Well, that makes perfect sense! While we're at it, this is a good way to take away the rights of all US citizens living on US land. I mean, police protection is a public service. The roads, enviromental protections, and noise ordinances are public service... Obviously you OWE the state, and one of the things that they want is your private information! You don't like that, well, tough! Move somewhere else or buy the land from the government and start your own country!
Sorry, this arguement does not stand. At public universities, just like at public primary schools, you do not waive your rights for the very reason that it IS a public service. Private schools can basically do whatever they want in this realm, and the free market (and rarely, a board member's ethical stance) will decide what's bad practise and what's fine.
As many others have stated, your dorm room is equivlent to public housing or to an appartment. True, you may not own the deed and it may be government sponsored, but that doesn't mean you lose your consitutional rights. Search and seasure, free speech, all that still applies.
Saying that you forfeit your rights by using public services is like saying, "Well, you can be any religeon you want, but only True Christians have the moral ability to drive a car on public highways. All you jews can just buy your own damn roads if you want your religeon that badly!" (Ok, maybe this is a little extreme, but it's fairly close)
What the hell are you talking about?! Joe Lieberman is one of the biggest censorship advocates around. He would've been your vice-president. Yes, technically he's a democrat, but he was fairly right-wing at that.
This same BS would be happening if Gore were in the white house. Maybe not some of the other stuff, but this would. The problem here is the misinformation of the current media. I think we all know about the false connections in all these school murders (well, at least the ones where white kids got killed) between the killers and video games and film and music that later were found to be completely made up. The news is reporting what people want to hear, and people want a scape goat, so they're blaming "unsavory" items of entertainment and killing their first ammendment rights.
It's really, really sad, but it's not caused by republicans.
Ummm, you have a score of zero because you're an anonymous coward. I don't think that does speak volumes of Slashdot, other than that we get a lot of AC trolls around here. I wonder if this was one.
Yeah, it's not like 2001 had some big name director or anything. Just little ol' Stanly Kubrick.
I do agree, however, that Ender's Game can't really be made these days without making it an innane shell of what it should be. The problem is that the story doesn't really fit the format of massivly successful movies, and it's not really feasable as a budget film (low investment, low payoff), because of the importance of null gravity scenes. Maybe there's a way around the latter that i can't think of. If so, that would definitely be the way to go. The story just doesn't have much of a chance for a huge audience, but it could turn out to be a great sci-fi sleeper hit.
-ben.c
Re:Perhaps you might consider an English class?
on
CS vs CIS
·
· Score: 1
Actually, "alot" is a word. It's just not what he meant. That's why you see it around so much; it gets by the spell checkers.
It's kinda like allocate, which i'm sure some of you are more familiar with. For a real definition, read the aforementioned dictionary.
Yeah, but unlike the Napster case, there are strong moral grounds to stand on, (such as, reverse engineering should be legal; you didn't steal anything if you didn't take anything in the first place; the list goes on) on this one. You may more may not agree with it, but they're there.
So far, i haven't heard one compelling moral reason to use Napster to get music you haven't bought.
I'd disagree with you if you had said that GNU/Linux just can't be your grandmother's OS because I think it can, but that's just something we'll have to wait and see.
I do disagree with you when you say that Linux just can't be your grandmother's OS. Linux can drive embedded systems and Linux can drive VCRs, and soon Linux will drive a game console. I have confidence enough in your grandmother that she could opperate any of these (well, depends on the embedded system) easier than any Mac or Windows PC. Just because it's Linux doesn't mean there's a console.
Basically, there's no reason your grandmother needs to know what kernel she's using, and whoever can show me that the Linux kernel is missing something needed to make a easy interface, i'll buy that person a beer.
Now, whether your grandmother will be recompiling her patched kernel source anytime soon, may be a different matter.
I suspect I can still read a Word document in 20 years. Thirty? Who knows.
