As far as installation goes, linux is no problem. I use apt-get in debian and it works great. (except for when someone added a dependancy on a package that cant be fulfilled) But, otherwise its great. It manages my menus with the menu package and keeps track of adding/deleting software, and even helps to configure it if the package manager was not too lazy. So, I dont mind it - as well, they're setting it up so that apt-get can pop up config frontends so that u can config on the console, or in a gui. i like it personally.
I think that part of the reason that us linux users feel ify about our guis, is because thats all they are, they're frontends, whereas in windows, the gui is often the only ui. When we think of frontend, we think limitation because we know what can be happening behind the scenes and it makes us insecure about using guis -we dont trust them. hehe. we'd rather write our own conf files sometimes. Its just like id rather write my own html in vi than use some editor. Thats one thing windows does well - hide EVERYTHING that is behind the scenes from the user even knowing about it, let alone thinkin about it. It works as far as comfort goes for users who dont care... but, I'd rather have linux. What I'd like to see, are more standardized system configuration. Like, I want a standard package format, like debs, but used everywhere. And, I'd like to see all services run in a similar way... like most things are run inetd so far, but i want everything done by inetd if possible. I want a place where I can say, in all servers, "Use login info from/etc/passwd info" or "keep my own login info database" (I want both options) Simple stuff like that. Just a thought:)
I agree with the other respondant, that stability does not sacrifice speed/features. However, I do not agree that any problems that may exist to hinder game development would not be fixed by a distribution. They'd have to be fixed where they are, in the kernel and in libraries and apps. All a dist is (often) is a collection of apps, the methods of installin them and managing them, around the kernel. Maybe an optimization switch in the kernel that says, "primary use=server/productivity/gaming" or somethin like that:) But it wouldnt be in a dist.
So far, this Helix thing does not seem to be available as a deb package. I wouldnt call this a problem so much as an inconvenience. I believe that its likely that the developers dont have a debian box sitting around, and so havnt gotten someone to build it/test it on a deb box. Which is alright, lets just be patient. Someone mentioned that deb doesnt support KDE - this is inaccurate. KDE has not been available thru the main deb servers because of licensing issues with QT. However, there are KDE packages available on seperate servers. Ask about it in #debian at irc.debian.org.
Well, you are sorta describing the debian package manager. I havnt gotten around to playing with any, but there are GUI frontends to apt-get that should make package management easy. Debs handle gnome and everything like that. Very well too - makes upgrades a snap (keeping up to date).
I dont think that it'd be the end of backups. If you made a copy of a file it'd link it in, but as soon as you change one, I imagine that it'd spawn a seperate copy. If it were smart, maybe it'd create a diff or something? then when you move it off of the filesystem, it could grab the merged data and the diff, apply it and then copy. The only problem that I see, is that what happens when u frag yer drive - sometimes i get lucky and a backup file is left in an unfragged part of the disk; ud be outa luck here. Someone suggested that a simple daemon could be developed to do this in unix... but i dont think so. This has got to be smarter than just symlinks. Otherwise, it'd suck pretty hard. I wouldnt mind seeing this feature if it didnt cost too much in overhead. Anyone wana implement this as a linux kernel module? hehe. It'd be easy to do without the diffs and stuff I think... just auto create 'symlinks' but tell the user that they're real files and when the symlink gets changed spawn a new copy of the file to be stored. Also spawn new ones when moving/copying across filesystems. Could be pretty cool:) One note... MS says that for remote installs it would just do its linking on the client... what happens when you do this on a big lan, and yer server goes down?:P
Id really love to see - and i think that linux needs this a bit - is some cross toolkit theming standard. Also, I'd like the toolkits to use similar rendering engines for pixmaps, gradients and stuff. that way you would be able to maintain a theme across multiple toolkits, managed in one place. It'd really make things better:) I mean, the different toolkits have their merrits, but I do think that the user should be able to make them look however they wana. And if thats the case, the user doesnt wana have to do the same thing 10 times. Also, more work could be concentrated on rendering engines if all toolkits used a standard one - to improve rendering times and stuff. I think thats the way that its guna have to go, eventually at least.
