This is an obvious violation of privacy. If a private citizen isn't entitled to look up this data, then the government's not entitled to do it without a warrant.
Wrong. As a government assistant district attorney, I'm entitled to subpoena lots of information from individuals and companies that private citizens are not entitled to see.
No, there aren't. To be honest, there aren't even two. Two sides of the same coin, perhaps... Yes, yes, point your finger at the Green Party, the Libertarians, etc... then when you're finished with your handwaving, show me when we had a single president who was not either Democrat or Republican. Ok, now show me one that came into power after the 1850's. Show me one in the last century. Yeah, I thought not. Perhaps you can show me a Democrat or a Republican who did more than build a power base and try to profit from it? Or one who didn't victimize the American people in yet another way? The Democrats and the Republicans are no longer two separate parties in any sense other than that they have different names, and appear to possess an unthinking hatred for one another. Neither one actually represents "the people" any more, and both should be scraped off as the leeches they are.
The government is broken. When it can be argued that pinpointing someone's location is not a violation of privacy, when they aren't allowed to use infrared camera equipment without a warrant because they might be able to tell if you are taking a dump, there is something critically failing. I have practically given up on the United States government, and pretty much just acknowledge that the police state we live in is how things are. It is the "Golden Age", with the "Golden Rule" - he who has the gold makes the rules. Anyone who has a shinier vision, feel free to share it with me - it's nice to see someone who doesn't know how things actually work trying to explain how things work.
-- All the shadowrunners and cyberpunks were right about the megacorps.
And what about films from 10 years ago? You'd have to find a distributor first who still rents out those reels to cinemas. I't not as in cinemas there youlr be any kind of Buying" or "permanent lease" of movies. Reels/HDDs are rented out to the cinemas for a few weeks, and the distributor doenst have to hold up any contractual obligations after that.
End user market is completly different.
Incorrect. I am in the process of converting my old VHS tapes (some of which are *much* older than 10 years) to DVD, using an off-the-shelf hardware/software product that cost me $60 at BestBuy (Roxio Easy VHS-to-DVD). Doesn't get much more "end-user" than that, and my (in some cases 20-years-old) movies are being converted to digital quite nicely, thank you. Quality is not the greatest, but we *are* talking 20-year-old movies, here, in VHS format, so some of that is most likely the cheap player I'm using.
If I had to also fight DRM in order to "update" my movies, it would be much less worth it to me, and I'd probably just pirate them. (Illegal? Screw you, I BOUGHT this movie!)
You do realize this is not a problem with DRM, but with some lowly paid employee not bothering to do their job properly.
And what about 10 years from now, when said company is out of business, and someone wants to throw that old Avatar reel back on the projector for old times' sake? Oh no! There is a DRM code, and so the lawful owner of the movie cannot watch it!
Good job, DRM!
Once again... "protection" schemes that rely on a company holding up its end of the bargain indefinitely are doomed to fail, and will disappoint customers in the end.
I personally own several shrink-wrapped copies of movies, never opened, that I have enjoyed watching multiple times. Easy method of enjoying your purchased media without DRM getting in the way: 1: Purchase movie. 2: Put movie into storage container. 3: Download "pirated" copy of same movie. 3: Enjoy responsibly. (Profit!)
No question marks, this is a tried-and-true method of enjoying your lawfully-purchased movie without any DRM keeping your player from reading the disc, without those annoying commercials that you can't skip, and without fear.
I don't care what you think of it we are not shipping first run theatrical resolution films unencrypted. Get over it people at this level encryption is here to stay.
Funny thing is, someone ripped the screener a couple weeks ago... you see, the "first run theatrical film" is not where the pirates get their copies.
For me, this is just an example of it becoming easier for smaller artists/designers/producers etc to be able to show themselves on the world stage, nothing more.
I've got something more... This dude makes a video of killer robots attacking and destroying a major metropolis... for $300. Why are all these other movies with spectacular special effects costing hundreds of millions of dollars to make?
Without some form of revenue to compensate for the work that goes into the product/information the company is giving away, how can we expect companies to maintain the sites?
