Absolutely. I don't have much trouble with the technical blizzblazz of X, but I'd like to have a disencruftified X (or a feature-slim replacement) to use in RAM-shortage and/or who-needs-it-anyway (ie: desktop) situations. The only reason I keep it around is for compatibility. Anyone out there working on a mini-X that provides basic application compatibility w/o all the cool stuff? I'd be working on it myself, but I know I'd screw it up and piss everyone off.
This (what the article is about) looks very, very useful--moreso than its makers realize, I think.
Surprisingly good. I've used Earthlink for about two years, and the total time I've been unable to connect has been two hours (and it was only one occasion; the local dial-up # was hosed, so I just dialed one a few miles away to get my 'mail).
The only other problem was a DNS f-up a few weeks ago that lasted, like, ten minutes. No biggie.
Living in an area--actually just a part of a city--where nothing faster is available for a decent price, and the local dial-up ISPs are overburdened to the point that it's like going through AOL's proxies, Earthlink's been nice. And cheap.
Any suggestions for a vocabulary suited to our new postmodernized probably-crimes? I'm stumped. I never thought I'd say such a thing, but here goes: This is a job for Katz!
(-1, Katzlicker)
Okay, okay. Maybe not Katz. Where's Nietzsche when you need him?
This is a good forum for spreading the new "meme" [barfs] once someone thinks up a cute name for it. I mean, look how many of us let "corporatism" drool out of us, however nebulous a concept it may be (or, really, grow up to be, someday; I still don't have a clue what it is except that it probably sucks). Anyone out there onto it yet?
I don't really disagree with you, but I think that to concede to terms like "theft" and "piracy" is to messy up the discourse to the detriment of those who want reform or even honest debate.
Piracy is robbery committed by guys with stinky beards, wearing funny blue and red suits, sometimes with missing legs, often with parrots on their shoulders, always on a boat, and always against other stinky guys on other boats (and usually the other guys all have dirty white doo-rags on). This doesn't happen much.
Theft is stealin' stuff. Taking it back to your place without permission.
Copyright infringement (or, in more "artistic" cases, appropriation or parody or satire; in "fansite" cases, free advertising or freeloading, depending on intent) is what this is about. And I think it's "bad," mostly, but it's not the same "bad" as mugging or bodysnatching.
Conservative types would call this kind of messying-of-terms a false assumption of "moral equivalence" (though I doubt many would spot it in this case), because based on flawed premises (or flawed language (=premises)(sorry; been learning LISP:-))), logic is impossible. Katz isn't free of this problem either, thanks to his buzzword-quota.
I think a good first step for "both sides" in this non-debate would be to stop doing the PR-trained equivalent of calling each other cocksuckers.
Amen. This is why I'm not getting any use out of my Linux partitions right now. All my computers are late-model Apples (sorry, guys), and all the up-to-date, non-beta PPC distributions are modified Red Hat, so they all have the same problem. They're just so weighty, burdened with false dependencies, that I can't get a satisfactorily slim system if I include anything more than bare X in an install--which, for me, is pretty useless. I know my sucky experiences aren't because Linux sucks, because it isn't Linux's fault, but I do recommend to all my acquaintances that they avoid Linux unless Debian or Slackware works on their boxes, lest they get a bad opinion of the OS based on the shittiness of certain distributions. Eagerly awaiting Debian PPC, OS X, and a locally bootable NetBSD....
Back on topic: UI standardization would be nice, so long as the weird Red Hat/GNOME/KDE top-down dependency model is ditched in the process.
"Redundant" Aside: [...] more "moderator abuse" [grumble] [...] anyone who mentions an iMac [grumble] [...] Linux runs on 'em, y'know [grumble] [...] fuckers!
This guy has a point. Sort of. Since grabbing at your mouse all day is very likely to cause you pain, having a smaller keyboard that allows you to put your mouse in a closer, more "natural" position is a good thing--if the little keyboard doesn't hurt you. Myself, although I have huge hands (see, e.g., Jimi Hendrix), I have no trouble using the tiny Apple keyboards, and I think it's because my meeces (2, for a total of six buttons) and pen-tablet-thingy aren't half a block away from my space bar.
