I understand your statement but I wouldn't classify this as milking. I personally am thrilled that there is more from these tales.
Here is a short list of milking IMO Rocky 5 & 6 Beverly Hills copy 3 Freddy vs Jason Missing in action 3 American Ninja 3,4,V The Next Karate Kid Lethal weapon 2,3 Rocky 2 Beverly Hills Cop 2 Friday the 13th 2 Nightmare on elm street 2 Karate Kid 2
Dude, if someone honestly thinks that the United States government can pull off such a horrible, large scale feet without a single person with inside knowledge ever blowing a whistle or leaking some sort of clue, even after the fact it's happen, then some part of their brain (most likely the part that controls logic) is either broken or received the short ended stick when drawing from the gene pool. 2 I get your point. People who don't believe the same things you believe are genetically defective. An "inside job" wouldn't have "the US government", as an institution, responsible. It would take people from the inside who benefit. It's very feasible, because lots of people did benefit, like when any big change happens, and some of them would have motives to have made it happen. Again, I don't think one should be genetically damaged to think so, even though I don't think myself it's the best hypothesis.
My point is that having to buy very specific devices in order to achieve a usable system does not make Ubuntu an 'it just works' operating system on common hardware; at best it makes it an 'it just works' operating system on restricted hardware, in the same vein as OS X. Given the discussion in this article comparing the negatives of Apple's 'closed' system to the beauty and freedom and elegance of Linux's 'open' system i think this is relevant (unless you are the type of person who can write your own drivers). Linux is, again like OS X, definitely not a viable option for many many people unless they want to go out and buy specific hardware for it.
That is not true. Ubuntu just works on a wide array of hardware. i.e.: HP Pavillion laptops (big sellers on 2007), Lenovo laptops. Then you can buy preinstalled. Then you can buy exotic hardware and make it work with two hours of fiddling. That would cover the vast majority of hardware that is sold.
Compare that to OSX, it just supports one of the alternatives, preconfigured systems, and only from a single hardware vendor. Even in the worst case, where one single component of your system doesn't work, you can replace it for a small amount of money, compared to replacing the whole system for running OSX.
Anyhow, there are not just technical reasons to use a free OS, when there is the possibility. I wouldn't have it any other way.
Sweet, I love it when people can use the word "retard" and still get modded up. Seriously, I think people get way to sensitive about that word, but I think "retard" is probably best description for conspiracy theorists that believe that 9-11 was a "inside job" or anything half as ridiculous. I think there is lots of evidence against an inside job, but could you elaborate on why it would be "ridiculous" to say it was an inside job?
If someone chooses to ignore the evidence available, and asks "qui bono?", it's easy to come to that conclusion. Even with Al Qaeda, there are people in the US connected to them who have benefited with all the consequences. Just because you feel that people would not kill thousands of civilians in their own country, it does't mean that someone who does is _retarded_. It's far fetched, but not retarded. It's not like it didn't ever happen before in the world.
Taking into account links between people in the US, and the organization, and
For instance, on the one hand, the CIA is supposedly torturing people. On the other hand, the CIA is leaking info that the CIA is torturing people. Retard conspiracy theorists probably make this work in their heads by fantaszing that by leaking about its own bad actions,
Oh get off it.
con·spire
v., -spired, -spir·ing, -spires.
v.intr. ?
1. To plan together secretly to commit an illegal or wrongful act or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action.
2. To join or act together; combine: "Semisweet chocolate, cocoa powder, espresso, Cognac, and vanilla all conspire to intensify [the cake's] flavor" (Sally Schneider).
v.tr.
To plan or plot secretly
If you have a couple of CIA workers (government workers) planning on torturing other humans illegally, would not that be a government conspiracy And would not it be tasty? mmmmmmm cake.
-Anonymous Coward #1 In Soviet Russia, torture was illegal, but practiced nevertheless. On the other hand, in the US... oh, nevermind, it's not an exact opposite.
I don't think offtopic is the right moderation for that post. Posts don't have to be on topic for the article, because the discussion goes other places. Offtopic is a post that doesn't follow naturally from its parent. If this post was child to a very offtopic post, it just wouldn't show up, but in its context, it is on topic. I don't actually care about being modded down, it's ok for me, but I think mod points are better spent on modding up insightful comments.
the first crusade was the muslims taking over Jerusalem...
then came the Catholic (not necessarily Christian) crusades...
if they didn't fight back, you might be dead for the things you say on here! Catholic extends Christian Catholics are necessarily Christian. Some groups call themselves Christian, to imply that they are the core of christianism, but all new testament followers are Christian.
