 |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
For 10 years now, I have a tradition to make a yearly version of Jingle
Bells. This year I made a version resembling the Mission Impossible Theme.
Normally it's just an instrumental mp3-file, but this year I decided to make
a little videoclip for it.
It's made in Blender, and took about 3 days to render.
Here's the result:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbJIZGyKZH4
Now, most people I've shown it to, don't seem to recognize Jingle Bells...
Apparently I've done it a bit too subtle :-/
Anyway, the video is, as the description says, actually the short version,
the full version
(http://sad.nostalg1c.org/backtrack/BaCKTRaCK_-_Jingle_Impossible.mp3) is
imho a lot better (and it's easier to recognize Jingle Bells in that one :))
Still, I hope you like it :)
cu!
--
#macro G(b,e)b+(e-b)*C/50#end#macro _(b,e,k,l)#local C=0;#while(C<50)
sphere{G(b,e)+3*z.1pigment{rgb G(k,l)}finish{ambient 1}}#local C=C+1;
#end#end _(y-x,y,x,x+y)_(y,-x-y,x+y,y)_(-x-y,-y,y,y+z)_(-y,y,y+z,x+y)
_(0x+y.5+y/2x)_(0x-y.5+y/2x) // ZK http://www.povplace.com
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Zeger Knaepen <zeg### [at] povplace com> wrote:
> For 10 years now, I have a tradition to make a yearly version of Jingle
> Bells.
That reminds me of a medley song I made a long, long time ago (which I was
able to salvage from an audio-CD where I had burned it):
http://kapsi.fi/warp/jb2.mp3
And for something completely different:
http://kapsi.fi/warp/test8.mp3
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> (which I was able to salvage from an audio-CD where I had burned it)
Btw, this process showed me again why I like Linux so much more than
Windows.
You see, I had ripped the audio track to a wav file and wanted to convert
to an mp3. But I didn't have LAME installed. No problem. I launched the
"install software" app, waited for about 10 seconds it updated its indices,
then wrote "lame" in the search field, selected it from the list and clicked
"accept". Now I had LAME installed, and I could convert the wav file with
a simple "lame test8.wav test8.mp3".
Overall, I estimate it took me about 30 seconds from realizing that I don't
have LAME installed to being able to run it (most of the time going into
waiting for the software installation app to update its indices and then
downloading the LAME binary).
Compare that to the situation where, in Windows, you don't have any software
to create mp3 files and you want to get one.
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Warp wrote:
> Btw, this process showed me again why I like Linux so much more than
> Windows.
>
> You see, I had ripped the audio track to a wav file and wanted to convert
> to an mp3. But I didn't have LAME installed. No problem. I launched the
> "install software" app, waited for about 10 seconds it updated its indices,
> then wrote "lame" in the search field, selected it from the list and clicked
> "accept". Now I had LAME installed, and I could convert the wav file with
> a simple "lame test8.wav test8.mp3".
>
> Overall, I estimate it took me about 30 seconds from realizing that I don't
> have LAME installed to being able to run it (most of the time going into
> waiting for the software installation app to update its indices and then
> downloading the LAME binary).
>
> Compare that to the situation where, in Windows, you don't have any software
> to create mp3 files and you want to get one.
You just happen to know that there's a program for doing this and it's
called LAME. If you didn't already know that, I estimate it would take a
while to figure it out.
Seems the real difference with Linux is that you get the OS in the form
of a "distrubition", which contains the OS plus an insane bonanza of
software covering more things than any normal human could ever want.
It's all in one place, you just gotta click it. (Or whatever.) With
Windows, you have to go get all the products from different places,
because nobody has gathered it up into one giant database for you. (Then
again, try installing a Unix product that isn't in your distro's package
database...)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Warp wrote:
> Compare that to the situation where, in Windows, you don't have any software
> to create mp3 files and you want to get one.
You install winamp?
sorry, that comparison of yours was kinda... lame. :P
There are many good reasons to love Linux and dislike Windows, but
that's not one of them. Like Orchid said, you knew about mp3-creating
software called lame...
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Warp wrote:
> "install software" app, waited for about 10 seconds it updated its indices,
> then wrote "lame" in the search field, selected it from the list and clicked
> "accept".
I'm impressed at how friendly ubuntu is too.
If you type "ctags", it comes back and says
"ctags isn't installed. It's in the following packages:
blah-emacs-blah
blah-vim-blah
exuberant-ctags-blah
Type
sudo apt-get install <package>
to install one of these."
You don't even have to search, if you already know the name, and it's smart
enough to actually tell you more than the package name, so you're not left
going "OK, then what?" That was a pain in the butt on debian.
