I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to criticize them. What they're doing is great.
All I'm saying is that their efforts don't appear to be having much effect in making Gnome be anything but an attempt at wholesale copying Windows. Because, as far as I can tell, the Gnome vision is to be like Windows.
Maybe GNOME2 will really reflect greater attention to user interface design, but my point is that it looks like they are accepting the major decisions that Windows (as opposed to OS/2 or MacOS or they themselves) made, and then fretting about the little stuff. I really don't think they can do anything new or impressive if they ignore the big ideas that IBM and Apple had.
Put more personally, doing it how they're doing it they won't make an interface that makes me long for it when I'm using something else. And that's exactly what Apple and IBM did.
I see, so your complaint is with my statement that 'all' KDE and Gnome developers are blindly copying Microsoft.
Fine, let me amend that statement: all the developers who have code currently being used in the Gnome and KDE projects are blindly copying Microsoft.
The point is, the general direction and focus of Gnome is to provide something 'just like that successful software vendor, Microsoft.' That's exactly what Microsoft did, s/Microsoft/Apple. And they were willing to completely change the interface to try something better (if only a little better), something Gnome doesn't seem willing to do.
Sure, GUP may evince some minor improvements to the interface, but as long as their discussions are about whether dialogue windows should have close buttons or not, rather than what major, sweeping changes to Gnome need to be undertaken, they will never make Gnome even competitive with Windows, much less actually usable.
There was a lot to OS/2 that would require serious architectural changes in Gnome - mostly the WPS, with its hierarchy of desktop objects, and the emphasis on them for user interaction (rather than classical applications).
And yeah, the big problem with OS/2 (in my opinion) was that it had a bang-up graphical interface built on top of something marginally better than DOS in terms of usability (as an operating system they were worlds apart, of course). There were inconsistencies, and portions of the interface done at the wrong level (like not having a filesystem that supported many of the features, it had to use files to store some filesystem information, and it wasn't up to the task).
It is obvious to me that you haven't spent much time around the GNOME Usability Project [gnome.org] (aka GUP) or the Usability Lists [gnome.org].
You're right. Do you know why? Because I'm not looking at what they're talking about, but what they're producing. And what the gnome developers produce in general suggests that they don't get it, but are simply copying Microsoft (please see the flagship, Evolution: instead of being an attempt to design a new PIM from the ground up with an eye towards usability, it's an attempt to design a new PIM that looks, acts, and tastes like Outlook).
GUP is not blindly following anyone (though they tend agree more with the Mac people).
No, they clearly don't. Designing around Fitt's Law is a hallmark of Mac design, and I don't see any such attention in Gnome. Just to refresh my memory, when using gnome-panel: if you drag your pointer to the edge of the screen (the bottom edge if the panel is on the bottom, etc.), can you click on anything? Or do you have to adjust your pointer away from the edge by a few pixels first?
Well nuts, there went my rant. Stole it from me whole cloth.
Well, I have more rants than just that... like how I wish more of the OS/2 technology saw emulation in other systems, since I've long felt that it was the best PC operating system. The object technology simply made for a more pleasant experience, whether you were doing basic things like surfing the web, or scripting your environment like a good little *nix weenie, or doing office work.
MacOS provides a different set of pleasant user experiences, a generally more consistent set, but nonetheless it lacks a number of things OS/2 had.
And all the people working on KDE and Gnome blithely ignore them all, and try to copy - feature for feature, and with less original thought than Microsoft used in following Apple - Microsoft's interface.
Of course, my personal dislike of Ion Storm comes from the (admittedly irrational) belief that the money Eidos gave for Daikatana would've been much better spent on Looking Glass Studios.
Preach it brother, preach it! It's kind of interesting that Salon has published articles lamenting Looking Glass's demise at Ion Storm's hands despite great games, and then publishes a lament about the demise of Ion Storm despite a really, really bad game. I guess someone has to give everyone their voice...
