Works great for the Windows desktop as well, although it's not THAT practical with the exception of Konpose' or whatever the Expose function is called. I don't know about other people, but the majority of the time I use my desktop, I use it with a maximized window. Probably the reason Microsoft's Active Desktop never caught on.
I have a buddy who wants a Mac (mostly for desktop aesthetics) but is about 3 years away from getting one due to his wife's stranglehold on the checkbook. WinOSX added drop shadows, the icon bar, changed some control panel icons, added menu transparency, changed the window theme, and made the taskbar look sorta like a Mac's, and Konfabulator does the trick with the widgets. Doesn't have all the functionality of a Mac, but whatcha gonna do?
Possibly because dealing with friends in business relationships often leads to ex-friendships and hurt feelings. People often say "business is business," but it's never the same when it's someone you've had a prior relationship with.
He claims to have 20 blogs, and some generate more traffic than others. Of course, when Google decides to no longer advertise on blogs, he can apply for a nagging housewife position somewhere, since he seems to be successful at giving his opinion when nobody's ever asked him for it.
Large piece of this electronic "paper," say, a size of a placemat, plus a paperclip-like rechargable storage device that can clip onto the paper that can receive its nightly feed via a USB dock and an internet connection... paperless newspaper anyone? Sure, it would annoy the housewives who are used to getting their ads with the Sunday edition (and this might be the biggest argument against such a system), but it'd save tons of money in publishing costs, not to mention all the trees that get processed just for the morning paper.
Most people have basic issues when it comes to an OS (and by OS, I'm referring specifically to a desktop OS with a GUI... since that's the concept that the average user relates to):
(1) Hardware compatibility
If you write an OS for the masses but it only supports your system, you're SOL. You need a community to support you and perhaps some corporate support. Networking is key here.
(2) Ability to use full featured software
You must be prepared to either write or port multitudes of software and get them to work relatively bug-free on your system. BeOS had a slick interface and a neat concept for handling processes... too bad it didn't actually run much of anything.
(3) Document compatibility and portability
Your software better be able to handle whatever documents are thrown at it, and whatever medium you store them on needs to be able to be read by a Windows PC. Sad fact of life, but for now, that's the way things are.
(4) Ease of use
The easier, the better. It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to use the OS or the software or administer accounts on the system. The average user doesn't care and doesn't want to learn about the wonders of the CLI, and all the complaining and boasting in the world is not going to get them to change their minds. You are not a genius just because you know the arguments to get at the contents of a bzipped tar file.
Same goes for installing software. Ideally, all you should have to do is download a single file, double click it, go through any configuration details, and it's installed for you. I hear that in Mac's OSX, all you have to do is drag the file to the application folder. Works for me, and everyone knows where their software is. Better than having software in/opt,/bin,/usr/local/bin, etc, etc.
(5) Software and UI orthogonality
This is where you get down to brass tacks, and why people tend to swoon over the Mac's GUI. In an ideal world, every bit of software on your system that has access to the GUI will seamlessly work with every other bit of software. If you can drag and drop files and place them in a folder, then shouldn't you be able to drag and drop them into an application? If CTRL-INSERT is how you copy a selection in one app, then shouldn't it be that way for all apps? And so on and so forth.
(6) Conceptual details
Zonealarm is a great piece of software, and the reason why is that it works at a level that most people can understand. Talking to somebody about port numbers is going to get a blank stare, but if you ask them whether or not they want a piece of software to access the internet, they understand. People relate to most things on a spatial level.
The good news is that most of this stuff could be done in Linux or BSD (probably through forking) if people really wanted to get it done. Changing things like directory structures to reflect basic human understanding, porting software with a common desktop and menu interface in mind, allowing metadata to be stored on a file system and using it creatively, and making the desktop a seamless experience are all possible.
