Most people, myself included feel that *PEOPLE* shouldnt be subject to the whims of a 'labour market'.
Why not? My labour is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it, just as a product is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. The key is that unions are monopolies on labour. Just as monopolies on products are bad for consumers, so too are monopolies on labour bad for employers. Remember, too, that everyone is an employwer. I've employed thousands: the one who picked the apple I'm eating, the ones who built my car, even the one who built my computer (me; I employed myself). And every one of those people employs thousands of others.
The reason that unions were created is that in the 19th century there arose monopsonies and oligopsonies of employers. There was no longer a free market for labour; just as consumers suffer under a monopolist, so too did labour suffer under the monopsonist. The only way to reply was with a monopoly or oligopoly on labour--and that is just what unions did....they enable a new ruling (monied) class to subjicate those without.... witness Ford's move you quoted.
Only a socialist thinks that giving someone the money he needs to feed his wife and children is subjugating him. The workers in Mexico now have jobs. Indeed, these must be better jobs than before, because unless they are stupid, they would not have left whatever they were doing previously. This also means that their former employers will be forced to better their own conditions, in order to attract back some workers. That is the beauty of a market.
As for the American workers? They over-priced their services, and must now reduce them to the fair value therefor. That, too, is the beauty of the market. They overcharged, and now must pay the price for their greed.
You are a troll, an idiot or both.
You are the troll or the idiot--your ignorance of or disregard for centuries-old economics reveals that fact. But I cannot fault you for it--coming as you do from a marxist nation (socialism and marxism are one-and-the-same, as anyone who has studied history knows), you have been exposed to such propaganda from birth. No doubt you have been brought up to believe that corporations are evil, faceless entities out to steal the worker's labour. Never mind that he can choose to work for anyone and in any industry that he wishes. He can even be an employer on his own; not that much capital is required to start a small business. I understand that Onassis started with $20.
The simple fact of the matter is that the free market is the only fair and efficient mechanism for allocating scarce resources. It is harsh but fair, in exactly the same way that nature is harsh but fair. Naturally we as individuals soften it, just as we give medicine to the child who would naturally die. But we shouldn't run around crying for a right to a job anymore than we run around crying for a right to freedom from sickness.
...with risk of breaking the computer or being caught and subject to Great Unpleasantness.
No sh*t. If I were to come home and find someone breaking my computer--or really, just in my home--he'd be subjected to Great Unpleasantness to the nth degree. Where nth degree is defined as multiple.22 in. holes in his head. When did the US sink so low as to allow pigs to break into a man's home--his castle--and listen to his private conversations? I know that it's been going on for a long time; I just wish it were legal to retaliate. If we could issue pigs speeding tickets, or fire on them, or even scream obscenities at them without being arrested, it'd be nice. They are such despicable uentermenschen.
A strike was being planned at one of Ford's manufacturing plants where the workers were demanding higher wages. Instead of negotiating or dealing with the strike, Ford closed the plant, shipped all the equipment to Mexico, and reopened it in a matter of months. Bonus: the locals were willing to work for one tenth the wage of the U.S. workers. Good for Ford; bad for workers.
Seems to me it was plenty good for workers. Mexican workers, anyway: they have jobs with a good company. Even for US workers it may be a good thing: perhaps they will realise that they do not have a deathgrip on their employers--there's a labour market and not a labour monopoly, as before. Perh. the unions will realise that they need to compete. Or perh. workers will realise that unions are just as evil as monopsonist employers.
After all, they're the only people the Israelis are trying to kill.
Whose land are the Israelis camped on? Whom did they displace? Who are second-class citizens on their own real estate? Here's a hint: while it is a Semitic people, it sure as shootin' ain't the Israelis. They stole that land, and the Palestinians want it back. We have our Indian issues--at least we paid lip service to the Indians and their nations. The Israelis simply took the land they were given. Note also that the Israelis are in violation fo the fourth Geneva convention with their settlements of conquered territory. Note also that Sharon is shortly to be indicted for various crimes against humanity.
Oh, and dare I mention the $10,000 reward Saddam is paying to the family of every "martyred" child?
Good for him. What's your point?
My point was a) I'd rather not visit that part of the world b) I'd rather not give any money to the Israelis c) if I had to give money to any of 'em, it might as well be the Palestinians, who have at least a legitimate beef. Not that I care for them that much either.
Three months?!?!?! Yeesh, If I had gone that long, I would have been at the CO with an axe and garden shears demanding action or their fibers were going down!
