At one point, serious computers ran Unix. PCs were just toys, not useful for doing real work with.
But Unix fragmented. You had AIX, HPUX, and around a dozen other different kinds. They all behaved differently, stored things in different places in the filesystem, had different desktop environments.
Windows came along with a single environment and suddenly *that* was the attractive place to develop software.
One would assume, from this quote, that PC were toys until Windows unified standards on the PC. However, this is not what happened. PCs were toys that didn't have the hardware to run Unix. CP/M was considered. However, due to cost and connections, MS-DOS/PC-DOS was chosen to run on them. Advances were made in the hardware and Windows came about. Windows was made by the same people that made MS-DOS. OS/2 tried to compete. However, Microsoft already had the market by that time. Windows didn't have competition on the PC platform again until Linux.
Were there other platforms? Sure. Apple did well in education and art. Atari and Commodore did well in the home markets. However, IBM had the business market and the PC was originally made by them. People used the PC at work and wanted it at home as well.
Windows dominance had nothing to do with Unix fragmentation. It had everything to do with cost and marketing.
And the software people need to run for real productivity purposes - Autocad, Photoshop, things like that - are all for Windows.
Autocad had a Unix version. Photoshop still runs on both Windows and OSX. Microstation runs on Windows, OSX, and Linux. Developers started favoring Windows because users favored Windows. Users favored Windows, at first because of the cost of hardware and latter because it was "What Everyone Uses".
Without some sort of standards how would a helpdesk worker even know where the "start button" is on a caller's "Linux Desktop"?
Reminds me of a time when Helpdesk was moving from computer to computer in the office making some change to the network setup. They wanted to start IE to make sure the change was working on each computer. The tech became really confused when he couldn't find IE on my computer. It's not that I didn't have it. Everyone had the same software that IT forced them to use. It's that I had customized my Start menu. I had changed it from the Windows standard of each vendor getting their own submenu to submenus based on function. He never thought to look for IE under Internet.
As for Helpdesk knowing where the start menu is on the Linux Desktop, why doesn't Helpdesk simply state that they only support a given set of standards? Helpdesk at work is more than happy to help me when I can't get an Internet connection. The first thing they ask me to do is start up IE. I also have Firefox installed. However, Helpdesk doesn't support Firefox. It isn't part of their standard installation package.
At home, if I have problems with Internet, the tech has me log into the router and we diagnose the problem from there. My ISP doesn't support Linux. Luckily, they also realize that Windows isn't the only OS that uses TCP/IP.
You must have a wiring/socket issue if you are going thru them so fast.
That is my suspicion. The house is old military housing from WWII. When I moved in, I had to replace a circuit breaker. I ended up going to an antique dealer to find one that would fit the panel. I've been wanting to rewire. However, it's just one of many planned expenditures.
I haven't had any other electronics problems. I figure a decent UPS will tell me what my power is doing when I get a chance to pick one up.
I too have an older house. I tried out a few different CFL bulbs. They last just as long as incandescents in my experience, about six months. However, I have not experienced the slow startup time I've heard about. I've started switching to 40w incandescents in rooms that don't require bright lights. I'm waiting to see if there is a difference in how long they last.
It's not news anymore that plants may "cry in pain" when attacked or damaged by a hungry herbivore, but now we know that there is a way to stop all this vegetable "suffering" right in your medicine cabinet -- with simple aspirin.
Each root apex harbours a unit of nervous system of plants. The number of root apices in the plant body is high and all brain-units are interconnected via vascular strands (plant nerves) with their polarly-transported auxin (plant neurotransmitter), to form a serial (parallel) nervous system of plants. The computational and informational capacity of this nervous system based on interconnected parallel units is predicted to be higher than that of the diffuse nervous system of lower animals, or the central nervous system of higher animals/humans.
Laptops are a pain. Forget the password and the manufacturer will tell you to replace the motherboard.
The system password is stored in protected flash. Some of the older models had a default password you could use or a series of parallel port pins you could short to reset it. I've also heard of desoldering the chip and replacing it with a new chip. There are a few places that claim they can decrypt the chip, for a price.
They have it set up this way to discourage laptop theft. Basically, if you forget your BIOS password, the laptop is garbage unless it is covered by warranty.
