Apple isn't screwing you. Your government is taxing the shit out of you. Deal with it, or change it.
Except that, in England, one doesn't "deal with it", one simply grumbles a bit and then heads back down the pub to pay the additional tax that was arbitarily added by some fat man with a red briefcase.
The US is obsessed with taxes, whether you're on the side of raising or lowering. The UK is obsessed with grumbling about taxes, but doing nothing. I've seen both - I lived in the UK, and now I live in the US.
I suppose because most car hobbyists don't think you're stupid when you don't want to fix your car. Linux hobbyists on the other hand are often so fanatic about it that they sometimes come off as zealots. Most Linux hobbylists aren't fanatics, but the ones that are speak the loudest!
Perfect - that's exactly what I was talking about. I'd be willing to bet that he didn't want to do the work because he just plain wasn't interested. I'm sure he's confident that he could learn it, if he RTFM as you suggested, and if he got some practice and experience, but he just didn't WANT to. This is the same as most computers users who just don't WANT to screw around with their computers...
I love to mess around with computers, and Linux. To me, it's fun, so I do it. Changing my oil or sparkplugs is not fun for me (I've done it) so I'll pay someone else to do it. It's that simple...
I did RTFA and he did to a reasonable amount of research, in that this is exactly what MOST people will do given the same situation. Therefore, it's reasonable for him to do something similar....
This, again, is one of Linux's biggest problems: Too much fragmentation. If distro developers could put their egos aside and combine forces to create distros with some semblance of popular recognition, Linux's fortunes may change.
I completely agree. The amusing thing is that the reaction, by some clueless geeks, to your comment will be to create a new distribution! This new distribution will be the one EVERYONE uses and it will be SWEET!!!!
The guy did a *reasonable* amount of research in the area of distributions that were available. It's obvious to me that most people are not going to research anywhere near as much as he did when looking for a suitable distribution, and even still he couldn't get things to work for him.
I suppose he must be a total idiot or something for not wanting to spend another 2 weeks fucking around with it trying to make it work...
Exactly right. What a lot of Linux zealots don't understand is how they differ from regular people. They *love* to tinker with their OS, learn how it works, make it run better, etc. For them, tinkering is one of the actual uses of the computer. For regular people, they don't give a fuck about the OS. In fact, they don't even know what OS means, and they don't want to know.
These same Linux zealots are the people who's eyes glaze over when someone tells them they could change their own oil in their car for much less money and also get the satisfaction of doing it themselves. "It's easy!" says the hobbyist mechanic, "just read this book, and do it yourself". The Linux zealot thinks, "why the hell would I want to change my own oil - that's what I pay the mechanic to do - and it's boring".
Perhaps another lesson from your experience is that someone with SIMPLE requirements and family-based Linux technical support can be happy with Linux. Most families have larger requirements (non-simple games, videos, making DVDs, etc) and no free support from a Linux techie.
It's not just products, it's also services and technology. As the dollar falls in value, it is cheaper for foreign companies to license American technologies or buy American software. Minimal raw materials involved, unless you include the coca-cola and pizza for the techies..
Offshoring is not a black or white situation. The companies doing it well employ a mixed model whereby a given percentage (say 33%) of developers will be in India, or wherever. The local programmers and managers are the ones making the decisions, writing the specs, and are the ones controlling the direction of the product/service. The off-shore resources take the specs and bash out the code.
If you have a team big enough to do this, it can make total sense.
Also, again from a maths point of veiw, don't forget that a cluster of seven people with brain tumors is perfectly possible by random without any outside influence.
Oh come on - there's as much chance of 7 people getting cancer like this as there is of someone winning the damn lottery!! It's impossible I tell ya, impossible!!!
Once you've left University and you get into the real world, you'll find that your mathematics skills are mostly going to rot away. There is a minority of development that will involve math(ematics!) to some degree but it is certainly a minority.
IMO, computer science over-emphasizes the mathematics components of computer science to the detriment of more useful technologies that the majority of developers will be involved with when they get a job (databases, GUI design, other stuff, I dunno).
I'll admit that right now I'm working on an algorithm for efficiently applying digital attenuation to PCM audio, and that logs are powers are very helpful right now. However, it's a rare occurrence that I do such work.
The more helpful you are, the more people will continue to come to you and not try and figure out their own problems. If the solution is at the end of the phone call, or a short drive (for you), then the person with the problem will usually just call you instantly.