Open source folks are finally starting to recognize the benefits of user
friendliness.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
nemesis wrote:
> Warp wrote:
>> Compare that to the situation where, in Windows, you don't have any
>> software
>> to create mp3 files and you want to get one.
>
> You install winamp?
>
> sorry, that comparison of yours was kinda... lame. :P
I can install Kate in less time than it takes you to even start the browser
and find the Notepad++ website...
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Darren New wrote:
> If you type "ctags", it comes back and says
> "ctags isn't installed. It's in the following packages:
> blah-emacs-blah
> blah-vim-blah
> exuberant-ctags-blah
> Type
> sudo apt-get install <package>
> to install one of these."
>
> You don't even have to search, if you already know the name, and it's
> smart enough to actually tell you more than the package name, so you're
> not left
> going "OK, then what?" That was a pain in the butt on debian.
Well, now in Debian you can just "apt-get install command-not-found" and get
get that same functionality :)
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> You just happen to know that there's a program for doing this and it's
> called LAME. If you didn't already know that, I estimate it would take a
> while to figure it out.
With the Yast installer, you can search on the names of files or the
descriptions of what it does, too. Probably in the other package managers
too, but I haven't found a need to do that yet. So, no, if you searched for
"rip mp3" you'd probably find LAME also.
> Seems the real difference with Linux is that you get the OS in the form
> of a "distrubition", which contains the OS plus an insane bonanza of
> software covering more things than any normal human could ever want.
> It's all in one place, you just gotta click it. (Or whatever.)
Yep. And if it's not already in the distribution, or you need a newer
version, you're usually *worse* off than you are with Windows.
> Windows, you have to go get all the products from different places,
> because nobody has gathered it up into one giant database for you.
They did. It's called "google". ;-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Warp wrote:
> Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>> (which I was able to salvage from an audio-CD where I had burned it)
>
> Btw, this process showed me again why I like Linux so much more than
> Windows.
> Compare that to the situation where, in Windows, you don't have any software
> to create mp3 files and you want to get one.
>
You make a good case for Linux, there.
I think that the biggest problem in this situation with windows is
sifting out the rubbish apps that are available.
Last week I wanted to burn a CD from flac files I had to download three
converter programs before I got one that worked satisfactorily.
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> You just happen to know that there's a program for doing this and it's
> called LAME. If you didn't already know that, I estimate it would take a
> while to figure it out.
That's the point: In Windows, even if I know exactly the program I want,
it still takes significantly longer to find and install it.
Nevertheless, rather than "lame", I could have written "mp3 encoder" in
the search field and it would have found LAME equally well.
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
nemesis <nam### [at] nospam-gmailcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > Compare that to the situation where, in Windows, you don't have any software
> > to create mp3 files and you want to get one.
> You install winamp?
In 30 seconds (including starting the encoding process)? Haha. I'd like to
see that.
I bet it would take you 30 seconds just to get to winamp's website.
> sorry, that comparison of yours was kinda... lame. :P
> There are many good reasons to love Linux and dislike Windows, but
> that's not one of them. Like Orchid said, you knew about mp3-creating
> software called lame...
I don't think you understood what I was comparing. Nowhere did I mention
software availability.
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> Well, now in Debian you can just "apt-get install command-not-found" and get
> get that same functionality :)
Oh, cool. Thank you for that.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Stephen wrote:
> I think that the biggest problem in this situation with windows is
> sifting out the rubbish apps that are available.
There's a lot of crap-ware for linux, too. It just doesn't get into the
"distributions," so there's already an impartial vetting function going on.
Nobody goes roaming around on sourceforge or google looking for
functionality that already works in the distribution.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Stephen <mca### [at] aoldotcom> wrote:
> You make a good case for Linux, there.
At least for power users, who know what they are doing. I readily admit
that Linux is, in some aspects, rather hard for beginners to approach (even
though it has got a lot better during the last decade; but there are still
some rough edges, although in some cases it's not so much Linux's own fault
as much as companies who have no or poor Linux support).
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Stephen wrote:
> > I think that the biggest problem in this situation with windows is
> > sifting out the rubbish apps that are available.
> There's a lot of crap-ware for linux, too. It just doesn't get into the
> "distributions," so there's already an impartial vetting function going on.
> Nobody goes roaming around on sourceforge or google looking for
> functionality that already works in the distribution.
One difference is also that the user can have an impact on the development
of a distro. You can go to the official forums/mailing lits of the distro
and suggest some improvement or whatever, and there's a good chance that
someone will actually listen and implement it. I have first-hand experience.
I don't see Microsoft roaming through the millions of messages
Microsoft-related newsgroups and online forums probably have, and
implementing people's suggestions. Windows is "too" popular, with "too
many" users, and it's owned by a single company, so it's basically
impossible for them to listen to all of them.
