If you're changing distros because of the default desktop, you're doing it wrong.
The Ubuntu archives have several dozen desktops, window managers, etc, in the archives all for the pointing, clicking, and installing.
It's like the people who complain that Ubuntu is bloated, when you can start from a text-only minimal install and build up from there. Linux distributions, including Ubuntu, give you the tools to bend the distro to your will. Use them instead of complaining about things.
Your post is nothing but a flame pointed at Ubuntu.
All these shenanigans about Hydrogen being a perfectly clean fuel ignores the fact of where it comes from.
We don't get hydrogen from splitting water. That costs too much. We get it from natural gas, which has 1 carbon atom and 4 hydrogen atoms. This is done by steam reforming, and while it's possible to sequester the resulting CO2 by injecting it underground, it's not done by anyone. Because, again, it costs money.
We can also get it from coal, after conversion to "town gas" and that's not the cleanest of processes either.
Yes, I'm jaded. I used to be a true believer in this stuff, then I read more and grew up.
I know all about freenet. My point is that if you have bandwidth caps, transferring data in any meaningful amounts can lead to significant costs at the end of the month due to caps.
Until this business about caps ends, the only actual use for DFS and other "cloud" schemes is for a way-station for small amounts of files sent to/from your (or someone else's) phone or mobile device, which has a 2 or 3 GB monthly cap for total traffic - up and down, combined.
And when it comes to home broadband, try setting up having all your media files in the "cloud" - again, you run into caps, while larger, are still caps.
This stuff was supposed to be "too cheap to meter" because ISPs were supposed to be continuously improving their infrastructure, and we gave them billions in taxpayer money to do it, which they promptly shuffled off to their investors.
The "cloud" is dead, Sir. The ISPs are doing their best to make sure.
Cloud storage in general is useless when there are bandwidth caps, whether DFS or not. "Cloud storage" is only useful as an intermediary to share small amounts of files and that's it.
Nitpick: DFS=distributed file system. "DFS system" = distributed file system system
David Boies signed the Contract From Hell vis-a-vis SCO.
The contract had a cap on fees, and BS&F was to represent SCO vs IBM until the heat-death of the Universe, because they stood to gain a portion of the FIVE BILLION DOLLARS IBM was supposed to cough up.
If you, or your company, files lawsuits repeatedly for meritless reasons, you can rapidly find yourself being classified as a "vexatious litigant" where you need a court's approval before even filing a lawsuit.
Sure, Oracle can sue for anything. If they make an ass of themselves in the system, the system can slap them back. It happens. It happens with these "Sue 5,000 John Does" that various extortion-firms have filed against copyright infringers, like what happened to Righthaven, which no longer exists as a result.
If you or your company are using code as licensed, I don't see how you are under any risk. If it was as bad as you think it is, companies would simply have assassination squads instead of lawyers.
I'm taking this off on a tangent because of this - because most people don't know you *can* get a refund if you don't wait until the end.
I pirate because its more reasonable to delete the movie i hate, than to expect a refund after having sat through it at a theater.
If you walk out before a half hour is up and say "this movie sucks" you can easily get your money back.
CSB time:
Go see movie with GF. Not sure what to see We pick something that looks interesting. Some art movie or something, avoiding all the Hollywood stuff. Walk in, get ticket, sit in theater. Simples.
10 minutes later of dark sepia-toned silliness, because sepia-tone means art.
THIS IS THE MOST CONFUSING AND DISTURBINGLY BAD MOVIE I HAVE EVER SEEN. WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN
"Let's watch 5 minutes more to see if this makes sense." - Because it appears to want to make sense but for all the tea in China, can't. Appx 20 minutes of that goes by
Fuck it. Walk out
Walk to cashier, ask for refund. It's 35 minutes into the movie. Cashier calls over manager.
"Typically we don't give refunds after half an hour. Also, didn't you see the article in The Eye? It really is a terrible movie. Always read The Eye."
No, we hadn't read The Eye. Lesson learned.
Manager: "The movie sucks. Give them their money back."
