I was trying to make the point that he is doing 4 things that are contraversal, at the same time, which will only make him unpopular.
When the University of Texas (the unversity I graduated from with an Economics degree) stopped their system of quotas, most of the students referred to this as "stopping affirmative" action.
My point is not that each thing on the list is necessarily bad, but it is bad to try to do all at once in a society with so many different cultures and perspectives. What appeases people in Texas will not appease the majority of the people the U.S. and will certainly NOT appease the peoples of the world.
I just keep on remembering this interview with the UT football coach, where the coach said, "We are gonna' go with what a' brung us." He was referring to the strategy they were going to use for the final game of the season was going to be the same strategy that had brought them to that point. Okay, that's okay with football, but I thought politics was supposed to be a little more sophisticated than that.
Anyway, all I know is for the next decade or so I am going to have to lie about what state I am from because to say I am from the same state as Bush will paint me as both racist and stupid (regardless of his "good intentions").
Does it make sense to hurt our relations with other countries just so we can play Mr. Policeman to Iraq?
Besides, that's fine, if that was the only thing Bush was pushing at the moment, but look at the list. To get ONE of these items on the list right, don't you think it would take 100% of his time? My complaint is that he is doing all these at once, which are all contraversal and the end result will be that they all get messed up because they were addressed in haste. It is like he has his own agenda and doesn't give an fsck what the rest of the nation or world think.
I know politicians usually have trouble listening, but this takes it to an extreme.
But we live in a society of diverse opinions (I am pretty agnostic, myself). I have no problem if Bush picked one of the four on the list. Maybe even 2 of the four. But doing all 4 at the same time really is ramming his personal values down the throats of all Americans . . . unless you agree with all 4 of his actions, in which case, you are in the minority.
To be honest, I really am only against the preemptive attack when the rest of the world thinks its stupid. I don't consider the other issues "life threatening," so who cares? However, I am very much against a president who thinks he is so popular that he can go on an agenda rampage, with a complete disregard of the other very different, but "valid" opinions in this country.
Believe me, my post was not about liberal verse conservative. It was about political moderation verse someone who is acting like a stupid redneck and giving Texans, like myself, a bad image.
I am for space exploration and have really started hating Bush recently? How did you know this correlation?
Wait a minute . ..
1. He wants to abolish taxes on dividends 2. He wants to start a preemptive attack on a another nation 3. He wants cut income taxes disproportionately in the favor of the rich 4. He wants to stop even the most mild forms of affirmative action
I see . . . you were just playing the odds here. I mean, how many dumb rednecks read/.?
"Support the community." Free software costs money to make, but once it is made it is free for all of humanity to use. Mandrake is the most community centralized distro company I know of. Some people mischaracterize this as a "no good begger" but as you can see with package voting, they are really just trying to create a business model as "Bizaar" as possible.
No, everyone who uses Mandrake should not feel like they need to pay ML money. But, I believe the majority of Slashdotters are well off enough and smart enough to become part of the Mandrake community that caries its own weight, hence my call out to the Slashdot/Mandrake community. Especially when they have such strong opinions about the distro.
Let slashdotters become mandrakeclub members so that Mandrake will go on to let non-profit clinics in 3rd world countries have a complete and workable distro they can use for free. But, if you have food, water, and shelter, maybe you are well enough to donate some money to the cause.
Slashdotters, though I hate to admit it, you are, in a sense, the cream of this community. This is your chance to give back and be a hero.
"With great power comes great responsibility" (Necessary Spiderman quote to appeal to hero aspect of the geek persona).
I know of three boxes purchased from walmart that are running Mandrake, RIGHT NOW.
I don't know about you, but the windows users I know have no idea that pcs are selling for $200 and $300 these days, they DON'T like installing their own OS, and they are very risk adverse when it comes to buying over the Internet. That is taken from a very, very small sample of the population (the people that I know), but it is better than the baseless BS you are spewing.
I wish your post would get modded to 5 so that other slashdotters would see it. You will not regret being a member. The mirror script makes urpmi setup very easy and painless. Being able to vote for your own rpms is great (I had a starcontrol 2 package rpmed for me, and it runs great)!
