"And the educated have always had more sex, money, power and influence."
I'm quite certain the uneducated have more sex. Those in the ruling classes always have more societal structures in place, that are aimed at *preventing* sex.
The money, power and influence parts, I won't argue with. But peasants definitely have more sex.
Religion begins as a set of prescribed and proscribed behaviors which, overall, would have been observed as increasing the size of the tribe.
What better way to get people not to shit where they eat, or to understand that fucking leads to babies, or to instill a basic system of law and order, than to make the people believe it dogmatically. It does not necessarily even require a God -- an oral system with medicine people and storytellers can work just as well.
But once you have your peasant class believing in a divine mandate from a supreme deity, then your behaviors that are codified into law will start to enforce themselves, over many generations, without a need for a managed political heirarchy.
Unfortunately, a system that begins innocently enough (wash your hands before delivering babies, don't eat raw pork), can be amended to enforce a corrupt political ideal.
I'm not saying that happened in any particular religion, but I'm satisfied with the basic premise that it could have happened.
Maybe the proscription is merely God's way of ensuring the message can be liberated from the clutches of a priest class, from time to time. It's *supposed* to be stolen, and taken to a distant land, where it cannot be traced.... All part of a divine plan to spread the word, and to prevent a class of high priests from suppressing it!
"Rather than immediately writing them off because their name contains Christian?"
I get the distinct impression that they people behind the paper really enjoy the irony. On one hand, they serve as a good filter for people who won't even *read* something because the source says "Christian", and on the other hand, there must be no end to the abuse they receive from purported "Christians" due to the secular views expressed in the journal.
I'm sure they are fully aware that people dismiss them regularly due to the name. What a great filter that must be!
"Someone please stop me from going on a rant here about the objective nature of the Christian Science anything."
The Christian Science Monitor is one of the more objective news outlets. What really surprises me, is that they seem to be immune from being attacked for being almost entirely secular, and often critical of the neoconservative ideals.
I had real problems trying to install both, using dselect. The package system treated them as mutually exclusive, perpetuating the myth that you must choose between KDE and Gnome.
I don't know if it's been fixed, or if it was just an "debian-unstable" thing.
One thing I *can't* do under Windows, but would really like to, is duplicate the look, feel, and functionality of the console in a SVGA text mode (or, as these days, framebuffer console).
I really like running screen, running the framebuffer at high resolution text modes, and having the virtual consoles with different modes.
Yes, I know all about X, and I know I can run RXVT under windows (and I do), but IT IS NOT THE SAME.
There are some aspects to the native console that are subtle, but important to me. And that is ONLY provided so far, under linux, as far as I can find.
It's so important that, whenever a fbconsole driver is broken, it makes that release useless to me. This was the case for most of the 2.6.x releases and Radeon. I can get *close* to what I want with rxvt or other terminals, but it's a compromise, and while workable, it's *NOT* the same.
"I do believe that case was lost already (last year sometime), so long as it was to provide interoperability."
I think any precedent that nullifies the DMCA or USPTO laws in *any* context would be a pretty important thing to study. If they made an exception for one industry, it should open an avenue for 14th Amendment challenges everywhere else.
>>how support for linux will not "expire" like this. > >If you are basing your business on a 10 year-old >operating system in this day and age and that OS >does not have the "IBM" trademark behind it you >probably need a cat scan, open source or not.
Linux is somewhat older than that, and is in fact available with the "IBM" trademark.
"Which explains why generic replacement parts are illegal, right?"
They would be, if they represented an implementation of a process or method that was covered under a patent and not properly licensed, or, if the part had a component that decrypted any data in the digital domain which was protected under copyright law.
"However at that point, I hope to change to Linux. There has to be a lot of people on Slashdot who have done this."
I've done this with great success, except in my primary application area: Audio recording, with software synthesizers and effects.
There's a whole lot of linux possibilities here, and I use them as much as I can, but, the software I really want to use runs on Windows, period. Emulation would be an option, but it's an area where timing is critical. Plus I've got a substantial amount of inertia -- the stuff I use works *damned well* on Windows 2000.
