The "Spoiled Rotten" argument is a bad joke in my eyes. It's like saying "Mercedes and BMW drivers are spoiled, it's why they won't drive less comfortable cars anymore"... the fact that it's this very element (choice of software, comfort for cars) which is one of the key elements for purchase/usage nowadays seems to be totally unnoticed by those "Microsoft Reps"
I still use Windows 2000, but with Cygwin and Eclipse, I'm very close to making the transition to Debian (I personally like that distro best). On my internet server, which I actually abuse as a workstation to quickly compile some stuff, etc, I already run Debian and am very very happy with it.
Some key differences I noticed between Linux and Windows.
1. GUI vs shell The windows shell sucks arse, no two ways about it. Hence the only proper way to control windows is using the GUI.
That way works by letting the user SEARCH for the solution in an INTUITIVE environment. You click on something, then look for an icon that seems right, and then you hope it'll work. If not, you go back and search some more. What you see is what you get.
Using a shell such as bash, you are bereft of your ability to intuitively search - you need to RESEARCH in a COUNTERINTUITIVE environment. However, once you get the knack of researching (what's the name of the program to count the words in a text document? how does it work?), you can very quickly achieve what you meant to by a few keystrokes. What you get is what you mean.
2. Granularity vs. Bloatware Linux programs are tiny. There even is a program that merely outputs the letter "y" until killed. You need to combine these small programs using a programming language (in the shell's syntax, which is the problem most people have understanding!) into sequences of commands that will do what you meant. If you do it right, each of these programs will do its individual job very well.
Windows instead offers programs that offer to do fricken everything for you. Zip programs that encrypt files, word processors that play music, and email clients that spellcheck. But very often, they don't do these things very well, and worse, they sometimes the programs don't even do the things right they are supposed to do! So while you can always SEARCH for a solution by looking over your software's user interface, and switching through softwares trying to see which one does the desired job best (Photo Impact for fancy fonts, Picture Publisher for cleanup jobs, Open Canvas for drawing), chances are most of the bloatware features will go unnoticed. On the upside, you have everything in one package (even if it means that it might not work reliably).
3. Control vs. Intuition Few people that use computers have ever heard the name "von Neumann" or understand what a "stream" is.
While using the Linux shell, you sooner or later end up manipulating streams of data, which is quite essentially what the computer itself does. It doesn't really matter what the data in its binary representation may look like, as long as the result will make sense.
With Windows, you almost exclusively manipulate opaque data objects - documents are documents, images are images, and mp3 files are mp3 files. The computer wears a 'mask', the GUI, that helps you understand what the individual streams are, but it also takes away a lot of control from you as to what you actually want to DO with the streams. The only way to spell check a Word 2000 document is to use the application's integrated spellchecker, or destroy the document by loading or pasting it into another application, spell check it there, and paste it back.
While Linux with its shells empower the user by relying on his ability to research, windows with its GUI relies on the user's intuition, forcing the programmer behind it all to make wild assumptions as to what the software needs and needs not to do when a certain button is klicked.
Linux is better to get the job donw, but Windows is more intuitive to use for people who don't know how
Voting for the Greens, as they also have a good clue when it comes to privacy.
Never trust the FDP, the party of the "better earning" class... they ere incredibly dangerous and it strikes me as odd that they suddenly (?) oppose software patents.
Maybe they are planning to backstab by 'changing' their mindsets on the very day of the decision.
Both major parties are clumsy and clueless. Very dangerous and reckless of The People to grant them so much power.
Absolutely (I must be late, I can only find a weird apology document on the site?)...
I hope the guy is right and didn't goof up on his proof.
Riemann's Hypothesis would tell us many wonderful things about the distribution of prime numbers (mostly far beyond my humble concepts of mathematics)... it really is The Holy Grail of Mathematics.
A friend of mine is mapping the surrounding cities for WLAN access ports... though not merely "open" WLANs, but open routers.
T-Online/Telekom, the monopolist here in Germany, gives out their routers in a plug&play fashion with a default 'password' of 0000 (no username, nothing) in tradition of the electronic phone devices they were selling since the 1970s, since when the default pass code was always 0000.
All you need to do is log into these Access points with a webbrowser using (running on port 80, even, address 192.168.1.1 IIRC), and you can retrieve all the info necessary to hijack the person's internet account. As many people have a volume based billing model for their DSL over here, you can cause a lot of damage this way, and never be found.
The routers have an annoying (though somewhat sensible) Anti-Theft feature - they won't dial in automatically if they are stolen (i.e. are disconnected from their power supplies), meaning you have to reset them to factory defaults if you don't know the code.
