Exactly. Going bald is not something that people would chose if they could avoid it, but it's not the great drama some people make of it. You touch a very important point: going bald is bad when everything else in you is not that good either. I'm not talking about being "pretty", but being *fit*. That makes a world of difference, whereas hair is more or less secondary if everything else is in a decent shape.
You're not trolling. This is just another step in the complete demasculinization of modern men. FFS, many of them are just one step away from having ovaries. "Testosterone poisoning"? I must be having a seizure because I'm mentally smacking whomever came up with that pansy nonsense.
Same laws here in Portugal... although I have been thinking on one thing: the "cruel and unusual" punishment that you refer does in fact prevent death penalty, but it doesn't stop there... I think our laws are equal - most in Continental Europe are - and generally a judge collective or some other group will also have to take into consideration the conditions of the jails, risk of torture, etc, etc. This has been actually applied by several countries...
Now, the US Prisional system is one of the worst in what relates to prison rape. Any minor crime could turn - if the sites I have read are to be believed, and the stats - into an opportunity to be raped in prision. Isn't this enough for someone to succesfully block any extraditation to the USA?
I don't think it's wrong for them to learn about the Gauls. I'm sure you learned about Celtiberians in Spain, and El Cid. Here in Portugal Viriato and the Lusitanians are part of the classes on national identity (for now, I'm sure some PC character will remove it since it is beginning to happen what you said: the african immigrants that arrived since the 70's don't actually - surprise surprise! - relate that much with an obscure celtiberian tribe... they must be racist though:) ). To change what you teach in order to accomodate people that you assume will not relate with the subject is actually an admission that mass migration of ethnically disimilar populations changes the character of the host nation and makes it compromise its original values. Maybe we should stop teaching about slavery. Maybe we should talk speaking with joy about the Reconquista. Lets all dive in into absolute relativism, were every single view must be bland and neutral as not to offend anybody.
FWIW, I agree that the French model doesn't work. I also agree that the English model doesn't work. I have been to Spain, and it doesn't seem to work there. Hell, it isn't working here in Portugal - although we still have our underground system intact for now, it's worsening enough to fuel the growth of the extreme-right. So, what - if any - method of integrating large ammounts of people from culturally and ethnically distinct backgrounds work (more interest in European answers, the Americas are a different subject altogether)?
This isn't a troll. Perhaps to blunt, but *it is true*. Just take a bloody look at the riots in France FFS! Since the ones procaliming that Jews should be slaughtered are the "poor, socially forgotten" Muslim communities of Northern Africa origin that at the same time burn half of Paris there is no "hate speech" law, because lifting a finger against them would be "racist" and "against multiculturalism". The complete devirilization of Europe continues at a steady rate, and this new laws, even if someone has "good intentions" with them, are another weapon to render any critic of the current state of affairs jail-bait.
Actually, you can see it the other way around: whenever you need to know something about the habits of humans in the past a list of prohibitions are a good place to start: they are generally enacted when what they are supposed to prevent is growing within a population.
In the case of Europe it's not difficult to see why: in most countries there is a growing antagonism towards immigration - especially extra-european immigration, and this laws are a result of that. From wht I've heard the final law covers just about everything considered "racist", I think the main objective is to prevent the anti-immigration - which are generally racist at some level - to campaign. I have serious doubts that they will be able to stop this trend by decree though.
Sure it could. I don't think the shareholders would be very happy with giving up one of the few markets that actually *pays* for Microsoft products though. MS is not a human being with feelings that can become touchy or offended by this behaviour: it's a company that needs to sell and increase the value for the shareholders.
Mind you, I would love to see MS do what you sugested though. Partly because it's MS, partly because there is the other side of the coin: as an European I would prefer to benefict a company with the HQ in Europe, all things being equal.
Yes, it's just a platform game, but at the time it was the only game of the type that I saw... no doubt there were others - and better ones, as you say - but for the Spectrum I don't recall seeing a game of the type in that period. I saw some on the BBC Micro, but that only because I attended the British Council in Lisbon that had those machines, it wasn't popular around here. I think that for some reason CE gained popularity and overshadowed other, probably better games. As you say, the game is a simple run-of-the-mill platform game, with only one screen per level. Maybe the concept of the birds, eggs and food made it appealing?
Chuckie Egg II was a different game though: more than 200 screens, it was a massive game, very similar with another great classic "Manic Miner" - a personal favorite of mine. Or Pijamarama.
Not really much to add, but I feel compelled to post in homage of the computer that changed the life of so many people, including my own.
My very first computer was a ZX Spectrum 48k. I still remember the beautiful banner: "(c) 1982 Sinclair Research, Ltd.
Chuckie Egg II was my very first game, and BASIC the very first programming language I tried. The ZX Spectrum and the Timex had an almost monopoly here in Portugal in the '80's, to the extent that I never really saw a C64. The Timex plant in Portugal continued making them after the main branch closed its doors, and exported the machine to several countries (Poland was one of the main markets IIRC).
I live in Los Angeles. I'm not against weapons for "personal defense". If I had a shot gun, I could have calmly waited for them to knock the door in, and picked them off as they entered. There's a different perspective for you.
Maybe you can help me with this doubt: can you do that in the US? I live in Portugal, and so the gun laws follow the regular European pattern of being restrictive (basically you are only allowed to carry a gun if you prove you have a very dangerous profession... even certified night watchers pick up and drop off their guns at the police station after ending their rounds), but another point is that I would be arrested for killing people without immediate threat to myself. Not only that, the threat must be considered life threatning for me or for people around me: the simple prospect of getting beaten up isn't enough for shooting someone. This is probably the other end of the spectrum in gun laws, not a big issue since the violent crimes are loew (used to be extremely low a few years ago, they are increasing by 96% per year), but I'm curious in what exactly is the situation in the US: does, for example, caughting someone in your property allow for shooting them? Caughting a burglar breaking in your house? Is there a limit for use of "excessive self-defense" over there?
