Yup. Most "Cool, quirky" bookstores don't have nearly everything in print. Much less a decent IT section.
Being a past fan of said "Cool, quirky" bookstores, I have to say Amazon is the best thing to happen to bookselling since Gutenberg. Progress moves on.
I've mourned for places in Chicago like Guild Books, and Kroch's and Brentano's, but they're gone now. Barbara's is still around, but look at their stock. Not very impressive. Not to mention their bungling of the Michael Moore appearance.
Things change. Maybe not always for the better, but they do. Change what sucks, if you can, and move on.
Katz is right about this documentary. It's much more worth your while than that dreck Lucas is putting out these days. ( Lucas lost his vision, the franchise has been going downhill since Empire. I've seen Episodes 1 & 2, and 2 just sucks less, anybody other than a drooling fanboy knows this.)
However, I have to say, lose the references to hackers, Jon. It's just not relevant.
I'm a working-class guy that got a break and was able, through chance, to be able to attend college, then dropped out after my second year 'cause I wasn't sure of the value and my direction. Biggest mistake of my life. It's done nothing but close doors in my face. Get a degree.
There's more to life than computers. College, and getting a "well rounded" education will help you discover that. Sure, you can get a job as a sys admin without a degree, or some other job in IT, I did. But it takes a lot longer to get really good without knowing the fundamentals.
Many colleges and universities offer tracks other than programming or computer engineering. You may have to take a programming class or two as preregquisites, but that'll only do you good. You will do a better job and have less struggles if you have a more detailed understanding of computer science than what you get from certification. Who knows, maybe you'll decide to be a doctor instead.
Having a well rounded education will help you in other ways. Like being able to write intelligible documentation. Learning about other things besides computers gives you something to talk about in social situations where there's not a lot of geeks. Also, most people who will be your clients, as a sys admin, will not be computer geeks. You'll be a lot more help as an administrator if you have some understanding of what your clients are doing.
And college is a great place to meet chicks(or whatever)!
I see a lot of comments here about how "dog slow" OS X is compared to whatever.
Let me just say that I was, and if Windows is the other option, am a big Linux advocate. And though I'm not particulary wizardly on UNIX, I prefer to use it when I can, just because I don't like MS's corporate policies. On the other hand I'm very fond of the Apple way with regard to hardware/OS integration, and general user experience. Apple's corporate policies are another story.
I quit using Macs back in '95 because of several hardware debacles and have used Linux at home, and Windows/UNIX at work.
When OS X came out, I jumped on the bandwagon, the opportunity to use a UNIX based system with the Mac experience on top of it was too compelling to pass up. So I got a 600MHz iBook. With 640MB of RAM.
For the iBook vs. PowerBook argument, it comes down to simple economics. I couldn't afford a PowerBook. Period.
So far the iBook's been fine, with caveats. The screen's sorta small for my aged eyesight. But the size of the machine is perfect. Finder is really slow in directories with lots of files in list view. Other than that it seems fine.
So I don't know what kind of "speed" people are looking for. Honestly. I use a Dell 2 GHz Win2K box with 256MB RAM at work, sometimes side by side with my iBook, and the differences are not so glaring to me. I mean they're two different machines, I expect them to behave slightly different, but I don't go from the Dell box to the iBook with a sense of decreased performance.
So I don't understand what the big beef is. It makes me think that some people who're complaining about lack of speed are being disingenuous about their experiences. Either they haven't really used OS X and are anti-Mac on principle, or they're relying on some second hand anecdote for their comments.
Ultimately I'd like to see Apple fix the finder list-view issue, and obviously optimize the system as mentioned in the Wired article, but OS X seems "useable" to me.
"Ofcourse... that is a major selling point. The power of Unix, but still able to open/write the *.doc files for mother/boss sends you."
BAH! You don't need Office:Mac to open *.doc, or even *xls files. All you need is AppleWorks, and it comes with the machine. Not to mention you don't have to suffer though pages of poor written and presented help files to figure out how to do something simple.
Office has become so damn bloated, it takes 2.5 years to learn how to use it too. The difference is, after 2.5 years learning vi, you can put your experience to use. In 2.5 years Office has bloated and mutated so much it's nearly unrecognizable.
If Netscape hadn't pissed itself away. And any other decent browser was free, Apple wouldn't need MS for a damn thing.
