For Linux gaming, there's only one place to go: Linux Game Tome. They have good features, good reviews, and an extensive list of the games available for Linux.
As for the games that were ported over from Windows, Why not just go and check a place like Gamerankings.com and see a good compilation of reviews? All you have to do is check on the games that have been ported to Linux and figure it out from there!
Forgive me for being skeptical, but I seriously doubt that an e-mail that got routed through 3 intermediaries before it made its way onto Jon Katz's inbox has any validity.
The people of Afghanistan don't have televisions, they don't have music, and they don't have telephones... but they have e-mail access one day after the Northern Alliance "liberates" the city? And, coincidentally, he likes Open Source and Slashdot? What???
I'm sorry, but I just can't honestly believe this story to be true without some kind of third-party verification. And even then, I'd still be skeptical. It just doesn't sound legit to me...
If you're like me, you assumed that this was the Japanese show "ported" over to the USA, with no modifications. Don't be silly.
What made Iron Chef so entertaining? The hosts. The voice-overs. The theatrical music. Kitchen Stadium.
Guess what! They're all gone. They've been replaced by Shattner, English-speaking announcers, no sound effects, and a mock-up of Kitchen Stadium, but including screaming fans. That is NOT what Iron Chef was about.
This is a bit off-topic, but you brought it up: Civilization III is by far the most addictive video game that I have ever played. It even outranks Civilization I, in my opinion. You'll find yourself up until 3 AM playing "Just one more turn" on Civ 3.
If you have a wife, I would think twice before buying it... that, or get yourself a good counsellor.
Given Fox's track record of hyping up incredibly gimicky or out-of-place shows (Alien Autopsy and Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire come to mind) while simultaneously burying shows that have real potential (Family Guy, for instance), how concerned are you that Fox will simply bury you after one unsuccessful (or successful) season?
It happened to you too? I wrote up a nice piece about this very same story... But it too was rejected.
That's the wonderful consistency of Slashdot editors for ya... I'll bet that if we had mentioned how Linux was allpowerful and how Microsoft was bad, it would have been posted...
AIM isn't just a "protocol", kids. It's a bunch of servers owned, run and paid for by AOL. AOL spends millions of dollars on Sybase licenses and support contracts alone to run AIM. Do you think it's peer-to-peer? That they track connection status in real time for millions of concurrent users without big, expensive databases running on big, expensive hardware?
Even if the Jabber team ever comes out with a stable, robust release, it's not going to be able to support even half as many users as Yahoo instant messaging without someone footing the bill for millions of dollars in servers and fiber-channel storage arrays, commercial database software, and tens of thousands of dollars a month in hosting and connectivity services.
Do you really think a multi-million concurrent-user instant messaging system can run on one rack of Postgres servers on a T1? Phooey.
You want free communication without ads or service charges? Buy a CB radio and talk to your neighbors. That's peer-to-peer.
I'd like to see a show of hands: how many of the people here calling for free access to AIM servers aren't (a) MSN and Yahoo employees or (b) people who have never had a job besides maybe cleaning trays in a dorm cafeteria?
Now that we're getting more OpenGL games than ever coming out for Linux, I think it might be a good time to address the problem of video card hardware support.
Many of us don't have 3D accelerators that work under Linux. While I'd like to have my hardware working under Linux, I realize that it's probably not going to happen any time this millenium.
So instead, I have a suggestion. Mesa currently has only one mode for software rendering--high quality. Is there any way that a low-quality software rendering mode could be introduced into Mesa? How difficult would it be to add this to the libraries, maybe have it switched on/off by an environment variable? How much of a slow-down would it introduce into the libraries, by having forked logic like this?
Because honestly, if I were to buy a copy of Quake III right now (this example would work the same with Postal once it comes out), I'd have to buy the Windows version because I haven't the "right" hardware 3D-accelerator. A sped-up, but much less visually correct, version of Mesa might make it easier for someone like me to bite the bullet and buy the Linux version, so that when I upgrade/if I upgrade to a 3D accelerated card, I'll have it under the OS I prefer.
