Applications are activities, documents are journals...hell, why don't we call the laptop a leg-sittin' typing machine? To call the renaming of anything a major GUI change is absurd.
Okay, but then we'll have to do the nitpicky semantic two-step. Your statement's fine if you're using "GUI" to collectively reference all of the graphical components displayed on the screen which allow the user to manipulate various aspects of the OS, navigate between different windows, and so on.
But the concept-shift described in the interface guidelines extends quite a ways beyond the GUI proper. The GUI is just a component of the overall user interface; the conceptual framework for the whole thing is another. "Activities" are a great way to group applications together. If it's implemented successfully, it'll work because it makes more sense to say, "I'm going to write a letter" or "I'm going to edit a photograph" rather than to target particular applications. Indeed, the latter is a big point of failing for many day-to-day users: they learn how to do something in the most literal and linear sense with a specific application, rather than actually thinking about the nature and structure of the task at hand, and thus the day they're forced to use something different.
Yes, we still haven't seen it, and yes, it might be poorly implemented -hell, maybe even worse than "kid-friendly" dumb-down exercises like KidDesk. But there's no denying the idea behind it is great. Problem solving skills beat rote hands down every time and in just about every way: ultimately, it's better to teach how to learn than how to X with Y.
Although DRM is a pain in the ass, at this point it's not too troublesome in all reality. I would conclude that about 95% of users either dont even know what DRM is, and therefore it's probably not affecting them, or people are just finding some way around it. So currently, I just can't buy into the argument that DRM is such a big deal.
But it's a pain in the ass; you just said so yourself!
Even if you don't disagree with DRM as a matter of principal, there are plenty of instances where you either have to commit time and effort towards finding a work-around, or you simply give up and don't get to do what you want/need to with that for which you've already paid. In the former case, it's even worse, because DRM technologies are often revised, which means the old work-arounds no longer work, which means staying abreast of both DRM technology and circumvention, *plus* the fact that, technically, what you're doing is illegal in many places and could get you into loads of trouble. If and when it comes down to getting prosecuted for your crime, you're facing numerous penalties (fines, incarceration, and so on) if you admit your guilt or, if you decide to fight it, extensive legal fees + the potential of penalties if your defense botches it.
Yeah, maybe all of that can't be measured accurately without context, but that's the nature of TCO studies, and why I mentioned the idea in the first place. I'm not suggesting that a real TCO study would be worthwhile -most of the ones I've seen that cite specific figures don't hold up well under close analysis- but rather that the general approach is a damn fine way to talk about what DRM is already accomplishing short-term: lots of needless hassle for ordinary people who otherwise would probably not be considered criminals.
For just about every music service out there, 5 minutes on google will show you precisely and easily how to strip the DRM off the music and convert the song into a regular MP3.
Say, that sounds familiar. Whaddya figure the TCO of music bought at those "convenient" online music stores comes out to?
Microsoft's use of the word "open" in this case is supposed to denote that it's an openly-documented standard. The claim is that anyone will be free to use it and not be sued with the caveat that a given implementation of OpenXML match their specifications for the standard. Basically, it's a way of saying, "You're free to use the format, but we ultimately control it and you have to meet our specification...and you can't modify it or improve it, because we need to make sure we can always leverage it so as to prioritize our business interests above all else."
More speculatively, one could also say "open" is probably part of the name for hype/buzzword purposes. After all, anything "open" must be good, right?
The "fuck you..." in me only comes out when someone's an asshat for no reason. After all, I do drive too, though less than I used to since I've started working in NYC. Throwing things or deliberately trying to cut off cyclists who are moving to the front of the line on the shoulder is way over the line.
Oh, don't get me wrong. There's definitely a line. Some things definitely demand the fist-shaking, steely-gazed "THREE FEET!!!" pyscho-holler-from-hell approach. Most don't.
Speaking of NYC, people there seem to treat cyclists with more respect than in some of the wealthier suburbs. i.e., I've had people drive aggressively in NYC, but not overtly be abusive. When I ride the folding bike, I even get quite a few "hey, cool bike, where can I get one?" comments.
Well, I wasn't talking about NYC specifically, more any urban environment where there are tons of cyclists. I'm in Chicago and I'm still amazed by how "good" most motorists are to me during the commute from the south side up through the Loop...and I mean "good" in comparison to the way I've had drivers act when I've biked 50 to 100 miles outside the city during some easy touring. I'd chalk it up to a mix of the lower speeds cars travel at on city streets and the commonness of cyclists in cities vs. the opposite in areas of lesser population density.
Can't you reply, "Go Fatass! Oh wait, you're *not* going while I pass all of your asses on the shoulder. Muhahahahahaha!" ?
Ha. Yeah, it's tempting, but here's two things I figured out a while ago:
1) Anyone aggressive enough to try to provoke someone who has done *nothing* to them is probably going to get more aggressive upon getting a taste of their own medicine; given the sheer difference in mass between our respective vehicles, this is not something I want to push too hard.
