Details: I'm white, conservative (relatively), Christian and let me tell you what I'm seeing:
Our character is not substantially altered, as NPR commentator Daniel Shore put it.
My take, that I have been formulating for months, is that we are just as greedy, pushy and self-absorbed as we were a year ago. Our level of consumption in the country is gross, and passed the abusive mark years ago. We have continued our unsustainable lifestyle by sucking dry the resources of the world, essentially exporting poverty to other countries so that we can live large.
Our economy has evolved to become unsustainable. One country can't continually consume the majority of the whole planets resources and not expect a backlash from the rest of the inhabitants.
Anyone remember Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" (1926)? The spoiled priviledged class living large on the backs of the workers? Sound familiar?
SO the real question is not "how have we changed" but rather, "what are YOU doing to change?"
We let the Nazis (not just the "Germans") kill 6 million non-Jews too. Don't hear much about them, eh?
There is more than enough culpability to go around. Let's upgrade it to recent events: Have you protested the Taliban's requirement that non-Muslims be identified by a mark on their clothing? Did you take to the streets or even call your congressperson when Africa began (and continues to) chopping itself to bits with now over 5 million dead in ethnic and tribal cleansing?
Guilt is like Peanut Butter: It spreads a long way and sticks to EVERYONE. So what will YOU do today to stop the bloodshed?
Let's see, a group of women with a common interest and talent band together to help each other and anyone else in the community to improve their skills and increase their knowledge. MS steps in, hijacks their name, and replaces the community with it's own puppet-chick-on-a-tether.
We knew MS was monopolistic. Who'da thought they were misogynists too. (Insert giggle: But then, it was Melinda French Gates who was the product manager and head cheerleader behind Microsoft BOB. Perhaps BillG, et all are nothing short of narrow stereotypers.)
Digital Divas would do well to get a major 'cause' group behind them (like NOW), but the groups that are going to get behind DD on the gender grounds have already been tuned out (rightly or wrongly) by the 'male majority'. Is there any way to raise issues touching gender without whining?
Either you've got a really novel notion of what constitutes deranged or you've never been out of your American hole.
Japan is numero uno for child porn because Japanese males have an unrestrained passion for naked pictures of pubescent girls. They show up most often in the states as 'Lolitas.' The practice is winked at in Japan, but is common and public, available at every newsstand. Does it surprise you coming from a country that is still 100 years behind in it's valuation of women?
Re: Puritanical Beliefs. I swear, you and Katz have been smoking the same DOPE. Read Ian Buruma's `Wages of Guilt' for starters if you want an inside take on the screwed up social cesspool that is modern Japan. I think both of you (and a large number of the flubber-mouthed anti-establishment knitwits on Slashdot) need to learn that Puritans and 'Puritanical beliefs' (in it's popular usage) are not the same thing. The racket about the persisting influence of 'Puritanism' gets really old, because most of the fools stupid enough to incautiously lambaste it only know of it from having seen 'The Crucible', written in 1953 as a thinly veiled jab at McCarthy's 'witchhunt' for communists.
Change Gears: Scandinavia? You've got to be kidding me! Consider: it is legal to own or produce child porn...just as long as you don't sell it. This is healthy?
BTW Scandinavian countries, while having differing attitudes on sex, consider lots of things that are taken for granted by Americans to be pure horrors. And they're not of one mind about the issue: Sweden on the conservative side and Denmark on the liberal side with the other countries more or less conservative based on the issue. Consider what IS prohibited: Gay or Lesbian couples adopting children and most forms of drugs. Consider what is HEAVILY REGULATED: Alcohol and nicotine cannot be advertised, are HEAVILY taxed, and are severely restricted concerning the places where they may used or purchased.
Since the subject of your post was movie ratings consider this: ALL Scandinavian countries have movie ratings systems. They work somewhat differently than the American system in the type of content they seek to screen (mostly the Uber-Violence that characterizes Hollywood today) from children. But a significant fact is here if you can stomach it: AGE is still the benchmark, and it is the STATE who makes the decisions.
CiXeL, I don't think the porn you downloaded (and are apparently still downloading) has made you 'mentally deranged.' Morally deranged, yes. And mentally stupid, if you think humans have become smart enough to not do things to themselves or others that are harmful. Laws decided on by the community for the community's own good are the cornerstone of self government and hence democracy. Like a man says, "It ain't perfect, but it's better than everything else." In keeping with wildman Katz' loopy anarchism, you're supporting a principle of thought that isn't a system. It's chaos, and no basis for governance.
Yeah, I can imagine you're pissed at me right now for sounding off on you. Maybe if you slowed down long enuf du korekt UR spellign you might have to consider the content of your thoughts before you inflict them on the rest of us.
I agree that some of the griefs concerning Katz's work stoop to the level of 'this sux, you blow...go kiss Bill G. on the butt.' About the level of maturity I'd expect for those who are drunk on the sound of their own words.
By the same token, the degree to which 'this rulez' and 'Katz is god' is spouted makes for what one would initially THINK would be a balanced degree of illiteracy: knothead pro-Katz vs. knothead anti-Katz.
My main beef is the tendancy of moderators to thumbs up or thumbs down the comments, no matter how thickheaded, based on whether THEY like the article or not. That's not the purpose of moderation. I presume (and the moderator's FAQ bears it out) that the idea of moderation is to thumbs up the comments that speak with particular clarity on the original article, be it pro or con. To do otherwise is to turn the process into a censoring method based on the moderator's opinion of the original article.
I have a novel idea (plant your tongue firmly in your cheek and GRIN): Enforce good grammar and the screaming penguins will either have to think about what they're saying while they learn not to dangle their participles, or they will go ELSEWHERE. Either would be preferable.
I think this evaluation of 'the moderation of Katz' is about as dead on as it gets. Moderators are supposed to provide guidance, not censorship, and this is essentially what the function has become. How ironic that the man who incites people to break the law (no matter how silly) and masticates anyone who disagrees with him has his material protected by the moderating thought police.
