Re:FOX : "Lab slab cures non-existant global warmi
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additionall, livestock eats more grain than humans do.
Grain isn't the only thing farmed. There's all kinds of vegetables that are farmed. How about fruits, too, while we're at it?
Hope the Vegans have all seen the Secret of NIMH.:)
Re:some plants rely on being eaten
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If you disagree then you are in the company of the Rawandan butchers or Pol Pot where the life of others is valueless and can be traded for power.
Please let the tyranny continue by disallowing any viewpoint that disagrees with your own. Please, please, I want to be controlled by guilt!
Seriously, I agreed with much of what you said until I read that one sentence that condemns all who disagree with you. Now I disagree with you.:)
Note that I LOVE steak. I've got both a grill and a smoker so that I can eat my meat any of a variety of ways. I keep a handy stack of mesquite on hand for some good-ass cooking.
Barbaric? Possibly. Maybe I just try to accept my place in the foodchain? Some bigger fish will come along and eat me, no doubt. In the meantime, though, WOO, PAR - TY!
Is killing really so wrong? Is it such a bad thing? I don't know. The rules change from situation to situation so fast it's unbelievable. Take the stereotypical pacifist stance, "I would not raise my hand to strike you even if it meant my death." Therefore he will not try to prevent the killing that he abhors so much. How about, "I would not eat meat even if it meant that I starved to death." You still haven't found a cure for death, have you?
That's the bottom line, isn't it? You're not trying to cure killing, you're trying to cure death, and failing every day in numbers too frightening to bear. Good luck to you, but you'll have to kill me, or wait for me to die. Your solution to death must also depend on death, and that can't be avoided.
Re:Flavor- Who gives a F-ck. This is sick
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It makes me wonder, if people stop eating meat, what will happen to all those cattle? Should we just set them all free? Keep them as pets? Set up massive zoos for them?
You don't really think people are gonna stop raising cattle just because we've got vat-grown beef, do you? Realistically? Maybe it'll be cheaper someday to eat the vat-grown stuff. Maybe it'll be more plentiful, this vat-grown stuff. Maybe the meat that we eat now every day will become a delicassy? (sp?)
Really now, I think if the vegans have their way the cattle population will be decimated to the point of near extinction. How cruel.
A clear example of a poorly-thought philosophy. Heh. These animals have been domesticated SO LONG that they couldn't live wild anymore. Maybe they could learn again, but you can't just set them free. They'd all be hunted down and slaughtered within days/weeks. You're absolutely correct, if the vegans have their way there won't be any of these animals left. So, by saving their lives by preventing us from killing them and eating them (their purpose in life), we should stop killing them and let nature wipe out the whole lot of them?
Besides, after we have vat-grown meat it will finally be possible to cram every open space and open range with living, breathing, PEOPLE. The overpopulation nightmares about death and destruction aren't half as scary as filling up all the available space with people.
I think that when the food riots start, the vegans will be the first to turn on fellow men.:)
Re:Flavor- Who gives a F-ck. This is sick
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When it comes down to it, and no offense to the farmers and others who I know care about their product, taken as a whole it is an industry that doesn't care about anything but making money
wtf? Where do you work? Is there any other kind of industry? Isn't that the purpose of industry?
Fair enough. I don't necessarily agree with most of the points you've made there, but I'm not going to try to convince you otherwise. You're entitled to your opinion. Then again, so am I.
Damn. can't have a good fight with stuff like that....:)
Well, I think there's more to it than that, but looking at the *why* doesn't change the facts. I really doubt Apple would have been able to get to where Microsoft is today. Their corporate ideals just don't pull that way. Insofar as Microsoft is evil, well, that depends on which side of the fence you're at.
Apple *proved* that they couldn't do what Microsoft did. Regardless of the "why" or "how" of the matter, the vacuum appeared, and Microsoft filled it, not Apple. The proof is already there. So, I must agree with you there.:)
True, and I do that with alarming precision. Let's be honest, the whole "free vs. free" thing is understood by few people here. Show me the sheep zealot who can explain that rationally and I'll show you flying pigs. They tend to get bogged down in their own philosophical tar pits and when they realize they're stuck, they simply resort to finesse like "fuck off" and so on. Amusing, but to a certain degree sad. It's difficult to ignore the bad when the bad is 3/4ths of the whole, mmmm?
I've seen you post before (I recognize the sig, anyway) and I find myself agreeing with you on most parts, even the ones involving free software. There isn't a proven business model yet. There are several businesses attempting to prove it, but they haven't successfully done so. I figure it'll take RedHat another 10 years or so to prove it. They've proven it'll make money as a fad, now I want to see the longevity.
That was a digression, though.:) You're right, the whole "free" vs "free" is a tough thing to understand, and most people (sadly) don't take the time to think things through. Abstract freedom compared to price? What? But I get both, right? I know....
I do. Certainly there are zealots and there there are zealots. If anything, I respect someone who believes and fights for a cause. I'd just as soon be extended the same courtesy =)
Can't speak for the sheep, but it's a well-documented "fact" that "manners are the oil that lubricates society. WIthout manners, there is friction.":)
I've gotta say that what we've come up with is that most people seem to remember stuff from before they were 5 or 6, the main problem is putting it into a chronology.
Basically, you don't start learning about the time and the date really until you hit school. Your parents might teach you some before then, and you might develop a sense of time before then, but the #1 problem seems to be determining what is actually your first memory. I have several memories that date from before I ever understood "week" and "day" and so forth. But which one came first? Beats the shit out of me.
