The endless search for drivers for USB thumb drives, etc.
My Thinkpad T21 came with Windows 2000. I recently upgraded to Ubuntu Dapper Drake. I have yet needed a driver. My Cannon flatbed scanner works, all my printers work. No driver downloads were needed. Right now I'm sitting in the waiting area of a tire shop using their wireless. Even my D-Link wireless card works.
Yeah, I tried Ubuntu Feisty for awhile and could not get my parallel port scanner to work at all, no matter what I tried, even though the SANE website said it was supported. OTOH, I have no problem with it, or any other hardware, working in Win2k. I'm not a MS fanboy by any means, and would love to switch to Linux, but there are too many problems with it that keep me using Windows. I tried Linux for months and gave up because of all the difficulty with it compared to Windows. I'm not a noobie when it comes to computers, having used, built and programmed them for over 20 years, but... it's just that, well, Windows works! As much as I hate to admit it, Windows is far easier to use than Linux with alot less compatibility problems. I couldn't even get a driver for Linux to allow my printer to use the cassette paper tray. Why not...it works in Windows. Trust me, as soon as Linux is Ready For The Desktop(tm), I'm switching, but 'til then I'm staying with Windows 2000.
...one of the main reasons I still use use Windows 2000! No DRM, no activation headaches, no secret file updates, no useless eye-candy, most stable MS OS ever... oh, the list just goes on....
"I shop there and I wondered about it too. Apparently as part of the agreement to be a member, they are allowed to do that. At least that is what the manager told me. He didn't have that handy at the time. I plan on pressing him on that later. As I recall, that is supposed to be one of the attractions to a members store. They can keep thieves at bay and therefore don't have to pass that cost along to those of us who don't steal."
Only thing is, with Circuit City, you aren't a "member" of anything. You are a customer, that's all, and not bound to any of their arbitrary store policies, E.I., you don't agree to anything when you enter that store and are therefore not required to show shit to them on the way out!
This is without doubt one of the most insightful posts I have ever seen on here! The fucked up thing is, it doesn't look like anyone is doing shit to change this situation. The sheeple in this fascist police state are happy with the status quo and all they care about is who won on American Idol or "what's Britney up to lately?" It's fucking sad that it will take this country becoming another Nazi Germany with people being rounded up by the thousands and murdered in death camps before the sheeple even realize what is happening. Unfortunately, by then it will be too late to do anything!
"Anyone? The 14-year-old rape victim? The forced underaged wife of a Mormon polygamist? The woman who learns on the ultrasound that the child is ancephalic and will not survive regardless? The woman who learns that she has a less than even chance of surviving the pregnancy?"
Yeah, we've all heard the "14 yeard old rape victim" line a million times. Only thing is, that just a very small percentage of abortions, most are for birth control because some lazy assholes forgot or just didn't care to use a condom, pill, etc.
"Well, assuming an user pays for the e-mail account, isn't this a breach of contract and false advertising? By "providing an e-mail account", it can be assumed no real mail is ever meant to be knowingly dropped.
Declaring those who haven't paid the protection racket as not "real mail" is not really something that I would envision as something which would pass a non-bribed judge."
Guess what, this is exactly how the USPS works. They are not responsible for making sure the mail is delivered unless you pay more for it, like certified mail, etc. How do I know? I was told this in so many words when I had mail lost and complained to the Post Office about it. It was basically, "if you want to make sure it gets there, have it insured, otherwise..."
"Ahh! So I should actually be washing my hands in my urine."
No, you are confusing the difference between sterile and disinfecting. While urine is sterile, that doesn't mean it kills germs, just that no germs are present.
"Try running IE7, WMP11 and a host of other apps on 2000."
I would prefer not to run any version of IE on my computer, and there are much better "media players" out there than WMP... like VLC media player, which I find to be very good! As far as "a host of other apps", I have had no problems running 99%+ of the software I have on Win2k.
"The extra DRM abilities of Vista do not stop you doing *anything* in comparison to any other OS. It simply allows you to play back media which you won't be able to play back on any OS which doesn't have the exact same restrictions. Beyond this, if you don't use this DRM infested media, there is no difference between using Vista, Mac OSX or Linux."
Very soon the MPAA and the RIAA will make sure that all you have is "DRM infested media", and I'm sure that the game manufacturers will be doing something along the same lines as well.
"But Vista makes it harder for a person with legitimate access to the HD content to back it up or shift it to another form of media. Not sure that's a step forward for anyone."
