I'll call Brookings "heavily left-wing" at some point if/when I write about them. And the Cato piece specifically decried *federal* or *internationally* mandated or collected sales taxes, and stated that such collections should be left up to individual states.
Last I looked, North Carolina was a state (AFAIK Red Hat hasn't acquired it yet), so the Cato crowd can't scream too loudly about NC's attempt to tax *its own residents* on purchases made out-of-state, according to my reading of the very brief policy statement referenced above.
Please realize that we're not talking about any ethical justification for taxes here, or the moral implications of having government at all, just the mechanics of tax collection in today's world.
Arrgh. Yes, I'm confused. I obviously meant Caldera; haven't tried Corel yet. I get so much PR crap by e-mail and snail mail these days that I can barely keep it all sorted out.
I remember trying Corel Linux 2.2 with its support for "over 1700 monitors" and finding that mine wasn't one of them - and ending up hand-setting everything. Now I have a different monitor and Corel has a new/improved installer, so I suppose it's time to try again. We'll see...
There are obviously at least a few Brazilian Slashdot readers. You think the person who submitted this story was from Korea?;\)
Last I looked, we had readers on every continent except (AFAIK) Antartica.
I get e-mail from everywhere. It's very cool to realize how far and fast open source is spreading. We could use more stories about Linux and open source in places other than N. America (hint, hint), especially features that draw on personal experience (BIG hint).
Excuse me. Slashdot reader "Captain Carrot" wrote that. The words you see in a Slashdot article in italics, surrounded by quotation marks, are verbatim from the reader who submitted the story.
Sometimes I agree with what a reader says in a submission, sometimes I don't. In this case, I think Captain Carrot made a valid point: that the Brazilian government was blaming video games for violence done by a person who had other influences in his life that were at least as likely to have caused him to start shooting strangers as game playing. Like cocaine use, for example. Or perhaps it was bad American sitcoms, as you suggested.;\)
If our friend Captain Carrot had chosen to say, "It's about time some government had the guts to ban some of the violence-spawning computer games that Satan has unleashed on society. Too bad it was Brazil, not the U.S., that took this courageous moral stand," I probably would have run that verbatim, just as I ran the comments he did make - and I would have taken plenty of heat for letting someone express an unpopular opinion. (Or at least an opinion that is unpopular among Slashdot readers, who are not exactly a representative sample of the world's population.)
Please try to remember, when you read Slashdot, that many/most of the opinions you see are those of other readers, that the Slashdot editor who posted them may not agree with them, and that any words written by a Slashdot author or editor are always clearly separated from those of the reader who submitted a given story.
As far as Katz, his take on this *would* be interesting, wouldn't it? But he chooses his own topics, so we'll just have to wait and see if he decides to pick up on this one.
RMS said they decided against Knuth because the FSF award was supposed to go to people who hadn't gotten any other awards in the past year. And let's face it - Donald Knuth hasn't had an award-free year in at least two decades.
Another little note: I counted approx. 160 people in attendance. They were spread throughout a large room so the photos didn't capture them all.
Why did Linux Today do the followup instead of Slashdot? Why not? Emmett Plant, the LinuxToday reporter who wrote the story, is a friend, not an enemy. I knew he was working on this story and encouraged him, even fed him a lead or two.
In the "old media" world, sure, Emmett and I would be racing to get the scoop and would trample each other for it, but in this case it would have been pointless. Sure, competition is good, but there are plenty of cases where cooperation is better.
Emmett put a lot of work into that story and did a great job with it. Go, Emmett!
BTW, you're right about how hard it was to track down the people who actually run Fox's site. Even the Fox media relations people didn't know.
Another BTW: the e-mail Slashdot readers sent did a lot of good. According to a couple of (anonymous) people inside Fox, there was some major embarassment over this, and there are many employees there who are as frustrated as anyone else with the long, slow, bureaucratic process they must go through to get approval for a Web site change that is only going to take an hour or so to actually implement.
I ran the news of Ms. Kahn's death because it was one of the most heavily-submitted stories last night. Please note that virtually every news item you see on Slashdot is here because at least one reader - and usually a whole bunch of readers - felt it was important.
Personally, I enjoy Slashdot's amazingly diverse readership. I love the way so many people with so many different tastes in everything from movies to news to politics to programming languages have united under the Linux and Open Source banners - and that all these people (including you) feel free to share their opinions with each other here.
We're waiting for the next round of Mars Lander info to come in - so far, all that's really happened was that contact wasn't made during a very short time window Friday afternoon. More "hard" news should come in later today. Believe me, we're following the Mars Polar Lander as avidly as anyone.
I'll second the vote for meaningful names. I've often thought the best business name in the world was something like "Bill's Main Street Foreign Car Repair." It tells me who owns it, where it is, and what Bill does.