Three months--hell, if I were three months without DSL it would be long past the making demands stage. It'd be at the pliers and blowtorch, `Let's get mediaeval' stage...
I love FPS (Quake III for Linux--mmmm mmmm), and I understand that x86s and consoles are what most people think of nowadays when they think games, but still. Some of the best games I've played were Mac games; some Unix games. Here's my own list:
Marathon, Marathon II & Marathon Infinity
Back when Doom was the big thing, Marathon came out. You actually had to aim up and down. Enemies would float down on you from above and behind. There were real puzzles. And the story! Never have a played a game with as engrossing a story. Marathon II took things up a notch, but wasn't as revolutionary. Marathon Infinity was a whole new story--a troubling and confusing one, at that. And Marathon still lives. There are tons of interesting mods (Tempus Irae, a Rennaissance Italy mod, is one of my favourites), and even an open source (yes, that means Linux!) version. Marathon II had a Windows version; all other commercial version were Mac-only; the open source is Mac, Linux, Windows and BeOS.
Want an exploration game? Want to be a space trader (remember trading games?)? Want an arcade space combat game? Want to conquer the galaxy? Escape Velocity allowed one to do all that and more. An incredible engine, not in terms of graphics, but in terms of capabilities. Truly outside-the-box thinking, it was one of the real greats. It is Mac-only.
First there was rogue. Then there was Moria. And then there was Angband. Expandable, extensible, just plain fun. It was winnable, too, which I cannot say for NetHack (which is in many ways a superior game, except that I spend all of my time on the first 6 levels) or Omega (I've just not played it enough).
Descent
Another one that came out right around Doom. Doom (and Marathon) had a boring map type--walls went straight from floor to ceiling; all floors and ceilings were parallel. The player ran around killing things. Descent changed all that by offering a FPS with true spherical movement: the player flew through tunnels, able to turn in any direction, control pitch, yaw and elevation. The gameplay was incredible. I'm not certain why this genre has not caught on. In many ways, it's similar to a flight simulator, but with an arcade flavour. A ripping good time; I'm playing Descent III on Linux these days. Descent was originally offered for Mac and Windows boxes.
Contra
I'm not certain why, but Contra was one of those games I could just play for hours and hours without end. I loved it deeply, and was awful at it. But man was it fun!
Incidentally, when's slashdot going to support <dl>?
Heh. That and the fact that I'd rather get a trip to Palestine. Spend my tourism dollars where they go to support a government not bent on genocide.
Still, who wants to go to that part of the world right now? Is there something about landing in the middle of a shooting-blowing-people-up war that that just says `must-do vacation' to some folks?
I do like your idea about it being to play out the Middle East peace process. Couldn't be any worse than any of the current players.
Re:If this can't break Microsoft's back nothing wi
on
Code Red Back For More
·
· Score: 2
A previous poster quoth:
The reason the "core functionality" of your PC is "allowed" to distribute your private information is because it has to be able to do so if you're going to write emails to your friends.
Bear with me--trying to break the no-dups posting rule...
Not quite (or at least, not the way you're thinking). An OS with capabilities doesn't have quite the same issues as one without. Essentially, a capability is permission to do something: see a file, read it, delete it, execute it, open a network connection. In such an OS, the web server is giving capabilities to: see everything in its docroot; execute everything in it cgi-bin; receive network connexions. It cannot read your personal data; it cannot open its own network connexion. Done right, it cannot even access libraries it doesn't use. It's a very interesting concept.
Capability systems are much more complex than older, permissions-based systems; they can be much slower. But don't we owe it to ourselves to use some of our spare CPU cycles and bytes to actually do something useful, such as prevent break-ins? With the right administration tools, capabilities should be about as easy as current permission systems. And worms like Code Red would be made much more difficult. Not impossible--but more difficult.
Damn bloody no-resumbit code sux. Have to change this article enough to let the blankety-blank slashcode let me through 'cause I made a mistake on the previous post. Bloody friggin heck.
And the stupid 20-second rule is getting me now.
Re:If this can't break Microsoft's back nothing wi
on
Code Red Back For More
·
· Score: 2
The reason the "core functionality" of your PC is "allowed" to distribute your private information is because it has to be able to do so if you're going to write emails to your friends.
