I don't think promoting free software to users who don't care will do the free software movement any good. A big market share is not necessary for free software. A significant market share will help increase driver support by manufacturers, but I think a significant market share can be achieved without people who do not care.
After all, free software is about freedom, so what good is it to a person who doesn't want that freedom? When somebody choses to give up their freedom, you can try to tell them about that but if they really don't care, I don't see the need to persuade them.
I prefer having people involved with free software that want to make the ideas behind it work. If free software were merely free of charge, then there would only be a small difference, because the functionality is not always better than that of proprietary software. The real difference is the freedom you gain. You control your computer, not somebody else. If somebody doesn't care, what's the point?
I think your description is correct in most ways. And I won't claim I am not effected by wanting to win or in the case of an election wanting my favorite candidate/party to win. But I still prefer people voting for someone else than I think would be best over people who are not voting at all. Of course, I will always try to convince as many people as possible to vote for my favorite candidate/party, but I have always also encouraged people to vote of whom I was sure they would vote for someone I couldn't agree on.
Maybe I would feel differently if I was living in the US, because the election system there works differently, but I really do believe that people should vote even if it will influence the outcome of the election to my disadvantage. That said, I would really hate it if people started voting "against" my candidate/party just for the sake of disagreeing with me, but if they truly believe another candidate/party is right for them, they should vote for them.
Great! Let's all sell our votes! I think you have found the true way of making a difference!
No single vote will ever make a difference and a million single votes also won't. We're all doomed and should sell our votes on ebay and complain about politics on/.
You're absolutely right. That's why I think it is our duty as citizens to make use of our rights. We will lose our freedom (and democracy) if we don't cultivate it.
That applies to the US, yes. I used the term "party" because I didn't want to go into the details of different voting systems. I also know the article is about the US, but my comment was meant to address the topic from a more general perspective.
You're right about not living in a democracy doesn't automatically mean living in a dictatorship. But I think we have to organize society in some way. And democracy at least provides the possibility that everyone can take part in the decision making process. The fact that people always appear to have the same general level of happiness doesn't mean nothing has changed.
So are you trying to do anything about this? As I see it, we can try to change something and we may have bad chances of succeeding, but if we don't try, we have lost already.
I still believe we can make a difference. We just have to try hard enough. Maybe we don't reach our goal right away, but even then we need to take the first step towards it.
It is a privilege in comparison to people not living in democracies. It is also a privilege considering democracy could always be abolished. Of course that would be as illegal as deporting you to Cuba, but my whole point is that we have to take an active part in democracy or we will lose it.
The article didn't surprise me much either. I think many people feel the same way you do. Many people don't use their right to vote, so they actually give it up for free, so why not give it up for an iPod?
But I think giving up your right to vote is disgusting. Living in a democracy is a privlege. I think it's part of our duty as citizens to be informed, be active and also vote. I know it's hard sometimes to find the right party to vote for but even when you cannot agree with anyone, there's always the possibility to take a more active role yourself. This might be becoming a politician yourself or joining an organization that influences politics. Even if you think the system itself is deficient, you could always try to change the system.
But many people are not interested anymore. They are uninformed, inactive and don't vote. This way, politicians who do not care about the public good, get away with bad decisions. But I often notice that those people who complain the most, are the ones that don't vote.
Sometimes I also think it might be a good idea to send people who don't vote on a vacation into a dictatorship. Just for a few weeks or so. But that is of course illegal and I don't really want it to become legal. Still, sometimes I think that sending people away for some time might help them realize what chances they actually have and how they have wasted them so far.
I don't have that notebook, so I can't actually confirm anything for it. Nevertheless, my experience with (K)Ubuntu 7.04 shows that extra media buttons most of the time work out of the box. Even on my desktop where an OS wouldn't usually assume extra keys on the keyboard, they worked right away.
I've told Mr Manson over and over again that killing people is wrong.
Yes, you're right, education will not keep your Mr. Manson from killing people. But we're not talking about murder, we're talking about bullying and not even adults bullying each other, but children. Shouldn't we at least try to find the reason why those kids act that way? Or should we just lock them away forever?
Another question would be if murder is actually a social problem and if my original statement would apply, but that's besides the point.
