That's okay, but you probably shouldn't make blanket statements about what Linux users are like just yet.
Linux users have no objection, in general, to books and periodicals that cover Linux. In fact, one of the first things an average Linux user does is purchase a book about the OS and begin amassing a small library of technical books.
Linux Journal has gone from a small-niche technical journal to a full-blown magazine. You'll find it in most book stores these days. Linux Magazine seems to be doing decently, as well.
We are not all license zealots, and even most of us who are do not hold other modes of expression to the same theories as software.
Um, yes it is. If this consortium produces a fix, they don't have to release it in binary form, and therefore don't have to release it in source form either. All the GPL says is that if you release binaries, you also have to give the source to anyone who has the binaries if they ask for it.
This seems to be on of two ways that SF is done in cinema these days: either superhero-style, or horror-style. I find it disappointing, but I guess nothing else is really likely to draw in the crowds.
I was thinking the same thing yesterday, but it occurred to me that the explanation is probably just budget. Your setting, costumes, special effects (if any), etc. are closely tied to the story you're going to tell. Generally speaking, if you're going to do a superhero or horror movie, you need the money for all of those things anyway, and the sci-fi setting can help immensely. But if you're doing a drama or something more character-oriented than an action/horror flick, the setting is secondary, and it's cheaper and easier (in production terms) and less distracting (in story-telling terms) to set it in a contemporary "realistic" setting than on Mars a hundred years into the future.
It's not the tech fetish I dislike... I suffer the same addictions gladly. I'm glad you like your calculator... I'm ecstatic that you have the best one in the world, and honestly, I'd love to hear about it, be shown how it works, and listen as you tell me precisely what makes it so great. But handing it to someone and snickering because you're so much more advanced than they are in the realm of calculator technology just strikes me as arrogant and obnoxious. Not to mention pathetic, as they're unlikely to give a damn.
My point, simply put, is that such competition is absurd and misplaced. If you have a group of friends who are all into calculators, and wanna rag each other about them, fine. But don't piss on everyone else just because you think you've found higher ground.
I doubt there are any statements left to be made, or that they were really trying to make any to begin with.
I read a few interviews with the Wachowskis after The Matrix was released, and they said that they wanted to make a series (trilogy, I think) of superhero movies, but felt they needed a new way (at least in terms of superhero movies) to capture the audience... By setting them in another (believable) world, they didn't have to require the audience to set aside quite as much disbelief as they would if these superhero movies were set in the real world. It's an age-old sci-fi trick... it's much easier to make the action occur in a world that you can manipulate to your purposes as a writer than it is to adapt the action to the world we all live in.
That said, The Matrix was the set-up movie... it established the new world, the origin of the superhero (Neo), and the arch-villain (the machines). Now we get to sit back and just have some comic-book superhero action.
Cool. Not everything has to be an intellectual pursuit to be worthwhile and entertaining.
is the feeling of superiority that comes over owners of RPN calculators. I mean really, what the hell?
I know shell CLI is more efficient than any GUI for almost any task, but I don't run around hoping someone will ask to borrow my shell so I can mock them with my shell-scripting buddies. Nor do I sniff at anyone using a GUI and remark that they should be using a "real" interface.
You have the More Efficient Calculator, and you Know How To Use It. Freaking great. It's a damn calculator. Get over yourselves.
All what base60 nonsense? 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and you're done with 60.
Meantime, consider how handy 60 is... it's divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, AND 6 (and of course, 30, 20, 15, 12, and 10). You can slice it, you can dice it, and when you're done you still have a reasonable number. Thus "I'll see you in a quarter hour", or "we'll spend a third of the hour doing blah, half of it doing blah, and the remaining sixth doing blah.".. you're still on integers. Plus it overlays so well onto a 12-hour clock. with five minutes per hour segment. Considering that they also divided the day into 24 hours, that's pretty slick.
Give credit where credit is due. Would you rather be using Swatch(tm) Internet Time?
Presumably, if we're smart enough to throw squiggles at them and they're smart enough to read them, it should work both ways. Especially considering the time it'll take their squiggles to get back.
I won't be shocked when the government decides to "protect" us from the new found freedom a hovercraft would provide.
You know, if I was The Man, looking to Keep You Down, I sure wouldn't give a damn about your hover craft.
Unless I owned oil fields. Or had a vested interest in the automotive industry. Or garnered a lot of revenue from fining people who ignore "Do Not Walk On Grass" signs.
While everyone's talking about Mac users who switched to Linux, you all seem to be forgetting Linux users who want to use Macs. Put me in the latter category.
