AFAIK, Lagrange points are points of -unstable- balance, that is any object placed there that has even minimal speed will proceed to move out and gain speed doing so; only maneuver thrusters would allow a satellite to "linger" there pushing it back when it slips out, and I wonder what cosmic odds would it take for a passing meteor to -stop- there, as in, hit a meteor with exactly the same momentum coming from opposite side at exactly that location...
Re:Nope, it's the putative new users problem
on
Linux Needs Critics
·
· Score: 1
My conclusion is you don't cruise any general computer-themed fora where computer-illiterate and intermediate people go seek answers to their problems (take Yahoo Answers computers&internet division).
They are full of rabid Linux fans who will offer Linux as a solution to every single problem and when you point out their solution won't work in a particular case, they use your arguments against my choice of hardware.
I did my homework by picking the Microsoft bluetooth mouse for $0.25 from the sale. It's a generic bluetooth mouse.
The bluez-applet guys didn't do their homework by 1) not adding its built-in PIN to their database, 2) requiring me to enter a PIN they choose ON A DEVICE WITHOUT A KEYBOARD, 3) outright REFUSING to add a feature to enter your own PIN when adding a new device. The patch providing the interface to enter the PIN was submitted to the right bugzilla entry. They refused to include it in the trunk, "because if users had a chance to enter non-random PIN, they will" and "only sucky devices don't allow you to enter the PIN". (actual quotes by the devs from the bug entry page. And this is the official package included in the flagship distro, Ubuntu.
Their solution: use some obscure tools to detect what ID and PIN your mouse requires and submit it as a separate bug. Will get included in the database with the next release, and with good luck your device will work in some 4 months. My solution: the mouse works out of the box with Windows.
So does the Bluetooth GPS (same problem, same answer) and switching WiFi off to save batteries (according to developers, it should work), and the camera (took me 4 hours to make it run under Linux) and Mute button (*shrug*) and Hibernate (works, but takes longer than normal startup), and the GPRS phone (the SIR-only IRDA chipset won't enter FIR mode required by the software) and the multi-touch in the touchpad (the drivers are under development), and, and...
And the first answer to people asking for help with any XP problem with that device on the fora is "get Ubuntu".
Re:Nope, it's the putative new users problem
on
Linux Needs Critics
·
· Score: 1
Nope.
I stick it into MyWeirdOS and it works okay, and I can use it just fine. But then you come and claim I'm stupid for using MyWeirdOS and I should switch to YourSuperiorOS which is so much greater. Then I try switching to YourSuperiorOS and it doesn't work. Then I ask, what to do about it and you tell me to discard my (working) TV card and buy a different one. So I just go back to MyWeirdOS and continue using it there.
It's not -my- problem any more. I'm mostly satisfied with what I have and I don't give a shit about anyone claiming YourSuperiorOS is better. I consider them liars and ignore them.
It is -your- problem that I don't trust you and consider you a liar, that you want me to use your OS and I refuse to do so, that you try to convince others and I tell them my little story about the TV card and they don't follow you.
I don't care that LittleGuyPCI CEO is allergic to YourSuperiorOS and you just can't get the required specs. It's not my problem - I have MyWeirdOS and just _don't care_. Neither do I care that it's not your fault. But YOU care that I give you a bad name because I say your OS sucks whenever asked about it. It is YOUR problem.
Maybe, just maybe, the problem is in your universally claiming YourSuperiorOS is ultimately and unconditionally superior to MyWeirdOS while in fact it may be better in certain situations, but when it comes to a LittleGuyPCI hardware, it sucks a big time?
Users don't care whose fault it is that something doesn't work. "If X+Y works and X+Z doesn't, Y is better than Z." They don't care about Z's excuses that it's X and Y's conspiracy.
If they have nothing new worth licensing, sure. If they have something worth licensing, the competitors of the ostracizing companies will come ahead with the new tech.
100's of sets of tourist photos randomly scattered across the internet, being added and removed and reorganized by their takers at their whim is not remetely the same thing as a single permanent indexed geo-tagged database filled with photos that were carefully and systematically taken and stitched together.
Excuse me?
Have you seen a place where Google Street View doesn't reach? Just tourist photos uploaded by various individuals to a couple of popular services.
Give it some time and it will surpass StreetView in number and quality.
...maxing out karma in less than two weeks ...maxing out karma posting nothing but false information ...reviving a deep-ghost (posts at -1) account. ...+5 Troll ...-1 Insightful ...metamoderated moderation of your own post. ...got >1000 replies to your post ...went between -1 and +5 with one post ...got moderated +5 <i>normal</i>. ...got first post moderated to +5 ...got first post saying "First post!" moderated to +5
...means he's not good enough to stand on his own = not good enough for hiring.
