Conservatives often mention the need for ID when buying booze or picking up prescriptions as their argument for why they think that requiring certain form of ID for voting doesn't violate voter rights. Well guess what, neither those nor any other need for ID is not only a Constitutionally protected right but a duty for all citizens that is essential for the functioning of our Democratic system.
It's not just conservatives--a solid majority (usually 60%+) in just about every poll I have ever seen, be it Rasmussen, collegiate, PPP, etc, shows widespread support for proving identity when voting.
Voting is a right that is mentioned in the Constitution, and like all other constitutional rights, has limits. For instance, it's universally agreed that shouting "fire" in a crowded theater is not ok. That is a limit on free speech, but we still have the right to free speech. Likewise, for voting, felons are regularly denied the right to vote. Non-citizens do not have a right to vote. Laws in different states vary about when people can vote and how they can vote (e.g. absentee only!). The constitution, after all, does not say that "voting has to follow the exact process that Dorianny feels happy with." One can also take the argument that by allowing a system that is so clearly broken and open to abuse as many current voting schemes, that other people's right to vote is diminished by fraudulent activity.
An old friend of mine lived in Portland for several years (20-something wanna-be-journalist lesbian--where else would she move after college?:-)) and was always totally candid about how she would gather up ballots--dozens in one case, I gather--from more apathetic friends, fill them in, and mail them in. This kind of fraud would be very hard to catch or prove either way. This example is also tangential to the voter ID debate (since you don't need ID for mail-in ballots anyway) but I think it does just show one way how it's easy to cheat.
Personally, I want everyone who wants to vote to be able to vote, but in general I would prefer lower turnout. I'm just as happy with high-information, motivated voters rather than schlups being bussed in by whatever advocacy group has the best get out the vote effort.
Sure it is--open source and standard across the Darwin and Nextstep family of operating systems for almost 30 years! In all seriousness, you can run the actual binary like in Linux, but it's not like there is a posix standard (or even a Linux equivalent).
Are you sure.sh works? I tried to name a script.sh and double click it and it didn't work. I did do an OSX script once that worked on the desktop but it had to be done in some completely different OSX macro language. Bash script wouldn't work at all.
Yeah, definitely..sh files default to being associated with TextEdit. Change that to terminal and it works as expected. Alternatively, rename to myscript.command or just myscript (no extension--didn't know that) and if the file has the exec bit set it will work as expected. Another alternative is to use AppleScript to launch a script. Terminal used to be tcsh but defaults to bash now. Has always had bash included IIRC.
I think another thing I had trouble with is, say I want to open a finder window in my home directory from the command line. I couldn't figure out how to do that either. Maybe it is just 'open finder ' or something like that?
Yeah, if you're expecting the exact Linux way, OSX is definitely different when it comes to programs. Programs are really a directory that ends in.app. The nice thing about.app bundles is that they keep all libraries, executables, resources, etc, bundled together. Makes moving programs around very easily, and you don't tend to have orphaned files stranded all over the file system. This is why installing a program in OSX is almost always literally just dragging and dropping from a disk image into the Application (or wherever) folder.
so/Applications/TextEdit.app/ is a folder that contains all of the files relating to the TextEdit program. The actual binary is/Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit (Contents/MacOS/xyz is standard).
To run a program from the command line you can either do it this way (long):/Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit
or use the handy "open" program: open/Applications/TextEdit.app/ or open minecraft.jar
To run a GUI program and open a file (based on file type associations): open myfile.txt (This will start TextEdit--by default, in my case, MacVim--and open myfile.txt)
To run a shell script by double clicking, either associate the file type (e.g. ".sh") with the Terminal program or just rename "myscript.sh" to "myscript.command". That one is a little esoteric, admittedly!
btw--good idea for the script! I may have to do that for my son--would definitely save some frustration at times!
I'm the last person to want to force a person to use a particular platform just because, but I do think it's worth nothing that pretty much everything you list is purely a UI/aesthetic difference that could absolutely be argued from the other direction the exact same way.
e.g.
"Linux fonts are so ugly" (true, imho!)
"whats with each program having it's own menubar--makes muscle memory impossible"
"I clicked to bring my browser window to the foreground and accidentally clicked a button that took me to a new page--argh!! Literally the most frustrating and concentration breaking thing!"
