No, you fall into the trap. The one that teaches that people don't NEED to understand the things they use - they can always hire someone to fix it. And, that is the reason so many people are ripped off when their car needs to be repaired. They have no idea WHAT the squalling noise is when they drive it into the shop, so they have to take the mechanic's word. Ditto with computers. You carry it into a shop, and tell them "It doesn't work, fix it!" And, you have to take their word for whatever they say they've done to it.
Yes, all kids need to know how to use the operating system. It isn't dweeby nerd, it's an attitude of self sufficiency, of being secure, and not being at other people's mercy.
Competitively priced, as opposed to WHAT, exactly? Let us not forget the FUD factor - which you are helping to spread, I note - and the multitude of exclusivity agreements that MS has squeezed out of OEM's. Somehow, it just doesn't add up. Where is the competition?
Once again, I have to point out that the school systems in America actively teach and promote Microsoft products, while neglecting to teach kids how to even spell *nix or Solaris. A few systems use Macs - but there seem to be fewer and fewer of those.
And, people argue that MS isn't a monopoly, and/or that MS shouldn't be punished in various ways for squashing competition. Amazing.
Every child graduating from high school in the past decade should have been competent on Solaris, Mac, Linux, Unix, AND Microsoft systems. It isn't as if ten year olds are AFRAID of computers, or to stupid to figure them out. The problem is, they are being indoctrinated from their earliest experience with computers to do things the MS way.
A: I didn't make anything up. Not every processor in the world is rated in gigahertz. I have often seen a computer churning away, trying to catch up to the demands of it's anti-malware software, so that it could get on with the user's tasks.
B: As long as people continue to think small, and think "inside the box", we're all going to be stuck with malware and inadequate remedies for malware.
C: As an aside, I found and installed Windows Essentials inside a VM. I will admit, it has a small memory footprint, and the impact on performance is unnoticeable. How effective is it? Only time will tell.
D: Thank you all for the "flamebait" moderations, people. It only goes to show just how childish the fanbois are.:-)
I agree - chemical systems are wonderful. Without farm chemicals and sewer runoff, we couldn't have that really neat dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, not to mention other similar zones around the world. Beautiful stuff, chemicals.
Seems to me they could put a donkey on a tether. The pumping capacity would probably be more reliable. Kids are kids, after all. For a week, maybe even a month, that merry go round will be busy during all daylight hours. After that, it'll be hit or miss, now and then. I mean, really. If I actually WANT a kid to eat ice cream, he isn't going to want any. If I WANT him to eat candy, he's going to be suspicious. Ask any parent.
Compared to what, exactly? Compared to Unix? Or Apple? Or, maybe even Linux? Maybe Solaris?
"Microsoft Security Essentials makes the grade"
What exactly is the grade? I just can't help scratching my head everytime I hear about Microsoft security. All of these security applications are only necessary because Windows is insecure to start with.
I suppose that if I only had mud sandwiches to eat, if someone came by and put some salt and pepper in my mud, I might say it was "very good".
Am I the only person on earth who resents the fact that staying "secure" means devoting up to 30% of my processor time on an older computer to scan files? Preposterous.
Oh well. Microsoft has so little to brag about, I guess that half-way plugging a hole of their own making is the best thing they can come up with.
Not every country in the world treats it's children like morons in school, thereby generating morons. Perhaps you are totally ignorant of the fact that several governments are migrating to Linux, and encouraging populations to migrate. The official operating system in China happens to be Red Flag. Google it - but I warn you, you may be exposed to ideas and concepts foreign to American capitalist ideals. Nor is it only a communist country that is migrating. A number of articles have been written in recent months about South American countries migrating to open source operating systems.
If we in the United States weren't totally retarded, our school kids would be learning computer science in school. Any junior high school student should be able to compile a kernel, and be capable of installing multiple operating systems.
Schools in the states may or may not use this thing, on an individual school district basis. But schools around the world are adopting Linux. Don't you ever wonder why we seem to be losing the cyber war to China? They hack into everything we have, and our Microsoft establishment shakes their fists impotently. Makes you proud to be American, doesn't it?
