In much the USA, many Americans refuse to use public transportation because they want to get to work in a half-hour rather than spending four hours hopping from bus to bus to train to bus. That is certainly the situation in the San Francisco Bay Area. I am not exaggerating those times, either
You're not exaggerating for the Minneapolis metro area either. We own one car and my wife takes public transportation daily (we both rode the train downtown from another suburb 15 mins away last night -- the nearest stop to our house). I work in a suburb on the other end of the metro. I want to buy a house there but I cannot afford the $65 to 80k jump in prices from where I currently reside. We went to look at a house priced at $224,900 which is still nearly $60k more than our current home cost in 2004 (and with the market the way it is, how much it still is worth) and not only was it destroyed inside (we assume from foreclosure or renters) it needed so much work that another $30 to $50k would be required to get it going again -- something of which I have no time for nor any funds.
Anyway back on topic, the *estimated* time to take a bus from where I live to downtown Minneapolis and from there to the North end of town's transit stop and then from there to 10 blocks from where I work would take 193 minutes bus time and another 15-20 by walking (please note that the temperatures here in January and February routinely drop to -20F or lower in the mornings (with highs in the 0 - 5F range) and that there are no sidewalks between the stop and the school where I work). That same trip takes me less than 30 minutes (33.1 miles) by car.
I'm super tired of Europeans thinking that they can automatically assume why Americans don't use public transportation. The layout of cities here is far different and the layout of mass transit is as well. I would *love* to take mass transit daily (more reading, more relaxing, and less money) but I cannot at the current time.
Let me put it this way. Within 5 years of graduating college, you will have forgotten what it was even like. (That's especially true if you spend the entire time drunk like a lot of college kids do.)
Maybe if you had a poor college experience. For me, and many of my college friends, the memories are just as fresh now (5 years later) than they were the day I left. I would give *ANYTHING* to return to college full-time and live on campus. Real life sucks.
Please note, I was one of those people that spent 99% of my time in college inebriated beyond belief.
Apparently, if within 48 hours of receiving the notice, the student responds to the Stanford Information Security Office and explains that he has a right to host the content, there is no disconnection and no $100 fee.
What if the student isn't around for 48 hours (busy drinking, studying at the library, or fucking their SO at an off-campus location)? They should be given a chance at an in-person interview to explain the situation and fight the "charges" of IP infringement brought before they are charged anything.
I'm not saying not to cut their connection but to charge money too? Please.
Just roll Stanford down in your list of preferred colleges/universities.
While I believe that Stanford buckling to "Big Buck" pressure is lame beyond belief, I can't agree with your argument. For prospective students to ignore Stanford because for the next four years they wouldn't be able to easily torrent some movies and risk their future and/or proximity to home by attending another college that happens to ignore the DMCA notices is just shortsighted.
Just because Stanford's name is at risk students, who aren't guilty of a *crime* and have no way to prove their innocence, are being dropped from the campus network and having money extorted from them by the University to reconnect?
That's a bunch of horseshit. The MPAA and RIAA are winning at their game with colleges when more should be turning to the legal minds on campus to see what they can do to shut this finger pointing media game that they are playing.
Well you certainly have hit all the buzztopics on the head haven't you?
will hardware vendors stop releasing 32-bit chips?
Probably not but they certainly won't become the main product. The main product is selling chips to people running Windows and if it's not supported in 32-bit the demand for new chips that are 32-bit will drop.
Will companies upgrade hardware in orer to get the latest version of Windows?
It depends but probably. Once the EOL happens for XP/Vista they will be forced to upgrade in order to keep up with everyone else.
Will this help provide more incentive for a Linux desktop?
No. People upgrade their computers when it "runs slow" (Spyware, old hardware, etc) and that happens every 2-5 years anyway. People are just going to do it and buy whatever the Big Box store or Dell is offering on special. I have a feeling that it will be 64-bit.
Will this increase the amount of lead going into our landfills?
Not anymore than it already has been increasing. People will upgrade on their normal computer lifetime schedule. There won't be a mad dash (just like there wasn't for Vista) to upgrade.
The first is that nobody has figured out a reasonable UI with the screenspace that is available.
Danger has with the Sidekick family. It's unfortunate that they haven't kept up with anything else that the device has to offer (the camera still fucking blows, there might be GPS inside but it isn't enabled for user accessible location-aware apps, and T-mobile is holding the rest of it by marketing it to douchebags and teenagers rather than who they should have).
