I agree. Also, it seems to me that this would stem the pedophile's appetite. Does selling nicotine patches whet a person's appetite for cigarrettes, or does it stem the appetite?
Also, are they saying that merely seeing child pornoggraphy makes someone a pedophile? That's like saying that having gay Boy Scouts could make a child gay. (oh, wait... the Boy Scouts did say that.) Seeing naked men does not make me gay. Seeing trees does not make me want to have sex with them. These pedophiles already are pedophiles. Seeing generated pictures hurts no one, and it would seem that it only stems their appetite.
A good point. The mere fact that the industry is vanishing is not a good reason to protect it. Before I disagree, let me say I do support Napster, because it is useful to hear a CD before I go out and buy it. It also is easier to hear less popular musicians, whose cd's none of my friends have.
BUT: this music is not "generated". In your example, the farmers have no role in the creation of your food. In the music industry homever, the bands are still creating the music. Also, you are not so much paying for the physical cd as you are paying the artist for hearing their music (intellectual copyright), plus unnecessary markup for the recording industry.
I just got a (small) point disagreeing with my disagreement though. Word-of-mouth, the current way of hearing new music (radio/TV don't count. MTV plays crap, and radios don't play much new stuff - or at all - of the stuff I like), only prepetuates the most popular bands, which is fine, but it is at the hands of less popular bands. While the CDs I do have I like, most of them are of a few bands - I'd like to have more of different bands. It shouldn't be so hard to find my style of music (semi-talented hardcore/punk with an edge). I know there are tons of unpopular bands like that. But it's hard to find one whose cd I want. (sidetracking here - concerts and cds are different things. In concerts, a band can sound like crap and it's fine (as long as they play fast and have a good beat/melody combo) - these are punk's parties. For a cd, however, I like a little more talent.)
So in conclusion, I don't like the music industry's role in bringing the music from the bands to the people. They screw the artist and jack up the prices. I think Napster should remain legal, as it provides a useful service (fair use). But - the small number of people who just download tracks of stuff they already like and burn it to CD and never pay the artist, even if they like them, have real problems and should stop. It is difficult to find new bands with the style I like, and I'd like more of their cds.
By the way, if you have a band and are good enough to sell records, check out Alternative Tentacles It's owned by Jello Biafra, the former lead singer of the Dead Kennedys (we'll save that story for another day, kids), and they will sign semi - decent stuff with not so high markups.
When the Union defeated the Confederates in the U.S. Civil war, one reporter noted that: "The South has not been defeated; only overpowered." This means that even if you can conquer an area, the people are not yet conquered. A real conquer occurs when the people support the government, not when they are subdued. I've always wondered why a nation conquers an area where almost everyone opposes the invaders, and almost no one supports them.
I understand the Civil War - the slaves were not given a voice (although they were not freed until after 2 years of war) - they obviously opposed slavery and the Confederacy. Like Lincoln said - "...that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to the cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion-that we here highly resolve that these dead shall have not died in vain- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth."
According to the article, this was run without any speed issues. The other WMs do not have the speed problems E is famous for, but almost everyone will agree that E has more features. If E has no speed issues, then why use another WM? E is wonderful, and it is superior to the others in almost every other area.
...a computer that can perform 100 trillion calculations per second--100 "teraflops"--by 2004... --That's not 1000 trillion, it's 100. ...will result in a "petaflop" machine 10 times faster, the same speed as the Blue Gene machine under design at IBM. That's where you got 1000 trillion from. It never said 1000 trillion.
This starts out okay, then goes into some crazy stuff about "the govt don't need to help nobody but Coca-Cola and AOL."
ARTICLE IV: Load of crap, especially, the part about hospitable Americans. Oh yeah, the poor are just fine working minimum wage. They don't need anything more because the hospititable Americans pay their rent and buy them food for them when life takes a bad turn, not put out on the street and forgotten.
ARTICLE V: Yeah, one's job should determine whose appendicitis is removed. I actually had a horrible doctor tell me I was faking appendicitis at 10 years old. I had to endure a ruptured appendix for 4 days before surgery took place. But that's good, because my mommy wasn't a lawyer.
