Bzzzzt wrong about being a Democrat supporter I'm a minarchist radical tree sitter. And you talk about me putting words in your mouth. I may well vote Green in the national elections, I'm just under no delusion they will actually win, i.e. it's really kind of a pointless gesture. I think in the long run more real change is done by changing the culture than by voting for politicians, i.e. the direct action protests in Seattle against the WTO in 1999 raised more awareness of the globilization issue than voting for any politician Repig, Dem, Greren or Libertarian.
I'll vote for Greens and Libertarians locally where they may or may not make a difference, probably not as Repigs and Dems will still hold the majority in the city council even if by some miracle a third party candidate were to win. At least at the local level third party candidates have a shot and ARE worth supporting unlike the national level where they will be ridiculed out of existence and shut out of debates by the MSM. That of course sucks but we do have to deal with reality now, don't we?
Do you have a substantive answer to changing politics beyond the local level or mere spiteful name calling?
Face it politics on the national level is bought off by globalist multinational corporations, we are facing a long line of oil wars and draconian security measures to control a restless populace, and there is little we can do about it, other than prepare at the local level.
If you think the Dems or Repigs are going to listen to you when Haliburton and Exxon are lining their pockets you are dreaming. And if you think the MSM are going to allow third parties a fair airing of their views without ridicule (even Howard Dean was torpedoed talk about Ralph Nader, Pat Buchanan, or Harry Brown) and red herring lifestyle issues, you are also dreaming for they too are funded by Haliburton, Exxon, the auto companies, etc.
Am I bitter and harsh? You bet I think it's long past time that intelligent people like many slasdot posters woke up and did something about the pitiful state of the U.S. in the 21st century. My guess is that something is going to be a combo of supporting local politics that's not completely bought off, working on alternative energy systems, trains, etc, growing gardens and supporting co-ops, starting a dialog between Greens and paleo-cons/Libertarians, routing around a national political system that is hopelessly broken, and hoping peak oil is 10 or 15 years off and not now.
If you have any better ideas I'm all ears. Seriously... But don't tell me the Dems are going to magically fix it, I don't have time for that baby talk.
Nonsense with Vista and Core 2 duo I can finally run Duke Nuke Em Forever. Yeah you laugh now, just because I'm wearing a tin foil hat in my bunker, but I got the beta, I uhhh just can't tell you about it, non disclosure agreement ya know.
Ding, ding, ding that plus your job is worth 10/hr is an hour on the global market if you are VERY lucky completely refutes the grandparents argument. Mode the parent post up. I suspect those rugged individualists will come crying home to mommy when THEIR ox gets gored by "global market place." Then they will wish they supported a labor ORGANIZATION that has the strength to fight the corporations ORGANIZATION. Much as we might like to pretend we aren't just disconnected individuals part parts of groups that have real influence of our future.
And no frankly I'm not very hopeful Americans will get their shit together regarding politics or labor.
By mainstream I mean Democrat or Republican, for those are the only electable choices above the county level. And yes I will bet you one hundred dollars American cash money that no Green, Libertarian, Peace and Freedom Party, or Reform Party member will be elected at the level of Congress or the Presidency. Care to take that bet? I didn't think so... It's not "wallowing in self pity," it's cold hard realization of what's actually going to happen in American elections.
Yes instant run off voting might help but we don't have that except in a couple of cities now do we? Expecting real change in American politics above the county level is a total fantasy and a waste of intelligent peoples time and effort.
Of the mainstream electable national candidates that are even allowed in the debates at the national or even state level BOTH parties support the following:
* Global trade that screws both American workers and third world workers
* An increasingly aggressive imperialistic foreign policy, can you say Hilary Clinton threatening Iran I knew you could...
* Passive acceptance of policies dreamed up by elite think tanks that only serve the top 5% of the population. So called centrist Dems are vowing NOT to investigate Bush for his crimes even if they retake the house:
* Increasing intrusion into our private lives supported by both parties
* Increasing censorship of video games, music, and DRM supported by both parties
What real choice do I have other than at the local level where a few Greens or Libertarians squeak in? Does voting for Repigs and Dems at the state and national level solve ANYTHING? I think not. The ONLY issues Dems and Repigs disagree on are minor issues like abortion, the ten commandments on public buildings, flag buring, etc. And yes I will step on some toes here these issues are MINOR compared to global war, the abrogation of the constitution, our long term sustainable survival on the planet, and decent living wages for our working people. Get over your lifestyle issues and thinking voting for mainstream politicians solves anything. As Colbert so nicely put it's like rearranging deck chairs on the Hindenberg
And if those steely eyed mo-fos "whack" an innocent family you just recruited yourself a hundred new enraged Al Queda terrorists, that sure helped didn't it? How about we leave people in the middle east to their own fate and become old school paleo-con non interventionists and working on kicking the foreign oil addiction, hmmmmm...