Well, if you still have the computer you used to create them, or some equivilent, then that's probably a good bet as long as you use a storage medium that'll last that long. Otherwise, i sincerly doubt it. Thanks to MS's obsessive alteration of the.doc format for each new revision, it is often diffecult or impossible to load older versions, especially with any complex formatting, such as tables, frames (or whatever they have now), columns, etc. They do their best to keep the old version import working, but i have personally lost quite a few doc files do to a newer version of word. No one expects forwards compatability, but lacking BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY?
If you really want those documents 20 or 30 years from now, i suggest you print them and put them in a cool, dry place away from sunlight. ASCII files will probably still work, too.
Umm, actually i wasn't commenting on this particular hack. I wouldn't like to see this become an integral part of any normal end-user software (ie GNOME), and i wouldn't like this to be an option regularly compiled into kernels for a couple reasons, but i do think that it might be well used for academic work and testing. All in all, i think it's a clever little hack.
My objection was to the post i directly replied to. The one stating that more of the GUI should be included in the kernel, and in fact, GNOME-specific parts should be included. I think this would be completely ass-backwards, especially when you see all the other modern OS's heading for Microkernel land where only the MOST basic parts are in the OS. Anyway, i think i summed it all up well previously.
Ok, i'm gonna borrow a page from Linus' playbook and ask,
Are you on drugs?
No, really, what part of "i came to Linux to get AWAY from Windows" don't you understand?
Besides, not everyone wants to use GNOME. In fact, many, many people don't want to use GNOME. You know what else? Many people (brace yourself for this one!) use Linux purely in console mode.
Not to mention, the benefits of including GUI components in the kernel are unproven at best. While there may be some performance increase (though this will most likely be from taking cycles away from other things ie no net gain), there is the UGLY reality of having a kernel that will crash when the GUI screws up. Not to mention the problems with a larger kernel (ie not being able to use zImage, which means precluding a lot of architectures from using Linux).
So yeah, i paraphrase the movie "Billy Madison" when i say, "We are all now dumber for having read that."
"As I understand, the owner of a work can change the copyright/liscencing however he pleases. FreeDB can use all of its orginal code as long as the authors consent... This is why the FSF encourages people hand over ownership of programs to them..."
Then you misunderstand. IANAL, but i know my licensing, and the way the GPL works is that if i produce something and then GPL it and distribute it, then later take the program, which i do have the intellectual property rights to, and make it closed-source, pay software, then it's my right to do that. HOWEVER, what i do not have a right to do is change the licence of all the previously distributed copies. Those are forever under the GPL and my be modified without my consent or aproval.
AFAIK, the FSF does NOT ask that people turn over ownership of programs to them, as it would only be a hastle as far as i can see.
I have to wonder if the original message was intentionally spreading FUD, or if it was just FUD from ignorance... I think i'll contemplate this over a game of Tetrinet.
Wow! That's such a great idea, though i prefer http://c.microsoft.com/trans_pixel.asp?source=www& TYPE=PV&p=bill_can_suck_it
It almost makes me want to start a chain letter getting people to click that a couple dozen times each... Maybe it'll be one of those HTML emails that readers like Outlook and NS load automatically, and i'll just embed the image a few dozen times...
Umm... Macs have good color calibration, but Windows PCs don't. It's not that Linux is trying to be like Windows (although i think it is in some areas, and generally, those are the areas i stay the hell away from *cough*GNOME*cough*, but we will take good features, even if such features to exist in Windows.
Btw, show me one good feature that's in Linux that Microsoft came up with FIRST-- not before Linux, but FIRST. Please.
I agree about the Nader issue and that Bush wouldn't stand for this (GW or Jeb), but really, look at the numbers. Even if the 3000 or so people who voted for Buchanan and alledgedly meant to vote for Gore actually meant to vote for Buchanan, 19,000 ballots were disqualified state-wide for having punched both Buchanan and Gore. I think this is a definite sign of voter confusion.
