Ubuntu just as good? No. Free software just isn't there yet. If it were, Dell, HP and Acer would have dumped Microsoft quite some time ago in the home market. People want cheap and easy. Not necessarily good, just cheap and easy. Linux doesn't even qualify as that yet - the market has spoken as always.
What are you on about? Linux is as cheap and easy as it gets!
I use Gutsy on my work computer (it was originally set up to dual-boot XP, but I haven't had the need). Now, bear in mind that, up to a few months ago, I was XP-only. This is my first extended experience with Linux of any flavor, and only because I need it for work. So, this isn't coming from a long-time linux die-hard.
Synaptic Package Manager is pretty much the best thing ever. I needed to edit some graphics; BOOM, GIMP. I needed to convert a raster image to vector; BOOM, potrace. I needed to capture a video playing in a proprietary flash player (not, unfortunately, a flash video, which is trivial to convert); BOOM, krecordmydesktop. I needed to make presentation slides; BOOM, OpenOffice.org Presentation. I needed to access XP programs (specifically, Office 2007), but couldn't bear to part with Kubuntu now; BOOM, VirtualBox (which can boot my existing partition).
Whatever my needs are, I can usually find something pre-packaged, ready to go, FREE, and I don't even have to reboot after installation. Not cheap or easy? You're mad! Gutsy is GLORIOUS, and the more I use it, the more I prefer it. I now even have a Kubuntu partition I can dual-boot on my home computer. Do you understand what I'm saying? I was forced into using Kubuntu for WORK, and now I'm using it AT HOME. By CHOICE.
If it weren't for games, I wouldn't need XP at all.
"Broadcasters aren't posting their shows directly on PirateBay yet..."
I wonder. After all, I have seen, I mean, my friend, who downloads shows from PirateBay (whatever that is), has seen shows with commercials at the end. Often, commercials for other shows.
Why would someone putting that up on PirateBay (some sort of nautical website or something?) include that? Why wouldn't it be cut off....UNLESS it was actually posted by the broadcaster? I have most often seen this with basic-cable shows. I mean my friend did. Not me.
Colon: "So it'd only work if it's your actual million-to-one chance." Nobby: "I suppose that's right." Colon: "So 999,943-to-one, for example--" Carrot: "Wouldn't have a hope. No-one ever said 'It's a 999,943-to-one chance but it might just work.'"
It's pretty much like regular Hotmail (5gigs of space), but we use the school's.edu domain, we only have to log in once every 365 days to keep our account from being deleted, and we can forward our mail out to our real accounts.
The advantage is that, well, now we have an e-mail provider. A few years ago, my school didn't offer e-mail for students at all, so anything that required an.edu e-mail address (e.g. Facebook, back when that was still a useful service) was out of reach.
The disadvantage is...well, it's still Hotmail. I don't know if you've used it recently, but it's not that great. Sure, having to type my password in every time (no matter how many times I click that "remember my password" checkbox) is annoying, having to click three separate links to fully log-out so I can check my old Hotmail account is annoying, and if we forget that our mail goes through Hotmail and just read it in the destination account for more than a year? Baleeted.
But that all pales next to the truly horrid spam filter. Far more often than not, it has flagged legitimate e-mails as spam and spam e-mails as legitimate. The only way to even KNOW that you're missing an e-mail that is stuck in spambox hell is to log in to your account. Nothing is forwarded out, and THERE'S NO WAY TO DISABLE IT COMPLETELY. So half my real e-mails get caught in the spam filter, rendering the entire account totally useless.
It may be free, but I'm not sure it's worth the price.
It's funny you mention that. We had a similar incident not too long ago at my university.
The cleaning staff for the computer/engineering building saw some creepy guy going through the building at 5:30am, way earlier than people normally show up in the morning. They didn't really think anything of it, until they got to the third floor.
On the third floor, displayed in the window of one of the offices, was a timer. And it was counting. Up.
Wires could be seen coming off of it, but nobody could tell where they went.
