Scandinavian languages have three words for "yes" and "no", the last one only when replying to negated sentences.
French has the same thing: 'si'. I mean, it does other things too--it's one of those odd words that occupies a couple of very different roles--but one thing it does is act as a third option for dealing with negated questions. IIRC, to duplicated it in English you'd basically have to say, "yes, that is not the case"
This has happened on many occasions, which should provide some evidence against the "fundamental rights" theory. I fear people are confusing what they wish would be the case with what actually is.
Well, in the US at least, the concept of natural rights are drilled in to us in school. They're kind of vital to the formation of our country, and are fundamental underpinnings of our constitution.
Between those two things, it's no surprise that Americans stick with that definition of a right. That the philosophical basis behind our nation's founding documents is shaky at best is probably not something that most people are comfortable considering--actually, I'd imagine that the possibility has never occurred to most Americans. We're shockingly bad at critically examining our own political beliefs (to say nothing of other beliefs). Then again, so are humans in general.
Besides, even if they're fictional, natural rights are just such a comforting concept. Though I no longer consider them to exist in any meaningful way, I must admit that I still like the idea.
It's not at all uncommon for newly-released (and thus not-on-sale) games to be available cheaper at traditional retailers, as you can usually find at least one that is running a sale on the brand new game.
The most notable recent example I can think of is Left 4 Dead (a Valve-made game, even!) which was available at some major retail chain (I forget which) for $40 at launch, vs. the Steam price of $50. Buy it at the store, put in your code et viola, legit Steam copy of the game for $40. Buy it from Steam (and therefore Valve) directly, pay $10 more. Weird.
I pretty much only buy Steam games when they're on sale, these days. I still don't get why they aren't undercutting normal retail prices by 5-10%, what with the much, much lower distribution costs they have. Their specials, though--especially the multi-title bundles--are fantastic.
But installing their favorite tools, is exactly what you would expect from more demanding users
... and it's exactly the reason I use Gnome over KDE. I dislike pretty much all of the K* apps--I like Firefox over Konqueror, Thunderbird or Evolution over Kmail, OpenOffice over Koffice (and if I must use something other than that, I'd take Gnumeric+Abiword over Koffice, too), etc.
There've been times, though, that I've felt the same way about the default Gnome apps in my distro; I hate Totem, and I like that browser that occasionally gets pushed with Gnome (is it Epiphany? Galeon? One of those) even less than Konqueror. With Gnome, I just replace them and go about my business. KDE, on the other hand, seems to constantly scream "you're doing it wrong!" when you start replacing its K* apps with others. Maybe it's just me being weird about it, but it's what's kept me on Gnome over KDE (well, that and the fact that I think the KDE main menu is a huge, disorganized mess). The only app I can think of that Gnome really pushes is Nautilus, and even that can easily be sent to the background and replaced with something else. I don't know if it actually is more modular than KDE, but it certainly feels like it is.
Oh, I didn't mean to imply that solving that problem is easy--I was saying that, though I'd like that feature, it's not exactly something that I lose sleep over.
Despite your explanation, I'm still having trouble envisioning what one could want to do to the Gnome interface but be prevented from doing.
You can: - Create, delete, and move panels. - Create, delete, and move things on panels. - Change the color and size of pretty much anything. - Install and modify themes, and mix-and-match pieces of themes - Change tons of behavior options
All from the GUI.
Hell, I've turned mine in to an OSX lookalike with all kinds of kick-ass effects and no Gnome-Panels running, with WindowsKey+Space firing up Gnome Do and replacing nearly all my menus, and I think I did all of that from the GUI (I may have used a terminal a couple of times by choice rather than by necessity, IIRC). I've mutilated Gnome on many occasions and rarely has it put more than the equivalent of a "Caution--Wet Floor" sign in my way. You can make it look and act like BeOS, OSX, Windows, CDE, etc. with just a little effort.
These discussions always make me wonder if there is a whole set of really awesome, once-you've-had-it-you'll-never-go-back options that I've neither seen (in the 12-15 or so different GUI environments I've used over the years) nor even imagined.
