Courtesy? You fail to see that Windows and Linux are in different positions. Windows has a firm hold of the market and Linux has to 1) get along with the other OS everyone is used to and 2) show that it has a higher usability to be taken into consideration.
What you describe as "courtesy" is simply Linux trying to be the better system while coping with the unequal market situation. If Windows was in Linux's position, they would (have to) behave the same. That is a strategy in that it is the reasonable and useful thing to do, not courtesy. Linux is not kinder than Windows, it is better. (Or at least tries to be.)
Although I think your's is a valid and important distinction, I would argue that it is beside the point I tried to make: My parent should rely on data and statistics, indices and empirics; not on his/her own subjevtive and probably biased perception.
As for econometrical nitpicking: What about the GDP pc ppp's fallacies? What about under- or overevaluating bundles of goods because certain goods don't exist in comparable countries (like Rikshaw rides) or cannot be compared due to other circumstances (a fan will less likely be needed in Finland than in Togo)?
Similar critique could be applied to the Big Mac index.
However, in our case I admit that GDP pc ppp is preferable, because adjusting (more or less) badly is better than not adjusting at all.;-)
By most accounts, and the most important of them is the GDP per capita, India is a low income country and therefore a developing nation.
I guess it is fair to say that a developing nation is a third world country, don't you?
They might have a big GDP growth and some advanced technologies invented in their country, but that does not mean that the average Indian is rich, at least not yet.
You accuse your parent as narrow minded? Your own conclusions don't seem to be too far away from prejudice either, my friend.
This whole thing is as upside down as Intelligent Design.
1.: If she wanted to use Windows, she could have installed it. Any Win-Fan will confirm that it is easy as pie. That she did not know that and noone told her, is not Ubuntu's fault.
2.: If she ordered the wrong laptop (or the laptop with the wrong OS), she should have looked better. That she did not bother to inquire further is hardly the fault of Ubuntu.
3.: If she did not get the Laptop she ordered, Dell should replace it instead of talking her into keeping it. That is not Ubuntu's fault.
4.: That the costumer service at Dell gave her bad advice or was otherwise unhelpful, is bad (if true). However, you cannot pin that on Ubuntu.
5.: That her school does not accept anything else than whatever is produced with MS products is either the problem of the school, the particular teacher or the overshadowing de facto standard created by users as a whole. That neither side in this dilemma, including our unfortunate student, seems to know or care about this dilemma is tragic. But it is not Ubuntu's fault.
6.: That she decided to drop out of school in resignation instead of fixing the problem that caused the resignation is entirely her problem and not Ubuntu's fault.
I fail to see why a distribution should take the blame for mistakes totally unrelated with the software packing it provides.
I understand that the student is desperate and rather wants to blame someone else than to accept her own mistakes. However, that is not the way it works.
Points in case:
@1.: If I got a flathead screwdriver and need a Philip's-Head one, I do not blame having the wrong tool on the screwdriver.
@2.: In the shop I should have known what kind of screwdriver I need. That they look similar but not quite the same should have been pointed out to me and should alarm me and make me inquire further. It is not the fault of the screwdriver, if that did not happen.
@3.: If I am sold a flathead although I wanted a Philip's-Head, I would ask the shop to swap it since it was their fault instead of resignating and gazing at the flathead in a meaningful way.
@4.: If I don't know how to use a screwdriver, and ask someone and the advice does not work, I either ask again or someone else or at least am mad at that particular person, but not at the screwdriver.
@5.: I can't turn any screw with the screwdriver I bought. I should have known that before and either brought my own screws or bought another screwdriver.
@6.: If I cannot get a screw to work although I will find great help if I would look, I would not cry mummy. And much less would I cry newspaperman and expose my incompetence to a whole community of tool-users.
Anyway, although it is named like it, the screw up is not on the side of the screwdriver. I guess that came through.
Sorry for the rant, but I just can't stand arrogance on that high a level.
The discrepancy between you productivity levels might be due to two adverse effects:
Normally people get more tired and unconcentrated after some hours of concentrated work.
However, if the level of disturbance decreases during the last hours since everbody else in your firm leaves, as is the case for me as well, you can focus more on whatever you are doing. That would INCREASE the level of concentration again.
Of course there might some other effects connected to the specific work you are doing. Think conveyer belt worker vs. mathematician here.
Though I agree that teachers should rather teach how to question things, and therefore should talk about controversial issues, I have to say your holocaust example is a bad example. It simply is not controversial, holocaust did happen.
