The amazing thing here is that this "graffiti for old white guys" is accepted and ignored by society. Millions of people every day pass these tiles without any thought to them.
Yet if I suggest something that has some logic behind it like creating a 51st state out of north Idaho, eastern Washingon and western Montana, people say I'm some sort of freak.
I could embed tiles in streets and go unnoticed. Yet if I speak my mind I'm labeled.
You know I'm getting sick and tired of people telling me that I'm weird, that I'm not well connected with reality. These tiles, at least to my way of thinking, are a perfect example of how weird this world is. People are putting these things everywhere and the world just keeps moving by them without a thought to them.
Without a thought! And yet the world calls me weird!
Fine, I want to try being normal. Will someone please send me one of these tiles so I can put one on the streets of Sandpoint. Then maybe I'll fit in.
The bullshit factor on this one is off the scale. At that age I knew damn good and well that you didn't point a weapon at ANYONE! It wasn't a law, it wasn't a rule, there was not "or else"....you just didn't do it, it was a way of life.
My boys are age 7 and 6. They play GTA. Yup, that's right. They play Quake and America's Army too. I let them blast things, kill things, tear apart things all day long on the TV. Neither boy has yet to fire an actual weapon although they have handled them.
Would they fire on cars like that?
Hell no.
I say that with total confidence.
The boys in this story knew EXACTLY what they were doing. Don't bullshit me and don't let them bullshit you. I didn't see any mention of retardation or mental issues in the story, they knew what they were doing.
Those boys need to get whacked and whacked hard. Yes, I'm talking murder charges. And don't give me the crap about their age and those being "adult" charges. If TN supports the death sentence they should make the trip to death row. I would hope for their sake that is the case because if not they should be made to face the torture of spending life in prison. Why? Because they knew what they were doing, and we all know it too.
For them to point the finger at a video game company is.....I just can't find words. For anyone else to go after a software business for this makes no sense to me at all.
Dammit, people tell me I don't make a lot of sense, that I'm not totally connected with the real world. I guess freakin not! In my mind nothing in this story makes any sense at all, it just doesn't mesh with my reality.
Getting an education is the important thing. Yes, in a perfect world we would love the kids to cut their teeth on high end machines running a high end OS and follow that up with a few years at MIT.
BUT....
Way back when I went to school, Apple was the driving force. Schools had Apple computers, that was a given. So I learned all the geeky computer stuff on an Apple II and a Franklin.
Was Apple my first computer purchase?
Hell no! When I finally had my first real job I was watching the money. IBM clones were cheaper and more were being sold. That would mean that somone with skills on IBM clones would make more money (or so I reasoned).
The point is that if Microsoft wants to start building schools, we should encourage that. Quit looking for the spook behind every curtain. Education is a good thing. Not every graduate of these schools will be a Microsoft zealot, but everyone of them will be educated.....and that makes our society better.
" Yeah...Mormons (also known as Latter Day Saints, from the full church title (official web site here [lds.org]) are christians..."
Weeeellllllll....sure. If you stretch the definition a bit. Ok, you have to stretch it a lot. But it seems you don't have to stretch it any more than SCO stretches the truth.
Finally a reply. It looks as if someone at SCO has been reading things here.
Here it is, make your own comments on spelling, grammer, etc.
"Thank you for your interest in SCO's Linux licensing program. Due to the logistical challenges of licensing such a broadly installed operating system, SCO's customer care team is currently collecting contact information for all legitimate inquiries and then forwarding these leads onto our sales representatives for follow up. If you would like an SCO sales representative to contact you within the next 14 days, please reply back with your company name, address and phone number. Or you can visit our website at http://www.sco.com/scosource/ to find the answers to most of your questions regarding the Linux licensing program. Thank you again for your interest in SCO.
We apologies for not responding to your right away.
It's not been for lack of effort. I have sent them 5 messages so far asking about licenses and offering to perhaps purchase. In one email I asked them for a cost breakdown of Linux (If their contributed code is worth $699 then how much is the remainder, the bulk of the code worth).
SCO hasn't even given me the courtesy of a reply.
In my last attempt to contact them I offered to purchase a license if they could prove the necessity. But I also mentioned that this was my fifth attempt at it and that if I did not hear back in 72 hours then I would consider them not to be serious about the license issue and proceed with business as usual.
SCO still hasn't given me the courtesy of a reply.
