When I first discovered that there were games for Linux available, I was very excited. I'm not an avid game player, but I like the occasional RPG or strategy romp.
I promptly went down to my local EB and asked if they had a copy of Heroes of Might and Magic III. They told me that they did not, and that they had no intentions of receiving one in the near future. *sigh*.
So I went to EB's online website and ordered it from there. The order went through, no problem. I patiently waited... and waited... and waited... and then forgot altogether that I had placed the order.
Three months later, I received an e-mail from EB online saying that they had discontinued sales of this product.
Now, you might ask why I just didn't order directly from Loki. Well, I'm a Canadian, and last I checked, when you factor shipping and USD to CD into the mix, the price becomes fairly outrageous.
BTW, the only game I've ever seen in stores for Linux was Eric's Ultimate Solitaire, which I immediately snatched up. But I only saw that game once, and was lucky to get it when I did, because by the next week, the other two copies were gone and they never recieved any more.
Since it's so damned inconvenient to buy Linux games, no wonder no one buys them.
Agreed. XFce is the only WM I'll use. Convenient enough to be pleasant, and fast enough to be used on any system. With KDE and Gnome I constantly found myself lost amongst a sea of eterms and konsoles, and eventually I began to wonder why I needed a bloated GUI when I didn't use 1/10th of its features.
I'm not sure if this has ever been posted before, but if we all really want to kick some RIAA ass while making sure that our favorite artists don't lose out on the process, perhaps this is what we should do:
1) Download all the mp3s you can.
2) For each mp3 that you download, send $0.50 or $1.00 to the artist (via mail) for the mp3.
This, of course, would be exceedingly inconvenient to the artist, but hell, it would prove a point and show those bastards at the RIAA that we will not stand for the high CD prices, very little of which goes to the artist. Quite frankly I want to reward talent, not administrative beaurocracy.
I agree with you on this one; communism sounds wonderful, but because of fundamental flaws in humans, it would never work (as history has clearly dictated). However, I believe that there are differences between socialism and communism.
Personally, I'm glad to know that in a time of crisis, my government will look out for me. I don't feel bad paying taxes to help homeless heroin addicts; I have no idea what their lives were like. They might be very troubled people, and if I was in their situation, I would certainly want to be helped.
As for cigarette smokers... do you know how much tax there is on a pack of cigarettes up here in Canada??? When I used to smoke (quit 18 months ago), it was something like 33%! Hell, by the time I developed lung cancer, I'd have paid for several people to undergo cancer treatment.
a note that you seem to ignore... just because the government will bail us out when we get ourselves in bad situations, it doesn't mean that we're all going to become obese, chain smoking alcoholic heroin bingers. we still have a sense of preservation (well, most of us).
i don't see canada progressing down a path of communism. we don't seem to be implementing any of the other tenets. i have no worries.
In fact, if there's one thing Canadians pride themselves on, it's on not going the American way. I'm not saying that Americans are bad; your thinking just tends to be incompatible with our own.
I don't think you have any fucking idea what you're talking about.
Canada isn't like the US when it comes to drug laws. We don't send people to jail for possession of marijuana (unless it's a lot of marijuana). We are in the process of legalizing marijuana for medical use. I don't see that happening in the states as of yet. Sounds like we're a fucking mirror image, doesn't it, genius?
I'm quite proud to be Canadian and not American. At least if I was unemployed and had cancer, I wouldn't be left to die.
The American Government is trying to pass a methamphetamine act (what ever happened to it?) in which case, it would be illegal to distribute any information about drugs, and link to any drug information websites. They have hidden this behind a clause that states something akin to "Providing information about the manufacture of methamphetamine and other drugs..."
The Canadian Government would never do anything like this. Canadians are generally the easiest going people.
At least in Canada, by law, I am permitted to say no to being subjected to embarrasing drug testing by my employees. Canadians have a plethora of rights.
Quite frankly, you're just being negative. Canadian society isn't perfect. But it's pretty fucking good.
...that the government will allow someone to jump off cliffs, from airplanes, from hot air balloons at ridiculously dangerous heights, but they won't allow someone to smoke a plant for enjoyment.
Not that I think what she's doing is wrong. Whatever you want to do is your business.
AFAIK, I think they'll be offering an installation under Linux (akin to the installation under Windows) with the next release (which should be any time now, I believe). Keep checking their website.
As far as I can tell, Mandrake is just as functional as Debian, Slackware, etc... I don't know what you're talking about. Mandrake delivers functionality AND ease of use.
I like to play around a lot with different OSes on my computer. My hard drives are often being reformatted, repartitioned, etc... on a whim, so I don't want an OS that's going to take me two days to set up.
