And this is why the fanatical push towards "cloud" storage of everything is insane nonsense. First it was cell phone data plans, now it's home internet as well.
The industry wants to have it both ways but it's not realistic. These two schools of thoughts are financially incompatible with each other.
Bad spelling, grammar, and English in-general is a virus. The more people get lazy and don't bother, the more it's spread around and seen by others... who then in-turn become further de-sensitized themselves to it. This affects their own usage, and it propagates further.
What's worse is that people will 99% of the time respond, "oh I know better, I just don't bother". Except that after a while, they DON'T know better anymore. They become so accustomed to bad spelling and grammar that it permeates even their formal writing where the "I know better" part should've kicked in... but doesn't. Now they look like idiots.
I'm sorry... but if you want to be taken seriously, you need to not write like a 20-something who spells like a 1st-grader. There/their/they're. To/too. its/it's. Your/you're. "Couldn't care less" vs the nonsensical "could care less". And so on.
It's not being a "jerk" to give a shit about the quality of English writing and trying to preserve some semblance of sanity and education to written communication.
As the years go by, you're paying more and getting less for your money. On top of that, the Netflix quality is the worst of all the major players. I ran a test where I found the same movie on Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime and Netflix, and tried playing all 3 on the same TV on the same evening over the same internet connection. Netflix's was noticably worse, and bandwidth monitoring on my connection showed that it was also the only 1 of the 3 which didn't make full use of available bandwidth.
Physical media + Plex server solves the problem for us. You can buy movies on the cheap used at lawn sales, eBay, Amazon marketplace, or just general sales.
Carrying extra batteries... how do you charge them? Samsung makes a dock for one phone (the S5, I believe) so you can charge the spare battery without the phone, but otherwise...? Do you charge the phone, then remember to swap the battery afterwards? Or do you just hope you remember to swap the battery and end up with a dead battery you carry along thinking it's full?
I have some separate battery chargers that you pop the battery into separate from the phone. It's pretty painless. They're cheap enough that I keep one at home, one at work, and one for travel.
Spoken like someone who either doesn't use their phone much, or is too young to remember the benefits of proper removable batteries.
I have some power packs like that. However trying to carry around and use your phone while tethered to one is not much better than being tethered to a wall plug. It's utterly impractical. Do you hold the battery pack, wire AND phone all in one hand while talking? Or do you now walk around like holding a Wii remote+nunchuk? Or maybe you get a 6' USB cord and stuff the battery pack onto your body somewhere? It's just ridiculous.
I can swap the battery in my S5 with a fully-charged one in under 10 seconds then be back on my way using my phone just as before, no wires, no tethers, no hassle.
With the Galaxy S5 you didn't need to choose and got all 3. That's why I'm still on my S5.
Having to "choose" among those things is a falsehood spread by the manufacturers so that they can justify their money-making anti-consumer design practices, begun by Apple and now virally perpetuated by others such as Samsung. These are talented companies quite capable of making thin, powerful phones with removable batteries AND MicroSD card slots. They just choose not to... MicroSD cards mean they can't force you to buy the larger base model where you pay 10X what the storage should cost, and replaceable batteries mean you're more-inclined to just buy a new phone in a year or 2 when the capacity of the battery drops significantly.
Didn't Windows Defender kill off the "anti-malware" market?
No, because Windows Defender sucks.
Does anyone really still run things like "Symantec" or "McAfee"?
Only naive new-computer buyers who get it pre-installed and roll with that because of the name-recognition. The rest of us run something that doesn't suck. Symantec/Norton and McAfee are bloated messes that bog down the computer and hardly catch anything. Defender is just a hidden useless product that also doesn't catch much of anything. There are plenty of worthwhile programs out there however that catch a lot and definitely do help to address this very real problem.
Maybe you're right in some sense but you're discarding 99% of desktop hardware.
Not sure how voting dollars work if you're representing 0.0001% of the market.
