Linux has well defined hardware interface, there is no problem with driver stability with Linux kernel - the same unmodified driver source compiles just fine on different kernels, it's just that you can't load a binary blob compiled against different kernel version.
That's not a problem - and as ATI and NVIDIA (for example) have demonstrated, it's entirely possible to use same binary blob on different kernel versions - you just need to take the extra step of writing a wrapper that is binary compatible with the blob and compatible with kernel it's compiled against.
Now, if those drivers have stability problems, it's not the fault of kernel - never has been. If you think otherwise, how do you suppose they could code them better if the kernel was binary compatible if such simple part as the wrapper to provide binary compatibility with their blob is too hard for them to code properly? If they were SO bad coders then do you really think that they could created something as complex as video drivers without stability issues so big that their drivers would have had zero usability at all!
As it happens, I have indeed heard that NVIDIA drivers have some well recorded stability issues, but my own experience with Nvidia drivers has been without a problem. Never experienced them crashing - well, except that when I've had X crash (for entirely different reasons unrelated to video drivers) I have sometimes ended up with black screen and unable to access console. Tried blindly CTRL-ALT-F1, then entering 'startx' for no effect - but was able to log in via SSH and from there start 'screen' and run 'startx' from there, which reset the video card, started X and I was able to switch between linux console and X again:p
And finally, talking about stable hardware interface and Windows drivers in same sentence? You could have chosen a little better example...
Aye - besides, how many distributions *don't* use KDE or GNOME as default DE, not counting sibling distros specifically created to provide alternative WM/DE and GUI applications designed for that DE or considered to better fit it's design (ie. Fluxbuntu) or "special need" distros where different/no desktop is dictated by what it targets (ie. DamnSmallLinux or Mythbuntu - or really special, like "NT Offline Password and Registry Editor")? Can't come with too many, and I bet most default to XFCE or LXDE? "Not successful" can be seen in number of meanings, but I'll be howling for moon and masturbating with stolen cheese if this is not because of success and majority of those calling the shots for these choices are idiots!
P.S. Let it be said that I don't like any of these mainstream DE's, I'm just making observations of their success.
Honestly, if India wants to pull itself out of poverty it needs to just resort to good old fashioned hard work. Trying to outdo the west at it's own game and playing around with space programmes are of little use. Many companies in the West have long begun to realise that Indian call centres and software outsourcing are probably the fastest way to lose customers (i.e. Dell which has basically gone from major computer manufacturer, to footnote in history since it embarked on it's great Indian outsourcing experiment) and are starting to pull away. There's no doubt India has a lot of talent - it's sheer population size is bound to make that a statistical certainty, but it didn't have the armies of Western quality graduates manning call centres that it claimed, on the contrary, said staff were often not graduates at all, and those that were often from fake universities with fake accreditations. Put simply it was a scam, and no one is going to fall for that indefinitely- particularly not when it starts losing them customers.
So if India wants to eliminate poverty, it needs to take a leaf from China's book and start working hard, rather than try to be the world's con artist.
For all practical purposes, it hasn't been a scam for long time - their customers know what they get, yet they still pay anyways. That means it has not worked only because of scam - if that was the case they would already be history and/or those remaining would have improved.
Of course it is better for all parties the faster it will end/change. For India because it will speed progress, as now it gives jobs for people who would otherwise have to improve or loose on life quality and income.
As for China - I don't think it's the best one to copy.
I know, I know, you thought it was anti-nucular post... Good example of how "It makes sense, we definitely need it, and it's easy to understand" part is usually gross underestimation of stupidity of people.
I get the same thing from both of your posts - a reason for why this company personhood should not exist in legal "fiction" (it's not really fiction when it has real effects in physical world).
If you don't like Walmart or its policies, don't shop there. If you don't like Obama's policies, don't pay your taxes and maybe go to jail or have the IRS take the money anyway. One way you choose, the other you don't.
That fails when you get into a captive market. It's not like you can change electricity companies if you don't like the policies of your current one, and for most people in the USA, its not like you can choose a different internet/cable/telephone company if your current one is gouging you.