Some of these memories happen at significant times. For example I remember stopping at several rest stops between Del Rio, TX and Phoenix, AZ, when my family moved there. I remember being hungry and thirsty, and I remember sleeping and waking and playing in the car and so forth. I strongly remember this event. The only reason I can place it in its place in my sequential memory is because it was a big deal for the family to move, so my age at the time was imprinted. Not through any personal sense, I swear I must've been 3 or 4 or 5, but I *know* I was 4 only because my parents tell me so in relation to when we moved.
I have earlier memories than that, only because the geography in the two air force bases was so completely different that I can mark it in my memory that way. I have memories that must date back to when I wore diapers, but since my mom can't give me a straight answer on when I stopped wearing diapers (I think she's embarrassed 'cause I got potty trained after age 2, or at age 2, and she considers it unacceptable for a kid to hit their 2yo birthday without being potty trained), I can't place them in relation to other things. Since there was a time when I wore diapers sometimes, and underwear other times, just knowing that I was wearing a diaper during the memory doesn't help. Size doesn't help either, since I didn't realize I was growing until I was 8 or 9 (I was SO scared that kids were getting so much smaller every year...).
Anyway, point is, we need a point of reference to be able to place when early memories actually happened. Without a point of reference, we could very well have memories of being born, but no way to reference it, therefore no way to recall it. Kinda like a database entry that lost its index, or was created without one.
Maybe if "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" were released under a free license we'd be able to tell people what TANSTAAFL means, eh?
Seriously, OSS gets paid for somehow, by someone. Someone spent the time on it, he got paid somehow. Maybe he donated his time (Debian, anyone?), maybe he's a paid kernel hacker (Alan Cox, anyone?). But it's paid for somehow. SOmetimes the end-users pay for it, sometimes we get it on our home boxes as a consequence of someone else working on it commercially (Openoffice.org, anyone?).
Perhaps the next book he releases will be available as a free download, then. Or perhaps not.
Why should it be? He's gotta support himself too, doesn't he? Just because a man dedicates his life to promoting ideals of freedom and independence and you want him to give away his entire life to you, without charge? How much did it cost him to live this life?
"Free" in "Free Software" means "Free as in free speech, not free as in free beer." I BOUGHT a book called "Free as in Freedom". I PAID for it! Believe that?
I can copy it, I can give it to whomever I want. The only limitation is that if I make more than 100 copies of it I have to make sure the front and back covers are copied verbatim. Documentation is different than source code. But I can modify it (as long as I show my modifications are mine, and clearly mark them as such) and distribute it with modifications. I can.....
I paid $20 for this book. It's a hard back book. The author made it GDL at the request of the subject, RMS.
Back to our example, why should they work through the issue with you for free so that you can "sell" it to others?
Wasn't the poster complaining about the NDA part of paying for the support? Not asking for the information for free, just wanting to be able to share it?
Isn't the "right to share" (so to speak) one of the founding philophies of free software? Right to share source, right to distribute, right to modify, right to distribute with modifications. Hmmm, I believe it's there. However, the GPL doesn't cover documentation well, it's really intended for software.
Luckily, there's the GDL, the General Documentation License. Look for that. There's several other OSI-approved documentation licenses. I have a feeling that the documentation license that expressly forbids talking about it afterwards is not OSI-approved.
My wife and I once had an NDA agreement. She didn't want me talking about sex after we had it, with other people. So I couldn't go to my brother and say "Hey bro, I fucked my wife up the ass!". Suffice it to say, we threw out the NDA, and shortly afterwards my brother said "I don't wanna know how you fucked your wife, dave."
There's an additional danger I don't think anybody's pointed out yet. One way some companies keep people upgrading (yeah yeah, say Microsoft, but I was thinking about whoever makes Goldmine) is by promising to fix bugs, promising to make it easier to use, and then giving it to you in a slightly "off" fashion. It's technically easier to use, or the bug is technically fixed, but it doesn't quite behave like you'd expect (as well as the other 1000000000 people who use it), so you have to pay for repeated support calls, and you have to pay for more documentation, and you have to pay for...
The danger in the Support model is that the company can keep making the thing just slightly less-shitty than it was last year, and you keep coming back for more. OSS? That's good, but not great. How many of us have time to adopt every single piece of OSS that needs help? I sure in the fuck don't. I wish I could give more time as it is, but I just don't have it. I'm sure a lot of you guys out there are like me in this fashion, too. (Although this is rarely considered when it's easier to say "Contribute to the project or shut the fuck up") So the end result is that the core development team, which is paid by the company, can keep only slightly improving their shit so you can keep paying for support.
Services, now that's a different story. I make a killer app, and then I go sell it to joe blow down the street. I don't just sell him the app in a box with a manual. I also go in to his 20 workstations and install it (by going to his server and installing it:) ). Then I train his 30 employees on the software. Then he pays me, and he pays me some yearly amount that covers up to a certain amount of incidents. Training is now his problem, though, when he hires new guys. However, when he gets enough new people (either replacing people that left or because his company grew) he may need me to come back out and train again. When it's time to upgrade he can get his $60000/year admin to evaluate the upgrade and make sure it's stable, and he can even have the admin do the upgrade. Or he can get a warranty by having *me* perform the upgrade.
I do have issues with the whole evangelization thing. OSS folks tend to have that "you're either with us or against us" attitude that pisses me off to no end.
That's me, pure and simple, and for what I consider to be good reason. With computers becoming ever more pervasive in our lives, it's important to establish boundaries with them. In my opinion, the boundaries need to be set in favor of the end-user, and fuck the developer (yes, I am a developer). Freedom needs to be protected for both sides, though, and this is what OSS software does. However, as computers become more and more pervasive and our society more and more dependent on them (do you just ask a chick for her phone number? Do you try to get an email address too?), there is plenty of opportunity for someone to exploit us through them. Now I dont wanna get bogged down with specific examples, because it's also my firm opinion that our government as it stands isn't capable of updating itself. But if you wanna talk examples, I'll do it. For me, though, supporting OSS as a zealot, I consider free software to be this country's last hope for freedom. We've lost in a lot of critical places, and this is our stand. If we make this stand, and we win, we will remain free. If not..... (In SOVIET AMERICA, OSS Licenses You!)