How about a left-right alliance to protect the constitution and stop interventionist wars? We need to to do something to break out of the dumbocracy of both Dems and Repigs who strip us of our rights without even blinking.
Ironically enough the point is I WOULD like to use FSF software because I do think it's more ethical. I just get angered and saddened when the response to it's not ready yet isn't "oh we're working on that," but "grrrrr how dare you question the greatness of our FREEDOM saving software. How dare you not invest thousands of hours into learning the ins and outs of glib and xorg config. YOU MUST HATE FREEDOM TO BE SO LAZY AND INEPT." A little humbleness, patience, LISTENING, and working to improve usability, would go a LONG way toward making it so we could ALL use more ethical GPL licensed software.
Read this slashdot story and the responses CAREFULLY and then come back and post your response. Many people are PISSED about the usability of GNU software who WOULD like to use it, how hard is that to understand?
The fact you have "no idea" what my rant was about proves my point exactly. If you were listening to your users and not just being an elite coder you would know exactly what I'm talking about. Go ahead keep coding unusable crap, gimp, http://gimp.org/ ring a bell? I would really like to use to use mainly FSF software, truly I would, but I'm NOT going to become a coder to do it, there are too many OTHER (see previous post) important things in my life to do. So I guess I'll just keep plugging away on my ibook. Have fun re-writing config files to get your sound card working properly. Hint it's not just me, even hard core open source coders like Mozilla programmer Jamie Zawinski gave up on Linux as being too frustrating for every day use and switched to a Mac:
Until FSF advocates wake up to the hard reality of just how difficult much OSS software is to use you will always be a niche player, which IS sad because I actually agree with you that freedom for programmers would make for a better world. But an unusable better world helps NO ONE, except the couple thousand people who think hand coding a config file is a fun and useful way to spend a weekend.
Neither of these groups runs gnu/linux. The we save trees kids run Mac OS X and the Earth First kids run Windows. Why is that, because none of them are hard core techies who want to spend time tracking down library dependencies, editing config files, etc.
And yes I do know what I speak of, I set up Ubuntu on an old p.c. I had lying around, and after the install had no mouse response. I had to kill the xserver, and edit I think xorg config (I forget which file exactly this was a while ago) to get the serial mouse working. Now these kids in Humboldt are NOT going to learn to use pico to edit a config file to get a damn serial mouse working, not happening. So what you are suggesting is they drop getting the word out about their activism because they aren't running gnu/hurd or whatever, that's asinine. Those 1200 year trees are more important than your OSS purity test, so are hungry people, both here in the U.S. and around the world, so is global warming, homelessness, globilization, and a hundred other issues that either cause real human suffering or threaten our long term survival on planet earth. OSS purity would literally rank about 1,000th on my list of issues that need to be addressed in the world.
Yes in an ideal world GNU/LINUX or HURD or whatever would install smoothly, and would come with easy to use software with complete help menus and the help forums would be filled with happy helpful people ready to lend a hand. That's the fantasy... And the reality? The software is often ONLY available on a sourceforge site that is damn difficult to navigate just to download the software, then it's a 50/50 gamble whether it will install, if it does install it's often version.0.1.0.01 alpha with an interface that looks like it was designed by retarded Klingons (that was a joke son), and if it doesn't install the "help" forums are loaded pimply 13 year old trolls with Aspergers syndrome who spend all day compiling gentoo and whose response to a newbie question is
"ZOMG you fucktard how could you not know that the.01.01 alpha version of gnus not ms word ONLY works with glib 1.2.10-18 on Ubuntu 5.008 flight 16 "Prickly Porcupine?" ZOMG LAMER!!!!!!!"
