Yeah, well I'm sure MS also says that you can delete unwanted email in MS Outlook versions older than 2007, but the fact that they say so hasn't helped us much.
90% of users are Joe Sixpacks, and still 35% of them jump through the hurdles to drop Vista. It's hard to imagine what Microsoft would need to do to fare worse than this.
Unfortunately, Microsoft still has a very strong factor in its favour: momentum. People will just blindly accept what comes on their computer because they don't know about, or don't know enough about, or are scared of, switching.
My wife had been happily using her light-as-a-feather Vaio --the one that's so small that she could stuff it into her purse when she travelled. Unfortunately, her M$ Outlook started to get buggy, with problems like failing to retrieve address book contacts that she knew were present, or being unable to delete email (she had to create a new folder called "Email I want to delete but can't so I guess I'll just stick it in this folder").
Of course, what any of us would have done would be to switch to a different addressbook/email software that does not have vendor lock-in, preferably open source, and go on from there. But what did she do?
Well, she figured that it was a problem with M$ Outlook 2003+1/2, or whatever version she was using. So she went and bought Office 2007. It wasn't even the usual Office 2007 with just Word + Excel + Powerpoint + whatever the database program is called, M$ Excess or Excel something. It was the More Expensive Professional Version that included Outlook 2007, because only Professionals would want to send email or keep track of phone numbers. US$300. But it gets better! Office 2007 only runs on Vista! But her Vaio only ran XP. So she ended up getting a new laptop running Vista. (To be sure, she got a great deal on it.) The laptop is twice the size of the Vaio.
So now she has two computers, one to do some of her stuff, and the other to run Vista (and its pre-installed crapware) so she can actually access her address book and email. She is fed up with the Vista laptop and its UAC's, and how it doesn't have drivers for anything. It can't even connect to the wireless router at home because mine doesn't broadcast the SSID, and apparently if Vista's wireless system doesn't have the SSID handed to it on a silver platter, it will automatically connect to the next Crummy Unsecured Wi-Fi that walks by. So she has to connect to our router through ethernet. Kinda defeats the purpose of having a laptop. When she travels, she has to figure out whether to bring her Vaio or the bigger Vista laptop. Or both. And I've alreadyd told her long ago that I stopped using Windows (at home) in 2004, and am not willing or able to provide tech support for any Microsoft product. Except maybe Win2k, which is the last M$ OS that I used.
So she has any number of reasons not to use M$ Vista. But what does she do? She uses Vista. Because she doesn't want to have to learn a new system all over again.
I dream that, someday, I'll be able to pull out all her contacts and convert it to Kontact format, or Evolution (is that the GNOME equivalent?) --isn't that just the standard VCF format? --and then she can run Joe's Crummy Freeware Addressbook for Windows and free herself from that $300 piece of crap that is M$ Outlook Version For Professionals Who Actually Want To Send EMail. Or maybe Kontact will run on Windows KDE4 and be able to read Outlook files. In the meantime, it's just unnecessary frustration for her, and indirectly for me.
Anyway, back to the topic. Given that Joe Sixpack really doesn't want to spend more than 60 seconds on tinkering with the computer as opposed to just getting things done with the computer, it's telling that 35% of this population at Devil Mountain Software will demand that they've had it with Microsoft's New Revolutionary OS. I used to think that Microsoft held back the computer industry, but now I see that it's actually taking them in reverse. Good job, Microsoft --keep it up any more, and soon we'll be in the days of MS-DOS where nothing is compatible, lay people can't us computers properly, machines run slowly,... oh, wait...
In my mind, Zenwalk is, hands-down, a better distro. Faster, lighter, equally compatible, large library of pre-built software, easy to maintain. Running Zenwalk makes Ubuntu feel like Windows... it really *is* that much zippier. And there's probably other distros that are of the same calibre, but I simply haven't felt any need or desire to go looking.
Without thinking any less of Zenwalk, I would say that the reason I chose Ubuntu, and the reason I hope most people choose Ubuntu, is for the critical mass effect. Although it's perfectly alright for there to be an unlimited number of Linux distributions, I hope that one can emerge to be the flagship distribution, the de facto standard, so that the non-Linux world --vendors of Other Operating Systems, hardware manufacturers, and the lay public-- can have a standard distribution to see, experience and understand. If a hardware manufacturer decides that it can't possibly support all Linux distributions, at least it can say "we support Ubuntu Linux" and the other distro's can take it from there. If some noob-to-Linux goes crying for help, at least s/he there's a chance that some not-quite-geek has heard of the distro and can offer some help and support --including emotional support, where appropriate.
Red Hat had the chance to be that one flagship distro. They decided to cut it loose and focus just on big companies. Debian never really focused on the end-user experience. Mandrake (now Mandriva) came the closest to Ubuntu, in my opinion, but I guess they were missing a millionaire benefactor.
So, I hear you, and I don't think Zenwalk is any less because everyone's talking about Ubuntu. But I think Ubuntu has its place, and I think all the Linux distros benefit from Ubuntu's standing.
Having said that, can you tell me a bit more about Zenwalk and how easy it is to maintain? I briefly checked out the web page and couldn't tell if it was based on the Debian system, like Ubuntu. If it's not too far off from Ubuntu and it's able to benefit from ports to Ubuntu, then I might check it out. Because I find that one necessity in a Linux distro is the existence of a strong package maintenance institution, so that I can be confident that new software will be packaged and made available for (and compatible with) my distro.
It was refreshing to read certain portions of the ruling.... Good to know the court system can still work!
Agreed! I did read through the entire judgement --I figured I'd take my turn as the 0.1% of Slashdot to read the article so that the rest of Slashdot didn't-- and here are some comments.
This judge. Jeffrey S. White, was surprisingly familiar with free and open source licenses, mentioning the GNU GPL and the MIT OpenCourseware licenses. I wonder if he already had some familiarity, or whether it was the amici curiae from the Creative Commons Corporation and from the Wikimedia Foundation? Anyway, good job on all of them!
This judgement reminded me of why it was important to get advice from lawyers. Something that seemed plain-as-day to me turned out to be a focal point of debate. I've always assumed that, with a license like the GPL or other open source licenses, if you don't abide by the GPL, then the GPL doesn't apply --it's as if the GPL didn't exist-- and now you've violated copyright law. In this case (which is not GPL but the Artistic License, it wasn't so obvious: the defendants argued that the license itself freed the defendants from copyright law, and if the defendants then violated the license, then it was just a license violation (contract law) rather than copyright violation. This was how the defendants successfully argued at the Northern California District Court. Fortunately, the Appeals court overrode this, taking into account the spirit of the Artistic License and keeping in mind the other open source licenses. But it was a point I never thought would be questioned.
