I'm the father of a 13-year-old girl, and I have several of her friends' numbers in my phone. Why? Here's a few reasons:
Thanks for taking the time to post an explanation, but throughout reading it all I could think of is:
It is precisely no one's business but your own.
The sexual-psychosis-fueled witch hunt has reached new levels when people feel they need to justify the presence of phone numbers in their contact list. Have the Western taliban really made this much progress towards paranoid dystopia?
Ah, don't let her mother's illness hurt her child.
If it happens again, when she shows up, call the police to explain that she's there, and you're caring for her until her mother returns. You're on record, and hey - there's a chance that the child will remember it, and grow up without inheriting her mother's sexual psychosis.
This is an honest question. Is there any reason to consider a Kindle Fire over the Nexus 7? Any reason at all?
I'm not intending this question as flamebait; I genuinely cannot understand why anyone would buy one of these devices. Locked bootloader? Android fork? Crappy interface? Ads?
Clearly people are buying them. I'd just like to know why.
Computer Science is not about coding or programming, it's about the practices behind it. If you want a coder, go hire a code monkey from your local technical college. If you want someone to design the software, make sure it's sane, and then hand it off to a code monkey, then hire a CS grad.
My friend, they are one and the same.
There is no such thing as a "code monkey." The term refers to someone who knocks out a lot of code (of varying quality). That's called programming.
A good coder understands what every line does, and how it expands to CPU instructions. They understand why unrolling loops can avoid pipeline stalls. They understand O(n) and algorithmic complexity, clean API design, and memory management.
The idea usually tossed around regarding CO2 emissions is a cap-and-trade system, modelled after the system created for SO2. That approach was to use market incentives rather than lots of regulations to get companies to reduce their emissions, and it's generally been a success in reducing acid rain. It was conceived of by civil servants at the EPA, but became law only in 1990 with the support of that well-known liberal George H.W. Bush. How exactly is that a "left's statist wet dream"?
Not that I disagree with the cap-and-trade system, but this is pretty contorted logic. It's isn't "not regulation" just because it uses taxes to encourage a change in behavior. It is regulation, just implemented in a roundabout way.
I want to preface this with: I love Samsung and have spent a lot of money on their products. I own a Captivate Glide, and am looking at the SGS3. I hope they triumph over Apple and cost them a lot of money in the marketplace.
But, if they roll out an update which removes this functionality from devices that have already been sold, I hope a class action lawsuit is filed against them.
Partly because removing functionality from a product that has been sold should be very illegal (criminal, not contract law), but also because it's important that every company suffers the consequences of software patents - regardless of whether or not they screw their customers by backing out functionality. I hope billions of dollars are wasted on this garbage, so that the situation ultimately becomes untenable. One day, multinational corporations will, together, take a step back and realize that this nonsense must stop.
As an example, my wife has two scars between her breasts from burning hot shells from a 50 cal machine gun while she was in Iraq. Because she's a D-cup the body armor she was wouldn't fit tight against the neck area like it does on a man.. she describes it as nearly impossible to reach down and grab the shell, sometimes there wasn't time to do anything about it.
A 50-cal machine gun? Good lord.. what was she shooting?
It's a bit more energy than that, but it's not a remarkable amount of energy. 1.85MJ is enough to turn just under 1L of water from 100C liquid phase to 100C vapour phase. ie - it's enough to boil 1L of water, if the water is already at the boiling point.
Admittedly, I'm tired. But, in case anyone made the same mental mistake as me - this is roughly how much energy is required to boil off an entire 1L pot of water once it has reached 100C, not the amount to merely cause it to start boiling.
..which is a lot more than rubbing one's hands together - more like the energy released when biking for an hour (513.9Wh, specifically).
Stop Hating Religions because you just don't follow them.
For many of us, wether or not we follow something is of little relevance to our opinion on the subject.