And 87.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
It's hardly 99% of desktop hardware, and I can assure Windows does not control 99.9999% of the desktop market. And it's not always "server hardware". And since you mentioned SuperMicro, you can get a SuperMicro board for under $100 if you'd like. If you spend less than $100 total on your MB+CPU+PS then you're really asking for trouble.
Do most desktop users run Windows? I wouldn't even give you that, considering how many Macs I see. But even if they did... at the end of the day:
A) Windows-only hardware is going to be cheaper (due to deals made with the devel, aspects normally handled by hardware being pushed into software, and them being willing to compensate for shitty hardware by putting lots of work into software drivers for the largest market) B) You buy hardware to match what software/OS you mean to run. You don't try to run intense Photoshop-work on 2GB RAM, likewise if you need special Linux-driver support or care about sensors, then you don't buy stuff where the motherboard-manufacturer has skimped-out and used chips for which there is only Windows drivers. C) You're going to have to pay a bit more for B, but it's not as much more as your exaggerations suggest.
And you really need to stop blaming Linux developers for lack of driver support when in reality it's the hardware-manufacturers' fault for not releasing specs and data. You'll find that Good Mfrs who do so actually get Linux drivers. The only drivers that get made for the others are the ones where a dev gets lucky reverse-engineering. Even popular hardware won't get drivers if the mfr keeps the specs closed and proprietary.
Again, vote with your wallet if you want change. Otherwise there's no audience for your complaining and your continued action is just working against your desires, as the mfrs selling stuff are getting the impression that people will keep buying their Windows-only crap. I can assure you, they're only looking at their sales sheet and NOT Slashdot forums.
If so you likely paid more for the motherboard that I did for motherboard, CPU, RAM and power supply.
Yes, if you want better than low-end, Windows-only hardware then you're going to have to pay a bit more for quality.
The sensors library on linux supports like 10-20% sensors out there whereas a Windows monitoring program supports more like 95-99%. That looks more like a failure of linux (or BSD etc.) to support the hardware rather than a problem with the quality of hardware.
No, it looks like you fell for buying Windows-only hardware in an attempt to save money. There are lots of printers that fall into this category as well, and back in the day modems. If Microsoft can have their way, there'll be even more full-out computers that refuse to run anything but Windows. If that's not the world you want, then you need to start voting with your dollars... not sourcing the cheapest low-end stuff you can find then complaining that your non-Windows OS doesn't work well on it.
whereas linux will show you one to three temperatures and no voltage. This means you can't diagnose the PSU
Don't blame Linux because you chose shitty hardware. On my Linux desktop, I get a bunch of temps and voltages, and on my FreeBSD server it emails me if the power supply volt stats get out of spec.
But then, I chose quality hardware and not bottom-of-the-barrel consumer-grade "enthusiast" crap. And it didn't cost me much more... a price difference I was more than willing to pay for better reliability and functionality.
My biggest problem is if I'm gone for a week, t-bird can't process all the new mail without churning for a couple hours.
Not a problem when you use IMAP, and then your email is also synchronized across all your computers/devices (and doesn't dangerously live on just one).
Am I the only person left who actually LIKES and used Thunderbird?
Enough of the "just use webmail" crap. I do in an emergency, but on established computers I live on regularly, you can't beat the better power, speed and versatility of a native email application running locally. I get far more-features in Thunderbird than my email provider's lightweight and simple web interface.
Plus Thunderbird is cross-platform and available on my variety on mixed-OS computers, giving me a consistent local-app email experience across them all.
But I suppose a good portion of the email-app-haters are the same ones as email-haters who would rather use IM, SMS and Facebook messaging rather than proper email. Get off my lawn... some of us actually use the internet for work too, not just play.
I'm not getting all the hate for Plex. Plex is amazing.
It's not just a media server. It's a full-blown server and media management and distribution system akin to running your own Netflix. I paid the one-time lifetime pass and it's been totally worth it. We stream to many Rokus, computers and Android devices amongst my household and immediate family.
