As nutty and distasteful as the Westboro folks are, I don't understand why they aren't simply ignored, like the faint smell of dung wafting over from a nearby field during a walk on a sunny day.
I got a bit queasy reading Jono's post, with the corporate-speak, hand-waving, and magical feel-good thinking.
RMS's statement was well-reasoned and dispassionately delivered. He understands his role in the community and he executed this action perfectly.
Canonical: Fix the offending code, apologize to the community, fire the decision-makers involved.
For my part, I've used Ubuntu almost exlusively for a couple of years now, but have always known the day would come when I need to start looking for alternatives because of corporate overreach.
My parents have Charter internet and it basically works when it feels like it. But their other options are dial-up or satellite. Charter doesn't care about the customers because it doesn't have to.
I have charter internet, and actually it's pretty fucking awesome.
When I heard about Charter's disgusting NebuAds plan, I signed up for ATT's least expensive DSL plan - 768k for $20/mo, simultaneously with my Charter account. After a month I intend to choose one. My desire is to switch to ATT, first in order to punish Charter for their unacceptable profiling, and second because they've been creeping up the price (granted along with the speed) over time, and I'd rather have a little less speed for less money.
I've had the DSL modem working for less than a day, but I have to say that the 768k is miles behind Charter's 5mbps package, even while running the charter connection through an encrypted ssh socks5 proxy. I'm going to bump up the ATT plan up one or two steps and see if that's any better. As much as I don't want to give my cash to Charter because of their colossal NebuAds fuck-up, i might decide to stick with it and continue to run all my traffic through the encrypting proxy (which is off-site) to thwart them, at the very least.
That's a big leak and a big privacy breach, but can this realistically lead to legal action against BT? Whether it does or not, someone has already taken the initiative to setup a page to generate fake web pages (or real ones) to pollute the data they collect. So if you can't get them out legally, you can make the data they collect useless, which hits them in the pocketbook and might be more effective than legal countermeasures. You're not being cynical/paranoid enough. You assume the motivation is strictly economic, while it actually might be a cover for plain ol' surveillance. "Extra data" isn't as damaging in this scenario, where they are monitoring you for specific behavior.
as a society evolves, its members often choose to distribute certain catastrophic risks, so that by a small contribution from all, no individual need fear a devastating consequence, even if the likelihood is fairly remote.
and no, you can't opt out. i know, i know - you're in great shape and you take excellent care of yourself, and you stamp your feet and pout and dream of the third wide-screen HDTV you could put in the basement den if you didn't have to participate, and you resent all those less-fortunate and less-observant "others" who you feel you're paying for. but you're not paying for them - you're paying for the distributed risk.
I've been looking for a new laptop and I've run across System 76's linux laptops. I'm seriously considering buying one in the next couple of months. As someone who has bought one, what do you think of the quality of the machine? If you've ever needed to call support was it a good experience?
good machine, good price, everything just works. i had a couple minor problems (one, delayed delivery of a nonessential "supply" item i ordered with the laptop; the other, just a really stupid oversight on my part that was promptly pointed out to me), but they were quickly taken care of through through their forum on ubuntuforums.org - response time is very fast.
During my brief stint studying journalism, the editors had a hoot writing clever and witty headlines. Off the top of my head: "Bond goes up to bat" (describing a school bond measure on the ballot) and "Political party poppycock" (a column discussing political absurdities).
are those supposed to be funny or clever?
aside from being useless, annoying, and distracting, "clever" headlines sometimes produce misinformation.
for example, consider this recent headline from linuxtoday.com:
"Fluendo Media Decoders Sound Bad to Open Source Advocates"
if you're scanning the headlines without your "cheeky two-bit punster" glasses on, you might come away with the impression that there is a serious sound quality issue with fluendo decoders. only if you read the article do you realize that this is just a hilaaaaarious play on words by the author, and then you laugh and laugh and laugh! hahahaha! i can't stop laughing!
these artificial, forced puns should not be confused with straight headlines that by grace of circumstance are amusing all by themselves. consider this NY Post headline from days gone by:
"Headless Body Found in Topless Bar"
see? great headline, accurate and informative, and doesn't have to resort to any smarmy manipulations by the writer to be amusing.
There is a delay.. maybe a second or so - and then on top of that it takes them about a minute to get up to full brightness.
that brightness thing is my primary complaint. many times you only need the light on for a minute, and for that minute it's not fully bright, so...
still, i'm going to continue to use them for the energy savings. also i'm heating with wood partially, and will consider a hybrid/electric vehicle next time i buy,
Slashdot Mirror
As nutty and distasteful as the Westboro folks are, I don't understand why they aren't simply ignored, like the faint smell of dung wafting over from a nearby field during a walk on a sunny day.
