Users on a system with a separate Admin should ask that Admin to install packages for them -- that's what Admins do, after all. On a single/home user system, the user = the Admin, can log in to root, and install the software... and even in XP it is *best* if only an Admin can do this, and not a regular account, for the sake of avoiding trojans, viruses, etc. And on your home system, if you do not care about security, well then, just run as root.
So, to answer *your* point: a user wants to 1) download a file, and 2) run it. Such a user should 1) find a precomiled binary (tarball), 2) download it, 3) un-archive it in a directory, and 4) run it. This works for *a lot* of programs. This *is* analogous to 1) finding a windows.exe installer, 2) downloading it, 3) double-clicking to install it and click *yes* to a bunch of install screens, and 4) then running it.
That leaves the original poster's question: I want to empower my users to install their own software (that means, not need root access), and my response is: an empowered user is an educated user. One can always install from source, and if that does not work, one can install from a pre-compiled tar-ball most of the time, and simply set it up locally. And the following claim is not elitist in my opinion: if a user cannot un-tar a file and run a file that way, they have little business installing software on an Adminned system. By analogy, you don't need a licence to ride a bike, take a taxi, or take a bus, but if you want to drive a car on your own, you had better learn how -- otherwise get others to drive you, but don't complain it is too hard.
And then there were the applications built to work with specific distributions (and hence not others). Don't get me started on those!
And the response here is simple: the problem is the developer who is too short-sighted to follow any sort of coding norms... and that means, follow the File System Hierarchy, not tie his/her code to specific library verions... etc.
The "proposal" in this article does not fix that. You can't fix developer arrogance and stupidity like that.
A smart installer system such as yum or apt-get resolves dependencies for a given distribution. Again, if there is a "problem", it is usually because the developer was nothing thinking of a general solution, and made it distro-specific. If you are installing fora distro (yum, apt-get), then fine, and a 'smart distribution' with people preparing packages for distribution, should 'normalize' packages that don't follow the standards (example: if installing qmail on debian, it is possible to make it follow 'debian norms' rather than Bernstein's own system). If you are installing a package 'by hand' (deb, rpm, tgz, or source), then it is the developer's responsibility not only to say *what* is required (in detail!), but where to get it.
The proposed 'system' does not fix this either, unless one wants to get rid of shared libraries, but that is the type of extreme measure that does not scale and which turns back the clock. It also does not solve 'dependencies' that aren't about libraries, but about 'helper apps' -- needing portmap in order to install gnome networking stuff, for example, or needing cdrecord for most GUI front-ends.
As for what the proposed system does do... it is analogous to the much-panned 'spacial desktop' material recently discussed with regard to Nautilus, but which has roots going back to the old Mac interface, etc. And the critique of that, like the critique on this 'system', is the same: IT DOES NOT SCALE (path-wise, and such).
In conclusion: drink more beer, use a smart packaging system and a sane OS, and devote your life to free love. A win-win situation.
---
Re:Another good site for cancelled comedies/toons
on
Retro Vision
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Nice site and such, but I would hesitate to call it "legal trading" (of cancelled shows or whatever). Somebody *still* owns the copyrights on those shows, and just because they're not selling DVDs on Amazon.com does not mean it is legal to trade them online or elsewhere -- it's just that, to a certain extent, the owners of the copyright (and/or distribution rights) don't care enough to go after folks.
There's a difference between 'legal' and 'low probability of legal difficulties'.
... let's see, threatening to sue Linus if XYZ don't pay up... sounds like Ransom Love to me... (oh, wait, Love is not longer the CEO... and McBride is another ex-Novell exec)
Well, people can breed, so we can always get more "priceless lives"; once the artifact is gone, it's gone.
Also: supple and demand. High supple of people, low supple of artifacts. Artifacts like this can go for millions in public auctions... when was the last time a person was sold for millions in a public auction?
... 1) there are a few sites, but note the following: 2) what's the point of a site of "personal ads" that are all men. Geek-women do *not* have a hard time finding guys to date... if they do, it's because a) they're not worth dating (like most geek guys) or b) because they're too picky.
A personal-ads system only "works" for people if there is a good mix of people... so yeah, again: a personal ads site that's all desperate late-teen and 20-something men who lack social skills?... sounds like *Great Idea*(tm)
1. The "marketplace" occasionally fails. You cannot rely on the "marketplace" to solve all problems.
2. Sure, these should be integrated into web-standards -- and we all know how well companies follow the "standards" on their sites, right?
I work at a university, and I am *so glad* they have started to follow accessibility guidelines. I am sich and f**king tired of dealing with pages written by moron--pages that lack ALT tags for images, pages with heinous formatting, pages that are simply broken, etc. They've had "the web" for a decade, and until these guidelines came along, no one followed standards--no one cared.