Or how about if your local Walmart drives the rest of the competing businesses out of business? What do you do then? What if your local grocery store gets driven out of business by a monopolistic national chain and the only options are buy from them at their prices or starve?
TBH, people in the USA need to get their government into line rather then bitching that you don't want one at all. If you think your government can screw you, just wait and see what a corporation without regulations can do...
Also, with corporations it's not just problem for customers, but also for workers - and it can be much bigger problem than what you talk about, but power to corporations folk avoid talking about it.
...and on top of everything, it's not like the threat would be that big - my understanding is that most people, browser search boxes, webpages with google search form, etc. use google.com and they get to google.(fi|de|nl|ru|po...) by redirect from google.com server. Even if they shut down german domains, how long would it take for everyone to use.com? Would it even affect language settings? I believe that I can set google to show in my language using.com - also from outside my country. Then even if they removed German localizations all together from google servers, how much grief would that really cause?
But in the end, it's not like google would suddenly start throwing such threats - they didn't even close china, though they did move to hong kong.
Would you prefer to be reminded to not criticize that other religion where if you critize it, you can end up dead.
I don't think that was the point at all... However such fatwas against offenders - I'd like to say especially outside countries that recognize sharia law, but those that do have even bigger problems with religion - are clearly more lunatic than Jews comparing laws against religious practice of mutilating little boys dicks and sucking the blood to holocaust. And I doubt they consider anyone else - I mean, holocaust had many other victim groups than Jews, and I'm sure they don't leave those out when it helps to paint a picture of how horrible the holocaust was to put more emphasis on their views, but do they ever mention holocaust when one of these other groups faces discrimination they would compare to holocaust if it was against them? Also, would they accept that comparison by muslims if the law was only against them? Would they defend muslims right to circumcise babies only? Do they defend them even now? If the law should be placed, but only against muslims circumcising, not Jews, would they still view it the worse thing since holocaust?
I'm not anti-semitist, just anti-harmful-religious-acts and anti laws set or not set because religious doctrines.
And would I prefer to see "be reminded to not criticize that other religion where if you critize it, you can end up dead"? Well, current situation needs more of that - it's un-excusable that violence against offenders of Islam or it's prophet happens in non-islamic (in politics and laws) countries, but it happens, but it's rare enough that swift actions to make sure it could not happen are not seen as important enough. Naturally I would rather like to not see either religions nutjobs in action, but it's not up to how I wish.
The part that bothers me is that the FBI tries to entrap them, get them to commit a crime where they normally wouldn't have done it.
Doesn't surprise me - it's just another variation of those law enforcement guys who "infiltrate" legal peaceful protests and try to turn people in to rioting so that cops can attack them. I understand that USA is one of countries where this kind of stuff is known to happen. It has always caused a strong disbelief reaction in me - it makes no sense whatsoever, if it's actually legal somehow then insanity is tripled and I'm having hard time figuring out WTF is the motivation behind such.
Would not fly here - although if law enforcement people were caught doing this I'm pretty sure that anything above those doing infiltrating would be hushed up.
Actually the scary thing is journalists like this one are on the watchlist. Her crime? talking about the constitution and what we need to do to protect it.
This. I'm always feeling mixed hilarity, anger and disbelief when some yanks praise their country for having freedom of speech, arguing that because it's protected by constitution and Finland (my country) or some other country does not have the same so we don't actually have free speech and USA has. They don't care if actual legal system of country does protect free speech, they don't acknowledge that because we don't have it in same place the same way - or what it boils down to, we are not USA - and that makes me mildly angry, but the elephant in the room is that this could not happen in Finland, we would not accept such violation of free speech, but it happens in USA and they totally just ignore it.
Of course I'm talking only of some yanks - I presume that you are American? If so, this is not about you, you are an example of clear minded American who instead of just trumping how great USA is acknowledges an issue and maybe say "this should not be happening, but it does and something should be done".
Except when the cat, lying on it's back, rips the eyes off head of attacking dog that just got on top of it and was thinking "woof, got you!".
