In the current geopolitical scene, one country's financial loss is another's gain.
Wrong. In the current geopolitical scene, the US has the worlds largest economy, and all other countries want to sell goods to the US so they can buy stuff from the US and others. And: If the US economy is bad, the rest of the world will follow.
But I'll give you a counter-example for the rest of your argument. Norway seems to be the biggest Kerry supporters, and i'm from Norway. What would be in our economic interest? Norway exports mainly three things: oil, gas and fish. I have no idea what influence Bush or Kerry can have on the last one, but oil . . . it's not too hard to see that we'd like a stable Middle East, so our own economy keeps being somewhat predictable. And that's also in the interest of the USA, isn't it? So why do we favour Kerry instead of Bush? Could it be that we perceive Bush to be grossly incompetent, and his war in Iraq as a giant failure?
But that's far too obvious. We must have more sinister motives. Seriously, I wonder why Americans support Bush. He alienated the rest of the world in a couple of months after 9/11, when the US had support from almost everyone. His record in foreign affairs is impressively bad, and the US economy hasn't been that great. If he's done anything really good, please tell me. To me, it seems like Americans support him because he gives an impression of being a 'strong president', a man of action, and other plainly rhetorical qualities. What about the results of his actions? Are they unimportant, is it really enough to kick some muslim ass around the world? Or has he actually done something good? (Alright, some of this might seem trollish, but I'd really like to know.)
More like absurd drama, Waiting for the Law or something like that:
McBride: You're right. We're unexaustible. Silver: It's so we don't think. McBride: We have that excuse. Silver: It's so we don't hear. McBride: We have our reasons. Silver: All the dead lawsuits. McBride: They make noise like wings. Silver: Like leaves. McBride: Like sand. Silver: Like leaves.
Good for you. This PowerBook G3 266 runs with Debian and GNOME, but OS X doesn't even boot. It did before, though, and ran Panther (installed with XPostFacto) surprisingly well with 192 MB RAM, as long as I didn't use too many apps at the same time.
Then one of my RAM modules stopped working, and OS X would just grind to a halt before I could even log in. Now I use Debian and WindowMaker most of the time, and it runs better than OS X did, with only 64 MB RAM -- as long as I use even fewer apps. I can't run both Thunderbird and Firefox efficiently at the same time. One of them + Emacs seems to work well, though. Or just OpenOffice.org.
Just face it, OS X is far more demanding than all other popular desktops when it comes to memory usage. And maybe that's why it works so well on old equipment in your fantasy world -- because you've made sure you have enough RAM. But that will help about equally well on all OSes.
(Yes, this message is posted from 'Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux ppc; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040914 Firefox/0.9.3' under GNOME 2.6, Debian Sid PPC)
... essays on a wide range of controversial topics. While the Internet has had a clearly detrimental effect on our spelling abilities, I think it has had a correspondingly positive impact on our willingness and enthusiasm to express opinions of all kinds.
And I think Slashdot has the positive effect of getting people to express whatever they want, but the detrimental effect of making them do so before they RTFA. Because, as TFA says:
An essay doesn't begin with a statement, but with a question. In a real essay, you don't take a position and defend it.
Unfortunately, you rarely see that attitude in a blog.
I'm sure it's not my speakers. They are high quality stereo speakers. I hook my computer up to my stereo. But then, my amp has pretty low input impedance, so that could be the culprit; I'll have to try a different amp or headphones. (*testing*) Yes, the same problems are there with a set of ordinary PC speakers. Can't find any headphones.
I don't really notice it as distortion while listening to music, though -- it's just not quite as good as my CD player (cheap old Marantz CD-63MkII).
I've got a Soyo Dragon myself, and the sound card is far from high end. It might be a different model from the one you've got though (mine is a K7V Plus). Try just generating tones around 10000--17000 Hz, and you may notice the highs are incredibly distorted.
But that shouldn't have any negative effect on your work, though. Adobe Audition works on the audio data files, and the file never even touches the audio card. The Soyo Dragon won't degrade the audio in any way, but it might mask some problems before the sound reaches those Mackies.
