I agree - for the most part, I think Slashdot moderation works, but Apple stories are the one place I have to view at -1 to make any sense of it, because so many perfectly reasonable posts are modded down just because they don't praise Apple.
(Though I do wonder if this has started to change - certainly with the Iphone, I've noticed that criticism of Apple seems a lot more acceptable, and perhaps this will spread into articles about Apple more generally?)
When was the last time you enjoyed using windows? When was the last time you enjoyed using KDE/Gnome/Linux? Now when was the last time you enjoyed using your mac/ipod/iphone?
for me about 5 minutes ago as i was working a personal web site project and had 5 safari, two firefox, 3 finder, 5 text editor, 2 ftp app
And I can format 4 floppy disks at once!
As you note anyone can do the things you list. But you assert we don't enjoy it. Wrong. We do - we just don't go one about it as if we're the only ones who can do it. I don't need an Apple user to tell me whether I enjoy it or not.
I enjoy using my Windows machines often, such as when I'm doing 3D programming, or watching a video on my laptop in bed when the video in question is stored on my desktop.
I enjoy using my non-iphone lots, such as when I play music on it, or browse the web effortlessly on it - things which Iphone users now go on about, but I was doing it years earlier on a much cheaper phone. I didn't post about it on Slashdot because I assumed it was old news even then, but evidently I was wrong.
This is a geek site. I suspect you'll find that most people here enjoy using computers.
Agreed - it also strikes me as terribly 80s to be (presumably) trying to represent the PC with an IBM logo. Yeah, I know the history, but how many people have a PC from IBM? I can't remember the last time I even saw one - PCs have changed enough that the association is no longer there (just as Macs have changed enough that they now use the same hardware technology anyway).
How about other companies' logos such as Intel, Nvidia, Microsoft, and so on?
Your body, like anything else you owned when you were alive, should be dealt with by your will. If you decide to give your dead body to a family member, and he decides to sell it for parts so be it. You should also be able to specify that your body be sold for parts, and the proceeds sent somewhere of your choice.
I agree - and the fact this isn't possible demonstrates the inconsistency in the law. The argument that body snatching should be illegal because people don't consent doesn't hold up, because the law does not acknowledge that people own their own bodies.
This applies to everything from consenting to injury inflicted upon you (where, at least in the UK, the courts can decide that your consent isn't valid, and even sentence you to prison for your own body being harmed), to what happens after death, such as the examples you describe, or consenting to - well, I won't type it now, but I'm sure you can imagine a non-work-safe example that is illegal in many countries, even if the person consented to it when alive.
The law at the moment is a hodgepodge of "You have no rights over your body, even when you're alive, but we'll criminalise things that we think are disgusting, or if enough people have religious objections to it".
Either the law should be consistent that people don't have a right to their bodies after death - in which case, start making decisions of their use based on evidence rather than religion. Or properly grant people rights of consent over their own bodies, including after death.
If you could get software free from company 'A', and company 'B' was charging $10k for the same software, then you would clearly say that company 'B' was trying to charge an unfair price. However if company 'A' didn't give the software away for free but charged the going rate of $10k, then you would say the price was fair. So I'd say it works both ways - to prevent over and undercharging.
So can you give me an example where charging less is "unfair"?
I release what I create to my company with no restrictions as that is what I am paid to do.
Exactly, that's what you're paid to do. Your contract presumably requires you to assign copyright to them anyway. Open source developers don't insist that what they write for their companies is open source, so this is not relevant to the original point.
My question is, if you release software that you (not your company) own the copyright to, do you place any restrictions on it? If you don't write code except for your company, I don't think you're in a position to criticise open source developers.
I could also rephrase the question by asking if your company (assuming it's a software company) places restrictions on software it releases, or do they release everything as freely distributable with no restrictions whatsoever?
think about the living who receive bone implants from an AIDS victim.
TFA is talking uses for medical purposes such as training surgeons. In fact, TFA specifically mentions that people who are unsuitable for organ donations due to disease may still be useful for this purpose.
The whole point of sending robots is that they are cheaper and more expendable to send than humans, thus they are good for the early scouting missions. But if humans aren't eventually going, what is the freaking point?
And who's to say we can't send robots now (early scouting missions), and then send humans later (eventually)?
A ban doesn't have to last for ever - they could change their decision, you know, just like they are considering now.
