The problem is that the government workers don't have the proper technical expertise.
"Government" workers are no different than any other corporate office workers, but you are correct in that most people do not have an adequate understanding of computer security. The key difference is that public oversight and government transparency allow these incidents to become known to the public. When someone who works at your bank does the same thing, it's just kept quiet.
Who's angry? Maybe I misread your post, but it sounded like you took the NPR story at face value. I just think that's silly. But if you didn't, and I misunderstood, then never mind.
Whatever the case, my chosen hardware/software platform is only important when I need to use my computer, and it's never something I get angry over.
Please ignore these fanboys. It sounds like you have a legitimate issue and it's just a bummer about the price point. As a Mac user (and speaking only on my own behalf, though I'm sure the majority would agree with me) I want to thank you for maintaining a Mac version of your OSS project.
Maybe there is a way that Apple can better support OSS developers like you. They certainly should.
If you want to talk about Apple's prices, why not link to the actual prices rather than googling for other people's opinions of Apple's prices?
Otherwise I agree that Apple is not providing a computing solution for impoverished people, but they are a business and not a charity. However, it would be a glaring omission to discuss Apple's prices without mentioning their substantial educational discounts. These do put Macs within reach of a lot of people who would not otherwise be able to afford them.
If I don't fit this profile, does it mean I have to give up my Mac? Aw, crap! Well, I guess I could get an Ikea card, even though I really don't need any semi-disposable Swedish furniture. I do like smooth curves, but mostly because they make me think of women, so the gay thing just wouldn't work. I really don't enjoy running, even through a field of daisies, but maybe I could learn to like it. I'd probably have better luck with that than with graphic design since I have no artistic talent.
Jeez, and here I thought I just had to be a person who prefers to actually use his computer rather than spend all day fucking around with it. Well, it's still worth it.
I hate to post a "me too" but this exactly describes me as well.
I really don't understand this talk of "Apple zealots." I'm sure they must exist but I'm certainly not one. I didn't use Macs at all until I bought a Powerbook a few months ago. I'm a long-time Unix user and used Windows grudgingly from time to time, and to me Mac OS was just another limited OS like Windows only more expensive and with fewer apps. OS X changed all that.
Now I have a Mac and I love it, but if Apple got stupid and started producing crap again I'd switch in a heartbeat. As opposed to the Microsoft zealots who complain about their buggy systems but inevitably line up for the next Windows release.
As for Apple's contribution to open source, well, they strike an interesting balance between free and proprietary software and however you feel about the OSS "purity" issues you have to admit (if you're honest with yourself) that the end product is damned effective. The fact that they give back when they don't have to impresses me even if it doesn't impress anyone else, but the reason I like their stuff is that it's good. I'm willing to pay a premium for quality.
I have a Unix laptop with a slick UI and I do not have to fuck with it all the time to make it work. Even most of the pre-installed Linux laptops I've seen do not fully support all of the onboard hardware, and none of them are as nice as a Powerbook (though some of them are about as good as a P-P-P-Powerbook!) Apparently, my willingness to pay a little more for this makes me a zealot. Um, yeah, whatever. I say I'm a person who likes nice stuff and is getting too old to spend hours fucking around with hardware just to save a few bucks.
Aren't the "build your own" days over yet? It made sense in the 80s and 90s but what's the advantage now? Maybe it's just a phase everyone has to go through or something. I'll be happy if I never build another computer again. Isn't that what sweatshops are for?
Environmentalism is a failure on all levels as it exists today. It is THEIR fault that we are in the current situation, not some industrial company who does what it is supposed to do: profit! It's the environmentalists that failed us.
"Let's go burn down the observatory so this will never happen again!" The Simpsons, "Bart's Comet"
At LISA '98 a sysadmin at a university said that he agreed to comply with the request by sending the address list on greenbar hardcopy. Didn't hear back from the spammer.
So if I rig my doorbell to play one of your songs (which I've already purchased), I owe you money? If I find that one of your songs causes my dogs to freak out and I use it to give them exercise, I owe you money?
If these terms were made clear to consumers and could actually be enforced, do you think people would still be willing to pay the same price for music? Should I pay an author extra if I use his/her book to prop a door open?
Maybe they can do another site predicting that the sun will rise tomorrow and set later in the day?
