I was sitting in a data center in Miami once, watching vmstat output scroll by on one of the Sun boxes. A few minutes later my co-admin walks in and plops down next to me. She does some stuff on the other Sun terminal next to me -- the one on our main database and revenue system. When she's done, she gets up, pushes in her chair, then *turns off the terminal*. Sun admins will know what happened next.
For the non-Sun folks, turning off the system terminal shuts down the system.
I stared at her for a few seconds. She had no idea what had just happened.
Not a big red button, but a virtual one...
Sitting in a data center in Ft. Lauderdale once.. A new admin sitting next to me checking some new cleanup scripts. He notices a bunch of find processes hanging out there looking for old core files. I mention something about ps and awk and grep. He types "killall find". He's very proud of himself...
The other day, while running the CTO duties of my company, I had a call. Not only did I personally help the customer through rebooting his firewall, I also personally transferred him to Sarah who not only watches my young'uns, but lines up sales and picks up equipment from the Office Depot.
I'd also like to mention the R project and Octave. Though I use maybe 1% of what these tools (including Maxima) can do, they have helped immensely in both work and personal projects. I strongly believe that computer algebra tools help with understanding mathematics and wish they were available to me when I was in school.
OK, I'm rethinking my opinion of Dell. Their support sucks. Their hardware is cheap and sometimes of marginal quality. I'm typing this on one of three Dell Inspirons that I own. It was cheaper than comparable HP and Lenovo units, though there were driver and hardware issues. But if they come out with a laptop that's fully supported under Linux then I'll buy it. By fully supported I mean that the video is accelerated, the wireless card works fully, and it goes to sleep properly**.
If they can do that I'll put up some money for it.
** Sleeping is one thing that I'll be happy with. Waking up may be something else entirely. It works most of the time in WindowsXP but maybe every fifth wake-up it hangs. Under Linux it seems to vary depending on kernel. It's either completely stable or completely broken.
China is very different from the USA in language and culture. They have ideas about male/female roles, education, loyalty, individuality, ambition, etc. that is completely alien to most Westerners. You'd think this would make them the likely targets of US agression..
Ahh, but one thing stands out: China and the USA are business partners. Sometimes unwilling business partners, but partners nonetheless. Every once in a while you'll hear about some (relatively) minor trading dispute. Put a tariff on Chinese-made Afghan (ha!) carpets or plastic buttons and someone complains to some international trading council.. But in the end, the goods continue to flow; mostly from China to the USA, but a little the other way too. This does not even mention the billions of dollars that China has in the USA. Yup. There's a lot. Enough so that when China mentions selling off some of their US holdings, the US currency hiccups. And hiccups loudly.
This relationship is something that the Russians don't have. And whatever the current (and past) administration says, money does trump all. The USA (and Russia) will look the other way when serious money is at stake. This has been the way of the world since the British Empire started sailing their wind-powered little ships on the blue seas.
So Russia and China duking it out? Perhaps. But an attack on China by the Russians put US interests at stake. Now the USA might want to sit back and let Sino-Russian relations batter each other down (thus increasing the value of a US alliance) but this is not really best for everyone.
My point in all this? I think capitalism has its virtues, and its ability to thwart outright war is rarely seen (we more often see its ability to cause outright war).
1. Quit downloading RIAA music 2. Do not share RIAA music (help prevent the spread of mindshare) (ugh, I hate buzzwords) 3. Do not buy RIAA music (or if you do, stick to back catalogues from USED CD/record stores) 4. Do not tune to new RIAA music on the radio so you can avoid being tempted to buy new product from RIAA :D
I started doing this a while ago.. Yes, I still buy some RIAA music, but for the most part I'm downloading (i.e., purchase and download) from other sites. I'm horribly pedestrian and average in my musical tastes (though I like to think otherwise). If I'm in any way like the millions of other fans of music (and this is likely the case), then the reason for the drop is music sales is *directly* related to the RIAA.
So musicians, artists, etc., should blame the RIAA for destroying traditional music sales.
Look, you can dance if you want to. Leave your friends behind. 'Cos your friends don't dance and if they don't dance, well that's no friend of mine. Men Without Hats
I need an easy friend. Nirvana
Every generation throws a hero up the pop charts. Paul Simon (I think)
MWH was almost Warholian... Throw something ridiculous up to the world and see who prays. That's the joke.
Nirvana said a similar thing with their ohmygod ponies pop hit "Smells Like Teen Spirit". And they knew it. Throw something ridiculous up to the world and see who prays.