(I realize this is pretty selfish, but it's also one of the reasons why you're not going to see many Windows users switching over to Linux any time soon. If I can't install Linux on someone else's 600Mhz Athalon, and be able to show them a kick-ass 3D game with a frame rate higher than 1.5/s...)
Come on, this is so obviously satire it's pathetic. We have a non-techie complaining about something that's so simple as changing the "Open With..." dialogue? The fact that Windows keeps track of the associated program that launches associated file extensions is just plain stupid.
Short of a complete re-write of the entire FAT-32 filesystem there is no solution to this, aside from teaching new users that "Hold down shift, right click, then hit Open With..." will solve this problem.
Honestly, this seems like some Salon.com columnist had nothing else to do and decided to bitch about Microsoft for a while cause, hey, it'll get on Slashdot!
Maybe I'm just a visually-oriented person, but I would really like to see some photos of this thing in action before I take the time to download the latest version.
The article states that "Release 6 also gets rid of... its annoying tendency to cover up all of the other windows you were working", but I can't seem to find any screenshots on their website or anywhere else. I have no doubt that the look & feel is similar to Microsoft's Office suite (also Corel's WordPerfect, but I digress) but I'd like to know if they got rid of their start-button oriented interface.
Anybody had this working and would be willing to GIMP a screenshot?
The Internet Gamer's Network has had this for quite some time. What happens is, randomly, when you click on one of their links, it takes you to a full-page graphical (sometimes flash) ad for a product (with IGN, it's usually for the am/pm convenience store). There's also a link at the top of the page that says "Waiting..." and it waits for 3 seconds, then changes to a link to the page you requested.
Fortunately, because it's a random process, you can simply click "Back" on your browser, then click on the link again, usually bypassing the ad. It's not too tough to get around... From the article, though, Salon is not random, so that sucks. But this method is nothing new or ground-breaking...
This is actually NOT teleportation; this is akin to an episode of The Outer Limits I saw once where they create an exact copy of a person on the other end of a "teleportation" machine, and then destroy the copy that currently resides on the transmitting end. It's a great show, but I digress...
I'm amazed that this worked with "trillions" of atoms; this kind of phenomenon is usually restricted to very small, very energetic particles. But it's NOT teleporation. Teleportation involves taking an object from point A and moving it to point Z without crossing the in-between space, C through Y. This is like taking an object from point A, running it through the world's biggest and best Fax machine, then putting the result at point Z, without crossing C through Y.
Still, it's an interesting and ground-breaking result, one that (I hope) will make it past the peer review process, which kills more scientific papers than anything else.
Well, my first question is really "Does anyone outside of Microsoft actually use passport for authentication?" Microsoft uses it a lot for MSN Messenger, Hotmail and all its other stuff, which isn't really bad (for Microsoft products that is). However, I have yet to see Passport used _outside_ of Microsoft.
Then, assuming that other companies do begin to use Passport at a significant level (despite no one using it after months of its deployment), there then becomes the question "What happens when Microsoft denies companies access to passport authentication?" For example, what happens if a Hotmail competitor wishes to use Passport authentication for its web mail login? Clearly, Microsoft would be helping their competitor if they allowed it, and acting monopolistically if they don't. That does provide a small problem for Microsoft.
Third is something that the article points out very early on about the very reason people need something like passport. To paraphrase, the article states that people dislike the idea of their online grocery store having access to their online stock trading when they use the same password. This problem doesn't go away with Passport, it is just enhanced. Now, instead of your grocery store having access to your stocks, Microsoft has access to both your grocery store and your stocks, without doing anything but being a middle man authenticator.
But what am I saying? Microsoft is the good guy, who would never abuse its power. That's why its okay for Microsoft to use its powers to "innovate," just like its okay for the US to develop defensive systems that give it the power to launch nuclear weapons without fear of retaliation.
...and that's what concerns me about the current series. It seems to me that Paramount and/or the creative team in charge of the Star Trek franchise is deliberately trying to downplay the essence of Star Trek as not just about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances but about being able to fantasize about superheroes.
