I'll respond to this based on my most recent desktop linux box.
This is a Dell with two Nvidia graphics cards. The cards are not exactly the same, one is a '4500' model and the other is a '5000'. Or something. I run Debian -- almost always do these days -- and yeah, lots of things worked out of the box. Printing, Networking, hard disk label problems (/etc/fstab stuff), and definitely graphics -- these all had to be manually adjusted. Graphics still have issues, multi-head with two different nvidia cards is hard.
And then there's this, since I'm on 64 bit, apparently, there are some funny GTK bugs that slip up every now and then. Printer dialogue boxes come up empty. People's flesh on youtube videos is blue.... I could go on.
Please don't misunderstand me, I am a linux admin on the server side through and through (+15 years unix experience, nearly all flavors). But on the desktop side of things, I'm all Mac or, occasionally now, Debian Linux. I don't mind the occasional bug in the linux desktop experience, and I even enjoy tracking them down and fixing them. But I think there are many users that wouldn't.
Well yeah. It's a server install. There are no high-end graphics cards, OpenGL issues, sound cards, etc etc. Linux totally rules the server world and I will never even ask for a GUI tool for a server install. Give me vi and a VT220 and it's over.
All I'm saying, is that for me, "desktop linux" installs have been similar to what I am used to on the server end of things. Not a problem for me, but definitely a stopping point for some folks.
Your laptop experience is nice -- I haven't had one go that well. Thinkpads are popular hardware with linux desktop folks though, so I would say you got as close to "supported" as can be.
I've been using Linux for a long time. Editing config files is a must for everyone.
Unless: 1) You own a computer with an exactly perfectly supported hardware configuration (unlikely) 2) You never wish to install your own/non-package-managed programs 3) The default network configuration is perfect (and the NetworkManager/control panel hasn't screwed it up already) 4) There are no bugs in your distro to work around 5) Gnome never poops on your configuration files
This just never happens. Every time I do a "desktop linux" install, I try, really hard, to not edit configuration files. It ALWAYS comes up.
I don't hate it, but let's not be delusional. The linux gui tools are not perfect. End of story.
If you were to ask my opinion on a solution: 1) Big distros need to get together and spend a lot of time on configuration management and configuration tools. 2) Store all config in a locally run light SQL server. The access is a local XML socket. This makes it really easy to design all sorts of neat tools to manipulate the machine's configuration.
Yes that's idealistic and would take years to work out.
So here's the deal... some people will no-doubt be screaming that a background check should be required before buying a 3D printer. And we can of course extend the argument and say background checks should be required before going to the hardware store. Etc etc.
At some point, people are going to re-look at the argument that it is people with bad judgement and/or negligence that cause gun violence and gun accidents. The arguments against guns that center on availability of equipment are valid, but there are no practical solutions.
What, take guns away from citizens? Make them harder to buy? These arguments vanish when you realize that the people committing crimes don't follow the rules, and that this country is filled with guns already in private hands. Not to mention the constitution allows for gun ownership. It just won't work.
Ok, so fast-forward to 2013 where you can 'print' your own guns or just go to the hardware store and build one the old-fashioned way.
The only practical way to protect against gun violence and gun negligence is through education. It is through learning about morals, causes and consequences, and gun safety.
Siting in front of a video game all day that awards points for kills is not going to work.
Oh, and I am not saying this is something the government can simply thrust upon people -- this will take decades of careful work from parents and educators alike. There aren't any "turn-key" solutions to gun violence and gun negligence. But the long road is worth the trip.
Here's where he misses the boat: Nobody should do a job they don't enjoy if it is avoidable.
I'd much rather work for less money and enjoy my job than hate my job and have more money. This of course assumes both paths are fully available and that I don't have an enormous money problem.
Jobs you enjoy lead to passion, and passionate work often leads to promotions, business opportunities, other interesting work, side projects, etc.
I'm an engineer. I recently moved to a job where I get paid less and the cost of living is enormously higher. But I LOVE the work. And that, my friends, is priceless.
I was totally with you until you said: --snip--
That 97% think that man is causing climate change does not mean that it is right. It simply means it is the best theory that fits the observations --snip--
This is only a statistic about published papers. The statistic might say more about which models are most considered for publication than which models best fit the observations.
