I wonder how hard it would be to write, say, FreeBASIC wrappers for the perl API. Most people coming from Access are not going to be very experienced with or keen on perl, but they are familiar with VBA, and FreeBASIC would be at least remotely familiar to them.
Well... um... you can't mix Perl and FreeBASIC, as far as I know. Nor do I really want to, and I'm certainly not rewriting the whole thing in Basic... certainly not...
You're correct that a lot of Access users want to continue using some form of Basic. But this is only because they don't know better. I think they should leave basic behind, and gravitate to a more powerful language such as Perl - obviously this is why I chose Perl myself. Perl has an incredible developer community, a gazillion libraries on cpan, and is rock solid on pretty much any platform. FreeBASIC is an interesting project to scratch a questionable itch, but I don't really consider it a target for my software. Sorry - no offense or anything.
What I plan on doing instead is offering 'macro' type functions, like Access does, so that people can hook things together in the GUI without doing any coding.
I use python almost exclusively myself and would love to have libraries like yours for developing rapid database GUI apps.
I had a quick look at Python, and got turned off by the anal 'thou must indent thy code THUS!' idea, and decided Perl was the way to go. Also, the Python GTK bindings seem to lag slightly behind the Perl ones. I suppose this isn't so much an issue now that things have stabalised somewhat, but when I first started, there was a LOT of functionality that was just landing that I wanted to take advantage of immediately ( such as using treemodels in combos ), and it seemed to make sense to go with Perl for this reason as well. Plus I already had a little experience with Perl from a long time back. But anyway, it shouldn't be too hard to port everything to Python ( apart from PDF::ReportWriter... which relies heavily on PDF::API2 - maybe you could use Cairo? ). All my code is heavily documented and stuff, not like most of the Perl I come across.
remember a while back a Qt-based app that used python for RAD database development. It was commercial I think.
Rekall. Yeah I tried it out ( see the 'why' link on my webpage ). For starters, it used Python ( see above ). Secondly, it used QT, which wasn't open-source ( for commercial developers ) at the time, and also I've never liked QT ( personal taste ). But more importantly, they seemed to be going off in too many directions at once, but nothing really worked well. They seemed to start with the GUI, and build stuff underneath it. I went the other way around, and completed the libraries, and now I'm getting to the GUI.
It's written in Perl, and uses Gtk2 for the GUI. It's open-source and cross-platform, and soon will get a GUI object builder ( click the 'future' link for some screenshots ).
It doesn't current have DBIx::Class support ( as I've never used DBIx::Class ), but I'm open to using it as long as it doesn't break backwards compatibility. I'll investigate.
I've been working on my own Access-killer for a couple of years now. It's a suite of open-source, cross-platform Perl libraries, using Gtk2 for the GUI. The old website ( complete ) is at: http://entropy.homelinux.org/axis/. I'm right now working on a revamped website ( incomplete, but with up-to-date download links and new screenshots ) is at: http://entropy.homelinux.org/axis_new/.
There are 3 main components: a form object, a datasheet object, and a reporting module ( which exports to PDF via PDF::API2 ). I'm also working on a GUI object builder that exports XML for all 3 objects. Click on the 'future' link to see some screenshots of it in action. Note that I'm also looking for developers to help out, and maybe create a commercial project out of it ( I'm as-yet undecided whether to do this or not ).
I've had a number of large, complex production systems built on these libraries in use for about 2 years now. Please try it out, comment, report bugs, help out...:)
What are you saying, that free is better than usable?
Don't try to tell me what I'm saying. I use X11 all day, every day, and I find it remarkably usable. I also find it free. If you're too retarded to learn something different from what you've currently got, no-one is forcing your hand. Use whatever damned software you can afford, but don't try to assert that just because you paid ridiculous amount of money for rehashed open-source software that it's superior to what we all use for free. We don't buy it, in more ways than one.
Or that I should scrap my entire operating system and all my programs and spend my time which obviously is worth nothing to load up linux and blender to use it.
Frankly I don't give a toss what you do. But for the record, the last Ubuntu linux installation took me a grand total of 30 minutes, and unless you're costing your time at $500 per hour, this works out cheaper by FAR than buying OSX, and this doesn't even take into account the time it takes to install OSX, or the time it takes to load X11 on top of OSX, or even the time it takes for you to rock up to Slashdot and dribble on about how superior you think your OS is, which seems to be mandatory for OSX users.
This sounds like the exact attitude others have complained about with this program's GUI, the Gimp GUI, problems with linux in general.
To me it sounds like whinging. Quit whinging and put your brain into gear. I have absolutely no usability issues with the Gimp or Blender. And yes I do actually use both. I made the 'India' Enlightenment-0.17 animated background, at http://www.get-e.org with Blender, for example. What have you done?
Telling everyday users "you are idiots and doing things all wrong, and if you don't like how it is go and make it yourself" is not how you win users.
That's the key misconception here... I'm not trying to win over the lowest common denominator. You are. I'm happy if only those with some brains and motivation adopt Linux. I'm perfectly happy with others using Windows, OSX, or whatever the hell they want. Do what you want, for Christ's sake.
But, hey, you are an elite linux user. You wouldn't want normal people interfering with you bragging rights.
Up yours too, buddy. In my experience, it's always the OSX users who are the worst at this. Linux users do have a certain pride, but not undeserving, I might add.
and of course the OSX version runs under X11, so that adds another level of unusability.
That's a pretty stupid thing to say really. It has to run under some graphics system, and the developers chose X11, because it's free and universally available, and also because it's the default graphics system on Linux, which is their chosen OS. What's stupid, though, is Apple taking X, ripping out enough stuff to make it incompatible, and forcing all their customers to run 2 graphics systems when they really only need one. Anyway, if you want to run apps that run on X11 and run well, you wouldn't choose an Apple, would you? You've buy cheap commodity hardware and install Linux. You should think yourself lucky that blender runs at all, and if you don't like it, go find a native OSX app, and quit whining. It's very unbecoming.
I think we have all heard about this one, and the ECMA guys already know that they have to provide more information about this.
