Would you care to provide some significant non-circumstantial evidence for that rather strong assertion, or are you just taking into account the small number of people whom you happened to meet?
I don't have statistics on this, or know a good place to find them. Nonetheless, I think this is a pretty obvious trend in a lot of fields. Just go to a few conventions that used to be Linux strongholds and look at how many powerbooks and macbooks are there now. Some of the major conventions for sysadmins, security, hackers, and the sciences have more mac laptops than they do other brands combined. That's not because they're so inexpensive. I know one person who tried OS X and went back to Linux. This includes people who have been and are regular contributors to Linux and BSD projects. I know at least a hundred who have stayed with OS X for their desktop. I know a few people who spent weeks hacking together kernel modules for OS X to catch up to Linux, because it was still easier than putting up with Linux on the desktop once they had used OS X. Linux has a lot it can borrow from OS X to become a good desktop, but I don't expect it will do so for a long time, if ever.
What distributions have you been using where you need to compile everything from source?
Who said anything about everything from source, I said many of us end up compiling some things from source. I've had to do that for niche applications on Fedora, Suse, and slackware.
Ubuntu's package manager installs just about everything, and many third party groups are starting to provide compatible.debs as well.
Most major software is provided in multiple package formats for the different distributions. Lots of minor software provides one and the source. The source can be troublesome and the packages take extra work and cannot always be shared between distributions. So I have to download a different one for each distro I'm running.
As for add/remove programs, installing and removing software is just a matter of manipulating checkboxes.
Which is still not as easy as dragging and dropping or throwing something in the trash. Say you have two laptops running the same distro and you want to copy a program from one to the other. You already have a directory shared. According to the desktop metaphor you should be able to just drag the application from one computer to the other or even just run it off the mounted directory. It is intuitive, but it does not work on Linux unless someone is running GNUStep and happens to have something packaged for it, which is rare in the extreme. What about binary software that goes away. I've IM'd copies of such software to friends simply by dragging the icon into my IM chat with them. That is easy and intuitive, but it does not work on Linux.
We could work on third-party updates, which is lacking, but as far as I know, most programs that do this do it on their own (firefox, etc...). Licensing and registration are the same - most programs I have seen deal with that on their own.
By which I believe you mean, most software does not adhere to a standard but sends random network traffic often in obfuscated formats. As security advances we'll have our programs running in jails and be able to restrict them at will from accessing any given resources. Having an official service for updates and registration in a clear XML format makes it clear what is going out from what application and to whom and lets the user restrict network access for say, a FPS video game from sending out network traffic once it has been registered and until you want to look for an update and lets a user examine what is being sent. This is vital if we ever want to mitigate trojans. It also lets us build standard tools to manage updates and installs, updating everything at, say 1am, instead of when you run it next and want to get work done.
As for single packages like OS X, I have separate partitions for/home, /
What the hell for? People like you would just go find something new in Linux to complain about.
Yeah, lets never improve Linux again. People will just want us to keep making improvements. Lets just let it rot. That will be a great way to gain marketshare.
I've been hearing about the package BS for ten years now, but I can still grab any major distro and know the only difference between them is the name of the packager.
Yeah, but none of those package managers provide all the functionality the average desktop user wants.
I can still install, uninstall, upgrade with one command ranging from 3-5 characters.
Can you do it without using the keyboard? Can you IM an installed program to a friend or coworker? Can you you, without any modification, install the program on a thumb drive and run it from there? Can you do the same on a network drive? Can you use one set of permissions for both? Can you run the same copy on different machines as different users and still have your preferences saved? Can you do it all without ever having to think about how it is done because the OS just takes care of it?
Hasn't stopped Linux in ten years.
Yeah, because we all know how Linux has taken the desktop market by storm. The current installers are fine for a server, but they suck for the average desktop user.
But of course, as always, Linux gets criticized while Windows is praised for doing the exact same goddamn thing.
Windows does not have to be good or standard. People will code for it because it is a monopoly and people will use it because it came pre-installed on their computer. For Linux on the desktop to take off, it needs to be better than Windows by enough of a margin that people will go out of their way to overcome the barrier to entry that monopoly creates.
Could you lemmings at least ask your team leader to write you a new script?
Windows on the desktop sucks because it does not respond to what users want. It doesn't have to. Linux on the desktop sucks because it does not respond to what users want either. It responds to what the small number of developers who are also users want and to what big companies pay to have added to it. Almost all of the latter is focused on what corporate users want. Almost all of the former is focused on what expert, power users want.
How many very strong Linux supporters do you know that have moved to OS X, because it is just a better desktop environment. Many of those problems that never get solved on Linux, just work on OS X. I know hundreds of people. A lot of them don't bother to code for Linux desktop features anymore either. Instead they fix their pain points, which is to say server features. Thus, the people left working on desktop Linux is greatly reduced. You attitude of "lalalalala! it's not broken because I can use it" does nothing to help that exodus of users and developers.
The whole idea of package managemnet[sic] is that the program automatically grabs and includes the support it needs from online, in the same step as grabbing the package in the first place.
Except that those package managers don't provide all the functionality I want and use on other systems and they don't always work on all Linux distros, especially for niche software that only gets tested on one or two particular distributions.
Quit pretending that there's no such thing as DLL-Hell or dependency breaks between Windows/Word/Office/Studio versions on MS platforms.
Ahh the classic, "we're not as bad as China" defense. MS has a monopoly. Their OS can suck and it doesn't matter to their market share. Linux does not have a monopoly and due to its nature will never wield monopoly power in the market. Thus, if something is broken on Linux and Windows, Linux will lose market share.
If Linux cut off every distro that was five years old and forced the users of that platform to switch, Linux could "claim" standardization too.
Installing software only from a terminal is fine for a server, or even a developer workstation, but it is not ideal for a normal user's desktop or workstation. Compare the instructions you listed above to dragging an application anywhere on your hard drive, which is what OS X provides. That may give you a hint as to why people are moving from Linux to OS X in droves for workstations. The other part is that such an installation does not always work on every linux variant without dealing with numerous other factors. It does not always handle dependencies, nor updates, nor licensing, nor registration. It does not handle permissions on a per user and per system basis. It does not allow already installed programs to be portable. A standard that does not provide the benefits and features needed to compete is largely useless.
The procedure is exactly the same for every package prepared with GNU autotools.
Which accounts for what percentage of software that runs on Linux? We've all had to compile our own software to get the features we want and we've all had to mess with things to get that software working on different distributions. Most of us have failed to get at least something working on some distribution. If you want to compete in the corporate and educational workstation space, you also need to be able to function or at least heavily interoperate with the home workstation, portable, and pro workstation space. That means easy installs and stuff that just works. This is just one of the many reasons I run OS X instead of Linux as my workstation of choice. I use Linux for servers and appliances, but it is just a too much of a pain for my laptop. Now Linux does a few things right, including package managers that link to repositories for software discovery and signing. Also, automated updates of most software are a big plus. In general though, it is just not enough and ideally applications would have all the benefits of Linux and OS X and more besides. I don't think we'll get there for Linux, in general unless there is a standard format for installs with the advantages of GNUStep and a standard for connecting to repositories and update services.
Try an installer from any of the major distros. They're ALL easier than Windows.
If I install a Window's program as an installer, it usually will install on any Windows box. If I download a Linux install image or source, or just try to run a particular program on a bunch of different Linux boxes, I run into problems. That is the issue.
You only install the installer once, then you image the drive and copy the image to the other N computers in the sale. The end user will NOT be the one installing any of these.
People don't like switching OS's and having incompatible file types and different programs at home and at school and at work. People will want to run software on some machines that is not installed by the admin on the install image. Thus, if there is not a user friendly way to install a program on workstations of different varieties, that end users find convenient, it will slow the adoption of Linux as a desktop/workstation.
So everyone, who gives a shit about a common installer? Let the installers proliferate, and we'll continue to have competition for the BEST installer, which will change from year to year
Competition for installers and package managers is great, but the package format and some functions should really be common standards. I describe what I'd like to see an an installer in a previous post in this discussion. It is great to have different OS's include different programs to do this, so long as they are interoperable and using a common standard to avoid the problems I described above.
Brings up an interesting point there as well. Why does there need to be a common installer? There's no common installer in Windows.
Ahh, but a single installer executable can easily run on most all Windows versions. The same cannot be said of a single installer for all Linux distros. Secondly, installation on Windows is a mess. Part of the reason for moving away from Windows is because they have not fixed problems like these. To make Linux a really good desktop, it should be a lot better than Windows so that when people have a choice of platforms, they choose Linux.