It would be nice if education could solve all of our social problems
Yes, I agree. Maybe I should have stated more clearly that I didn't mean every problem could or should be solved without the help of laws. I also think there is a reason for every behavior. So I don't share your opinion that there are some people who are simply assholes. And while I agree with you on passing laws against adults who bully their co-workers, I would still always try to educate them (while effectively keeping them from bullying anyone, of course).
In this special case, we're talking about children, so I think the chances to educate them are still very good and we shouldn't waste that chance.
That depends on the problem. Of course. I just think this is one of the problems that cannot be solved effectively by passing laws.
I went crazy and beat the holy shit out of him. I know what you mean. I had similar problems and for some time I thought that fighting back would help. The problem I had was I just wanted to defend myself, I didn't want to hurt the other person severely. But since I didn't do that, they kept on feeling stronger. I then went to a secondary school and from that time on I had less problems and also growing up helped a lot in my case, but I know what you're talking about.
the sad fact is they don't want your involvement (except for fund raising) I have a different experience here, but since I'm living in Germany, this may not apply elsewhere. My teachers were always interested in parental involvement and were happy when the parents of "problem makers" didn't stay at home when they were invited to school because they were ashamed of their kids.
Parents need to talk to their students and the teachers to reinforce this as well. You're right. I didn't mean to say the teachers should be the ones to mainly do this job. It's just that the article deals with schools and what they should do about bullying and this is why I named the teachers first.
Laws are not the key to solving social problems - education is. While I would say that in some cases a law may change the public perception of a situation and may even change something, with teenagers this will most likely not work. It may even have the opposite effect than intended - it might make bullying "cooler" because you're breaking a law.
Another question is what should happen to the people breaking that law? Do we want to have teenagers to pay fines for it or do we let them do social work somewhere? Will that have the intended effect on them?
Like the article stated, teachers need to talk to their students and the parents need to participate in this as well. Nobody should feel good by bullying someone else and this cannot be achieved by passing a law.
I live in Germany and I'm really afraid that civil rights will be cut back too far and I don't like the recent development. Yes, our minister of the interior, Mr. Schaeuble is a total lunatic and goes too far. I don't like him or the laws that were passed lately. But the whole world has been acting crazy in a deluded sense of improving protection since 9/11 and I think I don't need to point out that the anglo-saxon countries have been spearheading the recent hysteria about terrorism. Of course, this is no excuse for Germany to cut back civil rights and I will criticize that anytime but Nazi Germany was yet another dimension of evil.
If you want to discuss this matter seriously, than don't hide beneath anonymity and provide some honest arguments!
But even for those people, the move to Intel wouldn't be a bad idea. For the price of the 6000+ you can easily get a E6600 and a good board and maybe even save some money. The performance is almost the same and the power consumption is far lower. I really hope AMD will come up with something good soon, since in my opinion, at the moment the only market segment where AMD is worth considering, is the low price segment, where they are still competing against the Pentium D. But I doubt AMD does make a lot of money by just selling processors below 100 $. So hopefully they will release something that is able to compete with Intel, because this competition is necessary for the customer as well for the jobs at AMD (I would hate to see those nice fabs in Dresden being unused).
I don't think DRM will ever develop to a good thing. Either it places restrictions on a user regarding OS, player, mobile device, etc. or it is available everywhere which will make the DRM system more vulnerable to cracks. Then it's a waste of money to develop such a system if it's unable to protect content. Was making analog copies of VHS tapes and DVDs really prevented by the Macrovision protection on there? No. So why develop it in the first place?
Is KDE in Kubuntu only slow on modern hardware or is the difference to other DE also noticeable on old hardware? I'm using Kubuntu 6.06 on an Athlon 900 with 226 MB of RAM. The speed is pretty good and I actually like some of the changes Ubuntu introduced to "their" KDE. But if there's the chance that KDE will run even faster, maybe I should really try Debian again.
Far more interesting than where Google will place those ads, is the point that for Google this is one more step towards being the most important ad company. Maybe I perceive Google as too strong, but what I believe could happen in the next few years is that Google will be more and more important for selling ads in many different media. Since the internet will also increase its importance, Google will gain power. Google tries to collect so many statistics in order to be able to deliver ads better that any other service, so in the future, a company that really wants to reach potential customers directly, may have no choice but to go to Google for placing those ads successfully. The question is what Google will do at that point. Will they become lazy or will they still release new, free services to their customers and will they keep at least the privacy level they guarantee now?