Oh come ON! Microsoft hasn't even fulfilled its legal obligations that arose from the anti-trust case with Netscape.. Now you say that ECMA 'are aware' that more information is required... or translated, EMCA know that Microsoft haven't documented things sufficiently, and realise that they have no intention of doing so... at least not in a way that's available to open-source developers. They'll do something cute like slap a RAND license on it, or 'accidentally' drop the specs off next time they visit Novell, and then sue everyone else who uses it.
Anyone who doubts any of the above clearly hasn't been paying attention to how Microsoft actually acts. We can all hypothesize about how they might act, but really, the best way to do so is to project their past & present trajectory into the future, as I have above.
Dude, you might be a talented programmer, but then I believe so is your hero Billy G, and do you know how much credibility he has around here?
If you had no idea what a democracy was, you wouldn't miss it. And if you never experienced it, you wouldn't miss it. It is like having a craving for a food.
That's a very childish arguement. How do you explain the fight for democracy, or to improve things generally? If people are as patently stupid as you suggest, then we'd have no progress at all. But in fact people DO understand how society is run, whether it's by them or not, and they have opinions on the matter.
Both of your points demonstrate the pathetic self-fascination of Yanks.
Firstly, when I said 'we' let China host the games, I was talking about the west in general, not the US.
Secondly, Americans don't honour anyone, because they're fucking Yanks with different spelling to us fucking Australians. You see, here in Australia, that's how we spell honour. Get over it.
In conclusion, the US is not the centre of the world.
Would you caret to give us a proof for your statement?
Firstly, have a quick think about things. People like being in control of their life, right? No-one wants to be a slave or anything like that, do they? Show me ONE society on Earth that actually WANTS to be enslaved, as individuals. If you look at the history of imperialism, it's also the history of national liberation movements. Examples are aplenty, but a couple are: Ireland, India, even the fucking US of A. This translates naturally from the national level to the personal level. People also want to have a say in how society is run. To suggest otherwise - to suggest that people don't want a say in how the society they live in operates - is absolutely absurd. It's so clearly against human nature that I am astonished that I hear it so often - but then I remember the racist propaganda we're drowning in, and I understand a little...
Seriously, all people want a say in how society is run. If you don't believe me, ask people. Travel and ask people. You'll be pleasantly surprised.
As for the bit about stability, it all depends on your perspective. I think people are willing to endure some turbulence in the name of achieving real democracy.
But in e.g. China and Russia, a lot of people support nondemocratic measures taken by the government when they are perceived to be for the sake of stability and prosperity of the nation.
Yes, these are different forms of capitalism: State Capitalism, and they are typically even worse than Western capitalist formations in terms of democracy. It's important to remember that in Western countries, people are falling over themselves at this very moment to support anti-democratic measures such as the Patriot Act and the rest of the 'war on terror', and all in the name of stability, prosperity, security, etc. Unfortunately, with the media being almost exclusively corporate-controlled, it's easy to get the population to rally behind some very stupid and dangerous stuff.
That's SO far from the truth that I don't know whether you're lying or incredibly deceived. The US army is at breaking point, and the situation is spiraling out of control in both occupations.
The problem is, that to do it effectivly, we don't get the governments we want put in place. We end up with more of the same to no end.
There's no such thing as a democracy under military occupation. The UN even says so.
In the later case, it would be very likely that other countries would come to their aid if more then a minority of citizens wanted the democracy back.
That statement carries the absurd assumption that some people don't want democracy. EVERYONE wants democracy, apart from the small group of people who currently have control, of course. But the majority of the population will ALWAYS support democracy AND self-determination.
If we chucked all that out the window and just went for securing the countries, it would be done by now.
You're obviously under the false impression that our aim there is to create a beautiful, blossoming democracy! It's not. It's to grab resources and set up military bases. Democracy is a word that the ruling class throw around. It's meaning in this context is, "A group of individuals of considerable power who will do our bidding". And they can't even get THAT right. But the main goal is to secure Afghanistan and Iraq, and is slipping further away from us each day.
I feel my nation is being sold wholesale to foreign interests that do not even share our ideology.
Ah, but they DO! The only difference is the way that they get there. The ruling class in the US play the 2-party-politics game, and swamp the population in propaganda to fool people into thinking they're in a democracy. In China, they've simply done away with this formality. The end effect is the same: complete lack of democracy, eroding workers' rights, real wages declining, and the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.
If you want to see the US ruling class' real stance on democracy, suggest to them that we get rid of politicians, and instead vote directly for POLICIES. Then they turn purple, and rage about the tyranny of the majority
Exactly. Not only do we turn a blind eye to their human rights abuses, but we honour them by letting them host the Olympic Games! Whenever anyone tells you that the US is acting in the name of 'freedom', remind them to follow the money trail.
Sanctions? You've GOT to be fucking kidding, man! The US economy is based largely on importing cheap Chinese goods. The US is at the mercy of the Chinese government, who could at any time start selling BILLIONS of their US dollars and driving the currency into the dirt. The US does NOT have the upper hand here.
The military option is even more laughable. The US can't even secure Afghanistan or Iraq, 2 countries crippled by DECADES of war and sanctions. There's no way in hell the US has any prospect of even sneezing in the general direction of Bejing without their prior consent.
Which is more immoral, keeping others from taking the fruits of your work without your consent or forcing someone at gun point to give up the fruits of their labor?
No need to get hysterical about people being robbed at gunpoint... this is a feature of capitalism, not socialism. Under capitalism, the workers create all the wealth, and are paid a bare minimum - just enough to feed themselves and their families. So NOW, the fruits of our labour is being stolen from us. What socialists aim to do is put an end to that, and to give ordinary people equal voting rights in deciding how society's wealth is distributed. Your repeated contention that people will be robbed of the 'fruits of their labour' is ridiculous and unfounded. It's no good just repeating what you hear, even if you've heard it many times before. You have to think about what you're saying, and if it doesn't add up, then stop saying it.
Collective democratic planning = Animal Farm
I see no reason why. Simply saying it's so doesn't make it so. You need to think, sir, THINK!
imilarly, you never saw Lenin waiting for bread like the rest of his "equal" countrymen.
Lenin lived a very modest life. Considering he was the backbone of the Bolshevik party, it wouldn't exactly make sense for him to starve, now would it? Also keep in mind that Lenin tried desperately to pull Russia out of WWI. It was the war, and not any malice on the part of Lenin or the Bolsheviks that led to mass starvation. It's also important to point out that Lenin had no material property to speak of, no business, no capital. This is a far cry from the capitalist rulers of the world. You seem to be blind to this. Why?