Having paid for the PlexPass, all the clients I add to my Plex Home group are free so users don't have to pay for each client. I run it on a 6-disc FreeNAS RAIDZ2 system that has enough CPU horsepower to run Plex Server right on the NAS itself. The system is beautiful and amazingly capable. Just drop any old video file on, and Plex handles everything else: metadata, posters, trailers, organization, and any necessary transcoding to play any type of video file onto any client regardless of its capabilities.
I know Emby is popular because it's open-source, and perhaps some parts of it are better than Plex (I've never used Emby). But the reviews I've seen put them pretty close to each other, with often Plex having a slight edge overall. But probably ultimately depends on what you're doing with it and what features matter to you.
Anyone who flat out hates Plex probably doesn't understand how it's really supposed to be used and what needs it's meant to address. It's easy to hate the perfect screwdriver if you're trying to use it as a hammer.
This is precisely why I got the S5 even though if I had waited a month I could've gotten the S6. I knew the S6 wouldn't have a removable battery, and with that being a critical feature I made sure I voted with my wallet.
A typical lithium ion battery will show noted loss of capacity even after 2y. And it's not just about the overall lifespan of the battery: it's about being able to quickly pop in a freshly-charged spare and get on with your day without having to be stuck tethered to a charging cable.
Or, if you work remotely from charging sources for extended periods, having a handful of $10 charged batteries handy is a lifesaver.
Apple anti-consumer design of their phones has now infected their desktops and laptops as well. Apple has given the middle-finger to 30+ years of standard personal computer design practice. Want to upgrade anything? Buy a whole new computer. Any part breaks? Buy a whole new computer.
Any single reason they give for it is utter BS. Anyone who buys into it is a gullible blind sheep. I'm sorry, but I've seen too many companies do exactly what Apple says they can't for me to give an ounce of credibility to their pathetic excuses. Computers smaller and thinner than Apple devices, with removable/upgradable components. Epoxied-in batteries, that are made part of the chassis along with they keyboard? Soldered-in RAM and SSD storage in computers twice as thick as other devices I own where the RAM and SSD are removable (and expandable). Keyboard spill = $360 part + tons of labor. At the end of the day, Apple does it for one reason and one reason alone: it gets more of their brainwashed cult of customers to buy more overpriced shiny devices more frequently.
Both projects have lost their way horribly. GNOME used to be the closest to quality and sanity, though. I'd be more interested in a analysis of what XFCE gets right and GNOME gets wrong.... but it'd probably be a novel at this point.
The idiots have totally jumped the track and lost all sanity and reason when it comes to proper practices in versioning. I haven't seen anything that warranted a +1 on the major version in ages, yet every time they integrate some stupid new advertising/social gimmick that should've been left as an extension, they bump the major version number. Or if no one has offered them cash recently to whore themselves out, they just bump it because they're bored out of some version-penis envy with Chrome.
And this coming from one of the historically biggest Firefox fans amongst my friends, family and colleagues. I've been promoting it since Phoenix, being a longtime Netscape and Mozilla user for many years before that.
I replaced my Nexus 5 with a Samsung Galaxy S5 -- I really like the S5 (and removable SIM), but I hate Samsung's Touchwiz interface.
Which is one of the reasons I bought a T-Mobile S5 even though I'm on AT&T. Unlocked it, rooted it, installed Lollipop months before AT&T or T-Mobile released it. Been happy ever since.
I only had to suffer through Touchwiz and bloatware for a few days.
Slashdot Mirror
And this is why the fanatical push towards "cloud" storage of everything is insane nonsense. First it was cell phone data plans, now it's home internet as well.
The industry wants to have it both ways but it's not realistic. These two schools of thoughts are financially incompatible with each other.
proof of recent psychiatric admission.
Sounds like a good start. Require a psychiatric evaluation for anyone wanting Windows 10.
