The Finder menu bar in MacOS does most of what the Windows dock does, it just looks different.
Note that _my_ preference is to use callups from the root window for launch menus and task/window lists. I don't need it in my face all the time. YMMV.
I'd love for MS to copy "best of breed" features
from everywhere, as long as they don't try to stop
anyone else from doing the same.
Though I wonder if you remember the amount of bellyaching and complaining Windows users had about the Windows95 interface up through about 1998 because it was "worse" than the Windows3.1 interface, that is, they weren't familiar with it.
As far as where this leaves OSS, hey, we can copy with the right hand while innovating with the left. OSS inherently wins barring legal intervention to stop it.
I suspect it is a failure of the imagination.
The whole "docking bar" concept comes from Apple. MS copied it for Windows95 and bloated it badly, then the KDE people copied it from MS.
Personally, I prefer the active desktop of fvwm/mwm/blackbox where your menus are wherever you don't have a window and otherwise stay out of the way. It is an older concept than the docking bar, and I consider it superior. So good, in fact, that MicroSoft has finally gotten around to copying it.
I know where he might have gotten the idea.
The Vic20/C64 basic allowed you to merge program
lines using a semicolon. This took 1 byte less
per merged line, and did indeed run somewhat faster.
Since the Vic20 had only 2.3K usable without
tricks this was a big deal.
Of course, anyone inflexible enough to carry that through to a C++/C/Cobol project shouldn't be programming.
That _is_ what we call a worm. The e-mail "viruses" out there are mostly more properly called trojans, as they require user intervention to infect the system.
Tell it to the Dutch, who got by just fine without patents. The point of patents is to protect publication, not invention. People have still got plenty of incentive to invent without patents, but they then tend to operate under "trade secret" rules
where the knowledge doesn't get shared for others to build on.
I would also note, that the current situation with patenting air can only be a historical anomoly, because once all of the obvious
stuff has been patented, or at least applied for, it is then trivially available as prior art to patent examiners. In addition even the one-click patent _has_ to expire.
By running anti-virus software on fileservers you can avoid problems caused by clients with misconfigured or obsolete AV software. I run AV software on my company's Linux based fileservers for exactly that reason.
I have a fairly typical 45 minute commute, which means that anything seen 2 or 3 times an hour I see 3 or 4 times a day. I'd suspect the parent poster to be in a similar situation. Of course I have to do this in Minnesota where predictable traffic patterns are a pipe dream at best, indeed, predictable road design is wishful thinking around here...
"Nuclear Waste" is only a problem until you
realize it isn't a byproduct, it is a resource.
Anything that gives off enough radiation to be
a serious health threat can be refined and used as fuel. The low-level waste is about as radioactive
as coal plant ash (probably less so). In fact, from reports I have read, we should probably be mining coal plant ash to get the fuel for nuclear reactors, at least I _hope_ that those tons of Uranium from the coal are ending up in the ash (shudder).
Oh, they do. And they laugh all the way to the bank, because they get $50+/hr to clean it up.
I'd laugh all the way to the bank too, cleaning up BonziBuddy for $50/hr. Ain't gonna happen any time soon, but I'm thinking it might be time to put out my shingle...
Re:It's Open Mic Night at the Astrophysics Lounge!
on
Melting Europa
·
· Score: 1
Not a whole lot, except for being the core of
the Creationist idea. In the absence of (a|the) god
there is no ID/Creationism.
As for living "without science", science is just
a formalisation of problem solving and investigative methods that likely go back to the stone age. These
methods are just applied formally and with an easy to follow record today, and it is that record that gives us such a huge advantage over past civilizations and really highlights the problems with belief systems that do not have room for scrutiny.
Re:It's Open Mic Night at the Astrophysics Lounge!
on
Melting Europa
·
· Score: 1
At their essence human rights (as distinguished from civil rights) are about reducing suffering. Remember, it was human rights (not even a "scientific theory" I would add) that you brought up
as a counterpoint. Civil rights are about control. Mostly who has it and who doesn't.
