" In my experience, people who claim such things--that evil American culture is to blame--are just projecting their own trendy counterculturalism onto others"
That's hilarious, because that is never what is said. What is to blame is US Imperialism. That's it. In all it's forms, the US militaristic meddling in others affairs creates resistance, and that resistance manifests itself as terrorism.
"That's why they can defend certain Islamic societies that brutalize women and employ extreme conservative governments"
Please tell me I didn't just read that. Are you on crack? No, really, because a simple perusal of US foriegn policy for the last 50 years is a handy primer on exactly who is propping up "extreme conservative governments". Where would you like to start? China? Argentina? Phillipines? Iraq under Saddam? The actual architects of the WTC attacks, namely Saudi Arabia?
What kind of rightist propaganda has to be consumed to believe that the support for oppressive governments worldwide is a characteristic of the left?
...should be moderated as a troll. Apples and oranges doesn't cut it as describing the error of this comparison. Apples and dwarf stars maybe...
Let's see the Linux community match 750 million? How about you give the nebulous concept of the Linux Community monopolistic control over the corporate desktop for twenty years, add forced upgrades and a pricing system bordering on a pyramid scheme, and they'll get back to you.
but these people are utterly vaccuous morons. Waiting in line for any length of time over an hour for a movie that will open simutaneously in 3000 theatres is the hallmark of some kind of dementia.
Fix your miserable Active X security and ditch that bastardised Java. More software from Microsoft is the last thing anyone needs to fix problems created by Microsoft's software.
"It's not as though liberals are inherently Stallinists obsessed with controlling everyone with a huge government bureaucracy."
No, that seems to be the mindset of governing conservatives lately. How can the Republicans (for eg) say with a straight face that they are for less government intrusion when the created entirely new govt bureaucracies designed to monitor citizens, or fiscally, spend like the Democrats they demonise?
I agree with a previous poste: the labels liberal and conservative may be great shorthand for political brevities sake, but they are becoming quite useless in real world discussions.
If you add up all the numbers, our rates may be significantly higher, but hey, we know how to run elections, and we just fix the damn streets when the money's available without having to have a vote on the matter.
The marketing monkeys at MS have been singularly successful in convincing damn near everyone that _nothing_ can get done on a computer unless it's a computer running Windows. The idea of developiong a program on a platform that incorporates only that software that a program requires to run doesn't even enter their minds.
So, get used to electronic election result failures because Active-X is updated improperly, or the soundcard has a conflict.
"Lets have OS X (or any other OS) occupy 98% market share and we'll see how much attention it gets from virus authors."
A previous poster was correct. This is a redundant a pointless position to regurgitate everytime the topic turns to viruses. Every MS product is a closed source product, and they are responsible for a staggering proportion of the chaos on the net. Why? Because they are inherently insecure. Their marketshare is not a defense of MSs crappy security, and it's not even the real reason. The code for the *nix systems that *really do* run the internet is available to anyone with the Kung Fu to code and guess what? The level of trojans and viruses aimed at those systems has *never* reached the epidemic proportion that they have on the Windows side.
So kindly give the marketshare defense a rest. Even if just for a little bit.
It's not a troll. It's a fair comment. There is no way any government will willingly give up any revenue stream. We Canadians now pay a surcharge on the hard drives of devices like the iPod, which, like the CD-R tax, assumes that the average consumer is a copyright criminal and must be fined in advance. Any changes to the copyright law that prevent any copying for personal use will not be used to abolish the surcharges, as the average consumer will still be considered a criminal who should be fined accordingly. Only a class action suit IMO, would get rid of the tax, but no consumer will ever be reimbursed.
That's it in a nutshell. Nevermind the miserable one-sided political reporting, all news media have become sloppy and highly partisan. Even we Canmucks are seeing the erosion of news in favour of infotainment.
"If they went to Linux we'd have major problems."
My Mom's on Linux. Mandrake. We never hear from her about viruses, broken apps, shortcuts that don't work, blahbitty blah. My brother remotely administers the box and holds her hand thru that which needs handholding, but the vast majority of what she does is point and click. The difference being, she can click on NOTHING that gets her into trouble, becasuse the interface is infinitely customiseable, and locked down with an honest to goodness multi-user environment.
Now, is my Mom smarter than a pilot? She'd like to know.
Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot HAS been invaded by rightdroids.