You don't have access to eBay and Amazon?
(Used disc market + Plex) > Netflix
Selection of stuff you actually want, better quality, better UI, no monthly fees, no arbitrary deletion of tons of good content every month.
So which of the 50 or so domains trying to run scripts on this page actually need to be whitelisted to just play the video?
Bad spelling, grammar, and English in-general is a virus. The more people get lazy and don't bother, the more it's spread around and seen by others... who then in-turn become further de-sensitized themselves to it. This affects their own usage, and it propagates further.
What's worse is that people will 99% of the time respond, "oh I know better, I just don't bother". Except that after a while, they DON'T know better anymore. They become so accustomed to bad spelling and grammar that it permeates even their formal writing where the "I know better" part should've kicked in... but doesn't. Now they look like idiots.
I'm sorry... but if you want to be taken seriously, you need to not write like a 20-something who spells like a 1st-grader. There/their/they're. To/too. its/it's. Your/you're. "Couldn't care less" vs the nonsensical "could care less". And so on.
It's not being a "jerk" to give a shit about the quality of English writing and trying to preserve some semblance of sanity and education to written communication.
As the years go by, you're paying more and getting less for your money. On top of that, the Netflix quality is the worst of all the major players. I ran a test where I found the same movie on Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime and Netflix, and tried playing all 3 on the same TV on the same evening over the same internet connection. Netflix's was noticably worse, and bandwidth monitoring on my connection showed that it was also the only 1 of the 3 which didn't make full use of available bandwidth.
Physical media + Plex server solves the problem for us. You can buy movies on the cheap used at lawn sales, eBay, Amazon marketplace, or just general sales.
Carrying extra batteries ... how do you charge them? Samsung makes a dock for one phone (the S5, I believe) so you can charge the spare battery without the phone, but otherwise...? Do you charge the phone, then remember to swap the battery afterwards? Or do you just hope you remember to swap the battery and end up with a dead battery you carry along thinking it's full?
I have some separate battery chargers that you pop the battery into separate from the phone. It's pretty painless. They're cheap enough that I keep one at home, one at work, and one for travel.
Look at my slash ID. I'm probably older than you.
Maybe, maybe not. I'm 41.
And: Colt .45 ;)
Spoken like someone who either doesn't use their phone much, or is too young to remember the benefits of proper removable batteries.
I have some power packs like that. However trying to carry around and use your phone while tethered to one is not much better than being tethered to a wall plug. It's utterly impractical. Do you hold the battery pack, wire AND phone all in one hand while talking? Or do you now walk around like holding a Wii remote+nunchuk? Or maybe you get a 6' USB cord and stuff the battery pack onto your body somewhere? It's just ridiculous.
I can swap the battery in my S5 with a fully-charged one in under 10 seconds then be back on my way using my phone just as before, no wires, no tethers, no hassle.
The S5 was waterproof too, and had a removable battery AND the MicroSD slot.
With the Galaxy S5 you didn't need to choose and got all 3. That's why I'm still on my S5.
Having to "choose" among those things is a falsehood spread by the manufacturers so that they can justify their money-making anti-consumer design practices, begun by Apple and now virally perpetuated by others such as Samsung. These are talented companies quite capable of making thin, powerful phones with removable batteries AND MicroSD card slots. They just choose not to... MicroSD cards mean they can't force you to buy the larger base model where you pay 10X what the storage should cost, and replaceable batteries mean you're more-inclined to just buy a new phone in a year or 2 when the capacity of the battery drops significantly.
Didn't Windows Defender kill off the "anti-malware" market?
No, because Windows Defender sucks.
Does anyone really still run things like "Symantec" or "McAfee"?
Only naive new-computer buyers who get it pre-installed and roll with that because of the name-recognition. The rest of us run something that doesn't suck. Symantec/Norton and McAfee are bloated messes that bog down the computer and hardly catch anything. Defender is just a hidden useless product that also doesn't catch much of anything. There are plenty of worthwhile programs out there however that catch a lot and definitely do help to address this very real problem.