2) I'm convinced cycling is a valid way to get from A to B and that the best place for it is on the road with other vehicles. This is legal most places, but there are plenty of people out there who either aren't aware or aren't convinced. The best way to demonstrate that cycling's a good way to get around, or at least valid enough for motorists to treat me as another vehicle, is to behave like a sane user of the road infrastructure. Riding predictably, obeying traffic laws and signals, and conducting oneself in a courteous yet assertive manner is a much better form of applied advocacy than the "FUCK YOU, CAGER!" rhetoric with which so many urban cyclists seem obsessed. Bullshit machismo is bullshit machismo.
Can't speak for the guy myself, but I commute by bike 8 months out of the year, including the hot part of the summer. Your assumption is largely correct: light clothes are a big part of the secret. It's the one part of the year where you'll catch me wearing a cycling jersey. A decent one can be had for $30 or a bit less and is very breathable and helps prevent you from overheating, and is designed to wick away just enough moisture where you can avoid being completely drenched in filth-sweat and yet have some of your sweat do its intended business and help cool you down. Beyond that, I also wear a pair of cycling shorts underneath a pair of Dickies work pants (hemmed about three or four inches above the ankle to avoid getting caught in the drivetrain): the work pants curb the "Go Lance!" and worse comments from idiots on the street, while the shorts breathe just fine and also provide a little extra padding between my butt and the saddle.
The office job I've held for the past year doesn't have shower facilities and there's no gym close by, but it's not hard to clean up for work: I bring a change of clothes in my bag, rolled up to avoid creasing, and once a week bring in a different towel that I keep in a desk drawer. I change out of the bike clothes in one of the bathroom stalls, wipe myself down with the towel, and change into the work clothes; the bike clothes get hung in an unused closet so most of the sweat can dry out.
The day I decided that Linux wasn't for me was the day I went to #Linux and asked for the name of a good distro a n00b could run without pulling out his hair.
That's like deciding not to shop at a particular grocery store because you went there the day the customers were all smarmy sophisticates who looked down their nose at you when they saw what you were putting in your cart. If the selection of goods relative to your needs is sub-par and the aisles are full of rat droppings, that's one thing, but what you're doing is pretty far removed from the realm of objectivity.
It's easy to make snap judgments about anything, particularly anything affiliated with a community, based on a single experience that happens to reinforce a stereotype. That doesn't mean it's a fair judgment or an informed judgment. By your reasoning, any of the following assumptions could be true, simply based on encounters that I myself have had which seem to confirm the common wisdom notion of "those people are like that":
-Windows users are corporate shills. Therefore Windows is not for me.
-Mac users are smug assholes incapable of dealing with objective criticism of their platform. As such, I will never own a Mac.
-Linux users are post-script kiddies "working" out of their parents' basement after flunking out of college. Subsequently, I can never use Linux.
-People who code in Perl don't give a damn about producing readable code. Perl will not be a good solution for anything I do, ever.
-Web designers who use Flash don't give a damn about standards, let alone understand them. Flash is a bad solution for everything all of the time.
I've paid witness to many incidents, conversations, and even altercations which suggest the above points, but I've also seen plenty of evidence to the contrary. Similarly, I could say you're prone to making a big deal out of first impressions and allowing them to severely color your general perception of others, but OTOH, you might be an intelligent fellow who does all sorts of great things with his time and throws terrific parties. I'd never know of it because the one thing close to an interaction that I've had with you was reading a comment that didn't come off as particularly well reasoned. If I knew any more about you, I might decide that, say, the car you drive isn't for me, or that any particularly ideology you embrace isn't worthwhile, but that wouldn't be fair, even if I posted-scripted the second-guessing of said generalized observation in a downright snotty fashion.
Part of the charter of FreeGeek is to supply hardware to non-profit organizations. So what do you do when PFLAG, which is a non-profit, comes knocking?
We consider the number of computers on hand and the specific need of the organization for computer hardware, just like with any other non-profit organization. If one organization is in more dire need of hardware than another, and there's *one* machine to go around, they get it. Politics and the like can't and don't enter into it, much the same way we don't refuse to allow a given volunteer to earn a box based on gender/gender identity, ethnicity, religious affiliation, age, sexual orientation or what have you. Even if you yourself had been bold enough to post under your own ID and we knew who you were, we would accept you as a volunteer, despite the fact that most of us would personally find your insinuation both disgusting and reprehensible. We're into *helping people*, you see.
I was kept wondering how on earth did steve balless say that linux is infringing microsoft's patent? Did he really know what the heck he is saying?
Of course. Steve picked the phrase "intellectual property" very carefully and shied away from any more specific language than that so as to keep Microsoft's options open (and probably also to avoid getting sued for libel). Intellectual property could be in reference to anything from patents to copyright to trademark to vague ideas and concept, the latter of which can't be pinned down by the letter of the law. A vague threat of suspicious basis may not mean much to those who demand direct, solid, clear-cut language, but to highly suggestible management types who are already neck-deep in corporate bureaucracy and legal mumbo-jumbo, it sounds like a ticking time bomb -in effect, exactly what MS wants.
Re:20 hours for a used PC?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Some friends and I might be interested in starting up that sort of thing here (which may not work as well, I live in an extremely rural area of the country). Do the other FreeGeek groups have any interest in helping out new groups?
