I'm sorry, but CalorieKing.com disagrees with you. Compare the two, making sure you use equal serving sizes. 1oz of RB has 91 calories & 9.1g sugar, 1oz of Frosted Flakes has 110 calories & 11g of sugar. And if some moron is dumb enough to poor sugar over "sugared cereal", well, doesn't that just make my point that we're unhealthy? Regardless, my point wasn't "Raisin Bran is good for you". It's we should try harder to avoid sugar.
As for dumber, yes I meant it. American have made being dumb and ignorant cool, and exported this around the world. Be it poor parenting, stupid television shows, Republicans turning "intellectual" into a bad word or calling anything European "old" (such as the common ability there to speak three to half a dozen languages) or whatnot.
Lazier? I didn't say that, but I agree. Customer service is lousy everywhere because retail employees don't give two shits about the quality of the work they do. People circle the supermarket parking lot trying to find a place close to the door, despite the luxury of shopping carts. Most of the college kids I know didn't have a job at school. I don't care if they're getting a free ride from their rich parents, what kind or father doesn't send their kids to work in preparation for adulthood?
Much our youth doesn't know what's in store for it until they are well past college graduation. Compare that to a century ago when many knew what it would be like to be an adult at 14. Why is it that our youth, with our more advanced education system and knowledge availability only helps them gain encyclopedic knowledge of which celebrity is having a baby?
I'm talking about fat and stupid people. Don't take this personally- I'm not talking about you, right?
I didn't bother to quantify the problematic to good radio of the entire parent population. This isn't a thesis but simply an observation (and a simple one at that).
I apologize if I gave you the impression that I was including you. I applaud your parenting.
Today's parents just suck at parenting. They lack the minimal backbone required to tell their kids "no," because they try to be friends rather than parents.
I can't stand how bad parents let their fat kids keep grabbing the Frosted Flakes instead of insisting on Cheerios or Raisin Bran. My grandmother had a strict "no sugared cereal" policy. My siblings and I knew it and didn't even bother trying to get her to budge on it. When I got to choose a computer game for my birthday present one year (the original Civilization), my grandfather not only looked at it (out of parenting and curiosity), he made sure that I was firm in my decision, and didn't just grab I'd toss the next day. Today the most sugared cereal I eat is store brand honey nut cheerios and I don't make impulse purchases. I owe it to the previous generation's parenting skills- my parents were pretty lousy at it.
Kids used to watch too much TV instead of playing outside. Now they play idiotic action games* on their game consoles (the new "idiot box") and have asthma as an excuse. As Mike Gravel said: "Americans are getting fatter and dumber". Hard to imagine, given the current the amount of flab you see everywhere and the numskull currently occupying the White House.
Are you from Nigeria and have expertise in Nigerian patent law, or are you just providing an uninformed ass' opinion?
If (and this is a huge if) Nigerian patent law actually ignores prior art, and ignores foreign patents, I would assume the system isn't designed very well, and its enforcement arm is weak. Countries that don't abide by general conventions such as patents don't get much leverage on foreign entities. In this case, given that development of the laptops was done in the US I don't see what OLPC has to worry about other than the FUD this story generates.
The more likely possibility is that Nigerian law both recognizes US patents and has the prior-art and non-obvious requirements. In this case, the lawsuit will surely be thrown out, since multilingual keyboards have been around for a long time and there's nothing novel about using multiple shift keys.
Easy- have your voicemail take the message. When you leave the restaurant, check your message. When you get the one from your mother, following the three from your drunk college buddy, call her back or go to the hospital to visit your father (I do hope he's alright).
Or were you the only surgeon or ambulance driver in the area? And if you were, why didn't your pager go off, or why didn't you provide your contact with a land-line number at your location?
Cellphones are no good for incoming emergencies. They take to long to establish context, and SMS isn't reliable. If they are your (poor) choice of technology, stay away from places in which you can't use them.
Just a minor note on your last statement. Bribery doesn't necessarily mean the pushing of an inferior product. Very often, decision makers will go with a cheaper solution or one they have a bias towards. They may be making a poor deal out of convenience, bias, incompetence, political reasons, et cetra.
Bribery then, is the act of using incentives to influence the decision through either providing personal gain (the traditional "baksheesh" bribe) or change of bias (see http://www.gatesfoundation.org./
That job posting doesn't seem strange to me at all. My company uses Google search internally and I'd expect anyone touching that device to have the same level of trust that my job requires. The clearance simply seems necessary because of the government clients they may have or want. Big deal. Besides, that's a technical position, not a political one. It doesn't seek a spook, but a Linux administrator.
