Re:THE BIG FREAKING POINT.
on
SSSCA Hearing
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· Score: 1
Because heaven forbid there was any Art, Literature or Music before these global monopolies arose. The artists don't get this money and if you've been following the topics and links available on this forum you'd know that yes, it is precisely about guaranteeing that the media industries make lots of money.
You're suggesting that importing software development at the expense of our programmers is bad, but importing grain at the expense of our farmers is good. You weren't kidding when you said "Also purely from a selfish POV...."
Maybe I missed something in the quick scan, but neither article seemed to have a single reference to sweatshops. One instead explicitly states that Wipro, having raised wages substantially over the past five years, is now facing serious competition. The company is outsourcing programming from China to remain competitive. The other focuses partly on concern over India's digital divide between those working in the software field and the average population. Both imply that IT workers are very well off in their country. What sweatshops?
It's my opinion that non-Western countries, where the cost of MS licensing is prohibitive, are linux's greatest hope for mass acceptance. An army of potential users in the world's second largest country helps more than just Gnome.
Come on guys. Nothing is ever free. There is always a cost.
Does that mean Slashdot will begin paying for the submissions they accept?
Re:Gnome or KDE?
on
GNOME 2.0 Beta
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· Score: 2, Insightful
What you say is true, but emulating Windows is also a trap. It's hard to argue that the Windows model is an ideal way of managing the desktop, no matter what MS research on Windows users says. (Have they ever tested the Win desktop on Mac users?). A good example is the one you mentioned, forcing the wrist to the lower left of the screen every time a user wants to start an app. Where's the logic in that? Or in the adherence to a single desktop? These are configurations MS is forced to maintain because their market base became accustomed to it in '95.
It's also the reason MS can't make wholesale improvements. Their users would rebel over anything too new, no matter how much better it works. Should window managers then follow the same path, lock into a single desktop model for short term gain and foresake long term development potential. This Windowmaker/FVWM user votes no.
If I get this right, you're saying that a CDROM with the OS is more expensive to manufacturer and ship than a CDROM with a recovery partition? Does the recovery partition use higher quality bits?
The operation had nothing to do with humanitarianism or Africa-love on the part of Bush or Clinton. Several US oil companies, including Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips were positioned to exploit Somalia's rich oil reserves. The companies had secured billion-dollar concessions to explore and drill large portions of the Somali countryside during the reign of pro-US President Mohamed Siad Barre.
The last time time this was discussed on this forum, I searched the Web for information on Somalia's oils reserves. The only information I found listed Somalia's reserves as close to the lowest in the world. The country today has a total of 15 km of oil pipeline. Once again, a decade after the fact, does anyone have any hard technical data (not newspaper references) to justify this allegation?
To state the obvious, the uproar is over the legalese, not the tech. If you agree to the update you relinquish substantial control of your computer to Microsoft. And of course, you're in a high enough position of authority to guarantee the rest of us that it will always remain an option, right?
Not that contradictory. The EULA is enforced by government, reducing it's reach through more or altered legislation actually lessens government intervention.
Pure crap. What makes you think that the average technically competent buyer could understand the agreements to a legally valid degree? Corporate law is immensely complex and deeply nuanced. The only way perspective two has any validity is if a lawyer reviews every piece of Microsoft software before installation for every user, home or office. If that sounds fair to you, please don't ever run for office.
"Imagine a plan where the price is $50 and everyone can use the phone as often as they like. Most people will use only as many minutes as a $10 plan, while a handfull use as much as a $500 plan. Doesn't make any sense."
Bad example, because that's exactly the case. A person who rarely uses their home phone pays the same as someone with five teenagers and two dial-up accounts, long distance excluded. The phone companies don't charge for usage on local calls.
The other aspect, of course, is that Rogers customers have already signed a service agreement specifying one rate for uncapped access. How can the company legal justify unilaterally tearing up a signed contract without compensation to the other party? Or are cutomers the alone bound by the stipulations of the agreement?
Minidiscs are recorded in Sony's proprietary ATRAC format. No easily available computer drive bays or audio editors/software codecs exist, meaning a reporter would be required to re-record the entire interview in real time to.WAV for computer editing.
MP2 isn't lossless and MP3 mono is a big improvement for news gathering, the majority which is still done on Marantz or Sony portable cassette decks in the radio industry.
Sigh indeed. If a Windows-like GUI was all it took FVWM95 achieved this standard years ago. If simplicity for the end user was all it took, we would all have converted to Mac's years ago.
Most current users were dragged kicking and screaming mid-life into the computer age very, very recently and can't tolerate change. Their kids aren't hesitating and won't be as timid. The Windows GUI is irrelevant in the long run.
