Admittedly, without the thrill of "fighting the man", but in this case "the man" is giving you virtually everything you asked for...
(emphasis mine)
This is exactly the problem. The customer is the one (potentially) paying the company money-- if they want customer support, they would provide what customers want, not "virtually" what they want. That intentionally-included lack of desired functionality is the whole concern.
I just wanted to bring up City of Heroes here for discussion.
It's an MMORPG that I think has succeeded largely by finding a different niche than most of the other offerings in the market: It's set in modern-day cityscapes with superheroes, rather than a fantasy world.
Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, it's simple and elegant: There's no equipment, what money exists is rarely useful, missions (quests) always tell you where to go with no ambiguity, and the GUI is top-notch.
After an old EQ addiction, City of Heroes is a breathe of fresh air-- I can meaningfully log on and accomplish something in half an hour, even at the high levels (I'm level 44 right now, with 50 being the cap).
One thing that Microsoft Word continues to have are some features very useful for the average user.
For example, a Grammar checker. The Word grammar checker isn't perfect, and no professional should use it as a crutch, but it is a nice tool for most people to quickly check for mistakes.
There is continually talk that OO.org will eventually include a Grammar checker module... but I've never seen any evidence of that.
Until OO.org offers such features, I can't imagine them gaining dominance. Anyone migrating will ask "How do I check my grammar (or another basic function)?" And when they're told that they can't... they'll switch back to Word.
Don't get me wrong-- I'm an avid Debian user. But Word is still a better program for the average user.
My desktop is in my bedroom, and houses my entire media collection. But I wanted music throughout the house.
So down in the family room, I set up an old computer, with a set of good speakers and a PCI TV-out card (thank you Froogle!). I then slapped a 802.11b card into the old box and viola-- I can play music streamed off my computer and watch videos on my TV (occasional lag on large videos-- I should upgrade to 802.11g).
As for a remote control? Froogle and eBay came to the rescue. I now have an old AST/Logitech Computer IR remote control. There's quite a few freee IR remote control programs floating around, so it was no worry I couldn't get any software with it.
It's a great setup, and it cost me only ~$120. (I already had the old computer and speakers, so I needed a TV-out card, a wireless adapter, and the remote control).
It's all about the impact speeds (amount of force and timescale) for flexible polymeric materials like this.
A good example is Silly Putty (actually a quite remarkable material). If you apply small forces to it, it easily stretches and bends. But throw it at the ground, and it bounces without deforming shape.
When the force is weak, the material can easily relax through various orientations. But when the force is strong and the timescale short, you have to break chemical bonds in the polymer to get deformation, making it much harder.
So I'd imagine you can sew it (if rather more slowly than normal), but someone stabbing you with a knife would find it MUCH harder.
A good explanation of material such as this can be found here (scroll down to "answer for chemistry majors): http://www.thinkgeek.com/cubegoodies/toy s/5ac8/det ail/
Looking at the linked chart, it's interesting that the ratio of revenue to market share among all the categories listed is 86.7 +- 0.5 million dollars per percent market share.
That's a fairly high alignment of revenue among the companies.
Any economics people want to interpret that for me?
If I had moderator points, I'd mod parent "Insightful".
I'm about to go to Graduate School in Bio-engineering, and this is exactly the case.
Traditional drug development methods are literally trial-and-error on a MASSIVE scale.
The new understanding of biology due to the advances in the past, hell short as a, decade are poised to change that. Already, we can use NMR and x-ray structures of enzymes and receptors to narrow the initial trial-and-error search.
Soon, we'll be able to bypass that to a greater degree, engineering potential drugs, testing their affinities in computer simulation, before any trials of any sort need to be conducted-- vastly refine the search-space.
Though I wouldn't say "genetic engineering" is the answer.. more "Molecular biology". Genetics is an important part of the revolution, but just a part.
One Linux product that I hope is successful is CodeWeavers CrossOver Office.
It's a non-free product that I bought for my debian system, and I've never looked back.
I may get slammed for this, but I really like Microsoft Word 2000 and Excel 2000 (the later products seemed over-featured-- all i need is well made products: like a good grammar checker to correct inevitable typoes)*. Crossover Office allows me to use them seamlessly on my Linux box. I appreciate that quite a lot.
