Completely consistent and dead simple GUI-based ease of OS and program installation - must haves for mass acceptance of Linux.
That and driver support - which perhaps is the tougher challenge...
As a *nix n00b who has tried out a Linux installation on several occasions and succeeded only once, I think (1) the two problems you pick out are actually the same thing; and (2) you still haven't quite put your finger on it.
Yes, with Ubuntu the problem I had was with having to navigate esoteric driver names and seemingly meaningless abbreviations on a command line in order to get a computer with an Nvidia card working at all. But I'd be able to navigate that territory easily if the installation process provided some guidance, instead of my having to find another computer to connect to the same monitor, the same keyboard, the same mouse, and the same phone jack to go onto the Ubuntu forums to ask what on earth I was supposed to do.
If the installation process had provided some guidance, there'd be no problem. As it is, next time I give *nix another go -- probably within a couple of years; the Authentication Hell that one has to go through with Microsoft is enough to put anyone off, so XP will be the last MS OS I use if I can help it -- I guess I'll give SUSE a go, or perhaps give Mandriva another chance.
I do, however, believe that publishers and creators should have to choose between self-enforced protection (DRM) and government-enforced protection (copyright law). They should not be able to leverage both at the same time, because the two legal concepts of DRM and the "copyright bargain" are diametrically opposed to each other.
That's a really, really interesting idea, and I don't think I'e ever heard anything quite like it before. I support it fully. Congratulations to you sir.
Would some one please explain what exactly it wrong with DRM? If you have a problem with concept of copyrights in general, then I can understand. But is there anyone out there that is cool with copyrights, but thinks DRM is bad?
/me sticks hand halfway up.
I'm in favour of limited copyright, just not "life plus 70 years" or any nonsense like that. But DRM absolutely is intrinsically, in and of itself, offensive and unambiguously wrong.
Content creators who use DRM like to think that it is a way for them to stick up for their own rights. In fact it is an attempt to claim new rights, beyond what copyright already gives them. And in doing that, they actually abuse the customer's rights.
I refer you, on the assumption that you are likely to live in the US, to the notion of "fair use", which is a right that you as a customer have. DRM is a means to prevent you from exercising that right. Furthermore, it is an abuse of that right in such a way that there are very strict laws to prevent you from re-acquiring your right.
In short, there is no excuse whatsoever for DRM in commercial products, in any way, shape, or form, ever. Anyone who uses it is violating their customers, much as they might like to think that they're just s.
My concern is that it's lacking a hard disk - a device which let the X-Box handle games like Halo, a title which would have required long load times on the PS2.
I wonder if there might be room for some imaginative use of the USB ports one day. Not for an external hard drive, I mean, and not specifically with regard to the Wii -- but flash drives are getting cheaper and cheaper. I wonder if someday it might become economically possible for them to, if not supplant, then at least complement, the DVD as the medium of choice for distributing game content? It'd certainly solve the problem of load times. (They're certainly not cheap enough yet, mind you: for a 1 GB flash drive the best price I can find in my area is USD$24.41.)
"Do legs hinder or help people in their effort to train for and win the fifty-yard dash?"
Throughout the ages, human beings have relied on their legs for moving about. From walking to running to hopping, the human leg has indeed proven itself a most valuable and celebrated mobility-enabling appendage. It should come as no startling realization, then, to learn that most human sports are derived from activities that demonstrate the prowness of the leg. And perhaps no sport showcases the raw power of the leg than the fifty-yard-dash.
FWIW, -- and I'm not an SAT marker, I teach at a university -- if I saw that in an essay on that topic, it'd certainly get an A from me for its conciseness, clear interpretation of the issue, breadth of analogy, and wit. (Twenty-five minutes, schmenty-five minutes.)
I get the impression from TFA that the criteria that were being used by the SAT markers for this were very different from any that I would consider to be sane. From TFA:
I was struck by the number of people who wrote essays without apparently thinking the directions applied to them. They made assumptions about the assignment, or decided that they were better judges of what the assignment should be, and then wrote what they wanted to write rather than produced what they were asked to write.
I'd give someone's right arm for my students to do that. People should be questioning the criteria all the time. How else is anyone going to know what the criteria are? When it comes to writing the whole point is for people to make an assessment of what they need to achieve by the piece of writing, and then live up to that assessment.
Apparently so (that's comforting, since that's where I live). At first I doubted that the judge actually acquitted him, and thought maybe he just convicted him without imposing a sentence; but another NZ source says the judge "discharged him without conviction, despite police opposition."
dumbass for doing the work and providing the results before even a contract was drawn up.
In fact the other source I cited above has a different story: it says he "identified security vulnerabilities in the bank's telephone system, and then offered to provide them with details if they paid for his services." Sounds like a much less daft approach.
do you know our history with the French? Starts with an "R" and ends with "ainbow warrior"
Actually, it starts with "colonisation in the 1830s", and ends with "very strong trading links, a bilateral working holiday scheme, defence cooperation in the South Pacific, a bilateral air services agreement, and multiple visits in both direction by high-level politicians each year".