OSX has a huge array of shortcut keys and shortcut+click options that I think 99% of mac users don't know about. For instance, Option+Click outside of a foreground hides the current program. Option clicking many menus also shows extra or alternative options. Option+drag resizes a window equally from both sides. Cmd+H hides the current program. Cmd+Option+H hides all OTHER programs intead. Cmd+Q quits. Cmd+Option+Q force quits (no confirmation). Cmd+Tab brings up a process switcher (Alt+Tab on windows) Cmd+Shift+Tab reverses, and while you're doing this if you press "Q" the selected program quits immediately. Cmd+Shift+G in a File Open/Save dialog brings up a unix-style/Volumes/MyDisk/folder style path bar that you can type an absolute path in--complete with tab for autocomplete. Click and drag a file to move it. Click and drag and hold down Option to duplicate. Click and drag and hold down Option+Cmd to create a shortcut. Etc etc etc. OS X is great for power users, but you do need to put in the time to learn the system.
It was a hard day for me when I realized I no longer got joy out of upgrading my computer / OS / applications because I knew that invariably things would change--things that I liked and was used to. Sounds like you've hit that point too. That's totally fine (and totally human--I feel the same way on Windows and Linux now that I'm no longer used to them), but I think it makes it easy to conflate "What I'm used to" and "What is better / worse".
Yet countless times when I ask an OSX expert "How do I... (some advanced thing)", they refer me to the terminal window.... Where things are now more difficult because nothing is standard at all and almost nothing runs with the command line.
Out of curiosity, what do you mean by this? Specifically the "nothing is standard at all" part and "almost nothing runs with the command line."
I was a linux / windows user until about 2005 when I switched to OSX and basically haven't look back. My terminal window is literally always running, and I view it as one of the best things about OSX.
SystemStarter came from Next (afaik--or at least the crazy earliest versions of OS X) and has been deprecated for something like 12 years (it was started by init, btw). The current initial/cron/systemd type daemon is launchd. Did I mention that launchd is open source and has been ported to FreeBSD? I dont know a ton about systemd, but it seems similar—if more expansive—than launchd.
If you don't like the BSD-style utilities, you can always install gnu versions. See brew, macports, etc.
I'm not against atmospheric monitoring, but it's "never" (not any time soon) going to be as good as point-of-production monitoring. Every one of us who has a car made since 1996 is living under a regime like this, and in fact, the system is actually working very well to reduce automotive emissions. The car knows when it is producing excessive emissions and will light the MIL (malfunction indicator light) when it is producing more than 2.5 times the federal test standard. Cars usually produce way under the standard or way over, unless they have just a minor exhaust or intake leak or similar. It's illegal to tamper with the system and regular inspections "ensure" that this is not being done.
Disclaimer, I have not followed by the Volkswagen closely at all (so sorry if this is a dumb question), but I was confused due to exactly what you say above. Surely there are at least some states that when inspecting cars inspect the actual emissions rather than just the computer diagnostics? Surely EPA / FHA / someone does this for new cars, right? How did VW get missed?
Too bad we can't survive in an atmosphere of 35% oxygen and 6 to 10 times more CO2. So the distant past is irrelevant - we live in a different environment. Change it too much, we will suffer the same fate as the dinosaurs.
So if we release too many GHG emissions we'll end up getting hit with a giant asteroid that instantly incinerates thousands of miles of of land, causes massive tsunamis, global earthquakes and volcanoes, and dims the atmosphere for at least several years? Cool! Now that's a correlation I hadn't heard of before!;-)
Thanks for the message. I do actually agree with you--over the years I have made many, many posts on all kinds of political articles on Slashdot. My objection isn't to political articles per se (though I do think the ratio could be shifted down a bit), but that this article in particular seemed totally vapid.
True, I could definitely just avoid this article and others that I'm not interested in--and I do. Whipslash and BIZX have requested feedback, so there mine is. Ignored or not, I'm fine either way.
My personal theory (take this with a big IMHO and cum grano salis) is that one big difference between Republicans and Democrats is that by and by, most Democrats tend to like their party. Most Republicans barely stomach their own party. Thus, it makes sense that if Trump is trolling the Republican party, that a lot of Republicans go right along trolling with him.
