"You will also have to explain what is a standard GUI with normal conventions..."
Start with Windows XP.
I don't mean what it looks like, but its UI behavior.
Not because it is perfect, but because that is what 90% of computer users are familiar with and know how to use without thinking about it. You can include a Mac behavior profile for those users as well if you want. What you shouldn't go is go off the reservation with whacky stuff that no one is familiar with.
You can make changes of course, you just can't reinvent the wheel.
Improvements should be incremental, non obtrusive, and most importantly configurable so that if someone doesn't like it, they can turn it OFF.
There is this persistent myth in the computer world that change is good and that there are all these people out there who just haven't gotten into computers yet and that we have to try to make it easy for them.
This was true in 1984. It isn't true today.
Today there are three kinds of people. Those who know how to use computers, those who never will, and grade school kids who are learning.
Chasing after the mythical adult computer non-user who just needs a little extra help to make it easy for them is a waste of time. Grandpa ain't gonna get it no matter what you do, and changing the UI to try to attract grandpa pisses off everyone who has already developed usage habits based off standard UI conventions.
I don't know what kind of lies they're teaching you, but that is just flat out wrong in every way.
Repressions and famines occurring in the Soviet Union under the regimes of Lenin and Stalin described in the Black Book of Communism include:
* the executions of tens of thousands of hostages and prisoners, and the murder of hundreds of thousands of rebellious workers and peasants from 1918 to 1922 (See also: Red Terror)
* the Russian famine of 1921, which caused the death of 5 million people
* the extermination and deportation of the Don Cossacks in 1920
* the murder of tens of thousands in concentration camps in the period between 1918 and 1930
* the Great Purge which killed almost 690,000 people
* the deportation of 2 million so-called "kulaks" from 1930 to 1932
* the deaths of 4 million Ukrainians (Holodomor) and 2 million others during the famine of 1932 and 1933
* the deportations of Poles, Ukrainians, Moldavians and people from the Baltic Republics from 1939 to 1941 and from 1944 to 1945
* the deportation of the Volga Germans in 1941
* the deportation of the Crimean Tatars in 1943
* the deportation of the Chechens in 1944
* the deportation of the Ingush in 1944.(p. 9-10) (See also: Population transfer in the Soviet Union)
This is why I don't send money to Cupertino
on
Psystar Crushed In Court
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
(I'm not familiar with the details of the Psystar case and so I don't know if this company did anything wrong or not. Neither do I really care. This post is not a defense of Psystar.)
I cut my teeth on an Apple II+ way back when 64k was a lot of memory.
So why don't I like Apple today?
Because they seek to monopolize the markets created by their products.
Many years ago I bought a Quadra 700 on the cheap because its hard drive was dead. I had a good SCSI drive that I planned to use with it. Then I found out that unless my drive came from Apple, the MacOS partitioning and filesystem tools would pretend it didn't exist. Looking for help, I received many lies from Mac fanboys about how SCSI was just an electrical standard and that the Mac SCSI devices used a different command set. That was a flat out lie that is easily falsified. That they would insult me with such an obvious canard was astonishing. If someone likes a particular product then that is fine. But when they LIE in order to promote it or to obscure its flaws, then that is just plain disgusting.
Apple specifically created their filesystem tools to kill the 3rd party market for hard drives and other peripherals such as CDROM drives.
This wasn't a singular example either, but part and parcel of that company's nature. I won't purchase products from a company that tries to prevent me from purchasing complimentary products from anyone else.
Apple is continuing with this tradition today by tying their operating system to Apple branded PCs. There are people at work who use Macs and it would be nice to be able to support the platform. But doing so requires that I go out and purchase a new computer, at a significant price hike, just so I can run their operating system. If the hardware was different, such as it was back in the PowerPC or 68k days, then that would be understandable. But the hardware is not different. These are standard PCs with special hardware included that their OS searches for before it will allow itself to be installed. Same story as the hard drives with tags in the firmware.
So I just don't buy anything from Apple. I don't buy their computers. I don't buy their MP3 players. I don't buy their phones. I avoid them. I tell anyone who asks me to do the same, and I explain why.
If they ever change their tune and stop playing keep away, then maybe I'll reconsider. Till then they can blow me.
