Now look at all the things that Windows 2000 doesn't have that Linux has
Well, as always, Linux has all these features - that are in beta.. Don't be so quick at bashing people who use Windows. You are acting like these up and rising GPL advocates who are defending territory like there was a war on. Before I go on, keep in mind that I've been a Linux user since 1998, and I am not using Windows for anything these days. But Linux is, for many, even like myself, a crossroads while we're waiting for something better comes along. With it's/usr/local's and/var/log's and X on to of "DOS" state that never seems to go away, it is just good enough until somebody finally manages to create an OS which is fast and lets you get on with your stuff without getting in your hair first. Now lets move on to your points.
1. Out-of-the-box driver support for just about everything (only exceptions are ATI/nVidia graphics cards, but some distrobutions now include them)
Windows 2000 also had this, for 2000 era hardware. And the stuff that didn't come with the OS was easily installable from CD/Floppy. I don't think this really is a point, unless you compare Linux to Syllable or some system like that.
2. Central package management system
This is not a good point! I'd love to have Windows' method of installing apps in Linux. Really I would. I don't want to hear your arguments about shared libraries and messy system folders, really I don't. One of the biggest problems common users have with Linux is the packages - and that they can't easily grab some installer off the app developers' website. Everything is fine as long as you play by the distro rules, but immediately when you go to a page with a "linux" download (which happens to be an rpm) and try and install it in Ubuntu, you run into a wall.
Please keep your package manager away from Windows, BeOS, AmigaOS, etc. They are all fine with the solutions they have.
3. 3-D effects
Linux has 3d effects that crash and some times locks up the computer - or kills your window manager. On some of my machines it works. But I'd turn it off for most people, as I wouldn't want to fix all the problems they'd get with it running. Still, Xorg is more stable with regular desktop setups - but compiz is not problem free.
4. Support for all major filesystems out-of-the-box
This is a plus, but for most windows users, it is quite ok to just buy an app that gives you access to a given file system if you need it. Besides, for most users, this is not a big deal. (And please, if we are talking about us nerds, can I access my AROS affs partition in Linux without a linux recompile? What about SFS?)
5. Support for all major filetypes out-of-the-box
This point is granted. Linux has a lot of software included from when it first boots. But the whole point with the argument here is that Linux has so much included that it has become a bloat fest. Please, give me a linux distro that has a DE alike AmigaOS 3.x, Windows, BeOS, MacOS9, heck even GEM. They were lightning fast, did all your file management, application launching, customization.. on less than 60mhz. Windows 2000 ran on slow hw - Linux DE's do not. Why do you think I put BeOS Max on this box instead of Linux? Linux has become a bad performer the last few years, and it isn't stopping because nobody is acknowledging the problem.
I don't understand you guys to make fun of this. It is this kind of childish behaviour that makes science look like religion. Be curious, not judgemental, be positive and optimistic, not dogmatical - you end up looking like fanatical paradigm *ss *ickers, who in history, time, and time again, have been made to eat their own words at some point. Give this a chance - if it *would* be real, it could help the world move on from a crisis.
How in the world *can any* scientist be expected to dare attempting to invent anything new in energy technology with thousands of lemmings standing ready to plunge over them and drown them in insults? It would take somebody brave, and I hope these are. You people are making a culture which impedes progress. People "defending" thermodynamics and other scientific "laws", like many of you do, seem to me to be like the people who defended the spanish inquisition.
By now we should have at least 1280x1024 in 100fps on high end computers. VR should be truly amazing by now. Wonder why it disappeared. It would bring a whole new depth to games if you held the gun with your mouse and could move your head and perspective freely.
Many games sync the "pointer" with where you are looking. But if you could still have mouse control while looking around (around the corner, ducking etc) it would really bring a new level of immersion to games.
The main problem is not the interface, it is the features. I use Gimp almost every day at work, professionally, but the devs really don't seem to use the app themselves much. I think this is the OSS curse. Devs work on projects they find interesting, or give prestige, or both, but they don't code on it to use it. And it shows.
Without layer grouping and proper layer management, and better text support, Gimp remains hard to use for complex designs and so on. It hasn't been getting new usability features in a long time, and development is super slow. Gimp will always be there, but it isn't going to impress anyone, and they do not seem to want to either.
