I appreciate the work the kernel devs do (I'm using their work right now), but the mere act of working on the kernel doesn't make them inherently more intelligent or smarter than anybody else.
The OP has a point. This is a pretty big design issue (witness all the things it's screwing up), and should've been addressed a long time ago.
I think you're being too harsh. KDE and Gnome try to look like Windows and Mac because that's what most Linux newcomers are used to. Once you get away from those two there's a lot of variety. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say some of them look better than OSX, but that's definitely subjective.
In fact, I think that the GUI experience was better like 10 years ago under Linux with things like AfterStep and WindowMaker, and Enlightenment. I even know some older *NIX folks that still use FVWM, and I liked that back in the day too. So, I dunno, maybe 2009 is the year of Linux on the desktop. However, unless an excellent GUI comes out for it, I don't think this will be the year.
There are already a ton of excellent GUIs for Linux (and UNIX in general). There's no reason everybody should use the same window manager, and one of the nice things about Linux is that they don't have to.
There's plenty of competition. The problem is people are idiots and agreed to and signed contracts saying they'll pay a huge fee for breaking their contract. Signing a contract like that more or less removes the competition. Nobody is going to (or even can?) offer text messages and phone service so cheap it makes it worthwhile to pay the contract breaking fee with your current provider.
To top it off, few people are saying "Well, I think text messages are too expensive, so I'll stop using them and remove them from my plan." The majority of people seem to say "Wow, what a rip off," and then continue sending them anyway. Competition only works when the consumers try to save money. Why lower prices when the consumers are happily paying the current prices?
So the video makers won't have to use hacks to render a video? So -- as the original article said, the video designers can ensure that the color they assign to Shrek at the beginning of the film is the same color used throughout and isn't altered during the entire film by other objects needing green.
I can imagine that if you have a few objects that you'd like to reserve color palette for over a feature length movie, the number of colors available might be more of an issue than in one static picture. It's possible this could simplify some rendering algorithms possibly allowing some speedups or optimizations?
Software and image formats already exist that can use 48 and 64 bit color, the only thing new here is that now the images will get scaled to 30 bit color instead of 24 bit when being displayed. It doesn't have anything to do with special algorithms or assigning different colors to different objects because that would already be possible with existing software.
Okay, good point. I screwed that up a bit, but I still think Flash is the better option.
Designing a truck would cost Honda a lot of money and put them in a market they're not interested in. Same with the hybrid for BMW, Mercedes and Vokswagen. Size 58 suit jackets would take up valuable floor space. Same with the golf clubs.
On the other hand, Flash and Silverlight have no inventory cost and are more or less equivalent when it comes to cost, features and ease of development. The only big difference is Flash works on more platforms, for more people. You get the extra 10% for free just by using Flash over Silverlight.
Now that I think about it, though, I don't expect most web developers and management types to think about that, so you're probably right that the niche won't make a big difference.
No, they actually seem to be using them to listen to music. I'm not sure how an iPod can even be a "fashion statement" these days, as so many people own them.
Sorry, but you're just wrong. Obviously people are using their iPods to play music, but they chose the iPod over the Zune or one of the millions of other players to make a fashion statement. At the very least, people are buying iPods because everyone else is doing it, which itself is a form fashion statement.
I'm going to get bashed by Apple fanatics, but if people were buying based on features, they wouldn't be buying iPods. The iPod is nice, but feature-wise there are better players. There's iTunes lock-in, but even that isn't a big issue anymore because there are ways around their DRM, and there are other music sellers.
That more or less leaves "fashion statement" as the reason for iPod popularity over other players.
It's 1st year economics, and you managed to fuck it up anyway. Good job.
Supply and demand do not cause each other. In other words, an item being scarce does not imply many people will want it. It implies that the people who *do* want it *may* have to pay a lot, but it doesn't automatically mean those people exist.
The assumption of independence is unreasonable, and there is no basis for assuming the risk is 0.005% chance of death _each_ time you drive.