Macs have their followers, but over 90% of computer users run Windows. You sit the average person down in front of a computer and they are going to expect it to follow the Windows UI conventions.
I'm not a Gnome user. I use KDE. I do this precisely because it has always followed the windows UI conventions.
If the Mac fanboys in the Gnome project want to copy the Mac, then they should so in such a way that this behavior can be chosen by the user.
Gnome should have behavior profiles that can be selected (or customized) so that users can choose Mac behavior if they want it.
Imagine you were looking to buy a new car. Going to a dealership, you are presented with a sedan that is marketed as "redefining the way drivers interact with their automobile." Getting behind the wheel, you discover that standard conventions like the steering wheel, turn indicator, gear shift, accelerator and brake pedals have all been replaced with New and Improved devices that the salesman assures you are so much Better.
Would you buy the damned thing?
I'm sick and tired of coders who pretend they are cognitive psychologists or ergonomics experts.
Just implement a standard GUI using normal conventions. Anything more and people like me will either find ways to turn the bullshit off, or we'll avoid using your product.
Microsoft is about to learn this the hard way with their new bullshit replacement for the task bar.
The point you almost make is that the open source community holds Microsoft and other vendors to a different standard than it holds itself.
Vista was a dog. Everyone complained. The open source guys snickered and sneered.
Karmic is a dog. Everyone complains. The open source guys make excuses.
Commercial projects are maintained according to the standards (and corporate culture) within the company that produces the code. The same is true of open source projects.
Some commercial code is gawd awful crap. Some is of outstanding quality. The same is true of code produced by open source projects.
Blanket statements about one being better than the other simply don't apply.
My answer to Apple's attempts at vendor lock in have always been DON'T BUY THEIR CRAP.
This was true back when most Mac hardware such as cdrom drives or hard drives required tags in firmware for the computer to recognize it, even though there was nothing otherwise different about the unit whatsoever.
This is just the same old shit.
I don't have to worry about what OS-X will or will not run on because I do everything I can to avoid dealing with it in the first place.
Complaining about Apple will not hurt them, but withholding your funds from them sure as hell will.
Instead of asking Amazon to "brick" his kindle, wouldn't he have been smarter to ask that they provide his contact information to whomever tries to use it?
He LOST this device, it was not stolen.
In theory at least, anyone finding it would contemplate returning it to the rightful owner.
If the person who found it turns out to be dishonest, then "bricking" the device isn't going to make them return it.
There is a vocal minority of computer professionals and users who operate off of an ideological model rather than a pragmatic one. They see moral issues where most of us only see an engineering problem. Furthermore they define themselves based upon their attachment to their ideology.
For the rest of us this is silly at best and downright exasperating at worst. Try working with someone who demands that a sub-par solution be used on political grounds and who casts your reluctance to do so as a moral failing, if not evidence of participation in an evil conspiracy of some sort. I really do think that people like that are mentally ill.
I make technological choices on technological grounds. I choose the solution that works best. I don't cloud my judgement with emotionally driven ideologies.
I use (and contribute to) open source products because they usually offer the best value proposition. When they don't, I look elsewhere. It is not wrong to support a proprietary solution. It is not wrong to reward those whose efforts have made your life easier.
Is China handling this delicate issue appropriately or are the news reports of justice and monitoring treatments merely a facade?"
China is the most worthy heir to the title of Evil Empire (after North Korea at least). Like all communist regimes, it is a despotic tyranny that tramples the rights of its victims, the citizens. So no, China is not handling this appropriately. The governement there cannot implement a solution when it is the source of the problem.
In a democracy, the people get the government they deserve.
I don't blame the apparatchiks in government down under, I blame the citizens who voted them into power and who are standing idly by while their rights are being trampled.
There has never been and never will be a shortage of would be tyrants in this world who desire the power to control the private lives of other people.
Holding the line against them is a constant struggle and a battle that each person who cherishes their liberty must fight personally.
The Marxist Socialist Media (MSM) here in the states is finding it increasingly difficult to convince the public to pay to be lied to.
I guess the MSM in the netherlands is running into the same problem. In true leftist form, they propose that the government extort money from the people to pay for that which the public has disregarded as worthless.