As the judgement points, the difference between license violation and copyright violation is especially important because, with license (contract) violation, you only get economic damages in return. If you write F/LOSS, then usually you can't really say that you've lost a million bucks because they stole your software. But this judge recognized the non-economic benefit of licensing under F/LOSS, and specifically said,
The choice to exact consideration in the form of compliance with the open source requirements of disclosure and explanation of changes, rather than as a dollar-denominated fee, is entitled to no less legal recognition. Indeed, because a calculation of damages is inherently speculative, these types of license restrictions might well be rendered meaningless absent the ability to enforce through injunctive relief.
In other words, "money isn't everything".
If the law decided that the problem was license violation, then Microsoft could violate F/LOSS, and then toss it a few coins and say, "Sorry --here's some spare change for your troubles." With the law deciding that it's a matter of copyright and not contract violation, the judge can tell Microsoft, "I don't give a rat's ass how much money you have --stop what you're doing or you will be caned."
I'm sure the GNU GPL, having been thoroughly vetted by Eben Moglen, has clearer language than the Artistic License, which prevents such loopholes, but it's still good to see a judge that understands the issues. Judge White has remanded the case --I think this means that he's sent the case back to the District Court saying, "Go try this case again --you didn't do your homework properly the first time."
(Incidentally, was this the same judge that Slashdot covered a year or so ago where he lambasted the lawyers on both sides for not doing their homework? Name sounds familiar somehow, but I can't place it.)
Indeed. The NBC commentator specifically said, as the footage was being shown, that the event's producers were using a cinematic interlude to convey the concept of the fireworks. The actual firewoks WERE going off at the same time, and in much the same way... but there was simply no way to be sure they could show it well on TV
I want to clarify: so were there really fireworks going off all over Beijing that were footprint-shaped, being set off in synchronized sequence moving closer and closer to the Bird's Nest stadium? Or were they all set off near the stadium, and the part about it going off in other parts of Beijing were computer simulated?
From the sky.com article, it seems like they were really there, so I have no problem with that. Complaining about it would be like complaining about CG views of the space probe Voyager as it swings past the rings of Saturn --"Wow, how did they get someone to take pictures of that spaceprobe up close as it goes past Saturn?" If the fireworks weren't really there , then I'd complain.
Ok, here is what _might_ have happened perfectly legitimately and with no bad intent: When the benchmark was originally written, someone took his time to carefully write optimized code for the Intel, AMD and Via processors at that time. When running on a Via processor, the benchmark executes the code that ran fastest on a Via processor in 2005. When running on an AMD processor, it executes the code that ran fastest on an AMD processor in 2005, and so on.
I'll give you credit for coming with a scenario that replaces malice with a heaping dose of incompetence. If what you say is true, then that's not a benchmark at all. After all, you're not comparing the same things; for all you know, you're comparing the skill of the programmer at writing for the VIA processor with the skill of the programmer at writing for the AMD processor.
The problem with this argument is that with open source software, you don't just have to trust a single random guy for your information. When the source is open, it is often the case that MANY people in the online community will examine the code, and through discussion there emerges a consensus which is far more reliable than the opinion of just one random guy. That isn't to say that the community as a whole is never wrong, but it's vastly more trustworthy and reliable than just some $randomInternetDude.
I agree with you.
I was wondering if there is some way we can get code audited by the community on a more formal basis, perhaps with a bounty system and a reputation system, so that one might donate to get the KDE4 code audited by me ($10), or some KDE contributor ($300), or Linus Torvalds ($10000). Then these people could develop a formal reputation system, like + or - votes on SourceforgeAuditVoting.org. They'd use their PGP signature to sign the audits.
Or something. I would view this as the next phase of the open source economy. Eventually companies might hire people with good reputations, to audit their own intra-company code.
However, need to correct a very important typo...you have misspelled the www.groklaw.net web address (you have growklaw at least once in the paper).
Quick, can someone grab the domain growklaw.net and make it redirect to groklaw.net? If some non-computer-savvy judge reads Beckerman's article and goes to www.growklaw.net, I don't want him/her to miss out on the trove of riches at groklaw.
I see that one of the chips in question is for a random number generator. Despite providing documentation/specs on how this chip runs, to make it possible to write free drivers, it's not the same as having the actual source code for the chip. With any other type of chip this would be well and good, but with random number generators, you can't really test them, and will need to rely on examination of the source code to prove that it works. Even then, it would not be that easy --see the Underhanded C Contest of 2007 in which people write encryption programs, and they work, and the source is open to inspection --and they STILL provide a back door to allow the encryption to be broken. (Man, that Underhanded C Contest is pretty scary.)
I hope the kernel developers and other programmers give us a choice whether to use random numbers from the Padlock chip or from some other source. Me, I'll just plug in my blinded webcam into my USB port and multiply it into any random stream for good measure.
We tend to treat large companies like Comcast as if everything they do is the result of the considered thought of a single entity. That's just not the case. The Customer Support piece of Comcast is likely to be a distinct entity. Certainly they work with the rest of the company, but they've got their own agenda
While your premise is technically correct, I'll provide a counterpoint to your point.
Large companies like Comcast (or Microsoft or most others), with some good aspects and some bad aspects, do indeed tend to be treated as one big monolithic blob --because that's how they're asking to be treated. Comcast is using its name as a brand. That's what it means to be Comcast. So, while it's not surprising that there can be factions within, we will still rate whether Comcast is nice or nasty on an overall scale. The responsibility for this falls on upper management which oversees both the Customer Service Department and the Lie About Unlimited Bandwidth^W^W^W^WMarketing Department. If Customer Support wants to improve its image separate from the rest of Comcast, they can spin off into "Support-A-Tronics -- A Division of Comcast(TM)" and change their logo. Of course, I've heard quite a few not-so-good things on Slashdot about Customer Support itself.
In the same way, I disagree with people who keep saying that "companies aren't evil --just the people within them". As a whole, companies can indeed be evil, greedy, upstanding, etc, just as people can be evil, greedy, etc. even if you can break their actions down into component actions which, by themselves, are not inherently evil etc.
Not just good PR- If I ran such an unpopular company, and was serious about turning it around, I'd be looking everywhere humans go to vent, or make criticism. Then, I'd try to solve the problems I found. Where's the story?
