Simply put, Mac users are, for the most part, academics, artsy or literary types who have spent a lot more time in rhetoric and literature classes while slashdotters spent their time in geeky technical (useful) pursuits. Writing style is not the main interest of the/. crew, although some argument could be made that better style can result in better communication.
I think your theory is close, but doesn't go far enough. I suspect that Mac users tend not just to be academic/literary types, but academic/leteray types who place a great deal of importance upon appearance. The kind of academics who buy macs are likely the same kind of academics who won't hit the "submit" button until they're absolutely positive that their grammar and spelling are perfect. Contrast that with your average PC/Linux mook with a motley accumulation of scabbed-together PC's who doesn't even care abouit typos much less spelling. The Mac-head and the Linux mook may have equal levels of education and writing ability, but I suspect the kind of person who buys a Mac cares about it more.
There could also be an arrangement with the airlines where they agree to haul indigents home as part of their landing/flyover/airport fees (leaving them free to collect for the airfare in the deportee's home country).
Actually, the way that works is that the indigent person's home country generally pays the airfare. For example, you can walk into the US embassy in Paris and say "I was backpacking across Europe with all my money in cash and it got stolen" and they'll usually arrange you a flight back to the US. However, if you do this once they'll be reluctant to let you fly back to Europe a year later to try it again.
We can't get enough forces into Afghanistan, but thank Gawd we're traking down Bobby Fischer...
"Yeah, that's right, we were chasing Bobby Fischer with the US Army, that's why we couldn't send them to Afghanistan."
He was picked up in Japan by Japanese officials. All they did was revoke his passport and wait for him to get caught and deported. Take your troll-s elsewhere.
I just thought I would point out that intellectual property, at least legally, IS property.
Actually, IP is not property, not by any legal definition. The copyright or patent itself is the only thing that's property. The [work/creation/method/device design] that is copyrighted or patented is not property, despite the fact that 150 years ago someone decided to try to skew the debate by calling it "intellectual property". What copyrights and patents do is allow the people (and the law) to treat something that is fundamentally unlike property as if it were property. The only reason copyrights and patents exist in the first place is because "creative works" and "methods" aren't physical objects.
At least in the US, your statement of the law is wrong. Purchase of a piece of physical media does not specifically provide you any rights to make copies of copyrighted works held on that media.
The rights are not specifically provided, to be sure, but the fair use statute is quite broad and open to a great deal of interpretation. It essentially lays out the basic considerations and leaves it up to the judge.
You forgot that the Cyrillic letter that looks like a "B" is pronounced like a "V", and the letter that looks like a "P" is pronounced like an "R".
Which sets up my weird dyslexic note. In English writing, I have always tended to confuse B's and P's fairly frequently. So, as you can imagine, when I was learning Russian, I often confused the letter that looks like a B with the letter that looks like a P.
Heh. The one that still gets me to this day (and I learned russian 15 years ago) is the cursive cyrillic lowercase "d" which looks like a latin "g". When I write out the dollar amount on checks, 75% of the time I write "gollars". Argh!
What kinds of crazy things do have these people actually said to you?
Dunno 'bout him, but the one I get to talk to on occasion comes up with gems like:
"SUV's should be ILLEGAL!" (what about people who haul heavy/large loads, i.e. construction workers?)
"Well, then people should have to prove they need them then!" (How?)
"Compulsory state licensing for construction workers!"
"Nobody should be allowed on the freeway without at least two people in the car!"
"Nobody should be allowed to drive more than 15 miles to work!" (how do they get to work?)
"Public transit!" (This is Los Angeles. Public transit is already inadequate to meet the meager current need)
"Tax gasoline a couple more bucks a gallon to pay for more buses!"
They're the ones who usually posit absurd solutions to in a tone of voice that makes every sentence sound like it should end with "..and the consequences be damned!" Plenty of self-righteous outrage and no common sense.
For once, a semi-accurate application of linguistic humor! For the slavic-impaired, I would like to clear up what seems to be a common point of ignorance about the Russian language:
The suffix "ski" in Russian generally denotes the adjectival form of a word, roughly equivalent to the english "ish". For example "english" == "angliski".