What's more, their version of Wine works really well for a LOT of "unsupported" software-- from character generators for RPGs to "Teach Yourself Chinese" programs.
Getting their product was a snap- paid online, instant download link to the source and to binaries for a variety of distributions.
Good stuff, and, IMHO, a good example of a quality Linux product that I paid for.
*I'm trying to ween myself off Excel to a more robust alternative, but I find the grammar checker of Word very useful for catching critical, but easily overlooked, typoes in technical writing-- I'd miss it a lot. Is there an OSS grammar checker I am un-aware of?
He did good work for several reasons. One, I assume that he enjoyed his work and wished to do well at it.
But additionally, if his work was not good, he would NOT continue to receive funding. The patronage would stop as soon as his patrons were unsatisfied.
Moviemakers might get patronage and make one bad movie, but then who would hire them again? Better to hire someone who will make a good movie.
You'll note that most of the greatest painters and sculptors that ever lived did just this-- they worked for commission under a patronage system, creating works of art for those that paid them up front.
In fact, I recently spoke to one established novelist pondering trying this out-- trying to get the money for a novel from his fans before-hand, with a contract holding him responsible for delivering.
Part of that day is spent working in a lab, so it's plugged in.
But yes, I carry a spare battery around. With wireless on, my laptop lasts around 3 hours / battery, which is more than enough time.
As for brightness- that is an issue I've encountered when using it outside, but in classrooms, which are almost universally fluorescently lighted, I've never had brightness problems.
As I said when a similar topic came up in October:
I use my Acer Travelmate T102i every weekday for about 8 hours a day.
I'm a college student and researcher in Biochemistry.
Tablet PCs are _perfect_ for this setting. I can take notes without having to lug around huge notebooks, I can reference professor's webpages on the fly, and most importantly: I can include all the diagrams and drawings needed in my field in with my notes, saved on a computer to search and reference.
You can't type a lot of college notes- there are too many diagrams, drawings, and weird flowcharts to do that.
I haven't used a notebook since November 2003, when I first got my Tablet PC, and it's completely changed the way I get my work done.
I'd reccommend the lightest weight one you can find-- using it like a notebook means often holding it or resting it on your arm for extended periods of time.
I fail to see said virtues. If you are going to write to the harddrive, it might as well be a full featured Linux distro, such as SuSE or RedHat. Why the hell not?
Knoppix installs a complete version of Debian, which I would say qualifies as a full featured Linux distrobution. I installed Debian testing via Knoppix over 5 months ago, and I've never looked back-- I left my computer dual-booting into WinXPpro, and I think I've booted into it maybe twice.
Straight from boot from the CD, Knoppix can use something like 6 or 7 different GUIs, including KDE, Gnome, IceWM, FluxBox, and more.
That's a useful capability that's often overlooked-- On an older machine of mine, running Knoppix in KDE-mode was pretty slow, but it ran fast as anything in FluxBox mode.
I saw a security person (I assume a higher up) using one to get around campus at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Not sure if it was purchased or a test or what, but still caught me by surprise.
I do think Segways have a use in positions such as, say, warehouse manager and other jobs where people are walking around all day.
Still, I'd rather walk and get the exercise. Oh well.
I've tried using both Gnome and KDE, and I feel like Gnome isn't as advanced as KDE, despite what some of the other people on Slashdot may feel.
For one thing, I can change the individual colors of my widgets in my theme on the fly in KDE, something that a friend of mine who has used Gnome for over 4 years says is still not possible- the theme specifices one color set.
For another- most users never change some defaults, and the default Gnome icons are UGLY. Dark and uninspired.
Something to let me use excellent programs written for GTK, but with a more QT feel is nice. I'll have to check it out.
I already use ThinGeramik, a GTK style that looks to QT ThinKeramik for it's colors and such (also on kde-look.org).
One of my long-standing dreams (realized in movies like Minority Report) is automated, self-diriving cars.
That's where I think the technology should be heading. Look at TV remotes- they prove that the average Joe doesn't want to move 3 feet on his own to change the channel.
If you got a car that reliably drove itself, even if it was expensive, you'd have people falling over to buy one.
I have an Acer Travelmate C100 Tablet PC (the first ones than came out).
I'm a college student, and it's served my needs VERY well for the above reasons.