I have tried Win ME, and I'll agree that it's one of the first things that Microsoft did right. It works quite well for me and I've only had two crashes since I used it (although I don't often use it; I'm a QNX RTP and Linux user). However, as nice as Win 2000 may be, I'm not prepared to pay $500 for an operating system. That's just wrong. I'm a university student. I can't afford that sort of price tag. And can you imagine Win 2000 on my server (my old P166)? Unlikely that it would run at any decent speed. Mandrake flies on it, though.
An operating system should not only be powerful, but also simple to install, maintain, and upgrade. This is why I choose Mandrake over distros like Debian, Slackware, etc...
I think the Mandrake people take a lot of pride in their work, because I've been following Mandrake since their 6.x distros and I have never yet had a complaint. With each Mandrake release, things just seem to keep on getting better and better. They offer such a diverse range of software. If it wasn't for Mandrake, I probably would never have tried and fell in love with XFce.
7.1 was the best distribution that I have ever used, bar none. It was the ONLY distribution that would install on my obscure, no-name old P166 laptop. The Red Hat installs wouldn't recognize my keyboard so I couldn't proceed through the installation. The Slackware install wouldn't even start. I also tried Storm, Caldera, and others without success. (OT: Surprisingly, QNX RTP also installed on my laptop without any considerable difficulty).
I will personally continue to use, and only use Mandrake. These people really have their shit together. Other Linux distros could take a lesson here.
Oh, one more point. Mandrake seems to have the best, most frequently updated list of RPMs on rpmfind.net. This is of definite importance to me, because I don't want to have to compile from source unless required (mixing source compiles and RPMs just gets too messy), and I don't want to have to wait long after a new version release for an RPM.
From what I have heard, DARE is completely ineffective. The percentages of people who have tried drugs has escalated since DARE hit the education system.
I'm Canadian, so I've never gone through DARE (although we had something similar up here), but from what I've heard, DARE delivers outright lies about drug use. The problem with scare tactics is that one day, many people begin to think for themselves, and they decide that maybe all the crap that DARE and the media talk about isn't true. They play around with marijuana, realize that it isn't the demon possessed weed that people try to make it out to be.
Now the problem is that these people are uniformed. Since marijuana was made to look so evil, they figure hell, since marijuana wasn't so bad, then cocaine probably isn't that bad either. So some of them will go on to try more dangerous drugs like cocaine and heroin, which can cause health problems, addiction, and overdose.
All because they were given misinformation. Instead, programs like DARE should be teaching children the real dangers of doing drugs, and, if children choose to use drugs, how to use them in a responsible fashion.
Here is an example of the sheer stupidity of drug resistance programs. When I was in grade 6, they decided to bring some recovered addicts in to talk to us. Well, lo and behold, what could they produce? A valium addict. A prescription medication addict. No, not a *gasp* marijuana addict, but a valium addict. And this valium addict was full of shit (you don't go live your life on the streets from a prescription valium addiction) and even a grade six class could tell this.
By the way, some of the most charming, intelligent people I know are hardcore drug users. And they live very fulfilling, productive lives.
Argh... subject line didn't fit. You can fill in the "s".
Excuse me? Who are you (or the government, or anybody else, for that matter) to tell me what I should and should not be putting into my body?
I'll have you know that out of all the drugs, both legal and illegal, nicotine is the most addictive. People have problems with alcohol more than any other drug. Alcoholics are harder to treat than any other drug addict. Alcohol and nicotine cause more deaths per year than all illegal drugs combined.
I have been using drugs for five years. Out of all the drugs that I have used (18 different ones, many of them obscure, so I won't mention them here), the only one that I have had a problem with is alcohol. Luckily, I managed to quit drinking before it caused me irreparable harm. However, it was my perogative, and my responsibility in the issue.
Nowadays I use marijuana and nitrous oxide on a regular basis with no adverse effects. In fact, when used properly, these are two of the safest drugs you can do. These drugs bring me incredible benefit, both mentally and spiritually.
When you are ready to give up your caffeine (which is a drug, and a fairly addictive one at that), then feel free to tell me what I should and shouldn't put in my body. As far as I'm concerned, a caffeine addict is a drug addict; an individual who has let drugs take control of their lives. Have you ever seen a caffeine addict who was unable to have a cup of coffee? Well, I'm dating a caffeine addict now, and let me tell you that it isn't pretty.
Just because the majority is too lethargic and needs caffeine to stimulate themselves into productivity and the media glorifies the negative effects of other drugs, then people like me, who are high strung in nature, have the drugs that would be beneficial to us illegalized, while the caffeine / ephedrine addicts are free to use to their hearts' content.
