Make sure you find writable media rated at this speed though. One of my family members got a new Dell with a 24x burner, they thought it sucked because they kept making coasters every now and then. Turns out the media was rated for 12x/16x. A lot of the CD's came out fine, but burning at 40/48x on a 16x writable will probably make you a CD that holds your coffee cup better than your data.
101 uses for a misburned CD... is there a book? - phorm
You don't really need soap to be clean. I good thing of running water, mini waterfall, etc and a decent scrubbing will get you cleaner than if you just quickly latered some soap and splashed around a bit.
Previous articles mention soap killing both good and bad bacteria, and often enough, helping make more disinfectant-resistant bacteria.
However, one wonders at their solution to toilet paper? Weeds would be itchy and long grass might leave one with a green posterior? Our next project is... self-manufactured preparation H - phorm
It would be great to be able to attach artificial limbs that worked right off of one's brainwaves (so long as there wasn't interference or somebody yanking your wire by accident).
Another important thing they'll need to figure out is how to get and interpret feedback. That is, to allow for the sense of feeling from the hand/etc being moved to be translated back to the brain. I think to some extent it's been done already, and one thing nicer than having a robotic hand would be having a robotic hand you can feel with.
disclaimer: I claim no responsibility those who respond to this post with comments of a sexual or otherwise immature nature - phorm/I.
I think this could definately pave the way for some cool mini-ITX projects (see previous slashdot article). I'm not sure how exactly these diagnostics run though, or what information they provide.
I think in some systems you can get (and maybe set) your fuel-to-air ratio, which controls how rich your car is burning gas and to some extent power. Turbochargers are based on providing extra air flow allowing for more gas to also be mixed in.
Even if you can't stat your car on the fly, it would be quite cool to have the onboard PC able to do something other than play Mp3's.
I'd like to wire one into the speedometer and gas gauge, then have it calculate milage based on speed and the current fuel/air ratio.
Checksum error. Now terminating system: brakes - phorm
The surgical laser may have done this, but it would have been at very close range. You have to remember that the aircraft laser would be operating over distances of 6 miles. That's a lot farther than the surgical, and despite laser focus, probably still a certain margin for losing power. If they want to melt tanks/troops from high altitudes at a distance, they'll need a little more than a high-power surgical laser.
Thank you kind sir (or madam, made that mistake once before), I was somewhat curious at the troll marking. I'm always trolling for answers of course, but mainly because I generally want to hear solutions from individuals better educated than I.
I don't really need server names, the main purpose is just for sharing certain files and/or IPX/SPX connections (for LAN games). No need for domain names as nobody will be using this connection to go anywhere but in.
but are migrating to IPSec with certificates
What are you doing to implement this? Is there something written to do it, or are you trying to do this manually with custom apps and ipchains voodoo?
No no dude, don't nuke that place, that's my home computer downloading the LOTR soundtr... I mean... let's nuke this person distributing Britney Spears' latest album
(mental count, 99 Spears' lovers taken out, yesss)
I myself am wondering how these people are funded. I imaging that building a 511lb space-capable (supposedly, not today though) rocket probably takes quite a fair bit of money
Would also be interesting to know how they got rocket fuel. I'd assume that NASA or somebody is contributing (is it still amature if they do), as this stuff isn't really available at your nearest Esso station, although at one time Jet fuel was more publicly available.
Preparing funds for next year: "Sir, have you got any bottles for recycling?" - phorm
Re:ebay? (Re:3d for Business)
on
3D LCD Display
·
· Score: 2
I was thinking that to do this it might help to have a more convex-style display, having the inner pixels represented in 3d by using a form of overlay. The future monitor may actually be some sort of ball which projects the image from an inner core. Feasible, but requiring a whole lot more surface area and likely 10 times the cost, not to mention one heckuva powerful video card.
There was once something that used a convex display, more of a bubble actually, at the arcade which had 3d in this form. It was many years ago, so there's probably an improvement, but it was actually somewhat reminiscent of the holodisplays from star ways. The character that talked to you actually did seem to be standing up inside the bubble.