Perhaps they might try, oh, I don't know... having relevant search engine placement for the products I am searching for? Seems to me that if you want me to buy your product, you should simply make the best product that you can, and hope that people will buy based on quality, rather than because some obnoxious sales guy shouted in my face until I bought it out of self defense.
A Dilbert quote comes to mind: "We can't compete on price. We also can't compete on quality, features or service. That leaves fraud, which I'd like you to call marketing."
And, whether you are required to present state ID varies state-to-state, but most only require that if you're driving. If you're not driving, you're not required to carry ID.
Are you sure on that? Every police officer I have asked has said that I *am* required to possess (and show upon request) state-issued identification. Not possessing ID is supposedly reasonable suspicion of being involved in an illegal activity, and grounds for "detaining and questioning". I was also told this by an officer who stopped me for the suspicious activity described by most as "walking down a public street, on the sidewalk, after dark".
If half their subscribers canceled "all of a sudden", they would fold. They're too large to be able to sustain themselves at that level of (lost) profits. On the other hand, if you could get half their subscriber base to agree to *anything*, you should run for office.
Comcast 16/2(D/U) service. Ubuntu server on an old P-3 as a router. No issues. Incompatible? I call shenanigans. More likely, the techs don't know the OS, so obviously it's incompatible. Sorry, TCP/IP is one of those "cross-platform" things, ya dig?
Is something wrong with using the actual GPL for network-capable/aware/dependent applications? Even web apps could adhere to the licensing, unless I am missing something...
Allocation of resources. Most of the time, no serious information (such as a fingerprint) is left behind, because crooks know better. (My car has been broken into before and the police checked, which is how I know.) Minimal information means that it would take far too much effort to pursue a loss of a few hundred dollars worth of equipment when they can be pursuing larger crimes.
Anecdotal evidence, so take it as you will:
My friend's entire car was stolen, and found nearly a week later dumped on some back road. The police did nothing to track down the thie[f|ves], despite having several cigarette packs in the back seat - cellophane wrappings intact (fingerprints, anyone?). We eventually decided it was some politician or other "important" figure's friend/relative who "borrowed" the vehicle... we'd hate to think that the police are simply so lazy, or "resource-poor" that they cannot pursue a lead on a case of grand theft auto.
a crook isn't excused from stealing your car stereo just because a window was left down.
Yeah, sure. Try it. See if the cops do more than take your name and a list of what was taken for insurance purposes. Actually catch the guy? Well, that would be hard, ya know?
You keep forgetting that most of the populace are NOT geeks and wouldn't know a BitTorrent from a nasty rain.
This may be true... but substitute "limewire" for "torrent", and see how many of them suddenly have the light come on. Speaking as a computer tech, the number one piece of software I can expect to find on some "computer stupid" user's virus-infested machine is LimeWire. "Oh, is that where the porn ad popups and fake antivirus programs come from? Who knew?"... Oh, and it's never them, it's always "the kids" - but when you glance through their "My Music" folder, there's 150 "oldie-but-goodies", along with something from 50-cent, and 2 Britney Spears songs.
Torrenting is alive and well, and obviously much more prevalent than you think.
By that logic, all government funded research and drug discovery should be considered public domain as well...
... and the issue here would be...?
As another poster stated (emphasis mine):
It seems reasonable to suggest that information produced with any level of public funding should belong to the public. Don't like the terms? Don't take public funding.
Ubuntu is available at BestBuy. In the store. On the shelf. In a rather attractive shrink-wrapped box. Open your eyes before you open your mouth.