I'm honestly curious, not advocating either POV. I'm generally against permissive gun laws, but perhaps I have followed the pussification of Europe in general without knowing. I would have little trouble killing someone breaking in my house with the wife and kids there.
Well, the article is buried, so this is basically a private reply that happens to be public.
o FSF "fanboys"
Slashdot has very few FSF "fanboys". The majority of the users are at most strictly *Linux* orientated, and partake on the practical,pragmatic approach championed by Linus. Any article about the FSF, the GPL or RMS will be filled with derogatory comments - not unlike yours, but different in their motivation. While you are ostensively anti-FSF because of your pro-BSD leanings (i.e. the GPL is not free, etc etc) the/. universe is more along the lines of "to much politics, I just want to play WoW and who cares if nVidia drivers are not free". All in all, and even when I object very strongly with yout opinion, I still prefer Theo to Linus. I *am* a strong FSF supporter - I'm an Associate Member - and my opinion on te relevance and importance of the FSF is what made me reply. You have written several highly critical, rather offensive remarks in this thread with which I disagree, and the one I replied to was downright offensive and bordering on sheer hate, so I am not overly impressed by "BSD fanboys" myself.
o RMS
I object to the narrowing of the FSF and GNU to a discussion of RMS's personal flaws and shortcomings. Everyone knows that the man has several characteristics that come out as unsaviour to most, and I'm not doing some apologetic of RMS sainthood. I have strong respect for him nonetheless and he has my personal admiration and thanks. Not unlike Theo mind you: Theo was *wrong* in this driver discussion. He his well-known for being stubborn, self-centered and impossible to work with. Does that mean that BSD people - or anyone else - shouldn't admire him past that due to his important contributions to free software? I don't think so. There are rabid worshippers, as it were, in every organization, and especially around people who's sense of "mission" is so marked as RMS or Theo. You could add to your links the JWZ archive on Xemacs, for example, and many others. All that considered I must again repeat that in the overall picture RMS's influence on the free software movement is almost matricial in some ways.
o Microsoft and corporations
Yes, that's more like it... I would even put it this way: RMS objects to any piece of software that isn't free - corporation made or not. He believes that it is unethical to develop any proprietary code for a living. Radical? Of course. Many - most? - people don't go that far, not even FSF aligned developers. But RMS isn't in this specific subject aiming at being conciliatory. He is the wy he is. "By their fruits thou shalt judge him", and GNU is for me a delicious fruit.
o BSD
Yes, we do share that view - that BSD-licenced code should be ubiquitous. The reasons why we share it is a given: even if you have such contempt for FSF and GNU people they have an order of priorities that makes it impossible to be otherwise. It's because I'm an FSF "fanboy" that I support BSD as well. Free software is what counts, and Theo rants, RMS tantrums or other fait divers are acessory. Theo has for years shared his views on the GPL and the FSF. That didn't prevent the FSF from giving him an award, and rightly so.
o GPL, Linux et. al.
Again, don't mistake the Linux community with the GNU community. Different beasts altogether, and perhaps incresingly so. As for the GPL, I could give you my opinion but you have read enough by know to have your own opinion, I doubt I can change it. That's not bad, you can't change mine neither:).The general justification isn't fear from Microsoft or corporations per se, but a way to make free software available without restrictions *and* force any changes to be free as well. Yes, I used to word "forced". The GPL is an enforcing mechanism, no doubt about it. Ideally for me the GPL should not be necessary: if all the code on the world was BSD, for example, the GPL wouldn't even need to exist. As it is you can see a justification for it
o MINIX wasn't free. Nor was BSD prior to Net/2 in 1989, and it got caught up in the AT&T lawsuit. So Linux was actually the first free Unix available to use, change and distribute. You describe this much in your own post, and you can talk about "catch up" all you want that the fact remains that a free BSD only existed after Linux was already there. We even agree that without the BSD lawsuit Linux would probably not exist: even the GNU project would use the BSD kernel! Also, in an inderect way it was the existance of the GNU project that led some developers to try and make a completely free Net/2 distribution (the idea, according to the main developer at the time, came from John Gillmore, active GNU developer).
o The GWBASIC was there to convey a point, It's interesting how this secondary point in my post warrants so much attention. But since it seems necessary to be absolutely precise in this: yes, GWBASIC is from the seventies. The main point stands: anybody that thinks that the GNU project was founded as a "reaction to Microsoft" is deluded behyond believe and doesn't understand the basics of the world at the time, being primarely motivated by the same weird revenge need that makes some BSD users write to the IRS to complain about the FSF tax-exempt status. yes, the insanity goes this far.
A final note: I strongly believe that there is much more that unites us (i.e. GNU/GPL folks and BSD folks) than divides us. I harbout no ill will towards BSD and would happily use it and recommend it. As I said in an ancient post whe Theo got the FSF award in 2004:
Actually the differences in ideology between the GNU and BSD developers are more in the outlook and means than any other thing. Free software is free software for both camps, and most sane people in both sides shares a common idea of what free software is. The licences, that are generally the main difference between the two, try to achieve an end using different approaches, but all in all both GNU and BSD people are great contributors to a common free software community. The noise many times created is more on the "newly convert" section of each side:).
