Microsoft can't do much about the driver situation, just as much as Linux developers are having trouble giving us high (or even decent) performance Free drivers for nVidia cards.
OS-related kinks? Sure, you have a point. But honestly, I personally haven't found many problems in Vista that can be chalked up to the OS. Of course most people seem to think my experience is a unique one.
Well, I meant "home" because the most in-your-face features are the new GUI and UAC. But some other people have made some good points against my argument.
To be fair, incidents of problems are just evidence of risk. Vista is a new OS, which means that certain kinks and driver support are still being worked out. Theres no reason to subject critical business machines to any sort of risk when XP and/or 2003 works fine for them right now.
If my boss asked me if we should upgrade to Vista, then I would tell him "No" without a second thought. And I actually like Vista.
Notwithstanding the issues some users are having, Vista seems to me to be more of a consumer oriented operating system. It doesn't really have much to add to businesses beyond UAC, which I'm guessing most system administrators will turn off (in exchange for one of their internal security policies). Thats not even considering the fact that large businesses are extremely slow to upgrade to anything new. We only got XP Service Pack 2 where I work in the past year.
I had the exact same problem that the above poster had with Ubuntu. The problem was that I had a micro-ATX motherboard (with an AMD socket 939 processor) with a nVidia integrated video card. Either the 6100 or 6150 (can't remember off the top of my head). I was able to install the nVidia drivers and complete the install, but upon reboot, it "lost" the drivers that I had installed, but still marked them as installed. I had to swap back to the nv drivers, and reinstall the nVidia ones, then mess around with the x config file.
Sorry if its not accurate, this is off the top of my head.
As far as the installation screens go, you can fudge through it by tabbing through the buttons and guessing whether you're on "Next" or back, until you get to the screen where you select your country. Doesn't work on that one. They really need to fix that UI to make it scalable (or at least usable on screens as low as 640x480).
Oh I also have always had problems with my cursor being invisible on default configurations. Its done this on three different distros, and I always have to muck about to turn off hardware acceleration for the cursor.
As far as I know, there have been isolated incidents wherein people were arrested for specifically making threats, or protesting in areas that are restricted for safety reasons. Moreover, if the federal government systematically made people dissapear for criticizing Bush, then you'd see a shit-ton of Slashdotters, a good number of my coworkers, and myself all locked up. Do you have any proof that there is a concerted effort to imprison people who criticize the administration? I'm talking people locked up specifically for speech, or on charges that are demonstrated as trumped up?
I'm not going to say that our record is perfect. Free speech zones are bullshit, and the law that says you can't protest directly in front of the White House (but a little bit away is fine), is bullshit. So are a lot of other things that this administration, and previous administrations have done and are doing. However we're a damn sight away from the feds knocking on your door and dragging you away if you write "Bush sucks!" on your blog.
I'm sure you could find plenty of blogs that hate on Bush, written by Americans have not been arrested, if you spend five minutes on Google. Yes the situation in America is bad, but lets not run head-first into hyperbole.
You do realize that Malaysia is a different country, right?
Yes I know Malaysia is a different country. I also know that free speech is one of those things that is considered (in the West at least) to be a fundamental human right. In retrospect, I phrased my post badly, since it seems to assume that there is some sort of law. Even if there isn't a law, that doesn't make blatant censorship okay.
But notice the quote in the summary?
But officials insist the law is not intended to strangle internet freedom.
The point of the last line in my post was that its easy to strangle free speech ("internet freedom") if you simply redefine what free speech is. The officials have conveniently excluded criticizing Islam and the king from the superset of "internet freedom."
Most of them don't think its quite a lost cause yet.
Bush is going to be out in less than a year, and the only reason Bush is able to walk all over Congress right now is because they're pussies. The Democrats got into power, and then promptly tried to not rock the boat so much, in fear of ruining their chances for presidential power. Bush can say he has all the power he wants, but the only reason he does have that power is because the people responsible for holding him accountable are too scared to do so, even though he has an abysmal approval rating.