As for your utopia never lacking water, well... I sure hope you never have a drought
The problem with lack of water isn't lack of rain, it's lack of planning. For example, here in Australia we are ( finally ) starting to address the issue, by building solar-powered desalination plants. What's so hard about that? THINK! I also noted that heavy industry is a major consumer of drinking water, when they could be using recycled water. THINK! You see, the problem is that the 'market' doesn't provide these solutions, because there is no monetary gain for the ruling class in these solutions. They'd rather see water restrictions, and have idiots like you claim that the 'reds under the bed' want to steal YOUR water. But only socialists consistently argue for a planned economy, part of which would be planning how drinking water is supplied to people who need to drink, and recycled water is supplied to heavy industry who don't require pristine quality water. Only socialists argue for zero-environmental-impact solutions such as solar-powered desalinations plants ( we're very proud of this achievement in NSW ). THINK!
1) Yep... that's how we knew for sure that he had WMD.
Right. So why should anyone trust that there's been a change of heart, and that you're now against WOMD? Hint: no-one does. Also, you didn't know for sure that he had WOMD, because as we now know, he DIDN'T. One of the other things Howard ( the Iraq war veteran, not the Australian terrorist ) was saying was that LONG before he reached Baghdad, he was told to remove all his chemical-weapons-resistant suits, his gas masks, etc, because the army knew there were no WOMD, and the suits were impairing the operation of soldiers. There is overwhelming evidence that the WOMD lies were known to be lies before the initial invasions. Get over it. You were lied to, and you believed it.
2) Really? Care to provide documentation saying everything was destroyed because nobody else can.
No I don't, actually. You see, you can't prove a negative. Have you ever considered the i
And where does the state get the water from? Oh yeah, forced coercion of your neighbor.
Hardly. A society run properly won't run out of water, so your point here is abstract in the extreme. But if you want to push it, then yes, resources would be shared - by force if necessary.
Humans are inherently self-centered. They will protect their family first before they aid the town on the other side of the county, the city in another state and the country on another continent. We aren't ants and the flaw of communism and similar models is they expect us to not be human. Again, you are letting your own anti-capitalism bias cloud your judgment.
If you stop foaming at the mouth long enough to listen to yourself, you'll realise that it's YOU letting your bias cloud your judgement. No-one other than YOU is insisting that socialism is about treating people like ants. It's about collective, democratic planning. Nothing more, nothing less. Your holier-than-thou capitalism is about greed, profit and exploitation. People, when given the choice, will take democracy over exploitation any day.
It's gotta be a conservative, right?
You are showing your lack of political knowledge here. Racism is a tool of the conservatives. All radicals oppose racism. When did you come down again?
Fact is, violence solves problems.
So you beat your boyfriend then?
Talking is fine and dandy... but agreements are meaningless if they don't have an enforcement mechanism. Why are UN resolutions a total farce? Because they have no means of enforcing them.
Because the UN is merely a tool of the imperialist powers, and can't manage to come to any reasonable resolution on anything. It's totally irrelevant, as Dubya says. It's only there to collect the hopes of people who realise there's a worldwide problem, and need some grand body to look up to and say, "The UN will do something".
Under your little utopian land, what do you do when the neighbor still refuses to share his water? Oh yeah, send the goons to go take it from him.
Are you a teenager, or have you carried your arrogance with you into your twenties? Firstly, socialism has very little to do with the utopian movement. You do realise that, don't you? And secondly, it's not 'little'. Thirdly, we've already come to realise that a lack of water ( and all other necessities of life ) is a feature of capitalism, so I really don't see what point you're trying to get to here. In 'my little utopian land', as you so bitterly put it, there would be no lack of water, because we'd have far better planning, and water wouldn't be wasted to extraordinary degrees in industrial madness, such as using drinking water for cooling power plants, separating ores in mines, etc. Industry would be using recycled water. I wouldn't give a toss about what water my neighbour is using, because I'd already have what I need. Is this beyond your comprehension?
Iraq was in violation of its terms of surrender with the United States
That's absolute bullshit. Saddam was supported by the US prior to the 1st invasion, and also after the 1st invasion. If the US was so upset about this so-called 'violation', then they should have stopped supporting him. His actions were never the responsibility of the rest of Iraq; in fact the only people responsible for Saddams actions were Saddam, and the West. So when you take this violation of Saddam's terms of surrender, and use it as justification for invading Iraq and killing a million or so civilians, you are supporting a war crime.
As for Iraq fighting us, the leadership and supply chain isn't Iraqi, it's mostly Iranian.
This is a meaningless complaint. Firstly, they're all Persian. Iraq and Iran are We
There are a LOT of books and other information out there describing the advances made in medicine because of warfare. If you think we'd be where we are without those sacrifices, you'd be very mistaken.
I'm still not convinced. You're saying that some medical technology was developed in a wartime environment. I'm not disputing that. BUT, war is an incredibly inefficient way to develop medical technology. You're far better off skipping the war, and directly investing in health care and medical research. So when you say we owe a debt to war for the medical technology we have, I still argue that we'd have BETTER medical technology if the money we spent on war were put to better use.
Check your history... Everyone has an ancestor who has been involved in war.
Wars of old were over some pretty stupid things, yes. But these are subsiding, and being replaced by imperialist wars. Forget ancient mythology. Check out the past century. My farm dries up while my neighbor has more water than he can use but refuses to share. It is capitalism for me to go steal his water to keep my family from dying? Good example. Under capitalism, your neighbor is quite within their rights to refuse to share 'their' water with you. You starve, or you fight. That's all that capitalism offers. Under socialism, there is no such thing as 'your' water or 'their' water, as water is a shared natural resource. If you need water, you get it from the state, and the state may then go and get it from your neighbor.
Some people will kill each other still just because of the color of their skin.
Not without being stirred up by some ultra-conservative arse-wipe first though. It's important to keep that in mind.
Very few people actually like and support full scale war... but, it is the one thing guaranteed to provide a solution to a problem.
