I'm the guy my buddies call when OMG WINDOWS EXPLODE
Same here, and I have installed Ubuntu on several machines with varying success. Female users I've come across are quick to accept the switch (since they were tearing their hair out with Windows viruses and a dead PC) but so far have not made the switch easily and gripe and complain about things not behaving exactly as they do in Windows, and not snapping back to usable defaults when they muck up some settings (even in Gnome). Male users are more forgiving and realize there will be technical differences and expect them somehow - they will tend to search out answers and fix them. It's a generalization I know, but it is, so far, my experience.
One of the worst problems is that the Desktop is not somehow the 'base folder' which most people wrongly assume is the case.
On the other hand, I have forgotten Windows entirely. I hate paying for software and it's been so long since I played a game on a PC - though I do wish there was better quality and quantity of Linux games - Widelands keeps crashing, argh! On the other hand, I have found I am much more productive using Linux than I ever was in Windows. Things don't crash, I don't lose my data, I can trust that when I suspend the Laptop, it will all be there when it wakes up, and I don't ever need to reboot except for kernel upgrades. I've never had a hard drive die on me - and I don't need remember to do backups, because they happen automatically to another PC.
The impression people do get with Linux though, once they start using it, is that it's not an operating system as such, it's the whole system. It's not like Windows where you go out, buy heaps of boxes and think "that's $1000 in cardboard and plastic" and then install them one by one over the next week - you get it all with Linux without effort - just type a search string, tick the boxes and click "Install" and go make a cup of coffee.
This has nothing to do with segregation of "offensive" content into a single domain area, but marketing and backside covering. hotse.xxx will sell better than porn.com because it's more striking.
There would always be heaps of porn outside of the xxx domain area, without a doubt, so censorship won't be any different. However large commercial providers will like.xxx because it will protect them from litigation if minors get access to the site, since it would be easy to block using parental controls and they can claim to have taken reasonable steps.
Still, IMNSHO there should be tonnes of top level domains to choose from, but no rules on who has to have what where. Let the website providers decide how their site should look and what addresses to use, and let customers choose what they want to and not want to see.
Maybe he got this one on the web. You know the ones, "no prior study required, degree based on your current achievements, just give us all your personal details and and send in $100".
if I leave my computer unsecured and someone else uses it to cause harm to third parties, I'm in the clear
But if you have a car which injures people because the manufacturer put in lousy breaks, lousy locks, lousy steering etc, then the car manufacturer is in trouble, right?
Whilst I agree with you, the liability laws need changing, "reasonable" attempts at securing a Windows PC (eg: using antivirus software) have proven to be a waste of time, so the onus should be on the manufacturer.
Get your personalized Evil Empire today! We also sell Wars for/on Evil Empires, chartreuse coloured Evil Empire cups, caps, cardigans, parkas, thumbs, thumb screws, trench coats, pith helmets, whips, lawn seed, and other wares. Join our Evil Empire dating service, find your mate and leave others chartreuse with envy!
Whilst it is true that very bright children will tend not to conform to their surrounding culture, to say that heavy metal is the one refuge for them is nonsense. As many are into fine arts, classical music, jazz, soul, blues, whatever. It has more to do with personality and taste.
The girl in my class who achieved the highest mark in the state in her matriculation exam was not into heavy metal. She plays the cello, reads crime novels, goes to ordinary chick-flick movies, etc. She just happens to be mathematically brilliant.
Copyright (and Patent) Law causes problems because it has been applied in an extreme way and is thus unnatural and unworkable.
Whilst it appears logical to protect one's intellectual property from 'copying', the morality of this originates in authorship - protection of the income generated from the work, and protection of the work itself (as being the 'original'). However, works age rapidly. The value of ideas is in their timeliness. So, an idea should become free once it has been sufficiently disseminated, since at that point the idea is 'free' in the wild.
If we treated copyright law in this way, then the survival time of a copyright (or patent) will depend on its market lifespan. Since practically all products (applied ideas) have a market life shown by a rise then a fall in sales as the market is produced, filled, then saturated, so too should a copyright expire once the peak of the sales (or marketing hype) has been attained. This is the marker for successful dissemination, and that is the just reward for the maker of the work.
