The funny thing is that all of these TV shows & movies aren't being pulled to show sensitivity to the victims or the viewers, but for two more primary reasons: 1. Americans don't want to see the ways in which we portray the kind of violence that occurred last Tuesday in our cultural expressions all the time, so the media is white-washing itself. You would think there'd be no better time to put out a Swartzenneger movie about a firefighter who avenges the killing of his family by terrorists, but no... (This is because)... 2. History has shown that Americans want the blandest sh!t possible after major tragedies. For instance, after Kennedy was assassinated, TV turned heavily toward shows like Gilligan's Island & The Munsters. Ironically, before Kennedy's assassination there were many movies that foreshadowed it, like "Suddenly" (1954), where Frank Sinatra is intent on assassinating the president.
I used to watch Space Ghost & then Insomniac on Sunday nights, but Comedy Central fûcked up & they were both on at the same time. So I stayed with Cartoon Network & watched Cowboy BeBop, which was really cool. That was just last week, too. At least I saw it before they pulled it, now at least I can go rent it--and go to bed earlier. Subtitles are probably better than dubbing, anyway, as it was kind of disturbing to see anime that was so thoroughly white (after Akira & Ghost in the Shell). Was Battletech that white?
You need to calm down RIGHT NOW
on
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The reason behind these terrorist attacks was not simply to strike fear into America, although it has done that very effectively. It was also to PISS OFF AMERICA. Think about it. If you were mad as hell at someone much more powerful (physically & socioeconomically) than you who had made you lose your job or who killed your wife while driving drunk (which are fair analogies for how the US is perceived around the world--fairly or not), how would you deal with that? Would you call that person out of their home for a fair fight? Or would you destroy their car or kill their pets. If you think you'd go with the first option, you would inevitably end up with the humiliation of getting your ass kicked on top of everything (or losing in court to your more wealthy, connected nemesis--which is the legal version of my basic fight analogy). But if you commit the conniving, underhanded vengeance, you would at least have the secret satisfaction that you made that more powerful person as upset & hateful as you. Because if misery loves company, rage absolutely demands company. And if that more powerful person comes after you, then you have a huge head start from planning while they were still complacent. If you can't figure this out, try not to think about it at all for a while.
Re:Moral Values, Ethics, Terror and War.
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As the saying goes, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." Just as the Persian Gulf War would not have happened had the US not built up Hussein in order to fight Iran by proxy, this attack would not have happened had the US not helped people like OBL fight the USSR in Afghanistan in the 80's. There is no justification for this attack, and these terrorist networks must be subdued--but systematically, and in conjunction with a foreign policy that doesn't reek of hypocrisy. But terrorism must not become the new Communism, especially not a cause for another cold-war. Heightened security, yes. Aimlessly attacking Middle Eastern nations, no. Fear & persecution of citizens suspected of being terrorists, no. A well-trained, armed (with at least a knife!) security officer on every plane would almost certainly have kept this from happening, and would be a far better solution than face-recognition & strict limitations on commercial air traffic. Also, as many have pointed out, curbside baggage checking & allowing carry-on is an invitation for bombing & highjacking. Think smarter, not more brutal.
Re:President Bush Confuses Packistan and Afganista
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Ahhh, the irony. Attacking Afghanistan would be a most hypocritical move, and didn't work when Clinton launched 70 cruise missiles into Afghanistan a few years ago.
WASHINGTON POST, May 18, 2001; Page A5
The Bush administration will provide $43 million in additional humanitarian aid to Afghanistan this year in response to a three-year drought that threatens to cause widespread famine, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said yesterday.
The assistance, which will increase the annual U.S. aid program in Afghanistan to $124 million, includes 65,000 tons of wheat, $5 million in other food and $10 million for emergency health care, shelter and economic projects to counter severe famine.
State Department officials said the assistance would be provided through the United Nations and private organizations rather than to the country's Taliban government, which does not have diplomatic relations with the United States.
