People here on Slashdot in various countries make a connection with people in countries where services are offered. For example, I live in the U.S. I've quite like to see the programs from Channel 4 that they have available online. But that's currently U.K. only and is not likely to change. (I WANT to see Green Wing's Xmas Special) So, if someone in the U.K. is willing, we can establish private VPN connections between our machines and route specific traffic overseas via the VPN. Then it would be as if I was in the U.K. and the other person was in the U.S. for various services they may want to access here. Simple.
If there's juice in the system, people are going to be using it. I, personally hope that someone writes a Linux distro for it that will allow it to become a kickass gaming system. Oh wait...
Treating someone like a dog in BD/SM games will take on a whole new meaning. Just imagine hunting parties where the trackers are humans on all fours in leather gear with collars.;P
...that they recast Matthew Broderick as the erstwhile teen again. Sure he's a bit grey behind the ears, but he's still got the right composure. Right? RIGHT?
Why the fuck does everyone want to be paid for every little thing these days? Sure, wholesale piracy is one thing. I disagree with the idea that people should be trading movies and music online with no restrictions at all. If you want an album, buy it. If you want software that costs something, buy it or learn to use free/open software. If you want to see a movie, pay to watch it in the theater or rent the DVD when it comes out. But, where this all falls apart is when someone quotes someone else online and that someone else feels they need payment for the quote. Or... someone uses a popular song as the music bed in their Youtube video and the entire video clip is only 25 seconds long or the quality is so poor that no one in their right mind would consider keeping it as something to put on their iPod. Or, someone edits together a bunch of clips from a popular movie to make a funny statement about something. These are all reasonable uses of copyrighted information that SHOULDN'T be charged for. If the industry had their way, rap music would have never happened (because it used previously recorded material) since many of the early rappers didn't have the money to pay for sample clearance. Everyone is being nickeled and dimed to death. Why? Why does it have to be this way. Whatever happened to the concept of fair use and encouraging people to build upon the works of others?
You missed the point entirely. With the super smooth graphics of Vista on desktop supercomputers, the hacker will be able to impress his friends with wicked screenshots of the hacked desktop themes he forced on unwilling users. "Oh ho!! So you think the "X" close widget is on the upper right of your window do you? We'll fix that... I'll just dig into Raster's Enlightement theme library and put it in the middle of the bottom of the window and make it a black button on a black background"! The sheer beauty of these hacks will cause females all over the world to drop their shorts and open wide.
Meanwhile the *nix weenie over there who is relaying two terabytes of spam per hour will still be a virgin.
It's GNU/Linux. Any hacker worth his salt doesn't want to bother with archaic OSes based on Unix. He wants the 1337 stylings of Windows Vista. No sense in rootkitting a *nix box. You can't do anything with a *nix box. But an army of zombie Vista PCs, now THAT is ULTIMATE POWER!
I haven't really "bought in" to iTunes mainly because of the goofy jig I have to go through to get around the DRM. (Burn it to CD, then rip it to MP3) I'd rather order a used CD from Amazon which can be cheaper, plus I get the benefit of actually having the real album art in physical form, such as it is with CDs (I still miss the feel of a vinyl album sleeve). Ideally there SHOULD be a free/open album art format that the music industry appends to the music files. That way you have access to the album art, liner notes, etc... but NOT in a DRMed format and usable by ANY media player. The only downloadable music service I have used so far is emusic.com. The selection is mediocre at best, but I'm surprised by what they do have occasionally (I like obscure but world class artists like Ryuichi Sakamoto for instance). But the real key is that they are just unDRMed MP3 files. So I don't have to worry about not being able to use the files on Linux for example or having to go through some ridiculous conversion roller coaster. It looks like the only way I'll be able to use iTunes is either to install a legitimate licensed copy of Windows in a virtual machine, buy a Mac Mini, or bang my head against the wall working on getting Wine to run iTunes 7. And even then, the selection on iTunes, while different from emusic, is still not as big as the CD catalog on Amazon. So, for choice and non-DRM formats, CDs still rule the day. Not to mention, when I rip CDs, I have the option of ripping them to Ogg Vorbis which I prefer immensely to MP3 and which works quite well on my Rio Karma.;)
I think it's really more a set of points on which I disagree with Microsoft:
Point 1. Computers are primarily business tools My View: Computers are very flexible machines that can be used for nearly anything including business tools. Since my background is in the electronic music world, I would have to say that it's nearly impossible to make decent electronic music without computers and software. Microsoft didn't seem to think this was important until Windows XP came around. But by that time, users like me had already been using computers to do electronic music for about 20 years with Macs, Amigas, and Ataris.