The Hiptop's OS is incredible (multitasking, useful hotkeys, and "macros" for shorting your typing time. It's just the physical device has a shitty build quality (my menu button ceases to work every 6 months) and T-mobile hinders the device and developer created applications.
My Hiptops haven't crashed (I have gotten a java trash collector spinner a few times that went away after awhile) and it smokes the crap out of Microsoft's solutions.
To answer another commenter that the phone's screens should be renamed iSquint is clueless and has obviously not used a decent handheld device including the Sidekick (which has a shitty resolution compared to other options out there).
For me it's not image spam, it's botnet traffic...
on
How Image Spam Works
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· Score: 5, Informative
For me the spam e-mails are minimal to my machine. I do see a couple of them come in through GMail on the account that I have posted publicly on my website for people to contact me but for the most part they are the standard stock pump and dumps or phishing schemes.
What has been killing me recently were the fucking botnet "attacks" sucking my DSL's bandwidth with those douchebags hitting me with a GET and an immediate POST for tons of URLs all over my site. Their referrer was http://www.google.com/ and for a few hours I couldn't figure out how to stop that w/o stopping Google search referrals too.
SetEnvIfNoCase Referer "^http://www.google.com/?$" BadReferrer order deny,allow deny from env=BadReferrer
That has been returning 403s to the botnet which apparently stop such frequent attempts when they receive the error. I was getting hit with their shit every 4 to 5 seconds all day yesterday and now they are "pinging" me with attempts every hour or so. I don't know if it's a different botnet or the same one trying to get back in but that was the most effectual way to drop the huge spam traffic I was receiving but couldn't ban due to the wide range of IPs.
I find it hard to believe that a 14 year old is FAR above the average intelligence of a normal person. Or did you mean to say FAR more computer literate? Lots of MDs can't use a computer well--that doesn't make them stupid.
Computer literate -- thanks for forcing me to clarify. The rest of your point is trollfood, don't do that.
The Linux community cannot control that. On the other hand, most normal people I know don't have Microsoft Office because it costs money and iTunes breaks often enough in Windows that the hassle of dealing with a replacement would not bother them.
The Linux community cannot control that. On the other hand, most normal people I know don't have Microsoft Office because it costs money and iTunes breaks often enough in Windows that the hassle of dealing with a replacement would not bother them.
I don't know anyone that uses anything other than Office at home so I'm not sure where you're pulling that piece of bullshit from.
iTunes has *NEVER* *EVER* broken on any computer I have ever used and I have never heard this comment before you mentioned it -- any documented proof or are you just making shit up?
I remember using Red Hat 3.0 and it being an immense pain in the ass to get it working right with my crappy desktop at the time, this is mid to late 90s, if memory serves me right. Today, linux on the desktop is so brainless I can get my friend--who is not a computer nerd, to install linux himself (ubuntu, or Suse--he decided on suse). I've been successful in various other cases this year.
It still is a pain in the ass. Please take a random piece of unresearched new hardware, plug it in, and watch it work without issue on Linux. Not gonna happen. Until that occurs, Linux is NOT ready for the desktop. The desktop is more than installing an OS. The desktop is about USING the OS and using it without issue. When was the last time you purchased something, plugged it into your Windows computer, and had to spend hours compiling modules, kernels, and/or figuring out a.conf file?
I really wish that Linux was more successful in the desktop market but compared with XP/2k it's a slam dunk as to which one is preferred by most. People using Linux have always been able to "get by" but it's actually working 100% w/o thinking about the OS that people want (which is a main reason why Vista sucks -- it's not as transparent as it should be).
I've been successful in various other cases this year. I've been trying too actively evangelically convert =] since the millenium and have only been moderately successful this year.
I've been successful before then. It doesn't mean that I wasn't specifically, without thought, choosing people that I subconsciously knew would succeed.
I am currently helping a 14 year old kid that's trying to learn to use Ubuntu. He has more questions than you could ever care to deal with and while he is FAR above the average intelligence of any typical "desktop user" he is frustrated with Linux at nearly every turn.
Another person is frustrated that syncing their iPod isn't the same on Linux as it is with their Mac. If you can't just plug the fucking thing in, open a program and just have it work, the "desktop" (as far as the vast majority of end users are concerned) doesn't exist.
The unlimited amounts of software, the opportunity to learn things, etc etc all make FOSS stand against MS closed-sourced, closed-minded profit driven philosophy...