Yes...though you've got to remember, everybody centrally involved at each location is busy handling real-live FreeGeek activities and maybe a separate day gig if they're not a paid staffer (here in Chicago, we're *all volunteers* at present and are still working on getting our 501(c)3 status!). Your best bet is to get on the FreeGeek Startup list at http://lists.freegeek.org/mailman/listinfo/startup and introduce yourself and state what you aim to do. Folks from most (if not all) of the FreeGeeks across the U.S. are on there and are generally of great help.
Re:20 hours for a used PC?
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I just wonder how many people are willing to do 20 hours for something that would only require half that number of hours to buy outright in an average-wage job. Do you get a lot of takers?
You're making the mistake of assuming that earned income = disposable income. Many of our volunteers are there because that $50 they *could* spend to get one of our computer systems has to go towards putting food on the table, paying rent, and so on instead; saving up such an amount of money could take weeks, and it still means parting with hard-earned cash.
The volunteer labor isn't of the unpleasant "scrub the toilets, sawdust pools of vomit" variety at all. We teach our volunteers the basics of how computers work, starting with identifying each component and explaining how it all works together. Then we put them in tear down, where they remove most components from to-spec machines (or strip under-spec machines to bare metal), sort components into bins for subsequent testing, and put scrap plastic and metal aside for recycling. This process is supervised by a staff member, and everybody seems to enjoy it: taking imposing devices apart seems pretty cathartic to most of the folks who partake in the workflow, and they seem to like asking questions about why various components look different and function differently. After this, they get moved into testing, where they plug components into known working hardware and use our pre-determined testing procedures and separate the good from the bad (which, of course, also get recycled). Phase three is where they plug known working components together in a case and then proceed to install the operating system, with our help. We also teach them how to use the machine and offer free walk-in support if they encounter any problems. Nobody is stuck in a given process for any particular number of hours: rather, we let people do what they like doing most, but of course encourage them to do everything and learn as much as possible.
If you think all that's not worth 20 hours, that's your business. There are plenty of people who believe otherwise, and we welcome their presence, questions, and curiosity.
Re:How old (valuable) are the old PCs?
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You'd be surprised. I'm a staffer at FreeGeek Chicago, and when we first started up about a year ago, we had a guy from the neighborhood come around and demand that we sell him some busted up P1 laptops from our store of equipment. His plan was to load them up with pirated copies of Win98 and sell them on the street for, in his words, "twice what I'm payin' you guys", and we were supposed to go along with this as he saw us as cutting in on his business. We explained to him that those machines were below even our paltry baseline spec and our plan was just to insure that they get recycled properly...when he realized we were giving out stuff better than absolute crap free-of-charge in exchange for volunteer labor, he said we were crazy, and we wouldn't believe how much we could be getting if we sold our stuff at his "rates"; his take was that people who don't know much about computers are naive enough to think that all laptops perform like champs, are status symbols, and that $100 for one is a steal, regardless how outdated it may actually be.
Since then, we've also become privvy to what an allegedly similar recycling/refurbishing organization in the Chicago area charges for machines that match our baseline spec. Given the business they seem to get, I'd say our street salesman friend may not have been too far off the mark...it's more than twice what we charge in the rare event we're selling a machine (again, we usually just ask for 20 hours of volunteer time as opposed to money).
I think everyone is for the seperate bike lanes. It's a real pain to share a 40 MPH road with someone driving 20 MPH, especially when they're driving a bike and it will fit on the sidewalk.
Roadways contain much of the infrastructure necessary to promote operation of all sorts of vehicles, including bikes. Sidewalks *don't*; this is why, in many urban areas, sidewalk cycling is illegal. There are no rules regarding direction of travel, lane demarcations, or anything else along those lines on the sidewalk. Sidewalks are not designed to facilitate wheels rolling on them for prolonged distances, nor are they wide enough to accommodate multi-directional vehicular traffic. Motorists turning through intersections are watching for slow-moving pedestrian traffic before completing a turn; bicycles move much faster and are less easily detected by a turning motorist.
In short, sidewalks are generally *awful* places for bicyclists to ride. The only points of your argument seem to be that they shouldn't be on the roads because they inconvenience you by moving half the speed of your car, and because they take up so little space as to fit on the sidewalk. The truth is that bicyclists take up a much smaller percentage of the road than they do of the sidewalk, and therefore they're not inconveniencing you all that much. Pass them when you've got room (give them at least three feet); if you haven't got room for that, you're either in moderate to dense traffic or the road curves too much, in which case you're better off slowing down in the first place.
You can't wave your boobs around from the balcony expecting everyone who looks to toss you some beads. Once you're out there, you're out there and if no one gives you a strand then that's really your own fault for putting yourself on the line in the first place.
The case isn't about anyone demanding beads, but rather, someone else has tried to take the poor girl's boobs, and...
Sorry, I had *absolutely no clue* the guy had passed away. I was making a joke about his undeniably laughable improvisational vocal stylings on the live King Crimson album Earthbound.
Hm...Eno to Fripp...so the trend is to move down the chain, as opposed to up, eh? How many versions is it until the startup sound is Boz Burrel scat singing?
