I agree entirely with your point, but mediamatters is not the best source of unbiased media information. It is meant to be a liberal equivalent of MRC. The MRC is the conservative group famous for being the source of 99% of the indencency complaints to the FCC.
MedaiMatters points out the conservatives biases, and MRC points out the liberal biases. But both organizations and just playing to the biases of their readers.
Wow, so you are the one that is always pissing me off.
I once worked at a site and we had to take a lot of the nice looking CSS out becuase people werent smart enough to know what was a link and what wasn't.
I should not have to analyze you site to determine where the links are. It should be stunningly obvious. If people are complaining that they can not find the links, you have designed your site wrong.
Then again, our customer base was so dumb one guy actually faxed us to ask for out phone number becuase the number on the site, basically like this: 1-800-PRODUCTS
Why list the phone number as 1-800-PRODUCTS, when it is actually 1-800-PRODUCT? You listed an incorrect phone number, then when someone points this out, you call them stupid?
Daily Kos is typically much more intelligent that MoDo. That is not saying much - I have houseplants that are more intelligent than MoDo (although perhaps not as good at rhyming).
But what about Nicholas Kristof or David Brooks or Thomas Friedman? How do you replace them?
In the end, the columnists at the NYT will not be able to set the agenda like they are used to doing. Previously, it was the newcasts - national and local - that took the queues from the NYT, and this put whatever they were saying "into circulation". Now, people like Druge, the Daily Kos folks, Instapundit, LGF, Powerline, TNR, Townhall, Freerepublic, and all of them have a big sway into moving things into the mainstream.
If this happens, it will be truly sad. I have nothing against bloggers, but they don't come close to the intelligence and thouroghness of the Times Op-Ed page. And some of those blogs you list are downright stupid. The day that LGF sets trends is that day that I completely ignore tends.
I was thinking the same thing. Let 'em go, its not like we can't find the same articles ad nauseam on the ole internets. The NY Times lost its credibility years ago and there is nothing that separates them from the rest of the pack. So bon voyage on your trip towards internet obscurity.
Nicholas Kristof. The most intelligent and insightful opinion writer alive. If you don't curently read him, you should.
He is a liberal, but he is very reasoned and thoughtful. Unfortunately, reasoned and thoughtful doesn't generate the controversy that partisan and inflamed do. So Krugman and Brooks get talked about, and Kristof just keeps writing the smart copy.
You are correct about the doublespeak, but I have to give them credit - they are doing exactly what a company should do - personalize the copy, and trust the user. Instead of using some annoying technological measure to restrict our rights, they simply ask us to respect their rights. And then they make it so that unless we go to some trouble, it will be obvious if we don't respect their rights.
I guess you are technically right, but I think you have sorely misjudged the purpose.
There is nearly no excuse to do any sort of plotting in Excel or OpenOffice, unless it is a quick glance at data type of plot. They are both so horrid that I would be embarassed to show anyone a plot I created in either.
What exactly do you want Stallman to defend? That if a font creator applies the GPL to his font, the terms of the GPL apply to anyone using that font in their creation?
The GPL was created for software, not fonts. Applying it to fonts creates problems. I don't see how this reflects poorly on RMS.
P.S. Get an account so I can mod you up for this kind of post.
The point in moderation is to enhance the visiblity of the good posts, and lower the visibility of the bad posts. There is no reason that moderation should be different for an Anonymous Coward than for a registered poster. The only reason to make a distinction is if you think that Karma is some sort of game.
Try plotting the data on the website you suggest. It is fascinating. There are three distinct periods:
(1) Before 1992, when the debt is dramatically increasing (second derivitive greater than 0)
(2) Between 1992 and 2000, when the debt is increasing, but the rate of increase slows every year (second derivitive less than 0). In fact, the debt is nearly constant between 1999 and 2000. But this was not a trend confined to the late 90's (dot com era), it started dramatically in 1992.
(3) After 2000, when the debt again shoots up dramatically (perhaps exponentially).
It is impossible to look at that data honestly and say that it is not correlated with the president.
The rest of us, who spent years on Redhat, and got incredibly sick of having to either (a) reinstall the operating system every year or (b) compile everything by hand to install new software.
Apparently, this is a problem that Ubuntu also solves. Really, I don't see how anyone can use any distro other than Debian/Ubuntu or Gentoo. Apparently yum is attempting to provide the same type of service for rpm based distros, but from what I hear, it doesn't work nearly as well.
