They're gub'ment workers, whadya expect? They've been trained since kindergarten to never question authority. But unlike the rest of us who went on to productive pursuits after graduating from the indoctrination centers they call public schools, they stayed in the system. Many of them have never learned to think for themselves. Their job is not to help people, but to punch in daily until they can retire on public pension.
All it takes is one supervisor reading an astroturfed rant on the web, and the entire department will take up the faith that Firefox is unsafe.
Funding has very little correlation with the quality of education. California is bankrupting itself funding education, yet is quite lackluster in its educational quality.
So what was it that made such an unusual firestorm possible, and will it happen again?
No, it wasn't climate change. I greatly suspect it was letting the brush build up for too long. Remember the big Yellowstone fire? Same thing. Older forestry and land management practice was to stop fires as soon as they started. But fire is an important part of the ecosystem, and regular brush fires keep the brush down and the fires moderate. But now we have lots of areas where we can't even do controlled burns anymore because the brush has gotten too thick.
If the media is reporting on this as a symptom of climate change, they're idiots. It is anthropogenic, but not the kind they're trying to assign blame to.
Authorship doesn't go away just because you give up your copyrights. This CC0, as I understand it, gives up your *attribution* rights, but you still wrote the work and are still the author. If someone claims your work as their own, it is still plagarism, and in many cases, fraud.
Hamlet is in the public domain, but that does not mean you can legally claim that you wrote it. (Except in comedy skits, etc).
What's the difference between the OS and the browser? Besides the obvious one, that an OS doesn't need an OS and desktop to host on, here's my number two difference: I can use (for example) KDE and Konqueror on Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, other BSD variants, OpenSolaris, AIX, HP-UX, Mac OSX and Windows. I can use most Google websites with exactly three browsers: IE, FF and Safari. Konqueror is not supported. WebKit browsers are not supported. Hell, Chrome isn't that well supported, and it's their own dogfood!
Google is an advocate for what I call "cross-platform lite". Which is about as tasteless as "miller lite" but not nearly as filling.
Its about some people being forced into using an operating system that they do not want to use or having to pay extra fees to downgrade to XP when they shouldn't have to.
In fifteen years of observing the situation, I have yet to encounter one instance of someone being forced to use Windows on their personal property. Of course, I don't know what the situation is over in Iran. Perhaps the Mullahs force people to use Windows there. But over here I can use any damned OS I want and there's nothing Microsoft can do about it.
Or maybe you're referring to using Windows at work? Weird, at my last job I had to use RHEL4! In any case, they aren't our computers, they are our employers.
Well yes, if you are provided with the terms before sale, then the agreement is valid. But a sticker doesn't count. You cannot possibly assent to a contract sight unseen. As far as I know, no higher court has yet ruled that such affairs are valid.
p.s. But of course, in the real world whoever has the biggest lawyer wins. Being on the right side of the law has no bearing on whether you will prevail in court. Your best defense is to not wave your defiance of the license in Microsoft's face.
Using the cat is way too complicated. By purchasing the software you have the right to use it. Which includes the right to install it on your own c computer. So just read the license, so "no fraking way I agree to that crap!" and click okay.
A click-thru license is a barrier to your existing right of use, and so is invalid. Clicking through is not assent. Ditto for shrink-wrap. Any license that does not present its terms to me BEFORE the sale is bogus. The claim that "you're only buying the right to agree to a license" is bullshit.
No one's forcing you to buy Windows. No really. If you don't like Dell's business model of One-Size-Fits-All "customization", then go elsewhere. Or build your own. Or buy a Mac. Or buy a Linux system online. But for the love of God stop whining about how unfair the world is. Everyone who managed to pass kindergarten already knows that, so STFU!
Seriously, can we stop with the Microsoft-is-Eeevil and I-had-to-pay-microsoft-tax crap? Or is it a religious mindset that won't let you see the truth? It's impossible to convince a flatearther that the world is not flat, a troofer that 9/11 wasn't an inside job, and a Microsoft-basher that the world isn't secretly being run from Redmond.