Therefore, some ideas necessarily have longer copyright lifespans (perhaps a textbook or novel whose sales momentum is often more gradual and sustained) and others have very short lifespans (one-hit wonders on the radio - the purpose of which should really be as a sweetener to sell the rest of the CD).
Also, the way the idea is released should determine the nature of its copyright. Mass-broadcast of a film or a track on a CD or a concert should render the copyright null, since the work has been disseminated.
So, in this view, infringement of copyright by downloading a fresh DVD while it is still in the cinemas, or has just been released for sale in the market where it is downloaded, is copyright infringement. Downloading a music track you heard on the radio is not. Copying Windows XP (or the second-latest major version of anything) should not be copyright infringement because its market penetration is complete and it is being superseded.
With the above model, ordinary people with PC's are left alone, and those who are really stealing the work (eg: by leaking it out of the cutting room, or filming it in the limited preview then publishing it) are liable.
Well matey, traditionally, you get kidnapped on the streets of London as a laddie whilst innocently playing a fiddle to get some money for your poor, sick mother. You then learn to handle a sword and a gun, tie knots and skull gin, get an eye patch and wooden leg, and zap, you're a buccaneer. Arrrrhhhh!
I've done lots of studies on morality - well, immorality actually. I'm sure everyone here is a student of immorality, and some of us are very good at it!
Yes, it is genetic - how else do you think you got conceived? Virgin births are pretty rare! I'm sure we can all trace our ancestry back to some vestal virgin, or nun, or monk, or equivalent, that couldn't keep their britches or cape or something on.
However, on a more serious note, most things like this are both genetic and later modified by biochemical events and can be modulated. Genetics determine the 'intelligence' of the feature - some people have a strong moral intelligence, others do not, etc. There tends to be an association with overall frontal lobe development. However the way in which this intelligence is cultivated is environmental, of course, and indeed can be modified by drugs which change or suppress frontal lobe activity (alcohol, for example). So you see, there's nothing new about any of this!
And now, to quote a famous immoralist:
I stood by her poor grandfather, As he lay on his death bed, And after he sold me his gold watch and chain, These words of wisdom he said: "The joys of drink last but a moment, Cigarettes make you sick - you could die... But the love of a beautiful woman, oh, It's the best thing that money can buy.
Maybe you actually use your truck for real off-road purposes, but the vast majority of truck/suv owners don't do so.
We refer to those as "Toorak Tractors" in Melbourne (Oz), but you see it everywhere of course. It's always a 40-something mother of one or two, shopping. The main purpose of the vehicle's increased ground clearance is in picking parking spaces from a distance, and the bull-bar is to make sure that when she's crap at parking, the other cars suffer and not hers. And the snorkel is just a phallic thing, everyone knows that. Lately it's always a BMW or Mercedes or some glitzy schmitzy thing with GPS and radar and beepers and other creepers.
However, Diesel engines do have a much longer lifespan, on average. They are very low maintenance and fatigue very gradually, almost imperceptibly. They are terrible for city driving because they release a lot of soot, but the other emissions are mainly CO2 and very little sulphur or benzene or other nasties that lighter fuel engines release (hence the engine life is longer due to less corrosion).
The main (other) reason 4WD SUV's have a long lifespan is because they are engineered to survive the conditions they operate under (like the old Volkswagen Beetle was). When you look underneath one of the proper ones, like a Landcruiser, you see all rust resistant parts, no compromises on gearbox design or bearing sizes or break system specifications. It's not like a bubble car which is manufactured to be shiny and round, with a muffled lawnmower engine inside and aluminium foil body.
However, from the environment point of view, it is true to say that most cars you see have one person too many in them.
I basically have to agree. nVidia drivers now seem to work well, after much pain over the years. They even managed to open up their development process up a tiny little bit by leaking beta drivers. Kind of like a prude who secretly has a little on the side anyway.
Nonetheless, it behooves us to fight the good fight and annoy the shit out of graphics card manufacturers to reveal the eleven secret herbs and spices so we can fully enjoy the hardware we paid for. Discriminating against crappy support is a step.
For a picture of her go to http://icannwiki.org/Wendy_Seltzer. Shes actually not bad looking and when you take into account that she is a techie and on the good guy's side that's like +10 to charisma or something.
Definitely gotta put the emphasis on charisma though. And hit points.
The corporate structure of the Fed is really not all that hard to understand, and it should be abundantly clear that there's no conflict of interest, so people who bring the idea up are generally selling something or clueless themselves.
