Way too many people are buying Vista to call it "a massive failure". Anyway, most of the early adopters seem to be going for 64 bit anyway, so the GGP is probably correct.
This must be the lamest rationalisation of cheating ever. "I do it because it's hard". If you're so interested in creating bot programs, you could make them for games that actually need them, like shooters for solo play. Or you could create a scenario in some RPG (neverwinter nights comes to mind) with extra smart NPC's in it.
Face up to it, the reason you created these bots was because you wanted to be "better" in the game than everybody else, without making the effort they did. You cheated, probably got banned for it and rightly so. I hope you had 5 months and 29 days left on a six month subscription when they banned you.
If Iran continues to cause trouble after the airstrikes, we can hit its oil terminals, cutting off its only source of hard currency. Effectively putting the oil price at triple digit numbers. Congratulations, you just destroyed the European economy.
Would you consider posting such messages as this AC in the future? As it is you got +5 informative for basically pasting a story. In the old days when/. still had standards (hehe yeah I know) that was considered karma whoring.
Obviously a troll but might I point out that ODF is available in several software products and that this particular organisation closing up shop has nothing at all to do with the standard really, as it is still, well, a standard which is being actively worked on and implemented in various office suites. It's still growing strong.
And tired puns like "lunix" and "stallmanistas" is the reason political discourse in the US is in the mess it is now, but that might get a bit offtopic.
Personally I think the problem with most phones is that they botch the usable phone part to begin with. I don't need a camera, addressbook and a selection of crappy games on my phone, but if you put them in you should make them not get into the way of using a phone. On my current phone I find I can run some java based games of at least moderate complexity quite well. But all that memory is going to waste for storing messages, opening my inbox is dog slow, sending an SMS takes about 7 menus to flip through (seriously!). Manufacturers don't seem able to get the basic functions right, so I wish they didn't actually bother with the rest.
Of course, knowing a little bit about how the phone manufacturing works it is quite unlikely that a pared down phone from most manufacturers would actually work, as it contains the exact same OS with the exact same usability problems as all the other phones. Even I've managed to sort of kind of want to buy an iPhone since it just seems to do everything so much better than all the competition in the market space. Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, I'm looking at you.
In the typical over-simplification of slashdot, in only ten posts this issue has become either total trust by employers (your point of view) or an insulting perp-walk (OP and other's view). In reality it IS standard procedure in many companies to pay resigning emplyees through their notification period, but to ask them not to report to work during that time. It isn't insulting - I've had it happen to me, and I prefer it. Yeah maybe I'm missing something here but seems to me only real workaholics would prefer working those last 2 weeks instead of 2 weeks paid vacation. Unless they're somehow able to fire you on the spot of course.
To say someone is "highly evolved" is nonsensical. Evolution doesn't really express a value judgement. If we are to take your sentence at face value, you could be saying no species has gotten further than the other species. By different measurements they have, i.e. flies are a very succesful species in numbers, humans have attained a larger biological complexity than bacteria,... Maybe you'd do better to explain what you meant instead of making people guess.
And to claim that squirrels are the kind of intelligent life that we would be interested in is silly. Squirrels are unable to communicate in any complex way. Whatever your definition of intelligence, they're clearly less intelligent than us. We're looking for space aliens with about the same level of intelligence or higher. Whether their existence is probable is debatable of course.
The reason europeons like you have half the carbon emmissions is because you don't drive long distances to work.
In the US it's common to drive 50 to 100mi or more per day from the suburban areas to the cities.
First off, so do many europeans. Secondly, it's your own damn fault. Shouldn't have built those suburban ares the way you did in the first place, since it's now making it impossible to supply decent public transportation. Still, most of that is historical and american politics being what they are, it's probably not going to change any time soon. (though there are signs)
Add in the sizable farming & industrial population, where people operate heavy diesel machinery for 8 to 12hrs per day.
Sure, and Western Europe doesn't have any heavy industry at all.