And for those who spell english words in, for example, game titles by "borrowing" Cyrillic letter because it "looks cool": the backwards R is not the Cyrillic equivalent of the latin R. The Cyrillic R looks like the letter P. The backwards R makes the sound "ya". Also, the backwards N is actually the letter I. The real Cyrillic N looks like an H.
And, as I check today, I have 29 days left. You are, apparently, quite correct: SP2 does break RESET 5.02. Hopefully they'll come up with 5.03 in the next 29 days. Otherwise, I'm going to have to jump through all those stupid Product Activation hoops again.
Do you change your hardware configuration by first inserting one leg, and then the second, then pulling it up until it covers your genitalia and anus? Sounds kind of weird to me.
Yeah, that'd be kinda weird. I guess I meant "as frequently as", which leads to:
Also, 'some' people? I take it you are referring to the non/. crowd?
I was drawing a very veiled comparsion to the/. crowd, actually. I change my hardware as often as every two weeks! Whether it needs it or not! heh.
In the years I've been running XP, the product activation has caused me _zero_ difficulty, and that's on home-built hardware that's been upgraded and changed quite a bit over the years.
I've had nothing but trouble with mine, but I change my hardware configuration the way some people change their underpants.After my second activation was invalidated by changing my network card and video card, I decided I'd had enough. I've been running RESET5 to keep my install perpetually in it's 30 day grace period.
Speculation that warez'd copies would still be allowed to update via Windows update were at least partly wrong. You may still be able to manually update Windows with an "invalid" product key but you cannot do it via the v5 Windows Update interface.
Running a warez'd copy of XP using product keys is the problem. There's a perfectly good program called RESET5 that runs as a service under XP and, every time you boot up, it magically resets the initial installation grace period timer to 30 days. I installed SP2 RC2 yesterday via the v5 Windows Update site and there was nary a hiccup. I've had 30 days left to register my XP install for, oh, 120 days or so...
Through the roof. You might (might Might MIGHT) be able to get a usuable signal through the roof (if you are on the top floor) or through a wall. The closer you are to the equator the better.
Not a chance in hell. If heavy rain can block it, a wall definitely will.
"I posited a theoretical situation where Company XYZ is the only maker of widgets."
The problem with this is that it can only happen in theory. In practice company XYZ, like any other corporation exists to make the most profit possible. If it is the only player in the market it will raise prices to the absolute most people will pay.
The hypothetical widget company is meant as an illustration of the subtle difference between monopoly alone, and abuse of monopoly position. The practice you describe is abuse of monopoly position, which is already illegal in various ways. The bonehead I was arguing with thought that the fact of monopoly alone ought to automatically trigger sanctions. I was arguing that there should be no action until they use their position to unfair advantage.
there are 2 low tides and 2 high tides every 25 hours
so that's 1. coming in, 2. going out, 3. coming in, 4. going out... every 25 hours, all of which the turbines harvest
Aha. I'm with ya' now. Here is a nice graph that lays it out pretty clearly.
i like people who tell me what to do with my wallet a lot more than i like people who tell me how to behave in the bedroom
Personally I dislike both about equally, with a slightly greater aversion to seeing "wallet bosses" get into power. Government has a much easier time getting away with taking our money than it does dictating our morals, so I tend to prefer the fools who attempt the latter rather than the former. The ideal solution when you only have two sets of fools to choose from is a nice even mix causing grdlock where NOTHING gets done....muahahahaha.....
that's not once but TWICE per orbit of the moon, which is ever 25 hours, so the cycle is every 12.5 hours...
but wait there's more: as mentioned in the article, the turbines swivel on their base and face the incoming tides, then swivel on their base and face the outgoing tides... so really, that's FOUR TIMES per every 25 hour tidal cycle,
What? That doesn't make sense. If the tide comes in for 12.5 hours and then goes out for 12.5 hours, you get TWO cycles. The swiveling of the generator doesn't make the water come in and out twice as often, does it?
Actually, depending on the speed of impact, the blades are more likely to push an animal away, rather than dice it up. Consider this example: someone brings a sword down very slowly on your outstretched arm. The arm will probably just move down with the sword. Try again but swinging the sword with Hearty Vigor. The arm probably comes off.
I just now tried this on my younger brother and sure enough, his arm didn't come off till I swung the sword real hard!