I think I accidentally disengeekified the term last weekend when a friend of mine attempted in my presence to over-tip a heinously bad and not-even-cute waitress. It went sorta like this:
Me, at the bar, full of Bombay, hating the ugly waitress: "Don't be a karma whore! She's not even cute!"
Everyone-else-I-know, ever since then, whenever someone is being too nice: "Don't be a karma whore!"
None of us really qualify as geeks (I'm pretty much a closet case). And I'm terribly sorry.
A theme is not an interface. Looking sorta like a Mac (but not really) isn't the same as being like one.
You wouldn't know this if you're a Linux/Windows guy (two camps that are regrettably becoming way-similar in interface design philosophy, and can be lumped together in that regard, if not others), but the Mac [G]UI has, on its underside, tremendously efficient code. The whole Mac system (as of OS 9) uses less memory than GNOME alone does (on my boxes; your experience may vary). Limitations (and designed-in Windows-like-ness) of X and whatever-DE and whatever-WM, combined with their collective ever-increasing bloat, make their Mac-ness, when themed to look like one, superficial (at best). They just can't fake the (good) simplicity and (underrated) efficiency. And while the Mac code itself might not be useful, the overall design (of the whole thing, not its "theme") is something more Linux UI developers should look at. But they won't. Macs are for fags. Right?
I'd add Alfred Bester (esp. his short stories (collected in "Virtual Unrealities")), William Burroughs (esp. "The Wild Boys," though Gibson's not nearly as "literary"), and, maybe, Thomas Pynchon (though I'm not as comfortable making the comparison as Gibson himself is). But, one thing these guys all have that Gibson doesn't is a deep personal knowledge of paranoia, and of its usefulness as a literary worldview. Gibson's adoption of a paranoid viewpoint is boring and stereotypical in comparison. It reminds me of a WTO protest, or the Freepers. Not that I don't like his stuff. I just think it's less "deep" than his fans do.
Re: Neal Stephenson
He's not certifiably "cyberpunk," because his literary persona isn't cool and (anti-)corporate, it's geeky and (anti-)corporate. Instead of spouting about fashion and lit-crit amongst the fake-tech, Stephenson's all about algorhythms and cartography (and other "boring" stuff). Their "cultural insights" vary accordingly. But he is similar to Gibson/Sterling et al in many ways. I've said it on/. before, but I think of him as a lesser Thomas Pynchon or William Gass (esp. "The Tunnel," probably the best "big, thick book" since "Ulysses"), whereas Gibson is a lesser Burroughs or Bester. I think the "inventiveness" of both comes from their inability to emulate their heroes as well as they'd like to.
1) Anyone who actually gives two shits about Life On Slashdot should notify Malda of the above "moderator abuse." I don't. [Fart noise.]
2) I've used a few OSes, and had a few more inflicted on me at jobs, and re "stability" I'd rank them in this order: MacOS, Irix, DOS, Be, Solaris, NetBSD, Amiga, Linux, Windows. I doubt anyone else would agree with me, because, see, there's this weird thing people do: they use their computers for different things. You can go play Quake now.
Re:Do all macs still have SCSI as standard equipme
on
Darwin on Crusoe?
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· Score: 1
For a few years they've used IDE (which is why iMacs aren't $5000), the expensive boxes do drive slavery (never had to mess with the innards of a cheap one, so I don't know about those), and internal SCSI has been pretty much dropped in favor of FireWire connections (at least on the G4s I've been looking at, which obviously ain't all of them).
+1 Informative, -1 Offtopic.
Re:This is not to make a neat photo album
on
Minolta 3D Camera
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· Score: 1
And that's exactly what sucks about this thing. It's a combination of a camera that already exists and software that already exists (but this version only works on Windows).
