It occurs to me that what makes the geek-crowd so adept at using computers is the fact that we are able to communicate with it on it's own terms. A computer is quite used to handling streams of characters, i.e. streams of discrete elements. It's not at all good at putting things together as a cohesive whole -- that's what us humans are good at. Those of us who can talk to a computer at it's own level (e.g. by using the commandline) are able to best manipulate it and make the best use of what it's good at. If we were to express ourselves to a computer using natural language, we'd be once again constrained to the world of large cohesive wholes by our language, rather than being able to dip into the world of small elements...
Why would we possibly want to remove the one element that makes a computer so incredibly powerful -- the ability to handle many small, repetitive, discrete items -- and replace it with what we're already good at, i.e. visualising entire systems? That's pointless. Use it for what it's good at... and to do that, you need to talk to it in it's native language...!
Project Oxygen looks like a few steps backwards to me...
Yes, schools need books, pencils, supplies, etc. But the important thing to remember here is that an entity can be most generous within it's own field. In other words, RedHat can offer a million RedHat Linux installations, with support, at a cost to them of X. If they were to spend X on, for example, stationery they'd be able to do far less good, since they'd have to first buy it and then distribute it, thus incurring additional costs to them. That's why you'd ask a software company like RedHat for software, and a stationery company like Faber-Castell for stationery, etc.
I take offence at the way that you've simply assumed that Islam is a "radical" religion with "radical Muslim beliefs".
The fact is, Islam preaches the Golden Mean - everything in moderation, nothing to excess. The real tragedy that I can see happening here is that a politically-motivated catastrophe smears the reputation of a fantastic religion like Islam. We're not all terrorists; we don't hold any radical beliefs; in fact, Christianity preaches for more fire-and-the-sword action than Islam ever did!
But this fact is probably going to get lost in the wave of Anti-Islam, Anti-Muslim sentiment that's rising up - especially since CNN and other agencies aren't doing anything to defend the second-largest religion in the world; if anything, they're making it worse by ostensibly calling for cool heads, and then referring to "radical fundamentalists" and tarring all Middle-East countries with the same brush.
Linux (as well as other free OSes, such as *BSD) is not really finding the acceptance here that it has found in America. I attribute this to several factors:
* Availability. It's not easy getting a Linux distro here in South Africa, since your options are to either buy it or download it. If you're looking to buy it, you'll have to get it shipped in from overseas and buy it over the internet, since I have yet to come across a South African computer shop that sells any Linux distros - if you're a student, this is a problem, since it's hard to get a credit card without a steady job, which many students don't have. If you're looking to download an ISO image and burn it, you're looking at hours spent watching a progress meter; download speeds of 56K here are regarded as top-of-the-line, and ADSL, satellite access, etc, are still a bit out of reach for the average consumer.
* Attractiveness. MWeb, Vodacom's offerings, and other major ISPs here in South Africa sure as hell don't support Linux! They ship you winmodems, expect you to use good ol' Windows for everything, and don't even make a pretense of acknowledging Linux as existing. So if you're signed up to those services, which many people are, then using Linux pretty much precludes Internet access. Fun, eh?
* Corporate Acceptance. Rhodes University, where I'm studying, recently signed an agreement with Microsoft to be able to get free or cheap upgrades to MS products, an agreement which effectively ties us into being a Microsoft-only shop. Frankly, I don't think some of our tech support guys are capable of supporting a Unix system. Other organizations are just as bad; they're mostly tied into Microsoft licences, and won't accept anything else without a fight - free software is still regarded as shoddy or unsupported.
* Publicity. People here just don't know it exists. And when you tell them that you run Linux, they ask "...but can I run on it?". Technology magazines here don't really cover Linux or *BSD, and when they do they almost inevitably portray it as "the OTHER choice", suggesting that *if you can't use Windows* then you should go with a free alternative.
* Support. Yes, I know you can go to newsgroups, IRC, etc for help. But many newbies don't know the right places to go... and in America, you can call up and get support, but here you've got to pretty much figure it out as you go; when I was starting out, it took me some time to find all the places I could get help from. And of course, even buying support is very, very expensive; Red Hat's price of about $160 (or thereabouts) is just under a thousand South African rands.
So you see, Microsoft really does have a pretty good stranglehold over here. There are a few LUGs around, and students are increasingly getting more frustrated with Windows and Microsoft products, and turning to the free OSes, but changing things will take a long time. The culture here will have to change first; in America, Linux is regarded as a viable choice, but here it's just another computer-jargon word to many people. Given time, though, I think that it will be a success on the African continent.
