Add to that, it's not just the act of "placing cookies" that's at question here: it's placing tracking cookies specifically designed to not be removable. No web site has the right to put something on my system without my knowledge that I cannot remove; it's a form of violation.
Context is important, though. You can always make an argument that you're being whiny because someone else has it worse than you. I think there is a logical fallacy in there somewhere that I'm too lazy to look up right now.
There is a world of difference between "founding father" and revolutionaries.
In the literal sense, yes, that is true; however, based on the current context, the US American founding fathers, especially George Washington, were revolutionaries. That's why they called it the American Revolution.
You may not like it being compared with what is going on now, but it in not technically inaccurate.
Either that, or you're just trolling...hard to tell at the moment.
I have that problem with Opera, though to be fair, I have all of my email and RSS feeds going through it, and tend to average around 60 open tabs (I got lazy the last few years and stopped using bookmarks with sessions that save on exit); so, when it uses over a gig of RAM, I really only have myself to blame. Would be nice if it used separate processes for the tabs, though, and named them so it would be easy to find out which tabs are taking up all the memory.
Guess 4 Gigs just isn't enough anymore, time to upgrade to 8 or 16.
You reject it just because it's the thing to do. Because the herd does it. You do this to HURD in the same manner.
I don't speak for anyone but myself, but I reject HURD because it has turned into something of a joke. I reject it for the same reason I rejected Duke Nukem Forever...very little with that long a development cycle and that many technical problems and promises unkept are worth the time and trouble they've taken.
Were this a paid proprietary system, I would never give them the time of day, nor would I recommend them to anyone, until they've proven themselves abundantly.
Fortunately, this is a free project. I will laugh and sneer along with everyone else, and presume it is not worth the time of day, based on experience with other vapor ware that later released (none as epicly vaportastic as this, mind you...). When (or, as I feel is necessary to add, If) the HURD gets released, I will probably assume it is worthless on arrival...but I will still download and try it out, just like I do on occasion with Fedora, because I feel it is important to give these projects a chance, at least occasionally.
Looking through the list of comments on this post, though, I see a lot of people who have honest, non-trollish things to say about why they feel the HURD is in trouble, and where they think they failed. Granted, there are plenty of people just making jokes at HURDs expense (I admit...I laughed; you have to, sometimes even if it is at yourself).
I believe the old saying is "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water". There are a lot of irrelevant comments in here...people come here sometimes to blow off steam, or make some jokes. There are also a lot of very relevant commentary, if you are willing to dig a little.
Instead of criticizing and making fun of projects which are new or different
No offense, but HURD is anything but new. Different, maybe; however, it being "in development" now for over 20 years makes it hard to even claim different. If it would just release, already, THEN we could maybe criticize it for being different!
In all seriousness, though, you are going to get people, in any community, opposed to something just because it is different. Sometimes this is a bad thing, but sometimes it means that a different idea has to show why it is valuable to break from working tradition before people will accept it. Personally, I'm all for trying something different, and I agree, I think it is a shame so many reject change so readily and completely.
Anyway, my point was, Slashdot is not irrelevant; don't take everything you read on it seriously, obviously, but don't dismiss everything here either.
From what I understand, that was the storage set aside for notifications...and this is Google, they have an ungodly amount of storage space they could call upon, and now know to watch for that. That's why it's in beta, so they can find and fix these problems before going "live" (or, as Google calls it, "Open beta").
Many companies don't spend any more time cross-training than they have to, there's always work to do and being productive always preempts being non-productive. Same with documentation... Personally I've had it too much the other way around, nobody really wanted to or had the skills to do what I do so I didn't hoard it, I was trapped by it.
I would argue that any time productivity becomes an issue, the company has likely decided to 1) run the department under-staffed, and 2) overwork their employees. 100% productivity is actually a bad thing, in the long term; employees burn out way faster, meaning you get higher turn around (which costs money, good-will from employees, and often reputation to a degree), and people wind up turning in to single points of failure. Giving some amount of non-productive time on the clock has been found to be quite beneficial to the employer, as they have time to document what they know, cross-train others so they CAN take a vacation, and learn new skills or work on projects that will be of benefit to the employer more often than not.