Yes, this was another piece of J. Katz drivel, but he went out of his way to misrepresent matters even more that usual. Either that, or he just failed to research his material.
Our friend marty has his own website, where one can read about the piece Katz mentioned. As for Marty's books, Marty was not published by some established press; he created his own "label" and "self-published". This is one step above claiming that I've published many articles because I've posted to slashdot and have my own website.[1]
Nice job, Job. Keep up that high-quality journalism for which we've all grown to love you.
-SK
[1] I do have respect for authors who choose to self-publish and share their work with the world. I'm working on a similar project of my own, but it would have been much more reponsible for Katz to say something like "Marty's self-published volume 'xxx' (Infected Press, 2000)".
Not to be a "me too", but I totally agree. Actually, I look at it like this...
When it comes to desktops, for price-performance, it's hard to beat PCs. After all, $1000 (US) can get you a hell of a machine, and as much as I love those G4 towers, they don't compete very well.
However, when it comes to laptops, where else can you get USB, Firewire, ethernet, modem, a 15" screen, a decent amount of memory, a DVD player and a fast little processor all for about $2500 (US)? Now, if you want an inexpensive (ca. $1000) or high end (more than $3500) model, then go with a PC, since there aren't many Apple offerings in those realms. Besides, the MacOS is cool in that hooking up an external monitor to your laptop gives you an extra screen/desktop (not just a mirror of your current desktop).
In any case, if one is a hard-core PC zealot, then feel free to disregard this post.
The phrase you're looking for is: Du kannst mich..." or Du kannst mich am Arsch lecken." (literally, you can lick me on my ass).
This is known as the "Götz-Zitat" (Götz Quote), because it shows up in Goethe's 18th century Sturm und Drang piece Götz von Berlichingen, in which Götz tells the emperor's messager, when told he should give himself up: Götz: Vor Ihro Kaiserliche Majestät hab ich, wie immer, schuldigen Respekt. Er aber, sag's ihm, er kann mich - - - (Schmeißt das Fenster zu.)
[As always, I have the greatest respect for His Emperial Majesty. Tell him, however, that he can kiss my ass. (Slams the window shut)]
Note that the German source usually appears in its 'edited' form -- that is, with the " - - - " stuff.
I can provide a little insight into the "jewish" aspect. This doesn't, however, account for everything, and I think another response to your post was pretty good.
Anyway. You'll notice that a good number of Jewish Nobel Prize winners are of German-jewish decent; meaning, among other things, that they or their families were driven from Europe during WWII; many of them (being European scientiest, intellectuals, etc.) were employed in important scientific fields in the U.S., and this put them in the position of conducting research that would later lead to Nobel Prizes.
The related question is, then, why were there all these German-Jewish intellectuals, scientists, etc. The answer there is partially that since the late 18th century and through the 19th century, assimilated and assimilating Jews essentially tried to be "better Germans than Germans" -- their goal was to be middle class, well-educated (German "Bildungsbuerger") and the like. Not surprisingly, then, some of the first and most important biographies on Goethe ("the" German poet/writer) were by Jewish intellectuals. [this would probably be comparable to the social-climbing phenomena of certain immigrant groups within the U.S.]
In contrast, exclusion, due to institutional racism, anti-semitism, etc., forced Jews and others out of the "standard" middle-class jobs (i.e. government service) and into what at the time were considered jobs of questionable social value -- acting/theater (entertainment in general), journalism [Heinrich Heine, for example], etc., which helps, perhaps, to explain the association of Jewish names with the entertainment industry. A similar line of reasoning may very well be enlightening with regard to gays in certain professions.
The standard disclaimer is that I don't work specifically in gender studies; however, I can back up the Jewish and Jewish-German analysis, as it's part of my research.
Although sort of a rant, I'd consider this one of the best posts in the discussion, and if I had moderation points, I'd mod it up.
If I might add a bit on the 'pragmatic' side; there are already laws against child abuse (in this and other countries) [similarly there are already fraud, slander, libel and other laws so that certain cyber-law extension are not, imho, totally necessary. This has been discussed on/. before]
I expect the SC will rule in favor of the current law; the west coast federal ciruit (is it the 9th) is considerably more liberal than the SC on most issues, which is unfortunate, but the way things are going these days.
Another thing which bothers me, and I don't mind if someone corrects me on this, is follows: in the US at least, porn is fine; it's obscene material which can be banned, and that is defined as, among other things, lacking serious artist/literary merit; child porn seems to be defined more or less as the depiction of children engaging in sexual acts, regardly of literary merit [see 1st paragraph of article linked from/. article]. I find this troubling, since at least at local levels in the US there have been attempts to ban the film version of The Tin Drum (for example) for exactly this, which I think (and would hope) would offend and strike most/.ers as ridiculous. Anyway, enough random comments for a while.