I argue the story of Star Trek: The Original Series is not about Kirk, it's about Spock. And from my perspective, Spock is a superhero. He can read minds. He's stronger than the average human. He has extreme intelligence and knowledge. Spock's abilities quite frequently solve the episode's problem.
Similarly Star Trek: The Next Generation has Data, even stronger than Spock. Deep Space Nine has the shapeshifter Odo. Odo is not quite as impressive as Data, so notice that Paramount has to make emergency repairs midway in the show bringing back the character of Worf, now the unbeatable fighting knight-equivalent. And Bashir has to be souped up to have extreme intelligence.
With Star Trek I The Motion Picture, Wesley in The Next Generation, and Sisko in Deep Space Nine, Paramount establishes quite a string of humans becoming gods/prophets.
And then there's Voyager. The Data character is degraded into the balding holographic Doctor. Kes is the female Wesley who eventually becomes a godlike being, only she's too wimpy to do anything before she leaves. The series is teetering on collapse when Paramount finally makes the sensible decision to return to the roots and bring in a new superhero, 7 of 9. Once again we have a figure who is stronger than the average human, knows more, and is struggling to deal with emotions.
I am frustrated by what seems to be an endless repeating cycle where Paramount continues to deny the essence of the show as being about superheroes, lets the series tank a couple of years, and then finally rescues the show by increasing the powers of the characters. I think that the claim of many fans that it takes a few years for the writers to get acclimated is a myth. The writers aren't given the raw materials to work with to produce entertaining superhero stories for the first few years, then they are authorized to use good materials, then the episodes improve. They could write a thousand stories about Harry Kim or Tom Paris or whatever vanilla characters they want and never find a groove. It's strictly a decision from above when the series is to improve, and that decision is simply whether to soup up the characters as superheroes.
As UPN was saved by adding the World Wrestling Federation's Smackdown to their lineup, maybe they can learn what makes this show successful. It's called by the wrestling fans BOOKING. Yes, it is the responsibility of the owner/promoter to make decisions to hype one wrestler over another, to promote certain wrestlers above all others for long stretches of time. The World Wrestling Federation the past two decades has been carried first by the character of Hulk Hogan, then Stone Cold Steve Austin, and now The Rock. Perhaps with careful booking in the future it will be Kurt Angle or HHH.
There is already another niche where people who are sort of ordinary interact in a tension-filled extraordinary situation. It's called reality television. It's Survivor, Big Brother, etc. Star Trek can't match that, Star Trek doesn't pretend to be giving ordinary people off the street a shot at fame and fortune. Star Trek has to create its fantasies in a different way. It has to be booked in a different fashion, to emphasize certain characters as superheroes.
Don't get me wrong: I'll still be glued to the b00b-tube tonight; I always give things a shot. I'm just worried that it won't live up to expectations.
The last World War was won because of many factors, one that figured very heavily was encryption and secrecy. The fact that the Germans leaked a bit of information through Enigma (always starting with the same introduction to a message, for example) enabled the Allies to have a large strategic advantage which they used fairly effectively throughout the war.
We need to use this to OUR advantage to make sure that we, the citizens of the world, keep control instead of the Corporations and Governments.
We hear the argument "pay the musician directly" a lot around here, but there is an obvious problem with that:
Nobody would buy, copy, or download a single Briney Spears song if the record label did not
1: Hire studio rats to program the synth-pop music she sings over.
2: Hire a producer and recording engineer team able to make a child singer sound "sexy"
3: Produce expensive videos that wave Ms. Spears's two most obvious selling points in front of the camera.
4: Get it played on the radio (in this case, her records come from Disney, who is a top-5 player in almost every radio market)
To suggest that Ms. Spears is somehow entitled to 100% (or even more than a small percentage) of the revenue generated by her "art" is to ignore who is doing all the work.
The answer is obvious: Ignore major label music entirely. Turn off the radio, stop watching MTV, and allow yourself to lose touch with popular culture. (People are supposed to do that when they start growing up, anyway.)
