Actually, if you read the definition of evolution, the use of evolution in biology fits perfectly, as does the use in describing the development of the car.
The word is still used in common language, and its meaning has not changed in any way. Your confusion of the word evolution as having to do solely with biology is unfortunate, but completely incorrect. Furthermore, I am reasonably certain that Darwin himself never used the term when referring to his theory on the origin of species.
Evolution means simply to "achieve over time" and is used equally correctly when referring to either the development of the automobile or to the development of life. As I said before, "evolve" is a synonym of "develop".
That you don't understand the words you use is not my fault nor anybody else's, excepting perhaps whatever school you were subjected to as a child. Look up the big word, read the definition, think about it for a couple of hours (I hope it really doesn't take that long), and perhaps you'll come away with a better understanding in the end.
Whether you are talking about biological evolution, industrial evolution, cosmological evolution, or any other evolution, you are talking about essentially the same thing. The processes involved and the driving forces behind each will obviously be worlds apart, but the concept is the same. Your "Evolution" is nothing more than shorthand for "Biological Evolution", and the sooner you figure that out the sooner your vocabulary will grow by one word.
The word "evolve" existed long before biological evolution was ever contemplated. It is, in fact, a synonym of "develop", and simply means "to achieve over time".
The universe, the solar system, cars, computers, and all the various business schemes we know and love today all evolved over the history of the universe.
Apply it to biology, and you have biological advancements that are achieved over time. That evolution has become associated with biology is a new evolution of language.
When your brother was looking for a Start menu on Ubuntu, how the hell did he get anything done on Windows 7?
Windows 7 gets away with it because the start menu is in exactly the same place it has always been, and there has always been that neat little Windows logo in front of "start", and it's also very obviously a button. Lots and lots of clues to follow, but more than likely he just went to click where it always is, and tried the strange new button as a guess (that seems vaguely familiar somehow) and lo and behold it worked. On Ubuntu, the only clue is the task bar format (granted, that's a huge clue to miss). Since it's in a different spot, but there is still a bar there, I could see some people freaking out and not realising the menu can be in a different spot and still work. To some people computers are magic, and switching them over from Windows to Linux is going to mean retraining them in things they already know how to do, even though they haven't really changed in any big way. The fact that it is different is enough to screw some people up.
Not being able to find the calculator is just about inconceivable unless your brother is actually blind.
That's rather foolish and unkind, given the absolutely mindnumbingly retarded names Linux software writers almost always give their programs. Kalc? WTF is Kalc? Because it's made for KDE you need to call it Kalc? Seriously? There is so much stupid dorky stuff in Linux it's ridiculous, and it can be very off-putting regardless of the quality of the software itself. Your attitude does not help things.
What the hell is up with labeling the parent a Troll? The he is obviously not trolling, it's AskSlashdot, the OP asked for advice and the Parent gave some.
If what you really want is a "-1 Disagree" option, you should probably just skip out on modding the post at all. Save troll mods for actual trolls.
The real trouble with Linux is it's a lot easier (and often necessary) to step out of "really easy GUI mode" and drop off the learning-curve cliff into extremely technical mode.
You mentioned one big example - installing anything outside the repositories can be extremely difficult. While most stuff you'll want is in the repositories, there are still a lot of software that are not in the repository systems, and the more obscure your interests the less likely it will be in there. Once you get into making and compiling software on your system, the once easy to maintain and upgrade distro can become a nightmare of re-compiling software after major updates. If your libraries have changed in a significant way between updates you might have to do some editing prior to the compile to make it work. That is way beyond the capability of an ordinary user. Unfortunately, this design is one of the main features of Linux that makes it so portable and successful. In order to make installing software in Linux as easy as it is in OSX or Windows you would have to break its portability.
Another example is cheap consumer-grade hardware (printers, scanners, cameras, whathaveyou), 99% of which works with Windows out of the box. Often the manufacturer isn't willing to go to the expense of writing a Linux driver for such a cheap product and so you are left with a nightmare of workarounds to get the thing working, and occasionally that isn't even possible. It isn't the fault of Linux's design or the Linux community, it's just the nature of the beast when your OS is not very popular on the consumer market.
For these two reasons alone I never recommend Linux to a user who is not at least very interested in learning about the inner workings of their computer. I'm all for "Linux on the desktop" in spirit, but in practice I can't in good conscience inflict that kind of thing on a clueless user. At least with Windows they can call Geek Squad if they make a real mess of things. I'm certainly not going to be anybody's personal tech support.
The closest OS to a "set 'em up and forget about 'em" OS is OSX, but it can be difficult to run all the same stuff as on a PC, and upgrade time is brutal. Linux has all of the Mac's problems and none of its benefits (for the average user), the only thing going for it is that it's free. That's not much of a benifit considering whatever hardware they buy is going to come with either Windows or OSX, and whatever hardware they may be reviving already came with either Windows or OSX.
Seriously, you've got to be some sort of masochist or something. Either that or you just like torturing your relatives.
