"Liberty Reserve allegedly 'facilitated global criminal conduct'", you mean like the illegal invasion of Iraq, the (avoidable) war in Vietnam, the support of South American despots? The enabling of third world labour and resource exploitation? The pillaging of natural resources that belong the natives of Africa? You mean how mega corporations launder their money and don't pay taxes? I say we deal with the bigger criminals first, before going after the petty ones.
This is good news. I am glad people are working on BSD(s), Hurd, Minix, and other systems because it ensures technological diversity. It would be a sad state if only GNU/Linux and proprietary systems were developed. If we have a thriving ecosystem of vaious operating systems and kernels, that bodes far better for advancement than a monoculture.
There are lots of things that are lawful and acceptible, but they are not right. Cases in point are slavery or extermination of other ethnic groups (or invasion of countries) or text avoidance or slave labor. I am not sure where you are going with your comment.
Apple pursued lawful tax evasion, so it is acceptable. It does not matter if Apple use exploited labor to achieve their goals, harmful DRM, (lawfully) evade taxes, and not thank their biggest customer (USA) by establishing a larger manufacturing presence.
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/activate/2011/09/201194144739197637.htmlhttp://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/activate/2011/09/20119994239791675.html
Apple are not much different from Walmart, who harm US national interests by their practices:
http://vimeo.com/52359213
Consumers do not care. Ideally, a well informed populace would take Apple and any other corporate entity who harms US interests to tasks. They could boycott, organize protests. Instead, consumers reward this behavior, so why should Apple not do whatever it wants?
@Andover Person Yeah, sure. The people I know use Vi. So maybe you need a gaming keyboard for Emacs. Stallman uses Emacs, haven't seem him with a gaming keyboard though. Maybe he has a WOW keyboard stashed somewhere. Guilty pleaseure.
Read Stallman's 'Free Software, Free Society' or this well-written piece by Tom Wolfe on Patents:
http://ikhider.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Land-of-Wizards-by-Tom-Wolfe.zip
Our patent system was originally conceived as a way to encourage creativity and inventiveness, but now relegated to whomsoever has the deepest pockets for lawyers. A corporation can take someone's idea and claim it as their own and win in a lawsuit simply because their law team is bigger. The patent system needs a serious overhaul.
I noticed some of the high-end programmer types keep stripping down their systems and going for simpler solutions, "less is better" if you will. If they use GNU/Linux, their GUI will be XMonad or DWM instead of KDE or Gnome. Richard Stallman uses Emacs as his GUI and he does not use a cel phone. For him, a pretty GUI is unnecessary. If an older piece of equipment or software achieves the objective, then stick with it. The concern, of course, is if a significant change occurs and you do not embrace it out of objection to change, but I suspect the poster does not have such an issue. I also see dedicated programmers use the old IBM Thinkpads not because of coolness, but they feel most comfortable with the keyboard. I hear the old IBM desktop keyboards are also sought after by contemporary programmers. As long as your "old school" (I may use "pragmatic") tendencies do not get in the way of the pursuit of knowledge, then embrace it.
I think of Max Cohen from the movie, Pi, who build his computer from discarded components. Cool.
From the crumbling infrastructure, to massive invasion campaigns, to the billions in funding to Israel, to a growing security apparatus, to the war on drugs, America needs the money. Maybe Ebay and Paypal can shave a couple percentage points off their unjustified fees and percentages to let the government have more funds. Though I much rather taxes go to rebuild, educate, and maintain the country as opposed to oppression, but that's just my quirk.
If the fool was using a personal phone to conduct illegal business, the police and Apple can use whatever means they want. Last I heard, drug dealers use disposable,cheap phones to conduct deals and then toss in the water/incinerator/whatever.
What should be the real story is this failed war on drugs that only seem to give the state greater police powers, bankers more money, and make drug lords ridiculously rich. Decriminalize drugs and make it a health issue. Our society has a tremendous problem with drugs including and especially the "legitimate" kinds.
Read Charles Bowden's 'Murder City' and 'Down By The River'. Excellent journalism.
Things we have now, like CD's, rocket ships, the internet, tablet computers, televideo started off as science fiction and Japan is a M A S S I V E exporter of sci-fi, from anime to manga to the Haikasoru sci-fi book series--so it makes sense they build the odd super computer.