Fortunately, their WLAN routers, unlike many older devices, do accept alphanumeric passwords nowadays.
Haha, actually that was exactly what I was going to post, but my Dexter/Mandark cameo didn't turn out to be funny enough, so I opted to go for the readers' pity instead by typing a crying emoticon.
We still use LEGOs to visualize some inverse kinematics before implementing them in a software project I'm in.
And a friend once built a gas pedal for his AMIGA joystick using Legos. Unfortunately, you had to be extremely careful not to hit the brake and accelerate at the same time - the machine would immediately crash if you did it:)
Modding for bad children?
on
Old Toy Modding?
·
· Score: 2, Funny
What an unfair Ask Slashdot this is. How am I supposed to be feeling now?
All I ever got for Christmas is this piece of charcoal.:'(
Assuming a sensible unit would be one twip. There are 12 twips in a twap, 12 twaps in a twup, and 12 twups in a twoop.
How many twips in a twoop again?
While exponential notation (12^3) makes sense, it's nigh impossible to imagine as a number (rightfully so, though, because we're used to think in the decimal system). We'd have to start calculating in the Base12 system as well!
I'd prefer the Metric system, because all you do is add zeros, and you have a learning bonus as a child because you can use your 10 fingers and count the carry when it goes above that.
1 Meter, 10 Meters in a Decameter, 10 Decameters in a Hectometer, 10 Hectometers in a Kilometer. 1000 Meters in a Kilometer (10^3).
I prefer 1000 in 1 to 1728 in 1. Though I might sit down and device nice names for Base12 numbers above 10 decimal. In particular, how would you pronounce 2A in Base12 ? Ouchie:)
Slashdot Mirror
"Thank you, come again!"
PEG stands for Personal Entertainment orGanizer. A series of PDAs manufactured by Sony, dubbed "Clié".
All PEG will do is replace your spine with a Memory Stick. So much for flexibility... %-)
Errrm, why does the article stat that this happened in 2002? A murder trial that takes so long is suspicious, isn't it?
ssh and minute social engineering skills?
The "Spoiled Rotten" argument is a bad joke in my eyes. It's like saying "Mercedes and BMW drivers are spoiled, it's why they won't drive less comfortable cars anymore"... the fact that it's this very element (choice of software, comfort for cars) which is one of the key elements for purchase/usage nowadays seems to be totally unnoticed by those "Microsoft Reps"
I still use Windows 2000, but with Cygwin and Eclipse, I'm very close to making the transition to Debian (I personally like that distro best). On my internet server, which I actually abuse as a workstation to quickly compile some stuff, etc, I already run Debian and am very very happy with it.
Some key differences I noticed between Linux and Windows.
1. GUI vs shell
The windows shell sucks arse, no two ways about it. Hence the only proper way to control windows is using the GUI.
That way works by letting the user SEARCH for the solution in an INTUITIVE environment. You click on something, then look for an icon that seems right, and then you hope it'll work. If not, you go back and search some more. What you see is what you get.
Using a shell such as bash, you are bereft of your ability to intuitively search - you need to RESEARCH in a COUNTERINTUITIVE environment. However, once you get the knack of researching (what's the name of the program to count the words in a text document? how does it work?), you can very quickly achieve what you meant to by a few keystrokes. What you get is what you mean.
2. Granularity vs. Bloatware
Linux programs are tiny. There even is a program that merely outputs the letter "y" until killed. You need to combine these small programs using a programming language (in the shell's syntax, which is the problem most people have understanding!) into sequences of commands that will do what you meant. If you do it right, each of these programs will do its individual job very well.
Windows instead offers programs that offer to do fricken everything for you. Zip programs that encrypt files, word processors that play music, and email clients that spellcheck. But very often, they don't do these things very well, and worse, they sometimes the programs don't even do the things right they are supposed to do! So while you can always SEARCH for a solution by looking over your software's user interface, and switching through softwares trying to see which one does the desired job best (Photo Impact for fancy fonts, Picture Publisher for cleanup jobs, Open Canvas for drawing), chances are most of the bloatware features will go unnoticed. On the upside, you have everything in one package (even if it means that it might not work reliably).
3. Control vs. Intuition
Few people that use computers have ever heard the name "von Neumann" or understand what a "stream" is.
While using the Linux shell, you sooner or later end up manipulating streams of data, which is quite essentially what the computer itself does. It doesn't really matter what the data in its binary representation may look like, as long as the result will make sense.
