It's simple logistics. You can stop allowing entry *directly* from those countries, but how do we stop folks from flying from, say, Liberia to Paris to LGA?
Plus, the delays this would cause would have people shrieking in no time.
Then there's the economics. Big loss of dollars there.
IMHO, the solution, if we must have one (as I don't think this is anywhere near the issue the media is making it out to be), is to:
1) approve a Surgeon General and
2) get funding back in place for the CDC and other agencies to do what they used to do before the sequester and the austerity frenzy began.
Wow. I was going to post *exactly the same thing*, more or less. But you saved me the bother.
I feel pretty much the same way, except that I switched to Gnome while holding my nose. I still don't like it much, but it's better than the last several buggy release of KDE. And I do bend my neck and check out every new KDE release.... only to be disappointed again. Ack!
The irony is that the percentage of pirated games (if 80-90% is actually right) would probably be much lower if the DRM wasn't so extensive. A huge number of legitimate customers admit to using cracks on games they bought legally just to get around the annoyances that DRM introduces. I don't advocate piracy, but I do fall into that "cracked legal" category. There needs to be another approach to the issue, because so far all attempts to stop it have only made it worse.
I have been an IT support person, a programmer, and a creative professional (digital design as well as audio production/recording), and used both Macs and PCs for all three, and while I may be biased because I have never actually owned a Mac, I really don't think any of the usual arguments for Macs hold water any longer. The hardware is now (as another few posters mentioned) essentially the same as a typical PC (Intel/x86/64 arch), the software is interchangable (by that I mean you can install OSX or Linux or Windows on either machine).
The idea that Macs "just work" is preposterous to me, because I have never, ever seen a Mac "just work". Nor have I ever seen Linux "just work" (except for a few simple distros like Ubuntu, where it makes all the decisions for you). And of course it would be foolish to argue that Windows "just works."
For me, the choice is still Windows when it comes to professional work (Linux would be a better choice if all the same software apps were available). I have been working on a home recording with a band, where the work is being done on a Mac using ProTools, and every single session there is some kind of stupid technical issue that takes up precious time. At home on my PC, I don't have the same kind of trouble, at least not to the same degree or with the same consistency.
What it comes down to is what User Interface you're more comfortable with. Both are equally capable of performing the same tasks. But one is about 1/3 the price and does not require that you go to one specific store to get replacement parts.
This one is particularly tricky, with the Flemish name having a double meaning in English and all, so the writer gets a pass... but apropos of nothing it seems like headlines (in general, not just/.) are getting more and more difficult to decipher. Maybe they're written that way on purpose, to pull the reader in?
Slashdot Mirror
It's simple logistics. You can stop allowing entry *directly* from those countries, but how do we stop folks from flying from, say, Liberia to Paris to LGA? Plus, the delays this would cause would have people shrieking in no time. Then there's the economics. Big loss of dollars there. IMHO, the solution, if we must have one (as I don't think this is anywhere near the issue the media is making it out to be), is to: 1) approve a Surgeon General and 2) get funding back in place for the CDC and other agencies to do what they used to do before the sequester and the austerity frenzy began.
Hey, you stole my comment! :)
Wow. I was going to post *exactly the same thing*, more or less. But you saved me the bother. I feel pretty much the same way, except that I switched to Gnome while holding my nose. I still don't like it much, but it's better than the last several buggy release of KDE. And I do bend my neck and check out every new KDE release.... only to be disappointed again. Ack!
The irony is that the percentage of pirated games (if 80-90% is actually right) would probably be much lower if the DRM wasn't so extensive. A huge number of legitimate customers admit to using cracks on games they bought legally just to get around the annoyances that DRM introduces. I don't advocate piracy, but I do fall into that "cracked legal" category. There needs to be another approach to the issue, because so far all attempts to stop it have only made it worse.
I have been an IT support person, a programmer, and a creative professional (digital design as well as audio production/recording), and used both Macs and PCs for all three, and while I may be biased because I have never actually owned a Mac, I really don't think any of the usual arguments for Macs hold water any longer. The hardware is now (as another few posters mentioned) essentially the same as a typical PC (Intel/x86/64 arch), the software is interchangable (by that I mean you can install OSX or Linux or Windows on either machine). The idea that Macs "just work" is preposterous to me, because I have never, ever seen a Mac "just work". Nor have I ever seen Linux "just work" (except for a few simple distros like Ubuntu, where it makes all the decisions for you). And of course it would be foolish to argue that Windows "just works." For me, the choice is still Windows when it comes to professional work (Linux would be a better choice if all the same software apps were available). I have been working on a home recording with a band, where the work is being done on a Mac using ProTools, and every single session there is some kind of stupid technical issue that takes up precious time. At home on my PC, I don't have the same kind of trouble, at least not to the same degree or with the same consistency. What it comes down to is what User Interface you're more comfortable with. Both are equally capable of performing the same tasks. But one is about 1/3 the price and does not require that you go to one specific store to get replacement parts.
This one is particularly tricky, with the Flemish name having a double meaning in English and all, so the writer gets a pass... but apropos of nothing it seems like headlines (in general, not just /.) are getting more and more difficult to decipher. Maybe they're written that way on purpose, to pull the reader in?
ditto