Gee I don't know. I was going to say Warsow, but it actually comes with non-Free art. Anyway, this is exactly my point: the only quality non-Free content is pure entertainment. Its value is entirely subjective. My cat it just as entertaining to me as the best PC game I ever played. We all know people whose idea of ultimate fun time involves running 3 miles per day in an urban environment. Even though we may have to pay monopoly prices for some kinds of entertainment, we are not shut out of any area with actual utility. No one is holding a gun to our head: the very best and the most useful parts of Internet render just fine with Free software.
??? I fend for myself, and it is remarkably easy. I contribute to software development only if it is FLOSS, and I use non-Free software only if I am absolutely positively sure that it won't bite me in the ass. I don't miss Flash: all you get through proprietary tech is dancing Jesus, cat playing keyboard, and idiotic games that belong back in early 1990-ies. Richard Stallman is onto something when he says: don't use proprietary software. This passive attitude accounts for some 90% of "fighting for our rights".
The reason why tablets are popular is not because of their features. It's because you can carry the damn things around with you without your arm falling off.
IMHO, the main reason is marketing. This is Apple's way: (1) reduce the number of buttons on an input device (2) market the crap out of it.
May be so, and then it's the users' own attitude that is biting them in the ass, not any flaw of GNU/Linux or Free software in general. If users gave a shit, they would have by now a Free Web video player. As it stands, they have a malware launchpad a.k.a. Flash, which is, let's face it, a piece of shit for performance. It's funny how the proprietary video zealots cannot shut up about the virtually non-existent difference between x264 and Theora, but no one ever brings up how Adobe's own Flash chokes and tears on a modern quad core, and generally manages to rape your CPU while playing a 320x200 video.
All I am saying, really: bitching about the quality of Free software is rather pointless. It's already better than anything proprietary, but it lacks mindshare and support. So we need to educate consumers about the software, or they will continue taking their cues from ads. And once there is enough demand for FLOSS solutions, then will see manufacturers supporting them in earnest.
For example my brother's Ubuntu 9.1 laptop still doesn't play flash videos (except youtube), and I can't figure out why.
Duh, Flash is the poster child of proprietary technology: you are not supposed to "figure out" anything about it. People who bitch about video and sound in Linux should stop blaming the community and direct their anger at those who are directly responsible for the poor state of affairs: hardware manufacturers and content providers.
If patents weren't around, On2 wouldn't have been able to get licensing fees.
That's right, and that's because On2, like anyone who tries to monopolize math, does not deserve our business. Without software patents, an open codec(s) would be developed just as well by a hardware alliance in collaboration with the FLOSS community and the cost would be passed on to consumers of hardware devices. The total development costs would be an order of magnitude smaller and no one would have a monopoly on using a class of mathematical functions. Where is the freaking downside? I could run your argument again, substituting "molesting children" for "software patents" and conclude that child molesters cannot make any money without legislation that would make it possible. What oh what are we going to do about THAT?
Free software "just works" when properly supported and is cheaper for users and HW makers.
How's that working for Nokia?
What, you mean, is N900 easy to use? Jesus F. Christ, have you tried it? It's completely idiot-proof. It has apps for any IM, any email, has maps with gps, great voice interface, address book you can actually export, has firefox and an X desktop filled with 3d eye candy. Is it doing well in the marketplace? No, because no one gives a shit about running Free software, to their very own detriment, which was exactly my point.
over an OS that might break because what I thought was an ssh client was also harvesting personal information and giving it to someone for nefarious purposes.
You right, a Trojan masquerading as an ssh client is an issue every Debian user has to face sooner or... Wait a second, wtf are you talking about? You are smart enough to use busybox and ssh, but stupid enough to be fooled by a giant wooden horse? Does not fempute.
The unbrainwashed sometimes forget that a lot of people just want to get work done, not spend time fixing their tools.