The truth is, it has already started happening. Concert attendance has been plumetting over the last 10 years, because nobody seriously thinks any band really matters anymore. The biggest draws are leftover bands from the era when people actually cared (like U2). It seems to me that most people no longer consider their favorite music to be an integral part of their identity the way they did in the past. While the latest release from Weezer might be mildly entertaining, nobody is going to worship them the way throngs of stoners once went apeshit over Led Zeppelin; nobody is going to follow them from city to city the way caravans followed the Grateful Dead. Rock n Roll has become a dead religion.
This year, I heard that a band called "Destiny's Child" won a bunch of awards. From the TV blub, they look kind of cute, and seem to be a band that sings shopworn 3-part harmonies over shopworn hip-hop beats. At the time, it occurred to me that I have not heard more than a 20-second blip from any of their songs. So tell me, fellow Slashbots, am I really missing anything by ignoring these teen divas and listening to Bethoven's 7th Symphony during my drive home?
Come on, let's analyze this a little bit... Either we can have our music for free using GNUtella, iMesh, or one of a dozen other systems that will allow sharing of music (including the ever-popular IRC interface and obscure HTML...) or we can pay Napster to get it.
Come on, can we get any more obvious? Napster is dead, and the world is a better place because of it.
You really need to stop worrying about the whole Microsoft-Linux thing, ok? Using the term "Microsoft flak" (I assume you missed an e) as an insult... You strike me as the kind of person who would reject a system (computer or otherwise) because you dislike what has happened in the past. If you were an instructor, would you let your past experiences intrude on your objectivity?
Let me give an example: You're a teacher who has found that in the past, a student has "slacked off" and not done everything exactly as you requested it, i.e., they did not format their page correctly, and did not leave proper margins. Then, on their next paper, you would meticulously measure each and every margin, every font, to see if they had disobeyed you again, and if they had, you would take extra points off.
You need to take a step back and use a "Consumer Reports" view on operating systems. Look at ease of use. Look at supported applications. Look at industry "standards" (even if they are not official, implied standards are powerful). Look at familiarity of interface. Now, tell me which operating system is superior, in those terms.
This article, if you read it, is a prime example of scientific speak getting in the way of a clear and accurate presentation of the facts.
I mean, just reading the paragraph included on this slashdot story confused me to no end. I graduated with an Engineering Physics degree, and before graduation, I was required to take a writing course that was explicitly designed to write technical details for a non-technical audience. That's what I consider myself to be, especially when it comes to encryption. If it cannot be explained simply (and all things can be explained simply) then the author has not put enough effort into its creation.
I couldn't bear to wade through all the "circumvential methods" and "anticircumvention rules". I think that we, as a community of technical writers, need to reconsider how we write, because it's alienating otherwise interested parties. Especially when the technically literate attempt to create and manipulate technological data and its implications on potentially impact-worthy studies, including, but not limited to, circumvention methods and astrological aspects.
You're absolutely right; all media sources have a bias, and it's usually political (actually, in my experience, it's more economical, pro-capitalism and anti-socialism), but I agree.
My concern is Slashdot's absolute unwillingness to even consider the other side of the argument. Take, for instance, your roommate's problem. Talking about Linux on the desktop and Windows 2000 on the desktop is apples and oranges. Windows has been programmed for fast power and short lifespan (hence the constant rebooting), while Linux is programmed for long lifespan and decent power. You can't expect to compare a 15 year old operating system with one that's been around for only 5 years. It's just stupid.
I hate Microsoft as much as any slashbot, but you know, it's simply the best choice for the workplace right now because people know it and are familiar with it. Technology does not rule; politics and humans rule.
Slashdot Mirror
As for the games that were ported over from Windows, Why not just go and check a place like Gamerankings.com and see a good compilation of reviews? All you have to do is check on the games that have been ported to Linux and figure it out from there!
For my money, though, Xbill is excellent :-)
A prime ingredient of "selling" software is the price. How can you sell something that's free?
The people of Afghanistan don't have televisions, they don't have music, and they don't have telephones... but they have e-mail access one day after the Northern Alliance "liberates" the city? And, coincidentally, he likes Open Source and Slashdot? What???
I'm sorry, but I just can't honestly believe this story to be true without some kind of third-party verification. And even then, I'd still be skeptical. It just doesn't sound legit to me...