Where's the story? Isn't it obvious?
The story is that it's COMCAST.
Not only that, but Comcast is actually addressing its clients' concerns and negative feedback, as opposed to being oblivious to them.
Now, to really score, Comcast would need to fulfill some additional criteria:
address it with more than just some mere "yeah, we saw your complaint, now we're responding to you with this feel-good letter that doesn't actually do anything, just so you feel that we've addressed your complaint"
address the complaint for more than just a handful of high-visibility people with popular blogs, but rather do something about the actual corporate culture. I was going to say, "I would love to see a Slashdot posting or two from someone actually inside Comcast who would describe a positive shift in the corporate culture," but they might send a shill or two to write some false praise here.
Let me tell you something, Comcast. You ruined your own reputation. Now it's going to be real hard for you to erase that. See what happened to Microsoft? (Hey, Sony, stop snickering.)
When I worked for HP I discovered that most of the motherboards, laptops and such that HP sold were actually made by Foxconn.
That would explain the problems I had booting Knoppix, and later Ubuntu live, on some HP machines (my dad's desktop, my friend's laptop).
Somewhat embarrassing to say, "Watch this!" and stick in a Linux live CD and have it hang. I never imagined it would be because some MoBo maker specifically detecting for Linux and then sending it down the garbage chute.
I'm unlikely to buy a motherboard by itself, but if I buy a desktop or laptop, what other brand name products are FoxConn's mobo's hiding inside?
Like you, I am somewhat skeptical about the report's conclusions. But there are two points of note. First, the report does not refer to cancer, except indirectly (it cites cancer-causing asbestos as an example of effects that can happen long after exposure, so that one cannot conclude that something is harmless simply because it has been harmless for 10 years). Rather, it says that "we don't know for sure that it's not harmful," which admittedly is stretching it somewhat. Second, and more importantly, it does reference oneshred of evidence, which is that the blood-brain barrier permeability changes on exposure to cell phone radiation. I don't know how much it changes, or what the consequences are. But, based on this evidence, I'm willing to have an open mind.
By the way, where the article does talk about cell phones causing cancer, I'm not impressed: it says that "some studies show association between which side the brain cancer is on and which side the cell phone is used on," but all it quotes are position papers and public statements, not original research.
if I enter my username (composed from my real name) and an incorrect password three times, it locks me out.
I say "my" username, but if I enter any username - easily deductible by composing any two first and last names - and an incorrect password three times... that account gets locked out.
I don't know of any way to deal with this problem. NOT having an account lockout means someone can brute-force a password. Having an account lockout means someone can DOS the account.
You're not thinking outside your (rather small) box. The answer is to make the account harder to guess. Let users choose their own account name, and you won't be able to guess that "SamJones" is a valid account. You could try "SammyTheMan", but at least the range of possible logins has just increased by an order of magnitude. Maybe, for those users who really have no creativity and try to insist on using FirstnameLastname, the bank could require that your login be FirstnameLastnameBirthmonthBirthday. "SamJones0413" is two-and-a-half orders of magnitude harder to guess than "SamJones".
If you did want to solve the problem of account lockout, you could try this: the first time an incorrect password happens, lock the account for 0.1 seconds. For every subsequent attempt, increase the lockout time by 10. After 3 bad guesses, you'd have to wait almost 2 minutes. After four guesses: 16 minutes. Five guesses: 2+3/4 hours. Six guesses: a day and 3 hours. Seven guesses: a week and a half. Eight guesses: 3+1/2 months. So, on the one hand, if the account does get DOS'd, it's merely "relatively" DOS'd to some extent; on the other hand, if Evil Hacker really wanted to DOS the account to a great extent, then it would be inconvenient for Evil Hacker, who might actually wait 2 minutes for the fourth guess but probably won't wait 16 minutes to enter the fifth guess. The Innocent End User, checking her account at the end of the day, might not even know that it had been semi-DOS'd.
Lots of creative ways you can solve these problems. I came up with this in the time it took me to type this post. I'm sure others have more ideas.
Compiz did not take a step backwards. Compiz settings manager is different than Beryl, but all the features you complain about being missing can be configured from the advanced settings in Compiz.
Please tell me how. I have been looking for the settings under the Advanced Compiz Settings Manager.
In particular: how to get the cube caps transparent (setting opacity to zero under Utility > Cube Caps > Appearance > Cube Top Color does not work), how to get the key binding for rotating the cube so that the top faces the user (there is no such binding available under Desktop > Rotate Cube > Bindings, although there are bindings for Rotate Left and Rotate Right), and how to make it so that when I press the Initiate Window Picker key (under Window Management > Scale > Bindings > Initiate Window Picker), I can let go of the key without disengaging the Window Picker and reverting to the normal screen.
Any help would be much appreciated; otherwise, I haven't really received any significant information from you.
Compiz and other similar eye-candies may get them there.
OT post here, but I was really disappointed at the quality of Compiz in Kubuntu 8.04. After having seen Beryl with 7.04, I had expected that merging Beryl back into Compiz would produce the best of both worlds. Instead, the result was a klunky effect that looked like someone's homework done only to meet minimum requirements.
For example, the desktop cube is still there with Compiz-fusion, but unlike Beryl, it doesn't have that "springy" feel when I rotate (no, I'm not talking about Wobbly Windows). Beryl used to smoothly shift from "normal desktop" mode into "ooh, look, the windows are now floating and mobile as I rotate the cube!" mode; for example, the top-most window would float upward toward the user. Compiz-fusion doesn't show any response to activation of the "rotate cube" mode, until you start rotating, and then you realize that the windows are floating above a cube the surfaces of which have receded away from the user, except for the topmost window which hasn't moved so you don't even know that it's floating.
Another example: with Beryl, you could use the keyboard to rotate the cube left/right, and also up/down, so that you were looking at the desktop from on top; it was a handy way for me to take a look at all 4 desktops (from the cube's "top view") and figure out where I had placed which windows. With the "new improved" Compiz Fusion, there is no place for me to set any key binding for that command. Besides, it doesn't seem possible to set transparent cube caps, so it's hard to look at Compiz's cube from on top and identify which desktop is which.
Yet another example: in Beryl, a key chord could activate the Expose-like "Scale" feature to let me see all the windows in shrunken mode, and pick one. While the same functionality is available in Compiz-fusion, I have to hold down the key-combo and make sure I don't let go, preventing any one-handed use of the Scale feature.
