>Well and no central company making a fortune with the digital currency
Well, I'd say you answered yourself : the few people currently making a fortune are hellbent on keeping it that way. They don't want things to be shaken up at all.
I have been installing an Access application on clients' desktops for the past ten years; an option to switch between single/multiple instances in the taskbar as you open forms was added in the 2000 and 2003 versions, and -thankfully- dropped thereafter, still causing me grief both ways (because of the changes in user's interaction with the software).
All that time, I've been working happily all day long on a linux only system, and sending compatible LibreOffice(*) documents to clients that have all possible versions of windows.
And I am absolutely miserable whenever I have to work on that dreadful windows 7.
Seconded. I heard as much from real life hippies: those near industrial hemp fields(*) pull their hair out.
As far as the Dupont story goes, I read they got hemp banned so it would not be able to compete with coton. The latter needs a lot of various chemicals to grow, whereas hemp is naturally robust.
>> You have no reason to plead fealty to power, but you choose to do it out of sheer cowardice and apathy. Apparently your civil liberties will have to be entirely destroyed before you value them again.
>Today, I feel that you're exactly correct. The biggest problem we have here in the US is that the majority of people don't give a damn about >anything, so long as they get a pay check, can put food on the table, and can drive to work in the morning
Well, it is a major concern when you have a family. But I would add another reason for this apathy : it's the staggering amount of propaganda by all possible means, in favour of the so-called superiority of liberalism.
See for instance the financial sector, that pushed so hard for deregulation for decades, then arranged the 2008 bailout. That took a lot of favourable opinions dispersed in every possible way to influence the legislative process; for relatively little money I might add, considering what they took home.
In computing, I witnessed as a developer the accomplishments of free software, which are absolutely astounding, with *no* management. Over the past few years, I have noticed a marked increase in what is commonly referred to as 'FUD' (for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt), messages posted in forums that are meant to present free software in a negative light. I thought until recently that these attempts were futile, and would be easily dismissed; now I am not so sure, because it seems these efforts have been stepped up. I guess it's easier to pay a for a few writers of FUD than to actually do good products.
So, I would say skull gouging, as we call it were I write from, is a major factor. No wonder the reaction is so violent whenever someone speaks the unedulcorated truth.
>Direct action movements have been building on and fine-tuning these ideas since the '70s...
Indeed. As a software developer, I can vouch for the incredible success that is open source software, where performance meets pleasure of use, all for free.
When you see those results, you really start wondering just what is the need for all those corporate hierarchical layers that exist in the proprietary world.
Is that so? I never heard of it before, even though I have been doing my daily work with various linux systems (including Ubuntu) since 2005. And I'm a software developper, so I pay attention to these things.
That's not proof of anything, but I'm not sure *why* you are so adamant about raising this issue... I call FUD.
>A quarter of a million hits to Ubutntu blank screen
I'm curious to know where that figure comes from?
Anyhow, according to google's group search (which still sports the page count), it seems that the windows blank screen is a much more common occurrence :
>Considering that the latest workstation distributions are still plagued by basic install issues
Hu? I have done half a dozen installations of Debian this year alone on different kind of hardware (standard desktop box, dedibox, eeepc, fit-pc2, you name it), and *all* of them where quicker than any install of windows I've ever done.
In fact, it's amazingly easy and fast to have a completely operational Desktop with Linux, Office suite included. Sure you have to know a few things, but you also do for Windows, and the only reason it's considered easy is because it comes pre-installed.
A rapidly growing portion is used to pay the interest on existing debt. And these interests accumulate in accounts that are very well shielded from taxes, which of course will in turn increase the deficits.
-anyone of the usual suspects (Mozilla, Chrome, Opera...) for a pleasant navigation and the new applications coming on line.
Compared to a forced upgrade of the legacy applications, would it be so hard to teach even to very computer illiterate users? That would at least allow some progress.
I know it's naïve to suppose capitalism exists (much like idealistic communism), but were this to happen in other sectors (e.g. banking), federal intervention would be swift (even if uneffective).
It has happened in banking for ever, and the only intervention from governments was to give bankers the means to _continue_ doing it, which they have done with a revenge.
hum... it's actually worse in the software industry, I gather(*). The average developer sent to a client's facility pays his monthly salary with a two-day mission, the rest goes to his employer, so 18 days of work:-(
[...] Although one can say Debian is a stripped down Ubuntu, it does not follow that all stripped down Ubuntus are Debian.
uh? from the ubuntu site: Commercially sponsored Debian-derived Linux distribution that focuses on...