I was hoping that this kind of article wouldn't be showing up any more on the "new" Slashdot. I'm digging the new DICE-less Slashdot (and I even downloaded something from SourceForge for the first time in years!), and while this is obviously not a democracy, MHO is that if I want to read superficial and partisan social networking commentaries, I would seek them out (or not!) somewhere else--not on slashdot.
You'll be glad to know that Holmes has been so satisfied with their design that they've rolled it out across their product line.
I have a Holmes dual-fan window unit with the same one-button design. Its operational modes include off, low, high, and then 4 temperature-controlled variants of low and 4 temperature-controlled variants of high. There's one control button that you have to press repeatedly. Nine button presses to go from "low" to "off". What the hell is wrong with designers.
I find it somewhat odd that you're getting into the nitty gritty of what "libertarian" means and you continually capitalize the word. Most people who talk about such things take "big L" Libertarian to mean the (widely derided--even amongst libertarians) Libertarian Party in the US and "little l" libertarians to mean those who subscribe to a libertarian philosophy.
I don't think most Objectivists ("Randians" as you call them) would consider themselves libertarians. That's kind of the point of Rand's philosophy--she wanted a defined moral philosophy, not a loosely defined political goal. Her books have, however, been enormously popular and influential amongst libertarians (and non-libertarians) of all stripes. You don't have to be an Objectivist to find merit in Rand's writings, and you can be a libertarian without enjoying Rand's writings. It goes both ways.
Ultimately, if the "libertarian" label is meaningless enough to socialists, anarchists, and some fairly traditional Republicans and Democrats, it doesn't seem to make any sense to complain about Objectivists (who themselves don't want to be called libertarians) being in the tent. I prefer to define libertarian much more narrowly and with the full knowledge that I exclude some (like you) who would consider themselves libertarians.
I exclude socialists and those who _generally_ want more government involvement. I exclude anarchists and those who _generally_ want no government. I exclude one-issue libertarians (the traditional example was marijuana legalization).
What's left (big IMHO) is the core libertarian--people who generally want more person freedom and personal responsibility, who generally want victimless laws and regulations repealed, and who generally prefer smaller political structures to bigger political structures. Still kind of broad...
I would consider myself a green libertarian. I want people to basically be able to do whatever they want, with the caveat that earth is a shared resource, and when you consume / emit these shared resources you are effectively using force on others. I think I'm fairly alone in my views here, but I would be more loose about many regulations while far more stringent in regulations of things like noise regulations, small motor emissions (noise and co2), bright lighting at night, etc. Somewhat like Switzerland.
I'm also fully aware that my stand on some of those issues would make many say that I'm not any kind of a libertarian!
FWIW (and IMHO), regardless of content, your post is rather painful to read given that every sentence ends–-inappropriately--with an emoticon. You can convey tone without having to literally wink.
While I also hate tailgaters, as a European who spends many months each year in the U.S. I have to say average American driving habits sometimes make me pull my hair out. I know driving rules and habits are different, still, if most drivers would at least try to keep to the right, to at least try to drive fast enough to be close to the speed limit on highways (not forcing 65-goers to constantly change lanes), to signal lane changes (left and right, yes, both), and not to break randomly on the open road (i.e., even when there's nobody ahead for hundreds of yards), well then maybe I wouldn't curse so much while driving. Oh, and for f* sake, if you enter the freeway and don't plan to leave at the next exit then you might sometimes consider shifting left 1-2 lanes.
You know, it's interesting--I would say there are even huge changes in driving habits between different parts of the country. This is obviously all anecdotal, but my experiences in parts of the midwest have been that people are very good about staying out of the left lane and allowing people to pass them as necessary. OTOH, in North Carolina, people are very bad about that. There are big differences in tailgating, use of the horn, passing on the right, etc. It seems to b e a fairly "southern" driving trait (I've heard northeasterners comment about this) to swing widely in the opposite direction before turning.
I just wish people would freaking pay attention at stop lights and watch for the light to change to green. It's almost always this excruciating ballet of watching the cars ahead of me "Oh, the light changed? *2 seconds to process before starting to accelerate" followed by the car behind them seeming to only realize it's time to go after their own two second pause. I'm hoping for network aware (or just aware!) autonomous cars that can all start rolling at the same time after a light change.