Point 2. Anyone who doesn't use a computer for "standard" uses is a "hobbiest" which roughly translates to: "loser living in parent's basement who gets on Ballmer's nerves" My View: Completely false. We don't go around calling professional carpenters, electricians and plumbers "amateurs" when they work on their stuff at home, do we? Then why should people who work in the tech sector who like having SANs, virtual machines, and heavy duty OSes at home have to be relegated to the "hobbiest" moniker? It's kind of insulting, isn't it? If they lose the attitude about people who like to push the technical envelope and let them have access to deeper parts of the Windows OS to do it with, they'll gain new friends.
Point 3. Revenue is more important than, well... anything else that Microsoft does. My View: That's not the way it should be. Making money should always take a back seat to satisfying the customer first. Screw the stockholders. As long as their stocks aren't going down, they have no right to expect them to continue increasing. There's only so many people who will buy the products and pushing out stuff that really isn't much different than the previous version in terms of actual functionality and stability is not a good approach. Ever. There is such a thing as being reasonably profitable and it doesn't mean pounding your competitors into the ground.
Just a few points of contention for me. In general, I feel that I should be able to do whatever I want, whenever I want with my computers. No one should be able to limit me in any way as long as I'm not invading other people's systems and causing mischief. If I want to write a software based DVD player (with decryption) then I should be allowed to without worrying about goofy laws that try to make imaginitive thinking illegal.
True. However, I expect that the RIAA and the MPAA WANT this to be a nebulous result. They don't want clarity so that anyone even THINKING of using BitTorrent will be dissuaded from doing so. If it was clear that he was operating at a higher level in the BitTorrent tree, then this case wouldn't be very noteworthy. Especially if people in the know made it clear to the less technically inclined but piracy prone end-users.
...for a singularity fiction based Star Trek. These lamers just aren't going the right direction. Being a longtime Trek fan (I abhor the "Trekkie" moniker) I have to say that I believe I have the ULTIMATE Trek plot ever conceived. Much like their idea, it takes place in the future, but after the occurrence of singularity (the melding of machine and biological, virtual and reality, all that is good and pure and the cleansing of the dirty). But since everyone can live in any of various and simultaneously multiple existences in any way conceivable, all cast members are now female. Yes, female! Even if they're born male, they become fully functional females (ROWR!!!) with big cone bras. And they're also all lesbian until they encounter males. I also suggest that my show should have a rotating guest cast made up solely of contest winners, where the contest is to explain why you should be a permanent member of the Trek universe! (With the advanced ideas I have, I'm sure I'd win!) The prize, is of course to be on the show and to be a male character who encounters these singularity liberated lesbian cone bra federation women! ROWR!!!! Umm... Ok. I need to go away for a bit. But I'll be back to post more of my brilliant ideas later.
Heh. Nice analogy. But you forgot about my take on it:
Dr. Emmett Brown drives past the gas station in his modified DeLorean laughing wildly. He knows that his car does things that no other car currently does. Today he's going to visit the dawn of humanity, which essentially consists of some bearded proto-human walking out of cave and falling on his face. The proto-human's next action? Becoming Bill Gates roommate in college and growing up to be Steve Ballmer.;P
On that I certainly agree. I'm no fan of the commercial linux distros myself. I use Gentoo even with all the pain that's involved (only when you don't keep the box up to date which requires a ton of time that a lot of people don't have).
