Most software actually used to work pretty well up until the time when non-programmers started using computers, and demanding features.
Non-programmers do not understand how computers work AT ALL, so they try to use them in all kinds weird and random ways. For a while, it was the job of the UI to pigeonhole users into what they should and shouldn't do. But that was a long time ago.
Nowadays, a programmers job is sort of running after the users and making their shit not break when they try to smash it. In the rare event the user gets any kind of productivity out of their task. Again, it's the programmers job to actively make sure the user is hindered from doing anything further that might destroy the result.
How is knowledge a burden? Most people in most positions could probably double or triple their productivity just by knowing how to automate it. Programming is just the tool for automating mind tasks and the strongest form of applied mathematics.
Seriously, all this secureboot nonsense only amounts to security via obscurity if the root key is also allowed to sign microsoft operating systems. Any security you configure on a dual boot system will be compromised, as soon as you fire up windows.
Let's keep these patches out until someone really needs them, and in those cases, why can't they just patch their kernel?
I think it's entirely unreasonable for copyright to last more than 2 years. Even 14yrs wouldn't release the stranglehold that the current system is putting on the development of society.
We all have been. (using shitty workflows for 20yrs)
Speak for yourself.
Our biggest problem to date has been legacy cruft caused by a failure to abstract out code and break the coupling between the UI and the back end.
Funny, because that's exactly what was happening until the web and touch screens gave UI designers new headaches and set us back another 20 yrs. Loose couplings, and other improvements, need decades to be improved, it's not something that comes as a feature of your "new" (ancient in reality) UI. None of the new toolkits are even half as useful as the ones they're trying to replace.
it's just that we needed some "mechanism" to overcome the inertia of the old ways.
Did you ever think about there being a reason for the inertia?
Nothing new happens in IT, if you think you've find something new, then you're probably just inexperienced. Everything you think is new, has been tried and died. The only difference is that there's a new generation of noobs deluding themselves that they're somehow being innovative, and the further they distance themselves from the old and proven, the longer it'll take for them to finally realize this.
So, maybe the inertia is there specifically to protect us from all these 14yr old "know-it-all" UI designers wearing funny clothes and turtlenecks, who should be working in marketing, not bothering us with their shitty code.
This is not just confined to the commercial development sector, just look at projects like enlightenment, gnome3 or kde4. Complete disasters being an understatement.
Some of us have put a lot of time into trying to break couplings between views, interfaces and data. And I will tell you, the introduction of tablets suddenly made that work 3x harder, not in an architectural way, but in the way that you now have to support a trillion new toolkits and extensions which are all immature (1990 style) ones.
You'd be inclined to think that if you've been using shitty workflows for 20yrs. Truth is, tablets have existed for about as long, and some of them were in many ways better than the ones on offer now. Still, they failed.
Some of us have workflows even built into our daily lives, which cannot be accomplished with the limitations of a touch screen. Most work still depends on being able to type text, one way or another, which a touchscreen alone is useless for. Most work also depends on focusing your attention on something other than your computer display. (the amount of traffic accidents has increased tremendously since wide adoption of touch-screens)
All these "improved, modernised" workflows are just a waste of time for developers who need to write new code for stuff that will be used for a very limited time before being forgotten. It has it's place; kindergarten, info-terminals etc. But, as soon as people progress beyond that technological skill level, they invariably choose a tactile interface.
There are future ways to improve a tablet, to make it as useful as a laptop, but in its current state it amounts to little more than a very expensive remote control for your computer.
I hoped the manufacturers would wait a bit longer until the tablet form factor had matured into something different and useful, now, the wide adoption only amounts to technological failure on a huge scale, and a future landfill the size of the atlantic.
Maybe you need to realize that while you *think* you're creating things with your new toy, it's actually more like playing in a sandbox they created. The illusion of work is becoming more successful than ever.
Someone who prefers a tablet over a keyboard is an almost certain sign that they are useless when it comes to any kind technical competence, and therefore getting things done using modern tools.
Then maybe it's your english language skills you need to brush up on, before even contemplating taking up arabic, because none of your outlandish claims make any sense.
I understand that defending a regime that thrives on mass murder might be difficult, but you might try harder next time to find more plausible explanations to their actions?
You're utterly wrong, your whole premise rests on islam being a people (as the bigot you are) and not just a religion.
People may have just converted to islam because they thought it was better than the alternatives. But it still consisted of many countries and diverse cultures, so this is totally unrelated to islam.
