That's his FSF blog, dealing only with FSF and GNU related activities. Go to his homepage instead, and see what kind of person he is outside of the software realm.
MLMs and pyramid schemes are two different things. To start with, MLMs are legal why pyramids are not. MLMs provide a "payoff" immediately with every sale (otherwise known as a "net profit on sales"), pyramid schemes won't give you one (or only give you a token) until you've managed to gain a certain number of filled downstream levels. MLMs send only a fraction of profit upstream, pyramids send everything upstream. Oh! And while you might not like some of their pushy salesmen, MLMs actually have useful products for sale. Amway really does have good laundry detergent. Rainbow really does have good vacumns. Avon really does have good makeup.
While MLMs have a negative reputation because of their proselytizing ways, they are not in themselves illegal, unethical or immoral.
The best solution is to institute a separation of school and state. Creationists shouldn't be forcing their beliefs upon your children, but neither should you be forcing your beliefs upon theirs. But as long as the government forcibly extracts taxation for the purpose of universal uniform education, the majority is going to tyrannize the minority's children.
But of course, that idea is even more controversial than creationism! It's now taken for granted that remote bureaucrats in Washington DC know much more about the needs of our children than we ourselves do.
Yup! Whatever year Vista comes out in, it will end up being the "Year of the Mac." Even the diehard pro-PC voices on Slashdot are going to find their traditional rhetoric ringing hollow in the face of Vista.
Just to troll, here are some typical pro-PC arguments:
"You should stick with Windows because it runs on cheap commodity hardware that lets you run Linux."
"PCs are cheaper than Macs, and by the way, I bought myself a new $2000 AlienWare PC."
"A cheap $499 PC is all that is needed for a home user wanting only email and a browser, but a $499 Mac Mini is woefully underpowered for my geeky poweruser needs."
"You should stick with Windows because it's too hard to install Windows on a Mac." (huh?)
"You won't be able to upgrade to the next week's mandatory $500 NVidia card if you have a Mac."
Of course "Microsoft" is a defacto standard! They are a monopoly! Regardless, the fact remains that the standard is closed and secret, making it IMPOSSIBLE for anyone else to offer 100% adherence to the standard.
The topic in question is: "Breaking Down Barriers to Linux Desktop Adoption." But how can anyone have a discussion of the topic, when every reply is "the barriers are impossible to break down"? It's a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom and gloom. 100% conformance to a secret closed proprietary standard is impossible, so Open Source will never ever be suitable for business. We should stop wasting everyone's time.
When you look at the list of licenses they don't approve, you'll see that it's very subjective. The Free Software Definition is wholly irrelevant to whether they consider a license to be Free Software. Rather it is based on a subjective review by RMS. The very first license the FSF excludes from the "Free" category is the original Artistic license, with the reason cited is: "it is too vague". Huh? In short, a license is "Free" if it has the RMS imprimatur and seal of approval. Nothing less.
That's the real difference between the two: Open Source has objective criteria, Free Software does not. But the actual concepts and ideas behind the two remain identical. These aren't political parties where you must pick one and actively disparage and insult the other.
Stallman is a far left liberal. Like other far left liberals, he cannot stop himself from renaming things. For example, if you read his blog, you'll see that he cannot say the words "President Bush", but has to say "The Shrub", or "the unelected president", or something like that. He thinks he is being clever, but he ends up looking at stupid as the comment crowd at Democrat Underground.
If you don't like the names, prefix them with "so-called", or something like that, so that you distance yourself from them. Say "so-called 'Trusted Computing'" instead. Say "so-called 'Digital Rights Management'" instead. Don't use snarky sarcasm, as that only makes you look petty.
RMS is connected to Free Software, not to Open Source.
But yet there is not practical difference between the two. It's like trying to point out the differences between the People's Liberation Front of Judea and the Judean People's Liberation Front. None.
If Microsoft was an official and open standard, then you would have a point. But demanding 100.0% compatibility with closed and secret file formats (that themselves change significantly from version to version) is ridiculous. Why don't you be honest with yourself and say "I'm locked into an abusive relationship with Microsoft, but refuse to do anything about it."
