I know of no hacked sat device that requires communication with the signal provider in order to work.
I'm not so sure about that. I use DISH for satellite service. Part of the service agreement requires a telephone connection to the receiver. If you disconnect the phone line, then a message is displayed on screen informing you that extra charges will be applied to your account if telephone service is not restored. Every month or so the software on the receiver changes. User options are added or removed. The firmware changes. This happens even if the phone line is disconnected. It does not require anyone from DISH showing up to do updates. I certainly believe that the satellite connection is two-way, though they do seem to prefer a phone connection over satellite up-link.
As for detecting emulated cards, I have no idea. I only know what I've discovered for myself. I have heard of emulated cards and of them being revoked. However, I've tried it myself.
I'm not really interested in the Atari 800. I have a 130XE. However, if you have one of the double-sided 5-1/4 drives in working condition ( I can't remember the number. It was FD something), I might be interested.
Maybe we could convince the government to place video cameras in key locations, such as the beach. It would certainly make catching litter bugs more economical. You could even attach speakers to the cameras. That way you could reprimand the offender while in the act and make them pick up their litter.
Economic sanctions against China and India? That would be interesting. I wonder how Americans would react to not being able buy any manufactured goods? I could see them trying to call their favorite manufacturer and finding the line busy. More relevant to my immediate interests, I wonder if the US would consider Taiwan to be part of China during such sanctions. I imagine the computer industry (Dell, Compaq, etc.) would be hit hard when they couldn't buy memory, motherboards, etc.
It wouldn't be that hard for the US to reclaim it's call centers. However, reclaiming it's manufacturing capabilities would be a long, hard battle.
I collect books. In the past, I'd buy a soft-back book to preview it. Then I'd buy the hard-back copy for my collection if I found it worth owning. The soft-backs get loaned out to friends and family. Only my Wife and I touch the hard-backs. Over the last few years I've thought about replacing the soft-backs with e-books. However, the majority of my purchases are still soft-back. E-books will never replace my hard-backs.
On the other hand, the computer lets you do things you simply can't do with dead tree media. For instance, keyword searches. That alone is enough to drive me to the computer. Then there's linking and annotation - you can scribble in the margins and you can insert bookmarks with notes on them but the former limits your data size severely and the latter is not secure, it's easy to lose data. What page was that marker on again? Where did this scrap of paper on the floor come from? Et cetera. And of course you can make audio annotations and the like.
With the exception of reference books, I've never needed keyword searches, linking or annotation. I never was the type to highlight favorite passages. However, bookmarks are indispensable. I'm curious. What software package do you use to read e-books? I've worked with text, HTML, and PDF. Text doesn't offer any features, except maybe a find function. HTML is better, or perhaps I should say HTML/CSS/XML/Whatever-else. It supports images, various typography, multimedia, and limited bookmarks. I say limited bookmarks because you can only bookmark to the nearest anchor. Most of the HTML e-books I've read are broken into chapters, with the nearest anchor at the start of the chapter. I have yet to find a browser that will let you annotate. Perhaps someone has written a Web 2.0 application that let's you open a read-only HTML book, bookmark where you choose, and annotate? PDF has been my favorite format so far. It breaks the document up into pages, offers a variety of views, includes all of the benefits of HTML, and (depending on the viewer) offers a nice interface to the predefined bookmarks. However, using Adobe Reader, I haven't found a way to create bookmarks or annotations.
I'm betting that eventually we'll have books that have a hundred pages or so, and you reprogram them by docking them with your computer.
I already do this with my PDA. It has a nice, high-resolution display and runs Adobe Reader. Of course, I'm not about to loan my PDA to friends and family so that they can read my collection. Copyright restrictions also must be considered before I e-mail them a copy of the book.
But I don't really argue that books will go away completely.
No, I don't believe the Internet, or e-books, will replace books any more than TV replaced radio, or radio replaced books. And despite the proliferation of pirated movies, I still purchase movies I enjoy on DVD.
