Sure that could be perceived as nasty and cruel but still what can you do.
Well, it would be "wrong" to physically hurt the guy, right? So I guess you can't do anything and you just have to put up with this kind of bullshit.
BTW, try reporting something like that to the cops and they'll just say that there's nothing they can do - no crime has been committed, yet.
When my mom was in this situation, she told the cops, and they kept an eye out for the guy. When my wife was in this situation, she told the cops and they kept an eye out for the guy. Stalking is illegal. Most/all states have laws against this sort of thing, and there is something the cops can do about it. Sure, it's harder to prove in court, but it's still within their jurisdiction.
You make a hard and fast rule about when your interaction with other people is wrong in that it is only wrong when you physically hurt them. I find it to be very shortsighted, because pain isn't always physical. Is it wrong for a man to leave his wife for another woman? He causes great pain to his wife in doing so. Should it be illegal? Well, I happen to be a bit of an anarchist, so I not only think it shouldn't be illegal, but it also shouldn't be illegal for her to cut his dick off for it. The worst pains to be felt are not physical at all, and in my opinion, it's never right to hurt someone. It's sometimes less wrong to hurt someone if it stops them from doing greater damage (like killing a serial killer), but it's never right to hurt someone, physical or otherwise.
I have been to the USA 4 times. I was close to being shot at twice (by criminals). I live in Europe and I have never been shot at. I don't even know someone that has been shot at in Europe! People in the USA don't even realise how much safer the EU is.
That is very subjective. Not only have I lived in the US for all of my life (29 years, about), but I have spent a lot of time with so-called gangsters and other criminals, and I've never been shot at. Neithr have I seen anybody get shot. You come to the USA 4 times and get shot at twice? What did you say? What did you do? I'll bet you provoked it somehow, with EU arrogance and conceit.
So, by boycotting are we not giving them more ammunition and taking away some of ours? We do have truth and reason on our side either way, but that doesn't seem to matter when it comes to lawmakers, lobbyists, and lawsuits.
What we need is a central organization to put out press releases informing the world of our boycott. That way, when the RIAA comes out with "Pirates are stealing are music, hurting our revenue", our organization would follow it up with "No, we are, by boycotting your stuff. Put out good music again, stop calling your customers thieves, and stop whining about control. We're in control. If you ever want our money back, you have to earn it."
I'm just trying to figure out why so many people get so upset about how many penises and/or vaginas are involved in the transaction.
No good reason, near as I can tell.:) Other than tradition, which is a bad reason to do shit. I'm with Suicidal Tendencies on this one: Don't question shit just for the sake of questioning shit. Do it because you took the time to think about it and you figured out a better mutherfucking way. Or something like that.
I'm not trying to argue whether or not the State should be involved in such arrangements (me, I'd say "no", but that's just me). I certainly am arguing that the State should have nothing whatsoever to do with "covenants of sanctity".
I fully agree that the state shouldn't be involved in determining what marriage is. That means no tax laws involving marriage (although I like the ones involving kids, since I have 3 of them:) ). No laws regarding who insurance companies can insure based on marriage (they rule out common law marriage, in some cases, and they prevent gay couples from enjoying this benefit). And so forth. There are so many different ways people want to be married, and there are so many different configurations people want to have that the state just shouldn't be involved. Me, I think polygamy is a perfectly fine form of marriage, as long as all people involved agree of their own free will. I think that monogamy has its advantages, and its attraction, so that it will likely be the dominant form of marriage for a long time, but that there are advantages to other forms of marriage. Not to mention just plain cultural differences (although it seems like most cultures these days are in to monogamous marriage). I also don't understand what's wrong with two men in love wanting to spend the rest of their lives together (or women, if you prefer). For many of us, we spend so much time looking for love that we gain an appreciation for how hard it is to find someone. Why begrudge someone else the opportunity to take advantage of the love they've found just because we don't want it for ourselves? Petty, I say. Pure pettiness.
Seems like you could just enter into a legal contract if you want to protect yourself should your co-habitation arrangement go awry.
