"You make it sound like people who don't use Linux cannot think."
Nothing of the sort.
If you had actually read my post, you would see that my point is simply that people who choose to use Linux are going to have to think.
Unlike some other fascist OS'es, which want to do all the thinking for you
"When you buy an iMac you plug the power cable in and the keyboard and mouse and press the power button. From there everything is done for you with little or no intervention."
Thanks, Big Brother, but no thanks!
(Big Brother? Wait - what about the Apple ad 'way 'way long ago? Wasn't that in 1984? How times have changed! Now it's "Don't think for yourself! We'll think for you!")
"I am amazed at the people who would never dream of stealing a book from a bookstore (and thus indirectly from the writer) but have no problem stealing music from the artists who create it."
Christ!
Every time I read this I want to strangle someone!
Idiot!
The music on Napster is not being stolen from some CD store, nor is it stolen from the artists!
It's a copy of some one person's copy of the CD that they bought!
Somebody, somewhere bought every single one of the cuts available through Napster!
This is an issue revolving about whether you, as the purchaser of a CD, has the right to make as many (any?) MP3-quality copies of the cuts and distribute them as you please!
The RIAA thinks you have no rights whatsoever regarding the use of the CD's you buy! You can listen to that one original, but that's it.
Don't forget that the issue of copying was unknown until MP3 quality copying became possible.
Hell, my kid's had a dual-well tape player since the very first one she got, when she was maybe five years old! What the hell do you think you're supposed to do with two-well tape decks? Make copies!
This whole deal is about whether you have the right (any right!?) to make and distribute MP3-quality copies of CD's you own!
Have you heard about the RIAA wanting the government to clamp down on the production and sales of blank cassette tapes? Hell no! The RIAA could care less about cassettes!
Inconsistent? You're damn straight!
I, for one, think we all should be able to make whatever copies we want to of our own personal property!
"Oh, well. I guess I'm just afflicted with a terrible case of outmoded ethics."
...where to start, except that Lewis' article brings back a lot of thoughts that I've been having about the tone of many discussions and posts that have been on/. recently...
"(In defense of Linus Torvalds, he wasn't trying to build a consumer OS, he was trying to create a freely available Unix-like kernel in the spirit....)"
Well, hello!
A whole heck of a lot of people have been critiqueing (sp?) Linux as though it set out from the start intending to become a world-dominant, Micro$oft killer OS.
And then they slam Linux 'cause they think it's doing a poor job of it.
But nothing of the sort is even faintly true.
Read this -- if you've read it before, read it again; if you've never read it, read it and then spend some time thinking about what it means in terms of the underlying core (kernel?) of Linux.
Linux came from a place entirely different than that which most recent supporters and critics of Linux think it did: it's only relatively recently, and as a complete digression to the original purpose, that "world domination" (even if Linus himself uses the phrase..) and IPO's and all the recent shit that's been going down have been artifically overlayed atop the real soul of Linux as an OS. Most of the recent shit that's been going down is utterly irrelevant to the way most of us use Linux, I'd bet...
So: Lewis.
He's a Mac fanatic.
Fine. I have no problem with that.
But he's comparing apples and oranges.
"Interestingly, the number one problems with Linux, from a consumer perspective, are that it doesn't have a standardised UI; its tools are simply too difficult to use and configure, and it requires far too much upfront learning to get up to speed.
Who ever said it was going to have a standardized UI? Many would say that that's exactly contrary to what the concept is: you don't have to take what comes out of the box.
"The last is the most telling: the Linux model moves the cost of learning from the developer to the user."
Again, Hello! Earth to Lewis! That's the way it's really been all along! You have to be willing to learn something, and to think, to use Linux.
And no matter what the marketing droids do, that will continue to be Linux's greatest strength.
...looking up stuff about Roszak and came across this quote-for-the-ages:
"Both Oppenheimer and Roszak feel much of the problem rests with computer companies, who have tried to persuade schools to buy computers by citing flawed studies showing improved academic performance among students versed in computer technology."
"With this in mind, Roszak's advice to educators is straightforward: "Find out what Bill Gates wants schools to do and don't do it."
Let's re-write that to:
"Let's find out what Bill Gates wants to do, and don't do it!"