That wasn't the argument being made - I read the point as being that even if robots can do the job just as well, it is still better to send humans because they will need to go there eventually anyway: "if humans aren't eventually going, what is the freaking point?"
That robots might not be able to do scientific jobs as efficiently as humans is a separate issue, that is a matter for debate.
As a professional engineer, part of my oath was that I would charge a fair fee for my services. Therefore giving software I developed away for free is contrary to the guidelines of the profession I swore to uphold.
You are confusing free as in speech with free as in beer. You can release your software freely (as in speech), but still charge a fee if your "oath" requires it.
(And I'd say it's contrary to the guidelines of your oath, not the profession - not all of us in the profession subscribe to that idea. And to be honest, I'd assume the spirit was to prevent overcharging, and not to insist that you must charge! Also it would be reasonable to say that giving away software is a fair price.)
Regarding your later comment:
If someone wants to create open source software for whatever reason, that's fine but I don't believe they have the right to dictate what anyone else does with it later.
Does this mean that you, as a professional engineer, release everything as freely distributable with no restrictions whatsoever?
Firefox: If places don't allow multiple browsers, thats their own fault. Just stupid.
It's still a valid point though, we don't know in how many cases the "unauthorised software" is things like software. The claim is that the guy using Firefox is posing a risk to the network, whilst the guy using IE and Outlook poses no risk at all...
Backing a complete ban on smacking I.e. apparently parents are no longer fit to decide how to raise their own child.
I mean Liberty, not the NSPCC (I dislike the latter charity for my own reasons, too, as it happens.) The NSPCC favoured a complete ban I believe, but I can't find any reference to Liberty?
(And on that note, I'm not in favour of a complete ban on smacking, however, that is clearly not "I.e.". The Government intervenes in all sorts of cases, and if it intervened in cases of assaulting a child, this doesn't mean they are telling parents how to raise their child in other cases, it only applies to smacking. As I say, I'm not in favour of a complete ban either, mainly because it would be unenforceable, but the debate is not helped by trying to distort the argument into something else.)
Honestly, if they are interested purely in solving crimes, then they are acting in the best interest of their objective. The grandfather post is dead-on. It IS the politicians jobs to decide what is legal or illegal.
Of course it's the politician's job ultimately, I don't dispute that. But I hope that any police officer in a position of power to give evidence to the Government should do so objectively, and not with a mindset of "Let's lock up as many people as we can".
One of the criticisms is the risk of false positives, and I would say that solving the crime should imply getting the _right_ person, and not simply closing the case with anyone they can pin the evidence on. And even if it is in the best interest of their objective - sure they can say so, but that doesn't mean they should be lobbying for it without considering the wider implications and consequences.
As I say - a programmer's job is so much easier when they can close bug reports without fixing them, or redefine the bug as a "feature". That doesn't mean I would expect us to advocate that.
"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."
Oh dear - I guess the mod missed the obvious quote. I even put in quotation marks, to indicate that it was a quote.
But this proves an interesting point - no one would be modded flamebait for say, referring to the nastiness of Greek Gods, Elves, the Jewish Golem or Chinese dragons, especially when examples of such nastiness can be demonstrated with the original texts. What is it about belief in the God of the Old Testament that makes it beyond criticism or making fun of?
Oh, we protest - the most notable example is probably the No2ID Campaign. The problem is that protesting doesn't stop these things from happening.
That's no different to the US - how come restrictions of civil liberties still happen there? You have "outrage", but that doesn't stop all the new laws either.
To be fair to the Police, that is their job! They should be advocating things that will make their job easier
True, but I would also hope that the police take an objective rather than selfish viewpoint on this - they should advocate what they think is best, rather than what makes life easier for them personally.
E.g., I'm sure a programmer's life would be easier if they didn't have to fix any bugs, and could ignore what customers want. And I'm sure a lot of them do that. But it would be silly for them to advocate that as a serious suggestion.
"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."
Nevermind what his followers have done; God is certainly my favourite monster!
Really? You'll still be able to buy single (or multiple) trip tickets for cash, surely?
Although note that the cash tickets are now much more expensive, and they keep increasing the price (currently £4 for a single stop in zone 1, compared with £1.50 on the Oyster).
They even have the cheek to advertise "Get the Oyster card, it's cheaper!" when actually it's the single tickets that have been increased in price, rather than the Oyster card prices being reduced.
Thankfully you can at least use an Oyster card anonymously - just don't register it, and top it up with cash all the time. Although this means you can't buy monthly or longer tickets.