Therein lies the problem. For those of us that chose a traditional marriage, i.e. man and woman 'till death do us part, it would have been very offensive to create a civil contract to determine what happens when things go awry (I don't give a fuck how many people sign prenuptial agreements. If I thought I needed protection from my wife, I would't have married her, plain ad simple). The reason is simple: we wouldn't have made the decision if we thought things were going to go bad, and we both felt that if we thought there was a chance, however small, that things wouldn't work out, then we should not have gotten married in the first place. Many people make this decision, and fail to achieve their goal. That is when the state comes in (invited, actually) to settle who gets what. In my opinion, that is the only time the state needs to be involved. Therefore, the only laws made by the state regarding such agreements should be severely limited to property ownership in co-habitation agreements. This would apply to roommates as well (ever had a roommate that left, took some of your shit, and you couldn't do shit about it? I have....). Anybody who lives together, sharing resources, for a certain length of time or greater would be required to sign some boiler-plate contract that says "this is mine, that's yours". That way, couples getting married (or groups, or whatever) would be angry that they have to take inventory of their possessions, but since everybody would be required to do so, they would just bitch about it. If they don't do so, then the state would fall on default laws that should more or less split up property evenly upon the termination of the co-habitation. No playing
That's so melodramatic, but yes, if you're dealing with an adult I don't see any reason why you should have any particular protection from another human being when it comes to "soul".
So it's perfectly ok to call up your exgirlfriend and tell her you're gonna rape her, follow her around and so forth, and call her at work and tell her you're gonna rape her mother. But as long as you don't actually physically hurt someone, that's ok?
It's been awhile, but I seem to remember that the GPL requires source code that you can directly compile, or run through the interpreter, or whatever. So, no, I don't think OCR will cut it.
All requests must be made by carrier pigeon to a small monastery in the Himalayas where monks will weave a copy of the source code into a one thousand foot long tapestry.
Um, the GPL does require the source code to be machine readable.
If marriage is a covenant of sanctity, what the HELL does the state have to do with it?
The problem isn't with getting married, which is why most states have some sort of common law marriage laws (that still serve to enforce sexist, property-based concepts of relationships on couples who might otherwise opt out of the system). The problem is mostly with the divorce, which seems more often these days to be inevitable. Take two people, each had a certain amount of stuff when they got married. Then they were married for a while, acquiring more stuff, and consolidating stuff (like linens, cars, houses, etc). Now they split up, and both of them think the other one is wrong, so both of them think they're entitled to screw the other one over. How do you settle this? Marriage laws provide a forum for settling these fights and "keeping the peace" (more like closing the barn door after the horse has left).
I'm with you that the state should keep its hands out of marriage, but *someone* has to intervene to keep divorcing couples from killing each other over property. In my opinion, the state should define marriage only so far as it relates to property ownership and responsibility for children (either born or adopted) acquired during the marriage. That would provide a minimum mechanism for dealing with divorces and the maximum flexibility for different types of marriage (Heinlein was particularly fond of the S-group, but I like the idea of surgical sterility during a marriage of states duration, with the option to change either if both partners agree). It would no longer matter if gay people are getting married, or if 3 men marry each other as well as 3 women, who each also marry each other. Who really gives a shit? Let people live in the fashion they wish to live. Provide mechanisms for "keeping the peace", and we're happy, right? (Yeah, I realize that "keeping the peace" is a pretty blanket statement and could be used to bring about tyranny, just like anything else)
Removing the clit is like removing the penis! You insensitive clod. Female circumcsion is MUTILATION and bad, while male circumcision is good because it prevents cancer in men and cervical cancer in women. It reduces AIDs rates and improves sensitivity and looks in the penis.
Those are old wives' tales. I spoke seriously with more than a couple of doctors when my first son was born, and the decision was already made for my second son. Teach your kids how to bath properly, and there will never be a problem with your decision not to sexually mutilate them.
Of course, if you're too lazy to teach them to bath, then you probably shouldn't be reproducing in the first place.
As much as I love the whole space travel thing, it is a dead end. It will not solve the overcrowding, or pollution issues, and I doubt it will ever be economically feasible to get natural resources from space.
Ummmm, in spite of what the popular view is, space travel isn't about solving these issues. It's really about making sure the race lives on after we finish cannabalizing this planet. It's not a fucking escape capsule, it's just making sure to spread some seeds around before the main plant *dies*. It's a foregone conclusion that the death of planet Earth is, well, a foregone conclusion.
I think a few minor trade colonies taking on the british empire was more impressive, in that it took us more than 200 years to start back on the downward spiral.