Absolutely. I'd suggest splitting it up into North-East, South-East, and West. The Mid-West can act as a buffer between East and West. I'm just not sure where to fit California into the mix.
With the exception of beer, alcohol may only be served in private clubs and sold by the state. Alcohol may be served in restaurants, but only if it's mixing is hidden.
We have shops that legally sell sex toys and pornographic movies, and billboards on the freeways advertising their existence.
Pornographic movies are illegal in Utah. You are confusing porn with "Made for Cable" skinflicks. As for the billboards, those are advertisements for businesses that exist in Wyoming and Nevada.
I'm not sure about Office 2008. However, with Office 2007, you have to be careful with the "Compatibility" mode. Saving in a 2003 format, Office will still save all of the 2007 features. As long as it's opened 2007, everything will look fine. However, when you open it in 2003, things can look really bad.
The gotcha is that you have no clue what the document will look like unless you open it in 2003. 2007 hides the changes it needs to make in order to maintain compatibility.
less than 1% of U.S. adults know what percent of the planet's water is fresh (the correct answer is 3%)
I didn't know the exact answer to this one myself, though I'd hazard the guess that it's a small percentage of land mass.
40% of U.S. adults say they are "not at all knowledgeable" about sustainability.
I'd hope that most people would pick "not at all knowledgeable" if they didn't have the information readily available. It's the people that don't have the information readily available and pick "knowledgeable" that scare me.
I do agree with most of your post. However, some points seem a bit off.
How many states are there?
Geo-political question
How many MAJOR branches of the government are there and name them.
Civics question
How many stripes and stars are on the USA flag?
Civics question
Name 3 countries in europe.
Geo-political question
Name 3 countries in Asia.
Geo-political question
Name 3 countries in south america.
Geo-political question
Name 3 countries in north america.
Geo-political question
Explain how you can calculate your approximate destination time from your speed and distance.
Math question. The answer is that you can't. You can only calculate the approximate travel time without a start time.
The majority of your questions are political in nature. While the answers might be of scientific interest to a sociologist, they don't test scientific literacy very well. However, the gist of your message is about illiteracy in general, not scientific illiteracy.
...cant understand why Americans cant speak more than 1 language
I can find plenty of historical causes for this. The main cause would seem, to me, to be national pride and the subjugation of anyone that doesn't speak English. However, on a practical level, I'd say it's because many Americans don't interact with people that speak a different language. America is a large, culturally isolated country. It has a history of dumping the old ways (culture, language, etc) in favor of the new.
This is changing. By choice, my oldest daughter is trying to learn Spanish and Japanese. She has friends whose primary language is Spanish and she has an interest in Japanese animation. My nephew is learning Chinese in high school. His interest is in business.
...demand that all truancy laws be reinstated
Which truancy laws were revoked? Unless I register as a Home Schooler, I get fined for not sending my kids to school. If they miss too much school, the state will take them away from me. If I register as a Home Schooler, then they must pass regular, standardized tests. As for why someone would choose to home school their kids, that is really a different discussion. However, I'd say it's because public school is far more interested in political indoctrination and less interested in providing a basic education.
3 of the highschools around here will give you a diploma even if you cant read.
The only solution I can find is for more people to become politically involved. Unfortunately, most people don't have the time that would require. On top of that, it can seem like an impossible task when you are alone against the system.
And if you accept that, then the scientific method is just as worthless as if you regularly deny the visual evidence of 6 billion people the world over when it comes to the color of the grass and the sky.
While the color of the grass and sky are, on average, green and blue, I disagree with there being 6 billion people over the world. Clearly, there is only myself. The rest are only a nightmare.
Scientific method is the detailed analysis of my nightmare. It doesn't really apply to reality.
If an anonymous statement holds no weight, then why is journalism filled with "anonymous sources say" and "unnamed government officials state"?
Because it's not just anonymous. It's anonymous, vetted by the journalist. It's unnamed, who works for the government. You have added weight to the anonymous statement.
An anonymous statement posted in the New York Times has a certain level of trust attached. I trust that the editor evaluated the sources and agreed to print the statement. An anonymous statement posted to 4chan carries no weight. I've continually heard rumours of a zombie invasion. From my understanding, the government is doing nothing to help these poor, trapped people.