Add in the northern parts of the country, where winter demands heavier use of heating fuels.
Add in the tropical parts of the country, where summer demands heavier use of A/C.
Add in the northern parts of the country, where summer doesn't demand an A/C. Add in the tropical parts of the country, where summer demands no heating. You seem to be arguing the US somehow has special needs. It doesn't.
[...]Fuel efficiency gets trumped by crash and other safety considerations.
Not suggesting you should drive a VW bug (that's yet another american stereotype for you, efficient cars have to suck), but you do realise that bigger cars mean worse accidents. They might be safer for the people driving them (not too sure about that) but they certainly aren't for the other people on the road. Buying an SUV is simply the most selfish thing you can currently do. I do know some people who have very good reasons for buying one (e.g. taking them into bad terrain), but for your average commuting american it's selfish, selfish, selfish. And this is where the government should step in, but doesn't. Why? It would be political suicide.
But yea, Guild wars breaks the mold, it's skill based and requires real team work. Something most MMOs don't. Having done quite a few high level dungeons in WoW I can tell you that is simply not true. Perhaps I'm missing something here but team work is what all the dungeons are currently about. Even though it sometimes turns into following some tactic some dude posted on wowwiki by the letter, it does require you have a bunch of skilled players.
Anyway, dist-upgrade (which hasn't been the preferred upgrade method for at least 2 versions) doesn't always fuck up your config files. The thing is that new versions of software sometimes come with a new config file format and the developers almost never bother writing a script or whatever to convert your old files to the new format. Usually in debian it would ask you if you want to overwrite the config file etc. but I seem to recall ubuntu has different defaults.
Was the retraction based on additional research, or just in order to shut up the creationists, in which case the retraction was the mistake? I wouldn't say the retraction was a mistake as such, but it is uncommon AFAIK. Usually bad papers or just simply papers that were believed to be right at the time get refuted at some point in the future but are never retracted. Retracting a paper is usually done when there are serious issues with the methodologies or some such. Assuming this paper was written in good faith it would not have been retracted if not for the creationists. Not that that is such a bad thing, if it doesn't seem entirely clear to other people you should state that you were wrong at the time, a retraction is one way of doing that.
Er.. MMOs are by their very nature "online", so there's no reason why it should work offline, nor do the vendors go out of their way to disable it. (there's cracked versions of most clients out there, depending on the game)
The thing with steam is that it is loaded with DRM designed specifically to make it impossible to play any games without their authorization. While it is in the MMO's best interest to be playable anywhere by anyone no matter how they got the client (as long as it is THE client), Valve mostly wants to maximize its regional profits. An MMO is software as a service in a very natural way, half life 2 is not.
Well, actually political bias has nothing to do with the comment. You may have read it in there but it is still irrelevant to what I said the point that I was making with the paragraph you replied to on this was that Google could have said Fair use was at play and there was no legal question of the trademark.
Yes I do agree with you here. However, a company just doesn't come up with a new policy from one day to the other. Google obviously said "we don't do any ads with trademarks, then we get no problems". It might be biting them in the ass now but I see where they are coming from.
But they didn't. That isn't what I am upset with. It is that a group like Moveon.org claims to be about freedom and free speech but denies it to anyone who isn't with them. Remove Moveon.org and replace with RIAA, Walmart, or whatever evil company of the day and everyone would be all over google for this.
I still don't see how this is google's fault in any way (which is why I replied in the first place). I don't think they get a free pass, I mean we're discussing it right now right? It made it into the/. headlines etc. I don't think it is a big deal (see further) and I wouldn't think it was a big deal if say the EFF couldn't post an ad about the RIAA. Suck it up and make it more general then? Or petition google to change their policies. I'm sure slightly more people would respond to the story on here, but the right wing isn't exactly underrepresented on/. There is no need to cast yourself in the underdog position.