I know several people who asked that they go back to Windoze because they found finding software difficult to find and when they found it they found it very difficult to install. They certainly didn't want to compile the software. IT people have relatively little difficulty in this matter, however, before widespread adoption is to occur, ease if installation is necessary.
Compile, huh? Sounds like either you
a) put them on Slackware or Gentoo
or
b) put them on a more traditional desktop-oriented distro without showing them how to use a GUI package manager,
either of which would be absolutely bewildering.
No offense, but if you're going to spin yarns about installation woes, at least go into depth about the situation. A lack of context results in others interpreting your statements as typical mythic disinformational FUD.
It's always (or at least from 95 onwards) been the case that upgrading from one version of Windows to the next is best done with a clean install. That's because a clean install removes some of the crap that builds on your machine over time (ie. Registry).
Over ten years later and that aspect of things *still* proves to be an enormous problem. This is a much bigger deal than fighting with driver issues, pulling down the latest patches, or slipstreaming a CD with the necessary service packs: this means that, in addition to installing the OS and getting it working with your hardware, you've got to re-install all your applications, reconfigure preferences/settings (or copy over/import the relevant data where possible), and so on...what a tremendous nightmare! Not trolling or flaming here, folks: I'm genuinely curious why it is that Microsoft still thinks that this is acceptable? And I'm not looking for a "because people are still buying" response...I'm more interested if anyone's seen them actually address the issue, at least as a talking point.
Your point is correct in fact, but completely off-base in terms of the subject of discussion. The problem isn't the actions of the user (which in all truthfulness were based on a bad reccommendation by someone who should know better), but rather the fact that an OS touted for its user friendliness yielded a decidedly cryptic error message which gave no indication as to the root or even possible cause of the error; determining what went wrong involved extensive research, which even had to go beyond the scope of information offered on Apple's website. That's decidedly counter-intuitive, and as such runs against the single biggest argument made for switching to the Mac.
"Every release of Photoshop brings it that much closer to merging PS, Illustrator, and After Effects."
For you and what you do, that's the Holy Trinity of graphics applications. It's going to be different for others. For, say, a designer focused on print production, it's probably going to be PS, Illustrator, and InDesign. Adobe could merge its most powerful applications, but hasn't. Chances are they won't. Why? Because each one works best for a particular set of tasks. Coincidentally, they can stand a chance of making more money off individual liscences, or (and here's what's smart!) offer discounted specially-oriented bundles of liscences for particular applications, so that there's never one big ultra-bloated application that's supposed to handle everything conceivable. It'd be a nightmare to maintain, and what's more, it'd require an ungodly amount of screen realestate for all the pallettes necessary to do the work required from just two of the three or four applications one might want to use together.
Instead of pushing for integration, Adobe's practice after all these years remains one of focusing on consistency of interface design between their apps and ensuring good interoperability between most of their products. They seem to copy features between applications every major release, but that's because a lot of people don't consider under-the-hood stability fixes to be particularly exciting and need a new and shiny something that might be immediately useful to them to justify the upgrade expence.
If such a feature winds up being to your benefit: great. You get some time shaved off your work. But now think about all the extra features you *don't* use, and how much bigger and complicated their presence might make the application.
Balderdash. It's got nothing to do with the success or failure of OSS. Rather, it's a general problem that plagues the application software industry and lowers the productivity of the hundreds of thousands of people out there using the wrong tool for the job. Look, you might be able to pry a crate open with the other end of a clawhammer, but it's a hell of a lot less effective than a crowbar: you're going to break a heavier sweat because you've got less leverage, the prying end is the wrong shape, and you're probably going to bust the crate to pieces with the hammer; use the right tool and you're done in a shorter amount of time, have exerted a hell of a lot loss effort, and you can reuse the crate. Similarly, you can use a butter knife instead of a flathead screwdriver, because they're vaguely alike, but there's no arguing that one approach is right (efficient, won't strip the screw) and the other is 100% hamfisted and should only be done in the case of an emergency situation where the appropriate tool isn't available.
The primary motivation in having a huge, over-reaching featureset in a proprietary application seems to be to justify the (usually) ungodly charge for the end user license. This doesn't work so great, however, because it means the developers have to create said feature and try to integrate it into the package. This means their employers either have to compensate them accordingly so that the extra features work really well, or be satisfied that the feature is there enough to list in on the box or in marketing materials; as such, the price either goes up or the company allows itself to take a loss in not charging extra or shipping a product with sub-par features. In any event it's a real bitch to integrate limited functionality for a particular task that goes beyond the scope of the application without it seeming half-assed, incomplete, or confusing the real purpose of the application. This is why you see people doing things like using Photoshop for page layout or Excel in lieu of a database; the results speak for themselves.
This whole Swiss Army Knife approach for *complex applications* needs to be nipped in the bud, and that's in both proprietary and free solutions. Anything less is accepting the approach simply because of precedent and ignoring evidence to the contrary.
More importantly: why are so many journalists (both pro and self-appointed) inclined to write about the certain demise of a given subject matter when they're short on other ideas, especially when their readership has been pointing out the cliche for some years now?
I'm no Windows fan and in fact vehemently dislike Microsoft, but given all the buzz over an operating system's failure to ship on time, it's clearly still relevant.
Slashdot Mirror
and thus the day they're forced to use something different
they're lost.