Cocaine has been known to cause health problems and addictions in susceptible individuals. Marijuana does not. I'm sorry, but if your friends and family members had their lives "ruined" by marijuana, well then marijuana was probably indicative of a deeper problem (e.g. depression, anxiety, etc...) that ruined their lives.
Just say know to drugs. There is a wealth of information out there. Know how to use responsibly. People have been using drugs for thousands of years with great benefits.
If you choose to lead a sober life, I don't criticize you. That's the choice that you feel is right for you. But your post implies that drug users are "losers", which just shows that you are narrow minded. If you and your family and friends are unable to enjoy the wonderful things drugs have to offer, that's fine, but respect that some of us can.
For your info, I have a straight A+ average in my 3rd year of computer science. I have an IQ of 160. I am a well rounded individual who realizes that exercise, eating well, and moderation in all things are the keys to good health.
I have a confession to make. I'm an operating systems slut; I'm not proud of it. In the last year alone, I've fooled around with a huge number of Linux distros, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, iBSD, Solaris, SCO UnixWare 7, BeOS PE, Win 98, Win ME, and Win 2000 Beta 3. Linux and I had a long term relationship forming, until along came QNX.
QNX RTP installed beautifully in a matter of minutes, and as far as I'm concerned, the windowing system (Photon) is just gorgeous, and incredibly fast as well. Luckily, all my hardware was supported (better than BeOS, which was a hassle!) and I was on the internet and listening to mp3s in a matter of a few minutes.
QNX RTP comes with what is perhaps one of the best development tools that I have ever seen, named PhAB. Personally, being a bit of a sucker for punishment, I opted to take the difficult way out and program for QNX RTP using our good friends C, emacs, make, etc... The GUI toolkit, Photon microGUI, is very Motif-like (which some of you will hate, and some of you will love). Personally, I love it and I've been busily coding QNX apps ever since it was released.
There are already a lot of apps ported to QNX, with more and more being added by the day. Emacs, Abiword, Realplayer, Samba, teTeX, ghostscript, Mozilla, and the list goes on and on (and on).
I'm tired of the unstable nature and bloatedness of X. QNX RTP, in my opinion, a far better user experience from beginning to end.
BTW, for those of you wondering, QSSL (QNX Software Systems Limited) is a Kanata based company. Kanata is a suburb in the west end of Ottawa.
For those of you complaining about hardware, or DND, etc... keep in mind that the current release is a preview release (read: BETA). I am told that the next release will include a far greater number of drivers and who knows what else.
When I first started with Linux a year ago, I'll admit that I was drawn to KDE. It was windows-ish, and made the transition a lot easier.
However, as I got used to the command line, and usually ended up running all my apps from there, I began to wonder more and more why I was wasting precious resources with KDE when all I really wanted was a few simple menus for more obscure commands and the ability to open a shitload of xterms.
(Actually, pathetically enough, what really promped my search for a new WM was that I wanted to make more resources available to seti@home, but I'll never admit that pub... oh.)
I tried a few different WMs (blackbox, afterstep, icewm, fvwm2, and even *shudder* twm), but the only one that felt like "home" was XFce. I had used CDE very briefly on Solaris before, and found that I was quite fond of it.
XFce is impossibly easy to install on an *NIX clone. `./configure ; make ; make install` should get it working for those with the proper libs installed. RPMs are available everywhere. It's part of the OpenBSD and FreeBSD (and NetBSD, I'd imagine, but I can't say) ports trees.
gnome runs pitifully slow and all the fancy panels and such that make gnome worthwhile take up too much real estate on my P-166 laptop. XFce runs like a charm.
I'm running Mandrake 7.1 on my older Eurocom laptop (P166) and the sound also seems to run unbearably slow, especially in xmms. I thought that this was just a cheap sound card or something. Does anyone know a fix for this? I'd love to be able to listen to mp3s on my laptop.
How was the original poster possibly recruiting by posting that comment?
I have recently converted to Paganism (a broader term for a collection of religions, including Wicca), not because someone "converted" me, but because I realized that I did not feel comfortable with a lot of things about Christianity and Neopaganism was the religion that appealed to me the most.
Pagans believe in respecting the religious choices of others. Pagans do not receive any favour in the God or Goddess's eyes for converting other people to Paganism. We have no reason to want to convert, so why should we care?
I used to believe that science would be responsible for turning me atheist, but the exact opposite has happened. The fact that science can explain how things work, but seldom why they exist, has led me to believe even more strongly in a higher power.
Let me begin by saying that I love drugs. I have been using drugs moderately for the last five years. I have used alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, marijuana, nitrous oxide, dextromethorphan, GHB, diphenhydramine, salvia divinorum, codeine, oxycodone, ephedrine, kava kava, mushrooms (psilocybin containing ones), alprazolam (Xanax), and diazepam (Valium). I only use marijuana and nitrous oxide, usually in combination, on a regular basis (i.e. once or twice a weekend). I am a pagan and the combination of these two produces intensely incredible reality defying and religious experiences for me.