As far as dogma is concerned, isn't the belief in falsifiability a dogma?
It is a tool, and a rather useful one at that. If you haphazardly accept propositions that are not disprovable you can end up believing in all sorts of things that are counter-survival. At some point you have to give up because you have to start somewhere, but in my considered opinion Creationism is way across the line of acceptability.
It's not even that I don't believe in God as such, but the conceit that humans ("created in God's image" even) are incompetent to understand the universe and look for the maker's toolmarks or lack therof is totally unacceptable.
Re:It's Open Mic Night at the Astrophysics Lounge!
on
Melting Europa
·
· Score: 1
"Human rights" is predictive and postdictive, it predicts that if you treat people in certain ways they will suffer, and if you treat them in other ways they will not. These predictions and postdictions are true to an alarming degree when you consider how much they are ignored.
Your precious creationism does not even attempt to make any predictions as anything that happens is taken as fulfilling it, as does anything that has happened. This makes it a dogma rather then a hypothesis or theory as to be a proper hypothesis or theory something must be falsifiable. That is, there must be something that could potentially be observed that would be contrary to the hypothesis.
For instance, if I were to observe a lead weight falling upward unassisted that would falsify Newton's Laws of motion (and a bunch of other stuff as well). If I were to observe butterflies springing up from carefully sterilized ground that would disprove whole branches of biology including evolution. These things can be imagined. An omnipotent diety could indeed cause them to happen. I'm waiting. Oh, but wait, he "will not be tested" and "will not prove himself". Sounds a lot like Archimedes Plutonium rather than an omniscient, omnipotent diety to me.
Re:It's Open Mic Night at the Astrophysics Lounge!
on
Melting Europa
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
Does it really fit all the observed data? Because we have observed that the Earth appears to be 3-4 Billion years old and have found evidence of many events more than 6000 years ago.
Now, I have heard the argument that HE created it that way, but that argument leads directly into the existential fallacy so I don't buy it.
Creationism is a dogma with no predictive or postdictive power, therefore it is FALSE!
Eh? I wish to study how well humans can survive
on other planets. Call me speciesist if you will, but my primary concern for other lifeforms is how useful they can be to humans. If "Life on [Mars|Europa|Venus|Sedna]" gets in the way of enhancing the survivability of humanity, I have a problem with it.
Short form: (yeah I'm on a long delay)
Operating systems don't support games, games support
operating systems. Less true with hardware, but in every case that I have dealt with where the hardware
supplier supports Linux the end result is superior. Same with games actually, but I'll admit that the selection of modern games for linux is dreadful.
Linux is simple. The learning curve is no worse than DOS was, and Windows is no easier. Macs have a slight edge on the GUI side, even now.
VHS vs BETA:
Beta gave superior picture quality, yeah, but VHS
was "good enough" and was superior in tape length.
I would actually argue that MSWindows is the Beta in the current race. Better picture, but you can't get a whole movie on one tape and it costs more. I see MSWindows support starting to fade as the HW manufacturers realize that they don't need it to survive anymore. Then all the advantages tip toward Linux. At least until something better comes along...
Sure, it is, no argument there. But to the average consumer, why is that important?
Because it means that you, as an average consumer, get the benefit of work done to make supercomputers, embedded systems, and all sorts of other systems work better. Efficient, robust code benefits everyone who gets to use it.
Everything to do with changing the user interface
layout and behaviour depends on if you're using
Gnome, KDE, or something else.
This is why every Linux window-manager has an easy way to get a command line up. The interface to bash hasn't changed in 10 years, and is forward compatible from Bourne Shell that hasn't changed in over 30 years. The most common line heard from techs when I was doing MSWindows support "OK, first let's get you to a command line...". It is difficult, tedious, and error-prone trying to drive an end-user through a GUI. With a CLI you can resort to, literally, spelling it out for them. I have been able to use VI through a CUI*
to fix major config problems on a Unix box, which
would have required a reinstall or direct contact by an experienced admin to fix on NT.