Not quite (or at least, not the way you're thinking, I believe). An OS with capabilities doesn't have quite the same issue. Essentially, a capability is permission to do something: see a file, read it, execute it, open a network connection. In such an OS, the web server is giving capabilities to: see everything in its docroot; execute everything in it cgi-bin; receive network connexions. It cannot read your personal data; it cannot open its own network connexion. Done right, it cannot even access libraries it doesn't use.
Capability systems are far more complex than older, permissions-based systems. But don't we owe it to ourselves to use some of our spare CPU cycles and bytes to actually do something? With the right administration tools, capabilities should be doable. And worms like Code Red would be made much more difficult.
Re:It's not safe to install IIS while on a network
on
Code Red Back For More
·
· Score: 2
It's not safe to install IIS or any MS OS. Period. Don't plug it in after you've installed; you know that you'll be hit again. Install a real OS--Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD--and go to town. They're all general-purpose OSes. They can all do what you need. Deal with their problems; it's better than deal with Microsoft's.
Actually, I've always interpreted Godwin's Law as a pessimistic-but-true evaluation of people--particularly Usenet posters--as a group. The mere mention of National Socialism among the hoi polloi is enough to destroy a thread, because it will soon enough devolve into mindless flamage. It doesn't matter what the actual message or purpose of the mention was; indeed, it often seems that the more apt the mention the quicker Godwin's Invisible Keyboard comes into play. The great mass of people are foolish, and knee-jerk to the extreme. Nazis bad--how dare you profane history by mentioning them! Guns bad--we must disarm! Drugs bad--we must prohibit! Religion bad--we must ban!
Yes, I do happen to read at >= 2. I find that it reduces the noise significantly to ignore a) those who have been downgrade (<= 0), those who have not attained sufficient notice (1), and those who, while having attained enough notice to be auto-2, have been marked down. I do miss some valuable comments, but not many; I do see some junk, but not much.
Anyone know why gear runs from the command line, but SIGSEGVs when run from xscreensaver? I want to run it badly.
I've an Elsa nVidia geForce2 <guaranteed to have screwed up the FunnyCaPs>, and am running a more-or-less factory RedHat 7.0 (i.e. with security enhancements, some of my own devious rolling), using the nVidia drivers.
It comes from, I believe, the Mac OS, where OK is on the right and Cancel on the left. This si because normally the user will wish to OK, and the user spends most of his time on the right hand of the screen: scrollbars, expanding windows, opening volumes &c. The only things on the left hand side are the dangerous close-window button and the Cancel button. The Mac OS UI, while it does have some nasty problems, had a better layout than anyone else's, and still does.
It's dashed good to see/. covering OSes other than the current triumvirate (Linux, Mac OS & Windows, in descending order of coolness). My personal feeling is that the Next Big Thing in OSes is going to be one of the BSDs, but that's not for another five or ten years. It's good to see what other folks are up to as well. Personally, I think that the capabilities model of Eros should be emulated by, approximately, everyone. After all, if you don't know it exists, you can't even attempt to access it...
From what little research I've done, AtheOS looks to be the most promising up-and-comer thus far (the *BSDs have been around, IIRC, longer than Linux, and thus don't qualify). It has some very nice features. A GTK+ port would not be out of place; neither would a full Qt port. If it has POSIX emulation (which ISTR it does nto yet) and can run those two toolkits, it can run GNOME and KDE, which is the sine qua non of a modern OS, unfortunately.
It's good to see coverage like this. Perhaps this will help attract developers.
On the other hand, it represents a creaping ligitimization of space as a DMZ--which disturbs me for both philosophic reasons, and also becase it really doesn't seem to be the sort of space we all dreamed about in our youth.
D'you mean making space just as prone to conflict as the rest of the world? Hate to break it to you, but anywhere there is man, there will be conflict. Anywhere there is conflict there will be violence. And anywhere there is violence there will be the need to counteract that violence. And by counteract I do not mean `Please, stop shooting us. It's not nice, y'know.' I mean `Don't even think about shooting us, 'cause if even one of us dies, you and everyone you care about will be reduced to ash before you get a chance to blink.'
When and if the full-scale colonisation of space commences, there will be a need for weaponry. Those who are foolish enough to believe in some utopian dream of a peaceful space are not only ignorant of human nature, but prime candidates for the Darwin awards of the 22nd century.
And we could have done it so easily. Imagine the firebombing of Dresden (one of the greatest war crimes of WWII, incidentally). Now apply it to the forests of SE Asia. Had we desired it, there would have been no North Vietnam when we were done, all without the use of a single nuke.