This might not be great for FPS games, but would be awesome for 3d modelling, and space/strategy games... very awesome
I would really like to hear more about how you set this up. Can you fill me in a little more about how you set this up on your particular system, and any issues you ran into?
phion Information Technologies will not provide an exploit for this issue.
In reference to remarks about lawsuits. This is a smart move, this would probably help against the getting-our-asses-sued-by-MS possibilities.
If they poke their own machines I don't think it quite counts the same as hacking somebody else's machine and then telling them they're vulnerable.
I was just recently looking at the possibilities of setting up a linux VPN, instead of opening up my Windows machines (/. never posted it, boohoo for me). This looks like a good reason to do it that way, anyone have suggestions? I've looked at freeS/WAN, but the online documentation is dead
I'm downloading the freeSwan files before their server gets slashdotted now too - phorm
Re:Choice of OS != intelligence? (Re:The problem)
on
AOL's new Linux PC
·
· Score: 2
See 1st point. Not wanting to know how to take apart a point-and-shoot-camera is not scary. Don't confuse undereducated with not technically oriented.
I mean, even in windows, they can't format a disk or other simple tasks. In DOS it took 1 command, maybe a few presses of enter, and a lot of people can do this. In windows it's right-click, format, (etc) OK. Fairly easy as well, but most people aren't willing to try and figure it out.
There are many other less technical things that people just refuse to try and learn on their own. It's not that users should know everything, but they should have a decent grasp of how to use their equipment functionalities in a reasonable manner.
Nowadays, it's a tech admin's nightmare. When the tech is getting called on constantly for little thing after little thing, a lot of the important jobs get little time in them. If they focus on the big jobs, then the people with little jobs often get annoyed or irritated at the admin rather than trying to find their own solution.
It's FINE to have to show somebody something once, but if you've explain it, given out documentation, etc and people still refuse to do it, then there's no reason that the users can't in some small ways fend for themselves.
In one case, we have a tech who constantly gets called/emailed to add users to the proxy/email/etc lists. There are scripts that make this simple, it's just a few commands, and they've been given out. Yet various people insist on calling for help, because they are afraid of something that doesn't have a GUI with a 50-line description, a help button, and an OK/NEXT button.
Often enough you can find a secretary who ends up learning many of the small tasks that the IT admin can't be bothered with (format disks,etc,etc) and that other people are too afraid to do. There is an inherent fear of computers as unstable devices, and anything that's CLI nowadays becomes the realm of "those tech people."
The computer will not hurt you, nor will it explode, you don't have to be afraid of it - phorm
ebay? (Re:3d for Business)
on
3D LCD Display
·
· Score: 1
Actually, if there's a corresponding capture device then this would be good for anything with products for sale. Customers could look *around* the product before buying.
They mention realty for an example, but I'm sure auto sellers, antique sellers, etc would love to have their customers be able to look at the product left front right top bottom.
Re:3d displays cannot work
on
3D LCD Display
·
· Score: 1
Sounds like bs to me, but then, how do they know how far a really distant galaxy is, based on the incoming light (and also indicating *how long* ago the light was from)? I don't know if human eyes have a mechanism for this regardless, but I believe not.
Depth perception is partly based on having stereoscopic vision (2 eyes) which we can judge between them, and also based on the proportion something takes up in our visible spectrum VS other objects, shadowing etc, etc.
If you had an object X distance in a void, and there were no point of reference of other objects, then you would have a very difficult time determining how far away the object was.
There would still be a diminishing lines (like when you draw a "3d picture" and lines from the bottom corners inwards to the horizon), but if sources of shadow were low it would be increasingly hard to tell the distance of the object as the diminishing lines would not be defined. You may notice that after a certain distance, it can be difficult to tell whether an object on a blue sky is a near bird, or a distant plane.
It was an analogy, not a direct description. But the picture of a large group of "geeks" with high-tech but tiny weapons marching against hundreds of big mean ugly gorillas somewhat paints the picture of the RIAA conflict.