A better study might look at the scrutiny applied to these 97% vs the *rejected* papers that disagreed with the 97%.
Again, all we have here is a statistic about paper publishing.
They might as well have scanned over the "common" media (TV, newspapers, etc) and generated similar statistics.
You cannot do these type of studies and from these data conclude what the "best" theory is. You can only say what is the most popular. Well, most popular *published*.
I mean, obviously, this is not something anyone would want to see for any reason.
And if anyone were to see them, why, they might find who is responsible for the utter lack of intelligent action before and during the 2012 September 11 terrorist attack.
This doesn't show power consumption. It only shows ratios that are considered a sort of measure of efficiency.
It's like showing "miles per gallon" instead of "gallons used". In the case of facebook, they may be driving at 40 MPG, but they drive a million miles a day and that's a lot of fuel!
There's a company called "Batch PCB" that will do small quantities of PCBs for reasonable costs if you don't mind waiting a bit. They just put several designs together onto one PCB, send it off where they are getting a bulk rate, and then cut the boards apart when they are done, and send them out.
The hassle of running a machine like that is really not worth it.
But yes, very interesting and impressive nonetheless.
Windows is THE main reason you are having trouble supporting your folks from 600 miles away.
I would install linux (Debian if you're pretty seasoned with linux, Ubuntu otherwise), give her a non-admin account, import her "My Documents" folder and "Pictures" folder from windows (and put desktop shortcuts in). Set up a browser, install the same plugins (flash, adblock, what have you), set the homepage and bookmarks up identically, and believe me, an AOL user will be just fine with this.
Explain that at her level of computer knowledge, it's dangerous to go any other route. It is worth giving up the ability to install any one of the thousands of "seasonal screensavers" (spyware with pretty pictures) for windows xp in exchange for peace of mind and reliability.
If you do this, and give them exactly what they need, which is probably a web browser and skype, everyone wins.
As a bonus, remote admin is a snap. Don't ever install any updates (your mom can't anyway without admin access). Keep it simple! Linux (especially Debian and by extension Ubuntu) has come a long way on the desktop and is very user-friendly. My five-year-old son uses it every day and has yet to complain about it.
"windows and mac are not an option": Well what are you really asking then? "How can I keep my mom using windows and aol without having any problems?" Good luck with that. Don't kid yourself.
I second this, for coding, having portrait mode displays is great. Incidentally, lots of websites look better in portrait and you'll generally get more content and less white space.
I have two 30-inch displays where I work, one is the matte cinema display from Apple, the other is a Dell. The Apple one is softer and probably more 'linear' in it's response to brightness, the Dell seems to get darker and brighter but tends to look a bit darker than the Apple. Both are highly acceptable though!
I would say unless you're doing graphics work, focus on the size and resolution (and price) and let the graphics guys argue about color and gamma.
It's a simple function call, the input is the data, the output is the average... if you were in C this would be a lot harder without some data formatting or in between functions.
Excel's programming language is definitely not bad. There are plenty of things to not like about Excel, but the language isn't one.
Try Matlab if you really need something more advanced, but don't count on loving the language if you hate Excel's...
Meetings are a big waste of time. Take each person's topics, multiply the time by the number of people, and soon enough you realize that for most people at the meeting, they are wasting 1 / (n-1)*T of the meeting time (T), with n-people.
I'd rather send out an email, "Working on module X, starting connection to module Y" and keep working. Yeah, there's value in keeping up with your peers' work, but this is not worth an hour a day, for example. I can go spend that time with the specific people that I am working with and get a lot more out of that than their piece in a meeting.
Other runners up for wastes of time: Power point presentations of nearly any sort, design reviews with non-technical folks, and repetitive "because it's in the contract" presentations.
I'm sure it would run under wine via macports, I do that frequently with windows software on my mac -- and I don't have to keep a copy of windows installed in a VM to do so!
If you operate around "sensitive" information or devices (such as prototypes, private development ideas, etc), then absolutely, ban cameras and smart phones. Or perhaps all cell phones. To compensate, issue one-way pagers to each employee and install basic desk phones into each office where personal calls are permitted.