(I've also heard that in order to get your £3 deposit back, you need to supply identification, though I can't find a reference for this.)
I used both Win2k and linux at one jobe - guess which one crashed ore often, and refused to install on new hardware - Win2k. Getting a new network card to work under linux was a matter of copying a few lines of code, editing 1 identifier, and recompiling. Getting Win2k to run for more than a few minutes involved having to look for the latest service pack, and installing it, then moving the hard drive back to the original machine.
And you are touting Linux as better, as you "only" have to edit lines of code, as opposed to downloading an update? See, this is why Linux will not be ready for the desktop. It might be fine for people who love Linux, and there's nothing wrong with that - but even computer geeks like myself have no time to learn what lines of code I need to edit to run the operating system - my computer interests lie elsewhere, such as coding and actually using the damn computer. A computer newbie has no chance.
XP? A friend showed me his XP box and bragged about how much more stable it would be than Win9x - I opened up explorer and within 10 seconds the machine blue-screened.
What were you doing?
My own experience: My work machine running 2000 and then XP has never crashed. The only time my home machines have ever crashed was when I was doing OpenGL programming and I've just crashed the GPU (I'm not sure how Linux would cope with that?)
I guess machines will vary, but it's not clear that one OS is better; anecdotes are not evidence.
it comes from a company that still engages in lies, bribes, and fud
Yes Microsoft suck. We're discussing operating systems, not companies. I'd love for a non-Microsoft OS (and non-Apple, before anyone suggests it - I find Apple as a company worse than Microsoft), and that's why I bent over backwards to give Linux a chance, trying multiple distributions on different hardware. But, for me, it just isn't up to the job even for basic usage.
Curiously this is the reason that I don't use Linux - I tried it, and it just wasn't fun. Fun to me isn't having to tinker with scripts and files because something fundamental won't work (this was a few years ago - maybe finally things have improved?)
For his reasons "Linux gives you complete control" - so is it really possible to delete a file whilst another program is reading/writing it? And if so, is that a good thing?
Just out of curiosity, have you ever tried to install XP (or -- gahhh -- Vista) on a bare machine, just to compare it against Fedora?
I've installed Windows 2000 on a bare machine, and found it straightforward as a newbie (even the dreaded Windows 98 was easy). Every distribution of Linux I tried had one trouble or another, from odd flickering pixels, to only supporting a resolution of 320x200, to not including GNU C.
This was a few years ago, so perhaps things have finally changed.
I hate Microsoft. I openly admit it. I have earned the right to hate them, having put up with their crap products, misleading advertising, outright lies, etc. In other words, I'm a formerMS-DOS and Win3x / Win9x user.
But is it fair to judge Microsoft on previous versions of their products?
I hated those products too - in those days, I was using the Amiga. When I switched to the PC, I still hated Windows 98, and I tried Linux, but found it had too many of the same things that I hated DOS for (e.g., having to use the command line, the fact that the GUI was added as an afterthought, etc - this was how it was back in 1999-2000, at least, when I tried it). But things changed when I switched - to Windows 2000. I had to admit that Microsoft finally had a decent operating system, that didn't have any of the problems of DOS/Win9x.
You mention your sister with an Imac - if we judged OS X based on classic MacOS, we would write it off as a joke. But thankfully, OS X is a completely different OS, and one that's greatly improved to what Apple were using before.
I do wonder sometimes how many bad perceptions of Windows today are based on the previous OS with the same name. Perhaps next time there's a story on OS X, I should ridicule it for not even supporting multitasking, that would be fair, right?
That might be true in some contexts, but not others. Try being a US Politician who criticises Christianity, versus one who criticises Scientology. Consider the support for teaching Creationism in schools, versus the support for teaching Scientology beliefs as fact in school. Consider the stigma (especially in the US) of identifying as an atheist, versus someone who doesn't believe in Xenu. Consider the controversy that in the US the pledge shouldn't have included "under god", whilst only a crackpot would suggest it should be reworded to suit Scientologists. Consider in the UK that atheists arguing against prayers in state schools are labelled as being un-British and wanting to destroy religion, yet it is accepted to criticise Scientology, even when they go nowhere near schools with young children. Consider that most of the arguments against people criticising Scientology apply to all religions ("It's a religion, you can't criticise their beliefs!")
What you are referring to is the reaction of the believers themselves - but amongst the general population, criticising and ridiculing Scientology seems far more acceptable than doing so for Christianity.