Noisy cricket? - phorm
Or both? (Re:What about contract work?)
on
Honest Job Sites?
·
· Score: 2
At first, I took my lower paying job and let it pay the bills. I also work some contracts on my own, run online under phormix (which sadly enough, leaves me little time to re-edit my own.com webpage). The contracts get the goody money, the rest pays the bills. If you're good and get referrals it works out quite nicely.
10% of a year is definately huge. xx% of the first xx months would be a lot better. However, I do see the one advantage in this is that they're going to try and get you the highest pay possible, in order to maximize their percent return.
Still, if it's 10% before taxes, that's a slaughter. If it's after taxes then I'd be quite willing to pay that for a job that pays 130% of a cheap job. Even in other cases it may round off to more take-home than on the crappy job you get elsewhere.
Of course, not everyone get a 130% pay increase. But then, they get nothing unless one takes the job, correct?
I don't work for them, I've never heard of 'em, but I suppose it works for somebody - phorm
Small job, big job (Re:It's a different world)
on
Honest Job Sites?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Agreed,
Sometimes you have to go for the bite and tag that lower-end. I'm an IT Administrator (actual title). Actually, it's a small business, with a routered internet connection, and about 6 computers. I do a lot of programming custom software though, but the IT Admin part rarely bothers me as keeping things patch usually prevents breakage and the other employees are relatively informed.
I don't get paid a whole whack of money, surely not as much as many other "IT Admins" do. But they appreciate my work, and having IT Admin on my resume along with glowing recommendations certainly helps in the long run.
I definately see the secretary to programmer thing. Sometimes all it takes is a foot into where you want to work, and a little patience.
X many years ago if you went to college and got a piece of paper, it got you a good job. I think employers finally got royally sick of all those that couldn't actually pull the weight of that piece of paper. Until we get rid of all the losers that are getting shoved through IT programs (people with degrees who couldn't program their way out of a paper bag), then we'll continue to have a lot of really overqualified secretaries.
It's nice to see I'm not the only one that faced this problem. No matter what one's experience, without a lot of really good recommendations a resume on monster is only get an inbox full of spam. I tried and that's all it got me, until I started looking at the lower rungs on the ladder.
Power to the overqualified secretaries, you'll get that promotion when you FSCK the super-important linux server that the MS-certified geek keeps looking for a GUI on - phorm
What are the implications for the Internet's functionality when the inevitable arms race develops?
I love this comparison. This indeed seems like an arms race.
On one side you have the big corps armed with heavy lawyers and lots of money.
On the other side, groups of hackers, filesharers, IT-rights activists. We're armed with technology, innovation, and a whole lotta people
RIAA can probably buy the techs though, this evens things somewhat.
It's the case of the an army of the elite Vs the large army of gorillas. The elite may have a lot of neat tricks, but it will probably really hurt if the gorillas manage to close enough to make a few punches.
Choice of OS != intelligence? (Re:The problem)
on
AOL's new Linux PC
·
· Score: 2, Redundant
You know, choice of OS or ISP isn't a measure of intelligence
Indeed it is not, nor did I mean to imply that it was. OS choice is however, often a measure of proficiency (sometimes computing intelligence, but not intellectual).
It's also a measure of judgement, not getting suckered in or brainwashed by a big name which you hear on TV or see in banners every minute. This seems to be a large part of AOL's strategy, hear the name, buy the product. AOL isn't better than others, it isn't cheaper than many. It's becoming more and more visible as they attempt to push their way into every aspect of life, and that lends to an increase in marketing audience, which is probably what this is mostly about.
The idea is to make computers easier to use, not more difficult.
As for those that use linux, they don't use it because it's easier, the use it because it's functional. Making computers easier to use doesn't help much if they're not functional enough to do what I need. Calculators are easy to use.
One of the big problems is in that making everything "easy", we make people less proficient. As soon as the GUI as gone, 95% of users will probably crap their pants at a CLI. Not to complain, it keeps me employed, but we're making things prettier and users dumber, PC skills wise.