I got a bit queasy reading Jono's post, with the corporate-speak, hand-waving, and magical feel-good thinking.
RMS's statement was well-reasoned and dispassionately delivered. He understands his role in the community and he executed this action perfectly.
Canonical: Fix the offending code, apologize to the community, fire the decision-makers involved.
For my part, I've used Ubuntu almost exlusively for a couple of years now, but have always known the day would come when I need to start looking for alternatives because of corporate overreach.
This is the way to do it. Linode is quite good.
+1 for PostgreSQL.
As soon as I read this, I thought "some bullshit to whip conservatives into a lather."
Sounds legit.
A rare glimpse of the Aquatic Chupacabra.
My parents have Charter internet and it basically works when it feels like it. But their other options are dial-up or satellite. Charter doesn't care about the customers because it doesn't have to.
I have charter internet, and actually it's pretty fucking awesome.
When I heard about Charter's disgusting NebuAds plan, I signed up for ATT's least expensive DSL plan - 768k for $20/mo, simultaneously with my Charter account. After a month I intend to choose one. My desire is to switch to ATT, first in order to punish Charter for their unacceptable profiling, and second because they've been creeping up the price (granted along with the speed) over time, and I'd rather have a little less speed for less money.
I've had the DSL modem working for less than a day, but I have to say that the 768k is miles behind Charter's 5mbps package, even while running the charter connection through an encrypted ssh socks5 proxy. I'm going to bump up the ATT plan up one or two steps and see if that's any better. As much as I don't want to give my cash to Charter because of their colossal NebuAds fuck-up, i might decide to stick with it and continue to run all my traffic through the encrypting proxy (which is off-site) to thwart them, at the very least.
Just think, soon the ruling elite won't have to worry at all about the fickle consciences of the troops that carry out its wishes.
Hey, Microsoft - look at us not caring!
simple math tells us this!
.81%. extending this trend into the future:
linux doubled its market share over the last year to
2008: 1.62%
2009: 3.24%
2010: 6.48%
2011: 12.96%
2012: 25.92%
2013: 51.84%
2014: 103.68%
so there you have it - 2014 is REALLY the year of the linux desktop, when it will have over 103% of the market.
oh holy SHIT is that funny...
the question was: "how do you feel about subsidizing MICROSOFT's bandwidth costs?"
what is this place? what is 'slashdot'? i searched google for "stuff that taco" and ended up here.
...and with the supreme court stuffed with corporate whore-bags, i wonder which way a case like this would fall.
wait a fucking minute. did i just make IE more attractive?
because i also pay for you.
as a society evolves, its members often choose to distribute certain catastrophic risks, so that by a small contribution from all, no individual need fear a devastating consequence, even if the likelihood is fairly remote.
and no, you can't opt out. i know, i know - you're in great shape and you take excellent care of yourself, and you stamp your feet and pout and dream of the third wide-screen HDTV you could put in the basement den if you didn't have to participate, and you resent all those less-fortunate and less-observant "others" who you feel you're paying for. but you're not paying for them - you're paying for the distributed risk.
Laotian Male Prostitute?
microsoft couldn't make a sexy product if they stuck a fuckable vagina on it.
good machine, good price, everything just works. i had a couple minor problems (one, delayed delivery of a nonessential "supply" item i ordered with the laptop; the other, just a really stupid oversight on my part that was promptly pointed out to me), but they were quickly taken care of through through their forum on ubuntuforums.org - response time is very fast.
http://www.system76.com/
i'mm happily tapping away on my System76 Ubuntu system (http://www.system76.com).
are those supposed to be funny or clever?
aside from being useless, annoying, and distracting, "clever" headlines sometimes produce misinformation.
for example, consider this recent headline from linuxtoday.com:
"Fluendo Media Decoders Sound Bad to Open Source Advocates"
if you're scanning the headlines without your "cheeky two-bit punster" glasses on, you might come away with the impression that there is a serious sound quality issue with fluendo decoders. only if you read the article do you realize that this is just a hilaaaaarious play on words by the author, and then you laugh and laugh and laugh! hahahaha! i can't stop laughing!
these artificial, forced puns should not be confused with straight headlines that by grace of circumstance are amusing all by themselves. consider this NY Post headline from days gone by:
"Headless Body Found in Topless Bar"
see? great headline, accurate and informative, and doesn't have to resort to any smarmy manipulations by the writer to be amusing.
that brightness thing is my primary complaint. many times you only need the light on for a minute, and for that minute it's not fully bright, so...
still, i'm going to continue to use them for the energy savings. also i'm heating with wood partially, and will consider a hybrid/electric vehicle next time i buy,