Look at the titles: "The Lord of the Rings," "Training Day" and "Ali."
Most likely, these are screeners, or some sort of other illegitimate copies from either a promo video or the distributed film. The quality is --not-- the same as a truly produced DVD, (though it is pretty damn good.)
Overall, I have no qualms about them arresting these people. This isn't just casual piracy. This is fairly serious bootlegging which, as much as I hate to say it, does impose an adverse effect on the studios' bottom line.
Imagine, would you rather pay $10 for a pirated DVD or go pay $7/person to go see it in the theatre. For those people that have surround sound systems and large tvs, there's not really much argument.
it's for ie, it installs a little bar like the IE Search bar but a lot smaller, and no ads, and has support for selecting among about 20 different search engines, easily selectable in a convenient interface....
It just happens to turn out that companies pay more for *nix gurus than they do for Windows gurus. So if they wanted to make some money when they graduated, I'd assume they knew how to work in *nix.
Ahh, naive child; you need the Latest and Greatest Intex Thinking Machine(R) to run the Latest and Greatest Virus(R). What kind of a product would Word be anyways in ten years, if it can't propagate a Reach, Extend, Embrace, and Conquer(R) virus through the Office Assitant(R) life-size android.
Anyway, if you're running Linux and you've ever missed not being able to watch movie trailers, certain pr0n stuff, etc, don't suffer any longer! Plunk down the $20, it's worth it!
Why do that when I shift over about 4 feet to my rommates puter. That way not only do I save 20 bucks, but I make his keyboard sticky isntead of mine.
Lawyers for Morpheus have filed a lawsuit against God for ceating people who use software that uses the Internet that transfers data which was created by people who then sold it to the RIAA who are suing the aforementioned lawyers (for Morpheus) for violating their trademarks by transferring music that they have copyrighted...
I've always been a Windows user. (Not a lover, just a user.) I never really had the chance to move into Linux. The one time I had successfully installed it, I jacked it up by trying to update it and screwing up all of the dependencies. (I eventually couldn't even boot anymore, and didn't feel like going through everything again.)
So I've used Windows almost consistently, from way back when Win3.1 was around. I've used Win95 -> Win98 -> Win2000. I've also used WinXP at work, and refuse to install it at home, because 1) it's mostly eye-candy (read: bloatware) and (most importantly) 2) it calls home. (No FUD, No third-party quotes; I've seen it myself.)
Regarding calling home, many XP-lovers vehemently deny this. Here's what I know and don't know: I do know that almost all MS products call home. I installed Tiny Personal Firewall at work and caught screensavers trying to connect to Microsoft, now why the hell would a --screensaver-- need to connect home. (Conspiracy Theory) Maybe because if the screensaver is on, you're probably not at you're computer, and therefore it's prime time to install new software, send back large amounts of data, or whatever. (/Conpiracy Theory) I don't know what data they're sending back; however since at the time I ran almost all pirated software (including office2k, development tools, other stuff) I'm not/wasn't willing to take that risk. Furthermore, XP is a lot slower. It offers many "GUI-enhancing" features to make the interface look nicer (read: run slower). Switching to classic-mode pretty much gives you a little slower Win2000 with a few cool features (below) and a lot of privacy issues. So is worth the switch? Let's see. The cool features of WinXP: 1) Logging in to another account while keeping one account logged in. Great, great feature. I hated having to turn off WinAmp just so I can get Administrator rights. However, since Win2000 has the "Run As" service to run programs with different permissions, and since only one program (Exact Audio Copy) wouldn't run correctly through "Run As", I could still drop into Admin mode, and burn CDs, install programs, etc, while basically still in Normal User mode. 2) Window grouping. Cool feature but not worth privacy issues. 3) System tray hiding. Cool feature, but again, not worth the privacy issues.
I know there were other nice features, but again, nothing so revolutionary that I even considered going to XP.
Anyways, so that's why I never went to XP. (I'm not going to even debate WinME, as that is just complete shit.)
