Ahem, this man has not been charged with a crime. That means they are blowing smoke -- for now. He does not need an attorney.
Look, several years ago, I walked near an area where a sexual assault had taken place. The police saw me, and you can imagine what happened. I was a perfect target -- single, no alibi, just walking between two places alone.
They questioned me, took my info, and left. The next day they started calling me at home and at work, trying to get me to confess, trying to get me to "accept" a lesser charge.
They stated that if it went to court, they had enough circumstantial evidence to convict me, that if I didn't take the offer, they would go for the most severe charge. I would be in jail for "years", and (obviously) lose my job.
If I would just confess to a lesser charge, they would "guarantee" no jail time, and no fine. After seven years, it would be like nothing happened, there would be nothing on my record.
There was just one problem with accepting the blame : I was not the perpetrator; I commited no crime.
So I was scared. I spent some money on an attorney ($75) and the guy wanted thousands "up front" to "insure my freedom".
As it turns out, most lawyers are lying bastards. I talked to my Dad's attorney about this, and he started laughing. He said "My God, this is America! You haven't even been charged! They're blowing smoke up your ass to try and get a free conviction for doing no work!"
He recommended that I call the Detective and state:
"My attorney and I will surrender to your department when charges are filed, please contact me at that time. I have no intention of fleeing; I would like to avoid the embarrassment of being arrested at my home or place of work".
Total cost for a real attorney : $0.00
I was never arrested, charged or contacted again!
Know your rights! You do not have to speak to the police...you should respect them and answer rudimentary questions with honesty, but once it becomes clear that you are a target of the investigation, stop talking! Simply tell them you intend to turn yourself in when charges are filed.
Lower sales for the monopolist
on
$1200 Cheap!
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Lower sales for a criminal enterprise is a good thing.
Most market studies show, for the non-geek computer user (which is pretty much the entire PC market) people are tired of:
1) Incremental PC performace increases.
2) Expensive S/W and H/W upgrades every two years.
3) Arrogance on the part of S/W and H/W manufacturers along the lines of "...we deserve access to your pocketbook every two years".
People are tired of these ridiculous PC upgrade cycles.
The market is saturated. Most studies show that everyone who wants a PC already has one, and doesn't want to spend a lot of money on another.
Gaming? The game sales are off, it's lost it's luster. After Columbine, parents want their kids out riding a bike or playing with their friends, not zapping their eyes on lame FPS regurgitation.
Today's PCs are the 8-tracks of the future. Piece of shit boat anchors. $1200 for a throw-away, non-upgradble PC? That will be behind the performance curve the day it's released? In a down economy?
Families who may have just gotten layoff notices are going to send $1200 to a federally convicted monopolist, who is the richest man in the world?
Well, this is America. I guess it might be a big hit.
There is no "imply", employees were working for free, on verbal guarantees, and giving cash advances to keep the company afloat.
Loki screwed them, mostly because they bent over.
NEVER give anyone cash without a contract, unless you expect to lose it. Never work for free without an agreement on future compensation, unless you can afford to drop it.
If you just let things get mushy like this, the end result is usually a lawsuit, and only the lawyers win.
Let's face it, a cometitors' plugin interface is bound to be more stable and consistent than anything MS publishes, for reasons that have been beaten into the ground.
Having an IE plugin interface in Mozilla, for example, would be ludicrous. The lizards would spend far more time playing catchup with MS interfaces than doing anything else, thus killing the project. Duh.
Hopefully the courts will demand a few things from MS immediately:
1) Open MS Exchange to LDAP/POP3 access unconditionally.
2) Allow OEMs the right to add or remove components, software and icons unconditionally.
3) Allow OEMs the right to ship dual boot systems unconditionally.
If Ford shipped a car that only ran on Ford(tm) gasoline, or a GM dealer couldn't add accessories to a vehicle at the customer's request, or on their own initiative, there would be OUTRAGE expressed by the dealers, end buyers, and accessory shops.
If the election officials bungle paper punch cards, imagine what they will do with computers.
Training people to do a proper job, with reasonably good materials, will go much further toward fostering a positive voter experience than any electronic devices will.