If you need to document something with a photo, use the company-provided digital camera in accordance with corporate policy. Need to access the internet? Use your company's computers.
So-called "smart phones" are definitely a liability. The only reason you would allow them is if you aren't working around sensitive IP.
Going paperless for the sake of paperless is dangerous. Going paperless because you have the technology (and user interface) to do so, and you think you have something to gain (such as increased simplicity, search capability, archival ease, etc) -- then there's a reason.
Perhaps because you are more of an "appliance operator" you don't appreciate the science and engineering behind the scenes.
Working with old hardware, like new hardware, presents a lot of challenges. The learning that takes place is very useful.
Unlike new hardware, old hardware is cheap and plentiful. Yard sales, garages, surplus stores... this is the place to go. For new hardware, you are looking at some money.
The learning that takes place on the old hardware is useful on problems beyond this "ancient platform". The folks that accomplished this port have flexed their brains around complicated problems, and are thus able to process other complicated problems more efficiently.
Bottom line, some people are passionate about engineering and science, and do it because they enjoy the learning process.
As a former m68k user, I can tell you this is a very good distro.
You can really breath new life into older computers. The results are often startling and better than their intel cousins from the same era. Not to say that this is a good "production environment" strategy, but if you have old macs collecting dust, and you'd like to learn some real linux-fu, install m68k linux on them. You will end up with useful computers, sometimes even useful for light desktop. Definitely useful for low-volume web servers, mail, ssh, etc.
This is a lot of fun and there are plenty of old macs available for almost nothing. Get out there and learn!
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I'll respond to this based on my most recent desktop linux box.
This is a Dell with two Nvidia graphics cards. The cards are not exactly the same, one is a '4500' model and the other is a '5000'. Or something. I run Debian -- almost always do these days -- and yeah, lots of things worked out of the box. Printing, Networking, hard disk label problems (/etc/fstab stuff), and definitely graphics -- these all had to be manually adjusted. Graphics still have issues, multi-head with two different nvidia cards is hard.
And then there's this, since I'm on 64 bit, apparently, there are some funny GTK bugs that slip up every now and then. Printer dialogue boxes come up empty. People's flesh on youtube videos is blue.... I could go on.
Please don't misunderstand me, I am a linux admin on the server side through and through (+15 years unix experience, nearly all flavors). But on the desktop side of things, I'm all Mac or, occasionally now, Debian Linux. I don't mind the occasional bug in the linux desktop experience, and I even enjoy tracking them down and fixing them. But I think there are many users that wouldn't.
Most recent install was ubuntu 12.04 on a server.
Well yeah. It's a server install. There are no high-end graphics cards, OpenGL issues, sound cards, etc etc. Linux totally rules the server world and I will never even ask for a GUI tool for a server install. Give me vi and a VT220 and it's over.
All I'm saying, is that for me, "desktop linux" installs have been similar to what I am used to on the server end of things. Not a problem for me, but definitely a stopping point for some folks.
Your laptop experience is nice -- I haven't had one go that well. Thinkpads are popular hardware with linux desktop folks though, so I would say you got as close to "supported" as can be.
No no no.
I've been using Linux for a long time. Editing config files is a must for everyone.
Unless:
1) You own a computer with an exactly perfectly supported hardware configuration (unlikely)
2) You never wish to install your own/non-package-managed programs
3) The default network configuration is perfect (and the NetworkManager/control panel hasn't screwed it up already)
4) There are no bugs in your distro to work around
5) Gnome never poops on your configuration files
This just never happens. Every time I do a "desktop linux" install, I try, really hard, to not edit configuration files. It ALWAYS comes up.
I don't hate it, but let's not be delusional. The linux gui tools are not perfect. End of story.
If you were to ask my opinion on a solution:
1) Big distros need to get together and spend a lot of time on configuration management and configuration tools.
2) Store all config in a locally run light SQL server. The access is a local XML socket. This makes it really easy to design all sorts of neat tools to manipulate the machine's configuration.
Yes that's idealistic and would take years to work out.
Do they have plastic bullets?
Sure, they would be hard to detect. Just askin'.