I agree that a good way for apps to communcate is still missing in linux for the most part. But I'd really like to see this abstracted away from particular toolkits/window managers. I mean, I HATE the look of the KDE window manager (thats my personal preference) - why should i lose out on good app integration because the look of kde makes me wretch? can such a thing be done without tieing it in with a particular window manager or toolkit?:)
That sounds something like tempest. tempest is a system by which you can monitor the electromagnetic output from a device and reconstruct its data - thus you can sorta 'watch' a monitor from a few hundred feet away. There are actually tempest shielded computers that prevent 'leaks' of EM radiation
I doubt that we'd see a simpsons movie until the series ends. Then ppl will be more desperate for fresh material. But it sounds feasable. I mean, they'll probably make one later on... may as well milk the simpsons for all that they're worth:)
antisocial geek hermit phase
on
LonelyNet
·
· Score: 1
I personally believe the antisocial geek hermit phase something that teenagers go thru, and is just a phase. I remember articles in the newspaper about internet addiction - and I say, so what? it was a great lerning experience. It was also a good opportunity to be intraspective. Maybe in adults its longer lasting and more damaging, but for teens and young adults, a year or two long addiction to the net, and a drop in social activity may not be such a bad thing.:)
I agree somewhat, and believe that there are probably genetic dispositions to shape the concerns of both men and women. These are archetypal, instinctual traits. It happens all of the time. But, I also believe that social shaping, and the shaping of experience has much greater impact than that of genetic instinct.
I dont believe that a greater percentage of men in the field than women is a problem. I mean, it would be more of a problem if women were to be coresed into entering the field if they arent actually interested (for a number of resaons - bad impact of uninterested workers, worker dissatisfaction, etc). The only problem with a difference in ratio, is if women are being prevented from entering a field that they are interested in.
How else would the lack of women be a problem? Perhapps if women had more to offer the industry than men do, there would be a problem... but if they are equal, then there is no problem, since the industry is just as well off with a man as with a woman, and even more so if the man is more interested than the woman is.
I think that society will shape the roles of men and women on it's own as women or men feel some drive to shift roles, for whatever reasons. I dont believe that we need to take organized action to get women into the field unless they're being prevented from entering it. People choose their interests regardless of distributions of men and women. (generally) So, why not let people do what they want to, and if the distribution of men and women in different roles change, then thats fine, but otherwise, dont push people, theres no point:) I think that the people who describe this as a problem maybe are women who feel lonely in the field, and that is legitimate, but that is the price of choosing a field which has fewer of the same sex. But I dont think that its reasonable to push uninterested people into something that they dont want, to help keep a few workers company. Its just silly:)
I'd rather see us lobbying against such a closed standard. I personally think that VHS is just fine - and it's usually just as cheap and more convenient to stick a TV and VCR beside your computer than it is to get DVD support. I mean, dvd is closed, expensive and owned by people we dont like - its like, trying to port explorer.exe to linux or something like that.
I would much rather see us lobby against DVD - goto movie stores and tell them about the evils of dvd and stuff. they probably wont care, but... heh. I mean, we could even get hard core and start handing out flyers to the people renting them. Just like the poster of the message to which im responding said, we need to use our market muscle. And I'd love to see someone come up with a more open standard - that supports the things that the dvd people want - region control, etc.. but that doesnt force you to implement it and doesnt force u to pay licensing fees. That'd win me over - then we dont run into the little record and movie companies getting pushed around by the big ones and stuff. I'm thinkin "ODRS" (Open digital removable storage) or something like that. hehe
I've also read that windows 2000 goes to lengths to hurt Samba compatability and I imagine that it manages to hurt the compatability of other things too. Also, dont forget that windows is proprietary - something that hides information does not help to improve communication.
He doesnt seem to understand that DeCSS is not the thing that the industry uses to encrypt content - its the thing that the hackers wrote. He should be saying CSS where he's saying DeCSS...
Does "What DeCSS lets the consortium do is determine who will make players, and on what terms, and who will provide content. If you can neither encrypt or decrypt the bit stream, you are locked out of both markets. If you purchase..." make sense to you? heheh
It makes me wonder whether this guy has actually been following the issue or if he's just restating stuff that he's heard somewhere else?
ehhe now the publisher of this article is findin it's self without bandwidth. Thousands of linux machines are flooding their servers with requests, leaving them without bandwidth - I'm not sure that this is exactly what they had in mind, but, it's ironic, and funny:) serves them right:)
I would rather see us be able to move asteroids first - not only would we be able to prevent them from hitting us, we could somehow bring them closer so that we could mine them more efficiently. But we're still looking at something pretty far off - I think we're going to see cybernetics and really high tech first. I mean, it takes a lot of energy to get out there, and theres no really inticing reason to do it yet. Maybe when we run outa stuff terrestrialy.
