China has huge number of infantry but their tech sucks. Even bankrupt Russia has more advanced technology than China. I don't think China can even shoot down more than 5 stealth fighters.
Russia won't fight China. They are not major enemies. Europe won't fight China either. The only conflict I can see happening is USA vs China, or India vs China.
I think if USA and China fight, the war will end VERY QUICKLY. And it will likely go nuclear (and possibly biological). I expect that to happen because each side will be taking heavy casulties and someone is not going to take it any longer (and hence revert to WMD). During WWII (the worst war so far), a typical jet was "primitive". Nowadays, even the cheapest jets can carry payloads that can wipe out small divisions of military. Also, now you have ballistic missiles, which really didn't exist in WWII (or at least were primitive). These don't even need to be nuclear armed, just a normal ballistic missile should be able to kill 500 soldiers with an average hit.
When you have 1000 soldiers dying each month (or whatever), the govt can keep the population under control (at least the mass propaganda campaigns will brainwash the people). But if 10,000 people are dying in a month or something, no one is going to take it. The war will end quickly...
War and death are interesting... when one guy dies per day, no one cares but if 30 people die at once (but just once in a month), people start caring... ah humans...
Does anyone have any thoughts on extensible AI game programming using Python? Basically, I"m trying to create a user-programmable AI for a game (simple scripting that users can do, kind of like in many FPS games). I'm evaluating Python VS Lua (google to find info about Lua). I think Lua is best for my tasks but does anyone have any thoughts on Python?
In particular, I'm not too sure about the performance implications of Python for a real-time game. The game is a free open-source game so it's not a life and death situation but still...
I see no reason why people from all over the world couldn't join in on great space projects together. Of course, the bureaucracy and administration and lawyers will suck up a lot of cash, but I still think it could work.
We kind of tried with the most sophisticated human structure ever attempted, but it didn't go anywhere. I'm talking about the International Space Station. More costly than anything else in history, more complicated than what one country can do, and beyond the understanding of most. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Recent arguments over who should pay for fuel recharges does not set a good precendent:(
Don't get me wrong. I"m all in favour of cooperation (I'm a socialist after all). But it just isn't happening right now because we don't have strong unifying forces (like good leaders). All I know is that we aren't going to leave the solar system if only one country (or if capitalism wins out, one corporation) attempts to do it. At some point space exploration HAS to be multinational. It is just way TOO EXPENSIVE and UNPROFITABLE.
US makes technology advancements = benefit of humanity
YOu really believe that? Who is the largest weapons producer on the planet? Who sells more weapons to foreign countries than anyone else? Who has thousands of nukes? Who spends hundreads of billions researching biological weapons?
One day you will realize that countries are not moral and never act in the interest of humanity... only people are moral.
I'm not an IT admin or anything (no need for enterprise stuff:) ) but I'm just curious. What is there to stop you from copying the binary (assuming it is the GPLed free software and not proprietary stuff)? Why recompile everything? Why not just use the binares that are free? Can't one do that? While I"m at it, can't someone mix and match across distributions? Take one package from RH, another from SuSE, another from Mandrake, then Debian, etc. I know it's a lot of work and may introduce compatibility problems but I'm just wondering if that is illegal?
I'll try to keep this short since it is dealing with a lot of stuff...
Furthermore, I might point out that "Open Source" is a superset of "Free Software."
It depends how you look at it. I can see your approach where you can consider open-source to be a large set, with Free Software being a subset of it. Under your approach, this would make sense since open-source advocates accept Free Software licenses (the GPL-compatible ones), while the converse isn't true (GPL-compatible software can't use non-GPL comptible code unless the authors allow it).
I, however, like to look at it using a spectrum (kind of like econopolitics). On one side, you have Free Software, and on the other side you have proprietary software. Both of these are at the extreme ends. Open-source software is somewhere in the middle. I'm not an expert on software development methodologies and ideologies but I suspect there are other software that fits between the two extremes (although I don't think any of these are popular).
