The fact that you can't figure out a mac says a lot about you. I would highly reccomend you stay as far away from linux as possible.
Linux is not yet ready for people who lack the ability to use a mac.
Anyway the topic was "do people want an appliance as a computer" the answer according to you seems to be "no". You clearly don't want an appliance because you want to install other software. Furthermore price is very important to you. You are willing to use windows because it costs less and you know how to install software on it.
Having said the for the life of me I don't understand how somebody could be confused about how to install software on a mac.
If you don't want your mac send it to me. I will find a use for it. I would hate to see the thing gather dust at the hands of somebody who doesn't know what to do with it.
The GPL is a license, it uses copyright as an instrument. Patents are outside of both. Something could be legal to distribute under the GPL but still violate a patent.
MS has patents, they are laying the groundwork to sue linux users, developers and companies.
"But *nix geeks don't want to solve them; they want to continue to lazily assume that everybody is a Linux expert so that they can say that the usability failures in their software are the user's fault."
Why should I solve your problems?
MS has to solve your problems because you are paying them. You are not paying me. Why should I solve your problems?
Here is another question for you. Why aren't you solving other peoples problems? If you don't do it, why should I?
"That is, they want their computer to work like their toaster or, at worst, their microwave oven. They really don't know nor do they care what goes on "inside." They just want to play a game, toast a bagle or nuke some left-overs."
If that's the case then why do they keep buying windows instead of a mac?
Once you can answer that question you will have attained zen.
Here let me give you a jump start.
"people want good enough but cheap". Good enough but cheaper always win. Always.
That's the idea. Novell paid them license fees for their patents. This deal solidifies MS patents in the eyes of the law. Now when they sue ubuntu or or whoever they can point to novell license as evidence.
This is MS gearing up to sue linux users, developers and distros for patent infringement.
"I mean libertarian in philosophy, not necessarily in poll numbers. There's a good sized faction within the Republican party, for example, that is pretty libertarian in philosophy, at least a few percent."
They are not liberterians. They are merely selfish. They pick and choose certain ideals from the liberterian party but they value their republican values much higher (war on drugs, abortion, gar marriage etc).
"Generally, libertarian candidates get between 3-5% of the vote, depending on the state and the election."
Presuming your stats are true then it bears out what I am saying. there is a less then 3% of the population who are liberterians and a couple of percent disgruntled republicans.
So? The election commission is a statewide office. Of course they would rig the machines in Broward, they are not going to rig them in a republican county are they?
"You can't find evidence of republican votes switching to democratic ones if everyone is voting democratic in the first place."
There must be a few people in broward who vote republican.
Even if it was the voting machine randomly switching votes isn't that something to be concerned about? You make it sound like if the votes were switched randomly everything is hunky dory.
Having said that...
1) There is documented evidence of votes for democrats going to republicans. 2) There is no documented evidence of votes for republicans going to democrats. 3) The elections office is being run by republicans. 4) The voting machines are made by a company which is being run by an avid republican supporter.
If you want to keep pretending that this is some minor glitch then go ahead.
BTW One thing great about Boise is that they actually have decent restaurants there. I like the korean place and I also loved the middle eastern place. I forgot their names already but I haven't forgotten the food (or the hot belly dancer). Yum.
"OBTW, I have been to Boise, guessing you haven't, because Boise is pretty right-wing in and of itself from what I recall."
I have been in boise plenty of times. Yes it's right wing compared to rest of america but it's left wing compared to the rest of idaho. First of all they actually publish a weekly alternative paper (hey they know how to read!). What's shocking is that in that very same paper you will see ads for homosexual chat lines!!!!. Imagine that anywhere else in idaho.
Like most of the inland west utah is a vast republican stronghold with the university town the small democratic outpost. In utah it's SLC in Idaho it's Boise, in Montana it's Missoula, etc.
The democrats need to keep together I guess because the inland west is packing serious firepower.
Anyway SLC is in no way, shape, or form representative of the whole state. Not even close.
It's utah. If god ran as a democrat against satan as a republican god would lose. People in utah would rather cut their heads off then vote for a democrat.
"As backwards as it sounds, I really think the Linux world needs to find some investors to plop down BIG money for PR, Marketing, and Focus Groups just for increasing desktop penetration. These may all sound like swear words to a techie, but I think they're essential to increasing Linux adoption."
There is nothing preventing anybody from doing this if they want to.
I tell you what, if every jerkwad who complains on slashdot about how ugly linux is and how much it sucks gave a hundred bucks maybe they could do it themselves.
The only reason it doesn't get done is that it's easier to bitch on slashdot then to actually get off your ass and do something.
"Was it actively leaking? No idea, wasn't checking for that. Should it have been using half a gig of RAM. No."