It's really interesting. I work at a small independent (family-owned) academic publishing house, and we actually have a textbook with an author at Cal State Fullerton. That author foregoes royalties on any sales to Cal State Fullerton. I had thought that was a school policy (this kind of policy is pretty common--and becoming more so--actually), but I guess not.
$180 seems like a crapload for a math textbook that probably doesn't change much between editions. Our most expensive book is a real monster at something like 1800 pages, and comes in around $140. Having said that, I can absolutely understand the desire to have all students in different sections use the same book.
Maybe the authors should volunteer to give up royalties (or donate to a charity, etc) for sales to their own school as a good faith gesture?
Actually the controls are very easy to use and the steering wheel has mechanical controls that adjust fan speed.
Definitely not on the Odyssey (2014) middle trim--there are no fan control buttons on the steering wheel.
Here's another example of the utter idiocy of the UI. Climate controls:
1) Turn knob for temperature 2) A multiple push button (toggles between states) for where the air blows, with only a TINY hard-to-read icon on the greyscale LCD to show you what mode your own 3) Two buttons (Up/Down) that control fan speed.
Did they not have room to put on a slider switch too?
The pissiness was fine, it was the lack of supporting information (and the accompanying emotional reaction) I found bizarre. Honestly, it surprises me that slashdot/the internet more generally have gotten to the point where asking for evidence is seen as prima facie case of "pretended stupidity."
I think the touch screen console was a big mistake. You need to be able to manage things like climate settings, radio stations, etc. by touch.
Knobs and buttons in a car seem to be going the way of the dodo. It's a major pet-peeve for me--I can't stand the idiocy of car user interface design--they seem to be getting so much worse. Wife's Honda Odyssey has two screens (one touch, one not), and it's never clear which information will display where, the climate control is dreadful, tuning the radio is time consuming and attention-grabbing. It's just awful.
Slashdot Mirror
Conservatives often mention the need for ID when buying booze or picking up prescriptions as their argument for why they think that requiring certain form of ID for voting doesn't violate voter rights. Well guess what, neither those nor any other need for ID is not only a Constitutionally protected right but a duty for all citizens that is essential for the functioning of our Democratic system.
It's not just conservatives--a solid majority (usually 60%+) in just about every poll I have ever seen, be it Rasmussen, collegiate, PPP, etc, shows widespread support for proving identity when voting.
Voting is a right that is mentioned in the Constitution, and like all other constitutional rights, has limits. For instance, it's universally agreed that shouting "fire" in a crowded theater is not ok. That is a limit on free speech, but we still have the right to free speech. Likewise, for voting, felons are regularly denied the right to vote. Non-citizens do not have a right to vote. Laws in different states vary about when people can vote and how they can vote (e.g. absentee only!). The constitution, after all, does not say that "voting has to follow the exact process that Dorianny feels happy with." One can also take the argument that by allowing a system that is so clearly broken and open to abuse as many current voting schemes, that other people's right to vote is diminished by fraudulent activity.
An old friend of mine lived in Portland for several years (20-something wanna-be-journalist lesbian--where else would she move after college? :-)) and was always totally candid about how she would gather up ballots--dozens in one case, I gather--from more apathetic friends, fill them in, and mail them in. This kind of fraud would be very hard to catch or prove either way. This example is also tangential to the voter ID debate (since you don't need ID for mail-in ballots anyway) but I think it does just show one way how it's easy to cheat.
Personally, I want everyone who wants to vote to be able to vote, but in general I would prefer lower turnout. I'm just as happy with high-information, motivated voters rather than schlups being bussed in by whatever advocacy group has the best get out the vote effort.
So.. OSX uses open command, which is nonstandard.
Sure it is--open source and standard across the Darwin and Nextstep family of operating systems for almost 30 years! In all seriousness, you can run the actual binary like in Linux, but it's not like there is a posix standard (or even a Linux equivalent).
Are you sure .sh works? I tried to name a script .sh and double click it and it didn't work. I did do an OSX script once that worked on the desktop but it had to be done in some completely different OSX macro language. Bash script wouldn't work at all.
Yeah, definitely. .sh files default to being associated with TextEdit. Change that to terminal and it works as expected. Alternatively, rename to myscript.command or just myscript (no extension--didn't know that) and if the file has the exec bit set it will work as expected. Another alternative is to use AppleScript to launch a script. Terminal used to be tcsh but defaults to bash now. Has always had bash included IIRC.
