honestly XFCE 4.2 is one the nicest, cleanest and most stable Window Manager/ Desktop Environments I've found and I've tried them all. It's crisp clean and simple, doesn't come with a whole slew of deps (ie no ancient mozilla dependancies that I'm never going to use).
then to top it off, it has taken a clue from the *box's and the like and made using workspaces more than just an eye-candy toy, making it easy to scroll through workspaces, or to set keys to do so. It doesn't steal key configs as gnome does (F1?). and last but not least it's FAST.
well... if you want to talk about the way people work in the world on talks about "universal rights" while they may not be entirely unviersaly there deffinantly apear to be a set of moral standards that all people adhear to.
for instance, in almost all societies murder is unacceptable. And at least in cases that directly effect us (relatively localized cases) I think it's safe to assume that there is something moraly at stake when someone takes the life of another.
I don't follow your logic on the record company arguement. I said that the musicians DO have the only right to their music. I didn't say that Record companies aren't in violation of that right every time they inforce decisions that go against the will of the artist. This a believe it true. Simply becuase a right exists does not imply that everyone is sticking with the obligations brought on by those rights.
Personaly I would love to see a non-prophit organization created to distribute music online for musicians that want to maintain control of their music. Release all music under the creative commons. Musicians make money off shows and merch, not on CD sales. CD sales in the end largely benefit the record labels. So even though dropping traditional distribution might be in the best interest of a musician, it's not really an option for a corperation.
I don't see (don't want to see) places like I-Tunes and the new Napster take the place of record distribution companies. I-Tunes will destroy the conception of the album, the entirety of music put together by an artist to meld together. This is alright when looking at the big name artists that only put out a CD full of singles, but for the most part, I only want to listen to full albums. that kind of aesthetic isn't available through current online distribution mediums.
maybe if you could offer torrents of albums, seed them yourself, and then offer the free. I don't know... that's my take on it all.
first there are two conceptions of right, legal and universal. Legal rights are simply those protected by the law, a while universal right is defined as a permision to perform a certain action coupled with others obligations of non-interference.
while in this case it sort of supports your quasi point that we tend to over use the term rights, and to expand our conception of rights to anything we feel we should be permitted to do. Most of these actions do not also imply obligations on the part of others not to interfere.
For instance in the case of file sharing:
If one were to believe that filesharing was a Right then there would be obligations on the part of musicians not to interfere with that right. Which would seem to imply that they actualy had an Obligation to supply you with their music. Which is certainly not the case. If I as a musician don't want the world to hear my damn music I think I have every damn (actual right here) Right to do with the music I've produced as I please. This make sense. I have produced the music, I there for that permission to do with the music as I please, and no one better get in my way.
now how does this aply to the music industry? What have the actualy done in the production of the music? anything? have they contributed at all? (not really... small production stuff) but the music is still (in my humble ethics opinion) the property of the musician. Where they should still have the right to control their music as they see fit. Of course record labels wouldn't really exist if this was the case.
The Gpl does a pretty good job of this. In a twisted convulted mess of terms.
anyways I just thought I should clear up some terms.
The things is, in this case anyways, that the scripted installs really aren't faster, and offer far less fine precission in installation. If you have technicians that have done the install before, and are familiar with the system, they can get a fresh install going in a matter of minutes. Mind you that this fresh install will have a good deal more information in it than... "click... install".
Gentoo gets alot of flack from the beginners for it's install process, when in reality it's very simple, well documented and straight forward. Especialy if you even a little bit familiar with editing your own config files (which as a server tech you should be)
Anders
But the answer to you question is simple.
1) Mozilla only suggests downloading extensions from it's own update.mozilla.org,
2) that requires that all extensions go through a brief testing period.
3) even though this testing period may not catch the malicious code, one can assume that some one will, and since there are literaly millions of firefox users. Literaly hundreds of thousands of people test the extensions. If anything goes wrong there are speedy and direct feedback methods, the extension is open source so it can be checked, and will be removed from umo at the first glimpse of an issue.
that's why you can trust somethine from mozilla.
Anders
ugh... I don't know if anyone else has had experience with "standardization" done by the government, but I know that my school in junior high switched to standardized texts and class room materials, whcih frankly, were just terrible. This is just asking for failure.
(dons tin foil cap) Horace mann was one of the founding father of public education in the US. His primary reason for promoting public education? "It is the best way to indoctrinate the youth with protestant republican (like "the repulic" not "the party") values." If you look at our public education system, this type of think still holds true in many areas. It's true of the no child left behind policy, it's true of state mandated curiculem, it runs rampent.
