Linux desktops were in my experience never competitive because they require too much technical knowledge. That is an obstacle easily overcome by technical types, but *not* the majority of the user population. It just isn't sustainable to say "Here, tinker, it's cool" to everybody - or more accurately ANYbody outside of technical folks who enjoy the work necessary to update one application or another. It's why many have grown tired of Windows. It's why OSX, with its draw backs, is becoming more popular - the user population at large want an experience that doesn't require at lot of work to keep working. imho.
I've toyed with Linux but never really did anything with it. Too busy with life.
Things have changed radically since my first PC in 1985. Back then the "computer hobby" was like the short wave radio hobby. Most people tended to build their own systems or at least upgrade major components. I bought that first PC (a Pinecomm XT with a wonderful flip-top case so you get right into the guts) from one company and the 20 MB hard drive from a different company. Before I even had a complete and legal copy of MS-DOS (I had a bootable Rogue disk with a handful of system utilities included) I wrote an editor (before I eventually moved to PC-Write) by copying console to file blocks, catting the blocks, compiling with Mix C until I had a version which could replace lines, and then used it to write itself. That was then.
Now computers are just an appliance that the mass market wants to buy and just have work, like a microwave (or really, a car since you don't really have microwave hobbyists). Only enthusiasts want to tinker. No OS that requires constant tinkering is going to gain widespread adoption.
We watch Netflix via a PS3 and OTA via an antenna in the dead air space above our ceiling.
Sports is likely to be your biggest drawback of dropping cable or satellite.
We're not big on sports or "regular" TV so this suffices for us. Honestly, after you get used to it you'll wonder why you bothered to watch half the stuff you did. I did miss not getting to watch the second half of The Walking Dead season two (should be coming to Netflix in the relatively near future), but as long as you're willing to wait for them to get to Netflix (or willing to buy or otherwise "acquire" the episodes over the internet) you'll be fine. If you watch a couple of hours of TV per night you'll have literally years worth of movies and really good television series that you meant to watch but somehow never did just waiting for you. With no commercials you can know out three half-hour shows in just a touch over an hour. I guess that would be a season of 24 in about 18 to 19 hours...
PS3 sucks hard for Youtube. Big hoops to jump through to get anything other than low-res video there. You can either go through third-party websites or set up a proxy PC.
I will probably like to watch the Olympics to a greater degree than what will be OTA so I'll just plug my laptop into my receiver via HDMI and stream whatever's available online. BTW, that works pretty good with a Toshiba Thrive android tablet too.
This is what we should have for our House of Representatives. We will keep the same politicians, in order to have their meetings and craft the bills, but when it comes to the final passage, it will be decided by the People online. That way stupid stuff like TARP will not pass (almost 80% of Americans were against it). The Senate would still function normally, with politicians voting "aye" or "nay", so as to block any bad bills the People's House might pass.
The founders didn't trust democracy. That's why they built a democratic republic. (It was that 51% eating the 49% thing.) You can find lots of quotes to this effect like this one by Alexander Hamilton:
It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity. Alexander Hamilton, Speech on 21 June 1788 urging ratification of the Constitution in New York. US (Scottish-born) lawyer & politician (1755 - 1804)
The House was supposed to most directly represent the people and be impulsive. The Senate was supposed to represent the states and be a roadblock to the impulsiveness of the House (as the probably fictional quote attributed to Washington says, the saucer to cool the tea). This was why until the unfortunate 17th Amendment Senators were selected directly by the States and not by popular vote. Senators would be those who wouldn't have to be concerned with being elected while the Representatives would be attuned to the people because they're constantly running for re-election.
If you look at the division of responsibilities you can see this to some degree. The Representatives, representing the people, are allotted by population. The Senators, representing the several equal States, are equally allotted two per State. The people, through the House, approve spending (all spending bills must originate in the House). The States (which are not, as most believe, just political subdivisions of the United States but were considered to be sovereign entities that had agreed to bind together) agree to treaties negotiated by and appointments by the President by instructing their Senators to approve or disapprove. Now the States have little say in the Federal government outside of filing lawsuits.