As for the rest of the bile you've spewed about interoperability: I purchased a laptop and some other equipment at BestBuy, with absolutely no regard for whether it would work under Linux. Vista was pre-installed (and broken "out of the box", despite that little Microsoft flag claiming "Vista Certified!"). Lo and behold, Ubuntu works quite well, right "out of the box". Sound had a couple hiccups (there was a bit of stutter until I added a line to a config file (using the graphical text editor, not some obscure CLI editor; support was all kinds of apparent as soon as I hit the forums via the built-in help menu item (which, by the way, took minutes, not hours))), and (oh, heaven forbid!) I had to use a "generic" printer driver from the manufacturer for the networked (WIFI!) printer, but the system as a whole worked with a minimum of fuss - almost as quick and easy to set up as the Windows side of the same machine and peripherals. WIFI was detected and set up automatically, even my little remote control works. When I enabled desktop effects, the (restricted) Nvidia driver was offered, and I cheerfully accepted it (I love my wobbly windows, it just *feels* better). No fuss, no muss, damn near all of it "just worked", right "out of the box"... oh, and without the month and a half of driver hell I fought with to get Vista to recognize and interact with the "touch" control bar above the keyboard (among other things). I was never *required* to touch the command line to get my hardware fully functional, and the few things that didn't "just work" were issues on both sides of the OS fence (which screams "shoddy hardware" to me, but I digress).
"Add/Remove Software" actually does its job *BETTER* in Ubuntu than in any Windows I've ever run. Not only can I remove stuff, but I can actually add new software through the menu item called "Add/Remove Software"... and it's not only painless, it doesn't cost me a dime. Need a video editor? Type "Edit Video" into the search box, and poof! Several options to choose from, and you can be editing video in a matter of minutes. Want to play games? There's a whole section of them. Want to install windows stuff? Try "Windows Emulator" in the search box. (and oh BOY has wine gotten better in the past year! I actually get better framerates in World of Warcraft under wine than I do under Windows!)
Take your Microsoft shill paycheck to the bank, then go play in traffic.
--
I was going to end this post here, then I re-read yours, and found this gem:
But it is 2009 and folks aren't gonna research just to buy a gadget.
If you're not going to research your new (cellphone|printer|Hi-Def TV|whatever) then you deserve any heartache you bring upon yourself. I am glad to have done a few minutes' research on things like the iPhone, mp3 players, LCD monitors/TVs, etc; it has saved me much grief when I discovered that I didn't actually want a phone/microPC that I'm not even allowed to change the battery in, it has saved me from buying an mp3 player that had a limit to the number of songs I could put on the device (ever, not just at one time), it has saved me from purchasing a TV with a larger screen size once I discovered that a larger resolution was available on a slightly smaller model (for considerably less money, I might add (and the speakers are a separate subsystem in my home entertainment center anyway)). Anyone who fails to research a new electronic gadget/gizmo/toy before spending several hundred of their hard-earned dollars on it deserves whatever grief they bring upon themselves. I mean, really... how hard is it to plug "(whatever gadget name) +issues" into google?
-- I threw away mod points to reply to your egocentric, bigoted, uninformed commentary. Please have the decency to read and understand my comments before replying.
As I have previously stated, we should have been modding these advertisements up as interesting, not down as trolling or flamebait. Spambots will now invade slashdot en masse. Congratulations. I, for one, do NOT welcome our new spambot overlords.
Windows XP is dead. Microsoft has done all but cut the legs out from under it. Why aren't we comparing power consumption of Vista vs Ubuntu, if that's what we're arguing about? If we're going to compare against XP, let's do it with puppy, or bbc, or some other 6-7 year old OS.
Like some other posters, I suspect that the bells and whistles, such as compiz, are what is causing the reduced battery life. Aero drinks power through a firehose, as well. Desktop compositing effects are about *showing off your power* - this does not lead to increased battery life.
Judging by the way you speak about language, I take it you are a monolingual English speaker and have never considered doing something about that.
A few quick points in rebuttal:
Yes, I fall into the category of people who can be the butt of such jokes as this one:
Q: What do you call someone who knows three languages? A: Trilingual.
Q: What do you call someone who knows two languages? A: Bilingual.
Q: What do you call someone who knows only one language? A: American.
I actually do speak (barely) enough French and Spanish to keep from dying of starvation were I to be dropped off in a country where one of those languages is the norm, rather than English - despite being brought up as an American citizen. I would like to point out that it is not necessary for me to learn any other languages, as I am unlikely to travel abroad and will not encounter many, people in this country who cannot speak English. This makes me sound like some elitist asshole, but the fact of the matter is, my country is much larger than the European countries, and so travelling outside my country (to a place where a language other than English is the norm) would require half a day's travel time or more, even by air. Canada and Mexico do not count, as most of the denizens thereof will speak at least enough English to tell me to go fuck my stupid American self when I ask them where the bathroom is, or where I can find some food.