Read the story blurb again. We're talking about typical home users wanting email and web surfing. They aren't going to be crunching number in proteien folding studies, or rendering complex scenes for the latest Pixar movie. They don't need a supercomputer. And if they happen to get all iPod-ized and need more harddrive space for their songs, adding another is simplicity.
I've got a iBook with roughly the same specs as a Mini, and excepting the tiny laptop monitor, it's more than adequate for my needs. And I'm a developer! If you don't need the raw CPU speed then a 1.42MHz PPC is more than adequate.
A Mac Mini might not be for you, but I see no reason why it's inappropriate for the average home user.
Your post doesn't explain why people aren't switching to Mac OSX. It's one thing to say they stick with Windows because Linux/Unix/BSD is complex, but what about the Mac? It has less complexity and fewer hassles. And they're just as cheap as PCs nowadays.
The reason people aren't switching to Macs (or anything else), is because they want to use what all of their friends and neighbors are using.
Q:So. Why don't you like Linux? A: Well... OpenOffice doesn't have features I want. Q: What specific features do you use that OpenOffice does not provide? A: Uh...
What secret gov't agency could this guy have gone to that wouldn't have covered it up, since they are all staffed by Bush cronies?
This was California. Not only California, but a overwhelning Democrat county of California. I don't have a district map in front of me, but I think this was in or very close to Nancy Pelosi's district.
Hmmm, when I was there a few weeks ago, they had the same deal, but with an extra harddrive (that's stackable with the Mini) instead of printer. Either way it's a much better deal than you can get at the Apple Store.
At MicroCenter three weeks ago they had the Mac Mini with extra Mac harddrive, flat planel display, keyboard and mouse, for only $499 (after rebate). You can't beat that deal with a stick! Hurry now to see if they still have them!
The people who are looking for a budget box just for email and surfing are NOT the kind of people who are going to be running Linux on it. Not even Mepis. Thus the Mac Mini is an excellent choice for them. Sure the upgrade to 10.5 will cost them, but so will the upgrade to Vista.
Ditto. Reading the blurb I was expecting something in the $300 dollar range. But at this price you might as well get a Mac Mini. It's significantly smaller, uses significantly less power, and comes with an OS and software.
Only a few months ago we were told that "Web 2.0" was being created. Is it here already? Even without new HTML/CSS/Ajax(tm) standards in place? Even without new browsers to implement them?
What is there in this "technology" that is in any way significant? Or is it just a bunch of stale hype?
Does anybody still beleive that this election wasn't fixed?
I don't believe it.
STOP! BEFORE YOU CALL ME A REPUBLICAN FUCK FOR NOT AGREEING WITH YOU, LISTEN TO WHAT I HAVE TO SAY!
I am not a Republican. Let me say this again: I am not a Republican. I didn't vote for Bush. Let me say this again: I didn't vote for Bush.
Now that the obligatory preface is out of the way, so that you won't immediately dismiss me as a Karl Rove plant, we can move on.
I don't believe that this election was fixed. I do agree that there have been a few anomolies, but that is far different from believing it was fixed. A rigged election would not have been so close. Think about it. The last election was so close, that it was a statistically even. This is not a sign that the election was rigged, rather it's a sign that the voting electorate doesn't see much difference between Republicans and Democrats. Rather than implying that Bush stole the election, it is sending a clear signal that the voters are ambivalent.
The Democrats should have won the election, because outside of the Iraq issue, the Bush presidency has been lackluster. About the only thing more muddled than Bush's domestic performance was... the Kerry candidacy. Which is why the Democrats lost. Instead of putting forth a candidate that people could get excited about and vote *for*, the put forth a candidate whose central campaign statement was "I'm not the other guy."
If the Democrats want to win the next election, they need to stop acting like paranoid conspiracy theorists and start putting forward candidates that people can get excited about.
Want to prevent this from happening again? Andrew Tobias is the DNC treasurer: http://www.andrewtobias.com/, send Andy a message and he will tell you how to get involved.
