Some artists make "modern" art, where no brushes are used, just lopping paint at weird angles. This doesn't seem conducive to this kind of verification.
"I'm so tired of the slashdot "well I can do it by going through X steps and compiling source so everyone else can too" crap. The local installation option would be a great great option to have, end of story. Why would you even argue that? Are you trolling?"
Are you a user, or an administrator? If you are a user, then you are subject to the implementation that the administrator chose for that particular computer. It's not your computer. The administrator has to support the users and keep things running. It is not in the administrator's best interest to allow any user to run any version of any utility or program, as it would make easy support impossible. Corporations and organizations build systems with standards in mind to make support feasible-- If you install software on your computer or on your account that the organization doesn't support, the organization resets your stuff back to their default to verify functionality.
build your own goddamn box if you want to play with something not normal, or else figure out how to do it yourself, even if it is the hard way. You were provided with an environment because someone who is held in esteem, both for responsibility and authority, has the power to decide what is on the box. If you circumvent that, you do it at your own peril, and they're not going to make it easy for you to do. End of story.
I've gotten to the point where I just stick with stock "unstable" Debian because I don't really feel like playing much anymore. I work with computers for a living and am mostly sick of them when I get home. Could be on account of work using mostly Microsoft products and my having to constantly remove spyware from probably fifty computers a week, but oh well.
"Ability to install software, with all the benefits of dependancy checking, without typing in a root password. Users should be able to get their own up-to-date version of Perl and whatever it depends on, and installing it in their home directory, WITHOUT messing up other users by changing the default perl."
If you're at that level to where you're playing with something for research purposes or getting far beyond the norm, either set up your own damn box or learn how to download the application in a source or raw binary form.
When I was at ASU I used Netscape, running on the SunOS 5.6-based servers, with my X redirection stuff putting the program on the HP Envizex i-Series terminal. It wasn't an IT supported configuration, but if I wanted to use other than their installed "Hot Java" web browser I needed to figure out how to do it myself, so I did. I could have gone over and used a PC or I could have brought my own computer, but it was their equipment, and if I wanted to do something different then I had to do it myself. No handholding.
"...and I've never heard a windows luser complain about 'dependancy hell'."
Ever worked with custom software for a specific target audience, like workorder systems, financial systems, student record systems, health record systems, and the like? Ever try to run Ad Aware 6.0 on a Windows 95-based box? Ever try to run an older version of some Microsoft network utility on a newer version of their OS because of requirements of the environment that it's going into? Ever try to secure a Windows 98, NT, or Millennium box against new exploits?
I switched to Debian specifically because of the ease of use with the packaging during the era when RPM still sucked massively and was fragmented between RedHat, SuSE, and Mandrake so badly that they couldn't use each others' RPMs.
If I want to not have dependency-based packages I use Slackware, where I use Slackware's tarred gzips or I download source and compile it. If I want a workstation where I can grab X piece of software easily, then it's Debian.
The only thing that this'll be useful for, for me anyway, is installing software that companies release RPM-only, binary only that don't have Open Source alternatives.
"And since we have to walk on a 40' high plaster ceiling that is 40 years old, the lesser trips we make to change house lights, the better it is, no matter what the cost may be."
What kind of plaster? My house, built in the 1950s, has standard wooden studs placed sixteen inches apart, a layer of sheetrock, followed by a plastering in cement that is the better part of an inch thick. We had to remove some sections of wall to make holes for the AV equipment (in-wall cabinets) and we had to break out the ten pound sledge hammer to make any real progress. Punching the wall has absolutely no effect other than severely bruised knuckles.
If y'all are truly concerned about the safety of the lighting, that's an OSHA violation if anyone has to go there with severe risk of falling through, and the theatre owners need to install a catwalk or have the ceiling actually tested and a safe path demarkated and roped off.
Sounds like a science experiment that I could actually participate in.
I wonder why they never featured this one on Bill Nye The Science Guy or on Beakman's World. I don't think that Lester, the self-proclaimed, "Man in a Rat Suit" would have been much different, even if he were the hands-on evaluator...
"What's insufferable, and what I wager is the root cause for much of the world's contempt towards the nation, is combining that complete disregard for others with such high moral arrogance and platitudes, which you believe! It's astounding and history will judge you rightly as you continue in your slide."
There are some of us who feel otherwise. Take the day that planes crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, for example. I do not dispute that the events were horrible, especially ones against civilians, but this should be a wakeup call to the US to re-evaluate its policies. People do not just kill themselves to do something like that for no reason, and people do not convince others to do that without either having real points or else very well presented fallacy that fits the perceptions of the listener. That attack required months, if not years of planning by the people who perpetuated the attacks, which could easily have led to people backing out if they saw any glimmer of wrongness in the idea of attacking or in the logic presented to convince them to do it.
