It's more an issue of potential. There's a large number of people who want to get away from windows, but bawk at either the price and undeservidly negitive reputation from the pre osx days of the mac. And who find linux a bit too geek oriented and would only use it if a lot of the choice (ie window managers) were removed from the equasion. Amiga still has some name recognition going for it, and with everything else combined and some good ports of popular open source software it might, just might, be a good consideration for that kind of user. At least if some setups come out at a pricerange more along the lines of an x86 setup than a mac.
I don't know the inner workings of Nintendo, but couldn't it be the American branch that made this decision? It seems like they'd have a good deal of say on how localisations should be handeled.
One example I am familiar with is in Windows, Ctrl-X cuts text to the clipboard. That works the same in (almost) every application and is (almost) never used to do anything else. Attention to details and conformity like that is a major part of a good UI.
While I get the point you're making, I don't think I've ever used a linux application that didn't work that way either.
I'd say a lot too comes into what one considers a good UI. You make a point about hard-core coders not making good UI designers because they don't use it the same way a new user would. And I think that's a major reason why UI design in linux is the way it is. A lot of linux users are using it precisly because they don't want to use a gui intended for the lowest common demoninator, with the options we personally use most shuffled off into an advanced menu somewhere.
Both society as a whole, and science fiction/fantasy, would benefit if the latter were put back in its proper place - that is, as a satisfying diversion, rather than as life's raison d'être.
Coming from a guy with not one, but two planned sci-fi conventions coming up. I think he's lost any rights to be casting the first stone at someone because they liked lord of the rings.
I don't know of anyone who takes Slashdot seriously, mostly because of the rampant groupthink, constant "sky is falling" mentality about the world at large, and really skewed viewpoints.
That's exactly what I like about slashdot. It's human nature that any large group is going to take on these characteristics, but at least with slashdot the bias is somewhat recognised.
Perhaps the elitisim is somewhat justified? Linux as a whole seems very much 'by coders for coders'. The average Joe and Jane user already has two operating systems bending over backwards to meet their needs. Linux speaks to me in a language I understand, a way I like being spoken to. If that aspect is removed, then I'm left without any operating sytem that works in what 'I' consider to be a user friendly manner. I don't see what's so wrong in thinking people should just use whatever operating system works best for them.
A bit overly generalised perhaps, but I think it's not too unrealistic. I know anecdotal evidence dosn't prove anything, but my own family has still influenced my opinion on the matter. One of my grandparents is 86 now, has always eaten well and in moderation and has kept active her whole life. Her younger sister on the other hand, had tv and books as her main hobby, never cared about what she ate and didn't get any additional excercise. My grandmother still jogs, plays tennis, and is generally vigerous. Her sister, even though younger, can barley even get around on her own anymore.
If you want more people to use Linux, the best tool by far will be to make it usable by the general public, as easy and understandable as Windows is.
It's not going to happen, ever. The only reason windows is easy to use is because people are used to it, they've been trained to understand the feel of it and some of the logic behind how it works. The reason I have for thinking this is because I'm on the opposite side of the fence. I've been using linux so long at home that I have a hard time doing anything beyond the most basic level with windows. I installed windows on my computer recently in order to ensure one of my programs would properly build there. I don't think I've ever been more annoyed trying to get something working. Which is weird because I remember thinking the exact same thing at one point about linux before moving to it from windows. Sure, both have changed to some extent since then. But I think the main difference is just being in the groove of the particular style of one when trying to talk to the other.
While I can't speak for the author, it might just be lack of time or interest in getting the target enviroment set up. I've been doing the opposite, setting up a windows install to test code written in linux. For the sake of windows developers who might want to join up I wanted to make sure the code would compile as well as run there, and it's been a bit of an effort. The actual code itself didn't need much work, but getting the compiler, libraries, and everything else in an operating system I'm not totally comfortable working in proved more of a pain than I anticipated.
I find this article fairly compelling and don't see much response to it, nor do I think there can be much response to it.
I totally disagree on that one. Many of the arguments presented seemed to be grasping at straws as much as the positions they were trying to counter.
Re:Good... down with Real
on
Real Problems
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· Score: 1
I'm always mystified why there's so much hate for real here whenever they come up as well. I usually expect some linux bias when it comes to slashdot, but it never seems to show up when the topic is real. I would have expected this to be one of the few places to cut them a little slack. Not only do they support linux, and even linux on other than x86, but their players for unix are typically better than the windows versions. I've never seen a company this mainstream offer that kind of service. I'd have thought that'd garner at least a little good will from people here.