Examples are clearly evident in history text books, but can also find their ways into math texts. We all know that there are better ways of teaching math than what's going on in the states. We can look at how mathematics works in china and say, wow, they teach children basic fundementals of sets and numbers then teach them to aply that to arithmatic. But the current wealth of standardized texts in math continue to press the same old, memorize the theorem, do a million of the same problems, forget the theory move on.
Without the wealth and variet offered by competing text books, and freedom of education we are doomed to continue down the same path to eternity. Once we let Government dictate how we learn, how to do we regain control over content? We all know how beauracracy works, do we want it to take that long to update text books? Do we want it to be that hard to get corrections made?
Education needs the competition of distributed text books, too many are crap, schools and teachers need the power to decide what text book is proper for their curiculem.
The education system in america is in sad sad shambles, this is hardly the way to go about fixing it.
Anders
I'm just about to finish up studying mathematics at the university level, and I will also vouch for octave. A matlab like environment will probably cover a great majority of the tools you'll be employing at the highschool level, is simple, easy to use, and doesn't take long to learn. Just down the list would be a Maple like language, though I know of no such aplication for linux.
Anyways, we all pretty much use matlab/octave over here, it ports perfectly to and from the linux environment, and most of the functions if they don't port, are easy enough to find analogs for.
Octave-forge might also help in that it contains a set of scripts that help in the editing and use of octave, making it more matlab like.
I love it, I hope this prompts more people to adopt it.
Anders
Re:Don't forget to check out the extensions:
on
Firefox 1.0 Released
·
· Score: 1
I've spent all day on the forums trying to ween people of google bar.
It provides NO EXTRA FUNCTIONALITY!
use quicklinks in the url and FAYT in the page
and read my beginners guide
http://www.bytecave.net/anders/Fx_how_to.html
I was a memeber of a vision study at the university of minesota. My understanding is that the human eye can distinguish two images if the change occurs for greater than.03 seconds (aproximately 30 FPS) now this is average, and we all know from our monitor flicker that 60FPS is deferentialable from 85. But I also know that movies run at about 24 and I've never seen a movie flicker. So the question is... do we need anything greater than 60 FPS... REally?
doesn't doom3 limit the fps to a max of 60 so that system resources can be used for better purposes than rendering frames we can't see? That's what I read a while back in an interview with john carmak.
Anders
Slashdot Mirror
honestly XFCE 4.2 is one the nicest, cleanest and most stable Window Manager/ Desktop Environments I've found and I've tried them all. It's crisp clean and simple, doesn't come with a whole slew of deps (ie no ancient mozilla dependancies that I'm never going to use).
then to top it off, it has taken a clue from the *box's and the like and made using workspaces more than just an eye-candy toy, making it easy to scroll through workspaces, or to set keys to do so. It doesn't steal key configs as gnome does (F1?). and last but not least it's FAST.
Anders
well... if you want to talk about the way people work in the world on talks about "universal rights" while they may not be entirely unviersaly there deffinantly apear to be a set of moral standards that all people adhear to.
for instance, in almost all societies murder is unacceptable. And at least in cases that directly effect us (relatively localized cases) I think it's safe to assume that there is something moraly at stake when someone takes the life of another.
I don't follow your logic on the record company arguement. I said that the musicians DO have the only right to their music. I didn't say that Record companies aren't in violation of that right every time they inforce decisions that go against the will of the artist. This a believe it true. Simply becuase a right exists does not imply that everyone is sticking with the obligations brought on by those rights.
Personaly I would love to see a non-prophit organization created to distribute music online for musicians that want to maintain control of their music. Release all music under the creative commons. Musicians make money off shows and merch, not on CD sales. CD sales in the end largely benefit the record labels. So even though dropping traditional distribution might be in the best interest of a musician, it's not really an option for a corperation.
I don't see (don't want to see) places like I-Tunes and the new Napster take the place of record distribution companies. I-Tunes will destroy the conception of the album, the entirety of music put together by an artist to meld together. This is alright when looking at the big name artists that only put out a CD full of singles, but for the most part, I only want to listen to full albums. that kind of aesthetic isn't available through current online distribution mediums.
maybe if you could offer torrents of albums, seed them yourself, and then offer the free. I don't know... that's my take on it all.
Anders
hmmm ... you also have neglected to study ethics.
first there are two conceptions of right, legal and universal. Legal rights are simply those protected by the law, a while universal right is defined as a permision to perform a certain action coupled with others obligations of non-interference.
while in this case it sort of supports your quasi point that we tend to over use the term rights, and to expand our conception of rights to anything we feel we should be permitted to do. Most of these actions do not also imply obligations on the part of others not to interfere.