Actually... 2 points. 1) languages in isolation do not change much at all. Examples include: small groups in Switzerland and one of the best examples: Iceland (Icelandic is 'practically' Old Norse) 2) languages in contact regularly change. In fact, the 'data' you presented supports this: the areas you mentioned aren't isolated (unless you mean far away from Europe or North America). Within a small area there are many languages; through contact and a need to differentiate themselves they are quite different. If you want more data and more articles on this process, I would be more than willing to provide the linguistic evidence.
While searching for the origins of a very funny German ad to learn english (A family is listening to a very vulgar song, and enjoying the hell out of it) I stumbled across something interesting from Google when doing a search of the song's lyrics:
Just a note -- it's a Dutch ad -- not a German one. (regarding both the people who did it and the 'location')
Slashdot Mirror
Most can't compile software. Fine.
Users on a system with a separate Admin should ask that Admin to install packages for them -- that's what Admins do, after all. On a single/home user system, the user = the Admin, can log in to root, and install the software ... and even in XP it is *best* if only an Admin can do this, and not a regular account, for the sake of avoiding trojans, viruses, etc. And on your home system, if you do not care about security, well then, just run as root.
So, to answer *your* point: a user wants to 1) download a file, and 2) run it. Such a user should 1) find a precomiled binary (tarball), 2) download it, 3) un-archive it in a directory, and 4) run it. This works for *a lot* of programs. This *is* analogous to 1) finding a windows .exe installer, 2) downloading it, 3) double-clicking to install it and click *yes* to a bunch of install screens, and 4) then running it.
That leaves the original poster's question: I want to empower my users to install their own software (that means, not need root access), and my response is: an empowered user is an educated user. One can always install from source, and if that does not work, one can install from a pre-compiled tar-ball most of the time, and simply set it up locally. And the following claim is not elitist in my opinion: if a user cannot un-tar a file and run a file that way, they have little business installing software on an Adminned system. By analogy, you don't need a licence to ride a bike, take a taxi, or take a bus, but if you want to drive a car on your own, you had better learn how -- otherwise get others to drive you, but don't complain it is too hard.
And the response here is simple: the problem is the developer who is too short-sighted to follow any sort of coding norms ... and that means, follow the File System Hierarchy, not tie his/her code to specific library verions ... etc.
The "proposal" in this article does not fix that. You can't fix developer arrogance and stupidity like that.
A smart installer system such as yum or apt-get resolves dependencies for a given distribution. Again, if there is a "problem", it is usually because the developer was nothing thinking of a general solution, and made it distro-specific. If you are installing fora distro (yum, apt-get), then fine, and a 'smart distribution' with people preparing packages for distribution, should 'normalize' packages that don't follow the standards (example: if installing qmail on debian, it is possible to make it follow 'debian norms' rather than Bernstein's own system). If you are installing a package 'by hand' (deb, rpm, tgz, or source), then it is the developer's responsibility not only to say *what* is required (in detail!), but where to get it.
The proposed 'system' does not fix this either, unless one wants to get rid of shared libraries, but that is the type of extreme measure that does not scale and which turns back the clock. It also does not solve 'dependencies' that aren't about libraries, but about 'helper apps' -- needing portmap in order to install gnome networking stuff, for example, or needing cdrecord for most GUI front-ends.
As for what the proposed system does do ... it is analogous to the much-panned 'spacial desktop' material recently discussed with regard to Nautilus, but which has roots going back to the old Mac interface, etc. And the critique of that, like the critique on this 'system', is the same: IT DOES NOT SCALE (path-wise, and such).
In conclusion: drink more beer, use a smart packaging system and a sane OS, and devote your life to free love. A win-win situation.
---
Nice site and such, but I would hesitate to call it "legal trading" (of cancelled shows or whatever). Somebody *still* owns the copyrights on those shows, and just because they're not selling DVDs on Amazon.com does not mean it is legal to trade them online or elsewhere -- it's just that, to a certain extent, the owners of the copyright (and/or distribution rights) don't care enough to go after folks.
There's a difference between 'legal' and 'low probability of legal difficulties'.
end of story.
Well, people can breed, so we can always get more "priceless lives"; once the artifact is gone, it's gone.
Also: supple and demand. High supple of people, low supple of artifacts. Artifacts like this can go for millions in public auctions ... when was the last time a person was sold for millions in a public auction?
I rest my case.
Simple ...
... 1) there are a few sites, but note the following: 2) what's the point of a site of "personal ads" that are all men. Geek-women do *not* have a hard time finding guys to date ... if they do, it's because a) they're not worth dating (like most geek guys) or b) because they're too picky.