And although they are a minority of Christians as a whole (though not necessarily fewer that Scientologists in absolute numbers), there are (at least here in the UK) Christian organisations that will get offended over perceived threats when you offend their religion, and even try to make legal threats against you.
We still have blasphemy laws in the UK too (solely for Christianity), though thankfully the Government now looks like it is finally going to repeal them.
People refer to it as a dead law anyway, but it's not clear that anything's happened since it was last used (in the 70s) that would mean it's now dead - we're not talking one of those laws that hasn't been used in centuries. Also, people are still today using it to try to bring prosecutions against people (e.g., against the BBC for showing Jerry Springer The Opera) so there are issues such as the cost of legal defence, and the chilling effect where threat of prosecution causes people to self-censor.
Without God, you must explain moral codes in practical terms.
Even with a belief in God, you must still explain moral codes. Why is it that a religion says stealing is wrong, but other things aren't wrong? Why is it that all these religions which all supposedly base their morality on God come up with sometimes completely different answers? Why is it when someone bases their morals on the Bible, they cherry pick (so homosexuality is wrong, but they don't stone people to death for working on Sunday)?
In all cases, a person must have some method - independent of the concept of God - of judging right from wrong.
"God says so" isn't an explanation.
Now sure, I see your point that religion can be used to control people with little room for negotiation. The flaw is however is that those in charge of the religion are just as fallable as those people you are trying to control.
Yes, without religion an individual might decide through reason and evidence that perhaps working on Sunday shouldn't be punishable by death. But with religion, that individual can reach a position of authority, and declare whatever he likes to be wrong because that's what God supposedly says. God is far from non-negotiable - on the contrary, people not only argue with it, they outright declare for themselves what God supposedly thinks.
We now have a system to keep the population in control - it's called the law, and we also allow people to debate what those laws should be based on reason and evidence. The problem is that religion sticks around like a sore thumb, allowing people to support or challenge laws simply based on what they claim their religion says.
Given how common violence and murder was in the past, it's not clear religion did a better job. The rise of secularism in places like Europe has not been accompanied by a rise in crime.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree - for the most part, I think Slashdot moderation works, but Apple stories are the one place I have to view at -1 to make any sense of it, because so many perfectly reasonable posts are modded down just because they don't praise Apple.
(Though I do wonder if this has started to change - certainly with the Iphone, I've noticed that criticism of Apple seems a lot more acceptable, and perhaps this will spread into articles about Apple more generally?)
When was the last time you enjoyed using windows? When was the last time you enjoyed using KDE/Gnome/Linux? Now when was the last time you enjoyed using your mac/ipod/iphone?
for me about 5 minutes ago as i was working a personal web site project and had 5 safari, two firefox, 3 finder, 5 text editor, 2 ftp app
And I can format 4 floppy disks at once!
As you note anyone can do the things you list. But you assert we don't enjoy it. Wrong. We do - we just don't go one about it as if we're the only ones who can do it. I don't need an Apple user to tell me whether I enjoy it or not.
I enjoy using my Windows machines often, such as when I'm doing 3D programming, or watching a video on my laptop in bed when the video in question is stored on my desktop.
I enjoy using my non-iphone lots, such as when I play music on it, or browse the web effortlessly on it - things which Iphone users now go on about, but I was doing it years earlier on a much cheaper phone. I didn't post about it on Slashdot because I assumed it was old news even then, but evidently I was wrong.
This is a geek site. I suspect you'll find that most people here enjoy using computers.
Agreed - it also strikes me as terribly 80s to be (presumably) trying to represent the PC with an IBM logo. Yeah, I know the history, but how many people have a PC from IBM? I can't remember the last time I even saw one - PCs have changed enough that the association is no longer there (just as Macs have changed enough that they now use the same hardware technology anyway).
How about other companies' logos such as Intel, Nvidia, Microsoft, and so on?
Your body, like anything else you owned when you were alive, should be dealt with by your will. If you decide to give your dead body to a family member, and he decides to sell it for parts so be it. You should also be able to specify that your body be sold for parts, and the proceeds sent somewhere of your choice.
I agree - and the fact this isn't possible demonstrates the inconsistency in the law. The argument that body snatching should be illegal because people don't consent doesn't hold up, because the law does not acknowledge that people own their own bodies.