That's exactly what I was referring to. Users with a legimate need to back up their legally bought content will have a very difficult time doing so. The DRM they put in Vista won't stop pirates/hackers, but it will make life more difficult for everyone else.
BTW, I don't "torrent" all my movies...I use Netflix!
I have been using Windows 2000 for years now and have found it to be the best and most stable Windows OS so far. 95 and 98 were a constant headache with the BSOD and XP is just 2000 with a ton of useless eye candy, not to mention the PITA of product activation everytime you want to change the hardware.
Vista has proven itself to be as big a mistake as Windows ME. Nothing works with it, it is full of DRM crap that keeps you from doing anything and there is really no reason to "upgrade" to it anyway.
Sales are far below what MS thought they would be because no one really wants it anyway, witennesed by many government and corporate organizations even refusing to allow their systems to be switched over to it.
"While I agree that students should have rights, I have to ask: why shouldn't they be second-class citizens? They're not working and they're not nearly as capable as adults of making good decisions. I think "second-class citizen" is a rather good description of what they should be, as opposed to the "first-class citizens" who work and pay taxes for the upkeep of the city. The question, though, is about how many or how few rights second-class citizens should have."
Wrong, asshole. I started working when I was 14 years old, and no it wasn't at a lemonade stand. I worked full time during the summer and part time while attending school. Oh, and even though I didn't have the right to vote, I PAID TAXES!
You sound like the kind of person who probably thinks women and blacks should be considered second-class citizens as well.
"In any case I'll probably get -1'd just for saying "don't do the crime if you can't do the time." Don't illegally download music without understanding the risks of doing something illegally."
The girl was 7 fucking years old at the time she was ALLEDGED to have downloaded the music. How the hell do you expect a 7 year old to understand the laws concerning copyright infringement?
We can't have the poor Jews actually doing manual labour now, can we! They are 'God's chosen people' so we'd better just give them all of our money, while we work ourselves to the bone...
Those poor, powerless Jews... Funny how they own almost all the media in the western world, and decide almost all of our governments' policies... Against the wishes of the MAJORITY..."
He may have been modded a troll, and I'm sure I will be too, but I'm sorry, he's absolutely correct. It may not be popular to tell the truth around here, but the man is right, they DO run this fucking world and people better wake the hell up and see what's going on around them. BTW, how is saying "We are God's chosen people" any different than saying "We are the master race".? Tell me! Why is one ok and the other considered rascist?
"Most Americans do not realize that, in a democracy, the citizens are responsible for the actions of the government."
Most Americans do not realize that the USA is NOT a democracy.
"In a non-democracy (e.g., China), we correctly deflect criticism of the people since they have no say in the actions of the government. By that same reasoning, the citizens of a democracy are fully responsible for the actions of the government since the government answers to the citizens via the ballot box.
When the American government injures people in foreign lands, the American public is responsible and become a legitimate target of military attack."
No, the American public is not responsible for those wars as we did not get to vote on them. In fact, we didn't even elect the man that started those wars, we elected Al Gore. However, GWB, with help from his brother and the SCOTUS, overthrew the legally elected president and set up the fascist regime that is currently in power.
It's just like back in, oh whenever...the 70's or 80's... I forget, anyway when they fed 1000 times the normal dosage of saccharin to rats they developed cancer. Trying to extrapolate data by using 1000 times normal dosage isn't the most reliable form of research. Besides, maybe "everything" gives cancer to rats!:) Did any human ever come down with cancer from saccharin? My guess is no.
"Consider yourself lucky that we have exercised such restraint with our weapons, more restraint that I thought was possible from a country as fucked up as this one is."
Are you serious? Restaint? The USA is the ONLY country that has ever used nuclear weapons against another nation. Not to mention, against a civilian population... oh yeah, alot of restraint.
"The researchers then used a software that had been designed to spot subtle differences in brain activity to predict the person's intentions with 70% accuracy."
DA: Your Honor, we are 70% certain that the defendant was thinking about maybe shooting the president. Judge: Guilty! Take the defendant outside and have him shot immediately!
Damn, if there ever was a time to be wearing that tin foil hat...
"A drying coating of tri-nitrogen iodide on a table is a timed incendiary device, but it doesn't have any wires, batteries, das blinkenlights, or fuses."
Slashdot Mirror
The endless search for drivers for USB thumb drives, etc.
My Thinkpad T21 came with Windows 2000. I recently upgraded to Ubuntu Dapper Drake. I have yet needed a driver. My Cannon flatbed scanner works, all my printers work. No driver downloads were needed. Right now I'm sitting in the waiting area of a tire shop using their wireless. Even my D-Link wireless card works.