You can achieve a much higher level of collaboration when using web apps. Case in point: TurboTax allows the internet community at large to verify your tax returns. This is just not possible with a desktop application.
I have a tin ear and can't tell good sound from bad... but I did notice something when recording a voice-over... I have a cheap Creative external USB sound card for my laptop. If I record via that device the sound is cleaner than using the laptop mic input. However, it still has noise (visible because of the non-flat wave). Even if I set the sensitivity of the mic it's still present. I attached a cheap portable mixer so I could plug in a couple 1/4"(??? about as thick as a pencil) mics. If I run it off the mains the non-flat wave is there. If I use a 9-volt battery to power the mixer, this wave is lessened (but still there). I also have another consumer 4-channel mixer with 3-prong mic jacks. The only mic I have that fits that input is really old, but it has a cleaner waveform than the 1/4" and the mini jack. But if I attach this to the PC (versus the laptop on battery) I get some more noise.
Anyway, I'm still experimenting and trying to find the cleanest input but it looks like battery vs mains makes the biggest difference. Don't know if it's the same for speakers.
I'd hoped the "God bless you, Mr. Vonnegut" line at the end was enough hint.. but I suppose I should have added his quote about humanism and rewards in heaven to seal it. Or maybe, "Kurt's up in heaven now" would have evoked a loud guffaw and rolling in the aisles. But that would be explaining the punchline.:P
Now two of my favorite authors, Douglas Adams and Kurt Vonnegut, are dead. They both managed to intertwine a strange philosophy in their novels. For Vonnegut, I've always enjoyed the glimpses into Tralfamadorean philosophy. "We are all bugs trapped in amber" they said. It was impossible to ascribe morality to any act. It just is. The easy reading of this idea may say that there's no evil, no good and by following that thread, no God or heaven. But what it really suggests is an idea from antiquity to Marlowe to Conrad to taoism. We are. We must do all that we can on this earth and not let some vague idea of good/bad determine our actions. We must live according to our own personal code.
All it takes is a little ignorance.. There's a saying that goes, "The man with one eye is king in the kingdom of the blind." I'm hardly a guru and know about as much about DNS, TCP/IP, networking and operating systems as the next career IT guy. But it's cool how things get started..
At one company I was asked to "break into" a Windows machine. The previous user had left and only he had the password. He was not on speaking terms with the company. Luckily, the user had given me the password to another system. Even luckier, he used the same password. So after about fifteen minutes of making myself look busy, I tried his password and got in. No one asked how I was able to get in; everyone assumed that I was able to hack the system.
At another company there was a dusty router that sat in a rack. One day it stopped working. They'd tried power cycling it (their usual troubleshooting step), but that didn't work. So I went in, unplugged it for a few minutes, plugged it back in. I was looking through the manual for a troubleshooting guide when someone comes over and congratulates me.
Richard Feynman had a similar story but it involved safe cracking. And most people know the joke about the plumber, the punchline being, "but knowing where to hit costs $300." Forget the latter, it's not relevant...
Anyhoo, the point I'm making is that it's easy for people to mistake dumb fool luck and bullshit for real expertise. I know this firsthand.
For the most part, I agree with this. It's funny how DNS is starting to look like the original LDAP recommendations on the name hierarchy. LDAP went from an organization based hierarchy to schemas that started looking at lot like the DNS TLDs. And DNS itself may start looking at lot like how LDAP was. As more companies are becoming international, the idea of arbitrary geographical boundaries to information and yes, commerce, seems somewhat quaint.
I'm a dork and wasn't cool enough to get noticed by the earring wearing 18-year-old behind the counter. The girl with the belly ring, however, was; and their conversation about "Benmoth" (??? No freaking idea ) was quite animated.
Then my dorky ass and my $15 left the store.
I did buy the Firefly soundtrack from Amazon and am listening to it now...
I've seen a lot of "science fiction" movies, and I mean a *lot*. I put the quotes around the words "science fiction" because I'm being really generous about what SF is. It includes the Star Treks and the Star Wars, the Serenitys and the 2001s, and other stuff that's only SF because some studio executive saw "lasers" and "babes in leather" and thought that made it so (this is why execs show T'pol grunting around in panties and bra and shouting essentially, "F*ck me or I'll die" and thinking that it'll endure beyond the immediate tittilation of watching Jolene Blalock in panties and bra).
