There is now a portable version of Microsoft Word 97, which works very well on work computers that have a newer version of Office installed. Surprisingly it still hasn't been taken down on copyright grounds.
I tried to install the Word and Excel app on my sister's Windows laptop. Norton antivirus identified the apps as viruses. So she is doomed to learn herself LibreOffice.
Shouldn't the favicon and the site logo be the same? May I suggest the logo be like the favicon, but with a round white background, so as to stand out from the rest of the site's colours? So that when you change the theme colours of the site (I understood this was going to be a user option at some point), it won't affect the logo.
Yes, I meant Pesala's views. Now, you seem to think it important to identify if the law of kamma (kamma is karma, fate or destiny, nothing too special about it) is above or below God, but Pesala sets forth two approaches:
- God exists - God doesn't exist
Both equally valid as hypotheses, as a starting point. For him Buddhism is a way of inquiry, i.e. a philosophy, not religion (elsewhere he vehemently denies tht Buddhism is a religion). In philosophy you inquire into stuff, starting with hypotheses.
And in this quote, there's no completed analysis, no conclusion. This is why there's no answer to if God is above or below fate, because there's no answer in this brief quote which one of the hypotheses gets confirmed.
By and large I agree with what Pesala says here, but I'm sure my agreement is different than Sang's (and indeed different from Pesala's other views). I agree that there should be a proper inquiry which crucially depends on the clarity of definitions and earnestness of the seeker, but the inquiry leads to a conclusion. As a result, one of the hypotheses becomes confirmed or the concept of God becomes settled beyond doubt, and the seeker becomes "wise". Theology is found at the conclusion point, not at the starting point.
So I agree in broad strokes, but, knowing more about Pesala, about Buddhism, and about spirituality in general, inquiry shold logically be just a phase, a method. The goal is different. The ultimate wisdom is in the goal.
So I would like to issue a public challenge. Anyone who believes that my case for a scientific understanding of morality is mistaken is invited to prove it in under 1,000 words. (You must address the central argument of the book—not peripheral issues.) The best response will be published on this website, and its author will receive $2,000. If any essay actually persuades me, however, its author will receive $20,000,* and I will publicly recant my view.
Submissions will be accepted here the week of February 2-9, 2014.
One thing is certain: He won't be persuaded, the $20,000 prize will not find its lucky winner. Reasons for this are two-fold. One, Sam Harris cannot be persuaded logically, because he has displayed utter contempt for logic as used in philosophy, which is the domain of logic. Two, he is an emotional person whose arguments are appeals to emotion, while he thinks he's being logical.
Thus, all rational arguments will fail, and the most beautiful essay consisting of an appeal to emotion will be denounced as an appeal to emotion. Emotional people become particularly angry when they detect an attempt of emotional manipulation on themselves
North Carolina cops are searching for a guy who successfully passed a $200 bill bearing George W. Bush's portrait and a drawing of the White House complete with lawn signs reading "We like ice cream" and "USA deserves a tax cut." The phony Bush bill--a copy of which you'll find below--was presented to a cashier at a Food Lion in Roanoke Rapids on September 6 by an unidentified male who was seeking to pay for $150 in groceries. Remarkably, the cashier accepted the counterfeit note and gave the man $50 change
@Frenzie It keeps saying "That username does not exist." Tried my own name, Administrator, and test. Maybe I am not getting the catchphrase either.
Anyway, what is a bit limited about it? If it's not more limited than the forum posting, I'd argue it's not limited. If it allows commenting, it's fine. I see it allows likes
Idea: Blogs as a separate category at the front page, browsable per post in historical order last first.
My explanation would be, “If, by God, you mean something transcending the material realm, which is eternal, real, and that can be experienced by the wise, then I would say that there is.”
However, if, by God, you mean a supreme being who controls the destiny of individuals, who created the world and all beings in it, and who will judge those beings after their death, then I would say “That is not God, but the law of kamma.”
I knew about Off By One Web Browser. BTW, it was merely a demo, not something to replace a full featured browser.
It's an awesome demonstration how a browser can be portable.
