Sadly when it comes to things such as network neutrality, MAFIAA litigation, censorship of the internet, and understanding how the internet has the potential to be an unstoppable force of intellectual freedom most U.S. citizens are woefully ignorant. They care about gas prices, making sure that they are not responsible for raising their kids, ensuring that gay couples are not recognized as a legal union, and which religion the candidate subscribes to. They have forgotten that there is a reason the the freedom of speech was the very first amendment, I have met very few that ever read the Federalist Papers, hell half of the people that I talk to have never even read the constitution or have the most basic understanding of how our government works. The internet has the power to be the most perfect force for the first amendment which is essential to the rest of the Constitution and in all honesty I don't think the GOP really wants the average citizen to have that kind of power.
Well let me explain a little better. I actually do prefer games on consoles, but only recently. Most of the games that I play on a console are on my Wii via Wiiware and the virtual console. I think the pricing is a little high on the VC, but then again it is bearable and my wife knows that it's a great little surprise gift that she can give me once in a while just because. On the console keeping track of my disks with a 3yr old and 1yr old can be troublesome so as a result I only buy games that I really really really want to play. I do have a few, but it really isn't that many because I seriously dislike keeping track of something as fragile as a disk. If a major console publisher comes up with a way to plug in storage to a console and download full games to it and also tag them so I can download them again at my leisure then I would be extremely pleased. Then my game gain some portability and at the same time gets rid of disks. The other issue is of course the drivers, constant rolling upgrades, and general grind work to keep up on PC. I dislike that as well, but I don't really know of a solution for that, maybe if they targeted games at middling stable hardware platforms rather than ultra high end that would work, I just don't know. It really isn't just the disks, I should have just used that as an example, but that is a large part of it. As a dad who takes a very active role in the raising of my kids, my time is at a premium and what time I do have for games outside of kids and wife(hey, gotta keep the house commander happy;) I like actually playing them, not messing around with finding the disk and messing around with the computer.
This developer needs to be modded up. I wrote and told them that I used to pirate games after I bought them because the pirate editions were generally easier to use and I didn't have to have a disk laying around to play it. I then explained that due to my limited time as a father messing around with any of it was crap and that I pretty much quit playing PC games in general. If this whole asking our customers what they want thing catches on maybe I'll finally be able to get what I want, when I want it, and the way I want it. Perhaps I could get back into video games on the PC again.
Did you even read my post or just the first sentence? I mention that I like some of the desktop effects as well as that most people are not like me. I also wasn't going after anyone, I was commenting that the tools fit the person, for me it's the command line (yes I do use text mode, my mainframes at work don't have X11), for my wife it's a pretty gui, I also say at the end that we need to make FOSS more user friendly for the general populace. Really, I mean that. I want better device compatibility so I want more penetration to the desktop of things such as Linux and BSD, next time please read the whole thing, I really am not trying to offend people.
That's interesting as I have a friend who is a 50 something civil engineer and he used slax back in the day, always liked it but could never get anything done since he was always spending his time keeping X running. I gave him a recent Ubuntu release and he loved it, he's been using it exclusively since the time I gave it to him. I'm really finding a trend here, some will not change because they cannot stand to have little things change in the world around them, a lot of people will though once they see the benefits that it offers.
That's the difference between people like us and people like a large portion of the rest of the general populace. I use function over form all the time, hence I love the command line. I also have an engineering bent so I'm a little more interested in getting things done than having oooo...pretty all over the place. That being said there is something to having a composited desktop such as compiz. Some of the window and trailfocus features really do enhance function as well as form, some of the other things make it a little bit easier on the eyes as well. Anyway if we want FOSS to have a larger user base and hence better support from device makers then we have to make it appeal to the rest of the populace that does choose form over function. Also I'm not trying to troll about all the other people, hell my wife is one of the people that likes the oooo...pretty features, it's just that people have to recognize that most people are not like most of those of us on Slashdot.
You know it is quality control. Where I work I have to be NASA certified in ESD(Electro-Static Discharge) and let me tell you, they are crazy about all the little things. For instance when a bit of equipment is in the high bay you have to go through the clean room, you have to be grounded not only on your hands but your feet as well. Before you every plug anything in to a socket you have to run it over a fan that blows ions at it to negate any electrical charge. They have the craziest quality control that you have ever seen and they still have shit go wrong sometimes.