But you really have to be amazed by John Romero's hubris, when you see
In any event, Romero adds, Ion Storm's fortunes are now fully golden: "With Daikatana riding high in the charts and Deus Ex about to hit the streets," says Romero, "Ion will have successfully transitioned into a profitable venture and has long ago ceased to be a financial burden on its publisher."
in Salon's eulogy to Looking Glass. `Daikatana riding high'?
Oh well. LG Studios, and Ion Storm as it was first envisioned, are both gone. More of the older gaming scene is gone, and it is a new year. Maybe there will be a really new game, or even a really creative and skilled studio, this year.
Now you see, here's where I disagree, because I think UI design is something that's more important for people who already know the software- not exactly power users, but people who use the software regularly and can properly participate in a discussion of the flaws in its interface. These people could know for example that the way of achieving a certain task is too long-winded.
I disagree. First of all, such a way of thinking is completely unhelpful to people writing new software - where do they start? Aren't there some basic principles they can follow initially? (yes)
Second, long-term users are frequently blind to their own habits and needs. I would actually argue that people 'in the field' are who matter - preferably those who haven't used the software, but have some idea how they want to work. They can tell you how they think about the problem, what they do very frequently, what they do rarely, etc. Now, UI design isn't a 'one-time' thing, so after some work has already been done users' comments should be listened to (and sometimes ignored), so that the designer can find out what he missed before.
You seem to be arguing that UI design should pay attention to actual users, which is true - you design for the audience your software is aimed at. If it's Mathematica, mathematicians; if it's email... then every computer user.
New users of the software face a pretty standard "cost of entry" learning period, a period which, ironically, can be made more torturous if a good and novel UI design is employed, since it probably differs markedly from the standard OS way of doing things.
Yes, and at that point there's a tradeoff between building on what the user already knows, and designing the interface for an optimal learning curve. I.e., I already addressed this. The interface designer's goal is to maximize the usefulness of the computer to the target user by taking into account the users pre-knowledge and designing an interface which smoothly scales in power from beginner to expert.
The HCI UI researcher's goal, generally, is to either expand the toolbox the interface designer has (with useful tools, not crap like the wheel mouse), or explore ways that the interface designer can make the scaling more smooth.
Also, users who have never used a computer at all before have a lot to learn, and despite what people think, user-interfaces cannot be "intuitive".
This is based upon a flawed definition of intuition. More specifically, not the definition used by HCI folks when they make statements about intuitive interfaces (I'm sure you can see how much fun it is to poke holes in people's statements by changing definition, and then ridiculing what their statement then means). Intuition, as it is generally referred to in this case, is based on prior knowledge - another way of naming low-level educated guesses. In that light, an 'intuitive' interface is one that builds upon the user's preknowledge, and is only an accurate description given a certain audience. Pulling out Mathematica again, the target audience will be able to make an intuitive leap about the meaning of a sigma after typing "Sum[...]". But Joe R. User might expect a bunch of plus symbols, resulting in nonintuitive output for someone other than the intended audience.
That's a pretty angry view you take there. It's also, in my experience, a pretty inaccurate view.
HCI is not about taking an idiot off the street and letting them write an opera; it's about taking the skills and experience a user already has, and letting them go from there. An idiot off the street should be able to figure out how to play Chopsticks, possibly learning it in the process. A musician should be able to write a better opera more easily. Somewhere in there, the idiot off the street should be able to step up with the computer's help.
Put in more abstract terms, and put very simply, user interface design is about minimizing the investment in first learning the software, tooling the learning curve for maximum slope, and - here's the part you missed - letting the computer be as useful as possible. It may be voudoun, but that doesn't mean that its not difficult to do right, that people can't tell when you do it wrong, or that it doesn't actually make things better.
That's not what I'm saying. First, the Bokks is just a tool, and I don't think there is anything illegal with it (or should be illegal, if we assume the DMCA is a load of crap and doesn't apply).