(As an aside, that's also one of the main reasons that we have the Electoral College as it's the people of each State who elect the President, not the population of the United States at large.)
If you remember several years back there was a huge stink about "unfunded federal mandates". Would any except a very good and clearly beneficial "unfunded federal mandate" have a chance of passing a body like the Senate if it were representing those having to provide the funding instead of those who can't wait to get the "free" goodies?
Electronic doesn't necessarily mean insecure. Public key cryptography with keys in voter cards is a possibility. Encrypt the vote with your public key and the government's public key, then sign. You could then check that your vote was counted and counted correctly either online with a cheap smartcard reader or at a library if you don't have a reader. The keys would be signed to verify identity and could also include a photo.
Oh, yeah... And the Democrats who fight any voter photo ID requirements whatsoever as being racist are going to buy into this big time.
But even that is a misnomer. It's not a drive at all. A hard disc drive, has a hard disk being driven (spun) by a motor. SSDs should really be called SSS (Solid State Storage), or similar.
Just shorten that to "SS" have we have a Godwin Moment already!
Yes, bittorrent has a lot of great legitimate uses, but we are deluding outselves if we think legal bittorrent usage is the majority of bittorrent traffic, or even a large portion of it. I get that extreme statements like this are necessary to balance out the extreme statements made by the other side (that song you downloaded cost us 500 million, etc..).. but I still don't like it:(
That shouldn't matter. The Supreme Court has ruled that if there's pretty any legitimate use then it's covered by fair use:
The Court's 5-4 ruling to reverse the Ninth Circuit in favor of Sony hinged on the possibility that the technology in question had significant non-infringing uses, and that the plaintiffs were unable to prove otherwise.
Besides, if your argument is that you shouldn't have torrents because they're mostly used for nefarious purposes then we should ditch email because 73% of if it is spam.
Yeah, everybody knows that all you have to do is design the final system right up front. All of that research and development and the learning from your mistakes is all unnecessary BS. I mean, we went right from Alan Shepard to Neil Armstrong, right? It's a good thing we didn't waste gobs of money and do anything in between. We already have laser pointers so why don't we just stop wasting all of that R&D money and just build the Death Star?
Same here for my two. When we did it the storage fee was $100 per year each. I'm think it's higher now but we continue to pay the same fee, I believe. We didn't choose the pay for 18 years storage up front option.
I've read a bit further but will comment here. And yes, I'll probably be lumped into the "if it isn't perfect for you it's trash" naysayer group by those unable to take criticism of their ideals, but really "perfect for a tiny fraction of people" means "economically unfeasible".
While slightly appealing on a quick glance, this is really a step backwards. Automobile development has always proceeded from the "requires physical strength" and "difficult to operate" end of the spectrum toward the "no strength required" and "easy to operate" end.
Manual spark control -> automatic ignition advance systems (not really sure what to call it) Crank -> electric starter Manual transmission -> automatic transmission Manual brakes -> power brakes Manual steering -> power steering Manual convertible top -> power convertible top
Now, you have to able to remove and swap engines/motor packs which (from a look at the article) requires dedicated equipment, knowledge of how to use it, and probably some amount of physical strength. The electric starter is one of the advances that opened driving to women. Now we're adding back in technical knowledge and strength requirements. (This is not meant to be any slap against women in the technical knowledge area as most men don't know squat about modern cars either. "I can change my own oil/alternator/starter" doesn't require that much real knowledge.)
And, for men and women, I bet there's some risk of getting grease or oil on you while changing it. Do you really want to have to make mechanical changes to your car to drive it?
How long would it take to do this swap? If the gas engine is still installed because you got back from that road trip/vacation at 11:30 PM the night before and you have to do that quick errand in the morning (or head off for work) are you really going to take the time to change it? Do you really expect a population that will install a garage door opener so that they don't have to bother to get out of their car to take the time to swap motors when, if saving gas is important to them, they could just buy a hybrid or plug-in hybrid instead of this mess?
