I am not proposing anything other than three facts:
1. The federal government is violating the Constitution by providing for education and healthcare as well as many other things. This is clear to anyone who cares to read the document. It doesn't matter if there is a "need"... if there is a need, vote on an amendment. Once government steps out of framework laid down by the documents that provide their power, there is nothing restraining it.
2. Even if the Constitution was amended to provide for these services, the Federal Government is completely inept in its attempt to do so. Poorer healthcare and education overall so that "everyone" may have "something instead of nothing" is a poor choice. The failed attempt to provide a public education at all costs to all citizens has resulted in an overwhelming decline of the QUALITY of education that anyone can afford to obtain.
3. No government or society has the right to forcibly take from me and give to others. That is theft, plain and simple. YOU don't have the right to force me to give you $20 so you can give it to someone who has less than me... You and your entire neighborhood don't have the right to force me to... neither does the flavor of the month in Congress/The Whitehouse and all the goobers that voted for them.
There may be inequities in education, healthcare, etc. etc. between communities, ethnic groups, sexes etc. in this nation... but I guarantee you that government involvement is the CAUSE of those inequities more than the solution.
I am not saying that as a society we don't have a MORAL obligation to provide for the less fortunate... but we simply can not tolerate a government forcing THOSE morals on us any more than we can tolerate them forcing religous or false patriotic ones. I find it quite hypocritical that the same liberal/conservative voices in this country can make a such a strong objection to such "moral legislation" simply because the morals being legislated are the ones they choose not to believe in. There is no difference between mandating that Prayer should be IN school or mandating that it should be OUT of school. There is no difference between mandating involuntary government servitude (i.e. the draft) and mandating that because I make X dollars a year, I must be forced to give money to the government to provide for something that makes X-Y dollars a year.
All I am trying to point out is that educational quality has DECREASED with Fed Gvt involvement. Health Care quality has DECREASED with Fed Gvt involvment.
They screw up everything they touch because as soon as they become involved, it becomes political, void of any ethics whatsoever. I don't want MY health care or education and that of my family to be a campaign issue for career politician. GIve me back my friggin tax money and let me take care of it myself.
People are NOT starving in the United States. People are NOT being refused medical care in the United States. People are not without educational opportunities in the United States. They never have been and they NEVER will be, even if the Fed Govt has no involvement in this issues whatsoever.
MOst certainly we are in a different society than we were back then.. but why has the literacy rate, and the success rate of our schools DECLINED EVERY SINGLE YEAR sinee federal government has been involved in the process.
I don't necessarily think that is no room for publicly funded education, but NOT AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL. Firstly, its unconsitutional, and secondly, its completely beyond a manageable scale. If your urban area needs to improve its education base.. then IT needs to do something about it. And if you weren't being taxed to death by the Feds, you would have money available for that expressed purpose.
I don't disagree that market pressures have created astounding property value differences between the Urban and Suburban areas. But we only THINK we have public education. I may send my kids to public schools in a nice suburban area, but in fact, I am paying TUITION in the form of higher property taxes. There IS no free ride. But the bottom line is, I may have a MORAL obligation to help educate the less fortunate, but to turn that into a LEGAL one is unconstitutional and IMMORAL in and of itself.
All you really need to ask with any question of this nature is.. What did people do before the Federal Govt did it for them?
Just because I believe the Federal Government should live within the limits of the constitution and I call myself a libertarian doesn't mean I am an anarchist.
What did we do before there was a Deptartment of Education? What did we do before there was Medicaid and Medicare?
Did you ever see the TV show, "Little House on the Prairie"? Who paid the doctor when he delivered a baby? Who paid the school teacher to teach the kids? Maybe it was the members of the community? Maybe the "town" did? I don't know, but the fact is, this country BECAME GREAT before it had this much federal government involvment in our daily lives and its losing its greatness everday we allow this involvement to continue.
