> I would hope that users new to Linux would start with a different distro
You can hope all you want, but how is someone *NEW TO LINUX* going to know which distro is more suited to their needs/abilities? Google, I guess, but that's not always a sure bet, especially with something like choosing a Linux distribution, which usually has more to do with preference than ability... not to mention most Linux users usually think their own distro is the best for one reason or another.
> 5 years ago, secretaries were more efficient with a copy of wordperfect 5.1 for DOS on an old 286 with 2 megs of ram than they are today with, literally, 100 times more computing power.
I disagree....sort of. It may be true that the people who used to be considered "WP experts" were, on average, faster than the group of people who are currently considered "WP experts."
The big difference is that the older group HAD to take a lot of preparation/training time to learn a million key combinations. The end result (after many hours of training and practice) is that they could put out formatted documents quickly. The people in the "current" group do not know those key-combos and so must use the mouse, necessarily slowing them down during use. However, current users are able to use the program nearly as efficiently (as an old expert) without all that initial training/practicing.
I don't believe it has anything to do with the PC they are using, but the interface they operate under.
> Maybe, just maybe, Linux isn't as good as it's cracked up to be?
No, that's not it. It's just that it's like a Hungarian lover.... Rough and unapologetic, but not too bad once you understand them. If you didn't like the Ford/Dodge analogy, this one's way better!
Then buy one. Or establish one. No one is keeping you from doing it.
> I've lived in 3 different cities now, and never once had I found one that banned smoking.
I've lived in one city and one town. The city (in WV) banned smoking in all public places. Actually, it wasn't the city, it was an unelected board who illegally FORCED the ban on the city. The town (OH) doesn't have an explicit ban, but most places enforce their own ban. Anecdotal evidence can go both ways, YMMV.
> Someone else is causing harm to me by smoking near me. I consider that an attack.
You are trying to harm my freedom of choice as well as the freedom of choice of business owners. That is an attack. Going to places that allow smoking and getting pissed because people smoke is NOT an attack.
> I don't feel like I should be forced to breath it in also just going about my day to day life.
You are in no way FORCED to breath in cigarette smoke in your day-to-day life. You may be inconvenienced in that you have to search for a non-smoking establishment, but it is deceitful for you to say you are forced.
> Does power corrupt or does power attract the corruptible?
Everyone is corruptible in one way or another... However, it is still a good question. I believe that both are true, but not universal and not always intentional. For many, the desire to help others grows into an arrogance that leads them to believe they must force people into behaving in a way that is acceptable to the corrupted individual. The whole "Politically Correct" bullshit was started with good intentions but led to people trying to curtail free speech. The war in Iraq could very well have been intended as protection from attack, but its actual effect has been a decrease in protection.
Sure, the developers have an arrogant attitude, but why is it NOT considered arrogant to assume that you should have their undivided attention to answer questions that are answered in the freely available documentation?
A blueprint is the same thing, IMO. So when you patent a machine, do you patent an existing machine that you have already built, or the way in which it works (its blueprint)?
> I bet Ewan McGregor or Hayden Christensen would've looked pretty lame
Actually, I've seen footage of them doing part of the volcano-planet fight (not a true SW geek, don't remember the name) in front of the green screen. While it wasn't as dramatic as the movie, they were still well choreographed. With a choreographer, Raza G. probably would have looked considerably better (not that that is the point). With that in mind, the flamebait mods on my post were probably justified:)
> I think I should point out that a 30.06 isn't a close range weapon
The type of kid who knows the difference between a 30-06 & a sniper rifle isn't generally the same kind of kid that goes on a shooting spree. Unless he learned up on it while planning, of course... Plus, they probably wouldn't have a sniper rifle to begin with.
I agree, except that the amount rewarded was not reported. $350K was what the lawyers tried to get, but it was settled, implying the payout was significantly less than the sought-after damages.
I agree, partially. However, his embarassment isn't worth 350 grand. I'd be less inclined to make fun of him (which I never did until I read about the sought-after damages) if they had asked for a reasonable settlement. Maybe 5 grand, 6, TOPS. But when you ask for damages that probably exceed all the defendents' combined yearly incomes, it is past ridiculous.
You may have a perfectly-working sense of humour. The video is not funny, it's 100% stupid. Some kid jumping around like a Methed Manatee. Big deal.