My proposal is that they revote in that county only. That will minimize the "Nader factor," but for god sakes, use a different ballot.
Or at very least, take the 19,000 ballots that marked Gore AND Buchanan and give half to each candidate. Hell, give a quarter to each candidate and throw out the other half.
Who thinks it's a good idea to give the presidency to a man even though more US voters think his opponent should be president; even though the desiding votes seem to be around 900 people in a state of million;, even though there's obvious mathematical evidence of at very least, voter confusion in a state run by the man's brother?
Personally, i think the whole winner-takes all ideology behind the US government is pretty screwed up, and the electoral college system is even more screwed up, whereby a majority of people can be subjected to the choice of the minority. Isn't it time for proportional representation?
Oh, and as a disclaimer, i hate both Gush and Bore. I voted for Nader, and if there was a revote, i'd vote for Nader again. The closeness of the race is just a testiment to how bad both candidates are.
In fact, if more people had turned up to the polls, Gore may have won, too. Again, that's a big "if".
In fact, if you look at the breakdown of Nader voters, those who would have voted for Gore if not for Nader are usually around 30%-40%, not 52%. Florida, being a swing state, i would guess would be lower, but i have no proof of that.
CNN has a slanted poll that makes it look like 60% of Nader voters would vote Gore, but the question specifically excludes other thrid parties which have been shown to be a very large chunk of Nader voters. Not to mention, many Greens would otherwise vote for Bush-- usually around 13%.
Don't try to blame Gore's failures on Green's hopes.
I voted for Nader, and i'm glad i voted for Nader.
Granted, i didn't vote for him in a swing state, nor did i encourage anyone to, but i didn't discourage it, either. I let people make up their own minds on whether they want to vote out of fear or vote their conscience. Frankly, i see both sides.
Anyway, in those swing states, everyone seems to say, "oh, if you had just added Nader's totals to Gore's totals, Gore would've won." It'd be nice if the world worked like that. However, Nader supporters are OFTEN not Gore supporters. Some of us are, but many of us would have voted for other third party candidates. A lot of us wouldn't have voted at all, and some of us-- a significant portion of us, actually-- would've voted for Bush. You can't blame Nader, just 'cause we didn't vote for Gore. Why not blame the +100k people who didn't vote for ANYONE? How about the people who actually voted for Bush? How about blaming Gore for not addressing issues that a segment of the left obviously cares about?
You'll see a lot of polls that try to break down the Nader vote into Gore, Bush, and not voting segments, but this is a definite manipulation of the polls. A very large portion of Greens would, if given the choise between those three, pick Gore, but if Nader had dropped out, then voted for another third party instead.
Don't try to blame the Greens when the Democrats fail.
Hold on. You say that you're not a programmer, but then assert that you know that duplication of effort is hurting Linux? How do you know this if, by your own admission, you've never worked on a free project before? The fact is, after having worked on the Worldforge Project (www.worldforge.org), which is the king of "duplication of effort", i've come to realize that there's a reason behind it, and competition actually does help keep projects moving.
You have to realize that there is no choice between 2 projects, or one project with twice the amount of contributors. There is only the choise between 1 project or 2 projects, each with a near equal number of workers. This is because most of the time, if a coder feels that there doesn't need to be a new project to achieve her goals, she'll go on to other projects, maybe even contributing a patch, but not becoming part of a team, but even when she does stick to a preestablished project, that doesn't mean that someone else won't see something that needs to be done that can't be done in the current project, which brings me to my next point.
"Duplication of effort" has an enormous positive impact on productivity. Everyone has a desire to see their project succeed, and so people want to make their project bigger (well, maybe smaller) and better than the competition. If there's no competition, there really is less drive. Then motivation hinges much more on "scratching an itch," which works, but starts to slow down as the project becomes "good enough."
I could go into more detail, but if you're really interested, i'd suggest checking out Bryce Herrington's essays on the subject at worldforge.org.