Now, obviously, I'm talking about OSes in terms of a desktop system used by someone who works with a GUI every day, but if you really want to make a change, you have to give people what they want and what they need, not what you consider to be sufficient. This isn't about writing dumb software. There is a time and a place for complex applications like 3D modelers and the like, but it isn't in the average day to day home PC user's desktop. After all, if you can't write elegant software that allows people to effortlessly use their PCs to do what they desire, then maybe it isn't the user who's the dummy.
.. I don't normally get involved in topics of a political nature here on Slashdot, but the title of this article sticks out like a sore thumb. At best, it's misleading as all hell. It is not simply Send an email in Utah, go to jail.
It is: send spam to a minor in Utah or Michigan whose email address is on a do not email list, and face the possibility of charges being pressed against you if a parent chooses to do so.
It couldn't possibly be due to Slashdot's liberal editorial leanings and the fact that Utah is a conservative state, could it? After all, a liberal leaning state like Michigan passed the same sort of laws, yet it wasn't mentioned in the article title.
What's the next topic on the agenda? Drive a car in Georgia, go to jail, simply because the state has driving laws and you can be arrested for violating them?
Eh... there's always going to be extra repositories for Linux software, so that point really doesn't hold a thimble's full of water. Nobody's saying they're going to take away your CLI or your ability to type 3 lines of crap just to configure iptables to accept a bittorrent client. But some of us don't want to do that, and we shouldn't have to if the desktop is truly ready to compete with either Windows or OSX.
I just want a Linux desktop with seamless software interoperability and tools that make things like firewall configuration easy. I'd like some standard key combination shortcuts to be in place and some standardization of menu bars. When people say that they don't want Linux to be dumbed down, what they're really saying is that they don't want it to become usable by the average computer user.
Standardized and geared with productivity in mind. And if ya don't like it, there's always a ton of other desktop environments and window managers.
World history says hi. Anything less than a hundred years is not a very long time. There are a bunch of capitalist countries that are rich by worlwide standards. The only Communist country that comes close is China, and only if you ignore about 90% of the population. And the only reason they come close is because they have enough people to manufacture products for capitalist nations.
Gimme a break, you small-minded tool. Some of us don't want to be as poor as everyone else.
Re:the code of conduct for free software distribut
on
Drafting GPL3
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· Score: 2, Informative
Which group is more important? Considering all the free (as in beer) software out there right now, Joe Average isn't going to care about the GPL, because he'll NEVER do anything which would impact him with the GPLed software. He's not going to redistribute it and he isn't going to modify it.
Joe Average might be a nice guy, but Joe Geek is the one building the applications and giving his time away.
Consider that you can fit an entire complete MAME rom directory, sans the huge hard drive images, on about 12 gigs or so. The entire catalog of SNES games is smaller. The entire catalog of NES games is even smaller than that. Same with Genesis, Sega Master System, Atari, etc.
Get the picture?
Nintendo is boasting backwards compatability of their system, which is nice, but the PS3 with hard drive would be a retrogamers' dream! If you have access to the DVD drive as well, you can even load a Saturn emulator.
Gee, that's my point. Why should people who create intellectual property get this special privledge when people who work day in and day out producing our food, building our houses etc. for a living don't?
The companies that build the houses have IP too. It's called a copyright on the plans for the house. The people who grow your food may have patents on the way they harvest their crops.
They DO have intellectual property rights. The difference is that their IP is in the process rather than the final product.
That totally misses my point. The arguement for copyright is that it is needed in order for copyright holders to continue to work and produce art. But precopyright artists worked harder and produced more art then modern artists do. Therefore the arguement for copyrights if flawed. Show me a pop artist that can match the output of Bach or Moazart? I've got news for you. There aren't any.
Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, etc were rich little bastids who were WELL taken care of in their time, a time, by the way, in which it took quite a great deal of effort to get anything reproduced, and even if you did reproduce one of their symphonies, it'd only be the notes on the page, because you still needed to visit the nearest symphony or operahouse to hear their work performed.
