Well, on OS X you use the Apple menu to shut down aour Apple computer. Makes sense. By the way, I usually use the eject button/combination on my keyboard to eject a CD (on the 12" iBook that would be fn-F12).
Granted, Start -> Shutdown is not quite a showstopper, but Apple does have a less confusing way - if only because they didn't give their menu a descriptive name (which it doesn't need). And the whole "dragging a drive to the trash" thing is only there to appease the former MacOS 9 users.
Re:can anyone tell me a single compelling reason..
on
Longhorn Beta Begins
·
· Score: 2, Funny
We're talking about Joe Average User; of course he has a cracked version. Non-cracked/non-corporate Windowses are only used by corporations...
Re:Sounds like a PR firm made the info page here..
on
Longhorn Beta Begins
·
· Score: 1
Obviously, Microsoft has accepted the fact that Windows is only good for one thing and that is gaming. LH will be the first step towards their new, exciting platform claled "PC 360", which will combine the simplicity of hacking the Windows internals with the versatility of the XBox and a user interface so full of eyecandy that even Steve Jobs' eyes will glaze over as he goes into a seizure. All that for just 499 USD (hardware not included)!
There ought to be a simple law that states that "any software installer must clearly label the buttons and other control areas in their installer, such that there can be no confusion or deception as to the function of each control, whereas a user could be tricked into allowing the installation without his consent."
We have something like that in Germany... If sonmeone wants to install and run a dialer on your system they have to jump through several hoops - the dialer may not be installed without your consent. That means typing "OK" into a text field. The installer has to provide, in easily readable letters, information about what exactlyyou're going to pay and what exactly you're installing there. And so on.
If the RegTP (the German regulation authority for telecomm and postal stuff) finds out that someone didn't comply with all regulations or even used some kind of technique to automatically enter the "OK" etc. he's getting his licence withdrawn, which means that he doesn't get a single cent anymore and you can get your money refunded if you can prove that he tricked you.
That law was damn necessary - in the German-speaking parts of the internet auto-installing dialers used to be the most common form of malware, except maybe for viral mails.
Open == verifiable. I can easily make up my own encryption scheme, which might sound all nice and use 4096 bit keys but can be easily taken apart with a known-ciphertext attack. People are going to try to crack my encryption and if it's weak they will succeed. Or I can use a publically-known encryption scheme the strength of which has been formally proven.
The problem with proprietary encryption schemes is that they might have gaping holes which you have never noticed. Public schemes will be analyzed by scientists until the strength is formally (dis)proven, usually without you having to spend lots of money on it.
Why can't we just use decent modificators? I declare some of my information public and only me and my children (yeah, right) can access it. Or I restrict usage to everyone in the same package as me.
Then again, importing biz.booksellers.amazon.* might unnecessarily bloat my package... but it's still better than declaring all of my information as public.
Bong are illegal over there? In Germany you can legally buy bongs and there are stores selling "smoking accessories", which can include everything from pipe cleaners to bongs.
Weed is still illegal, but bongs are just water pipes and they aren't necessarily used for illegal activity. Just like BitTorrent, if you think about it.
Great, that means that the virtual brush will become stuck in a wall while the ink jumps up from the paper and accelerates to escape velocity. This will become the world's leading tool for abstract painting!
I love how when I look for linux apps in sourceforge, a great deal of what I find that would be interesting to use is at version.01 and such. Not even a tenth of a final version. Granted I know that open source projects move slowly, but why even bother advertising your project when it isn't even 1/10th of the way done?
Because you hope to attract developers? If you have something that is 1% done and that 1% looks good and the project is interesting, someone might just want to drop by and help making the other 99% happen.
I've recently started a project with some people I know. Essentially it's supposed to be a Java-based easy to use games IDE/RAD tool. We probably don't have the resources to pull it off - first of all, we're lacking decent Java programmers that aren't short on time.
So we'll first work everything out and create the first few bits of the app. Stuff that is representative of what we're trying to do. Once we've got enough stuff to show where we're going we'll open a project on SF and continue working on it. Maybe someone notices us and offers help.