I understand people suspecting Google's power, but please don't get this nutty about it. If you have a problem with their entrance into wireless networks, mobile computing, or health information storage, argue against it. Show me serious proof of your argument, not vagues suggestions or out-of-context pictures of Larry and Sergey.
You don't have to make it about killing higher and higher levels of swine. Previous posters mentioned interest in being immersed in Warcraft lore. I haven't looked at them, but the RolePlaying realms seem to offer yet another facet of play. I've found the game engine to provide lots of potential for social interaction in the form of guilds.
Compare sitting at home watching television to going out to the movies with friends. Depending on your viewpoint one is cool and the other makes you a loser. Blizzard did a great job providing in a single game for many different types of players to find their own way to have fun.
You seem to have discovered the most shallow way of playing the game. Congratulations!
Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably selling something (a crappy machine translator, to be exact!). Well put, and you may get free shipping if you add a "USB Humping Dog" to your cart:
Or get your hump on with a USB Humping Dog -- on sale now, satisfaction guaranteed!
http://www.digitalworldtokyo.com/index.php/shop/product/usb_humping_dog/ "Satisfaction guaranteed"? For the buyer or the dog?
Doesn't your argument make a case against so-called "puppet companies", rather than patent laundering?
Still, as another poster suggested, the profiting company would be an accessory or involved in conspiracy to infringe. Perhaps not as big a fine, but would jurors give two bits about your legal setup?
I don't think it's conscionable to expect the seventh company down the food-chain (say Johnnie fixing the neighborhood computers) to pay for Award infringing on someone else's patent. If Award goes bankrupt, that's what they deserve for breaking the rules. Johnnie can't choose what BIOSes he works on, and can't afford to higher a patent lawyer to run countless patent checks on any component he may encounter.
Selective enforcement is as bad as no enforcement. In both cases, justice is lacking.
If the parent's claims are true that they target Democratic bodies and ignore infractions by Republicans, then they are not a watchdog, but a political body masquerading as one. You're right to be critical of the author, but you're dismissal is a wonderful example of ignorant belligerence.
Many of the various "think tanks" in Washington D.C. are just that- politically motivated pseudo-scientists, who instead of researching the issues, fabricate research to align with their agenda. It's the same as the "Fox News" Channel and the so-called "MSM"- they're not news, but political machines in sheep suits.
And please stop using straw man arguments. You can't even pull them off right.
I tend to agree. And the Chinese government's recently-reported imposition of morals is too much of a coincidence.
I could believe the company figuring it'd better fly straight lest they risk angering the dictatorship, or some bureaucrat stepping in as part of this new "war on perversion".
Either way, I'm puzzled by how the Chinese government doesn't get along better with Christian evangelicals, as they seem to share so much in common, and the later don't mind getting in bed with non Jesus-fanatics (read: "Israel" and "NeoCons").
I've been telling people that they should upgrade to 2k ever since XP was released.
Unless you play games needing the latest DirectX (see plenty of rants against that mess), there's nothing XP provides that is worth the extra drain on your hardware.
The XP-installed a dual-core, 2GB-of-RAM laptop I got from work less than six months ago is already getting sluggish. With Win2k, it would have lasted at least a year before I had to send it back for re-imaging. I wish my company finally figured out that Linux is perfectly capable of letting people create presentations and write email, and supported any distribution.
...any personal info... That's great, but you forgot to mention to the truly paranoid that they would also need to buy the gift-cards out of state, use a TOR-like anonymity solution, mask their browser settings, and not buy music they actually like (or at least buy a few country albums to confuse big brother).
Oops... I forgot to post as an anonymous coward. Now they know my modus operandi. Better get my aluminum hat on quick...
Your idea of a White Hat isn't very flattering, and that deserves correction.
The difference between White and Black hats is one of reliability. The White does not break the law whereas the Black does. You can hire a White Hat and give them permission to try break into your systems. If they are truly a White Hat, they'll disclose anything they find. The person you want for your doors is called a Locksmith. They're just as knowledgeable as the burglars, but they can actually be trusted.
And don't confuse White/Black with skill. There are plenty of piss-poor Black Hats out there. They're called Script Kiddies.
The best argument against posting corrections on posters' spelling and grammar (and whatever the hell this was): Slashdot readers believe your comment was informative.
Sun gets bad press for not developing free software... And RMS has plenty of decent arguments against that, if you subscribe to his POV.