The ageism goes like this: in 20's they are all not experienced. Let's fish out the best ones and keep them, let the other ones go.
In 30's all the good ones are taken, or work on their own. Only weed is left out of job, and we don't meed these.
You'll be best off self-employed (user support, service) or as a contractor. In essence being a contractor would mean "he's too good for most permanent jobs and chooses only well-paid challenges."
>>Leave it to the little guys that are better (specialized/core business) at it anyway.
but protect their inventions from the oil sharks.
How many times every year you hear of "new revolutionary engine", "New cheap great source of renewable energy" and so on. And then it appears to be vaporware, the invention never reaches the market. What happens to them?
Well, the patents get purchased by oil companies. And they take a good care the device is never manufactured.
They allow only sources that are not able to compete with them on equal terms. And their "wind and solar" research is a PR stunt they decided is too expensive.
If they just released their "alternative energy" patents portfolios to the public, they would do more to the environment than anyone on the planet, ever. Of course, three years later they would be out of business.
AFAIK they used this approach in Half-Life 2. Pick up jar. Obstruct the line of sight to the turret. Approach turret, carrying the jar in front of you. Crowbar the turret.
what a hopeless excuse of an excuse. "It was a response to crap flooding the market - from Chinese knockoffs these days - and such knockoffs even caused damage to the iPods."
Every single manufacturer on the market can build a device that will work just fine with these chineese knock-offs, without damaging the device - we're talking about a couple of plugs and a piece of wire, or a plug, wire and two earphones.
But Apple chooses to make their devices so fragile that a fart can damage them, then prevent use of wrong equipment by... refusing to send signal over cable that was plugged in but not approved??? If the cable was to damage the device, it just did it the moment you plugged it, no matter what you send over it! It will manage to correctly 'refuse to cooperate' only if the device was harmless and would work fine in the first place.
So, it seems you are claiming Apple engineers weren't really evil, just terminally retarded.
Only when Google decides to shoot its revenue foot and release adblock, I might consider Chrome.
Firefox by itself - I'd be grateful if they scaled back. Do you remember the origin? There was this bloated hog called Mozilla Suite, and there was this little-known neglected wild branch called Phoenix, which was meant to be the Mozilla engine with a minimalistic, customizable frontend - cut on all the bloat.
And suddenly people switched en masse to the small, lean "just a browser" thingy while the monstrosity died.
Now Firefox becomes the new monstrosity full of bloat. It really needs another "phoenix branch" - something that will take all the lean mean backend stuff and do away with "awesome bars", "intelligent bookmarks" and all this cruft people don't give a shit about, and move it ALL to extensions, from which you'd take what you like while not being encumbered by all the rest.
From legal standpoint - no reason. They are fully entitled to demand the money.
From practical standpoint - driving your faithful customers of many years to verge of bankruptcy and forcing them to flock around your competition may be a non-optimal business practice.
Once you've decided the food sucks (after tasting it), you have the option of sending it back to kitchen and demanding not being billed for it. Try the same trick with an opened game box.
Once you've eaten at a restaurant, you have no incentive to pay either, do you?
It's all about elementary culture and mutual respect. Very simple concepts that make life much easier and more pleasant for everyone, but, I guess, entirely unknown in some countries.
"Or are we talking piracy?" So, poor soul, you have been scared into believing the mantra "copying is theft"? If they like it, they will pay for it. So do I. None of us will be assed into paying for something we will be disappointed in later.
"You can get some value back." It will be hard to get back as much as you have to pay extra for the physical copy in the first place.
"So piracy then? That's the solution?" Yes. Responsible piracy.
Get it. Play it. Enjoy it. Pay for it. In this order.
Not "first pay, then maybe it will run, then maybe you will enjoy it."
I mean, I already have this game. I finished it. I spent some 70 hours playing it and decided I love it. I just want to pay the developers for their good work. Why should I pay extra to the retailers, packagers and a whole bunch of others I don't care about the least bit?
I wouldn't even mind if they were just selling the licenses, without any downloads at all.
Slashdot Mirror
AFAIK, Lagrange points are points of -unstable- balance, that is any object placed there that has even minimal speed will proceed to move out and gain speed doing so; only maneuver thrusters would allow a satellite to "linger" there pushing it back when it slips out, and I wonder what cosmic odds would it take for a passing meteor to -stop- there, as in, hit a meteor with exactly the same momentum coming from opposite side at exactly that location...
they like Emacs.
now if there were games that use it...