I'm sorry that your own political bias has stopped you from seeing the big picture. This isn't about politics, it is about right and wrong. If suppressing political speech is wrong, then it should be wrong whenever it is done. Not just when you agree with what is being said. And if you don't see the outrage in that compared with what happened, then you are specifically who I am talking to and about.
Well we could make veiled insults at each other all night. I agree with you that google should probably change their policy, but I could live with them keeping it as is as well. I do not think the effects on political discourse are especially chilling, and google doesn't have to change anything, as the policy is balanced and applies to all parties equally. If we want every political organization to have the right to criticize another political organization in ads, the government has no other choice than to legislate that right. Right now, I can even see an organization like google deciding they don't want any political discourse at all, and block all political ads. You have the right to political speech, you do not have the right to an outlet. This is why media conglomerization is a bad thing. Perhaps if it was microsoft I would be more outraged, I honestly don't know.:-)
So yeah, underhanded and low tactic by moveon.org, not such a big deal in the long run and IMHO no reason to blame any of it on google, as they seem to always have acted in good faith. As for the whole "it's not my political side so I don't care" thing, well I do see a lot of that. It's deplorable, but perhaps the difference in reaction here is more based on differing interpretations of free speech than on personal political preferences. Those two don't exclude each other of course.
Now google's tough break in the situation being what it is when they enforced the policy isn't as important then what Moveon.org claims to be and what they did. It is obvious that the use of the trademark was fair and legal, and it is obvious that it was over political speech. Now, anyone at google could have said, wait, what is this? and looked at the policy, the ad, and made the decision over the merits of the case. Some people tend to think they actually did that and made the decision to pull the ad.
Now that would show political bias, as it would have google running an ad that were against its own policies. These policies are not just there to protect google, they're there to provide accountability. I suppose I can make another bad analogy then, how would you feel if judges around the country would start deciding cases based on the "merits of the case" instead of the law? Slippery slope...
Once for google pulling the ad, regardless of their policy, once again for moveon.org's hand in it, and probably mostly by the lack of outrage when it effect the "other side" of the issue. And that makes you wonder if all the other outragfe isn't just some sort of way to impose a political idea instead of something we should truly be outraged over. Political speech should be something on top of the list.
Outrage? First of all: it's not like google is actively censoring political speech, it just happened to have its policies slightly misused by a group like moveon.org to stop one ad from going up. And yes intent does matter. So the policy might have to be modified for political organisations or *gasp* the government might have to step in to stop political groups from using their trademark in this way. Why can we not discuss this like adults, instead of throwing chairs and shouting at the top of our lungs? That's what outrage is, isn't it?
On a different note, I think most slashdotters don't really feel very positive towards moveon.org. That's just a giant strawman argument right there and only expresses your own political bias and opinions. Personally I think the moveon.org people are a bunch of morons. I've never managed to sit through one of their ads (maybe because I'm not an american?). Anyway, I'd encourage you to stop thinking in these terms of big left versus big right. Most people are in the center and it is quite likely that most of the left does not feel moveon.org accurately represents their viewpoint. I think it's more than likely actually.
It's not just the UK government. People have been convicted in various countries, including the US, for what in essence amount to throught crimes. I'm afraid I didn't bookmark it but how about the guy who was convicted in part for having prayer notes in his appartment that were linked to Al Qaeda by US prosecuters? All of the evidence in his case was very circumstantial and it's mostly a guity by association kind of thing. If your nephew is a terrorist then so must you be right? I mean you talked to him just 2 months ago!
I'm afraid to look this stuff up, I really don't want to know how fast we're throwing justice out with the bathwater.
The consumer protection laws are meant to foster innovation and encourage competition. This kind of phone/provider tying is bad for competition and probably does a lot to keep phone prices artificially high. It's got little if anything to do with "socialism".
BTW, it's Apple's choice not to enter the European marketplace, not the EU's choice. There's no reason why they couldn't play by the same rules other providers are. Well, except they might have locked themselves in with AT&T.