Well, I did this to kill whitepower.com's guestbook like, a year or 2 ago.
Again, I think that this kind of problem indicates that the web programmers are totally amature. I mean, you DO NOT TRUST THE USER. heh if you do, you're just asking for trouble. I'm not saying that I'm a good programmer or a very experienced one - its just common sense.
The most obvious and common screw up of this sort, is when someone tries to include some html tags in a dynamic post - like and they forget to close it - you see it all the time - the rest of the page starts blinking. The best way that I've found to fix this, is replace all tags with > and < and then specifically re-enable particular tags like and and check that there are closing tags. That way you get fewer problems.
But again, I think that there needs to be some kind of checklist of key points to remmeber and check when developing apps - simple stuff like, "dont ever interpret code that a user could have a part in creating" or "dont trust the user to get it right" "dont trust that the user is friendly" stuff like that - and as i said im not very experienced, so im sure that there are a lot more helpful points that someone could supply.:)
good point. maybe the mpaa fears that the next largescale pirates will be online pirates that mass distribute copies somehow. not the people who spend 6 hours a night in warez channels:)
While it's a very valid point, that DVD decryption will allow open access to dvd media (ie, free and open dvd players) I think that a lot of us are attempting to ignore the more dubious side of things. Many of us do want DVD players for linux, but so do many people want more perfect copying of DVD discs. If the purpose of decss was to help produce free dvd players, the main audience of those players would have been linux, since windows already has players (usually bundled with drives). But, deCSS and utils based upon it are available for windows, which provide no other purpose but copying. Before deCSS, copies werent 'perfect' and the advantage of digital perfect copies that dvd would give you disappears - deCSS lets you copy things more perfectly. Maybe the MPAA fears large scale pirates who repackage and sell copies of DVD discs more than they do the little warez kiddie. I think that this is more likely. The situation is akin to the publishing of security exploits before they've been patched. They can help find vulnerabilities to fix, but they can also be an open door for the people who wana do damage. While the linux app idea is good and needed, the fear of the app used to make high quality piracies of discs is a real and valid one. I think that the MPAA is going to have to find a more effective way of securing the media against large scale pirates - or else they're going to have to figure out some way to eliminate the negative effects of piracy. (maybe like make them free to watch after they've been out for a year or somethin? I duno:)
Well, it is getting better, so I'll keep downloading new versions as they come out, but, I do feel that its not 'useable' yet. People complain about the usability of Netscape 4.x (since it crashes often)... mozilla isnt even close to that level yet. If it crashes more than once every few hours, or if internal features will crash it I cant really use it as my normal browser. I know that its only an alpha, but its been in/pre alpha for a long time already - and people are talking about it as if it's a beta or something. Well, I still think that it IS alpha and people should be treating it as an alpha. I think that if some of the bigger bugs were worked out, that it'd be fairly useable even if it wasnt feature complete. And I repeat that it is getting better and I like what's been done so far... but lets not kid ourselves by saying that it's more usable and done than it really is - we've gota be patient:)
aaaand.... they say that redhat provides printed documentation - what about the online docs that ALL linux dists come with/are linked into? I mean, doesnt the SOURCE code count as documentation - you CAN NOT BEAT OSS software in documentation.
They also forget to mention that most linux boxes can maintain an uptime of a few years. I'd like to hear microsoft boast that.
The tests that are done are all fine and dandy, but when they start listing features, they shouldnt do it from the top of their heads. research it a bit and get a more broad understanding of what the features actually are and how they're available. Linux it's self is just the kernel - red hat linux is anything that comes in an rpm and then there are all of the other dists too. More than trying to prove windows is better, I think that they were just too lazy to do anything more than read what was put infront of them.