How do you figure it took 200 years? What with the Indian Wars, the Civil War, that silly expansionist creed, I figure this country didn't even make a century before starting down that spiral.
Also, it's hard to assert Microsoft isn't selling a brand, either. With their rollerblading butterfly people, and turning the CN Tower into the world's tallest free-standing advertisement.
As a matter of fact, that's what Microsoft is doing. Little do they know (or care), they could grab BSD just like Apple did, call it Windows XP 2, and release it, and still have market dominance. "Nobody ever gets fired for buying Microsoft" is a result of branding.
I should probably add the disclaimer that I am a marketing professional.:)
Marketing and production are two completely separate parts of a business, and are not even required in the same business. Consider that, for Red Hat, half of the problem of building a distribution is taken care of for them up front: software development. They just have to package it up and ship it. (I know they contribute to a few projects as well, the point is that they don't have to) Their customers don't care where it comes from. Their customers care that they're buying a stable, fairly secure, server OS (and/or desktop OS). Their customers care when they go to IBM and ask for a webserver with WebSphere that it will be reliable and high performance. They don't care if the OS is AIX, Linux, Windows, whatever. Who cares? When it all comes down to it, the business problem that IBM and RedHat solve jointly (and separately, each in his own way) has absolutely nothing to do with Free Software. They have chosen Free Software as the tool they will use to solve the business problems for their customers that they solve.
The campaign that Microsoft launched against free software was purely political mudslinging. It was *not* a marketing compaign. THey may have called it a marketing campaign, or a sales pitch, or whatever, but it was nothing but Republicrats throwing shit at the 3rd party runner. THeir customers saw through it, for the most part, which caused Microsoft to rethink their strategy. Customers don't like companies that want their money to throw shit around at their competitors.:) We should keep that in mind when we discuss Microsoft ourselves.
Only one of the races in India supports the caste system, and not very member of that race does. IT'S ILLEGAL. Seems like you're damning all of Indian society because of the outlawed way of thinking of one segment of it's population. It's like saying USA shouldn't have nukes because the KKK is racist. 7 of the last 11 US presidents were from the south. KKK is widespread in the south. That proves KKK controls the Bomb. Sounds silly doesn't it? But that's what you did.
A few differences. One is that I have actually spoken with more than a few immigrants from India who told me the caste system was still going. I did not know that it was illegal, now, though. However, I have not damned all of Indian society, just the people who are in power, since the racism is supported politically, even if it is illegal (much like most of the US's history of independence. Racism has been illegal, but supported by the government, even after the Civil War).
And yes, because of the prejudices in the US, I don't think the US should have nukes.
It sounds that way, doesn't it? However, it reminds me of the Amiga virus that was designed to seek and destroy other viruses. Trouble was that it would "sanitize" any non-standard boot sector it found - rendering expensive copy-protected software inert.:(
You mean the SCA virus? The fuckin' thing that kept trashing Shadow of the Beast?
I don't really understand your comment. The gist of the post was that you can get people to spend money on software if you sell them fancy packaging and a brand name. Obviously you can't get hardware for free, but if the OP is correct then it should be possible to get people to pay more in order to get fancy packaging and a brand name.
Let me clarify, then. You said that Apple should be "leading the market". I assert that leading the market, and making money aren't necessarily the same thing. The original post provided logic that said you can make money selling a brand, and your rebuttal offered an interpretation that seemed to indicate that the original post had actually said that you should be able to lead the market by selling a brand. If this tenuous length of logic holds, I actually have to agree with both of you.
Actually, I know that this works, at least for the computer illiterate. My mother commented today that her neighbour's computer must be a lot better than mine because it has a sleek black case. But to what extent does it work? Judging by Apple's results, nice packaging will only win you a few percent of the market.
Apple is up against some pretty tough pplayers, and they always have been. The statistically-guaranteed rule is: cheaper will lead the market. Windows may not be cheaper than OS X, but for a single computer user, Wintel hardware is cheaper than Apple hardware.
P.S. Are you going to comment on all of my old posts?
Just luck, dude.:) I'm not trying to troll you or anything.
I was intrigued by your journal entry about how you get friends, and how everyone who replied just seemed to cut & paste lines from your entry.