Stonewolf, you're like Stone Phillips & Wolf Blitzer combined--bad pun, sorry. Americans have always viewed the Palestinians as terrorists, and will never see them as anything else. Israel is the Great White Hope of the Middle East, and the Palestinians are the pesky natives. Witness the absence of Israel & the USA from last week's UN Conference on Racism because of the topic of Israel as a racist state (Zionism=Colonialism="Manifest Destiny"; all racist ideologies). Even if it was the Palestinians, the US would probably retaliate by proxy through some joint effort with the Israeli army since Israel already has a bad reputation as far as human rights, diplomacy, etc. Of course, the US is already basically doing this, and Palestinian casualties cannot get much higher without making it a full blown war. Also, the analogies everyone is using are quite ironic. It is Pearl Harbor meets Vietnam meets Tom Clancy. But it all goes to show that the US hasn't learned much from war--especially that foreign policy & diplomacy are more important than military intelligence & might. This attack also undercuts the whole idea of the Revolution in Military Affairs, which was Rumsfield & Bush's plan for the future of the military. The RMA focuses on long-range, unmanned warfare, allowing for further US isolationism. When the US is being attacked by its own commercial airliners, the RMA won't work.
Hey, in your example, "their" is wrong, too. It should be "they're," the contraction of "they are." No offense, and to keep this on topic: I keep wondering why Slashdot loves Yellow Dog. It's not like there (;->) aren't a lot of good distros for PPC. Doesn't SuSE work on Macs, as well? Also, LinuxPPC is not dead, THE ARTICLE MENTIONS THEY'RE DOING THE WORK ON POWER MANAGEMENT FOR THE PLATFORM. The only problem with the PPC platform in general (MacOSX & Linux) is that a lot of free software works strangely or not at all--MacOSX compounds this problem with their (;->) screwy directory structure. For instance, it took me at least three hours to find the config file for MySQL on MacOSX.
I would have a really hard time believing this story if I hadn't gone through something very similar. I think it comes down to this: If the PHBs has someone technologically adept around, they will exploit that person to the point where that person quits. Then, the PHBs will actually do things by themselves, but in the most assinine, mediocre manner. There is a psychological structure here that you need to get out of. By putting machines together from scratch, trying to resurrect a 486, etc, etc... you were showing your PHB that you could be used very effectively. Then, when you quit, the PHB spent your salary on Windows! Talk about adding insult to injury. Well, I wish you the best of luck. I also suggest coding an open source 'web application' while you have free time--it seems this would be a good thing.
I get tired of hearing this pessimistic argument from supposed GNU/Linux supporters. My personal experience has been that the average user is completely unaware of even the most general trends in the computer industry, let alone the status of Linux on the desktop. Even businesspeople who think they're tech-saavy generally only know what they ead in Fortune, Worth, Inc., etc.
The typical consumer shopping for a computer at Dell or IBM or Compaq will not even see the option for Linux because the sites are so hard to navigate. Everything I've ever heard or read (even this fairly nice one) has shown that Dell was half-hearted at best in their Linux support.
Linux is user supported--i.e., if you want to support Linux, use it. Even the poorest running Linux box I've worked on has run rings around any Windows except 2000. And I always have far more difficulty properly configuring W2K than Linux.
You're regurgitating outdated spin. You haven't analyzed the damn election past what you saw on Fox News six months ago. For instance, do you know how many counties didn't bother to do any kind of recount at all, but instead just resubmitted their original numbers? Then again, why am I bothering trying to get through to someone who uses an illogical analogy to football? The only valid football analogy is instant replay, you twit. Of course, football's just an unfair game (rich teams vs. poor teams; team's wealth=league standing) that bilks the public out of money by fostering their loyalty--now that's not a half-bad analogy to politics!
I haven't had much experience with OSX, and I don't want to figure out a whole new server platform--or really, anything other than Debian. I wanted to use Macs as workstations. But the 1st time I checked out OSX, I couldn't find/bin,/etc, nothing. It has a freaking "Mac OS X" directory (a lá "Windows/WINNT")! My final hope was that their was some database that would work with OSXServer. What is the point of OSXServer? Does NextStep work well on it or something? I think it's hilarious that FileMaker runs on Linux, now??? I can't figure out what the hell Apple is thinking, but they're wasting a lot of good technology & development--NOT FileMaker, I don't mean that POS.
