The poster forgot the <a href="bash:apt-get update;apt-get dist-upgrade">direct upgrade link</a>.:)
BTW, if you're looking for an easy to set up LTSP-based distro, Ubuntu's a good choice (IMHO). The release candidates have been very good improvements over 5.04 - mostly in terms of (lots of) more subtle polish type things.
Didn't Tivo do that a while back? I coudl swear that there was a DVR that would let you stream shows across an existing ethernet network... I guess it's likely that whatever it was that did that has been disabled by now, due to "piracy" concerns, etc...
At this point, I'd like to apologize for the use of various inflamator terms - including retard. They were included for just that reason - they're apt to evoke a strong emotional response. I'd also like to mention that I agree - the children who may actually be able to care for themselves are certainly not wasting education. It's good that we spend resources trying to help those for whom help is a distinct possibiilty. I get all irritated, though, at situations like in smaller communities around. When I went to public school several years ago, there was *no* advanced educational opportunity. Not just an underfunded program, but nothing. I had no idea that AP classes even existed when I got to college. Such was the case at most of the schools I was familiar with, and most schools that I've encountered since then. Sure, I was able to entertain myself and learn things on my own. I'd like to think that anyone can do that - but I watched several people that I *knew* to hold above-average intelligence drift into not caring, and eventually fall behind. A couple of them are in prison now, for doing stupid things. I'd accept the argument that such behavior implies a lack of intelligence, but I place a solid chunk (but not all) of the blame on the school system. This school system, BTW, invested a lot of resources in their special education program. While it may have reached some kids, there were a few kids in the program who don't have any idea what's going on at any time. I have family who worked in that program - this is not just my limited impression. Anyway, while that program was getting a new "portable" building built, all students' costs went up and the average students lost their track team. Seriously, what does it cost to compete in track - they didn't even have uniforms, and other schools always hosted all of the meets.
Anyway, my point is that I was not referring to those that would be termed "high functioning", or even to the level just below that (I'm not sure precisely the classification there). My complaint was and is totally geared at those who truly get nothing from the resources spent upon them, and end up institutionalized anyway unable to care for themselves. I guess the same thing should be said about the behavioral disorder kids, to be fair. And even then, I don't so much have a problem with funding their "education" as I have a problem with funding that when there's another severly neglected group being severely neglected. Maybe everyone's being neglected, and I just don't see it because of my special interest, but it sure seems that even a partially-funded program that no one would dare cut is better than no program whatsoever.
You make a good point about providing for those less fortunate. That's some of the reasoning behind my volunteering at the local school to teach programming concepts to the students with a desire to learn, when there's no resources to make classes available for them. It's also partially driven by my own high school experience years ago, when the only coumputer courses available were "word processor usage" and, the advance course - "spreadsheet usage". I had to teach myself. I don't want others to have to do the same - it's tough to teach yourself when you're not sure what you need to learn. Granted, I'm not helping the developmentally disabled at all, but honestly, I don't have the patience or therefore the ability to help those kids. I'm thankful that I do have *something* to give back, though.
Oh, you're welcome to the tax money that I'm paying in - my nonexistant kids sure aren't using it, and my nephews aren't old enough to benefit yet. Actually, if you're still in Chicagoland, you probably *are* getting my tax money...
Never mind of course that simply putting the materials from a classroom-based course on a web page is not an effective way to teach an online course. I wish I could slap each and every educator who just put their notes in Blackboard, failed to participate in most any online forum with the students, and then is surprised when results are poor and/or students say that they won't take an online course again.
I worked for five years at a company that created real online content from classroom-based courses. These people were educators with real onine educational experience. It's amazing how well online learning can be done if just a little time is put into thining about how to differently approach things in this forum. It's also amazing, to me, how little University/College/School instructors care...
Yeah, sounds awful when one suggests forsaking those with least potential, doesn't it? "Where's your compassion". I wonder why it's just fine to forsake those with the most potential, though. Probably because they should be able to fend for themselves, or because they don't outwardly appear to be suffering any obvious ill effects. No sense wasting perfectly good compassion on those kids when there are already so many with special needs.