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Warp wrote:
> Stephen <mca### [at] aoldotcom> wrote:
>> You make a good case for Linux, there.
>
> At least for power users, who know what they are doing.
Windows really is *not* that easy for people who don't know what they're
doing. How many horror stories of data lost because it was never backed up
have you heard? Complaints about Windows getting slower and slower, or the
wireless just randomly not working? Much of that is because the
non-power-user is screwing it up, or Dell or HP are loading the machine up
with crapware (like "wireless managers" and such) that makes it flakey.
The stuff from MS is actually rather robust. I've never had a "preinstalled"
Windows that I didn't wipe and install from Microsoft media after tearing my
hair out for a few hours trying to get it to run smoothly. And Vista is the
first Windows I've had install smoothly (probably because it's 64-bit, and
hence all the drivers come from Microsoft). The terrors of commercialism in
software. :-)
My neighbor can't be convinced that it's not necessary to open IE to get to
her email. She doesn't understand that the "read my mail" button in IE is
the same program that's already on her desktop and in the start menu. She
has no understanding of the computer, doesn't understand to check the cable
modem is plugged in if she doesn't get connectivity, has no idea why she has
12 different "toolbars" from Yahoo, AOL, Dell, google, etc in IE or how to
get rid of them, etc. I don't think whether it's Windows or Linux would
make any difference at all to her - it's all cheat-sheets saying which
buttons to press to accomplish each task, and any tiny deviation and she's
lost.
The next step up? I think (say) sales people who understand how to work the
machine could probably learn Linux as easily. I think where Linux falls
down, tho, is the lack of commercial-grade software. Accountants want
quickbooks and turbotax. Salesmen want Dynamics or some other CRM software.
Graphic artists don't think GIMP will substitute for Photoshop. Etc.
The only people I've heard *advocating* Linux are system administrators and
programmers, or people who are deploying it for price reasons. (Or both,
like "cloud" applications.) But even places where the product runs on
Linux, they tend to do the development on Windows machines, because that's
where Outlook and Excel and CRM programs and Quickbooks and all that sort of
stuff runs.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> Windows is "too" popular, with "too
> many" users, and it's owned by a single company, so it's basically
> impossible for them to listen to all of them.
Rather funny. Reading that again, I notice that someone could mistake
that as me misusing quotes for emphasis, even though I really used them
legitimately, ie. to de-emphasize, ie. to mean "not to be interpreted
literally" (in other words. like: "too popular (well, not really, at least
not from Microsoft point of view)").
I wonder if the misconception about quotes-can-be-used-for-emphasis has
originated with something like that.
(Another theory I have is this: Cursive is often used in literature for
emphasis. Cursive is *also* used in literature, especially in articles and
academic texts, to denote things like titles (eg. publications or books).
When cursive is not available, then usually quotes are used for the same
purpose (eg. 'in his book "I, Robot", Asimov presents a grim view of the
future'). Since both cursive and quotes are interchangeable in things like
book titles, maybe someone got confused and thought that cursive and quotes
are also interchangeable when denoting emphasis.)
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Warp wrote:
> Stephen <mca### [at] aoldotcom> wrote:
>> You make a good case for Linux, there.
>
> At least for power users, who know what they are doing. I readily admit
> that Linux is, in some aspects, rather hard for beginners to approach (even
> though it has got a lot better during the last decade; but there are still
> some rough edges, although in some cases it's not so much Linux's own fault
> as much as companies who have no or poor Linux support).
>
I tried Red Hat about 5 years ago but it never really grabbed my
interest. Open Office seemed too much trouble to learn as well. Having
said that I’m being forced to use Office 2007 at work, Euch! Maybe I’m
just getting old.
Hmm! Last week I had to resort to using a BAT file in DOS to rename a
series of files for an animation.
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> The only people I've heard *advocating* Linux are system administrators and
> programmers, or people who are deploying it for price reasons.
Which is sad, really. If a regular user who only checks his email, surfs
the web from time to time and maybe writes some letters, could be a lot
better off with Linux than with Windows. He wouldn't get the myriads of
adware/spyware, browser toolbars, email viruses, etc, the system would not
get congested with time due to every single legitimate and illegitimate
piece of software installing tons of useless (and sometimes harmful) stuff
everywhere, and the computer would overall be somewhat safer from regular
attempts at hacking (eg. by email worms, rootkits, etc). It would be cheaper
too.
Some people argue that Linux might be ok as long as there are no problems,
but immediately when some problem happens the newbie user will be completely
clueless about what to do because solving problems in Linux requires more
expertise. However, most Windows users are equally clueless as well, so it
doesn't really make much of a difference. They still have to call the
neighbor's kid or take the machine to the shop.
