I normally refrain from commenting on this but I have to admit: it always annoys me. A bunch of people who don't know shit about Latin, trying to look cool by mixing ignorance and wishful thinking and saying "virii" all the time.
Racism and xenophobia are greatly feared in Europe. In some countries you can be sentenced to fines or imprisonment for saying "racist" or "xenophobic" things.
Really? I actually hear racist comments very often. Like my dutch teacher who said that every muslim was a radical. Like newspaper stories telling about how unfortunate it is not to be able to arrest some orthodox muslims because they haven't committed any crime yet.
I use quotation marks because actual racism and xenophobia are virtually non-existent these days.
There are whole political parties in Belgium and the Netherlands defending the right to discriminate people. Not on the contents of their characther, but on the color of their skin. Mark Rutte, top man of the dutch VVD, was condemned for racism while he was a government minister some ? 3 years ago. He had **officially** told police to focus investigations on **legal** somali residents of the Netherlands because they were more likely to commit crime. When he lost, the guy did say that the law that forbid him from giving such an order such be changed. This is the top man of the "3rd or something like that" party in the Netherlands.
You got to be really blind and deaf to claim there is no such a thing as racism in Europe nowadays.
Did you know that small children feel that when they break eye contact something stops existing? That's why they close their eyes when they are afraid. I guess you hope that if you close your eyes hard enough, the everyday racism and xenophoby will simply cease to exist.
I dare anyone to find any real, down to earth, proposal from this man that would mitigate any of the problems he so easily evidentiates.
well, he did write Applied Cryptographyhttp://www.amazon.com/Applied-Cryptography-Protocols-Algorithms-Source/dp/0471117099 didn't he? If you are unaware of the importance of that book for the general practice of cryptography, please take a look in the reviews at Amazon. They make much more justice to the book than what I would be able to do here.
And please don't start complaining that book is not "down to earth". Simplifying is a good thing, oversimplifying a complex subject is not.
I guess this would explain why just about everybody in Canada thinks crime is on the increase, even though the numbers conclusively prove otherwise.
You can't sell security hardware and convince nervous old women to throw away their rights if they know there's a long list of things more important than so-called "security".
I often think about the political impact of the population ageing in Europe (where I live). There is a lot of political analysis about everything but never around the fact that, well, the population is getting on average older, and that older people tend to have a more conservative take on life, and IMO are easier to be made afraid of "different new stuff" (like having more non-Caucasians and/or Muslims living in their society).
The other day I read about strong xenophobic language being used by politicians in Treviso, Italy. It went about how African immigrants were a great danger for the old people. The article was keen to mention that none of the perceived wave of violence was backed by official statistics.
(Note that that is just something I read in the news, so I might be missing lots about it).
In Belgium, and the Netherlands there is often very strong xenophobic language being used by (relatively) successful mainstream politicians.
As I see it, dangerous foreigners/muslims/immigrants youngsters are really in the forefront of the justifications for the increase in surveillance in Europe nowadays (along with the "think about the children" argument).
I'm often under the impression that a strong factor in the success of this line of argumentation is the fact that these populations are getting older, affecting not only their own opinion but also the whole cultural tone of their societies.
I don't argue that that is only the cause, but I think its role its mostly underestimated.
I don't have strong preferences between Gnome and KDE (though I currently use KDE more often), and I the only OS I use is Linux, but I honestly believe that the most promissing (long term) change of KDE4 is the fact that many applications will be ported over to Windows and OSX.
My hope is that given the sheer volume of windows users, if any KDE application gets remotely popular on windows it would increase its user base dramatically (be it from professionals or home users); which should lead to increase in support for the given application, and therefore in its overall quality. Be it testing documentation, or debugging.
Other than that, I believe that allowing windows users to, from within Windows, get familiar with applications they would use on Linux is a major help reducing doubt and anxiousness about migrating.
How will Symbian react? Will they switch to using GNOME so they have parity? I'd doubt they'd adopt Qt with one of their customers controlling its license back to them. Does this move mean Symbian will always use its own proprietary GUI SW?