These filters do NOT only block porn and sex chat, nor do they only block "hate speech" (the blocking of which alone is fairly contrary to the spirit of the first ammendment). These filters block much of ANY political speech, especially anything that deviates from the norm (not to mention that many have a right-wing slant, but that's not as universal) and articles that are critical of the filter itself.
Plus, sexual education material on the net, which the Supreme court ruled minors have the right to access in the hopes that such information could help stop teen pregnancy and STDs, is always blocked. These sites often have graphic images that even the most advanced filters can't distinguish from porn, but are vital to self-diagnosis.
For more reading on why NOT to filter, read Fahrenheit 451.2: Is Cyberspace Burning?. It's quite informative and brings up many issues that need to be addressed.
I'm diehard liberal. I realized something recently, though. Gore is dispicable. Granted, still not as bad as Bush, but Gore's terribly moderate, and his ethics are questionable AT BEST.
Frankly, the only thing i can think to do is to vote for Nader, because the republican and democratic parties are just two sides of the same coin these days. A vote for Gore or a vote for Bush are just votes for the same, corrupt, bad government.
Ok, i'm no Mac person, but i did love Marathon; HOWEVER, this "Marathon is 3D" stuff is just not true. I know: i made quite a few Marathon (and Marathon 2) maps in my days. Yes, Marathon handled 3D better than Doom, but it was still a 2.5D game, like Doom, like Duke Nukem and all the Build engine games. The way you did walkways over rooms was a trick. Granted, this trick worked a bit better in Marathon than, say, Doom, but it was possible in both and done even better in Duke3D. It had to do with putting multiple polygons in the same space so that the game judges which sector you're in by which way you entered it. Then you make the ceiling of one room look like the floor of the other. However, you still couldn't see one room directly above another simotainiously (you'd get a Hall of Mirrors effect), thus, you could only really use 2 dimensions.
All you Build engine map makers and Marathon Infinity people know what i'm talking about.
Marathon and its sequels, like all FPS from Doom up until Quake, was, on a technological level, just the Doom engine with a few hacks. On the other hand, Marathon, as a game, was done much better than Doom, which is what made it great, but not the technology.
-Shelrem
PS: I morn for the passing of this great company, and yes, it has passed.
Free Software != Open Source. In fact, RMS really doesn't like the term Open Source, and for good reason, if you ask me. For more info, see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-fr eedom.html.
I just _love_ how you put that: GPLed libraries make sense if the author really wants to "encourage" (meaning blackmail other programmers into using the GPL under threat of legal action) more GPL software.< SNIP! >
There seems to be a basic misunderstanding. Actually, a couple. First, just because it's Free Software, does not mean that you have the freedom to do ANYTHING with it. If MS or Apple started using gtk+-- "extending" and making it incompatible-- no one (expcept said companies) would like that. So, as we're both LGPL advocates, i think we'll agree that there are some things you shouldn't be allowed to do with Free Software. Ok, as for the GPL specifically, yes, it encourages Free Software, and NOT by twisting others' arms: we've had to put up with not having access to some libraries for decades, and we can do it for longer, if and when we have to write proprietary code. How it encourages Free projects, is it gives them access to more libraries that they wouldn't otherwise have access to. It doesn't take ANYTHING away from people writing proprietary code. In fact, you can still learn from it, even if you don't use the code itself.
That having been said, i do think that LGPL is the way to go with most libaries, because making them free for everyone gives them a higher chance of becoming more wide-spread, and that's good IMO, but-- case in point-- i can understand if these MaPlayer people don't want to LGPL the backend of their MP3 player, as that can be one of the most important parts of a good mp3 player.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, that makes perfect sense! While we're at it, this is a good way to take away the rights of all US citizens living on US land. I mean, police protection is a public service. The roads, enviromental protections, and noise ordinances are public service... Obviously you OWE the state, and one of the things that they want is your private information! You don't like that, well, tough! Move somewhere else or buy the land from the government and start your own country!