Also, while TFS mentions Belgium I suspect Apple not entering this particular market has more to do with the lack of flat rate internet subscription plans than with the consumer protection plans. Luckily this is changing (slowly) but I doubt the iPhone would really work down here right now. Companies make boneheaded moves all around the world it seems. Surprise!:-)
Right, because making a coherent argument is too much work. Here's the original thing you said:
Not a single person in the history of mankind [wikipedia.org] has smoked himself to death with Cannabis, ever. That's an intellectually dishonest thing to say, since it implies that somehow overdosis is the only way one could die from smoking cannabis. I just generalised because overdosis is not the number one cause of death with a lot of soft drugs.
Yes, IHBT, IFI, HAND. Didn't have much else to do anyway.
Nah the post I was replying to was spewing propaganda. I'm all for legalising the drug myself, but it's kind of stupid saying nobody ever died from taking drugs, even if you're in favor of this particular one.
It also turns people into insane axe murderers, hopelessly, on the first toke!!!!11!! It induces psychotic episodes in some people, yeah. What's your point?
Er if you reread the GP you'll see he made a mistake in his ubuntu example and really meant to say the ".deb file" instead of windows installer. You're of course right on the whole, google earth is slightly harder if you use the.bin.
I think the AC post next to me did a good job of pointing out where your post falls flat, but I'd just like to point out that there is little reason to believe that an entirely new system with a different design philosophy, a different background and different developers will ever be intuitive to learn.
I believe the most damage being done to desktop linux right now is by the "it just works" crowd. The traditional way of configuring software in linux has always been plain text files. This works really, really well for a lot of different problems. If you replace that, you need to do it correctly. Either you point out to the user in one way or another where to go to set options, fix problems or whatever or you make it unnecessary to do so. At the very least you don't create three different ways that all sort of work.
One flaw (which I assume is what you're pointing out) in Ubuntu is that they autoconfigure your x server for you, but then hide where you can change this. There are little apps in the interface that suggest you should be able to change your display drivers somewhere in the interface, but they don't allow you to and there's no hint where to go next. Someone used to debian knows he needs to dpkg-reconfigure his xserver. Someone new to ubuntu doesn't know about apt (he has synaptic), doesn't know where to set install-time options etc. because the ubuntu interface has done everything to hide it from him.
I haven't looked at the documentation recently but it used to be extremely lacking in explaining the basics, which would have saved a lot of users a lot of time and grief. Basically if you're using ubuntu you'll have to use a command line interface anyway, which I don't consider a bad thing. News about the death of the cli has been greatly exaggerated if you ask me. At least point that out to users and school them in the basics they'll need (it's not that much). Problem solved as far as I'm concerned.
Any system will need you to do some research, learn some new concepts and learn to apply them. That's not a bug in linux, windows or mac os. The bug is bad interface design, but that sure doesn't mean linux "isn't ready". Most people I know will simply call me if they get stumped somewhere, which is exactly what they did when they first tried windows. (well, I'm not that old that they would've called me, but you get the point) The biggest enemies to linux are those who have spent so much time being a windows "power user" that any action they undertake in any other OS is to be very painful because it contradicts tons of learned behaviour. I know the feeling as I have it daily using windows.
Slashdot Mirror
Way too many people are buying Vista to call it "a massive failure". Anyway, most of the early adopters seem to be going for 64 bit anyway, so the GGP is probably correct.
This must be the lamest rationalisation of cheating ever. "I do it because it's hard". If you're so interested in creating bot programs, you could make them for games that actually need them, like shooters for solo play. Or you could create a scenario in some RPG (neverwinter nights comes to mind) with extra smart NPC's in it.
Face up to it, the reason you created these bots was because you wanted to be "better" in the game than everybody else, without making the effort they did. You cheated, probably got banned for it and rightly so. I hope you had 5 months and 29 days left on a six month subscription when they banned you.
