You have got to be fucking pulling my leg. Competition has been a fact of life since before homo sapiens, and it always will be in a universe of finite resources. Funny thing, however -- cooperation is just as much a fact of life, and one does not exclude the other.
It's been over a year since I watched any broadcast TV -- once they took Angel off the air, nothing else was worth it to me. And if anyone else turns on the TV in this house, I leave the room. Yes, it offends me that much. Nothing but bullshit propaganda, fear mongering, and worshipful paens to the State. All hail Der Staat!
Just as the War on Some Drugs can never be ended because it would "put too many people out of work", so do those opposing free minds and free markets viciously fight against any cracks in the Microsoft monocultural dike. After all, think of those poor buggy whip^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Htech support workers. How can they expect to feed their children in the face of secure, stable and reliable systems? You free software people, why do you hate children and America?
Well, here's my anecdotal experience, in stark contrast to your own. I've been using Firefox since before it was called Firebird, before it was called Phoenix, since it was "mozilla/browser". I heartily with this were a troll, but today I ditched Firefox 1.0 after it set a new record by crashing after running for TWENTY-THREE MINUTES on my Slackware Linux machine. Ever since Firebird 0.5, approximatel (can't recall for sure what it was called around then), stability has been an increasing problem; since Firefox 0.9, it was crashing a minimum of once a day, sometimes twice -- yesterday, four times -- spiralling out of control on CPU and memory usage, requiring manual kill of the processes. This continued even after disabling Java and Javascript, and with or without the single plugin I had installed (bugmenot). By contrast, Thunderbird has been running on this machine for nearly four months -- almost as long as the machine's total uptime -- and is still going strong.
I took a quick tour to re-acquaint myself with the Firefox alternatives, but so far all they're doing is reminding me of all the reasons I stopped using them. Back to Lynx, at least on Linux; the Windows version of Firefox has been very good until just recently, and is starting to occasionally crash, but still hasn't shown anywhere near the degree of instability I've seen under Linux.
One person's experience, your mileage may vary. I've been called an MS apologist plenty of times, and it won't kill me if that trend continues. But I'm damn thankful that Firefox under Windows is still performing okay for me, because I'd rather slice off my nuts with a rusty tuna can lid than touch Internet Explorer again.
We ran to catch food or escape an enemy, but for thousands of years when we wanted to go someplace, we walked. We weren't the fastest or strongest - we couldn't outrun quadrupeds. But in addition to outthinking them, we could outwalk them. Conquerors may have ridden on horseback, but the ones who came on foot and brought their tools and families were the organizers of civilization.
(somewhat paraphrased from The Magic of Walking, by Aaron Sussman and Ruth Goode)
I already knew Disney and Hollywood were protectionist thugs who, like all thugs, believe in one set of rules for them and another for the proles. But I didn't realize it's gotten even worse since the last time I ranted about this same subject.
Fuck the Mouse that Whined. Nobody has the right to interfere with free trade of lawfully obtained property between consenting adults.
It was my understanding that Linus does not ignore patents becaues he doesn't like them, but because it is his opinion that engineers and developers who attempt to research patents in the hope of avoiding trouble actually increase their risk of liability.
"I think this [website] comes from a few individuals in the open-source community, which
tends to paint a bad picture of the community as a whole. I think most in the open-source
community are good, hard-working developers that want to create some great things. It's
unfortunate that a few bad apples spoil the image of the whole group."
- Blake Stowell, September 25 2003
Thanks to SearchEnterpriseLinux for their coverage, but we must disagree with the statement
that our site "excerpts several comments SCO officials have allegedly made about Linux
during the past year or so." None of these comments are "allegedly" -- they're 100%
verifiable fact, statements made in front of God and everyone...which is the point of
providing links, so the reader can check the full original context. Of greater significance
is the assumption that our creation must be motivated by anger; since we don't know Darl
personally, our feelings could best be described as "affection". Like Saeed al-Sahaf,
McBride proves that "truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense."
With his rampant contradictions and defiance of all logic, he provides us with the finest
gift of all -- the gift of laughter. Rather than provide needless attempts at witty
commentary, we prefer to let his statements speak for themselves.
Stowell and company should recognize WLTSIM as being far less hostile to them than their
own crude propaganda was to the Linux community.