It has been a long time since I have installed Windows. Recently, I gave my dad my old computer, and so I need to. I checked a copy of Win2000 out of the library (they dont have XP), and tried to install it. But the installer kept crashing. I kept trying, over and over again, swapping out hardware. It would crash in different places, but it never made it very far. Finally, after about 10 tries install, I switched the keyboard, and it finally worked. That keyboard seems to work fine on every other computer, and even works on his computer, once the install was finished.
I have never had problems like that installing gnu/linux. Perhaps I just got really unlucky. I don't know, and I probably never will, since I don't install Windows very often. But based on my limited experience, gnu/linux is much much easier to install than Windows.
Olsen: "My concern is that we run into a tragedy of the commons," Olson said. "There is this notion of quid pro quo, but if the vendor doesn't ship his software, he doesn't need to show his source code. That means a bunch of innovation is being taken out. This is an important problem for us working on the new GPL to get right."
Translation: We are looking at the issue of companies that make use of Free Software, modify it, and use it in a way that they never technically distribute it, so they don't have to share their changes with the community.
Submitter: "Is this the start of a shakedown by the GNU folks?
Translation: There is absolutely no content to this story, just some idle speculation hoping for slashodot hits, so I will totally exagerate some comments.
You: "If they attempt to make this retroactive, I assure you that the world will come crashing down on the FSF. Thousands of firms around the country will sue them OVER NIGHT, and honestly, I'd be more likely to donate to the defense of those firms than the FSF (regardless of the fact that I'm a huge fan of the GPLv2). This is deeply irresponsible."
Translation: Nobody every suggested that it would be retroactive. In fact, there is abolutely no way that it coulc be made retroactive - code distributed under the GPL comes with a specific license - no matter what the FSF does, it does not change that license. But you rant and rave about how this change (which is essentially imaginary at this point) is going to destroy OSS usage.
How about you (1) get your facts straight before going off on a rant, and (2) wait until you actually see what the FSF is proposing before you assume that absolute worst from them?
Actually, Ubuntu was actually a scheme by the Gentoo user community to get rid of the fanboys. We figured that if we could create a distro that had an even more obscure name than Gentoo, all of the fanboys would flock to it so that they could stay l33t. It seems to have worked perfectly.
And leave it to some people to term all good actions as PR moves.
Microsoft is a public company. As such, they are liable to be sued by their shareholders if they are not maximizing shareholder value. In other words, Microsoft can not legally take "good actions" unless it is in the financial interests of the company and it's shareholders. In this case, the financial interest is probably mostly due to the PR value of the action.
Of course, this isn't Microsoft's fault. It is the way our corporate laws are set up. But it still makes you wrong.
I am pretty careful about my XP install, but I have gotten viruses before. I usually boot into gnu/linux, but occasionally I boot into windows. Whenever I do, the first thing I do is run windows-update. Unfortunately, This has burned me in the past, since there is a period when I have my XP computer on the internet without the latest patches.
I don't really know how to avoid this either. I could keep a router, and only boot into windows from behind the router, but that would be a pain. Maybe the software firewall on XP will be good enough.
Very nice post. I am inclined to save it, just to respost it (with attribution, of course) every time someone posts one of those "why does everyone always assume the worst of Microsoft? I think we should give them the benefit of the doubt" whines.
My main machine these days is a dual 2GHz G5 (aka PowerPC 970) - it's physically a regular Apple Mac, although it obviously only runs Linux, so I don't think you can call it a Mac any more;)
Um, Linus has always said this. His refusal to call the OS gnu/linux is basically the root of the entire conflict. Pointing to a current example of this as conclusive makes as much sense as "Steve Jobs just said that OSX is the best operating system ever designed, so all you idiots who think otherwise should shut up."
Slashdot Mirror
Which PHP5 Framework is Your Favorite?
...
I guess I sorta like them all
I agree entirely with your point, but mediamatters is not the best source of unbiased media information. It is meant to be a liberal equivalent of MRC. The MRC is the conservative group famous for being the source of 99% of the indencency complaints to the FCC.
MedaiMatters points out the conservatives biases, and MRC points out the liberal biases. But both organizations and just playing to the biases of their readers.