I noticed the video they made was made from about 4 images. In black and white. And the rest of the photos are in black and white as well. Is NASA still clinging on to the 60s? Why was the earth video so smooth, taken from the same probe? Why were the earth images in color? Why must all other planets out there be black and white? Normal, modern cameras can't even take black and white photos without a post processing filter these days - and I know NASA isn't using normal cameras, but still, Mercury isn't completely greyscale. It would be nice to see the different shades of color even if they were so called "false color" (NASA really is a color blind organization:-))
In my opinion showing all these photos in b/w puts the space mission presentation in a worse light than it would otherwise. I really don't understand why it is so difficult to snap some high resolution color pictures for us to view. Can anyone enlighten me? And don't give me the loaddown that science cameras are color blind and that the infrared is more important, as I really can't accept that it would be so hard to reproduce Mercury in colors in 2008.
I think you misunderstand what this guy is saying. He's saying that this theory which is proposed in the article is simplistic and is trying to cut edges to fit dreams into a form factor. There are so many things that break his theory, and there are so many aspects of dreams which doesn't even start to become explained. How can you account for the knowledge that the dream generator must inhibit to be able to reproduce the world so perfectly, while the dreamer can't even draw a circle on paper. How can one explain the time in dreams -- dreaming hours and hours in a couple of waking minutes. How do you interpret dreams where one is discussing dreams, lucidly with another personality -- "What are you? I'm dreaming, etcetc". How do you account for the chemical processes simulated in dreams - mud dissolving in water - indeed water ripples and the reflections on the water. It is super complex - that's just the technical aspect. Then there is *what* you can experience. The list is so long. If you'd ever spent any time in a lucid dreaming forum and read what people are experiencing, his theory would be very shallow indeed. Although, agreed, dreams let you practise. Oh yeah, a lot! And it's fully possible to improve skills in dreams, as well as solving problems. But you also do this in the waking state, and since you're acting while dreaming, pretty much, as in the waking state, it tells a lot about what you are doing when dreaming.
To the person saying that dreams are only a biochemical way of thinking in another state: what about thinking inside a dream? Is that thinking in a thinking?:-)
It is very wierd indeed, that Europe, being a massive economy world wide, only can affort marginal space efforts. ESA should be at least as ambitious as NASA, but it is not. Could anyone give the reasons why Europe's space program is so low-fi compared to other organizations elsewhere? With Russia able to still have a competing program, one should have thought the EU would be more aggressive. One reason I was given previously is that Europe's dynamic, democratic nature disables some of the steering needed in colossal projects. The disputes inside the EU makes it more difficult to plan and execute space plans, while NASA and other space organizations have more central control. Is this true?
Germany is soon becoming a screwed up democracy like the USA. I wonder how far this will go until western rooted terrorism comes on par with middle eastern terrorism. If the western governments continue to assault their people like this, terrorism will only grow in scope and severity. Their war on terror will obviously only generate more of what they are fighting. Too bad the politicians slept in class.
And this is so sad. You will continue to wait, won't you, until you one day wake up and find yourself in just that position, having to show your papers when moving around the county. You see, this is why we take it serious when we spot a slippery slope - it is a forewarning. You wait till it is a matter of fact, and before that, you put your faith one of the most violent governments in the west. Hurrah for you. This is one of the reasons why democracy is failing. The checks and balances are eroded by the likes of you, who accept it, and take it, and explain it away so that others like you will feel reassured. It's not just the US, but the whole west is knocking off one democratic liberty after the other, all under the flag of Anti Terrorism and Security.
The point is that surveillance without a court order is up for abuse. Forbidding drunk driving is not. And the USA is an abusive country which has and do use terror on other countries, either through href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-sponsored_terrorism%23United_States/sponsored terrorism or wars, for political reasons, not reflecting the American people, but a group powergreedy individuals. I can understand why some people are scared of things to come when such an abusive, militant government resorts to Soviet tactics, which as a matter of fact *was* used against the Soviet public.
Actually, an emerging thought is that consciousness is a property of matter, OR it is a symbiotic twin to matter: matter resonating with consciousness. At one point the resonating brings fruit in the form of memories and thoughts in a capable matter-structure. So in theory, if you manage to put material pieces together in a certain combination, it will end up being self-aware. Also; all matter becomes potentially conscious, and it also means that everything is one in a much more profound way. Now you might also understand concepts like the over-self, "God" and a self aware universe.
I'm sure all you religious people will have a field day on this:-) but at the end of the day, the idea that matter has potent consciousness in itself really explains how life is possible at all, and must exist, and it can perhaps lead to a more down to earth view on existence than that there has been a omnipotent master designing the universe as an architect would a house.