If Linux is to replace Windows it has
to do what windows does better than
Windows, and simply enough that idiots like
me can figure out how to use it. You won't
need to convince people, they'll see the
wisdom in changing themselves.
I worked a tech support line for MSWindows users in the MSWindows 3.11 days, and still need to support it for work. Linux does _everything_ MSWindows does better with the sole exception of running MSWindows programs. And it can be persuaded to do even that nearly as well as MSWindows XP with the expenditure of a few bucks.
* Clueless User Interface, getting someone who knows _nothing_ about the system to type commands in for you. Not ideal, but sometimes the only interface available.
For them I would recommend Linux, or DOS.
It is much easier to design a step-by-step
procedure to do something with CLI tools than with GUI tools. In addition, when someone messes up, command history gives an audit trail that is really useful for tracking and training.
I consider the contamination of Mars with Earthly life to be a high priority item. The sooner we can do it the better (assuming it hasn't already been done).
Slashdot Mirror
Note that _my_ preference is to use callups from the root window for launch menus and task/window lists. I don't need it in my face all the time. YMMV.
Though I wonder if you remember the amount of bellyaching and complaining Windows users had about the Windows95 interface up through about 1998 because it was "worse" than the Windows3.1 interface, that is, they weren't familiar with it.
As far as where this leaves OSS, hey, we can copy with the right hand while innovating with the left. OSS inherently wins barring legal intervention to stop it.
I didn't like it on the top, and I don't like it at the bottom either.
It dows inherit from the pullout tab also.
The whole "docking bar" concept comes from Apple. MS copied it for Windows95 and bloated it badly, then the KDE people copied it from MS.
Personally, I prefer the active desktop of fvwm/mwm/blackbox where your menus are wherever you don't have a window and otherwise stay out of the way. It is an older concept than the docking bar, and I consider it superior. So good, in fact, that MicroSoft has finally gotten around to copying it.
The Vic20/C64 basic allowed you to merge program lines using a semicolon. This took 1 byte less per merged line, and did indeed run somewhat faster. Since the Vic20 had only 2.3K usable without tricks this was a big deal.
Of course, anyone inflexible enough to carry that through to a C++/C/Cobol project shouldn't be programming.
That _is_ what we call a worm. The e-mail "viruses" out there are mostly more properly called trojans, as they require user intervention to infect the system.
I would also note, that the current situation with patenting air can only be a historical anomoly, because once all of the obvious stuff has been patented, or at least applied for, it is then trivially available as prior art to patent examiners. In addition even the one-click patent _has_ to expire.
Semi geeks make the world move - with diesel!
By running anti-virus software on fileservers you can avoid problems caused by clients with misconfigured or obsolete AV software. I run AV software on my company's Linux based fileservers for exactly that reason.
I have a fairly typical 45 minute commute, which means that anything seen 2 or 3 times an hour I see 3 or 4 times a day. I'd suspect the parent poster to be in a similar situation.
Of course I have to do this in Minnesota where predictable traffic patterns are a pipe dream at best, indeed, predictable road design is wishful thinking around here...
"Nuclear Waste" is only a problem until you realize it isn't a byproduct, it is a resource.
Anything that gives off enough radiation to be a serious health threat can be refined and used as fuel. The low-level waste is about as radioactive as coal plant ash (probably less so). In fact, from reports I have read, we should probably be mining coal plant ash to get the fuel for nuclear reactors, at least I _hope_ that those tons of Uranium from the coal are ending up in the ash (shudder).
I'd laugh all the way to the bank too, cleaning up BonziBuddy for $50/hr. Ain't gonna happen any time soon, but I'm thinking it might be time to put out my shingle...
As for living "without science", science is just a formalisation of problem solving and investigative methods that likely go back to the stone age. These methods are just applied formally and with an easy to follow record today, and it is that record that gives us such a huge advantage over past civilizations and really highlights the problems with belief systems that do not have room for scrutiny.