Im in canada, and AOL has been trying to edge it's way into canada for the past few years, with "AOL Canada". Now, doesnt that sound stupid? American Online Canada. bah. Here, AOL is hardly a major force:) Except maybe in the disk recyclin industry:)
Well, considering that we've been around for 10s of thousands of years, I'd say that most genetic info is 'prior art'. Maybe brand spankin new genes that do absurd stuff could be patented, but definatly not things already around - that includes crossing the genetic material of one organism with another.
Slashdot Mirror
I think that part of the reason that us linux users feel ify about our guis, is because thats all they are, they're frontends, whereas in windows, the gui is often the only ui. When we think of frontend, we think limitation because we know what can be happening behind the scenes and it makes us insecure about using guis -we dont trust them. hehe. we'd rather write our own conf files sometimes. Its just like id rather write my own html in vi than use some editor. Thats one thing windows does well - hide EVERYTHING that is behind the scenes from the user even knowing about it, let alone thinkin about it. It works as far as comfort goes for users who dont care... but, I'd rather have linux. What I'd like to see, are more standardized system configuration. Like, I want a standard package format, like debs, but used everywhere. And, I'd like to see all services run in a similar way... like most things are run inetd so far, but i want everything done by inetd if possible. I want a place where I can say, in all servers, "Use login info from /etc/passwd info" or "keep my own login info database" (I want both options) Simple stuff like that. Just a thought :)
I agree with the other respondant, that stability does not sacrifice speed/features. However, I do not agree that any problems that may exist to hinder game development would not be fixed by a distribution. They'd have to be fixed where they are, in the kernel and in libraries and apps. All a dist is (often) is a collection of apps, the methods of installin them and managing them, around the kernel. Maybe an optimization switch in the kernel that says, "primary use=server/productivity/gaming" or somethin like that :) But it wouldnt be in a dist.
So far, this Helix thing does not seem to be available as a deb package. I wouldnt call this a problem so much as an inconvenience. I believe that its likely that the developers dont have a debian box sitting around, and so havnt gotten someone to build it/test it on a deb box. Which is alright, lets just be patient. Someone mentioned that deb doesnt support KDE - this is inaccurate. KDE has not been available thru the main deb servers because of licensing issues with QT. However, there are KDE packages available on seperate servers. Ask about it in #debian at irc.debian.org.
Well, you are sorta describing the debian package manager. I havnt gotten around to playing with any, but there are GUI frontends to apt-get that should make package management easy. Debs handle gnome and everything like that. Very well too - makes upgrades a snap (keeping up to date).
I dont think that it'd be the end of backups. If you made a copy of a file it'd link it in, but as soon as you change one, I imagine that it'd spawn a seperate copy. If it were smart, maybe it'd create a diff or something? then when you move it off of the filesystem, it could grab the merged data and the diff, apply it and then copy. The only problem that I see, is that what happens when u frag yer drive - sometimes i get lucky and a backup file is left in an unfragged part of the disk; ud be outa luck here. Someone suggested that a simple daemon could be developed to do this in unix... but i dont think so. This has got to be smarter than just symlinks. Otherwise, it'd suck pretty hard. I wouldnt mind seeing this feature if it didnt cost too much in overhead. Anyone wana implement this as a linux kernel module? hehe. It'd be easy to do without the diffs and stuff I think... just auto create 'symlinks' but tell the user that they're real files and when the symlink gets changed spawn a new copy of the file to be stored. Also spawn new ones when moving/copying across filesystems. Could be pretty cool :) One note... MS says that for remote installs it would just do its linking on the client... what happens when you do this on a big lan, and yer server goes down? :P
Id really love to see - and i think that linux needs this a bit - is some cross toolkit theming standard. Also, I'd like the toolkits to use similar rendering engines for pixmaps, gradients and stuff. that way you would be able to maintain a theme across multiple toolkits, managed in one place. It'd really make things better :) I mean, the different toolkits have their merrits, but I do think that the user should be able to make them look however they wana. And if thats the case, the user doesnt wana have to do the same thing 10 times. Also, more work could be concentrated on rendering engines if all toolkits used a standard one - to improve rendering times and stuff. I think thats the way that its guna have to go, eventually at least.