I didn't make that connection, and I haven't looked again. I was both happy and disappointed with the results. Disappointed because there wasn't enough for me to draw conclusions from, but happy because they reinforced my own concept of self. I'm a psycho, so watch out.:)
If that's you're opinion then it's fine. However, let me point out that/. has a great big propaganda machine that is trying to convince governments, media, corporations, etc. all over the world that open source is a viable business model.
Um,/. is a great big propaganda machine.:) I direct you to my username.
Stallman himself likes to point out that he is not opposed to selling software for money. That, to me, is disingenuous. OSS can't be anti-FUD and yet use FUD to promote itself.
I should point out that it appears to me you are mixing RMS into the wrong crowd. Slashdot is decidedly not in the free software crowd, they are in the open source software crowd.
And finally, I've never seen slashdot as a news site (heh) ever take an anti-FUD stance, except when it's FUD directed at open source software (and a few other things that I'm too tired to think up right now). I'd call it "being able to dish it out, but not able to take it." Not a respectable trait, in my opinion, and one I tend to think I don't share with slashdot. I direct you to my username once again.
I am very sorry, this is completely off-topic, but HOW can his hands/fingers bend that way/that much? Just take a look at the picture!
He must've just spent a lot of time doing it. I used to be able to do it too, I remember doing it when I was younger. Only thing is, I haven't done it in so long. It's a sure thing that if I had been at it all along, I would stillb e able to.
Sorry, but apparantly he uses Debian which apparantly is evil Anti-FSF. According to his interview: "The Debian web site describes non-free programs, and their ftp server distributes them. That's why we don't have links to their site on www.gnu.org"
Next time, read the whole interview.
I travel most of the time, so I don't have a desktop machine, only a laptop. It runs Debian GNU/Linux, which was the best distribution in terms of respecting freedom as of the time we set up the machine. (The availability of GNU/LinEx is a recent development.)
--It's kind of nice to have something of a "star to navigate by" in the person of RMS, but when you get a distro recommendation based on "ethical considerations" rather than WHAT FITS THE USER'S NEEDS, you have to decide if RMS is really the person you should be asking.
Since when has RMS been the right guy to ask what distribution you should be running? I consider his feedback valuable about how free a distribution is, but I hardly think the leader of a movement is the best person within the movement to quiz on the technical merits of one distribution over another.
RMS is rather hard to take in un-diluted doses, this is why the RMS Filter should be applied to all his output so that a happy medium can be found.
That's probably a joke, but it is usually called censorship, which is oppressive.
--Part of Linux's appeal is the freedom to CHOOSE. If the *only* software that RMS ever uses has to be "free" then sorry, he's missing out.
Personally, I think that stupid proprietary software have their place in this world, just like muggers and petty criminals have their place in this world. Reminds us how important the other things in life really are, and how hard we should work to achieve them. Freedom of choice is a difficult concept to wrap a head around. The basic paradox is simply outlawing oppression. Now people can't chose to be oppressed. Where's the freedom in that?
Right... so by your theory, Apple should be leading the market by selling sexier, more expensive PCs?!?
Funny, when I read the post and then read yours, I thought "No, by his logic Apple should be able to make money selling their brand." Then I realized I shouldn't be trying to interpret his logic for you.
Commercial software makes complete sense, and should at the very least be ACCEPTED by the linux community. Until it is, the only people to use linux will be people who want to spend lots of time learning the Operating System, manoevring through newsgroups, search engines and irc channels for half-decent support. And none depending on the popularity of the software/device that isn't working.
Um, commercial != proprietary. Commercial software is not only accepted by the linux community, many of us are building commercial packages that protect the end-users freedom. And putting food on the table and so forth in the process.
Yes people kill people with guns. People are generally stupid, aggressive and with knee jerk reactions to things. Take away the guns from the people and they won't find it as easy to kill each other.
By the time guns first appeared in our world, people had already murdered billions of each other for all the same reasons people use guns now. Don't believe me?
In the middle ages it was not uncommon for a nobleman to slaughter a peasant that was on the same highway as he was. No gun available.
I don't feel like digging up enough cites to prove my point. Fact is, as far as history is concerned, guns are still a new development in the world, but murder spans the entire history and even stretches into prehistory quite a ways (probably all the way to the beginning of mankinds collective life). I'll agree that guns are efficient, compared to older methods, but murder is murder no matter what tool you use.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure that could be perceived as nasty and cruel but still what can you do.
Well, it would be "wrong" to physically hurt the guy, right? So I guess you can't do anything and you just have to put up with this kind of bullshit.