We all have choices. If you choose to use Microsoft products, then the only one you can blame is yourself. I built a new computer over the weekend. It does not have any Microsoft product installed. Not Windows, not Office, nothing. There was no Microsoft tax. The computer was CHEAPER than the equivalent Dell.
Don't like that choice? Then buy an Apple. I know it's fashionable to pretend that Macs aren't really computers, but it's not much different from pretending that the world is flat. They're not much more expensive, much more stylish, and slightly more reliable. Don't like that choice either? Buy a computer with Linux, or without any OS. You won't find them at your local BigBox store, but you can find them online. So stop whining and start exercising your choice. If you don't it will just atrophy.
There just aren't enough individual "downgraders" to make any difference. Businesses who downgrade with Dell aren't starting with Vista, and they're being counted as XP.
There are only three ways to finance a deficit: taxes, debt, and inflation. Add this trillion dollars to Bush's trillion dollars, and the inescapable conclusion is that payment will be large, painful, and unlubed.
The average congressman is barely able to find their own ass with both hands and a mirror. Yet we expect that these people are more qualified to run industries than the experts in those industries. This stimulus package is nothing more than a trillion dollars of salted pork.
Just like 9/11 was an excuse for congress to meddle in our private lives, the economic crisis is just an excuse for congress to spend our money. Obama told us this package was so urgent that we couldn't even take the time to READ it. He didn't care about what was in the bill, he only cared that it had a lot of money in it.
What won't stop Latitude, or the wider rollout of location-based tracking, is bitching about it.
What will stop it, is people not using it. Or far more likely, people not using it in ways that the pundits and marketdroids insist it must be used.
History is full examples of technology that simply were not used. But more common are examples of technology being used in ways no one ever foresaw. I have no doubt that location-awareness will be ubiquitous in future culture, but I'm willing to bet good money that it WON'T be used the way the babbling class tells us it's going to be used.
Come on... Should be obvious to a reasonably intelligent person* that the 'punishment' would be requiring a minimum reasonable working conditions for employees of all nations. The practice of regulating worker conditions does drive the price of products up.
Except that the US and Europe has no power within China. The rule of China remains in the hands of Chinese rulers. We simply do not have the power to impose our rules on them. Duh. Which means that the only way we can "punish" them is by restraining our own citizens.
That's not what I hear from Chinese who are emigrating. Outside of a few select zones such as Hong Kong, the Chinese government still keeps its hands elbow deep in the economy.
China did bad, so let's make consumers pay more for Chinese products! Yeah, that will work!
Economic populism is just as silly as any other form of populism. If we want to punish a nation we embargo them, but if we want to protect our own industries we enact protectionist restrictions. They're both the same act, just in different directions. They both can't be correct.
The best solution is education. As long as consumers know about stuff like this, they can make their own decisions. Getting bureaucrats and politicians involved just messes everything up.
China is capitalist? Since when? They have factories and capital, but control over the means of productions is still largely in the hands of the government.
Yes, I'll elaborate. The operating systems shipped with Qt. Qt was necessary for the normal functioning of the default desktop. Hell, for a couple of distros, it was even used for the installers! Desktops and installers both qualify as "major components of the operating system". Therefore Qt counts as a system library.
But don't take my word for it! Just look at the many dozens of Linux distros that shipped working versions of KDE! Only two distros, only two, refused to offer KDE packages for legal reasons. All the rest saw no problem with it.
Not only was KDE under Free Software license, but it also met the Four Freedoms [note capitalization] put forth by FDR^H^H^HRMS.
The Qt license was problematic, true. But that didn't stop anyone from continuing their rants against it after it became approved Open Source. [it's not compatible boo hoo] Shit, that didn't even stop anyone from continuing their rants after it became GPL [it's not free enough for shareware use]. Even now, on the verge of being released as LGPL, people are still complaining that the new license will be a poison pill against C++.
Oh, by the way, proprietary Qt was shipped as system libraries on those distros that defaulted to KDE. The GPL has an exception for that, placing Qt in the same category as Win32, Cocoa and many flavors of Motif. KDE was *never* criminal.
Really is pollution that big of a problem anymore? Ever since I've switched to BigAssFilter air conditioning system, all of the pollution has been filtered out of my home.