Serenity passes my definition of SF because it does a couple things: explores what happens when technology is used properly and improperly; explores what it means to be human in light of technology showing that we're nothing much more than a chemical soup. The technology must be central somehow. It must be the sine qua non...
But that alone would make a really dry movie. It would be like reading "The Pilgrim's Progress" or some Sunday school homily. IMHO, Serenity rocks because the characters are so believable. They're foils certainly. Mal is the typical anti-hero, Jayne the none-too-bright tough guy, Zoe the hardened warrior with a soft side... Heck, they're all warriors in some way.... But you end up liking them and being concerned about their well-being. I couldn't say that about Harry Potter, or hell, even Anakin.
And perhaps lastly, Serenity didn't take itself too seriously. It was a Western shot in space by design. There was no pretense. It didn't preach about ideals and the Price of Humanity or The Dangers of War or We're Humans So We're Better. The Serenity crew were thieves and murderers by most laws moral and otherwise. But they were family. And that's nothing to sneeze at.
I've always wondered the same thing... IMHO, the problem is that there's a misunderstanding of what constitutes science fiction. It's almost like watching a play versus a movie. In a play you don't think about the set so much as the story and the acting. If the clouds in a play look like pillows it's OK. But in a movie we want a lot of visual realism.
Many science fiction movies do a similar thing with theme. In a conventional movie it's desirable for the theme to be hidden. Apocalypse Now is only a war movie on the surface; same with Platoon or Saving Private Ryan. But with science fiction it's quite different. It's expected that the theme *is* the story. What are the consequences of genetic manipulation? What are the consequences of atomic power? If machines could think, should we give them the same rights as humans?
But critics have been trained since high school to look for the subtext, the hidden theme. Confronted with something new, they fall into their learned prejudices. Maybe they should red more literature from non-European, non-dead authors instead of being so closed-minded.
The problem with human gatekeepers is that they invariably succumb to human failings. Look at things like awards shows, art museums, radio stations, etc.. They are ostensibly gate keepers, but we know the reality of how their choices are made. My feeling is that a ranking and categorization system would better help me find music that I like. There are sites that do this, but none at the size of the iTunes behemoth. Don't get me wrong, I buy music quite often from iTunes, but have been trying places like CDBaby, Sonicbids, etc..
You can file complaints with the Better Business Bureau and the State Attorney General's Office. Some companies are regulated by the Public Service Commission. When I problems with Maxtor refusing a legitimate claim I filed with all of these and was able to get my refund. Sometimes just voicing your intention of filing a complaint is enough to get your refund accepted.
To stores, rebates themselves are more helpful to the bottom line than a sale even if the consumer/customer manages to get the rebate.
Heh. Have you ever seen a typical Linux user? They're not the type that seem to concerned with their appearance. Embarassment implies some measure of image consciousness.
I don't think you're giving the Microsoft lawyers enough credit. They're almost on par with IBM's lawyers...
Microsoft spends a whole lot of money on patents -- either suing others or being sued. At some point they must realize that it's a sinking ship; they have not innovated much in the past few years and have been largely confined to incremental changes to their interfaces. Imagine how it is for them: They think of something that they want to add to Windows or Office. Alas, someone else invented (and patented) it years ago. All this detracts from their core business, namely, ummmm... Well, whatever their core business is, lawsuits (snarky comments aside) are not one of them.
There are a ton of industries that are built upon the opinion of a few "experts". The billion dollar wine industry comes to mind. The art industry. The pedigree dog industry.... Mention that it's all a ruse and you'll have dozens of rabid folks swarming down upon you.
Anyhoo - this whole thing reminds me of a Star Trek episode where Cmdr. Data plays a violin. He plays it perfectly but is criticized because it's too perfect and perfectly inhuman. There was no feeling. And it's true. There's certainly a difference between how each performer interprets a piece (or plays it to please his instructor), but sometimes I have to laugh when the industry graybeards condemn one performer and laud another even though both are as talented (or talentless as the case may be).
Then why the constant need to scream open source anytime you had the chance? If you really felt that there was no difference between the closed source and open source model you'd have little if anything left to your original post. It would be like talking about food and saying "vegetarian" as often as possible and claiming that I meant for it to mean nothing in difference to non-vegetarian food.
Slashdot Mirror
I was sitting in a data center in Miami once, watching vmstat output scroll by on one of the Sun boxes. A few minutes later my co-admin walks in and plops down next to me. She does some stuff on the other Sun terminal next to me -- the one on our main database and revenue system. When she's done, she gets up, pushes in her chair, then *turns off the terminal*. Sun admins will know what happened next.
