MS keeps getting unfairly tossed under the bus, again and again and again.
It would be more accurate to say "MS keeps getting fairly tossed under the bus, and Google unfairly doesn't."
Based on past experience, Microsoft is fully willing to violate their customers any way they can if it means they make an extra buck. They'd burn their customers for heating if they thought they'd make money doing so. Calling them on it is hardly unfair.
Throwing them under a bus is fine. Throwing Google under the bus is fine as well.
You'll like Linux/UNIX once you know it, then. The level at which you can get into the internals is considerably deeper than what's possible with Windows.
There are conventions for most stuff. They're not totally consistent, but you get a feel for them pretty easily. The base system is generally pretty logical (more so on BSD, but I wouldn't recommend any of the BSDs for a home desktop, much as I'd like to - they just don't have the driver support). For example, you should get a good feel for the filesystem layout in a relatively short time, because each part of it has a purpose. For config files, remember "man 5 configfile" - most everything in/etc should have a man page for it.
As far as installing software goes: that's a very distro specific thing. Fortunately, most distros are actually based on other distros and use the same package management and often the same package repositories. If you choose a distro that has a good package system and a large package repository, you'll have an easier time finding and installing the software you want. I'd recommend something Debian based - Mint is pretty well polished, and pulls from both Debian and Ubuntu package systems (it's based on Ubuntu, which is based on Debian). I use Kubuntu, but I won't recommend that because 15.04 sucks goat balls.
I haven't used Red Hat or Fedora in years, so I can't comment on it, but last time I used it (Fedora Core 4, I think?) you still had the whole RPM hell thing going on. Unless they've changed it, I'd recommend avoiding it for a desktop. I'm sure others will argue otherwise, though.
The hardest part is the GUI; there's pretty much no consistency there between X and all the desktop environments, at least from a user's point of view. Knowing FVWM really well won't help you with GNOME, and knowing GNOME really well won't help you with KDE. Things are a little better from the programmer's point of view, but for a user it just sucks. My advice is to pick one (try a few first) and stick with it.
A word of advice; learn to compile software from source. It's different (and much friendlier) than on Windows. You probably won't have to do it very often, but it's a useful skill and will serve you well if you decide you want more customization than what packages give you. It'll also serve you well if you transition into the BSD world later.
Funny, that's the only part of Texas I like. Don't drive 380 - I imagine it'd be even worse from your perspective. The Guadalupe mountains are really cool, though.
(Of course, my main problem with Texas is all the Texans. The driving culture there is horrible. I10 out in the horn doesn't have as much traffic, so it's a nicer drive from my perspective.)
If I had to pick a boring area of Texas, I'd say I40 through the panhandle. That place is so flat is makes Kansas look like Colorado.
I only have my own experience (and those of other drivers I knew), but from what I can see, talking on a hands-free device isn't really dangerous, at least for an experienced driver.
The part of your brain that makes you go straight down the road, alerts you to potential problems, and keeps track of traffic and obstacles around you isn't the same part of the brain that gets involved in a phone conversation.
What does get affected: Ability to maintain a constant speed Ability to notice informational signs (i.e. exits, rest areas, etc.). Regular signs, such as stop, yield, construction zones, speed limits, etc. seem to be OK though. Ability to do complex maneuvers (backing, navigating busy parking lots, etc.)
Source: Observation. I was a truck driver for years, and two of my family members and many of my friends still are. I have seen literally thousands of drivers (both car and truck) talking on the phone while driving. I would usually spend several hours on the phone while driving every day (good thing mobile-to-mobile is free).
Driving down a highway or interstate is fine - you're just as alert to potential danger, because the part of your brain doing the driving kicks alerts up to the thinking part of your brain immediately when something happens. Cruise control will keep your speed steady, so no worries there. You will miss the occasional exit, though.
Navigating an area you're unfamiliar with and backing are the two big areas where talking on the phone doesn't work. It's the same if you're in a busy, unpredictable area like a truck stop parking lot or a place with a lot of docks. In my experience, however, experienced drivers will tune out the phone conversation and concentrate on the driving. It's automatic - not a conscious decision.
One thing: if you're going to do this, you need a headset and phone that can do voice recognition. Tap the button, "call Fred Maplethorpe." Anything that requires you to actually touch your phone (or GPS nav, for that matter) will cause you to lose your attention on the road.
Now, for some reason, unlike using a handsfree device, talking with a phone held against your ear robs people of the ability to stay in their lane. Speed control get a lot worse as well. I've seen it countless times and experienced it myself. I have no idea why this is the case; it'd be an interesting research project for someone.
I don't really see Ringworld as being hard sci-fi... yeah, there's science in it, but there's an awful lot of impossible bullshit as well.
Good series, though, if you don't mind all the alien fucking.
Regarding Rendezvous with Rama, I fully agree - but only the first book. After that it's not hard sci-fi (or particularly good, in my opinion).
I'd throw The Fountains of Paradise in as a good hard A. C. Clarke book as well. And, of course, the first two Odyssey books (minus the stuff after he enters the monolith in the first book and the ghost of Bowman bits in the second, but you put Contact in your list, and the end of it is just as bad).
It's not hard sci-fi, but if you enjoyed The Forever War, look up John Scalzi's Old Man's War. It's an excellent series that has a similar feel. Scalzi's other books are worth reading as well.
NASA today is all about theater & FUD that begs funding so they can keep looking under the bed for monsters that don't exist
Dude, what are you even talking about? What monsters?
NASA does all kinds of kick ass shit. Sure, they don't send anyone beyond LEO anymore, but the probes are fantastic. I would argue it's precisely because NASA doesn't get enough love (and consistent political direction) that we haven't expanded the manned program. It's amazing that they've accomplished so much with so little money and political support.
I was a kid when Voyager II passed Uranus and Neptune. I always wanted to see pictures of Pluto, that mysterious little planet way out in the middle of nowhere. Well, it's not a planet anymore, but I can finally look at pictures of it.
We've sent probes to every planet now. We've sent probes to asteroids.
Their rover program has been fucking amazing. Those things are (relatively) cheap, and most of them have returned way more data and lasted way longer than they were designed for.