Are games where you have to wander forever just to get to the next area where the action will take place. GTA and Zelda: Windwaker are two prime examples. Driving a car in a video game that is not about racing is freaking boring. Driving a boat? Equally boring.
If I play an RPG, then I can expect a certain amount of grinding (hell, I even beat all the extra dungeons on Star Ocean 3), but one of the reasons I don't play MMORPGs is because of the ridiculous down time between, well, any action. Running for 5 minutes in each direction just to fight with an NPC for a half minute is not my idea of fun.
Maybe it's just me, but I get more of a kick out of playing Crazy Taxi, Hot Shots Golf, Ape Escape 2, or Tony Hawk than I do out of these games where the point is to run around forever trying to find things to do. If I wanted a game that was to remind me about the drudgery of real life, I'd work a few extra hours of overtime and treat myself to a great meal and a movie instead.
... needs to be taken with a grain of salt large enough to choke a whale.
Within the last year, there was a press conference in South Korea involving a 37 year old woman who walked again after being paralyzed from the waist down since the age of 16. They claimed that they had implanted umbilical cord stem cells in her spine 3 weeks earlier.
Go ask any physical therapist whether it's possible to support your own weight after 3 weeks of PT after 21 years of atrophy. They'll laugh you out of the building.
All this time I've been spooked by ghosts and eating a diet largely consisting of Lemonheads, Kix, and Advil, and it was all because of that damned Pac-Man simulator! *shakes fist*
There's no school out there that will give you the guarantee you're looking for. I have a buddy with an ivy league education who has been laid off 3 times in the past year and a half. If job security is what you're looking for, then look somewhere else or be prepared to start your own business.
Those 2 year technical institutes are a scam designed to separate you from your money as quickly as possible for the promise of a few certificates. I know a guy who started going to the same university that I did and eventually gave up and went to ITT for a 2 year courseload. He's now fixing computers in Best Buy for 10 bucks an hour. Too bad he owes 32 grand in loans for his "education."
If you aren't willing to put in the effort to get a real education, then don't be surprised when doors are closed to you when you graduate.
You were right about the idea that Cuban cigars are still by far the best in the world, but...
You SO do not have a clue as to what you're talking about regarding a certain braided cigar. The Partagas Culebra is a machine made throwaway cigar. Its innards are tobacco clippings. They're sold for the history and the novelty, NOT because they're great smokes. It's not even in the same league as other Partagas, such as the Serie D #4 or the Lusitania, and frankly, there are about 20 domestic brands I can name offhand that are better. Guess the marketing hype got to you.
prisoners gave up many of their rights when they commited a crime against society - theft - murder - etc.
That assumes that the various criminal justice systems in the land incarcerate only the guilty.
Well, why imprison anyone for anything then? After all, the only guilty people according to the media in the entire country are OJ and Tom DeLay, and they're both walking around free.
I don't see many people wanting to raise their children around convicted sex offenders out of good faith and the possibility of an unjust conviction. You usually can't get 12 people to agree on pizza toppings... so excuse me if I feel pretty safe in the vast majority of jury decisions with regards to a person's guilt or innocence.
This kneejerk reaction of forced ambiguity is just plain silly. These people have been convicted of a crime and have the ability to appeal their convictions, but while they're in the prison walls, it is in the best interest of everyone, guards and prisoners alike, to know where they are at all times.
And how exactly is the network supposed to get revenue from a commercial in a taped show? Their ad revenue is generated from the weekly ratings. Once that show has aired, there's no more money to be made.
Either you missed the point completely, or I didn't make myself clear. I'm talking about the best use of computer time in any arbitrary class, regardless of whether it's Math, English, Biology, etc.
Maybe where everyone else lives, there's a computer for every student in every classroom. That's not the case where I live. There's a few computer labs for a few thousand students whose teachers must share time between them per class. Some classes might sue the computer lab once a week, or twice a month, and even then, they might only use them for half a class period.