Can't have the plebes going through life without propaganda to tell them what to think and who to hate now can we?
The problem you had was not private ownership of these things, but MONOPOLY ownership.
An oligarchy is an oligarchy whether it be comprised of the state or comprised of other entities.
Had there been real competition and low barriers to entry into these markets to promote the creation of start up firms, you would not be seeing any of this.
This is what happens when you live in a society where you are a subject of the state rather than a citizen of a free republic.
The reason there are so many burglaries in that area (and the UK as a whole) is because the citizens of that once great nation have been deprived of their right to self defence and the right to defend their property.
Burglars and other petty criminals have free reign because to resist an intruder is a "crime" and ownership of solid means of self defense, namely a firearm, is also a "crime."
If the citizens of that neighborhood truly want to see fewer crimes committed against them, then chasing Google away won't help. They need to begin working and fighting to make the UK a free country again instead of a leftist nanny state where the rights of honest citizens are denied.
The problem with your argument is that it ignores the fact that the creation of child pornography IS ABUSE.
When someone acts as a consumer of that child pornography, they become a party to the abuse that created it.
If someone knowingly purchases lampshades made from human skin, they are an accomplice after the fact to murder. The same is true of people who collect kiddy porn.
You also fail to distinguish between images of children being abused and cartoon images derived purely from someone's imagination. The two are not the same. The supreme court has already declared that such imaginary drawings are not subject to prosecution.
Much of what is done to younger people by society on a regular basis constitutes child abuse. Younger people have to deal with genuine malice on a daily basis from society for the "crime" of being young.
These girls aren't being prosecuted for what they did, but for who they are. The message the prosecutor is trying to send is "Don't be young and sexually aware or we'll make you pay."
This isn't about protecting anyone from anything, but about using the legal system to persecute young women for failing to conform to the prosecutor's notions of who and what they were supposed to be.
It has been many years since I was a teenager. I graduated from high school in 1991. But I still remember the thinly veiled malice and disdain that my peers and I dealt with on a daily basis. Not because we were doing anything wrong, but simply because we were young.
Things today are so much worse. It isn't paranoia when they really are out to get you. I'm just glad that I'm no longer part of the demographic being targeted.
The most disturbing thing about this is not that there are wankers in the California state government who believe it to be their right to dictate to others how they should live, but that the voters in California are so pathetic that these sorts of wankers have accumulated in large enough numbers that this kind of nonsense stands a chance of becoming law.
In a democracy the people get the government they DESERVE.
The citizens of the state of California need to remember that the authority of the government is derived from the consent of the governed. The political apparatchiks who administer the machinery of the state are NOT your rulers, they are your servants. Treat them accordingly and fire any who forget their place.
What the hell is going on that my formatting and paragraphs are getting LOST???
One of my neighbors is a netflix subscriber. His work is such that he HAS to have access to the internet all the time. So he has both DSL and Cable through a router that allows him to use both. This router allows him to direct traffic through one ISP or the other. When he directs netflix through the cable connection, the video stream stutters and skips. When he directs it through the DSL connection, the problems disappear. This is despite the fact that the cable connection has a nominal bitrate that is much higher.
The conclusion that he came to is that his cable provider is messing with netflix because it is competition for their own on-demand service.
I think something similar may be happening here.
This makes a lot more sense than the notion that netflix would drive away customers by providing a broken service.
Capitalism is a term whose literal meaning is at odds with its actual meaning.
Capitalism isn't about capital, but about entrepreneurship. The capital, as in venture capital, is simply the catalyst and fuel that makes the entire process possible.
Communism is also a term whose literal meaning is at odds with its actual meaning.
Communism isn't about community, but tyranny. There will always be those who seek dominion over others, and communism is simply yet another excuse in a long line of bullshit that our would-be rulers use to justify their crimes against their fellow man. Divine right of kings just doesn't quite have the same ring to it that it once did after all.
Communism is an attempt to enslave people. The excuse that is given for this enslavement is that in a free society some individuals will achieve more than others, with the result being a society that is not equal. Everyone wants equality right? The problem is that no one stops to think exactly what equality means as the term is used by the communists. It doesn't mean a free society in which everyone has equal rights, but a slave state where everyone is equally miserable.