BTW, I've observed Katz as a factually sloppy, intellectually dishonest fruitcake with delusions of relevance. The fact that Rob & Hemos continue to foist this knothead's opinions on us as 'features' might be a sign that Slashdot isn't about community discussion but is becoming increasingly about a codified agenda.
How about encouraging someone slightly more mainstream to use the soapbox as well? The tit-for-tat opinions would provide a more balanced view and we might start attracting the type of well considered attention (as opposed to the screaming-penguins) that will drive Linux further into the market and more programmers into the Linux world. Katz is the antithesis of the reasoning that we need and adds nothing to the debate but piss 'n vinegar (I was going to just say vitriol, but then reread his SouthPark censorship BS first and decided PnV was more accurate.)
Whether you agree or disagree, let me hear from you.
The issue isn't "do registered users write better stuff" its "registered users are accountable for the stuff they write."
When the registered posters offer crap, you can take them head on into the debate, potentially continuing it in moderate privacy.
ACs? Tough luck. May as well be spitting into the wind or chasing ghosts.
I have found the "I'm too lazy to register" argument (which another AC poster replied to my missive with) to be endemic in this bru-ha-ha: Too lazy to take responsibility for what they write...but with more than enough time on their hand to blather the stupid brain diarrhea onto Slashdot and take up space.
This is my beef, in a nut shell, with the AC system.
"I you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and change." The Man in the Mirror.
How 'bout this for an idea: We can't control the Linux Nazis assasinating every journalist on the web, but we CAN refuse to play that game here on Slashdot.
Anonymous Coward posts have, in my book, outlived their contribution to the shaky notion of being a bulwark of free speech. I'm not of a mind to tell Rob what to do with his site 'cause...well, it's HIS site. But I'm so bloody tired of the bad karma that I've dropped my preferences threshold to winnow out the AC posts.
If YOU want to help Slashdot GROW UP, do the same. Strain out the ACs and that way, those that WANT to hear the fist shaking little bigots can set their preferences to access all posts. Those who don't, won't have to waste either bandwidth or brain juice on their irresponsible rants.
Before you flame me, consider:
1) I might be right. There is always the outside possibility.
2) I'm not suggesting that Rob pull the plug on ACs, so the 1st Amendment Shriekers can sit down as well.
3) I am suggesting the possibility that if no one is willing to listen to those who don't want to take responsibility for the bile they spray on this site, maybe the ACs will either STOP posting their crap, or at least, by taking enough responsibility for their opinions to put their name to it, leave them open to censure by the members of this site. (For the dictionarily challenged, I don't mean CENSOR, I mean CENSURE, that is, corporate display of displeasure.)
I want to make this place better for all. Or if not better, at least more reasoned. I have always marvelled at the murderous abuse, mockery, and derision organized religions takes on this site. Marvelled, because the zealotry with which those who disagree are cruxified lies clearly in the realm of pharisaeism that Slashdotters, on the whole, despise.
Is this a case of "becoming what we behold?"
Disagree. Fine. Post your reply. But remember: Unless you're a big enough person to identify yourself, I won't even hear your opinion, polite, abusive, death-threat, or otherwise.
Your comments are inflammatory and sloppy. Don't sharpen the devil's horn by making this sloppy excuse for an article to be worse than it really is. Langberg wrote:'the OS doesn't yet support all the peripherals -- such as printers and scanners -- that work with Windows and the Mac.' He is correct in that, there are SOME PRINTERS AND SCANNERS that won't work with Linux. They either rely on hooks to a MS OS, or use interfaces that we don't have perfected yet, like USB.
Misha, in this day and age, to "do this [computing thing] for a living" means that you likely do it in Windows. The hood of their "Ford" is welded shut and they are a professional driver. They know how to manipulate their econobox down the road to get where they need to go. When it breaks, they tow it to the dealership. Introduce those folks to a stripped down chassis made for speed, flexibility & accessibility and a courier that is on the road every day isn't going to like the idea of driving a rolling project. The greatest error in consumer Linux thinking is that most people even WANT a system that can be turned from a tire iron to a toilet plunger by changing runlevels. Most people want a computing appliance: You plug it in and USE IT. Windows isn't there, but on good days, it's closer to being usable for the "common man" than Linux is now or is likely to be soon. The MS "way of doing things" also has the inertia in the computing culture. We won't change it overnight. Indeed, it might be smarter to borrow a page from the Chinese playbook: offer as little to resistance to invasion as is prudent (make the interface similar and duplicate the style) let the new folks get comfortable, and then retain the culture of openness. Ten years from now, joe user won't be bothered if his kid wants to edit init.d. But this change doesn't take place over night, so kvetching about joe-sixpack being MS brainwashed sounds exactly like what it is: bigoted and short sighted.
Your attitude about the villiage idiot not being allowed to use a computer stinks. How else do they learn, eh pendejo? It must be nice to be so confident in your own technical supremacy that you can indiscriminately sneer at the peasants.
Linux has a long way to go to offer the functionality required for mass adoption. I use it every day and even went to the trouble (and I do mean TROUBLE) of installing it on my laptop in lieu of my employer's choice of NT. I administer 5 different OSs every day: HPUX11 & Solaris for my day job, Linux, Win95 & WinNT for the rest.) Philosophically I dig the OSS movement. KDE is my WM of choice. And I don't ream people a new one because they disagree with me. I ream people a new one for their sheer knowitall attitude.
Your attitude is a disgrace to the Linux community.
Your comments are inflammatory and sloppy. Don't sharpen the devil's horn by making this sloppy excuse for an article to be worse than it really is. Langberg wrote:'the OS doesn't yet support all the peripherals -- such as printers and scanners -- that work with Windows and the Mac.' He is correct in that, there are SOME PRINTERS AND SCANNERS that won't work with Linux. They either rely on hooks to an MS OS, or use interfaces that we don't have perfected yet, like USB.
