If three people decided to go to the library every day for a month, and pointed out one page that needed to be unblocked OR one page that needed to be blocked, and watched while the librarian blocked/unblocked it, how long would it take for the librarians to get so pissed off that they would just delete the software and/or quit?
I give them a month. And I'm taking into account that all the librarians I know are actually quite patient.
P.S. Usually, when I read the opinion pages of the paper, I look for the "Letters to the Editor" and especially the editorial cartoons. Slashdot could use the latter, but in a geek-oriented way.
Well, there are enough links to User Friendly on the main page (there's one on the left side last I checked, and I have the Funnies up) that I think it counts.
Or, if you prefer something a little less technical, you could always just read <a href="http://www.sluggy.com/d/970825.html">Sluggy Freelance</a> (note that I start you at the beginning).
Okay, so you have installed AOL 5 and said YES, right? I have not touched it, nor will I touch AOL (using my 50 free hours would have cost me a whopping CAN$540 a couple years ago thanks to the small per minute surcharge to Canadian users).
It's been pretty thoroughly documented that you are wrong. According to other people, saying yes "removes" DUN in favor of AOL, which is scary, and in a lot of cases, stupid. The nice thing about Win95 was that it removed the need for a crummy custom dialer.
Now, I could be wrong. I for one will only be using any AOL 5 CDs I get as coasters. I recommend everybody else do the same.
I asked if there was a legal difference between the statements. Sorta like the difference between "we have the cheapest gas in town" and "we have the only gas in town".
This is meant to hurt the competition, and will only hurt AOL's reputation. Yet people will stay with them. I don't get it. Do you?
Does anybody else see the legal difference between these two statements?
1. I am going to become your default internet connection (I am going to be the default autodial in Dial Up Networking).
2. I am going to become your only Internet connection (I am going to delete the other connections in Dial Up Networking and make it impossible to get them back without removing me).
Number two is what's happening, right? This is textbook misrepresentation, right? This lawsuit will still fail because some law makes this kind of misrepresentation legal, right:) ?
Gotta love big corporations that think (and probably actually do) run the world.
. The filter of decay has served mankind well so far - sorting out that which somebody treasured enough to save from the vast ocean of lesser stuff. In this century the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered nicely preserved for over a millenium because somebody thought them worthwhile.
Yeah, that works fine; at least until the Romans come in and burn down the library you were keeping all the important stuff in. You destroy the library, you destroy the culture. You destroy the culture, and the land is yours for the taking. Do it often enough, and you have yourself an Empire.
As I've said before, this is a PURE PORT thread. WINE is cool, but it still requires a Windows version of a game, and there *is* principle involved here.
War3 is not coming out till 2007, knowing Blizzard.
Starcraft may be a little long in the tooth, but it's the best RTS game out there. It's more or less balanced (I'll just slip into my asbestos...oh wait, this isn't battle.net), and a lot of fun. Heck, it even had a halfway decent story.
CmdrTaco specifically said this was a WINE free zone. We're talking pure ports here, buddy.
Speaking of which, any recent Blizzard game (hell, even War1) would be cool. There has been a heated debate over at the battle.net forums over this, and I personally think the coolest thing would be to open source Warcraft I and let the crazy hackers port the game. Now that would be cool.
The installation instructions in Slackware 3.4 told me to make a user account, so I did.
I think the real problem is that Linux distros assume you are not stupid. They assume you can and do read instructions. The fact that people *are* stupid cannot be helped.
I dunno, it read a lot to me like the average article in the Weekly World News. I mean, LInux Virii and the minions of Hell can't be that different, can they?
It alleges that Microsoft is guilty of producing a product that is compatible with one of its other products, and incompatible with a competing product. How is that a crime? It happens all the time, and when anyone other than Microsoft does it, no one even notices.
Yes they do. Haven't you been reading/. lately? Open standards (or at least properly documented ones) are better than closed ones.
Even if they are a monopoly, I don't see how the above can be considered a crime. If I write a piece of software and I've only tested it in Windows, it might be perfectly reasonable for me to only allow it to run under Windows, to ensure that the users get a consistent experience.
But, if I write the software *and* the means to run it, and set the software to only run in that OS, then I am abusing my status as a monopoly, which is very against the law.
At the very least, this strikes me as retroactive law, something I thought was outlawed by the Constitution. Microsoft in the early 90's was not aware it was a "monopoly," and in fact it was far from clear that they would be able to maintain their dominance in the market, much less expand it.
