> We've had decades of shuttle launches, that this is now routine.
It stopped being routine when Challenger blew up. It became even less "routine" when Columbia disintegrated.
Oh well, I guess people risking their lives (there's a current story that large pieces of foam struck the shuttle on launch) isn't news, but rather some uninspiring BS about phone "communities" is.
I know, I have been trolled, but this made me rage.
No, it doesn't. Especially packaged as it is by Kubuntu. I had gone off to SuSE to find a working KDE 4.x and got it, mostly. I then updated to 4.3Beta and was encouraged even more, but when fish:// broke, I went back to Hardy.
4.3 Final will probably be the actual "good release" in my estimation *if it is not rushed*. 4.0-4.3RC were in no way, shape, or form ready for release to the world.
> Why they made it into the distros is beyond me.
If they were to be in the distros, they should have been clearly separated from KDE3.5, labeled as "Testing", and put into Multiverse. The real sin was removing 3.5 from the repos entirely. There was no reason for that except pure bloody-mindedness.
> but for some reason the end users started using it
The blame for that lays squarely on the shoulders of the Kubuntu team and others like it that shoved 4.x down everyone's throat and cut off 3.5 support. It wasn't the users' fault. With anything later than Hardy, you either use 4.x or you use Gnome. Some choice.
Running Hardy, because every release since then has sucked.
That's because Microsoft has been directly "leaking" 7 to the p2p sites this time around.
I put that in quotes because it should be obvious by now that the leaked builds of 7 have the blessings of Redmond. Remember, they will give it away to keep you from even considering alternatives.
"And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." William Gates III ca. 1998. http://tinyurl.com/nbo55t
"ASCAP protects the rights of its members by licensing and distributing royalties for the non-dramatic public performances of their copyrighted works. ASCAP's licensees encompass all who want to perform copyrighted music publicly."
Now Microsoft is estopped from going after people using c# and.net technologies.
This is the answer I've wanted from Miguel ever since the Novell brouhaha.
Promissory estoppel serves as a "consideration substitute" in contract law that renders certain promises otherwise lacking in consideration binding and enforceable. In such cases, the promisee's reliance is treated as an independent and sufficient basis for enforcing the promise. Promissory estoppel can be viewed as a legal device that prohibits the promissor from denying the existence of a contract for lack of consideration.
The days are certainly gone when Wired used to have people like Neal Stephenson write for them.
Wired used to be cool and had decent writers. Wired used to be something to/read/.
Now? We have this. A fluff advertisement column, but not only that, nothing about the tech end at all. Nothing about the engineering or anything really interesting except that it's a fast car and costs a lot of money. It's also written in the style of a high-school newspaper or Slashdot summary. Wired has become Maxim, but without the girls.
But don't pirate it. If you do, you're doing what Microsoft considers "the next best thing" - ignoring alternatives. Alternatives scare the piss out of Microsoft. Back when Microsoft didn't have a stranglehold on the market, people were happy enough pirating 95 and 98, while ignoring things like BeOS and OS/2 (both competitively priced and more powerful) and it suited Microsoft and Bill Gates just fine.^1 Both OS/2 and BeOS are gone from the market because of piracy's market distortion.
Hopefully Windows 7 will come with an even more strict WGA and OGA to extract more pain from consumers. Maybe they'll wake up.
-- BMO
1. Of course, Microsoft executives prefer that people buy, but theft can build market share more quickly, as company co-founder and Chairman Bill Gates acknowledged in an unguarded moment in 1998.
"Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though," Gates told an audience at the University of Washington. "And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." http://articles.latimes.com/2006/apr/09/business/fi-micropiracy9
Tell us how you know that Mono doesn't infringe on Microsoft's patents. Tell us how Moonlight doesn't infringe on Microsoft patents. Clear this stuff up.
Unless you and Novell answer this, without weasel words Mono and Moonlight and everything else you contribute to GNU/Linux based on Microsoft tech will be suspect.
One of the goals of a useful system is not to build within it a method of self-sabotage.
Miguel and Novell have/never/ come clean as to whether Mono (and now Moonlight) infringe upon Microsoft patents. They have skated around and doubletalked. Steve Ballmer has said that Linux infringes upon 135 (or so) patents. Novell and Miguel/expect/ us to take their word for it that Mono is somehow "safe"? With no evidence? I guess it's supposedly safe to Novell because Novell signed a non-aggression pact with Microsoft (peace in our time, eh?).
But what about everyone else? Nobody else is "protected" by that contract. It is/dangerous/ for the mainstream Linux distributions to incorporate Mono as a core technology, because some day Microsoft can come along later and point out "Hey, you infringe on/these/ patents. Now Pay Us $699 per user."
No. No quarter shall be given to/any/ of that bullshit. Microsoft has considered itself above the law ever since the Doublespace debacle and has no intentions, as far as I can tell, of changing its behavior.