The XO is not intended to go to children who can't afford food. How dense can some people be?
Which is exactly the problem; the XO project ignores the people most in need, and for those it doesn't ignore, it hands them a pound of cake instead of a hundred pounds of rice. The guy's talent and resources could have gone to better causes. It's an exaggeration to say "you could buy food with that money", but the continent needs basic literacy, which is achievable with paper, pencils, a schoolroom, and a teacher. It needs agricultural and job skills training, also achievable with basic, inexpensive materials.
Teachers are very very very expensive. That's why poor countries have hundreds of kids per teacher. A laptop per children could help with that. Technology can help kids get more hours of school, without an actual teacher in front of them all of the time, effectively increasing the value of each teacher. The work of the teacher is more easily reusable, through video and stuff.
"This is the year of the linux desktop" "This is the year of the space ship" "This is the year I lose my virginity"
As much as I want these things to happen, they wont come true.:( For me, the year of the Linux desktop was 2002. From then on, it was easy enough for me to have a Linux desktop, and interoperate with only minor annoyances (much less time involved than increased maintenance involved with a windows desktop, at least in my case).
You are right about the spaceship, but with the other thing, it's a non issue. Eventually you grow up and get laid, or at least there's "the year of the hooker".
1. Teach a man how to fish 2. Lend him a crapload of money under the condition that he buys the fishing boat, fishing equipment and fuel from you 3. Wait until man can't pay off the debt due to disastrous interest rates, and invoke the default clauses such as taking ownership of his business, and diverting the fish to a Western market 4. Profit! This is flamebaite but I'll bite anyway. Describing the whole entire "western way" as manipulative and advantageous is downright insulting. The world learned the hard lesson of what happens when you screw a country over by indebting them. Afer World War 1 it set the perfect stage in Germany for Hitler and subsequently World War 2. While westerners may be viewed as shrewd and dishonest through some cultural norms, we are generally of good intent although far from perfect. If people from other parts expect the western world to be indebted to helping the world's poorest, they should at least give us the benefit of the doubt we are not doing it for profit. I live in Uruguay (we are paying for own own laptops, thank you very much). By 1950, we had a good economy. By 1960, we struggled somehow. By 1970, we had a corrupt and illegal military government, supported by the US. I mean supported by the US in the sense that declassified CIA documents say things like: let's rig the elections so the "communists" don't win, and other documents support the actions of the military coup that followed the rigged elections, and subsequent 12 years. That military government got a lot of debt. The "western countries" controlled IMF lent a lot of money to those illegal, foreign supported governments, and now we are still paying it. That is what I call "doing it for profit".
The "western world" doesn't need to help us. If they just didn't do anything, it would be great. Now the US is pushing a "FTA" with my country, consisting on more restrictive patents and copyright law, here, and in exchange, enlarging the quotas for our agricultural products. There are quotas, becuase we sell top tier grass fed beef, and US production can't compete in quality with it, even with subsidies for price. They are not thinking of getting rid of subsidies.
Right now we have a developing software industry, that actually produces exports, we have a pharmaceutic industry that fulfills most of our needs. That would be at risk with an "IP" treaty. This FTA would have the effect of pushing us toward a more agricultural economy, even more directed to a single consumer, and consequently less resilient to economic problems. They are luring our government with the promise of more beef money in the short run, but as a developing country, it's a deal that could only hurt us. And they are doing this kind of deals everywhere in América, with countries falling for it. That I call "doing it for profit".
The XO, on the other hand, is very unlikely to put local chip fabs and ISVs out of business. Instead, it will facilitate learning and communication.
The problem with the XO is not that it competes with food, its the fact that we seem to be deliberately building out the developing world on an incompatible technology infrastructure.
There is not going to be much demand in the West for XO programming skils. Its a bit like the folk who got a BBC computer rather than a ZX Spectrum, muc more powerful but not the standard so much less useful.
OK so the thing runs Linux, well so does my cell phone and fat lot of good that would do for learning programming. The XO is not a standard platform, its not a standard platform with extra stuff. Its a platform written by MIT folk.
It's not a tool to teach programming. It's a teaching tool. I live in Uruguay, and I went to the public school system. It was good, but for example, there was a lack of texts. This helps teachers to share books more easily. Kids can take textbooks home, they have a standard platform for homework assignments. They have an incentive to stay in school after hours, because of the connectivity.
Uruguay is a third world country, but we don't have a problem feeding ourselves. We even have a good literacy rate, much higher than most Latin America. But we want more, of course. Education should be the basis of our development. We are buying the laptops with our own money, and serving as a pilot for other countries. It's 200 dollars a kid, and it helps us get rid of a lot of paper, and cover the bulk of the materials cost for 6 years of education.