And now . . . I can vote for my favorite rpms in order to make sure they get into the next release. Things are just getting better and better (I am a Silver member for the next 600 days).
to remind everyone who has used or is interested in using Mandrake to become a Mandrakeclub member? The Slashdot community has been pretty critical of Mandrake recently, so here is your chance to become a member and do something about the distro you spend so much time bitching about.
Otherwise, people might get the idea that slashdoters are a bunch of whining freeloaders who complain for the very sake of complaining.
It is not that Open Source software lacks features but that commercial software is packed with an unhealthy amount of features since that is what sells the product.
It is comparable to the 60s when Americans loved fast, cheap, gas guzzling cars and totally ignored how dangerous they were. The YUGO and oil crisis changed this attitude for a lot of Americans. I wonder what products and events will change American attitudes towards Open Source.
Looks like Linux DOES do CAD. But I guess it is up to you to determine if it does it well enough.
I think Adobe works with Macs, so if the Linux share surpasses Macs, then Adobe will start creating stuff for Linux desktops, as well (at least, logic would dictate . ..).
Keep you eye on Blender, which was just bought by the Open Source community. If it doesn't meet your expectations now, it will in the near future (I also saw another CAD program at mandrakeclub, but you might have to be a member since I think it is commercial).
Also, I thought codeweavers were about to release a version of their software that allows Quickbooks to run on Linux.
What if lawyers were only expected to be trained in logic, debate, and reading skills. How about accountants only trained in math, problem solving, and reading skills? Without training of VERY specific and technical skills, the profession does not exist and can easily be replaced with a general degree, in which case you lose the benefits of the profession. Certification MUST be specific to a certain skill set so that the profession remains pure and companies will know what they are paying for. That is why a standard set of tools must exist (Common Law, GAAP, and, perhaps, LAMP, for CPSE).
The only reason this hasn't happened yet is due to MS's control over the computer industry. The most "useful" technical skill you cant test for is built on a standard controlled by MS. MS is 100% for infinite H1b visas because it means lower TCO for their software.
With out Open Standards (Open Source), CPSE will never exist. Closed (asymetrically controllable) standards is the only difference between techies and well payed/employed lawyers and accountants. This doesn't mean that all tools of CPSE's should only be Open Source, but you would only be able to certify the Open Source ones.
Looks like things are progressing more quickly than I thought.
Interesting that they are against software patents, and they attribute Microsoft behind the push for more H1B visas:
"The 2000 election results contained some big victories for the programming profession. The "Senator from Microsoft" Slade Gorton and Rep. James Rogan, both big supporters of replacing American programmers with foreign guest workers, were defeated."
I am seriously considering becoming a member . . .
"Of course it will never happen because those professions have enough sense not to cut their own throats. H1-B targets the people who may have high IQ scores but are too freaking stupid to organize, lobby or even realize what 100,000 people competing for their job does to their lives."
No, I don't think you tech guys are really stupid. I just think you are out of your league when it comes to Microsoft controlling your profession. Lawyers and accountants have open standards that no company controls. This keeps their profession pure and free of manipulation.
Microsoft basically OWNS the techie profession. Their goal is to sell more software, so when I hear the word "techie" I can picture either a Linux God or a clueless MSCE. Your profession has been polluted by MsDonald workers, which brings down the credibility of the entire profession.
If I were you, I would become an accountant (I am me, and I am doing that). However, if you care about your profession and are willing to stick with it, here are the steps you need:
1. Start backing open source and its non-corporate maintainers. It is not so much that you can read the source code but that no one company can CONTROL the source code. Standardizing on this is comparable to standardizing on Common Law (Lawyers) or GAAP (accountants). These standards are free from some company willing to extort standards in order to sell more software (with a cheaper TCO, because you work harder for less).
2. Unify the certifications of Open Source. I have read about the history of Accounting certification, and I must say that it is very similar to, say, Linux certification. There use to be many different accounting organizations in America. They all swallowed each other up because it made sense. It makes sense with open source, and you should get to the point that you are only certifying "administrators" and "programmers" and nothing more specific that that. The more general the credentials, the more powerful the certification. However, you won't get anywhere if you base your certification on closed standards, controlled by some software selling company.