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They're gub'ment workers, whadya expect? They've been trained since kindergarten to never question authority. But unlike the rest of us who went on to productive pursuits after graduating from the indoctrination centers they call public schools, they stayed in the system. Many of them have never learned to think for themselves. Their job is not to help people, but to punch in daily until they can retire on public pension.
All it takes is one supervisor reading an astroturfed rant on the web, and the entire department will take up the faith that Firefox is unsafe.
Funding has very little correlation with the quality of education. California is bankrupting itself funding education, yet is quite lackluster in its educational quality.
No, it wasn't climate change. I greatly suspect it was letting the brush build up for too long. Remember the big Yellowstone fire? Same thing. Older forestry and land management practice was to stop fires as soon as they started. But fire is an important part of the ecosystem, and regular brush fires keep the brush down and the fires moderate. But now we have lots of areas where we can't even do controlled burns anymore because the brush has gotten too thick.
If the media is reporting on this as a symptom of climate change, they're idiots. It is anthropogenic, but not the kind they're trying to assign blame to.
Authorship doesn't go away just because you give up your copyrights. This CC0, as I understand it, gives up your *attribution* rights, but you still wrote the work and are still the author. If someone claims your work as their own, it is still plagarism, and in many cases, fraud.
Hamlet is in the public domain, but that does not mean you can legally claim that you wrote it. (Except in comedy skits, etc).
What's the difference between the OS and the browser? Besides the obvious one, that an OS doesn't need an OS and desktop to host on, here's my number two difference: I can use (for example) KDE and Konqueror on Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, other BSD variants, OpenSolaris, AIX, HP-UX, Mac OSX and Windows. I can use most Google websites with exactly three browsers: IE, FF and Safari. Konqueror is not supported. WebKit browsers are not supported. Hell, Chrome isn't that well supported, and it's their own dogfood!
Google is an advocate for what I call "cross-platform lite". Which is about as tasteless as "miller lite" but not nearly as filling.
And it wasn't a "farewell" either. He's still in congress, with more influence than he had before the election.
In fifteen years of observing the situation, I have yet to encounter one instance of someone being forced to use Windows on their personal property. Of course, I don't know what the situation is over in Iran. Perhaps the Mullahs force people to use Windows there. But over here I can use any damned OS I want and there's nothing Microsoft can do about it.
Or maybe you're referring to using Windows at work? Weird, at my last job I had to use RHEL4! In any case, they aren't our computers, they are our employers.
I didn't say a DIY laptop, I just said a laptop. Get an Apple. Or an Asus netbook. Sheesh.
Well yes, if you are provided with the terms before sale, then the agreement is valid. But a sticker doesn't count. You cannot possibly assent to a contract sight unseen. As far as I know, no higher court has yet ruled that such affairs are valid.
p.s. But of course, in the real world whoever has the biggest lawyer wins. Being on the right side of the law has no bearing on whether you will prevail in court. Your best defense is to not wave your defiance of the license in Microsoft's face.
Using the cat is way too complicated. By purchasing the software you have the right to use it. Which includes the right to install it on your own c computer. So just read the license, so "no fraking way I agree to that crap!" and click okay.
A click-thru license is a barrier to your existing right of use, and so is invalid. Clicking through is not assent. Ditto for shrink-wrap. Any license that does not present its terms to me BEFORE the sale is bogus. The claim that "you're only buying the right to agree to a license" is bullshit.
No one's forcing you to buy Windows. No really. If you don't like Dell's business model of One-Size-Fits-All "customization", then go elsewhere. Or build your own. Or buy a Mac. Or buy a Linux system online. But for the love of God stop whining about how unfair the world is. Everyone who managed to pass kindergarten already knows that, so STFU!
1999 called, and they want their rant back!
Seriously, can we stop with the Microsoft-is-Eeevil and I-had-to-pay-microsoft-tax crap? Or is it a religious mindset that won't let you see the truth? It's impossible to convince a flatearther that the world is not flat, a troofer that 9/11 wasn't an inside job, and a Microsoft-basher that the world isn't secretly being run from Redmond.