To this day I don't remember the title of the movie. It was so awful that I have subconsciously blocked it from my mind./CSB
So was Java, and Google just spent roughly a bazillion dollars defending themselves for using something that looked like it. I can't afford to take on a case like that.
So you take the Oracle vs. Google case as Oracle eventually going after individual users of legitimately licensed code?
Nonsense.
As much as I think Larry Ellison is a douchebag, he is motivated by profit. The results of this last case were less than optimum for him, going away from the case with bupkis and a bunch of fees from BS&F. Alsup also established he fact that independent implementation of APIs are not copyright violations, ever, under current law, which had not been proven until now, which is a big win for everyone including Google, and a stupendous loss for Oracle.
Larry Ellison learned an expensive (David Boies doesn't come cheap) lesson here, that even his bluster and hubris doesn't win court cases.
Google was not the loser here.
ZFS and btrfs have free licenses and it's tough to put the worms back in the can once something is under a free license. Forks happen. Look at what happened to OpenOffice and Libre Office. Sure, Oracle can close off future code, but Very Useful Stuff like this gets forked by the community. There are enough smart people poking around in the guts of ZFS and btrfs that *do not* work for Oracle and the projects will continue on in the community even if only to give Oracle the finger.
>You can tell the DOJ wasn't really serious about protecting consumers, because in the end they did nothing at all to protect consumers.
What happened is that in the middle of everything, we went from Clinton to W and W's influence on the DOJ, and we all know how Republicans feel about regulation, any regulation at all.
Yet you are here on Slashdot, making your opinion publicly known.
And with the right amount of data mining, your alias here could probably be used to pin you down in meatspace.
At least I came to terms about it sometime last century on usenet (anyone remember the bitching and moaning about Deja-News and X-no-archive=yes?) and I don't whine about it.
I know that. You know that. But that argument has never worked on the vast majority of idiots with power that would cut all funding for "cool" science. So it has to be framed in a practical manner, because that's all they fucking understand.
As someone who has just re-watched James Burke's "Connections" I have an answer for you:
Basic science *never* appears to have any immediate applications in the here-and-now. But someone, somewhere, is going to look at bits of it and say "ah, wait, I can use this over here" and either advance more basic science, or start applying it to technology, aka, applied science. But we don't know who, which, how, when, or why. In general, that is how all change happens. It is why we can't look into the future and see all the implications of what we create today. You don't know how someone is going to look at what you did and have an insight into something else because of it.
If you think something is useless because you, personally, can't see the implications of what something is, the problem is not with the science or technology, or social concept (like the creation of the first stock market in the Netherlands, for example) and you judge it such, the problem is with you and your myopia. Putting limits on what science gets done because immediate results are not readily apparent does nothing but hinder progress, and society (you and me and everyone else) loses out in the long run.
James Clerk Maxwell's equations had *zero* immediate implications for society at the time, but here we are 150 years later with a society that would absolutely fall apart without them - no radio, no computers, no high tech at all.
Anyone who says that basic science is too unfocused needs sit down and be quiet and let the adults talk.
Slashdot Mirror
If you're changing distros because of the default desktop, you're doing it wrong.
The Ubuntu archives have several dozen desktops, window managers, etc, in the archives all for the pointing, clicking, and installing.
It's like the people who complain that Ubuntu is bloated, when you can start from a text-only minimal install and build up from there. Linux distributions, including Ubuntu, give you the tools to bend the distro to your will. Use them instead of complaining about things.
Your post is nothing but a flame pointed at Ubuntu.
--
BMO
All these shenanigans about Hydrogen being a perfectly clean fuel ignores the fact of where it comes from.
We don't get hydrogen from splitting water. That costs too much. We get it from natural gas, which has 1 carbon atom and 4 hydrogen atoms. This is done by steam reforming, and while it's possible to sequester the resulting CO2 by injecting it underground, it's not done by anyone. Because, again, it costs money.
We can also get it from coal, after conversion to "town gas" and that's not the cleanest of processes either.
Yes, I'm jaded. I used to be a true believer in this stuff, then I read more and grew up.
--
BMO
I know all about freenet. My point is that if you have bandwidth caps, transferring data in any meaningful amounts can lead to significant costs at the end of the month due to caps.
