Indeed. Watch these "ordinary" people buy a computer game labelled "PC CD" and then explain them that this particular PC cannot launch this game, because it is, er, running a superior operational system, sir. Sorry, but as long as there are no separate shelves with Linux software in shops like CompUSA or Virgin Megastore, Linux will not be for "ordinary people". Linux undoubtely is stuff that matters - for nerds. Not for Joe Shmoe, and it's sad that after 10 years of developments progress made in that direction is so small after all.
Nethack and MAME. Really, those are just about the only two forms of computer entertainment I need, and they are certainly available on Linux (and Windows, and Mac, and even PocketPCs)
And that's the problem! As long as gaming is concerned, Linux has exactly nothing to offer that wouldn't be available on other platforms - but some platforms do have lots of stuff that is not and will never be available on Linux. I think portability is both the biggest strength and weakness of the Free Software. For all its virtues, you end up in a situation when everyone else can do what you can do - but unlike you, the users of proprietary systems have their "exclusives" (like games or commercial apps).
Oh yes, you can peek into the source code and they can't. But how many computer users actually care about the source code?
from the there-is-no-good-music-in-europe-anyway dept.
The problem is not that European music cannot be sold in iTunes Music Shop, the problem is that the Europeans cannot buy anything in it (regardless the country of origin). Actually, iTunes MS is full of European music (at least if you count Britons as Europeans, which is sometimes a matter of debate).
This is not the case in the Windows world, for example, most software will still run on Windows 98, and often Windows 95, which are 3 and 4 revisions old, respectively.
Windows 95/98/Me are roughly equivalent to the MacOS 8/9 series. As for the "plenty of users [that] are still on 10.1", please observe, that the upgrade to 10.1.5 is free and pretty straightforward.
Why is this? Is the system software really changing that dramatically? What makes the older versions of X so hard to support?
A quick answer: in the "Macintosh universe" (for lack of better word) it is much more common to purchase your OS as OEM than it is in the "Windows-Intel unverse". 100% of Macs are being sold with an OEM MacOS (even those that are sold with Linux pre-installed). I don't know the exact figures for x86 machines, but they are obviously nowhere near the 100% figure. If you are a Windows developer, the Windows 95/98 users are still an important client group for you. But if you are a MacOS developer, you don't pay much attention to the MacOS 8.1 users, since they are probably also stuck with pre-1998 machines, and if they didn't cough out money for a new machine in 5-6 years, they will probably neither cough out it for your application. On the other hand, every new Mac that was recently sold was also sold with a recent MacOS. So you don't have to worry, like your Windows counterpart, "is the market ready for a XP-only application". You KNOW that the market is ready for Jaguar-only apps - so why waste your time and energy for MacOS 9.x?
I'm kind of surprised that people are so shocked that someone might actually make, or drink, decaffinated coffee. Its not like this is a perversion of nature or something, the point is that there is a huge market out there for the stuff. Millions of people drink decaf every day.
Hmmmm, I am about to write something that was recently modded down as a flamebait, but hey - who's afraid of dekarmaized karma? Anyway, I really think it is a a matter of America vs Europe. From my (obviously superficial) observation I take that Americans drink coffee the way Europeans drink tea. Just as a generic hot-and-aromatic drink that you drink dozen times a day. In Europe, you want coffee exactly when you want coffee with all the "boost" it gives and it's rarely more often than 2-3 a day. So decaf coffee really sounds like some oxy-moronic idea on this side of the pond, but in America it's almost a matter of your biological survival. If you want to drink strong Italian espresso with the same frequency as you drink your decaf, you'll be all dead before 2010:-)
You know, I've always been disgusted that modern business people are incapable of conceptualizing thought without resorting to power point slides, but this piece of knowledge just places me on a whole new plateau of disdain and revulsion toward basically every human being in this country who wears a suit.
I always enjoyed the way George Lucas handled this problem. On his main location, the Skywalker Ranch, only the creative people work - designers, writers, prop artisans etc. His companies need the "suits", like all the others, but the "suits" are located in another valley, so they are not seen unless really needed. The creative guys have the Skywalker Ranch all for themselves (and walk in t-shirts and sneakers).