(Score:3) by orpheus (burnedrectifier@hotmail.com) on 17:26 Tuesday 04 July 2000 PDT (User Info)
"I would like to retract my statement that Jose Bove is believed to have ordered the fatal Breton attack, and offer my personal thanks to those who corrected me on this point."
"I did not set out to malign him. I simply found that Katz' article didn't tell me anything about the person he was applauding. Hence the title and initially biographical tone of my post. I simply wanted facts. After over an hour of reading French/US articles, and getting contradictory impressions, I stumbled into some shocking (seeming) facts, which seemed too noteworthy to ignore."
"In the days after the April terrorist attack, Le Monde and several other media reported that "Jose Bove is being questioned by the authorities" -- but there were no corresponding headlines saying "Jose Bove seems to be cleared". Also search engines can lag 1-2 months behind content, so the few exculpatory 'minor articles' in May/June were not fully indexed "
"I feel paticularly embarrassed because I had a friend who was in a similar situation many years ago..."
All those who have been so quick to jump on the "Bove killed somebody inside that McDonalds!!!!" bandwagon would do well to read this, from the horse's mouth, in the thread under the oft-quoted post that started all this crap.
And a bunch of people apparently need to unwind and try reading Katz' post without freaking out: he's really addressing American corporatism, not *just* Bove..
Of course, it's more fun to freak out over Katz than think about what he says, isn't it?
"Middle America" is not so much a geographic reference, but rather a cultural identifier.
The coincidence that Kansas City is close to the geographic center of the US has little to do with the sort of Middle America I was refering to...
The Middle America I was refering to is more of a cultural, social and economic concept.
Certainly Washington State is Middle American: the rape of the Lake Sammamish Plateau to construct acre after acre of yuppie faux-mansions for M$ workers, all driving their Lexus SUV's while chatting on their cell phones, is the consumate new-school Middle America.
Kansas City represents the old-school Middle America, certainly, and I *still* don't think it's ready for Linux...
"The greater Kansas City area is not only one of the most conservative areas in the country, it's also an area where proprietary software reigns supreme in both server and workstation markets."
The real essence of M$ is that it provides a mass-market consumerist computing platform. Just buy it, put it on, and shut up. Then buy the new release/service pack, put it on, and shut up. When new features come out, buy it, put it on, and shut up. When the new features overrun your hardware, buy new hardware, and shut up.
That's the American Way®
Middle America, whether it be middle-aged white-guy IS managers, or just your average consumerist sheep, doesn't have a clue as to what Linux is all about, and really could care less!
To paraphrase the famous line about art:
"I may not know much about computers, but I know what I like."
Middle America likes Micro$oft, and doesn't see for a second why there is any question about the issue...
I think it's *real* interesting that the site portrays itself as the work of some concerned individual:
"I wish the need for this program didn't exist. Unfortunately, it does. There has been an explosion of online piracy of all types on different kinds of services- mainly because they disassociate the user from the feeling of stealing and allow them to act irresponsibly."
"Why did I write this application? I have a very clear interest in the success of the entertainment industry in the digital age. While many people try to argue their theft with variants of "information should be free" it is simply not true."
What a bunch of crap.
This is probably the work of some whore working for the RIAA.
There's no way to tell who's behind this: the domain is mediatracker.tripod.com, so they hosted by/hidden behind tripod.com, and the email mediatracker@hotmail.com is equally unhelpful.
Too bad the brother or sister who coded this can't be brought over from the Dark Side®, but they're probably too far gone...
Give some people enough money, and they'll do anything...
It's not a hoax: it's a stellar example of how businesses will develop a concept that's implemented poorly in an actual product, and then market that concept to idiots who aren't really thinking about what they're doing, but only trying to get some manager or vice-president-for-employee-control off their back...
v.p for employee-control: "Oh god! Some of our staff might be looking at pr0n when they should be working! DO SOMETHING!"
IS Lackey: "Yessir.. We'll get this software I read about that keeps anyone from looking at skin tones."
v.p.: "Excellent. That's why I keep you on here. Do it."
IS Lackey: "Consider it done, sir. My I lick your boots, now? umm.. Thank you, sir."