I am not sure I understood your post. But if I did, then you are missing the information that Nokia owns 48% of Symbianhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbian_OS
Yet another proof that slashdot editors really don't control anything that gets posted here
Paulo Coelho has sold around 100 million books on 150 countries and has been translated to more than 66 languages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Coelho. Somehow the bozo submiting stories will credit all of that to torrent publicity? Check out (in the portuguese wikipedia) http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Coelho the number of international prises he got way before torrents were in any way popular. Please just read the list of prises he got BEFORE 2000.
Yeah, obscure all the way. Indeed.
BTW, what's the name of that obscure comedy writer that released a book on the internet, and after he got famous, decided not to do that again? Oh, yeah that would be (otherwise unknown) Scott Adams http://www.themillionsblog.com/2007/11/giving-it-away-for-free.html... Another usurper of the torrent comunity no doubt!
I managed to buy a thinkpad T60 in the Netherlands a few weeks ago with a preemptive windows (XP) refund. The dealer removed the OS and gave me a discount for the OEM price, which was 129.71 euros, about 190 dollars.
I also live in the NL, and would love to know how you pulled this out. When I bought my laptop I fought tooth and nail not to pay WinXP tax but failed.
Please consider writing something on the LXER newsgroups, or even on this thread so that other people can get more info about this.
> When it comes to Debs, I have no idea how to build Debs.
FYI: I think the ``Correct Way'' is:
1. Either download directly or use apt-src 2. then: dpkg-source -x $package_name.dsc cd $package_name dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
Or you could *try* to use apt-build (but I don't know if they ever got that to work as advertised).
In a hurry you could also use "checkinstall" http://asic-linux.com.mx/~izto/checkinstall/ (which is a sort of hack for packages without the files to use the first two suggestions).
When it comes to Debs, I have no idea how to build Debs. FYI:
I think the ``Correct Way'' is:
1. Either download directly or use apt-src
2. then:
dpkg-source -x $package_name.dsc
cd $package_name
dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
Or you could *try* to use apt-build (but I don't know if they ever got that to work as advertised).
In a hurry you could also use "checkinstall" http://asic-linux.com.mx/~izto/checkinstall/ (which is a sort of hack for packages without the files to use the first two suggestions).
Cheers,
If I compared PC prices from Brazil with the US, it was because TFA was about the price of a PC in the US.
Your point was that cheaper PCs, like the one from TFA, were going to make a difference regarding this "digital divide". My point was that cheap PC ***like those from the article*** won't change shit because they already exist in developing countries.
[...]
I am well aware of the differences in "internet access density" globally. But (1) as I said, the size of the global market + Moore's law is already taking care of putting prices down through the entire planet; and (2) ever tried looking at the world map with a density of wealth?
Isn't obvious that the uptake of a new technology is, in general, slower in countries with fewer resources?
The internet has started to explode in usage 13 years ago. Only an idiot would expect it to be already homogeneous in the entire planet.
the (horrible) KDE freecell clone (perhaps I should post this as AC...),
Go (asian board game, "like chess") on IGS using qgo
However... Most people I know, don't play games on their computer, and if they do, it's one of those super simple "freecell" like games. You should not assume that your demographic group is a uniform representation of the general population.
For one, in Brazil at least, the average PC is way cheaper (than in the US). Almost everyone I know buys their PCs from small shops that sell White Box PCs (with warranty and all) which are **always** much cheaper than any brand-name PC. Specs are simply lower. Where do you think all those lower end components get sent to once companies in the US, and Europe upgrade their specs?
Second, I would guess that you (mostly) see an "english internet" because you only visit sites in english, read blogs in english, social websites build for north american citizens, and google only in english?
I would add: now you have a easily writable rescue "disc".
This little detail makes the whole thing so much more useful to the point that people will actually use the USB-system for other things than just "rescuing" broken systems.
From the perspective of the average user, XP's install is the easiest by far. They take the computer out of the box it came in, plug it in, turn it on, and XP is right there.