Consumers believing this fallacy is what allows hardware manufacturers to ship non-free software. Free software "just works" when properly supported and is cheaper for users and HW makers. This is because its development costs are an order of magnitude smaller (not true for games, but you are talking about tools). If a nice slice of the marketplace started demanding Free software, they would start getting cheaper, better systems that don't lock them in and don't spy on their every move. To make a car analogy: some people want to own a well-documented car that can be fixed by any mechanic using generic parts, not rent a black box on wheels. Unfortunately, the marketing brainwashed people into believing that Free software is technically deficient, while the opposite is obviously true.
I wonder about this too. May be it's a combination of factors.
Mac users are computer illiterates with far more money than sense.
Very true, but are they quite as oblivious as Microsoft junkies? Plenty of people switched to OS X once they heard that "it has no viruses". Here are people who are willing to switch OS for the sake of security. People who stayed with Windows until now, even after years of abuse by Microsoft, have done so either because they got locked in good, or because they cannot fathom how to combine words "computer" and "security" in the same sentence. Let's wait a few more years. Just like Windows before it, OS X may eventually have to reap the consequences of (1) being a monoculture, (2) users' refusal to upgrade because it costs money, (3) increased market share, (4) and the fact that it's marketed to idiots.
The problem you describe is real for things like Kindle, but in general being electronic is not bad for durability. Plain-text ASCII doesn't rot, and neither do standard bitmap images or pcm sound files. Backup is easy with no DRM. I agree that shipping dead-tree books is better than shipping Kindles (even if more expensive because of weight), but shipping old x86 laptops jammed with Free software and Free art is better still.
People keep saying that, but I just don't see corporations bending over like that in the US. Is the Fed going to order it? They cannot even stop people from running marijuana dispensaries in downtown San Francisco. Shutting down Internet in the US today amounts to shutting down commerce. I bet individual states will just jump at the opportunity, with Texas leading the way. Telling Comcast to cut the wires would do about as much good as telling Chevron to stop processing oil. Providing that service is their principal source of money and power. The response would be along the lines of "sue us while we work as usual".
Sorry, I wasn't clear: by cable guys I mean the guys who own Internet-carrying cables, not the cable TV. Even the ones who consolidate with content providers (like Comcast) will continue to sell pure Internet. Many tried doing otherwise (AOL) and we know how well it worked out for them. Cellphones actually prove my point: they HATE to sell you pure Internet now, and they drag their feet, but they are moving there inch by inch, whether they want it or not. You can buy a 3g USB stick today, with official open-source drivers, sign up with TMobile, and surf free.
Well, may be we should pay a bit more so that providers can cache upstream as well as downstream. Yeah, sure, the current TOS are pretty unfriendly, but cable people are agnostic about the content in the end of the day. If most of their customers show an appetite for upstream, they will start packaging and selling upstream.
I totally believe you when you say that surveys provide more and better scientific data, but as a tax-payer I am thrilled with HST's performance, and I could hardly be happier about this wealth of data, which is useful to everyone, professionals and amateurs alike. The only thing I dislike about JWST is that we cannot service it, as so we miss an opportunity to launch more people into space. You guys could turn the surveys into PR machines too, you know. In KStars, for example, there are shortcuts to download DSS and SDSS. I click on the star map and a DSS picture for that place gets pulled. But it could be so much better: DSS is slow to the point of being unusable, and the available SDSS data doesn't seem capture that much of the sky. With a bit of tweaking, I bet we could have a google-map-like app for the surveys to blow everyone's mind, and then you'll see more cash pouring in for these kinds of projects.
The costs may keep rising just because people got the taste for movies now. Running Apache and a decentralized social networking app for a few dozen friends will produce way less traffic than streaming 2-4 hours of decent-quality video every night. What do people put there? Text is nothing. 10 photos a day = 10 * 200 KiB * 25 friends = 50 MiB. I think Internet can handle this.
Did they ever think that that big bang thing could have just been a localized event?
