Maybe it's because Nintendo released 750,000 gamecubes and Microsoft only released 350,000 Xbox units? So, when you consider that both consoles sold out, your factoid amounts to exactly jack shit.
Meanwhile, I sold both of the computers I built this year, and Dell still has thousands unsold in their warehouses! Woo hoo! I'm more successful than Dell!
More accurately, the US doesn't care if Saudi Arabia ever becomes a democracy. As long as it keeps pumping gas.
Do you really believe this? If that's all the US government cared about, why would they have kicked Iraq out of Kuwait and imposed a decade-long ban on selling oil? It just makes no sense. If all the US cared about was oil, they would have just deployed some troops to Saudi Arabia to protect it from further Iraqi aggression, then continued to trade with Iraq, not going after them in return for cheap oil.
I wish we could at least get some conspiracy theories that made the slightest bit of sense around here.
If now isn't a good time to support democracy, when is?
Well, the US does support the only government even resembling a democracy in the Middle East - Israel, and we all know how popular that is with Chomskyites.
I think you've hit the nail on the head - there is nothing the US can do that doesn't result in at best widespread criticism or at worst disaster. The most reactionary leftists criticize the US for both embargoing Iraq and trading with Saudi Arabia, pointing out the problems with each without considering any options. If we try to use economic sanctions, we're "murdering babies" by withholding the opportunity to trade; if we trade, we're "propping up a repressive regime." And that doesn't even include the "genocide!" accusations if we take the initiative to force out a government militarily. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
When it comes to the DMCA, Katz correctly argues that a tool must be separated from its use when it comes to the law. The fact that some people use the tool Sklyarov's company wrote to infringe copyrights should not mean that the tool should be outlawed and its authors jailed.
Why, then, is it different now? A company writes software that can be used either for "good" or "bad" purposes, and all of a sudden it's wrong? What is Katz trying to say?
In my opinion, it's clear that Katz does not really believe the tool/use argument, it's just rhetoric. He believes that information should be free, and takes the appropriate position at opposite sides of the "can a tool be intrinsically bad?" argument in order to further his views. There's nothing wrong with thinking that, but he is being dishonest by arguing both sides on the same question depending on who the protagonists are.
I know it's not the point, I was just commenting on it. I agree; it's terrible they would put out what is, in the eyes of most power-user types, a stable kernel with so little testing, and something should change in that respect. I was merely pointing out that while it's important, it's not going to have any effect on Linux's popularity as was implied, any more than IIS worms make desktop people switch from Windows.
Sure, there's no rules to this game...nothing says they have to do that...but they better do it, if they want Linux to ever get anywhere.
Since 99% of Linux users get their kernel from their distributer, who patches it and tests it thoroughly before giving it out, this unstable kernel business has zero with Linux's popularity or lack thereof.
How does total stupidity like this get moderated up? If we have only been told "We have proof he did it, and that's all you need to know," then what the hell is this? Have you ever watched the news? Do you pay attention to current events? Or is the only exposure to the outside world you get filtered through the rants of paranoid nerds on Slashdot?
I'm not sure how "we" are "ramming it down everybody's throats." It seems to me that everywhere that McDonald's, The Gap, etc. have set up shop, they've done so because there's a demand for it. I mean, it's not like citizens of other countries are required to eat a Big Mac at least 5 times a month, is it? The only way I can see it being "forced" is if the American places have pushed out the local competition, but I've never been to a country where there weren't still local restaurants all over the place. Can you provide an example where American businesses are the only choice, and not just adding to the already present choices? That is, where is it that people would like to patronize local, native businesses, but are unable to because American businesses are the only choice?
Actually, as far as I can tell, it's exactly the opposite. Take as an example the restaurant business. Fifty years ago, for the majority of Americans, restaurants consisted of diners, hamburger shops, and upscale American-style places. Now, in the relatively small town in which I live, I am within easy striking range of multiple Indian, Japanese, Chinese (Szechuan, Hunan, etc), Italian (Genovese, Sicilian, Neapolitan, etc), Mexican, Vietnamese, Thai, and many other restaurants. And I'm not counting Olive Garden/Chi-Chi's-style ethnic food ripoff places, either -- these are restaurants owned and operated by immigrants who are cooking and selling authentic cuisine.
Globalization is not a one-way street; the cultural exchange goes both ways. The aforementioned restaurant example is not the only area this sort of thing is happening, either. Commercial diversity is rapidly growing, and globalization means that the barrier to entry to become an international business is much lower. There is a myriad of places I can go to import things from overseas now that I couldn't even five years ago.