First of all there are well known javascript memory leaks that effect every browser. If you frequently visit sites that leak memory your memory usage will go up. Secondly I don't have that problem even though I have half a dozen plug ins, always have firefox running (pre-loader), and always have at least a half a dozen sites open in tabs.
So yes the so called firefox memory usage only seems to effect some people.
"It's about this point where I just decided you were the ultimate Firefox troll. "Acknowledge any issues? Whatever, talk to the hand.":"
Oh yes bitching on slashdot, pissing on the firefox developers and going around yelling that IE7 is soo much better is a much productive effort.
But hey I tripped up your shilling efforts to I am happy with that result.
"Less primitive societies accept dying as a part of living, and handle the inevitable appropriately. But ours tries to keep dead and nearly-dead people (e.g. Terri Schiavo, my grandmother when she was an end-stage cancer patient, etc) going as long as technologically possible, no matter the cost to the individual or to society at large."
And you blame the mean evil guvmit for this do you?
"public education - the species got along fine without government schooling just fine for thousands of years"
No it didn't. Some people were educated but there was massive illiteracy. People clamored for public education precisely because so much of the country was filled with uneducated people.
"social security and medicare programs - how to punish people for getting old. My poor grandfather would've expired, were it not for Medicare paying for his defibrillator... I have three grandparents left, aged 86 to 91, and they're all sitting around watching T.V. and waiting to die."
Sure people live longer these days. Most people seem to like it that way. If there was no medicare or ssn then you would have had to support your parents in their old age (or kill them whatever). At one time there was no Social Security or medicare but that didn't work so well. That's why the system was invented you know. Because not having them didn't work so well. People clamored for it and got it.
"war on drugs - if not for the war on drugs, we'd still have access to safe whole-plant drugs (coca leaf, marijuana, mushrooms, etc)."
I am with you on that one. The war on drugs was basically a corporate welfare program.
"medical and college education costs "
Same as SSN. There was a time when only the rich were educated. Now most people are. That's the way the people seem to prefer things.
"war - simply a case of fueding governments"
How else are you going to ensure cheap oil? Oddly enough in retrospect Clinton looks pretty good for attacking al-quada. Funny that.
"Why should the bureaucrats care, when they're speding someone else's money?"
Their money too.
"The Libertarian party is for the elimination of 90+% of the government. That'd eliminate a lot of taxes..."
No they are not and no it would not.
In actuality the liberterian party are a bunch of fantasists. They yearn for a society that has never existed in the history of mankind, that can not exist, that will never exist that nobody wants. They are the 1% of the society that wishes for something and can't understand why nobody shares in their delusion.
I guess every society has it's windmill tilters huh? Liberterians are the Don Quiotes of the modern world.
"Just because the GP doesn't claim that Firefox 2.0 is the second coming of Jesus does not imply that they want to go stick their tongue right down Bill Gates' trousers."
Nobody claims that FF is the second coming. Nobody. On the other hand we have had enough gripes about memory usage which odd enough only seems to effect a small minority of users and which is most likely caused by odd extensions.
In other words anybody who claims that firefox uses "too much memory" (whatever that means) is lying. It's not the fault of the firefox team.
"If you really believe FF is better and want to convince people, then do so with open, intelligent dialog; not by employing the same BS that other vendors use."
That's a stupid thing to say. Why would you not use a tactic proven to work and use a tactic proven not to work instead? Advertising firms, corporations, PR firms, political parties, psychologists, marketing gurus etc have done billions of dollars worth of research to figure out how to best convince people to buy your product. Why would you completely ignore all that? We should take advantage of all that research and use the exact same tactics used by corporations and political parties.
"Firefox will only move forwards if we acknowledge its shortcomings and make it even better."
Yes sure whatever.
"I personally use Firefox almost exclusively. I think it is a great browser. I want it to get better."
Me too. Oddly enough I seem to be alone in thinking that bitching on slashdot and pissing on the firefox developers, and yelling about how IE7 is sooo much better will not help one iota towards making FF better.
"And yes, it's really easy to spot well designed option dialogs, take a look at Microsoft Office."
BHAHAHAHAHA..
Ah man that's funny as hell. Thanks for making my day. Yes please go take a look at outlooks option dialog(s) There are three including the one in the control panel.
Slashdot Mirror
Well MS fanboi...
The fact that you can't figure out a mac says a lot about you. I would highly reccomend you stay as far away from linux as possible.
Linux is not yet ready for people who lack the ability to use a mac.
Anyway the topic was "do people want an appliance as a computer" the answer according to you seems to be "no". You clearly don't want an appliance because you want to install other software. Furthermore price is very important to you. You are willing to use windows because it costs less and you know how to install software on it.
Having said the for the life of me I don't understand how somebody could be confused about how to install software on a mac.