You know there is a lot of truth to that remark. I'm a very tech savvy person and my family, friends, wife's friends, hell random people in stores I visit ask me for advice about computer parts. When they do I generally try to steer them towards products that have either open or at least very compatible drivers. So while I may only be one person I influence many people in their buying decisions. What's really interesting is that I've actually started to convert my wife's group of stay at home moms to linux, they see her little EEE and love it(I installed ubuntu on it for her). They then ask what it is and promptly want to try it out. Somewhere around 50% of them will actually stay using it once I give them a brief little class of how to use it and where to find all the free software.
Kinda like what happened to me in the Army. They decided that they wanted to scan all of our personal laptops for porn and classified files and such so they made this little program that used keyword and metadata searches to see if you had anything. Well, I didn't particularly care for this and being who I am I took a picture of myself flipping off the camera and titled it wonderful things such as Fuck Me Hard, or Take it in the Butt you Whore, or some classified product names. Then I scattered 30,000 copies all over my hard drive, they thought that they had found the jackpot in me until they saw what it was. They also have to look at every file just in case, let me tell you they were not happy about this at all, however there was little they could do about it. Needless to say they never tried that bullshit with me again. What's really fun too is that I had all my porn on a hidden encrypted volume. DHS however may just keep your laptop forever and maybe charge you with obstruction of justice or something stupid like that.
Here ladies and gentlemen is what I really love about Linux. Anybody can take it and build it specifically for the platform that they want and still have it inter operate with all the other flavors out there.
What about people like myself that are trained in the use of most modern weaponry and also have the needed skills and contacts to make my own firearms, rockets, bombs, missiles and whatnot? What about people that used to be sneaky bastards, know how to drop off the map and get equipment to other patriots to carry on the fight? Before mentioning that as cowardly you might want to realize that organizers and suppliers are not always expendable and not everyone can be a leader. Hunting rifles are basically sniper rifles, handguns are great for close in work, and assault weapons are good for taking an objective. No army can fight without basic firearms, that is why we have the second amendment, so the PEOPLE can form militias and fight the government when it is no longer representative of the people.
I agree with you that they shouldn't state in laws that a certain standard should be used, just that they be open. It was just their wording as to the reason that I don't particularly like. Anyway, when laws get passed stating that the standards for government documents must be open are there also penalties for non-compliance? These documents are important and the best way to ensure that they survive the test of time is to make the standards open and free to download by anyone.
Outdated? Really? Did they even bother to ask anyone that knows anything about opensource? Open standards means that even if it does become outdated there can still be an implementation no matter what. It's the best insurance against having outdated formats. I guess I'm off to write a few paper letters.
Personally I love solar voltaic panels with a little of that canned cheese on them. On a more serious note, why do people not focus on the tech that we have now? For instance if you want solar the solar thermal systems are pretty cheap to build and have decent efficiency. I just don't get why everyone is so stuck on solar voltaic which is as someone else said in a perpetual early adoption stage when a good chunk of baseline power could be provided by solar thermal.
When I'm taking a shower I don't have to worry about some idiot pushing me down while I'm in the shower, when I eat I don't pass my fat ass off on someone else. Driving is different than either of those examples, when you're piloting several thousand pounds of metal down the road you are not just responsible for your life whereas in the shower, eating, skydiving, whatever you pretty much take the risk for yourself. So when an idiot talking on a cell phone or texting or whatever kills your family I guess that it was worth the risk.
Yes, I should have taken the moral highground and thrown my wife and two kids into poverty. Ideals are really nice when you're not starving on the street.
I would recommend this book for how rapidly scary it can get in this day and age. I couldn't put this book down, everything about it screamed "FOR FUCK'S SAKE, IT'S HAPPENING RIGHT NOW!".
Mod parent up. He really didn't do much that was malicious, hell he even made up a fake candidate so that it would sway the election for a real candidate. All the guy did was prove that the system they payed so much money for was crap, but we can't have that now can we? It would displease our corporate overlords.
I really like the idea that this guy has, but I hate to think about the crazy ISPs would release on us if people started doing this. They're as bad as the media companies for wanting control over networks. I can just see it now, every repeater that you install is considered a lost sale with potentially thousands of users using it. Cease and desist or we will sue you for one brazillion dollars. Yet another argument for treating the internet like a public utility, just one that you can opt out of if you so choose.