Yeah. Right. I'll believe that when pigs fly. They had desktop OS dominance, they had Win-based office suite dominance, and FUD down ta an art form. Once M$ got the market in anything it never let go.
I knew this is gone now, I feel I should reply anyway:).
SNES kicked the Genesis' @$$. The SNES had the top market share for 16 bit systems, and held it. You *could* say the PSX had to catch up to the Saturn, but you would have to be on crack. Oh wait, you are.
Spaceballs was mentioned in the article, along with a few other Mel Brooks movies. It was right at the end too. Let me guess, you didn't actually read the article. Why doesn't this surprise me?
Linus only said it's not a war because he doesn't care. He thinks Linux is fun. He thinks Redhat making money is cool. Sure, Linux is making huge inroads in business, and is the hottest OS out there nowadays (PR-wise at least), but even if it wasn't, and if it was still firmly in the realm of the geek, he'd still be happy.
So to him, at least, it's not a war. M$'s PoV, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter, which I won't discuss because I'm kind of sleepy.
...Microsoft had a wonderful idea. They just implemented it badly.
1. If you ever have used NT4, you know how horrible it is for administration. The admin tools look like an afterthought.
2. While solving this problem, M$ thought it would be nice to have all their admin tools look the same.
3. To look fair, they let other venders make MMC add-ins/applets/whatever. But, they aren't really meant to. MMC is M$'s toy.
4. It looks more like Windows Explorer than the web.
So it uses M$'s custom tech. Big deal, they always have. The MMC is a good idea. Having all your servers use the MMC as the admin tool is a good idea, if you're a sysadmin. One stop shopping is good.
But then, this *is* M$ we're talking about, so the way they went about it is bad. I expect that MMC addins are far too big for their own good. I expect M$ didn't tell other vendors enough about MMC to make it truly viable. I expect MMC will get rewritten so competitor's addins won't work quite properly (only direct competitors, though; M$ has always liked having partners who didn't directly compete).
Oh, and one other thing. The standard admin stuff (like users, for instance) are now buried. Pissed me off the first time I saw that. Mind you, I had to plug in anexternal monitor cuz my Win2k C&T vidcard driver turned off the backlight on my laptop's monitor. Mutter, mutter, mutter....
Well, I don't know about you, or anybody else for that matter, but I see one really good reason to copy a distro:
Get rid of the crap
For me, that includes big things, like Emacs and X, cuz I don't need those for my simple file/web/ftp/samba server.
Now, Corel is just offering a trimmed down version of Debian w/o the server stuff and WP (I think, don't quote me on this, just a wacky theory). More power to them. Users get a fully working office suite with an OS tossed in for fun. Myself, I am taking Debian, cutting out the workstation side stuff, and smushing the packages onto a Zip disk. But that's just me.
Otherwise, I would have to go to the expense of buying a CD-ROM for the server (I need to anyway) and the Debian CD, and *still* wade through all the options I don't want.
Simple. It was pitched to Paramount. By JMS. As Babylon 5.
Now, obviously, they turned jms down. BUT, some bigwig decided that instead of a new scifi on a space station there should be a Trek on a space station. So, while jms was feverishly pitching his five year plan, Paramount went to constantly rip him off. Some evidence (partly from Starweek, the Toronto Star's TV guide thingy, partly from me):
A space station.
A portal that opens up so ships can go to far away places. On B5 it was a hyperspace portal, which works quite like... wait for it... the WORMHOLE!
Both series got a ship the same week.
B5 had a telepath named Lyta. DS9 had a Daboo girl named Leeta.
Letter-number, letter-letter-number.
Paramount started using the same CG company Babylonian productions was using.
But why at the same time? Easy. Paramount had to beat jms to the punch, so B5, not DS9, looked like a cheap ripoff.
1. The system finds out I never click through to an ad.
2. The system gives up trying to sell me stuff, and I never have to see a banner ever again.
3. This same system doesn't report back that I and a million other people don't click on a certain set of ads, which causes the sponsers to pull out, which causes my favorite sites to go down.
Between Rob's fingers and your fingers, something was taken out of context. In your defence, I think it *was* Rob's fault.
1. Yes, being able to tell my gf that I spent the day tweaking the Linux box at work is a good thing, especially if I get more than a smile and nod.
2. No, an in depth discussion about the port settings on my IP masquerading firewall is NOT good.
You see, there is a huge difference between being about to talk about what you love to do, and arguing about what you love to do. And the easiest way to get rid of the argument is to simply have one person know less (but not nothing) about the subject matter.