That wouldn't be a problem on wireless like it is on wire...on the wire, the switch switches packets based on MAC addresses, so it would not be able to reliably switch traffic to the correct host. Wireless just shoots the traffic out more like a hub...the wireless card picks it up, seeing that it is destined for its MAC address, then the network stack discards it seeing that it doesn't match the interface's IP address. While this might cause a slight performance issue, I doubt it would be noticeable.
I pointed out (and I'll be happy to give you the links as well if you wish) that major retailers have joined small shops like mine in refusing to sell Linux because LINUX BREAKS DRIVERS. I then gave him a link from Linus himself laughing on that THERE ARE NO PLANS when it comes to the kernel, it is just him and his buds scratching itches, like it is 1993 and they are just doing it for shits and giggles. Again I'll be happy to provide links and it is Linus in his own words, no bullshit.
First, I'd love to see the links to that...not that I doubt it, mind you...
Linux is my favorite OS in many ways, but I still can't use it as my day to day workhorse OS; and, since Windows 7, I've no longer had the burning desire to, as MS finally got (in my opinion) many of the major issues that I've complained about with Windows fixed in 7.
My biggest problems with Linux mostly come back to attitudes...ones like Richard Stallman are, in my opinion, pure poison to the free/open source movement, which seems strange since his influence is why the movement is as strong as it is. There is also the "if you can't figure it out, you're too stupid to use it" attitude, which completely misses the point that it should be more intuitive to use in the first place. The command line is a great tool, and I use it all the time, but it is by no means intuitive. If anything requires the use of the command line, then it isn't ready for average users, period.
One of the worst attitudes, though, are those like you've described Alex having (and I can see above): the "Linux is t3h aw3some, everything it does is great!" attitude ensures that people are ignoring faults that should be looked at. I could say "I'm the best System Administrator, I do no wrong, and nothing needs improving"; I would be doing my employer, my coworkers, and most of all myself, a huge disservice, in that I won't be open to hearing what I could do better. I would not be able to learn to be better with that attitude, and Linux will not be able to improve at the hands of anyone who holds that opinion of it.
Oh...the drivers really are a big issue, and part of that is that the hardware manufacturers won't open their specs or write drivers for Linux. Users really could care less why, they just know that things break, or don't work, when they work fine on Windows. This leaves Windows feeling more professional, polished and more a finished product than Linux to the end user...can we really deny that that is the case? Apparently, many try to...though I think they are ignoring the facts. Personally, I think more can, and should, be done to make the drivers issues less problematic. Simply saying "Well, I have no problems!" or "You should only buy things you know work with Linux!" really are not helpful, and I see a lot of people saying things like that.
Anyway, yes, I would like to see those links. The part about Linus is a little surprising, as that is not how I've though of him, but I would like to read it.
Just shows what a bunch of crazy fuckwits hang around the Linux "community".!
Just so you know, not ALL of us are nuts...but I have to agree, that "Everything Micro$haft is t3h evil!" BS really gets on my nerves, as does this seemingly willful ignorance of the issues Linux has.
Wait...I thought we were talking about search results? How did we get to an OS flamewar from that faster than a car analogy?
I had the exact opposite experience six or seven years ago.
One of my biggest complaints about Windows before 7 was its utter lack of networking drivers. I think I've installed Windows XP on exactly one machine that I didn't have to use a driver CD or mule the ethernet driver over with a USB stick, out of hundreds of installs of it (with the exception of when I've worked with a corporate image where they made sure all the proper drivers were installed on the base image).
With Windows 7, they've finally fixed that flaw. Yes, it took them far, far too long; but, they finally fixed it.
Also, Microsoft's printed keys are actually pretty good. They are well-printed, and they use a font that is easy to read.
I won't respond to how bad Atari or Infogrames keys were, as I never had to deal with them...I will say, though, that MS Windows keys have always been a problem for me, as their 8s and Bs, and their Qs and Os (along with a couple others, I think) look almost identical, and the font is just small enough to be difficult to read if the light level is a little low (such as under a desk, where I'm usually trying to read them). If they work well for you, though, that's great. I do hope they improve on it, soon, though.