Huzzah! Let me rephrase the question: "Besides the obvious Microsoft, who is the second or third premium Windows vendor"? There is no law or rule that says there must be three or even two premium Linux vendors used by the IT industry. In the end, Novell Linux will likely get more help from MS to be the number one leader. RedHat might die off or just become so irrelevant that it won't matter. Whatever the case, the last thing Microsoft really wants to see is a strong and unified Linux community. The way I see this playing out is that businesses begin to tepidly embrace Novell Linux which increases their market share. The developers who work on high profile projects (like Gnome, KDE, MySQL, etc...) are more and more driven by the business needs than the original "itch" that needed scratching. So there are some forks on major projects... However, the non-premium versions that come out of these forks have a lot of difficulty in attracting talented developers as they are mostly busy working on the premium versions that were part of the old guard Linux camp. There are good developers who would work on some of the forks, but not as many as there were previously. Therefore the forks are buggier, more prone to security holes, and in general don't work as well as the MS blessed versions from Novell.
This is part of Microsoft's campaign against what they term "hobbiests". I use Linux both at work and at home and although I find the term hobbiest insulting, that is what people would probably consider me. I find the uses that I apply Linux to at home to be quite serious. Calling a professional IT guy who uses Linux at home for day-to-day stuff a hobbiest is akin to calling an electrician or plumber who does work on his house an amateur. The fallout that I see is that potentially in another four or five years, I may find it very hard to use Linux at home unless I want to buy into the commercially blessed versions. And if I do buy into them, I'll have a second rate Linux that makes Windows look good. (You know that MS won't allow any MS blessed Linux to outperform or outdo Windows in certain key arenas) If I continue to try and use the non-premium Linux distros I'll probably find that support for new hardware and functionality is just as bad as it was in the early days because the developer mindshare will not be there. At least that's what I'd term a worst case scenario.
In reality it probably won't be THAT bad, but it will hurt. Even though the code is free/open for many of these projects, I've seen what a lack or very low count of talented developers can do to slow down or kill an otherwise decent project. We all have. It's likely that I'll be able to use non-premium Linux at home in the future, but not without even more headaches and hassles than I experience today. The premium versions will likely offer a better experience but always at the expense of being a step or two behind Windows (which is not the current situation). MS is likely doing this because they see that Linux has already surpassed Windows on many fronts. It's more clever maneuvering from MS. If only the FOSS world could think that way sometimes...
I see that a definite split of "Premium Linux" vs. "Unsupported Linux" is coming soon to a vendor near you. That doesn't mean that Linux will die, it's just going to smell funny (possibly like pee).
I see you're not a follower of my previous rants. If you were you'd know that I assert that today's Republican party and conservative strongholds are "occupied". I might not agree with conservatives, but I know that true and rational conservatives don't agree with Bush's follies. Sadly there aren't many rational conservatives left for me to actually have a real discussion with. Instead there are all these foaming at the mouth "you're either with us or agin us" nutjobs who are not conservatives. They're just idiots. And they have coopted the conservative position and made it into a mockery. I have no problem cooperating with rational peopple even if I disagree with some of their approaches. I have a HUGE problem with the nationalist mentality here in U.S. that is a sign of the "me first" mentality that is all too common in modern conservative circles. I personally believe in a "me last" approach as it's the right way to live. I think even the old style conservative would agree with that.
The liberal moonbats are at it again. They're using all this "science" to provide us with "answers" about things which are essentially unknowable. And why? It's a vast liberal conspiracy that is meant to try and gain the hearts and minds of the weak willed and fey. But we modern conservatives are made of stern stuff!! We don't need "science" to tell us about the world around us. We use what's right in front of us: reality. If global warming WERE happening, which it isn't, it should be warmer outside today than it was in the past at this time of year. And even then, those liberals spin everything and flip-flop. You tell them that it's actually colder and they say that's a sign of global warming! What tricksters!! Well thankfully, the world has joined the conservative party and after the landslide win for Bush in 2004, it's obvious that things are NEVER going back. Don't believe in the lies that the liberals tell you or try to scare you with. It's purely scare tactics of a dying belief system. Instead, accept that as rugged individualists, we in the conservative parties will triumph over any adversity. We are strong. We are adaptable. Even IF global warming were happening WHICH it isn't, business would build special suits, vehicles and housing and create new materials to live on a hotter planet. The market will decide! And besides, my Enron stocks are way up there today. Thanks Cheney!:)
Hehehe... Who's the commie now UbuntuDupe!!!! Bwahahahahaha!!! I Win yet again! UbuntuDupe fails it!!! (If anyone can't tell UbuntuDupe and I had a really nasty romantic falling out)
No. You totally missed my point. Which is: I have NO interest in computers for business. There is no point to using them that way. To me computers are a creative tool for producing music, movies, images and software as expressions of the mind and soul. I don't care for any other use much. To others, this might seem alien. But to me, it is the only way. So what he offers has no appeal to me whatsoever. It might to some lame suit in a business though. That's fine. There's always got to be room for people who crave nothing but profit. Sadly.
