We are not supposed to demonstrate logical arguments in this thread.
...or anywhere else for that matter. Just think about the name "Standard & Poor", for instance. What I'm wondering is if this was their "standard" level of analysis, or the "poor".
In roughly chronological order, dating from the '70s:
Burroughs MCP-IV -> MCP-XI
Honeywell DPS-x
Sperry/UNIVAC Exec-x
IBM MVS
VMS
VME
PRIMOS
AOS/VS and AOS/VS-2
I suppose I have to fit DOS in there somewhere, and I'm sure I've missed a few, but you get the picture...
If you don't use any window compositing, my understanding is (correct me if I'm wrong) that you won't gain much from Wayland. I understand that Wayland offers a direct interface for window compositing, rather than having the compositing bolted on top of X11. The performance gain should be obvious, so it seems a Good Thing(TM) to me.
I would be the last to deny that X11 has served us loyally and well for decades, but if the user expects a more modern interface, there is little point in attempting to stop the tide.
im[sic] using my scythe
and havent found the perfect way to mow my lawn.... any suggestions?
Definitely not. If you can use a scythe without fucking up your back, you are a hero and need no help from a bunch of nerds. However, if you insist, the scythe effectively eliminates the travelling salesman problem, since there are (theoretically) zero redundant passes, since anyone who really knows how to use the instrument knows that you only cut once on a given area.
anyone else get the impression this guy just wanted a reason to say "I have a six acre lawn"?
No, not really. If you prefer to live in an apartment (or your Mum's basement) in the city, that's fine. Neither I nor anyone else will interfere with your lifestyle choice. Choosing to live at a distance from urban congestion does not necessarily mean you are an elitist prick, it just reflects a different set of priorities.
not sheep. sheep are stupid and they smell. goats are smart.
As far as smell is concerned, I would probably put goats higher up on the olfactory quotient scale. For intelligence, there isn't actually that much to choose between the two animals, since they are both smarter than many people realise. I know plenty of people who are much stupider than the average sheep.
So what? One day, unless someone does us a favour (;-)) you'll be as decrepit as we are, and you will find equally asinine and rewarding pursuits. Don't knock it until you've tried it...
Yeah, but then if Americans built parks, they'd have to get to know their neighbours.
Well, there's something to that, but it's not exclusive to Merkins. I have a largeish property (>100 acre) in Tasmania which might be regarded as a de facto park in the sense that I do absolutely nothing to discourage the occasional bushwalker from scrambling across, but I also do not have to worry about installing curtains or blinds in my windows. After all, anyone coming past my house after dark is likely to break their necks, assuming they don't get eaten by drop-bears.;-)
I've got a better tip. Why not just get a few sheep and let them mow (and manure) the lawn? Better yet, make sure the animals are ewes and milk them. I'm a professional cheesemaker, so my choice for the product will be obvious, but ewe's milk is usually high in fat, so you can also have amazing cream (or butter).
Twm is useful for making sure that your X server works. After all, there was a time when you couldn't count on that.;-)
But it has never been pretty, and is not that much more useful than a naked tty. On occasions when I wanted a lightweight desktop environment, my first choice tended to be Fluxbox. Of course, years ago Enlightenment used to be considered very resource-hungry, whereas now it would be more in the low-cholesterol bracket. The only trouble with Enlightenment was that I could never figure out how to get any work done on it.;-)
Over the years I have been something of a fan of Gnome (off and on since pre-1.0), but it often seems to me that each major version bump since takes more useful features away from the user, leaving behind some half-baked philosophical notion of how the developers think you "should" work in their place. This is why my desktop now takes a more composite form, with some of the old Gnome 2 components saddled along with compiz-fusion and other bits and pieces. Easily done when you use a rolling-release distro (Arch in my case).
To many people my desktop environment might seem a complete mess, but it works well enough for me at the moment.
This case is interesting, though, because in the past Linus has come out quite strongly in favour of KDE over Gnome. I guess anyone's perspective can change over time...
