OK, here's the disclaimer. I've been using the betas (1, 2, and 3) since they were first released. I don't know how much of the following is still valid information, although I suspect all of it is.
To MASSIVELY increase performance of Gnome 2.0 on Solaris... 1) Install the mlib libraries. 2) Do a CUSTOM installation, and make sure that 64 bit libraries are included if your hardware is 64 bit. (they weren't by default in the betas) 3) Don't use transparent windows. 4) Don't use a fancy bitmapped background. 5) If you do, store it on your local drive. (we had problems with NIS/autoFS users keeping their bitmaps in their home directories--on the server) 5) Add more memory. 6) Add more memory.
I was using the Beta3 on a blade100/550MHz with 128MB of RAM. It was almost unusable, when Mozilla was running. Now I have a Blade150/650MHz with 512MHz of RAM, and it's fast. Faster than CDE ever was on anything that existed when CDE was first introduced. With Gnome 2.0, Mozilla, Staroffice/Openoffice, Acroread, and mediaplayer, I can get away from Windows for all non-game requirements.
Sun is becoming irrelevant?????? Holy shit man, where did you hear that?
Linux is coming. Microsoft is pretending. IBM is still stuck in the dark ages. Sun is, despite their stock value, a HUGELY important company/platform/(hardware/software solution) in several markets. Perhaps the biggest is the petro/oil industry, but believe me--there is no way that Sun is going to become irrelevant in the next five years.
Yes I said five years. Yes, I *do* know how huge five years is in IT. IBM will be gone before Sun.
I mean 100% reliable. A theoretical 100% reliable. Data will never go sour or get corrupted. Ever.
In that mythical case, it's still not a good storage solution. 100% data reliability doesn't factor in a bomb or a fire. Nor does it factor in the potential of a power loss (which might not affect reliability, but will affect availability), or for that matter, the limit of a single connection to the computer.
My point is that there are many reasons for using multiple hard drives in multiple cabinets OTHER than just reliability.
Well, maybe not wrong on the processor side. From the vendor side (i.e. the Dells, IBMs, Compaqs, Toshibas of the world), there's just no margin to be made. Services are the only places these companies make money on the desktop, and even that's a tough sell.
Now if Intel can sell decent volume at a decent profit, they'll be fine. However, if the desktop manufacturers can't make a profit on the desktop, then the desktop computer will become a commodity, and CPU prices/profits will fall as a result.
So Intel has to keep both oars in the water. Besides, this processor is FAR bigger than just Intel. Look at the companies who collaborated on it.
While it is NOT legally required to describe what copy protection shite you've put on a disc, Philips has correctly and vigorously defended their trademark.
If it says it's a CD, it doesn't have copy protection. If it says it's a CD and has copy protection, then they're violating Philips' trademark, and can expect a call from the lawyers. Very simple, and no new legislation needs be introduced.
Unfortunately, nobody reads labels like that anyways.
1) So what's so unreliable about current storage? Disks can and do eventually die, but so do ***ALL*** mechanical devices. The magnetic lifespan of a disk is not clearly the limiting factor in the life of a hard drive. Half of the drives I replace die as a fail to spin up properly--not something we like to see, but an indication that the short life of the magnetic states aren't the most unreliable part of a hard drive.
2) I don't see any indication that this is 'fragile' technology, on the macroscopic scale. Sure the signals are smaller, but once you reliably detect them they can be amplified ad nauseum, and reliable detection is what this is all about.
3) Large scale enterprise storage in our current realm of thinking, requires high speed access and high reliability, and does NOT involve single drives. Hardware RAID5, RAID 1+0, RAID 5+0 (I've seen it done!) etc. is the way to get high reliability and high performance. Having a single hard drive, even one that's 100% reliable, isn't a reasonable storage solution for mission critical data, and so consequently there's not a lot of demand for a 100% reliable hard drive.
Serious question here. I've never seen a good answer.
If I buy an album, then I see no problems with downloading a copy of it. After all, I could legally tape/rip it. I'm also not sure that sharing it is illegal.
If I legally own an album and make it available to a p2p network, is the onus on me or the downloader to prove the legality of it?
But you're limiting the last point unnecessarily. It should just be, "Reduce the worker's wage." The fact that it's being done by moving work to countries with a lower minimum or effective wage is mostly irrelevant. It's happening to jobs that are staying in the first world as well, by such means as wage freezes, benefit cutbacks, and reduction in quality of the work environment.