Negroponte was hoping for a $100 laptop, but then the value of the dollar was much higher. Adjusting for devaluation, the target was closer to 120 dollars of today, and only after ramping up production, which hasn't happened yet. Here, they bought them, with included support (that costs money), for $200 each. It's great price for a kids laptop, with custom software, grid capabilities and no hidden costs.
All the numbers you make about a Dell costing 200 dollars is nonsense. Dell doesn't charge 200 dollars for a laptop, period. Add to that that they are not waterproof, they are not readable like a book (crucial for this purpose), and battery life is 3 or 4 times lower.
Not for argumentation, but just for illustration, imagine this was about cars. The XO would be a cheap chinese biodiesel offroad vehicle, for $3000 with great MPG, and people would be trying to replace it with a Chevrolet 2.0 sedan on sale at $5000, and claim that it would work the same for the needs of rural kids with no access to oil.
The other one was used to break a big glass lamp fixture, and remains scratchless (the same can't be said about the HP laptop sitting underneath, wich now quilifies as "scratchs and dents"). Hmm the Wii doesn't sound so inexpensive when you include the price of a new lamp fixture... And scratching the screen and casing of a hp pavillion dv2135la ($1950 last January in Panama) originally intended for resale by its owner. The lamp fixture was a charge of $13 from our hotel.
Re:Couple Thoughts
on
Where are Wii?
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· Score: 4, Informative
How many kids broke the original NES pads ? Not many, those things were tough! Today's controller can't survive being thrown/dropped too often, and they wear down quickly during normal use.
The hell with this cheap consumer idiocracy! Just for the record, my GF tossed my second wiimote 5 meters high while bowling, and dropped it on the floor. It works great right now. The other one was used to break a big glass lamp fixture, and remains scratchless (the same can't be said about the HP laptop sitting underneath, wich now quilifies as "scratchs and dents").
Greenpeace complains about Nintendo using too tough plastics on the WII. Maybe that happens because they are intended to last.
This is just like GIMP trying to take on Photoshop. When you're a kid, Adobe prices seem so off-putting that you can't see why people wouldn't flock to the free alternative. When you're doing a real job involving print work, you simply don't think twice about paying Adobe for the required feature set, intuitive UI and better workflow. So, kids will carry on pirating Adobe or paying a much reduced student price, then paying for it when they go into the real world; and the same goes for Maple, Matlab, Mathematica, or whatever. The Gimp is not trying to take on Photoshop. It does a great job of being easy to use for newcomers (sorry, I never understood all those menus in Photoshop), and most importantly, free, specially for non profesionals. If free copies of photoshop were not so easily available, Gimp could even get the actual users it would take to make it a competitive product for pros. That can change.
About source, I was taught matlab for numerical methods, and it was good, I learned somewhat how to program. After that, I installed octave in my slackware desktop, and watching the source for some algos, I really understood how stuff was acheived. Now I know how to solve differentials, in practice, with matlab, but also with C, and any other language. It comes in handy when you like computer graphics. Matlab wouldn't teach me that.
While theoretically you are correct, it doesn't apply to 99% of the web applications. Most web applications are very CRUD-like and deal with small to moderate amount of data. Most software on this planet is written to be used internally by an organization. Not everybody is building the next MySpace or the next Google search engine. Some software on this planet might be very CRUD-like. In my experience, all web aplications, specially those for internal use, are CRUD apps with a twist. I haven't seen any CRUD-like app that I could solve in a straightforward way. In general, that twist takes longer to implement than the CRUD part does. In fact, it takes longer to define accurately. Development time is important, but not even that important. The strength of using JEE, or any other big, flexible technology, is that you can define (or get people to define) stuff without thinking about the implementation, and it won't be that hard adapting the tools to what you designed. You can even map preexistent database tables (very common for internal apps) using ORM, although that can affect performance for big datasets.
Not everybody is working on small shops, on non mission critical apps. When you have big stuff, or big clients, you need to be very flexible, because you can't control everything. You can get the database shoved down your throat, communication protocols, unneeded specs, everything. That is what flexibility is for. A consultant can come and say that you need a high availability distributed architecture, you might have to change stuff for security reasons, for performance. Flexible frameworks let you do that.
Of course, it's nice that there is stuff like ROR for those who don't need to deal with medium to big projects, but I don't think they are 99% of anything.