(Don't be scared. It's not propaganda, and you're probably not going to be influenced by it. But it's generally good to know what you're talking about. Hint: Marxism isn't about blaming capitalism; that's just leftism.)
But one reason why BeOS was so snappy was because apps also took advantage of its pervasive multi-threading and the scheduler. This was, AFAIK, because the API sort of forced you to write multi-threaded. So Be had a lot of small, snappy, but crappy, applications that you could use to show off its responsiveness. But most of the serious apps had to be ported, and then the advantages just disappeared.
Have you tried running Mozilla on BeOS? I mean, not a rotten old port of M18, but a recent build of Firefox. Yes, it's still being developed, and it's been getting a lot better. But its responsiveness is a lot worse than under Linux (not to mention the font rendering). Even when comparing a 266 MHz, 64 MB Powerbook running Linux to a 1.4 GHz, 256 MB Athlon XP running an RC of Zeta.
But no, the PB can't run multiple videostreams. It has problems running just one. But video codecs have become much more demanding since the sub 200 MHz days. And so has computer use in general. Net+ was a small and simple browser, but it's practically useless these days, like all small and simple browsers are. You need features to do stuff, and stuff takes up space. That's why a small and simple OS is hopelessly outdated, and big and bloated environments like KDE (500 MB for a basic install?) and OS X (~2.5 GB for a basic install) are the future.
"You can't learn anything about the world from history." Try again. That wasn't even implied. Or rather, let's end this discussion.
BTW, your comment about my second paragraph proves my final point: "Human nature" isn't a real concept. It can be anything and everything related to humans.
I agree that I didn't argue very clearly, but the fact that you don't understand it doesn't make it stupid. My whole point was that his idea of history is mythical. I made that point clear. A myth is a story that explains something else, an ideology, through allegory. I didn't make that definition clear, although I should have. You can't read history like a bloody allegory. That was my whole problem, and that was my point.
My second argument was based on the assumption that the parent poster considered exploitation of poor children for fun & profit to be against human nature, but in the nature of economy, with the intention to show which one controls which. It's the economy that makes Nike produce shoes in poor countries, and it's the economy that makes poor people work for Nike. It's an illustration of the point, not the conclusion of an argument. There's no circular reasoning here. I'm just showing that economy gives a better explanation than "human nature" for why things like out-sourcing and exploitation happen. And you have probably heard about how economy is supposed to work. If not, look it up. You'll see that very few economic textbooks claim that an economy is controlled by "human nature".
You see, "human nature" doesn't explain anything. It's not even a real concept. And that was what it was all about, in the end.
You seem to be quite confused for being such a wise old man. If you want to look smart, as opposed to being smart, which you clearly are, since you think so highly of yourself, you might want to clear up some misconceptions:
Liberalism isn't and has never been socialism.
Liberalism isn't liberal, which is why...
Liberalism isn't always what liberals adhere to. Those would be liberalists.
Economic liberalism is the ideology of the so-called conservative right in America, which explains point 2 and 3.
Also, your last two points are contradicting their meaning with their rhetoric.
I've got mod points, but as there is no 'stupid' moderation, I have to reply instead.
The problem with your argument is that it's based on metaphysics and ideology, and that you have a mythical understanding of history. History isn't a novel about 'human nature', it just unfolds, goes on, and for various reasons. Mostly economical. Human nature doesn't control the economy. If it did, why would Nike and others that produce cheap stuff from child labour be successful?
I happen to be in one of those artsy crowds that like the film, but I didn't like it for its 'deeper meaning'. I liked it for its actual qualities: The cinematic expression and, well, the nudity. It's not Kubrik's best film, but it's also far from being the worst film ever. Try Ecks vs Sever for a crappy film with a budget, or Makaroni Blues for a film made without much money or talent. The worst films aren't well known, not even well known for being bad. Even Plan 9 From Outer Space has its qualities.
That's not a proper test. Try in a different thread, so it's out of this particular context. Start the comment with `I know I'll be modded down for this, but' and add a UUEncoded mp3-file with fart jokes or perhaps even just farts. Voila! Free karma!
