Well, two things - firstly the point of Skype is generally that you're available and logged in.
Sure, unless you just want to stop the application. There's a Quit menu on Skype on my notebook after all.
The fact that most applications don't terminate doesn't mean Skype shouldn't. It's nuts to need task killers because certain developers just couldn't be arsed to finish the job at hand.
Why do the slashdot crowd rally against closed and proprietary data formats like MS Word documents, but not closed and proprietary VoIP protocols?
My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart.
Therefore I implore you to blindly believe that MS be scum bags. As well as Darl McBride. And that most other creations of god are but meek.
Oh, and Skype has a very large installed base. So we want it. And then we will whine as soon as Skype takes advantage.
GUIs usually are a management requirement. The common misconception is that sysadmin GUIs make you more productive. Well, they don't. On the contrary, they slow you down, cause repetitive and boring activities where the human factor thrives (E.g. copy paste from spreadsheet.) GUIs look good on presentations but are crap to operate.
But it's not only the god forsaken Windows platform that has them. Ever tried configuring network interfaces and the DHCP server on OpenSolaris? Ever tried getting a readable manual on how to do either by editing files or through command line? That for me was the practical reason for discarding OpenSolaris and continuing with FreeBSD.
In an ideal world, configuration files adhere to a specific syntax. Libraries are available and convenience tools and utilities (CLI and GUI) should be based on them and are equally effective.
Cheerfully ignore comments stating that scripts for changing configuration files can screw up production. Hobbyists stating such manure apparently don't know you should run unit and integration tests before deploying any change whatsoever in a production environment. Nowadays any half professional organisation can afford multiple test environments to minimise production failures caused by untested software.
... Robert Langdon!!! I'm sure that buried somewhere in that seemingly random sequence of 1s and 0s is a code that will shake the very foundations of the human race and expose a truth that has long been hidden!
Just to be precise, representations of 42 are:
Decimal integer to bits: 101010. This is only a very small part of the sequence.
ASCII string to bits: [0]0110100[0]0110010. This never occurs in the sequence.
Ergo, the sequence cannot hold the answer to everything. Ever. Really.
So why haven't they replaced the standard downloading options built into any major OS?
The OS is the least of worries. NAT configuration is the biggest problem. Having to forward ports to systems is a pain. Certainly if you have more than one system behind your NAT. And I'm not even taking dynamic DHCP into consideration.
We'd need one of
An open protocol to tell the NAT your intentions. This will happen immediately after hell freezes over.
A torrent proxy either on the NAT/router device or on a server running any popular server OS (FreeBSD, Linux, Windows.) I myself can't be arsed as I have to run a family. But god forbid one of the "major players" comes with a solution.
It gets tiresome, USA citizen banging on about their freedom of speech. In reality the USA haven't got nearly as much practical free speech as the rest of the world. Try disagreeing with the powers that be and you will be sued into oblivion and beyond. Try criticising influential politicians and you will be practically silenced. You go on TV and the main thing crossing your mind is the avoidance of swear words.
To be perfectly clear, I think using swear words is mostly an expression of bad taste and/or education. But there are moments where strong language makes a point by depicting the genuine emotion of the speaker. This list of 7 words is pathetic. Even considering it outside the realm for which it was intended for is absolutely ridiculous.
The Segway tried to fill a niche that didn't really exist
My take is that some engineer was experimenting with gyroscopes and that the Segway consequently "happened" without devious plans running through his brain to conquer the world, which as we see didn't quite happen.
Although the bike will evidently rule, the world, IMHO, is a better place with the Segway.
You could consider bringing your money to Switzerland. Most banks there will allow you to access your transaction history for several years. They also offer Internet access and let you save on postage.
Disclaimer: IANAL, this is no legal or financial advice, in this course also consider a fanciful tar and feathers treatment from your community or even burning at the stake for being Un-American.
This is so horribly old hat. I mean, we know atoms for ages now so IBM needn't be smug about them. IBM, stop wasting our time and give the world a call as soon as single Higgs boson DRAM is available to retailers!
Now, what was I doing again? Yes, studying Xiph' Digital Media Primer For Geeks and appreciating sample videos with scarcely clothed women.
A well formed argument by Omestes which I won't mock. And I also will not be a patronising git.