He's the guy who posts those really cool nanotechnology stories... no, wait, isn't that Timothy?
OK, then, he's the one who comes up with all the inspiring campaigns about censorship and free speech... no, wait, that's emmett, isn't it?
Well, surely he must be the guy who is always posting long diatribes about the injustice of modern society and how technology shapes our society... no, wait, darn it! That's JonKatz.
Hmmmm. Well, Hemos, I'm sure I've seen your name somewhere or the other on/. - right? So you must have posted *something* worthwhile, sometime or the other. But of course, today you're special because you're getting married, and all of your/. accomplishments don't come close to that special feeling. Congratulations!
It's obvious that Valenti isn't even running the show. Just take a look at this typical snippet: 15 MR. COOPER: Assumes facts not in evidence. 16 Calls for a legal conclusion and lacks foundation. 17 I just don't understand how we can 18 continue to spend the deposition asking the 19 witness increasingly more convoluted legal 20 scenarios. He is not here to testify as a legal 21 expert. 22 BY MR. GARBUS: 23 Q Go ahead, sir. 24 A The answer is, if there's a legal 25 conclusion to be drawn I don't know. [snip] 23 MR. COOPER: Ambiguous. It's compound. He's 24 testified a number of times that he doesn't know 25 what the DVD CCA is. So by importing that into 1 your question is making it compound. I think you 2 make it impossible for the witness to answer the 3 question. 4 THE WITNESS: I can't answer the question. Perhaps Mr Garbus should instead have checked to see if the witness wasn't a very clever robot that repeated exactly what Mr Cooper said... and said "I don't know" when no input was received from Cooper.
First of all, I'm a student, so I don't use Outlook a whole lot. But I do manage to spend a whole lot of time in Linux thanks to StarOffice 5.1.
I used to only change to Windows to play games and do word-processing. I had WordPerfect 8 installed on my machine under Linux, but frankly, it looks like a very, very rushed port of the Windows version. OTOH, StarOffice 5.1 works so well that I can do spreadsheets, documents -- I'm even using it do do certain webpages! I now use Linux almost exclusively, since (unlike WP) StarOffice's MS-Office conversion filters are top-class.
Speaking of email, though, a question does occur to me: wouldn't it be easier to convince your admins/management to simply change to a non-MS mail solution? There is no good reason I can see for sticking with that software (worse efficiency, less scalable, more virii, incompatibilities, etc). If all that's standing in your way is a "All-MS" policy, perhaps it's time to change that policy by pointing out that it makes no *business sense* whatsoever.
Call me paranoid, but I'd bet the farm on one of two things happening from here:
1. The technology will never come to the market. It will be swamped under a flood of bureaucratic regulations/"standards", and dead before it hits the ground. A few years from now, we'll have an "Ask Slashdot" feature that asks "What ever happened to FMD-ROM?".
2. The company, Constellation 3D, will be bought out by another company, who will force encryption/proprietary extensions on it and the whole DVD-fiasco will ensue again.
You see, the MPAA and others of their ignoble ilk have invested a hell of a lot of time and effort in DVD. They don't want that screwed up by some other format just because it is technologically superior and far better for the consumer. If this ever does come out to the market, watch for FUD saying "It's not secure; it can't be played in your DVD-player; it's not The Official Product; it's nonstandard" and another thousand lies.
So, what can we do about this?
Well, I'd advise Red Hat/VA Linux/Some Other Linux Company that's filed an IPO and has now got stacks of cash coming out of their ears, to act soon, as soon as the thing seems viable. Invest in the company - if it looks like the Next Big Thing, consider buying out Constellation 3D. Find out what the standard is, make a FMD-ROM driver, open-source it. Get the information out there, make it clear that DVDs are *not* the way to go. Use facts, not FUD - in fact, actively *fight* FUD, something that I don't see many Linux companies doing.
But don't stand still, or I can guarantee that we'll never see this product become accessible to us all.
...lots of little Eliza-variants running around on IRC. And when two of them meet, hoo-boy...
b0b: Good morning. haXor: What makes you say good morning? b0b: Why is that important to you? haXor: What do you mean? b0b: Tell me about your feelings towards mean.