You are confusing unlimited varying status of operational amounts of software with unlimited fully working software. Yeah, using Linux you could *always* find something that you could fuck around with to get working to do what you want (back in the day using WP8 or paying for third party Xserver software so that you could use your non-standard video card in your laptop and still have a GUI) but the majority of people don't want to hear any of that. "What do you mean I can't use iTunes? What do you mean there's no Microsoft Office?"
Yes, many pieces of software exist out there that emulates (even closely) what is available on the Windows and Apple desktop but regardless of the FOSS propaganda that is so prevalently spewed here on Slashdot, this software is NOT the same as what you can find on the Real Thing and the users (not our interpretation of what we think they need) know/what that, not what we suggest instead.
So will all due respect I humbly disagree with your assessment.
I'm glad you gave me the opportunity to explain exactly why my assessment was correct and your's is quite incorrect.
This shows how fearful Microsoft is really starting to get paranoid about the linux desktop revolution.
Please say after me: "Linux is NOT ready to compete with other desktop OSs and won't be anytime soon." Thank you.
Microsoft watched the SCO deal (and partially funded it) and saw what the FUD accomplished in the short term. They are certainly reeling with the early failure of Vista but they concerned with Linux beating the out. If anything they are worried about their own products beating them out. I guarantee we won't be seeing an extended EOL for XP/2k like we did w/98 after the public backlash.
Linux is great on the server side and can't be even remotely matched by Microsoft solutions but the desktop (XP and 2k in particular) smoke Linux's solutions.
1. Search, regardless of Google, or politics, or anything else, does NOT meet most peoples' needs. There's far too much gaming, far too much blackhattery, and image search is a complete lottery (although Ask seems to do a much better job of this than the others).
It doesn't meet people's needs that haven't a clue what the fuck they're doing. Generally if you are searching for something simple (which is what MOST people do) Google will return it in the top 10 results and more than likely the top 3. For the rest of us, Google offers some really fucking cool searching (like inurl) that lets you do some deep digging for XLS/CSV dumps of databases that makes my job easier.
The basis of your argument is correct -- we always need better searching abilities (and they probably will come) but to say that it's not good enough for most people is just nuts.
2. It's been around ten years since there was any significant breakthrough in search technology. While it IS hard, that's still kind of lame. I suspect part of the reason for lack of development is that search, you know, kinda mostly works, and Google, kinda mostly, does an ok job. If it totally sucked, I bet we'd have new tech by now.
Instead of sitting here bitching, why aren't you developing new search algorithms that work better?
3. Evil or no, competition is healthy. Google needs serious challengers to evolve. It's good for them, good for us all.
Definitely and while they're snapping up all the good engineers, I think that someone will either leave Google and start their own shit or they'll just decide that they can do better themselves from the get-go.
4. Few people know how to legitimately promote a website on Google. If you are de-ranked, most people don't know why, or how to solve that problem. Your site is vulnerable to your competitors deliberately Blackhat SEO-ing your site to de-rank it. There's nothing you can do about it. Your business can be destroyed. No-one to appeal to, and no way of finding why, or what happened. That's too much power.
Then beat them out at their own game and either learn or hire someone else to do it. Just like your competitors beating you out with conventional advertising because your marketing department sucks, you have to hire a team that will handle that stuff for you.
I find that most searches I perform in Google these days have to be qualified with -ebay, -amazon, -wikipedia, -about, etc. to find relevant results. I'm still faced with about five SEO link farm sites per page for most searches.
What the fuck are you searching for? I *never* run into this problem. Please provide some real world examples other than searches about celebrities.
Ricochet never achieved user density to come anywhere close to capacity, whereas many urban EVDO sites run maxed out for hours a day.
What you say is true but I was shocked with my speeds on T-mobile's EDGE network in Los Angeles compared to Minneapolis'. LA's speeds were quite a bit faster than what I experienced at home while I was expecting it to crawl along sluggishly.
The phenomenon you mention is most noticeable when I move from the metro into areas like rural IA and roam on I-Wireless. Their speeds are wicked fucking fast.
I could see it being used for a virtual tour of a park, college campus, or business complex. Plot out a route and then follow it along with pictures and sound.
Seems pretty useful to me. I wish that more public entities would publish their SHP boundaries in KML/KMZ so I wouldn't have to convert them myself.
Fascinating, companies that do creative work should take note and think about high ceilings for creative office spaces in the future. On the other hand, looks like the detail oriented rank and file will always be stuck in Dilbert Land.