But really, dogs are uninteresting and they give you respect just from showing them that you are the alpha dog. Cat's are way more interesting and individual - and you have to earn their love and respect. I've seen an abused dog still licking friendly its master coming home, when just morning it ran hiding from kicks. A cat would never.
Compared to number of wars, let alone acts of war, your country has committed, not counting those you have indirectly caused or pushed forward others to commit, you've had it real easy.
Not many countries are in place and have resources to war like you without suffering massively themselves. You go to war but the thought of someone attacking you're cities is something most of your people never even consider - so unrealistic such thing would be to them.
Correction: all members of 1st American Volunteer Group resigned from their respective service before joining. They were all volunteers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_tigers but I've read the same long ago in other sources.
This doesn't really matter - from any meaningful and sensible view it was an act of war, which it all really boils down to.
I highly doubt that Rihanna is a better singer then whoever else you mentioned. But that's not the point the point. People know her, and that is what matters. Hell it's even in the dictionary definition:
rock star
noun
a famous singer of rock music
The keyword there is famous
Another keyword is rock. According to closest dictionary to me (wikipedia) her genres include R&B, pop, dancehall, reggae, hip hop and dance - none are even close to rock.
I would add at least Linus Torvald (not just because of his work with Linux, his not first one to program a kernel by himself and I don't know how much of the work in current kernel is done by him, and how much worth does his kernel work has) for his skills and fame and RMS (no matter what anyone thinks of his philosophies) because, well his done some spectacular work, like emacs, and has earned name too.
WaywardGeek himself said the code was unreadable. What's amusing to me is how highly he praised the guy for writing it. I'll grant that it's pretty awesome if a guy can really pound out working code that quickly. I can't. And throw-away code has its place. But I wouldn't want that guy anywhere near any production code.
Amusing maybe, but it's an earned praise - the way I read his post seemed like his praise and respect is the kind often given to idiot savant. This kind of coder is kinda like savant (emphasis on "kinda like" of coding - not a Rockstar Developer, but Idiot Savant Coder, who can't explain what he did and how he did it but clearly has extraordinary skills to do it all in one write and working as planned.
Of course this only has worth in use-once-throw-away or never-update code.
Except they/we are rockstars because they get the job done
The problem with rockstar developers is they often write code that mere mortals cannot read or maintain.
Sure, they can whip out version 1.0 or impressive enhancements quickly, but if it becomes a maintenance nightmare later, isn't the cost just being shifted from up front to later? Rockstar developers are often more trouble than they're worth.
I don't know what "Rockstar Developer" means, but from the discussion I gather that there is no well established definition at all, and from the "nature" of the word I'd say that it's a new marketing buzzword made up by non-techies of marketing department of a IT magazine.
It's also the kind of stuff I hate to even see - laughable, unprofessional, etc. but apparently is supposed to describe some type of professional developers.
Anyway, if your argument on problem with "Rockstar developers" is true then WTF are they described with such worth indicating term as rockstar? Would not a "garage punk rock developers" be better (this coming from someone loving punk - it's played fast, but rarely achieves anything mentionable musically)?
Good, solid, dependable non-rockstar developers are better, in my experience, because they're more likely to write code that their colleagues can actually maintain later.
So, is "rockstar developer" a term made up by someone who associates rockstars with great achievements but in the end crappy control of life, health, anything...? Something seemingly great, but not dependable, never dependable or solid? Not trolling, I'm honestly pondering if this is the case...
Anyway, it's a stupid buzz word, and not having clear well known definition makes it just as much dumber.
Czechs have Budweiser, the one that actually one award for worlds best beer - In countries were Americans with their Budweiser named piss came first the real Budweiser is sold under name Budvar.
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Linux has well defined hardware interface, there is no problem with driver stability with Linux kernel - the same unmodified driver source compiles just fine on different kernels, it's just that you can't load a binary blob compiled against different kernel version.
That's not a problem - and as ATI and NVIDIA (for example) have demonstrated, it's entirely possible to use same binary blob on different kernel versions - you just need to take the extra step of writing a wrapper that is binary compatible with the blob and compatible with kernel it's compiled against.