On the contrary, it's the only thing guaranteed to NOT provide a solution. You see, there's no peace without justice. And justice is not distributed by the strongest army - it's achieved by human negotiation and compassion. I deeply pity you if you see war as the only solution to the world's problems. I also hope you never get in a position of any power ( karma ensures that people who abuse power in one life very rarely get access to power again ).
and if someone refuses diplomacy and keeps attacking you, you have no choice but to force them into surrender
Sure. Now apply that to every war the US has engaged in, EVER. Start with the most recent large-scale effort: Iraq. Exactly who attacked who? You're arguing ( and I agree with you here ) that Iraq has the right to use whatever force necessary to prevent the US from continuing to attack them.
Now... since you seem to be in the camp that the US shouldn't stick its nose into other people's business, do you also agree we have no business going into Darfur, had no business in Kosovo, Somalia, etc?
Precisely! I remember a documentary on Kosovo after the US 'liberation'. A girl was saying that her friends and family were all dead, her village destroyed, and her life in ruins - all thanks to the US carpet-bombing Kosovo. She was asked if she was grateful to the US for 'liberating' her, and she laughed, and said, "Absolutely not. I'm glad that the fighting is finally over, but if the US ever again wants to liberate us with their bombs, please tell them - we don't want or need their help". There are 3 key points to issues like this:
1) When you have a war between 2 sides, and then a HUGE power comes in with OVERWHELMING force, nothing of the original CAUSE of the war is addressed. The powerful force wipes all sides off the battlefield indiscriminately, takes what it can of the natural resources, and sets up a puppet government. I need not remind you of how
You do realize that emergency medicine (ie, that trauma center at your local hospital), plastic/reconstructive surgery, prosthetics, etc all have their roots in military need, don't you? If your kid is born with a facial deformity, be glad that somewhere along the line, soldiers had their face rebuilt after taking severe wounds. If you get stabbed in the park, be glad that the military devised a method of mobilizing, classifying, and treating wounds. If you get in an accident and completely shatter your foot beyond repair, be glad the military invested the R&D in amputation techniques and how to build a better lower leg.
That all sounds very good, but is completely wrong.
Doctors, when faced with medical problems, strive to find solutions. Our initial knowledge of anatomy came from doctors disecting deceased people, to see how they tick. Some... a VERY small percentage... of this knowledge came from the battlefield. An overwhelming majority did NOT come from the battlefield, but from universities.
Also, lets be realistic, as long as people are human, they will disagree and disagreements will eventually spill over into war of some kind
Not at all. Capitalism, and in particular Imperialism is driving all the wars on the planet, in one form or another. Even the stupid tribal wars in Africa can be traced back to a bunch of capitalists who want to profit from selling arms and generally sticking their nose ( and capital ) where's it's not wanted. The Middle East is of course the most obvious example of imperialist meddling leading to wars. Individuals - even large groups of them - have no interest in war. People want to solve their problems in constructive ways, that benefit everyone. It's the capitalists who use massive armies and WOMD to enforce their will.
The military is about killing, occupying and controlling. It's got nothing to do with health care.
Look at the way the US government STILL treats Vietnam veterans who were exposed to US chemical weapons. Or previous / current Iraq veterans who've been exposed to chemical and nuclear weapons. They categorically deny the existence of the problem - deny use of the weapons, and deny the problems that they've cause. In light of this, I don't see any medical applications being pursued, apart from possibly giving business leaders and stooges like Dubya limbs back after someone bombs them off ( not that I'm recommending anyone commit such an atrocity ).
i have to admit whenever i read posts about china i am always ammused how EVERYONE seems to list "corruption" as a chinese trait. Good thing when you search google for somethign like "US corruption" or "canadian corruption" no results are returned because they are corruption free countries. I dont think i've ever read a 'kickback' scheme in northamarica.. like say enron, conrad black, etc.
Sure. Corruption is everywhere. But it's the norm in China. In Western countries ( and trust me, I'm certainly no apologist for capitalism ), at least you have the pretense of competition and fair play. In China, it ( corruption ) is honestly on another level.
Next, the population of china is not particularly relevent? are you serious? here i thought it was one of the fastest growing economies in the world.
Fast growing for who? For the Chinese businesses, or for ordinay people? What's more relevent are things like GDP per capita and average disposable income. In these, China is waaaaaaaay behind. It doesn't matter how fast the 'economy' is growing if you have an uneducated population who can't afford the basics of life, and certainly can't afford computers. To suggest they can't is absolutely ridiculous. You should try going to China and working in a sweat shop, and see how long it takes you to buy yourself a computer, and then Windows, and then Office. In fact you'll never even get past the part where you buy the computer.
The US has a HUGE trade deficit to them, it if continues, the US will be spending a large percentage of its GDP simply serviceing their chinese obligations. Isnt that why they constantly are pushing the chinese to appreciate the RMB?
Sure. But this has nothing to do with the affordability of computers for the 2 billion or so Chinese.
Sure, they are paid MUCH less, but let me ask you this, if somehow one zero could be knocked off everything, your salary, the cost of milk, how would it change thigns?
IE, you make 50,000, and milk costs 3.89 now.. but somehow you find yourself earning 5,000 and milk costs 0.38 isnt it the same thing? did your life change in any way?
You're confusing local products that you buy at the market with imports. You can't simply knock of a couple of zeros in the case of imports, because the producers of those products won't agree to sell you these items at 1/100 the normal price.
They are paid less, and things cost less. a decent meal in china can run you about 5 Yuan (maybe 80 cents).
Yes. LOCAL produce only. This wouldn't apply to, say, New Zealand trout. You see, New Zealanders aren't interested in receiving 5 cents per trout. They want a couple of dollars, otherwise it wouldn't make sense for them to sell, would it?
You are also off base on your "less then $1 a day", i found when i was there 6 months ago the average 'unskilled' jobs were in the $50/month range.
If you honestly did visit China 6 months ago ( which I doubt somehow ), then your travels must have included one location: the tourist areas of Beijing. What you should have done is leave your tour guide at the ritsy hotel, and traveled through the countryside, where a vast majority of the population live. But let's pretend for a minute that the 'average unskilled' job does actually pay $50 per month ( which it most certainly doesn't ). That's only slightly higher than $1 per day anyway. It's less than $2 per day. Frankly, it won't get you much further. You certainly won't be buying any computers with it. The extra $1.66 per day will probably go into buying more more for your starving family... not buying a computer. In fact, if you did manage to buy a computer, you'd look pretty stupid, because most Chinese don't have electricity.
