Dependancy Hell?

"Linux is dependancy hell"

Got apt?

"and generally forces you to code for a specific WM (kde or gnome) depending on which UI features you want to use."

I am currently running Gnome.

And, err, konqueror. And kdiskfree. And gnome-terminal. And kdevelop. All at the same time. Applications designed for different window managers and different UI toolkits, yet all coexisting rather happily. It works. Just program for the WM you feel most comfortable with. I'm fairly sure an xfce4 app would work if I wanted it to!

"Microsoft win on this one, hands down, they provide a consistent, (mostly) well documented, up to date API and you dont have to worry about dependencies."

Microsoft provide an absolutely frigging massive API that's incompatible with everyone else's API. This moves the cost of switching up so high that people would rather hang on with a substandard OS and hope it improves, than switch. Not my words. Go look up Google for the words of a certain Microsoft employee. As for worrying about dependencies, no, I've never had to trawl the Internet looking for such-and-such a DLL or patch! Hah.

"Because of this, you can find software for windows that does pretty much anything. Usually for free."

I would like a stateful firewall that's as configurable and extensible as iptables/netfilter please. GUI is desired but optional.

I'll say what I've said before..

..if you know how to adjust a service set identifier, you know how to encrypt your router. No SSID naming convention required.

And the house analogy really fails, every time someone suggests it. For a start, this is bandwidth not biscuits. Unless you're on some stone-age ISP, you're paying for access and not per-megabyte. Second, if you're going to use awful analogies, a router is less like a house and more like a pub. If you want to turn that pub into a club, you put a member list down and employ a bouncer. That would be.. err.. a MAC address filter.

And if you don't want people looking through the windows, get some net curtains. Or encrypt your connection, if you like.

You're right that putting the onus on the router owner to "protect" themselves is interesting. It's the first commonsense approach I've seen over this issue in years, and should mean that in Finland at least, when you see an open wifi point it really means open!

Sure..

..when TVs are downloadable for free and cost nothing to replicate. Like 1s and 0s.

Haiku is MIT-licensed

..which happens to be very BSDish. Nothing to stop a company from taking Haiku, locking it up behind a proprietary license and "doing a Microsoft".

So no thanks. Besides, Ubuntu is rather user-friendly. Give it a try.

Corel?

Hang on, Adobe don't make Flash for Linux?

And is the same Corel that used to make Corel Linux? Yeah, they decided to use a bunch of their own stuff instead of the usual things, so nobody bothered using it. That's what happens if you fragment too far in Linux.

Also API != ABI. Why the hell would you need to write a driver to make Photoshop work?

As for why CS* hasn't been ported.. see market share. It's a catch 22 situation, and nothing to do with Linux being crap or not.

"I'm not saying Windows is great, but it sure enables the use of a lot of good software."

No. Developers who write the software in the first place enable the use of a lot of good software. WIndows enables nothing but a steady stream of money from your pocket to Microsoft's bank account.

I'm with the guy with the massive downvotes. I'll use Windows at work if I have to. Home is mostly a Windows-free zone, and it's set to become even more so. And what's wrong with using WINE? If it works in WINE, why does that defeat the point of.. uhh.. not giving Microsoft my money?

Would you rather I make unauthorised copies?

The ethics of Microsoft..

..are the same as any other business. Does it make money? Yes? Then it's ethical.

That's why I'm with the toy unix. No one person, company or organisation controls it, or can control it. Even the worst the FSF can do is enforce the GPL.

Well damn.

Two downvotes. Some people must think computer games tech is one of those "useless" degrees.

Tell me, oh omniscient downvoters: What's the point of having the best application in the world, if it looks like a bag of shit and has the UI of a 1950s mainframe? Especially in these days of embedded devices with solid state gyroes, accelerometers and high-resolution displays capable of displaying all sorts of.. oh.. interactive 3D graphics?

Some people just don't know how to think laterally, do they?

*toctoctoc* These Finns are crazy...

