> Years ago, I suspect you would have used another word instead of "progressive."
You are correct. Twenty years ago I'd have called em a liberal. Before that a socialist or communist. They change the labels just as quick as a critical mass of voters figure out the new label has the same yuck in it as the last one.
> It's an epithet coming from you and little more.
Darned right it is an epithet. And they know it, which is why this is probably the last Presidential race where any of em will use it to self describe themselves. Expect to learn a new name for em really soon now. But it will be the same old marxism/fascism with a different branding campaign.
Which does kinda lead to the real problem. Intolerance. For a progressive the philosophy seems to be "The one thing I won't tolerate is intolerance." and it quickly becomes clear that in their midset any disagreement with any of their policy positions is based on bigotry, racism or just plain stupidity because their position is so self evidently correct that no rational counterargument is possible; thus any disagreement must be concealing some hidden motive.
For disagreeing with politically correct orthodoxy on gay marriage I have managed to garner several death threats from the so called 'tolerant' progressives here on Slashdot this afternoon. Very illuminating.
Everyone who thinks I should be boiled in oil for daring to disagree should go watch South Park's "Death Camp of Tolerance" episode. Especially Mr. Garrison's rant at the end.
Um yes you did perfectly parrot the Ron Paul line on government and marriage whether you knew it or not. Seen so many Paulbots lately I ASSumed. Sorry 'bout that.
> You wouldn't happen to be an aspiring member of the FLDS, would you?
No, but they do make an almost perfect example of what I'm talking about. Dig around em a bit and you will discover their 'little problem.' They have a stupifying surplus of males. They live in America and we are at peace (generally) and have excellent medical care so their population distribution can only support their lifestyle by expelling most of their male offspring into the larger population. Put em somewhere that escape value isn't available and they would either go to war or do something else dangerous enough to soak off a lot of men. Or they would change their lifestyle.
Look at the middle east for another example. Islam allows for four because the region was marginal enough that a lot of men got killed off even before considering their warlike tendencies. This is now causing them problems in the lots of unmarried men dept. China is about to find out why killing off millions of girls was a bad idea.
> So because I have some condition which would lead to me being less fit for purpose for breeding and passing on my genes...
Either you are dense or I'm not communicating clearly enough. Lemme try again. Yes cerebral palsey is a defect. I said it, and I bet you wouldn't disagree except for the sake of an argument. As is deafness. Having one of those conditions just IS. And until they start making extreme demands on the accomidation front way beyond 'reasonable' it is easy to accept em. On the other hand the fringe nutters who believe being deaf isn't a defect and that they form a perfectly normal culture/subspecies and when they have hearing children want to have em 'fixed.' I got zero tolerance for that sort of asshattery.
Saying obvious genetic defects ARE obvious defects is a long way from eugenics. But there is only one genetic defect that it is CrimeThink to name and I resist all forms of political correctness. Note that I did mention that it doesn't appear to be an especially serious defect, other than from the pure evolutionary standpoint. And perhaps, as other in this thread have mentioned, it IS a evolutionaly Faustian Bargain, a population loses a small percentage of it's breeding members in exchange for the other often useful but eccentric mental abilities. But you don't pretend the abnormal is normal unless you are so lost in politically correct though that you can't even tell True from False, instead going for some deconstructed reality.
> This same moron will say that Polyamory is also a "mental defect"
Not at all. Whether a society allows a man to have more than one wife seems to track pretty closely with how many men tend to get killed off. Remember kids, boys and girls are NOT the same and any society who believes otherwise is suicidal. Men are expendable, breeding age females aren't and it is generally a bad idea to have a lot of unmarried females around for long going unutilized. So if a society is losing a lot of it's men that society will pretty quickly allow the survivors to marry more than one woman. On the other hand having a bunch of unattached males is destabilizing to a society so if you aren't having enough wars and such to thin the male population you want to discourage a few powerful males from scarfing up all the poon.
> Sorry, did you pathetic argument just devolve into "All gays are pedophiles"?
No. But the numbers don't lie either. The odds of a gay man being busted is far higher (on a per capita basis) than for a hetero. There is a reason NAMBLA exists and no similar hetero group is out there pushing for legalizing pedo. More significant is that NAMBLA is semi legit in the eyes of the politically correct deciders of these things. NAMBLA is seen as a 'problem' in that they repulse all normal people but they are certainly tolerated in the progressive big tent and the circles they are accepted in is wider than most will admit.
Not a head shrinker or anything but if I had to guess I'd suspect that since homosexuality is a mental abberation the odds of more than one sexual deviancy are higher if you already have one. That and homosexuals tend (note I said tend) to be a lot more active, many hyperactive sexually.
Yea, now go shuffle off to the next Ron Paul/Klan rally. Marriage isn't just a religious institution, the secular government has some interest in perpetuating itself. Marriage is about that ya see. While it is possible for a married couple to be childless that is a corner case, especially prior to the modern era. A society does need some rules governing marriage. While I'll admit the government probably does too much there, like just about everything else, saying they should be totally hands off is daft.
> Do you know how much we SAVE every year paying women only.71-.76 cents for every dollar a man makes.