My conclusion is you don't cruise any general computer-themed fora where computer-illiterate and intermediate people go seek answers to their problems (take Yahoo Answers computers&internet division).
They are full of rabid Linux fans who will offer Linux as a solution to every single problem and when you point out their solution won't work in a particular case, they use your arguments against my choice of hardware.
I did my homework by picking the Microsoft bluetooth mouse for $0.25 from the sale. It's a generic bluetooth mouse.
The bluez-applet guys didn't do their homework by 1) not adding its built-in PIN to their database, 2) requiring me to enter a PIN they choose ON A DEVICE WITHOUT A KEYBOARD, 3) outright REFUSING to add a feature to enter your own PIN when adding a new device. The patch providing the interface to enter the PIN was submitted to the right bugzilla entry. They refused to include it in the trunk, "because if users had a chance to enter non-random PIN, they will" and "only sucky devices don't allow you to enter the PIN". (actual quotes by the devs from the bug entry page. And this is the official package included in the flagship distro, Ubuntu.
Their solution: use some obscure tools to detect what ID and PIN your mouse requires and submit it as a separate bug. Will get included in the database with the next release, and with good luck your device will work in some 4 months.
My solution: the mouse works out of the box with Windows.
So does the Bluetooth GPS (same problem, same answer) and switching WiFi off to save batteries (according to developers, it should work), and the camera (took me 4 hours to make it run under Linux) and Mute button (*shrug*) and Hibernate (works, but takes longer than normal startup), and the GPRS phone (the SIR-only IRDA chipset won't enter FIR mode required by the software) and the multi-touch in the touchpad (the drivers are under development), and, and...
And the first answer to people asking for help with any XP problem with that device on the fora is "get Ubuntu".
Nope.
I stick it into MyWeirdOS and it works okay, and I can use it just fine.
But then you come and claim I'm stupid for using MyWeirdOS and I should switch to YourSuperiorOS which is so much greater.
Then I try switching to YourSuperiorOS and it doesn't work. Then I ask, what to do about it and you tell me to discard my (working) TV card and buy a different one.
So I just go back to MyWeirdOS and continue using it there.
It's not -my- problem any more. I'm mostly satisfied with what I have and I don't give a shit about anyone claiming YourSuperiorOS is better. I consider them liars and ignore them.
It is -your- problem that I don't trust you and consider you a liar, that you want me to use your OS and I refuse to do so, that you try to convince others and I tell them my little story about the TV card and they don't follow you.
I don't care that LittleGuyPCI CEO is allergic to YourSuperiorOS and you just can't get the required specs. It's not my problem - I have MyWeirdOS and just _don't care_. Neither do I care that it's not your fault. But YOU care that I give you a bad name because I say your OS sucks whenever asked about it. It is YOUR problem.
Maybe, just maybe, the problem is in your universally claiming YourSuperiorOS is ultimately and unconditionally superior to MyWeirdOS while in fact it may be better in certain situations, but when it comes to a LittleGuyPCI hardware, it sucks a big time?
Users don't care whose fault it is that something doesn't work.
"If X+Y works and X+Z doesn't, Y is better than Z."
They don't care about Z's excuses that it's X and Y's conspiracy.
If they have nothing new worth licensing, sure.
If they have something worth licensing, the competitors of the ostracizing companies will come ahead with the new tech.
100's of sets of tourist photos randomly scattered across the internet, being added and removed and reorganized by their takers at their whim is not remetely the same thing as a single permanent indexed geo-tagged database filled with photos that were carefully and systematically taken and stitched together.
Excuse me?
Have you seen a place where Google Street View doesn't reach? Just tourist photos uploaded by various individuals to a couple of popular services.
Give it some time and it will surpass StreetView in number and quality.
...maxing out karma in less than two weeks
...maxing out karma posting nothing but false information
...reviving a deep-ghost (posts at -1) account.
...+5 Troll
...-1 Insightful
...metamoderated moderation of your own post.
...got >1000 replies to your post
...went between -1 and +5 with one post
...got moderated +5 <i>normal</i>.
...got first post moderated to +5
...got first post saying "First post!" moderated to +5
...means he's not good enough to stand on his own = not good enough for hiring.
The ageism goes like this: in 20's they are all not experienced. Let's fish out the best ones and keep them, let the other ones go.
In 30's all the good ones are taken, or work on their own. Only weed is left out of job, and we don't meed these.
You'll be best off self-employed (user support, service) or as a contractor. In essence being a contractor would mean "he's too good for most permanent jobs and chooses only well-paid challenges."