If Bush refused to cede power, then yes, I figure there would be a lot of people looking to correct that. Its not likely that this will happen. He'll probably just try to hand the baton off to someone else in his circle.
I'm sorry, but as bad as the Bush administration is, Americans don't feel its bad enough to attempt armed revolution.
If the people that I know in the military are any indication, then the day a President unilaterally declares himself king/emperor/dictator for life is the day that some missiles are "accidentally" launched at said dictator. There are a lot of military folks who take that "uphold the Constitution" part of their duty very very seriously.
The Bush administration is insulted on The Daily Show and Colbert Report almost every day. Comedy Central runs a cartoon show that does nothing but mock the administration. Plenty of people have, and still do, publicly protest against Bush. I realize that freedom of speech in America isn't what it used to be, and theres some serious threats to it. However, what you wrote (taking the context of the article into account) seems to imply that there is some sort of systematic persecution or detainment of those who criticize Bush, which isn't the case.
I mean, his approval rating is 30%. It sure doesn't seem like the populace is fearful of criticizing the Bush administration.
The intent of the law doesn't matter one iota. What matters is what it allows. If it can be abused, then its very likely that it will be at some point. Even if the guys currently in charge use it responsibly, there is no guarantee that it will remain that way when leadership changes hands.
Of course, it's always disheartening to see things like this:
"I was alleged to have insulted the king, and also Islam and incite racial hatred, so I am going in there to reply to all these charges. I promise I'm going to give them a hell of a tough time," he told the BBC before he turned himself in.
Freedom of speech, except for the speech we don't like. Somehow their assurances concerning the intent of the law don't give me much confidence.
It has volume controls. The scroll wheel works the volume when a song is playing. What it doesn't have is non-contexual volume control. If you hit the menu button, then suddenly your scroll wheel no longer controls volume, but now navigates the menu. If you hit the select button when a song is playing, suddenly your scroll wheel will change your position in the track.
Basically, this makes the iPod very irritating to use unless you're looking at the screen. I liked how my old iRiver handled this a lot better. I always kind-of laugh when people hold up the iPod as the ultimate DAP interface. Its pretty good, but it still has a lot of room for improvement. I think people are making that judgment simply because it looks slick.
I mean, common, if the characters say a name (in English even), then should the subtitle not reflect what was said?
It should reflect what was said as is appropriate in English. In the case of characters saying names, often a person's name is used as a replacement for "you." My Japanese friends will often say "What did Rycross do today?" or "How was Rycross's day?" Thats because a lot of the words for "you" are either too formal, too informal, or carry loaded context.
So its perfectly acceptable for a translation of "How was Rycross's day?" to be translated to "How was your day?" A lot of anime fan's under the mistaken impression that fansubs are, across the board, superior quality jump on it as a proof of the sub-par quality of commercial anime. This extends to many situations in which the dialog is translated in meaning instead of verboten, or changed to more culturally appropriate versions. Again, this is always taken as proof that fansubs are superior in quality.
My own experience is that fansubs are, on average, lower quality than commercial subs. There are great groups out there, but there are even more than only do a passable job. I can't think of a single DVD I own in which the fansub quality was superior. In many cases, the DVDs were far clearer in terms of meaning. A couple of cases ended with me confused on several story points after watching the fansubs, but understanding everything after watching the DVDs.
It doesn't help that I once met a fansubber who only had an intermediate level grasp of Japanese. Oh, and he seemed more concerned with expressing his knowledge of Japanese culture in the fansubs rather than making a clear translation of the story. Sadly, this seems to apply to a lot of the poor-to-mediocre fansubbings out there.
In my case it was "I'm having no problems at all. I'm sure others are having issues out there, but here's my experience to throw out some positive data. Oh and if you're having lots of UAC problems, I'd look into configuration problems." More or less paraphrased. Thats equivalent to mindless fanboyism on Slashdot I guess.