Slashdot Mirror
Sadly when it comes to things such as network neutrality, MAFIAA litigation, censorship of the internet, and understanding how the internet has the potential to be an unstoppable force of intellectual freedom most U.S. citizens are woefully ignorant. They care about gas prices, making sure that they are not responsible for raising their kids, ensuring that gay couples are not recognized as a legal union, and which religion the candidate subscribes to. They have forgotten that there is a reason the the freedom of speech was the very first amendment, I have met very few that ever read the Federalist Papers, hell half of the people that I talk to have never even read the constitution or have the most basic understanding of how our government works. The internet has the power to be the most perfect force for the first amendment which is essential to the rest of the Constitution and in all honesty I don't think the GOP really wants the average citizen to have that kind of power.
Well let me explain a little better. I actually do prefer games on consoles, but only recently. Most of the games that I play on a console are on my Wii via Wiiware and the virtual console. I think the pricing is a little high on the VC, but then again it is bearable and my wife knows that it's a great little surprise gift that she can give me once in a while just because. On the console keeping track of my disks with a 3yr old and 1yr old can be troublesome so as a result I only buy games that I really really really want to play. I do have a few, but it really isn't that many because I seriously dislike keeping track of something as fragile as a disk. If a major console publisher comes up with a way to plug in storage to a console and download full games to it and also tag them so I can download them again at my leisure then I would be extremely pleased. Then my game gain some portability and at the same time gets rid of disks. The other issue is of course the drivers, constant rolling upgrades, and general grind work to keep up on PC. I dislike that as well, but I don't really know of a solution for that, maybe if they targeted games at middling stable hardware platforms rather than ultra high end that would work, I just don't know. It really isn't just the disks, I should have just used that as an example, but that is a large part of it. As a dad who takes a very active role in the raising of my kids, my time is at a premium and what time I do have for games outside of kids and wife(hey, gotta keep the house commander happy ;) I like actually playing them, not messing around with finding the disk and messing around with the computer.
This developer needs to be modded up. I wrote and told them that I used to pirate games after I bought them because the pirate editions were generally easier to use and I didn't have to have a disk laying around to play it. I then explained that due to my limited time as a father messing around with any of it was crap and that I pretty much quit playing PC games in general. If this whole asking our customers what they want thing catches on maybe I'll finally be able to get what I want, when I want it, and the way I want it. Perhaps I could get back into video games on the PC again.
Skills and tools like photoshop?
Did you even read my post or just the first sentence? I mention that I like some of the desktop effects as well as that most people are not like me. I also wasn't going after anyone, I was commenting that the tools fit the person, for me it's the command line (yes I do use text mode, my mainframes at work don't have X11), for my wife it's a pretty gui, I also say at the end that we need to make FOSS more user friendly for the general populace. Really, I mean that. I want better device compatibility so I want more penetration to the desktop of things such as Linux and BSD, next time please read the whole thing, I really am not trying to offend people.
That's interesting as I have a friend who is a 50 something civil engineer and he used slax back in the day, always liked it but could never get anything done since he was always spending his time keeping X running. I gave him a recent Ubuntu release and he loved it, he's been using it exclusively since the time I gave it to him. I'm really finding a trend here, some will not change because they cannot stand to have little things change in the world around them, a lot of people will though once they see the benefits that it offers.
That's the difference between people like us and people like a large portion of the rest of the general populace. I use function over form all the time, hence I love the command line. I also have an engineering bent so I'm a little more interested in getting things done than having oooo...pretty all over the place. That being said there is something to having a composited desktop such as compiz. Some of the window and trailfocus features really do enhance function as well as form, some of the other things make it a little bit easier on the eyes as well. Anyway if we want FOSS to have a larger user base and hence better support from device makers then we have to make it appeal to the rest of the populace that does choose form over function. Also I'm not trying to troll about all the other people, hell my wife is one of the people that likes the oooo...pretty features, it's just that people have to recognize that most people are not like most of those of us on Slashdot.
You know it is quality control. Where I work I have to be NASA certified in ESD(Electro-Static Discharge) and let me tell you, they are crazy about all the little things. For instance when a bit of equipment is in the high bay you have to go through the clean room, you have to be grounded not only on your hands but your feet as well. Before you every plug anything in to a socket you have to run it over a fan that blows ions at it to negate any electrical charge. They have the craziest quality control that you have ever seen and they still have shit go wrong sometimes.
