Also, not to be pedantic or anything, but I believe the original quote is:
Homer: Oh, Lisa, I know how you feel. Did you know that when I was in grade school, I had a bully problem myself? (whip pan past a screen full of hippie daisies and psychedelic colors to the 1970s where a preteen Homer has a preteen Smithers pinned to a wall of lockers with his fist drawn back) Teenage Homer (singing): Everybody was (as he's punching Smithers in the stomach): kung-fu-fighting! (Smithers moans as a preteen Barney Gumble accompanies Homer's singing with a few notes on his recorder) Teenage Homer (continues singing): Those cats were (as he's punching Smithers in the stomach again): fast-as-lightning! (Smithers moans again. Homer finishes off his performance by punching the glasses off Smithers' face) (whip pan to the present) Homer: (chuckles) Good times.
Ok, firstly, the seven deadly sins is actually a Catholic device, and even then it's just a categorisation thing, it's not Biblical, from what I can tell. The majority of Texans are, from memory, Evangelical Christians? As a Christian, a sin is a sin is a sin - they're all bad, and we all do them, Christian or otherwise. In the eyes of God, they're actually all "equally bad", if that makes any sense. I'm not going to go into a lengthy discourse on why, but ask any Christian, and they'll be happy to help answer your question.
Read the bible - there is only one unforgivable sin - and that is to blaspheme the Holy Spirit, such as the Pharisees did. Everything else is by definition, forgivable via Jesus. Also, put it this way, if you're worried you've committed the unforgivable sin, then by definition you haven't (I'm paraphrasing Larry Richards here).
And in terms of proud of their faith...err, there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, according to the Bible, your God is actually one of the few things you're meant to be proud of, that and being saved from sin by Jesus, and all that. The Bible repeatedly tells you to be proud about your God, the living God etc. etc.
So your feeble attempt to accuse Christians of not knowing their faith just fell flat on it's face.
Now, as a Christian, if you were to accuse us of other things, I'd be happy to entertain you, and indulge in self-reflection. However, please use an actual valid point if you're going to try to do that. We've done some questionable things in the past, and I'm sure we'll continue to stumble, and pick ourselves up, going forward. The one thing that differentiates us if that we're saved via Jesus, and that's an external thing.
So I don't think Texans (or Christians) are proud, in the sense that you might use the word pride (e.g. proud of what you've achieved), they're simply proud that God has saved them.
Err, you said you want a "private wireless service"...what part of TURN ON THE DAMN PASSWORD doesn't make sense?
Sorry, but if you want a private wireless service, then turn on the password. Pretty much all routers these days make it a *very* seamless process. Having setup many routers for many friends/family friends/cats/dogs/budgies, most of them provide a wizard which actually prompts you for a password.
If you're silly enough to ignore that, or refuse to read your 3-step wizard (yes, I've seen people do this, do not ask me why), then I'm sorry, but it's your fault.
It's time people started taking responsibility for things like this. If you can't be bothered learning how to use a tool, then don't go complaining when you cut yourself with it later on.
And as poster below said, you did give them something. Whether intentionally, or through your own ignorance is irrelavent. Also, they didn't take it without your consent - you ever wonder why all important computer systems have a logon message "UNAUTHORISED USE PROHIBITED"? Because it's required by law to put that there - if you don't, who's to say it isn't?
Also, your IR camera analogy is as stupid as all the analogies about laser microphones. Any laptop computer, heck, most mobile phones these days have Wifi. Any of these are capable of doing what was done here. How many people do you know who have IR camera? (Gee, wanna guess how much they are? Put it this way, I can buy a second-hand 1996 Camry for the same money). Or laser microphones? Urgh get real.
That applies to recording telephone conversations.
If two people are in a public place, and I put an omnidirectional microphone down and happen to record them, I doubt I can be charged with anything really.
Heck, if I sit down on a bench and start dictating notes into my DVR (Digital Voice Recorder), and I happen to catch the people on the bench next to me talking about State of Origin, do you really think they're going to turn around and sue me?
Please. Even somebody eavesdropping on your conversation in a public place, at worst, you can say, "Oi, that's a bit rude mate!", and just walk a bit further away. I'm not exactly sure how you'd go about actually suing them for anything.
Err, you realise that *any* laptop computer, heck, most of the newer mobile phones these days have Wifi in-built?
Sorry, but your'e an idiot.
Laser microphones aren't even readily available to the public - here's an experiment - try googling for a place to buy one. I challenge you, go on - past the link here.
Now, a laptop computer...gee...where would I get one of those? Or a mobile phone with Wifi. Now I'm really stumped...
I can bet you that heaps of people, all over this awesome country are OMGGGGG ILLEGALLY CONNECTING to open wifi networks all the time. By default, many computers will connect to the strongest wifi connection in the area. Those same systems are capable of doing exactly what Google did here.
So yes, a reasonable person would expect somebody with an active Wifi device to be in the area. Heck, if I leave a Wifi AP open, with no password set on it, do you really think if I pasted some whiney rant on Slashdot about how some 15-year old "hacker" connected to it, I'd get any sympathy? Please.
I mean, look, if they were cracking WEP, pftt, I might be a little more apt to buy the government's story. I fail to see why they'd do that though. Here, they were just driving along and collecting open unpassword-protected wifi data. What's the big deal?
Yes, but there's a distinct flaw in your argument.
You see, there's a big difference between say, a normal Wifi card and your sensitive directional microphone. Driving past with a friggin $20 wifi card, I can pickup all your *open* wifi traffic. Nearly every laptop these days already has this inbuilt anyway. How many laptops do you know with inbuilt hyper-sensitive directional microphones that can pickup somebody's conversation inside a house.
Actually, as somebody who's played with this stuff, I can tell you that you have no idea what you're even talking about. Do you realise how hard it is to actually pick up a single conversation from outside a house. Sure, you can use a laser mic off a glass window say, but have you actually tried listening to the output from those? You'll be spending hours sitting there mucking around with low/high pass noise filters, trying to strip out the noise. Hell, you'd need thousands of dollars in equipment, several hours sitting there to tune it, and trained technicians to operate it...your metaphor sir, frankly, sucks...
Heck, my Nexus phone, or an iPhone, hell, that gimmicky ThinkGeek shirt with the wifi signal strength on the front could "intercept your wifi signal". You're not intercepting jack, ok, it's your fault for choosing not to encrypt your wifi traffic.
They had cops in Queensland driving around educating users on how to actually turn on friggin passwords on their wifi networks. If you're retarded enough to not turn on the password on your laptop, I'm sorry...but...it's just ridiculous in this day and age. Five years ago, when Wifi was "new" maybe, but not now. And your signal is being broadcast *outside* over somebody else's airspace, so it's not even trespass..
Look, it's like you put some desktop computers in a shopping centre, and "forget" to put up passwords on them, then go and cry to your mummy because somebody walked pass and used them, well, you're an idiot. I fail to see how this is that different.
When you log in to a computer, do you ever wonder why it says "AUTHORISED USE ONLY"? Or why it has pages and pages of legalese on how if you're not authorised you shouldn't use them? Because they're required by law to put those notices up - if you don't put them up, it's actually fair game (unless of course it's on private property, in which case you'd be committing trespass to use them.
Seriously, this whole thing is blown out of proportion.
Google bloody came clean and actually issued a press release saying whoops, we capture all debug data. Now governments are using it to get back at Google because they've exposed all their political pork-barrelling as a cheap attempt to buy votes from ignorant voters.
Err, I think it really depends on what exactly you're developing...
Software development, well, apart from the SDK, tools etc, and your wages, it usually doesn't take that much (unless you're developing for some weird exotic hardware).