Until this business about caps ends, the only actual use for DFS and other "cloud" schemes is for a way-station for small amounts of files sent to/from your (or someone else's) phone or mobile device, which has a 2 or 3 GB monthly cap for total traffic - up and down, combined.
And when it comes to home broadband, try setting up having all your media files in the "cloud" - again, you run into caps, while larger, are still caps.
This stuff was supposed to be "too cheap to meter" because ISPs were supposed to be continuously improving their infrastructure, and we gave them billions in taxpayer money to do it, which they promptly shuffled off to their investors.
The "cloud" is dead, Sir. The ISPs are doing their best to make sure.
--
BMO
Release armies of flying cats.
Because if you're going to ignore what's in your database for two years, well, flying cats are better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-S4DZ_aWNuU#!
--
BMO
Cloud storage in general is useless when there are bandwidth caps, whether DFS or not. "Cloud storage" is only useful as an intermediary to share small amounts of files and that's it.
Nitpick: DFS=distributed file system. "DFS system" = distributed file system system
--
BMO
Then just release your code into the public domain if you don't want any copyright enforcement.
Where is your BSD-License god now?
--
BMO
There is no scam without a mark.
--
BMO
But /. cannot even accept child pornography is a problem.
So leave Slashdot.
Just get the fuck out if you think we're all pedophile coddlers.
Fucking seriously. Take your insult, print it out on oaktag, fold it until it is all sharp corners and shove it squarely up your ass.
If it was possible to punch you in the nose through the fiber, I would.
--
BMO
Always a classic:
Upside down Internet.
Howto.
http://www.ex-parrot.com/pete/upside-down-ternet.html
--
BMO
I'll be in my bunk.
--
BMO
David Boies signed the Contract From Hell vis-a-vis SCO.
The contract had a cap on fees, and BS&F was to represent SCO vs IBM until the heat-death of the Universe, because they stood to gain a portion of the FIVE BILLION DOLLARS IBM was supposed to cough up.
--
BMO
See, here's the thing...
If you, or your company, files lawsuits repeatedly for meritless reasons, you can rapidly find yourself being classified as a "vexatious litigant" where you need a court's approval before even filing a lawsuit.
Sure, Oracle can sue for anything. If they make an ass of themselves in the system, the system can slap them back. It happens. It happens with these "Sue 5,000 John Does" that various extortion-firms have filed against copyright infringers, like what happened to Righthaven, which no longer exists as a result.
If you or your company are using code as licensed, I don't see how you are under any risk. If it was as bad as you think it is, companies would simply have assassination squads instead of lawyers.
--
BMO
1. You are not that important
2. More serious answer: Going after end users is a waste of resources and Larry isn't as dumb as Darl McBride.
--
BMO
I'm taking this off on a tangent because of this - because most people don't know you *can* get a refund if you don't wait until the end.
I pirate because its more reasonable to delete the movie i hate, than to expect a refund after having sat through it at a theater.
If you walk out before a half hour is up and say "this movie sucks" you can easily get your money back.
CSB time:
Go see movie with GF. Not sure what to see
We pick something that looks interesting. Some art movie or something, avoiding all the Hollywood stuff.
Walk in, get ticket, sit in theater. Simples.
10 minutes later of dark sepia-toned silliness, because sepia-tone means art.
THIS IS THE MOST CONFUSING AND DISTURBINGLY BAD MOVIE I HAVE EVER SEEN.
WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN
"Let's watch 5 minutes more to see if this makes sense." - Because it appears to want to make sense but for all the tea in China, can't.
Appx 20 minutes of that goes by
Fuck it. Walk out
Walk to cashier, ask for refund. It's 35 minutes into the movie. Cashier calls over manager.
"Typically we don't give refunds after half an hour. Also, didn't you see the article in The Eye? It really is a terrible movie. Always read The Eye."
No, we hadn't read The Eye. Lesson learned.
Manager: "The movie sucks. Give them their money back."