Do you know how many people can't even format a disk, or run a program that's not in the start menu or desktop? It's scary. Linux is an operating system of choice. GUI's have been made that make it nicer, and easier, but by far the most useful part of it is still within the little icon entitled "terminal." AOL users moving to lindows will likely not be any more PC-smart than their windows counterparts, not will the learn much about linux.
However, I do hear screams of anguish resonating from MS-headquarters - phorm
I still see people having some issues using various online programs/games with AOL, but if it works for your account then it suits your means. A lot of us were just turned off by AOL a long time ago, and found solutions which better suited our needs. I should have rephrased this that it that AOL may help lead some windows users down the linux road (despite how many of us hate them, AOL does manage to gather customers), but probably won't see many linux users going to their product.
A few kudos to AOL though
AOL floppies were formattable (free blank disks)
AOL CD's became coasters, the new cases are rugged and nice for DVD's/etc
As you mentioned, they support Netscape/Winamp/ICQ.
I reserve the right to apply a -1 to AOL for ICQ adware. I use trillian so it doesn't matter to me, I use their network so they still provide me with a decent service. The needs suit the audience. If AOL can help people get online and on linux, I really don't mind them - so long as they're not lagging up my battle.net games.
3: Somebody's lagging, who's your ISP?
2: What's an ISP?
1: The company that provides your internet connection
2: Oh, I'm using AOL
1: Kill player 2 first, he's AOL, that'll clear the lag
Yes, I often saw this on b-net - phorm
Which is still to some extent good. You can do your coding, put in a little technological mystery... nobody will know that you actually finished that important piece of software 2 weeks ago, and have just been reading slashdot since.
Of course, having a boss that knows how hard your work is can be quite nice. Sometimes it can lead to bonuses or other incentives, other times it's just nice to have somebody say "I know you did a lot of hard work on this and I appreciate it" - and they actually do know...
And then you get the type that *think* they know what you're doing, and make really dumb suggestions that drive you really insane. You can't really say "no sir, I'm sure that would have worked on your gr12 visual basic adding program, but in this case it's just an idiotic idea."
My bosses leave the coding to me, and I write reports on what I've done. They know enough that they're not annoying, and not so much that they're obstructive... it's a nice solution. Having somebody who's partially educated as a boss would be scary indeed...
A little knowledge can really screw things up - phorm
Slashdot Mirror
Make sure you find writable media rated at this speed though. One of my family members got a new Dell with a 24x burner, they thought it sucked because they kept making coasters every now and then. Turns out the media was rated for 12x/16x. A lot of the CD's came out fine, but burning at 40/48x on a 16x writable will probably make you a CD that holds your coffee cup better than your data.
101 uses for a misburned CD... is there a book? - phorm
You don't really need soap to be clean. I good thing of running water, mini waterfall, etc and a decent scrubbing will get you cleaner than if you just quickly latered some soap and splashed around a bit.
Previous articles mention soap killing both good and bad bacteria, and often enough, helping make more disinfectant-resistant bacteria.
However, one wonders at their solution to toilet paper? Weeds would be itchy and long grass might leave one with a green posterior?
Our next project is... self-manufactured preparation H - phorm
It would be great to be able to attach artificial limbs that worked right off of one's brainwaves (so long as there wasn't interference or somebody yanking your wire by accident).
Another important thing they'll need to figure out is how to get and interpret feedback. That is, to allow for the sense of feeling from the hand/etc being moved to be translated back to the brain. I think to some extent it's been done already, and one thing nicer than having a robotic hand would be having a robotic hand you can feel with.
disclaimer: I claim no responsibility those who respond to this post with comments of a sexual or otherwise immature nature - phorm/I.
I think this could definately pave the way for some cool mini-ITX projects (see previous slashdot article). I'm not sure how exactly these diagnostics run though, or what information they provide.
I think in some systems you can get (and maybe set) your fuel-to-air ratio, which controls how rich your car is burning gas and to some extent power. Turbochargers are based on providing extra air flow allowing for more gas to also be mixed in.
Even if you can't stat your car on the fly, it would be quite cool to have the onboard PC able to do something other than play Mp3's.