Galileo and Cassini were great. I'm hoping for something similar to one of the ice giants.
That second 'A' in NASA is also really interesting, if less advertised. They still do a lot of cool stuff with planes. They've had some bad luck with the scramjets, sure, but that's what experimentation is all about.
When you're dealing on a professional level, you don't treat people differently based on their gender. How you interact with them is based on how well you know them and what is appropriate for the setting and personal relationship you have with that person. If you're talking to a person or group of people who you aren't close to, then there is a standard for how you interact with them. That standard is what we call "professional behavior."
It doesn't mean everyone is the same. It means there is a protocol for dealing with others in a professional environment. At one point in time, it was culturally OK to stereotype women in a business environment. It's not anymore. That's what gender equality is all about.
And quite honestly, that list you put up there is fucking stupid. Do those apply to women statistically? Sure. Do those apply to the individual women you are working with? Maybe, maybe not. Is it professional to assume that the women you are interacting with will react a certain way because they are women? No. You yourself pointed out that people are all different. Here's a list of traits that are actually important in a business setting, and have nothing to do with gender: reliability, intelligence, professionalism, punctuality, loyalty, and ability to work well in a group. No one claims that everyone is exactly the same - the only claim is that gender is not an indicator of any of those traits.
A public mailing list for a large software development project should be professional. If it's not, something should be done to correct it.
All the SJW and tumblr butthurt is just the same crap you get anytime there is a change in society. And there's always going to be people trying to make a quick buck off lawsuits; it's no different from worker's comp - there's a mix of real and fake cases, and the equivalent of ambulance chasers. If those people are what you think of when you think "gender equality," you've got the wrong idea entirely.
Inhofe is considered to be something of an idiot among pilots
Inhofe is considered to be something of an idiot by anyone who isn't a right wing fundamentalist. Unfortunately, there's a lot of those here in Oklahoma.
I'd vote against him, but no Republican would run against him, and no Democrat would win.
Yes, but only because Microsoft was dragging its feet. PNG unfortunately came out right about when IE took over.
There was quite a bit of demand for it, and pretty much every browser out there besides IE supported it well before IE got full support. If Microsoft hadn't held back web innovation so long, we would have had PNG much earlier.
I do agree though, I can't see a use case for this outside of gigantic image archives.
It's unclear whether most of the FUD in this discussion is directed at the GPL itself or specifically v3. But it's entirely unfounded.
It's not FUD, and its about the GPL in general - although being GPL3 makes it worse. "GPL2 or later" would have been a better (but still flawed) choice.
You know why libraries aren't generally licensed GPL, right? Anything that links to them has to have the exact same license as the library. For instance, the GPL2 licensed Inkscape can't use this library.
That's the difference between the GPL and the LGPL. You can link to LGPL libraries from any software; you can only link to GPL licensed libraries from code with the same version of the GPL.
This is the appropriate license for this image format.
The GPL is not the appropriate license for any general-purpose library. That's what the LGPL is for. Or, like most reference implementations, a non-copyleft license like the MIT license.
Look, I get it, you're a promoter of software freedom. So am I. But this is the real world, and this is a reference implementation. There are conventions to follow for reference implementations, and an OSS non-copyleft license is one of those conventions. This image format could outperform every other format on the planet and it will still see no adoption outside of academia unless there's a compatibly licensed library available. Unless it gets relicensed, or someone writes a non-GPL library, this will go down as just another interesting format that sees no adoption whatsoever.
GPL isn't just bad for proprietary software, you know.
Libraries written under the GPL are next to useless. Mozilla? Not GPL compatible. Webkit? Not GPL3 compatible. Chromium? Hard to say - it claims to have GPL3 code in it, but I don't know how they pull it off, unless it's all in separate executables. PHP? Nope. Apache? Nope.
All the above is open source. None of it can use a GPL library, except possibly Chromium.
GPL is great for applications, if you don't expect a lot of 3rd party commercial developers. If you do, it sucks - the GPL is the reason you don't see games written in Blender's game engine, for instance - but for the most part, it works out pretty well. Libraries are a different matter altogether, because your only choice with a GPL'd library is to use the exact same license as the library you're linking to. Want to link to two libraries - one GPL2 without an "or later" clause, and one GPL3? Too bad, you're screwed.
Then of course, there's the fact that not everyone in the free software world shares the FSF's philosophy. The BSDs are actively trying to remove GPL code from the base systems - they have high hopes for Clang to replace gcc as the system compiler, for instance.
Most free software licenses don't have the whole copyleft thing going on and are pretty much mix-and-match. You don't worry about it if you're working with 2 or 3 clause BSD, MIT, or ISC licenses. Even LGPL is pretty harmless, because non-GPL software can link to it.
Making your library GPL is a sure-fire way to make sure no one uses it. I predict that, unless the developer relicenses it so something a bit more sane, this will be the last we hear of FLIF.
Which falls squarely into the "so what" category. The Pentagon frequently pleads Congress to stop buying weapons systems it doesn't need or want, and lawmakers continue to buy them - often without providing maintenance funds for said systems. Meanwhile, infrastructure in the US is crumbling. But I guess your attitude is that "All is well. Nothing to see here. Move along".
Wow, it's hard to breathe with all those words you're stuffing into my mouth.
First off, to the "so what" comment: It's important because we are the largest economy in the world. We could spend less than 1% of our GDP on defense and still have a larger military than most countries out there.
Second, what infrastructure? Be specific. I was a truck driver for years, and if you're going to mention highways and bridges - don't bother. You're wrong.
As far as my attitude goes, you apparently think you can read my mind. You can't. I don't like the constant wars, and I don't like the mess we've put ourselves in. I'd like as much of a break as GGP.
I'd like to see you expand upon that statement a bit. Perhaps you could provide a few bullet points on our military accomplishments over the past decade.
We are responsible for quite a few things, military-wise. We support NATO, the UN, are partially responsible for the defence of Germany, and are directly responsible for the defence of South Korea, Japan, and various other places such as the Marshall Islands.
We're in Saudi Arabia on invitation to help defend it from its enemies.