I really don't understand the globalization=blandness argument that comes up so often both here and elsewhere. In my experience, globalization=diversity.
Look up the RECENT troubles in the Black Hills of Dakota. This is *still* going on. The courts have ruled that the Black Hills belong to the native peoples there, but have not been returned.
You may very well have a point, and I'm not up enough on current Native American affairs to agree or disagree with you. My whole problem, really, is with people who characterize the government in such a fashion as to make it some otherwordly being with no human connections, when it's really just made up of people, some of whom we elected and some of whom are appointed or hired by those whom we elected.
As a postscript, your sig is totally correct. Anonymous moderation is killing/.
... just ask any Native American how good the word of our government is.
The "government" is not some anthropomorphic entity that was born in 1776 and lives to the present day, directing the actions of bureaucrats. It is, rather, the combined decisions of thousands upon thousands of individual people, none of whom were even alive when the US pushed westward, conquering Native Americans who were in the way. To think that the actions of a government 150 years ago translate into an accurate barometer of how it will behave today is way off base. If a Jew were imprisoned for robbery in Germany today, it certainly would not make sense to go around screaming "He's going to be put into forced labor camps and eventually executed!"
Ummmm...didn't Microsoft spend 5 years explaining to various judges that IE is an integral part of Windows? Doesn't every installation of Windows contain a copy of Internet Explorer? Come on, now, don't be disingenuous about this. Whether it's a good thing or not, IE most certainly is a part of Windows.
And what the hell bias does it "let slip?" Even if it was wrong, it wouldn't be bias, just ignorance. I can't imagine how confusing Windows and IE is more subtle bias than the big old picture of Bill Gates-as-Borg is. Sheesh. Get over yourself.
No, it's not a toy, it's a tool that for a lot of people is as important as the telephone. In my family's house, there are two computers (sometimes three) hooked up to the internet through the DSL connection, and they are all used constantly by the parents and my siblings alike to talk to their friends, relatives, coworkers all the time. My 15-year old brother and 11-year old sister never use the phone to set up things with their friends or discuss homework because they just do it over IM.
Your argument is based on the premise that it's not worth it to you because you don't need an always-on connection, which is fine. But a lot of people do, which is the real attraction of broadband. It's not a "fabrication" -- if what you want is an always-on connection to the internet, broadband is about the same price as a dial-up connection. If you don't want that, you wouldn't pay for it. That's like me saying cable is worthless because I get over-the-air TV for free. Well, yeah, but if what you want is ESPN, it doesn't do you a whole lot of good, does it?
I agree - I am always using the Morpheus client when I'm on Windows and the kza client on Linux (that's just text-based though). What I love is the metadata-based searching -- it makes finding the right file a ton easier.
I just wish the interface wasn't so damn cluttered and ugly. The functionality is amazing.
And the value in 'broadband' is not the speed really. We've heard many times now, it's the instant availability stupid. People hate to have to wait (through busy signals potentially) to get online witha modem to check their mail. They like to have ICQ/AIM running all the time to see when their friends are online and to chat. It's all about convinience.
Exactly. Most people who use broadband use it for the always-on connectivity, the never-tied-up phone line (very important), and the easy ability to share a connection (especially with the ease of setting up a linksys cable router appliance) way before they use it for the sort of blazing-speed streaming video it was hyped for. (As an aside, most broadband commercials I see still hype the speed, when the convenience is really the most attractive feature. Poor marketing in my opinion.)
The always-on argument also invalidates the cost argument for dialup. To even have half the uptime people associate with broadband, you can spend $30-$35/month easily (large number of hours, extra phone line), which is only about a $10 difference from broadband.
I help out a lot of the people at the company I work for set up computers/networking/etc at their homes, and almost everyone is moving towards broadband. There are only two reasons people don't switch - 1) They want to keep AOL or 2) They don't know about broadband. Nobody I've talked to has ever considered broadband and decided not to because of cost.
I've not had good luck with Woody and Ximian - there are package naming conflicts that can result in an older Ximian package with a higher number not upgrading to a newer Woody package. When libgnomeprint did this to me, it kept a large number of applications from running. My advice is to either use Potato with Ximian or use Sid without. I'm using Sid, and all the Ximian-authored stuff comes through almost immediately, without all the conflicts.
I don't think that's really the problem. Disagreeing with the editors in any sort of coherent way is usually a one-way ticket to +5 Insightful. I do think, however, that acting all offended that/. is not impartial on the front page is a little disingenuous.