I could go on, but the point is: why the regression? I find myself wishing I could reinstall Beryl onto Ubuntu 8.04; Beryl was supposedly not as well-integrated with KDE back in 7.04, but the integration with KDE in Kubuntu 8.04 is even more atrocious. (KDE has always been given short shrift bu K/Ubuntu.) Guess I gotta wait for the next version and hope that someone feels up to restoring Beryl/Compiz to its former glory.
Oh, look, I built something wonderful that makes peoples lives better. Everyone wants to participate. How will I ever get the support I need to keep this thing that everyone wants to succeed functional?
I'll stuff it full of crap that they don't like, and the people who own the big factory peddling the crap can support me. That's a great model, right?
Wrong.
I don't know what the exact shape of the web will be when we find the right answer. But it sure as hell isn't this.
Here's an idea I'll toss out --haven't really thought it through, but maybe the rest of you Slashdotters can help me brainstorm.
End users pay one or more companies for Internet access to, and/or hosting of, their favourite web sites. An explicitly pre-determined amount of the money goes into a "pot" which is then divided among the content creators; the approportioning is determined by end-user voting.
For example, I might pay $20/mo to some Hosting Service A that hosts Ibiblio, Sourceforge and Slashdot. $2 goes to the hosting service, and $18 of this is actually to go to those web sites. This is the fee that is set by Hosting Service A. I can choose to split the $18 evenly, or vote that $10:$7:$1 goes to Ibiblio:Sourceforge:Slashdot, but I can't choose not to pay. Those web sites would compete for user votes to get money. Or maybe Hosting Service A includes Some Unwanted Website, like AnnoyingFlash.com, and then charges $50/mo instead. Then I might not want to pay the $50/mo, and I don't get access to Ibiblio, Sourceforge, or Slashdot. But then those web sites don't get my income, and they might decide to switch to Hosting Service B instead.
For this to succeed, there has to be enough competition so no one small group of ISP's or hosting services can corner the market.
Frankly, we should just do away with the subject line entirely. They generally just get filled with "Re:Re:Re:Re:Unoriginal First comment" anyways. It serves no purpose in a system like slashdot's, and causes things like the above.
Interesting you say that. Whenever I get mod points, the subject line is one of the things I look at to see where to grant my mod points.
Reading every posting to see which ones are worth modding up would be too much work. I look for replies in a thread where the author has taken the effort to change the subject line from "Re:Re:Re:Re:Unoriginal First comment" to something relevant; these have a much higher chance of being insightful or interesting. The more concise and pithy the subject, the more I make sure I click on it to read; a subject line like "Not true: ABC is counterexample" conveys more information than "You're wrong!" and is correspondingly more likely to be modded up.
I'm not saying that a catchy subject line is enough to get mod points from me, but those are the ones I will read first.
Please stop using mydomain.com and other such nonsense. Example.com is reserved... for use as a[n] example domain name. Please make a habit of using it instead of whatever name strikes your fancy, as it is probably in use by real people.
You're right! I have my domain name registered under MyDomain.com. You can register a domain name for $9, and they'll include email forwarding, etc.
easily changed by installing kcontrol and changing the mouse property
Please pardon my asking this rather unrelated question about KDE, but I've been looking for some sort of excuse to ask this for a while now.
In a KDE setup like Kubuntu, one can open the System Settings program, and it will have icons for various settings you can control, like "Mouse" or "Desktop" or "Printers".
I used to have one called "Desktop Effects", for setting Compiz-KDE settings. When I clicked it, it would open a dialogue for tweaking the Compiz-KDE settings.
But later, it disappeared! (I had messed around with some KDE config files in trying to re-establish previously saved KDE settings.) The icon was no longer there. I found that the icon linked to a file called "Desktop Effects.desktop" (or something like that); when I click on this "Desktop Effects.desktop" file, it opened the dialogue for tweaking the Compiz-KDE settings, exactly as before. The only problem is that I can no longer use the System Settings program to get to this particular dialogue.
There must be some config file that says which icons appear in System Settings, right? Could someone please help me find it? Grep doesn't seem to find anything. Any help would be appreciated. Sorry about the OT post.
I still won't use it however. I just mix KDE 4 apps into my KDE 3 desktop.
I didn't realize you could do that. Can KDE4 apps run on KDE3.5?
I ask this partly from my visit to the kde-apps.org website recently. Many of the apps were for KDE 4, or the newest version was shown to be for KDE 4. Can I still run them from my KDE 3.5 environment? I tend to be conservative and would rather have the older, more reliable KDE 3 than the flashy KDE 4 which might fail me at a time when I can't afford any time to tinker.
You pointed out some caveats, and I agree that you can't just make a blanket statement about which is better, the Web or doctors. It looks like the Web has been able to help you more than your particular doctors. This would especially be the case if the doctors are not computer-savvy enough to look up things on the web.
In general, I tend to enjoy my net-savvy patients more. They come prepared with background information, and they already have general knowledge about what I tell them. If they surprise me with something I'm not that familiar with (e.g "Hey, doc, what do you know about Horrible Disease X?" "Well, er, let me think..." "Anyway, I looked it up already, and it says that you treat it with Ugali-bugali-mycin. Isn't that right?"), then I will simply admit that I don't know, and that I would like a chance to look it up as well. You do have to be humble, and not bristle at the concept that the patient might know more than you --there's no shame in that, especially if it's not your specialty.
I, too, will use the web to look stuff up. (I generally don't do it in the patient room because, although our clinic does have computers installed there, they run IE, and I'm much more adept at the Firefox that I've secretly install in my own office desktop, complete with NoScript and Adblock.) I will tell the patient to wait while I look it up, or even that I want a few days to check, and phone them back.
I find that, all things being equal, doctors have the advantage over patients in checking for info on the Web. (No surprise there.) Not only do I have access to websites not available to the general public (e.g. my clinic pays for access to Up-To-Date, Medline, etc.), but even on web sites that my patients can access, I am better able to zero in on the needed info, pass it through my Filter of Common Sense, and interpret it in the context of the patient. Where you have the patient being superior is where the patient has done the homework, and the doctor has note.
So, in general, if the doctor keeps an open mind, s/he can benefit from patients who educate themselves on the Internet. My general advice to patients is also to keep an open mind --it could very well be that the web info is inaccurate and your doctor is right.
Burglarize instead of burgle, on the other hand, is retarded.