I think another thing I had trouble with is, say I want to open a finder window in my home directory from the command line. I couldn't figure out how to do that either. Maybe it is just 'open finder ' or something like that?
Precisely.
open ~
Or
open /Users/moridineas
Yeah, if you're expecting the exact Linux way, OSX is definitely different when it comes to programs. Programs are really a directory that ends in .app. The nice thing about .app bundles is that they keep all libraries, executables, resources, etc, bundled together. Makes moving programs around very easily, and you don't tend to have orphaned files stranded all over the file system. This is why installing a program in OSX is almost always literally just dragging and dropping from a disk image into the Application (or wherever) folder.
so /Applications/TextEdit.app/ is a folder that contains all of the files relating to the TextEdit program. The actual binary is /Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit (Contents/MacOS/xyz is standard).
To run a program from the command line you can either do it this way (long): /Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit
or use the handy "open" program: /Applications/TextEdit.app/
open
or
open minecraft.jar
To run a GUI program and open a file (based on file type associations):
open myfile.txt
(This will start TextEdit--by default, in my case, MacVim--and open myfile.txt)
To run a shell script by double clicking, either associate the file type (e.g. ".sh") with the Terminal program or just rename "myscript.sh" to "myscript.command". That one is a little esoteric, admittedly!
btw--good idea for the script! I may have to do that for my son--would definitely save some frustration at times!
I'm the last person to want to force a person to use a particular platform just because, but I do think it's worth nothing that pretty much everything you list is purely a UI/aesthetic difference that could absolutely be argued from the other direction the exact same way.
e.g.
"Linux fonts are so ugly" (true, imho!)
"whats with each program having it's own menubar--makes muscle memory impossible"
"I clicked to bring my browser window to the foreground and accidentally clicked a button that took me to a new page--argh!! Literally the most frustrating and concentration breaking thing!"
OSX has a huge array of shortcut keys and shortcut+click options that I think 99% of mac users don't know about. For instance, Option+Click outside of a foreground hides the current program. Option clicking many menus also shows extra or alternative options. Option+drag resizes a window equally from both sides. Cmd+H hides the current program. Cmd+Option+H hides all OTHER programs intead. Cmd+Q quits. Cmd+Option+Q force quits (no confirmation). Cmd+Tab brings up a process switcher (Alt+Tab on windows) Cmd+Shift+Tab reverses, and while you're doing this if you press "Q" the selected program quits immediately. Cmd+Shift+G in a File Open/Save dialog brings up a unix-style /Volumes/MyDisk/folder style path bar that you can type an absolute path in--complete with tab for autocomplete. Click and drag a file to move it. Click and drag and hold down Option to duplicate. Click and drag and hold down Option+Cmd to create a shortcut. Etc etc etc. OS X is great for power users, but you do need to put in the time to learn the system.
It was a hard day for me when I realized I no longer got joy out of upgrading my computer / OS / applications because I knew that invariably things would change--things that I liked and was used to. Sounds like you've hit that point too. That's totally fine (and totally human--I feel the same way on Windows and Linux now that I'm no longer used to them), but I think it makes it easy to conflate "What I'm used to" and "What is better / worse".
Yet countless times when I ask an OSX expert "How do I... (some advanced thing)", they refer me to the terminal window.... Where things are now more difficult because nothing is standard at all and almost nothing runs with the command line.
Out of curiosity, what do you mean by this? Specifically the "nothing is standard at all" part and "almost nothing runs with the command line."
I was a linux / windows user until about 2005 when I switched to OSX and basically haven't look back. My terminal window is literally always running, and I view it as one of the best things about OSX.
Hilarious post.
SystemStarter came from Next (afaik--or at least the crazy earliest versions of OS X) and has been deprecated for something like 12 years (it was started by init, btw). The current initial/cron/systemd type daemon is launchd. Did I mention that launchd is open source and has been ported to FreeBSD? I dont know a ton about systemd, but it seems similar—if more expansive—than launchd.
If you don't like the BSD-style utilities, you can always install gnu versions. See brew, macports, etc.
Darwin is open source.
