How do you go 20 years typing without ever learning anything more than two finger typing?!
Quite easily. I type properly now, but I went for years using two 2 fingers and the thumb on each hand (it can be surprisingly quick), but then the first computer keyboards I worked with were the old Burroughs "teletype" machines. I challenge anybody to touch-type on one of those machines without letting themselves in for an industrial-class case of RSI within a week.
Yes, it's dirty, but it obviously works for those selling otherwise moribund stock in SCO. The best thing the Linux distributors can do in this case is simply ignore SCO. Sooner or later they'll get bitchslapped in the courts by the big players whom they've taken the trouble to directly offend, and they'll crawl back into the compost whence they came.
there is no reason why my ISP has to be the same company as my telephone service provider
Indeed, this is true. My own ISP is aceonline.com.au, but they are effectively re-selling the Telstra package but with *much* better traffic allowances. Like it or not, Telstra mostly owns the infrastructure on which the Net runs here anyway.
And yes, for the US denizens of Slashdot, traffic limits are standard practice here in Australia.
OpenOffice is already better than the current offering from Microsoft. Seems its only drawback is the time it takes to load. Fine on my 2.4 GHz machine, but on this 1GHz Athlon it's still very slow.
I had the misfortune yesterday to spend a long WP and spreadsheet session with MSOffice yesterday, and found nothing that OpenOffice didn't do at least as well.
OK, almost nothing. OpenOffice doesn't leave torn-off gobbets of previous dialogue windows scattered across the screen after they've been closed. OO used to have that feature, but apparently it is now deprecated:-).
It's kind of interesting that a variety of reasonably well-considered translations have been provided in this discussion, but a link to the Fish is somehow moderated Score:5, Informative.
Come on guys, get it right. Bonus points for links such as this informative link are ridiculous.
You wouldn't believe the number of geeks who claim you can't hear the difference between a CD and an MP3 or OGG. I guess they must be using Bose speakers (no highs, no lows, you know it's Bose). Either that, or they're stone deaf from playing computer games with the volume at max:-).
I know you're joking, but in the early '80s I used to work for a large municipal council in the western boroughs of London on a large Sperry site which was supposed to be "paperless". That shop cleared about two tons (Imperial long tons, if we want to be pedantic) of paper every day.
Would you actually trust the cable company to "remember" you have lifetime viewing rights anyway?
That's assuming the company continues to trade throughout your lifetime. Also assuming they don't decide to change the rules and hit you in the pocket anyway as a matter of policy.
As I understand it, the original post was referring to music sales.
If "they" seriously want to push this angle, they will be disappointed with the result. People want media they can take anywhere. I, for one, absolutely insist on being able to listen to Bach's 2nd Partita for unaccompanied violin while sitting in a rowing boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Never mind how I'm supposed to get there:-)
Most people do not have the resources to lug their broadband connections around on their backs. Most people, in fact, don't have broadband connections at all.
So either stop whining about the size of your bill, or stop whining about the state of telecommunications in the bush
In what post did I do either? If you want to bang drums, do it on your own time. I merely stated that consumers' interests are unlikely to be a factor in this kind of decision.
Indeed, that's true... but another thing struck me: the notion that the "...technique can also be used to sweep large virtual pages across the phone's screen".
If the phone is anything like my Motorola T720, if I tilted it in any way, I wouldn't be able to see anything on the screen.
I've had a lot of contact with universities, and I must say I've barely seen a whisper of open source usage
Lecturers often (usually) use Macs, though I've come across several running Linux; but you might be surprised at the amount of server-side work that happens on Linux.
being a Westpac customer, and I must say that I've never had any problems using their online banking
I have no personal knowledge of Westpac, I was referring to
this
link which came up recently.
That aside, it looks like the South Australian govt may be more enlightened than our WA lot; but I have heard (unconfirmed) that MS has, indeed, stitched up Federal contracts.