"Yep the Ruskies invaded Finland, and the Finns saw them off in the Winter War. Outnumbered 10:1 by the Russians, but the Finns kicked their butts into - well, the next century."

Consult the Great Google (or Wiki). Research "molotov cocktail" and this makeshift weapon's history.

Yep, the Finns are crazy mofos. Taking on tanks with a bottle filled with petrol? Daaaaaaaaamn.

+1 Funny

Though if you're not joking, you're scary.

Student loans are not student grants

"If the government wants universities to better cover their costs, the government could introduce a retrospective 'Graduate Tax' on earnings of, let's say, 5%, that is paid back to the university they studied at."

Student loans are already paid back, albeit on special no-interest inflation-only terms. It's taken out of any wages over £15k that you earn, automatically. Only the "maintenance grant" and any university bursary is non-repayable, and the amounts you get of both tend to decrease the more money your household earns.

Re: I am inclined to agree

If you want to stay in menial work for 25 years, please feel free to live as a pauper.

As for me, the reason I'm going to university is to avoid being 70 years old and still pushing heavy boxes around a parcel depot.

But then I'm a little older than your average 18-22 year old "mature" student.

Actually..

..could be good for a laugh. If you're in the area, please do so and post pics. I don't think I could afford the air fare.

What has that got to do with the price of biscuits?

Absolutely nothing. They were looking for publically-broadcast MAC addresses, and as a side-effect ended up grabbing chunks of publically-broadcast data. You might as well complain that the Google car had a CB in it recording the contents of channel 19.

Fail, indeed.

(can't believe I'm defending Google, but sometimes even privacy-hating megacorps can get a bit of unfair bashing..)

"One could argue that by requesting an IP address from DHCP might be tantamount to trespassing"

One could also say that requesting an IP address from DHCP is tantamount to knocking on the door and asking to be let in. It's not like a domestic NAT router can't be configured with a MAC filter, or even basic encryption. These days, it's getting difficult NOT to set a router up with some form of security..

..which is exactly how I like it.

20 years ago.. 15 years ago..

..I could wander down the street to the local wood with an air rifle and 500 pellets. Come back with several dented pennies, a bunch of chalk animal targets reduced to dust and no pellets.

These days, I'd be slapped in a prison cell faster than you can say "Hungerford".

As I recall, there weren't many psychopaths going apeshit with firearms (oh yeah.. one part of more recent idiotic laws has been to classify even low-powered air weaponry as a firearm even though no fire is involved) back then either. Perhaps that's WHY there's only maybe one big shooting every 20 years or so, and not because of some kneejerk legislation that has done approximately nothing to stop it happening again?

I'm fairly sure..

..that you can buy frame-based bandwidth. At one time, before broadband and when it cost money to dial the ISP in the UK, you were billed per-minute of connected time. Plus the monthly cost to the ISP.

A £200 phone bill in one month is not fun. I imagine you'd like frame-based or time-based Internet billing right up until the time you wanted to watch a high-def stream or download an ISO. Or, hell, if you have a slow night and decide to spend it in front of the interactive goggle box.

Take your arse over to Google

..and type in "PlayOnLinux". Once installed, you can use it to make various things (like Safari) play.. erm.. in Linux. It's basically a nice flashy GUI over WINE, so not technically "Safari in Linux", but it's the closest you'll get. It does things in a nice wizard-style as well. Select the "Safari" icon, click the install button, wait while it downloads and does its stuff.

Don't like Safari in Linux/WINE meself though. The fonts are a bit wrong, it runs a bit slow, plus you get Konqueror if you want something powered by webkit anyway.

I'm pretty sure..

..that it was <font> and <layer> that Nutscrape introduced. Microsoft tried their own versions of things too, including DirectX filters. Yeah, try making THAT work on any platform that isn't Windows...

Web 2.0

...just like Web 1.0, except with round corners!

HTML5 Showcase doesn't work in Konqueror either..

..you know, that other webkit-powered browser?

Doesn't show the "you need Safari" overlay properly either.

What was that about webkit?

Exactly.