Please stop being an idiot. I didn't say overly strict conditions were right or good, I said that they weren't coersion to work. In the same way that rape doesn't constitute murder, just because they're both bad doesn't mean they're the same thing. You are completely clueless.
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Meanwhile, I sold both of the computers I built this year, and Dell still has thousands unsold in their warehouses! Woo hoo! I'm more successful than Dell!
Dumbass.
Do you really believe this? If that's all the US government cared about, why would they have kicked Iraq out of Kuwait and imposed a decade-long ban on selling oil? It just makes no sense. If all the US cared about was oil, they would have just deployed some troops to Saudi Arabia to protect it from further Iraqi aggression, then continued to trade with Iraq, not going after them in return for cheap oil.
I wish we could at least get some conspiracy theories that made the slightest bit of sense around here.
Well, the US does support the only government even resembling a democracy in the Middle East - Israel, and we all know how popular that is with Chomskyites.
I think you've hit the nail on the head - there is nothing the US can do that doesn't result in at best widespread criticism or at worst disaster. The most reactionary leftists criticize the US for both embargoing Iraq and trading with Saudi Arabia, pointing out the problems with each without considering any options. If we try to use economic sanctions, we're "murdering babies" by withholding the opportunity to trade; if we trade, we're "propping up a repressive regime." And that doesn't even include the "genocide!" accusations if we take the initiative to force out a government militarily. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
...And the ability to call in US airstrikes.
When it comes to the DMCA, Katz correctly argues that a tool must be separated from its use when it comes to the law. The fact that some people use the tool Sklyarov's company wrote to infringe copyrights should not mean that the tool should be outlawed and its authors jailed.
Why, then, is it different now? A company writes software that can be used either for "good" or "bad" purposes, and all of a sudden it's wrong? What is Katz trying to say?
In my opinion, it's clear that Katz does not really believe the tool/use argument, it's just rhetoric. He believes that information should be free, and takes the appropriate position at opposite sides of the "can a tool be intrinsically bad?" argument in order to further his views. There's nothing wrong with thinking that, but he is being dishonest by arguing both sides on the same question depending on who the protagonists are.
It's typical for trolls to think that just because they blindly follow a different groupthink, they "think for themselves."
And neither do kernel bugs that never get to most Linux users. That was the point.
Oh, you're a troll. Never mind then.
I know it's not the point, I was just commenting on it. I agree; it's terrible they would put out what is, in the eyes of most power-user types, a stable kernel with so little testing, and something should change in that respect. I was merely pointing out that while it's important, it's not going to have any effect on Linux's popularity as was implied, any more than IIS worms make desktop people switch from Windows.
Since 99% of Linux users get their kernel from their distributer, who patches it and tests it thoroughly before giving it out, this unstable kernel business has zero with Linux's popularity or lack thereof.
How does total stupidity like this get moderated up? If we have only been told "We have proof he did it, and that's all you need to know," then what the hell is this? Have you ever watched the news? Do you pay attention to current events? Or is the only exposure to the outside world you get filtered through the rants of paranoid nerds on Slashdot?
I'm not sure how "we" are "ramming it down everybody's throats." It seems to me that everywhere that McDonald's, The Gap, etc. have set up shop, they've done so because there's a demand for it. I mean, it's not like citizens of other countries are required to eat a Big Mac at least 5 times a month, is it? The only way I can see it being "forced" is if the American places have pushed out the local competition, but I've never been to a country where there weren't still local restaurants all over the place. Can you provide an example where American businesses are the only choice, and not just adding to the already present choices? That is, where is it that people would like to patronize local, native businesses, but are unable to because American businesses are the only choice?
Actually, as far as I can tell, it's exactly the opposite. Take as an example the restaurant business. Fifty years ago, for the majority of Americans, restaurants consisted of diners, hamburger shops, and upscale American-style places. Now, in the relatively small town in which I live, I am within easy striking range of multiple Indian, Japanese, Chinese (Szechuan, Hunan, etc), Italian (Genovese, Sicilian, Neapolitan, etc), Mexican, Vietnamese, Thai, and many other restaurants. And I'm not counting Olive Garden/Chi-Chi's-style ethnic food ripoff places, either -- these are restaurants owned and operated by immigrants who are cooking and selling authentic cuisine.
Globalization is not a one-way street; the cultural exchange goes both ways. The aforementioned restaurant example is not the only area this sort of thing is happening, either. Commercial diversity is rapidly growing, and globalization means that the barrier to entry to become an international business is much lower. There is a myriad of places I can go to import things from overseas now that I couldn't even five years ago.