ARTICLE VI: You will go to jail 2/3 of the time, unless you can afford Johnnie Cochrain or are a cop. A jury established that Dan White DID shoot Harvey Milk, mayor of San Fransisco, but that it wasn't his fault, it was the Twinkies, so he got off scot-free.
ARTICLE VII: Unless you are a cop, corporation, or celebrity, politition, or a son/daughter of one of the above.
ARTICLE VIII: Very true. Listen to "Die for Oil, sucker (Jello Biafra, I Blow Minds for a Living) for more.
I could talk about the advantages and disadvantages of each (actually I don't know too much about OS X) but I'll instead talk about an important difference. X runs on Macs. Linux, while it runs on just about everything, is typically used on a PC. The main reasons for this are: most people grow up using Windows, and one day they decide, "Hey, I'll try this newfangled Linux thing.", keeping the box they know (and love). Another (although not so influential) is the greater choices of hardware - the "build-your-own" attitude is popular among Linux users.
Unless OS X will run on x86 or Macs become much more popular, It can not be a serious competitor to Linux, since Linux's main competitor in the desktop is Windows. Linux typically stays on x86 for desktop users, and a large-scale competition between the two is not likely - yet.
Fine. Then dissallow portscanning on your computer. BUT - should my provider ban me? or is it your own perrogative to dissallow me locally?
There is a big difference between having a law against me looking at a house and you telling me to leave. (Yes, I know there is no law against portscanning, but most don't have a walking - down - the - street service provider (WDTSSP)).
I mean, imagine that I portscan not a private machine, but a public server. That's still against the TOS! Am I looking for victims? Maybe. I portscan servers sometimes to see what they run. Now the server can disallow such, log me, whatever. But should I be banned every time I do it? I don't think so.
Actually, I think there was one seeking permission for public use, but it was denied. (I know, it would be +3, Informative if I could remember a link, but I can't) Could you imagine 100,000 people all taking off in their huge SUV-planes, talking on their cell-phones going at 200 mph?
It would be much better to have light rails (these things make about as much noise as a bus) going through at 100 mph. In Minneapolis, everyone complains about how clogged the highways are, how long you have to wait at the meters, how there are too many highways, how gasoline costs too much... Then we have a light-rail proposal, and no one wants it because "I'll be damned if my taxes are paying for it" and "not in my backyard", etc. Nevermind that using this would _SAVE_ you more money than a car, gas, insurance, etc. and get you to work faster. Some people are too selfish. (cough) most republicans (/cough)
Whew... calm down now... ok. I'm better now. It kind of reminds me of "Shawshank Redemption" when Tim Robbins was working on the roof tarring it and the guard is complaining about the government taxing his inheritance. "Some people got it rough"
And here come the ~50 arguments over whether portsnanning is more like trying doorknobs, looking at doorknobs, windows, driving down the street and other fun analagies.
If you ask me, it isn't like trying to open doors. All a portscan does is see what services a machine runs. Mail? Web? FTP? SSh?... It's like a house has doors for certain things and you're seeing what each is for.
Right! My ISP bans me from watching porn, entering my house as they please, seeing what services a machine is running, and moniters what I do, too! Doesn't everyone's? Geez, some people are too selfish.
It's not like trying locks on a house. It's more like walking into a video store and looking at the locked doors and looking at the labels to determine what they are for. This does not involve trying the locks or following someone in. That would be executing an exploit or social engineering.
It isn't like a house - no one lives there. A server is more like a place of business where people are expected to go. Some areas may be restrticted from public use, and you are free to look at the doors.
This is not meant to bitch at other posters or the guy who submitted. This is just a brief story of me, and some general suggestions to the Ask Slashdot question.
When I was in grade school, I was had a knack for learning. Unfortunatly, it was pretty unfulfilled. I was stuck learning easy stuff and occasionally I was shoved work sheets with just one good thing to learn spread with busy work to about 20 pages.
