Re:Giving away StarOffice != giving away Windows
on
Sun To Sell Linux PCs
·
· Score: 1
Spot on.
Below you can enjoy an email a friend of mine recieved from WTT in response to an email he sent mischievously asking if they had been hacked, after they printed an article that was slightly-less-than-mouthfoaming about Open Source:
From: bob adkins
To: XXX@XXX.XXX
Unlike the web sites who claim to support "free" speech (and free software) we
practice it. If you have an article that is worthy of publication, we have no
problems in printing it. Your slant on the subject does not determine if we
accept for publication. Mr. Read's article is an exception. We do not want
"review" type articles of any type. It just is not what the website is about.
Perhaps that will change in the future. SQUEAK was Mr. Read's first attempt and
the article was well written, so we printed it.
Worldtechtribune does not have a position against open source. We DO have a
position against GNU "freedom" copyleft system. It is communist. It was copied
directly from Soviet law. It's American "author" admits that he is a Communist,
and we believe that kind of "freedom" is not free at all.
US Copyright law allows any author to give his product away for no charge. But,
it protects him from anyone else using it without his permission. GNU does not.
GNU is simply not necessary. It is exist only to provide a way for a group of
programmers, who admit they are communists, to spread their beliefs under thecamouflage of "freedom". It has nothing to do with software at all.
I do Smalltalk, too. Nearly everything I have written has been given away for
free. Some was not. It was my choice and US law protected that choice. US
copyright law also allows for "open source". I have been a Linux lover since
1994, but I have also been a Linux hater since 1994. It is not perfect, and in
some respects, not even very good. When it is "good enough" the market will make
it the primary choice of users.
Thanks for reading WTT. We practice freedom here.
As you can see they support free speech, however speech that is contrary to the party line is not free, and therefore not allowed. Thus Spake the Ministry of Truth.
Excuse me while I affix my tinfoil hat that allows me to see the filthy Commie plots to taint our Vital Bodily Fluids...
>and immediately assume that because the device produces more electricity than it consumes, it's producing more power than it consumes, and these two statements are not the same. An a-bomb produces more heat than the starting chemical explosion adds to it, by changing matter into energy.
Excuse my ignorace, then. But I was under the impression that the fissionable material in an atom bomb was, in fact, consumed. Therefore it would seem the bomb produces no more than was put into it.
Perhaps the brevity of my statement caused confusion. Let me rephrase: this device produces no more output of any form than is put into it in any form.
Unless, of course, in sophomore physics they explained how one gets something from nothing.
Use them all and it's on like a pot of grits. PGP4pine is a script that Pine calls (when it sees the PGP encryption header in the mail) PGP4pine then uses GnuPGP (or actually, any of many other encryption programs) to decrypt the message. Everything happens seemlessly (you can even set it up so that PGP4Pine automatically grabs public keys from sig files). Best thing is as far as Pine knows its just text, so the message gets stored encrypted, it's only decrypted when you want to read it or quote it.
Of course, this assumes you want to use PGP while sending and recieveing messages too (and why wouldn't you..)
For farts and giggles, one of the programmers brings in his old (working!) Apple ][. For fun we decide to see how it stacks up to a modern system. Having no system software for it, we use good-ole BASIC and write a simple 20 goto 10 program that counts up by one digit. Write the same program on one of the production servers, it takes only a few seconds to reach the billions. How long will it take the Apple? Sloooowly it progresses.. finally we just let it run and go to lunch.
After returing to lunch we hear the redneck.. er.. boss wants to know who has brought in an unauthorized computer and is "hacking" with it. Great belly laughs are had by all.. until we realize this is the idiot who signs our paychecks.
Sometime later some joker fires up the same Apple with a similar program, this time printing the message "Number of Yahoo Websites Cracked: $I".. just in time for some new investors who are visiting the office to see it in all its glory.
If I may play devil's advocate a bit.. if we all abhor cheating so much, why do we continually reward it?
