Phoenix is a redesign of the Mozilla browser component, similar to Galeon, K-Meleon and Chimera, but written using the XUL user interface language and designed to be cross-platform.
Writers are lucky to get $1.00 a book sold, that's if you signed a really good contract. I have 3 books published, I did what many writers consider career suicide. I told my publishers to go pound sand and I started self publishing. I now make $10.00 per book sold.
So the question then is: Are you selling more or less than 10% of the quantity of books you would be if you had a publisher working for you?
The consumer benefit of standardization is in having all (or most of) the cell phone manufacturers using it. Your reasoning works for situations where one manufacturer can, working on its own, meet consumer demand -- e.g. if people want purple polka dot cell phones, someone will come out with purple polka dot cell phones. In other words, producers have incentive to give consumers what they want in these typical cases. The adapter plug standardization in question is different, because each individual producer has incentive to create incompatible plugs.
Certainly better performance is a Good Thing, everything else being equal, and in some projects execution speed is vitally important. For a great deal of purposes, however, Ruby's speed is more than adequate. Its benefits easily outweigh the cost of irrelevantly being slower than some other languages in such cases.
I'm seriously confused as to why so many of you consider this woman stupid. Yes, the solutions to her problems are obvious to us, but that doesn't make them inherently obvious. I know many people who I consider quite intelligent who don't know what an operating system is -- not because they're stupid, but because to them, computers are just a tool. If you didn't know what an operating system is, you'd expect a new computer to just work, and to work like you're used to.
I think the real problems highlighted here are not the woman's intelligence, nor the functionality or usability of Ubuntu (or Linux in general). The problems are 1) Verizon for some reason has an installation CD that requires Windows, and 2) her online classes for some reason require MS Word.
The first problem is silly, because there's no good reason for it. Comcast is very easy to set up with any browser on any OS. You plug in your cable modem, connect it to any computer (any architecture that supports an ethernet card will do), fire up your browser, plug in some numbers, bam. No need for custom software.
The second problem is also silly, because with standardized file formats and several cross-platform, stable, open-source office suites that support them, it's ridiculous for a school to require students to use proprietary, expensive software.
In short, many of you are being judgmental assholes who don't even seem to understand the situation.
I'm pretty sure (almost) everyone who knows what GTK is knows that. The only people that don't know it are those who use Windows or a Mac and have never heard of GTK, anyway.
In any case, what does that have to do with making a Qt version of the GIMP? If it's an idea with technical merits, I'm sure the GIMP developers would consider it, regardless of the history behind their current toolkit.
I didn't RTFA, but what a lot of commenters seem to be missing is the concept of economy of scale. The great idea here seems to be that using "off the shelf", mass-produced car parts to create an incubator with equal functionality to that of a standard incubator saves a great deal of money. Plus, the car parts have been better tested and are apparently more reliable. So this is kind of like building a software system by combining lots of preexisting, well-tested components rather than custom designing everything in-house.
Adobe Flash has been pretty rock solid for me for the past two years or so, and it worked acceptably for the year before that (there were some sound issues back then). All three years I've been using it in a 64-bit Firefox on Gentoo. Currently it's Flash player 9.0.124.0 on Firefox 3.0.1. I watch YouTube videos almost every day as well as frequently using other flash video sites. I can't remember the last time Firefox crashed, whether I was watching a flash video or not.
I therefore call bullshit. You should try reinstalling Flash, Firefox, or your whole distro -- or perhaps switch to another distro. Flash on Linux works perfectly over here.
I don't think the question was about graphics processors vs. general purpose processors. I assumed it was about Nvidia graphics processors vs. Intel graphics processors.
I've been using linux since 1999, and in that time I don't recall there ever being a moment when it would make any sense to say that KDE didn't seem as capable as GNOME. Some people prefer GNOME's appearance, design philosophy, or set of apps to KDE's -- and vice versa -- but when it comes to capabilities, KDE has always (at least since '99) been the clear winner. In fact, lack of capabilities is GNOME's selling point -- less capabilities means a simpler interface that many people prefer.
The one time I traveled 8 timezones east, I spent most of a week feeling like a zombie (completely non-functional). It took about 3 weeks before it felt like I had fully adjusted. Traveling back west was, like you say, immensely easier. I was just an early riser for a few weeks. I should mention, however, that I initially only came back 5 of the 8 timezones, adjusted, and then went the other 3, so that's another reason it was easier.
it will be nice to be able to search quickly for files without needing to open a browser. I didn't know anyone spent time at their computer without a browser open. It boggles my mind...