Well, maybe not. But trolling the/. moderation system into +5 isn't difficult, you just have to post early, be somewhat resonable, and add the magic words.
At some point in the late 80s, electronic music fell out of vogue. It seemed as though electronic music had been nothing more than a fad, and the fad was dying. Suddenly, a work like Jean Michel Jarre's Oxygene was as uncool as Atari's Pong or fanny packs.
Of course it was. Jarre was getting old, and his music sounded a bit too pompous for elevator music, but sounded like elevator music nonetheless. It seems like if you manage to empty a whole sub-genre for new possibilities, the music in that genre becomes empty as well. The same thing happened to all other pop genres, they all go the way of the doo wop in the end.
But in the late 80s, electronic music wasn't going away, it was changing places. Synthesizers became cheap, electronic music was the new punk rock. Hardly the stuff for the likes of Vangelis and Jarre.
Today, the only the electronic music most of us hear is the repetitive, simplistic beat of dance or industrial music piped into clubs and dubbed over with offensive lyrics and banter.
See, if he actually had any interest in electronic music, he would at least have checked out labels like WARP, formed, by the way, in 1989. You could just as well turn his point around: Today, the only guitar music most of us hear is repetitions of the simple formula The Beatles used, dubbed over with trivial lyrics. Oh, and calling drums and guitars "obsolete" is just offensive to anyone with any interest in music.
He also doesn't quite get that most music is created through performance, considering live music to be "silly spectacle". It's just that computers can't emulate "real" instruments convincingly, you can't make the same music you would make on a guitar or with a string trio with a computer.
So we have a fool who knows nothing about the history of electronic music, has no understanding of traditional music, trying to teach us something about game music. I'm not going to read the whole article.
Linux has been an OS by developers, for developers. That has been its strength. Hackers have started using it, and improved the parts they wanted to improve. Joe cant't do that, so she hasn't much to give back. That doesn't mean she shouldn't use it if she finds it useful, it just means she isn't important to Linux. But if she wants to, sure go right ahead, it's free.
The corporate desktop is more important because, unlike Joe, companies will try to make it work better for themselves, either by employing techies to improve what needs to be improved, or by buying a support contract from Novell or Red Hat. This means Linux gets better, thanks to the GPL. That's why the corporate desktop is important. It has little to do with profit (except for Novell and Red Hat).
What's to be expected? That's what the article was really about; the masses.
Yes, that's probably the problem. Linux isn't ready for the masses, but that's mainly because it's free. To dominate the masses, you need some sort of demagogue. You need to force things on people. Hence, Microsoft's success. And Gator/Claria.
Mass appeal shouldn't be a goal for Linux. It should be ready for the users that need a computer, not the computers that need a user. That is, Linux's main selling point shouldn't be that it's easy to sell. Anyways, it's not like the mass market has anything to give back to Linux, so it doesn't need to be targeted. The corporate desktop is far more important.
Typical Slashdot post. No wonder it's done by an AC. This entire attitude that if you don't like and don't worship Linux you're nothing but a lemming or a troll is not only getting really old but it's also alienating the few out there who are willing to give Linux a try.
I browse at +2, and I didn't read more than one message that agreed with TFA. It's been quite a while since Linux zealotry was fashionable on/. -- these days you get modded up for saying installing applications os too difficult on Linux, and modded down for saying OS X isn't the all-in-one solution to computing problems.
We fan boys are not going to accept that Windows is better suited for the desktop, because it isn't -- for us. Debian just gives me (almost) everything I need. For free. Personally, I understand some people need Photoshop, Cool Edit Pro (I need Windows myself for this particular app), etc., but that's a minority. Most people need a browser, email and word processor.
I think the biggest obstacle often lies in the users themselves: They want Linux to behave like Windows, even when apt-get is far superior to browsing for a file and double-clicking install.exe. What we need is massive propaganda, making people understand the ease of the command line ("Hey, it's just typing the command 'apt-get install' and the package name, and it will download and install it for you").
Sorry, but this whole discussion annoys me. The whole geek-thing has disappeared from/. Now everyone want everything to be dumbed down for Joe Grandma.