Campus security was called, the police were called, bomb-sniffing dogs were called in, the building was shut down.
It turned out (of course) to be just a diagnostic display. The "wires" leading away from the device went up to a curtain rod. They were holding it up.
The funny thing was, it had been there for weeks. The cleaning crew must have seen it, but they didn't remember it being there. And why was it counting UP and not DOWN? We've all seen 24, we know which way timers are supposed to go.
But in an outbreak of common sense, nobody was charged with a "hoax", nobody was arrested, and nobody is in jail. The cleaning crew made a mistake (and apologized later!), and that was the end of that.
And thank goodness, because that creepy guy was ME!
Want access to the regular internet? Each time you start up a session and connect to a page, they charge you 300 yen for the privilege. My Japanese friends were impressed that I had figured out how to get around Docomo's file-naming obfuscation on my SD card so that I was able to upload photos and video as well as download them without having to use the network.
That's an unfortunate plan you're on there. I was on J-phone. Er, Vodafone. I mean Softbank. Whatever their name is this month.
I was only charged for what I downloaded (no 300yen access fee here), and pictures were turned off by default (but still viewable, if I chose so). It was still quite functional, and relatively inexpensive. It wasn't very fast though.
The files on the memory card were laid out fairly straightforward, and there was no obfuscation. I could transfer music on to listen to in the car or grab movies and pictures off (and it's a good thing that I didn't have to do that over the network, as the camera took 2-megapixel jpgs with just a bare hint of compression, and the movies could run into megs and megs, depending on how long I recorded [none of which is a big deal now, but it was state of the frelling art when I got it years ago]). The music player wasn't as full-featured as an ipod, of course, but it worked well enough and was portable enough and had enough storage space that I switched from my portable mp3-cd player. And I could use the music player without looking at the phone, so I could use it while driving.
Competent music player, free calls to other J-phone users, free calls to BBphone lines, base plans for $9 a month...why would anyone use anything else? (Of course, my girlfriend just HAD to have Docomo, so no free calls for me.)
If they're openly belittling something of yours, you're most likely not actually in Japan.
I think my co-workers were a little more comfortable with me than yours apparently are with you. And I didn't say 'belittle'. I said 'tease', and it was all in good fun. Are you telling me that you have never been teased in Japan? No matter how fluent you are, they are still treating you like an outsider.
Or maybe people are just friendlier in Fukui! ^_^ 291 forever!
Even in technology jaded Japan where you can watch TV on your cell phone, they are absolutely stoked about Apple's iPhone.
It's possible that you may have fallen victim to Japanese politeness. I know that when I was there, my co-workers and friends teased me about the iPhone (not because I had one, but because I'm American).
"Oh, it has a big screen. How many TV channels can it record simultaneously?" Zero. "Oh, well then, that explains the price! HAHAHA!" (Don't get me started on what my Japanese colleagues considered 'humor', that's another rant in itself)
Japanese phones are, by my estimates, about two years ahead of ours. The only thing about the iPhone that my friends over there found interesting was all the HYPE. They could not see what the big deal was all about.
However, they do have a tendency to say small things are big deals, out of politeness. Can't speak Japanese, except for mumbling a few phrase-book standards? "OH, your Japanese is excellent!" Speak fluent Japanese? "..." (no comment)
You have an iPhone? "Wow, what an amazing phone!" You have a standard Japanese phone that does everything an iPhone can do, plus does your taxes, transforms into a scooter, makes you pudding, and gives you blowjobs? "..."
The rule of thumb is: The cooler/better something is, the less they say about it. The more they talk about it, the less cool/awesome it is.
If you have it, you don't need it. If you need it, you don't have it. If you have it, you need more of it. If you have more of it, you don't need less of it!
You need it to get it, and you certainly need it to get more of it, but if you don't already have any of it to begin with, you can't get any of it to get started, which means you really have no idea how to get it in the first place, do you?
You can share it, sure. You can even stockpile it if you'd like. But you can't fake it. Flaunting it, needing it, wishing for it... the point is, if you've never had any of it, ever, people just seem to know.