I'd like to wire one into the speedometer and gas gauge, then have it calculate milage based on speed and the current fuel/air ratio.
Checksum error. Now terminating system: brakes - phorm
The surgical laser may have done this, but it would have been at very close range. You have to remember that the aircraft laser would be operating over distances of 6 miles. That's a lot farther than the surgical, and despite laser focus, probably still a certain margin for losing power. If they want to melt tanks/troops from high altitudes at a distance, they'll need a little more than a high-power surgical laser.
Thank you kind sir (or madam, made that mistake once before), I was somewhat curious at the troll marking. I'm always trolling for answers of course, but mainly because I generally want to hear solutions from individuals better educated than I.
I don't really need server names, the main purpose is just for sharing certain files and/or IPX/SPX connections (for LAN games). No need for domain names as nobody will be using this connection to go anywhere but in.
but are migrating to IPSec with certificates
What are you doing to implement this? Is there something written to do it, or are you trying to do this manually with custom apps and ipchains voodoo?
I wonder if we'd get away with it...
No no dude, don't nuke that place, that's my home computer downloading the LOTR soundtr... I mean... let's nuke this person distributing Britney Spears' latest album
(mental count, 99 Spears' lovers taken out, yesss)
I myself am wondering how these people are funded. I imaging that building a 511lb space-capable (supposedly, not today though) rocket probably takes quite a fair bit of money
Would also be interesting to know how they got rocket fuel. I'd assume that NASA or somebody is contributing (is it still amature if they do), as this stuff isn't really available at your nearest Esso station, although at one time Jet fuel was more publicly available.
Preparing funds for next year: "Sir, have you got any bottles for recycling?" - phorm
I was thinking that to do this it might help to have a more convex-style display, having the inner pixels represented in 3d by using a form of overlay. The future monitor may actually be some sort of ball which projects the image from an inner core. Feasible, but requiring a whole lot more surface area and likely 10 times the cost, not to mention one heckuva powerful video card.
There was once something that used a convex display, more of a bubble actually, at the arcade which had 3d in this form. It was many years ago, so there's probably an improvement, but it was actually somewhat reminiscent of the holodisplays from star ways. The character that talked to you actually did seem to be standing up inside the bubble.
This might not be great for FPS games, but would be awesome for 3d modelling, and space/strategy games... very awesome
If you code it, they will come - phorm
I would really like to hear more about how you set this up. Can you fill me in a little more about how you set this up on your particular system, and any issues you ran into?
/\@/
My email is: phormix at phormix.com
s/ at
Noooo. Gorillas. 500lb gorilla... damn, the reference was completely lost this time.
$literal=true; #symbolism lost on slashdot members - phorm
phion Information Technologies will not provide an exploit for this issue.
In reference to remarks about lawsuits. This is a smart move, this would probably help against the getting-our-asses-sued-by-MS possibilities.
If they poke their own machines I don't think it quite counts the same as hacking somebody else's machine and then telling them they're vulnerable.
I was just recently looking at the possibilities of setting up a linux VPN, instead of opening up my Windows machines (/. never posted it, boohoo for me). This looks like a good reason to do it that way, anyone have suggestions? I've looked at freeS/WAN, but the online documentation is dead
I'm downloading the freeSwan files before their server gets slashdotted now too - phorm
See 1st point. Not wanting to know how to take apart a point-and-shoot-camera is not scary. Don't confuse undereducated with not technically oriented.
I mean, even in windows, they can't format a disk or other simple tasks. In DOS it took 1 command, maybe a few presses of enter, and a lot of people can do this. In windows it's right-click, format, (etc) OK. Fairly easy as well, but most people aren't willing to try and figure it out.
There are many other less technical things that people just refuse to try and learn on their own. It's not that users should know everything, but they should have a decent grasp of how to use their equipment functionalities in a reasonable manner.
Nowadays, it's a tech admin's nightmare. When the tech is getting called on constantly for little thing after little thing, a lot of the important jobs get little time in them. If they focus on the big jobs, then the people with little jobs often get annoyed or irritated at the admin rather than trying to find their own solution.
