At the risk of starting (yet another) flamewar over where the modern computer was born...
If you find yourself in Iowa, trek on over to Ames. You can visit the Computer Science department that produced the Atanasoff Berry Computer. Even if you place more stock in other early computers, it's interesting to learn where Mauchly got some of his ideas.
While you're there, I recommend grabbing some pizza at the Great Plains Sauce & Dough Company. Only pizzaria in Iowa recommended by Let's Go!
Look around on the rest of the page. It seems that Yahoo is calling this bit of their news section "Weekly World News." You're confusing this with the U.S. tabloid "World Weekly News."
Everybody knows that computers are evil, and that programmers are all long-haired slackers anyway. It was such a mistake to place so much faith in computers for the last two decades, and the bust just proves it. All of us who were foolish enough to waste time getting a computer science degree rightly deserve to be unemployed right now. We should all stop using computers immediately and get good solid jobs as CFOs or used car salespeople, as that will instantly solve all of the world's economic problems, not to mention foster peace between Israelis and Palestinians, make the Northern Irish Loyalists join hands and sing "Don't Worry, Be Happy" with Sinn Fein, and solve all sorts of RSI problems.
I wonder how feasible it would be for someone like Borders (trying to compete with Amazon as a music retailer) to directly sign for tracks with artists.
It's nice to hear an intelligent suggestion towards a solution!
It would make a lot of sense, but require a change in business model. Artists could perhaps sign for 2 deals - one the traditional distribution model and one for electronic distribution (including this Borders method).
Don't think the RIAA would like it, but artists might, esp the lesser-known ones...
Before/. explodes into a massive frenzy against the recording industry and the senator from Disney, I have a question for the community:
What is OUR solution to the (perceived) crisis of "piracy" that is today's filesharing world?
Powerful lobbying interests are hell-bent on coming up with some sort of solution. We've all seen the laws being proposed to combat this and other DRM-related problems.
File-sharing may have a detrimental effect on sales. Then again, it may be helpful to sales. Either way, most file-sharing is theft - plain and simple.
I propose that if the online community can not come up with a way to deal with this issue, then the politicians and the lobbies will; and I am pretty sure that whatever they come up with will be a lot less freedom-friendly than what we'd like to see.
So moaning and complaining aside, what are our options? What can be done that is fair to artists and to consumers?
(steps off soapbox, slips on soap, lies unconcious for some time...)
If you're still actually interested in doing this, can you provide an email address or similar contact details? I'd not mind helping, but I'm betwen slashdot-friendly email addresses...
Reminds me of GEOS. It had three levels of interface. The first was very simple, a few big icons for the most basic apps, everything fullscreen. Intermediate level had a full screen file browser open to it's equilvalent to "My Documents" where there were templates for each app. Then you had the full motif-inspired interface, basiclly all the interface ideas of win95 long before win95.
Yes! That's basically what I'm envisioning.
Make the easy stuff brain-dead simple. Make it intuitive to move on to the next level when you're ready. Make the intermediate stuff simple. Make the hard stuff possible.
Won't happen. When this guy goes on the newsgroups, email lists, or other web forums for help on linux, All he will hear are cries of 'RTFM' and worse.
That's why TechnophobeLinux should be marketed with hardware by a company. That way, the company can only bundle a few, relatively easy to support apps, with a ultra-simple gui.
That way, the company will be able to do support for most of the problems a newbie would encounter.
Those are all great solutions. -- But they're not simple enough for a very large market that has yet to embrace computers at all.
Rasterman's got a point. With the configurability of Linux, we should be able to outclass Apple in uber-simplicity. Semi-dedicated specialized boxes are what I'm talking about.
The kind of thing that I set up shop in Valley West Mall in Des Moines, where people can come in and buy an email/web surfing machine, that can also play a couple games and do word processing. But with little to no learning curve. For true technophobes, even the Mac OS is too complicated. We should target that crowd.
Sell dedicated DVR boxes that are a really just a Linux box with a custom gui and an easy interface to the 2 or 3 programs you need.
KDE, Gnome, et al are great, but too complicated for this market. And this market is huge and largely untapped.