Would you consider posting such messages as this AC in the future? As it is you got +5 informative for basically pasting a story. In the old days when /. still had standards (hehe yeah I know) that was considered karma whoring.
Obviously a troll but might I point out that ODF is available in several software products and that this particular organisation closing up shop has nothing at all to do with the standard really, as it is still, well, a standard which is being actively worked on and implemented in various office suites. It's still growing strong.
And tired puns like "lunix" and "stallmanistas" is the reason political discourse in the US is in the mess it is now, but that might get a bit offtopic.
Personally I think the problem with most phones is that they botch the usable phone part to begin with. I don't need a camera, addressbook and a selection of crappy games on my phone, but if you put them in you should make them not get into the way of using a phone. On my current phone I find I can run some java based games of at least moderate complexity quite well. But all that memory is going to waste for storing messages, opening my inbox is dog slow, sending an SMS takes about 7 menus to flip through (seriously!). Manufacturers don't seem able to get the basic functions right, so I wish they didn't actually bother with the rest.
Of course, knowing a little bit about how the phone manufacturing works it is quite unlikely that a pared down phone from most manufacturers would actually work, as it contains the exact same OS with the exact same usability problems as all the other phones. Even I've managed to sort of kind of want to buy an iPhone since it just seems to do everything so much better than all the competition in the market space. Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, I'm looking at you.
To say someone is "highly evolved" is nonsensical. Evolution doesn't really express a value judgement. If we are to take your sentence at face value, you could be saying no species has gotten further than the other species. By different measurements they have, i.e. flies are a very succesful species in numbers, humans have attained a larger biological complexity than bacteria, ... Maybe you'd do better to explain what you meant instead of making people guess.
And to claim that squirrels are the kind of intelligent life that we would be interested in is silly. Squirrels are unable to communicate in any complex way. Whatever your definition of intelligence, they're clearly less intelligent than us. We're looking for space aliens with about the same level of intelligence or higher. Whether their existence is probable is debatable of course.
In the US it's common to drive 50 to 100mi or more per day from the suburban areas to the cities.
First off, so do many europeans. Secondly, it's your own damn fault. Shouldn't have built those suburban ares the way you did in the first place, since it's now making it impossible to supply decent public transportation. Still, most of that is historical and american politics being what they are, it's probably not going to change any time soon. (though there are signs) Add in the sizable farming & industrial population, where people operate heavy diesel machinery for 8 to 12hrs per day.Sure, and Western Europe doesn't have any heavy industry at all.
Add in the northern parts of the country, where winter demands heavier use of heating fuels. Add in the tropical parts of the country, where summer demands heavier use of A/C.Add in the northern parts of the country, where summer doesn't demand an A/C. Add in the tropical parts of the country, where summer demands no heating. You seem to be arguing the US somehow has special needs. It doesn't.
[...]Fuel efficiency gets trumped by crash and other safety considerations.Not suggesting you should drive a VW bug (that's yet another american stereotype for you, efficient cars have to suck), but you do realise that bigger cars mean worse accidents. They might be safer for the people driving them (not too sure about that) but they certainly aren't for the other people on the road. Buying an SUV is simply the most selfish thing you can currently do. I do know some people who have very good reasons for buying one (e.g. taking them into bad terrain), but for your average commuting american it's selfish, selfish, selfish. And this is where the government should step in, but doesn't. Why? It would be political suicide.
what I don't get is how 1GB (10^9 bytes?) then suddenly is 1,073,741,824 bytes (as in the summary). So it's more bytes than they're saying it is?
But then, you weren't running debian...
Anyway, dist-upgrade (which hasn't been the preferred upgrade method for at least 2 versions) doesn't always fuck up your config files. The thing is that new versions of software sometimes come with a new config file format and the developers almost never bother writing a script or whatever to convert your old files to the new format. Usually in debian it would ask you if you want to overwrite the config file etc. but I seem to recall ubuntu has different defaults.
