There is also the issue of the highly toxic environment that online anonymity brings.
Theres a cartoon with an equation:
Normal person + Audience + Anonymity = Fuckwad.
This was presented as a joke in the cartoon but it is the truth.
Anonymity in online forums and mmos, for example, is wholly responsible for the vitriol and bile that people spew all over these online places.
I don't think that what is required is to tie all of a persons online identities back to their street address, but for others on the internet to be able to connect all of their pseudo-anonymous identities to one another.
The big difference is in Second Life those micro transactions are between players
Another big difference is that in Second Life the UI is truly awful. I have yet to see such an awful user experience in an online virtual world as I see in Second Life, nothing comes close. It feels like something out of the early 90s.
"www." - All letters have a single syllable...Except W. It has 3.
In English.
In other languages, 'www' can come out quite smoothly, since the 'w' is pronounced as a 'v' in English.
Hearing commercials giving a URL starting "v v v..." is quite cool:) Kind of makes you think "v v vooom!"
Also, many English speakers are now pronouncing 'w' (in the context of 'www') as 'dub', thus 'www' becomes 'dubdubdub' which just sounds extremely dumb.
You have to love the implication that IT staff purposefully choose the most arcane implementation for the hell of it
I know for a fact that many programmers and engineers do indeed *purposefully* make things more complex than they need to be.
People like this enjoy a challenge. Writing code thats hard for others to understand (or themselves in a few weeks time) gives them a sense of accomplishment.
People like this enjoy the careful crafting of complexities layered upon complexities.
Myself, I recite 'keep it simple, stupid' to myself over and over. Its my mantra.
Cleaning up after someone elses excessive overcomplification of something that could have been done simply and cleanly is the bane of my existance.
The problem is that democracy is so incredibly easy to subvert.
People are, by and large, easily manipulated.
The media corporations in democratic nations mostly control the democratic process in those nations.
Very few people who vote do so for genuine reasons; they vote the way that they do based on 'advertising', in much the same way that they decide what brand of coffee to buy.
I have zero faith in democracy because I have zero faith in (the majority of) peoples ability to resist being manipulated by the sorts of techniques employed in marketing.
Because we IT folk are not trustworthy with money. If left to our own devices, we tend to geek out on cool new tech that is untested and has not proven its stability in any meaningful markets. Unless we are kept on a tight leash, we will start many projects in parallel, never finishing any, just because we want to do fun things instead of work
Its funny really, where I work thats how the directors of the company are. And they are not geeky tech types either.
All it does is make people anxious about unmeasurable quantities of unknown worth, arbitrarily estimated in an obscure manner with no basis in fact or reality.
You know what the worst part is?
That this might actually get through the thick skulls of the directors of the company I work for and might actually make a difference where reasonable argument has consistently failed.
That final line about how MacOS doesn't have copy protection.....ummm, you can ONLY put it on an Apple branded computer, and there is a price premium built into Apple branded computers already, so the copy protection is there, just not in the normal form.
The OSX EULA is quite clear.
Its got nothing to do with "Apple branded computer"
It very specifically refers to "Apple labeled computer". My emphasis.
The OSX install media comes with Apple labels for you to attach to the computer onto which you are installing OSX.
If you wanna be happy For the rest of your life, Never make a pretty woman your wife, So from my personal point of view, Get an ugly girl to marry you.
A pretty woman makes her husband look small And very often causes his downfall. As soon as he marries her Then she starts to do The things that will break his heart. But if you make an ugly woman your wife, You'll be happy for the rest of your life, An ugly woman cooks her meals on time, She'll always give you peace of mind.
If you wanna be happy For the rest of your life, Never make a pretty woman your wife, So from my personal point of view, Get an ugly girl to marry you.
Don't let your friends say You have no taste, Go ahead and marry anyway, Though her face is ugly, Her eyes don't match, Take it from me she's a better catch.
If you wanna be happy For the rest of your life, Never make a pretty woman your wife, So from my personal point of view, Get an ugly girl to marry you.
Say man. Hey baby. Saw your wife the other day. Yeah? Yeah, she's ugly. Yeah, she's ugly but she sure can cook. Yeah?. Okay.
If you wanna be happy For the rest of your life, Never make a pretty woman your wife, So from my personal point of view, Get an ugly girl to marry you.
and I'd imagine the same would apply to Kindle or Netbooks.