. I've always stated that Microsoft is Microsoft because no other company had the guts and vision to do what they did. Oracle and Sun can take Gates to court all they want,
Microsoft got lucky. Look at history, dude. Commodore was beating Microsoft in the home market steadily until SVGA came out. While MS still had more market share, Commodore was gaining rapidly. Then Commodore got screwed over. Apples at the time were targetted at education (schools) and publishing houses, mostly, because commodore had already cleaned the floor in the home market with them. Microsoft got the monopoly because they were the only company left that had a serious home offering when Commodore went under. It was handed to them on a silver platter. All they had to do was make Windows 0.95. That's it. If they had stuck with Win3.1, Apple would've come in and kicked their ass, plain and simple.
Oracle doesn't make Operating Systems. They DO make one of the most reliable database servers ever, and they've been at it for a long time.
Sun has not yet pursued the home desktop market, but before MS came along Sun had the high-end workstation market in their back pocket. They had servers where Microsoft was only hoping to poke their fingers. Sun's time came and went, and *then* Microsoft came along in the vacuum of home computing. MS had already started ascending into businesses with win3.1, and NT was the extra push they needed. Also, 32-bit computing became a reality, that being the other thing holding MS back from the server market.
Microsoft got their opportunity by being the DEFAULT OFFERING, not by being innovative or visionary. Then they turned control-freak on all of us. Some people call it "standardization", but there was no publically accessible standardizing body. There was Microsoft telling us how to use our computers.
They've always been evil, and Commodore was certainly evil too. Apple too. It happens to every company when they pass a certain size. Microsoft didn't have competition, though, and THAT'S why they got where they got.
bash Microsoft around here do so without really understanding why. It's the flock syndrome
I've gotta agree with this, but the HURD came with the free software movement, didn't you know? Seriously, after any movement grows above a certain size, it attracts sheep. Get over it. OSS can't make any headway without sheep just like Microsoft wouldn't have gotten anywhere without sheep (individuals in the mid-90's that I found were buying Apple, because they thought about it and realized that Apples were better, albeit more expensive). Just ignore them. Or better yet, lead them to where you think the water is.
I'm not going point by point like the other person did, because I don't feel like it. Just try to keep a sense of balance looking at us zealots, some of us try to keep balanced too. I'm admittedly a zealot, and I feel that I have good reasons for it. But I'll be the first one to point out that MS's OLE and GNU/Linux' complete lack of OLE is a big reason why people would prefer Windows over GNU/Linux in a taste test. (Can't drag files to Mozilla, can't drag pictures form mozilla to my desktop and have it appear in the background, copy-n-paste from one app to another is REALLY a pain in the ass.....the list goes on)
Where does the NDA end? If you're the help desk in a company, and you have to support this product internally, do you have to buy a doc license for everybody in the company just so your help desk can support it?
I don't mind paying for support, I don't mind paying for the download, and I don't mind paying for documentation. But I want my freedom to do with this stuff as I please after I have it!
Are you kidding? This is the first indication I've seen that the slashdot readership can read something that's either a) not a duplicate, b) not a soviet russia joke, and c) not threaded.
LDP? Does anybody around here actually read the LInux Documentation Project?
Seriously, it happens to be a WONDERFUL source of information. So wonderful, in fact, that Mandrake includes a local copy of it when you install the docs. Luckily, nobody made anybody sign an NDA to use LDP, got it OG?
First off, you liberated your wife?!? That immedeatly signals that you live in a time before woman had the right to vote and that you are already old fashioned thinking.
For this I have to fall back on some of the more annoying words strung, "You don't know what you are talking about." It's a long story that involved a certain amount of abuse, drugs, gangs, and so forth in my wife's childhood, and at the age of 15 she met me. In a world of adults that cared about her, but she didn't trust, I was arguably the only one in a position to help her. I did so, and it is rightly termed "liberation". If we split up, she will not return to her previous lifestyle, she will continue to pursue a better one, and that is liberation.
But living my life in a nutshell and trying to hide from everything is no way to live.
This isn't at all what I'm talking about. SOrry. I won't attempt to explain further, I don't consider it "necessary".
You and I know that the government snooping into lives is wrong, but what is wrong with a grocery store using fingerprints as a form of an IOU?
Ah, if I had only read the article. You see, I followed a link from a different discussion and was thinking in terms of the previous discussion. If this statement of yours is correct, and grocery stores are using it as a form of identification, or somehow it simplifies our lives, then I would consider it "ok" for as far as that goes. I do like to be able to purchase with cash when I prefer anonymity, but I rarely find it necessary to do so. In any case, some additional comments:
I don't have a problem with private (or publicly owned) organizations requiring personal information as a part of doing business. For example, when you write a check they want your driver's license number, home phone number, and so forth. This is for their protection, and since it is also useful to me (ie if I write a bad check, they'll tell me and I can pay it) I willingly give it to them.
If a company wants personal information, I have to know what it is to be used for before I give it to them. If they chose not to reveal this to me, I chose not to reveal my information.
Since that appears to be all this article is about, my comments are over.:) I'm still not reading the article, I'm not interested. Fingerprints DO change, they CAN be faked, and they are not especially reliable. Useful as a tool, yes, but not especially reliable. More useful than photographs, because they're harder to change, but they can be changed or disguised or what have you.
Heh, I'll bite. First I'll point out that the whole subject of racism coming up here is offtopic completely, and if these guys really wanted to approach you they should have found a more appropriate place to discuss it.