Fair and square. You've got a point, but the saying goes the first install is always free. Once windows gets filled with viruses, spyware, and other maladies, said "average user" is left with but one option: have somebody else reinstall XP on his/her computer.
My procmailrc (which I stopped using FWIW) is almost 400 lines at its last incantation. Sure, after all those hours learning the syntax, and after adapting Timo's http://lipas.uwasa.fi/~ts/info/proctips.html (great page BTW) procmail testing scripts to work on my computer I could indeed do pretty much anything with my email. Procmail is also pretty much bug free (I heard that *every* single C library call has its return values checked for all possible error code values).
But the point is: procmail is a "email scripting language", whose syntax is a disgrace by any standard, and simply too cumbersome get started with it. Too many small gotchas to learn.
Everybody does email, the market is huge. Can't we just have good mail programs that can be configured to do what we want? Why do I need to write a program to do it?
And if I am going to write programs to do it, why learn a specialised dedicated (IMHO) disgracefully ugly syntax? Doing that through a python or ruby library would be the proper way to go. A bastard child of sendmail and awk is not the way to go.
Disgusting behaviour like this by Intel is why I'll never use Wintel and only buy Apple Last I heard, Apple was also shipping Intel. I mean you don't even need to RTFA to know the story is about Intel. But then, you shouldn't let facts get in the way of your, hum, cool-aid brand cheering.
I know "user friendly" for a long time, and I can't say I like them. I've seen lots of their strips which I really liked, and being a heavy linux user, I think I am somehow in their target audience. But there is something in the art work perhaps that irritates me, and I can't say I find the average U.F. strip funny.
I really check them out every now and them, but most of the time their strips will just sit in the RSS reader unread. My personal taste I guess.
Nice to hear PBF is making such a success. I read online comics through RSS quite a lot, mostly xkcd, Sinfest, Dinosaur comics, PBF, ELER, Penny Arcade, and this unofficial Dilbert rss.
Which other (online) comics would you fellow slashdotters recommend?
I am also waiting for the new v9. Higher definition, and pretty much more formats than anyone else (http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_Reader_Matrix).
However, Hanlin first had announced it for mid 2007, then Jan 2008, now it is up in the air. For some moments I even consider the possibility of getting a Iliad, but then I remember that the price of it is euro650, and realize how ridiculously expensive that thing is...
MobileRead has a nice dedicated Hanlin forum, I keep an rss to it in order to keep pace with their... delays:-S
Slashdot Mirror
If only I had mod points to give you....
I normally refrain from commenting on this but I have to admit: it always annoys me. A bunch of people who don't know shit about Latin, trying to look cool by mixing ignorance and wishful thinking and saying "virii" all the time.
I read the LotR trilogy. The English original text.
The best description I have for it is: vast as the ocean, deep as a plate.
(Perhaps if I had read it when I was 9 or 10... but I read it when I was 18, and that was way too late....)
Really? I actually hear racist comments very often. Like my dutch teacher who said that every muslim was a radical. Like newspaper stories telling about how unfortunate it is not to be able to arrest some orthodox muslims because they haven't committed any crime yet.
I use quotation marks because actual racism and xenophobia are virtually non-existent these days.There are whole political parties in Belgium and the Netherlands defending the right to discriminate people. Not on the contents of their characther, but on the color of their skin. Mark Rutte, top man of the dutch VVD, was condemned for racism while he was a government minister some ? 3 years ago. He had **officially** told police to focus investigations on **legal** somali residents of the Netherlands because they were more likely to commit crime. When he lost, the guy did say that the law that forbid him from giving such an order such be changed. This is the top man of the "3rd or something like that" party in the Netherlands.
You got to be really blind and deaf to claim there is no such a thing as racism in Europe nowadays.
Did you know that small children feel that when they break eye contact something stops existing? That's why they close their eyes when they are afraid. I guess you hope that if you close your eyes hard enough, the everyday racism and xenophoby will simply cease to exist.
well, he did write Applied Cryptography http://www.amazon.com/Applied-Cryptography-Protocols-Algorithms-Source/dp/0471117099 didn't he? If you are unaware of the importance of that book for the general practice of cryptography, please take a look in the reviews at Amazon. They make much more justice to the book than what I would be able to do here.