Er.. MMOs are by their very nature "online", so there's no reason why it should work offline, nor do the vendors go out of their way to disable it. (there's cracked versions of most clients out there, depending on the game)
The thing with steam is that it is loaded with DRM designed specifically to make it impossible to play any games without their authorization. While it is in the MMO's best interest to be playable anywhere by anyone no matter how they got the client (as long as it is THE client), Valve mostly wants to maximize its regional profits. An MMO is software as a service in a very natural way, half life 2 is not.
Too many caps. Seriously. Okay, the veiled ad hominems as well.
Yes I do agree with you here. However, a company just doesn't come up with a new policy from one day to the other. Google obviously said "we don't do any ads with trademarks, then we get no problems". It might be biting them in the ass now but I see where they are coming from.
But they didn't. That isn't what I am upset with. It is that a group like Moveon.org claims to be about freedom and free speech but denies it to anyone who isn't with them. Remove Moveon.org and replace with RIAA, Walmart, or whatever evil company of the day and everyone would be all over google for this.I still don't see how this is google's fault in any way (which is why I replied in the first place). I don't think they get a free pass, I mean we're discussing it right now right? It made it into the /. headlines etc. I don't think it is a big deal (see further) and I wouldn't think it was a big deal if say the EFF couldn't post an ad about the RIAA. Suck it up and make it more general then? Or petition google to change their policies. I'm sure slightly more people would respond to the story on here, but the right wing isn't exactly underrepresented on /. There is no need to cast yourself in the underdog position.
I'm sorry that your own political bias has stopped you from seeing the big picture. This isn't about politics, it is about right and wrong. If suppressing political speech is wrong, then it should be wrong whenever it is done. Not just when you agree with what is being said. And if you don't see the outrage in that compared with what happened, then you are specifically who I am talking to and about.Well we could make veiled insults at each other all night. I agree with you that google should probably change their policy, but I could live with them keeping it as is as well. I do not think the effects on political discourse are especially chilling, and google doesn't have to change anything, as the policy is balanced and applies to all parties equally. If we want every political organization to have the right to criticize another political organization in ads, the government has no other choice than to legislate that right. Right now, I can even see an organization like google deciding they don't want any political discourse at all, and block all political ads. You have the right to political speech, you do not have the right to an outlet. This is why media conglomerization is a bad thing. Perhaps if it was microsoft I would be more outraged, I honestly don't know. :-)
So yeah, underhanded and low tactic by moveon.org, not such a big deal in the long run and IMHO no reason to blame any of it on google, as they seem to always have acted in good faith. As for the whole "it's not my political side so I don't care" thing, well I do see a lot of that. It's deplorable, but perhaps the difference in reaction here is more based on differing interpretations of free speech than on personal political preferences. Those two don't exclude each other of course.
Now that would show political bias, as it would have google running an ad that were against its own policies. These policies are not just there to protect google, they're there to provide accountability. I suppose I can make another bad analogy then, how would you feel if judges around the country would start deciding cases based on the "merits of the case" instead of the law? Slippery slope...
Once for google pulling the ad, regardless of their policy, once again for moveon.org's hand in it, and probably mostly by the lack of outrage when it effect the "other side" of the issue. And that makes you wonder if all the other outragfe isn't just some sort of way to impose a political idea instead of something we should truly be outraged over. Political speech should be something on top of the list.Outrage? First of all: it's not like google is actively censoring political speech, it just happened to have its policies slightly misused by a group like moveon.org to stop one ad from going up. And yes intent does matter. So the policy might have to be modified for political organisations or *gasp* the government might have to step in to stop political groups from using their trademark in this way. Why can we not discuss this like adults, instead of throwing chairs and shouting at the top of our lungs? That's what outrage is, isn't it?