Parent has been modded up. Should have been modded down - maybe "-5000 Failed to read link"
Clicking on the links, and browsing the site, one learns that he must download a standard 320MB ISO of a CD. Using this image, one then creates either a bootable CD or USB drive. If a guy really wants to run Sugar from the USB, but he can't boot from the USB, he can burn a "Boot Helper" CD, which apparently loads the kernel, then looks to the USB stick for the rest of the operating system.
I hope you're not representative of your local gene pool.
By that reasoning, CEO's dropping dead of a totally unexpected heart attack, stroke, or aneurysm should be totally against the law. Inconsiderate bastard needs to SCHEDULE that sort of thing, and warn shareholders 6 months in advance.
Get a grip. There is nothing certain in life - not even the life of a valuable commodity such as some pinheaded CEO. In the history of the United States, much more important people have dropped dead unexpectedly. Lincoln and Kennedy come to mind. There have even been one or two important people outside the US who have keeled over for one reason or another. Princess Di comes readily to mind.
The world goes on. Stockholders and everyone else pick up the pieces and finds someplace else to invest their time, money, and other resources.
I know that you didn't create that Wiki page, spur of the moment, then come back here to post the link to it. Mung. I spent 8 years in Uncle Sam's Navy, and never heard the term. You're part of the conspiracy, aren't you? You people just made up a new word, did the Wiki, and came here to post this article - AND SUN IS IN ON IT!!!
POINTS!!! REI hits the nail on the head. If Uncle Sam can just keep his big pointy nose out of other people's business, the world in general will like and respect the US a whole lot more!
Perhaps I should have translated from man-talk into girlie English. If he doesn't have the balls to risk being slapped, then he ain't gonna get the girl. I got the girl many times, simply by saying or doing something outrageous. While some people are offended, the girl who wants a man with balls knows right up front that I have them.
Operation Ajax preceded the Ayatollah, by nearly a generation. Our CIA toppled a legitimate, democratically elected, progressive government for a few pennies per barrel of oil. Because we wanted cheap energy, we installed the Shah as a dictator. So much for our claims to promote democracy, huh? I haven't read the wiki article thoroughly, but it seems to have the basic facts right, at the least. There are other books and articles around with in depth analysis of the operation, the aftermath, and the ongoing reverberations from it. None of them are "popular" because when all is said and done, it demonstrates that we are a bunch of hypocritical greedy bastards, whose foreign policy was a failure.
I fear that your version of history isn't all that accurate. Among other things, our government chose to sit on the sidelines, and wait for Pearl Harbor to be bombed, knowing full well that was one sure way to get America involved in WW2. We had the intelligence in plenty of time to mount an effective defense at Pearl Harbor, but everyone from the CinC down to the Pentagon prevented that intel being transmitted to the people who could have defended the harbor.
The fraudulent attacks in Vietnam that persuaded Congress to get involved there was fabricated by the CIA, primarily for the benefit of corporate interests. DuPont among others needed to protect their interests in the rubber plantations. The US really had no genuine interest in "defending" South Vietnam. All the American lives lost in VietNam were lost for the financial gain of some very rich bastids.
For the most part, I have to agree with the GP that when we muck around in local politics anywhere in the world, we make a mess of things. As for our rescue of Europe in WW2 - well - a lot of people have different views of that. Yeah, we did a lot, and sacrificed a lot. But, if the news of what was really happening in Germany had been broadcast to the American people, I'm pretty sure we would have been involved a lot earlier, and the war would have been won a lot sooner, with less sacrifice on everyone's part. Funny how the media influenced that war. It wasn't until late in the war that Americans started learning about such things as concentration camps. Take away the anti-semitism rampant in the Nazi government, and we really didn't have a lot of grevience with Germany.....
I see you've been modded down as a troll. Personally, I disagree with you, and I'll explain my disagreement. Obviously, those who modded you are incapable of doing so.;) _____________
Is the uprising instigated by the CIA? TBH, the CIA may or may not have something to do with it, but I can't see that they have the manpower, the influence, or the ability to muster hundreds of thousands of protesters. Keep in mind, precious few people in Iran have any reason to trust the CIA. I assume that you are familiar with Operation Ajax - if not, look it up. The average guy in Iran probably has a sentiment like "Burn me once, shame on you. Burn me twice, shame on me!"
The obverse view of those same facts, are, the government is well aware that the CIA overthrew an Iranian government 50 years ago. It's simply wonderful, from their point of view, to have such a handy boogey-man. "Hey, world, look at this! The CIA overthrew our government once, and they are trying again!" True or not, the supreme leader is going to try to convince the world that it's just the CIA up to it's old tricks again.