Re:Good... down with Real
on
Real Problems
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· Score: 1
But wait... Linux and *BSD users are damned as well...
Nah, the current build of Real's Helix player for linux is actually pretty nice. Simple gtk2 interface, choice of audio api, ability to recode anything in it one dosn't like (aside from real's codecs), and it dosn't try to do anything except play audio and video one tells it to. Even aside from their helix player though, the actual official unix client is certainly a whole different animal than the windows client. The only issues I have with that have to do with the age of the code, not the actual intent of it like in their windows player.
Very weird way to go about things - alienate the vast majority and give the most user friendly player to the others.
Re:The whole streaming audio/video field's gone cr
on
Real Problems
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· Score: 1
When one considers the amount of total crap that gets produced, who would WANT to preserve it?
The crap can often be just as, or even a more interesting guage of a culture than what they consider high art. The latter is along the lines of what the higher class wished they were, the former more along the lines of what the majority of the people were actually thinking.
Re:The whole streaming audio/video field's gone cr
on
Real Problems
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· Score: 1
No, we have two choices: (1) Run Windows and/or Mac OS X and download some spyware-riddled bloatware from Apple, Real (ugh) or Microsoft (DOUBLE ugh), or (2) run any other OS and use a probably-illegal tool like MPlayer.
I'd add that for the latter Real's player is more of an option than in windows. I don't know how it stands on osx, but the linux version of realplayer is OK, if a bit dated. And I'd actually rate their gtk2 helixplayer as being pretty nice.
But, minor nitpicking about players aside, I agree about your main point. I plan on being around a long time, and given the rate at which technology becomes obsolete, I don't trust any company to either last as long as I will or to maintain support for their previous versions that long even if they do last. Anything in real or windows media that I plan on keeping for a while I convert to a more open format - even with the loss of quality that's going to come with it. The peace of mind that comes with knowing I could hobble together a decoder myself if need be is worth it.
Especially when we're talking made for tv movie. So much care has to be taken to only show parts of the body that the censors would be happy with that it always seems hokey and contrived. It's no less jarring than having black bars hovering over people.
Have you ever mentioned this to someone involved with Mandrake? Idealy it seems like this is one of the main things they'd be interested in hearing about, given their focus on trying to remove the need for command line use if the user dosn't want it. Though I recognise that the ideal isn't always reality, and companies don't always behave in the most logical manner.
There's fresh air where you live? Usually it seems like a nice choice betwean car fumes, garbage fumes, or inconsiderate people hacking their diseases into everyone elses breathing space for me.
Wow, now there's a coincidence. I actually just started trying to give up caffeine and got hit by the flu right at the same time. My only problem was that I still have to finish a paper before the end of the week, so I had to head back to caffeine to alleviate as much of the flu's motivation sapping power as I could.
Hm, and then of course I read slashdot instead of getting any work done.
How about any high school system for that matter. I've lived in a fair amount of states, and one of the few constants is that the public high schools have always sucked. They all seem so obsessed with focusing on the lowest common demoninator that there's little actual learning going on.
First, why are you downloading it off of P2P when a taped- or digital-recording is *much* better quality since it's direct from the source?
I disagree about the quality. I do a fair amount of recording from tv to computer, and I don't think a blanket statement like this can be fairly applied. There's quite a few factors that need to be taken into consideration. Firstly, the actual recording medium. If it's a vhs tape, then there's a few negatives there right from the start. Unless it's never been used before, there's already going to be some degradation of quality right there. And if he wants it stored digitally, then that's going to be increased in the transfer, on top of the additional noise from the compression. The quality of his capture card is another thing that has to be factored in. If that's not a high quality device, then he's looking at another minus. I don't care how high a bitrate someone's encoding at, if they have a bad source the end result is going to suffer for it. On the other hand, if someone's recording to a high quality digital format, and then compressing it to a net friendly size isn't going to hurt it that much. I don't think there's going to be much difference in an ATHF episode encoded at 900kbs or one encoded at 5000kbs. So, depending on the equipment available, there very likely could be a gain in quality of end product from downloading off of the internet. As long as we're talking about a source that knows what it's doing, not some 10mb encode off kazza.
Though, on the other hand, in the case of ATHF he'd also be missing the Adult Swim cards - a pretty big loss in my opinion, but oh well.