To continue my point, those outside the U.S.A. are amazed that we in the states don't know more than one language. I reiterate: why should we? Everyone speaks English over here! It's not like we can make a 3-5 hour car ride and find Germans, or French, or Spaniards - many of whom *also* speak English, I might add. Those crazy Europeans live right next to the UK, too, ya know. Even Swedes tend to speak more English than any U.S. citizen can boast of knowing a "foreign language". The Asian and Indian countries also speak a lot of English - some of them due to the necessities of our companies outsourcing their tech support and other onerous tasks, others due to the requirement of speaking to their state-side counterparts.
No, I'm not a linguaphile, nor am I a techno-weenie or google fanboy. I don't know anything about "translate.google", I only speak one language fluently, and I didn't have any reason to go hunting down the Swedish-to-English translation of the book title. I had no reason to think that the title of the work in question would turn out to be "Miscellaneous Stuff Someone Wrote Down". I had no reason to think you would get your panties all in a bunch because I don't give enough of a shit about some random written work to look it up and study it, when I was merely attacking the logic in the parent to my previous post in this thread, not attacking the validity of the example. Come to think of it, I even said so.
As for your statement that
Translation engines aren't even fit to translate technical manuals yet.
... that would be why I followed that statement with "hint, hint, enterprising coders; this is probably the next step". Duh.
I don't speak Swedish either, but I noticed without having to resort to translate.google that "Samlade skriftar" by Strindberg (famous guy, look him up) cannot possibly be the same book as "Samlade skriftar" by some Erik Gustaf Geijer, published 70 years EARLIER (1850, not 1950 as you say) when Strindberg was one year old.
Ok, yeah, I screwed up on the dates. I meant 1850, not 1950. An easy mistake at 5am (yes, I'm at GMT-7; good detective work, you mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging, basement-dwelling waste of space). Thanks for the correction, I suppose. It's still later than 1830, which was the supposed "cutoff date" in the parent's conspiracy-laden post.
As for them not possibly being the same book (assuming ignorance about the meaning of the title), why not? How many times have there been reprints
Slashdot Mirror
This is an obvious violation of privacy. If a private citizen isn't entitled to look up this data, then the government's not entitled to do it without a warrant.
Wrong. As a government assistant district attorney, I'm entitled to subpoena lots of information from individuals and companies that private citizens are not entitled to see.
Subpoena = Warrant. Logic Fail.
There are more than two parties...
No, there aren't. To be honest, there aren't even two. Two sides of the same coin, perhaps... Yes, yes, point your finger at the Green Party, the Libertarians, etc... then when you're finished with your handwaving, show me when we had a single president who was not either Democrat or Republican. Ok, now show me one that came into power after the 1850's. Show me one in the last century. Yeah, I thought not. Perhaps you can show me a Democrat or a Republican who did more than build a power base and try to profit from it? Or one who didn't victimize the American people in yet another way? The Democrats and the Republicans are no longer two separate parties in any sense other than that they have different names, and appear to possess an unthinking hatred for one another. Neither one actually represents "the people" any more, and both should be scraped off as the leeches they are.
The government is broken. When it can be argued that pinpointing someone's location is not a violation of privacy, when they aren't allowed to use infrared camera equipment without a warrant because they might be able to tell if you are taking a dump, there is something critically failing. I have practically given up on the United States government, and pretty much just acknowledge that the police state we live in is how things are. It is the "Golden Age", with the "Golden Rule" - he who has the gold makes the rules. Anyone who has a shinier vision, feel free to share it with me - it's nice to see someone who doesn't know how things actually work trying to explain how things work.
--
All the shadowrunners and cyberpunks were right about the megacorps.
maybe next time i'll read the comment before posting a scathing reply ;)
And what about films from 10 years ago? You'd have to find a distributor first who still rents out those reels to cinemas. I't not as in cinemas there youlr be any kind of Buying" or "permanent lease" of movies. Reels/HDDs are rented out to the cinemas for a few weeks, and the distributor doenst have to hold up any contractual obligations after that.