Second, I think it is unethical to emphasize copyright infringement use, which - be honest - is what they are emphasizing. Like I said, it has nothing to do with how it could be used perfectly legally - I don't care to have the manufacturer nudging and winking as I buy it. They are a crock if they think that is ethical.
The company itself unfortunately agrees with the tone of that review:
Connect it to your TV and view movies youve downloaded from the Internet.
I don't want one for a variety of reasons. Part is that I don't want moving components, part is that I don't want an electrically noisy PC (face it, that's what this is) with unknown sound output doing the conversion; part is that I'm not going to use something like this for copyright infringement and I don't care to have the seller saying "nudge nudge, wink wink" when I say that.
There is a legitimate market for archiving libraries of music and movies; there is a legitimate market for wanting to easily listen to a CD you own in the car, at your computer, and at your stereo.
The big deal, really, is that the FBI shouldn't be writing virii. Either they politely ask, 'can we violate your security,' or they politely ask, 'can we break into your home.' "Cloak and dagger" should not be their MO, "implicit permission" is unacceptable.
I play in my office-mate's RPG, I went to my boss's New Year's party last year, I'm going to a cow-orker's wedding party in a couple of hours. There's a weekly trek to a greasy spoon that's been going on for a decade or two (maybe more?), to which most every new employee is invited. And yes, there have been cook-outs, both here and at my last job, with bonding and beer-drinking, and even a few SO's (kids other than babies are pretty rare, though).
I'm a pretty social guy, and I feel a bit uncomfortable in a "strictly business" operation- I know a few people that have been uncomfortable with my 'prying,' but they learn soon enough that it's harmless and I learn soon enough that it's not appreciated.
Oops, didn't mean to submit so quickly- I also wanted to mention, he expects it to be tested in VMWare and in a Norton Ghost-compatible image, which costs considerably more than he's paying.
Sure, you can use VMWare's 30-day trial, but I doubt 'commercial use' is covered under their trial license, and having just checked, I know distributing ghost images for deployment on multiple machines is prohibited by the Ghost Personal Edition license.
These are (IMO) very minor issues, but the point is that they wouldn't even be raised if the offer was reasonable- the offer is so unreasonable that it can't cover expenses.
I agree. A client/server consulting company is looking for someone to do some work on a flexible, widely-applicable software project, basically for free, that will definitely be used to replace "a load of Windows boxes."
Surely, as a software consultant, he realizes that you don't consult for free, especially if the client is better situated to make money on it than you. Did you notice how everything has to be under the GPL or BSD license? I notice that their software doesn't appear to be free... is it so that you don't have a chance of making more money on the deal than $150?
He would already have a working set-up on his hands if he either a) made clear his intentions to resell, and arranged for some kind of money-sharing agreement, or b) offered a real sum of money for the proposed purpose (back to that "load of Windows boxes"). But the people who can do this quickly and professionally are going to expect to maintain a professional, i.e., reasonably beneficial, relationship.
His 'challenge' is for someone to do something for nothing, which is not at all what free software is about; custom setup (despite his pleas for l33t hax0rs to take the job, this is more of s'kiddie job) is always expensive, end of story.
I have 'issues' with VPC - for some reason, every time I try to install TCP/IP networking, it dies. Without TCP/IP, getting Netscape 4.x, the latest FP, etc., sucks. Never mind that the VPC 'test drive' for OS X requires a lot more RAM than I have right now (no, rebooting into OS 9 every time I want to use OS/2 is not acceptable).
I've also heard several comments in the negative about eCS/MCP under VPC, apparently due to JFS/LVM. sigh
but it doesn't run on my iBook:-( When I was buying my laptop, I had to decide between running OS X, and OS/2, and OS X won.
It's still a great operating system, and if I ever have real PC hardware again I'd be happy to run it again. Macs have Applescript, and it is powerful, but it's just not the same as REXX.
And of course, the Finder has nothing on the WPS. But still...:-(
They also say it's a regular Firewire hard drive. No iTunes necessary to use it as such. It's entirely possible, whether they say so or not, that it just does the Right Thing with any media files stored on it (it's also possible it's proprietary and broken). Until the units are shipping, or people start really exploring their 'review' units, we don't know.
