The installer for SuSE detects the special hardware for the blind and uses it. As far as I know, it's the only distro that is blind friendly right from the start.
I always felt the sabbath fire ban was a bit tricky. As I understand it (IANAJ), making fire is considered work. However, there are numerous situations where making fire can be considered play. Just look at any "dad" on a holiday picnic burning the hamburgers over a barbeque, fire is involved, but he's having a damn good time being "master chef". Same goes for computing, firing up (pun intended) a computer to play a game is certainly not work. Even some computing things many would call work is fun for some, e.g. kernel hacking.
What good is a homebrew UPS if it doesn't support decent management software such as NUT?
Having a UPS means nothing if you lose power and the server dies when the battery runs out. You want the system to gracefully shutdown when the battery level becomes critical.
I just checked. I never signed anything. I guess that means I'm not really locked into the year and half agreement. That also means they can raise their rates whenever they damn well please.
When I had @Home, I had to agree to a one year contract if I wanted the installation fee to be waived. If I were still with them (which I'm not because they suck), I would remind them of the contract to provide unlimited access and that they can't raise the rate or implement limits until such contact was concluded. The downside is IANAL so I'm sure there wouldn't be much I could do about it if they disconnected me for refusing to pay extra.
BTW, I'm now with Pacbell/SBC DSL, wouldn't this same principle apply? I have an 18 month obligation (free installation and DSL modem). Is it legal for them to increase the montly rate on something I'm locked into for a year an a half?
It would be difficult to properly convert 16th century six pence into a modern equivelent. However, we can get a rough estimate of its worth by making simple comparisons.
A six pence is half a shilling. A typical seasoned merchant sailor made about this amount per day. This is on the high end for skilled workers (hazard pay). With this in mind, I would make the wild guess that we're talking one or two full days for a skilled worker. This makes it an expensive endeavor to register a copyright, so acts as a limiting factor. A bookmaker isn't going to go through the trouble of registering copyrights for a few dozen manuscripts "just in case" as the expense would ruin him. He would be very selective with his choices, looking for items that would give him a reasonable return on his investment. Remember, the majority of the population would not be capable of purchasing this type of luxury, so the market is very small.
Source of 16th century sailer pay is from "The Mariner's Mirror". Sorry, I don't have the exact citation handy at the moment.
Philip K. Dick, died just before getting to see the screen adaptation of his fabulous novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"
Fabulous? You've got to be kidding. I bought the book after being blown away by the movie Blade Runner. After reading "Do Androids...", my only thought was how did they make such a great movie out of that huge, steaming, stinking pile of doggy poo. The book is beyond bad. It's dreadful. It's crap. It's major shit. My god, I can't believe I wasted a couple of hours of my life on that garbage!
Real simple. The hardware is usually donated or it is older systems no longer used by the administrators. The buearocrates use the new computers. The students are stuck with old 486 and Pentium 1 systems.
That's a standard debate technique to deflect from the subject, "you did it, too". Except you obviously missed my entire point.
"You" refered to the people of Germany at the time it happened, not to anyone born afterwards or too young to be a part of it. Someone born in (for example) 1960 is no more responsible for the Nazis than I am for what my ancestors did to the indians.
Just before the AT&T/@Home fiasco where service was lost by a large number of people, I called my cablemodem company and asked them if there would be any disruption of service. I was told there would be absolutely no problems. A few hours later we lost service for the entire weekend. That's the worse possible time for my wife as she was an editor for an online magazine and the deadline is late Sunday. Because they had flat out lied to me I decided to switch to DSL.
My attempt to cancel with AT&T resulted in me being placed in the on-hold hell they are so famous for. Rather than spend an hour on hold, I hung up and wrote a formal letter canceling my service and told them to contact me to make arrangements for the return of the cablemodem. We kept receiving a bill, and I kept writing "service canceled on {date}" on the bill and attaching a copy of the letter. Eventually, they called me because of an overdue bill. When I said I had cancelled in writing they said you can't do it that way and I had to pay. I said, yes I can cancel in writing and that I would not pay. She tried to insist otherwise, but I stood firm. I got the info to return the cablemodem and haven't been bothered since (other than the occassional junk mail advertising their cablemodem service "now available" in my area).