I just downloaded it this morning, so I haven't made anything fabulous with it yet, but there's seemingly decent GPL software out there that's supposed to do this with your photos already. It's called "Panorama Tools," and it includes a "stitcher" and plug-ins for Photoshop and all the other stuff you need to make VRML-type environments. I didn't take down the address of its site, but you can find a link at jmac.org, in the open source Mac software section. Supposed to work on Linux and GIMP too, but to a lesser extent (of course). I was just testing it when I saw this story, so I'm not sure if it's a perfect implementation, but within five minutes I was (mis-)using it to make some otherwise-time-consuming backgrounds that look like Cocteau Twins album covers (which is cool, but obviously not what it's made for). Looks like they're in need of development help and/or cash, too.
It wouldn't surprise me if backups are impossible or intentionally inconvenient to the point that a repurchase is preferable (and who's gonna do that?).
Here's what happened to me the first time I attempted to use a "licensed" audio file.
1) I download a "free" 30 meg King Crimson concert at 56k; this takes about nine hours including failures and disconnects.
2) It's in Windows Media format, so I go download the Windows Media Player so that I can listen to my precious, hard-won "free" Crimson.
3) Since Microsoft makes the WMP, I backup my whole system before installing it, including the Crimson show. This is common sense, I think. MS likes to delete other companies' libs without asking and replace them with their own, unstable ones for some reason. Something to do with monopolies or something.
4) I install WMP and it hoses a decent percentage of my system files.
5) I re-install my system, including WMP, and this time it "works" because I didn't install anything hoseable yet.
6) I click and attempt to enjoy the grandeur that is Crimson, but I can't because I'm no longer "licensed" to do so. The "license" was an invisible file that, if moved, no longer functioned. I could at this point either A) re-download the whole thing just to get a 10k "licence" text file, or B) say "Fuck this."
7) I say "Fuck this," delete everything, and vow never to futz around with "licensed" content again. SDMI/WM et al lose one customer.
I would expect this scenario to repeat in the homes of millions until SDMI joins DIVX in Acronym Hell. I hope it does, anyway.
Jodi.org (my personal favorite "art" site) isn't the kind of place you're going to randomly stumble into from some dinko AOL startup page, and it's not "important" like, say Etoys, so who cares. If you go there, you go expecting (harmless) weirdness. And if you go in with Javascript disabled, you usually just get some pretty ASCII art, not this "malicious HTML" CERT's worked up about (rightly). And locking up Windows machines is cute and easy. Ask around Slashdot.
(OT) About a year ago they did us Mac weenies a favor by posting mysterious binaries that were irresistable to download (because they were mysterious), and if you ran 'em, they mangled your display and made evil screeching noises. Until you pressed command-I, anyway. Big fun. Feats of beautiful, wasteful programming. Unfortunately, I lost my copies during a magical flood that was magnetically drawn to my pile of Zip disks, and not to anything else on this floor of the building. I suspect they had embedded client-side executable malicious Floodscript.
Katz won't like this answer, because it's not "easy for most people" (which apparently is his primary criterion for determining the validity of solutions to these problems), but browsers log all their activity while they're running. You just need to figure out where they log it, and redirect it so you can see it. For example, when I clicked through to the Katz article, my browser did this:
and output that to an open MPW shell. So if a site does something I don't like, I see it happen and stay away in the future. Pre-emptively, I disable the usual crap (only/. can see my cookie, and "view source" can get you around all but the bitchiest javascript), spoof my browser ID, filter out banners based on server URL, image size, etc., and give bogus info on "registration" forms (sales@microsoft.com is a valid e-mail address, for example).
Not a "mod" exactly, and not "easy," but I've never gotten a single spam message from anyone, ever (at least not at my "real" email address), and doubleclick's got nothin' on me. Just choose your browser wisely, and learn how to use it before you go randomly firing bits around the 'net. Behave like you would in "real life," because it is real life.
In case you're curious, here's what I've got disabled on the iMac: Speech (recognition and alerts), the FaxModem stuff, 3D acceleration and InputSprockets for gaming peripherals I don't have, the infrared port, WebSharing, and launcher specs for all the printer models I don't have. But, I've added a lot of Colorsync-related stuff, about 1000 fonts (all of them always loaded), and a software FPU because Painter doesn't recognize the hardware FPU. So the system heap expands to 16-17 megs if I don't purge between large-application launches (which I've scripted it to do by itself). Not as "stripped" as you'd think. Just choose your extensions wisely.