I don't think anyone does installation perfectly. What I'd like to see is all platforms standardize on a GNUStep-like package format combined with a package manager that integrates licensing, updates, and the like for all software available to a machine, including on network drives, removable media, and for different users. No one has done it completely right yet, that I have seen. I want the drag and drop installation functionality of OS X, including the ability to IM a functional program to someone or plug in a thumb drive and have my preferences from two years ago when I last had access to that program on a network drive to be saved. I want all the dependancies included in the package with versioning and dynamic linking so getting a new library with some program I download can fix bugs in other programs I'm running. I want easy access to the resources of the program like movies, images, and sounds, just by navigating into the folder-is-the-program directory. Similarly I want easy access to fat binaries for multiple processors and even OS's. I want the integrated option to build from the included source instead of using a pre-compiled binary. Disk space is not that expensive anymore. I want a management application built into the OS that knows when I run a new application for the first time, handles registration over the internet or by keys through an official service. I want to be able to manage inherited preferences for the whole machine and for individual users from this manager and handle uninstalls and automated updates.
Right now Apple has half the solution and Linux has about a third. Sadly GNUStep on Linux seems to have lost momentum since most people who care about Linux as a convenient workstation jumped ship and went to OS X.
Maybe this is too much to ask, but I really don't think so. The real problem is not even building this system, it is standardizing it and getting all the major players, including Apple and Sun to get onboard.
Well, answer me, honestly, how you react to the statement "This Webpage works best with IE 7.0", which should actually mean "It only works properly with IE 7.0 and we don't give a f..k about other browsers.". What is your reaction? Using IE7?
Well, my initial reaction is thinking that the developers are clueless and the page is catering to a tiny section of the population who has installed a beta browser. If I really need to use the page I'll find a way, or write to them and ask them to fix the page. Why does this matter? I'm something of a security expert, so my reaction to an IE only banner is going to be quite different to a non-savvy user's reaction to a "use any browser except IE which is broken if you want to see the page properly" banner. As for the psychology of that, it is quite different. IE is broken. Telling non-expert users that is simply giving them information, and most will accept it as truth because most people believe what they are told by "experts."
I don't want to run into the same problems we're facing now with IE with FF
The fact that FF is open source pretty much removes that danger. You see, IE does not get improved to work with newer standards and work around broken parts of the spec because it is a monopoly. Open source projects cannot wield monopoly power because they can always be forked.
To break a monopoly, you first of all have to get the users to move to something else. "When you build it, they will come" does not work as long as there is someone else who builds essentially the same, but offering them less resistance.
To break a monopoly abusing bundling you have to offer substantially more or develop a complete separate vertical chain bundled. Firefox offers superior security and functionality. Apple offers Safari as part of a bundled vertical chain, segregated from the rest of the market. Between them, they have put a dent in the monopoly, but it is constantly fighting an uphill battle against being bundled with Windows. Until Windows is no longer greater than 70% of the market or IE is no longer bundled, these both need to provide significantly more just to hold their ground.
Err, no. The "biodiversity" of Linux is one of its strong points, and one that is frequently brought up by supporters of OSS. If we start "standardizing", then all we are doing is replacing Windoze by 2 (or 3) different Linux distros. Better, but not the optimal solution.
There are a number of fundamental differences between a Linux distro or several Linux distros and Windows. Windows sucks because it is a monopoly. As a result, it does not change to meet the needs of users, because users have no leverage. Look at Vista. Half of the features that have not been dropped are anti-features designed to lock people into Windows even more or make the computer refuse to do things the owner wants (DRM & copy protection). Even a single Linux distro will never have monopoly power in the market because it is open source. That is to say, anyone can grab it, change it to meet customer's or their own needs, release it and compete. As a result, anti-features and failure to address what customers want will never be an issue. Also, Linux is built on open standards because of the development process. Windows sucks because they intentionally fail to interoperate as a way of making money and forcing users to pay. Linux will never have that problem because it is designed on open standards that do interoperate. The barrier to move from Windows to anything else is large. The barrier to move from Linux to anything else, including other Linux distros is small.
f all people, students should be the first to learn how to cope with new OSes (or distros) as they arise...
I don't feel to strongly about this, but computers should not detract from the learning experience in non-computer classes. In history a user should not be incidentally learning how to use Linspire instead of Fedora. They should be learning history. Comparative OS's is fine for a computer class, but I don't think it should be something they have to deal with anywhere else. Computers a re tools to help the learning.
I can think of two major caveats to tracking: the aforementioned loss issue and the fact that kidnappers will search their victims for cell phones now thus in a true emergency they will not really help.
Do you have any idea how rare kidnapping is, especially kidnapping by someone who is not one of the parents? Kidnapping should be such a small concern that it should not even bear mentioning. Most emergencies kids might be in would be if they are injured or sick or lost or feel threatened by bullies or others around them. A phone might help them in many of these cases and those are the emergencies you should be concerned with.
The danger of cellphones for kids is that most parents will not give enough thought to how to deal with them, and since they have not been taught rules for dealing with them, will allow them to become a disruptive influence, rather than a beneficial one.
I lost so many coats as a child in Michigan...
It must have been lower michigan, or you'd have frozen to death.
So if you define standard as "the way the vast majority of webpages on the net work", then the IE is by definition standards compliant.
If you define apple pie as a bowl of dog crap then by definition apple pie is a bowl of dog crap. How is this a useful statement?
Standards are what a group of people all agreed upon. MS was a member of the most of the working groups that formed these standards including HTML and CSS. Then, they all went back to their respective companies and MS wrote code that did something else.
The truth is, MS does not comply with standards because they intentionally are trying to hold back progress for online development until they can control it. Right now Web standards make it easier for people to switch to another browser and, hence another OS. Right now they make it easier to run a Web application and hence, use any OS to do so. If the WC3 sat down and defined the standards as exactly what IE does now and all the other Web browser developers went along, MS would intentionally break the those standards as quickly as possible. They don't want the Web to be cross platform any more than it has to be. They want a proprietary OS connecting to proprietary servers to run proprietary Web apps using proprietary protocols to provide proprietary services. They want to own it all and they are happy to abuse their monopoly to get there unless the legal system does not take their bribes and actually stops them.
I do some Web development. The pages I write look the same in every browser except IE, where they degrade to basic text without any more formatting than necessary. None of the people who read these pages use IE and if they did and complained we'd tell them to get a good browser. The market I work in is very different from normal, public Websites, but I'd like to urge all developers to follow suit. Simply code to standards and put up a disclaimer and a link to Firefox. Most end users prefer it anyway, once they try it. Don't let MS break the Web any more and don't let them hold back progress with their monopoly. If the legal system won't act, we still can.
I picked Canada for a reason. We're exposed to US media on a very regular basis, and so I suspect we're subjected to nearly as much "propaganda" as your average US citizen.
Visit the US much? The propaganda posters and government sponsored TV ads are really starting to be creepy.
As far as parenting goes, I'd be shocked if there was a truly significant difference. There may be some slight differences in parenting style due to difference in average lifestyle, but I suspect the similarities greatly outweight the differences.
This is probably true, but not in all cases. Canadians are a lot more likely to be raised by both parents and don't deal with race issues or the huge number of parents sent to prison in the US. That can make a big difference.
Poverty may certainly be a factor in differences in education... though, I don't believe our two countries are *that* different, as far as that goes.
Over half of all personal bankruptcies and a huge number of people in debt get there because they could not pay medical bills in the US. Wage disparity in the US is about 30% greater than Canada. Violent crime in the US is significantly greater as well, which correlates strongly with these previous factors.
Again, Canada is regularly exposed to US news media. Moreover, our mainstream news sources (the CBC excluded) largely follow the US model. So I'm not sure how big of a difference there is between the two nations.
Having a trusted, national news source, makes quite a difference. Over half of the people in the US believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, despite the fact that all the reports claiming they did were shown to false. This is because the media here hyped that belief as fact for over a year and then quietly let the issue drop without the truth being heavily reported. The CBC coverage was so much better than Fox or CBS that it is unreal. Canada has a lot more information exchange with Europe and a lot less prejudice against Europe, in general, than the US.
I suspect the biggest difference is the idea of tying school funding to student performance. AFAIK, this practice doesn't exist in Canada, and my understanding is that it's had an extremely detrimental effect on the US school system.
True enough.
On the flip side, I don't know a) how prevalent this practice is in the US, or b) how recent it is.
It has been common for several decades and mandatory if you want any funding for your school for the last 6 years or so.
Frankly, I think the US school system is unfairly targeted when the whole 'evolution' thing comes up.
Well, I don't think it is the only factor, but it is certainly one culprit. We actually have teachers here teaching that evolution is evil and that creationism is scientifically proven complete with bogus facts and twisted logic. We have a president (in charge of funding schools) who has said he thinks it is proper to give both equal time in classrooms. We have huge amounts of educational funding tied to religious mandates (huge amounts of money for sexual education only granted if no mention of condoms is made and only abstinence is taught).
I'm willing to bet the more likely culprit is cultural factors. Specifically, consider that a very large number of Americans identify themselves with fairly fundamentalist Christian religions (eg, baptist, Mormon, etc), unlike most other western nations.