I prefer Archive.org because their specific mandate is to serve the public, 'universal access to all knowledge'. By contrast, Youtube is a business; their goal is to generate revenue. That is why I get disappointed when public service initiatives or individuals use Youtube. Archive.org is quite good, and they also offer GNU/Libre friendly alternatives for sound/video files such as ogg and flac. Archive.org has no annoying ads and there is some really useful information on there--hopefully in the future there will be more of a migration to Archive.org. Despite youtube being html5, my Libre-based distro cannot play all the videos and get a notification to install Adobe Flash. Not so with Archive.org.
BB phones are solid. That's because the phones took years to polish and improve. The tablets are still new and the OS not quite polished. Their over-confidence left this client frustrated. BB's corporate hegemony meant they did not have to exert their usual effort, particularly with their Playbook OS, which has a lot of glitches. Customer support for the Playbook is also lacking. Now that competition is shaking things up, BB will be forced to reevaluate their products and customer (dis)satisfaction, take OS glitches more seriously and client support. (BB can take notes from Godaddy support.)
A sore point is the fact the Playbook is not linux friendly, that needs to change. My linux machines recognize my BB phone, but not the tablet. My PB was a gift, otherwise I would get a linux tablet. So competition will make things interesting.
I picked up a Think Penguin wifi adapter for my machine and am happy to support the cause because it is a worthy goal. It is not about "purity" as some put it, rather for technology as a whole to advance in a stable, more beneficial direction for all. Patent laws were originally used to encourage inventors to share ideas without fear of loss of credit. Those patent laws were subsequently perverted by corporations so they can litigate people out of their inventions and claim benefits for their own interests. A great article, "Land of Wizards" by Tom Wolfe describes how inventors are constantly swindled out of their creations and how the patent system is flawed. I read this after Stallman's excellent "Free Software, Free Society" and realized that the current rules hinder creativity and inventiveness.
The FOSS ideals return the benefits of inventiveness back to the populace rather than just corporate cabals.
I also picked up the Thinkpenguin ogg player. While the quality of that unit may not be up to snuff compared to its proprietary cousins, I hope my support will lead to better players down the road. I heard that development of the ogg format currently stalled, which would be a shame. Hopefully my small purchases and posts encourage development. I am tremendously heartened to see companies like Thinkpenguin making this stuff available and that great quality distros like Trisquel (which I use) exist. I hope other Libre distros pick up traction and get more developers to encourage the spirit of creativity and inventiveness for all.
According to this piece, I am required to Install Adobe flash to hear a public domain recording. This should have gone to Archive.org instead, the site posted a Soundcloud interface. Naughty-naughty. I can understand a rock band who does not know any better, but the Smithsonian? Make public domain media Libre friendly please.
Windows had its time and place and it has now passed. Now the medical community ought to embrace GNU opensource and use this Windows experience as a lesson. Proprietary systems are not there for public benefit.
And that too needs to be changed. Campaign finance reform, and donation reforms. There needs to be serious caps and the populace must learn platforms through research, not misleading commercials. All this would not happen if the populace was not complacent. This has to actively be stopped, especially the Coke/Pepsi presidencies.
For those who object to this behaviour, write to congress. How many actually do this? As long as the populace is complacent this will get worse. Freedom and its maintenance must be struggled for.
"To the States, or any one of them,
or any city of the States,
resist much, obey little!
Resist much! Resist!
Once unquestioning obedience,
once fully enslaved,
no nation, state, city of this earth,
ever afterward resumes its liberty." -Walt Whitman.
You may want to go with a Libre version of GNU/Linux. I noticed the South Americans making great Libre distros like Musix, Dragora, Ututo and though Trisquel is from Spain, it is also used in South America. For some reason, the idea of "Libre" really took hold there and that is a good thing. The great thing of Libre is that it puts all people on the same playing field, both first and second/third world. All have access to the code, and they can run, share and modify it. Perhaps put the Guatamalens in touch with the Libre community in South America--the language barrier may not be as great. Trisquel may be the best way to go as it is the easiest to install and run of the lot.
If you want to use GNU/Linux, then you need to learn the fundamentals of how it works. There is no easy path when it comes to GNU/Linux, you MUST learn and embrace learning. Slackware will give you an appreciation of what a package manager is, what dependencies are, and how to use a command line. Yes, Slackware is a hassle sometimes, but it is good for you. When you install it, the system is quite complete. You have A LOT of software already installed, enough to get you going so you can start browsing the web or going on IRC channels and asking for help. The Slackware people are not always sociable, so you can also try linuxquestions.org where people have to behave. I suggest Slackware for beginners who are serious about GNU/Linux and want to reap its benefits. IOf yo uare not interested in learning, stick with Ubuntu and hope for the best. Ubuntu is as close to automated as it gets. But that path will bring you grief. Go for empowerment.