Admit it you laughed because you've "been there, done that." Faced with such an incredible learning curve and unfriendly "support" most activists will go hmmm fuck it, let's download photoshop using Azerus and make some signs and update our web site. And if you've lost the activists you're lost because those on the radical left are the most likely to support the free software philosophy. It certainly ISN'T going to be the average Joe who's only in for the money. And don't go blaming the victim and tell them to write the code if they aren't satisfied, all you are going to get from the 99.999999% of people who aren't coders is screw that, I have WORK to do. with my computer.
So yes there is a point, the point is that free software people need to work HARD towards giving us software usable by non ultra nerds, and they need to be nice when giving us that software. Until the software is ready for prime time don't be surprised when people don't use it (shrug). And DO keep on, keeping on, working to fight for our our freedom, DON'T expect us to use your software until it's gui advances beyond retarded Klingon level. To be quite harsh most gnu/linux/hurd software is at the prototype level of usability for non-techies. And that's fine if that's the way you want to scratch your itch by writing command line utilities to work with raw packets, great do it code away geek master, just don't expect to "convert" anyone with such offerings.
And yes I DO hope you win in the long run and beat Apple, M$, and Sun. But you aren't there y
Ding, ding, ding, that's the sort of thing I'm talking about. A lot of people have a LOT more serious problems than OSS, and they will live their lives and do what they have to do to survive regardless of what upper middle class geeks in the USA think.
Even if your situation isn't as dire as Dafur, say you are living on a couple grand a year in China or Brazil. Are you going to get a used computer with pre installed Windows and bootleg MS Office to learn how to use a computer, or try to install Debian and get called a "clueless newbie" in an online forum if you don't phrase your question in perfect techical jargon? Yeah that's what I thought... That's why all the people selling 1 dollar bootleg cds in the third world are selling compile your own gentoo, NOT, oops.
Or even a pirated copy of Windows 98 if that's all say an activist organization can afford and they aren't techies and don't want to have to mess with config files, and dependencies just to get a damn sound card, or a mouse working. Face it for most people a computer is a tool to do something else. Should an artist worry if the design of their paint brush is open source? I think not...
And note I'm not saying this to knock RMS, I think he's doing important work on the front lines to protect our freedoms and like I said before he may save all our butts if DRM or other copy restrictions gets too onerous. I truly support him and wish him the best of luck protecting our freedoms. On the other hand he shouldn't expect non techies to use difficult to use (RTFM grrrrr fuck you newbie) tools to do their work solely because they are OSS. Further, without Linus all we would have would have as an OSS OS be GNU/HURD and that's useless to anyone freedom lover or not.
Sometimes you just have to get your important world changing work done with the tools you've got (shrug). Really for the 99% of the world who aren't hard core geeks the work is more important than the tool, are you listening slashdot? For me that means graphic design and video edciting using photoshop and final cut pro pirated using bit torrent. That is the reality for a poor graphic designer to have the tools they need at the price they can afford. And if that doesn't meet your standards of ethical purity fuck it, I'd rather worry about doing NICE signs for an anti war demo than about whether Linspire has a closed source media player or whatever. In the long run nice signs for the demo ARE more important to the world than hyper pure OSS squabbling. (rant=off).
By two tracks I mean one track that has a Linspirish philosophy of just make it work for newbies even if that also means including some closed source proprietory software, AND a purist RMS FSF.
Really these two tracks compliment each other the closed source development track brings in newbewies while the purest camp can defend our freedoms and perhaps save our butts if DRM becomes very prevalent.
The point is though why does each side have to try to convert the other to it's philosophy as my way or the highway? Lets let them both run and see what happens, after all that's what's going to happen anyway, it's very unlikely either FSF or closed source software is going away any time soon.
I use OS X which has closed source software in the OS and I run closed source apps as well, but I also run fink/KDE as well on top of the open source Darwin base at times, as well as running Firefox as my browser. Does that mean one "side" or the other should work to convert me? What nonsense, what a waste of developer time, and above all how immature.
Can't you argue about something of real importance like poverty, or war, or whether peak oil is real, etc?
Mod parent up my thoughts exactly. More fast loading text and less v.r. hype please. When the the INFORMATION supper highway, become the entertainment stupid roadway? Give me Shakespear as text over Porky III 3D any day of the week.