It's FINE to have to show somebody something once, but if you've explain it, given out documentation, etc and people still refuse to do it, then there's no reason that the users can't in some small ways fend for themselves.
In one case, we have a tech who constantly gets called/emailed to add users to the proxy/email/etc lists. There are scripts that make this simple, it's just a few commands, and they've been given out. Yet various people insist on calling for help, because they are afraid of something that doesn't have a GUI with a 50-line description, a help button, and an OK/NEXT button.
Often enough you can find a secretary who ends up learning many of the small tasks that the IT admin can't be bothered with (format disks,etc,etc) and that other people are too afraid to do. There is an inherent fear of computers as unstable devices, and anything that's CLI nowadays becomes the realm of "those tech people."
The computer will not hurt you, nor will it explode, you don't have to be afraid of it - phorm
Actually, if there's a corresponding capture device then this would be good for anything with products for sale. Customers could look *around* the product before buying.
They mention realty for an example, but I'm sure auto sellers, antique sellers, etc would love to have their customers be able to look at the product left front right top bottom.
Sounds like bs to me, but then, how do they know how far a really distant galaxy is, based on the incoming light (and also indicating *how long* ago the light was from)? I don't know if human eyes have a mechanism for this regardless, but I believe not.
Depth perception is partly based on having stereoscopic vision (2 eyes) which we can judge between them, and also based on the proportion something takes up in our visible spectrum VS other objects, shadowing etc, etc.
If you had an object X distance in a void, and there were no point of reference of other objects, then you would have a very difficult time determining how far away the object was.
There would still be a diminishing lines (like when you draw a "3d picture" and lines from the bottom corners inwards to the horizon), but if sources of shadow were low it would be increasingly hard to tell the distance of the object as the diminishing lines would not be defined. You may notice that after a certain distance, it can be difficult to tell whether an object on a blue sky is a near bird, or a distant plane.
Gorilla... the spawn of the 500lb RIAA gorilla :-)
It was an analogy, not a direct description. But the picture of a large group of "geeks" with high-tech but tiny weapons marching against hundreds of big mean ugly gorillas somewhat paints the picture of the RIAA conflict.
Noisy cricket? - phorm
At first, I took my lower paying job and let it pay the bills. I also work some contracts on my own, run online under phormix (which sadly enough, leaves me little time to re-edit my own .com webpage). The contracts get the goody money, the rest pays the bills. If you're good and get referrals it works out quite nicely.
Small things lead to bigger things - phorm
10% of a year is definately huge. xx% of the first xx months would be a lot better. However, I do see the one advantage in this is that they're going to try and get you the highest pay possible, in order to maximize their percent return.
Still, if it's 10% before taxes, that's a slaughter. If it's after taxes then I'd be quite willing to pay that for a job that pays 130% of a cheap job. Even in other cases it may round off to more take-home than on the crappy job you get elsewhere.
Of course, not everyone get a 130% pay increase. But then, they get nothing unless one takes the job, correct?
I don't work for them, I've never heard of 'em, but I suppose it works for somebody - phorm
Agreed,
Sometimes you have to go for the bite and tag that lower-end. I'm an IT Administrator (actual title). Actually, it's a small business, with a routered internet connection, and about 6 computers. I do a lot of programming custom software though, but the IT Admin part rarely bothers me as keeping things patch usually prevents breakage and the other employees are relatively informed.
I don't get paid a whole whack of money, surely not as much as many other "IT Admins" do. But they appreciate my work, and having IT Admin on my resume along with glowing recommendations certainly helps in the long run.
I definately see the secretary to programmer thing. Sometimes all it takes is a foot into where you want to work, and a little patience.
X many years ago if you went to college and got a piece of paper, it got you a good job. I think employers finally got royally sick of all those that couldn't actually pull the weight of that piece of paper. Until we get rid of all the losers that are getting shoved through IT programs (people with degrees who couldn't program their way out of a paper bag), then we'll continue to have a lot of really overqualified secretaries.