Also, sometimes a software gets used before it's anywhere near what it's supposed to be. If the roadmap says that feature XYZ has to be introduced in order to reach version 0.8 and everyone is using the program before feature XYZ can be implemented that means that you can a) change the roadmap, calling what you consider an unfinished product version 1.0 or b) let everyone use version 0.7 and introduce feature XYZ when it's done.
Note that I'd VERY MUCH prefer Apple to just let Sun provide the OS X JRE. I bought an iBook a couple of monthe before Tiger came out and was not happy to hear that I could forget about using Java 1.5 features as Apple didn't want to bother backporting it (I'm a student and I have better things to do with my money than to pay 90 EUR for what's essentially a Java update).
Okay, so I dug out a preview patch from Sun that allows a 1.4 JRE to use most of the 1.5 features, but I still have to live with annoyances like a javadoc that can't handle generics or having to use separate versions of java/javac depending on which features I'm using in the code.
OS X is a very nice operating system and I'm thinking of migrating to it as my primary OS (on the notebook it's already my favourite), but Apple's Java policy is hideous. Indeed it's one of the major arguments in favor of staying with Linux.
I really hope that, unlike Java, Apple's version of Python can be replaced by an official version. It'd be sad if Python users were affected by forced upgrades, too.
Yes. In fact, there's already a documentary in the making, called Escape from the US. It will be directed by John Carpenter and the lead role of a tough one-screened DNS server (with the network name of snake.plissken) will be played by Kurt Russell. In the movie, snake is forced by the president of the USA to invade ICANN territory and extract the DNS information about the president's daughter's website. He has to do so in nine hours, as the president's men installed a cronjob that will automatically shutdown -h now him after said time.
Critics are already expecting this to become a classic of the action genre.
Besides, if they decide to screw with the official root servers, Europeans still can switch to the ORSN servers, which usually are synchronized with the ICANN servers but stop synchronizing when the current state of world politics makes it possible that the ICANN servers might be subject to manipulation or downtime.
It's because of the limited information bandwidth of the medium. In normal conversations, we pick up informations about the partner on various levels: We analyze how he's dressed, how he moves, subtle changes in the way he expresses himself (like changes in pitch, volume or vocabulary). We have dozens of channels that all get processed simultaneously. We gather information about the topic the speaker is talikg about, but at the same time we also gather lost of meta-information; information about the speaker himself.
In discussion boards like/. we usually have much less information: We can anaylze the nickname, the writing style and the vocabulary and that's pretty much it. We can check whether or not the text contains smilies and what kinds of smilies were used - but a few ASCII characters can't convey nearly as much information as a subtle change in pitch at the right time.
So we try to gather as much information from what we read as possible. We pay attention to correct spelling and grammar because we have almost no other way of deriving meta-information from the text.
That's why speling misteks make you appear dumb - people try to derive as much information from one channel as they usually get from a half dozen ones. If you mess up your spelling and grammar it's like if you came to a scientific discussion wearing a beer-stained shirt, starting your first sentence with a huge belch - your groundbreaking hypothesis may have merit, but you're losing credibility because you're broadcasting the wrong meta-information.
Oh, Anonymous Coward, how I wish you had posted under your username so I could friend you and watch your other posts. I treasure the insightful posts of linguistic nature that occasionally pop up here.
*agree* Although IANALinguist, I am interested in this kind of stuff and getting the occasional insight on/. would certainly be nice.
However, chances are that the grandparent's poster is simply not registered...
This voiced velar fricative you speak of that used to exist in English, that wouldn't be the same voiced velar fricative that German uses in words like ich, would it?
No. The German "Ich-Laut" ("Ich-sound") is a voiceless palatal fricative. The closest thing in the German language should be the voiceless velar or uvular fricative (the "Ach-Laut").
Slashdot Mirror
Call me crazy, but I think that Slashdot might have more than 50 readers. Just a guess, though.
Well, on OS X you use the Apple menu to shut down aour Apple computer. Makes sense. By the way, I usually use the eject button/combination on my keyboard to eject a CD (on the 12" iBook that would be fn-F12).
Granted, Start -> Shutdown is not quite a showstopper, but Apple does have a less confusing way - if only because they didn't give their menu a descriptive name (which it doesn't need). And the whole "dragging a drive to the trash" thing is only there to appease the former MacOS 9 users.
