Uncle Joe really isn't my uncle. We just call him that. He's a greenhorn from The Old Country - Madeira. He's a machinist. His formal education only went to the 8'th grade in Madeira.
About 4 years ago he asked me about Linux. I said "sure, but you gotta understand that it's different" and I installed Ubuntu Dapper. After receiving not much feedback, I asked him later how he was getting along with it. He said "I don't see how it's supposedly difficult, it's like DOS and Windows."
He has since upgraded his computer and done his own installs in the meantime. He even went so far as to tell the salesdroid at Worst Buy that "no, I don't need Windows Ultimate, I'm going to install Linux" which he did.
If you cannot operate Linux these days, this means you are not as smart as a 50-something Portuguese immigrant with an 8'th grade education.
They use many more nuclear power plants than we do here in the Northeast US.
And don't misunderstand Germany's phasing out of nuclear. They're not replacing it with solar. They're simply going to be buying nuclear generated electricity from France.
The Republicanists and their propaganda wing, Fox News, want you to believe that "the Democrats are just as bad as we are" to make it look like they're not as bad as they really are.
Imagine what we could get done if we weren't spending billions per month on war.
Our problems with the budget have nothing to do with unemployment, welfare, SSI, or unions, or whatever monster that the Republicans say is hiding under the bed. It has everything to do with the fact that we're pissing money away on wars that we/did not and are not paying for/. (Cut taxes while fighting a war? Just who the fuck is claiming fiscal responsibility here?)
We give science short shrift here when it is/undisputed/ by people on both sides of the aisle (except for nutcases like Palin) that basic and applied science give valuable dividends to society as a whole.
And don't tell me that the "free market" and companies will take up the slack. PARC no longer exists and neither does Bell Labs. R&D has been the first thing to be cut by bean counters in the last 30 years.
I've had Internet email since the early 90s (bbs network email before that). I've never seen such a clean inbox until now. My oldest account, which is a private server across town, does greylisting. Over the past few years, spambots have become more RFC compliant and fucking re-send when confronted with a 4xx or 5xx error code.
RFC compliant spam? It's more likely than you think.
Sometimes I get upwards of 100 per day RFC compliant spam on that account. What does gmail do? When it pulls that account, it puts the spam where it belongs and I don't have to lift a finger. My other alternative was using Thunderbird's hit-or-miss flagging system. s
Since transferring everything to gmail a few months ago, I have not seen a single spam and I have not missed a single legitimate email. Don't tell me that gmail is a problem.
It was only in the 70s under Trudeau that you guys began to metricate. And when Mulroney got elected, well, that was that for the metric commission, leaving everything half-finished.
Blame resistance in cities like Peterborough and not the US for resistance to metrication.
It's not because of us here in the States. That's just your lame excuse.
When confronted with something I don't know, I do exactly what you did, I go and look it up. I can and do conversions from "English" to Metric and back again all the time. It's not terribly difficult. But I don't have myself convinced that I know absolutely everything about measurement systems. I'm not that arrogant.
I think asking for conversions to be inserted is asking a bit much, considering the quality of most Slashdot summaries. We're lucky when we get a cut-and-paste first paragraph without editorializing. Also, I don't see Americans on Slashdot asking for Fahrenheit, Pound, Foot conversions from articles dealing in metric.
> Some Americans have a tendency to think of anything other than an exact copy of their poilitical system as 'repressive' or 'not free' or even 'socialist' (or at least, what they think socialism is)
They just want to find some excuse, any, to foam at the mouth at how "stupid" Americans (and Canadians, because they use BTUs too) are. Proof exhibited by the bespittled responses to my previous message posted by people who couldn't be arsed to put their names next to them. (and I got modded offtopic, lolwut?) What's the matter, guys, afraid of demonstrating that you're just as ugly as you claim Americans are? Guess what, you just did.
Funny there typically isn't any [insert European cultural reference here] hate going the other way on Slashdot. It's just so "kewl" to hate Americans these days, isn't it?
They can mod this one down too. I have more karma than they have mod points. *cackle*
>Do you know why the shuttle has large wings? It's largely so that it can take off, launch a military satellite into a polar orbit, and land back in the continental united states, without overflying russian territory.
I don't know where you picked this up from, but this is bullshit.
The precedent for flying over a country with a spacecraft was established with Sputnik. Go torrent the Nova episode "Sputnik Declassified."
We're too busy bombing democracy into people in foreign lands and spending billions of dollars per month to do so.
You got an 8 year old girl that wants to go into space?