Thanks for the warning. But I'm honestly not that worried. There is no escaping the fact that I need to work between 8:30AM and 5:00PM Monday through Friday. Tack on the drive time and I'm only home between 6:00PM and 7:30AM during the week. I don't "stay late" at work. And most of my at home work for the job happens after my daugher is asleep. She has a rigid bedtime schedule thanks to my wife. She must be in bed at 8:00PM sharp and she wakes up naturally between 6:30AM and 7:30AM most days. On the weekends she is literally with me every minute that she is awake because I DESIRE the extra time with her. I WANT to be with her all day even if it's exhausting because I don't have any option to see her more during the week. In other words, it's the best I can do. If I were in the corporate world I'd be far worse off. Thank goodness for non-profits.
My whole take on the wailing when I touch a laptop or computer is tempered by the fact that she reacts that way to ANYTHING that promises to take me away. My folks were over last week and when I walked to the door with them to say goodbye, my daughter flipped. I think she thought I was going to leave. No amount of reassuring her that I was just saying goodbye worked. But this is perfectly normal behavior for kids who love their parents. She is very attached to me, probably because I don't have much time with her during the week. Do I feel bad that I can't spend more time with her? Absolutely. I always worry that she will think I didn't spend enough time with her. But I don't see how I can unless I become suddenly rich or somehow successfully self employed. I have to work a regular job. There's no way around it.
As far as my wife goes. We have between 8:00PM and 11:00PM to ourselves. We spend a lot of that time talking, laughing, sometimes watching movies of favorite TV shows, screwing like single people, in general having a good time. We make the most of it because there really are no other options to get more time. My own personal time is after my wife goes to bed. I only need 4-6 hours of sleep a night. So most nights I stay up until 2:00AM maybe 3:00AM. That gives me a decent block of time to persue my interests every night. And actually the weekdays are easier since I'm not beat at the end of the day by playing with my daughter. She definitely tires me out on weekends and she's only two!
Another thing to note though... neither my wife nor I are extroverts. Socializing is annoying in general, but we both make the effort for our daughter in case she turns out to be an extrovert. My wife is better at it than I am and always has been. I've become fairly good at faking it mostly in my 20s. I recently found out that I rate as borderline autistic although that was an online poll (not an official test). But much of what I've about borderline autism rings true for me. Social interaction and figuring out how to respond appropriately has always been an intellectual excercise for me. So I admit that I am at a disadvantage to living in a social world since I can't comprehend the value or purpose in being social when it goes against everything that I feel internally. However, I get by enough that most people don't seem to notice anymore. My daughter is a different story however. She makes all sorts of feelings well up in me and I love spending as much time as possible with her. There's nothing better than seeing how happy she is made by even the simplest actions.
So your concern is welcome. Too many people don't think about these sorts of things. But I can guarantee that my daughter and wife are happy as I do bend over backwards for both of them and my wife does the same for me and my daughter. All too often I see too many people pass judgment on others without knowing the entire story. They tend to make the mistake of applying their own experiences to others which rarely fit. For example, I know many people personally who think they have really good approaches to life and all I see is a mess. They are miserable, u
To that I agree 100%. My wife and I saw something that your illustration brought to mind a few years ago. We were out on a date at a restaurant and a young 20-something couple walked in. Both of them were yapping away on their cell phones. They sat down and NEVER got off the phone through their entire meals. We both joked that maybe they liked their cell phones so much they were just talking to each other via the phones. But in reality I suspect they were both heavily involved in other calls while on a date! Just stay home for god's sake!!