Because all people are exactly alike and should be treated as such because of a study... Right. I don't let my workspace limit my creativity in any way. I'm able to output the same quality of work regardless of the environment. This is just another pointless (and several days old) study that shouldn't have graced the front page of Slashdot.
Right now, it's primarily a price issue. High speed internet (5M/2M) is similarly price, but the FIOS TV is where Verizon has a huge advantage. Right now, most people are reporting savings of $25/month (that's SAVINGS) and this is for more channels, but standard def and high def.
And when CATV and CableHSD started they were really inexpensive too. Over the years the bandwidth caps have come in to stop the uneven distribution of bandwidth (like on the @Home network) and the prices have gone through the fucking roof (around here it's $39.99/mo for crippled service (blocked ports) at 3000/256 but when I lived in the next town over, supported by Comcast, it was $64.95/mo w/o CATV service or $42.95 with (I had my own modem).
I wouldn't hold my breath that Verizon (who can listen to my Freedom of Speech when I say, "FUCK OFF AND DIE YOU TREASON COMMITTING BASTARDS.") won't raise rates similarly if they gain a monopoly and Comcast/Foo duck out.
The only thing they'll accomplish by a restriction is hurting US business. The images will still be available from European and Japanese satellites.
Or US companies will just start doing more flyovers like they have been for Microsoft's Live Maps which offer views of locations from multiple locations (N, E, S, W). They are already trying to ban picture taking by civilians at various locations (what is this fucking North Korea?) and the flyovers will be next:(
How soon before we're not allowed to make derogatory remarks about Congress itself, or the president? I was under the impression that the government and everything it owns, collectively, belong to the American People, but apparently I'm wrong.
You are wrong. That was changed years ago under the guise of National Security. You already cannot safely make derogatory remarks about our "elected" officials without being tormented by their minions.
I like the national ID because it arguable can fold services 1, 2, 4, and 7 into one stupid card and cut the bureaucracy. Instead the states are busy protecting the jobs of their inane traffic/records bureaucracy and are afraid of the cost of modernization.
I want to travel but I don't want to travel internationally. I have absolutely no desire (especially with the unnecessary idea of RFID embedded passports) to obtain a passport. Why should I bend to the Federal Government and get something that is 100% pointless for my needs just so that some politician can claim they added another layer of protection against terrorism which wouldn't have done jack fucking shit to stop the 9/11 plan?
I'm probably missing something important, so I'm not trying to troll here.
Yes, it's another tax to apply to the citizenry in order to keep them under the Federal Government's illegally far reaching arms. Sadly only a few of the states in this country are standing up to the Federal Government (regardless of the reason) in any way (medical marijuana, Federal ID, and in the past waiting till they forced DUI limits to be lowered).
Sadly most of the public has NO historical memory of the atrocities committed by oppressive regimes like Germany and Russia of less than 70 years ago. Yeah, History classes in HS sucked but you should have at least grasped SOME of this.
No DRM + higher quality audio = possibly worth a 30% increase in price
And yet CDs, which are DRM free, have the highest quality audio and will cost about the same, offer a physical medium, and packaging as opposed to what will be available online.
While if you where geeky enough you could fiddle around and get it working, most musicians I know want it to JUST WORK out of the box no questions asked, and get annoyed if it doesn't since for a lot of people musical inspiration is a hit or miss opportunity (I know friends who keep digital recorders on them at all times because of how often they hummed something out and forgot it 2 hours later)
This isn't limited to musicians and, in fact, it's not even limited to those that have been running Linux for 10+ years. Sometimes even I just want something to work w/o me fucking around with kernel modules, third party software that I might have to compile, etc.
I think your "it has to be theft in order to be criminal" statement breaks down. If somebody rapes a woman, she might claim that her "innocence has been stolen." This might evoke similar outcry from Slashdotters, as it is not theft in the legal sense. But it is still a crime.
Very bad analogy. Rape is a criminal offense in of itself.
I'm not sure where you got the idea that I believe that "theft" needs to be part of the equation to become criminal.