It's IMHO rather silly to watch the flame wars between the GNU/Linux and *BSD sides when there is so much more that unites us than what divides us. This award make perfect sense. In the end a gnu, a penguin and a daemon can sometimes be noisy neighbourghs, but in the end they stick together to defend their building. Shitty alegory, I know, eh. It just seems that some within the BSD community have this primal *hate* for the FSF, GNU and RMS. And while they can think what they want I do reserve the right to call bullshit on their propaganda.
Sorry for the extra reply, but one important reference.
You can read in one of the FSF's pages the following:
The BSD developers were inspired to make their code free software by the example of the GNU Project, and explicit appeals from GNU activists helped persuade them, but the code had little overlap with GNU. BSD systems today use some GNU programs, just as the GNU system and its variants use some BSD programs; however, taken as wholes, they are two different systems that evolved separately.
After Net/1, BSD developer Keith Bostic proposed that more non-AT&T sections of the BSD system be released under the same license as Net/1. To this extent, he started a project to reimplement most of the standard Unix utilities without using the AT&T code. For example, vi, which had been based on the original Unix version of ed, was rewritten as nvi (new vi). Within eighteen months, all the AT&T utilities had been replaced, and it was determined that only a few AT&T files remained in the kernel. These files were removed, and the result was the June 1991 release of Networking Release 2 (Net/2), a nearly complete operating system that was freely distributable.
O'Reilly: You are the person who had the bright idea to rewrite all the utilities and the C library, to remove any taint from AT&T. What made you think at the time you could pull this off? Apparently, your colleagues at Berkeley didn't think this was possible. It's an amazing achievement.
Bostic: I wouldn't say I had the idea. It's been an awfully long time, but I think that John Gilmore originally suggested it. And, of course, Richard Stallman had obviously been doing similar things for a long time, and he would periodically drop by CSRG to borrow a terminal and we'd argue back and forth about the why and how of free software. I can probably take the credit for making it happen at Berkeley, but like most things, it's hard to point to a single Eureka! moment or person who had the idea. I suppose if we'd truly understood how hard it would be, both in terms of time and legal hassles, we probably wouldn't have tried to do it. But there were lots of goals along the project path that were good in and of themselves, and so it was easy to gradually work our way to the point where we looked around and said "Hey, we're almost done."
The bold is mine in that. Since I suppose that RMS is well known, let's look at John Gilmore, who was a quite active part in developing Net2. From his homepage:
In the early days of computing, almost all software was free. IBM's operating systems, for example, came with source code and the right to copy and modify it. This gradually changed as software became more independent from hardware. Richard Stallman realized the loss to the industry from the change, and formalized the issue with the GNU General Public License and his project to re-implement Unix freely in 1983.
I ported Richard's GNU Emacs to the Sun Workstation that year. I started archiving the free software posted to the Usenet in 1981, and continued through 1987 or so. I started a project to "sift the sands of Berkeley Unix", collaborating with UCB and other Unix hackers to sort the nuggets of original, nonproprietary code out from the background of AT&T-licensed code. Ultimately this resulted in the Berkeley "Networking 2" release which didn't require the recipient to have an AT&T license. In 1985 I wrote the "pdtar" program,
You're condescending stanza is mildly annoying: everyone else has been "fed by Stallman", while you have had the hands-on experience.
Fortunately I do have the time to go through your assertions point by point. I'll spare you the attitude and will avoid saying that your miopic views on this are due to you being hand fed this crap by Theo or the BSD Historical Reconstruction Society.
BSD vs. Linux
Indeed, BSD goes back to the seventies. So does ITS, TWENEX and others. I suppose that even CICS can be considered "free" software then, since it was freely distributable. At the time most OS's were free, it was precisely the end of this world in the 80's that led Stallman to begin the GNU Project in '84 (and others to begin other projects in other directions). I actually must make a correction to my previous statement: GNU/Linux was not the first in absolute terms, since the practice of distributing software for free was almost the norme in the '70's. To say that RMS wants to be viewed as the "sole father" of free software disregards the fact that the GNU project is in itself a reaction about the end of an already established practice. GNU/Linux was, however, and due to the AT&T lawsuit, the first to reach people with commodity hardware and thus the first to be available to a wider public outside of the academia,a dn the first to be completely free to use, change and distribute. Also, only in 1989 was BSD Unix distributed under a free licence: previously it required an AT&T licence. To consider BSD Unix "free software" before that point in time is using a definition of "free" that doesn't mean what today both the FSF and the BSD community view as free. Could it have been BSD? Absolutely, 386BSD only "failed" in that it got caught up in the lawsuit. Minix was there, but it was extremely incomplete and even the distribution terms less than perfect. Thus, and considering the universe of users with home computers that wanted to try a free OS, Linux was the only thing there was, since the free BSD distribution that began to gain momentum in the early '90's was not available:
In November 1988, at the BSD Workshop in Berkeley, Keith, Mike Karels and Kirk McKusick announce the completion and availability of BSD Networking Release 1.
NET 1 was a subset of the then-current Berkeley system. It was quite similar to 4.3-Tahoe, including source code and documentation for the networking portions of the kernel, the C library and utility programs. It was available without evidence of any prior license (AT&T or Berkeley), and was (re)distributed via anonymous FTP. The source carried a Berkeley copyright notice and a legend that allowed redistribution with attribution.
(The Berkeley license was, and still is, different from the GPL. Keith and rms had debated the various aspects of the licenses repeatedly, without convergence. I will discuss this later.)
Until this point, all versions of BSD had incorporated proprietary AT&T Unix code and therefore required licenses from AT&T for their use. Source code licenses had become very expensive by this point, and several outside parties had expressed interest in a separate release of the networking code, which had been developed entirely outside AT&T and would not be subject to the licensing requirement. This led to Networking Release 1 (Net/1), which was made available to non-licensees of AT&T code and was freely redistributable under the terms of the permissive BSD license. It was released in June 1989.
