of open source software is a great thing. Ever since I was introduced to the Solaris workstations, GNU gcc, emacs, I've realized how powerful they are. I wouldn't want tomorrow's students missing that experience.
Well the airlines is certainly a tough business to be operating in. Airlines go out of business in Canada faster than fashions go out of style. Maybe cutting costs in this area would be enough to help their bottom line and bring down costs. It would be incredibly damaging to Linux's reputation though if some systems failed, and chaos or bankrupcy resulted.
But if we create as much unecessary internet traffic as possible, we'll create so much fibre demand that 360Networks may be able to get their stock up to $23 again, and I'll break even. So keep downloading everyone. Download, delete, download, delete.
The metal will roll up fine. It is so thin that it is like paper. As long as the radius of the roll is not too small it will be fine.