Linux-Advocacy Digest #821, Volume #30 Tue, 12 Dec 00 00:13:02 EST
Contents:
Re: A Microsoft exodus! ("Les Mikesell")
Re: Predictions (featuring Drestin Black) ("Chad Myers")
Re: Blurry Fonts: Is there a solution? (tom)
suggest me one which can handle multiple POP3 email addresses? ("news")
Re: Red hat becoming illegal? ("Chad Myers")
Re: Red hat becoming illegal? ("Chad Myers")
Re: A Microsoft exodus! (OT) (humor) (Marty)
Re: A Microsoft exodus! (OT) (humor) (Marty)
Re: A Microsoft exodus! ("Les Mikesell")
Re: Predictions (featuring Drestin Black) (.)
Re: Caifornia power shortage... ("Chad Myers")
Re: Windows review ("Les Mikesell")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Les Mikesell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: A Microsoft exodus!
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 04:14:55 GMT
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:h1%Y5.21677$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >> Are you saying that the first-time user *will* know that hjkl
> >> moves the cursor around???
>
> > The first time user won't have a concept of what a cursor is
> > or why you would want to move it around.
>
> On the contrary, the first-time vi user could have experience with
> other editors.
Yes, but they might not have a cursor that moves up or down. Or
they might have used ksh with the vi edit mode, or less (an enhanced
more that uses vi-like keystrokes to browse through files).
> > In the 70's and 80's, CPT dedicated wordprocessors were a big thing
> > and they represented a sheet of paper advancing past a typing line
> > on the screen so it looked and worked exactly like a typewriter.
>
> Were those the ABDick portrait mode machines?
I never saw an ABDick machine, but the CPT screen was tall
and narrow and displayed a full page of text, black characters
on a white page that moved up as you typed.
> > Literally, a white page scrolled up the screen as you typed. If you
> > needed to correct something you moved the page back down to the
> > typing line instead of moving the cursor to the text. Their claim
> > (of course) was that this was 'intuitive' to anyone who had seen a
> > typewriter.
>
> Of course, according to Aaron, nothing about a computer is intuitive.
Exactly. Many younger people have probably never seen a typewriter
and would be very confused by the fact that you scroll down
to get the page to the right position on the typing line instead of
moving a cursor (which they probably have seen) up to the
the text in question.
> > So, not even the direction of motion can be taken as something
> > you could guess, let alone the key that would invoke it. If you
> > think otherwise then you should admit that you have been
> > brainwashed into it.
>
> Fortunately, I don't think otherwise. Remember, my statement was
> that to use hjkl for cursor movement is not intuitive.
It is no more or less intuitive than any other keys might be, especially
given that at the time most keyboards did not have any special cursor
control keys.
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: "Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Predictions (featuring Drestin Black)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 04:13:29 GMT
"Pan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Chad Myers wrote:
>
> > You know, it's odd you say that. Unix is used in primarily static
> > situations where merely brute text manipulation is required. Serving
> > DNS, NNTP, static web pages, FTP, MAIL, etc. All relatively simple
> > tasks as it's just read in some text, write a file or send another
> > message over a socket then start it all over again. Not much
> > statistical anlysis or other heavy duty work.
>
> lol... I guess someone should tell it to the nih ( see biowulf.nih.gov )
> or nasa ( http://newton.gsfc.nasa.gov/thehive/ ).
I thought we were talking about the Internet? If you want to change the
subject, please start a new topic. We're talking about Unix on the Internet,
not in other applications.
> > When it comes to dynamic page generation, business logic and ecommerce
> > and other "actual work", it's mostly Windows servers doing the heavy
> > stuff.
>
> FUD. Most commerce servers run *nix.
They do? Statistics?
> Most DB servers run *nix. Anyone
Really? Statistics?
> with a clue who wants to do "heavy" work avoids windows like the plague.
More conjecture.
> > They just send the simple stuff to the Unix boxes because they
> > aren't too bright.
>
> No Chad, you aren't too bright.
Ah, yes, now the ad homonym.
It's almost as if you're reading from the Penguinista playbook or
script.
<SNIP more idle conjecture with no attempt to base anything
on facts>
-Chad
------------------------------
From: tom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Blurry Fonts: Is there a solution?
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 04:18:44 GMT
Thanks, I kind of have an idea what's going on now from your
description. I know a little about the pixel thing from drawing in
M$Paint; objects pixelate when you zoom in for detail work. I probably
won't want to get as deeply into it as the book apparently goes, but
I've made a note of the name anyway.