Slashdot Mirror
People here on Slashdot in various countries make a connection with people in countries where services are offered. For example, I live in the U.S. I've quite like to see the programs from Channel 4 that they have available online. But that's currently U.K. only and is not likely to change. (I WANT to see Green Wing's Xmas Special) So, if someone in the U.K. is willing, we can establish private VPN connections between our machines and route specific traffic overseas via the VPN. Then it would be as if I was in the U.K. and the other person was in the U.S. for various services they may want to access here. Simple.
If there's juice in the system, people are going to be using it. I, personally hope that someone writes a Linux distro for it that will allow it to become a kickass gaming system. Oh wait...
Treating someone like a dog in BD/SM games will take on a whole new meaning. Just imagine hunting parties where the trackers are humans on all fours in leather gear with collars. ;P
...that they recast Matthew Broderick as the erstwhile teen again. Sure he's a bit grey behind the ears, but he's still got the right composure. Right? RIGHT?
Why the fuck does everyone want to be paid for every little thing these days? Sure, wholesale piracy is one thing. I disagree with the idea that people should be trading movies and music online with no restrictions at all. If you want an album, buy it. If you want software that costs something, buy it or learn to use free/open software. If you want to see a movie, pay to watch it in the theater or rent the DVD when it comes out. But, where this all falls apart is when someone quotes someone else online and that someone else feels they need payment for the quote. Or... someone uses a popular song as the music bed in their Youtube video and the entire video clip is only 25 seconds long or the quality is so poor that no one in their right mind would consider keeping it as something to put on their iPod. Or, someone edits together a bunch of clips from a popular movie to make a funny statement about something. These are all reasonable uses of copyrighted information that SHOULDN'T be charged for. If the industry had their way, rap music would have never happened (because it used previously recorded material) since many of the early rappers didn't have the money to pay for sample clearance. Everyone is being nickeled and dimed to death. Why? Why does it have to be this way. Whatever happened to the concept of fair use and encouraging people to build upon the works of others?
You missed the point entirely. With the super smooth graphics of Vista on desktop supercomputers, the hacker will be able to impress his friends with wicked screenshots of the hacked desktop themes he forced on unwilling users. "Oh ho!! So you think the "X" close widget is on the upper right of your window do you? We'll fix that... I'll just dig into Raster's Enlightement theme library and put it in the middle of the bottom of the window and make it a black button on a black background"! The sheer beauty of these hacks will cause females all over the world to drop their shorts and open wide.
Meanwhile the *nix weenie over there who is relaying two terabytes of spam per hour will still be a virgin.
It's GNU/Linux. Any hacker worth his salt doesn't want to bother with archaic OSes based on Unix. He wants the 1337 stylings of Windows Vista. No sense in rootkitting a *nix box. You can't do anything with a *nix box. But an army of zombie Vista PCs, now THAT is ULTIMATE POWER!
...after buying shit from Microsoft for years, their loyal customers have gained an acquired taste for brown.
I haven't really "bought in" to iTunes mainly because of the goofy jig I have to go through to get around the DRM. (Burn it to CD, then rip it to MP3) I'd rather order a used CD from Amazon which can be cheaper, plus I get the benefit of actually having the real album art in physical form, such as it is with CDs (I still miss the feel of a vinyl album sleeve). Ideally there SHOULD be a free/open album art format that the music industry appends to the music files. That way you have access to the album art, liner notes, etc... but NOT in a DRMed format and usable by ANY media player. The only downloadable music service I have used so far is emusic.com. The selection is mediocre at best, but I'm surprised by what they do have occasionally (I like obscure but world class artists like Ryuichi Sakamoto for instance). But the real key is that they are just unDRMed MP3 files. So I don't have to worry about not being able to use the files on Linux for example or having to go through some ridiculous conversion roller coaster. It looks like the only way I'll be able to use iTunes is either to install a legitimate licensed copy of Windows in a virtual machine, buy a Mac Mini, or bang my head against the wall working on getting Wine to run iTunes 7. And even then, the selection on iTunes, while different from emusic, is still not as big as the CD catalog on Amazon. So, for choice and non-DRM formats, CDs still rule the day. Not to mention, when I rip CDs, I have the option of ripping them to Ogg Vorbis which I prefer immensely to MP3 and which works quite well on my Rio Karma. ;)
I think it's really more a set of points on which I disagree with Microsoft:
Point 1. Computers are primarily business tools
My View: Computers are very flexible machines that can be used for nearly anything including business tools. Since my background is in the electronic music world, I would have to say that it's nearly impossible to make decent electronic music without computers and software. Microsoft didn't seem to think this was important until Windows XP came around. But by that time, users like me had already been using computers to do electronic music for about 20 years with Macs, Amigas, and Ataris.