"It appears that starting October 15th I will not be able to talk to my MSN friend in South Korea."
MSN seems to have far too much control over your friend. I would have thought that your friend could have used AIM, Yahoo Messenger, IRC, email, amateur radio or any number of other things to communicate with you.
Let this serve as a warning to us then. If MSN has that much control of people in Korea then you know that they would like to have the same kind of control of us here.
This is as bad as any terrorist activity. I wouldn't mind seeing Microsoft execs and any sysadmins related to these problems brought up on charges of terrorist activities. Yeah, they would get off, but it might get the freakin point across.
The case isn't thrown out of court because it has the technical appearance of a real case. The RedHat company doesn't have to spend any money, they can choose not to fight.
This legal system that you suppose protects the marks is not what you think it is. I hate to shatter the dream for you on that, but it's true. The legal system is used every day to persue the dreams and goals of the people who use the system, it's not some superhero with superpowers who defends the underdog and the downtrodden.
You're talking about a system that, for example, takes things like police radar or polygraph and accepts them as fact. You can walk in to a court and prove that police radar is bull according to laws of physics, the court will agree with you. Then they will still take the admittedly false reading over your word. Even if you don't work for a corporation.
Here in the USA, corporations don't buy laws. That's an interesting idea (what country are you from). But corporations, as well as small businesses do need to make profit.
And theives? Well, we're always going to have those. So if we're going to have them let's have them like SCO: telling you right up front that they are taking you to the cleaners while playing the jester.
NortWind, you just have to look a bit harder to see the beauty of this. SCO isn't deceiving anyone!! (That is unless I'm right that there isn't any stolen code)
Remember high school when some kid would come up with some bullshit story about how his homework was eaten by the dog, or his friend put invisible ink in his pen so he had done his homework but the ink disappeared? That kid knew the story was bogus, so did the teacher and everyone else. But sometimes the story got you off the hook, usually if the story was creative enough or ballsy enough.
This is the kind of thing that SCO is doing. It's not dishonest because there is no way that anyone believes this crock of crap. But all the attention raised the stock prices and the execs and lawyers profit. Shady yes. But dishonest? Come on!
This is a huge gag and anybody losing money on it is dumb enough that they shouldn't be in possession of it anyway. I believe at Coney Island they call those people "marks".
You don't get it. I didn't say they were making an "honest profit" on the deal. That's the beauty of it. SCO execs and lawyers are taking their investers to the f'in cleaners with a totally bogus claim. They aren't being the least bit dishonest about that, they're laughing out loud. They haven't hidden the bogusness of thier claim.
I'm not saying it makes the profit honest. Just that they have the balls to do the equivelent of pointing to the sky and saying "oh look, a chicken" while they lift your wallet. It's funny!
Perhaps you're using the communist definition for profit.
communism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kmy-nzm) n.
1. A theoretical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members.
2. Communism
1. A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.
2. The Marxist-Leninist version of Communist doctrine that advocates the overthrow of capitalism by the revolution of the proletariat.
1. An advantageous gain or return; benefit.
2. The return received on a business undertaking after all operating expenses have been met.
3.
1. The return received on an investment after all charges have been paid. Often used in the plural.
2. The rate of increase in the net worth of a business enterprise in a given accounting period.
3. Income received from investments or property.
4. The amount received for a commodity or service in excess of the original cost.
Everyone here seems to want to make like the SCO guys are evil and believe in the lawsuit.
I don't believe that SCO has hidden ANYTHING, including code. There is no stolen code and SCO thinks this lawsuit is as goofy as we do. But they also believe that they'll make a quick buck on it.
So give them points for good humor. Give them points for having the balls to try it. Give them bonus points for not hiding or denying the fact that this is all just about making a quick buck for the execs of a dying company.
You just have to admire that.
These assholes are gonna laugh all the way to the bank and we're going to laugh right alone with them.
Even Linux creator Linus Torvalds took a healthy dump today.
Big whoop!
Those of us who aren't participating in this cult of personality get irritated seeing a stupid story like this. But then we read that Linus, the god himself, got involved and....well now I see why this stupid story made it to the "big time" of Slashdot.
Once again the Slashdot reaction is totally off base. No wonder SCO and Microsoft have so much trouble taking this crowd seriously.
From the article: "...when he contacted NetApp to purchase a maintenance agreement for the used system."
Two key words there: maintenance agreement.