This applies to everything from consenting to injury inflicted upon you (where, at least in the UK, the courts can decide that your consent isn't valid, and even sentence you to prison for your own body being harmed), to what happens after death, such as the examples you describe, or consenting to - well, I won't type it now, but I'm sure you can imagine a non-work-safe example that is illegal in many countries, even if the person consented to it when alive.
The law at the moment is a hodgepodge of "You have no rights over your body, even when you're alive, but we'll criminalise things that we think are disgusting, or if enough people have religious objections to it".
Either the law should be consistent that people don't have a right to their bodies after death - in which case, start making decisions of their use based on evidence rather than religion. Or properly grant people rights of consent over their own bodies, including after death.
If you could get software free from company 'A', and company 'B' was charging $10k for the same software, then you would clearly say that company 'B' was trying to charge an unfair price. However if company 'A' didn't give the software away for free but charged the going rate of $10k, then you would say the price was fair. So I'd say it works both ways - to prevent over and undercharging.
So can you give me an example where charging less is "unfair"?
I release what I create to my company with no restrictions as that is what I am paid to do.
Exactly, that's what you're paid to do. Your contract presumably requires you to assign copyright to them anyway. Open source developers don't insist that what they write for their companies is open source, so this is not relevant to the original point.
My question is, if you release software that you (not your company) own the copyright to, do you place any restrictions on it? If you don't write code except for your company, I don't think you're in a position to criticise open source developers.
I could also rephrase the question by asking if your company (assuming it's a software company) places restrictions on software it releases, or do they release everything as freely distributable with no restrictions whatsoever?
think about the living who receive bone implants from an AIDS victim.
TFA is talking uses for medical purposes such as training surgeons. In fact, TFA specifically mentions that people who are unsuitable for organ donations due to disease may still be useful for this purpose.
The whole point of sending robots is that they are cheaper and more expendable to send than humans, thus they are good for the early scouting missions. But if humans aren't eventually going, what is the freaking point?
And who's to say we can't send robots now (early scouting missions), and then send humans later (eventually)?
A ban doesn't have to last for ever - they could change their decision, you know, just like they are considering now.
That wasn't the argument being made - I read the point as being that even if robots can do the job just as well, it is still better to send humans because they will need to go there eventually anyway: "if humans aren't eventually going, what is the freaking point?"
That robots might not be able to do scientific jobs as efficiently as humans is a separate issue, that is a matter for debate.
As a professional engineer, part of my oath was that I would charge a fair fee for my services. Therefore giving software I developed away for free is contrary to the guidelines of the profession I swore to uphold.
You are confusing free as in speech with free as in beer. You can release your software freely (as in speech), but still charge a fee if your "oath" requires it.
(And I'd say it's contrary to the guidelines of your oath, not the profession - not all of us in the profession subscribe to that idea. And to be honest, I'd assume the spirit was to prevent overcharging, and not to insist that you must charge! Also it would be reasonable to say that giving away software is a fair price.)
Regarding your later comment:
If someone wants to create open source software for whatever reason, that's fine but I don't believe they have the right to dictate what anyone else does with it later.
Does this mean that you, as a professional engineer, release everything as freely distributable with no restrictions whatsoever?
Firefox: If places don't allow multiple browsers, thats their own fault. Just stupid.
It's still a valid point though, we don't know in how many cases the "unauthorised software" is things like software. The claim is that the guy using Firefox is posing a risk to the network, whilst the guy using IE and Outlook poses no risk at all...
Backing a complete ban on smacking I.e. apparently parents are no longer fit to decide how to raise their own child.
I mean Liberty, not the NSPCC (I dislike the latter charity for my own reasons, too, as it happens.) The NSPCC favoured a complete ban I believe, but I can't find any reference to Liberty?
(And on that note, I'm not in favour of a complete ban on smacking, however, that is clearly not "I.e.". The Government intervenes in all sorts of cases, and if it intervened in cases of assaulting a child, this doesn't mean they are telling parents how to raise their child in other cases, it only applies to smacking. As I say, I'm not in favour of a complete ban either, mainly because it would be unenforceable, but the debate is not helped by trying to distort the argument into something else.)
Honestly, if they are interested purely in solving crimes, then they are acting in the best interest of their objective. The grandfather post is dead-on. It IS the politicians jobs to decide what is legal or illegal.
Of course it's the politician's job ultimately, I don't dispute that. But I hope that any police officer in a position of power to give evidence to the Government should do so objectively, and not with a mindset of "Let's lock up as many people as we can".