I agree that a good way for apps to communcate is still missing in linux for the most part. But I'd really like to see this abstracted away from particular toolkits/window managers. I mean, I HATE the look of the KDE window manager (thats my personal preference) - why should i lose out on good app integration because the look of kde makes me wretch? can such a thing be done without tieing it in with a particular window manager or toolkit? :)
That sounds something like tempest. tempest is a system by which you can monitor the electromagnetic output from a device and reconstruct its data - thus you can sorta 'watch' a monitor from a few hundred feet away. There are actually tempest shielded computers that prevent 'leaks' of EM radiation
I doubt that we'd see a simpsons movie until the series ends. Then ppl will be more desperate for fresh material. But it sounds feasable. I mean, they'll probably make one later on... may as well milk the simpsons for all that they're worth :)
I personally believe the antisocial geek hermit phase something that teenagers go thru, and is just a phase. I remember articles in the newspaper about internet addiction - and I say, so what? it was a great lerning experience. It was also a good opportunity to be intraspective. Maybe in adults its longer lasting and more damaging, but for teens and young adults, a year or two long addiction to the net, and a drop in social activity may not be such a bad thing. :)
I dont believe that a greater percentage of men in the field than women is a problem. I mean, it would be more of a problem if women were to be coresed into entering the field if they arent actually interested (for a number of resaons - bad impact of uninterested workers, worker dissatisfaction, etc). The only problem with a difference in ratio, is if women are being prevented from entering a field that they are interested in.
How else would the lack of women be a problem? Perhapps if women had more to offer the industry than men do, there would be a problem... but if they are equal, then there is no problem, since the industry is just as well off with a man as with a woman, and even more so if the man is more interested than the woman is.
I think that society will shape the roles of men and women on it's own as women or men feel some drive to shift roles, for whatever reasons. I dont believe that we need to take organized action to get women into the field unless they're being prevented from entering it. People choose their interests regardless of distributions of men and women. (generally) So, why not let people do what they want to, and if the distribution of men and women in different roles change, then thats fine, but otherwise, dont push people, theres no point :) I think that the people who describe this as a problem maybe are women who feel lonely in the field, and that is legitimate, but that is the price of choosing a field which has fewer of the same sex. But I dont think that its reasonable to push uninterested people into something that they dont want, to help keep a few workers company. Its just silly :)
well, id be happy running Xwindows on a TV if you can hook up a mouse and keyboard up to it. Just run at 800x600 or so :)
I'd buy one... cant beat that 149 dollar price tag... but I would really hope that I could wipe windows off of it. now, THAT would be a sweet deal :)
I would much rather see us lobby against DVD - goto movie stores and tell them about the evils of dvd and stuff. they probably wont care, but... heh. I mean, we could even get hard core and start handing out flyers to the people renting them. Just like the poster of the message to which im responding said, we need to use our market muscle. And I'd love to see someone come up with a more open standard - that supports the things that the dvd people want - region control, etc.. but that doesnt force you to implement it and doesnt force u to pay licensing fees. That'd win me over - then we dont run into the little record and movie companies getting pushed around by the big ones and stuff. I'm thinkin "ODRS" (Open digital removable storage) or something like that. hehe
I've also read that windows 2000 goes to lengths to hurt Samba compatability and I imagine that it manages to hurt the compatability of other things too. Also, dont forget that windows is proprietary - something that hides information does not help to improve communication.
He doesnt seem to understand that DeCSS is not the thing that the industry uses to encrypt content - its the thing that the hackers wrote. He should be saying CSS where he's saying DeCSS...
Does "What DeCSS lets the consortium do is determine who will make players, and on what terms, and who will provide content. If you can neither encrypt or decrypt the bit stream, you are locked out of both markets. If you purchase..." make sense to you? heheh
It makes me wonder whether this guy has actually been following the issue or if he's just restating stuff that he's heard somewhere else?
ehhe now the publisher of this article is findin it's self without bandwidth. Thousands of linux machines are flooding their servers with requests, leaving them without bandwidth - I'm not sure that this is exactly what they had in mind, but, it's ironic, and funny :) serves them right :)
I would rather see us be able to move asteroids first - not only would we be able to prevent them from hitting us, we could somehow bring them closer so that we could mine them more efficiently. But we're still looking at something pretty far off - I think we're going to see cybernetics and really high tech first. I mean, it takes a lot of energy to get out there, and theres no really inticing reason to do it yet. Maybe when we run outa stuff terrestrialy.