However, having worked (as a student) in say, optics labs, I can tell you that stuff costs a metric tonne. Even a stupid light meter costs thousands. You add in all the exotic equipment you need for a fully-fledge lab, and you have a lot of money sitting there.
And from what I hear from my PHD friends, medical labs are even worse, and once you start involving people, the costs sky-rocket.
So yes, R&D can cost a lot.
Here, the CSIRO was developing wireless equipment, with what I assume was real hardware. So they probably had people churning out their own custom hardware and equipment for this. And probably a lot of expensive engineering simulation software - the sort where they give you a stupid hardware dongle, and ask for your first two children and a sacrifice to Baal. So yes, they can cost a lot.
Also, to the stupid idiot above, the CSIRO is around 50% funded by the government, but in it's mandate it's meant to get the remainder from commercialisation, e.g. from patents. You sir, are a twit.
And to the GP - kudos to you sir...haha...hippy commune...*laughs*....good call....
*sigh*, do Amercan schools not teach basic reading comprehension anymore?
If you actually did know how to read, you'd see the crux of my argument hinged on providing *incentives* to those drug companies to invest in developing those cures.
Let's take Bob Jones Drug Company. Bob spends billions of dollars, and 10 years and manages to finds a cure for say, malaria. He patents it, and starts selling the drug.
India comes along, says, gee gosh, I'm not going to pay these crazy Western prices, takes Bob's drug design, and starts churning it out himself.
Bob sees this, and says, well sod them. India then suffers from a epidemic of say, avian flu (yes, poor examples, but you get the point). People around the world look to Bob to develop a cure. He looks around, and sees the disease mostly afflicts developing countries. What do you think Bob is going to do?
"Well, f*ck them, they screwed me over last time, I'm going to go develop a cure for obesity".
I somehow doubt a lot of people in India are suffering from obesity. Malnutrition, mayhaps but I don't think a weight-loss drug is going to help them.
So you see, young padawan, you're screwing yourself over in the long term.
The barriers to entry for pharmaceutical research are *incredibly* high. You need obscene amounts of money, an established lab, experienced researchers (PHD's don't grow on trees, you know...), and a lot of know-how. And then several years to go through all the various stages of clinical trials (and another fat wad of cash).
If you can think of another way to incentivise these companies to invest billions and years of their lives into research, for no gain, please, do share.
And no, the government's not going to do it. Look at their track record with NASA...
Err, because it's not one single pharmaceutical company, but many? And if they don't do it, another will? The pharmaceutical industry is *fiercely* competitive, as well as requiring ludicrous amounts of money to fund.
It's a basic competitive market, with your normal supply-demand laws. Also, it's a bit cynical to think they'd never develop a cure - why the heck would they string you along for? The good PR for having developed *drumroll* the cure *drumroll* is benefit alone to any company, and a good way to show you're better than .
However, pharmaceutical companies are *incredibly* apprehensive about developing drugs for diseases afflicting the developing world, probably due to have been screwed over in the past for little profit. E.g.:
Look, they are certainly not saints, they're profit-driven companies, but you have to understand how they operate if you want to see how you can direct them towards the greater public good.
I'm sorry, but it's silly childish people like you who get us into messes like these.
If you actually bothered to read what I wrote, I said they were seeking short term gain (in this case, saving lives, as you say), for long-term harm (i.e. not saving many more lives in the future). Sorry, but at the end of the day, all your hyperbole about "THEY SAVE HUMAN LIVES" is useless.
By your same logic, these drug companies that invent these drugs, gosh, they should be put up on pedestals and worshipped, because they SAVE HUMAN LIVES. I for one have little faith that the Indians, Chinese, Brazillians, whatever, could do it themselves, not because they're not capable of intrinsically, but simply because they don't have the infrastructure, funds, or medical know-how yet.
I certainly don't like pharmaceutical companies, but I see them for what they are - profit-driven companies that are prepared to develop life-saving drugs as long as they can sell them. You take that away, and you're up s*it creek, seriously.
And please, the government has got to be one of the worst ways of investing in this - they're good for things with little chance of any profit in the near/medium term - E.g. public transport in population-ally sparse areas like Australia, or space exploration, a la NASA - but look at the incredibly bureaucratic mess that you have to put up with in those bodies (Cityrail in Australia and NASA in the US, to use my two examples).
You know, they've done studies on children, on delayed gratification, and yes, it takes a certain maturity to develop those skills. I'm certainly lacking it e.g. when it comes to gadgets, or beta software *grins*. However, it seems that near-sighted people like you are lacking it completely when it comes to critical things like SAVING PEOPLE'S LIVES!!! (sic).
Sorry, but for India/China, it's very much you reap what you sow. I mean, we already know the Chinese (btw, I am Chinese, just not from PRC) are prepared to do nearly anything for money. Hell, if they're prepared to put poison in eggs to make them cheaper, or put plastic in milk powder, they'll do anything. I suppose they can plead it's because they're poor though, ultimately it's a personal decision whether you think what they do is justified.
India and China both engage in various shady practices, so it's kind of funny to see them both screw each other over here.
Yes, but the end result is, India is just being short-sighted. They're flouting their obligations, to get some short-term gain, at the risk of damaging them and the rest of the world in the long term.
Put it this way, pharmaceutical research is one area where the old argument that patents help innovation really holds water. It's damn expensive to develop and trial a drug, and if there's no gain or the company thinks it's research will just be taken by some dirtbag like India and used then they're just not going to invest in that particular area.
Case in point - malaria research. Basically eradicated in the Western world, very little research done on it as compared to say, cancer or the hell, ironically even weight loss...
Whether you like pharmaceutical firms or not, countries like India and Brazil that screw over pharmaceutical companies are only shooting themselves (and the rest of the world) in the foot.
If they wanted, why doesn't India invest in it's own damn medical research huh? Gee, cause it's cheaper to just steal the research designs from other people who've developed it already, of course.
I have to agree. Say what you like about your conspiracy theories on pharameceutical firms, but there's little doubt that drug research is expensive. And they're the only ones big enough and with enough courage and resources to invest in it. It is *incredibly* expensive, both to do the research, then to run through the various clinical trial stages.
And if they don't think they can make money, they're just not going to do the research into it. For example, look at malaria - it's largely erradicated in developed countries, and research into malaria research at for-profit companies is much lower than for say, heart disease or cancers.
They're probably thinking - gee, if we make this drug, we can't sell it to people with money, we can only sell it to the poor countries. And knowing them, countries like India or Brazil or China will probably just take our research, steal our designs and undercut us with generics. So we actually make no money at all. Screw them, we're going to invest in making a cancer vaccine.
The end result is poor people lose. On the other hand, if they can make *some* money, as opposed to being completely undercut and making none at all, I'm sure they would - perhaps with a bit of prodding/grants from the government.
Well, as an Australian who's taxes funded the CSIRO research, I see no problem with it.
I mean, sure, we may pay more for those Wifi devices, but then so will everybody else - ultimately, they'll be net-flow in Australia's directions to the CSIRO, which they will use to fund more research.
The thing is, the CSIRO is very well respected, and has been consistently churning out good research, and helping pay PHD students since the 1920's...
I mean, they invented Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy. And Aeroguard - not sure if that's available overseas, but if you're an Australian you'll know what it is (a very good insect repellent). Polymer banknotes. Relenza (flu drug). Rabbit virii (Myxomatosis and calicivirus). And a few hundred other inventions - many with a heavy agriculture bias, simply by the nature of the needs in Australia, but they have branched out a bit, as the previous list shows.
Interestingly enough, they were also apparently the first Australian organisation to use the internet - and so were able to register the domain http://www.csiro.au/ (note the lack of a.com).