This isn't about what students are "perfectly happy" with. It's about maximum utilization of classroom time. The time that a teacher has to spend with individual students who can't figure out the interface is time lost on the entire class.
Besides, if they're so perfectly happy to use different interfaces, then why is this an issue for the Linux community in the first place? Seems like vested self-interest more than anything.
... that make me wonder whether anyone on Slashdot has ever actually attended an elementary or seconadary school with a computer before.
The vast majority of classes taught in schools have nothing to do with computer science or the use or administration of the operating systems. Instead, those computers are in those schools to help teachers aid students in the learning process.
Since time is limited and shared with many of these computerized classrooms, teachers don't have weeks to sit down with students and teach them how to use a new desktop interface and non-standard software. They need to get these kids in and out and out while maximizing the time spent, and the best way to do it is by setting them up with an interface that most of them are already familiar with. Frustrating or confusing children does the teacher no good and wastes valuable time in the classroom. Linux simply isn't a pragmatic choice for the classroom at this point in time, regardless of how you want to argue about the money issue.
Yes, Africa. I know it may be hard for you to imagine, but not everyone there is half naked and dressed in grass skirts. I have worked with several SAP SD, MM, and PS project managers from South Africa, and I've had more than a few run-ins with some Oracle 11i consultants from the Chicago area who forge resumes in order to get jobs. Ask em for a reference and they'll refer you to a buddy. Ask the buddy for the project manager's (or project sponsor's) name, and he'll give you a name to get you off the phone. Call HR or patch through to the department he supposedly worked for, and they'll tell me that there has never been anyone by that name who has worked there.
Seriously, if you haven't worked with a consultant who wasn't qualified for the job and the pay that he's assigned before, then you haven't worked with any consultants. While I could vouch for virtually anyone I've ever put on a job, the consultants I placed would tell you that there are plenty of incompetent people who only slip through the cracks because there are other guys willing to take up the slack to get the project finished and move on.
... I can tell you that there are a ton of H1's who get brought into the country, not because employers can't find talent, but because they're willing to cut every corner necessary. I've seen cases where a firm will stick 5 to 6 of them in a single apartment for the duration of their contract. They take it because it's their way out of a bad situation, and I can't fault them, although it sucks for the US born worker.
There are quite a few H1-B shops (a bunch of them in Edison, NJ particularly) which bring underskilled workers over from India and Africa in droves and stick them on projects to hope that they'll pick their skills up quick enough to perform adequately on their projects before they're fired. Then, once they get a few of these projects under their belts, they can charge just as much as US citizens because they have the experience that college grads who were born here lack.
It used to be that an employee would be brought in at the entry level and allowed to learn and apply the tools of his trade. Nowadays, that seems to be primarily the domain of the immigrant worker.
I spoke recently to a local employer about an entry level position. They wanted a college grad DBA with Visual Basic, Linux, PHP, MySQL, SQL Server, and C++ experience. They were offering a entry rate of $2100 a month and wondering why they had such a hard time filling a position. When I told him to look at what he was looking to pay, he seemed genuinely offended. I'm sure the position will stay open until the next wave of H1s can come through.
Re:Does /. want endorsements from the NY Times?
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Buggy Voting Machines
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· Score: 1
Perhaps your problem is that you're a single issue voter, and most people got over that back in 1992. The Democrats aren't afraid of having their rights taken away, they're afraid that the scare tactics they've used for years aren't working on the groups they've kept in their hip pockets for decades. Union members, minorities, etc., are starting to shift away from the Democrats as they become part of the middle class and get more educated.
Back in 1993, the Dems thought that since they won the White House, they had a mandate to shift public social policy to the left. It backfired, and they've lost ground for a decade now, which the Republicans have GLADLY claimed for their own. To which I say, keep at it! Keep shifting left. Keep insisting that we need gigantic, unwieldy social programs that we refuse to pay for. You'll marginalize yourselves out of existence and we'll eventually get a moderate party to take your place. Then you can all go whine on the Democratic Underground together.