Capitalism is the natural and virtuous economic result of a society where men and women live in freedom and where their fundamental rights are acknowledged and respected.
Freely shared intellectual property is the natural and virtuous result of a society where men and women live in freedom and where their fundamental rights are acknowledged and respected.
Far from being anti-capitalist, open source IS capitalism at its best.
Global warming is a leftist scam to prevent the development of liberal democracies and free markets in the 3rd world by retarding their economic and industrial growth.
The 3rd world and all of its problems represent the last possible hope for the left to remake the world into a communist dsytopia. If 3rd world countries are transformed into wealthy nations with political and economic freedom, there will be no one left to sell communism to other than wet-behind-the-ears college students, most of whom outgrow it.
The swindle of global warming is a scam to keep people in impoverished countries poor.
It's all about making the world safe for communism.
This is part of why people are leaving the UK like rats escaping from a sinking ship. The other reason being the long term social and economic decay created by the left and their insane ideologies and policies.
The rate of emigration from the UK in 2006 was the highest it had been since WW-II. I don't have numbers for 2008, but I doubt they are any lower.
If you speak English as a first language you've got options. Australia is nice. So is New Zealand. If you don't mind the cold Canada isn't half bad. If someone is really lucky they might even finagle their way into the US.
Contrast this with someone whose native language is French, or Italian. Where can they go that is any better than their native land?
If these pictures of naked kids didn't involve kids being abused then I'd agree with you. Unfortunately that is not how things work.
These aren't imaginary drawings of kids that never existed.
In order for child pornography to exist, a child is sexually abused. People who consume this "product" are a party to the abuse that took place to create it and should be punished accordingly.
That is why child pornography is such a huge issue. It isn't that evil and disturbed individuals like to look at it, but that a child was abused for it to be created.
Slashdot Mirror
"You will also have to explain what is a standard GUI with normal conventions..."
Start with Windows XP.
I don't mean what it looks like, but its UI behavior.
Not because it is perfect, but because that is what 90% of computer users are familiar with and know how to use without thinking about it. You can include a Mac behavior profile for those users as well if you want. What you shouldn't go is go off the reservation with whacky stuff that no one is familiar with.
You can make changes of course, you just can't reinvent the wheel.
Improvements should be incremental, non obtrusive, and most importantly configurable so that if someone doesn't like it, they can turn it OFF.
There is this persistent myth in the computer world that change is good and that there are all these people out there who just haven't gotten into computers yet and that we have to try to make it easy for them.
This was true in 1984. It isn't true today.
Today there are three kinds of people. Those who know how to use computers, those who never will, and grade school kids who are learning.
Chasing after the mythical adult computer non-user who just needs a little extra help to make it easy for them is a waste of time. Grandpa ain't gonna get it no matter what you do, and changing the UI to try to attract grandpa pisses off everyone who has already developed usage habits based off standard UI conventions.
Lives improved????
I don't know what kind of lies they're teaching you, but that is just flat out wrong in every way.
Repressions and famines occurring in the Soviet Union under the regimes of Lenin and Stalin described in the Black Book of Communism include:
* the executions of tens of thousands of hostages and prisoners, and the murder of hundreds of thousands of rebellious workers and peasants from 1918 to 1922 (See also: Red Terror)
* the Russian famine of 1921, which caused the death of 5 million people
* the extermination and deportation of the Don Cossacks in 1920
* the murder of tens of thousands in concentration camps in the period between 1918 and 1930
* the Great Purge which killed almost 690,000 people
* the deportation of 2 million so-called "kulaks" from 1930 to 1932
* the deaths of 4 million Ukrainians (Holodomor) and 2 million others during the famine of 1932 and 1933
* the deportations of Poles, Ukrainians, Moldavians and people from the Baltic Republics from 1939 to 1941 and from 1944 to 1945
* the deportation of the Volga Germans in 1941
* the deportation of the Crimean Tatars in 1943
* the deportation of the Chechens in 1944
* the deportation of the Ingush in 1944.(p. 9-10) (See also: Population transfer in the Soviet Union)
The Black Book of Communism
(I'm not familiar with the details of the Psystar case and so I don't know if this company did anything wrong or not. Neither do I really care. This post is not a defense of Psystar.)