For the non-Sun folks, turning off the system terminal shuts down the system.
I stared at her for a few seconds. She had no idea what had just happened.
Not a big red button, but a virtual one...
Sitting in a data center in Ft. Lauderdale once.. A new admin sitting next to me checking some new cleanup scripts. He notices a bunch of find processes hanging out there looking for old core files. I mention something about ps and awk and grep. He types "killall find". He's very proud of himself...
This, alas, is a Sun box also.
Sun admins will know what happened next.
The other day, while running the CTO duties of my company, I had a call. Not only did I personally help the customer through rebooting his firewall, I also personally transferred him to Sarah who not only watches my young'uns, but lines up sales and picks up equipment from the Office Depot.
I'd also like to mention the R project and Octave. Though I use maybe 1% of what these tools (including Maxima) can do, they have helped immensely in both work and personal projects. I strongly believe that computer algebra tools help with understanding mathematics and wish they were available to me when I was in school.
OK, I'm rethinking my opinion of Dell. Their support sucks. Their hardware is cheap and sometimes of marginal quality. I'm typing this on one of three Dell Inspirons that I own. It was cheaper than comparable HP and Lenovo units, though there were driver and hardware issues. But if they come out with a laptop that's fully supported under Linux then I'll buy it. By fully supported I mean that the video is accelerated, the wireless card works fully, and it goes to sleep properly**.
If they can do that I'll put up some money for it.
** Sleeping is one thing that I'll be happy with. Waking up may be something else entirely. It works most of the time in WindowsXP but maybe every fifth wake-up it hangs. Under Linux it seems to vary depending on kernel. It's either completely stable or completely broken.
China is very different from the USA in language and culture. They have ideas about male/female roles, education, loyalty, individuality, ambition, etc. that is completely alien to most Westerners. You'd think this would make them the likely targets of US agression..
Ahh, but one thing stands out: China and the USA are business partners. Sometimes unwilling business partners, but partners nonetheless. Every once in a while you'll hear about some (relatively) minor trading dispute. Put a tariff on Chinese-made Afghan (ha!) carpets or plastic buttons and someone complains to some international trading council.. But in the end, the goods continue to flow; mostly from China to the USA, but a little the other way too. This does not even mention the billions of dollars that China has in the USA. Yup. There's a lot. Enough so that when China mentions selling off some of their US holdings, the US currency hiccups. And hiccups loudly.
This relationship is something that the Russians don't have. And whatever the current (and past) administration says, money does trump all. The USA (and Russia) will look the other way when serious money is at stake. This has been the way of the world since the British Empire started sailing their wind-powered little ships on the blue seas.
So Russia and China duking it out? Perhaps. But an attack on China by the Russians put US interests at stake. Now the USA might want to sit back and let Sino-Russian relations batter each other down (thus increasing the value of a US alliance) but this is not really best for everyone.
My point in all this? I think capitalism has its virtues, and its ability to thwart outright war is rarely seen (we more often see its ability to cause outright war).
KLL
1. Quit downloading RIAA music
2. Do not share RIAA music (help prevent the spread of mindshare) (ugh, I hate buzzwords)
3. Do not buy RIAA music (or if you do, stick to back catalogues from USED CD/record stores)
4. Do not tune to new RIAA music on the radio so you can avoid being tempted to buy new product from RIAA
I started doing this a while ago.. Yes, I still buy some RIAA music, but for the most part I'm downloading (i.e., purchase and download) from other sites. I'm horribly pedestrian and average in my musical tastes (though I like to think otherwise). If I'm in any way like the millions of other fans of music (and this is likely the case), then the reason for the drop is music sales is *directly* related to the RIAA.
So musicians, artists, etc., should blame the RIAA for destroying traditional music sales.
Look, you can dance if you want to. Leave your friends behind. 'Cos your friends don't dance and if they don't dance, well that's no friend of mine. Men Without Hats
I need an easy friend. Nirvana
Every generation throws a hero up the pop charts. Paul Simon (I think)
MWH was almost Warholian... Throw something ridiculous up to the world and see who prays. That's the joke.
Nirvana said a similar thing with their ohmygod ponies pop hit "Smells Like Teen Spirit". And they knew it. Throw something ridiculous up to the world and see who prays.
OK, I just reconfigured my Linksys by switching the LAN and WAN ports. Please use 192.168.0.1 as your gateway and it should work.
