Actually the red states gain Congressional seats after every census. San Fran closes a few more schools every term.
But it isn't enough to turn the balance on the question of saving our civilization. Even in the Red states the unfit are out breeding the fit, the only difference is we have a net population gain while some of the Blue ones actually have negative growth in actual numbers of boots on the ground. Especially scary when one considers a majority of the immigration is happening in Blue states which partially masks the depth of the problem with Democrats breeding.
First off though, we have to seperate the two classes of Democrats out. Clients of the welfare state have no problems breeding. Good solid votes, at least for now, but little potential for leaders out of that group. The rest of this post will concern itself with that second group, the cadre where leaders can be recruited. Those educated beyond their intelligence at elite universities, arts snobs,.com millionaires, second generation rich, entertainers and sports figures, etc.
Face it, if a Democrat manages to grow up hetro they have no problems with attracting MOTOS and 'hooking up', the problem is they are much more likely to opt for birth control (including wiping out millions of potential new Democrats annually through abortion) and postponing starting a family. And even when you get Democrats to mate (with a member of the opposite sex), they have trouble breeding, producing fewer less fit young than the virile young stock out in Red America.
While the fairly small difference between Red and Blue America won't directly solve the bigger problem, hopefully it will serve to illuminate it, perhaps enough to convince people to act. But I'm not betting on it happening in time. By the time the Democratic Party loses enough numbers to fall out of power I'm afraid things will be too far advanced to fix. Tha barbarians will sack Europe within 20-30 years, then it will be just US against the horde. Unless we could somehow ally ourselves with China for the final war..... but then their program of widescale infanticide has pretty much screwed them longterm as well and they will be up shit creek just about the time we would really need em.
> I haven't seen a lot of children in the families of our supposed upper class.
Yea, it is a real problem. Our socialist utopian policy planners think they can negate a billion years of evolution. While making public pronouncements establishing science as the State religion. But Mother Nature is a bitch and isn't going to cut us any slack. Assuming the barbarians at the gates from the Religion Of Peace(tm) don't wipe us off the planet while we worry about the trivia that consumes our lives, we will breed ourselves down from sentience in another couple of generations.
Think about it, evolution is all about adaptation and survival of the fittest.... with fittest defined as the specimens who succeed best at propagating their genetic material. We have inverted all of the signals, the fittest (from the p.o.v. of civilization) are discouraged from reproducing and the unfit are strongly encouraged by the welfare system to breed early and often.
Just how long can that continue? Here in the US we just crossed the 300M mark. At least half of that number is useless baggage, through lack of education, genetic fitness or both when it comes to contributing in a meaningful way in a modern information society. But a very large percentage of the next generation will come from the useless half because successful (again, as viewed by their useful contributions to civilization) people can't afford children of their own because they are too busy supporting the welfare state. And children raised by the clueless, even if they luck out on the genetic lottery and pick up some good ones from a generation or two back, will still likely be failures when raised by clueless parents and then further damaged by government schools designed to churn out mindless drones to work in factories which were long since offshored.
We are now living in a bad sci fi novel. And no, it is probably too late to change the ending, about all we can do is try to make sure a few of the more important contributions of our civilivation survive to be picked up by the survivors when everything goes to hell in another generation or two.
> Getting something like XPS into printers would not make it a standard.
As a practical matter it would. There are several standards for PDF. But nobody cared and Adobe was free to release a succession of new incompatible versions because for all intents and purposes PDF is what Adobe says it is and implementations other than Adobe Distiller and Adobe Acrobat Reader for Windows do not count.
Acrobat Reader 7 for Linux doesn't always print a "PDF" to a printer with a licensed Adobe Postscript personality. We have to keep xpdf handy. If it ran as a prowser plugin it would be the first choice, since it views/prints way more "PDF" files found in the wild.
If people were instead targeting frozen implementions inside printer firmwares that would be what people defined as "PDF" instead of the current Acrobat Reader for Windows and it would be a lot more 'standardized.'
> XPS support is being built into new models from all major printer manufacturers.
If so it would be a major reason to support XPS. If it is just some crap in the Windows drivers forget it. Just checked HP's site and didn't see it mentioned.
The reason it would be great to get it in printers is that it would force it to be a STANDARD, unlike PDF. MP3 is a standard in that any conforming stream will play on any conforming player. New encoders can be developed but the resulting streams must be playable on ANY player adhering to the original MP3 spec. Adobe never figured that out with PDF, requiring a continual upgrade treadmill to newer readers and adding new features in non backwards compatible ways. Even though some printers DO support a version of PDF, it isn't usable for long after purchase.
If it doesn't get embedded into printers I'd trust Microsoft even less to publish a spec and then stick with it.;
> FWIW, there are plenty of fast non-crappy PDF readers. For example, xpdf and foxit.
How about ONE reader that will open and print all PDF files? Just today I had to use xpdf to print a PDF that Adobe's latest version would display and TRY to print, but the printer would just sit and spin. Btw, the printer was an HP with a licensed Adobe Postscript personality. Of course sometimes Acroread will deal with documents xpdf can't. Not as often does it work that way but often enough we have to have both, and only acroread works as a browser plugin and that makes the natives less restless.:(
Since I really doubt anythng sponsored by MSFT will achieve better results in the the next decade, count my vote as against even if it has magic XML pixie dust.
> Either way, moving to PS3 strikes me as a dead-end. It's been a full year and change, and nobody's figured > out how to run custom code on Xbox 360 yet... what makes them think PS3 will be any easier.
Well since they are announcing a product I'd say Terrasoft (and Terrasoft has a record of real product releases, i.e they ain't the Phantom Console) actually has PS3 prerelease hardware up mostly running. It would also be a fairly safe assumption that Sony is OK with it because they could shut em down pretty easy if they wanted to.
Since the BD-ROM is THE big selling point of PS3 it would be daft if they tried releasing a distro that couldn't see it, perhaps this time Sony is actually going to allow Linux to run unmolested. WIth a proper TPCA implementation that would be possible while still locking games down hard.
Imagine the PS3 running Firefox and OO.o and talking to a wide range of USB devices, including printers, cameras and MP3 players. I just hope Sony imagined it.
> While Michelle Malkin may be controversial, the videos that I've seen which were subsequently removed definitely didn't fit any definition > of inappropriate.
Exactly, this is the fight we should be having with YouTube. Malkin isn't a case of moonbats flooding the automated complaint button, that was a decision by an actual human at YouTube. What should, and what probably will once the stink gets bad enough, is her account will be reactivated and flagged as not being subject to user flagging. In other words, as a professional her work will get the benefit of the doubt that it is appropriate unless she does something so extreme another human judgement will need to be made; something that probably won't happen because she IS a pro.