I cut my teeth on an Apple II+ way back when 64k was a lot of memory.
So why don't I like Apple today?
Because they seek to monopolize the markets created by their products.
Many years ago I bought a Quadra 700 on the cheap because its hard drive was dead. I had a good SCSI drive that I planned to use with it. Then I found out that unless my drive came from Apple, the MacOS partitioning and filesystem tools would pretend it didn't exist. Looking for help, I received many lies from Mac fanboys about how SCSI was just an electrical standard and that the Mac SCSI devices used a different command set. That was a flat out lie that is easily falsified. That they would insult me with such an obvious canard was astonishing. If someone likes a particular product then that is fine. But when they LIE in order to promote it or to obscure its flaws, then that is just plain disgusting.
Apple specifically created their filesystem tools to kill the 3rd party market for hard drives and other peripherals such as CDROM drives.
This wasn't a singular example either, but part and parcel of that company's nature. I won't purchase products from a company that tries to prevent me from purchasing complimentary products from anyone else.
Apple is continuing with this tradition today by tying their operating system to Apple branded PCs. There are people at work who use Macs and it would be nice to be able to support the platform. But doing so requires that I go out and purchase a new computer, at a significant price hike, just so I can run their operating system. If the hardware was different, such as it was back in the PowerPC or 68k days, then that would be understandable. But the hardware is not different. These are standard PCs with special hardware included that their OS searches for before it will allow itself to be installed. Same story as the hard drives with tags in the firmware.
So I just don't buy anything from Apple. I don't buy their computers. I don't buy their MP3 players. I don't buy their phones. I avoid them. I tell anyone who asks me to do the same, and I explain why.
If they ever change their tune and stop playing keep away, then maybe I'll reconsider. Till then they can blow me.
Actually some of us WANT them to copy Windows.
Macs have their followers, but over 90% of computer users run Windows. You sit the average person down in front of a computer and they are going to expect it to follow the Windows UI conventions.
I'm not a Gnome user. I use KDE. I do this precisely because it has always followed the windows UI conventions.
If the Mac fanboys in the Gnome project want to copy the Mac, then they should so in such a way that this behavior can be chosen by the user.
Gnome should have behavior profiles that can be selected (or customized) so that users can choose Mac behavior if they want it.
Imagine you were looking to buy a new car. Going to a dealership, you are presented with a sedan that is marketed as "redefining the way drivers interact with their automobile." Getting behind the wheel, you discover that standard conventions like the steering wheel, turn indicator, gear shift, accelerator and brake pedals have all been replaced with New and Improved devices that the salesman assures you are so much Better.
Would you buy the damned thing?
I'm sick and tired of coders who pretend they are cognitive psychologists or ergonomics experts.
Just implement a standard GUI using normal conventions. Anything more and people like me will either find ways to turn the bullshit off, or we'll avoid using your product.
Microsoft is about to learn this the hard way with their new bullshit replacement for the task bar.
You almost have a point.
The point you almost make is that the open source community holds Microsoft and other vendors to a different standard than it holds itself.
Vista was a dog. Everyone complained. The open source guys snickered and sneered.
Karmic is a dog. Everyone complains. The open source guys make excuses.
Commercial projects are maintained according to the standards (and corporate culture) within the company that produces the code. The same is true of open source projects.
Some commercial code is gawd awful crap. Some is of outstanding quality. The same is true of code produced by open source projects.
Blanket statements about one being better than the other simply don't apply.
My answer to Apple's attempts at vendor lock in have always been DON'T BUY THEIR CRAP.
This was true back when most Mac hardware such as cdrom drives or hard drives required tags in firmware for the computer to recognize it, even though there was nothing otherwise different about the unit whatsoever.
This is just the same old shit.
I don't have to worry about what OS-X will or will not run on because I do everything I can to avoid dealing with it in the first place.
Complaining about Apple will not hurt them, but withholding your funds from them sure as hell will.
Where I come from the content of the New York Times is considered malware.
Instead of asking Amazon to "brick" his kindle, wouldn't he have been smarter to ask that they provide his contact information to whomever tries to use it?
He LOST this device, it was not stolen.