We could easily have won that war in other, humane ways, too, had it not been for the micromanagement of the war effort.
Developing for a military application is a return on the investment. The return it generates is military might, the only thing which has ever accomplished anything throughout history. This is an unpleasant fact about human beings (and, I daresay, any other sentient beings, should they exist [which I find highly unlikely]): we disagree. And any disagreement carried far enough leads to violence. The only way to defend against violence is with more of the same. If you've ever boxed, you know the drill: hit harder and better than the other fellow. That's all that the military is about: hitting him harder than he hits us, thus ensuring that any action on his part is therefor futile.
I wish that man were peaceful. Unfortunately, as long as we disagree, we will fight. And as long as we fight, we will need to ensure that we win our fights. And as long as we need to win, military applications of technology will generate a sizable return on our investment.
Now, if you want to lose, it's pretty easy. Quit spending on military hardware. In fact, disband the Navy, Army and Marines (the Air Force is a Faux Force, its duties covered by the above). Then sit back and relax as everyone and his brother realises that you've land, resources and people free for the taking.
They say a mother can tell exactly what a baby wants by its whine.
Not only the sort of cry it's using. When I was a baby for some reason or another I developed a strong liking for droning--that is, humming a single note for a prolonged period. She could tell where I was and what I was doing my the tone of the note. If the tone changed to `curious,' she knew she might need to go make sure that I wasn't getting into something I shouldn't (like Draino); if it stopped altogether, she knew I was either in trouble or asleep. Fortunately, for a baby `trouble' as often as not means `having to use brain,' as in figuring out how to climb stairs.
Incidentally, as I wrote this I was droning to a rockabilly tune and than Also Sprach Zarathustra. You see, it's a habit I've yet to break...
No, their `mascot' (really, something they have on display for the public to see) is a blue lobster. It's a natural genetic mutation, and is well-known. What sort of mindless lie were you attempting to propagate?
Although, personally, ran I a nuke plant Blinky probably would be my mascot. I'd think it funny. Probably most other folks wouldn't, though...
It's a bit like saying "If an oil tanker spills, the amount of oil sitting on the world's oceans will still be only 0.000...1% of the total mass of the oceans, therefore there's no problem."
Which is, incidentally, true. Given a few years, the oil spill's effect is roughly nill. Go up to Alaska and take a look at where the Valdez spilled. I understand that the only damaged sections are those which were cleaned--those which were left to their own devices were cleansed soon enough. Of course, even the damaged sections are probably doing much better, as it's been many years since that spill.
I took the SAT at least once a year back in high school. IIRC my junior year was the first time that calculators were allowed. I figured I'd go for the weirdness angle and brought my Dad's bamboo K&E slide rule, complete with the hardened leather scabbard hanging at my belt. The proctor let me use it, and I got my highest score on the math section before or since.
The great thing about slide rules is that they were laid out in order to facilitate calculations, according to the order in whcih calculations tend to be done. Do one, flip it over, do another, flip over again, and so on until the answer was obtained. Besides, using the rule one gets a feel for numbers and math as something real, not something made-up and irrelevant. Man, I loved using that slide rule. Sigh...
Heh. I'm no moral dualist--the idea that there is an absolute good and an absolute evil has always begged the question of how one can tell which is good and which is evil; really, for a Zoroastrian to serve Ormuzd or Ahriman makes no difference, as either way he is serving some nebulous power. I've always adhered to the idea that there is an absolute good and a whole lot of more-or-less not-goods.
But Microsoft's software makes one think. It is neither so externally elegant as the least slime to have been quelled in the depths of Apple's R&D labs, nor so internally elegant as the least of the rejected patches to Linux, FreeBSD or any other Real OS. In many ways, one wonders if Microsoft is, indeed, the Absolute Evil without which Absolute Good is nothing.
But I believe that after further consideration one realises that M$ is, after all, not truly an absolute ill but merely a very nasty thing gone horribly wrong. It does have its very few saving graces, however few and far between. And even Unix is not the absolute good. Our permissions model is positively antediluvian, to give one simple example (true, honest-to-goodness capabilities would be so nice). But for all its warts, Unix (the idea) and Linux/BSD (the children)--even Solaris and HP-UX (the natural children)--are far far better than Microsoft's cruft.