If you have no substantive response to someones argument the best response is to make fun of them and call them mentally ill. Hey works for the Chinese too, you're in good company:
"There are surely few more potent deterrents to dissident activity of any kind than the threat of permanent or semi-permanent forced removal to an institution for the criminally insane. A potential Chinese dissident or religious nonconformist may be prepared to face imprisonment for his or her beliefs, but indefinite psychiatric custody is probably quite another matter. Additionally, psychiatric labeling of this kind serves to stigmatize and socially marginalize the dissident in a way that regular criminal imprisonment, in the present era at least, often fails to do."
When I go to web sites I don't want to be tracked I use an onion router, specifically TOR. Maybe you want your business spilled out for the world to see all the time, others not so much...
I did answer your question ASSHOLE, I said human dignity trumps everything, yes everything, including the "safety" of upper middle class white assholes in the suburbs. Tracking people even the most loathsome child molester scum is a fundamental violation of their human dignity. It's quite literally everything Orwell warned us about the telescreen in 1984. It's everything the founding fathers fought against for when they attempted to create a zone of privacy around our papers and personal goods with the 4th amendment.
I am NOT scared of the crooks, terrorists, and child molesters, at ALL, they are.00001% of the population. People like you who live in fear of the terrorists, crooks, and child molesters are the truly paranoid ones, and the fact that you could shut down ALL our hard won civil liberties based on the fear whipped up by the tee vee fills me with RAGE. Yes, rage, that's not very p.c. is it? But the reality is that revolutions are started when people get filled with rage and can't stand the actions of the assholes anymore, think about it... If we lose our rage against outrages then all is truly lost and we might as well sign up for our soma (Prozac) ration in the "brave new world."
Vietnam started under Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson escalated it for starters, two million (a third of a holocausts) worth of Vietnamese dead as well as 57,000 young Americans drafted, most bitterly against their will. Furthermore Clinton supported a disastrous invasion of Somalia, fired missiles at the Sudan and Iraq, led a NATO coalition that bombed Serbia, and caused easily 500,000 Iraqis to die in intense misery due to his sanctions against Iraq that his callous secretary of state Madeline Albright, said were "worth it," on 60 Minutes in the 90s.
Although I consider myself to be on "left" being pro gay rights, pro choice, pro environment, pro co-op, pro organic food, anti-war, etc, I'm under no delusion that the Dems are ANY better on the issue of war than the Repigs. In fact give me a good isolationist paleo-con/Libertarian like the people at antiwar.com, Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul, or Paul Craig Roberts, ANY day of the week over either Hilary or Kerry who both of whom have campaigned within the last year on a platform of more troops, FUCK that.
On the whole all the Dems give you is the same war mongering as Repigs, the same bought off by the corporations policies, and they are often even MORE priggish and uptight than Republicans about song lyrics, video games, etc. The DLC has completely ruined the Dems, (though the rot obviously goes back to the Kennedy era) and the current crop of me too don't challenge Bush on his illegal wars and shredding of the constitution Dems ought to be DEEPLY ashamed of themselves.
Perhaps we will be able to power the post fossil fuel future strictly by attaching dynamos to the founding fathers rolling over in their grave because of people like you. You are the apothesis of un-American, people like you have utterly destroyed the revolution that gave birth to this country.
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security."
Look at that goddamn hippy Franklin, hair down to his shoulders, I'm sure if he showed up in your neighborhood the neighbors would complain. And we all know what the neighbors think is FAR more important than the actual worthiness of a persons ideas, right? We couldn't just go around judging people by the content of their character and not their appearance like Dr. King said for there goes the neighborhood, what will happen to the property values?
Pissed? You bet, people like you utterly disgust me...
Slashdot Mirror
Bzzzzt wrong about being a Democrat supporter I'm a minarchist radical tree sitter. And you talk about me putting words in your mouth. I may well vote Green in the national elections, I'm just under no delusion they will actually win, i.e. it's really kind of a pointless gesture. I think in the long run more real change is done by changing the culture than by voting for politicians, i.e. the direct action protests in Seattle against the WTO in 1999 raised more awareness of the globilization issue than voting for any politician Repig, Dem, Greren or Libertarian.
I'll vote for Greens and Libertarians locally where they may or may not make a difference, probably not as Repigs and Dems will still hold the majority in the city council even if by some miracle a third party candidate were to win. At least at the local level third party candidates have a shot and ARE worth supporting unlike the national level where they will be ridiculed out of existence and shut out of debates by the MSM. That of course sucks but we do have to deal with reality now, don't we?
