Boston Globe to Blogger — "Stop Using Opera"

PetManimal writes "Mac Daniels of the Boston Globe weighed in on a prickly debate involving the updated local mass transit website. The Globe's advice to one complainer named 'derspatchel': Stop using Opera. Derspatchel's response is to go medieval on Daniels' ass, and ask the question: Why should Opera users give up their browser? Quoting: 'I don't give two whoops about the "percentage of the Internet population" or whatever. I don't care if a website works on someone else's choice of browser; I care if it works or not on my choice of browser. It's a modern browser, it's in active development, and it's free. Once dev stops on the Opera browser and the last version becomes outdated and unable to support newer Web innovations, then I'll "stop using it." How's that, Chuckles?'" After a day the transit authority took the new site offline to "improve performance," reverting to the old version.

Comments

Re:Wow

[Loadmaster]

God damn it! I keep hitting that stupid "Post Anonymously" button thinking it's the "No Karma Bonus." Ok, folks, go medieval (slashdot style) on me for the fuckup.

Swi

Re:Get a life

[anagama]

Someone with mod points should untroll this guy. How is stating the obvious truth troll-worthy? Opera is not free software as the term is used when speaking about the "free software community". Opera "is proprietary software and closed source." Citation. It might be no-cost software, but it certainly isn't free.

Re:I gotta agree

[Danga]

I do say what I want. But I will defend myself if I am modded unfairly. I really don't care about my karma that much but I do care if people mod me down just to protect the image of their precious software such as firefox which based on the facts I presented is not faster than Opera.

Re:Protected blog, full text of post

[gartogg]

We tend to judge a system by its failures, not its successes. In this case, we judge a group by how it treats members least able to protect itself. With this metric, the US does about average for the world - worse than most industrial countries, better than most countries overall. This is sad given that we are the richest country in the world.

You are, however, correct. This post in no way refutes the near-incoherent rant made in the anti-communist post. We should defer to the social theorists on this one - there is mounting evidence that increasing GDP above third world conditions widens the income gap, rather than narrowing it. This means that the poorest people are less able to afford the basics.
(Yes, in Africa it is possible to live well off of $5/day, but in the US it is not. We see that the income gap, and not the actual income, is in fact the point to be considered. Absolute wealth is mostly irrelevant for the bottom 10% - it doesn't matter that the food you can't pay for is healthier.)

Re:Protected blog, full text of post

[NMerriam]

If not for government regulation, wealthy people would enslave poor people, and wealthy corporations would eliminate small companies. Wealthy people rely far less on police protection, as they can hire their own protection. They depend far less on military protection, since they have the means of leaving the country if necessary. Trade negotiations and banking regulations (if they're good) benefit everyone equally by protecting the economy, the latter at the expense of wealthy bank owners who would make greater profits otherwise.

"Wealth" is not some abstract concept, it relies on private property and capital being protected by societal custom, banks, militaries, and police. The poor would be (and have been) barbarian hordes simply sacking the "wealthy" and taking what they want. The people who benefit most from the concept of private property are those who -- surprise! -- own the property.