For the record, the US does have some crazy gun violence statistics, but I doubt that many of them are purely caused by the amount of guns. There is a deeper cultural problem here, as evident by out non-gun related violence crime levels. We are just violent. We would be a violent culture with or without a glut of guns.
Saying that having many guns cause gun violence is silly. I also have a full bar in my living room, and am not an alcoholic!
As you may have noticed, I'm not from the USA. I'm from Europe which it's divided in countries which mostly represent cultural borders. I can tell you that in Europe there are very violent cultures indeed. But gun violence is low, even within violent cultures. Almost everywhere there are hunters which will own hunting rifles. There are also sports clubs for firearms. And veterinarians own guns, mainly for putting horses out of their misery in certain occasions. If you need a gun for a reasonable purpose, you will most likely obtain one.
The main difference, I take, is that the distribution and possession is highly controlled. You most likely will have to leave your gun at the sports club. Or, if you take a gun home, you will have to take an exam. Gun violence is low. As is gun crime, compared to the USA.
I'm not convinced a family should own firearms. They store large quantities of energy which are released instantaneously and can literally have far fetching consequences.
Guns and most other dangerous objects and substance differ in that firing a gun is done in an impulse and can have sudden, devastating and irreversible effects. It's very hard to accidentally kill someone else by pouring a drink.
I'm also not convinced we need to defend ourselves constantly. That's just an exaggeration. We live in civilised countries and we shouldn't fear assaults.
Although I've given this issue some thought, I might be erring. But it remains a disgrace that nothing substantial seems to materialise in the USA with respect to gun violence. Bluntly refusing to reduce gun possession for all the reasons the firearms lobby will tell you is like not even trying. Like a slap in the face of victims of gun violence. I simply cannot fathom the notion that the USA, the one superpower we have, which have brought us so many good things, cannot achieve what we Europeans can. I believe the USA can, that they should and that they have the moral obligation.
On that point, far fewer guns will ever be pointed at another human, let alone fired at that person, and even less so hitting that person, with an even smaller number of those killing another human. (Yay for never-ending sentences
You want to compare one intentionally killed deer should to exactly one human killed intentionally or unintentionally?
And if I understand you well, the USA doesn't have a problem with high gun violence rates. And the fact that there are so many firearms out there is not related to this rate -which I understood the USA doesn't have a problem with anyway.
Buddy, snap out of it. The world, but most of all the USA itself should hold high expectations to the nation, that brought human kind onto the moon first, in preventing human killings by firearms.
(from reading your post, that's the only other way a firearm can be used)
Here we go again. What else is a gun useful for besides killing? Right, shooting tranquillising darts. And shooting rubber bullets to stop objects. Oh, the firearms sports. I almost forgot ramming in nails.
You almost sound like my 12-year old son. Trying to find out all academic cases where certain laws do not apply.
Be a man and stop the NRA from influencing you. Realise that guns are useful for a minority of people in society and that there can be ways to freely allow sensible use of firearms.
Sensible regulation of firearms works well in most of the world. It is an absolute disgrace that the most advanced country cannot help itself in this perspective.
As stated in subject I go OT. Still I expect abuse on this post. Karma, burn for me flamboyantly!
Much like a gun is a tool. You can use it for target practice, hunting, home defense - and murder.
Oh shit, here we go again. Sneaking in the guns aren't really bad at all argument when on the subject of DRM.
Go on and brain wash us by relentlessly reiterating the point that guns by themselves aren't bad. Sure, hunting is a legitimate use of guns and the captured animal will most likely taste exquisitely. But I take only a very small percentage of firearms circulating the USA will ever be used for killing deer.
If you're so keen on hunting in order to provide for your family -which I'm not quite sure you are- than, by all means, go out on a limb and knit your own sweaters. You certainly could use practising with the good old traditional knitting needles. Yeah, use them tools buddy.
And don't start the constitution bit either. I respect the USA constitution but agreeing with it on the guns bit is for NRA fanboys. (Much like supporting Apple's restrictions on the iPhone by Mac fanboys.) That law was written in a completely different era and I bet the authors would turn in their graves if they'd know how much sorrow the guns passage amounted to.
...games released this year will be based on the same characters, plot devices and game mechanics as that title a quarter century ago. It's all summed up in Nintendo's motto: Why create when you can copy?
And yet I would rather play 100 games that feature Mario unnecessarily than yet another greyish-brown FPS where the protagonist is some sort of grizzled space marine. Say what you will about Nintendo and Mario games, but by and large they are fun.