Point 2. Anyone who doesn't use a computer for "standard" uses is a "hobbiest" which roughly translates to: "loser living in parent's basement who gets on Ballmer's nerves"
My View: Completely false. We don't go around calling professional carpenters, electricians and plumbers "amateurs" when they work on their stuff at home, do we? Then why should people who work in the tech sector who like having SANs, virtual machines, and heavy duty OSes at home have to be relegated to the "hobbiest" moniker? It's kind of insulting, isn't it? If they lose the attitude about people who like to push the technical envelope and let them have access to deeper parts of the Windows OS to do it with, they'll gain new friends.
Point 3. Revenue is more important than, well... anything else that Microsoft does.
My View: That's not the way it should be. Making money should always take a back seat to satisfying the customer first. Screw the stockholders. As long as their stocks aren't going down, they have no right to expect them to continue increasing. There's only so many people who will buy the products and pushing out stuff that really isn't much different than the previous version in terms of actual functionality and stability is not a good approach. Ever. There is such a thing as being reasonably profitable and it doesn't mean pounding your competitors into the ground.
Just a few points of contention for me. In general, I feel that I should be able to do whatever I want, whenever I want with my computers. No one should be able to limit me in any way as long as I'm not invading other people's systems and causing mischief. If I want to write a software based DVD player (with decryption) then I should be allowed to without worrying about goofy laws that try to make imaginitive thinking illegal.
True. However, I expect that the RIAA and the MPAA WANT this to be a nebulous result. They don't want clarity so that anyone even THINKING of using BitTorrent will be dissuaded from doing so. If it was clear that he was operating at a higher level in the BitTorrent tree, then this case wouldn't be very noteworthy. Especially if people in the know made it clear to the less technically inclined but piracy prone end-users.
...for a singularity fiction based Star Trek. These lamers just aren't going the right direction. Being a longtime Trek fan (I abhor the "Trekkie" moniker) I have to say that I believe I have the ULTIMATE Trek plot ever conceived. Much like their idea, it takes place in the future, but after the occurrence of singularity (the melding of machine and biological, virtual and reality, all that is good and pure and the cleansing of the dirty). But since everyone can live in any of various and simultaneously multiple existences in any way conceivable, all cast members are now female. Yes, female! Even if they're born male, they become fully functional females (ROWR!!!) with big cone bras. And they're also all lesbian until they encounter males. I also suggest that my show should have a rotating guest cast made up solely of contest winners, where the contest is to explain why you should be a permanent member of the Trek universe! (With the advanced ideas I have, I'm sure I'd win!) The prize, is of course to be on the show and to be a male character who encounters these singularity liberated lesbian cone bra federation women! ROWR!!!! Umm... Ok. I need to go away for a bit. But I'll be back to post more of my brilliant ideas later.
Heh. Nice analogy. But you forgot about my take on it:
;P
Dr. Emmett Brown drives past the gas station in his modified DeLorean laughing wildly. He knows that his car does things that no other car currently does. Today he's going to visit the dawn of humanity, which essentially consists of some bearded proto-human walking out of cave and falling on his face. The proto-human's next action? Becoming Bill Gates roommate in college and growing up to be Steve Ballmer.
On that I certainly agree. I'm no fan of the commercial linux distros myself. I use Gentoo even with all the pain that's involved (only when you don't keep the box up to date which requires a ton of time that a lot of people don't have).