Do you have a substantive answer to changing politics beyond the local level or mere spiteful name calling?
Face it politics on the national level is bought off by globalist multinational corporations, we are facing a long line of oil wars and draconian security measures to control a restless populace, and there is little we can do about it, other than prepare at the local level.
If you think the Dems or Repigs are going to listen to you when Haliburton and Exxon are lining their pockets you are dreaming. And if you think the MSM are going to allow third parties a fair airing of their views without ridicule (even Howard Dean was torpedoed talk about Ralph Nader, Pat Buchanan, or Harry Brown) and red herring lifestyle issues, you are also dreaming for they too are funded by Haliburton, Exxon, the auto companies, etc.
Am I bitter and harsh? You bet I think it's long past time that intelligent people like many slasdot posters woke up and did something about the pitiful state of the U.S. in the 21st century. My guess is that something is going to be a combo of supporting local politics that's not completely bought off, working on alternative energy systems, trains, etc, growing gardens and supporting co-ops, starting a dialog between Greens and paleo-cons/Libertarians, routing around a national political system that is hopelessly broken, and hoping peak oil is 10 or 15 years off and not now.
If you have any better ideas I'm all ears. Seriously... But don't tell me the Dems are going to magically fix it, I don't have time for that baby talk.
1985 called they want their first person shooters back.
Nonsense with Vista and Core 2 duo I can finally run Duke Nuke Em Forever. Yeah you laugh now, just because I'm wearing a tin foil hat in my bunker, but I got the beta, I uhhh just can't tell you about it, non disclosure agreement ya know.
Nonsense bring it on and add extra adjectives. For example the new Gell-itte Super Mondo Xtra Extreme shaver now with 20 blades!!!!!!!
Ding, ding, ding that plus your job is worth 10/hr is an hour on the global market if you are VERY lucky completely refutes the grandparents argument. Mode the parent post up. I suspect those rugged individualists will come crying home to mommy when THEIR ox gets gored by "global market place." Then they will wish they supported a labor ORGANIZATION that has the strength to fight the corporations ORGANIZATION. Much as we might like to pretend we aren't just disconnected individuals part parts of groups that have real influence of our future.
And no frankly I'm not very hopeful Americans will get their shit together regarding politics or labor.
By mainstream I mean Democrat or Republican, for those are the only electable choices above the county level. And yes I will bet you one hundred dollars American cash money that no Green, Libertarian, Peace and Freedom Party, or Reform Party member will be elected at the level of Congress or the Presidency. Care to take that bet? I didn't think so... It's not "wallowing in self pity," it's cold hard realization of what's actually going to happen in American elections.
Yes instant run off voting might help but we don't have that except in a couple of cities now do we? Expecting real change in American politics above the county level is a total fantasy and a waste of intelligent peoples time and effort.
Of the mainstream electable national candidates that are even allowed in the debates at the national or even state level BOTH parties support the following:
c le/2006/05/09/AR2006050901485.html
* Global trade that screws both American workers and third world workers
* An increasingly aggressive imperialistic foreign policy, can you say Hilary Clinton threatening Iran I knew you could...
* Passive acceptance of policies dreamed up by elite think tanks that only serve the top 5% of the population. So called centrist Dems are vowing NOT to investigate Bush for his crimes even if they retake the house:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti
* Increasing intrusion into our private lives supported by both parties
* Increasing censorship of video games, music, and DRM supported by both parties
What real choice do I have other than at the local level where a few Greens or Libertarians squeak in? Does voting for Repigs and Dems at the state and national level solve ANYTHING? I think not. The ONLY issues Dems and Repigs disagree on are minor issues like abortion, the ten commandments on public buildings, flag buring, etc. And yes I will step on some toes here these issues are MINOR compared to global war, the abrogation of the constitution, our long term sustainable survival on the planet, and decent living wages for our working people. Get over your lifestyle issues and thinking voting for mainstream politicians solves anything. As Colbert so nicely put it's like rearranging deck chairs on the Hindenberg
And if those steely eyed mo-fos "whack" an innocent family you just recruited yourself a hundred new enraged Al Queda terrorists, that sure helped didn't it? How about we leave people in the middle east to their own fate and become old school paleo-con non interventionists and working on kicking the foreign oil addiction, hmmmmm...