And, diverting a bit, I say Super Mario Sunshine captures the shooting urge of FPS games. That is, you almost always have the Flash Liquidizer Ultra Dousing Device to shoot. The difference is that instead of killing enemies you rather clean up and/or save the world. Sometimes pretty tricky but always fund and friendly. The friendly shooting to me makes Super Mario Sunshine one of the best Mario games.
Lemme guess, another fine attempt by the Indians to promote a poor man's computer. Like the hugely successful Simputer. I can't wait to see the sleek design of the device. If I were Apple I'd be very afraid.
I thought most of the interesting stuff took place on the server?
OK, let me put you straight here. The server is boring, boring, boring. By definition actually. It simply should do what it's told. In other words, to serve.
The clients call the shots. They are the reason for the server to exist at all. Fanciful file systems like ZFS, databases, hideously complex mission critical transaction systems, are nothing compared to text processing software, the mines game and Accrobat reader.
Remember that and you'll run for president once.
NOTE to self: Never forget to take your Prozac if you want to leaf a fulfilled and happy life.
I gazed at the fancy jargon of "End-User driven enterprise" and resolved this must mean "Really, Make Up Your Minds And Tell Us What You Want Before Letting Us Write This Inconclusive Report, You Bunch Of Sorry Twats!" but without being too specific about it, thus tying oneself down.
Almost seen a girl dying 20 years ago. A Walkman, not an iPod, was involved. She was pushed aside by the conical shape of the front of a street car. Two inches further and she would have been squashed like a ripe fruit and killed. No funny or comical remembrances here at all as the sight of it all was pretty horrific.
I used to like Ubuntu. Easy to install, popular and working well with NFS.
But configuring NFS clients with autofs get progressively bad. First it started to get a little problematic and then it got worse and worse. 10.04 had problems starting statd and after hours spent I decided to switch back to Fedora.
I just need a distro which I can install simply and that will work with NFS and autofs. Stuff that's known to work reliably since the end of the 80s.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, two things - firstly the point of Skype is generally that you're available and logged in.
Sure, unless you just want to stop the application. There's a Quit menu on Skype on my notebook after all.
The fact that most applications don't terminate doesn't mean Skype shouldn't. It's nuts to need task killers because certain developers just couldn't be arsed to finish the job at hand.
Why do the slashdot crowd rally against closed and proprietary data formats like MS Word documents, but not closed and proprietary VoIP protocols?
My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart.
Therefore I implore you to blindly believe that MS be scum bags. As well as Darl McBride. And that most other creations of god are but meek.
Oh, and Skype has a very large installed base. So we want it. And then we will whine as soon as Skype takes advantage.
GUIs usually are a management requirement. The common misconception is that sysadmin GUIs make you more productive. Well, they don't. On the contrary, they slow you down, cause repetitive and boring activities where the human factor thrives (E.g. copy paste from spreadsheet.) GUIs look good on presentations but are crap to operate.
But it's not only the god forsaken Windows platform that has them. Ever tried configuring network interfaces and the DHCP server on OpenSolaris? Ever tried getting a readable manual on how to do either by editing files or through command line? That for me was the practical reason for discarding OpenSolaris and continuing with FreeBSD.
In an ideal world, configuration files adhere to a specific syntax. Libraries are available and convenience tools and utilities (CLI and GUI) should be based on them and are equally effective.
Cheerfully ignore comments stating that scripts for changing configuration files can screw up production. Hobbyists stating such manure apparently don't know you should run unit and integration tests before deploying any change whatsoever in a production environment. Nowadays any half professional organisation can afford multiple test environments to minimise production failures caused by untested software.
... Robert Langdon!!! I'm sure that buried somewhere in that seemingly random sequence of 1s and 0s is a code that will shake the very foundations of the human race and expose a truth that has long been hidden!
Just to be precise, representations of 42 are:
Ergo, the sequence cannot hold the answer to everything. Ever. Really.
I mean, the guy that designed this is still alive, isn't he?
What? And spoil an available conspiracy theory? You must be new here!?
(Drum roll, awaiting "New Here's" joke.)
So why haven't they replaced the standard downloading options built into any major OS?
The OS is the least of worries. NAT configuration is the biggest problem. Having to forward ports to systems is a pain. Certainly if you have more than one system behind your NAT. And I'm not even taking dynamic DHCP into consideration.