Although I generally agree with you that Sonic didn't do the transition to 3D very well, there were some parts of the 3D games I really enjoyed. In Sonic Adventure I very much disliked the adventure part, but some of the levels were fun. Especially when the speed was like in the original Sonic games. There was one part of a level, I don't remember the name right now, but there was this track in the sky of which you almost couldn't fall off and the camera made crazy moves around it to make it more exciting. That was really great. Sonic Adventure 2 was even better in that respect - less adventure and more speed - but, as some of you have pointed out, you were punished far more severely for small mistakes that in the original Sonic games and when you need to be careful, speed is automatically reduced.
I also liked Tail's theme in Sonic Adventure, although I usually prefer the music of Sonic 2 (which is my favorite Sonic game, by the way). Speaking of which - the band "Dreams Come True" that was responsible for the Sonic 2 music also recorded a song with the theme of the final cut sequence (Sonic and Tails on the plane). Does anyone know how to get that song?
So I would like either a 3D game with a lot of speed which is more like the original Sonic games or, even better, a 2D game with 3D graphics. I even wouldn't mind playing a good re-release of the original games with new graphics and updated music (not totally new music).
Yes, you're right. It was a political decision, but not based on some aversion towards Microsoft or the US, but based on the goal to be more flexible in the future. The big improvement for Munich is the fact that they cannot be forced to buy upgrades from this point on and that they can get local software developers to make the software meet their demands whatever those demands may be.
They can also choose from a wider selection of service providers. They can basicly get any software company that has knowledge of Linux systems to do external support for them if neeeded. So they are now able to choose between bigger companys to do support and smaller, maybe local companies or even single persons to do the support that they cannot do themselves.
This is the real advantage for Munich and I think it's a good reason for the switch.
I've made a different experience. I can use my iPod nano just fine while it's in my pocket. I even have a plastik film on the surface in addition to the nano tube I use to prevent it from scratching. So if it's just the iPod itself, it shouldn't be a problem at all to use it inside a pocket.
It's a pity Lik Sang closes because I really liked that shop. It was especially easy to order there because they had bank accounts in many countries so I didn't have to pay for international bank transfers. I also have to add that Sony is not the only company that restricted game imports from Japan. Nintendo has done it before with the N64 and as much as I like Nintendo, I have never understood the reason for that restriction. It's the same with DVDs - if the publisher in my country produces an acceptable version, only a few people will import the game/DVD just to get it a few days earlier. If the localized version is inferior to the Japanese version, more people will import it. So it's just a simple market mechanism and why should a company bother to change this?
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I don't think promoting free software to users who don't care will do the free software movement any good. A big market share is not necessary for free software. A significant market share will help increase driver support by manufacturers, but I think a significant market share can be achieved without people who do not care.
After all, free software is about freedom, so what good is it to a person who doesn't want that freedom? When somebody choses to give up their freedom, you can try to tell them about that but if they really don't care, I don't see the need to persuade them.
I prefer having people involved with free software that want to make the ideas behind it work. If free software were merely free of charge, then there would only be a small difference, because the functionality is not always better than that of proprietary software. The real difference is the freedom you gain. You control your computer, not somebody else. If somebody doesn't care, what's the point?
I think your description is correct in most ways. And I won't claim I am not effected by wanting to win or in the case of an election wanting my favorite candidate/party to win. But I still prefer people voting for someone else than I think would be best over people who are not voting at all. Of course, I will always try to convince as many people as possible to vote for my favorite candidate/party, but I have always also encouraged people to vote of whom I was sure they would vote for someone I couldn't agree on.
Maybe I would feel differently if I was living in the US, because the election system there works differently, but I really do believe that people should vote even if it will influence the outcome of the election to my disadvantage. That said, I would really hate it if people started voting "against" my candidate/party just for the sake of disagreeing with me, but if they truly believe another candidate/party is right for them, they should vote for them.
Great! Let's all sell our votes! I think you have found the true way of making a difference!
/.
No single vote will ever make a difference and a million single votes also won't. We're all doomed and should sell our votes on ebay and complain about politics on
You're absolutely right. That's why I think it is our duty as citizens to make use of our rights. We will lose our freedom (and democracy) if we don't cultivate it.
