If you don't give the learning algorithm (and that's what the "awesomebar" is) a chance, it will never learn to put slashdot at the top of your list when you begin with "s". There's presumably a way to force slashdot to the top using keywords (say, "s"), but I haven't played with those yet.
The location bar is for URLs. Not page titles. Not search queries. Just addresses.
They're going for the mass market. You know, the kind of people who will give you a blank, slack-jawed stare when you try to explain what a URL is?
And the penalty for violating said proprietary, closed-source recipe is not only a visit from Microsoft Legal, but also the angry dessert chef and/or Ballmer's mother.
The US already did it, but not the legislature. Had this been tried here and the President opposed it, it would've been vetoed-- though with this administration, they probably would've had a big Nuremberg-style rally along with the signing.
The legislature (Congress), judiciary (Supreme Court) and the public would surely have balked at the NSA installing a secret cabinet in the backbones of the US Internet, so the White House did it by wartime executive order. The problem with this is, it is unconstitutional except in a very, very narrow definition of a wartime "Commander in Chief", i.e. a dictatorship. A much greater problem is that the White House circumvented Congress and the courts because they regarded such consultation as unnecessary, and this is largely the reason why they're pushing for telecom amnesty and fighting to squash litigation using state secrets privileges.
<conspiracytheorist>Since these are likely to fail, these are most likely delaying tactics until Rove can bamboozle those still watching Fox News to vote into power McCain, who can then pardon Bush, Cheney, and the rest.</conspiracytheorist>
If you're going to pin anyone on this, pin it on those who set the policy that "If it ain't on the screen, the caller is trying to scam us." All of the database stupidity you've encountered could more easily be attributed to corporate incompetence than a handful of developers making stupid assumptions.
That, and hard-headed South Asian call center reps. Once they believe they're right, they can be quite stubborn.
And on top of that, many linux distros have resurrected the absolutely insane concept of Autorun CDs, something Apple was smart enough to abandon back in the dark ages of floppy distribution.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you weren't referring to bootable or "live" CDs (and unless they've changed policies since the original OS X, you can still restore or nuke your Mac by booting from the system discs), but the annoying and potentially dangerous concept of autostarting an application when a CD is inserted. Either way requires physical access to the machine, unless you rookit in and use a virtual device reading an image file... then we get into the fan-favorite "running Linux inside a VM on BeOS in a VM on Amiga..." scenario.
It's not just the radioactive waste, it's also the plutonium that will inevitably be produced from U235 reactors -- you know, the kind of stuff that's typically only good for use in making weapons? Add this to the fact that McCain and the Republicans want to sneak in more government revenue through drilling permits that are largely unused to artificially keep American oil prices sky-high.
No, they're not after energy independence (yet another misused political buzzword). Maybe I'm paranoid, but I don't think I want a hotheaded President with more nukes. Especially one who has essentially capitulated to the wag-the-dog administration currently in office.
They're introducing the time-honored Japanese tradition of abbreviating everything down to four syllables or less (because when you transliterate something to Japanese, the syllables increase by an order of magnitude).
It's been done numerous times over there, like "pasokon", "karaoke", "pokemon", "nabeatsu"*...
* Sorry, can't think of anything "Omoro!" right now, so this'll have to do.
Follow the money. SCO was largely a pump-and-dump scheme, IMO, so I wouldn't be surprised if Enderle was an investor there. Now Icahn and other opportunistic speculators are trying to force Yahoo into a sale; if Enderle's investments were public, we may see some YHOO stock there.
Back to the typewriter with you, then (only security threat there is data leaks). Your argument holds just as well, if not better, with closed-source software.
If you want the "bookmarks in a database" feature of Firefox 3, there's a portable app for that. The HTML bookmark idea was a nice, simple solution for a while, but as people accumulate more sites, it gets unwieldy fast.
"Why are users' *losing* software and files so often that they need a *Finder*?" Why do they need so much software? Why don't they have it all in [Computer name]/Applications or their home folder?
Users can't find a particular window? Expose and Spaces. The dock is too cluttered? You can shove stuff into a folder or get rid of icons you don't use. Drag the Applications folder there, instant Start Menu.
I mean, good grief, Apple gives them a home directory complete with "Documents" and "Downloads", in addition to the desktop which they can clutter just as much as Windows/*nix users can. Why is it Apple's fault that your users can't organize their stuff?
It may be the same reason why news agencies frequently only report disasters and crimes. When people are doing great stuff for other people, the media (and by coercion, er, consequence, the public) find that boring. When people do stuff that raises hackles, that gets ratings (and advertisers with lots of money). Even if it's true that there are many people like NYCL working in the legal profession, the worst of them draws the most attention, and gives the rest a soiled reputation.
Thankfully, NYCL's efforts are akin to a shower...