First and foremost, the USA wants to control all software development, to some extent.
Microsoft is a US company. Several sectors of the USA entity, whether corporate, military or economic, want to have a certain level of control over the web, and other compute schemas.
Having Eastern European, Chinese and Indian/Pakistani Engineers holding the reins of software development in the near future is a most unappealing scenario to these sectors.
This is not to say they won't USE these emerging overseas assets, they just want to control them under the terms the USA sets. Open Source is giving up control -- a big no-no to the control freaks.
What we are seeing is a race -- all three branches of the US government are watching, are keeping their distance -- look how slow and predictable the "Microsoft Trial" has been -- really little more than a dog and pony show.
Second, Microsoft has on-the-spot management. While the open source people argue about KDE and Gnome, Reiser and XFS, for weeks at a time, MS comes up with object hierarchies and deploys them to 90% of the world's desktops. Open source is only a few percent of what the public see -- if you control the desktop, you will eventually control the back office and pipe.
Third, corruption. Plain and simple, a lot of powerful people made a bundle on MS and would like to keep that ball rolling. Thus, throughout the US government and civil service, there is a wave of "get rid of Unix for Microsoft". They say there is simply no option, although modern Linuces are pretty easy to install and use.
Fourth, deprofessionalisation. People want to plug a new computer into their net and have it run. They don't want to pay someone $75K a year to run around fixing them. The "suits" I deal with, plain and simple, think MS will lead them to a mantainence-free office long before Open Source ever will.
So, what is the fix? Like we saw on Linux Today, Java is a great platform. There are independent implementations getting strong and going online.
This alone is not enough, however. To beat MS, a few things MUST happen:
1) They must lose market share. In the USA the only way this will happen is via the law. The conviction must be upheld, and stringent controls applied -- like the opening of Exchange, permission for vendors to add a dual boot partition and modify the screen, restrictions on bundling, and a legal requirement for all state and federal computers to move to 2/3 non-MS platform or OS within 10 years.
2) A longer term solution will be China, India, Eastern Europe taking over software. This may take 50 years or more, so I will be dead before it happens. I'd prefer scenario one.
3) Somehow, Computer people need to stop looking at software and administration as a "cash cow". The customer wants smaller, faster, cheaper. What are we doing to give them a "plug-n-play" network? Even though it may cost us our jobs? These people have a bottom line, and it's time for programmers and admins to stop being so greedy.
Something is wrong is this world. Loki is a very good company, with very good people.
A couple years ago Microsoft was buying up PC game companies left and right, where is the IBM promise of "billions of $$ on Linux" pledge now?
Maybe someone should set up a pledgeboard, something like "I promise to buy $XXX of Loki Games or the SDL book" within two weeks".
IF the SDL book comes out, I pledge to buy both it and the Tribes 2 for Linux, even though Dynamix is dead.
It's not just Linux that's dying, it's not just the dot-coms, look at Japan, the lowest stock indexes in 17 years. The world economy is collapsing.
Goddamn government, while they've dragged out the Microsoft trial for 15 years, they should have been doing the same thing with software that the post office does with their vehicle fleets..splitting up the dollars spent between vendors. The monopoly desktop would not even be an issue now.
Linux is ready for the desktop. When people use it work, they will start using it at home, and more games will sell. RedHat, IBM and Apple (for example) would get a broader base of enhancement requests and the state of Linux/BSD/Apple would increase rapidly.
I've heard the orignal "IBM PC" was wire-wrapped on an S-100 board.
Also, IBM desperately wanted to use CP/M as the OS, but Gary Kildall (of Digital Research) shunned their reps, so IBM ended up using MS/DOS, which was purchased from Seattle Computer Systems by Bill Gates for $50,000.00 (it was called QDOS, "Quick and Dirty OS"
The US Military and CIA are funding the drug and tantalum murders, providing weaponry and equipment for guerrillas throughout Latin America, as well as electronic monitoring equipment that allows right wing candidates to monitor their opponents.
If you had bother reading the article, you would know that innocent farmers are being murdered so rebel gangs can gain access to their tantalum rich land.