"Dear Darl McBride colon Having determined for myself that you and your band of scofflaws are as dead meat festering in the sun of Lindon and that his holiness Pope Stallman the First will one day dance upon the graves of you and your half-baked western heresies comma in all good conscience comma i must respectfully inform you that i would rather eat a half hyphen pound of diced earthworms raw than ever again have to stand within ten feet of your lice hyphen ridden comma foul hyphen smelling person comma and that further comma it is my considered opinion that all of your female ancestors must have mated with decidedly inferior breeds of bulls to produce to genuinely worthless a specimen of humanity as yourself period In hopes that this finds you dying of some singularly loathesome and painful disease comma i remain comma very truly yours comma archbishop sontag of the *eastern church*"
"You don't have any...*objections* to signing that, do you...my son?"
From "Interactive Multi-User Computer Games", Dec. 1990:
Running a MUA is not simply a case of mounting a game on a computer and inviting all-comers to play. MUAs arouse such emotions in their players that they will often resort to lying, cheating and vitriolic abuse to achieve whatever goals they have set themselves.
MUAs which are played mainly by teenagers are more likely to be violent and acrimonious than those played mainly by adults in their thirties.
Top-heavy games are hard to deal with, because once players have reached wiz level it is often impossible to remove them without causing even worse problems.
...almost every MUA has its prophets of doom who will tell anyone willing to listen that the game has gone downhill since the "fun" days of yesteryear, and it's only a matter of time before it keels over. Reviewers who are talking to players should be ready to hear this kind of morose rambling, and only give it credit if it is substantiated in talks with others.
Chris O'Rourke should be bitchslapped repeatedly across the face with a big, black rubber cock. I don't care if you're Satan himself -- if you approach me with honesty and a willingness to communicate, I'll return the favor, and I suspect most other people at Linux World would do the same. But if you lie about your identity and your motives, you're just a miserable fucktard. And if you're not some Joe Schmoe, but an official representative of a company, your entire company will be colored by your actions, regardless of whether you were acting on your own or under official orders. (As if MS's reputation could get any worse, at least among open source folks...)
You Slashdotteri always sound so awfully smug with your pinkies up and a copy of the article safely snocked away in your cache while us masses flail helplessly away at a dead server, clamoring for a crust of bread while you fat bastards eat all the pie. Er, um, cake. Anyway,
ELMO THINKS YOU HAVE NO SHAME!
I give you
From Crossbows to Cryptography. (And more corn.) Any physical possession requires not only the wherewithal to obtain it, but the knowledge and will to use it. The level of suffering required to provide sufficient motiviation in these areas varies in every individual.
Re:When and how will the tech arms race tip?
on
Ask Larry Niven
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Apply the Orwell Test:
"It is a commonplace that the history of civilisation is largely the history of
weapons. In particular, the connection between the discovery of gunpowder and the overthrow of feudalism by the bourgeoisie has been pointed out over and over again. And though I have no doubt exceptions can be brought forward, I think the following rule would be found to be generally true: that ages in which the dominant weapon is expensive or difficult to make will be ages of
despotism, wereas when the dominant weapon is cheap and simple, the common people have a chance. Thus, for example, tanks, battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical weapons, while rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon -- so long as there is no answer to it -- gives
claws to the weak."
George Orwell (1903-1950), "You and the Atom Bomb, essay for the TRIBUNE, October 19, 1945
Or, as James Donald put it:
"The evil of Digital Rights Management, like the evils of guns, depends on who has the gun and who has not.
"If only certain privileged people have guns, and the rest of us are disarmed, then guns are evil indeed.
"If trusted computing means that certain special people have ring -1 access to my computer, and I do not, and those certain special people are people I do not trust..."
Certainly not everyone will be able to financially afford technology. But as long as there is democratic access to it -- no privileged, favored class of people who are given special license to do what the majority are forbidden to do -- that will remain the most efficient and moral method of containing the violent impulses of the socially maladjusted.
Crossing my fingers
on
Ask Larry Niven
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Was your cease-and-desist regarding Elf Sternberg's
The Only Fair Game
motivated more by a personal aversion to the content, or a desire to retain control over
"your universe"? How does this jibe with your statement in Ringworld Engineers that "If you
want more Known Space stories, you'll have to write them yourself"?