Maybe you're right in some sense but you're discarding 99% of desktop hardware.
Not sure how voting dollars work if you're representing 0.0001% of the market.
And 87.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
It's hardly 99% of desktop hardware, and I can assure Windows does not control 99.9999% of the desktop market. And it's not always "server hardware". And since you mentioned SuperMicro, you can get a SuperMicro board for under $100 if you'd like. If you spend less than $100 total on your MB+CPU+PS then you're really asking for trouble.
Do most desktop users run Windows? I wouldn't even give you that, considering how many Macs I see. But even if they did... at the end of the day:
A) Windows-only hardware is going to be cheaper (due to deals made with the devel, aspects normally handled by hardware being pushed into software, and them being willing to compensate for shitty hardware by putting lots of work into software drivers for the largest market)
B) You buy hardware to match what software/OS you mean to run. You don't try to run intense Photoshop-work on 2GB RAM, likewise if you need special Linux-driver support or care about sensors, then you don't buy stuff where the motherboard-manufacturer has skimped-out and used chips for which there is only Windows drivers.
C) You're going to have to pay a bit more for B, but it's not as much more as your exaggerations suggest.
And you really need to stop blaming Linux developers for lack of driver support when in reality it's the hardware-manufacturers' fault for not releasing specs and data. You'll find that Good Mfrs who do so actually get Linux drivers. The only drivers that get made for the others are the ones where a dev gets lucky reverse-engineering. Even popular hardware won't get drivers if the mfr keeps the specs closed and proprietary.
Again, vote with your wallet if you want change. Otherwise there's no audience for your complaining and your continued action is just working against your desires, as the mfrs selling stuff are getting the impression that people will keep buying their Windows-only crap. I can assure you, they're only looking at their sales sheet and NOT Slashdot forums.
And I like low end
Well there you go.
If so you likely paid more for the motherboard that I did for motherboard, CPU, RAM and power supply.
Yes, if you want better than low-end, Windows-only hardware then you're going to have to pay a bit more for quality.
The sensors library on linux supports like 10-20% sensors out there whereas a Windows monitoring program supports more like 95-99%. That looks more like a failure of linux (or BSD etc.) to support the hardware rather than a problem with the quality of hardware.
No, it looks like you fell for buying Windows-only hardware in an attempt to save money. There are lots of printers that fall into this category as well, and back in the day modems. If Microsoft can have their way, there'll be even more full-out computers that refuse to run anything but Windows. If that's not the world you want, then you need to start voting with your dollars... not sourcing the cheapest low-end stuff you can find then complaining that your non-Windows OS doesn't work well on it.
whereas linux will show you one to three temperatures and no voltage. This means you can't diagnose the PSU
Don't blame Linux because you chose shitty hardware. On my Linux desktop, I get a bunch of temps and voltages, and on my FreeBSD server it emails me if the power supply volt stats get out of spec.
But then, I chose quality hardware and not bottom-of-the-barrel consumer-grade "enthusiast" crap. And it didn't cost me much more... a price difference I was more than willing to pay for better reliability and functionality.
My biggest problem is if I'm gone for a week, t-bird can't process all the new mail without churning for a couple hours.
Not a problem when you use IMAP, and then your email is also synchronized across all your computers/devices (and doesn't dangerously live on just one).
Am I the only person left who actually LIKES and used Thunderbird?
Enough of the "just use webmail" crap. I do in an emergency, but on established computers I live on regularly, you can't beat the better power, speed and versatility of a native email application running locally. I get far more-features in Thunderbird than my email provider's lightweight and simple web interface.
Plus Thunderbird is cross-platform and available on my variety on mixed-OS computers, giving me a consistent local-app email experience across them all.