It's not a hoax.
It's some small company with no qualms about hypeing (sp?) a bogus product doing exactly that: hypeing a bogus product.
...in such a relatively short time, that it's very difficult to comprehend how *different* things were, not too very long ago.
I went through most of high school with a slide rule; it was a *very* big deal when I bought my first calculator, for hundreds of dollars, from Sears...
And yet, before that, a whole lot of computational stuff we now take for granted was all done mechanically.
...that a major reason M$ doesn't want to release its source code is simply due to embarrassment!
M$ knows that if they release the source code to any of their OS's that the first public reactions, after someone has even managed to wade through all of it, will be utter disbelief that it's mostly a crude hack, held together with the programming equivalent of duct tape...
I mean, how many billions of lines of code are supposed to be in Win 2000?
OK. So mp3.com's management hands off a shitload of money to get them out of *this* hole, and they hand off a bunch of money to get them out of the other holes they're in, and the "recording industry" cuts them in on a piece of the action in return.
If you think anybody involved in this is in any way looking out for your interests, you're nuts!
Sony wants $2.00 - $3.00 per track!
Come on!
The people get screwed, and the front offices of all of these damned corporations keep getting richer! (Oh: and of course the investors get rich, too..)
And just wait 'till you read the EULA for one of these downloaded tracks: I'll bet you 10-to-1 that you get to have only the one copy and therefore you (legally) can only load it onto one device at a time!
Want one copy for the car, or one for the Rio, as well as the one on your hdd?
"Hey, asshole! Pay us some more!"
If you think you've seen an EULA you didn't like before now, wait 'till these parasites get done with this one...
I'm going to pull together some actual citations RSN, but for the time being let me just say that there is considerable evidence that Microsoft was not, shall we say *forthright*, in it's dealings with IBM during the OS/2 years, which resulted in a situation where IBM withdrew with and went it alone, in a project that the upper levels of IBM arguably never really took seriously anyway.
And that was pretty much the last shot at someone developing another OS.
I mean, what's happened since? DR-DOS? hmmm..
So Micro$oft's cornering, and ultimate monopoly, of the PC OS market was pretty well founded some time ago, when a *lot* of people weren't really watching, and by the time anyone really spoke out about the monopoly it was *way* too late for the marketplace to do anything.
Which is why the government had to step in, too late and with too little.
But Micro$oft is not the best, or the most popular, or any of that.
For a *real* long time, Micro$soft has been simply the only show in town.
I just put the RHL 6.2 kernel and some other stuff on a 386DX-20, without X, and I don't see a sign of Netscape anywhere.
There's a helluva difference in installing an *application* as part of a default OS install, and insisting (as M$ did...) that IE was an *integral* *part* of the OS..
The main problem with your attitude is that it perpetuates the slow grinding descent of society into a bland, homogenized pool where everyone is exactly the same and everybody thinks exactly the same thoughts.
"Goddam: the guy's causing me problems because some idiot doesn't like what he says. Fuck 'em: he's outta here..." and you vaporize his account.
So you aid and abet some fucking bigot.
I hope you and your family sleep better at night for knowing that you own a business that feeds you and keeps a roof over your head.
And I hope anyone with a conscience gets as far away from you as they can, as fast as possible.
Slashdot Mirror
Nothing of the sort.
If you had actually read my post, you would see that my point is simply that people who choose to use Linux are going to have to think.
Unlike some other fascist OS'es, which want to do all the thinking for you
"When you buy an iMac you plug the power cable in and the keyboard and mouse and press the power button. From there everything is done for you with little or no intervention."
Thanks, Big Brother, but no thanks!
(Big Brother? Wait - what about the Apple ad 'way 'way long ago? Wasn't that in 1984? How times have changed! Now it's "Don't think for yourself! We'll think for you!")
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't
Christ!
Every time I read this I want to strangle someone!
Idiot!
The music on Napster is not being stolen from some CD store, nor is it stolen from the artists!
It's a copy of some one person's copy of the CD that they bought!
Somebody, somewhere bought every single one of the cuts available through Napster!
This is an issue revolving about whether you, as the purchaser of a CD, has the right to make as many (any?) MP3-quality copies of the cuts and distribute them as you please!
