my understanding is that when it comes to intellectual property
There's no such thing as intellectual property. There's copyright law, trademark law, and patent law. They're different. You seem to be thinking of trademark law; you have to vigorously defend a trademark in order to keep it.
Recently I had to install GNU/Linux on a laptop, and had no idea what was inside it. I could have spent a lot of time trying to find out, but instead I slipped in a Knoppix cd, completed the installation in about 15 minutes, and had a working Debian box. If I'd had to use the Debian installer, it might have taken hours.
Violence breed violence and encourages hate. Why do we love to hate?
I'm all in favor of trying to root out the causes of hate, but it's annoying when you ask a question like "why do we love to hate?" as though you yourself were a pixie floating free above the human condition who had never actually hated anyone or anything. The roots of hatred go a lot deeper than video games.
I bought two from them last summer, when/. had a story about keyboards and several people mentioned them, but both keyboards were defective. I returned one for repair, and it came back defective (several non-working keys). The shipping costs were piling up, so I quit. The keyboards are a great idea, but I spent $100 and still don't have one.
the only Linux distro that "just worked" on any of my machines was Mandrake (8.1) and I removed it almost right away, for various reasons which I can't be bothered to elaborate upon here. [...] I get the feeling this is going to be a "-1, Flamebait" posting pretty soon.
ROTFLMAO! Certainly NOT flamebait! Just funny as hell, for various reasons which I can't be bothered to elaborate upon here!
sites marketing mind-numbing toys in 100% genuine plastic that will occupy your kids and condition them into good corporate slaves.
Not if from the beginning you teach your kids what advertising it and how it works, and if you yourself aren't caught up in consumerist/materialist culture. My kids and I have a blast analyzing (and making fun of) advertising.
ratpoison is awesome. I used ion for almost two years, but made the switch to ratpoison a few months ago. Once you get the keybindings on ratpoison set up the way you want, it's the most usable interface imaginable. And not a single pixel is wasted: every square inch of the screen is used.
But if cousin Sam asks how to rip a disc to MP3 on WinXP? Suddenly the 'free' attitude stops?
When people ask for help I insist that they agree to share their own knowledge about computers with others. They usually answer that they don't know anything about computers, but I insist that compared to people who really know about computers, I don't know anything, but I'm still able to share what little I do know. And, in any case, they can at least share with others the information I'm about to show them!
So while you should never expect gifts from family in this way, you should always give them.
In some ethnic enclaves around the US, you'd risk serious familial strife if you didn't offer professional services to your immediate and extended family. I'm familiar with Jewish families. Dentists, doctors, lawyers, accountants, mechanics, and others in those families are expected to provide gratis service to extended family members.
If you think of the extended family as an economic unit, it makes a lot of sense to run things that way. That's why there are all the jokes about how Jews never pay retail.
I bought two keyboards from pckeyboard.com this past summer, and both of them failed within a month. One of them has several keys that don't register at all, the other has one key that doesn't click any more but still registers if you press it hard enough.
I sent back the one with many non-registering keys, and when it came back, none of them were fixed.
Given how much it costs to keep shipping keyboards back to the company, I've given up on it. It was a great idea, but the two keyboards I got don't work, and the company didn't fix them.
Even with a very fat pipe, downloading 700mb for an ok-quality divx or 1400mb for a good quality DivX is still a very long wait.
It would feel like a long wait if your p2p program sat there cluttering up your "desktop" while you waited for the movie to finish downloading. If you do everything using command line tools and cron jobs, however, there's none of that kind of waiting involved. You are right that people who use broken OS's might as well go to Blockbuster.
Debian isn't that hard to use. I'm not a comp-sci major or anything, and it didn't take me long to get comfortable with Debian. It's a very well-designed system. Yes, you have to have information about your system in order to install it; so what? If you can't handle the fire, get out of the kitchen. And stop whining!
Why do you say it was proper use? Both times the correct spelling had an apostrophe, but don't the editors always add an apostrophe? Maybe they were just lucky there was no need for the possessive form.
Considering that it costs me $50 per visit, I don't see how it is helping me.
You're in a high-risk group. Experience and simple economics have taught HMO's and doctors that monitoring high-risk patients more closely than low-risk patients pays off in the long run. Whether it "benefits" you is beside the point. If we wanted we could say that you are benefitted by being monitored more closely because of your higher risk factors, but from your perspective it might be preferable to go without monitoring and show up in the doctor's office only when you realize that something has gone wrong. But from the HMO and doctor's point of view, that is not a very cost-effective way of handling you.
It's too bad your office visits cost so much. Mine are $15. But it sounds like I have a lot more prescriptions than you.
Every 6 months, check to see if the meds are working the way they should, and refill for 6 more months. It's a pain in the ass.
Your doctor and your HMO don't make any money on these kinds of visits. They require them because if they didn't, you might develop more serious problems that would end up costing them a lot more money.
In the US, if the doctor and HMO want you to visit the doctor on a regular basis, it's because they think it will cost less in the long run. Otherwise, if you're healthy, they'd rather you never went to the doctor.
It sounds like you don't like the fact that you've got a serious, chronic medical problem, and as a result are at a higher risk than most people for developing other serious medical problems. Welcome to the club.
Kick in the teeth is ok, naked bodies are a total no-no!
Parents don't want to show either. They just want to be able to purchase the same version of movies that is shown on network television and on airplanes. Studios happily produce such edited versions. Why won't they sell them to consumers?