Have her study her math, physics, *RUSSIAN* and *MANDARIN CHINESE*
Because the only way she's going to get there is with the countries that have the launch facilities and vehicles. We have *nothing* man-rated after STS-135. We don't even have spam-in-a-can on top of a fucking Titan, or Atlas like Gemini to get to the ISS.
But we sure have fucking cash to bomb the Afghanis, Pakistanis, Iraqis, Libyans, and Yemenis. Did I miss anyone there? I'm not entirely sure. Have we been bombing Somalia? What about Syria? Are we going to go there too? We certainly had plans as far back as 1991.
We certainly don't have money to subcontract it out to fucking Space-X. The bombs are worth more.
Fuckit. US space exploration is done. Throw dirt over the casket.
-- BMO - whose internal 7 year old is going to go cry in a corner because he'll never see anything inspiring like Apollo again.
Slashdot Mirror
Did you really suggest that education and money makes you honest?
Really?
HAVE YOU FUCKING LOOKED AROUND YOU?
--
BMO - Real thieves wear suits.
The point being that he wasn't intimidated by it.
Your reading comprehension sucks.
--
BMO
"Is it impolite to give a digital watch to a one-armed man?" - Gallagher
--
BMO
>So when Linux gets usability for "normal" people
OH THIS ARGUMENT AGAIN.
Let me tell you about Uncle Joe.
Uncle Joe really isn't my uncle. We just call him that. He's a greenhorn from The Old Country - Madeira. He's a machinist. His formal education only went to the 8'th grade in Madeira.
About 4 years ago he asked me about Linux. I said "sure, but you gotta understand that it's different" and I installed Ubuntu Dapper. After receiving not much feedback, I asked him later how he was getting along with it. He said "I don't see how it's supposedly difficult, it's like DOS and Windows."
He has since upgraded his computer and done his own installs in the meantime. He even went so far as to tell the salesdroid at Worst Buy that "no, I don't need Windows Ultimate, I'm going to install Linux" which he did.
If you cannot operate Linux these days, this means you are not as smart as a 50-something Portuguese immigrant with an 8'th grade education.
Have a nice day.
--
BMO
They use many more nuclear power plants than we do here in the Northeast US.
And don't misunderstand Germany's phasing out of nuclear. They're not replacing it with solar. They're simply going to be buying nuclear generated electricity from France.
"It's ok as long as it's someone else's problem"
--
BMO
False equivalency fallacy.
You just did it.
The Republicanists and their propaganda wing, Fox News, want you to believe that "the Democrats are just as bad as we are" to make it look like they're not as bad as they really are.
--
BMO
>Solar won't become economical? Is that a joke?
No, it's not a joke. And in places like here in the Northeast, it's totally out of the question.
Solar only works when the sun is out.
--
BMO
Republicanism is morally and fiscally bankrupt.
Deal with it.
--
BMO
Imagine what we could get done if we weren't spending billions per month on war.
Our problems with the budget have nothing to do with unemployment, welfare, SSI, or unions, or whatever monster that the Republicans say is hiding under the bed. It has everything to do with the fact that we're pissing money away on wars that we /did not and are not paying for/. (Cut taxes while fighting a war? Just who the fuck is claiming fiscal responsibility here?)
We give science short shrift here when it is /undisputed/ by people on both sides of the aisle (except for nutcases like Palin) that basic and applied science give valuable dividends to society as a whole.
And don't tell me that the "free market" and companies will take up the slack. PARC no longer exists and neither does Bell Labs. R&D has been the first thing to be cut by bean counters in the last 30 years.
--
BMO
You write as if what you do is science.
It's not.
Quack.
--
BMO
Well, if you want to play the literalist card, my message doesn't specify which direction "banana republic" is - either up or down.
or sideways.
--
BMO
Gmail is my problem?
I've had Internet email since the early 90s (bbs network email before that). I've never seen such a clean inbox until now. My oldest account, which is a private server across town, does greylisting. Over the past few years, spambots have become more RFC compliant and fucking re-send when confronted with a 4xx or 5xx error code.
RFC compliant spam? It's more likely than you think.
Sometimes I get upwards of 100 per day RFC compliant spam on that account. What does gmail do? When it pulls that account, it puts the spam where it belongs and I don't have to lift a finger. My other alternative was using Thunderbird's hit-or-miss flagging system. s
Since transferring everything to gmail a few months ago, I have not seen a single spam and I have not missed a single legitimate email. Don't tell me that gmail is a problem.
--
BMO - Lumber Cartel #2501 ba
It's too bad you posted as AC, because it's true.
