Although some literature, and movies *could* be interesting (although I fail to remember a single title worth a translation, and I'm definitely discarding any kind of the widely popular "funny" movies), [contemporary] music is one of the worst things in the whole arabic culture! I'm not trying to start a flamebait, it's just that arabs tend to think their music is cool and nice, but I really don't think that music would have any success elsewhere, specially because it is *very* repetitive and dull (unecessary to comment about video clips, they are unbearable to say the least).
As a matter of fact, people recognize what's written in the Koran (Qur'an if you want to use arabic transliteration), but very few can speak that language properly (outsite basic statements). Arabic should be understood as a family of languages, with their members having more differences than the neo-latin languages have between themselves.
the arabs seem eager to consume western culture, despite the tags of "inferior" and "dirty" they have associated with the west. However, it seems nearly none wants to translate arabic content into other languages. Such a weird thing for a culture whose language supposedly is the world's 4th most spoken language (altough, in practice, there's no single arabic that can be understood in all arab countries, not even by a long shot).
Don't get me wrong, but we are in 2005 and the "Linux desktop" is still behind the 10-years-old Windows 95 desktop in terms of consistency and usability. The situation is really scary given that Windows 95 interface (as well as its 98, 2k and XP derivatives) is actually a piece of shit. But, at least, it didn't make basic mistakes:
Fonts are readable and well aligned inside widgets
Spacing was consistent between elements of the interface
Contrast between what the user has to recognize/interact and backgrounds/empty areas/decorations is quite high
Widgets, colors, fonts, decorations, etc. all look the "same", without major discrepancies in style or form
KDE (and Gnome) make *all* the abovementioned mistakes, shamefully. It's amazing how these problems still persist and *none* seems to care about them, energy seems to be used in the creation of stupid themes and wallpapers as opposed to real, obvious issues (look at the fonts issue, for instance, if you don't use ttf fonts stolen from a windows install the desktops look really bad). I should stop my flamebait here, but it's obvious that Apple is going to put the last nail in the "Linux desktop" coffin, for good.
Slashdot Mirror
aging, the biggest killer of all, will cease to be a threat
I'm pretty sure it will be substituted by suicide.
Although some literature, and movies *could* be interesting (although I fail to remember a single title worth a translation, and I'm definitely discarding any kind of the widely popular "funny" movies), [contemporary] music is one of the worst things in the whole arabic culture! I'm not trying to start a flamebait, it's just that arabs tend to think their music is cool and nice, but I really don't think that music would have any success elsewhere, specially because it is *very* repetitive and dull (unecessary to comment about video clips, they are unbearable to say the least).
As a matter of fact, people recognize what's written in the Koran (Qur'an if you want to use arabic transliteration), but very few can speak that language properly (outsite basic statements). Arabic should be understood as a family of languages, with their members having more differences than the neo-latin languages have between themselves.
the arabs seem eager to consume western culture, despite the tags of "inferior" and "dirty" they have associated with the west. However, it seems nearly none wants to translate arabic content into other languages. Such a weird thing for a culture whose language supposedly is the world's 4th most spoken language (altough, in practice, there's no single arabic that can be understood in all arab countries, not even by a long shot).
Don't get me wrong, but we are in 2005 and the "Linux desktop" is still behind the 10-years-old Windows 95 desktop in terms of consistency and usability. The situation is really scary given that Windows 95 interface (as well as its 98, 2k and XP derivatives) is actually a piece of shit. But, at least, it didn't make basic mistakes:
- Fonts are readable and well aligned inside widgets
- Spacing was consistent between elements of the interface
- Contrast between what the user has to recognize/interact and backgrounds/empty areas/decorations is quite high
- Widgets, colors, fonts, decorations, etc. all look the "same", without major discrepancies in style or form
KDE (and Gnome) make *all* the abovementioned mistakes, shamefully. It's amazing how these problems still persist and *none* seems to care about them, energy seems to be used in the creation of stupid themes and wallpapers as opposed to real, obvious issues (look at the fonts issue, for instance, if you don't use ttf fonts stolen from a windows install the desktops look really bad). I should stop my flamebait here, but it's obvious that Apple is going to put the last nail in the "Linux desktop" coffin, for good.