BTW, try reporting something like that to the cops and they'll just say that there's nothing they can do - no crime has been committed, yet.
When my mom was in this situation, she told the cops, and they kept an eye out for the guy. When my wife was in this situation, she told the cops and they kept an eye out for the guy. Stalking is illegal. Most/all states have laws against this sort of thing, and there is something the cops can do about it. Sure, it's harder to prove in court, but it's still within their jurisdiction.
You make a hard and fast rule about when your interaction with other people is wrong in that it is only wrong when you physically hurt them. I find it to be very shortsighted, because pain isn't always physical. Is it wrong for a man to leave his wife for another woman? He causes great pain to his wife in doing so. Should it be illegal? Well, I happen to be a bit of an anarchist, so I not only think it shouldn't be illegal, but it also shouldn't be illegal for her to cut his dick off for it. The worst pains to be felt are not physical at all, and in my opinion, it's never right to hurt someone. It's sometimes less wrong to hurt someone if it stops them from doing greater damage (like killing a serial killer), but it's never right to hurt someone, physical or otherwise.
I have been to the USA 4 times. I was close to being shot at twice (by criminals). I live in Europe and I have never been shot at. I don't even know someone that has been shot at in Europe! People in the USA don't even realise how much safer the EU is.
That is very subjective. Not only have I lived in the US for all of my life (29 years, about), but I have spent a lot of time with so-called gangsters and other criminals, and I've never been shot at. Neithr have I seen anybody get shot. You come to the USA 4 times and get shot at twice? What did you say? What did you do? I'll bet you provoked it somehow, with EU arrogance and conceit.
So, by boycotting are we not giving them more ammunition and taking away some of ours? We do have truth and reason on our side either way, but that doesn't seem to matter when it comes to lawmakers, lobbyists, and lawsuits.
What we need is a central organization to put out press releases informing the world of our boycott. That way, when the RIAA comes out with "Pirates are stealing are music, hurting our revenue", our organization would follow it up with "No, we are, by boycotting your stuff. Put out good music again, stop calling your customers thieves, and stop whining about control. We're in control. If you ever want our money back, you have to earn it."
I'm just trying to figure out why so many people get so upset about how many penises and/or vaginas are involved in the transaction.
No good reason, near as I can tell. :) Other than tradition, which is a bad reason to do shit. I'm with Suicidal Tendencies on this one: Don't question shit just for the sake of questioning shit. Do it because you took the time to think about it and you figured out a better mutherfucking way. Or something like that.
I'm not trying to argue whether or not the State should be involved in such arrangements (me, I'd say "no", but that's just me). I certainly am arguing that the State should have nothing whatsoever to do with "covenants of sanctity".
I fully agree that the state shouldn't be involved in determining what marriage is. That means no tax laws involving marriage (although I like the ones involving kids, since I have 3 of them :) ). No laws regarding who insurance companies can insure based on marriage (they rule out common law marriage, in some cases, and they prevent gay couples from enjoying this benefit). And so forth. There are so many different ways people want to be married, and there are so many different configurations people want to have that the state just shouldn't be involved. Me, I think polygamy is a perfectly fine form of marriage, as long as all people involved agree of their own free will. I think that monogamy has its advantages, and its attraction, so that it will likely be the dominant form of marriage for a long time, but that there are advantages to other forms of marriage. Not to mention just plain cultural differences (although it seems like most cultures these days are in to monogamous marriage). I also don't understand what's wrong with two men in love wanting to spend the rest of their lives together (or women, if you prefer). For many of us, we spend so much time looking for love that we gain an appreciation for how hard it is to find someone. Why begrudge someone else the opportunity to take advantage of the love they've found just because we don't want it for ourselves? Petty, I say. Pure pettiness.
Seems like you could just enter into a legal contract if you want to protect yourself should your co-habitation arrangement go awry.