A relationship is also about balance; each person has strengths and weaknesses, and good relationships consist of partners with different strengths and weaknesses. If the strengths and weaknesses are the same, then the relationship will get nowhere beyond friendship, and we aren't talking about that:).
Coding is best done alone. Breeding is best done in pairs. Never try to put the two together.
Okay, so it's not a real representation. But think about it. All those scrolling green lines look just like code to the unitiated. A big chunk of the manipulation happens with one guy at a keyboard (or six).
So how did they make it dramatic? The only way they know how. Turn the code into real objects, like chairs, and old style television, a dojo, a woman in a red dress, etc, etc, etc. Then, my friends, hacking is cool.
Otherwise, it's just some guy doing bit manipulation in a fairly well lighted room to get the desired result, which is usually a lack of stuff happening. Wow. Big deal. I think I'll go watch something more interesting, like the grass growing.
Which brings me to my next beef. How come nobody hacks in a well lighted room, a la ST:TNG? Why is it always in some dingy dark hole? Explanations wanted, apply within.
Also, some of the examples there are criticized as interface problems but are just plain bugs...Are those interface-design problems?
Hell, yeah! Anything, I repeat, anything that the user sees is considered part of the UI. That includes those annoying error messages.
Alan Cooper, you know, the UI guru and father of VB, hates message boxes with a passion. So, if there's a useless one, you're commiting some kind of sacrilidge. I have to agree with him; hell, even most of the ones ppl think are needed are not required at all. The programmers just have to find a clever way of showing what went wrong, as opposed to taking the easy way out.
Okay, I read the high level posts, and saw the header for the 8-1/2x11 PADD, and think (to reiterate): If you really want to replace paper, the device will *have* to be at least 8-1/2x11, have high (TFT) brightness and contrast, and be really thin. The device will also have to have a setting to flip through the content one full page at a time. Another model will have to be sold with four screens! Hear me out here: 1. Reader reads page one and two, flips the page, and turns the device over. 2. Reader reads page three and four, flips the page, and turns the device over. Sure, all this flipping will cause major headaches, but it will seem a lot more....proper....to the average Joe than to press a button or scroll down the screen....now if only I could figure out how flipping back would work.....
Slashdot Mirror
Competition == Good;
:).
M$ != Competition;
Therefore M$ != Good;
I think that pretty much sums up the feeling around here, complete with only 4 real words
If three people decided to go to the library every day for a month, and pointed out one page that needed to be unblocked OR one page that needed to be blocked, and watched while the librarian blocked/unblocked it, how long would it take for the librarians to get so pissed off that they would just delete the software and/or quit?
I give them a month. And I'm taking into account that all the librarians I know are actually quite patient.
P.S. Usually, when I read the opinion pages of the paper, I look for the "Letters to the Editor" and especially the editorial cartoons. Slashdot could use the latter, but in a geek-oriented way.
Well, there are enough links to User Friendly on the main page (there's one on the left side last I checked, and I have the Funnies up) that I think it counts.
Or, if you prefer something a little less technical, you could always just read <a href="http://www.sluggy.com/d/970825.html">Sluggy Freelance</a> (note that I start you at the beginning).
Okay, so you have installed AOL 5 and said YES, right? I have not touched it, nor will I touch AOL (using my 50 free hours would have cost me a whopping CAN$540 a couple years ago thanks to the small per minute surcharge to Canadian users).
It's been pretty thoroughly documented that you are wrong. According to other people, saying yes "removes" DUN in favor of AOL, which is scary, and in a lot of cases, stupid. The nice thing about Win95 was that it removed the need for a crummy custom dialer.
Now, I could be wrong. I for one will only be using any AOL 5 CDs I get as coasters. I recommend everybody else do the same.
I asked if there was a legal difference between the statements. Sorta like the difference between "we have the cheapest gas in town" and "we have the only gas in town".
This is meant to hurt the competition, and will only hurt AOL's reputation. Yet people will stay with them. I don't get it. Do you?
Does anybody else see the legal difference between these two statements?
:) ?
1. I am going to become your default internet connection (I am going to be the default autodial in Dial Up Networking).
2. I am going to become your only Internet connection (I am going to delete the other connections in Dial Up Networking and make it impossible to get them back without removing me).
Number two is what's happening, right? This is textbook misrepresentation, right? This lawsuit will still fail because some law makes this kind of misrepresentation legal, right
Gotta love big corporations that think (and probably actually do) run the world.