My question is, is the Treo as durable as a normal cell phone? I own a Visor Deluxe, and am dissapointed with how flimsy it seems compared to other PDAs. I've compared it to the Palm V and a Sony PEG-T615C, both of which seemed much more solid and sturdy. Don't get me wrong, my Visor served me well for a year and a half, but now is seeming rather useless since I got a Nokia 3360.
The Nokia is very durable. The first day I had it it dropped 4 feet to pavement and didn't even scuff the finish. The removable plastic shell seems to really protect it well, and I don't feel like I need a case or anything. If it gets scratched or scuffed, I can buy a new cover. Plus it has appointment alarms, clock, phone book, and games, and (supposedly)can be used as a modem. Maybe I just under-utilized my Visor, but the phone does enough for me.
So does the Treo seem solid. Would you feel comfortable tossing it across the room to a friend to use? Would you bang it down on the coffee table in disgust after an exasperating call?
Yup. Pretty cool. Nicely done. And a lot cheaper than thesecomputers with handles. Though I still lust for one of their ruggedized laptops. Can't justify the price.
"It's fine to disagree. Having an opinion is an important part of society.You don't need to be a pretentious malcontent about it, though."
You tell 'em Oculus! Man, I get sick of the bile on/., if it wasn't for Jon Katz, I wouldn't even bother with the 'dot.
Seriously, I like SlashDot a lot, but some of the people posting here are just too tightly wound. Egos the size of Jupiter, for no apparent reason. I mean it's one thing if you're so smart you could win the Nobel Prize for mathematics, but even people like that get the wind taken out of their sails sometimes.
For the record, I think Katz is just fine. He screws up occasionally, but I think his heart's in the right place, and he does an okay job. He's no Roger Ebert, but who else on this site is?
You'll note that people that feel the compulsion to viciously insult others' intelligence or work are usually projecting their fears about their own competence. Not to mention having serious self-esteem problems.
""I'm not a minor, but I sure hate it when punks like you pull the more experience card when it is total bullshit." You may not be legally a minor, but your comments above and the rest of your post show that you are mentally immature and can therefore be classified as one, cognitively. "
"Punk"? I haven't been punk in like 20 years. Punk is so over.
Like the AC says.
My point was not dissing you (or the other guy I quoted), per se, but that younger people are often bitter when rules are imposed on them which seem arbitrary. I know. Been there, felt that.
The rest of my point being Apple should have found a way to work with the kid. But that their hands may indeed be tied, legally. And it's not like Apple just blew him off, they did assign an engineer to help him along. Which by the way, would have irked me, being the engineer. As though he doesn't have enough to do with his own work, but to have to "babysit" someone else who seems to be pretty competent, at least in terms of programming. Though it may have been voluntary
"Seriously, Apple: Way to shoot yourselves in the foot. You think this brilliant young hacker is going to forget about this? If it were I, I'd work twice as hard now... at stomping Apple into the ground for a competitor."
"If I were him right now, I'd be mighty, mighty pissed (actually, I don't know if a word exists to describe how pissed I'd be)."
These kind of statements are why minors are not allowed to do certain things by law. It's clear that the reason Apple has to deny the kid access, etc. is due to the law. Which is unfortunate since the kid's obviously smart, and well spoken if his page is any indication. But as adults, we see that there are reasons for such laws. (I'm sure he does too, but it stings at 15.)
However, as Ooblek says, this could have been a serious PR coup for Apple if they played it right. Child genius commercial, etc. Apple's people should have found a way to accommodate him, by engaging his parents in the situation, or something. Though he did say they tried to accommodate him by hooking him up with an Apple engineer.
I can't help wondering if Apple did the best they could and Finlay's just suffering from the age-old problem for teenagers. They feel as though they should be considered as adults, they feel as smart as adults, or smarter, as big as some adults, etc. But it's about emotional maturity too.
We wouldn't say that a 15 year old girl should be allowed to become a surrogate mother would we? She could physically, but we wouldn't suggest that she'd be mature enough to weigh the consequences of a surrogacy contract, right? And not to suggest that an ADC contract is as serious as a surrogacy contract, though many programmers think of their projects as their "babies", but you see the analogy.
Anyway, too bad Apple couldn't have found a way to work with him.
Doesn't AOL hate M$ as much as we do? Just think, the AOL distribution. Put the CD in your drive, reboot, and you've got AOL. Completely bypass WindowXX and just boot into AOLinux.
Run the whole system off a live filesystem on the CD, save to the Windows hard drive. Or just install Linux.