Thanks.
Tom
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"Bobby D. Bryant" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> tom wrote:
>
> > And now for another dumb question: What's anti-aliasing?
>
> Anytime you quantize something that should be continuous, you get
rounding
> errors, and the artifacts caused by those errors are known as
aliasing.
>
> For sounds, that means that you sometimes hear a pitch that was not
in the
> original signal. (Hence the term "aliasing" - you get some pieces
that
> look like an "alias" for something that is not really there.) This
is a
> very big problem if you don't use enough bits to sample the signal,
because
> that gives you big rounding errors. (I think CD players use plenty of
> bits, and then also clean up the output of the D->A converter by
running it
> through an analog filter to get rid of any remaining high-frequency
> artifacts of the aliasing.)
>
> For computer displays, if you have a graphics program that draws a
diagonal
> line on the screen, the line can only be drawn by turning pixels in
the
> screen's grid on or off, so at some angles the line will look like a
flight
> of stairs rather than a straight line.
>
> The same problem occurs with fonts. The letter W is notoriously bad,
> because it has four diagonal lines not far off vertical, so the stair
> steps, or "jaggies", are very visible.
>
> As others have pointed out, higher resolution helps. This is because
a
> finer grid of pixels lets you approximate the correct position of the
line
> more accurately.
>
> Anti-aliasing is a way of fudging to get a very good visual effect.
What
> it does is smooth out the appearance of the stair steps by partially
> turning on the pixels in the corners of the steps. It actually just
makes
> a wider line that is still stair-stepped, but since the new pixels
are only
> partially on (e.g., grey rather than black), the eye blends it all
together
> pretty well, and leaves the line looking pretty smooth.
>
> In practice, I think they use different shades of grey, depending on
how
> much of the pixel would have been filled by a truly straight line.
>
> If you can find a textbook on computer graphics it will probably have
a
> diagram blown up very large so that you can see what is going on in
> detail. You may also be able to see it if you take a Windows system
with a
> big monitor and set the screen to very course resolution such as
640x480 or
> 800x600. At such low resolutions, there aren't many pixels to work
with,
> so you may be able to see the anti-aliasing. (Sorry; I don't have a
> Windows system handy to try it on.)
>
> Bobby Bryant
> Austin, Texas
>
> p.s. - If you live near a decent library, find _Computer Graphics:
> Principles and Practice_, by Foley et al. The hardback "Second
Edition in
> C" has a whole section on anti-aliasing, with drawings on pp. 133-134.
> (This book is pretty much the standard work on computer graphics, and
will
> probably tell you more than you want to know on any topic. Much more
than
> you want to know.)
>
>
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: "news" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: suggest me one which can handle multiple POP3 email addresses?
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 13:09:39 +0900
I have installed RedHat 6. It's working fine. The KDE can handle dialup very
efficiently. But I need an email client. I have visited the site.
can anyone suggest me one which can handle multiple POP3 email addresses?
Thank you in advance.
Joarder
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: "Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Red hat becoming illegal?
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 04:18:13 GMT
"Chris Ahlstrom" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Chad Myers wrote:
> >
> > "Chris Ahlstrom" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >
> > Ah yes. Typical Liberal: telling me how to live my life.
> > I wouldn't be suprised if you voted for Algore.
>
> I am hardly typical.
Hmm, that's a self-fullfilling prophecy. A liberl who thinks
he's unique =)
You are typical, highly typical.
> God threw away the mold when he made me,
So you tell yourself. Suprising to hear such a left-wing
liberal talking about God.
-Chad
------------------------------
From: "Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Red hat becoming illegal?
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 04:19:55 GMT
"Johan Kullstam" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> "Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> > "Chris Ahlstrom" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > "Aaron R. Kulkis" wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > It depends which side of Texas you live in. If the central/west
> > > > > side, then having a low-volume toilet sounds like a good thing
> > > > > to me, something that any sensible person would go along with
> > > > > to help the rest of the community.
> > > >
> > > > But that should be a PERSONAL CHOICE.
> > > >
> > > > If you think your water bills are too high, then replace your
> > > > toilet and reduce consumption.
> > > >
> > > > Conversely, if you notice that you're flushing 3x and therefore
> > > > using MORE water, then you should have the option of going back.