Robin "roblimo" Miller Proprietor & Driver, Robin's Limousine Elkridge MD USA http://way.nu/limo
I agree. Like you, I hope Bruce stays as honest and forthright as he's always been. Ditto RMS, ESR, Linus, Alan (Cox not Greenspan) and the many other less-known but equally essential Open Source and free software developers whose work and openheartedness I personally respect almost (but obviously not quite) to the point of hero worship.
I think what set me off most today was the harsh judgement Bruce got for speaking his mind. The best way to avoid mistakes is to do and say nothing. The second-best way is to take the MS approach to code: keep your mistakes hidden.
Bruce Perens knew full well that I was writing this article, and I warned him that he might not agree with everything I was going to say in it. His two-letter comment: OK. He and I both believe that tolerance of another's errors is an important part of civil society, either online or in real life. "Let he (or she) who is without sin..." etc. etc.
I make my share of mistakes and freely admit it. I am proud to be associated with Slashdot, and I know full well that there is no way Slashdot will ever become as "smooth" as The New York Times. Indeed, if it ever does get that rigid, that's the day I'll be gone both as a staff person and as a reader. I regard Slashdot as a continuing media experiment, one that I have followed with extreme interest almost since day one, long before I hooked up professionally with Anodver.net. Slashdot is run by a team of openly fallible humans. Mistakes will be made. And given the nature of Slashdot's (fallible human) readership, every single real or imagined mistake made by anyone who posts anything here is going to be picked apart until nothing but bare bones are left.
I suppose (sigh) that I sometimes get a little extreme, especially about certain freedom-related issues. But, like Bruce, this happens because I am passionate about my beliefs and don't try to hide them.
Believe me, it's easier emotionally to qualify everything to death, politician-style, and try not to offend anyone, than it is to speak strongly from the heart and take some heat in return.
But I personally believe it is better to lay out your beliefs honestly and take the chance of screwing up in public than it is to hide under the covers, even though it is often more painful.
The Mall in Columbia? I believe that's where my wife is right now, downloaded gift list in hand.
They have public 'net kiosks there, and she's e-mailed me from them more than once, usually to let me know she's just (grumble) bought something expensive.
Fixed. Your question was essentially a modified version of the one before it. In the 100+ e-mails that went back and forth while preparing this for publication the full attribution got lost. Thanks for pointing out the error.
There once were computers in Limerick And funlove was making them sick Dell recalled them for free Without any glee So they wouldn't get sued by some prick
I've never had a crash caused by Linux, but I've had more than a few caused by power outages, hardware failures, and other "outside" factors. The ability to recover from these problems without going through a bunch of fsck dancing sounds like a damned good idea to me even for my little home setup. If I were running a commercial high-reliability network, self-recovering Linux would make my heart sing.
Good idea. Thanks. We'll try it out, but probably not next week - our "panel interview" about MS is going to be cumbersome enough to format without adding more stuff to it.
Hard_Code, it was a fine question. Almost all Slashdot interviews have at least one or two silly questions in the mix. And all other interview guests we've had so far have given appropriately funny answers to funny questions.:)
When we - and I mean Slashdot editors - have a question about a point of federal antitrust law or FCC regulation, Don is always happy to give us advice or steer us to someone who can. The "Broadband Wars" story to which you refer was his only previous *public* appearance here, but a lot more "behind the scenes" work goes into Slashdot than most people realize. (Believe it or not, Rob and Jeff don't spend all day playing with Rob's robot dog. They bust ass most of the time!)
Anyway, I think Don deserves great thanks for having blown part of a Friday evening with his family to share his insights with us. He works long, hard hours -- and I happen to know that today was particularly busy for him.;-)
I've called and asked Intuit for a Linux port more than two times myself, and I know at least another four or five people who have also asked for it, so the woman you spoke to was wrong.
If you feel you can contribute a better article, please feel free to do so. If we run it, we'll even give you a free Slashdot t-shirt - and an unlimited supply of free flames!;-)
Yep. I've watched a bunch of friends either moon about starting their own businesses or try it and fail. I know the trust-funders don't like to see talk of money on Slashdot (or anywhere else) but it's a fact of life that most of us have to pay the bills somehow. And VAR and/or network consulting is an honorable way to do it if you are willing to learn how to run a business.
And there's no reason a small business owner can't contribute code or other resources back to the community, either. Many do.
Slashdot Mirror
Last I looked, North Carolina was a state (AFAIK Red Hat hasn't acquired it yet), so the Cato crowd can't scream too loudly about NC's attempt to tax *its own residents* on purchases made out-of-state, according to my reading of the very brief policy statement referenced above.
Please realize that we're not talking about any ethical justification for taxes here, or the moral implications of having government at all, just the mechanics of tax collection in today's world.
- Robin
Gotta cut the number of hours I work...
- Robin
- Robin
Last I looked, we had readers on every continent except (AFAIK) Antartica.
I get e-mail from everywhere. It's very cool to realize how far and fast open source is spreading. We could use more stories about Linux and open source in places other than N. America (hint, hint), especially features that draw on personal experience (BIG hint).