Therein lies the problem. For those of us that chose a traditional marriage, i.e. man and woman 'till death do us part, it would have been very offensive to create a civil contract to determine what happens when things go awry (I don't give a fuck how many people sign prenuptial agreements. If I thought I needed protection from my wife, I would't have married her, plain ad simple). The reason is simple: we wouldn't have made the decision if we thought things were going to go bad, and we both felt that if we thought there was a chance, however small, that things wouldn't work out, then we should not have gotten married in the first place. Many people make this decision, and fail to achieve their goal. That is when the state comes in (invited, actually) to settle who gets what. In my opinion, that is the only time the state needs to be involved. Therefore, the only laws made by the state regarding such agreements should be severely limited to property ownership in co-habitation agreements. This would apply to roommates as well (ever had a roommate that left, took some of your shit, and you couldn't do shit about it? I have....). Anybody who lives together, sharing resources, for a certain length of time or greater would be required to sign some boiler-plate contract that says "this is mine, that's yours". That way, couples getting married (or groups, or whatever) would be angry that they have to take inventory of their possessions, but since everybody would be required to do so, they would just bitch about it. If they don't do so, then the state would fall on default laws that should more or less split up property evenly upon the termination of the co-habitation. No playing
That's so melodramatic, but yes, if you're dealing with an adult I don't see any reason why you should have any particular protection from another human being when it comes to "soul".
So it's perfectly ok to call up your exgirlfriend and tell her you're gonna rape her, follow her around and so forth, and call her at work and tell her you're gonna rape her mother. But as long as you don't actually physically hurt someone, that's ok?
You've never heard of OCR?
It's been awhile, but I seem to remember that the GPL requires source code that you can directly compile, or run through the interpreter, or whatever. So, no, I don't think OCR will cut it.
All requests must be made by carrier pigeon to a small monastery in the Himalayas where monks will weave a copy of the source code into a one thousand foot long tapestry.
Um, the GPL does require the source code to be machine readable.
If marriage is a covenant of sanctity, what the HELL does the state have to do with it?
The problem isn't with getting married, which is why most states have some sort of common law marriage laws (that still serve to enforce sexist, property-based concepts of relationships on couples who might otherwise opt out of the system). The problem is mostly with the divorce, which seems more often these days to be inevitable. Take two people, each had a certain amount of stuff when they got married. Then they were married for a while, acquiring more stuff, and consolidating stuff (like linens, cars, houses, etc). Now they split up, and both of them think the other one is wrong, so both of them think they're entitled to screw the other one over. How do you settle this? Marriage laws provide a forum for settling these fights and "keeping the peace" (more like closing the barn door after the horse has left).
I'm with you that the state should keep its hands out of marriage, but *someone* has to intervene to keep divorcing couples from killing each other over property. In my opinion, the state should define marriage only so far as it relates to property ownership and responsibility for children (either born or adopted) acquired during the marriage. That would provide a minimum mechanism for dealing with divorces and the maximum flexibility for different types of marriage (Heinlein was particularly fond of the S-group, but I like the idea of surgical sterility during a marriage of states duration, with the option to change either if both partners agree). It would no longer matter if gay people are getting married, or if 3 men marry each other as well as 3 women, who each also marry each other. Who really gives a shit? Let people live in the fashion they wish to live. Provide mechanisms for "keeping the peace", and we're happy, right? (Yeah, I realize that "keeping the peace" is a pretty blanket statement and could be used to bring about tyranny, just like anything else)
expressing yourself in a way that does not physically hurt anyone.
So, you cannot inflict scars on the body, but you're free to inflict scars on the soul?
Removing the clit is like removing the penis! You insensitive clod. Female circumcsion is MUTILATION and bad, while male circumcision is good because it prevents cancer in men and cervical cancer in women. It reduces AIDs rates and improves sensitivity and looks in the penis.
Those are old wives' tales. I spoke seriously with more than a couple of doctors when my first son was born, and the decision was already made for my second son. Teach your kids how to bath properly, and there will never be a problem with your decision not to sexually mutilate them.
Of course, if you're too lazy to teach them to bath, then you probably shouldn't be reproducing in the first place.
And just how are they planning to fund all this?
Considering their male/female ratio, I imagine they'll just sell a bunch of their women to Americans.
As much as I love the whole space travel thing, it is a dead end. It will not solve the overcrowding, or pollution issues, and I doubt it will ever be economically feasible to get natural resources from space.
Ummmm, in spite of what the popular view is, space travel isn't about solving these issues. It's really about making sure the race lives on after we finish cannabalizing this planet. It's not a fucking escape capsule, it's just making sure to spread some seeds around before the main plant *dies*. It's a foregone conclusion that the death of planet Earth is, well, a foregone conclusion.