Let me call BS right there. "setting the resolution"? Supported versions of Ubuntu can re-set the resolution dynamically. Plug in a projector? Ubuntu detects it, and it can be configured very easily.
Hmm...if that's the case, I'm glad. The difficulty getting the correct resolutions to work on Ubuntu or other Linux distros was kind of embarrassing, considering how easily Windows could do it for as long as it has been able to. It's one of the issues I saw as keeping Linux from being seriously considered as a mainstream desktop OS, so if they fixed that...great! I'll have to check that out.
And then how long to install the applications you need? Plus install the updates, plus install the anti-virus, plus, plus...
You can't compare installing WIndows 7 to installing a Linux distro.
Installing the apps I need on Linux takes about as long as it does on Windows...the only real difference here is where I get the software and how I install it, but in the end, it winds up taking about as long.
And, yes: you can, and should, compare the two. Competition drives innovation.
The simple fact is that, these days, both OSes bring something valuable to the table. For instance, there is nothing in Linux that matches Group Policy and Active Directory for ease of set up and management of a large network. I administer 300+ machines mostly by myself. I doubt I'd be able to do that with the (relatively) low level of stress I have now if I were running a Linux-only network.
Just to make myself clear, I'm not a Microsoft fan by any means...two years ago, I was ready to give up on them. Even considering my feelings about AD and GPO, my preference is still Linux, and I use it in my network every where I can get away with it.
Oh, and just on the off chance: if there are viable Linux based alternatives for GPO and AD (other than writing scripts...I only have so much time I can really spend doing that), please let me know; I'd love the chance to try them out.
One last thing: I've only had a couple of systems not have all or most of its drivers already in Windows, and those that have a couple missing usually can find it in Windows Update.
Must be a wonderful black and white world you live in...mine has too many shades of gray./s
In all seriousness, though, you ignore those of us who are dissatisfied, but don't have the power or the wherewithal to push the system for change, or start a revolution. Personally, I have too many things I want to get done in my life to dedicate it to something like that, even though I feel the system is wrong. Something needs to change, but I'm not the one to change it...that doesn't mean I won't voice my opinion, or do what I can by being an informed voter.
I don't trust my police force to not abuse their power. I'm not a criminal. I also don't have the power to pressure them to change without significant backlash that would be bad for me personally, and wouldn't amount to much, if any, change at all. So, I go about my day-to-day life and leave them as little reason to care about me as possible.
(*obligatory bad analogy*) True, they are "on the good side more often than not", in the same way that Russian Roulette will not kill you more often than not. Forgive me if I still don't like my odds, as any time I see one, I don't know if they are one of the good ones, or one of the bad ones.
There is a lot more you can do with Synaptic or apt than a simple apt-get install...if nothing else, they may not know how to do it themselves, but prefer the Synaptic front end and looked up the command to get it back. Or, like me, they know how to use the command line and all of its features, but like working in a GUI for a desktop system as it's just easier (don't have to worry about mistyping or getting the syntax backward, and you can remember what you are doing visually rather than having to remember the arguments)
Don't get me wrong, I love the CLI and would vastly prefer updating my servers with CLI tools (hard to use GUI tools, anyway, without a GUI)...it's just sometimes more that I care to deal with for my day-to-day desktop maintenance.
There's an awful lot of assumption in there...first off, what did the company do to piss him off? They fired him. For all you know, it was a completely justifiable firing...maybe he was caught surfing porn at work.
And, no, I wouldn't hire someone who doesn't understand professional boundaries so badly that they would pull a stunt like this.
Although, I have to admit, reading about it made me laugh.
I've had difficulty explaining the GPL to bosses in the past. They have no trouble with terms such as "$10000 up-front plus $5/unit". However, they consider unconscionable terms that say "give away modifications to the relevant source code, if the program is distributed".
Here, fixed that for you.
The problem with that is that many will not hear the "if the program is distributed" part. Selective hearing is a real bitch.