Does anyone remember the poor schmoe who wanted to ODBC-link MySQL into MSAccess for the GUI tools? There are so many people that are crippled by GUI SQL tools, but OTOH, it's better than nothing. There is a great benefit to being able to use DBs with SQL that is more complicated than simple SELECT & INSERT statements. There is no (none, not one, nada, etc.) OLAP tool (AFAIK) that runs on Linux. So you can store tons of data on DB2 or Oracle or what_have_you, but you can't do much with it. I create a lot of custom OLAP tools on Linux using Perl and Java, but I'm not quite at the point where I can put it all together in a nice GUI package and throw it onto Freshmeat. Once I get the graphing objects done, then I'm GPL'ing that sh!t. But I can do just about anything OLAP-wise (on a very small scale) in Access (with the MS_SQL_OLAP component) quite easily. Forget the Enterprise level, Linux needs to make headway with small businesses. I like small businesses, but they don't know Jack about Technology. So they will hurt themselves triply by buying M$, never even figuring out half of what the software can do, and then being locked into M$ anyways as they grow. RedHat has good potential & seems canny enough, but I think it all depends on how good their support offerings are.
I replied to the previous (here) and, what do you know, here's Sarcasta going gagga over Oracle. No offense, Sarcasta, I haven't had the luck to work with Oracle, so.... But working with DB2 in Java is almost orgasmic for me--OK, yes, that's the most embarrassing thing I've ever admitted on/., but, hey, I love my work. But look at the post I responded to (here) where metachimp explains why RedHat did this. All of the Linux distros have MySQL, PostGreSQL, etc., but I have never been able to sell a non-web-based solution using any of these. I start talking up PostGreSQL, and the clients smile & nod & ask if I know how to use a real database. The funny thing is that these people always have legacy databases in DOS or Filemaker or some such P.O.S. So hopefully RedHat can come up with an Access-Killer. Also, quandry for Sarcasta/Kathleen: I wanted to set up a client on MacOSX with a Linux database server (Ad agency (likes iMacs) needs good DB (PostGreSQL)), but LinuxPPC scares me a bit--especially Java support. Have any OSS databases been ported to MacOSX? I could just throw an x86 box in the mix, but then there are two OS & hardware platforms to maintain. TIA for any advice.
Sorry, I don't have mod points so I'm wasting a post backing up metachimp's post--which is about as accurate as anyone is going to get on this story. Nice, concise, & more insightful than the PostGres developer's post!?
Now if this was an Oracle story, people would be creaming in their pants while posting. But since RedHat is so uncool & PostGres is unpopular (read: harder than MySQL, not as cool (read: expensive) as Oracle), everyone's like, "What is the deal with RedHat & PostGreSQL? How dumb is this? I don't get it."
Is it just me or does this AC (ironically) sound like a real a$$hole? Befriending marketing types generally means you're just a classic Dogbert type. I'm not even sure about this person's genesis as a developer. It doesn't make any sense--there would be a ton of holes in this person's ability if this is a true story. How could ASP & VB throw them off, but PHP & all things Java be a cup of tea? Oh well, from now on I'll just tell everyone I'm a really "GOOD GUY."
I agree, but unfortunately, the state of software development over the past decade has defied this process. Everybody I work with wants to get their apps into production on too short a timeline to design a prototype & then program it more professionally. Instead, they either dive straight into coding the app in C++, or they do like the story poster & stick with a more flexible IDE all the way through. And the better than Moore's law progress of hardware has meant the users can't tell the difference.
This happens all the time on my coworker's machine. He insists on '98 because anything else is "too technical." IE can even be open beforehand, and then if you max out the CPU the whole shell crashes. I always give him such sh!t, but, actually, he still deserves it. And, I've seen this on W2K, too. So what happens when.NET starts going online? I kept wondering how M$ beat everyone else to market with WebDAV, and then I found out how their implementation doesn't really work.