Actually, what teachers should teach, and I think you agree, would prevent seeing the nonexistence of holocaust as merely a myth rather than the falsehood it is. Teachers should teach that good thinking requires fact checking, coherent thaught and questioning statements. And this is exactly why the Santa-teacher should not have been fired. she questioned an unfounded believe and did so on good grounds and (presumably) with no ill intend (although I guess that these rather abstract lessons might still be too hard on youngsters from primary schools).
On your tool-comparison:
the comparison is slightly scewed. War should only be a tool for defence; defence of land, defence of freedoms, defence of rights. So being anti-war is less like being anti-screwdriver but more like being anti-condom. However, if there are other ways of preventing unwanted results like death, then they should be taken and it is justified to be against a specific measure of defence because it is the worse choice of measures.
In our case the simplest such measure would be: Don't fuck around with others!
Writing that is like writing that not only war but also the lifes that are taken in war and therefore people in general are a means to an end and not an end in themselves. And on that, I have to disagree. People should always be treated as ends, even if they are seen as means at the same time. Since Kant is with me on that one (wikipedia->categorical imperative->second formulation), I feel pretty save saying so.
I think entering WWs I and II to end them were a good idea.
There, fixed it for you. Or did you indeed mean what you wrote? Then, Sir, you would be an idiot.
Re:Revenge of the Nerds...
on
American Nerd
·
· Score: 1
What? You don't see dimwits at facebook? How do you do THAT?
Re:Revenge of the Nerds...
on
American Nerd
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
{sarcasm} All hail to you, Count of Monte Cristo!{/sarcasm}
Seriously: At first I, too, thought that it would be nice to show off with my achievements and feast on the look of their faces.
But then I realized that being an academic has another nice advantage: I was able to choose to live in a completely different surrounding in which I NEVER HAVE TO SEE THESE DIMWITS EVER AGAIN.
Someone must have thought of that before. Seriously, why don't they do that? It would be just great: The OS for free and if you don't wanna pay for services, just don't use them.
Same as Windows: Workers (might) know it from their private environment.
As unimportant that might seem to the average slashdot techwiz, this is a reason that counts to many. I am even betting this (and the allure to developers) is the reason that Ubuntu promotes its desktop version although it will not turn profitable even according to Mark Shuttleworth himself.
I basically agree: The tag is used way to often and probably by people who do not have a better idea why correlation exists other than writing it up to coincidence.
However, your argument is flawed by a common logical fallacy. It is true that causation tends to result in correlation (actually more than "tends to"), but you cannot deduct from this that correlation is a sign for causation, especially if there is more than one possible chain of causation leading to the same correlation.
It is true: The street is wet when it rains. However, if the street is wet, it does not have rain.
I hate to pick up on trolling, but Germany's former foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, was also strongly associated with leftist terrorists and even took part in street battles. However, he did a formidable and more than respectable job, since he had the discipline, power and will to change himself. Who is to say that Ayers could not have changed as well? If a university can recognise that he did, you might be able to do so too, just give it a try. Besides: How can you be so arrogant as to think that you know how Ayers' background reflects on Obama, even if it is true that they are somehow connected?
According to briefing my boss gave me recently, Truecrypt would not help: If they really wanted to see your content they could ask you to show it to them or alternatively confiscate your laptop and decrypt it themselves. The latter would mean you would probably not see your laptop again. Let me tell you: As a European scientist I am even more frigthened now to go or even move to the US.
Seriously: Trees are just a carbon sink. Accordingly, when trees rot, the carbon will be set free again. Having a "machine" remove the excess carbon formerly bound to dessert ground from air would help us compensate the loss of trees through forest burning and chopping as well as the carbon set free by burning oil. However, I would not know what machine is sustainable, effective and efficient in this way yet.
Well, it has to be binary for a statement, but a whole site could be rated with an average of 1s and 0s. However, I still think it is a stupid idea since you cannot rank the quality of a site by its truth-factor. What truth-factor would xkcd have, for example? Or flickr.com? It would only confuse people in these cases, besides being unnecessary.
If money would be the real driver behind this deal, then Google accountants are not as smart as I thought they are.
Developing nations will not be able to use the internet for quite a while due to already mentioned reasons: Illiteracy rate is high, many countries don't have stable and enough electricity let alone the number of PCs to use the inet effectively. And they won't care for them either, since their main problem to solve will remain to get enough food so they won't starve.
It definitely is a nice move from Google and might help the poor along a bit, but there are other things like microfinance, infrastructure and political pressure at the right points that could help DCs a lot more. And Google could provide that as well.
To summarize: Nice move, which is certainly not motivated by money that much, but could be more effective.
Slashdot Mirror
Uh, Mike Rackhabbit strikes again!
I sense a Bloody Stupid Johnson joke somewhere here.
