If your going to charge a monthly fee, at least provide the client software for free.
Or at least don't charge the same damned inflated price as games that I can play without relying on Blizzard deciding WoW is still profitable to run. The excuse used to price games so ridiculously high is 'piracy' - where is the piracy for an online sub-based game?
But let me say this, and hope that someone at Blizzard is actually reading it: When I go to the game store with a hard-earned $50, and I have to choose between a game I can play for the next year or a game I can play for the next 30 days, you can bet your ass my money is not going to be spent on the latter. The monthly fee is semi-reasonable, but the initial investment is not.
This probably exposes the single biggest meta-reason for using Opera over M/FF. Why should I *have* to enable these arcane options, or hunt down beta-stage extensions just to get closer to doing what Opera does right now?
Opera is well worth the money, and if you want to save money, it's well worth putting up with the tiny two-line text ads at the top. Opera gets paid by advertisers, I get the world's best browser at a fraction of the size of the world's best FREE browser, and sometimes those ads are even relevant or interesting to me since they're based solely on the pages I'm looking at right then and there.
Oh, sort of like the feature I've been using in Opera for the last four months? (Not identical to bookmarks, they're treated more like email, but it's just as easy to work with)
a pretty killer feature as you can set URLs opened by other programs to always open in a new tab instead of 'raping' your current one
Like Opera has done since... hell, as long as I can remember?
saved search folders (a real killer feature) and improved grouping?
I'm not sure what 'improved grouping' actually refers to, but I'm pretty sure these are covered by M2 (that would be... wait for it... part of Opera).
Yes it does take longer than IE to load up
I guess this is where Mozilla still has Opera beat... Opera loads quicker than IE on my system.
I'm not trying to rag on Mozilla... it's great that a couple of Opera's excellent features are being co-opted into a totally free browser. I just think it's a damn shame that people honestly believe these are amazing Mozilla innovations and never (know to?) give credit to the true source. Opera Software has some damn smart employees to be so far ahead of the competition.
God DAMN that's a good speech. This deserves modding up far more than most of the tripe in this thread. Sadly, if you had plagiarized it instead of posting a link that most people will never follow, you likely would have been.
It's fun to see how many of Crichtons points manifest themselves in the posts above, even down to comparing people to holocaust deniers.
It's amusing to see how tame gaming comics were only 15 years ago. That Nester comic almost makes me cringe at how restrained and non-offensive it is. But today, we have Fruit Fucker 2000! Now THAT'S progress.
Well.. if you're going to be "educated and informed", you should at least trouble yourself with considering the fact that there are open-source implementations of Java.
Ok, fine.
Why Mono and not Java? Mono is 100% open source, and it's not Java!
Next time "windows" crashes and you need to reboot, try loading up the task manager (ctrl-shift-esc, or if it's not responding quickly enough, ctrl-alt-del and use the button). Chances are very good you can just kill the explorer.exe task and your system will return to normal. I consider this the exact equivalent of your X server or window manager crashing. Sometimes explorer won't start back up again, but that's no problem - the File, New Task menu option gives you the run box. In fact, if you'd like to live without the task bar, you can set your shell to cmd.exe or taskmgr.exe and work that way - explorer free!
Nearly every "windows crash" is really an "explorer crash".
What is with the TV producers in the USA, always cancelling good shows, but continuously renewing crap?
Farscape, Family Guy, Futurama, Hidden Hills, Firefly - all excellent shows, and when I show them to anyone, people love them. All cancelled in their prime... but Girlfriends? No, that shit is being renewed for it's fifth season. There's about a million different "Survivor"s and "Bachelor"-like shows.
I have a theory that it's a conspiracy to make people actually look forward to commercial breaks, instead of resenting them for interrupting something entertaining.
Thanks xoran, that's helped quite a bit. I think the summary on that page does a very poor job of explaining the problem. I imagined wrapping a rubber band around the donut like this:
O o
the small o is the donut, hole facing you. The large O is the rubber band - put your face against the scree and cross your eyes until they merge for the interactive ascii art version. It didn't occur to me to loop the rubber band THROUGH the hole. How could you do that without destroying the donut first? It all sounded like madness.