With regards to tossing kids in an institution, perhaps you'd be interested to know that there are a great many parents who, unable to cope with their special needs child, do that already. The state just closed one down near my home, in fact - it was a great blow to the community because those "compassionate humans" can't be bothered to take care of their own. Why, that's the job of the state - the parents should only come visit occasionally.
And, with regards to who makes the decision, again, you might be interested to note that there are already tests administered for just that purpose. They're already used to place special-needs children in special-education classes. There's no need for me to get involved with that, and it'd probably be best if the irrational people with guns stayed out of it, too.
Can't think for myself? Where, pray tell, did these incompassionate ideas come from? I don't recall reading them anywhere - seems that they're pretty unpopular...
Anyhow, I'm glad to hear that you're funding your child's therapy and whatnot. I'm also glad to hear that your compassion is only directed towards your disabled son, while you have none for those other children that should "fend for themselves". I hope you see the irony in your closing statement condemming me for thinking only of myself (I'm not in high school - I'm trying to help those who've been neglected for years) while you focus only on trying to make *your* child comfortable through his unfortunate life.
It'd be great to help everyone, but obviously there aren't enough resources. Your personal bias aside, explain why we've neglected those with the most potential in favor of those with the least?
The dual-tuner Dish (Echostar) PVRs can already send the recorded shows to any other DVR, can't they? Maybe I'm just thinking of the ability to hook two TVs up to the same DVR. You can hook several TVs up to the channel-3 modulated output (preferably after a cheap TV antenna amplifier) and have show one on the "main" TV, and show two on all of the "auxiliary" TVs pretty easily with current, cheap tech...
"providing an education to everyone". Ugh. Those vegetables aren't getting an education - they're being entertained and kept alive at everyone's expense because it's cruel and heartless to ignore any random thing that appears to be human. Sure, it makes everyone feel good to care about the poor wretch born with a problem or who fell out of a tree. Meanwhile, a big chunk of the smart kids get depressed and kill themselves because school offers them nothing. Hooray for the future of our country. I'm not blaming the schools, though. I know full well that their hands are tied on lots of issues. However, maybe if I gripe enough in irrelevent forums, someone will notice that we decided to forsake the wrong group - leave the "special needs" kids in an asylum (use whatever PC word sounds best there) until there's so much money to throw away on education that we can afford to literally throw educational resources down the toilet. Even if those dead smart kids realy weren't that smart, they could probably run a cash register *or* the deep fryer at the local Wendy's. Right now, the focus is all on the person who won't ever progress beyond a token job emptying the trash - if they can be left partially alone in public at all. That person does need personalized attention, but not at the expense of everyone else.
Too bad everyone's worried about "being mean" instead of making worthwhile investments.
That's what I'm talking about. "Why, my candidate would *never* lie or cheat or have dead people in Chicago vote for him, but that bastard who stole the election from him, that fella's a liar and a cheater." Sigh.
I was by no means considered a "jock" - I was mostly griping that there was no community respect for those of us who were "smart", even though that's supposedly what school's supposed to be for. Eh, I guess it doesn't really matter overall...:)
Re:Wherre I set on Google Text Ads and ads in gene
on
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I just got a Grand Am GT (with SC/T) as a commuter-mobile because all of my other cars are V8-powered, fun to drive but thirsty cars. Hooray for finding someplace where I can modify that car's drivetrain beyond street practicality too!:)
Yeah, I got rid of my TV a few months back, too. The projector on my ceiling is way neater most of the time, but it's kinda hard to see in direct sunlight.:)
Yeah, that's a problem with living in a Democracy - sometimes you're not the majority. It's why the US woudln't work as a true democracy, too. We've focused so much attention on raising people so that "everyone's a winner" - we do things like wasting tons of educational money trying to beat half a brain into retards who will never be anything but retards while the exceptionally bright children get drug down to "average" level, since the average and below average kids might feel bad if someone was identified as smarter (though it's just fine to have athletic competitions and make a big deal out of those kids) - that everyone feels like their vote has to win. Witness the previous election, for example. Bush won the popular vote and the electoral vote, and is president. Even today, several *years* after the election, people are still driving around with their "defeat Bush" bumper stickers on and saying idiotic things like "he's not my president". People don't realize that sometimes they'll lose, but they should just congratulate the winner and give it a better shot next time. By participating in the election, they're implicitly agreeing to support the winner. But since no one knows how to gracefully lose anymore, it turns into a big mess. Just think what a mess it'd be if the voters over here actualy had to experience losing more than once every four years!