Well the proof is in the pudding. It is irrelevant in the immediate term whether or not the monetary system is fundamentally flawed, since it exists, is trusted and has continued to function for decade after decade without evaporating in a puff of smoke. It will keep going because everybody who has any money has their foot in the system and their prosperity depends on it.
As for whether the Fed is "out to get" people, well, paranoid (and, occasionally, genuinely 'wanted'), people think everyone is out to get them - like any mental disorder, it's "all about me". They are mostly wrong because, for the most part, they are no threat to anyone, so why would anyone want to 'get' them? On the other hand, to say the monetary system is not controlled or directed by interested parties is just as ridiculous. Sure, no one player runs the game, but to say that businesses don't form allegiances, don't reflect the ideologies of their directors and are not interested in using the power they have.. that would be wonderful!
Business is a game, and the rules of the game are to 'play by the rules', and if not, 'know the rules, obey when expedient, but otherwise don't get caught'. Most human behaviour is based on the latter.
But back to the FBI. It is, by definition, a conspiracy when an organization with a very fresh history of seriously illegal activity is planning not to keep paper trails.
That's very interesting, and I take your point re: IRS - I'm definitely no expert on the matter. The issue about the Federal Reserve is something I've seen much discussion over, and there is a large amount of information on that one supporting various views.
Thing is, though, that saying people who think this stuff are "conspiracy theorists" is simply an opinion no better or worse than your own. A conspiracy, after all, is an agreement between two or more natural persons to break the law at some time in the future. Now if the FBI is planning on defying the constitution, that's a conspiracy, and so on. It doesn't necessarily mean that there's some huge shadow organization with tentacles everywhere controlling the world, it's just an accusation that someone's up to no good.
There's plenty of no-good around - conspiracies large and small are everywhere. On the other hand, I guess to some people the world is one big "Leave it to Beaver" episode.
Slashdot Mirror
That's probably because back then there wasn't so much money around. Or alternatively, you could insert any other nose joke here :)
Well, instead of studying in their dens, they probably just typed in comments on slashdot and watched porn all day, so forgot to eat.
Same here, and I have installed Ubuntu on several machines with varying success. Female users I've come across are quick to accept the switch (since they were tearing their hair out with Windows viruses and a dead PC) but so far have not made the switch easily and gripe and complain about things not behaving exactly as they do in Windows, and not snapping back to usable defaults when they muck up some settings (even in Gnome). Male users are more forgiving and realize there will be technical differences and expect them somehow - they will tend to search out answers and fix them. It's a generalization I know, but it is, so far, my experience.
One of the worst problems is that the Desktop is not somehow the 'base folder' which most people wrongly assume is the case.
On the other hand, I have forgotten Windows entirely. I hate paying for software and it's been so long since I played a game on a PC - though I do wish there was better quality and quantity of Linux games - Widelands keeps crashing, argh! On the other hand, I have found I am much more productive using Linux than I ever was in Windows. Things don't crash, I don't lose my data, I can trust that when I suspend the Laptop, it will all be there when it wakes up, and I don't ever need to reboot except for kernel upgrades. I've never had a hard drive die on me - and I don't need remember to do backups, because they happen automatically to another PC.
The impression people do get with Linux though, once they start using it, is that it's not an operating system as such, it's the whole system. It's not like Windows where you go out, buy heaps of boxes and think "that's $1000 in cardboard and plastic" and then install them one by one over the next week - you get it all with Linux without effort - just type a search string, tick the boxes and click "Install" and go make a cup of coffee.
This has nothing to do with segregation of "offensive" content into a single domain area, but marketing and backside covering. hotse.xxx will sell better than porn.com because it's more striking.
There would always be heaps of porn outside of the xxx domain area, without a doubt, so censorship won't be any different. However large commercial providers will like .xxx because it will protect them from litigation if minors get access to the site, since it would be easy to block using parental controls and they can claim to have taken reasonable steps.
Still, IMNSHO there should be tonnes of top level domains to choose from, but no rules on who has to have what where. Let the website providers decide how their site should look and what addresses to use, and let customers choose what they want to and not want to see.
Maybe he got this one on the web. You know the ones, "no prior study required, degree based on your current achievements, just give us all your personal details and and send in $100".