Whether the educational system is broken because it is controlled by religious fanatics, or whether religious fanatics are common because the school system did not give them a proper education is a rather circular argument. In looking for practical solutions, however, I think the school system is a relatively reasonable place to start. Further, I think learning fundamentals that are now neglected, like logic, problem solving, and critical thinking are good places to start because it is hard for religious fanatics to argue against them.
up and the funny part about this is that Microsoft has a fine line to walk because they 'painted' the line with their poor standards support in IE. On one hand they don't want to change their new browser so much that every existing web page needs fixing because that'll make IE7 look like it's broken and piss alot of businesses off.
By this logic then, they should be implementing all the standards support Firefox and the others have that don't conflict with their current, broken versions. For example, they should implement the other half (or more) of CSS 2, but properly and should be implementing XHTML. They aren't doing that though. I suspect you are incorrect about their motivations. MS wants the Web to be a difficult platform for applications and they want to continue to retard standards on the Web until their.Net initiative can provide Web based applications that are locked onto the Windows platform.
The most used browsers have been mostly around for years AND almost all of them have been based off of existing code, whether it be konquerer or Mozilla.
And what exactly is preventing Microsoft from basing their Web browsing engine off of an existing codebase? They already have IE to start with, which takes care of a lot of the basics. All they need to do is implement the more recent standards either from scratch or using code from an open source project or other code base. Or they could start anew using a different engine, like Gecko, with the old IE engine for backwards compatibility.
Sure it would be hard to code an entire browser from scratch with a dozen developers and a few months, but there is no requirement that anyone start from scratch. They aren't doing so because they don't want to.
This is the key folks. So many corporate database products rely on IE as the rendering engine. If the backward compatibility is lost, most corporations' will see their Crystal Reports, and other SQL engines that use IE as their GUI/renderers will be broken. They will never allow that to happen. So they will sacrifice the standard compliance.
This is a false dichotomy in many ways. Will implementing XHTML break backward compatibility with the current rendering engine? Why? It is a completely different mechanism. Will implementing the 50% of CSS2 they claim they have not yet gotten to break someone's crystal reports? Why should it is it does not change the current behavior?
By MS engineer's own estimate they could be 50% more compliant with CSS and completely add XHTML and I don't see how this would effect backwards compatibility at all. No they are not adding the rest of these standards because it costs them a small amount of money and more importantly, because they make money by failing to comply. If they continue to illegally bundle IE then most people will use it unless a huge barrier is overcome. Thus, proprietary Web pages that don't work in other browsers will be common, thus people can't move to other OS's as easily. If they don't support the standards needed, it is much harder for Web applications to provide users with the functions they need to compete. If people move to Web applications then their is no cost for them to switch to another OS, unlike with traditional applications. Thus MS benefits by making Web applications not shackled to Windows hard to implement, so they do that.
Guys has anyone actually given any thought to the amount of work these people are putting into this project? All you can manage to do is rip M$ apart when in reality the IE7 guys are trying to do something about their browser. IE6 got released in what 01? and then afterwards DISBANDED the team.
So a company abuses its monopoly to control the majority of the Web browser market with an inferior product. They mothball development on that product and have thus far been unable or unwilling to write a browser that has the same level of standards support as browsers other companies threw together in a year. Should we feel sorry for the few people still assigned to work on the product? Maybe, but that doesn't excuse MS for their actions in any way. They could hire a hundred of the best Web developers to whip IE into shape in a few months time if they wanted to, but they don't. They make more money by continuing to illegally bundle it with Windows, ensuring users around the world suffer with their below par product and at the same time maintaining a lock-in to prevent them from moving to other OS's or even to Web applications.
Do not be a jerk to these people they are working hard just as you are and they get to read on these sites the pretty rough things about their company who while not always been the nice guy or been on the up and up has also done a lot of good things.
If by "a lot of good things" you mean "did everything they could, illegal or not, to make money."
And just remember IE7 is still in beta, betas are buggy, expect it to be so.
A bug is failing to render an element correctly. It is not completely failing to render XHTML and Half of CSS 2.
I know that this is going to stir some of you up, but try for just a minute to think before you post, and at least try to be original in your insults if you feel the need to go that way.
This isn't about insults. This is about a company holding back progress and locking people in to an inferior product, illegally, for money all while releasing PR nonsense about how they're improving and their browser is better than ever. They have made very little in the way of progress towards rendering five year old standards everyone else has been rendering for four years or more. This is because they (as a company) don't want to properly render those standards. MS deserves no pity for screwing us all over for a few more dollars.
The fact is no browser is 100% complient. Even if all browsers could bost 90%+, web developers would still have to spend ages testing and modifying sites so they display uniformily in every browser
Hi, I do some Web development and testing. I automate the output of a whole slew of content sources into XML and thence into XHTML. I apply CSS styles to the content to standardize the look for a given branding and product. I wrote everything to the specs available from W3C and it was both clear and easy. Then I tested it with every browser I could think of. Firefox, Opera, Safari, and everything else rendered them just fine... except, of course, IE 6. For IE 6, it degraded to plain HTML, losing much of the formatting. I added a few easy hacks to fix the vital stuff, but for the most part IE users don't get any of the formatting that every other browser does. Luckily, none of our customers use IE so we don't bother to fix it. When MS announced IE 7, I dutifully grabbed each version and tested it. The results are it is exactly the same as IE 6 and completely fails to render any of the formatting.
The browser coders are continually playing catch up with the creators of the supposed standards... Microsoft are just examples of how stupid the situation with web standards are.
All these standards were defined five years or more ago. Several companies with a tiny portion of MS's resources have successfully implemented them. Several open source projects with a fraction of a fraction of the resources MS has have implemented them. Implementing them breaks nothing in older Web pages and this is not a backwards compatibility issue. There are only two real possibilities as to why MS has not implemented these standards. First, it is possible they are so horribly incompetent and full of bureaucracy that they simply cannot achieve the same results as a dozen developers with a few months of time elsewhere. Second, they have decided it makes them more money to not implement the standards and to use the intentionally broken handling of the Web to lock customers into their platform and make it harder for people to move to Web apps and other OS's.
Umm... last I checked, the US public school model wasn't particularly unique. Perhaps you could explain what makes the US system different from, say, the Canadian system, in such a way as to explain these results.
I'm not familiar with the particulars of the Canadian system, so a comparison will be difficult. Can we agree fro the start that the difference is almost certainly environmental, rather than genetic? If so, then we have to look at a number of factors. First, US citizens are likely dealing with more propaganda than Canadians, so while our schools may not be worse, the end result is. Second, success in schooling is very strongly linked with the support provided by parents and with poverty. Both of those factors come into play in a comparison between the US and Canada. Canada has the BBC and other news sources not controlled by the same groups that control the US government with lobbying dollars, while the US does not have a government sponsored, but independent news source. Schooling in the US has become very standards based, which is to say, based upon the memorization of facts, rather than the ability to do things. If you can't encode it one of those computerized cards where you select from one of five choices, it is mostly ignored by the US public schools. As a result, any subject that cannot easily be taught in this way is not taught. Incentives for schools to only teach how to pass these standardized tests and even for teachers to cheat on behalf of their students are very real and result in hard cash. Objective statistical analysis of the schools over the last 20 years has shown some pretty solid evidence that this is exactly what the schools have become.
This is untrue unless you are asserting that all things possible are happening while you can observe them. For example, in the universe one million and seven atoms of particular elements may never have been arranged in a a particular configuration. In order to scientifically determine what will happen when placed in that configuration, actively experimenting is necessary.
Science is about finding models that let us make predictions about the observable.
In order to observe many things, those things have to happen. If they don't happen we can't observe them. Thus, we need to be capable of making them happen so we can make an observation.
While is is possible to scientifically examine things that currently exist, that does not even come close to providing "all the answers."
And 90% of us population will not pass such a test. At which point either the test is dumbed down and/or subject excluded from general curriculum.
90% won't pass it now. If they are actually taught the subjects, they could easily pass it. This is not brain surgery and once you understand a rule or methodology you are unlikely to forget it.
Most of non retards apply logic and critical thinking when it is obvious to them. "Intuitively" -That is a general trait of higher animals.
Nope. They apply reason, not logic. Most apply critical thinking in special circumstances where they have been trained to. The problem is, they have not been taught either the rules of logic, the pitfalls, or how to apply it to all aspects of decision making. Blaming them for not figuring it out on their own id both elitists and nonproductive.
As a good example of failure to apply logic is how prone an average person is to obvious scams. How many people play lottery, casinos despite knowing odds are way swayed not in their favor?
How is this a failure to apply logic? I was in vegas a few months ago. I played a few games where the odds were in my favor or skill based games when I had a good probability of winning. I also played low stakes games as a way to slowly lose money while quickly absorbing free drinks and heavily oxygenated air. It is not just what you do that determines if you're using logic and critical thought, and neither is a guarantee that all your decisions will be the best ones. It is simply that using the rules of logic and critical decision making you are more likely to succeed in your goals and accurately assess information. They are mental tools that should be provided to anyone before you blame their inability on being inherently stupid.