Also, metal detectors don't only detect solid blocks of metal. They can faintly see all sorts of objects.
So here's the deal... some people will no-doubt be screaming that a background check should be required before buying a 3D printer. And we can of course extend the argument and say background checks should be required before going to the hardware store. Etc etc.
At some point, people are going to re-look at the argument that it is people with bad judgement and/or negligence that cause gun violence and gun accidents. The arguments against guns that center on availability of equipment are valid, but there are no practical solutions.
What, take guns away from citizens? Make them harder to buy? These arguments vanish when you realize that the people committing crimes don't follow the rules, and that this country is filled with guns already in private hands. Not to mention the constitution allows for gun ownership. It just won't work.
Ok, so fast-forward to 2013 where you can 'print' your own guns or just go to the hardware store and build one the old-fashioned way.
The only practical way to protect against gun violence and gun negligence is through education. It is through learning about morals, causes and consequences, and gun safety.
Siting in front of a video game all day that awards points for kills is not going to work.
Oh, and I am not saying this is something the government can simply thrust upon people -- this will take decades of careful work from parents and educators alike. There aren't any "turn-key" solutions to gun violence and gun negligence. But the long road is worth the trip.
Here's where he misses the boat: Nobody should do a job they don't enjoy if it is avoidable.
I'd much rather work for less money and enjoy my job than hate my job and have more money. This of course assumes both paths are fully available and that I don't have an enormous money problem.
Jobs you enjoy lead to passion, and passionate work often leads to promotions, business opportunities, other interesting work, side projects, etc.
I'm an engineer. I recently moved to a job where I get paid less and the cost of living is enormously higher. But I LOVE the work. And that, my friends, is priceless.
I was totally with you until you said:
--snip--
That 97% think that man is causing climate change does not mean that it is right. It simply means it is the best theory that fits the observations
--snip--
This is only a statistic about published papers. The statistic might say more about which models are most considered for publication than which models best fit the observations.
A better study might look at the scrutiny applied to these 97% vs the *rejected* papers that disagreed with the 97%.
Again, all we have here is a statistic about paper publishing.
They might as well have scanned over the "common" media (TV, newspapers, etc) and generated similar statistics.
You cannot do these type of studies and from these data conclude what the "best" theory is. You can only say what is the most popular. Well, most popular *published*.
I mean, obviously, this is not something anyone would want to see for any reason.
And if anyone were to see them, why, they might find who is responsible for the utter lack of intelligent action before and during the 2012 September 11 terrorist attack.
Yeah, we definitely can't open that data...
This doesn't show power consumption. It only shows ratios that are considered a sort of measure of efficiency.
It's like showing "miles per gallon" instead of "gallons used". In the case of facebook, they may be driving at 40 MPG, but they drive a million miles a day and that's a lot of fuel!
Hook, line, and sinker.
He's taking the blame to remove heat and save the company. Probably has very little to do with him.
There's a company called "Batch PCB" that will do small quantities of PCBs for reasonable costs if you don't mind waiting a bit. They just put several designs together onto one PCB, send it off where they are getting a bulk rate, and then cut the boards apart when they are done, and send them out.
The hassle of running a machine like that is really not worth it.
But yes, very interesting and impressive nonetheless.
You need to get over windows.
Windows is THE main reason you are having trouble supporting your folks from 600 miles away.
I would install linux (Debian if you're pretty seasoned with linux, Ubuntu otherwise), give her a non-admin account, import her "My Documents" folder and "Pictures" folder from windows (and put desktop shortcuts in). Set up a browser, install the same plugins (flash, adblock, what have you), set the homepage and bookmarks up identically, and believe me, an AOL user will be just fine with this.
Explain that at her level of computer knowledge, it's dangerous to go any other route. It is worth giving up the ability to install any one of the thousands of "seasonal screensavers" (spyware with pretty pictures) for windows xp in exchange for peace of mind and reliability.
If you do this, and give them exactly what they need, which is probably a web browser and skype, everyone wins.
As a bonus, remote admin is a snap. Don't ever install any updates (your mom can't anyway without admin access). Keep it simple! Linux (especially Debian and by extension Ubuntu) has come a long way on the desktop and is very user-friendly. My five-year-old son uses it every day and has yet to complain about it.