The US is required to go after the organization that came up with and implemented the attack, that's a given. You threaten someone with real injury and they will fight back, especially when they're used to being the baddest one on the block. However, a smart 'victim' will consider why such an attack happened, and if there is anything that they can do within reason to keep it from happening again. This is what the US has failed to do, since we've invaded a country not involved under pretense of securing America from terror. We haven't tried to make nice with nations that have had mixed relations with us, we haven't considered relationships that bring our companies into third world nations to exploit labor, and we haven't stepped back to remove the Crusade/Jihad appearance of the situation, which plays right into the hands of those who would do us ill. It probably wouldn't be hard for the US to change some policies to make less of an impact on other nations without really making a severe impact on ourselves. It definitely would be in our best interests to take the moral high-ground in all our World affairs, which would help our position with legitimacy that we currently lack. Instead out government does what it does, further deepening the hole that we're already in.
Re:Sun's hardware does run linux well
on
Sun-isms Debunked
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· Score: 3, Informative
I don't look at processor as the main bottleneck in a computer, I look at memory. I had a 350MHz processor when most of my friends had a Gigahertz or better, and I still ended up with better overall performance because I had 768MB RAM and most of them had 128MB.
At work we're still replacing Pentium 75 - 133 era machines, and when the user's department doesn't have the money to do it right they end up with a Pentium 233MMX with 384MB RAM running Windows 98SE. The computer boots and runs fairly well in that configuration, and as long as we keep their software down to versions that were modern or semi-modern with the machine (Office 2000, Novell 3.32sp2 client, IE 6.0 or Mozilla, etc) the computer responds pretty well, and the users don't realise how old their machine is.
My laptop is a Celeron-700MHz with 192MB RAM, which is maxing the machine out. I'd take a lappy with a processor as slow as 500MHz so long as I can get up to 512MB RAM or more, it would beat the pants off of this current one when a lot of stuff is running simultaneously.
Well, that I had never heard of Elf or heard so little about it that I actually had to look up the movie should indicate how much I participate in following the spoon-fed culture that most of America and the western world subscribes to. I don't own a TV. I do have a projector, but it has no tuner. I have a Laserdisc player, a DVD player, and a VCR, but no antenna and no cable TV. I tend to wait to see if something is still cool or good after its initial popular-fad period is over before considering buying it generally. This is probably why I have a bank account while most of my geeky friends are always broke-- they're spending their money without considering why or if they really actually need something.
Today on NPR they talked about a new Pee Wee's Playhouse set. Apparently two $50 boxed sets contain a kid-friendly release of the entire series, with no director or cast commentary, no behind-the-scenes, just raw episodes of the show. They specifically have a plan for a full commentary and value-add version in a year or so, but they aren't claiming that this is anymore than the original series. I'll probably end up buying it. Contrast that with Lucas' new releases in the Star Wars, which continue to devolve the quaint trilogy into corporate crap. I have Laserdiscs of the originals, and that's where I intend to stop with these titles.
"...but they can make it up by releasing an "Unrated" DVD of Elf."
As soon as you said that I looked up Elf to find out how many hot chicks were in it, and all I found was a picture of some former Saturday Night Live actor. Needless to say I was quite disappointed.
Having seen numerous Penny Arcade comics poking at other comics, have you had any odd personal interaction with the creators of those comics? What's the weirdest thing to happen as a part of your lampooning, aside from Carlton Cards' reaction?
"Whether or not someone would report a violation can be an indicator of how just a law is. If you don't report it, you imply a measure of consent for the activity."
Exactly. I personally don't worry about people playing games on console emulators on their computers, especially since the games and consoles are basically end-of-lifed, but I do object to a middleman taking profit in distributing these, especially when lots of people buying them don't know that these are unlicensed. Nintendo sold products, in the form of a cartridge that contained the game. To the user it didn't matter that it was software, as it was a thing. It didn't come in a format that was consumer-readable by anything other than Nintendo's console, and the prices weren't terribly unreasonable.
This is a direct application of old-school Copyright law, which was instituted to protect writers from publishers, who had the odd habit of running off extra copies of writers' works and distributing it for their own profit without paying the writer his or her due. In this case, people are copying and redistributing Nintendo's creations, without paying Nintendo or obtaining permission otherwise, and are making a profit in the process. These aren't some kids/people exchanging mp3s with no financial compensation to each other, this is outright, for-profit commercial piracy against a company that has typically been fair to its customers.
