...so the rest of us can see the really good comments, instead of weeding through the dreck we have to go through otherwise?
I actually agree, but I still think the whole AC posting thing should be abandoned, since it is unnecessary. It isn't much of a hardship to set up a profile that doesn't include your real name, which should satisfy the requirements of privacy, and posting as AC is just too quick and easy for trolls.
Good idea. Actually, it would be a better idea if everybody refused to fly until the airlines recognised that their customers deserve a modicum of respect. The whole business of flying anywhere has become so universally unpleasant, there's no point bothering any more, and it's high time the airlines realised that.
Bear in mind that both of the titles you mentioned are freely available under the auspices of the Australian arm of Project Gutenberg. Not all countries insist on copyright under the same terms as the UK or US, and (for once) Australia is one of the good guys in this regard.
It's called having lived through the dot.bomb times and all the over-hype regarding "new and innovative" products and "technologies".
There is also the issue of freedom (as in libre, not beer). Maybe I'm being more than usually unobservant this evening, but I have failed to pick up any reference to this software being OSS or available on other platforms (Linux, *BSD...). The Blio website appears to be just a placeholder. If the idea is just vapourware, it would be helpful if they just came out and admitted it.
Maybe you should consider looking at your build. I don't need more than one finger to count the number of times a tab has locked up in Firefox (any version in at least the last 2 years). That makes it at least as stable as any other program I have used in that time.
Or do all these complaints about Firefox==slow|unstable|whatever come from Windows users? In which case, I would suspect something else is wrong, because the Linux and OS X versions have been rock solid for me.
...it didn't even occur to them that people outside of a very limited scope would even be interested in the Internet.
Well, if push comes to shove and the Authorities-That-Be insist on every byte of traffic being identifiable to a specific person, the internet will become a less welcoming place for me. If my personal details are more useful to the government (and anyone else they happen to be in bed with at the moment) than they are to me, then something is awry.
I am well and truly old enough to have grown up and lived a lot of my adult life before the advent of the internet, and there's no reason why I can't do it again. I'm not saying we have to be luddites and unplug completely, but it is fair to say that a lot of us could do with getting out more.
And what does anyone need all that information for? That kind of information is only useful for getting your salary into the bank and for applying for a mortgage or rental agreement. It is entirely overkill for that kind of data to be retained for anything trivial.
Well, since IPv6 supposedly does away with the need to use NAT, it's perfectly likely that you can be tracked more effectively via your device's IP address, unless you can find effective measures to avoid that.
An Iran armed with nukes could wipe Israel off the map, and that is exactly what they have publicly stated their goals to be...
...That is not true. The official government of Iran has publicly stated no such thing.
No, indeed. The official and often-reiterated objective is to "drive the Jews into the sea". That's not quite the same thing, but it's close enough. Not that I enjoy taking Israel's side on that point; I am very tired of hearing Israel claiming the position of underdog while being the most zealous in pursuing aggressive action against its neighbours.
It's starting to look like that being an artist (of any kind) is no longer a job.
It never was if your work was only ever mediocre. Millions, or perhaps billions of books, musical works, paintings and recordings have been made during the course of mankind's history, but of those only a comparative few will ever be of interest to future generations. Every so often, a musicologist (say) might unearth some gem from a few hundred years ago, but a lot of such work remains unplayed simply because it is of little interest.
Being an artist is only a viable job if you're good at it: there's no substitute for talent.
I have absolutely no problem paying good money to have copyrighted work in media that suit my needs.
My only objection is when some cretinous little parasite comes along and tries to tell me what I can or cannot do with those media. At least 95% of the time those parasites have played little or no part in making the work good for "consumption", and they channel precious little of the revenue back to the artist.
I forsee a time when writers will offer their work online, bypassing the middle-man altogether, and I won't be sorry. Those marketroids will have to be replaced by aggregators of reviews in order to get the work to sell, but that isn't a bad thing, just different. Seems a simple and effective business model, which given the huge number of works (and customers) could be made viable. Publishing houses might be relegated to printing and binding comparatively limited numbers of copies of the work as required, which should also be viable given that sufficient negative reviews would restrict the work to a digital-only format. They won't take the money they did before, but the redistribution of revenue favours the artist and the consumer, which is fairer.
