Well, big served for a while. It did provide the social stimulus for researching a lot of important things. There should have been a better way, but even the "free" society of the USA wasn't really quite up to accepting the realities involved in what "free" really means.
Big ag did serve for a while.
We live in a society heavily biased by the systemization that brought us too much big. It makes it hard to see what the alternatives are. It also makes it hard for the individual, non-standard people to get what they need, since big can only provide the standard.
Non-standard will always look too expensive in a society like this.
But the big institutions have all well outgrown their usefulness. That's what the business with the big banks was/is. It's time to kill the big institutions off, or, rather, cut them back to a manageable size, split them into competing entities. Or kill them if they won't be cut down to size.
The institutions, not the people, of course. Let the institutions die, if necessary, to save the people.
(And if you think you are standard enough not to believe in non-standard individuals, just wait a while. Standard is an illusion.)
Are you sure that lectures from the "big ag" groups will not also be full of biased information?
When your favorite tool is a hammer, you tend to see all problems as nails, whether you are a programmer, a doctor, a musician, a farmer, an employee of an artists association, an engineer for Monsanto, etc.
"Big" is a hammer. "Big" looks efficient until the first disaster.
("Big", as in Bureaucracy, would you believe?)
Eventually, we get turned back around to recognizing that work, like control, works best on a local basis. That includes farming.
The siren song of big industry, I think, is the sharing of information, but we really don't need to make big corporations to share information.
The point of competition in the marketplace is not to provide some sort of forum for some partially random team to crow, "We're number one!" for a season, although that would be a much better state of affairs than what we have with Microsoft.
There are (broadly speaking) two kinds of fair competition. One is a sporting kind, where a rather arbitrary yardstick is set up for competitors to test themselves against. It can be useful, in the sense of providing an environment that encourages testing and refinement.
There was an implicit assumption that the skills, techniques, etc., being tested and refined are meaningful, if not useful, but it is often easy to lose touch with that concept in the heat of the battle.
There is also an implicit assumption that sports are a less destructive substitute for war, which assumption is also easy to lose track of, apparently.
The other kind of fair competition is where you let people who have needs go out and seek their own solutions. The providers of solutions can compete, on a case-by-case basis to provide the best solution for each person's set of needs, as determined by the individual "customer", him- or herself. The customer should even be free to choose to provide his or her own solution.
The whole purpose of free-market competition is to allow needs to be met if possible, from the possible candidates in the market.
This is as opposed to forcing everyone to buy some single product chosen by some government or quasi-governmental body, or by some institution that has amassed the power, charisma, presence, or other proxy for authority to push its ideology or other agenda.
You leave me wondering, are you by any chance, in fact, a sock-puppet of one of the anti-mono crowd, trying to make them look even worse than they are?
The argument is over putting mono in the default install by way of tomboy. It has virtually nothing to do with either purism or pragmatism, except, perhaps, to the degree that some of the mono devs feel slighted that they aren't granted a higher status than the ruby crowd.
No, that's gonna induce a red herring, too.
They want to be granted the status that java has, on the basis of tomboy. They are also frustrated that their attempts to build "compelling" apps that will necessitate mono in the default install aren't automatically met with absolute approbation.
They also don't seem to understand that Java in the default install is only tolerated.
And they don't seem to understand that mono is not that spectacular a language, nor does it really fix all of java's faults.
And it's only some of them, but they feel slighted, so they are trying to make it appear that there is some unfair prejudice involved.
The funny thing is that the pragmatist doesn't often actually change himself, he usually just puts a few more shims between himself and the real world.
I see lots and lots of false dichotomies flying around here.
Slashdot Mirror
You want a "Big is Dangerous" rant?
Well, big served for a while. It did provide the social stimulus for researching a lot of important things. There should have been a better way, but even the "free" society of the USA wasn't really quite up to accepting the realities involved in what "free" really means.
Big ag did serve for a while.
We live in a society heavily biased by the systemization that brought us too much big. It makes it hard to see what the alternatives are. It also makes it hard for the individual, non-standard people to get what they need, since big can only provide the standard.
Non-standard will always look too expensive in a society like this.
But the big institutions have all well outgrown their usefulness. That's what the business with the big banks was/is. It's time to kill the big institutions off, or, rather, cut them back to a manageable size, split them into competing entities. Or kill them if they won't be cut down to size.
The institutions, not the people, of course. Let the institutions die, if necessary, to save the people.
(And if you think you are standard enough not to believe in non-standard individuals, just wait a while. Standard is an illusion.)
A quick search on google produced this.
Any other information people would need?
at google
(Not that I've used them, but I'm interested, too.)