I'm sorry, but most people don't need any training at all to use Windows. They'll need to learn how to use the internet, how to use that fancy program they just installed (which, by the way, installed pretty much automatically), etc, but using Windows for what the majority of people use Windows for takes zero training.
To be fair, most of the same is true for Linux and a decent desktop manager. Of the things that a user would need a little bit of instruction for Windows, most of them are very easy to navigate and difficult to screw up. Not impossible, mind you, I've seen a number of creative ways to break a Windows computer from clueless yet industrious users, but such feats of destruction are significantly easier to accomplish on a Linux box once a user begins to scratch beyond the surface GUI.
Mac somehow manages to make things even easier on users, I know it must happen on a regular basis, since Apple does have a support department, but I have known clueless yet industrious users who owned Macs for years without managing to do any damage.
Of all the OS's out there, Linux is nowhere near the top of the list as far as idiot-proofing goes (in fact, I'd put all Linux distros at the bottom of the pile for any OS less than 8 years old). The Mac, being based on a Unix variant, does prove your point though that a Linux distro could theoretically be made near idiot proof, if that's any consolation. I wouldn't hold my breath though, and if you think you can accomplish this with any of the popular distros out right now with just a few tweaks and still leave the user with a useable system, you're dreaming.
In my experience you're absolutely right. There are quite a lot of computer users out there, in fact I'd be willing to say this applies most computer users, who "know enough to be dangerous", as they say. These people know enough to get into places and start messing with things they don't really understand, and ultimately break the system. This is certainly true for both Windows and Linux, and you can argue about which is easier to break (it all depends on your definition of "broken"), but the fact is there is a hell of a lot more in-person, on-site support for a windows user than there is for a linux user.
For the tinkerer, a broken OS is the perfect opportunity to learn more about the system. Most people, however, are not tinkerers, and the very fact that they were able to break it (almost always doing something stupid on their part, this is how most malware and viruses spread in Windows) makes them hate the system. If they then try to call Geek Squad and find out they only do Windows and Mac, then they'll blame the guy who helped them set up their computer with the newfangled OS in the first place. I work desktop support at a large corporation and I've seen it first hand several times. Some poor sap's geeky nephew wipes out his Windows install to load up this "better" operating system, which of course won't run his programs and he can't figure out how to get his system back. Naturally at this time the "helpful" nephew is long gone, and he has to pay one of the desktop support guys to restore his personal machine after hours. Not cool. Yeah, you could probably set the guy up with a reasonable OSS replacement for most of his software, but he already has copies of exactly what he needs, he already knows how to use them, and he doesn't want to learn six new programs just to do exactly what he already knows how to do.
I personally think geeks need to come to grips with the fact that Unix was designed for developers, and is therefore most useable by software writers, network admins, and any other kind of tinkering computer geek. It was never designed for use by the general public, and the only way it's ever going to work for the general public is if a Linux distro goes the way of the Macintosh and completely hides everything that makes Linux Linux. Apple Macintosh is your Unix on the desktop, it is everything that Linux needs to be to compete in the consumer desktop market, and frankly I can't see it ever happening and I think it would be a shame if it did.
I know you're trolling, but you do realize a 1ghz Pentium 4 (actually 1.3ghz if it was a 4 and not a 3) would be one of the first models released, right? That processor came out in late 2000, it's almost 10 years old, not exactly a spring chicken!
The 1ghz P3's came out around the same period, there was some overlap there.
Total side note, but kinda interesting, the current "Core" lines of processors are a continuation of the P3/P-M architecture, not the more powerful P4.
Anyway seriously, from my own experience with Ubuntu (I think it's fare to call it the Linux equivalent of Windows), it would more than likely be a dog on a 1ghz machine, especially trying to do any of the flashy effects. Those are still a dog on a much more powerful machine running Ubuntu.
I really only see three groups of people who would enjoy Linux: hobbiests with lots of time on their hands to tinker and tweak a finnicky system (and Linux is VERY finnicky as soon as you start to tinker, it's only rock solid when well configured), very technical server admins (amature or professional, it doesn't matter) for whom the licensing costs or customizability are bigger factors in the decision than ease of use, and very basic users who will never, ever change anything.
The tricky thing with the basic users is they may become slightly less basic users, and may want to change things, or they may have a child at home or a grandchild who comes to visit who is much more adventuresome on the machine and starts accidentally breaking things. Since Linux has a high learning curve compared to Windows, any change at all in the status quo is likely to make the very basic user become frustrated and end up hating Linux and being ultimately unhappy with whoever told them it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
The sad fact is, the majority of computer users are not very technical, but also do not fall into the catagory of "very basic" users. They are people who easily get themselves into trouble messing with things they shouldn't, and the potential to screw things up is higher. It's something Windows has been fighting for years, and they have been a lot more successful with it than Linux has.
The way a user interacts with Windows 7 as far as admin rights is concerned is much more Linux-ish (though uac still somehow manages to be far more annoying than sudo), so the fundamental security flaw that always distinguished Linux from Windows is no longer there. At this point the only real advantage Linux has in security is that not nearly as many people try to poke holes in it because it is such a small target. As anybody who knows a thing or two about security will tell you, that's a false security at best.