Just because I don't think the federal govenment can't effectively manage education or medical care at the national level, doesn't mean that all levels or government are the same. Just because a Federal Department of Education or some form of Healthcare is unconsitutional and doomed to failure doesn't mean that something at the local, city, or county level would suffer the same fate. Maybe one state or city would be completely privatized by choice, maybe another would be marginally, maybe another not at all. Then the market could determine what is successful and what gets adopted. Liberals could live where they wanted and conservatives where they wanted.. and the federal government could be expected to live within the boundaries of the document that provides its power and framework.. the Constitution.
Look... what is supposed to be going on here is one school, one neighborhood, one community, one city, one state is supposed to be able to compete against the others to be a more desireable place to live/study. The state of Maine is supposed to be able to say "Hey, if you guys want private education and public healthcare, move here, thats what we have" and the state of Colorado is supposed to be able to say "If you want private healthcare and public education move here". But none of that happens today. We have NO CHOICES, because federal government enters every aspect of our daily lives.
It shouldn't even matter to half the people in this country WHO gets elected president. It shouldn't matter because it shouldn't affect most people's daily lives... BUT IT DOES.. and thats wrong and its a clear indication of how overreaching the power of the Office of the Presidency is.
The last time I checked... a friend was defined as someone that does something solely for the benefit of the friend and not the self.
SUN may be have contributed to the open source movement, but its never been as a "friend". More like a reluctant used car salesman trying to make sure they stay included in the purchase process.
Linux has the power to be a wonderful desktop system, even for the casual user... but the Linux distro producers and developers simply do not care to make it so.
Unumerous times we hear the mantra "I refuse to dumb it down. If they are too stupid to use it, then screw them."... and so on and so forth. We see "Linux PCs" being sold, but Linux is not Windows. Linux gives you the power to do anything you want with your desktop, but that also gives casual users the opportunity to break something.
Linux desktops could easily be a success, if only a big named VAR would offer a solution that TAKES AWAY some of this freedom. Most casual users dont care HOW it works. They just want it to work. Dont make them type things at the command line... it scares them. Dont make them THINK about it. Just set it up, sell it to them, and provide them with service.. all in one neat package.
You should be commended for your resolution and doing what you think is right, even in the face of such great adversity.
Your teacher/principal should be fired for being such narrow minded educators.
And... you should be thankful that you were able to have this experience at such a young age. Many people live their whole lives in this country and never come close to having something like this to be proud of themselves for.
First of all, let me state that I don't particularly believe in God. Actually, to be clearer, I don't think that IF there is a God, that he gives a damn whether you believe in him or not. What I DO believe in is the right of every American citizen to DO and SAY anything they damn well please as long as they aren't infringing on someone else's right to do the same.
I am always amazed at how many people are out there that have no idea about what the term "separation of church and state" really means. The first amendment states that:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;or abridgin the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, an to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
That's it. Plain and simple.
Point 1: This has nothing to do with a matter of law. There is no "law" in question here that would either promote or hinder any aspect of religious freedom.
Point 2: The constitution is a document solely designed for ONE purpose... to outline and more importantly restrict what the Federal government can and can not do. It has absolutely NO bearing on what other citizens or free enterprise does to you and its a strongly debatable topic as to whether or not it can interfere with local and state government, unless specifically given rights in other areas of the document (i.e. the 13th amendment which outlaws slavery, etc.)
Point 3: I have read through the Constitution again and again and I can find NO REFERENCE WHATSOEVER to "protection from being personally offended". I am sorry so many people in this country have such thin skin, but frankly, I don't care. I respect the right of everyone to say whatever they want to, without fear of reprisal from the GOVERNMENT... but not necessarily from his fellow citizens. What I mean by that is...If you plan to have a KKK rally in downtown Detroit, or burn the American flag at VFW meeting, don't expect not to get your ass whipped. And quite possibly you would deserve it just for being so stupid.
True.. the Pledge of Allegiance was ammended to include the words "under God", and that only happened in this within the last 50 years or so I believe. But the fact of the matter is that this country was founded by Protestants that believed in God, and religion is now and has always been a big political influence. What's next? Do we protest our political leaders from going to church or synagogue because we feel they are trying to influence the rest of the country unfairly?
