Of course in your reasonable-sounding comment, you leave out the fact that Hezbollah has never ceased hostilities towards a nation whose existence it denies. They have continually engaged in terrorist attacks, kidnappings, and have refused to disband according to the Taif agreement. They are also not a native Lebanese force. They are originally based in Iran, comprised of Iranian military forces. It's nice to see your balanced view completely ignore this, and jump on Israel as if they have been anything but attacked and harassed over the past 50 years by their neighbors.
I feel sorry for the Lebanese, as they are not really responsible for Hezbollah attacks (besides not taking action against them, anyway). However, the Israelis have leafletted the areas in question, and any civilians who remain in the area after that are either supporting the terrorists themselves, or willing to risk the lives of their own families to stay. In fact, the children who have been injured or killed are victims of their parents and Hezbollah, not Israel.
A nation should not have to endure endless kidnappings of their soldiers/citizens without taking action. Your attempt to compare Israel to the U.S. above shows your ignorance of the situation. A true comparison would be if Ontario was hosting a terrorist group which *regularly* fired rockets, employed suicide bombers, and kidnapped people from the border area and demanded the release of known murderers in exchange for the lives of the kidnapped people. Then, after the exchange (Israel at one point did exchange prisoners, for as little as the remains of the dead) continued to fire rockets, bomb, and kidnap more U.S. citizens. Meanwhile, Canada showed no interest in taking care of the problem themselves, and in fact were terrorized by the same group, but unable to oust them.
That would be apples to apples, except that there would be no Jews to blame. Don't worry though, I'm sure you could come up with some way to justify the terrorist actions, and oh the poor children, what are we doing to the children!
That's fine and well. The problem is that despite the "problem" signature people, there are many who just sign off with their name. They don't want the recipient to see it in grey and with a "--" over it. Therefore, the option should be there to turn it off. It's not even part of any RFC that I can find regarding email (it does exist I believe in an RFC re: Newsgroups).
This also completely ignores the fact that most people with large annoying signatures seem to use Outlook anyway. The issue is really very simple: provide the tools for people to get their job done more easily, and people will use the tools. Make conversion difficult because you have an axe to grind about top posting or what have you, and you will constantly play second fiddle to a very bad set of programs (Outlook and Outlook Express come to mind).
The parent was unfairly labelled a troll. I love the Firefox browser, and use it all the time. But it and Thunderbird have a lot of annoying, quick to fix problems that could have been fixed, and are often actively ignored. If you want a real list of stuff that is broken, we could start with the parent poster's list, which seems somewhat valid, and continue from there...
1. Under the XP home theme (reduced functionality without reason) - No "Block images from this server" in context menu - available in Mozilla forever, this prevents kids from seeing the constant AdultFriendFinder crap that comes up on some non-pornographic sites.
2. On my system, it does seem to be smaller and faster than Mozilla, though I am not sure about the new Seamonkey developments. I tried it when they first started, and their first task was apparently to introduce lots of bugs and change the icon to something they created in Microsoft Paint. Not impressed with their priorities.
3. Renamed to Firefox - Wow. This was a bad move. I get a questioning look almost every time I bring up the "better browser to use" argument to businesses. Plus, everyone ends up calling it Foxfire. There are too many "cool" names involved. Mozilla was hard enough to explain, but at least I could connect it to Netscape's mascot (since people still remember Netscape). But Firefox, Firebird, Phoenix, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey? Surely someone came up with something better, but it was turned down as too practical. Think about the words "Internet Explorer" or "Netscape". The title describes the function.
4. Memory leaks - Running latest Firefox Stable build for Win32, one window, no tabs, no extensions, haven't visited any sites with Java, one Live Bookmark (default BBC World News thing). Browsing around for a few hours, memory use creeps up by several megs. Even as I type this (watching Task manager, memory has gone from 37,??? to 39,132. Weird.
5. Incomplete, annoying interface - Well, I would call a "resume button that has not ever apparently worked an annoying interface feature. I would also say that losing favicons for no apparent reason is annoying. No built-in function for removing or re-ordering search engines (you shouldn't need an extension for this simple task.
6. Offtopic Thunderbird complaint - Signatures now have a stupid "--" in grey that cannot be turned off, and the signature is in grey too (no option to disable) which has annoyed countless customers. Some people don't feel like typing their own name 50 times a day. Email is not Newsgroups. Don't try to make it that way.
7. Memory usage is now up to 40,648. Eventually, Firefox will crash on me. Not a huge deal for me (I used Mozilla M9, M10, etc. all the time). But pretty lame for a browser that has had this much development time. No, it's not just this machine either. 40,860 now.
So stop modding people as troll, just because they didn't feel like they should have to type all this junk out, when the accusations hold water.
The post by Sharp'r' is mostly accurate. Unfortanately, you were not around to witness the Reagan administration for yourself, so perhaps you are too easily convinced by the ridiculous "MsGeek" post. The Republican party before Reagan didn't care about serious tax cuts and reduction of government. They have always been an entrenched interest in Washington, with their own pork barrel agendas. Hell, Bush Sr. didn't believe in lowering taxes. He thought it would result in decreased revenues (and thus a higher deficit). Reagan argued for lower taxes (which led to increased tax revenues, look at the figures for yourself, and compare 1980-1989). He argued for less government and less government spending. That, he didn't manage to get through as well, due to pork barrel politicians wanting to bring home the bacon, and massive, politically entrenched entitlement programs.