I'd happily drop $30 if they'd re-release Morrowind on the Oblivion engine...
You and the world, mate. (Just so long as it's compatible with one or other of the UI overhauls that makes inventories sensible and removes the compass markers and the lockpicking/persuasion minigames.)
Program uninstallers? Oh, you mean drag the application from/Applications to the Trash.
I hear this so often and I'm finally fed up with it. Doing that will not get rid of the mountain-sized piles of shit that are sitting in/Library and ~/Library. Yes, uninstalling in OS X involves more effort than in WinXP. No, that shit will not be a problem in the case of most apps, but for an app that makes use of any kind of database it can occupy half a GB or more. Please stop repeating this lie.
And BTW I do think the OS X setup is much, much better than Windows. That does not mean it's better in every way.
[in OS X] Application level functions like Preferences and Quit are in teh application menu.
The guidelines are actually quite good. Some are arbitrary,
They're ok as far as they go, but they're very, very vague. Now, I'm not (currently) a Mac user, but anyone can tell from a glance that Apple's design guidelines from the 1980s are infinitely more helpful than this list. It's not half-baked, exactly; but it's certainly not more than two-thirds-baked.
Actually, we are a republic. There's a huge difference. A democracy is just a popularity contest - tyranny of the majority.
And yet, your last four words describe the US government perfectly. And not just the current regime -- I mean, it seems to me, "tyranny of the majority" accurately describes every government the US has ever had.
Unless maybe you mean it would be better if a minority view controlled everything? Oligarchy is better than democracy? No, sorry, I've lost track now -- I guess I don't think your viewpoint is coherent.
I completely agree. I've felt strongly, ever since I first heard the phrase, that "weak government is good government". It's a situation which is much less prone to tampering than any checks and balances that a mortal mind can dream up.
It's also why I'm very very glad to live in a country with proportional representation. I've occasionally heard Americans on/. saying that PR is evil because it leads to a system where one point of view dominates to the exclusion of all others; it's exactly the other way round. PR leads to a situation where no one has a great deal of power, while a winner-takes-all electoral system leads to -- well, just look at the US. Mind you, I often suspect that these people complaining about PR leading to a contraction of the political spectrum are the same people who complain that PR privileges minority views ahead of the mainstream (and, of course, it's always the WASPs who are the mainstream...)
And the terms of the GPLv2 specifically allow for distribution under newer versions of the GPL.
No, they don't. The bit that you're thinking of is not in the terms of the licence. It's in an accompanying text entitled "How to apply this licence to your source code" (or similar).
I haven't seen anyone else in this discussion mentioning what is to me the most obvious problem with a web-based office suite, namely that only about 15-16% of people in the first world have broadband (extrapolated from OECD stats). I mean, duh? Who on dial-up is going to opt for web-based over locally installed software?
Slashdot Mirror
... I have to say, "5-10% slower than Firefox 1.5" is not exactly good news.
As a *nix n00b who has tried out a Linux installation on several occasions and succeeded only once, I think (1) the two problems you pick out are actually the same thing; and (2) you still haven't quite put your finger on it.
Yes, with Ubuntu the problem I had was with having to navigate esoteric driver names and seemingly meaningless abbreviations on a command line in order to get a computer with an Nvidia card working at all. But I'd be able to navigate that territory easily if the installation process provided some guidance, instead of my having to find another computer to connect to the same monitor, the same keyboard, the same mouse, and the same phone jack to go onto the Ubuntu forums to ask what on earth I was supposed to do.
If the installation process had provided some guidance, there'd be no problem. As it is, next time I give *nix another go -- probably within a couple of years; the Authentication Hell that one has to go through with Microsoft is enough to put anyone off, so XP will be the last MS OS I use if I can help it -- I guess I'll give SUSE a go, or perhaps give Mandriva another chance.
I've kind of been wondering: how long before these phrases start having cameo appearances in XB360/Wii/PC games?
Uhhhh? What do you think the purpose of book reviews is? Or are you perhaps a publisher?
That's a really, really interesting idea, and I don't think I'e ever heard anything quite like it before. I support it fully. Congratulations to you sir.
/me sticks hand halfway up.
I'm in favour of limited copyright, just not "life plus 70 years" or any nonsense like that. But DRM absolutely is intrinsically, in and of itself, offensive and unambiguously wrong.
Content creators who use DRM like to think that it is a way for them to stick up for their own rights. In fact it is an attempt to claim new rights, beyond what copyright already gives them. And in doing that, they actually abuse the customer's rights.
I refer you, on the assumption that you are likely to live in the US, to the notion of "fair use", which is a right that you as a customer have. DRM is a means to prevent you from exercising that right. Furthermore, it is an abuse of that right in such a way that there are very strict laws to prevent you from re-acquiring your right.