End user market is completly different.
Incorrect. I am in the process of converting my old VHS tapes (some of which are *much* older than 10 years) to DVD, using an off-the-shelf hardware/software product that cost me $60 at BestBuy (Roxio Easy VHS-to-DVD). Doesn't get much more "end-user" than that, and my (in some cases 20-years-old) movies are being converted to digital quite nicely, thank you. Quality is not the greatest, but we *are* talking 20-year-old movies, here, in VHS format, so some of that is most likely the cheap player I'm using.
If I had to also fight DRM in order to "update" my movies, it would be much less worth it to me, and I'd probably just pirate them. (Illegal? Screw you, I BOUGHT this movie!)
DRM-Free FTW.
You do realize this is not a problem with DRM, but with some lowly paid employee not bothering to do their job properly.
And what about 10 years from now, when said company is out of business, and someone wants to throw that old Avatar reel back on the projector for old times' sake? Oh no! There is a DRM code, and so the lawful owner of the movie cannot watch it!
Good job, DRM!
Once again... "protection" schemes that rely on a company holding up its end of the bargain indefinitely are doomed to fail, and will disappoint customers in the end.
I personally own several shrink-wrapped copies of movies, never opened, that I have enjoyed watching multiple times.
Easy method of enjoying your purchased media without DRM getting in the way:
1: Purchase movie.
2: Put movie into storage container.
3: Download "pirated" copy of same movie.
3: Enjoy responsibly. (Profit!)
No question marks, this is a tried-and-true method of enjoying your lawfully-purchased movie without any DRM keeping your player from reading the disc, without those annoying commercials that you can't skip, and without fear.
Tell your friends.
I don't care what you think of it we are not shipping first run theatrical resolution films unencrypted. Get over it people at this level encryption is here to stay.
Funny thing is, someone ripped the screener a couple weeks ago... you see, the "first run theatrical film" is not where the pirates get their copies.
For me, this is just an example of it becoming easier for smaller artists/designers/producers etc to be able to show themselves on the world stage, nothing more.
I've got something more...
This dude makes a video of killer robots attacking and destroying a major metropolis... for $300. Why are all these other movies with spectacular special effects costing hundreds of millions of dollars to make?
Without some form of revenue to compensate for the work that goes into the product/information the company is giving away, how can we expect companies to maintain the sites?
Perhaps they might try, oh, I don't know... having relevant search engine placement for the products I am searching for? Seems to me that if you want me to buy your product, you should simply make the best product that you can, and hope that people will buy based on quality, rather than because some obnoxious sales guy shouted in my face until I bought it out of self defense.
A Dilbert quote comes to mind: "We can't compete on price. We also can't compete on quality, features or service. That leaves fraud, which I'd like you to call marketing."
Q.E.D.
In most states there is no right to resist unlawful arrest. I happen to live in one of the states that recognize this right.
Which state is that? I sense a possible house-moving in my near future...
And, whether you are required to present state ID varies state-to-state, but most only require that if you're driving. If you're not driving, you're not required to carry ID.
Are you sure on that? Every police officer I have asked has said that I *am* required to possess (and show upon request) state-issued identification. Not possessing ID is supposedly reasonable suspicion of being involved in an illegal activity, and grounds for "detaining and questioning". I was also told this by an officer who stopped me for the suspicious activity described by most as "walking down a public street, on the sidewalk, after dark".
Where are my mod points?
If it's 120hz, it probably syncs the display and the glasses by simply flickering right along with the AC power...
If half their subscribers canceled "all of a sudden", they would fold. They're too large to be able to sustain themselves at that level of (lost) profits. On the other hand, if you could get half their subscriber base to agree to *anything*, you should run for office.
Comcast 16/2(D/U) service. Ubuntu server on an old P-3 as a router. No issues. Incompatible? I call shenanigans.
More likely, the techs don't know the OS, so obviously it's incompatible. Sorry, TCP/IP is one of those "cross-platform" things, ya dig?