Does your planet orbit one or more stars whose electromagnetic output includes light that is visible to your species? 1. Yes 2. No
Does your planet's star (or one of them, in case your planet orbits multiple stars) produce significantly more visible light than any other object in your planet's sky from the point of view of an observer on your planet's surface? 1. Yes 2. No
Is your planet's rotation tidally locked such that one side always faces this object? 1. Yes 2. No
Results: The "sun" (the nearby star discussed above) will "rise" (from the point of view of an observer on your planet's surface) "tomorrow" (where "tomorrow" is one cycle of your planet's rotation relative to its "sun"). If the cycles of night and day on your world are not entirely suitable for you, try taking a 15 minute nap and two Pro Plus pills!
I don't think the point was the political leaning of the group, but rather that there are certain "think tanks" who will whore for anyone who gives them money (tobacco industry, polluters, Microsoft) by producing seemingly neutral, academic papers to support their contributors' agendas. I suspect that if Greenpeace gave them enough money they would reverse their position.
WTF? I didn't see anything about that on the links you posted, and his CD list is pretty huge and suggests he's into spooky music, much of which I haven't heard of but some of which I own and that much, at least, is definitely not Nazi music.
I think we can expose Microsoft's minions without defaming them. I certainly don't want anyone being called a Nazi because he listens to Coil, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Black Tape For A Blue Girl, Lisa Gerrard, or - for cryin' out loud - Bjork!
If you have anything more specific then post it, otherwise STFU.
SunOS 4.1.2 ran pretty well at 25 MHz. I remember the days when an 8 MHz machine was fast. You had to press this button marked TURBO, as if you're sitting there thinking, Gosh, this machine is just dog slow! What can I do to make it go faster? Wait, I know! I'll press the TURBO button!
I remember days from before those days, too. I remember many different days. But I don't remember the Amiga except for some stuff about video toaster special effects I saw at a science fiction convention one time. Where was I going with this? I don't know, but what the hell.
No kidding. The next flying vehicle to take out a skyscraper won't be piloted by a suicidal terrorist, it'll be piloted by some asshat yuppie on a cell phone.
Honestly, most people aren't fit to drive (or at least there are enough such people that it seems like most people). How about some decent public transportation instead? Get the idiots off the road/out of the air and burn less fuel.
People who aren't willing to pay taxes for public transit because they personally won't use it should consider the benefit they receive in the form of getting all those other people off the road. Think about it. Most elderly people, for example, would rather not drive.
You can by cars that are much cheaper and faster than a Rolls Royce. You can probably save even more money buy building cars out of stuff you pick up at the junkyard, and I'm sure those could also go very fast.
So fine, you do that, and commute to work every day in your uncomfortable, ugly, but very fast and inexpensive vehicle, going nowhere near its maximum speed and spending much of its time idling at stoplights or sitting in traffic. I'll be the guy in the Rolls Royce with the hot chick. And I'm not just talking style here, I'm talking comfort and enjoyment.
Don't get me wrong, if you really need every ounce of processing power you can get per dollar then more power to you and you're right, the Mac is probably not your best choice. But if that's the case then you are not like most of the market. Most of the market doesn't want to build computers out of parts. Believe it or not, some of us know how to do this, are quite good at it, and don't want to do it anyway. There's a lot to be said for not having to fuck around with something.
There are probably a lot of reasons why Apple sales could be better: inertia, lack of mindshare, poor products in the past, not enough games for people who care about that, and who knows what else. While slower CPU might be one of them I doubt it's a very big one. Most people think the CPU is the big box with the CD drive in it. Not being able to build a Mac out of parts from the discount bin doesn't even register. Don't assume your reason for making a particular choice is the same as everyone else's.
As another OS X user I am *really* annoyed by OS X users spreading outright untruths about Linux, even blatant, obvious trolls like this one.
What is this "one true OS" bullshit I seem to be reading on/. all the time now? I seem to remember a time when people here believed that diversity is a good thing. I love Linux, I love BSD (I know, I know, it's dying, any day now, really, we're not kidding this time), hell I'm still kinda fond of Ultrix, my very first Unix! And I love Panther on my Powerbook.
I've always thought it was neat how various Unix-like OS's had their own individual quirks. It gave every system personality, especially before all the big vendors went System V on our asses (ahhh, SunOS 4, how you were wronged!). But now we seem to think we have to conquer the world with THE ONE OS. Isn't that how we got into this mess in the first place?
As for Apple, I believe it's possible to generally support a company and like its products without agreeing with every single thing it does. And I really can't blame any company (even Microsoft) for working the system. The system's what's broken here.
David Brin wrote a story about aliens actually being faeries that had to give themselves some kind of "scientific" basis to keep people believing in them (which they depended on for their existence). Aliens really do have a lot in common with faeries: pointy ears, big eyes, antennae, like to abduct people, really into anal probes...