And, I don't know if you've noticed, but we are still having a couple of wars. It's possible you might have missed that, I suppose, if you live under a rock or something. A big rock. On the moon.
Do I like what we're doing with our military? Well, some yes, some no. But you just assumed. I'm sure you have been informed on what that does.
Nobody cares what you question. If you can't provide a better statistic, then you've added nothing to the discussion.
Did you even read that link?
I wasn't suggesting we weren't "1000 times stronger." I was suggesting that there is no way to measure that sort of thing.
Saying we're "1000 times stronger" than the next largest military is like saying Jimi Hendrix is "1000 times better" than Eric Clapton. There's no real metric there.
I think GP defined "threat" clearly enough.
Did you read his post? He didn't define threat at all.
But people like you want to define "threat" as broadly as possible.
I defined "threat" by the only measure it should be defined: based on the actual reality of the situation.
South Korea is under direct threat from North Korea. I've sat in intelligence briefings about it. It's well documented all over the place. And they shot a missle over Japan several years back, just to prove they can.
The threat of terrorist activity to a politician's career is also very real. And since politicians control the military, and politicians are very often self-serving, they are more than willing to spend a lot of taxpayer money on security theater. This is also well documented by every news post in the last decade and a half.
Did I say that was right? No. Did I say I liked it? No. Is that the reality? Yes.
The time has long passed for your attitude to be trashed. People with your attitude are a bigger threat to the US than any other threat I can think of.
We face a much larger threat from people who can't use their brain properly. Hopefully you really are under a rock on the moon, so you won't add to that threat.
(I assume you got to the moon by jumping. You've given a lot of evidence that you're really good at jumping to conclusions. Try critical thinking sometime. Or any thinking.)
Inherently unstable? Really? Saddam ruled Iraq for around 24 years. Sounds pretty stable to me.
The USSR was stable under Stalin. North Korea is stable under the Kim family.
The difference? The Soviet Union had formal way of determining leadership, and most of it had a long history of being "Russia." It had a multilayered government under Stalin that could keep things going. Regime change was pretty much "here comes the new boss, same as the old boss."
North Korea is a unified people with a government organized around a bureaucratic military. It doesn't matter who is at the top; the structure underneath makes sure transitions happen with minimal problems. The people are isolated from the world and fed nationalistic bullshit until they think the sun rises and sets on a Kim's command.
Iraq? It had none of that. It had Saddam and his cronies, part of a minority, oppressing a majority, in a multicultural country where religious, tribal, and family ties are much more important than national identity. It's a cobbled-together country whose borders were set arbitrarily without regard to sectarian lines. Violence was held at bay only because of its liberal application by the government; once that government cracked, it would have exploded.
In other words, Iraq is a lot more like Syria, but worse. Look what's going on there.
Some would say it would have been worse, but that's a debate for the experts.
REALLY? Who are these people you speak of? Name one person besides Dick Cheney. Name one bona fide expert on the situation in Iraq who would claim the situation would be worse if the USA had not invaded. Can't? Then STFU.
Let's see here.
Tony Blair, of course. Bashdar Pusho Ismaeel (a Kurdish political analyst) Various political think tanks, such as FPI. Ambassador John Bolton
Any many others. Do you own homework.
Do I think we should have gone? No. Do I think the Bush administration was looking for any excuse to go to war with Iraq? Yes.
Do I think Iraq could have peacefully transitioned from Saddam to another dictator? Not at all. That's relevant, considering he'd be almost 80 years old now, and the Arab Spring would be giving people ideas.
Oh, and that STFU? Big words from an AC. If you want me to read any reply, log the fuck in.
Honestly, it's been happening so long I don't even notice it any more. My first alarm was when GNOME started going with binary configs, back around 2000 or so. I'm not sure if they still use them; I stopped really using GNOME about the time they tied themselves so strongly to Metacity and all the polkit changes came through.
It's not like the whole idea of binary or user-unreadable config files is new. While technically sendmail.cf can be created by hand, very few people actually understand how to do it - they use m4. GNOME's old WM, sawmill/sawfish, used a homemade LISP for configuration - how many people actually know LISP? There are dozens of subtle differences in the config files in/etc - I'm pretty good at 'em, but only because I've spent a lot of time perusing man pages and figuring stuff out by trail and error (dhcpd.conf, pppd's configuration files (so glad I don't have to deal with that crap anymore), pam.conf, etc.). Try getting polkit working flawlessly on FVWM (or any non-DE window manager) if your distribution hasn't set it up - it's a nightmare. Different distros use different utilities, and then there's the other UNIXen to keep track of if you find yourself dealing with them.
Let's face it; the days where you could understand every part of a Linux box are long gone. What's different here is that it's the base system (and thus, servers) that's being affected, rather than desktop systems.
I've got an RHCE book (Red Hat Certified Engineer, in case they changed the name of the certification since then), published in 2000, and over 700 pages long. And Red Hat from 2000 was a lot simpler than Red Hat now, or any modern general-purpose distribution, for that matter. The simple fact is that companies such as Red Hat have been making money off Linux all along - they don't need things like systemd. The certification dance isn't because Linux is hard, but because somewhere along the line, companies and recruiters have been made to think those certifications have value. The same can be said for support; it's not a desire by sysadmins for commercial support, but companies; they belive it has value, and they are willing to pay for it. systemd has no effect on that.
I remember when RHCE first came out. They created it due to demand, both from sysadmins and companies; I don't think Red Hat came up with the idea themselves, although it's obvious it's a money maker for them. Companies see value in certifications as being able to weed out potential prospects; sysadmins see value in certifications as putting them ahead of other job applicants. I looked into it, bought the book and read a good chunk of it, but my aversion to RPM hell decided the issue for me; I never took the test for it.
Troubleshooting Linux will still be easier than troubleshooting a black box like Windows, systemd or no. While most sysadmins can't understand the source code well enough to understand its internal processes, some can, and the information they glean will join the collective knowledge available on the internet. Most sysadmins I know (including myself, when I was one) build their knowledge as they go. They'll learn systemd as they run into problems with it, using the resources at hand. The internet is great for that these days; no more crawling around on IRC or finding mailing lists just to ask a question, which may or may not be answered.