Yeah, I tried Ubuntu Feisty for awhile and could not get my parallel port scanner to work at all, no matter what I tried, even though the SANE website said it was supported. OTOH, I have no problem with it, or any other hardware, working in Win2k. I'm not a MS fanboy by any means, and would love to switch to Linux, but there are too many problems with it that keep me using Windows. I tried Linux for months and gave up because of all the difficulty with it compared to Windows. I'm not a noobie when it comes to computers, having used, built and programmed them for over 20 years, but... it's just that, well, Windows works! As much as I hate to admit it, Windows is far easier to use than Linux with alot less compatibility problems. I couldn't even get a driver for Linux to allow my printer to use the cassette paper tray. Why not...it works in Windows. Trust me, as soon as Linux is Ready For The Desktop(tm), I'm switching, but 'til then I'm staying with Windows 2000.
...one of the main reasons I still use use Windows 2000! No DRM, no activation headaches, no secret file updates, no useless eye-candy, most stable MS OS ever... oh, the list just goes on....
"I shop there and I wondered about it too. Apparently as part of the agreement to be a member, they are allowed to do that. At least that is what the manager told me. He didn't have that handy at the time. I plan on pressing him on that later. As I recall, that is supposed to be one of the attractions to a members store. They can keep thieves at bay and therefore don't have to pass that cost along to those of us who don't steal."
Only thing is, with Circuit City, you aren't a "member" of anything. You are a customer, that's all, and not bound to any of their arbitrary store policies, E.I., you don't agree to anything when you enter that store and are therefore not required to show shit to them on the way out!
This is without doubt one of the most insightful posts I have ever seen on here!
The fucked up thing is, it doesn't look like anyone is doing shit to change this situation.
The sheeple in this fascist police state are happy with the status quo and all they care about is who won on American Idol or "what's Britney up to lately?"
It's fucking sad that it will take this country becoming another Nazi Germany with people being rounded up by the thousands and murdered in death camps before the sheeple even realize what is happening. Unfortunately, by then it will be too late to do anything!
"Anyone? The 14-year-old rape victim? The forced underaged wife of a Mormon polygamist? The woman who learns on the ultrasound that the child is ancephalic and will not survive regardless? The woman who learns that she has a less than even chance of surviving the pregnancy?"
Yeah, we've all heard the "14 yeard old rape victim" line a million times. Only thing is, that just a very small percentage of abortions, most are for birth control because some lazy assholes forgot or just didn't care to use a condom, pill, etc.
200 years ago, owning a slave was a legal right too!
"Well, assuming an user pays for the e-mail account, isn't this a breach of contract and false advertising? By "providing an e-mail account", it can be assumed no real mail is ever meant to be knowingly dropped.
Declaring those who haven't paid the protection racket as not "real mail" is not really something that I would envision as something which would pass a non-bribed judge."
Guess what, this is exactly how the USPS works. They are not responsible for making sure the mail is delivered unless you pay more for it, like certified mail, etc.
How do I know? I was told this in so many words when I had mail lost and complained to the Post Office about it.
It was basically, "if you want to make sure it gets there, have it insured, otherwise..."
Yeah, nice little racket the USPS has too!
"Ahh! So I should actually be washing my hands in my urine."
No, you are confusing the difference between sterile and disinfecting. While urine is sterile, that doesn't mean it kills germs, just that no germs are present.
"Try running IE7, WMP11 and a host of other apps on 2000."
I would prefer not to run any version of IE on my computer, and there are much better "media players" out there than WMP... like VLC media player, which I find to be very good! As far as "a host of other apps", I have had no problems running 99%+ of the software I have on Win2k.
"The extra DRM abilities of Vista do not stop you doing *anything* in comparison to any other OS. It simply allows you to play back media which you won't be able to play back on any OS which doesn't have the exact same restrictions. Beyond this, if you don't use this DRM infested media, there is no difference between using Vista, Mac OSX or Linux."
Very soon the MPAA and the RIAA will make sure that all you have is "DRM infested media", and I'm sure that the game manufacturers will be doing something along the same lines as well.
"But Vista makes it harder for a person with legitimate access to the HD content to back it up or shift it to another form of media. Not sure that's a step forward for anyone."
That's exactly what I was referring to. Users with a legimate need to back up their legally bought content will have a very difficult time doing so. The DRM they put in Vista won't stop pirates/hackers, but it will make life more difficult for everyone else.
BTW, I don't "torrent" all my movies...I use Netflix!
Don't get Vista!