Oh, for the record: Yes, I'm aware that there are elections more than once a year - but most of those only have 15-25% turnout or so. I voted against Bush last time, but I voted third party because both major candidates sucked royally. And I was involved in sports as well as acedemics - but it always pissed me off that no one cared that I was always on the honor roll, I finished first and third in the state in a couple academic competition, or that I was the conference points leader in scholatic bowl two years running. By golly, it sure was great that I could sink a three-pointer before I blew my knee up, though. Damned idiot school systems.
No, but I am the guy who carries his cell phone in a pocket of jeans or coveralls, where the charging socket gets filled pu with lint and dust. Then again, I did buy a Eurosealer at Walgreens (mostly for humor value), and my tabletop could definitely use a sweeping-off-with-both-hands...:)
You forgot "clean all of the lint and crud out of the charging port" and "wiggle phone around so the contacts make good contact rather than just barely missing" in your description of the old method. You also may have forgotton "make sure that cord is at such an angle so as to facilitate minimal breakage after grabbbing and walking away without remembering to unplug it in the morning".:)
Who exactly was supposed to get killed out there in the desert? If you're talking short-term, these vehicles were designed for a competition. If you're talking long-term, then any research could potentially be used for war. If you wanna be real technical, these vehicles will likely never kill anyone - they're just carrying the killing equipment somewhere. The bird flu could potentially be used directly to kill, so it's different. Do tire companies who make stuff for the military count in the list of people who weer working for the military to kill people? What about those people with Jeeps - how dare they support the company that got our troops into several terrible battles!
Merely being sponsored by the US military does not guarantee evil. I'm a big fan of that Internet thing, for example. Then again, I also own guns which are not intended to kill people, and computers which aren't used to calculate missile trajectories (even though they may well have been designed with other plans), so I'll probably never understand.
It'd probably be better if our armed forces stopped inovating, and just waited for the rest of the world to advance beyond our own capabiilty to respond, eh? Because, if we stop concerning ourselves with war, the whole world will instantly fall into a state of peace and be covered with pretty flowers.
Obviously, any students who learn more about effectively automate vehicles will *never* find a way to apply that technology in a non-lethal environment...
Yes, anything that can potentially be used to kill someone should be off-limits for research, regardless of its usefulness in other arenas. Especially if, heaven forbid, the *military* encourages development!
No, the "home" version they had for a while - when they did separate personal and professional versions - just didn't install gcc by default, because home users didn't need gcc typically. Neither one installed the Sun JDK, but I'm pretty sure there was a JRE on there (which would be within the license). Then again, at that time there was no useful gcj, either, so gcc would not have been a competing tech at the time. It's just barely a competing tech now, for that matter...:)
When did I say that they have a lot of junk components? And WTF is your problem? "Why single out that one" - I dunno, maybe because it would take forever to list every single "junk" component in existance? Maybe becuase the guy was specifically talking about Sony, which is can also be referred to as a "Japanese junk component maker" because they make junk components and are probably somewhat proud of their location in Japan? In fact, I'll bet they'd be slightly offended if the were *not* associated with Japan. How about you list a specific popular piece of junk component manufacturer in Germany, one from Taiwan, and one from China. Kinda hard to think of one off the top of your head? I wonder if that's because there aren't any that are popular...