The German people like to say they were "seduced" by Hitler, that they didn't really know what he was all about. That's not true. They knew exactly what he was about. The people of Germany gave him the opportunity to take power, and he took it. Of course, the people were desperate for a change, any change. Their country was in shambles. They needed a scapegoat and a hero. Hitler pointed to Jews and other "undesirables" as the cause, and himself as the hero to fix everything and return Germany to its former glory. The people of Germany jumped at the opportunity.
Stop trying to make excuses for your country's evil past. You have no excuse. Stop trying to say it wasn't your fault. It was your fault.
our right to speech is granted (i.e., it is not presumed) by the Constitution
You could not be more wrong. The Bill of Rights reiterates some of the rights you are born with. It does not give you those rights. Those rights can not be taken away. The Constitution did not even mention those rights origially. They were added after the fact because of great concern about government abuse (those guys were pretty damn smart, in my opinion, and correctly guessed the future).
Even if Congress tried to abolish the Constitution, we would still have those rights. We would also have a civil war.
But you sound like you are the kind of person who has already sold out social responsibility even though they've never faced hard times
I have not sold out - yet. But we are facing hard times right now. The bay area tech job market is not doing all that well. So far I haven't been offered the kind of job we're discussing, and I'm not sure I have the luxury to turn one down if offered.
Software engineers shall act consistently with the public interest.
Who defines what is in the public interest? Ask ten different people and you will get ten different answer.
"Public interest" is sprinkled through just about all the points. How can anyone possibly base a code of ethics on something that can't possibly be defined?
There are far too many people who will do just about anything for money. Hell, under the right circumstances, I would write spamming software, even though the very idea makes me sick. I am a family man. I have a wife and daughter to take care of. My first responsibility is to them. "Social responsibility" doesn't even come close. If I had to choose between buying food and paying rent for my family or being socially responsible - fuck society.
I took a look at a few dozen themes, including the "most popular". My god there are some no talent people putting this crap together! Someone please take away their theme editors before they repeat their crimes!
Here's a very simple formula you must learn:
programmer/geek != artistic talent
Just so you don't think I am all negative. There were a few very nicely done themes, but the majority are utter crap or a clone with the basic colour changed.
Except I own my copy of the software, unless I agree to the EULA which changes my ownership to licensee. I don't accept the EULA, so I don't accept the change of terms. I own it. I can do whatever the hell I want with it.
The only thing that will change this is my signature on a properly negotiated contract.
And how is that different from an open source program that is hailed as the next killer app, but only uber-geeks can figure it out because they took the time to dig through the source code to see what command line switches and config file options are available?
It doesn't matter how simple the interface becomes, it's not enough. So what if KDE? is just as easy to use as windows. How hard is it to install new software? The standard steps of "configure, make, make install" may be intuitive for us, but it isn't for the average Windows users. Microsoft does it the right way, double click on "setup.exe" or, even better, the installer launches when you stick the CD in the drive.
The installer should be smart enough to install any components necessary for the program to run. If that means included libWhatever.so in the package, so be it. It's not good enough that most systems will have that library. Unless all systems have that library, it must be part of the installer. If the program fails because obscure shared object is missing, 99% of the users will remove the package (if they can figure out how). It won't take too many of these failures for someone to get fed up and go back to Windows.
Don't stop at getting the dependencies handled properly. Make the configuration just as easy. Either the installer must ask for necessary default information and create the default dependency, or the program itself must recognize the need and fire up a configuration wizard the first time it is run. For the typical end-user, wizards are great. They simplify what can otherwise be a tedious and error prone process.
Another area needing major improvements is manuals and help systems. All too often the developers do a damn fine job of producing a top notch program. Too bad only geeks can figure the software out, since the manuals suck, the online help is non-existent or minimal, and the web page says, "I don't have time to write anything" (I've actually seen this!).
The program isn't ready for public consumption until the manual is finished.
They take shit jobs no one else wants, e.g. backbreaking farm work. They pay taxes (taken out before they get paid), but never file for refunds (which most would be entitled to if they did file). They don't use medicare and such, because they are afraid they will get deported if they do. The same is true for all the other "freebies" that you mention.
If illegal aliens disappeared form California, vegetables would rot in the fields, grocery prices would skyrocket, and the economy would probably be crippled.
We need them. They need us.
Until you spend a season picking artichokes in the central coast, you can just shut the fuck up, you racist asshole.