Using your monopoly position in illegal anticompetitive ways however, is.
Exactly! I once got in an infuriating argument with a "coffee-house philosopher" who claimed that monopolies should be absolutely illegal. I posited a theoretical situation where Company XYZ is the only maker of widgets. There are no patents encumbering the widget design, but nobody else makes widgets because XYZ widgets are so inexpensive and well made that there's no point of competition. I repeatedly tried to get him to explain how you could possibly legislate a remedy for such a monopoly, and his answer was always "you simply force them to have competition!" After pressuring him to give me something concrete, he finally concocted a bizarre scheme wherein the government would tax the bejesus out of XYZ widgets only, thus raising prices and giving newcomers to widget manufacturing a "fair chance". I gave up at that point.
My touchpad works as well... on Linux and Windows!
Really? What version are you running? It broke in 0.9, and while 0.9.2 apparently solved the problem for some people, it didn't for me.:(
I guess I'll have to dig up a pre-0.9 release
I can scroll with my synaptics touchpad in Firefox. I have been able to since v. 0.8, in fact (and 0.8 was the first verion of Firefox that got installed on it, so I don't know about earlier versions).
It used to work, but someone broke it (bug 242799) in May. Supposedly there's a patch, but it didn't fix it for me.
Slashdot Mirror
Not smarter, but crack users sure do talk faster.
I think your theory is close, but doesn't go far enough. I suspect that Mac users tend not just to be academic/literary types, but academic/leteray types who place a great deal of importance upon appearance. The kind of academics who buy macs are likely the same kind of academics who won't hit the "submit" button until they're absolutely positive that their grammar and spelling are perfect. Contrast that with your average PC/Linux mook with a motley accumulation of scabbed-together PC's who doesn't even care abouit typos much less spelling. The Mac-head and the Linux mook may have equal levels of education and writing ability, but I suspect the kind of person who buys a Mac cares about it more.
Actually, the way that works is that the indigent person's home country generally pays the airfare. For example, you can walk into the US embassy in Paris and say "I was backpacking across Europe with all my money in cash and it got stolen" and they'll usually arrange you a flight back to the US. However, if you do this once they'll be reluctant to let you fly back to Europe a year later to try it again.
"Yeah, that's right, we were chasing Bobby Fischer with the US Army, that's why we couldn't send them to Afghanistan."
He was picked up in Japan by Japanese officials. All they did was revoke his passport and wait for him to get caught and deported. Take your troll-s elsewhere.
Actually, IP is not property, not by any legal definition. The copyright or patent itself is the only thing that's property. The [work/creation/method/device design] that is copyrighted or patented is not property, despite the fact that 150 years ago someone decided to try to skew the debate by calling it "intellectual property". What copyrights and patents do is allow the people (and the law) to treat something that is fundamentally unlike property as if it were property. The only reason copyrights and patents exist in the first place is because "creative works" and "methods" aren't physical objects.
The rights are not specifically provided, to be sure, but the fair use statute is quite broad and open to a great deal of interpretation. It essentially lays out the basic considerations and leaves it up to the judge.
Heh. The one that still gets me to this day (and I learned russian 15 years ago) is the cursive cyrillic lowercase "d" which looks like a latin "g". When I write out the dollar amount on checks, 75% of the time I write "gollars". Argh!
Dunno 'bout him, but the one I get to talk to on occasion comes up with gems like:
"SUV's should be ILLEGAL!" (what about people who haul heavy/large loads, i.e. construction workers?)
"Well, then people should have to prove they need them then!" (How?)
"Compulsory state licensing for construction workers!"
"Nobody should be allowed on the freeway without at least two people in the car!"
"Nobody should be allowed to drive more than 15 miles to work!" (how do they get to work?)
"Public transit!" (This is Los Angeles. Public transit is already inadequate to meet the meager current need)
"Tax gasoline a couple more bucks a gallon to pay for more buses!"
They're the ones who usually posit absurd solutions to in a tone of voice that makes every sentence sound like it should end with "..and the consequences be damned!" Plenty of self-righteous outrage and no common sense.
For once, a semi-accurate application of linguistic humor! For the slavic-impaired, I would like to clear up what seems to be a common point of ignorance about the Russian language:
The suffix "ski" in Russian generally denotes the adjectival form of a word, roughly equivalent to the english "ish". For example "english" == "angliski".