The RIAA thinks you have no rights whatsoever regarding the use of the CD's you buy! You can listen to that one original, but that's it.
Don't forget that the issue of copying was unknown until MP3 quality copying became possible.
Hell, my kid's had a dual-well tape player since the very first one she got, when she was maybe five years old! What the hell do you think you're supposed to do with two-well tape decks? Make copies!
This whole deal is about whether you have the right (any right!?) to make and distribute MP3-quality copies of CD's you own!
Have you heard about the RIAA wanting the government to clamp down on the production and sales of blank cassette tapes? Hell no! The RIAA could care less about cassettes!
Inconsistent? You're damn straight!
I, for one, think we all should be able to make whatever copies we want to of our own personal property!
"Oh, well. I guess I'm just afflicted with a terrible case of outmoded ethics."
No: you're an idiot!
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
Those who can't, teach.
(Disclaimer: this applies to the university/college level. Anybody teaching K-12 is not who I'm refering to with that little sarcasm...)
Anyway, the guy's lucky he doesn't have to get out and work in the real world.
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't
"(In defense of Linus Torvalds, he wasn't trying to build a consumer OS, he was trying to create a freely available Unix-like kernel in the spirit....)"
Well, hello!
A whole heck of a lot of people have been critiqueing (sp?) Linux as though it set out from the start intending to become a world-dominant, Micro$oft killer OS.
And then they slam Linux 'cause they think it's doing a poor job of it.
But nothing of the sort is even faintly true.
Read this -- if you've read it before, read it again; if you've never read it, read it and then spend some time thinking about what it means in terms of the underlying core (kernel?) of Linux.
Linux came from a place entirely different than that which most recent supporters and critics of Linux think it did: it's only relatively recently, and as a complete digression to the original purpose, that "world domination" (even if Linus himself uses the phrase..) and IPO's and all the recent shit that's been going down have been artifically overlayed atop the real soul of Linux as an OS. Most of the recent shit that's been going down is utterly irrelevant to the way most of us use Linux, I'd bet...
So: Lewis.
He's a Mac fanatic.
Fine. I have no problem with that.
But he's comparing apples and oranges.
"Interestingly, the number one problems with Linux, from a consumer perspective, are that it doesn't have a standardised UI; its tools are simply too difficult to use and configure, and it requires far too much upfront learning to get up to speed.
Who ever said it was going to have a standardized UI? Many would say that that's exactly contrary to what the concept is: you don't have to take what comes out of the box.
"The last is the most telling: the Linux model moves the cost of learning from the developer to the user."
Again, Hello! Earth to Lewis! That's the way it's really been all along! You have to be willing to learn something, and to think, to use Linux.
And no matter what the marketing droids do, that will continue to be Linux's greatest strength.
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't
"Both Oppenheimer and Roszak feel much of the problem rests with computer companies, who have tried to persuade schools to buy computers by citing flawed studies showing improved academic performance among students versed in computer technology."
"With this in mind, Roszak's advice to educators is straightforward: "Find out what Bill Gates wants schools to do and don't do it."
Let's re-write that to:
"Let's find out what Bill Gates wants to do, and don't do it!"
Sorry. Couldn't resist...
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't
(Score:3) by orpheus (burnedrectifier@hotmail.com) on 17:26 Tuesday 04 July 2000 PDT (User Info)
"I would like to retract my statement that Jose Bove is believed to have ordered the fatal Breton attack, and offer my personal thanks to those who corrected me on this point."
"I did not set out to malign him. I simply found that Katz' article didn't tell me anything about the person he was applauding. Hence the title and initially biographical tone of my post. I simply wanted facts. After over an hour of reading French/US articles, and getting contradictory impressions, I stumbled into some shocking (seeming) facts, which seemed too noteworthy to ignore."
"In the days after the April terrorist attack, Le Monde and several other media reported that "Jose Bove is being questioned by the authorities" -- but there were no corresponding headlines saying "Jose Bove seems to be cleared". Also search engines can lag 1-2 months behind content, so the few exculpatory 'minor articles' in May/June were not fully indexed "
"I feel paticularly embarrassed because I had a friend who was in a similar situation many years ago..."