However, if you're a little less helpful, then people will sometimes think twice. For example, you get a call with a simple problem that you know you could just fix in 10 minutes, BUT you're fed up of the calls. Say something like, "I'm not sure what that is off the top of my head and I'd need to look into it. I'm, like, uber busy right now, so it might take me a few days... Let me know if you haven't figured it out in a couple of days and I'll take a look".
This accomplishes two things:
1) They won't want to hear your painful story again, as you will continue to mention it in all calls.
2) If the problem is serious/annoying enough, they won't want to wait for you to get to it. They'll often look into it themselves and fix it.
Most people aren't stupid - they'd just rather call someone like you (or me!) to get an answer in 30 seconds. It's easier and convenient. By following my advice, you'll make it less easy and less convenient. No need to cut them off completely, and by all means judge how important each call is.
Personally, I NEVER build computer computers for anyone unless it's very close family. Building a computer for someone means that you can't say "call Dell" and so you ARE the support. Sure, encourage independance, but it's virtually impossible to cut them off.
I guess that's what I meant by Linux having potential. It was precisely *because* it was freely available, and changes were welcome, that it's potential was huge. The fact that it wasn't technically perfect and sublimely designed were of relatively minor consideration, at least at first.
And don't forget the subject line of his original post: "Linux is obselete".
I mean, the guy is clever n' all, and he's written some great books, and I bet he's an awesome teacher. BUT his *practical* and *pragmatic* thinking is just way off. That discussion with Linux and ChristmasTree really highlights some fundamental errors in judgement on ChristmasTree's part:
-Linux is obsolete (even in 1992 it was obvious to many that Linux had potential. How much, who knew).
-Linux would be difficult to port (maybe true, but hardly stopped it happening)
-Everyone will be running GNU on their SPARCstations (running WTF on their Huh?)
-"I think it is a gross error to design an OS for any specific architecture, since that is not going to be around all that long."
Another thing: If a driver goes down, then I'm generally fucked anyway. "Awesome, my SCSI driver died but my system is still running! Cool! Oh wait, I can't do a damn thing now. Time to reboot I suppose."
I can't imagine that many cases where I would want to continue on if the kernel went bad. Give me auto-save in every app, and that will be fine... It's not like OS's are so horrendously unreliable that this is a common occurrence anyway.
AND he said that these were DEFINATELY UFOs because he didn't see rivets! How fucking close do you have to be in a photograph before you can a CHANCE of seeing rivets? If you're that close, Photoshop isn't going to be much help to you.
That's exactly right. Whenever I have had to pick a kernel it's a big deal as I was considering a kernel for about 1,000 new installations a MONTH. We couldn't trust the latest 2.6, or just pick a version. So we looked at what versions Redhat and others were using and took it from there. Why? Because they TESTED it and implicitly gave it their stamp of approval.
My approach may be foolish in some regards, but I certainly don't have time or the knowledge to audit the kernel myself. It's too huge and and I'm not a kernel developer - I'm a kernel *user*. I've not been burnt yet!
Ubuntu has a device database that collects trivial info after your install and reports it back to a web-based database.
Privacy! Privacy! I can't believe those Microsoft fuckers are doing that! I'm goind to write to my senator. I'm going to email Bill Gates every 5 seconds!
Wait... no... It's Linux... Never mind - it's fine.
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Except that, in England, one doesn't "deal with it", one simply grumbles a bit and then heads back down the pub to pay the additional tax that was arbitarily added by some fat man with a red briefcase.
The US is obsessed with taxes, whether you're on the side of raising or lowering. The UK is obsessed with grumbling about taxes, but doing nothing. I've seen both - I lived in the UK, and now I live in the US.
I suppose because most car hobbyists don't think you're stupid when you don't want to fix your car. Linux hobbyists on the other hand are often so fanatic about it that they sometimes come off as zealots. Most Linux hobbylists aren't fanatics, but the ones that are speak the loudest!
I love to mess around with computers, and Linux. To me, it's fun, so I do it. Changing my oil or sparkplugs is not fun for me (I've done it) so I'll pay someone else to do it. It's that simple...
I did RTFA and he did to a reasonable amount of research, in that this is exactly what MOST people will do given the same situation. Therefore, it's reasonable for him to do something similar....
I completely agree. The amusing thing is that the reaction, by some clueless geeks, to your comment will be to create a new distribution! This new distribution will be the one EVERYONE uses and it will be SWEET!!!!
I suppose he must be a total idiot or something for not wanting to spend another 2 weeks fucking around with it trying to make it work...
