This will probably be modded troll or flamebait, and maybe it is (flamebait - I'm honestly not trolling), but it must be said. If the average user can't even be arsed to know the rudimentary basics of how to *operate* a computer, then we don't want them as users of Linux. Linux thrives on competition and contribution, and someone asking questions that have been answered a million times before is not contributing anything, they are in fact detracting. You say they are "winning" to pay for Windows? Then why aren't they willing to pay to have someone hold their hand for using Linux?
I don't want my software dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. I want it to be powerful, flexible, and above all, not insulting to my intelligence. I know some smart ass will say "well, software should just work." And Linux does! Because incompetents can't use something doesn't mean the thing is broken, it means the incompetents need training.
"But Linux wants to take over the world, and they can't do that if they snub users!" they say. I've got news for you: most people probably use Linux and don't even realize it. Ever used a Tivo? Or Google? Those are just two major examples. There are probably thousands of other places Linux is being used and people don't even know it.
Are there places Linux could be improved? Sure, and there always will be. I'm all for compassion and lending a helping hand and attempting to see it from someone else's point of view. But there's a huge difference between "usable" and "trying to fit an old and broken model (ie Windows)", which is what most people mean when they say "Linux isn't easy".
Is Linux out of touch with the average user? Does the average user misspell simple words such as "willing"? Then, yes, Linux is probably out of touch with them. And that's a good thing. What's that signature I've seen around here? "How come BSD is allowed to get away with expecting a modicum of intelligence from its users?" Answer me that.
Umberto Eco. "Foucault's Pendulum." Take the damn training wheels off already.
I keep meaning to get into Eco, just haven't had the time. I did like the movie version of "Name of the Rose" very much, so I'm hoping the book is even better.
The fundamental problem is that it's a positive feedback system that's doing what positive feedback systems always do: wig out exponentially. If you really want to see something scary, look at an itemized hospital bill that includes the costs of things like bandages. The bandages cost 10 or 100 times more than they would at the drugstore. The reason they cost so much is that insurance companies are willing to pay it. Why are insurance companies willing to pay it?
This is one of the most spot-on informative comments I've seen in a long time. How many people here actually look at the statements the insurance company sends you after a doctor/hospital visit? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Neither did I, until my father-in-law (a doctor) pointed out how interesting it is to see the interchange between the insurance company and the "providers" (doctors, hospitals, etc).
Also, BTW, the providers will overcharge because the insurance companies will usually fight to bring the prices down. If they didn't set a high starting price, they'd be undercut by the insurance industries sleazy negotiations. This is why if you ever have to pay your own health expenses out of pocket it is so expensive - you don't have the time to negotiate and haggle to get the costs down. This also turns into a vicious cycle where the providers keep jacking the prices up, and then you *have* to have insurance to be able to afford it, plus have someone haggling the prices down for you.
Also the the story fell apart in the last 100 pages or so, kind of like Stephenson just stopped caring and wanted to get the thing done.
As opposed to Dan Brown novels, where the whole book sucks? Thanks, but I think I'll stick with Stephenson. Everyone says he writes horrible endings, and horrible sex scenes, but I just don't see it. Maybe I'm too much of a fanboy (especially after "In the Beginning was the Command Line"), but I'll paraphrase a famous quote: "I may not know literature, but I know what I like."
Anyhow, I'm sure someone will mod this down for not toeing the line.
I wouldn't have modded you down. I know that, like Linux, Stephenson's writings aren't for everyone. They make me happy, so I keep buying them. Dan Brown's stuff bores and infuriates me, so I sell back to the used book store and don't buy anything more of his.
Offtopic, but what is the deal with bumper stickers in Europe? I did a fair bit of driving in France last year, and I never saw *any* bumper stickers. I was starting to wonder if they were illegal (yet there were vans with ads covering the entire rear end). Sure, I can accept that most people think bumper stickers are hokey, but everyone? Do you never, ever see one of those funky old cars with 200 stickers on the back?