Misha, in this day and age, to "do this [computing thing] for a living" means that you likely do it in Windows. The hood of their "Ford" is welded shut and they are a professional driver. They know how to manipulate their econobox down the road to get where they need to go. When it breaks, they tow it to the dealership. Introduce those folks to a stripped down chassis made for speed, flexibility & accessibility and a courier that is on the road every day isn't going to like the idea of driving a rolling project. The greatest error in consumer Linux thinking is that most people even WANT a system that can be turned from a tire iron to a toilet plunger by changing runlevels. Most people want a computing appliance: You plug it in and USE IT. Windows isn't there, but on good days, it's closer to being usable for the "common man" than Linux is now or is likely to be soon. The MS "way of doing things" also has the inertia in the computing culture. We won't change it overnight. Indeed, it might be smarter to borrow a page from the Chinese playbook: offer as little to resistance to invasion as is prudent (make the interface similar and duplicate the style) let the new folks get comfortable, and then retain the culture of openness. Ten years from now, joe user won't be bothered if his kid wants to edit inet.d.conf. But this change doesn't take place over night, so kvetching about joe-sixpack being MS brainwashed sounds exactly like what it is: bigoted and short sighted.
Your attitude about the villiage idiot not being allowed to use a computer stinks. How else do they learn, eh pendejo? It must be nice to be so confident in your own technical supremacy that you can indiscriminately sneer at the peasants.
Linux has a long way to go to offer the functionality required for mass adoption. I use it every day and even went to the trouble (and I do mean TROUBLE) of installing it on my laptop in lieu of my employer's choice of NT. I administer 5 different OSs every day: HPUX11 & Solaris for my day job, Linux, Win95 & WinNT for the rest.) Philosophically I dig the OSS movement. KDE is my WM of choice. And I don't ream people a new one because they disagree with me. I ream people a new one for their sheer knowitall attitude.
You're attitude is a disgrace to the Linux community.
Been in conversation with Flashcom since Dec. Constant refrain is "be here any day now", interspersed with "won't be available" and "you can have it right now if you sign up now." My old man is looking into them and has been burned five or six ways to breakfast by their constantly shifting policies, offerings, prices, and doubletalk. Another buddy of mine who is suffering under the onus of ISDN sticker-shock (he's had ISDN for 2 years and the fees are killing him) was all ready to sign up for Flashcom until he read the terms: You are allowed to do nothing that they don't specifically permit (no servers, IPMasq, etc.) and your guaranteed line speed is...NOTHING. They commit to nothing, but lock you into a year long contract that you can't get out of for any reason because they don't promise to deliver anything. (How do you justify to the court breaking a contract that doesn't promise you anything? Riddle me THAT, Batman!)
rant_on
The stupidest part of this whole sorry mess is that my region (Southern New Jersey) is home to many very wealthy communities (they work in Philly and retire to their Mansions in Medford Lakes) that would love and use these high speed services. So far, no CableModems, no DSL from BellAtlantic (which won't even return calls), and no other options for higher speeds other than BellAtl's larcenous ISDN prices. Naturally BellAtl doesn't want to provide DSL speeds at competitive prices: ISDN service nets them more $ per sucker without having to be competitive.
rant_off
Flashcom is being watched very carefully by consumer advocacy groups in the Delaware Valley and their service in the next several weeks will be detailed in a forthcoming report. I'll have a copy posted at my website: www.webwrench.com.
Anyone else who has encountered FLASHCOM, please contact me to add your input and I'll pass it along to the advocacy group.
You're a dude for taking this kind of crap and turning it around in a civil and professional manner.
I'm not a Gnome user, I actually prefer KDE+Caldera GNU/Linux, but your attitude should be a model we could all afford more in this virtual pack of loud mouths.
Best of luck with your future work, and thank you for your present contributions.
Just imagine being in a business where your saleability depends on the version of an app you're running. No, we're not talking about MS Word or MS anything: It's AUTOCAD & 3DSTUDIO MAX.
Most of the CAD world runs on AutoCad, despite encroachment by some third parties. While it is possible to use a 3D part product and convert to ACAD format, no vendor will work with you. Pure Acad, or HIT THE ROAD, JACK. Not surprising, considering even AutoDesk doesn't have a firm handle on their version control. For Indy Contractors, this means you use the AutoDesk product, or you don't eat.
AutoCAD desperately needs to be ported to Linux, as it would remove the hoary need to get shafted twice: Once by AutoCAD and again by MS.
Also, 3DS MAX offers network rendering capacity, but again, runs only on MS OSs. Imagine the speed, capacity, and cost per frame a render farm could manage if you could load a render client on a low cost Open Source OS! AutoDesk would have more business than they could keep up with, as every dog and his master decided to go into the business because the barrier to entry had been considerably lowered.
Opinions? Does anyone other than me see this as a GOOD THING (tm)?
Reconsider your evaluation. Perhaps M$ does make some things unnecessarily difficult, but Linux can hardly be said to be an improvement on the usability scale. Great for geeks, but Joe Six-pack is having a hard time adjusting.
Background: I a former Windows 95 Support Engineer. BELIEVE ME, I know where you're coming from. The horrors I had to bail people out of were nasty, and full 50% of them were MS's fault.
But the 50% were just plain old user errors, mistakes or thrashing. (What we came affectionately to refer to as "smacking a tar-baby in the mouth. Reference: Song of the South) These are the folks that either can't be taught or are embarrassed enough about their lack of knowledge that they fight you the whole way.
My wife is a Registrar for a educator's technical training center. Teachers come in and are taught basic computing skills like email. Not surprisingly, a good portion don't want to be there and don't want to learn.
This isn't just teachers; it is society at large. The sheer volume of information and skills that we need to have to survive today boggles the mind. Our grandparents are overwhelmed by it, and our parents struggle with what the younger generation is picking up much faster than they.
I am beginning to wonder how we, as a society, are going to deal with information overload.
As you say, despite being the self appointed harbingers of "choice" and "freedom", Linux folks have walked differently than they have talked. I need only remind readers of last week's discussion of the Virtual Faith review by Katz: The slash and burn vitriol against anyone stating (not evangelizing) a religious faith was very telling.