I loathe people who sit there chugging coffee or alcohol getting all self-righteous indulging in a similar conversation as below: Self righteous bastard: "Drugs are bad. You shouldn't do drugs." Me: "Why are they bad?" SRB: "Drugs kill people." Me: "No they don't. I've used drugs and I'm still alive." SRB: "Well, drugs kill some people." Me: "Actually, I don't think, throughout history, that there has ever been a recorded case of death directly and solely due to marijuana." SRB: "Well, some drugs kill some people." Me: "Yeah, well some Americans killed some people during the second world war. Some cars kill some people every day. So what, you want to abolish Americans and cars as well?"
I'll conclude by saying that illegal drugs, or drugs of questionable legality (e.g. nitrous oxide) have in no way affected me in a negative manner, even after five years of use. My IQ has been measured consistently between 155 and 165, and I have a perfect grade point average in school. I have an excellent relationship - I will be celebrating my 1 year anniversary in two weeks. My family loves me, and they are accepting of my drug use because hell, my parents smoked pot in the 60s.
In fact, the ONLY drug I ever had a problem with is alcohol. I could not control my alcohol intake and at my worst I was drinking 50-80 drinks a week (getting drunk 3-5 nights a week). I got kicked out of the first university I attended because I was frequently too hung over to go to class. My friends were turning their backs on me. I couldn't maintain a relationship. My liver enzyme count was on the rise. Alcohol, no matter how you look at it, is physically addictive. Marijuana, LSD, mushrooms, nitrous oxide, etc... are not. You can overdose and die (fairly easily) on alcohol. It is nearly impossible to overdose and die from marijuana use (you'd have to smoke a bale, and you'd probably die from respiratory failure long before you'd die from an overdose), or LSD use for that matter (If you're interested - there's a report floating around the net that I think is linked to from either Hyperreal or the Lycaeum that states that a couple people at a party snorted pure LSD thinking it was cocaine... they ingested approximately 1250 hits each and although they remained unconcious for a few days, they suffered no long term cognitive impairment or mental trauma). In fact, alcohol is directly poisonous to the human body. Its primary metabolite is three times more poisonous than alcohol itself (this probably explains the hangover).
People state that drugs are bad. That is because that's what the government teaches, and because the media glorifies damage caused by illegal drugs (and yes - drugs, like cars, can be used irresponsibly and cause damage). Information is the key to accident prevention. Retain the information, and you'll get teens dying from trying drugs incorrectly. Dextromethorphan is an example (and a good one at that, because it is becoming quite popular) - if you do it incorrectly, you can easily die from acetaminophen overdose. If done correctly, it is fairly safe and extraordinarily mind expanding. Thanks to William White's most excellent Dextromethorphan FAQ, people can learn to use this drug responsibly instead of saying, "Hey, I heard you can get high on cough syrup." and running out and drinking a bottle of Nyquil, which will kill you.
Most of us don't want our teenagers having sex. Sex can be dangerous. You can contract numerous STDs, get pregnant, etc... Do just tell our children that "Sex is bad?". No, we realize that many of them will PROBABLY still go out and have sex despite our warnings, so we provide them with the proper information. We tell them to use birth control and how to use it properly. We know that teens and young adults will use drugs. We cannot hide the information about drug use; it must be made available for their safety.
Personally, it digusts me to no end that the government feels they can dictate what I can and what I cannot put in my body. Next will they be telling me what I can eat? Watching me to make sure that my sex life is in compliance with what they deem as socially acceptable?
I say MORE drugs:-). Legalize the drugs. Tax the drugs. Pay off debts with the drug tax. Use the remaining money and the money saved on the police force, government anti-drug institutions, etc... to fund hospitals and addiction recovery.
...but it also had a kind of charm to it. I dunno; the idea that people could go from being an advanced civilization to being extremely primitive, viewing the decaying advanced civilization as Godlike was interesting. It makes one really marvel at the advances of technology. Okay, hell, it really sucked. But hey, it was better than the Haunting, or Jennifer 8 (three hours of absolute dreary boredom). Actually, I just really want a free O'Reilly book, since I spend most of my paycheques on 'em as is. v
Personally, I don't think I'd buy a product unless it came with a thorough hard copy manual or that didn't have an O'Reilly book out for it. It is irritating to have to print out the manual, or read it while sitting at the computer. Besides, if all the new computer products had solely electronic manuals, what would we read while sitting on the toilet? Just a thought...
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When I first discovered that there were games for Linux available, I was very excited. I'm not an avid game player, but I like the occasional RPG or strategy romp.