If you're like me, you assumed that this was the Japanese show "ported" over to the USA, with no modifications. Don't be silly.
What made Iron Chef so entertaining? The hosts. The voice-overs. The theatrical music. Kitchen Stadium.
Guess what! They're all gone. They've been replaced by Shattner, English-speaking announcers, no sound effects, and a mock-up of Kitchen Stadium, but including screaming fans. That is NOT what Iron Chef was about.
It's lame, through and through.
If you have a wife, I would think twice before buying it... that, or get yourself a good counsellor.
Also, without seeing the keys, how would I know if it is the long-backspace button, or the shorter button (which I hate!)?
Also, there is a definate tactile feel to pressing the keys; you can *tell* when the button is depressed. This feature is difficult to replicate.
This would really cause problems with respect to picking up the "board" and quickly working on it. Believe it or not, sight *is* important.
This device will never get off the ground, for my money.
Given Fox's track record of hyping up incredibly gimicky or out-of-place shows (Alien Autopsy and Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire come to mind) while simultaneously burying shows that have real potential (Family Guy, for instance), how concerned are you that Fox will simply bury you after one unsuccessful (or successful) season?
There's no chance in Linux that I just got the first post, did I?
Will people who enjoy using this be iPod People?
*ducks rotten tomatos*
That's the wonderful consistency of Slashdot editors for ya... I'll bet that if we had mentioned how Linux was allpowerful and how Microsoft was bad, it would have been posted...
Even if the Jabber team ever comes out with a stable, robust release, it's not going to be able to support even half as many users as Yahoo instant messaging without someone footing the bill for millions of dollars in servers and fiber-channel storage arrays, commercial database software, and tens of thousands of dollars a month in hosting and connectivity services.
Do you really think a multi-million concurrent-user instant messaging system can run on one rack of Postgres servers on a T1? Phooey.
You want free communication without ads or service charges? Buy a CB radio and talk to your neighbors. That's peer-to-peer.
I'd like to see a show of hands: how many of the people here calling for free access to AIM servers aren't (a) MSN and Yahoo employees or (b) people who have never had a job besides maybe cleaning trays in a dorm cafeteria?
Many of us don't have 3D accelerators that work under Linux. While I'd like to have my hardware working under Linux, I realize that it's probably not going to happen any time this millenium.
So instead, I have a suggestion. Mesa currently has only one mode for software rendering--high quality. Is there any way that a low-quality software rendering mode could be introduced into Mesa? How difficult would it be to add this to the libraries, maybe have it switched on/off by an environment variable? How much of a slow-down would it introduce into the libraries, by having forked logic like this?
Because honestly, if I were to buy a copy of Quake III right now (this example would work the same with Postal once it comes out), I'd have to buy the Windows version because I haven't the "right" hardware 3D-accelerator. A sped-up, but much less visually correct, version of Mesa might make it easier for someone like me to bite the bullet and buy the Linux version, so that when I upgrade/if I upgrade to a 3D accelerated card, I'll have it under the OS I prefer.
(I realize this is pretty selfish, but it's also one of the reasons why you're not going to see many Windows users switching over to Linux any time soon. If I can't install Linux on someone else's 600Mhz Athalon, and be able to show them a kick-ass 3D game with a frame rate higher than 1.5/s...)
Short of a complete re-write of the entire FAT-32 filesystem there is no solution to this, aside from teaching new users that "Hold down shift, right click, then hit Open With..." will solve this problem.
Honestly, this seems like some Salon.com columnist had nothing else to do and decided to bitch about Microsoft for a while cause, hey, it'll get on Slashdot!
The article states that "Release 6 also gets rid of ... its annoying tendency to cover up all of the other windows you were working", but I can't seem to find any screenshots on their website or anywhere else. I have no doubt that the look & feel is similar to Microsoft's Office suite (also Corel's WordPerfect, but I digress) but I'd like to know if they got rid of their start-button oriented interface.
Anybody had this working and would be willing to GIMP a screenshot?
Fortunately, because it's a random process, you can simply click "Back" on your browser, then click on the link again, usually bypassing the ad. It's not too tough to get around... From the article, though, Salon is not random, so that sucks. But this method is nothing new or ground-breaking...