Perhaps all this passion is good for something, but the wholesale dismisses and marginalization of those you don't agree with isn't one of them. One might go so far as to say that when we scream FUD about MS, we have adopted their tactics and become what we despise.
I started coming to slashdot about 6 months ago because it was the only place that I could hear the "other side" comment about Linux without the truth being filtered through the mainstream press.
But the personal BIGOTRY that goes on here is starting to tax a lot of people's patience.
We all know that MS is a big, mean ole company that has foisted haphazard bloatware on the public. Fine. We know this.
What the world could do with a lot less of are the screaming Linux KKK that is out to denigrate everyone who uses a Microsoft product or admits that it is easier to "go with flow" than to fight their employer, their peers (the attachment sending ones), and the predominant consumer experience.
Face it: Most folks who are using MS products do so for reasons other than passion, and aren't sure why Linux folks go screaming-yellow-zonkers over what they view as an APPLIANCE. Sure, it crashes. WE know that the average consumer is jaded to this unnecessarily. But look at the alternative: To get a stable system, they would need to unlearn their limited knowledge about computers and then learn a HUGE amount about an Operating System that doesn't look, act or feel like anything they've ever known. Are you surprised that the common user (if they even know what Linux is) would consider switching Operating Systems to be a hassle that wasn't worth the benefit? How do you think flaming them is going to change their mind?
Essentially, the Linux community makes every migration and attitude change harder the more it screams and shouts insults at users of another OS. The most public Linux advocates seem to have the manners and grace of a spoiled, tantrum throwing CHILD. The Linux claim of "communal computing" has already started to wear thin for Windows users who ask a question on Usenet or listserv and get flamed into a pile of ashes by Linux bigots who burn down the people they claim they are trying to win over.
This behavior is a conundrum for radicals: It takes a loud voice to get a milling crowd's attention, but that same loud voice is ignored as "just another nutcase" if it doesn't speak reasonably once it has the crowd's attention.
The Open Source cause has a double-pronged PR problem. One, the most visible Linux & OSS proponants don't talk, discuss or debate: they rage like angry little Klansmen. Second, people in computing are very gifted intellectually, but at the cost of our social skills. Face it: we like to be left alone with the bit-box because in all of it's complexity, it seems simpler to deal with than other people.
The grandest conundrum in this sorry evaluation is that Linus Torvalds doesn't fit into the public image that the Linux & OSS bigots are defining for themselves. When the average IT person is asked if they know anyone who really likes Linux, the picture they get isn't someone who is happily trying to push a good idea. They envision someone like ESR: vastly brilliant but completely devoid of social skills. In other words, the prototypical OSS or Linux bigot.
I'll close with this analogy of changing people's mind for their own good:
Many years ago in Tanzania, two white missionary women that had just come to the country saw the way that the native woman would gather a handful of rushes and then stoop over to sweep out their huts. This constant bending did these native women significant harm and the older women bore the results in poor posture and limited mobility.
Both of the missionary women felt obligated to improve the lot of these native women and as each prepared to go to their assigned villages, they agreed to make their best effort to change this unnecessary and injurious habit.
About two years later, they met again at a conference in the capital. They compared their experiences. "Oh, those stubborn woman!" the first one seethed. "I showed them how to tie the rushes in a bundle to a stick and that way they could stand up properly to clean. But they ignored me! They told me I was welcome to clean my house in my way, and they would clean their in their way. Not one of them has changed. They are completely set in their ways." The second missionary mulled the first's story for a moment and then said, "Perhaps they are stubborn because it is all they know and it is easier to deal with the hardships you know than to risk changing then for hardships you don't know. Besides, by telling them that your way was better, you implied that they were fools for not being like you." "What do you mean?" inquired the first, sharply. "Well", said the second lady, "I did not tell them that using a stick would be better or that it would be good for them. I just did it myself. And when they saw that I stood upright without pain, they slowly and surely tried it themselves. And though standing up straight pained them at first, some of the older women who have been stooping over for years are feeling better."
I refer not to your spiritual beliefs, but to your attitude. To Joe Six-Pack, the difference between you and them, based on your hateful response, is negilgible.
BTW, doesn't tolerance mean being tolerant of people who aren't tolerant?
I fail to understand how dragging Creationism (or Scientific Creationism, pick your strawman) and the skewing of data used to support it lends credence to your assertion that there is no God. This is on the same level as outright rejecting that eggs come from chickens because you've never seen one laid.
Also, while I respect and defend your right to criticize Roman Catholicism for its excesses and dogmatism, I must disagree that because it may have been wrong in one thing that it is wrong all through. (BTW, I am not Catholic, nor have I ever been.) To paste some salve on that raw wound you harbor called "Creationism", I would like to point out that even Pope John Paul II acknowledged last year that the theory of evolution may have something to it, but that even if it were true, it does not impact the central message of Christianity: A just God providing redeption for a rebellious and self-absorbed race.
Since others have said it better, I'll invoke their voices. C.S. Lewis summed the existance of God question and the truthfulness of religious systems up thus: "When I was an athiest, I believed that all religions were dangerous because their basic premise (an unseen Deity) was wrong all through. When I became a Christian, I was able to take a more liberal view [of other religions].
Robert Heinlein (who was ever an old rational-anarchist-atheist) admitted that atheism was merely "god-ism" turned on its head. It offered no more answers than its progenitor.
Slashdot Mirror
Sets were due to be rebuilt anyway. Practical day to day life of a standing set (unless it's The Price is Right) is about 5 years.
Details: I'm white, conservative (relatively), Christian and let me tell you what I'm seeing:
Our character is not substantially altered, as NPR commentator Daniel Shore put it.
My take, that I have been formulating for months, is that we are just as greedy, pushy and self-absorbed as we were a year ago. Our level of consumption in the country is gross, and passed the abusive mark years ago. We have continued our unsustainable lifestyle by sucking dry the resources of the world, essentially exporting poverty to other countries so that we can live large.