Using my approach, you HAVE to be placed somewhere. It's kind of like econopolitics--you can't claim not belong somewhere. My impression so far is that you are somewhere near the middle, possibly leaning towards the proprietary side.
I don't have to support someone else's agenda if it doesn't dovetail with my agenda. There's room in this world for all different models of software development. I develop proprietary software every day for my current client, but I've also written Open Source code. Don't presume to give me orders because I refuse to be pinned to one specific group's dogma and ideology.
I don't know how you come to the conlusion that I"m giving orders. Anyway, I think you are in the middle-right (if far right=proprietary).
You seem to be the impression that the distiction doesn't matter. I disagree. This is a battle of ideologies. There really isn't room for both (at least on a large scale). One is going to win. My guess is that within 20 years the issue will be settled. You will either end up with A LOT of Free Software being used or you will end up with a lot of proprietary stuff. This is inevitable because proprietary and Free Software are totally incompatible ideologies.
I'm not going to get into your personal attacks of RMS.
Show some proper gratitude to those who choose to give away source code freely, but don't demand or expect it as an entitlement!
No one is forcing you to do anything. They are just pressuring you in a particular direction, which is fine IMO (it's the equivalent of picketing or protesting). After all, the pressure is not physical or financial. In any case, if you are really concerned, why license something with GPL (or GPL-compatible) license? You have your choice. Go and pick one from the multitude of other licenses, including many proprietary ones (if you choose)?
You want 4 more years of lying? Vote for a Repub or a Green.
What sort of lamer accuses the Greens of lying. They haven't even been given a chance yet you accuse them of lying. If anything they are the cleanest of the bunch. Too bad you don't realize that the Democrats are the same as the Republicans but with a left-leaning stance.
There is a reason that millions of people left Europe and migrated to the US. They were tired of Big Brother, long before the book was written. They wanted a place they could raise a family, work for their own future, and not have the government round their sons up and send them to die in every piss-ant skirmish that the king/queen/prince/mayor/etc decided was needed to save their honor.
None of what you said is true. First of all, monarchy has nothing to do with liberals/left/etc. If anything leftists are the ones who are strongly in favour of overthrowing institutions like monarchy, along with stuff like religion, etc. The French Revolution is a good example of that (other revolutions like the Russian Revolution and Communist Revolution accomplished something similar). If anything, it is conservatives who are in favour of status-quo establishments. Just go and study your history--proper history. You'll find that the people who were advocating the overthrow of monarchies were liberals. Those who were in favour of the monarchy were often conservatives (although I admit that these were only the elites). Conservatives actually LIKED the monarchy because it supported and strengthened religion. Conservatives only got sick of th establishment after taxes were raised high.
Second, what you said about people leaving Europe was complete nonsense. They did not leave because they wanted to be away from the monarchs. That is wrong because even when the settlers came to USA (for example) they were still under the power of the monarch. If the people really left to get away from monarchy, they would have formed an independent country. Of course this never happend for a long time (until the American Revolution). Most people who fled to USA were fleeing from religious persecution and economic suffering.
The biggest problem with the US today is that too many people have forgotten that aspect of living in the land of the free. They think we should emulate Europe. Why? Where did both World Wars start? Why should we be dragged into acting like that? Unfortunately we have. Now we think we have to do all the stupid things Europeans have been doing for a thousand years. And of course tax everyone to death to pay for it (oh wait, that is another of the stupid things Europeans think is normal).
Clearly shows your lack of understanding of history or the world. You blame both World Wars on Europe yet you fail to see the cause of those wars. The wars happened in Europe, and not in USA, for a simple reason. Europe was a superpower. The wars, if you recall, was mostly a battle betwen these superpowers. The reason USA never had any war is because it wasn't a superpower at that time (it's true whether you admit it or not), and it is geographically isolated. If there is a next world war, USA will be right in the middle of it. Do you know why? And no, it's not because of Europe. It's because USA is a superpower.
As far as taxes are concerned, contrary to your beliefs, Americans paid similar taxes (to Europeans) throughout most of the 1700's and 1800's. The whole anti-tax movement only started in the 1900's. Even hardcore conservatives didn't preach anti-tax views until the last century.