If you want Nintendo games, go to a used electronics store. They have bins and bins of them, often for less than $5 apiece. Pawn shops do too. Systems are cheap, frequently less than $20, and you own the real thing, not some cheezy, half-assed emulator that has bugs.
"...and I continued to rip of Sony many hundreds of dollars per week at the ripe age of 14. My point is now that I am 20 years old and mature..." (emphasis added)
Wow. Mature at age 20? young whippersnapper! What'll he get to my ripe old age of 24...
NOTE for the humor-impaired: This post intended to be funny.
"Just as a jackhammers aren't very dangerous to knowledgeable professionals, they can be very dangerous when used by masses who don't know any better."
I can definitely vouch for this one! My roommate, his father, and I used one to break up a footing that had been dug up and left in the alley way behind the house, and we borrowed the neighbour's jackhammer. There is now a new hole in their truck's tailgate, broken concrete that the footing was sitting on, and several cuts and bruises. Thankfully the jackhammer was sturdy enough to withstand falling to the ground repeatedly...
I dislike tabbed browsing. I started with Netscape.99 beta for Windows 3.1 and I've been using Netscape/Mozilla exclusively since Microsoft started bungling IE with their operating systems. We're talking Windows 95 OSR2 era. I dislike tabbed browsing because I like having each page in the application pager for my GUI rather than having one particular app that has to be paged to, then the appropriate tab paged to. Tabs seem dumb.
so not everyone who sees tabbed browsing loves the feature.
"This is like saying that your printer can play movies if you print out each frame and then flip through them.
Get a Hewlett Packard Color LaserJet 4650DN (duplex for double-sided printing) and plug it into three-phase power and it'll print fast enough to do this...
Of course, you won't be able to hear the soundtrack over the whine of rollers and gears burning themselves up...
Slashdot Mirror
Some artists make "modern" art, where no brushes are used, just lopping paint at weird angles. This doesn't seem conducive to this kind of verification.
Well, I did try to network two compputers by two cans and a piece of string once, using sound cards, but it didn't work so well.
I used the Sun box because the HP/UX box sucked...
"I'm so tired of the slashdot "well I can do it by going through X steps and compiling source so everyone else can too" crap. The local installation option would be a great great option to have, end of story. Why would you even argue that? Are you trolling?"
Are you a user, or an administrator? If you are a user, then you are subject to the implementation that the administrator chose for that particular computer. It's not your computer . The administrator has to support the users and keep things running. It is not in the administrator's best interest to allow any user to run any version of any utility or program, as it would make easy support impossible. Corporations and organizations build systems with standards in mind to make support feasible-- If you install software on your computer or on your account that the organization doesn't support, the organization resets your stuff back to their default to verify functionality.
build your own goddamn box if you want to play with something not normal, or else figure out how to do it yourself, even if it is the hard way. You were provided with an environment because someone who is held in esteem, both for responsibility and authority, has the power to decide what is on the box. If you circumvent that, you do it at your own peril, and they're not going to make it easy for you to do. End of story.
I've gotten to the point where I just stick with stock "unstable" Debian because I don't really feel like playing much anymore. I work with computers for a living and am mostly sick of them when I get home. Could be on account of work using mostly Microsoft products and my having to constantly remove spyware from probably fifty computers a week, but oh well.
"Ability to install software, with all the benefits of dependancy checking, without typing in a root password. Users should be able to get their own up-to-date version of Perl and whatever it depends on, and installing it in their home directory, WITHOUT messing up other users by changing the default perl."
If you're at that level to where you're playing with something for research purposes or getting far beyond the norm, either set up your own damn box or learn how to download the application in a source or raw binary form.
When I was at ASU I used Netscape, running on the SunOS 5.6-based servers, with my X redirection stuff putting the program on the HP Envizex i-Series terminal. It wasn't an IT supported configuration, but if I wanted to use other than their installed "Hot Java" web browser I needed to figure out how to do it myself, so I did. I could have gone over and used a PC or I could have brought my own computer, but it was their equipment, and if I wanted to do something different then I had to do it myself. No handholding.
"...and I've never heard a windows luser complain about 'dependancy hell'."
Ever worked with custom software for a specific target audience, like workorder systems, financial systems, student record systems, health record systems, and the like? Ever try to run Ad Aware 6.0 on a Windows 95-based box? Ever try to run an older version of some Microsoft network utility on a newer version of their OS because of requirements of the environment that it's going into? Ever try to secure a Windows 98, NT, or Millennium box against new exploits?
...Debian.