I'm a dyed-in-the-wool linux user, beginning at 0.99 -- I don't even count the YEARS anymore. But sound recording and computer-as-musical-instrument is still in its infancy even on Windows.
Even if there are some alternatives for Linux, there's nothing like the selection of finished products, and very importantly, the *competition* that's driving development of products like Adobe Audition, Cakewalk Sonar, Cubase, ProTools, or the instruments from vendors like NI and Arturia.
Yes, you can, if you really try, run some of these things, or duplicate some of their functionality, on Linux, and in some cases, yes, you can do *better* and do some things on Linux that you can't do with the Windows alternatives. But it's also a PAIN at best, and you can spend months or years fiddling with it and never get to the streamlined operation you get out of the box with the (admittedly very expensive) Windows stuff.
It's a huge job of course, to follow through with the user community ideal of finding the itch and scratching it. I've some modest attempts to do so, but, only leading to half-baked ideas and I'm too lazy^H busy to do any work anyway...
On a quarter mile track, or even a rally course? So?
Beat a Subaru Outback from Miami FL to Surrey BC, with a mandatory 7 day camping trip before the return.
I take trips like that. It's really why I need a car. I'm not impressed by racetrack performance, from something that does not even begin to meet real-world requirements.
"I saw a moddified, electric RX7 (first gen) that beat down a Viper in the quarter mile."
I'd like to see a sedan- or station-wagon- sized vehicle carry four adults from Austin Texas to Surrey British Columbia, travelling at or slightly above the speed limit on all roads, with climate control that is comfortable in all seasons at every latitude as appropriate.
How is an electric car going to heat the cabin? Electric heaters?
Even in a car that runs on regular gas, it's often 70 miles between gas stations on that kind of trip. How far between electric car charging opportunities?
To me, these are *much* bigger problems than quarter mile times.
"Someone" will do it if handed a court order. That proof might be sufficient to persuade a judge to sign that order. But that's about as far as it goes, strictly in terms of obligations.
They would have sent you the camera, (maybe), stripped of the accessories that come with it.
BTW, I found the EOS 20D to be well worth the higher price, after trying it and a RebelXT for a while. For one thing, it's much, MUCH more comfortable to hold. For another, there's a significant value in the information that's right on top of the camera, and in a way that's hard to describe, the ergonomics don't really work on the Rebel nearly as well as on the 20D.
That said, if you save $500 getting the RebelXT (still a great camera), spend it on a lens. The main reason to buy a Canon EOS is the great lenses available for it. If you're just going to get mediocre lenses, it's really not such a great value. You might actually be disappointed with your results. The EF/L lenses are what make this DSLR system so great.
Maybe I'm just losing you because the one-cent difference is not significant.
I suppose, if I tried, I could think of examples where the price of an increased volume of a product is not a simple linear relationship. Or where demand for the larger size is smaller than demand for the smaller size, creating some liability for the merchant. Or maybe something irrational, like a tax, could be at work.
I haven't actually observed the phenomenon you're reporting. Commodity products are proportionally less expensive in larger volumes.
Two AA batteries are usually going to be more expensive than a box of twelve. I need to go grocery shopping soon. I'll report my findings.
Slashdot Mirror
"And the educated have always had more sex, money, power and influence."
I'm quite certain the uneducated have more sex. Those in the ruling classes always have more societal structures in place, that are aimed at *preventing* sex.
The money, power and influence parts, I won't argue with. But peasants definitely have more sex.
>Religion sucks.
Religion begins as a set of prescribed and proscribed behaviors which, overall, would have been observed as increasing the size of the tribe.
What better way to get people not to shit where they eat, or to understand that fucking leads to babies, or to instill a basic system of law and order, than to make the people believe it dogmatically. It does not necessarily even require a God -- an oral system with medicine people and storytellers can work just as well.
But once you have your peasant class believing in a divine mandate from a supreme deity, then your behaviors that are codified into law will start to enforce themselves, over many generations, without a need for a managed political heirarchy.