Slashdot Mirror
It's more an issue of potential. There's a large number of people who want to get away from windows, but bawk at either the price and undeservidly negitive reputation from the pre osx days of the mac. And who find linux a bit too geek oriented and would only use it if a lot of the choice (ie window managers) were removed from the equasion. Amiga still has some name recognition going for it, and with everything else combined and some good ports of popular open source software it might, just might, be a good consideration for that kind of user. At least if some setups come out at a pricerange more along the lines of an x86 setup than a mac.
You might try crossover too. I havn't tried it myself, but there's been some good reviews of its support for photoshop in linux.
I don't know the inner workings of Nintendo, but couldn't it be the American branch that made this decision? It seems like they'd have a good deal of say on how localisations should be handeled.
One example I am familiar with is in Windows, Ctrl-X cuts text to the clipboard. That works the same in (almost) every application and is (almost) never used to do anything else. Attention to details and conformity like that is a major part of a good UI.
While I get the point you're making, I don't think I've ever used a linux application that didn't work that way either.
I'd say a lot too comes into what one considers a good UI. You make a point about hard-core coders not making good UI designers because they don't use it the same way a new user would. And I think that's a major reason why UI design in linux is the way it is. A lot of linux users are using it precisly because they don't want to use a gui intended for the lowest common demoninator, with the options we personally use most shuffled off into an advanced menu somewhere.
Yes, as the immensely civilized tone of Linux zealots vs. everyone else testifies. "RTFM!!! LAm0RZ!!!"
Has anyone actually ever told you to "RTFM!!!"?
Both society as a whole, and science fiction/fantasy, would benefit if the latter were put back in its proper place - that is, as a satisfying diversion, rather than as life's raison d'être.
Coming from a guy with not one, but two planned sci-fi conventions coming up. I think he's lost any rights to be casting the first stone at someone because they liked lord of the rings.
In one of the phantasy star 2 prelude games, there's a house where a slightly dazed kid is playing it as well.
I don't know of anyone who takes Slashdot seriously, mostly because of the rampant groupthink, constant "sky is falling" mentality about the world at large, and really skewed viewpoints.
That's exactly what I like about slashdot. It's human nature that any large group is going to take on these characteristics, but at least with slashdot the bias is somewhat recognised.
Perhaps the elitisim is somewhat justified? Linux as a whole seems very much 'by coders for coders'. The average Joe and Jane user already has two operating systems bending over backwards to meet their needs. Linux speaks to me in a language I understand, a way I like being spoken to. If that aspect is removed, then I'm left without any operating sytem that works in what 'I' consider to be a user friendly manner. I don't see what's so wrong in thinking people should just use whatever operating system works best for them.
A bit overly generalised perhaps, but I think it's not too unrealistic. I know anecdotal evidence dosn't prove anything, but my own family has still influenced my opinion on the matter. One of my grandparents is 86 now, has always eaten well and in moderation and has kept active her whole life. Her younger sister on the other hand, had tv and books as her main hobby, never cared about what she ate and didn't get any additional excercise. My grandmother still jogs, plays tennis, and is generally vigerous. Her sister, even though younger, can barley even get around on her own anymore.
If you want more people to use Linux, the best tool by far will be to make it usable by the general public, as easy and understandable as Windows is.
It's not going to happen, ever. The only reason windows is easy to use is because people are used to it, they've been trained to understand the feel of it and some of the logic behind how it works. The reason I have for thinking this is because I'm on the opposite side of the fence. I've been using linux so long at home that I have a hard time doing anything beyond the most basic level with windows. I installed windows on my computer recently in order to ensure one of my programs would properly build there. I don't think I've ever been more annoyed trying to get something working. Which is weird because I remember thinking the exact same thing at one point about linux before moving to it from windows. Sure, both have changed to some extent since then. But I think the main difference is just being in the groove of the particular style of one when trying to talk to the other.
While I can't speak for the author, it might just be lack of time or interest in getting the target enviroment set up. I've been doing the opposite, setting up a windows install to test code written in linux. For the sake of windows developers who might want to join up I wanted to make sure the code would compile as well as run there, and it's been a bit of an effort. The actual code itself didn't need much work, but getting the compiler, libraries, and everything else in an operating system I'm not totally comfortable working in proved more of a pain than I anticipated.
The most unfourtunate part of that coverage is that they didn't stay around for more. I'd say he's one of the 'least' weird people in Montana.
I find this article fairly compelling and don't see much response to it, nor do I think there can be much response to it.
I totally disagree on that one. Many of the arguments presented seemed to be grasping at straws as much as the positions they were trying to counter.
