THis is the most rediculous flamebait I've seen recently, but I'll bite.
First of all, if you don't like slashdot, don't read it. Much as the world will miss this sort of insightful commentary i'm sure we'll survive.
Secondly, education in journalism means jack. We don't read slashdot for cutting edge journalism for like minded information from like minded people. Slashdot isn't about writing articles, but showing us where they are.
Thirdly, not everyone has a DVD player. Some people live in a place where they're hard to get. Some people simply can't afford one. Some people don't need one, ie, doesn't watch movies often, or doesn't care that much about image quality. You're picking on this person for not being a tech snob. And you're doing it by telling us how great you are for having a lot of DVDs. Wow. I'm sure the world is impressed.
In regard to the actual topic, personally I don't know of or couldn't find any information regarding the actual track. My advice is to live with it. Where there are a lot of players avoid the annoyances of DVDs, such as regioncoding and Macrovision, I've yet to see one that allowed bypassing of the unskippable track on the DVD. I could be wrong but I think it might be software (the disk itself) rather than the player that does that.
I use OLGA extensively. Not because I want to hurt artists, because I love them! I have their albums, and I want to learn how to play along, or learn their music in more detail.
The OLGA is basically a resource for fans, and if anything comes under the protection of "fair use" it should be that.
Would anyone not buy an album because they have the lyrics and guitar chords at home?! Get serious!
Most particularly the "The person you thought was a goody is actually the baddy" thing. Quirrel, Moody, that kid in chamber of secrets, can't remember his name, umm... the rat. At least Prisoner of Azkeban they did it the other way round.
Still the whole "revealed/switched identities" thing has been done. A lot. Too much.
The next one should be good, hopefully. The war begins : )
There's a big difference between someone writing a fan story (which are mostly crap read by others with too much time) and someone publishing work claiming to be another person to make money from an established (and rather good) trademark.
It's worth pointing out one thing here that annoys me.
Inconsistancy. ATMs all work differently. Different banks, etc. Do you need to put 00 on the end for the cents? Why the hell would you do that anyway? You can't get out or deposit 25 cents! Anyway, certain things should all work more or less the same. Like ATMs. DVD players. Fridges. Cars.
I have conflicting views on this. I liked an earlier post on "logically sound" though I think it went a little far.
It's easy for our generation (and profession) to mock older people, or less experienced people. But I think our industry has a tendency to bite itself in the ass by overselling "user friendly".
Apple are a good example. By saying how easy it is to use a Mac they overstate how complicated PCs really are. And that means people get scared.
People who don't know are too afraid they'll "cause a virus" or wipe the hard drive with a random button press, because the culture of fear we've created suggests exactly that.
There's another side to that though. People are very unwilling to just TRY. I recently had to explain to someone how to use a DVD player. "How do I play the movie?" Well, when the thing comes up that says "Play Movie" hit OK!
It's not that hard. There are certain paradigms that should require minimal or no learning. The "tape deck" concept, for example. Play, pause, search, skip, etc. These are basic concept since (or grown from) the cassette tape. Tape, CD, DVD, mp3 player, minidisk. It doesn't matter. They work more or less the same. For a user to not understand the basic functions shows a basic level of laziness.
It's also worth pointing out the car analogy. If someone bought a car it would be reasonable to expect a certain level of understanding of how to drive it. Same with a complex machine, like a computer. to say it's "too complicated" would be like buying a car, without any idea how to drive and complaining that it's hard.
Another comment I want to make is that sometimes RTFM doesn't help. I recently bought an Ericsson mobile phone. Couldn't turn on a keypad lock. The FM didn't have it (as far as I could find). I had to search the internet, where I finally found it in a PDF document of the FM for another model.
It's worth pointing out that sometimes the FM does more damage than good. A good manual, like any good documentation, is well spaced out, looks pleasing, is simple, clear, concise and free from jargon. All too often this is NOT the case. Surely we've all read manuals that are tiny, cramped, poorly laid out, ambiguous and incomplete?
As a final note. There should not be a limit to user friendliness. Ultimate "user friendly" would be the ability to simply tell your "thing" what you want. Surely that's an admirable goal. As long as that friendliness is not at the cost of the "power user". Personally, I'd like to just TELL my VCR to tape Buffy!
Don't confuse "User Friendly" with "Dumbed Down". And don't assume that more complicated is always better. There's often charm in simplicity. In many cases advanced features are simply not needed.