It's called "taste", something which we have an appalling lack of here in the states. All you have to do is turn on the TV for 10 seconds to realize that this is the tackiest nation on earth. Bumper stickers are just a rude reminder of that fact. I'm not usually one to care about style over substance, but bumper stickers fail on the substance front as well: how shallow are a nation's people when they will put a bumper sticker (or two or three) on their vehicle, yet they won't go to vote? Not to mention believing you can change minds with a catchy slogan pasted on a car.
He did his duty and that is admirable, but his record for oppressing others afterwards leads me to believe that his choice of sides was an accident of birth. Good and evil involve more than bravery and sacrifice.
People change, people aren't perfect, and much as we like to deny it, most people are very heavily influenced by their environment. Sometimes people get ideas stuck in their head, and no matter how wrong the idea is, it persists for the reason that humans aren't perfect. Valenti may have just fallen in with the wrong people after his service; he may have been raised by parents who chided him for "stealing ideas", etc. Not to say that I don't hold people accountable for their actions; just that things aren't always that simple.
Another thing to note is that not everyone is completely good, or completely bad. Even Mother Theresa had a cruel streak. This absolutism you attribute to him also scares me, as it shows a genuine lack of compassion and understanding for your fellow man.
I salute Jack Valenti for putting himself in danger to try to protect others; I also respectfully disagree with his views on copyright and wish that he had seen the light and used his power to advance freedom and progress, instead of subverting our government to achieve his own material ends.
That's cool, but is this really news that's Slashdot-worthy? Sites like LWN and KernelTrap have already reported this, and anyone who's interested in Linux development is pretty much guaranteed to follow the former at least, I think (and most likely the latter as well).
Considering that slashdot was (note the past tense) first and foremost a Linux/all things geeky site, I'd say this article is very slashdot-worthy. Not to mention that we get a fawning mac fan boy article every time Steve Jobs so much as farts. At least the Apple section can be turned off. Wish I could do the same with Microsoft and Windows articles.
When giving out different email addresses, I also "assign" a password to that email address, eg "u2Rsv62-slashdot@hardcorehackers.com".
I run qmail with the badrcptto patch. This is especially handy if I start receiving spam at one of the previously assigned email addresses; I can cut off just that email address and others can still reach me. Plus, for all autogenerated spam "From:" addresses, I can just add them to/etc/qmail/badrcptto and I never hear about them again.
Run qmail with SPF. Not that anybody uses it, but at least I can claim due diligence.
Put a notice on your website informing others of the problem and what to do about it.
Blacklist them back. You (and I) may be small fish, but that doesn't mean we have to put up with their bullshit in our logs. "iptables --insert INPUT --source ${ip_of_moron_mail_admin} --jump DROP" has done wonders for clearing my logs of all those "Sorry, but you are a dynamic IP" mail reject messages.
In my opinion, feeling good is highly underrated. If the psychological joy of getting money back on taxes outweighs the joy from interest incurred from having that money early for someone, then I don't see a problem. God knows we pay enough in entertainment costs in a year to make ourselves feel good.
Too true. I'm usually of the mind of "refunds are just an interest free loan to the government" so when I found out my wife and I owed a signifigant (to us) chunk of change, I looked at it as a positive. I had that money stuffed in a couple of different investment vehicles, making interest! My wife, on the other hand, actually started crying a bit because we weren't getting a return we could stick into savings. The moral of the story? I now have my withholding fixed so that I not only have the proper deductions (that was why we didn't pay enough taxes) and a little extra is pulled out of my paycheck too. What's a couple of percentage points in interest between a husband and wife? Besides, I can also take the positive view of withholding in that it is forced savings. Not that I usually have any problems saving. But if it keeps my wife happy . . .
I think that in the Linux world, mergers are a good thing and need to be made across the entire Linux community.
I think that as with most things in life, it really depends. Split development can drive competition and put pressure on developers to keep up, especially when no one else is stepping up to the plate to offer any. Like many other things in the open source world, when proprietary software can't provide, we make our own, including competition.