Most people are willing to trust an anonymous statement if it is not extreme and seems to mesh with their pre-existing world view.
This I can agree with. I've met several people who quote Slashdot in support of their government conspiracies.
Electrodes implanted in its head to make it fly wherever you want? Thats not interesting, its sick.
Not any more than a bug zapper or pesticides.
As for interesting, I would find it very interesting to be able to decode information from the bug's vision sensors. It might help create working artificial eyes or robotic vision systems.
Now, if they decide to pack these in plastic and sell them at WallMart as toys, I might object.
While looking at the video you linked to, I came across this: Cyborg insects. It is a video from NewScientist that shows wired moths. They also show a clip where they are studying the moth's vision for use in robotics.
So, I asked her if she wanted to try Ubuntu, and installed it in the laptop.
My sister-in-law asked me for a Linux computer about a year ago. Her son's school was moving to Linux and she wanted him to have a head start.
My sister-in-law lives a little over a thousand miles from me. If things went really wrong, I wouldn't be able to do much to fix it. However, if her son was learning this at school, I figured he would be able to seek help there. I chose KUbuntu because I had heard it was easy to maintain.
About a month after receiving the laptop, the networking broke. I had my sister-in-law open the command line and try out some simple ipconfig and iwlist commands. They reported that the interface didn't exist. She also told me that the laptop had been lent out and she was afraid the bottom of the machine (where the network card is) had gotten wet.
We decided it was a hardware problem and gave up. However, my sister-in-law doesn't give up easily. She had me talk her through a reinstall about a month ago. The reinstall worked and networking was repaired. Maybe I should have suggested it first. It turns out that her son was applying updates. The updates were about half done when he turned the computer off. He started it back up, networking didn't work, it got handed off to Mom. She had seen the updates ready to install. However, she figured that clicking on OK after seeing the list would install them. I guess the package manager for KUbuntu has some kind of preview function. She was previewing the list of packages to upgrade when she thought she was actually upgrading them.
At any rate, the laptop is working fine now, and she learned how to install to OS and software.
In KDE 4.1 the 'huge chuncky panel' can be set to any desirable size
Something else to point out. In KDE4, you can completely do away with panels. The menu, system tray, clock, task bar, etc., can all be run right off the desktop. There is no need for a panel to confine them to the edge of the screen. It's how I've been running my desktop for a while now.
Your story reminds me of when my computer privileges were suspended for copyright violations.
This was also in the early 90s. The offending file? I used telnet and kept IP numbers in a text file. It was easier to keep them in a text file than to write them down.
Their argument was that the telnet program used the IP numbers. Therefore, the owners of the telnet program also owned the IP numbers.
As annoying as it is to not be able to install your own software, I remember when everyone was allowed to install software. The network was down more than up because of stupid people installing virus-infested screen savers.
Most office drones don't have a clue how to use a computer. A lot of the people I deal with can't even deal with multi-tasking. They panic and get lost if more than one application is open.
It's far cheaper to lock the computers down and give privileges to a select few than to open it up for everyone.
studios are skeptical that users will accept all the ads that need to accompany a feature film in order to make it profitable.
It depends on how many ads they run. I watch Hulu a bit to catch shows I've missed or not seen in years. They generally have one 15-second commercial every 10 minutes or so. It is far less than broadcast television.
If they are going to have breaks anyway, I wish they were a bit longer. It would give me time to get a snack.
I'm not a programmer. However, I do design spreadsheets. I can't imagine why a designer would intentionally pass a string to a function expecting a number. If it's a matter of end-user input, use data validation.
The spreadsheet designers put strings into formulas...
Slashdot Mirror
At one point, serious computers ran Unix. PCs were just toys, not useful for doing real work with. But Unix fragmented. You had AIX, HPUX, and around a dozen other different kinds. They all behaved differently, stored things in different places in the filesystem, had different desktop environments. Windows came along with a single environment and suddenly *that* was the attractive place to develop software.