I'm not against atmospheric monitoring, but it's "never" (not any time soon) going to be as good as point-of-production monitoring. Every one of us who has a car made since 1996 is living under a regime like this, and in fact, the system is actually working very well to reduce automotive emissions. The car knows when it is producing excessive emissions and will light the MIL (malfunction indicator light) when it is producing more than 2.5 times the federal test standard. Cars usually produce way under the standard or way over, unless they have just a minor exhaust or intake leak or similar. It's illegal to tamper with the system and regular inspections "ensure" that this is not being done.
Disclaimer, I have not followed by the Volkswagen closely at all (so sorry if this is a dumb question), but I was confused due to exactly what you say above. Surely there are at least some states that when inspecting cars inspect the actual emissions rather than just the computer diagnostics? Surely EPA / FHA / someone does this for new cars, right? How did VW get missed?
Too bad we can't survive in an atmosphere of 35% oxygen and 6 to 10 times more CO2. So the distant past is irrelevant - we live in a different environment. Change it too much, we will suffer the same fate as the dinosaurs.
So if we release too many GHG emissions we'll end up getting hit with a giant asteroid that instantly incinerates thousands of miles of of land, causes massive tsunamis, global earthquakes and volcanoes, and dims the atmosphere for at least several years? Cool! Now that's a correlation I hadn't heard of before! ;-)
Good example--the Adams link you just now posted would have been far preferable to the link in the article! Thanks for that.
Thanks for the message. I do actually agree with you--over the years I have made many, many posts on all kinds of political articles on Slashdot. My objection isn't to political articles per se (though I do think the ratio could be shifted down a bit), but that this article in particular seemed totally vapid.
:-)
True, I could definitely just avoid this article and others that I'm not interested in--and I do. Whipslash and BIZX have requested feedback, so there mine is. Ignored or not, I'm fine either way.
Seems a reasonable observation.
My personal theory (take this with a big IMHO and cum grano salis) is that one big difference between Republicans and Democrats is that by and by, most Democrats tend to like their party. Most Republicans barely stomach their own party. Thus, it makes sense that if Trump is trolling the Republican party, that a lot of Republicans go right along trolling with him.
I was hoping that this kind of article wouldn't be showing up any more on the "new" Slashdot. I'm digging the new DICE-less Slashdot (and I even downloaded something from SourceForge for the first time in years!), and while this is obviously not a democracy, MHO is that if I want to read superficial and partisan social networking commentaries, I would seek them out (or not!) somewhere else--not on slashdot.
You'll be glad to know that Holmes has been so satisfied with their design that they've rolled it out across their product line.
I have a Holmes dual-fan window unit with the same one-button design. Its operational modes include off, low, high, and then 4 temperature-controlled variants of low and 4 temperature-controlled variants of high. There's one control button that you have to press repeatedly. Nine button presses to go from "low" to "off". What the hell is wrong with designers.
I find it somewhat odd that you're getting into the nitty gritty of what "libertarian" means and you continually capitalize the word. Most people who talk about such things take "big L" Libertarian to mean the (widely derided--even amongst libertarians) Libertarian Party in the US and "little l" libertarians to mean those who subscribe to a libertarian philosophy.
I don't think most Objectivists ("Randians" as you call them) would consider themselves libertarians. That's kind of the point of Rand's philosophy--she wanted a defined moral philosophy, not a loosely defined political goal. Her books have, however, been enormously popular and influential amongst libertarians (and non-libertarians) of all stripes. You don't have to be an Objectivist to find merit in Rand's writings, and you can be a libertarian without enjoying Rand's writings. It goes both ways.
Ultimately, if the "libertarian" label is meaningless enough to socialists, anarchists, and some fairly traditional Republicans and Democrats, it doesn't seem to make any sense to complain about Objectivists (who themselves don't want to be called libertarians) being in the tent. I prefer to define libertarian much more narrowly and with the full knowledge that I exclude some (like you) who would consider themselves libertarians.
I exclude socialists and those who _generally_ want more government involvement.
I exclude anarchists and those who _generally_ want no government.
I exclude one-issue libertarians (the traditional example was marijuana legalization).
What's left (big IMHO) is the core libertarian--people who generally want more person freedom and personal responsibility, who generally want victimless laws and regulations repealed, and who generally prefer smaller political structures to bigger political structures. Still kind of broad...
I would consider myself a green libertarian. I want people to basically be able to do whatever they want, with the caveat that earth is a shared resource, and when you consume / emit these shared resources you are effectively using force on others. I think I'm fairly alone in my views here, but I would be more loose about many regulations while far more stringent in regulations of things like noise regulations, small motor emissions (noise and co2), bright lighting at night, etc. Somewhat like Switzerland.
