gtkpod is much closer to what these "normals" would want. But it looks like there are still problems with iPod Mini support;
I wasn't aware of any problem with gtkpod and the iPod Mini. I've been using gtkpod with my iPod Mini (1st gen.) and my wife's iPod Mini (2nd gen.) exclusively for at least a year and never had any issues. Didn't even have to reformat them to fat32 like you do with windows to make it work.
My non-professional-physicist read on the MOND / DARK controversy is that several of the alternate theories (like MOND) that remove the need for dark matter are fairly convincing. Dark matter is not convincing at all - not testable, not observable, and reminds me a lot of Santa Claus.
You have to remember, MOND requires adding a new, arbitrary, constant (and in the covarient version, TeVeS, a minimum of 3 new constants). So it isn't clear if MOND or dark matter does betterr from an Occam's Razor type of arguement.
But, MOND and the related theories DO NOT remove the need for dark matter (or dark energy). MOND does away with dark matter on galazy scales, but clusters still require dark matter to match observations (for the record, I do simulations of galazy clusters).
A much more plausible explanation is that some people are trying really hard to amp up the PR. Sort of like what happens when you need a distraction from a big debate, so you get all the airline travelers to throw away liquids. Anyone who tells you they have proof for something that by definition can not be observed is selling PR. For those of you who believe it without question, I've got a bridge I'll sell you.
There really is no big conspirency. Lots of astronomers are not comfortable with dark matter or dark energy. But they aren't trying to fake their way into making other believe it. At the moment, dark matter fits the data very well (without breaking relativity and other well tested physics). I've been to lots of talks and seen lots of papers where people take the idea of modified gravity seriously. Unfortunately, it is hard to come up with a modified theory of gravity that explains the data without getting something else well tested wrong. It doesn't mean it can't be done.
While free software purists debate things like binary-only drivers, the rest of the world moves on with more important issues. Do you want hardware support, huh? Do you want companies to actually build products on open source software stacks?
The problems people have with binary drivers are not just from a free software purity point of view. Have you dealt with buggy NVidia or ATI drivers (or wireless cards) in GNU/Linux (or a BSD)? Often enough, these binary only drivers are among the slowest to get fixed and updated, sometimes never fitting in to the package management system of the distro properly.
Show me a popular Python app that works on Windows, Mac, Linux (and doesn't look alien in either system) and I promise I'll throw away all my Netbeans CDs.
"Pretty functional" unless, like me, you are using a 5 or 6 year old GeForce2 on Fedora Core 5 with a Xen kernel. Then you're talking about doing nasty things like rebuilding the kernel that breaks compatibility with Yum. If nVidia made this available open source then Fedora/Xen would "just work" with accelerated graphics. As it is right now I choose not to break my kernel compatibility but I can even play Jeweled because it's 2D graphics are more than the open source driver can handle.
I'm not happy about using a closed source driver (I actually just use the built-in X nv driver on my work machine), but I think some of the blame in your case may rest with Fedora. I always had trouble with the NVidia drivers with Fedora 1 and 2 (could only get them to work every other kernel or so). Since I switched to gentoo, I have had no trouble with both GeForce 2 and 4 cards.
But, we get "shopper cards" from grocery companies and other places. What do you think they do with those? They track our purchases. Heck, every month or two, Kroger sends me coupons based on products I actually buy. I kinda like that, but in the meantime, they know what brand of soda I drink, what kind of diapers I put on my child, and what brand of condoms I buy (when I have to!)
You must go to a better supermarket than I do. Giant seems to only give me "targeted coupons" for things I don't ever buy (or the wrong brand for products that I do buy). Sort of seems like their targeted ads are a bit random. At least it makes me doubt their ability to mine data very well. (But I still find the whole thing a bit distasteful.)
RegEx's are not-so-readable and not-very-maintainable programming abstracts that should be avoided whenever possible.