My thoughts on this anyhow..
I dunno what you are rambling about, but 70 years in prison for exploiting an insecure system is completely braindead. The judgement plays on peoples ignorance of what computers and the internet is. In all the "hacker" cases, the judges and lawyers show a lack of understanding when it comes to the technology. And the penalty should be on the sysops not the hacker. Perhaps he could get a slap-wrist penalty of 5 years (MAX!) in a British prison and a fine, but ~70 years in the US? Give me a break! Murderers get less! And if you honestly can say he's worse than a murderer? And implications are the fault of system developers, who decide on the hierarchical layout of their networks.
Point 2: it is nothing new that governments have secrets, and some of that information ought to be open to the public. Governments won't open such information no matter what and in this day and age, isn't it at least understandable (with 9/11, UFOlogy, the Bush Administration and Skulls & Bones etc) that some people want to find out for themselves, the best they can? Of course the goverment, which has so amputated the general public from their chain of power, will ignore this... the frustration over this mistrust between government and citizen easily explains McKinnons actions.
This isn't like some Iraqi breakin in US defences! This is an ally citizen who wondered about UFO tech perhaps hidden from him in an ally country, a close country which has had a special relationship with his nation for centuries. We all know where the US stands on that subject. And we also know that many people see UFOlogy == Insanity - another naive kneejerk reaction to the efforts of uncovering the unknown. McKinnon must be a hero for many UFOlogists, and I understand why. The US gonvernment, and Britain, have yet again shown their dark side in this matter - continuation of their lack of respect for people's right to be curious about the ones who rule them!
Go here: www.disclosureproject.org
Read for yourself how many people have come forward from the US government to testify before CONGRESS to what they have seen of UFO tech. It's a campaign to uncover the truth, and as long as the US and other countries hide profound secrets that ought to be out there, more McKinnons will try to cather as much info as they can on their own. Justice is for the just, and the US clearly isn't so.
Slashdot Mirror
Now look at all the things that Windows 2000 doesn't have that Linux has
Well, as always, Linux has all these features - that are in beta.. Don't be so quick at bashing people who use Windows. You are acting like these up and rising GPL advocates who are defending territory like there was a war on. Before I go on, keep in mind that I've been a Linux user since 1998, and I am not using Windows for anything these days. But Linux is, for many, even like myself, a crossroads while we're waiting for something better comes along. With it's /usr/local's and /var/log's and X on to of "DOS" state that never seems to go away, it is just good enough until somebody finally manages to create an OS which is fast and lets you get on with your stuff without getting in your hair first. Now lets move on to your points.
1. Out-of-the-box driver support for just about everything (only exceptions are ATI/nVidia graphics cards, but some distrobutions now include them)
Windows 2000 also had this, for 2000 era hardware. And the stuff that didn't come with the OS was easily installable from CD/Floppy. I don't think this really is a point, unless you compare Linux to Syllable or some system like that.
2. Central package management system
This is not a good point! I'd love to have Windows' method of installing apps in Linux. Really I would. I don't want to hear your arguments about shared libraries and messy system folders, really I don't. One of the biggest problems common users have with Linux is the packages - and that they can't easily grab some installer off the app developers' website. Everything is fine as long as you play by the distro rules, but immediately when you go to a page with a "linux" download (which happens to be an rpm) and try and install it in Ubuntu, you run into a wall.
Please keep your package manager away from Windows, BeOS, AmigaOS, etc. They are all fine with the solutions they have.
3. 3-D effects
Linux has 3d effects that crash and some times locks up the computer - or kills your window manager. On some of my machines it works. But I'd turn it off for most people, as I wouldn't want to fix all the problems they'd get with it running. Still, Xorg is more stable with regular desktop setups - but compiz is not problem free.
4. Support for all major filesystems out-of-the-box
This is a plus, but for most windows users, it is quite ok to just buy an app that gives you access to a given file system if you need it. Besides, for most users, this is not a big deal. (And please, if we are talking about us nerds, can I access my AROS affs partition in Linux without a linux recompile? What about SFS?)
5. Support for all major filetypes out-of-the-box
This point is granted. Linux has a lot of software included from when it first boots. But the whole point with the argument here is that Linux has so much included that it has become a bloat fest. Please, give me a linux distro that has a DE alike AmigaOS 3.x, Windows, BeOS, MacOS9, heck even GEM. They were lightning fast, did all your file management, application launching, customization.. on less than 60mhz. Windows 2000 ran on slow hw - Linux DE's do not. Why do you think I put BeOS Max on this box instead of Linux? Linux has become a bad performer the last few years, and it isn't stopping because nobody is acknowledging the problem.