The test is simple. Has Chomsky ever written anything good about the US government or military, and has he ever considered them better than those of another country when interests conflicted? If the answer to both is no, then visceral hatred is the correct term and readers should be suspect of the complete lack of balance.
"The operation had nothing to do with humanitarianism or Africa-love on the part of Bush or Clinton. Several US oil companies, including Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips were positioned to exploit Somalia's rich oil reserves."
From a cursory Google search, at the time of the invasion there was no solid evidence of Somalia oil riches. It borders an oil rich area, and two geologists found promising signs after performing nine core tests, but it wasn't known if any potential reserves were extractable. These current goverment figures show Somalia has close to the lowest oil reserves in the world. According to the CIA factbook, Somalia today has a total of just 15 km of oil pipeline.
The crux of Chomsky's argument is that the US sent in troop to secure oils resources. I can't find any figures from qualified sources that they exist. A decade after the fact, have Chomsky's reasoning been confirmed?
Hmmmmmm, sfu.ca must mean Vancouver. After going through four months of hell during the Roger/Shaw transition - 40-50 kBs downloads, pings to their gateway exceeding 750 ms and zero technical support - I opted out for Telus DSL. It's apparently capped at 1.5, but in a back-to-back test still 2.5 x faster than Shaw cable. Two IP's for the same price too. Jump ship, you won't regret it.
Nice sentiment, but how would you know you don't like the article until after you read it? And once read, might as well comment. That is after all what Slashdot is about.
It's not that Open Source is a bad thing, it can actually be quite good. But it's ridiculous to assume it will ever completely replace the commercial software market.
Why? If you mean this to say that Open Source software, not having the development resources of a Microsoft, will never have as many features, I agree completely. However, it's irrelevent. Working closely supporting and developing software gives a false impression of how most people use the product, the majority of office users I supported struggled with the little 'X' in the top right hand corner. Most office and home users don't need or typically aren't aware of the range of features a product such as Word already provides. At some point any addition to commercially developed products will be meaningless to the vast majority.
Open Source will never advance as quickly, but it does advance. In time its applications will have as many features as anyone cares about, and still be free. Don't be too quick to write it off.
Somewhere I have a picture of (I believe) the police chief of Chicago back in the fifties watching as his mayor takes a sledge hammer to a pinball machine. For Slashdot readers too young to have seen one, a pinball machine was a mechanical device involving a steel ball, some solenoid actuated bumpers, a couple of electro-mechanical paddles and lots of gaudy paint. It was a photo op for the city's campaign to rid themselves of this corrupting and desensitizing influence. Since the city had just finished collecting and destroying ten large numbers of machines taken from independant operators, they most certainly felt just as strongly about pinball's influence as you do about violence/porn/horror.
"My right to live in a world where no one ever expresses a view different from my own?"
Was irony your intent? This group is working to prevent the marketting of these action figures through Congressional acton regardless of what your opinion may be about them. They are trying to make their opinion law and force manufacturers to abide by it. Earth shattering? No, but still well beyond 'living in a world without differing opinions.'
Right about the tone, wrong about the solution. The very concept of micropayments is bad. Using the power of open source to cut Microsoft out of the picture while leaving payments in place only shifts the money from one recipent to another, but it still comes out of our pockets. The solution isn't an alternate form of micropayment, kill the concept entirely.
Slashdot Mirror
Because heaven forbid there was any Art, Literature or Music before these global monopolies arose. The artists don't get this money and if you've been following the topics and links available on this forum you'd know that yes, it is precisely about guaranteeing that the media industries make lots of money.
You're suggesting that importing software development at the expense of our programmers is bad, but importing grain at the expense of our farmers is good. You weren't kidding when you said "Also purely from a selfish POV...."
It's my opinion that non-Western countries, where the cost of MS licensing is prohibitive, are linux's greatest hope for mass acceptance. An army of potential users in the world's second largest country helps more than just Gnome.
Does that mean Slashdot will begin paying for the submissions they accept?
It's also the reason MS can't make wholesale improvements. Their users would rebel over anything too new, no matter how much better it works. Should window managers then follow the same path, lock into a single desktop model for short term gain and foresake long term development potential. This Windowmaker/FVWM user votes no.
If I get this right, you're saying that a CDROM with the OS is more expensive to manufacturer and ship than a CDROM with a recovery partition? Does the recovery partition use higher quality bits?
Last I heard, Microsoft wasn't allowing companies, at least not my place of employment, to ghost images.
The last time time this was discussed on this forum, I searched the Web for information on Somalia's oils reserves. The only information I found listed Somalia's reserves as close to the lowest in the world. The country today has a total of 15 km of oil pipeline. Once again, a decade after the fact, does anyone have any hard technical data (not newspaper references) to justify this allegation?