The common mindset seems to be "how could this idiot not know this??", while it's not their job to know it. We are there to help the other people to do their job too, after all.
We are there to help other people to do their job...this is the exact mindset we strive for in my IT department. A user is not an idiot because they can't easily describe the problem, or what they want...they don't know the terminology. Their job is their job, and my job is mine, and my job is to know the tech and be able to communicate with them. Sometimes, that means understanding that "The computer won't turn on" means there's something wrong with the monitor, or "I need a new hard drive" means they would like you to replace their system (at my organization, the tower is often called CPU, hard drive, or brain...the monitor is sometimes called the TV, screen, or face...don't treat them like idiots, or spend all your time correcting them if you understand them, that just sounds like you're being condescending or patronizing to them most of the time).
I see the biggest problem with IT's image to be that attitude...others outside IT feel like we think we're better than them, and many of us do act that way, blatantly sometimes. Many in IT don't get that we are here for the purpose of making sure others have the tools they need to do their job (with all things, there are exceptions, but this does seem to be pretty constant in most places I've worked...feel free to disagree with me if you have examples), whether that be by fixing the tools they have, installing the tools they need, or developing a new tool. What we do is needed, but we are most often not the stars of the show.
...everything short of a complete disaster with people's PTO and Vacation accruals getting screwed up...
We switched to ADP a little over a year ago. They've still not gotten the PTO problems worked out, and if I want to know how much I have, I have to contact HR and have them manually go through and work it out by hand.
Sad to say, I actually sometimes miss the old way of filling out an Excel sheet for my time card...it was painful and awful, but at least it worked.
Slashdot Mirror
Add to that, it's not just the act of "placing cookies" that's at question here: it's placing tracking cookies specifically designed to not be removable. No web site has the right to put something on my system without my knowledge that I cannot remove; it's a form of violation.
Context is important, though. You can always make an argument that you're being whiny because someone else has it worse than you. I think there is a logical fallacy in there somewhere that I'm too lazy to look up right now.
I think it calls out the fact that while Microsoft can "say" whatever they want, the question is whether they will actually do what they say.
There is a world of difference between "founding father" and revolutionaries.
In the literal sense, yes, that is true; however, based on the current context, the US American founding fathers, especially George Washington, were revolutionaries. That's why they called it the American Revolution.
You may not like it being compared with what is going on now, but it in not technically inaccurate.
Either that, or you're just trolling...hard to tell at the moment.
I have that problem with Opera, though to be fair, I have all of my email and RSS feeds going through it, and tend to average around 60 open tabs (I got lazy the last few years and stopped using bookmarks with sessions that save on exit); so, when it uses over a gig of RAM, I really only have myself to blame. Would be nice if it used separate processes for the tabs, though, and named them so it would be easy to find out which tabs are taking up all the memory.
Guess 4 Gigs just isn't enough anymore, time to upgrade to 8 or 16.
You reject it just because it's the thing to do. Because the herd does it. You do this to HURD in the same manner.
I don't speak for anyone but myself, but I reject HURD because it has turned into something of a joke. I reject it for the same reason I rejected Duke Nukem Forever...very little with that long a development cycle and that many technical problems and promises unkept are worth the time and trouble they've taken.
Were this a paid proprietary system, I would never give them the time of day, nor would I recommend them to anyone, until they've proven themselves abundantly.
Fortunately, this is a free project. I will laugh and sneer along with everyone else, and presume it is not worth the time of day, based on experience with other vapor ware that later released (none as epicly vaportastic as this, mind you...). When (or, as I feel is necessary to add, If) the HURD gets released, I will probably assume it is worthless on arrival...but I will still download and try it out, just like I do on occasion with Fedora, because I feel it is important to give these projects a chance, at least occasionally.
Looking through the list of comments on this post, though, I see a lot of people who have honest, non-trollish things to say about why they feel the HURD is in trouble, and where they think they failed. Granted, there are plenty of people just making jokes at HURDs expense (I admit...I laughed; you have to, sometimes even if it is at yourself).