Many of us hate religion because, frankly, it's a psychosis induced by our fear of the unknown, exploited by the wealthy and the power-seekers. The indoctrinated occasionally become immune to logic and reason, and present a huge problem to the rest of us living in the 21st century.
For those about to mod me down as flamebate: this is how I, and many here actually feel, and our frustration is not without considerable merit. Just look at the damage that's being done to the education system. Or sexual identity. Or genetic research. Or the climate. Or women and girls in Islamic societies.
Don't confuse hating a belief system with hating the believers.
Just a suggestion; you shouldn't delete any backups prior to writing (and possibly verifying) your new backup. Imagine what would happen if your disks failed during your backup. It's more likely than you think; it's a period of intense I/O. I've personally had it happen during raid reconstruction.
You might consider timestamping your backups, and deleting all but the most recent 3 after a successful backup.
Guys, can we all make an effort to start calling it what it really is?
Copy restriction.
The word "protection" was chosen by proponents to steer the debate on whether or not the practice is acceptable.
Frankly, I think it would be appropriate to offer a choice to content vendors: either use DRM/copy restriction, or receive the force of law in protection of your copyright. Not both. And, it would make sense; copyright is an exchange of limited monopoly, so if content is encrypted, they're not holding up their end of the bargain. Who's to say the key will be around when the copyright expires?
To be honest, it's surprising that more people don't know about Stallman's positions on these issues. You'd think such controversial positions would be more widely reported.
As you stated earlier in one of your posts, many of us are unusually logical/rational ("nerds"). Working with technical systems, day-in, and day-out, we tend to minimize the impact our emotions have on our thought processes.
Even if someone intervenes and solves this legal issue, I don't think that's good enough. Having access to tinker and enhance is the reason these devices exist at all.
Imagine if 90s PCs were crippled this way. Would Linux, or its multibillion dollar server industry even exist? Apache? Tomcat? Free software can't survive in such a hostile environment. The anti-intellectualism must stop.
While we do have the ability to call the shots, I suggest that the next GPL revision include an additional clause:
Redistribution privileges granted by the GPLv4 are revoked from all manufacturers who ship devices that don't provide to the end user an easy, supported method of superuser privilege escalation.
The good news is, it would have two effects. Smart vendors would fix their devices to comply. The evil ones would fork the kernel and anything else using the new license, and eventually die off without community support.
Remember. We have the money, and we have the power. Not Hollywood. Hollywood is irrelevant.
I feel a sense of shame when I say this. My entire life, I've been a classic socialist liberal. But the older I get, the more "conservative" principles I seem to be latching on to.
The more I hear about ultra-religious cultures, the more I realize that not all cultures are equal. Some cultures are reasonable (I won't say good), and some are, quite simply, bad. Inhumane. Disgusting.
I've been out to protest war more often than I can count (Iraq 1 & 2, Afghanistan, Lebanon/Israel.. possibly soon US/Iran), and still feel that war is fundamentally wrong. But, do I feel so because it involves killing and destruction? Or that they're usually for profit and undeserved control?
Because as bad as it sounds.. I would love to see the people responsible for this particular outrage (like so many) put up against a wall and shot. And that fills me with shame.:(
It's not that I disagree with what these religious nuts, or what they say. It's that they're hurting people not in defense of themselves or others.
Why is it we humans make war for profit, but not for gross violations of human rights?
I'm going to go right on out and not pussyfoot around here.
Yes, you need a smartphone. If you're "poor," you can get by without data. If you're not, you also need data.
Do you listen to music while walking or taking the metro?
Do you like to take photos or videos of your friends, places, and experiences so that you can reminisce years later?
Are you a popular person with many friends? Are you a professional with many acquaintances? Do you have a large extended family? Do you like to be reminded of their birthdays and meetings/appointments, and do you want to keep track of their contact information and addresses?
Do you feel more comfortable knowing you have a mobile telephone in case of emergencies?
Do you drive a lot, and need help with navigation? If you take public transit, is it beneficial to be carrying a map of the metro / bus schedule at all times?