95%? Definitely. 99%? Possibly. 99.999%? Maybe even that much of p2p file sharing is stolen material. The WHOLE POINT of the previous poster's message was that what this law attacks is illegal behaviour. The punishment IS disproportionate, and should be challenged on that basis. But the/. article was wrong on the fundamental point: It's not p2p that's illegal--it's the illegal distribution of copyrighted material that's (gasp!) illegal. Even if 100% of material being traded on p2p networks is in violation of copyright, it still doesn't inherently make p2p illegal in and of itself!
Right. I understand that. However, imagine this scenario:
"Today Microsoft issued a patch to fix a critical security bug in all versions of their OS. Without this patch, an intruder can take over your computer, erase your pr0n, seduce your wife, and kill your goldfish. Copyright was applied for and granted on the patched version of each OS."
"2) Copyrights apply to specific versions or editions of works, rather than the work in general. To give an example, Version 2.0 of a piece of software is protected by a different copyright than Version 1.0 was."
Although I agree with this in theory, it's a huge loophole waiting to happen. If you don't very carefully define what qualifies as a separate edition of a work (something which may be impossible), then every bug fix, every patch, and every minor tweak will be a 'new version!!!' for the sake of resetting the copyright.
I like the ideas, though. How can we get around the potential holes?
Hmm. This has been an interesting point about mozilla that I've always disliked.
It comes to this: What's the bloody POINT? I mean sure, you do the development, and then someone releases an official supported browser (netscape, etc.). That's fine, but it comes very close to playing in the sandbox again. The relationship between the mozilla developers and the Netscape folks seems somewhat nebulous, with netscape taking from the Mozilla project milestones when they feel like it. Ultimately without a closer (or perhaps more formal) tie to Netscape, then they're just making noise and hoping someone will record them.
That also doesn't take into account the fact that Mozilla is a damned fine browser, and Netscape hasn't done anything other than glue a few annoying ads onto it.
I guess my point is that most OSS projects seem to degenerate into a schedule-less series of perpetual betas. When someone comes along with a major project that has timelines, goals, targets, etc. (like Mozilla) they STILL aren't willing to create a final product. More succinctly, The Open Source Movement isn't producing any real software!
Mozilla needs to release an unsupported final product, and most other projects out there need to follow their example.
Fairly simple. Kazaa is a proprietary client using a specific, 'proprietary' protocol[1]. There's only one company behind it, even if the distribution itself is well, distributed.
Now something like Gnutella is going to be near impossible to kill.
[1]proprietary is in quotes here because the very concept of a proprietary network protocol is somewhat questionable. Suffice to say, it's not an openly revealed protocol.
In this particular case, I tend to agree with you with one exception:
"...with few criticisms even remotely applicable to the gift you've received."
Amongst all of the crap and spew that he posted, there were several valid criticisms of the product(s) he tried. Consider this:
(A) There are two ways he could have returned the 'unacceptable' gift while providing input. These are... >>>"This fucking damned program is a pile of shit! It doesn't even do "X" right!!! What a bunch of fucktards."
and
>>>"I've tried and I've tried, but I just can't get "X" to work on this program. It seems to me that "X" is really a necessary feature of any program that claims to do (generic X-related function)."
The developer (and supporters) in turn, can respond in one of two ways.
>>>"If you don't like it, then write your own, asshole!"
or...
>>>"OK, valid point. I should be working on basic functionality and stability before toys (like skins)."
In a proper world, JWZ would complain in the second (polite) manner, and the developers would consider the complaint and respond in their second, constructive manner. (this is assuming that the complaint is valid in the first place)
JWZ complained in the first way, which is inexcusable. The manner, though, does not affect the amount of information in his diatribe. The developers (or in this case their supporters on/.) responded in the first way, which helps even less(!) than JWZ's obnoxious complaint.
Worse yet is that I've seen the religion of OpenSourceSoftware be used as an excuse to reply to EVERY suggestion, complaint, or commentary with "fuck you, write it yourself."
And just as an aside, his "outdated distro" was released on the same date as Windows XP. If you have an OS that will run for two years without a reboot, but needs to be reinstalled every four months, then you're not very far ahead.
Ironically, you're defending the very point that the parent poster made, from exactly the opposite direction.
Development speed doesn't matter that much in this context. Progress curve is mostly irrelevant. If I have to do a minor OS upgrade once a week, or a complete rebuild once every six months, then it's not a viable stable desktop environment. I wouldn't do that in a server environment, and I don't want to do it at home either.