" In my experience, people who claim such things--that evil American culture is to blame--are just projecting their own trendy counterculturalism onto others" That's hilarious, because that is never what is said. What is to blame is US Imperialism. That's it. In all it's forms, the US militaristic meddling in others affairs creates resistance, and that resistance manifests itself as terrorism. "That's why they can defend certain Islamic societies that brutalize women and employ extreme conservative governments" Please tell me I didn't just read that. Are you on crack? No, really, because a simple perusal of US foriegn policy for the last 50 years is a handy primer on exactly who is propping up "extreme conservative governments". Where would you like to start? China? Argentina? Phillipines? Iraq under Saddam? The actual architects of the WTC attacks, namely Saudi Arabia? What kind of rightist propaganda has to be consumed to believe that the support for oppressive governments worldwide is a characteristic of the left?
...should be moderated as a troll. Apples and oranges doesn't cut it as describing the error of this comparison. Apples and dwarf stars maybe... Let's see the Linux community match 750 million? How about you give the nebulous concept of the Linux Community monopolistic control over the corporate desktop for twenty years, add forced upgrades and a pricing system bordering on a pyramid scheme, and they'll get back to you.
but these people are utterly vaccuous morons. Waiting in line for any length of time over an hour for a movie that will open simutaneously in 3000 theatres is the hallmark of some kind of dementia.
Fix your miserable Active X security and ditch that bastardised Java. More software from Microsoft is the last thing anyone needs to fix problems created by Microsoft's software.
...and all Linux Users are Communists. Keep preaching, the faithful always listen.
"It's not as though liberals are inherently Stallinists obsessed with controlling everyone with a huge government bureaucracy." No, that seems to be the mindset of governing conservatives lately. How can the Republicans (for eg) say with a straight face that they are for less government intrusion when the created entirely new govt bureaucracies designed to monitor citizens, or fiscally, spend like the Democrats they demonise? I agree with a previous poste: the labels liberal and conservative may be great shorthand for political brevities sake, but they are becoming quite useless in real world discussions.
If you add up all the numbers, our rates may be significantly higher, but hey, we know how to run elections, and we just fix the damn streets when the money's available without having to have a vote on the matter.
Not as fast as some overly sensitive type launches a pre-emptive pro-Microsoft strike to deflect justly deserved criticism.
So, get used to electronic election result failures because Active-X is updated improperly, or the soundcard has a conflict.
Secondly, just use paper ballots and be done with it. If you need to see how it's done, come to Canada.
A previous poster was correct. This is a redundant a pointless position to regurgitate everytime the topic turns to viruses. Every MS product is a closed source product, and they are responsible for a staggering proportion of the chaos on the net. Why? Because they are inherently insecure. Their marketshare is not a defense of MSs crappy security, and it's not even the real reason. The code for the *nix systems that *really do* run the internet is available to anyone with the Kung Fu to code and guess what? The level of trojans and viruses aimed at those systems has *never* reached the epidemic proportion that they have on the Windows side.
So kindly give the marketshare defense a rest. Even if just for a little bit.
It's not a troll. It's a fair comment. There is no way any government will willingly give up any revenue stream. We Canadians now pay a surcharge on the hard drives of devices like the iPod, which, like the CD-R tax, assumes that the average consumer is a copyright criminal and must be fined in advance. Any changes to the copyright law that prevent any copying for personal use will not be used to abolish the surcharges, as the average consumer will still be considered a criminal who should be fined accordingly. Only a class action suit IMO, would get rid of the tax, but no consumer will ever be reimbursed.
"There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now." Yoink!
That's it in a nutshell. Nevermind the miserable one-sided political reporting, all news media have become sloppy and highly partisan. Even we Canmucks are seeing the erosion of news in favour of infotainment.
"If they went to Linux we'd have major problems." My Mom's on Linux. Mandrake. We never hear from her about viruses, broken apps, shortcuts that don't work, blahbitty blah. My brother remotely administers the box and holds her hand thru that which needs handholding, but the vast majority of what she does is point and click. The difference being, she can click on NOTHING that gets her into trouble, becasuse the interface is infinitely customiseable, and locked down with an honest to goodness multi-user environment. Now, is my Mom smarter than a pilot? She'd like to know.
Tried and convicted. Unless that was a rhetorical question, in which case, cancel last.