Good way to subvert MS. If AOL/TW could keep the right philosophy going.
DIY is okay I guess if aesthetics are not an issue. But I gotta say, I haven't seen a decent looking case yet that's not part of a manufacturer's system.
Trust me, I've looked at probably every case vendor's web site. They all look "cool" if you're a high school kid. I mean c'mon, you gotta be kidding! What do they do, have the president of the company's nephew do the industrial design?
I dunno, Macintosh always seemed UNIX friendly to me. My first experiences with the Internet were on a Mac (1993), and at that time there were'nt any WinXX Server boxes on the 'net. Mac seemed to interact with UNIX boxes a lot easier than Windows 3.1 machines did.
Not to mention all that freeware that did what UNIX tools did on Mac.
And what about that apple UNIX like server OS, what was it, A/UX?
Apple's been flirting with UNIX for years, it's just now that they're finally getting it on.
This is one of my favorite books! I read it when it first came out as a young teenager. The Viet Nam war had or was just about to end, and was very much on my mind, and everyone else's. However, I was just 15, so I didn't quite get it. But I've re-read this book about 6 times.
Haldeman is a very good author and I enjoy his work whenever I read it.
I'm so surprised to see this reviewed here, and in the next century and all. Good choice Timothy.
Just when I was hoping my damn connection would get stable. Got a signal to the cable modem a half hour ago after another 6 days outage after the 5 day outage during the excite debacle.
Now what, we gotta change all our settings, e-mail forwarding, accounts, etc.?
Can anyone recommend a high speed internet provider in Chicago that looks stable financially, and provides good service. And, dare I ask, has technicians that know their asses from gopher holes?
Or do I have to use the built-in 56K modem on my new iBook indefinitely?
All I can say is, what a well written and straightforward explanation. Kudos! This should be appended to the GPL. Too many people using OpenSource or GPL software are whiners and flamers about features and stability. Hey, you get what you pay for. Most of these projects are a gift to the world at large. And often, as in the case of AbiWord, it's a truly nice gift.
I'm a proponent of free, as in no cost, software, having been poverty stricken for most of my life. To find free software that works has always been great, but some free software out there is more valuable, elegant, and featureful than commercial software. For that I'm grateful.
In fact I've always felt great appreciation for the developers who've released free software for people to use, and given what I could to support them. (Think NewsWatcher and the Mac anti-virus software that John Norstad gave to the Mac community)
Ever since I first discovered AbiWord I've been amazed at how nicely done it is, and have recommended it to my Windows users who cannot afford MS Word, or who hate MS and are trying to without their products as much as possible.
So, if you've read the letter. Follow it to the letter. And keep it in mind when you download/install/use other free/opensource/GPL stuff.
National Public Slashdot
on
Slashdot Updates
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Slashdot is one of the few web sites I'd actually pay to read. Even if it still had (unobtrusive) ads after pay. Though I'd prefer that there were none if I pay. (Before you have a stroke and capitalize all your letters flaming: you'll note that you pay for Rolling Stone, and you still get ads. You pay for cable TV and you STILL get ads.)
Just like NPR, these people gotta make a living. Putting on the Slashdot show costs money. It's gotta come from somewhere. So we pay for a subscription. Big deal.
A lot of people here spend a lot of energy bitching about what they get for free. They bitch about Linux, They bitch about BSD. They bitch about Slashdot. Frankly, I'm sick of hearing it. I'm grateful for Linux, and being able to get an operating system for free. And I'm grateful for getting as much content (and don't forget slashcode!) and opinion as we get from Slashdot for free.
So basically, when it comes time to pay, I'll pony it up and hope Taco/Hemos/Cowboy Neal/etc. can take a nice vacation.
And if the $20.00 a year is so distasteful to you, you can always read this ad-free page.
Slashdot Mirror
Yup. Most "Cool, quirky" bookstores don't have nearly everything in print. Much less a decent IT section.
Being a past fan of said "Cool, quirky" bookstores, I have to say Amazon is the best thing to happen to bookselling since Gutenberg. Progress moves on.
I've mourned for places in Chicago like Guild Books, and Kroch's and Brentano's, but they're gone now. Barbara's is still around, but look at their stock. Not very impressive. Not to mention their bungling of the Michael Moore appearance.
Things change. Maybe not always for the better, but they do. Change what sucks, if you can, and move on.