"Back in the 1960s and 1970s, a lot of "subversive" groups claimed (and investigative journalists verified) that they were treated the same way. Their people would be arrested and held in jail the maximum time allowed without filing charges. They would be released without charges, and as they walked out the door of the police station, they would be met by officers who would arrest them and haul them back inside. In these cases, there weren't even charges filed, much less any trials, so the lawyers could argue that the Fifth Amendment technically didn't apply."
The Eighth Amendment may apply there, as it doesn't explicitly reference incarceration as a result of conviction. I know it's the generally accepted use, but gaming the law like that to deprive someone of their freedom has got to be a violation of basic rights.
"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."
That's okay, they bought enough time with the John Doe lawsuit to ram through the "Feds as RIAA goons seizing hardware with infringing files" legislation through the House.
Given GP's point that the OP was oddly claiming a proper use of units as singular nouns...
If OP meant the use of units as adjectives (or compound modifiers), his point would stand. However, English speakers and writers also treat units themselves as nouns, so "100 megapascals" is at least accepted use: compare with "100 volts", "100 moles", "100 grams", "100 liters"...
Had the OP's point been simply "[Ubuntu] Linux has more functionality built-in compared to Windows", your point would have been moot. Since it wasn't (probably because OP was a bit too lazy to vet his argument against your resources), we'll go with this statement:
Microsoft isn't allowed to add too many freebies in it's OS because of monopoly allegations (Media Player in Europe for example). Linux just copies stuff they like from the Windows platforms and call it something funny//witty/similar and often get away with it. It's a "port" and not a "copy".
A true "port" would be impossible for the Linux developers, because in order for you to call such software a "port", they would require the original source code to port from. If anything, it's a reverse-engineered knock-off that happens to be open source, and unless the software is heavily patented (which many decry as evil), or the developers actually used the original source without permission, your rant would be valid. The implication you're making with "get away with it" is that developers can't be permitted to see something cool that Microsoft or Apple makes and then try to build something similar or better on Linux. With an attitude like that, one may wonder how we got past using stone tools.
Put another way, Microsoft is limited in how much they can use their huge share of the desktop PC market to their advantage; e.g., the EU looks askance at anything that would prevent competing software from having a fair shot of selling or being used. Desktop Linux, having no such dominance of market share, does not have the limitations placed on a convicted abuser of a monopoly.
Yes. I can use stupid analogies too.
I would devote the time taken in writing rants to taking a deep breath and thinking about how effectively I can convince the poster, whom I'm convinced is wrong. If the best you can do is taunt, you would best stay clear of debates.
Slashdot Mirror
(tongue-in-cheek)
Establishment politicians either scam or bully you into paying them. Libertarians have someone else steal from your back pocket.
I think "tyranny" would be a more fitting tag, since it is a clear abuse of power against the rights of the governed.
They're going for the mass market. You know, the kind of people who will give you a blank, slack-jawed stare when you try to explain what a URL is?
And the penalty for violating said proprietary, closed-source recipe is not only a visit from Microsoft Legal, but also the angry dessert chef and/or Ballmer's mother.
You think a chair-tossing monkey was bad?
The US already did it, but not the legislature. Had this been tried here and the President opposed it, it would've been vetoed-- though with this administration, they probably would've had a big Nuremberg-style rally along with the signing.
The legislature (Congress), judiciary (Supreme Court) and the public would surely have balked at the NSA installing a secret cabinet in the backbones of the US Internet, so the White House did it by wartime executive order. The problem with this is, it is unconstitutional except in a very, very narrow definition of a wartime "Commander in Chief", i.e. a dictatorship. A much greater problem is that the White House circumvented Congress and the courts because they regarded such consultation as unnecessary, and this is largely the reason why they're pushing for telecom amnesty and fighting to squash litigation using state secrets privileges.
<conspiracytheorist>Since these are likely to fail, these are most likely delaying tactics until Rove can bamboozle those still watching Fox News to vote into power McCain, who can then pardon Bush, Cheney, and the rest.</conspiracytheorist>
If you're going to pin anyone on this, pin it on those who set the policy that "If it ain't on the screen, the caller is trying to scam us." All of the database stupidity you've encountered could more easily be attributed to corporate incompetence than a handful of developers making stupid assumptions.
That, and hard-headed South Asian call center reps. Once they believe they're right, they can be quite stubborn.
Unless it's something like the Super Bowl (60% game, 15% halftime, 40% ads overlapping both) or CNN.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you weren't referring to bootable or "live" CDs (and unless they've changed policies since the original OS X, you can still restore or nuke your Mac by booting from the system discs), but the annoying and potentially dangerous concept of autostarting an application when a CD is inserted. Either way requires physical access to the machine, unless you rookit in and use a virtual device reading an image file... then we get into the fan-favorite "running Linux inside a VM on BeOS in a VM on Amiga..." scenario.
It's not just the radioactive waste, it's also the plutonium that will inevitably be produced from U235 reactors -- you know, the kind of stuff that's typically only good for use in making weapons? Add this to the fact that McCain and the Republicans want to sneak in more government revenue through drilling permits that are largely unused to artificially keep American oil prices sky-high.
