The more alike the apps and the OS are to Windows (only having much more sound and freel-available code), the easier this migration will be.
This is assuming that those of us who code and use Linux give a damn about whether or not Windows users 'migrate' to Linux.
Most of us don't. Most of us aren't crusaders against the Evil Empire(TM). We really don't give a shit about Microsoft, nor 'winning' any imaginary battles. The crusaders need to piss off and find some other cause to rant about, and leave us coders the hell alone. At least until they decide to start cutting us paychecks for what we do FOR FREE on our own time.
This would only be true if the FBI's primary goal were to keep you as safe as possible - which clearly it isn't. The FBI's agenda seems right in line with the rest of government: to exert as much control as possible over the general population, through the use of fear and the random revocation of the Bill of Rights.
Welcome to the New World Order! Now where did I put my jack-boots?
Rich people and high income earners should be highly taxed, e.g., 50% taxation for 200K of income and unearned income, with progressive gradations on up from there.
Thank you, Mr. Socialist Scumbag. Yep, here in America being rich is a crime - at least among the stupid fucks who aren't rich and are jealous of those who are.
The 'rich', whatever definition you use to define that term, should *never* be taxed more than anyone else. Not only does this fly in the very face of what America supposedly stands for - freedom to do with *your* resources as *you* please, and not what some fucking liberal loon thinks you should do with them - but it's also completely nonsensical. If I pay ten times as much in taxes will my broken sewer line be fixed ten times faster than yours will? Will holes in my street be paved with ten times the skill and care? Will I get ten times the service if I need to apply for a construction permit for an addition to my home? Do I get to skip to the head of the line at DMV because I pay so much more?
If I don't get ten times the service that you do, and I don't put ten times the burden on the GOVERNMENT BUILT AND TAX SUPPORTED infrastructure as you, then why the fuck am I paying ten time as much in taxes? Because some jealous little shit who's angry that he's not me wants to punish me for leading the life that he doesn't have?
Let's change our motto from 'land of opportunity' to 'land of vengeful little pissants who think wealth is criminal'.
No, you don't have a "right" to unrestricted telephone conversations.
Guess you missed out on that whole 'Bill of Rights' thing, eh? Common carriers *do not* have the right to monitor your phone conversations precisely because no reasonable alternative exists. It doesn't matter how many companies offer phone services, the phone itself is essential to effective communication and the right to privacy is implied in the Constitution. The Supreme Court has affirmed that time and again over the last two centures.
If you're confused, take a gander at the law. Any phone company which listens in to your calls or taps your line can be prosecuted. It is *not* okay for a private entity to spy on you just because it isn't government. This is a common misconception amongst slashdotters, and a wrong one.
Whatever that number might turn out to be, the number is a real, statistically significant value. The fact of the matter is that people who trade software/songs/IP are cutting into the revenues of the companies that fund the production of this work and the artists who create it, however small their final cut may be...
Prove it. Empirically. Last I checked, the companies represented by both the RIAA and MPAA have had record years, and there revenue has been *increasing* at record rates over the last decade. This seems to indicate that file sharing has had *no* impact on revenues.
If this isn't the case, then please provide an empirical study, published in an accredited, peer reviewed journal proving otherwise.
You can't, of course, because no study has ever proved that either the RIAA or MPAA has suffered losses due to file sharing. On the contrary, several recent ones seem to indicate that file sharing has led to *increased* purchases, which would account for their record-breaking growth in sales.
Schools aren't government entities, moron. They provide a SERVICE in return for CASH. It isn't up to the fucking business to decide what an adult can or cannot do on their own time, at least not according to the Bill of Rights.
Oh, wait, I forgot that we no longer have any rights, nor does our time outside of work or school belong to us. Silly me, for a moment I thought I was still living in pre-Bush America!
At least a single party in power can take decisive action.
And you can see how well that's working for my country, the U.S. I'll take a 'rudderless' government over a nasty, fanatical one any day of the week.
In fact, the less the government is capable of accomplishing, the happier I am. At the end of the day it's more likely that a) I won't end up with higher taxes, and b) I won't be subject to laws infringing my Constitutional rights.
If the shit hits the fan, that's the risk your management decided to take.
And those of us who work in the *real* world know that shit *always* rolls downhill. It doesn't matter who made the initial decision; it doesn't matter what kind of documentation you have, or what you did to prevent it, or the fact that you told management flat out, time and again, that what they had in place was a disaster waiting to happen.