Sorry, this arguement does not stand. At public universities, just like at public primary schools, you do not waive your rights for the very reason that it IS a public service. Private schools can basically do whatever they want in this realm, and the free market (and rarely, a board member's ethical stance) will decide what's bad practise and what's fine.
As many others have stated, your dorm room is equivlent to public housing or to an appartment. True, you may not own the deed and it may be government sponsored, but that doesn't mean you lose your consitutional rights. Search and seasure, free speech, all that still applies.
Saying that you forfeit your rights by using public services is like saying, "Well, you can be any religeon you want, but only True Christians have the moral ability to drive a car on public highways. All you jews can just buy your own damn roads if you want your religeon that badly!" (Ok, maybe this is a little extreme, but it's fairly close)
-ben.c
What the hell are you talking about?! Joe Lieberman is one of the biggest censorship advocates around. He would've been your vice-president. Yes, technically he's a democrat, but he was fairly right-wing at that.
This same BS would be happening if Gore were in the white house. Maybe not some of the other stuff, but this would. The problem here is the misinformation of the current media. I think we all know about the false connections in all these school murders (well, at least the ones where white kids got killed) between the killers and video games and film and music that later were found to be completely made up. The news is reporting what people want to hear, and people want a scape goat, so they're blaming "unsavory" items of entertainment and killing their first ammendment rights.
It's really, really sad, but it's not caused by republicans.
Ummm, you have a score of zero because you're an anonymous coward. I don't think that does speak volumes of Slashdot, other than that we get a lot of AC trolls around here. I wonder if this was one.
-ben.c
Yeah, it's not like 2001 had some big name director or anything. Just little ol' Stanly Kubrick.
I do agree, however, that Ender's Game can't really be made these days without making it an innane shell of what it should be. The problem is that the story doesn't really fit the format of massivly successful movies, and it's not really feasable as a budget film (low investment, low payoff), because of the importance of null gravity scenes. Maybe there's a way around the latter that i can't think of. If so, that would definitely be the way to go. The story just doesn't have much of a chance for a huge audience, but it could turn out to be a great sci-fi sleeper hit.
-ben.c
Actually, "alot" is a word. It's just not what he meant. That's why you see it around so much; it gets by the spell checkers.
It's kinda like allocate, which i'm sure some of you are more familiar with. For a real definition, read the aforementioned dictionary.
-ben.c
Yeah, but unlike the Napster case, there are strong moral grounds to stand on, (such as, reverse engineering should be legal; you didn't steal anything if you didn't take anything in the first place; the list goes on) on this one. You may more may not agree with it, but they're there.
So far, i haven't heard one compelling moral reason to use Napster to get music you haven't bought.
-ben.c
Uhh, Quake3 is written in C. I'd say that it's a succesful project. The Linux kernel is C, which i'd say has been successful...
Now, who said that functional programers never make it to the Real World?
-ben.c
I'd disagree with you if you had said that GNU/Linux just can't be your grandmother's OS because I think it can, but that's just something we'll have to wait and see.
I do disagree with you when you say that Linux just can't be your grandmother's OS. Linux can drive embedded systems and Linux can drive VCRs, and soon Linux will drive a game console. I have confidence enough in your grandmother that she could opperate any of these (well, depends on the embedded system) easier than any Mac or Windows PC. Just because it's Linux doesn't mean there's a console.
Basically, there's no reason your grandmother needs to know what kernel she's using, and whoever can show me that the Linux kernel is missing something needed to make a easy interface, i'll buy that person a beer.
Now, whether your grandmother will be recompiling her patched kernel source anytime soon, may be a different matter.
-ben.c
I suspect I can still read a Word document in 20 years. Thirty? Who knows.
.doc format for each new revision, it is often diffecult or impossible to load older versions, especially with any complex formatting, such as tables, frames (or whatever they have now), columns, etc. They do their best to keep the old version import working, but i have personally lost quite a few doc files do to a newer version of word. No one expects forwards compatability, but lacking BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY?
