While certainly gross and disturbing on many levels, it does remind me of a particular Doctor Who quote from the episode, The Doctor Dances, where the venerable Doc states:
"Life is just nature's way of keeping meat fresh."
Part of why I mentioned the pomato is that the potato and tomato are both members of the same genus, Solanum, a.k.a. the deadly nightshade family. For that matter, tobacco is part of the same grouping, making the apocryphal tomacco another intra-genus hybrid. Yet none of these intra-genus hybrids is viable.
Now, what the article is talking about is hybridization of species even further apart, walking back up the taxonomic tree by several nodes. If we cannot even produce viable intra-genus hybrids, we sure aren't going to be producing viable intra-family, intra-order, or intra-class hybrids any time soon. FWIW, my own guess is that it'll take us 10-20 years to get an intra-genus hybrid, and much longer for hybrids of species further apart -- partial genetic borrowing notwithstanding, such as the glow-in-the-dark pigs crafted using certain jellyfish genes.
Basically, my point is that, in the absence of any hybrid between humans and chimps or bonobos, the two other extant species widely regarded as the most closely related to H. sapiens, we should not be the least bit surprised that hybrids with species that aren't even *primates* should fail in utero, and I would go so far as to say that their failure would fall firmly in the "No shit, Sherlock" category of unsurprising. (No offense meant, just stating my personal view of the article.)
I really find myself wondering, where's the "duh" tag for this article? Sheesh. We've known for *decades* that radical hybridization simply don't work. Anyone remember the totato / pomato? Not the grafted gimmick plant, but the actual genetic hybrid? Yeah, didn't think so. That didn't work either.
Indeed -- but as others have pointed out, some folks might watch TV but not pay attention to other media, like the radio broadcasts you mention. For me, about the only time I listen to the radio is when I'm driving.
The television is an entertainment device, nothing more... Is there something else about television that I am forgetting?
The news seems to me more about being informed than being entertained (though admittedly that might depend on the network). Plus, there's the whole emergency network broadcast stuff, like, by the way, there's a big-ass hurricane coming on Saturday and y'all better get your fannies off to higher ground, pronto, or, we've spotted a tornado touching down five miles west of town, and it's moving east -- take shelter in your basements. You know, getting the word out about big important stuff where plain old email don't cut the mustard.
I've never seen pirated software being sold in Japan or Taiwan.
I can't speak for Taiwan, but I lived in Tokyo for several years, and can say with some reasonable certainty that there are plenty of grey- and black-market goods still floating around, if you know where to look. One of my favorite examples was a streetside stall, I think it was near Ueno station, proudly displaying its selection of CDs with pretty liners showing famous guitarist Elic Crapton.
Okay, I am getting a serious case of déjà vu here...
Almost every other project would have called 4.0 an alpha...
I.e., Vista's initial release.
...4.1 a beta...
Vista SP1.
...4.2 would have been a release candidate...
Vista SP2.
...and 4.3 would have been the official 4.0 release.
Windows 7.
Naming releases completely different than anybody else makes it non-obvious in my book. Considering how much grief they've gotten from people complaining it's not ready, I'd guess I'm not the only one.
So, basically, the same (valid, IMHO) argument that people have been making about Microsoft's OS branding.
So *that's* what's been going on. I rather thought that things hadn't been so sluggish in the past, but with so many different factors (new versions for hardware, kernel, DE, etc etc) I really wasn't sure what was up. Thanks for the clue!
I don't suppose you happen to have a link to the bug posting? I'd love to read up on it and see what kind of progress might be in the works.
Thanks for the plug, I'd never heard of LXDE before, but it looks interesting. I've got an old iBook G4 that runs Tiger, but at a speed that's just barely usable. I was considering putting Xubuntu on it (Ubuntu with XFCE), but I think I'll put on a CLI-only Ubuntu install to start and try LXDE instead out of curiosity (quite easy to do now since they've apparently added LXDE to the Intrepid repos).:)
In my (admittedly limited) experience, SWAT has a bad habit of producing overly verbose config files that do not necessarily coincide with what the user is actually trying to do -- SWAT sets options that the user hasn't touched (example), instead of relying on the already-sane Samba defaults, resulting in unexpected behaviour. GSAMBAD is even worse.
Of course, it's been a while since the linked issues were posted, and YMMV.:)
Items 6, 11, and 12 you all list as criticisms of Windows vs. *nix, and use this to defend Vista. Yet, I thought Vista was supposed to be a major rework of Windows, no? At least, that's certainly how it was hyped.