Nope, none of that matters. Somebody is going to be blamed, and you can bet your hairy ass it won't be the management morons who fucked everything up in the first place. No, in the *real* world the person who's going to be blamed is YOU. Documentation to the contrary will simply be ignored, or get your ass tossed out on the street to avoid managerial embarrassment.
At my wife's place of work (she's a research scientist for a major university) IT will delete the old passwords, then send out an email informing the employees that their passwords are no longer good and that they need to be changed.
Of course, to read your email, much less change your password, you need to log in. And you can no longer log in because your password has been deleted. Therefore, no one ever receives the email that their passwords need to be changed, nor could they do anything about it even if informed. Eventually enough people call up IT to ask them what the hell is going on, prompting them to restore the old passwords long enough for everyone to get on, read their mail, and change their password.
The IT department at her university has pulled this idiocy more than once. In fact, one time they restored the old passwords, everyone dutifully changed them, and then IT deleted the new passwords!
If ever there was an IT department where it was a requirement to have the word "LOSER" stenciled on one's forehead, this one takes the cake.
I sometimes get the sense that people who know better deliberately confuse others...
Themselves, more likely. When the facts contradict a cherished belief and you refuse to modify that belief to fit the facts, cognitive dissonance results. Something has to be done to reduce that dissonance. A common method for doing so is to claim that the facts presented are 'just a theory' and therefore not sufficient evidence to require a re-evaluation of the cherished belief. It's a form of wilful self-deception, a pathology of the mind; in fact, a deliberately imposed form of mental sickness.
People will go to great lengths to ignore reality in favor of what they wish were true. The refusal of creationists to modify their world-view in the face of paleontological evidence is a prime example of this, but it can apply to just about any human belief you care to name (e.g., that your spouse is faithful despite the discovery of love letters and lipstick on the collar).
The stereotype of the male geek being a mysogynistic prick isn't entirely off-base. Just try free-lancing for awhile, work with the IT departments of corporations large and small; you'll run into women-hating twits on a regular basis, far out of proportion to other departments within said corporations.
Better yet, try working with those IT departments when you have a woman partner. When the geeks aren't hitting on her they spend their time muttering about what a 'frigid bitch' she is because she won't hop up on the desk of some sweaty, overweight little shit and spread her legs for him.
YMMV, of course. But I found IT departments to typically be bastions of women-hating sleazeballs when I was freelancing, something along the lines of "can't you read the sign?! It says 'no girls allowed' on the tree fort!"
Also remember not all intruders are "dumb kiddies" there takes skill in a real intrusion even if you are using pre-canned exploits.
Script kiddies are called that for a reason. Often young and not terribly bright, they take programs written by others, programs they don't understand and can barely use, and launch attacks against the systems of others with them. Script kiddies, by definition, couldn't successfully modify or improve the code of the programs they employ if their lives depended on it.
From my own experience I'd guess that perhaps only one in twenty so-called 'hackers' has the first damned clue what they're doing. Of this subset perhaps one in twenty could actually write an intrusion program of minimal value. And of this subset, perhaps one in twenty is actually skilled enough to call themselves 'hackers' and be recognized as such by expert coders.
The actual number of hackers, or folks I'd deign to give the title, is minimal. The number of script kiddies is legion. This is actually a good thing, as you'd rather your average petty criminal was a fucking idiot than a genius any day of the week. It's easy to defend yourself against an moron who can't respond to a change in defensive strategy because they're incapable of modifying the code of their tools or coming up with a creative way to launch an attack; it's much more difficult to match yourself against someone with real talent who's spent years honing their skills in intrusion.
Like what? It won't displace Windows? Big - fucking - deal. I don't give a shit. Most coders don't give a shit. Most of us who use Linux don't give a shit.
If that's your thing, you're barking up the wrong OS. Go find some other 'cause' to waste your time on.
Technical superiority alone is not going to make Linux win.
Win what, exactly? Those of us that actually code for Linux aren't, for the most part, interesting in 'winning' anything. The folks that rant on about 'linux on the desktop' and 'winning against Microsoft' usually aren't coders, yet they come here on Slashdot and insist that those of us who actually are join their silly, childish crusade.
Wake up and smell the coffee, boy. You aren't paying us for our efforts and until you do we don't have to answer to you or anyone else. Most of us like Linux just fine the way it is, and if we don't *we do something about it*. The fact that we haven't jumped on your intellectually-challenged bandwagon and followed your charge against the Evil Empire(TM) should tell you something.