Please. That stat is so busted. Women aren't the same as men, in case you are so gay you don't even take any notice of em. Besides the form factor differences, they often have different goals in life. But of the ones who do behave exactly like men in the workplace they actually tend to make MORE money, not less. By exactly like men I mean, never take maternity leave, drop out of the workforce (or go parttime) while raising small children, willing to work almost unlimited overtime, can schmooze after work, no restrictions on travel and relocation, have the same education, etc.
> So what you're saying is that they ironically contribute to the continued existence of the human gene-pool by not actually contributing to it at all?
What else did you expect from a progressive? There is no Truth other than "that which serves the Party." Facts are ok unless they are in the way in which case invent some new ones and insist they are equally valid.
By that twit's redefinition of evolution ANYTHING they like can be worked in and anything they don't can be written out, just as soon as (censored to avoid Godwin) taint vanishes enough for em to get back to eugenics. By the 'logic' in the grandparent poster's mental droolings Trig Palin could be a win for humanity and thus good by evolution's logic.... somehow. But don't expect the femisists who were outraged by his existence to get on this new theory anytime soon. Remember, if it supports the Party it is a good fact, otherwise it is a bad fact and by the magic of doublethink a fact can be both good and bad depending on the argument it is marshelled in.
> You don't have to like it, and the only acceptance that is required is that they have the same rights as you do.
Wrong. Once you legally redefine the word marriage all sorts of follow on side effects begin. Tolerance ends and acceptance on pain of government begins. Catholic Church doesn't believe it is right? Tough. Won't matter once the law changes, they will give em a full church wedding and place a child in their care through their adoption agency or the Justice Dept cornholes em. And the fun only begins in those obvious places. We will be cleaning up the messes in the laws for fifty years.
But worse, some of us know this is only the current demand. Once they get gay marriage they are going to push without interruption for group ones. And always keep your eye on NAMBLA, they really mean it when they say "Sex before eight or it's too late."
> HOW does it affect you if two guys walk on street and hold hands?
It doesn't. I can easily tolerate that. But two guys making out on the street is as bad as a normal couple making out in public. These days both happen with far too much frequency. Get a room, people.
Why do people insist that we don't allow them to redefine perfectly good words that we are bigots. Find a definition of the word 'marriage', or heck the equivilent word in any human language, older than a hundred years (or fifty) that includes two men or two women. Yes some definitions do include more thab one woman and one man.
Which of the benefits of marriage are they wanting? Really. Unless children are unvolved there ain't any that civil unions couldn't provide other than using it as a wedge to drive religion farther out of the mainstream of society. Considering who pushes both concepts seems to have a LOT of overlap in membership, is it wrong to suspect an agenda?
As far as I'm concerned people can do what they want in the privacy of their own home. And I will even go for tolerance, but only up to a point. However what is being demanded isn't tolerance but acceptance. But I refuse to say 2+2=5. Homosexuality is a mental defect, albeit a minor one in the bigger scheme of things. They should NOT be given the ability to form family units and adopt for example. And before ya mod me into oblivion consider this: We are supposed to be believers in evolution, right? If you don't like my term of 'defect' for someone who takes themselves out of the gene pool please supply a better term.
But whan really gets so tiring is this tendency of homosexuals, when they come out, is to make their mental abberation the central defining aspect of their lives, and to demand any and everyone not only tolerate it but accept it with open arms. Hell, I only TOLERATE progressives, I certainly don't ACCEPT em and since 99% of gays are also progs........ you guys made my shitlist long before my gaydar went off.
Yup, the summary was 100% content free marketing buzz. And the Faithful ate it up and shouted "Yes! Screw me harder."
Touching a word in an ebook and having it look it up. Amazing! Totally insane that nobody else did that before the geniuses at Apple invented that. Oh, every other ebook platform has done that since forever? Oh well.
Apple books display larger images! Eh? Come again? Don't they ALL allow resizing on ePub content? OF course Apple has their own formats and I guess that just gained image resizing so it was just 'invented.' Somebody dumb enough to actually buy iProducts can perhaps put me some knowledge on here.
"and at the end of each chapter is a full review with questions and pictures" Wow, the innovation here is simply amazing. No textbook, printed or electronic EVER did that before.
"If you want the answers to the questions, all you need to do is tap the question to get instant feedback." Wow, no need to actually LEARN anything, Apple does everything for you. Just feed em some sweet sweet taxpayer dollars by the dumptruck load and every one of your students can be above average.
"Apple also launched the iBooks Author app, which lets anyone easily create any kind of textbook and publish it to the iBookstore, and the new iTunes U platform, which helps teachers and students communicate better, and even send each other materials and notes created with iBooks Author"
Wow, more innovation. If you buy into their closed hardware and software ecosystem they actually allow you to create and sell content in it... for their usual percentage. Who has ever thought if doing that you might ask? Truly this alone justifies the valuation of AAPL stock as being greater than all others.. including big oil, Boeing, etc.
> People saying "I'm never going to upgrade to IPv6" come across the same as people saying "I'm never going to upgrade from IE6" - in short, idiots.
No they aren't. If you upgrade your browser from IE6 you, as in YOU personally, instantly experience benefits. Sites that were broken now work, you won't get 0wn3d, etc. But for the first billion ipv6 adopters there won't be any visible benefit at first since everything must be kept working for the majority. Once a critical mass supports ipv6 some services will begin making use of features it provides like direct NATless connections and a whole new round of the P2P wars will begin. And those stuck behind NAT, and by then that will be most people with consumer internet service, will be left out of the fun and begin agitating to get in, even to the point of being willing to fork over cash to upgrade their gateway devices. It is getting that first billion to do it with no visible gain that is the tricky part. It is the improbable step #2 in the underpants gnome bit:
Step one: Announce IPV6
Step two: A billion people spend Sagans for no apparent reason.