Fact is, Macs are some nice hardware. If you studiously avoid the cube, they're not even that much more expensive than equivalent x86 machines. They run cool, some run silent, they're zippy on those big glibc compiles, the towers come in great cases, and they look pretty swank sitting on my desk.
But until OS X, I've been prevented from appreciating Macs by their horrible operating (sic) system. And to be frank, OS X doesn't quite do it for me, either, though I'll readily grant that it's a major leap forward for MacOS. I like my whole system free... I know and am comfortable with my linux OS of choice (guess), and have no overriding desire to use another. I'll dual-boot MacOS to play the occasional DVD (for the time being), but that's about it.
I have the GUI I want under Linux, I have all of the tools I want under Linux, I can accomplish all of my tasks (and waste my time effectively with the occasional game) under Linux, and with Linux my OS is consistent across my x86 and ppc platforms. (And if I want to pick up a SPARC or Alpha system, well, it's pretty much the same OS there, too.)
Now, other than perhaps some better hardware support (my only current problem is AWACS sound, and I haven't tried 2.4.x yet...), why would I want to take a step backward and use MacOS (X or otherwise)?
First, you assume that Linus' work and decisions are not subjected to criticism. Read the kernel mailing list (or at least Kernel Traffic), and you'll see that people are constantly butting heads with Linus, to everyone's benefit.
Second, you assume that Linux is "supposed to be a democracy". Since when? It started as Linus' project, and the way things tend to work in an open development community, whoever starts the project generally retains the lead and the power to rule by fiat if necessary. If you don't like it, fork.
Which brings us to your (not sequentially) third assumption, which is that such a system will inevitably lead to major forks. This is not the case, especially when the project lead is as respected (and with good reason) as Linus, or when the project is as identified with its leader as Linux is with Linus. It would *not* be a healthy decision for a Linux distributor to fork the kernel, and everyone knows it, and nobody really wants to anyway.
Yeah, except that traditionally, the Man would confiscate your game console in a raid anyway. Along with your record collection, your roleplaying paperwork, and anything else that looked like it might maybe possibly if they're lucky be relevant.
For Christ's sake, pull your head out of your copy of _Fountainhead_ and look around at the world every once in a while. What seems logical from your perfectly idealized libertarian happy-happy-capitalist viewpoint doesn't necessarily fly in the real world.
Why is there such a large percentage of you people on Slashdot? Is it due to the abnormally large population of kids who, because they're somewhat intelligent, believe they're superior to most of their peers and therefore pretty much capabable of figuring out How Things Work without any real experience?
Companies can be racist, corporations can be evil, freeing the market is not always a good idea, and all this shit has been proven again and again throughout the history of capitalism and in the experience of damn near everyone who's spent some time outside of school. To deny or ignore such realities is dangerously arrogant.
Apologies for the flame, and for the fact that it had to be in reply to your post... I'm just sick of this economic darwinist crap. I was under the impression that we'd stopped using it as justification (or method of denial) of social problems something like a hundred years ago. It disappoints me that this seems not to be the case.
The GPL is quite clear on this. They released binaries, and thus are legally bound to release the source to anyone who asks for it, up to (I believe) two years later. Simply pulling the binaries was never a legal option.
Just a clarification, as the Slashdot story indicated that would be an option.
I have a VAIO Z-505R. Have had it for almost a year now. Its hard drive clunks, the ethernet dongle is (of course) shot to hell, as is the battery. Lately, its favorite trick is to randomly lose power (when plugged into a perfectly good power source).
A new battery from Sony is several hundred dollars, I didn't even see ethernet dongles available, and taking apart another VAIO laptop to replace its hard drive was a quite painful experience.
Needless to say, I'll not be purchasing another Sony computer, and I hope that others heed my warnings and go with a more solid machine.
Slashdot Mirror
1. I remember having to answer questions about Mayo Angelo, a black woman.
Maya Angelou.
2. We live in America. The SAT and ACT are based on American culture which, last time I checked, is dominated by whites.
California, at least by numbers, isn't so much these days.
That's okay, but you probably shouldn't make blanket statements about what Linux users are like just yet.
Linux users have no objection, in general, to books and periodicals that cover Linux. In fact, one of the first things an average Linux user does is purchase a book about the OS and begin amassing a small library of technical books.
Linux Journal has gone from a small-niche technical journal to a full-blown magazine. You'll find it in most book stores these days. Linux Magazine seems to be doing decently, as well.