I always figured that time flies when you are having fun because your brain is too occupied with fun to notice the passage of time. Time seems to drag during those boring meetings because your brain has nothing to otherwise occupy it.
I might add to this that movies existed before the widespread use of VCRs, DVD players, and Blockbuster. People enjoy going out to the theater. Not only is it great for a date, theater owners can make an event of it. Throw in some hype, dress some actors up as characters, add "Smell-O-Vision", hold contests, etc. There is a theater near me that doubles as a bar. Drinking and eating are encouraged during the movie.
As for DVD sales, I personally prefer a pressed DVD, professionally produced, with all of the jacket material. If I own something, I prefer quality, not a knock-off or counterfeit product. Maybe that's just me?
The only sales I feel are really being hurt by P2P "Pirates" are rentals. It's the only market where I really see the same type of service being offered by both the studios and the pirates.
I cheat./home is auto-mounted from a NFS server. Short of telling the box to grab the automount map from LDAP, I don't need to set up any personalization. It's already there. A new box is just new hardware. I do have different application sets depending on the hardware capabilities. However, that doesn't have anything to do with personalizing the system. Rather, it has to do with why the box was built.
I'm running Gentoo on a Dell Latitude C640 with an Intel 2200BG Wireless card. I'm using the Linux kernel driver and wpa_supplicant to control the card. I had to download the firmware from Intel. I saved it to/lib/firmware. UDev handles copying the firmware to the card. I don't think there are any other processes involved.
Maybe needing to download the firmware from Intel, rather then Ubuntu's repository, is why it's on the restricted list?
Federal regulations don't allow fully open source wireless drivers.
I suppose it depends on what you consider fully open. The Intel WiFi drivers are in the Linux kernel. However, you have to download Intel's closed firmware to make the card work. I don't really consider firmware to be part of the driver. The only reason you need to download it is because Intel didn't spend the money to include it on the card.
For the last few years, I've run a refurbishing center. We take used Dell, IBM, Toshiba, Compaq, HP, etc. laptops. The hardware is inspected, repaired, and cleaned. We image them with a fresh OS and then resell them. I've had a lot of experience with Dell's Latitude line, some experience with the Inspiron line, and almost none with the XPS line. Dell laptops are a joy to work with compared to other brands. They have excellent service manuals, an easy to navigate support site, and they use common components. There are no plastic tabs that are easy to break. All of the screws are clearly labeled. I can have a Dell completely taken apart and put back together in about 5 minutes. All of the FRUs are easily accessible. While working with Dell laptops, I've only encountered three different power supplies. IBM has them beat on this point. I've only encountered two different power supplies with IBM. Dell also works hard to keep batteries interchangeable between models.
The only real problem I've encountered with Dell was a vendor that sent us a bulk shipment of c610s stacked 30 deep. The units on the bottom suffered bruised screens.
I can't really vouch for anything new. All of the systems I touch are at least three years old. However, my personal laptop is a Dell running Gentoo. When I finally decide to get a new one, it will be a Dell. I've never used their warranty service. It's good to hear that it's as good as their product.
But if you happen to pick some junk PC/Sparc/Apple and would want to put it to better use, you soon would find that only flexibility of Gentoo allows you to make something real out of the junk.
I have to agree. I sometimes refurbish older computers for children to use. I've found that Gentoo is about the only current operating system that works well. The oldest system I've used is a 233MHz PII with 32MB of ram. It made a nice game computer for a 3-year old. Gcompris, Childsplay, and Tuxpaint all run great on it.
I've never been afraid of law enforcement unless I knew I was doing something wrong.
Of course not. There are a few reasons I can think of for your sense of safety.
First, you've deluded yourself into thinking you have done nothing wrong. Have you ever looked at the shear number of stupid and damaging laws that were put on the books to gain a few votes or donations? Sex is all but illegal where I live and you have to be careful what you say in parts of the city. Hell, for that matter, you have to be careful where you sit in parts of the city.
