Good point. I shouldn't have assumed that the typical programmer is capable of thinking up a simple one-to-one swapout algorithm if someone hadn't thought of it before.
I don't see why you're so bitter about this. There's a first for everything. While it looks obvious to you now, 50 years later, considering you've probably lived most if not all of your life with programming languages that use English words, it probably was a lot less obvious back then.
Airplanes would have been invented without the Wright brothers, but people start talking about them, do you get all huffy and say that anyone could have put together a piece of shit plane like they did?
And your patent argument is totally off-topic (though it does help to clarify why you're so bitter). First of all, one-click shopping is obvious to a shopper (who doesn't want less clicks?). Second of all, while I think she deserves props and is an important person in the history of technology, it's not like I was saying she should have had a patent on that so no one else could make a programming language that uses English words (I don't support software patents in general), and no one else did either.
Yeah, I'm sure no one every did that before her, because it's *so* fucking hard to swap out bytecode for partial words and tell the compiler to convert.
[sarcasm]Yeah, because everyone's been writing programming languages for like 8 billion years, so someone in the '50s wouldn't have anything new to think up.[/sarcasm]
Linux is actually easier to learn for people who are less experienced with computers. Think about it. If you stick a person who knows the ins and outs of Windows in front of Linux and tell them to install something, they will fire up the browser, search for a while, finally find a.tar.gz, double click, and then nothing happens. They look up what's wrong, and they find you have to type some weird commands to install it. Maybe they get it working, maybe they don't, but the end result is they decide that Linux is way difficult. Now stick a person who isn't even that comfortable installing stuff in Windows in front of, say, Ubuntu for example, and tell them to install something. They look around the menus and see Add New Programs. They click it, and find a list of a programs, divided into categories, that work on their computer. A few clicks, and the programs are in the Applications menu. The newbie decides that Linux is easier than Windows. (YMMV, obviously)
Now the ironic, catch-22 part of this is that the newbie, despite the fact that they could use Linux easy enough, will never, ever, download an.iso on their own and install Linux. If they're not comfortable installing programs, they're not installing operating systems. And the Windows gurus, who are comfortable downloading.isos and installing OSs and are just curious enough to do that, but they are too ingrained with their Windows ways and it doesn't make sense to them. There are exceptions, obviously (otherwise there wouldn't be any Linux users), but in general that's what I've seen.
Also, Debian Unstable is not the best distro to start people off with.;-) I recommend Mepis or Ubuntu, personally.
For most people, it's "I want everything to work the second I plug it, and I want to be able to connect to the tubes to get intarweb".
There are Linux distros that, if you have compatible hardware (which is not obscure - my random Dell with a Linksys wireless card is compatible), require no configuration after install. I installed Mepis for my friend this weekend, and she was good to go right after, with flash, mp3, realplayer, etc, all working with no configuration. Certainly a lot faster and easier than getting Windows to the same point is. If you're worried your hardware isn't compatible, then you can just buya computer with Linux, and then it's literally everything working the second you plug it in.
Hell, I prefer to spend 8 hours trying to get a decent OS running...
And if your wife is running OS 9, then your comparison is even more ridiculous and irrelevant.
Are you trying to tell me that my 8.5 box doesn't do everything now that it did then?
My friend has an OS 9 Mac that she recently got as a hand-me-down. She's near on the verge of asking me to put Linux on it because she can't make it do anything useful. It came with IE 4.5, which can't handle the websites she goes to, so I looked for a better browser and found iCab, which gives her tabs for browsing the websites that won't display right. Gaim and Gtalk don't have OS 9 versions, and while AIM says it does, it wouldn't install. She said maybe she'd just use it for word processing, but then I told her she doesn't have a word processor. None of the free word processors I know of (Abi, OO) run on OS 9, and I have no idea where to find her a copy of Word 98 or whatever. So I'm not really sure what she's going to use it for. I'm sure it was very useful when it was first bought, because there would have been a lot of programs available for it, but not anymore. If you suggest any good programs (and where to find them) for OS 9, that would be great, but right now it seems rather useless.
So which of them run on Linux?
I see Bang!Howdy does. I like Puzzle Pirates, so I guess I'll have to give Bang!Howdy a try (and look, I can even use my Puzzle Pirates account).
It would be nice if the IGF page had whether the game is Windows only, or has Mac and/or Linux versions. Even on the little description pages it doesn't say, so you have to go to the game's website and hunt down that important bit of info. I guess I'll do that myself and post it, if no one else does it first.