For example, you have asserted that you don't think most people are capable of learning critical thinking, regardless of the training given to them. Logically, we should look at who is trained in critical thinking, how many are successful critical thinkers afterwards, and what factors correlate with that success. Lacking specific evidence, we should generalize the importance of training versus genetic predisposition in education and, if necessary, in general successfulness. Luckily, such information is not too hard to find. The correlation between genetics and educational success correlates to somewhere between 10% and 35% when normalized for other factors. The correlation between environment and educational success makes up the remainder. Thus, we can easily see which factor weighs most heavily.
It is easy then, to logically conclude that by changing the environment in which people are raised and providing them a better education we can and do effect their ability to solve problems.
Oh what it is then? Assigning personal teacher for every person? With the same material and same teachers,in same environment some people some do not learn , some do and some even go out of their way to get knowledge form beyond what was given to them on silver platter.
Different people learn in different ways. They have different personalities and their environment has structured their thinking in different ways. If your next door neighbor is playing music too loudly at 3AM and you want them to stop will you approach they neighbor to your right who is an attorney differently than you will approach the neighbor to your left who is a voodoo priest? Of course, since both are more likely to respond favorably to different approaches. Learning should also be customized to the topic and individuals to some degree. Many teachers consider teaching history by rote memorization to be fine. Very few would consider teaching basketball by rote memorization. Like basketball, critical problem solving is something you have to do to learn it. It is more useful to give a child one real problem and have them write out a solution and the reasoning behind it, than it is to give them a hundred mu
I'd be interested in knowing your source. Or perhaps it is a regional thing.
I just looked it up in the dictionary (well 7 dictionaries actually, I have a service that pulls up all the dictionary references to a word it can find). All that listed a pluralization listed it as "dies" for the manufacturing item, including Webster, The Collaborative International Dictionary, Wordnet, and the Free Online Dictionary of Computing.
The dictionaries I consulted had only one etymology for the word, indicating that they are both based off the same root, and thus would not be different words.
A google search for "etymology die" quickly the discovers the following etymology for the words:
"die (n.) c.1330 (as a plural), from O.Fr. de, of uncertain origin, perhaps from L. datum "given," pp. of dare (see date (1)), which, in addition to "give," had a secondary sense of "to play" (as a chess piece); or else from "what is given" (by chance or Fortune). Sense of "stamping block or tool" first recorded 1699."
"dice c.1330, des, dys, pl. of dy (see die (n.)), altered 14c. to dyse, dyce, and 15c. to dice. "As in pence, the plural s retains its original breath sound, probably because these words were not felt as ordinary plurals, but as collective words" [OED]. Sometimes used as sing. 1400-1700. The v. "to cut into cubes" is first recorded c.1390. Dicey "doubtful, difficult" is RAF slang from the 1940s.
Die as in the gaming piece is probably derived from "dye" or "dy" from the 12th century. Die as in the stamping tool is of unknown origin, possibly derived from "datum" and from the 15th century.
They consume whichever is pushed to them trough mass media , without doing mcuh of independent thinking and analysis at all.
So instead of going out and re-educating themselves, or inventing for themselves the rules and theories of logic that it took great minds many years of debate to refine to a usable point, they just make assumptions and act on emotions and beliefs. Without a proper education, this is what a reasonable person would expect of them based upon even a cursory understanding of human nature.
Oh come one. "learnable" to the point at which they can pass test/exam.
If you can pass a critical thinking or logic exam that was well constructed, then you have just demonstrated that you can think critically and logically. At that point, you are ahead of 90% of the populace of the US today.
What point is to teach those skills to somebody unwilling to apply them.There is a lot of whining that too much for what is taught in school is not usefull in "real world".
Logic and critical thinking are applicable to everyday life. You're making the assumption that people who were taught them would not use them, but you have not supported that belief with any facts. Obviously if they are never taught them (as most aren't) they won't apply them. What makes you think if they are taught, they won't apply them even when it provides them an obvious advantage?
A lot of things are already taught,yet people do not learn
If a person does not learn, then then the topic was not taught. They are two sides of the same coin. Assigning books to read and handing out multiple choice tests is not necessarily teaching.
Did it change big picture? -no,dumb people stayed dumb people in regular schools,and geniuses could make they way trough without those privileged schools either....
Smart != educated. Dumb != uneducated. I don't care what a person's level of intelligence is, they should be taught useful skills and the ability to educate themselves about any topic they become interested in. Math, physics, the scientific method, logic, and problem solving are all learnable by a person of average or below average intelligence. I'm all for "magnet schools" for the gifted, but that does not mean we should neglect the education of everyone else, for exactly the reason the US now exemplifies. If you're never taught the skills needed to critically evaluate information and make logical decisions it is no wonder half the country believes things even when their sources of information now admit they were wrong. It is no wonder a third of the population disbelieves common scientific knowledge. They were never given the tools they needed to make reasonable decisions.
Environment has a lot more to do with how someone turns out than you seem to imply. There are numerous twins studies and the like that show just how much of a difference environment makes (not that the majority of environment is in school.
Honestly, can you use 4 cores in any of your current applications?
Why limit it to a single application? Right now I have 257 threads running on my laptop. On is taking up about 40% of the processor. Another is taking 13%. Another is taking 4%. Is there no benefit to load balancing these threads across multiple cores? I have 14 applications open right now, and that is about average. If I have more processing power, I'd be running at least one VM if not several to allow me to model a few servers and run a few Windows only programs. If I can get more cores, I'll make use of them as processor availability is still one of the bottlenecks on my workstation.
According to the modern human evolution that starts in the middle
That is not the theory of evolution. That is not even the theory of evolution of man. That is one model as to how evolving man spread.
That supposedly happened *only* 100,000-200,000 years ago. At that point what no one touches is the idea of race.
Were we all black then? Or were all the races fully formed when we left Africa...I highly doubt that is the case.
The amount of genetic diversity when leaving Africa (in that model) and the relative levels in different locations thereafter is a subject of quite a bit of debate. Why does that have any bearing on the evolution of man in general, however?
We've apparently done a lot of evolving in the past 100,000-200,000 years to evolve into White, Middle Eastern, Indian
and Asians and others.
Do you have any idea how much genetic difference there is between an Asian and a Anglo Saxon, or a African? It is tiny. It is infinitesimal compared to the amount of genetic change the species as a whole has undergone. An analogy might be, over the last 200,000 years we've seen tigers evolve to be twice the size they used to and have four tails and this is well understood, but no one has explained how tigers in the north tend to have a slightly more orange color than tigers in the south. Lets just assume then, that the previous changes must be completely inexplicable and the work of an invisible tiger god named "Moo-pu."
Evolutionists also don't explain why we used stone tools for 2 millions years and then suddenly 20,000 years ago we wised up and starting learning at a super human pace.
It took 90,000 years to go from stone tools to copper. It took another 4000 to learn to make bronze alloy. It took 2000 more to create the superior alloy called steel. This is simply humanity building on the work of their predecessors. As language evolved we were able to pass on knowledge much more easily. We never learned at a "super-human" pace since by definition it would have to be a pace greater than we are able to. I don't find the rate of technological advancement to be inexplicable, or even unexpected. And none of this has much to do with evolution in general, which has been well established and the foundation for much of the science you use every day for many decades.
Evolution isn't a scientific truth. It's a theory.
"Truth" is not a proper scientific term. We have laws, which are believed to be proven and we have theories, which we believe are anything without absolute proof. Gravity is a theory. Combustion is a theory. Evolution is a theory. Maybe all cars will stop running tomorrow. Maybe everything will start falling up. Maybe creatures will stop changing due to stresses upon their ability to breed. But it isn't bloody likely and all the evidence we have gathered to date has told us that it is not going to happen.
In a previous article here discussing a new type of speciation someone commented that this might provide more evidence to support evolution. The reply was to the affect of "yeah, in the same way every time metallurgists make a new alloy and it does not fall off the earth it supports gravity." If you've ever studied anything in biology you know this is a pretty apt analogy. A huge portion of our biological sciences is built upon evolution and it is a given in most of the science that has brought you the medical advances of the last century. Please educate yourself. If you've honestly looked at all the facts and objectively concluded that evolution is not almost certainly occurring, then your brain is broken and you need to get help.
Science is a process; a method. It is a rational way to discover answers to specific questions and solve problems. No one claims that science can provide an answer for everything because in order to perform the necessary experiments we'd have to capable of of doing everything.
I don't want to open another can of worms on here, but I see myself in between the two sides. People like to look at it as black and white, creationism or evolution. They like to say that they can't co-exist, but I disagree..
Have you read the theory of evolution or the theory of evolution of man? It does not preclude nor speak to the creation of the world. Most christians (not necessarily in the US) accept evolution as a mechanism for creation. That is, in fact, the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, meaning most christians in the world. Most priests and reverends are happy to tell people this. The difference, however, is that most priests and reverends don't have their own television shows, media campaigns, or allied politicians. Thus, we mostly hear from the wackjobs looking to stir up trouble and exploit people by making a big issue of this. As a result, many American christians have been convinced that these two things are incompatible. Don't mistake that for believing most people think they are incompatible as most scientists and religious adherents do not believe that.
