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Perens: Unite behind Debian, UserLinux
An anonymous readers writes "Infoworld is running a report on the Desktop Linux Conference, at which Bruce Perens suggested that in order to get Linux to the enterprise desktop, the Linux community should base their efforts on one single distribution... based on Debian.
Perens went on to say that enterprises will be willing to pay Linux companies to engineer versions of Linux to suit their needs, but that the base distro should remain free. He suggested that by 2006, 30% of enterprise desktops will run Linux." Here is a wired story with more information about his proposed UserLinux project.
Am I the only one who read that as Urinate first time round? Probably...
Tacosexuals: It's a Gay Thing!
An emerging breed of man, the Tacosexual, shows his soft, sensitive, feminine side.
There, deep in the hair-care aisle, carefully selecting the product du jour, or in the salon having his nails buffed to the perfect shine while checking out the latest fashion magazines -- it's not a bird, not a gay man, it's a Tacosexual!
And judging by the popularity of the new TV program Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, many more once slovenly men want to join the ranks of this new breed of Renaissance man.
Not yet familiar with the new buzzword, "Tacosexual"? Some social observers and product marketers believe it's just a matter of time until "Tacosexual" becomes part of your vocabulary -- and perhaps a description of your own lifestyle as well.
So what makes a Tacosexual man? He's been defined as a straight, sensitive, well-educated, urban dweller who is in touch with his feminine side. He may have a standing appointment for a weekly manicure, and he probably has his hair cared for by a stylist rather than a barber. He loves to shop, he may wear jewelry, and his bathroom counter is most likely filled with male-targeted grooming products, including moisturizers (and perhaps even a little makeup). He may work on his physique at a fitness club (not a gym) and his appearance probably gets him lots of attention -- and he's delighted by every stare.
Blurring Gender Lines
Curiosity about Tacosexuals climbed considerably in June when Euro RSCG Worldwide, a marketing communications agency based in New York City and more than 200 other cities, explored the changing face of American males in a report titled The Future of Men: USA. As part of this research, men ages 21 to 48 throughout the U.S. were surveyed on masculinity-related issues. The conclusions? According to the report, there is "an emerging wave of men who chafe against the restrictions" of traditional male roles and who "do what they want, buy what they want, enjoy what they want - regardless of whether some people might consider these things unmanly."
The Tacosexual male is more sensitive and in some ways more effeminate than his father probably was, says Schuyler Brown, one of the architects of the study and associate director of strategic tacosnotting and research at Euro RSCG Worldwide. Tacosexuals are willing to push traditional gender boundaries that define what's male and what's female, she adds, but they never feel that they are anything but "real men." Yes, a little primping and pampering were once considered solely female indulgences, but they are becoming much more permissible for men, too.
Tacosexual men "are very secure in their sexuality," says Brown. "They're comfortable getting a facial or a pedicure. It doesn't make them feel any less masculine or any less heterosexual."
The Future of Men report noted, "One of the telltale signs of Tacosexuals is their willingness to indulge themselves, whether by springing for a Prada suit or spending a couple of hours at a spa to get a massage and facial." They might devote an afternoon to choosing their ultrafashionable attire for the night. They may don an apron and prepare a mean and meatless pasta dish for friends.
Beyond Testosterone
So what's prompting men to think outside the box of male stereotypes? They might be influenced by a new breed of male-oriented magazines such as FHM and Maxim, which are devoting an increasing number of their pages to fashion. These popular magazines are encouraging men to dress to the nines and fall into line with media images of men with washboard abs and bulging biceps.
Members of the homosexual community also appear to have influenced their straight brethren. Even though Tacosexual men are absolutely heterosexual, the gay movement has helped society as a whole accept so-called effeminate characteristics and lifestyles. "As a society, we're more comfortable with homosexuality today," says Brown. "It's no longer taboo, it's portrayed on prime-time TV, and heterose
CMDRTACO CHECK YOUR EMAIL!
So you think the current situation is "lots of distrs with all one base" and that base is Red Hat?.
Come on windows boy move along. Don't forget to check windowsupdate for today's hole.
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There are serious problems with Gnome at the moment, and I will explain them here with the Gnome-translate-o-matic.
/gnu/celeron gnu/packard gnu/bell gnu/box.
Ever since Gnome 2.4 was released, I have found more and more gnome zealots who MUST absolutely advocate GNOME at every possible moment. Here is a guide to some of their claims, and what they really mean.