Now, I'm not going to try to convince you, or anyone, that I'm familiar with Iranian politics, or even it's people. I've poured Iranian (and Iraqi) sand out of my boots, but that doesn't make me expert at anything other than pouring sand out of my boots.;) But, I'm convinced that there really are two almost distinct populations in Iran. Stratfor.com publishes a lot of info, and I posted one of their newsletters in another thread on slashdot. City people, young people, businessmen who deal with the west, students, and educated females make up one group. These people see the benefits of western society, western industry, and some of our western values.
Country people, the poor, the uneducated (that is not to say "unintelligent") and the devoutly religious traditional Moslems question the wisdom of adopting western ways. Keep in mind, that portion of the population has been catered to by Ahmadinejad. A lot of wealth has been redistributed in Iran, almost all of it for the benefit of this second population.
While I don't see the Supreme Leader as being above tampering with the election results, I can see how, and why, his chosen boy may have legitimately won the election. IMHO, Ahmadiejab is probably the legitimate president. He may, or may not be, but my opinion is, yes. All the analysts who say differently have no evidence whatsoever, just speculation based on silly shit like numerology.
That out of the way - I think that the progressives are being stupid. Whether the election was rigged or not, they've staged a showdown in which the powers that be have lost face. They can't win the showdown, and they will be punished. They are going to lose strength, that they might have hoarded for the NEXT election. One simply doesn't squander their strength in battles that can't be won.
Whatever, I agree 100% with your statement, "Let the Iranian people sort it out. Don't sell them arms, don't try and escalate things either way, and pull your damn spooks out if they are there."
We are all to ready to jump in whenever things aren't going the way we would like it to. I would LIKE to see Iran made "free" of what I consider an oppressive regime. But, hey, if the majority of Iranians don't see it as oppressive, that's their business. What is the alternative? Invade, depose the regime, and set up a government that I approve of? Hell, THAT would be oppression!! In effect, because I disapprove on one oppressor, I become an oppressor myself. Duhh, hypocricy and idiocy combined, huh?
Well, you've been responded to, anyway. And, screw the mods - half of them are probably pimple faced teenage geeks living in their Mama's basement, and have never met a single Iranian in their lives. Miserable little creatures.......
There are scores of articles on the news, in just the past 6 months, about FREE DEMOCRATIC NATIONS implementing censorship. The fact that Iran censors something that those same nations think should be freely broadcast changes nothing. The UK, the US, Australia, and Germany lead the list, with thousands upon thousands of sites that they want censored.
World attention is focused on Iran's censorship at the moment, but give it a few weeks, and 99% of the world's population will have their heads in the sand again, oblivious to the fact that their own government is quietly encroaching on their own rights.
Ignorance, hypocrisy, and stupidity all rolled up into one.
But, think of the children.
Good God, this whole mess makes me sick.
Don't get me wrong, people, I abhor child pornography. It would make me very happy to never see one single image of CP on the darkwebs again. But, in the process of getting those people off the web, almost all of us are willing to abdicate our own rights. Ten, fifteen, twenty years from now, what we see happening in Iran may well happen again in the United States, or Canada, or perhaps even in an EU-wide election. Simply because we are quietly surrendering our rights to the meatheads who want to control us.
Sorry, people, but I can't get on the bandwagon condemning Iran's government, when almost every idiot around me, almost every idiot on the internet, is happy to see our own governments moving in the same direction.
At the same time, I have the utmost respect for those activists who have quashed legislation in Australia and other places in recent months. Even though I suspect that those laws will return next month, or next year, to be adopted by a lackadaisical population.
Oppression. It's not just an Iranian or a Korean problem. Wake up, everyone. If you don't like what you see in Iran, WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMAN (or minister, or whatever name you use for the same thing) AND TELL THEM ABOUT IT!!! Check pending legislation in your own home state and country. Send a dozen letters, to anyone and everyone who has any voice, or any influence with the voices. Tell them that you don't want to be the next Iran.
Censorship is censorship - even in those rare instances when I think I might approve of it being used against some select group, the censorship is still a tool of government used to oppress a group it disapproves of.