No, they're not after energy independence (yet another misused political buzzword). Maybe I'm paranoid, but I don't think I want a hotheaded President with more nukes. Especially one who has essentially capitulated to the wag-the-dog administration currently in office.
They're introducing the time-honored Japanese tradition of abbreviating everything down to four syllables or less (because when you transliterate something to Japanese, the syllables increase by an order of magnitude).
It's been done numerous times over there, like "pasokon", "karaoke", "pokemon", "nabeatsu"*...
* Sorry, can't think of anything "Omoro!" right now, so this'll have to do.
Follow the money. SCO was largely a pump-and-dump scheme, IMO, so I wouldn't be surprised if Enderle was an investor there. Now Icahn and other opportunistic speculators are trying to force Yahoo into a sale; if Enderle's investments were public, we may see some YHOO stock there.
Back to the typewriter with you, then (only security threat there is data leaks). Your argument holds just as well, if not better, with closed-source software.
If you want the "bookmarks in a database" feature of Firefox 3, there's a portable app for that. The HTML bookmark idea was a nice, simple solution for a while, but as people accumulate more sites, it gets unwieldy fast.
"Why are users' *losing* software and files so often that they need a *Finder*?"
Why do they need so much software? Why don't they have it all in [Computer name]/Applications or their home folder?
Users can't find a particular window? Expose and Spaces. The dock is too cluttered? You can shove stuff into a folder or get rid of icons you don't use. Drag the Applications folder there, instant Start Menu.
I mean, good grief, Apple gives them a home directory complete with "Documents" and "Downloads", in addition to the desktop which they can clutter just as much as Windows/*nix users can. Why is it Apple's fault that your users can't organize their stuff?
It may be the same reason why news agencies frequently only report disasters and crimes. When people are doing great stuff for other people, the media (and by coercion, er, consequence, the public) find that boring. When people do stuff that raises hackles, that gets ratings (and advertisers with lots of money). Even if it's true that there are many people like NYCL working in the legal profession, the worst of them draws the most attention, and gives the rest a soiled reputation.
Thankfully, NYCL's efforts are akin to a shower...
"Back in the 1960s and 1970s, a lot of "subversive" groups claimed (and investigative journalists verified) that they were treated the same way. Their people would be arrested and held in jail the maximum time allowed without filing charges. They would be released without charges, and as they walked out the door of the police station, they would be met by officers who would arrest them and haul them back inside. In these cases, there weren't even charges filed, much less any trials, so the lawyers could argue that the Fifth Amendment technically didn't apply."
The Eighth Amendment may apply there, as it doesn't explicitly reference incarceration as a result of conviction. I know it's the generally accepted use, but gaming the law like that to deprive someone of their freedom has got to be a violation of basic rights.
"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."
Although they're complicit, disbarring the lawyers misses the real target: their clients.
That's okay, they bought enough time with the John Doe lawsuit to ram through the "Feds as RIAA goons seizing hardware with infringing files" legislation through the House.
I'll hazard a guess that he can't unless he wants to piss off the bar association, but NYCL can probably fill you in.
It would be neat if the judge could do it, but that would mean he could do it to anyone who withdraws legitimately.
Origami construction crane*? Hits the giant monster AND Japanese art memes. Brilliant!
*Not the vehicle, the other paper crane.
And your princess is in another castle.
Hopefully the way to the other office doesn't involve avoiding bottomless pits, evil chestnuts*, and fire-breathing turtles.
* (Goomba -> Kuribo -> "Chestnut thing")
Given GP's point that the OP was oddly claiming a proper use of units as singular nouns...
If OP meant the use of units as adjectives (or compound modifiers), his point would stand. However, English speakers and writers also treat units themselves as nouns, so "100 megapascals" is at least accepted use: compare with "100 volts", "100 moles", "100 grams", "100 liters"...
("Tesla" might be an exception.)
Unless, of course, you include "paying executives for {ponies|cars|houses|whatever toy rich people are into}" as "use".
A true "port" would be impossible for the Linux developers, because in order for you to call such software a "port", they would require the original source code to port from. If anything, it's a reverse-engineered knock-off that happens to be open source, and unless the software is heavily patented (which many decry as evil), or the developers actually used the original source without permission, your rant would be valid. The implication you're making with "get away with it" is that developers can't be permitted to see something cool that Microsoft or Apple makes and then try to build something similar or better on Linux. With an attitude like that, one may wonder how we got past using stone tools.
Put another way, Microsoft is limited in how much they can use their huge share of the desktop PC market to their advantage; e.g., the EU looks askance at anything that would prevent competing software from having a fair shot of selling or being used. Desktop Linux, having no such dominance of market share, does not have the limitations placed on a convicted abuser of a monopoly.
I would devote the time taken in writing rants to taking a deep breath and thinking about how effectively I can convince the poster, whom I'm convinced is wrong. If the best you can do is taunt, you would best stay clear of debates.
Just say yes to both voices.