One would assume, from this quote, that PC were toys until Windows unified standards on the PC. However, this is not what happened. PCs were toys that didn't have the hardware to run Unix. CP/M was considered. However, due to cost and connections, MS-DOS/PC-DOS was chosen to run on them. Advances were made in the hardware and Windows came about. Windows was made by the same people that made MS-DOS. OS/2 tried to compete. However, Microsoft already had the market by that time. Windows didn't have competition on the PC platform again until Linux.
Were there other platforms? Sure. Apple did well in education and art. Atari and Commodore did well in the home markets. However, IBM had the business market and the PC was originally made by them. People used the PC at work and wanted it at home as well.
Windows dominance had nothing to do with Unix fragmentation. It had everything to do with cost and marketing.
And the software people need to run for real productivity purposes - Autocad, Photoshop, things like that - are all for Windows.
Autocad had a Unix version. Photoshop still runs on both Windows and OSX. Microstation runs on Windows, OSX, and Linux. Developers started favoring Windows because users favored Windows. Users favored Windows, at first because of the cost of hardware and latter because it was "What Everyone Uses".
Without some sort of standards how would a helpdesk worker even know where the "start button" is on a caller's "Linux Desktop"?
Reminds me of a time when Helpdesk was moving from computer to computer in the office making some change to the network setup. They wanted to start IE to make sure the change was working on each computer. The tech became really confused when he couldn't find IE on my computer. It's not that I didn't have it. Everyone had the same software that IT forced them to use. It's that I had customized my Start menu. I had changed it from the Windows standard of each vendor getting their own submenu to submenus based on function. He never thought to look for IE under Internet.
As for Helpdesk knowing where the start menu is on the Linux Desktop, why doesn't Helpdesk simply state that they only support a given set of standards? Helpdesk at work is more than happy to help me when I can't get an Internet connection. The first thing they ask me to do is start up IE. I also have Firefox installed. However, Helpdesk doesn't support Firefox. It isn't part of their standard installation package.
At home, if I have problems with Internet, the tech has me log into the router and we diagnose the problem from there. My ISP doesn't support Linux. Luckily, they also realize that Windows isn't the only OS that uses TCP/IP.
You must have a wiring/socket issue if you are going thru them so fast.
That is my suspicion. The house is old military housing from WWII. When I moved in, I had to replace a circuit breaker. I ended up going to an antique dealer to find one that would fit the panel. I've been wanting to rewire. However, it's just one of many planned expenditures.
I haven't had any other electronics problems. I figure a decent UPS will tell me what my power is doing when I get a chance to pick one up.
I too have an older house. I tried out a few different CFL bulbs. They last just as long as incandescents in my experience, about six months. However, I have not experienced the slow startup time I've heard about. I've started switching to 40w incandescents in rooms that don't require bright lights. I'm waiting to see if there is a difference in how long they last.
We all have our pet peeves. Mine is people that go around claiming things are stupid and unscientific when they have no scientific backing.
Please try to research a subject before you claim it is unscientific, or stupid:
Study Shows Aspirin Blocks Plant Pain
It's not news anymore that plants may "cry in pain" when attacked or damaged by a hungry herbivore, but now we know that there is a way to stop all this vegetable "suffering" right in your medicine cabinet -- with simple aspirin.
Neurobiological View of Plants and their Body Plan
Each root apex harbours a unit of nervous system of plants. The number of root apices in the plant body is high and all brain-units are interconnected via vascular strands (plant nerves) with their polarly-transported auxin (plant neurotransmitter), to form a serial (parallel) nervous system of plants. The computational and informational capacity of this nervous system based on interconnected parallel units is predicted to be higher than that of the diffuse nervous system of lower animals, or the central nervous system of higher animals/humans.
Laptops are a pain. Forget the password and the manufacturer will tell you to replace the motherboard.
The system password is stored in protected flash. Some of the older models had a default password you could use or a series of parallel port pins you could short to reset it. I've also heard of desoldering the chip and replacing it with a new chip. There are a few places that claim they can decrypt the chip, for a price.
They have it set up this way to discourage laptop theft. Basically, if you forget your BIOS password, the laptop is garbage unless it is covered by warranty.
Every motherboard I've ever worked with either had a BIOS reset jumper or the CMOS battery was removable.
You've never worked on a laptop.
Absolutely. I'd suggest splitting it up into North-East, South-East, and West. The Mid-West can act as a buffer between East and West. I'm just not sure where to fit California into the mix.