Blackbox is what I like best (now that I've wrestled GNOME and KDE off my system--just needs reconfiguring); should be fine for what I usually do with it (running dev stuff from an emulated terminal, and other pretty simple tasks).
And yes, OS9 is, by default, a bloated beast, but I've got the bigger, better box I use 9 on beaten down to 25 megs by losing all the redundant or needlessly destabilizing extensions and libs it comes loaded with.
And I do have a Mac box that makes it into the fifties w/ tons of MIDI and external-hardware-compatibility software added--but "added" is an important distinction, I think.
Regarding E's and GNOME's functionalities, I've found them to match a lot of "hidden" functionality in MacOS that almost no one uses, because almost no one needs it, and it's not covered in the installed "Help" system. For example, MacOS already has a handy, configurable taskbar I've never seen anyone but me using.
Theme-wise, MacOS doesn't do transparency, or have as many window-dragging, -redrawing, and -focusing options, but I'd hate to think that those alone, even set to their most boring options, were what bogged GNOME/E down on me. And, again, with MacOS, themes are a "hidden" functionality (that shareware connivers have used to take advantage of morons by re-selling the same thing to them; the Mac world is rife with "shareware abuse," like ten-line compiled Applescripts selling for $20).
In the case of either OS, I know it's all about how well you can administer it, but I've found it a lot more difficult to keep things under control in Linux, despite R-ing so many FMs I have to buy stronger glasses. Most of us "desktop" guys don't do anything of the sort, and requiring expertise (which choosing a non-default window manager for X does) for mere usability seems, well, unwise.
Being an alleged "Mac community" guy myself, I've observed that there are two "communities" over here on The Translucent Side:
1) Those of us who use them because we love 'em (for good, easily articulated reasons). We're happy that the new stuff looks to be even better, and addresses all our misgivings about the current products. We don't care what anyone else uses, we only go on and on about Macs with each other, "geeking out" about them extensively. Your Linux- and BSD-running Mac guys are in this group.
2) The not-Windows crowd whose only real objections to Windows are its popularity and grey-and-blueness. 90+% of Evangelists fall into this catagory. They can't "geek out" about Macs, or tell you why might want to try one out; they just say they "rule." Like that embarrassing dipshit in Salon (who I think is also its editor--sad).
Same two camps the Linux crowd has. Or BSD guys. Or Pepsi freaks. Or Metallica fans.
And proprietary hardware is fine as long as it's good, and the company isn't about to go out of business. Again.;)
Exactly what I meant. Brevity is the soul of being misread.
And my having read the article, and already knowing everything it said, was the basis of my being sorta cheesed off at Miguel's (and much of/.'s) superficial view of what an implementation of Aqua-ness would entail.
I was thinking only of OSX stealing Linux's newer "desktop Unix" market. Command-line Linux is still fun as hell, and when I de-commission the iMac and make a shitty dial-up server of it, that's probably what I'll use. It's just that I have this mental picture of a theoretical young geek going to the CompUSA in search of a beginners' Unix box, being shown an iMacDV 2002 and a VA Linux Fake-Dell 2002 running side-by-side, and going home with the "babe" of the two.
Actually, a recent/. link pointed to a story wherein Miguel Of GNOME said it would be "trivial" to do just that. First time it ever seemed possible that Linux's most lauded developers could be as thoughtless as/.'s "ROOLZ!" contingent. Frightening moment.
Slashdot Mirror
You couldn't fool your mother on the foolingest day of your life if you had an electrified fooling machine.
.sig almost makes sense for once!
Love,
C
PS: Hey lookie--my
Absolutely. I don't have much trouble with the technical blizzblazz of X, but I'd like to have a disencruftified X (or a feature-slim replacement) to use in RAM-shortage and/or who-needs-it-anyway (ie: desktop) situations. The only reason I keep it around is for compatibility. Anyone out there working on a mini-X that provides basic application compatibility w/o all the cool stuff? I'd be working on it myself, but I know I'd screw it up and piss everyone off.