I'm at work and suddenly find that I have to run a lunch errand 10 miles away. Do I have to go home to swap in the gasoline engine so that I won't run out of charge on the way home that evening? (You're equally screwed with a pure electric in this case.)
Why would any family with more than one car (which is probably every family that would be able to afford this car with it's custom motor-changing setup that likely won't fit in your garage anyway) ever take this vehicle on a road trip in the first place? Why take the time to switch motors? Just take the long-distance gas car and leave the commute car behind.
The only conceivable market for this system would be the single male wanting only one car who owns his own home (or perhaps a condo) with a garage in which he can install the motor-changing equipment (don't forget to take it with you when you move, hopefully not to an apartment) and is dead-set on having a plug-in electric-only car but wants to be able to go on a road trip. In other words, the idealist. Why in the world would a non-idealist add all of this complication and trouble to their life?
If you must have only one car that is an electric-only as a opposed to a plug-in hybrid it would likely be far more cost effective to rent a gas car for the road trip than to buy this.
Hopefully when games are developed for this "common" hardware it won't become the "only" hardware. If this system succeeds and captures a fair amount of the market then you may end up with gaming companies not bothering with the additional effort to target better graphics hardware.
Well, EVERYBODY knows that you can't succeed without Actors. And that Alec Baldwin was the greatest Actor on the planet, until bested by Gary Johnston. Durka durka.
Oh and high end installs Dont use a PS3, they use a LG or Sony BD player... because they integrate to real control systems like Crestron and AMX. Every time I have tried integrating a PS3, the garbage BLuetooth to IR gateways are unreliable.
The Logitech version for use with the Harmony remote line works perfectly. I have had zero issues with it in over a year of use. On/off even works (which it does not for most others).
As a purchaser, you are better off with a regular or secured credit card and pay it off at the end of the month (this is key) than ever dealing with Paypal. You get extra warranties, cash-back, fraud protection, frequent flier miles, etc. Indeed, just comparing credit card fraud protection to Paypal's version of "fraud protection" and the differences are staggering. Only a fool would pick Paypal.
I use Paypal for:
Small purchases where it's a nuisance to dig out the credit card.
Cheapo Hong Kong purchases from places like Meritline (my wife doesn't trust them with CC info).
Paypal promo discounts.
Forced.
I've never understood why anyone would use a Debit Card over a Credit Card. You have money withdrawn directly from your account with much less fraud protection (while a bank may limit your losses it's not legally mandated like it is with credit cards and protections usually only cover signature transactions), and you can't manage your cash flow by paying the credit card bills at a time of your choosing. Of course, I've never been buried under a pile of debt and have always paid off my cards monthly since 1987 so maybe I lack the debt-o-phobia perspective.
A Debit Card is basically a paperless check except that if there's fraud it hurts the issuer instead of the receiver. If you receive a counterfeit check then the banks come back to you for the funds and the account holder is not liable. If someone counterfeits a debit card transaction then the money's gone.
If you carry balances on all of your cards then you're screwed anyway. You should have one card that you ALWAYS pay off regardless of how painful it is.
The one thing I've noticed about "computer-stupid" people of any age group is that they're unwilling to click on anything unknown or just test something. It's like they've lost the capacity for experimental play and refuse to learn on their own.
That's my mother. She's afraid that she'll break something if she experiments.
If it's a computer it just has to be complicated. How can you do anything without a class on how to use it?
Slashdot Mirror
Linux desktops were in my experience never competitive because they require too much technical knowledge. That is an obstacle easily overcome by technical types, but *not* the majority of the user population. It just isn't sustainable to say "Here, tinker, it's cool" to everybody - or more accurately ANYbody outside of technical folks who enjoy the work necessary to update one application or another. It's why many have grown tired of Windows. It's why OSX, with its draw backs, is becoming more popular - the user population at large want an experience that doesn't require at lot of work to keep working. imho.