I'm red-green colorblind, and I absolutely, positively, cannot tell the difference between these two colors on this map. I can see the shades, sure. I just can't see what they are shades OF.
Maybe you should ask yourself whether you're acting like a jerk for attention.
[It's great that YOU can read this map just fine, but that doesn't help ME. In fact, coming here and saying that there's no problem for anyone is actually detrimental. Perhaps you can keep your mild color-blindness to yourself in the future? You're not speaking for the rest of us; no one appointed you representative of Colorblindopolis.]
They're in constant communication with each other, but when they go to school, they are told to leave those 'toys' at home. They're not to be used in school. Instead, the system continues teaching as if these kids belong to the last century, by standing in front of a blackboard.
And? Does anyone really think the lack of cell-phones in the classroom is the problem holding American education back?
I used to teach in Japan (by standing in front of a blackboard, an actual blackboard, with chalk and everything). We told our students to leave their cell-phones at home, too.
Clearly, Japan's education system should be as bad as America's, given these criteria.
They're turning kids into slaves just to make cheaper sneakers. But what's the real cost? 'Cause the sneakers don't seem that much cheaper. Why are we still paying so much for sneakers When you got them made by little slave kids? What are your overheads?
>not like the passengers in his car, screaming and yelling
You have the word passengers before screaming and yelling! Passengers is the PUNCHLINE (punchword?), that goes at the END!
AND, you specify that his passengers are in a car. Why a car? Why not a bus? Why not a plane? Why give any specification at all? Better to let the reader's imagination fill in the most terrifying situation.
>I'd rather die peacefully in my sleep like my Grandfather, >not screaming in terror like his passengers.
I dunno how much AIDS scare y'all, but I got a theory - the day they come out with a cure for AIDS, guaranteed, one-shot cure, on that day, there's gonna be fscking in the streets, man.
'It's over! Who're you? C'mere! What's your name, baby? No, it's over, yeah, woo-hoo!'
Man, if you can't get laid on that day, cut it off.
"Rez explores the more surreal side to the dance game using abstract graphics and fancy landscapes, with the emphasis on exploring rather than performing."
Did anyone even PLAY this game? Rez is a shooter, and there is no exploration at all.
Combine this with the two-minute pointless video of a guy wearing a cardboard cutout of an iPhone, and yeah. My five minutes? I want them back.
Slashdot Mirror
What are you on about? Linux is as cheap and easy as it gets!
I use Gutsy on my work computer (it was originally set up to dual-boot XP, but I haven't had the need). Now, bear in mind that, up to a few months ago, I was XP-only. This is my first extended experience with Linux of any flavor, and only because I need it for work. So, this isn't coming from a long-time linux die-hard.
Synaptic Package Manager is pretty much the best thing ever. I needed to edit some graphics; BOOM, GIMP. I needed to convert a raster image to vector; BOOM, potrace. I needed to capture a video playing in a proprietary flash player (not, unfortunately, a flash video, which is trivial to convert); BOOM, krecordmydesktop. I needed to make presentation slides; BOOM, OpenOffice.org Presentation. I needed to access XP programs (specifically, Office 2007), but couldn't bear to part with Kubuntu now; BOOM, VirtualBox (which can boot my existing partition).
Whatever my needs are, I can usually find something pre-packaged, ready to go, FREE, and I don't even have to reboot after installation. Not cheap or easy? You're mad! Gutsy is GLORIOUS, and the more I use it, the more I prefer it. I now even have a Kubuntu partition I can dual-boot on my home computer. Do you understand what I'm saying? I was forced into using Kubuntu for WORK, and now I'm using it AT HOME. By CHOICE.
If it weren't for games, I wouldn't need XP at all.
Why would someone putting that up on PirateBay (some sort of nautical website or something?) include that? Why wouldn't it be cut off....UNLESS it was actually posted by the broadcaster? I have most often seen this with basic-cable shows. I mean my friend did. Not me.