Is it more efficient for you to send a quick text message than call a loved one because you're going to be late?
Do you go restaurant hunting? When you travel, do you find it convenient to be able to find reviews on local entertainment venues?
Is your memory imperfect? Do you write things down, so that you don't forget them?
Do you fly a lot? Do you ever have to sit around an airport terminal for an hour, wishing you had something to occupy your time?
Are you ever on-call? Are you ever concerned about the status of a project / a friend's condition / a significant news event while enjoying otherwise leisure time?
Have you ever wanted to troubleshoot a "check engine" light, to save money? Watch the stars at night, and wonder "where did Jupiter go?" Have a friendly debate about what atomic number oxygen is? Need to transport large files between two non-networked computers?
If you answered "yes" to one or more of the preceding questions, you need a smartphone. Not "need" as in you need water to live. Need as in it would be a positive introduction to your life.
Tablet sales? iPad is outselling Android tablets. One would hope so, given how new Android tablets are, and given ICS, the first real tablet release of Android literally just came out.
But can you honestly expect such a closed, limited proprietary OS to compete long-term against one that's open source, free, and available to tens or hundreds of manufacturers?
If apple doesn't change their policies on IOS, it will be relegated to the same space as OSX - a nieche market for consumers with lots of money, and very specific tasks.
Don't get me wrong; I hope Apple opens up, if for no other reason than the market needs healthy competition. But to say Apple is winning the battle is laughable.
I recently left the n900 world for an Android phone - my first - the Samsung Captivate Glide (SGH-I927).
I expected to root it easily; I hadn't realized how hostile manufacturers are becoming towards their customers. Indeed, as I write this, I still haven't succeeded. It actually feels like I may be the only person in the world who bought this device, which, to me, is utterly confounding.
What happened to qwerty phones? Why did they fall so far in popularity? I find it excruciating to surrender half my screen real estate to an on-screen keyboard.
This Nexus S looks great, and is easy to root and flash, which is nice. But, without a keyboard? To me.. useless. Come on Google! Put some weight behind a qwerty model of this!
And for the love of god, start playing hardball with manufacturers that lock their bootloaders and fail to provide a clean method of rooting! Simply deny them access to the Google utilities.
Today's phones don't have the hardware to pull this off effectively. But, tomorrow's phones will arrive. They might include hardware hypervisor support (perhaps they already do) like modern x86 processors, dramatically increasing virtualization efficiency. Today's phones ship with 512-1GiB RAM, but you'll have trouble finding a (leading edge) phone with so little in 5 years.
But what is the advantage?
Simple. Security.
Imagine being able to snapshot your phone to try a new piece of software. Turns out to be malware? Hoses your phone or leaves traces of itself behind after uninstall? Revert the snapshot.
Want to be able to give your wife (or friend) your phone, but don't want to shut down your business applications? Flip VMs to a "public" phone. Your address book is hidden away, your meeting announcements are invisible, your email is safe. You can even let them install software in the other VM with a much lower risk (after taking a snapshot, of course), and suspend the instance when they're done.
Entire VMs could be encrypted and provisioned by your IT staff, to meet the needs of policy. Those irritating 5-minute auto-screen-locks? Now it's only a problem on your "work" phone. At the end of the day, flip back to your personal device, and you're good to go - all the while your email continues to download in the background.
Company decides to remote-wipe? There goes the VM. But only the VM. You're still as mobile as you ever were.
How about instance cloning? Buy a new phone, transfer your virtualized instance over, and you're back in business.
I think the possibilities for phone virtualization would be endless!
Man. I don't know what else to say except... the 90s called.
Open source software runs the world (Apache, Tomcat, Linux, PHP, MySQL), and a significant portion of the desktop world, if you consider Firefox, LibreOffice/OpenOffice, KDE, Gnome, etc.