Second, you personally have never had a bad run-in with a cop. Good for you. When an office building catches fire, do you suppose the people inside felt safe before it happened? I've have a few run-ins with bad cops where I did nothing wrong. I still ended up in court.
Third, and I'm guessing on this one, you don't fall into any of the "Criminal" stereotypes. While this only provides you with marginal protection, it does mean you experience less harassment. When you were pulled over for driving without your lights on, did they rip apart your car and take dogs through it to check for drugs?
Consider yourself lucky that your experience thus far has been positive. However, keep in mind that your luck might run out one day.
It was a striped down Linux distro. Ok, they had to put it together, perhaps write some shell scripts. I'm not sure where the web interface came from. But did they have to release any super-secret proprietary source code? I doubt it.
Just off the top of my head, it's been a while.
They took the Linux kernel and patched to support a Broadcom wireless NIC. They then sold the compiled version as their own software. Someone found a bug in the interface that dropped them into a shell and discovered it was Linux. Linksys responded by offering the Linux kernel source without the patch. People complained when it didn't work and legal again was threatened. So Linksys rewrote the patch to use a binary blob. Nothing proprietary was lost.
Open Source developers then used the patch and blob to reverse engineer a Broadcom driver for BSD, and latter, Linux.
My memory of the events is hazy. I'm sure there is a Wiki article somewhere with more/better details.
Right. Which is why the OSS community is making such a big deal of them *now* - because the functionality has been around for ages ? Maybe that would also explain why, until quite recently, those fancy features were nowhere to be seen ?
I've been playing around with XGL for a couple of years. However, I couldn't remember when I first heard about it, so I looked it up. The earliest reference I found was an email from David Reveman dated Nov 4, 2004. The first I heard about AIGLX was in February 2006. nVidia presented a paper at XDevConf that talked about it. I don't have the history of development of Apple's Quartz Compositor handy. Maybe a Mac user can add that information? However, I believe it predates XGL. To be fair, Windows Aero Desktop Compositing Engine was first demoed in 2003.
I can just see that you're going to pull out some example from SGI
I was going to give Sun's Looking Glass as an example. However, the earliest material I can find on that is 2004. Maybe Microsoft was first on this one. However, to be fair, you couldn't use Aero until recently.
XGL/AIGLX has come a long way in a short time. It's biggest problem has historically been lack of interest and poor 3D support in Linux. I'm glad there is finally some interest being generated.
I think Steve Jobs has seen the future, and realised that the PC won't be so important, the action is all going to move to various types of devices aimed at consumers.
I see this as well. However, I don't really see consumer devices and the PC as being that different. Sure the shell is different, but it's still a computer inside. Now I do see different shells for different environments; large screen for TV, comfortable to talk for phone, light and durable for music, medium screen and input for desktop, toss on the bedside table for reading or notes. However, all of these devices still have a computer in them that's just as capable as any PC I currently use. The only thing I see happening here is better, more specialized, interfaces.
if you cant look at that evolution and tell me they've significantly improved the product, you're just being a zealot.
I have to agree. The smartest move Microsoft ever made was dumping the 95 series for NT. However, a lot of recent improvements were driven by Linux bringing design flaws to light, especially in the area of security.
OpenOffice works, but it just feels clunky - it feels like the versino of word I used on win 3.1
That's not really surprising. OpenOffice is trying to feel like MSOffice because that is the only office suite most corporate types know. Now, if you're saying that MSOfficeXP (the most recent version I've used) isn't as clunky as MSOffice97, I'd have to disagree.
MPlayer will start and randomly not play sound. Sound is still a big kludgy wtf-is-goin-on type thing. Should I be using ALSA, or ESD or/dev/dsp or what?
It sounds like a conflict between different sound servers. Personally, I'd dump everything except ALSA. ALSA can handle multiple applications and all major sound applications include direct support for it.