Sun gets bad press for developing free software... Yes, it has a free license, but are they actually "developing free software?" The "Bazaar" includes more than just the assigning the GPL.
Any time they do something which you can successfully argue is bad, you should make the argument. That's the whole point of free speech and freedom of press.
The lack of criticism is what leads to Microsoft getting away with selling crappy software, SCO trying to profit off of other people's work, and the cluster@*$%! orchestrated by the current US White House.
Now if only people of consequence read the opinions of Slashdot posters...
As has been mentioned over and over, the SCO business model of recent seems less about product development and more about legal + accounting maneuvering.
The SCO strategy has been fairly consistent: call themselves as a victim and look for someone to pity them. Fortunately, few bought the act, and most have recognized the cheap trick for what it is. Hopefully, this new tantrum won't yield better results for them.
He's not reviewing "Linux" - he's reviewing a Dell laptop. A poorly configured one at that.
No computer seller should have released a machine with the kinds of problems he describes. The crashing Volume Control - that doesn't happen on my machine and I didn't have to tinker at all.
And as far as the touchpad issue is concerned- if the pad doesn't work for an average user, they should have either configured it themselves, or pulled it. Instead, Dell released a defective, user-unfriendly product.
He does ignore the amazing collection of software (including MP3 players), which is easily accessible through the graphical front-ends of the apt packaging system. Windows doesn't provide a decent MP3 player in my opinion (I wouldn't use the included spyware player), and it's harder to obtain one there.
Linux isn't perfect. Neither is Windows. It has lots of little problems like those mentioned, and they're being taken care of as they come to light. Microsoft has a whole bookshelf dedicated to these. How on earth could he think Microsoft is superior?
If Mossberg understood Free Software, he'd know that Dell could easily provide the support he claims is absent because developers aren't "bound" to users, as he puts it. Well guess what- neither is Windows. Just read your EULA.
It is, and Linux supports most anything out of the box, no driver installations needed. I built a multimedia box this summer and the only thing I had to tinker with on the command line was my PVR card.
Some bleeding-edge doesn't get support immediately on release, but even that situation is starting to change. Lately we've been seeing major hardware manufacturers releasing Linux drivers and providing technical assistance to Linux developers.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sorry, but CalorieKing.com disagrees with you. Compare the two, making sure you use equal serving sizes. 1oz of RB has 91 calories & 9.1g sugar, 1oz of Frosted Flakes has 110 calories & 11g of sugar. And if some moron is dumb enough to poor sugar over "sugared cereal", well, doesn't that just make my point that we're unhealthy? Regardless, my point wasn't "Raisin Bran is good for you". It's we should try harder to avoid sugar.
As for dumber, yes I meant it. American have made being dumb and ignorant cool, and exported this around the world. Be it poor parenting, stupid television shows, Republicans turning "intellectual" into a bad word or calling anything European "old" (such as the common ability there to speak three to half a dozen languages) or whatnot.
Lazier? I didn't say that, but I agree. Customer service is lousy everywhere because retail employees don't give two shits about the quality of the work they do. People circle the supermarket parking lot trying to find a place close to the door, despite the luxury of shopping carts. Most of the college kids I know didn't have a job at school. I don't care if they're getting a free ride from their rich parents, what kind or father doesn't send their kids to work in preparation for adulthood?
Much our youth doesn't know what's in store for it until they are well past college graduation. Compare that to a century ago when many knew what it would be like to be an adult at 14. Why is it that our youth, with our more advanced education system and knowledge availability only helps them gain encyclopedic knowledge of which celebrity is having a baby?
I'm talking about fat and stupid people. Don't take this personally- I'm not talking about you, right?
I didn't bother to quantify the problematic to good radio of the entire parent population. This isn't a thesis but simply an observation (and a simple one at that).
I apologize if I gave you the impression that I was including you. I applaud your parenting.
Exactly.
Today's parents just suck at parenting. They lack the minimal backbone required to tell their kids "no," because they try to be friends rather than parents.
I can't stand how bad parents let their fat kids keep grabbing the Frosted Flakes instead of insisting on Cheerios or Raisin Bran. My grandmother had a strict "no sugared cereal" policy. My siblings and I knew it and didn't even bother trying to get her to budge on it. When I got to choose a computer game for my birthday present one year (the original Civilization), my grandfather not only looked at it (out of parenting and curiosity), he made sure that I was firm in my decision, and didn't just grab I'd toss the next day. Today the most sugared cereal I eat is store brand honey nut cheerios and I don't make impulse purchases. I owe it to the previous generation's parenting skills- my parents were pretty lousy at it.