And for the record, the second biggest problem with the US today is that the religious right can't dissociate their version of GOD from their civic life or their political and legal activities.
Since you are on the right, that's your own problem. You are probably more religious than anyone on the left (just a guess) so you go and figure out how to solve that.
While many Africans did the same, and were free men, the majority were brought over as slaves.
AGain, your lack of history is appaling. The majority of Africans weren't brough over as slaves. ALL of them were. Every single African-American (don't mix up with hispanics or Carribeans) can likely trace their life to slavery.
Liberals in the US like to make this group think they deserve
KDE and Xscreensaver don't use the same stuff. I don't think you have this problem with REd Hat (because Gnome is ok with the xscreensaver). To see what I mean, right-click on desktop (in KDE), go to configure desktop and check the screensaver section. Then try going to the xscreensaver and see if they are both the same. They are not. You can get a screensaver running with xscreensaver but not with KDE and vice versa.
Other path problem examples include postgreSQL. If I'm not mistaken, the path for configuration files in Mandrake/Red Hat (something like/usr/share/pgsql) while it is different under Debian--I think.
As far as tab-completion is concerned, that's only useful if you know the command or the file name. If you have no idea what is th configuration file for a screensaver, for example, that doesn't do anything.
The KDE screensaver and the xscreensaver use different locations. Try changing your xscreensaver and then try seeing if it shows up on the KDE screensaver configuration, or vice versa.
I don't really know the problem (have never had a notebook in my life:( )... Since you have high bandwidth, try a few other distros like Mandrake. I find Mandrake to be more user-friendly and it often incorporates "beta" software which is newer and can work when other things don't...
If games are to become successful, the desktop has to improve. GNU/Linux isn't at the stage where a typical user can install stuff, remove things, etc. For instance, there are quite a few applications that install but don't put links on the menus. Newbies will have no idea how to run these problems. Perhaps what's making this bad is the fact that the distros haven't standardized the path locations. I just wish that all the distros follow the path standards. Right now, you have to spend some time to find out where stuff are installed. For example, do you know where the desktop screensaver is?
There is 30 or so times that caught of the Iraqi terrorists on the "Card deck".
I don't think anyone seriously considers any of the Iraqi regime to be terrorists... except for those that believe Iraq was behind 9/1...
I'm not an American but I THINK terrorists, to Americans, means Al-Qaeda operatives. Going off on some WMD hunt in Iraq (and possibly Iran or Syria in the future) and capturing those people hardly counts as terrorists. Of course, I can be mistaken. Maybe some people DO believe the Good vs Evil diatribe...
Actually, this is why the right to bear arms exists. So that if the Government becomes too corrupt and evil and starts to self-perpetuate it's own power, growing uncontrollably, the people can rise up and strike the gov't down.
That was actually true at one time but not anymore. The problem is that citizens with guns (say militas) are next to useless when combating governments. At one time, that wasn't the case. A couple of hundread years ago, the difference between a soldier and an armed citizen was very small. They both used the same guns, had similar training, etc. But that isn't the case anymore.
Nowadays, the military (in any country) is just SO MUCH more powerful than armed citizens. Not only do they have better guns (automatic, more powerful, etc) but the emergence of mechanized vehicles renders citizens next to useless. Regardless of what you think, guns can't take down a tank. Forget tanks. How about APCs? You and your heavily armed family won't even scratch an APC!
You just need to look at the history of the world over the past 100 years. Even if cases where citizens are armed, they are next to useless. A good modern example is Afghanistan, where everyone is heavily armed (more so than Americans) yet they couldn't defeat either the Taliban or the US govt.
Having said all this, the emergence of the guerrila movement and asymetric warfare (eg. suicide bombings, truck bombings, sabotage, etc) can take down a govt. But governments generally label guerrila groups as terrorist and shut them down. That's why most armed groups in USA are militias and not guerrilas. Militias, needless to say, are sitting ducks and will be crushed very easily by the govt.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
it has more to do with econopolitical stance
on
The "Techie" Vote?