One of the criticisms is the risk of false positives, and I would say that solving the crime should imply getting the _right_ person, and not simply closing the case with anyone they can pin the evidence on. And even if it is in the best interest of their objective - sure they can say so, but that doesn't mean they should be lobbying for it without considering the wider implications and consequences.
As I say - a programmer's job is so much easier when they can close bug reports without fixing them, or redefine the bug as a "feature". That doesn't mean I would expect us to advocate that.
"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."
Oh dear - I guess the mod missed the obvious quote. I even put in quotation marks, to indicate that it was a quote.
But this proves an interesting point - no one would be modded flamebait for say, referring to the nastiness of Greek Gods, Elves, the Jewish Golem or Chinese dragons, especially when examples of such nastiness can be demonstrated with the original texts. What is it about belief in the God of the Old Testament that makes it beyond criticism or making fun of?
Oh, we protest - the most notable example is probably the No2ID Campaign. The problem is that protesting doesn't stop these things from happening.
That's no different to the US - how come restrictions of civil liberties still happen there? You have "outrage", but that doesn't stop all the new laws either.
To be fair to the Police, that is their job! They should be advocating things that will make their job easier
True, but I would also hope that the police take an objective rather than selfish viewpoint on this - they should advocate what they think is best, rather than what makes life easier for them personally.
E.g., I'm sure a programmer's life would be easier if they didn't have to fix any bugs, and could ignore what customers want. And I'm sure a lot of them do that. But it would be silly for them to advocate that as a serious suggestion.
"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."
Nevermind what his followers have done; God is certainly my favourite monster!
I'd love to, but like the NSPCC, they're overly hysterical over certain points that place them at the very far left of 99% of the population. -snip-
Examples?
Really? You'll still be able to buy single (or multiple) trip tickets for cash, surely?
Although note that the cash tickets are now much more expensive, and they keep increasing the price (currently £4 for a single stop in zone 1, compared with £1.50 on the Oyster).
They even have the cheek to advertise "Get the Oyster card, it's cheaper!" when actually it's the single tickets that have been increased in price, rather than the Oyster card prices being reduced.
Thankfully you can at least use an Oyster card anonymously - just don't register it, and top it up with cash all the time. Although this means you can't buy monthly or longer tickets.
(I've also heard that in order to get your £3 deposit back, you need to supply identification, though I can't find a reference for this.)
I used both Win2k and linux at one jobe - guess which one crashed ore often, and refused to install on new hardware - Win2k. Getting a new network card to work under linux was a matter of copying a few lines of code, editing 1 identifier, and recompiling. Getting Win2k to run for more than a few minutes involved having to look for the latest service pack, and installing it, then moving the hard drive back to the original machine.
And you are touting Linux as better, as you "only" have to edit lines of code, as opposed to downloading an update? See, this is why Linux will not be ready for the desktop. It might be fine for people who love Linux, and there's nothing wrong with that - but even computer geeks like myself have no time to learn what lines of code I need to edit to run the operating system - my computer interests lie elsewhere, such as coding and actually using the damn computer. A computer newbie has no chance.
XP? A friend showed me his XP box and bragged about how much more stable it would be than Win9x - I opened up explorer and within 10 seconds the machine blue-screened.
What were you doing?
My own experience: My work machine running 2000 and then XP has never crashed. The only time my home machines have ever crashed was when I was doing OpenGL programming and I've just crashed the GPU (I'm not sure how Linux would cope with that?)
I guess machines will vary, but it's not clear that one OS is better; anecdotes are not evidence.
it comes from a company that still engages in lies, bribes, and fud
Yes Microsoft suck. We're discussing operating systems, not companies. I'd love for a non-Microsoft OS (and non-Apple, before anyone suggests it - I find Apple as a company worse than Microsoft), and that's why I bent over backwards to give Linux a chance, trying multiple distributions on different hardware. But, for me, it just isn't up to the job even for basic usage.
Curiously this is the reason that I don't use Linux - I tried it, and it just wasn't fun. Fun to me isn't having to tinker with scripts and files because something fundamental won't work (this was a few years ago - maybe finally things have improved?)
For his reasons "Linux gives you complete control" - so is it really possible to delete a file whilst another program is reading/writing it? And if so, is that a good thing?
Just out of curiosity, have you ever tried to install XP (or -- gahhh -- Vista) on a bare machine, just to compare it against Fedora?