One waitress willling to discuss this told us she earns the equiv
That's what I was thinking. Clearly Linus has some technical skills, but he also seems to be developing somewhat of a personality complex. It would be good if someone could get through to him that it is still inside the realms of possibility that he may one day be wrong. This particular case seems to have been decided on personal issues rather than technical ones. Linus refuses to acknowledge what others are saying in defense of CK, and instead throwing around some worn-out, patronising anecdotes that don't actually fit the situation.
A couple of simple facts blows this story completely out of the water:
- The Chinese government doesn't dictate to 2 billion Chinese what OS and software they use. The government itself is the size of a large corporation, so this is basically the same as a large corporation 'switching' to Windows & Office. But as noted, many of them were already using Windows & Office and not paying for it. So it's not even a 'switch'... it's just that they've started paying.
- The population of China is not particularly relevant, as most Chinese work for less than $1 per day, and can't exactly afford a computer. If they could, I can't imagine them running out to buy Windows and Office. They'll either pirate Windows and Office, or use Linux.
- Corruption in China's state capitalist government is well documented, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were some kick-backs to key government ministers over this decision. Obviously the open-source community can't compete with this, and shouldn't take it too hard that Microsoft 'won' this deal ( which again, is basically an agreement to start paying for what they already use ).
- Red Flag linux is not being systematically wiped off the face of the planet.
The author of this story needs a 'Sanity Check' of his own. The battle for the desktop is going on with home users, not governments, and particularly not the Chinese government.
Basically people who want to write non-GPL software oppose GPL3 ( and also people pushing DRM ). For everyone else ( people writing GPL software, and users who don't write software ), GPL3 is a good step towards protecting us from the oncoming legal onslaught from the commercial software world, headed my Microsoft.
Iraq doesn't fit, sorry, since it was not conquered for religious reasons
That's debatable.
Firstly, there is a big difference between the justification used, and the real motivations for the war. Sure, the motivation was non-religious, but there was a hell of a lot of Islamaphobia that preceded ( and proceded ) it.
Secondly, it doesn't matter what the motivation was anyway. What matters is that the US is a fundamentalist Christian country - much more so that Iraq was a fundamentalist Muslim society ( in fact Saddam was fiercely secular ). Sure, the other 49.5% of you can jump up and down and claim that it isn't so, but the problem is that the Christian conservatives are far more entrenched than you'd like to believe. If the US is not Christian, then what is it? And don't tell me it's a secular society... officially, sure, but in reality, sorry, it's not. Look at your abominable election campaigns and tell me that the US is not a fundamentalist society!
On a side note, the 1,000,000 figure is pretty much pulled out of nowhere - last I checked, the most pessimistic estimates were ~100,000.
That's because the US make a point of not only ignoring Iraqi casualties, but actively hiding them. The standard way of dealing with this is to take the official figure - and the media seem to be pushing 100,000 - and multiply it by 10. People can disagree with this, but then... the US isn't interested in Iraqi casualties, so their figures are by their own admissions wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
Well
You're correct that a lot of Access users want to continue using some form of Basic. But this is only because they don't know better. I think they should leave basic behind, and gravitate to a more powerful language such as Perl - obviously this is why I chose Perl myself. Perl has an incredible developer community, a gazillion libraries on cpan, and is rock solid on pretty much any platform. FreeBASIC is an interesting project to scratch a questionable itch, but I don't really consider it a target for my software. Sorry - no offense or anything.
What I plan on doing instead is offering 'macro' type functions, like Access does, so that people can hook things together in the GUI without doing any coding.
I had a quick look at Python, and got turned off by the anal 'thou must indent thy code THUS!' idea, and decided Perl was the way to go. Also, the Python GTK bindings seem to lag slightly behind the Perl ones. I suppose this isn't so much an issue now that things have stabalised somewhat, but when I first started, there was a LOT of functionality that was just landing that I wanted to take advantage of immediately ( such as using treemodels in combos ), and it seemed to make sense to go with Perl for this reason as well. Plus I already had a little experience with Perl from a long time back. But anyway, it shouldn't be too hard to port everything to Python ( apart from PDF::ReportWriter
Rekall. Yeah I tried it out ( see the 'why' link on my webpage ). For starters, it used Python ( see above ). Secondly, it used QT, which wasn't open-source ( for commercial developers ) at the time, and also I've never liked QT ( personal taste ). But more importantly, they seemed to be going off in too many directions at once, but nothing really worked well . They seemed to start with the GUI, and build stuff underneath it. I went the other way around, and completed the libraries, and now I'm getting to the GUI.
Try my project as as Access replacement:
http://entropy.homelinux.org/. I'm also working on a new website ( with updated screenshots and also snapshots of the libraries ), at: http://entropy.homelinux.org/axis_new.
It's written in Perl, and uses Gtk2 for the GUI. It's open-source and cross-platform, and soon will get a GUI object builder ( click the 'future' link for some screenshots ).
It doesn't current have DBIx::Class support ( as I've never used DBIx::Class ), but I'm open to using it as long as it doesn't break backwards compatibility. I'll investigate.
I've been working on my own Access-killer for a couple of years now. It's a suite of open-source, cross-platform Perl libraries, using Gtk2 for the GUI. The old website ( complete ) is at: http://entropy.homelinux.org/axis/. I'm right now working on a revamped website ( incomplete, but with up-to-date download links and new screenshots ) is at: http://entropy.homelinux.org/axis_new/.
... :)
There are 3 main components: a form object, a datasheet object, and a reporting module ( which exports to PDF via PDF::API2 ). I'm also working on a GUI object builder that exports XML for all 3 objects. Click on the 'future' link to see some screenshots of it in action. Note that I'm also looking for developers to help out, and maybe create a commercial project out of it ( I'm as-yet undecided whether to do this or not ).
I've had a number of large, complex production systems built on these libraries in use for about 2 years now. Please try it out, comment, report bugs, help out
Sure
Don't try to tell me what I'm saying. I use X11 all day, every day, and I find it remarkably usable. I also find it free. If you're too retarded to learn something different from what you've currently got, no-one is forcing your hand. Use whatever damned software you can afford, but don't try to assert that just because you paid ridiculous amount of money for rehashed open-source software that it's superior to what we all use for free. We don't buy it, in more ways than one.