I wanted to tell NetworkManager to do something specific (IIRC, use a specific DNS server rather than the one handed out by the DHCP server on my DSL gateway, but it's been a year or so) and couldn't. When I opened a ticket about it, it was closed WONTFIX with the notation that the idea behind it was zero-configuration and adding the ability to configure it to do this was therefore unacceptable.
Ok, that's true. NM's better than the awful GUI network config programs that came before it, and the alternative remains the same as before it existed (i.e. fire up a terminal and fix the shit by hand) but there's a lot of room for improvement. I'm with you--NM could use more custom-configuration options. It's fairly new, though, so hopefully someone will come along and fix it. If not, I fully expect it to be forked, sooner or later.
I want gnome-terminal not to eat my right-clicks. People have been asking for that for *years* and are constantly told that the Gnome developers know better than they do about what they need.
Huh? The only thing I can find about this via Google is that some people want right-click to mark end-of-selection rather than opening a menu. Is that what you're talking about?
I'm a coder, gamer, and all-around power-user. I've been using Linux for years, including 2-3 years of using Gentoo exclusively, back before it had any sort of gui installer.
In all that time, I've only had Gnome not let me do something (or make it overly difficult) twice: once was when they went to "spacial" (I think they called it) handling of folder-opening in Nautilus, which was only a slight pain to fix and which, AFAIK, has been switched back to a not-retarded default anyway, and setting each virtual desktop to a different background, which I'd still like to be able to do but which really isn't that big a damn deal.
What exactly do all these "Gnome won't let you configure anything! KDE 4Evar!" people want to be able to do with Gnome that they can't?
Oh god... that looks so much better. Why the hell don't they teach that, instead of the Palmer shit that only resembles the letter it's supposed to be about half the time? I might have to practice handwriting for the first time since... well, since they taught us Palmer-style in 2nd grade!
Not only perfect information--though you're right to mention it--but individual incentive (or mandate) to preserve a collective good. Lacking that, those who choose to lose out economically for the benefit of the common good are at a disadvantage compared to those who choose to place their personal gain first. Admittedly, this isn't as big a deal with choosing which TV to buy as it is with choosing between exploiting workers or not, or between dumping your sewage (assuming it's legal) or paying to have it hauled away and being forced to raise your prices over those of your competitors, or something like that; however, I still think it's a big enough factor that one ought not assume that people always express what they really want through their purchases, as the ggggpper did.
Unmanaged commons are precisely the ones prone to the proverbial tragedy.
Or am I misunderstanding what you're saying?
Anyway, the poster to whom I was responding stated that purchase choices represented true consumer will, while the actions of elected representatives did not. I was responding specifically to that sentiment, which I don't believe to be accurate.
What the consumers purchase is a direct expression of their will.
Not always. The classic story of the Tragedy of the Commons illustrates (among other things) how a set of individuals can all make choices that none of them consider to be for the best, but which are nonetheless the most rational choices for them to make. A couple of oft-proposed ways out of this trouble are collective regulation or direct individual ownership of the commons.
The story is particularly helpful in exposing problems with controlling pollution of essentially un-ownable resources, like the air itself or the oceans.
I suppose you're right in that purchases represent what a person has, in fact, chosen to do, but it doesn't necessarily represent what they'd like to do. Same goes double for business decisions--assuming the person making them isn't a sociopath.
That includes selling what's basically a $20 half-finished mod as a $60 fullsized game and then pulling an EA making the sequel and dumping the original only a year later.
Don't forget failing to release many of the promised updates to the $20 half-finished mod, then announcing that they'll be in the sequel.
And anyway, I speak for PC gamers when I say you can take your "major game developers" - we don't want them. These companies have been churning out wildly successful but completely inconsequential titles for years. Fantastic graphics, a hundred voice actors, celebrity scifi writers.. It's like a summer movie. It's awesome, funny, whatever, but months later you've completely forgotten it. Hundreds of summer movies roll by, each with their flashy effects and compelling premise and stratospheric budget, and they're all the best movie ever but they're all indistinguishable.