I've toyed with Linux but never really did anything with it. Too busy with life.
Things have changed radically since my first PC in 1985. Back then the "computer hobby" was like the short wave radio hobby. Most people tended to build their own systems or at least upgrade major components. I bought that first PC (a Pinecomm XT with a wonderful flip-top case so you get right into the guts) from one company and the 20 MB hard drive from a different company. Before I even had a complete and legal copy of MS-DOS (I had a bootable Rogue disk with a handful of system utilities included) I wrote an editor (before I eventually moved to PC-Write) by copying console to file blocks, catting the blocks, compiling with Mix C until I had a version which could replace lines, and then used it to write itself. That was then.
Now computers are just an appliance that the mass market wants to buy and just have work, like a microwave (or really, a car since you don't really have microwave hobbyists). Only enthusiasts want to tinker. No OS that requires constant tinkering is going to gain widespread adoption.
We watch Netflix via a PS3 and OTA via an antenna in the dead air space above our ceiling.
Sports is likely to be your biggest drawback of dropping cable or satellite.
We're not big on sports or "regular" TV so this suffices for us. Honestly, after you get used to it you'll wonder why you bothered to watch half the stuff you did. I did miss not getting to watch the second half of The Walking Dead season two (should be coming to Netflix in the relatively near future), but as long as you're willing to wait for them to get to Netflix (or willing to buy or otherwise "acquire" the episodes over the internet) you'll be fine. If you watch a couple of hours of TV per night you'll have literally years worth of movies and really good television series that you meant to watch but somehow never did just waiting for you. With no commercials you can know out three half-hour shows in just a touch over an hour. I guess that would be a season of 24 in about 18 to 19 hours...
PS3 sucks hard for Youtube. Big hoops to jump through to get anything other than low-res video there. You can either go through third-party websites or set up a proxy PC.
I will probably like to watch the Olympics to a greater degree than what will be OTA so I'll just plug my laptop into my receiver via HDMI and stream whatever's available online. BTW, that works pretty good with a Toshiba Thrive android tablet too.
This is what we should have for our House of Representatives. We will keep the same politicians, in order to have their meetings and craft the bills, but when it comes to the final passage, it will be decided by the People online. That way stupid stuff like TARP will not pass (almost 80% of Americans were against it). The Senate would still function normally, with politicians voting "aye" or "nay", so as to block any bad bills the People's House might pass.
The founders didn't trust democracy. That's why they built a democratic republic. (It was that 51% eating the 49% thing.) You can find lots of quotes to this effect like this one by Alexander Hamilton:
The House was supposed to most directly represent the people and be impulsive. The Senate was supposed to represent the states and be a roadblock to the impulsiveness of the House (as the probably fictional quote attributed to Washington says, the saucer to cool the tea). This was why until the unfortunate 17th Amendment Senators were selected directly by the States and not by popular vote. Senators would be those who wouldn't have to be concerned with being elected while the Representatives would be attuned to the people because they're constantly running for re-election.
If you look at the division of responsibilities you can see this to some degree. The Representatives, representing the people, are allotted by population. The Senators, representing the several equal States, are equally allotted two per State. The people, through the House, approve spending (all spending bills must originate in the House). The States (which are not, as most believe, just political subdivisions of the United States but were considered to be sovereign entities that had agreed to bind together) agree to treaties negotiated by and appointments by the President by instructing their Senators to approve or disapprove. Now the States have little say in the Federal government outside of filing lawsuits.
(As an aside, that's also one of the main reasons that we have the Electoral College as it's the people of each State who elect the President, not the population of the United States at large.)
If you remember several years back there was a huge stink about "unfunded federal mandates". Would any except a very good and clearly beneficial "unfunded federal mandate" have a chance of passing a body like the Senate if it were representing those having to provide the funding instead of those who can't wait to get the "free" goodies?