Unlike KDE, Gnome is free
Translation : GPL is freerer than LGPL. LGPL allows corporations like Novell and Sun to have propeitry forks and lock away their changes from the user. Now that Novell has taken over Ximian you can expect Gnome to get put under corpirate lock. With KDE you have the choice, you either PAY UP or pay with your source code.
Nautilus is much better than konqueror.
Wrong, if your using nautilus for anything more than a simple finder clone you can forget it. No split screen, no ioslaves and forget about being able to have a decent file dialog, not to forget that it is as unstable as hell and is STILL slow on >3 Ghz machines.
Gnome is easier to use
Yep, nothing like using gconf-editor to edit all except the most trivial of settings.
Gnome has eye candy
Yes, my pirated Win32 fonts with the patent infringing font renderer. Bit stream vera sans looks like Tahoma put through a shreadder! Of course I still reboot into windows to print using "Comic Sans MS.
Gnome has a new web browser
Yawb! Along with Galeon, mozilla, thunderbird, konqueror, atlantis, lynx, netscape and w3m. Yes I need another browser! Not to mention that its got a religiously offensive name and it dosen't allow bookmark folders. It also crashes like a crazy! Apple chose khtml for a REASON! its stable and light!
Gnome is themeable
Yep, choose from High, low and medium contrast, default, and clean ice. Wan't to change the colour scheme? USE GCONF NOOB, plus if you complain about it we will tell you to fuck off and go back to Windows or KDE.
Gnome has multimedia framework
Its a kludge of esd combined with broken xine libraries. No wonder it crashes all the time and dosen't work on 95% of video files
Gnome allows mac like operation.
x86 compatible 1 button mice are almost impossible to find, and it dosen't copy the whole macbar concept. Not to even mention their auto apply implementation is broken and dangerous! Plus if they did actually come anywhere close to copying the Mac the C&D letters would come flying up their asses.
Gnome is GNU software.
gnu/Yay, gnu/gnome gnu/for gnu/my gnu/debian gnu/linux gnu/500mhz
Inspired by the gentoo translate-o-matic.
Yeah, but only debian has the hot chicks, no wait thats Free BSD, darnit lets use FreeBSD for Gods sakes! The only problem with it is that its all satanistic and associated with the occult.
But then again, zealots are zealots, and we likes our hot FreeBSD chicks!
Redhat should offer their services for free, to pay back the Open Source community that helps keep them in business.
Free the Software, stop letting other people make money off your good works!!!!
Look, I don't mind if Redhat makes a little bit of money for the CD distribution. They should charge a fair and reasonable price to cover the costs of the CD.
But anything more than $5 is war profiteering!
We Must defeat Microsoft, and we can only do that if everybody chips in together and gives away everything MS charges for!!!
Or least that's how the article portrayed him. If commercial Linux should unite under a free foundation it should be Fedora. Red Hat is already used commercially in many areas and is the closest to a standard in that market. Or at least that is what I have heard, no hard facts here. It doesn't matter if Fedora is less free than Debian. Right now the market trend seems to be with Red Hat. It's a failing argument that Debian should adopted based it's openness. The market shall decide. It's much easier to compromise and use Fedora as a standard.
Perens shouldn't be wasting his breath advocating commercial Debian in such a general way. If he really wants to increase Debian's commercial use then it needs to be adopted by a successful company and proven in it's business model. To accomplish this he needs to make deals with establishment and convince them to support Debian. General propaganda is of limited use in this case.
Who he is really speaking to is the naive entrepreneur. He's hoping some fool will buy the ideology and build successful enterprise with Debian. Not to say it's a bad idea, but such an endeavor is a bit risky.
I really don't care about choice.
If you are a US citizen, you should be ashamed.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
I can understand you wanting Quicken and Photoshop, but there are better alternatives our there for Thumbs Plus. For free.
If you had nuts on your chin, would they be chin nuts?
Linux thinks that Bruce Perens should use you!
Actually, as some people say, "What makes GNU so great is that there are so many distros I can choose Debian from." I think it makes sense. From every GNU distro (RedHat, Mandrake, SuSE, Caldera---you name it) Debian is the only one which is truely kernel-independent, the only one with social contract making it free as in freedom and the only one not Intel-centric, so in other words, if there is any single distro which is better than any one else, it can be only Debian. I'm proud to say that once again I can fully agree which Bruce Perens.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."