Not only that, but if they release a game that's in a genre that's got any traction at all on the PC it usually gets ported to it anyway. The argument that they started developing for consoles because of PC piracy is bogus, because most of the big, say, FPS games on the consoles get ported to the PC, too.
Could it perhaps be that marketing people took over and pushed up the price of what amounts to pieces of cheap mass-produced plastic that dragged down the company in the first place?
I'd love to buy some of the bigger pirate ship and castle sets from when I was a kid, but even if they re-released them at the prices they charged a decade and a half ago I wouldn't want to shell out that much for them. I know they have to pay real wages because they don't manufacture in China, but damn. I'd think they could easily cut their prices by 25-50% and still be making a tidy profit.
One of the big buzz words in elementary (and perhaps secondary, I don't know) education is "differentiated instruction" (OK, two words; buzz phrase, then).
What this means is that the teacher designs lessons in such a way that there's something in them for every ability level. It's a mixed-ability-group class setting, but with lessons that target all of the groups in a different way.
It's awesome. One of the few new(ish) educational methods circulating around right now that's not worse than what it's seeking to replace. Unfortunately, it requires a pretty damn good teacher to do it right. I imagine it'll end up being scrapped before long because not enough teachers are able to grok it.
I have to multiply 12x12 and under often enough that I'm glad I still know most of the results without having to think about it. I'd hate to have to pull out my cell phone and use its awkward-ass calculator every time I needed to perform simple multiplication.
Knowing those values and rules lets me quickly estimate (or even answer outright, with a couple seconds' thought) much larger problems, too. It's gotta be pretty bad before I need a calculator, and I like it that way.
Sure, a lot of that comes from experience, but I doubt I'd be 1/2 as good as I am (not very good, mind you, but much better than most people I meet) at it without having memorized 1x1-12x12 back in 2nd or 3rd grade. I'm very confident that I spent far less time memorizing them than the time I've saved by knowing them.
If they drop the 4th charge, too, he ought to get lost wages, some sort of additional compensation for being STUCK IN GODDAMN JAIL FOR 14 MONTHS, and the difference between the amount he'd have made in his projected, optimal career path and what he'll make working at Burger King. Then double it. Call that part the "douchebag tax".
"You know, I heard scientists are now using lawyers instead of mice for experiments, for two reasons: one, scientists grow less attached to lawyers and two, there are somethings that even mice won't do."
Peter: I want to speak to a grown-up!
Rufio: All grown-ups are pirates.
Peter: Excuse me?
Rufio: We kill pirates.
Peter Pan: I'm not a pirate. It so happens, I'm a lawyer.
Rufio: Kill the lawyer!
Lost Boys: Kill the lawyer!
Peter Pan: I'm not that kind of lawyer!
Slashdot Mirror
French has the same thing: 'si'. I mean, it does other things too--it's one of those odd words that occupies a couple of very different roles--but one thing it does is act as a third option for dealing with negated questions. IIRC, to duplicated it in English you'd basically have to say, "yes, that is not the case"
Some light reading.
To sum up: the position that there are "natural" rights is a pretty weak one.
Well, in the US at least, the concept of natural rights are drilled in to us in school. They're kind of vital to the formation of our country, and are fundamental underpinnings of our constitution.
Between those two things, it's no surprise that Americans stick with that definition of a right. That the philosophical basis behind our nation's founding documents is shaky at best is probably not something that most people are comfortable considering--actually, I'd imagine that the possibility has never occurred to most Americans. We're shockingly bad at critically examining our own political beliefs (to say nothing of other beliefs). Then again, so are humans in general.
Besides, even if they're fictional, natural rights are just such a comforting concept. Though I no longer consider them to exist in any meaningful way, I must admit that I still like the idea.
It's not at all uncommon for newly-released (and thus not-on-sale) games to be available cheaper at traditional retailers, as you can usually find at least one that is running a sale on the brand new game.
The most notable recent example I can think of is Left 4 Dead (a Valve-made game, even!) which was available at some major retail chain (I forget which) for $40 at launch, vs. the Steam price of $50. Buy it at the store, put in your code et viola, legit Steam copy of the game for $40. Buy it from Steam (and therefore Valve) directly, pay $10 more. Weird.