We're talking about Joe Average User; of course he has a cracked version. Non-cracked/non-corporate Windowses are only used by corporations...
Obviously, Microsoft has accepted the fact that Windows is only good for one thing and that is gaming. LH will be the first step towards their new, exciting platform claled "PC 360", which will combine the simplicity of hacking the Windows internals with the versatility of the XBox and a user interface so full of eyecandy that even Steve Jobs' eyes will glaze over as he goes into a seizure. All that for just 499 USD (hardware not included)!
There ought to be a simple law that states that "any software installer must clearly label the buttons and other control areas in their installer, such that there can be no confusion or deception as to the function of each control, whereas a user could be tricked into allowing the installation without his consent."
We have something like that in Germany... If sonmeone wants to install and run a dialer on your system they have to jump through several hoops - the dialer may not be installed without your consent. That means typing "OK" into a text field. The installer has to provide, in easily readable letters, information about what exactlyyou're going to pay and what exactly you're installing there. And so on.
If the RegTP (the German regulation authority for telecomm and postal stuff) finds out that someone didn't comply with all regulations or even used some kind of technique to automatically enter the "OK" etc. he's getting his licence withdrawn, which means that he doesn't get a single cent anymore and you can get your money refunded if you can prove that he tricked you.
That law was damn necessary - in the German-speaking parts of the internet auto-installing dialers used to be the most common form of malware, except maybe for viral mails.
You, sir, have just made my day. +5, Funny.
Open == verifiable. I can easily make up my own encryption scheme, which might sound all nice and use 4096 bit keys but can be easily taken apart with a known-ciphertext attack. People are going to try to crack my encryption and if it's weak they will succeed. Or I can use a publically-known encryption scheme the strength of which has been formally proven.
The problem with proprietary encryption schemes is that they might have gaping holes which you have never noticed. Public schemes will be analyzed by scientists until the strength is formally (dis)proven, usually without you having to spend lots of money on it.
In corporate America, certain organizations are corrupt.
In soviet Russia, corruption certainly was organized.
See, wasn't that easy?
Why can't we just use decent modificators? I declare some of my information public and only me and my children (yeah, right) can access it. Or I restrict usage to everyone in the same package as me.
Then again, importing biz.booksellers.amazon.* might unnecessarily bloat my package... but it's still better than declaring all of my information as public.
Bong are illegal over there? In Germany you can legally buy bongs and there are stores selling "smoking accessories", which can include everything from pipe cleaners to bongs.
Weed is still illegal, but bongs are just water pipes and they aren't necessarily used for illegal activity. Just like BitTorrent, if you think about it.
We're going to marry, you know?
Great, that means that the virtual brush will become stuck in a wall while the ink jumps up from the paper and accelerates to escape velocity. This will become the world's leading tool for abstract painting!
Well, er, uh, I'm using Microsoft IntelliUnits. IntelliMega- is the new standard for things that are 1000. Yeah.
...These are not the droids you are looking for.
I love how when I look for linux apps in sourceforge, a great deal of what I find that would be interesting to use is at version .01 and such. Not even a tenth of a final version. Granted I know that open source projects move slowly, but why even bother advertising your project when it isn't even 1/10th of the way done?
Because you hope to attract developers? If you have something that is 1% done and that 1% looks good and the project is interesting, someone might just want to drop by and help making the other 99% happen.
I've recently started a project with some people I know. Essentially it's supposed to be a Java-based easy to use games IDE/RAD tool. We probably don't have the resources to pull it off - first of all, we're lacking decent Java programmers that aren't short on time.
So we'll first work everything out and create the first few bits of the app. Stuff that is representative of what we're trying to do. Once we've got enough stuff to show where we're going we'll open a project on SF and continue working on it. Maybe someone notices us and offers help.
Also, sometimes a software gets used before it's anywhere near what it's supposed to be. If the roadmap says that feature XYZ has to be introduced in order to reach version 0.8 and everyone is using the program before feature XYZ can be implemented that means that you can a) change the roadmap, calling what you consider an unfinished product version 1.0 or b) let everyone use version 0.7 and introduce feature XYZ when it's done.