Re:Can the developers take over again, please?
on
The Next Firefox UI
·
· Score: 1
...just fire up the terminal..." and that's the problem, no normal end user is going to do that.
I keep hearing this notion being repeated ad nauseam, and it makes no sense. Millions of people managed just fine banging out commands on the old DOS PCs, when that was how you got things done. It wasn't that hard then, and it isn't hard now. OK, a *nix command set is richer than MS/PC-DOS, but many users get by with a small handful of commands like ls, mv, pwd, chmod and su.
But there is a difference between anonymity and pseudonymity, which might be confused here.
True. And for many of us who have been around Slashdot for a while, a pseudonym is every bit as good as the name we are given at birth. Arguably better, in fact, since we get to choose it ourselves - and sometimes regret it later;-). If we don't use it to fill the site up with inflammatory or worthless posts, there is no reason why a pseudonym should not allow you to stand by your reputation.
This is sort of why I am not convinced of the value allowing AC posts; from my point of view, it really isn't that hard to create a pseudonymous account, and if one has anything worth saying at all, it isn't that much to ask.
All FaceBook has to do to solve the anonymous user problem is have an option to ignore users suspected of not having valid names and have it turned on by default. They could even delete insulting accounts as well.
I read somewhere that they already do this. I have also read of cases where innocent people have been locked out of their Facebook accounts on the basis of such suspicion. Maybe it's just me, but if I have any data I want to keep, I don't leave it in the hands of a capricious third party against whom I have no redress.
Zuckerburg talks as if Facebook users should place a lot of trust in his corporation, while at every turn he and his company have shown that they can't be trusted. After all, any exec who says out loud that his customers are dumb fucks shouldn't be too surprised when some of them decline to reveal personal information.
True. And while there will always be those who use pseudonymity to hide behind for the purpose of being obnoxious pricks, that doesn't negate the need for it. There are far too many reasons why one might not wish to use one's real name in (say) forum posts. If I let it be known that my real name was Johann Sechspackett, it would not be too long before my identity was traced to my residential address at No. 10 Downing Street, London, which would soon identify me as the British First Lady's toyboy, and everybody would then find out about my predilection for ostrich pornography...
Re:Can the developers take over again, please?
on
The Next Firefox UI
·
· Score: 1
Having said that, many (or most) of the more so-called "intuitive" text editors on a *nix platform require an X server, whereas Emacs will run quite happily in a TTY shell. If you are logging in via ssh, rsh or even telnet (if anyone does that any more), that can be very useful.
Re:Can the developers take over again, please?
on
The Next Firefox UI
·
· Score: 1
...much of Linux' failure to succeed on the desktop has been down to UIs built by people with no concept of good UI design.
Nothing to do with Linux. There are dozens of UIs on as many Linux desktops, many of which are great in their own way, depending on how full or sparse a feature set you need.
The most successful OS UI of all, which at this point might (still) arguably be Windows XP, is absolutely abominable in many ways. But market penetration is not an indication of quality or usefulness, but more success in marketing.
Re:Can the developers take over again, please?
on
The Next Firefox UI
·
· Score: 1
That was my thought when I saw the mockup. I'm not that enthusiastic about Chrome, but I like the effort to save screenspace by minimising the amount of real estate taken up by toolbars or status bars. Since I currently seem to be a Mac user (my preference is towards Linux or the BSDs), I particularly appreciate any reduction in toolbar space, since that damn stupid menu bar really pisses me off...
I guess if he won't say what extensions he's running, then he's just trolling. FWIW, I've been running FF in various versions (currently 5.0.1) on this oldish 2.16 GHz MacBook for as long as I've had the machine, and it works fine, just like it does on Linux.
The submission is fair enough in its own way, but I can't say I'm overly impressed that it appears to be a direct advertisement for the submitter's product.
Slashdot Mirror
We are not supposed to demonstrate logical arguments in this thread.