I'm amazed that this worked with "trillions" of atoms; this kind of phenomenon is usually restricted to very small, very energetic particles. But it's NOT teleporation. Teleportation involves taking an object from point A and moving it to point Z without crossing the in-between space, C through Y. This is like taking an object from point A, running it through the world's biggest and best Fax machine, then putting the result at point Z, without crossing C through Y.
Still, it's an interesting and ground-breaking result, one that (I hope) will make it past the peer review process, which kills more scientific papers than anything else.
Then, assuming that other companies do begin to use Passport at a significant level (despite no one using it after months of its deployment), there then becomes the question "What happens when Microsoft denies companies access to passport authentication?" For example, what happens if a Hotmail competitor wishes to use Passport authentication for its web mail login? Clearly, Microsoft would be helping their competitor if they allowed it, and acting monopolistically if they don't. That does provide a small problem for Microsoft.
Third is something that the article points out very early on about the very reason people need something like passport. To paraphrase, the article states that people dislike the idea of their online grocery store having access to their online stock trading when they use the same password. This problem doesn't go away with Passport, it is just enhanced. Now, instead of your grocery store having access to your stocks, Microsoft has access to both your grocery store and your stocks, without doing anything but being a middle man authenticator.
But what am I saying? Microsoft is the good guy, who would never abuse its power. That's why its okay for Microsoft to use its powers to "innovate," just like its okay for the US to develop defensive systems that give it the power to launch nuclear weapons without fear of retaliation.
I argue the story of Star Trek: The Original Series is not about Kirk, it's about Spock. And from my perspective, Spock is a superhero. He can read minds. He's stronger than the average human. He has extreme intelligence and knowledge. Spock's abilities quite frequently solve the episode's problem.
Similarly Star Trek: The Next Generation has Data, even stronger than Spock. Deep Space Nine has the shapeshifter Odo. Odo is not quite as impressive as Data, so notice that Paramount has to make emergency repairs midway in the show bringing back the character of Worf, now the unbeatable fighting knight-equivalent. And Bashir has to be souped up to have extreme intelligence.
With Star Trek I The Motion Picture, Wesley in The Next Generation, and Sisko in Deep Space Nine, Paramount establishes quite a string of humans becoming gods/prophets.
And then there's Voyager. The Data character is degraded into the balding holographic Doctor. Kes is the female Wesley who eventually becomes a godlike being, only she's too wimpy to do anything before she leaves. The series is teetering on collapse when Paramount finally makes the sensible decision to return to the roots and bring in a new superhero, 7 of 9. Once again we have a figure who is stronger than the average human, knows more, and is struggling to deal with emotions.
I am frustrated by what seems to be an endless repeating cycle where Paramount continues to deny the essence of the show as being about superheroes, lets the series tank a couple of years, and then finally rescues the show by increasing the powers of the characters. I think that the claim of many fans that it takes a few years for the writers to get acclimated is a myth. The writers aren't given the raw materials to work with to produce entertaining superhero stories for the first few years, then they are authorized to use good materials, then the episodes improve. They could write a thousand stories about Harry Kim or Tom Paris or whatever vanilla characters they want and never find a groove. It's strictly a decision from above when the series is to improve, and that decision is simply whether to soup up the characters as superheroes.
As UPN was saved by adding the World Wrestling Federation's Smackdown to their lineup, maybe they can learn what makes this show successful. It's called by the wrestling fans BOOKING. Yes, it is the responsibility of the owner/promoter to make decisions to hype one wrestler over another, to promote certain wrestlers above all others for long stretches of time. The World Wrestling Federation the past two decades has been carried first by the character of Hulk Hogan, then Stone Cold Steve Austin, and now The Rock. Perhaps with careful booking in the future it will be Kurt Angle or HHH.
There is already another niche where people who are sort of ordinary interact in a tension-filled extraordinary situation. It's called reality television. It's Survivor, Big Brother, etc. Star Trek can't match that, Star Trek doesn't pretend to be giving ordinary people off the street a shot at fame and fortune. Star Trek has to create its fantasies in a different way. It has to be booked in a different fashion, to emphasize certain characters as superheroes.