If a US government institute created something, and a Australian or a French company stole their invention, I don't think I'd see Americans up in arms about how unfair the patent system was...lol...in fact, I think they'd probably think well, fair's fair, they're a non-profit government organisation, so they'll collect the royalties and fund more research. Research labs don't build themselves, and in the case of human drugs in particular, clinical trials are *incredibly* expensive to run.
Please, let's not be naive. How exactly is Raptor Jesus *not* a joke about Jesus. *shakes head*. You atheists are funny =). Like I said, it's a joke, the raptor jesus one is a bit silly, the FSM is at least a bit more clever, but they're both jokes.
And let's examine your next point. Jesus's real name is...err, Jesus? It's passed through a few languages (English, from Latin, from Greek, from Hebrew), but it means "Yahweh delivers" in the original Hebrew. It's just a name. Messiah means "annoitned one", and is likewise a name.
Regarding the fact he didn't have children, err, he didn't, or at least we have no evidence he did. Please paste some links here to your sources that show he did, because I will eat my hat if they're credible.
And his writings not allowed into the bible? Ok, firstly, Jesus never *wrote* anything. Other people, his disciples, or Greek historians wrote down what he wrote. I assume here you're referring here to Apocryphal texts? Most of those have been debunked as frauds, and there's good reasons they're not in the Christian bible. Most of the gospels were written some 50 to 100 years after the death of Jesus. Ironically, that's actually a lot better than many other historical texts we rely on (Roman or Greek from that period).
"How could you not allow his own writings into the bible?". Err, like I said above, he never wrote anything. Zip, nada. And most of these fake works have been dated to what, several hundred hears after the canonical gospel works. And revealed as fakes. So it's not hard to see why we treat them as such.
Regarding the child molestation, well, I'm actually Protestant, but of course I'm outraged. It's a terrible thing, and a sin the church needs to absolve itself of. I don't think anybody's ever actually claimed otherwise, but of course, I assume there's plenty of conspiracy theories about cover-ups and such like.
The Mass - well, as I said, I'm protestant, but for us the bible is in whatever language is easiest and most accessible. We have Christians around the world translating the bible into many different languages - even some spoken in only small remote tribes or regions. We want it to be accessible. Jesus's original language was Aramaic - which these days is essentially dead, so they'd be little point of the bible being in that. The whole point is for anybody to be able to read it.
The Latin thing is I assume a historical throwback for the Catholics, there's probably history behind that, but you'd need to talk to a Catholic.
And Jesus wasn't white, he was Jewish...lol....all the historical texts points to so. Even writers like Taccitus, a respected Roman historian talks about a Jesus being crucified. He also said the Christians were idiots who believed in him, but at least we know there was a Jesus character who was crucified.
We even have historical evidence of Roman soldiers making fun of Christians for believing in a "crucified messiah", so we know at least that part is true. The historical veracity of Jesus is never in question, at least not by serious historians. The issue is whether he was actually the Son of God, and whether he actually rose. If these are both false, then he's just another Jewish guy who got crucified by the romans - and there were hundreds if not thousands of those.
And the beard/long hair - err, he was a Jew, since when do they consider them "unclean"? I'm really not sure where you're getting your facts from. Seriously, go talk to a Jew...lol.
Furthermore, he was (or so we believe, very strongly), the Son of God, so what he said goes, basically. And he did say he came to do away with a lot of the old legalistic traditions.
Regarding your straw-man fallacy about the child murderer into heaven - hmm, let's see, you have to actually repent to be let in. Whether a child murderer to use your example can actually repent, truly, well, that's between him and God. At the end of the day, we believe that 1. Everybody is sinful. Yes, everybody, even Mother Teresa, and 2. Techni
Oh please, that's complete rubbish, and you know it.
Firstly, they just want to be left alone? Get real. Every time there's a flare-up over this, Muslims around the world issue death threats, threaten fatwahs against those involved, and say they'll kill them all. Hardly the sort of rhetoric you expect from people who "just want to be left alone."
And secondly, how exactly does a goddamn photo hurt them? Or a drawing? So I, here, in Australia draw a picture of Mohammed. I don't even know what he's meant to look like, but say I do. How exactly does that hurt some other random person living in Bangladesh?
To me, it sounds like a spoilt little kid who just wants his way.
You say these things are "sensitive" to Muslims. You think having Christianity insulted isn't "sensitive" to Christians? Or Judaism to Jews? Or to "? Are Muslims somehow more "special"?
No, the only difference I can see is that they haven't grown up or matured yet, like other religions. The Jews have learnt to deal with being the butt of jokes for a long time. Likewise with most Christians - see my links to Raptor Jesus, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, heck, even Richard Dawkin's show on Christianity, the Root of Evil? I mean, really?
And you say that they don't care - if they did, then places like Pakistan and Bangladesh wouldn't be censoring the internet now, would they? Or you wouldn't get the sort of vile rhetoric from places like Saudi Arabia, or Iran about how the infidels should die, would you?
Regarding the bestsellers poking fun at Christianity, you say it reflects our society - err, yeah, a society with free speech, where people are free to say what they want? To be honest though, I suspect some of those sales are from Christians - I myself own most of Dawkin's books, as well as the Dan Brown novels, as well as several atheist or anti-Christianity books. It's useful to know what others think of us, and you'll end up needing to have answers to many of those questions if you ever try and share the gospel with somebody's who's read them.
And it's not just an "idea", it's an investment that they invested a bucketload of money in perfecting, probably more money than you and I have seen in our lives, and took them several years.
It's only naturally that after say, publishing a paper on it, they don't want to see other people come and read the paper, take those years of research, and make money off stupid consumers like you and I, without the original brains behind the invention getting a cent.
And they're a research institute. They're interested in creating good quality research, not in offshoring US jobs to China. It seems a bit ridiculous that you expect them to be a manufacturing house as well, in order to "keep" their inventment/research. That seems completely unfair.
The NIH does cancer research, AIDS research etc. You don't see Americans cry bloody murder when the NIH then goes to sue pharmaceutical giants that refuse to pay royalties do you? (I've already pasted the link to that above - but here it is again http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v6/n12/full/nm1200_1302a.html).
As somebody insightfully pointed out above, the money CSIRO makes from these royalties will be used to fund more research - recouping the government's investment in R&D, so to speak. We may pay more for Wifi devices, if the manufacturers try to pass it on (although I suspect the highly-competitive nature of the market may mitigate that somewhat), but ultimately they'll be a net inflow back to the Australian people.
From your statement, I'm going to assume you're US - see here, your NIH sues a pharmaceutical giant over missing drug royalties:
And NASA's been embroiled on the receiving side with patent litigation with Boeing.
Thing is, at the end of the day, this is the real world, and people like to protect the R&D they make. And as an Australian citizen, who's taxes fund this research, I would like to see the CSIRO being smart, as opposed to being dumb, and getting walked over by big manufacturers.
Mate, as an Australian, I have to say the CSIRO is one of the more respected bodies here. They're government funded (meaning we taxpayers fund them), but they are completely independent and they churn out some damn good research - sure, a lot of it's probably agriculture-oriented, but not all, as this shows.
To accuse them of being a patent troll is patently (pun intended:p) ridiculous.
Firstly, they're not a patent-house - they're a research institute, that does government-funded research. It'd be like accusing NASA, or DARPA, or say the NIH of being a patent troll. Here's a story of the NIH suing a pharmaceutical giant over missing royalties for an AIDS drug:
I don't exactly see Slashdotters up in arms accusing the NIH of being a patent troll. Is this some kind of weird US-centric bias?