You can achieve a much higher level of collaboration when using web apps. Case in point: TurboTax allows the internet community at large to verify your tax returns. This is just not possible with a desktop application.
I have a tin ear and can't tell good sound from bad... but I did notice something when recording a voice-over... I have a cheap Creative external USB sound card for my laptop. If I record via that device the sound is cleaner than using the laptop mic input. However, it still has noise (visible because of the non-flat wave). Even if I set the sensitivity of the mic it's still present. I attached a cheap portable mixer so I could plug in a couple 1/4"(??? about as thick as a pencil) mics. If I run it off the mains the non-flat wave is there. If I use a 9-volt battery to power the mixer, this wave is lessened (but still there). I also have another consumer 4-channel mixer with 3-prong mic jacks. The only mic I have that fits that input is really old, but it has a cleaner waveform than the 1/4" and the mini jack. But if I attach this to the PC (versus the laptop on battery) I get some more noise.
Anyway, I'm still experimenting and trying to find the cleanest input but it looks like battery vs mains makes the biggest difference. Don't know if it's the same for speakers.
Thank you.
:P
I'd hoped the "God bless you, Mr. Vonnegut" line at the end was enough hint.. but I suppose I should have added his quote about humanism and rewards in heaven to seal it. Or maybe, "Kurt's up in heaven now" would have evoked a loud guffaw and rolling in the aisles. But that would be explaining the punchline.
Now two of my favorite authors, Douglas Adams and Kurt Vonnegut, are dead. They both managed to intertwine a strange philosophy in their novels. For Vonnegut, I've always enjoyed the glimpses into Tralfamadorean philosophy. "We are all bugs trapped in amber" they said. It was impossible to ascribe morality to any act. It just is. The easy reading of this idea may say that there's no evil, no good and by following that thread, no God or heaven. But what it really suggests is an idea from antiquity to Marlowe to Conrad to taoism. We are. We must do all that we can on this earth and not let some vague idea of good/bad determine our actions. We must live according to our own personal code.
God bless you, Mr. Vonnegut.
All it takes is a little ignorance.. There's a saying that goes, "The man with one eye is king in the kingdom of the blind." I'm hardly a guru and know about as much about DNS, TCP/IP, networking and operating systems as the next career IT guy. But it's cool how things get started..
At one company I was asked to "break into" a Windows machine. The previous user had left and only he had the password. He was not on speaking terms with the company. Luckily, the user had given me the password to another system. Even luckier, he used the same password. So after about fifteen minutes of making myself look busy, I tried his password and got in. No one asked how I was able to get in; everyone assumed that I was able to hack the system.
At another company there was a dusty router that sat in a rack. One day it stopped working. They'd tried power cycling it (their usual troubleshooting step), but that didn't work. So I went in, unplugged it for a few minutes, plugged it back in. I was looking through the manual for a troubleshooting guide when someone comes over and congratulates me.
Richard Feynman had a similar story but it involved safe cracking. And most people know the joke about the plumber, the punchline being, "but knowing where to hit costs $300." Forget the latter, it's not relevant...
Anyhoo, the point I'm making is that it's easy for people to mistake dumb fool luck and bullshit for real expertise. I know this firsthand.
For the most part, I agree with this. It's funny how DNS is starting to look like the original LDAP recommendations on the name hierarchy. LDAP went from an organization based hierarchy to schemas that started looking at lot like the DNS TLDs. And DNS itself may start looking at lot like how LDAP was. As more companies are becoming international, the idea of arbitrary geographical boundaries to information and yes, commerce, seems somewhat quaint.
I'm a dork and wasn't cool enough to get noticed by the earring wearing 18-year-old behind the counter. The girl with the belly ring, however, was; and their conversation about "Benmoth" (??? No freaking idea ) was quite animated.
Then my dorky ass and my $15 left the store.
I did buy the Firefly soundtrack from Amazon and am listening to it now...
I've seen a lot of "science fiction" movies, and I mean a *lot*. I put the quotes around the words "science fiction" because I'm being really generous about what SF is. It includes the Star Treks and the Star Wars, the Serenitys and the 2001s, and other stuff that's only SF because some studio executive saw "lasers" and "babes in leather" and thought that made it so (this is why execs show T'pol grunting around in panties and bra and shouting essentially, "F*ck me or I'll die" and thinking that it'll endure beyond the immediate tittilation of watching Jolene Blalock in panties and bra).