Then you can take heart: "burglarize" did not replace "burgle"; rather, the opposite happened, with "burgle" being a "back-formation". In other words, when the word "burglar" (from Latin "burgare") came into common use, people thought that the "-ar" ending was equivalent to the "-er" ending in "teacher" (someone who "teaches") etc., and so they created the word "burgle" to mean "burglarize". Generally used by the Brits to demonstrate how superior their English skills are to their American counterparts, without realizing the etymological embarrassment they're inflicting on themselves.
Sort of like how "aluminum" is also called "aluminium" by people unfamiliar with the etymology, etc.
The distros have had a big hand in the unpopular reception of KDE4.0
I'm not so sure about that. Take my favourite distro, Kubuntu, for example. Version 8.04 was supposed to be a Long-Term-Support (LTS) version, just like Ubuntu 8.04 with GNOME. I had been looking forward to upgrading my previous LTS version, Dapper (Kubuntu 6.06), which shrivels up in June 2009 (wrt desktop support).
But the Kubuntu maintainers felt that KDE was moving forward to KDE4. While KDE4 was too immature to be used mainstream, they did not want to provide three years of long-term support for a KDE 3.5 that was going to be obsolete soon. So they said decided that 8.04 was not going to be a LTS version for Kubuntu.
This is reasonable, and I think a lot of the blame should lie with the hype of KDE 4 saying, basically, that we can all switch from KDE 3. In fact, I for one would like to be reassured that people will still continue to develop for KDE 3 until KDE 4 is stable, and now it looks like that won't be for at least another 1-2 years. By that, I'm not just referring to the KDE 4 software, but the applications that run on top of that environment, and the entire KDE software ecosystem (including community attitudes and expectations).
In a way, I'm glad; the fact that KDE 4 is still immature means that I can continue to get support for KDE 3. I mean, people still run Apache 1, and I wish PalmOS 3.5 would come out with another version PalmOS 3.6 rather than speeding along with the barely-backwards-compatible PalmOS 5 (or whatever it is now).
So, in summary, we need to emphasize (and make feasibly practical) the choice of sticking with KDE 3.5 for the foreseeable future, until KDE 4 as a whole is ready.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, well I'm sure MS also says that you can delete unwanted email in MS Outlook versions older than 2007, but the fact that they say so hasn't helped us much.
Unfortunately, Microsoft still has a very strong factor in its favour: momentum. People will just blindly accept what comes on their computer because they don't know about, or don't know enough about, or are scared of, switching.
My wife had been happily using her light-as-a-feather Vaio --the one that's so small that she could stuff it into her purse when she travelled. Unfortunately, her M$ Outlook started to get buggy, with problems like failing to retrieve address book contacts that she knew were present, or being unable to delete email (she had to create a new folder called "Email I want to delete but can't so I guess I'll just stick it in this folder").
Of course, what any of us would have done would be to switch to a different addressbook/email software that does not have vendor lock-in, preferably open source, and go on from there. But what did she do?
Well, she figured that it was a problem with M$ Outlook 2003+1/2, or whatever version she was using. So she went and bought Office 2007. It wasn't even the usual Office 2007 with just Word + Excel + Powerpoint + whatever the database program is called, M$ Excess or Excel something. It was the More Expensive Professional Version that included Outlook 2007, because only Professionals would want to send email or keep track of phone numbers. US$300. But it gets better! Office 2007 only runs on Vista! But her Vaio only ran XP. So she ended up getting a new laptop running Vista. (To be sure, she got a great deal on it.) The laptop is twice the size of the Vaio.
So now she has two computers, one to do some of her stuff, and the other to run Vista (and its pre-installed crapware) so she can actually access her address book and email. She is fed up with the Vista laptop and its UAC's, and how it doesn't have drivers for anything. It can't even connect to the wireless router at home because mine doesn't broadcast the SSID, and apparently if Vista's wireless system doesn't have the SSID handed to it on a silver platter, it will automatically connect to the next Crummy Unsecured Wi-Fi that walks by. So she has to connect to our router through ethernet. Kinda defeats the purpose of having a laptop. When she travels, she has to figure out whether to bring her Vaio or the bigger Vista laptop. Or both. And I've alreadyd told her long ago that I stopped using Windows (at home) in 2004, and am not willing or able to provide tech support for any Microsoft product. Except maybe Win2k, which is the last M$ OS that I used.
So she has any number of reasons not to use M$ Vista. But what does she do? She uses Vista. Because she doesn't want to have to learn a new system all over again.
I dream that, someday, I'll be able to pull out all her contacts and convert it to Kontact format, or Evolution (is that the GNOME equivalent?) --isn't that just the standard VCF format? --and then she can run Joe's Crummy Freeware Addressbook for Windows and free herself from that $300 piece of crap that is M$ Outlook Version For Professionals Who Actually Want To Send EMail. Or maybe Kontact will run on Windows KDE4 and be able to read Outlook files. In the meantime, it's just unnecessary frustration for her, and indirectly for me.
Anyway, back to the topic. Given that Joe Sixpack really doesn't want to spend more than 60 seconds on tinkering with the computer as opposed to just getting things done with the computer, it's telling that 35% of this population at Devil Mountain Software will demand that they've had it with Microsoft's New Revolutionary OS. I used to think that Microsoft held back the computer industry, but now I see that it's actually taking them in reverse. Good job, Microsoft --keep it up any more, and soon we'll be in the days of MS-DOS where nothing is compatible, lay people can't us computers properly, machines run slowly, ... oh, wait ...
Without thinking any less of Zenwalk, I would say that the reason I chose Ubuntu, and the reason I hope most people choose Ubuntu, is for the critical mass effect. Although it's perfectly alright for there to be an unlimited number of Linux distributions, I hope that one can emerge to be the flagship distribution, the de facto standard, so that the non-Linux world --vendors of Other Operating Systems, hardware manufacturers, and the lay public-- can have a standard distribution to see, experience and understand. If a hardware manufacturer decides that it can't possibly support all Linux distributions, at least it can say "we support Ubuntu Linux" and the other distro's can take it from there. If some noob-to-Linux goes crying for help, at least s/he there's a chance that some not-quite-geek has heard of the distro and can offer some help and support --including emotional support, where appropriate.
Red Hat had the chance to be that one flagship distro. They decided to cut it loose and focus just on big companies. Debian never really focused on the end-user experience. Mandrake (now Mandriva) came the closest to Ubuntu, in my opinion, but I guess they were missing a millionaire benefactor.
So, I hear you, and I don't think Zenwalk is any less because everyone's talking about Ubuntu. But I think Ubuntu has its place, and I think all the Linux distros benefit from Ubuntu's standing.
