Like a great number of extremely clueful right-wing North Americans, you have identified the twin sources of all that is evil. These are of course, Liberals and The Government.
I'm not going to try to argue with you; you've displayed all the acumen of a 14-year old Rush Limbaugh fan. I will point out that, last time I checked, Republicans seemed to like the government just fine. As long as it was handing out tax breaks and public land to wealthy corporations, instead of money to individuals in need, of course.
I won't debate the merits of social programs. But your virtuous Republicans are as much in favour of them as is Barney Frank. The only disagreement is who should get the money.
Oh, and there's an alternative to governments. We can go there any time we want to. Check out Bosnia, Kosovo, and Rwanda, first -- you may miss government when it's gone.
Okay, I haven't been well and truly pissed off at something I ran into online in a long, long, long time. I usually just read and lurk, but what I've been reading here has goaded me into a great big rant. And I'm well aware that everything I'm about to say has already been said by someone else. Cope and deal.
Apparently, there are some Slashdot readers out there that know exactly what/. and geekdom are all about and now wish to purge everything and everybody that doesn't measure up to their standards of ub3R-3l33tness. Apparently Jon Katz is exhibit numero uno, although the reformer's ire has other targets as well. Well, boys, far be it from me to pollute the purity of the movement. I quit. You may no longer call me a geek.
It would seem that being verbose is ungeekly. Yes, God forbid we have any thoughts that can't be compressed into easily digestable soundbites. It's also not geekly correct to have any areas of interest outside OSS software. My god, we have articles up here about Star Wars! And.... Lego! If this keeps up, y'all might absorb some piece of information that might contribute to your becoming a well-rounded person, and we can't have that! Because, it seems, being as one-dimensional as possible is a really geeky thing to be.
It really, really bugs me when people bash Katz' book because it deals with spiritual topics. Apparently all geeks are supposed to be atheistic materialists or libertarians or something that makes spirituality and human issues irrelevant to us. Well, then it's time for me to turn in my Geek Membership Badge. I find issues like the conflict between spirituality and technology to be interesting and highly relevant to my life.
Another requirement for membership in geekdom that I wasn't previously aware of is disdain for the Baby Boom generation. "Never trust anyone over thirty!" Who coined that catchy little phrase? I'll give you a hint, it wasn't Generation X. Anyway, it was silly then and it hasn't got any less silly. At least do Katz the courtesy of flaming him based on his ideas rather than what you imagine him to be associated with due to his age. (For that matter, how old is Katz? And since when did that make any difference?)
So, you don't like Jon Katz's essays? Guess what, people, there are at conservative estimate ten million websites out there that don't feature his writing! You could be reading one of them right now instead of bitching about how Katz and, by extension, Slashdot, sucks. Please, go somewhere else which is free of content written by someone who falls short of your standards of k-rad haX0r purity.
You know, what's funny is, I don't even like Katz's essays that much; I think he has a tendency to exaggerate the importance of simple events that anyone could have predicted. But believe you me, I like his detractors an awful lot less. And if they really speak for geekdom like they're saying they do, then count me out. I'd rather hang here with Katz. At least he's human.
<RANT> Well, they could pull a Microsloth and release it as-is, even though it still contains bugs. Or they could do what they're doing, make multiple prereleases and correct the bugs in each, then making sure that the bugfixes do not engender new bugs, so when they do release 2.2.0 final, it's stable and works. Which would you prefer? If you want to speed up the release of the final 2.2.0 kernel, install the latest prerelease and submit intelligent bug reports. </RANT>
Slashdot Mirror
Ey yie yie, where to begin.
Like a great number of extremely clueful right-wing North Americans, you have identified the twin sources of all that is evil. These are of course, Liberals and The Government.
I'm not going to try to argue with you; you've displayed all the acumen of a 14-year old Rush Limbaugh fan. I will point out that, last time I checked, Republicans seemed to like the government just fine. As long as it was handing out tax breaks and public land to wealthy corporations, instead of money to individuals in need, of course.
I won't debate the merits of social programs. But your virtuous Republicans are as much in favour of them as is Barney Frank. The only disagreement is who should get the money.
Oh, and there's an alternative to governments. We can go there any time we want to. Check out Bosnia, Kosovo, and Rwanda, first -- you may miss government when it's gone.
Okay, I haven't been well and truly pissed off at something I ran into online in a long, long, long time. I usually just read and lurk, but what I've been reading here has goaded me into a great big rant. And I'm well aware that everything I'm about to say has already been said by someone else. Cope and deal.
/. and geekdom are all about and now wish to purge everything and everybody that doesn't measure up to their standards of ub3R-3l33tness. Apparently Jon Katz is exhibit numero uno, although the reformer's ire has other targets as well. Well, boys, far be it from me to pollute the purity of the movement. I quit. You may no longer call me a geek.
Apparently, there are some Slashdot readers out there that know exactly what
It would seem that being verbose is ungeekly. Yes, God forbid we have any thoughts that can't be compressed into easily digestable soundbites. It's also not geekly correct to have any areas of interest outside OSS software. My god, we have articles up here about Star Wars! And.... Lego! If this keeps up, y'all might absorb some piece of information that might contribute to your becoming a well-rounded person, and we can't have that! Because, it seems, being as one-dimensional as possible is a really geeky thing to be.
It really, really bugs me when people bash Katz' book because it deals with spiritual topics. Apparently all geeks are supposed to be atheistic materialists or libertarians or something that makes spirituality and human issues irrelevant to us. Well, then it's time for me to turn in my Geek Membership Badge. I find issues like the conflict between spirituality and technology to be interesting and highly relevant to my life.
Another requirement for membership in geekdom that I wasn't previously aware of is disdain for the Baby Boom generation. "Never trust anyone over thirty!" Who coined that catchy little phrase? I'll give you a hint, it wasn't Generation X. Anyway, it was silly then and it hasn't got any less silly. At least do Katz the courtesy of flaming him based on his ideas rather than what you imagine him to be associated with due to his age. (For that matter, how old is Katz? And since when did that make any difference?)
So, you don't like Jon Katz's essays? Guess what, people, there are at conservative estimate ten million websites out there that don't feature his writing! You could be reading one of them right now instead of bitching about how Katz and, by extension, Slashdot, sucks. Please, go somewhere else which is free of content written by someone who falls short of your standards of k-rad haX0r purity.
You know, what's funny is, I don't even like Katz's essays that much; I think he has a tendency to exaggerate the importance of simple events that anyone could have predicted. But believe you me, I like his detractors an awful lot less. And if they really speak for geekdom like they're saying they do, then count me out. I'd rather hang here with Katz. At least he's human.
<RANT>
Well, they could pull a Microsloth and release it as-is, even though it still contains bugs. Or they could do what they're doing, make multiple prereleases and correct the bugs in each, then making sure that the bugfixes do not engender new bugs, so when they do release 2.2.0 final, it's stable and works. Which would you prefer? If you want to speed up the release of the final 2.2.0 kernel, install the latest prerelease and submit intelligent bug reports.
</RANT>