. The filter of decay has served mankind well so far - sorting out that which somebody treasured enough to save from the vast ocean of lesser stuff. In this century the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered nicely preserved for over a millenium because somebody thought them worthwhile.
Yeah, that works fine; at least until the Romans come in and burn down the library you were keeping all the important stuff in. You destroy the library, you destroy the culture. You destroy the culture, and the land is yours for the taking. Do it often enough, and you have yourself an Empire.
As I've said before, this is a PURE PORT thread. WINE is cool, but it still requires a Windows version of a game, and there *is* principle involved here.
Not much of a Blizzard fan, are you?
War3 is not coming out till 2007, knowing Blizzard.
Starcraft may be a little long in the tooth, but it's the best RTS game out there. It's more or less balanced (I'll just slip into my asbestos...oh wait, this isn't battle.net), and a lot of fun. Heck, it even had a halfway decent story.
CmdrTaco specifically said this was a WINE free zone. We're talking pure ports here, buddy.
Speaking of which, any recent Blizzard game (hell, even War1) would be cool. There has been a heated debate over at the battle.net forums over this, and I personally think the coolest thing would be to open source Warcraft I and let the crazy hackers port the game. Now that would be cool.
Corel Linux makes you set up a user.
The installation instructions in Slackware 3.4 told me to make a user account, so I did.
I think the real problem is that Linux distros assume you are not stupid. They assume you can and do read instructions. The fact that people *are* stupid cannot be helped.
I dunno, it read a lot to me like the average article in the Weekly World News. I mean, LInux Virii and the minions of Hell can't be that different, can they?
It alleges that Microsoft is guilty of producing a product that is compatible with one of its other products, and incompatible with a competing product. How is that a crime? It happens all the time, and when anyone other than Microsoft does it, no one even notices.
/. lately? Open standards (or at least properly documented ones) are better than closed ones.
Yes they do. Haven't you been reading
Even if they are a monopoly, I don't see how the above can be considered a crime. If I write a piece of software and I've only tested it in Windows, it might be perfectly reasonable for me to only allow it to run under Windows, to ensure that the users get a consistent experience.
But, if I write the software *and* the means to run it, and set the software to only run in that OS, then I am abusing my status as a monopoly, which is very against the law.
At the very least, this strikes me as retroactive law, something I thought was outlawed by the Constitution. Microsoft in the early 90's was not aware it was a "monopoly," and in fact it was far from clear that they would be able to maintain their dominance in the market, much less expand it.
Yeah. Right. I'll believe that when pigs fly. They had desktop OS dominance, they had Win-based office suite dominance, and FUD down ta an art form. Once M$ got the market in anything it never let go.
I knew this is gone now, I feel I should reply anyway :).
SNES kicked the Genesis' @$$. The SNES had the top market share for 16 bit systems, and held it. You *could* say the PSX had to catch up to the Saturn, but you would have to be on crack. Oh wait, you are.
^$^
Nintendo. Super Nintendo. stfu.
Spaceballs was mentioned in the article, along with a few other Mel Brooks movies. It was right at the end too. Let me guess, you didn't actually read the article. Why doesn't this surprise me?
*** Moderate down with reckless abandon ***
Linus only said it's not a war because he doesn't care. He thinks Linux is fun. He thinks Redhat making money is cool. Sure, Linux is making huge inroads in business, and is the hottest OS out there nowadays (PR-wise at least), but even if it wasn't, and if it was still firmly in the realm of the geek, he'd still be happy.
So to him, at least, it's not a war. M$'s PoV, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter, which I won't discuss because I'm kind of sleepy.
...Microsoft had a wonderful idea. They just implemented it badly.
1. If you ever have used NT4, you know how horrible it is for administration. The admin tools look like an afterthought.
2. While solving this problem, M$ thought it would be nice to have all their admin tools look the same.
3. To look fair, they let other venders make MMC add-ins/applets/whatever. But, they aren't really meant to. MMC is M$'s toy.
4. It looks more like Windows Explorer than the web.
So it uses M$'s custom tech. Big deal, they always have. The MMC is a good idea. Having all your servers use the MMC as the admin tool is a good idea, if you're a sysadmin. One stop shopping is good.
But then, this *is* M$ we're talking about, so the way they went about it is bad. I expect that MMC addins are far too big for their own good. I expect M$ didn't tell other vendors enough about MMC to make it truly viable. I expect MMC will get rewritten so competitor's addins won't work quite properly (only direct competitors, though; M$ has always liked having partners who didn't directly compete).