Step three: Profit!
That step two is almost as silly as the original blank one now isn't it?
Yes, there are whole business models predicated on the existence of NAT and overly agressive firewalling. You don't need gotomypc.com if VNC 'just works', you don't need most of what gotomeeting provides anymore if PCs are all equal peers on the Internet as it was in the beforetime. VOIP becomes dead simple and no longer requires a massive central host or the antics of Skype. Just a simple presence locator/dynamic DNS type service and folks just directly connect to each other. Same for instant messaging/sms.
But I do have to side with the doubters/deniers who don't see ipv6 widely deployed anytime soon. Can't see a way our of teh chicken and egg the problem presents. There isn't a tangible benefit to the conversion for the first movers yet they will pay the early adopter high prices. So everyone will do limited tests just to be able to check the box and wait for someone else to do the first massive deployments, take the bad PR from the horrific screwups, publish articles on the pitfalls, etc. And in another decade we will still be waiting to hit critical mass and annual articles will declare THIS year the year of ipv6... and of Linux on the Desktop.
Interesting premise you have. Your 'superior' morality gets people killed. I propose creating peace through clarity. If they know attacking us is a dumb idea they don't attack us so none of our people die, we don't have to kill them so none of them die. Nobody dies. On the other hand, we are following your theory now and fighting a politically correct limited war and there are thousands of dead and wounded on both sides. But I'm evil in your worldview. And you are both stupid AND evil in mine.
You must be new here. At least once a day slashdot does a 'slashkos' politicized story. Always from an extreme progressive viewpoint. This is today's.
In a couple of months, as the US election cycle heats up it will get much worse. Especially since the progressive gameplan is basically going to be a scorched earth campaign since they have no positive case to make.
Oh I dunno. History is full of examples. Rome comes to mind. For that matter, consider more recent history. How much terrorism did the old Soviet Union suffer? Close enough to zero as to be zero. Because everyone KNEW what sort of reaction would result. (The fact they financed the majority of terror organizations probably didn't hurt either, of course that fact is still in the memory hole....) After the breakup they get a lot of it. There was a time when few would have tried such things against the US. Now they do not fear us.
When your enemies neither respect or fear you is when you get the foolishness we currently endure. We wouldn't have to crucify ten thousand of em anytime they disrespect us or anything, just create the sure knowledge that any attack against us would ensure such a totally disproportionate response that it would be a losing game.
No, the problem is our enemies do not fear us. We obsess and worry about whether our enemies like us. We allow our enemies to put propaganda in our legacy media. They don't.
If they truly feared us they wouldn't do the crap they do. Do ya think they would behead our people, desecrate their corpses, etc. if they feared us? Would they blow up a block of downtown NYC if they feared us? If they really though we would get seriously pissed off and go Add Coulter on their primitive asses and "Bomb their cities, kill their leaders and convert them to christianity." The answer is obvious.
Exactly. A lame little site with twenty little lessons on Javascript and they have had two slashdot articles already plus a shedload of legacy media coverage just because they snuck Bloomy some preIPO stock or something. Meh.
Ok, I'll feed the troll. Because I just remembered something..... The N series wasn't preload Linux except the highest end workstations which offered RHEL as a hefty premium option. Most were FreeDOS, i.e. effectively no OS but they had to ship something to make Microsoft happy. (But there was no secret illegal tying deal, no per CPU shipped license fees, nope, no way) So basically the pitch was just No Microsoft Tax, but the price was higher. So if you knew the secret URL that usually wasn't even searchable from the Dell homepage, you could pay a premium to be able to say "Yea, but at least I didn't give Bill Gates any of my money." When the reality was almost certainly that Dell was paying the per CPU fee and simply skipping the part where they image the hard drive and apply the sticker.
The only advantage of the N series was that since they were intended to run Linux even if they didn't ship with it, you could look at them and then buy the same model number without the N and know there probably wouldn't be any hardware incompatibilities.
> Tracking device drivers and resolving conflicts? Really? Dude, 1993 called, it wants its status quo back.
Have YOU ever tried to do a clean install of Windows on a laptop? Hint, they don't even come with driver disks anymore so if the preload is lost or you want to get around the crapware or you want to do a clean load of a newer version than than was shipped you are in for an adventure. Meanwhile you can stick in a Linux disc and everything either 'just works' or you are in a world of pain far worse than Googling up a bunch of Windows device drivers. These days you usually win though.
> "unwashed masses derp derp
No, the disdain for end users comes from having done tech support. EVERYONE who has done tech support hates the end users. It just is. If you don't know that I envy you for not having to ever do it.
> The fact remains that the market has already decided that desktop Linux offers nothing they want.
Since the attempt hasn't really been made it is kinda hard to say the market has rejected it. And since the DoJ is powerless to stop Microsoft's predatory business practices (after how many attempts now?) it is hard to see the experiment being attempted in the near future.
What can I say? They don't bother learning the territory they are trying to expand into and then complain when they fail? This isn't rocket surgery. If you want to sell games on Linux I can tell you everything you need to know right here.