"when it looked like nuclear war between the US and the Soviet Union was right around the corner all the time"
I can vouch that the above line is horsecrap. Excepting some hysterics amongst those on the far left, people were more confident about our ability to defend ourselves against the "Red Menace" than ever before. Much of this confidence was a result of Reagan's strong backbone, and his willingness to show it to the Soviets. He proved his technique, dissolved the embargos, and proposed and signed the first Nuclear *reduction* (not limitation) treaty (S.T.A.R.T.), convincing Gorby to do the same.
This is why this Alumnus is trying to get free speech into the university. Because if I was the student, and "MsGeek" were the professor, I would probably get a lower grade after this post for "not understanding the issues".
I understand the statement was worded strangely, but try rereading: "the Dev Team still refuses to make it default but optional"
They could make it the default, but leave an option to turn it off (and yes, I am referring to double-dash). But they have so far refused, despite complaints over several releases now. If I am incorrect, I would love to hear it, but I could not find the option, and the complaints are all over bugtraq. I have also looked in the config section (like about:config in the address bar, but mapped to a button in Thunderbird). No luck there.
And even though endless customers have complained about the signature separator, the Dev Team still refuses to make it default but optional. A simple check box would suffice. Can't be found in the manual config, as far as I can tell, either. There have been dozens of "bug reports" filed. People just get referred to Dan's Mail format site. AKA, "We will tell you how to format your letters, thank you." Sounds a lot like Microsoft. To see how it looks in Thunderbird, look at the bottom at the separator for my signature. It kills the "letter" look.
I've been using Mozilla Mail for a long time, and will probably eventually switch to Thunderbird if the feature gap grows too large. Fortunately, I do not use a signature. If I did, according to the Thunderbird team, I should switch to a different mail client. Actually, according to them, I should just conform to a formatting convention specified for Newsgroups in my email communications. God forbid I sign off like so:
Sincerely, Vidar
Instead, they think it should be painfully obvious that I did not do the work of typing that myself. How lovely. I, for one, welcome our new Open Source overlords.
There are plenty of small businesses who will stick with MS just for the MMC stuff. I am hoping this is pretty decent, so I can get someone to switch already.
I don't see any reason to rush to IPv6. With all the NATing going on, and all the old orgs that have way more ip space than they need, IPv4 should last a long time. By the time we need something different, who is to say that IPv6 will be the best solution.
There are two groups that seem to want to push IPv6. One group is made up of tech geeks, who can't sit still and enjoy life with IPv4. The scary group are the big brothers of the world, who would like nothing more than to have individually traceable numbers to an exact device, no currency that lacks tracking and stupid colors (i.e. not green), and black boxes in vehicles supposedly for "tolls" but actually for tracking the citizenry. Oh, and the limiting of gun ownership to "militias" organized by the state. Then we can finally be just like the Soviet Union was, which is their plan anyway.
Exactly why we need Reagan back, to drive these pinkos back into their caves.:)
These beasts are the best. No electricity required. Simple operation, and a stylish curtain for privacy. With a computerized voting system, your chances of having problems goes up dramatically. As do your costs. Try to think beyond geek and look to what has worked for close to a century.
Mechanical voting machines don't even require power to operate. Isn't that a novel idea? Meanwhile, just about anyone who wanted to could ensure the failure or improper reading of an electronic voting machine.
Actually, IIRC, Masterlock did threaten lawsuit over the dissemination of info that would allow someone to find out a combination to a MasterLock combo lock in a few easy steps.
It seems to me that you are invested in this decision, and that is why you are expending so much energy in defending it. You criticize this "Brett", and tell him to be more constructive with his time. Wise advice that you should take to heart.
It's rather difficult to defend what appears from the list postings to be a temper tantrum thrown by those up top. BTW, after all these comments of yours, have you found time to code winffs, update TenDRA to 7.1.4, and write lots of small compiler tools?
Having read all your posts on this matter, I have concluded that you are a little man (woman? whichever) with a very gay sounding nick.
How is that a troll post? I post my opinion, and that makes me a troll. This proves my point about the sheep mentality of most Slashdot readers. Pitiful.
I love how everyone jumps up to say "Don't bombard us with your Christian morality, you insensitive clod". And then they get modded up. I'm not even gonna change my threshold to find out if anyone commenting on this article has any logical deduction ability whatsoever. So I will just say:
This is a bad idea.
I for one am tired of wondering whether I am eating pork when I have a tomato sandwich. Or maybe tomatoes when eating a pork roast, who knows? As for mice mixed with human genes that could be inherited to future generations... If you truly believe in evolution, then one should think that you believe that mice mixed with enough human genes, if made to be viable, would have souls/human consciousness and should be precluded from use in experiments.