Unfortunately, a system that begins innocently enough (wash your hands before delivering babies, don't eat raw pork), can be amended to enforce a corrupt political ideal.
I'm not saying that happened in any particular religion, but I'm satisfied with the basic premise that it could have happened.
Maybe the proscription is merely God's way of ensuring the message can be liberated from the clutches of a priest class, from time to time. It's *supposed* to be stolen, and taken to a distant land, where it cannot be traced.... All part of a divine plan to spread the word, and to prevent a class of high priests from suppressing it!
"Users aren't permitted to FTP, SSH, IM or use web space [where quotas are too small to be of any use]"
I think I've just identified your underlying problem.
"On the other hand, the Washington Times is owned by the Moonies."
They do publish really good and useful travel guides. I realized toward the end of a great trip, that I'd been using a Moon publication.
"Rather than immediately writing them off because their name contains Christian?"
I get the distinct impression that they people behind the paper really enjoy the irony. On one hand, they serve as a good filter for people who won't even *read* something because the source says "Christian", and on the other hand, there must be no end to the abuse they receive from purported "Christians" due to the secular views expressed in the journal.
I'm sure they are fully aware that people dismiss them regularly due to the name. What a great filter that must be!
"Someone please stop me from going on a rant here about the objective nature of the Christian Science anything."
The Christian Science Monitor is one of the more objective news outlets. What really surprises me, is that they seem to be immune from being attacked for being almost entirely secular, and often critical of the neoconservative ideals.
>It's as easy install GNOME in Debian as KDE is.
I had real problems trying to install both, using dselect. The package system treated them as mutually exclusive, perpetuating the myth that you must choose between KDE and Gnome.
I don't know if it's been fixed, or if it was just an "debian-unstable" thing.
"In order to fit x seperate pidgeons, you need at least x holes."
If one pigeon is always in flight, you only need x-1 holes.
One thing I *can't* do under Windows, but would really like to, is duplicate the look, feel, and functionality of the console in a SVGA text mode (or, as these days, framebuffer console).
I really like running screen, running the framebuffer at high resolution text modes, and having the virtual consoles with different modes.
Yes, I know all about X, and I know I can run RXVT under windows (and I do), but IT IS NOT THE SAME.
There are some aspects to the native console that are subtle, but important to me. And that is ONLY provided so far, under linux, as far as I can find.
It's so important that, whenever a fbconsole driver is broken, it makes that release useless to me. This was the case for most of the 2.6.x releases and Radeon. I can get *close* to what I want with rxvt or other terminals, but it's a compromise, and while workable, it's *NOT* the same.
There are win32 versions of CDRTools.
Look for ftp.berlios.de, cdrtools, and ProDVD and you should find it.
"I do believe that case was lost already (last year sometime), so long as it was to provide interoperability."
I think any precedent that nullifies the DMCA or USPTO laws in *any* context would be a pretty important thing to study. If they made an exception for one industry, it should open an avenue for 14th Amendment challenges everywhere else.
>>how support for linux will not "expire" like this.
>
>If you are basing your business on a 10 year-old
>operating system in this day and age and that OS
>does not have the "IBM" trademark behind it you
>probably need a cat scan, open source or not.
Linux is somewhat older than that, and is in fact available with the "IBM" trademark.
"Which explains why generic replacement parts are illegal, right?"
They would be, if they represented an implementation of a process or method that was covered under a patent and not properly licensed, or, if the part had a component that decrypted any data in the digital domain which was protected under copyright law.
"I think if it was shorter than 2 years the expiry date for support for XP Home/Professional could influence his opinion."
How? Would it make him more or less likely to buy? And *why?*
"However at that point, I hope to change to Linux. There has to be a lot of people on Slashdot who have done this."
I've done this with great success, except in my primary application area: Audio recording, with software synthesizers and effects.
There's a whole lot of linux possibilities here, and I use them as much as I can, but, the software I really want to use runs on Windows, period. Emulation would be an option, but it's an area where timing is critical. Plus I've got a substantial amount of inertia -- the stuff I use works *damned well* on Windows 2000.