People will kill for a job in airline security...
on
The Buttocks Have It
·
· Score: 1
"Step aside, ma'am, the system is down again, we need to perform manual check-up"
I once met Matthew Modine (the actor who plays the main character in Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket"). I had with me my graphite iBook. Seeing it, he pulled his tangerine iBook from his bag. It had a HUUUUUUGE hole in the upper casing. Obviously I asked him "where did you get that". He said he was sitting in a restaurant and working on his laptop waiting for dinner. Waiter has lit a candle - and he didn't notice. He felt the smell of burning plastic, but he didn't think it's his own machine, being burned by a candle obscured by the lifted screen. The candle has burned through the whole plastic layer (quite thick, actually - it was my only opportunity to see it through) and reached the inner metal casing of the LCD screen.
Needless to say, this iBook has survived this ordeal without any problem - with the only exception of a huge hole near the tangerine Apple. Think your Thinkpad could handle THIS?;-)
There's no such rating as 'restricted', unless you meant R18.
Indeed:-)
However both The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded were passed 15.
And that's why there is no "motherfucker" in the scene where Trinity is supposed to say "Dodge this, motherfucker!"; contrary to the script, she just says "dodge this!":-)
And then again, shooting someone in the head is acceptable; you just cannot call him "motherfucker" while doing this. Am I the only person who considers it a little bit weird?
North America: Neo kicks the crap out of someone and then gives a passionate kiss to Trinity. R-rated for explicit sex.
Europe: Neo kicks the crap out of someone and then says: "Oh fuck! Zion again. It's such a shitty place". British Board Of Film Censors (in 1984 renamed to British Board Of Film Classifiication, conveniently keeping the old acronym) gives it "restricted" rating for continuing use of strong language.
Arabian States: Neo kicks the crap out of someone and then says: "Oh God! Zion again". Egyptian censors ban this film for explicit religious message
It seems that the only thing all cultures of the Earth can unanimously agree to is kicking the crap out of someone...
Sir, I think your pr0n collection needs this app. Just drag'n'drop the "My pr0n" folder onto it and all your precious jpegs will get cute preview thumbnails as their custom icons. Have a cup of tea ready if you have more jpegs than megahertz on your machine:-)
PS. I double-checked the URL and it should work. If not - seek for pic2icon on versiontracker.
I don't think so. Many contemporary hotels already offer in-room broadband at a flat rate, like $10 for the whole 24 hours. Services like this tend to get cheaper, not more expensive.
Plasma-shmasma, but what about the minibar? There's not a word on that in the article. Does this mean there will be no booze in the future? Now that's what I call dystopian sci-fi.
Just because a tool is available that enables something illegal doesn't mean that the tool, the designer, the manufacturer, or the distributor is to blame for the crime that is committed. It's the BA$TARD that commits the crime that is to blame and NOBODY ELSE.
I don't think it's that easy. For example, I agree with the international campaign to ban antipersonnel landmines. You could say that a land mine is just a weapon like any else. You could argue in the same way as you do in your post that land mines do not kill by themselves, only the bastards who plant them are to blame etc. But on the other hand - an antipersonnel land mine hardly has any legitimate use. It is the sort of weapon that kills and wounds innocent civilians, not soldiers. So there are SOME tools and SOME devices that has no legitimate use whatsoever. SOME tools and SOME devices are useful only to BA$TARDS, as you nicely put it. Now the question is: do you see any legitimate use for the iTunes file sharing?
The Ballmer response: Microsoft will have to do a better job of producing software whose benefits are clearly apparent to customers.
Let's sum it up: Germans don't want to go to war, MacOS has CLI, white boy is the best raper - and now Microsoft wants to "produce software whose benefits are clearly apparent to customers"? Now where the hell did they get this revolutionary idea?
Simply install your filesystem(s) of choice on your spare / and/boot partiton, mount them under/mnt/gentoo (or whever), untar the stage 1 tarball into/mnt/gentoo (or wherever), mount -o bind/proc/mnt/gentoo/pric (or wherever/proc) per the install docs, and install in a chrooted environment.
Firstly, why doesn't Apple push the design edge further?
Ive never actually was a "bleeding edge" designer. He was always a conservatist - iMacs, G3 and G4, were revolutionary but at the same moment they were oddly familiar - like if you saw something like this before and always wanted to have one.
The one most likely to be "pushing an edge" was Hartmut Esslinger from the frogdesign company, responsible for the earliest Macs (Classic, SE etc.). This period of Apple design ended up in a disaster of the Mac portable, arguably the worst Macintosh ever made, now a true collector's item. Then there was the Robert Brunner period in Apple design, most famed by the failed Newton project. Thus the "pushing edge" designers were not always the best cure for the Apple situation.