(Sorry, don't know how I missed that one.)
Applications are activities, documents are journals...hell, why don't we call the laptop a leg-sittin' typing machine? To call the renaming of anything a major GUI change is absurd.
Okay, but then we'll have to do the nitpicky semantic two-step. Your statement's fine if you're using "GUI" to collectively reference all of the graphical components displayed on the screen which allow the user to manipulate various aspects of the OS, navigate between different windows, and so on.
But the concept-shift described in the interface guidelines extends quite a ways beyond the GUI proper. The GUI is just a component of the overall user interface; the conceptual framework for the whole thing is another. "Activities" are a great way to group applications together. If it's implemented successfully, it'll work because it makes more sense to say, "I'm going to write a letter" or "I'm going to edit a photograph" rather than to target particular applications. Indeed, the latter is a big point of failing for many day-to-day users: they learn how to do something in the most literal and linear sense with a specific application, rather than actually thinking about the nature and structure of the task at hand, and thus the day they're forced to use something different.
Yes, we still haven't seen it, and yes, it might be poorly implemented -hell, maybe even worse than "kid-friendly" dumb-down exercises like KidDesk. But there's no denying the idea behind it is great. Problem solving skills beat rote hands down every time and in just about every way: ultimately, it's better to teach how to learn than how to X with Y.
Although DRM is a pain in the ass, at this point it's not too troublesome in all reality. I would conclude that about 95% of users either dont even know what DRM is, and therefore it's probably not affecting them, or people are just finding some way around it. So currently, I just can't buy into the argument that DRM is such a big deal.
But it's a pain in the ass; you just said so yourself!
Even if you don't disagree with DRM as a matter of principal, there are plenty of instances where you either have to commit time and effort towards finding a work-around, or you simply give up and don't get to do what you want/need to with that for which you've already paid. In the former case, it's even worse, because DRM technologies are often revised, which means the old work-arounds no longer work, which means staying abreast of both DRM technology and circumvention, *plus* the fact that, technically, what you're doing is illegal in many places and could get you into loads of trouble. If and when it comes down to getting prosecuted for your crime, you're facing numerous penalties (fines, incarceration, and so on) if you admit your guilt or, if you decide to fight it, extensive legal fees + the potential of penalties if your defense botches it.
Yeah, maybe all of that can't be measured accurately without context, but that's the nature of TCO studies, and why I mentioned the idea in the first place. I'm not suggesting that a real TCO study would be worthwhile -most of the ones I've seen that cite specific figures don't hold up well under close analysis- but rather that the general approach is a damn fine way to talk about what DRM is already accomplishing short-term: lots of needless hassle for ordinary people who otherwise would probably not be considered criminals.
For just about every music service out there, 5 minutes on google will show you precisely and easily how to strip the DRM off the music and convert the song into a regular MP3.
Say, that sounds familiar. Whaddya figure the TCO of music bought at those "convenient" online music stores comes out to?
Microsoft's use of the word "open" in this case is supposed to denote that it's an openly-documented standard. The claim is that anyone will be free to use it and not be sued with the caveat that a given implementation of OpenXML match their specifications for the standard. Basically, it's a way of saying, "You're free to use the format, but we ultimately control it and you have to meet our specification...and you can't modify it or improve it, because we need to make sure we can always leverage it so as to prioritize our business interests above all else."
More speculatively, one could also say "open" is probably part of the name for hype/buzzword purposes. After all, anything "open" must be good, right?
The "fuck you..." in me only comes out when someone's an asshat for no reason. After all, I do drive too, though less than I used to since I've started working in NYC. Throwing things or deliberately trying to cut off cyclists who are moving to the front of the line on the shoulder is way over the line.
Oh, don't get me wrong. There's definitely a line. Some things definitely demand the fist-shaking, steely-gazed "THREE FEET!!!" pyscho-holler-from-hell approach. Most don't.Speaking of NYC, people there seem to treat cyclists with more respect than in some of the wealthier suburbs. i.e., I've had people drive aggressively in NYC, but not overtly be abusive. When I ride the folding bike, I even get quite a few "hey, cool bike, where can I get one?" comments.
Well, I wasn't talking about NYC specifically, more any urban environment where there are tons of cyclists. I'm in Chicago and I'm still amazed by how "good" most motorists are to me during the commute from the south side up through the Loop...and I mean "good" in comparison to the way I've had drivers act when I've biked 50 to 100 miles outside the city during some easy touring. I'd chalk it up to a mix of the lower speeds cars travel at on city streets and the commonness of cyclists in cities vs. the opposite in areas of lesser population density.
Can't you reply, "Go Fatass! Oh wait, you're *not* going while I pass all of your asses on the shoulder. Muhahahahahaha!" ?
Ha. Yeah, it's tempting, but here's two things I figured out a while ago:1) Anyone aggressive enough to try to provoke someone who has done *nothing* to them is probably going to get more aggressive upon getting a taste of their own medicine; given the sheer difference in mass between our respective vehicles, this is not something I want to push too hard.