These rebel gangs then sell the product to American and European corporations.
Sounds like a major toll to me. But you're right, none of those farmers are starving now. Enjoy your electronic devices.
Linux to the rescue?
on
Code Red III
·
· Score: 0, Redundant
I have heard the affected machines have a r00t kit installed.
If so, I wonder if some white hats could write a script that:
1)detects an attack;
2)goes into the Windows machine;
3)installs the MS patch;
4)reboots the Windows machine.
That, altough technically illegal, would help clean up the problem, no?
Does this mean if a woman goes in to have an abortion, the clinic will offer her cash for the fetus?
If not, where does the money chain end? The clinic? The Drs. at the clinic? When does something stop being "waste" and start becoming a "scarce raw material"?
Does the sperm donor (male) get any of the money?
I know foreskin waste (from circumcisions) is used to make skin for burn patients, but I don't think the parents of baby/child get any of that money, either.
For example, I'm envisioning a plan for America where the High School Gyms could be converted into "National Fornication and Foetus Harvesting Centers". High school girls could be impregnated and subsequently have their fetuses harvested without the inconvienence, embarassment, cost and (potential danger) of going to the abortion clinics.
This could be a great boost to the faltering economy, provide needed stem cell material for the aging population, and build college funds for those students who choose to participate.
If there is too much public opposition, another approach would be freelancing on ebay, somthing like "L@@K! Fresh Fetus! Low, Low reserve! Bidding starts at $10!"
We've got two parties, two tribes, good and evil, black and white, left and right, conservative and liberal, republican and democrat, penis and vagina.
We fight, The Man relaxes in the big chair. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.
Where a monolith controls all things software, and with every release intends to control more, and learn more about everything you do with that computer.
Where a person can be arrested for looking into a product he buys, and sharing the findings with others.
As I look around my property today, there is not a single tangible thing that I cannot open, examine and post my findings on the web...save one:
The Windows95 CD I have in a box in the garage.
Re:Where are all the anti-GPL, anti-Linux trolls n
on
Be Buyout Looms Closer
·
· Score: 2
> I am a be fan, but i dont use it exclusively for > one reason and one reason only:
>
> Application support.
> Be never took off because the platform lacked
> developers.
There are no quality applications for Be because there are no developers. There are no developers because there is no market share. It's a well-know catch-22, and the development model appears to have no real impact. You have merely stated the obvious...the real problem with monopoly power.
Linux has applications and developers, mostly due to the GPL and Open Source, yet there is still little market share. It has had some government and corporate support, certainly more than Be, but nowhere near enough to be assured of any real future.
I don't see how my post is "Bullshit!" when Be (or OS2 for that matter) never got anywhere near the developer base and applications that Linux has.
The failure is not the model, it's the monopoly. Closed source can't compete with MS, open source might not compete with MS, and the anti-linux/anti-GPL zealots (presumably you are in that crowd) are going to have to eat crow on this one.
Bon Appetit!
Where are all the anti-GPL, anti-Linux trolls now?
on
Be Buyout Looms Closer
·
· Score: 2
What happened to all the trolls who claim Linux, GPL and Open source are the cause of companies going down the toilet? That closed source is a clearly superior model, after all, it worked for MS and Apple.
Kind of hard to say that with a straight face after all the economic fallout of the last 6 months, and now the dwindling fortunes of the BeOS camp.
BeOS is closed source, runs on i386, costs little, has decent reviews and Be still can't compete against MacroSoft -- no big corporations have adopted BeOS, no governments, no schools.
I think the GPL and closed source are what is barely keeping Linux viable in the face of an egregious monopoly...the slide of BeOS shows it is MS, not IP issues or anything else, that is destroying the compute marketplace.
I installed redhat 7.1 on an old HP 386 box that had 4 mb. or ram on it. X is really slow on that machine. Windows 98 will not install on it.
Maybe, since you already have the machines networked, you could install RH 7.1 (it is free) on a machine with a cdrom, then install on the rest via boot floppies and NFS.
My own experience is that Linux runs on more hardware as time goes by, not less.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
> The feature is that its broken, and there is no
> value in me to fixing it.