That would still be better than the real thing, which, once viewed, probably happened thousands or millions of years ago!
Well, if you compiled your own linux distro, then you did it yourself :) But then you would be extremely unlikely to be unwittingly part of a botnet ;)
But if you have a car which injures people because the manufacturer put in lousy breaks, lousy locks, lousy steering etc, then the car manufacturer is in trouble, right?
Whilst I agree with you, the liability laws need changing, "reasonable" attempts at securing a Windows PC (eg: using antivirus software) have proven to be a waste of time, so the onus should be on the manufacturer.
Nothing to CX here, MOV along.
Get your personalized Evil Empire today! We also sell Wars for/on Evil Empires, chartreuse coloured Evil Empire cups, caps, cardigans, parkas, thumbs, thumb screws, trench coats, pith helmets, whips, lawn seed, and other wares. Join our Evil Empire dating service, find your mate and leave others chartreuse with envy!
Sitting in a car with my missus driving is much the same as being in a driverless car:
Biggest difference is that the thing is more likely to know the way to someplace.
I had an organism once.
99.999 million years to go... tumtetumtetum..
No, I am just saying it's not valid to associate heavy metal with intelligence. There are too many confounding factors to suggest a link.
Heavy Metal? Gifted Kids? Ha!
Whilst it is true that very bright children will tend not to conform to their surrounding culture, to say that heavy metal is the one refuge for them is nonsense. As many are into fine arts, classical music, jazz, soul, blues, whatever. It has more to do with personality and taste.
The girl in my class who achieved the highest mark in the state in her matriculation exam was not into heavy metal. She plays the cello, reads crime novels, goes to ordinary chick-flick movies, etc. She just happens to be mathematically brilliant.
Copyright (and Patent) Law causes problems because it has been applied in an extreme way and is thus unnatural and unworkable.
Whilst it appears logical to protect one's intellectual property from 'copying', the morality of this originates in authorship - protection of the income generated from the work, and protection of the work itself (as being the 'original'). However, works age rapidly. The value of ideas is in their timeliness. So, an idea should become free once it has been sufficiently disseminated, since at that point the idea is 'free' in the wild.
If we treated copyright law in this way, then the survival time of a copyright (or patent) will depend on its market lifespan. Since practically all products (applied ideas) have a market life shown by a rise then a fall in sales as the market is produced, filled, then saturated, so too should a copyright expire once the peak of the sales (or marketing hype) has been attained. This is the marker for successful dissemination, and that is the just reward for the maker of the work.
Therefore, some ideas necessarily have longer copyright lifespans (perhaps a textbook or novel whose sales momentum is often more gradual and sustained) and others have very short lifespans (one-hit wonders on the radio - the purpose of which should really be as a sweetener to sell the rest of the CD).
Also, the way the idea is released should determine the nature of its copyright. Mass-broadcast of a film or a track on a CD or a concert should render the copyright null, since the work has been disseminated.
So, in this view, infringement of copyright by downloading a fresh DVD while it is still in the cinemas, or has just been released for sale in the market where it is downloaded, is copyright infringement. Downloading a music track you heard on the radio is not. Copying Windows XP (or the second-latest major version of anything) should not be copyright infringement because its market penetration is complete and it is being superseded.
With the above model, ordinary people with PC's are left alone, and those who are really stealing the work (eg: by leaking it out of the cutting room, or filming it in the limited preview then publishing it) are liable.
Well matey, traditionally, you get kidnapped on the streets of London as a laddie whilst innocently playing a fiddle to get some money for your poor, sick mother. You then learn to handle a sword and a gun, tie knots and skull gin, get an eye patch and wooden leg, and zap, you're a buccaneer. Arrrrhhhh!
I've done lots of studies on morality - well, immorality actually. I'm sure everyone here is a student of immorality, and some of us are very good at it!
Yes, it is genetic - how else do you think you got conceived? Virgin births are pretty rare! I'm sure we can all trace our ancestry back to some vestal virgin, or nun, or monk, or equivalent, that couldn't keep their britches or cape or something on.
However, on a more serious note, most things like this are both genetic and later modified by biochemical events and can be modulated. Genetics determine the 'intelligence' of the feature - some people have a strong moral intelligence, others do not, etc. There tends to be an association with overall frontal lobe development. However the way in which this intelligence is cultivated is environmental, of course, and indeed can be modified by drugs which change or suppress frontal lobe activity (alcohol, for example). So you see, there's nothing new about any of this!