8 966
How about a left-right alliance to protect the constitution and stop interventionist wars? We need to to do something to break out of the dumbocracy of both Dems and Repigs who strip us of our rights without even blinking.
See for example: http://www.antiwar.com/orig/eddlem.php?articleid=
Then you care more about machines than dead and suffering human beings which is sad but typical of Americans.
Ironically enough the point is I WOULD like to use FSF software because I do think it's more ethical. I just get angered and saddened when the response to it's not ready yet isn't "oh we're working on that," but "grrrrr how dare you question the greatness of our FREEDOM saving software. How dare you not invest thousands of hours into learning the ins and outs of glib and xorg config. YOU MUST HATE FREEDOM TO BE SO LAZY AND INEPT." A little humbleness, patience, LISTENING, and working to improve usability, would go a LONG way toward making it so we could ALL use more ethical GPL licensed software.
Read this slashdot story and the responses CAREFULLY and then come back and post your response. Many people are PISSED about the usability of GNU software who WOULD like to use it, how hard is that to understand?
/ 1315235
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/12
The fact you have "no idea" what my rant was about proves my point exactly. If you were listening to your users and not just being an elite coder you would know exactly what I'm talking about. Go ahead keep coding unusable crap, gimp, http://gimp.org/ ring a bell? I would really like to use to use mainly FSF software, truly I would, but I'm NOT going to become a coder to do it, there are too many OTHER (see previous post) important things in my life to do. So I guess I'll just keep plugging away on my ibook. Have fun re-writing config files to get your sound card working properly. Hint it's not just me, even hard core open source coders like Mozilla programmer Jamie Zawinski gave up on Linux as being too frustrating for every day use and switched to a Mac:
http://jwz.livejournal.com/494040.html
Until FSF advocates wake up to the hard reality of just how difficult much OSS software is to use you will always be a niche player, which IS sad because I actually agree with you that freedom for programmers would make for a better world. But an unusable better world helps NO ONE, except the couple thousand people who think hand coding a config file is a fun and useful way to spend a weekend.
Nice theory, here's the reality. These kids in Humboldt county are working hard to save the last Redwood forests:
.0.1.0.01 alpha with an interface that looks like it was designed by retarded Klingons (that was a joke son), and if it doesn't install the "help" forums are loaded pimply 13 year old trolls with Aspergers syndrome who spend all day compiling gentoo and whose response to a newbie question is
.01.01 alpha version of gnus not ms word ONLY works with glib 1.2.10-18 on Ubuntu 5.008 flight 16 "Prickly Porcupine?" ZOMG LAMER!!!!!!!"
http://wesavetrees.org/
http://northcoastearthfirst.org/
Neither of these groups runs gnu/linux. The we save trees kids run Mac OS X and the Earth First kids run Windows. Why is that, because none of them are hard core techies who want to spend time tracking down library dependencies, editing config files, etc.
And yes I do know what I speak of, I set up Ubuntu on an old p.c. I had lying around, and after the install had no mouse response. I had to kill the xserver, and edit I think xorg config (I forget which file exactly this was a while ago) to get the serial mouse working. Now these kids in Humboldt are NOT going to learn to use pico to edit a config file to get a damn serial mouse working, not happening. So what you are suggesting is they drop getting the word out about their activism because they aren't running gnu/hurd or whatever, that's asinine. Those 1200 year trees are more important than your OSS purity test, so are hungry people, both here in the U.S. and around the world, so is global warming, homelessness, globilization, and a hundred other issues that either cause real human suffering or threaten our long term survival on planet earth. OSS purity would literally rank about 1,000th on my list of issues that need to be addressed in the world.
Yes in an ideal world GNU/LINUX or HURD or whatever would install smoothly, and would come with easy to use software with complete help menus and the help forums would be filled with happy helpful people ready to lend a hand.
That's the fantasy... And the reality? The software is often ONLY available on a sourceforge site that is damn difficult to navigate just to download the software, then it's a 50/50 gamble whether it will install, if it does install it's often version
"ZOMG you fucktard how could you not know that the
Admit it you laughed because you've "been there, done that." Faced with such an incredible learning curve and unfriendly "support" most activists will go hmmm fuck it, let's download photoshop using Azerus and make some signs and update our web site. And if you've lost the activists you're lost because those on the radical left are the most likely to support the free software philosophy. It certainly ISN'T going to be the average Joe who's only in for the money. And don't go blaming the victim and tell them to write the code if they aren't satisfied, all you are going to get from the 99.999999% of people who aren't coders is screw that, I have WORK to do. with my computer.