2) I'm convinced cycling is a valid way to get from A to B and that the best place for it is on the road with other vehicles. This is legal most places, but there are plenty of people out there who either aren't aware or aren't convinced. The best way to demonstrate that cycling's a good way to get around, or at least valid enough for motorists to treat me as another vehicle, is to behave like a sane user of the road infrastructure. Riding predictably, obeying traffic laws and signals, and conducting oneself in a courteous yet assertive manner is a much better form of applied advocacy than the "FUCK YOU, CAGER!" rhetoric with which so many urban cyclists seem obsessed. Bullshit machismo is bullshit machismo.
Can't speak for the guy myself, but I commute by bike 8 months out of the year, including the hot part of the summer. Your assumption is largely correct: light clothes are a big part of the secret. It's the one part of the year where you'll catch me wearing a cycling jersey. A decent one can be had for $30 or a bit less and is very breathable and helps prevent you from overheating, and is designed to wick away just enough moisture where you can avoid being completely drenched in filth-sweat and yet have some of your sweat do its intended business and help cool you down. Beyond that, I also wear a pair of cycling shorts underneath a pair of Dickies work pants (hemmed about three or four inches above the ankle to avoid getting caught in the drivetrain): the work pants curb the "Go Lance!" and worse comments from idiots on the street, while the shorts breathe just fine and also provide a little extra padding between my butt and the saddle.
The office job I've held for the past year doesn't have shower facilities and there's no gym close by, but it's not hard to clean up for work: I bring a change of clothes in my bag, rolled up to avoid creasing, and once a week bring in a different towel that I keep in a desk drawer. I change out of the bike clothes in one of the bathroom stalls, wipe myself down with the towel, and change into the work clothes; the bike clothes get hung in an unused closet so most of the sweat can dry out.
The day I decided that Linux wasn't for me was the day I went to #Linux and asked for the name of a good distro a n00b could run without pulling out his hair.
That's like deciding not to shop at a particular grocery store because you went there the day the customers were all smarmy sophisticates who looked down their nose at you when they saw what you were putting in your cart. If the selection of goods relative to your needs is sub-par and the aisles are full of rat droppings, that's one thing, but what you're doing is pretty far removed from the realm of objectivity.
It's easy to make snap judgments about anything, particularly anything affiliated with a community, based on a single experience that happens to reinforce a stereotype. That doesn't mean it's a fair judgment or an informed judgment. By your reasoning, any of the following assumptions could be true, simply based on encounters that I myself have had which seem to confirm the common wisdom notion of "those people are like that":
-Windows users are corporate shills. Therefore Windows is not for me.
-Mac users are smug assholes incapable of dealing with objective criticism of their platform. As such, I will never own a Mac.
-Linux users are post-script kiddies "working" out of their parents' basement after flunking out of college. Subsequently, I can never use Linux.
-People who code in Perl don't give a damn about producing readable code. Perl will not be a good solution for anything I do, ever.
-Web designers who use Flash don't give a damn about standards, let alone understand them. Flash is a bad solution for everything all of the time.
I've paid witness to many incidents, conversations, and even altercations which suggest the above points, but I've also seen plenty of evidence to the contrary. Similarly, I could say you're prone to making a big deal out of first impressions and allowing them to severely color your general perception of others, but OTOH, you might be an intelligent fellow who does all sorts of great things with his time and throws terrific parties. I'd never know of it because the one thing close to an interaction that I've had with you was reading a comment that didn't come off as particularly well reasoned. If I knew any more about you, I might decide that, say, the car you drive isn't for me, or that any particularly ideology you embrace isn't worthwhile, but that wouldn't be fair, even if I posted-scripted the second-guessing of said generalized observation in a downright snotty fashion.
Pht. Whaddya got against the Beer Hunter, then?
Part of the charter of FreeGeek is to supply hardware to non-profit organizations. So what do you do when PFLAG, which is a non-profit, comes knocking?
We consider the number of computers on hand and the specific need of the organization for computer hardware, just like with any other non-profit organization. If one organization is in more dire need of hardware than another, and there's *one* machine to go around, they get it. Politics and the like can't and don't enter into it, much the same way we don't refuse to allow a given volunteer to earn a box based on gender/gender identity, ethnicity, religious affiliation, age, sexual orientation or what have you. Even if you yourself had been bold enough to post under your own ID and we knew who you were, we would accept you as a volunteer, despite the fact that most of us would personally find your insinuation both disgusting and reprehensible. We're into *helping people*, you see.
I was kept wondering how on earth did steve balless say that linux is infringing microsoft's patent? Did he really know what the heck he is saying?
Of course. Steve picked the phrase "intellectual property" very carefully and shied away from any more specific language than that so as to keep Microsoft's options open (and probably also to avoid getting sued for libel). Intellectual property could be in reference to anything from patents to copyright to trademark to vague ideas and concept, the latter of which can't be pinned down by the letter of the law. A vague threat of suspicious basis may not mean much to those who demand direct, solid, clear-cut language, but to highly suggestible management types who are already neck-deep in corporate bureaucracy and legal mumbo-jumbo, it sounds like a ticking time bomb -in effect, exactly what MS wants.
Some friends and I might be interested in starting up that sort of thing here (which may not work as well, I live in an extremely rural area of the country). Do the other FreeGeek groups have any interest in helping out new groups?