And hey, you can still pass 'init=/bin/sh' as a kernel parameter if systemd really screws the pooch and you can't boot. It's not like I haven't had to do that on occasion with init.
I'll give you the point on SysV init being traditional; however, its actual implementation is not. The helper scripts used with the different distributions are different; an init script for Red Hat isn't the same as an init script for Debian, and especially not the same as Slackware. You have to learn how an init script works for the distribution you're using. You've compiled server software and writte
We used to be, sure. It's debatable now. It's not like we run the place any more, we just don't let them have their own military (except the SDF). I've lived there, and funny thing - I had to obey Japanese laws when I was there. You know, the ones created by the elected Japanese government.
I've seen enough of Japanese culture to know that, unlike the Germans, the Japanese still have all the nationalism and sense of racial cohesion required for the atrocities committed during their occupation of China, Korea, and the Pacific islands. Oh, and the money. All it takes is the right leaders. I'm happy they don't have their own military.
Either way, what's your point? We still have to defend it.
So... the oil for food program would have kept things going smoothly after Saddam Hussein's death or a coup?
It was a bandage at best. Iraq's problems were only kept in check by its government, and its government revolved around the Hussein family. It was an inherently unstable situation.
You can blame us for setting it off early, but it would have happened eventually whether or not we were there. Some would say it would have been worse, but that's a debate for the experts.
1) Not as a percentage of GDP, no. And we do more with our military than the rest of the world combined.
2) I question that statistic. So do people in the comments on that page you linked to.
3) Depends how you define "threat." And we don't just protect ourselves; we also protect S. Korea, Japan, Germany, and various other places by treaty. S. Korea, and to a lesser extent, Japan are definitely under constant threat. And our politicians are under threat; if a terrorist attack happens on our soil, no matter what size, it becomes a huge deal for whoever's in charge (see Benghazi, for instance). Politicians control the military.
Personally, I think if we can get another Democrat up there, we'll be able to catch a break. The Democratic party is on the anti-war side right now, and Democrats tend to be more supportive of diplomacy. We've got a bit over 10,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan now (Wikipedia). If we get a Republican, well, I dunno. Depends on how strong the Libertarian presence is in the next administration - they tend to be anti-war as well.
It's as though you didn't actually think out what they guy you're replying to was actually talking about.
He's saying Iraq was a shithole with mass killings and on the verge of civil war before we went in. And he's right. The other countries he named are pretty much the same (well, not so much Egypt). While we're directly or indirectly responsible for most of the death in Iraq, all we really did was pop the lid on the pressure cooker. The pressure was already there.
I don't think we should have gone to Iraq, but all we did was speed up the inevitable. Bush's mistake (one of many) was thinking we could control the outcome. You know, like we did in 'Nam. Oh, wait...
(I can't believe I'm agreeing with someone calling themselves "RightwingNutjob")
I doubt your claim that systemd is more fundamental than the C library change, but perhaps we have different ideas on what makes something fundamental.
I don't really see it as any different. Yes, it's untested. Yes, it combines many different aspects of the base system into one thing. No, I'm not particularly fond of that, but hey, I liked libc5 just fine too. Remember all the software corner cases that wouldn't work with glibc? Or, if you were like me and used Slackware, the extreme pain in the ass a lot of software was to compile for libc5 after everyone else switched to glibc? The difference between now and then is that Linux is taken seriously now and has a larger user base.
systemd certainly has upgrade issues. I wouldn't attempt to upgrade to it; both systems I'm running it on have had fresh installs. The one system I have that doesn't have systemd (an older Kubuntu box) will also be reinstalled instead of upgraded (to something other than Kubuntu. The last release has been nothing but trouble for me.)
Whether or not it's ready for the mass deployment we've seen is up to debate. I actually agree with you; I don't think it is. I have personally only experienced minor issues with it, but I know there are a lot more issues than there should be for something as vital as the init system. But if you believe in the free software methodology - which RMS does - you know that bugs get fixed. systemd will not always be the turd it is now.
What I don't see is how systemd enhances the commercialization of the Linux world. It mostly benefits the distros and package maintainers, from what I can see - init scripts are simpler. Perhaps it would be easier for a commercial firm to package non-free software for Linux, but it's also easier to package free software for Linux.
I also don't see, having read a decent amount of his stuff, how certifications, certified distributions (unless you mean the whole UEFI boot thing, which doesn't have anything to do with systemd), or enterprise support contracts would offend RMS. RMS doesn't like proprietary software; he doesn't seem to have a problem with people making money off free software. In fact, in the first question, he states
selling support to commercial users, selling exceptions, developing solutions for clients' internal use, and crowdfunding
Richard Stallman has been around a long, long time. He's seen the like of systemd before, and he knows what's going to happen.
Seriously, systemd isn't the first huge change to come down the pipe in computing. We've had several. He's witnessed the near death of LISP. He's witnessed the decline of the minicomputer and rise of the micro. He's seen "empires" (software and hardware company wise) rise and fall. He's seen UNIX rise to dominate the server room (IIRC, he's no fan of UNIX). He's seen non-free software dominate the desktop since the very inception of the desktop.
In other words, he's seen a lot of changes to stuff he actually cares about, and seen the aftermath.
I highly doubt he cares that much about the popularity of systemd vs. init. It's software - free software at that - and bugs get fixed, or you move to something else.
Yeesh, you anti-systemd people must not have been around for the ELF or glibc changeovers. It's no different. The world moves on.
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MS keeps getting unfairly tossed under the bus, again and again and again.
It would be more accurate to say "MS keeps getting fairly tossed under the bus, and Google unfairly doesn't."
Based on past experience, Microsoft is fully willing to violate their customers any way they can if it means they make an extra buck. They'd burn their customers for heating if they thought they'd make money doing so. Calling them on it is hardly unfair.
Throwing them under a bus is fine. Throwing Google under the bus is fine as well.
You'll like Linux/UNIX once you know it, then. The level at which you can get into the internals is considerably deeper than what's possible with Windows.