P.S: Mods, I was being half serious, half humourous - I don't know where you got troll and flamebait from, but I would like to suggest getting laid. Thank you.
I'm as confused as all hell. What exactly does "wrap a rubber band around an apple and shrink it to a point" mean? Surely that would cut the apple in half? Apparently not, the apple is unharmed by this. But if it works for an apple, why doesn't it work for a donut? Why does it have to be moved slowly? To prevent creation of an apple singularity?
And then we're supposed to apply this nonsense to a 3D object? Apples and donuts ARE 3D objects! Wtf?
Mathematicians are nuts. Anyone want to explain this in actual English for (probably) a free Informative mod?
"This question turned out to be extraordinarily difficult" - no shit! Half the students are probably still struggling with when they last held a two dimensional apple.
Explains why all stormtroopers wear masks (so you don't have to see the same face everyplace).
<Palpatine> I grow weary of seeing Temuera's face everywhere. Is there a way to add a bit of variety here? <Anakin> Hmmm. We could... make them all wear identical masks? <Palpatine> Remind me again how an idiot like yourself can become such a badass in only one more movie?
I'd just like to thank the creators of that website, for their admirable attempt at bringing my browser to it's knees with load times and flashing animated ads. I especially like the "start transferring something else every ten seconds while I'm reading" feature, and the "put the user comments on another page so that all the ads load a second time and double our adviews" feature.
I also recognize that w2k is a pretty good OS. [...] XP blows.
Man, am I ever sick of seeing this. It is not possible to think that 2k is great while XP is crap. They're the SAME fucking THING.
Every time I ask someone to back up this claim, they disappear, poof, like magic, or whinge about something that could be changed forever in one operation, like the Fisher Price interface.
So come on, be a man and back up your assertion. Why does XP blow?
As for the rest, well, I agree with you - linux is quirky and hard to get used to after a lifetime of Microsoft OS's. It's not bad, in fact once you've learnt more about it you'll wonder how you ever did without it, but it does need a "gearshift" in your brain, not to mention a whole heap of learning. Everyone says Windows is easy and intuitive, but they're selectively forgetting the many years they've put into learning the quirks and behaviours of the systems.
I recommend installing a bare Debian system and tinkering/apt-getting your way to the functionality you want. It's sometimes frustrating trying to find the right info, but it gets you used to the system without needing to jump right in at the "configure; make" end (although some might argue that you would learn more that way...).
The LAST thing I would ever recommend is that someone start with a "fully functional" GUI distro - you don't learn anything about how the system works that way, because the GUIs are all set up to be like Windows, but the innards are nothing like it. Eventually the mental model you build from the GUI and the model actually used by the system have diverged so much, you get confused (and angry) because the nothing works like you wanted.
Just a "me too" (Penultima was hilarious) and a big "thanks!" to the author. I'm making a note of your other mods so I can have a look at them tonight:)
I love the Penguin Puzzle the best: "One of us always tells the truth, and the other always lies. By asking only one of us one question, you must figure out which is which!" a) What's 2+2? b) What's the first letter of the alphabet? c) Are you a penguin? d) This is too hard. (paraphrased - I can't remember the exact text)
Slashdot Mirror
Check out his sig... apparently that's all you need to get the crack-smoking moderators to fall in line.
--
If you find what I say Informative, then mod me Funny, because Slashdot moderation is a joke!
If your going to charge a monthly fee, at least provide the client software for free.
Or at least don't charge the same damned inflated price as games that I can play without relying on Blizzard deciding WoW is still profitable to run. The excuse used to price games so ridiculously high is 'piracy' - where is the piracy for an online sub-based game?
But let me say this, and hope that someone at Blizzard is actually reading it: When I go to the game store with a hard-earned $50, and I have to choose between a game I can play for the next year or a game I can play for the next 30 days, you can bet your ass my money is not going to be spent on the latter. The monthly fee is semi-reasonable, but the initial investment is not.