Imagine if the Gnome and KDE camps could work together . . .
Then QT probably would have never been open sourced. It may be obvious now that Gnome is heading down the wrong path with Mono, but back when Gnome was started it was "obvious" then that KDE was headed down the wrong path with QT. Things change, and having options makes it so that when one is wrong, you can still use another.
or how about Mozilla and Opera...
Do you even know what you are talking about? Ignoring the fact that Opera _isn't_ open source or Free software, Opera and Mozilla have different goals, therefore they have (and rightly should have) different projects. The only standards needed in the web browsing arena are HTML/CSS, and we all know that Mozilla and Opera generally stick to those better than certain other third parties.
or most importantly the package management camps.
The problem here is that it is not technically obvious which package management is superior. Also, this one is partly caused by a popularity problem. When you get that whole "people should use what I think is best!" problem solved, let us know. Especially when you are trying to force it on people who run open source software because it _doesn't_ tell them what they can and can't do.
Want to bring linux to the mainstream, pick a standard and develop it.
See Ubuntu
Set aside your disagreements and work for the greater good.
See Debian
The world doesn't need another linux distro, it needs everyone working to create a single comprehensive distro.
That's your opinion and you're welcome to it. It would carry more weight if you actually invented this distro that met everyone's needs and then released it.
I hate that I can only seem to get hardware drivers for Suse and Redhat because the vendor couldn't cater to everyone.
This is not a problem with the distros, it's a problem with the distributors of the hardware drivers. I hate that ATI doesn't make.debs for their drivers too, but I don't bitch about it to the Debian developers.
And I hate hearing about projects forking because two intelligent people can't come to a compromise.
And I hate it when someone who obviously has little understanding of open source in general, not to mention the goals and motivations behind different projects, whines that intelligent, hard-working, dedicated albeit stubborn developers won't do what he wants.
You want something done? Do it yourself, it's the open source way. If that's not good enough for you, fine, either pay someone to do it, or go away. Most of us here in the open source world understand and appreciate the choices offered, and wouldn't have it any other way. Quite honestly, there isn't another way that offers the choices that open source does, so please stop encouraging people to destroy the only option that gives us options
Note to all those people who will flame me or mod me flame: I understand that you see this post as the classic "fuck off, luser" type of post, but the parent was so ill-informed and misguided that I felt a little correction was in order. Obviously, th
Ha! Cute and pop culture reference all in one! I bet you actually believe that too. Let me give you a hint: no one would die if everyone started suing everyone else for patent violation. At worst, it would destroy the industry, in which case something better would spring up in it's place. Ever hear of supply and demand? More likely (and a better outcome) is that it would do massive damage to a lot of companies and point out how destructive and backwards software patents really are. Then people would demand patent reform and maybe we could go back to the important business of advancing the art. The only similarity that the current patent madness has with cold war MAD is the stupidity and shortsightedness of those involved. The results of ending the ceasefire aren't even comparable, even on an analogy level.
Waste your mod points modding me down. I have more karma than God, you can't fucking touch me, bitches.
Not to mention that some of us have you marked as friend and set our preferences to "Friend +6" comment modifier, so we will always see your erudite comments, no matter how much they may be maligned by christofascist ignoramuses who have too much time and mod points on their hands.
RRRRRight. So let's say you see a guy get robbed in the street and can identify the robber. The police find out you witnessed the robbery and subpeona you to appear as a witness. Are you evil for giving up the identity of the robber?
Let's look at this from another extreme: say you witness someone committing a crime that is minor (say, jaywalking), but you know they will be severely punished for (say, put to death). Are you evil for giving this person up? You might like to claim "it's not my fault the laws are bad", but if it's wrong for someone to aid a murderer, wouldn't it be wrong to aid a corrupt government?
I write this only because I have you marked as Friend which means I thought you said something insightful/thoughtful enough in the past that I wanted to see everything you post at slashdot.
I find them misleading in every topic I can. I've read a few articles from them and they're all bunk.