1. Realize you aren't on Windows anymore. Adapt or die. Boxes are out. Custom installers are out.
2. Look at the distributions you think might be viable sales targets. Look which version of SDL is available on them and pick the lowest common version. Develop your game against that. If you end up running into library problems anyway just say screw it and static link on targets giving problems.
3. Setup repositories. One in.deb format will cover Debian, Ubuntu and all the splinters from that tree. Then one in.rpm/yum format to cover the rest. Have customers install a repo, not your game, make it one click. I know this is easy to do for Yum, Adobe certainly manages to pull it off and if those idiots can and you can't you suck and should exit software development.
4. Ensure ALL of your products are in the one set of repos so once you get a user to install access to your repos they SEE all of your products. Make sure they are all playable demos without a license key.
5. Don't go nuts with the DRM. Using license keys is ok, but overly clever copy protection is suicide with the vast differences in the underlying OS you will be up against. People hellbent of stealing will steal it, so don't annoy the folks who gave you their credit card first time they upgrade their kernel or go distro hopping.
> Offering Linux costs OEMs money because MS gives the OEMs cash incentives for preloading Windows.
No. Go look at Microsoft's balance sheet. The only divisions making significant coin are the OS and Office lines and almost nobody buys those products at retail. So logic dictates the lion's share of their revenue is being extracted in OEM contracts. Which it is. The way it works is they charge such insane prices for WIndows that an OEM is totally uncompetitive. Then IF and only IF that OEM plays ball they will refund enough in co-op marketing credits for them to survive. But it has been true for some years that the Windows license is often the most expensive component in a lower end PC and is is now moving up to the midrange. It is so bad that for netbooks they have to offer Starter Edition to prevent the netbook makers from going back to Linux[1]. At those price points the normal Microsoft Tax just isn't an option.
And Intel plays exactly the same game btw. You should hear the Intel splash at the end of PC adverts as "We are being paid not to do business with AMD." The difference is that Windows is so pervasive they don't even bother insisting on a sound or logo because they prefer to maintain the image that there aren't even any competitors.
Now it is true that OEMs collect money for the crapware that gets loaded atop Windows and that does offset some of the license fees to Microsoft and that revenue isn't yet available on a Linux preload. But I really doubt the trialware/crapware truly equals the cost of a Windows license.
[1] They initially went with Linux because Vista wouldn't run on the first netbooks and XP wasn't being offered anymore except as an option with a Vista Business Edition license. Microsoft quickly realized the problem and made XP available at a special cut rate to netbook makers; at which time Linux instantly vanished and has not been seen since in the netbook space. Plus the original netbook was a small, inexpensive and netcentric device. Which customers loved but OEMs hated because of the small margins. Moving to larger, more expensive small WIndows laptops and calling them netbooks was far more profitable, even with the license fees. Observe how the 9" netbook went extinct at about the same time as the shift to Windows.
> Way to move the goalposts, buddy. No OEM has ever given Linux a chance except for the ones who did, and those don't count because it didn't work, you say?
No, what I am saying is that there was no reason to pick the Dell N Series over the same hardware preloaded with Windows since the Windows versions were often less expensive or included enticing bonus upgrades thrown in. Seriously, I'm as hardcore as a Linux user gets, been running it as my primary OS since Yggdrasil but I wouldn't have bought an N series. Not that I'd buy a Dell of my own will anyway, regardless, but it just wasn't a good deal even for a Dell. And since you had to know the secret knock to even see the things it wasn't like they were going to be attracting the sort of new to Linux user who could benefit from a preload vs just buying the less expensive Windows box and wiping it. The whole project looked like it was carefully designed to fail and 'prove' the lack of a market.
Then you get the small fry who tried to preload. All the ones I saw mass marketed (some small shops sold and still sell good stuff if you know where to look, not talking about those) were the lowest grade of wobbly cases and rinkydink power supplies mated to budget CPUs on dodgy motherboards. Then to complete the fail they wouldn't put mainstream distros on most of them, instead for the ones that look more like Windows but were pretty much useless and unsupported. So you would have still ended up nuking and reloading.
> Yeah, let's pretend that whole thing about how at first you needed a PowerPC Mac to even do anything with BeOS never happened...
Somebody needs to Google before opening their piehole. BeOS was ported to x86 and was offered for free to any PC OEM who was willing to load it, specifically including as a dual boot opton. They knew few would take the chance to sell a machine only with BeOS. This was during the Microsoft legal problems and they were doing it to prove Microsoft was exerting undue influence in that they would offer a competing product for FREE with no exclusivity requirement and that there would be zero takers. They were exactly right. And while OEMs will happily load crapware that will reduce the customer's enjoyment of their purchase for a fee it wouldn't have made a difference if Be had offered em $10 a load, the number of takers would have remained at exactly zero. Even though a dual boot with a option to cleanly remove it is all upside for the end user. That is a sign of an unseen and unwholesome influence on a market.
> There was a time when nearly everyone upgraded or installed Windows on their own...
Yes. Those people are US. But now the unwashed millions have moved to the PC to get to the Internet. They can barely manage that, installing Windows and fighting to find device drivers, resolving conflicts, etc. is as far beyond them as rebuilding the engine on their car is. Of course if they had compatible hardware, ijnstalling Ubuntu would be easy enough for em if they realized it... but they don't.