Secondly, they happened to pick a place that favours people litigating on patents - what's the big deal? You'd expect them to pick a place that disfavoured patent holders? Please, why would they intentionally sabotage their case like that, it makes absolutely no sense at all - you can take your pick of any of the 50 US states, and you happen to pick one that doesn't like patent holders? Don't be silly. They obviously have lawyers with half a brain, and they happened to pick the right state. I think
As a Christian, I can tell you people make fun of us all the time. Heck, they've been doing it for around, what, 2000 years? And the Jews have probably suffered a lot longer. Thing is, every religion gets made fun of
I mean, seriously, has your head been under a sand. What do you think Raptor Jesus is? (http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Raptor_Jesus) Or say, the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Or how about all those bestselling books alleging Jesus was gay, or he had a family with kids, or some other ridiculous nonsense....
I actually find some of these funny, and a little comical (well, the FSM I think is actually clever/ironic, the Raptor Jesus meme is just a bit insipid/childish, but hey, it's the 4chan crowd, they're mostly 12-year olds kids).
You can either act like tantrum-throwing little kids, like some Muslims here are, or you can grow up and act like an adult, and shrug it off. It's not personal, they just don't believe the same things as you. And for a Christian, it just means they miss you on having God's awesome grace - so you should just pray for them, and be loving to them.
It's things like these that make Muslims look like backward primitives...*cue somebody declaring a fatwah against me*
Ok, by "every major distribution", what exactly are you referring to?
There's two things at play here.
Firstly, and this is important, so listen carefully - *nobody is forcing you to upgrade*. Sorry, if you don't the latest and greatest, *don't upgrade*. Now seriously, they release KDE 4.x, does your wonderful KDE 3.5 suddenly, and magically stop working? Is your "workflow thrown away", all of a sudden? I continue to be baffled by people like you.
It's the same logic going on in the Google Android world - all of sudden, because somebody releases new Android handsets - your handset is suddenly OH NOES, IT'S BROKENS!!!. Look, just because your shiny toy isn't the "newest", it doesn't detract from the fact that it's still exactly the same.
The KDE developers didn't sneak into your house in the dead of the night, and suddenly smash your KDE 3.5 computer. The mobile phone handset manufacturers didn't creep in, and break your Nexus One handset. I just ordered a Nexus One to Australia - now, the HTC Evo 4G is out - am I suddenly in an uprorar? Well fine, I'm a bit annoyed, drat, I should have waited a bit, but guess what? My Nexus One is still a damn phone, and it still does everything it was promised to do.
All the major distros - Debian, Fedora/Redhat, OpenSUSE (although recent events might change this...lol) - continue to maintain security patches for older versions, if that's what you're worried about.
In fact, going further, Debian still has KDE 3.5, from what I can tell, and it works fine.
Ubuntu, well, that's a Gnome distribution, first and foremost, so I won't comment on it. However, Kubuntu, even in the 4.x branch is an unholy piece of junk.
Older versions of Fedora still contain KDE 3.5.10, and Mandriva and OpenSUSE still do as well. See here: http://www.kde.org/info/3.5.10.php
You complain that nothing is being worked on. Sorry, but see above - nobody is forcing you to update. Just because they're not pushing out new features into that branch doesn't stop you from working as you were before.
Then we come to your little rant about calling the KDE developers children or immature...haha...this is quite funny to read, actually.
Perhaps you don't understand how open-source software works? Guess what it's *free* (in both senses of the word). If you don't like something, you're free to fork it, or gather a group of people, and fork it together. Seriously, it's just pathetic, how you take something that people have freely contributed to, then complain they're not doing it the way you want them to.
You know what, if you don't like it, you can get a full refund - how does that sound. You'll get your full purchase price back.
This is just a joke. Seriously, if you bought Windows, do you think you could take it back to the shop, and say "Gee, mate, I'm not happy with it, can I get a refund?". I know quite a few stores that would laugh you out - but look, even if you did manage to find somebody sympathetic enough to let you return a piece of opened software - you know what, they'd just give you your money back and tell you to get out...
Frankly, I'm sick of ungrateful people in the OSS community, who never give back.
Look, other people gave up their sweat and tears to give you this thing for free, ok. The least you can do is be polite about it, and show a little graciousness.
If you don't like something, you should do your duty - file a bug report (or write a constructive blog post, say). If you can point to a single place on the internet, where you've done that (as opposed to ranting), I'll be glad to retract to commend you for it.
Hmm, even for me, I have to say that's a bit cynical, mate...seriously....
It's also a completely ludicrous idea. Firstly, it'll take what, 20-30 years before African is up to American levels of consumption. If even then. And over those 20-30 years, you've have ploughed in more money than you could ever hope to possibly claim back.
Yeah, I don't have any more love for Bill Gates than the next man, in terms of shonky business practices and dodgy make-money schemes, but if you read what's been said, and watch the interviews, I think he's fairly genuine with the foundation. Whatever you want to believe his reasons - rich man's guilt, true altruisim, whatever - the end result is he's doing a lot of good.
He's absolutely right. At the end of the day, the KDE 4.x series moved as quickly as it did, probably because of broad user feedback. nothing beats good quality user feedback, or having people rant on their blogs about how software X should have feature Y etc.
And look, they weren't exactly unclear about it - they stated fairly openly that it was a beta-ish release, and they were trying to get user feedback. It's an open-source project, release early, release often.
Put it this way, if you can install KDE/Linux, I'm sure you can put up with a bit of quirkiness in your desktop manager, or file a bug report.
(Actually, ironically, I've worked with a lot of non-technical users, and for some things, they seem to just ignore/accept changes, weirdly enough - they just assume it's part of the "magic" of this black box. Weird but true).
Look, fine so it was a bit unpolished, but it's much more polished now. I have a feeling that it wouldn't be where it is now if they hadn't had the exposure they had, or if people hadn't gone on long rants on blogs on what they thought should change. Those comments helped get us to where we are now.
Sure, they probably could have been clearer in the communication, but I distinctly remember they saying that this was a "beta" release in many ways, and they just wanted to get broad user feedback. (And look, even people's beloved OSX - remember the point zero release of that? Pftt, it was even more laughable...yet they still hold Apple up as the panacea of polish nowadays. Double standards, some?).
Anyhow, I don't get all these silly whiners (this isn't directed at you in particular, btw), and their OH NOES, KDE 3.5 IS BETTER!!!. Nobody forced you to switch to 4.x. Either offer some constructive criticism, and file a bug report, or crawl back to your hole. It's not like you're forced to update to 4.x, for God's sake. And all this melodrama about how it killed the project, please. It's really starting to get painful to read.
It's nearly as bad as those immature little children on the Google Chrome Release blog, complaining about moving the bookmark star, or removing the "http://" from the URL bar - then threatening to leave for Firefox. E.g.:
Look, the Google team wrote the damn thing, if you don't like something, file a bug report or make a constructive blog post, but don't make these ridiculous and pathetically immature demands about how they "have" to change something, or you'll cry like a baby. It's just like the KDE team - they wrote it, if you don't like something, *talk* to them, they will listen, but please don't whine just for whining's sake. Grow up, kids.
Slashdot Mirror
heya,
Well said =).
Also, not to be pedantic or anything, but I believe the original quote is:
Homer: Oh, Lisa, I know how you feel. Did you know that when I was in grade school, I had a bully problem myself?
(whip pan past a screen full of hippie daisies and psychedelic colors to the 1970s where a preteen Homer has a preteen Smithers pinned to a wall of lockers with his fist drawn back)
Teenage Homer (singing): Everybody was (as he's punching Smithers in the stomach): kung-fu-fighting!
(Smithers moans as a preteen Barney Gumble accompanies Homer's singing with a few notes on his recorder)
Teenage Homer (continues singing): Those cats were (as he's punching Smithers in the stomach again): fast-as-lightning!