It''s entirely possible that you're right, but web page blurbs are not the way to know.
Bzzzt. Apple is selling it that way, but that doesn't mean that's the way it is. Wait 'til they ship, then we'll know whether you're kneejerking or on to something.
I'm less concerned about the security of my connection (I've changed the default port to an obscure one), since I don't have anything sensative, and only a handful of the accounts have administrator permissions.
read: it will take people an extra week or two to crack my system, putting my system into a state that I can not rely upon, and that can cause other people lots of annoyance through DDoS clients.
It is unneighborly to leave your system open, because it lets people launch attacks from it. You do not need to check your email so often that you can't skip the airport terminals' telnet program.
I'm admining this for fun, not a paid position, mainly to increase my own knowledge about the system.
There is a cost associated with sticking a computer on the Internet, whether you are being paid to do so or not. Basic security is not optional, it is part of that cost. There are solutions by which you can use ssh (java ssh clients, cd-rs of ssh clients for popular operating systems, etc.).
You'll have to do some work, so consider it part of increasing your knowledge about the system - knowledge of what you'll have to do any time you put a server on the Internet.
And Windows users wonder what it is that gives them a bad name...
Re:maybe I've read alt.sex.stories(.*) too much...
on
Windows XP Has Arrived
·
· Score: 2
Damn it, I've got to jump in here. (hope ya don't mind Mike)
Fucking idiotic. That's what your line of thought is.
I laughed, and I don't laugh at Mike/StandardDeviants jokes much anymore. I knew that XP was not an actual story code, but it was indeed reminiscent of one (besides, any mention of mffG is funny too).
In case you were wondering, it managed to be funny because it presented a skewed view of the world, one which yet has a resonance with the world we see every day vis a vis Microsoft software being piss. It was the dip into StandardDeviant's mind, and the connections he makes between XP and Usenet. It benefits from not being true, because its intent is to show how Mike made the leap from true to not-true.
I'm only doing this because I haven't been so pedantic that my nose bleeds in a while. And StandardDeviant is usually a lot more willing to say fuck off than meet pedantry for pedantry.
Minus RAM (maxes out at 256MB!?), Firewire, composite RCA output, battery life (not even 2 hours!?), or built-in wireless. It is oriented towards the extreme low end of consumers, but is priced higher than the iBook. Oh, but it's marginally smaller.
Six Easy Pieces, Six Not-So-Easy Pieces, and QED, both by Feynman, are excellent reads (all of them are oriented towards the layman, rather than the physics student, I'm afraid).
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to criticize them. What they're doing is great.
All I'm saying is that their efforts don't appear to be having much effect in making Gnome be anything but an attempt at wholesale copying Windows. Because, as far as I can tell, the Gnome vision is to be like Windows.
Maybe GNOME2 will really reflect greater attention to user interface design, but my point is that it looks like they are accepting the major decisions that Windows (as opposed to OS/2 or MacOS or they themselves) made, and then fretting about the little stuff. I really don't think they can do anything new or impressive if they ignore the big ideas that IBM and Apple had.
Put more personally, doing it how they're doing it they won't make an interface that makes me long for it when I'm using something else. And that's exactly what Apple and IBM did.
I see, so your complaint is with my statement that 'all' KDE and Gnome developers are blindly copying Microsoft.
Fine, let me amend that statement: all the developers who have code currently being used in the Gnome and KDE projects are blindly copying Microsoft.
The point is, the general direction and focus of Gnome is to provide something 'just like that successful software vendor, Microsoft.' That's exactly what Microsoft did, s/Microsoft/Apple. And they were willing to completely change the interface to try something better (if only a little better), something Gnome doesn't seem willing to do.
Sure, GUP may evince some minor improvements to the interface, but as long as their discussions are about whether dialogue windows should have close buttons or not, rather than what major, sweeping changes to Gnome need to be undertaken, they will never make Gnome even competitive with Windows, much less actually usable.
