There's some major, major differences in terms of usability and ease of use, depending on the distro. I was almost pulling my hair out dealing with Pulse vs. ALSA vs. OSS for sound. Using a half-baked audio solution by default is not a good idea (I'm looking at Ubuntu...).
Flash video was another one of my woes. It was very stuttery when fullscreen on my machine, even though any other video was fine. I'm not sure if it was audio or video related, or even video drivers.
I installed Windows 7 shortly after this on the same laptop (it's my OS "play" machine). I have had no troubles with it whatsoever. It even boots faster (that was pretty surprising).
I'm sure there are other issues; those are just the major ones I ran into.
And I said it had improved. I've used a lot of different distros... MEPIS based, PuppyLinux, SLAX based, PCLinuxOS based, SuSE (and SLES), Ubuntu (and various flavors of it), RedHat (and RHEL), Mandriva(/Mandrake), etc. Haven't really used Debian much, but have used Debian-based ones.
Who defines what the highlight is? I've never been to anything CES and don't know a ton about it (aside from reading about it every year), so I don't know if maybe they actually do pick one item as a highlight... or this it the highlight according to the submitter:)
However, I have long though that those things which are blatantly harmful to human beings, and the planet in general, should have enough economic disincentives as to make them all but beyond the ability of anyone to procure.
This is, of course, predicated on you believing AGW. Which appears to be up for debate. Significantly.
Correct... but, at least according to what I know from talking to Catholics (have not read Vatican positions on this, as I recall), not many people go to Hell. Most go to purgatory. People like Judas and I suppose the Pharisees (etc) go to Hell, but not normal "good-inentioned"/well-meaning people, even if they believe the wrong thing (e.g., Muslims). Which is why the Pope can appear to treat other world religions as equals, whereas Protestants hold to some exclusivity-ish doctrines.
Yes. Linux has many, many things that are pretty cool.
Unfortunately, they haven't had a good all-together tied-in user experience.
Claiming things like "we have chroot" and "we have sudo" and other code/geek-ish type of coolnesses is like claiming that your car has awesome engine with new piston technology, very secure door locks, and can run on almost ANY fuel currently available; unfortunately, the seats are rather uncomfortable and the controls on the dashboard look more like a commercial airliner's cockpit.
Yes, I know it's getting better. That's good. I hope they keep it up and continue to improve issues that apparently many geeks don't care about and many average users do (like flash video [youtube] and audio) and being able to use their iPods and scanners).:)
Catholicism is works-based. Catholics believe that Jesus opened the Gates to Heaven but you still had to either do enough good stuff (or pay in place of that) to get in. No idea what Protestants back then thought,
I think I have a fairly good idea. A major tenant of Protestantism, when it started (via the Reformation) was sola fide, or "faith alone." In other words, salvation comes through faith, not works. Specifically, sola criste, faith alone [through> Christ alone.
but nowadays they tend to say that your actions have nothing to do with it because faith alone gets one into Heaven. Though uh, actually the Calvinists of that time period believed in Predestination: God knew before you were born where you'd end up, and your life was simply an outward reflection of that
That is not quite right. Predestination is an action of God "destining," not just "knowing" or acknowledging. Predestination - at least Calvinistic - is that God chose who would be saved. Specifically, it is that God chose who would be saved, not necessarily choosing who would not be saved. Yes, there's a distinction there, as it's God showing mercy to some. It's not that God looked into the future and simply saw what someone would do.
(ie, if someone is destined to go to Heaven, you'll know it because they're the ones helping the poor, while being a murderer doesn't *cause* you to go to Hell but instead is a *sign* that you're headed there).
Murderers can go to heaven. Paul, in one of the New Testament letters, specifically writes to believers in one of the NT churches and tells them that some of them were formerly this, that, and the other thing (all fairly substantial immoral lifestyles).