In my experience, most of the things I have read from Consumer Reports have been highly informative. If nothing else, they have helped me know what to look for when shopping for a product I may not be familiar with. I would suggest that if you find an error in one of their reports that you inform them of it. Consumer Reports is much like open source in that it relies on reports (both negative and positive) from users to refine their results. My only complaint is that they don't publish their data or methods, which leads to problems with peer review and reproducability of testing.
They wrote up the Ionic Breeze a few years ago -- an air filter that has no moving parts and is sold by Sharper Image. They called it entirely ineffective and cited the lack of fans as justification that it didn't do anything at all. Utter crap! I have owned three and they work great for medium sized rooms!
IIRC, CR's complaints with the Ionic Breeze was not that it had no fans, it was that *it did not perform as advertised*. I remember the report saying something to the effect of "we put it in an enclosed room, turned it on, added some smoke, waited thirty minutes, then flushed the smoke back out through our own filters and found that there was no signifigant difference between the amount of smoke before and after." After complaints from Sharper Image, they ran the tests again, *with newer models* and absolutely no change in performance.
I don't know anything about the children's car seats you mention, but I would reccomend that if you have problems with Consumer Reports, *let them know*. They are always asking for feedback and to have testers in the field (ie, people who don't get paid or get "review" versions of products) to send them in their experiences with products. No, they're not perfect, but they *are* a cut above most other reviewers, especially since they don't allow their name to be used in advertising.
If you place RFID readers at certain strategic locations, you can go a long way to detecting the presence of, say, pedophiles that have been paroled and are hanging out near a school (assuming you have hidden RFID readers near schools, of course.)
This and the registering of sexual offenders has always bothered me, and not just because of the privacy implications or the fact that sometimes innocent people are convicted or because "sexual offenses" can be something as simple as being seen peeing in the bushes. Even if you eliminate all these other objections, there is still an objection to be made: if they are out of prison, haven't they paid their "debt to society"? If they are so dangerous, why have they been let out of jail? Haven't they been rehabilitated to be a functioning part of society?
I probably shouldn't be encouraging such trollish behavior by responding to this flamebait article, but here goes:
Free-desktop developers are "wedded" (well, they aren't really) to GNU/Linux because it will be the last OS. They've seen the light, they know better than the users, and they know what's coming. It's all well and good to develop alternative free operating systems, and I would encourage anyone who wants to to do it, but the fact is that if you create something really neat, it will make it into GNU/Linux sooner or later.
I think many Linux users were caught off guard to hear the home server was coming. Mainly because many people using Linux already turned some tired, old box into a home server years ago. A server that has a web interface, does incremental backups, file and print sharing and just generally most of the things Microsoft is touting for their home server.
Exactly, you hit the nail right on the head. I've been running my web, email, file, printing, backup, streaming music and video on my GNU/Linux servers for *years*. Ditto for my MythTV box which is doing everything (and more) that the Microsoft and Apple offerings are just starting to catch up on.
Some of you even have your home server running your zone heating system and performing other automation tasks.
This is something I've been thinking about doing for a while, and it would be pretty easy to do it with GNU/Linux. I've just been too lazy to buy the hardware (or wire it up myself).
Yes, the home server idea caught me completely off guard. And people say MSFT is behind the curve in technology.:>
It just amazes me when people say "Linux/Open Source doesn't innovate, it's all copying from Apple/Microsoft!". And then they get upset when I call them ignoramuses.
The game shouldn't be allowed access to my user files
Ah, but to some of us, save games are user files. It's really annoyed me for a long time now that games ported from Windows seem to have no concept of multiple users and keeping their save games in each user's home directory instead of cluttering up what could reasonably be called system software directories (places where game data and executables are kept).
Still, there is something to be said for locking down what access software has to your files. Of course, if you don't trust the software, then why do you run it? Why not chroot it and say it can't touch your user files except a specific directory where it can store savegames and settings?