Kids used to watch too much TV instead of playing outside. Now they play idiotic action games* on their game consoles (the new "idiot box") and have asthma as an excuse. As Mike Gravel said: "Americans are getting fatter and dumber". Hard to imagine, given the current the amount of flab you see everywhere and the numskull currently occupying the White House.
* see http://www.gamershell.com/articles/884.html on what's wrong with today's games.
Am I in a minority of people who don't verbally abuse my computer on an hourly basis?
What's the matter, Steve? Run out of chairs?
By the way- your keyboard need replacing. Your shift keys keep sticking.
Interesting.
I think I'll apply for the position, despite not having the required experience or any interest in moving to India and being happily employed.
I might even doctor my resume just for them, mentioning something about contributing code to Linux.
Are you from Nigeria and have expertise in Nigerian patent law, or are you just providing an uninformed ass' opinion?
If (and this is a huge if) Nigerian patent law actually ignores prior art, and ignores foreign patents, I would assume the system isn't designed very well, and its enforcement arm is weak. Countries that don't abide by general conventions such as patents don't get much leverage on foreign entities. In this case, given that development of the laptops was done in the US I don't see what OLPC has to worry about other than the FUD this story generates.
The more likely possibility is that Nigerian law both recognizes US patents and has the prior-art and non-obvious requirements. In this case, the lawsuit will surely be thrown out, since multilingual keyboards have been around for a long time and there's nothing novel about using multiple shift keys.
Easy- have your voicemail take the message. When you leave the restaurant, check your message. When you get the one from your mother, following the three from your drunk college buddy, call her back or go to the hospital to visit your father (I do hope he's alright).
Or were you the only surgeon or ambulance driver in the area? And if you were, why didn't your pager go off, or why didn't you provide your contact with a land-line number at your location?
Cellphones are no good for incoming emergencies. They take to long to establish context, and SMS isn't reliable. If they are your (poor) choice of technology, stay away from places in which you can't use them.
Just a minor note on your last statement. Bribery doesn't necessarily mean the pushing of an inferior product. Very often, decision makers will go with a cheaper solution or one they have a bias towards. They may be making a poor deal out of convenience, bias, incompetence, political reasons, et cetra.
Bribery then, is the act of using incentives to influence the decision through either providing personal gain (the traditional "baksheesh" bribe) or change of bias (see http://www.gatesfoundation.org./
That job posting doesn't seem strange to me at all. My company uses Google search internally and I'd expect anyone touching that device to have the same level of trust that my job requires. The clearance simply seems necessary because of the government clients they may have or want. Big deal. Besides, that's a technical position, not a political one. It doesn't seek a spook, but a Linux administrator.
I understand people suspecting Google's power, but please don't get this nutty about it. If you have a problem with their entrance into wireless networks, mobile computing, or health information storage, argue against it. Show me serious proof of your argument, not vagues suggestions or out-of-context pictures of Larry and Sergey.
You don't have to make it about killing higher and higher levels of swine. Previous posters mentioned interest in being immersed in Warcraft lore. I haven't looked at them, but the RolePlaying realms seem to offer yet another facet of play. I've found the game engine to provide lots of potential for social interaction in the form of guilds.
Compare sitting at home watching television to going out to the movies with friends. Depending on your viewpoint one is cool and the other makes you a loser. Blizzard did a great job providing in a single game for many different types of players to find their own way to have fun.
You seem to have discovered the most shallow way of playing the game. Congratulations!
(so glad I RTFA)
Sounds to me like this thing may do bandwidth throttling to maximize your downloading of pr0n.
Now "Give cones change the machine" just sounds downright dirty. I'm sorry, but hardware doesn't turn me on in that way.
Doesn't your argument make a case against so-called "puppet companies", rather than patent laundering?
Still, as another poster suggested, the profiting company would be an accessory or involved in conspiracy to infringe. Perhaps not as big a fine, but would jurors give two bits about your legal setup?
I don't think it's conscionable to expect the seventh company down the food-chain (say Johnnie fixing the neighborhood computers) to pay for Award infringing on someone else's patent. If Award goes bankrupt, that's what they deserve for breaking the rules. Johnnie can't choose what BIOSes he works on, and can't afford to higher a patent lawyer to run countless patent checks on any component he may encounter.
Selective enforcement is as bad as no enforcement. In both cases, justice is lacking.
If the parent's claims are true that they target Democratic bodies and ignore infractions by Republicans, then they are not a watchdog, but a political body masquerading as one. You're right to be critical of the author, but you're dismissal is a wonderful example of ignorant belligerence.