I'm a dyed-in-the-wool linux user, beginning at 0.99 -- I don't even count the YEARS anymore. But sound recording and computer-as-musical-instrument is still in its infancy even on Windows.
Even if there are some alternatives for Linux, there's nothing like the selection of finished products, and very importantly, the *competition* that's driving development of products like Adobe Audition, Cakewalk Sonar, Cubase, ProTools, or the instruments from vendors like NI and Arturia.
Yes, you can, if you really try, run some of these things, or duplicate some of their functionality, on Linux, and in some cases, yes, you can do *better* and do some things on Linux that you can't do with the Windows alternatives. But it's also a PAIN at best, and you can spend months or years fiddling with it and never get to the streamlined operation you get out of the box with the (admittedly very expensive) Windows stuff.
It's a huge job of course, to follow through with the user community ideal of finding the itch and scratching it. I've some modest attempts to do so, but, only leading to half-baked ideas and I'm too lazy^H busy to do any work anyway...
"Mike Leavitt is the new secretary for HHS,
appointed by Bush. (He used to be at EPA)."
Hard to say which of these two agencies gets the least attention and money from an ultra-conservative right wing administration...
>Battery swaps are an invitation to fraud.
Transportation departments would be all over it. They carry the weight to cause people to spend decades in prison over even small infractions.
Make a gas pump that doesn't conform to the standards of your state's weights and measures laws, and see how long you keep out of jail.
> It beats a Ferrari or a Corvette easily
On a quarter mile track, or even a rally course? So?
Beat a Subaru Outback from Miami FL to Surrey BC, with a mandatory 7 day camping trip before the return.
I take trips like that. It's really why I need a car. I'm not impressed by racetrack performance, from something that does not even begin to meet real-world requirements.
"I saw a moddified, electric RX7 (first gen) that beat down a Viper in the quarter mile."
I'd like to see a sedan- or station-wagon- sized vehicle carry four adults from Austin Texas to Surrey British Columbia, travelling at or slightly above the speed limit on all roads, with climate control that is comfortable in all seasons at every latitude as appropriate.
How is an electric car going to heat the cabin? Electric heaters?
Even in a car that runs on regular gas, it's often 70 miles between gas stations on that kind of trip. How far between electric car charging opportunities?
To me, these are *much* bigger problems than quarter mile times.
>Someone will do it if shown proof.
"Someone" will do it if handed a court order. That proof might be sufficient to persuade a judge to sign that order. But that's about as far as it goes, strictly in terms of obligations.
"it is in fact illegal to charge different customers different prices for the exact same product"
How is it "in fact illegal" if there's no such law against it?
You nearly sent a thousand bucks to these guys:
h tm
http://donwiss.com/pictures/BrooklynStores/h0101.
They would have sent you the camera, (maybe), stripped of the accessories that come with it.
BTW, I found the EOS 20D to be well worth the higher price, after trying it and a RebelXT for a while. For one thing, it's much, MUCH more comfortable to hold. For another, there's a significant value in the information that's right on top of the camera, and in a way that's hard to describe, the ergonomics don't really work on the Rebel nearly as well as on the 20D.
That said, if you save $500 getting the RebelXT (still a great camera), spend it on a lens. The main reason to buy a Canon EOS is the great lenses available for it. If you're just going to get mediocre lenses, it's really not such a great value. You might actually be disappointed with your results. The EF/L lenses are what make this DSLR system so great.
Know what you're getting into.
Be aware of what some of these mail order shops actually look like:
o res/
http://www.panix.com/~donwiss/pictures/BrooklynSt
Maybe I'm just losing you because the one-cent difference is not significant.
I suppose, if I tried, I could think of examples where the price of an increased volume of a product is not a simple linear relationship. Or where demand for the larger size is smaller than demand for the smaller size, creating some liability for the merchant. Or maybe something irrational, like a tax, could be at work.
I haven't actually observed the phenomenon you're reporting. Commodity products are proportionally less expensive in larger volumes.
Two AA batteries are usually going to be more expensive than a box of twelve. I need to go grocery shopping soon. I'll report my findings.