"You should say that next time instead of implying that you can't move Vista to VMWare because it would mess up your Vista install in some undefined way."
I did. In my first post I said I use my main Windows install for games, and the VMWare install for things like testing with Internet Explorer and Visual Studio.
"3D support works for some games, but not all."
None of the games I care about work on VMWare.
"Okaaaay.. what if one of your games messes up your real Vista install?"
Not likely, I installed them a year ago and never installed anything new. In my VM on the other hand, I install new things all the time.
"Or your hard drive crashes?"
I haven't seen a hard drive crash since I started using computers 10 years ago. Yes, I'm not kidding. This doesn't mean it won't ever happen, but happens rarely enough that I don't care too much about the possibility.
"The point is, it doesn't matter what you have installed; you should have backups."
I already have backups of my data. I just don't have a backup of Vista. And just because I have backups doesn't mean I to go through the trouble of restoring them when I don't have to.
"Your original post made it sound like you're fine without backups, unless you installed VMWare."
No. Installing stuff into VMWare doesn't take away the need, but it *reduces* the need because the chance that my Vista install gets screwed up by some virus/malware becomes smaller.
Because I don't have a Vista reinstall CD or even a restoration partition. Dell didn't provide one. If VMWare fscks up my existing Vista install then I'd have a problem.
Yes. If an OS upgrade fails, then I can reinstall the OS (i.e. format the / partition) without having to move all my/home files to a backup drive first.
Re:Houston, I think we have a problem here.
on
GIMP 2.6 Released
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Yes there is. You can become the developer who does care what others think, and make the difference. Or you can hire a developer and tell him to care what others think, and let him make the difference.
*Someone* has to make the difference, or nothing will change.
"With a 750GB [newegg.com] hard drive selling under $100, what has changed?"
The coming of laptops. My laptop from 2007 only has an 80 GB hard drive. I'm a Linux user so the hard drive is partitioned with 10 GB for / and 42 GB for/home. I need Windows for games, so 23 GB for Windows, which proved to be barely enough for the few games that I'm playing (Starcraft, Portal, some MMORPGs). However, I don't want to reboot to Windows every time I want to test a website in Internet Explorer or every time I need to write Windows software, so I installed XP within VMWare, and the VMWare image resides in my home partition. This takes 20 GB of disk space. This only leaves about 20 precious GB. I download a lot of anime so 20 GB is really very little.
I have 2 GB of RAM. Reserving 4 GB swap would be an utter waste of disk space that I could use for more useful things.
So the law of conservation of mass is real, what a big surprise. What are you expecting? What are you hoping for? That the C mysteriously disappears?
So no, I don't get your point. The carbon may be freed after the tree dies, but carbon will be freed eventually *no matter what* solution. At least trees do something useful with it. What can humans do with CO2? Not much, except maybe storing them in salt mines. Trees on the other hand can last hundreds of years, and are essential for animal life.
I don't understand what all the fuss is all about. It's CO2, not C, that's making the climate warmer. The C in the CO2 came from these plants in the first place: natural oil originates from decomposed animals and plants. So the C is now returning to where it came from and isn't making the climate warmer. What's the problem?
Or rather, what are you expecting? You can't get rid of the C because of the law of conservation of mass.
Isn't that how all photosynthesis - hence all plants - work? I learned this in high school. Am I missing something obvious here or do people on Slashdot really not know this?
"Yes, but when the trees eventually die they are decomposed and release the CO2 into the air again (or in the case of biofuel, they release it into the air again when burned). It is a carbon-neutral system, both when left alone and when used as a fuel."
Uhm, I'm sorry? Last time I checked trees convert CO2 to oxygen instead of simply storing CO2 into their bodies!
"This issue is why I always teach (and try to practice) that it is important to admit when you are wrong."
What if you do admit being wrong after having people telling you that you're wrong, but once having corrected your stance, other people tell you that you're wrong and that you're an idiot for having listened to the first people who told you you were wrong? Then what do you do?
This is not a hypothetical situation, it actually happens quite often. User group A says my software's user interface sucks and that I need to do this and that. I say fine, I correct it, then group B harass me telling me that I'm an idiot for having listened to group A.
What crippleware? The existing software didn't become "crippled" - it never was able to play video out-of-the-box in the first place. They didn't cripple anything.
"No, OSS won't succeed on the desktop until the project leads stop thinking that everyone's computer-literate and start catering to the lowest common denominator when it comes to usage experience."
GNOME does this and tries its damn hard to cater to the computer illiterate. Yet it is exactly this that the Slashdot/Reddit/OSNews/etc community criticizes GNOME for.
I suggested Linux because she's getting 10 new spyware every day. Last time I tried to clean up her Windows install, I gave up after a few minutes. But she'd rather live with all the spyware and a computer that takes 10 minutes to boot (even though she complains about it) than to use an OS that looks different.
Slashdot Mirror
Most people turn off their computer at night. It's only the Slashdot nerd that has several months of uptime for his desktop machine.
"You should say that next time instead of implying that you can't move Vista to VMWare because it would mess up your Vista install in some undefined way."
I did. In my first post I said I use my main Windows install for games, and the VMWare install for things like testing with Internet Explorer and Visual Studio.
"3D support works for some games, but not all."
None of the games I care about work on VMWare.
"Okaaaay.. what if one of your games messes up your real Vista install?"
Not likely, I installed them a year ago and never installed anything new. In my VM on the other hand, I install new things all the time.
"Or your hard drive crashes?"
I haven't seen a hard drive crash since I started using computers 10 years ago. Yes, I'm not kidding. This doesn't mean it won't ever happen, but happens rarely enough that I don't care too much about the possibility.