3. You lobby for government to require your professionals in certain regularly occurring situations. Whether it is auditing the computer systems of government agencies or being deployed by accountants to hand count the number of systems, it doesn't really matter. Only Lawyers can represent others in trial and only CPA's can audit financial statements of public companies. Most Lawyers and CPA's never exercize these priviledges, but it is this priviledge that justifies all of their big, fat salaries. The easiest way I could see this occuring for tech professionals is to require the government to use open source software in certain circumstances and require only "certified" engineers, certified through your own professional organization (i.e., not MS), to audit the integrity of the system and code. If you had this, I bet all CPSE's (certified public software engineer), even the one's not working for the government, would make just as much as lawyers, if not more!
In conclusion, no, I do not think you techies are stupid. This industry is still new, and it took centuries and centuries for accountants to standardize their profession. However, much more technology is available, and Open Source software has completed the majority of the task for you already. So I think it is high time to get your cr@p together and make yourselves a legitimate profession. If you do, I will waste no time to getting CPSE (or its equavalent) added to the end of my name.
Furthermore, you will no longer care if foreigners are getting jobs in your profession because, there will be enough jobs to go around! H1-B visas apply to accountants and lawyers too, you know. The reason you never hear them complaining is a true profession is able to protect its members GLOBALLY.
Slashdot Mirror
I was trying to make the point that he is doing 4 things that are contraversal, at the same time, which will only make him unpopular.
When the University of Texas (the unversity I graduated from with an Economics degree) stopped their system of quotas, most of the students referred to this as "stopping affirmative" action.
My point is not that each thing on the list is necessarily bad, but it is bad to try to do all at once in a society with so many different cultures and perspectives. What appeases people in Texas will not appease the majority of the people the U.S. and will certainly NOT appease the peoples of the world.
I just keep on remembering this interview with the UT football coach, where the coach said, "We are gonna' go with what a' brung us." He was referring to the strategy they were going to use for the final game of the season was going to be the same strategy that had brought them to that point. Okay, that's okay with football, but I thought politics was supposed to be a little more sophisticated than that.
Anyway, all I know is for the next decade or so I am going to have to lie about what state I am from because to say I am from the same state as Bush will paint me as both racist and stupid (regardless of his "good intentions").
Does it make sense to hurt our relations with other countries just so we can play Mr. Policeman to Iraq?
Besides, that's fine, if that was the only thing Bush was pushing at the moment, but look at the list. To get ONE of these items on the list right, don't you think it would take 100% of his time? My complaint is that he is doing all these at once, which are all contraversal and the end result will be that they all get messed up because they were addressed in haste. It is like he has his own agenda and doesn't give an fsck what the rest of the nation or world think.
I know politicians usually have trouble listening, but this takes it to an extreme.
But we live in a society of diverse opinions (I am pretty agnostic, myself). I have no problem if Bush picked one of the four on the list. Maybe even 2 of the four. But doing all 4 at the same time really is ramming his personal values down the throats of all Americans . . . unless you agree with all 4 of his actions, in which case, you are in the minority.
To be honest, I really am only against the preemptive attack when the rest of the world thinks its stupid. I don't consider the other issues "life threatening," so who cares? However, I am very much against a president who thinks he is so popular that he can go on an agenda rampage, with a complete disregard of the other very different, but "valid" opinions in this country.
Believe me, my post was not about liberal verse conservative. It was about political moderation verse someone who is acting like a stupid redneck and giving Texans, like myself, a bad image.
"4. He wants to stop even the most mild forms of affirmative action
This is just a lie. An out and out lie. Racial quotas are illegal and unconstitutional. "
So he doesn't wan to stop affirmative action?
Stupid redneck . . .
I am for space exploration and have really started hating Bush recently? How did you know this correlation?
.
/.?
Wait a minute . .
1. He wants to abolish taxes on dividends
2. He wants to start a preemptive attack on a another nation
3. He wants cut income taxes disproportionately in the favor of the rich
4. He wants to stop even the most mild forms of affirmative action
I see . . . you were just playing the odds here. I mean, how many dumb rednecks read
to my favorite software patent fighting organization!