Look, Sgt. TacoBell, I know you're a corporate b!tch, but how does that article contradict the assertions SpinyNorman came up with? The article states M$ is fighting AOL by attrition, not competition--nothing new there. Your logical weakness continues to amaze me.
My company quit buying DELL boxes when they dumped their standard keyboards in favor of M$ branded ones. A simple thing, but that's pretty much the reason we were buying DELL.
So we bought some other machines, HP, IBM, etc. Everyone realised how the drab Dell boxes had been depressing. We like our computers more, because they are all different. Of course, the DELL problem applies somewhat to Apple now that they are all blue, grey, or hideous.
Platitudinal bullsh!t. You give this blase, quasi-rational defense for what was a total disaster of an election. Your hindsight shows you didn't learn anything from the whole ordeal. Is the election system fcked up? Do any of the decisions made since the election have any bearing on it? I doubt you know or care. Trepidity means either fear or murkiness. Both seem to describe you pretty well◘
When I lambast the Bushes, I mean all the ones you've heard about: Neil Bush had to be pardoned by Reagan for deals he made in the S&L scandal. John Ellis Bush (ie. JEB) reneged on big real estate loans in Florida. And GWB got the mayor of Arlington (who was under investigation for fraud at the time, by none other than GHWB) to impose a stadium tax on the poor resident, who had to give the stadium to the Rangers. I've never heard anything about Melvin or whatever his name is. Of course, members of my own family are just as much scammers as the Bushes, but I take them to task whenever they start this, "I need a tax cut cuz I blew through millions in the '80s" Bullsh!t.
On the subject of taxes generating revenue, I'm assuming you know about the Laffer Curve. Regardless of what caused the boom in the '90s, the fact that the economy boomed while taxes went up & up pretty much dispelled the validity of the Laffer Curve. Now, once again, do you know what the alternative minimum tax is? It will erase most of your tax cut if you earn more than $100K. You're an employer?
You're view of educational testing is way off. We're already way off topic here, but... I switched from private to public school mid-high school (Fuck!ng recession), and I had to take those tests. Without even a day's study, I scored around the 95th percentile. I skipped grades and never studied much. Yet I saw the "poor" kids stuck in their classrooms. I think they kept failing the tests because they were in the remedial classes. Testing has a lot to do with socioeconomic status, ie. reinforcing it.
And private school, blahh... I learned a lot because I was there for the majority of my life from the time I was 2½ years old. Closed campus, small classes, computers right next to me all day long, etc. I loved it because the girls looked so hot in those Catholic uniforms, but one of the worst memories I have was seeing my one Mexican classmate hanging around the mini-mall down the street one day during school. His family couldn't keep up with the payments.
No, it isn't class envy. I grew up upper-middle class (private school, servants, lots of computers:), but you certainly have the classic poor-boy-makes-good syndrome. You've spent so much time & effort aspiring to improve your socioeconomic status that you haven't looked at how it all works. I was trying to show that the Bushes embody a certain view of the American dream, except nobody seems to care what that dream depends upon. The Bushes dealt with the Nazis before WWII, they all are very unethical businesspeople, and yet they're glorified as one of America's legacy families. It's actually more like disappointment in my own class that so many of my friends growing up in affluent Orange County, CA loved the Bushes because they saw them as "our kind of people."
As for GWB's policies, you're making less & less sense. Do you know what you'll get from those tax cuts? Have you heard of the alternative minimum tax? Also, since you agree that GWB doesn't give more $ to education, what makes it "the most massive education reform package in American history." Those bullsh!t tests? When he accidentally said, "Education is not my top priority" in his big speech, that was a Freudian slip.
I hear a lot of smart people play this sort of Devil's advocate, "I can see it this way, I can see it that way" BS endlessly. For the life of me, I can't see why.