I've found my regex stuff has changed as I've done more too, but I don't think they are bad things. What I learned is by adding a comment or two and maybe splitting up a monster regex into a 2 line thing (which I know hurts my perl credibility) can make complex a complex regex into something totallly readable later.
So don't blame the very powerfull tool. Blame the misuse of it.
Compilers ignore whitespace which means you should focus on introducing changes in to the white space. It's also a good idea to change some of the program code aswell. One of the top of the head that might be useful is to expand the ternary operators out in to if statements.
Just to be real picky, compilers for some language ignore whitespace. Fortran 77 (which is what the code I'm taking a 5 minute break from working on right now is written in) has some pretty strict rules about whitespace. Python too. Not normally in your list of languages, but TeX/LaTex care about whitespace as well.
Re:On any UNIX box vi is always there for you
on
Vim 7 Released
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This was touted as a reason to use vi when I was in grad school nearly 20 years ago. And some some people are still suffering with vi on the off-chance that someday they will be sitting at a "terminal logged into a mainframe" that doesn't have Emacs. Except that you can install whatever you want on your own Linux computer now, as you could for the last 14 years or so.
Sometime really small, low space systems lack emacs. When I log on to my WRT54g router or my sharp zaurus, vi is the only text editor I can find (and since I never got around to learning vi very well, I usually end up doing that cat or echo to a file thing). So even as a pretty confirmed emacs user, it does happen sometimes that I wish I knew vi because emacs is missing on a system, even in 2006.
And they would need to take out Sun as well. Not a big player for the pc market, but take out all the other free Unix-likes (since I assume the BSDs would get hit right after GNU/Linux) and that could change a lot.
Just want to be clear, but points 2 and 3 from your list basically say that you prefer Windows because it works worse. I am not doubting that things often work that way in the real world, but do you really want to help support and further that kind of thinking? Shouldn't we try to limit that (since we probably can't stop it) and actually try for better solutions?
For starters, you just asked about a VB based syntax on/., you will recieve for the most part nothing but FUD and miss information and the pundits launch into tirades about how VB.Net is a toy compared to C# (which are both the same CLR language), Java, Ruby, PHP, Perl, and some whack job will likely even recommend Python.
And what exactly is so wrong about recommending Python? (Okay, except for that stupid whitespace thing which is too close for comfort to the FORTRAN 77 I deal with every day).
Remember 10 years ago, when Yahoo was what Google is today? People don't really care for Yahoo anymore. In 10 years from now, someone else would have de-throned Google, and we'll wonder how we could live without them. Google would no longer be king, and they won't matter any more.
Was Yahoo really were Google is? They may have been the biggest search engine/portal, but I'm sure far less people had heard of them and they had less pop-culture/language impact. And web wasn't were it is today then, so being at the top of web searching meant something different then.
Now none of that means someone can't come and surpass Google in the future. I just don't think comparisons to Yahoo are useful in assessing that possibility.
Install cygwin with the X server. log in to your box at home with ssh -X user@host and use the firefox version you have on the box there. you could pretty much work off any box with that setup.
I basically do that on the occasions when I need to use firefox from my home machine at work or vice versa (except that it is GNU/Linux on both ends for me). The problem is that this is very very slow (DSL line at home). Some programs like emacs, jpilot, xv, and gaim are slow but usuable. Firefox however just hurts to use.
It sounds like you pay a bit more attention to advertising than you really should. The reason you don't see it is that (despite Apple's ads) it's not real. Rather the contrary: the last time a Mac actually gained noticeable market share was the original iMac. Apple really topped out in the early 1990's, and has been on a long, (admittedly slow) downhill slide since then. They've managed to produce a couple of temporary upward bumps since then, but never anything very significant. Ultimately, it's just a bit of noise in a long, slow slide into oblivion.
I'm not sure what area you are coming from, but in what I do (astronomy, but I've seen this in other academic depts.) the number of apples have gone way up. Nearly every new laptop is an apple (with the exception of a few thinkpads or dells for the die-hard linux users). Not so much in the desktop/workstation area, but they are doing great selling laptops from my vantage point.