Now, if those drivers have stability problems, it's not the fault of kernel - never has been. If you think otherwise, how do you suppose they could code them better if the kernel was binary compatible if such simple part as the wrapper to provide binary compatibility with their blob is too hard for them to code properly? If they were SO bad coders then do you really think that they could created something as complex as video drivers without stability issues so big that their drivers would have had zero usability at all!
As it happens, I have indeed heard that NVIDIA drivers have some well recorded stability issues, but my own experience with Nvidia drivers has been without a problem. Never experienced them crashing - well, except that when I've had X crash (for entirely different reasons unrelated to video drivers) I have sometimes ended up with black screen and unable to access console. Tried blindly CTRL-ALT-F1, then entering 'startx' for no effect - but was able to log in via SSH and from there start 'screen' and run 'startx' from there, which reset the video card, started X and I was able to switch between linux console and X again :p
And finally, talking about stable hardware interface and Windows drivers in same sentence? You could have chosen a little better example...
Aye - besides, how many distributions *don't* use KDE or GNOME as default DE, not counting sibling distros specifically created to provide alternative WM/DE and GUI applications designed for that DE or considered to better fit it's design (ie. Fluxbuntu) or "special need" distros where different/no desktop is dictated by what it targets (ie. DamnSmallLinux or Mythbuntu - or really special, like "NT Offline Password and Registry Editor")?
Can't come with too many, and I bet most default to XFCE or LXDE? "Not successful" can be seen in number of meanings, but I'll be howling for moon and masturbating with stolen cheese if this is not because of success and majority of those calling the shots for these choices are idiots!
P.S. Let it be said that I don't like any of these mainstream DE's, I'm just making observations of their success.
Honestly, if India wants to pull itself out of poverty it needs to just resort to good old fashioned hard work. Trying to outdo the west at it's own game and playing around with space programmes are of little use. Many companies in the West have long begun to realise that Indian call centres and software outsourcing are probably the fastest way to lose customers (i.e. Dell which has basically gone from major computer manufacturer, to footnote in history since it embarked on it's great Indian outsourcing experiment) and are starting to pull away. There's no doubt India has a lot of talent - it's sheer population size is bound to make that a statistical certainty, but it didn't have the armies of Western quality graduates manning call centres that it claimed, on the contrary, said staff were often not graduates at all, and those that were often from fake universities with fake accreditations. Put simply it was a scam, and no one is going to fall for that indefinitely- particularly not when it starts losing them customers.
So if India wants to eliminate poverty, it needs to take a leaf from China's book and start working hard, rather than try to be the world's con artist.
For all practical purposes, it hasn't been a scam for long time - their customers know what they get, yet they still pay anyways. That means it has not worked only because of scam - if that was the case they would already be history and/or those remaining would have improved.
Of course it is better for all parties the faster it will end/change. For India because it will speed progress, as now it gives jobs for people who would otherwise have to improve or loose on life quality and income.
As for China - I don't think it's the best one to copy.
Not money alone, but there is a reason why your politicians spend BATSHIT INSANE amounts of money for their campaigns.
But I guess corruption is OK to you if it can't guarantee absolutely 100% result alone. Face it, your system is corrupted as hell.
Learn to read. Oh, and bushwanker!
Your point?
I know, I know, you thought it was anti-nucular post... Good example of how "It makes sense, we definitely need it, and it's easy to understand" part is usually gross underestimation of stupidity of people.
I get the same thing from both of your posts - a reason for why this company personhood should not exist in legal "fiction" (it's not really fiction when it has real effects in physical world).
If you don't like Walmart or its policies, don't shop there. If you don't like Obama's policies, don't pay your taxes and maybe go to jail or have the IRS take the money anyway. One way you choose, the other you don't.
That fails when you get into a captive market. It's not like you can change electricity companies if you don't like the policies of your current one, and for most people in the USA, its not like you can choose a different internet/cable/telephone company if your current one is gouging you.
Or how about if your local Walmart drives the rest of the competing businesses out of business? What do you do then? What if your local grocery store gets driven out of business by a monopolistic national chain and the only options are buy from them at their prices or starve?