My experience has shown that fully 90% of all popular movies and TV shows are blatant ripoffs of the other 10%. In the professional world, haven't we all seen the 'go-getters' get where they were going only by stealing the ideas, credit, and work of those below them?
I live in a city where the highest ranking officer of the mass transit department was caught lying about her experience on her resume. It seems she fabricated _all_ of her 'mass transit' experience. What happened? She apologized. And got to keep her job. Do you think a fry cook at McDonalds would get the same treatment? He'd be lucky if he wasn't prosecuted.
We spend a lot of time teaching our children that cheating in school is wrong, presumably because "that kind of behavior won't cut it in the 'real world'", but who really believes that? If that were true, Microsoft would have folded when they presented IBM with an operating system written by someone else.
It's a backstabbing, dog-eat-dog world, why can't we just live with it?
I couldn't agree more, I think we're all overdue for an IT, or at least programmer's union.
I'm no longer in programming, but sysadmin, and I know of a number of ways a union might benefit us poor sods.. like for instance when your boss tries to force you to violate sysadmin ethics.. would be nice if you had the force of a union to back you up.
I went to the site thinking it was an article, but it turns out it's just and advertisement for Adcops.com.
You remember Adcops? The guys that say:
Adcops: "Give me $100 and I'll tell you how to avoid being scammed"
Sucker: "Uh, ok, here you go"
Adcops: "You weren't paying attention"
I just got done watching the whole movie and as a failed dot-com refugee I must say it was damn, damn funny, and absolutely cathartic. That little section on Pets.com cut right to the meat of the matter. Now my friends and I have something besides Office Space to watch when we sit around and shoot the breeze about the bad old days of free bagels.
You've inspired me to dig out my digital camcorder again and have some fun. Thanks Mike!
God bless you, if I had mod I'd mod you up.
Never thought I'd see the day the Marines started using high-tech "mace". Mace is for cowards who don't think their own lives are worth using lethal force to defend. And frankly, they're probably right.
I will, of course, be considered a fanatical Texan.:)
I must agree. All this 'non-lethal' magic silver bullet crap will suddenly become extremely lethal when someone in the crowd has a heart condition, epilepsy, or is on the brink of a stroke.
I also use Junkbuster to block the actual html file that the popup window tries to load. Doesn't stop it from popping up, but at least you don't see whatever big, smelly, floppy uncircumsized dong they were trying to smack you in the face with.
Well after reading this article I'm quite certain they should outlaw all encryption. Then all criminals will stop using it and start turning themselves in to the police.
After that, we need to work on legislation that will allow cops to take the pee out of a swimming pool.
I go to a State University, and as the students on here may know, you can't swing your wedding tackle in a circle on a college campus nowadays without having it cut off by papercuts from credit card applications dumped all around campus.
These applications are deposited illegally on campus property (everything distributed on campus must be approved by the dean of students) but the custodial staff (being state employees) don't work very hard, and leave them lying around. I however, like to make a point of collecting every one I can find on campus (for instance, my entire bookbag is full right now, I estimate about 1500 are in there) and dump them in the mailbox blank.. feels soo good..
I agree, all these need to go the way of the dodo.. I still can't see why the (US) civilian world still sticks with the 12/12 hour clock. I grew up as a military brat, and have many times enjoyed the look of slack-jawed confusion on a person's face when they ask me the time and I tell them it's 1700 hrs..
But what's so great about the metric system? It's based on the size of the Earth, which is great, provided _everyone_ lives on the Earth.. which means in another 2000 years or so it'll be just as provincial and outdated as the Standard system is today..
What about a new measurement, that works on something _truely_ universal.. like say, the decay of a subatomic particle.. as I recall the decay of a free neutron takes somewhere around 11 minutes, rain or shine.. use that as the cornerstone of your time measurement, and use the distance light travels in that amount of time as your measure of distance.. (breaking it up by 10s of course)
But then again, even that would only be relevant provided you live in this universe..