User requirements are unique enough that there is room for multiple players! We on the OSS side do not want 100% market share. In fact, most of us don't care about market share. What we do want is good, secure software that works correctly.
You don't need features. Cool. You want it to look a way you're accustomed to. Excellent. You also want clean, well-written documentation that's up to date. I get it. We all get it.
So go buy your proprietary software.
The rest of us our perfectly content to continue doing our thing.
Star Control 2 was one of the defining games and experiences of my life; my brother and I played through it together when we were 8 and 10 respectively, and it was monumentally influential on us. Paul Reich and Fred Ford became his idols, and he went on to became a coder. The struggle for freedom influenced me, and a few weeks later found a copy of Slackware and became a *nix admin.
Coincidence? Ok, maybe.:) But still a spectacular game with a truly epic story.
I'd actually recommend the DOS version under dosbox, without the 3DO voice acting, as it leaves more to the imagination.
So in other words, your morality is superior and that enables you to silence disagreeable groups, because it's in our best interest (or at least what you consider to be so). Nice one, there. You're not so different from them. Not so different at all. Do you know what a "heel realization" is?
Sorry; I meant that a little tongue-in-cheek. Didn't come through well.:)
What I meant was - it is a good thing our forefathers fought for and enshrined the rights they did in the constitution, because we all have groups we'd like silenced. I think these moralists damage society, in the same way they think I (an a-moralist?) damage society. Luckily, our government lacks the privilege required to silence either of us.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm the father of a 13-year-old girl, and I have several of her friends' numbers in my phone. Why? Here's a few reasons:
Thanks for taking the time to post an explanation, but throughout reading it all I could think of is:
It is precisely no one's business but your own.
The sexual-psychosis-fueled witch hunt has reached new levels when people feel they need to justify the presence of phone numbers in their contact list. Have the Western taliban really made this much progress towards paranoid dystopia?
Ah, don't let her mother's illness hurt her child.
If it happens again, when she shows up, call the police to explain that she's there, and you're caring for her until her mother returns. You're on record, and hey - there's a chance that the child will remember it, and grow up without inheriting her mother's sexual psychosis.
This is an honest question. Is there any reason to consider a Kindle Fire over the Nexus 7? Any reason at all?
I'm not intending this question as flamebait; I genuinely cannot understand why anyone would buy one of these devices. Locked bootloader? Android fork? Crappy interface? Ads?
Clearly people are buying them. I'd just like to know why.
Computer Science is not about coding or programming, it's about the practices behind it. If you want a coder, go hire a code monkey from your local technical college. If you want someone to design the software, make sure it's sane, and then hand it off to a code monkey, then hire a CS grad.
My friend, they are one and the same.
There is no such thing as a "code monkey." The term refers to someone who knocks out a lot of code (of varying quality). That's called programming.
A good coder understands what every line does, and how it expands to CPU instructions. They understand why unrolling loops can avoid pipeline stalls. They understand O(n) and algorithmic complexity, clean API design, and memory management.
Bad coders don't.
Don't over-complexify the issue.
The idea usually tossed around regarding CO2 emissions is a cap-and-trade system, modelled after the system created for SO2. That approach was to use market incentives rather than lots of regulations to get companies to reduce their emissions, and it's generally been a success in reducing acid rain. It was conceived of by civil servants at the EPA, but became law only in 1990 with the support of that well-known liberal George H.W. Bush. How exactly is that a "left's statist wet dream"?
Not that I disagree with the cap-and-trade system, but this is pretty contorted logic. It's isn't "not regulation" just because it uses taxes to encourage a change in behavior. It is regulation, just implemented in a roundabout way.
I want to preface this with: I love Samsung and have spent a lot of money on their products. I own a Captivate Glide, and am looking at the SGS3. I hope they triumph over Apple and cost them a lot of money in the marketplace.
But, if they roll out an update which removes this functionality from devices that have already been sold, I hope a class action lawsuit is filed against them.