First you have to remember that nobody is REQUIRED to provide that service. If you come to me and ask me to provide a service then I'm going to tell you what I will do and how much I want for it. If you don't like it then you can look elsewhere.
Anything else would be the same as you holding a gun to my head and forcing me to provide the service on your terms. That certainly isn't a fair business deal.
So you want to compare this to a Ford. Fine. Go get yourself a 96 Ford Contour with 100,000 miles on it from someone advertising in the local classifieds. Then drive or tow the thing down to your local Ford dealer and demand that they sell you a maintenance agreement for the same price as a current production model.
Go ahead, I'll wait.
Oh, you're back? Where's the car? Lemme guess, the guys at the dealership ended up pissing themselves from laughing so hard.
Maybe you should try again. Got that old Compaq 386 laptop out in the garage? Give Compaq/HP a call right now and tell them you want a 5 year maintenance agreement on the damn thing and you're not paying a penny more than $500 for it.
It must be because these are all corporations, right? We all know that anyone trying to do business and make a living is evil.
How about you? Would you want to operate the way Michael Tague expects?
Somehow I don't think that Mr. Tague would do business this way either if he were on the other side.
"As a morale boosting exercise, Bob the Builder was brought into our office."
At any of the places I've ever worked, that sort of thing would have killed morale. The more I think about it, the more insulting it seems.
First there is the idea of having a mascot. So the company thinks you're a bunch of high school kids and they're trying to pump you up for the big game?
Then there's the idea of a cartoon figure for 5 year olds as your mascot. I guess they don't even think of you as high school kids.
Thank the gods that I don't own a stake in your company. I would imagine that the owners of your company would prefer you guys to be working on turning a profit, not playing with toys you should have put away in first grade.
Slashdot Mirror
No! See, you just don't get it at all.
The amazing thing here is that this "graffiti for old white guys" is accepted and ignored by society. Millions of people every day pass these tiles without any thought to them.
Yet if I suggest something that has some logic behind it like creating a 51st state out of north Idaho, eastern Washingon and western Montana, people say I'm some sort of freak.
I could embed tiles in streets and go unnoticed. Yet if I speak my mind I'm labeled.
You know I'm getting sick and tired of people telling me that I'm weird, that I'm not well connected with reality. These tiles, at least to my way of thinking, are a perfect example of how weird this world is. People are putting these things everywhere and the world just keeps moving by them without a thought to them.
Without a thought! And yet the world calls me weird!
Fine, I want to try being normal. Will someone please send me one of these tiles so I can put one on the streets of Sandpoint. Then maybe I'll fit in.
The bullshit factor on this one is off the scale. At that age I knew damn good and well that you didn't point a weapon at ANYONE! It wasn't a law, it wasn't a rule, there was not "or else"....you just didn't do it, it was a way of life.
My boys are age 7 and 6. They play GTA. Yup, that's right. They play Quake and America's Army too. I let them blast things, kill things, tear apart things all day long on the TV. Neither boy has yet to fire an actual weapon although they have handled them.
Would they fire on cars like that?
Hell no.
I say that with total confidence.
The boys in this story knew EXACTLY what they were doing. Don't bullshit me and don't let them bullshit you. I didn't see any mention of retardation or mental issues in the story, they knew what they were doing.
Those boys need to get whacked and whacked hard. Yes, I'm talking murder charges. And don't give me the crap about their age and those being "adult" charges. If TN supports the death sentence they should make the trip to death row. I would hope for their sake that is the case because if not they should be made to face the torture of spending life in prison. Why? Because they knew what they were doing, and we all know it too.
For them to point the finger at a video game company is.....I just can't find words. For anyone else to go after a software business for this makes no sense to me at all.
Dammit, people tell me I don't make a lot of sense, that I'm not totally connected with the real world. I guess freakin not! In my mind nothing in this story makes any sense at all, it just doesn't mesh with my reality.
Getting an education is the important thing. Yes, in a perfect world we would love the kids to cut their teeth on high end machines running a high end OS and follow that up with a few years at MIT.
BUT....
Way back when I went to school, Apple was the driving force. Schools had Apple computers, that was a given. So I learned all the geeky computer stuff on an Apple II and a Franklin.
Was Apple my first computer purchase?
Hell no! When I finally had my first real job I was watching the money. IBM clones were cheaper and more were being sold. That would mean that somone with skills on IBM clones would make more money (or so I reasoned).