But I suppose a good portion of the email-app-haters are the same ones as email-haters who would rather use IM, SMS and Facebook messaging rather than proper email. Get off my lawn... some of us actually use the internet for work too, not just play.
I'm not getting all the hate for Plex. Plex is amazing.
It's not just a media server. It's a full-blown server and media management and distribution system akin to running your own Netflix. I paid the one-time lifetime pass and it's been totally worth it. We stream to many Rokus, computers and Android devices amongst my household and immediate family.
Having paid for the PlexPass, all the clients I add to my Plex Home group are free so users don't have to pay for each client. I run it on a 6-disc FreeNAS RAIDZ2 system that has enough CPU horsepower to run Plex Server right on the NAS itself. The system is beautiful and amazingly capable. Just drop any old video file on, and Plex handles everything else: metadata, posters, trailers, organization, and any necessary transcoding to play any type of video file onto any client regardless of its capabilities.
I know Emby is popular because it's open-source, and perhaps some parts of it are better than Plex (I've never used Emby). But the reviews I've seen put them pretty close to each other, with often Plex having a slight edge overall. But probably ultimately depends on what you're doing with it and what features matter to you.
Anyone who flat out hates Plex probably doesn't understand how it's really supposed to be used and what needs it's meant to address. It's easy to hate the perfect screwdriver if you're trying to use it as a hammer.
This is precisely why I got the S5 even though if I had waited a month I could've gotten the S6. I knew the S6 wouldn't have a removable battery, and with that being a critical feature I made sure I voted with my wallet.
Wrong
A typical lithium ion battery will show noted loss of capacity even after 2y. And it's not just about the overall lifespan of the battery: it's about being able to quickly pop in a freshly-charged spare and get on with your day without having to be stuck tethered to a charging cable.
Or, if you work remotely from charging sources for extended periods, having a handful of $10 charged batteries handy is a lifesaver.
Apple anti-consumer design of their phones has now infected their desktops and laptops as well. Apple has given the middle-finger to 30+ years of standard personal computer design practice. Want to upgrade anything? Buy a whole new computer. Any part breaks? Buy a whole new computer.
Any single reason they give for it is utter BS. Anyone who buys into it is a gullible blind sheep. I'm sorry, but I've seen too many companies do exactly what Apple says they can't for me to give an ounce of credibility to their pathetic excuses. Computers smaller and thinner than Apple devices, with removable/upgradable components. Epoxied-in batteries, that are made part of the chassis along with they keyboard? Soldered-in RAM and SSD storage in computers twice as thick as other devices I own where the RAM and SSD are removable (and expandable). Keyboard spill = $360 part + tons of labor. At the end of the day, Apple does it for one reason and one reason alone: it gets more of their brainwashed cult of customers to buy more overpriced shiny devices more frequently.
Both projects have lost their way horribly. GNOME used to be the closest to quality and sanity, though. I'd be more interested in a analysis of what XFCE gets right and GNOME gets wrong.... but it'd probably be a novel at this point.
This isn't Firefox 39. This is Firefox 4.39
The idiots have totally jumped the track and lost all sanity and reason when it comes to proper practices in versioning. I haven't seen anything that warranted a +1 on the major version in ages, yet every time they integrate some stupid new advertising/social gimmick that should've been left as an extension, they bump the major version number. Or if no one has offered them cash recently to whore themselves out, they just bump it because they're bored out of some version-penis envy with Chrome.
And this coming from one of the historically biggest Firefox fans amongst my friends, family and colleagues. I've been promoting it since Phoenix, being a longtime Netscape and Mozilla user for many years before that.
I replaced my Nexus 5 with a Samsung Galaxy S5 -- I really like the S5 (and removable SIM), but I hate Samsung's Touchwiz interface.
Which is one of the reasons I bought a T-Mobile S5 even though I'm on AT&T. Unlocked it, rooted it, installed Lollipop months before AT&T or T-Mobile released it. Been happy ever since.
I only had to suffer through Touchwiz and bloatware for a few days.