Seriously, fella, you're entirely too touchy to leave the house - what are you doing on the Internet? Are you one of those assholes whose entire reason for being is to look for ways take offense in everything and then moan about it?
And why is that? Because OSS programming is hard to do. It's very hard to jump in and immediately contribute to a project that you use.
Why do you say that? Have you ever been turned down from a project that you wanted to work on? I've found that, if I have useful code to contribute, any project I've approached has happily accepted my input. If you're getting rejected (general you - not just the poster), then there are just a few likely reasons. 1), you're not as good of a coder as you think, and your idea's just bad or badly implemented. 2), your suggesting doesn't fit the scope of the project, in which case making your own fork is a reasoanble idea (hopefully you have CVS read access so you can keep your fork up to date with the original - if you want that). 3), the project maintainers are assholes who are threatened by outside suggestions. In that case again you can probably just create a fork - if your idea's so friggin' great, people will probably use your fork.
The barriers to contributing to OSS projects are not unrealistically high, IMHO. I don't see anything to be gained from making develiopment a disorganised mishmash of people whose only qualification is that they think they need to mess around with the official source instead of a local copy.
What? You must not be a Python fanboy, or you'd realize that it's *impossible* to write bad Python - and that bad code is guaranteed with Perl. It's possible to write crappy code in any language, even one that forces you to indent (yay, forced indentation magically makes everyone a great programmer! Never mind those line continuation characters that are required as a result of having no end-of-line char, and ignore that the language isn't strictly typed, but you still can't always use numbers as strings or vice-versa). This may come as shocking to some, but it's possible to write *good* code in most any language, too - even perl!
That's not racism - the most popular junk components simply come from Japan. There was nothing said about how all junk components come from Japan, or how all components that come from Japan are junk. Why the "looking for racism everywhere"?
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The poster forgot the <a href="bash:apt-get update;apt-get dist-upgrade">direct upgrade link</a>. :)
BTW, if you're looking for an easy to set up LTSP-based distro, Ubuntu's a good choice (IMHO). The release candidates have been very good improvements over 5.04 - mostly in terms of (lots of) more subtle polish type things.
Didn't Tivo do that a while back? I coudl swear that there was a DVR that would let you stream shows across an existing ethernet network... I guess it's likely that whatever it was that did that has been disabled by now, due to "piracy" concerns, etc...
At this point, I'd like to apologize for the use of various inflamator terms - including retard. They were included for just that reason - they're apt to evoke a strong emotional response. I'd also like to mention that I agree - the children who may actually be able to care for themselves are certainly not wasting education. It's good that we spend resources trying to help those for whom help is a distinct possibiilty. I get all irritated, though, at situations like in smaller communities around. When I went to public school several years ago, there was *no* advanced educational opportunity. Not just an underfunded program, but nothing. I had no idea that AP classes even existed when I got to college. Such was the case at most of the schools I was familiar with, and most schools that I've encountered since then. Sure, I was able to entertain myself and learn things on my own. I'd like to think that anyone can do that - but I watched several people that I *knew* to hold above-average intelligence drift into not caring, and eventually fall behind. A couple of them are in prison now, for doing stupid things. I'd accept the argument that such behavior implies a lack of intelligence, but I place a solid chunk (but not all) of the blame on the school system. This school system, BTW, invested a lot of resources in their special education program. While it may have reached some kids, there were a few kids in the program who don't have any idea what's going on at any time. I have family who worked in that program - this is not just my limited impression. Anyway, while that program was getting a new "portable" building built, all students' costs went up and the average students lost their track team. Seriously, what does it cost to compete in track - they didn't even have uniforms, and other schools always hosted all of the meets.
Anyway, my point is that I was not referring to those that would be termed "high functioning", or even to the level just below that (I'm not sure precisely the classification there). My complaint was and is totally geared at those who truly get nothing from the resources spent upon them, and end up institutionalized anyway unable to care for themselves. I guess the same thing should be said about the behavioral disorder kids, to be fair. And even then, I don't so much have a problem with funding their "education" as I have a problem with funding that when there's another severly neglected group being severely neglected. Maybe everyone's being neglected, and I just don't see it because of my special interest, but it sure seems that even a partially-funded program that no one would dare cut is better than no program whatsoever.