Because credit cards are stupid -- because attempting to buy anything you can't afford is stupid. If you can't afford to pay 100% and own it right then and there, you can't afford it and have no business pretending you can.
Slashdot Mirror
You have got to be fucking pulling my leg. Competition has been a fact of life since before homo sapiens, and it always will be in a universe of finite resources. Funny thing, however -- cooperation is just as much a fact of life, and one does not exclude the other.
It's been over a year since I watched any broadcast TV -- once they took Angel off the air, nothing else was worth it to me. And if anyone else turns on the TV in this house, I leave the room. Yes, it offends me that much. Nothing but bullshit propaganda, fear mongering, and worshipful paens to the State. All hail Der Staat!
I can see "Your Rights", but I'm missing the "Online".
Just as the War on Some Drugs can never be ended because it would "put too many people out of work", so do those opposing free minds and free markets viciously fight against any cracks in the Microsoft monocultural dike. After all, think of those poor buggy whip^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Htech support workers. How can they expect to feed their children in the face of secure, stable and reliable systems? You free software people, why do you hate children and America?
The free market has no friends.
I took a quick tour to re-acquaint myself with the Firefox alternatives, but so far all they're doing is reminding me of all the reasons I stopped using them. Back to Lynx, at least on Linux; the Windows version of Firefox has been very good until just recently, and is starting to occasionally crash, but still hasn't shown anywhere near the degree of instability I've seen under Linux.
One person's experience, your mileage may vary. I've been called an MS apologist plenty of times, and it won't kill me if that trend continues. But I'm damn thankful that Firefox under Windows is still performing okay for me, because I'd rather slice off my nuts with a rusty tuna can lid than touch Internet Explorer again.
We ran to catch food or escape an enemy, but for thousands of years when we wanted to go someplace, we walked. We weren't the fastest or strongest - we couldn't outrun quadrupeds. But in addition to outthinking them, we could outwalk them. Conquerors may have ridden on horseback, but the ones who came on foot and brought their tools and families were the organizers of civilization. (somewhat paraphrased from The Magic of Walking, by Aaron Sussman and Ruth Goode)
...for those blinking-twelvers who have no idea whether their own camera is even turned on.
Fuck the Mouse that Whined. Nobody has the right to interfere with free trade of lawfully obtained property between consenting adults.
It was my understanding that Linus does not ignore patents becaues he doesn't like them, but because it is his opinion that engineers and developers who attempt to research patents in the hope of avoiding trouble actually increase their risk of liability.
"You don't have any...*objections* to signing that, do you...my son?"
They've thrown their hat over the wall, and no mad German scientist is gonna stop them now...
Chris O'Rourke should be bitchslapped repeatedly across the face with a big, black rubber cock. I don't care if you're Satan himself -- if you approach me with honesty and a willingness to communicate, I'll return the favor, and I suspect most other people at Linux World would do the same. But if you lie about your identity and your motives, you're just a miserable fucktard. And if you're not some Joe Schmoe, but an official representative of a company, your entire company will be colored by your actions, regardless of whether you were acting on your own or under official orders. (As if MS's reputation could get any worse, at least among open source folks...)
after the horse has left, but for what it's worth, there's Peer Guardian, which uses a constantly updated list of IP addresses which have been declared "bad".
as they used extensive samples of a documentary about the Powers incident during many live performances of their banned 'U2' single.
"Get rid of the computer."
I give you From Crossbows to Cryptography. (And more corn.) Any physical possession requires not only the wherewithal to obtain it, but the knowledge and will to use it. The level of suffering required to provide sufficient motiviation in these areas varies in every individual.
Was your cease-and-desist regarding Elf Sternberg's The Only Fair Game motivated more by a personal aversion to the content, or a desire to retain control over "your universe"? How does this jibe with your statement in Ringworld Engineers that "If you want more Known Space stories, you'll have to write them yourself"?
"There is no security in freedom -- only boundless opportunity."
Chicks dig OpenBSD.
Because credit cards are stupid -- because attempting to buy anything you can't afford is stupid. If you can't afford to pay 100% and own it right then and there, you can't afford it and have no business pretending you can.