When they pry the keys out of my cold dead fingers.
I think most people in the developed world feel like you, I've given up on changing minds but I still like to voice my opinions here on/. which seems to have a fair proportion of intelligent readers. I don't drive and I never fly, not because I think I will change the world by my (in)actions but because I prefer a clear conscience. Throughout human history cultures have damaged their host ecosystem to the point that they can no longer survive, it seems to me that this is now happening on a global scale. It may well be too late to fix already, and I can't see serious action being taken until it is definitely too late.
The native Americans had a saying: we don't inherit the world from our parents, we borrow it from our children. For my children's sake I wish people would stop destroying the planet.
IMO... I love it, it's more than just a web browser. I accept that it's not as good at browsing the web as Firefox but it works with virtually all the sites I'm interested in, the full gmail interface being the most notable exception. For me the ability to browse more than just the web in a single app is a real blessing, and the integration with the rest of the KDE desktop is wonderful.
I [...] may be the best you will get posting here.
I'll drink to that!
After my initial post I did a little investigating. It seems electric cars may well lead to significantly less carbon dioxide emmissions than the current gas guzzlers, perhaps as much as a threefold reduction is possible (although that's optimistic). The best you can do is to not drive any car at all, I don't.
Yes, there are economies of scale involved, the actual details are much more complex. Bear in mind however that the transmission of electricity over power lines is inefficient. I wouldn't be surprised if electric cars would cause more pollution that their petrol or diesel driven counterparts. Is there an expert here that knows the answer?
Unless your electricity is generated in a way that doesn't damage the environment you are simply moving the pollution from your car to the power station. A conversion to run your existing car on methanol or something similar would do more to help the environment. The simple truth is that private vehicle ownership will have to end one day, and the ideal time for it to end would have been 30 years or so ago.
It seems like just talk to me. Microsoft are aware they have annoyed a lot of people. I think they are sincere in trying to fix that, they know that if they don't people will stop buying their products, however I still see signs they still don't 'get it'. Throughout the article I get the feeling that Microsoft cannot concieve of a world where they don't have a monopoly on the desktop. There is a lot of talk about releasing API documentation so 3rd partys can write software to run on Windows, and about how box builders should be free to install 3rd party software on the Windows boxes they sell. They even state:
Microsoft will design Windows Live as a product that is separate from Windows. Customers will be free to choose Windows with or without Windows Live
This indicates to me that the two products are only partially seperated, unless customers may choose to run Windows Live without running Windows, a statement which is conspicuous by it's absence. I expect what we are seeing here is partly a response to the EU fines, and partly the start of the "Next time will be different" campaign for Vista.
I try not to do anything wrong, not because it's illegal or socially unacceptable but because it's wrong. It seems to me that this is just the next step in the increasing criminalisation of the public in western society. Sometimes I port scan someone when we are trying to get something working through our firewalls, I know my ISP frowns on this and could technically disconnect me for it, I wouldn't be surprised if it's actually illegal, but it's not wrong. More and more things that are not (IMO) wrong are becoming illegal, the laws are usully enacted to prevent bad things (ie. cracking) but also prohibit innocent activity. ID cards are another example, stopping terrorists bombing people is as laudable a goal as stopping B52s bombing people, but if I'm not an evil bomber and I don't register for an ID card I become a criminal.
It can be made to be fast, and it can be made to be as high level as you want. I ofter wonder what the world would have been like if more programmers had gone the Forth way instead of the C/*nix way.
The article does state "Silver still believes that some users may decide to switch to Linux instead of upgrading to XP but he said existing applications that require Windows are likely to stop a mass migration.". I don't think anyone believes that a huge shift in the OS landscape is here... yet. Windows still has a monopoly, and when Vista is released I expect the masses will rush out and buy it like good consumers despite all the good reasons not to. Similarly hardware vendors will continue to be persuaded to give other operating systems second class support. Some will make the switch, but only in situations where there is someone who advocates an alternative.
I believe the breakthrough will happen 2 to 4 years after the release of Vista. I have the luxury of not having used Windows since 98SE (I saw the light with ME), so I'm probably not qualified to comment on how good or bad Windows actually is, but from the bits and pieces I read I expect Vista to be the last Windows that will have a monopoly on the desktop. There was a recent/. story (too lazy to search, sorry) which indicated that Microsoft see Vista as the last Windows too, they can be blind sometimes but they're not stupid. Vista may or may not be a huge disaster but with DRM, the rewrite, the expected security problems, malware, the continuing growth of alternatives, Bill Gates jumping ship, with national governments becoming concerned about their information infrastructure being in the hands of a monopolistic corporation based in an increasingly imperialistic and dangerous superpower? If the world doesn't switch it deserves all these things.
Of course I don't have a crystal ball, but/. is gonna get very interesting in a couple of years.
Um.... OMG?
You think Heinlein is left wing? Are you mental? While his views on such things were not conventional I'd stick him firmly in the "Libertarian" camp, which from my point of view (Banks and McLeod are countrymen of mine) is fairly far to the right. If Heinlein is viewed as some kind of leftist commie in the US these days then you guys are in a worse state than I though.