Courtesy? You fail to see that Windows and Linux are in different positions. Windows has a firm hold of the market and Linux has to 1) get along with the other OS everyone is used to and 2) show that it has a higher usability to be taken into consideration.
What you describe as "courtesy" is simply Linux trying to be the better system while coping with the unequal market situation. If Windows was in Linux's position, they would (have to) behave the same. That is a strategy in that it is the reasonable and useful thing to do, not courtesy. Linux is not kinder than Windows, it is better. (Or at least tries to be.)
Although I think your's is a valid and important distinction, I would argue that it is beside the point I tried to make: My parent should rely on data and statistics, indices and empirics; not on his/her own subjevtive and probably biased perception. ;-)
As for econometrical nitpicking: What about the GDP pc ppp's fallacies? What about under- or overevaluating bundles of goods because certain goods don't exist in comparable countries (like Rikshaw rides) or cannot be compared due to other circumstances (a fan will less likely be needed in Finland than in Togo)? Similar critique could be applied to the Big Mac index.
However, in our case I admit that GDP pc ppp is preferable, because adjusting (more or less) badly is better than not adjusting at all.
By most accounts, and the most important of them is the GDP per capita, India is a low income country and therefore a developing nation.
I guess it is fair to say that a developing nation is a third world country, don't you?
They might have a big GDP growth and some advanced technologies invented in their country, but that does not mean that the average Indian is rich, at least not yet.
You accuse your parent as narrow minded? Your own conclusions don't seem to be too far away from prejudice either, my friend.
This whole thing is as upside down as Intelligent Design.
1.: If she wanted to use Windows, she could have installed it. Any Win-Fan will confirm that it is easy as pie. That she did not know that and noone told her, is not Ubuntu's fault.
2.: If she ordered the wrong laptop (or the laptop with the wrong OS), she should have looked better. That she did not bother to inquire further is hardly the fault of Ubuntu.
3.: If she did not get the Laptop she ordered, Dell should replace it instead of talking her into keeping it. That is not Ubuntu's fault.
4.: That the costumer service at Dell gave her bad advice or was otherwise unhelpful, is bad (if true). However, you cannot pin that on Ubuntu.
5.: That her school does not accept anything else than whatever is produced with MS products is either the problem of the school, the particular teacher or the overshadowing de facto standard created by users as a whole. That neither side in this dilemma, including our unfortunate student, seems to know or care about this dilemma is tragic. But it is not Ubuntu's fault.
6.: That she decided to drop out of school in resignation instead of fixing the problem that caused the resignation is entirely her problem and not Ubuntu's fault.
I fail to see why a distribution should take the blame for mistakes totally unrelated with the software packing it provides.
I understand that the student is desperate and rather wants to blame someone else than to accept her own mistakes. However, that is not the way it works.
Points in case:
@1.: If I got a flathead screwdriver and need a Philip's-Head one, I do not blame having the wrong tool on the screwdriver.
@2.: In the shop I should have known what kind of screwdriver I need. That they look similar but not quite the same should have been pointed out to me and should alarm me and make me inquire further. It is not the fault of the screwdriver, if that did not happen.
@3.: If I am sold a flathead although I wanted a Philip's-Head, I would ask the shop to swap it since it was their fault instead of resignating and gazing at the flathead in a meaningful way.
@4.: If I don't know how to use a screwdriver, and ask someone and the advice does not work, I either ask again or someone else or at least am mad at that particular person, but not at the screwdriver.
@5.: I can't turn any screw with the screwdriver I bought. I should have known that before and either brought my own screws or bought another screwdriver.
@6.: If I cannot get a screw to work although I will find great help if I would look, I would not cry mummy. And much less would I cry newspaperman and expose my incompetence to a whole community of tool-users.
Anyway, although it is named like it, the screw up is not on the side of the screwdriver. I guess that came through.
Sorry for the rant, but I just can't stand arrogance on that high a level.
My answer to the senate would look roughly like this:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=penn%20teller%20swearing#q=penn%20teller%20profanity&emb=0
The discrepancy between you productivity levels might be due to two adverse effects:
Normally people get more tired and unconcentrated after some hours of concentrated work.
However, if the level of disturbance decreases during the last hours since everbody else in your firm leaves, as is the case for me as well, you can focus more on whatever you are doing. That would INCREASE the level of concentration again.
Of course there might some other effects connected to the specific work you are doing. Think conveyer belt worker vs. mathematician here.
Actually, what is retarded here is your stupid joke.
Though I agree that teachers should rather teach how to question things, and therefore should talk about controversial issues, I have to say your holocaust example is a bad example. It simply is not controversial, holocaust did happen.