I believe the old saying is "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water". There are a lot of irrelevant comments in here...people come here sometimes to blow off steam, or make some jokes. There are also a lot of very relevant commentary, if you are willing to dig a little.
Instead of criticizing and making fun of projects which are new or different
No offense, but HURD is anything but new. Different, maybe; however, it being "in development" now for over 20 years makes it hard to even claim different. If it would just release, already, THEN we could maybe criticize it for being different!
In all seriousness, though, you are going to get people, in any community, opposed to something just because it is different. Sometimes this is a bad thing, but sometimes it means that a different idea has to show why it is valuable to break from working tradition before people will accept it. Personally, I'm all for trying something different, and I agree, I think it is a shame so many reject change so readily and completely.
Anyway, my point was, Slashdot is not irrelevant; don't take everything you read on it seriously, obviously, but don't dismiss everything here either.
This is like a steel plate a mile wide, which has a hole in it that's a half inch wide covered in matching tin foil.
So, all an attacker has to do is use the Force?
From what I understand, that was the storage set aside for notifications...and this is Google, they have an ungodly amount of storage space they could call upon, and now know to watch for that. That's why it's in beta, so they can find and fix these problems before going "live" (or, as Google calls it, "Open beta").
Many companies don't spend any more time cross-training than they have to, there's always work to do and being productive always preempts being non-productive. Same with documentation... Personally I've had it too much the other way around, nobody really wanted to or had the skills to do what I do so I didn't hoard it, I was trapped by it.
I would argue that any time productivity becomes an issue, the company has likely decided to 1) run the department under-staffed, and 2) overwork their employees. 100% productivity is actually a bad thing, in the long term; employees burn out way faster, meaning you get higher turn around (which costs money, good-will from employees, and often reputation to a degree), and people wind up turning in to single points of failure. Giving some amount of non-productive time on the clock has been found to be quite beneficial to the employer, as they have time to document what they know, cross-train others so they CAN take a vacation, and learn new skills or work on projects that will be of benefit to the employer more often than not.
That wouldn't be a problem on wireless like it is on wire...on the wire, the switch switches packets based on MAC addresses, so it would not be able to reliably switch traffic to the correct host. Wireless just shoots the traffic out more like a hub...the wireless card picks it up, seeing that it is destined for its MAC address, then the network stack discards it seeing that it doesn't match the interface's IP address. While this might cause a slight performance issue, I doubt it would be noticeable.
They had nothing to hide anyway...
This.
I get so sick of people using that excuse as a reason to not secure their computers or networks with even the barest minimum.
I pointed out (and I'll be happy to give you the links as well if you wish) that major retailers have joined small shops like mine in refusing to sell Linux because LINUX BREAKS DRIVERS. I then gave him a link from Linus himself laughing on that THERE ARE NO PLANS when it comes to the kernel, it is just him and his buds scratching itches, like it is 1993 and they are just doing it for shits and giggles. Again I'll be happy to provide links and it is Linus in his own words, no bullshit.
First, I'd love to see the links to that...not that I doubt it, mind you...
Linux is my favorite OS in many ways, but I still can't use it as my day to day workhorse OS; and, since Windows 7, I've no longer had the burning desire to, as MS finally got (in my opinion) many of the major issues that I've complained about with Windows fixed in 7.
My biggest problems with Linux mostly come back to attitudes...ones like Richard Stallman are, in my opinion, pure poison to the free/open source movement, which seems strange since his influence is why the movement is as strong as it is. There is also the "if you can't figure it out, you're too stupid to use it" attitude, which completely misses the point that it should be more intuitive to use in the first place. The command line is a great tool, and I use it all the time, but it is by no means intuitive. If anything requires the use of the command line, then it isn't ready for average users, period.
One of the worst attitudes, though, are those like you've described Alex having (and I can see above): the "Linux is t3h aw3some, everything it does is great!" attitude ensures that people are ignoring faults that should be looked at. I could say "I'm the best System Administrator, I do no wrong, and nothing needs improving"; I would be doing my employer, my coworkers, and most of all myself, a huge disservice, in that I won't be open to hearing what I could do better. I would not be able to learn to be better with that attitude, and Linux will not be able to improve at the hands of anyone who holds that opinion of it.