Bon Echo feels bloaty and slow - but firefox under windows XP on the same hardware is snappy and responsive.
Are you comparing the same versions? Bon Echo was the development platform for Firefox2. I currently use 2.0.0.1 on the same hardware under Gentoo and XP. It feels the same.
right down to fucking around with monitor frequencies by hand?
Why would you need to do that? Sure, you have the option. However, X is very good at setting up the monitor without that information. My current monitor section reads:
The one thing that's gotten me excited is NX, and when I can migrate a session from windows to unix and back, and hijack the local desktop, then maybe I'll be a bit happier and find a little more use for my linux machine.
It's good that you are excited about technology was developed for Unix years ago.
Linux, in my home, is still just a big thing that runs samba so I can store all my porn on a computer built out of spare parts.
I too picked Samba for my file server. It doesn't have any silly restrictions on how many connections you can have.
I can tell you the one thing that sold my wife on switching all of our home computers to Linux, multi-user capability. Windows is trying to copy this feature. However, it's still very buggy under Windows.
We've dealt with member corporations of the RIAA sending us blanket takedown notices containing links to porn, and I don't think they do porn. Not yet anyways.
This makes me wonder what would happen if someone posted illegal content to YouTube with a filename that would be found by Viacom's bot. Does Viacom's claim of ownership make them liable for the content?
I spent most of my late teen years in a small town in Wyoming. Controlled house parties were common. I remember having a few right across the street from the police station. Everyone put their keys in a fish bowl and agreed not to drive anywhere until the next day. The police never arrested anyone unless they were doing something stupid. I don't remember anyone from that time getting killed due to drinking and driving.
About 5 years latter, the police started cracking down on underage drinking. They started arresting kids for any hint of alcohol. The result was that kids started driving up into the mountains or out on ranches to party. When the beer was gone, they would try to drive back to town. Every year now I hear about so-and-so getting killed in a drinking and driving accident, driving back from some party held out in the middle of nowhere to avoid the police.
Now maybe national statistics will agree with you. You can make statistics agree with most any point. However, experience tells me that the current drinking laws that ban responsible drinking for young adults kill far more then they save.
The question is: would they have any customers left?
Sure they would, all of the customer's who paid for "Local ISP's Preferred Windows Update Service". For just $19.95 more per month, we'll allow you to update your computer in a timely manner. Service available on Windows platform only.
When a prosecutor has it out for you, there isn't much that can be done.
Not only the prosecutor, but anybody with the power of the law. When I was about 14, I made the mistake of walking home just before curfew (11:00pM). A stolen car had been found about a block from my location. Sure enough, a cop stopped me and accused me of the theft. He kept me for questioning for about two hours. When he couldn't pin the crime on me (I didn't even know how to drive yet), he ticketed me for being out past curfew. The only reason I was out past curfew was because he had me locked in a car.
As for fighting it in court, it was my word against his as to when he picked me up. The judge didn't believe a kid.
I keep hearing about how great metric is because it is so easy to convert from one unit to the next. However, I keep thinking to myself, so what? I almost never need to convert between units. I just consistently use one unit depending on what I'm measuring. An earlier post gave mile/inch conversion as an example of how bad English units are. Why on earth would I care how many inches are in a mile?
However, yours is the first example I've found where metric is easier. I had to think about dividing 12 by 3. I didn't have to think about dividing 10 by 3. Thank you.
It is plain old stupid. 60 sec for a minute, 60 min in a hour, 24 hours per day, 12 months? That is nuts. Why not use: 100 sec an hour, 10 hour a day, 100 hours a month and so on?
Absolutely! I also don't know why we used such an awkward value for PI. It would make much more sense if PI = 1.
On the other hand, I've always liked the idea of lunar months. Thirteen months of 28 days makes a lot more sense than twelve months that are anywhere from 28 to 31 days long.
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I know of no hacked sat device that requires communication with the signal provider in order to work.