Capitalism is not just a theory. It has worked in reality almost every time it has been implemented, and for as long as it was maintained.
Wrong. The kind of capitalism advocated by Libertarians and Randroids has never existed anywhere, and they are the first ones to say so when anyone brings up problems that have come up in their exemplar "capitalist" societies. Claiming a given society was capitalist when it suits you and not really capitalist when it does not is intellectual dishonesty. Just admit you are working with a theory here, OK? Because you are.
America was mostly capitalist during the 1800s. and its wealth grew steadily, at 5% per year, for the entire century.
A large portion of America had institutionalized slavery for more than half of that time. Which I guess counts as capitalism in the sense that human capital was privately owned. But I don't think that's the kind of capitalism you are advocating.
America also had the benefit bringing tremendous amounts of resources directly into its economy, primarily by stealing. I believe the Libertarian term for this is "creating wealth." I'm sure my income would increase substantially if I could get away with stealing my neighbors stuff, and if I put all that stuff to good use then my income would probably continue to grow even after I ran out of neighbors.
Oh, and even then there was still a considerable amount of regulation, though most of it was at the state or local level. Not that it matters; with assloads of stolen property flowing into the system and an abundance of slave labor you could probably have an economic system based on astrology and it would still work pretty well.
Likewise, capitalism was implemented in post-WWII Germany and Japan, both of which showed a similar growth in both wealth and social awareness.
A huge influx of cash from the U.S. had nothing to do with this, of course. And just as they had elements of capitalism, they also had elements of socialism. National health care, anyone? So purely based on the fact that both countries have been successful--er, at least until the 90s in Japan's case--you could just as easily argue that socialism was responsible for their success. I'm not making that argument, I'm just pointing out that they could be models for moderate forms of socialism just as easily as they could be models for capitalism (if not more easily).
Hong Kong was another example, prior to its return to Chinese rule.
Or it was the benefit of having free military protection by the British.
Capitalism has succeeded in almost every country that tried it, and the extent of that success (increased wealth and civility) has been in proportion to the extent to which capitalism was implemented.
Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, and Russia. Tell me communism wasn't better for Russia. No, don't bother because I know you will. You'll point out that what Russia has now isn't really capitalism, never mind that none of the examples above were really capitalism in the way that you mean it (completely laissez-faire). And actually, I won't argue that communism was better for Russia, but rather a stable government that a lot of the people believed in was.
Slashdot Mirror
"Government" workers are no different than any other corporate office workers, but you are correct in that most people do not have an adequate understanding of computer security. The key difference is that public oversight and government transparency allow these incidents to become known to the public. When someone who works at your bank does the same thing, it's just kept quiet.
Who's angry? Maybe I misread your post, but it sounded like you took the NPR story at face value. I just think that's silly. But if you didn't, and I misunderstood, then never mind.
Whatever the case, my chosen hardware/software platform is only important when I need to use my computer, and it's never something I get angry over.
Please ignore these fanboys. It sounds like you have a legitimate issue and it's just a bummer about the price point. As a Mac user (and speaking only on my own behalf, though I'm sure the majority would agree with me) I want to thank you for maintaining a Mac version of your OSS project.
Maybe there is a way that Apple can better support OSS developers like you. They certainly should.
If you want to talk about Apple's prices, why not link to the actual prices rather than googling for other people's opinions of Apple's prices?
Otherwise I agree that Apple is not providing a computing solution for impoverished people, but they are a business and not a charity. However, it would be a glaring omission to discuss Apple's prices without mentioning their substantial educational discounts. These do put Macs within reach of a lot of people who would not otherwise be able to afford them.
If I don't fit this profile, does it mean I have to give up my Mac? Aw, crap! Well, I guess I could get an Ikea card, even though I really don't need any semi-disposable Swedish furniture. I do like smooth curves, but mostly because they make me think of women, so the gay thing just wouldn't work. I really don't enjoy running, even through a field of daisies, but maybe I could learn to like it. I'd probably have better luck with that than with graphic design since I have no artistic talent.
Jeez, and here I thought I just had to be a person who prefers to actually use his computer rather than spend all day fucking around with it. Well, it's still worth it.
God forbid you actually check Apple's website. Because we know the non-tech media always describes the features that are important to techies.
Besides, talking out your ass is a pretty neat party trick. Have another beer, dude.
You forgot to mention that we're also all gay filmmakers and musicians who only buy Apples because they match our decor.
*hides wife, Unix books, old Linux box, and lack of artistic ability behind shiney Mac* Nothing to see here, move along...