You know there is a lot of truth to that remark. I'm a very tech savvy person and my family, friends, wife's friends, hell random people in stores I visit ask me for advice about computer parts. When they do I generally try to steer them towards products that have either open or at least very compatible drivers. So while I may only be one person I influence many people in their buying decisions. What's really interesting is that I've actually started to convert my wife's group of stay at home moms to linux, they see her little EEE and love it(I installed ubuntu on it for her). They then ask what it is and promptly want to try it out. Somewhere around 50% of them will actually stay using it once I give them a brief little class of how to use it and where to find all the free software.
Kinda like what happened to me in the Army. They decided that they wanted to scan all of our personal laptops for porn and classified files and such so they made this little program that used keyword and metadata searches to see if you had anything. Well, I didn't particularly care for this and being who I am I took a picture of myself flipping off the camera and titled it wonderful things such as Fuck Me Hard, or Take it in the Butt you Whore, or some classified product names. Then I scattered 30,000 copies all over my hard drive, they thought that they had found the jackpot in me until they saw what it was. They also have to look at every file just in case, let me tell you they were not happy about this at all, however there was little they could do about it. Needless to say they never tried that bullshit with me again. What's really fun too is that I had all my porn on a hidden encrypted volume. DHS however may just keep your laptop forever and maybe charge you with obstruction of justice or something stupid like that.
I will!
wget http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=627539&op=Reply&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=24362939 | grep -i vibrator > vibrator
touch ./vibrator
Here ladies and gentlemen is what I really love about Linux. Anybody can take it and build it specifically for the platform that they want and still have it inter operate with all the other flavors out there.
What about people like myself that are trained in the use of most modern weaponry and also have the needed skills and contacts to make my own firearms, rockets, bombs, missiles and whatnot? What about people that used to be sneaky bastards, know how to drop off the map and get equipment to other patriots to carry on the fight? Before mentioning that as cowardly you might want to realize that organizers and suppliers are not always expendable and not everyone can be a leader. Hunting rifles are basically sniper rifles, handguns are great for close in work, and assault weapons are good for taking an objective. No army can fight without basic firearms, that is why we have the second amendment, so the PEOPLE can form militias and fight the government when it is no longer representative of the people.
I agree with you that they shouldn't state in laws that a certain standard should be used, just that they be open. It was just their wording as to the reason that I don't particularly like. Anyway, when laws get passed stating that the standards for government documents must be open are there also penalties for non-compliance? These documents are important and the best way to ensure that they survive the test of time is to make the standards open and free to download by anyone.
Outdated? Really? Did they even bother to ask anyone that knows anything about opensource? Open standards means that even if it does become outdated there can still be an implementation no matter what. It's the best insurance against having outdated formats. I guess I'm off to write a few paper letters.
Personally I love solar voltaic panels with a little of that canned cheese on them. On a more serious note, why do people not focus on the tech that we have now? For instance if you want solar the solar thermal systems are pretty cheap to build and have decent efficiency. I just don't get why everyone is so stuck on solar voltaic which is as someone else said in a perpetual early adoption stage when a good chunk of baseline power could be provided by solar thermal.
Yes, please write up a little howto and post a link, many of us would be very grateful for that.
When I'm taking a shower I don't have to worry about some idiot pushing me down while I'm in the shower, when I eat I don't pass my fat ass off on someone else. Driving is different than either of those examples, when you're piloting several thousand pounds of metal down the road you are not just responsible for your life whereas in the shower, eating, skydiving, whatever you pretty much take the risk for yourself. So when an idiot talking on a cell phone or texting or whatever kills your family I guess that it was worth the risk.
Yes, I should have taken the moral highground and thrown my wife and two kids into poverty. Ideals are really nice when you're not starving on the street.
http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/
I would recommend this book for how rapidly scary it can get in this day and age. I couldn't put this book down, everything about it screamed "FOR FUCK'S SAKE, IT'S HAPPENING RIGHT NOW!".
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, read it.
Mod parent up. He really didn't do much that was malicious, hell he even made up a fake candidate so that it would sway the election for a real candidate. All the guy did was prove that the system they payed so much money for was crap, but we can't have that now can we? It would displease our corporate overlords.
Awesome, thank you.
Really? Can you provide some links please? I would also like to know about performance etc.
I really like the idea that this guy has, but I hate to think about the crazy ISPs would release on us if people started doing this. They're as bad as the media companies for wanting control over networks. I can just see it now, every repeater that you install is considered a lost sale with potentially thousands of users using it. Cease and desist or we will sue you for one brazillion dollars. Yet another argument for treating the internet like a public utility, just one that you can opt out of if you so choose.