Having said that, can you tell me a bit more about Zenwalk and how easy it is to maintain? I briefly checked out the web page and couldn't tell if it was based on the Debian system, like Ubuntu. If it's not too far off from Ubuntu and it's able to benefit from ports to Ubuntu, then I might check it out. Because I find that one necessity in a Linux distro is the existence of a strong package maintenance institution, so that I can be confident that new software will be packaged and made available for (and compatible with) my distro.
Agreed! I did read through the entire judgement --I figured I'd take my turn as the 0.1% of Slashdot to read the article so that the rest of Slashdot didn't-- and here are some comments.
This judge. Jeffrey S. White, was surprisingly familiar with free and open source licenses, mentioning the GNU GPL and the MIT OpenCourseware licenses. I wonder if he already had some familiarity, or whether it was the amici curiae from the Creative Commons Corporation and from the Wikimedia Foundation? Anyway, good job on all of them!
This judgement reminded me of why it was important to get advice from lawyers. Something that seemed plain-as-day to me turned out to be a focal point of debate. I've always assumed that, with a license like the GPL or other open source licenses, if you don't abide by the GPL, then the GPL doesn't apply --it's as if the GPL didn't exist-- and now you've violated copyright law. In this case (which is not GPL but the Artistic License, it wasn't so obvious: the defendants argued that the license itself freed the defendants from copyright law, and if the defendants then violated the license, then it was just a license violation (contract law) rather than copyright violation. This was how the defendants successfully argued at the Northern California District Court. Fortunately, the Appeals court overrode this, taking into account the spirit of the Artistic License and keeping in mind the other open source licenses. But it was a point I never thought would be questioned.
As the judgement points, the difference between license violation and copyright violation is especially important because, with license (contract) violation, you only get economic damages in return. If you write F/LOSS, then usually you can't really say that you've lost a million bucks because they stole your software. But this judge recognized the non-economic benefit of licensing under F/LOSS, and specifically said,
In other words, "money isn't everything".
If the law decided that the problem was license violation, then Microsoft could violate F/LOSS, and then toss it a few coins and say, "Sorry --here's some spare change for your troubles." With the law deciding that it's a matter of copyright and not contract violation, the judge can tell Microsoft, "I don't give a rat's ass how much money you have --stop what you're doing or you will be caned."
I'm sure the GNU GPL, having been thoroughly vetted by Eben Moglen, has clearer language than the Artistic License, which prevents such loopholes, but it's still good to see a judge that understands the issues. Judge White has remanded the case --I think this means that he's sent the case back to the District Court saying, "Go try this case again --you didn't do your homework properly the first time."
(Incidentally, was this the same judge that Slashdot covered a year or so ago where he lambasted the lawyers on both sides for not doing their homework? Name sounds familiar somehow, but I can't place it.)
I want to clarify: so were there really fireworks going off all over Beijing that were footprint-shaped, being set off in synchronized sequence moving closer and closer to the Bird's Nest stadium? Or were they all set off near the stadium, and the part about it going off in other parts of Beijing were computer simulated?
From the sky.com article, it seems like they were really there, so I have no problem with that. Complaining about it would be like complaining about CG views of the space probe Voyager as it swings past the rings of Saturn --"Wow, how did they get someone to take pictures of that spaceprobe up close as it goes past Saturn?" If the fireworks weren't really there , then I'd complain.
I'll give you credit for coming with a scenario that replaces malice with a heaping dose of incompetence. If what you say is true, then that's not a benchmark at all. After all, you're not comparing the same things; for all you know, you're comparing the skill of the programmer at writing for the VIA processor with the skill of the programmer at writing for the AMD processor.
You might as well write a benchmark to see how long it takes for various processors to divide 4195835.0 by 3145727.0 and come up with 1.333739068902037589! (Note: The correct answer is 1.333820449136241002.)
I agree with you.
I was wondering if there is some way we can get code audited by the community on a more formal basis, perhaps with a bounty system and a reputation system, so that one might donate to get the KDE4 code audited by me ($10), or some KDE contributor ($300), or Linus Torvalds ($10000). Then these people could develop a formal reputation system, like + or - votes on SourceforgeAuditVoting.org. They'd use their PGP signature to sign the audits.
Or something. I would view this as the next phase of the open source economy. Eventually companies might hire people with good reputations, to audit their own intra-company code.
Quick, can someone grab the domain growklaw.net and make it redirect to groklaw.net? If some non-computer-savvy judge reads Beckerman's article and goes to www.growklaw.net, I don't want him/her to miss out on the trove of riches at groklaw.
I see that one of the chips in question is for a random number generator. Despite providing documentation/specs on how this chip runs, to make it possible to write free drivers, it's not the same as having the actual source code for the chip. With any other type of chip this would be well and good, but with random number generators, you can't really test them, and will need to rely on examination of the source code to prove that it works. Even then, it would not be that easy --see the Underhanded C Contest of 2007 in which people write encryption programs, and they work, and the source is open to inspection --and they STILL provide a back door to allow the encryption to be broken. (Man, that Underhanded C Contest is pretty scary.)
I hope the kernel developers and other programmers give us a choice whether to use random numbers from the Padlock chip or from some other source. Me, I'll just plug in my blinded webcam into my USB port and multiply it into any random stream for good measure.
While your premise is technically correct, I'll provide a counterpoint to your point.
Large companies like Comcast (or Microsoft or most others), with some good aspects and some bad aspects, do indeed tend to be treated as one big monolithic blob --because that's how they're asking to be treated. Comcast is using its name as a brand. That's what it means to be Comcast. So, while it's not surprising that there can be factions within, we will still rate whether Comcast is nice or nasty on an overall scale. The responsibility for this falls on upper management which oversees both the Customer Service Department and the Lie About Unlimited Bandwidth^W^W^W^WMarketing Department. If Customer Support wants to improve its image separate from the rest of Comcast, they can spin off into "Support-A-Tronics -- A Division of Comcast(TM)" and change their logo. Of course, I've heard quite a few not-so-good things on Slashdot about Customer Support itself.
In the same way, I disagree with people who keep saying that "companies aren't evil --just the people within them". As a whole, companies can indeed be evil, greedy, upstanding, etc, just as people can be evil, greedy, etc. even if you can break their actions down into component actions which, by themselves, are not inherently evil etc.
Not only that, but Comcast is actually addressing its clients' concerns and negative feedback, as opposed to being oblivious to them.