Win2000 I will stand by. It's a relatively solid OS. Even when I pulled a running hard drive out of the drive, it didn't crash. It's also fast, and it's mostly a power system. Not that much eye-candy, but still a nice, clean interface. I'm not going to go too much into the good things about Win2000 since most of you already know them.
Why I switched: The quick answer: I got trojan'ed. I don't know how they got in, I considered myself as having a pretty secure system, but they got in, and there was no way I could remove it. Oh well, shit happens. Since I had to format anyways, I decided to try out Linux. I d/l'ed and burned Mandrake 8.1 and Debuan 2.2r5, and tried installing both mutliple times. Debain I never really got working. (I could boot into it, but couldn't get the network up, and didn't have much time, so just to stuck to Mandrake.) Anyways, Mandraek has a very easy installation procedure (comparable to Windows). It detected most (all?) of my hardware correctly and set up my network without a hitch. It took me a while to get everything I wanted to work correctly, but after a few days I had it: Things I wanted: 1) Network access, obvious 2) Good browser, email client, newsreader, IRC client, and AIM client 3) MP3 Player, and MP3 database tool (I have over 50 gigs of mp3s) 4) Movie player that supports Divx, MPG, and ASF as a minimum 5) Office software to read Microsoft docs 6) Other things so I could do my homework (Devlopment tools and editors).
I got everything except the movie player up immediately (Emacs, Mozilla/Galeon, Evolution, Pan, XChat, Gaim, Freeamp, and Gnumeric)
For the movie player, I tried a bunch of different tools (avifile, xmps, etc) but couldn't get them working very well. MPlayer requires self-compiling (due to compile-time optimizations) so I decided to go ahead and try that. MPlayer requires GCC 2.75 to compile, since 2.76 is buggy. Of course, Mandrake ships with 2.76. So I had to find old distros, and `rpm --force' install them over the newer files, along with changes some links so the correct tools were called. Anyways, after a lot bitching and moaning, I finally got it to compile. And in all honesty, MPlayer kicks some serious ass. (mplayerhq.hu) It supports about 20 or 30 different codecs, along with reading Win32 dlls. It's very fast and very clean. Highly recommend using that. (Additional features I found very cool were (all possible while in the middle of a video) 1) changing hue/contrast/brightness, 2) resyncing audio !!! 3) full keyboard controls and all sorts of other stuff. ) MPlayer is absolutely a bad ass product!
Anyways so now I finally had everything I really needed. I played with it for a while, and realized why I have absolutely no reason to go back to Windows. Let me explain:
What I like: (++ specifies features I -really- like.) 1) Everything is completely, really FREE. 2) Absolutely love being able to have true multiple logins. (Ctrl-Alt-Fx and login) 3) True console mode, with no X; True console emulation in X. 4) Multiple desktops, rolling up windows, Gnome applets. 5) Completely customizable X interface. (As in I'm not tied down to a single fancy interface: I use sawfish with Gnome, though Blackbox also rules) 6) Software:
Sawfish (++Setting your own key bindings.)
Galeon (++Tabbed windows)
Evolution
Gaim (++multiple protocols, plugins)
Biff (I'm using kaw_applet though)
ncftp
++++++MPlayer
FreeAmp (++internal database, exactly how I want it)
Gnumeric
Shell scripting
Things I don't like: 1) It doesn't think my video card supports 1280x1024 in 32-bit mode. Utter bullshit. 2) One of my cdroms isn't in great shape, and it sometimes locks when I try to read a cd. (Actually a I don't know if it really locks, but it goes into kernel panic, and then sits still for about a minute, when I hit reset out of impatience.) 3) There is no program as good as Dreamweaver. Bluefish is nice, but Dreamweaver was truly amazing.
Everything Windows has that I like I ahve found on Linux, for free (usually GPL'ed) and without ads. That's pretty f*cking cool. For the first time in my life, my computer is running on truly legit software. I also like that. Most importantly, the minute I started using Sawfish, and noticed the custom keybinding support, I absolutley fell in love with X. When I got Gnome also working alongside Sawfish, it became a truly cool system.
