The number of people who *cannot* learn how to do step A by reading the line, "Do step A by putting the thing in the place with the other thing" are few and far between. There are certainly not enough of them to invalidate my previous point.
I would bet that most of the people you think can't learn by reading simply haven't learned how to do it (or are too lazy.. after all, why bother when some geek will tell you if you scream loudly and long enough). That sounds circular, but it's not.
Teaching someone to automatically go for the README or the printed manual, and how to find what they're looking for in it, will provide that person with far more long-term benefits than holding their hand and walking them through everything every time.
It's time to stop treating people like they all have massive learning disabilities. Humanity isn't that collectively retarded - we made it past cuneiform and heiroglyphics, after all.
RTFM combats the perpetual 'how do i rightclick' syndrome. It's more of a defensive measure than meanness. And it's usually invoked against truly stupid or questions with patently obvious answers. (Yes, there actually are such things as stupid questions, and you can in fact occasionally learn things by reading the documentation first)
Otherwise, why bother with documentation at all? That's what it's there for, as an always-available passive help system. Circumventing that system doesn't do the learning party any good.
Your attitude is just as elitist and arrogant as those to which you claim to be superior.
You want news and weather and bite-sized breakfast chit-chat material? Try yahoo.com. Or msnbc.com. The cool thing about having more than one website available on the Internet is that you can open them in separate browser windows, and (here's the neat part) read multiple sites at the same time.
Do you always insult people for their personal preferences, likes, dislikes, and habits, and at the same time expect them to agree with you and do what you want? Reality doesn't actually work that way, but I suppose you'll find that out soon enough.
Inform your contacts of your new email address if you have one. Any message sent to your Mac.com Email address after the account expiration date will bounce back to the sender. "
Here on Earth we don't call a statement like that a 'guess'.
Why the hell is everything prefixed by 'My' these days? What's the point of it? Every profile on a Windows installation has its own 'My Documents' folder, making the pronoun FUCKING USELESS. Call it 'Documents' and be done with it. It's just retarded to have to say 'Open your My Documents folder' or 'It's in my My Documents folder'..
A tip to all you software developers who think having 'My' in their program somewhere would be cute - leave the pronouns alone, fuckwits. There are a whole lot of you on Sourceforge. Go fuck yourselves and take your mental retardation with you.
My Music, My Videos, My Pictures, My Man, My, My, My, FUCK! MY BOOT IN YOUR GODDAMN TEETH!
"To be honest, with the difficulties Linux has faced, I'm amazed it's here at all."
The above statement assumes that the fate of Linux is tied to its market performance. This is a fallacy - only the fates of corporations such as Red Hat, Debian, and SuSE are tied to market performance and user acceptance. GNU and Linux are not dependent on revenue or market share for their continued existence.
The fundamental nature and reason for existence of GNU/Linux:
It was created by *its* users. It was not created for 'the masses'. It was built up by people who needed to get something done, who had an itch that needed scratching. If it helps someone else, great.. if it doesn't, it may help in the future if requests are framed politely.
If you can't stand to use it.... don't. You don't have to use it, and no one is going to hit you if you don't. It's that simple. Sputter about elitism all you want, that statement is the simple truth.
Linux will not 'die' if it is not commercially successful. There's no bankruptcy proceedings in the works for the source code. It's not going away. Predict doom and gloom all you want - sure, the companies known as Red Hat and Debian might go away, no big loss there - but Linux and GNU will remain available and usable and updatable by those willing to roll their own code or collaborate with people who can, totally untouched by 'business affairs'.
It is easy. I did it. Refused to say the pledge in junior high and high school and thereafter, because what it really is, is a form of worship - saying the pledge is worshipping the flag, and my beliefs precluded that. Got some weird looks, and some contempt, and then people quit giving a damn about it. I didn't sue anyone, I didn't even get offended that others were saying it. It's just not that big a deal.
Face it, if you can't even stand up for what you believe in, you can't expect anyone to take you seriously later on when you start bitching about being infringed upon.