As far as Slashdot goes, of course it reports news. The fact that they link to stories and only provide summaries is immaterial. The editors select stories from submissions and that's where the liability comes in.
And I think just about everyone who's been here for more than a few days knows that Slashdot is often highly inaccurate and many times downright wrong about facts, events, even headlines. It isn't libelous, it's just incredibly sloppy. Hell, the so-called 'editors' can't even be bothered to use proper grammar or, at times, a spell-checker.
No one in their right mind turns to Slashdot for *accuracy in reporting*. The very idea is ludicrous. What Slashdot is good for is commentary, and sometimes to tipping one off about a piece of actual news that's occurred that you've managed to miss. But the rational reader, if interested in that news, will verify the facts by going to a more credible source and reading an article about it.
Then come back here and flame fellow Slashdotters over their wrong-headed opinions on the topic at hand.
You can't argue with religious fundamentalists, nor hope that someday a form of coherence will settle over their disturbed minds and gift them with the ability to engage in rational thought when it comes to religion.
The fundies, like all religious fanatics, are inherently dangerous sorts, much like rabid dogs. Stephen King stories to the contrary, a rabid dog usually won't bite a human - but since the animal is irrational you never really know what it's going to do and one bite can prove fatal.
So like the poster says, just smile, back away slowly, and pray to Darwin that you decided to bring along the.38 today. The fanatic just might decide to bite, and you never know what will set the confused bastard off.
True, but lately I've noticed in an increase in leftist-loonie morons talking about the 'evils' of capitalism and and the moral depravity of actually having money. I've also noticed that a not-insignificant chunk of these folks are from Europe, and a good many of their posts sound like the jealous rants of a small child smarting over the fact that the neighbor kid has a bigger and flashier toy truck.
Slashdot was decidedly libertarian even a year ago. But it seems to be attracting an increasing number of frothing-at-the-mouth, unthinking, party-line socialist douchebags who like nothing more than squawking about the virtues of socialism/totalitarianism and the horrors of capitalism/freedom, at the same time bandying about baseless insults about Americans.
how soon we can expect a merging of realistic human-mimicking robots with RealDolls. And once that's done, will I be able to get my new humaniform RealDolls in the form of a blonde 15-year-old with a penchant for cheerleading outfits, or will the government ban this as some sort of cyber-pedophilia?
Or are you the kind of person that wants to have his cake and eat it, resell it, outsource it, etc...?
Sure, why not? America doesn't owe the rest of the world a damned thing. Other countries are perfectly free to pass their own laws in that regard, if that's what they wish to do. But as an American, I'm not obliged to look out for the interest of any other nation or people. I can if I like, as an individual, but I'm not *obligated* to - nor is my government.
The government of America is for Americans, and no one else. It's that simple. If corporations wish to essentially become foreign entities by moving jobs and resources to foreign nations, then they should be treated as such. In fact, so far as I'm concerned they should simply move their entire operation to that nation, register as a corporation of that nation, and be treated as such by the American government. They deserve no handouts, no tax breaks, no protection under American law, and no benefit from American trade agreements with other nations.
Let's see how long those former American companies last when they're wholly Indian in both name and law. Let's see how well they do when they have to operate on the other side of a tariff barrier.
I know this is sometimes hard for Americans to understand, but the US is not the only nation with advanced research and development.
Well, geez, thanks for the fucking newsflash. I know this is sometimes hard for foreigners to understand, given their tendency to believe every piece of shit generalization they ever hear about Americans, *but we already know this*. Our wake-up call came waaay back in the 1970's, courtesy of Japan, you schmuck. Y'know, those little guys in the Far East whose asses we kicked in World War 2, only to have them come back and give us a good reaming thirty years later?
Of course, the implications for the US are not so good: US R&D is based on highly-skilled immigrants. If that flow stops, it may temporarily create a little more demand for US workers, but it will primarily make the US overall far less competitive.
The implication being that America can only conduct good R&D because we manage to 'siphon off' the skilled scientific labor from other countries since, apparently, we're too fucking stupid to conduct any useful R&D on our own.
Go back to your hole, moron. Foreign labor or no foreign labor, we'll manage to innovate just fine, thank you very much. Our success is our own, and we owe no part of it to Europe or its citizens, even the ones who despise their own countries so much they come here to make a decent living.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't outsourcing a shining example of capitalism working exactly as it should?
