2001's entr'acte takes about ten minutes and is the single most annoying beginning to a movie ever...given that after you sit in total darkness for that long, you're treated to men dressed in ape suits running around for another 15 minutes. Grr. Way to go, Stanley!
And just think of the damage to our celebrity-based economy when OJ Simpson style chases no longer command our blistering attention several times a week. Why, those news anchors would actually have to focus on real news!
The changes are largely necessary because of the unsavory consequences of Moore's Law, the famous dictum that states that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every two years.
Yeah, it's all that pesky "Moore's Law" fault...
Bradley says the "strength of the country" is at stake because relatively few students go into science or technology. Further, he says, ordinary citizens need to understand science and technology better to make informed choices in the voting booth.
Hmm. Let's see. Americans aren't smart enough and are just used to pushing buttons instead of understanding complex ideas. Who could've helped that along with a simple button push that magically solves all computer problems?
The difference is this: when I was a kid, computers were buggy. They hissed and spit. Much like cars several years ago, you had to know how to fix things in order to go for a trip of any decent length.
Dumbing down the user experience should, in theory, allow more people access. But in reality, unlike cars, computers still hiss and spit. The only difference now is that users have no idea what's going on. If my sister's internet connection goes down, she just waits for it to fix itself. If it doesn't, she has someone else fix it for her. Theoretically the shiny new interface should be accompanied by rock-solid reliability, but it's not.
Imagine if your microwave oven broke down. Most of us would simply cart it to the local service shop, because what goes on inside a microwave is too complex for most people to understand. This is what's starting to happen with computers, except unlike microwave ovens, computers break down quite regularly. Add in some media madness, and you get a culture of disinformation. My co-workers at the office I work at occasionally receive virii that have been stripped by the anti-virus software I installed on the e-mail server. Nevertheless, they attribute any problem to either a "worm" or a "virus" or the dreaded "firewall". This isn't a case of computer efficiency coming to the masses. My sister would be using a computer regardless of how fast/buggy/cool looking it was. That's life. But when problems crop up (and they always do) her first instinct is to give up, because the "magic" that makes computers work is beyond her.
Ever tell a user (like my sister) to download a new program? Inevitably, they do so and then ask, "so where did it go?" Not knowing about filesystems may make life "simpler" but it doesn't make it any "easier".
Hmm. Let me clarify: I'd like to, from the command line, open an ssh connection to something running the ssh daemon. I'd like the same application to allow me to use SCP and SFTP as well, or even open a telnet connection if I wanted to send stuff insecurely. Or, hell, if youre so damn set on not integrating all of these, make them four different programs. At the moment, though, all I can do is telnet. That's not good enough. And it sure isn't very configurable.
But yeah, an ssh daemon would also be better than the silly telnet server, while I'm at it.
Every time new screenshots come out I'm reminded of my 13 year old kid sister. When I was 13, I knew a decent bit about computers. I had played Zork and could throw together a program in basic if I wanted to.
When I ask her how things work on the computer she has now, she's used to XP and having almost everything explained in simple, child-like steps. If I ask her to save something "to the hard drive" she doesn't know what this means.
While I applaud the M$ goal of making computers as easy to use as toasters, a ever widening gap is occuring thanks to pretty UIs that leaves those of us who know how things work under the hood in a separate world. I only hope that with Longhorn you can disable the absurd glossification and get it to run 10% faster. Or maybe to have ssh built into the telnet command line. That would be nice.
Create very cool but nevertheless proprietary standard for wide-spread technology.
?
Profit!
Seriously, although I think being a pioneer in this area is cool, woulnd't it have been better to work with other companies to form an open standard rather than roll out some new system that no one else is on board with?
Yes, yes, openldap rocks as a directory service. But it's not supposed to be a NIS replacement. I'm talking about something akin to NDS or AD, only for the Debian side...something that can be easily integrated into a coporate environment that is built as a Debian module.
Um, we posted at the exact same minute. He may have posted the comment first, but I certainly didn't have time to read his comment, let out a loud "Bwah-hah-hah" and then post mine (carefully adding the words "DNA-powered" to distinguish the two) in order to steal his karma.
What do I think Debian should do next? As the Linux world's leading non-commercial, community-driven distribution, Debian can lead the way in preserving the fragile Linux ecosystem, if it sets its mind to it.
How about a robust, secure, directory service integrated into the distribution itself? Something that slaps NIS around and isn't vaporware like Ophion. That alone could be a huge killer app that would kelp those of us in corporate environments who want to move to debian as a workstation based solution.
Stojanovic has lost to MAYA more than a 100 times.
Um, even I couldn't lose to a machine more than a 100 times at tic-tac-toe. It doesn't take a WOPR to learn that tic-tac-toe is surprisingly easy to grasp. I bet you could train a DNA-powered monkey to the same level of effectiveness as this silly human named Stojanovic.
Well, if they have a thick Cockney accent, it would sound like "That's quoit un 'istorik evant!" Putting "a" instead of "un" there wouldn't make any sense.
I agree. Of course, someone should've put a
tag at the beginning of every post that referenced luggage/spaceballs, indicating that the joke had humor, but was self-closing, and therefore lame.
Slashdot Mirror
If anything, I think naming a super-fast browser after the MiG-31 is a great idea.
Maybe they just used the Amex Black Centurion list...that's probably about 12K right there. That plus Orkut himself, of course.
2001's entr'acte takes about ten minutes and is the single most annoying beginning to a movie ever...given that after you sit in total darkness for that long, you're treated to men dressed in ape suits running around for another 15 minutes. Grr. Way to go, Stanley!