That applies to the US, yes. I used the term "party" because I didn't want to go into the details of different voting systems. I also know the article is about the US, but my comment was meant to address the topic from a more general perspective.
You're right about not living in a democracy doesn't automatically mean living in a dictatorship. But I think we have to organize society in some way. And democracy at least provides the possibility that everyone can take part in the decision making process. The fact that people always appear to have the same general level of happiness doesn't mean nothing has changed.
So are you trying to do anything about this? As I see it, we can try to change something and we may have bad chances of succeeding, but if we don't try, we have lost already.
I still believe we can make a difference. We just have to try hard enough. Maybe we don't reach our goal right away, but even then we need to take the first step towards it.
It is a privilege in comparison to people not living in democracies. It is also a privilege considering democracy could always be abolished. Of course that would be as illegal as deporting you to Cuba, but my whole point is that we have to take an active part in democracy or we will lose it.
The article didn't surprise me much either. I think many people feel the same way you do. Many people don't use their right to vote, so they actually give it up for free, so why not give it up for an iPod?
But I think giving up your right to vote is disgusting. Living in a democracy is a privlege. I think it's part of our duty as citizens to be informed, be active and also vote. I know it's hard sometimes to find the right party to vote for but even when you cannot agree with anyone, there's always the possibility to take a more active role yourself. This might be becoming a politician yourself or joining an organization that influences politics. Even if you think the system itself is deficient, you could always try to change the system.
But many people are not interested anymore. They are uninformed, inactive and don't vote. This way, politicians who do not care about the public good, get away with bad decisions. But I often notice that those people who complain the most, are the ones that don't vote.
Sometimes I also think it might be a good idea to send people who don't vote on a vacation into a dictatorship. Just for a few weeks or so. But that is of course illegal and I don't really want it to become legal. Still, sometimes I think that sending people away for some time might help them realize what chances they actually have and how they have wasted them so far.
I don't have that notebook, so I can't actually confirm anything for it. Nevertheless, my experience with (K)Ubuntu 7.04 shows that extra media buttons most of the time work out of the box. Even on my desktop where an OS wouldn't usually assume extra keys on the keyboard, they worked right away.
Yes, you're right, education will not keep your Mr. Manson from killing people. But we're not talking about murder, we're talking about bullying and not even adults bullying each other, but children. Shouldn't we at least try to find the reason why those kids act that way? Or should we just lock them away forever?
Another question would be if murder is actually a social problem and if my original statement would apply, but that's besides the point.Yes, I agree. Maybe I should have stated more clearly that I didn't mean every problem could or should be solved without the help of laws. I also think there is a reason for every behavior. So I don't share your opinion that there are some people who are simply assholes. And while I agree with you on passing laws against adults who bully their co-workers, I would still always try to educate them (while effectively keeping them from bullying anyone, of course).
In this special case, we're talking about children, so I think the chances to educate them are still very good and we shouldn't waste that chance.Laws are not the key to solving social problems - education is. While I would say that in some cases a law may change the public perception of a situation and may even change something, with teenagers this will most likely not work. It may even have the opposite effect than intended - it might make bullying "cooler" because you're breaking a law.
Another question is what should happen to the people breaking that law? Do we want to have teenagers to pay fines for it or do we let them do social work somewhere? Will that have the intended effect on them?
Like the article stated, teachers need to talk to their students and the parents need to participate in this as well. Nobody should feel good by bullying someone else and this cannot be achieved by passing a law.
How can this be insightful?
I live in Germany and I'm really afraid that civil rights will be cut back too far and I don't like the recent development. Yes, our minister of the interior, Mr. Schaeuble is a total lunatic and goes too far. I don't like him or the laws that were passed lately. But the whole world has been acting crazy in a deluded sense of improving protection since 9/11 and I think I don't need to point out that the anglo-saxon countries have been spearheading the recent hysteria about terrorism.
Of course, this is no excuse for Germany to cut back civil rights and I will criticize that anytime but Nazi Germany was yet another dimension of evil.
If you want to discuss this matter seriously, than don't hide beneath anonymity and provide some honest arguments!
But even for those people, the move to Intel wouldn't be a bad idea. For the price of the 6000+ you can easily get a E6600 and a good board and maybe even save some money. The performance is almost the same and the power consumption is far lower.