... and alcohol are legal in Utah.
With the exception of beer, alcohol may only be served in private clubs and sold by the state. Alcohol may be served in restaurants, but only if it's mixing is hidden.
We have shops that legally sell sex toys and pornographic movies, and billboards on the freeways advertising their existence.
Pornographic movies are illegal in Utah. You are confusing porn with "Made for Cable" skinflicks. As for the billboards, those are advertisements for businesses that exist in Wyoming and Nevada.
I'm not sure about Office 2008. However, with Office 2007, you have to be careful with the "Compatibility" mode. Saving in a 2003 format, Office will still save all of the 2007 features. As long as it's opened 2007, everything will look fine. However, when you open it in 2003, things can look really bad.
The gotcha is that you have no clue what the document will look like unless you open it in 2003. 2007 hides the changes it needs to make in order to maintain compatibility.
You see, weapons are special, because they do not have non-destructive uses. You either kill people with them ... or you hunt and kill animals...
So, what you are saying is, if a weapon has a non-destructive use, it is no longer a weapon?
less than 1% of U.S. adults know what percent of the planet's water is fresh (the correct answer is 3%)
I didn't know the exact answer to this one myself, though I'd hazard the guess that it's a small percentage of land mass.
40% of U.S. adults say they are "not at all knowledgeable" about sustainability.
I'd hope that most people would pick "not at all knowledgeable" if they didn't have the information readily available. It's the people that don't have the information readily available and pick "knowledgeable" that scare me.
I do agree with most of your post. However, some points seem a bit off.
How many states are there?
Geo-political question
How many MAJOR branches of the government are there and name them.
Civics question
How many stripes and stars are on the USA flag?
Civics question
Name 3 countries in europe.
Geo-political question
Name 3 countries in Asia.
Geo-political question
Name 3 countries in south america.
Geo-political question
Name 3 countries in north america.
Geo-political question
Explain how you can calculate your approximate destination time from your speed and distance.
Math question. The answer is that you can't. You can only calculate the approximate travel time without a start time.
The majority of your questions are political in nature. While the answers might be of scientific interest to a sociologist, they don't test scientific literacy very well. However, the gist of your message is about illiteracy in general, not scientific illiteracy.
...cant understand why Americans cant speak more than 1 language
I can find plenty of historical causes for this. The main cause would seem, to me, to be national pride and the subjugation of anyone that doesn't speak English. However, on a practical level, I'd say it's because many Americans don't interact with people that speak a different language. America is a large, culturally isolated country. It has a history of dumping the old ways (culture, language, etc) in favor of the new.
This is changing. By choice, my oldest daughter is trying to learn Spanish and Japanese. She has friends whose primary language is Spanish and she has an interest in Japanese animation. My nephew is learning Chinese in high school. His interest is in business.
...demand that all truancy laws be reinstated
Which truancy laws were revoked? Unless I register as a Home Schooler, I get fined for not sending my kids to school. If they miss too much school, the state will take them away from me. If I register as a Home Schooler, then they must pass regular, standardized tests. As for why someone would choose to home school their kids, that is really a different discussion. However, I'd say it's because public school is far more interested in political indoctrination and less interested in providing a basic education.
3 of the highschools around here will give you a diploma even if you cant read.
The only solution I can find is for more people to become politically involved. Unfortunately, most people don't have the time that would require. On top of that, it can seem like an impossible task when you are alone against the system.
And if you accept that, then the scientific method is just as worthless as if you regularly deny the visual evidence of 6 billion people the world over when it comes to the color of the grass and the sky.
While the color of the grass and sky are, on average, green and blue, I disagree with there being 6 billion people over the world. Clearly, there is only myself. The rest are only a nightmare.
Scientific method is the detailed analysis of my nightmare. It doesn't really apply to reality.
If an anonymous statement holds no weight, then why is journalism filled with "anonymous sources say" and "unnamed government officials state"?
Because it's not just anonymous. It's anonymous, vetted by the journalist. It's unnamed, who works for the government. You have added weight to the anonymous statement.