And of course, what's truly frightening is that the above exchange is more intelligent than normal IRC chat! So we'd all be able to identify the bots easily, they'd be the intelligent ones in any IRC room....
Wow, after this and the Linux article in Playboy I find myself considering a subscription to such a fine, informative, upstanding publication.
....of course, I'm only subscribing to read the articles. Not for any T'n'A, no sir... =)
Seriously though, enough is enough. This kind of stuff really belongs in the "Quickies" sections that/. throws out every so often, it has no place in a separate story.
But in the comments here you're probably going to find a zillion people saying the equivalent of "MICROSOFT IS EVIL! You won't find this in Linux/Unix/*BSD!".
And I'm here to say that MS has done a good job. It's a huge OS, people. The fact that the damn thing *runs* amazes me =) as well as the fact that it is (according to all accounts) pretty stable (as compared to typical Windows stability). Expect bugs, expect lots of bugs, because there is no way that you can test such a behemoth properly. I myself will not install it until perhaps Service Pack 3+ has come out, because it's prudent.
Of course, Linux, *BSD, etc, all have bugs, it's just that they're fixed sooner and I think we all have more tolerance for bugs found on free systems. And we all have unreasonably high expectations of MS, because they're a bunch of corporate bastards (look at their history!) and because most of us probably support alternate OSes.
Of course, the thing that *really* worries me about this article is the fact that one of the bugs was apparently known for weeks before MS even admitted it existed; now that kind of thing is sloppy, and they deserve whatever criticism they get for it.
I'd class myself as a programmer, and I see absolutely nothing wrong with the current face of Linux. For those who go in for it, there's Enlightenment. And KDE can pretty much be an exact duplicate of Win95, hell, even AfterStep with it's Wharf can probably be configured to act somewhat like Windows.
But I see nothing wrong with the command prompt!
I used mpg123 today. It runs from the command line, and I call it as "mpg123 -v [file]". In a single line, I get all the status information I would ever need - frame #, track length, remaining time, remaining frames -- everything, including all the error messages so I can tell when my mp3s are screwed up. And when using Windows, I have RealJukebox, which is a poor substitute. Sure, it's graphical, with skins, and it looks good - but *meaningful information* is far and few between using RealJukebox, I have to hunt for it all over the screen!
So personally, I prefer mpg123 by far, and I think that if users can be made to lose the mindset that "It's in graphics! It *must* be better!" and recognize quality when they see it, they'd be happier with the command line interface of mpg123. But they've been conditioned to look condescendingly as the command prompt, and so I don't see light at the end of the tunnel...
Today, ladies & gentlemen, I present to you... JonKatz's thought processes!
"Hmmmm.... let's see, everyone's sick of Columbine, I can't write much about Gates 'cos he's resigned now, no real issues to discuss........
.....yet I feel a need to post something inane. Hey, I know! I'll just *make up an issue*! Something technological... hey, my Aunt May once ran across a nasty script kiddie on IRC, maybe I'll blow that all out of proportion! Yeah!"
Now to hit JonKatz with a large, spiky clue-stick: YOU DON'T HAVE TO READ IT IF YOU DON'T WANT TO! (sorry for shouting, he deserved it). If you don't want to be part of a group of introverted, hostile, misogynistic rejects, don't read their messages, and don't reply to them. Simple, no?
Subscriptions to/. would be something that would force me to give up my account, and only post as an AC, forever, rather than be stuck with a "second-class" account with less privileges than the subscribers.
I'm a student; I don't live in the US; I don't have a check book or a credit card account; *I don't have the money*!. These are all things that make it pretty damn certain that should/. ever introduce classes of membership, I'll be destined for the lower ranks pretty much automatically.
/. has always been free, and this has been a big drawing card. If you're really that desperate for money, ask for donations, I'm sure that those who can afford it will give generously. But no subscriptions.
I was pretty shocked to see Slashdot actually regarding something that crawled out of Jesse Berst's mouth as semi-reliable. Come on! It's Jesse Berst! For those of you who want to know why we should all detest this low-life, here's few good reasons:
1. Jesse is completely inconsistent. To say that he speaks with a forked tongue is to resist the temptation to use the description "multipartite".
2. Jesse's information is suspect, and that's on his better days. This year he has: * Predicted the downfall of Mozilla and the death of Internet Explorer. * Predicted the rise of Mozilla and the downfall of Internet Explorer. * Predicted the acceptance of Linux. * Predicted the rejection of Linux. * Predicted the slow-and-steady growth of Linux. * Predicted the Y2K problems as catastrophic. * Predicted that there would be no Y2K trouble. ....and all this in a matter of weeks. He must have a billion dissenting voices in his head!