> Was this comment absolutely necessary or even relevant to the story?
Perhaps not. But it IS true. Look, I have a hundred freaks here on/. and I'd say at least 95 are because of my willingness to post commnets that go against the socialist grain here in the hivemind. Even I consider worldnetdaily to be slightly scary. Besides being a canonical example of how NOT to design a website, it is where our side's black helicopter chasers hang out. It isn't quite as bad as Daily Kos and certainly not in the same level of insanity as the 911 Truth crowd, but pretty out there.
And I think the same level of non clue that leads them to have such a disfunctional website accounts for them calling censorship on YouTube incorrectly. What happened is the usual 'free inquiry and debate' typical of the modern left. THEY flagged it as 'naughty' because that is their standard response. Anyone who disagrees with a liberal is a bigot, racist, homophobe, intolerant, ignorant monster and must never be debated on the merits of what is said, critics must be silenced. Same shit, different day. Happens to me every time I post here, I'm used to it.
> Gimp now has colour management support out of the box? Congratulations, one feature that is taken for granted > by every professional level piece of photo software...
If your needs ABSOLUTELEY can't be met by Gimp, Cinepaint or any of the other choices, then take a few freaking dollars out of your pocket and buy Crossover Office. It lists Photoshop as a supported app.
> And as for Blender, it is a wonderful program. It was the first 3D program I learned. However, it is not yet > on par with professional packages like 3DS Max, Lightwave or Maya.
Well then run Maya then. Go look at the Autodesk website and count the Linux distributions supported. RHEL4, FC5 and Suse are offically supported platforms. Hint: Maya isn't the only option either.
> Well, welcome to the world of professional level software and the open source offerings just aren't at a > competitive level yet.
Well welcome to the 21st Century, where professionals quit depending on Windows years ago and demanded the professional grade software keep up with the times. When damned near every pro shop in the movie business has adopted Linux to one degree or another it is a pretty safe bet the people making professional tools didn't write those high profile customers completely off.
And yes, several of the open source productivity tools ARE already professional grade. Film GIMP/Cinepaint had deep color support long before Photoshop got around to it.
> So does this mean that I can't run them under Parallels or VMWare on a Mac? That would really piss me off.
Actually the Mac is probably their primary target for this restriction. They want you to spring for Business or Ultimate. After all, you can afford a Mac, right?
Come to think about it a bit, why not? Most Mac users are limo liberals so "From each according to their ability......"
Ok, cheap shot. But again who else would be running Home in a VM other than us Linux folk and I doubt they would be all that bent about us since we already pay for a license anyway on almost all standard PC hardware we buy. You certainly wouldn't run virtualized servers on Home with the client access limits and all. Nope, this clause is aimed squarely at making it as expensive as possible for a IntelMac to boot Windows.
> And to be honest I'd encourage everyone else to do the same. I'm really not trying to troll, I just don't > want to one day find a vulnerability or incompatibility in IceWeasel that's not in Firefox.
Two options:
1. IceWeasel IS the Moz Corp codebase with patch es to change the name and artwork. Plus patches to integrate it into Debian (current situation) plus security patches (current situation). Difference is that IceWeasel can continue to be patchesd long after Moz Corp would demand FireFox be version upgraded. I know which I'd prefer for an Enterprise deployment where stability beats new features any day of the week. IceWeasel will become the preferred name on all Free distributions but FireFox will probably be the name of the browser on RHEL and SUSE.
2. IceWeasel starts adding in new features that Moz Corp doesn't want to include, there are rumors of this being a real possibility. New ad blocking tech, etc. See XFree86 => X.org for what happens wien the traditional developers lose touch with the needs of the users. It is a major reason for preferring Open SOurce/Free Software. In this scenario IceWeasel devours Firefox (probably in combination with SeaMonkey) on all playforms including Windows.
You open with a complaint about 'horrendous bandwidth issues' and then bitch and moan about the admins attempts to free up some bandwidth. Jeez, what a bunch of babies we have in modern universities. Not many provided examples, but yea, blocking mp3 is something that I can see happening. And 10 to one the winging about "Electronic Art", especialliy considering the capitalization is really about "www.ea.com" Again, duh. You want to game you might be forced into buying your own connection for that if they are really short on bandwidth.
The days of everyone just buying more and more bandwidth are coming to an end as everyone realizes it is a dead end. Buy more and the users will simply USE more. P2P apps will react to increases in bandwidth by making you a supernode and simply laying claim to every bit per second available to them. Sooner or later, and it is looking more like sooner, the free ride ends.
What is their reasoning for this? Are they saying that the hundreds of millions of computers in the world with optical drives sporting their offical trademarked DVD logo aren't really DVD players anymore? Just who are they trying to stop with this anyway? Does anyone think mplayer/mencoder (available for Windows btw) will be stopped by this for more than a point release? What is their motive for trying to stop licensed players? Microsoft Media Player is a LICENSED user of the CSS system!
Debian really had zero options here folks. Moz Corp's new policy is simple. "Nobody releases a browser called Firefox except us or those who allow us absolute control over their releases. Period, zero exceptions." So far RedHat, SUSE and Ubuntu have agreed to cede control over ALL modifications, including prior approval of security patches to Moz Corp. Obviously Debian couldn't, wouldn't and shouldn't have done anything of the sort. Thus IceWeasel comes to Debian.
I already made the change earlier in the year. Done right FF plugins still work so no big deal.
> Interesting tactics. Saddam and Stalin would be proud.
Perhaps. But that is what a War on Terrorism would actually look like. War isn't politically correct, War isn't pretty. War is hell.
I can promise ya that in WWII anyone sporting a flag of any of the Axis powers would be a target. Describe the difference between that and flying the Hezbellah flag now? Of course now you can find that and more flying on any American university campus. But if we were seriously fighting a War on the terrorists anyoen caught doing that within the reach of the US would be in deep poo poo. Any Citizen would be held on charges of treason, any foreigner as a POW or simply shot on sight as a spy. (And perfectly in accord with the Geneva Conventions btw.)
Ok, I'm going to feed the troll. I know I'll regret it.
> Hezbollah were *elected* because they were seen as being able to protect their people and, hopefully, > drive the ever-expanding country of Israel back behind its rightful borders.
This is why I'm wasting my time on you, this shows some hope for ya. At least you recognize Israel HAS rightful borders. Now I'm going to ask a seemingly simple question of you. Name one example where Israel expanded its borders in an unjust way?