With Linux it would be much less likely be caused by a spyware or trojan.
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Stephen <mca### [at] aoldotcom> wrote:
> I tried Red Hat about 5 years ago but it never really grabbed my
> interest.
Not all distros are equally easy to use. And Red Hat in particular is
more or less obsolete now (since they stopped developing it).
Most people consider OpenSUSE and Ubuntu to be the user-friendliest.
Personally I only have experience of the former.
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Warp wrote:
> One difference is also that the user can have an impact on the development
> of a distro. You can go to the official forums/mailing lits of the distro
> and suggest some improvement or whatever, and there's a good chance that
> someone will actually listen and implement it. I have first-hand experience.
Yeah, I've fixed 3 or 4 bugs in widely-used packages too. (Tcl and Wings3D
both spring to mind.)
> I don't see Microsoft roaming through the millions of messages
> Microsoft-related newsgroups and online forums probably have, and
> implementing people's suggestions. Windows is "too" popular, with "too
> many" users, and it's owned by a single company, so it's basically
> impossible for them to listen to all of them.
I'm not sure of that. The whole ribbon toolbar thing was based on user
feedback. A lot of it is automatically collected, including crash dumps and
just usage information. They have millions of people telling them where they
first look for "right-justify text in an excel cell" for example. It's a
level of data-collection you'd have a hard time supporting in Linux,
particularly for free. (Except maybe specific products, like TiVo, where the
company is making money selling hardware as well.)
I never heard of any free Linux products doing stuff like focus groups,
either. You often get in Linux that which the geeks think is most useful, at
the expense of what clueless people can handle. Or you get Linux programs
using the kinds of interfaces that are already well-established in Windows
or MacOS, like drop-down window menus, toolbars, border decorations, etc.
It's difficult for MS to pay attention to specific individual users, sure,
but I think they do a better job of implementing what the majority want,
mainly because it's in MS's best financial interests to implement what the
majority want in most cases. (Excluding the majority wanting everything for
free, etc of course.) And they have the money to pay people to do that sort
of research, when otherwise it would just cost too much for a free program.
(Of course, there's some free software like Open Office that was essentially
created as a loss leader, where a lot of work went into it that a normal
self-motivated nerd wouldn't have bothered with.)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Warp wrote:
> (Another theory I have is this: Cursive is often used in literature for
> emphasis.
The way I learned it, it's not "cursive" but "italic." ("Cursive" purely
means hand-written words all strung together rather than as block writing.
I'm sure you know what I mean.)
That nit aside, I was also taught that quotes go around articles, but book
titles (and foreign words) are in italic, as is emphasis. And that's
indicated in handwriting by underlining.
Thus, _this_ word will probably show as _italic_ on your screen, if you're
using something that does things like make *this* word bold.
> maybe someone got confused and thought that cursive and quotes
> are also interchangeable when denoting emphasis.)
I tend to believe it's just laziness and ignorance over an honest mistake
someone was trying not to make. But then I'm cynical. :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Warp wrote:
> However, most Windows users are equally clueless as well, so it
> doesn't really make much of a difference. They still have to call the
> neighbor's kid or take the machine to the shop.
I think the problem is more that it's harder to find someone with Linux
expertise living next door. :-)
I will agree I see much less random inexplicable breakage on Linux, even
with very recent versions of Windows.
And it's really only very recently that Linux has been user-friendly enough
for this to work. A couple years ago, my dad called me on the phone asking
how to center what he wanted to print. Altho I'd never used his brand of
printer before and I didn't know what program he was trying to print from, I
confidently walked him thru setting it to centered. I knew it would be
"file->print setup->page layout->center" basically.
Five years ago (heck, even now between KDE and GNOME) you couldn't even tell
someone on Linux where to find the menu full of installed programs. You
wouldn't even be able to say "here's how you open a command-line" for
example. Let alone what you would have needed to do to help someone with
Linux back when Win98 was popular.
Don't forget we're all the early adopters here. There's *still* a lot of
people running Win98 at home.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Warp wrote:
> Not all distros are equally easy to use. And Red Hat in particular is
> more or less obsolete now (since they stopped developing it).
The red-hat distros were also primarily targetting the server market.
"Fedora" was the home user market, which they kind of gave up on.
> Most people consider OpenSUSE and Ubuntu to be the user-friendliest.
> Personally I only have experience of the former.
Ubuntu isn't bad, but OpenSuSE is easier to learn IMO. I'd start with
OpenSuSE if you can, and Ubuntu after that if OpenSuSE doesn't easily
support your hardware and all.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Warp wrote:
> Stephen <mca### [at] aoldotcom> wrote:
>> I tried Red Hat about 5 years ago but it never really grabbed my
>> interest.