I am willing to bet money that they do (I am assuming you mean professional physicists). This guy, for example, thinks that bangs may be happening inside black holes, and new universes are created all the time, with parameters "inherited" from parent universes. This is almost an evolutionary interpretation of the largest-scale cosmology, with the parameters of our own universe being this way because other sets of parameters caused premature death (say, a big freeze) before new universes could be created. This is all great and I for one totally buy it up, but physics is already entirely too complicated, and no one wants to work with more complicated models when the simplest model agreeing with the experimental evidence is the incredibly-convoluted Lambda-CDM. So of course the Universe could be infinite or finite, flat or curved, expanding here and contracting elsewhere, or something we don't even have words for right now. To make a splash in physics, it's not enough to come up with an idea: you also need to exhibit a smoking gun.
If you regard infinity as a negative concept, you can also say that a thing is infinite as long as it's not known to be finite. The universe is infinite in this sense. One can even try to argue that everything material is, strictly speaking, infinite, and finiteness can only be verified for mental constructs such as mathematical objects. Considering that we do not know what exactly an electron is, it is at least possible that there are vast expanses of space-time folded there, extending forever into some exotic singularity.
I use calc only, and I found that LO already fixed some small annoying shit, like erasing cell content instead of bringing up a wizard when I press Delete. Small things like that in UI, and numerous improvements under the hood make LO a clear winner in my eyes already.
Mail User Agent? Seriously? My phone came with that. Doesn't Android have it too?
web pages that extensively use on-mouse-over for their JS navigation menus
Why won't I just try pages with mandatory Flash navigation? I refuse to run Adobe's software,
so that obviously won't work. You can't hold my UI responsible for the failings of idiots who misdesigned
their websites.
Slashdot Mirror
Gee I don't know. I was going to say Warsow, but it actually comes with non-Free art. Anyway, this is exactly my point: the only quality non-Free content is pure entertainment. Its value is entirely subjective. My cat it just as entertaining to me as the best PC game I ever played. We all know people whose idea of ultimate fun time involves running 3 miles per day in an urban environment. Even though we may have to pay monopoly prices for some kinds of entertainment, we are not shut out of any area with actual utility. No one is holding a gun to our head: the very best and the most useful parts of Internet render just fine with Free software.
someones have to fight for our rights!
??? I fend for myself, and it is remarkably easy. I contribute to software development only if it is FLOSS, and I use non-Free software only if I am absolutely positively sure that it won't bite me in the ass. I don't miss Flash: all you get through proprietary tech is dancing Jesus, cat playing keyboard, and idiotic games that belong back in early 1990-ies. Richard Stallman is onto something when he says: don't use proprietary software. This passive attitude accounts for some 90% of "fighting for our rights".
The reason why tablets are popular is not because of their features. It's because you can carry the damn things around with you without your arm falling off.
IMHO, the main reason is marketing. This is Apple's way: (1) reduce the number of buttons on an input device (2) market the crap out of it.
A distinction irrelevant to the user.
May be so, and then it's the users' own attitude that is biting them in the ass, not any flaw of GNU/Linux or Free software in general. If users gave a shit, they would have by now a Free Web video player. As it stands, they have a malware launchpad a.k.a. Flash, which is, let's face it, a piece of shit for performance. It's funny how the proprietary video zealots cannot shut up about the virtually non-existent difference between x264 and Theora, but no one ever brings up how Adobe's own Flash chokes and tears on a modern quad core, and generally manages to rape your CPU while playing a 320x200 video.
All I am saying, really: bitching about the quality of Free software is rather pointless. It's already better than anything proprietary, but it lacks mindshare and support. So we need to educate consumers about the software, or they will continue taking their cues from ads. And once there is enough demand for FLOSS solutions, then will see manufacturers supporting them in earnest.
For example my brother's Ubuntu 9.1 laptop still doesn't play flash videos (except youtube), and I can't figure out why.