Is something wrong with using the actual GPL for network-capable/aware/dependent applications? Even web apps could adhere to the licensing, unless I am missing something...
Allocation of resources. Most of the time, no serious information (such as a fingerprint) is left behind, because crooks know better. (My car has been broken into before and the police checked, which is how I know.) Minimal information means that it would take far too much effort to pursue a loss of a few hundred dollars worth of equipment when they can be pursuing larger crimes.
Anecdotal evidence, so take it as you will:
My friend's entire car was stolen, and found nearly a week later dumped on some back road. The police did nothing to track down the thie[f|ves], despite having several cigarette packs in the back seat - cellophane wrappings intact (fingerprints, anyone?). We eventually decided it was some politician or other "important" figure's friend/relative who "borrowed" the vehicle... we'd hate to think that the police are simply so lazy, or "resource-poor" that they cannot pursue a lead on a case of grand theft auto.
a crook isn't excused from stealing your car stereo just because a window was left down.
Yeah, sure. Try it. See if the cops do more than take your name and a list of what was taken for insurance purposes. Actually catch the guy? Well, that would be hard, ya know?
You keep forgetting that most of the populace are NOT geeks and wouldn't know a BitTorrent from a nasty rain.
This may be true... but substitute "limewire" for "torrent", and see how many of them suddenly have the light come on. Speaking as a computer tech, the number one piece of software I can expect to find on some "computer stupid" user's virus-infested machine is LimeWire. "Oh, is that where the porn ad popups and fake antivirus programs come from? Who knew?" ... Oh, and it's never them, it's always "the kids" - but when you glance through their "My Music" folder, there's 150 "oldie-but-goodies", along with something from 50-cent, and 2 Britney Spears songs.
Torrenting is alive and well, and obviously much more prevalent than you think.
By that logic, all government funded research and drug discovery should be considered public domain as well...
... and the issue here would be...?
As another poster stated (emphasis mine):
It seems reasonable to suggest that information produced with any level of public funding should belong to the public. Don't like the terms? Don't take public funding.
I don't see any problems, here.
The writings at the Baen Free Library explains why piracy is not an issue for paper books.
Long live the smell of *real* books!
That is all.
Is there an aisle for Linux in Walmart!
Ubuntu is available at BestBuy. In the store. On the shelf. In a rather attractive shrink-wrapped box. Open your eyes before you open your mouth.
As for the rest of the bile you've spewed about interoperability:
I purchased a laptop and some other equipment at BestBuy, with absolutely no regard for whether it would work under Linux. Vista was pre-installed (and broken "out of the box", despite that little Microsoft flag claiming "Vista Certified!").
Lo and behold, Ubuntu works quite well, right "out of the box". Sound had a couple hiccups (there was a bit of stutter until I added a line to a config file (using the graphical text editor, not some obscure CLI editor; support was all kinds of apparent as soon as I hit the forums via the built-in help menu item (which, by the way, took minutes, not hours))), and (oh, heaven forbid!) I had to use a "generic" printer driver from the manufacturer for the networked (WIFI!) printer, but the system as a whole worked with a minimum of fuss - almost as quick and easy to set up as the Windows side of the same machine and peripherals. WIFI was detected and set up automatically, even my little remote control works. When I enabled desktop effects, the (restricted) Nvidia driver was offered, and I cheerfully accepted it (I love my wobbly windows, it just *feels* better). No fuss, no muss, damn near all of it "just worked", right "out of the box"... oh, and without the month and a half of driver hell I fought with to get Vista to recognize and interact with the "touch" control bar above the keyboard (among other things). I was never *required* to touch the command line to get my hardware fully functional, and the few things that didn't "just work" were issues on both sides of the OS fence (which screams "shoddy hardware" to me, but I digress).
"Add/Remove Software" actually does its job *BETTER* in Ubuntu than in any Windows I've ever run. Not only can I remove stuff, but I can actually add new software through the menu item called "Add/Remove Software"... and it's not only painless, it doesn't cost me a dime. Need a video editor? Type "Edit Video" into the search box, and poof! Several options to choose from, and you can be editing video in a matter of minutes. Want to play games? There's a whole section of them. Want to install windows stuff? Try "Windows Emulator" in the search box. (and oh BOY has wine gotten better in the past year! I actually get better framerates in World of Warcraft under wine than I do under Windows!)