It is a tool, and a rather useful one at that. If you haphazardly accept propositions that are not disprovable you can end up believing in all sorts of things that are counter-survival. At some point you have to give up because you have to start somewhere, but in my considered opinion Creationism is way across the line of acceptability.
It's not even that I don't believe in God as such, but the conceit that humans ("created in God's image" even) are incompetent to understand the universe and look for the maker's toolmarks or lack therof is totally unacceptable.
Your precious creationism does not even attempt to make any predictions as anything that happens is taken as fulfilling it, as does anything that has happened. This makes it a dogma rather then a hypothesis or theory as to be a proper hypothesis or theory something must be falsifiable. That is, there must be something that could potentially be observed that would be contrary to the hypothesis.
For instance, if I were to observe a lead weight falling upward unassisted that would falsify Newton's Laws of motion (and a bunch of other stuff as well). If I were to observe butterflies springing up from carefully sterilized ground that would disprove whole branches of biology including evolution. These things can be imagined. An omnipotent diety could indeed cause them to happen. I'm waiting. Oh, but wait, he "will not be tested" and "will not prove himself". Sounds a lot like Archimedes Plutonium rather than an omniscient, omnipotent diety to me.
Now, I have heard the argument that HE created it that way, but that argument leads directly into the existential fallacy so I don't buy it.
Creationism is a dogma with no predictive or postdictive power, therefore it is FALSE!
Eh? I wish to study how well humans can survive on other planets. Call me speciesist if you will, but my primary concern for other lifeforms is how useful they can be to humans. If "Life on [Mars|Europa|Venus|Sedna]" gets in the way of enhancing the survivability of humanity, I have a problem with it.
Linux is simple. The learning curve is no worse than DOS was, and Windows is no easier. Macs have a slight edge on the GUI side, even now.
VHS vs BETA: Beta gave superior picture quality, yeah, but VHS was "good enough" and was superior in tape length. I would actually argue that MSWindows is the Beta in the current race. Better picture, but you can't get a whole movie on one tape and it costs more. I see MSWindows support starting to fade as the HW manufacturers realize that they don't need it to survive anymore. Then all the advantages tip toward Linux. At least until something better comes along...
Because it means that you, as an average consumer, get the benefit of work done to make supercomputers, embedded systems, and all sorts of other systems work better. Efficient, robust code benefits everyone who gets to use it.
This is why every Linux window-manager has an easy way to get a command line up. The interface to bash hasn't changed in 10 years, and is forward compatible from Bourne Shell that hasn't changed in over 30 years. The most common line heard from techs when I was doing MSWindows support "OK, first let's get you to a command line...". It is difficult, tedious, and error-prone trying to drive an end-user through a GUI. With a CLI you can resort to, literally, spelling it out for them. I have been able to use VI through a CUI* to fix major config problems on a Unix box, which would have required a reinstall or direct contact by an experienced admin to fix on NT.
I worked a tech support line for MSWindows users in the MSWindows 3.11 days, and still need to support it for work. Linux does _everything_ MSWindows does better with the sole exception of running MSWindows programs. And it can be persuaded to do even that nearly as well as MSWindows XP with the expenditure of a few bucks.
* Clueless User Interface, getting someone who knows _nothing_ about the system to type commands in for you. Not ideal, but sometimes the only interface available.
For them I would recommend Linux, or DOS.
It is much easier to design a step-by-step procedure to do something with CLI tools than with GUI tools. In addition, when someone messes up, command history gives an audit trail that is really useful for tracking and training.
No, I prefer streaming OGG. With the fish for a logo.
I consider the contamination of Mars with Earthly life to be a high priority item. The sooner we can do it the better (assuming it hasn't already been done).
Who says it would be play?
Sounds like a lot of hard, worthwhile work to me.
So, you're saying there is no terrain on Mars?