Get off your asses, and make your voices heard where it counts. In your own government!!
Everything a woman can ever need is found at WalMart. Go to WalMart, you'll find women. Hang around the lingerie, and when some gal starts eyeing and fingering the frilly stuff, tell her how great it would look on her. Go for it. Yeah, you'll get slapped ten or fifty times - but the NEXT ONE is probably the girl of your dreams.
No balls, no glory. Of course, no balls, no girl either.
You still fail to make your point. My DESKTOP runs for months at a time. Not some server, with a static set of applications that it serves, certainly not a file server, not a database. My desktop does it. I install and uninstall applications. I run virtual machines. I browse the web. I play music. Watch movies. I do not do any serious audio or video work, but, almost anything else you can think of, I do it. My desktop with dozens of alpha and beta applications installed is more stable than Windows.
And, here you are saying "Yeah, Windows is as good as Linux!"
"for hundreds of hours (or more) without ever seeing anything quirky anymore."
I am truly fucking impressed. *nix boxes can run for YEARS. Hundreds of hours indeed. Has anyone ever explained "orders of magnitude" to you? Square != double, cubed != triple. I hope you get the idea.
Just as Microsoft very carefully assigns rights and responsibilities with their "EULA", so does the GPL. As does the LGPL, the BSD license, and all other licenses we may ever hear of.
And, "Free, as in free speech" doesn't mean "Free, as in plegiarize me, please"
I covered the "distributing", I believe. Apparently, you skipped over it. Copyright infringement was meant to apply to people using copyrighted material for commercial gain. Copyright never was meant to prevent an individual from making copies for himself, or for friends, for which he is not paid. In today's world, friends might be located all around the globe, and you may not even know their real names - but being a member of the filesharing community makes them your friend.
RIAA makes little if any distinction between people distributing for financial gain, and people who are just sharing. The law needs to address that little oversight. At most, it's an aggravating circumstance to a petty theft when a private individual is involved.
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No, you fall into the trap. The one that teaches that people don't NEED to understand the things they use - they can always hire someone to fix it. And, that is the reason so many people are ripped off when their car needs to be repaired. They have no idea WHAT the squalling noise is when they drive it into the shop, so they have to take the mechanic's word. Ditto with computers. You carry it into a shop, and tell them "It doesn't work, fix it!" And, you have to take their word for whatever they say they've done to it.
Yes, all kids need to know how to use the operating system. It isn't dweeby nerd, it's an attitude of self sufficiency, of being secure, and not being at other people's mercy.
Competitively priced, as opposed to WHAT, exactly? Let us not forget the FUD factor - which you are helping to spread, I note - and the multitude of exclusivity agreements that MS has squeezed out of OEM's. Somehow, it just doesn't add up. Where is the competition?
Once again, I have to point out that the school systems in America actively teach and promote Microsoft products, while neglecting to teach kids how to even spell *nix or Solaris. A few systems use Macs - but there seem to be fewer and fewer of those.
And, people argue that MS isn't a monopoly, and/or that MS shouldn't be punished in various ways for squashing competition. Amazing.
Every child graduating from high school in the past decade should have been competent on Solaris, Mac, Linux, Unix, AND Microsoft systems. It isn't as if ten year olds are AFRAID of computers, or to stupid to figure them out. The problem is, they are being indoctrinated from their earliest experience with computers to do things the MS way.
The upgrade from Vista to Win7 will be free. Just wait for The Pirate Bay to announce the special upgrade.
A: I didn't make anything up. Not every processor in the world is rated in gigahertz. I have often seen a computer churning away, trying to catch up to the demands of it's anti-malware software, so that it could get on with the user's tasks.
B: As long as people continue to think small, and think "inside the box", we're all going to be stuck with malware and inadequate remedies for malware.
C: As an aside, I found and installed Windows Essentials inside a VM. I will admit, it has a small memory footprint, and the impact on performance is unnoticeable. How effective is it? Only time will tell.
D: Thank you all for the "flamebait" moderations, people. It only goes to show just how childish the fanbois are. :-)
I agree - chemical systems are wonderful. Without farm chemicals and sewer runoff, we couldn't have that really neat dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, not to mention other similar zones around the world. Beautiful stuff, chemicals.