If the biggest problem you people can think of in this country is whether or not the Pledge of Allegiance has the word "God" in it... you all really need to get a life.
I really don't understand how anyone can take MS seriously anymore...
"We think Linux is worthless. Its the bane of the IT industry and will end the world in a horrible and tragic way... oh... and its also our biggest threat and competition."
Uh... WTF? Something that horrible and worthless is your biggest threat?? Just ignore it. I am sure it will just just go away.;)
I think we are forgetting something fundamental here... the whole idea of policies and security with respect to installing rogue applications stems from the fact that Windows and Windows networks are so damn easy to completely break.
If I install a program as a user on my Linux box, or even in my user space on the departmental server... it has no effect WHATSOEVER on the rest of the server or the other users. Thats what a multi-user OS "is". You can't even TOUCH that with ANY Windows implementation.
This discussion is not about "Oh, I can break into any box and install Linux". Sure you can. There is no way to stop. Lock it up? pick the lock. Remove the floppy and cdrom? install one or do a network install via crossover cable and another box. Blah blah blah.
The idea is that Linux IS in far more places than people know. And it will only grow in the future. Will it supplant MS as the "King of the desktop"? Who the hell cares... but people have a choice now.. and they ARE choosing it.
heh... I accidently setup a rogue DHCP server on our network by trying to fix my buddy's DSL modem here at work. I plugged it in to get in there and configure it for him before dropping it off after work. The damn thing was serving up DHCP by default and the network nazis disabled my port and came looking for me. When they found me.. I was stretching a 30ft ethernet cable over to someone else's cube for troubleshooting purposes.:)
"When one version of ms office can successfully read and write ms office files of different versions with absolutely no damage to the file or the rendering, then I'd think maybe microsoft is getting a clue."
Actually, in almost any corporate environment... " The number of end-users with the skills, permission and motivation to install" WINDOWS or any other OS "on their work desktop is extremely low."
I really can't stand it when people proclaim that Linux is some how more complicated than Windows. It most certainly is NOT. Its simply different. There is something fundamentally wrong with the world when something like a Linux desktop is rejected not for its own faults, but because its "different" than what we are used to... and what we are used to... it sucks.
I doubt very seriously that any corporate environment, excluding a place that actually DOES computer support or development of some kind, has more than a handful of people that could install anything on any system.
I think what MS needs to really worry about is the world waking to the fact that there are other options beside MS's proprietary document formats. In the meantime... CrossOver office anyone?
I am not a sysadmin.. but I can tell you that there are MANY MANY "rogue" Linux desktops within HP... including mine. Using Crossover Office, I have completely eliminated the need for Windows at work altogether. We also have an "authorized" internal distribution network for doing network installations of Linux for whatever purpose you may need. I am confident, that if you queried our site system administrators as to what percentage of desktops they have running Linux, they would be off by at least a factor of 10.
It won't be worked out because MS doesn't want it worked out. I have run into this myself many, many times over the past several years. Even when you get Samba and Wine doing what you need them to do... MS changes things and it all breaks again.
The answer is not in making Linux work like Windows, but in not using the proprietary protocols and document formats that Windows pushes. Take a Windows environment with no SMB, no MS Office, and no Active Directory.. and Linux will work with it perfectly... and it won't break with your next upgrade or service pack rollout.
There are times... when I look at what Bill Gates has done, how he has had a large hand in creating and driving a lot of today's IT related economy... and I have a tremendous respect for him... THEN there are the rest of the times, when I realize that he is just a pile of shite.
"almost universal"? Is that anything like "partially pregnant"?
HTML might be the worst printable document format, but its the BEST online viewable format. I only care about disemination of information, not bells and whistles. I guess I am jaded because I NEVER print ANYTHING. I consider it a huge waste of time and money.
Granted, the compression behind MPEG might not be as good as WMV or DivX. But its an open format. Whereas WMV is NOT and I don't know about DivX, but it certainly isn't "native" on anything yet. The point I was making was about accessibility... not "Hey dude, I have every single episode of Lizzie McGuire on my home system. Good thing I used DivX or else I would have had to get more disk space."