Windows isn't bad, and I actually like Win2000. However, in order to change the interface, you need to loada utility on top of the Win2000 interface (ie: WindowBlinds) which really slows the computer down. Here I can just change the interface, or even run just a pure X interface if I want absolutely very little memory usage.
Windows definitely has an edge when it comes to ease of installation and the learning curve, expecially since most people are already familiar with Windows. However, for anyone who wants a little more control, a litte more power or customization, Linux is definitely the OS of choice, especially now that almost all software exists on both OS's.
"it's illegal to let consumers record and store shows based on the genre, actors or other words in the program desc" Huh?
You see, the genre is copyrighted by Miriam-Webster and the network executives are fighting for them out of good faith, becuase they understand that unless Websters protects their copyright, they will lose their trademarks on the English language. The actors/actresses' names are copyrighted by their parents, unless, of course, the parents picked the name from a name book, or in the event that they named the child after somebody else, in which case the copyright would be for that person's parents. However, copyrights only last for 70 years, so if your name is John XXIVth, then you're probably alright, and can use the name without violating any copyrights. And the words in the program description below to TV Guide, of course.
Now the questions remains, why would NETWORKS fight to protect somebody else's rights?
And here's my theory: banning these aren't that big of a deal, because only geeks use PVRs and geeks are hackers, and therefore anarchist terrorists and against the glorious US government, and they shouldn't have any laws anyways. So of course, this would go through the courts relatively easily.
However, they need to protect their ingenious lines in movies, like "Dude where's by car?" or "Alrighty then" which have been relatively common phrases for pubescent teens and dumbshit americans. However, they know that there are far too many average Joes that they could not win that kind of court case right now, so they are slowly leading up to it.
Be cautious, be very very cautious. Bad vibes are in the air.
Ebooks just don't cut it. Having a dead tree book is way nicer. I can read it in class when the teacher is rambling on about something pointless. I can have it in my lap or on the side when I'm working on a project, and don't have to keep tabbing between windows. I don't have to worry about software compatibility, about having a computer that works, or whatever.
Regarding content, I don't want a book for idiots. The book that taught me C++ was: "C++ for Dummies - Quick Reference". It's not a typical "For Dummies" book, it assumes who can program, but need a refresher. For people who have already been programming (in -any- language) a book on syntax is more than enough.
Furthermore, a great addition would be a set of projects with increasing difficulty and source code.
Theory is great, but it doesn't teach you real-world problems. And most people can't think up basic projects to learn certain concepts. (For example, using the Josephus problem to teach circular linked lists).
When you think about it, there's a`only one reason why anyone would ever live: simply because everyone else is doing it, They have a need to appear cool in the eyes, to be accepted by the unenlightened masses. I mean, how many people actually want to be friends with a dead guy? That's why, whenever I see someone living, I think to myself, "Wow, what an insecure fuck."
We all know who They. We all understand that. No need to protect their so-called "innocence" by playing the pronoun game. They are making the viruses; They are bringing evil into our hearts; They are holding us down.
Protest against The Man, I will not let The Man hold me down!
especially because you have to pay royalties on whatever special character you want on it. For example, some people would want Batman Lunchbox PCs; Some would want Cabbage Patch Kids. And some (like me) would want the almighty Penguin-Man.
Don't listen to them, it's a conspiracy; THAT'S the real reason LPCs get pricey
given an assumption that linux=windows (as the original poster claimed) the question (as i understand) is what benefit does linux provide besides being free?
If two items are identical, then one being free is a good enough reason for me to select that one.
Now if they're not identical, it's a completely different story.
Hmmm. Let me think. It's also open-sourced. Yes, I know, very few people actually go through the source. But it's there. There are no really hidden APIs (besides those in obfuscated code). Any knowledgable programmer can use it and change it for his own advantage. And regardless, isn't the fact that it's free - completely, no strings attached, free - a good enough reason?