My interpretation: "Fixing bugs in, or adding features to, Linux, will not increase my personal worth".
This is true, but only if you have a personal philosphy along the lines of "My life is better when I make more money and work less". If you have that belief, this discussion is basically over.
I reject that philosphy for myself. I think it is great to make more money, but it is certainly not my life's goal or focus. To me, everyone is better served when quality, service, freedom and justice are the goals.
When an individual has these goals...the payoff comes naturally. Cheaters (like the federally convicted Microsoft) tend to ruin it for everyone.
> I could most likely fix the problem even quicker
> by calling the non-linux vendor and getting them
> to fix it. Or just wating. And I would be
> participating in a much better society in this
> case. A society that allows its productive
> member to afford the houses in their
> neighborhoods.
An odd way of saying "In case of problems, it is best to wait or do nothing. I will then be considered a productive member of my society. As such, I will have earned a nice home".
And perhaps a "Harem of Bitches" to go with that home? Strange days, indeed.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
I think it is offensive to have a game that was GPL'd, then make it closed source, and keep the main character as the "Tux, the Linux Penguin".
IMHO, they should change the character, maybe something like "William, the wanking weasel" for the closed source release.
I'm not dictating their policy, they can do whatever they think is right, but this is a very odd thing they've done, forking to closed source at version 1.0
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
I meet "software engineers" and "system administrators" all the time who want nothing whatsoever to do with Linux.
Here's the deal, in case anyone hasn't figured it out yet: PEOPLE WANT DENIABILITY.
"Well, it doesn't work, and we have a trouble ticket in with Microsoft" (Translation: I don't have to do anything for the rest of the month!)
"Well, the Visual C++ toolset have been upgraded, and we need to upgrade several parts of the server infrastructure, and the vendors are shipping late" (Translation: I don't have to do anything for the next two years!)
"Well, the infrastructure has been upgraded, but now we all need training" (Translation: off to vegas for drinking and whoring!)
"Well, the system just crashes -- Microsoft products aren't the greatest, but it's the only game in town. It'll get better with the next service pack" (Translation: I don't do anything but install the crap!)
Dr. Who refered to these people as "The Tesh" (The techs or technicians). They had little interest in science or engineering, or creating anything new, or even improving what they had, but rather had a kind of cult of knowledge where *they* held the secrets and they rarely let anyone else in. Microsoft is the cult, the MCSE/MCSD is the tesh. They can always throw up the "Microsoft has bugs!" excuse when things go bad.
Contrast this with Linux -- all you need is desire, skill and talent. There is nothing hidden, and it's all free. How far can you go? It's up to you.
The choice seems so simple, but I meet more and more programmers and admins who just want to use access and VB -- no interest in anything that is not just "a few clicks to the next paycheck", or anything that could remove their golden parachute of deniability.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
> Artificial intelligence will never have emotions.
Snicker. I think Dr. Vinge is right...and I think it is scary. If you are familiar with electronics, think about how a diode avalanches.
If he is correct, AI could well "avalanche" past what evolution gave us in a very, very short period of time.
Humans learn at a given pace. We are nearly helpless at birth, yet can be a "McGyver" in our twenties and thirties, able to make a helocopter gunship from nothing but bailing wire and duct tape (on tv anyway). That's a 20-30 year span, or nearly a quarter of our lives to reach our maximum potential.
Who is to say an AI system could not, at some point, triple it's cognitive abilities in a 100 nS time slice?
And to think I didn't take his class cuz some lamer told me he was a "hard ass" -- rats. That's what I get for listening to lamers. SDSU has so many wonderful Professors...Vinge, Baase, Carroll. Great University, great professors, great memories.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
I always enjoyed the man-kzin series of Baen books. I understand Mr. Anderson had some involvement with this, and of course, many, many other fine works.
Condolences and thanks for one of the finest people to ever grace this planet or any other.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
Slashdot Mirror
Ahem, this man has not been charged with a crime. That means they are blowing smoke -- for now. He does not need an attorney.
Look, several years ago, I walked near an area where a sexual assault had taken place. The police saw me, and you can imagine what happened. I was a perfect target -- single, no alibi, just walking between two places alone.