Here is a hint. Land gained in war is just. Land gained in a war you didn't start is about as just as it gets. Especially when the countries you took it from refuses to even declare an official end to hostilities. Yes, Israel seized some defensive positions in the battles waged by it's neighbors in their various attempts to exterminate them. However look at the historical record. Egypt made peace with Israel and regained it's lost territories, including very valuable oilfields. Lebanon has now been invaded twice after launching attacks against Israel and yet the last troops are on the way out for the second time.
If Syria wants the Golan Heights back the course seems clear to me. All the need to do is sign a peace treaty and recognize Israel's right to exist and they would have their land back. Right now a formal state of War exists so Israel would be stupid to hand over such a strategicly valuable position to a sworn enemy. But history shows they will exchange land for peace.
> As I recall, that conflict came to an end through negotiation and diplomacy.
And negotiation and diplomacy became possible when state sponshorship of the terrorists ended. Negotiation became possible when both sides were actually able to engage in diplomacy, when anyone on the IRA side who suggested out loud that compromise might be a good idea didn't get a quick death.
I suspect that if we leaned REAL hard (as in cut the crap or we allow Israel to bomb your sorry asses from the 7th century all the way back to the stone age) on Syria, Iran, Saudia Arabia, etc. to cut off Hamas and Fatah cold, they too would soon come to the bargaining table in good faith and that a lasting peace would suddenly become possible where none can currently be imagined. Same for Lebanon. Same for Iraq.
> I dont recall seeing British helicopter gunships levelling Belfast.
But that method would have also worked. That price was too high for your public to accept. I'll let the historians decide if they were right. But had the Cold War dragged on another twenty years they might have changed their minds.
> I agree with you, the terrorists should be hunted down and wiped out, but it needs to be a precise and > targeted attack. Every bit of 'collateral damage' just ramps up support for the terrorists.
Yes and no. Terrorists use civilians as human shields, but they can only get away with those tactics if the civilians at least give a grudging approval to the terrorists cause. Making them more than slightly responsible. One way to break that link between terrorists and the civilian population is to make the price of harboring them too high for them to bear. Bring the pain up enough they either expel the terrorists or turn em in.
This would be especially effective in a focused campaign to burn out the fever from certain regions. Simply make it known that certain groups are now outlawed and ANY overt support will bring terrible retribution. See a giant poster of a 'marytr' on a building? If the owner doesn't live in the building give him two hours to correct the problem or you blow the building. If the owner does live in the building, assume he approves and blow it with him inside. Big demonstration for Hamas? Blow it the hell up and don't listen to any carping about who was blown up. Bonus points if you get a camera crew, they should have read the memo about the danger inherent to being near terrorists.
If ya have to say "Our games are not propaganda" odds are it IS propaganda. From the description it certainly sounds like a recruiting tool for the terrorists.
Yes, ye unwashed hordes of pro PLO slashdot kids, the terrorists. Islamic terrorists. Doesn't make s damned bit of difference if they are 'Palestinian' Islamic terrorists from either Fatah or Hamas, Lebanese Hezbolah Islamic terrorists, straight up Iranian Islamic terrorists, AlQaeda Islamic terrorists, etc. Those who use terror against civilian populations must be hunted down and exterminated, period full stop. And since the end of IRA[1] terrorism, just about all terrorism these days is Islamic terrorism.
[1] Which ended with a few years of the end of the Cold War. But those who said most of it was Soviet agitataion to destabilise the West were tinfoil hat types seeing a Red under every bed. And of course we should also forget who originally taught Arafat his trade in death and who he served.
And back on topic, we of course know a pro terrorist game would never be banned. Nay, it will probably be widely available. "Kill all the eeevil joooos!" is free speech and any attempt to censor it would just not be permitted. Now imagine the politically correct howls if a 'kill all the diaper heads' game were created. Seems some censorship is more permissable than others.
No it isn't. Period, full stop. I know I'm about to be called the most evil insensitive person since Dick Cheney, but read it before ya mod it flamebait, k?
> I lived in the States for seven years and I remember TV ads calling for help for starving people living within the US.
It is called propaganda. Please don't feed the trolls, even the ones with expensive ad campaigns.
> I also personally saw homeless people, trying to find a shelter in the bitter cold of Chicago winter, and > I do remember that many people died during the heat wave some years ago, because they could not afford AC > or even transportation w/ AC.
Please don't confuse the 'homeless' with poverty. Not even the same ballpark. Most of the 'homeless' are mentally ill, not poor. Others are professionals, some are a combination of the two. I have personally witnessed 'the homeless' at an intersection holding up "will work for food" signs also. But I noticed other things, like the Burger King within visual range bearing a 6' tall banner proclaiming "NOW HIRING". Now I'll admit the 'homeless' guys were too unkempt to have much luck, but there were shelters and other programs in Dallas that would have been more than willing to help them get cleaned up and even provide suitable clothes. They make more than minimum wage panhandling though.
As for people dying in heatwaves, take a look at Europe, a nasty one can wipe out 10K in France because so few homes have A/C, even in the 'middle class'. Heat waves kill the elderly, not so much the poor. And anyone who can't find shelter from the cold in the US with our extensive shelters isn't looking.
And as for poverty, dude! The biggest problem in our 'poor' population is health problems associated with being overweight. I really wouldn't call that poverty lest it offend the truly downtrodden populations around the world who really are. Here in America our 'poor' tend to universally have air conditioning, multiple color televisions and at least one working automobile. Anyone who doesn't have that doesn't know enough to work the welfare system. Hell, they pretty much would have to actively resist the efforts of the social workers whose job it is to help them sign up for assistance. And that ignores the additional billions of good charitable work that doesn't derive from immoral government income redistribution.
> The war in Iraq is going to crap, and Iraq is on the edge of civil war -- clearly that is the fault > of Democrats political rhetoric and gleeful politicizing of the Iraq war in the US Media....
Actually there is a fair amount of truth in that. Is the Democratic Party in league with UBL? With a couple of possible (Maxine Waters, Cynthia McKinney, ya know, the real fringe of the fringe) exceptions, no. Do most of them want Al Qaeda to win? Ah, now we get to the nuanced responses. It would be more accurate to say the deepest desire of their hearts is for Bush to lose. And if America loses it is a price they are willing to pay.