And the whole sign bit - that's a little bit too simple. Murdering (and other "sins") are outward manifestations of your nature... just like most our actions are. Hell is God's punishment for the sinful nature of man, and it (apparently) differs in degree (but not length) depending on the actions of the subject in question. So, in other words, murdering someone is not simply a sign of where you're going, but a sign of your nature.
Those that are saved/Christians, on the other hand, have a "new nature" and - presumably - manifest actions that reflect that new nature, which has been regenerated/made new/cleansed by God.
The fact that many Christians do not reflect the new nature they claim is something many other Christians are very concerned about, and seems to show that there are many self-deceived non-Christians that think they are Christians and don't actually understand what a "Christian" actually is. It's not fire-insurance and it's not saying a "prayer" (which sometimes sounds more like a magic spell, since they don't really mean most of the things they say, based on their life afterwards).
Hehe, touche. With hte accent that I'm too lazy to put on.
On the other hand, I don't think he was trying to say that the human mind was a buggy piece of software.;)
Re:The human eye can dectect 30
on
Framerates Matter
·
· Score: -1, Offtopic
As far as communication goes, he scored perfectly.
Yes, he did. To me, he expressed that he wants to think about the human mind as being designed and working "as designed" and all those sorts of things, while at the same time maintaining that there is no God (or "designer" if you will, but I dislike saying that for some reason, seems trivial:)).
Otherwise, he would have simply said "designed." To put "evolutionary" in front of it seems to imply that this thought process, to me:
The brain appears to function according to a design. It works well together and appears to show evidence that it was planned/thought out/designed.
Having a design implies that something or someone intelligent planned out that design.
I don't believe in God, therefore I will attribute this design to evolution.
Which, I maintain, does not make sense. If the evidence of a design supports the idea of an intelligence behind it, than simply attributing it to something that cannot design because it is a random and natural process does not change anything... but it does appear to soothe the logical error in many people's minds, I guess?
I think it's pretty obvious what he really wanted to say. He wanted to say that the human mind evidences a design and he wanted to argue from that design and yet deny the existence of God. Which is interesting, because that aspect of "design" and the idea that there must be someone or something that designed it or planned it or is sustaining it, therefore we can extrapolate from it and assume that laws of nature/physics will continue to be the way they are is an argument for the existence of a Deity that many scientists in the past used... and is one of the reasons I think a - I feel open-minded today - Theistic worldview is one that encourages science, not discourages it.
And look at what they're doing with Bing, trying to compete with Google.
This does not support your thesis. Bing is actually becoming somewhat nice to use, and the Bird's-Eye view is really nice to have. I just use both.
do you think that Microsoft is actually capable of launching a touchscreen tablet device that is going to provide an elegant, rich, and relatively bug-free user experience?
Yes. Will they? I dunno. But how about we wait until we know it's buggy before saying it will be buggy? What's the harm in hoping it won't be?
The problem here is that I have serious reservations about Microsoft's competence as well as their sincerity in developing and supporting such a device.
On the software side? You must have had some unfortunately bad experiences. I've had fairly good experiences. And it's telling (IMO) that you have already decided you don't want the presumed Microsoft tablet-thing even though you haven't seen it, you don't know if it's amazing, you don't know when it's available, and you don't know how buggy or cheap it is.
iPhones and Linux (distros) are not bug free, perfect, or amazing either... why is it Microsoft has to be? (the iPhone seems to be pretty cool but does seem to have some major issues, IMO... I have used one and actually would not like one, didn't really like using it)
But there have been *ahem* rumors about the Apple tablet for a long time! So obviously Ballmer is just trying to one-up Apple by releasing more than a rumor.
One thing I have learned: no matter how good a Microsoft product, press release, statement, or design is, it is always bad if you talk to some people, and it's not innovative. Furthermore, Microsoft - unlike most companies - tries to make a profit. Apple, on the other hand, is trying to be innovative and produce quality machines at as low prices as they can possible do out of the altruistic kindness of their heart:) Er, core.