And please don't start complaining that book is not "down to earth". Simplifying is a good thing, oversimplifying a complex subject is not.
I guess this would explain why just about everybody in Canada thinks crime is on the increase, even though the numbers conclusively prove otherwise.
You can't sell security hardware and convince nervous old women to throw away their rights if they know there's a long list of things more important than so-called "security".
I often think about the political impact of the population ageing in Europe (where I live). There is a lot of political analysis about everything but never around the fact that, well, the population is getting on average older, and that older people tend to have a more conservative take on life, and IMO are easier to be made afraid of "different new stuff" (like having more non-Caucasians and/or Muslims living in their society).
The other day I read about strong xenophobic language being used by politicians in Treviso, Italy. It went about how African immigrants were a great danger for the old people. The article was keen to mention that none of the perceived wave of violence was backed by official statistics. (Note that that is just something I read in the news, so I might be missing lots about it).
In Belgium, and the Netherlands there is often very strong xenophobic language being used by (relatively) successful mainstream politicians.
As I see it, dangerous foreigners/muslims/immigrants youngsters are really in the forefront of the justifications for the increase in surveillance in Europe nowadays (along with the "think about the children" argument).
I'm often under the impression that a strong factor in the success of this line of argumentation is the fact that these populations are getting older, affecting not only their own opinion but also the whole cultural tone of their societies.
I don't argue that that is only the cause, but I think its role its mostly underestimated.
I don't have strong preferences between Gnome and KDE (though I currently use KDE more often), and I the only OS I use is Linux, but I honestly believe that the most promissing (long term) change of KDE4 is the fact that many applications will be ported over to Windows and OSX.
My hope is that given the sheer volume of windows users, if any KDE application gets remotely popular on windows it would increase its user base dramatically (be it from professionals or home users); which should lead to increase in support for the given application, and therefore in its overall quality. Be it testing documentation, or debugging.
Other than that, I believe that allowing windows users to, from within Windows, get familiar with applications they would use on Linux is a major help reducing doubt and anxiousness about migrating.
I am not sure I understood your post. But if I did, then you are missing the information that Nokia owns 48% of Symbian http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbian_OS
Paulo Coelho obscure?
Yet another proof that slashdot editors really don't control anything that gets posted here
Paulo Coelho has sold around 100 million books on 150 countries and has been translated to more than 66 languages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Coelho. Somehow the bozo submiting stories will credit all of that to torrent publicity? Check out (in the portuguese wikipedia) http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Coelho the number of international prises he got way before torrents were in any way popular. Please just read the list of prises he got BEFORE 2000.
Yeah, obscure all the way. Indeed.
BTW, what's the name of that obscure comedy writer that released a book on the internet, and after he got famous, decided not to do that again? Oh, yeah that would be (otherwise unknown) Scott Adams http://www.themillionsblog.com/2007/11/giving-it-away-for-free.html ... Another usurper of the torrent comunity no doubt!
I also live in the NL, and would love to know how you pulled this out. When I bought my laptop I fought tooth and nail not to pay WinXP tax but failed.
Please consider writing something on the LXER newsgroups, or even on this thread so that other people can get more info about this.
Cheers,
> When it comes to Debs, I have no idea how to build Debs.
FYI:
I think the ``Correct Way'' is:
1. Either download directly or use apt-src
2. then: dpkg-source -x $package_name.dsc
cd $package_name
dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
Or you could *try* to use apt-build (but I don't know if they ever got that to work as advertised).
In a hurry you could also use "checkinstall" http://asic-linux.com.mx/~izto/checkinstall/ (which is a sort of hack for packages without the files to use the first two suggestions).
Cheers,
I never assumed you were from or in the US.
If I compared PC prices from Brazil with the US, it was because TFA was about the price of a PC in the US.