So how do you feed those little fish inside the new PSP "concept" aquarium? With a memory stick?
And just think of the damage to our celebrity-based economy when OJ Simpson style chases no longer command our blistering attention several times a week. Why, those news anchors would actually have to focus on real news!
They're clearly trying to jumpstart the economy...via targeted "grants" to struggling IT network infrastructure companies.
The changes are largely necessary because of the unsavory consequences of Moore's Law, the famous dictum that states that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every two years. Yeah, it's all that pesky "Moore's Law" fault...
Oh, no! I hear L. Ron Hubbard's devoted followers drafting up a document right now to sue YOU, tizzyD!
Bradley says the "strength of the country" is at stake because relatively few students go into science or technology. Further, he says, ordinary citizens need to understand science and technology better to make informed choices in the voting booth.
Hmm. Let's see. Americans aren't smart enough and are just used to pushing buttons instead of understanding complex ideas. Who could've helped that along with a simple button push that magically solves all computer problems?
Have you met Trapper Keeper? Trapper Keeper can do everything...
The difference is this: when I was a kid, computers were buggy. They hissed and spit. Much like cars several years ago, you had to know how to fix things in order to go for a trip of any decent length.
Dumbing down the user experience should, in theory, allow more people access. But in reality, unlike cars, computers still hiss and spit. The only difference now is that users have no idea what's going on. If my sister's internet connection goes down, she just waits for it to fix itself. If it doesn't, she has someone else fix it for her. Theoretically the shiny new interface should be accompanied by rock-solid reliability, but it's not.
Imagine if your microwave oven broke down. Most of us would simply cart it to the local service shop, because what goes on inside a microwave is too complex for most people to understand. This is what's starting to happen with computers, except unlike microwave ovens, computers break down quite regularly. Add in some media madness, and you get a culture of disinformation. My co-workers at the office I work at occasionally receive virii that have been stripped by the anti-virus software I installed on the e-mail server. Nevertheless, they attribute any problem to either a "worm" or a "virus" or the dreaded "firewall". This isn't a case of computer efficiency coming to the masses. My sister would be using a computer regardless of how fast/buggy/cool looking it was. That's life. But when problems crop up (and they always do) her first instinct is to give up, because the "magic" that makes computers work is beyond her.
Ever tell a user (like my sister) to download a new program? Inevitably, they do so and then ask, "so where did it go?" Not knowing about filesystems may make life "simpler" but it doesn't make it any "easier".
Hmm. Let me clarify: I'd like to, from the command line, open an ssh connection to something running the ssh daemon. I'd like the same application to allow me to use SCP and SFTP as well, or even open a telnet connection if I wanted to send stuff insecurely. Or, hell, if youre so damn set on not integrating all of these, make them four different programs. At the moment, though, all I can do is telnet. That's not good enough. And it sure isn't very configurable.
But yeah, an ssh daemon would also be better than the silly telnet server, while I'm at it.
Every time new screenshots come out I'm reminded of my 13 year old kid sister. When I was 13, I knew a decent bit about computers. I had played Zork and could throw together a program in basic if I wanted to.
When I ask her how things work on the computer she has now, she's used to XP and having almost everything explained in simple, child-like steps. If I ask her to save something "to the hard drive" she doesn't know what this means.
While I applaud the M$ goal of making computers as easy to use as toasters, a ever widening gap is occuring thanks to pretty UIs that leaves those of us who know how things work under the hood in a separate world. I only hope that with Longhorn you can disable the absurd glossification and get it to run 10% faster. Or maybe to have ssh built into the telnet command line. That would be nice.
Hmm. Sounds like the marketing plan from Sony...
Seriously, although I think being a pioneer in this area is cool, woulnd't it have been better to work with other companies to form an open standard rather than roll out some new system that no one else is on board with?
Yes, yes, openldap rocks as a directory service. But it's not supposed to be a NIS replacement. I'm talking about something akin to NDS or AD, only for the Debian side...something that can be easily integrated into a coporate environment that is built as a Debian module.
Um, we posted at the exact same minute. He may have posted the comment first, but I certainly didn't have time to read his comment, let out a loud "Bwah-hah-hah" and then post mine (carefully adding the words "DNA-powered" to distinguish the two) in order to steal his karma.
Or did I?
How about a robust, secure, directory service integrated into the distribution itself? Something that slaps NIS around and isn't vaporware like Ophion. That alone could be a huge killer app that would kelp those of us in corporate environments who want to move to debian as a workstation based solution.
Um, even I couldn't lose to a machine more than a 100 times at tic-tac-toe. It doesn't take a WOPR to learn that tic-tac-toe is surprisingly easy to grasp. I bet you could train a DNA-powered monkey to the same level of effectiveness as this silly human named Stojanovic.
A nice DNA-powered game of global thermonuclear war?
Well, if they have a thick Cockney accent, it would sound like "That's quoit un 'istorik evant!" Putting "a" instead of "un" there wouldn't make any sense.
I believe a mildy amusing Jet Li movie covered this topic in detail. Although I think there were a finite number of universes.
When I think "damned resilient" the idea of a power crisis spreading across the grid within 15 minutes doesn't come to mind...
Whoops! Of course, I meant to say that:
idiot = i idot = dot^2
Perhaps said person is an idiot, where i stands for the negative square root of "dot".
Therefore idiot = i idot = dot
I agree. Of course, someone should've put a tag at the beginning of every post that referenced luggage/spaceballs, indicating that the joke had humor, but was self-closing, and therefore lame.