The role of FSF (and a BASIC sidestep)
I hope you do understand that the GWBASIC part was used to convey an image. I had no idea when the BASIC standard was made, nor was my point directly related to that. Sin
THat's a nice little bubble world you've got there mate, congrats. BSD is for people that love the code, Linux is for MS haters and a "perversion" of "open source". I guess this is enough to disregard the fact that it was GNU/Linux - *not BSD* - that was the first truely free Unix like OS. Probably enough to disregard the fact that the "evil" FSF was already making available a shitload of software when Bill Gates was still dabbling in GWBASIC and most BSD developers were sucking up to UBC. Probably enough to forget that just because you have some retrofited definition of free software that nobody but the BSD-on-crack crowd belives that "we are elite" attitude doesn't cease to be childish *at best*.
Rewriting history must be a nice hobby. It seems to at least allow you to bypass the clear fuckup of Theo in the topic at hand, where the BSD camp hasn't got a leg to stand on after years of whinning about the GPL. They did the same as you: whine, whine, whine, divert attentions to some fantasy world they've got going and shift the blame.
For many of us the FSF definition of free software and the GNU project is what goes. You might dislike it, you might have another, but *ours* has been there well before BSD did *anything*.
Yes, I didn't meat clones in that sense. Timex licensed the technology and it was the real deal, only with better keyboard and other niceties.
As for the Amiga, as I said around here there wasn't a strong C64 community - the 48k was everywhere. The Amiga was somewhat expensive, true, but in the late 80's/early 90's it was so far ahead in terms of graphics, sound, games and usability that people got PC's because their parents wanted to run Lotus 1-2-3. Heck, it was around the time IIRC that the PC's available were things like "EuroPC Schneider", "PC1 Olivetti" and "IBM PS/2" - I had the Olivetti briefly - , and this were the entry level stuff. Horrid stuff, with CGA graphics. The Amiga at the time - probably due to the fact that the PC's sold here were crappy - had a lot of marketshare and most of the stores that sold Spectrum games started selling Amiga games, and not PC. This was came to the end we all know though, by 1993 the writing was on the wall:(
Indeed, the same happened here in Portugal. The Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k was what introduced computing to the masses, even to lower middle class people. It was relatively cheap, and had lots of games. Many people started programming on them (I did... "10 REM MY FIRST PROGRAM"). About 60% of the people that I know still remember the "(c) 1982 Sinclair Research Ltd" greeting. The Timex clones were also popular - I hear that especiall in Poland and Portugal, but I can only vouch for the latter. I remember buying UK magazines with code listings, and soon lots of domestic stuff. The market in Europe was different from the North American one: the Apple ][ was rare in here, and even the C= 64 was *at most* a distant second to Sinclair's offering. The PC's were incredibly expensive, and quite honestly no value for the money at the time. The first platform that enjoyed equal popularity in both Continents was the Amiga I think...
This "PC for the masses" crap is a bit distant from reality.
I sold my 92 Renault Clio with 260000 Km, some moderate repairs along the years for stuff like brakes and the engine was fine; the interiors and general look was actually quite good. I got a '91 Renaul 19 from a relative that I drove for 2 years, still have it and it has 380000 km, some wear and tear of course but in perfectly good conditions for long trips.
Renault's have been in my experience extremely reliable cars. Don't know about now, with all the elctronic stuff, but the electro-mecanic models wirh the Energy engine were robust.
I would urge the exec of Google Spain and Portugal to take advantage of the insane mobile coverage available to start providing the services that Google offers in the US. The SMS services are not to my knowledge available in Portugal - and probably it's the same for Spain).
Myabe they want to skip it for a "new generation" thingie custom made for the iPhone, using UMTS/3G. Even if they are nice many people still use simple SMS instead of MMS and the like. I would probably be more interested in the "simpler" service then in a uber-complete 3D map of my current location with all the services surrounding me...
Wait, that actually sounds nice.
This isn't really new... anyone that has read Sterlings' "Hacker Crackdown (http://www.mit.edu/hacker/hacker.html) will know about FCIC and FLETC and their role in giving some structure to the 80's/early 90's law enforcement personnel (mostly Secret Service).
Actually, I'll go slightly offtopic - and only slightly, since the chapter "Law and Order" goes directly to the topic at hand - and recommend taking an hour to read the mentioned book, *tremendous* insight on the relation between law, technology and civil liberties. It's a detailed account about "Operation Sundevil", which most people know about as the taking down of LoD and Phrack, and the creation of the EFF. I remember the turmoil in the scene back then, and the book does a marvelous job on describing the hacker culture of the 80's.
Ok, thanks for the explanation; I would like to submit however that, in practice, the main distinction - even nowadays - isn't between Protestant Anglos in the North and Catholic Iberians in the south, but between natives and non-natives, with the "one drop" rule still strong enough to justify a "Hispanic" classification (that doesn't include people from Spain or, for that matter, people that only have European ancestors). I'm no expert at that, only talking about what I've seen in american TV shows and films, so again I could be mistaken.
As another poster mentioned below over here in Europe (I'm talking in cultural terms, not "EU") there is a distinction between "Africans" and "Arabs"/"Maghrebins", since the term African is generally used for "Black Africa". Some of there broad - and many times not well measured and plain wrong - terms are diferent depending on the countries, i.e. here in Portugal and I suppose the rest of the Continent the term "Asian" generally means "someone from the Far East", like China, Korea, Japan, etc, while in the UK the term is used for people from India.