"The point is, it doesn't matter what you have installed; you should have backups."
I already have backups of my data. I just don't have a backup of Vista. And just because I have backups doesn't mean I to go through the trouble of restoring them when I don't have to.
"Your original post made it sound like you're fine without backups, unless you installed VMWare."
No. Installing stuff into VMWare doesn't take away the need, but it *reduces* the need because the chance that my Vista install gets screwed up by some virus/malware becomes smaller.
"then remove the original Vista partition."
I can't. I use the real Vista installs for playing games, and Direct3D doesn't work well in VMWare.
"Besides, what if MS Office messes up your existing Vista install?"
That's why I install MS Office into VMWare while games into the real Vista install.
"Atr you sure about that?"
fdisk is pretty sure that there is no such partition. I don't have the Vista setup CD, nor the the recovery disk.
I have. But that doesn't mean I want to bother with restoring from a backup after I've reinstalled my OS.
Because I don't have a Vista reinstall CD or even a restoration partition. Dell didn't provide one. If VMWare fscks up my existing Vista install then I'd have a problem.
Yes. If an OS upgrade fails, then I can reinstall the OS (i.e. format the / partition) without having to move all my /home files to a backup drive first.
Yes there is. You can become the developer who does care what others think, and make the difference. Or you can hire a developer and tell him to care what others think, and let him make the difference.
*Someone* has to make the difference, or nothing will change.
"With a 750GB [newegg.com] hard drive selling under $100, what has changed?"
The coming of laptops. My laptop from 2007 only has an 80 GB hard drive. I'm a Linux user so the hard drive is partitioned with 10 GB for / and 42 GB for /home. I need Windows for games, so 23 GB for Windows, which proved to be barely enough for the few games that I'm playing (Starcraft, Portal, some MMORPGs). However, I don't want to reboot to Windows every time I want to test a website in Internet Explorer or every time I need to write Windows software, so I installed XP within VMWare, and the VMWare image resides in my home partition. This takes 20 GB of disk space. This only leaves about 20 precious GB. I download a lot of anime so 20 GB is really very little.
I have 2 GB of RAM. Reserving 4 GB swap would be an utter waste of disk space that I could use for more useful things.
So the law of conservation of mass is real, what a big surprise. What are you expecting? What are you hoping for? That the C mysteriously disappears?
So no, I don't get your point. The carbon may be freed after the tree dies, but carbon will be freed eventually *no matter what* solution. At least trees do something useful with it. What can humans do with CO2? Not much, except maybe storing them in salt mines. Trees on the other hand can last hundreds of years, and are essential for animal life.
Since Gimp 2.0 (which was released years ago), you can dock any tool dialog.
Where do the Gimp developers advertise Gimp as being comparable to Photoshop? I dare to find one statement that's newer than 5 years.
I don't understand what all the fuss is all about. It's CO2, not C, that's making the climate warmer. The C in the CO2 came from these plants in the first place: natural oil originates from decomposed animals and plants. So the C is now returning to where it came from and isn't making the climate warmer. What's the problem?
Or rather, what are you expecting? You can't get rid of the C because of the law of conservation of mass.
It's used by the tree as energy source. Your point being?
"If it is all converted to oxygen, without the carbon being stored in the trees themselves, where do the carbon atom go?"
It's converted to glucose, C6H12O6:
6 CO2(g) + 12 H2O(l) + photons -> C6H12O6(aq) + 6 O2(g) + 6 H2O(l)
Isn't that how all photosynthesis - hence all plants - work? I learned this in high school. Am I missing something obvious here or do people on Slashdot really not know this?
"Yes, but when the trees eventually die they are decomposed and release the CO2 into the air again (or in the case of biofuel, they release it into the air again when burned). It is a carbon-neutral system, both when left alone and when used as a fuel."
Uhm, I'm sorry? Last time I checked trees convert CO2 to oxygen instead of simply storing CO2 into their bodies!
Depends on the language. In Dutch, Quran really is spelled "Koran".
"This issue is why I always teach (and try to practice) that it is important to admit when you are wrong."
What if you do admit being wrong after having people telling you that you're wrong, but once having corrected your stance, other people tell you that you're wrong and that you're an idiot for having listened to the first people who told you you were wrong? Then what do you do?
This is not a hypothetical situation, it actually happens quite often. User group A says my software's user interface sucks and that I need to do this and that. I say fine, I correct it, then group B harass me telling me that I'm an idiot for having listened to group A.
"not always the case" or "usually not"?
What crippleware? The existing software didn't become "crippled" - it never was able to play video out-of-the-box in the first place. They didn't cripple anything.
"If a web developer does make a slow site, it doesn't become popular because users are too impatient and go to faster ones."
Hahaha! Check again: hyves.nl. One of the most popular sites in the Netherlands. Contains tons of unnecessary Ajax affects and very, very slow.
count() on an array is apparently O(n). Yeah it baffled me too.
"No, OSS won't succeed on the desktop until the project leads stop thinking that everyone's computer-literate and start catering to the lowest common denominator when it comes to usage experience."
GNOME does this and tries its damn hard to cater to the computer illiterate. Yet it is exactly this that the Slashdot/Reddit/OSNews/etc community criticizes GNOME for.
I suggested Linux because she's getting 10 new spyware every day. Last time I tried to clean up her Windows install, I gave up after a few minutes. But she'd rather live with all the spyware and a computer that takes 10 minutes to boot (even though she complains about it) than to use an OS that looks different.
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=955417&cid=24900585
and
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=654289&cid=24708317