If I had an e-book reader (which would require the technology being a bit better and a lot cheaper than it is right now), I'd probably buy more e-books than dead-tree versions if the price was right. Beats hell out of being gouged for postage ordering physical media online. But if I like a book well enough, I'd probably pony up for a dead-tree version as well. There's a certain amount of enjoyment to be had from handling a real book: the texture of the paper, even (perhaps especially) the smell. Furthermore, part of the thing about enjoying literature is being able to lend out books you like to friends, and having them reciprocate.
It's an informal library system if you like, but there is nothing reprehensible about that. I'm certainly NOT going to allow anyone to try to make me think of myself as a criminal just because my arrangement doesn't suit someone's idea of a business model.
I don't believe that I have ever seen anywhere in the Bible a passage that says explicitly that there is no life on other planets.
Nor do I. But that's hardly surprising, given that the desert schizophrenics and epileptics responsible for writing the Bible spent way too much time in the sun.
It took me a very long time to let go of LILO for booting my Linux machines, and only started using GRUB when I switched from Slackware to Arch last year. Frankly, I don't really see what all the fuss is about - they both do essentially the same job, and I never found it a hardship to run LILO after building a new kernel image.
But getting back to the topic at hand, my question is this:
WHY would a Mac or Linux user ever want to bother booting Windows at all? I understand some people use it for games, but at risk of sounding flamebaity, one might argue that that's all Windows is good for. But VMWare can cope with that, without any requirement for cold-booting Windows. Speaking for myself, I can't say I miss Windows one bit.
Actually, I more prefer Abiword and Gnumeric over OO.o.
Gnumeric is a truly excellent program. Unfortunately, acceptance of the "Gnome Office" suite was sadly marred by fact that Abiword is just not in the same league. But OOo (and its close cousin, NeoOffice) has overcome its earlier shortcomings, and is now more than just a serious alternative to MSOffice. On my Linux boxes I don't have much of a choice (apart from Latex/LyX/TeX), but on my MacBook, I haven't fired up MSOffice in months.
What are the odds that any of the airline production code meets that description?
How it's written probably doesn't matter. Heathrow Airport has almost certainly patented the invention, and will go after the winner(s) of the competition with every platoon of lawyers at its disposal.
Afghanistan doesn't need OLPC. It needs trained Afghan teachers, regular funding for those teachers, a supply of paper and pencils, and a security situation stable enough so that kids can go to school without fear of being blown up, shot, or sprayed with acid.
+1 Well Said. Many countries don't even have a reliable power supply. And the internet infrastructure is often unreliable or absent altogether. (Actually, the latter condition isn't uncommon in supposedly developed and politically stable countries like here in Australia.) What good is OLPC then?
Those of us who are old enough to remember a world without the internet or even mostly without computers will remember that it is perfectly possible to achieve a useful education without such technology. I won't deny that it CAN be useful, but it really isn't necessary.
What IS necessary is a number of individuals capable of making good use of limited resources, and a commitment on everybody's part to allow them the freedom and security to do their job.
It most likely gets to that point too - everyone will just sit naked and doing nothing for the whole flight. If your eyes move, you will be shot.
Well, this doesn't seem that extreme to me, given the lengths to which airlines are prepared to stretch to make the passengers' flight as unpleasant as possible. Airlines are bitterly complaining that they aren't getting enough passengers on seats, while failing to recognise that their policy of mistreating said passengers is largely responsible.
Well, I have news for those airlines: I have alternatives. I no longer care to embark on long-haul flights unless they are absolutely unavoidable, so I won't do it. I'm sure I'm not alone in that. If the airlines have to go broke before they realise their customers are deliberately staying away, then that's just too bad.
Don't let me stop you - freedom of choice and all that. But let's not lose sight of the fact that the KDE developers have not been innocent of craniorectalism on their own part. Ultimately most of us choose our desktop platform primarily for subjective reasons, and there's no shame in admitting it.
Slashdot Mirror
...so the rest of us can see the really good comments, instead of weeding through the dreck we have to go through otherwise?
I actually agree, but I still think the whole AC posting thing should be abandoned, since it is unnecessary. It isn't much of a hardship to set up a profile that doesn't include your real name, which should satisfy the requirements of privacy, and posting as AC is just too quick and easy for trolls.