I'm not so sure about that. I use DISH for satellite service. Part of the service agreement requires a telephone connection to the receiver. If you disconnect the phone line, then a message is displayed on screen informing you that extra charges will be applied to your account if telephone service is not restored. Every month or so the software on the receiver changes. User options are added or removed. The firmware changes. This happens even if the phone line is disconnected. It does not require anyone from DISH showing up to do updates. I certainly believe that the satellite connection is two-way, though they do seem to prefer a phone connection over satellite up-link.
As for detecting emulated cards, I have no idea. I only know what I've discovered for myself. I have heard of emulated cards and of them being revoked. However, I've tried it myself.
I'm not really interested in the Atari 800. I have a 130XE. However, if you have one of the double-sided 5-1/4 drives in working condition ( I can't remember the number. It was FD something), I might be interested.
Maybe we could convince the government to place video cameras in key locations, such as the beach. It would certainly make catching litter bugs more economical. You could even attach speakers to the cameras. That way you could reprimand the offender while in the act and make them pick up their litter.
Economic sanctions against China and India? That would be interesting. I wonder how Americans would react to not being able buy any manufactured goods? I could see them trying to call their favorite manufacturer and finding the line busy. More relevant to my immediate interests, I wonder if the US would consider Taiwan to be part of China during such sanctions. I imagine the computer industry (Dell, Compaq, etc.) would be hit hard when they couldn't buy memory, motherboards, etc.
It wouldn't be that hard for the US to reclaim it's call centers. However, reclaiming it's manufacturing capabilities would be a long, hard battle.
I collect books. In the past, I'd buy a soft-back book to preview it. Then I'd buy the hard-back copy for my collection if I found it worth owning. The soft-backs get loaned out to friends and family. Only my Wife and I touch the hard-backs. Over the last few years I've thought about replacing the soft-backs with e-books. However, the majority of my purchases are still soft-back. E-books will never replace my hard-backs.
On the other hand, the computer lets you do things you simply can't do with dead tree media. For instance, keyword searches. That alone is enough to drive me to the computer. Then there's linking and annotation - you can scribble in the margins and you can insert bookmarks with notes on them but the former limits your data size severely and the latter is not secure, it's easy to lose data. What page was that marker on again? Where did this scrap of paper on the floor come from? Et cetera. And of course you can make audio annotations and the like.
With the exception of reference books, I've never needed keyword searches, linking or annotation. I never was the type to highlight favorite passages. However, bookmarks are indispensable. I'm curious. What software package do you use to read e-books? I've worked with text, HTML, and PDF. Text doesn't offer any features, except maybe a find function. HTML is better, or perhaps I should say HTML/CSS/XML/Whatever-else. It supports images, various typography, multimedia, and limited bookmarks. I say limited bookmarks because you can only bookmark to the nearest anchor. Most of the HTML e-books I've read are broken into chapters, with the nearest anchor at the start of the chapter. I have yet to find a browser that will let you annotate. Perhaps someone has written a Web 2.0 application that let's you open a read-only HTML book, bookmark where you choose, and annotate? PDF has been my favorite format so far. It breaks the document up into pages, offers a variety of views, includes all of the benefits of HTML, and (depending on the viewer) offers a nice interface to the predefined bookmarks. However, using Adobe Reader, I haven't found a way to create bookmarks or annotations.
I'm betting that eventually we'll have books that have a hundred pages or so, and you reprogram them by docking them with your computer.
I already do this with my PDA. It has a nice, high-resolution display and runs Adobe Reader. Of course, I'm not about to loan my PDA to friends and family so that they can read my collection. Copyright restrictions also must be considered before I e-mail them a copy of the book.
But I don't really argue that books will go away completely.
No, I don't believe the Internet, or e-books, will replace books any more than TV replaced radio, or radio replaced books. And despite the proliferation of pirated movies, I still purchase movies I enjoy on DVD.
time is an illusion of motion
Funny, I always figured motion was an illusion of time.