I switched to Debian specifically because of the ease of use with the packaging during the era when RPM still sucked massively and was fragmented between RedHat, SuSE, and Mandrake so badly that they couldn't use each others' RPMs.
If I want to not have dependency-based packages I use Slackware, where I use Slackware's tarred gzips or I download source and compile it. If I want a workstation where I can grab X piece of software easily, then it's Debian.
The only thing that this'll be useful for, for me anyway, is installing software that companies release RPM-only, binary only that don't have Open Source alternatives.
"And since we have to walk on a 40' high plaster ceiling that is 40 years old, the lesser trips we make to change house lights, the better it is, no matter what the cost may be."
What kind of plaster? My house, built in the 1950s, has standard wooden studs placed sixteen inches apart, a layer of sheetrock, followed by a plastering in cement that is the better part of an inch thick. We had to remove some sections of wall to make holes for the AV equipment (in-wall cabinets) and we had to break out the ten pound sledge hammer to make any real progress. Punching the wall has absolutely no effect other than severely bruised knuckles.
If y'all are truly concerned about the safety of the lighting, that's an OSHA violation if anyone has to go there with severe risk of falling through, and the theatre owners need to install a catwalk or have the ceiling actually tested and a safe path demarkated and roped off.
I liked this book's analysis, admittedly not on Luna, a lot better: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553 560735/qid=1100966458/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/104-3418 101-1234305?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
Sounds like a science experiment that I could actually participate in.
I wonder why they never featured this one on Bill Nye The Science Guy or on Beakman's World. I don't think that Lester, the self-proclaimed, "Man in a Rat Suit" would have been much different, even if he were the hands-on evaluator...
"What's insufferable, and what I wager is the root cause for much of the world's contempt towards the nation, is combining that complete disregard for others with such high moral arrogance and platitudes, which you believe! It's astounding and history will judge you rightly as you continue in your slide."
There are some of us who feel otherwise. Take the day that planes crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, for example. I do not dispute that the events were horrible, especially ones against civilians, but this should be a wakeup call to the US to re-evaluate its policies. People do not just kill themselves to do something like that for no reason, and people do not convince others to do that without either having real points or else very well presented fallacy that fits the perceptions of the listener. That attack required months, if not years of planning by the people who perpetuated the attacks, which could easily have led to people backing out if they saw any glimmer of wrongness in the idea of attacking or in the logic presented to convince them to do it.
The US is required to go after the organization that came up with and implemented the attack, that's a given. You threaten someone with real injury and they will fight back, especially when they're used to being the baddest one on the block. However, a smart 'victim' will consider why such an attack happened, and if there is anything that they can do within reason to keep it from happening again. This is what the US has failed to do, since we've invaded a country not involved under pretense of securing America from terror. We haven't tried to make nice with nations that have had mixed relations with us, we haven't considered relationships that bring our companies into third world nations to exploit labor, and we haven't stepped back to remove the Crusade/Jihad appearance of the situation, which plays right into the hands of those who would do us ill. It probably wouldn't be hard for the US to change some policies to make less of an impact on other nations without really making a severe impact on ourselves. It definitely would be in our best interests to take the moral high-ground in all our World affairs, which would help our position with legitimacy that we currently lack. Instead out government does what it does, further deepening the hole that we're already in.
I don't look at processor as the main bottleneck in a computer, I look at memory. I had a 350MHz processor when most of my friends had a Gigahertz or better, and I still ended up with better overall performance because I had 768MB RAM and most of them had 128MB.
At work we're still replacing Pentium 75 - 133 era machines, and when the user's department doesn't have the money to do it right they end up with a Pentium 233MMX with 384MB RAM running Windows 98SE. The computer boots and runs fairly well in that configuration, and as long as we keep their software down to versions that were modern or semi-modern with the machine (Office 2000, Novell 3.32sp2 client, IE 6.0 or Mozilla, etc) the computer responds pretty well, and the users don't realise how old their machine is.
My laptop is a Celeron-700MHz with 192MB RAM, which is maxing the machine out. I'd take a lappy with a processor as slow as 500MHz so long as I can get up to 512MB RAM or more, it would beat the pants off of this current one when a lot of stuff is running simultaneously.
Well, that I had never heard of Elf or heard so little about it that I actually had to look up the movie should indicate how much I participate in following the spoon-fed culture that most of America and the western world subscribes to. I don't own a TV. I do have a projector, but it has no tuner. I have a Laserdisc player, a DVD player, and a VCR, but no antenna and no cable TV. I tend to wait to see if something is still cool or good after its initial popular-fad period is over before considering buying it generally. This is probably why I have a bank account while most of my geeky friends are always broke-- they're spending their money without considering why or if they really actually need something.