I really hope AMD will come up with something good soon, since in my opinion, at the moment the only market segment where AMD is worth considering, is the low price segment, where they are still competing against the Pentium D. But I doubt AMD does make a lot of money by just selling processors below 100 $. So hopefully they will release something that is able to compete with Intel, because this competition is necessary for the customer as well for the jobs at AMD (I would hate to see those nice fabs in Dresden being unused).
I don't think DRM will ever develop to a good thing. Either it places restrictions on a user regarding OS, player, mobile device, etc. or it is available everywhere which will make the DRM system more vulnerable to cracks. Then it's a waste of money to develop such a system if it's unable to protect content. Was making analog copies of VHS tapes and DVDs really prevented by the Macrovision protection on there? No. So why develop it in the first place?
Is KDE in Kubuntu only slow on modern hardware or is the difference to other DE also noticeable on old hardware? I'm using Kubuntu 6.06 on an Athlon 900 with 226 MB of RAM. The speed is pretty good and I actually like some of the changes Ubuntu introduced to "their" KDE. But if there's the chance that KDE will run even faster, maybe I should really try Debian again.
Far more interesting than where Google will place those ads, is the point that for Google this is one more step towards being the most important ad company. Maybe I perceive Google as too strong, but what I believe could happen in the next few years is that Google will be more and more important for selling ads in many different media. Since the internet will also increase its importance, Google will gain power. Google tries to collect so many statistics in order to be able to deliver ads better that any other service, so in the future, a company that really wants to reach potential customers directly, may have no choice but to go to Google for placing those ads successfully.
The question is what Google will do at that point. Will they become lazy or will they still release new, free services to their customers and will they keep at least the privacy level they guarantee now?
Although I generally agree with you that Sonic didn't do the transition to 3D very well, there were some parts of the 3D games I really enjoyed. In Sonic Adventure I very much disliked the adventure part, but some of the levels were fun. Especially when the speed was like in the original Sonic games. There was one part of a level, I don't remember the name right now, but there was this track in the sky of which you almost couldn't fall off and the camera made crazy moves around it to make it more exciting. That was really great.
Sonic Adventure 2 was even better in that respect - less adventure and more speed - but, as some of you have pointed out, you were punished far more severely for small mistakes that in the original Sonic games and when you need to be careful, speed is automatically reduced.
I also liked Tail's theme in Sonic Adventure, although I usually prefer the music of Sonic 2 (which is my favorite Sonic game, by the way). Speaking of which - the band "Dreams Come True" that was responsible for the Sonic 2 music also recorded a song with the theme of the final cut sequence (Sonic and Tails on the plane). Does anyone know how to get that song?
So I would like either a 3D game with a lot of speed which is more like the original Sonic games or, even better, a 2D game with 3D graphics. I even wouldn't mind playing a good re-release of the original games with new graphics and updated music (not totally new music).
Yes, you're right. It was a political decision, but not based on some aversion towards Microsoft or the US, but based on the goal to be more flexible in the future. The big improvement for Munich is the fact that they cannot be forced to buy upgrades from this point on and that they can get local software developers to make the software meet their demands whatever those demands may be.
They can also choose from a wider selection of service providers. They can basicly get any software company that has knowledge of Linux systems to do external support for them if neeeded. So they are now able to choose between bigger companys to do support and smaller, maybe local companies or even single persons to do the support that they cannot do themselves.
This is the real advantage for Munich and I think it's a good reason for the switch.
I've made a different experience. I can use my iPod nano just fine while it's in my pocket. I even have a plastik film on the surface in addition to the nano tube I use to prevent it from scratching. So if it's just the iPod itself, it shouldn't be a problem at all to use it inside a pocket.
It's a pity Lik Sang closes because I really liked that shop. It was especially easy to order there because they had bank accounts in many countries so I didn't have to pay for international bank transfers.
I also have to add that Sony is not the only company that restricted game imports from Japan. Nintendo has done it before with the N64 and as much as I like Nintendo, I have never understood the reason for that restriction. It's the same with DVDs - if the publisher in my country produces an acceptable version, only a few people will import the game/DVD just to get it a few days earlier. If the localized version is inferior to the Japanese version, more people will import it. So it's just a simple market mechanism and why should a company bother to change this?