- Robin
Sometimes I agree with what a reader says in a submission, sometimes I don't. In this case, I think Captain Carrot made a valid point: that the Brazilian government was blaming video games for violence done by a person who had other influences in his life that were at least as likely to have caused him to start shooting strangers as game playing. Like cocaine use, for example. Or perhaps it was bad American sitcoms, as you suggested. ;\)
If our friend Captain Carrot had chosen to say, "It's about time some government had the guts to ban some of the violence-spawning computer games that Satan has unleashed on society. Too bad it was Brazil, not the U.S., that took this courageous moral stand," I probably would have run that verbatim, just as I ran the comments he did make - and I would have taken plenty of heat for letting someone express an unpopular opinion. (Or at least an opinion that is unpopular among Slashdot readers, who are not exactly a representative sample of the world's population.)
Please try to remember, when you read Slashdot, that many/most of the opinions you see are those of other readers, that the Slashdot editor who posted them may not agree with them, and that any words written by a Slashdot author or editor are always clearly separated from those of the reader who submitted a given story.
As far as Katz, his take on this *would* be interesting, wouldn't it? But he chooses his own topics, so we'll just have to wait and see if he decides to pick up on this one.
- Robin
Another little note: I counted approx. 160 people in attendance. They were spread throughout a large room so the photos didn't capture them all.
- Robin
In the "old media" world, sure, Emmett and I would be racing to get the scoop and would trample each other for it, but in this case it would have been pointless. Sure, competition is good, but there are plenty of cases where cooperation is better.
Emmett put a lot of work into that story and did a great job with it. Go, Emmett!
BTW, you're right about how hard it was to track down the people who actually run Fox's site. Even the Fox media relations people didn't know.
Another BTW: the e-mail Slashdot readers sent did a lot of good. According to a couple of (anonymous) people inside Fox, there was some major embarassment over this, and there are many employees there who are as frustrated as anyone else with the long, slow, bureaucratic process they must go through to get approval for a Web site change that is only going to take an hour or so to actually implement.
- Robin
Personally, I enjoy Slashdot's amazingly diverse readership. I love the way so many people with so many different tastes in everything from movies to news to politics to programming languages have united under the Linux and Open Source banners - and that all these people (including you) feel free to share their opinions with each other here.
- Robin
- Robin
Robin "roblimo" Miller
Proprietor & Driver,
Robin's Limousine
Elkridge MD USA
http://way.nu/limo
I think what set me off most today was the harsh judgement Bruce got for speaking his mind. The best way to avoid mistakes is to do and say nothing. The second-best way is to take the MS approach to code: keep your mistakes hidden.
Bruce Perens knew full well that I was writing this article, and I warned him that he might not agree with everything I was going to say in it. His two-letter comment: OK. He and I both believe that tolerance of another's errors is an important part of civil society, either online or in real life. "Let he (or she) who is without sin..." etc. etc.
I make my share of mistakes and freely admit it. I am proud to be associated with Slashdot, and I know full well that there is no way Slashdot will ever become as "smooth" as The New York Times. Indeed, if it ever does get that rigid, that's the day I'll be gone both as a staff person and as a reader. I regard Slashdot as a continuing media experiment, one that I have followed with extreme interest almost since day one, long before I hooked up professionally with Anodver.net. Slashdot is run by a team of openly fallible humans. Mistakes will be made. And given the nature of Slashdot's (fallible human) readership, every single real or imagined mistake made by anyone who posts anything here is going to be picked apart until nothing but bare bones are left.
I suppose (sigh) that I sometimes get a little extreme, especially about certain freedom-related issues. But, like Bruce, this happens because I am passionate about my beliefs and don't try to hide them.
Believe me, it's easier emotionally to qualify everything to death, politician-style, and try not to offend anyone, than it is to speak strongly from the heart and take some heat in return.
But I personally believe it is better to lay out your beliefs honestly and take the chance of screwing up in public than it is to hide under the covers, even though it is often more painful.
Now you have my $0.01 worth.
- Robin
They have public 'net kiosks there, and she's e-mailed me from them more than once, usually to let me know she's just (grumble) bought something expensive.
- Robin
- Robin
Let's try it this way:
There once were computers in Limerick
And funlove was making them sick
Dell recalled them for free
Without any glee
So they wouldn't get sued by some prick
Now it scans. ;-)
- Robin
- Robin
- Robin
-Robin
- Robin
- Robin
- Robin
Anyway, I think Don deserves great thanks for having blown part of a Friday evening with his family to share his insights with us. He works long, hard hours -- and I happen to know that today was particularly busy for him. ;-)
- Robin
Thanks, BillH. I'm changing those URLs now. The original ones worked fine when I tested them last night. (sigh)
- Robin
- Robin
- Robin
And there's no reason a small business owner can't contribute code or other resources back to the community, either. Many do.
- Robin