The point is that if Microsoft wants to start building schools, we should encourage that. Quit looking for the spook behind every curtain. Education is a good thing. Not every graduate of these schools will be a Microsoft zealot, but everyone of them will be educated.....and that makes our society better.
" Yeah...Mormons (also known as Latter Day Saints, from the full church title (official web site here [lds.org]) are christians..."
Weeeellllllll....sure. If you stretch the definition a bit. Ok, you have to stretch it a lot. But it seems you don't have to stretch it any more than SCO stretches the truth.
Finally a reply. It looks as if someone at SCO has been reading things here.
Here it is, make your own comments on spelling, grammer, etc.
"Thank you for your interest in SCO's Linux licensing program. Due to
the logistical challenges of licensing such a broadly installed
operating system, SCO's customer care team is currently collecting
contact information for all legitimate inquiries and then forwarding
these leads onto our sales representatives for follow up. If you would
like an SCO sales representative to contact you within the next 14 days,
please reply back with your company name, address and phone number. Or
you can visit our website at http://www.sco.com/scosource/ to find the
answers to most of your questions regarding the Linux licensing program.
Thank you again for your interest in SCO.
We apologies for not responding to your right away.
Kind Regards,
The SCO Customer Care Team"
It's not been for lack of effort. I have sent them 5 messages so far asking about licenses and offering to perhaps purchase. In one email I asked them for a cost breakdown of Linux (If their contributed code is worth $699 then how much is the remainder, the bulk of the code worth).
SCO hasn't even given me the courtesy of a reply.
In my last attempt to contact them I offered to purchase a license if they could prove the necessity. But I also mentioned that this was my fifth attempt at it and that if I did not hear back in 72 hours then I would consider them not to be serious about the license issue and proceed with business as usual.
SCO still hasn't given me the courtesy of a reply.
It's all a part of this vast right-wing conspiracy. And it's vast. It's so vast you can't even imagine. I'll even bet the goat sex boy is involved.
"It appears that starting October 15th I will not be able to talk to my MSN friend in South Korea."
MSN seems to have far too much control over your friend. I would have thought that your friend could have used AIM, Yahoo Messenger, IRC, email, amateur radio or any number of other things to communicate with you.
Let this serve as a warning to us then. If MSN has that much control of people in Korea then you know that they would like to have the same kind of control of us here.
This is as bad as any terrorist activity. I wouldn't mind seeing Microsoft execs and any sysadmins related to these problems brought up on charges of terrorist activities. Yeah, they would get off, but it might get the freakin point across.
No date tonight for you either?
"Corporations do not need to make a profit."
What then is the incentive to start or invest in a business?
Or do you propose that we all work for a collective?
The case isn't thrown out of court because it has the technical appearance of a real case. The RedHat company doesn't have to spend any money, they can choose not to fight.
This legal system that you suppose protects the marks is not what you think it is. I hate to shatter the dream for you on that, but it's true. The legal system is used every day to persue the dreams and goals of the people who use the system, it's not some superhero with superpowers who defends the underdog and the downtrodden.
You're talking about a system that, for example, takes things like police radar or polygraph and accepts them as fact. You can walk in to a court and prove that police radar is bull according to laws of physics, the court will agree with you. Then they will still take the admittedly false reading over your word. Even if you don't work for a corporation.
Here in the USA, corporations don't buy laws. That's an interesting idea (what country are you from). But corporations, as well as small businesses do need to make profit.
And theives? Well, we're always going to have those. So if we're going to have them let's have them like SCO: telling you right up front that they are taking you to the cleaners while playing the jester.
NortWind, you just have to look a bit harder to see the beauty of this. SCO isn't deceiving anyone!! (That is unless I'm right that there isn't any stolen code)
Remember high school when some kid would come up with some bullshit story about how his homework was eaten by the dog, or his friend put invisible ink in his pen so he had done his homework but the ink disappeared? That kid knew the story was bogus, so did the teacher and everyone else. But sometimes the story got you off the hook, usually if the story was creative enough or ballsy enough.
This is the kind of thing that SCO is doing. It's not dishonest because there is no way that anyone believes this crock of crap. But all the attention raised the stock prices and the execs and lawyers profit. Shady yes. But dishonest? Come on!
This is a huge gag and anybody losing money on it is dumb enough that they shouldn't be in possession of it anyway. I believe at Coney Island they call those people "marks".
NO, NO, NO!