All those who have been so quick to jump on the "Bove killed somebody inside that McDonalds!!!!" bandwagon would do well to read this, from the horse's mouth, in the thread under the oft-quoted post that started all this crap.
And a bunch of people apparently need to unwind and try reading Katz' post without freaking out: he's really addressing American corporatism, not *just* Bove..
Of course, it's more fun to freak out over Katz than think about what he says, isn't it?
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't
I think not!
t_t_b
--
The coincidence that Kansas City is close to the geographic center of the US has little to do with the sort of Middle America I was refering to...
The Middle America I was refering to is more of a cultural, social and economic concept.
Certainly Washington State is Middle American: the rape of the Lake Sammamish Plateau to construct acre after acre of yuppie faux-mansions for M$ workers, all driving their Lexus SUV's while chatting on their cell phones, is the consumate new-school Middle America.
Kansas City represents the old-school Middle America, certainly, and I *still* don't think it's ready for Linux...
t_t_b
--
"The greater Kansas City area is not only one of the most conservative areas in the country, it's also an area where proprietary software reigns supreme in both server and workstation markets."
The real essence of M$ is that it provides a mass-market consumerist computing platform. Just buy it, put it on, and shut up. Then buy the new release/service pack, put it on, and shut up. When new features come out, buy it, put it on, and shut up. When the new features overrun your hardware, buy new hardware, and shut up.
That's the American Way®
Middle America, whether it be middle-aged white-guy IS managers, or just your average consumerist sheep, doesn't have a clue as to what Linux is all about, and really could care less!
To paraphrase the famous line about art:
"I may not know much about computers, but I know what I like."
Middle America likes Micro$oft, and doesn't see for a second why there is any question about the issue...
"Linux?"
"What? That communist-hippie crap? Forget it!"
t_t_b
--
I remember Record-last-updated, and Record-created, and Database-last-updated...
Just wondering..
t_t_b
--
"I wish the need for this program didn't exist. Unfortunately, it does. There has been an explosion of online piracy of all types on different kinds of services- mainly because they disassociate the user from the feeling of stealing and allow them to act irresponsibly."
"Why did I write this application? I have a very clear interest in the success of the entertainment industry in the digital age. While many people try to argue their theft with variants of "information should be free" it is simply not true."
What a bunch of crap.
This is probably the work of some whore working for the RIAA.
There's no way to tell who's behind this: the domain is mediatracker.tripod.com, so they hosted by/hidden behind tripod.com, and the email mediatracker@hotmail.com is equally unhelpful.
Too bad the brother or sister who coded this can't be brought over from the Dark Side®, but they're probably too far gone...
Give some people enough money, and they'll do anything...
</conspiracy mode>
t_t_b
--
Hey! There's an idea!
There oughtta be a /. Hall of Fame, with a selection of the best posts ever!
I vote for this one, and the one about the Transmission Control Pixes and the Internet Pixes that was posted to the first DDoS discussion...
t_t_b
--
I did.
It's not a hoax: it's a stellar example of how businesses will develop a concept that's implemented poorly in an actual product, and then market that concept to idiots who aren't really thinking about what they're doing, but only trying to get some manager or vice-president-for-employee-control off their back...
v.p for employee-control: "Oh god! Some of our staff might be looking at pr0n when they should be working! DO SOMETHING!"
IS Lackey: "Yessir.. We'll get this software I read about that keeps anyone from looking at skin tones."
v.p.: "Excellent. That's why I keep you on here. Do it."
IS Lackey: "Consider it done, sir. My I lick your boots, now? umm.. Thank you, sir."
It's not a hoax.
It's some small company with no qualms about hypeing (sp?) a bogus product doing exactly that: hypeing a bogus product.
t_t_b
--
Since when-the-hell has naked human skin been pornographic?
Why is this always the equation:
naked = pornography = sex = bad
There is an absolute difference between nudity and pornography and sex.
nudity != pornography
nudity != sex
nudity != bad
Deal with it!
It's the utterly mindless tendency of unthinking, self-righteous people to equate the one with the other that needs to be remedied...
t_t_b
--
"Unlike most Internet filters, which search for keywords like 'sex', eyeguard checks for "excessive skin tones"."
