Apple ][ was the first beige computer that was mass-produced for the consumer market.
Just out of interest: I often see "Apple II" written "Apple ][" or (less frequently) "Apple//". "Apple ][" seems to be much more common than "Apple II". Why is this? Who started it?
My university had quite a few of those. Not unusual in itself, until you consider that I graduated last year. Those terminals are probably still in use. Cutting-edge technology or what?:-) What "computer science budget"?
Maybe it's just my Englishness coming through, but I think coffee is pretty disgusting, and I don't really rate colas either. The only caffeinacious drink I touch is tea, and I drink that because I like it, not "to get wired". Like someone else above said: if I'm tired, I go to sleep. I'd rather not keep myself awake and alert artificially.
I'm also sick to death of hearing how "awful" RedHat is. I've heard countless times how everyone should start with Slackware or some other difficult distro to "learn".
Yeah *sigh*; they seem to have the attitude "it was difficult for me, so it should be difficult for everyone else". To people who hold this view, I say: why should it be difficult for everyone else? Why not share your knowledge by helping others with their new Linux systems? You don't have to do everything for them. You don't have to spoonfeed them. By passing on your information, and helping new users understand what they're doing, you will be helping create new, knowledgeable Linux users.
It's a good thing that not everyone has the attitude of this vocal minority. Imagine sitting down in class, and the teacher saying "I had to struggle to learn [subject], so I don't see why I should help you lot. Read your textbooks and learn it yourselves. I'm off down the pub". (Okay, some teachers probably are that bad:-( but it's thankfully a minority).
Why the hell do people care which distro other people are using?
The kind of people who do are the kind of saddos who need to disparage the decisions of others in order to feel good about themselves. The world is full of such people:-(
The problem is, as always, where do you draw the line?
Yes. I mentioned in a post above (at the top level, one of the first) that a line has to be drawn somewhere[1], but I'm glad I'm not the one who has to draw it. For a start; I'd not know where to draw the line, and even if I did, I'd still cop flak from people who thought I was being too restrictive, and from other people who thought I was being too liberal.
[1]: I know that this point of view isn't really appreciated here, but I am in favour of drawing a line somewhere. I'm going to go off on a bit of a tangent here, so stop reading now if you don't care. Whilst freedom of expression is a Good Thing, it is a double-edged sword. There are some things which are so harmful, so destructive that I think it's in everyone's interests that they don't get said at all. Problem is, who decides? I couldn't decide for everyone, because I'm easily offended and would ban stuff that others wouldn't see the slightest problem with. It's a thorny issue. I can't agree with the "don't censor anything, let people make up their own minds, total free speech for all" solution though, because of what I said above; some things are just too bad to be tolerated.
I`m at work, and I can't let this stuff be seen on my computer.
I was looking for some MP3 sites this morning and the same thing happened.
This is one of the reasons that I browse the Web at work with images turned off, and only load them once I'm sure the site is okay.
I think that this kind of behaviour is worse than the actual porn sites, you can choose not to go there but when you are effectively taken against your will it is not acceptable.
Right on. I don't want to visit porn sites. I find porn offensive. If people want to put porn on the Web, that's up to them, but I object to being tricked into viewing their materiel. If I buy a subscription to a computer magazine, I wouldn't expect to be subscribed to Big Hooters Monthly as well.
So hey, what better way to get the pathetic sheep behind you than to promote "family values" at the expense of a minority (us)?
Which minority is that then? The minority that like using library computers to view pr0n?:-)
If this legislation were to go through, I think it'd impact the life of the average nerd very little. It's the principle of the thing that a lot of Slashdotters find distasteful.
In a so called democracy, why are you letting minorities (like the self confessed Christian above) run the show?
In a democracy, you let whoever gets the most votes run the show, no matter what their beliefs are.
You can't say "Christianity is a minority belief, so Christians shouldn't be in office" any more than you can say "The country is predominantly white, so only whites should run for office". If you find someone's beliefs objectionable then just don't vote for them:-) but they have as much right to campaign on a platform built on those beliefs as you would to campaign on a platform built on yours.
They understand what Slashdot is, and they respect that they can't change it without destroying what it is. So they are happy to guarantee (it's even in the contract!) that Hemos and I would retain full control of the site...