I don't understand you guys to make fun of this. It is this kind of childish behaviour that makes science look like religion. Be curious, not judgemental, be positive and optimistic, not dogmatical - you end up looking like fanatical paradigm *ss *ickers, who in history, time, and time again, have been made to eat their own words at some point. Give this a chance - if it *would* be real, it could help the world move on from a crisis.
How in the world *can any* scientist be expected to dare attempting to invent anything new in energy technology with thousands of lemmings standing ready to plunge over them and drown them in insults? It would take somebody brave, and I hope these are. You people are making a culture which impedes progress. People "defending" thermodynamics and other scientific "laws", like many of you do, seem to me to be like the people who defended the spanish inquisition.
By now we should have at least 1280x1024 in 100fps on high end computers. VR should be truly amazing by now. Wonder why it disappeared. It would bring a whole new depth to games if you held the gun with your mouse and could move your head and perspective freely.
Many games sync the "pointer" with where you are looking. But if you could still have mouse control while looking around (around the corner, ducking etc) it would really bring a new level of immersion to games.
The main problem is not the interface, it is the features. I use Gimp almost every day at work, professionally, but the devs really don't seem to use the app themselves much. I think this is the OSS curse. Devs work on projects they find interesting, or give prestige, or both, but they don't code on it to use it. And it shows.
Without layer grouping and proper layer management, and better text support, Gimp remains hard to use for complex designs and so on. It hasn't been getting new usability features in a long time, and development is super slow. Gimp will always be there, but it isn't going to impress anyone, and they do not seem to want to either.
You must resist your englishteacher fetish :-) It isn't cute!
It's a carot for english teachers to correct me :P
I noticed the video they made was made from about 4 images. In black and white. And the rest of the photos are in black and white as well. Is NASA still clinging on to the 60s? Why was the earth video so smooth, taken from the same probe? Why were the earth images in color? Why must all other planets out there be black and white? Normal, modern cameras can't even take black and white photos without a post processing filter these days - and I know NASA isn't using normal cameras, but still, Mercury isn't completely greyscale. It would be nice to see the different shades of color even if they were so called "false color" (NASA really is a color blind organization :-))
In my opinion showing all these photos in b/w puts the space mission presentation in a worse light than it would otherwise. I really don't understand why it is so difficult to snap some high resolution color pictures for us to view. Can anyone enlighten me? And don't give me the loaddown that science cameras are color blind and that the infrared is more important, as I really can't accept that it would be so hard to reproduce Mercury in colors in 2008.
I think you misunderstand what this guy is saying. He's saying that this theory which is proposed in the article is simplistic and is trying to cut edges to fit dreams into a form factor. There are so many things that break his theory, and there are so many aspects of dreams which doesn't even start to become explained. How can you account for the knowledge that the dream generator must inhibit to be able to reproduce the world so perfectly, while the dreamer can't even draw a circle on paper. How can one explain the time in dreams -- dreaming hours and hours in a couple of waking minutes. How do you interpret dreams where one is discussing dreams, lucidly with another personality -- "What are you? I'm dreaming, etcetc". How do you account for the chemical processes simulated in dreams - mud dissolving in water - indeed water ripples and the reflections on the water.
:-)
It is super complex - that's just the technical aspect. Then there is *what* you can experience. The list is so long. If you'd ever spent any time in a lucid dreaming forum and read what people are experiencing, his theory would be very shallow indeed. Although, agreed, dreams let you practise. Oh yeah, a lot! And it's fully possible to improve skills in dreams, as well as solving problems. But you also do this in the waking state, and since you're acting while dreaming, pretty much, as in the waking state, it tells a lot about what you are doing when dreaming.
To the person saying that dreams are only a biochemical way of thinking in another state: what about thinking inside a dream? Is that thinking in a thinking?
It is very wierd indeed, that Europe, being a massive economy world wide, only can affort marginal space efforts. ESA should be at least as ambitious as NASA, but it is not. Could anyone give the reasons why Europe's space program is so low-fi compared to other organizations elsewhere? With Russia able to still have a competing program, one should have thought the EU would be more aggressive. One reason I was given previously is that Europe's dynamic, democratic nature disables some of the steering needed in colossal projects. The disputes inside the EU makes it more difficult to plan and execute space plans, while NASA and other space organizations have more central control. Is this true?