Huzzah! Let me rephrase the question: "Besides the obvious Microsoft, who is the second or third premium Windows vendor"? There is no law or rule that says there must be three or even two premium Linux vendors used by the IT industry. In the end, Novell Linux will likely get more help from MS to be the number one leader. RedHat might die off or just become so irrelevant that it won't matter. Whatever the case, the last thing Microsoft really wants to see is a strong and unified Linux community. The way I see this playing out is that businesses begin to tepidly embrace Novell Linux which increases their market share. The developers who work on high profile projects (like Gnome, KDE, MySQL, etc...) are more and more driven by the business needs than the original "itch" that needed scratching. So there are some forks on major projects... However, the non-premium versions that come out of these forks have a lot of difficulty in attracting talented developers as they are mostly busy working on the premium versions that were part of the old guard Linux camp. There are good developers who would work on some of the forks, but not as many as there were previously. Therefore the forks are buggier, more prone to security holes, and in general don't work as well as the MS blessed versions from Novell.
This is part of Microsoft's campaign against what they term "hobbiests". I use Linux both at work and at home and although I find the term hobbiest insulting, that is what people would probably consider me. I find the uses that I apply Linux to at home to be quite serious. Calling a professional IT guy who uses Linux at home for day-to-day stuff a hobbiest is akin to calling an electrician or plumber who does work on his house an amateur. The fallout that I see is that potentially in another four or five years, I may find it very hard to use Linux at home unless I want to buy into the commercially blessed versions. And if I do buy into them, I'll have a second rate Linux that makes Windows look good. (You know that MS won't allow any MS blessed Linux to outperform or outdo Windows in certain key arenas) If I continue to try and use the non-premium Linux distros I'll probably find that support for new hardware and functionality is just as bad as it was in the early days because the developer mindshare will not be there. At least that's what I'd term a worst case scenario.
In reality it probably won't be THAT bad, but it will hurt. Even though the code is free/open for many of these projects, I've seen what a lack or very low count of talented developers can do to slow down or kill an otherwise decent project. We all have. It's likely that I'll be able to use non-premium Linux at home in the future, but not without even more headaches and hassles than I experience today. The premium versions will likely offer a better experience but always at the expense of being a step or two behind Windows (which is not the current situation). MS is likely doing this because they see that Linux has already surpassed Windows on many fronts. It's more clever maneuvering from MS. If only the FOSS world could think that way sometimes...
I see that a definite split of "Premium Linux" vs. "Unsupported Linux" is coming soon to a vendor near you. That doesn't mean that Linux will die, it's just going to smell funny (possibly like pee).
I see you're not a follower of my previous rants. If you were you'd know that I assert that today's Republican party and conservative strongholds are "occupied". I might not agree with conservatives, but I know that true and rational conservatives don't agree with Bush's follies. Sadly there aren't many rational conservatives left for me to actually have a real discussion with. Instead there are all these foaming at the mouth "you're either with us or agin us" nutjobs who are not conservatives. They're just idiots. And they have coopted the conservative position and made it into a mockery. I have no problem cooperating with rational peopple even if I disagree with some of their approaches. I have a HUGE problem with the nationalist mentality here in U.S. that is a sign of the "me first" mentality that is all too common in modern conservative circles. I personally believe in a "me last" approach as it's the right way to live. I think even the old style conservative would agree with that.
The liberal moonbats are at it again. They're using all this "science" to provide us with "answers" about things which are essentially unknowable. And why? It's a vast liberal conspiracy that is meant to try and gain the hearts and minds of the weak willed and fey. But we modern conservatives are made of stern stuff!! We don't need "science" to tell us about the world around us. We use what's right in front of us: reality. If global warming WERE happening, which it isn't, it should be warmer outside today than it was in the past at this time of year. And even then, those liberals spin everything and flip-flop. You tell them that it's actually colder and they say that's a sign of global warming! What tricksters!! Well thankfully, the world has joined the conservative party and after the landslide win for Bush in 2004, it's obvious that things are NEVER going back. Don't believe in the lies that the liberals tell you or try to scare you with. It's purely scare tactics of a dying belief system. Instead, accept that as rugged individualists, we in the conservative parties will triumph over any adversity. We are strong. We are adaptable. Even IF global warming were happening WHICH it isn't, business would build special suits, vehicles and housing and create new materials to live on a hotter planet. The market will decide! And besides, my Enron stocks are way up there today. Thanks Cheney! :)
Ah yes. I don't know which is sadder. The fact that you're nerdy enough to think that out loud. Or the fact that I'm right there with you. ;P
Hehehe... Who's the commie now UbuntuDupe!!!! Bwahahahahaha!!! I Win yet again! UbuntuDupe fails it!!! (If anyone can't tell UbuntuDupe and I had a really nasty romantic falling out)
Call me old fashioned. I'll stick with State Farm. Thanks for playing. Try again later.