I'm not even angry.
I'm being so sincere right now.~
(~)
Colon: "So it'd only work if it's your actual million-to-one chance."
Nobby: "I suppose that's right."
Colon: "So 999,943-to-one, for example--"
Carrot: "Wouldn't have a hope. No-one ever said 'It's a 999,943-to-one chance but it might just work.'"
We use Hotmail as our e-mail provider.
.edu domain, we only have to log in once every 365 days to keep our account from being deleted, and we can forward our mail out to our real accounts.
.edu e-mail address (e.g. Facebook, back when that was still a useful service) was out of reach.
...well, it's still Hotmail. I don't know if you've used it recently, but it's not that great. Sure, having to type my password in every time (no matter how many times I click that "remember my password" checkbox) is annoying, having to click three separate links to fully log-out so I can check my old Hotmail account is annoying, and if we forget that our mail goes through Hotmail and just read it in the destination account for more than a year? Baleeted.
It's pretty much like regular Hotmail (5gigs of space), but we use the school's
The advantage is that, well, now we have an e-mail provider. A few years ago, my school didn't offer e-mail for students at all, so anything that required an
The disadvantage is
But that all pales next to the truly horrid spam filter. Far more often than not, it has flagged legitimate e-mails as spam and spam e-mails as legitimate. The only way to even KNOW that you're missing an e-mail that is stuck in spambox hell is to log in to your account. Nothing is forwarded out, and THERE'S NO WAY TO DISABLE IT COMPLETELY. So half my real e-mails get caught in the spam filter, rendering the entire account totally useless.
It may be free, but I'm not sure it's worth the price.
I know you're joking, but I would totally watch that!
It's funny you mention that. We had a similar incident not too long ago at my university.
The cleaning staff for the computer/engineering building saw some creepy guy going through the building at 5:30am, way earlier than people normally show up in the morning. They didn't really think anything of it, until they got to the third floor.
On the third floor, displayed in the window of one of the offices, was a timer. And it was counting. Up.
Wires could be seen coming off of it, but nobody could tell where they went.
Campus security was called, the police were called, bomb-sniffing dogs were called in, the building was shut down.
It turned out (of course) to be just a diagnostic display. The "wires" leading away from the device went up to a curtain rod. They were holding it up.
The funny thing was, it had been there for weeks. The cleaning crew must have seen it, but they didn't remember it being there. And why was it counting UP and not DOWN? We've all seen 24, we know which way timers are supposed to go.
But in an outbreak of common sense, nobody was charged with a "hoax", nobody was arrested, and nobody is in jail. The cleaning crew made a mistake (and apologized later!), and that was the end of that.
And thank goodness, because that creepy guy was ME!
I was only charged for what I downloaded (no 300yen access fee here), and pictures were turned off by default (but still viewable, if I chose so). It was still quite functional, and relatively inexpensive. It wasn't very fast though.
The files on the memory card were laid out fairly straightforward, and there was no obfuscation. I could transfer music on to listen to in the car or grab movies and pictures off (and it's a good thing that I didn't have to do that over the network, as the camera took 2-megapixel jpgs with just a bare hint of compression, and the movies could run into megs and megs, depending on how long I recorded [none of which is a big deal now, but it was state of the frelling art when I got it years ago]). The music player wasn't as full-featured as an ipod, of course, but it worked well enough and was portable enough and had enough storage space that I switched from my portable mp3-cd player. And I could use the music player without looking at the phone, so I could use it while driving.
Competent music player, free calls to other J-phone users, free calls to BBphone lines, base plans for $9 a month...why would anyone use anything else? (Of course, my girlfriend just HAD to have Docomo, so no free calls for me.)I think my co-workers were a little more comfortable with me than yours apparently are with you. And I didn't say 'belittle'. I said 'tease', and it was all in good fun. Are you telling me that you have never been teased in Japan? No matter how fluent you are, they are still treating you like an outsider.
Or maybe people are just friendlier in Fukui! ^_^ 291 forever!