Partly because removing functionality from a product that has been sold should be very illegal (criminal, not contract law), but also because it's important that every company suffers the consequences of software patents - regardless of whether or not they screw their customers by backing out functionality. I hope billions of dollars are wasted on this garbage, so that the situation ultimately becomes untenable. One day, multinational corporations will, together, take a step back and realize that this nonsense must stop.
As an example, my wife has two scars between her breasts from burning hot shells from a 50 cal machine gun while she was in Iraq. Because she's a D-cup the body armor she was wouldn't fit tight against the neck area like it does on a man.. she describes it as nearly impossible to reach down and grab the shell, sometimes there wasn't time to do anything about it.
A 50-cal machine gun? Good lord.. what was she shooting?
Check for read errors, ...
find /media/CDROM -type f -exec cat \; >/dev/null
or something. CDs have a large amount of redundancy, but maybe it's degraded sufficiently
If you have read access to the block device (ie. root or group read access), an even faster method:
dd if=/dev/scd0 of=/dev/null bs=1024k
(or equivalent CD block device; check with 'mount | grep cdrom' after you've mounted the CD filesystem).
This does a full linear block-level read from the CD device and avoids the seeking that would be necessary when scanning at the filesystem level.
It's a bit more energy than that, but it's not a remarkable amount of energy. 1.85MJ is enough to turn just under 1L of water from 100C liquid phase to 100C vapour phase. ie - it's enough to boil 1L of water, if the water is already at the boiling point.
Admittedly, I'm tired. But, in case anyone made the same mental mistake as me - this is roughly how much energy is required to boil off an entire 1L pot of water once it has reached 100C, not the amount to merely cause it to start boiling.
..which is a lot more than rubbing one's hands together - more like the energy released when biking for an hour (513.9Wh, specifically).
Stop Hating Religions because you just don't follow them.
For many of us, wether or not we follow something is of little relevance to our opinion on the subject.
Many of us hate religion because, frankly, it's a psychosis induced by our fear of the unknown, exploited by the wealthy and the power-seekers. The indoctrinated occasionally become immune to logic and reason, and present a huge problem to the rest of us living in the 21st century.
For those about to mod me down as flamebate: this is how I, and many here actually feel, and our frustration is not without considerable merit. Just look at the damage that's being done to the education system. Or sexual identity. Or genetic research. Or the climate. Or women and girls in Islamic societies.
Don't confuse hating a belief system with hating the believers.
Just a suggestion; you shouldn't delete any backups prior to writing (and possibly verifying) your new backup. Imagine what would happen if your disks failed during your backup. It's more likely than you think; it's a period of intense I/O. I've personally had it happen during raid reconstruction.
You might consider timestamping your backups, and deleting all but the most recent 3 after a successful backup.
Something like:
.. should clean up them nicely.
Should drawings of killings be considered the same as murder?
Bah, it's just murder. Nothing to be afraid of. Sex, on the other hand...
Guys, can we all make an effort to start calling it what it really is?
Copy restriction.
The word "protection" was chosen by proponents to steer the debate on whether or not the practice is acceptable.
Frankly, I think it would be appropriate to offer a choice to content vendors: either use DRM/copy restriction, or receive the force of law in protection of your copyright. Not both. And, it would make sense; copyright is an exchange of limited monopoly, so if content is encrypted, they're not holding up their end of the bargain. Who's to say the key will be around when the copyright expires?
To be honest, it's surprising that more people don't know about Stallman's positions on these issues. You'd think such controversial positions would be more widely reported.
As you stated earlier in one of your posts, many of us are unusually logical/rational ("nerds"). Working with technical systems, day-in, and day-out, we tend to minimize the impact our emotions have on our thought processes.
As such, many of us, in fact, agree with him.
Even if someone intervenes and solves this legal issue, I don't think that's good enough. Having access to tinker and enhance is the reason these devices exist at all.