There was a lot to OS/2 that would require serious architectural changes in Gnome - mostly the WPS, with its hierarchy of desktop objects, and the emphasis on them for user interaction (rather than classical applications).
And yeah, the big problem with OS/2 (in my opinion) was that it had a bang-up graphical interface built on top of something marginally better than DOS in terms of usability (as an operating system they were worlds apart, of course). There were inconsistencies, and portions of the interface done at the wrong level (like not having a filesystem that supported many of the features, it had to use files to store some filesystem information, and it wasn't up to the task).
You're right. Do you know why? Because I'm not looking at what they're talking about, but what they're producing. And what the gnome developers produce in general suggests that they don't get it, but are simply copying Microsoft (please see the flagship, Evolution: instead of being an attempt to design a new PIM from the ground up with an eye towards usability, it's an attempt to design a new PIM that looks, acts, and tastes like Outlook).
No, they clearly don't. Designing around Fitt's Law is a hallmark of Mac design, and I don't see any such attention in Gnome. Just to refresh my memory, when using gnome-panel: if you drag your pointer to the edge of the screen (the bottom edge if the panel is on the bottom, etc.), can you click on anything? Or do you have to adjust your pointer away from the edge by a few pixels first?
Well nuts, there went my rant. Stole it from me whole cloth.
Well, I have more rants than just that... like how I wish more of the OS/2 technology saw emulation in other systems, since I've long felt that it was the best PC operating system. The object technology simply made for a more pleasant experience, whether you were doing basic things like surfing the web, or scripting your environment like a good little *nix weenie, or doing office work.
MacOS provides a different set of pleasant user experiences, a generally more consistent set, but nonetheless it lacks a number of things OS/2 had.
And all the people working on KDE and Gnome blithely ignore them all, and try to copy - feature for feature, and with less original thought than Microsoft used in following Apple - Microsoft's interface.
Preach it brother, preach it! It's kind of interesting that Salon has published articles lamenting Looking Glass's demise at Ion Storm's hands despite great games, and then publishes a lament about the demise of Ion Storm despite a really, really bad game. I guess someone has to give everyone their voice...
But you really have to be amazed by John Romero's hubris, when you see
in Salon's eulogy to Looking Glass. `Daikatana riding high'?Oh well. LG Studios, and Ion Storm as it was first envisioned, are both gone. More of the older gaming scene is gone, and it is a new year. Maybe there will be a really new game, or even a really creative and skilled studio, this year.
I disagree. First of all, such a way of thinking is completely unhelpful to people writing new software - where do they start? Aren't there some basic principles they can follow initially? (yes)
Second, long-term users are frequently blind to their own habits and needs. I would actually argue that people 'in the field' are who matter - preferably those who haven't used the software, but have some idea how they want to work. They can tell you how they think about the problem, what they do very frequently, what they do rarely, etc. Now, UI design isn't a 'one-time' thing, so after some work has already been done users' comments should be listened to (and sometimes ignored), so that the designer can find out what he missed before.
You seem to be arguing that UI design should pay attention to actual users, which is true - you design for the audience your software is aimed at. If it's Mathematica, mathematicians; if it's email... then every computer user.
Yes, and at that point there's a tradeoff between building on what the user already knows, and designing the interface for an optimal learning curve. I.e., I already addressed this. The interface designer's goal is to maximize the usefulness of the computer to the target user by taking into account the users pre-knowledge and designing an interface which smoothly scales in power from beginner to expert.
The HCI UI researcher's goal, generally, is to either expand the toolbox the interface designer has (with useful tools, not crap like the wheel mouse), or explore ways that the interface designer can make the scaling more smooth.