Suspension of disbelief is a basic fundamental of movie making. The instant you start thinking about it as people on a set the movie is flawed.
The funny thing is that I tend to notice more when things are RIGHT than when thingss are wrong!
Two reasons. One: life isn't always pretty. Take MJ herself. Kirsten Dunst has my undying love. Almost every chick in movies is a hottie. Real life isn't QUITE up to that standard.
Second is appreciation. "Hey, look, they've bothered to put in the automatic brakes that kick in if an elevator falls." "Hey, look, that guy is actually having to copy the file onto the disk, not using some magic 'go' button." "Hey look, it's actually a zip disk, not a floppy disk he's putting that 50 meg database on." "Hey, that spaceship blowing up is inaudible, like it should be."
Not that I really care if they DON'T do these things, unless it's rediculous. (Surely we've all scoffed at the hero taking snap shots with sniper accuracy at 100 yard targets, while guys with machine guns spray the area around him with bullets!) But anyway, I tend not to notice that sort of thing.... movies are "hyper real" anyway, NOT a representation of reality. Everyone is good looking and bullet proof.
Just enjoy the movie. I haven't seen it yet, but I will. Kirsten, wait for me. I'll be with you soon!
Best I've heard (if horrible) is to get one of those firestarter bottles. You know the ones, squirt out naptha or something cool. Also get an aerosol can of butane. Catch toad. Open mouth, insert aerosol can. Spray. The toad will automatically swallow. And swallow. And swallow. Spray firelighter on toads back. Light. Watch fireball toad hop away until the flame burns through the skin and then KABOOM.
(personally I don't mind them dying, but I'm not a fan of cruelty, even to pests.)
The ways we killed them in Biology (all the experiments Yanks do on bullfrogs, we do on Canetoads.) were fairly kind. Either putting them in a plastic bag in the freezer (your freezer, not mine!), or holding the body in one hand and bending the nose right down. Then you get a long steel skewer and insert it into the back of the head. Does the job.
I knew a guy who used to shoot them with an air rifle. No pellets. Just the air. Right up against them the air alone penetrates the brain.
Most popular way of killing them, though, is to make a solution of "Dettol" (it's an antiseptic if you don't have it there) and water. Spray it on the toads and they die.
Course, just running over them is popular too! Though I've seen them suck their guts back in and hop away. They're kind of tough!
Re:I thought amphibians were disappearing?
on
The Plague of Frogs
·
· Score: 1
Maybe I'm just being picky here, and maybe this has already been pointed out.
But in australia the problem is toads, not frogs. In fact, the toads eat the frogs.
There's a big difference between a big, tough, poisonous toad, and the average treefrog.
The toads are incredibly tough (canetoads). I have personally witnessed them getting run over by cars, sucking their guts back in and hopping away.
They are a fine example of the brilliance of biological control. They were introduced to control the cane beetle. Only problem... cane beetles fly. Cane toads don't. On the other hand they can eat more or less anything else. Endangered Native Frogs, Dog food (a favourite) and even mice.
My first thought was retinal damage, but I contacted Microvision nearly 5 years ago, and was told by them that they've had numerous tests from various government and safety organizations to make sure they're safe. Not only have they passed with flying colours, but the devices used to detect whether it falls in a safe threshold of power can actually usually not DETECT the laser!
Personally my eyes are rooted anyway, so I'm not much concerned.
They're both good consoles, they both have their advantages and disadvantages.
But speed and graphics you've got this totally wrong. The xbox graphics have vastly higher poly counts, vastly better texturing.
The raw power of the machine is substantially higher. Not as much as pure Mhz comparison would suggest, but still higher.
The overall architecture is vastly better, in pretty much every way.
The machine is several years newer. Evolution is inevitable.
Love or hate microsoft (I'm personally fairly unbiased either way) two things I think are fairly inevitable: Xbox is a very good console, and running to show organizers to tell is very immature.
Another point that should be mentioned is that the constant/. complaints against MS really don't make the faintest bit of difference. You're preaching to the choir here guys : )
I suspect it will be less than adequate. I question the fact that they're marketting to children, assuming they're less descriminating as sound critics.
Hell, if they sound was great they'd be charging a grand and hitting up the hi-fi market.
As posted by others, the technology to do this or something like it does exist.
And yes, they really are and were used by everything from law enforcement to "governement work". The principle is a laser measuring vibrations on glass from a distance.
Another application I heard of was a russian "Gift" of a paperweight given to a US diplomat. The US new it was a bug. It had to be. But every scan showed up blank. It was hollow, and completely inoffensive.