..only perhaps not a lead/acid fork lift battery. Those things clock in at an appreciable amount of the total weight of the fork lift. Still, having a module that can be swapped out would be perfect.

Yes, some people will never travel more than a few miles a day. If I had more cash available I'd be looking at an electric bicycle myself. However, as soon as you start going more than a few miles (like, more than 10 or 20) you're in the range of needing your battery to be in top condition with a full charge or you're potentially not going to make it home. Fine if you can go to the nearest Esso or Texaco with a jerry can and a fistful of notes. Not so fine otherwise.

Caveat Lector

Just needs a few more references to SMART things and AIming devices or something like that.

Buyer Beware, indeed.

Codswallop?

"a significant majority of people in the US do a daily commute that's substantially shorter than the range of most of the recent EVs that are appearing on the market."

Really? Have you stopped to think about charge time?

I would like to see you charge a Li* battery at anything more than C without the battery exploding after a few cycles. I play with high-discharge Lithium Polymer batteries as a hobby and trust me, even a less-than-fist-size battery is something you treat with respect and Do Not Fuck With. Even treating them with kid gloves, you're looking at 50 to 100 cycles before capacity has been severely reduced. That basically means, for a car-sized battery that's supposed to last 1000 cycles or more, you're looking at several hours of charging time. Minimum. There just isn't the guaranteed instant capacity that a petrol or diesel (or LPG) car has. Sure, you can hope there's enough power left after your daily commute (and really, to be called a commute it has to somewhat approach long distance), but what if there isn't? Do you really want to be stuck somewhere with a car that's going to take (at best) all night to charge, assuming someone can get an extension cord long enough or a generator powerful enough?

Now if fuelling stations were able to offer a swap-and-recycle scheme (like Soda Stream manage with their CO2 bottles), then you've got a viable pure-electric infrastructure. As for hydrogen fuel cells... can you imagine anybody with a family wanting to run their own hydrogen extraction plant in the back garden? All that lovely, compressed, incredibly explosive gas just waiting to blow a big hole out of the neighbourhood?

Yeah, I didn't think so either.

So you need infrastructure. Infrastructure which we don't have.

Reminds me..

..of when theMother's S.O decided to pull up at a box junction. Two seconds later he was halfway across the box junction with a lorry where his car's arse used to be.

Ballmer, do you really want to take that on?

Don't forget..

..the alleged project to introduce the "Android Stack" to Ubuntu. I'm rather hoping it bears fruit. If it's anything like I'm thinking, it could be like a dual boot only without the dual boot. Click on the little robot icon and get access to the Android market, straight from Ubuntu?

Yes please.

Also Google, your little robot seems to be spreading to far more than just phones. Would it not be prudent to have different areas of the Android Market for devices that do, versus devices that don't, have things like accelerometers, touchscreens and solid state gyroes? Just thinking of heading a potential future problem off at the pass..

Have you used Android yet?

Seriously. It's about as much "Linux" as OS X is BSD. Turn device on. Swipe the little icon thing on the bottom of your desktop upward to reveal app menu. Swipe-scroll through list. Click on app. Run app.

How much simpler can you make it without hiring a personal assistant to do it for you?

Plus "Blow It Up" is better on Android than Iphone, and as for that robo defense game... was 3am before I realised what the time was and gave the phone back.

Android == for everyone, from grannies to geeks. And the stargazing app is better too.

Still, for a tablet I'd like at least the option of installing a "real" operating system. Android is okay, if you want the walled (or at least, waist high fence with latticework) garden approach. Something with a dual-boot so I can go from consumption to production mode on the same machine would be lovely.

Oh hang on.. AI's Touchbook. Does it already, apparently!

I just ignore 'em.

A Megabyte is 1024 kilobytes is 1024 bytes.

A drive manufacturer's megabyte is 1000 kilobytes is 1000 bytes.

I propose a new set of units. Kidi, Medi and Gidibytes. Decimal variants. That way you can sound stupid when saying them without having to rewrite all your software.