Miguel de Icaza is "setting up us the bomb" with his Mono project whether he realizes it or not.
Hanlon's Razor can be turned and combined with a Clarke quote to say that "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice."
Hey, uh, wasn't he one of the ones that threw a tantrum (along with sam and marbux) when he didn't get his way with preserving Microsoft "dark matter" (undocumented RTF encoding) in ODF and then proclaimed that ODF is doomed to fail and all that nonsense when everyone told him to stuff it where it doesn't shine??
I am shocked. Simply shocked to see that he's extolling Microsoft's "virtues".
Nothing to see here, folks, just another softie trying to sabotage open standards by throwing chairs at it.
"Of course, there is some chance that regulated radio spectrum is more efficient than unregulated radio spectrum,"
There was a time when radio spectrum was totally unregulated.
It was utter chaos. Stations would literally jam other stations offensively. This is why the FCC came into being in the first place. The air waves are a public good and to avoid the "tragedy of the commons" it needs to be regulated, because we learned the hard way as the commons were already figuratively overgrazed.
That is not even to discuss the health effects of an unregulated electronics industry. How much X-Rays would you like to have with your CRT monitor, Mr. Smith?
The poster I replied to is arguing from total ignorance of the facts.
"Appropriations" is from Federal Funding "Regulatory Fees" is from People Who Actually Use The System (TM).
And I correct myself. It was during the CLINTON administration that the ball really got rolling with making the FCC self-sufficient. Reagan started it, but it was actually put into practice under the CLINTON administration.
"No, they don't. The part nobody seems to understand is that it's all all taxpayer dollars. Consumer tax payer dollars"
The part you don't understand is that the FCC makes a/lot/ of money from fees and fines, and very much less in taxes since the Reagan era.
For instance, you do not want to know what kind of fine you'll get if you're running a kilowatt linear amp in the Citizens Band frequencies. Last I looked, it's $8K and that was 10 years ago. It's likely more now.
So how much does the FCC get in taxpayer money in relation to its overall budget?
"Newly appointed FCC Chairman Kevin Martin went before the House Appropriations Committee April 26 to ask for authority to spend a little more than $304 million in fiscal year 2006.
Of the $304 million, all but about $4.8 million will come from regulatory fees, Martin proposed."
"For the sake of my privacy, the health of my laptop, and my own peace of mind, I'm reluctant."
As you should be.
"But telling my compatriots to go to our building supervisor and ask him for a desktop-on-a-cart, as they should do, is considered rude and unfriendly."
But you aren't the community PC guy, are you? You are being/used/. Not even mentioning your privacy or possibility of OS infection, what if someone simply drops the machine? I suspect you won't be able to get anyone to pay for the repair or replacement, as they are unwilling to get their own. If this keeps going on, you are going to have a broken computer/and/ a lot of resentment aimed at your so-called friends. This might sound harsh to you, but it is reality.
There is a solution to this, however. If your group is cohesive enough, maybe each can contribute to the acquisition of a "group computer." This is how the real world works, especially if you are acquainted with the concept of the "office group owned coffee pot and coffee kitty." Same concept. Those who contribute get to use the computer/coffee pot/whatever.
But if you continue on the current path you are on, it can only end badly.
Slashdot Mirror
40 years after Apollo 11...
Walter Cronkite is dead.
And that's the way it was. :-(
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/07/17/cronkite/
--
BMO
And this post is the worst evidence that you exist.
Prove to me that you're not a perl script.
As a matter of fact, I believe I can replace all anonymous cowards in this topic with a perl script channeling art bell quotes.
Come on, people can't be this dumb.
--
BMO
No, all product recalls are strictly voluntary.
You're dumb if you don't participate in a recall, though, because you /are/ compensated or given a safer/better-working/improved product in return.
This is not a recall.
--
BMO
> We've had decades of shuttle launches, that this is now routine.
It stopped being routine when Challenger blew up. It became even less "routine" when Columbia disintegrated.
Oh well, I guess people risking their lives (there's a current story that large pieces of foam struck the shuttle on launch) isn't news, but rather some uninspiring BS about phone "communities" is.
I know, I have been trolled, but this made me rage.
--
BMO
"I may not be a fancy big New York Country Lawyer or anything,"
The lawyer wasn't a big New York Country Lawyer either.
There's a /reason/ why Fark has a Florida tag.
--
BMO
I have a friend who is breeding cats for opposable thumbs and larger brains.
Forget Skynet.
We're done for.
--
BMO
> Since 4.2, KDE works just fine.
No, it doesn't. Especially packaged as it is by Kubuntu. I had gone off to SuSE to find a working KDE 4.x and got it, mostly. I then updated to 4.3Beta and was encouraged even more, but when fish:// broke, I went back to Hardy.