This puts taking two 5-mile trips a day, via city driving at the same level as taking two 200-mile trips a day, including city driving, daily interstate and city driving during rush-hour, etc.
I agree it'd be pretty limited in use, but why couldn't such a chance be calculated? Something like "These 100 people took 100000 arbitrary car trips over a 365 day period and 5 of them died in car accidents."
Obviously you couldn't apply it to a particular trip, as individual results would vary, but I think it'd be reasonable to use for an "average" person making an arbitrary trip. In other words, you could say "There's a 0.005% chance of dying in a car crash while going on a trip", but not "There's a 0.005% chance of dying in a car crash on this trip."
I'd be interested to know if/why that's not possible.
And what about when it is your government that has managed to lose it? Good luck with boycotting your tax payments...
True, boycotting won't work for the government. But, the government employees didn't get there by accident. People voted for them, or voted for the people who hired them. Somewhere up the chain, some elected official is responsible for the people who fucked up, and they should be fired, impeached, voted out of office, or otherwise removed. If losing data means a person loses their career, they'll be a little more careful with who they hire, and hand out stiffer punishments when it actually happens (like firing people).
That's also more difficult than passing a worthless law, but it'd be a lot more effective.
Besides, fining the government doesn't make sense. They'd raise taxes to pay for it, or pay for it with tax money that should have went for something else. In either case, the citizens are the only losers.
Which is why we need legislation that will fine them for releasing that information.
WTF? We're in bad shape when a "There should be a law..." post gets rated Insightful
Making a new law isn't going to help anything. It's against the law to kill people and smoke pot, but it happens all the time. Sure, the companies will pay some tiny fine as punishment, but that doesn't really solve the problem of "Your private info was just given to scumbags".
The only way to make companies stop losing information is to boycott them on a gigantic scale when they do. When they "misplace" your info and their revenue drops 75%, they'll pay attention and make sure it doesn't happen again.
I realize getting enough people to boycot is 100x harder than passing a worthless law, but it's the only way that would work. At some point people have to take responsibility for themselves and say "I'm not doing business with a company that will lose my data." If people can't be bothered to avoid unsafe businesses, the businesses aren't going to bother being safe.
So good luck with your law, but my money is on it not making a difference.
Her blood in his car, the car's missing seat, his purchasing books on body disposal, his history of violence, etc. That's "evidence".
Each one by itself is no big deal, but all combined it's incredibly suspicious. He had a chance to explain why it wasn't how it looked, but he failed it.
Doesn't make any sense at all to me, as this content has to be paid for somehow. Would you prefer to personally pay for page views of information that would be important to you?
Yes, I would. "We're not asking you to pay, so we get to annoy the shit out of you," just doesn't work for me.
With a game it's reasonable to expect the user will be running the game, the OS, and nothing (or very little) else when they're running on a minimum requirements system.
But the entire point of an operating system is to let the user run other software. If the OS itself requires all of the ram listed in its minimum requirements, then the minimum is too low.
No, I don't. Which part, exactly, do you consider elitist? The part that expects people to take a little initiative to achieve something they want? Or the part that expects people to learn something?
I'm not the one assuming most people are morons, incapable of learning. So, tell me again, who's being elitist?
Except if you're doing it right, you're not going to see ads.
I do agree with your point, however. The fact that I don't see the ads is the exact reason this list is unnecessary. The government shouldn't be "helping out" when the people can do it themselves.
Except it's not correcting a mistake. That mistake's already been made, and the poor are benefitting from it just as much as I am.
But Barrack wants to make a *new* mistake and create a *new* program, above and beyond the existing subsidies.
And this isn't exactly like the original DARPA funding, either. What are the chances Barrack's program will unconditionally lower internet costs for everybody? Better or worse than the chances it lowers the cost for poor people at the expense of everybody else?
It's not a matter of correcting a mistake, it's a matter of not making a new mistake.