Seems to me they could put a donkey on a tether. The pumping capacity would probably be more reliable. Kids are kids, after all. For a week, maybe even a month, that merry go round will be busy during all daylight hours. After that, it'll be hit or miss, now and then. I mean, really. If I actually WANT a kid to eat ice cream, he isn't going to want any. If I WANT him to eat candy, he's going to be suspicious. Ask any parent.
"This is the first step. We have to be patient."
In light of so many discussions on ./ I feel it necessary to fix your statement.
"This is the first step. We have to get patent."
Compared to what, exactly? Compared to Unix? Or Apple? Or, maybe even Linux? Maybe Solaris?
"Microsoft Security Essentials makes the grade"
What exactly is the grade? I just can't help scratching my head everytime I hear about Microsoft security. All of these security applications are only necessary because Windows is insecure to start with.
I suppose that if I only had mud sandwiches to eat, if someone came by and put some salt and pepper in my mud, I might say it was "very good".
Am I the only person on earth who resents the fact that staying "secure" means devoting up to 30% of my processor time on an older computer to scan files? Preposterous.
Oh well. Microsoft has so little to brag about, I guess that half-way plugging a hole of their own making is the best thing they can come up with.
He didn't learn to get along with others very well........
Not every country in the world treats it's children like morons in school, thereby generating morons. Perhaps you are totally ignorant of the fact that several governments are migrating to Linux, and encouraging populations to migrate. The official operating system in China happens to be Red Flag. Google it - but I warn you, you may be exposed to ideas and concepts foreign to American capitalist ideals. Nor is it only a communist country that is migrating. A number of articles have been written in recent months about South American countries migrating to open source operating systems.
If we in the United States weren't totally retarded, our school kids would be learning computer science in school. Any junior high school student should be able to compile a kernel, and be capable of installing multiple operating systems.
Schools in the states may or may not use this thing, on an individual school district basis. But schools around the world are adopting Linux. Don't you ever wonder why we seem to be losing the cyber war to China? They hack into everything we have, and our Microsoft establishment shakes their fists impotently. Makes you proud to be American, doesn't it?
Parent has been modded up. Should have been modded down - maybe "-5000 Failed to read link"
Clicking on the links, and browsing the site, one learns that he must download a standard 320MB ISO of a CD. Using this image, one then creates either a bootable CD or USB drive. If a guy really wants to run Sugar from the USB, but he can't boot from the USB, he can burn a "Boot Helper" CD, which apparently loads the kernel, then looks to the USB stick for the rest of the operating system.
I hope you're not representative of your local gene pool.
By that reasoning, CEO's dropping dead of a totally unexpected heart attack, stroke, or aneurysm should be totally against the law. Inconsiderate bastard needs to SCHEDULE that sort of thing, and warn shareholders 6 months in advance.
Get a grip. There is nothing certain in life - not even the life of a valuable commodity such as some pinheaded CEO. In the history of the United States, much more important people have dropped dead unexpectedly. Lincoln and Kennedy come to mind. There have even been one or two important people outside the US who have keeled over for one reason or another. Princess Di comes readily to mind.
The world goes on. Stockholders and everyone else pick up the pieces and finds someplace else to invest their time, money, and other resources.
I know that you didn't create that Wiki page, spur of the moment, then come back here to post the link to it. Mung. I spent 8 years in Uncle Sam's Navy, and never heard the term. You're part of the conspiracy, aren't you? You people just made up a new word, did the Wiki, and came here to post this article - AND SUN IS IN ON IT!!!
POINTS!!! REI hits the nail on the head. If Uncle Sam can just keep his big pointy nose out of other people's business, the world in general will like and respect the US a whole lot more!
Perhaps I should have translated from man-talk into girlie English. If he doesn't have the balls to risk being slapped, then he ain't gonna get the girl. I got the girl many times, simply by saying or doing something outrageous. While some people are offended, the girl who wants a man with balls knows right up front that I have them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
Operation Ajax preceded the Ayatollah, by nearly a generation. Our CIA toppled a legitimate, democratically elected, progressive government for a few pennies per barrel of oil. Because we wanted cheap energy, we installed the Shah as a dictator. So much for our claims to promote democracy, huh? I haven't read the wiki article thoroughly, but it seems to have the basic facts right, at the least. There are other books and articles around with in depth analysis of the operation, the aftermath, and the ongoing reverberations from it. None of them are "popular" because when all is said and done, it demonstrates that we are a bunch of hypocritical greedy bastards, whose foreign policy was a failure.