I'm always mystified why there's so much hate for real here whenever they come up as well. I usually expect some linux bias when it comes to slashdot, but it never seems to show up when the topic is real. I would have expected this to be one of the few places to cut them a little slack. Not only do they support linux, and even linux on other than x86, but their players for unix are typically better than the windows versions. I've never seen a company this mainstream offer that kind of service. I'd have thought that'd garner at least a little good will from people here.
But wait... Linux and *BSD users are damned as well...
Nah, the current build of Real's Helix player for linux is actually pretty nice. Simple gtk2 interface, choice of audio api, ability to recode anything in it one dosn't like (aside from real's codecs), and it dosn't try to do anything except play audio and video one tells it to. Even aside from their helix player though, the actual official unix client is certainly a whole different animal than the windows client. The only issues I have with that have to do with the age of the code, not the actual intent of it like in their windows player.
Very weird way to go about things - alienate the vast majority and give the most user friendly player to the others.
When one considers the amount of total crap that gets produced, who would WANT to preserve it?
The crap can often be just as, or even a more interesting guage of a culture than what they consider high art. The latter is along the lines of what the higher class wished they were, the former more along the lines of what the majority of the people were actually thinking.
No, we have two choices: (1) Run Windows and/or Mac OS X and download some spyware-riddled bloatware from Apple, Real (ugh) or Microsoft (DOUBLE ugh), or (2) run any other OS and use a probably-illegal tool like MPlayer.
I'd add that for the latter Real's player is more of an option than in windows. I don't know how it stands on osx, but the linux version of realplayer is OK, if a bit dated. And I'd actually rate their gtk2 helixplayer as being pretty nice.
But, minor nitpicking about players aside, I agree about your main point. I plan on being around a long time, and given the rate at which technology becomes obsolete, I don't trust any company to either last as long as I will or to maintain support for their previous versions that long even if they do last. Anything in real or windows media that I plan on keeping for a while I convert to a more open format - even with the loss of quality that's going to come with it. The peace of mind that comes with knowing I could hobble together a decoder myself if need be is worth it.
Especially when we're talking made for tv movie. So much care has to be taken to only show parts of the body that the censors would be happy with that it always seems hokey and contrived. It's no less jarring than having black bars hovering over people.
Have you ever mentioned this to someone involved with Mandrake? Idealy it seems like this is one of the main things they'd be interested in hearing about, given their focus on trying to remove the need for command line use if the user dosn't want it. Though I recognise that the ideal isn't always reality, and companies don't always behave in the most logical manner.
There's fresh air where you live? Usually it seems like a nice choice betwean car fumes, garbage fumes, or inconsiderate people hacking their diseases into everyone elses breathing space for me.
Wow, now there's a coincidence. I actually just started trying to give up caffeine and got hit by the flu right at the same time. My only problem was that I still have to finish a paper before the end of the week, so I had to head back to caffeine to alleviate as much of the flu's motivation sapping power as I could.
Hm, and then of course I read slashdot instead of getting any work done.
how about your highschool system?
How about any high school system for that matter. I've lived in a fair amount of states, and one of the few constants is that the public high schools have always sucked. They all seem so obsessed with focusing on the lowest common demoninator that there's little actual learning going on.
First, why are you downloading it off of P2P when a taped- or digital-recording is *much* better quality since it's direct from the source?
I disagree about the quality. I do a fair amount of recording from tv to computer, and I don't think a blanket statement like this can be fairly applied. There's quite a few factors that need to be taken into consideration. Firstly, the actual recording medium. If it's a vhs tape, then there's a few negatives there right from the start. Unless it's never been used before, there's already going to be some degradation of quality right there. And if he wants it stored digitally, then that's going to be increased in the transfer, on top of the additional noise from the compression. The quality of his capture card is another thing that has to be factored in. If that's not a high quality device, then he's looking at another minus. I don't care how high a bitrate someone's encoding at, if they have a bad source the end result is going to suffer for it. On the other hand, if someone's recording to a high quality digital format, and then compressing it to a net friendly size isn't going to hurt it that much. I don't think there's going to be much difference in an ATHF episode encoded at 900kbs or one encoded at 5000kbs. So, depending on the equipment available, there very likely could be a gain in quality of end product from downloading off of the internet. As long as we're talking about a source that knows what it's doing, not some 10mb encode off kazza.
Though, on the other hand, in the case of ATHF he'd also be missing the Adult Swim cards - a pretty big loss in my opinion, but oh well.