Katz is right about this documentary. It's much more worth your while than that dreck Lucas is putting out these days. ( Lucas lost his vision, the franchise has been going downhill since Empire. I've seen Episodes 1 & 2, and 2 just sucks less, anybody other than a drooling fanboy knows this.)
However, I have to say, lose the references to hackers, Jon. It's just not relevant.
I'm a working-class guy that got a break and was able, through chance, to be able to attend college, then dropped out after my second year 'cause I wasn't sure of the value and my direction. Biggest mistake of my life. It's done nothing but close doors in my face. Get a degree.
There's more to life than computers. College, and getting a "well rounded" education will help you discover that. Sure, you can get a job as a sys admin without a degree, or some other job in IT, I did. But it takes a lot longer to get really good without knowing the fundamentals.
Many colleges and universities offer tracks other than programming or computer engineering. You may have to take a programming class or two as preregquisites, but that'll only do you good. You will do a better job and have less struggles if you have a more detailed understanding of computer science than what you get from certification. Who knows, maybe you'll decide to be a doctor instead.
Having a well rounded education will help you in other ways. Like being able to write intelligible documentation. Learning about other things besides computers gives you something to talk about in social situations where there's not a lot of geeks. Also, most people who will be your clients, as a sys admin, will not be computer geeks. You'll be a lot more help as an administrator if you have some understanding of what your clients are doing.
And college is a great place to meet chicks(or whatever)!
I see a lot of comments here about how "dog slow" OS X is compared to whatever.
Let me just say that I was, and if Windows is the other option, am a big Linux advocate. And though I'm not particulary wizardly on UNIX, I prefer to use it when I can, just because I don't like MS's corporate policies. On the other hand I'm very fond of the Apple way with regard to hardware/OS integration, and general user experience. Apple's corporate policies are another story.
I quit using Macs back in '95 because of several hardware debacles and have used Linux at home, and Windows/UNIX at work.
When OS X came out, I jumped on the bandwagon, the opportunity to use a UNIX based system with the Mac experience on top of it was too compelling to pass up. So I got a 600MHz iBook. With 640MB of RAM.
For the iBook vs. PowerBook argument, it comes down to simple economics. I couldn't afford a PowerBook. Period.
So far the iBook's been fine, with caveats. The screen's sorta small for my aged eyesight. But the size of the machine is perfect. Finder is really slow in directories with lots of files in list view. Other than that it seems fine.
So I don't know what kind of "speed" people are looking for. Honestly. I use a Dell 2 GHz Win2K box with 256MB RAM at work, sometimes side by side with my iBook, and the differences are not so glaring to me. I mean they're two different machines, I expect them to behave slightly different, but I don't go from the Dell box to the iBook with a sense of decreased performance.
So I don't understand what the big beef is. It makes me think that some people who're complaining about lack of speed are being disingenuous about their experiences. Either they haven't really used OS X and are anti-Mac on principle, or they're relying on some second hand anecdote for their comments.
Ultimately I'd like to see Apple fix the finder list-view issue, and obviously optimize the system as mentioned in the Wired article, but OS X seems "useable" to me.
Like the subject says.
"Ofcourse... that is a major selling point. The power of Unix, but still able to open/write the *.doc files for mother/boss sends you."
BAH! You don't need Office:Mac to open *.doc, or even *xls files. All you need is AppleWorks, and it comes with the machine. Not to mention you don't have to suffer though pages of poor written and presented help files to figure out how to do something simple.
Office has become so damn bloated, it takes 2.5 years to learn how to use it too. The difference is, after 2.5 years learning vi, you can put your experience to use. In 2.5 years Office has bloated and mutated so much it's nearly unrecognizable.
If Netscape hadn't pissed itself away. And any other decent browser was free, Apple wouldn't need MS for a damn thing.
My question is, is the Treo as durable as a normal cell phone? I own a Visor Deluxe, and am dissapointed with how flimsy it seems compared to other PDAs. I've compared it to the Palm V and a Sony PEG-T615C, both of which seemed much more solid and sturdy. Don't get me wrong, my Visor served me well for a year and a half, but now is seeming rather useless since I got a Nokia 3360.
The Nokia is very durable. The first day I had it it dropped 4 feet to pavement and didn't even scuff the finish. The removable plastic shell seems to really protect it well, and I don't feel like I need a case or anything. If it gets scratched or scuffed, I can buy a new cover. Plus it has appointment alarms, clock, phone book, and games, and (supposedly)can be used as a modem. Maybe I just under-utilized my Visor, but the phone does enough for me.