There are conventions for most stuff. They're not totally consistent, but you get a feel for them pretty easily. The base system is generally pretty logical (more so on BSD, but I wouldn't recommend any of the BSDs for a home desktop, much as I'd like to - they just don't have the driver support). For example, you should get a good feel for the filesystem layout in a relatively short time, because each part of it has a purpose. For config files, remember "man 5 configfile" - most everything in /etc should have a man page for it.
As far as installing software goes: that's a very distro specific thing. Fortunately, most distros are actually based on other distros and use the same package management and often the same package repositories. If you choose a distro that has a good package system and a large package repository, you'll have an easier time finding and installing the software you want. I'd recommend something Debian based - Mint is pretty well polished, and pulls from both Debian and Ubuntu package systems (it's based on Ubuntu, which is based on Debian). I use Kubuntu, but I won't recommend that because 15.04 sucks goat balls.
I haven't used Red Hat or Fedora in years, so I can't comment on it, but last time I used it (Fedora Core 4, I think?) you still had the whole RPM hell thing going on. Unless they've changed it, I'd recommend avoiding it for a desktop. I'm sure others will argue otherwise, though.
The hardest part is the GUI; there's pretty much no consistency there between X and all the desktop environments, at least from a user's point of view. Knowing FVWM really well won't help you with GNOME, and knowing GNOME really well won't help you with KDE. Things are a little better from the programmer's point of view, but for a user it just sucks. My advice is to pick one (try a few first) and stick with it.
A word of advice; learn to compile software from source. It's different (and much friendlier) than on Windows. You probably won't have to do it very often, but it's a useful skill and will serve you well if you decide you want more customization than what packages give you. It'll also serve you well if you transition into the BSD world later.
There's a big difference between "miss the occasional exit" and "hit the occasional car."
An experienced driver drives subconsciously. Watching for exit signs is a conscious thing.
Funny, that's the only part of Texas I like. Don't drive 380 - I imagine it'd be even worse from your perspective. The Guadalupe mountains are really cool, though.
(Of course, my main problem with Texas is all the Texans. The driving culture there is horrible. I10 out in the horn doesn't have as much traffic, so it's a nicer drive from my perspective.)
If I had to pick a boring area of Texas, I'd say I40 through the panhandle. That place is so flat is makes Kansas look like Colorado.
I only have my own experience (and those of other drivers I knew), but from what I can see, talking on a hands-free device isn't really dangerous, at least for an experienced driver.
The part of your brain that makes you go straight down the road, alerts you to potential problems, and keeps track of traffic and obstacles around you isn't the same part of the brain that gets involved in a phone conversation.
What does get affected:
Ability to maintain a constant speed
Ability to notice informational signs (i.e. exits, rest areas, etc.). Regular signs, such as stop, yield, construction zones, speed limits, etc. seem to be OK though.
Ability to do complex maneuvers (backing, navigating busy parking lots, etc.)
Source: Observation. I was a truck driver for years, and two of my family members and many of my friends still are. I have seen literally thousands of drivers (both car and truck) talking on the phone while driving. I would usually spend several hours on the phone while driving every day (good thing mobile-to-mobile is free).
Driving down a highway or interstate is fine - you're just as alert to potential danger, because the part of your brain doing the driving kicks alerts up to the thinking part of your brain immediately when something happens. Cruise control will keep your speed steady, so no worries there. You will miss the occasional exit, though.
Navigating an area you're unfamiliar with and backing are the two big areas where talking on the phone doesn't work. It's the same if you're in a busy, unpredictable area like a truck stop parking lot or a place with a lot of docks. In my experience, however, experienced drivers will tune out the phone conversation and concentrate on the driving. It's automatic - not a conscious decision.
One thing: if you're going to do this, you need a headset and phone that can do voice recognition. Tap the button, "call Fred Maplethorpe." Anything that requires you to actually touch your phone (or GPS nav, for that matter) will cause you to lose your attention on the road.
Now, for some reason, unlike using a handsfree device, talking with a phone held against your ear robs people of the ability to stay in their lane. Speed control get a lot worse as well. I've seen it countless times and experienced it myself. I have no idea why this is the case; it'd be an interesting research project for someone.
I don't really see Ringworld as being hard sci-fi... yeah, there's science in it, but there's an awful lot of impossible bullshit as well.
Good series, though, if you don't mind all the alien fucking.
Regarding Rendezvous with Rama, I fully agree - but only the first book. After that it's not hard sci-fi (or particularly good, in my opinion).
I'd throw The Fountains of Paradise in as a good hard A. C. Clarke book as well. And, of course, the first two Odyssey books (minus the stuff after he enters the monolith in the first book and the ghost of Bowman bits in the second, but you put Contact in your list, and the end of it is just as bad).
It's not hard sci-fi, but if you enjoyed The Forever War, look up John Scalzi's Old Man's War. It's an excellent series that has a similar feel. Scalzi's other books are worth reading as well.
NASA today is all about theater & FUD that begs funding so they can keep looking under the bed for monsters that don't exist
Dude, what are you even talking about? What monsters?
NASA does all kinds of kick ass shit. Sure, they don't send anyone beyond LEO anymore, but the probes are fantastic. I would argue it's precisely because NASA doesn't get enough love (and consistent political direction) that we haven't expanded the manned program. It's amazing that they've accomplished so much with so little money and political support.
I was a kid when Voyager II passed Uranus and Neptune. I always wanted to see pictures of Pluto, that mysterious little planet way out in the middle of nowhere. Well, it's not a planet anymore, but I can finally look at pictures of it.
We've sent probes to every planet now. We've sent probes to asteroids.
Their rover program has been fucking amazing. Those things are (relatively) cheap, and most of them have returned way more data and lasted way longer than they were designed for.
Galileo and Cassini were great. I'm hoping for something similar to one of the ice giants.
That second 'A' in NASA is also really interesting, if less advertised. They still do a lot of cool stuff with planes. They've had some bad luck with the scramjets, sure, but that's what experimentation is all about.
Plus, they shot a comet. I mean, come on.