Anyway, this ended up being much longer than I intended, but my whole point is really to just be very, very careful about installing Linux for a novice computer user. The potential pitfalls are many, you could just as easily create a new Linux hater as a new Linux advocate, and that is definitely not what you want.
Oh and for my 2 cents, I'd go Ubuntu all the way, pretty much any flavor DM but I've always used gnome. It has the most support, most things you wouldn't think of (like mp3 codecs and wifi to name a couple) but can often be a real pain in the ass are pretty much taken care of automatically, making your job a lot easier. Their repository system is fantastic, and as long as you keep things set to the official repo's you almost can't run into an issue with a piece of software or an update breaking things. It also comes with Compiz effects pre-configured so you get some nice flair (I don't think the flair is as nice as Win 7's, sorry, though it does win on sheer number of effects) without much hassle. Also when setting it up you are going for stable stable stable, keep that thought in mind, and if you want to enable something that could jeapordize stability I would seriously think twice.
It's going to be even harder than that, since they are all blatant lies.
Either that or the GP couldn't figure out how to configure an extremely easy to install OS, which doesn't lend confidence to his technical expertise on the matter.
school districts who start going broke because good parents pull out their kids (you know, the ones who pay per seat but don't cost much).
I'm confused, do parents who pull their kids out of school in Kentucky suddenly stop paying those taxes? If so, I'll definitely consider moving to Kentucky when I get a kid of my own to raise.
If not, well, then pulling the good kids out still helps, because all the money is focused on the kids of bad parents.
And do you have any indication that he is actually less educated than the average high school graduate? Did he go to college and do well or poorly? What?
Because based solely on what you've said it sounds like he's doing a hell of a lot better than most in that regard.
And the judge in this case argued asylum was appropriate based on the human rights of the parents to raise their flesh and blood as they see fit.
We also happen to believe here in the US that human rights trump legal rights in every case, so the US is the perfect place to come when you have a human rights disagreement.
It's also damned difficult to come to the US legally, so this was a perfect play if they wanted to be here.
When it comes down to it, NOBODY should be forced into a worldview they disagree with. It doesn't matter whether you agree with what they are teaching or not, it is impossible to keep from imparting a worldview of some kind on the children, given the nature of subjects like history and social studies, and science (which is often very poorly taught in public schools, btw), and if the parents don't approve it is their duty and their right to remove them from the school and either educate them elsewhere, or educate them themselves.
What I find disgusting about the whole situation was that the police were going to come and drag their kids to school. If that doesn't scream 1984 Orwellian dystopia I don't know what does.
And given that it's the parent's job to raise their child, not the state's, what's wrong with that?
Flip it around, and imagine it were a nut-job relgious state that didn't teach whole swaths of science because they didn't jive with the official religion, and attempted indoctrinate the children with that religious viewpoint.
In that case, wouldn't you support the right of a parent to pull their child out of school and educate their own children as they saw fit, teaching them critical thinking and a broader view of science and instilling in them values of tolerance and such, while at the same time giving them a superior overall education?
Really, it's a difference of worldview, and it doesn't really matter who is on which side, it's still wrong either way. This family simply has certain values, and they have every right to resist being forced into values they disagree with. This is basic freedom of religion, and it is a very big deal for us in the US. Why they don't want their children to attend a state school is immaterial. The children are getting an excellent education, and the government should have no right to force them into a worldview they disagree with. The US happens to have specific freedoms regarding just that, which we have established as a basic human right, and so asylum is granted.
Long story short, there's no way to catch potential fraud without the victim risking going to jail as well.
No, in your case there was no victim, and had you cashed the check knowing it was fake you would be an accomplice and the charge would probably be money laundering.
The only time fraud is commited is when someone has been defrauded. That means you had to cash the check without knowing it was fake, losing your money, and then going to the police. Then a crime has been committed and they can go after the guy.
It's a reactionary system, not a preactionary system, and it is almost always the better approach. Though, it does mean more people get scammed than should be.
Except for something like murder or something that affects enough people for the state to bring charges up, it's up to the victim to bring charges against someone. You can't just say "I know this guy is defrauding these people, and here's my evidence", the victim has to bring charges for the police to do anything. For example, if a woman is raped and you see it happen, no matter what you say the rapist will never be charged if the victim does not want to file charges.
It's just the way it works.
It's doubly bad for scammers based in countries like Nigeria, who won't extradite. Then there is absolutely no recourse. I remember a story about a woman who kept giving money to a scammer, over and over again, and everybody knew about it but she wouldn't stop. Her family even tried to get the sherrif to step in, but all he could do was tell her she was being scammed, and she wouldn't listen. She pissed away a $250,000 retirement account that way.
Oh wait, that is even more difficult to develop for than the iPad and no one is complaining about it.