So yes there is a point, the point is that free software people need to work HARD towards giving us software usable by non ultra nerds, and they need to be nice when giving us that software. Until the software is ready for prime time don't be surprised when people don't use it (shrug). And DO keep on, keeping on, working to fight for our our freedom, DON'T expect us to use your software until it's gui advances beyond retarded Klingon level. To be quite harsh most gnu/linux/hurd software is at the prototype level of usability for non-techies.
And that's fine if that's the way you want to scratch your itch by writing command line utilities to work with raw packets, great do it code away geek master, just don't expect to "convert" anyone with such offerings.
And yes I DO hope you win in the long run and beat Apple, M$, and Sun. But you aren't there y
Ding, ding, ding, that's the sort of thing I'm talking about. A lot of people have a LOT more serious problems than OSS, and they will live their lives and do what they have to do to survive regardless of what upper middle class geeks in the USA think.
Even if your situation isn't as dire as Dafur, say you are living on a couple grand a year in China or Brazil. Are you going to get a used computer with pre installed Windows and bootleg MS Office to learn how to use a computer, or try to install Debian and get called a "clueless newbie" in an online forum if you don't phrase your question in perfect techical jargon? Yeah that's what I thought... That's why all the people selling 1 dollar bootleg cds in the third world are selling compile your own gentoo, NOT, oops.
Or even a pirated copy of Windows 98 if that's all say an activist organization can afford and they aren't techies and don't want to have to mess with config files, and dependencies just to get a damn sound card, or a mouse working. Face it for most people a computer is a tool to do something else. Should an artist worry if the design of their paint brush is open source? I think not...
And note I'm not saying this to knock RMS, I think he's doing important work on the front lines to protect our freedoms and like I said before he may save all our butts if DRM or other copy restrictions gets too onerous. I truly support him and wish him the best of luck protecting our freedoms. On the other hand he shouldn't expect non techies to use difficult to use (RTFM grrrrr fuck you newbie) tools to do their work solely because they are OSS. Further, without Linus all we would have would have as an OSS OS be GNU/HURD and that's useless to anyone freedom lover or not.
Sometimes you just have to get your important world changing work done with the tools you've got (shrug). Really for the 99% of the world who aren't hard core geeks the work is more important than the tool, are you listening slashdot? For me that means graphic design and video edciting using photoshop and final cut pro pirated using bit torrent. That is the reality for a poor graphic designer to have the tools they need at the price they can afford. And if that doesn't meet your standards of ethical purity fuck it, I'd rather worry about doing NICE signs for an anti war demo than about whether Linspire has a closed source media player or whatever. In the long run nice signs for the demo ARE more important to the world than hyper pure OSS squabbling. (rant=off).
By two tracks I mean one track that has a Linspirish philosophy of just make it work for newbies even if that also means including some closed source proprietory software, AND a purist RMS FSF.
Really these two tracks compliment each other the closed source development track brings in newbewies while the purest camp can defend our freedoms and perhaps save our butts if DRM becomes very prevalent.
The point is though why does each side have to try to convert the other to it's philosophy as my way or the highway? Lets let them both run and see what happens, after all that's what's going to happen anyway, it's very unlikely either FSF or closed source software is going away any time soon.
I use OS X which has closed source software in the OS and I run closed source apps as well, but I also run fink/KDE as well on top of the open source Darwin base at times, as well as running Firefox as my browser. Does that mean one "side" or the other should work to convert me? What nonsense, what a waste of developer time, and above all how immature.
Can't you argue about something of real importance like poverty, or war, or whether peak oil is real, etc?
Mod parent up my thoughts exactly. More fast loading text and less v.r. hype please. When the the INFORMATION supper highway, become the entertainment stupid roadway? Give me Shakespear as text over Porky III 3D any day of the week.
p.s. "Image dump does not allow direct linking" You really are a genius aren't you?