Spanish and Portuguese? Last time I looked outside the Iberian Peninsula was still attached to Europe, for better or worse. Tupi, Navajo, those I can see described as American languages, in the strict sense you are using. That or I simple didn't understood your comment at all, which is the most likely explanations
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly. Going bald is not something that people would chose if they could avoid it, but it's not the great drama some people make of it. You touch a very important point: going bald is bad when everything else in you is not that good either. I'm not talking about being "pretty", but being *fit*. That makes a world of difference, whereas hair is more or less secondary if everything else is in a decent shape.
You're not trolling. This is just another step in the complete demasculinization of modern men. FFS, many of them are just one step away from having ovaries. "Testosterone poisoning"? I must be having a seizure because I'm mentally smacking whomever came up with that pansy nonsense.
Same laws here in Portugal... although I have been thinking on one thing: the "cruel and unusual" punishment that you refer does in fact prevent death penalty, but it doesn't stop there... I think our laws are equal - most in Continental Europe are - and generally a judge collective or some other group will also have to take into consideration the conditions of the jails, risk of torture, etc, etc. This has been actually applied by several countries...
Now, the US Prisional system is one of the worst in what relates to prison rape. Any minor crime could turn - if the sites I have read are to be believed, and the stats - into an opportunity to be raped in prision. Isn't this enough for someone to succesfully block any extraditation to the USA?
I don't think it's wrong for them to learn about the Gauls. I'm sure you learned about Celtiberians in Spain, and El Cid. Here in Portugal Viriato and the Lusitanians are part of the classes on national identity (for now, I'm sure some PC character will remove it since it is beginning to happen what you said: the african immigrants that arrived since the 70's don't actually - surprise surprise! - relate that much with an obscure celtiberian tribe... they must be racist though :) ). To change what you teach in order to accomodate people that you assume will not relate with the subject is actually an admission that mass migration of ethnically disimilar populations changes the character of the host nation and makes it compromise its original values. Maybe we should stop teaching about slavery. Maybe we should talk speaking with joy about the Reconquista. Lets all dive in into absolute relativism, were every single view must be bland and neutral as not to offend anybody.
FWIW, I agree that the French model doesn't work. I also agree that the English model doesn't work. I have been to Spain, and it doesn't seem to work there. Hell, it isn't working here in Portugal - although we still have our underground system intact for now, it's worsening enough to fuel the growth of the extreme-right. So, what - if any - method of integrating large ammounts of people from culturally and ethnically distinct backgrounds work (more interest in European answers, the Americas are a different subject altogether)?
This isn't a troll. Perhaps to blunt, but *it is true*. Just take a bloody look at the riots in France FFS! Since the ones procaliming that Jews should be slaughtered are the "poor, socially forgotten" Muslim communities of Northern Africa origin that at the same time burn half of Paris there is no "hate speech" law, because lifting a finger against them would be "racist" and "against multiculturalism". The complete devirilization of Europe continues at a steady rate, and this new laws, even if someone has "good intentions" with them, are another weapon to render any critic of the current state of affairs jail-bait.
Actually, you can see it the other way around: whenever you need to know something about the habits of humans in the past a list of prohibitions are a good place to start: they are generally enacted when what they are supposed to prevent is growing within a population.
In the case of Europe it's not difficult to see why: in most countries there is a growing antagonism towards immigration - especially extra-european immigration, and this laws are a result of that. From wht I've heard the final law covers just about everything considered "racist", I think the main objective is to prevent the anti-immigration - which are generally racist at some level - to campaign. I have serious doubts that they will be able to stop this trend by decree though.
Sure it could. I don't think the shareholders would be very happy with giving up one of the few markets that actually *pays* for Microsoft products though. MS is not a human being with feelings that can become touchy or offended by this behaviour: it's a company that needs to sell and increase the value for the shareholders.
Mind you, I would love to see MS do what you sugested though. Partly because it's MS, partly because there is the other side of the coin: as an European I would prefer to benefict a company with the HQ in Europe, all things being equal.
Yes, it's just a platform game, but at the time it was the only game of the type that I saw... no doubt there were others - and better ones, as you say - but for the Spectrum I don't recall seeing a game of the type in that period. I saw some on the BBC Micro, but that only because I attended the British Council in Lisbon that had those machines, it wasn't popular around here. I think that for some reason CE gained popularity and overshadowed other, probably better games. As you say, the game is a simple run-of-the-mill platform game, with only one screen per level. Maybe the concept of the birds, eggs and food made it appealing?
Chuckie Egg II was a different game though: more than 200 screens, it was a massive game, very similar with another great classic "Manic Miner" - a personal favorite of mine. Or Pijamarama.
Eh, I knew someone even more pedantic would pick up on that :).
Not really much to add, but I feel compelled to post in homage of the computer that changed the life of so many people, including my own.
My very first computer was a ZX Spectrum 48k. I still remember the beautiful banner: "(c) 1982 Sinclair Research, Ltd. Chuckie Egg II was my very first game, and BASIC the very first programming language I tried. The ZX Spectrum and the Timex had an almost monopoly here in Portugal in the '80's, to the extent that I never really saw a C64. The Timex plant in Portugal continued making them after the main branch closed its doors, and exported the machine to several countries (Poland was one of the main markets IIRC).
To Sir Clive: Hip! Hip! Hurrah!
I live in Los Angeles. I'm not against weapons for "personal defense". If I had a shot gun, I could have calmly waited for them to knock the door in, and picked them off as they entered. There's a different perspective for you.