Tanning delegalized. Everyone not wearing a sunscreen will be found guilty of drug posession.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DZX-Fq5N0I
I've seen the same done with the jar.
>>Leave it to the little guys that are better (specialized/core business) at it anyway.
but protect their inventions from the oil sharks.
How many times every year you hear of "new revolutionary engine", "New cheap great source of renewable energy" and so on. And then it appears to be vaporware, the invention never reaches the market. What happens to them?
Well, the patents get purchased by oil companies. And they take a good care the device is never manufactured.
They allow only sources that are not able to compete with them on equal terms. And their "wind and solar" research is a PR stunt they decided is too expensive.
If they just released their "alternative energy" patents portfolios to the public, they would do more to the environment than anyone on the planet, ever. Of course, three years later they would be out of business.
if they are dead?
if you can't see them they can't see you,
AFAIK they used this approach in Half-Life 2.
Pick up jar.
Obstruct the line of sight to the turret.
Approach turret, carrying the jar in front of you.
Crowbar the turret.
A game that encourages (safe) sex and use of drugs (using sterile needles), I want it!
what a hopeless excuse of an excuse.
"It was a response to crap flooding the market - from Chinese knockoffs these days - and such knockoffs even caused damage to the iPods."
Every single manufacturer on the market can build a device that will work just fine with these chineese knock-offs, without damaging the device - we're talking about a couple of plugs and a piece of wire, or a plug, wire and two earphones.
But Apple chooses to make their devices so fragile that a fart can damage them, then prevent use of wrong equipment by... refusing to send signal over cable that was plugged in but not approved??? If the cable was to damage the device, it just did it the moment you plugged it, no matter what you send over it! It will manage to correctly 'refuse to cooperate' only if the device was harmless and would work fine in the first place.
So, it seems you are claiming Apple engineers weren't really evil, just terminally retarded.
If it's to use (active) radar for its primary purpose (sensor/surveilance), it will have a blatantly huge radar signature.
Maybe an early version. The recent Lynxes got quite monstrous.
Only when Google decides to shoot its revenue foot and release adblock, I might consider Chrome.
Firefox by itself - I'd be grateful if they scaled back. Do you remember the origin? There was this bloated hog called Mozilla Suite, and there was this little-known neglected wild branch called Phoenix, which was meant to be the Mozilla engine with a minimalistic, customizable frontend - cut on all the bloat.
And suddenly people switched en masse to the small, lean "just a browser" thingy while the monstrosity died.
Now Firefox becomes the new monstrosity full of bloat. It really needs another "phoenix branch" - something that will take all the lean mean backend stuff and do away with "awesome bars", "intelligent bookmarks" and all this cruft people don't give a shit about, and move it ALL to extensions, from which you'd take what you like while not being encumbered by all the rest.
why shouldn't Microsoft be demanding payment?
From legal standpoint - no reason. They are fully entitled to demand the money.
From practical standpoint - driving your faithful customers of many years to verge of bankruptcy and forcing them to flock around your competition may be a non-optimal business practice.
Once you've decided the food sucks (after tasting it), you have the option of sending it back to kitchen and demanding not being billed for it. Try the same trick with an opened game box.
"Once I've played it I have no incentive to pay."
Once you've eaten at a restaurant, you have no incentive to pay either, do you?
It's all about elementary culture and mutual respect. Very simple concepts that make life much easier and more pleasant for everyone, but, I guess, entirely unknown in some countries.
"Or are we talking piracy?"
So, poor soul, you have been scared into believing the mantra "copying is theft"?
If they like it, they will pay for it. So do I. None of us will be assed into paying for something we will be disappointed in later.
"You can get some value back."
It will be hard to get back as much as you have to pay extra for the physical copy in the first place.
"So piracy then? That's the solution?"
Yes. Responsible piracy.
Get it. Play it. Enjoy it. Pay for it. In this order.
Not "first pay, then maybe it will run, then maybe you will enjoy it."
Oh, man.
I can't lend it to a friend.
I can. And neither of us worries about ever returning it.
I can't sell it
I'd have a hard time to find a sucker who would buy the physical copy as well.
on or even give it away when I'm done with it.
I can give it away whether I'm done with it or not.
This sucks.
NO U
I mean, I already have this game. I finished it. I spent some 70 hours playing it and decided I love it. I just want to pay the developers for their good work. Why should I pay extra to the retailers, packagers and a whole bunch of others I don't care about the least bit?
I wouldn't even mind if they were just selling the licenses, without any downloads at all.