Serenity passes my definition of SF because it does a couple things: explores what happens when technology is used properly and improperly; explores what it means to be human in light of technology showing that we're nothing much more than a chemical soup. The technology must be central somehow. It must be the sine qua non...
But that alone would make a really dry movie. It would be like reading "The Pilgrim's Progress" or some Sunday school homily. IMHO, Serenity rocks because the characters are so believable. They're foils certainly. Mal is the typical anti-hero, Jayne the none-too-bright tough guy, Zoe the hardened warrior with a soft side... Heck, they're all warriors in some way.... But you end up liking them and being concerned about their well-being. I couldn't say that about Harry Potter, or hell, even Anakin.
And perhaps lastly, Serenity didn't take itself too seriously. It was a Western shot in space by design. There was no pretense. It didn't preach about ideals and the Price of Humanity or The Dangers of War or We're Humans So We're Better. The Serenity crew were thieves and murderers by most laws moral and otherwise. But they were family. And that's nothing to sneeze at.
So yeah, it would get my vote too.
I've always wondered the same thing... IMHO, the problem is that there's a misunderstanding of what constitutes science fiction. It's almost like watching a play versus a movie. In a play you don't think about the set so much as the story and the acting. If the clouds in a play look like pillows it's OK. But in a movie we want a lot of visual realism.
Many science fiction movies do a similar thing with theme. In a conventional movie it's desirable for the theme to be hidden. Apocalypse Now is only a war movie on the surface; same with Platoon or Saving Private Ryan. But with science fiction it's quite different. It's expected that the theme *is* the story. What are the consequences of genetic manipulation? What are the consequences of atomic power? If machines could think, should we give them the same rights as humans?
But critics have been trained since high school to look for the subtext, the hidden theme. Confronted with something new, they fall into their learned prejudices. Maybe they should red more literature from non-European, non-dead authors instead of being so closed-minded.
The problem with human gatekeepers is that they invariably succumb to human failings. Look at things like awards shows, art museums, radio stations, etc.. They are ostensibly gate keepers, but we know the reality of how their choices are made. My feeling is that a ranking and categorization system would better help me find music that I like. There are sites that do this, but none at the size of the iTunes behemoth. Don't get me wrong, I buy music quite often from iTunes, but have been trying places like CDBaby, Sonicbids, etc..
You can file complaints with the Better Business Bureau and the State Attorney General's Office. Some companies are regulated by the Public Service Commission. When I problems with Maxtor refusing a legitimate claim I filed with all of these and was able to get my refund. Sometimes just voicing your intention of filing a complaint is enough to get your refund accepted.
To stores, rebates themselves are more helpful to the bottom line than a sale even if the consumer/customer manages to get the rebate.
And we're very proud of that.
I'm serious.
Sometimes being an embarrassment is in itself gratifying.
We can be a fucking embarrassing bunch at times.
Heh. Have you ever seen a typical Linux user? They're not the type that seem to concerned with their appearance. Embarassment implies some measure of image consciousness.
Seriously.
Eww, gross.
I don't think you're giving the Microsoft lawyers enough credit. They're almost on par with IBM's lawyers...
Microsoft spends a whole lot of money on patents -- either suing others or being sued. At some point they must realize that it's a sinking ship; they have not innovated much in the past few years and have been largely confined to incremental changes to their interfaces. Imagine how it is for them: They think of something that they want to add to Windows or Office. Alas, someone else invented (and patented) it years ago. All this detracts from their core business, namely, ummmm... Well, whatever their core business is, lawsuits (snarky comments aside) are not one of them.
Imagine if it all turned out to be a shill...
There are a ton of industries that are built upon the opinion of a few "experts". The billion dollar wine industry comes to mind. The art industry. The pedigree dog industry.... Mention that it's all a ruse and you'll have dozens of rabid folks swarming down upon you.
Anyhoo - this whole thing reminds me of a Star Trek episode where Cmdr. Data plays a violin. He plays it perfectly but is criticized because it's too perfect and perfectly inhuman. There was no feeling. And it's true. There's certainly a difference between how each performer interprets a piece (or plays it to please his instructor), but sometimes I have to laugh when the industry graybeards condemn one performer and laud another even though both are as talented (or talentless as the case may be).
Then why the constant need to scream open source anytime you had the chance? If you really felt that there was no difference between the closed source and open source model you'd have little if anything left to your original post. It would be like talking about food and saying "vegetarian" as often as possible and claiming that I meant for it to mean nothing in difference to non-vegetarian food.
Must suck to be you.