Duh, Flash is the poster child of proprietary technology: you are not supposed to "figure out" anything about it. People who bitch about video and sound in Linux should stop blaming the community and direct their anger at those who are directly responsible for the poor state of affairs: hardware manufacturers and content providers.
If patents weren't around, On2 wouldn't have been able to get licensing fees.
That's right, and that's because On2, like anyone who tries to monopolize math, does not deserve our business. Without software patents, an open codec(s) would be developed just as well by a hardware alliance in collaboration with the FLOSS community and the cost would be passed on to consumers of hardware devices. The total development costs would be an order of magnitude smaller and no one would have a monopoly on using a class of mathematical functions. Where is the freaking downside? I could run your argument again, substituting "molesting children" for "software patents" and conclude that child molesters cannot make any money without legislation that would make it possible. What oh what are we going to do about THAT?
No argument here :)
Free software "just works" when properly supported and is cheaper for users and HW makers.
How's that working for Nokia?
What, you mean, is N900 easy to use? Jesus F. Christ, have you tried it? It's completely idiot-proof. It has apps for any IM, any email, has maps with gps, great voice interface, address book you can actually export, has firefox and an X desktop filled with 3d eye candy. Is it doing well in the marketplace? No, because no one gives a shit about running Free software, to their very own detriment, which was exactly my point.
over an OS that might break because what I thought was an ssh client was also harvesting personal information and giving it to someone for nefarious purposes.
You right, a Trojan masquerading as an ssh client is an issue every Debian user has to face sooner or... Wait a second, wtf are you talking about? You are smart enough to use busybox and ssh, but stupid enough to be fooled by a giant wooden horse? Does not fempute.
The unbrainwashed sometimes forget that a lot of people just want to get work done, not spend time fixing their tools.
Consumers believing this fallacy is what allows hardware manufacturers to ship non-free software. Free software "just works" when properly supported and is cheaper for users and HW makers. This is because its development costs are an order of magnitude smaller (not true for games, but you are talking about tools). If a nice slice of the marketplace started demanding Free software, they would start getting cheaper, better systems that don't lock them in and don't spy on their every move. To make a car analogy: some people want to own a well-documented car that can be fixed by any mechanic using generic parts, not rent a black box on wheels. Unfortunately, the marketing brainwashed people into believing that Free software is technically deficient, while the opposite is obviously true.
These videos do not require Flash.
I wonder about this too. May be it's a combination of factors.
Mac users are computer illiterates with far more money than sense.
Very true, but are they quite as oblivious as Microsoft junkies? Plenty of people switched to OS X once they heard that "it has no viruses". Here are people who are willing to switch OS for the sake of security. People who stayed with Windows until now, even after years of abuse by Microsoft, have done so either because they got locked in good, or because they cannot fathom how to combine words "computer" and "security" in the same sentence. Let's wait a few more years. Just like Windows before it, OS X may eventually have to reap the consequences of (1) being a monoculture, (2) users' refusal to upgrade because it costs money, (3) increased market share, (4) and the fact that it's marketed to idiots.
The problem you describe is real for things like Kindle, but in general being electronic is not bad for durability. Plain-text ASCII doesn't rot, and neither do standard bitmap images or pcm sound files. Backup is easy with no DRM. I agree that shipping dead-tree books is better than shipping Kindles (even if more expensive because of weight), but shipping old x86 laptops jammed with Free software and Free art is better still.
True, GM is not good in-browser. It works, but really really slow. I blame Google.
Google-sky is not scientific: it has "google" written all over it.
It could easily happen in the U.S.
People keep saying that, but I just don't see corporations bending over like that in the US. Is the Fed going to order it? They cannot even stop people from running marijuana dispensaries in downtown San Francisco. Shutting down Internet in the US today amounts to shutting down commerce. I bet individual states will just jump at the opportunity, with Texas leading the way. Telling Comcast to cut the wires would do about as much good as telling Chevron to stop processing oil. Providing that service is their principal source of money and power. The response would be along the lines of "sue us while we work as usual".