Electronic doesn't necessarily mean insecure. Public key cryptography with keys in voter cards is a possibility. Encrypt the vote with your public key and the government's public key, then sign. You could then check that your vote was counted and counted correctly either online with a cheap smartcard reader or at a library if you don't have a reader. The keys would be signed to verify identity and could also include a photo.
Oh, yeah... And the Democrats who fight any voter photo ID requirements whatsoever as being racist are going to buy into this big time.
But even that is a misnomer. It's not a drive at all. A hard disc drive, has a hard disk being driven (spun) by a motor. SSDs should really be called SSS (Solid State Storage), or similar.
Just shorten that to "SS" have we have a Godwin Moment already!
And now we see the ugliness that lies beneath the "I support the troops but not the mission" lie.
And we all owe Tommy Lee Jones for riding that Russian communications satellite to the moon.
That was an inspired ending for that movie.
It is only one of about 20 websites I have passwords for (not to mention a half dozen MMORPGs I play from time to time).
20? Welcome to the Internet and the World Wide Web! As you explore you'll find all sorts of exciting things. Have you discovered Youtube yet?
(BTW, it took me three tries to get the right password to log in and reply to this message...)
Yes, bittorrent has a lot of great legitimate uses, but we are deluding outselves if we think legal bittorrent usage is the majority of bittorrent traffic, or even a large portion of it. I get that extreme statements like this are necessary to balance out the extreme statements made by the other side (that song you downloaded cost us 500 million, etc..) .. but I still don't like it :(
That shouldn't matter. The Supreme Court has ruled that if there's pretty any legitimate use then it's covered by fair use:
Besides, if your argument is that you shouldn't have torrents because they're mostly used for nefarious purposes then we should ditch email because 73% of if it is spam.
Yeah, everybody knows that all you have to do is design the final system right up front. All of that research and development and the learning from your mistakes is all unnecessary BS. I mean, we went right from Alan Shepard to Neil Armstrong, right? It's a good thing we didn't waste gobs of money and do anything in between. We already have laser pointers so why don't we just stop wasting all of that R&D money and just build the Death Star?
When I saw "orbiton" the first thing that popped into my mind was "armitron". I have one stuck in a closet somewhere.
Same here for my two. When we did it the storage fee was $100 per year each. I'm think it's higher now but we continue to pay the same fee, I believe. We didn't choose the pay for 18 years storage up front option.
I've read a bit further but will comment here. And yes, I'll probably be lumped into the "if it isn't perfect for you it's trash" naysayer group by those unable to take criticism of their ideals, but really "perfect for a tiny fraction of people" means "economically unfeasible".
While slightly appealing on a quick glance, this is really a step backwards. Automobile development has always proceeded from the "requires physical strength" and "difficult to operate" end of the spectrum toward the "no strength required" and "easy to operate" end.
Manual spark control -> automatic ignition advance systems (not really sure what to call it)
Crank -> electric starter
Manual transmission -> automatic transmission
Manual brakes -> power brakes
Manual steering -> power steering
Manual convertible top -> power convertible top
Now, you have to able to remove and swap engines/motor packs which (from a look at the article) requires dedicated equipment, knowledge of how to use it, and probably some amount of physical strength. The electric starter is one of the advances that opened driving to women. Now we're adding back in technical knowledge and strength requirements. (This is not meant to be any slap against women in the technical knowledge area as most men don't know squat about modern cars either. "I can change my own oil/alternator/starter" doesn't require that much real knowledge.)
And, for men and women, I bet there's some risk of getting grease or oil on you while changing it. Do you really want to have to make mechanical changes to your car to drive it?
How long would it take to do this swap? If the gas engine is still installed because you got back from that road trip/vacation at 11:30 PM the night before and you have to do that quick errand in the morning (or head off for work) are you really going to take the time to change it? Do you really expect a population that will install a garage door opener so that they don't have to bother to get out of their car to take the time to swap motors when, if saving gas is important to them, they could just buy a hybrid or plug-in hybrid instead of this mess?
I'm at work and suddenly find that I have to run a lunch errand 10 miles away. Do I have to go home to swap in the gasoline engine so that I won't run out of charge on the way home that evening? (You're equally screwed with a pure electric in this case.)