At one time, the media was held to codes of practice and ethics that were comparable to any standards to which scientists hold themselves.
What time was this?
Yea, we should just try and forget our history. That way, we will never have to worry about repeating it. Right?
Wow, so you are the one that is always pissing me off.
I once worked at a site and we had to take a lot of the nice looking CSS out becuase people werent smart enough to know what was a link and what wasn't.
I should not have to analyze you site to determine where the links are. It should be stunningly obvious. If people are complaining that they can not find the links, you have designed your site wrong.
Then again, our customer base was so dumb one guy actually faxed us to ask for out phone number becuase the number on the site, basically like this: 1-800-PRODUCTS
Why list the phone number as 1-800-PRODUCTS, when it is actually 1-800-PRODUCT? You listed an incorrect phone number, then when someone points this out, you call them stupid?
Daily Kos is typically much more intelligent that MoDo. That is not saying much - I have houseplants that are more intelligent than MoDo (although perhaps not as good at rhyming).
But what about Nicholas Kristof or David Brooks or Thomas Friedman? How do you replace them?
In the end, the columnists at the NYT will not be able to set the agenda like they are used to doing. Previously, it was the newcasts - national and local - that took the queues from the NYT, and this put whatever they were saying "into circulation". Now, people like Druge, the Daily Kos folks, Instapundit, LGF, Powerline, TNR, Townhall, Freerepublic, and all of them have a big sway into moving things into the mainstream.
If this happens, it will be truly sad. I have nothing against bloggers, but they don't come close to the intelligence and thouroghness of the Times Op-Ed page. And some of those blogs you list are downright stupid. The day that LGF sets trends is that day that I completely ignore tends.
I was thinking the same thing. Let 'em go, its not like we can't find the same articles ad nauseam on the ole internets. The NY Times lost its credibility years ago and there is nothing that separates them from the rest of the pack. So bon voyage on your trip towards internet obscurity.
Nicholas Kristof. The most intelligent and insightful opinion writer alive. If you don't curently read him, you should.
He is a liberal, but he is very reasoned and thoughtful. Unfortunately, reasoned and thoughtful doesn't generate the controversy that partisan and inflamed do. So Krugman and Brooks get talked about, and Kristof just keeps writing the smart copy.
You are correct about the doublespeak, but I have to give them credit - they are doing exactly what a company should do - personalize the copy, and trust the user. Instead of using some annoying technological measure to restrict our rights, they simply ask us to respect their rights. And then they make it so that unless we go to some trouble, it will be obvious if we don't respect their rights.
I guess you are technically right, but I think you have sorely misjudged the purpose.
here's absolutely no disadvantage to Matlab once you know how to use it properly.
The cost? 6k dollars seems like a significant disadvantage to me.
There is nearly no excuse to do any sort of plotting in Excel or OpenOffice, unless it is a quick glance at data type of plot. They are both so horrid that I would be embarassed to show anyone a plot I created in either.
What exactly do you want Stallman to defend? That if a font creator applies the GPL to his font, the terms of the GPL apply to anyone using that font in their creation?
The GPL was created for software, not fonts. Applying it to fonts creates problems. I don't see how this reflects poorly on RMS.
P.S. Get an account so I can mod you up for this kind of post.
The point in moderation is to enhance the visiblity of the good posts, and lower the visibility of the bad posts. There is no reason that moderation should be different for an Anonymous Coward than for a registered poster. The only reason to make a distinction is if you think that Karma is some sort of game.
Try plotting the data on the website you suggest. It is fascinating. There are three distinct periods:
(1) Before 1992, when the debt is dramatically increasing (second derivitive greater than 0)
(2) Between 1992 and 2000, when the debt is increasing, but the rate of increase slows every year (second derivitive less than 0). In fact, the debt is nearly constant between 1999 and 2000. But this was not a trend confined to the late 90's (dot com era), it started dramatically in 1992.
(3) After 2000, when the debt again shoots up dramatically (perhaps exponentially).
It is impossible to look at that data honestly and say that it is not correlated with the president.
I think you just made my point for me.
Was his point that you are a moron? Because that is what he has shown.
The rest of us, who spent years on Redhat, and got incredibly sick of having to either (a) reinstall the operating system every year or (b) compile everything by hand to install new software.