I finally got into a gifted - talented program. It wasn't really too helpful either. The woman who ran it wasn't very helpful either. The stuff we did was do reports and we actually spent about two months on... stitching. That's right, stitching. We learned nothing, but it got me out of class, where we learned about nothing but had tons of busy work.
Socially, I ran into many problems as well. Most of the kids were: somewhat smart dorky kids who thought really stupid jokes were funny, or wanna-be gangsters. I didn't like either.
In middle - school, I actually learned stuff, but I wasn't too challenged, especially in sciences. In English, I was a mediocre student. I was willing to become better, but those teachers didn't have much to teach. The advanced classes didn't really know anything either - the kids were self - taught.
In my freshman year of high school, I went up going crazy over social troubles while having somewhat harder classes. I attempted suicide and couldn't find any friends - I didn't want friends in most of the freshmen of that year.
So now, in my sophomore year, things have gotten a little better, but some have stayed. I still have mental problems, but I'm learning some more. I use Linux and I program, and I'm a bit of a punk.
In conclusion, I never learned the value of studying, a pretty good mind almost perished, many years were spent in waste learning nothing.
So, now that you heard my embarrassing story, here's some advice: don't take him to play with other kids as others have suggested - maybe some older kids. The punks I hang out with are pretty nice and a genious wouldn't learn anything bad and wouldn't be a burden to have listening. At least have the sort of geeky comraderie like here on Slashdot (besides the desktop wars) and get him some geek friends who know fun.
Now for the actual learning part: Buy him some somewhat cheap computer parts. Tell him how to put it together and let him do it. Get him some Linux books (or BSD - etc., if there are enough available) and let him learn how to learn Linux, guide him a little. Get him Python, do the same thing. Next move onto C, show him the source code, do some assembly. C++ wouldn't help to much here. Teach him some basic Electrical Engineering stuff too. Where you go after that I'm not sure. But I think this huge post is a start.
It expects to sell 400 million-transistor processors able to do 400 million calculations in
the time it takes to blink.
Yeah. It took me one calculation to determine that they will need quite a few of those A Clockwork Orange eye- holder opener thingies for this to happen. That would require that of the 6 billion people on Earth, 400 million people, or 15% of the population, to buy one of these in.2 seconds. I'm not even sure if there are 800 million people worldwide with a desktop or laptop computer.
Sure, but I don't want to have a conversation about what they said on AIM last night or their cool WaReZ. I don't want to know about how you have to use the Control Panel to change settings. Ask those people about where to find resources on kernel modules and you get a stare. You're still a nerd to them. They only want something faster than a telephone or maybe blast each other apart (which is fine, but not quite worthy of a conversation or hours of time). Perhaps its becoming more mainstream, but I have a hard time finding anything off the Internet.
Well, you live in your house. Once someone breaks into your house, they can take things, damage stuff, or more importantly wait for you and rape you, kidnap you, etc.
When someone breaks into a computer, they can at most delete files or use your DSL for a DoS. You can easily back up files and reinstall. While most people of course do not want this to happen, it is not such a big deal. If anyone has had a computer hacked (me) and their house broken into (me) they will almost definatly tell you the house break in was much scarier. Besides, this person didn't even damage anything. Manslaughter has a much lower sentance.
So get decent security and don't fret when someone breaks in to your computer. Besides, merely exploring a network (a la nmap etc) is interesting and educational.
for 90% of people, a Pentium 120 would be just fine (wordprocessing, email, web browsing; not much good for games).
You mean it should be enough. You should see my sister. she's got about 10 IE windows open, ICQ, AIM, Getright, Napster, various local pictures, and Winamp all open at the same time. Then she asks why it's taking so long if DSL is "supposed to be all fast". If I tell her she's running too many processes at the same time... then she says that I always say that... then... Anyways, people could use a P120 if they had a cd player running and only had a few windows open at a time... and I'm whinging too much again, but the point is that it's like that Onion artical, "My computer hates me".