You make a good point about providing for those less fortunate. That's some of the reasoning behind my volunteering at the local school to teach programming concepts to the students with a desire to learn, when there's no resources to make classes available for them. It's also partially driven by my own high school experience years ago, when the only coumputer courses available were "word processor usage" and, the advance course - "spreadsheet usage". I had to teach myself. I don't want others to have to do the same - it's tough to teach yourself when you're not sure what you need to learn. Granted, I'm not helping the developmentally disabled at all, but honestly, I don't have the patience or therefore the ability to help those kids. I'm thankful that I do have *something* to give back, though.
Oh, you're welcome to the tax money that I'm paying in - my nonexistant kids sure aren't using it, and my nephews aren't old enough to benefit yet. Actually, if you're still in Chicagoland, you probably *are* getting my tax money...
Never mind of course that simply putting the materials from a classroom-based course on a web page is not an effective way to teach an online course. I wish I could slap each and every educator who just put their notes in Blackboard, failed to participate in most any online forum with the students, and then is surprised when results are poor and/or students say that they won't take an online course again.
I worked for five years at a company that created real online content from classroom-based courses. These people were educators with real onine educational experience. It's amazing how well online learning can be done if just a little time is put into thining about how to differently approach things in this forum. It's also amazing, to me, how little University/College/School instructors care...
Yeah, sounds awful when one suggests forsaking those with least potential, doesn't it? "Where's your compassion". I wonder why it's just fine to forsake those with the most potential, though. Probably because they should be able to fend for themselves, or because they don't outwardly appear to be suffering any obvious ill effects. No sense wasting perfectly good compassion on those kids when there are already so many with special needs.
With regards to tossing kids in an institution, perhaps you'd be interested to know that there are a great many parents who, unable to cope with their special needs child, do that already. The state just closed one down near my home, in fact - it was a great blow to the community because those "compassionate humans" can't be bothered to take care of their own. Why, that's the job of the state - the parents should only come visit occasionally.
And, with regards to who makes the decision, again, you might be interested to note that there are already tests administered for just that purpose. They're already used to place special-needs children in special-education classes. There's no need for me to get involved with that, and it'd probably be best if the irrational people with guns stayed out of it, too.
Can't think for myself? Where, pray tell, did these incompassionate ideas come from? I don't recall reading them anywhere - seems that they're pretty unpopular...
Anyhow, I'm glad to hear that you're funding your child's therapy and whatnot. I'm also glad to hear that your compassion is only directed towards your disabled son, while you have none for those other children that should "fend for themselves". I hope you see the irony in your closing statement condemming me for thinking only of myself (I'm not in high school - I'm trying to help those who've been neglected for years) while you focus only on trying to make *your* child comfortable through his unfortunate life.
It'd be great to help everyone, but obviously there aren't enough resources. Your personal bias aside, explain why we've neglected those with the most potential in favor of those with the least?
The dual-tuner Dish (Echostar) PVRs can already send the recorded shows to any other DVR, can't they? Maybe I'm just thinking of the ability to hook two TVs up to the same DVR. You can hook several TVs up to the channel-3 modulated output (preferably after a cheap TV antenna amplifier) and have show one on the "main" TV, and show two on all of the "auxiliary" TVs pretty easily with current, cheap tech...