I'm surprised that more organisations haven't jumped on board the open source bandwagon; especially those who have a skilled IT department (Universities, Telcos, etc)
Not sure about telcos, but lots of universities use OSS heavily, and even a number of banks (with the proud exception of PestWhack) here in Australia are linux-friendly or at least non-linux-hostile.
Seems to me that the biggest sticks in the corporate mud for insisting on Microsoft are the Federal and State governments. I'm sure it's not because of the advice they're getting from their IT mavens.
there are very few cases where people get convicted of crimes they did not commit, after all the "beyond reasonable doubt" is ment to ensure just that.
It is, indeed, meant to ensure that, but it's not that simple.
I've sat on jury duty twice now, and on both of these occasions a large proportion of the other members of the jury had already decided the accused was guilty before they even heard the evidence, and I nearly started a fight when I refused to roll over on the grounds that the evidence produced by the prosecution was seriously flawed, and the others wanted to go home.
Think about it this way: Some Slashdot moderators are clearly morons or on crack:-D. OK, they are not deciding the fate of anything more than a few words, but would you want that kind of unconsidered opinion acting on a judgement in court? Well, hello, it happens every day. At least Slashdot has a karma system factored into the ability to moderate. All you have to do to get on to a jury is be on the electoral roll.
Since Gnumeric is so very functional and damn quick to load. But as I often have to integrate spreadsheets and charts with WP documents (in scientific reports), I fear I'm stuck with OpenOffice for a while.
Yes, I know LaTeX can handle it, but I haven't had the time to break that learning curve.
Here in Australia, a lot of student guild offices run book exchanges, but I've noticed that most of the volumes on the shelves tend to be on management. I guess that as the currently trendy hype is discarded seasonally, the books themselves become redundant, and nobody wants to keep them.
In my experience, if a textbook is really good, I never want to get rid of it.
You pay for what you get, though. When I was on dialup, I used to get through a modem every year (2 Lightspeeds, one Acer and one Netcomm) until I splashed out a few extra $$ for a Mitsubishi Diamond modem (which I still have, but is now relegated to a cardboard box).
You can keep your Fosters, but I think the author of the article has his geography mixed up when he describes Slackware as "an original high quality hand-crafted distribution from the home of our magazine, Australia."
I'm not biased here: I'm an Australian, and I'm a big fan of Slackware, but I was under the firm impression that Slackware is of US origin.
Slashdot Mirror
The zombies acted quietly, but kept driving their oxen forward
Black sphinx of quatrz, judge my vow
Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs
Quite easily. I type properly now, but I went for years using two 2 fingers and the thumb on each hand (it can be surprisingly quick), but then the first computer keyboards I worked with were the old Burroughs "teletype" machines. I challenge anybody to touch-type on one of those machines without letting themselves in for an industrial-class case of RSI within a week.
Yes, it's dirty, but it obviously works for those selling otherwise moribund stock in SCO. The best thing the Linux distributors can do in this case is simply ignore SCO. Sooner or later they'll get bitchslapped in the courts by the big players whom they've taken the trouble to directly offend, and they'll crawl back into the compost whence they came.
Indeed, this is true. My own ISP is aceonline.com.au, but they are effectively re-selling the Telstra package but with *much* better traffic allowances. Like it or not, Telstra mostly owns the infrastructure on which the Net runs here anyway.
And yes, for the US denizens of Slashdot, traffic limits are standard practice here in Australia.
I had the misfortune yesterday to spend a long WP and spreadsheet session with MSOffice yesterday, and found nothing that OpenOffice didn't do at least as well.
OK, almost nothing. OpenOffice doesn't leave torn-off gobbets of previous dialogue windows scattered across the screen after they've been closed. OO used to have that feature, but apparently it is now deprecated :-).
Come on guys, get it right. Bonus points for links such as this informative link are ridiculous.
Mind you, 10,000 euros is probably more than their company's worth if we discount their antics to pump the share price.