This (what the article is about) looks very, very useful--moreso than its makers realize, I think.
So...
A flamin' lame-o like me can get moderated up but the ghost of William Burroughs can't?
Life is stupid.
Surprisingly good. I've used Earthlink for about two years, and the total time I've been unable to connect has been two hours (and it was only one occasion; the local dial-up # was hosed, so I just dialed one a few miles away to get my 'mail).
The only other problem was a DNS f-up a few weeks ago that lasted, like, ten minutes. No biggie.
Living in an area--actually just a part of a city--where nothing faster is available for a decent price, and the local dial-up ISPs are overburdened to the point that it's like going through AOL's proxies, Earthlink's been nice. And cheap.
But I've heard Mindspring totally blows. Odd.
Any suggestions for a vocabulary suited to our new postmodernized probably-crimes? I'm stumped. I never thought I'd say such a thing, but here goes: This is a job for Katz!
(-1, Katzlicker)
Okay, okay. Maybe not Katz. Where's Nietzsche when you need him?
This is a good forum for spreading the new "meme" [barfs] once someone thinks up a cute name for it. I mean, look how many of us let "corporatism" drool out of us, however nebulous a concept it may be (or, really, grow up to be, someday; I still don't have a clue what it is except that it probably sucks). Anyone out there onto it yet?
I don't really disagree with you, but I think that to concede to terms like "theft" and "piracy" is to messy up the discourse to the detriment of those who want reform or even honest debate.
:-))), logic is impossible. Katz isn't free of this problem either, thanks to his buzzword-quota.
Piracy is robbery committed by guys with stinky beards, wearing funny blue and red suits, sometimes with missing legs, often with parrots on their shoulders, always on a boat, and always against other stinky guys on other boats (and usually the other guys all have dirty white doo-rags on). This doesn't happen much.
Theft is stealin' stuff. Taking it back to your place without permission.
Copyright infringement (or, in more "artistic" cases, appropriation or parody or satire; in "fansite" cases, free advertising or freeloading, depending on intent) is what this is about. And I think it's "bad," mostly, but it's not the same "bad" as mugging or bodysnatching.
Conservative types would call this kind of messying-of-terms a false assumption of "moral equivalence" (though I doubt many would spot it in this case), because based on flawed premises (or flawed language (=premises)(sorry; been learning LISP
I think a good first step for "both sides" in this non-debate would be to stop doing the PR-trained equivalent of calling each other cocksuckers.
999,999 additional Katzes Katzing for a million years could not produce a single sentence as cogent as any of the above.
Aren't "we" supposed to be smart, here?
Amen. This is why I'm not getting any use out of my Linux partitions right now. All my computers are late-model Apples (sorry, guys), and all the up-to-date, non-beta PPC distributions are modified Red Hat, so they all have the same problem. They're just so weighty, burdened with false dependencies, that I can't get a satisfactorily slim system if I include anything more than bare X in an install--which, for me, is pretty useless. I know my sucky experiences aren't because Linux sucks, because it isn't Linux's fault, but I do recommend to all my acquaintances that they avoid Linux unless Debian or Slackware works on their boxes, lest they get a bad opinion of the OS based on the shittiness of certain distributions. Eagerly awaiting Debian PPC, OS X, and a locally bootable NetBSD....
Back on topic: UI standardization would be nice, so long as the weird Red Hat/GNOME/KDE top-down dependency model is ditched in the process.
10000th story, 1st post from the Zodiac killer!
Compare above w/: http://members.aol.com/ZSpeaking/belli.html (not a link 'cause I think aol has a monthly hit limit).
What an honor!
"Redundant" Aside: [...] more "moderator abuse" [grumble] [...] anyone who mentions an iMac [grumble] [...] Linux runs on 'em, y'know [grumble] [...] fuckers!