You don't have to agree with all my opinions. But, you shouldn't let my opinions about race affect your thoughts on anything else I have to say. I mean, isn't that what tolerance is all about?
Are you really expecting tolerance? Racism itself is the antithesis of tolerance, and usually an extreme case of nontolerance. Now, I used to live in Texas, which is technically in the South. I did encounter racism every day, but it is important to note that I did not notice any particular "race" having more or less than any other. Ie Indians generally treated me the same way I've seen White Boys treat Black Boys. Same from Orientals (I won't try to distinguish between the different ethnics of orientals, I'm not good at it). POint is: White People aren't the only racists, they're just the ones who take most of the blame.
Now, further more, I don't know what actions you take on account of your racism. If you actually do something to harm people over it, then I would have a problem with this. If you do something to help some people over others solely because of race, but it doesn't actually harm anyone, then I'm not sure there's a problem. (Harm includes, IMHO, infringing or removing completely someone else's rights and freedoms)
If it is all talk, however, then I'm with Voltaire. I may not agree with it, but I'll defend your right to say it.
As an exercise of the golden rule, of course I expect the same treatment in return.:)
The problem with it being all talk, though, is that sincerity and integrity are usually lost when a person does all talk and no action. I complain about this all the time in other areas (such as the area in which you were actually posting originally:) ), so I don't honestly expect you to be all talk and no action on account of your racism. Only time will tell if we ever are in a position to be at odds with each other and what will actually happen.
Yeah, that's usually true. However notice that in this case the guy managed to squeeze out an entire post with no references at all to chinks, wops, kikes, or sand niggers! And he still got a harsh reaction, which was entirely based on his username and signature- i.e. at who he was, not at what he was saying- which, in this particular case, happened to be completely mundane and inoffensive.
I was purposely ignoring that part, because it was extremely well-commented on. I'm actually surprised that my own posts get modded up, considering my username is fucksl4shd0t.
Having been a long-time fan of SOD, I gotta love their blatant racism. There are cases where it's useful, and in their case it's useful as a social statement. Further research into SOD would reveal that 2 of 4 members have at least one anti-racism song on every album (Anthrax is the band, of course).
You are absolutely correct that reacting harshly to someone because of who they are, or even what they're saying is generally a bad thing. Voltaire: "I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
If Bill Gates came in and posted an insightful criticism on the open source world, and the GPL, and free software, and he could be genuinely determined to be the *real* Bill gates at Microsoft, would he be modded away? Would he receive the same harsh criticism?
I'm sick of the idea of "free speach for me, but not for you" that pervades our society. Many of the people who say they have freedom of speach turn around and try to prevent *me* from exercising my own freedom. But it's in the same amendment that says "Freedom of Religion, as long as it's christianity". Heh.
I'm not doing anything illegal or wrong so I have nothing to worry about.
My mom says "Why are you so worried about protecting your privacy? What do you have to hide?"
My answer: "Nothing."
Having nothing to hide, or not doing anything illegal, is no reason to allow the government or anyone else access to your stuff. I haven't done anything illegal in years, and the illegal things I did were morally right, IMHO. (statutory rape is about older men taking advantage of girls not old enough to properly stop them. I liberated my wife and helped her become a free woman.) However, if I didn't protect my privacy, there could very well come a day when the stuff I did that wasn't worth hiding could incriminate me, even if it is morally right and even legal at the time.
Do you change your oil when your engine runs fine? Why? "Preventive"....
Of course, I am aware that there are some problems with this plan.. It is still illegal, and there is no way to make sure that the record companies don't usurp the money from the band..
Don't give in to FUD. If the music was ripped from a CD (not a DVD), it was NOT illegal for you to acquire it. It's called "Fair use", and as long as we allow them to make us think that P2P music sharing is illegal, it will be treated as such.
Stand up and demand your rights! State them as such and people will know! When enough people know their rights, they will know that Napster was SHUT DOWN ILLEGALLY.
Yeah, yeah, I know. The courts "interpret the law". Or somesuch, so that court decided it was illegal. There haven't been nearly enough cases taken to court over the matter, though.
CD's means "something that belongs to CD". The plural of CD is CDs, just as the plural of Cat is Cats, not Cat's. If the people who submit the stories can't spell, and the editors can't spell, Slashdot could at least have a spellchecker.
I'd rather see an idiot checker.
First you demonstrate that "CD's" is a correctly spelled possessive. Then you show us the correct way of pluralizing CD. Then you think a spellchecker would fix the problem?
--sue. Sue them, and here's how to do it. Take the LOCAL store manager to court, charge "fraud". Simple fraud is a crime. It's *illegal* to sell something that ain't that something.
For all your moral statement here, there's something you're just not getting. It's not the LOCAL store that's responsible for the CD. Sure, maybe they should post a warning or something that says "Some CDs here are copy-protected, use at your own risk", but it's just not their fault.
Your proposed suit would be frivolous because you're holding the wrong people responsible. It's just like holding tobacco companies responsible for lung cancer. Now, while I'll be the first to admit that their actions trying to prevent people from knowing about the dangers of smoking is certainly worth fighting over, it's not the tobacco company who's at fault because *I* smoke. *I* know the dangers, so hold me personally responsible for myself.
To apply the reasoning to a local music store, *if* they know that some of their CDs are unplayable, they should either post a generic warning to that effect, or put specific warnings on the CDs, or at least say something when the CD is purchased.
The only reasonable result of your lawsuit is to force the local music stores to inform their customers.
Any other result will be nothing more than using the local store as a scapegoat, and will do NOTHING to prevent the bigger companies from continuing to do what they do. It's immoral to use someone as a scapegoat. Hold the appropriate people responsible for their actions.
If that takes money, raise the money. There's plenty of people to support it. All it takes is someone to take action.