> > >
> > > No, you should stop eating so much and generating such large
> > > massives that your toilet can't handle it.
> >
> > Ah yes. Typical Liberal: telling me how to live my life.
> > I wouldn't be suprised if you voted for Algore.
>
> it's interesting how both conservative and liberals just want to tell
> you how to live your life.
You're thinking more of the religious right.
Religious right is conservative, but conservatives are not necessarily
Religious right.
Whereas liberalism, by it definition, is imposing upon and limiting
peoples' freedom.
-Chad
------------------------------
From: Marty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: A Microsoft exodus! (OT) (humor)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 04:46:26 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> Marty writes:
>
> >> David Ogg writes:
>
> >>> Wow, you three should get a room!
>
> >> Counting problems?
>
> > See what I mean about his illogic?
>
> What alleged illogic, Marty?
Are you suggesting that a counting problem is an attribute indicative of being
logical?
------------------------------
From: Marty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: A Microsoft exodus! (OT) (humor)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 04:47:41 GMT
David Ogg wrote:
>
> Wow, you three should get a room!
PS: Thanks for providing the new "seed" for another "logical debate". The old
one was pretty-much spent.
------------------------------
From: "Les Mikesell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: A Microsoft exodus!
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 04:53:35 GMT
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:fEdZ5.23090$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > Not true. What if you want to look for something ("Please find the
> > word "goose" in this document")?
>
> You don't use hjkl.
You do if you want to move the screen a line one way or the other
after finding the match.
> > Do that in traditional 'more' and you still have to scan
> > the page with your eyes once it comes up.
>
> Finding an occurrence of a string is a rather different matter from
> simply viewing a document. The latter was what he brought up.
No it isn't. I almost always search for something when I view
a document. Being able to do it the same way in the viewer
as in an editor makes the one you learned second intuitive.
> >> My point is that its action isn't intuitive.
>
> > To whom?
>
> To someone who hasn't used it before. Who else? Intuition
> doesn't apply to something that someone already knows.
Of course it does. How can someone that doesn't know
anything at all use a computer?
> You have a peculiar notion of intuition. Needing to know a bunch
> of things suddenly makes something intuitive.
Being able to re-use the same thing you already know in
another context makes the subsequent one intuitive. Vi lets you
re-use almost everything you learn in many different ways.
> > If you stick '$' in where a character or character mover could go -
> > it means eoln, if you stick it where a line number could go - it
> > means last line. It's 100% consistent.
>
> You mean the $ never means the dollar sign?
Not in the range/motion part of a command.
> > In the statement :1,$...something... the '$' is being used in the
> > place of a line number.
>
> Thus the symbol is overloaded, and not consistent.
But the meanings have something in common so it is consistent.
Note how our use of consistent is overloaded and not consistent.
We do this all the time and find it easier than remembering a
different symbol for every nuance of meaning.
> >> Is 4dk a special case?
>
> > It fits the generic pattern: {number}{command}{movement}
>
> I see you missed my point.
I did as well. What point? It re-uses the same information you
learned for every other vi command.
> >>> Carriage-returns are control-M characters
>
> >> So one might expect to enter a control-M into the document by typing
> >> control-M. Doesn't work. Oh, so you need a prefix. Now, what is so
> >> intuitive about control-V as the prefix? A UNIX novice might expect
> >> the backslash to be used as the prefix.
>
> > Ctrl-V is common in many other unix interactive tools.
>
> Backslash is common in many other UNIX applications.
Backslash is the 'high level' escape actually seen by application
level input and a backslash preceding the end-of-line typically
means the app should ignore the line end and consider the next
line a continuation. The control-V is normally the 'lnext'
character in the tty input subsystem below application level.
For example you can input a literal control-C or control-Z
into an application through the keyboard by preceding with
the control-V, even though they would normally generate
a signal at the OS level. Vi is actually doing raw input and
is in control of this escape mechanism so it doesn't have to
match the OS 'lnext' character, but since the function is exactly
the same, this is yet another place vi does the intuitive thing
and re-uses what you know in another context.
> Do you consider yourself a UNIX novice?
Why would that matter? A novice has less chance to
re-use knowledge in intuitive ways.
> > It's mnemonic is "verbatim", as in, "Do this next character verbatim,
> > ignoring any special meaning it may have."
>
> And do you consider the mnemonic intuitive?
Mnemonics are usually made up after the fact, but they are
as intuitive as anything else.