Once you go through Slack, THEN you can pick whatever distro you like to use like Gentoo, Arch, or even better, go for a Libre distro like Dragora...
GNU/Linux is rewarding if you are willing to learn how the OS works. Rather than focus on a GUI, I would suggest you learn the command line which is the underlying system in any GNU/Linux distro. Once you know the command line, you can run Gentoo, Ubuntu, Slackware, whatever. Even if your GUI fails or gets glitchy, the command line will save you.
Another benefit of GNU/Linux is that whenever a friend (who does not have a lot of money) gets a computer virus, an install of Ubuntu really sets them on the right track and they get amazed at all the cool, free software and pretty interface(s) to pick from.
Not all people like learning or have the patience (it was frustrating for me the first year) but it paid off in the long run. I am not rich, but have all this great software for free and am doing things I never dreamed. I never thought I would edit audio, or design album covers because I cannot afford the industry standards. But software like Audacity, Gimp, Inkscape, Scribus gave me opportunities to do amazing things. I ran a record label and music distro biz on a shoe sting budget thanks to GNU/Linux.
Apple/Windows still hold the industry standards, but free software seems to be catching up.
So it really comes down to; do you want to spend money or time/patience? If you go with the latter, you may be the better off for it.
Now there is less reason than ever to buy laptops and computers pre-installed with the Windows operating system and to be made to pay the Windows tax. We can now turn to manufacturers that offer Linux-based machines out of the box such as ThinkPenguin, Lemote, and System 76. Add to that, even companies like HP and Dell (still?) offer pre-installed Linux machines. Previously, gamers needed Windows to run games, but now companies like Steam Valve make that a moot point. As Microsoft resorts to more aggressive tactics to ensure only their product can run on computers, we simply need no longer support manufacturers who bow to their whim. Consumers need choice and freedom and Microsoft will not facilitate this, nor will manufacturers who force people to pay for the Windows OS even though the Microsoft EULA states the consumer can get a refund if s/he does not agree to the terms and conditions. It's time the users of alternate operating systems created and supported their own ecosystem.
Slashdot Mirror
"Liberty Reserve allegedly 'facilitated global criminal conduct'", you mean like the illegal invasion of Iraq, the (avoidable) war in Vietnam, the support of South American despots? The enabling of third world labour and resource exploitation? The pillaging of natural resources that belong the natives of Africa? You mean how mega corporations launder their money and don't pay taxes? I say we deal with the bigger criminals first, before going after the petty ones.
Yep, the general public is quite broken. They cannot even control their own government.
This is good news. I am glad people are working on BSD(s), Hurd, Minix, and other systems because it ensures technological diversity. It would be a sad state if only GNU/Linux and proprietary systems were developed. If we have a thriving ecosystem of vaious operating systems and kernels, that bodes far better for advancement than a monoculture.
There are lots of things that are lawful and acceptible, but they are not right. Cases in point are slavery or extermination of other ethnic groups (or invasion of countries) or text avoidance or slave labor. I am not sure where you are going with your comment.
Apple pursued lawful tax evasion, so it is acceptable. It does not matter if Apple use exploited labor to achieve their goals, harmful DRM, (lawfully) evade taxes, and not thank their biggest customer (USA) by establishing a larger manufacturing presence. http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/activate/2011/09/201194144739197637.html http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/activate/2011/09/20119994239791675.html Apple are not much different from Walmart, who harm US national interests by their practices: http://vimeo.com/52359213 Consumers do not care. Ideally, a well informed populace would take Apple and any other corporate entity who harms US interests to tasks. They could boycott, organize protests. Instead, consumers reward this behavior, so why should Apple not do whatever it wants?
@Andover Person Yeah, sure. The people I know use Vi. So maybe you need a gaming keyboard for Emacs. Stallman uses Emacs, haven't seem him with a gaming keyboard though. Maybe he has a WOW keyboard stashed somewhere. Guilty pleaseure.
It's a nice children's movie.
Read Stallman's 'Free Software, Free Society' or this well-written piece by Tom Wolfe on Patents: http://ikhider.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Land-of-Wizards-by-Tom-Wolfe.zip Our patent system was originally conceived as a way to encourage creativity and inventiveness, but now relegated to whomsoever has the deepest pockets for lawyers. A corporation can take someone's idea and claim it as their own and win in a lawsuit simply because their law team is bigger. The patent system needs a serious overhaul.
