I suppose the lesson is that companies are never your friends, just allies of convenience at best. Something to remember the next time some slashbot claims comapny X will save the day because they are a friend of open source.
You have a point. But then what if open source gets too big?
Use dupe only when a Slashdot story is an actual duplicate of a previous Slashdot story, offering no new information. [...] These tags will alert us to problems immediately (but they won't show up on the top tags list).
Not sure about the rest (like "haha" etc.), though.
But you don't need a license agreement to USE the software. Copyright only applies to - well, copying; not use. And the fact that the retailer doesn't own the copyright to the software he's selling isn't relevant, either, for much the same reason: he's not copying anything; what he's doing is selling you a cardboard box containing some plastic discs and some slices of dead tree.
Just keep audio CDs in mind when you want to understand what it's really like. If you buy a CD, do you have to agree to an EULA the record company's presenting you with in order to be allowed to listen to it? Of course not. You're buying a piece of plastic that happens to have some information encoded on it, and while you're not allowed to make further copies of that without permission by the copyright holder (not counting scenarios where this is legally possible anyway for the sake of simplicity), you can listen to it (i.e., use it) to your heart's content.
Or if you want an even clearer example, think about books. Do you need a license from the publisher in order to read a book you just bought at the book store? Of course not, and I'm sure you'll agree that anyone who'd argue you do or that there is any kind of agreement or contract or in fact any kind of legal relationship between you and the publisher just because you handed over some cash to buy a (bound) stack of paper is batshit insane.
Software is just like that, too.
And this, incidentally, is why EULAs are actually not binding contracts even if you do read them and agree to them: a contract must necessarily be a "quid pro quo" kind of thing where both parties gain something. Since you already have the right to use the software, you do not need a license in order to be allowed to do so; therefore, clicking on the "I Agree" button does not actually give you anything, and therefore, there can be no contract.
Ah! But can't you see? God(tm) just put that light out there to make it *appear* as if the world's older than ~6000 years! It's a Test Of Our Faith(tm)!
Actually, unitarians do say something - namely, that there is exactly one higher being (the christian god). Also, when talking about buddhism, you're confusing "religion" with "theistic"; in reality, neither implies the other.
Hey, chiropractic at least work - that is, it actually makes some people feel better (and in a physical sense, too; it's not just a "feel-good" measure that puts their minds at ease). It's kinda like acupuncture in that regard; the explanations offered are probably bull, but it seems to work to some extent, so I personally think of it as an opportunity for further research.
The rest, of course, is pure unadulterated bull, and I always find it rather frightening that people are so willing to soak up all this crap in a desperate attempt to have something to believe in - something that tells them that the universe is more than a huge, cold, uncaring place, that their existence is more than just a random curiosity, and that there actually is some significance to their lifes.
The GPL *is* about freedom, but it's the freedom of the end user - the freedom of EVERYONE, not just yours. Maybe ask yourself this: in a democracy, should it be possible for people to vote for the abolishment of democracy - and if not, is it really a true democracy?
If you answered "no" and "yes", respectively (and there are good reasons for doing so), then you should also understand why the GPL is about freedom.
You can't. So unless that web store is a small enterprise where you personally know the owner, your best bet for remaining private is to go to a brick-and-mortar store to buy your stuff and pay with cash instead of using your credit card to purchase things on amazon and have them shipped to your address.
In other words... you can't really trust most stores, but you don't have to worry about that if you don't put yourself in a position where you're relying on their trustworthiness.
But if that were the case, if there were no advantage to bipedalism, then bipedal organisms would not have shown up at all
The same thing could be said about organisms with more than one pair of legs. If bipedalism is so great, why are there animals that have more than two legs? The answer, of course, is that the question is inherently meaningless.
That being said, what you really seem to be missing is that this is not even about what's ultimately more practical - it's about what is more practical *right now*. We have cars with four tyres instead of two for a reason, too, for example; not because four are necessarily better than two, but because it's easier for us to control that sort of setup right now with our existing technology.
No, TSR's downfall started in 1974 when D&D was released for the first time.
(Boy, is that going to make me unpopular... but it needs to be said. Most of (A)D&D is unimaginative crap; not all of it, certainly, but enough to turn me off.)
We also have a fairly high murder rate, one of the highest incarceration rates on the planet [...]
Minor correction: you have *the* highest incarceration rate on the planet. But of course, that only strengthens your argument - and I totally agree with what you said, anyway.
I don't know. I just watched two Simpsons episodes yesterday ('tis the fifteenth season and Marge vs. singles, seniors, childless couples and teens, and gays), and they both came across as rather - well, socially conservative to me. The former was extremely christian (at least the couch gag was good, though), and the latter basically seemed to portray childfree people as evil and reinforce the notion that breeders are entitled to things just because they, well, breed, as well as portraying the keeping of your political opponents from voting in an election by any means as an acceptable way of winning an election. (Florida 2000, anyone?)
Maybe I'm reading too much into them, but I think the Simpsons do fit right in with Fox, and the occasional poking fun at the network is just wool being drawn over your eyes.