Later research showed that russian observers were actually (can't remember how) tracking the vibration on the specially designed metal plaque, making it essentially a passive transmitter.
This is a story told to me when I was younger, so please do not poke holes in it. I'm not that interested : )
Honestly? I'd love to, but there's no where to go.
Be OS is dead. Macs are even MORE proprietary, lack software support, have no games, etc.
Linux is vastly underdeveloped. (Not trolling here, but it is! It's really not ready for large scale desktop use by NON-specialists.)
I tried linux years ago, got it going and went "Now what?"
Another point to make is that there's really no REASON to go. Despite all you say, and despite MS business practices, from a consumer point of view it's pretty peachy. AH! Microsoft killed Netscape! So? Netscape sucked. IE didn't. (That's an important factor that gets overlooked.) Microsoft killed BeOS. So? I wasn't using Be OS anyway. Or more likely "What's BeOS?"
Whether DRM will happen or not, I don't know, and neither do you.
I did some experimenting way back in the day and found that it was your "profile" that was an issue. It appeared to have to load everything in the person's profile into ram... or somewhere weird.
Things to bear in mind here are that a lot of big stuff goes in your profile. Stuff dumped on desktop is a killer (750 meg at present... thanks to me deleting 3 gig the other day). But your email can also balloon nastily.
I slash my email savagely, so it's no a problem, but some people NEED to keep all their messages. In my experience it IS a factor.
Compress your mailboxes, delete your sent mail (unless you need it, of course), empty your "deleted items", and strip large attachments. Windows will thank you.
OH! BTW, this testing was all done on NT4. Much will have changed, and much stayed the same. Still good advice though:)
I don't believe this is an option in XP. Because the web view concept (including thumbnail display of files, etc) is so integrated they really don't want you turning stuff off.
They probably also figure the system hit is minimal. Which is probably true, but the problem is they make a thousand little system hits (web view, active services, fast find, alpha blending, etc) and the thing starts to run like crap from the cumulative effect of all those "little things".
Another point I wanted to make, though is: Don't use desktop images if you have a high resolution set. Stick with plain colours. The sheer size of a 1600x1280 desktop takes valuable ram (or whatever resource it is).
A quick question: though agreeing that the bmp is cached in video ram, would the comparably smaller filesize of jpg compared to bitmap be a mitigating factor there? Probably not. It's probably not much smaller when it's in ram and being viewed.
Oh, if anyone has any hand "Make XP and 2000 faster" tips, shoot! I've been looking around.
I'm not much for linux myself, so I'll ignore that part of it, but one suggestion I'd make here is make it sort of "modular".
For example, assuming it can do mp3 playback (powerwise) you need somewhere to put them. Lots of ram would up the cost too much so support for CF cards or something would be necessary. That would also give you the option to add extra functionality,like blootueth, etc : ) without upping the cost of the base unit.
I suppose that's my main point. Hack down the main box so it's mostly featureless, and let people add what they want.
I love the cultural arrogance of Americans.
Don't confuse freedom of speech as a concept with "a constitutionally protected first amendment guaranteed 'Freedom Of Speech'".
They are NOT the same thing. You CAN have one without the other. I can say what I want. I can say whatever I want to whoever I want. Why? Because I HAVE freedom of speech. I don't have a first amendment right to it. I don't need it. It's just there.
Americans seem to stupidly assume that without a specific document guaranteeing rights, those rights cannot exist. This is bollocks. Ask and Brit, or any Australian if they're living in a police state. Hell no. Australian governments have already tried to censor the internet. The australian people ignored them.
Americans need to stop assuming that their own political/social system is the only possible "right" way. Don't forget those rights you fight for are the same ones that let your children die in schools.
Slashdot Mirror
THis is the most rediculous flamebait I've seen recently, but I'll bite.
First of all, if you don't like slashdot, don't read it. Much as the world will miss this sort of insightful commentary i'm sure we'll survive.
Secondly, education in journalism means jack. We don't read slashdot for cutting edge journalism for like minded information from like minded people. Slashdot isn't about writing articles, but showing us where they are.
Thirdly, not everyone has a DVD player. Some people live in a place where they're hard to get. Some people simply can't afford one. Some people don't need one, ie, doesn't watch movies often, or doesn't care that much about image quality. You're picking on this person for not being a tech snob. And you're doing it by telling us how great you are for having a lot of DVDs. Wow. I'm sure the world is impressed.