This probably exposes the single biggest meta-reason for using Opera over M/FF. Why should I *have* to enable these arcane options, or hunt down beta-stage extensions just to get closer to doing what Opera does right now?
Opera is well worth the money, and if you want to save money, it's well worth putting up with the tiny two-line text ads at the top. Opera gets paid by advertisers, I get the world's best browser at a fraction of the size of the world's best FREE browser, and sometimes those ads are even relevant or interesting to me since they're based solely on the pages I'm looking at right then and there.
live bookmarks (RSS feeds as bookmarks)
Oh, sort of like the feature I've been using in Opera for the last four months? (Not identical to bookmarks, they're treated more like email, but it's just as easy to work with)
a pretty killer feature as you can set URLs opened by other programs to always open in a new tab instead of 'raping' your current one
Like Opera has done since... hell, as long as I can remember?
saved search folders (a real killer feature) and improved grouping?
I'm not sure what 'improved grouping' actually refers to, but I'm pretty sure these are covered by M2 (that would be... wait for it... part of Opera).
Yes it does take longer than IE to load up
I guess this is where Mozilla still has Opera beat... Opera loads quicker than IE on my system.
I'm not trying to rag on Mozilla... it's great that a couple of Opera's excellent features are being co-opted into a totally free browser. I just think it's a damn shame that people honestly believe these are amazing Mozilla innovations and never (know to?) give credit to the true source. Opera Software has some damn smart employees to be so far ahead of the competition.
I've seen better scripts on the inside of my underwear.
:(
Not me... I bought episode one underwear
God DAMN that's a good speech. This deserves modding up far more than most of the tripe in this thread. Sadly, if you had plagiarized it instead of posting a link that most people will never follow, you likely would have been.
It's fun to see how many of Crichtons points manifest themselves in the posts above, even down to comparing people to holocaust deniers.
If he spent six hours a day reading slashdot, it would be...okay it would be pretty freaking weird
Doesn't sound weird to me. Sounds like a typical work day!
It's amusing to see how tame gaming comics were only 15 years ago. That Nester comic almost makes me cringe at how restrained and non-offensive it is. But today, we have Fruit Fucker 2000! Now THAT'S progress.
Why Mono and not Java? Mono is 100% open source.
Well.. if you're going to be "educated and informed", you should at least trouble yourself with considering the fact that there are open-source implementations of Java.
Ok, fine.
Why Mono and not Java? Mono is 100% open source, and it's not Java!
Err, guess I should have mentioned that if you DO want the taskbar back, just type explorer into that run box.
Next time "windows" crashes and you need to reboot, try loading up the task manager (ctrl-shift-esc, or if it's not responding quickly enough, ctrl-alt-del and use the button). Chances are very good you can just kill the explorer.exe task and your system will return to normal. I consider this the exact equivalent of your X server or window manager crashing. Sometimes explorer won't start back up again, but that's no problem - the File, New Task menu option gives you the run box. In fact, if you'd like to live without the task bar, you can set your shell to cmd.exe or taskmgr.exe and work that way - explorer free!
Nearly every "windows crash" is really an "explorer crash".
What is with the TV producers in the USA, always cancelling good shows, but continuously renewing crap?
Farscape, Family Guy, Futurama, Hidden Hills, Firefly - all excellent shows, and when I show them to anyone, people love them. All cancelled in their prime... but Girlfriends? No, that shit is being renewed for it's fifth season. There's about a million different "Survivor"s and "Bachelor"-like shows.
I have a theory that it's a conspiracy to make people actually look forward to commercial breaks, instead of resenting them for interrupting something entertaining.
I believe I can sum up the radio stations' entire complaint in one word:
"Waaah!"
Thanks xoran, that's helped quite a bit. I think the summary on that page does a very poor job of explaining the problem. I imagined wrapping a rubber band around the donut like this:
O o
the small o is the donut, hole facing you. The large O is the rubber band - put your face against the scree and cross your eyes until they merge for the interactive ascii art version. It didn't occur to me to loop the rubber band THROUGH the hole. How could you do that without destroying the donut first? It all sounded like madness.