The confusion is how the word metabolism is used in the media and popular culture. Metabolism is the sum total of all chemical reactions occurring in the body. All of the cool possibilities for this technology that you just listed from the article are exactly what the article says they are "upgrades" to the human metabolism. This has nothing to do with increasing the overall rate of systemic cellular metabolism (thereby increasing energy consumption, and possibly weight loss). This is about altering the metabolic processes of specific cells for specific ends.
This isn't about making extensions compatible, it's about forcing Firefox to allow you to use extensions that claim not to be compatible, but very well might be. Major breakage certainly could occur, but I find it worth the risk. Many extensions that I was using with beta5 claimed not to work in rc1. Forcing them to load anyway has been very helpful, and they have all worked perfectly without causing any problems (as far as I can tell).
Well, in the dialogue following his announcement, Bryan clarified with this:
One of our biggest advantages (seen from the developers point of view) is that we have no users and I'd rather keep it that way for a while longer. I do however think the work we're doing is sufficiently mature and interesting for other developers to peek at - not install Exherbo but merely looking at our ideas and concepts and see if they want to grab some of them.
It's not like it's Yet Another Binary Package Format -- it's a source-based format that seeks to improve upon Gentoo's ebuild format in ways that are unlikely to ever happen in Gentoo.
Personally, I find this to be the most interesting and newsworthy item I've seen on Slashdot for some time -- but I'm a long-time Gentoo user with an interest in these sorts of things.
Slashdot Mirror
Firefox has always had Windows as its primary GUI and target platform, with Linux added as an afterthought
Firefox is Phoenix, which has always been cross-platform, being a stripped-down version of Mozilla.
From the Phoenix 0.1 release notes:
Phoenix is a redesign of the Mozilla browser component, similar to Galeon, K-Meleon and Chimera, but written using the XUL user interface language and designed to be cross-platform.
They start writing some big, ugly, messy Windows application (hello, Firefox), and then they moan and groan when porting it to Linux
Mosaic was originally designed for UNIX / X Windows. Mosaic Netscape (->) Netscape Navigator -> Mozilla -> Phoenix -> Firebird -> Firefox.
It's been cross platform for a very, very long time, and it definitely didn't start as a "big, ugly, messy Windows application".
Writers are lucky to get $1.00 a book sold, that's if you signed a really good contract. I have 3 books published, I did what many writers consider career suicide. I told my publishers to go pound sand and I started self publishing. I now make $10.00 per book sold.
So the question then is: Are you selling more or less than 10% of the quantity of books you would be if you had a publisher working for you?
I'm not new here, but seriously: since when is Slashdot a completely clueless news source that confuses crackers with hackers?
Hackers are the good guys who, you know, hack away on free software.
Crackers are the bad guys who think they're cool because they know enough to get around security holes and whatnot.
The consumer benefit of standardization is in having all (or most of) the cell phone manufacturers using it. Your reasoning works for situations where one manufacturer can, working on its own, meet consumer demand -- e.g. if people want purple polka dot cell phones, someone will come out with purple polka dot cell phones. In other words, producers have incentive to give consumers what they want in these typical cases. The adapter plug standardization in question is different, because each individual producer has incentive to create incompatible plugs.
Certainly better performance is a Good Thing, everything else being equal, and in some projects execution speed is vitally important. For a great deal of purposes, however, Ruby's speed is more than adequate. Its benefits easily outweigh the cost of irrelevantly being slower than some other languages in such cases.
Apparently, NL = The Netherlands, in case anyone else didn't know that...
I'm seriously confused as to why so many of you consider this woman stupid. Yes, the solutions to her problems are obvious to us, but that doesn't make them inherently obvious. I know many people who I consider quite intelligent who don't know what an operating system is -- not because they're stupid, but because to them, computers are just a tool. If you didn't know what an operating system is, you'd expect a new computer to just work, and to work like you're used to.
I think the real problems highlighted here are not the woman's intelligence, nor the functionality or usability of Ubuntu (or Linux in general). The problems are 1) Verizon for some reason has an installation CD that requires Windows, and 2) her online classes for some reason require MS Word.