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· Score: 1
The membership and the organizations have more to do with econopolitical stance than with technology. In addition, the ones you mentioned are radical organizations.
For instance, the FSF is a movement. Not everyone supports it (in fact, my impression is that the vast majority don't). So just because someone is into tech doesn't mean they support the underlying philosophy.
Similarly, the EFF has less to do with technology and more to do with their stance. For example, it is very liberatarian (and can even be argued to be liberatarian right, as opposed to liberatarian left (aka anarchism)). There are many people who will not join it. As a matter of fact, I don't think the vast majority of people will join it because most people are centrists/moderates and EFF will be too radical for them. Whether one is into tech or not, most people would just happily let govt infiltrate their lives and strip away their individual freedoms in the name of "freedom", terrorism, copyrights, or whatever else is the popular word that week.
The organizations that will be "successful" (in the sense of having large base) will be those centrist/moderate ones. Needless to say, these are also the ones that support the status quo so it is questionable whether they do anything progressive.
Remember.. the tech crowd is no different than the rest of the population. It will have a distribution similar to to the rest of the population. The only difference is that we know technology. But that isn't going to make one go and join FSF or EFF. The vast majority of people are centrists/moderates. As long as they have a job, live a "happy" life, get all the gadjets they want, etc, they won't do anything. At least, that's my impression based on working in the industry. Some guy might be the biggest geek around but he will not support anything differing from the mainstream. You can even make the observation yourself. Look around: how many of your techie friends or colleagues really care about any of these issues? Probably few...
I think the FSF picks and chooses when to take the moral high ground.
Of course, FSF picks what to uphold. They are a movement. They make strategic decisions that will further their ideals. That's why Free Software is different from open-source software. For instance, their decisions over whether to use LPL of GPL for license is a strategic decision. If you didn't know that all this time, it's time you realized it.
So the real question is which side you are on: Free Software? Open-Source? Proprietary? Pick your side and stay on it.
I personally think Richard Stallman has the emotional maturity of a small child...
lol I guess Steve Ballmer and Steve Jobs are your role models huh?
Sivaram Velauthapillai: "...sensing a disgruntled Apple fan"
Actually it CAN work but there is only one way of doing it. The people who get the power shouldn't be able to benefit from it. In other words, the incentive for becoming, say a judge, should be so low that only those that really care about it will do it.
Having said this, you'll always have totalitarians (just liek the real world) trying to take over the world/universe. But the vast majority of humans aren't totalitarian and as long as these guys are kept it check, everything will be fine.
Of course, the issue is how to keep people in check...
Not really... I would go for the easy targets. So the countries I mentioned, along with places like Italy, Austria, etc have very lax security. I mean, even Canada (where I live) is a very easy target.
You are just wrong. People don't just hate people for no particular reason...
Also, if what you are saying is correct, how come this is only a recent problem (in the last 20 years or so)? If they really hated your culture, it would have happened for much longer, possibly hundreads of years...
Then did you ever notice that while all of these things get outsourced, the corporate management structure doesn't go with it?
How can you replace the guy who enriched your company? Anything to make money... If you went and destroyed 15 endangered speices but made money for your company, what will they do? Same thing here...
I suggest that you pursue a career in upper management;) You can become very wealthy while destroying everyone else's life;)
can you imagine American business man supporting Iraq so that Iraq has more money to build missles to aim at US ??
USA has done that in the past (late 80's). Who was it that armed Iraq in the first place and facilitated the transfer of chemical weapons to it? You guessed it: USA. Why? Maybe it was worth it for the oil...
I think you have found out the truth about businessmen everywhere...they, especially if they are capitalists, will do anything for money... the goal of the wealthy is not to develop a country or help it. Nope! Their goal is to make enough money so that they can leave the country and go and live in a tax-sheltered one like Bermuda or Monaco
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China has huge number of infantry but their tech sucks. Even bankrupt Russia has more advanced technology than China. I don't think China can even shoot down more than 5 stealth fighters.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Russia won't fight China. They are not major enemies. Europe won't fight China either. The only conflict I can see happening is USA vs China, or India vs China.