...as long as the synthetic geckos aren't made into shill whores for low rent insurance companies.
No. You totally missed my point. Which is: I have NO interest in computers for business. There is no point to using them that way. To me computers are a creative tool for producing music, movies, images and software as expressions of the mind and soul. I don't care for any other use much. To others, this might seem alien. But to me, it is the only way. So what he offers has no appeal to me whatsoever. It might to some lame suit in a business though. That's fine. There's always got to be room for people who crave nothing but profit. Sadly.
Thanks for the warning. But I'm honestly not that worried. There is no escaping the fact that I need to work between 8:30AM and 5:00PM Monday through Friday. Tack on the drive time and I'm only home between 6:00PM and 7:30AM during the week. I don't "stay late" at work. And most of my at home work for the job happens after my daugher is asleep. She has a rigid bedtime schedule thanks to my wife. She must be in bed at 8:00PM sharp and she wakes up naturally between 6:30AM and 7:30AM most days. On the weekends she is literally with me every minute that she is awake because I DESIRE the extra time with her. I WANT to be with her all day even if it's exhausting because I don't have any option to see her more during the week. In other words, it's the best I can do. If I were in the corporate world I'd be far worse off. Thank goodness for non-profits.
My whole take on the wailing when I touch a laptop or computer is tempered by the fact that she reacts that way to ANYTHING that promises to take me away. My folks were over last week and when I walked to the door with them to say goodbye, my daughter flipped. I think she thought I was going to leave. No amount of reassuring her that I was just saying goodbye worked. But this is perfectly normal behavior for kids who love their parents. She is very attached to me, probably because I don't have much time with her during the week. Do I feel bad that I can't spend more time with her? Absolutely. I always worry that she will think I didn't spend enough time with her. But I don't see how I can unless I become suddenly rich or somehow successfully self employed. I have to work a regular job. There's no way around it.
As far as my wife goes. We have between 8:00PM and 11:00PM to ourselves. We spend a lot of that time talking, laughing, sometimes watching movies of favorite TV shows, screwing like single people, in general having a good time. We make the most of it because there really are no other options to get more time. My own personal time is after my wife goes to bed. I only need 4-6 hours of sleep a night. So most nights I stay up until 2:00AM maybe 3:00AM. That gives me a decent block of time to persue my interests every night. And actually the weekdays are easier since I'm not beat at the end of the day by playing with my daughter. She definitely tires me out on weekends and she's only two!
Another thing to note though... neither my wife nor I are extroverts. Socializing is annoying in general, but we both make the effort for our daughter in case she turns out to be an extrovert. My wife is better at it than I am and always has been. I've become fairly good at faking it mostly in my 20s. I recently found out that I rate as borderline autistic although that was an online poll (not an official test). But much of what I've about borderline autism rings true for me. Social interaction and figuring out how to respond appropriately has always been an intellectual excercise for me. So I admit that I am at a disadvantage to living in a social world since I can't comprehend the value or purpose in being social when it goes against everything that I feel internally. However, I get by enough that most people don't seem to notice anymore. My daughter is a different story however. She makes all sorts of feelings well up in me and I love spending as much time as possible with her. There's nothing better than seeing how happy she is made by even the simplest actions.
So your concern is welcome. Too many people don't think about these sorts of things. But I can guarantee that my daughter and wife are happy as I do bend over backwards for both of them and my wife does the same for me and my daughter. All too often I see too many people pass judgment on others without knowing the entire story. They tend to make the mistake of applying their own experiences to others which rarely fit. For example, I know many people personally who think they have really good approaches to life and all I see is a mess. They are miserable, u
To that I agree 100%. My wife and I saw something that your illustration brought to mind a few years ago. We were out on a date at a restaurant and a young 20-something couple walked in. Both of them were yapping away on their cell phones. They sat down and NEVER got off the phone through their entire meals. We both joked that maybe they liked their cell phones so much they were just talking to each other via the phones. But in reality I suspect they were both heavily involved in other calls while on a date! Just stay home for god's sake!!