An AC posted one down a bit further.
(I replied with some links. Haven't used it myself.)
And here's a couple of linkies:
a Brother page
a google search page
Yet Another Great!
Can you put up a how-to?
Can you put up a how-to?
Are you sure that lectures from the "big ag" groups will not also be full of biased information?
When your favorite tool is a hammer, you tend to see all problems as nails, whether you are a programmer, a doctor, a musician, a farmer, an employee of an artists association, an engineer for Monsanto, etc.
"Big" is a hammer. "Big" looks efficient until the first disaster.
("Big", as in Bureaucracy, would you believe?)
Eventually, we get turned back around to recognizing that work, like control, works best on a local basis. That includes farming.
The siren song of big industry, I think, is the sharing of information, but we really don't need to make big corporations to share information.
The point of competition in the marketplace is not to provide some sort of forum for some partially random team to crow, "We're number one!" for a season, although that would be a much better state of affairs than what we have with Microsoft.
There are (broadly speaking) two kinds of fair competition. One is a sporting kind, where a rather arbitrary yardstick is set up for competitors to test themselves against. It can be useful, in the sense of providing an environment that encourages testing and refinement.
There was an implicit assumption that the skills, techniques, etc., being tested and refined are meaningful, if not useful, but it is often easy to lose touch with that concept in the heat of the battle.
There is also an implicit assumption that sports are a less destructive substitute for war, which assumption is also easy to lose track of, apparently.
The other kind of fair competition is where you let people who have needs go out and seek their own solutions. The providers of solutions can compete, on a case-by-case basis to provide the best solution for each person's set of needs, as determined by the individual "customer", him- or herself. The customer should even be free to choose to provide his or her own solution.
The whole purpose of free-market competition is to allow needs to be met if possible, from the possible candidates in the market.
This is as opposed to forcing everyone to buy some single product chosen by some government or quasi-governmental body, or by some institution that has amassed the power, charisma, presence, or other proxy for authority to push its ideology or other agenda.
You leave me wondering, are you by any chance, in fact, a sock-puppet of one of the anti-mono crowd, trying to make them look even worse than they are?
The original poster (who has not bothered continuing his part of the conversation) said, "as good as bricked."
Oh, well. Brick it. Fill it full of cement.
Hmm. I have a computer that you could fill full of cement without actually making it non-functional.
Whatever.
But what does that have to do with putting mono in the default installs of Ubuntu?
So which action do you suggest?
Put mono in the default installs of Ubuntu or remove it?
Well, the argument underlying this one is whether Ubuntu should have mono, through tomboy, in the default installs, isn't it?
But what does that have to do with whether tomboy, and, thus, mono, should be in the default install of Ubuntu?
The argument is whether to put tomboy, and thus mono in the default install of Ubuntu.
Fedora is expunging mono from the default install, but not from packages starting with the next release. RHE already did.
They are discussing this over at Canonical, and those who are convinced that mono is suffering a slight are up in arms and claiming to be pragmatists.
If there is an all-the-newest-fancy-gadgets-to-try-out install, then maybe tomboy and mono belong in the default of that, sure.
And then you realize there's something more.
But the underlying argument is not purism vs. pragmatism.
There is no real pragmatism in putting tomboy or any other particular mono-dependent app in the default install.
I personally think there are too many things in most of the default installs (plural) as it is.
If there is an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink install, then, definitely, tomboy and mono would belong in the default install of that.
This is a false dichotomy and a red herring.
The argument is over putting mono in the default install by way of tomboy. It has virtually nothing to do with either purism or pragmatism, except, perhaps, to the degree that some of the mono devs feel slighted that they aren't granted a higher status than the ruby crowd.
No, that's gonna induce a red herring, too.
They want to be granted the status that java has, on the basis of tomboy. They are also frustrated that their attempts to build "compelling" apps that will necessitate mono in the default install aren't automatically met with absolute approbation.
They also don't seem to understand that Java in the default install is only tolerated.
And they don't seem to understand that mono is not that spectacular a language, nor does it really fix all of java's faults.
And it's only some of them, but they feel slighted, so they are trying to make it appear that there is some unfair prejudice involved.
Some people think that religion itself ought to be pragmatic.
Not to say that I think the GNU GPL makes a good religion, ...
And?
But how did (ergo, Nokia) understand that investing in software under the GPL would bring more commercial development?
Definitely not without meaning.
The funny thing is that the pragmatist doesn't often actually change himself, he usually just puts a few more shims between himself and the real world.
I see lots and lots of false dichotomies flying around here.
Amish?
Very pragmatic people.