3. Jesse stoops to the lowest of the low tactics that tabloids hesitate to use. He does not mind taking anything out of context, or smearing anyone and anything with unfounded claims. For some examples of this, just look at latest piece on Mozilla, then look at the Mozillazine response to see that just about every single one of his claims are baseless!
Please, if you're going to post anything else that Jesse writes, post it under "It's Funny. Laugh."
-=Yusuf=-
JonKatz should know better
on
Planet Gattaca
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· Score: 1
Sometimes Jonkatz has something worthwhile to say. This is not one of those times.
This entire piece is ludicrous. They're only creating a 300-gene lifeform -- who cares?? What is it going to do, kill us? Learn to think rationally with 300 genes? JonKatz draws incredibly far-fetched parallels with a novel written 200 years ago about an artificial *MAN*, not a 300-gene thing. This is not Frankenstein, JonKatz. Everyone will be amazed if it manages to wiggle a tendril or whatever, let alone take over the world.
We're not screwing with life here, JonKatz. When scientists finally document the last human genome, you may (finally!) have a point. But right now, this piece is alarmist and somewhat pathetic. Reminds me of Pinky and the Brain, really.
Pinky: What are we going to do tonight, Brain? Brain: I was thinking of making a 3--gene lifeform that will evolve into our servant and... take over the world! Pinky: Narf, Brain! No, wait... does that mean you'll hit him on the head instead of me?
Just want to point out that you're seriously mistaken. Mozilla is, from all reports, extremely modular; they are building it so that each component can be standalone. If you want a browser, and nothing else, wait for the final release. My guess is that a standalone browser version will be out in a matter of hours after the suite thing is released.
Some facts and figures:
The zip is about 20Mb (last time I checked) and the compiled is 5Mb zipped, 13.5Mb unzipped. Not bad for a browser, mail/news, editor, etc, eh? I expect you can probably take that down to 2Mb zipped, and 5-6Mb unzipped for a standalone browser. In this day and age of 100Mb+ IE installations, this is *not* too bad....
As every sane person knows, threatening teenagers with scenes of "horrific teen sex" is sure to drive them away from your site. Yep, BPI has cottoned on to the no. 1 fear of teenagers everywhere: disgustingly explicit pornographic images!
And why isn't this article appearing on Time, or CNN? Surely that's where it should be so that parents can see it?? But, no, it's on a site frequented probably 95% of the time by the aformentioned teenagers. What does this tell you?
Tells me that someone high up in the BPI has a stake in some internet porn business, and is trying to drum up support for his site(s)...
Speaking of FUD, of course, I had a nasty experience of this type just a short time ago...
The computer centre where I am is currently involved in upgrading computers, i.e. picking new computers out, choosing an OS, building new facilities, etc, etc. So I thought I'd drop a hint, and I asked the head honcho whether she'd considered Linux as an option. Of course, the answer was "No".
So I asked why, and was given Starndard Reply No. 1776, "It is unsupported". And I mentioned RedHat (and others) *do* support their products, that's what you pay for. So then she launches into a long spiel about how vendors don't stock it pre-installed (I pointed out that some do), and that the vendors who do stock it are not the right, "approved" vendors to go to (I admit to being stumped by the sheer idiocy of this one). What it boiled down to in the end was that Windows NT was the Microsoft-supported one, and she was "familiar" with it. After this I was unable to change her mind with economics (it's cheaper), logic (it's faster, more reliable, etc) or anything else.
Needless to say, *any* person in her position should be able to adjust to a new OS in a matter of days, if not weeks, but it was impolitic to comment on her skills at that point. So I let it drop, and we're apparently going to be burdened with Windows NT. Luckily, I leave the place at the end of this year, so I won't have to suffer much....
What bugs me, though, is the sheer stupidity and persistence with which people believe that anything not Microsoft-certified is useless. We're going to use MS Word, MSIE, MS , and pay through the nose, because she's too blinded to see the facts. How do you get around this problem? It's certainly not one you can ignore, because you'll have to live with the consequence: Windoze on every PC.
....and no, it's not a substitute that you can go home to Linux. You'll have to spend 9 - 5 with Windoze.