Slashdot Mirror
Works great for the Windows desktop as well, although it's not THAT practical with the exception of Konpose' or whatever the Expose function is called. I don't know about other people, but the majority of the time I use my desktop, I use it with a maximized window. Probably the reason Microsoft's Active Desktop never caught on.
I have a buddy who wants a Mac (mostly for desktop aesthetics) but is about 3 years away from getting one due to his wife's stranglehold on the checkbook. WinOSX added drop shadows, the icon bar, changed some control panel icons, added menu transparency, changed the window theme, and made the taskbar look sorta like a Mac's, and Konfabulator does the trick with the widgets. Doesn't have all the functionality of a Mac, but whatcha gonna do?
Possibly because dealing with friends in business relationships often leads to ex-friendships and hurt feelings. People often say "business is business," but it's never the same when it's someone you've had a prior relationship with.
He claims to have 20 blogs, and some generate more traffic than others. Of course, when Google decides to no longer advertise on blogs, he can apply for a nagging housewife position somewhere, since he seems to be successful at giving his opinion when nobody's ever asked him for it.
Let's see...
Large piece of this electronic "paper," say, a size of a placemat, plus a paperclip-like rechargable storage device that can clip onto the paper that can receive its nightly feed via a USB dock and an internet connection... paperless newspaper anyone? Sure, it would annoy the housewives who are used to getting their ads with the Sunday edition (and this might be the biggest argument against such a system), but it'd save tons of money in publishing costs, not to mention all the trees that get processed just for the morning paper.
Most people have basic issues when it comes to an OS (and by OS, I'm referring specifically to a desktop OS with a GUI... since that's the concept that the average user relates to):
/opt, /bin, /usr/local/bin, etc, etc.
(1) Hardware compatibility
If you write an OS for the masses but it only supports your system, you're SOL. You need a community to support you and perhaps some corporate support. Networking is key here.
(2) Ability to use full featured software
You must be prepared to either write or port multitudes of software and get them to work relatively bug-free on your system. BeOS had a slick interface and a neat concept for handling processes... too bad it didn't actually run much of anything.
(3) Document compatibility and portability
Your software better be able to handle whatever documents are thrown at it, and whatever medium you store them on needs to be able to be read by a Windows PC. Sad fact of life, but for now, that's the way things are.
(4) Ease of use
The easier, the better. It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to use the OS or the software or administer accounts on the system. The average user doesn't care and doesn't want to learn about the wonders of the CLI, and all the complaining and boasting in the world is not going to get them to change their minds. You are not a genius just because you know the arguments to get at the contents of a bzipped tar file.
Same goes for installing software. Ideally, all you should have to do is download a single file, double click it, go through any configuration details, and it's installed for you. I hear that in Mac's OSX, all you have to do is drag the file to the application folder. Works for me, and everyone knows where their software is. Better than having software in
(5) Software and UI orthogonality
This is where you get down to brass tacks, and why people tend to swoon over the Mac's GUI. In an ideal world, every bit of software on your system that has access to the GUI will seamlessly work with every other bit of software. If you can drag and drop files and place them in a folder, then shouldn't you be able to drag and drop them into an application? If CTRL-INSERT is how you copy a selection in one app, then shouldn't it be that way for all apps? And so on and so forth.
(6) Conceptual details
Zonealarm is a great piece of software, and the reason why is that it works at a level that most people can understand. Talking to somebody about port numbers is going to get a blank stare, but if you ask them whether or not they want a piece of software to access the internet, they understand. People relate to most things on a spatial level.
The good news is that most of this stuff could be done in Linux or BSD (probably through forking) if people really wanted to get it done. Changing things like directory structures to reflect basic human understanding, porting software with a common desktop and menu interface in mind, allowing metadata to be stored on a file system and using it creatively, and making the desktop a seamless experience are all possible.