In theory at least, anyone finding it would contemplate returning it to the rightful owner.
If the person who found it turns out to be dishonest, then "bricking" the device isn't going to make them return it.
I'm not surprised that this guy is from NYC.
There is a vocal minority of computer professionals and users who operate off of an ideological model rather than a pragmatic one. They see moral issues where most of us only see an engineering problem. Furthermore they define themselves based upon their attachment to their ideology.
For the rest of us this is silly at best and downright exasperating at worst. Try working with someone who demands that a sub-par solution be used on political grounds and who casts your reluctance to do so as a moral failing, if not evidence of participation in an evil conspiracy of some sort. I really do think that people like that are mentally ill.
I make technological choices on technological grounds. I choose the solution that works best. I don't cloud my judgement with emotionally driven ideologies.
I use (and contribute to) open source products because they usually offer the best value proposition. When they don't, I look elsewhere. It is not wrong to support a proprietary solution. It is not wrong to reward those whose efforts have made your life easier.
Is China handling this delicate issue appropriately or are the news reports of justice and monitoring treatments merely a facade?"
China is the most worthy heir to the title of Evil Empire (after North Korea at least). Like all communist regimes, it is a despotic tyranny that tramples the rights of its victims, the citizens. So no, China is not handling this appropriately. The governement there cannot implement a solution when it is the source of the problem.
I'm sick and tired of hearing about this crap.
They are guilty. Trying to weasel out based on the fact that the judge wasn't completely blind to the fact that they were guilty is horse shit.
In a democracy, the people get the government they deserve.
I don't blame the apparatchiks in government down under, I blame the citizens who voted them into power and who are standing idly by while their rights are being trampled.
There has never been and never will be a shortage of would be tyrants in this world who desire the power to control the private lives of other people.
Holding the line against them is a constant struggle and a battle that each person who cherishes their liberty must fight personally.
The Marxist Socialist Media (MSM) here in the states is finding it increasingly difficult to convince the public to pay to be lied to.
I guess the MSM in the netherlands is running into the same problem. In true leftist form, they propose that the government extort money from the people to pay for that which the public has disregarded as worthless.
Can't have the plebes going through life without propaganda to tell them what to think and who to hate now can we?
The problem you had was not private ownership of these things, but MONOPOLY ownership.
An oligarchy is an oligarchy whether it be comprised of the state or comprised of other entities.
Had there been real competition and low barriers to entry into these markets to promote the creation of start up firms, you would not be seeing any of this.
This is what happens when you live in a society where you are a subject of the state rather than a citizen of a free republic.
The reason there are so many burglaries in that area (and the UK as a whole) is because the citizens of that once great nation have been deprived of their right to self defence and the right to defend their property.
Burglars and other petty criminals have free reign because to resist an intruder is a "crime" and ownership of solid means of self defense, namely a firearm, is also a "crime."
If the citizens of that neighborhood truly want to see fewer crimes committed against them, then chasing Google away won't help. They need to begin working and fighting to make the UK a free country again instead of a leftist nanny state where the rights of honest citizens are denied.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennesaw_(GA)#Gun_law
The problem with your argument is that it ignores the fact that the creation of child pornography IS ABUSE.
When someone acts as a consumer of that child pornography, they become a party to the abuse that created it.
If someone knowingly purchases lampshades made from human skin, they are an accomplice after the fact to murder. The same is true of people who collect kiddy porn.
You also fail to distinguish between images of children being abused and cartoon images derived purely from someone's imagination. The two are not the same. The supreme court has already declared that such imaginary drawings are not subject to prosecution.
Much of what is done to younger people by society on a regular basis constitutes child abuse. Younger people have to deal with genuine malice on a daily basis from society for the "crime" of being young.
These girls aren't being prosecuted for what they did, but for who they are. The message the prosecutor is trying to send is "Don't be young and sexually aware or we'll make you pay."
This isn't about protecting anyone from anything, but about using the legal system to persecute young women for failing to conform to the prosecutor's notions of who and what they were supposed to be.
It has been many years since I was a teenager. I graduated from high school in 1991. But I still remember the thinly veiled malice and disdain that my peers and I dealt with on a daily basis. Not because we were doing anything wrong, but simply because we were young.