To this day I don't remember the title of the movie. It was so awful that I have subconsciously blocked it from my mind. /CSB
--
BMO
So was Java, and Google just spent roughly a bazillion dollars defending themselves for using something that looked like it. I can't afford to take on a case like that.
So you take the Oracle vs. Google case as Oracle eventually going after individual users of legitimately licensed code?
Nonsense.
As much as I think Larry Ellison is a douchebag, he is motivated by profit. The results of this last case were less than optimum for him, going away from the case with bupkis and a bunch of fees from BS&F. Alsup also established he fact that independent implementation of APIs are not copyright violations, ever, under current law, which had not been proven until now, which is a big win for everyone including Google, and a stupendous loss for Oracle.
Larry Ellison learned an expensive (David Boies doesn't come cheap) lesson here, that even his bluster and hubris doesn't win court cases.
Google was not the loser here.
ZFS and btrfs have free licenses and it's tough to put the worms back in the can once something is under a free license. Forks happen. Look at what happened to OpenOffice and Libre Office. Sure, Oracle can close off future code, but Very Useful Stuff like this gets forked by the community. There are enough smart people poking around in the guts of ZFS and btrfs that *do not* work for Oracle and the projects will continue on in the community even if only to give Oracle the finger.
Your fears are overblown.
--
BMO
>Its REALLY simple; linux is not being locked out of desktops.
So what?
Why should Linux be locked out of ARM and portable devices?
Answer that, you fucking shill.
--
BMO
>You can tell the DOJ wasn't really serious about protecting consumers, because in the end they did nothing at all to protect consumers.
What happened is that in the middle of everything, we went from Clinton to W and W's influence on the DOJ, and we all know how Republicans feel about regulation, any regulation at all.
--
BMO
1. I am a soft atheist Teapot Spotter.
2. You're not helping
3. That's a mighty small island you're standing on.
--
BMO
Since when has it been socially acceptable for people like the Stormfront types in this thread to spout their uninformed bullshit?
2 Billion people, all terrorists. Right.
Go back to where you came from, assholes.
--
BMO
With regards to my previous post.
Disregard the tone. I totally misread what you wrote.
Need coffee.
--
BMO
Yet you are here on Slashdot, making your opinion publicly known.
And with the right amount of data mining, your alias here could probably be used to pin you down in meatspace.
At least I came to terms about it sometime last century on usenet (anyone remember the bitching and moaning about Deja-News and X-no-archive=yes?) and I don't whine about it.
--
BMO
Wow, you waited this long to reply, and this is what you reply with?
Meet your new status. Clearly you cannot be reasoned with in any way.
--
BMO
And Microsoft added artificial restrictions to Silverlight that made it useless for desktop programming.
Everyone tried to tell you this, that Microsoft would stab you in the back, Miguel, but you wouldn't listen.
--
BMO
We did it because SCIENCE IS FUCKING COOL.
I know that. You know that. But that argument has never worked on the vast majority of idiots with power that would cut all funding for "cool" science. So it has to be framed in a practical manner, because that's all they fucking understand.
--
BMO
As someone who has just re-watched James Burke's "Connections" I have an answer for you:
Basic science *never* appears to have any immediate applications in the here-and-now. But someone, somewhere, is going to look at bits of it and say "ah, wait, I can use this over here" and either advance more basic science, or start applying it to technology, aka, applied science. But we don't know who, which, how, when, or why. In general, that is how all change happens. It is why we can't look into the future and see all the implications of what we create today. You don't know how someone is going to look at what you did and have an insight into something else because of it.
If you think something is useless because you, personally, can't see the implications of what something is, the problem is not with the science or technology, or social concept (like the creation of the first stock market in the Netherlands, for example) and you judge it such, the problem is with you and your myopia. Putting limits on what science gets done because immediate results are not readily apparent does nothing but hinder progress, and society (you and me and everyone else) loses out in the long run.
James Clerk Maxwell's equations had *zero* immediate implications for society at the time, but here we are 150 years later with a society that would absolutely fall apart without them - no radio, no computers, no high tech at all.
Anyone who says that basic science is too unfocused needs sit down and be quiet and let the adults talk.
--
BMO