This guy has a point. Sort of. Since grabbing at your mouse all day is very likely to cause you pain, having a smaller keyboard that allows you to put your mouse in a closer, more "natural" position is a good thing--if the little keyboard doesn't hurt you. Myself, although I have huge hands (see, e.g., Jimi Hendrix), I have no trouble using the tiny Apple keyboards, and I think it's because my meeces (2, for a total of six buttons) and pen-tablet-thingy aren't half a block away from my space bar.
I think I accidentally disengeekified the term last weekend when a friend of mine attempted in my presence to over-tip a heinously bad and not-even-cute waitress. It went sorta like this:
Me, at the bar, full of Bombay, hating the ugly waitress: "Don't be a karma whore! She's not even cute!"
Everyone-else-I-know, ever since then, whenever someone is being too nice: "Don't be a karma whore!"
None of us really qualify as geeks (I'm pretty much a closet case). And I'm terribly sorry.
That's a stupid thing to say.
A theme is not an interface. Looking sorta like a Mac (but not really) isn't the same as being like one.
You wouldn't know this if you're a Linux/Windows guy (two camps that are regrettably becoming way-similar in interface design philosophy, and can be lumped together in that regard, if not others), but the Mac [G]UI has, on its underside, tremendously efficient code. The whole Mac system (as of OS 9) uses less memory than GNOME alone does (on my boxes; your experience may vary). Limitations (and designed-in Windows-like-ness) of X and whatever-DE and whatever-WM, combined with their collective ever-increasing bloat, make their Mac-ness, when themed to look like one, superficial (at best). They just can't fake the (good) simplicity and (underrated) efficiency. And while the Mac code itself might not be useful, the overall design (of the whole thing, not its "theme") is something more Linux UI developers should look at. But they won't. Macs are for fags. Right?
So don't get worked up about it.
I could go on for years, but I'll keep it short.
/. before, but I think of him as a lesser Thomas Pynchon or William Gass (esp. "The Tunnel," probably the best "big, thick book" since "Ulysses"), whereas Gibson is a lesser Burroughs or Bester. I think the "inventiveness" of both comes from their inability to emulate their heroes as well as they'd like to.
Re: your list of pre-Gibsons
I'd add Alfred Bester (esp. his short stories (collected in "Virtual Unrealities")), William Burroughs (esp. "The Wild Boys," though Gibson's not nearly as "literary"), and, maybe, Thomas Pynchon (though I'm not as comfortable making the comparison as Gibson himself is). But, one thing these guys all have that Gibson doesn't is a deep personal knowledge of paranoia, and of its usefulness as a literary worldview. Gibson's adoption of a paranoid viewpoint is boring and stereotypical in comparison. It reminds me of a WTO protest, or the Freepers. Not that I don't like his stuff. I just think it's less "deep" than his fans do.
Re: Neal Stephenson
He's not certifiably "cyberpunk," because his literary persona isn't cool and (anti-)corporate, it's geeky and (anti-)corporate. Instead of spouting about fashion and lit-crit amongst the fake-tech, Stephenson's all about algorhythms and cartography (and other "boring" stuff). Their "cultural insights" vary accordingly. But he is similar to Gibson/Sterling et al in many ways. I've said it on
All IMNSHO, of course.
1) Anyone who actually gives two shits about Life On Slashdot should notify Malda of the above "moderator abuse." I don't. [Fart noise.]
2) I've used a few OSes, and had a few more inflicted on me at jobs, and re "stability" I'd rank them in this order: MacOS, Irix, DOS, Be, Solaris, NetBSD, Amiga, Linux, Windows. I doubt anyone else would agree with me, because, see, there's this weird thing people do: they use their computers for different things. You can go play Quake now.
For a few years they've used IDE (which is why iMacs aren't $5000), the expensive boxes do drive slavery (never had to mess with the innards of a cheap one, so I don't know about those), and internal SCSI has been pretty much dropped in favor of FireWire connections (at least on the G4s I've been looking at, which obviously ain't all of them).
+1 Informative, -1 Offtopic.
And that's exactly what sucks about this thing. It's a combination of a camera that already exists and software that already exists (but this version only works on Windows).