All you angry types need to consider not just what the guv'mint might be teaching your kids, but also what your children are learning from *your* reaction to stuff like this - they're learning that everything can be solved with harsh words and lawsuits and hatefulness. Is that what you want?
Linux was not created to be competitive with anything - it was created to serve the needs of its creators. It still does that, and very well. Any other arguments about usability and such should be taken up with the people who commercialized it - Red Hat, Caldera, SuSE, etc.
And I find your assertion that the only people who ever manage to get work done are end users to be totally hilarious and a bald-faced lie. Users don't want to do work - in the end, they want their work done *for* them, which Linux will not do. You actually have to use some brain cells to get something done with Linux. Oh, the horrors!
All the scientists and engineers who agree with this article *must* stop using these obviously non-useful and pathetically convoluted software tools or risk being kicked in the... knees for being beef-witted hypocrites.
HTML doesn't care and won't catch on that you forgot a close tag, it'll happily format the page *exactly* the way you tell it, even if it's not what you intended...
Bug? Heh, yeah, must be, cos our Fearless Slashdot Article Editors certainly wouldn't make a mistake like that!
Yeah, instead of having a government that takes away your property and money because you might be a criminal, lets trade that for a government that takes away your property and money because it believes it's more intellectually equipped to use them wisely than you are.
Guess what, skippy? Communist governments are comprised of human beings too, with all their prejudices, irrationalities, and corruption. You think giving *absolute* power to a bunch of goobers is gonna help? Changing the political label changes nothing. NOTHING.
At least the US makes its politicians run around like little circus monkeys in order to do what they do. At least there's some entertainment!
Oh yeah, one more thing. When You OverCapitalize And Make Up Words (corporatist? haha) In Your Sentences You Look Like A Person Who Needs A Gimmick To Distract The Reader(TM) From Lack Of Substance.
Do please stay on the Continent. You can't have America's resources, no matter how much you covet them.
Some weirdo wants to sling dogshit at a canvas and call it art, that's fine, but he has no right to expect anyone else but himself to finance it. None whatsoever.
Tell ya what, you stay out of my wallet, and I'll stay out of your house. I bet you've got some really nice stuff in there that could be used to fund some damn thing or another... what? It's *yours* and I can't take it, you say? Well, well.. imagine that. Oh well, too bad you got all the guns banned, or you might have been able to stop me from taking it...
Nice & subtle changing of subject there - sure, I'll bump the lure...
I already addressed this point, anyway. Yes, for at least one person, it really is 'good to start with'. It's this guy's personal belief and desire that urged him to put up that link to Free Tibet instead of China, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, etc etc etc. Perhaps he's got Tibetan relatives... only Mr. Tonneau knows exactly why.
What this guy does, in politics and in his coding efforts, are his own business, and neither you nor I nor anyone else in the world has any right to demand that he spend his free time otherwise.
May be, if you're so passionate about the causes of those other countries (and you do seem to be - which is cool.. I'm not deriding you for *that*, but consider this fellow has similar passions and ideas about freedom, just like you), you should direct your own energies into what you so noisily demand of others.
Besides, if you want to change his mind about Tibet, you're arguing with the wrong person.. and if you *do* debate with him about it, consider that deliberately misinterpreting what someone says is not the best way to persuade someone to listen to what you say, even if you *are* right.
Now, since I've said everything I intend to say about both of your topically-challenged posts, I suggest that if you have any more soapboxing to do, you should take it up with either Mr. Tonneau or/dev/null...
Slashdot Mirror
The number of people who *cannot* learn how to do step A by reading the line, "Do step A by putting the thing in the place with the other thing" are few and far between. There are certainly not enough of them to invalidate my previous point.
I would bet that most of the people you think can't learn by reading simply haven't learned how to do it (or are too lazy.. after all, why bother when some geek will tell you if you scream loudly and long enough). That sounds circular, but it's not.
Teaching someone to automatically go for the README or the printed manual, and how to find what they're looking for in it, will provide that person with far more long-term benefits than holding their hand and walking them through everything every time.
It's time to stop treating people like they all have massive learning disabilities. Humanity isn't that collectively retarded - we made it past cuneiform and heiroglyphics, after all.