Yes...though you've got to remember, everybody centrally involved at each location is busy handling real-live FreeGeek activities and maybe a separate day gig if they're not a paid staffer (here in Chicago, we're *all volunteers* at present and are still working on getting our 501(c)3 status!). Your best bet is to get on the FreeGeek Startup list at http://lists.freegeek.org/mailman/listinfo/startup and introduce yourself and state what you aim to do. Folks from most (if not all) of the FreeGeeks across the U.S. are on there and are generally of great help.
I just wonder how many people are willing to do 20 hours for something that would only require half that number of hours to buy outright in an average-wage job. Do you get a lot of takers?
You're making the mistake of assuming that earned income = disposable income. Many of our volunteers are there because that $50 they *could* spend to get one of our computer systems has to go towards putting food on the table, paying rent, and so on instead; saving up such an amount of money could take weeks, and it still means parting with hard-earned cash.
The volunteer labor isn't of the unpleasant "scrub the toilets, sawdust pools of vomit" variety at all. We teach our volunteers the basics of how computers work, starting with identifying each component and explaining how it all works together. Then we put them in tear down, where they remove most components from to-spec machines (or strip under-spec machines to bare metal), sort components into bins for subsequent testing, and put scrap plastic and metal aside for recycling. This process is supervised by a staff member, and everybody seems to enjoy it: taking imposing devices apart seems pretty cathartic to most of the folks who partake in the workflow, and they seem to like asking questions about why various components look different and function differently. After this, they get moved into testing, where they plug components into known working hardware and use our pre-determined testing procedures and separate the good from the bad (which, of course, also get recycled). Phase three is where they plug known working components together in a case and then proceed to install the operating system, with our help. We also teach them how to use the machine and offer free walk-in support if they encounter any problems. Nobody is stuck in a given process for any particular number of hours: rather, we let people do what they like doing most, but of course encourage them to do everything and learn as much as possible.
If you think all that's not worth 20 hours, that's your business. There are plenty of people who believe otherwise, and we welcome their presence, questions, and curiosity.
You'd be surprised. I'm a staffer at FreeGeek Chicago, and when we first started up about a year ago, we had a guy from the neighborhood come around and demand that we sell him some busted up P1 laptops from our store of equipment. His plan was to load them up with pirated copies of Win98 and sell them on the street for, in his words, "twice what I'm payin' you guys", and we were supposed to go along with this as he saw us as cutting in on his business. We explained to him that those machines were below even our paltry baseline spec and our plan was just to insure that they get recycled properly...when he realized we were giving out stuff better than absolute crap free-of-charge in exchange for volunteer labor, he said we were crazy, and we wouldn't believe how much we could be getting if we sold our stuff at his "rates"; his take was that people who don't know much about computers are naive enough to think that all laptops perform like champs, are status symbols, and that $100 for one is a steal, regardless how outdated it may actually be.
Since then, we've also become privvy to what an allegedly similar recycling/refurbishing organization in the Chicago area charges for machines that match our baseline spec. Given the business they seem to get, I'd say our street salesman friend may not have been too far off the mark...it's more than twice what we charge in the rare event we're selling a machine (again, we usually just ask for 20 hours of volunteer time as opposed to money).
I think everyone is for the seperate bike lanes. It's a real pain to share a 40 MPH road with someone driving 20 MPH, especially when they're driving a bike and it will fit on the sidewalk.
Roadways contain much of the infrastructure necessary to promote operation of all sorts of vehicles, including bikes. Sidewalks *don't*; this is why, in many urban areas, sidewalk cycling is illegal. There are no rules regarding direction of travel, lane demarcations, or anything else along those lines on the sidewalk. Sidewalks are not designed to facilitate wheels rolling on them for prolonged distances, nor are they wide enough to accommodate multi-directional vehicular traffic. Motorists turning through intersections are watching for slow-moving pedestrian traffic before completing a turn; bicycles move much faster and are less easily detected by a turning motorist.
In short, sidewalks are generally *awful* places for bicyclists to ride. The only points of your argument seem to be that they shouldn't be on the roads because they inconvenience you by moving half the speed of your car, and because they take up so little space as to fit on the sidewalk. The truth is that bicyclists take up a much smaller percentage of the road than they do of the sidewalk, and therefore they're not inconveniencing you all that much. Pass them when you've got room (give them at least three feet); if you haven't got room for that, you're either in moderate to dense traffic or the road curves too much, in which case you're better off slowing down in the first place.
You can't wave your boobs around from the balcony expecting everyone who looks to toss you some beads. Once you're out there, you're out there and if no one gives you a strand then that's really your own fault for putting yourself on the line in the first place.
The case isn't about anyone demanding beads, but rather, someone else has tried to take the poor girl's boobs, and...
Sorry, I had *absolutely no clue* the guy had passed away. I was making a joke about his undeniably laughable improvisational vocal stylings on the live King Crimson album Earthbound.
Hm...Eno to Fripp...so the trend is to move down the chain, as opposed to up, eh? How many versions is it until the startup sound is Boz Burrel scat singing?