(see what I did there?) I get the double joke, but your phrase was a good example. Sarcasm is much more difficult in the internet, because you can't use other cues, like timing and intonation. In your case, it does work. The rule I use for sarcasm is to check if it works before submitting it. If it doesn't work great at first, it can't be fixed. But in some cases it's great. Even if the writer is the only one who gets it. Misguided readers are the most important part of the fun.
"For me the backlight is missing. I know it is to reduce eye strain, but it would be a good feature too."
I agree. It's the same reason I don't buy books~ Sarcasm is _supposed_ to fly above some people's heads. Explaining it just misses the point. It's silly, like laughing at your own jokes.
I think it's common for people to romanticize about the possibility that a "free market" could actually exist, but beyond the econ 101 textbook there is the real world and judging by our history humans usually seem to "cry foul" when the invisible hand threatens their security and call for socially-motivated programs (like the new deal) to help protect them from the market deciding that certain people have lower value to the marketplace than they themselves are prepared to accept.
The free market is a nice dream that might even work quite well if it didn't have human psychology to contend with, which seems to demand that once we organize ourselves in to a group called society, that it is "civilized" and "decent" to offer protection to those who once contributed to the market and were later tossed out either because they couldn't adapt or support themselves.
That is not to say that I support price controls or antitrust laws, or even don't support the (always failing) social security program. I'm actually pretty neutral on economic matters provided I have the freedom to make my own financial decisions and the money in the bank to take care of myself when the market shifts. I only comment because I often hear people spout off about Adam Smith, and when I do it often sounds quite naive given the broad spectrum of market forces competing with the invisible hand. It's funny to see peoplefrom the US repeat the free market doctrine. It makes me remember an old propaganda cartoon, where an american mouse invited a russian mouse home, and showed him the marvels of capitalism, where TV sets magically replicated and stuff.
Communism, at least in the soviet flavor, doesn't work in practice, because people have values that differ with the ideology. The proof is that no communist country has passed the authoritarian phase.
Free market, or whatever doctrine the US stands for, doesn't work in practice either. because people have values that differ with the ideology. The proof is that no "free market" country has ever sustained itself without betraying the "free market" principle. At least they don't need authoritarian governments. The US sustains itself thanks to lots of central planning, sustitution of imports, barriers to trade, artificial valuation of the currency through diplomacy backed by warfare. And all those things happen because big economic interests use their power to get those regulations. That is a consequence of trying to follow the free market doctrine in the past, corporations get as much power as they can get, not as much as the government lets them. The fact that they use it to legislate is just a consequence.
What I mean exactly, is that doctrine should not be used to lead a country, and isn't. The free market is not some magic tool that fixes everything, the same way that Marx is not an old grandpa that will take care of you. You should know about them, use them to understand the world, but try not to be blinded by doctrine. Economics is a difficult discipline, recipes don't just work.
I think your own presumption that legitimate visitors would diminish is highly unlikely. If there are those who are willing to risk getting in illegally, there will always be those willing to put up with some security precautions to get in legally. Of course, but, as he said, legitimate visitors will diminish. I am from Uruguay, and I was to the US on 2002. I enjoyed my trip. Now they ask me for a visa to go back. This year, I was working in central america, and got a NYC or MIA offer for 8 dollars (plus taxes) plane tickets, time, and money to go. I couldn't be bothered with a visa. The world is big and beautiful. I didn't need to visit NY, I went to Panama for a bit more money, and enjoyed the caribbean sea with my GF. What I mean is that any inconvenience will keep travelers away, because there is a lot of competition. In my case it's a visa, but for other people it might be airport issues.
I saw the forms, and they said: The Us government thinks you want to immigrate. Your job is to convince them that you don't. I succeeded by not using the application. I think I will eventually apply for a visa, because some nice things actually happen there (like SIGGRAPH) , but I am avoiding it as much as I can.
Yeah, look at how sqlite has languished by being public domain. No sooner was it released than it was snapped up and closed off and now no one can download the free version anymore. I am talking about all instances of the software. Of course we can still get sqlite, but most of sqlite users don't know they are using it, and they don't know they can get the actual code to fix an issue. The idea of the GPL is protecting those users. Public domain doesn't help end users, because they don't even need to know what they are using.
But I'm not saying for a moment that people are or should leave Ubuntu for Suse, or even Ubuntu for Kubuntu. I am saying I know several (not including myself) who are leaving Ubuntu Gutsy for Ubuntu Feisty, the previous version. That's a serious wake-up call to Canonical.