However, the way you get to these menus takes away from their usability. I'm sure Microsoft would be pretty unhappy if Gnome or KDE completely copied the "Start" button design, and something besides KDE's and Gnome's logos ought to be used on this menu, because your average user isn't going to think, "Oh, I'm using Gnome, whose logo is a foot, so I bet I should click on the foot to find my programs." This is a design flaw that will hopefully be fixed in future versions, should Gnome/KDE want to cater to less-advanced Linux users.
Come on! When I first got Linux, finding "where my programs are" had to be the easiest thing! He's choosing THAT to complain about? How is that a design flaw, anyways? Anything Linux should just try to copy Windows because one idiot can't figure it out? If a Linux user is going to be confused about that, then I don't think they should be using it. Setting up a modem was a little harder than figuring out where I click to get my programs.
\ Why do people always talk about something and not provide a link? If we haven't heard of it, we don't know where it is. True, freesco.org is (should be) an obvious guess, but for others it's much more difficult, like when I tried to find bugtraq a year or so ago. \
There is a method for not buying a record player or a CD. It involves converting the analog to digital with a record player, cd-burner, and computer.
I forget how (you can probably find directions somewhere), but there are ways to hook up a record player (borrow someone's) to your computer. You can probably find directions at some handy dandy howto site.
Either rip mp3's to your hard drive (I think you have to specify times to separate tracks) or make.wav files and burn those (borrow someone's if you don't have one) directly to a CD. Be sure to separate tracks. The only thing you have to buy is a blank CD and perhaps owing a favor to your friends.
While I agree with you on that the poor can get rich and that there should be a division of wealth, I must insert my opinion now.
Sure, some people should be richer than others. You need some incentives, and you deserve it. It's not impossible (although more difficult) to move up in financial class. But the proletariat ARE needed for their contributions. And they deserve many things to be equal. Lawyers, medical care, housing (to an extent), and heating should not depend on social status. I know this isn't as bad as it was for some in the say 1920s, but people deserve such things. A hardworking factory worker should have those things available.
First of all, smoking one joint may be a little more harmful (to lungs) than a cigarette, but cigarettes are so addictive people end up smoking 3 packs a day. If you tried that with marijuana, you'd fall asleep very quickly.
Second, you make a point that it is harmful to your health. But what makes that a crime? It's much more of a health problem than a crime. Almost 2 million people in the U.S. are in prison. About half are on nonviolent drug charges. We have the highest per capita prison rate. Higher than China, and even higher than in Russia. Studies have proven that every one dollar spent on helping fight addiction is 22 times more effective than heavy policing, prison costs, etc. Bribery, intimidation, and murder happen only because they need to stay away from the police and keep thriving. And arrest them for bribery and murder then, not drugs.
...the Britney Spears of presidential candidates, Ralph Nader...
How the fuck is Ralph Nader a Britney Spears?
The Britney Spears of the presidential race would be if Brad Pitt ran for office, and no one liked any of his opinions, but people thought he was cute, so he had 80% of the vote. Ralph Nader is in no way Britney Spears. Many people like his stance on the issues, and he is popular among those who dare to swim outside the mainstream.
WARNING: rant And why is everyone saying it's the Nader voters' fault that Gore doesn't have enough support? It's Gore's own fault for being too conservative (supporting the War on Drugs, the Death Penalty, etc.). And if you like Nader but are afraid of Bush, at least say you are voting for Nader in polls! This will help garner support, and if he has enough support before Election Day, then vote for him. And like it was said before, don't not vote because you don't like either mainstream candidate, vote Nader (or someone else who supports your views): make it shown that you want your views to be akknowledged. If Nader gets enough votes, Gore also might swing further to the left to pick up the vote.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, are they saying that merely seeing child pornoggraphy makes someone a pedophile? That's like saying that having gay Boy Scouts could make a child gay. (oh, wait... the Boy Scouts did say that.) Seeing naked men does not make me gay. Seeing trees does not make me want to have sex with them. These pedophiles already are pedophiles. Seeing generated pictures hurts no one, and it would seem that it only stems their appetite.