Imagine if 90s PCs were crippled this way. Would Linux, or its multibillion dollar server industry even exist? Apache? Tomcat? Free software can't survive in such a hostile environment. The anti-intellectualism must stop.
While we do have the ability to call the shots, I suggest that the next GPL revision include an additional clause:
Redistribution privileges granted by the GPLv4 are revoked from all manufacturers who ship devices that don't provide to the end user an easy, supported method of superuser privilege escalation.
The good news is, it would have two effects. Smart vendors would fix their devices to comply. The evil ones would fork the kernel and anything else using the new license, and eventually die off without community support.
Remember. We have the money, and we have the power. Not Hollywood. Hollywood is irrelevant.
I feel a sense of shame when I say this. My entire life, I've been a classic socialist liberal. But the older I get, the more "conservative" principles I seem to be latching on to.
The more I hear about ultra-religious cultures, the more I realize that not all cultures are equal. Some cultures are reasonable (I won't say good), and some are, quite simply, bad. Inhumane. Disgusting.
I've been out to protest war more often than I can count (Iraq 1 & 2, Afghanistan, Lebanon/Israel.. possibly soon US/Iran), and still feel that war is fundamentally wrong. But, do I feel so because it involves killing and destruction? Or that they're usually for profit and undeserved control?
Because as bad as it sounds.. I would love to see the people responsible for this particular outrage (like so many) put up against a wall and shot. And that fills me with shame. :(
It's not that I disagree with what these religious nuts, or what they say. It's that they're hurting people not in defense of themselves or others.
Why is it we humans make war for profit, but not for gross violations of human rights?
I'm going to go right on out and not pussyfoot around here.
Yes, you need a smartphone. If you're "poor," you can get by without data. If you're not, you also need data.
Do you listen to music while walking or taking the metro?
Do you like to take photos or videos of your friends, places, and experiences so that you can reminisce years later?
Are you a popular person with many friends? Are you a professional with many acquaintances? Do you have a large extended family? Do you like to be reminded of their birthdays and meetings/appointments, and do you want to keep track of their contact information and addresses?
Do you feel more comfortable knowing you have a mobile telephone in case of emergencies?
Do you drive a lot, and need help with navigation? If you take public transit, is it beneficial to be carrying a map of the metro / bus schedule at all times?
Is it more efficient for you to send a quick text message than call a loved one because you're going to be late?
Do you go restaurant hunting? When you travel, do you find it convenient to be able to find reviews on local entertainment venues?
Is your memory imperfect? Do you write things down, so that you don't forget them?
Do you fly a lot? Do you ever have to sit around an airport terminal for an hour, wishing you had something to occupy your time?
Are you ever on-call? Are you ever concerned about the status of a project / a friend's condition / a significant news event while enjoying otherwise leisure time?
Have you ever wanted to troubleshoot a "check engine" light, to save money? Watch the stars at night, and wonder "where did Jupiter go?" Have a friendly debate about what atomic number oxygen is? Need to transport large files between two non-networked computers?
If you answered "yes" to one or more of the preceding questions, you need a smartphone. Not "need" as in you need water to live. Need as in it would be a positive introduction to your life.
This can only be good news for North American politics. Die, TV, die!
You know why Apple is winning the tablet and phone market? Here's a hint:
Um, what?
Here's a hint for you. For every iPhone sold, two Android devices are sold.
Tablet sales? iPad is outselling Android tablets. One would hope so, given how new Android tablets are, and given ICS, the first real tablet release of Android literally just came out.
But can you honestly expect such a closed, limited proprietary OS to compete long-term against one that's open source, free, and available to tens or hundreds of manufacturers?
If apple doesn't change their policies on IOS, it will be relegated to the same space as OSX - a nieche market for consumers with lots of money, and very specific tasks.
Don't get me wrong; I hope Apple opens up, if for no other reason than the market needs healthy competition. But to say Apple is winning the battle is laughable.
I recently left the n900 world for an Android phone - my first - the Samsung Captivate Glide (SGH-I927).