I wasn't tying to side-track the issue into a Linux flame war. I was trying to point out yet another similarity. TFA asserted that Leopard is the new Vista. From what I see, Gutsy is the new Vista, as well. Vista, Vista, everywhere. I don't think that is fair. Vista is a once in 4 years release. The only thing comparable is Hardy Heron, the next LTS release, or at least Dapper Drake. Gutsy Gibbon, as you say in your original post, is the release when they want to test everything. It was tested, but not by lots and lots of people. This is the right time. Of course some people will go back to Feisty, but it has nothing in common with Vista. It wasn't promoted in the same way, and it's as bleeding edge as a release can be. You can expect issues. I don't think it's a wake up call to Canonical, in the sense that they are failing in their release strategy. The fact that there are issues is a sign that they need to work a lot to get the LTS release working great for everybody. I wouldn't go public with compiz, in a LTS release, it makes sense to do it before, so some people can test it before.
I like the sound of public domain. Its simple with out any complicated rules.
I saw Open Source as a free exchange of ideas and code that let you do what ever you wanted with it. Public Domain fits that better than a lot of others.
All the Gotchas and legal overhead built into some of them are just overhead that make the whole process fustrating.
At the same time, Open Source is becomming more of a buzz word than anything else. I hear even Microsoft does Open Source software now. Your vision on OS was wrong. Open Source is a buzz word, from the beggining.
Then, there is free software. Legal overhead is not overhead, regarding free software. Free software is a legal issue, not a technical one. There is no process, if you don't care about the legal ramifications. If you don't want to deal with legal stuff, or at least learn one concrete thing (the four freedoms of free software), then free software is not for you.
Public domain is great for all that people who like to take, and give nothing in return. For the community, not so much. Public domain benefits the next link, but copyleft assures the freedom of everyone down the chain, taking the freedom to close the software away from every distributor. Copyleft is needed to keep software free.
I know, I was just exaggerating for effect. This is/. you know.
But seriously, do we need so many licenses? They don't do themselves any favours. We don't. But the GPL is the one most widespread license, and it actually has a lot of real and tangible effects. The GPL is one of the tools that make possible the current availability and usage of free software. The fact that it encourages sharing is important.
So no, we don't need that many licenses, let's keep just the most important and popular, I'm OK with that.
I've been reading this thread and common theme is that the code is automatically copyrighted once it was written down. Okay, sounds about right to me. The problem I'm having is connecting the line between a copyright on 200 lines of code and the compilation of said lines into a commercial application. I thought, correct me if I'm wrong, that copyright gave you the exclusive right to publish said work. Now just because you have a copyright on some code does not mean that I can't incorporate it into my own private works so long as I never re-publish or re-distribute the source code. In other words, I would think it would be okay to use the code but only distribute the compiled version which the author does not have a copyright to.
What am I missing here? The point. When you redistribute the binary, you are distributing a derivative work. The GPL gets its teeth from that.
Slashdot Mirror
Ubuntu porn
Here is a short list of milking IMO
Rocky 5 & 6
Beverly Hills copy 3
Freddy vs Jason
Missing in action 3
American Ninja 3,4,V
The Next Karate Kid
Lethal weapon 2,3 Rocky 2
Beverly Hills Cop 2
Friday the 13th 2
Nightmare on elm street 2
Karate Kid 2
I get your point. People who don't believe the same things you believe are genetically defective. An "inside job" wouldn't have "the US government", as an institution, responsible. It would take people from the inside who benefit. It's very feasible, because lots of people did benefit, like when any big change happens, and some of them would have motives to have made it happen. Again, I don't think one should be genetically damaged to think so, even though I don't think myself it's the best hypothesis.
My point is that having to buy very specific devices in order to achieve a usable system does not make Ubuntu an 'it just works' operating system on common hardware; at best it makes it an 'it just works' operating system on restricted hardware, in the same vein as OS X. Given the discussion in this article comparing the negatives of Apple's 'closed' system to the beauty and freedom and elegance of Linux's 'open' system i think this is relevant (unless you are the type of person who can write your own drivers). Linux is, again like OS X, definitely not a viable option for many many people unless they want to go out and buy specific hardware for it.
That is not true.Ubuntu just works on a wide array of hardware. i.e.: HP Pavillion laptops (big sellers on 2007), Lenovo laptops.
Then you can buy preinstalled.
Then you can buy exotic hardware and make it work with two hours of fiddling.
That would cover the vast majority of hardware that is sold.
Compare that to OSX, it just supports one of the alternatives, preconfigured systems, and only from a single hardware vendor. Even in the worst case, where one single component of your system doesn't work, you can replace it for a small amount of money, compared to replacing the whole system for running OSX.
Anyhow, there are not just technical reasons to use a free OS, when there is the possibility. I wouldn't have it any other way.