(Smithers moans again. Homer finishes off his performance by punching the glasses off Smithers' face)
(whip pan to the present)
Homer: (chuckles) Good times.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Simpsons#Bye_Bye_Nerdie_.5B12.16.5D
Cheers,
Victor
heya,
Haha, silly little boy...*grins*.
Ok, firstly, the seven deadly sins is actually a Catholic device, and even then it's just a categorisation thing, it's not Biblical, from what I can tell. The majority of Texans are, from memory, Evangelical Christians? As a Christian, a sin is a sin is a sin - they're all bad, and we all do them, Christian or otherwise. In the eyes of God, they're actually all "equally bad", if that makes any sense. I'm not going to go into a lengthy discourse on why, but ask any Christian, and they'll be happy to help answer your question.
Read the bible - there is only one unforgivable sin - and that is to blaspheme the Holy Spirit, such as the Pharisees did. Everything else is by definition, forgivable via Jesus. Also, put it this way, if you're worried you've committed the unforgivable sin, then by definition you haven't (I'm paraphrasing Larry Richards here).
And in terms of proud of their faith...err, there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, according to the Bible, your God is actually one of the few things you're meant to be proud of, that and being saved from sin by Jesus, and all that. The Bible repeatedly tells you to be proud about your God, the living God etc. etc.
So your feeble attempt to accuse Christians of not knowing their faith just fell flat on it's face.
Now, as a Christian, if you were to accuse us of other things, I'd be happy to entertain you, and indulge in self-reflection. However, please use an actual valid point if you're going to try to do that. We've done some questionable things in the past, and I'm sure we'll continue to stumble, and pick ourselves up, going forward. The one thing that differentiates us if that we're saved via Jesus, and that's an external thing.
So I don't think Texans (or Christians) are proud, in the sense that you might use the word pride (e.g. proud of what you've achieved), they're simply proud that God has saved them.
Cheers,
Victor
heya,
$5000, I believe, non-adjusted for inflation *grins*.
Cheers,
Victor
heya,
Err, you said you want a "private wireless service"...what part of TURN ON THE DAMN PASSWORD doesn't make sense?
Sorry, but if you want a private wireless service, then turn on the password. Pretty much all routers these days make it a *very* seamless process. Having setup many routers for many friends/family friends/cats/dogs/budgies, most of them provide a wizard which actually prompts you for a password.
If you're silly enough to ignore that, or refuse to read your 3-step wizard (yes, I've seen people do this, do not ask me why), then I'm sorry, but it's your fault.
It's time people started taking responsibility for things like this. If you can't be bothered learning how to use a tool, then don't go complaining when you cut yourself with it later on.
And as poster below said, you did give them something. Whether intentionally, or through your own ignorance is irrelavent. Also, they didn't take it without your consent - you ever wonder why all important computer systems have a logon message "UNAUTHORISED USE PROHIBITED"? Because it's required by law to put that there - if you don't, who's to say it isn't?
Also, your IR camera analogy is as stupid as all the analogies about laser microphones. Any laptop computer, heck, most mobile phones these days have Wifi. Any of these are capable of doing what was done here. How many people do you know who have IR camera? (Gee, wanna guess how much they are? Put it this way, I can buy a second-hand 1996 Camry for the same money). Or laser microphones? Urgh get real.
Cheers,
Victor
heya,
You're an idiot.
That applies to recording telephone conversations.
If two people are in a public place, and I put an omnidirectional microphone down and happen to record them, I doubt I can be charged with anything really.
Heck, if I sit down on a bench and start dictating notes into my DVR (Digital Voice Recorder), and I happen to catch the people on the bench next to me talking about State of Origin, do you really think they're going to turn around and sue me?
Please. Even somebody eavesdropping on your conversation in a public place, at worst, you can say, "Oi, that's a bit rude mate!", and just walk a bit further away. I'm not exactly sure how you'd go about actually suing them for anything.
Cheers,
Victor
heya,
Err, you realise that *any* laptop computer, heck, most of the newer mobile phones these days have Wifi in-built?
Sorry, but your'e an idiot.
Laser microphones aren't even readily available to the public - here's an experiment - try googling for a place to buy one. I challenge you, go on - past the link here.
Now, a laptop computer...gee...where would I get one of those? Or a mobile phone with Wifi. Now I'm really stumped...
I can bet you that heaps of people, all over this awesome country are OMGGGGG ILLEGALLY CONNECTING to open wifi networks all the time. By default, many computers will connect to the strongest wifi connection in the area. Those same systems are capable of doing exactly what Google did here.
So yes, a reasonable person would expect somebody with an active Wifi device to be in the area. Heck, if I leave a Wifi AP open, with no password set on it, do you really think if I pasted some whiney rant on Slashdot about how some 15-year old "hacker" connected to it, I'd get any sympathy? Please.
I mean, look, if they were cracking WEP, pftt, I might be a little more apt to buy the government's story. I fail to see why they'd do that though. Here, they were just driving along and collecting open unpassword-protected wifi data. What's the big deal?
Cheers,
Victor
heya,
Yes, but there's a distinct flaw in your argument.
You see, there's a big difference between say, a normal Wifi card and your sensitive directional microphone. Driving past with a friggin $20 wifi card, I can pickup all your *open* wifi traffic. Nearly every laptop these days already has this inbuilt anyway. How many laptops do you know with inbuilt hyper-sensitive directional microphones that can pickup somebody's conversation inside a house.
Actually, as somebody who's played with this stuff, I can tell you that you have no idea what you're even talking about. Do you realise how hard it is to actually pick up a single conversation from outside a house. Sure, you can use a laser mic off a glass window say, but have you actually tried listening to the output from those? You'll be spending hours sitting there mucking around with low/high pass noise filters, trying to strip out the noise. Hell, you'd need thousands of dollars in equipment, several hours sitting there to tune it, and trained technicians to operate it...your metaphor sir, frankly, sucks...
Heck, my Nexus phone, or an iPhone, hell, that gimmicky ThinkGeek shirt with the wifi signal strength on the front could "intercept your wifi signal". You're not intercepting jack, ok, it's your fault for choosing not to encrypt your wifi traffic.
They had cops in Queensland driving around educating users on how to actually turn on friggin passwords on their wifi networks. If you're retarded enough to not turn on the password on your laptop, I'm sorry...but...it's just ridiculous in this day and age. Five years ago, when Wifi was "new" maybe, but not now. And your signal is being broadcast *outside* over somebody else's airspace, so it's not even trespass..
Look, it's like you put some desktop computers in a shopping centre, and "forget" to put up passwords on them, then go and cry to your mummy because somebody walked pass and used them, well, you're an idiot. I fail to see how this is that different.
When you log in to a computer, do you ever wonder why it says "AUTHORISED USE ONLY"? Or why it has pages and pages of legalese on how if you're not authorised you shouldn't use them? Because they're required by law to put those notices up - if you don't put them up, it's actually fair game (unless of course it's on private property, in which case you'd be committing trespass to use them.
Seriously, this whole thing is blown out of proportion.
Google bloody came clean and actually issued a press release saying whoops, we capture all debug data. Now governments are using it to get back at Google because they've exposed all their political pork-barrelling as a cheap attempt to buy votes from ignorant voters.
Cheers,
Victor
heya,
Err, I think it really depends on what exactly you're developing...
Software development, well, apart from the SDK, tools etc, and your wages, it usually doesn't take that much (unless you're developing for some weird exotic hardware).
However, having worked (as a student) in say, optics labs, I can tell you that stuff costs a metric tonne. Even a stupid light meter costs thousands. You add in all the exotic equipment you need for a fully-fledge lab, and you have a lot of money sitting there.
And from what I hear from my PHD friends, medical labs are even worse, and once you start involving people, the costs sky-rocket.
So yes, R&D can cost a lot.