Funny, I don't believe in evolution (a silly religion, to my mind), and yet I don't like the idea of animal testing, since I figure God gave animals souls, too. You know what the sick part is? Morality is not dicated by religion. It is dictated by your conscience. And if your secular humanist/atheistic conscience doesn't tell you this is wrong, then you have bigger problems than not believing in God/Gods/(insert head cheese figure here).
Vidar
He's a bouncy little fellow, 'cause he's got springs for legs!
Ack! Pico is a gift from the heavens. It's the only editor that users can understand without a tutorial. Text editors should not need to be "mastered" over a period of years. Don't get me wrong, vi and emacs have their uses, and vi is great for editing particular config files. But pico is simple, easy to understand, and if I just want to jot something down, I don't have to mess around with all the crap associated with vim or emacs.
Pico should be installed on all Unix boxes by default, and users should be directed as to it's basic use. And it is not like Pico takes up so much precious disk space either, so removing/not installing it really holds no benefit.
Vidar
Re:Proper computing solution superior
on
Indecision 2002
·
· Score: 1
What?!?
No errors in vote counting? Are you mad? How does a computer solve that? And who really needs instant vote tallying? We don't switch leadership right away anyway, so instant tallying is of no practical use. And lever machines are properly designed, and they are easy to use. Again, you seem to think that spending millions of dollars to replace a mechanical system with a computerized system will somehow make things work better.
As for the horse and buggy argument, it doesn't apply. That mode of travel cannot facilitate our current commute patterns. But mechanical lever voting machines still work, require little repair over their 50+ year lifetimes, and lack for nothing to fulfill the requirements of our voting systems.
Vidar
Re:Proper computing solution superior
on
Indecision 2002
·
· Score: 1
Umm... or we could just stick with mechanical lever machines, which are more reliable than any computer solution in every sense of the word.
You know, the world would be better if people would stick with what works. It seems no one has ever heard the proverb "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Mechanical voting machines, such as the ones we use in Upstate NY, are incredibly physically robust, are immune to electronic sabotage of any sort, and are easy to use. They rarely need repair, and last for many more years than their electronic counterparts. They are also not subject to stray pencil marks, hole punches, etc.
I've worked with computers all my adult life, and I don't care if you have them running Solaris 2.5.1 on old SparcStations, which were incredibly reliable. It is a mistake to move the voting systems to anything resembling an electronic device. There are no real advantages, and many weaknesses that can be exploited, not to mention weaknesses inherent when you are dealing with power supplies, motherboards, processors, fans, hard drives, electro-static discharge, power surges, display failure, not to mention software glitches. They are way too delicate, and way too complex.
A nice mechanical box made of steel. That's what's needed 'round here.
Huh? The Bush Camp has lots of evil secrets? Is that what you're trying to say? I love this "Don't blind yourself" stuff. Next you'll be telling me to look out for black helicopters. And for the record, all of the news sources you mentioned have one thing in common with Salon: They're neither objective, nor reliable. Again, whip out some old history books and start studying. I say "old history books" so that you don't accidentally pick up some doctored piece of crap with a political agenda. If you don't like Bush, that's fine. But tell people you don't like him because he doesn't support the positions you like, instead of trying to convince people of wierd machinations in the White House, in his second year in office. For the record, I am not a Bush fan. But I do know he doesn't have the same twisted ideas that Salon and yourself have come up with.
Ok, your posts prove how messed up Slashdot Moderation is. The first part of what you say is not very informative, as we all know that broadcast HDTV is not going anywhere fast. The most informative part is where you dig out the conspiracy theory on the Bush Administration. And WTF is the crap about the Presidential term limits? So we are basically informed as to your lack of independent thought. Troll material, I would think, then one sees the link to a Salon Blog. Of course, we all know how objective and realistic Salon's readers are.
Grow up and read some history books, instead of cliff notes written by the extreme left.
Living in the area, I would like there to be more jobs, and more competition for those jobs. On the other hand, I lived near Austin when in college, and there is way too much traffic down there. I like my area the way it is (i.e. nice and quiet). We already have a huge problem with city people infesting the area, building and buying second homes. Thus people raised in the area are sometimes forced out, since they cannot afford the skyrocketing property costs.
It would be nice to see these jobs go to people who need them in the area, but I have a feeling that people will migrate from the city to find easier pickings, and thus raise property taxes even more. Thankfully, we do have the star program, so hopefully few elderly people will be forced out of their homes, to be replaced with someone who wants to make their big money in the city, but doesn't want to live there.
Actually, a "hate crime", such as a murder of someone who belongs to a particular group, should not be under a different system of proof and punishment. We try murders in this country based on whether it was planned, spontaneous, a crime of passion or self defense. The motivation is only used to prove the crime. According to law, motivation is not a factor for punishment, except in that if you were acting in self defense, or out of passion (i.e. catching your spouse in sexual activity with another), you may be acquitted, or your sentence might be reduced, or commuted. If we start trying to convict people of a crime of hate, based on the fact that they are targeting a certain segment of the population, then we are trying to convict them of other crimes they *might* commit. That's not the way the system works, or should work. And Dell is not in Austin. It's in Round Rock. So is the "Wokaholic", the World-famous (not really) Chinese Buffet. It's closer to Georgetown, and to Southwestern Univ., my old school, then Austin really. And what about them Taco Cabana's. Yummy.