Look that the Jonathan Ive's reign in Cupertino gives us no really shocking novelties. They just make desktops, laptops, TFT displays and portable music players. They don't try to launch Something That Never Existed Before - their new products are actually just improved versions of the thing you already knew. But they are well thought, well designed, and REALLY ease to use. Ive is not the kind of designer who want to shock the world with "pushing an edge" - he just want to design a device, that will be a true pleasure to use. Like an iPod. Or an iMac. Or an iBook. Etc.
You seem to overlook the fact that all those intelligent people are governed by international bureaucrats:-). Yes, I am a bit cynical about vast and incredibly inefficient agencies like NASA or ESA, but - contrary to you? - I see their history as a history of waste, corruption and bad management, with some occasional sucess stories. It could be the case of "is the glass half-full or rather half-empty", but I wouldn't say that SA has a long history of successful collaboration. I would rather say something quite contrary.
First of all, ESA's history is relatively short. The whole 1960's in Europe is a period of international conflict about European space research. First there was the ESRO (E. Space Research Organization), that was at various stages boycotted by various European states, among them Britain and Italy. Europe managed to develop launcher rockets Europe-1 and Europe-2, that were nothing but technical misunderstanting from the day one, but the old continent could not scrape anything better
Then in the early 1970's ESA was formed from the smoking pile of ashes that was now the remnants of the ESRO. ESA devoted most of its efforts to the creation of a new launcher - Ariane. This is also not exactly what I would call a success story. Every fourth launch of the latest revision of Ariane results in a pictoresque KA-BOOOOOM! And that is after almost 30 years of development!
So yes - I am a cynical about that all, but I think I have damn good reasons for it.
One of the recent Mars probes was lost due to a simple math error in metric/Anglosaxon unit conversion. That was NASA's blunder. I wonder what sort of blunders will result from this British/ESA/Russian/Japanese/American/Whatever cooperation...
Slashdot Mirror
Linux is great for ordinary people.
Indeed. Watch these "ordinary" people buy a computer game labelled "PC CD" and then explain them that this particular PC cannot launch this game, because it is, er, running a superior operational system, sir. Sorry, but as long as there are no separate shelves with Linux software in shops like CompUSA or Virgin Megastore, Linux will not be for "ordinary people". Linux undoubtely is stuff that matters - for nerds. Not for Joe Shmoe, and it's sad that after 10 years of developments progress made in that direction is so small after all.
Nethack and MAME. Really, those are just about the only two forms of computer entertainment I need, and they are certainly available on Linux (and Windows, and Mac, and even PocketPCs)
And that's the problem! As long as gaming is concerned, Linux has exactly nothing to offer that wouldn't be available on other platforms - but some platforms do have lots of stuff that is not and will never be available on Linux. I think portability is both the biggest strength and weakness of the Free Software. For all its virtues, you end up in a situation when everyone else can do what you can do - but unlike you, the users of proprietary systems have their "exclusives" (like games or commercial apps).
Oh yes, you can peek into the source code and they can't. But how many computer users actually care about the source code?
from the there-is-no-good-music-in-europe-anyway dept.
The problem is not that European music cannot be sold in iTunes Music Shop, the problem is that the Europeans cannot buy anything in it (regardless the country of origin). Actually, iTunes MS is full of European music (at least if you count Britons as Europeans, which is sometimes a matter of debate).
Wooo-hoooo! The rumours were true!
Allow me to remind you that you wrote:
This is not the case in the Windows world, for example, most software will still run on Windows 98, and often Windows 95, which are 3 and 4 revisions old, respectively.
Windows 95/98/Me are roughly equivalent to the MacOS 8/9 series. As for the "plenty of users [that] are still on 10.1", please observe, that the upgrade to 10.1.5 is free and pretty straightforward.
Why is this? Is the system software really changing that dramatically? What makes the older versions of X so hard to support?
A quick answer: in the "Macintosh universe" (for lack of better word) it is much more common to purchase your OS as OEM than it is in the "Windows-Intel unverse". 100% of Macs are being sold with an OEM MacOS (even those that are sold with Linux pre-installed). I don't know the exact figures for x86 machines, but they are obviously nowhere near the 100% figure. If you are a Windows developer, the Windows 95/98 users are still an important client group for you. But if you are a MacOS developer, you don't pay much attention to the MacOS 8.1 users, since they are probably also stuck with pre-1998 machines, and if they didn't cough out money for a new machine in 5-6 years, they will probably neither cough out it for your application. On the other hand, every new Mac that was recently sold was also sold with a recent MacOS. So you don't have to worry, like your Windows counterpart, "is the market ready for a XP-only application". You KNOW that the market is ready for Jaguar-only apps - so why waste your time and energy for MacOS 9.x?