Re:The human eye can dectect 30
on
Framerates Matter
·
· Score: -1, Offtopic
The human mind is evolutionary designed to make instant assumptions.
I feel nitpicky, today. Either call the human mind evolutionary or designed. Evolution has no design and cannot design. If you do believe in evolutionary theory, then at best, evolution perhaps "fashioned" it, but it did not "design" it. To try to logically squish together evolutionary theory and some form of design will either elevate "evolution" to what it isn't and shouldn't be or degrade the word "design" to mean what it doesn't. Well, all the definitions I've seen so far, anyways. Accidents are not designed, and natural processes do not design. Nature does not design. Yes, nature does "fashion" things, but not design.
I guess I'm trying to say that if you think the human mind is amazing enough to be "designed" and yet refuse to recognize there was any form of intelligence behind that design, I'd say that something strange is happening in your logic somewhere... and if you're not using "design" as in something that was planned out before it happened, then choose a different word:)
I've heard this touted many times, and that Catholicism was non-works-based and Protestantism changed all that with the Reformation, turned it into a money thing, etc. Don't you guys read history?
The major reason for the Reformation... Martin Luther could not stand indulgences. That was a major player in it. And he didn't think salvation, as laid out in the Bible, is based on human effort - as he was taught as a monk. And tried to accomplish.
Protestantism's very start was because of the corruption of the Catholic church and them trying to sell the way to heaven, not vice versa....
(Note: Protestant denominations today may or may not reflect Protestantism of the 16th century.:) )
Granted. Or at least, an Idiot for the Moment. Which pretty much everyone could win an award for, I dare say. For example, almost every professional sports player, it seems:)
Slashdot Mirror
No, but taxing "carbon emission" and "carbon credits" seem to have roughly the same idea behind them...
That's not too much of a date. I liked that cartoon. :)
I use both daily, along with a few Unix flavors.
There's some major, major differences in terms of usability and ease of use, depending on the distro. I was almost pulling my hair out dealing with Pulse vs. ALSA vs. OSS for sound. Using a half-baked audio solution by default is not a good idea (I'm looking at Ubuntu...).
Flash video was another one of my woes. It was very stuttery when fullscreen on my machine, even though any other video was fine. I'm not sure if it was audio or video related, or even video drivers.
I installed Windows 7 shortly after this on the same laptop (it's my OS "play" machine). I have had no troubles with it whatsoever. It even boots faster (that was pretty surprising).
I'm sure there are other issues; those are just the major ones I ran into.
And I said it had improved. I've used a lot of different distros... MEPIS based, PuppyLinux, SLAX based, PCLinuxOS based, SuSE (and SLES), Ubuntu (and various flavors of it), RedHat (and RHEL), Mandriva(/Mandrake), etc. Haven't really used Debian much, but have used Debian-based ones.
And how was I supposed to know that? ;) (hehe)
That's fine, then. But "carbon credits" isn't the answer to getting rid of dirty coal plants. :)
Who defines what the highlight is? I've never been to anything CES and don't know a ton about it (aside from reading about it every year), so I don't know if maybe they actually do pick one item as a highlight... or this it the highlight according to the submitter :)
However, I have long though that those things which are blatantly harmful to human beings, and the planet in general, should have enough economic disincentives as to make them all but beyond the ability of anyone to procure.
This is, of course, predicated on you believing AGW. Which appears to be up for debate. Significantly.
Correct... but, at least according to what I know from talking to Catholics (have not read Vatican positions on this, as I recall), not many people go to Hell. Most go to purgatory. People like Judas and I suppose the Pharisees (etc) go to Hell, but not normal "good-inentioned"/well-meaning people, even if they believe the wrong thing (e.g., Muslims). Which is why the Pope can appear to treat other world religions as equals, whereas Protestants hold to some exclusivity-ish doctrines.
Yes. Linux has many, many things that are pretty cool.
Unfortunately, they haven't had a good all-together tied-in user experience.