I'm also fully aware that my stand on some of those issues would make many say that I'm not any kind of a libertarian!
FWIW (and IMHO), regardless of content, your post is rather painful to read given that every sentence ends–-inappropriately--with an emoticon. You can convey tone without having to literally wink.
Since OSX is based on the Mach Kernel and uses a lot of BSD utilities, in many ways both OSX and Linux are Unix.
Fully agreed, but to be pedantically accurate (the best kind of accurate) only OS X is UNIX (as in authorized to use the UNIX Trademark).
I found it extremely easy to port a Linux based CUPS printer driver to OSX
Should be! Apple employes several CUPS developers and purchased the source code about a decade ago.
While I also hate tailgaters, as a European who spends many months each year in the U.S. I have to say average American driving habits sometimes make me pull my hair out. I know driving rules and habits are different, still, if most drivers would at least try to keep to the right, to at least try to drive fast enough to be close to the speed limit on highways (not forcing 65-goers to constantly change lanes), to signal lane changes (left and right, yes, both), and not to break randomly on the open road (i.e., even when there's nobody ahead for hundreds of yards), well then maybe I wouldn't curse so much while driving. Oh, and for f* sake, if you enter the freeway and don't plan to leave at the next exit then you might sometimes consider shifting left 1-2 lanes.
You know, it's interesting--I would say there are even huge changes in driving habits between different parts of the country. This is obviously all anecdotal, but my experiences in parts of the midwest have been that people are very good about staying out of the left lane and allowing people to pass them as necessary. OTOH, in North Carolina, people are very bad about that. There are big differences in tailgating, use of the horn, passing on the right, etc. It seems to b e a fairly "southern" driving trait (I've heard northeasterners comment about this) to swing widely in the opposite direction before turning.
I just wish people would freaking pay attention at stop lights and watch for the light to change to green. It's almost always this excruciating ballet of watching the cars ahead of me "Oh, the light changed? *2 seconds to process before starting to accelerate" followed by the car behind them seeming to only realize it's time to go after their own two second pause. I'm hoping for network aware (or just aware!) autonomous cars that can all start rolling at the same time after a light change.
Are you real or a parody??
It's really interesting. I work at a small independent (family-owned) academic publishing house, and we actually have a textbook with an author at Cal State Fullerton. That author foregoes royalties on any sales to Cal State Fullerton. I had thought that was a school policy (this kind of policy is pretty common--and becoming more so--actually), but I guess not.
$180 seems like a crapload for a math textbook that probably doesn't change much between editions. Our most expensive book is a real monster at something like 1800 pages, and comes in around $140. Having said that, I can absolutely understand the desire to have all students in different sections use the same book.
Maybe the authors should volunteer to give up royalties (or donate to a charity, etc) for sales to their own school as a good faith gesture?
Actually the controls are very easy to use and the steering wheel has mechanical controls that adjust fan speed.
Definitely not on the Odyssey (2014) middle trim--there are no fan control buttons on the steering wheel.
Here's another example of the utter idiocy of the UI. Climate controls:
1) Turn knob for temperature
2) A multiple push button (toggles between states) for where the air blows, with only a TINY hard-to-read icon on the greyscale LCD to show you what mode your own
3) Two buttons (Up/Down) that control fan speed.
Did they not have room to put on a slider switch too?
OpenBSD started as a fork of NetBSD, actually. All of the BSDs cross pollinate to a large degree, however.
The pissiness was fine, it was the lack of supporting information (and the accompanying emotional reaction) I found bizarre. Honestly, it surprises me that slashdot/the internet more generally have gotten to the point where asking for evidence is seen as prima facie case of "pretended stupidity."
I think the touch screen console was a big mistake. You need to be able to manage things like climate settings, radio stations, etc. by touch.
Knobs and buttons in a car seem to be going the way of the dodo. It's a major pet-peeve for me--I can't stand the idiocy of car user interface design--they seem to be getting so much worse. Wife's Honda Odyssey has two screens (one touch, one not), and it's never clear which information will display where, the climate control is dreadful, tuning the radio is time consuming and attention-grabbing. It's just awful.
Nice car though.