Vidar Leathershod
"...Vidar strode forth and set one foot - that on which he wears the shoe - on the lower jaw of the wolf. With one hand he seized the upper jaw,
and tore the two apart, killing the monster."
Well, folks, I hear a lot of you belly-aching about how painful it would be to boycott Guinness. Many people will be upset by this, but Guinness is not the best beer in the world. It's not even close. Budweiser can make a Guinness, but it's not their market. If you like a good stout, Beamish is much better (especially on tap). It's also cheaper. Paulaner makes lots of good beers, and so does Fullers. In fact, Fullers wipes the floor with Guinness. And don't even talk about Bass. Bass sucks. Boddington's is a great replacement for sucky Bass. Fullers has a great porters, and great classic varieties of beers (screw lagers). People who swear by Guinness need to expand their horizons. Moderators need to moderate this up so that the unwashed masses are informed of the truth. Guinness is also not a friendly business. Their whole "Guinness toast" bullcrap is just that, especially when they tell you what you need to serve Guinness in to make the perfect pint. A perfect pint of stout or porter is an Imperial Pint (22 or 23 oz. compared w/ American 16 oz.) glass filled with your favorite stout. Guinness wants to play like they're the best so that other people think they're the best. They're not.
I miss the old 1st edition. Gary Gygax, my friends. Unearthed Arcana. No political, pr crap about not including demons or devils or evil gods in the monster manuals. No monstrous compendium loose leaf with 40,000 supplements that cover almost every creature introduced in MM I and II. Oh, and what of Fiend folio? took forever to get some of those guys back. Let's not forget demons and devils. We can't call them that any more, parents might get upset. Hell, my parents played the damned game. Gary Gygax was a genius, whose vision was corrupted by cartoon breasts hanging out of snippets of chain mail, and a company who felt their symbol would look better in gold.
Isn't it funny how some dude can tell everyone that an asteroid hit the earth 65 gazillion years ago and killed all the dinosaurs, and we all stand up and applaud them. To preface this statement after the fact, I am not trolling. I just find it amazing how everyone falls in line, year after year, with the same theories. I remember as a child when everyone decided that the dinosaurs had died from great volcanic eruptions, and the ash blotting out the sun. This of course led straight to the *ICE AGE*!!! Dah Dah Dah Dummm... Now we *know* for certain that a big fat hunk of dirt fell to the earth and crushed them:). What's wrong with a simple climate change theory? What's wrong with small mammalian creatures overrunning the earth, eating soft boiled dinosaur eggs? What, pray tell, is wrong with a bunch of guys with guns shooting the dinosaurs? Ok, the last was a bit silly, but is it any worse than a giant rock (Doomsday! Doomsday!) falling to earth causing massive destruction and a return to primordial soup? We are all sheep, following the "shepherd" wherever he may wander in his dreams, building reality on top of layers of hypotheses. It makes me sick. Reminds me of MTV and Cosmopolitan magazine. Oh, gee, were we all really derived from fish? Wow. Does the moon look larger on the horizon because we think it's farther away? Wow. That last one really got me when I read it a while back. Sure looks closer to me, just saw one the other day, thought it was gonna hit me in the nose. WAIT! That's what happened! The moon collided with the earth, then bounced back and began an orbit. There's my theory. Now let's all sing along with it and pat ourselves on the backs till we're sore, thinking how f***ing brilliant we all are. Let's award ourselves prizes for it. Why can't we get a life. There's nothing wrong with trying to uncover the mysteries of the universe. But accepting them as gospel truth for ten years, then ditching them, is a silly practice best left behind. "Scientific" truth has no more basis in fact than any form of Judaism (Islam, Hebrew, or Christian), Buddhism, Hinduism, or Jainism. At least the religious folks have some notion that they know little or nothing about the details of the creation of the universe. Now I'm sure I'll get all sorts of responses from people, yelling and screaming about how I'm stupid, and I ignore all the research, and that these theories have been around for ages. Unfortunately, the age of a theory, the research behind it, or my stupidity will not change history, nor will it uncover the truth about how things started, ended, and then started over again. Or whatever did happen anyway. In the meantime, you should continue to believe all those theories, at least for another 20 years, when a new one comes into style, and look down upon creationists, and atheists who don't believe in the big bang or the asteroid mythologies. They're out there, you know! Don't forget to buy tickets to see the latest asteroid-hits-the-earth-everyone-dies-except-for-s ome-hollywood-cuties-who-survive-and-rep roduce-in-a-now-perfect-paradise-world movie that our friends out west shove down your throat. I wonder if you will even seriously think about what I just said, or if your programming is too strong and it blocks it out.