>
> Not all distros are equally easy to use. And Red Hat in particular is
> more or less obsolete now (since they stopped developing it).
>
> Most people consider OpenSUSE and Ubuntu to be the user-friendliest.
> Personally I only have experience of the former.
>
When I get the opportunity to buy a desktop machine and don’t have to
rely on the limited space on a laptop (ha ha how the world has changed
when I consider a 250 Gig HD limited space) I might try one of the ones
with a GUI. That and finding the time.
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Darren New wrote:
>> Most people consider OpenSUSE and Ubuntu to be the user-friendliest.
>> Personally I only have experience of the former.
>
> Ubuntu isn't bad, but OpenSuSE is easier to learn IMO. I'd start with
> OpenSuSE if you can, and Ubuntu after that if OpenSuSE doesn't easily
> support your hardware and all.
>
Thanks for the advice, I might just do that when this contract finishes.
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > (Another theory I have is this: Cursive is often used in literature for
> > emphasis.
> The way I learned it, it's not "cursive" but "italic." ("Cursive" purely
> means hand-written words all strung together rather than as block writing.
> I'm sure you know what I mean.)
Ah, another example of "false friends" between Finnish and English (that
is, words which seem to be direct equivalents to each other, the Finnish
word seemingly being a direct loan of the English word, but which aren't.
The finnish word "kursiivi" means italic or oblique (I'm not exactly sure
what the difference is between those two, as I'm not a typographist), while
the English word "cursive" is a completely different word in Finnish
("kaunokirjoitus").
> > maybe someone got confused and thought that cursive and quotes
> > are also interchangeable when denoting emphasis.)
> I tend to believe it's just laziness and ignorance over an honest mistake
> someone was trying not to make. But then I'm cynical. :-)
Sometimes misusing quotes can result in rather hilarious, albeit unintended,
meanings. http://adamcadre.ac/images/topa4.jpg
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> > I don't see Microsoft roaming through the millions of messages
> > Microsoft-related newsgroups and online forums probably have, and
> > implementing people's suggestions. Windows is "too" popular, with "too
> > many" users, and it's owned by a single company, so it's basically
> > impossible for them to listen to all of them.
> I'm not sure of that.
I am pretty sure.
It's one thing that a program collects some data about how it's being used
and phones home with it (is that even legal?), and a completely different
thing when single person makes one post in a forum, causing a significant
improvement to be made to the distro. I can see the latter happening quite
often in the Linux world.
User feedback is different. Individuals can feel like they are actually
making a difference. They don't necessarily feel like being part of a grey
mass of millions of users, which are only used to calculate averages.
> It's difficult for MS to pay attention to specific individual users, sure,
> but I think they do a better job of implementing what the majority want,
I think some features of Vista are a sign that Microsoft is not always
so good at implementing what people want. (Yes, people wanted more security,
but not of the type that MS implemented in Vista.)
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Warp wrote:
> Stephen <mca### [at] aoldotcom> wrote:
>> You make a good case for Linux, there.
>
> At least for power users, who know what they are doing. I readily admit
> that Linux is, in some aspects, rather hard for beginners to approach.
Linux is Unix. The stated design goal of Unix was to be an OS for
experts. The whole system is predicated around the assumption that the
person at the keyboard is an expert.
Once you accept that it's supposed to be operated by an expert, most of
the design seems logical and straight-forward. That's why there's not
much feedback, why the OS does exactly what you tell it to without
question (you're an expert, right?), why all the configuration is easily
scriptable, and so forth.
I gather Unix (not necessarily Linux) is popular for servers, presumably
for this exact reason. (It's also popular for embedded applications, but
that presumably is due to its extreme portability and configurability
more than anything else...)
Now, if you're *not* an expert... then an OS designed from the ground-up
to support the kinds of things an expert wants is arguably not such a
great idea. From what I've seen, Linux now has various pretty
front-ends, but as soon as you need to configure something the front-end
doesn't support, or you import a config file from somewhere else, or
some other tool (such as a product install script) configures something
that the front-end can't handle, you suddenly get unceromoniously dumped
back into exprt-land.
Some day, I might run a Linux box again. But I don't think I'd set one
up for my grandma.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Some day, I might run a Linux box again. But I don't think I'd set one
> up for my grandma.
Then you'll have to clean it from spyware once a month. Is that really a
better alternative?
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
>> Some day, I might run a Linux box again. But I don't think I'd set one
>> up for my grandma.
>
> Then you'll have to clean it from spyware once a month. Is that really a
> better alternative?
In my experience, only certain people have this problem.