BUT: this music is not "generated". In your example, the farmers have no role in the creation of your food. In the music industry homever, the bands are still creating the music. Also, you are not so much paying for the physical cd as you are paying the artist for hearing their music (intellectual copyright), plus unnecessary markup for the recording industry.
I just got a (small) point disagreeing with my disagreement though. Word-of-mouth, the current way of hearing new music (radio/TV don't count. MTV plays crap, and radios don't play much new stuff - or at all - of the stuff I like), only prepetuates the most popular bands, which is fine, but it is at the hands of less popular bands. While the CDs I do have I like, most of them are of a few bands - I'd like to have more of different bands. It shouldn't be so hard to find my style of music (semi-talented hardcore/punk with an edge). I know there are tons of unpopular bands like that. But it's hard to find one whose cd I want. (sidetracking here - concerts and cds are different things. In concerts, a band can sound like crap and it's fine (as long as they play fast and have a good beat/melody combo) - these are punk's parties. For a cd, however, I like a little more talent.)
So in conclusion, I don't like the music industry's role in bringing the music from the bands to the people. They screw the artist and jack up the prices. I think Napster should remain legal, as it provides a useful service (fair use). But - the small number of people who just download tracks of stuff they already like and burn it to CD and never pay the artist, even if they like them, have real problems and should stop. It is difficult to find new bands with the style I like, and I'd like more of their cds.
By the way, if you have a band and are good enough to sell records, check out Alternative Tentacles It's owned by Jello Biafra, the former lead singer of the Dead Kennedys (we'll save that story for another day, kids), and they will sign semi - decent stuff with not so high markups.
When the Union defeated the Confederates in the U.S. Civil war, one reporter noted that: "The South has not been defeated; only overpowered." This means that even if you can conquer an area, the people are not yet conquered. A real conquer occurs when the people support the government, not when they are subdued. I've always wondered why a nation conquers an area where almost everyone opposes the invaders, and almost no one supports them.
I understand the Civil War - the slaves were not given a voice (although they were not freed until after 2 years of war) - they obviously opposed slavery and the Confederacy. Like Lincoln said - "...that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to the cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion-that we here highly resolve that these dead shall have not died in vain- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth."
According to the article, this was run without any speed issues. The other WMs do not have the speed problems E is famous for, but almost everyone will agree that E has more features. If E has no speed issues, then why use another WM? E is wonderful, and it is superior to the others in almost every other area.
--That's not 1000 trillion, it's 100.
That's where you got 1000 trillion from. It never said 1000 trillion.
ARTICLE IV: Load of crap, especially, the part about hospitable Americans. Oh yeah, the poor are just fine working minimum wage. They don't need anything more because the hospititable Americans pay their rent and buy them food for them when life takes a bad turn, not put out on the street and forgotten.
ARTICLE V: Yeah, one's job should determine whose appendicitis is removed. I actually had a horrible doctor tell me I was faking appendicitis at 10 years old. I had to endure a ruptured appendix for 4 days before surgery took place. But that's good, because my mommy wasn't a lawyer.
ARTICLE VI: You will go to jail 2/3 of the time, unless you can afford Johnnie Cochrain or are a cop. A jury established that Dan White DID shoot Harvey Milk, mayor of San Fransisco, but that it wasn't his fault, it was the Twinkies, so he got off scot-free.
ARTICLE VII: Unless you are a cop, corporation, or celebrity, politition, or a son/daughter of one of the above.
ARTICLE VIII: Very true. Listen to "Die for Oil, sucker (Jello Biafra, I Blow Minds for a Living) for more.
Unless OS X will run on x86 or Macs become much more popular, It can not be a serious competitor to Linux, since Linux's main competitor in the desktop is Windows. Linux typically stays on x86 for desktop users, and a large-scale competition between the two is not likely - yet.
Ph34r M3 4nd 411 0f my 31337 fr13nd5! W3 kn0w 4b0u7 y0ur ftpd fl4w!
Cuba.
There is a big difference between having a law against me looking at a house and you telling me to leave. (Yes, I know there is no law against portscanning, but most don't have a walking - down - the - street service provider (WDTSSP)).