I posted this in another thread, but it got buried, so here goes...
For you and me, KDE and GNOME, along with any of the good standard distros makes GNU/Linux a great, pretty-easy-to-use choice.
But that's not good enough.
What I'd like to put together is Linux for Technophobes. The machine that Joe Schmoe, who has never used a computer, can walk in to Wal-mart, take home his new box, and be able to use it for email, web browsing, and word processing with zero assistance from anyone else.
He should open the box and find a simple (a la iMac) one-page sheet that shows him how to connect the mouse and keyboard.
A simple wizard sets up the net connection with him.
I'm picturing a very simple interface for the Basic mode. One big button that says Email and has a picture of a mailbox. Another for the web browser. Maybe a couple more apps, but not many.
And, if you click on the Advanced mode button in the corner, you get switched to KDE or GNOME.
Let me know what you think, and maybe we can put something like this together.
I would suggest looking through the GNU.Free project for more information.
Jason Kitcat, the maintainer of the project, spoke here in Cambridge (England) a couple months ago. Very informative talk, explaining the merits and pitfalls of electronic voting.
The site contains numerous articles detailing most aspects of e-democracy in action. Most of the information from Jason's talk is available of the GNU.Free site.
Slashdot Mirror
You're looking at a genuine American Socialist! Sen. McCarthy didn't get all of us...
Ooops! The link for the Atanasoff Berry Computer is really http://www.cs.iastate.edu/jva/jva-archive.shtml.
At the risk of starting (yet another) flamewar over where the modern computer was born...
If you find yourself in Iowa, trek on over to Ames. You can visit the Computer Science department that produced the Atanasoff Berry Computer. Even if you place more stock in other early computers, it's interesting to learn where Mauchly got some of his ideas.
While you're there, I recommend grabbing some pizza at the Great Plains Sauce & Dough Company. Only pizzaria in Iowa recommended by Let's Go!
I'll second that. I used a Kinesis Ergo for several months at Cambridge, and it was great.
Only downside is that you still have to reach for a mouse, and for me that is as much a cause of my tendonitis as the keyboard.
That's why I'm seriously considering the Fingerworks Touchstream. Any other testimonials on the ST or LP?
Look around on the rest of the page. It seems that Yahoo is calling this bit of their news section "Weekly World News." You're confusing this with the U.S. tabloid "World Weekly News."
You are both SO off-track!
Everybody knows that computers are evil, and that programmers are all long-haired slackers anyway. It was such a mistake to place so much faith in computers for the last two decades, and the bust just proves it. All of us who were foolish enough to waste time getting a computer science degree rightly deserve to be unemployed right now. We should all stop using computers immediately and get good solid jobs as CFOs or used car salespeople, as that will instantly solve all of the world's economic problems, not to mention foster peace between Israelis and Palestinians, make the Northern Irish Loyalists join hands and sing "Don't Worry, Be Happy" with Sinn Fein, and solve all sorts of RSI problems.
"Researching The Open Source Way" == "Conducting research that examines open source projects"
It does not mean "Conducting research in a model based on open source development"
Or even "Publishing your research under an open source licence"
(although this research was published under an open source licence, that was not the point of the paper)
That's deep...
I'll put up my stick-to-your-ribs recipe for biscuits and gravy after I finish my thesis....
I don't see why they didn't just try to convince Rocket Guy to let them borrow the rocket so they could go up pick some lunar rocks of their own! :)
I wonder how feasible it would be for someone like Borders (trying to compete with Amazon as a music retailer) to directly sign for tracks with artists.
It's nice to hear an intelligent suggestion towards a solution!
It would make a lot of sense, but require a change in business model. Artists could perhaps sign for 2 deals - one the traditional distribution model and one for electronic distribution (including this Borders method).
Don't think the RIAA would like it, but artists might, esp the lesser-known ones...
I recommend reading through some of the rationale behind the Baen Free Library.
Before /. explodes into a massive frenzy against the recording industry and the senator from Disney, I have a question for the community:
What is OUR solution to the (perceived) crisis of "piracy" that is today's filesharing world?
