We like to think that way, but look at Yahoo Answers or WikiAnswers, they don't really work that way. Most people don't want a thought out answer unfortunately. They want to ask for X and hear X.
However, the difference is programmers usually know how to -ask- questions that make sense to other programmers. Look at http://answers.yahoo.com/ for a moment, most of the questions there are either A) Obvious "do my homework for me" questions, B) badly worded questions or C) Simply stupid questions. Also, most programming questions are easy, either it works or it doesn't, on the other hand how exactly do you define "how hard it is to open a liquor store in Texas"? Its easy to answer programming questions because its very easy to figure out if it works, but parenting advice? You won't see the results of that for years down the line (if even that) and its impossible to determine what exactly went wrong/right.
The point of the title is to provide an accurate description of the article in as few words as possible and to entice the reader to read. Lets see here, UK tells us the setting, musicians basically tell us who are supporting the bill, watered-down "three strikes rule" tells us what they are supporting. I don't know who Lily Allen, George Michael, and Sandie Shaw are. I don't think the average/.er does. I do know where the UK is and what the "three strikes rule" is. Therefore the title would lead me to read the summary and possibly the article. That is the point of the title. What would be a better title? Oh and if you read the article you find that it is The Featured Artists Coalition so that is chances are more than just 3 artists. Because most people don't know who the crap The Featured Artists Coalition are, saying that UK artists support it makes a lot more sense.
Lets take the closest physical thing to the music industry, a book store. I can go into almost any book store and read the entire thing if I so please. Guess what? They don't come running over to you screaming "thief!" and press charges when you do that. In fact, many book stores actually -encourage- reading by providing comfortable chairs and tables for reading and having coffee shops so you can drink coffee while you read.
What about restaurants which pay their employees with tips? You don't -have- to tip (in most cases).
What about Red Hat which gives away their product (RHEL, yeah, theres some trademark crap so you pretty much have to download CentOS but its the same thing) and only charges for support? Or Canonical with Ubuntu? Or Mozilla with Firefox? Loads of software companies give away their product.
If you can download music for free, why bother purchase it from itunes?
The problem has gone far beyond that. When the *AA wants Apple to pay for each 30 second sound sample, when they try to remove all independent internet radio stations, and remove YouTube videos with music on them, that is too far. Seriously, how many songs has anyone bought without knowing them? No one buys songs without at least knowing the artist or at least hearing some of their other songs. If I can't even hear what the artist sounds like why am I going to buy the album?
The problem with Scroogle is, it removes the main reason why I used Google, a clean homepage. With Scroogle I get random comics that looked like they were made with MS Paint in the early 90s. The background similarly looks dated and is different on every visit. And the Scroogle logo looks... well terrible. Yeah, it does most things as well as Google, but I'm not sure if the world is ready for a blast into the past. And not the retro past but the past that reminds you of using Netscape Navigator on dial up back in the 90s.
The only way you make a government that cannot be corrupted is to limit the powers of the government to a small amount. The constitution of the US tried to do that, but yet the document had many flaws and loopholes over the years that let the government become more corrupt.
I can rent just about any new DVD for $1 a night and get the full enjoyment of the movie. On the other hand about the cheapest place that I know to rent games costs $7 for about 3 nights and you can't experience the entire game. When I walk into Barnes and Nobel if I feel like it, I can sit down in a chair and read the -entire- book, not just chapters one and two. You can type in almost any song into YouTube and with enough searching you can find it, listen to it and listen to it over and over again. With games you are limited to a demo where the creators have picked a few parts of the game that may or may not really represent the game.
A free trial can be very misleading though. For one, it doesn't really show the difficulty of the game or how short/long its going to be. I've played many games with a good idea, good plot, and fun gameplay but either had badly balanced difficulty (randomly became too easy or too hard), games that either have been too tedious (run back to the area a long ways away then run back), too short or had other features that made the game stand out.
How doesn't capitalism work? Pure capitalism works just fine and dandy. Its only when the governments screw with it do problems occur. The great depression had more to do with WWI, various government actions and regulations than pure capitalism. Similarly, the recent economic meltdown could have been avoided by reducing regulations in the first place. Also, communism does work, however communism only works when A) You have a self-sufficient country (needing no imports/exports) B) A closed country (little to no international trade/travel) and C) A government who doesn't wildly spend on unnecessary things. Soviet Russia pretty much had A, for a while had B but ended up blowing all their funds on various non-essential projects (More nukes than necessary, space travel, various "proxy" wars, etc) which led to it collapsing.