What kind of skin tone? Caucasian? Negroid? Middle Eastern? Asian?
What if the image is black-and-white? What if it's been scanned and diddled-with too many times and the color balance is all off?
And excessive? What? What's going to happen to a site like www.speedo.com or www.jantzen.com?
(Hint: they're both swimwear...)
"Each time a suspect image is detected, the program will alert an office supervisor."
For christ's sake: what has to happen here is two things:
- the self-righteous minority of christian moral absolutists has got to lose its fear of the naked human body
- and fucking idiot supervisors and managers have got to establish serious web-use policies for their staff and enforce them
In my experience it's the supervisors themselves, and their pet lackeys, who are doing a whole lot of inappropriate surfing while at work.t_t_b
--
One's across the border to the north; one's down by Portland, OR
There's two of 'em: confusing as hell, on occasion..
t_t_b
--
I went through most of high school with a slide rule; it was a *very* big deal when I bought my first calculator, for hundreds of dollars, from Sears...
And yet, before that, a whole lot of computational stuff we now take for granted was all done mechanically.
Check out TIDE-PREDICTING MACHINE No. 2
"This machine was designed by Rollin A. Harris and E.G. Fischer and constructed in the instrument shop of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.
It was completed in 1910 and replaced the Ferrel Tide-Predicting Machine in 1912."
"The machine summed 37 constituents and was capable of tracing a curve graphically depicting the results."
Whoa! So you don't have to write down the output! Now that's a feature! But don't laugh! It was necessary to write down the output on previous models.
"It is about 11 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 6 feet high, and weighs approximately 2,500 pounds."
And this was state-of-the-art, at the time!
t_t_b
--
M$ knows that if they release the source code to any of their OS's that the first public reactions, after someone has even managed to wade through all of it, will be utter disbelief that it's mostly a crude hack, held together with the programming equivalent of duct tape...
I mean, how many billions of lines of code are supposed to be in Win 2000?
Oh! There's only millions of lines of code!
How svelte!
t_t_b
--
OK. So mp3.com's management hands off a shitload of money to get them out of *this* hole, and they hand off a bunch of money to get them out of the other holes they're in, and the "recording industry" cuts them in on a piece of the action in return.
If you think anybody involved in this is in any way looking out for your interests, you're nuts!
Sony wants $2.00 - $3.00 per track!
Come on!
The people get screwed, and the front offices of all of these damned corporations keep getting richer! (Oh: and of course the investors get rich, too..)
And just wait 'till you read the EULA for one of these downloaded tracks: I'll bet you 10-to-1 that you get to have only the one copy and therefore you (legally) can only load it onto one device at a time!
Want one copy for the car, or one for the Rio, as well as the one on your hdd?
"Hey, asshole! Pay us some more!"
If you think you've seen an EULA you didn't like before now, wait 'till these parasites get done with this one...
t_t_b
--
And that was pretty much the last shot at someone developing another OS.
I mean, what's happened since? DR-DOS? hmmm..
So Micro$oft's cornering, and ultimate monopoly, of the PC OS market was pretty well founded some time ago, when a *lot* of people weren't really watching, and by the time anyone really spoke out about the monopoly it was *way* too late for the marketplace to do anything.
Which is why the government had to step in, too late and with too little.
But Micro$oft is not the best, or the most popular, or any of that.
For a *real* long time, Micro$soft has been simply the only show in town.
And that's spelled MONOPOLY
t_t_b
--
There's a helluva difference in installing an *application* as part of a default OS install, and insisting (as M$ did...) that IE was an *integral* *part* of the OS..
t_t_b
--
Background, please...
t_t_b
--
Please!
Not while I'm eating lunch!
t_t_b
--
"Goddam: the guy's causing me problems because some idiot doesn't like what he says. Fuck 'em: he's outta here..." and you vaporize his account.
So you aid and abet some fucking bigot.
I hope you and your family sleep better at night for knowing that you own a business that feeds you and keeps a roof over your head.
And I hope anyone with a conscience gets as far away from you as they can, as fast as possible.
t_t_b
--
Sounds to me like another problem only the Windows folks have to worry about..
t_t_b
--