Now, obviously, I'm talking about OSes in terms of a desktop system used by someone who works with a GUI every day, but if you really want to make a change, you have to give people what they want and what they need, not what you consider to be sufficient. This isn't about writing dumb software. There is a time and a place for complex applications like 3D modelers and the like, but it isn't in the average day to day home PC user's desktop. After all, if you can't write elegant software that allows people to effortlessly use their PCs to do what they desire, then maybe it isn't the user who's the dummy.
.. I don't normally get involved in topics of a political nature here on Slashdot, but the title of this article sticks out like a sore thumb. At best, it's misleading as all hell. It is not simply Send an email in Utah, go to jail.
It is: send spam to a minor in Utah or Michigan whose email address is on a do not email list, and face the possibility of charges being pressed against you if a parent chooses to do so.
It couldn't possibly be due to Slashdot's liberal editorial leanings and the fact that Utah is a conservative state, could it? After all, a liberal leaning state like Michigan passed the same sort of laws, yet it wasn't mentioned in the article title.
What's the next topic on the agenda? Drive a car in Georgia, go to jail, simply because the state has driving laws and you can be arrested for violating them?
Eh... there's always going to be extra repositories for Linux software, so that point really doesn't hold a thimble's full of water. Nobody's saying they're going to take away your CLI or your ability to type 3 lines of crap just to configure iptables to accept a bittorrent client. But some of us don't want to do that, and we shouldn't have to if the desktop is truly ready to compete with either Windows or OSX.
I just want a Linux desktop with seamless software interoperability and tools that make things like firewall configuration easy. I'd like some standard key combination shortcuts to be in place and some standardization of menu bars. When people say that they don't want Linux to be dumbed down, what they're really saying is that they don't want it to become usable by the average computer user.
Standardized and geared with productivity in mind. And if ya don't like it, there's always a ton of other desktop environments and window managers.
World history says hi. Anything less than a hundred years is not a very long time. There are a bunch of capitalist countries that are rich by worlwide standards. The only Communist country that comes close is China, and only if you ignore about 90% of the population. And the only reason they come close is because they have enough people to manufacture products for capitalist nations.
Gimme a break, you small-minded tool. Some of us don't want to be as poor as everyone else.
Which group is more important? Considering all the free (as in beer) software out there right now, Joe Average isn't going to care about the GPL, because he'll NEVER do anything which would impact him with the GPLed software. He's not going to redistribute it and he isn't going to modify it.
Joe Average might be a nice guy, but Joe Geek is the one building the applications and giving his time away.
Consider that you can fit an entire complete MAME rom directory, sans the huge hard drive images, on about 12 gigs or so. The entire catalog of SNES games is smaller. The entire catalog of NES games is even smaller than that. Same with Genesis, Sega Master System, Atari, etc.
Get the picture?
Nintendo is boasting backwards compatability of their system, which is nice, but the PS3 with hard drive would be a retrogamers' dream! If you have access to the DVD drive as well, you can even load a Saturn emulator.
Better to call it gonads than gnonads, I guess.
Gee, that's my point. Why should people who create intellectual property get this special privledge when people who work day in and day out producing our food, building our houses etc. for a living don't?
The companies that build the houses have IP too. It's called a copyright on the plans for the house. The people who grow your food may have patents on the way they harvest their crops.
They DO have intellectual property rights. The difference is that their IP is in the process rather than the final product.
That totally misses my point. The arguement for copyright is that it is needed in order for copyright holders to continue to work and produce art. But precopyright artists worked harder and produced more art then modern artists do. Therefore the arguement for copyrights if flawed. Show me a pop artist that can match the output of Bach or Moazart? I've got news for you. There aren't any.
Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, etc were rich little bastids who were WELL taken care of in their time, a time, by the way, in which it took quite a great deal of effort to get anything reproduced, and even if you did reproduce one of their symphonies, it'd only be the notes on the page, because you still needed to visit the nearest symphony or
operahouse to hear their work performed.