I promptly went down to my local EB and asked if they had a copy of Heroes of Might and Magic III. They told me that they did not, and that they had no intentions of receiving one in the near future. *sigh*.
So I went to EB's online website and ordered it from there. The order went through, no problem. I patiently waited... and waited... and waited... and then forgot altogether that I had placed the order.
Three months later, I received an e-mail from EB online saying that they had discontinued sales of this product.
Now, you might ask why I just didn't order directly from Loki. Well, I'm a Canadian, and last I checked, when you factor shipping and USD to CD into the mix, the price becomes fairly outrageous.
BTW, the only game I've ever seen in stores for Linux was Eric's Ultimate Solitaire, which I immediately snatched up. But I only saw that game once, and was lucky to get it when I did, because by the next week, the other two copies were gone and they never recieved any more.
Since it's so damned inconvenient to buy Linux games, no wonder no one buys them.
v
Agreed. XFce is the only WM I'll use. Convenient enough to be pleasant, and fast enough to be used on any system. With KDE and Gnome I constantly found myself lost amongst a sea of eterms and konsoles, and eventually I began to wonder why I needed a bloated GUI when I didn't use 1/10th of its features.
v
I'm not sure if this has ever been posted before, but if we all really want to kick some RIAA ass while making sure that our favorite artists don't lose out on the process, perhaps this is what we should do:
1) Download all the mp3s you can.
2) For each mp3 that you download, send $0.50 or $1.00 to the artist (via mail) for the mp3.
This, of course, would be exceedingly inconvenient to the artist, but hell, it would prove a point and show those bastards at the RIAA that we will not stand for the high CD prices, very little of which goes to the artist. Quite frankly I want to reward talent, not administrative beaurocracy.
v
I agree with you on this one; communism sounds wonderful, but because of fundamental flaws in humans, it would never work (as history has clearly dictated). However, I believe that there are differences between socialism and communism.
Personally, I'm glad to know that in a time of crisis, my government will look out for me. I don't feel bad paying taxes to help homeless heroin addicts; I have no idea what their lives were like. They might be very troubled people, and if I was in their situation, I would certainly want to be helped.
As for cigarette smokers... do you know how much tax there is on a pack of cigarettes up here in Canada??? When I used to smoke (quit 18 months ago), it was something like 33%! Hell, by the time I developed lung cancer, I'd have paid for several people to undergo cancer treatment.
a note that you seem to ignore... just because the government will bail us out when we get ourselves in bad situations, it doesn't mean that we're all going to become obese, chain smoking alcoholic heroin bingers. we still have a sense of preservation (well, most of us).
i don't see canada progressing down a path of communism. we don't seem to be implementing any of the other tenets. i have no worries.
Forgot to say one thing...
In fact, if there's one thing Canadians pride themselves on, it's on not going the American way. I'm not saying that Americans are bad; your thinking just tends to be incompatible with our own.
I don't think you have any fucking idea what you're talking about. Canada isn't like the US when it comes to drug laws. We don't send people to jail for possession of marijuana (unless it's a lot of marijuana). We are in the process of legalizing marijuana for medical use. I don't see that happening in the states as of yet. Sounds like we're a fucking mirror image, doesn't it, genius? I'm quite proud to be Canadian and not American. At least if I was unemployed and had cancer, I wouldn't be left to die.
Are you kidding?
The American Government is trying to pass a methamphetamine act (what ever happened to it?) in which case, it would be illegal to distribute any information about drugs, and link to any drug information websites. They have hidden this behind a clause that states something akin to "Providing information about the manufacture of methamphetamine and other drugs..."
The Canadian Government would never do anything like this. Canadians are generally the easiest going people.
At least in Canada, by law, I am permitted to say no to being subjected to embarrasing drug testing by my employees. Canadians have a plethora of rights.
Quite frankly, you're just being negative. Canadian society isn't perfect. But it's pretty fucking good.
...that the government will allow someone to jump off cliffs, from airplanes, from hot air balloons at ridiculously dangerous heights, but they won't allow someone to smoke a plant for enjoyment.
Not that I think what she's doing is wrong. Whatever you want to do is your business.
Society is completely fucked up.
AFAIK, I think they'll be offering an installation under Linux (akin to the installation under Windows) with the next release (which should be any time now, I believe). Keep checking their website.
As far as I can tell, Mandrake is just as functional as Debian, Slackware, etc... I don't know what you're talking about. Mandrake delivers functionality AND ease of use.
I like to play around a lot with different OSes on my computer. My hard drives are often being reformatted, repartitioned, etc... on a whim, so I don't want an OS that's going to take me two days to set up.