You don't get it. I didn't say they were making an "honest profit" on the deal. That's the beauty of it. SCO execs and lawyers are taking their investers to the f'in cleaners with a totally bogus claim. They aren't being the least bit dishonest about that, they're laughing out loud. They haven't hidden the bogusness of thier claim.
I'm not saying it makes the profit honest. Just that they have the balls to do the equivelent of pointing to the sky and saying "oh look, a chicken" while they lift your wallet. It's funny!
Perhaps you're using the communist definition for profit.
communism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kmy-nzm)
n.
1. A theoretical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members.
2. Communism
1. A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.
2. The Marxist-Leninist version of Communist doctrine that advocates the overthrow of capitalism by the revolution of the proletariat.
profit ( P ) Pronunciation Key (prft)
n.
1. An advantageous gain or return; benefit.
2. The return received on a business undertaking after all operating expenses have been met.
3.
1. The return received on an investment after all charges have been paid. Often used in the plural.
2. The rate of increase in the net worth of a business enterprise in a given accounting period.
3. Income received from investments or property.
4. The amount received for a commodity or service in excess of the original cost.
"Profit is also known as "overcharging" btw."
I guess we took entirely different classes in business and economics.
I know, trying to make a profit and put food on the table is bad. Trying to make anything more than that is pure evil.
You guys have to keep reminding me about the commie/socialist mantra here. I just keep forgetting.
Everyone here seems to want to make like the SCO guys are evil and believe in the lawsuit.
I don't believe that SCO has hidden ANYTHING, including code. There is no stolen code and SCO thinks this lawsuit is as goofy as we do. But they also believe that they'll make a quick buck on it.
So give them points for good humor. Give them points for having the balls to try it. Give them bonus points for not hiding or denying the fact that this is all just about making a quick buck for the execs of a dying company.
You just have to admire that.
These assholes are gonna laugh all the way to the bank and we're going to laugh right alone with them.
Well of course it's flamebait, I spoke against the church of Linus!
Even Linux creator Linus Torvalds took a healthy dump today.
Big whoop!
Those of us who aren't participating in this cult of personality get irritated seeing a stupid story like this. But then we read that Linus, the god himself, got involved and....well now I see why this stupid story made it to the "big time" of Slashdot.
Once again the Slashdot reaction is totally off base. No wonder SCO and Microsoft have so much trouble taking this crowd seriously.
From the article:
"...when he contacted NetApp to purchase a maintenance agreement for the used system."
Two key words there: maintenance agreement.
First you have to remember that nobody is REQUIRED to provide that service. If you come to me and ask me to provide a service then I'm going to tell you what I will do and how much I want for it. If you don't like it then you can look elsewhere.
Anything else would be the same as you holding a gun to my head and forcing me to provide the service on your terms. That certainly isn't a fair business deal.
So you want to compare this to a Ford. Fine. Go get yourself a 96 Ford Contour with 100,000 miles on it from someone advertising in the local classifieds. Then drive or tow the thing down to your local Ford dealer and demand that they sell you a maintenance agreement for the same price as a current production model.
Go ahead, I'll wait.
Oh, you're back? Where's the car? Lemme guess, the guys at the dealership ended up pissing themselves from laughing so hard.
Maybe you should try again. Got that old Compaq 386 laptop out in the garage? Give Compaq/HP a call right now and tell them you want a 5 year maintenance agreement on the damn thing and you're not paying a penny more than $500 for it.
It must be because these are all corporations, right? We all know that anyone trying to do business and make a living is evil.
How about you? Would you want to operate the way Michael Tague expects?
Somehow I don't think that Mr. Tague would do business this way either if he were on the other side.
Sharp Zaurus: $200
SCO embedded license: $32
AMD 1900+ Barebones Complete: $225
SCO Linux license: $699
Complete Linux kernel: Priceless!
.
"As a morale boosting exercise, Bob the Builder was brought into our office."
At any of the places I've ever worked, that sort of thing would have killed morale. The more I think about it, the more insulting it seems.
First there is the idea of having a mascot. So the company thinks you're a bunch of high school kids and they're trying to pump you up for the big game?
Then there's the idea of a cartoon figure for 5 year olds as your mascot. I guess they don't even think of you as high school kids.
Thank the gods that I don't own a stake in your company. I would imagine that the owners of your company would prefer you guys to be working on turning a profit, not playing with toys you should have put away in first grade.