Er, you're mixing apples and oranges in your analogy. The correct comparison is that the Xbox is much cheaper to develop for than any other console. The PS3 is notoriously difficult to program for, and Nintendo artificially restricts who is even permitted to develope for their systems. Microsoft, on the other hand, simply charges a developer's fee and uses license agreements to get a slice of whatever anybody sells on their system. Anybody who knows DirectX (and that's anybody who developes PC games, which is a LOT of programers) can develop an Xbox game and sell it. That's not true for the PS3 or the Wii. Microsoft also has extensive and comprehensive documentation on their API developed from years of use, which makes writing games much easier. That simply isn't the case for the PS3 or Wii.
Conversely, since most computers don't have a choke point at the device, the iPad is much more expensive to develop for than any other computer. If your company and project is big enough the extra cost becomes minimal, but this virtually eliminates any small, independant software operation trying to "make it" in the computer world. I can, and have, written programs that I use on my computer on a regular basis which cost me nothing more than the time it took to write the program. This is not possible with the iPad, period.
In other words, your analogy makes the opposite point you were trying to make. Sorry pal.
Hypothetically speaking, if there is a way to freely share copyrighted content on twitter, will the US government tries to censor this information?
Simply put, no, the US government cannot legally censor that information even if it violates the law. It can go after you AFTER you make your post, and they can certainly tell you that they will do just that if you release the information, but they can do nothing before hand.
This was tested in WW2 when the New York Times came across sensitive US troop movements and wanted to publish them in the newspaper. The US government tried to get a court to block the story from running, but the judge simply said "no can do". However, in the process it was made clear to the NYT that releasing this information before the mission would put American soldier's lives at risk, and in doing so would violate a number of laws that the NYT absolutely would be held accountable for. In the end the NYT decided the minor media gain of publishing the information was not worth potentially losing the entire organization due to the legal action that would follow, and chose not to publish.
The key here is that the government could tell the news org what they would do if they ran the story, but they could not actually make the decision to not run the story. That was up to the news organization to determine if they felt strongly enough about it to break the law. This is in stark contrast to China, who require all stories to be cleared through a government representative and regularly prohibits the press from publishing stories they do not approve of. Attempting to publish anyway would probably not work (no doubt they have people checking the actual paper to be published) and is almost certainly a fast track to an execution.
Also note that the US government cannot put pressure on a news org without a law with which to give a consequence for publishing a story. Also remember that ALL laws in the US have the potential for being overturned by the Supreme Court if they violate the basic freedoms laid down in the Constitution. Neither of these facts are true for China.
So no, it is very much not the same. Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press are held sacrosanct in the US. They were the first of ten basic inviolable rights laid down at the founding of the country, and it is very difficult for the government to get around them for very long.
China and in fact most countries in the world have nowhere near the level of freedom of speech/press that we enjoy in the US. The clearest example of this is the opposing news organizations here, and the fact that regardless of who is in power, the orgs don't change one bit. One simply becomes nice and fluffy toward the government when their guy is in power, and nasty when the other guy is in power.
There is a curioius facet to freedom of the press in America, which may seem counter-intuitive.
Basically, the US government cannot prevent a newspaper from publishing a news story, regardless of what the consequences of such a story may mean. For example, say some intrepid embedded reporter manages to get ahold of planned troop movements for an upcoming mission of extreme sensitivity, and the intrepid reporter wants to publish those troop movements before they are to happen. In that case, the military cannot raise a finger to stop the reporter from publishing the story, even if doing so will effectively kill thousands of US soldiers. All they can do is ask them not to, really. However, should the reporter actually be dumb enough to publish such a story, they will be going to jail for a long, long time for dozens of national security violations, perhaps even treason.
So basically, since the constitutionality of the telecom spying would probably ultimately favor the newspaper and not the government, all that we really needed was a newspaper with the will to take the abuse from the government. Unfortunately, most reporters and news orgs seem rather spineless when it comes to anything meaningful, all they seem to like to do is take potshots at each other.
Comes out to just over $1,000 for all three systems, and that's not an uncommon price point for a mid-level PC gaming rig.
Most people don't want or need all three systems either, or need to have four controllers, so in reality you're looking at between $200 and $400 for hardware. Also, if you need to buy a specific controler for a game, it is usually included in the price of the game, so I wouldn't count that.
Console hardware is way cheaper than PC hardware, and the time between updates is getting longer and longer, making them even more affordable as time goes on.
PC hardware is much more expensive, and the software generally isn't any cheaper (unless you're stealing it, which is a lot easier). Console games can also be had used for a fraction of the price, something which is not true of PC games.
In any case, Ubisoft is pretty much off my list of game makers (not that I was a huge Ubisoft customer before). I have a philisophical disagreement with this kind of practice.
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Actually, if you read the definition of evolution, the use of evolution in biology fits perfectly, as does the use in describing the development of the car.
The word is still used in common language, and its meaning has not changed in any way. Your confusion of the word evolution as having to do solely with biology is unfortunate, but completely incorrect. Furthermore, I am reasonably certain that Darwin himself never used the term when referring to his theory on the origin of species.