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Would you care to provide some significant non-circumstantial evidence for that rather strong assertion, or are you just taking into account the small number of people whom you happened to meet?
I don't have statistics on this, or know a good place to find them. Nonetheless, I think this is a pretty obvious trend in a lot of fields. Just go to a few conventions that used to be Linux strongholds and look at how many powerbooks and macbooks are there now. Some of the major conventions for sysadmins, security, hackers, and the sciences have more mac laptops than they do other brands combined. That's not because they're so inexpensive. I know one person who tried OS X and went back to Linux. This includes people who have been and are regular contributors to Linux and BSD projects. I know at least a hundred who have stayed with OS X for their desktop. I know a few people who spent weeks hacking together kernel modules for OS X to catch up to Linux, because it was still easier than putting up with Linux on the desktop once they had used OS X. Linux has a lot it can borrow from OS X to become a good desktop, but I don't expect it will do so for a long time, if ever.
What distributions have you been using where you need to compile everything from source?
Who said anything about everything from source, I said many of us end up compiling some things from source. I've had to do that for niche applications on Fedora, Suse, and slackware.
Ubuntu's package manager installs just about everything, and many third party groups are starting to provide compatible .debs as well.
Most major software is provided in multiple package formats for the different distributions. Lots of minor software provides one and the source. The source can be troublesome and the packages take extra work and cannot always be shared between distributions. So I have to download a different one for each distro I'm running.
As for add/remove programs, installing and removing software is just a matter of manipulating checkboxes.
Which is still not as easy as dragging and dropping or throwing something in the trash. Say you have two laptops running the same distro and you want to copy a program from one to the other. You already have a directory shared. According to the desktop metaphor you should be able to just drag the application from one computer to the other or even just run it off the mounted directory. It is intuitive, but it does not work on Linux unless someone is running GNUStep and happens to have something packaged for it, which is rare in the extreme. What about binary software that goes away. I've IM'd copies of such software to friends simply by dragging the icon into my IM chat with them. That is easy and intuitive, but it does not work on Linux.
We could work on third-party updates, which is lacking, but as far as I know, most programs that do this do it on their own (firefox, etc...). Licensing and registration are the same - most programs I have seen deal with that on their own.
By which I believe you mean, most software does not adhere to a standard but sends random network traffic often in obfuscated formats. As security advances we'll have our programs running in jails and be able to restrict them at will from accessing any given resources. Having an official service for updates and registration in a clear XML format makes it clear what is going out from what application and to whom and lets the user restrict network access for say, a FPS video game from sending out network traffic once it has been registered and until you want to look for an update and lets a user examine what is being sent. This is vital if we ever want to mitigate trojans. It also lets us build standard tools to manage updates and installs, updating everything at, say 1am, instead of when you run it next and want to get work done.
As for single packages like OS X, I have separate partitions for /home, /
What the hell for? People like you would just go find something new in Linux to complain about.
Yeah, lets never improve Linux again. People will just want us to keep making improvements. Lets just let it rot. That will be a great way to gain marketshare.
I've been hearing about the package BS for ten years now, but I can still grab any major distro and know the only difference between them is the name of the packager.
Yeah, but none of those package managers provide all the functionality the average desktop user wants.
I can still install, uninstall, upgrade with one command ranging from 3-5 characters.
Can you do it without using the keyboard? Can you IM an installed program to a friend or coworker? Can you you, without any modification, install the program on a thumb drive and run it from there? Can you do the same on a network drive? Can you use one set of permissions for both? Can you run the same copy on different machines as different users and still have your preferences saved? Can you do it all without ever having to think about how it is done because the OS just takes care of it?
Hasn't stopped Linux in ten years.
Yeah, because we all know how Linux has taken the desktop market by storm. The current installers are fine for a server, but they suck for the average desktop user.
But of course, as always, Linux gets criticized while Windows is praised for doing the exact same goddamn thing.
Windows does not have to be good or standard. People will code for it because it is a monopoly and people will use it because it came pre-installed on their computer. For Linux on the desktop to take off, it needs to be better than Windows by enough of a margin that people will go out of their way to overcome the barrier to entry that monopoly creates.
Could you lemmings at least ask your team leader to write you a new script?
Windows on the desktop sucks because it does not respond to what users want. It doesn't have to. Linux on the desktop sucks because it does not respond to what users want either. It responds to what the small number of developers who are also users want and to what big companies pay to have added to it. Almost all of the latter is focused on what corporate users want. Almost all of the former is focused on what expert, power users want.
How many very strong Linux supporters do you know that have moved to OS X, because it is just a better desktop environment. Many of those problems that never get solved on Linux, just work on OS X. I know hundreds of people. A lot of them don't bother to code for Linux desktop features anymore either. Instead they fix their pain points, which is to say server features. Thus, the people left working on desktop Linux is greatly reduced. You attitude of "lalalalala! it's not broken because I can use it" does nothing to help that exodus of users and developers.
The whole idea of package managemnet[sic] is that the program automatically grabs and includes the support it needs from online, in the same step as grabbing the package in the first place.
Except that those package managers don't provide all the functionality I want and use on other systems and they don't always work on all Linux distros, especially for niche software that only gets tested on one or two particular distributions.
Quit pretending that there's no such thing as DLL-Hell or dependency breaks between Windows/Word/Office/Studio versions on MS platforms.
Ahh the classic, "we're not as bad as China" defense. MS has a monopoly. Their OS can suck and it doesn't matter to their market share. Linux does not have a monopoly and due to its nature will never wield monopoly power in the market. Thus, if something is broken on Linux and Windows, Linux will lose market share.
If Linux cut off every distro that was five years old and forced the users of that platform to switch, Linux could "claim" standardization too.
Installing software only from a terminal is fine for a server, or even a developer workstation, but it is not ideal for a normal user's desktop or workstation. Compare the instructions you listed above to dragging an application anywhere on your hard drive, which is what OS X provides. That may give you a hint as to why people are moving from Linux to OS X in droves for workstations. The other part is that such an installation does not always work on every linux variant without dealing with numerous other factors. It does not always handle dependencies, nor updates, nor licensing, nor registration. It does not handle permissions on a per user and per system basis. It does not allow already installed programs to be portable. A standard that does not provide the benefits and features needed to compete is largely useless.
The procedure is exactly the same for every package prepared with GNU autotools.
Which accounts for what percentage of software that runs on Linux? We've all had to compile our own software to get the features we want and we've all had to mess with things to get that software working on different distributions. Most of us have failed to get at least something working on some distribution. If you want to compete in the corporate and educational workstation space, you also need to be able to function or at least heavily interoperate with the home workstation, portable, and pro workstation space. That means easy installs and stuff that just works. This is just one of the many reasons I run OS X instead of Linux as my workstation of choice. I use Linux for servers and appliances, but it is just a too much of a pain for my laptop. Now Linux does a few things right, including package managers that link to repositories for software discovery and signing. Also, automated updates of most software are a big plus. In general though, it is just not enough and ideally applications would have all the benefits of Linux and OS X and more besides. I don't think we'll get there for Linux, in general unless there is a standard format for installs with the advantages of GNUStep and a standard for connecting to repositories and update services.
Try an installer from any of the major distros. They're ALL easier than Windows.
If I install a Window's program as an installer, it usually will install on any Windows box. If I download a Linux install image or source, or just try to run a particular program on a bunch of different Linux boxes, I run into problems. That is the issue.
You only install the installer once, then you image the drive and copy the image to the other N computers in the sale. The end user will NOT be the one installing any of these.
People don't like switching OS's and having incompatible file types and different programs at home and at school and at work. People will want to run software on some machines that is not installed by the admin on the install image. Thus, if there is not a user friendly way to install a program on workstations of different varieties, that end users find convenient, it will slow the adoption of Linux as a desktop/workstation.
So everyone, who gives a shit about a common installer? Let the installers proliferate, and we'll continue to have competition for the BEST installer, which will change from year to year
Competition for installers and package managers is great, but the package format and some functions should really be common standards. I describe what I'd like to see an an installer in a previous post in this discussion. It is great to have different OS's include different programs to do this, so long as they are interoperable and using a common standard to avoid the problems I described above.
Brings up an interesting point there as well. Why does there need to be a common installer? There's no common installer in Windows.
Ahh, but a single installer executable can easily run on most all Windows versions. The same cannot be said of a single installer for all Linux distros. Secondly, installation on Windows is a mess. Part of the reason for moving away from Windows is because they have not fixed problems like these. To make Linux a really good desktop, it should be a lot better than Windows so that when people have a choice of platforms, they choose Linux.