I mean, imagine that I portscan not a private machine, but a public server. That's still against the TOS! Am I looking for victims? Maybe. I portscan servers sometimes to see what they run. Now the server can disallow such, log me, whatever. But should I be banned every time I do it? I don't think so.
It would be much better to have light rails (these things make about as much noise as a bus) going through at 100 mph. In Minneapolis, everyone complains about how clogged the highways are, how long you have to wait at the meters, how there are too many highways, how gasoline costs too much... Then we have a light-rail proposal, and no one wants it because "I'll be damned if my taxes are paying for it" and "not in my backyard", etc. Nevermind that using this would _SAVE_ you more money than a car, gas, insurance, etc. and get you to work faster. Some people are too selfish. (cough) most republicans (/cough)
Whew... calm down now... ok. I'm better now. It kind of reminds me of "Shawshank Redemption" when Tim Robbins was working on the roof tarring it and the guard is complaining about the government taxing his inheritance.
"Some people got it rough"
If you ask me, it isn't like trying to open doors. All a portscan does is see what services a machine runs. Mail? Web? FTP? SSh?... It's like a house has doors for certain things and you're seeing what each is for.
Right! My ISP bans me from watching porn, entering my house as they please, seeing what services a machine is running, and moniters what I do, too! Doesn't everyone's? Geez, some people are too selfish.
It isn't like a house - no one lives there. A server is more like a place of business where people are expected to go. Some areas may be restrticted from public use, and you are free to look at the doors.
When I was in grade school, I was had a knack for learning. Unfortunatly, it was pretty unfulfilled. I was stuck learning easy stuff and occasionally I was shoved work sheets with just one good thing to learn spread with busy work to about 20 pages.
I finally got into a gifted - talented program. It wasn't really too helpful either. The woman who ran it wasn't very helpful either. The stuff we did was do reports and we actually spent about two months on... stitching. That's right, stitching. We learned nothing, but it got me out of class, where we learned about nothing but had tons of busy work.
Socially, I ran into many problems as well. Most of the kids were: somewhat smart dorky kids who thought really stupid jokes were funny, or wanna-be gangsters. I didn't like either.
In middle - school, I actually learned stuff, but I wasn't too challenged, especially in sciences. In English, I was a mediocre student. I was willing to become better, but those teachers didn't have much to teach. The advanced classes didn't really know anything either - the kids were self - taught.
In my freshman year of high school, I went up going crazy over social troubles while having somewhat harder classes. I attempted suicide and couldn't find any friends - I didn't want friends in most of the freshmen of that year.
So now, in my sophomore year, things have gotten a little better, but some have stayed. I still have mental problems, but I'm learning some more. I use Linux and I program, and I'm a bit of a punk.
In conclusion, I never learned the value of studying, a pretty good mind almost perished, many years were spent in waste learning nothing.
So, now that you heard my embarrassing story, here's some advice: don't take him to play with other kids as others have suggested - maybe some older kids. The punks I hang out with are pretty nice and a genious wouldn't learn anything bad and wouldn't be a burden to have listening. At least have the sort of geeky comraderie like here on Slashdot (besides the desktop wars) and get him some geek friends who know fun.
Now for the actual learning part: Buy him some somewhat cheap computer parts. Tell him how to put it together and let him do it. Get him some Linux books (or BSD - etc., if there are enough available) and let him learn how to learn Linux, guide him a little. Get him Python, do the same thing. Next move onto C, show him the source code, do some assembly. C++ wouldn't help to much here. Teach him some basic Electrical Engineering stuff too. Where you go after that I'm not sure. But I think this huge post is a start.
Yeah. It took me one calculation to determine that they will need quite a few of those A Clockwork Orange eye- holder opener thingies for this to happen. That would require that of the 6 billion people on Earth, 400 million people, or 15% of the population, to buy one of these in .2 seconds. I'm not even sure if there are 800 million people worldwide with a desktop or laptop computer.