RH 7.2 was released at the end of October, 2001. At slightly over a year old, it's now being called completely antiquated and outdated. That's a real problem for a user.
OK, I can live with stuff that's being 'actively developed.' At the same time as I've posted elsewhere in this thread, there has to be a point where a particular version of a product (defined mostly as a featureset and level of stability) has to be finished and cut free. Perpetual beta releases with no end to the added features in each release doesn't produce usable software. It just produces...perpetual beta releases.
Think of the Linux kernel itself: It comes out with a specific featureset, and (fairly) well debugged. Some things are simply not included in a given release. Development then works on the next featureset, and builds that to a releasable product. Discrete 'final products' like this MUST be part of a software development cycle, or you're not developing; you're just playing in the sandbox.
Hmm. This is an important point. The programmers/developers work hard. They try to write stuff they want to use. If it doesn't work well (or doesn't work well for YOU), then that shouldn't lessen your basic respect for their attempt. (It may or may not lessen your respect for their programming abilities, but that's valid)
I still stand by my original point: telling people to go write their own if they don't like it (because the source is there!!!) is a cheap cop-out, excuse for not taking responsibility for your own work.
But yeah, programmers deserve basic human respect.
OK, is this a wild, psychotic, venomous, incoherent, and possible drug-induced rant? Well of course it is!
But the problem he brings up is still a real one, and most of the invective directed at him competely misses it.
Video on Linux (and many MANY other aspects of Linux in general) sucks from the end user point of view. If I have to compile it to make it work properly, then Linux is nothing more than a hobbyist OS. If I have to write my own bloody software, then it's nothing better than a hardcore geek toy OS.
Why isn't Linux taking over the desktop market? It's not MS bullshit (of which there's certainly a lot), it's Linux bullshit. The fundamental problem is that it is not a useful generic-end-user capable OS, and telling people to go write their own software if they don't like it...DOESN'T HELP!!!
JWZ doesn't have to use Linux. I don't have to use Linux. Countering with confrontation (i.e. JWZ) with abuse isn't going to win any converts.
Therein lies a major problem with Linux as a whole. It is always and continually under development. The kernel and most distros have official production-ready milestones, but most (almost all, in fact) of the apps out there are in a continual beta release cycle. Nothing ever gets finished. Nothing ever gets documented. Nothing turns into a 'final' release, with development moved onto the next version.
Nothing? OK, not quite nothing, but even Mozilla (one of the finest examples of recently complete software) is still being released 'for testing purposes only.'
"Maybe he could try developping sommething, since the source code is there."
I just have two things to say to this comment.
1) Shut. 2) Up.
I am so SICK and TIRED of people mistaking the point of open source in this way! I am not a developer. I am not a programmer. I do not have the time, skills, or inclination to write a media player from scratch, or even fix one of the many broken ones. The fact that I (theoretically) CAN get and modify the source doesn't automatically mean that I MUST do so, if I don't like what's out there. It also does not affect the degree to which the existing players suck!
Once again:
1) The openness of the source code doesn't make the current software suck any less. 2) The OSS-given ability to (re)write software is not a de facto requirement to (re)write said software. It does not absolve the original programmers of their responsibilty to write non-crap.
You're quite right. Unfortunately, it appears to be Official Policy from/. editors that they don't edit./. is a fun and entertaining (and occasionally even educational!) discussion forum, but I'm afraid that the technically literate[1] activists[2] with something to contribute[3] have learned that here isn't the place to do it.
Sad but true
[1] Most of slashdot qualify as technically literate [2] Not that many of them are activists--most just rant [3] Very few indeed.
Well, nothing justifies terrorism, targetted or random. Nothing.
That said, the mindset of some nations and some religions lean more towards terrorism. Canada, to pick the easiest case, isn't likely to breed terrorists. But within the law-abiding and respectful attitude north of the border lies a whole heck of a lot of disgust and even hatred for the US.
The US HAS been meddling where it doesn't belong, and it's running out of allies. Just ask the UN about who will follow them into war.
Slashdot Mirror
OK, here's the disclaimer. I've been using the betas (1, 2, and 3) since they were first released. I don't know how much of the following is still valid information, although I suspect all of it is.
To MASSIVELY increase performance of Gnome 2.0 on Solaris...
1) Install the mlib libraries.
2) Do a CUSTOM installation, and make sure that 64 bit libraries are included if your hardware is 64 bit. (they weren't by default in the betas)
3) Don't use transparent windows.