In regard to the actual topic, personally I don't know of or couldn't find any information regarding the actual track. My advice is to live with it. Where there are a lot of players avoid the annoyances of DVDs, such as regioncoding and Macrovision, I've yet to see one that allowed bypassing of the unskippable track on the DVD. I could be wrong but I think it might be software (the disk itself) rather than the player that does that.
Matt
I use OLGA extensively. Not because I want to hurt artists, because I love them! I have their albums, and I want to learn how to play along, or learn their music in more detail.
The OLGA is basically a resource for fans, and if anything comes under the protection of "fair use" it should be that.
Would anyone not buy an album because they have the lyrics and guitar chords at home?! Get serious!
You're right... I've noticed that myself.
They are rather formulaic.
Most particularly the "The person you thought was a goody is actually the baddy" thing. Quirrel, Moody, that kid in chamber of secrets, can't remember his name, umm... the rat. At least Prisoner of Azkeban they did it the other way round.
Still the whole "revealed/switched identities" thing has been done. A lot. Too much.
The next one should be good, hopefully. The war begins : )
I like australia.
We just eat bananas and ride kangaroos.
what's a linux?
Congratulations on being the third or fourth person to do this. It's still so very funny.
There's a big difference between someone writing a fan story (which are mostly crap read by others with too much time) and someone publishing work claiming to be another person to make money from an established (and rather good) trademark.
I don't see how this is even a question.
Hardly.
It's a good point, I think.
Take Harry Potter. Put it in babelfish (if you could get it to do Chinese.) pull it back out again. Are you going to get "good writing"? Probably not!
And how is it Anti-american to criticize the chinese translation of an English book by a British author?!
I heard (at a bookstore when I asked the other day) that apparently she's writing them backwardsish.
After book... 4 or whatever... goblet of fire, she wrote the LAST one. To get a place to end up. now she's gone back to write the 5th.
Hence the delay.
She also said it was originally put at november but will probably be delayed to not distract from the movie coming out then.
It's worth pointing out one thing here that annoys me.
Inconsistancy. ATMs all work differently. Different banks, etc. Do you need to put 00 on the end for the cents? Why the hell would you do that anyway? You can't get out or deposit 25 cents! Anyway, certain things should all work more or less the same. Like ATMs. DVD players. Fridges. Cars.
I have conflicting views on this. I liked an earlier post on "logically sound" though I think it went a little far.
It's easy for our generation (and profession) to mock older people, or less experienced people. But I think our industry has a tendency to bite itself in the ass by overselling "user friendly".
Apple are a good example. By saying how easy it is to use a Mac they overstate how complicated PCs really are. And that means people get scared.
People who don't know are too afraid they'll "cause a virus" or wipe the hard drive with a random button press, because the culture of fear we've created suggests exactly that.
There's another side to that though. People are very unwilling to just TRY. I recently had to explain to someone how to use a DVD player. "How do I play the movie?" Well, when the thing comes up that says "Play Movie" hit OK!
It's not that hard. There are certain paradigms that should require minimal or no learning. The "tape deck" concept, for example. Play, pause, search, skip, etc. These are basic concept since (or grown from) the cassette tape. Tape, CD, DVD, mp3 player, minidisk. It doesn't matter. They work more or less the same. For a user to not understand the basic functions shows a basic level of laziness.
It's also worth pointing out the car analogy. If someone bought a car it would be reasonable to expect a certain level of understanding of how to drive it. Same with a complex machine, like a computer. to say it's "too complicated" would be like buying a car, without any idea how to drive and complaining that it's hard.
Another comment I want to make is that sometimes RTFM doesn't help. I recently bought an Ericsson mobile phone. Couldn't turn on a keypad lock. The FM didn't have it (as far as I could find). I had to search the internet, where I finally found it in a PDF document of the FM for another model.
It's worth pointing out that sometimes the FM does more damage than good. A good manual, like any good documentation, is well spaced out, looks pleasing, is simple, clear, concise and free from jargon. All too often this is NOT the case. Surely we've all read manuals that are tiny, cramped, poorly laid out, ambiguous and incomplete?
As a final note. There should not be a limit to user friendliness. Ultimate "user friendly" would be the ability to simply tell your "thing" what you want. Surely that's an admirable goal. As long as that friendliness is not at the cost of the "power user". Personally, I'd like to just TELL my VCR to tape Buffy!