I noticed some of the high-end programmer types keep stripping down their systems and going for simpler solutions, "less is better" if you will. If they use GNU/Linux, their GUI will be XMonad or DWM instead of KDE or Gnome. Richard Stallman uses Emacs as his GUI and he does not use a cel phone. For him, a pretty GUI is unnecessary. If an older piece of equipment or software achieves the objective, then stick with it. The concern, of course, is if a significant change occurs and you do not embrace it out of objection to change, but I suspect the poster does not have such an issue. I also see dedicated programmers use the old IBM Thinkpads not because of coolness, but they feel most comfortable with the keyboard. I hear the old IBM desktop keyboards are also sought after by contemporary programmers. As long as your "old school" (I may use "pragmatic") tendencies do not get in the way of the pursuit of knowledge, then embrace it. I think of Max Cohen from the movie, Pi, who build his computer from discarded components. Cool.
Fighting file-sharing is kind of like "sand proofing" a house in a desert.
From the crumbling infrastructure, to massive invasion campaigns, to the billions in funding to Israel, to a growing security apparatus, to the war on drugs, America needs the money. Maybe Ebay and Paypal can shave a couple percentage points off their unjustified fees and percentages to let the government have more funds. Though I much rather taxes go to rebuild, educate, and maintain the country as opposed to oppression, but that's just my quirk.
If the fool was using a personal phone to conduct illegal business, the police and Apple can use whatever means they want. Last I heard, drug dealers use disposable,cheap phones to conduct deals and then toss in the water/incinerator/whatever. What should be the real story is this failed war on drugs that only seem to give the state greater police powers, bankers more money, and make drug lords ridiculously rich. Decriminalize drugs and make it a health issue. Our society has a tremendous problem with drugs including and especially the "legitimate" kinds. Read Charles Bowden's 'Murder City' and 'Down By The River'. Excellent journalism.
Things we have now, like CD's, rocket ships, the internet, tablet computers, televideo started off as science fiction and Japan is a M A S S I V E exporter of sci-fi, from anime to manga to the Haikasoru sci-fi book series--so it makes sense they build the odd super computer.
I prefer Archive.org because their specific mandate is to serve the public, 'universal access to all knowledge'. By contrast, Youtube is a business; their goal is to generate revenue. That is why I get disappointed when public service initiatives or individuals use Youtube. Archive.org is quite good, and they also offer GNU/Libre friendly alternatives for sound/video files such as ogg and flac. Archive.org has no annoying ads and there is some really useful information on there--hopefully in the future there will be more of a migration to Archive.org. Despite youtube being html5, my Libre-based distro cannot play all the videos and get a notification to install Adobe Flash. Not so with Archive.org.
BB phones are solid. That's because the phones took years to polish and improve. The tablets are still new and the OS not quite polished. Their over-confidence left this client frustrated. BB's corporate hegemony meant they did not have to exert their usual effort, particularly with their Playbook OS, which has a lot of glitches. Customer support for the Playbook is also lacking. Now that competition is shaking things up, BB will be forced to reevaluate their products and customer (dis)satisfaction, take OS glitches more seriously and client support. (BB can take notes from Godaddy support.) A sore point is the fact the Playbook is not linux friendly, that needs to change. My linux machines recognize my BB phone, but not the tablet. My PB was a gift, otherwise I would get a linux tablet. So competition will make things interesting.
I picked up a Think Penguin wifi adapter for my machine and am happy to support the cause because it is a worthy goal. It is not about "purity" as some put it, rather for technology as a whole to advance in a stable, more beneficial direction for all. Patent laws were originally used to encourage inventors to share ideas without fear of loss of credit. Those patent laws were subsequently perverted by corporations so they can litigate people out of their inventions and claim benefits for their own interests. A great article, "Land of Wizards" by Tom Wolfe describes how inventors are constantly swindled out of their creations and how the patent system is flawed. I read this after Stallman's excellent "Free Software, Free Society" and realized that the current rules hinder creativity and inventiveness. The FOSS ideals return the benefits of inventiveness back to the populace rather than just corporate cabals. I also picked up the Thinkpenguin ogg player. While the quality of that unit may not be up to snuff compared to its proprietary cousins, I hope my support will lead to better players down the road. I heard that development of the ogg format currently stalled, which would be a shame. Hopefully my small purchases and posts encourage development. I am tremendously heartened to see companies like Thinkpenguin making this stuff available and that great quality distros like Trisquel (which I use) exist. I hope other Libre distros pick up traction and get more developers to encourage the spirit of creativity and inventiveness for all.