Dear Andy,
If you want to win the next presidential election, tell your party to stop running sea slugs as candidates. Anyone with two brain cells and a cup of caffeine could have beat Bush in the election. Hell, Bob Dole could have beat Bush in the last election! But instead you chose to run an incoherent somnambulist candidate. Until people stop voting against the other guys and starting voting for your guys, you'll continue to lose.
Benchmarks are useless, and this one doubly so. One great thing about the Mac is that it does lots of stuff OUTSIDE the processor. My 1.42Ghz PPC iBook is dog slow compared to new PCs, if all you're measuring is CPU speed, and it's video card is an embarrassing "mobility" chipset. Yet it's smooth and responsive even in the middle of a lengthy compile with multiple applications open and running.
Benchmarks measure the edges of the envelope where users rarely visit. If you're not doing serious number crunching or running last week's must-have video game, you don't need to worry about benchmarks. It's like worrying about the top speed of an Italian Sports car, when you're never going to drive it faster than 100 Kph. In other words, if you're content with the size of your penis you can safely ignore benchmarks.
Non sequitur. At least stay on the same songbook. Sheesh.
You were arguing that the free trade had elevated Chinese wages from $1/day to $2.50/day, and that was a bad thing because it (in your opinion) lowered ever so slightly the standard of living in the US. That is what makes you a racist, that you would keep the foreign yellow devil in extreme poverty so that your rich white man's job won't be outsourced. For shame.
Fortunately, you are operating under a mistaken premise. Free trade helps BOTH parties. No voluntary economic exchange can occur unless both sides perceive a benefit. It is not a zero-sum game. Free trade with China benefits all both the Chinese and the American participants.
How about we let them make their own laws and live the way they want to?
Actually we are. As a sovereign independent nation, China gets to make its own laws and live the way it wants. It's always struck me as supremely hypocritical that progressives demand that other countries be allowed to do whatever they want without interference... EXCEPT to engage in free trade.
Slashdot Mirror
That's his FSF blog, dealing only with FSF and GNU related activities. Go to his homepage instead, and see what kind of person he is outside of the software realm.
MLMs and pyramid schemes are two different things. To start with, MLMs are legal why pyramids are not. MLMs provide a "payoff" immediately with every sale (otherwise known as a "net profit on sales"), pyramid schemes won't give you one (or only give you a token) until you've managed to gain a certain number of filled downstream levels. MLMs send only a fraction of profit upstream, pyramids send everything upstream. Oh! And while you might not like some of their pushy salesmen, MLMs actually have useful products for sale. Amway really does have good laundry detergent. Rainbow really does have good vacumns. Avon really does have good makeup.
While MLMs have a negative reputation because of their proselytizing ways, they are not in themselves illegal, unethical or immoral.
The best solution is to institute a separation of school and state. Creationists shouldn't be forcing their beliefs upon your children, but neither should you be forcing your beliefs upon theirs. But as long as the government forcibly extracts taxation for the purpose of universal uniform education, the majority is going to tyrannize the minority's children.
But of course, that idea is even more controversial than creationism! It's now taken for granted that remote bureaucrats in Washington DC know much more about the needs of our children than we ourselves do.
Yup! Whatever year Vista comes out in, it will end up being the "Year of the Mac." Even the diehard pro-PC voices on Slashdot are going to find their traditional rhetoric ringing hollow in the face of Vista.
Just to troll, here are some typical pro-PC arguments:
"You should stick with Windows because it runs on cheap commodity hardware that lets you run Linux."
"PCs are cheaper than Macs, and by the way, I bought myself a new $2000 AlienWare PC."
"A cheap $499 PC is all that is needed for a home user wanting only email and a browser, but a $499 Mac Mini is woefully underpowered for my geeky poweruser needs."
"You should stick with Windows because it's too hard to install Windows on a Mac." (huh?)
"You won't be able to upgrade to the next week's mandatory $500 NVidia card if you have a Mac."
Of course "Microsoft" is a defacto standard! They are a monopoly! Regardless, the fact remains that the standard is closed and secret, making it IMPOSSIBLE for anyone else to offer 100% adherence to the standard.