Slashdot Mirror
In much the USA, many Americans refuse to use public transportation because they want to get to work in a half-hour rather than spending four hours hopping from bus to bus to train to bus. That is certainly the situation in the San Francisco Bay Area. I am not exaggerating those times, either
You're not exaggerating for the Minneapolis metro area either. We own one car and my wife takes public transportation daily (we both rode the train downtown from another suburb 15 mins away last night -- the nearest stop to our house). I work in a suburb on the other end of the metro. I want to buy a house there but I cannot afford the $65 to 80k jump in prices from where I currently reside. We went to look at a house priced at $224,900 which is still nearly $60k more than our current home cost in 2004 (and with the market the way it is, how much it still is worth) and not only was it destroyed inside (we assume from foreclosure or renters) it needed so much work that another $30 to $50k would be required to get it going again -- something of which I have no time for nor any funds.
Anyway back on topic, the *estimated* time to take a bus from where I live to downtown Minneapolis and from there to the North end of town's transit stop and then from there to 10 blocks from where I work would take 193 minutes bus time and another 15-20 by walking (please note that the temperatures here in January and February routinely drop to -20F or lower in the mornings (with highs in the 0 - 5F range) and that there are no sidewalks between the stop and the school where I work). That same trip takes me less than 30 minutes (33.1 miles) by car.
I'm super tired of Europeans thinking that they can automatically assume why Americans don't use public transportation. The layout of cities here is far different and the layout of mass transit is as well. I would *love* to take mass transit daily (more reading, more relaxing, and less money) but I cannot at the current time.
numerous swipes = worn card + license. I'd rather not deal with the DMV any more than absolutely required.
Works for me. Every time I get a new license I spend my time ensuring that the data cannot be read off of the magnetic stripe. I refuse to allow my card to be swiped for any reason, especially restaurants for checking ID.
I'm completely uninterested in this great idea...
Let me put it this way. Within 5 years of graduating college, you will have forgotten what it was even like. (That's especially true if you spend the entire time drunk like a lot of college kids do.)
Maybe if you had a poor college experience. For me, and many of my college friends, the memories are just as fresh now (5 years later) than they were the day I left. I would give *ANYTHING* to return to college full-time and live on campus. Real life sucks.
Please note, I was one of those people that spent 99% of my time in college inebriated beyond belief.
Apparently, if within 48 hours of receiving the notice, the student responds to the Stanford Information Security Office and explains that he has a right to host the content, there is no disconnection and no $100 fee.
What if the student isn't around for 48 hours (busy drinking, studying at the library, or fucking their SO at an off-campus location)? They should be given a chance at an in-person interview to explain the situation and fight the "charges" of IP infringement brought before they are charged anything.
I'm not saying not to cut their connection but to charge money too? Please.
Just roll Stanford down in your list of preferred colleges/universities.
While I believe that Stanford buckling to "Big Buck" pressure is lame beyond belief, I can't agree with your argument. For prospective students to ignore Stanford because for the next four years they wouldn't be able to easily torrent some movies and risk their future and/or proximity to home by attending another college that happens to ignore the DMCA notices is just shortsighted.
Just because Stanford's name is at risk students, who aren't guilty of a *crime* and have no way to prove their innocence, are being dropped from the campus network and having money extorted from them by the University to reconnect?
That's a bunch of horseshit. The MPAA and RIAA are winning at their game with colleges when more should be turning to the legal minds on campus to see what they can do to shut this finger pointing media game that they are playing.
Well you certainly have hit all the buzztopics on the head haven't you?
will hardware vendors stop releasing 32-bit chips?
Probably not but they certainly won't become the main product. The main product is selling chips to people running Windows and if it's not supported in 32-bit the demand for new chips that are 32-bit will drop.
Will companies upgrade hardware in orer to get the latest version of Windows?
It depends but probably. Once the EOL happens for XP/Vista they will be forced to upgrade in order to keep up with everyone else.
Will this help provide more incentive for a Linux desktop?
No. People upgrade their computers when it "runs slow" (Spyware, old hardware, etc) and that happens every 2-5 years anyway. People are just going to do it and buy whatever the Big Box store or Dell is offering on special. I have a feeling that it will be 64-bit.
Will this increase the amount of lead going into our landfills?
Not anymore than it already has been increasing. People will upgrade on their normal computer lifetime schedule. There won't be a mad dash (just like there wasn't for Vista) to upgrade.
The first is that nobody has figured out a reasonable UI with the screenspace that is available.
Danger has with the Sidekick family. It's unfortunate that they haven't kept up with anything else that the device has to offer (the camera still fucking blows, there might be GPS inside but it isn't enabled for user accessible location-aware apps, and T-mobile is holding the rest of it by marketing it to douchebags and teenagers rather than who they should have).