'People do not go around shouting "Convert or Die!"'
Oh, that's right, I forgot, the Inquisition never happened.. nor did the Crusades.. or the Spanish conquering of South America.. damn history books always lying..
Slashdot Mirror
Done:
Brookstone.com
Of course, for less bling you could get exactly the same effect:
Loudandclear.com
Below you can enjoy an email a friend of mine recieved from WTT in response to an email he sent mischievously asking if they had been hacked, after they printed an article that was slightly-less-than-mouthfoaming about Open Source:
As you can see they support free speech, however speech that is contrary to the party line is not free, and therefore not allowed. Thus Spake the Ministry of Truth.
Excuse me while I affix my tinfoil hat that allows me to see the filthy Commie plots to taint our Vital Bodily Fluids...
My God!! It's a COOKBOOK!!
It's a COOKBOOK!!
(c'mon, you know someone had to go there)
>and immediately assume that because the device produces more electricity than it consumes, it's producing more power than it consumes, and these two statements are not the same. An a-bomb produces more heat than the starting chemical explosion adds to it, by changing matter into energy.
Excuse my ignorace, then. But I was under the impression that the fissionable material in an atom bomb was, in fact, consumed. Therefore it would seem the bomb produces no more than was put into it.
Perhaps the brevity of my statement caused confusion. Let me rephrase: this device produces no more output of any form than is put into it in any form.
Unless, of course, in sophomore physics they explained how one gets something from nothing.
> I think it is a hoax, but I don't KNOW that it is a hoax
I KNOW it's a hoax. I took freshman physics.
Use them all and it's on like a pot of grits. PGP4pine is a script that Pine calls (when it sees the PGP encryption header in the mail) PGP4pine then uses GnuPGP (or actually, any of many other encryption programs) to decrypt the message. Everything happens seemlessly (you can even set it up so that PGP4Pine automatically grabs public keys from sig files). Best thing is as far as Pine knows its just text, so the message gets stored encrypted, it's only decrypted when you want to read it or quote it.
Of course, this assumes you want to use PGP while sending and recieveing messages too (and why wouldn't you..)
Crap.. can someone post the real path to the file for those of us who don't have the plugin?
If you're scrambling for news, turn off images in your browser, it'll help cut down traffic..
Small web company with sleazy redneck management.
For farts and giggles, one of the programmers brings in his old (working!) Apple ][. For fun we decide to see how it stacks up to a modern system. Having no system software for it, we use good-ole BASIC and write a simple 20 goto 10 program that counts up by one digit. Write the same program on one of the production servers, it takes only a few seconds to reach the billions. How long will it take the Apple? Sloooowly it progresses.. finally we just let it run and go to lunch.
After returing to lunch we hear the redneck.. er.. boss wants to know who has brought in an unauthorized computer and is "hacking" with it. Great belly laughs are had by all.. until we realize this is the idiot who signs our paychecks.
Sometime later some joker fires up the same Apple with a similar program, this time printing the message "Number of Yahoo Websites Cracked: $I".. just in time for some new investors who are visiting the office to see it in all its glory.
You can guess what happened to the company.
So, which spamhaus do you work for?
Gee, I love having a huge sweaty, smelly uncut member of a browser-exploding popup ad thrust in my face.
.block file.
Hello hightrafficads.com, and congratulations on getting your whole fscking website included in my junkbuster
That is perhaps the most long-winded example of Sour Grapes I've ever seen.
I especially liked the picture at the beginning, where they put that wearable HUD on that rotten potato covered with silly puddy..
Oh my god.. that's not a potato..
If I may play devil's advocate a bit.. if we all abhor cheating so much, why do we continually reward it?
My experience has shown that fully 90% of all popular movies and TV shows are blatant ripoffs of the other 10%. In the professional world, haven't we all seen the 'go-getters' get where they were going only by stealing the ideas, credit, and work of those below them?