Slashdot Mirror
The installer for SuSE detects the special hardware for the blind and uses it. As far as I know, it's the only distro that is blind friendly right from the start.
I always felt the sabbath fire ban was a bit tricky. As I understand it (IANAJ), making fire is considered work. However, there are numerous situations where making fire can be considered play. Just look at any "dad" on a holiday picnic burning the hamburgers over a barbeque, fire is involved, but he's having a damn good time being "master chef". Same goes for computing, firing up (pun intended) a computer to play a game is certainly not work. Even some computing things many would call work is fun for some, e.g. kernel hacking.
What good is a homebrew UPS if it doesn't support decent management software such as NUT?
Having a UPS means nothing if you lose power and the server dies when the battery runs out. You want the system to gracefully shutdown when the battery level becomes critical.
I just checked. I never signed anything. I guess that means I'm not really locked into the year and half agreement. That also means they can raise their rates whenever they damn well please.
When I had @Home, I had to agree to a one year contract if I wanted the installation fee to be waived. If I were still with them (which I'm not because they suck), I would remind them of the contract to provide unlimited access and that they can't raise the rate or implement limits until such contact was concluded. The downside is IANAL so I'm sure there wouldn't be much I could do about it if they disconnected me for refusing to pay extra.
BTW, I'm now with Pacbell/SBC DSL, wouldn't this same principle apply? I have an 18 month obligation (free installation and DSL modem). Is it legal for them to increase the montly rate on something I'm locked into for a year an a half?
It would be difficult to properly convert 16th century six pence into a modern equivelent. However, we can get a rough estimate of its worth by making simple comparisons.
A six pence is half a shilling. A typical seasoned merchant sailor made about this amount per day. This is on the high end for skilled workers (hazard pay). With this in mind, I would make the wild guess that we're talking one or two full days for a skilled worker. This makes it an expensive endeavor to register a copyright, so acts as a limiting factor. A bookmaker isn't going to go through the trouble of registering copyrights for a few dozen manuscripts "just in case" as the expense would ruin him. He would be very selective with his choices, looking for items that would give him a reasonable return on his investment. Remember, the majority of the population would not be capable of purchasing this type of luxury, so the market is very small.
Source of 16th century sailer pay is from "The Mariner's Mirror". Sorry, I don't have the exact citation handy at the moment.
So today, Sony is not evil. Tomorrow they will be evil again.
Real simple. The hardware is usually donated or it is older systems no longer used by the administrators. The buearocrates use the new computers. The students are stuck with old 486 and Pentium 1 systems.
You only help the terrorists!
Just think of the children!
That's a standard debate technique to deflect from the subject, "you did it, too". Except you obviously missed my entire point.
"You" refered to the people of Germany at the time it happened, not to anyone born afterwards or too young to be a part of it. Someone born in (for example) 1960 is no more responsible for the Nazis than I am for what my ancestors did to the indians.
Just before the AT&T/@Home fiasco where service was lost by a large number of people, I called my cablemodem company and asked them if there would be any disruption of service. I was told there would be absolutely no problems. A few hours later we lost service for the entire weekend. That's the worse possible time for my wife as she was an editor for an online magazine and the deadline is late Sunday. Because they had flat out lied to me I decided to switch to DSL.
My attempt to cancel with AT&T resulted in me being placed in the on-hold hell they are so famous for. Rather than spend an hour on hold, I hung up and wrote a formal letter canceling my service and told them to contact me to make arrangements for the return of the cablemodem. We kept receiving a bill, and I kept writing "service canceled on {date}" on the bill and attaching a copy of the letter. Eventually, they called me because of an overdue bill. When I said I had cancelled in writing they said you can't do it that way and I had to pay. I said, yes I can cancel in writing and that I would not pay. She tried to insist otherwise, but I stood firm. I got the info to return the cablemodem and haven't been bothered since (other than the occassional junk mail advertising their cablemodem service "now available" in my area).
The German people like to say they were "seduced" by Hitler, that they didn't really know what he was all about. That's not true. They knew exactly what he was about. The people of Germany gave him the opportunity to take power, and he took it. Of course, the people were desperate for a change, any change. Their country was in shambles. They needed a scapegoat and a hero. Hitler pointed to Jews and other "undesirables" as the cause, and himself as the hero to fix everything and return Germany to its former glory. The people of Germany jumped at the opportunity.