Maybe you can help me with this doubt: can you do that in the US? I live in Portugal, and so the gun laws follow the regular European pattern of being restrictive (basically you are only allowed to carry a gun if you prove you have a very dangerous profession... even certified night watchers pick up and drop off their guns at the police station after ending their rounds), but another point is that I would be arrested for killing people without immediate threat to myself. Not only that, the threat must be considered life threatning for me or for people around me: the simple prospect of getting beaten up isn't enough for shooting someone. This is probably the other end of the spectrum in gun laws, not a big issue since the violent crimes are loew (used to be extremely low a few years ago, they are increasing by 96% per year), but I'm curious in what exactly is the situation in the US: does, for example, caughting someone in your property allow for shooting them? Caughting a burglar breaking in your house? Is there a limit for use of "excessive self-defense" over there?
I'm honestly curious, not advocating either POV. I'm generally against permissive gun laws, but perhaps I have followed the pussification of Europe in general without knowing. I would have little trouble killing someone breaking in my house with the wife and kids there.
Well, the article is buried, so this is basically a private reply that happens to be public.
/. universe is more along the lines of "to much politics, I just want to play WoW and who cares if nVidia drivers are not free". All in all, and even when I object very strongly with yout opinion, I still prefer Theo to Linus. I *am* a strong FSF supporter - I'm an Associate Member - and my opinion on te relevance and importance of the FSF is what made me reply. You have written several highly critical, rather offensive remarks in this thread with which I disagree, and the one I replied to was downright offensive and bordering on sheer hate, so I am not overly impressed by "BSD fanboys" myself.
:).The general justification isn't fear from Microsoft or corporations per se, but a way to make free software available without restrictions *and* force any changes to be free as well. Yes, I used to word "forced". The GPL is an enforcing mechanism, no doubt about it. Ideally for me the GPL should not be necessary: if all the code on the world was BSD, for example, the GPL wouldn't even need to exist. As it is you can see a justification for it
o FSF "fanboys"
Slashdot has very few FSF "fanboys". The majority of the users are at most strictly *Linux* orientated, and partake on the practical,pragmatic approach championed by Linus. Any article about the FSF, the GPL or RMS will be filled with derogatory comments - not unlike yours, but different in their motivation. While you are ostensively anti-FSF because of your pro-BSD leanings (i.e. the GPL is not free, etc etc) the
o RMS
I object to the narrowing of the FSF and GNU to a discussion of RMS's personal flaws and shortcomings. Everyone knows that the man has several characteristics that come out as unsaviour to most, and I'm not doing some apologetic of RMS sainthood. I have strong respect for him nonetheless and he has my personal admiration and thanks. Not unlike Theo mind you: Theo was *wrong* in this driver discussion. He his well-known for being stubborn, self-centered and impossible to work with. Does that mean that BSD people - or anyone else - shouldn't admire him past that due to his important contributions to free software? I don't think so. There are rabid worshippers, as it were, in every organization, and especially around people who's sense of "mission" is so marked as RMS or Theo. You could add to your links the JWZ archive on Xemacs, for example, and many others. All that considered I must again repeat that in the overall picture RMS's influence on the free software movement is almost matricial in some ways.
o Microsoft and corporations
Yes, that's more like it... I would even put it this way: RMS objects to any piece of software that isn't free - corporation made or not. He believes that it is unethical to develop any proprietary code for a living. Radical? Of course. Many - most? - people don't go that far, not even FSF aligned developers. But RMS isn't in this specific subject aiming at being conciliatory. He is the wy he is. "By their fruits thou shalt judge him", and GNU is for me a delicious fruit.
o BSD
Yes, we do share that view - that BSD-licenced code should be ubiquitous. The reasons why we share it is a given: even if you have such contempt for FSF and GNU people they have an order of priorities that makes it impossible to be otherwise. It's because I'm an FSF "fanboy" that I support BSD as well. Free software is what counts, and Theo rants, RMS tantrums or other fait divers are acessory. Theo has for years shared his views on the GPL and the FSF. That didn't prevent the FSF from giving him an award, and rightly so.
o GPL, Linux et. al.
Again, don't mistake the Linux community with the GNU community. Different beasts altogether, and perhaps incresingly so. As for the GPL, I could give you my opinion but you have read enough by know to have your own opinion, I doubt I can change it. That's not bad, you can't change mine neither
o MINIX wasn't free. Nor was BSD prior to Net/2 in 1989, and it got caught up in the AT&T lawsuit. So Linux was actually the first free Unix available to use, change and distribute. You describe this much in your own post, and you can talk about "catch up" all you want that the fact remains that a free BSD only existed after Linux was already there. We even agree that without the BSD lawsuit Linux would probably not exist: even the GNU project would use the BSD kernel! Also, in an inderect way it was the existance of the GNU project that led some developers to try and make a completely free Net/2 distribution (the idea, according to the main developer at the time, came from John Gillmore, active GNU developer).
o The GWBASIC was there to convey a point, It's interesting how this secondary point in my post warrants so much attention. But since it seems necessary to be absolutely precise in this: yes, GWBASIC is from the seventies. The main point stands: anybody that thinks that the GNU project was founded as a "reaction to Microsoft" is deluded behyond believe and doesn't understand the basics of the world at the time, being primarely motivated by the same weird revenge need that makes some BSD users write to the IRS to complain about the FSF tax-exempt status. yes, the insanity goes this far.
A final note: I strongly believe that there is much more that unites us (i.e. GNU/GPL folks and BSD folks) than divides us. I harbout no ill will towards BSD and would happily use it and recommend it. As I said in an ancient post whe Theo got the FSF award in 2004:
Actually the differences in ideology between the GNU and BSD developers are more in the outlook and means than any other thing. Free software is free software for both camps, and most sane people in both sides shares a common idea of what free software is. The licences, that are generally the main difference between the two, try to achieve an end using different approaches, but all in all both GNU and BSD people are great contributors to a common free software community. The noise many times created is more on the "newly convert" section of each side
The BSD developers were inspired to make their code free software by the example of the GNU Project, and explicit appeals from GNU activists helped persuade them, but the code had little overlap with GNU. BSD systems today use some GNU programs, just as the GNU system and its variants use some BSD programs; however, taken as wholes, they are two different systems that evolved separately.