Here, the CSIRO was developing wireless equipment, with what I assume was real hardware. So they probably had people churning out their own custom hardware and equipment for this. And probably a lot of expensive engineering simulation software - the sort where they give you a stupid hardware dongle, and ask for your first two children and a sacrifice to Baal. So yes, they can cost a lot.
Also, to the stupid idiot above, the CSIRO is around 50% funded by the government, but in it's mandate it's meant to get the remainder from commercialisation, e.g. from patents. You sir, are a twit.
And to the GP - kudos to you sir...haha...hippy commune...*laughs*....good call....
Cheers,
Victor
heya,
*sigh*, do Amercan schools not teach basic reading comprehension anymore?
If you actually did know how to read, you'd see the crux of my argument hinged on providing *incentives* to those drug companies to invest in developing those cures.
Let's take Bob Jones Drug Company. Bob spends billions of dollars, and 10 years and manages to finds a cure for say, malaria. He patents it, and starts selling the drug.
India comes along, says, gee gosh, I'm not going to pay these crazy Western prices, takes Bob's drug design, and starts churning it out himself.
Bob sees this, and says, well sod them. India then suffers from a epidemic of say, avian flu (yes, poor examples, but you get the point). People around the world look to Bob to develop a cure. He looks around, and sees the disease mostly afflicts developing countries. What do you think Bob is going to do?
"Well, f*ck them, they screwed me over last time, I'm going to go develop a cure for obesity".
I somehow doubt a lot of people in India are suffering from obesity. Malnutrition, mayhaps but I don't think a weight-loss drug is going to help them.
So you see, young padawan, you're screwing yourself over in the long term.
The barriers to entry for pharmaceutical research are *incredibly* high. You need obscene amounts of money, an established lab, experienced researchers (PHD's don't grow on trees, you know...), and a lot of know-how. And then several years to go through all the various stages of clinical trials (and another fat wad of cash).
If you can think of another way to incentivise these companies to invest billions and years of their lives into research, for no gain, please, do share.
And no, the government's not going to do it. Look at their track record with NASA...
Cheers,
Victor
heya,
Err, because it's not one single pharmaceutical company, but many? And if they don't do it, another will? The pharmaceutical industry is *fiercely* competitive, as well as requiring ludicrous amounts of money to fund.
It's a basic competitive market, with your normal supply-demand laws. Also, it's a bit cynical to think they'd never develop a cure - why the heck would they string you along for? The good PR for having developed *drumroll* the cure *drumroll* is benefit alone to any company, and a good way to show you're better than .
However, pharmaceutical companies are *incredibly* apprehensive about developing drugs for diseases afflicting the developing world, probably due to have been screwed over in the past for little profit. E.g.:
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2498
Look, they are certainly not saints, they're profit-driven companies, but you have to understand how they operate if you want to see how you can direct them towards the greater public good.
Cheers,
Victor
heya,
I'm sorry, but it's silly childish people like you who get us into messes like these.
If you actually bothered to read what I wrote, I said they were seeking short term gain (in this case, saving lives, as you say), for long-term harm (i.e. not saving many more lives in the future). Sorry, but at the end of the day, all your hyperbole about "THEY SAVE HUMAN LIVES" is useless.
By your same logic, these drug companies that invent these drugs, gosh, they should be put up on pedestals and worshipped, because they SAVE HUMAN LIVES. I for one have little faith that the Indians, Chinese, Brazillians, whatever, could do it themselves, not because they're not capable of intrinsically, but simply because they don't have the infrastructure, funds, or medical know-how yet.
I certainly don't like pharmaceutical companies, but I see them for what they are - profit-driven companies that are prepared to develop life-saving drugs as long as they can sell them. You take that away, and you're up s*it creek, seriously.
And please, the government has got to be one of the worst ways of investing in this - they're good for things with little chance of any profit in the near/medium term - E.g. public transport in population-ally sparse areas like Australia, or space exploration, a la NASA - but look at the incredibly bureaucratic mess that you have to put up with in those bodies (Cityrail in Australia and NASA in the US, to use my two examples).
You know, they've done studies on children, on delayed gratification, and yes, it takes a certain maturity to develop those skills. I'm certainly lacking it e.g. when it comes to gadgets, or beta software *grins*. However, it seems that near-sighted people like you are lacking it completely when it comes to critical things like SAVING PEOPLE'S LIVES!!! (sic).
Cheers,
Victor
heya,
Haha, oh man, the irony....lol...
Sorry, but for India/China, it's very much you reap what you sow. I mean, we already know the Chinese (btw, I am Chinese, just not from PRC) are prepared to do nearly anything for money. Hell, if they're prepared to put poison in eggs to make them cheaper, or put plastic in milk powder, they'll do anything. I suppose they can plead it's because they're poor though, ultimately it's a personal decision whether you think what they do is justified.
India and China both engage in various shady practices, so it's kind of funny to see them both screw each other over here.
Cheers,
Victor
heya,
Yes, but the end result is, India is just being short-sighted. They're flouting their obligations, to get some short-term gain, at the risk of damaging them and the rest of the world in the long term.
Put it this way, pharmaceutical research is one area where the old argument that patents help innovation really holds water. It's damn expensive to develop and trial a drug, and if there's no gain or the company thinks it's research will just be taken by some dirtbag like India and used then they're just not going to invest in that particular area.
Case in point - malaria research. Basically eradicated in the Western world, very little research done on it as compared to say, cancer or the hell, ironically even weight loss...
Whether you like pharmaceutical firms or not, countries like India and Brazil that screw over pharmaceutical companies are only shooting themselves (and the rest of the world) in the foot.
If they wanted, why doesn't India invest in it's own damn medical research huh? Gee, cause it's cheaper to just steal the research designs from other people who've developed it already, of course.
Cheers,
Victor
heya,
I have to agree. Say what you like about your conspiracy theories on pharameceutical firms, but there's little doubt that drug research is expensive. And they're the only ones big enough and with enough courage and resources to invest in it. It is *incredibly* expensive, both to do the research, then to run through the various clinical trial stages.
And if they don't think they can make money, they're just not going to do the research into it. For example, look at malaria - it's largely erradicated in developed countries, and research into malaria research at for-profit companies is much lower than for say, heart disease or cancers.
They're probably thinking - gee, if we make this drug, we can't sell it to people with money, we can only sell it to the poor countries. And knowing them, countries like India or Brazil or China will probably just take our research, steal our designs and undercut us with generics. So we actually make no money at all. Screw them, we're going to invest in making a cancer vaccine.
The end result is poor people lose. On the other hand, if they can make *some* money, as opposed to being completely undercut and making none at all, I'm sure they would - perhaps with a bit of prodding/grants from the government.
Cheers,
Victor
heya,
Well, as an Australian who's taxes funded the CSIRO research, I see no problem with it.
I mean, sure, we may pay more for those Wifi devices, but then so will everybody else - ultimately, they'll be net-flow in Australia's directions to the CSIRO, which they will use to fund more research.
The thing is, the CSIRO is very well respected, and has been consistently churning out good research, and helping pay PHD students since the 1920's...
I mean, they invented Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy. And Aeroguard - not sure if that's available overseas, but if you're an Australian you'll know what it is (a very good insect repellent). Polymer banknotes. Relenza (flu drug). Rabbit virii (Myxomatosis and calicivirus). And a few hundred other inventions - many with a heavy agriculture bias, simply by the nature of the needs in Australia, but they have branched out a bit, as the previous list shows.
Interestingly enough, they were also apparently the first Australian organisation to use the internet - and so were able to register the domain http://www.csiro.au/ (note the lack of a .com).