Passports, State ID Cards, Licenses, are all essentially the same thing.
These are not the same thing. I don't have a Passport or a Driving Licence, that suits me fine as I'm not into the whole climate-change denial thing. Compulsary ID cards are not optional, if I want to breath the air of my homeland I must be registered and cataloged. I don't acknowledge the right of my government to impose such demands on me and I will not co-operate with their plans.
I should point out that I am a native of the UK, not Australia, however plans for our own ID card system are well underway.
The other reason is that our leaders who might themselves be inept, think that the way America works is the way other societies work and think.
This seems to be a feature of imperialistic cultures, not so much thinking other cultures do live and think like themselves but more thinking that they want to, justifying the imposition of the imperialist's culture upon others.
While I agree with the gist I think it's a little early for a declaration of victory, whether it's inevitable or not. The 'axis of evil' that pushes lock-in, erosion of rights and invasion of privacy are still very strong. Before we can claim the day of the proprietary software monopoly is over IMHO the following things have to happen...
A serious rethink of IP on a global scale needs to take place, at least in relation to computer software.
Hardware manufacturers open the information required to make high quality drivers.
The propritary software companies open their systems as they require inter-operability to claim to be functional.
Non computer literate people have heard of, have used and know someone who uses an different brand of OS from their own. This is not really an issue because both the OSs work with each other well.
Application software is almost always released for multiple platforms, or in some platform-agnostic form.
:o
Serves me right for being sarcastic I guess. If I was trying to make a point it's that technical issues are not the only consideration, some of us prefer FOSS for other reasons as well.
Me, I haven't had windows installed for 5 years or so, so I'm probably not qualified to comment on it's weaknesses. As far as Microsoft buying Opera goes: I can't see it happening, they have too much invested in IE to cut and run now.
A: The egg... it was a mutant egg layed by a prehistoric proto-chicken, but it hatched into the 1st chicken. Of course what we decide is a chicken and what is a prehistoric proto-chicken is up for debate.
I have 3 kids at school in the UK, I went to school here myself, my father worked in an FE college and both his parents were school teachers. From what I know of the education system here this sounds like a terrible idea.
Schools here in the UK have changed a lot in the past few decades. In recent years the politicians have been trying the same privatisation-by-stealth tactics they are using on the health service, this sounds like the latest. I don't think what we are seeing here is a leap forward in computer aided learning, more like the latest way to give taxpayers money to some corporation.
More worrying is the quality of education my kids seem to be getting. #2 daughter would like to learn latin, but it's not taught. At least she could take a qualification in "consumer and lifestyle studies" if she wants.
Slashdot Mirror
I think most people in the developed world feel like you, I've given up on changing minds but I still like to voice my opinions here on /. which seems to have a fair proportion of intelligent readers. I don't drive and I never fly, not because I think I will change the world by my (in)actions but because I prefer a clear conscience. Throughout human history cultures have damaged their host ecosystem to the point that they can no longer survive, it seems to me that this is now happening on a global scale. It may well be too late to fix already, and I can't see serious action being taken until it is definitely too late.
The native Americans had a saying: we don't inherit the world from our parents, we borrow it from our children. For my children's sake I wish people would stop destroying the planet.
IMO... I love it, it's more than just a web browser. I accept that it's not as good at browsing the web as Firefox but it works with virtually all the sites I'm interested in, the full gmail interface being the most notable exception. For me the ability to browse more than just the web in a single app is a real blessing, and the integration with the rest of the KDE desktop is wonderful.
I'll drink to that!
After my initial post I did a little investigating. It seems electric cars may well lead to significantly less carbon dioxide emmissions than the current gas guzzlers, perhaps as much as a threefold reduction is possible (although that's optimistic). The best you can do is to not drive any car at all, I don't.
Yes, there are economies of scale involved, the actual details are much more complex. Bear in mind however that the transmission of electricity over power lines is inefficient. I wouldn't be surprised if electric cars would cause more pollution that their petrol or diesel driven counterparts. Is there an expert here that knows the answer?
Unless your electricity is generated in a way that doesn't damage the environment you are simply moving the pollution from your car to the power station. A conversion to run your existing car on methanol or something similar would do more to help the environment. The simple truth is that private vehicle ownership will have to end one day, and the ideal time for it to end would have been 30 years or so ago.
A cautionary tale.
I'm a happy customer. Their tech ppl actually know what they are talking about too. If you can get BY where you will be then that's the way to go IMO.
It seems like just talk to me. Microsoft are aware they have annoyed a lot of people. I think they are sincere in trying to fix that, they know that if they don't people will stop buying their products, however I still see signs they still don't 'get it'. Throughout the article I get the feeling that Microsoft cannot concieve of a world where they don't have a monopoly on the desktop. There is a lot of talk about releasing API documentation so 3rd partys can write software to run on Windows, and about how box builders should be free to install 3rd party software on the Windows boxes they sell. They even state:
This indicates to me that the two products are only partially seperated, unless customers may choose to run Windows Live without running Windows, a statement which is conspicuous by it's absence. I expect what we are seeing here is partly a response to the EU fines, and partly the start of the "Next time will be different" campaign for Vista.