People can't handle differences because they don't expect to. If kids in school were given different interfaces to work with then they would to work with things that don't always look exactly the same. The receptionist where I work once asked me how she could get to her Yahoo mail from work. I looked at her screen, and realized she had a Yahoo toolbar, with a big button that said Mail, yet she never thought to click it. That's a problem. Now, we may not be able to teach her or the business owner you helped to adapt to different interfaces, but there's no reason we should expect the new generations to be able to do it. Unfortunately, with the Windows monoculture being shoved at everyone, we're just training a new generation to do the same thing.
Ok, just to be clear, you and everyone else realizes that 'by default' since at least WindowsXP (2001), Windows just restarts and puts this information in a dmp file and the system log if it can.
The end user doesn't have to look at ANY BSoD or geek speak...
I must admit though, I much prefer the feel of kubuntu installed over ubuntu. When my harddrive died a few months ago I went with a straight kubuntu install and it never felt right.
I'm the same way. I tried installing kubuntu straight a couple of times on my old machine, and I never liked it. Then somehow my gnome got corrupted on my main computer, so I did kubuntu-desktop as a temporary fix, and liked it so much that I never did go back and figure out what happened to gnome. I still like my gnome apps, though.
On a side-note: Windows monopoly also ensures you can go to inner Mongolia, switch on a local computer and with 90-odd percent chance make sense of whatever pops up on screen.
Actually, a lot of developing countries are going to Linux because Microsoft won't localize Windows to their language and because Windows is way too expensive for them.
The biggest barrier for figuring out a computer in a random country is the language barrier. Do you speak Arabic? No? Then you'll probably have a difficult time with Arabic Windows.
The differences between desktop environments is not really that big. There's only so many ways people have come up with to represent things on a screen. It's really sad that people freak out when they see new OSs, and can't take the time to recognize the simularities and figure out what's going on. The Windows monoculture has made people think that computer=Windows, and that's a bad thing.
It won't be a Personal Computer eventually. Your house might have a computer, but you won't walk up to it hit the power button and sit down, it won't be the Beige box anymore. it won't be persoanl.
So you are saying the computers will never get ton the point where you put in your game (or download or stream) and it puts some stuff on whatever is used for long term storage by then and plays with little or no configuration?
I'm saying that computers will never sit next to your TV, only to be turned on when you want to unwind for an hour or so with Final Fantasy XXVIII and then turned back off again. Downloading and installing Puzzle Pirates (the last PC game I installed) didn't take much effort, and I wouldn't be surprised if it gets easier and easier, but that doesn't make my PC a console.
Some places will take back open items and those that don't often won't take back your open console game either, so this point is sort of moot.
I used to work at a game store, and we wouldn't take back open PC games, when someone took back a console game we tested it in a display console and if it didn't work we would exchange it. It's a lot more common for stores to take back open console games, simply because they can verify that it really doesn't work.
I agree with your other points, though I prefer console gaming. Why? Because the games I like are on console, I prefer gaming from the couch, and my PC runs Linux. If I had a high-end Windows PC and I liked FPSs, then I would be a PC gamer. These PC/console flamefests are all stupid. Buy the games you like, and the systems that play them, and who cares if someone likes something else?
The reason the console will die is because computers will finnaly come to a point where they are just as easy to use a a console. You didn't read my post, Computers will have to become MUCH MUCH better before this happens. This means windows will no longer rule though.
I used to have an old computer that was as easy to use as a console - I stuck the disc with the program I wanted to use in the drive and turned it on. When I wanted a different program, I switched the discs and restarted. Just like a console. Would I go back to that? No. I'm all for computers becomeing easier, but a console's level of easiness is on a whole different plane. A console is an appliance, like a toaster or DVD player (indeed, some even are DVD players). A PC can be a lot of things. It can be a console or a DVD player, it can be a journal, it can be used to program and design web pages, to communicate with people, to record and remaster your band's new song, to just about anything. Maybe most people just want to write some email and visit MySpace. Make that easy for them, but don't take away all the options that make a PC a PC. A console is a simple device that does only one thing, but does it very well. A PC is a complex device that does many things. Any hybridization of the two would defeat the point of each. Unless you want my old Apple II. But, isn't the fact that Apple hasn't gone back to being console-like in their quest (well, marketing hype) for the simple computer a sign that maybe computers aren't consoles, and simple for a computer shouldn't be simple in the sense of a console?