It's funny. I asked this question a couple of weeks ago, and was disappointed that it wasn't posted. I think X leaves much to be desired when selecting resolutions *and* refresh rates. I've used Xf86Setup and Xconfigurator, and neither seem to be a "do it all" solution. I always end up editing the.conf file, and that's so it will make my card run at 32bpp, at 1024 * 768, without using a 60hz refresh rate on a top of the line monitor that doesn't happen to be in the monitor list (which is painfully small; I mean, aren't they just a bunch of numbers? Why can't the list be more complete [especially for viewsonics:)]). And lord knows, if you don't have the manual, it's a real pain to be looking up horiz and vertical scan rates. All this completely ignores the fact that if we want new users (especially in graphics), then we should place more emphasis on the ease of configuration for things like graphics cards and monitors. I hope XF86 4.0 has a better base for this sort of UI.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course in your reasonable-sounding comment, you leave out the fact that Hezbollah has never ceased hostilities towards a nation whose existence it denies. They have continually engaged in terrorist attacks, kidnappings, and have refused to disband according to the Taif agreement. They are also not a native Lebanese force. They are originally based in Iran, comprised of Iranian military forces. It's nice to see your balanced view completely ignore this, and jump on Israel as if they have been anything but attacked and harassed over the past 50 years by their neighbors.
I feel sorry for the Lebanese, as they are not really responsible for Hezbollah attacks (besides not taking action against them, anyway). However, the Israelis have leafletted the areas in question, and any civilians who remain in the area after that are either supporting the terrorists themselves, or willing to risk the lives of their own families to stay. In fact, the children who have been injured or killed are victims of their parents and Hezbollah, not Israel.
A nation should not have to endure endless kidnappings of their soldiers/citizens without taking action. Your attempt to compare Israel to the U.S. above shows your ignorance of the situation. A true comparison would be if Ontario was hosting a terrorist group which *regularly* fired rockets, employed suicide bombers, and kidnapped people from the border area and demanded the release of known murderers in exchange for the lives of the kidnapped people. Then, after the exchange (Israel at one point did exchange prisoners, for as little as the remains of the dead) continued to fire rockets, bomb, and kidnap more U.S. citizens. Meanwhile, Canada showed no interest in taking care of the problem themselves, and in fact were terrorized by the same group, but unable to oust them.
That would be apples to apples, except that there would be no Jews to blame. Don't worry though, I'm sure you could come up with some way to justify the terrorist actions, and oh the poor children, what are we doing to the children!
Vidar
That's fine and well. The problem is that despite the "problem" signature people, there are many who just sign off with their name. They don't want the recipient to see it in grey and with a "--" over it. Therefore, the option should be there to turn it off. It's not even part of any RFC that I can find regarding email (it does exist I believe in an RFC re: Newsgroups).
This also completely ignores the fact that most people with large annoying signatures seem to use Outlook anyway. The issue is really very simple: provide the tools for people to get their job done more easily, and people will use the tools. Make conversion difficult because you have an axe to grind about top posting or what have you, and you will constantly play second fiddle to a very bad set of programs (Outlook and Outlook Express come to mind).
Vidar
The parent was unfairly labelled a troll. I love the Firefox browser, and use it all the time. But it and Thunderbird have a lot of annoying, quick to fix problems that could have been fixed, and are often actively ignored. If you want a real list of stuff that is broken, we could start with the parent poster's list, which seems somewhat valid, and continue from there...
1. Under the XP home theme (reduced functionality without reason) - No "Block images from this server" in context menu - available in Mozilla forever, this prevents kids from seeing the constant AdultFriendFinder crap that comes up on some non-pornographic sites.
2. On my system, it does seem to be smaller and faster than Mozilla, though I am not sure about the new Seamonkey developments. I tried it when they first started, and their first task was apparently to introduce lots of bugs and change the icon to something they created in Microsoft Paint. Not impressed with their priorities.
3. Renamed to Firefox - Wow. This was a bad move. I get a questioning look almost every time I bring up the "better browser to use" argument to businesses. Plus, everyone ends up calling it Foxfire. There are too many "cool" names involved. Mozilla was hard enough to explain, but at least I could connect it to Netscape's mascot (since people still remember Netscape). But Firefox, Firebird, Phoenix, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey? Surely someone came up with something better, but it was turned down as too practical. Think about the words "Internet Explorer" or "Netscape". The title describes the function.
4. Memory leaks - Running latest Firefox Stable build for Win32, one window, no tabs, no extensions, haven't visited any sites with Java, one Live Bookmark (default BBC World News thing). Browsing around for a few hours, memory use creeps up by several megs. Even as I type this (watching Task manager, memory has gone from 37,??? to 39,132. Weird.
5. Incomplete, annoying interface - Well, I would call a "resume button that has not ever apparently worked an annoying interface feature. I would also say that losing favicons for no apparent reason is annoying. No built-in function for removing or re-ordering search engines (you shouldn't need an extension for this simple task.
6. Offtopic Thunderbird complaint - Signatures now have a stupid "--" in grey that cannot be turned off, and the signature is in grey too (no option to disable) which has annoyed countless customers. Some people don't feel like typing their own name 50 times a day. Email is not Newsgroups. Don't try to make it that way.
7. Memory usage is now up to 40,648. Eventually, Firefox will crash on me. Not a huge deal for me (I used Mozilla M9, M10, etc. all the time). But pretty lame for a browser that has had this much development time. No, it's not just this machine either. 40,860 now.
So stop modding people as troll, just because they didn't feel like they should have to type all this junk out, when the accusations hold water.