That means a lot coming from somebody who spends his money buying internet access and all his time surfing Slashdot. You horrible, horrible bastard. You should be donating that money to finding cleaner energy and feeding the poor.
The epic mistake that is OOXML still does not make that a good argument.
Slashdot Mirror
I appreciate the work the kernel devs do (I'm using their work right now), but the mere act of working on the kernel doesn't make them inherently more intelligent or smarter than anybody else.
The OP has a point. This is a pretty big design issue (witness all the things it's screwing up), and should've been addressed a long time ago.
I think you're being too harsh. KDE and Gnome try to look like Windows and Mac because that's what most Linux newcomers are used to. Once you get away from those two there's a lot of variety. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say some of them look better than OSX, but that's definitely subjective.
There are already a ton of excellent GUIs for Linux (and UNIX in general). There's no reason everybody should use the same window manager, and one of the nice things about Linux is that they don't have to.
There's plenty of competition. The problem is people are idiots and agreed to and signed contracts saying they'll pay a huge fee for breaking their contract. Signing a contract like that more or less removes the competition. Nobody is going to (or even can?) offer text messages and phone service so cheap it makes it worthwhile to pay the contract breaking fee with your current provider.
To top it off, few people are saying "Well, I think text messages are too expensive, so I'll stop using them and remove them from my plan." The majority of people seem to say "Wow, what a rip off," and then continue sending them anyway. Competition only works when the consumers try to save money. Why lower prices when the consumers are happily paying the current prices?
Some of the F.A.A air traffic controls systems are 30-40 years old, written in Jovial.
I'm sure it's not *the* oldest, but it's old, and used all the time for something relatively important.
Software and image formats already exist that can use 48 and 64 bit color, the only thing new here is that now the images will get scaled to 30 bit color instead of 24 bit when being displayed. It doesn't have anything to do with special algorithms or assigning different colors to different objects because that would already be possible with existing software.
Okay, good point. I screwed that up a bit, but I still think Flash is the better option.
Designing a truck would cost Honda a lot of money and put them in a market they're not interested in. Same with the hybrid for BMW, Mercedes and Vokswagen. Size 58 suit jackets would take up valuable floor space. Same with the golf clubs.
On the other hand, Flash and Silverlight have no inventory cost and are more or less equivalent when it comes to cost, features and ease of development. The only big difference is Flash works on more platforms, for more people. You get the extra 10% for free just by using Flash over Silverlight.
Now that I think about it, though, I don't expect most web developers and management types to think about that, so you're probably right that the niche won't make a big difference.
Fortunately, most businesses can't be so picky as to tell 1 out of 10 potential customers to go fuck themselves.
Sorry, but you're just wrong. Obviously people are using their iPods to play music, but they chose the iPod over the Zune or one of the millions of other players to make a fashion statement. At the very least, people are buying iPods because everyone else is doing it, which itself is a form fashion statement.
I'm going to get bashed by Apple fanatics, but if people were buying based on features, they wouldn't be buying iPods. The iPod is nice, but feature-wise there are better players. There's iTunes lock-in, but even that isn't a big issue anymore because there are ways around their DRM, and there are other music sellers.
That more or less leaves "fashion statement" as the reason for iPod popularity over other players.
It's 1st year economics, and you managed to fuck it up anyway. Good job.
Supply and demand do not cause each other. In other words, an item being scarce does not imply many people will want it. It implies that the people who *do* want it *may* have to pay a lot, but it doesn't automatically mean those people exist.
I agree it'd be pretty limited in use, but why couldn't such a chance be calculated? Something like "These 100 people took 100000 arbitrary car trips over a 365 day period and 5 of them died in car accidents."
Obviously you couldn't apply it to a particular trip, as individual results would vary, but I think it'd be reasonable to use for an "average" person making an arbitrary trip. In other words, you could say "There's a 0.005% chance of dying in a car crash while going on a trip", but not "There's a 0.005% chance of dying in a car crash on this trip."