Don't confuse "User Friendly" with "Dumbed Down". And don't assume that more complicated is always better. There's often charm in simplicity. In many cases advanced features are simply not needed.
Errr...
Your maths are iffy. Mac has about 4.5%-5.5% of the overall desktop market. Which (as far as I can work it out!) is more than 65% of 0.5%.
But anyway... in this case it really is only "PC" hardware that's an issue.
Suspension of disbelief is a basic fundamental of movie making. The instant you start thinking about it as people on a set the movie is flawed.
The funny thing is that I tend to notice more when things are RIGHT than when thingss are wrong!
Two reasons. One: life isn't always pretty. Take MJ herself. Kirsten Dunst has my undying love. Almost every chick in movies is a hottie. Real life isn't QUITE up to that standard.
Second is appreciation. "Hey, look, they've bothered to put in the automatic brakes that kick in if an elevator falls." "Hey, look, that guy is actually having to copy the file onto the disk, not using some magic 'go' button." "Hey look, it's actually a zip disk, not a floppy disk he's putting that 50 meg database on." "Hey, that spaceship blowing up is inaudible, like it should be."
Not that I really care if they DON'T do these things, unless it's rediculous. (Surely we've all scoffed at the hero taking snap shots with sniper accuracy at 100 yard targets, while guys with machine guns spray the area around him with bullets!) But anyway, I tend not to notice that sort of thing.... movies are "hyper real" anyway, NOT a representation of reality. Everyone is good looking and bullet proof.
Just enjoy the movie. I haven't seen it yet, but I will. Kirsten, wait for me. I'll be with you soon!
I'm a queenslander, so I'll share some myself:
Best I've heard (if horrible) is to get one of those firestarter bottles. You know the ones, squirt out naptha or something cool. Also get an aerosol can of butane. Catch toad. Open mouth, insert aerosol can. Spray. The toad will automatically swallow. And swallow. And swallow. Spray firelighter on toads back. Light. Watch fireball toad hop away until the flame burns through the skin and then KABOOM.
(personally I don't mind them dying, but I'm not a fan of cruelty, even to pests.)
The ways we killed them in Biology (all the experiments Yanks do on bullfrogs, we do on Canetoads.) were fairly kind. Either putting them in a plastic bag in the freezer (your freezer, not mine!), or holding the body in one hand and bending the nose right down. Then you get a long steel skewer and insert it into the back of the head. Does the job.
I knew a guy who used to shoot them with an air rifle. No pellets. Just the air. Right up against them the air alone penetrates the brain.
Most popular way of killing them, though, is to make a solution of "Dettol" (it's an antiseptic if you don't have it there) and water. Spray it on the toads and they die.
Course, just running over them is popular too! Though I've seen them suck their guts back in and hop away. They're kind of tough!
Maybe I'm just being picky here, and maybe this has already been pointed out.
But in australia the problem is toads, not frogs. In fact, the toads eat the frogs.
There's a big difference between a big, tough, poisonous toad, and the average treefrog.
The toads are incredibly tough (canetoads). I have personally witnessed them getting run over by cars, sucking their guts back in and hopping away.
They are a fine example of the brilliance of biological control. They were introduced to control the cane beetle. Only problem... cane beetles fly. Cane toads don't. On the other hand they can eat more or less anything else. Endangered Native Frogs, Dog food (a favourite) and even mice.
You say death bot like it's a bad thing?!
What's currently on the war fields getting torn apart and mangled?
Humans. Young men.
Bring on the death bots. Unmanned, remote controlled machines. The less young men (of ANY nation) die on the battle field, the better.
My first thought was retinal damage, but I contacted Microvision nearly 5 years ago, and was told by them that they've had numerous tests from various government and safety organizations to make sure they're safe. Not only have they passed with flying colours, but the devices used to detect whether it falls in a safe threshold of power can actually usually not DETECT the laser!
Personally my eyes are rooted anyway, so I'm not much concerned.
They're both good consoles, they both have their advantages and disadvantages.
/. complaints against MS really don't make the faintest bit of difference. You're preaching to the choir here guys : )
But speed and graphics you've got this totally wrong. The xbox graphics have vastly higher poly counts, vastly better texturing.
The raw power of the machine is substantially higher. Not as much as pure Mhz comparison would suggest, but still higher.
The overall architecture is vastly better, in pretty much every way.
The machine is several years newer. Evolution is inevitable.
Love or hate microsoft (I'm personally fairly unbiased either way) two things I think are fairly inevitable: Xbox is a very good console, and running to show organizers to tell is very immature.