Apparently, this is a problem that Ubuntu also solves. Really, I don't see how anyone can use any distro other than Debian/Ubuntu or Gentoo. Apparently yum is attempting to provide the same type of service for rpm based distros, but from what I hear, it doesn't work nearly as well.
It has been a long time since I have installed Windows. Recently, I gave my dad my old computer, and so I need to. I checked a copy of Win2000 out of the library (they dont have XP), and tried to install it. But the installer kept crashing. I kept trying, over and over again, swapping out hardware. It would crash in different places, but it never made it very far. Finally, after about 10 tries install, I switched the keyboard, and it finally worked. That keyboard seems to work fine on every other computer, and even works on his computer, once the install was finished.
I have never had problems like that installing gnu/linux. Perhaps I just got really unlucky. I don't know, and I probably never will, since I don't install Windows very often. But based on my limited experience, gnu/linux is much much easier to install than Windows.
Lets play telephone:
Olsen: "My concern is that we run into a tragedy of the commons," Olson said. "There is this notion of quid pro quo, but if the vendor doesn't ship his software, he doesn't need to show his source code. That means a bunch of innovation is being taken out. This is an important problem for us working on the new GPL to get right."
Translation: We are looking at the issue of companies that make use of Free Software, modify it, and use it in a way that they never technically distribute it, so they don't have to share their changes with the community.
Submitter: "Is this the start of a shakedown by the GNU folks?
Translation: There is absolutely no content to this story, just some idle speculation hoping for slashodot hits, so I will totally exagerate some comments.
You: "If they attempt to make this retroactive, I assure you that the world will come crashing down on the FSF. Thousands of firms around the country will sue them OVER NIGHT, and honestly, I'd be more likely to donate to the defense of those firms than the FSF (regardless of the fact that I'm a huge fan of the GPLv2). This is deeply irresponsible."
Translation: Nobody every suggested that it would be retroactive. In fact, there is abolutely no way that it coulc be made retroactive - code distributed under the GPL comes with a specific license - no matter what the FSF does, it does not change that license. But you rant and rave about how this change (which is essentially imaginary at this point) is going to destroy OSS usage.
How about you (1) get your facts straight before going off on a rant, and (2) wait until you actually see what the FSF is proposing before you assume that absolute worst from them?
Actually, Ubuntu was actually a scheme by the Gentoo user community to get rid of the fanboys. We figured that if we could create a distro that had an even more obscure name than Gentoo, all of the fanboys would flock to it so that they could stay l33t. It seems to have worked perfectly.
And leave it to some people to term all good actions as PR moves.
Microsoft is a public company. As such, they are liable to be sued by their shareholders if they are not maximizing shareholder value. In other words, Microsoft can not legally take "good actions" unless it is in the financial interests of the company and it's shareholders. In this case, the financial interest is probably mostly due to the PR value of the action.
Of course, this isn't Microsoft's fault. It is the way our corporate laws are set up. But it still makes you wrong.
I am pretty careful about my XP install, but I have gotten viruses before. I usually boot into gnu/linux, but occasionally I boot into windows. Whenever I do, the first thing I do is run windows-update. Unfortunately, This has burned me in the past, since there is a period when I have my XP computer on the internet without the latest patches.
I don't really know how to avoid this either. I could keep a router, and only boot into windows from behind the router, but that would be a pain. Maybe the software firewall on XP will be good enough.
Very nice post. I am inclined to save it, just to respost it (with attribution, of course) every time someone posts one of those "why does everyone always assume the worst of Microsoft? I think we should give them the benefit of the doubt" whines.
Are you willing to let your post be reused?
Oh, I get it. Sometimes it is even funny, when used appropriately. But simply appending gnu to a word does not automatically make it funny.
Oh, and GNU/Linux is not an OS either.
Shit. I guess I haven't had an OS on my computers for the last couple of years then.
Why is this funny? Do slashdotters really think that simply putting GNU in front of any word automatically makes it funny?
My main machine these days is a dual 2GHz G5 (aka PowerPC 970) - it's physically a regular Apple Mac, although it obviously only runs Linux, so I don't think you can call it a Mac any more ;)
Um, Linus has always said this. His refusal to call the OS gnu/linux is basically the root of the entire conflict. Pointing to a current example of this as conclusive makes as much sense as "Steve Jobs just said that OSX is the best operating system ever designed, so all you idiots who think otherwise should shut up."