Either the reviewer is trolling for ad-views for his website, or he is a corporate shill for MS, or he is biased and using different sets of standards to evaluate the Mac vs. (one can only presume) Windows.
It's the latter, I think. Someone else wrote a very insightful and eloquent here - I recommend checking it out. It's one of those rare comments that'd deserve a +6 if it existed.;)
I wonder if the "lock-in" crowd will ever get it? Don't want to be locked in to a good product? Ok, your choice...buy a Dell and enjoy your MS Experience. Why come to a Mac OS party and complain about Apple Hardware lock-in?
That's an absolutely bizarre statement. I really like Macs, and I'm not even convinced that this "lock-in" really exists, but... a golden cage is still a cage.
Look, when you type up a 14,000 word article, you're going to make a mistake somewhere in there. NeoOffice. OpenOffice. Similar programs. Similar names. Exact same function. Any surprise I got them a little mixed up at the end?
Given that contrary to what you claim, the names aren't similar at all... yes, it is, and it would behoove you to simply say "OK, mea culpa" instead of trying to justify your sloppiness now.
Local CD stores aren't always worth it. I remember one here in my hometown that I sometimes went to in the past; they were quite the music geeks, actually still offered vinyl discs and had a large selection of all kinds of non-mainstream music. However, they also had their problems: not only were they considerably more expensive than the larger store chains (about 30 to 40% on average, and that's no joke), but many (not all, but many) of their employees were, to be honest, arrogant pricks, and to top it all off, most of the quirkier stuff I wanted wasn't in stock and had to be ordered, anyway (not technically their fault, since there's just so much that people might want to buy and since not everything can be kept in stock, but still).
Ultimately, I stopped going there, for all the above reasons, and simply bought my CDs in a large anonymous soul-sucking chain instead. Sometimes, I still got bitchy employees, but at least they were only exhibiting the "I-hate-this-job-and-I-also-hate-every-customer" kind of bitchiness, not the "I-am-the-god-of-music-and-you-are-not-worthy" kind of bitchiness, and I also didn't have to pay a premium.
So... local CD stores are good, and I like supporting them, but in the end, I'm not going to do so just because they're local when I have to pay a premium without getting any extra service.
(As for the store mentioned above, BTW, it closed down a year or two ago. Wonder why.)
Someday, keyboards and computer mice will be remembered only as medieval-style torture devices for the wrists. All work -- emails, spreadsheets, and Google searches -- will be performed by mind control.
Every time I read naive extrapolations like that, I'm reminded of a painting I once saw - I'm not sure anymore who did it, but it was done when steam engines were first invented, and it showed the artist's vision of the future, where everything was being done with steam - driving, flying, even walking (!). It was an incredibly naive extrapolation of existing technology (steam engines) into the future, combined with a "soon, everything will be done with X" attitude, and that's exactly what I'm seeing here, too.
Slashdot Mirror
In any grade where people still have a sense of humour left.
Since when is "open source" a company?
From http://slashdot.org/faq/tags.shtml :
Not sure about the rest (like "haha" etc.), though.
Why not wait until it actually has improved before posting an article, then?
But you don't need a license agreement to USE the software. Copyright only applies to - well, copying; not use. And the fact that the retailer doesn't own the copyright to the software he's selling isn't relevant, either, for much the same reason: he's not copying anything; what he's doing is selling you a cardboard box containing some plastic discs and some slices of dead tree.
Just keep audio CDs in mind when you want to understand what it's really like. If you buy a CD, do you have to agree to an EULA the record company's presenting you with in order to be allowed to listen to it? Of course not. You're buying a piece of plastic that happens to have some information encoded on it, and while you're not allowed to make further copies of that without permission by the copyright holder (not counting scenarios where this is legally possible anyway for the sake of simplicity), you can listen to it (i.e., use it) to your heart's content.
Or if you want an even clearer example, think about books. Do you need a license from the publisher in order to read a book you just bought at the book store? Of course not, and I'm sure you'll agree that anyone who'd argue you do or that there is any kind of agreement or contract or in fact any kind of legal relationship between you and the publisher just because you handed over some cash to buy a (bound) stack of paper is batshit insane.
Software is just like that, too.
And this, incidentally, is why EULAs are actually not binding contracts even if you do read them and agree to them: a contract must necessarily be a "quid pro quo" kind of thing where both parties gain something. Since you already have the right to use the software, you do not need a license in order to be allowed to do so; therefore, clicking on the "I Agree" button does not actually give you anything, and therefore, there can be no contract.
(IANAL, of course.)
Ah! But can't you see? God(tm) just put that light out there to make it *appear* as if the world's older than ~6000 years! It's a Test Of Our Faith(tm)!
Actually, unitarians do say something - namely, that there is exactly one higher being (the christian god). Also, when talking about buddhism, you're confusing "religion" with "theistic"; in reality, neither implies the other.