I'd be interested to know if/why that's not possible.
True, boycotting won't work for the government. But, the government employees didn't get there by accident. People voted for them, or voted for the people who hired them. Somewhere up the chain, some elected official is responsible for the people who fucked up, and they should be fired, impeached, voted out of office, or otherwise removed. If losing data means a person loses their career, they'll be a little more careful with who they hire, and hand out stiffer punishments when it actually happens (like firing people).
That's also more difficult than passing a worthless law, but it'd be a lot more effective.
Besides, fining the government doesn't make sense. They'd raise taxes to pay for it, or pay for it with tax money that should have went for something else. In either case, the citizens are the only losers.
WTF? We're in bad shape when a "There should be a law..." post gets rated Insightful
Making a new law isn't going to help anything. It's against the law to kill people and smoke pot, but it happens all the time. Sure, the companies will pay some tiny fine as punishment, but that doesn't really solve the problem of "Your private info was just given to scumbags".
The only way to make companies stop losing information is to boycott them on a gigantic scale when they do. When they "misplace" your info and their revenue drops 75%, they'll pay attention and make sure it doesn't happen again.
I realize getting enough people to boycot is 100x harder than passing a worthless law, but it's the only way that would work. At some point people have to take responsibility for themselves and say "I'm not doing business with a company that will lose my data." If people can't be bothered to avoid unsafe businesses, the businesses aren't going to bother being safe.
So good luck with your law, but my money is on it not making a difference.
But there *is* evidence.
Her blood in his car, the car's missing seat, his purchasing books on body disposal, his history of violence, etc. That's "evidence".
Each one by itself is no big deal, but all combined it's incredibly suspicious. He had a chance to explain why it wasn't how it looked, but he failed it.
Yes, I would. "We're not asking you to pay, so we get to annoy the shit out of you," just doesn't work for me.
But why pay when I can just block the ads?
I don't think it's a correct comparison, though.
With a game it's reasonable to expect the user will be running the game, the OS, and nothing (or very little) else when they're running on a minimum requirements system.
But the entire point of an operating system is to let the user run other software. If the OS itself requires all of the ram listed in its minimum requirements, then the minimum is too low.
But I have Javascript turned *on*, and it looks like it does in my screenshot, here.
Maybe it's a Firefox issue?
If it matters, I don't have scripting turned off.
Did it get reverted back or something?
I don't understand the outrage. For comparison, this is what it looks like for me.
HTTP is a documented API.
What makes you think somebody who's just fucked up HTTP isn't going to go right ahead and fuck up "REST principles" while they're at it?
No, I don't. Which part, exactly, do you consider elitist? The part that expects people to take a little initiative to achieve something they want? Or the part that expects people to learn something?
I'm not the one assuming most people are morons, incapable of learning. So, tell me again, who's being elitist?
Except if you're doing it right, you're not going to see ads.
I do agree with your point, however. The fact that I don't see the ads is the exact reason this list is unnecessary. The government shouldn't be "helping out" when the people can do it themselves.
Except it's not correcting a mistake. That mistake's already been made, and the poor are benefitting from it just as much as I am.
But Barrack wants to make a *new* mistake and create a *new* program, above and beyond the existing subsidies.
And this isn't exactly like the original DARPA funding, either. What are the chances Barrack's program will unconditionally lower internet costs for everybody? Better or worse than the chances it lowers the cost for poor people at the expense of everybody else?
It's not a matter of correcting a mistake, it's a matter of not making a new mistake.
That means a lot coming from somebody who spends his money buying internet access and all his time surfing Slashdot. You horrible, horrible bastard. You should be donating that money to finding cleaner energy and feeding the poor.
The epic mistake that is OOXML still does not make that a good argument.
Okay, you're right. Obviously once you've made a mistake, the best thing to do is keep making it.
I don't care if it costs me $1000 per Mbit, I'd be first in line voting to get rid of those subsidies.
The government buying and/or subsidizing internet for anybody is wrong.