Most of the 1984 world depends on the newspeak and doublethink concepts that Orwell introduces -- neither of which is at all realistic. Also, the world has been progressively moving away from the "reign by terror" that is described in 1984 -- compare governments today, 25 years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago, and you'll find that, in many respects, we're moving (slowly) away from, rather than towards the world he envisioned.
Sure you can find points of comparison. You could find such things in any novel that attempts to describe the future. But that doesn't mean that, every time you can find a parallel, that it's automatically time to scream about Big Brother and doublethink. A few correct predictions (or observations) doesn't make the whole thing correct or even insightful.
It can't be "1984 all over again", because it never happened. Many slashdotters seem not to realize that 1984 is a [rather mediocre] piece of fiction. It's not real, people. Please stop acting like it is.
Oh, and I never heard them claim that "We have always kept Internet logs." So the rest of your post doesn't make sense either.
Isn't the main point of having these Windows-workalike desktops so that random Joe User will choose to use one of them rather than the competing project (Windows)? It seems to me that a lot of people are working awful hard to win people who don't pay or contribute over from a competing product.
if small footprint is your main concern, ie you're less concerned about fancy sidebars, etc, you would do well to look into some of the alternate frontends for mozilla's engine. i've been playing with dillo recently, and while it doesn't do much more than display web pages, it does this a lot faster than mozilla on the same machine.
I've found that dillo is nice for viewing really simple pages -- for instance, most of the manuals that I have in HTML format, I read using dillo. However, it has trouble with anything slightly complex. Opera, on the other hand, handles just about anything I throw at it -- it tends to have a better track record than Mozilla in that respect, as far as I've seen. Both browsers have different strong points, and seem to complement each other well.
Even better is that, for students, it's half price already. With 50% off, it's only 9.99 -- that was easily cheap enough to get me to buy it a week or so ago.
The only one of those stories that meets the requirement of "RIAA actively attacking end users" is the worm, which we don't know was created by the RIAA. It's possible, but it's equally possible that it was one of the same kids who write the OE virus of the day. To my knowledge, should they try to DOS p2p network users, that will be their first direct attack on end users. So the original poster was correct, and your snide comment was not.
I'd prefer that they mod something "interesting" that really wasn't than that they mod something "troll" that was. (The second one, unfortunately, is far more common.)
No need for any conspiracy theory -- the policy of mass editor moderation was freely admitted in regards to the "post of doom" thread several months back. (Though admittedly, those posts were at least offtopic, while posts directly commenting on michael's essay certainly are not.) Expect to see quite a few more people complaining of being $rtbl'd soon.
Right. Like Slashdot's news is always on the bleeding edge. Waiting a few hours to make this post would have made it completely irrelevant.
I'm convinced that the reason why Taco doesn't bother to cache these pages is that he enjoys the notoriety of the "Slashdot Effect." The excuses in the FAQ are really lame.
Well, sign language is a completely different language; I would expect the difficulty to be comparable to translating between two different written languages. (There's a lot more to sign language than "Simple English with words missing," though that's a rather common misconception.) There's nothing particularly special about the translation just because the communication medium is different.
If piracy wasn't so rampant, then they would have a much tougher time trying to convince people of that. Right now it's common knowledge that large amounts of piracy goes on; the only question is the effect is has on sales. By refusing to use their products, I mean refraining from getting them via illegal means as well -- otherwise it's not a boycott, it's just hypocrisy and greediness.
Actually, if people cared enough to stop using the material, then their supply of money and politicians would dry up, and this would never happen. (Of course, most people find it easier to complain than to do something, no matter how simple.)
I found it rather odd that he had a fairly decent and professional approach towards his description both installs; however, the conclusion completely ignored the installation process and instead was an anti-EULA, M$ is taking over the world rant. It's like he was saying, "The numbers speak for themselves, now, while I've got your attention..."
That stunt really weakened my opinion of the article. I would really hesitate to use it as evidence in favor of the ease of installation of Red Hat.
You're right; it's Nethack. I saw that message more times than I can count when I was first starting out. (I can proudly say, though, that I haven't died from food poisoning in quite some time.)
Oh, and the original game was 'Hack'. The name was changed to 'Nethack' because (IIRC) it was developed over the internet. (And that was quite unusual for the time.) Of course, there are several public Nethack servers around, where you can play and find the ghosts of dead explorers, so it's kinda 'net playable' in that manner.
Well, the problem of people not realizing that numbers get real big when you square them doesn't go away by making everything multiples of 10. People will still be surprised to find out how big a cubic meter is, and that a square kilometer is a million square meters. No matter how obvious it seems, for some reason people aren't too good at making those connections.
Generally, you're allowed to go down to a river and take water, if you want it. If you dig a well on your land, you're welcome to the water. If you set out a bucket and capture rainwater, nobody's going to stop you. So yes, you're right. But the original claim was that 'we pay for water', so I assumed that he was talking about the services related to it.
Obviously you don't know what you're talking about. At least where I live, it is ILLEGAL to refuse someone water if they ask for it. If you don't want to beg, any city has lots of public places where you can get free water. The government and charitable orginazations give away plenty of free food; nobody who asks for food is going to starve to death in this country. Why are you so dead set against having people ask for what they need?