There's people taking action. If you prefer NOT to take action personally, give money to those who are, because they *need* it, in order to pursue the morally (and legally) correct action.
As a parting question, who is responsible for underage drinking? (Assuming for a moment that underage drinking is itself a problem) Is it the people that make the liquor, or the people that make it available to underagers?
So, again I ask, what -CAN- we do? Instead of the standard bitching on Slashdot, perhaps now -is- time to collectively organise and actually accomplish something before its too late?
It's called "Revolution", but this country's still not ready for it (IMHO). Just get ready to hanker down when the police state finally comes. It'll take popular support to ultimately win, and it's gonna take a whole lot of patience and determination to do so. It may not happen in our generation, it may not even be our kids that get to do it, but it will happen.
Again, IMHO, the time when citizens could have made a difference came and went before I was born (ref: the protests to the Vietnam war, also did nothing). It's time to prepare (or join, although I don't know of any such groups) an organization that will act when the time is most suitable for taking back our country.
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Grain isn't the only thing farmed. There's all kinds of vegetables that are farmed. How about fruits, too, while we're at it?
Hope the Vegans have all seen the Secret of NIMH. :)
Please let the tyranny continue by disallowing any viewpoint that disagrees with your own. Please, please, I want to be controlled by guilt!
Seriously, I agreed with much of what you said until I read that one sentence that condemns all who disagree with you. Now I disagree with you. :)
Note that I LOVE steak. I've got both a grill and a smoker so that I can eat my meat any of a variety of ways. I keep a handy stack of mesquite on hand for some good-ass cooking.
Barbaric? Possibly. Maybe I just try to accept my place in the foodchain? Some bigger fish will come along and eat me, no doubt. In the meantime, though, WOO, PAR - TY!
Is killing really so wrong? Is it such a bad thing? I don't know. The rules change from situation to situation so fast it's unbelievable. Take the stereotypical pacifist stance, "I would not raise my hand to strike you even if it meant my death." Therefore he will not try to prevent the killing that he abhors so much. How about, "I would not eat meat even if it meant that I starved to death." You still haven't found a cure for death, have you?
That's the bottom line, isn't it? You're not trying to cure killing, you're trying to cure death, and failing every day in numbers too frightening to bear. Good luck to you, but you'll have to kill me, or wait for me to die. Your solution to death must also depend on death, and that can't be avoided.
You don't really think people are gonna stop raising cattle just because we've got vat-grown beef, do you? Realistically? Maybe it'll be cheaper someday to eat the vat-grown stuff. Maybe it'll be more plentiful, this vat-grown stuff. Maybe the meat that we eat now every day will become a delicassy? (sp?)
Really now, I think if the vegans have their way the cattle population will be decimated to the point of near extinction. How cruel.
A clear example of a poorly-thought philosophy. Heh. These animals have been domesticated SO LONG that they couldn't live wild anymore. Maybe they could learn again, but you can't just set them free. They'd all be hunted down and slaughtered within days/weeks. You're absolutely correct, if the vegans have their way there won't be any of these animals left. So, by saving their lives by preventing us from killing them and eating them (their purpose in life), we should stop killing them and let nature wipe out the whole lot of them?
Besides, after we have vat-grown meat it will finally be possible to cram every open space and open range with living, breathing, PEOPLE. The overpopulation nightmares about death and destruction aren't half as scary as filling up all the available space with people.
I think that when the food riots start, the vegans will be the first to turn on fellow men. :)
wtf? Where do you work? Is there any other kind of industry? Isn't that the purpose of industry?
Damn. can't have a good fight with stuff like that.... :)
Well, I think there's more to it than that, but looking at the *why* doesn't change the facts. I really doubt Apple would have been able to get to where Microsoft is today. Their corporate ideals just don't pull that way. Insofar as Microsoft is evil, well, that depends on which side of the fence you're at.
Apple *proved* that they couldn't do what Microsoft did. Regardless of the "why" or "how" of the matter, the vacuum appeared, and Microsoft filled it, not Apple. The proof is already there. So, I must agree with you there. :)
True, and I do that with alarming precision. Let's be honest, the whole "free vs. free" thing is understood by few people here. Show me the sheep zealot who can explain that rationally and I'll show you flying pigs. They tend to get bogged down in their own philosophical tar pits and when they realize they're stuck, they simply resort to finesse like "fuck off" and so on. Amusing, but to a certain degree sad. It's difficult to ignore the bad when the bad is 3/4ths of the whole, mmmm?
I've seen you post before (I recognize the sig, anyway) and I find myself agreeing with you on most parts, even the ones involving free software. There isn't a proven business model yet. There are several businesses attempting to prove it, but they haven't successfully done so. I figure it'll take RedHat another 10 years or so to prove it. They've proven it'll make money as a fad, now I want to see the longevity.
That was a digression, though. :) You're right, the whole "free" vs "free" is a tough thing to understand, and most people (sadly) don't take the time to think things through. Abstract freedom compared to price? What? But I get both, right? I know....
I do. Certainly there are zealots and there there are zealots. If anything, I respect someone who believes and fights for a cause. I'd just as soon be extended the same courtesy =)
Can't speak for the sheep, but it's a well-documented "fact" that "manners are the oil that lubricates society. WIthout manners, there is friction." :)
Was riding on a 4-wheeled red-pinkish toy duck with my brother pushing me from behind.
Basically, you don't start learning about the time and the date really until you hit school. Your parents might teach you some before then, and you might develop a sense of time before then, but the #1 problem seems to be determining what is actually your first memory. I have several memories that date from before I ever understood "week" and "day" and so forth. But which one came first? Beats the shit out of me.