One can only hope the G5 will not be some sort of rebranded G3... :-)
I'm kind of surprised that people are so shocked that someone might actually make, or drink, decaffinated coffee. Its not like this is a perversion of nature or something, the point is that there is a huge market out there for the stuff. Millions of people drink decaf every day.
:-)
Hmmmm, I am about to write something that was recently modded down as a flamebait, but hey - who's afraid of dekarmaized karma? Anyway, I really think it is a a matter of America vs Europe. From my (obviously superficial) observation I take that Americans drink coffee the way Europeans drink tea. Just as a generic hot-and-aromatic drink that you drink dozen times a day. In Europe, you want coffee exactly when you want coffee with all the "boost" it gives and it's rarely more often than 2-3 a day. So decaf coffee really sounds like some oxy-moronic idea on this side of the pond, but in America it's almost a matter of your biological survival. If you want to drink strong Italian espresso with the same frequency as you drink your decaf, you'll be all dead before 2010
You know, I've always been disgusted that modern business people are incapable of conceptualizing thought without resorting to power point slides, but this piece of knowledge just places me on a whole new plateau of disdain and revulsion toward basically every human being in this country who wears a suit.
I always enjoyed the way George Lucas handled this problem. On his main location, the Skywalker Ranch, only the creative people work - designers, writers, prop artisans etc. His companies need the "suits", like all the others, but the "suits" are located in another valley, so they are not seen unless really needed. The creative guys have the Skywalker Ranch all for themselves (and walk in t-shirts and sneakers).
"Step aside, ma'am, the system is down again, we need to perform manual check-up"
My thinkpad T21 takes it all.
;-)
I once met Matthew Modine (the actor who plays the main character in Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket"). I had with me my graphite iBook. Seeing it, he pulled his tangerine iBook from his bag. It had a HUUUUUUGE hole in the upper casing. Obviously I asked him "where did you get that". He said he was sitting in a restaurant and working on his laptop waiting for dinner. Waiter has lit a candle - and he didn't notice. He felt the smell of burning plastic, but he didn't think it's his own machine, being burned by a candle obscured by the lifted screen. The candle has burned through the whole plastic layer (quite thick, actually - it was my only opportunity to see it through) and reached the inner metal casing of the LCD screen.
Needless to say, this iBook has survived this ordeal without any problem - with the only exception of a huge hole near the tangerine Apple. Think your Thinkpad could handle THIS?
There's no such rating as 'restricted', unless you meant R18.
:-)
:-)
Indeed
However both The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded were passed 15.
And that's why there is no "motherfucker" in the scene where Trinity is supposed to say "Dodge this, motherfucker!"; contrary to the script, she just says "dodge this!"
And then again, shooting someone in the head is acceptable; you just cannot call him "motherfucker" while doing this. Am I the only person who considers it a little bit weird?
North America: Neo kicks the crap out of someone and then gives a passionate kiss to Trinity. R-rated for explicit sex.
Europe: Neo kicks the crap out of someone and then says: "Oh fuck! Zion again. It's such a shitty place". British Board Of Film Censors (in 1984 renamed to British Board Of Film Classifiication, conveniently keeping the old acronym) gives it "restricted" rating for continuing use of strong language.
Arabian States: Neo kicks the crap out of someone and then says: "Oh God! Zion again". Egyptian censors ban this film for explicit religious message
It seems that the only thing all cultures of the Earth can unanimously agree to is kicking the crap out of someone...
He died this March. Consult your psychic before you'll call him.
(won't someone think of the pr0n collections?)
:-)
Sir, I think your pr0n collection needs this app. Just drag'n'drop the "My pr0n" folder onto it and all your precious jpegs will get cute preview thumbnails as their custom icons. Have a cup of tea ready if you have more jpegs than megahertz on your machine
PS. I double-checked the URL and it should work. If not - seek for pic2icon on versiontracker.
I don't think so. Many contemporary hotels already offer in-room broadband at a flat rate, like $10 for the whole 24 hours. Services like this tend to get cheaper, not more expensive.
Plasma-shmasma, but what about the minibar? There's not a word on that in the article. Does this mean there will be no booze in the future? Now that's what I call dystopian sci-fi.