I always figured that time flies when you are having fun because your brain is too occupied with fun to notice the passage of time. Time seems to drag during those boring meetings because your brain has nothing to otherwise occupy it.
I might add to this that movies existed before the widespread use of VCRs, DVD players, and Blockbuster. People enjoy going out to the theater. Not only is it great for a date, theater owners can make an event of it. Throw in some hype, dress some actors up as characters, add "Smell-O-Vision", hold contests, etc. There is a theater near me that doubles as a bar. Drinking and eating are encouraged during the movie.
As for DVD sales, I personally prefer a pressed DVD, professionally produced, with all of the jacket material. If I own something, I prefer quality, not a knock-off or counterfeit product. Maybe that's just me?
The only sales I feel are really being hurt by P2P "Pirates" are rentals. It's the only market where I really see the same type of service being offered by both the studios and the pirates.
I cheat. /home is auto-mounted from a NFS server. Short of telling the box to grab the automount map from LDAP, I don't need to set up any personalization. It's already there. A new box is just new hardware. I do have different application sets depending on the hardware capabilities. However, that doesn't have anything to do with personalizing the system. Rather, it has to do with why the box was built.
I'm running Gentoo on a Dell Latitude C640 with an Intel 2200BG Wireless card. I'm using the Linux kernel driver and wpa_supplicant to control the card. I had to download the firmware from Intel. I saved it to /lib/firmware. UDev handles copying the firmware to the card. I don't think there are any other processes involved.
Maybe needing to download the firmware from Intel, rather then Ubuntu's repository, is why it's on the restricted list?
Federal regulations don't allow fully open source wireless drivers.
I suppose it depends on what you consider fully open. The Intel WiFi drivers are in the Linux kernel. However, you have to download Intel's closed firmware to make the card work. I don't really consider firmware to be part of the driver. The only reason you need to download it is because Intel didn't spend the money to include it on the card.
For the last few years, I've run a refurbishing center. We take used Dell, IBM, Toshiba, Compaq, HP, etc. laptops. The hardware is inspected, repaired, and cleaned. We image them with a fresh OS and then resell them. I've had a lot of experience with Dell's Latitude line, some experience with the Inspiron line, and almost none with the XPS line. Dell laptops are a joy to work with compared to other brands. They have excellent service manuals, an easy to navigate support site, and they use common components. There are no plastic tabs that are easy to break. All of the screws are clearly labeled. I can have a Dell completely taken apart and put back together in about 5 minutes. All of the FRUs are easily accessible. While working with Dell laptops, I've only encountered three different power supplies. IBM has them beat on this point. I've only encountered two different power supplies with IBM. Dell also works hard to keep batteries interchangeable between models.
The only real problem I've encountered with Dell was a vendor that sent us a bulk shipment of c610s stacked 30 deep. The units on the bottom suffered bruised screens.
I can't really vouch for anything new. All of the systems I touch are at least three years old. However, my personal laptop is a Dell running Gentoo. When I finally decide to get a new one, it will be a Dell. I've never used their warranty service. It's good to hear that it's as good as their product.
But if you happen to pick some junk PC/Sparc/Apple and would want to put it to better use, you soon would find that only flexibility of Gentoo allows you to make something real out of the junk.
I have to agree. I sometimes refurbish older computers for children to use. I've found that Gentoo is about the only current operating system that works well. The oldest system I've used is a 233MHz PII with 32MB of ram. It made a nice game computer for a 3-year old. Gcompris, Childsplay, and Tuxpaint all run great on it.
I've never been afraid of law enforcement unless I knew I was doing something wrong.
Of course not. There are a few reasons I can think of for your sense of safety.
First, you've deluded yourself into thinking you have done nothing wrong. Have you ever looked at the shear number of stupid and damaging laws that were put on the books to gain a few votes or donations? Sex is all but illegal where I live and you have to be careful what you say in parts of the city. Hell, for that matter, you have to be careful where you sit in parts of the city.