We all have choices. If you choose to use Microsoft products, then the only one you can blame is yourself. I built a new computer over the weekend. It does not have any Microsoft product installed. Not Windows, not Office, nothing. There was no Microsoft tax. The computer was CHEAPER than the equivalent Dell.
Don't like that choice? Then buy an Apple. I know it's fashionable to pretend that Macs aren't really computers, but it's not much different from pretending that the world is flat. They're not much more expensive, much more stylish, and slightly more reliable. Don't like that choice either? Buy a computer with Linux, or without any OS. You won't find them at your local BigBox store, but you can find them online. So stop whining and start exercising your choice. If you don't it will just atrophy.
There just aren't enough individual "downgraders" to make any difference. Businesses who downgrade with Dell aren't starting with Vista, and they're being counted as XP.
There are only three ways to finance a deficit: taxes, debt, and inflation. Add this trillion dollars to Bush's trillion dollars, and the inescapable conclusion is that payment will be large, painful, and unlubed.
The average congressman is barely able to find their own ass with both hands and a mirror. Yet we expect that these people are more qualified to run industries than the experts in those industries. This stimulus package is nothing more than a trillion dollars of salted pork.
Just like 9/11 was an excuse for congress to meddle in our private lives, the economic crisis is just an excuse for congress to spend our money. Obama told us this package was so urgent that we couldn't even take the time to READ it. He didn't care about what was in the bill, he only cared that it had a lot of money in it.
What will stop it, is people not using it. Or far more likely, people not using it in ways that the pundits and marketdroids insist it must be used.
History is full examples of technology that simply were not used. But more common are examples of technology being used in ways no one ever foresaw. I have no doubt that location-awareness will be ubiquitous in future culture, but I'm willing to bet good money that it WON'T be used the way the babbling class tells us it's going to be used.
Except that the US and Europe has no power within China. The rule of China remains in the hands of Chinese rulers. We simply do not have the power to impose our rules on them. Duh. Which means that the only way we can "punish" them is by restraining our own citizens.
That's not what I hear from Chinese who are emigrating. Outside of a few select zones such as Hong Kong, the Chinese government still keeps its hands elbow deep in the economy.
China did bad, so let's make consumers pay more for Chinese products! Yeah, that will work!
Economic populism is just as silly as any other form of populism. If we want to punish a nation we embargo them, but if we want to protect our own industries we enact protectionist restrictions. They're both the same act, just in different directions. They both can't be correct.
The best solution is education. As long as consumers know about stuff like this, they can make their own decisions. Getting bureaucrats and politicians involved just messes everything up.
China is capitalist? Since when? They have factories and capital, but control over the means of productions is still largely in the hands of the government.
Yes, I'll elaborate. The operating systems shipped with Qt. Qt was necessary for the normal functioning of the default desktop. Hell, for a couple of distros, it was even used for the installers! Desktops and installers both qualify as "major components of the operating system". Therefore Qt counts as a system library.
But don't take my word for it! Just look at the many dozens of Linux distros that shipped working versions of KDE! Only two distros, only two, refused to offer KDE packages for legal reasons. All the rest saw no problem with it.
Not when I want accuracy I don't! I only use jpegs for photographic images, NEVER for line art, never for text, never for any onscreen control.
Maybe for videos and games, but quite a few of us expect our 2D graphics to be accurate and exact.
Not only was KDE under Free Software license, but it also met the Four Freedoms [note capitalization] put forth by FDR^H^H^HRMS.
The Qt license was problematic, true. But that didn't stop anyone from continuing their rants against it after it became approved Open Source. [it's not compatible boo hoo] Shit, that didn't even stop anyone from continuing their rants after it became GPL [it's not free enough for shareware use]. Even now, on the verge of being released as LGPL, people are still complaining that the new license will be a poison pill against C++.
Oh, by the way, proprietary Qt was shipped as system libraries on those distros that defaulted to KDE. The GPL has an exception for that, placing Qt in the same category as Win32, Cocoa and many flavors of Motif. KDE was *never* criminal.
Really is pollution that big of a problem anymore? Ever since I've switched to BigAssFilter air conditioning system, all of the pollution has been filtered out of my home.