Overall, the eighties sucked. I know that Sturgeon's law says that 90% of anything is crap, but it really seemed closer to 99% in the '80s. There were a few gems though, and Indiana Jones was one of them. That you can even ask this question:
All three of the earlier movies were shot in the 80s. How well do you think this character is going to translate into a movie made today?
And not have people go "what are you talking about?" should tell you something. I agree that I think they are just trying for more money and beating a dead horse, but of all the things that could be resurrected from the '80s, they could do much worse than Indiana Jones. Here's hoping the fourth film doesn't suck.
Batman Begins was arguably the best superhero movie ever.
Really? That doesn't bode well for other superhero movies then:
Batman Begins is all about overreaching, trying to turn kid's stuff into grown up's stuff. Those dumbasses want to pretend to tell a poignant and powerful tale when what they have is a guy who dresses like a bat and fights bad guys in bad Mexican wrestling masks all fancied up with simplistic psychobabble. Batman is a god damn comic book for kids, something with mail order seven-foot ghosts, X-ray goggles, Sea Monkeys and 132 Army Men for $1.95. But it has been clung to by legions of fucking freaks who would rather drag their childhood obsessions into old age than grow up and move on. Try some books with more words and fewer pictures.
Don't get me wrong, I loved Chris Nolan's "Memento". I've just never been that big a fan of comic books or their movies. And yes, that includes "graphic novels". Stop being so pretentious and just call them what they are: comic books.
That you can set up and run a business network without any software from MSFT or Apple is really quite amazing.
Not really. People had been using "business" networks in the scientific world for decades before MSFT and Apple even heard of the Internet. And you know what they were running? The precursors of Linux, all those UNIXes. Sure, I suppose if the only thing you're used to is the sh*t you have to put up with to get a network working with Macs or Windows, then, yeah, Linux does seem pretty amazing. But to those of us who have been using Linux for years (and not longer only because of our DOB), it isn't anything special. It's just business as usual. Stick that in your TCO and smoke it.
This is like having a Mercedes and have it serviced by Kia.
Naw, I like Neal Stephenson's analogy, because then it would be like having an M1 tank, made of space-age materials and jammed with sophisticated technology from one end to the other, that's been modified in such a way that it never, ever breaks down, is light and maneuverable enough to use on ordinary streets, and uses no more fuel than a subcompact car, and taking it to a station wagon car company to have it serviced.
Good post! I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes about advertising:
What your company does is worthless.
If your company spontaneously ceased to exist, there is not a single member of the public who would notice its absence. Nobody depends on what you do, not even your clients.
The vast majority of what you produce will be instantly forgotten - the only thing that you can guarantee is that you are lowering the signal-to-noise ratio of life - filling the environment with yet more useless lies.
-- "Why you do not want to work for an Ad Agency", http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=134326 5
Slashdot Mirror
This will probably be modded troll or flamebait, and maybe it is (flamebait - I'm honestly not trolling), but it must be said. If the average user can't even be arsed to know the rudimentary basics of how to *operate* a computer, then we don't want them as users of Linux. Linux thrives on competition and contribution, and someone asking questions that have been answered a million times before is not contributing anything, they are in fact detracting. You say they are "winning" to pay for Windows? Then why aren't they willing to pay to have someone hold their hand for using Linux?
I don't want my software dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. I want it to be powerful, flexible, and above all, not insulting to my intelligence. I know some smart ass will say "well, software should just work." And Linux does! Because incompetents can't use something doesn't mean the thing is broken, it means the incompetents need training.
"But Linux wants to take over the world, and they can't do that if they snub users!" they say. I've got news for you: most people probably use Linux and don't even realize it. Ever used a Tivo? Or Google? Those are just two major examples. There are probably thousands of other places Linux is being used and people don't even know it.
Are there places Linux could be improved? Sure, and there always will be. I'm all for compassion and lending a helping hand and attempting to see it from someone else's point of view. But there's a huge difference between "usable" and "trying to fit an old and broken model (ie Windows)", which is what most people mean when they say "Linux isn't easy".