Frankly I don't give a toss what you do. But for the record, the last Ubuntu linux installation took me a grand total of 30 minutes, and unless you're costing your time at $500 per hour, this works out cheaper by FAR than buying OSX, and this doesn't even take into account the time it takes to install OSX, or the time it takes to load X11 on top of OSX, or even the time it takes for you to rock up to Slashdot and dribble on about how superior you think your OS is, which seems to be mandatory for OSX users.
To me it sounds like whinging. Quit whinging and put your brain into gear. I have absolutely no usability issues with the Gimp or Blender. And yes I do actually use both. I made the 'India' Enlightenment-0.17 animated background, at http://www.get-e.org with Blender, for example. What have you done?
That's the key misconception here
Up yours too, buddy. In my experience, it's always the OSX users who are the worst at this. Linux users do have a certain pride, but not undeserving, I might add.
That's a pretty stupid thing to say really. It has to run under some graphics system, and the developers chose X11, because it's free and universally available, and also because it's the default graphics system on Linux, which is their chosen OS. What's stupid, though, is Apple taking X, ripping out enough stuff to make it incompatible, and forcing all their customers to run 2 graphics systems when they really only need one. Anyway, if you want to run apps that run on X11 and run well, you wouldn't choose an Apple, would you? You've buy cheap commodity hardware and install Linux. You should think yourself lucky that blender runs at all, and if you don't like it, go find a native OSX app, and quit whining. It's very unbecoming.
Oh come ON! Microsoft hasn't even fulfilled its legal obligations that arose from the anti-trust case with Netscape.. Now you say that ECMA 'are aware' that more information is required
Anyone who doubts any of the above clearly hasn't been paying attention to how Microsoft actually acts . We can all hypothesize about how they might act, but really, the best way to do so is to project their past & present trajectory into the future, as I have above.
Dude, you might be a talented programmer, but then I believe so is your hero Billy G, and do you know how much credibility he has around here?
That's a very childish arguement. How do you explain the fight for democracy, or to improve things generally? If people are as patently stupid as you suggest, then we'd have no progress at all. But in fact people DO understand how society is run, whether it's by them or not, and they have opinions on the matter.
And I yours.
It's hard to tell whether you're being childish, irrational, or arrogant. Which one is it?
Both of your points demonstrate the pathetic self-fascination of Yanks.
Firstly, when I said 'we' let China host the games, I was talking about the west in general, not the US.
Secondly, Americans don't honour anyone, because they're fucking Yanks with different spelling to us fucking Australians. You see, here in Australia, that's how we spell honour. Get over it.
In conclusion, the US is not the centre of the world.
Firstly, have a quick think about things. People like being in control of their life, right? No-one wants to be a slave or anything like that, do they? Show me ONE society on Earth that actually WANTS to be enslaved, as individuals. If you look at the history of imperialism, it's also the history of national liberation movements. Examples are aplenty, but a couple are: Ireland, India, even the fucking US of A. This translates naturally from the national level to the personal level. People also want to have a say in how society is run. To suggest otherwise - to suggest that people don't want a say in how the society they live in operates - is absolutely absurd. It's so clearly against human nature that I am astonished that I hear it so often - but then I remember the racist propaganda we're drowning in, and I understand a little
Seriously, all people want a say in how society is run. If you don't believe me, ask people. Travel and ask people. You'll be pleasantly surprised.
As for the bit about stability, it all depends on your perspective. I think people are willing to endure some turbulence in the name of achieving real democracy.
Yes, these are different forms of capitalism: State Capitalism, and they are typically even worse than Western capitalist formations in terms of democracy. It's important to remember that in Western countries, people are falling over themselves at this very moment to support anti-democratic measures such as the Patriot Act and the rest of the 'war on terror', and all in the name of stability, prosperity, security, etc. Unfortunately, with the media being almost exclusively corporate-controlled, it's easy to get the population to rally behind some very stupid and dangerous stuff.
That's SO far from the truth that I don't know whether you're lying or incredibly deceived. The US army is at breaking point, and the situation is spiraling out of control in both occupations.
There's no such thing as a democracy under military occupation. The UN even says so.
That statement carries the absurd assumption that some people don't want democracy. EVERYONE wants democracy, apart from the small group of people who currently have control, of course. But the majority of the population will ALWAYS support democracy AND self-determination.
You're obviously under the false impression that our aim there is to create a beautiful, blossoming democracy! It's not. It's to grab resources and set up military bases. Democracy is a word that the ruling class throw around. It's meaning in this context is, "A group of individuals of considerable power who will do our bidding". And they can't even get THAT right. But the main goal is to secure Afghanistan and Iraq, and is slipping further away from us each day.
Ah, but they DO! The only difference is the way that they get there. The ruling class in the US play the 2-party-politics game, and swamp the population in propaganda to fool people into thinking they're in a democracy. In China, they've simply done away with this formality. The end effect is the same: complete lack of democracy, eroding workers' rights, real wages declining, and the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.
If you want to see the US ruling class' real stance on democracy, suggest to them that we get rid of politicians, and instead vote directly for POLICIES. Then they turn purple, and rage about the tyranny of the majority
Exactly. Not only do we turn a blind eye to their human rights abuses, but we honour them by letting them host the Olympic Games! Whenever anyone tells you that the US is acting in the name of 'freedom', remind them to follow the money trail.
Sanctions? You've GOT to be fucking kidding, man! The US economy is based largely on importing cheap Chinese goods. The US is at the mercy of the Chinese government, who could at any time start selling BILLIONS of their US dollars and driving the currency into the dirt. The US does NOT have the upper hand here.
The military option is even more laughable. The US can't even secure Afghanistan or Iraq, 2 countries crippled by DECADES of war and sanctions. There's no way in hell the US has any prospect of even sneezing in the general direction of Bejing without their prior consent.