Well, I did this to kill whitepower.com's guestbook like, a year or 2 ago.
:)
Again, I think that this kind of problem indicates that the web programmers are totally amature. I mean, you DO NOT TRUST THE USER. heh if you do, you're just asking for trouble. I'm not saying that I'm a good programmer or a very experienced one - its just common sense.
The most obvious and common screw up of this sort, is when someone tries to include some html tags in a dynamic post - like and they forget to close it - you see it all the time - the rest of the page starts blinking. The best way that I've found to fix this, is replace all tags with > and < and then specifically re-enable particular tags like
and and check that there are closing tags. That way you get fewer problems.
But again, I think that there needs to be some kind of checklist of key points to remmeber and check when developing apps - simple stuff like, "dont ever interpret code that a user could have a part in creating" or "dont trust the user to get it right" "dont trust that the user is friendly" stuff like that - and as i said im not very experienced, so im sure that there are a lot more helpful points that someone could supply.
good point. maybe the mpaa fears that the next largescale pirates will be online pirates that mass distribute copies somehow. not the people who spend 6 hours a night in warez channels :)
While it's a very valid point, that DVD decryption will allow open access to dvd media (ie, free and open dvd players) I think that a lot of us are attempting to ignore the more dubious side of things. Many of us do want DVD players for linux, but so do many people want more perfect copying of DVD discs. If the purpose of decss was to help produce free dvd players, the main audience of those players would have been linux, since windows already has players (usually bundled with drives). But, deCSS and utils based upon it are available for windows, which provide no other purpose but copying. Before deCSS, copies werent 'perfect' and the advantage of digital perfect copies that dvd would give you disappears - deCSS lets you copy things more perfectly. Maybe the MPAA fears large scale pirates who repackage and sell copies of DVD discs more than they do the little warez kiddie. I think that this is more likely. The situation is akin to the publishing of security exploits before they've been patched. They can help find vulnerabilities to fix, but they can also be an open door for the people who wana do damage. While the linux app idea is good and needed, the fear of the app used to make high quality piracies of discs is a real and valid one. I think that the MPAA is going to have to find a more effective way of securing the media against large scale pirates - or else they're going to have to figure out some way to eliminate the negative effects of piracy. (maybe like make them free to watch after they've been out for a year or somethin? I duno :)
Well, it is getting better, so I'll keep downloading new versions as they come out, but, I do feel that its not 'useable' yet. People complain about the usability of Netscape 4.x (since it crashes often)... mozilla isnt even close to that level yet. If it crashes more than once every few hours, or if internal features will crash it I cant really use it as my normal browser. I know that its only an alpha, but its been in/pre alpha for a long time already - and people are talking about it as if it's a beta or something. Well, I still think that it IS alpha and people should be treating it as an alpha. I think that if some of the bigger bugs were worked out, that it'd be fairly useable even if it wasnt feature complete. And I repeat that it is getting better and I like what's been done so far... but lets not kid ourselves by saying that it's more usable and done than it really is - we've gota be patient :)
aaaand.... they say that redhat provides printed documentation - what about the online docs that ALL linux dists come with/are linked into? I mean, doesnt the SOURCE code count as documentation - you CAN NOT BEAT OSS software in documentation.
They also forget to mention that most linux boxes can maintain an uptime of a few years. I'd like to hear microsoft boast that.
The tests that are done are all fine and dandy, but when they start listing features, they shouldnt do it from the top of their heads. research it a bit and get a more broad understanding of what the features actually are and how they're available. Linux it's self is just the kernel - red hat linux is anything that comes in an rpm and then there are all of the other dists too. More than trying to prove windows is better, I think that they were just too lazy to do anything more than read what was put infront of them.
Im in canada, and AOL has been trying to edge it's way into canada for the past few years, with "AOL Canada". Now, doesnt that sound stupid? American Online Canada. bah. Here, AOL is hardly a major force :) Except maybe in the disk recyclin industry :)
Well, considering that we've been around for 10s of thousands of years, I'd say that most genetic info is 'prior art'. Maybe brand spankin new genes that do absurd stuff could be patented, but definatly not things already around - that includes crossing the genetic material of one organism with another.