Hacker News Reader

SeppoErvialaon How Linux Was Announced to the World in 1991 [pic]

Why the picture? The post is still up.

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!msg/comp.os.mi...

SeppoErvialaon uTorrent Becomes Ad-Supported to Rake in Millions

Why use proprietary adware when there are FOSS alternatives available?

SeppoErvialaon Is usability breaking Linux adoption?

I vote for:

  - Lack of OEM support
  - Uncertainty of driver support whenever you buy anything
  - Unavailability of some types of software

If usability was the limiting factor why would anyone be using Windows anymore? The hassle with windows software/driver installation and updates alone is a nightmare if you aren't used to it.

When something breaks on Linux you sometimes need to open a terminal and paste in text from support forum. When something breaks on Windows you sometimes need to follow pictures of dialogs or regedit instructions from some support forum. The difference is that you cannot take your Linux computer to any shop and tell them to fix it (or ask your neighbors kids to fix it).

I have no experience with OS X but I presume that it's a mix of both worlds.

SeppoErvialaon John Carmack, Kudos to Valve but Linux is Still Not a Viable Gaming Market

The problem for Linux games by Id has been the distribution. How do I buy this Quake 4/Wars that Id has ported to linux? Certainly not from Ubuntu software center. Do they have distribution system or do I have to download some binary and house it in my /home/? I don't know and couldn't find out with 1 minute of googling.

I don't think that Valve will have this problem.

EDIT: Quake Live works really well but there is a lot of free competition with Q3 type games on linux.

SeppoErvialaon Fixing your own laptop, and the importance of do-it-yourself to society

ThinkPads regularly obsolete before they get broken beyond reasonable repair.

SeppoErvialaon The Profound Programmer

Languages where indents have semantic meaning tend to prefer spaces. Python style guide [1] explicitly specifies spaces and while Ruby community doesn't have official style guide all their popular unofficial style guides prefer spaces over tabs.

I think the problem is that it's so easy to accidentally mix spaces and tabs that it is more convenient to disable tabs and just use spaces.

[1] http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/

SeppoErvialaon Samsung reveals its pre-iPhone concepts: 10 touchscreen devices

Then there is no point in it. What the hell Samsung?

SeppoErvialaon Samsung reveals its pre-iPhone concepts: 10 touchscreen devices

Samsung clearly wants to interoperate with iPhone/Pod/Pad enabled docking devices by using the same usb/docking port. Accusing them for using it is like accusing laptop manufacturers for using mini-displayport.

SeppoErvialaon The year 2000 illustrated in 1900

I think he means a space elevator:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

SeppoErvialaon GNU founder Stallman calls DRM’d Steam for Linux games “unethical”

Stallman is being consistent with his previous statements yet surprises me by being quite pragmatic about the issue.

He has a valid point. You have more freedom if you run proprietary software on free OS than when you run proprietary software on proprietary OS. As a bonus point presence of Steam on Linux will probably bring fixes to free software graphics and sound components.

SeppoErvialaon Is Nginx obsolete now that we have Amazon CloudFront?

If you want to serve static files cheaply and are moving less than 10TB/mo you will find that CloudFront is a magnitude more expensive than bunch of VPSes with lots of monthly bandwidth.

Viability of this depends heavily on the use but if you're moving funny pictures of cats then you won't be generating lots of income and want to optimize the bandwidth costs.

SeppoErvialaon Valve’s Newell: Windows 8 “catastrophe” driving Valve to embrace Linux

Microsoft provides virtual images of various windowses just for testing websites in various Internet Explorer versions.

SeppoErvialaon Fertility rates fall, but global population explosion goes on

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies.h...

Relevant

SeppoErvialaon Ubuntu is coming back to Dell Laptops

I know nothing about non-Thinkpad Lenovos and but with a quick googling I wouldn't put my money in one. As far as I'm concerned they might as well be Acer laptops.

When people say that Lenovo laptops work well with linux they mostly mean Thinkpad series and even then there are some exceptions. Best out-of-box experience will be with one that has intel cpu+intel wireless+intel gpu and was released a year ago. It's about as safe bet for a high quality fully working linux laptop as you can get.

SeppoErvialaon Moving Away From Google

Google provides services in exchange for personal information. I see this as a fair trade considering the great quality of their services and the value of my input to their systems.

I would struggle to replace their services with products from other vendors.

SeppoErvialaon Introducing Ubuntu Web Apps: setting the web free of the browser

Accessing web application features with Alt + <key> is one of the things this Ubuntu feature is about.

SeppoErvialaon Ubuntu is coming back to Dell Laptops

I have x220i and I needed to fix mic mute button [1] and add a power management script [2] for saving power while on battery. I still get some graphics corruption with gpu accelerated chrome but it's not too common and I can live with it.

It would be nice if Lenovo or Dell would check how well their laptops (or even some model) worked with linux and tried to get this kind of stuff as default on major distros.

[1] http://askubuntu.com/questions/125367/enabling-mic-mute-butt... [2] http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic/11954

SeppoErvialaon Nokia: Microsoft, I Wish I Knew How To Quit You

I think it's still better than betting it all on a yet-to-be-released in-house operating system (like RIM is doing).

SeppoErvialaon Regarding EU cookie law: understanding its implications

I'm gonna ignore this law until some big dogs fight it out in court or implement compliance.

SeppoErvialaon Will the Americans with Disabilities Act tear a hole in Internet law?

I live in a country that has closed captioning on all tv-content and on most content on national video streaming services. I don't see why this should be of any problem for company like Netflix.

SeppoErvialaon Walrus.js - Mustache on steroids

Claims to be Mustache on steroids but misses one of Mustache's most important feature - support for most server side languages.

SeppoErvialaon Why Meditation Doesn't Directly Increase Happiness

The Way that can be told is not the eternal Way.