If a US government institute created something, and a Australian or a French company stole their invention, I don't think I'd see Americans up in arms about how unfair the patent system was...lol...in fact, I think they'd probably think well, fair's fair, they're a non-profit government organisation, so they'll collect the royalties and fund more research. Research labs don't build themselves, and in the case of human drugs in particular, clinical trials are *incredibly* expensive to run.
Cheers,
Victor
heya,
Please, let's not be naive. How exactly is Raptor Jesus *not* a joke about Jesus. *shakes head*. You atheists are funny =). Like I said, it's a joke, the raptor jesus one is a bit silly, the FSM is at least a bit more clever, but they're both jokes.
And let's examine your next point. Jesus's real name is...err, Jesus? It's passed through a few languages (English, from Latin, from Greek, from Hebrew), but it means "Yahweh delivers" in the original Hebrew. It's just a name. Messiah means "annoitned one", and is likewise a name.
Regarding the fact he didn't have children, err, he didn't, or at least we have no evidence he did. Please paste some links here to your sources that show he did, because I will eat my hat if they're credible.
And his writings not allowed into the bible? Ok, firstly, Jesus never *wrote* anything. Other people, his disciples, or Greek historians wrote down what he wrote. I assume here you're referring here to Apocryphal texts? Most of those have been debunked as frauds, and there's good reasons they're not in the Christian bible. Most of the gospels were written some 50 to 100 years after the death of Jesus. Ironically, that's actually a lot better than many other historical texts we rely on (Roman or Greek from that period).
"How could you not allow his own writings into the bible?". Err, like I said above, he never wrote anything. Zip, nada. And most of these fake works have been dated to what, several hundred hears after the canonical gospel works. And revealed as fakes. So it's not hard to see why we treat them as such.
Regarding the child molestation, well, I'm actually Protestant, but of course I'm outraged. It's a terrible thing, and a sin the church needs to absolve itself of. I don't think anybody's ever actually claimed otherwise, but of course, I assume there's plenty of conspiracy theories about cover-ups and such like.
The Mass - well, as I said, I'm protestant, but for us the bible is in whatever language is easiest and most accessible. We have Christians around the world translating the bible into many different languages - even some spoken in only small remote tribes or regions. We want it to be accessible. Jesus's original language was Aramaic - which these days is essentially dead, so they'd be little point of the bible being in that. The whole point is for anybody to be able to read it.
The Latin thing is I assume a historical throwback for the Catholics, there's probably history behind that, but you'd need to talk to a Catholic.
And Jesus wasn't white, he was Jewish...lol....all the historical texts points to so. Even writers like Taccitus, a respected Roman historian talks about a Jesus being crucified. He also said the Christians were idiots who believed in him, but at least we know there was a Jesus character who was crucified.
We even have historical evidence of Roman soldiers making fun of Christians for believing in a "crucified messiah", so we know at least that part is true. The historical veracity of Jesus is never in question, at least not by serious historians. The issue is whether he was actually the Son of God, and whether he actually rose. If these are both false, then he's just another Jewish guy who got crucified by the romans - and there were hundreds if not thousands of those.
And the beard/long hair - err, he was a Jew, since when do they consider them "unclean"? I'm really not sure where you're getting your facts from. Seriously, go talk to a Jew...lol.
Furthermore, he was (or so we believe, very strongly), the Son of God, so what he said goes, basically. And he did say he came to do away with a lot of the old legalistic traditions.
Regarding your straw-man fallacy about the child murderer into heaven - hmm, let's see, you have to actually repent to be let in. Whether a child murderer to use your example can actually repent, truly, well, that's between him and God. At the end of the day, we believe that 1. Everybody is sinful. Yes, everybody, even Mother Teresa, and 2. Techni
heya,
Oh please, that's complete rubbish, and you know it.
Firstly, they just want to be left alone? Get real. Every time there's a flare-up over this, Muslims around the world issue death threats, threaten fatwahs against those involved, and say they'll kill them all. Hardly the sort of rhetoric you expect from people who "just want to be left alone."
And secondly, how exactly does a goddamn photo hurt them? Or a drawing? So I, here, in Australia draw a picture of Mohammed. I don't even know what he's meant to look like, but say I do. How exactly does that hurt some other random person living in Bangladesh?
To me, it sounds like a spoilt little kid who just wants his way.
You say these things are "sensitive" to Muslims. You think having Christianity insulted isn't "sensitive" to Christians? Or Judaism to Jews? Or to "? Are Muslims somehow more "special"?
No, the only difference I can see is that they haven't grown up or matured yet, like other religions. The Jews have learnt to deal with being the butt of jokes for a long time. Likewise with most Christians - see my links to Raptor Jesus, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, heck, even Richard Dawkin's show on Christianity, the Root of Evil? I mean, really?
And you say that they don't care - if they did, then places like Pakistan and Bangladesh wouldn't be censoring the internet now, would they? Or you wouldn't get the sort of vile rhetoric from places like Saudi Arabia, or Iran about how the infidels should die, would you?
Regarding the bestsellers poking fun at Christianity, you say it reflects our society - err, yeah, a society with free speech, where people are free to say what they want? To be honest though, I suspect some of those sales are from Christians - I myself own most of Dawkin's books, as well as the Dan Brown novels, as well as several atheist or anti-Christianity books. It's useful to know what others think of us, and you'll end up needing to have answers to many of those questions if you ever try and share the gospel with somebody's who's read them.
Sorry, but your post is full of rubbish
Cheers,
Victor
heya,
Err, yes it does, you silly twit.
And it's not just an "idea", it's an investment that they invested a bucketload of money in perfecting, probably more money than you and I have seen in our lives, and took them several years.
It's only naturally that after say, publishing a paper on it, they don't want to see other people come and read the paper, take those years of research, and make money off stupid consumers like you and I, without the original brains behind the invention getting a cent.
And they're a research institute. They're interested in creating good quality research, not in offshoring US jobs to China. It seems a bit ridiculous that you expect them to be a manufacturing house as well, in order to "keep" their inventment/research. That seems completely unfair.
The NIH does cancer research, AIDS research etc. You don't see Americans cry bloody murder when the NIH then goes to sue pharmaceutical giants that refuse to pay royalties do you? (I've already pasted the link to that above - but here it is again http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v6/n12/full/nm1200_1302a.html).
Cheers,
Victor
heya,
Oh please....
As somebody insightfully pointed out above, the money CSIRO makes from these royalties will be used to fund more research - recouping the government's investment in R&D, so to speak. We may pay more for Wifi devices, if the manufacturers try to pass it on (although I suspect the highly-competitive nature of the market may mitigate that somewhat), but ultimately they'll be a net inflow back to the Australian people.
From your statement, I'm going to assume you're US - see here, your NIH sues a pharmaceutical giant over missing drug royalties:
http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v6/n12/full/nm1200_1302a.html
And NASA's been embroiled on the receiving side with patent litigation with Boeing.
Thing is, at the end of the day, this is the real world, and people like to protect the R&D they make. And as an Australian citizen, who's taxes fund this research, I would like to see the CSIRO being smart, as opposed to being dumb, and getting walked over by big manufacturers.
Cheers,
Victor
heya,
Mate, as an Australian, I have to say the CSIRO is one of the more respected bodies here. They're government funded (meaning we taxpayers fund them), but they are completely independent and they churn out some damn good research - sure, a lot of it's probably agriculture-oriented, but not all, as this shows.
To accuse them of being a patent troll is patently (pun intended :p) ridiculous.
Firstly, they're not a patent-house - they're a research institute, that does government-funded research. It'd be like accusing NASA, or DARPA, or say the NIH of being a patent troll. Here's a story of the NIH suing a pharmaceutical giant over missing royalties for an AIDS drug:
http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v6/n12/full/nm1200_1302a.html
I don't exactly see Slashdotters up in arms accusing the NIH of being a patent troll. Is this some kind of weird US-centric bias?