They questioned me, took my info, and left. The next day they started calling me at home and at work, trying to get me to confess, trying to get me to "accept" a lesser charge.
They stated that if it went to court, they had enough circumstantial evidence to convict me, that if I didn't take the offer, they would go for the most severe charge. I would be in jail for "years", and (obviously) lose my job.
If I would just confess to a lesser charge, they would "guarantee" no jail time, and no fine. After seven years, it would be like nothing happened, there would be nothing on my record.
There was just one problem with accepting the blame : I was not the perpetrator; I commited no crime.
So I was scared. I spent some money on an attorney ($75) and the guy wanted thousands "up front" to "insure my freedom".
As it turns out, most lawyers are lying bastards. I talked to my Dad's attorney about this, and he started laughing. He said "My God, this is America! You haven't even been charged! They're blowing smoke up your ass to try and get a free conviction for doing no work!"
He recommended that I call the Detective and state:
"My attorney and I will surrender to your department when charges are filed, please contact me at that time. I have no intention of fleeing; I would like to avoid the embarrassment of being arrested at my home or place of work".
Total cost for a real attorney : $0.00
I was never arrested, charged or contacted again!
Know your rights! You do not have to speak to the police...you should respect them and answer rudimentary questions with honesty, but once it becomes clear that you are a target of the investigation, stop talking! Simply tell them you intend to turn yourself in when charges are filed.
Lower sales for a criminal enterprise is a good thing.
Most market studies show, for the non-geek computer user (which is pretty much the entire PC market) people are tired of:
1) Incremental PC performace increases.
2) Expensive S/W and H/W upgrades every two years.
3) Arrogance on the part of S/W and H/W manufacturers along the lines of "...we deserve access to your pocketbook every two years".
People are tired of these ridiculous PC upgrade cycles.
The market is saturated. Most studies show that everyone who wants a PC already has one, and doesn't want to spend a lot of money on another.
Gaming? The game sales are off, it's lost it's luster. After Columbine, parents want their kids out riding a bike or playing with their friends, not zapping their eyes on lame FPS regurgitation.
Today's PCs are the 8-tracks of the future. Piece of shit boat anchors. $1200 for a throw-away, non-upgradble PC? That will be behind the performance curve the day it's released? In a down economy?
Families who may have just gotten layoff notices are going to send $1200 to a federally convicted monopolist, who is the richest man in the world?
Well, this is America. I guess it might be a big hit.
There is no "imply", employees were working for free, on verbal guarantees, and giving cash advances to keep the company afloat.
Loki screwed them, mostly because they bent over.
NEVER give anyone cash without a contract, unless you expect to lose it. Never work for free without an agreement on future compensation, unless you can afford to drop it.
If you just let things get mushy like this, the end result is usually a lawsuit, and only the lawyers win.
Just more of the same nonsense.
Let's face it, a cometitors' plugin interface is bound to be more stable and consistent than anything MS publishes, for reasons that have been beaten into the ground.
Having an IE plugin interface in Mozilla, for example, would be ludicrous. The lizards would spend far more time playing catchup with MS interfaces than doing anything else, thus killing the project. Duh.
Hopefully the courts will demand a few things from MS immediately:
1) Open MS Exchange to LDAP/POP3 access unconditionally.
2) Allow OEMs the right to add or remove components, software and icons unconditionally.
3) Allow OEMs the right to ship dual boot systems unconditionally.
If Ford shipped a car that only ran on Ford(tm) gasoline, or a GM dealer couldn't add accessories to a vehicle at the customer's request, or on their own initiative, there would be OUTRAGE expressed by the dealers, end buyers, and accessory shops.
These steps should have been taken years ago.
If the election officials bungle paper punch cards, imagine what they will do with computers.
Training people to do a proper job, with reasonably good materials, will go much further toward fostering a positive voter experience than any electronic devices will.
First and foremost, the USA wants to control all software development, to some extent.
Microsoft is a US company. Several sectors of the USA entity, whether corporate, military or economic, want to have a certain level of control over the web, and other compute schemas.