Sure, but I don't want to have a conversation about what they said on AIM last night or their cool WaReZ. I don't want to know about how you have to use the Control Panel to change settings. Ask those people about where to find resources on kernel modules and you get a stare. You're still a nerd to them. They only want something faster than a telephone or maybe blast each other apart (which is fine, but not quite worthy of a conversation or hours of time). Perhaps its becoming more mainstream, but I have a hard time finding anything off the Internet.
When someone breaks into a computer, they can at most delete files or use your DSL for a DoS. You can easily back up files and reinstall. While most people of course do not want this to happen, it is not such a big deal. If anyone has had a computer hacked (me) and their house broken into (me) they will almost definatly tell you the house break in was much scarier. Besides, this person didn't even damage anything. Manslaughter has a much lower sentance.
So get decent security and don't fret when someone breaks in to your computer. Besides, merely exploring a network (a la nmap etc) is interesting and educational.
You mean it should be enough. You should see my sister. she's got about 10 IE windows open, ICQ, AIM, Getright, Napster, various local pictures, and Winamp all open at the same time. Then she asks why it's taking so long if DSL is "supposed to be all fast". If I tell her she's running too many processes at the same time... then she says that I always say that... then... Anyways, people could use a P120 if they had a cd player running and only had a few windows open at a time... and I'm whinging too much again, but the point is that it's like that Onion artical, "My computer hates me".
Come on! When I first got Linux, finding "where my programs are" had to be the easiest thing! He's choosing THAT to complain about? How is that a design flaw, anyways? Anything Linux should just try to copy Windows because one idiot can't figure it out? If a Linux user is going to be confused about that, then I don't think they should be using it. Setting up a modem was a little harder than figuring out where I click to get my programs.
\ Why do people always talk about something and not provide a link? If we haven't heard of it, we don't know where it is. True, freesco.org is (should be) an obvious guess, but for others it's much more difficult, like when I tried to find bugtraq a year or so ago. \
I forget how (you can probably find directions somewhere), but there are ways to hook up a record player (borrow someone's) to your computer. You can probably find directions at some handy dandy howto site.
Either rip mp3's to your hard drive (I think you have to specify times to separate tracks) or make .wav files and burn those (borrow someone's if you don't have one) directly to a CD. Be sure to separate tracks. The only thing you have to buy is a blank CD and perhaps owing a favor to your friends.
Sure, some people should be richer than others. You need some incentives, and you deserve it. It's not impossible (although more difficult) to move up in financial class. But the proletariat ARE needed for their contributions. And they deserve many things to be equal. Lawyers, medical care, housing (to an extent), and heating should not depend on social status. I know this isn't as bad as it was for some in the say 1920s, but people deserve such things. A hardworking factory worker should have those things available.
Second, you make a point that it is harmful to your health. But what makes that a crime? It's much more of a health problem than a crime. Almost 2 million people in the U.S. are in prison. About half are on nonviolent drug charges. We have the highest per capita prison rate. Higher than China, and even higher than in Russia. Studies have proven that every one dollar spent on helping fight addiction is 22 times more effective than heavy policing, prison costs, etc. Bribery, intimidation, and murder happen only because they need to stay away from the police and keep thriving. And arrest them for bribery and murder then, not drugs.
How the fuck is Ralph Nader a Britney Spears?
The Britney Spears of the presidential race would be if Brad Pitt ran for office, and no one liked any of his opinions, but people thought he was cute, so he had 80% of the vote.
Ralph Nader is in no way Britney Spears. Many people like his stance on the issues, and he is popular among those who dare to swim outside the mainstream.
WARNING: rant
And why is everyone saying it's the Nader voters' fault that Gore doesn't have enough support? It's Gore's own fault for being too conservative (supporting the War on Drugs, the Death Penalty, etc.). And if you like Nader but are afraid of Bush, at least say you are voting for Nader in polls! This will help garner support, and if he has enough support before Election Day, then vote for him. And like it was said before, don't not vote because you don't like either mainstream candidate, vote Nader (or someone else who supports your views): make it shown that you want your views to be akknowledged. If Nader gets enough votes, Gore also might swing further to the left to pick up the vote.