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> Years ago, I suspect you would have used another word instead of "progressive."
You are correct. Twenty years ago I'd have called em a liberal. Before that a socialist or communist. They change the labels just as quick as a critical mass of voters figure out the new label has the same yuck in it as the last one.
> It's an epithet coming from you and little more.
Darned right it is an epithet. And they know it, which is why this is probably the last Presidential race where any of em will use it to self describe themselves. Expect to learn a new name for em really soon now. But it will be the same old marxism/fascism with a different branding campaign.
Which does kinda lead to the real problem. Intolerance. For a progressive the philosophy seems to be "The one thing I won't tolerate is intolerance." and it quickly becomes clear that in their midset any disagreement with any of their policy positions is based on bigotry, racism or just plain stupidity because their position is so self evidently correct that no rational counterargument is possible; thus any disagreement must be concealing some hidden motive.
For disagreeing with politically correct orthodoxy on gay marriage I have managed to garner several death threats from the so called 'tolerant' progressives here on Slashdot this afternoon. Very illuminating.
Everyone who thinks I should be boiled in oil for daring to disagree should go watch South Park's "Death Camp of Tolerance" episode. Especially Mr. Garrison's rant at the end.
Um yes you did perfectly parrot the Ron Paul line on government and marriage whether you knew it or not. Seen so many Paulbots lately I ASSumed. Sorry 'bout that.
> You wouldn't happen to be an aspiring member of the FLDS, would you?
No, but they do make an almost perfect example of what I'm talking about. Dig around em a bit and you will discover their 'little problem.' They have a stupifying surplus of males. They live in America and we are at peace (generally) and have excellent medical care so their population distribution can only support their lifestyle by expelling most of their male offspring into the larger population. Put em somewhere that escape value isn't available and they would either go to war or do something else dangerous enough to soak off a lot of men. Or they would change their lifestyle.
Look at the middle east for another example. Islam allows for four because the region was marginal enough that a lot of men got killed off even before considering their warlike tendencies. This is now causing them problems in the lots of unmarried men dept. China is about to find out why killing off millions of girls was a bad idea.
> So because I have some condition which would lead to me being less fit for purpose for breeding and passing on my genes...
Either you are dense or I'm not communicating clearly enough. Lemme try again. Yes cerebral palsey is a defect. I said it, and I bet you wouldn't disagree except for the sake of an argument. As is deafness. Having one of those conditions just IS. And until they start making extreme demands on the accomidation front way beyond 'reasonable' it is easy to accept em. On the other hand the fringe nutters who believe being deaf isn't a defect and that they form a perfectly normal culture/subspecies and when they have hearing children want to have em 'fixed.' I got zero tolerance for that sort of asshattery.
Saying obvious genetic defects ARE obvious defects is a long way from eugenics. But there is only one genetic defect that it is CrimeThink to name and I resist all forms of political correctness. Note that I did mention that it doesn't appear to be an especially serious defect, other than from the pure evolutionary standpoint. And perhaps, as other in this thread have mentioned, it IS a evolutionaly Faustian Bargain, a population loses a small percentage of it's breeding members in exchange for the other often useful but eccentric mental abilities. But you don't pretend the abnormal is normal unless you are so lost in politically correct though that you can't even tell True from False, instead going for some deconstructed reality.
> This same moron will say that Polyamory is also a "mental defect"
Not at all. Whether a society allows a man to have more than one wife seems to track pretty closely with how many men tend to get killed off. Remember kids, boys and girls are NOT the same and any society who believes otherwise is suicidal. Men are expendable, breeding age females aren't and it is generally a bad idea to have a lot of unmarried females around for long going unutilized. So if a society is losing a lot of it's men that society will pretty quickly allow the survivors to marry more than one woman. On the other hand having a bunch of unattached males is destabilizing to a society so if you aren't having enough wars and such to thin the male population you want to discourage a few powerful males from scarfing up all the poon.
> Sorry, did you pathetic argument just devolve into "All gays are pedophiles"?
No. But the numbers don't lie either. The odds of a gay man being busted is far higher (on a per capita basis) than for a hetero. There is a reason NAMBLA exists and no similar hetero group is out there pushing for legalizing pedo. More significant is that NAMBLA is semi legit in the eyes of the politically correct deciders of these things. NAMBLA is seen as a 'problem' in that they repulse all normal people but they are certainly tolerated in the progressive big tent and the circles they are accepted in is wider than most will admit.
Not a head shrinker or anything but if I had to guess I'd suspect that since homosexuality is a mental abberation the odds of more than one sexual deviancy are higher if you already have one. That and homosexuals tend (note I said tend) to be a lot more active, many hyperactive sexually.
Yea, now go shuffle off to the next Ron Paul/Klan rally. Marriage isn't just a religious institution, the secular government has some interest in perpetuating itself. Marriage is about that ya see. While it is possible for a married couple to be childless that is a corner case, especially prior to the modern era. A society does need some rules governing marriage. While I'll admit the government probably does too much there, like just about everything else, saying they should be totally hands off is daft.
> Do you know how much we SAVE every year paying women only .71-.76 cents for every dollar a man makes.