And now, to quote a famous immoralist:
I stood by her poor grandfather,
As he lay on his death bed,
And after he sold me his gold watch and chain,
These words of wisdom he said:
"The joys of drink last but a moment,
Cigarettes make you sick - you could die...
But the love of a beautiful woman, oh,
It's the best thing that money can buy.
We refer to those as "Toorak Tractors" in Melbourne (Oz), but you see it everywhere of course. It's always a 40-something mother of one or two, shopping. The main purpose of the vehicle's increased ground clearance is in picking parking spaces from a distance, and the bull-bar is to make sure that when she's crap at parking, the other cars suffer and not hers. And the snorkel is just a phallic thing, everyone knows that. Lately it's always a BMW or Mercedes or some glitzy schmitzy thing with GPS and radar and beepers and other creepers.
However, Diesel engines do have a much longer lifespan, on average. They are very low maintenance and fatigue very gradually, almost imperceptibly. They are terrible for city driving because they release a lot of soot, but the other emissions are mainly CO2 and very little sulphur or benzene or other nasties that lighter fuel engines release (hence the engine life is longer due to less corrosion).
The main (other) reason 4WD SUV's have a long lifespan is because they are engineered to survive the conditions they operate under (like the old Volkswagen Beetle was). When you look underneath one of the proper ones, like a Landcruiser, you see all rust resistant parts, no compromises on gearbox design or bearing sizes or break system specifications. It's not like a bubble car which is manufactured to be shiny and round, with a muffled lawnmower engine inside and aluminium foil body.
However, from the environment point of view, it is true to say that most cars you see have one person too many in them.
I basically have to agree. nVidia drivers now seem to work well, after much pain over the years. They even managed to open up their development process up a tiny little bit by leaking beta drivers. Kind of like a prude who secretly has a little on the side anyway.
Nonetheless, it behooves us to fight the good fight and annoy the shit out of graphics card manufacturers to reveal the eleven secret herbs and spices so we can fully enjoy the hardware we paid for. Discriminating against crappy support is a step.
Definitely gotta put the emphasis on charisma though. And hit points.
So secure it doesn't talk to anyone - not even the person who owns it!
But seriously, gotta worry about so many vulnerabilities being reported at once. Must be the tip of the iceberg.
Well the proof is in the pudding. It is irrelevant in the immediate term whether or not the monetary system is fundamentally flawed, since it exists, is trusted and has continued to function for decade after decade without evaporating in a puff of smoke. It will keep going because everybody who has any money has their foot in the system and their prosperity depends on it.
As for whether the Fed is "out to get" people, well, paranoid (and, occasionally, genuinely 'wanted'), people think everyone is out to get them - like any mental disorder, it's "all about me". They are mostly wrong because, for the most part, they are no threat to anyone, so why would anyone want to 'get' them? On the other hand, to say the monetary system is not controlled or directed by interested parties is just as ridiculous. Sure, no one player runs the game, but to say that businesses don't form allegiances, don't reflect the ideologies of their directors and are not interested in using the power they have.. that would be wonderful!
Business is a game, and the rules of the game are to 'play by the rules', and if not, 'know the rules, obey when expedient, but otherwise don't get caught'. Most human behaviour is based on the latter.
But back to the FBI. It is, by definition, a conspiracy when an organization with a very fresh history of seriously illegal activity is planning not to keep paper trails.
I'd marry her too, except I think it would upset my wife and eight kids.
That's very interesting, and I take your point re: IRS - I'm definitely no expert on the matter. The issue about the Federal Reserve is something I've seen much discussion over, and there is a large amount of information on that one supporting various views.
Thing is, though, that saying people who think this stuff are "conspiracy theorists" is simply an opinion no better or worse than your own. A conspiracy, after all, is an agreement between two or more natural persons to break the law at some time in the future. Now if the FBI is planning on defying the constitution, that's a conspiracy, and so on. It doesn't necessarily mean that there's some huge shadow organization with tentacles everywhere controlling the world, it's just an accusation that someone's up to no good.
There's plenty of no-good around - conspiracies large and small are everywhere. On the other hand, I guess to some people the world is one big "Leave it to Beaver" episode.