That's great news. I'm glad it's a contractual obligation.
I personally don't mind how Slashdot is run/owned/managed, just as long as editorial independence can be guaranteed. This contractual clause will ensure that. If this new arrangement means a faster and stabler Slashdot, I for one am all for it. Go Slashdot!
Some (all?) public libraries carry recent issues of magazines. I reckon that these libraries are pretty picky about the kinds of magazines they carry, and they'd not think for a moment about carrying top-shelf magazines.
Maybe they'd see Internet filtering in the same kind of way - choosing what materiel they want to be available through their systems. Whilst some people are going to scream "free speech", these computers are library resources and the library is free to decide what they get used for.
The flip side of this is that libraries carry literature like Lady Chatterley's Lover. Would materiel like that be filtered by the proposed filtering software?
I think a line has to be drawn somewhere, but I'm glad I'm not the one who has to draw it.
If it makes you feel better, you could release it under a free license so it is available to anyone who has an interest in souls. I'd recommend using the GPL, so Satan can't hoard it for himself.
It's been a while since I had any Darjeeling, but if memory serves it's not a particularly strong tea. I don't know whether strength of taste and caffeine content are connected though.
For the record, I prefer Assam or Kenyan tea. I couldn't make Darjeeling strong enough.
The mistaken assumption here is that most slashdot readers have even been using computers for 20 years.
Heehee, yes:-) If you'd said something to me 20 years ago about IBM, I'd have looked at you bewildered for a couple of seconds, and then gone back to my toy cars or colouring book:-)
I mean these laws are meant to protect the consumers from getting overcharged or bullied by big companies. Yet i havent seen a single consumer take the stand and say "They prevented me from downloading and installing Netscape!"
Some consumers have expressed annoyance that they were forced into buying an operating system they didn't want along with their computers. Some consumers even did something about it.
I doubt any of these people appeared as witnesses in court:-) But, hopefully, these stories were mentioned by a clueful lawyer as evidence of Microsoft's monopolistic position.
Essentially, the government (or plaintiff) has to prove that the price you're selling your product at is less than it costs to make it. So if my widget costs $5 and it takes $10 to make, it's bad.
I heard that games consoles such as the N64 and PSX are sold at less than cost price. By selling cheap hardware, Sony and Nintendo shift oodles of units and get them into lots of homes. They recoup the cost by putting high royalties on the games.
How, if at all, are they affected by this law? Since there's competition in the games console market, I guess it doesn't matter.
...n separate companies, all with access to the Windows source code. There would then be n companies competing in the Windows OS market.
I don't know how/if this would work. I have no clue about businesses, economics etc, I'm just a software engineer. It's an idea I read somewhere, and I thought it sounded interesting.
How many times is/. going to promote this flame thread by featuring all these GPL biased articles?....this is the second time I have seen this same phenominon and not once have I seen a comment for the other side
Here's a link to a Slashdot story published last month, about a pro-BSD article. I think this answers your point.
That Amiga hardware that *is* still out there running ought to be getting rather dodgy now - I know *my* A3000 requires multiple tries to boot correctly!
Have you been cruel to it over the course of its working life? My A1200 works like a charm. My Amstrad/Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2A, circa 1987, also works fine:-)
There's no place for commercial software. It's only hurtful, and if you would actually READ RMS's essays, maybe you would have a... clue why
Bzzzt, wrong!:-) RMS has no problem with "commercial" software at all; it's "proprietary" software that he campaigns against. An FSF text explaining the differences can be found at:
Communists. Hippies. Leave it to the stuffed shirts to fall back on such old fodder.
I find it sickening that people like Mr Metcalfe still use "communist" and "hippie" as terms of abuse. In certain circles, McCarthyism is evidently alive and well.
(we seem to get much less of this kind of rubbish in the UK, thankfully)
I think that the comparison between Emacs and Word was, well, silly. They're two different products, for two different purposes. The (indirect) slur against Emacs didn't help; though he didn't say it, I got the distinct impression that he was implying Emacs was hacked together in a short space of time.
This is somewhat off topic, but I thought I'd throw it in anyway.