I expected to root it easily; I hadn't realized how hostile manufacturers are becoming towards their customers. Indeed, as I write this, I still haven't succeeded. It actually feels like I may be the only person in the world who bought this device, which, to me, is utterly confounding.
What happened to qwerty phones? Why did they fall so far in popularity? I find it excruciating to surrender half my screen real estate to an on-screen keyboard.
This Nexus S looks great, and is easy to root and flash, which is nice. But, without a keyboard? To me.. useless. Come on Google! Put some weight behind a qwerty model of this!
And for the love of god, start playing hardball with manufacturers that lock their bootloaders and fail to provide a clean method of rooting! Simply deny them access to the Google utilities.
To all the naysayers in here, consider:
Today's phones don't have the hardware to pull this off effectively. But, tomorrow's phones will arrive. They might include hardware hypervisor support (perhaps they already do) like modern x86 processors, dramatically increasing virtualization efficiency. Today's phones ship with 512-1GiB RAM, but you'll have trouble finding a (leading edge) phone with so little in 5 years.
But what is the advantage?
Simple. Security.
Imagine being able to snapshot your phone to try a new piece of software. Turns out to be malware? Hoses your phone or leaves traces of itself behind after uninstall? Revert the snapshot.
Want to be able to give your wife (or friend) your phone, but don't want to shut down your business applications? Flip VMs to a "public" phone. Your address book is hidden away, your meeting announcements are invisible, your email is safe. You can even let them install software in the other VM with a much lower risk (after taking a snapshot, of course), and suspend the instance when they're done.
Entire VMs could be encrypted and provisioned by your IT staff, to meet the needs of policy. Those irritating 5-minute auto-screen-locks? Now it's only a problem on your "work" phone. At the end of the day, flip back to your personal device, and you're good to go - all the while your email continues to download in the background.
Company decides to remote-wipe? There goes the VM. But only the VM. You're still as mobile as you ever were.
How about instance cloning? Buy a new phone, transfer your virtualized instance over, and you're back in business.
I think the possibilities for phone virtualization would be endless!
Man. I don't know what else to say except... the 90s called.
Open source software runs the world (Apache, Tomcat, Linux, PHP, MySQL), and a significant portion of the desktop world, if you consider Firefox, LibreOffice/OpenOffice, KDE, Gnome, etc.
User requirements are unique enough that there is room for multiple players! We on the OSS side do not want 100% market share. In fact, most of us don't care about market share. What we do want is good, secure software that works correctly.
You don't need features. Cool. You want it to look a way you're accustomed to. Excellent. You also want clean, well-written documentation that's up to date. I get it. We all get it.
So go buy your proprietary software.
The rest of us our perfectly content to continue doing our thing.
I move that we promote censorship to a crime against humanity. It is torture and starvation of the mind, and disgusting on every level.
Star Control 2 was one of the defining games and experiences of my life; my brother and I played through it together when we were 8 and 10 respectively, and it was monumentally influential on us. Paul Reich and Fred Ford became his idols, and he went on to became a coder. The struggle for freedom influenced me, and a few weeks later found a copy of Slackware and became a *nix admin.
Coincidence? Ok, maybe. :) But still a spectacular game with a truly epic story.
I'd actually recommend the DOS version under dosbox, without the 3DO voice acting, as it leaves more to the imagination.
So in other words, your morality is superior and that enables you to silence disagreeable groups, because it's in our best interest (or at least what you consider to be so). Nice one, there. You're not so different from them. Not so different at all. Do you know what a "heel realization" is?
Sorry; I meant that a little tongue-in-cheek. Didn't come through well. :)
What I meant was - it is a good thing our forefathers fought for and enshrined the rights they did in the constitution, because we all have groups we'd like silenced. I think these moralists damage society, in the same way they think I (an a-moralist?) damage society. Luckily, our government lacks the privilege required to silence either of us.