The Hiptop's OS is incredible (multitasking, useful hotkeys, and "macros" for shorting your typing time. It's just the physical device has a shitty build quality (my menu button ceases to work every 6 months) and T-mobile hinders the device and developer created applications.
My Hiptops haven't crashed (I have gotten a java trash collector spinner a few times that went away after awhile) and it smokes the crap out of Microsoft's solutions.
To answer another commenter that the phone's screens should be renamed iSquint is clueless and has obviously not used a decent handheld device including the Sidekick (which has a shitty resolution compared to other options out there).
For me the spam e-mails are minimal to my machine. I do see a couple of them come in through GMail on the account that I have posted publicly on my website for people to contact me but for the most part they are the standard stock pump and dumps or phishing schemes.
:(
What has been killing me recently were the fucking botnet "attacks" sucking my DSL's bandwidth with those douchebags hitting me with a GET and an immediate POST for tons of URLs all over my site. Their referrer was http://www.google.com/ and for a few hours I couldn't figure out how to stop that w/o stopping Google search referrals too.
Some nice guy in #apache helped me out with:
SetEnvIfNoCase Referer "^http://www.google.com/?$" BadReferrer=1
SetEnvIfNoCase Referer "^http://www.google.com/?$" BadReferrer
order deny,allow
deny from env=BadReferrer
That has been returning 403s to the botnet which apparently stop such frequent attempts when they receive the error. I was getting hit with their shit every 4 to 5 seconds all day yesterday and now they are "pinging" me with attempts every hour or so. I don't know if it's a different botnet or the same one trying to get back in but that was the most effectual way to drop the huge spam traffic I was receiving but couldn't ban due to the wide range of IPs.
Botnets fucking suck
If this is to pass, what immoral act would next be prosecuted? Being gay? Being obese? Being lazy?
None of those are immoral. They are, however, "immoral" in the eyes of some; the same group that is just as immoral as everyone else.
I find it hard to believe that a 14 year old is FAR above the average intelligence of a normal person. Or did you mean to say FAR more computer literate? Lots of MDs can't use a computer well--that doesn't make them stupid.
Computer literate -- thanks for forcing me to clarify. The rest of your point is trollfood, don't do that.
The Linux community cannot control that. On the other hand, most normal people I know don't have Microsoft Office because it costs money and iTunes breaks often enough in Windows that the hassle of dealing with a replacement would not bother them.
The Linux community cannot control that. On the other hand, most normal people I know don't have Microsoft Office because it costs money and iTunes breaks often enough in Windows that the hassle of dealing with a replacement would not bother them.
I don't know anyone that uses anything other than Office at home so I'm not sure where you're pulling that piece of bullshit from.
iTunes has *NEVER* *EVER* broken on any computer I have ever used and I have never heard this comment before you mentioned it -- any documented proof or are you just making shit up?
I remember using Red Hat 3.0 and it being an immense pain in the ass to get it working right with my crappy desktop at the time, this is mid to late 90s, if memory serves me right. Today, linux on the desktop is so brainless I can get my friend--who is not a computer nerd, to install linux himself (ubuntu, or Suse--he decided on suse). I've been successful in various other cases this year.
.conf file?
It still is a pain in the ass. Please take a random piece of unresearched new hardware, plug it in, and watch it work without issue on Linux. Not gonna happen. Until that occurs, Linux is NOT ready for the desktop. The desktop is more than installing an OS. The desktop is about USING the OS and using it without issue. When was the last time you purchased something, plugged it into your Windows computer, and had to spend hours compiling modules, kernels, and/or figuring out a
I really wish that Linux was more successful in the desktop market but compared with XP/2k it's a slam dunk as to which one is preferred by most. People using Linux have always been able to "get by" but it's actually working 100% w/o thinking about the OS that people want (which is a main reason why Vista sucks -- it's not as transparent as it should be).
I've been successful in various other cases this year. I've been trying too actively evangelically convert =] since the millenium and have only been moderately successful this year.
I've been successful before then. It doesn't mean that I wasn't specifically, without thought, choosing people that I subconsciously knew would succeed.
I am currently helping a 14 year old kid that's trying to learn to use Ubuntu. He has more questions than you could ever care to deal with and while he is FAR above the average intelligence of any typical "desktop user" he is frustrated with Linux at nearly every turn.