I've installed Windows 2000 on a bare machine, and found it straightforward as a newbie (even the dreaded Windows 98 was easy). Every distribution of Linux I tried had one trouble or another, from odd flickering pixels, to only supporting a resolution of 320x200, to not including GNU C.
This was a few years ago, so perhaps things have finally changed.
I hate Microsoft. I openly admit it. I have earned the right to hate them, having put up with their crap products, misleading advertising, outright lies, etc. In other words, I'm a formerMS-DOS and Win3x / Win9x user.
But is it fair to judge Microsoft on previous versions of their products?
I hated those products too - in those days, I was using the Amiga. When I switched to the PC, I still hated Windows 98, and I tried Linux, but found it had too many of the same things that I hated DOS for (e.g., having to use the command line, the fact that the GUI was added as an afterthought, etc - this was how it was back in 1999-2000, at least, when I tried it). But things changed when I switched - to Windows 2000. I had to admit that Microsoft finally had a decent operating system, that didn't have any of the problems of DOS/Win9x.
You mention your sister with an Imac - if we judged OS X based on classic MacOS, we would write it off as a joke. But thankfully, OS X is a completely different OS, and one that's greatly improved to what Apple were using before.
I do wonder sometimes how many bad perceptions of Windows today are based on the previous OS with the same name. Perhaps next time there's a story on OS X, I should ridicule it for not even supporting multitasking, that would be fair, right?
That might be true in some contexts, but not others. Try being a US Politician who criticises Christianity, versus one who criticises Scientology. Consider the support for teaching Creationism in schools, versus the support for teaching Scientology beliefs as fact in school. Consider the stigma (especially in the US) of identifying as an atheist, versus someone who doesn't believe in Xenu. Consider the controversy that in the US the pledge shouldn't have included "under god", whilst only a crackpot would suggest it should be reworded to suit Scientologists. Consider in the UK that atheists arguing against prayers in state schools are labelled as being un-British and wanting to destroy religion, yet it is accepted to criticise Scientology, even when they go nowhere near schools with young children. Consider that most of the arguments against people criticising Scientology apply to all religions ("It's a religion, you can't criticise their beliefs!")
What you are referring to is the reaction of the believers themselves - but amongst the general population, criticising and ridiculing Scientology seems far more acceptable than doing so for Christianity.
And although they are a minority of Christians as a whole (though not necessarily fewer that Scientologists in absolute numbers), there are (at least here in the UK) Christian organisations that will get offended over perceived threats when you offend their religion, and even try to make legal threats against you.
We still have blasphemy laws in the UK too (solely for Christianity), though thankfully the Government now looks like it is finally going to repeal them.
People refer to it as a dead law anyway, but it's not clear that anything's happened since it was last used (in the 70s) that would mean it's now dead - we're not talking one of those laws that hasn't been used in centuries. Also, people are still today using it to try to bring prosecutions against people (e.g., against the BBC for showing Jerry Springer The Opera) so there are issues such as the cost of legal defence, and the chilling effect where threat of prosecution causes people to self-censor.
Without God, you must explain moral codes in practical terms.
Even with a belief in God, you must still explain moral codes. Why is it that a religion says stealing is wrong, but other things aren't wrong? Why is it that all these religions which all supposedly base their morality on God come up with sometimes completely different answers? Why is it when someone bases their morals on the Bible, they cherry pick (so homosexuality is wrong, but they don't stone people to death for working on Sunday)?
In all cases, a person must have some method - independent of the concept of God - of judging right from wrong.
"God says so" isn't an explanation.
Now sure, I see your point that religion can be used to control people with little room for negotiation. The flaw is however is that those in charge of the religion are just as fallable as those people you are trying to control.
Yes, without religion an individual might decide through reason and evidence that perhaps working on Sunday shouldn't be punishable by death. But with religion, that individual can reach a position of authority, and declare whatever he likes to be wrong because that's what God supposedly says. God is far from non-negotiable - on the contrary, people not only argue with it, they outright declare for themselves what God supposedly thinks.
We now have a system to keep the population in control - it's called the law, and we also allow people to debate what those laws should be based on reason and evidence. The problem is that religion sticks around like a sore thumb, allowing people to support or challenge laws simply based on what they claim their religion says.
Given how common violence and murder was in the past, it's not clear religion did a better job. The rise of secularism in places like Europe has not been accompanied by a rise in crime.