Sure, so long as the government I pay with MY tax dollars does nothing whatsoever to aid the companies now operating in foreign countries, either with tax breaks, protectionism, or foreign trade treaties. Or with war, if that country decides to seize the nice, ripe foreign assets now sitting within its borders.
The way I see it, any corporation that 'off-shores' should have to take its chances with its new rulers. If the new rulers decide to do something to the company that the company doesn't like, tough fucking shit - the government that operates on MY tax dollars isn't going to get involved. If that company wanted protection, they should've stayed within the U.S., end of story.
So I don't have a problem with off-shoring, so long as the company in question doesn't benefit from a single penny of a single tax dollar I pay out during the year. And assuming that any tariffs levied against foreign products also apply to the goods manufactured by that company in foreign territory, since for all intents and purposes that company might as well be a foreign entity.
There is no 'problem', you moron, other than folks like you who whine, bitch and moan that Linux *isn't* like Windows. So stop your fucking wailing and go load Windows onto your computer already.
I don't have any interest in making Linux more like Windows. I could give a fuck if it displaces Windows or not. Linux isn't designed with that in mind, and the fools on crusade to wipe out Microsoft need to realize that those of us who actually develop software for Linux, or do work on the kernel, aren't interested in joining their idiotic cause. We aren't obliged to make Linux more 'user friendly', and until you start cutting us checks for the work that we do, on our own time, for free, you can just piss off.
It's apparent what you want isn't Linux, but Windows. I urge you to go out, buy a Windows CD, and install it. You'll be much happier in the long run, since you'll only have one installed choice for each app type and won't suffer the miserable confusion you lament about.
The Newbie option should have only a few choices, Gnome or KDE desktop, no questions about partitioning, it should assume the user wants to keep a Windows partition for now.
SuSe does exactly this. Download it, or order it and try it. The installation, unless you deviate to do something different yourself, gives you exactly what you're asking for here.
Slashdot Mirror
The more alike the apps and the OS are to Windows (only having much more sound and freel-available code), the easier this migration will be.
This is assuming that those of us who code and use Linux give a damn about whether or not Windows users 'migrate' to Linux.
Most of us don't. Most of us aren't crusaders against the Evil Empire(TM). We really don't give a shit about Microsoft, nor 'winning' any imaginary battles. The crusaders need to piss off and find some other cause to rant about, and leave us coders the hell alone. At least until they decide to start cutting us paychecks for what we do FOR FREE on our own time.
Max
This would only be true if the FBI's primary goal were to keep you as safe as possible - which clearly it isn't. The FBI's agenda seems right in line with the rest of government: to exert as much control as possible over the general population, through the use of fear and the random revocation of the Bill of Rights.
Welcome to the New World Order! Now where did I put my jack-boots?
Max
Rich people and high income earners should be highly taxed, e.g., 50% taxation for 200K of income and unearned income, with progressive gradations on up from there.
Thank you, Mr. Socialist Scumbag. Yep, here in America being rich is a crime - at least among the stupid fucks who aren't rich and are jealous of those who are.
The 'rich', whatever definition you use to define that term, should *never* be taxed more than anyone else. Not only does this fly in the very face of what America supposedly stands for - freedom to do with *your* resources as *you* please, and not what some fucking liberal loon thinks you should do with them - but it's also completely nonsensical. If I pay ten times as much in taxes will my broken sewer line be fixed ten times faster than yours will? Will holes in my street be paved with ten times the skill and care? Will I get ten times the service if I need to apply for a construction permit for an addition to my home? Do I get to skip to the head of the line at DMV because I pay so much more?
If I don't get ten times the service that you do, and I don't put ten times the burden on the GOVERNMENT BUILT AND TAX SUPPORTED infrastructure as you, then why the fuck am I paying ten time as much in taxes? Because some jealous little shit who's angry that he's not me wants to punish me for leading the life that he doesn't have?
Let's change our motto from 'land of opportunity' to 'land of vengeful little pissants who think wealth is criminal'.
Max
No, you don't have a "right" to unrestricted telephone conversations.
Guess you missed out on that whole 'Bill of Rights' thing, eh? Common carriers *do not* have the right to monitor your phone conversations precisely because no reasonable alternative exists. It doesn't matter how many companies offer phone services, the phone itself is essential to effective communication and the right to privacy is implied in the Constitution. The Supreme Court has affirmed that time and again over the last two centures.