Nah, it started with this +5, insightful claim: "If it can solve the problems Linux has on the desktop, namely incredibly poor software installation and ugly graphics, it might have a chance." It was an obvious troll, but when the moderators are hitting the ol' pipe too hard, someone must bite.
I agree with you that getting sensible default settings, and user interfaces for changing settings, are much bigger problems for Linux. Emulating proprietary operating systems' software installation will only make Linux worse, though.
Debian is a distribution of GNU. The GPL contains the following: "This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY". It's not meant for anything apart from what you might find it useful for. It's free software.
End-users can use Testing (not recommended) or Unstable if they wish, but these aren't as well tested as the packages in Stable. Stable isn't meant for end-users, it's meant to be stable. If you find Stable useful, then use it. If you find Unstable more useful, use that instead. I haven't had many problems with it since I started using it, a couple of years ago. KDE has never broken for me (but I remember it did once back before Woody was released, because of libpng, I think, being broken), apt-get has broken once.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for the link (didn't know a US Communist Party existed). If you'd bother to follow it, you'd see that. '2. The CPUSA does not endorse any candidate for President in the 2004 election.'.
Um, and no, I am not and have never been a member of the Communist Party.
But I'll give you a counter-example for the rest of your argument. Norway seems to be the biggest Kerry supporters, and i'm from Norway. What would be in our economic interest? Norway exports mainly three things: oil, gas and fish. I have no idea what influence Bush or Kerry can have on the last one, but oil . . . it's not too hard to see that we'd like a stable Middle East, so our own economy keeps being somewhat predictable. And that's also in the interest of the USA, isn't it? So why do we favour Kerry instead of Bush? Could it be that we perceive Bush to be grossly incompetent, and his war in Iraq as a giant failure?
But that's far too obvious. We must have more sinister motives. Seriously, I wonder why Americans support Bush. He alienated the rest of the world in a couple of months after 9/11, when the US had support from almost everyone. His record in foreign affairs is impressively bad, and the US economy hasn't been that great. If he's done anything really good, please tell me. To me, it seems like Americans support him because he gives an impression of being a 'strong president', a man of action, and other plainly rhetorical qualities. What about the results of his actions? Are they unimportant, is it really enough to kick some muslim ass around the world? Or has he actually done something good? (Alright, some of this might seem trollish, but I'd really like to know.)
(with apologies to Samuel Beckett)
No, he'll get modded up for saying 'Now mod me down'. Didn't you get the memo?
Good for you. This PowerBook G3 266 runs with Debian and GNOME, but OS X doesn't even boot. It did before, though, and ran Panther (installed with XPostFacto) surprisingly well with 192 MB RAM, as long as I didn't use too many apps at the same time.
/5.0 (X11; U; Linux ppc; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040914 Firefox/0.9.3' under GNOME 2.6, Debian Sid PPC)
Then one of my RAM modules stopped working, and OS X would just grind to a halt before I could even log in. Now I use Debian and WindowMaker most of the time, and it runs better than OS X did, with only 64 MB RAM -- as long as I use even fewer apps. I can't run both Thunderbird and Firefox efficiently at the same time. One of them + Emacs seems to work well, though. Or just OpenOffice.org.
Just face it, OS X is far more demanding than all other popular desktops when it comes to memory usage. And maybe that's why it works so well on old equipment in your fantasy world -- because you've made sure you have enough RAM. But that will help about equally well on all OSes.
(Yes, this message is posted from 'Mozilla
Well, at least that other guy managed to make us bitch. So he did keep his promise, kind of.
Unfortunately, you rarely see that attitude in a blog.
I'm sure it's not my speakers. They are high quality stereo speakers. I hook my computer up to my stereo. But then, my amp has pretty low input impedance, so that could be the culprit; I'll have to try a different amp or headphones. (*testing*) Yes, the same problems are there with a set of ordinary PC speakers. Can't find any headphones.
I don't really notice it as distortion while listening to music, though -- it's just not quite as good as my CD player (cheap old Marantz CD-63MkII).