When you're dealing on a professional level, you don't treat people differently based on their gender. How you interact with them is based on how well you know them and what is appropriate for the setting and personal relationship you have with that person. If you're talking to a person or group of people who you aren't close to, then there is a standard for how you interact with them. That standard is what we call "professional behavior."
It doesn't mean everyone is the same. It means there is a protocol for dealing with others in a professional environment. At one point in time, it was culturally OK to stereotype women in a business environment. It's not anymore. That's what gender equality is all about.
And quite honestly, that list you put up there is fucking stupid. Do those apply to women statistically? Sure. Do those apply to the individual women you are working with? Maybe, maybe not. Is it professional to assume that the women you are interacting with will react a certain way because they are women? No. You yourself pointed out that people are all different. Here's a list of traits that are actually important in a business setting, and have nothing to do with gender: reliability, intelligence, professionalism, punctuality, loyalty, and ability to work well in a group. No one claims that everyone is exactly the same - the only claim is that gender is not an indicator of any of those traits.
A public mailing list for a large software development project should be professional. If it's not, something should be done to correct it.
All the SJW and tumblr butthurt is just the same crap you get anytime there is a change in society. And there's always going to be people trying to make a quick buck off lawsuits; it's no different from worker's comp - there's a mix of real and fake cases, and the equivalent of ambulance chasers. If those people are what you think of when you think "gender equality," you've got the wrong idea entirely.
Inhofe is considered to be something of an idiot among pilots
Inhofe is considered to be something of an idiot by anyone who isn't a right wing fundamentalist. Unfortunately, there's a lot of those here in Oklahoma.
I'd vote against him, but no Republican would run against him, and no Democrat would win.
Yes, but only because Microsoft was dragging its feet. PNG unfortunately came out right about when IE took over.
There was quite a bit of demand for it, and pretty much every browser out there besides IE supported it well before IE got full support. If Microsoft hadn't held back web innovation so long, we would have had PNG much earlier.
I do agree though, I can't see a use case for this outside of gigantic image archives.
It's unclear whether most of the FUD in this discussion is directed at the GPL itself or specifically v3. But it's entirely unfounded.
It's not FUD, and its about the GPL in general - although being GPL3 makes it worse. "GPL2 or later" would have been a better (but still flawed) choice.
You know why libraries aren't generally licensed GPL, right? Anything that links to them has to have the exact same license as the library. For instance, the GPL2 licensed Inkscape can't use this library.
That's the difference between the GPL and the LGPL. You can link to LGPL libraries from any software; you can only link to GPL licensed libraries from code with the same version of the GPL.
In RMS' ideal world, all software would move to the latest GPL and it wouldn't be a problem. Good luck convincing these guys of that.
This is the appropriate license for this image format.
The GPL is not the appropriate license for any general-purpose library. That's what the LGPL is for. Or, like most reference implementations, a non-copyleft license like the MIT license.
Look, I get it, you're a promoter of software freedom. So am I. But this is the real world, and this is a reference implementation. There are conventions to follow for reference implementations, and an OSS non-copyleft license is one of those conventions. This image format could outperform every other format on the planet and it will still see no adoption outside of academia unless there's a compatibly licensed library available. Unless it gets relicensed, or someone writes a non-GPL library, this will go down as just another interesting format that sees no adoption whatsoever.
GPL isn't just bad for proprietary software, you know.
Libraries written under the GPL are next to useless. Mozilla? Not GPL compatible. Webkit? Not GPL3 compatible. Chromium? Hard to say - it claims to have GPL3 code in it, but I don't know how they pull it off, unless it's all in separate executables. PHP? Nope. Apache? Nope.
All the above is open source. None of it can use a GPL library, except possibly Chromium.
GPL is great for applications, if you don't expect a lot of 3rd party commercial developers. If you do, it sucks - the GPL is the reason you don't see games written in Blender's game engine, for instance - but for the most part, it works out pretty well. Libraries are a different matter altogether, because your only choice with a GPL'd library is to use the exact same license as the library you're linking to. Want to link to two libraries - one GPL2 without an "or later" clause, and one GPL3? Too bad, you're screwed.
Then of course, there's the fact that not everyone in the free software world shares the FSF's philosophy. The BSDs are actively trying to remove GPL code from the base systems - they have high hopes for Clang to replace gcc as the system compiler, for instance.
Most free software licenses don't have the whole copyleft thing going on and are pretty much mix-and-match. You don't worry about it if you're working with 2 or 3 clause BSD, MIT, or ISC licenses. Even LGPL is pretty harmless, because non-GPL software can link to it.
Making your library GPL is a sure-fire way to make sure no one uses it. I predict that, unless the developer relicenses it so something a bit more sane, this will be the last we hear of FLIF.
I can name one: IPv6.
All the hardware vendors were dragging their feet with half-assed IPv6 implementations. Then the government decided to adopt it.
Granted, adoption overseas certainly didn't hurt any, but if it wasn't for the government pushing it, we wouldn't be as far as we are now.
Now if only my cable company would support it...
Which falls squarely into the "so what" category. The Pentagon frequently pleads Congress to stop buying weapons systems it doesn't need or want, and lawmakers continue to buy them - often without providing maintenance funds for said systems. Meanwhile, infrastructure in the US is crumbling. But I guess your attitude is that "All is well. Nothing to see here. Move along".
Wow, it's hard to breathe with all those words you're stuffing into my mouth.
First off, to the "so what" comment: It's important because we are the largest economy in the world. We could spend less than 1% of our GDP on defense and still have a larger military than most countries out there.
Second, what infrastructure? Be specific. I was a truck driver for years, and if you're going to mention highways and bridges - don't bother. You're wrong.
As far as my attitude goes, you apparently think you can read my mind. You can't. I don't like the constant wars, and I don't like the mess we've put ourselves in. I'd like as much of a break as GGP.
I'd like to see you expand upon that statement a bit. Perhaps you could provide a few bullet points on our military accomplishments over the past decade.
We are responsible for quite a few things, military-wise. We support NATO, the UN, are partially responsible for the defence of Germany, and are directly responsible for the defence of South Korea, Japan, and various other places such as the Marshall Islands.