One can see that, as Microsoft has failed horribly to reach OS decency, and Unix has failed far less horribly, that we are duty-bound to learn from the lessons and mistakes of Unix and progress along the path towards true OS perfection. On the one path, madness and misery. On the other, freedom and frolic. Which is the obvious, and correct, choice?
Umm, I love gnucash (been using it since the Motif days), but 1.6.0 is a royal PitA to install. I have a complete RedHat 7.0, and getting 1.6.0 was an exercise in futility. Eventually I gave up and downloaded source. I've a feeling that the source would have worked from the get-go. Source rocks. Packages sux rox.
I'm quite aware that we were not angels either. But a) we were fighting a war of defense and b) I really don't care about yankees or what happened to them. I care about what happened to us. I'm sure yankees feel the same way; I just feel that neither of us should be lumped in with the other, 'cause we're different sorts of folks. I'm just arguing for the distinction.
Personally, I found Texans to be great people. But that's me. I know some folks that find New Yorkers to be the finest folks in the world. It's a matter of taste.
Slashdot Mirror
Any sources for the story of Chilliware's failure? I had hoped that they might do well, but as with so many other things they failed.
Why not? My labour is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it, just as a product is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. The key is that unions are monopolies on labour. Just as monopolies on products are bad for consumers, so too are monopolies on labour bad for employers. Remember, too, that everyone is an employwer. I've employed thousands: the one who picked the apple I'm eating, the ones who built my car, even the one who built my computer (me; I employed myself). And every one of those people employs thousands of others.
The reason that unions were created is that in the 19th century there arose monopsonies and oligopsonies of employers. There was no longer a free market for labour; just as consumers suffer under a monopolist, so too did labour suffer under the monopsonist. The only way to reply was with a monopoly or oligopoly on labour--and that is just what unions did. ...they enable a new ruling (monied) class to subjicate those without.... witness Ford's move you quoted.
Only a socialist thinks that giving someone the money he needs to feed his wife and children is subjugating him. The workers in Mexico now have jobs. Indeed, these must be better jobs than before, because unless they are stupid, they would not have left whatever they were doing previously. This also means that their former employers will be forced to better their own conditions, in order to attract back some workers. That is the beauty of a market.
As for the American workers? They over-priced their services, and must now reduce them to the fair value therefor. That, too, is the beauty of the market. They overcharged, and now must pay the price for their greed. You are a troll, an idiot or both.
You are the troll or the idiot--your ignorance of or disregard for centuries-old economics reveals that fact. But I cannot fault you for it--coming as you do from a marxist nation (socialism and marxism are one-and-the-same, as anyone who has studied history knows), you have been exposed to such propaganda from birth. No doubt you have been brought up to believe that corporations are evil, faceless entities out to steal the worker's labour. Never mind that he can choose to work for anyone and in any industry that he wishes. He can even be an employer on his own; not that much capital is required to start a small business. I understand that Onassis started with $20.
The simple fact of the matter is that the free market is the only fair and efficient mechanism for allocating scarce resources. It is harsh but fair, in exactly the same way that nature is harsh but fair. Naturally we as individuals soften it, just as we give medicine to the child who would naturally die. But we shouldn't run around crying for a right to a job anymore than we run around crying for a right to freedom from sickness.
No sh*t. If I were to come home and find someone breaking my computer--or really, just in my home--he'd be subjected to Great Unpleasantness to the nth degree. Where nth degree is defined as multiple .22 in. holes in his head. When did the US sink so low as to allow pigs to break into a man's home--his castle--and listen to his private conversations? I know that it's been going on for a long time; I just wish it were legal to retaliate. If we could issue pigs speeding tickets, or fire on them, or even scream obscenities at them without being arrested, it'd be nice. They are such despicable uentermenschen.
Seems to me it was plenty good for workers. Mexican workers, anyway: they have jobs with a good company. Even for US workers it may be a good thing: perhaps they will realise that they do not have a deathgrip on their employers--there's a labour market and not a labour monopoly, as before. Perh. the unions will realise that they need to compete. Or perh. workers will realise that unions are just as evil as monopsonist employers.
Whose land are the Israelis camped on? Whom did they displace? Who are second-class citizens on their own real estate? Here's a hint: while it is a Semitic people, it sure as shootin' ain't the Israelis. They stole that land, and the Palestinians want it back. We have our Indian issues--at least we paid lip service to the Indians and their nations. The Israelis simply took the land they were given. Note also that the Israelis are in violation fo the fourth Geneva convention with their settlements of conquered territory. Note also that Sharon is shortly to be indicted for various crimes against humanity.