So does the Treo seem solid. Would you feel comfortable tossing it across the room to a friend to use? Would you bang it down on the coffee table in disgust after an exasperating call?
Yup. Pretty cool. Nicely done. And a lot cheaper than thesecomputers with handles. Though I still lust for one of their ruggedized laptops. Can't justify the price.
"It's fine to disagree. Having an opinion is an important part of society.You don't need to be a pretentious malcontent about it, though."
/., if it wasn't for Jon Katz, I wouldn't even bother with the 'dot.
You tell 'em Oculus! Man, I get sick of the bile on
Seriously, I like SlashDot a lot, but some of the people posting here are just too tightly wound. Egos the size of Jupiter, for no apparent reason. I mean it's one thing if you're so smart you could win the Nobel Prize for mathematics, but even people like that get the wind taken out of their sails sometimes.
For the record, I think Katz is just fine. He screws up occasionally, but I think his heart's in the right place, and he does an okay job. He's no Roger Ebert, but who else on this site is?
You'll note that people that feel the compulsion to viciously insult others' intelligence or work are usually projecting their fears about their own competence. Not to mention having serious self-esteem problems.
I apologize for disparaging Tripping The Rift. I'd seen this a long time ago and thought it was brilliant, but didn't remember the name.
God I hope they can keep the cussing, it adds to the mood.
And the nipples. And the party favor.
AMEN
"the show is about a misfit group of cabinmates aboard a spaceship."
Yeah. Don't we already have an "edgy like South Park" SF series? It's called Red Dwarf.
Though, it's not animated.
""I'm not a minor, but I sure hate it when punks like you pull the more experience card when it is total bullshit."
You may not be legally a minor, but your comments above and the rest of your post show that you are mentally immature and can therefore be classified as one, cognitively. "
"Punk"? I haven't been punk in like 20 years. Punk is so over.
Like the AC says.
My point was not dissing you (or the other guy I quoted), per se, but that younger people are often bitter when rules are imposed on them which seem arbitrary. I know. Been there, felt that.
The rest of my point being Apple should have found a way to work with the kid. But that their hands may indeed be tied, legally. And it's not like Apple just blew him off, they did assign an engineer to help him along. Which by the way, would have irked me, being the engineer. As though he doesn't have enough to do with his own work, but to have to "babysit" someone else who seems to be pretty competent, at least in terms of programming. Though it may have been voluntary
"Seriously, Apple: Way to shoot yourselves in the foot. You think this brilliant young hacker is going to forget about this? If it were I, I'd work twice as hard now... at stomping Apple into the ground for a competitor."
"If I were him right now, I'd be mighty, mighty pissed (actually, I don't know if a word exists to describe how pissed I'd be)."
These kind of statements are why minors are not allowed to do certain things by law. It's clear that the reason Apple has to deny the kid access, etc. is due to the law. Which is unfortunate since the kid's obviously smart, and well spoken if his page is any indication. But as adults, we see that there are reasons for such laws. (I'm sure he does too, but it stings at 15.)
However, as Ooblek says, this could have been a serious PR coup for Apple if they played it right. Child genius commercial, etc. Apple's people should have found a way to accommodate him, by engaging his parents in the situation, or something. Though he did say they tried to accommodate him by hooking him up with an Apple engineer.
I can't help wondering if Apple did the best they could and Finlay's just suffering from the age-old problem for teenagers. They feel as though they should be considered as adults, they feel as smart as adults, or smarter, as big as some adults, etc. But it's about emotional maturity too.
We wouldn't say that a 15 year old girl should be allowed to become a surrogate mother would we? She could physically, but we wouldn't suggest that she'd be mature enough to weigh the consequences of a surrogacy contract, right? And not to suggest that an ADC contract is as serious as a surrogacy contract, though many programmers think of their projects as their "babies", but you see the analogy.
Anyway, too bad Apple couldn't have found a way to work with him.
If you could have made your point/s a little, no, a lot more succinctly, then maybe someone might have read your post.
Meanwhile, whatever truth you might have had to tell is entirely lost in your florid prose.
Not to mention you're AC and off-topic.
You freak.
is a good starting place for learning about web design. It's free online, and available via dead tree. You can also try the Lynda books.
I always thought of Wired as the Playboy for the geek set. Only thing missing are the centerfolds.