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (.)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Predictions (featuring Drestin Black)
Date: 12 Dec 2000 04:53:08 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy Ayende Rahien <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> "Pan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>>
>>
>> Chad Myers wrote:
>> >
>> > It's actually:
>> > read | weep > tissue
>> >
>> > -Chad
>>
>> Any guesses as to what your ISP's NNTP service is running on? lol.
> Mine is exlusevely Windows one.
> Mainly Win2K, AFAIK.
Lets see: (from netcraft)
The site taliesin.netcom.net.uk runs Apache/1.3.12 (Unix) on Solaris
The site www.netcom.net.uk runs Stronghold/2.4 Apache/1.3.0 C2NetEU/2407 (Unix) on
Solaris
Looks like they like solaris.
=====.
------------------------------
From: "Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: Caifornia power shortage...
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 04:41:18 GMT
"Craig Kelley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>
> > Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
> >
> > >[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > >>
> > >> Mike Marion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
> > >>
> > >> >"Aaron R. Kulkis" wrote:
> > >>
> > >> >> Actually, the REAL problem is that the ECO-NUTS in California shut
> > >> >> down practically every fission power project that came down the pike
> > >> >> in the 1970's.
> > >>
> > >> Blame the correct cause. Every project under design or planning being
canceled
> > >> by the utilities after Three-Mile Island.
> > >>
> >
> > >So...big fucking deal.
> >
> > >Three Mile Island was a text-book example of a nuclear power plant shutting
> > >down EXACTLY AS DESIGNED.
> >
> > You're clueless here. It did not shutdown as designed, that's why
> > there was a partial meltdown.
>
> ... which contaminateded nothing and nobody.
>
> One of it's many *safety features* worked as planned.
>
> > >Anybody who interprets TMI as a failure in nuclear engineering
> > >has their head deeeeeeeeeply inside their rectum.
> >
> > So according to you, all the utilities that cancelled plants didn't
> > know what they were doing. You need to learn more before you shoot
> > off. Remember the phrase "its the economy stupid." Well in this
> > case, "It was economics stupid."
>
> I used to work in a DOE nuclear facility -- the fault for the enormous
> economic barriers to nuclear energy has to go to the clueless masses
> who are afraid of "radiation" and the pseudo-journalism of mass media
> (Jane Fonda, et. all) which routinely mix up war-time nuclear physics
> with peaceful nuclear energy.
>
> There were probabaly cave-tribes of humans-gone-by that were afraid of
> fire. If they existed, they're all gone now, though...
>
> Nuclear energy is the best solution we have *right now* for ubiquitous,
> cheap electricity. There are certain regions where geo-thermal, wind,
> or tidal gerneators make sense as well; but one could argue that they
> cause more damage to the environment.
>
> The largest hypocrasy of the Green party is the electric car. Just
> imagine millions of gallons of high-capacity acidic waste (in the form
> of batteries that need to be replaced every five years), left to the
> average person to throw off the edge of the grand canyon.
The 2nd largest is that they criticize the Republicans and Democrats
for taking so much money from special interests and/or corporations,
but then haven't disclosed how much or from where Ralph Nader got
all his contributions. The books are closed.
-Chad
------------------------------
From: "Les Mikesell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt,comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: Windows review
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 05:06:59 GMT
"Kelsey Bjarnason" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:Qy0Z5.21281$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> [snips]
>
> > What do you do when you have large amounts of anything? For your
> > example starting Windows Explorer, I have to scroll down through
> > a page and a half of programs before I get to it.
>
> Try WindowsKey+E. Two keystrokes. Or put it in your menu folder, say at
> the top; then it's accessed by WindowsKey+Cursor Down+Enter. Or by two
> mouse clicks. Or put it in your quicklaunch bar; one mouse click.
That's handy enough. How many of these are there and why don't they
show on the menu like hotkeys?
> > Likewise, the
> > directories
> > and files I want are often out of sight and take extra work to bring
into
> > view. Is there an equivalent to a shortcut key to get to a particular
> > program on the program menu?
>
> You can, actually, define some hotkeys of your own. Failing that, if you
> find the default layout inconvenient, do what I do: put things where _you_
> find them most convenient. I like to have Word, for example, in the
> quicklaunch bar - one mouse click, there it is. I also like to have
Windows
> Explorer in the top spot on my start menu.
Once you put enough things in a handy place it turns out not to be handy
any more.
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
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