Why would any family with more than one car (which is probably every family that would be able to afford this car with it's custom motor-changing setup that likely won't fit in your garage anyway) ever take this vehicle on a road trip in the first place? Why take the time to switch motors? Just take the long-distance gas car and leave the commute car behind.
The only conceivable market for this system would be the single male wanting only one car who owns his own home (or perhaps a condo) with a garage in which he can install the motor-changing equipment (don't forget to take it with you when you move, hopefully not to an apartment) and is dead-set on having a plug-in electric-only car but wants to be able to go on a road trip. In other words, the idealist. Why in the world would a non-idealist add all of this complication and trouble to their life?
If you must have only one car that is an electric-only as a opposed to a plug-in hybrid it would likely be far more cost effective to rent a gas car for the road trip than to buy this.
Hopefully when games are developed for this "common" hardware it won't become the "only" hardware. If this system succeeds and captures a fair amount of the market then you may end up with gaming companies not bothering with the additional effort to target better graphics hardware.
by Alex Belits (*******437*******)
Impressive!
Well, EVERYBODY knows that you can't succeed without Actors. And that Alec Baldwin was the greatest Actor on the planet, until bested by Gary Johnston. Durka durka.
No, it is actually *in the article* that it didn't.
On Slashdot that's the best place to hide something that you don't want read...
Personally, I prefer human readable paper ballots. It's simply not as easy to fudge physical ballots as elecrontic ones.
Yeah...
Oh and high end installs Dont use a PS3, they use a LG or Sony BD player... because they integrate to real control systems like Crestron and AMX. Every time I have tried integrating a PS3, the garbage BLuetooth to IR gateways are unreliable.
The Logitech version for use with the Harmony remote line works perfectly. I have had zero issues with it in over a year of use. On/off even works (which it does not for most others).
Every computer user would know what Google is, but not everyone knows every musician!
Often times a computer user just needs a little encouragement to realize that Google will tell them who any musician is.
Why should they care about a washed-up drug addict? But enough about Elvis...
As a purchaser, you are better off with a regular or secured credit card and pay it off at the end of the month (this is key) than ever dealing with Paypal. You get extra warranties, cash-back, fraud protection, frequent flier miles, etc. Indeed, just comparing credit card fraud protection to Paypal's version of "fraud protection" and the differences are staggering. Only a fool would pick Paypal.
I use Paypal for:
I've never understood why anyone would use a Debit Card over a Credit Card. You have money withdrawn directly from your account with much less fraud protection (while a bank may limit your losses it's not legally mandated like it is with credit cards and protections usually only cover signature transactions), and you can't manage your cash flow by paying the credit card bills at a time of your choosing. Of course, I've never been buried under a pile of debt and have always paid off my cards monthly since 1987 so maybe I lack the debt-o-phobia perspective.
What Debit Card Companies Don't Tell You
A Debit Card is basically a paperless check except that if there's fraud it hurts the issuer instead of the receiver. If you receive a counterfeit check then the banks come back to you for the funds and the account holder is not liable. If someone counterfeits a debit card transaction then the money's gone.
If you carry balances on all of your cards then you're screwed anyway. You should have one card that you ALWAYS pay off regardless of how painful it is.
Even more hypocritical: this is the same administration that wants an Internet Kill Switch.
The one thing I've noticed about "computer-stupid" people of any age group is that they're unwilling to click on anything unknown or just test something. It's like they've lost the capacity for experimental play and refuse to learn on their own.
That's my mother. She's afraid that she'll break something if she experiments.
If it's a computer it just has to be complicated. How can you do anything without a class on how to use it?
a smallpox outbreak would be like 10-100 9/11s or 10-100 fukushimas.
It will be 9/11 times 2,356.
Although since they're in Japan wouldn't it be called the South America Syndrome? (polar opposite of Fukushima is Chile)
What's wrong with The Chile Syndrome?