I agree with your general point that in the software world the definition of "portable" has turned out to be whatever it has turned out to be and I can't change it unless I design my own software. Still, there's also the way that makes sense. Looks like a portable OS makes more sense than a portable app.
Hey, I remember booting some kind of Linux as a window in Windows. Now that's portable! But it was ages ago and only once just for fun. I don't remember what the distro was and how I did it. I did it from the harddrive, I remember this much.
Btw, j7n, that link to Word and Excel is useful! Thanks!
To think of those things we need a population explosion, ... and a bright idea.
The bright ideas part, I have offered two:
- Specialise and cooperate. As an example, make a forum category for Otter browser and put it the first in the list when Guest lands on the front page. Or whatever other open-source community-driven project looks like worth supporting and lacks a forum currently. Luakit, Uzbl, ...
- Blog page for every user. Same features as for forum posts, no need for anything more.
Krake, your list in its entirety is a non-argument. Software shouldn't be designed in a crappy way in the first place.
On Windows apps can be run without any installation process. "Portable" on Windows shouldn't mean "better installer". It should mean NO installer, like the zip version of this browser http://offbyone.com/offbyone/ob1_download.htm
To put it once again in a perhaps clearer way, the issue I'm pointing out is this: In the original draft of the logo, the background was the lightest element. Now the background colour is in between the halves of the logo.
Thanks for commenting. I see now that I haven't missed any amazing advantages of the incredibly innovative portable software. I have only missed a lot of hype and nuisance
Anyway, I just realized no one mentioned the other alternative: I believe that simply extracting the Opera archive (with e.g. 7-zip) is essentially the same thing as a single profile installation. I personally prefer that method over all others.
There's a tiny little browser called OB1 (OffByOne, not Obi-Wan), an implementation of HTML3.2 only, pretty close to a text browser. The original version of it was packed in a zip - just the program and a DLL. No installer. Unzip the two files in the same folder and run the exe. That's all. No installation process. No profile other than the settings inside the app. Self-evidently, the folder where you unzip it can also be on USB, on any drive. This is what I'd call a portable app.
Later (due to some ill-conceived "popular demand"?) the next version had an installer and the interface was tabbed. Bad moves both. Maybe you can still find the older version to give it a ride, if you have Windows.
Moreover, at my job we nicely have USB sockets in computers, but when you stick stuff in, the computer asks for admin password. Doesn't look like a portable app would work in this case, right?
Maybe you can download the (compressed) software over the network and run it then?
This sounds like cloud software, yet another breed in the portable category. Do you like Google OS?
If one is mobile (which I am) and has access to different comps (which I do), I sort of tend to think that a whole portable OS (such as Puppy Linux) would make more sense than individual portable apps.
Loading an entire OS from a removable device would take a long time and potentially decrease the life of the removable medium, if it's flash-based. Creating such an OS takes more skill and time [snip]
The point with Puppy Linux is that it's already created and designed to work this way - from USB or disc, not from harddisk. On USB or disc it's not meant as a LiveTryBeforeYouBuy thing, but fully usable, mainly as a recovery tool. Except that the software selection on it is rich enough to provide a full desktop experience. You can use Puppy Linux regularly to revive old hardware that refuses boot any other way for some reason. Or, as I understand it, as a portable OS, to stick into anything bootable on your way. Another similar release is Knoppix.
This is what I have gathered from the reviews. I am yet to try one of those things out.
It took me a while to figure out that graphical browsers show (by default?) the front page as collapsed. You have to expand those odd things to get to the actual categories. This is the first constraint.
I'm pretty sure that shouldn't be the default. I checked in a browser I essentially never use (Qupzilla) as well as in clean profiles of browsers I do use and guests don't even have the option to choose whether or not to show a certain category.
My chock must have occurred after having logged in then.
Anyway, I removed the option to collapse the "General" category since it's really the only thing we have!
Good
In Elinks nothing collapses anyway. When visiting Vivaldi.net, I see all the supposedly hidden nooks, such as text fields to reply after every single message in the forums, fully expanded. This site here is much nicer and easily manageable, as it should be.