Now many games are on one console + pc, which means if you go the console route, you might have to get multiple consoles to play the games you want, whereas PC might handle all of the games for you...
There's a lot of games that are only for one or two consoles, so depending on what you like, you might have to get a PC and a console or two for all the games you want, which you did for those PS2 RPGs. It's all subjective. Maybe I love Mario and think FPSs are dumb. Then I can get a GameCube and rant that PCs are dumb. Doesn't make consoles better than PC, so the argument that you might have to get multiple consoles is kinda silly.
I do agree the prices of the 360 and especially the PS3 are getting rather high, though I haven't priced out a gaming PC lately, so I don't know how expensive it would be to take that route instead.
Then a platform that is somewhere bettween the 2 will appear, killing both the PC and the console as we know it.
I hope that doesn't happen. PCs and consoles have their strengths at opposite ends. A PC is customizable, you can do anything with it, whether you want to upgrade to improve your game experience, or do something non-gaming, or whatever. A console isn't upgradable, but it will always play your games. You can't make a spreadsheet on it, but you don't have to analyze your system specs before buying a game. Even if the hardware race slows down, there will still be options (do I want a tiny PC to just do simple things, or an expensive PC that does everything?) and that will continue to define the difference between a console and a PC. Do I want a PC that's only sorta customizable? A console that I have to scan for viruses? No.
There's this thing called "insurance." Responsible people buy it so their families aren't irreversibly ruined by the exact situations you've described.
Some people can't afford insurance. I lost my health insurance at 16 because my mom lost her job, and I wasn't able to get it again until I was 24 and finally found a job that offered health insurance because with my asthma there is no way to find affordable health insurance on my own. I was lucky during that time that I didn't have a major health crisis. I don't know what I would have done if I had.
Talk about silly though, the two projects (K/non K unbuntu) SHOULD have been merged together. It is just silly to have to do a separate install, just because you want a nice KDE environment or Gnome environment.
Why is it silly? If you know which one you want, just download that one, and then you don't have to wait for the only one to download (and given how big gnome and kde, including both could easily push Ubuntu to two disks...). If you want to try them both, you can either download both live cds, or install one and then type
sudo apt-get install [k]ubuntu-desktop
. I think it makes a lot more sense, especially to newbies. Ok, not the command to get the other one, but I think it's helpful to newbies to keep the window managers seperate since that's one of the biggest differences to them.
Re:1900s 3 D stereoscope post cards come to mind
on
Are Videogames Art?
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· Score: 1
Perhaps there are video games that will have lasting value, the original Sim City and Myst seem to point in that direction but even these high quality games don't move me very deeply, sorry.
Final Fantasy VII has lasting value, it's still loved almost 10 years after its release and it will likely continue to be for a long time, and it's nothing if not moving.
You missed the point, again. iTunes, by default is set to import CDs to AAC (I forget which bit rate).
You missed my point, which is that not everyone uses iTunes. If your preferred method of getting music is through CD or an MP3 download service, like eMusic, then why would you even bother with iTunes? I know a lot more people that have or want an iPod than have used iTunes.
Bad credit does not equal a bad person but it is indictive of their priorities.
Bad credit can also indicate bad luck. Maybe you suddenly need to have expensive surgery or medical treatments, or what if your house and everything you have is destroyed in a flood or fire? Bad credit can also indicate that your parents were less helpful than they should be in getting you independent. My best friend was kicked out of her parents house when she turned 18. She didn't have a job or an apartment, and she had to get credit cards buy food and stuff (she applied for food stamps, but it took her 6 months to to get her "emergency" food stamps). My mother got a credit card in my name, ran it up and never paid it off. Bad credit can also indicate mistakes in credit reporting. My husband's credit report used to have a lein on a house he supposedly owned when he was 14. Despite the fact that we could prove this was impossible, it still took us almost a year to get it off all of his reports. I can't imagine how difficult it would be to get a mistake off your report that theoretically could have been legit.
Since iTunes, by default, rips your music to AAC (non-DRM'ed, unlike Windows Media Player rips to WMA), I think your statement is highly unlikely. Unless you're into that whole Ballmer "The most common type of music on iPod is stolen" mantra.