Another point that should be mentioned is that the constant
Quite simply, depends how good it sounds.
I suspect it will be less than adequate. I question the fact that they're marketting to children, assuming they're less descriminating as sound critics.
Hell, if they sound was great they'd be charging a grand and hitting up the hi-fi market.
Already being done.
As posted by others, the technology to do this or something like it does exist.
And yes, they really are and were used by everything from law enforcement to "governement work". The principle is a laser measuring vibrations on glass from a distance.
Another application I heard of was a russian "Gift" of a paperweight given to a US diplomat. The US new it was a bug. It had to be. But every scan showed up blank. It was hollow, and completely inoffensive.
Later research showed that russian observers were actually (can't remember how) tracking the vibration on the specially designed metal plaque, making it essentially a passive transmitter.
This is a story told to me when I was younger, so please do not poke holes in it. I'm not that interested : )
Honestly? I'd love to, but there's no where to go.
Be OS is dead. Macs are even MORE proprietary, lack software support, have no games, etc.
Linux is vastly underdeveloped. (Not trolling here, but it is! It's really not ready for large scale desktop use by NON-specialists.)
I tried linux years ago, got it going and went "Now what?"
Another point to make is that there's really no REASON to go. Despite all you say, and despite MS business practices, from a consumer point of view it's pretty peachy. AH! Microsoft killed Netscape! So? Netscape sucked. IE didn't. (That's an important factor that gets overlooked.) Microsoft killed BeOS. So? I wasn't using Be OS anyway. Or more likely "What's BeOS?"
Whether DRM will happen or not, I don't know, and neither do you.
I have definitely found the same thing.
:)
I did some experimenting way back in the day and found that it was your "profile" that was an issue. It appeared to have to load everything in the person's profile into ram... or somewhere weird.
Things to bear in mind here are that a lot of big stuff goes in your profile. Stuff dumped on desktop is a killer (750 meg at present... thanks to me deleting 3 gig the other day). But your email can also balloon nastily.
I slash my email savagely, so it's no a problem, but some people NEED to keep all their messages. In my experience it IS a factor.
Compress your mailboxes, delete your sent mail (unless you need it, of course), empty your "deleted items", and strip large attachments. Windows will thank you.
OH! BTW, this testing was all done on NT4. Much will have changed, and much stayed the same. Still good advice though
I don't believe this is an option in XP. Because the web view concept (including thumbnail display of files, etc) is so integrated they really don't want you turning stuff off.
They probably also figure the system hit is minimal. Which is probably true, but the problem is they make a thousand little system hits (web view, active services, fast find, alpha blending, etc) and the thing starts to run like crap from the cumulative effect of all those "little things".
Another point I wanted to make, though is: Don't use desktop images if you have a high resolution set. Stick with plain colours. The sheer size of a 1600x1280 desktop takes valuable ram (or whatever resource it is).
A quick question: though agreeing that the bmp is cached in video ram, would the comparably smaller filesize of jpg compared to bitmap be a mitigating factor there? Probably not. It's probably not much smaller when it's in ram and being viewed.
Oh, if anyone has any hand "Make XP and 2000 faster" tips, shoot! I've been looking around.
I'm not much for linux myself, so I'll ignore that part of it, but one suggestion I'd make here is make it sort of "modular".
For example, assuming it can do mp3 playback (powerwise) you need somewhere to put them. Lots of ram would up the cost too much so support for CF cards or something would be necessary. That would also give you the option to add extra functionality,like blootueth, etc : ) without upping the cost of the base unit.
I suppose that's my main point. Hack down the main box so it's mostly featureless, and let people add what they want.
Hell, isn't that what linux is all about?!
I love the cultural arrogance of Americans. Don't confuse freedom of speech as a concept with "a constitutionally protected first amendment guaranteed 'Freedom Of Speech'". They are NOT the same thing. You CAN have one without the other. I can say what I want. I can say whatever I want to whoever I want. Why? Because I HAVE freedom of speech. I don't have a first amendment right to it. I don't need it. It's just there. Americans seem to stupidly assume that without a specific document guaranteeing rights, those rights cannot exist. This is bollocks. Ask and Brit, or any Australian if they're living in a police state. Hell no. Australian governments have already tried to censor the internet. The australian people ignored them. Americans need to stop assuming that their own political/social system is the only possible "right" way. Don't forget those rights you fight for are the same ones that let your children die in schools.