Some of these memories happen at significant times. For example I remember stopping at several rest stops between Del Rio, TX and Phoenix, AZ, when my family moved there. I remember being hungry and thirsty, and I remember sleeping and waking and playing in the car and so forth. I strongly remember this event. The only reason I can place it in its place in my sequential memory is because it was a big deal for the family to move, so my age at the time was imprinted. Not through any personal sense, I swear I must've been 3 or 4 or 5, but I *know* I was 4 only because my parents tell me so in relation to when we moved.
I have earlier memories than that, only because the geography in the two air force bases was so completely different that I can mark it in my memory that way. I have memories that must date back to when I wore diapers, but since my mom can't give me a straight answer on when I stopped wearing diapers (I think she's embarrassed 'cause I got potty trained after age 2, or at age 2, and she considers it unacceptable for a kid to hit their 2yo birthday without being potty trained), I can't place them in relation to other things. Since there was a time when I wore diapers sometimes, and underwear other times, just knowing that I was wearing a diaper during the memory doesn't help. Size doesn't help either, since I didn't realize I was growing until I was 8 or 9 (I was SO scared that kids were getting so much smaller every year...).
Anyway, point is, we need a point of reference to be able to place when early memories actually happened. Without a point of reference, we could very well have memories of being born, but no way to reference it, therefore no way to recall it. Kinda like a database entry that lost its index, or was created without one.
Seriously, OSS gets paid for somehow, by someone. Someone spent the time on it, he got paid somehow. Maybe he donated his time (Debian, anyone?), maybe he's a paid kernel hacker (Alan Cox, anyone?). But it's paid for somehow. SOmetimes the end-users pay for it, sometimes we get it on our home boxes as a consequence of someone else working on it commercially (Openoffice.org, anyone?).
TANSTAAFL
Why should it be? He's gotta support himself too, doesn't he? Just because a man dedicates his life to promoting ideals of freedom and independence and you want him to give away his entire life to you, without charge? How much did it cost him to live this life?
"Free" in "Free Software" means "Free as in free speech, not free as in free beer." I BOUGHT a book called "Free as in Freedom". I PAID for it! Believe that?
I can copy it, I can give it to whomever I want. The only limitation is that if I make more than 100 copies of it I have to make sure the front and back covers are copied verbatim. Documentation is different than source code. But I can modify it (as long as I show my modifications are mine, and clearly mark them as such) and distribute it with modifications. I can.....
I paid $20 for this book. It's a hard back book. The author made it GDL at the request of the subject, RMS.
Back to our example, why should they work through the issue with you for free so that you can "sell" it to others?
Wasn't the poster complaining about the NDA part of paying for the support? Not asking for the information for free, just wanting to be able to share it?
Isn't the "right to share" (so to speak) one of the founding philophies of free software? Right to share source, right to distribute, right to modify, right to distribute with modifications. Hmmm, I believe it's there. However, the GPL doesn't cover documentation well, it's really intended for software.
Luckily, there's the GDL, the General Documentation License. Look for that. There's several other OSI-approved documentation licenses. I have a feeling that the documentation license that expressly forbids talking about it afterwards is not OSI-approved.
My wife and I once had an NDA agreement. She didn't want me talking about sex after we had it, with other people. So I couldn't go to my brother and say "Hey bro, I fucked my wife up the ass!". Suffice it to say, we threw out the NDA, and shortly afterwards my brother said "I don't wanna know how you fucked your wife, dave."
There's an additional danger I don't think anybody's pointed out yet. One way some companies keep people upgrading (yeah yeah, say Microsoft, but I was thinking about whoever makes Goldmine) is by promising to fix bugs, promising to make it easier to use, and then giving it to you in a slightly "off" fashion. It's technically easier to use, or the bug is technically fixed, but it doesn't quite behave like you'd expect (as well as the other 1000000000 people who use it), so you have to pay for repeated support calls, and you have to pay for more documentation, and you have to pay for...
The danger in the Support model is that the company can keep making the thing just slightly less-shitty than it was last year, and you keep coming back for more. OSS? That's good, but not great. How many of us have time to adopt every single piece of OSS that needs help? I sure in the fuck don't. I wish I could give more time as it is, but I just don't have it. I'm sure a lot of you guys out there are like me in this fashion, too. (Although this is rarely considered when it's easier to say "Contribute to the project or shut the fuck up") So the end result is that the core development team, which is paid by the company, can keep only slightly improving their shit so you can keep paying for support.
Services, now that's a different story. I make a killer app, and then I go sell it to joe blow down the street. I don't just sell him the app in a box with a manual. I also go in to his 20 workstations and install it (by going to his server and installing it :) ). Then I train his 30 employees on the software. Then he pays me, and he pays me some yearly amount that covers up to a certain amount of incidents. Training is now his problem, though, when he hires new guys. However, when he gets enough new people (either replacing people that left or because his company grew) he may need me to come back out and train again. When it's time to upgrade he can get his $60000/year admin to evaluate the upgrade and make sure it's stable, and he can even have the admin do the upgrade. Or he can get a warranty by having *me* perform the upgrade.
Support != Service in all cases.
I do have issues with the whole evangelization thing. OSS folks tend to have that "you're either with us or against us" attitude that pisses me off to no end.
That's me, pure and simple, and for what I consider to be good reason. With computers becoming ever more pervasive in our lives, it's important to establish boundaries with them. In my opinion, the boundaries need to be set in favor of the end-user, and fuck the developer (yes, I am a developer). Freedom needs to be protected for both sides, though, and this is what OSS software does. However, as computers become more and more pervasive and our society more and more dependent on them (do you just ask a chick for her phone number? Do you try to get an email address too?), there is plenty of opportunity for someone to exploit us through them. Now I dont wanna get bogged down with specific examples, because it's also my firm opinion that our government as it stands isn't capable of updating itself. But if you wanna talk examples, I'll do it. For me, though, supporting OSS as a zealot, I consider free software to be this country's last hope for freedom. We've lost in a lot of critical places, and this is our stand. If we make this stand, and we win, we will remain free. If not..... (In SOVIET AMERICA, OSS Licenses You!)