If you're confused, take a gander at the law. Any phone company which listens in to your calls or taps your line can be prosecuted. It is *not* okay for a private entity to spy on you just because it isn't government. This is a common misconception amongst slashdotters, and a wrong one.
Max
Whatever that number might turn out to be, the number is a real, statistically significant value. The fact of the matter is that people who trade software/songs/IP are cutting into the revenues of the companies that fund the production of this work and the artists who create it, however small their final cut may be...
Prove it. Empirically. Last I checked, the companies represented by both the RIAA and MPAA have had record years, and there revenue has been *increasing* at record rates over the last decade. This seems to indicate that file sharing has had *no* impact on revenues.
If this isn't the case, then please provide an empirical study, published in an accredited, peer reviewed journal proving otherwise.
You can't, of course, because no study has ever proved that either the RIAA or MPAA has suffered losses due to file sharing. On the contrary, several recent ones seem to indicate that file sharing has led to *increased* purchases, which would account for their record-breaking growth in sales.
Max
It's still school property, and school rules.
Schools aren't government entities, moron. They provide a SERVICE in return for CASH. It isn't up to the fucking business to decide what an adult can or cannot do on their own time, at least not according to the Bill of Rights.
Oh, wait, I forgot that we no longer have any rights, nor does our time outside of work or school belong to us. Silly me, for a moment I thought I was still living in pre-Bush America!
Max
At least a single party in power can take decisive action.
And you can see how well that's working for my country, the U.S. I'll take a 'rudderless' government over a nasty, fanatical one any day of the week.
In fact, the less the government is capable of accomplishing, the happier I am. At the end of the day it's more likely that a) I won't end up with higher taxes, and b) I won't be subject to laws infringing my Constitutional rights.
Max
It sounds funny to the geek, who prides himself on the security of his passwords
as a substitution for the fact that he can't get laid.
Max
If the shit hits the fan, that's the risk your management decided to take.
And those of us who work in the *real* world know that shit *always* rolls downhill. It doesn't matter who made the initial decision; it doesn't matter what kind of documentation you have, or what you did to prevent it, or the fact that you told management flat out, time and again, that what they had in place was a disaster waiting to happen.
Nope, none of that matters. Somebody is going to be blamed, and you can bet your hairy ass it won't be the management morons who fucked everything up in the first place. No, in the *real* world the person who's going to be blamed is YOU. Documentation to the contrary will simply be ignored, or get your ass tossed out on the street to avoid managerial embarrassment.
Max
At my wife's place of work (she's a research scientist for a major university) IT will delete the old passwords, then send out an email informing the employees that their passwords are no longer good and that they need to be changed.
Of course, to read your email, much less change your password, you need to log in. And you can no longer log in because your password has been deleted. Therefore, no one ever receives the email that their passwords need to be changed, nor could they do anything about it even if informed. Eventually enough people call up IT to ask them what the hell is going on, prompting them to restore the old passwords long enough for everyone to get on, read their mail, and change their password.
The IT department at her university has pulled this idiocy more than once. In fact, one time they restored the old passwords, everyone dutifully changed them, and then IT deleted the new passwords!
If ever there was an IT department where it was a requirement to have the word "LOSER" stenciled on one's forehead, this one takes the cake.
Max
I sometimes get the sense that people who know better deliberately confuse others...
Themselves, more likely. When the facts contradict a cherished belief and you refuse to modify that belief to fit the facts, cognitive dissonance results. Something has to be done to reduce that dissonance. A common method for doing so is to claim that the facts presented are 'just a theory' and therefore not sufficient evidence to require a re-evaluation of the cherished belief. It's a form of wilful self-deception, a pathology of the mind; in fact, a deliberately imposed form of mental sickness.
People will go to great lengths to ignore reality in favor of what they wish were true. The refusal of creationists to modify their world-view in the face of paleontological evidence is a prime example of this, but it can apply to just about any human belief you care to name (e.g., that your spouse is faithful despite the discovery of love letters and lipstick on the collar).
Max
The stereotype of the male geek being a mysogynistic prick isn't entirely off-base. Just try free-lancing for awhile, work with the IT departments of corporations large and small; you'll run into women-hating twits on a regular basis, far out of proportion to other departments within said corporations.