I don't think anyone does installation perfectly. What I'd like to see is all platforms standardize on a GNUStep-like package format combined with a package manager that integrates licensing, updates, and the like for all software available to a machine, including on network drives, removable media, and for different users. No one has done it completely right yet, that I have seen. I want the drag and drop installation functionality of OS X, including the ability to IM a functional program to someone or plug in a thumb drive and have my preferences from two years ago when I last had access to that program on a network drive to be saved. I want all the dependancies included in the package with versioning and dynamic linking so getting a new library with some program I download can fix bugs in other programs I'm running. I want easy access to the resources of the program like movies, images, and sounds, just by navigating into the folder-is-the-program directory. Similarly I want easy access to fat binaries for multiple processors and even OS's. I want the integrated option to build from the included source instead of using a pre-compiled binary. Disk space is not that expensive anymore. I want a management application built into the OS that knows when I run a new application for the first time, handles registration over the internet or by keys through an official service. I want to be able to manage inherited preferences for the whole machine and for individual users from this manager and handle uninstalls and automated updates.
Right now Apple has half the solution and Linux has about a third. Sadly GNUStep on Linux seems to have lost momentum since most people who care about Linux as a convenient workstation jumped ship and went to OS X.
Maybe this is too much to ask, but I really don't think so. The real problem is not even building this system, it is standardizing it and getting all the major players, including Apple and Sun to get onboard.
Well, answer me, honestly, how you react to the statement "This Webpage works best with IE 7.0", which should actually mean "It only works properly with IE 7.0 and we don't give a f..k about other browsers.". What is your reaction? Using IE7?
Well, my initial reaction is thinking that the developers are clueless and the page is catering to a tiny section of the population who has installed a beta browser. If I really need to use the page I'll find a way, or write to them and ask them to fix the page. Why does this matter? I'm something of a security expert, so my reaction to an IE only banner is going to be quite different to a non-savvy user's reaction to a "use any browser except IE which is broken if you want to see the page properly" banner. As for the psychology of that, it is quite different. IE is broken. Telling non-expert users that is simply giving them information, and most will accept it as truth because most people believe what they are told by "experts."
I don't want to run into the same problems we're facing now with IE with FF
The fact that FF is open source pretty much removes that danger. You see, IE does not get improved to work with newer standards and work around broken parts of the spec because it is a monopoly. Open source projects cannot wield monopoly power because they can always be forked.
To break a monopoly, you first of all have to get the users to move to something else. "When you build it, they will come" does not work as long as there is someone else who builds essentially the same, but offering them less resistance.
To break a monopoly abusing bundling you have to offer substantially more or develop a complete separate vertical chain bundled. Firefox offers superior security and functionality. Apple offers Safari as part of a bundled vertical chain, segregated from the rest of the market. Between them, they have put a dent in the monopoly, but it is constantly fighting an uphill battle against being bundled with Windows. Until Windows is no longer greater than 70% of the market or IE is no longer bundled, these both need to provide significantly more just to hold their ground.
Err, no. The "biodiversity" of Linux is one of its strong points, and one that is frequently brought up by supporters of OSS. If we start "standardizing", then all we are doing is replacing Windoze by 2 (or 3) different Linux distros. Better, but not the optimal solution.
There are a number of fundamental differences between a Linux distro or several Linux distros and Windows. Windows sucks because it is a monopoly. As a result, it does not change to meet the needs of users, because users have no leverage. Look at Vista. Half of the features that have not been dropped are anti-features designed to lock people into Windows even more or make the computer refuse to do things the owner wants (DRM & copy protection). Even a single Linux distro will never have monopoly power in the market because it is open source. That is to say, anyone can grab it, change it to meet customer's or their own needs, release it and compete. As a result, anti-features and failure to address what customers want will never be an issue. Also, Linux is built on open standards because of the development process. Windows sucks because they intentionally fail to interoperate as a way of making money and forcing users to pay. Linux will never have that problem because it is designed on open standards that do interoperate. The barrier to move from Windows to anything else is large. The barrier to move from Linux to anything else, including other Linux distros is small.
f all people, students should be the first to learn how to cope with new OSes (or distros) as they arise...
I don't feel to strongly about this, but computers should not detract from the learning experience in non-computer classes. In history a user should not be incidentally learning how to use Linspire instead of Fedora. They should be learning history. Comparative OS's is fine for a computer class, but I don't think it should be something they have to deal with anywhere else. Computers a re tools to help the learning.
I can think of two major caveats to tracking: the aforementioned loss issue and the fact that kidnappers will search their victims for cell phones now thus in a true emergency they will not really help.
Do you have any idea how rare kidnapping is, especially kidnapping by someone who is not one of the parents? Kidnapping should be such a small concern that it should not even bear mentioning. Most emergencies kids might be in would be if they are injured or sick or lost or feel threatened by bullies or others around them. A phone might help them in many of these cases and those are the emergencies you should be concerned with.
The danger of cellphones for kids is that most parents will not give enough thought to how to deal with them, and since they have not been taught rules for dealing with them, will allow them to become a disruptive influence, rather than a beneficial one.
I lost so many coats as a child in Michigan...
It must have been lower michigan, or you'd have frozen to death.
So if you define standard as "the way the vast majority of webpages on the net work", then the IE is by definition standards compliant.
If you define apple pie as a bowl of dog crap then by definition apple pie is a bowl of dog crap. How is this a useful statement?
Standards are what a group of people all agreed upon. MS was a member of the most of the working groups that formed these standards including HTML and CSS. Then, they all went back to their respective companies and MS wrote code that did something else.
The truth is, MS does not comply with standards because they intentionally are trying to hold back progress for online development until they can control it. Right now Web standards make it easier for people to switch to another browser and, hence another OS. Right now they make it easier to run a Web application and hence, use any OS to do so. If the WC3 sat down and defined the standards as exactly what IE does now and all the other Web browser developers went along, MS would intentionally break the those standards as quickly as possible. They don't want the Web to be cross platform any more than it has to be. They want a proprietary OS connecting to proprietary servers to run proprietary Web apps using proprietary protocols to provide proprietary services. They want to own it all and they are happy to abuse their monopoly to get there unless the legal system does not take their bribes and actually stops them.
I do some Web development. The pages I write look the same in every browser except IE, where they degrade to basic text without any more formatting than necessary. None of the people who read these pages use IE and if they did and complained we'd tell them to get a good browser. The market I work in is very different from normal, public Websites, but I'd like to urge all developers to follow suit. Simply code to standards and put up a disclaimer and a link to Firefox. Most end users prefer it anyway, once they try it. Don't let MS break the Web any more and don't let them hold back progress with their monopoly. If the legal system won't act, we still can.
I picked Canada for a reason. We're exposed to US media on a very regular basis, and so I suspect we're subjected to nearly as much "propaganda" as your average US citizen.
Visit the US much? The propaganda posters and government sponsored TV ads are really starting to be creepy.
As far as parenting goes, I'd be shocked if there was a truly significant difference. There may be some slight differences in parenting style due to difference in average lifestyle, but I suspect the similarities greatly outweight the differences.
This is probably true, but not in all cases. Canadians are a lot more likely to be raised by both parents and don't deal with race issues or the huge number of parents sent to prison in the US. That can make a big difference.
Poverty may certainly be a factor in differences in education... though, I don't believe our two countries are *that* different, as far as that goes.
Over half of all personal bankruptcies and a huge number of people in debt get there because they could not pay medical bills in the US. Wage disparity in the US is about 30% greater than Canada. Violent crime in the US is significantly greater as well, which correlates strongly with these previous factors.
Again, Canada is regularly exposed to US news media. Moreover, our mainstream news sources (the CBC excluded) largely follow the US model. So I'm not sure how big of a difference there is between the two nations.
Having a trusted, national news source, makes quite a difference. Over half of the people in the US believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, despite the fact that all the reports claiming they did were shown to false. This is because the media here hyped that belief as fact for over a year and then quietly let the issue drop without the truth being heavily reported. The CBC coverage was so much better than Fox or CBS that it is unreal. Canada has a lot more information exchange with Europe and a lot less prejudice against Europe, in general, than the US.
I suspect the biggest difference is the idea of tying school funding to student performance. AFAIK, this practice doesn't exist in Canada, and my understanding is that it's had an extremely detrimental effect on the US school system.
True enough.
On the flip side, I don't know a) how prevalent this practice is in the US, or b) how recent it is.
It has been common for several decades and mandatory if you want any funding for your school for the last 6 years or so.
Frankly, I think the US school system is unfairly targeted when the whole 'evolution' thing comes up.
Well, I don't think it is the only factor, but it is certainly one culprit. We actually have teachers here teaching that evolution is evil and that creationism is scientifically proven complete with bogus facts and twisted logic. We have a president (in charge of funding schools) who has said he thinks it is proper to give both equal time in classrooms. We have huge amounts of educational funding tied to religious mandates (huge amounts of money for sexual education only granted if no mention of condoms is made and only abstinence is taught).
I'm willing to bet the more likely culprit is cultural factors. Specifically, consider that a very large number of Americans identify themselves with fairly fundamentalist Christian religions (eg, baptist, Mormon, etc), unlike most other western nations.
Whether the educational system is broken because it is controlled by religious fanatics, or whether religious fanatics are common because the school system did not give them a proper education is a rather circular argument. In looking for practical solutions, however, I think the school system is a relatively reasonable place to start. Further, I think learning fundamentals that are now neglected, like logic, problem solving, and critical thinking are good places to start because it is hard for religious fanatics to argue against them.
up and the funny part about this is that Microsoft has a fine line to walk because they 'painted' the line with their poor standards support in IE. On one hand they don't want to change their new browser so much that every existing web page needs fixing because that'll make IE7 look like it's broken and piss alot of businesses off.