Don't get me wrong: I'll still be glued to the b00b-tube tonight; I always give things a shot. I'm just worried that it won't live up to expectations.
We need to use this to OUR advantage to make sure that we, the citizens of the world, keep control instead of the Corporations and Governments.
1: Hire studio rats to program the synth-pop music she sings over.
2: Hire a producer and recording engineer team able to make a child singer sound "sexy"
3: Produce expensive videos that wave Ms. Spears's two most obvious selling points in front of the camera.
4: Get it played on the radio (in this case, her records come from Disney, who is a top-5 player in almost every radio market)
To suggest that Ms. Spears is somehow entitled to 100% (or even more than a small percentage) of the revenue generated by her "art" is to ignore who is doing all the work.
The answer is obvious: Ignore major label music entirely. Turn off the radio, stop watching MTV, and allow yourself to lose touch with popular culture. (People are supposed to do that when they start growing up, anyway.)
The truth is, it has already started happening. Concert attendance has been plumetting over the last 10 years, because nobody seriously thinks any band really matters anymore. The biggest draws are leftover bands from the era when people actually cared (like U2). It seems to me that most people no longer consider their favorite music to be an integral part of their identity the way they did in the past. While the latest release from Weezer might be mildly entertaining, nobody is going to worship them the way throngs of stoners once went apeshit over Led Zeppelin; nobody is going to follow them from city to city the way caravans followed the Grateful Dead. Rock n Roll has become a dead religion.
This year, I heard that a band called "Destiny's Child" won a bunch of awards. From the TV blub, they look kind of cute, and seem to be a band that sings shopworn 3-part harmonies over shopworn hip-hop beats. At the time, it occurred to me that I have not heard more than a 20-second blip from any of their songs. So tell me, fellow Slashbots, am I really missing anything by ignoring these teen divas and listening to Bethoven's 7th Symphony during my drive home?
Come on, can we get any more obvious? Napster is dead, and the world is a better place because of it.
Can we get a scan of that exact page? After the hoax of yesterday, I'm a little wary of this entire subject...
Let me give an example: You're a teacher who has found that in the past, a student has "slacked off" and not done everything exactly as you requested it, i.e., they did not format their page correctly, and did not leave proper margins. Then, on their next paper, you would meticulously measure each and every margin, every font, to see if they had disobeyed you again, and if they had, you would take extra points off.
You need to take a step back and use a "Consumer Reports" view on operating systems. Look at ease of use. Look at supported applications. Look at industry "standards" (even if they are not official, implied standards are powerful). Look at familiarity of interface. Now, tell me which operating system is superior, in those terms.
This article, if you read it, is a prime example of scientific speak getting in the way of a clear and accurate presentation of the facts.
I mean, just reading the paragraph included on this slashdot story confused me to no end. I graduated with an Engineering Physics degree, and before graduation, I was required to take a writing course that was explicitly designed to write technical details for a non-technical audience. That's what I consider myself to be, especially when it comes to encryption. If it cannot be explained simply (and all things can be explained simply) then the author has not put enough effort into its creation.
I couldn't bear to wade through all the "circumvential methods" and "anticircumvention rules". I think that we, as a community of technical writers, need to reconsider how we write, because it's alienating otherwise interested parties. Especially when the technically literate attempt to create and manipulate technological data and its implications on potentially impact-worthy studies, including, but not limited to, circumvention methods and astrological aspects.
</RANT>
My concern is Slashdot's absolute unwillingness to even consider the other side of the argument. Take, for instance, your roommate's problem. Talking about Linux on the desktop and Windows 2000 on the desktop is apples and oranges. Windows has been programmed for fast power and short lifespan (hence the constant rebooting), while Linux is programmed for long lifespan and decent power. You can't expect to compare a 15 year old operating system with one that's been around for only 5 years. It's just stupid.
I hate Microsoft as much as any slashbot, but you know, it's simply the best choice for the workplace right now because people know it and are familiar with it. Technology does not rule; politics and humans rule.