I have tried Win ME, and I'll agree that it's one of the first things that Microsoft did right. It works quite well for me and I've only had two crashes since I used it (although I don't often use it; I'm a QNX RTP and Linux user). However, as nice as Win 2000 may be, I'm not prepared to pay $500 for an operating system. That's just wrong. I'm a university student. I can't afford that sort of price tag. And can you imagine Win 2000 on my server (my old P166)? Unlikely that it would run at any decent speed. Mandrake flies on it, though.
An operating system should not only be powerful, but also simple to install, maintain, and upgrade. This is why I choose Mandrake over distros like Debian, Slackware, etc...
I think the Mandrake people take a lot of pride in their work, because I've been following Mandrake since their 6.x distros and I have never yet had a complaint. With each Mandrake release, things just seem to keep on getting better and better. They offer such a diverse range of software. If it wasn't for Mandrake, I probably would never have tried and fell in love with XFce.
7.1 was the best distribution that I have ever used, bar none. It was the ONLY distribution that would install on my obscure, no-name old P166 laptop. The Red Hat installs wouldn't recognize my keyboard so I couldn't proceed through the installation. The Slackware install wouldn't even start. I also tried Storm, Caldera, and others without success. (OT: Surprisingly, QNX RTP also installed on my laptop without any considerable difficulty).
I will personally continue to use, and only use Mandrake. These people really have their shit together. Other Linux distros could take a lesson here.
Oh, one more point. Mandrake seems to have the best, most frequently updated list of RPMs on rpmfind.net. This is of definite importance to me, because I don't want to have to compile from source unless required (mixing source compiles and RPMs just gets too messy), and I don't want to have to wait long after a new version release for an RPM.
From what I have heard, DARE is completely ineffective. The percentages of people who have tried drugs has escalated since DARE hit the education system.
I'm Canadian, so I've never gone through DARE (although we had something similar up here), but from what I've heard, DARE delivers outright lies about drug use. The problem with scare tactics is that one day, many people begin to think for themselves, and they decide that maybe all the crap that DARE and the media talk about isn't true. They play around with marijuana, realize that it isn't the demon possessed weed that people try to make it out to be.
Now the problem is that these people are uniformed. Since marijuana was made to look so evil, they figure hell, since marijuana wasn't so bad, then cocaine probably isn't that bad either. So some of them will go on to try more dangerous drugs like cocaine and heroin, which can cause health problems, addiction, and overdose.
All because they were given misinformation. Instead, programs like DARE should be teaching children the real dangers of doing drugs, and, if children choose to use drugs, how to use them in a responsible fashion.
Here is an example of the sheer stupidity of drug resistance programs. When I was in grade 6, they decided to bring some recovered addicts in to talk to us. Well, lo and behold, what could they produce? A valium addict. A prescription medication addict. No, not a *gasp* marijuana addict, but a valium addict. And this valium addict was full of shit (you don't go live your life on the streets from a prescription valium addiction) and even a grade six class could tell this.
By the way, some of the most charming, intelligent people I know are hardcore drug users. And they live very fulfilling, productive lives.
Argh... subject line didn't fit. You can fill in the "s".
Excuse me? Who are you (or the government, or anybody else, for that matter) to tell me what I should and should not be putting into my body?
I'll have you know that out of all the drugs, both legal and illegal, nicotine is the most addictive. People have problems with alcohol more than any other drug. Alcoholics are harder to treat than any other drug addict. Alcohol and nicotine cause more deaths per year than all illegal drugs combined.
I have been using drugs for five years. Out of all the drugs that I have used (18 different ones, many of them obscure, so I won't mention them here), the only one that I have had a problem with is alcohol. Luckily, I managed to quit drinking before it caused me irreparable harm. However, it was my perogative, and my responsibility in the issue.
Nowadays I use marijuana and nitrous oxide on a regular basis with no adverse effects. In fact, when used properly, these are two of the safest drugs you can do. These drugs bring me incredible benefit, both mentally and spiritually.
When you are ready to give up your caffeine (which is a drug, and a fairly addictive one at that), then feel free to tell me what I should and shouldn't put in my body. As far as I'm concerned, a caffeine addict is a drug addict; an individual who has let drugs take control of their lives. Have you ever seen a caffeine addict who was unable to have a cup of coffee? Well, I'm dating a caffeine addict now, and let me tell you that it isn't pretty.
Just because the majority is too lethargic and needs caffeine to stimulate themselves into productivity and the media glorifies the negative effects of other drugs, then people like me, who are high strung in nature, have the drugs that would be beneficial to us illegalized, while the caffeine / ephedrine addicts are free to use to their hearts' content.
Cocaine has been known to cause health problems and addictions in susceptible individuals. Marijuana does not. I'm sorry, but if your friends and family members had their lives "ruined" by marijuana, well then marijuana was probably indicative of a deeper problem (e.g. depression, anxiety, etc...) that ruined their lives.