Well, if you still have the computer you used to create them, or some equivilent, then that's probably a good bet as long as you use a storage medium that'll last that long. Otherwise, i sincerly doubt it. Thanks to MS's obsessive alteration of the
If you really want those documents 20 or 30 years from now, i suggest you print them and put them in a cool, dry place away from sunlight. ASCII files will probably still work, too.
-ben.c
Umm, actually i wasn't commenting on this particular hack. I wouldn't like to see this become an integral part of any normal end-user software (ie GNOME), and i wouldn't like this to be an option regularly compiled into kernels for a couple reasons, but i do think that it might be well used for academic work and testing. All in all, i think it's a clever little hack.
My objection was to the post i directly replied to. The one stating that more of the GUI should be included in the kernel, and in fact, GNOME-specific parts should be included. I think this would be completely ass-backwards, especially when you see all the other modern OS's heading for Microkernel land where only the MOST basic parts are in the OS. Anyway, i think i summed it all up well previously.
-benc
Ok, i'm gonna borrow a page from Linus' playbook and ask,
Are you on drugs?
No, really, what part of "i came to Linux to get AWAY from Windows" don't you understand?
Besides, not everyone wants to use GNOME. In fact, many, many people don't want to use GNOME. You know what else? Many people (brace yourself for this one!) use Linux purely in console mode.
Not to mention, the benefits of including GUI components in the kernel are unproven at best. While there may be some performance increase (though this will most likely be from taking cycles away from other things ie no net gain), there is the UGLY reality of having a kernel that will crash when the GUI screws up. Not to mention the problems with a larger kernel (ie not being able to use zImage, which means precluding a lot of architectures from using Linux).
So yeah, i paraphrase the movie "Billy Madison" when i say, "We are all now dumber for having read that."
-benc
To quote,
"As I understand, the owner of a work can change the copyright/liscencing however he pleases. FreeDB can use all of its orginal code as long as the authors consent... This is why the FSF encourages people hand over ownership of programs to them..."
Then you misunderstand. IANAL, but i know my licensing, and the way the GPL works is that if i produce something and then GPL it and distribute it, then later take the program, which i do have the intellectual property rights to, and make it closed-source, pay software, then it's my right to do that. HOWEVER, what i do not have a right to do is change the licence of all the previously distributed copies. Those are forever under the GPL and my be modified without my consent or aproval.
AFAIK, the FSF does NOT ask that people turn over ownership of programs to them, as it would only be a hastle as far as i can see.
I have to wonder if the original message was intentionally spreading FUD, or if it was just FUD from ignorance... I think i'll contemplate this over a game of Tetrinet.
-benc
Wow! That's such a great idea, though i prefer http://c.microsoft.com/trans_pixel.asp?source=www& TYPE=PV&p=bill_can_suck_it
It almost makes me want to start a chain letter getting people to click that a couple dozen times each... Maybe it'll be one of those HTML emails that readers like Outlook and NS load automatically, and i'll just embed the image a few dozen times...
Too many good ideas!
-benc
Well, she'll be under development for the next 17-22 years, though we should see a feature freeze before that.
-benc
Then sell Free software for $200,000 and insist that all equivelent software be taxed for as much.
-benc
Umm... Macs have good color calibration, but Windows PCs don't. It's not that Linux is trying to be like Windows (although i think it is in some areas, and generally, those are the areas i stay the hell away from *cough*GNOME*cough*, but we will take good features, even if such features to exist in Windows.
Btw, show me one good feature that's in Linux that Microsoft came up with FIRST-- not before Linux, but FIRST. Please.
-benc
I agree about the Nader issue and that Bush wouldn't stand for this (GW or Jeb), but really, look at the numbers. Even if the 3000 or so people who voted for Buchanan and alledgedly meant to vote for Gore actually meant to vote for Buchanan, 19,000 ballots were disqualified state-wide for having punched both Buchanan and Gore. I think this is a definite sign of voter confusion.