Our enemies understand all too much of these internal political dynamics, having studied their enemies well, especially our loses in Vietnam and Somolia. They realize a straight up victory on the field of battle isn't possible, which is why they are waging asymetrical warfare in the first place. No, they understand the lesson of Vietnam is that the US can't be defeated in battle, we have more things that go boom and an adequate supply of skilled and highly motivated and discplined troops to wield them. But we can be defeated HERE, by exploiting weaknesses in our political system. The Democrats were carping about quagmire in Afganistan before the first boot hit the ground. They have been doing likewise in Iraq. So the enemy understands that to win they must simply give the Democrats what they need to win the political battle here, i,e. lots of blood and gore within range of friendly news crews. Given that support the Democrats will win their fight and they win as a side effect.
Still not convinced? Thought experiment. The Democrats decide that the US winning a war once entered, regardless whether they supported it initially, is more important that using dead servicemen to club their way into a majority. For real, such that the troublemakers in Iraq knew in their most secret thoughts that we were going to be there for the duration, and would ramp up troop levels if need be. If Iran knew, for a certainty, that continuing to meddle would be suicidal, the question is: Would they still fight? Almost certainly not, had we had that sort of unity the last two years the troops would be home and Iraq would be at relative peace. Therefore is it not a fair question to ask how much American blood is on Kerry, Murtha, etc's hands?
I know all of the arguments why we can't do a 'regime change' in North Korea and I agree they are all good arguments. But this incident just highlights the simple truth that none of em are worth a damn for one fundamental reason. Nothing North Korea can do now would in a fit of rage would be worse than what he WILL do eventually. Delay is only making the eventual price for appeasing that insane dictatorship for fifty years grow higher.
We could play MAD games with the Soviets because while Evil (with the capital E) they were also mostly rational. North Korea (and most of these arguments apply to Iran equally well) isn't even on the same planet with sane. North Korea WILL eventually start another war. There isn't any doubt whether he has WMD anymore and he has the missles to deliver them. The only question is whether we wait for him to start the second Korean War at a time of his choosing or whether we do it at one of ours.
Unfortunatly Bush is getting his nuts handed to him on a daily basis, the Dems have at least one and probably two more October suprises set to roll meaning we are set for at least a month more of internal bickering and infighting. After the election the Demos will be too busy scheduling hearings to consider uniting to do anything in the best interest of the country and the Repubs will be in 'bitter recriminations over losing Congress' mode Both sides are getting ready for '08 already. Meanwhile North Korea and Iran keep building warheads.
This impending disaster could have been prevented just like WWII could have. Instead a billion will probably die. But fuck that, the Dems could sweep the Congressional elections and if they can help send the US fleeing a shattered Iraq they could bag the White House too! Nothing is more important that that.
> Okay, if they don't care about the ideology of free software, they are not going to embrace ONLY GNU software...
Not initially. But remember, they didn't know Windows at one point, now they prefer it because of experience with it and because of the network effects... so long as it is free (as in pirate). But if Microsoft actually succeeds in forcing them to buy it and they simply can't afford it then they try plan B, Linux. No they won't give a rats ass about Free vs free vs open source. But if we can get millions of people to not only try it but be forced to actually USE it long enough to get past the relearning hump it won't matter. Five years from now Firefix, OpenOffice.org and GIMP will be second nature to em and they won't want the Windows stuff anymore. And most of the more advanced users will learn to appreciate the advantages of Free just as we have.
> Do you mean that the smaller ps2 is the first time a smaller version of a console has been released?
Not sure, but I think he means this is the first time a shrink/cheaper console is going to be seen as a mid-life instead of end-of-life. Don't totally agree if that is true but a case can be made for it. PS2 is still a useful console, especially at a low enough pricepoint and most especially compared to a PS3 that is going to be priced out of reach for most users this X-Mas (not to mention short supply). PS-One sold ok the year they launched PS2 but I don't remember it being a BIG THING. If some new exciting PS2 titles ship and drive big sales of PS2 this Xmas it could really force the industry to reevaluate. For one it could depress next gen sales overall which Sony wouldn't mind a bit. After all they are only promising 400K PS3 units at launch for the US and probably won't manage that. They can sell those regardless, so depressing a mass migration to next gen this Xmas only hurts MSFT and the big N.
The big issue many people have with Xbos 360 and PS3 is that they don't offer anything new, just the same ol stuff but in HD for the few equipped to see it. If that sentiment is big enough PS2 could be the big winner. Of course Nintendo IS planning to offer something new but it is hard to predict the effects of NEW and SHINY on gamers. If it flies the big N is back in the game, if it tanks they will probably be forced from the console game and retreat to gameboys and selling franchise titles on other console ala Sega.
> It is all a matter of priorities and engineering.
Thanks for making my point. It IS a matter priorities and reliability and security aren't very high on the list in the software business. It IS a priority in every other engineering discpline, i.e. the ones where you have to be a real engineer. When people design a building there are a lot of conflicting priorities, exactly like in designing software. But reliability IS NOT NEGOTIABLE. Buildings do NOT fall down on a regular basis and when they do people are held accoutable, the problems are carefully studied, the cause determined and steps are taken across the industry to ensure that it doesn't happen again. Find me some examples where ANY of this professionalism is exhibited in the software industry?
Find me an example where a developer was punished when an obvious security flaw was released... and his manager was sacked for not making sure that code was audited prior to release. Find me a case where a major security flaw was carefully examimed and the results widely dissimated across the industry, and everyone actually read the report and ensured nothing similar existed in their codebase?
> To be perfect it must be rock-stable yet somehow incorporate the latest features and be compatible with the > latest and greatest protocols/software/etc.
Popular myth, but largly false. Glibc needs no new features at this point. It does everything a standard C library needs. But new versions churn out on a regular basis, with bug fixes and new features intermingled. Freeze the damned thing and audit out the bugs! Then in a few years carefully plan out some new features needed to keep it competitive and code them up. Then AUDIT, AUDIT, AUDIT and TEST, TEST, TEST before merging into a new production release. This means distros would have to have the incentive from users NOT to include the betas in anything but test releases and that is where it would fall apart. A few customers would whinge for the beta to go in because they 'really really need' one feature and everybody loses.
> But overall software design is hard, and it will always be...
And so is rocket science. But rocket scientists try not to put people in a rocket until they are pretty sure the bugs are worked out. Same for airplanes. A modern Boeing airliner is far more complex than GNOME but jets don't fall from the sky on a daily basis.
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> don't worry, the red states are dying anyways.
.com millionaires, second generation rich, entertainers and sports figures, etc.
Actually the red states gain Congressional seats after every census. San Fran closes a few more schools every term.