Now, to really score, Comcast would need to fulfill some additional criteria:
Let me tell you something, Comcast. You ruined your own reputation. Now it's going to be real hard for you to erase that. See what happened to Microsoft? (Hey, Sony, stop snickering.)
I have had bad experiences with HP desktops trying to run Linux, so I too will not buy from HP.
What is the reason you won't buy from the other companies in your list? Is it poor quality, poor service, or a different principle?
That would explain the problems I had booting Knoppix, and later Ubuntu live, on some HP machines (my dad's desktop, my friend's laptop).
Somewhat embarrassing to say, "Watch this!" and stick in a Linux live CD and have it hang. I never imagined it would be because some MoBo maker specifically detecting for Linux and then sending it down the garbage chute.
I'm unlikely to buy a motherboard by itself, but if I buy a desktop or laptop, what other brand name products are FoxConn's mobo's hiding inside?
Like you, I am somewhat skeptical about the report's conclusions. But there are two points of note. First, the report does not refer to cancer, except indirectly (it cites cancer-causing asbestos as an example of effects that can happen long after exposure, so that one cannot conclude that something is harmless simply because it has been harmless for 10 years). Rather, it says that "we don't know for sure that it's not harmful," which admittedly is stretching it somewhat. Second, and more importantly, it does reference oneshred of evidence, which is that the blood-brain barrier permeability changes on exposure to cell phone radiation. I don't know how much it changes, or what the consequences are. But, based on this evidence, I'm willing to have an open mind.
By the way, where the article does talk about cell phones causing cancer, I'm not impressed: it says that "some studies show association between which side the brain cancer is on and which side the cell phone is used on," but all it quotes are position papers and public statements, not original research.
You're not thinking outside your (rather small) box. The answer is to make the account harder to guess. Let users choose their own account name, and you won't be able to guess that "SamJones" is a valid account. You could try "SammyTheMan", but at least the range of possible logins has just increased by an order of magnitude. Maybe, for those users who really have no creativity and try to insist on using FirstnameLastname, the bank could require that your login be FirstnameLastnameBirthmonthBirthday. "SamJones0413" is two-and-a-half orders of magnitude harder to guess than "SamJones".
If you did want to solve the problem of account lockout, you could try this: the first time an incorrect password happens, lock the account for 0.1 seconds. For every subsequent attempt, increase the lockout time by 10. After 3 bad guesses, you'd have to wait almost 2 minutes. After four guesses: 16 minutes. Five guesses: 2+3/4 hours. Six guesses: a day and 3 hours. Seven guesses: a week and a half. Eight guesses: 3+1/2 months. So, on the one hand, if the account does get DOS'd, it's merely "relatively" DOS'd to some extent; on the other hand, if Evil Hacker really wanted to DOS the account to a great extent, then it would be inconvenient for Evil Hacker, who might actually wait 2 minutes for the fourth guess but probably won't wait 16 minutes to enter the fifth guess. The Innocent End User, checking her account at the end of the day, might not even know that it had been semi-DOS'd.
Lots of creative ways you can solve these problems. I came up with this in the time it took me to type this post. I'm sure others have more ideas.
Please tell me how. I have been looking for the settings under the Advanced Compiz Settings Manager.
In particular: how to get the cube caps transparent (setting opacity to zero under Utility > Cube Caps > Appearance > Cube Top Color does not work), how to get the key binding for rotating the cube so that the top faces the user (there is no such binding available under Desktop > Rotate Cube > Bindings, although there are bindings for Rotate Left and Rotate Right), and how to make it so that when I press the Initiate Window Picker key (under Window Management > Scale > Bindings > Initiate Window Picker), I can let go of the key without disengaging the Window Picker and reverting to the normal screen.
Any help would be much appreciated; otherwise, I haven't really received any significant information from you.
OT post here, but I was really disappointed at the quality of Compiz in Kubuntu 8.04. After having seen Beryl with 7.04, I had expected that merging Beryl back into Compiz would produce the best of both worlds. Instead, the result was a klunky effect that looked like someone's homework done only to meet minimum requirements.
For example, the desktop cube is still there with Compiz-fusion, but unlike Beryl, it doesn't have that "springy" feel when I rotate (no, I'm not talking about Wobbly Windows). Beryl used to smoothly shift from "normal desktop" mode into "ooh, look, the windows are now floating and mobile as I rotate the cube!" mode; for example, the top-most window would float upward toward the user. Compiz-fusion doesn't show any response to activation of the "rotate cube" mode, until you start rotating, and then you realize that the windows are floating above a cube the surfaces of which have receded away from the user, except for the topmost window which hasn't moved so you don't even know that it's floating.
Another example: with Beryl, you could use the keyboard to rotate the cube left/right, and also up/down, so that you were looking at the desktop from on top; it was a handy way for me to take a look at all 4 desktops (from the cube's "top view") and figure out where I had placed which windows. With the "new improved" Compiz Fusion, there is no place for me to set any key binding for that command. Besides, it doesn't seem possible to set transparent cube caps, so it's hard to look at Compiz's cube from on top and identify which desktop is which.
Yet another example: in Beryl, a key chord could activate the Expose-like "Scale" feature to let me see all the windows in shrunken mode, and pick one. While the same functionality is available in Compiz-fusion, I have to hold down the key-combo and make sure I don't let go, preventing any one-handed use of the Scale feature.
I could go on, but the point is: why the regression? I find myself wishing I could reinstall Beryl onto Ubuntu 8.04; Beryl was supposedly not as well-integrated with KDE back in 7.04, but the integration with KDE in Kubuntu 8.04 is even more atrocious. (KDE has always been given short shrift bu K/Ubuntu.) Guess I gotta wait for the next version and hope that someone feels up to restoring Beryl/Compiz to its former glory.
Here's an idea I'll toss out --haven't really thought it through, but maybe the rest of you Slashdotters can help me brainstorm.
End users pay one or more companies for Internet access to, and/or hosting of, their favourite web sites. An explicitly pre-determined amount of the money goes into a "pot" which is then divided among the content creators; the approportioning is determined by end-user voting.
For example, I might pay $20/mo to some Hosting Service A that hosts Ibiblio, Sourceforge and Slashdot. $2 goes to the hosting service, and $18 of this is actually to go to those web sites. This is the fee that is set by Hosting Service A. I can choose to split the $18 evenly, or vote that $10:$7:$1 goes to Ibiblio:Sourceforge:Slashdot, but I can't choose not to pay. Those web sites would compete for user votes to get money. Or maybe Hosting Service A includes Some Unwanted Website, like AnnoyingFlash.com, and then charges $50/mo instead. Then I might not want to pay the $50/mo, and I don't get access to Ibiblio, Sourceforge, or Slashdot. But then those web sites don't get my income, and they might decide to switch to Hosting Service B instead.