When I was at school, before I went to university, I listened to a lot of orchestral music, particularly Mozart. My dad is a big fan of classical and romantic orchestral music, so I was exposed to it from quite an early age. At school, I was a straight A student in academic subjects.
When I was at university, my interest in orchestral music reduced to the point where I completely stopped listening to it. My grade average at university was much lower, and I graduated with a lower second (roughly equivalent to a C grade).
Now, there are lots of factors to be considered, such as the differences between learning and teaching styles at school and university, but I do wonder if the change in music listening habits contributed at all to my change in fortunes. Comments, anyone? Take it to email if you prefer, as this is rather off-topic. Follow the above link to my WWW page; there's a valid email address there (I post my email addy in as few places as possible due to spam paranoia).
Slashdot Mirror
Just out of interest: I often see "Apple II" written "Apple ][" or (less frequently) "Apple //". "Apple ][" seems to be much more common than "Apple II". Why is this? Who started it?
How would they power it? Solar power?
My university had quite a few of those. Not unusual in itself, until you consider that I graduated last year. Those terminals are probably still in use. Cutting-edge technology or what? :-) What "computer science budget"?
Maybe it's just my Englishness coming through, but I think coffee is pretty disgusting, and I don't really rate colas either. The only caffeinacious drink I touch is tea, and I drink that because I like it, not "to get wired". Like someone else above said: if I'm tired, I go to sleep. I'd rather not keep myself awake and alert artificially.
Yeah *sigh*; they seem to have the attitude "it was difficult for me, so it should be difficult for everyone else". To people who hold this view, I say: why should it be difficult for everyone else? Why not share your knowledge by helping others with their new Linux systems? You don't have to do everything for them. You don't have to spoonfeed them. By passing on your information, and helping new users understand what they're doing, you will be helping create new, knowledgeable Linux users.
It's a good thing that not everyone has the attitude of this vocal minority. Imagine sitting down in class, and the teacher saying "I had to struggle to learn [subject], so I don't see why I should help you lot. Read your textbooks and learn it yourselves. I'm off down the pub". (Okay, some teachers probably are that bad :-( but it's thankfully a minority).
The kind of people who do are the kind of saddos who need to disparage the decisions of others in order to feel good about themselves. The world is full of such people :-(
Yes. I mentioned in a post above (at the top level, one of the first) that a line has to be drawn somewhere[1], but I'm glad I'm not the one who has to draw it. For a start; I'd not know where to draw the line, and even if I did, I'd still cop flak from people who thought I was being too restrictive, and from other people who thought I was being too liberal.
[1]: I know that this point of view isn't really appreciated here, but I am in favour of drawing a line somewhere. I'm going to go off on a bit of a tangent here, so stop reading now if you don't care. Whilst freedom of expression is a Good Thing, it is a double-edged sword. There are some things which are so harmful, so destructive that I think it's in everyone's interests that they don't get said at all. Problem is, who decides? I couldn't decide for everyone, because I'm easily offended and would ban stuff that others wouldn't see the slightest problem with. It's a thorny issue. I can't agree with the "don't censor anything, let people make up their own minds, total free speech for all" solution though, because of what I said above; some things are just too bad to be tolerated.
This is one of the reasons that I browse the Web at work with images turned off, and only load them once I'm sure the site is okay.
Right on. I don't want to visit porn sites. I find porn offensive. If people want to put porn on the Web, that's up to them, but I object to being tricked into viewing their materiel. If I buy a subscription to a computer magazine, I wouldn't expect to be subscribed to Big Hooters Monthly as well.
Which minority is that then? The minority that like using library computers to view pr0n? :-)
If this legislation were to go through, I think it'd impact the life of the average nerd very little. It's the principle of the thing that a lot of Slashdotters find distasteful.
In a democracy, you let whoever gets the most votes run the show, no matter what their beliefs are.
You can't say "Christianity is a minority belief, so Christians shouldn't be in office" any more than you can say "The country is predominantly white, so only whites should run for office". If you find someone's beliefs objectionable then just don't vote for them :-) but they have as much right to campaign on a platform built on those beliefs as you would to campaign on a platform built on yours.
That's great news. I'm glad it's a contractual obligation.