Another person is frustrated that syncing their iPod isn't the same on Linux as it is with their Mac. If you can't just plug the fucking thing in, open a program and just have it work, the "desktop" (as far as the vast majority of end users are concerned) doesn't exist.
The unlimited amounts of software, the opportunity to learn things, etc etc all make FOSS stand against MS closed-sourced, closed-minded profit driven philosophy...
You are confusing unlimited varying status of operational amounts of software with unlimited fully working software. Yeah, using Linux you could *always* find something that you could fuck around with to get working to do what you want (back in the day using WP8 or paying for third party Xserver software so that you could use your non-standard video card in your laptop and still have a GUI) but the majority of people don't want to hear any of that. "What do you mean I can't use iTunes? What do you mean there's no Microsoft Office?"
Yes, many pieces of software exist out there that emulates (even closely) what is available on the Windows and Apple desktop but regardless of the FOSS propaganda that is so prevalently spewed here on Slashdot, this software is NOT the same as what you can find on the Real Thing and the users (not our interpretation of what we think they need) know/what that, not what we suggest instead.
So will all due respect I humbly disagree with your assessment.
I'm glad you gave me the opportunity to explain exactly why my assessment was correct and your's is quite incorrect.
This shows how fearful Microsoft is really starting to get paranoid about the linux desktop revolution.
Please say after me: "Linux is NOT ready to compete with other desktop OSs and won't be anytime soon." Thank you.
Microsoft watched the SCO deal (and partially funded it) and saw what the FUD accomplished in the short term. They are certainly reeling with the early failure of Vista but they concerned with Linux beating the out. If anything they are worried about their own products beating them out. I guarantee we won't be seeing an extended EOL for XP/2k like we did w/98 after the public backlash.
Linux is great on the server side and can't be even remotely matched by Microsoft solutions but the desktop (XP and 2k in particular) smoke Linux's solutions.
1. Search, regardless of Google, or politics, or anything else, does NOT meet most peoples' needs. There's far too much gaming, far too much blackhattery, and image search is a complete lottery (although Ask seems to do a much better job of this than the others).
It doesn't meet people's needs that haven't a clue what the fuck they're doing. Generally if you are searching for something simple (which is what MOST people do) Google will return it in the top 10 results and more than likely the top 3. For the rest of us, Google offers some really fucking cool searching (like inurl) that lets you do some deep digging for XLS/CSV dumps of databases that makes my job easier.
The basis of your argument is correct -- we always need better searching abilities (and they probably will come) but to say that it's not good enough for most people is just nuts.
2. It's been around ten years since there was any significant breakthrough in search technology. While it IS hard, that's still kind of lame. I suspect part of the reason for lack of development is that search, you know, kinda mostly works, and Google, kinda mostly, does an ok job. If it totally sucked, I bet we'd have new tech by now.
Instead of sitting here bitching, why aren't you developing new search algorithms that work better?
3. Evil or no, competition is healthy. Google needs serious challengers to evolve. It's good for them, good for us all.
Definitely and while they're snapping up all the good engineers, I think that someone will either leave Google and start their own shit or they'll just decide that they can do better themselves from the get-go.
4. Few people know how to legitimately promote a website on Google. If you are de-ranked, most people don't know why, or how to solve that problem. Your site is vulnerable to your competitors deliberately Blackhat SEO-ing your site to de-rank it. There's nothing you can do about it. Your business can be destroyed. No-one to appeal to, and no way of finding why, or what happened. That's too much power.
Then beat them out at their own game and either learn or hire someone else to do it. Just like your competitors beating you out with conventional advertising because your marketing department sucks, you have to hire a team that will handle that stuff for you.
I find that most searches I perform in Google these days have to be qualified with -ebay, -amazon, -wikipedia, -about, etc. to find relevant results. I'm still faced with about five SEO link farm sites per page for most searches.
What the fuck are you searching for? I *never* run into this problem. Please provide some real world examples other than searches about celebrities.
Ricochet never achieved user density to come anywhere close to capacity, whereas many urban EVDO sites run maxed out for hours a day.
What you say is true but I was shocked with my speeds on T-mobile's EDGE network in Los Angeles compared to Minneapolis'. LA's speeds were quite a bit faster than what I experienced at home while I was expecting it to crawl along sluggishly.
The phenomenon you mention is most noticeable when I move from the metro into areas like rural IA and roam on I-Wireless. Their speeds are wicked fucking fast.
I could see it being used for a virtual tour of a park, college campus, or business complex. Plot out a route and then follow it along with pictures and sound.