If you have no substantive response to someones argument the best response is to make fun of them and call them mentally ill. Hey works for the Chinese too, you're in good company:
h tm
"There are surely few more potent deterrents to dissident activity of any kind than the threat of permanent or semi-permanent forced removal to an institution for the criminally insane. A potential Chinese dissident or religious nonconformist may be prepared to face imprisonment for his or her beliefs, but indefinite psychiatric custody is probably quite another matter. Additionally, psychiatric labeling of this kind serves to stigmatize and socially marginalize the dissident in a way that regular criminal imprisonment, in the present era at least, often fails to do."
http://hrw.org/reports/2002/china02/china0802-12.
Yes you are a dick, it's true.
When I go to web sites I don't want to be tracked I use an onion router, specifically TOR. Maybe you want your business spilled out for the world to see all the time, others not so much...
http://tor.eff.org/
I did answer your question ASSHOLE, I said human dignity trumps everything, yes everything, including the "safety" of upper middle class white assholes in the suburbs. Tracking people even the most loathsome child molester scum is a fundamental violation of their human dignity. It's quite literally everything Orwell warned us about the telescreen in 1984. It's everything the founding fathers fought against for when they attempted to create a zone of privacy around our papers and personal goods with the 4th amendment.
.00001% of the population. People like you who live in fear of the terrorists, crooks, and child molesters are the truly paranoid ones, and the fact that you could shut down ALL our hard won civil liberties based on the fear whipped up by the tee vee fills me with RAGE. Yes, rage, that's not very p.c. is it? But the reality is that revolutions are started when people get filled with rage and can't stand the actions of the assholes anymore, think about it... If we lose our rage against outrages then all is truly lost and we might as well sign up for our soma (Prozac) ration in the "brave new world."
I am NOT scared of the crooks, terrorists, and child molesters, at ALL, they are
Vietnam started under Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson escalated it for starters, two million (a third of a holocausts) worth of Vietnamese dead as well as 57,000 young Americans drafted, most bitterly against their will. Furthermore Clinton supported a disastrous invasion of Somalia, fired missiles at the Sudan and Iraq, led a NATO coalition that bombed Serbia, and caused easily 500,000 Iraqis to die in intense misery due to his sanctions against Iraq that his callous secretary of state Madeline Albright, said were "worth it," on 60 Minutes in the 90s.
Although I consider myself to be on "left" being pro gay rights, pro choice, pro environment, pro co-op, pro organic food, anti-war, etc, I'm under no delusion that the Dems are ANY better on the issue of war than the Repigs. In fact give me a good isolationist paleo-con/Libertarian like the people at antiwar.com, Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul, or Paul Craig Roberts, ANY day of the week over either Hilary or Kerry who both of whom have campaigned within the last year on a platform of more troops, FUCK that.
On the whole all the Dems give you is the same war mongering as Repigs, the same bought off by the corporations policies, and they are often even MORE priggish and uptight than Republicans about song lyrics, video games, etc. The DLC has completely ruined the Dems, (though the rot obviously goes back to the Kennedy era) and the current crop of me too don't challenge Bush on his illegal wars and shredding of the constitution Dems ought to be DEEPLY ashamed of themselves.
OMG a rational Christian who I mostly agree with, strike me down with lightning quick...
Perhaps we will be able to power the post fossil fuel future strictly by attaching dynamos to the founding fathers rolling over in their grave because of people like you. You are the apothesis of un-American, people like you have utterly destroyed the revolution that gave birth to this country.
i nfr110256.html
. library.upenn.edu/exhibits/pennhistory/ben/ben26.j pg&imgrefurl=http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits /pennhistory/ben/ben.html&h=884&w=746&sz=603&tbnid =J9GH9DS2CWae9M:&tbnh=145&tbnw=122&hl=en&start=2&p rev=/images%3Fq%3Dbenjamin%2Bfranklin%26svnum%3D10 %26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DG
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security."
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/b/benjam
Benjamin Franklin
Perhaps the first long haired hippy, see picture:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www
Look at that goddamn hippy Franklin, hair down to his shoulders, I'm sure if he showed up in your neighborhood the neighbors would complain. And we all know what the neighbors think is FAR more important than the actual worthiness of a persons ideas, right? We couldn't just go around judging people by the content of their character and not their appearance like Dr. King said for there goes the neighborhood, what will happen to the property values?
Pissed? You bet, people like you utterly disgust me...