"providing an education to everyone". Ugh. Those vegetables aren't getting an education - they're being entertained and kept alive at everyone's expense because it's cruel and heartless to ignore any random thing that appears to be human. Sure, it makes everyone feel good to care about the poor wretch born with a problem or who fell out of a tree. Meanwhile, a big chunk of the smart kids get depressed and kill themselves because school offers them nothing. Hooray for the future of our country. I'm not blaming the schools, though. I know full well that their hands are tied on lots of issues. However, maybe if I gripe enough in irrelevent forums, someone will notice that we decided to forsake the wrong group - leave the "special needs" kids in an asylum (use whatever PC word sounds best there) until there's so much money to throw away on education that we can afford to literally throw educational resources down the toilet. Even if those dead smart kids realy weren't that smart, they could probably run a cash register *or* the deep fryer at the local Wendy's. Right now, the focus is all on the person who won't ever progress beyond a token job emptying the trash - if they can be left partially alone in public at all. That person does need personalized attention, but not at the expense of everyone else.
Too bad everyone's worried about "being mean" instead of making worthwhile investments.
That's what I'm talking about. "Why, my candidate would *never* lie or cheat or have dead people in Chicago vote for him, but that bastard who stole the election from him, that fella's a liar and a cheater." Sigh.
I was by no means considered a "jock" - I was mostly griping that there was no community respect for those of us who were "smart", even though that's supposedly what school's supposed to be for. Eh, I guess it doesn't really matter overall... :)
I just got a Grand Am GT (with SC/T) as a commuter-mobile because all of my other cars are V8-powered, fun to drive but thirsty cars. Hooray for finding someplace where I can modify that car's drivetrain beyond street practicality too! :)
Oh, and yeah, ads suck 'n stuff.
Yeah, I got rid of my TV a few months back, too. The projector on my ceiling is way neater most of the time, but it's kinda hard to see in direct sunlight. :)
Yeah, that's a problem with living in a Democracy - sometimes you're not the majority. It's why the US woudln't work as a true democracy, too. We've focused so much attention on raising people so that "everyone's a winner" - we do things like wasting tons of educational money trying to beat half a brain into retards who will never be anything but retards while the exceptionally bright children get drug down to "average" level, since the average and below average kids might feel bad if someone was identified as smarter (though it's just fine to have athletic competitions and make a big deal out of those kids) - that everyone feels like their vote has to win. Witness the previous election, for example. Bush won the popular vote and the electoral vote, and is president. Even today, several *years* after the election, people are still driving around with their "defeat Bush" bumper stickers on and saying idiotic things like "he's not my president". People don't realize that sometimes they'll lose, but they should just congratulate the winner and give it a better shot next time. By participating in the election, they're implicitly agreeing to support the winner. But since no one knows how to gracefully lose anymore, it turns into a big mess. Just think what a mess it'd be if the voters over here actualy had to experience losing more than once every four years!
Oh, for the record: Yes, I'm aware that there are elections more than once a year - but most of those only have 15-25% turnout or so. I voted against Bush last time, but I voted third party because both major candidates sucked royally. And I was involved in sports as well as acedemics - but it always pissed me off that no one cared that I was always on the honor roll, I finished first and third in the state in a couple academic competition, or that I was the conference points leader in scholatic bowl two years running. By golly, it sure was great that I could sink a three-pointer before I blew my knee up, though. Damned idiot school systems.
No, but I am the guy who carries his cell phone in a pocket of jeans or coveralls, where the charging socket gets filled pu with lint and dust. Then again, I did buy a Eurosealer at Walgreens (mostly for humor value), and my tabletop could definitely use a sweeping-off-with-both-hands... :)
You forgot "clean all of the lint and crud out of the charging port" and "wiggle phone around so the contacts make good contact rather than just barely missing" in your description of the old method. You also may have forgotton "make sure that cord is at such an angle so as to facilitate minimal breakage after grabbbing and walking away without remembering to unplug it in the morning". :)
Who exactly was supposed to get killed out there in the desert? If you're talking short-term, these vehicles were designed for a competition. If you're talking long-term, then any research could potentially be used for war. If you wanna be real technical, these vehicles will likely never kill anyone - they're just carrying the killing equipment somewhere. The bird flu could potentially be used directly to kill, so it's different. Do tire companies who make stuff for the military count in the list of people who weer working for the military to kill people? What about those people with Jeeps - how dare they support the company that got our troops into several terrible battles!