Powerful lobbying interests are hell-bent on coming up with some sort of solution. We've all seen the laws being proposed to combat this and other DRM-related problems.
File-sharing may have a detrimental effect on sales. Then again, it may be helpful to sales. Either way, most file-sharing is theft - plain and simple.
I propose that if the online community can not come up with a way to deal with this issue, then the politicians and the lobbies will; and I am pretty sure that whatever they come up with will be a lot less freedom-friendly than what we'd like to see.
So moaning and complaining aside, what are our options? What can be done that is fair to artists and to consumers?
(steps off soapbox, slips on soap, lies unconcious for some time...)
If you're still actually interested in doing this, can you provide an email address or similar contact details? I'd not mind helping, but I'm betwen slashdot-friendly email addresses...
Contact info: los20 @@@_@ NOSPAMcam.ac.ukdonteverspam
It already exists... :)
http://www.maconlinux.org/
:) I plan to. Just thought TechnophobeLinux would get across my point. Actually, I wasn't even sure that Linux should be in the name at all.
So pick up some tarballs and start packaging. No one's stopping you.
I plan to, but I was hoping to find some others who might be interested in helping.
OEone
Thanks for the link!
Reminds me of GEOS. It had three levels of interface. The first was very simple, a few big icons for the most basic apps, everything fullscreen. Intermediate level had a full screen file browser open to it's equilvalent to "My Documents" where there were templates for each app. Then you had the full motif-inspired interface, basiclly all the interface ideas of win95 long before win95.
Yes! That's basically what I'm envisioning.
Make the easy stuff brain-dead simple.
Make it intuitive to move on to the next level when you're ready.
Make the intermediate stuff simple.
Make the hard stuff possible.
Won't happen. When this guy goes on the newsgroups, email lists, or other web forums for help on linux, All he will hear are cries of 'RTFM' and worse.
That's why TechnophobeLinux should be marketed with hardware by a company. That way, the company can only bundle a few, relatively easy to support apps, with a ultra-simple gui.
That way, the company will be able to do support for most of the problems a newbie would encounter.
I agree. See my thread if you'd like to help.
I am serious about putting TechnophobeLinux together. Please reply if you are interested in helping.
Any suggestions for what software to use as a base also appreciated.
Cheers!
Those are all great solutions. -- But they're not simple enough for a very large market that has yet to embrace computers at all.
Rasterman's got a point. With the configurability of Linux, we should be able to outclass Apple in uber-simplicity. Semi-dedicated specialized boxes are what I'm talking about.
The kind of thing that I set up shop in Valley West Mall in Des Moines, where people can come in and buy an email/web surfing machine, that can also play a couple games and do word processing. But with little to no learning curve. For true technophobes, even the Mac OS is too complicated. We should target that crowd.
Sell dedicated DVR boxes that are a really just a Linux box with a custom gui and an easy interface to the 2 or 3 programs you need.
KDE, Gnome, et al are great, but too complicated for this market. And this market is huge and largely untapped.
I posted this in another thread, but it got buried, so here goes...
For you and me, KDE and GNOME, along with any of the good standard distros makes GNU/Linux a great, pretty-easy-to-use choice.
But that's not good enough.
What I'd like to put together is Linux for Technophobes. The machine that Joe Schmoe, who has never used a computer, can walk in to Wal-mart, take home his new box, and be able to use it for email, web browsing, and word processing with zero assistance from anyone else.
He should open the box and find a simple (a la iMac) one-page sheet that shows him how to connect the mouse and keyboard.
A simple wizard sets up the net connection with him.
I'm picturing a very simple interface for the Basic mode. One big button that says Email and has a picture of a mailbox. Another for the web browser. Maybe a couple more apps, but not many.
And, if you click on the Advanced mode button in the corner, you get switched to KDE or GNOME.
Let me know what you think, and maybe we can put something like this together.
I would suggest looking through the GNU.Free project for more information.
Jason Kitcat, the maintainer of the project, spoke here in Cambridge (England) a couple months ago. Very informative talk, explaining the merits and pitfalls of electronic voting.
The site contains numerous articles detailing most aspects of e-democracy in action. Most of the information from Jason's talk is available of the GNU.Free site.