Our economy has evolved to become unsustainable. One country can't continually consume the majority of the whole planets resources and not expect a backlash from the rest of the inhabitants.
Anyone remember Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" (1926)? The spoiled priviledged class living large on the backs of the workers? Sound familiar?
SO the real question is not "how have we changed" but rather, "what are YOU doing to change?"
Pax, Americana
We let the Nazis (not just the "Germans") kill 6 million non-Jews too. Don't hear much about them, eh?
There is more than enough culpability to go around. Let's upgrade it to recent events: Have you protested the Taliban's requirement that non-Muslims be identified by a mark on their clothing? Did you take to the streets or even call your congressperson when Africa began (and continues to) chopping itself to bits with now over 5 million dead in ethnic and tribal cleansing?
Guilt is like Peanut Butter: It spreads a long way and sticks to EVERYONE. So what will YOU do today to stop the bloodshed?
RMW
Let's see, a group of women with a common interest and talent band together to help each other and anyone else in the community to improve their skills and increase their knowledge. MS steps in, hijacks their name, and replaces the community with it's own puppet-chick-on-a-tether.
We knew MS was monopolistic. Who'da thought they were misogynists too. (Insert giggle: But then, it was Melinda French Gates who was the product manager and head cheerleader behind Microsoft BOB. Perhaps BillG, et all are nothing short of narrow stereotypers.)
Digital Divas would do well to get a major 'cause' group behind them (like NOW), but the groups that are going to get behind DD on the gender grounds have already been tuned out (rightly or wrongly) by the 'male majority'. Is there any way to raise issues touching gender without whining?
Either you've got a really novel notion of what constitutes deranged or you've never been out of your American hole.
Japan is numero uno for child porn because Japanese males have an unrestrained passion for naked pictures of pubescent girls. They show up most often in the states as 'Lolitas.' The practice is winked at in Japan, but is common and public, available at every newsstand. Does it surprise you coming from a country that is still 100 years behind in it's valuation of women?
Re: Puritanical Beliefs. I swear, you and Katz have been smoking the same DOPE. Read Ian Buruma's `Wages of Guilt' for starters if you want an inside take on the screwed up social cesspool that is modern Japan. I think both of you (and a large number of the flubber-mouthed anti-establishment knitwits on Slashdot) need to learn that Puritans and 'Puritanical beliefs' (in it's popular usage) are not the same thing. The racket about the persisting influence of 'Puritanism' gets really old, because most of the fools stupid enough to incautiously lambaste it only know of it from having seen 'The Crucible', written in 1953 as a thinly veiled jab at McCarthy's 'witchhunt' for communists.
Change Gears: Scandinavia? You've got to be kidding me! Consider: it is legal to own or produce child porn...just as long as you don't sell it. This is healthy?
BTW Scandinavian countries, while having differing attitudes on sex, consider lots of things that are taken for granted by Americans to be pure horrors. And they're not of one mind about the issue: Sweden on the conservative side and Denmark on the liberal side with the other countries more or less conservative based on the issue. Consider what IS prohibited: Gay or Lesbian couples adopting children and most forms of drugs. Consider what is HEAVILY REGULATED: Alcohol and nicotine cannot be advertised, are HEAVILY taxed, and are severely restricted concerning the places where they may used or purchased.
Since the subject of your post was movie ratings consider this: ALL Scandinavian countries have movie ratings systems. They work somewhat differently than the American system in the type of content they seek to screen (mostly the Uber-Violence that characterizes Hollywood today) from children. But a significant fact is here if you can stomach it: AGE is still the benchmark, and it is the STATE who makes the decisions.
CiXeL, I don't think the porn you downloaded (and are apparently still downloading) has made you 'mentally deranged.' Morally deranged, yes. And mentally stupid, if you think humans have become smart enough to not do things to themselves or others that are harmful. Laws decided on by the community for the community's own good are the cornerstone of self government and hence democracy. Like a man says, "It ain't perfect, but it's better than everything else." In keeping with wildman Katz' loopy anarchism, you're supporting a principle of thought that isn't a system. It's chaos, and no basis for governance.
Yeah, I can imagine you're pissed at me right now for sounding off on you. Maybe if you slowed down long enuf du korekt UR spellign you might have to consider the content of your thoughts before you inflict them on the rest of us.
webwalker
I agree that some of the griefs concerning Katz's work stoop to the level of 'this sux, you blow...go kiss Bill G. on the butt.' About the level of maturity I'd expect for those who are drunk on the sound of their own words.
By the same token, the degree to which 'this rulez' and 'Katz is god' is spouted makes for what one would initially THINK would be a balanced degree of illiteracy: knothead pro-Katz vs. knothead anti-Katz.
My main beef is the tendancy of moderators to thumbs up or thumbs down the comments, no matter how thickheaded, based on whether THEY like the article or not. That's not the purpose of moderation. I presume (and the moderator's FAQ bears it out) that the idea of moderation is to thumbs up the comments that speak with particular clarity on the original article, be it pro or con. To do otherwise is to turn the process into a censoring method based on the moderator's opinion of the original article.
I have a novel idea (plant your tongue firmly in your cheek and GRIN): Enforce good grammar and the screaming penguins will either have to think about what they're saying while they learn not to dangle their participles, or they will go ELSEWHERE. Either would be preferable.
Thanks for your comments.
I think this evaluation of 'the moderation of Katz' is about as dead on as it gets. Moderators are supposed to provide guidance, not censorship, and this is essentially what the function has become. How ironic that the man who incites people to break the law (no matter how silly) and masticates anyone who disagrees with him has his material protected by the moderating thought police.
BTW, I've observed Katz as a factually sloppy, intellectually dishonest fruitcake with delusions of relevance. The fact that Rob & Hemos continue to foist this knothead's opinions on us as 'features' might be a sign that Slashdot isn't about community discussion but is becoming increasingly about a codified agenda.