Take your Microsoft shill paycheck to the bank, then go play in traffic.
--
I was going to end this post here, then I re-read yours, and found this gem:
But it is 2009 and folks aren't gonna research just to buy a gadget.
If you're not going to research your new (cellphone|printer|Hi-Def TV|whatever) then you deserve any heartache you bring upon yourself. I am glad to have done a few minutes' research on things like the iPhone, mp3 players, LCD monitors/TVs, etc; it has saved me much grief when I discovered that I didn't actually want a phone/microPC that I'm not even allowed to change the battery in, it has saved me from buying an mp3 player that had a limit to the number of songs I could put on the device (ever, not just at one time), it has saved me from purchasing a TV with a larger screen size once I discovered that a larger resolution was available on a slightly smaller model (for considerably less money, I might add (and the speakers are a separate subsystem in my home entertainment center anyway)). Anyone who fails to research a new electronic gadget/gizmo/toy before spending several hundred of their hard-earned dollars on it deserves whatever grief they bring upon themselves. I mean, really... how hard is it to plug "(whatever gadget name) +issues" into google?
--
I threw away mod points to reply to your egocentric, bigoted, uninformed commentary. Please have the decency to read and understand my comments before replying.
As I have previously stated, we should have been modding these advertisements up as interesting, not down as trolling or flamebait. Spambots will now invade slashdot en masse. Congratulations.
I, for one, do NOT welcome our new spambot overlords.
Windows XP is dead. Microsoft has done all but cut the legs out from under it. Why aren't we comparing power consumption of Vista vs Ubuntu, if that's what we're arguing about? If we're going to compare against XP, let's do it with puppy, or bbc, or some other 6-7 year old OS.
Like some other posters, I suspect that the bells and whistles, such as compiz, are what is causing the reduced battery life. Aero drinks power through a firehose, as well. Desktop compositing effects are about *showing off your power* - this does not lead to increased battery life.
HD's use far less power than optical drives.
Why?
Optical drives are called "optical" because they have a frikkin' laser.
Judging by the way you speak about language, I take it you are a monolingual English speaker and have never considered doing something about that.
A few quick points in rebuttal:
Q: What do you call someone who knows three languages?
A: Trilingual.
Q: What do you call someone who knows two languages?
A: Bilingual.
Q: What do you call someone who knows only one language?
A: American.
To continue my point, those outside the U.S.A. are amazed that we in the states don't know more than one language. I reiterate: why should we? Everyone speaks English over here! It's not like we can make a 3-5 hour car ride and find Germans, or French, or Spaniards - many of whom *also* speak English, I might add. Those crazy Europeans live right next to the UK, too, ya know. Even Swedes tend to speak more English than any U.S. citizen can boast of knowing a "foreign language". The Asian and Indian countries also speak a lot of English - some of them due to the necessities of our companies outsourcing their tech support and other onerous tasks, others due to the requirement of speaking to their state-side counterparts.
As for your statement that
Translation engines aren't even fit to translate technical manuals yet.
... that would be why I followed that statement with "hint, hint, enterprising coders; this is probably the next step". Duh.
I don't speak Swedish either, but I noticed without having to resort to translate.google that "Samlade skriftar" by Strindberg (famous guy, look him up) cannot possibly be the same book as "Samlade skriftar" by some Erik Gustaf Geijer, published 70 years EARLIER (1850, not 1950 as you say) when Strindberg was one year old.
Ok, yeah, I screwed up on the dates. I meant 1850, not 1950. An easy mistake at 5am (yes, I'm at GMT-7; good detective work, you mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging, basement-dwelling waste of space). Thanks for the correction, I suppose. It's still later than 1830, which was the supposed "cutoff date" in the parent's conspiracy-laden post.
As for them not possibly being the same book (assuming ignorance about the meaning of the title), why not? How many times have there been reprints