Oh, and one other thing. The standard admin stuff (like users, for instance) are now buried. Pissed me off the first time I saw that. Mind you, I had to plug in anexternal monitor cuz my Win2k C&T vidcard driver turned off the backlight on my laptop's monitor. Mutter, mutter, mutter....
Well, I don't know about you, or anybody else for that matter, but I see one really good reason to copy a distro:
Get rid of the crap
For me, that includes big things, like Emacs and X, cuz I don't need those for my simple file/web/ftp/samba server.
Now, Corel is just offering a trimmed down version of Debian w/o the server stuff and WP (I think, don't quote me on this, just a wacky theory). More power to them. Users get a fully working office suite with an OS tossed in for fun. Myself, I am taking Debian, cutting out the workstation side stuff, and smushing the packages onto a Zip disk. But that's just me.
Otherwise, I would have to go to the expense of buying a CD-ROM for the server (I need to anyway) and the Debian CD, and *still* wade through all the options I don't want.
Now, obviously, they turned jms down. BUT, some bigwig decided that instead of a new scifi on a space station there should be a Trek on a space station. So, while jms was feverishly pitching his five year plan, Paramount went to constantly rip him off. Some evidence (partly from Starweek, the Toronto Star's TV guide thingy, partly from me):
But why at the same time? Easy. Paramount had to beat jms to the punch, so B5, not DS9, looked like a cheap ripoff.
....that will never, ever be implemented.
1. The system finds out I never click through to an ad.
2. The system gives up trying to sell me stuff, and I never have to see a banner ever again.
3. This same system doesn't report back that I and a million other people don't click on a certain set of ads, which causes the sponsers to pull out, which causes my favorite sites to go down.
Like I said, it'll never happen.
Between Rob's fingers and your fingers, something was taken out of context. In your defence, I think it *was* Rob's fault.
:).
1. Yes, being able to tell my gf that I spent the day tweaking the Linux box at work is a good thing, especially if I get more than a smile and nod.
2. No, an in depth discussion about the port settings on my IP masquerading firewall is NOT good.
You see, there is a huge difference between being about to talk about what you love to do, and arguing about what you love to do. And the easiest way to get rid of the argument is to simply have one person know less (but not nothing) about the subject matter.
A relationship is also about balance; each person has strengths and weaknesses, and good relationships consist of partners with different strengths and weaknesses. If the strengths and weaknesses are the same, then the relationship will get nowhere beyond friendship, and we aren't talking about that
Coding is best done alone. Breeding is best done in pairs. Never try to put the two together.
It's called The Matrix.
Okay, so it's not a real representation. But think about it. All those scrolling green lines look just like code to the unitiated. A big chunk of the manipulation happens with one guy at a keyboard (or six).
So how did they make it dramatic? The only way they know how. Turn the code into real objects, like chairs, and old style television, a dojo, a woman in a red dress, etc, etc, etc. Then, my friends, hacking is cool.
Otherwise, it's just some guy doing bit manipulation in a fairly well lighted room to get the desired result, which is usually a lack of stuff happening. Wow. Big deal. I think I'll go watch something more interesting, like the grass growing.
Which brings me to my next beef. How come nobody hacks in a well lighted room, a la ST:TNG? Why is it always in some dingy dark hole? Explanations wanted, apply within.
Also, some of the examples there are criticized as interface problems but are just plain bugs...Are those interface-design problems?
Hell, yeah! Anything, I repeat, anything that the user sees is considered part of the UI. That includes those annoying error messages.
Alan Cooper, you know, the UI guru and father of VB, hates message boxes with a passion. So, if there's a useless one, you're commiting some kind of sacrilidge. I have to agree with him; hell, even most of the ones ppl think are needed are not required at all. The programmers just have to find a clever way of showing what went wrong, as opposed to taking the easy way out.
Okay, I read the high level posts, and saw the header for the 8-1/2x11 PADD, and think (to reiterate): If you really want to replace paper, the device will *have* to be at least 8-1/2x11, have high (TFT) brightness and contrast, and be really thin. The device will also have to have a setting to flip through the content one full page at a time. Another model will have to be sold with four screens! Hear me out here: 1. Reader reads page one and two, flips the page, and turns the device over. 2. Reader reads page three and four, flips the page, and turns the device over. Sure, all this flipping will cause major headaches, but it will seem a lot more....proper....to the average Joe than to press a button or scroll down the screen....now if only I could figure out how flipping back would work.....