...or anywhere else for that matter. Just think about the name "Standard & Poor", for instance. What I'm wondering is if this was their "standard" level of analysis, or the "poor".
When did you start using Linux?
About 1995.
What was your previous computer OS?
In roughly chronological order, dating from the '70s:
Burroughs MCP-IV -> MCP-XI
Honeywell DPS-x
Sperry/UNIVAC Exec-x
IBM MVS
VMS
VME
PRIMOS
AOS/VS and AOS/VS-2
I suppose I have to fit DOS in there somewhere, and I'm sure I've missed a few, but you get the picture...
If you don't use any window compositing, my understanding is (correct me if I'm wrong) that you won't gain much from Wayland. I understand that Wayland offers a direct interface for window compositing, rather than having the compositing bolted on top of X11. The performance gain should be obvious, so it seems a Good Thing(TM) to me.
I would be the last to deny that X11 has served us loyally and well for decades, but if the user expects a more modern interface, there is little point in attempting to stop the tide.
im[sic] using my scythe
and havent found the perfect way to mow my lawn.... any suggestions?
Definitely not. If you can use a scythe without fucking up your back, you are a hero and need no help from a bunch of nerds. However, if you insist, the scythe effectively eliminates the travelling salesman problem, since there are (theoretically) zero redundant passes, since anyone who really knows how to use the instrument knows that you only cut once on a given area.
anyone else get the impression this guy just wanted a reason to say "I have a six acre lawn"?
No, not really. If you prefer to live in an apartment (or your Mum's basement) in the city, that's fine. Neither I nor anyone else will interfere with your lifestyle choice. Choosing to live at a distance from urban congestion does not necessarily mean you are an elitist prick, it just reflects a different set of priorities.
not sheep. sheep are stupid and they smell. goats are smart.
As far as smell is concerned, I would probably put goats higher up on the olfactory quotient scale. For intelligence, there isn't actually that much to choose between the two animals, since they are both smarter than many people realise. I know plenty of people who are much stupider than the average sheep.
So what? One day, unless someone does us a favour (;-)) you'll be as decrepit as we are, and you will find equally asinine and rewarding pursuits. Don't knock it until you've tried it...
Yeah, but then if Americans built parks, they'd have to get to know their neighbours.
Well, there's something to that, but it's not exclusive to Merkins. I have a largeish property (>100 acre) in Tasmania which might be regarded as a de facto park in the sense that I do absolutely nothing to discourage the occasional bushwalker from scrambling across, but I also do not have to worry about installing curtains or blinds in my windows. After all, anyone coming past my house after dark is likely to break their necks, assuming they don't get eaten by drop-bears. ;-)
I've got a better tip. Why not just get a few sheep and let them mow (and manure) the lawn? Better yet, make sure the animals are ewes and milk them. I'm a professional cheesemaker, so my choice for the product will be obvious, but ewe's milk is usually high in fat, so you can also have amazing cream (or butter).
If you ask a carpenter what is "best tool" is, he might ask you "for doing what?"
Most likely, he'll say "my brain".
If your code is that performance critical, you should be able to optimise it yourself.
Twm is useful for making sure that your X server works. After all, there was a time when you couldn't count on that. ;-)
;-)
But it has never been pretty, and is not that much more useful than a naked tty. On occasions when I wanted a lightweight desktop environment, my first choice tended to be Fluxbox. Of course, years ago Enlightenment used to be considered very resource-hungry, whereas now it would be more in the low-cholesterol bracket. The only trouble with Enlightenment was that I could never figure out how to get any work done on it.
Want to know what else requires X windows? A *nix desktop environment.
Well, I guess he could always use emacs as his desktop environment. Not saying it would be pretty, but it can be done.