I think if USA and China fight, the war will end VERY QUICKLY. And it will likely go nuclear (and possibly biological). I expect that to happen because each side will be taking heavy casulties and someone is not going to take it any longer (and hence revert to WMD). During WWII (the worst war so far), a typical jet was "primitive". Nowadays, even the cheapest jets can carry payloads that can wipe out small divisions of military. Also, now you have ballistic missiles, which really didn't exist in WWII (or at least were primitive). These don't even need to be nuclear armed, just a normal ballistic missile should be able to kill 500 soldiers with an average hit.
When you have 1000 soldiers dying each month (or whatever), the govt can keep the population under control (at least the mass propaganda campaigns will brainwash the people). But if 10,000 people are dying in a month or something, no one is going to take it. The war will end quickly...
War and death are interesting... when one guy dies per day, no one cares but if 30 people die at once (but just once in a month), people start caring... ah humans...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Does anyone have any thoughts on extensible AI game programming using Python? Basically, I"m trying to create a user-programmable AI for a game (simple scripting that users can do, kind of like in many FPS games). I'm evaluating Python VS Lua (google to find info about Lua). I think Lua is best for my tasks but does anyone have any thoughts on Python?
In particular, I'm not too sure about the performance implications of Python for a real-time game. The game is a free open-source game so it's not a life and death situation but still...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I see no reason why people from all over the world couldn't join in on great space projects together. Of course, the bureaucracy and administration and lawyers will suck up a lot of cash, but I still think it could work.
:(
We kind of tried with the most sophisticated human structure ever attempted, but it didn't go anywhere. I'm talking about the International Space Station. More costly than anything else in history, more complicated than what one country can do, and beyond the understanding of most. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Recent arguments over who should pay for fuel recharges does not set a good precendent
Don't get me wrong. I"m all in favour of cooperation (I'm a socialist after all). But it just isn't happening right now because we don't have strong unifying forces (like good leaders). All I know is that we aren't going to leave the solar system if only one country (or if capitalism wins out, one corporation) attempts to do it. At some point space exploration HAS to be multinational. It is just way TOO EXPENSIVE and UNPROFITABLE.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
US makes technology advancements = benefit of humanity
YOu really believe that? Who is the largest weapons producer on the planet? Who sells more weapons to foreign countries than anyone else? Who has thousands of nukes? Who spends hundreads of billions researching biological weapons?
One day you will realize that countries are not moral and never act in the interest of humanity... only people are moral.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I'm not an IT admin or anything (no need for enterprise stuff :) ) but I'm just curious. What is there to stop you from copying the binary (assuming it is the GPLed free software and not proprietary stuff)? Why recompile everything? Why not just use the binares that are free? Can't one do that? While I"m at it, can't someone mix and match across distributions? Take one package from RH, another from SuSE, another from Mandrake, then Debian, etc. I know it's a lot of work and may introduce compatibility problems but I'm just wondering if that is illegal?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I'll try to keep this short since it is dealing with a lot of stuff...
Furthermore, I might point out that "Open Source" is a superset of "Free Software."
It depends how you look at it. I can see your approach where you can consider open-source to be a large set, with Free Software being a subset of it. Under your approach, this would make sense since open-source advocates accept Free Software licenses (the GPL-compatible ones), while the converse isn't true (GPL-compatible software can't use non-GPL comptible code unless the authors allow it).
I, however, like to look at it using a spectrum (kind of like econopolitics). On one side, you have Free Software, and on the other side you have proprietary software. Both of these are at the extreme ends. Open-source software is somewhere in the middle. I'm not an expert on software development methodologies and ideologies but I suspect there are other software that fits between the two extremes (although I don't think any of these are popular).
Using my approach, you HAVE to be placed somewhere. It's kind of like econopolitics--you can't claim not belong somewhere. My impression so far is that you are somewhere near the middle, possibly leaning towards the proprietary side.