4) Don't use a fancy bitmapped background.
5) If you do, store it on your local drive. (we had problems with NIS/autoFS users keeping their bitmaps in their home directories--on the server)
5) Add more memory.
6) Add more memory.
I was using the Beta3 on a blade100/550MHz with 128MB of RAM. It was almost unusable, when Mozilla was running. Now I have a Blade150/650MHz with 512MHz of RAM, and it's fast. Faster than CDE ever was on anything that existed when CDE was first introduced. With Gnome 2.0, Mozilla, Staroffice/Openoffice, Acroread, and mediaplayer, I can get away from Windows for all non-game requirements.
Sun is becoming irrelevant?????? Holy shit man, where did you hear that?
Linux is coming. Microsoft is pretending. IBM is still stuck in the dark ages. Sun is, despite their stock value, a HUGELY important company/platform/(hardware/software solution) in several markets. Perhaps the biggest is the petro/oil industry, but believe me--there is no way that Sun is going to become irrelevant in the next five years.
Yes I said five years. Yes, I *do* know how huge five years is in IT. IBM will be gone before Sun.
No no no. You're missing my point entirely.
I mean 100% reliable. A theoretical 100% reliable. Data will never go sour or get corrupted. Ever.
In that mythical case, it's still not a good storage solution. 100% data reliability doesn't factor in a bomb or a fire. Nor does it factor in the potential of a power loss (which might not affect reliability, but will affect availability), or for that matter, the limit of a single connection to the computer.
My point is that there are many reasons for using multiple hard drives in multiple cabinets OTHER than just reliability.
Heh. WRONG!
Well, maybe not wrong on the processor side. From the vendor side (i.e. the Dells, IBMs, Compaqs, Toshibas of the world), there's just no margin to be made. Services are the only places these companies make money on the desktop, and even that's a tough sell.
Now if Intel can sell decent volume at a decent profit, they'll be fine. However, if the desktop manufacturers can't make a profit on the desktop, then the desktop computer will become a commodity, and CPU prices/profits will fall as a result.
So Intel has to keep both oars in the water. Besides, this processor is FAR bigger than just Intel. Look at the companies who collaborated on it.
While it is NOT legally required to describe what copy protection shite you've put on a disc, Philips has correctly and vigorously defended their trademark.
If it says it's a CD, it doesn't have copy protection. If it says it's a CD and has copy protection, then they're violating Philips' trademark, and can expect a call from the lawyers. Very simple, and no new legislation needs be introduced.
Unfortunately, nobody reads labels like that anyways.
Hmm. Several points come to mind.
1) So what's so unreliable about current storage? Disks can and do eventually die, but so do ***ALL*** mechanical devices. The magnetic lifespan of a disk is not clearly the limiting factor in the life of a hard drive. Half of the drives I replace die as a fail to spin up properly--not something we like to see, but an indication that the short life of the magnetic states aren't the most unreliable part of a hard drive.
2) I don't see any indication that this is 'fragile' technology, on the macroscopic scale. Sure the signals are smaller, but once you reliably detect them they can be amplified ad nauseum, and reliable detection is what this is all about.
3) Large scale enterprise storage in our current realm of thinking, requires high speed access and high reliability, and does NOT involve single drives. Hardware RAID5, RAID 1+0, RAID 5+0 (I've seen it done!) etc. is the way to get high reliability and high performance. Having a single hard drive, even one that's 100% reliable, isn't a reasonable storage solution for mission critical data, and so consequently there's not a lot of demand for a 100% reliable hard drive.
Serious question here. I've never seen a good answer.
If I buy an album, then I see no problems with downloading a copy of it. After all, I could legally tape/rip it. I'm also not sure that sharing it is illegal.
If I legally own an album and make it available to a p2p network, is the onus on me or the downloader to prove the legality of it?
Thank god for the pinko-commie propaganda!!!
But you're limiting the last point unnecessarily. It should just be, "Reduce the worker's wage." The fact that it's being done by moving work to countries with a lower minimum or effective wage is mostly irrelevant. It's happening to jobs that are staying in the first world as well, by such means as wage freezes, benefit cutbacks, and reduction in quality of the work environment.
Ooh, now THAT'S not racist at all!
Have a nice day, yank. I'll wave to you as I pass by the soup kitchen.
Um...How about Sun? Remember them?
Solaris is going to have Gnome 2.0 as the default desktop with Solaris.