What about this: Gore won by 500,000+ votes, and Nader chalked up 3,000,000 more. Bush won on a call on a technicality, but is now promoting an agenda that is diametrically opposed to the proposals that ~55,000,000 people voted for. So do you have a problem with this, or do you partially agree with it (as usual)?
Most of American seems to consist of milquetoasts like you.
As far as GWB's Presidential accomplishments, you are purporting many fallacies:
Many Democrats like tax cuts as much as Republicans. What's the difference btw. Breaux/Zell Miller & Jeffords/Chaffee. Everyone was wondering if GWB would be truly bipartisan or just pick off a few Democrats. Can you tell me what he's chosen?
Clinton wanted to build a missile shield, but dumped it when the tests failed. GWB is not letting anything like science or technology stop him from spending money.
MOST IMPORTANT--GWB's education package is largely smoke & mirrors. He takes credit for part of last year's budget that had to be paid out this year due to the balanced budget amendment. Also, if you consider all of the money it will take to implement mandatory testing, there's actually less money available for actual education than there currently is.
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The funny thing is that all of these TV shows & movies aren't being pulled to show sensitivity to the victims or the viewers, but for two more primary reasons: 1. Americans don't want to see the ways in which we portray the kind of violence that occurred last Tuesday in our cultural expressions all the time, so the media is white-washing itself. You would think there'd be no better time to put out a Swartzenneger movie about a firefighter who avenges the killing of his family by terrorists, but no... (This is because)... 2. History has shown that Americans want the blandest sh!t possible after major tragedies. For instance, after Kennedy was assassinated, TV turned heavily toward shows like Gilligan's Island & The Munsters. Ironically, before Kennedy's assassination there were many movies that foreshadowed it, like "Suddenly" (1954), where Frank Sinatra is intent on assassinating the president.
I used to watch Space Ghost & then Insomniac on Sunday nights, but Comedy Central fûcked up & they were both on at the same time. So I stayed with Cartoon Network & watched Cowboy BeBop, which was really cool. That was just last week, too. At least I saw it before they pulled it, now at least I can go rent it--and go to bed earlier. Subtitles are probably better than dubbing, anyway, as it was kind of disturbing to see anime that was so thoroughly white (after Akira & Ghost in the Shell). Was Battletech that white?
The reason behind these terrorist attacks was not simply to strike fear into America, although it has done that very effectively. It was also to PISS OFF AMERICA. Think about it. If you were mad as hell at someone much more powerful (physically & socioeconomically) than you who had made you lose your job or who killed your wife while driving drunk (which are fair analogies for how the US is perceived around the world--fairly or not), how would you deal with that? Would you call that person out of their home for a fair fight? Or would you destroy their car or kill their pets. If you think you'd go with the first option, you would inevitably end up with the humiliation of getting your ass kicked on top of everything (or losing in court to your more wealthy, connected nemesis--which is the legal version of my basic fight analogy). But if you commit the conniving, underhanded vengeance, you would at least have the secret satisfaction that you made that more powerful person as upset & hateful as you. Because if misery loves company, rage absolutely demands company. And if that more powerful person comes after you, then you have a huge head start from planning while they were still complacent. If you can't figure this out, try not to think about it at all for a while.
As the saying goes, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." Just as the Persian Gulf War would not have happened had the US not built up Hussein in order to fight Iran by proxy, this attack would not have happened had the US not helped people like OBL fight the USSR in Afghanistan in the 80's. There is no justification for this attack, and these terrorist networks must be subdued--but systematically, and in conjunction with a foreign policy that doesn't reek of hypocrisy. But terrorism must not become the new Communism, especially not a cause for another cold-war. Heightened security, yes. Aimlessly attacking Middle Eastern nations, no. Fear & persecution of citizens suspected of being terrorists, no. A well-trained, armed (with at least a knife!) security officer on every plane would almost certainly have kept this from happening, and would be a far better solution than face-recognition & strict limitations on commercial air traffic. Also, as many have pointed out, curbside baggage checking & allowing carry-on is an invitation for bombing & highjacking. Think smarter, not more brutal.