Oh, and dare I mention the $10,000 reward Saddam is paying to the family of every "martyred" child?
Good for him. What's your point?
My point was a) I'd rather not visit that part of the world b) I'd rather not give any money to the Israelis c) if I had to give money to any of 'em, it might as well be the Palestinians, who have at least a legitimate beef. Not that I care for them that much either.
Three months--hell, if I were three months without DSL it would be long past the making demands stage. It'd be at the pliers and blowtorch, `Let's get mediaeval' stage...
Back when Doom was the big thing, Marathon came out. You actually had to aim up and down. Enemies would float down on you from above and behind. There were real puzzles. And the story! Never have a played a game with as engrossing a story. Marathon II took things up a notch, but wasn't as revolutionary. Marathon Infinity was a whole new story--a troubling and confusing one, at that. And Marathon still lives. There are tons of interesting mods (Tempus Irae, a Rennaissance Italy mod, is one of my favourites), and even an open source (yes, that means Linux!) version. Marathon II had a Windows version; all other commercial version were Mac-only; the open source is Mac, Linux, Windows and BeOS.
Want an exploration game? Want to be a space trader (remember trading games?)? Want an arcade space combat game? Want to conquer the galaxy? Escape Velocity allowed one to do all that and more. An incredible engine, not in terms of graphics, but in terms of capabilities. Truly outside-the-box thinking, it was one of the real greats. It is Mac-only.
First there was rogue. Then there was Moria. And then there was Angband. Expandable, extensible, just plain fun. It was winnable, too, which I cannot say for NetHack (which is in many ways a superior game, except that I spend all of my time on the first 6 levels) or Omega (I've just not played it enough).
Another one that came out right around Doom. Doom (and Marathon) had a boring map type--walls went straight from floor to ceiling; all floors and ceilings were parallel. The player ran around killing things. Descent changed all that by offering a FPS with true spherical movement: the player flew through tunnels, able to turn in any direction, control pitch, yaw and elevation. The gameplay was incredible. I'm not certain why this genre has not caught on. In many ways, it's similar to a flight simulator, but with an arcade flavour. A ripping good time; I'm playing Descent III on Linux these days. Descent was originally offered for Mac and Windows boxes.
I'm not certain why, but Contra was one of those games I could just play for hours and hours without end. I loved it deeply, and was awful at it. But man was it fun!
Incidentally, when's slashdot going to support <dl>?
Still, who wants to go to that part of the world right now? Is there something about landing in the middle of a shooting-blowing-people-up war that that just says `must-do vacation' to some folks?
I do like your idea about it being to play out the Middle East peace process. Couldn't be any worse than any of the current players.
The reason the "core functionality" of your PC is "allowed" to distribute your private information is because it has to be able to do so if you're going to write emails to your friends.
Capability systems are far more complex than older, permissions-based systems. But don't we owe it to ourselves to use some of our spare CPU cycles and bytes to actually do something? With the right administration tools, capabilities should be doable. And worms like Code Red would be made much more difficult.
It's not safe to install IIS or any MS OS. Period. Don't plug it in after you've installed; you know that you'll be hit again. Install a real OS--Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD--and go to town. They're all general-purpose OSes. They can all do what you need. Deal with their problems; it's better than deal with Microsoft's.
Yes, I do happen to read at >= 2. I find that it reduces the noise significantly to ignore a) those who have been downgrade (<= 0), those who have not attained sufficient notice (1), and those who, while having attained enough notice to be auto-2, have been marked down. I do miss some valuable comments, but not many; I do see some junk, but not much.
I've an Elsa nVidia geForce2 <guaranteed to have screwed up the FunnyCaPs>, and am running a more-or-less factory RedHat 7.0 (i.e. with security enhancements, some of my own devious rolling), using the nVidia drivers.
It comes from, I believe, the Mac OS, where OK is on the right and Cancel on the left. This si because normally the user will wish to OK, and the user spends most of his time on the right hand of the screen: scrollbars, expanding windows, opening volumes &c. The only things on the left hand side are the dangerous close-window button and the Cancel button. The Mac OS UI, while it does have some nasty problems, had a better layout than anyone else's, and still does.