. I've always stated that Microsoft is Microsoft because no other company had the guts and vision to do what they did. Oracle and Sun can take Gates to court all they want,
Microsoft got lucky. Look at history, dude. Commodore was beating Microsoft in the home market steadily until SVGA came out. While MS still had more market share, Commodore was gaining rapidly. Then Commodore got screwed over. Apples at the time were targetted at education (schools) and publishing houses, mostly, because commodore had already cleaned the floor in the home market with them. Microsoft got the monopoly because they were the only company left that had a serious home offering when Commodore went under. It was handed to them on a silver platter. All they had to do was make Windows 0.95. That's it. If they had stuck with Win3.1, Apple would've come in and kicked their ass, plain and simple.
Oracle doesn't make Operating Systems. They DO make one of the most reliable database servers ever, and they've been at it for a long time.
Sun has not yet pursued the home desktop market, but before MS came along Sun had the high-end workstation market in their back pocket. They had servers where Microsoft was only hoping to poke their fingers. Sun's time came and went, and *then* Microsoft came along in the vacuum of home computing. MS had already started ascending into businesses with win3.1, and NT was the extra push they needed. Also, 32-bit computing became a reality, that being the other thing holding MS back from the server market.
Microsoft got their opportunity by being the DEFAULT OFFERING, not by being innovative or visionary. Then they turned control-freak on all of us. Some people call it "standardization", but there was no publically accessible standardizing body. There was Microsoft telling us how to use our computers.
They've always been evil, and Commodore was certainly evil too. Apple too. It happens to every company when they pass a certain size. Microsoft didn't have competition, though, and THAT'S why they got where they got.
bash Microsoft around here do so without really understanding why. It's the flock syndrome
I've gotta agree with this, but the HURD came with the free software movement, didn't you know? Seriously, after any movement grows above a certain size, it attracts sheep. Get over it. OSS can't make any headway without sheep just like Microsoft wouldn't have gotten anywhere without sheep (individuals in the mid-90's that I found were buying Apple, because they thought about it and realized that Apples were better, albeit more expensive). Just ignore them. Or better yet, lead them to where you think the water is.
I'm not going point by point like the other person did, because I don't feel like it. Just try to keep a sense of balance looking at us zealots, some of us try to keep balanced too. I'm admittedly a zealot, and I feel that I have good reasons for it. But I'll be the first one to point out that MS's OLE and GNU/Linux' complete lack of OLE is a big reason why people would prefer Windows over GNU/Linux in a taste test. (Can't drag files to Mozilla, can't drag pictures form mozilla to my desktop and have it appear in the background, copy-n-paste from one app to another is REALLY a pain in the ass.....the list goes on)
Where does the NDA end? If you're the help desk in a company, and you have to support this product internally, do you have to buy a doc license for everybody in the company just so your help desk can support it?
I don't mind paying for support, I don't mind paying for the download, and I don't mind paying for documentation. But I want my freedom to do with this stuff as I please after I have it!
Are you kidding? This is the first indication I've seen that the slashdot readership can read something that's either a) not a duplicate, b) not a soviet russia joke, and c) not threaded.
LDP? Does anybody around here actually read the LInux Documentation Project?
Seriously, it happens to be a WONDERFUL source of information. So wonderful, in fact, that Mandrake includes a local copy of it when you install the docs. Luckily, nobody made anybody sign an NDA to use LDP, got it OG?
A successful application of the Golden Rule states that they should support the entire world.
For this I have to fall back on some of the more annoying words strung, "You don't know what you are talking about." It's a long story that involved a certain amount of abuse, drugs, gangs, and so forth in my wife's childhood, and at the age of 15 she met me. In a world of adults that cared about her, but she didn't trust, I was arguably the only one in a position to help her. I did so, and it is rightly termed "liberation". If we split up, she will not return to her previous lifestyle, she will continue to pursue a better one, and that is liberation.
But living my life in a nutshell and trying to hide from everything is no way to live.
This isn't at all what I'm talking about. SOrry. I won't attempt to explain further, I don't consider it "necessary".
You and I know that the government snooping into lives is wrong, but what is wrong with a grocery store using fingerprints as a form of an IOU?
Ah, if I had only read the article. You see, I followed a link from a different discussion and was thinking in terms of the previous discussion. If this statement of yours is correct, and grocery stores are using it as a form of identification, or somehow it simplifies our lives, then I would consider it "ok" for as far as that goes. I do like to be able to purchase with cash when I prefer anonymity, but I rarely find it necessary to do so. In any case, some additional comments:
I don't have a problem with private (or publicly owned) organizations requiring personal information as a part of doing business. For example, when you write a check they want your driver's license number, home phone number, and so forth. This is for their protection, and since it is also useful to me (ie if I write a bad check, they'll tell me and I can pay it) I willingly give it to them.
If a company wants personal information, I have to know what it is to be used for before I give it to them. If they chose not to reveal this to me, I chose not to reveal my information.
Since that appears to be all this article is about, my comments are over. :) I'm still not reading the article, I'm not interested. Fingerprints DO change, they CAN be faked, and they are not especially reliable. Useful as a tool, yes, but not especially reliable. More useful than photographs, because they're harder to change, but they can be changed or disguised or what have you.
Heh, I'll bite. First I'll point out that the whole subject of racism coming up here is offtopic completely, and if these guys really wanted to approach you they should have found a more appropriate place to discuss it.
You don't have to agree with all my opinions. But, you shouldn't let my opinions about race affect your thoughts on anything else I have to say. I mean, isn't that what tolerance is all about?
