Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Moderation system (Score 1) 763

If you're going to fix something about this site, you should first identify something that can be easily recognized as broken. What comes to my mind is the JS that drives the comment system. It's unresponsive as hell. Most of the time, I have to click "Preview" and "Submit" multiple times before anything happens. Even then, it often won't update to show me the finalized comment, forcing me to use my browser's Refresh button. Since this is neither consistent nor the intended functionality, I consider it a glaring and obvious bug(s). If I were the developer, I would focus on basic usability and getting fundamental functions to work smoothly before I'd move on to larger ideas.

Though it may seem like the Javascript, it's not. If you run a webserver from your posting IP and tail the logs while you post, you'll see that it's checking to see if you're posting through an open proxy, the frontend hangs until it finishes that server side check. Now, I have no idea why that check takes so long, but they don't make the check against the same IP too often, so if you post again soon after you make another post (or preview and then submit), you'll see that only the first request is slow, the rest skip the open proxy check and respond reasonably quickly.

Comment Re:Oh, great .... now, instead of (Score 2) 187

Maybe this will provide disincentive to companies that simply snarf up all possible personal data because they can (I'm looking at you, Facebook). This is by far one of the most annoying trends as of late. That's why Game! doesn't ask for any personal information (because it doesn't need it) and makes email optional (if you want to be able to recover your account). Perhaps others will follow suit...

Comment It's mostly true (Score 3, Interesting) 330

Linus has never been diplomatic, but it's mostly true. A huge amount of virtualization done today involves the same host and guest OS, and in most of those cases, using something slimmer than full blown virtualization would make a whole lot more sense, even if only for the improved performance. One of the problems is familiarity, container type isolation isn't applicable to as many cases, so fewer people are familiar with it. One of the other problems is the perception that full virtualization is more secure (which is probably untrue).

There is however, a large swath of problems that aren't solved well by container type isolation that virtualization does solve well. If you need to simulate different physical systems (with separate IP addresses), that's much easier with virtualization. Likewise if you need very different guest and host OSes, that's not a strong point of container type isolation. Also, if your guest OS is sensitive to hardware changes, virtualization makes a lot of sense. There's more, but you get the idea.

Comment Re:Warranty (Score 1) 244

I built an i7 920 system about 2 years ago and originally went with the stock cooler. it was loud and at full load, the CPU would throttle itself because it got too hot (good ventilation, relatively cool room (20 C)). I tossed that piece of junk and installed an aftermarket cooler and it's substantially quieter and cooler.

Comment Re:Stupid (Score 1) 413

I was under the impression that once the closed source drivers implemented KMS and other features, they could be used. I am using Intel's current drivers and they support Wayland well.

Yes, also, once the heat death of the universe happens, we won't need to worry about it anymore. The Nvidia blob and fglrx don't support KMS or other required features and have no plans to do so.

Comment Re:Stupid (Score 5, Interesting) 413

2. Help X11 by fixing what people perceive to be wrong with it. Maybe then you'll also see how bloated and painful it is to work with X11... (ultimately, that's the REAL reason we're seeing a rise of Wayland). You don't have to agree, you just have to realize that the people who disagree with you are about to overpower your choice. The mantra of "well, if they want it (the fancy animations), they should add it to X11 themselves or shut up" has failed you. Instead, someone has written an increasingly viable alternative which lacks features YOU want. Which leads me to ...

This would be counterproductive. By far the most common complaint I see about X is "OMG IT'S SLOW BECAUSE IT ALWAYS RUNS OVER THE NETWORK!!!!!!!!". However, on a local display, X uses a domain socket for communication, basically the fastest method available. So, the perceived problem isn't actually a problem at all, "fixing" it would be a mistake.

As far as I can tell, anyone who's backing Wayland has no actual concrete complaints about X, they just feel the need to rewrite everything from scratch (a common problem, unfortunately). Furthermore, in all I've read about Wayland, it doesn't bring anything to the table except fewer features and newer (buggier) code.

I don't know if you've noticed, but KDE and Gnome (and others) already have lots of fancy animations, and they didn't need to rewrite X to get it done.

Comment Re:Rotational media (Score 5, Insightful) 397

I concur on this point, online storage really makes the most sense. Cheap, high performance (for sequential read/write) and easily expandable. You can get a single machine with dozens of SATA drives in it (including the drives) for way under 5 figures. When drives fail, they're simple to replace, and every couple years, migrate the whole thing to newer (faster, bigger) drives. Mirror your data unless you don't care about it. RAID 1/10 for really small datasets (2-4 drives), RAID 6 for moderate size datasets (5-10 drives) and RAID 60 for anything bigger.

A very important note to keep in mind... stay away from hardware RAID! When your controller dies, so does all your data, unless you have an identical spare controller card (buy it up front, they won't exist in a couple years). The same goes for fake RAID (ie, software RAID driven by the BIOS), but s/controller card/motherboard/g;. Pure software RAID (ie, using mdadm) is a safe bet.

Comment Re:My only problem... (Score 5, Insightful) 147

I think the bigger problem with microtransactions is that games that utilize them have a strong tendency of virtually everything revolving around microtransactions to the point where it's completely impossible to play without buying something every 5 seconds. I hate the concept of buying your way through a game, I mean, what's the point? Sure, I could actually try and enjoy this game, or I could dump $100 into it stretched over a few weeks so I can spend less time playing it. But aren't games supposed to be enjoyable? Spending less time playing them seems to defeat the purpose.

Personally, I think if a game offers something something in exchange for real money (aside from possibly the game itself), it should not affect gameplay itself. Maybe someone really wants a slightly different looking avatar, and if they want to pay a few dollars for it, so be it, it doesn't hinder anyone else's enjoyment of the game. Regardless, that's why you won't find any microtransactions (or macrotransactions, for that matter) in Game!, as it focuses on being fun to play, apparently a novel concept these days.

Slashdot Top Deals

"No matter where you go, there you are..." -- Buckaroo Banzai

Working...