And it's funny how the people who cut this will take pride in how our country is on the so-called cutting-edge of technology and science.
We're on the fast track to becoming a banana republic.
--
BMO
It was only in the 70s under Trudeau that you guys began to metricate. And when Mulroney got elected, well, that was that for the metric commission, leaving everything half-finished.
Blame resistance in cities like Peterborough and not the US for resistance to metrication.
It's not because of us here in the States. That's just your lame excuse.
--
BMO
When confronted with something I don't know, I do exactly what you did, I go and look it up. I can and do conversions from "English" to Metric and back again all the time. It's not terribly difficult. But I don't have myself convinced that I know absolutely everything about measurement systems. I'm not that arrogant.
I think asking for conversions to be inserted is asking a bit much, considering the quality of most Slashdot summaries. We're lucky when we get a cut-and-paste first paragraph without editorializing. Also, I don't see Americans on Slashdot asking for Fahrenheit, Pound, Foot conversions from articles dealing in metric.
> Some Americans have a tendency to think of anything other than an exact copy of their poilitical system as 'repressive' or 'not free' or even 'socialist' (or at least, what they think socialism is)
We think these people are stupid here too. I tend to wave a copy of this article from a business magazine in the faces of these people. http://www.inc.com/magazine/20110201/in-norway-start-ups-say-ja-to-socialism.html
When there's a social safety net, people are more willing to take the chance and start a business. As if this was not obvious.
--
BMO
Shush, don't confuse them with facts.
They just want to find some excuse, any, to foam at the mouth at how "stupid" Americans (and Canadians, because they use BTUs too) are. Proof exhibited by the bespittled responses to my previous message posted by people who couldn't be arsed to put their names next to them. (and I got modded offtopic, lolwut?) What's the matter, guys, afraid of demonstrating that you're just as ugly as you claim Americans are? Guess what, you just did.
Funny there typically isn't any [insert European cultural reference here] hate going the other way on Slashdot. It's just so "kewl" to hate Americans these days, isn't it?
They can mod this one down too. I have more karma than they have mod points. *cackle*
--
BMO
A BTU is a perfectly good standard. It's an actual measurement of energy like the calorie, just bigger and "English."
It's not our fault that you can't convert.
Queue raging Ameri-hate.
--
BMO
Repeat after me:
The executive branch submits the budget to Congress. This is the Constitutional requirement.
While Congress has the "power of the purse" the ship of state is steered by the President in this case.
--
BMO
The FCC does a pretty good job, and they are entirely fee and fine based.
--
BMO
>Democrats are married to Hollywood.
Protip: Hollywood is an equal opportunity bribe^W campaign contribution machine.
--
BMO
The difference is that blacklists are entirely voluntary.
Also...
Spammer spotted.
--
BMO - Lumber Cartel membership # 2501
Real Internet for those of us who know what we're doing.
Censored internet for the proles.
And we can lord it over them.
Good times to be had by all.
--
BMO
>modded troll within 5 minutes
I must have angered a PNAC member/war criminal.
Why more people are not angry about these fucking wars is beyond me. Fuck you guys.
Go ahead, mod this down too. I've got more karma than you have mod points.
--
BMO
>Do you know why the shuttle has large wings?
It's largely so that it can take off, launch a military satellite into a polar orbit, and land back in the continental united states, without overflying russian territory.
I don't know where you picked this up from, but this is bullshit.
The precedent for flying over a country with a spacecraft was established with Sputnik. Go torrent the Nova episode "Sputnik Declassified."
--
BMO
We're too busy bombing democracy into people in foreign lands and spending billions of dollars per month to do so.
You got an 8 year old girl that wants to go into space?
Have her study her math, physics, *RUSSIAN* and *MANDARIN CHINESE*
Because the only way she's going to get there is with the countries that have the launch facilities and vehicles. We have *nothing* man-rated after STS-135. We don't even have spam-in-a-can on top of a fucking Titan, or Atlas like Gemini to get to the ISS.
But we sure have fucking cash to bomb the Afghanis, Pakistanis, Iraqis, Libyans, and Yemenis. Did I miss anyone there? I'm not entirely sure. Have we been bombing Somalia? What about Syria? Are we going to go there too? We certainly had plans as far back as 1991.
We certainly don't have money to subcontract it out to fucking Space-X. The bombs are worth more.
Fuckit. US space exploration is done. Throw dirt over the casket.
--
BMO - whose internal 7 year old is going to go cry in a corner because he'll never see anything inspiring like Apollo again.