Thankfully the term FUD is quickly falling out of vogue. It's so last century.
Unfortunately, its mainly just being replaced by accusations of astroturfing.I actually pointed this out to Perens at one point. Its really annoying when people assume that there's simply no possible way you can hold your opinion unless you're getting some payout. For example, because I don't think that Vista is completely terrible, I must be a Microsoft shill.
There are no rules as to what applications you have to run.
In the context of things that make people a "switcheur":
thinks Firefox is a good Mac app
waiting for OS X port of PayrollPro 2000
Troll Evaluation: 1/10. You used a copy and paste troll that isn't even internally consistent. Please try to spruce it up a bit and put some real effort into it.
Bullshit. The manager is not some infallible perfect being. Sometimes the low-man-on-the-totem-pole does know better than the manager. The manager doesn't have 100 percent of the information because he isn't working on the software. The coder doesn't have 100 percent of the information because he isn't working with all the other developers and the clients. The key is communication, and both parties being able to recognize when they need to listen to the other.
The "management always knows best" screeds that come up are bullshit. Having a higher pay-grade doesn't make you correct. A culture of never questioning management is a fucking travesty, and one of the quickest way for your project to end up as an unusable POS. A good manager is able to listen to his people and accept that he isn't already right. He encourages communication, is willing to take criticism, and take corrective action when necessary.
If you're upset that these lowly developers aren't just following your word like good little sheep, then you need to grow some balls to match your paycheck.
BP also invests in solar. No doubt that there are a lot of scum at oil companies (particularly Exxon), but BP at least seems to see the writing on the wall. They're doing it to secure their future profits and pr, but thats ok as long as they're steadily lowering their contribution to the problem.
You must work with exceptionally unskilled developers. Most devs I know are quite capable in both web and desktop development. Its just a matter of learning which architectures and patterns work well for different situations.
You have a deep misunderstanding about how UAC works. Windows has the concept of user and administrator accounts. The default account in Vista is a special account that has user privileges by default. The UAC prompt elevates that account's privileges to Administrator level, just like sudo does.
A normal user account can elevate as well, but requires a password.
The whole "Windows doesn't have restricted user accounts" hasn't been true for a very long time. Vista just makes restricted user accounts the default, and adds a sudo-like mechanism to elevate.
Simply put, Vista does what you suggest. You have bought into the disinformation that people have been feeding you, hook, line, and sinker. Congrats.
The reason why its so annoying? Well, its really not depending on your setup. I rarely ever see it. The main reason why some people find it annoying is because, up to XP, software developers were quite happy with requiring you to run as admin, so the current permissions setup in Windows is a friggen mess. Thats a problem with transition, not some deep design flaw security wise.
Oh and before you start up, no most Microsoft programs don't require admin. Office doesn't, and Visual Studio doesn't. I've set up many machines with user accounts with this software, and it always Just Works.
You bring up a good point, that I'd like to elaborate on. Many times when growing up, I'd heard that "The theory of evolution is always changing. The Bible stays the same," repeated as a badge of pride. In summary, they viewed the fact that science adapted as a weakness in the argument. So its not only that they believe that scientists' view the theory as flawless; they believe that they are trying to cover up its flaws in denial. Which just underscores the fact that they don't know how science works.
Beyond only being useful for cargo that can withstand thousands of g's of acceleration, you also have a couple of other problems. First, you have to account for atmospheric drag with your initial velocities. That means you have to be traveling at a speed higher than orbital velocity.
But the real problem is this. We have a term for hitting Earth's atmosphere at orbital velocities. It's called re-entry. It's problematic for normal space vehicles which will bleed off speed in the thinner upper atmosphere at orbital velocities. Now what happens when you launch a payload in the thicker part of Earth's atmosphere, at speeds greater than orbital velocity? I'm guessing a fiery ball of death.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft can't do much about the driver situation, just as much as Linux developers are having trouble giving us high (or even decent) performance Free drivers for nVidia cards.