But it isn't enough to turn the balance on the question of saving our civilization. Even in the Red states the unfit are out breeding the fit, the only difference is we have a net population gain while some of the Blue ones actually have negative growth in actual numbers of boots on the ground. Especially scary when one considers a majority of the immigration is happening in Blue states which partially masks the depth of the problem with Democrats breeding.
First off though, we have to seperate the two classes of Democrats out. Clients of the welfare state have no problems breeding. Good solid votes, at least for now, but little potential for leaders out of that group. The rest of this post will concern itself with that second group, the cadre where leaders can be recruited. Those educated beyond their intelligence at elite universities, arts snobs,
Face it, if a Democrat manages to grow up hetro they have no problems with attracting MOTOS and 'hooking up', the problem is they are much more likely to opt for birth control (including wiping out millions of potential new Democrats annually through abortion) and postponing starting a family. And even when you get Democrats to mate (with a member of the opposite sex), they have trouble breeding, producing fewer less fit young than the virile young stock out in Red America.
While the fairly small difference between Red and Blue America won't directly solve the bigger problem, hopefully it will serve to illuminate it, perhaps enough to convince people to act. But I'm not betting on it happening in time. By the time the Democratic Party loses enough numbers to fall out of power I'm afraid things will be too far advanced to fix. Tha barbarians will sack Europe within 20-30 years, then it will be just US against the horde. Unless we could somehow ally ourselves with China for the final war..... but then their program of widescale infanticide has pretty much screwed them longterm as well and they will be up shit creek just about the time we would really need em.
> I haven't seen a lot of children in the families of our supposed upper class.
Yea, it is a real problem. Our socialist utopian policy planners think they can negate a billion years of evolution. While making public pronouncements establishing science as the State religion. But Mother Nature is a bitch and isn't going to cut us any slack. Assuming the barbarians at the gates from the Religion Of Peace(tm) don't wipe us off the planet while we worry about the trivia that consumes our lives, we will breed ourselves down from sentience in another couple of generations.
Think about it, evolution is all about adaptation and survival of the fittest.... with fittest defined as the specimens who succeed best at propagating their genetic material. We have inverted all of the signals, the fittest (from the p.o.v. of civilization) are discouraged from reproducing and the unfit are strongly encouraged by the welfare system to breed early and often.
Just how long can that continue? Here in the US we just crossed the 300M mark. At least half of that number is useless baggage, through lack of education, genetic fitness or both when it comes to contributing in a meaningful way in a modern information society. But a very large percentage of the next generation will come from the useless half because successful (again, as viewed by their useful contributions to civilization) people can't afford children of their own because they are too busy supporting the welfare state. And children raised by the clueless, even if they luck out on the genetic lottery and pick up some good ones from a generation or two back, will still likely be failures when raised by clueless parents and then further damaged by government schools designed to churn out mindless drones to work in factories which were long since offshored.
We are now living in a bad sci fi novel. And no, it is probably too late to change the ending, about all we can do is try to make sure a few of the more important contributions of our civilivation survive to be picked up by the survivors when everything goes to hell in another generation or two.
> Getting something like XPS into printers would not make it a standard.
As a practical matter it would. There are several standards for PDF. But nobody cared and Adobe was free to release a succession of new incompatible versions because for all intents and purposes PDF is what Adobe says it is and implementations other than Adobe Distiller and Adobe Acrobat Reader for Windows do not count.
Acrobat Reader 7 for Linux doesn't always print a "PDF" to a printer with a licensed Adobe Postscript personality. We have to keep xpdf handy. If it ran as a prowser plugin it would be the first choice, since it views/prints way more "PDF" files found in the wild.
If people were instead targeting frozen implementions inside printer firmwares that would be what people defined as "PDF" instead of the current Acrobat Reader for Windows and it would be a lot more 'standardized.'
> XPS support is being built into new models from all major printer manufacturers.
If so it would be a major reason to support XPS. If it is just some crap in the Windows drivers forget it. Just checked HP's site and didn't see it mentioned.
The reason it would be great to get it in printers is that it would force it to be a STANDARD, unlike PDF. MP3 is a standard in that any conforming stream will play on any conforming player. New encoders can be developed but the resulting streams must be playable on ANY player adhering to the original MP3 spec. Adobe never figured that out with PDF, requiring a continual upgrade treadmill to newer readers and adding new features in non backwards compatible ways. Even though some printers DO support a version of PDF, it isn't usable for long after purchase.
If it doesn't get embedded into printers I'd trust Microsoft even less to publish a spec and then stick with it.;
> FWIW, there are plenty of fast non-crappy PDF readers. For example, xpdf and foxit.
:(
How about ONE reader that will open and print all PDF files? Just today I had to use xpdf to print a PDF that Adobe's latest version would display and TRY to print, but the printer would just sit and spin. Btw, the printer was an HP with a licensed Adobe Postscript personality. Of course sometimes Acroread will deal with documents xpdf can't. Not as often does it work that way but often enough we have to have both, and only acroread works as a browser plugin and that makes the natives less restless.
Since I really doubt anythng sponsored by MSFT will achieve better results in the the next decade, count my vote as against even if it has magic XML pixie dust.
> Either way, moving to PS3 strikes me as a dead-end. It's been a full year and change, and nobody's figured
> out how to run custom code on Xbox 360 yet... what makes them think PS3 will be any easier.
Well since they are announcing a product I'd say Terrasoft (and Terrasoft has a record of real product releases, i.e they ain't the Phantom Console) actually has PS3 prerelease hardware up mostly running. It would also be a fairly safe assumption that Sony is OK with it because they could shut em down pretty easy if they wanted to.
Since the BD-ROM is THE big selling point of PS3 it would be daft if they tried releasing a distro that couldn't see it, perhaps this time Sony is actually going to allow Linux to run unmolested. WIth a proper TPCA implementation that would be possible while still locking games down hard.
Imagine the PS3 running Firefox and OO.o and talking to a wide range of USB devices, including printers, cameras and MP3 players. I just hope Sony imagined it.
> While Michelle Malkin may be controversial, the videos that I've seen which were subsequently removed definitely didn't fit any definition
> of inappropriate.
Exactly, this is the fight we should be having with YouTube. Malkin isn't a case of moonbats flooding the automated complaint button, that was a decision by an actual human at YouTube. What should, and what probably will once the stink gets bad enough, is her account will be reactivated and flagged as not being subject to user flagging. In other words, as a professional her work will get the benefit of the doubt that it is appropriate unless she does something so extreme another human judgement will need to be made; something that probably won't happen because she IS a pro.