Evolution means simply to "achieve over time" and is used equally correctly when referring to either the development of the automobile or to the development of life. As I said before, "evolve" is a synonym of "develop".
That you don't understand the words you use is not my fault nor anybody else's, excepting perhaps whatever school you were subjected to as a child. Look up the big word, read the definition, think about it for a couple of hours (I hope it really doesn't take that long), and perhaps you'll come away with a better understanding in the end.
Whether you are talking about biological evolution, industrial evolution, cosmological evolution, or any other evolution, you are talking about essentially the same thing. The processes involved and the driving forces behind each will obviously be worlds apart, but the concept is the same. Your "Evolution" is nothing more than shorthand for "Biological Evolution", and the sooner you figure that out the sooner your vocabulary will grow by one word.
She's a witch!
The word "evolve" existed long before biological evolution was ever contemplated. It is, in fact, a synonym of "develop", and simply means "to achieve over time".
The universe, the solar system, cars, computers, and all the various business schemes we know and love today all evolved over the history of the universe.
Apply it to biology, and you have biological advancements that are achieved over time. That evolution has become associated with biology is a new evolution of language.
When your brother was looking for a Start menu on Ubuntu, how the hell did he get anything done on Windows 7?
Windows 7 gets away with it because the start menu is in exactly the same place it has always been, and there has always been that neat little Windows logo in front of "start", and it's also very obviously a button. Lots and lots of clues to follow, but more than likely he just went to click where it always is, and tried the strange new button as a guess (that seems vaguely familiar somehow) and lo and behold it worked. On Ubuntu, the only clue is the task bar format (granted, that's a huge clue to miss). Since it's in a different spot, but there is still a bar there, I could see some people freaking out and not realising the menu can be in a different spot and still work. To some people computers are magic, and switching them over from Windows to Linux is going to mean retraining them in things they already know how to do, even though they haven't really changed in any big way. The fact that it is different is enough to screw some people up.
Not being able to find the calculator is just about inconceivable unless your brother is actually blind.
That's rather foolish and unkind, given the absolutely mindnumbingly retarded names Linux software writers almost always give their programs. Kalc? WTF is Kalc? Because it's made for KDE you need to call it Kalc? Seriously? There is so much stupid dorky stuff in Linux it's ridiculous, and it can be very off-putting regardless of the quality of the software itself. Your attitude does not help things.
What the hell is up with labeling the parent a Troll? The he is obviously not trolling, it's AskSlashdot, the OP asked for advice and the Parent gave some.
If what you really want is a "-1 Disagree" option, you should probably just skip out on modding the post at all. Save troll mods for actual trolls.
The real trouble with Linux is it's a lot easier (and often necessary) to step out of "really easy GUI mode" and drop off the learning-curve cliff into extremely technical mode.
You mentioned one big example - installing anything outside the repositories can be extremely difficult. While most stuff you'll want is in the repositories, there are still a lot of software that are not in the repository systems, and the more obscure your interests the less likely it will be in there. Once you get into making and compiling software on your system, the once easy to maintain and upgrade distro can become a nightmare of re-compiling software after major updates. If your libraries have changed in a significant way between updates you might have to do some editing prior to the compile to make it work. That is way beyond the capability of an ordinary user. Unfortunately, this design is one of the main features of Linux that makes it so portable and successful. In order to make installing software in Linux as easy as it is in OSX or Windows you would have to break its portability.
Another example is cheap consumer-grade hardware (printers, scanners, cameras, whathaveyou), 99% of which works with Windows out of the box. Often the manufacturer isn't willing to go to the expense of writing a Linux driver for such a cheap product and so you are left with a nightmare of workarounds to get the thing working, and occasionally that isn't even possible. It isn't the fault of Linux's design or the Linux community, it's just the nature of the beast when your OS is not very popular on the consumer market.
For these two reasons alone I never recommend Linux to a user who is not at least very interested in learning about the inner workings of their computer. I'm all for "Linux on the desktop" in spirit, but in practice I can't in good conscience inflict that kind of thing on a clueless user. At least with Windows they can call Geek Squad if they make a real mess of things. I'm certainly not going to be anybody's personal tech support.
By switching to Linux? Are you insane?
The closest OS to a "set 'em up and forget about 'em" OS is OSX, but it can be difficult to run all the same stuff as on a PC, and upgrade time is brutal. Linux has all of the Mac's problems and none of its benefits (for the average user), the only thing going for it is that it's free. That's not much of a benifit considering whatever hardware they buy is going to come with either Windows or OSX, and whatever hardware they may be reviving already came with either Windows or OSX.
Seriously, you've got to be some sort of masochist or something. Either that or you just like torturing your relatives.
I'm sorry, but most people don't need any training at all to use Windows. They'll need to learn how to use the internet, how to use that fancy program they just installed (which, by the way, installed pretty much automatically), etc, but using Windows for what the majority of people use Windows for takes zero training.