We're in Saudi Arabia on invitation to help defend it from its enemies.
And, I don't know if you've noticed, but we are still having a couple of wars. It's possible you might have missed that, I suppose, if you live under a rock or something. A big rock. On the moon.
Do I like what we're doing with our military? Well, some yes, some no. But you just assumed. I'm sure you have been informed on what that does.
Nobody cares what you question. If you can't provide a better statistic, then you've added nothing to the discussion.
Did you even read that link?
I wasn't suggesting we weren't "1000 times stronger." I was suggesting that there is no way to measure that sort of thing.
Saying we're "1000 times stronger" than the next largest military is like saying Jimi Hendrix is "1000 times better" than Eric Clapton. There's no real metric there.
I think GP defined "threat" clearly enough.
Did you read his post? He didn't define threat at all.
But people like you want to define "threat" as broadly as possible.
I defined "threat" by the only measure it should be defined: based on the actual reality of the situation.
South Korea is under direct threat from North Korea. I've sat in intelligence briefings about it. It's well documented all over the place. And they shot a missle over Japan several years back, just to prove they can.
The threat of terrorist activity to a politician's career is also very real. And since politicians control the military, and politicians are very often self-serving, they are more than willing to spend a lot of taxpayer money on security theater. This is also well documented by every news post in the last decade and a half.
Did I say that was right? No. Did I say I liked it? No. Is that the reality? Yes.
The time has long passed for your attitude to be trashed. People with your attitude are a bigger threat to the US than any other threat I can think of.
We face a much larger threat from people who can't use their brain properly. Hopefully you really are under a rock on the moon, so you won't add to that threat.
(I assume you got to the moon by jumping. You've given a lot of evidence that you're really good at jumping to conclusions. Try critical thinking sometime. Or any thinking.)
Inherently unstable? Really? Saddam ruled Iraq for around 24 years. Sounds pretty stable to me.
The USSR was stable under Stalin. North Korea is stable under the Kim family.
The difference? The Soviet Union had formal way of determining leadership, and most of it had a long history of being "Russia." It had a multilayered government under Stalin that could keep things going. Regime change was pretty much "here comes the new boss, same as the old boss."
North Korea is a unified people with a government organized around a bureaucratic military. It doesn't matter who is at the top; the structure underneath makes sure transitions happen with minimal problems. The people are isolated from the world and fed nationalistic bullshit until they think the sun rises and sets on a Kim's command.
Iraq? It had none of that. It had Saddam and his cronies, part of a minority, oppressing a majority, in a multicultural country where religious, tribal, and family ties are much more important than national identity. It's a cobbled-together country whose borders were set arbitrarily without regard to sectarian lines. Violence was held at bay only because of its liberal application by the government; once that government cracked, it would have exploded.
In other words, Iraq is a lot more like Syria, but worse. Look what's going on there.
Some would say it would have been worse, but that's a debate for the experts.
REALLY? Who are these people you speak of? Name one person besides Dick Cheney. Name one bona fide expert on the situation in Iraq who would claim the situation would be worse if the USA had not invaded. Can't? Then STFU.
Let's see here.
Tony Blair, of course.
Bashdar Pusho Ismaeel (a Kurdish political analyst)
Various political think tanks, such as FPI.
Ambassador John Bolton
Any many others. Do you own homework.
Do I think we should have gone? No. Do I think the Bush administration was looking for any excuse to go to war with Iraq? Yes.
Do I think Iraq could have peacefully transitioned from Saddam to another dictator? Not at all. That's relevant, considering he'd be almost 80 years old now, and the Arab Spring would be giving people ideas.
Oh, and that STFU? Big words from an AC. If you want me to read any reply, log the fuck in.
Ah, OK, I see your concern.
Honestly, it's been happening so long I don't even notice it any more. My first alarm was when GNOME started going with binary configs, back around 2000 or so. I'm not sure if they still use them; I stopped really using GNOME about the time they tied themselves so strongly to Metacity and all the polkit changes came through.
It's not like the whole idea of binary or user-unreadable config files is new. While technically sendmail.cf can be created by hand, very few people actually understand how to do it - they use m4. GNOME's old WM, sawmill/sawfish, used a homemade LISP for configuration - how many people actually know LISP? There are dozens of subtle differences in the config files in /etc - I'm pretty good at 'em, but only because I've spent a lot of time perusing man pages and figuring stuff out by trail and error (dhcpd.conf, pppd's configuration files (so glad I don't have to deal with that crap anymore), pam.conf, etc.). Try getting polkit working flawlessly on FVWM (or any non-DE window manager) if your distribution hasn't set it up - it's a nightmare. Different distros use different utilities, and then there's the other UNIXen to keep track of if you find yourself dealing with them.
Let's face it; the days where you could understand every part of a Linux box are long gone. What's different here is that it's the base system (and thus, servers) that's being affected, rather than desktop systems.
I've got an RHCE book (Red Hat Certified Engineer, in case they changed the name of the certification since then), published in 2000, and over 700 pages long. And Red Hat from 2000 was a lot simpler than Red Hat now, or any modern general-purpose distribution, for that matter. The simple fact is that companies such as Red Hat have been making money off Linux all along - they don't need things like systemd. The certification dance isn't because Linux is hard, but because somewhere along the line, companies and recruiters have been made to think those certifications have value. The same can be said for support; it's not a desire by sysadmins for commercial support, but companies; they belive it has value, and they are willing to pay for it. systemd has no effect on that.
I remember when RHCE first came out. They created it due to demand, both from sysadmins and companies; I don't think Red Hat came up with the idea themselves, although it's obvious it's a money maker for them. Companies see value in certifications as being able to weed out potential prospects; sysadmins see value in certifications as putting them ahead of other job applicants. I looked into it, bought the book and read a good chunk of it, but my aversion to RPM hell decided the issue for me; I never took the test for it.
Troubleshooting Linux will still be easier than troubleshooting a black box like Windows, systemd or no. While most sysadmins can't understand the source code well enough to understand its internal processes, some can, and the information they glean will join the collective knowledge available on the internet. Most sysadmins I know (including myself, when I was one) build their knowledge as they go. They'll learn systemd as they run into problems with it, using the resources at hand. The internet is great for that these days; no more crawling around on IRC or finding mailing lists just to ask a question, which may or may not be answered.