The only thing though, its a $60 risk. Even great studios have turned out crap games. I remember really liking Yoshi's Island and when a "sequel" came out (Yoshi's Story) I ran out to buy it for around $60, it was a terrible game, I finished it in about 2 hours and ended up trading it for like $15 to a used game retailer. There have been games that have been critically acclaimed but I simply can't get into them. Sure, $60 is a bargain if you get a truly epic game, but at least for me, I only get one "epic" game per console and the other games on the system simply aren't worth $60. If every game was a great value as, say, The Orange Box, I would have no problem shelling out $60, but you have crap games mixed in. Other times, yeah, you pay $60 but the game is so crippled that you end up paying $40 in DLC to get the "full" game.
Hm, looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_BSD_operating_systems I see no freely licensed BSD systems before 1993. Linux was developed in 1991... So can we really assume that BSD would be made free without the pressure from Linux and by extension RMS?
No, I think it is because Apple has made a big difference between a "PC" and a Mac when people think about them. For one, the hardware is different. You are generally typing on a different keyboard, using a different mouse and looking at a different monitor. With Linux you keep all your same hardware. Plus, because the idea of an operating system has been lost in culture with the exception of the mostly-hardware locked Mac operating systems, the different versions of Windows and hardware-specific OSes. People don't understand that Linux is not a free version of Windows even though it does the same tasks.
My biggest complaint about Linux on the desktop is the lack of a true universal UI
Not much of a problem though, for most people, Linux isn't Linux but a Linux distro, that is if you have Ubuntu, you get GNOME, if you have Kubuntu you get KDE. Similar to how you can either get Windows XP or Windows Vista/7 with different UIs.
and the difficulty in user software (a user should be able to run every application without tweaking text files)
Most user-level applications don't require you to tweak text files unless you need some obscure setting. A few "pro" level applications (as in, your going to be programming or know something about computers) use text files because they are easier to edit, debug and generally give support for a knowledgeable user.
and ease of administration
Compared to Windows, Linux administration is a breeze. A Linux system ran by a normal user who doesn't screw around as root, will remain stable. Simply going to a site can get you a virus in Windows. Because of this and the -large- amount of viruses on Windows, it is pretty much required to run a virus scan pretty often. With Linux, even if you are running a vulnerable everything, chances are you simply won't get a virus.
Plus, with Windows update you never know what you are going to get, "features" constantly creep in (remember the search bar that was a "critical update"?) and large changes are considered updates. It takes a lot more work administrating a small amount of Windows boxes compared to Linux.
When it achieves the same level or better of intuitiveness as Windows, then it can compete.
Windows has not intuitiveness. The only reason why we think it has is because most people have been using it for 20 some odd years. A lot of the Windows conventions have been -proven- to be counter intuitive and plain confusing (anyone else wonder why Add/Remove programs is called that even though you really can't add in any programs from there). Windows is terribly unfriendly, we just have gotten used to it.
We -need- RMS though. Without RMS we just have a bunch of people wanting to get stuff for free. Heck, without RMS and the GPL, Linux would not exist, Linux as in the kernel itself. Chances are it would have been licensed under an obscure license and died due to a non-commercial or other clause. It was only due to the GPL that the kernel was released under a typical license.
The problem is, we have this odd expectation that any software, from a compiler, to a game, to an office suite to a browser should be instinctive by use of other software. That is, they think Word processor == Word. So when you take another word processor such as Open Office, they expect it to work -exactly- like Word. Any differences are seen as "faults". Take someone fully new to computers and have them learn Linux or Windows and chances are they will figure out Linux faster. Take someone who has used Windows all their life and give them Linux they complain because things aren't exactly the same.
The problem is, they think when dealing with "terrorists" that the more people we put in prison or investigate heavily the safer we are. They think that false positives are a fail-safe, which in reality they aren't.
The difference is no one wants to learn a new interface, especially for something as trivial as a browser. One thing that actually forced MS to improve IE was Firefox, the reason why Firefox was so successful because it -looked like IE- that is, someone with knowledge of IE could pick up Firefox no problem. The only reason why Office 2007 has gotten so much use is because its the only office suite that is really fully feature complete, yeah, eventually OOo will take over, but in 2009, Office 2007 is about your only option on Windows. The ribbon was (and is) hated by most people on Office but they grudgingly accepted it because there was no alternative. Whats to stop a Windows user from switching from Firefox (or worse having a very insecure browser by not updating) back to IE, or to Chrome which in many ways is technologically superior to Firefox.
But there comes a time when it's time for the world to forgive and for them to move on....
Exactly, I think you can take any 20 something or teenager and say something about Germany and the first thing that comes to mind isn't the Berlin Wall, World War II or anything historical, but rather German culture, German Beer or perhaps German Music.
All the talk about using the ocean makes one wonder if Google or another company could build a data center that was self-sufficient in the middle of the ocean, would it be under any jurisdiction when it came to copyright?
Slashdot Mirror
We like to think that way, but look at Yahoo Answers or WikiAnswers, they don't really work that way. Most people don't want a thought out answer unfortunately. They want to ask for X and hear X.