Over the years I have been something of a fan of Gnome (off and on since pre-1.0), but it often seems to me that each major version bump since takes more useful features away from the user, leaving behind some half-baked philosophical notion of how the developers think you "should" work in their place. This is why my desktop now takes a more composite form, with some of the old Gnome 2 components saddled along with compiz-fusion and other bits and pieces. Easily done when you use a rolling-release distro (Arch in my case).
To many people my desktop environment might seem a complete mess, but it works well enough for me at the moment.
This case is interesting, though, because in the past Linus has come out quite strongly in favour of KDE over Gnome. I guess anyone's perspective can change over time...
...just fire up the terminal..." and that's the problem, no normal end user is going to do that.
I keep hearing this notion being repeated ad nauseam, and it makes no sense. Millions of people managed just fine banging out commands on the old DOS PCs, when that was how you got things done. It wasn't that hard then, and it isn't hard now. OK, a *nix command set is richer than MS/PC-DOS, but many users get by with a small handful of commands like ls, mv, pwd, chmod and su.
I'm Simon Wimpleblode!
But there is a difference between anonymity and pseudonymity, which might be confused here.
True. And for many of us who have been around Slashdot for a while, a pseudonym is every bit as good as the name we are given at birth. Arguably better, in fact, since we get to choose it ourselves - and sometimes regret it later ;-). If we don't use it to fill the site up with inflammatory or worthless posts, there is no reason why a pseudonym should not allow you to stand by your reputation.
This is sort of why I am not convinced of the value allowing AC posts; from my point of view, it really isn't that hard to create a pseudonymous account, and if one has anything worth saying at all, it isn't that much to ask.
All FaceBook has to do to solve the anonymous user problem is have an option to ignore users suspected of not having valid names and have it turned on by default. They could even delete insulting accounts as well.
I read somewhere that they already do this. I have also read of cases where innocent people have been locked out of their Facebook accounts on the basis of such suspicion. Maybe it's just me, but if I have any data I want to keep, I don't leave it in the hands of a capricious third party against whom I have no redress.
Zuckerburg talks as if Facebook users should place a lot of trust in his corporation, while at every turn he and his company have shown that they can't be trusted. After all, any exec who says out loud that his customers are dumb fucks shouldn't be too surprised when some of them decline to reveal personal information.
True. And while there will always be those who use pseudonymity to hide behind for the purpose of being obnoxious pricks, that doesn't negate the need for it. There are far too many reasons why one might not wish to use one's real name in (say) forum posts. If I let it be known that my real name was Johann Sechspackett, it would not be too long before my identity was traced to my residential address at No. 10 Downing Street, London, which would soon identify me as the British First Lady's toyboy, and everybody would then find out about my predilection for ostrich pornography...
Having said that, many (or most) of the more so-called "intuitive" text editors on a *nix platform require an X server, whereas Emacs will run quite happily in a TTY shell. If you are logging in via ssh, rsh or even telnet (if anyone does that any more), that can be very useful.
...much of Linux' failure to succeed on the desktop has been down to UIs built by people with no concept of good UI design.
Nothing to do with Linux. There are dozens of UIs on as many Linux desktops, many of which are great in their own way, depending on how full or sparse a feature set you need.
The most successful OS UI of all, which at this point might (still) arguably be Windows XP, is absolutely abominable in many ways. But market penetration is not an indication of quality or usefulness, but more success in marketing.
That was my thought when I saw the mockup. I'm not that enthusiastic about Chrome, but I like the effort to save screenspace by minimising the amount of real estate taken up by toolbars or status bars. Since I currently seem to be a Mac user (my preference is towards Linux or the BSDs), I particularly appreciate any reduction in toolbar space, since that damn stupid menu bar really pisses me off...
I guess if he won't say what extensions he's running, then he's just trolling. FWIW, I've been running FF in various versions (currently 5.0.1) on this oldish 2.16 GHz MacBook for as long as I've had the machine, and it works fine, just like it does on Linux.
The submission is fair enough in its own way, but I can't say I'm overly impressed that it appears to be a direct advertisement for the submitter's product.