My dad's PC seems to get infected with puzzling frequency. But my
mother's PC has yet to be infected, ever. Same goes for my PC, my
sister's laptop, my grandparents' PC, and so on. Also, where I work,
certain people's PCs get infected from time to time, but most of them
remain completely clean.
Certainly Windows is radically more vulnerable to malware than Linux.
But if you operate the computer sensibly, it tends not to cause
problems. In other words, using Windows does *not* necessarily mean
constant malware issues.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
>> Not all distros are equally easy to use. And Red Hat in particular is
>> more or less obsolete now (since they stopped developing it).
>
> The red-hat distros were also primarily targetting the server market.
> "Fedora" was the home user market, which they kind of gave up on.
>
>> Most people consider OpenSUSE and Ubuntu to be the user-friendliest.
>> Personally I only have experience of the former.
>
> Ubuntu isn't bad, but OpenSuSE is easier to learn IMO. I'd start with
> OpenSuSE if you can, and Ubuntu after that if OpenSuSE doesn't easily
> support your hardware and all.
I choose which distro to use based mainly on how pretty the installer
and the default desktop are. Arbitrary and shallow, but I have no idea
what else to base the choice on.
I tried Ubuntu, and while it was quite easy to set up, I dislike the
drab shade of brown. OpenSUSE is a lush shade of green, however.
(Similarly, uninstall OpenSUSE 7 and install OpenSUSE 8. Now the
graphics look a different, but... is that the only difference??)
One somewhat annoying thing is that most distros will automatically
install multiple gigabytes of "stuff", most of which I have no interest
in. Sure, you could *try* to uninstall it all, but you still have to
wait for it to install in the first place. *Some* distros give you a
"minimal text install" option or similar, and if so I usually start from
there. However...
...package management. Doesn't really exist on Windows. You just install
something, and either it works or it tells you it can't find XYZ and you
should install that first. On Linux, dependency management is insane
sometimes.
I don't have any specific, repeatable examples. But, from memory, I once
had a KDE desktop, and I just wanted to install gnumeric (because
KSpread was rubbish). Watch as the dependency resolver decides I need to
download and install every GNOME library known to man - including the
GNOME sound system (something beginning with e?) In fact, I recall it
was something like KDE was using one kernel API for audio, and GNOME
wanted to use a completely different one, and it starts getting *really*
interesting...
I guess Windows is pretty monolithic. You install "Windows", and you
have a sound API, a graphics API, a window manager, a user shell, etc.
On Linux, these are all seperate bits, and there are several
[incompatible] options for each. /dev can be static files, or one of
several automatic device creator modules. There are at least 2 seperate
kernel sound APIs. The text-mode portion of the system can be direct VGA
text mode or some mannar of framebuffer or some other thing. The
graphics system will usually be X11, but there are often multiple
drivers that will drive your particular graphics hardware (with
differing flaws and limitations). Then of course there's KDE or GNOME
(or FluxBox or Enlightenment or OneNote or twm or ...) And then there
are widget toolkits. And then... are you bored yet?
Software written against "Windows" expects one set of APIs. (Or maybe a
few, if it supports several versions of Windows.) Software written
against "Linux"? Maybe it supports one random combinations of libraries.
Maybe there's a build option? Good luck getting it to work. On Linux you
*need* automated dependency management if you expect anything to work!
Also... Debian's dselect thing is a horrid, horrid tool! >_<
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> Sometimes misusing quotes can result in rather hilarious, albeit unintended,
> meanings. http://adamcadre.ac/images/topa4.jpg
haha, Adam Cadre used to be a great interactive fiction writer.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> Compare that to the situation where, in Windows, you don't have any software
> to create mp3 files and you want to get one.
>
With both systems it's equally easy to get freeware on a whim's notice. The
difference is that in windows you get it from a site with flashing porn ads and
malware, and then your brower starts doing something realllly funky the minute
you leave the site.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
>> Compare that to the situation where, in Windows, you don't have any software
>> to create mp3 files and you want to get one.
>
> With both systems it's equally easy to get freeware on a whim's notice. The
> difference is that in windows you get it from a site with flashing porn ads and
> malware, and then your brower starts doing something realllly funky the minute
> you leave the site.
Hehe. Yeah, well, I guess it depends which sites you try to get the
software from. And whether you use IE or something else...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Warp wrote:
> The finnish word "kursiivi" means italic or oblique (I'm not exactly sure
> what the difference is between those two, as I'm not a typographist), while
> the English word "cursive" is a completely different word in Finnish
> ("kaunokirjoitus").
Kewl.
"italic" is a different font, while "oblique" just means "slanted."
See this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_type
for roman, italic, and oblique. :-)
(I learned *that* from TeX and Metafont.