In short, there is no excuse whatsoever for DRM in commercial products, in any way, shape, or form, ever. Anyone who uses it is violating their customers, much as they might like to think that they're just s.
I wonder if there might be room for some imaginative use of the USB ports one day. Not for an external hard drive, I mean, and not specifically with regard to the Wii -- but flash drives are getting cheaper and cheaper. I wonder if someday it might become economically possible for them to, if not supplant, then at least complement, the DVD as the medium of choice for distributing game content? It'd certainly solve the problem of load times. (They're certainly not cheap enough yet, mind you: for a 1 GB flash drive the best price I can find in my area is USD$24.41.)
FWIW, -- and I'm not an SAT marker, I teach at a university -- if I saw that in an essay on that topic, it'd certainly get an A from me for its conciseness, clear interpretation of the issue, breadth of analogy, and wit. (Twenty-five minutes, schmenty-five minutes.)
I get the impression from TFA that the criteria that were being used by the SAT markers for this were very different from any that I would consider to be sane. From TFA:
I'd give someone's right arm for my students to do that. People should be questioning the criteria all the time. How else is anyone going to know what the criteria are? When it comes to writing the whole point is for people to make an assessment of what they need to achieve by the piece of writing, and then live up to that assessment.
Oh, I live in Wellington ... just not in the CBD.
Well yes, but you gotta admit, "hacking the Reserve Bank" sounds a lot cooler than just "hacking voicemail".
No way, hell you should see what passes for broadband here.
Apparently so (that's comforting, since that's where I live). At first I doubted that the judge actually acquitted him, and thought maybe he just convicted him without imposing a sentence; but another NZ source says the judge "discharged him without conviction, despite police opposition."
In fact the other source I cited above has a different story: it says he "identified security vulnerabilities in the bank's telephone system, and then offered to provide them with details if they paid for his services." Sounds like a much less daft approach.
BZZZZZT wrong. I never said NZ was a French colony, only that it was colonised by the French. Go and read a history book.
Fair enough. Very informative, thanks.
Actually, it starts with "colonisation in the 1830s", and ends with "very strong trading links, a bilateral working holiday scheme, defence cooperation in the South Pacific, a bilateral air services agreement, and multiple visits in both direction by high-level politicians each year".
You and the world, mate. (Just so long as it's compatible with one or other of the UI overhauls that makes inventories sensible and removes the compass markers and the lockpicking/persuasion minigames.)
Sure about that, are you? You're not aware, then, that only about 40% of the population have French as their first language?
I hear this so often and I'm finally fed up with it. Doing that will not get rid of the mountain-sized piles of shit that are sitting in /Library and ~/Library. Yes, uninstalling in OS X involves more effort than in WinXP. No, that shit will not be a problem in the case of most apps, but for an app that makes use of any kind of database it can occupy half a GB or more. Please stop repeating this lie.
And BTW I do think the OS X setup is much, much better than Windows. That does not mean it's better in every way.
... except when they're not.
They're ok as far as they go, but they're very, very vague. Now, I'm not (currently) a Mac user, but anyone can tell from a glance that Apple's design guidelines from the 1980s are infinitely more helpful than this list. It's not half-baked, exactly; but it's certainly not more than two-thirds-baked.
And yet, your last four words describe the US government perfectly. And not just the current regime -- I mean, it seems to me, "tyranny of the majority" accurately describes every government the US has ever had.
Unless maybe you mean it would be better if a minority view controlled everything? Oligarchy is better than democracy? No, sorry, I've lost track now -- I guess I don't think your viewpoint is coherent.
I completely agree. I've felt strongly, ever since I first heard the phrase, that "weak government is good government". It's a situation which is much less prone to tampering than any checks and balances that a mortal mind can dream up.
It's also why I'm very very glad to live in a country with proportional representation. I've occasionally heard Americans on /. saying that PR is evil because it leads to a system where one point of view dominates to the exclusion of all others; it's exactly the other way round. PR leads to a situation where no one has a great deal of power, while a winner-takes-all electoral system leads to -- well, just look at the US. Mind you, I often suspect that these people complaining about PR leading to a contraction of the political spectrum are the same people who complain that PR privileges minority views ahead of the mainstream (and, of course, it's always the WASPs who are the mainstream ...)
Just my 2c.
Not well said. It is DRM that is an imposition on other people's rights and morality. You have it precisely the wrong way round.
Not the gpp, but
s/middle english/Latin
Ho ho. (Not that I disagree with your broader point.)
No, they don't. The bit that you're thinking of is not in the terms of the licence. It's in an accompanying text entitled "How to apply this licence to your source code" (or similar).
I haven't seen anyone else in this discussion mentioning what is to me the most obvious problem with a web-based office suite, namely that only about 15-16% of people in the first world have broadband (extrapolated from OECD stats). I mean, duh? Who on dial-up is going to opt for web-based over locally installed software?