I pretty much only buy Steam games when they're on sale, these days. I still don't get why they aren't undercutting normal retail prices by 5-10%, what with the much, much lower distribution costs they have. Their specials, though--especially the multi-title bundles--are fantastic.
There've been times, though, that I've felt the same way about the default Gnome apps in my distro; I hate Totem, and I like that browser that occasionally gets pushed with Gnome (is it Epiphany? Galeon? One of those) even less than Konqueror. With Gnome, I just replace them and go about my business. KDE, on the other hand, seems to constantly scream "you're doing it wrong!" when you start replacing its K* apps with others. Maybe it's just me being weird about it, but it's what's kept me on Gnome over KDE (well, that and the fact that I think the KDE main menu is a huge, disorganized mess). The only app I can think of that Gnome really pushes is Nautilus, and even that can easily be sent to the background and replaced with something else. I don't know if it actually is more modular than KDE, but it certainly feels like it is.
Really? It looks like it will in system->preferences->keyboard shortcuts
Gnome 2.26.1
Oh, I didn't mean to imply that solving that problem is easy--I was saying that, though I'd like that feature, it's not exactly something that I lose sleep over.
Despite your explanation, I'm still having trouble envisioning what one could want to do to the Gnome interface but be prevented from doing.
You can:
- Create, delete, and move panels.
- Create, delete, and move things on panels.
- Change the color and size of pretty much anything.
- Install and modify themes, and mix-and-match pieces of themes
- Change tons of behavior options
All from the GUI.
Hell, I've turned mine in to an OSX lookalike with all kinds of kick-ass effects and no Gnome-Panels running, with WindowsKey+Space firing up Gnome Do and replacing nearly all my menus, and I think I did all of that from the GUI (I may have used a terminal a couple of times by choice rather than by necessity, IIRC). I've mutilated Gnome on many occasions and rarely has it put more than the equivalent of a "Caution--Wet Floor" sign in my way. You can make it look and act like BeOS, OSX, Windows, CDE, etc. with just a little effort.
These discussions always make me wonder if there is a whole set of really awesome, once-you've-had-it-you'll-never-go-back options that I've neither seen (in the 12-15 or so different GUI environments I've used over the years) nor even imagined.
Ok, that's true. NM's better than the awful GUI network config programs that came before it, and the alternative remains the same as before it existed (i.e. fire up a terminal and fix the shit by hand) but there's a lot of room for improvement. I'm with you--NM could use more custom-configuration options. It's fairly new, though, so hopefully someone will come along and fix it. If not, I fully expect it to be forked, sooner or later.
Huh? The only thing I can find about this via Google is that some people want right-click to mark end-of-selection rather than opening a menu. Is that what you're talking about?
I'm a coder, gamer, and all-around power-user. I've been using Linux for years, including 2-3 years of using Gentoo exclusively, back before it had any sort of gui installer.
In all that time, I've only had Gnome not let me do something (or make it overly difficult) twice: once was when they went to "spacial" (I think they called it) handling of folder-opening in Nautilus, which was only a slight pain to fix and which, AFAIK, has been switched back to a not-retarded default anyway, and setting each virtual desktop to a different background, which I'd still like to be able to do but which really isn't that big a damn deal.
What exactly do all these "Gnome won't let you configure anything! KDE 4Evar!" people want to be able to do with Gnome that they can't?
Oh god... that looks so much better. Why the hell don't they teach that, instead of the Palmer shit that only resembles the letter it's supposed to be about half the time? I might have to practice handwriting for the first time since... well, since they taught us Palmer-style in 2nd grade!
Not only perfect information--though you're right to mention it--but individual incentive (or mandate) to preserve a collective good. Lacking that, those who choose to lose out economically for the benefit of the common good are at a disadvantage compared to those who choose to place their personal gain first. Admittedly, this isn't as big a deal with choosing which TV to buy as it is with choosing between exploiting workers or not, or between dumping your sewage (assuming it's legal) or paying to have it hauled away and being forced to raise your prices over those of your competitors, or something like that; however, I still think it's a big enough factor that one ought not assume that people always express what they really want through their purchases, as the ggggpper did.