On a different note, I think most slashdotters don't really feel very positive towards moveon.org. That's just a giant strawman argument right there and only expresses your own political bias and opinions. Personally I think the moveon.org people are a bunch of morons. I've never managed to sit through one of their ads (maybe because I'm not an american?). Anyway, I'd encourage you to stop thinking in these terms of big left versus big right. Most people are in the center and it is quite likely that most of the left does not feel moveon.org accurately represents their viewpoint. I think it's more than likely actually.
It's not just the UK government. People have been convicted in various countries, including the US, for what in essence amount to throught crimes. I'm afraid I didn't bookmark it but how about the guy who was convicted in part for having prayer notes in his appartment that were linked to Al Qaeda by US prosecuters? All of the evidence in his case was very circumstantial and it's mostly a guity by association kind of thing. If your nephew is a terrorist then so must you be right? I mean you talked to him just 2 months ago!
I'm afraid to look this stuff up, I really don't want to know how fast we're throwing justice out with the bathwater.
He mentioned george bush in his post. Doesn't have much to do with this story...
The consumer protection laws are meant to foster innovation and encourage competition. This kind of phone/provider tying is bad for competition and probably does a lot to keep phone prices artificially high. It's got little if anything to do with "socialism".
:-)
BTW, it's Apple's choice not to enter the European marketplace, not the EU's choice. There's no reason why they couldn't play by the same rules other providers are. Well, except they might have locked themselves in with AT&T.
Also, while TFS mentions Belgium I suspect Apple not entering this particular market has more to do with the lack of flat rate internet subscription plans than with the consumer protection plans. Luckily this is changing (slowly) but I doubt the iPhone would really work down here right now. Companies make boneheaded moves all around the world it seems. Surprise!
Yes, IHBT, IFI, HAND. Didn't have much else to do anyway.
Nah the post I was replying to was spewing propaganda. I'm all for legalising the drug myself, but it's kind of stupid saying nobody ever died from taking drugs, even if you're in favor of this particular one.
Er if you reread the GP you'll see he made a mistake in his ubuntu example and really meant to say the ".deb file" instead of windows installer. You're of course right on the whole, google earth is slightly harder if you use the .bin.
I think the AC post next to me did a good job of pointing out where your post falls flat, but I'd just like to point out that there is little reason to believe that an entirely new system with a different design philosophy, a different background and different developers will ever be intuitive to learn.
I believe the most damage being done to desktop linux right now is by the "it just works" crowd. The traditional way of configuring software in linux has always been plain text files. This works really, really well for a lot of different problems. If you replace that, you need to do it correctly. Either you point out to the user in one way or another where to go to set options, fix problems or whatever or you make it unnecessary to do so. At the very least you don't create three different ways that all sort of work.
One flaw (which I assume is what you're pointing out) in Ubuntu is that they autoconfigure your x server for you, but then hide where you can change this. There are little apps in the interface that suggest you should be able to change your display drivers somewhere in the interface, but they don't allow you to and there's no hint where to go next. Someone used to debian knows he needs to dpkg-reconfigure his xserver. Someone new to ubuntu doesn't know about apt (he has synaptic), doesn't know where to set install-time options etc. because the ubuntu interface has done everything to hide it from him.
I haven't looked at the documentation recently but it used to be extremely lacking in explaining the basics, which would have saved a lot of users a lot of time and grief. Basically if you're using ubuntu you'll have to use a command line interface anyway, which I don't consider a bad thing. News about the death of the cli has been greatly exaggerated if you ask me. At least point that out to users and school them in the basics they'll need (it's not that much). Problem solved as far as I'm concerned.
Any system will need you to do some research, learn some new concepts and learn to apply them. That's not a bug in linux, windows or mac os. The bug is bad interface design, but that sure doesn't mean linux "isn't ready". Most people I know will simply call me if they get stumped somewhere, which is exactly what they did when they first tried windows. (well, I'm not that old that they would've called me, but you get the point) The biggest enemies to linux are those who have spent so much time being a windows "power user" that any action they undertake in any other OS is to be very painful because it contradicts tons of learned behaviour. I know the feeling as I have it daily using windows.