Just say know to drugs. There is a wealth of information out there. Know how to use responsibly. People have been using drugs for thousands of years with great benefits.
If you choose to lead a sober life, I don't criticize you. That's the choice that you feel is right for you. But your post implies that drug users are "losers", which just shows that you are narrow minded. If you and your family and friends are unable to enjoy the wonderful things drugs have to offer, that's fine, but respect that some of us can.
For your info, I have a straight A+ average in my 3rd year of computer science. I have an IQ of 160. I am a well rounded individual who realizes that exercise, eating well, and moderation in all things are the keys to good health.
I meant to say BSDi, not iBSD. I guess that's what happens when you take muscle relaxants for a pinched nerve ;p
I have a confession to make. I'm an operating systems slut; I'm not proud of it. In the last year alone, I've fooled around with a huge number of Linux distros, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, iBSD, Solaris, SCO UnixWare 7, BeOS PE, Win 98, Win ME, and Win 2000 Beta 3. Linux and I had a long term relationship forming, until along came QNX.
QNX RTP installed beautifully in a matter of minutes, and as far as I'm concerned, the windowing system (Photon) is just gorgeous, and incredibly fast as well. Luckily, all my hardware was supported (better than BeOS, which was a hassle!) and I was on the internet and listening to mp3s in a matter of a few minutes.
QNX RTP comes with what is perhaps one of the best development tools that I have ever seen, named PhAB. Personally, being a bit of a sucker for punishment, I opted to take the difficult way out and program for QNX RTP using our good friends C, emacs, make, etc... The GUI toolkit, Photon microGUI, is very Motif-like (which some of you will hate, and some of you will love). Personally, I love it and I've been busily coding QNX apps ever since it was released.
There are already a lot of apps ported to QNX, with more and more being added by the day. Emacs, Abiword, Realplayer, Samba, teTeX, ghostscript, Mozilla, and the list goes on and on (and on).
I'm tired of the unstable nature and bloatedness of X. QNX RTP, in my opinion, a far better user experience from beginning to end.
BTW, for those of you wondering, QSSL (QNX Software Systems Limited) is a Kanata based company. Kanata is a suburb in the west end of Ottawa.
For those of you complaining about hardware, or DND, etc... keep in mind that the current release is a preview release (read: BETA). I am told that the next release will include a far greater number of drivers and who knows what else.
v
When I first started with Linux a year ago, I'll admit that I was drawn to KDE. It was windows-ish, and made the transition a lot easier.
However, as I got used to the command line, and usually ended up running all my apps from there, I began to wonder more and more why I was wasting precious resources with KDE when all I really wanted was a few simple menus for more obscure commands and the ability to open a shitload of xterms.
(Actually, pathetically enough, what really promped my search for a new WM was that I wanted to make more resources available to seti@home, but I'll never admit that pub... oh.)
I tried a few different WMs (blackbox, afterstep, icewm, fvwm2, and even *shudder* twm), but the only one that felt like "home" was XFce. I had used CDE very briefly on Solaris before, and found that I was quite fond of it.
XFce is impossibly easy to install on an *NIX clone. `./configure ; make ; make install` should get it working for those with the proper libs installed. RPMs are available everywhere. It's part of the OpenBSD and FreeBSD (and NetBSD, I'd imagine, but I can't say) ports trees.
gnome runs pitifully slow and all the fancy panels and such that make gnome worthwhile take up too much real estate on my P-166 laptop. XFce runs like a charm.
I'm running Mandrake 7.1 on my older Eurocom laptop (P166) and the sound also seems to run unbearably slow, especially in xmms. I thought that this was just a cheap sound card or something. Does anyone know a fix for this? I'd love to be able to listen to mp3s on my laptop.
How was the original poster possibly recruiting by posting that comment?
I have recently converted to Paganism (a broader term for a collection of religions, including Wicca), not because someone "converted" me, but because I realized that I did not feel comfortable with a lot of things about Christianity and Neopaganism was the religion that appealed to me the most.
Pagans believe in respecting the religious choices of others. Pagans do not receive any favour in the God or Goddess's eyes for converting other people to Paganism. We have no reason to want to convert, so why should we care?
I used to believe that science would be responsible for turning me atheist, but the exact opposite has happened. The fact that science can explain how things work, but seldom why they exist, has led me to believe even more strongly in a higher power.
Let me begin by saying that I love drugs. I have been using drugs moderately for the last five years. I have used alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, marijuana, nitrous oxide, dextromethorphan, GHB, diphenhydramine, salvia divinorum, codeine, oxycodone, ephedrine, kava kava, mushrooms (psilocybin containing ones), alprazolam (Xanax), and diazepam (Valium). I only use marijuana and nitrous oxide, usually in combination, on a regular basis (i.e. once or twice a weekend). I am a pagan and the combination of these two produces intensely incredible reality defying and religious experiences for me.