Hey, chiropractic at least work - that is, it actually makes some people feel better (and in a physical sense, too; it's not just a "feel-good" measure that puts their minds at ease). It's kinda like acupuncture in that regard; the explanations offered are probably bull, but it seems to work to some extent, so I personally think of it as an opportunity for further research.
The rest, of course, is pure unadulterated bull, and I always find it rather frightening that people are so willing to soak up all this crap in a desperate attempt to have something to believe in - something that tells them that the universe is more than a huge, cold, uncaring place, that their existence is more than just a random curiosity, and that there actually is some significance to their lifes.
Yes. Maybe then we'd finally get some OSes that are actually secure.
The GPL *is* about freedom, but it's the freedom of the end user - the freedom of EVERYONE, not just yours. Maybe ask yourself this: in a democracy, should it be possible for people to vote for the abolishment of democracy - and if not, is it really a true democracy?
If you answered "no" and "yes", respectively (and there are good reasons for doing so), then you should also understand why the GPL is about freedom.
You can't. So unless that web store is a small enterprise where you personally know the owner, your best bet for remaining private is to go to a brick-and-mortar store to buy your stuff and pay with cash instead of using your credit card to purchase things on amazon and have them shipped to your address.
In other words... you can't really trust most stores, but you don't have to worry about that if you don't put yourself in a position where you're relying on their trustworthiness.
Indeed - these days, you send them to Guantanamo Bay. Or Abu Ghraib. Or secret prisons in Afghanistan, the Mmiddle East, Eastern Europe and so on...
The same thing could be said about organisms with more than one pair of legs. If bipedalism is so great, why are there animals that have more than two legs? The answer, of course, is that the question is inherently meaningless.
If the lack of a popular uprising that affects the country is a sign of democracy, then even North Korea is a democracy. Don't get silly.
No, TSR's downfall started in 1974 when D&D was released for the first time.
(Boy, is that going to make me unpopular... but it needs to be said. Most of (A)D&D is unimaginative crap; not all of it, certainly, but enough to turn me off.)
Minor correction: you have *the* highest incarceration rate on the planet. But of course, that only strengthens your argument - and I totally agree with what you said, anyway.
I don't know. I just watched two Simpsons episodes yesterday ('tis the fifteenth season and Marge vs. singles, seniors, childless couples and teens, and gays), and they both came across as rather - well, socially conservative to me. The former was extremely christian (at least the couch gag was good, though), and the latter basically seemed to portray childfree people as evil and reinforce the notion that breeders are entitled to things just because they, well, breed, as well as portraying the keeping of your political opponents from voting in an election by any means as an acceptable way of winning an election. (Florida 2000, anyone?)
Maybe I'm reading too much into them, but I think the Simpsons do fit right in with Fox, and the occasional poking fun at the network is just wool being drawn over your eyes.
It's the latter, I think. Someone else wrote a very insightful and eloquent here - I recommend checking it out. It's one of those rare comments that'd deserve a +6 if it existed. ;)
That's an absolutely bizarre statement. I really like Macs, and I'm not even convinced that this "lock-in" really exists, but... a golden cage is still a cage.
Given that contrary to what you claim, the names aren't similar at all... yes, it is, and it would behoove you to simply say "OK, mea culpa" instead of trying to justify your sloppiness now.
http://thepiratebay.org/search/pangea ;) Apparently, there really *is* a band with that name... and from Denmark, too. How curious.
Local CD stores aren't always worth it. I remember one here in my hometown that I sometimes went to in the past; they were quite the music geeks, actually still offered vinyl discs and had a large selection of all kinds of non-mainstream music. However, they also had their problems: not only were they considerably more expensive than the larger store chains (about 30 to 40% on average, and that's no joke), but many (not all, but many) of their employees were, to be honest, arrogant pricks, and to top it all off, most of the quirkier stuff I wanted wasn't in stock and had to be ordered, anyway (not technically their fault, since there's just so much that people might want to buy and since not everything can be kept in stock, but still).
Ultimately, I stopped going there, for all the above reasons, and simply bought my CDs in a large anonymous soul-sucking chain instead. Sometimes, I still got bitchy employees, but at least they were only exhibiting the "I-hate-this-job-and-I-also-hate-every-customer" kind of bitchiness, not the "I-am-the-god-of-music-and-you-are-not-worthy" kind of bitchiness, and I also didn't have to pay a premium.
So... local CD stores are good, and I like supporting them, but in the end, I'm not going to do so just because they're local when I have to pay a premium without getting any extra service.
(As for the store mentioned above, BTW, it closed down a year or two ago. Wonder why.)
Here's an ó for you: ó. Sorry, pet peeve. :)
Shit happens, you know. Planning for the worst is never a bad thing.
Every time I read naive extrapolations like that, I'm reminded of a painting I once saw - I'm not sure anymore who did it, but it was done when steam engines were first invented, and it showed the artist's vision of the future, where everything was being done with steam - driving, flying, even walking (!). It was an incredibly naive extrapolation of existing technology (steam engines) into the future, combined with a "soon, everything will be done with X" attitude, and that's exactly what I'm seeing here, too.
Just saying.