If you don't want your mac send it to me. I will find a use for it. I would hate to see the thing gather dust at the hands of somebody who doesn't know what to do with it.
The GPL is a license, it uses copyright as an instrument. Patents are outside of both. Something could be legal to distribute under the GPL but still violate a patent.
MS has patents, they are laying the groundwork to sue linux users, developers and companies.
"But *nix geeks don't want to solve them; they want to continue to lazily assume that everybody is a Linux expert so that they can say that the usability failures in their software are the user's fault."
Why should I solve your problems?
MS has to solve your problems because you are paying them. You are not paying me. Why should I solve your problems?
Here is another question for you. Why aren't you solving other peoples problems? If you don't do it, why should I?
"That is, they want their computer to work like their toaster or, at worst, their microwave oven. They really don't know nor do they care what goes on "inside." They just want to play a game, toast a bagle or nuke some left-overs."
If that's the case then why do they keep buying windows instead of a mac?
Once you can answer that question you will have attained zen.
Here let me give you a jump start.
"people want good enough but cheap". Good enough but cheaper always win. Always.
That's the idea. Novell paid them license fees for their patents. This deal solidifies MS patents in the eyes of the law. Now when they sue ubuntu or or whoever they can point to novell license as evidence.
This is MS gearing up to sue linux users, developers and distros for patent infringement.
"I mean libertarian in philosophy, not necessarily in poll numbers. There's a good sized faction within the Republican party, for example, that is pretty libertarian in philosophy, at least a few percent."
They are not liberterians. They are merely selfish. They pick and choose certain ideals from the liberterian party but they value their republican values much higher (war on drugs, abortion, gar marriage etc).
"Generally, libertarian candidates get between 3-5% of the vote, depending on the state and the election."
Presuming your stats are true then it bears out what I am saying. there is a less then 3% of the population who are liberterians and a couple of percent disgruntled republicans.
The machine was not miscalibrated. It was rigged to throw the election to the republicans.
As for the media they didn't report on armed republicans threatening to kill the vote counters in florida so I would be on their side if I were you.
"If that's the case, why are only 5-10% Libertarian?"
Five to ten percent? The liberterians would be happy with that. My guess is that they haven't cracked 3% yet.
"This is in Broward county"
So? The election commission is a statewide office. Of course they would rig the machines in Broward, they are not going to rig them in a republican county are they?
"You can't find evidence of republican votes switching to democratic ones if everyone is voting democratic in the first place."
There must be a few people in broward who vote republican.
If that's all he wants to do (doubt it) then he should use ifolders or subversion.
Even if it was the voting machine randomly switching votes isn't that something to be concerned about? You make it sound like if the votes were switched randomly everything is hunky dory.
Having said that...
1) There is documented evidence of votes for democrats going to republicans.
2) There is no documented evidence of votes for republicans going to democrats.
3) The elections office is being run by republicans.
4) The voting machines are made by a company which is being run by an avid republican supporter.
If you want to keep pretending that this is some minor glitch then go ahead.
I haven't had a decent meal in SLC at all. Missoula rocks though, probably better then seatle and that's saying a lot.
BTW One thing great about Boise is that they actually have decent restaurants there. I like the korean place and I also loved the middle eastern place. I forgot their names already but I haven't forgotten the food (or the hot belly dancer). Yum.
"OBTW, I have been to Boise, guessing you haven't, because Boise is pretty right-wing in and of itself from what I recall."
I have been in boise plenty of times. Yes it's right wing compared to rest of america but it's left wing compared to the rest of idaho. First of all they actually publish a weekly alternative paper (hey they know how to read!). What's shocking is that in that very same paper you will see ads for homosexual chat lines!!!!. Imagine that anywhere else in idaho.
Like most of the inland west utah is a vast republican stronghold with the university town the small democratic outpost. In utah it's SLC in Idaho it's Boise, in Montana it's Missoula, etc.
The democrats need to keep together I guess because the inland west is packing serious firepower.
Anyway SLC is in no way, shape, or form representative of the whole state. Not even close.
It's utah. If god ran as a democrat against satan as a republican god would lose. People in utah would rather cut their heads off then vote for a democrat.
"As backwards as it sounds, I really think the Linux world needs to find some investors to plop down BIG money for PR, Marketing, and Focus Groups just for increasing desktop penetration. These may all sound like swear words to a techie, but I think they're essential to increasing Linux adoption."
There is nothing preventing anybody from doing this if they want to.
I tell you what, if every jerkwad who complains on slashdot about how ugly linux is and how much it sucks gave a hundred bucks maybe they could do it themselves.
The only reason it doesn't get done is that it's easier to bitch on slashdot then to actually get off your ass and do something.
Although this is a popular meme I really don't think it's true.
Macs have always been easier to use then windows, they have always been better looking. Windows won because it was "good enough" and it was cheaper.