Personally, I don't have a problem with going back to the days where musicians had to sing for their supper.
The greatest classical composers of all times were nothing more than "kept men". Some member of some royal family would sponsor one of them... provide them with a place to live and some spending money in exchange for creating some music. They all died as underappreciated paupers, but they made music because they loved it... not to get rich.
Honestly, in a world where people like firemen and school teachers are financially treated like second rate citizens... the fact that J-Lo or Eminem is going to make 1 million instead of 50 doesn't bother me one bit.
Sure, everyone should be fairly compensated for the work they do... but does anyone honestly think that the amount of money tossed around in the music industry is only FAIR???
Sometimes I think that everyone is going about this in the wrong way. Yes... the Linux desktop needs some work before my 70-year-old Aunt can use it... but the tools are all there. Its not like the desktop WON"T do what she wants, she just doesn't know how to make it work.
For Linux to succeed on the desktop, I think two things need to happen... somebody like HP, IBM, or Dell needs to step up and sell systems that are pre-configured so that people don't have to mess with them. Just turn them on and away they go.
Secondly, its the DOCUMENTS. The world needs to start using something other than.WMV for video,.PPT for presentations and.DOC for documents. The only reason MS has a stranglehold on the desktop is because people have been convinced they need to use those formats. Everytime I turn around I see a website or some CD that is forcing people to use these documents.
The next time you are creating a document or file format.... even if its using Windows... force yourself to use.MPEG or.HTML. I create presentations in.PPT all the time (crossover office)... but I save them as.HTML. Same goes for just about any other office document.
If anyone sends me a proprietary document format, I ask them to please re-save it in a format that I can use and send it again. Nobody has ever refused yet.
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I am not proposing anything other than three facts:
... neither does the flavor of the month in Congress/The Whitehouse and all the goobers that voted for them.
1. The federal government is violating the Constitution by providing for education and healthcare as well as many other things. This is clear to anyone who cares to read the document. It doesn't matter if there is a "need"... if there is a need, vote on an amendment. Once government steps out of framework laid down by the documents that provide their power, there is nothing restraining it.
2. Even if the Constitution was amended to provide for these services, the Federal Government is completely inept in its attempt to do so. Poorer healthcare and education overall so that "everyone" may have "something instead of nothing" is a poor choice. The failed attempt to provide a public education at all costs to all citizens has resulted in an overwhelming decline of the QUALITY of education that anyone can afford to obtain.
3. No government or society has the right to forcibly take from me and give to others. That is theft, plain and simple. YOU don't have the right to force me to give you $20 so you can give it to someone who has less than me... You and your entire neighborhood don't have the right to force me to
There may be inequities in education, healthcare, etc. etc. between communities, ethnic groups, sexes etc. in this nation... but I guarantee you that government involvement is the CAUSE of those inequities more than the solution.
I am not saying that as a society we don't have a MORAL obligation to provide for the less fortunate... but we simply can not tolerate a government forcing THOSE morals on us any more than we can tolerate them forcing religous or false patriotic ones. I find it quite hypocritical that the same liberal/conservative voices in this country can make a such a strong objection to such "moral legislation" simply because the morals being legislated are the ones they choose not to believe in. There is no difference between mandating that Prayer should be IN school or mandating that it should be OUT of school. There is no difference between mandating involuntary government servitude (i.e. the draft) and mandating that because I make X dollars a year, I must be forced to give money to the government to provide for something that makes X-Y dollars a year.
All I am trying to point out is that educational quality has DECREASED with Fed Gvt involvement. Health Care quality has DECREASED with Fed Gvt involvment.
They screw up everything they touch because as soon as they become involved, it becomes political, void of any ethics whatsoever. I don't want MY health care or education and that of my family to be a campaign issue for career politician. GIve me back my friggin tax money and let me take care of it myself.
People are NOT starving in the United States. People are NOT being refused medical care in the United States.
People are not without educational opportunities in the United States.
They never have been and they NEVER will be, even if the Fed Govt has no involvement in this issues whatsoever.