Better yet, try working with those IT departments when you have a woman partner. When the geeks aren't hitting on her they spend their time muttering about what a 'frigid bitch' she is because she won't hop up on the desk of some sweaty, overweight little shit and spread her legs for him.
YMMV, of course. But I found IT departments to typically be bastions of women-hating sleazeballs when I was freelancing, something along the lines of "can't you read the sign?! It says 'no girls allowed' on the tree fort!"
Max
Also remember not all intruders are "dumb kiddies" there takes skill in a real intrusion even if you are using pre-canned exploits.
Script kiddies are called that for a reason. Often young and not terribly bright, they take programs written by others, programs they don't understand and can barely use, and launch attacks against the systems of others with them. Script kiddies, by definition, couldn't successfully modify or improve the code of the programs they employ if their lives depended on it.
From my own experience I'd guess that perhaps only one in twenty so-called 'hackers' has the first damned clue what they're doing. Of this subset perhaps one in twenty could actually write an intrusion program of minimal value. And of this subset, perhaps one in twenty is actually skilled enough to call themselves 'hackers' and be recognized as such by expert coders.
The actual number of hackers, or folks I'd deign to give the title, is minimal. The number of script kiddies is legion. This is actually a good thing, as you'd rather your average petty criminal was a fucking idiot than a genius any day of the week. It's easy to defend yourself against an moron who can't respond to a change in defensive strategy because they're incapable of modifying the code of their tools or coming up with a creative way to launch an attack; it's much more difficult to match yourself against someone with real talent who's spent years honing their skills in intrusion.
Max
otherwise Linux faces certain doom.
Like what? It won't displace Windows? Big - fucking - deal. I don't give a shit. Most coders don't give a shit. Most of us who use Linux don't give a shit.
If that's your thing, you're barking up the wrong OS. Go find some other 'cause' to waste your time on.
Max
Technical superiority alone is not going to make Linux win.
Win what, exactly? Those of us that actually code for Linux aren't, for the most part, interesting in 'winning' anything. The folks that rant on about 'linux on the desktop' and 'winning against Microsoft' usually aren't coders, yet they come here on Slashdot and insist that those of us who actually are join their silly, childish crusade.
Wake up and smell the coffee, boy. You aren't paying us for our efforts and until you do we don't have to answer to you or anyone else. Most of us like Linux just fine the way it is, and if we don't *we do something about it*. The fact that we haven't jumped on your intellectually-challenged bandwagon and followed your charge against the Evil Empire(TM) should tell you something.
Like, perhaps, Linux isn't for you.
Max
As far as Slashdot goes, of course it reports news. The fact that they link to stories and only provide summaries is immaterial. The editors select stories from submissions and that's where the liability comes in.
And I think just about everyone who's been here for more than a few days knows that Slashdot is often highly inaccurate and many times downright wrong about facts, events, even headlines. It isn't libelous, it's just incredibly sloppy. Hell, the so-called 'editors' can't even be bothered to use proper grammar or, at times, a spell-checker.
No one in their right mind turns to Slashdot for *accuracy in reporting*. The very idea is ludicrous. What Slashdot is good for is commentary, and sometimes to tipping one off about a piece of actual news that's occurred that you've managed to miss. But the rational reader, if interested in that news, will verify the facts by going to a more credible source and reading an article about it.
Then come back here and flame fellow Slashdotters over their wrong-headed opinions on the topic at hand.
Max
You can't argue with religious fundamentalists, nor hope that someday a form of coherence will settle over their disturbed minds and gift them with the ability to engage in rational thought when it comes to religion.
.38 today. The fanatic just might decide to bite, and you never know what will set the confused bastard off.
The fundies, like all religious fanatics, are inherently dangerous sorts, much like rabid dogs. Stephen King stories to the contrary, a rabid dog usually won't bite a human - but since the animal is irrational you never really know what it's going to do and one bite can prove fatal.
So like the poster says, just smile, back away slowly, and pray to Darwin that you decided to bring along the
Max
True, but lately I've noticed in an increase in leftist-loonie morons talking about the 'evils' of capitalism and and the moral depravity of actually having money. I've also noticed that a not-insignificant chunk of these folks are from Europe, and a good many of their posts sound like the jealous rants of a small child smarting over the fact that the neighbor kid has a bigger and flashier toy truck.
Slashdot was decidedly libertarian even a year ago. But it seems to be attracting an increasing number of frothing-at-the-mouth, unthinking, party-line socialist douchebags who like nothing more than squawking about the virtues of socialism/totalitarianism and the horrors of capitalism/freedom, at the same time bandying about baseless insults about Americans.