Having Eastern European, Chinese and Indian/Pakistani Engineers holding the reins of software development in the near future is a most unappealing scenario to these sectors.
This is not to say they won't USE these emerging overseas assets, they just want to control them under the terms the USA sets. Open Source is giving up control -- a big no-no to the control freaks.
What we are seeing is a race -- all three branches of the US government are watching, are keeping their distance -- look how slow and predictable the "Microsoft Trial" has been -- really little more than a dog and pony show.
Second, Microsoft has on-the-spot management. While the open source people argue about KDE and Gnome, Reiser and XFS, for weeks at a time, MS comes up with object hierarchies and deploys them to 90% of the world's desktops. Open source is only a few percent of what the public see -- if you control the desktop, you will eventually control the back office and pipe.
Third, corruption. Plain and simple, a lot of powerful people made a bundle on MS and would like to keep that ball rolling. Thus, throughout the US government and civil service, there is a wave of "get rid of Unix for Microsoft". They say there is simply no option, although modern Linuces are pretty easy to install and use.
Fourth, deprofessionalisation. People want to plug a new computer into their net and have it run. They don't want to pay someone $75K a year to run around fixing them. The "suits" I deal with, plain and simple, think MS will lead them to a mantainence-free office long before Open Source ever will.
So, what is the fix? Like we saw on Linux Today, Java is a great platform. There are independent implementations getting strong and going online.
This alone is not enough, however. To beat MS, a few things MUST happen:
1) They must lose market share. In the USA the only way this will happen is via the law. The conviction must be upheld, and stringent controls applied -- like the opening of Exchange, permission for vendors to add a dual boot partition and modify the screen, restrictions on bundling, and a legal requirement for all state and federal computers to move to 2/3 non-MS platform or OS within 10 years.
2) A longer term solution will be China, India, Eastern Europe taking over software. This may take 50 years or more, so I will be dead before it happens. I'd prefer scenario one.
3) Somehow, Computer people need to stop looking at software and administration as a "cash cow". The customer wants smaller, faster, cheaper. What are we doing to give them a "plug-n-play" network? Even though it may cost us our jobs? These people have a bottom line, and it's time for programmers and admins to stop being so greedy.
I recall the Zilog Z80 and Motorola 68000 had long lives after being licensed over to Hitachi.
Maybe Hitachi could start making K6s.
Something is wrong is this world. Loki is a very good company, with very good people.
A couple years ago Microsoft was buying up PC game companies left and right, where is the IBM promise of "billions of $$ on Linux" pledge now?
Maybe someone should set up a pledgeboard, something like "I promise to buy $XXX of Loki Games or the SDL book" within two weeks".
IF the SDL book comes out, I pledge to buy both it and the Tribes 2 for Linux, even though Dynamix is dead.
It's not just Linux that's dying, it's not just the dot-coms, look at Japan, the lowest stock indexes in 17 years. The world economy is collapsing.
Goddamn government, while they've dragged out the Microsoft trial for 15 years, they should have been doing the same thing with software that the post office does with their vehicle fleets..splitting up the dollars spent between vendors. The monopoly desktop would not even be an issue now.
Linux is ready for the desktop. When people use it work, they will start using it at home, and more games will sell. RedHat, IBM and Apple (for example) would get a broader base of enhancement requests and the state of Linux/BSD/Apple would increase rapidly.
I've heard the orignal "IBM PC" was wire-wrapped on an S-100 board.
Also, IBM desperately wanted to use CP/M as the OS, but Gary Kildall (of Digital Research) shunned their reps, so IBM ended up using MS/DOS, which was purchased from Seattle Computer Systems by Bill Gates for $50,000.00 (it was called QDOS, "Quick and Dirty OS"
Corrections, please, if any of this is wrong...
The US Military and CIA are funding the drug and tantalum murders, providing weaponry and equipment for guerrillas throughout Latin America, as well as electronic monitoring equipment that allows right wing candidates to monitor their opponents.
Link to CIA/Military involvment on The Center for Public Integrity.
If you had bother reading the article, you would know that innocent farmers are being murdered so rebel gangs can gain access to their tantalum rich land.