I've got a Soyo Dragon myself, and the sound card is far from high end. It might be a different model from the one you've got though (mine is a K7V Plus). Try just generating tones around 10000--17000 Hz, and you may notice the highs are incredibly distorted.
But that shouldn't have any negative effect on your work, though. Adobe Audition works on the audio data files, and the file never even touches the audio card. The Soyo Dragon won't degrade the audio in any way, but it might mask some problems before the sound reaches those Mackies.
Read up on Marxism.
(Don't be scared. It's not propaganda, and you're probably not going to be influenced by it. But it's generally good to know what you're talking about. Hint: Marxism isn't about blaming capitalism; that's just leftism.)
But one reason why BeOS was so snappy was because apps also took advantage of its pervasive multi-threading and the scheduler. This was, AFAIK, because the API sort of forced you to write multi-threaded. So Be had a lot of small, snappy, but crappy, applications that you could use to show off its responsiveness. But most of the serious apps had to be ported, and then the advantages just disappeared.
Have you tried running Mozilla on BeOS? I mean, not a rotten old port of M18, but a recent build of Firefox. Yes, it's still being developed, and it's been getting a lot better. But its responsiveness is a lot worse than under Linux (not to mention the font rendering). Even when comparing a 266 MHz, 64 MB Powerbook running Linux to a 1.4 GHz, 256 MB Athlon XP running an RC of Zeta.
But no, the PB can't run multiple videostreams. It has problems running just one. But video codecs have become much more demanding since the sub 200 MHz days. And so has computer use in general. Net+ was a small and simple browser, but it's practically useless these days, like all small and simple browsers are. You need features to do stuff, and stuff takes up space. That's why a small and simple OS is hopelessly outdated, and big and bloated environments like KDE (500 MB for a basic install?) and OS X (~2.5 GB for a basic install) are the future.
"You can't learn anything about the world from history." Try again. That wasn't even implied. Or rather, let's end this discussion.
BTW, your comment about my second paragraph proves my final point: "Human nature" isn't a real concept. It can be anything and everything related to humans.
I agree that I didn't argue very clearly, but the fact that you don't understand it doesn't make it stupid. My whole point was that his idea of history is mythical. I made that point clear. A myth is a story that explains something else, an ideology, through allegory. I didn't make that definition clear, although I should have. You can't read history like a bloody allegory. That was my whole problem, and that was my point.
My second argument was based on the assumption that the parent poster considered exploitation of poor children for fun & profit to be against human nature, but in the nature of economy, with the intention to show which one controls which. It's the economy that makes Nike produce shoes in poor countries, and it's the economy that makes poor people work for Nike. It's an illustration of the point, not the conclusion of an argument. There's no circular reasoning here. I'm just showing that economy gives a better explanation than "human nature" for why things like out-sourcing and exploitation happen. And you have probably heard about how economy is supposed to work. If not, look it up. You'll see that very few economic textbooks claim that an economy is controlled by "human nature".
You see, "human nature" doesn't explain anything. It's not even a real concept. And that was what it was all about, in the end.
Clearer now?
Liberalism isn't and has never been socialism.
Liberalism isn't liberal, which is why...
Liberalism isn't always what liberals adhere to. Those would be liberalists.
Economic liberalism is the ideology of the so-called conservative right in America, which explains point 2 and 3.
Also, your last two points are contradicting their meaning with their rhetoric.
..or me? That's my birthday. Yuck, I'm getting even closer to 30 soon.
I've got mod points, but as there is no 'stupid' moderation, I have to reply instead.
The problem with your argument is that it's based on metaphysics and ideology, and that you have a mythical understanding of history. History isn't a novel about 'human nature', it just unfolds, goes on, and for various reasons. Mostly economical. Human nature doesn't control the economy. If it did, why would Nike and others that produce cheap stuff from child labour be successful?
I happen to be in one of those artsy crowds that like the film, but I didn't like it for its 'deeper meaning'. I liked it for its actual qualities: The cinematic expression and, well, the nudity. It's not Kubrik's best film, but it's also far from being the worst film ever. Try Ecks vs Sever for a crappy film with a budget, or Makaroni Blues for a film made without much money or talent. The worst films aren't well known, not even well known for being bad. Even Plan 9 From Outer Space has its qualities.