In the end "good enough but cheaper" always wins. See walmart for another example.
"Was it actively leaking? No idea, wasn't checking for that. Should it have been using half a gig of RAM. No."
First of all there are well known javascript memory leaks that effect every browser. If you frequently visit sites that leak memory your memory usage will go up. Secondly I don't have that problem even though I have half a dozen plug ins, always have firefox running (pre-loader), and always have at least a half a dozen sites open in tabs.
So yes the so called firefox memory usage only seems to effect some people.
"It's about this point where I just decided you were the ultimate Firefox troll. "Acknowledge any issues? Whatever, talk to the hand.":"
Oh yes bitching on slashdot, pissing on the firefox developers and going around yelling that IE7 is soo much better is a much productive effort.
But hey I tripped up your shilling efforts to I am happy with that result.
WOW. Stunning. I guess I would not expect any different from a liberterian.
"Less primitive societies accept dying as a part of living, and handle the inevitable appropriately. But ours tries to keep dead and nearly-dead people (e.g. Terri Schiavo, my grandmother when she was an end-stage cancer patient, etc) going as long as technologically possible, no matter the cost to the individual or to society at large."
And you blame the mean evil guvmit for this do you?
"public education - the species got along fine without government schooling just fine for thousands of years"
No it didn't. Some people were educated but there was massive illiteracy. People clamored for public education precisely because so much of the country was filled with uneducated people.
"social security and medicare programs - how to punish people for getting old. My poor grandfather would've expired, were it not for Medicare paying for his defibrillator... I have three grandparents left, aged 86 to 91, and they're all sitting around watching T.V. and waiting to die."
Sure people live longer these days. Most people seem to like it that way. If there was no medicare or ssn then you would have had to support your parents in their old age (or kill them whatever). At one time there was no Social Security or medicare but that didn't work so well. That's why the system was invented you know. Because not having them didn't work so well. People clamored for it and got it.
"war on drugs - if not for the war on drugs, we'd still have access to safe whole-plant drugs (coca leaf, marijuana, mushrooms, etc)."
I am with you on that one. The war on drugs was basically a corporate welfare program.
"medical and college education costs "
Same as SSN. There was a time when only the rich were educated. Now most people are. That's the way the people seem to prefer things.
"war - simply a case of fueding governments"
How else are you going to ensure cheap oil? Oddly enough in retrospect Clinton looks pretty good for attacking al-quada. Funny that.
"Why should the bureaucrats care, when they're speding someone else's money?"
Their money too.
"The Libertarian party is for the elimination of 90+% of the government. That'd eliminate a lot of taxes..."
No they are not and no it would not.
In actuality the liberterian party are a bunch of fantasists. They yearn for a society that has never existed in the history of mankind, that can not exist, that will never exist that nobody wants. They are the 1% of the society that wishes for something and can't understand why nobody shares in their delusion.
I guess every society has it's windmill tilters huh? Liberterians are the Don Quiotes of the modern world.
"Just because the GP doesn't claim that Firefox 2.0 is the second coming of Jesus does not imply that they want to go stick their tongue right down Bill Gates' trousers."
Nobody claims that FF is the second coming. Nobody. On the other hand we have had enough gripes about memory usage which odd enough only seems to effect a small minority of users and which is most likely caused by odd extensions.
In other words anybody who claims that firefox uses "too much memory" (whatever that means) is lying. It's not the fault of the firefox team.
"If you really believe FF is better and want to convince people, then do so with open, intelligent dialog; not by employing the same BS that other vendors use."
That's a stupid thing to say. Why would you not use a tactic proven to work and use a tactic proven not to work instead? Advertising firms, corporations, PR firms, political parties, psychologists, marketing gurus etc have done billions of dollars worth of research to figure out how to best convince people to buy your product. Why would you completely ignore all that? We should take advantage of all that research and use the exact same tactics used by corporations and political parties.
"Firefox will only move forwards if we acknowledge its shortcomings and make it even better."
Yes sure whatever.
"I personally use Firefox almost exclusively. I think it is a great browser. I want it to get better."
Me too. Oddly enough I seem to be alone in thinking that bitching on slashdot and pissing on the firefox developers, and yelling about how IE7 is sooo much better will not help one iota towards making FF better.
If it wasn't for taxes all those problems would be fifty times worse.
The US spends the tax dollars it collects unwisely that's all.
BTW. All governments tax, all governments spend. Nobody is for the elimination of taxes. Nobody. Not even the liberterian party.
"And yes, it's really easy to spot well designed option dialogs, take a look at Microsoft Office."
BHAHAHAHAHA..
Ah man that's funny as hell. Thanks for making my day. Yes please go take a look at outlooks option dialog(s) There are three including the one in the control panel.