This is based upon a flawed definition of intuition. More specifically, not the definition used by HCI folks when they make statements about intuitive interfaces (I'm sure you can see how much fun it is to poke holes in people's statements by changing definition, and then ridiculing what their statement then means). Intuition, as it is generally referred to in this case, is based on prior knowledge - another way of naming low-level educated guesses. In that light, an 'intuitive' interface is one that builds upon the user's preknowledge, and is only an accurate description given a certain audience. Pulling out Mathematica again, the target audience will be able to make an intuitive leap about the meaning of a sigma after typing "Sum[...]". But Joe R. User might expect a bunch of plus symbols, resulting in nonintuitive output for someone other than the intended audience.
That's a pretty angry view you take there. It's also, in my experience, a pretty inaccurate view.
HCI is not about taking an idiot off the street and letting them write an opera; it's about taking the skills and experience a user already has, and letting them go from there. An idiot off the street should be able to figure out how to play Chopsticks, possibly learning it in the process. A musician should be able to write a better opera more easily. Somewhere in there, the idiot off the street should be able to step up with the computer's help.
Put in more abstract terms, and put very simply, user interface design is about minimizing the investment in first learning the software, tooling the learning curve for maximum slope, and - here's the part you missed - letting the computer be as useful as possible. It may be voudoun, but that doesn't mean that its not difficult to do right, that people can't tell when you do it wrong, or that it doesn't actually make things better.
Get your head out of your ass, and go Ask Tog
I was going to reply with an answer, but someone else gave it better here.
Backup on Windows is painful, that's all there is to it.
That's not what I'm saying. First, the Bokks is just a tool, and I don't think there is anything illegal with it (or should be illegal, if we assume the DMCA is a load of crap and doesn't apply).
Second, I think it is unethical to emphasize copyright infringement use, which - be honest - is what they are emphasizing. Like I said, it has nothing to do with how it could be used perfectly legally - I don't care to have the manufacturer nudging and winking as I buy it. They are a crock if they think that is ethical.
The company itself unfortunately agrees with the tone of that review:
I don't want one for a variety of reasons. Part is that I don't want moving components, part is that I don't want an electrically noisy PC (face it, that's what this is) with unknown sound output doing the conversion; part is that I'm not going to use something like this for copyright infringement and I don't care to have the seller saying "nudge nudge, wink wink" when I say that.
There is a legitimate market for archiving libraries of music and movies; there is a legitimate market for wanting to easily listen to a CD you own in the car, at your computer, and at your stereo.
The big deal, really, is that the FBI shouldn't be writing virii. Either they politely ask, 'can we violate your security,' or they politely ask, 'can we break into your home.' "Cloak and dagger" should not be their MO, "implicit permission" is unacceptable.
I play in my office-mate's RPG, I went to my boss's New Year's party last year, I'm going to a cow-orker's wedding party in a couple of hours. There's a weekly trek to a greasy spoon that's been going on for a decade or two (maybe more?), to which most every new employee is invited. And yes, there have been cook-outs, both here and at my last job, with bonding and beer-drinking, and even a few SO's (kids other than babies are pretty rare, though).
I'm a pretty social guy, and I feel a bit uncomfortable in a "strictly business" operation- I know a few people that have been uncomfortable with my 'prying,' but they learn soon enough that it's harmless and I learn soon enough that it's not appreciated.
Oops, didn't mean to submit so quickly- I also wanted to mention, he expects it to be tested in VMWare and in a Norton Ghost-compatible image, which costs considerably more than he's paying.
Sure, you can use VMWare's 30-day trial, but I doubt 'commercial use' is covered under their trial license, and having just checked, I know distributing ghost images for deployment on multiple machines is prohibited by the Ghost Personal Edition license.
These are (IMO) very minor issues, but the point is that they wouldn't even be raised if the offer was reasonable- the offer is so unreasonable that it can't cover expenses.
I agree. A client/server consulting company is looking for someone to do some work on a flexible, widely-applicable software project, basically for free, that will definitely be used to replace "a load of Windows boxes."
Surely, as a software consultant, he realizes that you don't consult for free, especially if the client is better situated to make money on it than you. Did you notice how everything has to be under the GPL or BSD license? I notice that their software doesn't appear to be free... is it so that you don't have a chance of making more money on the deal than $150?