I have been using Windows 2000 for years now and have found it to be the best and most stable Windows OS so far. 95 and 98 were a constant headache with the BSOD and XP is just 2000 with a ton of useless eye candy, not to mention the PITA of product activation everytime you want to change the hardware.
Vista has proven itself to be as big a mistake as Windows ME. Nothing works with it, it is full of DRM crap that keeps you from doing anything and there is really no reason to "upgrade" to it anyway.
Sales are far below what MS thought they would be because no one really wants it anyway, witennesed by many government and corporate organizations even refusing to allow their systems to be switched over to it.
In a word, it's a disaster!
"While I agree that students should have rights, I have to ask: why shouldn't they be second-class citizens? They're not working and they're not nearly as capable as adults of making good decisions. I think "second-class citizen" is a rather good description of what they should be, as opposed to the "first-class citizens" who work and pay taxes for the upkeep of the city. The question, though, is about how many or how few rights second-class citizens should have."
Wrong, asshole. I started working when I was 14 years old, and no it wasn't at a lemonade stand. I worked full time during the summer and part time while attending school. Oh, and even though I didn't have the right to vote, I PAID TAXES!
You sound like the kind of person who probably thinks women and blacks should be considered second-class citizens as well.
Douche bag!
I, for one, don't get it either. :)
welcome our new yellow light emitting overlords!
"In any case I'll probably get -1'd just for saying "don't do the crime if you can't do the time." Don't illegally download music without understanding the risks of doing something illegally."
The girl was 7 fucking years old at the time she was ALLEDGED to have downloaded the music. How the hell do you expect a 7 year old to understand the laws concerning copyright infringement?
"Who runs the RIAA? It's the JEWS, stupid!
We can't have the poor Jews actually doing manual labour now, can we! They are 'God's chosen people' so we'd better just give them all of our money, while we work ourselves to the bone...
Those poor, powerless Jews... Funny how they own almost all the media in the western world, and decide almost all of our governments' policies... Against the wishes of the MAJORITY..."
He may have been modded a troll, and I'm sure I will be too, but I'm sorry, he's absolutely correct. It may not be popular to tell the truth around here, but the man is right, they DO run this fucking world and people better wake the hell up and see what's going on around them.
BTW, how is saying "We are God's chosen people" any different than saying "We are the master race".? Tell me! Why is one ok and the other considered rascist?
"Most Americans do not realize that, in a democracy, the citizens are responsible for the actions of the government."
Most Americans do not realize that the USA is NOT a democracy.
"In a non-democracy (e.g., China), we correctly deflect criticism of the people since they have no say in the actions of the government. By that same reasoning, the citizens of a democracy are fully responsible for the actions of the government since the government answers to the citizens via the ballot box.
When the American government injures people in foreign lands, the American public is responsible and become a legitimate target of military attack."
No, the American public is not responsible for those wars as we did not get to vote on them. In fact, we didn't even elect the man that started those wars, we elected Al Gore. However, GWB, with help from his brother and the SCOTUS, overthrew the legally elected president and set up the fascist regime that is currently in power.
"Astrology is real and science can prove it "
I'm a Libra, and we don't believe in astrology!
It's just like back in, oh whenever...the 70's or 80's... I forget, anyway when they fed 1000 times the normal dosage of saccharin to rats they developed cancer. Trying to extrapolate data by using 1000 times normal dosage isn't the most reliable form of research. Besides, maybe "everything" gives cancer to rats! :)
Did any human ever come down with cancer from saccharin? My guess is no.
"Those in the "control groups" that were fed non-GM potatoes suffered ill-effects"
Maybe pototoes are bad for rats. Doesn't mean they will be harmfull to humans.
"Consider yourself lucky that we have exercised such restraint with our weapons, more restraint that I thought was possible from a country as fucked up as this one is."
Are you serious? Restaint? The USA is the ONLY country that has ever used nuclear weapons against another nation. Not to mention, against a civilian population... oh yeah, alot of restraint.
"We are just sane enough not to throw people in jail for 'looking suspicious.'"
Have you been living in a cave since Sept. 11, 2001?
"The researchers then used a software that had been designed to spot subtle differences in brain activity to predict the person's intentions with 70% accuracy."
DA: Your Honor, we are 70% certain that the defendant was thinking about maybe shooting the president.
Judge: Guilty! Take the defendant outside and have him shot immediately!
Damn, if there ever was a time to be wearing that tin foil hat...
"A drying coating of tri-nitrogen iodide on a table is a timed incendiary device, but it doesn't have any wires, batteries, das blinkenlights, or fuses."
I think you meant nitrogen tri-iodide.