That's not a proper test. Try in a different thread, so it's out of this particular context. Start the comment with `I know I'll be modded down for this, but' and add a UUEncoded mp3-file with fart jokes or perhaps even just farts. Voila! Free karma!
/. moderation system into +5 isn't difficult, you just have to post early, be somewhat resonable, and add the magic words.
Well, maybe not. But trolling the
Unfortunately, any post starting with `I know I will be modded down for this, but ...' will be modded +5, insightful in no time.
But in the late 80s, electronic music wasn't going away, it was changing places. Synthesizers became cheap, electronic music was the new punk rock. Hardly the stuff for the likes of Vangelis and Jarre.
See, if he actually had any interest in electronic music, he would at least have checked out labels like WARP, formed, by the way, in 1989. You could just as well turn his point around: Today, the only guitar music most of us hear is repetitions of the simple formula The Beatles used, dubbed over with trivial lyrics. Oh, and calling drums and guitars "obsolete" is just offensive to anyone with any interest in music.
He also doesn't quite get that most music is created through performance, considering live music to be "silly spectacle". It's just that computers can't emulate "real" instruments convincingly, you can't make the same music you would make on a guitar or with a string trio with a computer.
So we have a fool who knows nothing about the history of electronic music, has no understanding of traditional music, trying to teach us something about game music. I'm not going to read the whole article.
Linux has been an OS by developers, for developers. That has been its strength. Hackers have started using it, and improved the parts they wanted to improve. Joe cant't do that, so she hasn't much to give back. That doesn't mean she shouldn't use it if she finds it useful, it just means she isn't important to Linux. But if she wants to, sure go right ahead, it's free.
The corporate desktop is more important because, unlike Joe, companies will try to make it work better for themselves, either by employing techies to improve what needs to be improved, or by buying a support contract from Novell or Red Hat. This means Linux gets better, thanks to the GPL. That's why the corporate desktop is important. It has little to do with profit (except for Novell and Red Hat).
Mass appeal shouldn't be a goal for Linux. It should be ready for the users that need a computer, not the computers that need a user. That is, Linux's main selling point shouldn't be that it's easy to sell. Anyways, it's not like the mass market has anything to give back to Linux, so it doesn't need to be targeted. The corporate desktop is far more important.
We fan boys are not going to accept that Windows is better suited for the desktop, because it isn't -- for us. Debian just gives me (almost) everything I need. For free. Personally, I understand some people need Photoshop, Cool Edit Pro (I need Windows myself for this particular app), etc., but that's a minority. Most people need a browser, email and word processor.
I think the biggest obstacle often lies in the users themselves: They want Linux to behave like Windows, even when apt-get is far superior to browsing for a file and double-clicking install.exe. What we need is massive propaganda, making people understand the ease of the command line ("Hey, it's just typing the command 'apt-get install' and the package name, and it will download and install it for you").
Sorry, but this whole discussion annoys me. The whole geek-thing has disappeared from
Nah, it started with this +5, insightful claim: "If it can solve the problems Linux has on the desktop, namely incredibly poor software installation and ugly graphics, it might have a chance." It was an obvious troll, but when the moderators are hitting the ol' pipe too hard, someone must bite.
I agree with you that getting sensible default settings, and user interfaces for changing settings, are much bigger problems for Linux. Emulating proprietary operating systems' software installation will only make Linux worse, though.
Debian is a distribution of GNU. The GPL contains the following: "This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY". It's not meant for anything apart from what you might find it useful for. It's free software.
End-users can use Testing (not recommended) or Unstable if they wish, but these aren't as well tested as the packages in Stable. Stable isn't meant for end-users, it's meant to be stable. If you find Stable useful, then use it. If you find Unstable more useful, use that instead. I haven't had many problems with it since I started using it, a couple of years ago. KDE has never broken for me (but I remember it did once back before Woody was released, because of libpng, I think, being broken), apt-get has broken once.