I hate to post a "me too" but this exactly describes me as well.
I really don't understand this talk of "Apple zealots." I'm sure they must exist but I'm certainly not one. I didn't use Macs at all until I bought a Powerbook a few months ago. I'm a long-time Unix user and used Windows grudgingly from time to time, and to me Mac OS was just another limited OS like Windows only more expensive and with fewer apps. OS X changed all that.
Now I have a Mac and I love it, but if Apple got stupid and started producing crap again I'd switch in a heartbeat. As opposed to the Microsoft zealots who complain about their buggy systems but inevitably line up for the next Windows release.
As for Apple's contribution to open source, well, they strike an interesting balance between free and proprietary software and however you feel about the OSS "purity" issues you have to admit (if you're honest with yourself) that the end product is damned effective. The fact that they give back when they don't have to impresses me even if it doesn't impress anyone else, but the reason I like their stuff is that it's good. I'm willing to pay a premium for quality.
I have a Unix laptop with a slick UI and I do not have to fuck with it all the time to make it work. Even most of the pre-installed Linux laptops I've seen do not fully support all of the onboard hardware, and none of them are as nice as a Powerbook (though some of them are about as good as a P-P-P-Powerbook!) Apparently, my willingness to pay a little more for this makes me a zealot. Um, yeah, whatever. I say I'm a person who likes nice stuff and is getting too old to spend hours fucking around with hardware just to save a few bucks.
Aren't the "build your own" days over yet? It made sense in the 80s and 90s but what's the advantage now? Maybe it's just a phase everyone has to go through or something. I'll be happy if I never build another computer again. Isn't that what sweatshops are for?
I just remember that the flight cabin (or whatever it's called) was a big ol' cement mixer. Damn! That show was cool! (when I was 8 years old)
"Let's go burn down the observatory so this will never happen again!"
The Simpsons, "Bart's Comet"
At LISA '98 a sysadmin at a university said that he agreed to comply with the request by sending the address list on greenbar hardcopy. Didn't hear back from the spammer.
So if I rig my doorbell to play one of your songs (which I've already purchased), I owe you money? If I find that one of your songs causes my dogs to freak out and I use it to give them exercise, I owe you money?
If these terms were made clear to consumers and could actually be enforced, do you think people would still be willing to pay the same price for music? Should I pay an author extra if I use his/her book to prop a door open?
Must be. Both Safari and Firefox merrily spread my computer's legs under 10.3.3. :(
That would definitely count as news for retro nerds!
Does your planet orbit one or more stars whose electromagnetic output includes light that is visible to your species?
1. Yes
2. No
Does your planet's star (or one of them, in case your planet orbits multiple stars) produce significantly more visible light than any other object in your planet's sky from the point of view of an observer on your planet's surface?
1. Yes
2. No
Is your planet's rotation tidally locked such that one side always faces this object?
1. Yes
2. No
Results: The "sun" (the nearby star discussed above) will "rise" (from the point of view of an observer on your planet's surface) "tomorrow" (where "tomorrow" is one cycle of your planet's rotation relative to its "sun"). If the cycles of night and day on your world are not entirely suitable for you, try taking a 15 minute nap and two Pro Plus pills!
I don't think the point was the political leaning of the group, but rather that there are certain "think tanks" who will whore for anyone who gives them money (tobacco industry, polluters, Microsoft) by producing seemingly neutral, academic papers to support their contributors' agendas. I suspect that if Greenpeace gave them enough money they would reverse their position.
I think we can expose Microsoft's minions without defaming them. I certainly don't want anyone being called a Nazi because he listens to Coil, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Black Tape For A Blue Girl, Lisa Gerrard, or - for cryin' out loud - Bjork!
If you have anything more specific then post it, otherwise STFU.
I remember days from before those days, too. I remember many different days. But I don't remember the Amiga except for some stuff about video toaster special effects I saw at a science fiction convention one time. Where was I going with this? I don't know, but what the hell.
Honestly, most people aren't fit to drive (or at least there are enough such people that it seems like most people). How about some decent public transportation instead? Get the idiots off the road/out of the air and burn less fuel.
People who aren't willing to pay taxes for public transit because they personally won't use it should consider the benefit they receive in the form of getting all those other people off the road. Think about it. Most elderly people, for example, would rather not drive.
Given that SysV init levels are configurable, that's not even an OS issue.
You can by cars that are much cheaper and faster than a Rolls Royce. You can probably save even more money buy building cars out of stuff you pick up at the junkyard, and I'm sure those could also go very fast.