Of course the christian bigots of europe saw this development as alarming, which caused the bloodbath which is the crusades. Luckily europe has grown out of this horrible mindset. But there are still countries like Israel where religious bigotry is the norm and political aim. That's the problem with giving guns and nukes to religious fanatics. When will they grow up and see that we are all brothers?
There's another even more important reason why buying or not buying doesn't matter.
You're not the customer, you're the product. They are selling you to the networks, app-stores, advertising, personal information etc. That's where the real money is.
If you don't buy an iphone, you probably will buy an Android, whichever way you do it, it's their way.
Maemo was a game changer, which is probably why it got canned.
Look, Israel is just another name for Palestine where a minority is killing their own brothers because of their ethnicity. You make it sound as if others also think being muslim is somehow bad? That's just your biggotry speaking.
Historically, Islam has been the most peaceful of the 3 large abrahamic religions. (not that any of them are any good) The most violent... why don't you guess which people have been repeatedly demanding bloodshed for the last 2300 yrs?
Voting with your wallet doesn't work, the system doesn't work that way. Everything is stacked against the consumer.
If you don't buy their product, they'll make it difficult for you not to, and in the meanwhile everyone not in the know will buy it anyway. If there are choices, they get eliminated with the combined patent, hostile takeover and walled garden attack.
There needs to be legislation, and the legislation needs to be very generic.
If that's debatable then it's also debatable whether or not Israel is a country or just a bunch of thugs terrorizing Palestine. I'm not saying that any of this is true, it's just, that's where your kind of reasoning leads.
So you don't know of any treaties Israel hasn't broken?
How about the Geneva convention, piracy on international waters, assassinations in just about all countries in the world (which all get worked out behind closed doors and forgotten)
It'd be a lot easier if you name a treaty that Israel hasn't broken?
So muslims invaded a country where "their people" used to live two CENTURIES ago and displaced its' inhabitants, and have continued to keep them in a labor-camp like situation for over 50 years just to be able to have a racist apartheid regime?
It's like a cult with you guys isn't it? The governments are wrong, and handwaving weirdos selling you advice, like Atkins and Taubes know better, it's like the New Age thing all over.
Everybody knows no-carb diets are a quick fix for fat people wanting to become thin. But the question is, at what price? It's like putting oxygen on a fire and then wondering why the surroundings are burning along with the BBQ. Even if you feel comfortable risking your life, it's not ethical to go around telling others to do the same.
why obesity follows malnourished populations as well as over-nourished populations
The vast majority of the populations in the world is overnourished. The malnourished clearly look it, so I don't understand what you're trying to say (Hint: you don't need to be thin to look malnourished).
The government advice is widely ridiculed by anyone who pays any attention to the nutritional research.
Scientists frequently ridicule certain nutritional researchers, since the area of nutritional "research" contains such a large amount of loud self-proclaimed experts. All their so called research falls flat because there is no reliable metric by which to measure the rate of health degradation based on foods, on spans shorter than 3 decades. Proper research may surprise you. Have you read books like The China Study?
I don't know what's confusing you, but this model of eating has been the official norm in European countries since at least 1965. The US has now also adopted it as the national standard for eating: http://www.choosemyplate.gov/ (Look at the pie chart image to get a sense of how to divide your intake)
You, my friend, with the provocatively opposing diet to all norms are the one needing to explain how your advice isn't outright dangerous.
Following your advice is worse than eating roundup without the maize for lunch.
The most successful diets have always been varied ones, that includes all of the things you mentioned. Meats and other huge sources of protein, however, are dangerous in large quantities, and you should probably only eat about 20-30% of them, the rest should be salad, fruit and carbohydrates. This is how large parts of Europe eat.
Wanna get thin fast by taking a shortcut such as one of those crazy no-carb-diets? Good luck living past the age of 50. The reports are starting to come in, and it's not looking bright for you guys.
Slashdot Mirror
Most software actually used to work pretty well up until the time when non-programmers started using computers, and demanding features.
Non-programmers do not understand how computers work AT ALL, so they try to use them in all kinds weird and random ways.
For a while, it was the job of the UI to pigeonhole users into what they should and shouldn't do.
But that was a long time ago.
Nowadays, a programmers job is sort of running after the users and making their shit not break when they try to smash it.
In the rare event the user gets any kind of productivity out of their task. Again, it's the programmers job to actively make sure the user is hindered from doing anything further that might destroy the result.