Ahhh, the irony. Attacking Afghanistan would be a most hypocritical move, and didn't work when Clinton launched 70 cruise missiles into Afghanistan a few years ago.
WASHINGTON POST, May 18, 2001; Page A5
The Bush administration will provide $43 million in additional humanitarian aid to Afghanistan this year in response to a three-year drought that threatens to cause widespread famine, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said yesterday.
The assistance, which will increase the annual U.S. aid program in Afghanistan to $124 million, includes 65,000 tons of wheat, $5 million in other food and $10 million for emergency health care, shelter and economic projects to counter severe famine.
State Department officials said the assistance would be provided through the United Nations and private organizations rather than to the country's Taliban government, which does not have diplomatic relations with the United States.
Stonewolf, you're like Stone Phillips & Wolf Blitzer combined--bad pun, sorry. Americans have always viewed the Palestinians as terrorists, and will never see them as anything else. Israel is the Great White Hope of the Middle East, and the Palestinians are the pesky natives. Witness the absence of Israel & the USA from last week's UN Conference on Racism because of the topic of Israel as a racist state (Zionism=Colonialism="Manifest Destiny"; all racist ideologies). Even if it was the Palestinians, the US would probably retaliate by proxy through some joint effort with the Israeli army since Israel already has a bad reputation as far as human rights, diplomacy, etc. Of course, the US is already basically doing this, and Palestinian casualties cannot get much higher without making it a full blown war. Also, the analogies everyone is using are quite ironic. It is Pearl Harbor meets Vietnam meets Tom Clancy. But it all goes to show that the US hasn't learned much from war--especially that foreign policy & diplomacy are more important than military intelligence & might. This attack also undercuts the whole idea of the Revolution in Military Affairs, which was Rumsfield & Bush's plan for the future of the military. The RMA focuses on long-range, unmanned warfare, allowing for further US isolationism. When the US is being attacked by its own commercial airliners, the RMA won't work.
Hey, in your example, "their" is wrong, too. It should be "they're," the contraction of "they are." No offense, and to keep this on topic: I keep wondering why Slashdot loves Yellow Dog. It's not like there (;->) aren't a lot of good distros for PPC. Doesn't SuSE work on Macs, as well? Also, LinuxPPC is not dead, THE ARTICLE MENTIONS THEY'RE DOING THE WORK ON POWER MANAGEMENT FOR THE PLATFORM. The only problem with the PPC platform in general (MacOSX & Linux) is that a lot of free software works strangely or not at all--MacOSX compounds this problem with their (;->) screwy directory structure. For instance, it took me at least three hours to find the config file for MySQL on MacOSX.
PO? (rot13)
I would have a really hard time believing this story if I hadn't gone through something very similar. I think it comes down to this: If the PHBs has someone technologically adept around, they will exploit that person to the point where that person quits. Then, the PHBs will actually do things by themselves, but in the most assinine, mediocre manner. There is a psychological structure here that you need to get out of. By putting machines together from scratch, trying to resurrect a 486, etc, etc... you were showing your PHB that you could be used very effectively. Then, when you quit, the PHB spent your salary on Windows! Talk about adding insult to injury. Well, I wish you the best of luck. I also suggest coding an open source 'web application' while you have free time--it seems this would be a good thing.
The typical consumer shopping for a computer at Dell or IBM or Compaq will not even see the option for Linux because the sites are so hard to navigate. Everything I've ever heard or read (even this fairly nice one) has shown that Dell was half-hearted at best in their Linux support.
Linux is user supported--i.e., if you want to support Linux, use it. Even the poorest running Linux box I've worked on has run rings around any Windows except 2000. And I always have far more difficulty properly configuring W2K than Linux.
You're regurgitating outdated spin. You haven't analyzed the damn election past what you saw on Fox News six months ago. For instance, do you know how many counties didn't bother to do any kind of recount at all, but instead just resubmitted their original numbers? Then again, why am I bothering trying to get through to someone who uses an illogical analogy to football? The only valid football analogy is instant replay, you twit. Of course, football's just an unfair game (rich teams vs. poor teams; team's wealth=league standing) that bilks the public out of money by fostering their loyalty--now that's not a half-bad analogy to politics!