Just because a tool is available that enables something illegal doesn't mean that the tool, the designer, the manufacturer, or the distributor is to blame for the crime that is committed. It's the BA$TARD that commits the crime that is to blame and NOBODY ELSE.
I don't think it's that easy. For example, I agree with the international campaign to ban antipersonnel landmines. You could say that a land mine is just a weapon like any else. You could argue in the same way as you do in your post that land mines do not kill by themselves, only the bastards who plant them are to blame etc. But on the other hand - an antipersonnel land mine hardly has any legitimate use. It is the sort of weapon that kills and wounds innocent civilians, not soldiers. So there are SOME tools and SOME devices that has no legitimate use whatsoever. SOME tools and SOME devices are useful only to BA$TARDS, as you nicely put it. Now the question is: do you see any legitimate use for the iTunes file sharing?
But don't crucify me. I at least admitted that it wasn't my quote, unlike the parent comment.
I stand corrected - i assumed it to be in public domain. Kudos and apologies to [ ] Charles Barkley [ ] Chris Rock (tick whichever applies).
The Ballmer response: Microsoft will have to do a better job of producing software whose benefits are clearly apparent to customers.
Let's sum it up: Germans don't want to go to war, MacOS has CLI, white boy is the best raper - and now Microsoft wants to "produce software whose benefits are clearly apparent to customers"? Now where the hell did they get this revolutionary idea?
Simply install your filesystem(s) of choice on your spare / and /boot partiton, mount them under /mnt/gentoo (or whever), untar the stage 1 tarball into /mnt/gentoo (or wherever), mount -o bind /proc /mnt/gentoo/pric (or wherever/proc) per the install docs, and install in a chrooted environment.
:-)
Simply, eh?
Its just the OS I want, I'll buy my own monitor etc.
It's the "monitor etc." that Apple wants to sell, not "just the OS".
Firstly, why doesn't Apple push the design edge further?
Ive never actually was a "bleeding edge" designer. He was always a conservatist - iMacs, G3 and G4, were revolutionary but at the same moment they were oddly familiar - like if you saw something like this before and always wanted to have one.
The one most likely to be "pushing an edge" was Hartmut Esslinger from the frogdesign company, responsible for the earliest Macs (Classic, SE etc.). This period of Apple design ended up in a disaster of the Mac portable, arguably the worst Macintosh ever made, now a true collector's item. Then there was the Robert Brunner period in Apple design, most famed by the failed Newton project. Thus the "pushing edge" designers were not always the best cure for the Apple situation.
Look that the Jonathan Ive's reign in Cupertino gives us no really shocking novelties. They just make desktops, laptops, TFT displays and portable music players. They don't try to launch Something That Never Existed Before - their new products are actually just improved versions of the thing you already knew. But they are well thought, well designed, and REALLY ease to use. Ive is not the kind of designer who want to shock the world with "pushing an edge" - he just want to design a device, that will be a true pleasure to use. Like an iPod. Or an iMac. Or an iBook. Etc.
You seem to overlook the fact that all those intelligent people are governed by international bureaucrats :-). Yes, I am a bit cynical about vast and incredibly inefficient agencies like NASA or ESA, but - contrary to you? - I see their history as a history of waste, corruption and bad management, with some occasional sucess stories. It could be the case of "is the glass half-full or rather half-empty", but I wouldn't say that SA has a long history of successful collaboration. I would rather say something quite contrary.
First of all, ESA's history is relatively short. The whole 1960's in Europe is a period of international conflict about European space research. First there was the ESRO (E. Space Research Organization), that was at various stages boycotted by various European states, among them Britain and Italy. Europe managed to develop launcher rockets Europe-1 and Europe-2, that were nothing but technical misunderstanting from the day one, but the old continent could not scrape anything better
Then in the early 1970's ESA was formed from the smoking pile of ashes that was now the remnants of the ESRO. ESA devoted most of its efforts to the creation of a new launcher - Ariane. This is also not exactly what I would call a success story. Every fourth launch of the latest revision of Ariane results in a pictoresque KA-BOOOOOM! And that is after almost 30 years of development!
So yes - I am a cynical about that all, but I think I have damn good reasons for it.
One of the recent Mars probes was lost due to a simple math error in metric/Anglosaxon unit conversion. That was NASA's blunder. I wonder what sort of blunders will result from this British/ESA/Russian/Japanese/American/Whatever cooperation...