For instance in the case of file sharing:
If one were to believe that filesharing was a Right then there would be obligations on the part of musicians not to interfere with that right. Which would seem to imply that they actualy had an Obligation to supply you with their music. Which is certainly not the case. If I as a musician don't want the world to hear my damn music I think I have every damn (actual right here) Right to do with the music I've produced as I please. This make sense. I have produced the music, I there for that permission to do with the music as I please, and no one better get in my way.
now how does this aply to the music industry? What have the actualy done in the production of the music? anything? have they contributed at all? (not really... small production stuff) but the music is still (in my humble ethics opinion) the property of the musician. Where they should still have the right to control their music as they see fit. Of course record labels wouldn't really exist if this was the case.
The Gpl does a pretty good job of this. In a twisted convulted mess of terms.
anyways I just thought I should clear up some terms.
Anders
The things is, in this case anyways, that the scripted installs really aren't faster, and offer far less fine precission in installation. If you have technicians that have done the install before, and are familiar with the system, they can get a fresh install going in a matter of minutes. Mind you that this fresh install will have a good deal more information in it than... "click... install". Gentoo gets alot of flack from the beginners for it's install process, when in reality it's very simple, well documented and straight forward. Especialy if you even a little bit familiar with editing your own config files (which as a server tech you should be) Anders
But the answer to you question is simple. 1) Mozilla only suggests downloading extensions from it's own update.mozilla.org, 2) that requires that all extensions go through a brief testing period. 3) even though this testing period may not catch the malicious code, one can assume that some one will, and since there are literaly millions of firefox users. Literaly hundreds of thousands of people test the extensions. If anything goes wrong there are speedy and direct feedback methods, the extension is open source so it can be checked, and will be removed from umo at the first glimpse of an issue. that's why you can trust somethine from mozilla. Anders
ugh... I don't know if anyone else has had experience with "standardization" done by the government, but I know that my school in junior high switched to standardized texts and class room materials, whcih frankly, were just terrible. This is just asking for failure. (dons tin foil cap) Horace mann was one of the founding father of public education in the US. His primary reason for promoting public education? "It is the best way to indoctrinate the youth with protestant republican (like "the repulic" not "the party") values." If you look at our public education system, this type of think still holds true in many areas. It's true of the no child left behind policy, it's true of state mandated curiculem, it runs rampent. Examples are clearly evident in history text books, but can also find their ways into math texts. We all know that there are better ways of teaching math than what's going on in the states. We can look at how mathematics works in china and say, wow, they teach children basic fundementals of sets and numbers then teach them to aply that to arithmatic. But the current wealth of standardized texts in math continue to press the same old, memorize the theorem, do a million of the same problems, forget the theory move on. Without the wealth and variet offered by competing text books, and freedom of education we are doomed to continue down the same path to eternity. Once we let Government dictate how we learn, how to do we regain control over content? We all know how beauracracy works, do we want it to take that long to update text books? Do we want it to be that hard to get corrections made? Education needs the competition of distributed text books, too many are crap, schools and teachers need the power to decide what text book is proper for their curiculem. The education system in america is in sad sad shambles, this is hardly the way to go about fixing it. Anders
I'm just about to finish up studying mathematics at the university level, and I will also vouch for octave. A matlab like environment will probably cover a great majority of the tools you'll be employing at the highschool level, is simple, easy to use, and doesn't take long to learn. Just down the list would be a Maple like language, though I know of no such aplication for linux.
Anyways, we all pretty much use matlab/octave over here, it ports perfectly to and from the linux environment, and most of the functions if they don't port, are easy enough to find analogs for.
Octave-forge might also help in that it contains a set of scripts that help in the editing and use of octave, making it more matlab like.
Anders
best audio player for windows EVER
I love it, I hope this prompts more people to adopt it.
Anders
I've spent all day on the forums trying to ween people of google bar. It provides NO EXTRA FUNCTIONALITY! use quicklinks in the url and FAYT in the page and read my beginners guide http://www.bytecave.net/anders/Fx_how_to.html
ftp://ftp26moz.newaol.com/pub/mozilla.org/thunderb ird/releases/0.9/
as far as I can tell this source was there from almost the moment that thunderbird was announced
(last night around midnight pacific time)
Anders
I was a memeber of a vision study at the university of minesota. My understanding is that the human eye can distinguish two images if the change occurs for greater than .03 seconds (aproximately 30 FPS) now this is average, and we all know from our monitor flicker that 60FPS is deferentialable from 85. But I also know that movies run at about 24 and I've never seen a movie flicker. So the question is... do we need anything greater than 60 FPS ... REally?
doesn't doom3 limit the fps to a max of 60 so that system resources can be used for better purposes than rendering frames we can't see? That's what I read a while back in an interview with john carmak. Anders