> Was this comment absolutely necessary or even relevant to the story?
/. and I'd say at least 95 are because of my willingness to post commnets that go against the socialist grain here in the hivemind. Even I consider worldnetdaily to be slightly scary. Besides being a canonical example of how NOT to design a website, it is where our side's black helicopter chasers hang out. It isn't quite as bad as Daily Kos and certainly not in the same level of insanity as the 911 Truth crowd, but pretty out there.
Perhaps not. But it IS true. Look, I have a hundred freaks here on
And I think the same level of non clue that leads them to have such a disfunctional website accounts for them calling censorship on YouTube incorrectly. What happened is the usual 'free inquiry and debate' typical of the modern left. THEY flagged it as 'naughty' because that is their standard response. Anyone who disagrees with a liberal is a bigot, racist, homophobe, intolerant, ignorant monster and must never be debated on the merits of what is said, critics must be silenced. Same shit, different day. Happens to me every time I post here, I'm used to it.
> Gimp now has colour management support out of the box? Congratulations, one feature that is taken for granted
> by every professional level piece of photo software...
If your needs ABSOLUTELEY can't be met by Gimp, Cinepaint or any of the other choices, then take a few freaking dollars out of your pocket and buy Crossover Office. It lists Photoshop as a supported app.
> And as for Blender, it is a wonderful program. It was the first 3D program I learned. However, it is not yet
> on par with professional packages like 3DS Max, Lightwave or Maya.
Well then run Maya then. Go look at the Autodesk website and count the Linux distributions supported. RHEL4, FC5 and Suse are offically supported platforms. Hint: Maya isn't the only option either.
> Well, welcome to the world of professional level software and the open source offerings just aren't at a
> competitive level yet.
Well welcome to the 21st Century, where professionals quit depending on Windows years ago and demanded the professional grade software keep up with the times. When damned near every pro shop in the movie business has adopted Linux to one degree or another it is a pretty safe bet the people making professional tools didn't write those high profile customers completely off.
And yes, several of the open source productivity tools ARE already professional grade. Film GIMP/Cinepaint had deep color support long before Photoshop got around to it.
> So does this mean that I can't run them under Parallels or VMWare on a Mac? That would really piss me off.
Actually the Mac is probably their primary target for this restriction. They want you to spring for Business or Ultimate. After all, you can afford a Mac, right?
Come to think about it a bit, why not? Most Mac users are limo liberals so "From each according to their ability......"
Ok, cheap shot. But again who else would be running Home in a VM other than us Linux folk and I doubt they would be all that bent about us since we already pay for a license anyway on almost all standard PC hardware we buy. You certainly wouldn't run virtualized servers on Home with the client access limits and all. Nope, this clause is aimed squarely at making it as expensive as possible for a IntelMac to boot Windows.
> And to be honest I'd encourage everyone else to do the same. I'm really not trying to troll, I just don't
> want to one day find a vulnerability or incompatibility in IceWeasel that's not in Firefox.
Two options:
1. IceWeasel IS the Moz Corp codebase with patch es to change the name and artwork. Plus patches to integrate it into Debian (current situation) plus security patches (current situation). Difference is that IceWeasel can continue to be patchesd long after Moz Corp would demand FireFox be version upgraded. I know which I'd prefer for an Enterprise deployment where stability beats new features any day of the week. IceWeasel will become the preferred name on all Free distributions but FireFox will probably be the name of the browser on RHEL and SUSE.
2. IceWeasel starts adding in new features that Moz Corp doesn't want to include, there are rumors of this being a real possibility. New ad blocking tech, etc. See XFree86 => X.org for what happens wien the traditional developers lose touch with the needs of the users. It is a major reason for preferring Open SOurce/Free Software. In this scenario IceWeasel devours Firefox (probably in combination with SeaMonkey) on all playforms including Windows.
You open with a complaint about 'horrendous bandwidth issues' and then bitch and moan about the admins attempts to free up some bandwidth. Jeez, what a bunch of babies we have in modern universities. Not many provided examples, but yea, blocking mp3 is something that I can see happening. And 10 to one the winging about "Electronic Art", especialliy considering the capitalization is really about "www.ea.com" Again, duh. You want to game you might be forced into buying your own connection for that if they are really short on bandwidth.
The days of everyone just buying more and more bandwidth are coming to an end as everyone realizes it is a dead end. Buy more and the users will simply USE more. P2P apps will react to increases in bandwidth by making you a supernode and simply laying claim to every bit per second available to them. Sooner or later, and it is looking more like sooner, the free ride ends.
What is their reasoning for this? Are they saying that the hundreds of millions of computers in the world with optical drives sporting their offical trademarked DVD logo aren't really DVD players anymore? Just who are they trying to stop with this anyway? Does anyone think mplayer/mencoder (available for Windows btw) will be stopped by this for more than a point release? What is their motive for trying to stop licensed players? Microsoft Media Player is a LICENSED user of the CSS system!
> http://mik.unpackable.org/humping_iceweasel.gif/
> Oh jeebus, thats gotta be the best one
How about instead of humping the earth/internet? have it humping a submissive little red/orange fox... flames optional.
If ya really want to mess with Moz Corp's head.
Debian really had zero options here folks. Moz Corp's new policy is simple. "Nobody releases a browser called Firefox except us or those who allow us absolute control over their releases. Period, zero exceptions." So far RedHat, SUSE and Ubuntu have agreed to cede control over ALL modifications, including prior approval of security patches to Moz Corp. Obviously Debian couldn't, wouldn't and shouldn't have done anything of the sort. Thus IceWeasel comes to Debian.
I already made the change earlier in the year. Done right FF plugins still work so no big deal.
> Interesting tactics. Saddam and Stalin would be proud.
Perhaps. But that is what a War on Terrorism would actually look like. War isn't politically correct, War isn't pretty. War is hell.
I can promise ya that in WWII anyone sporting a flag of any of the Axis powers would be a target. Describe the difference between that and flying the Hezbellah flag now? Of course now you can find that and more flying on any American university campus. But if we were seriously fighting a War on the terrorists anyoen caught doing that within the reach of the US would be in deep poo poo. Any Citizen would be held on charges of treason, any foreigner as a POW or simply shot on sight as a spy. (And perfectly in accord with the Geneva Conventions btw.)
Ok, I'm going to feed the troll. I know I'll regret it.
> Hezbollah were *elected* because they were seen as being able to protect their people and, hopefully,
> drive the ever-expanding country of Israel back behind its rightful borders.