My proposal is that they revote in that county only. That will minimize the "Nader factor," but for god sakes, use a different ballot.
Or at very least, take the 19,000 ballots that marked Gore AND Buchanan and give half to each candidate. Hell, give a quarter to each candidate and throw out the other half.
Who thinks it's a good idea to give the presidency to a man even though more US voters think his opponent should be president; even though the desiding votes seem to be around 900 people in a state of million;, even though there's obvious mathematical evidence of at very least, voter confusion in a state run by the man's brother?
Personally, i think the whole winner-takes all ideology behind the US government is pretty screwed up, and the electoral college system is even more screwed up, whereby a majority of people can be subjected to the choice of the minority. Isn't it time for proportional representation?
Oh, and as a disclaimer, i hate both Gush and Bore. I voted for Nader, and if there was a revote, i'd vote for Nader again. The closeness of the race is just a testiment to how bad both candidates are.
-benc
That's a big "if".
In fact, if more people had turned up to the polls, Gore may have won, too. Again, that's a big "if".
In fact, if you look at the breakdown of Nader voters, those who would have voted for Gore if not for Nader are usually around 30%-40%, not 52%. Florida, being a swing state, i would guess would be lower, but i have no proof of that.
CNN has a slanted poll that makes it look like 60% of Nader voters would vote Gore, but the question specifically excludes other thrid parties which have been shown to be a very large chunk of Nader voters. Not to mention, many Greens would otherwise vote for Bush-- usually around 13%.
Don't try to blame Gore's failures on Green's hopes.
-benc
I voted for Nader, and i'm glad i voted for Nader.
Granted, i didn't vote for him in a swing state, nor did i encourage anyone to, but i didn't discourage it, either. I let people make up their own minds on whether they want to vote out of fear or vote their conscience. Frankly, i see both sides.
Anyway, in those swing states, everyone seems to say, "oh, if you had just added Nader's totals to Gore's totals, Gore would've won." It'd be nice if the world worked like that. However, Nader supporters are OFTEN not Gore supporters. Some of us are, but many of us would have voted for other third party candidates. A lot of us wouldn't have voted at all, and some of us-- a significant portion of us, actually-- would've voted for Bush. You can't blame Nader, just 'cause we didn't vote for Gore. Why not blame the +100k people who didn't vote for ANYONE? How about the people who actually voted for Bush? How about blaming Gore for not addressing issues that a segment of the left obviously cares about?
You'll see a lot of polls that try to break down the Nader vote into Gore, Bush, and not voting segments, but this is a definite manipulation of the polls. A very large portion of Greens would, if given the choise between those three, pick Gore, but if Nader had dropped out, then voted for another third party instead.
Don't try to blame the Greens when the Democrats fail.
Here come the flames.
-benc
Hold on. You say that you're not a programmer, but then assert that you know that duplication of effort is hurting Linux? How do you know this if, by your own admission, you've never worked on a free project before? The fact is, after having worked on the Worldforge Project (www.worldforge.org), which is the king of "duplication of effort", i've come to realize that there's a reason behind it, and competition actually does help keep projects moving.
You have to realize that there is no choice between 2 projects, or one project with twice the amount of contributors. There is only the choise between 1 project or 2 projects, each with a near equal number of workers. This is because most of the time, if a coder feels that there doesn't need to be a new project to achieve her goals, she'll go on to other projects, maybe even contributing a patch, but not becoming part of a team, but even when she does stick to a preestablished project, that doesn't mean that someone else won't see something that needs to be done that can't be done in the current project, which brings me to my next point.
"Duplication of effort" has an enormous positive impact on productivity. Everyone has a desire to see their project succeed, and so people want to make their project bigger (well, maybe smaller) and better than the competition. If there's no competition, there really is less drive. Then motivation hinges much more on "scratching an itch," which works, but starts to slow down as the project becomes "good enough."