I don't have to support someone else's agenda if it doesn't dovetail with my agenda. There's room in this world for all different models of software development. I develop proprietary software every day for my current client, but I've also written Open Source code. Don't presume to give me orders because I refuse to be pinned to one specific group's dogma and ideology.
I don't know how you come to the conlusion that I"m giving orders. Anyway, I think you are in the middle-right (if far right=proprietary).
You seem to be the impression that the distiction doesn't matter. I disagree. This is a battle of ideologies. There really isn't room for both (at least on a large scale). One is going to win. My guess is that within 20 years the issue will be settled. You will either end up with A LOT of Free Software being used or you will end up with a lot of proprietary stuff. This is inevitable because proprietary and Free Software are totally incompatible ideologies.
I'm not going to get into your personal attacks of RMS.
Show some proper gratitude to those who choose to give away source code freely, but don't demand or expect it as an entitlement!
No one is forcing you to do anything. They are just pressuring you in a particular direction, which is fine IMO (it's the equivalent of picketing or protesting). After all, the pressure is not physical or financial. In any case, if you are really concerned, why license something with GPL (or GPL-compatible) license? You have your choice. Go and pick one from the multitude of other licenses, including many proprietary ones (if you choose)?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
You want 4 more years of lying? Vote for a Repub or a Green.
What sort of lamer accuses the Greens of lying. They haven't even been given a chance yet you accuse them of lying. If anything they are the cleanest of the bunch. Too bad you don't realize that the Democrats are the same as the Republicans but with a left-leaning stance.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
There is a reason that millions of people left Europe and migrated to the US. They were tired of Big Brother, long before the book was written. They wanted a place they could raise a family, work for their own future, and not have the government round their sons up and send them to die in every piss-ant skirmish that the king/queen/prince/mayor/etc decided was needed to save their honor.
None of what you said is true. First of all, monarchy has nothing to do with liberals/left/etc. If anything leftists are the ones who are strongly in favour of overthrowing institutions like monarchy, along with stuff like religion, etc. The French Revolution is a good example of that (other revolutions like the Russian Revolution and Communist Revolution accomplished something similar). If anything, it is conservatives who are in favour of status-quo establishments. Just go and study your history--proper history. You'll find that the people who were advocating the overthrow of monarchies were liberals. Those who were in favour of the monarchy were often conservatives (although I admit that these were only the elites). Conservatives actually LIKED the monarchy because it supported and strengthened religion. Conservatives only got sick of th establishment after taxes were raised high.
Second, what you said about people leaving Europe was complete nonsense. They did not leave because they wanted to be away from the monarchs. That is wrong because even when the settlers came to USA (for example) they were still under the power of the monarch. If the people really left to get away from monarchy, they would have formed an independent country. Of course this never happend for a long time (until the American Revolution). Most people who fled to USA were fleeing from religious persecution and economic suffering.
The biggest problem with the US today is that too many people have forgotten that aspect of living in the land of the free. They think we should emulate Europe. Why? Where did both World Wars start? Why should we be dragged into acting like that? Unfortunately we have. Now we think we have to do all the stupid things Europeans have been doing for a thousand years. And of course tax everyone to death to pay for it (oh wait, that is another of the stupid things Europeans think is normal).
Clearly shows your lack of understanding of history or the world. You blame both World Wars on Europe yet you fail to see the cause of those wars. The wars happened in Europe, and not in USA, for a simple reason. Europe was a superpower. The wars, if you recall, was mostly a battle betwen these superpowers. The reason USA never had any war is because it wasn't a superpower at that time (it's true whether you admit it or not), and it is geographically isolated. If there is a next world war, USA will be right in the middle of it. Do you know why? And no, it's not because of Europe. It's because USA is a superpower.
As far as taxes are concerned, contrary to your beliefs, Americans paid similar taxes (to Europeans) throughout most of the 1700's and 1800's. The whole anti-tax movement only started in the 1900's. Even hardcore conservatives didn't preach anti-tax views until the last century.
And for the record, the second biggest problem with the US today is that the religious right can't dissociate their version of GOD from their civic life or their political and legal activities.