Slashdot Mirror
It occurs to me that what makes the geek-crowd so adept at using computers is the fact that we are able to communicate with it on it's own terms. A computer is quite used to handling streams of characters, i.e. streams of discrete elements. It's not at all good at putting things together as a cohesive whole -- that's what us humans are good at. Those of us who can talk to a computer at it's own level (e.g. by using the commandline) are able to best manipulate it and make the best use of what it's good at. If we were to express ourselves to a computer using natural language, we'd be once again constrained to the world of large cohesive wholes by our language, rather than being able to dip into the world of small elements...
... and to do that, you need to talk to it in it's native language...!
...
Why would we possibly want to remove the one element that makes a computer so incredibly powerful -- the ability to handle many small, repetitive, discrete items -- and replace it with what we're already good at, i.e. visualising entire systems? That's pointless. Use it for what it's good at
Project Oxygen looks like a few steps backwards to me
Yes, schools need books, pencils, supplies, etc. But the important thing to remember here is that an entity can be most generous within it's own field. In other words, RedHat can offer a million RedHat Linux installations, with support, at a cost to them of X. If they were to spend X on, for example, stationery they'd be able to do far less good, since they'd have to first buy it and then distribute it, thus incurring additional costs to them. That's why you'd ask a software company like RedHat for software, and a stationery company like Faber-Castell for stationery, etc.
They're doing the best they can, don't knock it.
I take offence at the way that you've simply assumed that Islam is a "radical" religion with "radical Muslim beliefs".
The fact is, Islam preaches the Golden Mean - everything in moderation, nothing to excess. The real tragedy that I can see happening here is that a politically-motivated catastrophe smears the reputation of a fantastic religion like Islam. We're not all terrorists; we don't hold any radical beliefs; in fact, Christianity preaches for more fire-and-the-sword action than Islam ever did!
But this fact is probably going to get lost in the wave of Anti-Islam, Anti-Muslim sentiment that's rising up - especially since CNN and other agencies aren't doing anything to defend the second-largest religion in the world; if anything, they're making it worse by ostensibly calling for cool heads, and then referring to "radical fundamentalists" and tarring all Middle-East countries with the same brush.
Linux (as well as other free OSes, such as *BSD) is not really finding the acceptance here that it has found in America. I attribute this to several factors:
* Availability. It's not easy getting a Linux distro here in South Africa, since your options are to either buy it or download it. If you're looking to buy it, you'll have to get it shipped in from overseas and buy it over the internet, since I have yet to come across a South African computer shop that sells any Linux distros - if you're a student, this is a problem, since it's hard to get a credit card without a steady job, which many students don't have. If you're looking to download an ISO image and burn it, you're looking at hours spent watching a progress meter; download speeds of 56K here are regarded as top-of-the-line, and ADSL, satellite access, etc, are still a bit out of reach for the average consumer.
* Attractiveness. MWeb, Vodacom's offerings, and other major ISPs here in South Africa sure as hell don't support Linux! They ship you winmodems, expect you to use good ol' Windows for everything, and don't even make a pretense of acknowledging Linux as existing. So if you're signed up to those services, which many people are, then using Linux pretty much precludes Internet access. Fun, eh?
* Corporate Acceptance. Rhodes University, where I'm studying, recently signed an agreement with Microsoft to be able to get free or cheap upgrades to MS products, an agreement which effectively ties us into being a Microsoft-only shop. Frankly, I don't think some of our tech support guys are capable of supporting a Unix system. Other organizations are just as bad; they're mostly tied into Microsoft licences, and won't accept anything else without a fight - free software is still regarded as shoddy or unsupported.
* Publicity. People here just don't know it exists. And when you tell them that you run Linux, they ask "...but can I run on it?". Technology magazines here don't really cover Linux or *BSD, and when they do they almost inevitably portray it as "the OTHER choice", suggesting that *if you can't use Windows* then you should go with a free alternative.
* Support. Yes, I know you can go to newsgroups, IRC, etc for help. But many newbies don't know the right places to go... and in America, you can call up and get support, but here you've got to pretty much figure it out as you go; when I was starting out, it took me some time to find all the places I could get help from. And of course, even buying support is very, very expensive; Red Hat's price of about $160 (or thereabouts) is just under a thousand South African rands.