To be fair, most of the same is true for Linux and a decent desktop manager. Of the things that a user would need a little bit of instruction for Windows, most of them are very easy to navigate and difficult to screw up. Not impossible, mind you, I've seen a number of creative ways to break a Windows computer from clueless yet industrious users, but such feats of destruction are significantly easier to accomplish on a Linux box once a user begins to scratch beyond the surface GUI.
Mac somehow manages to make things even easier on users, I know it must happen on a regular basis, since Apple does have a support department, but I have known clueless yet industrious users who owned Macs for years without managing to do any damage.
Of all the OS's out there, Linux is nowhere near the top of the list as far as idiot-proofing goes (in fact, I'd put all Linux distros at the bottom of the pile for any OS less than 8 years old). The Mac, being based on a Unix variant, does prove your point though that a Linux distro could theoretically be made near idiot proof, if that's any consolation. I wouldn't hold my breath though, and if you think you can accomplish this with any of the popular distros out right now with just a few tweaks and still leave the user with a useable system, you're dreaming.
In my experience you're absolutely right. There are quite a lot of computer users out there, in fact I'd be willing to say this applies most computer users, who "know enough to be dangerous", as they say. These people know enough to get into places and start messing with things they don't really understand, and ultimately break the system. This is certainly true for both Windows and Linux, and you can argue about which is easier to break (it all depends on your definition of "broken"), but the fact is there is a hell of a lot more in-person, on-site support for a windows user than there is for a linux user.
For the tinkerer, a broken OS is the perfect opportunity to learn more about the system. Most people, however, are not tinkerers, and the very fact that they were able to break it (almost always doing something stupid on their part, this is how most malware and viruses spread in Windows) makes them hate the system. If they then try to call Geek Squad and find out they only do Windows and Mac, then they'll blame the guy who helped them set up their computer with the newfangled OS in the first place. I work desktop support at a large corporation and I've seen it first hand several times. Some poor sap's geeky nephew wipes out his Windows install to load up this "better" operating system, which of course won't run his programs and he can't figure out how to get his system back. Naturally at this time the "helpful" nephew is long gone, and he has to pay one of the desktop support guys to restore his personal machine after hours. Not cool. Yeah, you could probably set the guy up with a reasonable OSS replacement for most of his software, but he already has copies of exactly what he needs, he already knows how to use them, and he doesn't want to learn six new programs just to do exactly what he already knows how to do.
I personally think geeks need to come to grips with the fact that Unix was designed for developers, and is therefore most useable by software writers, network admins, and any other kind of tinkering computer geek. It was never designed for use by the general public, and the only way it's ever going to work for the general public is if a Linux distro goes the way of the Macintosh and completely hides everything that makes Linux Linux. Apple Macintosh is your Unix on the desktop, it is everything that Linux needs to be to compete in the consumer desktop market, and frankly I can't see it ever happening and I think it would be a shame if it did.
I know you're trolling, but you do realize a 1ghz Pentium 4 (actually 1.3ghz if it was a 4 and not a 3) would be one of the first models released, right? That processor came out in late 2000, it's almost 10 years old, not exactly a spring chicken!
The 1ghz P3's came out around the same period, there was some overlap there.
Total side note, but kinda interesting, the current "Core" lines of processors are a continuation of the P3/P-M architecture, not the more powerful P4.
Anyway seriously, from my own experience with Ubuntu (I think it's fare to call it the Linux equivalent of Windows), it would more than likely be a dog on a 1ghz machine, especially trying to do any of the flashy effects. Those are still a dog on a much more powerful machine running Ubuntu.
I have to agree with this assessment.
I really only see three groups of people who would enjoy Linux: hobbiests with lots of time on their hands to tinker and tweak a finnicky system (and Linux is VERY finnicky as soon as you start to tinker, it's only rock solid when well configured), very technical server admins (amature or professional, it doesn't matter) for whom the licensing costs or customizability are bigger factors in the decision than ease of use, and very basic users who will never, ever change anything.
The tricky thing with the basic users is they may become slightly less basic users, and may want to change things, or they may have a child at home or a grandchild who comes to visit who is much more adventuresome on the machine and starts accidentally breaking things. Since Linux has a high learning curve compared to Windows, any change at all in the status quo is likely to make the very basic user become frustrated and end up hating Linux and being ultimately unhappy with whoever told them it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
The sad fact is, the majority of computer users are not very technical, but also do not fall into the catagory of "very basic" users. They are people who easily get themselves into trouble messing with things they shouldn't, and the potential to screw things up is higher. It's something Windows has been fighting for years, and they have been a lot more successful with it than Linux has.
The way a user interacts with Windows 7 as far as admin rights is concerned is much more Linux-ish (though uac still somehow manages to be far more annoying than sudo), so the fundamental security flaw that always distinguished Linux from Windows is no longer there. At this point the only real advantage Linux has in security is that not nearly as many people try to poke holes in it because it is such a small target. As anybody who knows a thing or two about security will tell you, that's a false security at best.
Anyway, this ended up being much longer than I intended, but my whole point is really to just be very, very careful about installing Linux for a novice computer user. The potential pitfalls are many, you could just as easily create a new Linux hater as a new Linux advocate, and that is definitely not what you want.