*built-in Wifi card, so anywhere on campus or at home (with my Netgear wireless router), it's connected to the Internet. *Remote Desktop Logon to my main Desktop works perfectly (when the desktop is booted in WinXP) *I can click on "My Briefcase" and click "sync my files", and all my files I've modified or created that day at school are backed-up on my desktop. On the other note: I don't even own a binder anymore. All my notes are on my Tablet. It's great. (Heck, some of my books are online, so my backpack is REALLY light)
I only wish My Briefcase was compatible with Linux (or a similar application was available), since my desktop is more often booted into Debian.
But I don't think I could ever go back to a Laptop that wasn't a Tablet-- once you get used to flipping your screen around and having a full size e-book reader, you never want to go back.
Firestarter, a gnome-based Firewall GUI that uses ipchains is EXTREMELY easy to customize entirely from the GUI.
It's an example that all developers should look to: with every configuration option, it explains why (like listing services, giving recommendations, etc). Wizards are great for home users.
You hand someone a Knoppix LiveCD, and it goes like this:
1. They boot with the knoppix CD in the drive. 2. Knoppix detects all their hardware and runs Debian. 3. They issue one command to install Debian, making like 4 or 5 simple choices.
I think this would be a great initiative. I'm not a programmer, but I use Linux both at home and at work.
Often, I find little annoying quirks with no immediate fixes, usually this sort of inter-operability issue.
I'd LOVE to be able to post up my concern with $10 or so, and see if more people would be willing to pitch money towards it, to motivate some programmer.
Or throw new users a Knoppix CD.
It's not only a painless way to get a full, normal, and healthy Debian testing system installed, but they can see what it's like on their system before they even install.
Slashdot Mirror
Admittedly, without the thrill of "fighting the man", but in this case "the man" is giving you virtually everything you asked for... (emphasis mine)
This is exactly the problem. The customer is the one (potentially) paying the company money-- if they want customer support, they would provide what customers want, not "virtually" what they want. That intentionally-included lack of desired functionality is the whole concern.
I just wanted to bring up City of Heroes here for discussion.
It's an MMORPG that I think has succeeded largely by finding a different niche than most of the other offerings in the market: It's set in modern-day cityscapes with superheroes, rather than a fantasy world.
Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, it's simple and elegant: There's no equipment, what money exists is rarely useful, missions (quests) always tell you where to go with no ambiguity, and the GUI is top-notch.
After an old EQ addiction, City of Heroes is a breathe of fresh air-- I can meaningfully log on and accomplish something in half an hour, even at the high levels (I'm level 44 right now, with 50 being the cap).
One thing that Microsoft Word continues to have are some features very useful for the average user.
For example, a Grammar checker. The Word grammar checker isn't perfect, and no professional should use it as a crutch, but it is a nice tool for most people to quickly check for mistakes.
There is continually talk that OO.org will eventually include a Grammar checker module... but I've never seen any evidence of that.
Until OO.org offers such features, I can't imagine them gaining dominance. Anyone migrating will ask "How do I check my grammar (or another basic function)?" And when they're told that they can't... they'll switch back to Word.
Don't get me wrong-- I'm an avid Debian user. But Word is still a better program for the average user.
My desktop is in my bedroom, and houses my entire media collection. But I wanted music throughout the house.
So down in the family room, I set up an old computer, with a set of good speakers and a PCI TV-out card (thank you Froogle!). I then slapped a 802.11b card into the old box and viola-- I can play music streamed off my computer and watch videos on my TV (occasional lag on large videos-- I should upgrade to 802.11g).
As for a remote control? Froogle and eBay came to the rescue. I now have an old AST/Logitech Computer IR remote control. There's quite a few freee IR remote control programs floating around, so it was no worry I couldn't get any software with it.
It's a great setup, and it cost me only ~$120. (I already had the old computer and speakers, so I needed a TV-out card, a wireless adapter, and the remote control).
It's all about the impact speeds (amount of force and timescale) for flexible polymeric materials like this.
y s/5ac8/det ail/
A good example is Silly Putty (actually a quite remarkable material). If you apply small forces to it, it easily stretches and bends. But throw it at the ground, and it bounces without deforming shape.