So you see, Microsoft really does have a pretty good stranglehold over here. There are a few LUGs around, and students are increasingly getting more frustrated with Windows and Microsoft products, and turning to the free OSes, but changing things will take a long time. The culture here will have to change first; in America, Linux is regarded as a viable choice, but here it's just another computer-jargon word to many people. Given time, though, I think that it will be a success on the African continent.
He's the guy who posts those really cool nanotechnology stories... no, wait, isn't that Timothy?
/. - right? So you must have posted *something* worthwhile, sometime or the other. But of course, today you're special because you're getting married, and all of your /. accomplishments don't come close to that special feeling. Congratulations!
OK, then, he's the one who comes up with all the inspiring campaigns about censorship and free speech... no, wait, that's emmett, isn't it?
Well, surely he must be the guy who is always posting long diatribes about the injustice of modern society and how technology shapes our society... no, wait, darn it! That's JonKatz.
Hmmmm. Well, Hemos, I'm sure I've seen your name somewhere or the other on
It's obvious that Valenti isn't even running the show. Just take a look at this typical snippet: 15 MR. COOPER: Assumes facts not in evidence. 16 Calls for a legal conclusion and lacks foundation. 17 I just don't understand how we can 18 continue to spend the deposition asking the 19 witness increasingly more convoluted legal 20 scenarios. He is not here to testify as a legal 21 expert. 22 BY MR. GARBUS: 23 Q Go ahead, sir. 24 A The answer is, if there's a legal 25 conclusion to be drawn I don't know. [snip] 23 MR. COOPER: Ambiguous. It's compound. He's 24 testified a number of times that he doesn't know 25 what the DVD CCA is. So by importing that into 1 your question is making it compound. I think you 2 make it impossible for the witness to answer the 3 question. 4 THE WITNESS: I can't answer the question. Perhaps Mr Garbus should instead have checked to see if the witness wasn't a very clever robot that repeated exactly what Mr Cooper said ... and said "I don't know" when no input was received from Cooper.
First of all, I'm a student, so I don't use Outlook a whole lot. But I do manage to spend a whole lot of time in Linux thanks to StarOffice 5.1.
I used to only change to Windows to play games and do word-processing. I had WordPerfect 8 installed on my machine under Linux, but frankly, it looks like a very, very rushed port of the Windows version. OTOH, StarOffice 5.1 works so well that I can do spreadsheets, documents -- I'm even using it do do certain webpages! I now use Linux almost exclusively, since (unlike WP) StarOffice's MS-Office conversion filters are top-class.
Speaking of email, though, a question does occur to me: wouldn't it be easier to convince your admins/management to simply change to a non-MS mail solution? There is no good reason I can see for sticking with that software (worse efficiency, less scalable, more virii, incompatibilities, etc). If all that's standing in your way is a "All-MS" policy, perhaps it's time to change that policy by pointing out that it makes no *business sense* whatsoever.
Call me paranoid, but I'd bet the farm on one of two things happening from here:
1. The technology will never come to the market. It will be swamped under a flood of bureaucratic regulations/"standards", and dead before it hits the ground. A few years from now, we'll have an "Ask Slashdot" feature that asks "What ever happened to FMD-ROM?".
2. The company, Constellation 3D, will be bought out by another company, who will force encryption/proprietary extensions on it and the whole DVD-fiasco will ensue again.
You see, the MPAA and others of their ignoble ilk have invested a hell of a lot of time and effort in DVD. They don't want that screwed up by some other format just because it is technologically superior and far better for the consumer. If this ever does come out to the market, watch for FUD saying "It's not secure; it can't be played in your DVD-player; it's not The Official Product; it's nonstandard" and another thousand lies.
So, what can we do about this?
Well, I'd advise Red Hat/VA Linux/Some Other Linux Company that's filed an IPO and has now got stacks of cash coming out of their ears, to act soon, as soon as the thing seems viable. Invest in the company - if it looks like the Next Big Thing, consider buying out Constellation 3D. Find out what the standard is, make a FMD-ROM driver, open-source it. Get the information out there, make it clear that DVDs are *not* the way to go. Use facts, not FUD - in fact, actively *fight* FUD, something that I don't see many Linux companies doing.
But don't stand still, or I can guarantee that we'll never see this product become accessible to us all.
...lots of little Eliza-variants running around on IRC. And when two of them meet, hoo-boy...
b0b: Good morning.
haXor: What makes you say good morning?
b0b: Why is that important to you?
haXor: What do you mean?
b0b: Tell me about your feelings towards mean.