Note that I'd VERY MUCH prefer Apple to just let Sun provide the OS X JRE. I bought an iBook a couple of monthe before Tiger came out and was not happy to hear that I could forget about using Java 1.5 features as Apple didn't want to bother backporting it (I'm a student and I have better things to do with my money than to pay 90 EUR for what's essentially a Java update).
Okay, so I dug out a preview patch from Sun that allows a 1.4 JRE to use most of the 1.5 features, but I still have to live with annoyances like a javadoc that can't handle generics or having to use separate versions of java/javac depending on which features I'm using in the code.
OS X is a very nice operating system and I'm thinking of migrating to it as my primary OS (on the notebook it's already my favourite), but Apple's Java policy is hideous. Indeed it's one of the major arguments in favor of staying with Linux.
I really hope that, unlike Java, Apple's version of Python can be replaced by an official version. It'd be sad if Python users were affected by forced upgrades, too.
You want to breed mayflies that release 19 gigajoules of energy when they slam into something? Great idea, I'll be standing waaaay over here.
1 Kcal = 4186 J
1 Snickers contains 280 Kcal = 1172080 J = 0.00117208 GJ
19 / 0.00117208 ~ 16210.5 Snickers
So the amount of energy released is the equivalent of about 16.2 Megasnickers.
That sounds like a nice idea. It'd be really swell if someone did that.
Yes. In fact, there's already a documentary in the making, called Escape from the US. It will be directed by John Carpenter and the lead role of a tough one-screened DNS server (with the network name of snake.plissken) will be played by Kurt Russell. In the movie, snake is forced by the president of the USA to invade ICANN territory and extract the DNS information about the president's daughter's website. He has to do so in nine hours, as the president's men installed a cronjob that will automatically shutdown -h now him after said time.
Critics are already expecting this to become a classic of the action genre.
Besides, if they decide to screw with the official root servers, Europeans still can switch to the ORSN servers, which usually are synchronized with the ICANN servers but stop synchronizing when the current state of world politics makes it possible that the ICANN servers might be subject to manipulation or downtime.
By means of a massive core, we discovered a planet?
Yes. The planet was found by a computer running FC4 (which is pretty massive).
And that's exactly why Apple should not switch to Intel.
One that is not very friendly to car cleaning companies. ;)
It's because of the limited information bandwidth of the medium. In normal conversations, we pick up informations about the partner on various levels: We analyze how he's dressed, how he moves, subtle changes in the way he expresses himself (like changes in pitch, volume or vocabulary). We have dozens of channels that all get processed simultaneously. We gather information about the topic the speaker is talikg about, but at the same time we also gather lost of meta-information; information about the speaker himself.
/. we usually have much less information: We can anaylze the nickname, the writing style and the vocabulary and that's pretty much it. We can check whether or not the text contains smilies and what kinds of smilies were used - but a few ASCII characters can't convey nearly as much information as a subtle change in pitch at the right time.
In discussion boards like
So we try to gather as much information from what we read as possible. We pay attention to correct spelling and grammar because we have almost no other way of deriving meta-information from the text.
That's why speling misteks make you appear dumb - people try to derive as much information from one channel as they usually get from a half dozen ones. If you mess up your spelling and grammar it's like if you came to a scientific discussion wearing a beer-stained shirt, starting your first sentence with a huge belch - your groundbreaking hypothesis may have merit, but you're losing credibility because you're broadcasting the wrong meta-information.
Oh, Anonymous Coward, how I wish you had posted under your username so I could friend you and watch your other posts. I treasure the insightful posts of linguistic nature that occasionally pop up here.
/. would certainly be nice.
*agree* Although IANALinguist, I am interested in this kind of stuff and getting the occasional insight on
However, chances are that the grandparent's poster is simply not registered...
This voiced velar fricative you speak of that used to exist in English, that wouldn't be the same voiced velar fricative that German uses in words like ich, would it?
No. The German "Ich-Laut" ("Ich-sound") is a voiceless palatal fricative. The closest thing in the German language should be the voiceless velar or uvular fricative (the "Ach-Laut").