MP3s are not, by definition, stolen. Many people buy CDs and then rip them to MP3, or buy from EMusic or whatever. So I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of iPod music was MP3, and not copyrigh-infringed.
On the serious side have you ever talked to a woman? And Mom doesn't count. Gawd this BBS is still full of zit faced fucking geeks... sad sad sad. Last time I log in here. Where is the tech talk. Nothing but losers jacking to Play stations and game boxes... slashdot has jumped the shark.
Some women actually like games, and would prefer to talk to gamers in real life than assholes like you. And please learn what "jumped the shark" means before trying to use it again.
Slashdot Mirror
Airplanes would have been invented without the Wright brothers, but people start talking about them, do you get all huffy and say that anyone could have put together a piece of shit plane like they did?
And your patent argument is totally off-topic (though it does help to clarify why you're so bitter). First of all, one-click shopping is obvious to a shopper (who doesn't want less clicks?). Second of all, while I think she deserves props and is an important person in the history of technology, it's not like I was saying she should have had a patent on that so no one else could make a programming language that uses English words (I don't support software patents in general), and no one else did either.
Troll.
Linux is actually easier to learn for people who are less experienced with computers. Think about it. If you stick a person who knows the ins and outs of Windows in front of Linux and tell them to install something, they will fire up the browser, search for a while, finally find a .tar.gz, double click, and then nothing happens. They look up what's wrong, and they find you have to type some weird commands to install it. Maybe they get it working, maybe they don't, but the end result is they decide that Linux is way difficult. Now stick a person who isn't even that comfortable installing stuff in Windows in front of, say, Ubuntu for example, and tell them to install something. They look around the menus and see Add New Programs. They click it, and find a list of a programs, divided into categories, that work on their computer. A few clicks, and the programs are in the Applications menu. The newbie decides that Linux is easier than Windows. (YMMV, obviously)
.iso on their own and install Linux. If they're not comfortable installing programs, they're not installing operating systems. And the Windows gurus, who are comfortable downloading .isos and installing OSs and are just curious enough to do that, but they are too ingrained with their Windows ways and it doesn't make sense to them. There are exceptions, obviously (otherwise there wouldn't be any Linux users), but in general that's what I've seen.
;-) I recommend Mepis or Ubuntu, personally.
Now the ironic, catch-22 part of this is that the newbie, despite the fact that they could use Linux easy enough, will never, ever, download an
Also, Debian Unstable is not the best distro to start people off with.
8 hours? Are you building Linux from scratch?
It's still in beta. Maybe it'll be better when it's finished?
So which of them run on Linux? I see Bang!Howdy does. I like Puzzle Pirates, so I guess I'll have to give Bang!Howdy a try (and look, I can even use my Puzzle Pirates account).
It would be nice if the IGF page had whether the game is Windows only, or has Mac and/or Linux versions. Even on the little description pages it doesn't say, so you have to go to the game's website and hunt down that important bit of info. I guess I'll do that myself and post it, if no one else does it first.
People can't handle differences because they don't expect to. If kids in school were given different interfaces to work with then they would to work with things that don't always look exactly the same. The receptionist where I work once asked me how she could get to her Yahoo mail from work. I looked at her screen, and realized she had a Yahoo toolbar, with a big button that said Mail, yet she never thought to click it. That's a problem. Now, we may not be able to teach her or the business owner you helped to adapt to different interfaces, but there's no reason we should expect the new generations to be able to do it. Unfortunately, with the Windows monoculture being shoved at everyone, we're just training a new generation to do the same thing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Windows_XP_BSO
The biggest barrier for figuring out a computer in a random country is the language barrier. Do you speak Arabic? No? Then you'll probably have a difficult time with Arabic Windows.
The differences between desktop environments is not really that big. There's only so many ways people have come up with to represent things on a screen. It's really sad that people freak out when they see new OSs, and can't take the time to recognize the simularities and figure out what's going on. The Windows monoculture has made people think that computer=Windows, and that's a bad thing.
I agree with your other points, though I prefer console gaming. Why? Because the games I like are on console, I prefer gaming from the couch, and my PC runs Linux. If I had a high-end Windows PC and I liked FPSs, then I would be a PC gamer. These PC/console flamefests are all stupid. Buy the games you like, and the systems that play them, and who cares if someone likes something else?
I do agree the prices of the 360 and especially the PS3 are getting rather high, though I haven't priced out a gaming PC lately, so I don't know how expensive it would be to take that route instead.