These same Linux zealots are the people who's eyes glaze over when someone tells them they could change their own oil in their car for much less money and also get the satisfaction of doing it themselves. "It's easy!" says the hobbyist mechanic, "just read this book, and do it yourself". The Linux zealot thinks, "why the hell would I want to change my own oil - that's what I pay the mechanic to do - and it's boring".
Perhaps another lesson from your experience is that someone with SIMPLE requirements and family-based Linux technical support can be happy with Linux. Most families have larger requirements (non-simple games, videos, making DVDs, etc) and no free support from a Linux techie.
All he had to do was RTFM, check out the HOWTO, spend days researching, and ./configure ; make install!
Stupid users!! ;)
And it was FAST! Other searches were very VERY slow at the time. Google was like a breath of fresh air...
Wow. Is your computer clock wrong? Are you still stuck in 2002? Come back to 2006, there are still loads of jobs for computer people...
It's not just products, it's also services and technology. As the dollar falls in value, it is cheaper for foreign companies to license American technologies or buy American software. Minimal raw materials involved, unless you include the coca-cola and pizza for the techies..
Most companies don't say "permanent" any more. They simply say "full-time". The word "permanent" is as banned as the term "at-will" is encouraged.
If you have a team big enough to do this, it can make total sense.
Oh come on - there's as much chance of 7 people getting cancer like this as there is of someone winning the damn lottery!! It's impossible I tell ya, impossible!!!
IMO, computer science over-emphasizes the mathematics components of computer science to the detriment of more useful technologies that the majority of developers will be involved with when they get a job (databases, GUI design, other stuff, I dunno).
I'll admit that right now I'm working on an algorithm for efficiently applying digital attenuation to PCM audio, and that logs are powers are very helpful right now. However, it's a rare occurrence that I do such work.
However, if you're a little less helpful, then people will sometimes think twice. For example, you get a call with a simple problem that you know you could just fix in 10 minutes, BUT you're fed up of the calls. Say something like, "I'm not sure what that is off the top of my head and I'd need to look into it. I'm, like, uber busy right now, so it might take me a few days... Let me know if you haven't figured it out in a couple of days and I'll take a look".
This accomplishes two things:
1) They won't want to hear your painful story again, as you will continue to mention it in all calls.
2) If the problem is serious/annoying enough, they won't want to wait for you to get to it. They'll often look into it themselves and fix it.
Most people aren't stupid - they'd just rather call someone like you (or me!) to get an answer in 30 seconds. It's easier and convenient. By following my advice, you'll make it less easy and less convenient. No need to cut them off completely, and by all means judge how important each call is.
Personally, I NEVER build computer computers for anyone unless it's very close family. Building a computer for someone means that you can't say "call Dell" and so you ARE the support. Sure, encourage independance, but it's virtually impossible to cut them off.
I guess that's what I meant by Linux having potential. It was precisely *because* it was freely available, and changes were welcome, that it's potential was huge. The fact that it wasn't technically perfect and sublimely designed were of relatively minor consideration, at least at first.
I mean, the guy is clever n' all, and he's written some great books, and I bet he's an awesome teacher. BUT his *practical* and *pragmatic* thinking is just way off. That discussion with Linux and ChristmasTree really highlights some fundamental errors in judgement on ChristmasTree's part:
-Linux is obsolete (even in 1992 it was obvious to many that Linux had potential. How much, who knew). -Linux would be difficult to port (maybe true, but hardly stopped it happening) -Everyone will be running GNU on their SPARCstations (running WTF on their Huh?) -"I think it is a gross error to design an OS for any specific architecture, since that is not going to be around all that long."
I can't imagine that many cases where I would want to continue on if the kernel went bad. Give me auto-save in every app, and that will be fine... It's not like OS's are so horrendously unreliable that this is a common occurrence anyway.
Unfortunately, the guy is probably so crazy that he actually believes his bullshit. So even if the test was reliable, he's be telling the "truth".
AND he said that these were DEFINATELY UFOs because he didn't see rivets! How fucking close do you have to be in a photograph before you can a CHANCE of seeing rivets? If you're that close, Photoshop isn't going to be much help to you.
My approach may be foolish in some regards, but I certainly don't have time or the knowledge to audit the kernel myself. It's too huge and and I'm not a kernel developer - I'm a kernel *user*. I've not been burnt yet!
Privacy! Privacy! I can't believe those Microsoft fuckers are doing that! I'm goind to write to my senator. I'm going to email Bill Gates every 5 seconds!
Wait... no... It's Linux... Never mind - it's fine.
Promise me you'll never EVER say that out loud. Please.