4.3 Final will probably be the actual "good release" in my estimation *if it is not rushed*. 4.0-4.3RC were in no way, shape, or form ready for release to the world.
> Why they made it into the distros is beyond me.
If they were to be in the distros, they should have been clearly separated from KDE3.5, labeled as "Testing", and put into Multiverse. The real sin was removing 3.5 from the repos entirely. There was no reason for that except pure bloody-mindedness.
--
BMO
Hardy's support doesn't end until April 2011.
> but for some reason the end users started using it
The blame for that lays squarely on the shoulders of the Kubuntu team and others like it that shoved 4.x down everyone's throat and cut off 3.5 support. It wasn't the users' fault. With anything later than Hardy, you either use 4.x or you use Gnome. Some choice.
Running Hardy, because every release since then has sucked.
--
BMO
That's because Microsoft has been directly "leaking" 7 to the p2p sites this time around.
I put that in quotes because it should be obvious by now that the leaked builds of 7 have the blessings of Redmond. Remember, they will give it away to keep you from even considering alternatives.
"And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." William Gates III ca. 1998. http://tinyurl.com/nbo55t
--
BMO
If I want realistic imagery and soopah dense meshes, I'll go outside.
Changing the theme is a bitch sometimes, though.
If I want to play a game, it had better be a /game/ because if it has suck-ass playability, it doesn't matter how dense the polygon meshes are.
Nethack/Rogue/Angband MUSH/MOO/ INFOCOM > $BADGAMEANYGRAPHICS
--
BMO
That would be ASCAP, not the RIAA.
"ASCAP protects the rights of its members by licensing and distributing royalties for the non-dramatic public performances of their copyrighted works. ASCAP's licensees encompass all who want to perform copyrighted music publicly."
http://www.ascap.com/about/
You're not allowed to encourage a behavior and then sue because someone took you at your word later.
That is "setting us up the bomb" and what promissory estoppel is supposed to rectify.
And I'm not a lawyer. Maybe NYCL or someone else can come here and explain further.
--
BMO
Now Microsoft is estopped from going after people using c# and .net technologies.
This is the answer I've wanted from Miguel ever since the Novell brouhaha.
Promissory estoppel serves as a "consideration substitute" in contract law that renders certain promises otherwise lacking in consideration binding and enforceable. In such cases, the promisee's reliance is treated as an independent and sufficient basis for enforcing the promise. Promissory estoppel can be viewed as a legal device that prohibits the promissor from denying the existence of a contract for lack of consideration.
http://www.lawnix.com/cases/promissory-estoppel.html
The days are certainly gone when Wired used to have people like Neal Stephenson write for them.
Wired used to be cool and had decent writers. Wired used to be something to /read/.
Now? We have this. A fluff advertisement column, but not only that, nothing about the tech end at all. Nothing about the engineering or anything really interesting except that it's a fast car and costs a lot of money. It's also written in the style of a high-school newspaper or Slashdot summary. Wired has become Maxim, but without the girls.
--
BMO
Microsoft warns against free operating systems. "They're so inferior! Look at ours, it runs the London Stock Exchange...oh wait."
--
BMO
If you don't like the price, then don't buy it.
Don't pirate it either. Use something else.
But don't pirate it. If you do, you're doing what Microsoft considers "the next best thing" - ignoring alternatives. Alternatives scare the piss out of Microsoft. Back when Microsoft didn't have a stranglehold on the market, people were happy enough pirating 95 and 98, while ignoring things like BeOS and OS/2 (both competitively priced and more powerful) and it suited Microsoft and Bill Gates just fine.^1 Both OS/2 and BeOS are gone from the market because of piracy's market distortion.
Hopefully Windows 7 will come with an even more strict WGA and OGA to extract more pain from consumers. Maybe they'll wake up.
--
BMO
1. Of course, Microsoft executives prefer that people buy, but theft can build market share more quickly, as company co-founder and Chairman Bill Gates acknowledged in an unguarded moment in 1998.
"Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though," Gates told an audience at the University of Washington. "And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." http://articles.latimes.com/2006/apr/09/business/fi-micropiracy9
I'm calling you out. Right now.
We know you're on Slashdot, so don't be a coward.
Tell us how you know that Mono doesn't infringe on Microsoft's patents. Tell us how Moonlight doesn't infringe on Microsoft patents. Clear this stuff up.
Unless you and Novell answer this, without weasel words Mono and Moonlight and everything else you contribute to GNU/Linux based on Microsoft tech will be suspect.
Thanks.
--
BMO
One of the goals of a useful system is not to build within it a method of self-sabotage.