Vidar
The post by Sharp'r' is mostly accurate. Unfortanately, you were not around to witness the Reagan administration for yourself, so perhaps you are too easily convinced by the ridiculous "MsGeek" post. The Republican party before Reagan didn't care about serious tax cuts and reduction of government. They have always been an entrenched interest in Washington, with their own pork barrel agendas. Hell, Bush Sr. didn't believe in lowering taxes. He thought it would result in decreased revenues (and thus a higher deficit). Reagan argued for lower taxes (which led to increased tax revenues, look at the figures for yourself, and compare 1980-1989). He argued for less government and less government spending. That, he didn't manage to get through as well, due to pork barrel politicians wanting to bring home the bacon, and massive, politically entrenched entitlement programs.
"when it looked like nuclear war between the US and the Soviet Union was right around the corner all the time"
I can vouch that the above line is horsecrap. Excepting some hysterics amongst those on the far left, people were more confident about our ability to defend ourselves against the "Red Menace" than ever before. Much of this confidence was a result of Reagan's strong backbone, and his willingness to show it to the Soviets. He proved his technique, dissolved the embargos, and proposed and signed the first Nuclear *reduction* (not limitation) treaty (S.T.A.R.T.), convincing Gorby to do the same.
This is why this Alumnus is trying to get free speech into the university. Because if I was the student, and "MsGeek" were the professor, I would probably get a lower grade after this post for "not understanding the issues".
Vidar
I understand the statement was worded strangely, but try rereading:
"the Dev Team still refuses to make it default but optional"
They could make it the default, but leave an option to turn it off (and yes, I am referring to double-dash). But they have so far refused, despite complaints over several releases now. If I am incorrect, I would love to hear it, but I could not find the option, and the complaints are all over bugtraq. I have also looked in the config section (like about:config in the address bar, but mapped to a button in Thunderbird). No luck there.
Vidar
And even though endless customers have complained about the signature separator, the Dev Team still refuses to make it default but optional. A simple check box would suffice. Can't be found in the manual config, as far as I can tell, either. There have been dozens of "bug reports" filed. People just get referred to Dan's Mail format site. AKA, "We will tell you how to format your letters, thank you." Sounds a lot like Microsoft. To see how it looks in Thunderbird, look at the bottom at the separator for my signature. It kills the "letter" look.
I've been using Mozilla Mail for a long time, and will probably eventually switch to Thunderbird if the feature gap grows too large. Fortunately, I do not use a signature. If I did, according to the Thunderbird team, I should switch to a different mail client. Actually, according to them, I should just conform to a formatting convention specified for Newsgroups in my email communications. God forbid I sign off like so:
Sincerely,
Vidar
Instead, they think it should be painfully obvious that I did not do the work of typing that myself. How lovely. I, for one, welcome our new Open Source overlords.
There are plenty of small businesses who will stick with MS just for the MMC stuff. I am hoping this is pretty decent, so I can get someone to switch already.
Vidar
I don't see any reason to rush to IPv6. With all the NATing going on, and all the old orgs that have way more ip space than they need, IPv4 should last a long time. By the time we need something different, who is to say that IPv6 will be the best solution.
:)
There are two groups that seem to want to push IPv6. One group is made up of tech geeks, who can't sit still and enjoy life with IPv4. The scary group are the big brothers of the world, who would like nothing more than to have individually traceable numbers to an exact device, no currency that lacks tracking and stupid colors (i.e. not green), and black boxes in vehicles supposedly for "tolls" but actually for tracking the citizenry. Oh, and the limiting of gun ownership to "militias" organized by the state. Then we can finally be just like the Soviet Union was, which is their plan anyway.
Exactly why we need Reagan back, to drive these pinkos back into their caves.
Vidar
These beasts are the best. No electricity required. Simple operation, and a stylish curtain for privacy. With a computerized voting system, your chances of having problems goes up dramatically. As do your costs. Try to think beyond geek and look to what has worked for close to a century.
Vidar
Mechanical voting machines don't even require power to operate. Isn't that a novel idea? Meanwhile, just about anyone who wanted to could ensure the failure or improper reading of an electronic voting machine.
Actually, IIRC, Masterlock did threaten lawsuit over the dissemination of info that would allow someone to find out a combination to a MasterLock combo lock in a few easy steps.
This is not new.
Vidar
It seems to me that you are invested in this decision, and that is why you are expending so much energy in defending it. You criticize this "Brett", and tell him to be more constructive with his time. Wise advice that you should take to heart.
It's rather difficult to defend what appears from the list postings to be a temper tantrum thrown by those up top. BTW, after all these comments of yours, have you found time to code winffs, update TenDRA to 7.1.4, and write lots of small compiler tools?
Having read all your posts on this matter, I have concluded that you are a little man (woman? whichever) with a very gay sounding nick.
Vidar
How is that a troll post? I post my opinion, and that makes me a troll. This proves my point about the sheep mentality of most Slashdot readers. Pitiful.
I love how everyone jumps up to say "Don't bombard us with your Christian morality, you insensitive clod". And then they get modded up. I'm not even gonna change my threshold to find out if anyone commenting on this article has any logical deduction ability whatsoever. So I will just say:
This is a bad idea.