What's REALLY funny is his claim in court that "he let himself go and no longer lifted weights to keep fit." That fat fuck wasn't "fit" when it was recorded, so unless he had his stomach stapled between then and when he found out it was on the Internet, he's a fat fucking LIAR.
(Full disclosure: I am also a fat fuck and partial idiot; the difference is that I don't claim otherwise.)
> I don't need the master recording of a song to be able to distribute and change that song, but if I don't have the source to a program, all I can do is distribute a binary.
Do decompiling and reverse engineering no longer work? If you know enough assembly you can always modify a binary. It may be harder to do, but it can be done. Similarly, yes, you can modify a song and rerelease it, but without the master, the result will usually not be as good. What if you wanted to change the drum line of a song? Yes, you can use equalizers and filters to remove them, but drum set frequencies are all over the place (kick drums & hihats are not very similar, acoustically).
So it's possible, but difficult to do effectively; so is reverse engineering software.
Of course, I am not a software engineer and have not decompiled anything since the early nineties and I imagine there are ways to make it more difficult, but if the processor can execute the code, you can figure out how it works. I have, however, "decompiled" music.
Even an automatically scanned image of it would show tape, and if it was OCR'ed they would almost HAVE to go back to the original... all that tape would screw up OCR, no question. Someone HAD to have saw it and passed it along.
Yeah, I remembered NFS just after posting, but didn't want to reply to myself. Even though he'd still need to go through all the paperwork, it might still be a good idea for his situation.
The only reason it would take more code in another language is the sqrt function, which has already been written, and can be easily imported, in most other languages.
OH, SNAP!!! You make an excellent point. Just because we (as experienced programmers) think something is simple (even if it is, sort of) doesn't mean it's actually simple to use for the end-user.
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> I would hope that users new to Linux would start with a different distro
You can hope all you want, but how is someone *NEW TO LINUX* going to know which distro is more suited to their needs/abilities? Google, I guess, but that's not always a sure bet, especially with something like choosing a Linux distribution, which usually has more to do with preference than ability... not to mention most Linux users usually think their own distro is the best for one reason or another.
> 5 years ago, secretaries were more efficient with a copy of wordperfect 5.1 for DOS on an old 286 with 2 megs of ram than they are today with, literally, 100 times more computing power.
I disagree....sort of. It may be true that the people who used to be considered "WP experts" were, on average, faster than the group of people who are currently considered "WP experts."
The big difference is that the older group HAD to take a lot of preparation/training time to learn a million key combinations. The end result (after many hours of training and practice) is that they could put out formatted documents quickly. The people in the "current" group do not know those key-combos and so must use the mouse, necessarily slowing them down during use. However, current users are able to use the program nearly as efficiently (as an old expert) without all that initial training/practicing.
I don't believe it has anything to do with the PC they are using, but the interface they operate under.
> Idiot. Get some business skills.
Getting "business skills" is your solution to not having any "technical skills?"
> no newbie in his right mind would try gentoo as his first distro, and if he did the person who recommended it to him should be shot
That's what I thought when I read this comment further up the page, saying "I've found so far, the most friendly to newbs distro, is probably Gentoo."
> Maybe, just maybe, Linux isn't as good as it's cracked up to be?
No, that's not it. It's just that it's like a Hungarian lover.... Rough and unapologetic, but not too bad once you understand them. If you didn't like the Ford/Dodge analogy, this one's way better!
> Alas, I do not own any establishment.
Then buy one. Or establish one. No one is keeping you from doing it.
> I've lived in 3 different cities now, and never once had I found one that banned smoking.
I've lived in one city and one town. The city (in WV) banned smoking in all public places. Actually, it wasn't the city, it was an unelected board who illegally FORCED the ban on the city. The town (OH) doesn't have an explicit ban, but most places enforce their own ban. Anecdotal evidence can go both ways, YMMV.
> Someone else is causing harm to me by smoking near me. I consider that an attack.
You are trying to harm my freedom of choice as well as the freedom of choice of business owners. That is an attack. Going to places that allow smoking and getting pissed because people smoke is NOT an attack.
> I don't feel like I should be forced to breath it in also just going about my day to day life.
You are in no way FORCED to breath in cigarette smoke in your day-to-day life. You may be inconvenienced in that you have to search for a non-smoking establishment, but it is deceitful for you to say you are forced.
> Does power corrupt or does power attract the corruptible?