If so, I refuse to fly...
Good idea. Actually, it would be a better idea if everybody refused to fly until the airlines recognised that their customers deserve a modicum of respect. The whole business of flying anywhere has become so universally unpleasant, there's no point bothering any more, and it's high time the airlines realised that.
Had DHS not been so secretive about their processes...
So they should have issued a global alert for someone who was only a danger to his trousers?
Bear in mind that both of the titles you mentioned are freely available under the auspices of the Australian arm of Project Gutenberg. Not all countries insist on copyright under the same terms as the UK or US, and (for once) Australia is one of the good guys in this regard.
It's called having lived through the dot.bomb times and all the over-hype regarding "new and innovative" products and "technologies".
There is also the issue of freedom (as in libre, not beer). Maybe I'm being more than usually unobservant this evening, but I have failed to pick up any reference to this software being OSS or available on other platforms (Linux, *BSD...). The Blio website appears to be just a placeholder. If the idea is just vapourware, it would be helpful if they just came out and admitted it.
Maybe you should consider looking at your build. I don't need more than one finger to count the number of times a tab has locked up in Firefox (any version in at least the last 2 years). That makes it at least as stable as any other program I have used in that time.
Or do all these complaints about Firefox==slow|unstable|whatever come from Windows users? In which case, I would suspect something else is wrong, because the Linux and OS X versions have been rock solid for me.
You're naive to think "opting out" is that simple...
No I'm not. If you had taken the trouble to read the rest of my post, you would have seen that.
...it didn't even occur to them that people outside of a very limited scope would even be interested in the Internet.
Well, if push comes to shove and the Authorities-That-Be insist on every byte of traffic being identifiable to a specific person, the internet will become a less welcoming place for me. If my personal details are more useful to the government (and anyone else they happen to be in bed with at the moment) than they are to me, then something is awry.
I am well and truly old enough to have grown up and lived a lot of my adult life before the advent of the internet, and there's no reason why I can't do it again. I'm not saying we have to be luddites and unplug completely, but it is fair to say that a lot of us could do with getting out more.
And what does anyone need all that information for? That kind of information is only useful for getting your salary into the bank and for applying for a mortgage or rental agreement. It is entirely overkill for that kind of data to be retained for anything trivial.
Even /. displays ads.
Not if you rack up a bit of karma. Actually, thanks to my hosts file and Adblock, I see very few ads at all. And that's the way I like it.
Well, since IPv6 supposedly does away with the need to use NAT, it's perfectly likely that you can be tracked more effectively via your device's IP address, unless you can find effective measures to avoid that.
An Iran armed with nukes could wipe Israel off the map, and that is exactly what they have publicly stated their goals to be...
...That is not true. The official government of Iran has publicly stated no such thing.
No, indeed. The official and often-reiterated objective is to "drive the Jews into the sea". That's not quite the same thing, but it's close enough. Not that I enjoy taking Israel's side on that point; I am very tired of hearing Israel claiming the position of underdog while being the most zealous in pursuing aggressive action against its neighbours.
It's starting to look like that being an artist (of any kind) is no longer a job.
It never was if your work was only ever mediocre. Millions, or perhaps billions of books, musical works, paintings and recordings have been made during the course of mankind's history, but of those only a comparative few will ever be of interest to future generations. Every so often, a musicologist (say) might unearth some gem from a few hundred years ago, but a lot of such work remains unplayed simply because it is of little interest.
Being an artist is only a viable job if you're good at it: there's no substitute for talent.
I have absolutely no problem paying good money to have copyrighted work in media that suit my needs.
My only objection is when some cretinous little parasite comes along and tries to tell me what I can or cannot do with those media. At least 95% of the time those parasites have played little or no part in making the work good for "consumption", and they channel precious little of the revenue back to the artist.
I forsee a time when writers will offer their work online, bypassing the middle-man altogether, and I won't be sorry. Those marketroids will have to be replaced by aggregators of reviews in order to get the work to sell, but that isn't a bad thing, just different. Seems a simple and effective business model, which given the huge number of works (and customers) could be made viable. Publishing houses might be relegated to printing and binding comparatively limited numbers of copies of the work as required, which should also be viable given that sufficient negative reviews would restrict the work to a digital-only format. They won't take the money they did before, but the redistribution of revenue favours the artist and the consumer, which is fairer.