Unmanaged commons are precisely the ones prone to the proverbial tragedy.
Or am I misunderstanding what you're saying?
Anyway, the poster to whom I was responding stated that purchase choices represented true consumer will, while the actions of elected representatives did not. I was responding specifically to that sentiment, which I don't believe to be accurate.
Not always. The classic story of the Tragedy of the Commons illustrates (among other things) how a set of individuals can all make choices that none of them consider to be for the best, but which are nonetheless the most rational choices for them to make. A couple of oft-proposed ways out of this trouble are collective regulation or direct individual ownership of the commons.
The story is particularly helpful in exposing problems with controlling pollution of essentially un-ownable resources, like the air itself or the oceans.
I suppose you're right in that purchases represent what a person has, in fact, chosen to do, but it doesn't necessarily represent what they'd like to do. Same goes double for business decisions--assuming the person making them isn't a sociopath.
Don't forget failing to release many of the promised updates to the $20 half-finished mod, then announcing that they'll be in the sequel.
Maybe jump to the left?
Then a step to the right, perhaps?
Not only that, but if they release a game that's in a genre that's got any traction at all on the PC it usually gets ported to it anyway. The argument that they started developing for consoles because of PC piracy is bogus, because most of the big, say, FPS games on the consoles get ported to the PC, too.
Only thing I didn't like about it was how the cord came out the player's side and had to be run under it to go out where it was supposed to.
WTF?
Maybe someone should take the bazooka off the Candian radio stations. Or at least not let criminals up there to use it.
I'd love to buy some of the bigger pirate ship and castle sets from when I was a kid, but even if they re-released them at the prices they charged a decade and a half ago I wouldn't want to shell out that much for them. I know they have to pay real wages because they don't manufacture in China, but damn. I'd think they could easily cut their prices by 25-50% and still be making a tidy profit.
One of the big buzz words in elementary (and perhaps secondary, I don't know) education is "differentiated instruction" (OK, two words; buzz phrase, then).
What this means is that the teacher designs lessons in such a way that there's something in them for every ability level. It's a mixed-ability-group class setting, but with lessons that target all of the groups in a different way.
It's awesome. One of the few new(ish) educational methods circulating around right now that's not worse than what it's seeking to replace. Unfortunately, it requires a pretty damn good teacher to do it right. I imagine it'll end up being scrapped before long because not enough teachers are able to grok it.
I have to multiply 12x12 and under often enough that I'm glad I still know most of the results without having to think about it. I'd hate to have to pull out my cell phone and use its awkward-ass calculator every time I needed to perform simple multiplication.
Knowing those values and rules lets me quickly estimate (or even answer outright, with a couple seconds' thought) much larger problems, too. It's gotta be pretty bad before I need a calculator, and I like it that way.
Sure, a lot of that comes from experience, but I doubt I'd be 1/2 as good as I am (not very good, mind you, but much better than most people I meet) at it without having memorized 1x1-12x12 back in 2nd or 3rd grade. I'm very confident that I spent far less time memorizing them than the time I've saved by knowing them.
Yeah, his career's shot.
If they drop the 4th charge, too, he ought to get lost wages, some sort of additional compensation for being STUCK IN GODDAMN JAIL FOR 14 MONTHS, and the difference between the amount he'd have made in his projected, optimal career path and what he'll make working at Burger King. Then double it. Call that part the "douchebag tax".
Peter: I want to speak to a grown-up!
Rufio: All grown-ups are pirates.
Peter: Excuse me?
Rufio: We kill pirates.
Peter Pan: I'm not a pirate. It so happens, I'm a lawyer.
Rufio: Kill the lawyer!
Lost Boys: Kill the lawyer!
Peter Pan: I'm not that kind of lawyer!
Eh, I was gonna type Heidi Klum instead but I couldn't remember how to spell it (not even sure if that one's right).
Crawford's prime was a bit before my time, but yet timeless :)