For this to succeed, there has to be enough competition so no one small group of ISP's or hosting services can corner the market.
Hmm... very unrefined idea. Any thoughts?
Interesting you say that. Whenever I get mod points, the subject line is one of the things I look at to see where to grant my mod points.
Reading every posting to see which ones are worth modding up would be too much work. I look for replies in a thread where the author has taken the effort to change the subject line from "Re:Re:Re:Re:Unoriginal First comment" to something relevant; these have a much higher chance of being insightful or interesting. The more concise and pithy the subject, the more I make sure I click on it to read; a subject line like "Not true: ABC is counterexample" conveys more information than "You're wrong!" and is correspondingly more likely to be modded up.
I'm not saying that a catchy subject line is enough to get mod points from me, but those are the ones I will read first.
You're right! I have my domain name registered under MyDomain.com. You can register a domain name for $9, and they'll include email forwarding, etc.
Please don't use them to test your email-fu.
Please pardon my asking this rather unrelated question about KDE, but I've been looking for some sort of excuse to ask this for a while now.
In a KDE setup like Kubuntu, one can open the System Settings program, and it will have icons for various settings you can control, like "Mouse" or "Desktop" or "Printers".
I used to have one called "Desktop Effects", for setting Compiz-KDE settings. When I clicked it, it would open a dialogue for tweaking the Compiz-KDE settings.
But later, it disappeared! (I had messed around with some KDE config files in trying to re-establish previously saved KDE settings.) The icon was no longer there. I found that the icon linked to a file called "Desktop Effects.desktop" (or something like that); when I click on this "Desktop Effects.desktop" file, it opened the dialogue for tweaking the Compiz-KDE settings, exactly as before. The only problem is that I can no longer use the System Settings program to get to this particular dialogue.
There must be some config file that says which icons appear in System Settings, right? Could someone please help me find it? Grep doesn't seem to find anything. Any help would be appreciated. Sorry about the OT post.
I didn't realize you could do that. Can KDE4 apps run on KDE3.5?
I ask this partly from my visit to the kde-apps.org website recently. Many of the apps were for KDE 4, or the newest version was shown to be for KDE 4. Can I still run them from my KDE 3.5 environment? I tend to be conservative and would rather have the older, more reliable KDE 3 than the flashy KDE 4 which might fail me at a time when I can't afford any time to tinker.
You pointed out some caveats, and I agree that you can't just make a blanket statement about which is better, the Web or doctors. It looks like the Web has been able to help you more than your particular doctors. This would especially be the case if the doctors are not computer-savvy enough to look up things on the web.
In general, I tend to enjoy my net-savvy patients more. They come prepared with background information, and they already have general knowledge about what I tell them. If they surprise me with something I'm not that familiar with (e.g "Hey, doc, what do you know about Horrible Disease X?" "Well, er, let me think ..." "Anyway, I looked it up already, and it says that you treat it with Ugali-bugali-mycin. Isn't that right?"), then I will simply admit that I don't know, and that I would like a chance to look it up as well. You do have to be humble, and not bristle at the concept that the patient might know more than you --there's no shame in that, especially if it's not your specialty.
I, too, will use the web to look stuff up. (I generally don't do it in the patient room because, although our clinic does have computers installed there, they run IE, and I'm much more adept at the Firefox that I've secretly install in my own office desktop, complete with NoScript and Adblock.) I will tell the patient to wait while I look it up, or even that I want a few days to check, and phone them back.
I find that, all things being equal, doctors have the advantage over patients in checking for info on the Web. (No surprise there.) Not only do I have access to websites not available to the general public (e.g. my clinic pays for access to Up-To-Date, Medline, etc.), but even on web sites that my patients can access, I am better able to zero in on the needed info, pass it through my Filter of Common Sense, and interpret it in the context of the patient. Where you have the patient being superior is where the patient has done the homework, and the doctor has note.
So, in general, if the doctor keeps an open mind, s/he can benefit from patients who educate themselves on the Internet. My general advice to patients is also to keep an open mind --it could very well be that the web info is inaccurate and your doctor is right.
Then you can take heart: "burglarize" did not replace "burgle"; rather, the opposite happened, with "burgle" being a "back-formation". In other words, when the word "burglar" (from Latin "burgare") came into common use, people thought that the "-ar" ending was equivalent to the "-er" ending in "teacher" (someone who "teaches") etc., and so they created the word "burgle" to mean "burglarize". Generally used by the Brits to demonstrate how superior their English skills are to their American counterparts, without realizing the etymological embarrassment they're inflicting on themselves.
Sort of like how "aluminum" is also called "aluminium" by people unfamiliar with the etymology, etc.
I'm not so sure about that. Take my favourite distro, Kubuntu, for example. Version 8.04 was supposed to be a Long-Term-Support (LTS) version, just like Ubuntu 8.04 with GNOME. I had been looking forward to upgrading my previous LTS version, Dapper (Kubuntu 6.06), which shrivels up in June 2009 (wrt desktop support).
But the Kubuntu maintainers felt that KDE was moving forward to KDE4. While KDE4 was too immature to be used mainstream, they did not want to provide three years of long-term support for a KDE 3.5 that was going to be obsolete soon. So they said decided that 8.04 was not going to be a LTS version for Kubuntu.
This is reasonable, and I think a lot of the blame should lie with the hype of KDE 4 saying, basically, that we can all switch from KDE 3. In fact, I for one would like to be reassured that people will still continue to develop for KDE 3 until KDE 4 is stable, and now it looks like that won't be for at least another 1-2 years. By that, I'm not just referring to the KDE 4 software, but the applications that run on top of that environment, and the entire KDE software ecosystem (including community attitudes and expectations).
In a way, I'm glad; the fact that KDE 4 is still immature means that I can continue to get support for KDE 3. I mean, people still run Apache 1, and I wish PalmOS 3.5 would come out with another version PalmOS 3.6 rather than speeding along with the barely-backwards-compatible PalmOS 5 (or whatever it is now).
So, in summary, we need to emphasize (and make feasibly practical) the choice of sticking with KDE 3.5 for the foreseeable future, until KDE 4 as a whole is ready.