Oh...the drivers really are a big issue, and part of that is that the hardware manufacturers won't open their specs or write drivers for Linux. Users really could care less why, they just know that things break, or don't work, when they work fine on Windows. This leaves Windows feeling more professional, polished and more a finished product than Linux to the end user...can we really deny that that is the case? Apparently, many try to...though I think they are ignoring the facts. Personally, I think more can, and should, be done to make the drivers issues less problematic. Simply saying "Well, I have no problems!" or "You should only buy things you know work with Linux!" really are not helpful, and I see a lot of people saying things like that.
Anyway, yes, I would like to see those links. The part about Linus is a little surprising, as that is not how I've though of him, but I would like to read it.
Just shows what a bunch of crazy fuckwits hang around the Linux "community".!
Just so you know, not ALL of us are nuts...but I have to agree, that "Everything Micro$haft is t3h evil!" BS really gets on my nerves, as does this seemingly willful ignorance of the issues Linux has.
Wait...I thought we were talking about search results? How did we get to an OS flamewar from that faster than a car analogy?
I had the exact opposite experience six or seven years ago.
One of my biggest complaints about Windows before 7 was its utter lack of networking drivers. I think I've installed Windows XP on exactly one machine that I didn't have to use a driver CD or mule the ethernet driver over with a USB stick, out of hundreds of installs of it (with the exception of when I've worked with a corporate image where they made sure all the proper drivers were installed on the base image).
With Windows 7, they've finally fixed that flaw. Yes, it took them far, far too long; but, they finally fixed it.
Also, Microsoft's printed keys are actually pretty good. They are well-printed, and they use a font that is easy to read.
I won't respond to how bad Atari or Infogrames keys were, as I never had to deal with them...I will say, though, that MS Windows keys have always been a problem for me, as their 8s and Bs, and their Qs and Os (along with a couple others, I think) look almost identical, and the font is just small enough to be difficult to read if the light level is a little low (such as under a desk, where I'm usually trying to read them). If they work well for you, though, that's great. I do hope they improve on it, soon, though.
Let me call BS right there. "setting the resolution"? Supported versions of Ubuntu can re-set the resolution dynamically. Plug in a projector? Ubuntu detects it, and it can be configured very easily.
Hmm...if that's the case, I'm glad. The difficulty getting the correct resolutions to work on Ubuntu or other Linux distros was kind of embarrassing, considering how easily Windows could do it for as long as it has been able to. It's one of the issues I saw as keeping Linux from being seriously considered as a mainstream desktop OS, so if they fixed that...great! I'll have to check that out.
And then how long to install the applications you need? Plus install the updates, plus install the anti-virus, plus, plus...
You can't compare installing WIndows 7 to installing a Linux distro.
Installing the apps I need on Linux takes about as long as it does on Windows...the only real difference here is where I get the software and how I install it, but in the end, it winds up taking about as long.
And, yes: you can, and should, compare the two. Competition drives innovation.
The simple fact is that, these days, both OSes bring something valuable to the table. For instance, there is nothing in Linux that matches Group Policy and Active Directory for ease of set up and management of a large network. I administer 300+ machines mostly by myself. I doubt I'd be able to do that with the (relatively) low level of stress I have now if I were running a Linux-only network.
Just to make myself clear, I'm not a Microsoft fan by any means...two years ago, I was ready to give up on them. Even considering my feelings about AD and GPO, my preference is still Linux, and I use it in my network every where I can get away with it.
Oh, and just on the off chance: if there are viable Linux based alternatives for GPO and AD (other than writing scripts...I only have so much time I can really spend doing that), please let me know; I'd love the chance to try them out.
One last thing: I've only had a couple of systems not have all or most of its drivers already in Windows, and those that have a couple missing usually can find it in Windows Update.
And, shockingly, there are times when this actually works. Not to mention, it just feels good.