TBH, people in the USA need to get their government into line rather then bitching that you don't want one at all. If you think your government can screw you, just wait and see what a corporation without regulations can do...
Also, with corporations it's not just problem for customers, but also for workers - and it can be much bigger problem than what you talk about, but power to corporations folk avoid talking about it.
...and on top of everything, it's not like the threat would be that big - my understanding is that most people, browser search boxes, webpages with google search form, etc. use google.com and they get to google.(fi|de|nl|ru|po...) by redirect from google.com server. Even if they shut down german domains, how long would it take for everyone to use .com? Would it even affect language settings? I believe that I can set google to show in my language using .com - also from outside my country. Then even if they removed German localizations all together from google servers, how much grief would that really cause?
But in the end, it's not like google would suddenly start throwing such threats - they didn't even close china, though they did move to hong kong.
Would you prefer to be reminded to not criticize that other religion where if you critize it, you can end up dead.
I don't think that was the point at all... However such fatwas against offenders - I'd like to say especially outside countries that recognize sharia law, but those that do have even bigger problems with religion - are clearly more lunatic than Jews comparing laws against religious practice of mutilating little boys dicks and sucking the blood to holocaust.
And I doubt they consider anyone else - I mean, holocaust had many other victim groups than Jews, and I'm sure they don't leave those out when it helps to paint a picture of how horrible the holocaust was to put more emphasis on their views, but do they ever mention holocaust when one of these other groups faces discrimination they would compare to holocaust if it was against them?
Also, would they accept that comparison by muslims if the law was only against them? Would they defend muslims right to circumcise babies only? Do they defend them even now? If the law should be placed, but only against muslims circumcising, not Jews, would they still view it the worse thing since holocaust?
I'm not anti-semitist, just anti-harmful-religious-acts and anti laws set or not set because religious doctrines.
And would I prefer to see "be reminded to not criticize that other religion where if you critize it, you can end up dead"? Well, current situation needs more of that - it's un-excusable that violence against offenders of Islam or it's prophet happens in non-islamic (in politics and laws) countries, but it happens, but it's rare enough that swift actions to make sure it could not happen are not seen as important enough.
Naturally I would rather like to not see either religions nutjobs in action, but it's not up to how I wish.
The part that bothers me is that the FBI tries to entrap them, get them to commit a crime where they normally wouldn't have done it.
Doesn't surprise me - it's just another variation of those law enforcement guys who "infiltrate" legal peaceful protests and try to turn people in to rioting so that cops can attack them. I understand that USA is one of countries where this kind of stuff is known to happen. It has always caused a strong disbelief reaction in me - it makes no sense whatsoever, if it's actually legal somehow then insanity is tripled and I'm having hard time figuring out WTF is the motivation behind such.
Would not fly here - although if law enforcement people were caught doing this I'm pretty sure that anything above those doing infiltrating would be hushed up.
This is lost on fundies, who seem to focus mostly on that nice "wrath of god" type of stuff...
Actually the scary thing is journalists like this one are on the watchlist. Her crime? talking about the constitution and what we need to do to protect it.
This. I'm always feeling mixed hilarity, anger and disbelief when some yanks praise their country for having freedom of speech, arguing that because it's protected by constitution and Finland (my country) or some other country does not have the same so we don't actually have free speech and USA has. They don't care if actual legal system of country does protect free speech, they don't acknowledge that because we don't have it in same place the same way - or what it boils down to, we are not USA - and that makes me mildly angry, but the elephant in the room is that this could not happen in Finland, we would not accept such violation of free speech, but it happens in USA and they totally just ignore it.
Of course I'm talking only of some yanks - I presume that you are American? If so, this is not about you, you are an example of clear minded American who instead of just trumping how great USA is acknowledges an issue and maybe say "this should not be happening, but it does and something should be done".
Happens to me when I sometimes take an extra dose of Concerta (slow release methylphenidate - like depot ritalin but with fast onset).
Except when the cat, lying on it's back, rips the eyes off head of attacking dog that just got on top of it and was thinking "woof, got you!".
But really, dogs are uninteresting and they give you respect just from showing them that you are the alpha dog.