And hey, you can still pass 'init=/bin/sh' as a kernel parameter if systemd really screws the pooch and you can't boot. It's not like I haven't had to do that on occasion with init.
I'll give you the point on SysV init being traditional; however, its actual implementation is not. The helper scripts used with the different distributions are different; an init script for Red Hat isn't the same as an init script for Debian, and especially not the same as Slackware. You have to learn how an init script works for the distribution you're using. You've compiled server software and writte
We used to be, sure. It's debatable now. It's not like we run the place any more, we just don't let them have their own military (except the SDF). I've lived there, and funny thing - I had to obey Japanese laws when I was there. You know, the ones created by the elected Japanese government.
I've seen enough of Japanese culture to know that, unlike the Germans, the Japanese still have all the nationalism and sense of racial cohesion required for the atrocities committed during their occupation of China, Korea, and the Pacific islands. Oh, and the money. All it takes is the right leaders. I'm happy they don't have their own military.
Either way, what's your point? We still have to defend it.
Really?
So... the oil for food program would have kept things going smoothly after Saddam Hussein's death or a coup?
It was a bandage at best. Iraq's problems were only kept in check by its government, and its government revolved around the Hussein family. It was an inherently unstable situation.
You can blame us for setting it off early, but it would have happened eventually whether or not we were there. Some would say it would have been worse, but that's a debate for the experts.
I'm certainly not disputing that.
I wish I could say we'll learn from it, but considering we apparently didn't learn from Vietnam, we'll probably do it again.
1) Not as a percentage of GDP, no. And we do more with our military than the rest of the world combined.
2) I question that statistic. So do people in the comments on that page you linked to.
3) Depends how you define "threat." And we don't just protect ourselves; we also protect S. Korea, Japan, Germany, and various other places by treaty. S. Korea, and to a lesser extent, Japan are definitely under constant threat. And our politicians are under threat; if a terrorist attack happens on our soil, no matter what size, it becomes a huge deal for whoever's in charge (see Benghazi, for instance). Politicians control the military.
Personally, I think if we can get another Democrat up there, we'll be able to catch a break. The Democratic party is on the anti-war side right now, and Democrats tend to be more supportive of diplomacy. We've got a bit over 10,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan now (Wikipedia). If we get a Republican, well, I dunno. Depends on how strong the Libertarian presence is in the next administration - they tend to be anti-war as well.
It's as though you didn't actually think out what they guy you're replying to was actually talking about.
He's saying Iraq was a shithole with mass killings and on the verge of civil war before we went in. And he's right. The other countries he named are pretty much the same (well, not so much Egypt). While we're directly or indirectly responsible for most of the death in Iraq, all we really did was pop the lid on the pressure cooker. The pressure was already there.
I don't think we should have gone to Iraq, but all we did was speed up the inevitable. Bush's mistake (one of many) was thinking we could control the outcome. You know, like we did in 'Nam. Oh, wait...
(I can't believe I'm agreeing with someone calling themselves "RightwingNutjob")
The US government leaves death in its wake over there.
It leaves money in its wake over here.
Guess where it's trying to woo businesses?
I doubt your claim that systemd is more fundamental than the C library change, but perhaps we have different ideas on what makes something fundamental.
I don't really see it as any different. Yes, it's untested. Yes, it combines many different aspects of the base system into one thing. No, I'm not particularly fond of that, but hey, I liked libc5 just fine too. Remember all the software corner cases that wouldn't work with glibc? Or, if you were like me and used Slackware, the extreme pain in the ass a lot of software was to compile for libc5 after everyone else switched to glibc? The difference between now and then is that Linux is taken seriously now and has a larger user base.
systemd certainly has upgrade issues. I wouldn't attempt to upgrade to it; both systems I'm running it on have had fresh installs. The one system I have that doesn't have systemd (an older Kubuntu box) will also be reinstalled instead of upgraded (to something other than Kubuntu. The last release has been nothing but trouble for me.)
Whether or not it's ready for the mass deployment we've seen is up to debate. I actually agree with you; I don't think it is. I have personally only experienced minor issues with it, but I know there are a lot more issues than there should be for something as vital as the init system. But if you believe in the free software methodology - which RMS does - you know that bugs get fixed. systemd will not always be the turd it is now.
What I don't see is how systemd enhances the commercialization of the Linux world. It mostly benefits the distros and package maintainers, from what I can see - init scripts are simpler. Perhaps it would be easier for a commercial firm to package non-free software for Linux, but it's also easier to package free software for Linux.
I also don't see, having read a decent amount of his stuff, how certifications, certified distributions (unless you mean the whole UEFI boot thing, which doesn't have anything to do with systemd), or enterprise support contracts would offend RMS. RMS doesn't like proprietary software; he doesn't seem to have a problem with people making money off free software. In fact, in the first question, he states
selling support to commercial users, selling exceptions, developing solutions for clients' internal use, and crowdfunding
as being ethical.
Richard Stallman has been around a long, long time. He's seen the like of systemd before, and he knows what's going to happen.
Seriously, systemd isn't the first huge change to come down the pipe in computing. We've had several. He's witnessed the near death of LISP. He's witnessed the decline of the minicomputer and rise of the micro. He's seen "empires" (software and hardware company wise) rise and fall. He's seen UNIX rise to dominate the server room (IIRC, he's no fan of UNIX). He's seen non-free software dominate the desktop since the very inception of the desktop.
In other words, he's seen a lot of changes to stuff he actually cares about, and seen the aftermath.
I highly doubt he cares that much about the popularity of systemd vs. init. It's software - free software at that - and bugs get fixed, or you move to something else.
Yeesh, you anti-systemd people must not have been around for the ELF or glibc changeovers. It's no different. The world moves on.
I do woodworking as a hobby.
I recently fixed a cabinet for a family member. A glue joint had come loose, not a big deal.
My cabinets are missing half the doors and two of the drawers are busted. I just never seem to get around to fixing it...