"windows and mac are not an option": Well what are you really asking then? "How can I keep my mom using windows and aol without having any problems?" Good luck with that. Don't kid yourself.
I second this, for coding, having portrait mode displays is great. Incidentally, lots of websites look better in portrait and you'll generally get more content and less white space.
I have two 30-inch displays where I work, one is the matte cinema display from Apple, the other is a Dell. The Apple one is softer and probably more 'linear' in it's response to brightness, the Dell seems to get darker and brighter but tends to look a bit darker than the Apple. Both are highly acceptable though!
I would say unless you're doing graphics work, focus on the size and resolution (and price) and let the graphics guys argue about color and gamma.
You can use IF() to detect zero and empty cells.
http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/excel-questions/34638-if-cell-blank-do-%22x%22-if-cell-zero-do-%22y%22-if-cell-%3E-zero-do.html
So what's wrong with average()?
It's a simple function call, the input is the data, the output is the average... if you were in C this would be a lot harder without some data formatting or in between functions.
Excel's programming language is definitely not bad. There are plenty of things to not like about Excel, but the language isn't one.
Try Matlab if you really need something more advanced, but don't count on loving the language if you hate Excel's...
Then, it vibrates and you end up writing all over the page.
Yeah, this sounds great doesn't it?
And they said we don't need to bear arms.
I second this.
Meetings are a big waste of time. Take each person's topics, multiply the time by the number of people, and soon enough you realize that for most people at the meeting, they are wasting 1 / (n-1)*T of the meeting time (T), with n-people.
I'd rather send out an email, "Working on module X, starting connection to module Y" and keep working. Yeah, there's value in keeping up with your peers' work, but this is not worth an hour a day, for example. I can go spend that time with the specific people that I am working with and get a lot more out of that than their piece in a meeting.
Other runners up for wastes of time: Power point presentations of nearly any sort, design reviews with non-technical folks, and repetitive "because it's in the contract" presentations.
I'm sure it would run under wine via macports, I do that frequently with windows software on my mac -- and I don't have to keep a copy of windows installed in a VM to do so!
If you operate around "sensitive" information or devices (such as prototypes, private development ideas, etc), then absolutely, ban cameras and smart phones. Or perhaps all cell phones. To compensate, issue one-way pagers to each employee and install basic desk phones into each office where personal calls are permitted.
If you need to document something with a photo, use the company-provided digital camera in accordance with corporate policy. Need to access the internet? Use your company's computers.
So-called "smart phones" are definitely a liability. The only reason you would allow them is if you aren't working around sensitive IP.
This is so true.
Going paperless for the sake of paperless is dangerous. Going paperless because you have the technology (and user interface) to do so, and you think you have something to gain (such as increased simplicity, search capability, archival ease, etc) -- then there's a reason.
Perhaps because you are more of an "appliance operator" you don't appreciate the science and engineering behind the scenes.
Working with old hardware, like new hardware, presents a lot of challenges. The learning that takes place is very useful.
Unlike new hardware, old hardware is cheap and plentiful. Yard sales, garages, surplus stores... this is the place to go. For new hardware, you are looking at some money.
The learning that takes place on the old hardware is useful on problems beyond this "ancient platform". The folks that accomplished this port have flexed their brains around complicated problems, and are thus able to process other complicated problems more efficiently.
Bottom line, some people are passionate about engineering and science, and do it because they enjoy the learning process.
As a former m68k user, I can tell you this is a very good distro.
You can really breath new life into older computers. The results are often startling and better than their intel cousins from the same era. Not to say that this is a good "production environment" strategy, but if you have old macs collecting dust, and you'd like to learn some real linux-fu, install m68k linux on them. You will end up with useful computers, sometimes even useful for light desktop. Definitely useful for low-volume web servers, mail, ssh, etc.
This is a lot of fun and there are plenty of old macs available for almost nothing. Get out there and learn!
True. But in all other respects it (SE) is superior. And I'll bet someone had a card for external color display. Maybe Radius?
Oh wait, that's why I switched to HP...