Stop trying to make excuses for your country's evil past. You have no excuse. Stop trying to say it wasn't your fault. It was your fault.
This is not news. It happens all the time. The only thing exciting about it is watching the reaction of the tourists.
You could not be more wrong. The Bill of Rights reiterates some of the rights you are born with. It does not give you those rights. Those rights can not be taken away. The Constitution did not even mention those rights origially. They were added after the fact because of great concern about government abuse (those guys were pretty damn smart, in my opinion, and correctly guessed the future).
Even if Congress tried to abolish the Constitution, we would still have those rights. We would also have a civil war.
I have not sold out - yet. But we are facing hard times right now. The bay area tech job market is not doing all that well. So far I haven't been offered the kind of job we're discussing, and I'm not sure I have the luxury to turn one down if offered.
Who defines what is in the public interest? Ask ten different people and you will get ten different answer.
"Public interest" is sprinkled through just about all the points. How can anyone possibly base a code of ethics on something that can't possibly be defined?
I would never agree to such document.
There are far too many people who will do just about anything for money. Hell, under the right circumstances, I would write spamming software, even though the very idea makes me sick. I am a family man. I have a wife and daughter to take care of. My first responsibility is to them. "Social responsibility" doesn't even come close. If I had to choose between buying food and paying rent for my family or being socially responsible - fuck society.
I took a look at a few dozen themes, including the "most popular". My god there are some no talent people putting this crap together! Someone please take away their theme editors before they repeat their crimes!
Here's a very simple formula you must learn:
programmer/geek != artistic talent
Just so you don't think I am all negative. There were a few very nicely done themes, but the majority are utter crap or a clone with the basic colour changed.
...something along the lines of the Taliban Police for Virtue and Vice?
Scary, isn't it.
A police organization overlooking all net activities is just begging for government abuse.
Except I own my copy of the software, unless I agree to the EULA which changes my ownership to licensee. I don't accept the EULA, so I don't accept the change of terms. I own it. I can do whatever the hell I want with it.
The only thing that will change this is my signature on a properly negotiated contract.
I have my 11 year old daughter install software. I have not given her permission to enter into a binding contract.
And how is that different from an open source program that is hailed as the next killer app, but only uber-geeks can figure it out because they took the time to dig through the source code to see what command line switches and config file options are available?
It doesn't matter how simple the interface becomes, it's not enough. So what if KDE? is just as easy to use as windows. How hard is it to install new software? The standard steps of "configure, make, make install" may be intuitive for us, but it isn't for the average Windows users. Microsoft does it the right way, double click on "setup.exe" or, even better, the installer launches when you stick the CD in the drive.
The installer should be smart enough to install any components necessary for the program to run. If that means included libWhatever.so in the package, so be it. It's not good enough that most systems will have that library. Unless all systems have that library, it must be part of the installer. If the program fails because obscure shared object is missing, 99% of the users will remove the package (if they can figure out how). It won't take too many of these failures for someone to get fed up and go back to Windows.
Don't stop at getting the dependencies handled properly. Make the configuration just as easy. Either the installer must ask for necessary default information and create the default dependency, or the program itself must recognize the need and fire up a configuration wizard the first time it is run. For the typical end-user, wizards are great. They simplify what can otherwise be a tedious and error prone process.
Another area needing major improvements is manuals and help systems. All too often the developers do a damn fine job of producing a top notch program. Too bad only geeks can figure the software out, since the manuals suck, the online help is non-existent or minimal, and the web page says, "I don't have time to write anything" (I've actually seen this!).
The program isn't ready for public consumption until the manual is finished.
You are a moron of the highest order.
The facts about illegal aliens.
They take shit jobs no one else wants, e.g. backbreaking farm work. They pay taxes (taken out before they get paid), but never file for refunds (which most would be entitled to if they did file). They don't use medicare and such, because they are afraid they will get deported if they do. The same is true for all the other "freebies" that you mention.
If illegal aliens disappeared form California, vegetables would rot in the fields, grocery prices would skyrocket, and the economy would probably be crippled.
We need them. They need us.
Until you spend a season picking artichokes in the central coast, you can just shut the fuck up, you racist asshole.
Go ahead, moderate me down. I don't care.