We'd need one of
It gets tiresome, USA citizen banging on about their freedom of speech. In reality the USA haven't got nearly as much practical free speech as the rest of the world. Try disagreeing with the powers that be and you will be sued into oblivion and beyond. Try criticising influential politicians and you will be practically silenced. You go on TV and the main thing crossing your mind is the avoidance of swear words.
To be perfectly clear, I think using swear words is mostly an expression of bad taste and/or education. But there are moments where strong language makes a point by depicting the genuine emotion of the speaker. This list of 7 words is pathetic. Even considering it outside the realm for which it was intended for is absolutely ridiculous.
Is this the first confirmed death while operating a Segway?
You clearly haven't heard of the famous ex Segway swallower?
The Segway tried to fill a niche that didn't really exist
My take is that some engineer was experimenting with gyroscopes and that the Segway consequently "happened" without devious plans running through his brain to conquer the world, which as we see didn't quite happen.
Although the bike will evidently rule, the world, IMHO, is a better place with the Segway.
It's a sad day for geeks. Then again, most days are sad for geeks :(
(Moves on to develop the product that will make him wealthy. One day. Perhaps....)
You could consider bringing your money to Switzerland. Most banks there will allow you to access your transaction history for several years. They also offer Internet access and let you save on postage.
Disclaimer: IANAL, this is no legal or financial advice, in this course also consider a fanciful tar and feathers treatment from your community or even burning at the stake for being Un-American.
This is so horribly old hat. I mean, we know atoms for ages now so IBM needn't be smug about them. IBM, stop wasting our time and give the world a call as soon as single Higgs boson DRAM is available to retailers!
Now, what was I doing again? Yes, studying Xiph' Digital Media Primer For Geeks and appreciating sample videos with scarcely clothed women.
Anyone else around here wondering why Cisco is not suing the shit out of Apple for using the name IOS? I'd expect that.
For the record, the US does have some crazy gun violence statistics, but I doubt that many of them are purely caused by the amount of guns. There is a deeper cultural problem here, as evident by out non-gun related violence crime levels. We are just violent. We would be a violent culture with or without a glut of guns.
Saying that having many guns cause gun violence is silly. I also have a full bar in my living room, and am not an alcoholic!
As you may have noticed, I'm not from the USA. I'm from Europe which it's divided in countries which mostly represent cultural borders. I can tell you that in Europe there are very violent cultures indeed. But gun violence is low, even within violent cultures. Almost everywhere there are hunters which will own hunting rifles. There are also sports clubs for firearms. And veterinarians own guns, mainly for putting horses out of their misery in certain occasions. If you need a gun for a reasonable purpose, you will most likely obtain one.
The main difference, I take, is that the distribution and possession is highly controlled. You most likely will have to leave your gun at the sports club. Or, if you take a gun home, you will have to take an exam. Gun violence is low. As is gun crime, compared to the USA.
I'm not convinced a family should own firearms. They store large quantities of energy which are released instantaneously and can literally have far fetching consequences.
Guns and most other dangerous objects and substance differ in that firing a gun is done in an impulse and can have sudden, devastating and irreversible effects. It's very hard to accidentally kill someone else by pouring a drink.
I'm also not convinced we need to defend ourselves constantly. That's just an exaggeration. We live in civilised countries and we shouldn't fear assaults.
Although I've given this issue some thought, I might be erring. But it remains a disgrace that nothing substantial seems to materialise in the USA with respect to gun violence. Bluntly refusing to reduce gun possession for all the reasons the firearms lobby will tell you is like not even trying. Like a slap in the face of victims of gun violence. I simply cannot fathom the notion that the USA, the one superpower we have, which have brought us so many good things, cannot achieve what we Europeans can. I believe the USA can, that they should and that they have the moral obligation.
(won't be) see(ing) ya later, fucker.
The pleasure, I sense, should be all mine.
On that point, far fewer guns will ever be pointed at another human, let alone fired at that person, and even less so hitting that person, with an even smaller number of those killing another human. (Yay for never-ending sentences
You want to compare one intentionally killed deer should to exactly one human killed intentionally or unintentionally?
And if I understand you well, the USA doesn't have a problem with high gun violence rates. And the fact that there are so many firearms out there is not related to this rate -which I understood the USA doesn't have a problem with anyway.