I could go into more detail, but if you're really interested, i'd suggest checking out Bryce Herrington's essays on the subject at worldforge.org.
-benc
Hold it!
These filters do NOT only block porn and sex chat, nor do they only block "hate speech" (the blocking of which alone is fairly contrary to the spirit of the first ammendment). These filters block much of ANY political speech, especially anything that deviates from the norm (not to mention that many have a right-wing slant, but that's not as universal) and articles that are critical of the filter itself.
Plus, sexual education material on the net, which the Supreme court ruled minors have the right to access in the hopes that such information could help stop teen pregnancy and STDs, is always blocked. These sites often have graphic images that even the most advanced filters can't distinguish from porn, but are vital to self-diagnosis.
For more reading on why NOT to filter, read Fahrenheit 451.2: Is Cyberspace Burning? . It's quite informative and brings up many issues that need to be addressed.
-benc
I'm diehard liberal. I realized something recently, though. Gore is dispicable. Granted, still not as bad as Bush, but Gore's terribly moderate, and his ethics are questionable AT BEST.
Frankly, the only thing i can think to do is to vote for Nader, because the republican and democratic parties are just two sides of the same coin these days. A vote for Gore or a vote for Bush are just votes for the same, corrupt, bad government.
-benc
Ok, i'm no Mac person, but i did love Marathon; HOWEVER, this "Marathon is 3D" stuff is just not true. I know: i made quite a few Marathon (and Marathon 2) maps in my days. Yes, Marathon handled 3D better than Doom, but it was still a 2.5D game, like Doom, like Duke Nukem and all the Build engine games. The way you did walkways over rooms was a trick. Granted, this trick worked a bit better in Marathon than, say, Doom, but it was possible in both and done even better in Duke3D. It had to do with putting multiple polygons in the same space so that the game judges which sector you're in by which way you entered it. Then you make the ceiling of one room look like the floor of the other. However, you still couldn't see one room directly above another simotainiously (you'd get a Hall of Mirrors effect), thus, you could only really use 2 dimensions.
All you Build engine map makers and Marathon Infinity people know what i'm talking about.
Marathon and its sequels, like all FPS from Doom up until Quake, was, on a technological level, just the Doom engine with a few hacks. On the other hand, Marathon, as a game, was done much better than Doom, which is what made it great, but not the technology.
-Shelrem
PS: I morn for the passing of this great company, and yes, it has passed.
s/open source/Free Software/gi
r eedom.html.
If that's really what you mean!
Free Software != Open Source. In fact, RMS really doesn't like the term Open Source, and for good reason, if you ask me. For more info, see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-f
Thank you.
-BenC
I just _love_ how you put that: GPLed libraries make sense if the author really wants to "encourage" (meaning blackmail other programmers into using the GPL under threat of legal action) more GPL software.< SNIP! >
There seems to be a basic misunderstanding. Actually, a couple. First, just because it's Free Software, does not mean that you have the freedom to do ANYTHING with it. If MS or Apple started using gtk+-- "extending" and making it incompatible-- no one (expcept said companies) would like that. So, as we're both LGPL advocates, i think we'll agree that there are some things you shouldn't be allowed to do with Free Software. Ok, as for the GPL specifically, yes, it encourages Free Software, and NOT by twisting others' arms: we've had to put up with not having access to some libraries for decades, and we can do it for longer, if and when we have to write proprietary code. How it encourages Free projects, is it gives them access to more libraries that they wouldn't otherwise have access to. It doesn't take ANYTHING away from people writing proprietary code. In fact, you can still learn from it, even if you don't use the code itself.
That having been said, i do think that LGPL is the way to go with most libaries, because making them free for everyone gives them a higher chance of becoming more wide-spread, and that's good IMO, but-- case in point-- i can understand if these MaPlayer people don't want to LGPL the backend of their MP3 player, as that can be one of the most important parts of a good mp3 player.
Well, that's it.
Back to coding.
-BenC