No need to get hysterical about people being robbed at gunpoint ... this is a feature of capitalism, not socialism. Under capitalism, the workers create all the wealth, and are paid a bare minimum - just enough to feed themselves and their families. So NOW, the fruits of our labour is being stolen from us. What socialists aim to do is put an end to that, and to give ordinary people equal voting rights in deciding how society's wealth is distributed. Your repeated contention that people will be robbed of the 'fruits of their labour' is ridiculous and unfounded. It's no good just repeating what you hear, even if you've heard it many times before. You have to think about what you're saying, and if it doesn't add up, then stop saying it.
I see no reason why. Simply saying it's so doesn't make it so. You need to think, sir, THINK!
Lenin lived a very modest life. Considering he was the backbone of the Bolshevik party, it wouldn't exactly make sense for him to starve, now would it? Also keep in mind that Lenin tried desperately to pull Russia out of WWI. It was the war, and not any malice on the part of Lenin or the Bolsheviks that led to mass starvation. It's also important to point out that Lenin had no material property to speak of, no business, no capital . This is a far cry from the capitalist rulers of the world. You seem to be blind to this. Why?
The problem with lack of water isn't lack of rain, it's lack of planning. For example, here in Australia we are ( finally ) starting to address the issue, by building solar-powered desalination plants. What's so hard about that? THINK! I also noted that heavy industry is a major consumer of drinking water, when they could be using recycled water. THINK! You see, the problem is that the 'market' doesn't provide these solutions, because there is no monetary gain for the ruling class in these solutions. They'd rather see water restrictions, and have idiots like you claim that the 'reds under the bed' want to steal YOUR water. But only socialists consistently argue for a planned economy, part of which would be planning how drinking water is supplied to people who need to drink, and recycled water is supplied to heavy industry who don't require pristine quality water. Only socialists argue for zero-environmental-impact solutions such as solar-powered desalinations plants ( we're very proud of this achievement in NSW ). THINK!
Right. So why should anyone trust that there's been a change of heart, and that you're now against WOMD? Hint: no-one does. Also, you didn't know for sure that he had WOMD, because as we now know, he DIDN'T. One of the other things Howard ( the Iraq war veteran, not the Australian terrorist ) was saying was that LONG before he reached Baghdad, he was told to remove all his chemical-weapons-resistant suits, his gas masks, etc, because the army knew there were no WOMD, and the suits were impairing the operation of soldiers. There is overwhelming evidence that the WOMD lies were known to be lies before the initial invasions. Get over it. You were lied to, and you believed it.
No I don't, actually. You see, you can't prove a negative. Have you ever considered the i
Hardly. A society run properly won't run out of water, so your point here is abstract in the extreme. But if you want to push it, then yes, resources would be shared - by force if necessary.
If you stop foaming at the mouth long enough to listen to yourself, you'll realise that it's YOU letting your bias cloud your judgement. No-one other than YOU is insisting that socialism is about treating people like ants. It's about collective, democratic planning. Nothing more, nothing less. Your holier-than-thou capitalism is about greed, profit and exploitation. People, when given the choice, will take democracy over exploitation any day.
You are showing your lack of political knowledge here. Racism is a tool of the conservatives. All radicals oppose racism. When did you come down again?
So you beat your boyfriend then?
Because the UN is merely a tool of the imperialist powers, and can't manage to come to any reasonable resolution on anything. It's totally irrelevant, as Dubya says. It's only there to collect the hopes of people who realise there's a worldwide problem, and need some grand body to look up to and say, "The UN will do something".
Are you a teenager, or have you carried your arrogance with you into your twenties? Firstly, socialism has very little to do with the utopian movement. You do realise that, don't you? And secondly, it's not 'little'. Thirdly, we've already come to realise that a lack of water ( and all other necessities of life ) is a feature of capitalism, so I really don't see what point you're trying to get to here. In 'my little utopian land', as you so bitterly put it, there would be no lack of water, because we'd have far better planning, and water wouldn't be wasted to extraordinary degrees in industrial madness, such as using drinking water for cooling power plants, separating ores in mines, etc. Industry would be using recycled water. I wouldn't give a toss about what water my neighbour is using, because I'd already have what I need. Is this beyond your comprehension?
That's absolute bullshit. Saddam was supported by the US prior to the 1st invasion, and also after the 1st invasion. If the US was so upset about this so-called 'violation', then they should have stopped supporting him. His actions were never the responsibility of the rest of Iraq; in fact the only people responsible for Saddams actions were Saddam, and the West. So when you take this violation of Saddam's terms of surrender, and use it as justification for invading Iraq and killing a million or so civilians, you are supporting a war crime.
This is a meaningless complaint. Firstly, they're all Persian. Iraq and Iran are We
I'm still not convinced. You're saying that some medical technology was developed in a wartime environment. I'm not disputing that. BUT, war is an incredibly inefficient way to develop medical technology. You're far better off skipping the war, and directly investing in health care and medical research. So when you say we owe a debt to war for the medical technology we have, I still argue that we'd have BETTER medical technology if the money we spent on war were put to better use.
Wars of old were over some pretty stupid things, yes. But these are subsiding, and being replaced by imperialist wars. Forget ancient mythology. Check out the past century.
My farm dries up while my neighbor has more water than he can use but refuses to share. It is capitalism for me to go steal his water to keep my family from dying?
Good example. Under capitalism, your neighbor is quite within their rights to refuse to share 'their' water with you. You starve, or you fight. That's all that capitalism offers. Under socialism, there is no such thing as 'your' water or 'their' water, as water is a shared natural resource. If you need water, you get it from the state, and the state may then go and get it from your neighbor.
Not without being stirred up by some ultra-conservative arse-wipe first though. It's important to keep that in mind.
On the contrary, it's the only thing guaranteed to NOT provide a solution. You see, there's no peace without justice. And justice is not distributed by the strongest army - it's achieved by human negotiation and compassion. I deeply pity you if you see war as the only solution to the world's problems. I also hope you never get in a position of any power ( karma ensures that people who abuse power in one life very rarely get access to power again ).
Sure. Now apply that to every war the US has engaged in, EVER. Start with the most recent large-scale effort: Iraq. Exactly who attacked who? You're arguing ( and I agree with you here ) that Iraq has the right to use whatever force necessary to prevent the US from continuing to attack them.