KDE might run away with the Linux market, but there's a lot more out there than just Linux, and Gnome is already set in stone for some of them.
I believe you just agreed with the parent post.
/. article was wrong on the fundamental point: It's not p2p that's illegal--it's the illegal distribution of copyrighted material that's (gasp!) illegal. Even if 100% of material being traded on p2p networks is in violation of copyright, it still doesn't inherently make p2p illegal in and of itself!
95%? Definitely. 99%? Possibly. 99.999%? Maybe even that much of p2p file sharing is stolen material. The WHOLE POINT of the previous poster's message was that what this law attacks is illegal behaviour. The punishment IS disproportionate, and should be challenged on that basis. But the
Right. I understand that. However, imagine this scenario:
"Today Microsoft issued a patch to fix a critical security bug in all versions of their OS. Without this patch, an intruder can take over your computer, erase your pr0n, seduce your wife, and kill your goldfish. Copyright was applied for and granted on the patched version of each OS."
Use the current version, or DIE! Hmmm...
"2) Copyrights apply to specific versions or editions of works, rather than the work in general. To give an example, Version 2.0 of a piece of software is protected by a different copyright than Version 1.0 was."
Although I agree with this in theory, it's a huge loophole waiting to happen. If you don't very carefully define what qualifies as a separate edition of a work (something which may be impossible), then every bug fix, every patch, and every minor tweak will be a 'new version!!!' for the sake of resetting the copyright.
I like the ideas, though. How can we get around the potential holes?
Hmm. This has been an interesting point about mozilla that I've always disliked.
It comes to this: What's the bloody POINT? I mean sure, you do the development, and then someone releases an official supported browser (netscape, etc.). That's fine, but it comes very close to playing in the sandbox again. The relationship between the mozilla developers and the Netscape folks seems somewhat nebulous, with netscape taking from the Mozilla project milestones when they feel like it. Ultimately without a closer (or perhaps more formal) tie to Netscape, then they're just making noise and hoping someone will record them.
That also doesn't take into account the fact that Mozilla is a damned fine browser, and Netscape hasn't done anything other than glue a few annoying ads onto it.
I guess my point is that most OSS projects seem to degenerate into a schedule-less series of perpetual betas. When someone comes along with a major project that has timelines, goals, targets, etc. (like Mozilla) they STILL aren't willing to create a final product. More succinctly, The Open Source Movement isn't producing any real software!
Mozilla needs to release an unsupported final product, and most other projects out there need to follow their example.
Fairly simple. Kazaa is a proprietary client using a specific, 'proprietary' protocol[1]. There's only one company behind it, even if the distribution itself is well, distributed.
Now something like Gnutella is going to be near impossible to kill.
[1]proprietary is in quotes here because the very concept of a proprietary network protocol is somewhat questionable. Suffice to say, it's not an openly revealed protocol.
In this particular case, I tend to agree with you with one exception:
/.) responded in the first way, which helps even less(!) than JWZ's obnoxious complaint.
"...with few criticisms even remotely applicable to the gift you've received."
Amongst all of the crap and spew that he posted, there were several valid criticisms of the product(s) he tried. Consider this:
(A) There are two ways he could have returned the 'unacceptable' gift while providing input. These are...
>>>"This fucking damned program is a pile of shit! It doesn't even do "X" right!!! What a bunch of fucktards."
and
>>>"I've tried and I've tried, but I just can't get "X" to work on this program. It seems to me that "X" is really a necessary feature of any program that claims to do (generic X-related function)."
The developer (and supporters) in turn, can respond in one of two ways.
>>>"If you don't like it, then write your own, asshole!"
or...
>>>"OK, valid point. I should be working on basic functionality and stability before toys (like skins)."
In a proper world, JWZ would complain in the second (polite) manner, and the developers would consider the complaint and respond in their second, constructive manner. (this is assuming that the complaint is valid in the first place)
JWZ complained in the first way, which is inexcusable. The manner, though, does not affect the amount of information in his diatribe.
The developers (or in this case their supporters on
Worse yet is that I've seen the religion of OpenSourceSoftware be used as an excuse to reply to EVERY suggestion, complaint, or commentary with "fuck you, write it yourself."
And just as an aside, his "outdated distro" was released on the same date as Windows XP. If you have an OS that will run for two years without a reboot, but needs to be reinstalled every four months, then you're not very far ahead.
Ironically, you're defending the very point that the parent poster made, from exactly the opposite direction.