Sorry, I wasn't clear: by cable guys I mean the guys who own Internet-carrying cables, not the cable TV. Even the ones who consolidate with content providers (like Comcast) will continue to sell pure Internet. Many tried doing otherwise (AOL) and we know how well it worked out for them. Cellphones actually prove my point: they HATE to sell you pure Internet now, and they drag their feet, but they are moving there inch by inch, whether they want it or not. You can buy a 3g USB stick today, with official open-source drivers, sign up with TMobile, and surf free.
Well, may be we should pay a bit more so that providers can cache upstream as well as downstream. Yeah, sure, the current TOS are pretty unfriendly, but cable people are agnostic about the content in the end of the day. If most of their customers show an appetite for upstream, they will start packaging and selling upstream.
I totally believe you when you say that surveys provide more and better scientific data, but as a tax-payer I am thrilled with HST's performance, and I could hardly be happier about this wealth of data, which is useful to everyone, professionals and amateurs alike. The only thing I dislike about JWST is that we cannot service it, as so we miss an opportunity to launch more people into space. You guys could turn the surveys into PR machines too, you know. In KStars, for example, there are shortcuts to download DSS and SDSS. I click on the star map and a DSS picture for that place gets pulled. But it could be so much better: DSS is slow to the point of being unusable, and the available SDSS data doesn't seem capture that much of the sky. With a bit of tweaking, I bet we could have a google-map-like app for the surveys to blow everyone's mind, and then you'll see more cash pouring in for these kinds of projects.
The costs may keep rising just because people got the taste for movies now. Running Apache and a decentralized social networking app for a few dozen friends will produce way less traffic than streaming 2-4 hours of decent-quality video every night. What do people put there? Text is nothing. 10 photos a day = 10 * 200 KiB * 25 friends = 50 MiB. I think Internet can handle this.
Did they ever think that that big bang thing could have just been a localized event?
I am willing to bet money that they do (I am assuming you mean professional physicists). This guy, for example, thinks that bangs may be happening inside black holes, and new universes are created all the time, with parameters "inherited" from parent universes. This is almost an evolutionary interpretation of the largest-scale cosmology, with the parameters of our own universe being this way because other sets of parameters caused premature death (say, a big freeze) before new universes could be created. This is all great and I for one totally buy it up, but physics is already entirely too complicated, and no one wants to work with more complicated models when the simplest model agreeing with the experimental evidence is the incredibly-convoluted Lambda-CDM. So of course the Universe could be infinite or finite, flat or curved, expanding here and contracting elsewhere, or something we don't even have words for right now. To make a splash in physics, it's not enough to come up with an idea: you also need to exhibit a smoking gun.
If you regard infinity as a negative concept, you can also say that a thing is infinite as long as it's not known to be finite. The universe is infinite in this sense. One can even try to argue that everything material is, strictly speaking, infinite, and finiteness can only be verified for mental constructs such as mathematical objects. Considering that we do not know what exactly an electron is, it is at least possible that there are vast expanses of space-time folded there, extending forever into some exotic singularity.
I use calc only, and I found that LO already fixed some small annoying shit, like erasing cell content instead of bringing up a wizard when I press Delete. Small things like that in UI, and numerous improvements under the hood make LO a clear winner in my eyes already.
I-think-libreoffice-is-better-since-it-went-stable-because-they-fixed-icons-and-feature-wise-its-pretty-much-a-superset
Mail User Agent? Seriously? My phone came with that. Doesn't Android have it too?
web pages that extensively use on-mouse-over for their JS navigation menus
Why won't I just try pages with mandatory Flash navigation? I refuse to run Adobe's software, so that obviously won't work. You can't hold my UI responsible for the failings of idiots who misdesigned their websites.
My reply is here, enjoy.