If someone chooses to ignore the evidence available, and asks "qui bono?", it's easy to come to that conclusion. Even with Al Qaeda, there are people in the US connected to them who have benefited with all the consequences. Just because you feel that people would not kill thousands of civilians in their own country, it does't mean that someone who does is _retarded_. It's far fetched, but not retarded. It's not like it didn't ever happen before in the world.
Taking into account links between people in the US, and the organization, and
Oh get off it. If you have a couple of CIA workers (government workers) planning on torturing other humans illegally, would not that be a government conspiracy And would not it be tasty? mmmmmmm cake.
-Anonymous Coward #1 In Soviet Russia, torture was illegal, but practiced nevertheless. On the other hand, in the US... oh, nevermind, it's not an exact opposite.
I don't think offtopic is the right moderation for that post.
Posts don't have to be on topic for the article, because the discussion goes other places. Offtopic is a post that doesn't follow naturally from its parent. If this post was child to a very offtopic post, it just wouldn't show up, but in its context, it is on topic.
I don't actually care about being modded down, it's ok for me, but I think mod points are better spent on modding up insightful comments.
then came the Catholic (not necessarily Christian) crusades...
if they didn't fight back, you might be dead for the things you say on here! Catholic extends Christian
Catholics are necessarily Christian. Some groups call themselves Christian, to imply that they are the core of christianism, but all new testament followers are Christian.
The XO is not intended to go to children who can't afford food. How dense can some people be?
Which is exactly the problem; the XO project ignores the people most in need, and for those it doesn't ignore, it hands them a pound of cake instead of a hundred pounds of rice. The guy's talent and resources could have gone to better causes. It's an exaggeration to say "you could buy food with that money", but the continent needs basic literacy, which is achievable with paper, pencils, a schoolroom, and a teacher. It needs agricultural and job skills training, also achievable with basic, inexpensive materials.
Teachers are very very very expensive. That's why poor countries have hundreds of kids per teacher. A laptop per children could help with that. Technology can help kids get more hours of school, without an actual teacher in front of them all of the time, effectively increasing the value of each teacher. The work of the teacher is more easily reusable, through video and stuff."This is the year of the linux desktop"
"This is the year of the space ship"
"This is the year I lose my virginity"
As much as I want these things to happen, they wont come true.
You are right about the spaceship, but with the other thing, it's a non issue. Eventually you grow up and get laid, or at least there's "the year of the hooker".
2. Lend him a crapload of money under the condition that he buys the fishing boat, fishing equipment and fuel from you
3. Wait until man can't pay off the debt due to disastrous interest rates, and invoke the default clauses such as taking ownership of his business, and diverting the fish to a Western market
4. Profit! This is flamebaite but I'll bite anyway. Describing the whole entire
"western way" as manipulative and advantageous is downright insulting. The world learned the hard lesson of what happens when you screw a country over by indebting them. Afer World War 1 it set the perfect stage in Germany for Hitler and subsequently World War 2. While westerners may be viewed as shrewd and dishonest through some cultural norms, we are generally of good intent although far from perfect. If people from other parts expect the western world to be indebted to helping the world's poorest, they should at least give us the benefit of the doubt we are not doing it for profit. I live in Uruguay (we are paying for own own laptops, thank you very much). By 1950, we had a good economy. By 1960, we struggled somehow. By 1970, we had a corrupt and illegal military government, supported by the US. I mean supported by the US in the sense that declassified CIA documents say things like: let's rig the elections so the "communists" don't win, and other documents support the actions of the military coup that followed the rigged elections, and subsequent 12 years. That military government got a lot of debt. The "western countries" controlled IMF lent a lot of money to those illegal, foreign supported governments, and now we are still paying it. That is what I call "doing it for profit".
The "western world" doesn't need to help us. If they just didn't do anything, it would be great. Now the US is pushing a "FTA" with my country, consisting on more restrictive patents and copyright law, here, and in exchange, enlarging the quotas for our agricultural products. There are quotas, becuase we sell top tier grass fed beef, and US production can't compete in quality with it, even with subsidies for price. They are not thinking of getting rid of subsidies.
Right now we have a developing software industry, that actually produces exports, we have a pharmaceutic industry that fulfills most of our needs.
That would be at risk with an "IP" treaty. This FTA would have the effect of pushing us toward a more agricultural economy, even more directed to a single consumer, and consequently less resilient to economic problems. They are luring our government with the promise of more beef money in the short run, but as a developing country, it's a deal that could only hurt us. And they are doing this kind of deals everywhere in América, with countries falling for it. That I call "doing it for profit".