And of course, what's truly frightening is that the above exchange is more intelligent than normal IRC chat! So we'd all be able to identify the bots easily, they'd be the intelligent ones in any IRC room....
Wow, after this and the Linux article in Playboy I find myself considering a subscription to such a fine, informative, upstanding publication.
/. throws out every so often, it has no place in a separate story.
....of course, I'm only subscribing to read the articles. Not for any T'n'A, no sir... =)
Seriously though, enough is enough. This kind of stuff really belongs in the "Quickies" sections that
...now this is something I won't do too often.
But in the comments here you're probably going to find a zillion people saying the equivalent of "MICROSOFT IS EVIL! You won't find this in Linux/Unix/*BSD!".
And I'm here to say that MS has done a good job. It's a huge OS, people. The fact that the damn thing *runs* amazes me =) as well as the fact that it is (according to all accounts) pretty stable (as compared to typical Windows stability). Expect bugs, expect lots of bugs, because there is no way that you can test such a behemoth properly. I myself will not install it until perhaps Service Pack 3+ has come out, because it's prudent.
Of course, Linux, *BSD, etc, all have bugs, it's just that they're fixed sooner and I think we all have more tolerance for bugs found on free systems. And we all have unreasonably high expectations of MS, because they're a bunch of corporate bastards (look at their history!) and because most of us probably support alternate OSes.
Of course, the thing that *really* worries me about this article is the fact that one of the bugs was apparently known for weeks before MS even admitted it existed; now that kind of thing is sloppy, and they deserve whatever criticism they get for it.
I'd class myself as a programmer, and I see absolutely nothing wrong with the current face of Linux. For those who go in for it, there's Enlightenment. And KDE can pretty much be an exact duplicate of Win95, hell, even AfterStep with it's Wharf can probably be configured to act somewhat like Windows.
But I see nothing wrong with the command prompt!
I used mpg123 today. It runs from the command line, and I call it as "mpg123 -v [file]". In a single line, I get all the status information I would ever need - frame #, track length, remaining time, remaining frames -- everything, including all the error messages so I can tell when my mp3s are screwed up. And when using Windows, I have RealJukebox, which is a poor substitute. Sure, it's graphical, with skins, and it looks good - but *meaningful information* is far and few between using RealJukebox, I have to hunt for it all over the screen!
So personally, I prefer mpg123 by far, and I think that if users can be made to lose the mindset that "It's in graphics! It *must* be better!" and recognize quality when they see it, they'd be happier with the command line interface of mpg123. But they've been conditioned to look condescendingly as the command prompt, and so I don't see light at the end of the tunnel...
Today, ladies & gentlemen, I present to you ... JonKatz's thought processes!
.... let's see, everyone's sick of Columbine, I can't write much about Gates 'cos he's resigned now, no real issues to discuss ........
"Hmmmm
.....yet I feel a need to post something inane. Hey, I know! I'll just *make up an issue*! Something technological... hey, my Aunt May once ran across a nasty script kiddie on IRC, maybe I'll blow that all out of proportion! Yeah!"
Now to hit JonKatz with a large, spiky clue-stick: YOU DON'T HAVE TO READ IT IF YOU DON'T WANT TO! (sorry for shouting, he deserved it). If you don't want to be part of a group of introverted, hostile, misogynistic rejects, don't read their messages, and don't reply to them. Simple, no?
Subscriptions to /. would be something that would force me to give up my account, and only post as an AC, forever, rather than be stuck with a "second-class" account with less privileges than the subscribers.
/. ever introduce classes of membership, I'll be destined for the lower ranks pretty much automatically.
I'm a student; I don't live in the US; I don't have a check book or a credit card account; *I don't have the money*!. These are all things that make it pretty damn certain that should
/. has always been free, and this has been a big drawing card. If you're really that desperate for money, ask for donations, I'm sure that those who can afford it will give generously. But no subscriptions.
I was pretty shocked to see Slashdot actually regarding something that crawled out of Jesse Berst's mouth as semi-reliable. Come on! It's Jesse Berst! For those of you who want to know why we should all detest this low-life, here's few good reasons:
1. Jesse is completely inconsistent. To say that he speaks with a forked tongue is to resist the temptation to use the description "multipartite".
2. Jesse's information is suspect, and that's on his better days. This year he has:
....and all this in a matter of weeks. He must have a billion dissenting voices in his head!
* Predicted the downfall of Mozilla and the death of Internet Explorer.