Yeah, free market is good. And, when there is no market, the city should be allowed to enter the market. That sounds pretty free to me!
I fear that your version of history isn't all that accurate. Among other things, our government chose to sit on the sidelines, and wait for Pearl Harbor to be bombed, knowing full well that was one sure way to get America involved in WW2. We had the intelligence in plenty of time to mount an effective defense at Pearl Harbor, but everyone from the CinC down to the Pentagon prevented that intel being transmitted to the people who could have defended the harbor.
The fraudulent attacks in Vietnam that persuaded Congress to get involved there was fabricated by the CIA, primarily for the benefit of corporate interests. DuPont among others needed to protect their interests in the rubber plantations. The US really had no genuine interest in "defending" South Vietnam. All the American lives lost in VietNam were lost for the financial gain of some very rich bastids.
For the most part, I have to agree with the GP that when we muck around in local politics anywhere in the world, we make a mess of things. As for our rescue of Europe in WW2 - well - a lot of people have different views of that. Yeah, we did a lot, and sacrificed a lot. But, if the news of what was really happening in Germany had been broadcast to the American people, I'm pretty sure we would have been involved a lot earlier, and the war would have been won a lot sooner, with less sacrifice on everyone's part. Funny how the media influenced that war. It wasn't until late in the war that Americans started learning about such things as concentration camps. Take away the anti-semitism rampant in the Nazi government, and we really didn't have a lot of grevience with Germany.....
I see you've been modded down as a troll. Personally, I disagree with you, and I'll explain my disagreement. Obviously, those who modded you are incapable of doing so. ;)
_____________
Is the uprising instigated by the CIA? TBH, the CIA may or may not have something to do with it, but I can't see that they have the manpower, the influence, or the ability to muster hundreds of thousands of protesters. Keep in mind, precious few people in Iran have any reason to trust the CIA. I assume that you are familiar with Operation Ajax - if not, look it up. The average guy in Iran probably has a sentiment like "Burn me once, shame on you. Burn me twice, shame on me!"
The obverse view of those same facts, are, the government is well aware that the CIA overthrew an Iranian government 50 years ago. It's simply wonderful, from their point of view, to have such a handy boogey-man. "Hey, world, look at this! The CIA overthrew our government once, and they are trying again!" True or not, the supreme leader is going to try to convince the world that it's just the CIA up to it's old tricks again.
Now, I'm not going to try to convince you, or anyone, that I'm familiar with Iranian politics, or even it's people. I've poured Iranian (and Iraqi) sand out of my boots, but that doesn't make me expert at anything other than pouring sand out of my boots. ;) But, I'm convinced that there really are two almost distinct populations in Iran. Stratfor.com publishes a lot of info, and I posted one of their newsletters in another thread on slashdot. City people, young people, businessmen who deal with the west, students, and educated females make up one group. These people see the benefits of western society, western industry, and some of our western values.
Country people, the poor, the uneducated (that is not to say "unintelligent") and the devoutly religious traditional Moslems question the wisdom of adopting western ways. Keep in mind, that portion of the population has been catered to by Ahmadinejad. A lot of wealth has been redistributed in Iran, almost all of it for the benefit of this second population.
While I don't see the Supreme Leader as being above tampering with the election results, I can see how, and why, his chosen boy may have legitimately won the election. IMHO, Ahmadiejab is probably the legitimate president. He may, or may not be, but my opinion is, yes. All the analysts who say differently have no evidence whatsoever, just speculation based on silly shit like numerology.
That out of the way - I think that the progressives are being stupid. Whether the election was rigged or not, they've staged a showdown in which the powers that be have lost face. They can't win the showdown, and they will be punished. They are going to lose strength, that they might have hoarded for the NEXT election. One simply doesn't squander their strength in battles that can't be won.
Whatever, I agree 100% with your statement, "Let the Iranian people sort it out. Don't sell them arms, don't try and escalate things either way, and pull your damn spooks out if they are there."