OS-related kinks? Sure, you have a point. But honestly, I personally haven't found many problems in Vista that can be chalked up to the OS. Of course most people seem to think my experience is a unique one.
Well, I meant "home" because the most in-your-face features are the new GUI and UAC. But some other people have made some good points against my argument.
To be fair, incidents of problems are just evidence of risk. Vista is a new OS, which means that certain kinks and driver support are still being worked out. Theres no reason to subject critical business machines to any sort of risk when XP and/or 2003 works fine for them right now.
If my boss asked me if we should upgrade to Vista, then I would tell him "No" without a second thought. And I actually like Vista.
Notwithstanding the issues some users are having, Vista seems to me to be more of a consumer oriented operating system. It doesn't really have much to add to businesses beyond UAC, which I'm guessing most system administrators will turn off (in exchange for one of their internal security policies). Thats not even considering the fact that large businesses are extremely slow to upgrade to anything new. We only got XP Service Pack 2 where I work in the past year.
Sheesh, I wish I had known that before. Would have saved me a ton of trouble. (I had the same problem as the grandparent) :(
They still need to fix the UI though. I shouldn't have to know non-intuitive details of the UI to install the OS.
I had the exact same problem that the above poster had with Ubuntu. The problem was that I had a micro-ATX motherboard (with an AMD socket 939 processor) with a nVidia integrated video card. Either the 6100 or 6150 (can't remember off the top of my head). I was able to install the nVidia drivers and complete the install, but upon reboot, it "lost" the drivers that I had installed, but still marked them as installed. I had to swap back to the nv drivers, and reinstall the nVidia ones, then mess around with the x config file.
Sorry if its not accurate, this is off the top of my head.
As far as the installation screens go, you can fudge through it by tabbing through the buttons and guessing whether you're on "Next" or back, until you get to the screen where you select your country. Doesn't work on that one. They really need to fix that UI to make it scalable (or at least usable on screens as low as 640x480).
Oh I also have always had problems with my cursor being invisible on default configurations. Its done this on three different distros, and I always have to muck about to turn off hardware acceleration for the cursor.
As far as I know, there have been isolated incidents wherein people were arrested for specifically making threats, or protesting in areas that are restricted for safety reasons. Moreover, if the federal government systematically made people dissapear for criticizing Bush, then you'd see a shit-ton of Slashdotters, a good number of my coworkers, and myself all locked up. Do you have any proof that there is a concerted effort to imprison people who criticize the administration? I'm talking people locked up specifically for speech, or on charges that are demonstrated as trumped up?
I'm not going to say that our record is perfect. Free speech zones are bullshit, and the law that says you can't protest directly in front of the White House (but a little bit away is fine), is bullshit. So are a lot of other things that this administration, and previous administrations have done and are doing. However we're a damn sight away from the feds knocking on your door and dragging you away if you write "Bush sucks!" on your blog.
I'm sure you could find plenty of blogs that hate on Bush, written by Americans have not been arrested, if you spend five minutes on Google. Yes the situation in America is bad, but lets not run head-first into hyperbole.
He's just giving his opinion based on his personal experience with an Apple device. I pretty much agree with him.
Yes I know Malaysia is a different country. I also know that free speech is one of those things that is considered (in the West at least) to be a fundamental human right. In retrospect, I phrased my post badly, since it seems to assume that there is some sort of law. Even if there isn't a law, that doesn't make blatant censorship okay.
But notice the quote in the summary?
But officials insist the law is not intended to strangle internet freedom.The point of the last line in my post was that its easy to strangle free speech ("internet freedom") if you simply redefine what free speech is. The officials have conveniently excluded criticizing Islam and the king from the superset of "internet freedom."
Most of them don't think its quite a lost cause yet.