The first problem is silly, because there's no good reason for it. Comcast is very easy to set up with any browser on any OS. You plug in your cable modem, connect it to any computer (any architecture that supports an ethernet card will do), fire up your browser, plug in some numbers, bam. No need for custom software.
The second problem is also silly, because with standardized file formats and several cross-platform, stable, open-source office suites that support them, it's ridiculous for a school to require students to use proprietary, expensive software.
In short, many of you are being judgmental assholes who don't even seem to understand the situation.
Since when is 4186 "more than triple" 1424?
I'm pretty sure (almost) everyone who knows what GTK is knows that. The only people that don't know it are those who use Windows or a Mac and have never heard of GTK, anyway.
In any case, what does that have to do with making a Qt version of the GIMP? If it's an idea with technical merits, I'm sure the GIMP developers would consider it, regardless of the history behind their current toolkit.
http://xkcd.com/169/
If you're going to link to xkcd, you should link to the page, not to the image. The mouseover text is usually half the fun.
I didn't RTFA, but what a lot of commenters seem to be missing is the concept of economy of scale. The great idea here seems to be that using "off the shelf", mass-produced car parts to create an incubator with equal functionality to that of a standard incubator saves a great deal of money. Plus, the car parts have been better tested and are apparently more reliable. So this is kind of like building a software system by combining lots of preexisting, well-tested components rather than custom designing everything in-house.
I think you mean that you couldn't care less, not that you could.
Sorry to be anal, but that's one error that's not going to catch on and become standard if I can help it.
Hackety Hack is designed just for this purpose.
Um, Scheme is a Lisp.
Adobe Flash has been pretty rock solid for me for the past two years or so, and it worked acceptably for the year before that (there were some sound issues back then). All three years I've been using it in a 64-bit Firefox on Gentoo. Currently it's Flash player 9.0.124.0 on Firefox 3.0.1. I watch YouTube videos almost every day as well as frequently using other flash video sites. I can't remember the last time Firefox crashed, whether I was watching a flash video or not.
I therefore call bullshit. You should try reinstalling Flash, Firefox, or your whole distro -- or perhaps switch to another distro. Flash on Linux works perfectly over here.
http://packages.gentoo.org/feed/arch/amd64 - So I know when "sudo emerge --sync" is particularly called for
http://www.desktoplinux.com/backend/headlines.rss - Occasionally informs me of things not covered on Slashdot
http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot - Yup
http://feeds.feedburner.com/rawstory/gKpz - Politics
I don't think the question was about graphics processors vs. general purpose processors. I assumed it was about Nvidia graphics processors vs. Intel graphics processors.
I've been using linux since 1999, and in that time I don't recall there ever being a moment when it would make any sense to say that KDE didn't seem as capable as GNOME. Some people prefer GNOME's appearance, design philosophy, or set of apps to KDE's -- and vice versa -- but when it comes to capabilities, KDE has always (at least since '99) been the clear winner. In fact, lack of capabilities is GNOME's selling point -- less capabilities means a simpler interface that many people prefer.
The one time I traveled 8 timezones east, I spent most of a week feeling like a zombie (completely non-functional). It took about 3 weeks before it felt like I had fully adjusted. Traveling back west was, like you say, immensely easier. I was just an early riser for a few weeks. I should mention, however, that I initially only came back 5 of the 8 timezones, adjusted, and then went the other 3, so that's another reason it was easier.
The confusion is how the word metabolism is used in the media and popular culture. Metabolism is the sum total of all chemical reactions occurring in the body. All of the cool possibilities for this technology that you just listed from the article are exactly what the article says they are "upgrades" to the human metabolism. This has nothing to do with increasing the overall rate of systemic cellular metabolism (thereby increasing energy consumption, and possibly weight loss). This is about altering the metabolic processes of specific cells for specific ends.
This isn't about making extensions compatible, it's about forcing Firefox to allow you to use extensions that claim not to be compatible, but very well might be. Major breakage certainly could occur, but I find it worth the risk. Many extensions that I was using with beta5 claimed not to work in rc1. Forcing them to load anyway has been very helpful, and they have all worked perfectly without causing any problems (as far as I can tell).
It's not like it's Yet Another Binary Package Format -- it's a source-based format that seeks to improve upon Gentoo's ebuild format in ways that are unlikely to ever happen in Gentoo.
Personally, I find this to be the most interesting and newsworthy item I've seen on Slashdot for some time -- but I'm a long-time Gentoo user with an interest in these sorts of things.