You sure can.
I thought about it too. But the privacy issues spooked me. I dunno why, I am in no way shady.
Doesn't AOL hate M$ as much as we do? Just think, the AOL distribution. Put the CD in your drive, reboot, and you've got AOL. Completely bypass WindowXX and just boot into AOLinux.
Run the whole system off a live filesystem on the CD, save to the Windows hard drive. Or just install Linux.
Good way to subvert MS. If AOL/TW could keep the right philosophy going.
DIY is okay I guess if aesthetics are not an issue. But I gotta say, I haven't seen a decent looking case yet that's not part of a manufacturer's system.
Trust me, I've looked at probably every case vendor's web site. They all look "cool" if you're a high school kid. I mean c'mon, you gotta be kidding! What do they do, have the president of the company's nephew do the industrial design?
I think I'll stick with the big manufacturers for cool small computer design.
But then again, most people here are looking for horsepower and upgradablitly, not sleek lines.
The Briq is cool too. 'Course it only runs Linux, but it's a G4!
I dunno, Macintosh always seemed UNIX friendly to me. My first experiences with the Internet were on a Mac (1993), and at that time there were'nt any WinXX Server boxes on the 'net. Mac seemed to interact with UNIX boxes a lot easier than Windows 3.1 machines did.
Not to mention all that freeware that did what UNIX tools did on Mac.
And what about that apple UNIX like server OS, what was it, A/UX?
Apple's been flirting with UNIX for years, it's just now that they're finally getting it on.
This is one of my favorite books! I read it when it first came out as a young teenager. The Viet Nam war had or was just about to end, and was very much on my mind, and everyone else's. However, I was just 15, so I didn't quite get it. But I've re-read this book about 6 times.
Haldeman is a very good author and I enjoy his work whenever I read it.
I'm so surprised to see this reviewed here, and in the next century and all. Good choice Timothy.
Crap!
Just when I was hoping my damn connection would get stable. Got a signal to the cable modem a half hour ago after another 6 days outage after the 5 day outage during the excite debacle.
Now what, we gotta change all our settings, e-mail forwarding, accounts, etc.?
Can anyone recommend a high speed internet provider in Chicago that looks stable financially, and provides good service. And, dare I ask, has technicians that know their asses from gopher holes?
Or do I have to use the built-in 56K modem on my new iBook indefinitely?
Whatta pile a horse pucky!
All I can say is, what a well written and straightforward explanation. Kudos! This should be appended to the GPL. Too many people using OpenSource or GPL software are whiners and flamers about features and stability. Hey, you get what you pay for. Most of these projects are a gift to the world at large. And often, as in the case of AbiWord, it's a truly nice gift.
I'm a proponent of free, as in no cost, software, having been poverty stricken for most of my life. To find free software that works has always been great, but some free software out there is more valuable, elegant, and featureful than commercial software. For that I'm grateful.
In fact I've always felt great appreciation for the developers who've released free software for people to use, and given what I could to support them. (Think NewsWatcher and the Mac anti-virus software that John Norstad gave to the Mac community)
Ever since I first discovered AbiWord I've been amazed at how nicely done it is, and have recommended it to my Windows users who cannot afford MS Word, or who hate MS and are trying to without their products as much as possible.
So, if you've read the letter. Follow it to the letter. And keep it in mind when you download/install/use other free/opensource/GPL stuff.
Slashdot is one of the few web sites I'd actually pay to read. Even if it still had (unobtrusive) ads after pay. Though I'd prefer that there were none if I pay. (Before you have a stroke and capitalize all your letters flaming: you'll note that you pay for Rolling Stone, and you still get ads. You pay for cable TV and you STILL get ads.)
Just like NPR, these people gotta make a living. Putting on the Slashdot show costs money. It's gotta come from somewhere. So we pay for a subscription. Big deal.
A lot of people here spend a lot of energy bitching about what they get for free. They bitch about Linux, They bitch about BSD. They bitch about Slashdot. Frankly, I'm sick of hearing it. I'm grateful for Linux, and being able to get an operating system for free. And I'm grateful for getting as much content (and don't forget slashcode!) and opinion as we get from Slashdot for free.
So basically, when it comes time to pay, I'll pony it up and hope Taco/Hemos/Cowboy Neal/etc. can take a nice vacation.
And if the $20.00 a year is so distasteful to you, you can always read this ad-free page.