Oh and for my 2 cents, I'd go Ubuntu all the way, pretty much any flavor DM but I've always used gnome. It has the most support, most things you wouldn't think of (like mp3 codecs and wifi to name a couple) but can often be a real pain in the ass are pretty much taken care of automatically, making your job a lot easier. Their repository system is fantastic, and as long as you keep things set to the official repo's you almost can't run into an issue with a piece of software or an update breaking things. It also comes with Compiz effects pre-configured so you get some nice flair (I don't think the flair is as nice as Win 7's, sorry, though it does win on sheer number of effects) without much hassle. Also when setting it up you are going for stable stable stable, keep that thought in mind, and if you want to enable something that could jeapordize stability I would seriously think twice.
It's going to be even harder than that, since they are all blatant lies.
Either that or the GP couldn't figure out how to configure an extremely easy to install OS, which doesn't lend confidence to his technical expertise on the matter.
school districts who start going broke because good parents pull out their kids (you know, the ones who pay per seat but don't cost much).
I'm confused, do parents who pull their kids out of school in Kentucky suddenly stop paying those taxes? If so, I'll definitely consider moving to Kentucky when I get a kid of my own to raise.
If not, well, then pulling the good kids out still helps, because all the money is focused on the kids of bad parents.
And do you have any indication that he is actually less educated than the average high school graduate? Did he go to college and do well or poorly? What?
Because based solely on what you've said it sounds like he's doing a hell of a lot better than most in that regard.
And the judge in this case argued asylum was appropriate based on the human rights of the parents to raise their flesh and blood as they see fit.
We also happen to believe here in the US that human rights trump legal rights in every case, so the US is the perfect place to come when you have a human rights disagreement.
It's also damned difficult to come to the US legally, so this was a perfect play if they wanted to be here.
As opposed to letting the state indoctrinate their kids with beliefs they don't agree with?
I fail to see the difference.
Apparently one of them took Germany's final state exam got an A grade. Sounds like he got a better education than most.
Germany just doesn't believe people should have quite the same freedoms we do, thus the asylum.
Mod parent up!
When it comes down to it, NOBODY should be forced into a worldview they disagree with. It doesn't matter whether you agree with what they are teaching or not, it is impossible to keep from imparting a worldview of some kind on the children, given the nature of subjects like history and social studies, and science (which is often very poorly taught in public schools, btw), and if the parents don't approve it is their duty and their right to remove them from the school and either educate them elsewhere, or educate them themselves.
What I find disgusting about the whole situation was that the police were going to come and drag their kids to school. If that doesn't scream 1984 Orwellian dystopia I don't know what does.
And given that it's the parent's job to raise their child, not the state's, what's wrong with that?
Flip it around, and imagine it were a nut-job relgious state that didn't teach whole swaths of science because they didn't jive with the official religion, and attempted indoctrinate the children with that religious viewpoint.
In that case, wouldn't you support the right of a parent to pull their child out of school and educate their own children as they saw fit, teaching them critical thinking and a broader view of science and instilling in them values of tolerance and such, while at the same time giving them a superior overall education?
Really, it's a difference of worldview, and it doesn't really matter who is on which side, it's still wrong either way. This family simply has certain values, and they have every right to resist being forced into values they disagree with. This is basic freedom of religion, and it is a very big deal for us in the US. Why they don't want their children to attend a state school is immaterial. The children are getting an excellent education, and the government should have no right to force them into a worldview they disagree with. The US happens to have specific freedoms regarding just that, which we have established as a basic human right, and so asylum is granted.
Long story short, there's no way to catch potential fraud without the victim risking going to jail as well.
No, in your case there was no victim, and had you cashed the check knowing it was fake you would be an accomplice and the charge would probably be money laundering.
The only time fraud is commited is when someone has been defrauded. That means you had to cash the check without knowing it was fake, losing your money, and then going to the police. Then a crime has been committed and they can go after the guy.
It's a reactionary system, not a preactionary system, and it is almost always the better approach. Though, it does mean more people get scammed than should be.
Except for something like murder or something that affects enough people for the state to bring charges up, it's up to the victim to bring charges against someone. You can't just say "I know this guy is defrauding these people, and here's my evidence", the victim has to bring charges for the police to do anything. For example, if a woman is raped and you see it happen, no matter what you say the rapist will never be charged if the victim does not want to file charges.
It's just the way it works.
It's doubly bad for scammers based in countries like Nigeria, who won't extradite. Then there is absolutely no recourse. I remember a story about a woman who kept giving money to a scammer, over and over again, and everybody knew about it but she wouldn't stop. Her family even tried to get the sherrif to step in, but all he could do was tell her she was being scammed, and she wouldn't listen. She pissed away a $250,000 retirement account that way.
Oh wait, that is even more difficult to develop for than the iPad and no one is complaining about it.