:-). Legalize the drugs. Tax the drugs. Pay off debts with the drug tax. Use the remaining money and the money saved on the police force, government anti-drug institutions, etc... to fund hospitals and addiction recovery.
I loathe people who sit there chugging coffee or alcohol getting all self-righteous indulging in a similar conversation as below:
Self righteous bastard: "Drugs are bad. You shouldn't do drugs."
Me: "Why are they bad?"
SRB: "Drugs kill people."
Me: "No they don't. I've used drugs and I'm still alive."
SRB: "Well, drugs kill some people."
Me: "Actually, I don't think, throughout history, that there has ever been a recorded case of death directly and solely due to marijuana."
SRB: "Well, some drugs kill some people."
Me: "Yeah, well some Americans killed some people during the second world war. Some cars kill some people every day. So what, you want to abolish Americans and cars as well?"
I'll conclude by saying that illegal drugs, or drugs of questionable legality (e.g. nitrous oxide) have in no way affected me in a negative manner, even after five years of use. My IQ has been measured consistently between 155 and 165, and I have a perfect grade point average in school. I have an excellent relationship - I will be celebrating my 1 year anniversary in two weeks. My family loves me, and they are accepting of my drug use because hell, my parents smoked pot in the 60s.
In fact, the ONLY drug I ever had a problem with is alcohol. I could not control my alcohol intake and at my worst I was drinking 50-80 drinks a week (getting drunk 3-5 nights a week). I got kicked out of the first university I attended because I was frequently too hung over to go to class. My friends were turning their backs on me. I couldn't maintain a relationship. My liver enzyme count was on the rise. Alcohol, no matter how you look at it, is physically addictive. Marijuana, LSD, mushrooms, nitrous oxide, etc... are not. You can overdose and die (fairly easily) on alcohol. It is nearly impossible to overdose and die from marijuana use (you'd have to smoke a bale, and you'd probably die from respiratory failure long before you'd die from an overdose), or LSD use for that matter (If you're interested - there's a report floating around the net that I think is linked to from either Hyperreal or the Lycaeum that states that a couple people at a party snorted pure LSD thinking it was cocaine... they ingested approximately 1250 hits each and although they remained unconcious for a few days, they suffered no long term cognitive impairment or mental trauma). In fact, alcohol is directly poisonous to the human body. Its primary metabolite is three times more poisonous than alcohol itself (this probably explains the hangover).
People state that drugs are bad. That is because that's what the government teaches, and because the media glorifies damage caused by illegal drugs (and yes - drugs, like cars, can be used irresponsibly and cause damage). Information is the key to accident prevention. Retain the information, and you'll get teens dying from trying drugs incorrectly. Dextromethorphan is an example (and a good one at that, because it is becoming quite popular) - if you do it incorrectly, you can easily die from acetaminophen overdose. If done correctly, it is fairly safe and extraordinarily mind expanding. Thanks to William White's most excellent Dextromethorphan FAQ, people can learn to use this drug responsibly instead of saying, "Hey, I heard you can get high on cough syrup." and running out and drinking a bottle of Nyquil, which will kill you.
Most of us don't want our teenagers having sex. Sex can be dangerous. You can contract numerous STDs, get pregnant, etc... Do just tell our children that "Sex is bad?". No, we realize that many of them will PROBABLY still go out and have sex despite our warnings, so we provide them with the proper information. We tell them to use birth control and how to use it properly. We know that teens and young adults will use drugs. We cannot hide the information about drug use; it must be made available for their safety.
Personally, it digusts me to no end that the government feels they can dictate what I can and what I cannot put in my body. Next will they be telling me what I can eat? Watching me to make sure that my sex life is in compliance with what they deem as socially acceptable?
I say MORE drugs
v
...but it also had a kind of charm to it. I dunno; the idea that people could go from being an advanced civilization to being extremely primitive, viewing the decaying advanced civilization as Godlike was interesting. It makes one really marvel at the advances of technology. Okay, hell, it really sucked. But hey, it was better than the Haunting, or Jennifer 8 (three hours of absolute dreary boredom). Actually, I just really want a free O'Reilly book, since I spend most of my paycheques on 'em as is. v
Personally, I don't think I'd buy a product unless it came with a thorough hard copy manual or that didn't have an O'Reilly book out for it. It is irritating to have to print out the manual, or read it while sitting at the computer. Besides, if all the new computer products had solely electronic manuals, what would we read while sitting on the toilet? Just a thought...