Could you build a satellite with very small ion thrusters that would allow it to climb up and perhaps eventually even exit from the orbit? I know ESA used this with Smart 1 to get it to the Moon.
> I found myself pulling on a door clearly marked Push.
That is actually just an UI bug in the door. If you want people to push a door, you should use a handle that is like a plate, where you can easily put your hand against and push it. If you want people to pull the door open, you need to use vertical rod as a handle, where people can easily grab on to pull it. With this very small change, you don't even need to push/pull texts on the doors.
Also, doors should be always pulled when you go in and pushed when you go out. That makes exiting the building easier in case of emergency (people don't rush to the door and jam it, preventing anyone from pulling it open.) and also when people are trying to get in and out at the same time, the person outside is more capable of keeping the door open for the person going out (it is better that people first get out, before new people get in, because inside there is a limited space, while outside contains usually a lot more room). Also outside usually contains more room for pulling, while the inside often has a wall that limits the space for pulling, especially if you want to keep the door open for someone else.
I like to give people (or companies) a chance to change. But I do require that they first undo their previous crimes. Microsoft can start by identifying the 235 patents they talked about few years ago: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/14/0018242
> It would be pointless to test prior to integration of all submitted components.
It might not be as useful, but it is not pointless. You can find new bugs, even when you write just a single unit test for a single function in your code. Especially when your system is build up from small independent applications.
> I still don't understand the obsession with Acid tests
It is about marketing. It is something that can easily be measured and you can put products in quality order (or so it seems from the point of viewer) according to it. Reality is irrelevant in marketing.
> I have to rely on public transportation (not very efficient in most US cities), or rent a car.... or you could walk, take a taxi or you could implement community bicycle program: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_bicycle_program
> Others in the department know very well who is deadwood and who quietly holds the whole thing together. If their managers are any good, they know it as well.
Lets say that you are the deadwood and you know it. You also have a lot of friends in the place. Only person who you are not friend with is the one person in the department who actually does the work. Now, ask all of them who is the deadwood and all except one will vote for the same person.
So yes, people know. But the real problem is that people lie. They lie a lot more than people think. You can't trust anyone in this matter.
I don't have that problem with Ubuntu 8.04. I'm fairly sure that your problem is not very general, perhaps related to CDROM drive, distribution or settings. Have you tried asking help from your distribution community?
No it is not. In broken windows fallacy it goes like this: break it -> fix it -> break it -> fix it -> break it... etc. Never ending loop that produces nothing new.
In open source, it goes like this: make broken software -> improve it -> improve it -> improve it ->... -> perfect software. It is about making something better and better all the time.
Slashdot Mirror
Could you build a satellite with very small ion thrusters that would allow it to climb up and perhaps eventually even exit from the orbit? I know ESA used this with Smart 1 to get it to the Moon.
> billions of people on Earth don't have enough to eat
Billions? As in 2 or more billions? BBC news claims that it just recently hit only 1 billion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger#Hunger_statistics
> I found myself pulling on a door clearly marked Push.
That is actually just an UI bug in the door. If you want people to push a door, you should use a handle that is like a plate, where you can easily put your hand against and push it. If you want people to pull the door open, you need to use vertical rod as a handle, where people can easily grab on to pull it. With this very small change, you don't even need to push/pull texts on the doors.
Also, doors should be always pulled when you go in and pushed when you go out. That makes exiting the building easier in case of emergency (people don't rush to the door and jam it, preventing anyone from pulling it open.) and also when people are trying to get in and out at the same time, the person outside is more capable of keeping the door open for the person going out (it is better that people first get out, before new people get in, because inside there is a limited space, while outside contains usually a lot more room). Also outside usually contains more room for pulling, while the inside often has a wall that limits the space for pulling, especially if you want to keep the door open for someone else.
If you think robots can be controlled by just 3 laws, why do humans need hundreds of laws?
> it is possible that Microsoft might be changing
I like to give people (or companies) a chance to change. But I do require that they first undo their previous crimes. Microsoft can start by identifying the 235 patents they talked about few years ago:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/14/0018242
> It would be pointless to test prior to integration of all submitted components.