From what little research I've done, AtheOS looks to be the most promising up-and-comer thus far (the *BSDs have been around, IIRC, longer than Linux, and thus don't qualify). It has some very nice features. A GTK+ port would not be out of place; neither would a full Qt port. If it has POSIX emulation (which ISTR it does nto yet) and can run those two toolkits, it can run GNOME and KDE, which is the sine qua non of a modern OS, unfortunately.
It's good to see coverage like this. Perhaps this will help attract developers.
D'you mean making space just as prone to conflict as the rest of the world? Hate to break it to you, but anywhere there is man, there will be conflict. Anywhere there is conflict there will be violence. And anywhere there is violence there will be the need to counteract that violence. And by counteract I do not mean `Please, stop shooting us. It's not nice, y'know.' I mean `Don't even think about shooting us, 'cause if even one of us dies, you and everyone you care about will be reduced to ash before you get a chance to blink.'
When and if the full-scale colonisation of space commences, there will be a need for weaponry. Those who are foolish enough to believe in some utopian dream of a peaceful space are not only ignorant of human nature, but prime candidates for the Darwin awards of the 22nd century.
We could easily have won that war in other, humane ways, too, had it not been for the micromanagement of the war effort.
I wish that man were peaceful. Unfortunately, as long as we disagree, we will fight. And as long as we fight, we will need to ensure that we win our fights. And as long as we need to win, military applications of technology will generate a sizable return on our investment.
Now, if you want to lose, it's pretty easy. Quit spending on military hardware. In fact, disband the Navy, Army and Marines (the Air Force is a Faux Force, its duties covered by the above). Then sit back and relax as everyone and his brother realises that you've land, resources and people free for the taking.
Not only the sort of cry it's using. When I was a baby for some reason or another I developed a strong liking for droning--that is, humming a single note for a prolonged period. She could tell where I was and what I was doing my the tone of the note. If the tone changed to `curious,' she knew she might need to go make sure that I wasn't getting into something I shouldn't (like Draino); if it stopped altogether, she knew I was either in trouble or asleep. Fortunately, for a baby `trouble' as often as not means `having to use brain,' as in figuring out how to climb stairs.
Incidentally, as I wrote this I was droning to a rockabilly tune and than Also Sprach Zarathustra. You see, it's a habit I've yet to break...
Although, personally, ran I a nuke plant Blinky probably would be my mascot. I'd think it funny. Probably most other folks wouldn't, though...
Which is, incidentally, true. Given a few years, the oil spill's effect is roughly nill. Go up to Alaska and take a look at where the Valdez spilled. I understand that the only damaged sections are those which were cleaned--those which were left to their own devices were cleansed soon enough. Of course, even the damaged sections are probably doing much better, as it's been many years since that spill.
Our planet is amazingly resilient.
The great thing about slide rules is that they were laid out in order to facilitate calculations, according to the order in whcih calculations tend to be done. Do one, flip it over, do another, flip over again, and so on until the answer was obtained. Besides, using the rule one gets a feel for numbers and math as something real, not something made-up and irrelevant. Man, I loved using that slide rule. Sigh...
But Microsoft's software makes one think. It is neither so externally elegant as the least slime to have been quelled in the depths of Apple's R&D labs, nor so internally elegant as the least of the rejected patches to Linux, FreeBSD or any other Real OS. In many ways, one wonders if Microsoft is, indeed, the Absolute Evil without which Absolute Good is nothing.
But I believe that after further consideration one realises that M$ is, after all, not truly an absolute ill but merely a very nasty thing gone horribly wrong. It does have its very few saving graces, however few and far between. And even Unix is not the absolute good. Our permissions model is positively antediluvian, to give one simple example (true, honest-to-goodness capabilities would be so nice). But for all its warts, Unix (the idea) and Linux/BSD (the children)--even Solaris and HP-UX (the natural children)--are far far better than Microsoft's cruft.
One can see that, as Microsoft has failed horribly to reach OS decency, and Unix has failed far less horribly, that we are duty-bound to learn from the lessons and mistakes of Unix and progress along the path towards true OS perfection. On the one path, madness and misery. On the other, freedom and frolic. Which is the obvious, and correct, choice?
Umm, I love gnucash (been using it since the Motif days), but 1.6.0 is a royal PitA to install. I have a complete RedHat 7.0, and getting 1.6.0 was an exercise in futility. Eventually I gave up and downloaded source. I've a feeling that the source would have worked from the get-go. Source rocks. Packages sux rox.
Personally, I found Texans to be great people. But that's me. I know some folks that find New Yorkers to be the finest folks in the world. It's a matter of taste.