These rebel gangs then sell the product to American and European corporations.
Sounds like a major toll to me. But you're right, none of those farmers are starving now. Enjoy your electronic devices.
I have heard the affected machines have a r00t kit installed.
If so, I wonder if some white hats could write a script that:
1)detects an attack;
2)goes into the Windows machine;
3)installs the MS patch;
4)reboots the Windows machine.
That, altough technically illegal, would help clean up the problem, no?
Does this mean if a woman goes in to have an abortion, the clinic will offer her cash for the fetus?
If not, where does the money chain end? The clinic? The Drs. at the clinic? When does something stop being "waste" and start becoming a "scarce raw material"?
Does the sperm donor (male) get any of the money?
I know foreskin waste (from circumcisions) is used to make skin for burn patients, but I don't think the parents of baby/child get any of that money, either.
For example, I'm envisioning a plan for America where the High School Gyms could be converted into "National Fornication and Foetus Harvesting Centers". High school girls could be impregnated and subsequently have their fetuses harvested without the inconvienence, embarassment, cost and (potential danger) of going to the abortion clinics.
This could be a great boost to the faltering economy, provide needed stem cell material for the aging population, and build college funds for those students who choose to participate.
If there is too much public opposition, another approach would be freelancing on ebay, somthing like "L@@K! Fresh Fetus! Low, Low reserve! Bidding starts at $10!"
Corporations elect Politicians;
Politicians appoint Judges.
Judges favor corporate issues.
We've got two parties, two tribes, good and evil, black and white, left and right, conservative and liberal, republican and democrat, penis and vagina.
We fight, The Man relaxes in the big chair. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.
Where a monolith controls all things software, and with every release intends to control more, and learn more about everything you do with that computer.
Where a person can be arrested for looking into a product he buys, and sharing the findings with others.
As I look around my property today, there is not a single tangible thing that I cannot open, examine and post my findings on the web...save one:
The Windows95 CD I have in a box in the garage.
> I am a be fan, but i dont use it exclusively for > one reason and one reason only:
>
> Application support.
> Be never took off because the platform lacked
> developers.
There are no quality applications for Be because there are no developers. There are no developers because there is no market share. It's a well-know catch-22, and the development model appears to have no real impact. You have merely stated the obvious...the real problem with monopoly power.
Linux has applications and developers, mostly due to the GPL and Open Source, yet there is still little market share. It has had some government and corporate support, certainly more than Be, but nowhere near enough to be assured of any real future.
I don't see how my post is "Bullshit!" when Be (or OS2 for that matter) never got anywhere near the developer base and applications that Linux has.
The failure is not the model, it's the monopoly. Closed source can't compete with MS, open source might not compete with MS, and the anti-linux/anti-GPL zealots (presumably you are in that crowd) are going to have to eat crow on this one.
Bon Appetit!
What happened to all the trolls who claim Linux, GPL and Open source are the cause of companies going down the toilet? That closed source is a clearly superior model, after all, it worked for MS and Apple.
Kind of hard to say that with a straight face after all the economic fallout of the last 6 months, and now the dwindling fortunes of the BeOS camp.
BeOS is closed source, runs on i386, costs little, has decent reviews and Be still can't compete against MacroSoft -- no big corporations have adopted BeOS, no governments, no schools.
I think the GPL and closed source are what is barely keeping Linux viable in the face of an egregious monopoly...the slide of BeOS shows it is MS, not IP issues or anything else, that is destroying the compute marketplace.
I installed redhat 7.1 on an old HP 386 box that had 4 mb. or ram on it. X is really slow on that machine. Windows 98 will not install on it.
Maybe, since you already have the machines networked, you could install RH 7.1 (it is free) on a machine with a cdrom, then install on the rest via boot floppies and NFS.
My own experience is that Linux runs on more hardware as time goes by, not less.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
> The feature is that its broken, and there is no
> value in me to fixing it.
My interpretation: "Fixing bugs in, or adding features to, Linux, will not increase my personal worth".
This is true, but only if you have a personal philosphy along the lines of "My life is better when I make more money and work less". If you have that belief, this discussion is basically over.