Please. That stat is so busted. Women aren't the same as men, in case you are so gay you don't even take any notice of em. Besides the form factor differences, they often have different goals in life. But of the ones who do behave exactly like men in the workplace they actually tend to make MORE money, not less. By exactly like men I mean, never take maternity leave, drop out of the workforce (or go parttime) while raising small children, willing to work almost unlimited overtime, can schmooze after work, no restrictions on travel and relocation, have the same education, etc.
> So what you're saying is that they ironically contribute to the continued existence of the human gene-pool by not actually contributing to it at all?
What else did you expect from a progressive? There is no Truth other than "that which serves the Party." Facts are ok unless they are in the way in which case invent some new ones and insist they are equally valid.
By that twit's redefinition of evolution ANYTHING they like can be worked in and anything they don't can be written out, just as soon as (censored to avoid Godwin) taint vanishes enough for em to get back to eugenics. By the 'logic' in the grandparent poster's mental droolings Trig Palin could be a win for humanity and thus good by evolution's logic.... somehow. But don't expect the femisists who were outraged by his existence to get on this new theory anytime soon. Remember, if it supports the Party it is a good fact, otherwise it is a bad fact and by the magic of doublethink a fact can be both good and bad depending on the argument it is marshelled in.
> You don't have to like it, and the only acceptance that is required is that they have the same rights as you do.
Wrong. Once you legally redefine the word marriage all sorts of follow on side effects begin. Tolerance ends and acceptance on pain of government begins. Catholic Church doesn't believe it is right? Tough. Won't matter once the law changes, they will give em a full church wedding and place a child in their care through their adoption agency or the Justice Dept cornholes em. And the fun only begins in those obvious places. We will be cleaning up the messes in the laws for fifty years.
But worse, some of us know this is only the current demand. Once they get gay marriage they are going to push without interruption for group ones. And always keep your eye on NAMBLA, they really mean it when they say "Sex before eight or it's too late."
> HOW does it affect you if two guys walk on street and hold hands?
It doesn't. I can easily tolerate that. But two guys making out on the street is as bad as a normal couple making out in public. These days both happen with far too much frequency. Get a room, people.
Why do people insist that we don't allow them to redefine perfectly good words that we are bigots. Find a definition of the word 'marriage', or heck the equivilent word in any human language, older than a hundred years (or fifty) that includes two men or two women. Yes some definitions do include more thab one woman and one man.
Which of the benefits of marriage are they wanting? Really. Unless children are unvolved there ain't any that civil unions couldn't provide other than using it as a wedge to drive religion farther out of the mainstream of society. Considering who pushes both concepts seems to have a LOT of overlap in membership, is it wrong to suspect an agenda?
As far as I'm concerned people can do what they want in the privacy of their own home. And I will even go for tolerance, but only up to a point. However what is being demanded isn't tolerance but acceptance. But I refuse to say 2+2=5. Homosexuality is a mental defect, albeit a minor one in the bigger scheme of things. They should NOT be given the ability to form family units and adopt for example. And before ya mod me into oblivion consider this: We are supposed to be believers in evolution, right? If you don't like my term of 'defect' for someone who takes themselves out of the gene pool please supply a better term.
But whan really gets so tiring is this tendency of homosexuals, when they come out, is to make their mental abberation the central defining aspect of their lives, and to demand any and everyone not only tolerate it but accept it with open arms. Hell, I only TOLERATE progressives, I certainly don't ACCEPT em and since 99% of gays are also progs........ you guys made my shitlist long before my gaydar went off.
Yup, the summary was 100% content free marketing buzz. And the Faithful ate it up and shouted "Yes! Screw me harder."
Touching a word in an ebook and having it look it up. Amazing! Totally insane that nobody else did that before the geniuses at Apple invented that. Oh, every other ebook platform has done that since forever? Oh well.
Apple books display larger images! Eh? Come again? Don't they ALL allow resizing on ePub content? OF course Apple has their own formats and I guess that just gained image resizing so it was just 'invented.' Somebody dumb enough to actually buy iProducts can perhaps put me some knowledge on here.
"and at the end of each chapter is a full review with questions and pictures" Wow, the innovation here is simply amazing. No textbook, printed or electronic EVER did that before.
"If you want the answers to the questions, all you need to do is tap the question to get instant feedback." Wow, no need to actually LEARN anything, Apple does everything for you. Just feed em some sweet sweet taxpayer dollars by the dumptruck load and every one of your students can be above average.
"Apple also launched the iBooks Author app, which lets anyone easily create any kind of textbook and publish it to the iBookstore, and the new iTunes U platform, which helps teachers and students communicate better, and even send each other materials and notes created with iBooks Author"
Wow, more innovation. If you buy into their closed hardware and software ecosystem they actually allow you to create and sell content in it... for their usual percentage. Who has ever thought if doing that you might ask? Truly this alone justifies the valuation of AAPL stock as being greater than all others.. including big oil, Boeing, etc.
> People saying "I'm never going to upgrade to IPv6" come across the same as people saying "I'm never going to upgrade from IE6" - in short, idiots.
No they aren't. If you upgrade your browser from IE6 you, as in YOU personally, instantly experience benefits. Sites that were broken now work, you won't get 0wn3d, etc. But for the first billion ipv6 adopters there won't be any visible benefit at first since everything must be kept working for the majority. Once a critical mass supports ipv6 some services will begin making use of features it provides like direct NATless connections and a whole new round of the P2P wars will begin. And those stuck behind NAT, and by then that will be most people with consumer internet service, will be left out of the fun and begin agitating to get in, even to the point of being willing to fork over cash to upgrade their gateway devices. It is getting that first billion to do it with no visible gain that is the tricky part. It is the improbable step #2 in the underpants gnome bit:
Step one: Announce IPV6
Step two: A billion people spend Sagans for no apparent reason.