If Vista truly represented a major reworking of Windows, 6. the gawdawful shared DLL issue would have been factored right out the window, 11. would work properly, and 12. likewise wouldn't be an issue. For that matter, issue 12 looks a lot more like MS deciding imperiously that the end user, even a power user smart enough to understand how to launch a "system" shell, simply can't be trusted -- and this certainly doesn't endear me, as an end user, to them or their OS. After all, what else aren't they telling me?
Discovering that the major reworking was mostly really of the bling and not of the underlying guts, and that what few underlying changes were made were implemented to screw over the user and remove flexibility and usability, is a major disappointment. Sure, the average consumer doesn't seem to care, and this could well be a valid argument -- but here on Slashdot, few of us could possibly be described as "average consumers".
Um, I could be wrong, but I thought that was already the case... ? I.e., patents must be filed in every country for which a potential patentholder desires patent protection. US patents are no good in Japan, for instance -- a separate Japanese patent must be applied for. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO, website here) is an attempt at streamlining this process to some degree.
I wonder why I've never heard this suggestion before, it's such an elegantly simple and clever solution:
So we fix both problems at once by pooling legal funds - the college student pays his $100, the RIAA pays as much as they wish ($1M for instance), and each gets $500,050 to spend.
Some people will no doubt complain that this is somehow unfair. Your rationale says it better than I could, so I'll counter that argument by simply quoting you again here.:)
The goal, to society, is for a trial to discover truth and produce justice. To let any side bully the other, or snow it under with paperwork, only perverts that.
I certainly understand your point, penguinbrat, but even so -- my mention of "someone with half a clue" does not perforce imply technical expertise. She did not need to find a geek per se, simply someone who could help her with her issues: someone clued in on the campus staff about what kind of computer she should buy in the first place, or someone skilled at cutting through corporate help-line BS after discovering (making?) the initial mistake, or college legal staff to help her browbeat Dell, etc etc etc. There is a plain plethora of routes she could have taken that do not entail anything specifically geekish that would still have solved her issue before either having to drop out of school or go to the press.
Instead, it sounds a lot like she rather incredibly sat on her hands for five whole months, and then the press got involved -- and lo, Verizon said "sure, we can help her", likely thanks to reporters attracting attention to the issue, and the university said "sure, non-MS formats can be accepted". I suspect that this latter issue probably had little to do with the media, and stretches my credulity even further -- if the campus is that willing to be flexible, did she even ask anyone? So I'm left with two likeliest scenarios -- either the story's a fake, or this person is really dim. I'm still not sure which.
Reading elsewhere, I think you're right, Rasta. That said, minimal skills enough skills to become productive in jobs such as auto mechanic, etc. should theoretically involve knowing when to ask for help -- and dropping out of college for two whole semesters instead of finding someone to help her strikes me as either A) hard to believe (i.e. the story is a fake, or there are other factors we're not being told, like maybe she didn't have the money, and is instead blaming her situation on the computer snafu), or B) indicative of someone for whom a level roughly equivalent to that of upperclassmen at a leading high school is still beyond her reach (i.e. a moron). And, by saying "moron", I mean this not as a pejorative, but rather a descriptive -- "a mildly mentally retarded person". Dropping out of school, not because you can't figure out a consumer electronics device, but because you can't figure out how to ask for help implies an extremely limited and impaired capacity for judgment and rational thinking.
5 Months is quite possible if it really isn't that high on your priority. Call tech support they give you a vague response. Mess with it a little once a week. Get fed up and call again after a month or so.
Considering that this woman ostensibly had to cancel two semesters worth of enrollment, this sounds like it should be a good deal higher on her priority list than what you suggest.
Which leaves two likely scenarios -- either it's a fake, or she's a certifiable moron. I certainly hope it's a fake -- if not, I truly fear for the future of humanity. This would be one individual that would not have been smart enough to survive back in the day. If she really is this dumb (I don't mean dumb about Linux, I mean dumb enough to cancel out of two semesters of a *technical* college rather than bother to find someone with half a clue to help her -- this would apply to *any* OS, or *any* technical snafu of any sort), such extra stupidity wandering around the gene pool can't be a good thing.
Mods, while I might not personally agree with the rationale of throwing away computers because of infections, Digishaman's argument certainly makes sense, at least on an economic level, for the vast legions of the clueless. If they have browsing habits that habitually get their machines so glommed up with muckware as to be unusable, they're going to have to shell out major buckage to get their machines un-mucked -- and at that point, it *does* indeed begin to make more sense for them to just buy a newer low-end machine -- at least the OEM OS should be more up-to-date than their older machine, and might therefore last a bit longer before being rendered unusable again.