I think a few minor trade colonies taking on the british empire was more impressive, in that it took us more than 200 years to start back on the downward spiral.
How do you figure it took 200 years? What with the Indian Wars, the Civil War, that silly expansionist creed, I figure this country didn't even make a century before starting down that spiral.
Also, it's hard to assert Microsoft isn't selling a brand, either. With their rollerblading butterfly people, and turning the CN Tower into the world's tallest free-standing advertisement.
As a matter of fact, that's what Microsoft is doing. Little do they know (or care), they could grab BSD just like Apple did, call it Windows XP 2, and release it, and still have market dominance. "Nobody ever gets fired for buying Microsoft" is a result of branding.
I should probably add the disclaimer that I am a marketing professional. :)
Marketing and production are two completely separate parts of a business, and are not even required in the same business. Consider that, for Red Hat, half of the problem of building a distribution is taken care of for them up front: software development. They just have to package it up and ship it. (I know they contribute to a few projects as well, the point is that they don't have to) Their customers don't care where it comes from. Their customers care that they're buying a stable, fairly secure, server OS (and/or desktop OS). Their customers care when they go to IBM and ask for a webserver with WebSphere that it will be reliable and high performance. They don't care if the OS is AIX, Linux, Windows, whatever. Who cares? When it all comes down to it, the business problem that IBM and RedHat solve jointly (and separately, each in his own way) has absolutely nothing to do with Free Software. They have chosen Free Software as the tool they will use to solve the business problems for their customers that they solve.
The campaign that Microsoft launched against free software was purely political mudslinging. It was *not* a marketing compaign. THey may have called it a marketing campaign, or a sales pitch, or whatever, but it was nothing but Republicrats throwing shit at the 3rd party runner. THeir customers saw through it, for the most part, which caused Microsoft to rethink their strategy. Customers don't like companies that want their money to throw shit around at their competitors. :) We should keep that in mind when we discuss Microsoft ourselves.
Only one of the races in India supports the caste system, and not very member of that race does. IT'S ILLEGAL. Seems like you're damning all of Indian society because of the outlawed way of thinking of one segment of it's population. It's like saying USA shouldn't have nukes because the KKK is racist. 7 of the last 11 US presidents were from the south. KKK is widespread in the south. That proves KKK controls the Bomb. Sounds silly doesn't it? But that's what you did.
A few differences. One is that I have actually spoken with more than a few immigrants from India who told me the caste system was still going. I did not know that it was illegal, now, though. However, I have not damned all of Indian society, just the people who are in power, since the racism is supported politically, even if it is illegal (much like most of the US's history of independence. Racism has been illegal, but supported by the government, even after the Civil War).
And yes, because of the prejudices in the US, I don't think the US should have nukes.
It sounds that way, doesn't it? However, it reminds me of the Amiga virus that was designed to seek and destroy other viruses. Trouble was that it would "sanitize" any non-standard boot sector it found - rendering expensive copy-protected software inert. :(
You mean the SCA virus? The fuckin' thing that kept trashing Shadow of the Beast?
I don't really understand your comment. The gist of the post was that you can get people to spend money on software if you sell them fancy packaging and a brand name. Obviously you can't get hardware for free, but if the OP is correct then it should be possible to get people to pay more in order to get fancy packaging and a brand name.
Let me clarify, then. You said that Apple should be "leading the market". I assert that leading the market, and making money aren't necessarily the same thing. The original post provided logic that said you can make money selling a brand, and your rebuttal offered an interpretation that seemed to indicate that the original post had actually said that you should be able to lead the market by selling a brand. If this tenuous length of logic holds, I actually have to agree with both of you.
Actually, I know that this works, at least for the computer illiterate. My mother commented today that her neighbour's computer must be a lot better than mine because it has a sleek black case. But to what extent does it work? Judging by Apple's results, nice packaging will only win you a few percent of the market.
Apple is up against some pretty tough pplayers, and they always have been. The statistically-guaranteed rule is: cheaper will lead the market. Windows may not be cheaper than OS X, but for a single computer user, Wintel hardware is cheaper than Apple hardware.
P.S. Are you going to comment on all of my old posts?
Just luck, dude. :) I'm not trying to troll you or anything.
I was intrigued by your journal entry about how you get friends, and how everyone who replied just seemed to cut & paste lines from your entry.