MOst certainly we are in a different society than we were back then.. but why has the literacy rate, and the success rate of our schools DECLINED EVERY SINGLE YEAR sinee federal government has been involved in the process.
I don't necessarily think that is no room for publicly funded education, but NOT AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL. Firstly, its unconsitutional, and secondly, its completely beyond a manageable scale. If your urban area needs to improve its education base.. then IT needs to do something about it. And if you weren't being taxed to death by the Feds, you would have money available for that expressed purpose.
I don't disagree that market pressures have created astounding property value differences between the Urban and Suburban areas. But we only THINK we have public education. I may send my kids to public schools in a nice suburban area, but in fact, I am paying TUITION in the form of higher property taxes. There IS no free ride. But the bottom line is, I may have a MORAL obligation to help educate the less fortunate, but to turn that into a LEGAL one is unconstitutional and IMMORAL in and of itself.
All you really need to ask with any question of this nature is.. What did people do before the Federal Govt did it for them?
Just because I believe the Federal Government should live within the limits of the constitution and I call myself a libertarian doesn't mean I am an anarchist.
What did we do before there was a Deptartment of Education? What did we do before there was Medicaid and Medicare?
Did you ever see the TV show, "Little House on the Prairie"? Who paid the doctor when he delivered a baby? Who paid the school teacher to teach the kids? Maybe it was the members of the community? Maybe the "town" did? I don't know, but the fact is, this country BECAME GREAT before it had this much federal government involvment in our daily lives and its losing its greatness everday we allow this involvement to continue.
Just because I don't think the federal govenment can't effectively manage education or medical care at the national level, doesn't mean that all levels or government are the same. Just because a Federal Department of Education or some form of Healthcare is unconsitutional and doomed to failure doesn't mean that something at the local, city, or county level would suffer the same fate. Maybe one state or city would be completely privatized by choice, maybe another would be marginally, maybe another not at all. Then the market could determine what is successful and what gets adopted. Liberals could live where they wanted and conservatives where they wanted.. and the federal government could be expected to live within the boundaries of the document that provides its power and framework.. the Constitution.
Look... what is supposed to be going on here is one school, one neighborhood, one community, one city, one state is supposed to be able to compete against the others to be a more desireable place to live/study. The state of Maine is supposed to be able to say "Hey, if you guys want private education and public healthcare, move here, thats what we have" and the state of Colorado is supposed to be able to say "If you want private healthcare and public education move here". But none of that happens today. We have NO CHOICES, because federal government enters every aspect of our daily lives.
It shouldn't even matter to half the people in this country WHO gets elected president. It shouldn't matter because it shouldn't affect most people's daily lives... BUT IT DOES.. and thats wrong and its a clear indication of how overreaching the power of the Office of the Presidency is.
The last time I checked... a friend was defined as someone that does something solely for the benefit of the friend and not the self.
SUN may be have contributed to the open source movement, but its never been as a "friend". More like a reluctant used car salesman trying to make sure they stay included in the purchase process.
Java blows anyway.
Linux has the power to be a wonderful desktop system, even for the casual user... but the Linux distro producers and developers simply do not care to make it so.
... and so on and so forth.
Unumerous times we hear the mantra "I refuse to dumb it down. If they are too stupid to use it, then screw them."
We see "Linux PCs" being sold, but Linux is not Windows. Linux gives you the power to do anything you want with your desktop, but that also gives casual users the opportunity to break something.
Linux desktops could easily be a success, if only a big named VAR would offer a solution that TAKES AWAY some of this freedom. Most casual users dont care HOW it works. They just want it to work. Dont make them type things at the command line... it scares them. Dont make them THINK about it. Just set it up, sell it to them, and provide them with service.. all in one neat package.
You should be commended for your resolution and doing what you think is right, even in the face of such great adversity.
Your teacher/principal should be fired for being such narrow minded educators.
And... you should be thankful that you were able to have this experience at such a young age. Many people live their whole lives in this country and never come close to having something like this to be proud of themselves for.