Since you are on the right, that's your own problem. You are probably more religious than anyone on the left (just a guess) so you go and figure out how to solve that.
While many Africans did the same, and were free men, the majority were brought over as slaves.
AGain, your lack of history is appaling. The majority of Africans weren't brough over as slaves. ALL of them were. Every single African-American (don't mix up with hispanics or Carribeans) can likely trace their life to slavery.
Liberals in the US like to make this group think they deserve
KDE and Xscreensaver don't use the same stuff. I don't think you have this problem with REd Hat (because Gnome is ok with the xscreensaver). To see what I mean, right-click on desktop (in KDE), go to configure desktop and check the screensaver section. Then try going to the xscreensaver and see if they are both the same. They are not. You can get a screensaver running with xscreensaver but not with KDE and vice versa.
/usr/share/pgsql) while it is different under Debian--I think.
Other path problem examples include postgreSQL. If I'm not mistaken, the path for configuration files in Mandrake/Red Hat (something like
As far as tab-completion is concerned, that's only useful if you know the command or the file name. If you have no idea what is th configuration file for a screensaver, for example, that doesn't do anything.
The KDE screensaver and the xscreensaver use different locations. Try changing your xscreensaver and then try seeing if it shows up on the KDE screensaver configuration, or vice versa.
I don't really know the problem (have never had a notebook in my life :( )... Since you have high bandwidth, try a few other distros like Mandrake. I find Mandrake to be more user-friendly and it often incorporates "beta" software which is newer and can work when other things don't...
If games are to become successful, the desktop has to improve. GNU/Linux isn't at the stage where a typical user can install stuff, remove things, etc. For instance, there are quite a few applications that install but don't put links on the menus. Newbies will have no idea how to run these problems. Perhaps what's making this bad is the fact that the distros haven't standardized the path locations. I just wish that all the distros follow the path standards. Right now, you have to spend some time to find out where stuff are installed. For example, do you know where the desktop screensaver is?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
There is 30 or so times that caught of the Iraqi terrorists on the "Card deck".
I don't think anyone seriously considers any of the Iraqi regime to be terrorists... except for those that believe Iraq was behind 9/1...
I'm not an American but I THINK terrorists, to Americans, means Al-Qaeda operatives. Going off on some WMD hunt in Iraq (and possibly Iran or Syria in the future) and capturing those people hardly counts as terrorists. Of course, I can be mistaken. Maybe some people DO believe the Good vs Evil diatribe...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I agree wholeheartedly. Econopolitical stance takes precedence over one's love of tech...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Actually, this is why the right to bear arms exists. So that if the Government becomes too corrupt and evil and starts to self-perpetuate it's own power, growing uncontrollably, the people can rise up and strike the gov't down.
That was actually true at one time but not anymore. The problem is that citizens with guns (say militas) are next to useless when combating governments. At one time, that wasn't the case. A couple of hundread years ago, the difference between a soldier and an armed citizen was very small. They both used the same guns, had similar training, etc. But that isn't the case anymore.
Nowadays, the military (in any country) is just SO MUCH more powerful than armed citizens. Not only do they have better guns (automatic, more powerful, etc) but the emergence of mechanized vehicles renders citizens next to useless. Regardless of what you think, guns can't take down a tank. Forget tanks. How about APCs? You and your heavily armed family won't even scratch an APC!
You just need to look at the history of the world over the past 100 years. Even if cases where citizens are armed, they are next to useless. A good modern example is Afghanistan, where everyone is heavily armed (more so than Americans) yet they couldn't defeat either the Taliban or the US govt.
Having said all this, the emergence of the guerrila movement and asymetric warfare (eg. suicide bombings, truck bombings, sabotage, etc) can take down a govt. But governments generally label guerrila groups as terrorist and shut them down. That's why most armed groups in USA are militias and not guerrilas. Militias, needless to say, are sitting ducks and will be crushed very easily by the govt.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
The membership and the organizations have more to do with econopolitical stance than with technology. In addition, the ones you mentioned are radical organizations.