Buddy, snap out of it. The world, but most of all the USA itself should hold high expectations to the nation, that brought human kind onto the moon first, in preventing human killings by firearms.
(from reading your post, that's the only other way a firearm can be used)
Here we go again. What else is a gun useful for besides killing? Right, shooting tranquillising darts. And shooting rubber bullets to stop objects. Oh, the firearms sports. I almost forgot ramming in nails.
You almost sound like my 12-year old son. Trying to find out all academic cases where certain laws do not apply.
Be a man and stop the NRA from influencing you. Realise that guns are useful for a minority of people in society and that there can be ways to freely allow sensible use of firearms.
Sensible regulation of firearms works well in most of the world. It is an absolute disgrace that the most advanced country cannot help itself in this perspective.
And stop repeating academic arguments.
Much like a gun is a tool. You can use it for target practice, hunting, home defense - and murder.
Oh shit, here we go again. Sneaking in the guns aren't really bad at all argument when on the subject of DRM.
Go on and brain wash us by relentlessly reiterating the point that guns by themselves aren't bad. Sure, hunting is a legitimate use of guns and the captured animal will most likely taste exquisitely. But I take only a very small percentage of firearms circulating the USA will ever be used for killing deer.
If you're so keen on hunting in order to provide for your family -which I'm not quite sure you are- than, by all means, go out on a limb and knit your own sweaters. You certainly could use practising with the good old traditional knitting needles. Yeah, use them tools buddy.
And don't start the constitution bit either. I respect the USA constitution but agreeing with it on the guns bit is for NRA fanboys. (Much like supporting Apple's restrictions on the iPhone by Mac fanboys.) That law was written in a completely different era and I bet the authors would turn in their graves if they'd know how much sorrow the guns passage amounted to.
Now piss of and go about knitting. (You poofter!)
...games released this year will be based on the same characters, plot devices and game mechanics as that title a quarter century ago. It's all summed up in Nintendo's motto: Why create when you can copy?
And yet I would rather play 100 games that feature Mario unnecessarily than yet another greyish-brown FPS where the protagonist is some sort of grizzled space marine. Say what you will about Nintendo and Mario games, but by and large they are fun.
And, diverting a bit, I say Super Mario Sunshine captures the shooting urge of FPS games. That is, you almost always have the Flash Liquidizer Ultra Dousing Device to shoot. The difference is that instead of killing enemies you rather clean up and/or save the world. Sometimes pretty tricky but always fund and friendly. The friendly shooting to me makes Super Mario Sunshine one of the best Mario games.
Lemme guess, another fine attempt by the Indians to promote a poor man's computer. Like the hugely successful Simputer. I can't wait to see the sleek design of the device. If I were Apple I'd be very afraid.
I thought most of the interesting stuff took place on the server?
OK, let me put you straight here. The server is boring, boring, boring. By definition actually. It simply should do what it's told. In other words, to serve.
The clients call the shots. They are the reason for the server to exist at all. Fanciful file systems like ZFS, databases, hideously complex mission critical transaction systems, are nothing compared to text processing software, the mines game and Accrobat reader.
Remember that and you'll run for president once.
NOTE to self: Never forget to take your Prozac if you want to leaf a fulfilled and happy life.
I gazed at the fancy jargon of "End-User driven enterprise" and resolved this must mean "Really, Make Up Your Minds And Tell Us What You Want Before Letting Us Write This Inconclusive Report, You Bunch Of Sorry Twats!" but without being too specific about it, thus tying oneself down.
Almost seen a girl dying 20 years ago. A Walkman, not an iPod, was involved. She was pushed aside by the conical shape of the front of a street car. Two inches further and she would have been squashed like a ripe fruit and killed. No funny or comical remembrances here at all as the sight of it all was pretty horrific.
Put enough comments in your code...
And as soon as the comments turn inconsistent, read the code.
I used to like Ubuntu. Easy to install, popular and working well with NFS.
But configuring NFS clients with autofs get progressively bad. First it started to get a little problematic and then it got worse and worse. 10.04 had problems starting statd and after hours spent I decided to switch back to Fedora.
I just need a distro which I can install simply and that will work with NFS and autofs. Stuff that's known to work reliably since the end of the 80s.
Besides, the apple shaped lighting logo is pretty well styled and doesn't bother me. It doesn't compare with cheap stickers.
PS: Not an Apple fanboy but I like the hardware I'm punching on right now.