And besides, I don't want a really stable Windows if I have to worry about what it's sending when it calls home.
The biggest problem in the first case is going to be dependancies -- CS 302 requires CS 301, CS 303 requires CS 302, etc. Even if you can place out of several classes (which may not be as easy as you think), many (most?) later classes won't have such tests.
I'm having that problem now, because I transferred wiht an Associatees to a University after my second year, and there were a lot of fundamenta courses that were holding me back from taking advanced courses even though I have the knowledge (self-taught, not formal) to take those. I just convinced my advisor that I had taken them at my old school sometime, and she signed off for all of them. At this point, I can take almost any class because she doesn't really check whether or not I'm telling the truth. (Therefore, I'm taking CSE2010:Algorithms and data structures along with CSE3002: Compiler Design which has CSE2010 as a prereq, and CSE4xxx that has CSE2010 among others as a grand-prereq...
)
The moral of the story is: just act like you know what you're doing and they'll let you get a way with it...
you're on the right track but the exact term is CLEP tests. You take them in order to skip certain classes if you think you already have the knowledge for it. However, it's an official College Board program (ie: SAT, AP) and I don't think they have CLEP tests for higher-level classes. You'd probably have to talk to the university to see if you could test out of certain courses.
Furthermore, to receive a Bachelor's in CS from most good universities, you need two years of humanities, and that's what would probably kill you.
(The clept term came from the saying I CLEP'd a class.)
Slashdot Mirror
VR Porn ....
to go where no geek has gone before
Look at the titles: "The Lord of the Rings," "Training Day" and "Ali."
Most likely, these are screeners, or some sort of other illegitimate copies from either a promo video or the distributed film. The quality is --not-- the same as a truly produced DVD, (though it is pretty damn good.)
Overall, I have no qualms about them arresting these people. This isn't just casual piracy. This is fairly serious bootlegging which, as much as I hate to say it, does impose an adverse effect on the studios' bottom line.
Imagine, would you rather pay $10 for a pirated DVD or go pay $7/person to go see it in the theatre. For those people that have surround sound systems and large tvs, there's not really much argument.
How cool of a name is that?
..... um, i mean, arrested.
Judge: And the defendent is MoFo and associates.
I'll have to hire them if I ever get caught
that's unformed.hypermart.net or http://stonedcow.com/doe/index.php
check out lsdie : unformed.hypermar.net
(i wrote it)
it's for ie, it installs a little bar like the IE Search bar but a lot smaller, and no ads, and has support for selecting among about 20 different search engines, easily selectable in a convenient interface....
It just happens to turn out that companies pay more for *nix gurus than they do for Windows gurus. So if they wanted to make some money when they graduated, I'd assume they knew how to work in *nix.
Actually, yes you do?
Why, might you ask.
Ahh, naive child; you need the Latest and Greatest Intex Thinking Machine(R) to run the Latest and Greatest Virus(R). What kind of a product would Word be anyways in ten years, if it can't propagate a Reach, Extend, Embrace, and Conquer(R) virus through the Office Assitant(R) life-size android.
Anyway, if you're running Linux and you've ever missed not being able to watch movie trailers, certain pr0n stuff, etc, don't suffer any longer! Plunk down the $20, it's worth it!
Why do that when I shift over about 4 feet to my rommates puter. That way not only do I save 20 bucks, but I make his keyboard sticky isntead of mine.
;)
Lawyers for Morpheus have filed a lawsuit against God for ceating people who use software that uses the Internet that transfers data which was created by people who then sold it to the RIAA who are suing the aforementioned lawyers (for Morpheus) for violating their trademarks by transferring music that they have copyrighted ...
that gun makers are responsible for murders.
Sad part is, the US legal system seems to agree.
(My diary entry from kuro5hin)
I've always been a Windows user. (Not a lover, just a user.) I never really had the chance to move into Linux. The one time I had successfully installed it, I jacked it up by trying to update it and screwing up all of the dependencies. (I eventually couldn't even boot anymore, and didn't feel like going through everything again.)