P.S: Mods, I was being half serious, half humourous - I don't know where you got troll and flamebait from, but I would like to suggest getting laid. Thank you.
I'm as confused as all hell. What exactly does "wrap a rubber band around an apple and shrink it to a point" mean? Surely that would cut the apple in half? Apparently not, the apple is unharmed by this. But if it works for an apple, why doesn't it work for a donut? Why does it have to be moved slowly? To prevent creation of an apple singularity?
And then we're supposed to apply this nonsense to a 3D object? Apples and donuts ARE 3D objects! Wtf?
Mathematicians are nuts. Anyone want to explain this in actual English for (probably) a free Informative mod?
"This question turned out to be extraordinarily difficult" - no shit! Half the students are probably still struggling with when they last held a two dimensional apple.
Why on earth would anybody design a word processor to hold candles?
So you can read your work at night.
Duh.
Explains why all stormtroopers wear masks (so you don't have to see the same face everyplace).
<Palpatine> I grow weary of seeing Temuera's face everywhere. Is there a way to add a bit of variety here?
<Anakin> Hmmm. We could... make them all wear identical masks?
<Palpatine> Remind me again how an idiot like yourself can become such a badass in only one more movie?
The program came on three 5.12" disks
Now that's hardship - shipping you software on disks that don't properly slot into a 5.25" drive!
Looks like one man's joke is another man's flamebait... oh well. Made me laugh :D
Extra! Extra! Scientists find two tiny rocks millions of miles away! Many surprised they haven't been seen before now!
An artists sketch of the new moons as seen from Earth through a high-powered telescope is shown here
:
who needs people who can speak English when the web has plenty of free translation sites?
The correct for you.
I also use am the fishbabel for to the post me slashdot commentary!
I'd just like to thank the creators of that website, for their admirable attempt at bringing my browser to it's knees with load times and flashing animated ads. I especially like the "start transferring something else every ten seconds while I'm reading" feature, and the "put the user comments on another page so that all the ads load a second time and double our adviews" feature.
I also recognize that w2k is a pretty good OS. [...] XP blows.
Man, am I ever sick of seeing this. It is not possible to think that 2k is great while XP is crap. They're the SAME fucking THING.
Every time I ask someone to back up this claim, they disappear, poof, like magic, or whinge about something that could be changed forever in one operation,
like the Fisher Price interface.
So come on, be a man and back up your assertion. Why does XP blow?
As for the rest, well, I agree with you - linux is quirky and hard to get used to after a lifetime of Microsoft OS's. It's not bad, in fact once you've learnt more about it you'll wonder how you ever did without it, but it does need a "gearshift" in your brain, not to mention a whole heap of learning. Everyone says Windows is easy and intuitive, but they're selectively forgetting the many years they've put into learning the quirks and behaviours of the systems.
I recommend installing a bare Debian system and tinkering/apt-getting your way to the functionality you want. It's sometimes frustrating trying to find the right info, but it gets you used to the system without needing to jump right in at the "configure; make" end (although some might argue that you would learn more that way...).
The LAST thing I would ever recommend is that someone start with a "fully functional" GUI distro - you don't learn anything about how the system works that way, because the GUIs are all set up to be like Windows, but the innards are nothing like it. Eventually the mental model you build from the GUI and the model actually used by the system have diverged so much, you get confused (and angry) because the nothing works like you wanted.
For a stunning example of RTFM gone wrong, see the man page for dvdauthor:
Command Line Description
-o output-dir
foo
-m, -t
foo
-v video-opts, --video=video-opts
foo
-a audio-opts, --audio=audio-opts
foo
WOW, thanks man page! Near as I can tell, those video and audio options aren't documented anywhere.
Just a "me too" (Penultima was hilarious) and a big "thanks!" to the author. I'm making a note of your other mods so I can have a look at them tonight :)
I love the Penguin Puzzle the best:
"One of us always tells the truth, and the other always lies. By asking only one of us one question, you must figure out which is which!"
a) What's 2+2?
b) What's the first letter of the alphabet?
c) Are you a penguin?
d) This is too hard.
(paraphrased - I can't remember the exact text)