Bush is going to be out in less than a year, and the only reason Bush is able to walk all over Congress right now is because they're pussies. The Democrats got into power, and then promptly tried to not rock the boat so much, in fear of ruining their chances for presidential power. Bush can say he has all the power he wants, but the only reason he does have that power is because the people responsible for holding him accountable are too scared to do so, even though he has an abysmal approval rating.
If Bush refused to cede power, then yes, I figure there would be a lot of people looking to correct that. Its not likely that this will happen. He'll probably just try to hand the baton off to someone else in his circle.
I'm sorry, but as bad as the Bush administration is, Americans don't feel its bad enough to attempt armed revolution.
If the people that I know in the military are any indication, then the day a President unilaterally declares himself king/emperor/dictator for life is the day that some missiles are "accidentally" launched at said dictator. There are a lot of military folks who take that "uphold the Constitution" part of their duty very very seriously.
The Bush administration is insulted on The Daily Show and Colbert Report almost every day. Comedy Central runs a cartoon show that does nothing but mock the administration. Plenty of people have, and still do, publicly protest against Bush. I realize that freedom of speech in America isn't what it used to be, and theres some serious threats to it. However, what you wrote (taking the context of the article into account) seems to imply that there is some sort of systematic persecution or detainment of those who criticize Bush, which isn't the case.
I mean, his approval rating is 30%. It sure doesn't seem like the populace is fearful of criticizing the Bush administration.
The intent of the law doesn't matter one iota. What matters is what it allows. If it can be abused, then its very likely that it will be at some point. Even if the guys currently in charge use it responsibly, there is no guarantee that it will remain that way when leadership changes hands.
Of course, it's always disheartening to see things like this:
"I was alleged to have insulted the king, and also Islam and incite racial hatred, so I am going in there to reply to all these charges. I promise I'm going to give them a hell of a tough time," he told the BBC before he turned himself in.Freedom of speech, except for the speech we don't like. Somehow their assurances concerning the intent of the law don't give me much confidence.
It has volume controls. The scroll wheel works the volume when a song is playing. What it doesn't have is non-contexual volume control. If you hit the menu button, then suddenly your scroll wheel no longer controls volume, but now navigates the menu. If you hit the select button when a song is playing, suddenly your scroll wheel will change your position in the track.
Basically, this makes the iPod very irritating to use unless you're looking at the screen. I liked how my old iRiver handled this a lot better. I always kind-of laugh when people hold up the iPod as the ultimate DAP interface. Its pretty good, but it still has a lot of room for improvement. I think people are making that judgment simply because it looks slick.
It should reflect what was said as is appropriate in English. In the case of characters saying names, often a person's name is used as a replacement for "you." My Japanese friends will often say "What did Rycross do today?" or "How was Rycross's day?" Thats because a lot of the words for "you" are either too formal, too informal, or carry loaded context.
So its perfectly acceptable for a translation of "How was Rycross's day?" to be translated to "How was your day?" A lot of anime fan's under the mistaken impression that fansubs are, across the board, superior quality jump on it as a proof of the sub-par quality of commercial anime. This extends to many situations in which the dialog is translated in meaning instead of verboten, or changed to more culturally appropriate versions. Again, this is always taken as proof that fansubs are superior in quality.
My own experience is that fansubs are, on average, lower quality than commercial subs. There are great groups out there, but there are even more than only do a passable job. I can't think of a single DVD I own in which the fansub quality was superior. In many cases, the DVDs were far clearer in terms of meaning. A couple of cases ended with me confused on several story points after watching the fansubs, but understanding everything after watching the DVDs.
It doesn't help that I once met a fansubber who only had an intermediate level grasp of Japanese. Oh, and he seemed more concerned with expressing his knowledge of Japanese culture in the fansubs rather than making a clear translation of the story. Sadly, this seems to apply to a lot of the poor-to-mediocre fansubbings out there.
Miyou is the volitional form. Mirou is the imperitive form.