Is Linux out of touch with the average user? Does the average user misspell simple words such as "willing"? Then, yes, Linux is probably out of touch with them. And that's a good thing. What's that signature I've seen around here? "How come BSD is allowed to get away with expecting a modicum of intelligence from its users?" Answer me that.
And other religions aren't pyramid schemes and cults?
Of course security isn't just avoiding Microsoft. That's just the first step.
I keep meaning to get into Eco, just haven't had the time. I did like the movie version of "Name of the Rose" very much, so I'm hoping the book is even better.
This is one of the most spot-on informative comments I've seen in a long time. How many people here actually look at the statements the insurance company sends you after a doctor/hospital visit? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Neither did I, until my father-in-law (a doctor) pointed out how interesting it is to see the interchange between the insurance company and the "providers" (doctors, hospitals, etc).
Also, BTW, the providers will overcharge because the insurance companies will usually fight to bring the prices down. If they didn't set a high starting price, they'd be undercut by the insurance industries sleazy negotiations. This is why if you ever have to pay your own health expenses out of pocket it is so expensive - you don't have the time to negotiate and haggle to get the costs down. This also turns into a vicious cycle where the providers keep jacking the prices up, and then you *have* to have insurance to be able to afford it, plus have someone haggling the prices down for you.
As opposed to Dan Brown novels, where the whole book sucks? Thanks, but I think I'll stick with Stephenson. Everyone says he writes horrible endings, and horrible sex scenes, but I just don't see it. Maybe I'm too much of a fanboy (especially after "In the Beginning was the Command Line"), but I'll paraphrase a famous quote: "I may not know literature, but I know what I like."
I wouldn't have modded you down. I know that, like Linux, Stephenson's writings aren't for everyone. They make me happy, so I keep buying them. Dan Brown's stuff bores and infuriates me, so I sell back to the used book store and don't buy anything more of his.
It's called "taste", something which we have an appalling lack of here in the states. All you have to do is turn on the TV for 10 seconds to realize that this is the tackiest nation on earth. Bumper stickers are just a rude reminder of that fact. I'm not usually one to care about style over substance, but bumper stickers fail on the substance front as well: how shallow are a nation's people when they will put a bumper sticker (or two or three) on their vehicle, yet they won't go to vote? Not to mention believing you can change minds with a catchy slogan pasted on a car.
People change, people aren't perfect, and much as we like to deny it, most people are very heavily influenced by their environment. Sometimes people get ideas stuck in their head, and no matter how wrong the idea is, it persists for the reason that humans aren't perfect. Valenti may have just fallen in with the wrong people after his service; he may have been raised by parents who chided him for "stealing ideas", etc. Not to say that I don't hold people accountable for their actions; just that things aren't always that simple.
Another thing to note is that not everyone is completely good, or completely bad. Even Mother Theresa had a cruel streak. This absolutism you attribute to him also scares me, as it shows a genuine lack of compassion and understanding for your fellow man.
I salute Jack Valenti for putting himself in danger to try to protect others; I also respectfully disagree with his views on copyright and wish that he had seen the light and used his power to advance freedom and progress, instead of subverting our government to achieve his own material ends.
Considering that slashdot was (note the past tense) first and foremost a Linux/all things geeky site, I'd say this article is very slashdot-worthy. Not to mention that we get a fawning mac fan boy article every time Steve Jobs so much as farts. At least the Apple section can be turned off. Wish I could do the same with Microsoft and Windows articles.
Too true. I'm usually of the mind of "refunds are just an interest free loan to the government" so when I found out my wife and I owed a signifigant (to us) chunk of change, I looked at it as a positive. I had that money stuffed in a couple of different investment vehicles, making interest! My wife, on the other hand, actually started crying a bit because we weren't getting a return we could stick into savings. The moral of the story? I now have my withholding fixed so that I not only have the proper deductions (that was why we didn't pay enough taxes) and a little extra is pulled out of my paycheck too. What's a couple of percentage points in interest between a husband and wife? Besides, I can also take the positive view of withholding in that it is forced savings. Not that I usually have any problems saving. But if it keeps my wife happy . . .