This is why I'm wasting my time on you, this shows some hope for ya. At least you recognize Israel HAS rightful borders. Now I'm going to ask a seemingly simple question of you. Name one example where Israel expanded its borders in an unjust way?
Here is a hint. Land gained in war is just. Land gained in a war you didn't start is about as just as it gets. Especially when the countries you took it from refuses to even declare an official end to hostilities. Yes, Israel seized some defensive positions in the battles waged by it's neighbors in their various attempts to exterminate them. However look at the historical record. Egypt made peace with Israel and regained it's lost territories, including very valuable oilfields. Lebanon has now been invaded twice after launching attacks against Israel and yet the last troops are on the way out for the second time.
If Syria wants the Golan Heights back the course seems clear to me. All the need to do is sign a peace treaty and recognize Israel's right to exist and they would have their land back. Right now a formal state of War exists so Israel would be stupid to hand over such a strategicly valuable position to a sworn enemy. But history shows they will exchange land for peace.
> As I recall, that conflict came to an end through negotiation and diplomacy.
And negotiation and diplomacy became possible when state sponshorship of the terrorists ended. Negotiation became possible when both sides were actually able to engage in diplomacy, when anyone on the IRA side who suggested out loud that compromise might be a good idea didn't get a quick death.
I suspect that if we leaned REAL hard (as in cut the crap or we allow Israel to bomb your sorry asses from the 7th century all the way back to the stone age) on Syria, Iran, Saudia Arabia, etc. to cut off Hamas and Fatah cold, they too would soon come to the bargaining table in good faith and that a lasting peace would suddenly become possible where none can currently be imagined. Same for Lebanon. Same for Iraq.
> I dont recall seeing British helicopter gunships levelling Belfast.
But that method would have also worked. That price was too high for your public to accept. I'll let the historians decide if they were right. But had the Cold War dragged on another twenty years they might have changed their minds.
> I agree with you, the terrorists should be hunted down and wiped out, but it needs to be a precise and
> targeted attack. Every bit of 'collateral damage' just ramps up support for the terrorists.
Yes and no. Terrorists use civilians as human shields, but they can only get away with those tactics if the civilians at least give a grudging approval to the terrorists cause. Making them more than slightly responsible. One way to break that link between terrorists and the civilian population is to make the price of harboring them too high for them to bear. Bring the pain up enough they either expel the terrorists or turn em in.
This would be especially effective in a focused campaign to burn out the fever from certain regions. Simply make it known that certain groups are now outlawed and ANY overt support will bring terrible retribution. See a giant poster of a 'marytr' on a building? If the owner doesn't live in the building give him two hours to correct the problem or you blow the building. If the owner does live in the building, assume he approves and blow it with him inside. Big demonstration for Hamas? Blow it the hell up and don't listen to any carping about who was blown up. Bonus points if you get a camera crew, they should have read the memo about the danger inherent to being near terrorists.
"Our games are not propaganda"
Right up there with the other great lies.
"I am not a crook!"
"I did not have sex with that woman."
"I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
If ya have to say "Our games are not propaganda" odds are it IS propaganda. From the description it certainly sounds like a recruiting tool for the terrorists.
Yes, ye unwashed hordes of pro PLO slashdot kids, the terrorists. Islamic terrorists. Doesn't make s damned bit of difference if they are 'Palestinian' Islamic terrorists from either Fatah or Hamas, Lebanese Hezbolah Islamic terrorists, straight up Iranian Islamic terrorists, AlQaeda Islamic terrorists, etc. Those who use terror against civilian populations must be hunted down and exterminated, period full stop. And since the end of IRA[1] terrorism, just about all terrorism these days is Islamic terrorism.
[1] Which ended with a few years of the end of the Cold War. But those who said most of it was Soviet agitataion to destabilise the West were tinfoil hat types seeing a Red under every bed. And of course we should also forget who originally taught Arafat his trade in death and who he served.
And back on topic, we of course know a pro terrorist game would never be banned. Nay, it will probably be widely available. "Kill all the eeevil joooos!" is free speech and any attempt to censor it would just not be permitted. Now imagine the politically correct howls if a 'kill all the diaper heads' game were created. Seems some censorship is more permissable than others.
> In any case, poverty is a problem in the US.
No it isn't. Period, full stop. I know I'm about to be called the most evil insensitive person since Dick Cheney, but read it before ya mod it flamebait, k?
> I lived in the States for seven years and I remember TV ads calling for help for starving people living within the US.
It is called propaganda. Please don't feed the trolls, even the ones with expensive ad campaigns.
> I also personally saw homeless people, trying to find a shelter in the bitter cold of Chicago winter, and
> I do remember that many people died during the heat wave some years ago, because they could not afford AC
> or even transportation w/ AC.
Please don't confuse the 'homeless' with poverty. Not even the same ballpark. Most of the 'homeless' are mentally ill, not poor. Others are professionals, some are a combination of the two. I have personally witnessed 'the homeless' at an intersection holding up "will work for food" signs also. But I noticed other things, like the Burger King within visual range bearing a 6' tall banner proclaiming "NOW HIRING". Now I'll admit the 'homeless' guys were too unkempt to have much luck, but there were shelters and other programs in Dallas that would have been more than willing to help them get cleaned up and even provide suitable clothes. They make more than minimum wage panhandling though.
As for people dying in heatwaves, take a look at Europe, a nasty one can wipe out 10K in France because so few homes have A/C, even in the 'middle class'. Heat waves kill the elderly, not so much the poor. And anyone who can't find shelter from the cold in the US with our extensive shelters isn't looking.
And as for poverty, dude! The biggest problem in our 'poor' population is health problems associated with being overweight. I really wouldn't call that poverty lest it offend the truly downtrodden populations around the world who really are. Here in America our 'poor' tend to universally have air conditioning, multiple color televisions and at least one working automobile. Anyone who doesn't have that doesn't know enough to work the welfare system. Hell, they pretty much would have to actively resist the efforts of the social workers whose job it is to help them sign up for assistance. And that ignores the additional billions of good charitable work that doesn't derive from immoral government income redistribution.
> The war in Iraq is going to crap, and Iraq is on the edge of civil war -- clearly that is the fault
> of Democrats political rhetoric and gleeful politicizing of the Iraq war in the US Media....
Actually there is a fair amount of truth in that. Is the Democratic Party in league with UBL? With a couple of possible (Maxine Waters, Cynthia McKinney, ya know, the real fringe of the fringe) exceptions, no. Do most of them want Al Qaeda to win? Ah, now we get to the nuanced responses. It would be more accurate to say the deepest desire of their hearts is for Bush to lose. And if America loses it is a price they are willing to pay.