How is knowledge a burden? Most people in most positions could probably double or triple their productivity just by knowing how to automate it. Programming is just the tool for automating mind tasks and the strongest form of applied mathematics.
That's what I'd look for anyways...
A robotic hand is stronger than the paintbrush (or pen).
Seriously, all this secureboot nonsense only amounts to security via obscurity if the root key is also allowed to sign microsoft operating systems.
Any security you configure on a dual boot system will be compromised, as soon as you fire up windows.
Let's keep these patches out until someone really needs them, and in those cases, why can't they just patch their kernel?
Radio jamming is simple and cheap, a missile isn't.
Just add another compression level and merge the code.
Everything and everyone reaps the benefits automatically as soon as they update.
I think it's entirely unreasonable for copyright to last more than 2 years.
Even 14yrs wouldn't release the stranglehold that the current system is putting on the development of society.
We all have been. (using shitty workflows for 20yrs)
Speak for yourself.
Our biggest problem to date has been legacy cruft caused by a failure to abstract out code and break the coupling between the UI and the back end.
Funny, because that's exactly what was happening until the web and touch screens gave UI designers new headaches and set us back another 20 yrs.
Loose couplings, and other improvements, need decades to be improved, it's not something that comes as a feature of your "new" (ancient in reality) UI.
None of the new toolkits are even half as useful as the ones they're trying to replace.
it's just that we needed some "mechanism" to overcome the inertia of the old ways.
Did you ever think about there being a reason for the inertia?
Nothing new happens in IT, if you think you've find something new, then you're probably just inexperienced.
Everything you think is new, has been tried and died. The only difference is that there's a new generation of noobs deluding themselves that they're somehow being innovative, and the further they distance themselves from the old and proven, the longer it'll take for them to finally realize this.
So, maybe the inertia is there specifically to protect us from all these 14yr old "know-it-all" UI designers wearing funny clothes and turtlenecks, who should be working in marketing, not bothering us with their shitty code.
This is not just confined to the commercial development sector, just look at projects like enlightenment, gnome3 or kde4. Complete disasters being an understatement.
Some of us have put a lot of time into trying to break couplings between views, interfaces and data.
And I will tell you, the introduction of tablets suddenly made that work 3x harder, not in an architectural way, but in the way that you now have to support a trillion new toolkits and extensions which are all immature (1990 style) ones.
You'd be inclined to think that if you've been using shitty workflows for 20yrs.
Truth is, tablets have existed for about as long, and some of them were in many ways better than the ones on offer now. Still, they failed.
Some of us have workflows even built into our daily lives, which cannot be accomplished with the limitations of a touch screen.
Most work still depends on being able to type text, one way or another, which a touchscreen alone is useless for.
Most work also depends on focusing your attention on something other than your computer display.
(the amount of traffic accidents has increased tremendously since wide adoption of touch-screens)
All these "improved, modernised" workflows are just a waste of time for developers who need to write new code for stuff that will be used for a very limited time before being forgotten.
It has it's place; kindergarten, info-terminals etc. But, as soon as people progress beyond that technological skill level, they invariably choose a tactile interface.
There are future ways to improve a tablet, to make it as useful as a laptop, but in its current state it amounts to little more than a very expensive remote control for your computer.
I hoped the manufacturers would wait a bit longer until the tablet form factor had matured into something different and useful, now, the wide adoption only amounts to technological failure on a huge scale, and a future landfill the size of the atlantic.
Mod parent up!
Maybe you need to realize that while you *think* you're creating things with your new toy, it's actually more like playing in a sandbox they created.
The illusion of work is becoming more successful than ever.
Someone who prefers a tablet over a keyboard is an almost certain sign that they are useless when it comes to any kind technical competence, and therefore getting things done using modern tools.
Then maybe it's your english language skills you need to brush up on, before even contemplating taking up arabic, because none of your outlandish claims make any sense.
I understand that defending a regime that thrives on mass murder might be difficult, but you might try harder next time to find more plausible explanations to their actions?
So why don't you read it, if not just to find out if your preconceptions may have been a tad incorrect?
You're utterly wrong, your whole premise rests on islam being a people (as the bigot you are) and not just a religion.
People may have just converted to islam because they thought it was better than the alternatives. But it still consisted of many countries and diverse cultures, so this is totally unrelated to islam.
Of course the christian bigots of europe saw this development as alarming, which caused the bloodbath which is the crusades.