When the force is weak, the material can easily relax through various orientations. But when the force is strong and the timescale short, you have to break chemical bonds in the polymer to get deformation, making it much harder.
So I'd imagine you can sew it (if rather more slowly than normal), but someone stabbing you with a knife would find it MUCH harder.
A good explanation of material such as this can be found here (scroll down to "answer for chemistry majors):
http://www.thinkgeek.com/cubegoodies/to
Looking at the linked chart, it's interesting that the ratio of revenue to market share among all the categories listed is 86.7 +- 0.5 million dollars per percent market share.
That's a fairly high alignment of revenue among the companies.
Any economics people want to interpret that for me?
I've honestly wondered why more distros don't adopt something similar to Debian's APT.
Apple has now, hasn't it? (I don't own a Mac myself, but I saw a friend of mine using "fink", which he described as "apt for Macs")
I use Debian, and in 98% of all cases, I simply do apt-get install foo, and then I'm done. Menu shortcuts, proper dependencies, everything.
Actually, I find Apt-Get far easier than Windows.
If I had moderator points, I'd mod parent "Insightful".
I'm about to go to Graduate School in Bio-engineering, and this is exactly the case.
Traditional drug development methods are literally trial-and-error on a MASSIVE scale.
The new understanding of biology due to the advances in the past, hell short as a, decade are poised to change that. Already, we can use NMR and x-ray structures of enzymes and receptors to narrow the initial trial-and-error search.
Soon, we'll be able to bypass that to a greater degree, engineering potential drugs, testing their affinities in computer simulation, before any trials of any sort need to be conducted-- vastly refine the search-space.
Though I wouldn't say "genetic engineering" is the answer.. more "Molecular biology". Genetics is an important part of the revolution, but just a part.
One Linux product that I hope is successful is CodeWeavers CrossOver Office.
It's a non-free product that I bought for my debian system, and I've never looked back.
I may get slammed for this, but I really like Microsoft Word 2000 and Excel 2000 (the later products seemed over-featured-- all i need is well made products: like a good grammar checker to correct inevitable typoes)*. Crossover Office allows me to use them seamlessly on my Linux box. I appreciate that quite a lot.
What's more, their version of Wine works really well for a LOT of "unsupported" software-- from character generators for RPGs to "Teach Yourself Chinese" programs.
Getting their product was a snap- paid online, instant download link to the source and to binaries for a variety of distributions.
Good stuff, and, IMHO, a good example of a quality Linux product that I paid for.
*I'm trying to ween myself off Excel to a more robust alternative, but I find the grammar checker of Word very useful for catching critical, but easily overlooked, typoes in technical writing-- I'd miss it a lot. Is there an OSS grammar checker I am un-aware of?
Look at the works of say, Da Vinci.
He did good work for several reasons. One, I assume that he enjoyed his work and wished to do well at it.
But additionally, if his work was not good, he would NOT continue to receive funding. The patronage would stop as soon as his patrons were unsatisfied.
Moviemakers might get patronage and make one bad movie, but then who would hire them again? Better to hire someone who will make a good movie.
Here here!
You'll note that most of the greatest painters and sculptors that ever lived did just this-- they worked for commission under a patronage system, creating works of art for those that paid them up front.
In fact, I recently spoke to one established novelist pondering trying this out-- trying to get the money for a novel from his fans before-hand, with a contract holding him responsible for delivering.
Part of that day is spent working in a lab, so it's plugged in.
But yes, I carry a spare battery around. With wireless on, my laptop lasts around 3 hours / battery, which is more than enough time.
As for brightness- that is an issue I've encountered when using it outside, but in classrooms, which are almost universally fluorescently lighted, I've never had brightness problems.
As I said when a similar topic came up in October:
I use my Acer Travelmate T102i every weekday for about 8 hours a day.
I'm a college student and researcher in Biochemistry.
Tablet PCs are _perfect_ for this setting. I can take notes without having to lug around huge notebooks, I can reference professor's webpages on the fly, and most importantly: I can include all the diagrams and drawings needed in my field in with my notes, saved on a computer to search and reference.
You can't type a lot of college notes- there are too many diagrams, drawings, and weird flowcharts to do that.
I haven't used a notebook since November 2003, when I first got my Tablet PC, and it's completely changed the way I get my work done.