So I've used Windows almost consistently, from way back when Win3.1 was around. I've used Win95 -> Win98 -> Win2000. I've also used WinXP at work, and refuse to install it at home, because 1) it's mostly eye-candy (read: bloatware) and (most importantly) 2) it calls home. (No FUD, No third-party quotes; I've seen it myself.)
Regarding calling home, many XP-lovers vehemently deny this. Here's what I know and don't know: I do know that almost all MS products call home. I installed Tiny Personal Firewall at work and caught screensavers trying to connect to Microsoft, now why the hell would a --screensaver-- need to connect home. (Conspiracy Theory) Maybe because if the screensaver is on, you're probably not at you're computer, and therefore it's prime time to install new software, send back large amounts of data, or whatever. (/Conpiracy Theory)
I don't know what data they're sending back; however since at the time I ran almost all pirated software (including office2k, development tools, other stuff) I'm not/wasn't willing to take that risk. Furthermore, XP is a lot slower. It offers many "GUI-enhancing" features to make the interface look nicer (read: run slower). Switching to classic-mode pretty much gives you a little slower Win2000 with a few cool features (below) and a lot of privacy issues. So is worth the switch? Let's see.
The cool features of WinXP:
1) Logging in to another account while keeping one account logged in. Great, great feature. I hated having to turn off WinAmp just so I can get Administrator rights. However, since Win2000 has the "Run As" service to run programs with different permissions, and since only one program (Exact Audio Copy) wouldn't run correctly through "Run As", I could still drop into Admin mode, and burn CDs, install programs, etc, while basically still in Normal User mode.
2) Window grouping. Cool feature but not worth privacy issues.
3) System tray hiding. Cool feature, but again, not worth the privacy issues.
I know there were other nice features, but again, nothing so revolutionary that I even considered going to XP.
Anyways, so that's why I never went to XP. (I'm not going to even debate WinME, as that is just complete shit.)
Win2000 I will stand by. It's a relatively solid OS. Even when I pulled a running hard drive out of the drive, it didn't crash. It's also fast, and it's mostly a power system. Not that much eye-candy, but still a nice, clean interface. I'm not going to go too much into the good things about Win2000 since most of you already know them.
Why I switched:
The quick answer: I got trojan'ed. I don't know how they got in, I considered myself as having a pretty secure system, but they got in, and there was no way I could remove it. Oh well, shit happens. Since I had to format anyways, I decided to try out Linux. I d/l'ed and burned Mandrake 8.1 and Debuan 2.2r5, and tried installing both mutliple times. Debain I never really got working. (I could boot into it, but couldn't get the network up, and didn't have much time, so just to stuck to Mandrake.) Anyways, Mandraek has a very easy installation procedure (comparable to Windows). It detected most (all?) of my hardware correctly and set up my network without a hitch. It took me a while to get everything I wanted to work correctly, but after a few days I had it:
Things I wanted:
1) Network access, obvious
2) Good browser, email client, newsreader, IRC client, and AIM client
3) MP3 Player, and MP3 database tool (I have over 50 gigs of mp3s)
4) Movie player that supports Divx, MPG, and ASF as a minimum
5) Office software to read Microsoft docs
6) Other things so I could do my homework (Devlopment tools and editors).
I got everything except the movie player up immediately (Emacs, Mozilla/Galeon, Evolution, Pan, XChat, Gaim, Freeamp, and Gnumeric)
For the movie player, I tried a bunch of different tools (avifile, xmps, etc) but couldn't get them working very well. MPlayer requires self-compiling (due to compile-time optimizations) so I decided to go ahead and try that. MPlayer requires GCC 2.75 to compile, since 2.76 is buggy. Of course, Mandrake ships with 2.76. So I had to find old distros, and `rpm --force' install them over the newer files, along with changes some links so the correct tools were called. Anyways, after a lot bitching and moaning, I finally got it to compile. And in all honesty, MPlayer kicks some serious ass. (mplayerhq.hu) It supports about 20 or 30 different codecs, along with reading Win32 dlls. It's very fast and very clean. Highly recommend using that. (Additional features I found very cool were (all possible while in the middle of a video) 1) changing hue/contrast/brightness, 2) resyncing audio !!! 3) full keyboard controls and all sorts of other stuff. ) MPlayer is absolutely a bad ass product!