It's based on Debian, so if you strip down Ubuntu, you'll get Debian.
I don't see the point of stripping down Ubuntu, though? I find it easier to start with a streamed down system, and just add whatever I need, using for instance this: http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/
It works great, and preserves your other previously installed operating system(s)
>They fired me a few months later for an arbitrary reason to get me out. Go figure.
That's easy : think of the manager who sold those thousands of hours of work (though pollution would be a more appropriate description, but I digress) to the customer.
Now, someone like you comes in, shows his utter uselessness as leader, and threatens to destroy the only motive for his existence, which is a biiiiig team of developper with a huge billing rate. All he wants now is to get rid of you.
One way out of this is for you to work freelance, if you can. Just remember to multiply your coding time by at least three, so your bills won't be ridiculously low, plus you'll need the time for the paperwork anyway.
I run my own business too, and try spend at least 15 hours a week on technical newsgroups. On numerous occasions, I happened onto discussions that saved me days of useless work because some post in a thread showed a solution pertaining to a problem I was working on at the time.
This has had the unexpected consequence of making me feel like I'm actually losing time when I'm too busy to read those newsgroups (/. included)
Well, as a total non-mechanic, I can testify that it's not obvious at all that one can shift safely to neutral while at high rpms, and I would have fallen for the rumour.
I'm glad you gave us this explanation, which might serve.
Slashdot Mirror
Hi,
You write :
>I am surprised at the cynicism about Bitcoins
and then
>Well and no central company making a fortune with the digital currency
Well, I'd say you answered yourself : the few people currently making a fortune are hellbent on keeping it that way. They don't want things to be shaken up at all.
Hu? I have examples to the contrary.
I have been installing an Access application on clients' desktops for the past ten years; an option to switch between single/multiple instances in the taskbar as you open forms was added in the 2000 and 2003 versions, and -thankfully- dropped thereafter, still causing me grief both ways (because of the changes in user's interaction with the software).
All that time, I've been working happily all day long on a linux only system, and sending compatible LibreOffice(*) documents to clients that have all possible versions of windows.
And I am absolutely miserable whenever I have to work on that dreadful windows 7.
(* : Since the fork from OpenOffice, obviously)
Seconded. I heard as much from real life hippies: those near industrial hemp fields(*) pull their hair out.
As far as the Dupont story goes, I read they got hemp banned so it would not be able to compete with coton. The latter needs a lot of various chemicals to grow, whereas hemp is naturally robust.
(* : writing from France)
Seconded.
LibreOffice instead makes me think of the French revolution, which was a grand idea in very obscure times, just as open source software is.
I have no problem doing it, even on a linux machine with files generated on windows.
>> You have no reason to plead fealty to power, but you choose to do it out of sheer cowardice and apathy. Apparently your civil liberties will have to be entirely destroyed before you value them again.
>Today, I feel that you're exactly correct. The biggest problem we have here in the US is that the majority of people don't give a damn about >anything, so long as they get a pay check, can put food on the table, and can drive to work in the morning
Well, it is a major concern when you have a family. But I would add another reason for this apathy : it's the staggering amount of propaganda by all possible means, in favour of the so-called superiority of liberalism.
See for instance the financial sector, that pushed so hard for deregulation for decades, then arranged the 2008 bailout. That took a lot of favourable opinions dispersed in every possible way to influence the legislative process; for relatively little money I might add, considering what they took home.
In computing, I witnessed as a developer the accomplishments of free software, which are absolutely astounding, with *no* management. Over the past few years, I have noticed a marked increase in what is commonly referred to as 'FUD' (for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt), messages posted in forums that are meant to present free software in a negative light. I thought until recently that these attempts were futile, and would be easily dismissed; now I am not so sure, because it seems these efforts have been stepped up. I guess it's easier to pay a for a few writers of FUD than to actually do good products.
So, I would say skull gouging, as we call it were I write from, is a major factor. No wonder the reaction is so violent whenever someone speaks the unedulcorated truth.
>Direct action movements have been building on and fine-tuning these ideas since the '70s...
Indeed. As a software developer, I can vouch for the incredible success that is open source software, where performance meets pleasure of use, all for free.
When you see those results, you really start wondering just what is the need for all those corporate hierarchical layers that exist in the proprietary world.
It doesn't take that many dollars to use some kind of virtualization tool, and run your windows application inside a virtual machine.
I work daily with PostgreSQL with great pleasure.