Seems pretty useful to me. I wish that more public entities would publish their SHP boundaries in KML/KMZ so I wouldn't have to convert them myself.
It could become a real useful tool for the web.
Fascinating, companies that do creative work should take note and think about high ceilings for creative office spaces in the future. On the other hand, looks like the detail oriented rank and file will always be stuck in Dilbert Land.
Because all people are exactly alike and should be treated as such because of a study... Right. I don't let my workspace limit my creativity in any way. I'm able to output the same quality of work regardless of the environment. This is just another pointless (and several days old) study that shouldn't have graced the front page of Slashdot.
Right now, it's primarily a price issue. High speed internet (5M/2M) is similarly price, but the FIOS TV is where Verizon has a huge advantage. Right now, most people are reporting savings of $25/month (that's SAVINGS) and this is for more channels, but standard def and high def.
And when CATV and CableHSD started they were really inexpensive too. Over the years the bandwidth caps have come in to stop the uneven distribution of bandwidth (like on the @Home network) and the prices have gone through the fucking roof (around here it's $39.99/mo for crippled service (blocked ports) at 3000/256 but when I lived in the next town over, supported by Comcast, it was $64.95/mo w/o CATV service or $42.95 with (I had my own modem).
I wouldn't hold my breath that Verizon (who can listen to my Freedom of Speech when I say, "FUCK OFF AND DIE YOU TREASON COMMITTING BASTARDS.") won't raise rates similarly if they gain a monopoly and Comcast/Foo duck out.
The only thing they'll accomplish by a restriction is hurting US business. The images will still be available from European and Japanese satellites.
:(
Or US companies will just start doing more flyovers like they have been for Microsoft's Live Maps which offer views of locations from multiple locations (N, E, S, W). They are already trying to ban picture taking by civilians at various locations (what is this fucking North Korea?) and the flyovers will be next
How soon before we're not allowed to make derogatory remarks about Congress itself, or the president? I was under the impression that the government and everything it owns, collectively, belong to the American People, but apparently I'm wrong.
You are wrong. That was changed years ago under the guise of National Security. You already cannot safely make derogatory remarks about our "elected" officials without being tormented by their minions.
I like the national ID because it arguable can fold services 1, 2, 4, and 7 into one stupid card and cut the bureaucracy. Instead the states are busy protecting the jobs of their inane traffic/records bureaucracy and are afraid of the cost of modernization.
I want to travel but I don't want to travel internationally. I have absolutely no desire (especially with the unnecessary idea of RFID embedded passports) to obtain a passport. Why should I bend to the Federal Government and get something that is 100% pointless for my needs just so that some politician can claim they added another layer of protection against terrorism which wouldn't have done jack fucking shit to stop the 9/11 plan?
I'm probably missing something important, so I'm not trying to troll here.
Yes, it's another tax to apply to the citizenry in order to keep them under the Federal Government's illegally far reaching arms. Sadly only a few of the states in this country are standing up to the Federal Government (regardless of the reason) in any way (medical marijuana, Federal ID, and in the past waiting till they forced DUI limits to be lowered).
Sadly most of the public has NO historical memory of the atrocities committed by oppressive regimes like Germany and Russia of less than 70 years ago. Yeah, History classes in HS sucked but you should have at least grasped SOME of this.
No DRM + higher quality audio = possibly worth a 30% increase in price
And yet CDs, which are DRM free, have the highest quality audio and will cost about the same, offer a physical medium, and packaging as opposed to what will be available online.
While if you where geeky enough you could fiddle around and get it working, most musicians I know want it to JUST WORK out of the box no questions asked, and get annoyed if it doesn't since for a lot of people musical inspiration is a hit or miss opportunity (I know friends who keep digital recorders on them at all times because of how often they hummed something out and forgot it 2 hours later)
This isn't limited to musicians and, in fact, it's not even limited to those that have been running Linux for 10+ years. Sometimes even I just want something to work w/o me fucking around with kernel modules, third party software that I might have to compile, etc.
I think your "it has to be theft in order to be criminal" statement breaks down. If somebody rapes a woman, she might claim that her "innocence has been stolen." This might evoke similar outcry from Slashdotters, as it is not theft in the legal sense. But it is still a crime.
Very bad analogy. Rape is a criminal offense in of itself.
I'm not sure where you got the idea that I believe that "theft" needs to be part of the equation to become criminal.