Max
how soon we can expect a merging of realistic human-mimicking robots with RealDolls. And once that's done, will I be able to get my new humaniform RealDolls in the form of a blonde 15-year-old with a penchant for cheerleading outfits, or will the government ban this as some sort of cyber-pedophilia?
Max
Or are you the kind of person that wants to have his cake and eat it, resell it, outsource it, etc...?
Sure, why not? America doesn't owe the rest of the world a damned thing. Other countries are perfectly free to pass their own laws in that regard, if that's what they wish to do. But as an American, I'm not obliged to look out for the interest of any other nation or people. I can if I like, as an individual, but I'm not *obligated* to - nor is my government.
The government of America is for Americans, and no one else. It's that simple. If corporations wish to essentially become foreign entities by moving jobs and resources to foreign nations, then they should be treated as such. In fact, so far as I'm concerned they should simply move their entire operation to that nation, register as a corporation of that nation, and be treated as such by the American government. They deserve no handouts, no tax breaks, no protection under American law, and no benefit from American trade agreements with other nations.
Let's see how long those former American companies last when they're wholly Indian in both name and law. Let's see how well they do when they have to operate on the other side of a tariff barrier.
Max
I know this is sometimes hard for Americans to understand, but the US is not the only nation with advanced research and development.
Well, geez, thanks for the fucking newsflash. I know this is sometimes hard for foreigners to understand, given their tendency to believe every piece of shit generalization they ever hear about Americans, *but we already know this*. Our wake-up call came waaay back in the 1970's, courtesy of Japan, you schmuck. Y'know, those little guys in the Far East whose asses we kicked in World War 2, only to have them come back and give us a good reaming thirty years later?
Of course, the implications for the US are not so good: US R&D is based on highly-skilled immigrants. If that flow stops, it may temporarily create a little more demand for US workers, but it will primarily make the US overall far less competitive.
The implication being that America can only conduct good R&D because we manage to 'siphon off' the skilled scientific labor from other countries since, apparently, we're too fucking stupid to conduct any useful R&D on our own.
Go back to your hole, moron. Foreign labor or no foreign labor, we'll manage to innovate just fine, thank you very much. Our success is our own, and we owe no part of it to Europe or its citizens, even the ones who despise their own countries so much they come here to make a decent living.
Max
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't outsourcing a shining example of capitalism working exactly as it should?
Sure, so long as the government I pay with MY tax dollars does nothing whatsoever to aid the companies now operating in foreign countries, either with tax breaks, protectionism, or foreign trade treaties. Or with war, if that country decides to seize the nice, ripe foreign assets now sitting within its borders.
The way I see it, any corporation that 'off-shores' should have to take its chances with its new rulers. If the new rulers decide to do something to the company that the company doesn't like, tough fucking shit - the government that operates on MY tax dollars isn't going to get involved. If that company wanted protection, they should've stayed within the U.S., end of story.
So I don't have a problem with off-shoring, so long as the company in question doesn't benefit from a single penny of a single tax dollar I pay out during the year. And assuming that any tariffs levied against foreign products also apply to the goods manufactured by that company in foreign territory, since for all intents and purposes that company might as well be a foreign entity.
Max
There is no 'problem', you moron, other than folks like you who whine, bitch and moan that Linux *isn't* like Windows. So stop your fucking wailing and go load Windows onto your computer already.
I don't have any interest in making Linux more like Windows. I could give a fuck if it displaces Windows or not. Linux isn't designed with that in mind, and the fools on crusade to wipe out Microsoft need to realize that those of us who actually develop software for Linux, or do work on the kernel, aren't interested in joining their idiotic cause. We aren't obliged to make Linux more 'user friendly', and until you start cutting us checks for the work that we do, on our own time, for free, you can just piss off.
Max
It's apparent what you want isn't Linux, but Windows. I urge you to go out, buy a Windows CD, and install it. You'll be much happier in the long run, since you'll only have one installed choice for each app type and won't suffer the miserable confusion you lament about.
Max
The Newbie option should have only a few choices, Gnome or KDE desktop, no questions about partitioning, it should assume the user wants to keep a Windows partition for now.
SuSe does exactly this. Download it, or order it and try it. The installation, unless you deviate to do something different yourself, gives you exactly what you're asking for here.
Max