I just downloaded it this morning, so I haven't made anything fabulous with it yet, but there's seemingly decent GPL software out there that's supposed to do this with your photos already. It's called "Panorama Tools," and it includes a "stitcher" and plug-ins for Photoshop and all the other stuff you need to make VRML-type environments. I didn't take down the address of its site, but you can find a link at jmac.org, in the open source Mac software section. Supposed to work on Linux and GIMP too, but to a lesser extent (of course). I was just testing it when I saw this story, so I'm not sure if it's a perfect implementation, but within five minutes I was (mis-)using it to make some otherwise-time-consuming backgrounds that look like Cocteau Twins album covers (which is cool, but obviously not what it's made for). Looks like they're in need of development help and/or cash, too.
It wouldn't surprise me if backups are impossible or intentionally inconvenient to the point that a repurchase is preferable (and who's gonna do that?).
Here's what happened to me the first time I attempted to use a "licensed" audio file.
1) I download a "free" 30 meg King Crimson concert at 56k; this takes about nine hours including failures and disconnects.
2) It's in Windows Media format, so I go download the Windows Media Player so that I can listen to my precious, hard-won "free" Crimson.
3) Since Microsoft makes the WMP, I backup my whole system before installing it, including the Crimson show. This is common sense, I think. MS likes to delete other companies' libs without asking and replace them with their own, unstable ones for some reason. Something to do with monopolies or something.
4) I install WMP and it hoses a decent percentage of my system files.
5) I re-install my system, including WMP, and this time it "works" because I didn't install anything hoseable yet.
6) I click and attempt to enjoy the grandeur that is Crimson, but I can't because I'm no longer "licensed" to do so. The "license" was an invisible file that, if moved, no longer functioned. I could at this point either A) re-download the whole thing just to get a 10k "licence" text file, or B) say "Fuck this."
7) I say "Fuck this," delete everything, and vow never to futz around with "licensed" content again. SDMI/WM et al lose one customer.
I would expect this scenario to repeat in the homes of millions until SDMI joins DIVX in Acronym Hell. I hope it does, anyway.
But--
Jodi.org (my personal favorite "art" site) isn't the kind of place you're going to randomly stumble into from some dinko AOL startup page, and it's not "important" like, say Etoys, so who cares. If you go there, you go expecting (harmless) weirdness. And if you go in with Javascript disabled, you usually just get some pretty ASCII art, not this "malicious HTML" CERT's worked up about (rightly). And locking up Windows machines is cute and easy. Ask around Slashdot.
(OT) About a year ago they did us Mac weenies a favor by posting mysterious binaries that were irresistable to download (because they were mysterious), and if you ran 'em, they mangled your display and made evil screeching noises. Until you pressed command-I, anyway. Big fun. Feats of beautiful, wasteful programming. Unfortunately, I lost my copies during a magical flood that was magnetically drawn to my pile of Zip disks, and not to anything else on this floor of the building. I suspect they had embedded client-side executable malicious Floodscript.
Katz won't like this answer, because it's not "easy for most people" (which apparently is his primary criterion for determining the validity of solutions to these problems), but browsers log all their activity while they're running. You just need to figure out where they log it, and redirect it so you can see it. For example, when I clicked through to the Katz article, my browser did this:
/article.pl?sid=00/01/31/1429206&mode=flat HTTP/1.0
/. can see my cookie, and "view source" can get you around all but the bitchiest javascript), spoof my browser ID, filter out banners based on server URL, image size, etc., and give bogus info on "registration" forms (sales@microsoft.com is a valid e-mail address, for example).
Thread #1 (02.02.2000, 10.22):
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and output that to an open MPW shell. So if a site does something I don't like, I see it happen and stay away in the future. Pre-emptively, I disable the usual crap (only
Not a "mod" exactly, and not "easy," but I've never gotten a single spam message from anyone, ever (at least not at my "real" email address), and doubleclick's got nothin' on me. Just choose your browser wisely, and learn how to use it before you go randomly firing bits around the 'net. Behave like you would in "real life," because it is real life.