I think that as with most things in life, it really depends. Split development can drive competition and put pressure on developers to keep up, especially when no one else is stepping up to the plate to offer any. Like many other things in the open source world, when proprietary software can't provide, we make our own, including competition.
Then QT probably would have never been open sourced. It may be obvious now that Gnome is heading down the wrong path with Mono, but back when Gnome was started it was "obvious" then that KDE was headed down the wrong path with QT. Things change, and having options makes it so that when one is wrong, you can still use another.
Do you even know what you are talking about? Ignoring the fact that Opera _isn't_ open source or Free software, Opera and Mozilla have different goals, therefore they have (and rightly should have) different projects. The only standards needed in the web browsing arena are HTML/CSS, and we all know that Mozilla and Opera generally stick to those better than certain other third parties.
The problem here is that it is not technically obvious which package management is superior. Also, this one is partly caused by a popularity problem. When you get that whole "people should use what I think is best!" problem solved, let us know. Especially when you are trying to force it on people who run open source software because it _doesn't_ tell them what they can and can't do.
See Ubuntu
See Debian
That's your opinion and you're welcome to it. It would carry more weight if you actually invented this distro that met everyone's needs and then released it.
This is not a problem with the distros, it's a problem with the distributors of the hardware drivers. I hate that ATI doesn't make .debs for their drivers too, but I don't bitch about it to the Debian developers.
And I hate it when someone who obviously has little understanding of open source in general, not to mention the goals and motivations behind different projects, whines that intelligent, hard-working, dedicated albeit stubborn developers won't do what he wants.
You want something done? Do it yourself, it's the open source way. If that's not good enough for you, fine, either pay someone to do it, or go away. Most of us here in the open source world understand and appreciate the choices offered, and wouldn't have it any other way. Quite honestly, there isn't another way that offers the choices that open source does, so please stop encouraging people to destroy the only option that gives us options
Note to all those people who will flame me or mod me flame: I understand that you see this post as the classic "fuck off, luser" type of post, but the parent was so ill-informed and misguided that I felt a little correction was in order. Obviously, th
Ha! Cute and pop culture reference all in one! I bet you actually believe that too. Let me give you a hint: no one would die if everyone started suing everyone else for patent violation. At worst, it would destroy the industry, in which case something better would spring up in it's place. Ever hear of supply and demand? More likely (and a better outcome) is that it would do massive damage to a lot of companies and point out how destructive and backwards software patents really are. Then people would demand patent reform and maybe we could go back to the important business of advancing the art. The only similarity that the current patent madness has with cold war MAD is the stupidity and shortsightedness of those involved. The results of ending the ceasefire aren't even comparable, even on an analogy level.
Not to mention that some of us have you marked as friend and set our preferences to "Friend +6" comment modifier, so we will always see your erudite comments, no matter how much they may be maligned by christofascist ignoramuses who have too much time and mod points on their hands.
Let's look at this from another extreme: say you witness someone committing a crime that is minor (say, jaywalking), but you know they will be severely punished for (say, put to death). Are you evil for giving this person up? You might like to claim "it's not my fault the laws are bad", but if it's wrong for someone to aid a murderer, wouldn't it be wrong to aid a corrupt government?
In my experience, most of the things I have read from Consumer Reports have been highly informative. If nothing else, they have helped me know what to look for when shopping for a product I may not be familiar with. I would suggest that if you find an error in one of their reports that you inform them of it. Consumer Reports is much like open source in that it relies on reports (both negative and positive) from users to refine their results. My only complaint is that they don't publish their data or methods, which leads to problems with peer review and reproducability of testing.