I live in a city where the highest ranking officer of the mass transit department was caught lying about her experience on her resume. It seems she fabricated _all_ of her 'mass transit' experience. What happened? She apologized. And got to keep her job. Do you think a fry cook at McDonalds would get the same treatment? He'd be lucky if he wasn't prosecuted.
We spend a lot of time teaching our children that cheating in school is wrong, presumably because "that kind of behavior won't cut it in the 'real world'", but who really believes that? If that were true, Microsoft would have folded when they presented IBM with an operating system written by someone else.
It's a backstabbing, dog-eat-dog world, why can't we just live with it?
I couldn't agree more, I think we're all overdue for an IT, or at least programmer's union.
I'm no longer in programming, but sysadmin, and I know of a number of ways a union might benefit us poor sods.. like for instance when your boss tries to force you to violate sysadmin ethics.. would be nice if you had the force of a union to back you up.
I went to the site thinking it was an article, but it turns out it's just and advertisement for Adcops.com.
You remember Adcops? The guys that say:
Adcops: "Give me $100 and I'll tell you how to avoid being scammed"
Sucker: "Uh, ok, here you go"
Adcops: "You weren't paying attention"
Oh, that is one sweet scam.
I just got done watching the whole movie and as a failed dot-com refugee I must say it was damn, damn funny, and absolutely cathartic. That little section on Pets.com cut right to the meat of the matter. Now my friends and I have something besides Office Space to watch when we sit around and shoot the breeze about the bad old days of free bagels.
You've inspired me to dig out my digital camcorder again and have some fun. Thanks Mike!
God bless you, if I had mod I'd mod you up.
:)
Never thought I'd see the day the Marines started using high-tech "mace". Mace is for cowards who don't think their own lives are worth using lethal force to defend. And frankly, they're probably right.
I will, of course, be considered a fanatical Texan.
I must agree. All this 'non-lethal' magic silver bullet crap will suddenly become extremely lethal when someone in the crowd has a heart condition, epilepsy, or is on the brink of a stroke.
I also use Junkbuster to block the actual html file that the popup window tries to load. Doesn't stop it from popping up, but at least you don't see whatever big, smelly, floppy uncircumsized dong they were trying to smack you in the face with.
Well after reading this article I'm quite certain they should outlaw all encryption. Then all criminals will stop using it and start turning themselves in to the police.
After that, we need to work on legislation that will allow cops to take the pee out of a swimming pool.
I go to a State University, and as the students on here may know, you can't swing your wedding tackle in a circle on a college campus nowadays without having it cut off by papercuts from credit card applications dumped all around campus.
These applications are deposited illegally on campus property (everything distributed on campus must be approved by the dean of students) but the custodial staff (being state employees) don't work very hard, and leave them lying around. I however, like to make a point of collecting every one I can find on campus (for instance, my entire bookbag is full right now, I estimate about 1500 are in there) and dump them in the mailbox blank.. feels soo good..
I agree, all these need to go the way of the dodo.. I still can't see why the (US) civilian world still sticks with the 12/12 hour clock. I grew up as a military brat, and have many times enjoyed the look of slack-jawed confusion on a person's face when they ask me the time and I tell them it's 1700 hrs..
But what's so great about the metric system? It's based on the size of the Earth, which is great, provided _everyone_ lives on the Earth.. which means in another 2000 years or so it'll be just as provincial and outdated as the Standard system is today..
What about a new measurement, that works on something _truely_ universal.. like say, the decay of a subatomic particle.. as I recall the decay of a free neutron takes somewhere around 11 minutes, rain or shine.. use that as the cornerstone of your time measurement, and use the distance light travels in that amount of time as your measure of distance.. (breaking it up by 10s of course)
But then again, even that would only be relevant provided you live in this universe..
Ad Hominem. I think this is where I came in.
'People do not go around shouting "Convert or Die!"'
Oh, that's right, I forgot, the Inquisition never happened.. nor did the Crusades.. or the Spanish conquering of South America.. damn history books always lying..