Slashdot Mirror
While certainly gross and disturbing on many levels, it does remind me of a particular Doctor Who quote from the episode, The Doctor Dances, where the venerable Doc states:
Cheers,
Part of why I mentioned the pomato is that the potato and tomato are both members of the same genus, Solanum, a.k.a. the deadly nightshade family. For that matter, tobacco is part of the same grouping, making the apocryphal tomacco another intra-genus hybrid. Yet none of these intra-genus hybrids is viable.
Now, what the article is talking about is hybridization of species even further apart, walking back up the taxonomic tree by several nodes. If we cannot even produce viable intra-genus hybrids, we sure aren't going to be producing viable intra-family, intra-order, or intra-class hybrids any time soon. FWIW, my own guess is that it'll take us 10-20 years to get an intra-genus hybrid, and much longer for hybrids of species further apart -- partial genetic borrowing notwithstanding, such as the glow-in-the-dark pigs crafted using certain jellyfish genes.
Basically, my point is that, in the absence of any hybrid between humans and chimps or bonobos, the two other extant species widely regarded as the most closely related to H. sapiens, we should not be the least bit surprised that hybrids with species that aren't even *primates* should fail in utero, and I would go so far as to say that their failure would fall firmly in the "No shit, Sherlock" category of unsurprising. (No offense meant, just stating my personal view of the article.)
Cheers,
Thank you for that, now I need a new keyboard! Yerg... typing through coffee mush.
Cheers!
I'll see your five-assed monkey, and bet you a three-peckered billy goat!
So there!
Cheers,
I really find myself wondering, where's the "duh" tag for this article? Sheesh. We've known for *decades* that radical hybridization simply don't work. Anyone remember the totato / pomato? Not the grafted gimmick plant, but the actual genetic hybrid? Yeah, didn't think so. That didn't work either.
Cheers,
A decent sentiment Putin would be served well by:
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile.
Be yourself, no matter what they say.
-- Sting
Those dastardly Swedes!
Now where did I put my lutefisk-proof rain slicker...
Indeed -- but as others have pointed out, some folks might watch TV but not pay attention to other media, like the radio broadcasts you mention. For me, about the only time I listen to the radio is when I'm driving.
Cheers,
The news seems to me more about being informed than being entertained (though admittedly that might depend on the network). Plus, there's the whole emergency network broadcast stuff, like, by the way, there's a big-ass hurricane coming on Saturday and y'all better get your fannies off to higher ground, pronto, or, we've spotted a tornado touching down five miles west of town, and it's moving east -- take shelter in your basements. You know, getting the word out about big important stuff where plain old email don't cut the mustard.
Cheers,
I can't speak for Taiwan, but I lived in Tokyo for several years, and can say with some reasonable certainty that there are plenty of grey- and black-market goods still floating around, if you know where to look. One of my favorite examples was a streetside stall, I think it was near Ueno station, proudly displaying its selection of CDs with pretty liners showing famous guitarist Elic Crapton.
Ah, Japan...
Cheers,
Okay, I am getting a serious case of déjà vu here...
I.e., Vista's initial release.
Vista SP1.
Vista SP2.
Windows 7.
So, basically, the same (valid, IMHO) argument that people have been making about Microsoft's OS branding.
Egad! Ballmer's infiltrated the KDE team!
Cheers,
... only they weren't anonymous. I know this is Slashdot and no one RTFAs, but did you even read the posting?
Cheers,
So *that's* what's been going on. I rather thought that things hadn't been so sluggish in the past, but with so many different factors (new versions for hardware, kernel, DE, etc etc) I really wasn't sure what was up. Thanks for the clue!
I don't suppose you happen to have a link to the bug posting? I'd love to read up on it and see what kind of progress might be in the works.
Cheers,
Thanks for the plug, I'd never heard of LXDE before, but it looks interesting. I've got an old iBook G4 that runs Tiger, but at a speed that's just barely usable. I was considering putting Xubuntu on it (Ubuntu with XFCE), but I think I'll put on a CLI-only Ubuntu install to start and try LXDE instead out of curiosity (quite easy to do now since they've apparently added LXDE to the Intrepid repos). :)
Cheers,
In my (admittedly limited) experience, SWAT has a bad habit of producing overly verbose config files that do not necessarily coincide with what the user is actually trying to do -- SWAT sets options that the user hasn't touched (example), instead of relying on the already-sane Samba defaults, resulting in unexpected behaviour. GSAMBAD is even worse.
Of course, it's been a while since the linked issues were posted, and YMMV. :)
Cheers,
Items 6, 11, and 12 you all list as criticisms of Windows vs. *nix, and use this to defend Vista. Yet, I thought Vista was supposed to be a major rework of Windows, no? At least, that's certainly how it was hyped.