Must be a wonderful black and white world you live in...mine has too many shades of gray. /s
In all seriousness, though, you ignore those of us who are dissatisfied, but don't have the power or the wherewithal to push the system for change, or start a revolution. Personally, I have too many things I want to get done in my life to dedicate it to something like that, even though I feel the system is wrong. Something needs to change, but I'm not the one to change it...that doesn't mean I won't voice my opinion, or do what I can by being an informed voter.
I don't trust my police force to not abuse their power. I'm not a criminal. I also don't have the power to pressure them to change without significant backlash that would be bad for me personally, and wouldn't amount to much, if any, change at all. So, I go about my day-to-day life and leave them as little reason to care about me as possible.
(*obligatory bad analogy*) True, they are "on the good side more often than not", in the same way that Russian Roulette will not kill you more often than not. Forgive me if I still don't like my odds, as any time I see one, I don't know if they are one of the good ones, or one of the bad ones.
I still miss my last boss - he actually knew what the acronym BOFH stood for, and I didn't have to dumb down anything.
That, alone, makes him a keeper!
Not sure where you were shopping to get a dual-core 1.5 GHz with 2G of RAM on anything in the mid 90s...must have been one really expensive system.
There is a lot more you can do with Synaptic or apt than a simple apt-get install...if nothing else, they may not know how to do it themselves, but prefer the Synaptic front end and looked up the command to get it back. Or, like me, they know how to use the command line and all of its features, but like working in a GUI for a desktop system as it's just easier (don't have to worry about mistyping or getting the syntax backward, and you can remember what you are doing visually rather than having to remember the arguments)
Don't get me wrong, I love the CLI and would vastly prefer updating my servers with CLI tools (hard to use GUI tools, anyway, without a GUI)...it's just sometimes more that I care to deal with for my day-to-day desktop maintenance.
There's an awful lot of assumption in there...first off, what did the company do to piss him off? They fired him. For all you know, it was a completely justifiable firing...maybe he was caught surfing porn at work.
And, no, I wouldn't hire someone who doesn't understand professional boundaries so badly that they would pull a stunt like this.
Although, I have to admit, reading about it made me laugh.
I've had difficulty explaining the GPL to bosses in the past. They have no trouble with terms such as "$10000 up-front plus $5/unit". However, they consider unconscionable terms that say "give away modifications to the relevant source code, if the program is distributed".
Here, fixed that for you.
The problem with that is that many will not hear the "if the program is distributed" part. Selective hearing is a real bitch.
The common mindset seems to be "how could this idiot not know this??", while it's not their job to know it. We are there to help the other people to do their job too, after all.
We are there to help other people to do their job...this is the exact mindset we strive for in my IT department. A user is not an idiot because they can't easily describe the problem, or what they want...they don't know the terminology. Their job is their job, and my job is mine, and my job is to know the tech and be able to communicate with them. Sometimes, that means understanding that "The computer won't turn on" means there's something wrong with the monitor, or "I need a new hard drive" means they would like you to replace their system (at my organization, the tower is often called CPU, hard drive, or brain...the monitor is sometimes called the TV, screen, or face...don't treat them like idiots, or spend all your time correcting them if you understand them, that just sounds like you're being condescending or patronizing to them most of the time).
I see the biggest problem with IT's image to be that attitude...others outside IT feel like we think we're better than them, and many of us do act that way, blatantly sometimes. Many in IT don't get that we are here for the purpose of making sure others have the tools they need to do their job (with all things, there are exceptions, but this does seem to be pretty constant in most places I've worked...feel free to disagree with me if you have examples), whether that be by fixing the tools they have, installing the tools they need, or developing a new tool. What we do is needed, but we are most often not the stars of the show.
Bad IT attitude is a disease.
...everything short of a complete disaster with people's PTO and Vacation accruals getting screwed up...
We switched to ADP a little over a year ago. They've still not gotten the PTO problems worked out, and if I want to know how much I have, I have to contact HR and have them manually go through and work it out by hand.
Sad to say, I actually sometimes miss the old way of filling out an Excel sheet for my time card...it was painful and awful, but at least it worked.