I haven't had much experience with OSX, and I don't want to figure out a whole new server platform--or really, anything other than Debian. I wanted to use Macs as workstations. But the 1st time I checked out OSX, I couldn't find /bin, /etc, nothing. It has a freaking "Mac OS X" directory (a lá "Windows/WINNT")! My final hope was that their was some database that would work with OSXServer. What is the point of OSXServer? Does NextStep work well on it or something? I think it's hilarious that FileMaker runs on Linux, now??? I can't figure out what the hell Apple is thinking, but they're wasting a lot of good technology & development--NOT FileMaker, I don't mean that POS.
Does anyone remember the poor schmoe who wanted to ODBC-link MySQL into MSAccess for the GUI tools? There are so many people that are crippled by GUI SQL tools, but OTOH, it's better than nothing. There is a great benefit to being able to use DBs with SQL that is more complicated than simple SELECT & INSERT statements. There is no (none, not one, nada, etc.) OLAP tool (AFAIK) that runs on Linux. So you can store tons of data on DB2 or Oracle or what_have_you, but you can't do much with it. I create a lot of custom OLAP tools on Linux using Perl and Java, but I'm not quite at the point where I can put it all together in a nice GUI package and throw it onto Freshmeat. Once I get the graphing objects done, then I'm GPL'ing that sh!t. But I can do just about anything OLAP-wise (on a very small scale) in Access (with the MS_SQL_OLAP component) quite easily. Forget the Enterprise level, Linux needs to make headway with small businesses. I like small businesses, but they don't know Jack about Technology. So they will hurt themselves triply by buying M$, never even figuring out half of what the software can do, and then being locked into M$ anyways as they grow. RedHat has good potential & seems canny enough, but I think it all depends on how good their support offerings are.
I replied to the previous (here) and, what do you know, here's Sarcasta going gagga over Oracle. No offense, Sarcasta, I haven't had the luck to work with Oracle, so.... But working with DB2 in Java is almost orgasmic for me--OK, yes, that's the most embarrassing thing I've ever admitted on /., but, hey, I love my work. But look at the post I responded to (here) where metachimp explains why RedHat did this. All of the Linux distros have MySQL, PostGreSQL, etc., but I have never been able to sell a non-web-based solution using any of these. I start talking up PostGreSQL, and the clients smile & nod & ask if I know how to use a real database. The funny thing is that these people always have legacy databases in DOS or Filemaker or some such P.O.S. So hopefully RedHat can come up with an Access-Killer. Also, quandry for Sarcasta/Kathleen: I wanted to set up a client on MacOSX with a Linux database server (Ad agency (likes iMacs) needs good DB (PostGreSQL)), but LinuxPPC scares me a bit--especially Java support. Have any OSS databases been ported to MacOSX? I could just throw an x86 box in the mix, but then there are two OS & hardware platforms to maintain. TIA for any advice.
Now if this was an Oracle story, people would be creaming in their pants while posting. But since RedHat is so uncool & PostGres is unpopular (read: harder than MySQL, not as cool (read: expensive) as Oracle), everyone's like, "What is the deal with RedHat & PostGreSQL? How dumb is this? I don't get it."
Is it just me or does this AC (ironically) sound like a real a$$hole? Befriending marketing types generally means you're just a classic Dogbert type. I'm not even sure about this person's genesis as a developer. It doesn't make any sense--there would be a ton of holes in this person's ability if this is a true story. How could ASP & VB throw them off, but PHP & all things Java be a cup of tea? Oh well, from now on I'll just tell everyone I'm a really "GOOD GUY."
I agree, but unfortunately, the state of software development over the past decade has defied this process. Everybody I work with wants to get their apps into production on too short a timeline to design a prototype & then program it more professionally. Instead, they either dive straight into coding the app in C++, or they do like the story poster & stick with a more flexible IDE all the way through. And the better than Moore's law progress of hardware has meant the users can't tell the difference.