I personally don't mind how Slashdot is run/owned/managed, just as long as editorial independence can be guaranteed. This contractual clause will ensure that. If this new arrangement means a faster and stabler Slashdot, I for one am all for it. Go Slashdot!
Some (all?) public libraries carry recent issues of magazines. I reckon that these libraries are pretty picky about the kinds of magazines they carry, and they'd not think for a moment about carrying top-shelf magazines.
Maybe they'd see Internet filtering in the same kind of way - choosing what materiel they want to be available through their systems. Whilst some people are going to scream "free speech", these computers are library resources and the library is free to decide what they get used for.
The flip side of this is that libraries carry literature like Lady Chatterley's Lover. Would materiel like that be filtered by the proposed filtering software?
I think a line has to be drawn somewhere, but I'm glad I'm not the one who has to draw it.
If it makes you feel better, you could release it under a free license so it is available to anyone who has an interest in souls. I'd recommend using the GPL, so Satan can't hoard it for himself.
It's been a while since I had any Darjeeling, but if memory serves it's not a particularly strong tea. I don't know whether strength of taste and caffeine content are connected though.
For the record, I prefer Assam or Kenyan tea. I couldn't make Darjeeling strong enough.
How about a nice civilized round of "stone, paper, scissors"?
Heehee, yes :-) If you'd said something to me 20 years ago about IBM, I'd have looked at you bewildered for a couple of seconds, and then gone back to my toy cars or colouring book :-)
Some consumers have expressed annoyance that they were forced into buying an operating system they didn't want along with their computers. Some consumers even did something about it.
I doubt any of these people appeared as witnesses in court :-) But, hopefully, these stories were mentioned by a clueful lawyer as evidence of Microsoft's monopolistic position.
I heard that games consoles such as the N64 and PSX are sold at less than cost price. By selling cheap hardware, Sony and Nintendo shift oodles of units and get them into lots of homes. They recoup the cost by putting high royalties on the games.
How, if at all, are they affected by this law? Since there's competition in the games console market, I guess it doesn't matter.
...n separate companies, all with access to the Windows source code. There would then be n companies competing in the Windows OS market.
I don't know how/if this would work. I have no clue about businesses, economics etc, I'm just a software engineer. It's an idea I read somewhere, and I thought it sounded interesting.
Here's a link to a Slashdot story published last month, about a pro-BSD article. I think this answers your point.
http://slashdot.org/articles/99/05/13/1317239.shtm l
Have you been cruel to it over the course of its working life? My A1200 works like a charm. My Amstrad/Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2A, circa 1987, also works fine :-)
Argh! And I don't have any Brasso!
Not that innaccurate, actually. I am easily discouraged, generally a negative thinker, and have a nice neutral English accent.
Bzzzt, wrong! :-) RMS has no problem with "commercial" software at all; it's "proprietary" software that he campaigns against. An FSF text explaining the differences can be found at:
http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/categories.html
I find it sickening that people like Mr Metcalfe still use "communist" and "hippie" as terms of abuse. In certain circles, McCarthyism is evidently alive and well.
(we seem to get much less of this kind of rubbish in the UK, thankfully)
I think that the comparison between Emacs and Word was, well, silly. They're two different products, for two different purposes. The (indirect) slur against Emacs didn't help; though he didn't say it, I got the distinct impression that he was implying Emacs was hacked together in a short space of time.
This is somewhat off topic, but I thought I'd throw it in anyway.
When I was at school, before I went to university, I listened to a lot of orchestral music, particularly Mozart. My dad is a big fan of classical and romantic orchestral music, so I was exposed to it from quite an early age. At school, I was a straight A student in academic subjects.
When I was at university, my interest in orchestral music reduced to the point where I completely stopped listening to it. My grade average at university was much lower, and I graduated with a lower second (roughly equivalent to a C grade).
Now, there are lots of factors to be considered, such as the differences between learning and teaching styles at school and university, but I do wonder if the change in music listening habits contributed at all to my change in fortunes. Comments, anyone? Take it to email if you prefer, as this is rather off-topic. Follow the above link to my WWW page; there's a valid email address there (I post my email addy in as few places as possible due to spam paranoia).