I for one am tired of wondering whether I am eating pork when I have a tomato sandwich. Or maybe tomatoes when eating a pork roast, who knows? As for mice mixed with human genes that could be inherited to future generations... If you truly believe in evolution, then one should think that you believe that mice mixed with enough human genes, if made to be viable, would have souls/human consciousness and should be precluded from use in experiments.
Funny, I don't believe in evolution (a silly religion, to my mind), and yet I don't like the idea of animal testing, since I figure God gave animals souls, too. You know what the sick part is? Morality is not dicated by religion. It is dictated by your conscience. And if your secular humanist/atheistic conscience doesn't tell you this is wrong, then you have bigger problems than not believing in God/Gods/(insert head cheese figure here).
Vidar
He's a bouncy little fellow, 'cause he's got springs for legs!
Ack! Pico is a gift from the heavens. It's the only editor that users can understand without a tutorial. Text editors should not need to be "mastered" over a period of years. Don't get me wrong, vi and emacs have their uses, and vi is great for editing particular config files. But pico is simple, easy to understand, and if I just want to jot something down, I don't have to mess around with all the crap associated with vim or emacs.
Pico should be installed on all Unix boxes by default, and users should be directed as to it's basic use. And it is not like Pico takes up so much precious disk space either, so removing/not installing it really holds no benefit.
Vidar
What?!?
No errors in vote counting? Are you mad? How does a computer solve that? And who really needs instant vote tallying? We don't switch leadership right away anyway, so instant tallying is of no practical use. And lever machines are properly designed, and they are easy to use. Again, you seem to think that spending millions of dollars to replace a mechanical system with a computerized system will somehow make things work better.
As for the horse and buggy argument, it doesn't apply. That mode of travel cannot facilitate our current commute patterns. But mechanical lever voting machines still work, require little repair over their 50+ year lifetimes, and lack for nothing to fulfill the requirements of our voting systems.
Vidar
Umm... or we could just stick with mechanical lever machines, which are more reliable than any computer solution in every sense of the word.
You know, the world would be better if people would stick with what works. It seems no one has ever heard the proverb "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Mechanical voting machines, such as the ones we use in Upstate NY, are incredibly physically robust, are immune to electronic sabotage of any sort, and are easy to use. They rarely need repair, and last for many more years than their electronic counterparts. They are also not subject to stray pencil marks, hole punches, etc.
I've worked with computers all my adult life, and I don't care if you have them running Solaris 2.5.1 on old SparcStations, which were incredibly reliable. It is a mistake to move the voting systems to anything resembling an electronic device. There are no real advantages, and many weaknesses that can be exploited, not to mention weaknesses inherent when you are dealing with power supplies, motherboards, processors, fans, hard drives, electro-static discharge, power surges, display failure, not to mention software glitches. They are way too delicate, and way too complex.
A nice mechanical box made of steel. That's what's needed 'round here.
Vidar
Huh? The Bush Camp has lots of evil secrets? Is that what you're trying to say? I love this "Don't blind yourself" stuff. Next you'll be telling me to look out for black helicopters.
And for the record, all of the news sources you mentioned have one thing in common with Salon: They're neither objective, nor reliable. Again, whip out some old history books and start studying. I say "old history books" so that you don't accidentally pick up some doctored piece of crap with a political agenda. If you don't like Bush, that's fine. But tell people you don't like him because he doesn't support the positions you like, instead of trying to convince people of wierd machinations in the White House, in his second year in office.
For the record, I am not a Bush fan. But I do know he doesn't have the same twisted ideas that Salon and yourself have come up with.
Vidar
Ok, your posts prove how messed up Slashdot Moderation is. The first part of what you say is not very informative, as we all know that broadcast HDTV is not going anywhere fast. The most informative part is where you dig out the conspiracy theory on the Bush Administration. And WTF is the crap about the Presidential term limits?
So we are basically informed as to your lack of independent thought. Troll material, I would think, then one sees the link to a Salon Blog. Of course, we all know how objective and realistic Salon's readers are.
Grow up and read some history books, instead of cliff notes written by the extreme left.
Living in the area, I would like there to be more jobs, and more competition for those jobs. On the other hand, I lived near Austin when in college, and there is way too much traffic down there. I like my area the way it is (i.e. nice and quiet). We already have a huge problem with city people infesting the area, building and buying second homes. Thus people raised in the area are sometimes forced out, since they cannot afford the skyrocketing property costs.
It would be nice to see these jobs go to people who need them in the area, but I have a feeling that people will migrate from the city to find easier pickings, and thus raise property taxes even more. Thankfully, we do have the star program, so hopefully few elderly people will be forced out of their homes, to be replaced with someone who wants to make their big money in the city, but doesn't want to live there.
Vidar
"...Vidar strode forth and set one foot - that on which he wears the shoe - on the lower jaw of the wolf. With one hand he seized the upper jaw, and tore the two apart, killing the monster."