> Sometimes misusing quotes can result in rather hilarious, albeit unintended,
> meanings.
Heh.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Warp wrote:
> It's one thing that a program collects some data about how it's being used
> and phones home with it (is that even legal?),
They ask you if you want to participate, so yeah, I'd guess so.
> and a completely different
> thing when single person makes one post in a forum, causing a significant
> improvement to be made to the distro. I can see the latter happening quite
> often in the Linux world.
It's definitely easier to make a difference as an individual contributor.
It's also the case that even a small company can make a difference in
Microsoft's stuff. Like the company that did the first defrag program for NT
designed the APIs for that and told MS how to write it.
And I would guess security vulnerabilities found by an individual can get
them fixed.
But yah, definitely not as *rewarding* as doing it in Linux. You'll
certainly not get the sort of recognition for improving MS software, if
nothing else.
> I think some features of Vista are a sign that Microsoft is not always
> so good at implementing what people want. (Yes, people wanted more security,
> but not of the type that MS implemented in Vista.)
Well, as I said, people want it for free, too. :-) Overall, they did a
pretty good job with UAC, but it needed tuning. And people aren't that used
to having to deal with it in Windows. *Some* of what they do users don't
want (like signed drivers) but MS does for their own good.
I was thinking more the DRM stuff, myself.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Stephen wrote:
> Thanks for the advice, I might just do that when this contract finishes.
It's what Warp recommended to me when I needed to set up several dozen
machines around the country, and it was pretty darn easy to administer.
It made the sysadmin annoyed, because apparently things are in somewhat
weird places or something, so if you want to do something like bind two
ethernet connectors so it uses both but falls over to the working one when
one fails, it takes more work than with (say) red hat. But for a desktop? Go
for it.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Software written against "Windows" expects one set of APIs.
Well, except for cutting-edge stuff. Different wireless connectors, or
different USB connections, can be problematic for the people writing
*drivers*. And if there isn't a standard windows API, there's usually
custom software that comes with the device to do the thing. (Think about the
first scanners before TWAIN and WIA was around.)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Stephen wrote:
> when I consider a 250 Gig HD limited space)
When Myst first came out on a CD, I remember thinking "so much for pirated
games", since there was no possible way to copy an entire 670M CD.
Does anyone remember thinking "32 bits will soon be rather limiting for a
single file to fit within" before it was obvious?
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> (It's also popular for embedded applications, but
> that presumably is due to its extreme portability and configurability
> more than anything else...)
It is only popular for embedded operations as Linux, not Unix. Before Linux,
nobody used Unix for embedded applications. Now it's popular for embedded
applications purely because it's free. It's actually quite a PITA to use on
embedded devices.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message news:4b22df73@news.povray.org...
> Zeger Knaepen <zeg### [at] povplacecom> wrote:
>> For 10 years now, I have a tradition to make a yearly version of Jingle
>> Bells.
>
> That reminds me of a medley song I made a long, long time ago (which I was
> able to salvage from an audio-CD where I had burned it):
>
> http://kapsi.fi/warp/jb2.mp3
>
> And for something completely different:
>
> http://kapsi.fi/warp/test8.mp3
oh, you topic-hijacker :)
I like them, actually! too bad you lost the midi-file (it was a midi-file,
right?)
cu!
--
#macro G(b,e)b+(e-b)*C/50#end#macro _(b,e,k,l)#local C=0;#while(C<50)
sphere{G(b,e)+3*z.1pigment{rgb G(k,l)}finish{ambient 1}}#local C=C+1;
#end#end _(y-x,y,x,x+y)_(y,-x-y,x+y,y)_(-x-y,-y,y,y+z)_(-y,y,y+z,x+y)
_(0x+y.5+y/2x)_(0x-y.5+y/2x) // ZK http://www.povplace.com
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> In my experience, only certain people have this problem.
People who fiddle around with it without knowing what they're doing, yes. I
think if Linux was as widely deployed as Windows, it would be just as much a
target for viri and scammers.
I.e., I think Windows is much less vulnerable now especially with UAC turned
on by default, and what protects Linux is more that it isn't popular enough
to be valuable to the current virus writers that do it for money.
Of course, Linux probably has fewer holes in the default distros than
Windows does. But it's not like there have never been holes in Unix-based
OSes that, say, brought down the internet.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> When Myst first came out on a CD, I remember thinking "so much for pirated
> games", since there was no possible way to copy an entire 670M CD.
There was one point in history when I had the opinion that if a game takes
more than 4 floppy disks (that would be about 5.5 MB), it's way too large.
Nowadays I'm wondering why there aren't multi-DVD games yet in the market.
> Does anyone remember thinking "32 bits will soon be rather limiting for a
> single file to fit within" before it was obvious?