"Support the community." Free software costs money to make, but once it is made it is free for all of humanity to use. Mandrake is the most community centralized distro company I know of. Some people mischaracterize this as a "no good begger" but as you can see with package voting, they are really just trying to create a business model as "Bizaar" as possible.
No, everyone who uses Mandrake should not feel like they need to pay ML money. But, I believe the majority of Slashdotters are well off enough and smart enough to become part of the Mandrake community that caries its own weight, hence my call out to the Slashdot/Mandrake community. Especially when they have such strong opinions about the distro.
Let slashdotters become mandrakeclub members so that Mandrake will go on to let non-profit clinics in 3rd world countries have a complete and workable distro they can use for free. But, if you have food, water, and shelter, maybe you are well enough to donate some money to the cause.
Slashdotters, though I hate to admit it, you are, in a sense, the cream of this community. This is your chance to give back and be a hero.
"With great power comes great responsibility" (Necessary Spiderman quote to appeal to hero aspect of the geek persona).
I know of three boxes purchased from walmart that are running Mandrake, RIGHT NOW.
I don't know about you, but the windows users I know have no idea that pcs are selling for $200 and $300 these days, they DON'T like installing their own OS, and they are very risk adverse when it comes to buying over the Internet. That is taken from a very, very small sample of the population (the people that I know), but it is better than the baseless BS you are spewing.
I wish your post would get modded to 5 so that other slashdotters would see it. You will not regret being a member. The mirror script makes urpmi setup very easy and painless. Being able to vote for your own rpms is great (I had a starcontrol 2 package rpmed for me, and it runs great)!
And now . . . I can vote for my favorite rpms in order to make sure they get into the next release. Things are just getting better and better (I am a Silver member for the next 600 days).
to remind everyone who has used or is interested in using Mandrake to become a Mandrakeclub member? The Slashdot community has been pretty critical of Mandrake recently, so here is your chance to become a member and do something about the distro you spend so much time bitching about.
.?
Otherwise, people might get the idea that slashdoters are a bunch of whining freeloaders who complain for the very sake of complaining.
Er, or is that me . .
It is not that Open Source software lacks features but that commercial software is packed with an unhealthy amount of features since that is what sells the product.
It is comparable to the 60s when Americans loved fast, cheap, gas guzzling cars and totally ignored how dangerous they were. The YUGO and oil crisis changed this attitude for a lot of Americans. I wonder what products and events will change American attitudes towards Open Source.
It is a trick to get slashdot to slashdot itself!!!
Ironically, Hollywood found an easier way to break any encryption in their movie "Sneakers."
"ESR wants to be king of a new world order, but his problem is that there is no new world order."
I would say that there is definitely a new world order, but it doesn't need a king.
Here are some Linux CAD programs:
_ Pr ograms/
.).
http://www.linuxcad.com/
http://www.qcad.org/index.php3
http://www.caddepot.com/dcd/CAD_Demos/Linux/CAD
Here is a link to a list of links:
http://www.tech-edv.co.at/lunix/CADlinks.html
Looks like Linux DOES do CAD. But I guess it is up to you to determine if it does it well enough.
I think Adobe works with Macs, so if the Linux share surpasses Macs, then Adobe will start creating stuff for Linux desktops, as well (at least, logic would dictate . .
Cheers.
"I don't want to send my packages by drone, thanks."
If my package is lost, I'd rather it be because someone has DIED.
er, "innovating."
Dude, have you ever worked for a large company?
Keep you eye on Blender, which was just bought by the Open Source community. If it doesn't meet your expectations now, it will in the near future (I also saw another CAD program at mandrakeclub, but you might have to be a member since I think it is commercial).
Also, I thought codeweavers were about to release a version of their software that allows Quickbooks to run on Linux.
That thought was in the back of my mind. Glad I am not the only "paranoid" /.er around these days;)
What if lawyers were only expected to be trained in logic, debate, and reading skills. How about accountants only trained in math, problem solving, and reading skills? Without training of VERY specific and technical skills, the profession does not exist and can easily be replaced with a general degree, in which case you lose the benefits of the profession. Certification MUST be specific to a certain skill set so that the profession remains pure and companies will know what they are paying for. That is why a standard set of tools must exist (Common Law, GAAP, and, perhaps, LAMP, for CPSE).