I got mine from this place, but I'm sure pricewatch.com will get you a ton of others...
RTFM combats the perpetual 'how do i rightclick' syndrome. It's more of a defensive measure than meanness. And it's usually invoked against truly stupid or questions with patently obvious answers. (Yes, there actually are such things as stupid questions, and you can in fact occasionally learn things by reading the documentation first)
Otherwise, why bother with documentation at all? That's what it's there for, as an always-available passive help system. Circumventing that system doesn't do the learning party any good.
You want news and weather and bite-sized breakfast chit-chat material? Try yahoo.com. Or msnbc.com. The cool thing about having more than one website available on the Internet is that you can open them in separate browser windows, and (here's the neat part) read multiple sites at the same time.
Do you always insult people for their personal preferences, likes, dislikes, and habits, and at the same time expect them to agree with you and do what you want? Reality doesn't actually work that way, but I suppose you'll find that out soon enough.
"Email address
Inform your contacts of your new email address if you have one. Any message sent to your Mac.com Email address after the account expiration date will bounce back to the sender. "
Here on Earth we don't call a statement like that a 'guess'.
$40 for a one-time charge, maybe, but certainly not annually... And that's *if* you didn't get burn software bundled with the drive.
Ya know, too much hatred is just as bad as too much greed.. don't let it burn you up.
Why the hell is everything prefixed by 'My' these days? What's the point of it? Every profile on a Windows installation has its own 'My Documents' folder, making the pronoun FUCKING USELESS. Call it 'Documents' and be done with it. It's just retarded to have to say 'Open your My Documents folder' or 'It's in my My Documents folder'..
A tip to all you software developers who think having 'My' in their program somewhere would be cute - leave the pronouns alone, fuckwits. There are a whole lot of you on Sourceforge. Go fuck yourselves and take your mental retardation with you.
My Music, My Videos, My Pictures, My Man, My, My, My, FUCK! MY BOOT IN YOUR GODDAMN TEETH!
Microsoft can suck My Ass.
Postmodernism is inefficient... use Getmodernism instead.
Good. You shouldn't be driving that goddamn fast in a Duh-burban anyway.
Sounds like you're gonna be up for a Darwin Award soon - just try not to take any non-family members out with you when you fireball that monstrosity.
"To be honest, with the difficulties Linux has faced, I'm amazed it's here at all."
The above statement assumes that the fate of Linux is tied to its market performance. This is a fallacy - only the fates of corporations such as Red Hat, Debian, and SuSE are tied to market performance and user acceptance. GNU and Linux are not dependent on revenue or market share for their continued existence.
The fundamental nature and reason for existence of GNU/Linux:
It was created by *its* users. It was not created for 'the masses'. It was built up by people who needed to get something done, who had an itch that needed scratching. If it helps someone else, great.. if it doesn't, it may help in the future if requests are framed politely.
If you can't stand to use it.... don't. You don't have to use it, and no one is going to hit you if you don't. It's that simple. Sputter about elitism all you want, that statement is the simple truth.
Linux will not 'die' if it is not commercially successful. There's no bankruptcy proceedings in the works for the source code. It's not going away. Predict doom and gloom all you want - sure, the companies known as Red Hat and Debian might go away, no big loss there - but Linux and GNU will remain available and usable and updatable by those willing to roll their own code or collaborate with people who can, totally untouched by 'business affairs'.
It is easy. I did it. Refused to say the pledge in junior high and high school and thereafter, because what it really is, is a form of worship - saying the pledge is worshipping the flag, and my beliefs precluded that. Got some weird looks, and some contempt, and then people quit giving a damn about it. I didn't sue anyone, I didn't even get offended that others were saying it. It's just not that big a deal.
Face it, if you can't even stand up for what you believe in, you can't expect anyone to take you seriously later on when you start bitching about being infringed upon.
All you angry types need to consider not just what the guv'mint might be teaching your kids, but also what your children are learning from *your* reaction to stuff like this - they're learning that everything can be solved with harsh words and lawsuits and hatefulness. Is that what you want?
> Most hate having to read anything before using a program.
God forbid someone should have to *learn something* !GASP!