How about encouraging someone slightly more mainstream to use the soapbox as well? The tit-for-tat opinions would provide a more balanced view and we might start attracting the type of well considered attention (as opposed to the screaming-penguins) that will drive Linux further into the market and more programmers into the Linux world. Katz is the antithesis of the reasoning that we need and adds nothing to the debate but piss 'n vinegar (I was going to just say vitriol, but then reread his SouthPark censorship BS first and decided PnV was more accurate.)
Whether you agree or disagree, let me hear from you.
M.
Had it occurred to you, bonehead, that capalert doesn't speak for the religious right any more than Bob Young speaks for Linux.
Reminds me of some Steve Taylor lyrics: "A Christian don't get equal time unless he's alooney committing a crime."
The tent is bigger than you know, and more varied than you can apparently concieve.
webwalker
When someone abuses my trust, they're likely to get dumped out on the side of the road. (Hear that Yahoo, Microsoft, Flashcom, Bell Atlantic...?)
The issue isn't "do registered users write better stuff" its "registered users are accountable for the stuff they write."
When the registered posters offer crap, you can take them head on into the debate, potentially continuing it in moderate privacy.
ACs? Tough luck. May as well be spitting into the wind or chasing ghosts.
I have found the "I'm too lazy to register" argument (which another AC poster replied to my missive with) to be endemic in this bru-ha-ha: Too lazy to take responsibility for what they write...but with more than enough time on their hand to blather the stupid brain diarrhea onto Slashdot and take up space.
This is my beef, in a nut shell, with the AC system.
"I you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and change."
The Man in the Mirror.
How 'bout this for an idea: We can't control the Linux Nazis assasinating every journalist on the web, but we CAN refuse to play that game here on Slashdot.
Anonymous Coward posts have, in my book, outlived their contribution to the shaky notion of being a bulwark of free speech. I'm not of a mind to tell Rob what to do with his site 'cause...well, it's HIS site. But I'm so bloody tired of the bad karma that I've dropped my preferences threshold to winnow out the AC posts.
If YOU want to help Slashdot GROW UP, do the same. Strain out the ACs and that way, those that WANT to hear the fist shaking little bigots can set their preferences to access all posts. Those who don't, won't have to waste either bandwidth or brain juice on their irresponsible rants.
Before you flame me, consider:
1) I might be right. There is always the outside possibility.
2) I'm not suggesting that Rob pull the plug on ACs, so the 1st Amendment Shriekers can sit down as well.
3) I am suggesting the possibility that if no one is willing to listen to those who don't want to take responsibility for the bile they spray on this site, maybe the ACs will either STOP posting their crap, or at least, by taking enough responsibility for their opinions to put their name to it, leave them open to censure by the members of this site. (For the dictionarily challenged, I don't mean CENSOR, I mean CENSURE, that is, corporate display of displeasure.)
I want to make this place better for all. Or if not better, at least more reasoned. I have always marvelled at the murderous abuse, mockery, and derision organized religions takes on this site. Marvelled, because the zealotry with which those who disagree are cruxified lies clearly in the realm of pharisaeism that Slashdotters, on the whole, despise.
Is this a case of "becoming what we behold?"
Disagree. Fine. Post your reply. But remember: Unless you're a big enough person to identify yourself, I won't even hear your opinion, polite, abusive, death-threat, or otherwise.
webwalker
Your comments are inflammatory and sloppy. Don't sharpen the devil's horn by making this sloppy excuse for an article to be worse than it really is.
Langberg wrote:'the OS doesn't yet support all the peripherals -- such as printers and scanners -- that work with Windows and the Mac.'
He is correct in that, there are SOME PRINTERS AND SCANNERS that won't work with Linux. They either rely on hooks to a MS OS, or use interfaces that we don't have perfected yet, like USB.
Misha, in this day and age, to "do this [computing thing] for a living" means that you likely do it in Windows. The hood of their "Ford" is welded shut and they are a professional driver. They know how to manipulate their econobox down the road to get where they need to go. When it breaks, they tow it to the dealership. Introduce those folks to a stripped down chassis made for speed, flexibility & accessibility and a courier that is on the road every day isn't going to like the idea of driving a rolling project. The greatest error in consumer Linux thinking is that most people even WANT a system that can be turned from a tire iron to a toilet plunger by changing runlevels. Most people want a computing appliance: You plug it in and USE IT. Windows isn't there, but on good days, it's closer to being usable for the "common man" than Linux is now or is likely to be soon. The MS "way of doing things" also has the inertia in the computing culture. We won't change it overnight. Indeed, it might be smarter to borrow a page from the Chinese playbook: offer as little to resistance to invasion as is prudent (make the interface similar and duplicate the style) let the new folks get comfortable, and then retain the culture of openness. Ten years from now, joe user won't be bothered if his kid wants to edit init.d. But this change doesn't take place over night, so kvetching about joe-sixpack being MS brainwashed sounds exactly like what it is: bigoted and short sighted.
Your attitude about the villiage idiot not being allowed to use a computer stinks. How else do they learn, eh pendejo? It must be nice to be so confident in your own technical supremacy that you can indiscriminately sneer at the peasants.
Linux has a long way to go to offer the functionality required for mass adoption. I use it every day and even went to the trouble (and I do mean TROUBLE) of installing it on my laptop in lieu of my employer's choice of NT. I administer 5 different OSs every day: HPUX11 & Solaris for my day job, Linux, Win95 & WinNT for the rest.) Philosophically I dig the OSS movement. KDE is my WM of choice. And I don't ream people a new one because they disagree with me. I ream people a new one for their sheer knowitall attitude.
Your attitude is a disgrace to the Linux community.
Your comments are inflammatory and sloppy. Don't sharpen the devil's horn by making this sloppy excuse for an article to be worse than it really is.
Langberg wrote:'the OS doesn't yet support all the peripherals -- such as printers and scanners -- that work with Windows and the Mac.'
He is correct in that, there are SOME PRINTERS AND SCANNERS that won't work with Linux. They either rely on hooks to an MS OS, or use interfaces that we don't have perfected yet, like USB.