Second, you personally have never had a bad run-in with a cop. Good for you. When an office building catches fire, do you suppose the people inside felt safe before it happened? I've have a few run-ins with bad cops where I did nothing wrong. I still ended up in court.
Third, and I'm guessing on this one, you don't fall into any of the "Criminal" stereotypes. While this only provides you with marginal protection, it does mean you experience less harassment. When you were pulled over for driving without your lights on, did they rip apart your car and take dogs through it to check for drugs?
Consider yourself lucky that your experience thus far has been positive. However, keep in mind that your luck might run out one day.
It was a striped down Linux distro. Ok, they had to put it together, perhaps write some shell scripts. I'm not sure where the web interface came from. But did they have to release any super-secret proprietary source code? I doubt it.
Just off the top of my head, it's been a while.
They took the Linux kernel and patched to support a Broadcom wireless NIC. They then sold the compiled version as their own software. Someone found a bug in the interface that dropped them into a shell and discovered it was Linux. Linksys responded by offering the Linux kernel source without the patch. People complained when it didn't work and legal again was threatened. So Linksys rewrote the patch to use a binary blob. Nothing proprietary was lost.
Open Source developers then used the patch and blob to reverse engineer a Broadcom driver for BSD, and latter, Linux.
My memory of the events is hazy. I'm sure there is a Wiki article somewhere with more/better details.
Right. Which is why the OSS community is making such a big deal of them *now* - because the functionality has been around for ages ? Maybe that would also explain why, until quite recently, those fancy features were nowhere to be seen ?
I've been playing around with XGL for a couple of years. However, I couldn't remember when I first heard about it, so I looked it up. The earliest reference I found was an email from David Reveman dated Nov 4, 2004. The first I heard about AIGLX was in February 2006. nVidia presented a paper at XDevConf that talked about it. I don't have the history of development of Apple's Quartz Compositor handy. Maybe a Mac user can add that information? However, I believe it predates XGL. To be fair, Windows Aero Desktop Compositing Engine was first demoed in 2003.
I can just see that you're going to pull out some example from SGI
I was going to give Sun's Looking Glass as an example. However, the earliest material I can find on that is 2004. Maybe Microsoft was first on this one. However, to be fair, you couldn't use Aero until recently.
XGL/AIGLX has come a long way in a short time. It's biggest problem has historically been lack of interest and poor 3D support in Linux. I'm glad there is finally some interest being generated.
I think Steve Jobs has seen the future, and realised that the PC won't be so important, the action is all going to move to various types of devices aimed at consumers.
I see this as well. However, I don't really see consumer devices and the PC as being that different. Sure the shell is different, but it's still a computer inside. Now I do see different shells for different environments; large screen for TV, comfortable to talk for phone, light and durable for music, medium screen and input for desktop, toss on the bedside table for reading or notes. However, all of these devices still have a computer in them that's just as capable as any PC I currently use. The only thing I see happening here is better, more specialized, interfaces.
I have to agree. The smartest move Microsoft ever made was dumping the 95 series for NT. However, a lot of recent improvements were driven by Linux bringing design flaws to light, especially in the area of security.
OpenOffice works, but it just feels clunky - it feels like the versino of word I used on win 3.1
That's not really surprising. OpenOffice is trying to feel like MSOffice because that is the only office suite most corporate types know. Now, if you're saying that MSOfficeXP (the most recent version I've used) isn't as clunky as MSOffice97, I'd have to disagree.
MPlayer will start and randomly not play sound. Sound is still a big kludgy wtf-is-goin-on type thing. Should I be using ALSA, or ESD or
It sounds like a conflict between different sound servers. Personally, I'd dump everything except ALSA. ALSA can handle multiple applications and all major sound applications include direct support for it.
Bon Echo feels bloaty and slow - but firefox under windows XP on the same hardware is snappy and responsive.