To state the obvious, the uproar is over the legalese, not the tech. If you agree to the update you relinquish substantial control of your computer to Microsoft. And of course, you're in a high enough position of authority to guarantee the rest of us that it will always remain an option, right?
Not that contradictory. The EULA is enforced by government, reducing it's reach through more or altered legislation actually lessens government intervention.
Pure crap. What makes you think that the average technically competent buyer could understand the agreements to a legally valid degree? Corporate law is immensely complex and deeply nuanced. The only way perspective two has any validity is if a lawyer reviews every piece of Microsoft software before installation for every user, home or office. If that sounds fair to you, please don't ever run for office.
Bad example, because that's exactly the case. A person who rarely uses their home phone pays the same as someone with five teenagers and two dial-up accounts, long distance excluded. The phone companies don't charge for usage on local calls.
The other aspect, of course, is that Rogers customers have already signed a service agreement specifying one rate for uncapped access. How can the company legal justify unilaterally tearing up a signed contract without compensation to the other party? Or are cutomers the alone bound by the stipulations of the agreement?
Minidiscs are recorded in Sony's proprietary ATRAC format. No easily available computer drive bays or audio editors/software codecs exist, meaning a reporter would be required to re-record the entire interview in real time to .WAV for computer editing.
MP2 isn't lossless and MP3 mono is a big improvement for news gathering, the majority which is still done on Marantz or Sony portable cassette decks in the radio industry.
Most current users were dragged kicking and screaming mid-life into the computer age very, very recently and can't tolerate change. Their kids aren't hesitating and won't be as timid. The Windows GUI is irrelevant in the long run.
The test is simple. Has Chomsky ever written anything good about the US government or military, and has he ever considered them better than those of another country when interests conflicted? If the answer to both is no, then visceral hatred is the correct term and readers should be suspect of the complete lack of balance.
From a cursory Google search, at the time of the invasion there was no solid evidence of Somalia oil riches. It borders an oil rich area, and two geologists found promising signs after performing nine core tests, but it wasn't known if any potential reserves were extractable. These current goverment figures show Somalia has close to the lowest oil reserves in the world. According to the CIA factbook, Somalia today has a total of just 15 km of oil pipeline.
The crux of Chomsky's argument is that the US sent in troop to secure oils resources. I can't find any figures from qualified sources that they exist. A decade after the fact, have Chomsky's reasoning been confirmed?
Hmmmmmm, sfu.ca must mean Vancouver. After going through four months of hell during the Roger/Shaw transition - 40-50 kBs downloads, pings to their gateway exceeding 750 ms and zero technical support - I opted out for Telus DSL. It's apparently capped at 1.5, but in a back-to-back test still 2.5 x faster than Shaw cable. Two IP's for the same price too. Jump ship, you won't regret it.
The 7 billion others who didn't immigrate to your country, dickwad. Keep on bombing.
Yes.
Nice sentiment, but how would you know you don't like the article until after you read it? And once read, might as well comment. That is after all what Slashdot is about.
Why? If you mean this to say that Open Source software, not having the development resources of a Microsoft, will never have as many features, I agree completely. However, it's irrelevent. Working closely supporting and developing software gives a false impression of how most people use the product, the majority of office users I supported struggled with the little 'X' in the top right hand corner. Most office and home users don't need or typically aren't aware of the range of features a product such as Word already provides. At some point any addition to commercially developed products will be meaningless to the vast majority.
Open Source will never advance as quickly, but it does advance. In time its applications will have as many features as anyone cares about, and still be free. Don't be too quick to write it off.
Somewhere I have a picture of (I believe) the police chief of Chicago back in the fifties watching as his mayor takes a sledge hammer to a pinball machine. For Slashdot readers too young to have seen one, a pinball machine was a mechanical device involving a steel ball, some solenoid actuated bumpers, a couple of electro-mechanical paddles and lots of gaudy paint. It was a photo op for the city's campaign to rid themselves of this corrupting and desensitizing influence. Since the city had just finished collecting and destroying ten large numbers of machines taken from independant operators, they most certainly felt just as strongly about pinball's influence as you do about violence/porn/horror.
Was irony your intent? This group is working to prevent the marketting of these action figures through Congressional acton regardless of what your opinion may be about them. They are trying to make their opinion law and force manufacturers to abide by it. Earth shattering? No, but still well beyond 'living in a world without differing opinions.'
Right about the tone, wrong about the solution. The very concept of micropayments is bad. Using the power of open source to cut Microsoft out of the picture while leaving payments in place only shifts the money from one recipent to another, but it still comes out of our pockets. The solution isn't an alternate form of micropayment, kill the concept entirely.