Anyways so now I finally had everything I really needed. I played with it for a while, and realized why I have absolutely no reason to go back to Windows. Let me explain:
What I like: (++ specifies features I -really- like.)
1) Everything is completely, really FREE.
2) Absolutely love being able to have true multiple logins. (Ctrl-Alt-Fx and login)
3) True console mode, with no X; True console emulation in X.
4) Multiple desktops, rolling up windows, Gnome applets.
5) Completely customizable X interface. (As in I'm not tied down to a single fancy interface: I use sawfish with Gnome, though Blackbox also rules)
6) Software:
Sawfish (++Setting your own key bindings.)
Galeon (++Tabbed windows)
Evolution
Gaim (++multiple protocols, plugins)
Biff (I'm using kaw_applet though)
ncftp
++++++MPlayer
FreeAmp (++internal database, exactly how I want it)
Gnumeric
Shell scripting
Things I don't like:
1) It doesn't think my video card supports 1280x1024 in 32-bit mode. Utter bullshit.
2) One of my cdroms isn't in great shape, and it sometimes locks when I try to read a cd. (Actually a I don't know if it really locks, but it goes into kernel panic, and then sits still for about a minute, when I hit reset out of impatience.)
3) There is no program as good as Dreamweaver. Bluefish is nice, but Dreamweaver was truly amazing.
Everything Windows has that I like I ahve found on Linux, for free (usually GPL'ed) and without ads. That's pretty f*cking cool. For the first time in my life, my computer is running on truly legit software. I also like that. Most importantly, the minute I started using Sawfish, and noticed the custom keybinding support, I absolutley fell in love with X. When I got Gnome also working alongside Sawfish, it became a truly cool system.
Windows isn't bad, and I actually like Win2000. However, in order to change the interface, you need to loada utility on top of the Win2000 interface (ie: WindowBlinds) which really slows the computer down. Here I can just change the interface, or even run just a pure X interface if I want absolutely very little memory usage.
Windows definitely has an edge when it comes to ease of installation and the learning curve, expecially since most people are already familiar with Windows. However, for anyone who wants a little more control, a litte more power or customization, Linux is definitely the OS of choice, especially now that almost all software exists on both OS's.
"it's illegal to let consumers record and store shows based on the genre, actors or other words in the program desc" Huh?
You see, the genre is copyrighted by Miriam-Webster and the network executives are fighting for them out of good faith, becuase they understand that unless Websters protects their copyright, they will lose their trademarks on the English language. The actors/actresses' names are copyrighted by their parents, unless, of course, the parents picked the name from a name book, or in the event that they named the child after somebody else, in which case the copyright would be for that person's parents. However, copyrights only last for 70 years, so if your name is John XXIVth, then you're probably alright, and can use the name without violating any copyrights. And the words in the program description below to TV Guide, of course.
Now the questions remains, why would NETWORKS fight to protect somebody else's rights?
And here's my theory: banning these aren't that big of a deal, because only geeks use PVRs and geeks are hackers, and therefore anarchist terrorists and against the glorious US government, and they shouldn't have any laws anyways. So of course, this would go through the courts relatively easily.
However, they need to protect their ingenious lines in movies, like "Dude where's by car?" or "Alrighty then" which have been relatively common phrases for pubescent teens and dumbshit americans. However, they know that there are far too many average Joes that they could not win that kind of court case right now, so they are slowly leading up to it.
Be cautious, be very very cautious. Bad vibes are in the air.
Oh, and IANAL, DTWISS, BBB, YYY, L8R
Ebooks just don't cut it. Having a dead tree book is way nicer. I can read it in class when the teacher is rambling on about something pointless. I can have it in my lap or on the side when I'm working on a project, and don't have to keep tabbing between windows. I don't have to worry about software compatibility, about having a computer that works, or whatever.