By this logic then, they should be implementing all the standards support Firefox and the others have that don't conflict with their current, broken versions. For example, they should implement the other half (or more) of CSS 2, but properly and should be implementing XHTML. They aren't doing that though. I suspect you are incorrect about their motivations. MS wants the Web to be a difficult platform for applications and they want to continue to retard standards on the Web until their .Net initiative can provide Web based applications that are locked onto the Windows platform.
The most used browsers have been mostly around for years AND almost all of them have been based off of existing code, whether it be konquerer or Mozilla.
And what exactly is preventing Microsoft from basing their Web browsing engine off of an existing codebase? They already have IE to start with, which takes care of a lot of the basics. All they need to do is implement the more recent standards either from scratch or using code from an open source project or other code base. Or they could start anew using a different engine, like Gecko, with the old IE engine for backwards compatibility.
Sure it would be hard to code an entire browser from scratch with a dozen developers and a few months, but there is no requirement that anyone start from scratch. They aren't doing so because they don't want to.
This is the key folks. So many corporate database products rely on IE as the rendering engine. If the backward compatibility is lost, most corporations' will see their Crystal Reports, and other SQL engines that use IE as their GUI/renderers will be broken. They will never allow that to happen. So they will sacrifice the standard compliance.
This is a false dichotomy in many ways. Will implementing XHTML break backward compatibility with the current rendering engine? Why? It is a completely different mechanism. Will implementing the 50% of CSS2 they claim they have not yet gotten to break someone's crystal reports? Why should it is it does not change the current behavior?
By MS engineer's own estimate they could be 50% more compliant with CSS and completely add XHTML and I don't see how this would effect backwards compatibility at all. No they are not adding the rest of these standards because it costs them a small amount of money and more importantly, because they make money by failing to comply. If they continue to illegally bundle IE then most people will use it unless a huge barrier is overcome. Thus, proprietary Web pages that don't work in other browsers will be common, thus people can't move to other OS's as easily. If they don't support the standards needed, it is much harder for Web applications to provide users with the functions they need to compete. If people move to Web applications then their is no cost for them to switch to another OS, unlike with traditional applications. Thus MS benefits by making Web applications not shackled to Windows hard to implement, so they do that.
Guys has anyone actually given any thought to the amount of work these people are putting into this project? All you can manage to do is rip M$ apart when in reality the IE7 guys are trying to do something about their browser. IE6 got released in what 01? and then afterwards DISBANDED the team.
So a company abuses its monopoly to control the majority of the Web browser market with an inferior product. They mothball development on that product and have thus far been unable or unwilling to write a browser that has the same level of standards support as browsers other companies threw together in a year. Should we feel sorry for the few people still assigned to work on the product? Maybe, but that doesn't excuse MS for their actions in any way. They could hire a hundred of the best Web developers to whip IE into shape in a few months time if they wanted to, but they don't. They make more money by continuing to illegally bundle it with Windows, ensuring users around the world suffer with their below par product and at the same time maintaining a lock-in to prevent them from moving to other OS's or even to Web applications.
Do not be a jerk to these people they are working hard just as you are and they get to read on these sites the pretty rough things about their company who while not always been the nice guy or been on the up and up has also done a lot of good things.
If by "a lot of good things" you mean "did everything they could, illegal or not, to make money."
And just remember IE7 is still in beta, betas are buggy, expect it to be so.
A bug is failing to render an element correctly. It is not completely failing to render XHTML and Half of CSS 2.
I know that this is going to stir some of you up, but try for just a minute to think before you post, and at least try to be original in your insults if you feel the need to go that way.
This isn't about insults. This is about a company holding back progress and locking people in to an inferior product, illegally, for money all while releasing PR nonsense about how they're improving and their browser is better than ever. They have made very little in the way of progress towards rendering five year old standards everyone else has been rendering for four years or more. This is because they (as a company) don't want to properly render those standards. MS deserves no pity for screwing us all over for a few more dollars.
The fact is no browser is 100% complient. Even if all browsers could bost 90%+, web developers would still have to spend ages testing and modifying sites so they display uniformily in every browser
Hi, I do some Web development and testing. I automate the output of a whole slew of content sources into XML and thence into XHTML. I apply CSS styles to the content to standardize the look for a given branding and product. I wrote everything to the specs available from W3C and it was both clear and easy. Then I tested it with every browser I could think of. Firefox, Opera, Safari, and everything else rendered them just fine... except, of course, IE 6. For IE 6, it degraded to plain HTML, losing much of the formatting. I added a few easy hacks to fix the vital stuff, but for the most part IE users don't get any of the formatting that every other browser does. Luckily, none of our customers use IE so we don't bother to fix it. When MS announced IE 7, I dutifully grabbed each version and tested it. The results are it is exactly the same as IE 6 and completely fails to render any of the formatting.
The browser coders are continually playing catch up with the creators of the supposed standards... Microsoft are just examples of how stupid the situation with web standards are.
All these standards were defined five years or more ago. Several companies with a tiny portion of MS's resources have successfully implemented them. Several open source projects with a fraction of a fraction of the resources MS has have implemented them. Implementing them breaks nothing in older Web pages and this is not a backwards compatibility issue. There are only two real possibilities as to why MS has not implemented these standards. First, it is possible they are so horribly incompetent and full of bureaucracy that they simply cannot achieve the same results as a dozen developers with a few months of time elsewhere. Second, they have decided it makes them more money to not implement the standards and to use the intentionally broken handling of the Web to lock customers into their platform and make it harder for people to move to Web apps and other OS's.
Umm... last I checked, the US public school model wasn't particularly unique. Perhaps you could explain what makes the US system different from, say, the Canadian system, in such a way as to explain these results.
I'm not familiar with the particulars of the Canadian system, so a comparison will be difficult. Can we agree fro the start that the difference is almost certainly environmental, rather than genetic? If so, then we have to look at a number of factors. First, US citizens are likely dealing with more propaganda than Canadians, so while our schools may not be worse, the end result is. Second, success in schooling is very strongly linked with the support provided by parents and with poverty. Both of those factors come into play in a comparison between the US and Canada. Canada has the BBC and other news sources not controlled by the same groups that control the US government with lobbying dollars, while the US does not have a government sponsored, but independent news source. Schooling in the US has become very standards based, which is to say, based upon the memorization of facts, rather than the ability to do things. If you can't encode it one of those computerized cards where you select from one of five choices, it is mostly ignored by the US public schools. As a result, any subject that cannot easily be taught in this way is not taught. Incentives for schools to only teach how to pass these standardized tests and even for teachers to cheat on behalf of their students are very real and result in hard cash. Objective statistical analysis of the schools over the last 20 years has shown some pretty solid evidence that this is exactly what the schools have become.
So how does that compare to Canada?
No, only observing everything.
This is untrue unless you are asserting that all things possible are happening while you can observe them. For example, in the universe one million and seven atoms of particular elements may never have been arranged in a a particular configuration. In order to scientifically determine what will happen when placed in that configuration, actively experimenting is necessary.
Science is about finding models that let us make predictions about the observable.
In order to observe many things, those things have to happen. If they don't happen we can't observe them. Thus, we need to be capable of making them happen so we can make an observation.
While is is possible to scientifically examine things that currently exist, that does not even come close to providing "all the answers."
And 90% of us population will not pass such a test. At which point either the test is dumbed down and/or subject excluded from general curriculum .
90% won't pass it now. If they are actually taught the subjects, they could easily pass it. This is not brain surgery and once you understand a rule or methodology you are unlikely to forget it.
Most of non retards apply logic and critical thinking when it is obvious to them. "Intuitively" -That is a general trait of higher animals.
Nope. They apply reason, not logic. Most apply critical thinking in special circumstances where they have been trained to. The problem is, they have not been taught either the rules of logic, the pitfalls, or how to apply it to all aspects of decision making. Blaming them for not figuring it out on their own id both elitists and nonproductive.
As a good example of failure to apply logic is how prone an average person is to obvious scams. How many people play lottery, casinos despite knowing odds are way swayed not in their favor?
How is this a failure to apply logic? I was in vegas a few months ago. I played a few games where the odds were in my favor or skill based games when I had a good probability of winning. I also played low stakes games as a way to slowly lose money while quickly absorbing free drinks and heavily oxygenated air. It is not just what you do that determines if you're using logic and critical thought, and neither is a guarantee that all your decisions will be the best ones. It is simply that using the rules of logic and critical decision making you are more likely to succeed in your goals and accurately assess information. They are mental tools that should be provided to anyone before you blame their inability on being inherently stupid.