Miguel and Novell have /never/ come clean as to whether Mono (and now Moonlight) infringe upon Microsoft patents. They have skated around and doubletalked. Steve Ballmer has said that Linux infringes upon 135 (or so) patents. Novell and Miguel /expect/ us to take their word for it that Mono is somehow "safe"? With no evidence? I guess it's supposedly safe to Novell because Novell signed a non-aggression pact with Microsoft (peace in our time, eh?).
But what about everyone else? Nobody else is "protected" by that contract. It is /dangerous/ for the mainstream Linux distributions to incorporate Mono as a core technology, because some day Microsoft can come along later and point out "Hey, you infringe on /these/ patents. Now Pay Us $699 per user."
No. No quarter shall be given to /any/ of that bullshit. Microsoft has considered itself above the law ever since the Doublespace debacle and has no intentions, as far as I can tell, of changing its behavior.
Miguel de Icaza is "setting up us the bomb" with his Mono project whether he realizes it or not.
Hanlon's Razor can be turned and combined with a Clarke quote to say that "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice."
Hey, uh, wasn't he one of the ones that threw a tantrum (along with sam and marbux) when he didn't get his way with preserving Microsoft "dark matter" (undocumented RTF encoding) in ODF and then proclaimed that ODF is doomed to fail and all that nonsense when everyone told him to stuff it where it doesn't shine??
I am shocked. Simply shocked to see that he's extolling Microsoft's "virtues".
Nothing to see here, folks, just another softie trying to sabotage open standards by throwing chairs at it.
--
BMO
picard.facepalm.jpg
Your post tells me why you're not an EE or even someone who wields a 'scope with both hands.
There's a lot more to keeping people from stepping on each other (or killing themselves) than what you proposed. Much... much more.
--
BMO
"Of course, there is some chance that regulated radio spectrum is more efficient than unregulated radio spectrum,"
There was a time when radio spectrum was totally unregulated.
It was utter chaos. Stations would literally jam other stations offensively. This is why the FCC came into being in the first place. The air waves are a public good and to avoid the "tragedy of the commons" it needs to be regulated, because we learned the hard way as the commons were already figuratively overgrazed.
That is not even to discuss the health effects of an unregulated electronics industry. How much X-Rays would you like to have with your CRT monitor, Mr. Smith?
The poster I replied to is arguing from total ignorance of the facts.
--
BMO
As a follow up, go to the FCC here:
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-279991A1.pdf
And look at the chart on page 41.
"Appropriations" is from Federal Funding
"Regulatory Fees" is from People Who Actually Use The System (TM).
And I correct myself. It was during the CLINTON administration that the ball really got rolling with making the FCC self-sufficient. Reagan started it, but it was actually put into practice under the CLINTON administration.
Let me say that again:
CLINTON.
--
BMO
"No, they don't. The part nobody seems to understand is that it's all all taxpayer dollars. Consumer tax payer dollars"
The part you don't understand is that the FCC makes a /lot/ of money from fees and fines, and very much less in taxes since the Reagan era.
For instance, you do not want to know what kind of fine you'll get if you're running a kilowatt linear amp in the Citizens Band frequencies. Last I looked, it's $8K and that was 10 years ago. It's likely more now.
So how much does the FCC get in taxpayer money in relation to its overall budget?
Let's look.
http://broadcastengineering.com/RF/Kevin-Martin-FCC-20050506/ (It's from 2005, but it's close enough for 2 digit precision)
"Newly appointed FCC Chairman Kevin Martin went before the House Appropriations Committee April 26 to ask for authority to spend a little more than $304 million in fiscal year 2006.
Of the $304 million, all but about $4.8 million will come from regulatory fees, Martin proposed."
So what was that you were saying?
"On the PC front, Crysis 2 will compete with the original Crysis, which still sets the bar for PC graphics."
Waaavy lines back to the days of UT, but substituting C2:
"Nice slide show, Stef, what is it?"
"Crysis 2"
--
BMO
"For the sake of my privacy, the health of my laptop, and my own peace of mind, I'm reluctant."
As you should be.
"But telling my compatriots to go to our building supervisor and ask him for a desktop-on-a-cart, as they should do, is considered rude and unfriendly."
But you aren't the community PC guy, are you? You are being /used/. Not even mentioning your privacy or possibility of OS infection, what if someone simply drops the machine? I suspect you won't be able to get anyone to pay for the repair or replacement, as they are unwilling to get their own. If this keeps going on, you are going to have a broken computer /and/ a lot of resentment aimed at your so-called friends. This might sound harsh to you, but it is reality.
There is a solution to this, however. If your group is cohesive enough, maybe each can contribute to the acquisition of a "group computer." This is how the real world works, especially if you are acquainted with the concept of the "office group owned coffee pot and coffee kitty." Same concept. Those who contribute get to use the computer/coffee pot/whatever.
But if you continue on the current path you are on, it can only end badly.
--
BMO