It might not be as useful, but it is not pointless. You can find new bugs, even when you write just a single unit test for a single function in your code. Especially when your system is build up from small independent applications.
"10 PRINT "HELLO "; ...and brought me 28 years later where I am now."
20 GOTO 10
You are still in the loop?
> I still don't understand the obsession with Acid tests
It is about marketing. It is something that can easily be measured and you can put products in quality order (or so it seems from the point of viewer) according to it. Reality is irrelevant in marketing.
This Steve Jobs sounded pretty good killer, so I did a query:
What kills Steve Jobs, the result was:
Retrieved 0 results for what kills Steve Jobs.
Query: What kills Linux
On the list, Microsoft, Dell, Apple
And... Steve Jobs.
Query: What kills Microsoft:
First in the list: Linux, Sony, Apple
Other notable: Steve Jobs
Do toy benchmark for databases. I'm fairly sure SQLite would beat PostgreSQL easily. Does that mean that SQLite is better in large applications also?
> The forks are GPL. Therefore, if Oracle wishes, they can just cherrypick the best patches from all forks
They can. But then they can't dual license it anymore as they don't own copyright for the whole source.
> I can't seem to find a package list of what, exactly, comes on those disks
Mirrors where the disk can be downloaded, should usually contain .list file where you can see this information. E.g.:
http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/ubuntu-cdimage/releases/jaunty/release/ubuntu-9.04-dvd-i386.list
> 6-10 weeks delivery time? The price is right, but if you need something now
You could perhaps download CD or DVD image and burn it yourself for those who need it? You don't have to order it.
> I have to rely on public transportation (not very efficient in most US cities), or rent a car. ... or you could walk, take a taxi or you could implement community bicycle program: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_bicycle_program
Just add a big goatse picture to the cover. I can guarantee that women won't call it adorable anymore after that.
> Others in the department know very well who is deadwood and who quietly holds the whole thing together. If their managers are any good, they know it as well.
Lets say that you are the deadwood and you know it. You also have a lot of friends in the place. Only person who you are not friend with is the one person in the department who actually does the work. Now, ask all of them who is the deadwood and all except one will vote for the same person.
So yes, people know. But the real problem is that people lie. They lie a lot more than people think. You can't trust anyone in this matter.
I don't have that problem with Ubuntu 8.04. I'm fairly sure that your problem is not very general, perhaps related to CDROM drive, distribution or settings. Have you tried asking help from your distribution community?
> This is the broken windows fallacy rephrased
No it is not. In broken windows fallacy it goes like this: break it -> fix it -> break it -> fix it -> break it ... etc. Never ending loop that produces nothing new.
In open source, it goes like this: make broken software -> improve it -> improve it -> improve it -> ... -> perfect software. It is about making something better and better all the time.
> One is Games.
Is there a game in your mind that would not work with Wine?
> Something to challenge Visual Studio
http://www.codeblocks.org/
http://www.kdevelop.org/
If we measure "better" in percents of all features (not just those in the ACID tests), then:
Browser: ......... IE6 ..| IE7 ..| FF2 ..| 73% ..| 90% .......... 51% ..| 56% ..| 92% ..| 13% ..| 24% ............... 50% ..| 51% ..| 79% .... 99% ..| 99% ..| 100%
HTML / XHTML . 73%
CSS 2.1
CSS 3 changes . 10%
DOM
ECMAScript
http://www.webdevout.net/browser-support-summary?IE6=on&IE7=on&FX2=on&uas=CUSTOM
html/xhtml support is about
IE7: 73%
FF2: 90%
O9: 85%
CSS 2.1
IE7: 56%
FF3: 93%
O9: 94%
Not sure about IE8, but I doubt that it can be much more than IE7.
http://www.webdevout.net/browser-support-summary?IE7=on&FX2=on&FX3=on&OP9=on&uas=CUSTOM
> 2- Video editing. Super simple video editing.
Not sure what you count as super simple, but have you tried http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/ ?
> Hands up everyone who got it down to less than 30, any distro.
Here is cold boot to desktop under 10 seconds with Asus Eeepc (not by me, but just to show that it is not that impossible):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzkQhHaFE0I
> Lets benchmark a BETA against a Linux distro
They tested Ubuntu 9.04 also, which is ALPHA.