Development speed doesn't matter that much in this context. Progress curve is mostly irrelevant. If I have to do a minor OS upgrade once a week, or a complete rebuild once every six months, then it's not a viable stable desktop environment. I wouldn't do that in a server environment, and I don't want to do it at home either.
RH 7.2 was released at the end of October, 2001. At slightly over a year old, it's now being called completely antiquated and outdated. That's a real problem for a user.
OK, I can live with stuff that's being 'actively developed.' At the same time as I've posted elsewhere in this thread, there has to be a point where a particular version of a product (defined mostly as a featureset and level of stability) has to be finished and cut free. Perpetual beta releases with no end to the added features in each release doesn't produce usable software. It just produces...perpetual beta releases.
Think of the Linux kernel itself: It comes out with a specific featureset, and (fairly) well debugged. Some things are simply not included in a given release. Development then works on the next featureset, and builds that to a releasable product. Discrete 'final products' like this MUST be part of a software development cycle, or you're not developing; you're just playing in the sandbox.
Hmm. This is an important point. The programmers/developers work hard. They try to write stuff they want to use. If it doesn't work well (or doesn't work well for YOU), then that shouldn't lessen your basic respect for their attempt. (It may or may not lessen your respect for their programming abilities, but that's valid)
I still stand by my original point: telling people to go write their own if they don't like it (because the source is there!!!) is a cheap cop-out, excuse for not taking responsibility for your own work.
But yeah, programmers deserve basic human respect.
OK, is this a wild, psychotic, venomous, incoherent, and possible drug-induced rant? Well of course it is!
But the problem he brings up is still a real one, and most of the invective directed at him competely misses it.
Video on Linux (and many MANY other aspects of Linux in general) sucks from the end user point of view. If I have to compile it to make it work properly, then Linux is nothing more than a hobbyist OS. If I have to write my own bloody software, then it's nothing better than a hardcore geek toy OS.
Why isn't Linux taking over the desktop market? It's not MS bullshit (of which there's certainly a lot), it's Linux bullshit. The fundamental problem is that it is not a useful generic-end-user capable OS, and telling people to go write their own software if they don't like it...DOESN'T HELP!!!
JWZ doesn't have to use Linux. I don't have to use Linux. Countering with confrontation (i.e. JWZ) with abuse isn't going to win any converts.
these program are still under development...
Therein lies a major problem with Linux as a whole. It is always and continually under development. The kernel and most distros have official production-ready milestones, but most (almost all, in fact) of the apps out there are in a continual beta release cycle. Nothing ever gets finished. Nothing ever gets documented. Nothing turns into a 'final' release, with development moved onto the next version.
Nothing? OK, not quite nothing, but even Mozilla (one of the finest examples of recently complete software) is still being released 'for testing purposes only.'
"Maybe he could try developping sommething, since the source code is there."
I just have two things to say to this comment.
1) Shut.
2) Up.
I am so SICK and TIRED of people mistaking the point of open source in this way! I am not a developer. I am not a programmer. I do not have the time, skills, or inclination to write a media player from scratch, or even fix one of the many broken ones. The fact that I (theoretically) CAN get and modify the source doesn't automatically mean that I MUST do so, if I don't like what's out there. It also does not affect the degree to which the existing players suck!
Once again:
1) The openness of the source code doesn't make the current software suck any less.
2) The OSS-given ability to (re)write software is not a de facto requirement to (re)write said software. It does not absolve the original programmers of their responsibilty to write non-crap.
How common is checking for updates? Easy--how many customers has NetSol burned by making mistakes?
On second thought, how many customers does NetSol have at all? I can't imagine that they have any customers that they haven't screwed yet.
You're quite right. Unfortunately, it appears to be Official Policy from /. editors that they don't edit. /. is a fun and entertaining (and occasionally even educational!) discussion forum, but I'm afraid that the technically literate[1] activists[2] with something to contribute[3] have learned that here isn't the place to do it.
Sad but true
[1] Most of slashdot qualify as technically literate
[2] Not that many of them are activists--most just rant
[3] Very few indeed.
Well, nothing justifies terrorism, targetted or random. Nothing.
That said, the mindset of some nations and some religions lean more towards terrorism. Canada, to pick the easiest case, isn't likely to breed terrorists. But within the law-abiding and respectful attitude north of the border lies a whole heck of a lot of disgust and even hatred for the US.
The US HAS been meddling where it doesn't belong, and it's running out of allies. Just ask the UN about who will follow them into war.