Therefore YOUR argument is flawed.
Are games where you have to wander forever just to get to the next area where the action will take place. GTA and Zelda: Windwaker are two prime examples. Driving a car in a video game that is not about racing is freaking boring. Driving a boat? Equally boring.
If I play an RPG, then I can expect a certain amount of grinding (hell, I even beat all the extra dungeons on Star Ocean 3), but one of the reasons I don't play MMORPGs is because of the ridiculous down time between, well, any action. Running for 5 minutes in each direction just to fight with an NPC for a half minute is not my idea of fun.
Maybe it's just me, but I get more of a kick out of playing Crazy Taxi, Hot Shots Golf, Ape Escape 2, or Tony Hawk than I do out of these games where the point is to run around forever trying to find things to do. If I wanted a game that was to remind me about the drudgery of real life, I'd work a few extra hours of overtime and treat myself to a great meal and a movie instead.
... needs to be taken with a grain of salt large enough to choke a whale.
Within the last year, there was a press conference in South Korea involving a 37 year old woman who walked again after being paralyzed from the waist down since the age of 16. They claimed that they had implanted umbilical cord stem cells in her spine 3 weeks earlier.
Go ask any physical therapist whether it's possible to support your own weight after 3 weeks of PT after 21 years of atrophy. They'll laugh you out of the building.
All this time I've been spooked by ghosts and eating a diet largely consisting of Lemonheads, Kix, and Advil, and it was all because of that damned Pac-Man simulator! *shakes fist*
There's no school out there that will give you the guarantee you're looking for. I have a buddy with an ivy league education who has been laid off 3 times in the past year and a half. If job security is what you're looking for, then look somewhere else or be prepared to start your own business.
Those 2 year technical institutes are a scam designed to separate you from your money as quickly as possible for the promise of a few certificates. I know a guy who started going to the same university that I did and eventually gave up and went to ITT for a 2 year courseload. He's now fixing computers in Best Buy for 10 bucks an hour. Too bad he owes 32 grand in loans for his "education."
If you aren't willing to put in the effort to get a real education, then don't be surprised when doors are closed to you when you graduate.
You were right about the idea that Cuban cigars are still by far the best in the world, but...
You SO do not have a clue as to what you're talking about regarding a certain braided cigar. The Partagas Culebra is a machine made throwaway cigar. Its innards are tobacco clippings. They're sold for the history and the novelty, NOT because they're great smokes. It's not even in the same league as other Partagas, such as the Serie D #4 or the Lusitania, and frankly, there are about 20 domestic brands I can name offhand that are better. Guess the marketing hype got to you.
Well, why imprison anyone for anything then? After all, the only guilty people according to the media in the entire country are OJ and Tom DeLay, and they're both walking around free.
I don't see many people wanting to raise their children around convicted sex offenders out of good faith and the possibility of an unjust conviction. You usually can't get 12 people to agree on pizza toppings... so excuse me if I feel pretty safe in the vast majority of jury decisions with regards to a person's guilt or innocence.
This kneejerk reaction of forced ambiguity is just plain silly. These people have been convicted of a crime and have the ability to appeal their convictions, but while they're in the prison walls, it is in the best interest of everyone, guards and prisoners alike, to know where they are at all times.
What, no Kryptonite? I'm shocked!
And how exactly is the network supposed to get revenue from a commercial in a taped show? Their ad revenue is generated from the weekly ratings. Once that show has aired, there's no more money to be made.
Either you missed the point completely, or I didn't make myself clear. I'm talking about the best use of computer time in any arbitrary class, regardless of whether it's Math, English, Biology, etc.
Maybe where everyone else lives, there's a computer for every student in every classroom. That's not the case where I live. There's a few computer labs for a few thousand students whose teachers must share time between them per class. Some classes might sue the computer lab once a week, or twice a month, and even then, they might only use them for half a class period.