For example, you have asserted that you don't think most people are capable of learning critical thinking, regardless of the training given to them. Logically, we should look at who is trained in critical thinking, how many are successful critical thinkers afterwards, and what factors correlate with that success. Lacking specific evidence, we should generalize the importance of training versus genetic predisposition in education and, if necessary, in general successfulness. Luckily, such information is not too hard to find. The correlation between genetics and educational success correlates to somewhere between 10% and 35% when normalized for other factors. The correlation between environment and educational success makes up the remainder. Thus, we can easily see which factor weighs most heavily.
It is easy then, to logically conclude that by changing the environment in which people are raised and providing them a better education we can and do effect their ability to solve problems.
Oh what it is then? Assigning personal teacher for every person? With the same material and same teachers ,in same environment some people some do not learn , some do and some even go out of their way to get knowledge form beyond what was given to them on silver platter.
Different people learn in different ways. They have different personalities and their environment has structured their thinking in different ways. If your next door neighbor is playing music too loudly at 3AM and you want them to stop will you approach they neighbor to your right who is an attorney differently than you will approach the neighbor to your left who is a voodoo priest? Of course, since both are more likely to respond favorably to different approaches. Learning should also be customized to the topic and individuals to some degree. Many teachers consider teaching history by rote memorization to be fine. Very few would consider teaching basketball by rote memorization. Like basketball, critical problem solving is something you have to do to learn it. It is more useful to give a child one real problem and have them write out a solution and the reasoning behind it, than it is to give them a hundred mu
I'd be interested in knowing your source. Or perhaps it is a regional thing.
I just looked it up in the dictionary (well 7 dictionaries actually, I have a service that pulls up all the dictionary references to a word it can find). All that listed a pluralization listed it as "dies" for the manufacturing item, including Webster, The Collaborative International Dictionary, Wordnet, and the Free Online Dictionary of Computing.
The dictionaries I consulted had only one etymology for the word, indicating that they are both based off the same root, and thus would not be different words.
A google search for "etymology die" quickly the discovers the following etymology for the words:
"die (n.) c.1330 (as a plural), from O.Fr. de, of uncertain origin, perhaps from L. datum "given," pp. of dare (see date (1)), which, in addition to "give," had a secondary sense of "to play" (as a chess piece); or else from "what is given" (by chance or Fortune). Sense of "stamping block or tool" first recorded 1699."
"dice c.1330, des, dys, pl. of dy (see die (n.)), altered 14c. to dyse, dyce, and 15c. to dice. "As in pence, the plural s retains its original breath sound, probably because these words were not felt as ordinary plurals, but as collective words" [OED]. Sometimes used as sing. 1400-1700. The v. "to cut into cubes" is first recorded c.1390. Dicey "doubtful, difficult" is RAF slang from the 1940s.
Die as in the gaming piece is probably derived from "dye" or "dy" from the 12th century. Die as in the stamping tool is of unknown origin, possibly derived from "datum" and from the 15th century.
They consume whichever is pushed to them trough mass media , without doing mcuh of independent thinking and analysis at all.
So instead of going out and re-educating themselves, or inventing for themselves the rules and theories of logic that it took great minds many years of debate to refine to a usable point, they just make assumptions and act on emotions and beliefs. Without a proper education, this is what a reasonable person would expect of them based upon even a cursory understanding of human nature.
Oh come one. "learnable" to the point at which they can pass test/exam.
If you can pass a critical thinking or logic exam that was well constructed, then you have just demonstrated that you can think critically and logically. At that point, you are ahead of 90% of the populace of the US today.
What point is to teach those skills to somebody unwilling to apply them .There is a lot of whining that too much for what is taught in school is not usefull in "real world" .
Logic and critical thinking are applicable to everyday life. You're making the assumption that people who were taught them would not use them, but you have not supported that belief with any facts. Obviously if they are never taught them (as most aren't) they won't apply them. What makes you think if they are taught, they won't apply them even when it provides them an obvious advantage?
A lot of things are already taught ,yet people do not learn
If a person does not learn, then then the topic was not taught. They are two sides of the same coin. Assigning books to read and handing out multiple choice tests is not necessarily teaching.
Did it change big picture? -no ,dumb people stayed dumb people in regular schools ,and geniuses could make they way trough without those privileged schools either....
Smart != educated. Dumb != uneducated. I don't care what a person's level of intelligence is, they should be taught useful skills and the ability to educate themselves about any topic they become interested in. Math, physics, the scientific method, logic, and problem solving are all learnable by a person of average or below average intelligence. I'm all for "magnet schools" for the gifted, but that does not mean we should neglect the education of everyone else, for exactly the reason the US now exemplifies. If you're never taught the skills needed to critically evaluate information and make logical decisions it is no wonder half the country believes things even when their sources of information now admit they were wrong. It is no wonder a third of the population disbelieves common scientific knowledge. They were never given the tools they needed to make reasonable decisions.
Environment has a lot more to do with how someone turns out than you seem to imply. There are numerous twins studies and the like that show just how much of a difference environment makes (not that the majority of environment is in school.
Honestly, can you use 4 cores in any of your current applications?
Why limit it to a single application? Right now I have 257 threads running on my laptop. On is taking up about 40% of the processor. Another is taking 13%. Another is taking 4%. Is there no benefit to load balancing these threads across multiple cores? I have 14 applications open right now, and that is about average. If I have more processing power, I'd be running at least one VM if not several to allow me to model a few servers and run a few Windows only programs. If I can get more cores, I'll make use of them as processor availability is still one of the bottlenecks on my workstation.
According to the modern human evolution that starts in the middle
That is not the theory of evolution. That is not even the theory of evolution of man. That is one model as to how evolving man spread.
That supposedly happened *only* 100,000-200,000 years ago. At that point what no one touches is the idea of race. Were we all black then? Or were all the races fully formed when we left Africa...I highly doubt that is the case.
The amount of genetic diversity when leaving Africa (in that model) and the relative levels in different locations thereafter is a subject of quite a bit of debate. Why does that have any bearing on the evolution of man in general, however?
We've apparently done a lot of evolving in the past 100,000-200,000 years to evolve into White, Middle Eastern, Indian and Asians and others.
Do you have any idea how much genetic difference there is between an Asian and a Anglo Saxon, or a African? It is tiny. It is infinitesimal compared to the amount of genetic change the species as a whole has undergone. An analogy might be, over the last 200,000 years we've seen tigers evolve to be twice the size they used to and have four tails and this is well understood, but no one has explained how tigers in the north tend to have a slightly more orange color than tigers in the south. Lets just assume then, that the previous changes must be completely inexplicable and the work of an invisible tiger god named "Moo-pu."
Evolutionists also don't explain why we used stone tools for 2 millions years and then suddenly 20,000 years ago we wised up and starting learning at a super human pace.
It took 90,000 years to go from stone tools to copper. It took another 4000 to learn to make bronze alloy. It took 2000 more to create the superior alloy called steel. This is simply humanity building on the work of their predecessors. As language evolved we were able to pass on knowledge much more easily. We never learned at a "super-human" pace since by definition it would have to be a pace greater than we are able to. I don't find the rate of technological advancement to be inexplicable, or even unexpected. And none of this has much to do with evolution in general, which has been well established and the foundation for much of the science you use every day for many decades.
Evolution isn't a scientific truth. It's a theory.
"Truth" is not a proper scientific term. We have laws, which are believed to be proven and we have theories, which we believe are anything without absolute proof. Gravity is a theory. Combustion is a theory. Evolution is a theory. Maybe all cars will stop running tomorrow. Maybe everything will start falling up. Maybe creatures will stop changing due to stresses upon their ability to breed. But it isn't bloody likely and all the evidence we have gathered to date has told us that it is not going to happen.
In a previous article here discussing a new type of speciation someone commented that this might provide more evidence to support evolution. The reply was to the affect of "yeah, in the same way every time metallurgists make a new alloy and it does not fall off the earth it supports gravity." If you've ever studied anything in biology you know this is a pretty apt analogy. A huge portion of our biological sciences is built upon evolution and it is a given in most of the science that has brought you the medical advances of the last century. Please educate yourself. If you've honestly looked at all the facts and objectively concluded that evolution is not almost certainly occurring, then your brain is broken and you need to get help.
Science doesn't have the answer to everything.
Science is a process; a method. It is a rational way to discover answers to specific questions and solve problems. No one claims that science can provide an answer for everything because in order to perform the necessary experiments we'd have to capable of of doing everything.
I don't want to open another can of worms on here, but I see myself in between the two sides. People like to look at it as black and white, creationism or evolution. They like to say that they can't co-exist, but I disagree..
Have you read the theory of evolution or the theory of evolution of man? It does not preclude nor speak to the creation of the world. Most christians (not necessarily in the US) accept evolution as a mechanism for creation. That is, in fact, the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, meaning most christians in the world. Most priests and reverends are happy to tell people this. The difference, however, is that most priests and reverends don't have their own television shows, media campaigns, or allied politicians. Thus, we mostly hear from the wackjobs looking to stir up trouble and exploit people by making a big issue of this. As a result, many American christians have been convinced that these two things are incompatible. Don't mistake that for believing most people think they are incompatible as most scientists and religious adherents do not believe that.