Well, saying that is not enough, so let's look deeper: as I said before the first truely free BSD distribution was Net2:
After Net/1, BSD developer Keith Bostic proposed that more non-AT&T sections of the BSD system be released under the same license as Net/1. To this extent, he started a project to reimplement most of the standard Unix utilities without using the AT&T code. For example, vi, which had been based on the original Unix version of ed, was rewritten as nvi (new vi). Within eighteen months, all the AT&T utilities had been replaced, and it was determined that only a few AT&T files remained in the kernel. These files were removed, and the result was the June 1991 release of Networking Release 2 (Net/2), a nearly complete operating system that was freely distributable.
So, let's listen to Keith:
O'Reilly: You are the person who had the bright idea to rewrite all the utilities and the C library, to remove any taint from AT&T. What made you think at the time you could pull this off? Apparently, your colleagues at Berkeley didn't think this was possible. It's an amazing achievement. Bostic: I wouldn't say I had the idea. It's been an awfully long time, but I think that John Gilmore originally suggested it. And, of course, Richard Stallman had obviously been doing similar things for a long time, and he would periodically drop by CSRG to borrow a terminal and we'd argue back and forth about the why and how of free software. I can probably take the credit for making it happen at Berkeley, but like most things, it's hard to point to a single Eureka! moment or person who had the idea. I suppose if we'd truly understood how hard it would be, both in terms of time and legal hassles, we probably wouldn't have tried to do it. But there were lots of goals along the project path that were good in and of themselves, and so it was easy to gradually work our way to the point where we looked around and said "Hey, we're almost done."
The bold is mine in that. Since I suppose that RMS is well known, let's look at John Gilmore, who was a quite active part in developing Net2. From his homepage:
In the early days of computing, almost all software was free. IBM's operating systems, for example, came with source code and the right to copy and modify it. This gradually changed as software became more independent from hardware. Richard Stallman realized the loss to the industry from the change, and formalized the issue with the GNU General Public License and his project to re-implement Unix freely in 1983.
I ported Richard's GNU Emacs to the Sun Workstation that year. I started archiving the free software posted to the Usenet in 1981, and continued through 1987 or so. I started a project to "sift the sands of Berkeley Unix", collaborating with UCB and other Unix hackers to sort the nuggets of original, nonproprietary code out from the background of AT&T-licensed code. Ultimately this resulted in the Berkeley "Networking 2" release which didn't require the recipient to have an AT&T license. In 1985 I wrote the "pdtar" program,
Fortunately I do have the time to go through your assertions point by point. I'll spare you the attitude and will avoid saying that your miopic views on this are due to you being hand fed this crap by Theo or the BSD Historical Reconstruction Society.
BSD vs. Linux
Indeed, BSD goes back to the seventies. So does ITS, TWENEX and others. I suppose that even CICS can be considered "free" software then, since it was freely distributable. At the time most OS's were free, it was precisely the end of this world in the 80's that led Stallman to begin the GNU Project in '84 (and others to begin other projects in other directions). I actually must make a correction to my previous statement: GNU/Linux was not the first in absolute terms, since the practice of distributing software for free was almost the norme in the '70's. To say that RMS wants to be viewed as the "sole father" of free software disregards the fact that the GNU project is in itself a reaction about the end of an already established practice. GNU/Linux was, however, and due to the AT&T lawsuit, the first to reach people with commodity hardware and thus the first to be available to a wider public outside of the academia,a dn the first to be completely free to use, change and distribute. Also, only in 1989 was BSD Unix distributed under a free licence: previously it required an AT&T licence. To consider BSD Unix "free software" before that point in time is using a definition of "free" that doesn't mean what today both the FSF and the BSD community view as free. Could it have been BSD? Absolutely, 386BSD only "failed" in that it got caught up in the lawsuit. Minix was there, but it was extremely incomplete and even the distribution terms less than perfect. Thus, and considering the universe of users with home computers that wanted to try a free OS, Linux was the only thing there was, since the free BSD distribution that began to gain momentum in the early '90's was not available:
The Daemon, the GNU and the Penguin: Chapter 13. USL v The Regents of the University of California
In November 1988, at the BSD Workshop in Berkeley, Keith, Mike Karels and Kirk McKusick announce the completion and availability of BSD Networking Release 1. NET 1 was a subset of the then-current Berkeley system. It was quite similar to 4.3-Tahoe, including source code and documentation for the networking portions of the kernel, the C library and utility programs. It was available without evidence of any prior license (AT&T or Berkeley), and was (re)distributed via anonymous FTP. The source carried a Berkeley copyright notice and a legend that allowed redistribution with attribution. (The Berkeley license was, and still is, different from the GPL. Keith and rms had debated the various aspects of the licenses repeatedly, without convergence. I will discuss this later.)
Wikipedia: BSD
Until this point, all versions of BSD had incorporated proprietary AT&T Unix code and therefore required licenses from AT&T for their use. Source code licenses had become very expensive by this point, and several outside parties had expressed interest in a separate release of the networking code, which had been developed entirely outside AT&T and would not be subject to the licensing requirement. This led to Networking Release 1 (Net/1), which was made available to non-licensees of AT&T code and was freely redistributable under the terms of the permissive BSD license. It was released in June 1989.