You wouldn't believe the number of geeks who claim you can't hear the difference between a CD and an MP3 or OGG. I guess they must be using Bose speakers (no highs, no lows, you know it's Bose). Either that, or they're stone deaf from playing computer games with the volume at max :-).
I know you're joking, but in the early '80s I used to work for a large municipal council in the western boroughs of London on a large Sperry site which was supposed to be "paperless". That shop cleared about two tons (Imperial long tons, if we want to be pedantic) of paper every day.
That's assuming the company continues to trade throughout your lifetime. Also assuming they don't decide to change the rules and hit you in the pocket anyway as a matter of policy.
If "they" seriously want to push this angle, they will be disappointed with the result. People want media they can take anywhere. I, for one, absolutely insist on being able to listen to Bach's 2nd Partita for unaccompanied violin while sitting in a rowing boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Never mind how I'm supposed to get there :-)
Most people do not have the resources to lug their broadband connections around on their backs. Most people, in fact, don't have broadband connections at all.
In what post did I do either? If you want to bang drums, do it on your own time. I merely stated that consumers' interests are unlikely to be a factor in this kind of decision.
If the phone is anything like my Motorola T720, if I tilted it in any way, I wouldn't be able to see anything on the screen.
Lecturers often (usually) use Macs, though I've come across several running Linux; but you might be surprised at the amount of server-side work that happens on Linux.
being a Westpac customer, and I must say that I've never had any problems using their online banking
I have no personal knowledge of Westpac, I was referring to this link which came up recently.
That aside, it looks like the South Australian govt may be more enlightened than our WA lot; but I have heard (unconfirmed) that MS has, indeed, stitched up Federal contracts.
I presume you're on dialup then? Unless you're so well-off that you can afford to keep ditching broadband contracts at the drop of a hat?
I don't think, somehow, that we'll see Telstra pass their IT savings down to us consumers. After all, they're not doing this for our benefit...
Not sure about telcos, but lots of universities use OSS heavily, and even a number of banks (with the proud exception of PestWhack) here in Australia are linux-friendly or at least non-linux-hostile.
Seems to me that the biggest sticks in the corporate mud for insisting on Microsoft are the Federal and State governments. I'm sure it's not because of the advice they're getting from their IT mavens.
It is, indeed, meant to ensure that, but it's not that simple.
I've sat on jury duty twice now, and on both of these occasions a large proportion of the other members of the jury had already decided the accused was guilty before they even heard the evidence, and I nearly started a fight when I refused to roll over on the grounds that the evidence produced by the prosecution was seriously flawed, and the others wanted to go home.
Think about it this way: Some Slashdot moderators are clearly morons or on crack :-D. OK, they are not deciding the fate of anything more than a few words, but would you want that kind of unconsidered opinion acting on a judgement in court? Well, hello, it happens every day. At least Slashdot has a karma system factored into the ability to moderate. All you have to do to get on to a jury is be on the electoral roll.
Yes, I know LaTeX can handle it, but I haven't had the time to break that learning curve.
In my experience, if a textbook is really good, I never want to get rid of it.
You pay for what you get, though. When I was on dialup, I used to get through a modem every year (2 Lightspeeds, one Acer and one Netcomm) until I splashed out a few extra $$ for a Mitsubishi Diamond modem (which I still have, but is now relegated to a cardboard box).
I suppose lots of people are out of range for broadband, but plugging 2 computers into one 56k connection would seriously try my patience.
Hmmm. I would suggest that the majority of slashdot readers would infer at best:
(a) an entirely erroneous amount of information as a result of not having read the article at all or
(b) an entirely erroneous amount of information as a result of having read the article but misinterpreting it by being an illiterate moron :-)
[If you don't have any idea what I'm talking about, check out the now very dated Linux Installation and Getting Started]
I'm not biased here: I'm an Australian, and I'm a big fan of Slackware, but I was under the firm impression that Slackware is of US origin.