Some turn out well, like Pronto written in Perl.
This happens all the time on my coworker's machine. He insists on '98 because anything else is "too technical." IE can even be open beforehand, and then if you max out the CPU the whole shell crashes. I always give him such sh!t, but, actually, he still deserves it. And, I've seen this on W2K, too. So what happens when .NET starts going online? I kept wondering how M$ beat everyone else to market with WebDAV, and then I found out how their implementation doesn't really work.
Look, Sgt. TacoBell, I know you're a corporate b!tch, but how does that article contradict the assertions SpinyNorman came up with? The article states M$ is fighting AOL by attrition, not competition--nothing new there. Your logical weakness continues to amaze me.
So we bought some other machines, HP, IBM, etc. Everyone realised how the drab Dell boxes had been depressing. We like our computers more, because they are all different. Of course, the DELL problem applies somewhat to Apple now that they are all blue, grey, or hideous.
Platitudinal bullsh!t. You give this blase, quasi-rational defense for what was a total disaster of an election. Your hindsight shows you didn't learn anything from the whole ordeal. Is the election system fcked up? Do any of the decisions made since the election have any bearing on it? I doubt you know or care. Trepidity means either fear or murkiness. Both seem to describe you pretty well◘
On the subject of taxes generating revenue, I'm assuming you know about the Laffer Curve. Regardless of what caused the boom in the '90s, the fact that the economy boomed while taxes went up & up pretty much dispelled the validity of the Laffer Curve. Now, once again, do you know what the alternative minimum tax is? It will erase most of your tax cut if you earn more than $100K. You're an employer?
You're view of educational testing is way off. We're already way off topic here, but... I switched from private to public school mid-high school (Fuck!ng recession), and I had to take those tests. Without even a day's study, I scored around the 95th percentile. I skipped grades and never studied much. Yet I saw the "poor" kids stuck in their classrooms. I think they kept failing the tests because they were in the remedial classes. Testing has a lot to do with socioeconomic status, ie. reinforcing it.
And private school, blahh... I learned a lot because I was there for the majority of my life from the time I was 2½ years old. Closed campus, small classes, computers right next to me all day long, etc. I loved it because the girls looked so hot in those Catholic uniforms, but one of the worst memories I have was seeing my one Mexican classmate hanging around the mini-mall down the street one day during school. His family couldn't keep up with the payments.
As for GWB's policies, you're making less & less sense. Do you know what you'll get from those tax cuts? Have you heard of the alternative minimum tax? Also, since you agree that GWB doesn't give more $ to education, what makes it "the most massive education reform package in American history." Those bullsh!t tests? When he accidentally said, "Education is not my top priority" in his big speech, that was a Freudian slip.
Very clever post. It actually helped me understand GWB more: He's an opportunist, through and through.
What about this: Gore won by 500,000+ votes, and Nader chalked up 3,000,000 more. Bush won on a call on a technicality, but is now promoting an agenda that is diametrically opposed to the proposals that ~55,000,000 people voted for. So do you have a problem with this, or do you partially agree with it (as usual)?
Most of American seems to consist of milquetoasts like you.
As far as GWB's Presidential accomplishments, you are purporting many fallacies:
- Many Democrats like tax cuts as much as Republicans. What's the difference btw. Breaux/Zell Miller & Jeffords/Chaffee. Everyone was wondering if GWB would be truly bipartisan or just pick off a few Democrats. Can you tell me what he's chosen?
- Clinton wanted to build a missile shield, but dumped it when the tests failed. GWB is not letting anything like science or technology stop him from spending money.
- MOST IMPORTANT--GWB's education package is largely smoke & mirrors. He takes credit for part of last year's budget that had to be paid out this year due to the balanced budget amendment. Also, if you consider all of the money it will take to implement mandatory testing, there's actually less money available for actual education than there currently is.
Are you ignorant or just a liar?