Maybe if you had primary responsibility for rearing some children, you'd have a different perspective.
Slashdot Mirror
There's no such thing as intellectual property. There's copyright law, trademark law, and patent law, but "IP" is an empty concept.
There's no such thing as intellectual property. There's copyright law, trademark law, and patent law. They're different. You seem to be thinking of trademark law; you have to vigorously defend a trademark in order to keep it.
It sounds like you agree with Templeton.
Recently I had to install GNU/Linux on a laptop, and had no idea what was inside it. I could have spent a lot of time trying to find out, but instead I slipped in a Knoppix cd, completed the installation in about 15 minutes, and had a working Debian box. If I'd had to use the Debian installer, it might have taken hours.
You should look into that question.
I'm all in favor of trying to root out the causes of hate, but it's annoying when you ask a question like "why do we love to hate?" as though you yourself were a pixie floating free above the human condition who had never actually hated anyone or anything. The roots of hatred go a lot deeper than video games.
"Lemon of Troy" is the single best episode of The Simpsons. It is perfect. Any list that leaves out "Lemon of Troy" is worthless.
The main concern of this list seems to have been who the celebrity guest stars were. The list wasn't written by someone who understands the show.
I bought two from them last summer, when /. had a story about keyboards and several people mentioned them, but both keyboards were defective. I returned one for repair, and it came back defective (several non-working keys). The shipping costs were piling up, so I quit. The keyboards are a great idea, but I spent $100 and still don't have one.
ROTFLMAO! Certainly NOT flamebait! Just funny as hell, for various reasons which I can't be bothered to elaborate upon here!
It's not mentioned because there's no Direct Connect client for non-MS operating systems.
Not if from the beginning you teach your kids what advertising it and how it works, and if you yourself aren't caught up in consumerist/materialist culture. My kids and I have a blast analyzing (and making fun of) advertising.
The poster's point seemed to be that RMS's place should not involve public appearances. I admire RMS, but have to agree.
Nothing beats ratpoison on a Xinerama display.
When people ask for help I insist that they agree to share their own knowledge about computers with others. They usually answer that they don't know anything about computers, but I insist that compared to people who really know about computers, I don't know anything, but I'm still able to share what little I do know. And, in any case, they can at least share with others the information I'm about to show them!
In some ethnic enclaves around the US, you'd risk serious familial strife if you didn't offer professional services to your immediate and extended family. I'm familiar with Jewish families. Dentists, doctors, lawyers, accountants, mechanics, and others in those families are expected to provide gratis service to extended family members.
If you think of the extended family as an economic unit, it makes a lot of sense to run things that way. That's why there are all the jokes about how Jews never pay retail.
What kind of computer shows do you mean? I've been looking for IBM model M's whenever I see used computers, and haven't been able to find one.
I bought two keyboards from pckeyboard.com this past summer, and both of them failed within a month. One of them has several keys that don't register at all, the other has one key that doesn't click any more but still registers if you press it hard enough.
I sent back the one with many non-registering keys, and when it came back, none of them were fixed.
Given how much it costs to keep shipping keyboards back to the company, I've given up on it. It was a great idea, but the two keyboards I got don't work, and the company didn't fix them.
It would feel like a long wait if your p2p program sat there cluttering up your "desktop" while you waited for the movie to finish downloading. If you do everything using command line tools and cron jobs, however, there's none of that kind of waiting involved. You are right that people who use broken OS's might as well go to Blockbuster.
didn't take me long to get comfortable with Debian. It's a very well-designed
system. Yes, you have to have information about your system in order to
install it; so what? If you can't handle the fire, get out of the kitchen.
And stop whining!
Newbies!
apt-cache is pretty useful as a search utility. "apt-cache search " usually gives me what I need.
Why do you say it was proper use? Both times the correct spelling had an apostrophe, but don't the editors always add an apostrophe? Maybe they were just lucky there was no need for the possessive form.
You're in a high-risk group. Experience and simple economics have taught HMO's and doctors that monitoring high-risk patients more closely than low-risk patients pays off in the long run. Whether it "benefits" you is beside the point. If we wanted we could say that you are benefitted by being monitored more closely because of your higher risk factors, but from your perspective it might be preferable to go without monitoring and show up in the doctor's office only when you realize that something has gone wrong. But from the HMO and doctor's point of view, that is not a very cost-effective way of handling you.
It's too bad your office visits cost so much. Mine are $15. But it sounds like I have a lot more prescriptions than you.
Your doctor and your HMO don't make any money on these kinds of visits. They require them because if they didn't, you might develop more serious problems that would end up costing them a lot more money.
In the US, if the doctor and HMO want you to visit the doctor on a regular basis, it's because they think it will cost less in the long run. Otherwise, if you're healthy, they'd rather you never went to the doctor.
It sounds like you don't like the fact that you've got a serious, chronic medical problem, and as a result are at a higher risk than most people for developing other serious medical problems. Welcome to the club.
Kick in the teeth is ok, naked bodies are a total no-no!
Parents don't want to show either. They just want to be able to purchase the same version of movies that is shown on network television and on airplanes. Studios happily produce such edited versions. Why won't they sell them to consumers?
Maybe if you had primary responsibility for rearing some children, you'd have a different perspective.
Anyone who wants to can take BSD-licensed code, put it into a new package, and relicense the whole thing under the GPL (or a proprietary code).
GPL'd code, in contrast, can neither be taken and BSD-licensed nor turned into part of a proprietary package.