How can you write a paper revolutionizing our understanding of physics if you don't use proper grammar?!
It's possible that you may have fallen victim to Japanese politeness. I know that when I was there, my co-workers and friends teased me about the iPhone (not because I had one, but because I'm American).
"Oh, it has a big screen. How many TV channels can it record simultaneously?" Zero. "Oh, well then, that explains the price! HAHAHA!" (Don't get me started on what my Japanese colleagues considered 'humor', that's another rant in itself)
Japanese phones are, by my estimates, about two years ahead of ours. The only thing about the iPhone that my friends over there found interesting was all the HYPE. They could not see what the big deal was all about.
However, they do have a tendency to say small things are big deals, out of politeness. Can't speak Japanese, except for mumbling a few phrase-book standards? "OH, your Japanese is excellent!" Speak fluent Japanese? "..." (no comment)
You have an iPhone? "Wow, what an amazing phone!" You have a standard Japanese phone that does everything an iPhone can do, plus does your taxes, transforms into a scooter, makes you pudding, and gives you blowjobs? "..."
The rule of thumb is: The cooler/better something is, the less they say about it. The more they talk about it, the less cool/awesome it is.
It won't be out of beta before I retire though.
2) There's no step 2.
There's no step 2!
If you have it, you don't need it.
If you need it, you don't have it.
If you have it, you need more of it.
If you have more of it, you don't need less of it!
You need it to get it, and you certainly need it to get more of it, but if you don't already have any of it to begin with, you can't get any of it to get started, which means you really have no idea how to get it in the first place, do you?
You can share it, sure.
You can even stockpile it if you'd like.
But you can't fake it.
Flaunting it, needing it, wishing for it... the point is, if you've never had any of it, ever, people just seem to know.
I'm red-green colorblind, and I absolutely, positively, cannot tell the difference between these two colors on this map. I can see the shades, sure. I just can't see what they are shades OF.
Maybe you should ask yourself whether you're acting like a jerk for attention.
[It's great that YOU can read this map just fine, but that doesn't help ME. In fact, coming here and saying that there's no problem for anyone is actually detrimental. Perhaps you can keep your mild color-blindness to yourself in the future? You're not speaking for the rest of us; no one appointed you representative of Colorblindopolis.]
mecenday is not in charge of Slashdot!
And? Does anyone really think the lack of cell-phones in the classroom is the problem holding American education back?
I used to teach in Japan (by standing in front of a blackboard, an actual blackboard, with chalk and everything). We told our students to leave their cell-phones at home, too.
Clearly, Japan's education system should be as bad as America's, given these criteria.
I came here to post the exact same experience. I'm red-green colorblind; they look the same to me.
OT question, since you're also colorblind and I'm curious: does your girlfriend wear makeup? See, mine does.
WHO IS SHE WEARING IT FOR?
You're doing it wrong.
>not like the passengers in his car, screaming and yelling
You have the word passengers before screaming and yelling! Passengers is the PUNCHLINE (punchword?), that goes at the END!
AND, you specify that his passengers are in a car. Why a car? Why not a bus? Why not a plane? Why give any specification at all? Better to let the reader's imagination fill in the most terrifying situation.
>I'd rather die peacefully in my sleep like my Grandfather,
>not screaming in terror like his passengers.
See?
Sheesh, kids these days. Don't know the classics.
Of course! Here you go.
It looks really creepy.
(Sorry, yes, pun intended)
More natural-looking (albeit slower) performance from the Wabian-2.
Swiveling hips are the way of the future. ^_^ Here is a demonstration video. (The giant mech shooting balls at people afterward is unrelated...)
Also check out the related robot Kiyomori. Because nothing says "We are here to protect you" like traditional armor and GLOWING EYES.
Combine this with the two-minute pointless video of a guy wearing a cardboard cutout of an iPhone, and yeah. My five minutes? I want them back.
Nonsense! BLAZEMONGER always has been* and always will be the greatest game ever.
(* Yes, even before it was written. It's that good.)