We are not all license zealots, and even most of us who are do not hold other modes of expression to the same theories as software.
One goes one way. The second, the other.
Um, that's actually one of the prevalent theories as to how genetic mutation can be triggered.
Somebody's gonads get zapped with some funky radiation, and a little DNA gets tweaked.
How valid a theory that is, I'm not qualified to judge.
Um, yes it is. If this consortium produces a fix, they don't have to release it in binary form, and therefore don't have to release it in source form either. All the GPL says is that if you release binaries, you also have to give the source to anyone who has the binaries if they ask for it.
erm.. it's in the "It's funny. Laugh" category. I think everyone does, actually, know that it's a joke.
You aren't the only one who isn't dull-normal, however much it may seem so sometimes.
I was thinking the same thing yesterday, but it occurred to me that the explanation is probably just budget. Your setting, costumes, special effects (if any), etc. are closely tied to the story you're going to tell. Generally speaking, if you're going to do a superhero or horror movie, you need the money for all of those things anyway, and the sci-fi setting can help immensely. But if you're doing a drama or something more character-oriented than an action/horror flick, the setting is secondary, and it's cheaper and easier (in production terms) and less distracting (in story-telling terms) to set it in a contemporary "realistic" setting than on Mars a hundred years into the future.
It's not the tech fetish I dislike... I suffer the same addictions gladly. I'm glad you like your calculator... I'm ecstatic that you have the best one in the world, and honestly, I'd love to hear about it, be shown how it works, and listen as you tell me precisely what makes it so great. But handing it to someone and snickering because you're so much more advanced than they are in the realm of calculator technology just strikes me as arrogant and obnoxious. Not to mention pathetic, as they're unlikely to give a damn.
My point, simply put, is that such competition is absurd and misplaced. If you have a group of friends who are all into calculators, and wanna rag each other about them, fine. But don't piss on everyone else just because you think you've found higher ground.
I doubt there are any statements left to be made, or that they were really trying to make any to begin with.
I read a few interviews with the Wachowskis after The Matrix was released, and they said that they wanted to make a series (trilogy, I think) of superhero movies, but felt they needed a new way (at least in terms of superhero movies) to capture the audience... By setting them in another (believable) world, they didn't have to require the audience to set aside quite as much disbelief as they would if these superhero movies were set in the real world. It's an age-old sci-fi trick... it's much easier to make the action occur in a world that you can manipulate to your purposes as a writer than it is to adapt the action to the world we all live in.
That said, The Matrix was the set-up movie... it established the new world, the origin of the superhero (Neo), and the arch-villain (the machines). Now we get to sit back and just have some comic-book superhero action.
Cool. Not everything has to be an intellectual pursuit to be worthwhile and entertaining.
Umm... I hate to break it to you, but They Live pretty much blew. It was a good concept, yes, but beyond that an absolutely worthless movie.
"Put on the glasses!"
"No! I don't wanna put on the glasses!"
Really, what the hell was his objection to trying on a pair of shades? Was it worth the most drawn out, boring fight scene in the history of film?
I'm all out of bubblegum.
is the feeling of superiority that comes over owners of RPN calculators. I mean really, what the hell?
I know shell CLI is more efficient than any GUI for almost any task, but I don't run around hoping someone will ask to borrow my shell so I can mock them with my shell-scripting buddies. Nor do I sniff at anyone using a GUI and remark that they should be using a "real" interface.
You have the More Efficient Calculator, and you Know How To Use It. Freaking great. It's a damn calculator. Get over yourselves.
(Yeah, I know that burned some karma.)
All what base60 nonsense? 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and you're done with 60.
Meantime, consider how handy 60 is... it's divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, AND 6 (and of course, 30, 20, 15, 12, and 10). You can slice it, you can dice it, and when you're done you still have a reasonable number. Thus "I'll see you in a quarter hour", or "we'll spend a third of the hour doing blah, half of it doing blah, and the remaining sixth doing blah.".. you're still on integers. Plus it overlays so well onto a 12-hour clock. with five minutes per hour segment. Considering that they also divided the day into 24 hours, that's pretty slick.
Give credit where credit is due. Would you rather be using Swatch(tm) Internet Time?
Presumably, if we're smart enough to throw squiggles at them and they're smart enough to read them, it should work both ways. Especially considering the time it'll take their squiggles to get back.
And wouldn't _that_ be an interesting message to get as a reply from an alien civilisation :)
;)
I say bring it on. We've had 21 years of practice at repelling Space Invaders, and that's with only one gun.