Many of the various "think tanks" in Washington D.C. are just that- politically motivated pseudo-scientists, who instead of researching the issues, fabricate research to align with their agenda. It's the same as the "Fox News" Channel and the so-called "MSM"- they're not news, but political machines in sheep suits.
And please stop using straw man arguments. You can't even pull them off right.
I tend to agree. And the Chinese government's recently-reported imposition of morals is too much of a coincidence.
I could believe the company figuring it'd better fly straight lest they risk angering the dictatorship, or some bureaucrat stepping in as part of this new "war on perversion".
Either way, I'm puzzled by how the Chinese government doesn't get along better with Christian evangelicals, as they seem to share so much in common, and the later don't mind getting in bed with non Jesus-fanatics (read: "Israel" and "NeoCons").
You're right. This is old news.
I've been telling people that they should upgrade to 2k ever since XP was released.
Unless you play games needing the latest DirectX (see plenty of rants against that mess), there's nothing XP provides that is worth the extra drain on your hardware.
The XP-installed a dual-core, 2GB-of-RAM laptop I got from work less than six months ago is already getting sluggish. With Win2k, it would have lasted at least a year before I had to send it back for re-imaging. I wish my company finally figured out that Linux is perfectly capable of letting people create presentations and write email, and supported any distribution.
Hell, I'd even use Red Hat!
...any personal info... That's great, but you forgot to mention to the truly paranoid that they would also need to buy the gift-cards out of state, use a TOR-like anonymity solution, mask their browser settings, and not buy music they actually like (or at least buy a few country albums to confuse big brother).Oops... I forgot to post as an anonymous coward. Now they know my modus operandi. Better get my aluminum hat on quick...
Your idea of a White Hat isn't very flattering, and that deserves correction.
The difference between White and Black hats is one of reliability. The White does not break the law whereas the Black does. You can hire a White Hat and give them permission to try break into your systems. If they are truly a White Hat, they'll disclose anything they find. The person you want for your doors is called a Locksmith. They're just as knowledgeable as the burglars, but they can actually be trusted.
And don't confuse White/Black with skill. There are plenty of piss-poor Black Hats out there. They're called Script Kiddies.
The best argument against posting corrections on posters' spelling and grammar (and whatever the hell this was): Slashdot readers believe your comment was informative.
That would be great. I would expect some action involving the word "surge".
Any time they do something which you can successfully argue is bad, you should make the argument. That's the whole point of free speech and freedom of press.
The lack of criticism is what leads to Microsoft getting away with selling crappy software, SCO trying to profit off of other people's work, and the cluster@*$%! orchestrated by the current US White House.
Now if only people of consequence read the opinions of Slashdot posters...
As has been mentioned over and over, the SCO business model of recent seems less about product development and more about legal + accounting maneuvering.
The SCO strategy has been fairly consistent: call themselves as a victim and look for someone to pity them. Fortunately, few bought the act, and most have recognized the cheap trick for what it is. Hopefully, this new tantrum won't yield better results for them.
McBride, there's no crying in business.
He's not reviewing "Linux" - he's reviewing a Dell laptop. A poorly configured one at that.
No computer seller should have released a machine with the kinds of problems he describes. The crashing Volume Control - that doesn't happen on my machine and I didn't have to tinker at all.
And as far as the touchpad issue is concerned- if the pad doesn't work for an average user, they should have either configured it themselves, or pulled it. Instead, Dell released a defective, user-unfriendly product.
He does ignore the amazing collection of software (including MP3 players), which is easily accessible through the graphical front-ends of the apt packaging system. Windows doesn't provide a decent MP3 player in my opinion (I wouldn't use the included spyware player), and it's harder to obtain one there.
Linux isn't perfect. Neither is Windows. It has lots of little problems like those mentioned, and they're being taken care of as they come to light. Microsoft has a whole bookshelf dedicated to these. How on earth could he think Microsoft is superior?
If Mossberg understood Free Software, he'd know that Dell could easily provide the support he claims is absent because developers aren't "bound" to users, as he puts it. Well guess what- neither is Windows. Just read your EULA.
It is, and Linux supports most anything out of the box, no driver installations needed. I built a multimedia box this summer and the only thing I had to tinker with on the command line was my PVR card.
Some bleeding-edge doesn't get support immediately on release, but even that situation is starting to change. Lately we've been seeing major hardware manufacturers releasing Linux drivers and providing technical assistance to Linux developers.