Things today are so much worse. It isn't paranoia when they really are out to get you. I'm just glad that I'm no longer part of the demographic being targeted.
The most disturbing thing about this is not that there are wankers in the California state government who believe it to be their right to dictate to others how they should live, but that the voters in California are so pathetic that these sorts of wankers have accumulated in large enough numbers that this kind of nonsense stands a chance of becoming law.
In a democracy the people get the government they DESERVE.
The citizens of the state of California need to remember that the authority of the government is derived from the consent of the governed. The political apparatchiks who administer the machinery of the state are NOT your rulers, they are your servants. Treat them accordingly and fire any who forget their place.
What the hell is going on that my formatting and paragraphs are getting LOST???
Is this a "feature?"
One of my neighbors is a netflix subscriber. His work is such that he HAS to have access to the internet all the time. So he has both DSL and Cable through a router that allows him to use both. This router allows him to direct traffic through one ISP or the other. When he directs netflix through the cable connection, the video stream stutters and skips. When he directs it through the DSL connection, the problems disappear. This is despite the fact that the cable connection has a nominal bitrate that is much higher.
The conclusion that he came to is that his cable provider is messing with netflix because it is competition for their own on-demand service.
I think something similar may be happening here.
This makes a lot more sense than the notion that netflix would drive away customers by providing a broken service.
Capitalism is a term whose literal meaning is at odds with its actual meaning.
Capitalism isn't about capital, but about entrepreneurship. The capital, as in venture capital, is simply the catalyst and fuel that makes the entire process possible.
Communism is also a term whose literal meaning is at odds with its actual meaning.
Communism isn't about community, but tyranny. There will always be those who seek dominion over others, and communism is simply yet another excuse in a long line of bullshit that our would-be rulers use to justify their crimes against their fellow man. Divine right of kings just doesn't quite have the same ring to it that it once did after all.
Communism is an attempt to enslave people. The excuse that is given for this enslavement is that in a free society some individuals will achieve more than others, with the result being a society that is not equal. Everyone wants equality right? The problem is that no one stops to think exactly what equality means as the term is used by the communists. It doesn't mean a free society in which everyone has equal rights, but a slave state where everyone is equally miserable.
Capitalism is the natural and virtuous economic result of a society where men and women live in freedom and where their fundamental rights are acknowledged and respected.
Freely shared intellectual property is the natural and virtuous result of a society where men and women live in freedom and where their fundamental rights are acknowledged and respected.
Far from being anti-capitalist, open source IS capitalism at its best.
Global warming is a leftist scam to prevent the development of liberal democracies and free markets in the 3rd world by retarding their economic and industrial growth.
The 3rd world and all of its problems represent the last possible hope for the left to remake the world into a communist dsytopia. If 3rd world countries are transformed into wealthy nations with political and economic freedom, there will be no one left to sell communism to other than wet-behind-the-ears college students, most of whom outgrow it.
The swindle of global warming is a scam to keep people in impoverished countries poor.
It's all about making the world safe for communism.
The guy who murdered his parents did not do it because he played video games or watched Rambo.
He did it because he is an evil piece of shit. 36 years is a light sentence.
This is part of why people are leaving the UK like rats escaping from a sinking ship. The other reason being the long term social and economic decay created by the left and their insane ideologies and policies.
The rate of emigration from the UK in 2006 was the highest it had been since WW-II. I don't have numbers for 2008, but I doubt they are any lower.
If you speak English as a first language you've got options. Australia is nice. So is New Zealand. If you don't mind the cold Canada isn't half bad. If someone is really lucky they might even finagle their way into the US.
Contrast this with someone whose native language is French, or Italian. Where can they go that is any better than their native land?
If these pictures of naked kids didn't involve kids being abused then I'd agree with you. Unfortunately that is not how things work.
These aren't imaginary drawings of kids that never existed.
In order for child pornography to exist, a child is sexually abused. People who consume this "product" are a party to the abuse that took place to create it and should be punished accordingly.
That is why child pornography is such a huge issue. It isn't that evil and disturbed individuals like to look at it, but that a child was abused for it to be created.
It is the sexual equivalent of a snuff film.