The topic in question is: "Breaking Down Barriers to Linux Desktop Adoption." But how can anyone have a discussion of the topic, when every reply is "the barriers are impossible to break down"? It's a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom and gloom. 100% conformance to a secret closed proprietary standard is impossible, so Open Source will never ever be suitable for business. We should stop wasting everyone's time.
When you look at the list of licenses they don't approve, you'll see that it's very subjective. The Free Software Definition is wholly irrelevant to whether they consider a license to be Free Software. Rather it is based on a subjective review by RMS. The very first license the FSF excludes from the "Free" category is the original Artistic license, with the reason cited is: "it is too vague". Huh? In short, a license is "Free" if it has the RMS imprimatur and seal of approval. Nothing less.
That's the real difference between the two: Open Source has objective criteria, Free Software does not. But the actual concepts and ideas behind the two remain identical. These aren't political parties where you must pick one and actively disparage and insult the other.
Is objectivity dead? Is it possible for scientists to publish their findings WITHOUT stooping to the level of mockery?
Stallman is a far left liberal. Like other far left liberals, he cannot stop himself from renaming things. For example, if you read his blog, you'll see that he cannot say the words "President Bush", but has to say "The Shrub", or "the unelected president", or something like that. He thinks he is being clever, but he ends up looking at stupid as the comment crowd at Democrat Underground.
If you don't like the names, prefix them with "so-called", or something like that, so that you distance yourself from them. Say "so-called 'Trusted Computing'" instead. Say "so-called 'Digital Rights Management'" instead. Don't use snarky sarcasm, as that only makes you look petty.
RMS is connected to Free Software, not to Open Source.
But yet there is not practical difference between the two. It's like trying to point out the differences between the People's Liberation Front of Judea and the Judean People's Liberation Front. None.
If Microsoft was an official and open standard, then you would have a point. But demanding 100.0% compatibility with closed and secret file formats (that themselves change significantly from version to version) is ridiculous. Why don't you be honest with yourself and say "I'm locked into an abusive relationship with Microsoft, but refuse to do anything about it."
I'll always have to keep a working setup with some kind of WINE/Crossover thing to keep MS Office running.
In other words, until there is an EXACT clone of MS OFfice, you will stick with MS Office.
p.s. I remember identical arguments when Excel was the new kid on the block and everyone said they would die before they gave up their 123.
Read the story blurb again. We're talking about typical home users wanting email and web surfing. They aren't going to be crunching number in proteien folding studies, or rendering complex scenes for the latest Pixar movie. They don't need a supercomputer. And if they happen to get all iPod-ized and need more harddrive space for their songs, adding another is simplicity.
I've got a iBook with roughly the same specs as a Mini, and excepting the tiny laptop monitor, it's more than adequate for my needs. And I'm a developer! If you don't need the raw CPU speed then a 1.42MHz PPC is more than adequate.
A Mac Mini might not be for you, but I see no reason why it's inappropriate for the average home user.
Your post doesn't explain why people aren't switching to Mac OSX. It's one thing to say they stick with Windows because Linux/Unix/BSD is complex, but what about the Mac? It has less complexity and fewer hassles. And they're just as cheap as PCs nowadays.
The reason people aren't switching to Macs (or anything else), is because they want to use what all of their friends and neighbors are using.
Actually that conversation goes like this:
Q:So. Why don't you like Linux?
A: Well... OpenOffice doesn't have features I want.
Q: What specific features do you use that OpenOffice does not provide?
A: Uh...
What secret gov't agency could this guy have gone to that wouldn't have covered it up, since they are all staffed by Bush cronies?
This was California. Not only California, but a overwhelning Democrat county of California. I don't have a district map in front of me, but I think this was in or very close to Nancy Pelosi's district.
Bush had nothing to do with it.
Hmmm, when I was there a few weeks ago, they had the same deal, but with an extra harddrive (that's stackable with the Mini) instead of printer. Either way it's a much better deal than you can get at the Apple Store.
At MicroCenter three weeks ago they had the Mac Mini with extra Mac harddrive, flat planel display, keyboard and mouse, for only $499 (after rebate). You can't beat that deal with a stick! Hurry now to see if they still have them!