Claiming things like "we have chroot" and "we have sudo" and other code/geek-ish type of coolnesses is like claiming that your car has awesome engine with new piston technology, very secure door locks, and can run on almost ANY fuel currently available; unfortunately, the seats are rather uncomfortable and the controls on the dashboard look more like a commercial airliner's cockpit.
Yes, I know it's getting better. That's good. I hope they keep it up and continue to improve issues that apparently many geeks don't care about and many average users do (like flash video [youtube] and audio) and being able to use their iPods and scanners). :)
"Windows 64-bit: Full support for 64-bit is available in recent beta versions of Sandboxie. Click here"
Looks like they are working on that. :)
Who needs this fancy-smancy graphical interface crap anyway?
How do you see the rocks?
Catholicism is works-based. Catholics believe that Jesus opened the Gates to Heaven but you still had to either do enough good stuff (or pay in place of that) to get in. No idea what Protestants back then thought,
I think I have a fairly good idea. A major tenant of Protestantism, when it started (via the Reformation) was sola fide, or "faith alone." In other words, salvation comes through faith, not works. Specifically, sola criste, faith alone [through> Christ alone.
but nowadays they tend to say that your actions have nothing to do with it because faith alone gets one into Heaven. Though uh, actually the Calvinists of that time period believed in Predestination: God knew before you were born where you'd end up, and your life was simply an outward reflection of that
That is not quite right. Predestination is an action of God "destining," not just "knowing" or acknowledging. Predestination - at least Calvinistic - is that God chose who would be saved. Specifically, it is that God chose who would be saved, not necessarily choosing who would not be saved. Yes, there's a distinction there, as it's God showing mercy to some. It's not that God looked into the future and simply saw what someone would do.
(ie, if someone is destined to go to Heaven, you'll know it because they're the ones helping the poor, while being a murderer doesn't *cause* you to go to Hell but instead is a *sign* that you're headed there).
Murderers can go to heaven. Paul, in one of the New Testament letters, specifically writes to believers in one of the NT churches and tells them that some of them were formerly this, that, and the other thing (all fairly substantial immoral lifestyles).
And the whole sign bit - that's a little bit too simple. Murdering (and other "sins") are outward manifestations of your nature... just like most our actions are. Hell is God's punishment for the sinful nature of man, and it (apparently) differs in degree (but not length) depending on the actions of the subject in question. So, in other words, murdering someone is not simply a sign of where you're going, but a sign of your nature.
Those that are saved/Christians, on the other hand, have a "new nature" and - presumably - manifest actions that reflect that new nature, which has been regenerated/made new/cleansed by God.
The fact that many Christians do not reflect the new nature they claim is something many other Christians are very concerned about, and seems to show that there are many self-deceived non-Christians that think they are Christians and don't actually understand what a "Christian" actually is. It's not fire-insurance and it's not saying a "prayer" (which sometimes sounds more like a magic spell, since they don't really mean most of the things they say, based on their life afterwards).
I am rambling. :)
Legal and paid-for versions of Windows?
Hehe, touche. With hte accent that I'm too lazy to put on.
On the other hand, I don't think he was trying to say that the human mind was a buggy piece of software. ;)
As far as communication goes, he scored perfectly.
Yes, he did. To me, he expressed that he wants to think about the human mind as being designed and working "as designed" and all those sorts of things, while at the same time maintaining that there is no God (or "designer" if you will, but I dislike saying that for some reason, seems trivial :)).
Otherwise, he would have simply said "designed." To put "evolutionary" in front of it seems to imply that this thought process, to me:
Which, I maintain, does not make sense. If the evidence of a design supports the idea of an intelligence behind it, than simply attributing it to something that cannot design because it is a random and natural process does not change anything... but it does appear to soothe the logical error in many people's minds, I guess?