While I don't think child boards are currently desirable, they would be visible from the main page. See the SMF support boards for how they are displayed. Just not with the full info like last post and description so they don't take up as much space.
I see. That looks nice.
However, there are two constraints. One is that when I first visited this site (DnD) with Opera the first time, I was shocked to see only two odd categories: - General - Forum-related
It took me a while to figure out that graphical browsers show (by default?) the front page as collapsed. You have to expand those odd things to get to the actual categories. This is the first constraint.
The second constraint is the amount of info thrown at Guest. It must be a moderate manageable amount for an average mind. That's why I mentioned max 7 categories.
Serious question: Why use portable software? I never installed any portable app and have, so I think, had a full life anyway.
What could be the advantages? Mobility? Privacy?
If I understood correctly, portable software is installed to a portable medium (USB stick these days) to be stuck into a computer to which one has access atm.
If this is correct, and e.g. the browser's profile and cache is directed to the USB stick, then the computer should not retain traces of usage from the ported browser.
Question: If I install the browser in Linux, is it connectible to a Windows computer? If not, the portable app doesn't look like much of an advantage.
Moreover, at my job we nicely have USB sockets in computers, but when you stick stuff in, the computer asks for admin password. Doesn't look like a portable app would work in this case, right?
If one is mobile (which I am) and has access to different comps (which I do), I sort of tend to think that a whole portable OS (such as Puppy Linux) would make more sense than individual portable apps. Except that I haven't used a portable OS either - I have my own laptop.
Ah, right, the colors aren't greatly contrasted. Making the background color lighter might create the same issue with the white. Perhaps we should ask to see what it'd looks like with a small border or some such.
Krake's images show that he understood my issue correctly. It's a subtle thing.
In the original image I liked that the two halves are not too greatly contrasted from each other, so that the letter-like figures in the logo could be read straightforwardly. This aspect of the design goes lost when the halves are too greatly contrasted from each other. Edit: In the original draft, both halves are darker than the background.
Anyway, don't worry too much about me. I mostly use Elinks, so I don't see images and thus have no real issues with contrasts and tints. It's just that the logo is a community engagement and this is how my input looks like now, totally destructive criticism.
Ancient Greeks, as it goes, reportedly lay while eating; or maybe only the upper class, no idea... Anyway, a healthy hunter - who can imagine him stomping his buttocks against a horizontal surface for minutes? HOURS!? Nah!..
Greeks may have laid down, but in Asia people have found ways to sit for long (days, months!) without adverse consequences. Westerners don't find these postures comfy, however, and tend to not take sitting so well.
But you showed another good solution: If you can't sit, then stand. In the middle ages scholars read and wrote while standing at a lectern. The standing posture should be somewhat in Western genes now.
I'm watching it now with Opera and I don't like the colours of the icon. The second half of the icon is near-illegible due to colours. (Not that I know how to fix it. I am near-colourblind.)
Subboards are worse than a single level of boards, because they are harder to navigate.
The advantage of more boards is, as String said, that a Guest can, at a glance, see more topics represented here. This may indeed attract a couple of new members. But only single level of boards has this effect.
Another point: Not above 7 visible boards for Guest. Above 7 is too much info at one glance.
to cover everything from religion to philology and word games.
Edit: On second thought, however, I seriously like the current way of having a DnD Central, where politics and religion is together, so people really DnD (verb!) everything wholesale.
Personally, I would be happy with just two fun categories: - Central - Lounge in addition to the serious non-fun Forum Admin, but since we already have also - Browsers and Technology all new categories should, imho, follow the spirit. Make it a two-word naming convention or such.
Hence Hobbies and Entertainment. Frenzie's games also have a place there.
And we have already some threads to move there, right? Such as maps.
Language is a system on one hand, but the system covers everything perceived plus everything conceivable. Thus language is also all-pervasive continuum. Just like the mind: structured on one hand, all-pervasive and omnipresent on the other.
I have that cool little tool on Linux, so I can check the titles and captions of Youtube videos without having to visit the site with a webbrowser. The tool also lists available download formats, if the video turns out to be something interesting.