There was indeed a time when a file of over 4 gigabytes was absolutely
unthinkable. This was the time when a 350-megabyte hard drive was huge,
and average desktop computers had 4 megabytes of RAM (which costed
significantly more than the 2 GB of RAM which is standard nowadays).
Rather curiously, we are nowadays in the same situation with respect to
64-bit computers. Hard drives are about 500 GB, RAMs are about 2-4 GB on
average, which is about the same ratio as above. And again, a file of
2^64 bytes feels basically unthinkable (although slightly less so due to
the past experience).
I'm wondering if 15 years from now we will be using files of that size.
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> > (It's also popular for embedded applications, but
> > that presumably is due to its extreme portability and configurability
> > more than anything else...)
> It is only popular for embedded operations as Linux, not Unix. Before Linux,
> nobody used Unix for embedded applications. Now it's popular for embedded
> applications purely because it's free. It's actually quite a PITA to use on
> embedded devices.
Thinking about it, are there *any* other viable free (as in no-cost)
operating systems for embedded systems, other than Linux and NetBSD?
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Zeger Knaepen <zeg### [at] povplacecom> wrote:
> I like them, actually! too bad you lost the midi-file (it was a midi-file,
> right?)
Yes. Made those with Cakewalk, using my good old SoundBlaster Awe32
(ah, the memories). Too bad I can't even install that card anymore in
my current PC.
It's funny. Everything else in my computer hardware has gone clearly
forward *except* sound hardware. I'm unable to produce those kinds of
sounds anymore with my current computer (well, at least on hardware;
I suppose there are probably software solutions which produce even
better sounds, but probably none of them free).
As for the midi files, they might be somewhere if I searched for them
(I have an old HD somwhere which should contain backups of backups of my
old computer, where I made those midis). OTOH, without my Awe32 and its
soundbanks I wouldn't be able to replicate those pieces in the same way
anyways, so there wouldn't be much point.
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message news:4b243adc@news.povray.org...
> Zeger Knaepen <zeg### [at] povplacecom> wrote:
>> I like them, actually! too bad you lost the midi-file (it was a midi-file,
>> right?)
>
> Yes. Made those with Cakewalk, using my good old SoundBlaster Awe32
> (ah, the memories). Too bad I can't even install that card anymore in
> my current PC.
>
> It's funny. Everything else in my computer hardware has gone clearly
> forward *except* sound hardware.
I agree 100%! 4 years ago I could by an extremely good soundcard for 110Euro,
and even better, it had a built-in motherboard!! ok ok, I'm talking about those
Abit NF7S (or something like that) motherboards with SoundStorm onboard sound.
Latencies of less than 10ms, without using ASIO. Even my 300Euro Creative X-Fi
Platinum (or whatever) doesn't come close to that
too bad they don't make those soundchips anymore
> I'm unable to produce those kinds of
> sounds anymore with my current computer (well, at least on hardware;
> I suppose there are probably software solutions which produce even
> better sounds, but probably none of them free).
Don't be too sure of that, there are a couple free and good-sounding
midi-players out there... can't remember the name for sure, but "midig" pops
into my head...
I think it's this:
http://freemusicsoftware.net/en/plugins/instruments/midig_2_03_software_wavetable_synthesizer-195.html
> As for the midi files, they might be somewhere if I searched for them
> (I have an old HD somwhere which should contain backups of backups of my
> old computer, where I made those midis). OTOH, without my Awe32 and its
> soundbanks I wouldn't be able to replicate those pieces in the same way
> anyways, so there wouldn't be much point.
If you want to reproduce them in the same way, just play the mp3 :) I would much
rather run it through something like Reason :)
cu!
--
#macro G(b,e)b+(e-b)*C/50#end#macro _(b,e,k,l)#local C=0;#while(C<50)
sphere{G(b,e)+3*z.1pigment{rgb G(k,l)}finish{ambient 1}}#local C=C+1;
#end#end _(y-x,y,x,x+y)_(y,-x-y,x+y,y)_(-x-y,-y,y,y+z)_(-y,y,y+z,x+y)
_(0x+y.5+y/2x)_(0x-y.5+y/2x) // ZK http://www.povplace.com
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Darren New wrote:
> Thus, _this_ word will probably show as _italic_ on your screen, if you're
> using something that does things like make *this* word bold.
_This_ shows underlined in KNode.
I believe /this/ is italics...
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Darren New wrote:
> It's also the case that even a small company can make a difference in
> Microsoft's stuff. Like the company that did the first defrag program for
> NT designed the APIs for that and told MS how to write it.
Then they bought the company?
Or did they just make their own defragmenter and put it in the OS to ensure
other companies selling defragmenters go out of business? :P
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