I'd reccommend the lightest weight one you can find-- using it like a notebook means often holding it or resting it on your arm for extended periods of time.
Knoppix installs a complete version of Debian, which I would say qualifies as a full featured Linux distrobution. I installed Debian testing via Knoppix over 5 months ago, and I've never looked back-- I left my computer dual-booting into WinXPpro, and I think I've booted into it maybe twice.
Go Knoppix!
Straight from boot from the CD, Knoppix can use something like 6 or 7 different GUIs, including KDE, Gnome, IceWM, FluxBox, and more.
That's a useful capability that's often overlooked-- On an older machine of mine, running Knoppix in KDE-mode was pretty slow, but it ran fast as anything in FluxBox mode.
I saw a security person (I assume a higher up) using one to get around campus at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Not sure if it was purchased or a test or what, but still caught me by surprise.
I do think Segways have a use in positions such as, say, warehouse manager and other jobs where people are walking around all day.
Still, I'd rather walk and get the exercise. Oh well.
I've tried using both Gnome and KDE, and I feel like Gnome isn't as advanced as KDE, despite what some of the other people on Slashdot may feel.
For one thing, I can change the individual colors of my widgets in my theme on the fly in KDE, something that a friend of mine who has used Gnome for over 4 years says is still not possible- the theme specifices one color set.
For another- most users never change some defaults, and the default Gnome icons are UGLY. Dark and uninspired.
Something to let me use excellent programs written for GTK, but with a more QT feel is nice. I'll have to check it out.
I already use ThinGeramik, a GTK style that looks to QT ThinKeramik for it's colors and such (also on kde-look.org).
Gah! That's too much spam. My main address is kept sacrosanct from web forms, and I get about one spam a month, if even. That one spam annoys me.
The fact that spam is so prevalent that people accept it as a fact of life is sad.
One of my long-standing dreams (realized in movies like Minority Report) is automated, self-diriving cars.
That's where I think the technology should be heading. Look at TV remotes- they prove that the average Joe doesn't want to move 3 feet on his own to change the channel.
If you got a car that reliably drove itself, even if it was expensive, you'd have people falling over to buy one.
This is exactly why my friends and I have started a policy of trading Grocery cards with anyone new that we meet, and encouraging them to do likewise.
You get the same discount, you get to have some fun trading cards around and stuff, and they can't track you nearly as easily.
I have an Acer Travelmate C100 Tablet PC (the first ones than came out).
I'm a college student, and it's served my needs VERY well for the above reasons.
*built-in Wifi card, so anywhere on campus or at home (with my Netgear wireless router), it's connected to the Internet.
*Remote Desktop Logon to my main Desktop works perfectly (when the desktop is booted in WinXP)
*I can click on "My Briefcase" and click "sync my files", and all my files I've modified or created that day at school are backed-up on my desktop.
On the other note: I don't even own a binder anymore. All my notes are on my Tablet. It's great. (Heck, some of my books are online, so my backpack is REALLY light)
I only wish My Briefcase was compatible with Linux (or a similar application was available), since my desktop is more often booted into Debian.
But I don't think I could ever go back to a Laptop that wasn't a Tablet-- once you get used to flipping your screen around and having a full size e-book reader, you never want to go back.
On a side note--
Firestarter, a gnome-based Firewall GUI that uses ipchains is EXTREMELY easy to customize entirely from the GUI.
It's an example that all developers should look to: with every configuration option, it explains why (like listing services, giving recommendations, etc). Wizards are great for home users.
Since when is installing Debian hard?
You hand someone a Knoppix LiveCD, and it goes like this:
1. They boot with the knoppix CD in the drive.
2. Knoppix detects all their hardware and runs Debian.
3. They issue one command to install Debian, making like 4 or 5 simple choices.
Presto! Instant Debian install.
I think this would be a great initiative. I'm not a programmer, but I use Linux both at home and at work.
Often, I find little annoying quirks with no immediate fixes, usually this sort of inter-operability issue.
I'd LOVE to be able to post up my concern with $10 or so, and see if more people would be willing to pitch money towards it, to motivate some programmer.
Or throw new users a Knoppix CD.
It's not only a painless way to get a full, normal, and healthy Debian testing system installed, but they can see what it's like on their system before they even install.