Step three: Profit!
That step two is almost as silly as the original blank one now isn't it?
Yes, there are whole business models predicated on the existence of NAT and overly agressive firewalling. You don't need gotomypc.com if VNC 'just works', you don't need most of what gotomeeting provides anymore if PCs are all equal peers on the Internet as it was in the beforetime. VOIP becomes dead simple and no longer requires a massive central host or the antics of Skype. Just a simple presence locator/dynamic DNS type service and folks just directly connect to each other. Same for instant messaging/sms.
But I do have to side with the doubters/deniers who don't see ipv6 widely deployed anytime soon. Can't see a way our of teh chicken and egg the problem presents. There isn't a tangible benefit to the conversion for the first movers yet they will pay the early adopter high prices. So everyone will do limited tests just to be able to check the box and wait for someone else to do the first massive deployments, take the bad PR from the horrific screwups, publish articles on the pitfalls, etc. And in another decade we will still be waiting to hit critical mass and annual articles will declare THIS year the year of ipv6... and of Linux on the Desktop.
Interesting premise you have. Your 'superior' morality gets people killed. I propose creating peace through clarity. If they know attacking us is a dumb idea they don't attack us so none of our people die, we don't have to kill them so none of them die. Nobody dies. On the other hand, we are following your theory now and fighting a politically correct limited war and there are thousands of dead and wounded on both sides. But I'm evil in your worldview. And you are both stupid AND evil in mine.
You must be new here. At least once a day slashdot does a 'slashkos' politicized story. Always from an extreme progressive viewpoint. This is today's.
In a couple of months, as the US election cycle heats up it will get much worse. Especially since the progressive gameplan is basically going to be a scorched earth campaign since they have no positive case to make.
Oh I dunno. History is full of examples. Rome comes to mind. For that matter, consider more recent history. How much terrorism did the old Soviet Union suffer? Close enough to zero as to be zero. Because everyone KNEW what sort of reaction would result. (The fact they financed the majority of terror organizations probably didn't hurt either, of course that fact is still in the memory hole....) After the breakup they get a lot of it. There was a time when few would have tried such things against the US. Now they do not fear us.
When your enemies neither respect or fear you is when you get the foolishness we currently endure. We wouldn't have to crucify ten thousand of em anytime they disrespect us or anything, just create the sure knowledge that any attack against us would ensure such a totally disproportionate response that it would be a losing game.
No, the problem is our enemies do not fear us. We obsess and worry about whether our enemies like us. We allow our enemies to put propaganda in our legacy media. They don't.
If they truly feared us they wouldn't do the crap they do. Do ya think they would behead our people, desecrate their corpses, etc. if they feared us? Would they blow up a block of downtown NYC if they feared us? If they really though we would get seriously pissed off and go Add Coulter on their primitive asses and "Bomb their cities, kill their leaders and convert them to christianity." The answer is obvious.
Exactly. A lame little site with twenty little lessons on Javascript and they have had two slashdot articles already plus a shedload of legacy media coverage just because they snuck Bloomy some preIPO stock or something. Meh.
Ok, I'll feed the troll. Because I just remembered something..... The N series wasn't preload Linux except the highest end workstations which offered RHEL as a hefty premium option. Most were FreeDOS, i.e. effectively no OS but they had to ship something to make Microsoft happy. (But there was no secret illegal tying deal, no per CPU shipped license fees, nope, no way) So basically the pitch was just No Microsoft Tax, but the price was higher. So if you knew the secret URL that usually wasn't even searchable from the Dell homepage, you could pay a premium to be able to say "Yea, but at least I didn't give Bill Gates any of my money." When the reality was almost certainly that Dell was paying the per CPU fee and simply skipping the part where they image the hard drive and apply the sticker.
The only advantage of the N series was that since they were intended to run Linux even if they didn't ship with it, you could look at them and then buy the same model number without the N and know there probably wouldn't be any hardware incompatibilities.
> Tracking device drivers and resolving conflicts? Really? Dude, 1993 called, it wants its status quo back.
Have YOU ever tried to do a clean install of Windows on a laptop? Hint, they don't even come with driver disks anymore so if the preload is lost or you want to get around the crapware or you want to do a clean load of a newer version than than was shipped you are in for an adventure. Meanwhile you can stick in a Linux disc and everything either 'just works' or you are in a world of pain far worse than Googling up a bunch of Windows device drivers. These days you usually win though.
> "unwashed masses derp derp
No, the disdain for end users comes from having done tech support. EVERYONE who has done tech support hates the end users. It just is. If you don't know that I envy you for not having to ever do it.
> The fact remains that the market has already decided that desktop Linux offers nothing they want.
Since the attempt hasn't really been made it is kinda hard to say the market has rejected it. And since the DoJ is powerless to stop Microsoft's predatory business practices (after how many attempts now?) it is hard to see the experiment being attempted in the near future.
What can I say? They don't bother learning the territory they are trying to expand into and then complain when they fail? This isn't rocket surgery. If you want to sell games on Linux I can tell you everything you need to know right here.