Merely being sponsored by the US military does not guarantee evil. I'm a big fan of that Internet thing, for example. Then again, I also own guns which are not intended to kill people, and computers which aren't used to calculate missile trajectories (even though they may well have been designed with other plans), so I'll probably never understand.
Yay, then only issues that are important to the Seceretary get forwarded along. It'd be just like the US Government!
Well, Corel did have that Novell client for a while - but they're not exactly making big new now... :)
It'd probably be better if our armed forces stopped inovating, and just waited for the rest of the world to advance beyond our own capabiilty to respond, eh? Because, if we stop concerning ourselves with war, the whole world will instantly fall into a state of peace and be covered with pretty flowers.
I d=107011i ces_and_specs/opt_equipment.htm (look at the first available option)
Obviously, any students who learn more about effectively automate vehicles will *never* find a way to apply that technology in a non-lethal environment...
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/article
http://www.jaguarusa.com/us/en/vehicles/s-type/pr
Yes, anything that can potentially be used to kill someone should be off-limits for research, regardless of its usefulness in other arenas. Especially if, heaven forbid, the *military* encourages development!
No, the "home" version they had for a while - when they did separate personal and professional versions - just didn't install gcc by default, because home users didn't need gcc typically. Neither one installed the Sun JDK, but I'm pretty sure there was a JRE on there (which would be within the license). Then again, at that time there was no useful gcj, either, so gcc would not have been a competing tech at the time. It's just barely a competing tech now, for that matter... :)
When did I say that they have a lot of junk components? And WTF is your problem? "Why single out that one" - I dunno, maybe because it would take forever to list every single "junk" component in existance? Maybe becuase the guy was specifically talking about Sony, which is can also be referred to as a "Japanese junk component maker" because they make junk components and are probably somewhat proud of their location in Japan? In fact, I'll bet they'd be slightly offended if the were *not* associated with Japan. How about you list a specific popular piece of junk component manufacturer in Germany, one from Taiwan, and one from China. Kinda hard to think of one off the top of your head? I wonder if that's because there aren't any that are popular...
Seriously, fella, you're entirely too touchy to leave the house - what are you doing on the Internet? Are you one of those assholes whose entire reason for being is to look for ways take offense in everything and then moan about it?
And why is that? Because OSS programming is hard to do. It's very hard to jump in and immediately contribute to a project that you use.
Why do you say that? Have you ever been turned down from a project that you wanted to work on? I've found that, if I have useful code to contribute, any project I've approached has happily accepted my input. If you're getting rejected (general you - not just the poster), then there are just a few likely reasons. 1), you're not as good of a coder as you think, and your idea's just bad or badly implemented. 2), your suggesting doesn't fit the scope of the project, in which case making your own fork is a reasoanble idea (hopefully you have CVS read access so you can keep your fork up to date with the original - if you want that). 3), the project maintainers are assholes who are threatened by outside suggestions. In that case again you can probably just create a fork - if your idea's so friggin' great, people will probably use your fork.
The barriers to contributing to OSS projects are not unrealistically high, IMHO. I don't see anything to be gained from making develiopment a disorganised mishmash of people whose only qualification is that they think they need to mess around with the official source instead of a local copy.
What? You must not be a Python fanboy, or you'd realize that it's *impossible* to write bad Python - and that bad code is guaranteed with Perl. It's possible to write crappy code in any language, even one that forces you to indent (yay, forced indentation magically makes everyone a great programmer! Never mind those line continuation characters that are required as a result of having no end-of-line char, and ignore that the language isn't strictly typed, but you still can't always use numbers as strings or vice-versa). This may come as shocking to some, but it's possible to write *good* code in most any language, too - even perl!
That's not racism - the most popular junk components simply come from Japan. There was nothing said about how all junk components come from Japan, or how all components that come from Japan are junk. Why the "looking for racism everywhere"?
I think that human prisoners count as "larger ones"...