Snorri Sturluson
Prose Edda
Well, folks, I hear a lot of you belly-aching about how painful it would be to boycott Guinness. Many people will be upset by this, but Guinness is not the best beer in the world. It's not even close. Budweiser can make a Guinness, but it's not their market. If you like a good stout, Beamish is much better (especially on tap). It's also cheaper. Paulaner makes lots of good beers, and so does Fullers. In fact, Fullers wipes the floor with Guinness. And don't even talk about Bass. Bass sucks. Boddington's is a great replacement for sucky Bass. Fullers has a great porters, and great classic varieties of beers (screw lagers). People who swear by Guinness need to expand their horizons. Moderators need to moderate this up so that the unwashed masses are informed of the truth. Guinness is also not a friendly business. Their whole "Guinness toast" bullcrap is just that, especially when they tell you what you need to serve Guinness in to make the perfect pint. A perfect pint of stout or porter is an Imperial Pint (22 or 23 oz. compared w/ American 16 oz.) glass filled with your favorite stout. Guinness wants to play like they're the best so that other people think they're the best. They're not.
Vidar
I miss the old 1st edition. Gary Gygax, my friends. Unearthed Arcana. No political, pr crap about not including demons or devils or evil gods in the monster manuals. No monstrous compendium loose leaf with 40,000 supplements that cover almost every creature introduced in MM I and II. Oh, and what of Fiend folio? took forever to get some of those guys back. Let's not forget demons and devils. We can't call them that any more, parents might get upset. Hell, my parents played the damned game. Gary Gygax was a genius, whose vision was corrupted by cartoon breasts hanging out of snippets of chain mail, and a company who felt their symbol would look better in gold.
Isn't it funny how some dude can tell everyone that an asteroid hit the earth 65 gazillion years ago and killed all the dinosaurs, and we all stand up and applaud them. To preface this statement after the fact, I am not trolling. I just find it amazing how everyone falls in line, year after year, with the same theories. I remember as a child when everyone decided that the dinosaurs had died from great volcanic eruptions, and the ash blotting out the sun. This of course led straight to the *ICE AGE*!!! Dah Dah Dah Dummm... Now we *know* for certain that a big fat hunk of dirt fell to the earth and crushed them :). What's wrong with a simple climate change theory? What's wrong with small mammalian creatures overrunning the earth, eating soft boiled dinosaur eggs? What, pray tell, is wrong with a bunch of guys with guns shooting the dinosaurs? Ok, the last was a bit silly, but is it any worse than a giant rock (Doomsday! Doomsday!) falling to earth causing massive destruction and a return to primordial soup? s ome-hollywood-cuties-who-survive-and-rep roduce-in-a-now-perfect-paradise-world movie that our friends out west shove down your throat. I wonder if you will even seriously think about what I just said, or if your programming is too strong and it blocks it out.
We are all sheep, following the "shepherd" wherever he may wander in his dreams, building reality on top of layers of hypotheses. It makes me sick. Reminds me of MTV and Cosmopolitan magazine. Oh, gee, were we all really derived from fish? Wow. Does the moon look larger on the horizon because we think it's farther away? Wow. That last one really got me when I read it a while back. Sure looks closer to me, just saw one the other day, thought it was gonna hit me in the nose. WAIT! That's what happened! The moon collided with the earth, then bounced back and began an orbit. There's my theory. Now let's all sing along with it and pat ourselves on the backs till we're sore, thinking how f***ing brilliant we all are. Let's award ourselves prizes for it.
Why can't we get a life. There's nothing wrong with trying to uncover the mysteries of the universe. But accepting them as gospel truth for ten years, then ditching them, is a silly practice best left behind. "Scientific" truth has no more basis in fact than any form of Judaism (Islam, Hebrew, or Christian), Buddhism, Hinduism, or Jainism. At least the religious folks have some notion that they know little or nothing about the details of the creation of the universe.
Now I'm sure I'll get all sorts of responses from people, yelling and screaming about how I'm stupid, and I ignore all the research, and that these theories have been around for ages. Unfortunately, the age of a theory, the research behind it, or my stupidity will not change history, nor will it uncover the truth about how things started, ended, and then started over again. Or whatever did happen anyway. In the meantime, you should continue to believe all those theories, at least for another 20 years, when a new one comes into style, and look down upon creationists, and atheists who don't believe in the big bang or the asteroid mythologies. They're out there, you know! Don't forget to buy tickets to see the latest asteroid-hits-the-earth-everyone-dies-except-for-
It's funny. I asked this question a couple of weeks ago, and was disappointed that it wasn't posted. I think X leaves much to be desired when selecting resolutions *and* refresh rates. I've used Xf86Setup and Xconfigurator, and neither seem to be a "do it all" solution. I always end up editing the .conf file, and that's so it will make my card run at 32bpp, at 1024 * 768, without using a 60hz refresh rate on a top of the line monitor that doesn't happen to be in the monitor list (which is painfully small; I mean, aren't they just a bunch of numbers? Why can't the list be more complete [especially for viewsonics :)]). And lord knows, if you don't have the manual, it's a real pain to be looking up horiz and vertical scan rates. All this completely ignores the fact that if we want new users (especially in graphics), then we should place more emphasis on the ease of configuration for things like graphics cards and monitors. I hope XF86 4.0 has a better base for this sort of UI.