Are you really expecting tolerance? Racism itself is the antithesis of tolerance, and usually an extreme case of nontolerance. Now, I used to live in Texas, which is technically in the South. I did encounter racism every day, but it is important to note that I did not notice any particular "race" having more or less than any other. Ie Indians generally treated me the same way I've seen White Boys treat Black Boys. Same from Orientals (I won't try to distinguish between the different ethnics of orientals, I'm not good at it). POint is: White People aren't the only racists, they're just the ones who take most of the blame.
Now, further more, I don't know what actions you take on account of your racism. If you actually do something to harm people over it, then I would have a problem with this. If you do something to help some people over others solely because of race, but it doesn't actually harm anyone, then I'm not sure there's a problem. (Harm includes, IMHO, infringing or removing completely someone else's rights and freedoms)
If it is all talk, however, then I'm with Voltaire. I may not agree with it, but I'll defend your right to say it.
As an exercise of the golden rule, of course I expect the same treatment in return. :)
The problem with it being all talk, though, is that sincerity and integrity are usually lost when a person does all talk and no action. I complain about this all the time in other areas (such as the area in which you were actually posting originally :) ), so I don't honestly expect you to be all talk and no action on account of your racism. Only time will tell if we ever are in a position to be at odds with each other and what will actually happen.
I was purposely ignoring that part, because it was extremely well-commented on. I'm actually surprised that my own posts get modded up, considering my username is fucksl4shd0t.
Having been a long-time fan of SOD, I gotta love their blatant racism. There are cases where it's useful, and in their case it's useful as a social statement. Further research into SOD would reveal that 2 of 4 members have at least one anti-racism song on every album (Anthrax is the band, of course).
You are absolutely correct that reacting harshly to someone because of who they are, or even what they're saying is generally a bad thing. Voltaire: "I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
If Bill Gates came in and posted an insightful criticism on the open source world, and the GPL, and free software, and he could be genuinely determined to be the *real* Bill gates at Microsoft, would he be modded away? Would he receive the same harsh criticism?
I'm sick of the idea of "free speach for me, but not for you" that pervades our society. Many of the people who say they have freedom of speach turn around and try to prevent *me* from exercising my own freedom. But it's in the same amendment that says "Freedom of Religion, as long as it's christianity". Heh.
My mom says "Why are you so worried about protecting your privacy? What do you have to hide?"
My answer: "Nothing."
Having nothing to hide, or not doing anything illegal, is no reason to allow the government or anyone else access to your stuff. I haven't done anything illegal in years, and the illegal things I did were morally right, IMHO. (statutory rape is about older men taking advantage of girls not old enough to properly stop them. I liberated my wife and helped her become a free woman.) However, if I didn't protect my privacy, there could very well come a day when the stuff I did that wasn't worth hiding could incriminate me, even if it is morally right and even legal at the time.
Do you change your oil when your engine runs fine? Why? "Preventive"....
Don't give in to FUD. If the music was ripped from a CD (not a DVD), it was NOT illegal for you to acquire it. It's called "Fair use", and as long as we allow them to make us think that P2P music sharing is illegal, it will be treated as such.
Stand up and demand your rights! State them as such and people will know! When enough people know their rights, they will know that Napster was SHUT DOWN ILLEGALLY.
Yeah, yeah, I know. The courts "interpret the law". Or somesuch, so that court decided it was illegal. There haven't been nearly enough cases taken to court over the matter, though.
I'd rather see an idiot checker.
First you demonstrate that "CD's" is a correctly spelled possessive. Then you show us the correct way of pluralizing CD. Then you think a spellchecker would fix the problem?
To nitpick, it's "/." not "./".
For all your moral statement here, there's something you're just not getting. It's not the LOCAL store that's responsible for the CD. Sure, maybe they should post a warning or something that says "Some CDs here are copy-protected, use at your own risk", but it's just not their fault.
Your proposed suit would be frivolous because you're holding the wrong people responsible. It's just like holding tobacco companies responsible for lung cancer. Now, while I'll be the first to admit that their actions trying to prevent people from knowing about the dangers of smoking is certainly worth fighting over, it's not the tobacco company who's at fault because *I* smoke. *I* know the dangers, so hold me personally responsible for myself.
To apply the reasoning to a local music store, *if* they know that some of their CDs are unplayable, they should either post a generic warning to that effect, or put specific warnings on the CDs, or at least say something when the CD is purchased.
The only reasonable result of your lawsuit is to force the local music stores to inform their customers.
Any other result will be nothing more than using the local store as a scapegoat, and will do NOTHING to prevent the bigger companies from continuing to do what they do. It's immoral to use someone as a scapegoat. Hold the appropriate people responsible for their actions.
If that takes money, raise the money. There's plenty of people to support it. All it takes is someone to take action.
There's people taking action. If you prefer NOT to take action personally, give money to those who are, because they *need* it, in order to pursue the morally (and legally) correct action.
As a parting question, who is responsible for underage drinking? (Assuming for a moment that underage drinking is itself a problem) Is it the people that make the liquor, or the people that make it available to underagers?
It's called "Revolution", but this country's still not ready for it (IMHO). Just get ready to hanker down when the police state finally comes. It'll take popular support to ultimately win, and it's gonna take a whole lot of patience and determination to do so. It may not happen in our generation, it may not even be our kids that get to do it, but it will happen.
Again, IMHO, the time when citizens could have made a difference came and went before I was born (ref: the protests to the Vietnam war, also did nothing). It's time to prepare (or join, although I don't know of any such groups) an organization that will act when the time is most suitable for taking back our country.
If you're still using Winblows, and you haven't discovered CDex, then you've got more problems.
Rule of thumb: if you depend on proprietary software, you will get screwed over.