That's some pretty funny stuff, and I know there is similar insanity in Windows and OSX as well. Stupid error messages was an old topic long before the first IBM or Apple PC was ever sold. The funny thing is I seem to avoid 99% of them these days, on any OS, simply by using a command line or a canonical file manager. So pointing out that KDE's graphical shell sucks gets a big meh out of me. They all suck.

"Sounds more like Windows to me. And that actually, may be a good thing. Seriously, Windows got a lock on the desktop because people liked it, and by people, I mean everyday joe blow secretary or the executive that can't even type his own emails or use a spreadsheet, in short the greater pool or end users."

No. Just no. That is flat out incorrect. Windows got a lock on the desktop because you bought it with every computer whether you used it or not, and joe blow secretary or the old-school executive did not *PREFER* it to other options, s/he did not typically understand there was any alternative. And because MS has always been willing to use their position today to acquire or destroy any company that might get in their way tomorrow, of course.

"I once read a great take on organization. If you have more than ten of something, you probably need another level for ease of use, be it files in a folder, icons in a start menu, etc. I took the time to redesign my start menu in windows, and boy I and anyone else could find right where any program was, quickly."

Arent you glad that the system *allows* you to do this manually, instead of insisting on hiding all the details and just giving you an unchangeable 'view' that enables only the most commonly used options rather than confuse you?

"KDE Software is often criticized for being too complicated for an average user to use. "

By whom? Since when?

"Try setting up Kmail and you would know what I mean. "

Havent used it lately but I dont remember it being much different from more common GUI email apps. What are you getting at?

"The KDE developers are aware of it and now they are working on making KDE UI simpler. "

Thinking of GNOME, which was once somewhat useful and useable before the developers started talking like this, a shiver runs down my spine.

"KDE usability team lead Thomas Pfeiffer Thomas prefers a layered feature exposure so that users can enjoy certain advanced features at a later stage after they get accustomed to the basic functionality of the application. He quotes the earlier (pre-Plasma era) vision of KDE 4 â€" "Anything that makes Linux interesting for technical users (shells, compilation, drivers, minute user settings) will be available; not as the default way of doing things, but at the user's discretion."

Ugh. *Minute user settings* are actually very important to many non-technical users. This does sound like GNOME, unfortunately.

No, I wont.

As sites, one by one, go insane, I quit going to them.

The nice thing is, the internet is still very useful without them.

If you are tired of facebook bling and mindrot, if you are looking for the informative web that we used to have, you have only to open your eyes. Turn off ecmascript, and when you hit an address that refuses to return a web-page, just hit your back button and go somewhere else.

It's a good thing in a way. I used to have to spend some time reading to figure out that a site was worthless. Now I just notice that it isnt actually a webpage right off and save some time.

"Umm... JSON is a pretty significant force behind modern Web design."

Exactly why it needs to be nuked from orbit.

"Umm...Objective-C is the ONLY [good] way (besides Swift, which you'd hate even more) to write software for iOS devices, and the best language for programming Macs."

Neither of which is a good reason to use it, but it's actually a great language despite the failed attempt to defend it - it was the one thing on his list that did not fit.

"However, some folks still wear mullets and pine for the trash-80..."

And some of us use computers for practical reasons, rather than as fashion accessories.

Thanks for taking the time to explain that!

"With systemd, setup/startup/stop/teardown responsibilities are concentrated with PID1 and it's helpers.
Before, you'd have the same concept spread into a dozen of different systems, each only doing part of that functionnality."

Which is exactly how it should be.

PID1 only needs a small subset of those capabilities to do its job. And because it is PID1, because everything after has to rely on it, it's essential that it be well behaved and stable. Therefore it is essential that it have only the required set of capabilities and absolutely nothing else should be added or linked to it.

Other things can and should be done by other systems, not concatenated together and poured into PID1 where an error can bring the house down.

To add to the Galaxy Zoo suggestion:
Have a look at this book: "Statistics, data mining and machine learning in astronomy" http://www.britastro.org/journ...
I have my BS in Physics, but I write software. I think it would be pretty hard at 10 hours a week to pick up the math of most of the advanced topics - even mechanics. But, learning statistics and data mining and having public access to data like the Sloan Survey would put you in the position to make real discoveries as an amateur. And, a modicum of competence in statistics and data mining may give you some good options for paying gigs.

"That's because you're a curmudgeon. :)"

Is that the new word for 'adult?'

"My data are important to me. I shouldn't need to buy a server to prevent my data from being corrupted."

But you do nonetheless. My current machine was bought for one reason - price - and lacks it. When I've built my own systems in the past I have always used it. Scoping out parts to build a new one, I see the price of sane memory has only gotten further out of line than I remember. :(

This is one aspect of a market where the buyer does not understand the product well enough to make intelligent choices. If computer buyers understood the technology, at least 70% of them would insist on ECC, and as a result economy of scale would have eliminated the price premium long ago. Instead, manufacturers continue to skimp a few pennies on the RAM by default, creating an economy of scale advantage in the other direction, which only reënforces the bad allocation and ensures it continues.

Instead of ECC memory they should call it 'sanity-checking memory.' Maybe then people would understand what it is enough to realize they want it. But since no one in particular stands to make a windfall by doing it, no one promotes it.

Yep. Still sufficient reason to reduce the amount of plastic that gets into the oceans, but unfortunately, it seems really hard to get people to take any positive environmental steps unless you exaggerate it into ugly, apocalyptic terms. And even then, for every person you convince by it, there will be one who heard that it was exaggerated and concluded that therefore nothing needs to be done at all.

Very often being 'professional' means being willing to do shoddy work in order to conform with a business plan and go home every day at 5 with a paycheck. The amateurs are the ones that sometimes love their craft and insist on doing it right.

I am saying that its design sacrifices robustness in favor of performance and features at every turn. It might be more crashy, but the bigger problem is it ensures you have no usable logs when it crashes. And it doesnt have to be a crash for it to be troublesome, for a single example in the quest for shorter boot times it starts services without making sure that dependencies are actually working - that normally wont cause the entire system to crash but so what?

Still not what I want on my system. I dont really care how long it takes to boot, I just want to make sure that when it's finished it's really finished. Systemd in so many ways copies windows concepts instead - like how they make it supposedly boot faster - by rushing along to draw a GUI before things are actually ready to use.

Not saying systemd is as bad as windows - and the massive improvements in boot speed are not all illusory! but they do come at the cost of reliability and correctness, and that's simply not a good tradeoff for people using the OS in a traditional manner.

"You don't have to. If you really want your old way then just have journald pass everything along to syslog and it's back to normal."

Unfortunately that's not quite true. You *can* configure systemd to spit out text logs as well as the binaries but that is a delayed process, so in the one case where you MOST want text logs (where a crash has occured with the file open) it's absolutely worthless.

I didn't follow the speculation, but perhaps you'd know: did they realize that splitting was an option? Did Boeing and SpaceX each get half a loaf, or did NASA somehow manage to "grow the pie"?

If so, where will they dig up additional billions in funding? If not, will either SpaceX or Boeing be able to accomplish a large fraction of the work for a fraction of the funding they'd hoped to get?

I'm ecstatic to see them say "Why not both?", since if the government is going to be spending tax dollars, I'd rather see it go to a good scientific cause than... well, to a lot of other things that the government is prone to spending money on. But It's a fair bit of money, even in government terms, and I hope it's being spent wisely rather than having a Solomonic decision that gives us two halves of a baby.