In my case it was "I'm having no problems at all. I'm sure others are having issues out there, but here's my experience to throw out some positive data. Oh and if you're having lots of UAC problems, I'd look into configuration problems." More or less paraphrased. Thats equivalent to mindless fanboyism on Slashdot I guess.
Unfortunately, its mainly just being replaced by accusations of astroturfing. I actually pointed this out to Perens at one point. Its really annoying when people assume that there's simply no possible way you can hold your opinion unless you're getting some payout. For example, because I don't think that Vista is completely terrible, I must be a Microsoft shill.
So what I'm trying to say is, I sympathize.
In the context of things that make people a "switcheur":
thinks Firefox is a good Mac app waiting for OS X port of PayrollPro 2000Troll Evaluation: 1/10. You used a copy and paste troll that isn't even internally consistent. Please try to spruce it up a bit and put some real effort into it.
Bullshit. The manager is not some infallible perfect being. Sometimes the low-man-on-the-totem-pole does know better than the manager. The manager doesn't have 100 percent of the information because he isn't working on the software. The coder doesn't have 100 percent of the information because he isn't working with all the other developers and the clients. The key is communication, and both parties being able to recognize when they need to listen to the other.
The "management always knows best" screeds that come up are bullshit. Having a higher pay-grade doesn't make you correct. A culture of never questioning management is a fucking travesty, and one of the quickest way for your project to end up as an unusable POS. A good manager is able to listen to his people and accept that he isn't already right. He encourages communication, is willing to take criticism, and take corrective action when necessary.
If you're upset that these lowly developers aren't just following your word like good little sheep, then you need to grow some balls to match your paycheck.
BP also invests in solar. No doubt that there are a lot of scum at oil companies (particularly Exxon), but BP at least seems to see the writing on the wall. They're doing it to secure their future profits and pr, but thats ok as long as they're steadily lowering their contribution to the problem.
You must work with exceptionally unskilled developers. Most devs I know are quite capable in both web and desktop development. Its just a matter of learning which architectures and patterns work well for different situations.
You have a deep misunderstanding about how UAC works. Windows has the concept of user and administrator accounts. The default account in Vista is a special account that has user privileges by default. The UAC prompt elevates that account's privileges to Administrator level, just like sudo does.
A normal user account can elevate as well, but requires a password.
The whole "Windows doesn't have restricted user accounts" hasn't been true for a very long time. Vista just makes restricted user accounts the default, and adds a sudo-like mechanism to elevate.
Simply put, Vista does what you suggest. You have bought into the disinformation that people have been feeding you, hook, line, and sinker. Congrats.
The reason why its so annoying? Well, its really not depending on your setup. I rarely ever see it. The main reason why some people find it annoying is because, up to XP, software developers were quite happy with requiring you to run as admin, so the current permissions setup in Windows is a friggen mess. Thats a problem with transition, not some deep design flaw security wise.
Oh and before you start up, no most Microsoft programs don't require admin. Office doesn't, and Visual Studio doesn't. I've set up many machines with user accounts with this software, and it always Just Works.
You bring up a good point, that I'd like to elaborate on. Many times when growing up, I'd heard that "The theory of evolution is always changing. The Bible stays the same," repeated as a badge of pride. In summary, they viewed the fact that science adapted as a weakness in the argument. So its not only that they believe that scientists' view the theory as flawless; they believe that they are trying to cover up its flaws in denial. Which just underscores the fact that they don't know how science works.
Beyond only being useful for cargo that can withstand thousands of g's of acceleration, you also have a couple of other problems. First, you have to account for atmospheric drag with your initial velocities. That means you have to be traveling at a speed higher than orbital velocity.
But the real problem is this. We have a term for hitting Earth's atmosphere at orbital velocities. It's called re-entry. It's problematic for normal space vehicles which will bleed off speed in the thinner upper atmosphere at orbital velocities. Now what happens when you launch a payload in the thicker part of Earth's atmosphere, at speeds greater than orbital velocity? I'm guessing a fiery ball of death.