I can't imagine Debian being BETTER than Ubuntu on the Kindle because Debian Lenny is so goddamn AWFUL for the desktop user experience (as opposed to the server 'user' experience). The Kindle being more like a desktop environment than a *server* environment.
That post gave me the image of a constipated Luke Skywalker sitting on the john and straining, when Obi Wan's voice comes to him from beyond saying "Luke! Use the Force! Let go!"
Slashdot Mirror
Actually this possibly explains a phenomenon thats puzzled me for a while.
Why is it that old ladies favor perfume that makes them smell like a freshly cleaned kitchen?
Honestly, where I live, the older women really do smell of cleaning products.
A girl I knew over 10 years a go had a 3D set of these hooked to her computer.
Screenshot or it didn't happen. The 'girl' part is a dead giveaway...
There is also the issue of the highly toxic environment that online anonymity brings.
Theres a cartoon with an equation:
Normal person + Audience + Anonymity = Fuckwad.
This was presented as a joke in the cartoon but it is the truth.
Anonymity in online forums and mmos, for example, is wholly responsible for the vitriol and bile that people spew all over these online places.
I don't think that what is required is to tie all of a persons online identities back to their street address, but for others on the internet to be able to connect all of their pseudo-anonymous identities to one another.
The big difference is in Second Life those micro transactions are between players
Another big difference is that in Second Life the UI is truly awful. I have yet to see such an awful user experience in an online virtual world as I see in Second Life, nothing comes close. It feels like something out of the early 90s.
Yep. In english speaking countries you're SOL!
I like the way they pronounce 'www' in Slavic countries...
'vuh vuh vuh' has a kind of dynamism to it, like 'v-v-voooom!!'
In English, though, many people have taken to pronouncing 'dub dub dub' which just sounds dumb.
"www." - All letters have a single syllable...Except W. It has 3.
In English.
In other languages, 'www' can come out quite smoothly, since the 'w' is pronounced as a 'v' in English.
Hearing commercials giving a URL starting "v v v ..." is quite cool :) Kind of makes you think "v v vooom!"
Also, many English speakers are now pronouncing 'w' (in the context of 'www') as 'dub', thus 'www' becomes 'dubdubdub' which just sounds extremely dumb.
Hard and soft science fiction are different genres, and really should have different names.
I thought they did...
'Soft' is called 'syfy' (pronounced to rhyme with 'syphilis')
'Hard' is called 'scifi' (pronounced like 'sigh-figh')
No, this isn't part of the problem. Part of the problem is people who think that everyone should eat like they do.
Having known (and lived with) many vegans I am pretty sure that veganism isn't so much a dietary discipline as it is a political movement.
and even Dan Bernstein's djbdns and daemontools have basically fallen by the wayside.
At least I guess some good came of it then.
Hopefully, qmail can be added to that list as well.
You have to love the implication that IT staff purposefully choose the most arcane implementation for the hell of it
I know for a fact that many programmers and engineers do indeed *purposefully* make things more complex than they need to be.
People like this enjoy a challenge. Writing code thats hard for others to understand (or themselves in a few weeks time) gives them a sense of accomplishment.
People like this enjoy the careful crafting of complexities layered upon complexities.
Myself, I recite 'keep it simple, stupid' to myself over and over. Its my mantra.
Cleaning up after someone elses excessive overcomplification of something that could have been done simply and cleanly is the bane of my existance.
yeah my thought too.
I watched it without sound (no audio here at work) and I couldn't 'see' Microsoft anywhere.
All I could see in the way of branding was the Sony Vaio laptop.
The problem is that democracy is so incredibly easy to subvert.
People are, by and large, easily manipulated.
The media corporations in democratic nations mostly control the democratic process in those nations.
Very few people who vote do so for genuine reasons; they vote the way that they do based on 'advertising', in much the same way that they decide what brand of coffee to buy.
I have zero faith in democracy because I have zero faith in (the majority of) peoples ability to resist being manipulated by the sorts of techniques employed in marketing.
Theres a saying in Poland:
We are seperated from Italy by the Alps, from France by a river, between us and Britain is the sea. But between Germany and us there is only hate.
or something like that.
And the Polish word for German might well derive from something like "Don't talk to them".