Er, you're mixing apples and oranges in your analogy. The correct comparison is that the Xbox is much cheaper to develop for than any other console. The PS3 is notoriously difficult to program for, and Nintendo artificially restricts who is even permitted to develope for their systems. Microsoft, on the other hand, simply charges a developer's fee and uses license agreements to get a slice of whatever anybody sells on their system. Anybody who knows DirectX (and that's anybody who developes PC games, which is a LOT of programers) can develop an Xbox game and sell it. That's not true for the PS3 or the Wii. Microsoft also has extensive and comprehensive documentation on their API developed from years of use, which makes writing games much easier. That simply isn't the case for the PS3 or Wii.
Conversely, since most computers don't have a choke point at the device, the iPad is much more expensive to develop for than any other computer. If your company and project is big enough the extra cost becomes minimal, but this virtually eliminates any small, independant software operation trying to "make it" in the computer world. I can, and have, written programs that I use on my computer on a regular basis which cost me nothing more than the time it took to write the program. This is not possible with the iPad, period.
In other words, your analogy makes the opposite point you were trying to make. Sorry pal.
Hypothetically speaking, if there is a way to freely share copyrighted content on twitter, will the US government tries to censor this information?
Simply put, no, the US government cannot legally censor that information even if it violates the law. It can go after you AFTER you make your post, and they can certainly tell you that they will do just that if you release the information, but they can do nothing before hand.
This was tested in WW2 when the New York Times came across sensitive US troop movements and wanted to publish them in the newspaper. The US government tried to get a court to block the story from running, but the judge simply said "no can do". However, in the process it was made clear to the NYT that releasing this information before the mission would put American soldier's lives at risk, and in doing so would violate a number of laws that the NYT absolutely would be held accountable for. In the end the NYT decided the minor media gain of publishing the information was not worth potentially losing the entire organization due to the legal action that would follow, and chose not to publish.
The key here is that the government could tell the news org what they would do if they ran the story, but they could not actually make the decision to not run the story. That was up to the news organization to determine if they felt strongly enough about it to break the law. This is in stark contrast to China, who require all stories to be cleared through a government representative and regularly prohibits the press from publishing stories they do not approve of. Attempting to publish anyway would probably not work (no doubt they have people checking the actual paper to be published) and is almost certainly a fast track to an execution.
Also note that the US government cannot put pressure on a news org without a law with which to give a consequence for publishing a story. Also remember that ALL laws in the US have the potential for being overturned by the Supreme Court if they violate the basic freedoms laid down in the Constitution. Neither of these facts are true for China.
So no, it is very much not the same. Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press are held sacrosanct in the US. They were the first of ten basic inviolable rights laid down at the founding of the country, and it is very difficult for the government to get around them for very long.
China and in fact most countries in the world have nowhere near the level of freedom of speech/press that we enjoy in the US. The clearest example of this is the opposing news organizations here, and the fact that regardless of who is in power, the orgs don't change one bit. One simply becomes nice and fluffy toward the government when their guy is in power, and nasty when the other guy is in power.
There is a curioius facet to freedom of the press in America, which may seem counter-intuitive.
Basically, the US government cannot prevent a newspaper from publishing a news story, regardless of what the consequences of such a story may mean. For example, say some intrepid embedded reporter manages to get ahold of planned troop movements for an upcoming mission of extreme sensitivity, and the intrepid reporter wants to publish those troop movements before they are to happen. In that case, the military cannot raise a finger to stop the reporter from publishing the story, even if doing so will effectively kill thousands of US soldiers. All they can do is ask them not to, really. However, should the reporter actually be dumb enough to publish such a story, they will be going to jail for a long, long time for dozens of national security violations, perhaps even treason.
So basically, since the constitutionality of the telecom spying would probably ultimately favor the newspaper and not the government, all that we really needed was a newspaper with the will to take the abuse from the government. Unfortunately, most reporters and news orgs seem rather spineless when it comes to anything meaningful, all they seem to like to do is take potshots at each other.
if you get a Wii, 360, and PS3 plus all of the controllers for each, you're looking at $2,000-$2,500 for hardware alone
I'm not too good at math, but somehow your figure seems extremely high.
Xbox360 - $250 (actually anywhere from $216-299, and the arcade version is less than $200)
Xbox360 controllers x 3 - $75
Wii - $200
Wii controllers (including nunchuk) x 3 - $150
PlayStation 3 - $300
PS3 Controller x 3 - $120
Comes out to just over $1,000 for all three systems, and that's not an uncommon price point for a mid-level PC gaming rig.
Most people don't want or need all three systems either, or need to have four controllers, so in reality you're looking at between $200 and $400 for hardware. Also, if you need to buy a specific controler for a game, it is usually included in the price of the game, so I wouldn't count that.
Console hardware is way cheaper than PC hardware, and the time between updates is getting longer and longer, making them even more affordable as time goes on.
PC hardware is much more expensive, and the software generally isn't any cheaper (unless you're stealing it, which is a lot easier). Console games can also be had used for a fraction of the price, something which is not true of PC games.
In any case, Ubisoft is pretty much off my list of game makers (not that I was a huge Ubisoft customer before). I have a philisophical disagreement with this kind of practice.