Experience tells us so.
The problem with the XO is not that it competes with food, its the fact that we seem to be deliberately building out the developing world on an incompatible technology infrastructure.
There is not going to be much demand in the West for XO programming skils. Its a bit like the folk who got a BBC computer rather than a ZX Spectrum, muc more powerful but not the standard so much less useful.
It's not a tool to teach programming. It's a teaching tool. I live in Uruguay, and I went to the public school system. It was good, but for example, there was a lack of texts. This helps teachers to share books more easily. Kids can take textbooks home, they have a standard platform for homework assignments. They have an incentive to stay in school after hours, because of the connectivity.OK so the thing runs Linux, well so does my cell phone and fat lot of good that would do for learning programming. The XO is not a standard platform, its not a standard platform with extra stuff. Its a platform written by MIT folk.
Uruguay is a third world country, but we don't have a problem feeding ourselves. We even have a good literacy rate, much higher than most Latin America. But we want more, of course. Education should be the basis of our development. We are buying the laptops with our own money, and serving as a pilot for other countries. It's 200 dollars a kid, and it helps us get rid of a lot of paper, and cover the bulk of the materials cost for 6 years of education.
Negroponte was hoping for a $100 laptop, but then the value of the dollar was much higher. Adjusting for devaluation, the target was closer to 120 dollars of today, and only after ramping up production, which hasn't happened yet. Here, they bought them, with included support (that costs money), for $200 each. It's great price for a kids laptop, with custom software, grid capabilities and no hidden costs.
All the numbers you make about a Dell costing 200 dollars is nonsense. Dell doesn't charge 200 dollars for a laptop, period. Add to that that they are not waterproof, they are not readable like a book (crucial for this purpose), and battery life is 3 or 4 times lower.
Not for argumentation, but just for illustration, imagine this was about cars. The XO would be a cheap chinese biodiesel offroad vehicle, for $3000 with great MPG, and people would be trying to replace it with a Chevrolet 2.0 sedan on sale at $5000, and claim that it would work the same for the needs of rural kids with no access to oil.
The hell with this cheap consumer idiocracy! Just for the record, my GF tossed my second wiimote 5 meters high while bowling, and dropped it on the floor. It works great right now. The other one was used to break a big glass lamp fixture, and remains scratchless (the same can't be said about the HP laptop sitting underneath, wich now quilifies as "scratchs and dents").
Greenpeace complains about Nintendo using too tough plastics on the WII. Maybe that happens because they are intended to last.
So, kids will carry on pirating Adobe or paying a much reduced student price, then paying for it when they go into the real world; and the same goes for Maple, Matlab, Mathematica, or whatever. The Gimp is not trying to take on Photoshop. It does a great job of being easy to use for newcomers (sorry, I never understood all those menus in Photoshop), and most importantly, free, specially for non profesionals. If free copies of photoshop were not so easily available, Gimp could even get the actual users it would take to make it a competitive product for pros. That can change.
About source, I was taught matlab for numerical methods, and it was good, I learned somewhat how to program. After that, I installed octave in my slackware desktop, and watching the source for some algos, I really understood how stuff was acheived. Now I know how to solve differentials, in practice, with matlab, but also with C, and any other language. It comes in handy when you like computer graphics. Matlab wouldn't teach me that.
Not everybody is working on small shops, on non mission critical apps. When you have big stuff, or big clients, you need to be very flexible, because you can't control everything. You can get the database shoved down your throat, communication protocols, unneeded specs, everything. That is what flexibility is for. A consultant can come and say that you need a high availability distributed architecture, you might have to change stuff for security reasons, for performance. Flexible frameworks let you do that.
Of course, it's nice that there is stuff like ROR for those who don't need to deal with medium to big projects, but I don't think they are 99% of anything.
(see what I did there?) I get the double joke, but your phrase was a good example. Sarcasm is much more difficult in the internet, because you can't use other cues, like timing and intonation. In your case, it does work. The rule I use for sarcasm is to check if it works before submitting it. If it doesn't work great at first, it can't be fixed. But in some cases it's great. Even if the writer is the only one who gets it. Misguided readers are the most important part of the fun.
I agree. It's the same reason I don't buy books~ Sarcasm is _supposed_ to fly above some people's heads. Explaining it just misses the point. It's silly, like laughing at your own jokes.
The free market is a nice dream that might even work quite well if it didn't have human psychology to contend with, which seems to demand that once we organize ourselves in to a group called society, that it is "civilized" and "decent" to offer protection to those who once contributed to the market and were later tossed out either because they couldn't adapt or support themselves.