Have you seen his personal webpage? I suppose CSS is too "new"
I do some of the updates for RMS' webpage. It does use some css, but since the people who do the updates (like me) are generally very busy with their own normal work, we just haven't had the time to move everything over to css. Personally, I use css for my own site, but it doesn't really make sense doing it unless you have valid html. And we are slowly working on getting all of stallman.org to validate, but with the minimal amount of time most of us can put into it, it isn't easy.
My point is that it is not aversion to change that causes his site to be a little behind technologically. It is time constraints of everyone involved.
Since we're human, we have to eat/sleep/etc. How does eating a sandwhich bring glory to God? Did you give thanks to God for allowing you the resources (ingredients, money, etc.) to be able to have that sandwhich to eat? Did you share that sandwhich and perhaps have an opportunity to witness to someone? How could eating that sandwhich dishonor God? Are you a glutton? Basically, our existence either honors or dishonors God.
I will grant you that eating may not count as a truely neutral act. I was anticipating possible objections to it involving either some ethical vegiterianism or possibly something involving starving people all over the world. But I still think one could in principle have a truely morally neutral act. Of course the fact that animals (which are basically amoral being in most western religious views and most versions of secular humanism and the like) eat adds some weight to the arguement that eating can be a neutral act.
I don't think I have a pessimistic view of people. It's simple: we are all basically evil
Thinking everyone is basically evil sound very negative and pessimistic to me. I am not arguing whether or not you have theological reasons for that view, or even if that view is true. I am just saying that it is a more negative and pessimistic view of human nature than the (non-religious) views I hold.
By the way, this is a surprisingly civil discussion of religious vs. non-religious world views. These types of things usually get much nastier (from both sides).
No, everything I do (probably 99.9% of everything I do) does not bring honor to God. That is something I strive for.
I try to bring honor to God in my posting on slashdot (or anywhere else). You CAN honor God with all of your actions, think about it.
If you are not glorifying God, you are glorifying satan, like it or not. Since the fall, it's our nature.
I still think your definition of statanic diverges from the dictionary definition. You also do not seem to allow for any purely neutral actions (which was sort of the point I was trying to get at with the sandwhich example).
It does amaze me that people talk about the positive aspects of relgion (finding meaning in life, good works, comfort, and so on) and yet your religious view of the world and of people seems unbelievable more pessimistic than my non-religious view of the world and people.
which is satanic (does not bring honor or glory to God).
Interesting definition of satanic. I thought it meant "of or relating to satan". Does your posting on slashdot bring honor or glory to god? How about eating a sandwhich? Doesn't that make both of them satanic by your definition?
People have hostile reactions when you say you don't watch TV because they assume that you're trying to prove something, or show how cool you are, or convince them of some political analysis. When the subject comes up and I say "No, I haven't seen that commercial - I don't watch TV," many people respond as though I had said "TV is for the weak-minded. You watch it too much."
I get the same thing when I say "Oh, the soup has bacon in it? No thanks, I don't eat meat." Suddenly I'm subjected to an extended monologue on why they eat meat and how they don't really eat as much as most people...
I think the reason people get defensive is because many of us have heard just as many stuck up or critical versions of "I don't watch TV" or "I don't eat meat" as we have heard the reasonable statement of fact ones that you seem to have said. I happen to like both TV and meat, and I don't especially like when people are critical of me for either of those things. I'm not saying you are critical, but enough other people are that some of us get defensive sometimes.
I admit I probably do the same thing to people on other topics. When I hear about computer trouble someone has I'm sure I've given a snide "Oh I don't use windows anymore" response. And don't get me started on Word vs. LaTeX.
George W. Bush can use MS Word. He can also use OpenOffice.org. I doubt he'll be able to use LaTeX without training.