He would already have a working set-up on his hands if he either a) made clear his intentions to resell, and arranged for some kind of money-sharing agreement, or b) offered a real sum of money for the proposed purpose (back to that "load of Windows boxes"). But the people who can do this quickly and professionally are going to expect to maintain a professional, i.e., reasonably beneficial, relationship.
His 'challenge' is for someone to do something for nothing, which is not at all what free software is about; custom setup (despite his pleas for l33t hax0rs to take the job, this is more of s'kiddie job) is always expensive, end of story.
Linux binary emulation, baby. Order it, and decide later which one you want.
I have 'issues' with VPC - for some reason, every time I try to install TCP/IP networking, it dies. Without TCP/IP, getting Netscape 4.x, the latest FP, etc., sucks. Never mind that the VPC 'test drive' for OS X requires a lot more RAM than I have right now (no, rebooting into OS 9 every time I want to use OS/2 is not acceptable).
I've also heard several comments in the negative about eCS/MCP under VPC, apparently due to JFS/LVM. sigh
but it doesn't run on my iBook :-( When I was buying my laptop, I had to decide between running OS X, and OS/2, and OS X won.
It's still a great operating system, and if I ever have real PC hardware again I'd be happy to run it again. Macs have Applescript, and it is powerful, but it's just not the same as REXX.
And of course, the Finder has nothing on the WPS. But still... :-(
They also say it's a regular Firewire hard drive. No iTunes necessary to use it as such. It's entirely possible, whether they say so or not, that it just does the Right Thing with any media files stored on it (it's also possible it's proprietary and broken). Until the units are shipping, or people start really exploring their 'review' units, we don't know.
It''s entirely possible that you're right, but web page blurbs are not the way to know.
Bzzzt. Apple is selling it that way, but that doesn't mean that's the way it is. Wait 'til they ship, then we'll know whether you're kneejerking or on to something.
read: it will take people an extra week or two to crack my system, putting my system into a state that I can not rely upon, and that can cause other people lots of annoyance through DDoS clients.
It is unneighborly to leave your system open, because it lets people launch attacks from it. You do not need to check your email so often that you can't skip the airport terminals' telnet program.
There is a cost associated with sticking a computer on the Internet, whether you are being paid to do so or not. Basic security is not optional, it is part of that cost. There are solutions by which you can use ssh (java ssh clients, cd-rs of ssh clients for popular operating systems, etc.).
You'll have to do some work, so consider it part of increasing your knowledge about the system - knowledge of what you'll have to do any time you put a server on the Internet.
And Windows users wonder what it is that gives them a bad name...
Damn it, I've got to jump in here. (hope ya don't mind Mike)
Fucking idiotic. That's what your line of thought is.
I laughed, and I don't laugh at Mike/StandardDeviants jokes much anymore. I knew that XP was not an actual story code, but it was indeed reminiscent of one (besides, any mention of mffG is funny too).
In case you were wondering, it managed to be funny because it presented a skewed view of the world, one which yet has a resonance with the world we see every day vis a vis Microsoft software being piss. It was the dip into StandardDeviant's mind, and the connections he makes between XP and Usenet. It benefits from not being true, because its intent is to show how Mike made the leap from true to not-true.
I'm only doing this because I haven't been so pedantic that my nose bleeds in a while. And StandardDeviant is usually a lot more willing to say fuck off than meet pedantry for pedantry.
Minus RAM (maxes out at 256MB!?), Firewire, composite RCA output, battery life (not even 2 hours!?), or built-in wireless. It is oriented towards the extreme low end of consumers, but is priced higher than the iBook. Oh, but it's marginally smaller.
People buy that?!?
Six Easy Pieces, Six Not-So-Easy Pieces, and QED, both by Feynman, are excellent reads (all of them are oriented towards the layman, rather than the physics student, I'm afraid).
Don't you mean http://www.math.temple.edu/~cow?