The people who are looking for a budget box just for email and surfing are NOT the kind of people who are going to be running Linux on it. Not even Mepis. Thus the Mac Mini is an excellent choice for them. Sure the upgrade to 10.5 will cost them, but so will the upgrade to Vista.
Ditto. Reading the blurb I was expecting something in the $300 dollar range. But at this price you might as well get a Mac Mini. It's significantly smaller, uses significantly less power, and comes with an OS and software.
Only a few months ago we were told that "Web 2.0" was being created. Is it here already? Even without new HTML/CSS/Ajax(tm) standards in place? Even without new browsers to implement them?
What is there in this "technology" that is in any way significant? Or is it just a bunch of stale hype?
Does anybody still beleive that this election wasn't fixed?
I don't believe it.
STOP! BEFORE YOU CALL ME A REPUBLICAN FUCK FOR NOT AGREEING WITH YOU, LISTEN TO WHAT I HAVE TO SAY!
I am not a Republican. Let me say this again: I am not a Republican. I didn't vote for Bush. Let me say this again: I didn't vote for Bush.
Now that the obligatory preface is out of the way, so that you won't immediately dismiss me as a Karl Rove plant, we can move on.
I don't believe that this election was fixed. I do agree that there have been a few anomolies, but that is far different from believing it was fixed. A rigged election would not have been so close. Think about it. The last election was so close, that it was a statistically even. This is not a sign that the election was rigged, rather it's a sign that the voting electorate doesn't see much difference between Republicans and Democrats. Rather than implying that Bush stole the election, it is sending a clear signal that the voters are ambivalent.
The Democrats should have won the election, because outside of the Iraq issue, the Bush presidency has been lackluster. About the only thing more muddled than Bush's domestic performance was... the Kerry candidacy. Which is why the Democrats lost. Instead of putting forth a candidate that people could get excited about and vote *for*, the put forth a candidate whose central campaign statement was "I'm not the other guy."
If the Democrats want to win the next election, they need to stop acting like paranoid conspiracy theorists and start putting forward candidates that people can get excited about.
Want to prevent this from happening again? Andrew Tobias is the DNC treasurer: http://www.andrewtobias.com/, send Andy a message and he will tell you how to get involved.
Dear Andy,
If you want to win the next presidential election, tell your party to stop running sea slugs as candidates. Anyone with two brain cells and a cup of caffeine could have beat Bush in the election. Hell, Bob Dole could have beat Bush in the last election! But instead you chose to run an incoherent somnambulist candidate. Until people stop voting against the other guys and starting voting for your guys, you'll continue to lose.
Sincerely
Benchmarks are useless, and this one doubly so. One great thing about the Mac is that it does lots of stuff OUTSIDE the processor. My 1.42Ghz PPC iBook is dog slow compared to new PCs, if all you're measuring is CPU speed, and it's video card is an embarrassing "mobility" chipset. Yet it's smooth and responsive even in the middle of a lengthy compile with multiple applications open and running.
Benchmarks measure the edges of the envelope where users rarely visit. If you're not doing serious number crunching or running last week's must-have video game, you don't need to worry about benchmarks. It's like worrying about the top speed of an Italian Sports car, when you're never going to drive it faster than 100 Kph. In other words, if you're content with the size of your penis you can safely ignore benchmarks.
It's the Asian Brown Cloud of economics...
Yup, he's a racist.
Non sequitur. At least stay on the same songbook. Sheesh.
You were arguing that the free trade had elevated Chinese wages from $1/day to $2.50/day, and that was a bad thing because it (in your opinion) lowered ever so slightly the standard of living in the US. That is what makes you a racist, that you would keep the foreign yellow devil in extreme poverty so that your rich white man's job won't be outsourced. For shame.
Fortunately, you are operating under a mistaken premise. Free trade helps BOTH parties. No voluntary economic exchange can occur unless both sides perceive a benefit. It is not a zero-sum game. Free trade with China benefits all both the Chinese and the American participants.
How about we let them make their own laws and live the way they want to?
Actually we are. As a sovereign independent nation, China gets to make its own laws and live the way it wants. It's always struck me as supremely hypocritical that progressives demand that other countries be allowed to do whatever they want without interference... EXCEPT to engage in free trade.