IIRC, CR's complaints with the Ionic Breeze was not that it had no fans, it was that *it did not perform as advertised*. I remember the report saying something to the effect of "we put it in an enclosed room, turned it on, added some smoke, waited thirty minutes, then flushed the smoke back out through our own filters and found that there was no signifigant difference between the amount of smoke before and after." After complaints from Sharper Image, they ran the tests again, *with newer models* and absolutely no change in performance.
I don't know anything about the children's car seats you mention, but I would reccomend that if you have problems with Consumer Reports, *let them know*. They are always asking for feedback and to have testers in the field (ie, people who don't get paid or get "review" versions of products) to send them in their experiences with products. No, they're not perfect, but they *are* a cut above most other reviewers, especially since they don't allow their name to be used in advertising.
This and the registering of sexual offenders has always bothered me, and not just because of the privacy implications or the fact that sometimes innocent people are convicted or because "sexual offenses" can be something as simple as being seen peeing in the bushes. Even if you eliminate all these other objections, there is still an objection to be made: if they are out of prison, haven't they paid their "debt to society"? If they are so dangerous, why have they been let out of jail? Haven't they been rehabilitated to be a functioning part of society?
I probably shouldn't be encouraging such trollish behavior by responding to this flamebait article, but here goes:
Free-desktop developers are "wedded" (well, they aren't really) to GNU/Linux because it will be the last OS. They've seen the light, they know better than the users, and they know what's coming. It's all well and good to develop alternative free operating systems, and I would encourage anyone who wants to to do it, but the fact is that if you create something really neat, it will make it into GNU/Linux sooner or later.
Exactly, you hit the nail right on the head. I've been running my web, email, file, printing, backup, streaming music and video on my GNU/Linux servers for *years*. Ditto for my MythTV box which is doing everything (and more) that the Microsoft and Apple offerings are just starting to catch up on.
This is something I've been thinking about doing for a while, and it would be pretty easy to do it with GNU/Linux. I've just been too lazy to buy the hardware (or wire it up myself).
It just amazes me when people say "Linux/Open Source doesn't innovate, it's all copying from Apple/Microsoft!". And then they get upset when I call them ignoramuses.
Ah, but to some of us, save games are user files. It's really annoyed me for a long time now that games ported from Windows seem to have no concept of multiple users and keeping their save games in each user's home directory instead of cluttering up what could reasonably be called system software directories (places where game data and executables are kept).
Still, there is something to be said for locking down what access software has to your files. Of course, if you don't trust the software, then why do you run it? Why not chroot it and say it can't touch your user files except a specific directory where it can store savegames and settings?
Overall, the eighties sucked. I know that Sturgeon's law says that 90% of anything is crap, but it really seemed closer to 99% in the '80s. There were a few gems though, and Indiana Jones was one of them. That you can even ask this question:
And not have people go "what are you talking about?" should tell you something. I agree that I think they are just trying for more money and beating a dead horse, but of all the things that could be resurrected from the '80s, they could do much worse than Indiana Jones. Here's hoping the fourth film doesn't suck.
Really? That doesn't bode well for other superhero movies then:
Link to my favorite review of "Batman Begins".
Don't get me wrong, I loved Chris Nolan's "Memento". I've just never been that big a fan of comic books or their movies. And yes, that includes "graphic novels". Stop being so pretentious and just call them what they are: comic books.
Not really. People had been using "business" networks in the scientific world for decades before MSFT and Apple even heard of the Internet. And you know what they were running? The precursors of Linux, all those UNIXes. Sure, I suppose if the only thing you're used to is the sh*t you have to put up with to get a network working with Macs or Windows, then, yeah, Linux does seem pretty amazing. But to those of us who have been using Linux for years (and not longer only because of our DOB), it isn't anything special. It's just business as usual. Stick that in your TCO and smoke it.
Naw, I like Neal Stephenson's analogy, because then it would be like having an M1 tank, made of space-age materials and jammed with sophisticated technology from one end to the other, that's been modified in such a way that it never, ever breaks down, is light and maneuverable enough to use on ordinary streets, and uses no more fuel than a subcompact car, and taking it to a station wagon car company to have it serviced.