The role of FSF (and a BASIC sidestep)
I hope you do understand that the GWBASIC part was used to convey an image. I had no idea when the BASIC standard was made, nor was my point directly related to that. Sin
THat's a nice little bubble world you've got there mate, congrats. BSD is for people that love the code, Linux is for MS haters and a "perversion" of "open source". I guess this is enough to disregard the fact that it was GNU/Linux - *not BSD* - that was the first truely free Unix like OS. Probably enough to disregard the fact that the "evil" FSF was already making available a shitload of software when Bill Gates was still dabbling in GWBASIC and most BSD developers were sucking up to UBC. Probably enough to forget that just because you have some retrofited definition of free software that nobody but the BSD-on-crack crowd belives that "we are elite" attitude doesn't cease to be childish *at best*. Rewriting history must be a nice hobby. It seems to at least allow you to bypass the clear fuckup of Theo in the topic at hand, where the BSD camp hasn't got a leg to stand on after years of whinning about the GPL. They did the same as you: whine, whine, whine, divert attentions to some fantasy world they've got going and shift the blame. For many of us the FSF definition of free software and the GNU project is what goes. You might dislike it, you might have another, but *ours* has been there well before BSD did *anything*.
5-10 minutes to boot Vista? I never used the stuff, but that seems to much for those specs. Did you pressed the "TURBO" button or something?
Yes, I didn't meat clones in that sense. Timex licensed the technology and it was the real deal, only with better keyboard and other niceties. As for the Amiga, as I said around here there wasn't a strong C64 community - the 48k was everywhere. The Amiga was somewhat expensive, true, but in the late 80's/early 90's it was so far ahead in terms of graphics, sound, games and usability that people got PC's because their parents wanted to run Lotus 1-2-3. Heck, it was around the time IIRC that the PC's available were things like "EuroPC Schneider", "PC1 Olivetti" and "IBM PS/2" - I had the Olivetti briefly - , and this were the entry level stuff. Horrid stuff, with CGA graphics. The Amiga at the time - probably due to the fact that the PC's sold here were crappy - had a lot of marketshare and most of the stores that sold Spectrum games started selling Amiga games, and not PC. This was came to the end we all know though, by 1993 the writing was on the wall :(
Indeed, the same happened here in Portugal. The Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k was what introduced computing to the masses, even to lower middle class people. It was relatively cheap, and had lots of games. Many people started programming on them (I did... "10 REM MY FIRST PROGRAM"). About 60% of the people that I know still remember the "(c) 1982 Sinclair Research Ltd" greeting. The Timex clones were also popular - I hear that especiall in Poland and Portugal, but I can only vouch for the latter. I remember buying UK magazines with code listings, and soon lots of domestic stuff. The market in Europe was different from the North American one: the Apple ][ was rare in here, and even the C= 64 was *at most* a distant second to Sinclair's offering. The PC's were incredibly expensive, and quite honestly no value for the money at the time. The first platform that enjoyed equal popularity in both Continents was the Amiga I think... This "PC for the masses" crap is a bit distant from reality.
I sold my 92 Renault Clio with 260000 Km, some moderate repairs along the years for stuff like brakes and the engine was fine; the interiors and general look was actually quite good. I got a '91 Renaul 19 from a relative that I drove for 2 years, still have it and it has 380000 km, some wear and tear of course but in perfectly good conditions for long trips. Renault's have been in my experience extremely reliable cars. Don't know about now, with all the elctronic stuff, but the electro-mecanic models wirh the Energy engine were robust.
I would urge the exec of Google Spain and Portugal to take advantage of the insane mobile coverage available to start providing the services that Google offers in the US. The SMS services are not to my knowledge available in Portugal - and probably it's the same for Spain). Myabe they want to skip it for a "new generation" thingie custom made for the iPhone, using UMTS/3G. Even if they are nice many people still use simple SMS instead of MMS and the like. I would probably be more interested in the "simpler" service then in a uber-complete 3D map of my current location with all the services surrounding me... Wait, that actually sounds nice.
This isn't really new... anyone that has read Sterlings' "Hacker Crackdown (http://www.mit.edu/hacker/hacker.html) will know about FCIC and FLETC and their role in giving some structure to the 80's/early 90's law enforcement personnel (mostly Secret Service). Actually, I'll go slightly offtopic - and only slightly, since the chapter "Law and Order" goes directly to the topic at hand - and recommend taking an hour to read the mentioned book, *tremendous* insight on the relation between law, technology and civil liberties. It's a detailed account about "Operation Sundevil", which most people know about as the taking down of LoD and Phrack, and the creation of the EFF. I remember the turmoil in the scene back then, and the book does a marvelous job on describing the hacker culture of the 80's.
Unfortunately, we can.
Greetings from Portugal,
fsmunoz
Ok, thanks for the explanation; I would like to submit however that, in practice, the main distinction - even nowadays - isn't between Protestant Anglos in the North and Catholic Iberians in the south, but between natives and non-natives, with the "one drop" rule still strong enough to justify a "Hispanic" classification (that doesn't include people from Spain or, for that matter, people that only have European ancestors). I'm no expert at that, only talking about what I've seen in american TV shows and films, so again I could be mistaken.
As another poster mentioned below over here in Europe (I'm talking in cultural terms, not "EU") there is a distinction between "Africans" and "Arabs"/"Maghrebins", since the term African is generally used for "Black Africa". Some of there broad - and many times not well measured and plain wrong - terms are diferent depending on the countries, i.e. here in Portugal and I suppose the rest of the Continent the term "Asian" generally means "someone from the Far East", like China, Korea, Japan, etc, while in the UK the term is used for people from India.
Spanish and Portuguese? Last time I looked outside the Iberian Peninsula was still attached to Europe, for better or worse. Tupi, Navajo, those I can see described as American languages, in the strict sense you are using.
That or I simple didn't understood your comment at all, which is the most likely explanations