Actually, what teachers should teach, and I think you agree, would prevent seeing the nonexistence of holocaust as merely a myth rather than the falsehood it is. Teachers should teach that good thinking requires fact checking, coherent thaught and questioning statements. And this is exactly why the Santa-teacher should not have been fired. she questioned an unfounded believe and did so on good grounds and (presumably) with no ill intend (although I guess that these rather abstract lessons might still be too hard on youngsters from primary schools).
On your tool-comparison:
the comparison is slightly scewed. War should only be a tool for defence; defence of land, defence of freedoms, defence of rights. So being anti-war is less like being anti-screwdriver but more like being anti-condom. However, if there are other ways of preventing unwanted results like death, then they should be taken and it is justified to be against a specific measure of defence because it is the worse choice of measures.
In our case the simplest such measure would be: Don't fuck around with others!
Writing that is like writing that not only war but also the lifes that are taken in war and therefore people in general are a means to an end and not an end in themselves. And on that, I have to disagree. People should always be treated as ends, even if they are seen as means at the same time. Since Kant is with me on that one (wikipedia->categorical imperative->second formulation), I feel pretty save saying so.
I think entering WWs I and II to end them were a good idea.
There, fixed it for you. Or did you indeed mean what you wrote? Then, Sir, you would be an idiot.
What? You don't see dimwits at facebook? How do you do THAT?
{sarcasm} All hail to you, Count of Monte Cristo!{/sarcasm}
Seriously: At first I, too, thought that it would be nice to show off with my achievements and feast on the look of their faces.
But then I realized that being an academic has another nice advantage: I was able to choose to live in a completely different surrounding in which I NEVER HAVE TO SEE THESE DIMWITS EVER AGAIN.
And to that I say: WOOT ;-)
Someone must have thought of that before. Seriously, why don't they do that? It would be just great: The OS for free and if you don't wanna pay for services, just don't use them.
Same as Windows: Workers (might) know it from their private environment.
As unimportant that might seem to the average slashdot techwiz, this is a reason that counts to many. I am even betting this (and the allure to developers) is the reason that Ubuntu promotes its desktop version although it will not turn profitable even according to Mark Shuttleworth himself.
I basically agree: The tag is used way to often and probably by people who do not have a better idea why correlation exists other than writing it up to coincidence.
However, your argument is flawed by a common logical fallacy. It is true that causation tends to result in correlation (actually more than "tends to"), but you cannot deduct from this that correlation is a sign for causation, especially if there is more than one possible chain of causation leading to the same correlation.
It is true: The street is wet when it rains. However, if the street is wet, it does not have rain.
Actually he (she?) wasn't if only NT-kernels (and versions before the split) counted. 95,98 and ME had there own branch of kernels.
I hate to pick up on trolling, but Germany's former foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, was also strongly associated with leftist terrorists and even took part in street battles. However, he did a formidable and more than respectable job, since he had the discipline, power and will to change himself. Who is to say that Ayers could not have changed as well? If a university can recognise that he did, you might be able to do so too, just give it a try.
Besides: How can you be so arrogant as to think that you know how Ayers' background reflects on Obama, even if it is true that they are somehow connected?
According to briefing my boss gave me recently, Truecrypt would not help: If they really wanted to see your content they could ask you to show it to them or alternatively confiscate your laptop and decrypt it themselves. The latter would mean you would probably not see your laptop again.
Let me tell you: As a European scientist I am even more frigthened now to go or even move to the US.
Seriously: Trees are just a carbon sink. Accordingly, when trees rot, the carbon will be set free again.
Having a "machine" remove the excess carbon formerly bound to dessert ground from air would help us compensate the loss of trees through forest burning and chopping as well as the carbon set free by burning oil. However, I would not know what machine is sustainable, effective and efficient in this way yet.
All hail Tarski.
Well, it has to be binary for a statement, but a whole site could be rated with an average of 1s and 0s.
However, I still think it is a stupid idea since you cannot rank the quality of a site by its truth-factor. What truth-factor would xkcd have, for example? Or flickr.com? It would only confuse people in these cases, besides being unnecessary.
Moreover: Who measures the truth?
If money would be the real driver behind this deal, then Google accountants are not as smart as I thought they are. Developing nations will not be able to use the internet for quite a while due to already mentioned reasons: Illiteracy rate is high, many countries don't have stable and enough electricity let alone the number of PCs to use the inet effectively. And they won't care for them either, since their main problem to solve will remain to get enough food so they won't starve. It definitely is a nice move from Google and might help the poor along a bit, but there are other things like microfinance, infrastructure and political pressure at the right points that could help DCs a lot more. And Google could provide that as well. To summarize: Nice move, which is certainly not motivated by money that much, but could be more effective.