Slashdot Mirror
Sure you can find points of comparison. You could find such things in any novel that attempts to describe the future. But that doesn't mean that, every time you can find a parallel, that it's automatically time to scream about Big Brother and doublethink. A few correct predictions (or observations) doesn't make the whole thing correct or even insightful.
Oh, and I never heard them claim that "We have always kept Internet logs." So the rest of your post doesn't make sense either.
You obviously don't have access to our technology.
With that lack of imagination, I suppose that we're not going to have any use for it either.
If Linus said it, it would be accepted as gospel.
(Slow down cowboy...)
Isn't the main point of having these Windows-workalike desktops so that random Joe User will choose to use one of them rather than the competing project (Windows)? It seems to me that a lot of people are working awful hard to win people who don't pay or contribute over from a competing product.
It's from Nethack -- the message that young adventurers see all too often before they learn not to eat rotten foor.
if small footprint is your main concern, ie you're less concerned about fancy sidebars, etc, you would do well to look into some of the alternate frontends for mozilla's engine. i've been playing with dillo recently, and while it doesn't do much more than display web pages, it does this a lot faster than mozilla on the same machine.
I've found that dillo is nice for viewing really simple pages -- for instance, most of the manuals that I have in HTML format, I read using dillo. However, it has trouble with anything slightly complex. Opera, on the other hand, handles just about anything I throw at it -- it tends to have a better track record than Mozilla in that respect, as far as I've seen. Both browsers have different strong points, and seem to complement each other well.
Even better is that, for students, it's half price already. With 50% off, it's only 9.99 -- that was easily cheap enough to get me to buy it a week or so ago.
I shudder to think what that sentence would have said had Taco touched it.
The only one of those stories that meets the requirement of "RIAA actively attacking end users" is the worm, which we don't know was created by the RIAA. It's possible, but it's equally possible that it was one of the same kids who write the OE virus of the day. To my knowledge, should they try to DOS p2p network users, that will be their first direct attack on end users. So the original poster was correct, and your snide comment was not.
You've got your cause and effect mixed up there, I'm afraid.
I'd prefer that they mod something "interesting" that really wasn't than that they mod something "troll" that was. (The second one, unfortunately, is far more common.)
No need for any conspiracy theory -- the policy of mass editor moderation was freely admitted in regards to the "post of doom" thread several months back. (Though admittedly, those posts were at least offtopic, while posts directly commenting on michael's essay certainly are not.) Expect to see quite a few more people complaining of being $rtbl'd soon.
If it was a "dark day for Slashdot" every time one of the editors said something stupid, we'd never see the sun.
And do you applaud someone who lies to his friends about the cost of windows in order to further this "lee-nucks" thing?
I'm convinced that the reason why Taco doesn't bother to cache these pages is that he enjoys the notoriety of the "Slashdot Effect." The excuses in the FAQ are really lame.
Well, sign language is a completely different language; I would expect the difficulty to be comparable to translating between two different written languages. (There's a lot more to sign language than "Simple English with words missing," though that's a rather common misconception.) There's nothing particularly special about the translation just because the communication medium is different.
If piracy wasn't so rampant, then they would have a much tougher time trying to convince people of that. Right now it's common knowledge that large amounts of piracy goes on; the only question is the effect is has on sales. By refusing to use their products, I mean refraining from getting them via illegal means as well -- otherwise it's not a boycott, it's just hypocrisy and greediness.
Actually, if people cared enough to stop using the material, then their supply of money and politicians would dry up, and this would never happen. (Of course, most people find it easier to complain than to do something, no matter how simple.)
That stunt really weakened my opinion of the article. I would really hesitate to use it as evidence in favor of the ease of installation of Red Hat.
Oh, and the original game was 'Hack'. The name was changed to 'Nethack' because (IIRC) it was developed over the internet. (And that was quite unusual for the time.) Of course, there are several public Nethack servers around, where you can play and find the ghosts of dead explorers, so it's kinda 'net playable' in that manner.
Well ... perhaps we need a 'Slashdot Show and Tell' category. In fact, I think that it would probably be more interesting than DMCA-story-of-the-day.
Well, the problem of people not realizing that numbers get real big when you square them doesn't go away by making everything multiples of 10. People will still be surprised to find out how big a cubic meter is, and that a square kilometer is a million square meters. No matter how obvious it seems, for some reason people aren't too good at making those connections.
Generally, you're allowed to go down to a river and take water, if you want it. If you dig a well on your land, you're welcome to the water. If you set out a bucket and capture rainwater, nobody's going to stop you. So yes, you're right. But the original claim was that 'we pay for water', so I assumed that he was talking about the services related to it.
Obviously you don't know what you're talking about. At least where I live, it is ILLEGAL to refuse someone water if they ask for it. If you don't want to beg, any city has lots of public places where you can get free water. The government and charitable orginazations give away plenty of free food; nobody who asks for food is going to starve to death in this country. Why are you so dead set against having people ask for what they need?