Misha, in this day and age, to "do this [computing thing] for a living" means that you likely do it in Windows. The hood of their "Ford" is welded shut and they are a professional driver. They know how to manipulate their econobox down the road to get where they need to go. When it breaks, they tow it to the dealership. Introduce those folks to a stripped down chassis made for speed, flexibility & accessibility and a courier that is on the road every day isn't going to like the idea of driving a rolling project. The greatest error in consumer Linux thinking is that most people even WANT a system that can be turned from a tire iron to a toilet plunger by changing runlevels. Most people want a computing appliance: You plug it in and USE IT. Windows isn't there, but on good days, it's closer to being usable for the "common man" than Linux is now or is likely to be soon. The MS "way of doing things" also has the inertia in the computing culture. We won't change it overnight. Indeed, it might be smarter to borrow a page from the Chinese playbook: offer as little to resistance to invasion as is prudent (make the interface similar and duplicate the style) let the new folks get comfortable, and then retain the culture of openness. Ten years from now, joe user won't be bothered if his kid wants to edit inet.d.conf. But this change doesn't take place over night, so kvetching about joe-sixpack being MS brainwashed sounds exactly like what it is: bigoted and short sighted.
Your attitude about the villiage idiot not being allowed to use a computer stinks. How else do they learn, eh pendejo? It must be nice to be so confident in your own technical supremacy that you can indiscriminately sneer at the peasants.
Linux has a long way to go to offer the functionality required for mass adoption. I use it every day and even went to the trouble (and I do mean TROUBLE) of installing it on my laptop in lieu of my employer's choice of NT. I administer 5 different OSs every day: HPUX11 & Solaris for my day job, Linux, Win95 & WinNT for the rest.) Philosophically I dig the OSS movement. KDE is my WM of choice. And I don't ream people a new one because they disagree with me. I ream people a new one for their sheer knowitall attitude.
You're attitude is a disgrace to the Linux community.
Been in conversation with Flashcom since Dec. Constant refrain is "be here any day now", interspersed with "won't be available" and "you can have it right now if you sign up now."
My old man is looking into them and has been burned five or six ways to breakfast by their constantly shifting policies, offerings, prices, and doubletalk. Another buddy of mine who is suffering under the onus of ISDN sticker-shock (he's had ISDN for 2 years and the fees are killing him) was all ready to sign up for Flashcom until he read the terms: You are allowed to do nothing that they don't specifically permit (no servers, IPMasq, etc.) and your guaranteed line speed is...NOTHING. They commit to nothing, but lock you into a year long contract that you can't get out of for any reason because they don't promise to deliver anything. (How do you justify to the court breaking a contract that doesn't promise you anything? Riddle me THAT, Batman!)
rant_on
The stupidest part of this whole sorry mess is that my region (Southern New Jersey) is home to many very wealthy communities (they work in Philly and retire to their Mansions in Medford Lakes) that would love and use these high speed services. So far, no CableModems, no DSL from BellAtlantic (which won't even return calls), and no other options for higher speeds other than BellAtl's larcenous ISDN prices. Naturally BellAtl doesn't want to provide DSL speeds at competitive prices: ISDN service nets them more $ per sucker without having to be competitive.
rant_off
Flashcom is being watched very carefully by consumer advocacy groups in the Delaware Valley and their service in the next several weeks will be detailed in a forthcoming report. I'll have a copy posted at my website: www.webwrench.com.
Anyone else who has encountered FLASHCOM, please contact me to add your input and I'll pass it along to the advocacy group.
Miguel:
You're a dude for taking this kind of crap and turning it around in a civil and professional manner.
I'm not a Gnome user, I actually prefer KDE+Caldera GNU/Linux, but your attitude should be a model we could all afford more in this virtual pack of loud mouths.
Best of luck with your future work, and thank you for your present contributions.
Just imagine being in a business where your saleability depends on the version of an app you're running. No, we're not talking about MS Word or MS anything: It's AUTOCAD & 3DSTUDIO MAX.
Most of the CAD world runs on AutoCad, despite encroachment by some third parties. While it is possible to use a 3D part product and convert to ACAD format, no vendor will work with you. Pure Acad, or HIT THE ROAD, JACK. Not surprising, considering even AutoDesk doesn't have a firm handle on their version control. For Indy Contractors, this means you use the AutoDesk product, or you don't eat.
AutoCAD desperately needs to be ported to Linux, as it would remove the hoary need to get shafted twice: Once by AutoCAD and again by MS.
Also, 3DS MAX offers network rendering capacity, but again, runs only on MS OSs. Imagine the speed, capacity, and cost per frame a render farm could manage if you could load a render client on a low cost Open Source OS! AutoDesk would have more business than they could keep up with, as every dog and his master decided to go into the business because the barrier to entry had been considerably lowered.
Opinions? Does anyone other than me see this as a GOOD THING (tm)?
Reconsider your evaluation. Perhaps M$ does make some things unnecessarily difficult, but Linux can hardly be said to be an improvement on the usability scale. Great for geeks, but Joe Six-pack is having a hard time adjusting.
Background: I a former Windows 95 Support Engineer. BELIEVE ME, I know where you're coming from. The horrors I had to bail people out of were nasty, and full 50% of them were MS's fault.
But the 50% were just plain old user errors, mistakes or thrashing. (What we came affectionately to refer to as "smacking a tar-baby in the mouth. Reference: Song of the South)
These are the folks that either can't be taught or are embarrassed enough about their lack of knowledge that they fight you the whole way.
My wife is a Registrar for a educator's technical training center. Teachers come in and are taught basic computing skills like email. Not surprisingly, a good portion don't want to be there and don't want to learn.
This isn't just teachers; it is society at large. The sheer volume of information and skills that we need to have to survive today boggles the mind. Our grandparents are overwhelmed by it, and our parents struggle with what the younger generation is picking up much faster than they.
I am beginning to wonder how we, as a society, are going to deal with information overload.
My humble thanks.