I think it's pretty obvious what he really wanted to say. He wanted to say that the human mind evidences a design and he wanted to argue from that design and yet deny the existence of God. Which is interesting, because that aspect of "design" and the idea that there must be someone or something that designed it or planned it or is sustaining it, therefore we can extrapolate from it and assume that laws of nature/physics will continue to be the way they are is an argument for the existence of a Deity that many scientists in the past used... and is one of the reasons I think a - I feel open-minded today - Theistic worldview is one that encourages science, not discourages it.
I'm confused. You can install iTunes on Windows.
iTunes and Quicktime are most likely even running on your PC.
Unfortunately. ;)
And look at what they're doing with Bing, trying to compete with Google.
This does not support your thesis. Bing is actually becoming somewhat nice to use, and the Bird's-Eye view is really nice to have. I just use both.
do you think that Microsoft is actually capable of launching a touchscreen tablet device that is going to provide an elegant, rich, and relatively bug-free user experience?
Yes. Will they? I dunno. But how about we wait until we know it's buggy before saying it will be buggy? What's the harm in hoping it won't be?
The problem here is that I have serious reservations about Microsoft's competence as well as their sincerity in developing and supporting such a device.
On the software side? You must have had some unfortunately bad experiences. I've had fairly good experiences. And it's telling (IMO) that you have already decided you don't want the presumed Microsoft tablet-thing even though you haven't seen it, you don't know if it's amazing, you don't know when it's available, and you don't know how buggy or cheap it is.
iPhones and Linux (distros) are not bug free, perfect, or amazing either... why is it Microsoft has to be? (the iPhone seems to be pretty cool but does seem to have some major issues, IMO... I have used one and actually would not like one, didn't really like using it)
What about things like Final Cut Pro? That's software...
That said, I don't know if MS really cares what Apple does... except that because you don't typically buy a Mac to run Windows on it.
But hey. As long as their wrongfully-supposed competition yields some good products, I don't care :)
But there have been *ahem* rumors about the Apple tablet for a long time! So obviously Ballmer is just trying to one-up Apple by releasing more than a rumor.
One thing I have learned: no matter how good a Microsoft product, press release, statement, or design is, it is always bad if you talk to some people, and it's not innovative. Furthermore, Microsoft - unlike most companies - tries to make a profit. Apple, on the other hand, is trying to be innovative and produce quality machines at as low prices as they can possible do out of the altruistic kindness of their heart :) Er, core.
The human mind is evolutionary designed to make instant assumptions.
I feel nitpicky, today. Either call the human mind evolutionary or designed. Evolution has no design and cannot design. If you do believe in evolutionary theory, then at best, evolution perhaps "fashioned" it, but it did not "design" it. To try to logically squish together evolutionary theory and some form of design will either elevate "evolution" to what it isn't and shouldn't be or degrade the word "design" to mean what it doesn't. Well, all the definitions I've seen so far, anyways. Accidents are not designed, and natural processes do not design. Nature does not design. Yes, nature does "fashion" things, but not design.
I guess I'm trying to say that if you think the human mind is amazing enough to be "designed" and yet refuse to recognize there was any form of intelligence behind that design, I'd say that something strange is happening in your logic somewhere... and if you're not using "design" as in something that was planned out before it happened, then choose a different word :)
[/offtopic rant]
I've heard this touted many times, and that Catholicism was non-works-based and Protestantism changed all that with the Reformation, turned it into a money thing, etc. Don't you guys read history?
The major reason for the Reformation... Martin Luther could not stand indulgences. That was a major player in it. And he didn't think salvation, as laid out in the Bible, is based on human effort - as he was taught as a monk. And tried to accomplish.
Protestantism's very start was because of the corruption of the Catholic church and them trying to sell the way to heaven, not vice versa....
(Note: Protestant denominations today may or may not reflect Protestantism of the 16th century. :) )
Granted. Or at least, an Idiot for the Moment. Which pretty much everyone could win an award for, I dare say. For example, almost every professional sports player, it seems :)
No... in their eyes, that's not stupidity on their part, it's success. ;)
That was the presumed motive. The dead person didn't say that.