According to this piece, I am required to Install Adobe flash to hear a public domain recording. This should have gone to Archive.org instead, the site posted a Soundcloud interface. Naughty-naughty. I can understand a rock band who does not know any better, but the Smithsonian? Make public domain media Libre friendly please.
Windows had its time and place and it has now passed. Now the medical community ought to embrace GNU opensource and use this Windows experience as a lesson. Proprietary systems are not there for public benefit.
And that too needs to be changed. Campaign finance reform, and donation reforms. There needs to be serious caps and the populace must learn platforms through research, not misleading commercials. All this would not happen if the populace was not complacent. This has to actively be stopped, especially the Coke/Pepsi presidencies.
For those who object to this behaviour, write to congress. How many actually do this? As long as the populace is complacent this will get worse. Freedom and its maintenance must be struggled for. "To the States, or any one of them, or any city of the States, resist much, obey little! Resist much! Resist! Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, ever afterward resumes its liberty." -Walt Whitman.
You may want to go with a Libre version of GNU/Linux. I noticed the South Americans making great Libre distros like Musix, Dragora, Ututo and though Trisquel is from Spain, it is also used in South America. For some reason, the idea of "Libre" really took hold there and that is a good thing. The great thing of Libre is that it puts all people on the same playing field, both first and second/third world. All have access to the code, and they can run, share and modify it. Perhaps put the Guatamalens in touch with the Libre community in South America--the language barrier may not be as great. Trisquel may be the best way to go as it is the easiest to install and run of the lot.
Any manga/anime enthusiast knows the series started with a device just like this...
If you want to use GNU/Linux, then you need to learn the fundamentals of how it works. There is no easy path when it comes to GNU/Linux, you MUST learn and embrace learning. Slackware will give you an appreciation of what a package manager is, what dependencies are, and how to use a command line. Yes, Slackware is a hassle sometimes, but it is good for you. When you install it, the system is quite complete. You have A LOT of software already installed, enough to get you going so you can start browsing the web or going on IRC channels and asking for help. The Slackware people are not always sociable, so you can also try linuxquestions.org where people have to behave. I suggest Slackware for beginners who are serious about GNU/Linux and want to reap its benefits. IOf yo uare not interested in learning, stick with Ubuntu and hope for the best. Ubuntu is as close to automated as it gets. But that path will bring you grief. Go for empowerment. Once you go through Slack, THEN you can pick whatever distro you like to use like Gentoo, Arch, or even better, go for a Libre distro like Dragora...
GNU/Linux is rewarding if you are willing to learn how the OS works. Rather than focus on a GUI, I would suggest you learn the command line which is the underlying system in any GNU/Linux distro. Once you know the command line, you can run Gentoo, Ubuntu, Slackware, whatever. Even if your GUI fails or gets glitchy, the command line will save you. Another benefit of GNU/Linux is that whenever a friend (who does not have a lot of money) gets a computer virus, an install of Ubuntu really sets them on the right track and they get amazed at all the cool, free software and pretty interface(s) to pick from. Not all people like learning or have the patience (it was frustrating for me the first year) but it paid off in the long run. I am not rich, but have all this great software for free and am doing things I never dreamed. I never thought I would edit audio, or design album covers because I cannot afford the industry standards. But software like Audacity, Gimp, Inkscape, Scribus gave me opportunities to do amazing things. I ran a record label and music distro biz on a shoe sting budget thanks to GNU/Linux. Apple/Windows still hold the industry standards, but free software seems to be catching up. So it really comes down to; do you want to spend money or time/patience? If you go with the latter, you may be the better off for it.
Now there is less reason than ever to buy laptops and computers pre-installed with the Windows operating system and to be made to pay the Windows tax. We can now turn to manufacturers that offer Linux-based machines out of the box such as ThinkPenguin, Lemote, and System 76. Add to that, even companies like HP and Dell (still?) offer pre-installed Linux machines. Previously, gamers needed Windows to run games, but now companies like Steam Valve make that a moot point. As Microsoft resorts to more aggressive tactics to ensure only their product can run on computers, we simply need no longer support manufacturers who bow to their whim. Consumers need choice and freedom and Microsoft will not facilitate this, nor will manufacturers who force people to pay for the Windows OS even though the Microsoft EULA states the consumer can get a refund if s/he does not agree to the terms and conditions. It's time the users of alternate operating systems created and supported their own ecosystem.