Precisely! I remember a documentary on Kosovo after the US 'liberation'. A girl was saying that her friends and family were all dead, her village destroyed, and her life in ruins - all thanks to the US carpet-bombing Kosovo. She was asked if she was grateful to the US for 'liberating' her, and she laughed, and said, "Absolutely not. I'm glad that the fighting is finally over, but if the US ever again wants to liberate us with their bombs, please tell them - we don't want or need their help". There are 3 key points to issues like this:
1) When you have a war between 2 sides, and then a HUGE power comes in with OVERWHELMING force, nothing of the original CAUSE of the war is addressed. The powerful force wipes all sides off the battlefield indiscriminately, takes what it can of the natural resources, and sets up a puppet government. I need not remind you of how
That all sounds very good, but is completely wrong.
Doctors, when faced with medical problems, strive to find solutions. Our initial knowledge of anatomy came from doctors disecting deceased people, to see how they tick. Some
Not at all. Capitalism, and in particular Imperialism is driving all the wars on the planet, in one form or another. Even the stupid tribal wars in Africa can be traced back to a bunch of capitalists who want to profit from selling arms and generally sticking their nose ( and capital ) where's it's not wanted. The Middle East is of course the most obvious example of imperialist meddling leading to wars. Individuals - even large groups of them - have no interest in war. People want to solve their problems in constructive ways, that benefit everyone. It's the capitalists who use massive armies and WOMD to enforce their will.
The military is about killing, occupying and controlling. It's got nothing to do with health care.
Look at the way the US government STILL treats Vietnam veterans who were exposed to US chemical weapons. Or previous / current Iraq veterans who've been exposed to chemical and nuclear weapons. They categorically deny the existence of the problem - deny use of the weapons, and deny the problems that they've cause. In light of this, I don't see any medical applications being pursued, apart from possibly giving business leaders and stooges like Dubya limbs back after someone bombs them off ( not that I'm recommending anyone commit such an atrocity ).
Sure. Corruption is everywhere. But it's the norm in China. In Western countries ( and trust me, I'm certainly no apologist for capitalism ), at least you have the pretense of competition and fair play. In China, it ( corruption ) is honestly on another level.
Fast growing for who? For the Chinese businesses, or for ordinay people? What's more relevent are things like GDP per capita and average disposable income. In these, China is waaaaaaaay behind. It doesn't matter how fast the 'economy' is growing if you have an uneducated population who can't afford the basics of life, and certainly can't afford computers. To suggest they can't is absolutely ridiculous. You should try going to China and working in a sweat shop, and see how long it takes you to buy yourself a computer, and then Windows, and then Office. In fact you'll never even get past the part where you buy the computer.
Sure. But this has nothing to do with the affordability of computers for the 2 billion or so Chinese.
You're confusing local products that you buy at the market with imports. You can't simply knock of a couple of zeros in the case of imports, because the producers of those products won't agree to sell you these items at 1/100 the normal price.
Yes. LOCAL produce only. This wouldn't apply to, say, New Zealand trout. You see, New Zealanders aren't interested in receiving 5 cents per trout. They want a couple of dollars, otherwise it wouldn't make sense for them to sell, would it?
If you honestly did visit China 6 months ago ( which I doubt somehow ), then your travels must have included one location: the tourist areas of Beijing. What you should have done is leave your tour guide at the ritsy hotel, and traveled through the countryside, where a vast majority of the population live. But let's pretend for a minute that the 'average unskilled' job does actually pay $50 per month ( which it most certainly doesn't ). That's only slightly higher than $1 per day anyway. It's less than $2 per day. Frankly, it won't get you much further. You certainly won't be buying any computers with it. The extra $1.66 per day will probably go into buying more more for your starving family ... not buying a computer. In fact, if you did manage to buy a computer, you'd look pretty stupid, because most Chinese don't have electricity.
That's what I was thinking. Clearly Linus has some technical skills, but he also seems to be developing somewhat of a personality complex. It would be good if someone could get through to him that it is still inside the realms of possibility that he may one day be wrong. This particular case seems to have been decided on personal issues rather than technical ones. Linus refuses to acknowledge what others are saying in defense of CK, and instead throwing around some worn-out, patronising anecdotes that don't actually fit the situation.
I wonder if this is how Gates operates.
A couple of simple facts blows this story completely out of the water:
... it's just that they've started paying.
- The Chinese government doesn't dictate to 2 billion Chinese what OS and software they use. The government itself is the size of a large corporation, so this is basically the same as a large corporation 'switching' to Windows & Office. But as noted, many of them were already using Windows & Office and not paying for it. So it's not even a 'switch'
- The population of China is not particularly relevant, as most Chinese work for less than $1 per day, and can't exactly afford a computer. If they could, I can't imagine them running out to buy Windows and Office. They'll either pirate Windows and Office, or use Linux.
- Corruption in China's state capitalist government is well documented, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were some kick-backs to key government ministers over this decision. Obviously the open-source community can't compete with this, and shouldn't take it too hard that Microsoft 'won' this deal ( which again, is basically an agreement to start paying for what they already use ).
- Red Flag linux is not being systematically wiped off the face of the planet.
The author of this story needs a 'Sanity Check' of his own. The battle for the desktop is going on with home users, not governments, and particularly not the Chinese government.
Basically people who want to write non-GPL software oppose GPL3 ( and also people pushing DRM ). For everyone else ( people writing GPL software, and users who don't write software ), GPL3 is a good step towards protecting us from the oncoming legal onslaught from the commercial software world, headed my Microsoft.
That's debatable.
Firstly, there is a big difference between the justification used, and the real motivations for the war. Sure, the motivation was non-religious, but there was a hell of a lot of Islamaphobia that preceded ( and proceded ) it.
Secondly, it doesn't matter what the motivation was anyway. What matters is that the US is a fundamentalist Christian country - much more so that Iraq was a fundamentalist Muslim society ( in fact Saddam was fiercely secular ). Sure, the other 49.5% of you can jump up and down and claim that it isn't so, but the problem is that the Christian conservatives are far more entrenched than you'd like to believe. If the US is not Christian, then what is it? And don't tell me it's a secular society
That's because the US make a point of not only ignoring Iraqi casualties, but actively hiding them. The standard way of dealing with this is to take the official figure - and the media seem to be pushing 100,000 - and multiply it by 10. People can disagree with this, but then