If Vista truly represented a major reworking of Windows, 6. the gawdawful shared DLL issue would have been factored right out the window, 11. would work properly, and 12. likewise wouldn't be an issue. For that matter, issue 12 looks a lot more like MS deciding imperiously that the end user, even a power user smart enough to understand how to launch a "system" shell, simply can't be trusted -- and this certainly doesn't endear me, as an end user, to them or their OS. After all, what else aren't they telling me?
Discovering that the major reworking was mostly really of the bling and not of the underlying guts, and that what few underlying changes were made were implemented to screw over the user and remove flexibility and usability, is a major disappointment. Sure, the average consumer doesn't seem to care, and this could well be a valid argument -- but here on Slashdot, few of us could possibly be described as "average consumers".
Cheers,
Um, I could be wrong, but I thought that was already the case ... ? I.e., patents must be filed in every country for which a potential patentholder desires patent protection. US patents are no good in Japan, for instance -- a separate Japanese patent must be applied for. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO, website here) is an attempt at streamlining this process to some degree.
Cheers,
I wonder why I've never heard this suggestion before, it's such an elegantly simple and clever solution:
Some people will no doubt complain that this is somehow unfair. Your rationale says it better than I could, so I'll counter that argument by simply quoting you again here. :)
Cheers,
Oo, oo! I know! When Microsoft goes away?
Cheers,
... you should try to work out why all that manufacturing went overseas in the first place.
Cheers,
I certainly understand your point, penguinbrat, but even so -- my mention of "someone with half a clue" does not perforce imply technical expertise. She did not need to find a geek per se, simply someone who could help her with her issues: someone clued in on the campus staff about what kind of computer she should buy in the first place, or someone skilled at cutting through corporate help-line BS after discovering (making?) the initial mistake, or college legal staff to help her browbeat Dell, etc etc etc. There is a plain plethora of routes she could have taken that do not entail anything specifically geekish that would still have solved her issue before either having to drop out of school or go to the press.
Instead, it sounds a lot like she rather incredibly sat on her hands for five whole months, and then the press got involved -- and lo, Verizon said "sure, we can help her", likely thanks to reporters attracting attention to the issue, and the university said "sure, non-MS formats can be accepted". I suspect that this latter issue probably had little to do with the media, and stretches my credulity even further -- if the campus is that willing to be flexible, did she even ask anyone? So I'm left with two likeliest scenarios -- either the story's a fake, or this person is really dim. I'm still not sure which.
Cheers,
Reading elsewhere, I think you're right, Rasta. That said, minimal skills enough skills to become productive in jobs such as auto mechanic, etc. should theoretically involve knowing when to ask for help -- and dropping out of college for two whole semesters instead of finding someone to help her strikes me as either A) hard to believe (i.e. the story is a fake, or there are other factors we're not being told, like maybe she didn't have the money, and is instead blaming her situation on the computer snafu), or B) indicative of someone for whom a level roughly equivalent to that of upperclassmen at a leading high school is still beyond her reach (i.e. a moron). And, by saying "moron", I mean this not as a pejorative, but rather a descriptive -- "a mildly mentally retarded person". Dropping out of school, not because you can't figure out a consumer electronics device, but because you can't figure out how to ask for help implies an extremely limited and impaired capacity for judgment and rational thinking.
Cheers,
Considering that this woman ostensibly had to cancel two semesters worth of enrollment, this sounds like it should be a good deal higher on her priority list than what you suggest.
Which leaves two likely scenarios -- either it's a fake, or she's a certifiable moron. I certainly hope it's a fake -- if not, I truly fear for the future of humanity. This would be one individual that would not have been smart enough to survive back in the day. If she really is this dumb (I don't mean dumb about Linux, I mean dumb enough to cancel out of two semesters of a *technical* college rather than bother to find someone with half a clue to help her -- this would apply to *any* OS, or *any* technical snafu of any sort), such extra stupidity wandering around the gene pool can't be a good thing.
Cheers,
Subject line says it all.
Mods, while I might not personally agree with the rationale of throwing away computers because of infections, Digishaman's argument certainly makes sense, at least on an economic level, for the vast legions of the clueless. If they have browsing habits that habitually get their machines so glommed up with muckware as to be unusable, they're going to have to shell out major buckage to get their machines un-mucked -- and at that point, it *does* indeed begin to make more sense for them to just buy a newer low-end machine -- at least the OEM OS should be more up-to-date than their older machine, and might therefore last a bit longer before being rendered unusable again.
Cheers,