The only reason this hasn't happened yet is due to MS's control over the computer industry. The most "useful" technical skill you cant test for is built on a standard controlled by MS. MS is 100% for infinite H1b visas because it means lower TCO for their software.
With out Open Standards (Open Source), CPSE will never exist. Closed (asymetrically controllable) standards is the only difference between techies and well payed/employed lawyers and accountants.
This doesn't mean that all tools of CPSE's should only be Open Source, but you would only be able to certify the Open Source ones.
Looks like things are progressing more quickly than I thought.
Interesting that they are against software patents, and they attribute Microsoft behind the push for more H1B visas:
"The 2000 election results contained some big victories for the programming profession. The "Senator from Microsoft" Slade Gorton and Rep. James Rogan, both big supporters of replacing American programmers with foreign guest workers, were defeated."
I am seriously considering becoming a member . . .
"Linux has no user-level applications to speak of."
That slashdotters find the above statement "insightful."
"Of course it will never happen because those professions have enough sense not to cut their own throats. H1-B targets the people who may have high IQ scores but are too freaking stupid to organize, lobby or even realize what 100,000 people competing for their job does to their lives."
No, I don't think you tech guys are really stupid. I just think you are out of your league when it comes to Microsoft controlling your profession. Lawyers and accountants have open standards that no company controls. This keeps their profession pure and free of manipulation.
Microsoft basically OWNS the techie profession. Their goal is to sell more software, so when I hear the word "techie" I can picture either a Linux God or a clueless MSCE. Your profession has been polluted by MsDonald workers, which brings down the credibility of the entire profession.
If I were you, I would become an accountant (I am me, and I am doing that). However, if you care about your profession and are willing to stick with it, here are the steps you need:
1. Start backing open source and its non-corporate maintainers. It is not so much that you can read the source code but that no one company can CONTROL the source code. Standardizing on this is comparable to standardizing on Common Law (Lawyers) or GAAP (accountants). These standards are free from some company willing to extort standards in order to sell more software (with a cheaper TCO, because you work harder for less).
2. Unify the certifications of Open Source. I have read about the history of Accounting certification, and I must say that it is very similar to, say, Linux certification. There use to be many different accounting organizations in America. They all swallowed each other up because it made sense. It makes sense with open source, and you should get to the point that you are only certifying "administrators" and "programmers" and nothing more specific that that. The more general the credentials, the more powerful the certification. However, you won't get anywhere if you base your certification on closed standards, controlled by some software selling company.
3. You lobby for government to require your professionals in certain regularly occurring situations. Whether it is auditing the computer systems of government agencies or being deployed by accountants to hand count the number of systems, it doesn't really matter. Only Lawyers can represent others in trial and only CPA's can audit financial statements of public companies. Most Lawyers and CPA's never exercize these priviledges, but it is this priviledge that justifies all of their big, fat salaries. The easiest way I could see this occuring for tech professionals is to require the government to use open source software in certain circumstances and require only "certified" engineers, certified through your own professional organization (i.e., not MS), to audit the integrity of the system and code. If you had this, I bet all CPSE's (certified public software engineer), even the one's not working for the government, would make just as much as lawyers, if not more!
In conclusion, no, I do not think you techies are stupid. This industry is still new, and it took centuries and centuries for accountants to standardize their profession. However, much more technology is available, and Open Source software has completed the majority of the task for you already. So I think it is high time to get your cr@p together and make yourselves a legitimate profession. If you do, I will waste no time to getting CPSE (or its equavalent) added to the end of my name.
Furthermore, you will no longer care if foreigners are getting jobs in your profession because, there will be enough jobs to go around! H1-B visas apply to accountants and lawyers too, you know. The reason you never hear them complaining is a true profession is able to protect its members GLOBALLY.
Sincerely,
the metamoderator of your moderator
As always, I am happy to have my underestimation of Linux corrected;) This is even more true since the Sony and Matsushita announcement.