This isn't about what students are "perfectly happy" with. It's about maximum utilization of classroom time. The time that a teacher has to spend with individual students who can't figure out the interface is time lost on the entire class.
Besides, if they're so perfectly happy to use different interfaces, then why is this an issue for the Linux community in the first place? Seems like vested self-interest more than anything.
... that make me wonder whether anyone on Slashdot has ever actually attended an elementary or seconadary school with a computer before.
The vast majority of classes taught in schools have nothing to do with computer science or the use or administration of the operating systems. Instead, those computers are in those schools to help teachers aid students in the learning process.
Since time is limited and shared with many of these computerized classrooms, teachers don't have weeks to sit down with students and teach them how to use a new desktop interface and non-standard software. They need to get these kids in and out and out while maximizing the time spent, and the best way to do it is by setting them up with an interface that most of them are already familiar with. Frustrating or confusing children does the teacher no good and wastes valuable time in the classroom. Linux simply isn't a pragmatic choice for the classroom at this point in time, regardless of how you want to argue about the money issue.
Yes, Africa. I know it may be hard for you to imagine, but not everyone there is half naked and dressed in grass skirts. I have worked with several SAP SD, MM, and PS project managers from South Africa, and I've had more than a few run-ins with some Oracle 11i consultants from the Chicago area who forge resumes in order to get jobs. Ask em for a reference and they'll refer you to a buddy. Ask the buddy for the project manager's (or project sponsor's) name, and he'll give you a name to get you off the phone. Call HR or patch through to the department he supposedly worked for, and they'll tell me that there has never been anyone by that name who has worked there.
Seriously, if you haven't worked with a consultant who wasn't qualified for the job and the pay that he's assigned before, then you haven't worked with any consultants. While I could vouch for virtually anyone I've ever put on a job, the consultants I placed would tell you that there are plenty of incompetent people who only slip through the cracks because there are other guys willing to take up the slack to get the project finished and move on.
... I can tell you that there are a ton of H1's who get brought into the country, not because employers can't find talent, but because they're willing to cut every corner necessary. I've seen cases where a firm will stick 5 to 6 of them in a single apartment for the duration of their contract. They take it because it's their way out of a bad situation, and I can't fault them, although it sucks for the US born worker.
There are quite a few H1-B shops (a bunch of them in Edison, NJ particularly) which bring underskilled workers over from India and Africa in droves and stick them on projects to hope that they'll pick their skills up quick enough to perform adequately on their projects before they're fired. Then, once they get a few of these projects under their belts, they can charge just as much as US citizens because they have the experience that college grads who were born here lack.
It used to be that an employee would be brought in at the entry level and allowed to learn and apply the tools of his trade. Nowadays, that seems to be primarily the domain of the immigrant worker.
I spoke recently to a local employer about an entry level position. They wanted a college grad DBA with Visual Basic, Linux, PHP, MySQL, SQL Server, and C++ experience. They were offering a entry rate of $2100 a month and wondering why they had such a hard time filling a position. When I told him to look at what he was looking to pay, he seemed genuinely offended. I'm sure the position will stay open until the next wave of H1s can come through.
Perhaps your problem is that you're a single issue voter, and most people got over that back in 1992. The Democrats aren't afraid of having their rights taken away, they're afraid that the scare tactics they've used for years aren't working on the groups they've kept in their hip pockets for decades. Union members, minorities, etc., are starting to shift away from the Democrats as they become part of the middle class and get more educated.
Back in 1993, the Dems thought that since they won the White House, they had a mandate to shift public social policy to the left. It backfired, and they've lost ground for a decade now, which the Republicans have GLADLY claimed for their own. To which I say, keep at it! Keep shifting left. Keep insisting that we need gigantic, unwieldy social programs that we refuse to pay for. You'll marginalize yourselves out of existence and we'll eventually get a moderate party to take your place. Then you can all go whine on the Democratic Underground together.