Our enemies understand all too much of these internal political dynamics, having studied their enemies well, especially our loses in Vietnam and Somolia. They realize a straight up victory on the field of battle isn't possible, which is why they are waging asymetrical warfare in the first place. No, they understand the lesson of Vietnam is that the US can't be defeated in battle, we have more things that go boom and an adequate supply of skilled and highly motivated and discplined troops to wield them. But we can be defeated HERE, by exploiting weaknesses in our political system. The Democrats were carping about quagmire in Afganistan before the first boot hit the ground. They have been doing likewise in Iraq. So the enemy understands that to win they must simply give the Democrats what they need to win the political battle here, i,e. lots of blood and gore within range of friendly news crews. Given that support the Democrats will win their fight and they win as a side effect.
Still not convinced? Thought experiment. The Democrats decide that the US winning a war once entered, regardless whether they supported it initially, is more important that using dead servicemen to club their way into a majority. For real, such that the troublemakers in Iraq knew in their most secret thoughts that we were going to be there for the duration, and would ramp up troop levels if need be. If Iran knew, for a certainty, that continuing to meddle would be suicidal, the question is: Would they still fight? Almost certainly not, had we had that sort of unity the last two years the troops would be home and Iraq would be at relative peace. Therefore is it not a fair question to ask how much American blood is on Kerry, Murtha, etc's hands?
I know all of the arguments why we can't do a 'regime change' in North Korea and I agree they are all good arguments. But this incident just highlights the simple truth that none of em are worth a damn for one fundamental reason. Nothing North Korea can do now would in a fit of rage would be worse than what he WILL do eventually. Delay is only making the eventual price for appeasing that insane dictatorship for fifty years grow higher.
We could play MAD games with the Soviets because while Evil (with the capital E) they were also mostly rational. North Korea (and most of these arguments apply to Iran equally well) isn't even on the same planet with sane. North Korea WILL eventually start another war. There isn't any doubt whether he has WMD anymore and he has the missles to deliver them. The only question is whether we wait for him to start the second Korean War at a time of his choosing or whether we do it at one of ours.
Unfortunatly Bush is getting his nuts handed to him on a daily basis, the Dems have at least one and probably two more October suprises set to roll meaning we are set for at least a month more of internal bickering and infighting. After the election the Demos will be too busy scheduling hearings to consider uniting to do anything in the best interest of the country and the Repubs will be in 'bitter recriminations over losing Congress' mode Both sides are getting ready for '08 already. Meanwhile North Korea and Iran keep building warheads.
This impending disaster could have been prevented just like WWII could have. Instead a billion will probably die. But fuck that, the Dems could sweep the Congressional elections and if they can help send the US fleeing a shattered Iraq they could bag the White House too! Nothing is more important that that.
> Okay, if they don't care about the ideology of free software, they are not going to embrace ONLY GNU software...
Not initially. But remember, they didn't know Windows at one point, now they prefer it because of experience with it and because of the network effects... so long as it is free (as in pirate). But if Microsoft actually succeeds in forcing them to buy it and they simply can't afford it then they try plan B, Linux. No they won't give a rats ass about Free vs free vs open source. But if we can get millions of people to not only try it but be forced to actually USE it long enough to get past the relearning hump it won't matter. Five years from now Firefix, OpenOffice.org and GIMP will be second nature to em and they won't want the Windows stuff anymore. And most of the more advanced users will learn to appreciate the advantages of Free just as we have.
> Do you mean that the smaller ps2 is the first time a smaller version of a console has been released?
Not sure, but I think he means this is the first time a shrink/cheaper console is going to be seen as a mid-life instead of end-of-life. Don't totally agree if that is true but a case can be made for it. PS2 is still a useful console, especially at a low enough pricepoint and most especially compared to a PS3 that is going to be priced out of reach for most users this X-Mas (not to mention short supply). PS-One sold ok the year they launched PS2 but I don't remember it being a BIG THING. If some new exciting PS2 titles ship and drive big sales of PS2 this Xmas it could really force the industry to reevaluate. For one it could depress next gen sales overall which Sony wouldn't mind a bit. After all they are only promising 400K PS3 units at launch for the US and probably won't manage that. They can sell those regardless, so depressing a mass migration to next gen this Xmas only hurts MSFT and the big N.
The big issue many people have with Xbos 360 and PS3 is that they don't offer anything new, just the same ol stuff but in HD for the few equipped to see it. If that sentiment is big enough PS2 could be the big winner. Of course Nintendo IS planning to offer something new but it is hard to predict the effects of NEW and SHINY on gamers. If it flies the big N is back in the game, if it tanks they will probably be forced from the console game and retreat to gameboys and selling franchise titles on other console ala Sega.
> It is all a matter of priorities and engineering.
Thanks for making my point. It IS a matter priorities and reliability and security aren't very high on the list in the software business. It IS a priority in every other engineering discpline, i.e. the ones where you have to be a real engineer. When people design a building there are a lot of conflicting priorities, exactly like in designing software. But reliability IS NOT NEGOTIABLE. Buildings do NOT fall down on a regular basis and when they do people are held accoutable, the problems are carefully studied, the cause determined and steps are taken across the industry to ensure that it doesn't happen again. Find me some examples where ANY of this professionalism is exhibited in the software industry?
Find me an example where a developer was punished when an obvious security flaw was released... and his manager was sacked for not making sure that code was audited prior to release. Find me a case where a major security flaw was carefully examimed and the results widely dissimated across the industry, and everyone actually read the report and ensured nothing similar existed in their codebase?
> To be perfect it must be rock-stable yet somehow incorporate the latest features and be compatible with the
> latest and greatest protocols/software/etc.
Popular myth, but largly false. Glibc needs no new features at this point. It does everything a standard C library needs. But new versions churn out on a regular basis, with bug fixes and new features intermingled. Freeze the damned thing and audit out the bugs! Then in a few years carefully plan out some new features needed to keep it competitive and code them up. Then AUDIT, AUDIT, AUDIT and TEST, TEST, TEST before merging into a new production release. This means distros would have to have the incentive from users NOT to include the betas in anything but test releases and that is where it would fall apart. A few customers would whinge for the beta to go in because they 'really really need' one feature and everybody loses.
> But overall software design is hard, and it will always be...
And so is rocket science. But rocket scientists try not to put people in a rocket until they are pretty sure the bugs are worked out. Same for airplanes. A modern Boeing airliner is far more complex than GNOME but jets don't fall from the sky on a daily basis.