An anonymous statement posted in the New York Times has a certain level of trust attached. I trust that the editor evaluated the sources and agreed to print the statement. An anonymous statement posted to 4chan carries no weight. I've continually heard rumours of a zombie invasion. From my understanding, the government is doing nothing to help these poor, trapped people.
Most people are willing to trust an anonymous statement if it is not extreme and seems to mesh with their pre-existing world view.
This I can agree with. I've met several people who quote Slashdot in support of their government conspiracies.
You can format an iPod using HFS+ on a Mac, but then it won't work with Windows until you re-format it.
My iPod is old. It uses HFS+. It also uses FireWire. However, I've never used it under Windows. It works great under Linux.
Then there's ESPN, that wants to impose the cable TV model upon ISPs...
Would ESPN have viewers if not for the cable TV model?
Electrodes implanted in its head to make it fly wherever you want? Thats not interesting, its sick.
Not any more than a bug zapper or pesticides.
As for interesting, I would find it very interesting to be able to decode information from the bug's vision sensors. It might help create working artificial eyes or robotic vision systems.
Now, if they decide to pack these in plastic and sell them at WallMart as toys, I might object.
While looking at the video you linked to, I came across this: Cyborg insects. It is a video from NewScientist that shows wired moths. They also show a clip where they are studying the moth's vision for use in robotics.
Interesting stuff...
So, I asked her if she wanted to try Ubuntu, and installed it in the laptop.
My sister-in-law asked me for a Linux computer about a year ago. Her son's school was moving to Linux and she wanted him to have a head start.
My sister-in-law lives a little over a thousand miles from me. If things went really wrong, I wouldn't be able to do much to fix it. However, if her son was learning this at school, I figured he would be able to seek help there. I chose KUbuntu because I had heard it was easy to maintain.
About a month after receiving the laptop, the networking broke. I had my sister-in-law open the command line and try out some simple ipconfig and iwlist commands. They reported that the interface didn't exist. She also told me that the laptop had been lent out and she was afraid the bottom of the machine (where the network card is) had gotten wet.
We decided it was a hardware problem and gave up. However, my sister-in-law doesn't give up easily. She had me talk her through a reinstall about a month ago. The reinstall worked and networking was repaired. Maybe I should have suggested it first. It turns out that her son was applying updates. The updates were about half done when he turned the computer off. He started it back up, networking didn't work, it got handed off to Mom. She had seen the updates ready to install. However, she figured that clicking on OK after seeing the list would install them. I guess the package manager for KUbuntu has some kind of preview function. She was previewing the list of packages to upgrade when she thought she was actually upgrading them.
At any rate, the laptop is working fine now, and she learned how to install to OS and software.
In KDE 4.1 the 'huge chuncky panel' can be set to any desirable size
Something else to point out. In KDE4, you can completely do away with panels. The menu, system tray, clock, task bar, etc., can all be run right off the desktop. There is no need for a panel to confine them to the edge of the screen. It's how I've been running my desktop for a while now.
Your story reminds me of when my computer privileges were suspended for copyright violations.
This was also in the early 90s. The offending file? I used telnet and kept IP numbers in a text file. It was easier to keep them in a text file than to write them down.
Their argument was that the telnet program used the IP numbers. Therefore, the owners of the telnet program also owned the IP numbers.
If you really want to laugh, this was a college.
As annoying as it is to not be able to install your own software, I remember when everyone was allowed to install software. The network was down more than up because of stupid people installing virus-infested screen savers.
Most office drones don't have a clue how to use a computer. A lot of the people I deal with can't even deal with multi-tasking. They panic and get lost if more than one application is open.
It's far cheaper to lock the computers down and give privileges to a select few than to open it up for everyone.
studios are skeptical that users will accept all the ads that need to accompany a feature film in order to make it profitable.
It depends on how many ads they run. I watch Hulu a bit to catch shows I've missed or not seen in years. They generally have one 15-second commercial every 10 minutes or so. It is far less than broadcast television.
If they are going to have breaks anyway, I wish they were a bit longer. It would give me time to get a snack.
I'm not a programmer. However, I do design spreadsheets. I can't imagine why a designer would intentionally pass a string to a function expecting a number. If it's a matter of end-user input, use data validation.
The spreadsheet designers put strings into formulas...
Why would you do this?