Because we IT folk are not trustworthy with money. If left to our own devices, we tend to geek out on cool new tech that is untested and has not proven its stability in any meaningful markets. Unless we are kept on a tight leash, we will start many projects in parallel, never finishing any, just because we want to do fun things instead of work
Its funny really, where I work thats how the directors of the company are. And they are not geeky tech types either.
All it does is make people anxious about unmeasurable quantities of unknown worth, arbitrarily estimated in an obscure manner with no basis in fact or reality.
You know what the worst part is?
That this might actually get through the thick skulls of the directors of the company I work for and might actually make a difference where reasonable argument has consistently failed.
That final line about how MacOS doesn't have copy protection.....ummm, you can ONLY put it on an Apple branded computer, and there is a price premium built into Apple branded computers already, so the copy protection is there, just not in the normal form.
The OSX EULA is quite clear.
Its got nothing to do with "Apple branded computer"
It very specifically refers to "Apple labeled computer". My emphasis.
The OSX install media comes with Apple labels for you to attach to the computer onto which you are installing OSX.
Theres a song, by the Skatellites.
Obviously this now has a scientific basis:
If you wanna be happy
For the rest of your life,
Never make a pretty woman your wife,
So from my personal point of view,
Get an ugly girl to marry you.
A pretty woman makes her husband look small
And very often causes his downfall.
As soon as he marries her
Then she starts to do
The things that will break his heart.
But if you make an ugly woman your wife,
You'll be happy for the rest of your life,
An ugly woman cooks her meals on time,
She'll always give you peace of mind.
If you wanna be happy
For the rest of your life,
Never make a pretty woman your wife,
So from my personal point of view,
Get an ugly girl to marry you.
Don't let your friends say
You have no taste,
Go ahead and marry anyway,
Though her face is ugly,
Her eyes don't match,
Take it from me she's a better catch.
If you wanna be happy
For the rest of your life,
Never make a pretty woman your wife,
So from my personal point of view,
Get an ugly girl to marry you.
Say man.
Hey baby.
Saw your wife the other day.
Yeah?
Yeah, she's ugly.
Yeah, she's ugly but she sure can cook.
Yeah?. Okay.
If you wanna be happy
For the rest of your life,
Never make a pretty woman your wife,
So from my personal point of view,
Get an ugly girl to marry you.
The Kindle is not a Desktop.
To quote myself:
and I'd imagine the same would apply to Kindle or Netbooks.
I can't imagine Debian being BETTER than Ubuntu on the Kindle because Debian Lenny is so goddamn AWFUL for the desktop user experience (as opposed to the server 'user' experience). The Kindle being more like a desktop environment than a *server* environment.
Have I made myself clear now?
Even with the "replicators", there would need to be source matter to create the food from.
The source matter is probably poop.
Did you know that Soylent Brown is made from feces? Feeeceeeesss I tell you!!!!!
Have you seen the ISS? The future is looking pretty organized.
My God.
How are you supposed to navigate that, in zero G, without constantly breaking things, pulling cables out of place etc.
I'm surprised noone has been garotted by those cables yet.
It looks like a disaster zone.
That post gave me the image of a constipated Luke Skywalker sitting on the john and straining, when Obi Wan's voice comes to him from beyond saying "Luke! Use the Force! Let go!"
A few more that come to mind:
"Thats no moon!!!!!!"
or
"This isn't a cave!!!!!!"
You have never been on a submarine have you? Space ships have a lot in common with submarines.
I just hope that space ships don't stink like subs.
(The only subs I have been on were Royal Navy diesels.. and My God. They smelt worse than my current flatmates room).
Why not Debian?
Because Debian is crap on the desktop? And I'm a Debian 'fanboy' so I have a right to say that.
I have been developing some desktop virtual machines, I've tried Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty) and Debian Lenny.
Lenny is just not comparable with Jaunty for desktop use, and I'd imagine the same would apply to Kindle or Netbooks.
I'm not dissing Debian; I use Debian on servers, pretty much exclusively. I'd be very averse to using Ubuntu on servers.
And what exactly did Jimmy do in the field of nuclear engineering?
Jimmy Carter?
He was one of Americas first *ever* naval nuclear engineers wasn't he?
That takes care of the EULA - but now they can get you for Trade Mark violation!
I don't think so; Apple *provide* the label to the end user.
And Apples OSX end user license agreement stipulates that such a label must be on any machine onto which the software (OSX) is installed.
I doubt one could be sued for trademark violation when following the instructions of the trademark holder.