As you say, despite being the self appointed harbingers of "choice" and "freedom", Linux folks have walked differently than they have talked. I need only remind readers of last week's discussion of the Virtual Faith review by Katz: The slash and burn vitriol against anyone stating (not evangelizing) a religious faith was very telling.
Perhaps all this passion is good for something, but the wholesale dismisses and marginalization of those you don't agree with isn't one of them. One might go so far as to say that when we scream FUD about MS, we have adopted their tactics and become what we despise.
Life is funny like that.
Let me clarify:
As you pointed out, my comments were directed both to the tone and the content of the original post. I understood what the poster's point.
Also, my comments were hardly off topic. The subject of the article being discussed is why people use or don't use Linux.
Thanks for your comments.
I started coming to slashdot about 6 months ago because it was the only place that I could hear the "other side" comment about Linux without the truth being filtered through the mainstream press.
But the personal BIGOTRY that goes on here is starting to tax a lot of people's patience.
We all know that MS is a big, mean ole company that has foisted haphazard bloatware on the public. Fine. We know this.
What the world could do with a lot less of are the screaming Linux KKK that is out to denigrate everyone who uses a Microsoft product or admits that it is easier to "go with flow" than to fight their employer, their peers (the attachment sending ones), and the predominant consumer experience.
Face it: Most folks who are using MS products do so for reasons other than passion, and aren't sure why Linux folks go screaming-yellow-zonkers over what they view as an APPLIANCE. Sure, it crashes. WE know that the average consumer is jaded to this unnecessarily. But look at the alternative: To get a stable system, they would need to unlearn their limited knowledge about computers and then learn a HUGE amount about an Operating System that doesn't look, act or feel like anything they've ever known. Are you surprised that the common user (if they even know what Linux is) would consider switching Operating Systems to be a hassle that wasn't worth the benefit? How do you think flaming them is going to change their mind?
Essentially, the Linux community makes every migration and attitude change harder the more it screams and shouts insults at users of another OS. The most public Linux advocates seem to have the manners and grace of a spoiled, tantrum throwing CHILD. The Linux claim of "communal computing" has already started to wear thin for Windows users who ask a question on Usenet or listserv and get flamed into a pile of ashes by Linux bigots who burn down the people they claim they are trying to win over.
This behavior is a conundrum for radicals: It takes a loud voice to get a milling crowd's attention, but that same loud voice is ignored as "just another nutcase" if it doesn't speak reasonably once it has the crowd's attention.
The Open Source cause has a double-pronged PR problem. One, the most visible Linux & OSS proponants don't talk, discuss or debate: they rage like angry little Klansmen. Second, people in computing are very gifted intellectually, but at the cost of our social skills. Face it: we like to be left alone with the bit-box because in all of it's complexity, it seems simpler to deal with than other people.
The grandest conundrum in this sorry evaluation is that Linus Torvalds doesn't fit into the public image that the Linux & OSS bigots are defining for themselves. When the average IT person is asked if they know anyone who really likes Linux, the picture they get isn't someone who is happily trying to push a good idea. They envision someone like ESR: vastly brilliant but completely devoid of social skills. In other words, the prototypical OSS or Linux bigot.
I'll close with this analogy of changing people's mind for their own good:
Many years ago in Tanzania, two white missionary women that had just come to the country saw the way that the native woman would gather a handful of rushes and then stoop over to sweep out their huts. This constant bending did these native women significant harm and the older women bore the results in poor posture and limited mobility.
Both of the missionary women felt obligated to improve the lot of these native women and as each prepared to go to their assigned villages, they agreed to make their best effort to change this unnecessary and injurious habit.
About two years later, they met again at a conference in the capital. They compared their experiences.
"Oh, those stubborn woman!" the first one seethed. "I showed them how to tie the rushes in a bundle to a stick and that way they could stand up properly to clean. But they ignored me! They told me I was welcome to clean my house in my way, and they would clean their in their way. Not one of them has changed. They are completely set in their ways."
The second missionary mulled the first's story for a moment and then said, "Perhaps they are stubborn because it is all they know and it is easier to deal with the hardships you know than to risk changing then for hardships you don't know. Besides, by telling them that your way was better, you implied that they were fools for not being like you."
"What do you mean?" inquired the first, sharply.
"Well", said the second lady, "I did not tell them that using a stick would be better or that it would be good for them. I just did it myself. And when they saw that I stood upright without pain, they slowly and surely tried it themselves. And though standing up straight pained them at first, some of the older women who have been stooping over for years are feeling better."
Let him hear it who may...
I refer not to your spiritual beliefs, but to your attitude. To Joe Six-Pack, the difference between you and them, based on your hateful response, is negilgible.
BTW, doesn't tolerance mean being tolerant of people who aren't tolerant?
:-) Lighten Up!
I fail to understand how dragging Creationism (or Scientific Creationism, pick your strawman) and the skewing of data used to support it lends credence to your assertion that there is no God. This is on the same level as outright rejecting that eggs come from chickens because you've never seen one laid.
Also, while I respect and defend your right to criticize Roman Catholicism for its excesses and dogmatism, I must disagree that because it may have been wrong in one thing that it is wrong all through. (BTW, I am not Catholic, nor have I ever been.) To paste some salve on that raw wound you harbor called "Creationism", I would like to point out that even Pope John Paul II acknowledged last year that the theory of evolution may have something to it, but that even if it were true, it does not impact the central message of Christianity: A just God providing redeption for a rebellious and self-absorbed race.
Since others have said it better, I'll invoke their voices. C.S. Lewis summed the existance of God question and the truthfulness of religious systems up thus: "When I was an athiest, I believed that all religions were dangerous because their basic premise (an unseen Deity) was wrong all through. When I became a Christian, I was able to take a more liberal view [of other religions].
Robert Heinlein (who was ever an old rational-anarchist-atheist) admitted that atheism was merely "god-ism" turned on its head. It offered no more answers than its progenitor.
Bub, I don't know where you get your ideas, but anybody with that much piss, vinegar, bile and stink for a single subject needs counselling, bad.
Lighten up a little, lest you become what you despite.
webwalker