With Windows, you almost exclusively manipulate opaque data objects - documents are documents, images are images, and mp3 files are mp3 files. The computer wears a 'mask', the GUI, that helps you understand what the individual streams are, but it also takes away a lot of control from you as to what you actually want to DO with the streams. The only way to spell check a Word 2000 document is to use the application's integrated spellchecker, or destroy the document by loading or pasting it into another application, spell check it there, and paste it back.
While Linux with its shells empower the user by relying on his ability to research, windows with its GUI relies on the user's intuition, forcing the programmer behind it all to make wild assumptions as to what the software needs and needs not to do when a certain button is klicked.
Linux is better to get the job donw, but Windows is more intuitive to use for people who don't know how
Voting for the Greens, as they also have a good clue when it comes to privacy.
... they ere incredibly dangerous and it strikes me as odd that they suddenly (?) oppose software patents.
Never trust the FDP, the party of the "better earning" class
Maybe they are planning to backstab by 'changing' their mindsets on the very day of the decision.
Both major parties are clumsy and clueless. Very dangerous and reckless of The People to grant them so much power.
...people on here were getting laid in the first place :)
While we're at it: The entire WIPO needs to get laid and definitely needs to chill for a while - and then disband.
Please mod this post up... it's incredibly insightful and a beauty to behold. Just made my day.
>Mathematicians are never in it for the money.
You got it! They are in it for the chicks!
Absolutely (I must be late, I can only find a weird apology document on the site?) ...
... it really is The Holy Grail of Mathematics.
I hope the guy is right and didn't goof up on his proof.
Riemann's Hypothesis would tell us many wonderful things about the distribution of prime numbers (mostly far beyond my humble concepts of mathematics)
Absolutely! It was NOT AN APPLE (in the Bible incident). The word "fruit" is merely a metaphor for something sweet, nothing more.
As for the TuringMacintosh relation... It's one of my favourite urban legends, and I gleefully spread it verbatim and uncut.
It's just too wonderful to keep for oneself (I mean... the old Apple Logo's colour scheme even resebles the rainbow flag of the gay movement).
The argument that the colours are in a different order doesn't count, the gay pride rainbow flag can be turned any way you like it.
A friend of mine is mapping the surrounding cities for WLAN access ports... though not merely "open" WLANs, but open routers. T-Online/Telekom, the monopolist here in Germany, gives out their routers in a plug&play fashion with a default 'password' of 0000 (no username, nothing) in tradition of the electronic phone devices they were selling since the 1970s, since when the default pass code was always 0000. All you need to do is log into these Access points with a webbrowser using (running on port 80, even, address 192.168.1.1 IIRC), and you can retrieve all the info necessary to hijack the person's internet account. As many people have a volume based billing model for their DSL over here, you can cause a lot of damage this way, and never be found. The routers have an annoying (though somewhat sensible) Anti-Theft feature - they won't dial in automatically if they are stolen (i.e. are disconnected from their power supplies), meaning you have to reset them to factory defaults if you don't know the code. Fortunately, their WLAN routers, unlike many older devices, do accept alphanumeric passwords nowadays.
Haha, actually that was exactly what I was going to post, but my Dexter/Mandark cameo didn't turn out to be funny enough, so I opted to go for the readers' pity instead by typing a crying emoticon.
We still use LEGOs to visualize some inverse kinematics before implementing them in a software project I'm in. And a friend once built a gas pedal for his AMIGA joystick using Legos. Unfortunately, you had to be extremely careful not to hit the brake and accelerate at the same time - the machine would immediately crash if you did it :)
What an unfair Ask Slashdot this is. How am I supposed to be feeling now? All I ever got for Christmas is this piece of charcoal. :'(
Yeah right! And the sun comes up because all those alarm clocks ring in the morning...
Hmm, oookay.
:)
Assuming a sensible unit would be one twip. There are 12 twips in a twap, 12 twaps in a twup, and 12 twups in a twoop.
How many twips in a twoop again?
While exponential notation (12^3) makes sense, it's nigh impossible to imagine as a number (rightfully so, though, because we're used to think in the decimal system). We'd have to start calculating in the Base12 system as well!
I'd prefer the Metric system, because all you do is add zeros, and you have a learning bonus as a child because you can use your 10 fingers and count the carry when it goes above that.
1 Meter, 10 Meters in a Decameter, 10 Decameters in a Hectometer, 10 Hectometers in a Kilometer.
1000 Meters in a Kilometer (10^3).
I prefer 1000 in 1 to 1728 in 1. Though I might sit down and device nice names for Base12 numbers above 10 decimal. In particular, how would you pronounce 2A in Base12 ? Ouchie