I didn't make that connection, and I haven't looked again. I was both happy and disappointed with the results. Disappointed because there wasn't enough for me to draw conclusions from, but happy because they reinforced my own concept of self. I'm a psycho, so watch out. :)
If that's you're opinion then it's fine. However, let me point out that /. has a great big propaganda machine that is trying to convince governments, media, corporations, etc. all over the world that open source is a viable business model.
Um, /. is a great big propaganda machine. :) I direct you to my username.
Stallman himself likes to point out that he is not opposed to selling software for money. That, to me, is disingenuous. OSS can't be anti-FUD and yet use FUD to promote itself.
I should point out that it appears to me you are mixing RMS into the wrong crowd. Slashdot is decidedly not in the free software crowd, they are in the open source software crowd.
And finally, I've never seen slashdot as a news site (heh) ever take an anti-FUD stance, except when it's FUD directed at open source software (and a few other things that I'm too tired to think up right now). I'd call it "being able to dish it out, but not able to take it." Not a respectable trait, in my opinion, and one I tend to think I don't share with slashdot. I direct you to my username once again.
Goodbye.
I am very sorry, this is completely off-topic, but HOW can his hands/fingers bend that way/that much? Just take a look at the picture!
He must've just spent a lot of time doing it. I used to be able to do it too, I remember doing it when I was younger. Only thing is, I haven't done it in so long. It's a sure thing that if I had been at it all along, I would stillb e able to.
Sorry, but apparantly he uses Debian which apparantly is evil Anti-FSF. According to his interview: "The Debian web site describes non-free programs, and their ftp server distributes them. That's why we don't have links to their site on www.gnu.org"
Next time, read the whole interview.
--It's kind of nice to have something of a "star to navigate by" in the person of RMS, but when you get a distro recommendation based on "ethical considerations" rather than WHAT FITS THE USER'S NEEDS, you have to decide if RMS is really the person you should be asking.
Since when has RMS been the right guy to ask what distribution you should be running? I consider his feedback valuable about how free a distribution is, but I hardly think the leader of a movement is the best person within the movement to quiz on the technical merits of one distribution over another.
RMS is rather hard to take in un-diluted doses, this is why the RMS Filter should be applied to all his output so that a happy medium can be found.
That's probably a joke, but it is usually called censorship, which is oppressive.
--Part of Linux's appeal is the freedom to CHOOSE. If the *only* software that RMS ever uses has to be "free" then sorry, he's missing out.
Personally, I think that stupid proprietary software have their place in this world, just like muggers and petty criminals have their place in this world. Reminds us how important the other things in life really are, and how hard we should work to achieve them. Freedom of choice is a difficult concept to wrap a head around. The basic paradox is simply outlawing oppression. Now people can't chose to be oppressed. Where's the freedom in that?
Right... so by your theory, Apple should be leading the market by selling sexier, more expensive PCs?!?
Funny, when I read the post and then read yours, I thought "No, by his logic Apple should be able to make money selling their brand." Then I realized I shouldn't be trying to interpret his logic for you.
Whether or not Stallman supports people profiting from selling software, it is clear that he doesn't view this as a priority
So he values freedom over money. I personally find that a respectable trait, and one I tend to think that I share with the man.
Commercial software makes complete sense, and should at the very least be ACCEPTED by the linux community. Until it is, the only people to use linux will be people who want to spend lots of time learning the Operating System, manoevring through newsgroups, search engines and irc channels for half-decent support. And none depending on the popularity of the software/device that isn't working.
Um, commercial != proprietary. Commercial software is not only accepted by the linux community, many of us are building commercial packages that protect the end-users freedom. And putting food on the table and so forth in the process.
Yes people kill people with guns. People are generally stupid, aggressive and with knee jerk reactions to things. Take away the guns from the people and they won't find it as easy to kill each other.
By the time guns first appeared in our world, people had already murdered billions of each other for all the same reasons people use guns now. Don't believe me?
In the middle ages it was not uncommon for a nobleman to slaughter a peasant that was on the same highway as he was. No gun available.
I don't feel like digging up enough cites to prove my point. Fact is, as far as history is concerned, guns are still a new development in the world, but murder spans the entire history and even stretches into prehistory quite a ways (probably all the way to the beginning of mankinds collective life). I'll agree that guns are efficient, compared to older methods, but murder is murder no matter what tool you use.