However, the difference is programmers usually know how to -ask- questions that make sense to other programmers. Look at http://answers.yahoo.com/ for a moment, most of the questions there are either A) Obvious "do my homework for me" questions, B) badly worded questions or C) Simply stupid questions. Also, most programming questions are easy, either it works or it doesn't, on the other hand how exactly do you define "how hard it is to open a liquor store in Texas"? Its easy to answer programming questions because its very easy to figure out if it works, but parenting advice? You won't see the results of that for years down the line (if even that) and its impossible to determine what exactly went wrong/right.
The point of the title is to provide an accurate description of the article in as few words as possible and to entice the reader to read. Lets see here, UK tells us the setting, musicians basically tell us who are supporting the bill, watered-down "three strikes rule" tells us what they are supporting. I don't know who Lily Allen, George Michael, and Sandie Shaw are. I don't think the average /.er does. I do know where the UK is and what the "three strikes rule" is. Therefore the title would lead me to read the summary and possibly the article. That is the point of the title. What would be a better title? Oh and if you read the article you find that it is The Featured Artists Coalition so that is chances are more than just 3 artists. Because most people don't know who the crap The Featured Artists Coalition are, saying that UK artists support it makes a lot more sense.
Lets take the closest physical thing to the music industry, a book store. I can go into almost any book store and read the entire thing if I so please. Guess what? They don't come running over to you screaming "thief!" and press charges when you do that. In fact, many book stores actually -encourage- reading by providing comfortable chairs and tables for reading and having coffee shops so you can drink coffee while you read.
What about restaurants which pay their employees with tips? You don't -have- to tip (in most cases).
What about Red Hat which gives away their product (RHEL, yeah, theres some trademark crap so you pretty much have to download CentOS but its the same thing) and only charges for support? Or Canonical with Ubuntu? Or Mozilla with Firefox? Loads of software companies give away their product.
If you can download music for free, why bother purchase it from itunes?
The problem has gone far beyond that. When the *AA wants Apple to pay for each 30 second sound sample, when they try to remove all independent internet radio stations, and remove YouTube videos with music on them, that is too far. Seriously, how many songs has anyone bought without knowing them? No one buys songs without at least knowing the artist or at least hearing some of their other songs. If I can't even hear what the artist sounds like why am I going to buy the album?
Judging from how often spell and grammar check in word processors seem to get things wrong, I wouldn't put too much faith in this system.
The problem with Scroogle is, it removes the main reason why I used Google, a clean homepage. With Scroogle I get random comics that looked like they were made with MS Paint in the early 90s. The background similarly looks dated and is different on every visit. And the Scroogle logo looks... well terrible. Yeah, it does most things as well as Google, but I'm not sure if the world is ready for a blast into the past. And not the retro past but the past that reminds you of using Netscape Navigator on dial up back in the 90s.
The only way you make a government that cannot be corrupted is to limit the powers of the government to a small amount. The constitution of the US tried to do that, but yet the document had many flaws and loopholes over the years that let the government become more corrupt.
I can rent just about any new DVD for $1 a night and get the full enjoyment of the movie. On the other hand about the cheapest place that I know to rent games costs $7 for about 3 nights and you can't experience the entire game. When I walk into Barnes and Nobel if I feel like it, I can sit down in a chair and read the -entire- book, not just chapters one and two. You can type in almost any song into YouTube and with enough searching you can find it, listen to it and listen to it over and over again. With games you are limited to a demo where the creators have picked a few parts of the game that may or may not really represent the game.
A free trial can be very misleading though. For one, it doesn't really show the difficulty of the game or how short/long its going to be. I've played many games with a good idea, good plot, and fun gameplay but either had badly balanced difficulty (randomly became too easy or too hard), games that either have been too tedious (run back to the area a long ways away then run back), too short or had other features that made the game stand out.
How doesn't capitalism work? Pure capitalism works just fine and dandy. Its only when the governments screw with it do problems occur. The great depression had more to do with WWI, various government actions and regulations than pure capitalism. Similarly, the recent economic meltdown could have been avoided by reducing regulations in the first place. Also, communism does work, however communism only works when A) You have a self-sufficient country (needing no imports/exports) B) A closed country (little to no international trade/travel) and C) A government who doesn't wildly spend on unnecessary things. Soviet Russia pretty much had A, for a while had B but ended up blowing all their funds on various non-essential projects (More nukes than necessary, space travel, various "proxy" wars, etc) which led to it collapsing.
The only thing though, its a $60 risk. Even great studios have turned out crap games. I remember really liking Yoshi's Island and when a "sequel" came out (Yoshi's Story) I ran out to buy it for around $60, it was a terrible game, I finished it in about 2 hours and ended up trading it for like $15 to a used game retailer. There have been games that have been critically acclaimed but I simply can't get into them. Sure, $60 is a bargain if you get a truly epic game, but at least for me, I only get one "epic" game per console and the other games on the system simply aren't worth $60. If every game was a great value as, say, The Orange Box, I would have no problem shelling out $60, but you have crap games mixed in. Other times, yeah, you pay $60 but the game is so crippled that you end up paying $40 in DLC to get the "full" game.