We are all to ready to jump in whenever things aren't going the way we would like it to. I would LIKE to see Iran made "free" of what I consider an oppressive regime. But, hey, if the majority of Iranians don't see it as oppressive, that's their business. What is the alternative? Invade, depose the regime, and set up a government that I approve of? Hell, THAT would be oppression!! In effect, because I disapprove on one oppressor, I become an oppressor myself. Duhh, hypocricy and idiocy combined, huh?
Well, you've been responded to, anyway. And, screw the mods - half of them are probably pimple faced teenage geeks living in their Mama's basement, and have never met a single Iranian in their lives. Miserable little creatures.......
There are scores of articles on the news, in just the past 6 months, about FREE DEMOCRATIC NATIONS implementing censorship. The fact that Iran censors something that those same nations think should be freely broadcast changes nothing. The UK, the US, Australia, and Germany lead the list, with thousands upon thousands of sites that they want censored.
World attention is focused on Iran's censorship at the moment, but give it a few weeks, and 99% of the world's population will have their heads in the sand again, oblivious to the fact that their own government is quietly encroaching on their own rights.
Ignorance, hypocrisy, and stupidity all rolled up into one.
But, think of the children.
Good God, this whole mess makes me sick.
Don't get me wrong, people, I abhor child pornography. It would make me very happy to never see one single image of CP on the darkwebs again. But, in the process of getting those people off the web, almost all of us are willing to abdicate our own rights. Ten, fifteen, twenty years from now, what we see happening in Iran may well happen again in the United States, or Canada, or perhaps even in an EU-wide election. Simply because we are quietly surrendering our rights to the meatheads who want to control us.
Sorry, people, but I can't get on the bandwagon condemning Iran's government, when almost every idiot around me, almost every idiot on the internet, is happy to see our own governments moving in the same direction.
At the same time, I have the utmost respect for those activists who have quashed legislation in Australia and other places in recent months. Even though I suspect that those laws will return next month, or next year, to be adopted by a lackadaisical population.
Oppression. It's not just an Iranian or a Korean problem. Wake up, everyone. If you don't like what you see in Iran, WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMAN (or minister, or whatever name you use for the same thing) AND TELL THEM ABOUT IT!!! Check pending legislation in your own home state and country. Send a dozen letters, to anyone and everyone who has any voice, or any influence with the voices. Tell them that you don't want to be the next Iran.
Censorship is censorship - even in those rare instances when I think I might approve of it being used against some select group, the censorship is still a tool of government used to oppress a group it disapproves of.
Get off your asses, and make your voices heard where it counts. In your own government!!
Everything a woman can ever need is found at WalMart. Go to WalMart, you'll find women. Hang around the lingerie, and when some gal starts eyeing and fingering the frilly stuff, tell her how great it would look on her. Go for it. Yeah, you'll get slapped ten or fifty times - but the NEXT ONE is probably the girl of your dreams.
No balls, no glory. Of course, no balls, no girl either.
You still fail to make your point. My DESKTOP runs for months at a time. Not some server, with a static set of applications that it serves, certainly not a file server, not a database. My desktop does it. I install and uninstall applications. I run virtual machines. I browse the web. I play music. Watch movies. I do not do any serious audio or video work, but, almost anything else you can think of, I do it. My desktop with dozens of alpha and beta applications installed is more stable than Windows.
And, here you are saying "Yeah, Windows is as good as Linux!"
Kinda humorous.
"for hundreds of hours (or more) without ever seeing anything quirky anymore."
I am truly fucking impressed. *nix boxes can run for YEARS. Hundreds of hours indeed. Has anyone ever explained "orders of magnitude" to you? Square != double, cubed != triple. I hope you get the idea.
You should stop thinking, and start reading:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt
Just as Microsoft very carefully assigns rights and responsibilities with their "EULA", so does the GPL. As does the LGPL, the BSD license, and all other licenses we may ever hear of.
And, "Free, as in free speech" doesn't mean "Free, as in plegiarize me, please"
I covered the "distributing", I believe. Apparently, you skipped over it. Copyright infringement was meant to apply to people using copyrighted material for commercial gain. Copyright never was meant to prevent an individual from making copies for himself, or for friends, for which he is not paid. In today's world, friends might be located all around the globe, and you may not even know their real names - but being a member of the filesharing community makes them your friend.
RIAA makes little if any distinction between people distributing for financial gain, and people who are just sharing. The law needs to address that little oversight. At most, it's an aggravating circumstance to a petty theft when a private individual is involved.