Your point was that cheaper PCs, like the one from TFA, were going to make a difference regarding this "digital divide". My point was that cheap PC ***like those from the article*** won't change shit because they already exist in developing countries.
[...]
I am well aware of the differences in "internet access density" globally. But (1) as I said, the size of the global market + Moore's law is already taking care of putting prices down through the entire planet; and (2) ever tried looking at the world map with a density of wealth?
Isn't obvious that the uptake of a new technology is, in general, slower in countries with fewer resources?
The internet has started to explode in usage 13 years ago. Only an idiot would expect it to be already homogeneous in the entire planet.
Hello,
Ok. I admit it, I play
However... Most people I know, don't play games on their computer, and if they do, it's one of those super simple "freecell" like games. You should not assume that your demographic group is a uniform representation of the general population.
I think your POV is what is anglophone.
For one, in Brazil at least, the average PC is way cheaper (than in the US). Almost everyone I know buys their PCs from small shops that sell White Box PCs (with warranty and all) which are **always** much cheaper than any brand-name PC. Specs are simply lower. Where do you think all those lower end components get sent to once companies in the US, and Europe upgrade their specs?
Second, I would guess that you (mostly) see an "english internet" because you only visit sites in english, read blogs in english, social websites build for north american citizens, and google only in english?
I would add: now you have a easily writable rescue "disc".
This little detail makes the whole thing so much more useful to the point that people will actually use the USB-system for other things than just "rescuing" broken systems.
Fair and square. You've got a point, but the saying goes the first install is always free. Once windows gets filled with viruses, spyware, and other maladies, said "average user" is left with but one option: have somebody else reinstall XP on his/her computer.
I used to know procmail like the back of my hand.
My procmailrc (which I stopped using FWIW) is almost 400 lines at its last incantation. Sure, after all those hours learning the syntax, and after adapting Timo's http://lipas.uwasa.fi/~ts/info/proctips.html (great page BTW) procmail testing scripts to work on my computer I could indeed do pretty much anything with my email. Procmail is also pretty much bug free (I heard that *every* single C library call has its return values checked for all possible error code values).
But the point is: procmail is a "email scripting language", whose syntax is a disgrace by any standard, and simply too cumbersome get started with it. Too many small gotchas to learn.
Everybody does email, the market is huge. Can't we just have good mail programs that can be configured to do what we want? Why do I need to write a program to do it?
And if I am going to write programs to do it, why learn a specialised dedicated (IMHO) disgracefully ugly syntax? Doing that through a python or ruby library would be the proper way to go. A bastard child of sendmail and awk is not the way to go.
While I find both Sinfest and ELER great. Sinfest is something for the general audience.
While ELER:
But then, you are a slashdot reader ;-)
Thanks for the recommendations, I'll check them out later today.
I know "user friendly" for a long time, and I can't say I like them. I've seen lots of their strips which I really liked, and being a heavy linux user, I think I am somehow in their target audience. But there is something in the art work perhaps that irritates me, and I can't say I find the average U.F. strip funny.
I really check them out every now and them, but most of the time their strips will just sit in the RSS reader unread. My personal taste I guess.
Hello,
Nice to hear PBF is making such a success. I read online comics through RSS quite a lot, mostly xkcd, Sinfest, Dinosaur comics, PBF, ELER, Penny Arcade, and this unofficial Dilbert rss.
Which other (online) comics would you fellow slashdotters recommend?
Cheers,
Because:
- Pine is much, much simpler to get started with?
- Pine can do news?
- there is a bunch of people using Pine that are still very happy with it?
Do note that I *do* use Mutt (having spent countless hours reading its manual, and even making questions on mutt-users).
I am also waiting for the new v9. Higher definition, and pretty much more formats than anyone else (http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_Reader_Matrix).
However, Hanlin first had announced it for mid 2007, then Jan 2008, now it is up in the air. For some moments I even consider the possibility of getting a Iliad, but then I remember that the price of it is euro650, and realize how ridiculously expensive that thing is...
MobileRead has a nice dedicated Hanlin forum, I keep an rss to it in order to keep pace with their... delays :-S