For instance, the FSF is a movement. Not everyone supports it (in fact, my impression is that the vast majority don't). So just because someone is into tech doesn't mean they support the underlying philosophy.
Similarly, the EFF has less to do with technology and more to do with their stance. For example, it is very liberatarian (and can even be argued to be liberatarian right, as opposed to liberatarian left (aka anarchism)). There are many people who will not join it. As a matter of fact, I don't think the vast majority of people will join it because most people are centrists/moderates and EFF will be too radical for them. Whether one is into tech or not, most people would just happily let govt infiltrate their lives and strip away their individual freedoms in the name of "freedom", terrorism, copyrights, or whatever else is the popular word that week.
The organizations that will be "successful" (in the sense of having large base) will be those centrist/moderate ones. Needless to say, these are also the ones that support the status quo so it is questionable whether they do anything progressive.
Remember.. the tech crowd is no different than the rest of the population. It will have a distribution similar to to the rest of the population. The only difference is that we know technology. But that isn't going to make one go and join FSF or EFF. The vast majority of people are centrists/moderates. As long as they have a job, live a "happy" life, get all the gadjets they want, etc, they won't do anything. At least, that's my impression based on working in the industry. Some guy might be the biggest geek around but he will not support anything differing from the mainstream. You can even make the observation yourself. Look around: how many of your techie friends or colleagues really care about any of these issues? Probably few...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I think the FSF picks and chooses when to take the moral high ground.
Of course, FSF picks what to uphold. They are a movement. They make strategic decisions that will further their ideals. That's why Free Software is different from open-source software. For instance, their decisions over whether to use LPL of GPL for license is a strategic decision. If you didn't know that all this time, it's time you realized it.
So the real question is which side you are on: Free Software? Open-Source? Proprietary? Pick your side and stay on it.
I personally think Richard Stallman has the emotional maturity of a small child...
lol I guess Steve Ballmer and Steve Jobs are your role models huh?
Sivaram Velauthapillai: "...sensing a disgruntled Apple fan"
Thanks for the writeup... I enjoyed reading it...
Actually it CAN work but there is only one way of doing it. The people who get the power shouldn't be able to benefit from it. In other words, the incentive for becoming, say a judge, should be so low that only those that really care about it will do it.
Having said this, you'll always have totalitarians (just liek the real world) trying to take over the world/universe. But the vast majority of humans aren't totalitarian and as long as these guys are kept it check, everything will be fine.
Of course, the issue is how to keep people in check...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
...if I had to choose between the violent sociopath...
How would you know that person is a voilent sociopath? How do you know the white-collar criminal isn't one either?
I think most people would characterize breaking into cars/houses/etc as violent... It all depends on personal view though...
Not really... I would go for the easy targets. So the countries I mentioned, along with places like Italy, Austria, etc have very lax security. I mean, even Canada (where I live) is a very easy target.
You are just wrong. People don't just hate people for no particular reason...
Also, if what you are saying is correct, how come this is only a recent problem (in the last 20 years or so)? If they really hated your culture, it would have happened for much longer, possibly hundreads of years...
Then did you ever notice that while all of these things get outsourced, the corporate management structure doesn't go with it?
;) You can become very wealthy while destroying everyone else's life ;)
How can you replace the guy who enriched your company? Anything to make money... If you went and destroyed 15 endangered speices but made money for your company, what will they do? Same thing here...
I suggest that you pursue a career in upper management
can you imagine American business man supporting Iraq so that Iraq has more money to build missles to aim at US ??
USA has done that in the past (late 80's). Who was it that armed Iraq in the first place and facilitated the transfer of chemical weapons to it? You guessed it: USA. Why? Maybe it was worth it for the oil...
I think you have found out the truth about businessmen everywhere...they, especially if they are capitalists, will do anything for money... the goal of the wealthy is not to develop a country or help it. Nope! Their goal is to make enough money so that they can leave the country and go and live in a tax-sheltered one like Bermuda or Monaco
Sivaram Velauthapillai