So fine, you do that, and commute to work every day in your uncomfortable, ugly, but very fast and inexpensive vehicle, going nowhere near its maximum speed and spending much of its time idling at stoplights or sitting in traffic. I'll be the guy in the Rolls Royce with the hot chick. And I'm not just talking style here, I'm talking comfort and enjoyment.
Don't get me wrong, if you really need every ounce of processing power you can get per dollar then more power to you and you're right, the Mac is probably not your best choice. But if that's the case then you are not like most of the market. Most of the market doesn't want to build computers out of parts. Believe it or not, some of us know how to do this, are quite good at it, and don't want to do it anyway. There's a lot to be said for not having to fuck around with something.
There are probably a lot of reasons why Apple sales could be better: inertia, lack of mindshare, poor products in the past, not enough games for people who care about that, and who knows what else. While slower CPU might be one of them I doubt it's a very big one. Most people think the CPU is the big box with the CD drive in it. Not being able to build a Mac out of parts from the discount bin doesn't even register. Don't assume your reason for making a particular choice is the same as everyone else's.
As another OS X user I am *really* annoyed by OS X users spreading outright untruths about Linux, even blatant, obvious trolls like this one.
/. all the time now? I seem to remember a time when people here believed that diversity is a good thing. I love Linux, I love BSD (I know, I know, it's dying, any day now, really, we're not kidding this time), hell I'm still kinda fond of Ultrix, my very first Unix! And I love Panther on my Powerbook.
What is this "one true OS" bullshit I seem to be reading on
I've always thought it was neat how various Unix-like OS's had their own individual quirks. It gave every system personality, especially before all the big vendors went System V on our asses (ahhh, SunOS 4, how you were wronged!). But now we seem to think we have to conquer the world with THE ONE OS. Isn't that how we got into this mess in the first place?
As for Apple, I believe it's possible to generally support a company and like its products without agreeing with every single thing it does. And I really can't blame any company (even Microsoft) for working the system. The system's what's broken here.
David Brin wrote a story about aliens actually being faeries that had to give themselves some kind of "scientific" basis to keep people believing in them (which they depended on for their existence). Aliens really do have a lot in common with faeries: pointy ears, big eyes, antennae, like to abduct people, really into anal probes...
Wrong. The kind of capitalism advocated by Libertarians and Randroids has never existed anywhere, and they are the first ones to say so when anyone brings up problems that have come up in their exemplar "capitalist" societies. Claiming a given society was capitalist when it suits you and not really capitalist when it does not is intellectual dishonesty. Just admit you are working with a theory here, OK? Because you are.
America was mostly capitalist during the 1800s. and its wealth grew steadily, at 5% per year, for the entire century.
A large portion of America had institutionalized slavery for more than half of that time. Which I guess counts as capitalism in the sense that human capital was privately owned. But I don't think that's the kind of capitalism you are advocating.
America also had the benefit bringing tremendous amounts of resources directly into its economy, primarily by stealing. I believe the Libertarian term for this is "creating wealth." I'm sure my income would increase substantially if I could get away with stealing my neighbors stuff, and if I put all that stuff to good use then my income would probably continue to grow even after I ran out of neighbors.
Oh, and even then there was still a considerable amount of regulation, though most of it was at the state or local level. Not that it matters; with assloads of stolen property flowing into the system and an abundance of slave labor you could probably have an economic system based on astrology and it would still work pretty well.
Likewise, capitalism was implemented in post-WWII Germany and Japan, both of which showed a similar growth in both wealth and social awareness.
A huge influx of cash from the U.S. had nothing to do with this, of course. And just as they had elements of capitalism, they also had elements of socialism. National health care, anyone? So purely based on the fact that both countries have been successful--er, at least until the 90s in Japan's case--you could just as easily argue that socialism was responsible for their success. I'm not making that argument, I'm just pointing out that they could be models for moderate forms of socialism just as easily as they could be models for capitalism (if not more easily).
Hong Kong was another example, prior to its return to Chinese rule.
Or it was the benefit of having free military protection by the British.
Capitalism has succeeded in almost every country that tried it, and the extent of that success (increased wealth and civility) has been in proportion to the extent to which capitalism was implemented.
Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, and Russia. Tell me communism wasn't better for Russia. No, don't bother because I know you will. You'll point out that what Russia has now isn't really capitalism, never mind that none of the examples above were really capitalism in the way that you mean it (completely laissez-faire). And actually, I won't argue that communism was better for Russia, but rather a stable government that a lot of the people believed in was.