And for those who spell english words in, for example, game titles by "borrowing" Cyrillic letter because it "looks cool": the backwards R is not the Cyrillic equivalent of the latin R. The Cyrillic R looks like the letter P. The backwards R makes the sound "ya". Also, the backwards N is actually the letter I. The real Cyrillic N looks like an H.
None of this matters in the slightest, I know.
And, as I check today, I have 29 days left. You are, apparently, quite correct: SP2 does break RESET 5.02. Hopefully they'll come up with 5.03 in the next 29 days. Otherwise, I'm going to have to jump through all those stupid Product Activation hoops again.
Yeah, that'd be kinda weird. I guess I meant "as frequently as", which leads to:
Also, 'some' people? I take it you are referring to the non /. crowd?
I was drawing a very veiled comparsion to the /. crowd, actually. I change my hardware as often as every two weeks! Whether it needs it or not! heh.
Hmmmmm. Dunno. A day and a half later it still shows "30 days left" under System Information.
I've had nothing but trouble with mine, but I change my hardware configuration the way some people change their underpants.After my second activation was invalidated by changing my network card and video card, I decided I'd had enough. I've been running RESET5 to keep my install perpetually in it's 30 day grace period.
Running a warez'd copy of XP using product keys is the problem. There's a perfectly good program called RESET5 that runs as a service under XP and, every time you boot up, it magically resets the initial installation grace period timer to 30 days. I installed SP2 RC2 yesterday via the v5 Windows Update site and there was nary a hiccup. I've had 30 days left to register my XP install for, oh, 120 days or so...
Moisture is not the only substance on the planet that "fucks with" radio waves.
Not a chance in hell. If heavy rain can block it, a wall definitely will.
The problem with this is that it can only happen in theory. In practice company XYZ, like any other corporation exists to make the most profit possible. If it is the only player in the market it will raise prices to the absolute most people will pay.
The hypothetical widget company is meant as an illustration of the subtle difference between monopoly alone, and abuse of monopoly position. The practice you describe is abuse of monopoly position, which is already illegal in various ways. The bonehead I was arguing with thought that the fact of monopoly alone ought to automatically trigger sanctions. I was arguing that there should be no action until they use their position to unfair advantage.
Aha. I'm with ya' now. Here is a nice graph that lays it out pretty clearly.
Personally I dislike both about equally, with a slightly greater aversion to seeing "wallet bosses" get into power. Government has a much easier time getting away with taking our money than it does dictating our morals, so I tend to prefer the fools who attempt the latter rather than the former. The ideal solution when you only have two sets of fools to choose from is a nice even mix causing grdlock where NOTHING gets done....muahahahaha.....
What? That doesn't make sense. If the tide comes in for 12.5 hours and then goes out for 12.5 hours, you get TWO cycles. The swiveling of the generator doesn't make the water come in and out twice as often, does it?
I just now tried this on my younger brother and sure enough, his arm didn't come off till I swung the sword real hard!
Using your monopoly position in illegal anticompetitive ways however, is.
Exactly! I once got in an infuriating argument with a "coffee-house philosopher" who claimed that monopolies should be absolutely illegal. I posited a theoretical situation where Company XYZ is the only maker of widgets. There are no patents encumbering the widget design, but nobody else makes widgets because XYZ widgets are so inexpensive and well made that there's no point of competition. I repeatedly tried to get him to explain how you could possibly legislate a remedy for such a monopoly, and his answer was always "you simply force them to have competition!" After pressuring him to give me something concrete, he finally concocted a bizarre scheme wherein the government would tax the bejesus out of XYZ widgets only, thus raising prices and giving newcomers to widget manufacturing a "fair chance". I gave up at that point.
Really? What version are you running? It broke in 0.9, and while 0.9.2 apparently solved the problem for some people, it didn't for me. :(
I guess I'll have to dig up a pre-0.9 release
Shouldn't that be a Beowulf cluster of computers in Soviet Russia?
(Cue the hot grits, you insensitive clod!)
It used to work, but someone broke it (bug 242799) in May. Supposedly there's a patch, but it didn't fix it for me.