I try not to do anything wrong, not because it's illegal or socially unacceptable but because it's wrong. It seems to me that this is just the next step in the increasing criminalisation of the public in western society. Sometimes I port scan someone when we are trying to get something working through our firewalls, I know my ISP frowns on this and could technically disconnect me for it, I wouldn't be surprised if it's actually illegal, but it's not wrong. More and more things that are not (IMO) wrong are becoming illegal, the laws are usully enacted to prevent bad things (ie. cracking) but also prohibit innocent activity. ID cards are another example, stopping terrorists bombing people is as laudable a goal as stopping B52s bombing people, but if I'm not an evil bomber and I don't register for an ID card I become a criminal.
Never trust anyone who would rather write anything in COBOL ;)
It can be made to be fast, and it can be made to be as high level as you want. I ofter wonder what the world would have been like if more programmers had gone the Forth way instead of the C/*nix way.
The article does state "Silver still believes that some users may decide to switch to Linux instead of upgrading to XP but he said existing applications that require Windows are likely to stop a mass migration.". I don't think anyone believes that a huge shift in the OS landscape is here... yet. Windows still has a monopoly, and when Vista is released I expect the masses will rush out and buy it like good consumers despite all the good reasons not to. Similarly hardware vendors will continue to be persuaded to give other operating systems second class support. Some will make the switch, but only in situations where there is someone who advocates an alternative.
I believe the breakthrough will happen 2 to 4 years after the release of Vista. I have the luxury of not having used Windows since 98SE (I saw the light with ME), so I'm probably not qualified to comment on how good or bad Windows actually is, but from the bits and pieces I read I expect Vista to be the last Windows that will have a monopoly on the desktop. There was a recent /. story (too lazy to search, sorry) which indicated that Microsoft see Vista as the last Windows too, they can be blind sometimes but they're not stupid. Vista may or may not be a huge disaster but with DRM, the rewrite, the expected security problems, malware, the continuing growth of alternatives, Bill Gates jumping ship, with national governments becoming concerned about their information infrastructure being in the hands of a monopolistic corporation based in an increasingly imperialistic and dangerous superpower? If the world doesn't switch it deserves all these things.
Of course I don't have a crystal ball, but /. is gonna get very interesting in a couple of years.
Um.... OMG? You think Heinlein is left wing? Are you mental? While his views on such things were not conventional I'd stick him firmly in the "Libertarian" camp, which from my point of view (Banks and McLeod are countrymen of mine) is fairly far to the right. If Heinlein is viewed as some kind of leftist commie in the US these days then you guys are in a worse state than I though.
Passports, State ID Cards, Licenses, are all essentially the same thing.
These are not the same thing. I don't have a Passport or a Driving Licence, that suits me fine as I'm not into the whole climate-change denial thing. Compulsary ID cards are not optional, if I want to breath the air of my homeland I must be registered and cataloged. I don't acknowledge the right of my government to impose such demands on me and I will not co-operate with their plans.
I should point out that I am a native of the UK, not Australia, however plans for our own ID card system are well underway.
The other reason is that our leaders who might themselves be inept, think that the way America works is the way other societies work and think.
This seems to be a feature of imperialistic cultures, not so much thinking other cultures do live and think like themselves but more thinking that they want to, justifying the imposition of the imperialist's culture upon others.
I'd prefer one of these.
While I agree with the gist I think it's a little early for a declaration of victory, whether it's inevitable or not. The 'axis of evil' that pushes lock-in, erosion of rights and invasion of privacy are still very strong. Before we can claim the day of the proprietary software monopoly is over IMHO the following things have to happen...
:o Serves me right for being sarcastic I guess. If I was trying to make a point it's that technical issues are not the only consideration, some of us prefer FOSS for other reasons as well. Me, I haven't had windows installed for 5 years or so, so I'm probably not qualified to comment on it's weaknesses. As far as Microsoft buying Opera goes: I can't see it happening, they have too much invested in IE to cut and run now.
This 'IE' sounds great... does it run on Linux? Do you have the link to the project page?
These guys have been doing this next big thing for a while now.
The man at the head of the world's largest heirarchical power structure gives out "Freedom" medals.
Summary: They won't let us run their communications networks! Bomb them all!
..., if you are Microsoft. The world is screaming out for choice when it comes to operating systems, this is Microsoft's way of giving it to them.
A: The egg... it was a mutant egg layed by a prehistoric proto-chicken, but it hatched into the 1st chicken. Of course what we decide is a chicken and what is a prehistoric proto-chicken is up for debate.
I have 3 kids at school in the UK, I went to school here myself, my father worked in an FE college and both his parents were school teachers. From what I know of the education system here this sounds like a terrible idea.
Schools here in the UK have changed a lot in the past few decades. In recent years the politicians have been trying the same privatisation-by-stealth tactics they are using on the health service, this sounds like the latest. I don't think what we are seeing here is a leap forward in computer aided learning, more like the latest way to give taxpayers money to some corporation.
More worrying is the quality of education my kids seem to be getting. #2 daughter would like to learn latin, but it's not taught. At least she could take a qualification in "consumer and lifestyle studies" if she wants.