In case you're curious, here's what I've got disabled on the iMac: Speech (recognition and alerts), the FaxModem stuff, 3D acceleration and InputSprockets for gaming peripherals I don't have, the infrared port, WebSharing, and launcher specs for all the printer models I don't have. But, I've added a lot of Colorsync-related stuff, about 1000 fonts (all of them always loaded), and a software FPU because Painter doesn't recognize the hardware FPU. So the system heap expands to 16-17 megs if I don't purge between large-application launches (which I've scripted it to do by itself). Not as "stripped" as you'd think. Just choose your extensions wisely.
You're pretty much right.
Blackbox is what I like best (now that I've wrestled GNOME and KDE off my system--just needs reconfiguring); should be fine for what I usually do with it (running dev stuff from an emulated terminal, and other pretty simple tasks).
And yes, OS9 is, by default, a bloated beast, but I've got the bigger, better box I use 9 on beaten down to 25 megs by losing all the redundant or needlessly destabilizing extensions and libs it comes loaded with.
And I do have a Mac box that makes it into the fifties w/ tons of MIDI and external-hardware-compatibility software added--but "added" is an important distinction, I think.
Regarding E's and GNOME's functionalities, I've found them to match a lot of "hidden" functionality in MacOS that almost no one uses, because almost no one needs it, and it's not covered in the installed "Help" system. For example, MacOS already has a handy, configurable taskbar I've never seen anyone but me using.
Theme-wise, MacOS doesn't do transparency, or have as many window-dragging, -redrawing, and -focusing options, but I'd hate to think that those alone, even set to their most boring options, were what bogged GNOME/E down on me. And, again, with MacOS, themes are a "hidden" functionality (that shareware connivers have used to take advantage of morons by re-selling the same thing to them; the Mac world is rife with "shareware abuse," like ten-line compiled Applescripts selling for $20).
In the case of either OS, I know it's all about how well you can administer it, but I've found it a lot more difficult to keep things under control in Linux, despite R-ing so many FMs I have to buy stronger glasses. Most of us "desktop" guys don't do anything of the sort, and requiring expertise (which choosing a non-default window manager for X does) for mere usability seems, well, unwise.
Being an alleged "Mac community" guy myself, I've observed that there are two "communities" over here on The Translucent Side:
;)
1) Those of us who use them because we love 'em (for good, easily articulated reasons). We're happy that the new stuff looks to be even better, and addresses all our misgivings about the current products. We don't care what anyone else uses, we only go on and on about Macs with each other, "geeking out" about them extensively. Your Linux- and BSD-running Mac guys are in this group.
2) The not-Windows crowd whose only real objections to Windows are its popularity and grey-and-blueness. 90+% of Evangelists fall into this catagory. They can't "geek out" about Macs, or tell you why might want to try one out; they just say they "rule." Like that embarrassing dipshit in Salon (who I think is also its editor--sad).
Same two camps the Linux crowd has. Or BSD guys. Or Pepsi freaks. Or Metallica fans.
And proprietary hardware is fine as long as it's good, and the company isn't about to go out of business. Again.
Exactly what I meant. Brevity is the soul of being misread.
/.'s) superficial view of what an implementation of Aqua-ness would entail.
And my having read the article, and already knowing everything it said, was the basis of my being sorta cheesed off at Miguel's (and much of
We agree. Love is all around.
I was thinking only of OSX stealing Linux's newer "desktop Unix" market. Command-line Linux is still fun as hell, and when I de-commission the iMac and make a shitty dial-up server of it, that's probably what I'll use. It's just that I have this mental picture of a theoretical young geek going to the CompUSA in search of a beginners' Unix box, being shown an iMacDV 2002 and a VA Linux Fake-Dell 2002 running side-by-side, and going home with the "babe" of the two.
Actually, a recent /. link pointed to a story wherein Miguel Of GNOME said it would be "trivial" to do just that. First time it ever seemed possible that Linux's most lauded developers could be as thoughtless as /.'s "ROOLZ!" contingent. Frightening moment.