-K
First of all, let me state that I don't particularly believe in God. Actually, to be clearer, I don't think that IF there is a God, that he gives a damn whether you believe in him or not. What I DO believe in is the right of every American citizen to DO and SAY anything they damn well please as long as they aren't infringing on someone else's right to do the same.
I am always amazed at how many people are out there that have no idea about what the term "separation of church and state" really means.
The first amendment states that:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;or abridgin the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, an to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
That's it. Plain and simple.
Point 1: This has nothing to do with a matter of law. There is no "law" in question here that would either promote or hinder any aspect of religious freedom.
Point 2: The constitution is a document solely designed for ONE purpose... to outline and more importantly restrict what the Federal government can and can not do. It has absolutely NO bearing on what other citizens or free enterprise does to you and its a strongly debatable topic as to whether or not it can interfere with local and state government, unless specifically given rights in other areas of the document (i.e. the 13th amendment which outlaws slavery, etc.)
Point 3: I have read through the Constitution again and again and I can find NO REFERENCE WHATSOEVER to "protection from being personally offended". I am sorry so many people in this country have such thin skin, but frankly, I don't care. I respect the right of everyone to say whatever they want to, without fear of reprisal from the GOVERNMENT... but not necessarily from his fellow citizens. What I mean by that is...If you plan to have a KKK rally in downtown Detroit, or burn the American flag at VFW meeting, don't expect not to get your ass whipped. And quite possibly you would deserve it just for being so stupid.
True.. the Pledge of Allegiance was ammended to include the words "under God", and that only happened in this within the last 50 years or so I believe. But the fact of the matter is that this country was founded by Protestants that believed in God, and religion is now and has always been a big political influence. What's next? Do we protest our political leaders from going to church or synagogue because we feel they are trying to influence the rest of the country unfairly?
If the biggest problem you people can think of in this country is whether or not the Pledge of Allegiance has the word "God" in it... you all really need to get a life.
-K
How can you not believe in God and Meat at the same time? ;)
I couldn't agree more :)
PLEAAAASE.... I HAVE a 7 year old and she can't decide if she wants chocolate or vanilla half the time.
UCLA needs a wake up call.
I really don't understand how anyone can take MS seriously anymore...
;)
"We think Linux is worthless. Its the bane of the IT industry and will end the world in a horrible and tragic way... oh... and its also our biggest threat and competition."
Uh... WTF? Something that horrible and worthless is your biggest threat?? Just ignore it. I am sure it will just just go away.
The issue is... "Please don't expose my lack of knowledge, foresight, and talent at doing my job."
I think we are forgetting something fundamental here... the whole idea of policies and security with respect to installing rogue applications stems from the fact that Windows and Windows networks are so damn easy to completely break.
If I install a program as a user on my Linux box, or even in my user space on the departmental server... it has no effect WHATSOEVER on the rest of the server or the other users. Thats what a multi-user OS "is". You can't even TOUCH that with ANY Windows implementation.
This discussion is not about "Oh, I can break into any box and install Linux". Sure you can. There is no way to stop. Lock it up? pick the lock. Remove the floppy and cdrom? install one or do a network install via crossover cable and another box. Blah blah blah.
The idea is that Linux IS in far more places than people know. And it will only grow in the future. Will it supplant MS as the "King of the desktop"? Who the hell cares... but people have a choice now.. and they ARE choosing it.
Truth is.. its total bull. No way to know how many Linux desktops are out there. Can't do it with servers either. (Sorry IDC).
It could be far less or far more. No way to tell.
Uh... you mean like with just about any boot disk known to mankind?
heh... I accidently setup a rogue DHCP server on our network by trying to fix my buddy's DSL modem here at work. I plugged it in to get in there and configure it for him before dropping it off after work. The damn thing was serving up DHCP by default and the network nazis disabled my port and came looking for me. When they found me.. I was stretching a 30ft ethernet cable over to someone else's cube for troubleshooting purposes. :)
"When one version of ms office can successfully read and write ms office files of different versions with absolutely no damage to the file or the rendering, then I'd think maybe microsoft is getting a clue."
fscking classic... and oh so true.
Actually, in almost any corporate environment ...