It's nice to see I'm not the only one that faced this problem. No matter what one's experience, without a lot of really good recommendations a resume on monster is only get an inbox full of spam. I tried and that's all it got me, until I started looking at the lower rungs on the ladder.
Power to the overqualified secretaries, you'll get that promotion when you FSCK the super-important linux server that the MS-certified geek keeps looking for a GUI on - phorm
What are the implications for the Internet's functionality when the inevitable arms race develops?
I love this comparison. This indeed seems like an arms race.
On one side you have the big corps armed with heavy lawyers and lots of money.
On the other side, groups of hackers, filesharers, IT-rights activists. We're armed with technology, innovation, and a whole lotta people
RIAA can probably buy the techs though, this evens things somewhat.
It's the case of the an army of the elite Vs the large army of gorillas. The elite may have a lot of neat tricks, but it will probably really hurt if the gorillas manage to close enough to make a few punches.
You know, choice of OS or ISP isn't a measure of intelligence
Indeed it is not, nor did I mean to imply that it was. OS choice is however, often a measure of proficiency (sometimes computing intelligence, but not intellectual).
It's also a measure of judgement, not getting suckered in or brainwashed by a big name which you hear on TV or see in banners every minute. This seems to be a large part of AOL's strategy, hear the name, buy the product. AOL isn't better than others, it isn't cheaper than many. It's becoming more and more visible as they attempt to push their way into every aspect of life, and that lends to an increase in marketing audience, which is probably what this is mostly about.
The idea is to make computers easier to use, not more difficult.
As for those that use linux, they don't use it because it's easier, the use it because it's functional. Making computers easier to use doesn't help much if they're not functional enough to do what I need. Calculators are easy to use.
One of the big problems is in that making everything "easy", we make people less proficient. As soon as the GUI as gone, 95% of users will probably crap their pants at a CLI. Not to complain, it keeps me employed, but we're making things prettier and users dumber, PC skills wise.
Do you know how many people can't even format a disk, or run a program that's not in the start menu or desktop? It's scary. Linux is an operating system of choice. GUI's have been made that make it nicer, and easier, but by far the most useful part of it is still within the little icon entitled "terminal." AOL users moving to lindows will likely not be any more PC-smart than their windows counterparts, not will the learn much about linux.
However, I do hear screams of anguish resonating from MS-headquarters - phorm
A few kudos to AOL though
- AOL floppies were formattable (free blank disks)
- AOL CD's became coasters, the new cases are rugged and nice for DVD's/etc
- As you mentioned, they support Netscape/Winamp/ICQ.
I reserve the right to apply a -1 to AOL for ICQ adware. I use trillian so it doesn't matter to me, I use their network so they still provide me with a decent service. The needs suit the audience. If AOL can help people get online and on linux, I really don't mind them - so long as they're not lagging up my battle.net games.3: Somebody's lagging, who's your ISP?
2: What's an ISP?
1: The company that provides your internet connection
2: Oh, I'm using AOL
1: Kill player 2 first, he's AOL, that'll clear the lag
Yes, I often saw this on b-net - phorm
Most people with proficiency in Linux hopefully aren't dumb enough to use AOL.
Which is still to some extent good. You can do your coding, put in a little technological mystery... nobody will know that you actually finished that important piece of software 2 weeks ago, and have just been reading slashdot since.
Of course, having a boss that knows how hard your work is can be quite nice. Sometimes it can lead to bonuses or other incentives, other times it's just nice to have somebody say "I know you did a lot of hard work on this and I appreciate it" - and they actually do know...
And then you get the type that *think* they know what you're doing, and make really dumb suggestions that drive you really insane. You can't really say "no sir, I'm sure that would have worked on your gr12 visual basic adding program, but in this case it's just an idiotic idea."
My bosses leave the coding to me, and I write reports on what I've done. They know enough that they're not annoying, and not so much that they're obstructive... it's a nice solution. Having somebody who's partially educated as a boss would be scary indeed...
A little knowledge can really screw things up - phorm