Luckily europe has grown out of this horrible mindset. But there are still countries like Israel where religious bigotry is the norm and political aim.
That's the problem with giving guns and nukes to religious fanatics.
When will they grow up and see that we are all brothers?
There's another even more important reason why buying or not buying doesn't matter.
You're not the customer, you're the product.
They are selling you to the networks, app-stores, advertising, personal information etc. That's where the real money is.
If you don't buy an iphone, you probably will buy an Android, whichever way you do it, it's their way.
Maemo was a game changer, which is probably why it got canned.
Look, Israel is just another name for Palestine where a minority is killing their own brothers because of their ethnicity.
You make it sound as if others also think being muslim is somehow bad?
That's just your biggotry speaking.
Historically, Islam has been the most peaceful of the 3 large abrahamic religions. (not that any of them are any good)
The most violent... why don't you guess which people have been repeatedly demanding bloodshed for the last 2300 yrs?
Voting with your wallet doesn't work, the system doesn't work that way. Everything is stacked against the consumer.
If you don't buy their product, they'll make it difficult for you not to, and in the meanwhile everyone not in the know will buy it anyway.
If there are choices, they get eliminated with the combined patent, hostile takeover and walled garden attack.
There needs to be legislation, and the legislation needs to be very generic.
It's always someone else isn't it?
The arabs are the ones harming themselves, only self hating jews criticize Israel. Keep deluding yourself.
In the meantime, I will not buy a single product from Israel before the killing stops.
If that's debatable then it's also debatable whether or not Israel is a country or just a bunch of thugs terrorizing Palestine.
I'm not saying that any of this is true, it's just, that's where your kind of reasoning leads.
So you don't know of any treaties Israel hasn't broken?
How about the Geneva convention, piracy on international waters, assassinations in just about all countries in the world (which all get worked out behind closed doors and forgotten)
It'd be a lot easier if you name a treaty that Israel hasn't broken?
So muslims invaded a country where "their people" used to live two CENTURIES ago and displaced its' inhabitants, and have continued to keep them in a labor-camp like situation for over 50 years just to be able to have a racist apartheid regime?
If Israel ever starts respecting treaties it has signed in front of the world.
Yes, I'm sure you're right, come back to me in a decade if you're still alive.
It's like a cult with you guys isn't it?
The governments are wrong, and handwaving weirdos selling you advice, like Atkins and Taubes know better, it's like the New Age thing all over.
Why don't you read the first two hits on google:
http://reason.com/archives/2003/03/01/big-fat-fake
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2011/05/16/thin-body-of-evidence-why-i-have-doubts-about-gary-taubess-why-we-get-fat/
Everybody knows no-carb diets are a quick fix for fat people wanting to become thin. But the question is, at what price?
It's like putting oxygen on a fire and then wondering why the surroundings are burning along with the BBQ.
Even if you feel comfortable risking your life, it's not ethical to go around telling others to do the same.
why obesity follows malnourished populations as well as over-nourished populations
The vast majority of the populations in the world is overnourished. The malnourished clearly look it, so I don't understand what you're trying to say (Hint: you don't need to be thin to look malnourished).
The government advice is widely ridiculed by anyone who pays any attention to the nutritional research.
Scientists frequently ridicule certain nutritional researchers, since the area of nutritional "research" contains such a large amount of loud self-proclaimed experts.
All their so called research falls flat because there is no reliable metric by which to measure the rate of health degradation based on foods, on spans shorter than 3 decades.
Proper research may surprise you. Have you read books like The China Study?
I don't know what's confusing you, but this model of eating has been the official norm in European countries since at least 1965.
The US has now also adopted it as the national standard for eating:
http://www.choosemyplate.gov/
(Look at the pie chart image to get a sense of how to divide your intake)
You, my friend, with the provocatively opposing diet to all norms are the one needing to explain how your advice isn't outright dangerous.
You sir, are a moron.
Following your advice is worse than eating roundup without the maize for lunch.
The most successful diets have always been varied ones, that includes all of the things you mentioned.
Meats and other huge sources of protein, however, are dangerous in large quantities, and you should probably only eat about 20-30% of them, the rest should be salad, fruit and carbohydrates.
This is how large parts of Europe eat.
Wanna get thin fast by taking a shortcut such as one of those crazy no-carb-diets?
Good luck living past the age of 50. The reports are starting to come in, and it's not looking bright for you guys.