I won't be shocked when the government decides to "protect" us from the new found freedom a hovercraft would provide.
You know, if I was The Man, looking to Keep You Down, I sure wouldn't give a damn about your hover craft.
Unless I owned oil fields. Or had a vested interest in the automotive industry. Or garnered a lot of revenue from fining people who ignore "Do Not Walk On Grass" signs.
Nevermind.
While everyone's talking about Mac users who switched to Linux, you all seem to be forgetting Linux users who want to use Macs. Put me in the latter category.
Fact is, Macs are some nice hardware. If you studiously avoid the cube, they're not even that much more expensive than equivalent x86 machines. They run cool, some run silent, they're zippy on those big glibc compiles, the towers come in great cases, and they look pretty swank sitting on my desk.
But until OS X, I've been prevented from appreciating Macs by their horrible operating (sic) system. And to be frank, OS X doesn't quite do it for me, either, though I'll readily grant that it's a major leap forward for MacOS. I like my whole system free... I know and am comfortable with my linux OS of choice (guess), and have no overriding desire to use another. I'll dual-boot MacOS to play the occasional DVD (for the time being), but that's about it.
I have the GUI I want under Linux, I have all of the tools I want under Linux, I can accomplish all of my tasks (and waste my time effectively with the occasional game) under Linux, and with Linux my OS is consistent across my x86 and ppc platforms. (And if I want to pick up a SPARC or Alpha system, well, it's pretty much the same OS there, too.)
Now, other than perhaps some better hardware support (my only current problem is AWACS sound, and I haven't tried 2.4.x yet...), why would I want to take a step backward and use MacOS (X or otherwise)?
First, you assume that Linus' work and decisions are not subjected to criticism. Read the kernel mailing list (or at least Kernel Traffic), and you'll see that people are constantly butting heads with Linus, to everyone's benefit.
Second, you assume that Linux is "supposed to be a democracy". Since when? It started as Linus' project, and the way things tend to work in an open development community, whoever starts the project generally retains the lead and the power to rule by fiat if necessary. If you don't like it, fork.
Which brings us to your (not sequentially) third assumption, which is that such a system will inevitably lead to major forks. This is not the case, especially when the project lead is as respected (and with good reason) as Linus, or when the project is as identified with its leader as Linux is with Linus. It would *not* be a healthy decision for a Linux distributor to fork the kernel, and everyone knows it, and nobody really wants to anyway.
Yeah, except that traditionally, the Man would confiscate your game console in a raid anyway. Along with your record collection, your roleplaying paperwork, and anything else that looked like it might maybe possibly if they're lucky be relevant.
How's the device support? Got any linkage on further development?
For Christ's sake, pull your head out of your copy of _Fountainhead_ and look around at the world every once in a while. What seems logical from your perfectly idealized libertarian happy-happy-capitalist viewpoint doesn't necessarily fly in the real world.
Why is there such a large percentage of you people on Slashdot? Is it due to the abnormally large population of kids who, because they're somewhat intelligent, believe they're superior to most of their peers and therefore pretty much capabable of figuring out How Things Work without any real experience?
Companies can be racist, corporations can be evil, freeing the market is not always a good idea, and all this shit has been proven again and again throughout the history of capitalism and in the experience of damn near everyone who's spent some time outside of school. To deny or ignore such realities is dangerously arrogant.
Apologies for the flame, and for the fact that it had to be in reply to your post... I'm just sick of this economic darwinist crap. I was under the impression that we'd stopped using it as justification (or method of denial) of social problems something like a hundred years ago. It disappoints me that this seems not to be the case.
The GPL is quite clear on this. They released binaries, and thus are legally bound to release the source to anyone who asks for it, up to (I believe) two years later. Simply pulling the binaries was never a legal option.
Just a clarification, as the Slashdot story indicated that would be an option.
I have a VAIO Z-505R. Have had it for almost a year now. Its hard drive clunks, the ethernet dongle is (of course) shot to hell, as is the battery. Lately, its favorite trick is to randomly lose power (when plugged into a perfectly good power source).
A new battery from Sony is several hundred dollars, I didn't even see ethernet dongles available, and taking apart another VAIO laptop to replace its hard drive was a quite painful experience.
Needless to say, I'll not be purchasing another Sony computer, and I hope that others heed my warnings and go with a more solid machine.
This from a guy named "Otaku"? Get real.
Okay, but Twizzlers in butter? Be reasonable... that could really mess a chip up.
If you need a more standard measurement than yards, 22 yards is roughly a fifth of a football field.