Regarding content, I don't want a book for idiots. The book that taught me C++ was: "C++ for Dummies - Quick Reference". It's not a typical "For Dummies" book, it assumes who can program, but need a refresher. For people who have already been programming (in -any- language) a book on syntax is more than enough.
Furthermore, a great addition would be a set of projects with increasing difficulty and source code.
Theory is great, but it doesn't teach you real-world problems. And most people can't think up basic projects to learn certain concepts. (For example, using the Josephus problem to teach circular linked lists).
That's just my 1.5 cents worth.
Moderators: That is a joke.
Right. For you it might just be a joke; What about the rest of us who would actually buy -and- use such a book?
When you think about it, there's a`only one reason why anyone would ever live: simply because everyone else is doing it, They have a need to appear cool in the eyes, to be accepted by the unenlightened masses. I mean, how many people actually want to be friends with a dead guy? That's why, whenever I see someone living, I think to myself, "Wow, what an insecure fuck."
They got those customers back as soon as the people realized getting "files for advice" in the mail is much less worse than getting powder.
All your PDAs belongs to us.
"they" needs to be capitalized.
We all know who They. We all understand that. No need to protect their so-called "innocence" by playing the pronoun game. They are making the viruses; They are bringing evil into our hearts; They are holding us down.
Protest against The Man, I will not let The Man hold me down!
especially because you have to pay royalties on whatever special character you want on it. For example, some people would want Batman Lunchbox PCs; Some would want Cabbage Patch Kids. And some (like me) would want the almighty Penguin-Man.
Don't listen to them, it's a conspiracy; THAT'S the real reason LPCs get pricey
fully agreed, i didn't fully explain my point.
given an assumption that linux=windows (as the original poster claimed) the question (as i understand) is what benefit does linux provide besides being free?
If two items are identical, then one being free is a good enough reason for me to select that one.
Now if they're not identical, it's a completely different story.
So linux is free, which is great, but what else?
Hmmm. Let me think. It's also open-sourced. Yes, I know, very few people actually go through the source. But it's there. There are no really hidden APIs (besides those in obfuscated code). Any knowledgable programmer can use it and change it for his own advantage. And regardless, isn't the fact that it's free - completely, no strings attached, free - a good enough reason?
And besides, I don't want a really stable Windows if I have to worry about what it's sending when it calls home.
I like my privacy, thank you very much.
"All Your Base Belong To Us!" would probably be a really bad thing for trying to get on their good side...
How about my email:
I send you this advice....
The biggest problem in the first case is going to be dependancies -- CS 302 requires CS 301, CS 303 requires CS 302, etc. Even if you can place out of several classes (which may not be as easy as you think), many (most?) later classes won't have such tests.
I'm having that problem now, because I transferred wiht an Associatees to a University after my second year, and there were a lot of fundamenta courses that were holding me back from taking advanced courses even though I have the knowledge (self-taught, not formal) to take those. I just convinced my advisor that I had taken them at my old school sometime, and she signed off for all of them. At this point, I can take almost any class because she doesn't really check whether or not I'm telling the truth. (Therefore, I'm taking CSE2010:Algorithms and data structures along with CSE3002: Compiler Design which has CSE2010 as a prereq, and CSE4xxx that has CSE2010 among others as a grand-prereq...
)
The moral of the story is: just act like you know what you're doing and they'll let you get a way with it...
you're on the right track but the exact term is CLEP tests. You take them in order to skip certain classes if you think you already have the knowledge for it. However, it's an official College Board program (ie: SAT, AP) and I don't think they have CLEP tests for higher-level classes. You'd probably have to talk to the university to see if you could test out of certain courses.
Furthermore, to receive a Bachelor's in CS from most good universities, you need two years of humanities, and that's what would probably kill you.
(The clept term came from the saying I CLEP'd a class.)