* Predicted the rise of Mozilla and the downfall of Internet Explorer.
* Predicted the acceptance of Linux.
* Predicted the rejection of Linux.
* Predicted the slow-and-steady growth of Linux.
* Predicted the Y2K problems as catastrophic.
* Predicted that there would be no Y2K trouble.
3. Jesse stoops to the lowest of the low tactics that tabloids hesitate to use. He does not mind taking anything out of context, or smearing anyone and anything with unfounded claims. For some examples of this, just look at latest piece on Mozilla, then look at the Mozillazine response to see that just about every single one of his claims are baseless!
Please, if you're going to post anything else that Jesse writes, post it under "It's Funny. Laugh."
-=Yusuf=-Sometimes Jonkatz has something worthwhile to say. This is not one of those times.
... take over the world! ... does that mean you'll hit him on the head instead of me?
This entire piece is ludicrous. They're only creating a 300-gene lifeform -- who cares?? What is it going to do, kill us? Learn to think rationally with 300 genes? JonKatz draws incredibly far-fetched parallels with a novel written 200 years ago about an artificial *MAN*, not a 300-gene thing. This is not Frankenstein, JonKatz. Everyone will be amazed if it manages to wiggle a tendril or whatever, let alone take over the world.
We're not screwing with life here, JonKatz. When scientists finally document the last human genome, you may (finally!) have a point. But right now, this piece is alarmist and somewhat pathetic. Reminds me of Pinky and the Brain, really.
Pinky: What are we going to do tonight, Brain?
Brain: I was thinking of making a 3--gene lifeform that will evolve into our servant and
Pinky: Narf, Brain! No, wait
Just want to point out that you're seriously mistaken. Mozilla is, from all reports, extremely modular; they are building it so that each component can be standalone. If you want a browser, and nothing else, wait for the final release. My guess is that a standalone browser version will be out in a matter of hours after the suite thing is released.
Some facts and figures:
The zip is about 20Mb (last time I checked) and the compiled is 5Mb zipped, 13.5Mb unzipped. Not bad for a browser, mail/news, editor, etc, eh? I expect you can probably take that down to 2Mb zipped, and 5-6Mb unzipped for a standalone browser. In this day and age of 100Mb+ IE installations, this is *not* too bad....
As every sane person knows, threatening teenagers with scenes of "horrific teen sex" is sure to drive them away from your site. Yep, BPI has cottoned on to the no. 1 fear of teenagers everywhere: disgustingly explicit pornographic images!
And why isn't this article appearing on Time, or CNN? Surely that's where it should be so that parents can see it?? But, no, it's on a site frequented probably 95% of the time by the aformentioned teenagers. What does this tell you?
Tells me that someone high up in the BPI has a stake in some internet porn business, and is trying to drum up support for his site(s)...Speaking of FUD, of course, I had a nasty experience of this type just a short time ago...
The computer centre where I am is currently involved in upgrading computers, i.e. picking new computers out, choosing an OS, building new facilities, etc, etc. So I thought I'd drop a hint, and I asked the head honcho whether she'd considered Linux as an option. Of course, the answer was "No".
So I asked why, and was given Starndard Reply No. 1776, "It is unsupported". And I mentioned RedHat (and others) *do* support their products, that's what you pay for. So then she launches into a long spiel about how vendors don't stock it pre-installed (I pointed out that some do), and that the vendors who do stock it are not the right, "approved" vendors to go to (I admit to being stumped by the sheer idiocy of this one). What it boiled down to in the end was that Windows NT was the Microsoft-supported one, and she was "familiar" with it. After this I was unable to change her mind with economics (it's cheaper), logic (it's faster, more reliable, etc) or anything else.
Needless to say, *any* person in her position should be able to adjust to a new OS in a matter of days, if not weeks, but it was impolitic to comment on her skills at that point. So I let it drop, and we're apparently going to be burdened with Windows NT. Luckily, I leave the place at the end of this year, so I won't have to suffer much....
What bugs me, though, is the sheer stupidity and persistence with which people believe that anything not Microsoft-certified is useless. We're going to use MS Word, MSIE, MS , and pay through the nose, because she's too blinded to see the facts. How do you get around this problem? It's certainly not one you can ignore, because you'll have to live with the consequence: Windoze on every PC.
....and no, it's not a substitute that you can go home to Linux. You'll have to spend 9 - 5 with Windoze.