I doubt it. They're not even doing anything about the IRA, why would they care about a whiny little railway company?
They've been at it since before 96.. AlphaWorlds, anyone? Try 95, or earlier..
Adrenaline Vault had a big construct on one of their worlds, was how I found the online gaming community..
So, if it learns as it goes, if I tell it to go fuck itself enough times, it will? Or will it get pissed and start lying and giving false info? =)
Linux was not created to be competitive with anything - it was created to serve the needs of its creators. It still does that, and very well. Any other arguments about usability and such should be taken up with the people who commercialized it - Red Hat, Caldera, SuSE, etc.
And I find your assertion that the only people who ever manage to get work done are end users to be totally hilarious and a bald-faced lie. Users don't want to do work - in the end, they want their work done *for* them, which Linux will not do. You actually have to use some brain cells to get something done with Linux. Oh, the horrors!
Attention:
... knees for being beef-witted hypocrites.
All the scientists and engineers who agree with this article *must* stop using these obviously non-useful and pathetically convoluted software tools or risk being kicked in the
Have fun with your pencils and telephones.
HTML doesn't care and won't catch on that you forgot a close tag, it'll happily format the page *exactly* the way you tell it, even if it's not what you intended...
Bug? Heh, yeah, must be, cos our Fearless Slashdot Article Editors certainly wouldn't make a mistake like that!
Heh, unfortunately, no real h4x0r would have that much command of spelling and grammar. =)
Well, I dunno about 'Insightful', but it sure the hell is 'Funny'.. =)
Yeah, instead of having a government that takes away your property and money because you might be a criminal, lets trade that for a government that takes away your property and money because it believes it's more intellectually equipped to use them wisely than you are.
Guess what, skippy? Communist governments are comprised of human beings too, with all their prejudices, irrationalities, and corruption. You think giving *absolute* power to a bunch of goobers is gonna help? Changing the political label changes nothing. NOTHING.
At least the US makes its politicians run around like little circus monkeys in order to do what they do. At least there's some entertainment!
Oh yeah, one more thing. When You OverCapitalize And Make Up Words (corporatist? haha) In Your Sentences You Look Like A Person Who Needs A Gimmick To Distract The Reader(TM) From Lack Of Substance.
Do please stay on the Continent. You can't have America's resources, no matter how much you covet them.
Hehe, it's not like they were unfamiliar with the process. Besides, the other 49 States did just fine, as they always have.
Mebbe we should consider having Florida replaced instead. That would stop the perpetual copyright length extensions too...
Some weirdo wants to sling dogshit at a canvas and call it art, that's fine, but he has no right to expect anyone else but himself to finance it. None whatsoever.
Tell ya what, you stay out of my wallet, and I'll stay out of your house. I bet you've got some really nice stuff in there that could be used to fund some damn thing or another... what? It's *yours* and I can't take it, you say? Well, well.. imagine that. Oh well, too bad you got all the guns banned, or you might have been able to stop me from taking it...
Nice & subtle changing of subject there - sure, I'll bump the lure...
/dev/null...
I already addressed this point, anyway. Yes, for at least one person, it really is 'good to start with'. It's this guy's personal belief and desire that urged him to put up that link to Free Tibet instead of China, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, etc etc etc. Perhaps he's got Tibetan relatives... only Mr. Tonneau knows exactly why.
What this guy does, in politics and in his coding efforts, are his own business, and neither you nor I nor anyone else in the world has any right to demand that he spend his free time otherwise.
May be, if you're so passionate about the causes of those other countries (and you do seem to be - which is cool.. I'm not deriding you for *that*, but consider this fellow has similar passions and ideas about freedom, just like you), you should direct your own energies into what you so noisily demand of others.
Besides, if you want to change his mind about Tibet, you're arguing with the wrong person.. and if you *do* debate with him about it, consider that deliberately misinterpreting what someone says is not the best way to persuade someone to listen to what you say, even if you *are* right.
Now, since I've said everything I intend to say about both of your topically-challenged posts, I suggest that if you have any more soapboxing to do, you should take it up with either Mr. Tonneau or