" The number of end-users with the skills, permission and motivation to install" WINDOWS or any other OS "on their work desktop is extremely low."
I really can't stand it when people proclaim that Linux is some how more complicated than Windows. It most certainly is NOT. Its simply different.
There is something fundamentally wrong with the world when something like a Linux desktop is rejected not for its own faults, but because its "different" than what we are used to... and what we are used to... it sucks.
I doubt very seriously that any corporate environment, excluding a place that actually DOES computer support or development of some kind, has more than a handful of people that could install anything on any system.
I think what MS needs to really worry about is the world waking to the fact that there are other options beside MS's proprietary document formats. In the meantime... CrossOver office anyone?
I am not a sysadmin.. but I can tell you that there are MANY MANY "rogue" Linux desktops within HP... including mine. Using Crossover Office, I have completely eliminated the need for Windows at work altogether. We also have an "authorized" internal distribution network for doing network installations of Linux for whatever purpose you may need. I am confident, that if you queried our site system administrators as to what percentage of desktops they have running Linux, they would be off by at least a factor of 10.
It won't be worked out because MS doesn't want it worked out. I have run into this myself many, many times over the past several years. Even when you get Samba and Wine doing what you need them to do... MS changes things and it all breaks again.
The answer is not in making Linux work like Windows, but in not using the proprietary protocols and document formats that Windows pushes. Take a Windows environment with no SMB, no MS Office, and no Active Directory.. and Linux will work with it perfectly... and it won't break with your next upgrade or service pack rollout.
There are times... when I look at what Bill Gates has done, how he has had a large hand in creating and driving a lot of today's IT related economy... and I have a tremendous respect for him...
THEN there are the rest of the times, when I realize that he is just a pile of shite.
"almost universal"? Is that anything like "partially pregnant"?
HTML might be the worst printable document format, but its the BEST online viewable format. I only care about disemination of information, not bells and whistles. I guess I am jaded because I NEVER print ANYTHING. I consider it a huge waste of time and money.
Granted, the compression behind MPEG might not be as good as WMV or DivX. But its an open format. Whereas WMV is NOT and I don't know about DivX, but it certainly isn't "native" on anything yet. The point I was making was about accessibility... not "Hey dude, I have every single episode of Lizzie McGuire on my home system. Good thing I used DivX or else I would have had to get more disk space."
Personally, I don't have a problem with going back to the days where musicians had to sing for their supper.
The greatest classical composers of all times were nothing more than "kept men". Some member of some royal family would sponsor one of them... provide them with a place to live and some spending money in exchange for creating some music. They all died as underappreciated paupers, but they made music because they loved it... not to get rich.
Honestly, in a world where people like firemen and school teachers are financially treated like second rate citizens... the fact that J-Lo or Eminem is going to make 1 million instead of 50 doesn't bother me one bit.
Sure, everyone should be fairly compensated for the work they do... but does anyone honestly think that the amount of money tossed around in the music industry is only FAIR???
Sometimes I think that everyone is going about this in the wrong way. Yes... the Linux desktop needs some work before my 70-year-old Aunt can use it... but the tools are all there. Its not like the desktop WON"T do what she wants, she just doesn't know how to make it work.
.WMV for video, .PPT for presentations and .DOC for documents.
.MPEG or .HTML. I create presentations in .PPT all the time (crossover office)... but I save them as .HTML. Same goes for just about any other office document.
For Linux to succeed on the desktop, I think two things need to happen... somebody like HP, IBM, or Dell needs to step up and sell systems that are pre-configured so that people don't have to mess with them. Just turn them on and away they go.
Secondly, its the DOCUMENTS. The world needs to start using something other than
The only reason MS has a stranglehold on the desktop is because people have been convinced they need to use those formats. Everytime I turn around I see a website or some CD that is forcing people to use these documents.
The next time you are creating a document or file format.... even if its using Windows... force yourself to use
If anyone sends me a proprietary document format, I ask them to please re-save it in a format that I can use and send it again. Nobody has ever refused yet.
Just a thought,
-Kevin