I reject that philosphy for myself. I think it is great to make more money, but it is certainly not my life's goal or focus. To me, everyone is better served when quality, service, freedom and justice are the goals.
When an individual has these goals...the payoff comes naturally. Cheaters (like the federally convicted Microsoft) tend to ruin it for everyone.
> I could most likely fix the problem even quicker
> by calling the non-linux vendor and getting them
> to fix it. Or just wating. And I would be
> participating in a much better society in this
> case. A society that allows its productive
> member to afford the houses in their
> neighborhoods.
An odd way of saying "In case of problems, it is best to wait or do nothing. I will then be considered a productive member of my society. As such, I will have earned a nice home".
And perhaps a "Harem of Bitches" to go with that home? Strange days, indeed.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
I agree. The quest for deniability knows no boundary, even in operating systems.
But, with Linux, you could (OH MY GOD HERE IT COMES) actually fix the problem, thereby helping yourself, your company, and others.
Grotesque concept, eh?
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
I think it is offensive to have a game that was GPL'd, then make it closed source, and keep the main character as the "Tux, the Linux Penguin".
IMHO, they should change the character, maybe something like "William, the wanking weasel" for the closed source release.
I'm not dictating their policy, they can do whatever they think is right, but this is a very odd thing they've done, forking to closed source at version 1.0
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
I meet "software engineers" and "system administrators" all the time who want nothing whatsoever to do with Linux.
Here's the deal, in case anyone hasn't figured it out yet: PEOPLE WANT DENIABILITY.
"Well, it doesn't work, and we have a trouble ticket in with Microsoft" (Translation: I don't have to do anything for the rest of the month!)
"Well, the Visual C++ toolset have been upgraded, and we need to upgrade several parts of the server infrastructure, and the vendors are shipping late" (Translation: I don't have to do anything for the next two years!)
"Well, the infrastructure has been upgraded, but now we all need training" (Translation: off to vegas for drinking and whoring!)
"Well, the system just crashes -- Microsoft products aren't the greatest, but it's the only game in town. It'll get better with the next service pack" (Translation: I don't do anything but install the crap!)
Dr. Who refered to these people as "The Tesh" (The techs or technicians). They had little interest in science or engineering, or creating anything new, or even improving what they had, but rather had a kind of cult of knowledge where *they* held the secrets and they rarely let anyone else in. Microsoft is the cult, the MCSE/MCSD is the tesh. They can always throw up the "Microsoft has bugs!" excuse when things go bad.
Contrast this with Linux -- all you need is desire, skill and talent. There is nothing hidden, and it's all free. How far can you go? It's up to you.
The choice seems so simple, but I meet more and more programmers and admins who just want to use access and VB -- no interest in anything that is not just "a few clicks to the next paycheck", or anything that could remove their golden parachute of deniability.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
> Artificial intelligence will never have emotions.
Snicker. I think Dr. Vinge is right...and I think it is scary. If you are familiar with electronics, think about how a diode avalanches.
If he is correct, AI could well "avalanche" past what evolution gave us in a very, very short period of time.
Humans learn at a given pace. We are nearly helpless at birth, yet can be a "McGyver" in our twenties and thirties, able to make a helocopter gunship from nothing but bailing wire and duct tape (on tv anyway). That's a 20-30 year span, or nearly a quarter of our lives to reach our maximum potential.
Who is to say an AI system could not, at some point, triple it's cognitive abilities in a 100 nS time slice?
And to think I didn't take his class cuz some lamer told me he was a "hard ass" -- rats. That's what I get for listening to lamers. SDSU has so many wonderful Professors...Vinge, Baase, Carroll. Great University, great professors, great memories.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
I always enjoyed the man-kzin series of Baen books. I understand Mr. Anderson had some involvement with this, and of course, many, many other fine works.
Condolences and thanks for one of the finest people to ever grace this planet or any other.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
> it's probably a _lot_ simpler to write a GCC
> frontend.
If you go look at the dotgnu.org website, you will see a plea for a volunteer to write the gcc bytecode backend for a stack-based vm.
This is not a simple problem, and no one has volunteered to date.