Hm, looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_BSD_operating_systems I see no freely licensed BSD systems before 1993. Linux was developed in 1991... So can we really assume that BSD would be made free without the pressure from Linux and by extension RMS?
No, I think it is because Apple has made a big difference between a "PC" and a Mac when people think about them. For one, the hardware is different. You are generally typing on a different keyboard, using a different mouse and looking at a different monitor. With Linux you keep all your same hardware. Plus, because the idea of an operating system has been lost in culture with the exception of the mostly-hardware locked Mac operating systems, the different versions of Windows and hardware-specific OSes. People don't understand that Linux is not a free version of Windows even though it does the same tasks.
My biggest complaint about Linux on the desktop is the lack of a true universal UI
Not much of a problem though, for most people, Linux isn't Linux but a Linux distro, that is if you have Ubuntu, you get GNOME, if you have Kubuntu you get KDE. Similar to how you can either get Windows XP or Windows Vista/7 with different UIs.
and the difficulty in user software (a user should be able to run every application without tweaking text files)
Most user-level applications don't require you to tweak text files unless you need some obscure setting. A few "pro" level applications (as in, your going to be programming or know something about computers) use text files because they are easier to edit, debug and generally give support for a knowledgeable user.
and ease of administration
Compared to Windows, Linux administration is a breeze. A Linux system ran by a normal user who doesn't screw around as root, will remain stable. Simply going to a site can get you a virus in Windows. Because of this and the -large- amount of viruses on Windows, it is pretty much required to run a virus scan pretty often. With Linux, even if you are running a vulnerable everything, chances are you simply won't get a virus.
Plus, with Windows update you never know what you are going to get, "features" constantly creep in (remember the search bar that was a "critical update"?) and large changes are considered updates. It takes a lot more work administrating a small amount of Windows boxes compared to Linux.
When it achieves the same level or better of intuitiveness as Windows, then it can compete.
Windows has not intuitiveness. The only reason why we think it has is because most people have been using it for 20 some odd years. A lot of the Windows conventions have been -proven- to be counter intuitive and plain confusing (anyone else wonder why Add/Remove programs is called that even though you really can't add in any programs from there). Windows is terribly unfriendly, we just have gotten used to it.
We -need- RMS though. Without RMS we just have a bunch of people wanting to get stuff for free. Heck, without RMS and the GPL, Linux would not exist, Linux as in the kernel itself. Chances are it would have been licensed under an obscure license and died due to a non-commercial or other clause. It was only due to the GPL that the kernel was released under a typical license.
The problem is, we have this odd expectation that any software, from a compiler, to a game, to an office suite to a browser should be instinctive by use of other software. That is, they think Word processor == Word. So when you take another word processor such as Open Office, they expect it to work -exactly- like Word. Any differences are seen as "faults". Take someone fully new to computers and have them learn Linux or Windows and chances are they will figure out Linux faster. Take someone who has used Windows all their life and give them Linux they complain because things aren't exactly the same.
The problem is, they think when dealing with "terrorists" that the more people we put in prison or investigate heavily the safer we are. They think that false positives are a fail-safe, which in reality they aren't.
The difference is no one wants to learn a new interface, especially for something as trivial as a browser. One thing that actually forced MS to improve IE was Firefox, the reason why Firefox was so successful because it -looked like IE- that is, someone with knowledge of IE could pick up Firefox no problem. The only reason why Office 2007 has gotten so much use is because its the only office suite that is really fully feature complete, yeah, eventually OOo will take over, but in 2009, Office 2007 is about your only option on Windows. The ribbon was (and is) hated by most people on Office but they grudgingly accepted it because there was no alternative. Whats to stop a Windows user from switching from Firefox (or worse having a very insecure browser by not updating) back to IE, or to Chrome which in many ways is technologically superior to Firefox.
But there comes a time when it's time for the world to forgive and for them to move on....
Exactly, I think you can take any 20 something or teenager and say something about Germany and the first thing that comes to mind isn't the Berlin Wall, World War II or anything historical, but rather German culture, German Beer or perhaps German Music.
But chances are it will still slow down the entire UI because more than likely the "ribbon" will be running still behind the scenes.
All the talk about using the ocean makes one wonder if Google or another company could build a data center that was self-sufficient in the middle of the ocean, would it be under any jurisdiction when it came to copyright?
He isn't the only one who regularly puts in one headphone all the time. I do too, and based on all the other posters, they do too.
Yeah, and most of the hits are what? 2 years old?
Other than RPM vs DEB and APT vs YUM, they run identical software.