Germany is soon becoming a screwed up democracy like the USA. I wonder how far this will go until western rooted terrorism comes on par with middle eastern terrorism. If the western governments continue to assault their people like this, terrorism will only grow in scope and severity. Their war on terror will obviously only generate more of what they are fighting. Too bad the politicians slept in class.
Krita isn't really usable yet, as it has no Grid and is very unstable.
Also, WHY don't people make Layer groups. It is only cosmetic and is really a minor feature but oh so useful.
And this is so sad. You will continue to wait, won't you, until you one day wake up and find yourself in just that position, having to show your papers when moving around the county. You see, this is why we take it serious when we spot a slippery slope - it is a forewarning. You wait till it is a matter of fact, and before that, you put your faith one of the most violent governments in the west. Hurrah for you. This is one of the reasons why democracy is failing. The checks and balances are eroded by the likes of you, who accept it, and take it, and explain it away so that others like you will feel reassured. It's not just the US, but the whole west is knocking off one democratic liberty after the other, all under the flag of Anti Terrorism and Security.
The point is that surveillance without a court order is up for abuse. Forbidding drunk driving is not. And the USA is an abusive country which has and do use terror on other countries, either through href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-sponsored_terrorism%23United_States/sponsored terrorism or wars, for political reasons, not reflecting the American people, but a group powergreedy individuals. I can understand why some people are scared of things to come when such an abusive, militant government resorts to Soviet tactics, which as a matter of fact *was* used against the Soviet public.
Actually, an emerging thought is that consciousness is a property of matter, OR it is a symbiotic twin to matter: matter resonating with consciousness. At one point the resonating brings fruit in the form of memories and thoughts in a capable matter-structure. So in theory, if you manage to put material pieces together in a certain combination, it will end up being self-aware. Also; all matter becomes potentially conscious, and it also means that everything is one in a much more profound way. Now you might also understand concepts like the over-self, "God" and a self aware universe. I'm sure all you religious people will have a field day on this :-) but at the end of the day, the idea that matter has potent consciousness in itself really explains how life is possible at all, and must exist, and it can perhaps lead to a more down to earth view on existence than that there has been a omnipotent master designing the universe as an architect would a house.
My thoughts on this anyhow..
I dunno what you are rambling about, but 70 years in prison for exploiting an insecure system is completely braindead. The judgement plays on peoples ignorance of what computers and the internet is. In all the "hacker" cases, the judges and lawyers show a lack of understanding when it comes to the technology. And the penalty should be on the sysops not the hacker. Perhaps he could get a slap-wrist penalty of 5 years (MAX!) in a British prison and a fine, but ~70 years in the US? Give me a break! Murderers get less! And if you honestly can say he's worse than a murderer? And implications are the fault of system developers, who decide on the hierarchical layout of their networks.
Point 2: it is nothing new that governments have secrets, and some of that information ought to be open to the public. Governments won't open such information no matter what and in this day and age, isn't it at least understandable (with 9/11, UFOlogy, the Bush Administration and Skulls & Bones etc) that some people want to find out for themselves, the best they can? Of course the goverment, which has so amputated the general public from their chain of power, will ignore this... the frustration over this mistrust between government and citizen easily explains McKinnons actions.
This isn't like some Iraqi breakin in US defences! This is an ally citizen who wondered about UFO tech perhaps hidden from him in an ally country, a close country which has had a special relationship with his nation for centuries. We all know where the US stands on that subject. And we also know that many people see UFOlogy == Insanity - another naive kneejerk reaction to the efforts of uncovering the unknown. McKinnon must be a hero for many UFOlogists, and I understand why. The US gonvernment, and Britain, have yet again shown their dark side in this matter - continuation of their lack of respect for people's right to be curious about the ones who rule them!
Go here: www.disclosureproject.org
Read for yourself how many people have come forward from the US government to testify before CONGRESS to what they have seen of UFO tech. It's a campaign to uncover the truth, and as long as the US and other countries hide profound secrets that ought to be out there, more McKinnons will try to cather as much info as they can on their own. Justice is for the just, and the US clearly isn't so.
Hehe, I'm norwegian, but to mee, that sounds really funny!!! =) In norwegian it's "meteoritt" :-) Bøtt ank ju, veldig gudd! :-)