Everyone is corruptible in one way or another... However, it is still a good question. I believe that both are true, but not universal and not always intentional. For many, the desire to help others grows into an arrogance that leads them to believe they must force people into behaving in a way that is acceptable to the corrupted individual. The whole "Politically Correct" bullshit was started with good intentions but led to people trying to curtail free speech. The war in Iraq could very well have been intended as protection from attack, but its actual effect has been a decrease in protection.
Sure, the developers have an arrogant attitude, but why is it NOT considered arrogant to assume that you should have their undivided attention to answer questions that are answered in the freely available documentation?
> It's a description of knowledge
A blueprint is the same thing, IMO. So when you patent a machine, do you patent an existing machine that you have already built, or the way in which it works (its blueprint)?
> Momentum != gusto...
My thoughts exactly.
> I bet Ewan McGregor or Hayden Christensen would've looked pretty lame
:)
Actually, I've seen footage of them doing part of the volcano-planet fight (not a true SW geek, don't remember the name) in front of the green screen. While it wasn't as dramatic as the movie, they were still well choreographed. With a choreographer, Raza G. probably would have looked considerably better (not that that is the point). With that in mind, the flamebait mods on my post were probably justified
Don't know, they never showed that on TV, thankfully.
> I think I should point out that a 30.06 isn't a close range weapon
The type of kid who knows the difference between a 30-06 & a sniper rifle isn't generally the same kind of kid that goes on a shooting spree. Unless he learned up on it while planning, of course... Plus, they probably wouldn't have a sniper rifle to begin with.
> You don't know living hell. There are people raped by their own fathers.
Just because you can imagine something worse doesn't mean that the original action isn't terrible.
I agree, except that the amount rewarded was not reported. $350K was what the lawyers tried to get, but it was settled, implying the payout was significantly less than the sought-after damages.
I agree, partially. However, his embarassment isn't worth 350 grand. I'd be less inclined to make fun of him (which I never did until I read about the sought-after damages) if they had asked for a reasonable settlement. Maybe 5 grand, 6, TOPS. But when you ask for damages that probably exceed all the defendents' combined yearly incomes, it is past ridiculous.
> In case you didn't laugh the first time....
You may have a perfectly-working sense of humour. The video is not funny, it's 100% stupid. Some kid jumping around like a Methed Manatee. Big deal.
What's REALLY funny is his claim in court that "he let himself go and no longer lifted weights to keep fit." That fat fuck wasn't "fit" when it was recorded, so unless he had his stomach stapled between then and when he found out it was on the Internet, he's a fat fucking LIAR.
(Full disclosure: I am also a fat fuck and partial idiot; the difference is that I don't claim otherwise.)
> I don't need the master recording of a song to be able to distribute and change that song, but if I don't have the source to a program, all I can do is distribute a binary.
Do decompiling and reverse engineering no longer work? If you know enough assembly you can always modify a binary. It may be harder to do, but it can be done. Similarly, yes, you can modify a song and rerelease it, but without the master, the result will usually not be as good. What if you wanted to change the drum line of a song? Yes, you can use equalizers and filters to remove them, but drum set frequencies are all over the place (kick drums & hihats are not very similar, acoustically).
So it's possible, but difficult to do effectively; so is reverse engineering software.
Of course, I am not a software engineer and have not decompiled anything since the early nineties and I imagine there are ways to make it more difficult, but if the processor can execute the code, you can figure out how it works. I have, however, "decompiled" music.
Even an automatically scanned image of it would show tape, and if it was OCR'ed they would almost HAVE to go back to the original... all that tape would screw up OCR, no question. Someone HAD to have saw it and passed it along.
> suddenly RFID is not evil... religion is evil and RFID is defended.
Actually, I don't see people defending RFID. I see people saying this lady is crazf for thinking it's bad in this way, not just for thinking it's bad.
Good call, that is far more extreme :)
> we make good use of NFS
Yeah, I remembered NFS just after posting, but didn't want to reply to myself. Even though he'd still need to go through all the paperwork, it might still be a good idea for his situation.
Holy moly, that has some serious potential for multi-OS businesses. Thanks!
The only reason it would take more code in another language is the sqrt function, which has already been written, and can be easily imported, in most other languages.
OH, SNAP!!! You make an excellent point. Just because we (as experienced programmers) think something is simple (even if it is, sort of) doesn't mean it's actually simple to use for the end-user.