I would add to your list the excellent SQLite : serverless, zero configuration. It's used as storage engine by Thunderbird, among others.
http://www.sqlite.org/index.html
Strangely, Oracle is one of the consortium members.
Is that so? I never heard of it before, even though I have been doing my daily work with various linux systems (including Ubuntu) since 2005. And I'm a software developper, so I pay attention to these things.
That's not proof of anything, but I'm not sure *why* you are so adamant about raising this issue... I call FUD.
>A quarter of a million hits to Ubutntu blank screen
I'm curious to know where that figure comes from?
Anyhow, according to google's group search (which still sports the page count), it seems that the windows blank screen is a much more common occurrence :
http://groups.google.fr/groups/search?hl=fr&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&q=windows+blank+screen&sitesearch=&scoring=d
>Considering that the latest workstation distributions are still plagued by basic install issues
Hu? I have done half a dozen installations of Debian this year alone on different kind of hardware (standard desktop box, dedibox, eeepc, fit-pc2, you name it), and *all* of them where quicker than any install of windows I've ever done.
In fact, it's amazingly easy and fast to have a completely operational Desktop with Linux, Office suite included. Sure you have to know a few things, but you also do for Windows, and the only reason it's considered easy is because it comes pre-installed.
> It is going on other things.
A rapidly growing portion is used to pay the interest on existing debt. And these interests accumulate in accounts that are very well shielded from taxes, which of course will in turn increase the deficits.
Agreed.
I host a small web site and, from my experience, 90% of the cost is bandwidth.
why people can't simply use *two* browsers :
-IE6 for those apps that depend on it
-anyone of the usual suspects (Mozilla, Chrome, Opera...) for a pleasant navigation and the new applications coming on line.
Compared to a forced upgrade of the legacy applications, would it be so hard to teach even to very computer illiterate users? That would at least allow some progress.
I know it's naïve to suppose capitalism exists (much like idealistic communism), but were this to happen in other sectors (e.g. banking), federal intervention would be swift (even if uneffective).
It has happened in banking for ever, and the only intervention from governments was to give bankers the means to _continue_ doing it, which they have done with a revenge.
hum... it's actually worse in the software industry, I gather(*). The average developer sent to a client's facility pays his monthly salary with a two-day mission, the rest goes to his employer, so 18 days of work :-(
(* : I sell software to cities)
[...] Although one can say Debian is a stripped down Ubuntu, it does not follow that all stripped down Ubuntus are Debian.
uh? from the ubuntu site : ... :
Commercially sponsored Debian-derived Linux distribution that focuses on
It's based on Debian, so if you strip down Ubuntu, you'll get Debian.
I don't see the point of stripping down Ubuntu, though? I find it easier to start with a streamed down system, and just add whatever I need, using for instance this
http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/
It works great, and preserves your other previously installed operating system(s)
I'd rate your comment as insigthful if I had mod points
>They fired me a few months later for an arbitrary reason to get me out. Go figure.
That's easy : think of the manager who sold those thousands of hours of work (though pollution would be a more appropriate description, but I digress) to the customer.
Now, someone like you comes in, shows his utter uselessness as leader, and threatens to destroy the only motive for his existence, which is a biiiiig team of developper with a huge billing rate. All he wants now is to get rid of you.
One way out of this is for you to work freelance, if you can. Just remember to multiply your coding time by at least three, so your bills won't be ridiculously low, plus you'll need the time for the paperwork anyway.
I run my own business too, and try spend at least 15 hours a week on technical newsgroups. On numerous occasions, I happened onto discussions that saved me days of useless work because some post in a thread showed a solution pertaining to a problem I was working on at the time.
This has had the unexpected consequence of making me feel like I'm actually losing time when I'm too busy to read those newsgroups (/. included)
Nice idea, but the stakes are not the same in a discussion on /. and in the board room of an SNP500 company.
This reminds me of an acquaintance who had some contacts with the French secret services, and started a newsgroup for them. This was around 97 or so.
Since nobody could reasonably post anything meaningful (for obvious reasons), it quickly died.
You must have been doing something wrong :
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9087918/Size_matters_Yahoo_claims_2_petabyte_database_is_world_s_biggest_busiest
Well, it's a good thing some of those missile guidance systems never got into action :
http://www.foo.be/docs/tpj/issues/vol2_1/tpj0201-0004.html
Well, as a total non-mechanic, I can testify that it's not obvious at all that one can shift safely to neutral while at high rpms, and I would have fallen for the rumour.
I'm glad you gave us this explanation, which might serve.