That is not to say that I support price controls or antitrust laws, or even don't support the (always failing) social security program. I'm actually pretty neutral on economic matters provided I have the freedom to make my own financial decisions and the money in the bank to take care of myself when the market shifts. I only comment because I often hear people spout off about Adam Smith, and when I do it often sounds quite naive given the broad spectrum of market forces competing with the invisible hand. It's funny to see peoplefrom the US repeat the free market doctrine. It makes me remember an old propaganda cartoon, where an american mouse invited a russian mouse home, and showed him the marvels of capitalism, where TV sets magically replicated and stuff.
Communism, at least in the soviet flavor, doesn't work in practice, because people have values that differ with the ideology. The proof is that no communist country has passed the authoritarian phase.
Free market, or whatever doctrine the US stands for, doesn't work in practice either. because people have values that differ with the ideology. The proof is that no "free market" country has ever sustained itself without betraying the "free market" principle. At least they don't need authoritarian governments. The US sustains itself thanks to lots of central planning, sustitution of imports, barriers to trade, artificial valuation of the currency through diplomacy backed by warfare. And all those things happen because big economic interests use their power to get those regulations. That is a consequence of trying to follow the free market doctrine in the past, corporations get as much power as they can get, not as much as the government lets them. The fact that they use it to legislate is just a consequence.
What I mean exactly, is that doctrine should not be used to lead a country, and isn't. The free market is not some magic tool that fixes everything, the same way that Marx is not an old grandpa that will take care of you. You should know about them, use them to understand the world, but try not to be blinded by doctrine. Economics is a difficult discipline, recipes don't just work.
Now they ask me for a visa to go back. This year, I was working in central america, and got a NYC or MIA offer for 8 dollars (plus taxes) plane tickets, time, and money to go. I couldn't be bothered with a visa.
The world is big and beautiful. I didn't need to visit NY, I went to Panama for a bit more money, and enjoyed the caribbean sea with my GF. What I mean is that any inconvenience will keep travelers away, because there is a lot of competition. In my case it's a visa, but for other people it might be airport issues.
I saw the forms, and they said: The Us government thinks you want to immigrate. Your job is to convince them that you don't. I succeeded by not using the application. I think I will eventually apply for a visa, because some nice things actually happen there (like SIGGRAPH) , but I am avoiding it as much as I can.
I wasn't tying to side-track the issue into a Linux flame war. I was trying to point out yet another similarity. TFA asserted that Leopard is the new Vista. From what I see, Gutsy is the new Vista, as well. Vista, Vista, everywhere. I don't think that is fair. Vista is a once in 4 years release. The only thing comparable is Hardy Heron, the next LTS release, or at least Dapper Drake.
Gutsy Gibbon, as you say in your original post, is the release when they want to test everything. It was tested, but not by lots and lots of people. This is the right time. Of course some people will go back to Feisty, but it has nothing in common with Vista. It wasn't promoted in the same way, and it's as bleeding edge as a release can be. You can expect issues. I don't think it's a wake up call to Canonical, in the sense that they are failing in their release strategy. The fact that there are issues is a sign that they need to work a lot to get the LTS release working great for everybody.
I wouldn't go public with compiz, in a LTS release, it makes sense to do it before, so some people can test it before.
I saw Open Source as a free exchange of ideas and code that let you do what ever you wanted with it. Public Domain fits that better than a lot of others.
All the Gotchas and legal overhead built into some of them are just overhead that make the whole process fustrating.
At the same time, Open Source is becomming more of a buzz word than anything else. I hear even Microsoft does Open Source software now. Your vision on OS was wrong. Open Source is a buzz word, from the beggining.
Then, there is free software. Legal overhead is not overhead, regarding free software. Free software is a legal issue, not a technical one. There is no process, if you don't care about the legal ramifications. If you don't want to deal with legal stuff, or at least learn one concrete thing (the four freedoms of free software), then free software is not for you.
Public domain is great for all that people who like to take, and give nothing in return. For the community, not so much.
Public domain benefits the next link, but copyleft assures the freedom of everyone down the chain, taking the freedom to close the software away from every distributor.
Copyleft is needed to keep software free.
But seriously, do we need so many licenses? They don't do themselves any favours. We don't. But the GPL is the one most widespread license, and it actually has a lot of real and tangible effects. The GPL is one of the tools that make possible the current availability and usage of free software. The fact that it encourages sharing is important.
So no, we don't need that many licenses, let's keep just the most important and popular, I'm OK with that.
What am I missing here? The point.
When you redistribute the binary, you are distributing a derivative work.
The GPL gets its teeth from that.