Today on NPR they talked about a new Pee Wee's Playhouse set. Apparently two $50 boxed sets contain a kid-friendly release of the entire series, with no director or cast commentary, no behind-the-scenes, just raw episodes of the show. They specifically have a plan for a full commentary and value-add version in a year or so, but they aren't claiming that this is anymore than the original series. I'll probably end up buying it. Contrast that with Lucas' new releases in the Star Wars, which continue to devolve the quaint trilogy into corporate crap. I have Laserdiscs of the originals, and that's where I intend to stop with these titles.
</rant>
"Now I think about it, perhpaps some various world leaders could use 10 or so hours orbiting alone to help them get their perspective back."
I've thought we should launch our world leaders into space for quite some time...
NOTE: For any Secret Service Agents reading, this statement is made in jest...
...to be stuck in the command module, so close to the Moon yet to never set foot on it?
"...but they can make it up by releasing an "Unrated" DVD of Elf."
As soon as you said that I looked up Elf to find out how many hot chicks were in it, and all I found was a picture of some former Saturday Night Live actor. Needless to say I was quite disappointed.
Having seen numerous Penny Arcade comics poking at other comics, have you had any odd personal interaction with the creators of those comics? What's the weirdest thing to happen as a part of your lampooning, aside from Carlton Cards' reaction?
"Finally a Nintendo Virtual Boy that I can share and experience with my friends!"
Dammit! I was just about to make that joke too!
Are the seizures and migraine headaches a standard feature, or optional?
"Whether or not someone would report a violation can be an indicator of how just a law is. If you don't report it, you imply a measure of consent for the activity."
Exactly. I personally don't worry about people playing games on console emulators on their computers, especially since the games and consoles are basically end-of-lifed, but I do object to a middleman taking profit in distributing these, especially when lots of people buying them don't know that these are unlicensed. Nintendo sold products, in the form of a cartridge that contained the game. To the user it didn't matter that it was software, as it was a thing. It didn't come in a format that was consumer-readable by anything other than Nintendo's console, and the prices weren't terribly unreasonable.
This is a direct application of old-school Copyright law, which was instituted to protect writers from publishers, who had the odd habit of running off extra copies of writers' works and distributing it for their own profit without paying the writer his or her due. In this case, people are copying and redistributing Nintendo's creations, without paying Nintendo or obtaining permission otherwise, and are making a profit in the process. These aren't some kids/people exchanging mp3s with no financial compensation to each other, this is outright, for-profit commercial piracy against a company that has typically been fair to its customers.
If you want Nintendo games, go to a used electronics store. They have bins and bins of them, often for less than $5 apiece. Pawn shops do too. Systems are cheap, frequently less than $20, and you own the real thing, not some cheezy, half-assed emulator that has bugs.
"...and I continued to rip of Sony many hundreds of dollars per week at the ripe age of 14. My point is now that I am 20 years old and mature..." (emphasis added)
Wow. Mature at age 20? young whippersnapper! What'll he get to my ripe old age of 24...
NOTE for the humor-impaired: This post intended to be funny.
Yes, I'm well aware of how to not use tabs, thanks. My point was to refute the tabs are the second coming post that I replied to.
"Just as a jackhammers aren't very dangerous to knowledgeable professionals, they can be very dangerous when used by masses who don't know any better."
I can definitely vouch for this one! My roommate, his father, and I used one to break up a footing that had been dug up and left in the alley way behind the house, and we borrowed the neighbour's jackhammer. There is now a new hole in their truck's tailgate, broken concrete that the footing was sitting on, and several cuts and bruises. Thankfully the jackhammer was sturdy enough to withstand falling to the ground repeatedly...
I dislike tabbed browsing. I started with Netscape .99 beta for Windows 3.1 and I've been using Netscape/Mozilla exclusively since Microsoft started bungling IE with their operating systems. We're talking Windows 95 OSR2 era. I dislike tabbed browsing because I like having each page in the application pager for my GUI rather than having one particular app that has to be paged to, then the appropriate tab paged to. Tabs seem dumb.
so not everyone who sees tabbed browsing loves the feature.
"This is like saying that your printer can play movies if you print out each frame and then flip through them.
Get a Hewlett Packard Color LaserJet 4650DN (duplex for double-sided printing) and plug it into three-phase power and it'll print fast enough to do this...
Of course, you won't be able to hear the soundtrack over the whine of rollers and gears burning themselves up...
"They all have bugs, none of them are perfect, and arguing about that stuff is as stupid as Window$ users.."
Ow! The irony is making my stomach hurt!