Have you ever watched a truely novice user use MS Word? Or even worse tried to teach it to them? It isn't pretty. Don't be fooled, even those pretty GUI based word processors have learning curves. It is just that most of us have seen things like them for so long we forget about it. And, I've been able to give LaTeX advice and help troubleshoot LaTeX stuff by email and IM. Try doing that with a wordprocessor ('Where did you click?' and so on).
IM has been virtually free of direct spam attacks (I have only received one in my entire
life)
Wow. Either you are very lucky or I'm not because there was a period where I used to recieve tons of spam from presumably fake AIM users (always a girl's name followed by some numbers). Looking at my logs from gaim, I see about 30 usernames that I've blocked for sending spam. And I'm sure there were just as many where I just closed the window and didn't bother to block them. Nothing like email, but still annoying. They are all from one to two years ago, so apparently the problem has stopped.
There's a strong tendancy among programmers to be penny wise and dollar stupid.
This extends to Linux users too. Evidence: Gentoo.
Lots of people use Gentoo for reasons other than assumed optimization. portage is actually a really nice package manager. It has one of the most complete repositories of packages available of any distro. Extremely easy updating. And some of the best documentation of any distro along with very helpful forums.
I just get a little tired of hearing people bash gentoo because they think it is all about optimizing past the point of diminishing returns. Hell, I only have my system compile as -O2 (lots of benchmarking for scientific codes has lead me to be a bit conservative in my optimizing).
Slashdot Mirror
But, MOND and the related theories DO NOT remove the need for dark matter (or dark energy). MOND does away with dark matter on galazy scales, but clusters still require dark matter to match observations (for the record, I do simulations of galazy clusters).
There really is no big conspirency. Lots of astronomers are not comfortable with dark matter or dark energy. But they aren't trying to fake their way into making other believe it. At the moment, dark matter fits the data very well (without breaking relativity and other well tested physics). I've been to lots of talks and seen lots of papers where people take the idea of modified gravity seriously. Unfortunately, it is hard to come up with a modified theory of gravity that explains the data without getting something else well tested wrong. It doesn't mean it can't be done.
So don't blame the very powerfull tool. Blame the misuse of it.
Sometime really small, low space systems lack emacs. When I log on to my WRT54g router or my sharp zaurus, vi is the only text editor I can find (and since I never got around to learning vi very well, I usually end up doing that cat or echo to a file thing). So even as a pretty confirmed emacs user, it does happen sometimes that I wish I knew vi because emacs is missing on a system, even in 2006.
And they would need to take out Sun as well. Not a big player for the pc market, but take out all the other free Unix-likes (since I assume the BSDs would get hit right after GNU/Linux) and that could change a lot.
Just want to be clear, but points 2 and 3 from your list basically say that you prefer Windows because it works worse. I am not doubting that things often work that way in the real world, but do you really want to help support and further that kind of thinking? Shouldn't we try to limit that (since we probably can't stop it) and actually try for better solutions?
Now none of that means someone can't come and surpass Google in the future. I just don't think comparisons to Yahoo are useful in assessing that possibility.
My point is that it is not aversion to change that causes his site to be a little behind technologically. It is time constraints of everyone involved.
By the way, this is a surprisingly civil discussion of religious vs. non-religious world views. These types of things usually get much nastier (from both sides).
It does amaze me that people talk about the positive aspects of relgion (finding meaning in life, good works, comfort, and so on) and yet your religious view of the world and of people seems unbelievable more pessimistic than my non-religious view of the world and people.
I admit I probably do the same thing to people on other topics. When I hear about computer trouble someone has I'm sure I've given a snide "Oh I don't use windows anymore" response. And don't get me started on Word vs. LaTeX.
I just get a little tired of hearing people bash gentoo because they think it is all about optimizing past the point of diminishing returns. Hell, I only have my system compile as -O2 (lots of benchmarking for scientific codes has lead me to be a bit conservative in my optimizing).