I know several people who asked that they go back to Windoze because they found finding software difficult to find and when they found it they found it very difficult to install. They certainly didn't want to compile the software. IT people have relatively little difficulty in this matter, however, before widespread adoption is to occur, ease if installation is necessary.
Compile, huh? Sounds like either you
a) put them on Slackware or Gentoo
or
b) put them on a more traditional desktop-oriented distro without showing them how to use a GUI package manager,
either of which would be absolutely bewildering.
No offense, but if you're going to spin yarns about installation woes, at least go into depth about the situation. A lack of context results in others interpreting your statements as typical mythic disinformational FUD.
It's always (or at least from 95 onwards) been the case that upgrading from one version of Windows to the next is best done with a clean install. That's because a clean install removes some of the crap that builds on your machine over time (ie. Registry).
Over ten years later and that aspect of things *still* proves to be an enormous problem. This is a much bigger deal than fighting with driver issues, pulling down the latest patches, or slipstreaming a CD with the necessary service packs: this means that, in addition to installing the OS and getting it working with your hardware, you've got to re-install all your applications, reconfigure preferences/settings (or copy over/import the relevant data where possible), and so on...what a tremendous nightmare! Not trolling or flaming here, folks: I'm genuinely curious why it is that Microsoft still thinks that this is acceptable? And I'm not looking for a "because people are still buying" response...I'm more interested if anyone's seen them actually address the issue, at least as a talking point.
Your point is correct in fact, but completely off-base in terms of the subject of discussion. The problem isn't the actions of the user (which in all truthfulness were based on a bad reccommendation by someone who should know better), but rather the fact that an OS touted for its user friendliness yielded a decidedly cryptic error message which gave no indication as to the root or even possible cause of the error; determining what went wrong involved extensive research, which even had to go beyond the scope of information offered on Apple's website. That's decidedly counter-intuitive, and as such runs against the single biggest argument made for switching to the Mac.
Simplistic view, you say? Dig this:
"Every release of Photoshop brings it that much closer to merging PS, Illustrator, and After Effects."
For you and what you do, that's the Holy Trinity of graphics applications. It's going to be different for others. For, say, a designer focused on print production, it's probably going to be PS, Illustrator, and InDesign. Adobe could merge its most powerful applications, but hasn't. Chances are they won't. Why? Because each one works best for a particular set of tasks. Coincidentally, they can stand a chance of making more money off individual liscences, or (and here's what's smart!) offer discounted specially-oriented bundles of liscences for particular applications, so that there's never one big ultra-bloated application that's supposed to handle everything conceivable. It'd be a nightmare to maintain, and what's more, it'd require an ungodly amount of screen realestate for all the pallettes necessary to do the work required from just two of the three or four applications one might want to use together.
Instead of pushing for integration, Adobe's practice after all these years remains one of focusing on consistency of interface design between their apps and ensuring good interoperability between most of their products. They seem to copy features between applications every major release, but that's because a lot of people don't consider under-the-hood stability fixes to be particularly exciting and need a new and shiny something that might be immediately useful to them to justify the upgrade expence.
If such a feature winds up being to your benefit: great. You get some time shaved off your work. But now think about all the extra features you *don't* use, and how much bigger and complicated their presence might make the application.
Balderdash. It's got nothing to do with the success or failure of OSS. Rather, it's a general problem that plagues the application software industry and lowers the productivity of the hundreds of thousands of people out there using the wrong tool for the job. Look, you might be able to pry a crate open with the other end of a clawhammer, but it's a hell of a lot less effective than a crowbar: you're going to break a heavier sweat because you've got less leverage, the prying end is the wrong shape, and you're probably going to bust the crate to pieces with the hammer; use the right tool and you're done in a shorter amount of time, have exerted a hell of a lot loss effort, and you can reuse the crate. Similarly, you can use a butter knife instead of a flathead screwdriver, because they're vaguely alike, but there's no arguing that one approach is right (efficient, won't strip the screw) and the other is 100% hamfisted and should only be done in the case of an emergency situation where the appropriate tool isn't available.
The primary motivation in having a huge, over-reaching featureset in a proprietary application seems to be to justify the (usually) ungodly charge for the end user license. This doesn't work so great, however, because it means the developers have to create said feature and try to integrate it into the package. This means their employers either have to compensate them accordingly so that the extra features work really well, or be satisfied that the feature is there enough to list in on the box or in marketing materials; as such, the price either goes up or the company allows itself to take a loss in not charging extra or shipping a product with sub-par features. In any event it's a real bitch to integrate limited functionality for a particular task that goes beyond the scope of the application without it seeming half-assed, incomplete, or confusing the real purpose of the application. This is why you see people doing things like using Photoshop for page layout or Excel in lieu of a database; the results speak for themselves.
This whole Swiss Army Knife approach for *complex applications* needs to be nipped in the bud, and that's in both proprietary and free solutions. Anything less is accepting the approach simply because of precedent and ignoring evidence to the contrary.
More importantly: why are so many journalists (both pro and self-appointed) inclined to write about the certain demise of a given subject matter when they're short on other ideas, especially when their readership has been pointing out the cliche for some years now?
I'm no Windows fan and in fact vehemently dislike Microsoft, but given all the buzz over an operating system's failure to ship on time, it's clearly still relevant.