Secondly, they happened to pick a place that favours people litigating on patents - what's the big deal? You'd expect them to pick a place that disfavoured patent holders? Please, why would they intentionally sabotage their case like that, it makes absolutely no sense at all - you can take your pick of any of the 50 US states, and you happen to pick one that doesn't like patent holders? Don't be silly. They obviously have lawyers with half a brain, and they happened to pick the right state. I think
Cheers,
Victor
heya,
Well, actually no...haha...you're completely wrong.
As a Christian, I can tell you people make fun of us all the time. Heck, they've been doing it for around, what, 2000 years? And the Jews have probably suffered a lot longer. Thing is, every religion gets made fun of
I mean, seriously, has your head been under a sand. What do you think Raptor Jesus is? (http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Raptor_Jesus) Or say, the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Or how about all those bestselling books alleging Jesus was gay, or he had a family with kids, or some other ridiculous nonsense....
I actually find some of these funny, and a little comical (well, the FSM I think is actually clever/ironic, the Raptor Jesus meme is just a bit insipid/childish, but hey, it's the 4chan crowd, they're mostly 12-year olds kids).
You can either act like tantrum-throwing little kids, like some Muslims here are, or you can grow up and act like an adult, and shrug it off. It's not personal, they just don't believe the same things as you. And for a Christian, it just means they miss you on having God's awesome grace - so you should just pray for them, and be loving to them.
It's things like these that make Muslims look like backward primitives...*cue somebody declaring a fatwah against me*
Cheers,
Victor
heya,
Ok, by "every major distribution", what exactly are you referring to?
There's two things at play here.
Firstly, and this is important, so listen carefully - *nobody is forcing you to upgrade*. Sorry, if you don't the latest and greatest, *don't upgrade*. Now seriously, they release KDE 4.x, does your wonderful KDE 3.5 suddenly, and magically stop working? Is your "workflow thrown away", all of a sudden? I continue to be baffled by people like you.
It's the same logic going on in the Google Android world - all of sudden, because somebody releases new Android handsets - your handset is suddenly OH NOES, IT'S BROKENS!!!. Look, just because your shiny toy isn't the "newest", it doesn't detract from the fact that it's still exactly the same.
The KDE developers didn't sneak into your house in the dead of the night, and suddenly smash your KDE 3.5 computer. The mobile phone handset manufacturers didn't creep in, and break your Nexus One handset. I just ordered a Nexus One to Australia - now, the HTC Evo 4G is out - am I suddenly in an uprorar? Well fine, I'm a bit annoyed, drat, I should have waited a bit, but guess what? My Nexus One is still a damn phone, and it still does everything it was promised to do.
All the major distros - Debian, Fedora/Redhat, OpenSUSE (although recent events might change this...lol) - continue to maintain security patches for older versions, if that's what you're worried about.
In fact, going further, Debian still has KDE 3.5, from what I can tell, and it works fine.
Ubuntu, well, that's a Gnome distribution, first and foremost, so I won't comment on it. However, Kubuntu, even in the 4.x branch is an unholy piece of junk.
Older versions of Fedora still contain KDE 3.5.10, and Mandriva and OpenSUSE still do as well. See here: http://www.kde.org/info/3.5.10.php
You complain that nothing is being worked on. Sorry, but see above - nobody is forcing you to update. Just because they're not pushing out new features into that branch doesn't stop you from working as you were before.
Then we come to your little rant about calling the KDE developers children or immature...haha...this is quite funny to read, actually.
Perhaps you don't understand how open-source software works? Guess what it's *free* (in both senses of the word). If you don't like something, you're free to fork it, or gather a group of people, and fork it together. Seriously, it's just pathetic, how you take something that people have freely contributed to, then complain they're not doing it the way you want them to.
You know what, if you don't like it, you can get a full refund - how does that sound. You'll get your full purchase price back.
This is just a joke. Seriously, if you bought Windows, do you think you could take it back to the shop, and say "Gee, mate, I'm not happy with it, can I get a refund?". I know quite a few stores that would laugh you out - but look, even if you did manage to find somebody sympathetic enough to let you return a piece of opened software - you know what, they'd just give you your money back and tell you to get out...
Frankly, I'm sick of ungrateful people in the OSS community, who never give back.
Look, other people gave up their sweat and tears to give you this thing for free, ok. The least you can do is be polite about it, and show a little graciousness.
If you don't like something, you should do your duty - file a bug report (or write a constructive blog post, say). If you can point to a single place on the internet, where you've done that (as opposed to ranting), I'll be glad to retract to commend you for it.
Cheers,
Victor
heya,
Hmm, even for me, I have to say that's a bit cynical, mate...seriously....
It's also a completely ludicrous idea. Firstly, it'll take what, 20-30 years before African is up to American levels of consumption. If even then. And over those 20-30 years, you've have ploughed in more money than you could ever hope to possibly claim back.
Yeah, I don't have any more love for Bill Gates than the next man, in terms of shonky business practices and dodgy make-money schemes, but if you read what's been said, and watch the interviews, I think he's fairly genuine with the foundation. Whatever you want to believe his reasons - rich man's guilt, true altruisim, whatever - the end result is he's doing a lot of good.
Cheers,
Victor
heya,
Mod parent up.
He's absolutely right. At the end of the day, the KDE 4.x series moved as quickly as it did, probably because of broad user feedback. nothing beats good quality user feedback, or having people rant on their blogs about how software X should have feature Y etc.
And look, they weren't exactly unclear about it - they stated fairly openly that it was a beta-ish release, and they were trying to get user feedback. It's an open-source project, release early, release often.
Put it this way, if you can install KDE/Linux, I'm sure you can put up with a bit of quirkiness in your desktop manager, or file a bug report.
(Actually, ironically, I've worked with a lot of non-technical users, and for some things, they seem to just ignore/accept changes, weirdly enough - they just assume it's part of the "magic" of this black box. Weird but true).
Cheers,
Victor
heya,
You know, I don't think it was that bad.
Look, fine so it was a bit unpolished, but it's much more polished now. I have a feeling that it wouldn't be where it is now if they hadn't had the exposure they had, or if people hadn't gone on long rants on blogs on what they thought should change. Those comments helped get us to where we are now.
Sure, they probably could have been clearer in the communication, but I distinctly remember they saying that this was a "beta" release in many ways, and they just wanted to get broad user feedback. (And look, even people's beloved OSX - remember the point zero release of that? Pftt, it was even more laughable...yet they still hold Apple up as the panacea of polish nowadays. Double standards, some?).
Anyhow, I don't get all these silly whiners (this isn't directed at you in particular, btw), and their OH NOES, KDE 3.5 IS BETTER!!!. Nobody forced you to switch to 4.x. Either offer some constructive criticism, and file a bug report, or crawl back to your hole. It's not like you're forced to update to 4.x, for God's sake. And all this melodrama about how it killed the project, please. It's really starting to get painful to read.
It's nearly as bad as those immature little children on the Google Chrome Release blog, complaining about moving the bookmark star, or removing the "http://" from the URL bar - then threatening to leave for Firefox. E.g.:
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8982037438137564684&postID=3927710196423305305&isPopup=true&pli=1
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8982037438137564684&postID=2192823456516189106&isPopup=true
Look, the Google team wrote the damn thing, if you don't like something, file a bug report or make a constructive blog post, but don't make these ridiculous and pathetically immature demands about how they "have" to change something, or you'll cry like a baby. It's just like the KDE team - they wrote it, if you don't like something, *talk* to them, they will listen, but please don't whine just for whining's sake. Grow up, kids.
Cheers,
Victor