Are you comparing the same versions? Bon Echo was the development platform for Firefox2. I currently use 2.0.0.1 on the same hardware under Gentoo and XP. It feels the same.
right down to fucking around with monitor frequencies by hand?
Why would you need to do that? Sure, you have the option. However, X is very good at setting up the monitor without that information. My current monitor section reads: 1280 x 1024 works great on my HP LCD.
The one thing that's gotten me excited is NX, and when I can migrate a session from windows to unix and back, and hijack the local desktop, then maybe I'll be a bit happier and find a little more use for my linux machine.
It's good that you are excited about technology was developed for Unix years ago.
Linux, in my home, is still just a big thing that runs samba so I can store all my porn on a computer built out of spare parts.
I too picked Samba for my file server. It doesn't have any silly restrictions on how many connections you can have.
I can tell you the one thing that sold my wife on switching all of our home computers to Linux, multi-user capability. Windows is trying to copy this feature. However, it's still very buggy under Windows.
We've dealt with member corporations of the RIAA sending us blanket takedown notices containing links to porn, and I don't think they do porn. Not yet anyways.
This makes me wonder what would happen if someone posted illegal content to YouTube with a filename that would be found by Viacom's bot. Does Viacom's claim of ownership make them liable for the content?
I spent most of my late teen years in a small town in Wyoming. Controlled house parties were common. I remember having a few right across the street from the police station. Everyone put their keys in a fish bowl and agreed not to drive anywhere until the next day. The police never arrested anyone unless they were doing something stupid. I don't remember anyone from that time getting killed due to drinking and driving.
About 5 years latter, the police started cracking down on underage drinking. They started arresting kids for any hint of alcohol. The result was that kids started driving up into the mountains or out on ranches to party. When the beer was gone, they would try to drive back to town. Every year now I hear about so-and-so getting killed in a drinking and driving accident, driving back from some party held out in the middle of nowhere to avoid the police.
Now maybe national statistics will agree with you. You can make statistics agree with most any point. However, experience tells me that the current drinking laws that ban responsible drinking for young adults kill far more then they save.
The question is: would they have any customers left?
Sure they would, all of the customer's who paid for "Local ISP's Preferred Windows Update Service". For just $19.95 more per month, we'll allow you to update your computer in a timely manner. Service available on Windows platform only.
If fact, we Americans are mere chattle as far as the government and most Fortune 500 companies are concerned.
I believe the term is "Human Resources".
When a prosecutor has it out for you, there isn't much that can be done.
Not only the prosecutor, but anybody with the power of the law. When I was about 14, I made the mistake of walking home just before curfew (11:00pM). A stolen car had been found about a block from my location. Sure enough, a cop stopped me and accused me of the theft. He kept me for questioning for about two hours. When he couldn't pin the crime on me (I didn't even know how to drive yet), he ticketed me for being out past curfew. The only reason I was out past curfew was because he had me locked in a car.
As for fighting it in court, it was my word against his as to when he picked me up. The judge didn't believe a kid.
But How big is a 3rd of a meter?
Around 33cm. What, you can't divide?
I keep hearing about how great metric is because it is so easy to convert from one unit to the next. However, I keep thinking to myself, so what? I almost never need to convert between units. I just consistently use one unit depending on what I'm measuring. An earlier post gave mile/inch conversion as an example of how bad English units are. Why on earth would I care how many inches are in a mile?
However, yours is the first example I've found where metric is easier. I had to think about dividing 12 by 3. I didn't have to think about dividing 10 by 3. Thank you.
It is plain old stupid. 60 sec for a minute, 60 min in a hour, 24 hours per day, 12 months? That is nuts. Why not use: 100 sec an hour, 10 hour a day, 100 hours a month and so on?
Absolutely! I also don't know why we used such an awkward value for PI. It would make much more sense if PI = 1.
On the other hand, I've always liked the idea of lunar months. Thirteen months of 28 days makes a lot more sense than twelve months that are anywhere from 28 to 31 days long.