Cat's are way more interesting and individual - and you have to earn their love and respect. I've seen an abused dog still licking friendly its master coming home, when just morning it ran hiding from kicks. A cat would never.
Compared to number of wars, let alone acts of war, your country has committed, not counting those you have indirectly caused or pushed forward others to commit, you've had it real easy.
Not many countries are in place and have resources to war like you without suffering massively themselves. You go to war but the thought of someone attacking you're cities is something most of your people never even consider - so unrealistic such thing would be to them.
Correction: all members of 1st American Volunteer Group resigned from their respective service before joining. They were all volunteers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_tigers but I've read the same long ago in other sources.
This doesn't really matter - from any meaningful and sensible view it was an act of war, which it all really boils down to.
I highly doubt that Rihanna is a better singer then whoever else you mentioned. But that's not the point the point. People know her, and that is what matters. Hell it's even in the dictionary definition:
rock star
noun
a famous singer of rock music
The keyword there is famous
Another keyword is rock. According to closest dictionary to me (wikipedia) her genres include R&B, pop, dancehall, reggae, hip hop and dance - none are even close to rock.
Pop star would work.
I would add at least Linus Torvald (not just because of his work with Linux, his not first one to program a kernel by himself and I don't know how much of the work in current kernel is done by him, and how much worth does his kernel work has) for his skills and fame and RMS (no matter what anyone thinks of his philosophies) because, well his done some spectacular work, like emacs, and has earned name too.
WaywardGeek himself said the code was unreadable. What's amusing to me is how highly he praised the guy for writing it. I'll grant that it's pretty awesome if a guy can really pound out working code that quickly. I can't. And throw-away code has its place. But I wouldn't want that guy anywhere near any production code.
Amusing maybe, but it's an earned praise - the way I read his post seemed like his praise and respect is the kind often given to idiot savant. This kind of coder is kinda like savant (emphasis on "kinda like" of coding - not a Rockstar Developer, but Idiot Savant Coder, who can't explain what he did and how he did it but clearly has extraordinary skills to do it all in one write and working as planned.
Of course this only has worth in use-once-throw-away or never-update code.
Except they/we are rockstars because they get the job done
The problem with rockstar developers is they often write code that mere mortals cannot read or maintain.
Sure, they can whip out version 1.0 or impressive enhancements quickly, but if it becomes a maintenance nightmare later, isn't the cost just being shifted from up front to later? Rockstar developers are often more trouble than they're worth.
I don't know what "Rockstar Developer" means, but from the discussion I gather that there is no well established definition at all, and from the "nature" of the word I'd say that it's a new marketing buzzword made up by non-techies of marketing department of a IT magazine.
It's also the kind of stuff I hate to even see - laughable, unprofessional, etc. but apparently is supposed to describe some type of professional developers.
Anyway, if your argument on problem with "Rockstar developers" is true then WTF are they described with such worth indicating term as rockstar? Would not a "garage punk rock developers" be better (this coming from someone loving punk - it's played fast, but rarely achieves anything mentionable musically)?
Good, solid, dependable non-rockstar developers are better, in my experience, because they're more likely to write code that their colleagues can actually maintain later.
So, is "rockstar developer" a term made up by someone who associates rockstars with great achievements but in the end crappy control of life, health, anything...? Something seemingly great, but not dependable, never dependable or solid? Not trolling, I'm honestly pondering if this is the case...
Anyway, it's a stupid buzz word, and not having clear well known definition makes it just as much dumber.
Those you voted for Linux instead of another (non $0) OS are easy.
It's voting with your wallet, not for Linux as much as against the OS that would have cost, but now did not receive money for that choice. Easy.
In addition, unlike the American Bud, instead of alcoholic water, Czechs Budweiser/Budvar is actually very tasty beer.
Czechs have Budweiser, the one that actually one award for worlds best beer - In countries were Americans with their Budweiser named piss came first the real Budweiser is sold under name Budvar.
I was merely trying to point out to the GP that voting with one's wallet doesn't say much when the software you use costs $0.
Only when both, the software you choose, and the one you loose, costs $0.