I really don't understand the globalization=blandness argument that comes up so often both here and elsewhere. In my experience, globalization=diversity.
You may very well have a point, and I'm not up enough on current Native American affairs to agree or disagree with you. My whole problem, really, is with people who characterize the government in such a fashion as to make it some otherwordly being with no human connections, when it's really just made up of people, some of whom we elected and some of whom are appointed or hired by those whom we elected.
As a postscript, your sig is totally correct. Anonymous moderation is killing
The "government" is not some anthropomorphic entity that was born in 1776 and lives to the present day, directing the actions of bureaucrats. It is, rather, the combined decisions of thousands upon thousands of individual people, none of whom were even alive when the US pushed westward, conquering Native Americans who were in the way. To think that the actions of a government 150 years ago translate into an accurate barometer of how it will behave today is way off base. If a Jew were imprisoned for robbery in Germany today, it certainly would not make sense to go around screaming "He's going to be put into forced labor camps and eventually executed!"
Ummmm...didn't Microsoft spend 5 years explaining to various judges that IE is an integral part of Windows? Doesn't every installation of Windows contain a copy of Internet Explorer? Come on, now, don't be disingenuous about this. Whether it's a good thing or not, IE most certainly is a part of Windows.
And what the hell bias does it "let slip?" Even if it was wrong, it wouldn't be bias, just ignorance. I can't imagine how confusing Windows and IE is more subtle bias than the big old picture of Bill Gates-as-Borg is. Sheesh. Get over yourself.
No, it's not a toy, it's a tool that for a lot of people is as important as the telephone. In my family's house, there are two computers (sometimes three) hooked up to the internet through the DSL connection, and they are all used constantly by the parents and my siblings alike to talk to their friends, relatives, coworkers all the time. My 15-year old brother and 11-year old sister never use the phone to set up things with their friends or discuss homework because they just do it over IM.
Your argument is based on the premise that it's not worth it to you because you don't need an always-on connection, which is fine. But a lot of people do, which is the real attraction of broadband. It's not a "fabrication" -- if what you want is an always-on connection to the internet, broadband is about the same price as a dial-up connection. If you don't want that, you wouldn't pay for it. That's like me saying cable is worthless because I get over-the-air TV for free. Well, yeah, but if what you want is ESPN, it doesn't do you a whole lot of good, does it?
Yeah, I know that, and I even know one person who does. I guess I should have been more specific.
I agree - I am always using the Morpheus client when I'm on Windows and the kza client on Linux (that's just text-based though). What I love is the metadata-based searching -- it makes finding the right file a ton easier.
I just wish the interface wasn't so damn cluttered and ugly. The functionality is amazing.
Exactly. Most people who use broadband use it for the always-on connectivity, the never-tied-up phone line (very important), and the easy ability to share a connection (especially with the ease of setting up a linksys cable router appliance) way before they use it for the sort of blazing-speed streaming video it was hyped for. (As an aside, most broadband commercials I see still hype the speed, when the convenience is really the most attractive feature. Poor marketing in my opinion.)
The always-on argument also invalidates the cost argument for dialup. To even have half the uptime people associate with broadband, you can spend $30-$35/month easily (large number of hours, extra phone line), which is only about a $10 difference from broadband.
I help out a lot of the people at the company I work for set up computers/networking/etc at their homes, and almost everyone is moving towards broadband. There are only two reasons people don't switch - 1) They want to keep AOL or 2) They don't know about broadband. Nobody I've talked to has ever considered broadband and decided not to because of cost.
I've not had good luck with Woody and Ximian - there are package naming conflicts that can result in an older Ximian package with a higher number not upgrading to a newer Woody package. When libgnomeprint did this to me, it kept a large number of applications from running. My advice is to either use Potato with Ximian or use Sid without. I'm using Sid, and all the Ximian-authored stuff comes through almost immediately, without all the conflicts.
I don't think that's really the problem. Disagreeing with the editors in any sort of coherent way is usually a one-way ticket to +5 Insightful. I do think, however, that acting all offended that /. is not impartial on the front page is a little disingenuous.
You had better believe it.
And I'm glad to see you can get modded up for the blatantly obvious observation that /. isn't an impartial news source. Thanks, Sherlock.
Oh, and did you see how the Microsoft icon is Bill Gates looking like the Borg? I think that there may be a little anti-MS bias here, too.
Yes.
Please stop being an idiot. I didn't say overly strict conditions were right or good, I said that they weren't coersion to work. In the same way that rape doesn't constitute murder, just because they're both bad doesn't mean they're the same thing. You are completely clueless.