If I had an e-book reader (which would require the technology being a bit better and a lot cheaper than it is right now), I'd probably buy more e-books than dead-tree versions if the price was right. Beats hell out of being gouged for postage ordering physical media online. But if I like a book well enough, I'd probably pony up for a dead-tree version as well. There's a certain amount of enjoyment to be had from handling a real book: the texture of the paper, even (perhaps especially) the smell. Furthermore, part of the thing about enjoying literature is being able to lend out books you like to friends, and having them reciprocate.
It's an informal library system if you like, but there is nothing reprehensible about that. I'm certainly NOT going to allow anyone to try to make me think of myself as a criminal just because my arrangement doesn't suit someone's idea of a business model.
I don't assert that there's no deity.
I do.
I don't believe that I have ever seen anywhere in the Bible a passage that says explicitly that there is no life on other planets.
Nor do I. But that's hardly surprising, given that the desert schizophrenics and epileptics responsible for writing the Bible spent way too much time in the sun.
It took me a very long time to let go of LILO for booting my Linux machines, and only started using GRUB when I switched from Slackware to Arch last year. Frankly, I don't really see what all the fuss is about - they both do essentially the same job, and I never found it a hardship to run LILO after building a new kernel image.
But getting back to the topic at hand, my question is this:
WHY would a Mac or Linux user ever want to bother booting Windows at all? I understand some people use it for games, but at risk of sounding flamebaity, one might argue that that's all Windows is good for. But VMWare can cope with that, without any requirement for cold-booting Windows. Speaking for myself, I can't say I miss Windows one bit.
Then again they are targeting the young male "I have less sense than money" demographic.
Why male? Most of the candidates I've seen in this category are female.
Actually, I more prefer Abiword and Gnumeric over OO.o.
Gnumeric is a truly excellent program. Unfortunately, acceptance of the "Gnome Office" suite was sadly marred by fact that Abiword is just not in the same league. But OOo (and its close cousin, NeoOffice) has overcome its earlier shortcomings, and is now more than just a serious alternative to MSOffice. On my Linux boxes I don't have much of a choice (apart from Latex/LyX/TeX), but on my MacBook, I haven't fired up MSOffice in months.
What are the odds that any of the airline production code meets that description?
How it's written probably doesn't matter. Heathrow Airport has almost certainly patented the invention, and will go after the winner(s) of the competition with every platoon of lawyers at its disposal.
Afghanistan doesn't need OLPC. It needs trained Afghan teachers, regular funding for those teachers, a supply of paper and pencils, and a security situation stable enough so that kids can go to school without fear of being blown up, shot, or sprayed with acid.
+1 Well Said. Many countries don't even have a reliable power supply. And the internet infrastructure is often unreliable or absent altogether. (Actually, the latter condition isn't uncommon in supposedly developed and politically stable countries like here in Australia.) What good is OLPC then?
Those of us who are old enough to remember a world without the internet or even mostly without computers will remember that it is perfectly possible to achieve a useful education without such technology. I won't deny that it CAN be useful, but it really isn't necessary.
What IS necessary is a number of individuals capable of making good use of limited resources, and a commitment on everybody's part to allow them the freedom and security to do their job.
Nobody said that coffin-like container had to be built large enough to hold anything bigger than a hamster. :P
It most likely gets to that point too - everyone will just sit naked and doing nothing for the whole flight. If your eyes move, you will be shot.
Well, this doesn't seem that extreme to me, given the lengths to which airlines are prepared to stretch to make the passengers' flight as unpleasant as possible. Airlines are bitterly complaining that they aren't getting enough passengers on seats, while failing to recognise that their policy of mistreating said passengers is largely responsible.
Well, I have news for those airlines: I have alternatives. I no longer care to embark on long-haul flights unless they are absolutely unavoidable, so I won't do it. I'm sure I'm not alone in that. If the airlines have to go broke before they realise their customers are deliberately staying away, then that's just too bad.
I'm with Linus; just use KDE.
Don't let me stop you - freedom of choice and all that. But let's not lose sight of the fact that the KDE developers have not been innocent of craniorectalism on their own part. Ultimately most of us choose our desktop platform primarily for subjective reasons, and there's no shame in admitting it.