1. Realize you aren't on Windows anymore. Adapt or die. Boxes are out. Custom installers are out.
2. Look at the distributions you think might be viable sales targets. Look which version of SDL is available on them and pick the lowest common version. Develop your game against that. If you end up running into library problems anyway just say screw it and static link on targets giving problems.
3. Setup repositories. One in .deb format will cover Debian, Ubuntu and all the splinters from that tree. Then one in .rpm/yum format to cover the rest. Have customers install a repo, not your game, make it one click. I know this is easy to do for Yum, Adobe certainly manages to pull it off and if those idiots can and you can't you suck and should exit software development.
4. Ensure ALL of your products are in the one set of repos so once you get a user to install access to your repos they SEE all of your products. Make sure they are all playable demos without a license key.
5. Don't go nuts with the DRM. Using license keys is ok, but overly clever copy protection is suicide with the vast differences in the underlying OS you will be up against. People hellbent of stealing will steal it, so don't annoy the folks who gave you their credit card first time they upgrade their kernel or go distro hopping.
> Offering Linux costs OEMs money because MS gives the OEMs cash incentives for preloading Windows.
No. Go look at Microsoft's balance sheet. The only divisions making significant coin are the OS and Office lines and almost nobody buys those products at retail. So logic dictates the lion's share of their revenue is being extracted in OEM contracts. Which it is. The way it works is they charge such insane prices for WIndows that an OEM is totally uncompetitive. Then IF and only IF that OEM plays ball they will refund enough in co-op marketing credits for them to survive. But it has been true for some years that the Windows license is often the most expensive component in a lower end PC and is is now moving up to the midrange. It is so bad that for netbooks they have to offer Starter Edition to prevent the netbook makers from going back to Linux[1]. At those price points the normal Microsoft Tax just isn't an option.
And Intel plays exactly the same game btw. You should hear the Intel splash at the end of PC adverts as "We are being paid not to do business with AMD." The difference is that Windows is so pervasive they don't even bother insisting on a sound or logo because they prefer to maintain the image that there aren't even any competitors.
Now it is true that OEMs collect money for the crapware that gets loaded atop Windows and that does offset some of the license fees to Microsoft and that revenue isn't yet available on a Linux preload. But I really doubt the trialware/crapware truly equals the cost of a Windows license.
[1] They initially went with Linux because Vista wouldn't run on the first netbooks and XP wasn't being offered anymore except as an option with a Vista Business Edition license. Microsoft quickly realized the problem and made XP available at a special cut rate to netbook makers; at which time Linux instantly vanished and has not been seen since in the netbook space. Plus the original netbook was a small, inexpensive and netcentric device. Which customers loved but OEMs hated because of the small margins. Moving to larger, more expensive small WIndows laptops and calling them netbooks was far more profitable, even with the license fees. Observe how the 9" netbook went extinct at about the same time as the shift to Windows.
> Way to move the goalposts, buddy. No OEM has ever given Linux a chance except for the ones who did, and those don't count because it didn't work, you say?
No, what I am saying is that there was no reason to pick the Dell N Series over the same hardware preloaded with Windows since the Windows versions were often less expensive or included enticing bonus upgrades thrown in. Seriously, I'm as hardcore as a Linux user gets, been running it as my primary OS since Yggdrasil but I wouldn't have bought an N series. Not that I'd buy a Dell of my own will anyway, regardless, but it just wasn't a good deal even for a Dell. And since you had to know the secret knock to even see the things it wasn't like they were going to be attracting the sort of new to Linux user who could benefit from a preload vs just buying the less expensive Windows box and wiping it. The whole project looked like it was carefully designed to fail and 'prove' the lack of a market.
Then you get the small fry who tried to preload. All the ones I saw mass marketed (some small shops sold and still sell good stuff if you know where to look, not talking about those) were the lowest grade of wobbly cases and rinkydink power supplies mated to budget CPUs on dodgy motherboards. Then to complete the fail they wouldn't put mainstream distros on most of them, instead for the ones that look more like Windows but were pretty much useless and unsupported. So you would have still ended up nuking and reloading.
> Yeah, let's pretend that whole thing about how at first you needed a PowerPC Mac to even do anything with BeOS never happened...
Somebody needs to Google before opening their piehole. BeOS was ported to x86 and was offered for free to any PC OEM who was willing to load it, specifically including as a dual boot opton. They knew few would take the chance to sell a machine only with BeOS. This was during the Microsoft legal problems and they were doing it to prove Microsoft was exerting undue influence in that they would offer a competing product for FREE with no exclusivity requirement and that there would be zero takers. They were exactly right. And while OEMs will happily load crapware that will reduce the customer's enjoyment of their purchase for a fee it wouldn't have made a difference if Be had offered em $10 a load, the number of takers would have remained at exactly zero. Even though a dual boot with a option to cleanly remove it is all upside for the end user. That is a sign of an unseen and unwholesome influence on a market.
> There was a time when nearly everyone upgraded or installed Windows on their own...
Yes. Those people are US. But now the unwashed millions have moved to the PC to get to the Internet. They can barely manage that, installing Windows and fighting to find device drivers, resolving conflicts, etc. is as far beyond them as rebuilding the engine on their car is. Of course if they had compatible hardware, ijnstalling Ubuntu would be easy enough for em if they realized it... but they don't.