A personal-ads system only "works" for people if there is a good mix of people ... so yeah, again: a personal ads site that's all desperate late-teen and 20-something men who lack social skills? ... sounds like *Great Idea*(tm)
1. The "marketplace" occasionally fails. You cannot rely on the "marketplace" to solve all problems.
2. Sure, these should be integrated into web-standards -- and we all know how well companies follow the "standards" on their sites, right?
I work at a university, and I am *so glad* they have started to follow accessibility guidelines. I am sich and f**king tired of dealing with pages written by moron--pages that lack ALT tags for images, pages with heinous formatting, pages that are simply broken, etc. They've had "the web" for a decade, and until these guidelines came along, no one followed standards--no one cared.
Even worse:
Yes, this was another piece of J. Katz drivel, but he went out of his way to misrepresent matters even more that usual. Either that, or he just failed to research his material.
Our friend marty has his own website, where one can read about the piece Katz mentioned. As for Marty's books, Marty was not published by some established press; he created his own "label" and "self-published". This is one step above claiming that I've published many articles because I've posted to slashdot and have my own website.[1]
Nice job, Job. Keep up that high-quality journalism for which we've all grown to love you.
-SK
[1] I do have respect for authors who choose to self-publish and share their work with the world. I'm working on a similar project of my own, but it would have been much more reponsible for Katz to say something like "Marty's self-published volume 'xxx' (Infected Press, 2000)".
yes, but simple text and Chinese ... that's like comparing apples to oranges, no?
667 -- the neighbor of the beast
333 -- eric, the half-a-beast
Not to be a "me too", but I totally agree. Actually, I look at it like this ...
When it comes to desktops, for price-performance, it's hard to beat PCs. After all, $1000 (US) can get you a hell of a machine, and as much as I love those G4 towers, they don't compete very well.
However, when it comes to laptops, where else can you get USB, Firewire, ethernet, modem, a 15" screen, a decent amount of memory, a DVD player and a fast little processor all for about $2500 (US)? Now, if you want an inexpensive (ca. $1000) or high end (more than $3500) model, then go with a PC, since there aren't many Apple offerings in those realms. Besides, the MacOS is cool in that hooking up an external monitor to your laptop gives you an extra screen/desktop (not just a mirror of your current desktop).
In any case, if one is a hard-core PC zealot, then feel free to disregard this post.
--SK
The phrase you're looking for is: ..." or Du kannst mich am Arsch lecken." (literally, you can lick me on my ass).
Du kannst mich
This is known as the "Götz-Zitat" (Götz Quote), because it shows up in Goethe's 18th century Sturm und Drang piece Götz von Berlichingen, in which Götz tells the emperor's messager, when told he should give himself up:
Götz: Vor Ihro Kaiserliche Majestät hab ich, wie immer, schuldigen Respekt. Er aber, sag's ihm, er kann mich - - - (Schmeißt das Fenster zu.)
[As always, I have the greatest respect for His Emperial Majesty. Tell him, however, that he can kiss my ass. (Slams the window shut)]
Note that the German source usually appears in its 'edited' form -- that is, with the " - - - " stuff.
SPK
I can provide a little insight into the "jewish" aspect. This doesn't, however, account for everything, and I think another response to your post was pretty good.
Anyway. You'll notice that a good number of Jewish Nobel Prize winners are of German-jewish decent; meaning, among other things, that they or their families were driven from Europe during WWII; many of them (being European scientiest, intellectuals, etc.) were employed in important scientific fields in the U.S., and this put them in the position of conducting research that would later lead to Nobel Prizes.
The related question is, then, why were there all these German-Jewish intellectuals, scientists, etc. The answer there is partially that since the late 18th century and through the 19th century, assimilated and assimilating Jews essentially tried to be "better Germans than Germans" -- their goal was to be middle class, well-educated (German "Bildungsbuerger") and the like. Not surprisingly, then, some of the first and most important biographies on Goethe ("the" German poet/writer) were by Jewish intellectuals. [this would probably be comparable to the social-climbing phenomena of certain immigrant groups within the U.S.]
In contrast, exclusion, due to institutional racism, anti-semitism, etc., forced Jews and others out of the "standard" middle-class jobs (i.e. government service) and into what at the time were considered jobs of questionable social value -- acting/theater (entertainment in general), journalism [Heinrich Heine, for example], etc., which helps, perhaps, to explain the association of Jewish names with the entertainment industry. A similar line of reasoning may very well be enlightening with regard to gays in certain professions.
The standard disclaimer is that I don't work specifically in gender studies; however, I can back up the Jewish and Jewish-German analysis, as it's part of my research.
Although sort of a rant, I'd consider this one of the best posts in the discussion, and if I had moderation points, I'd mod it up.
If I might add a bit on the 'pragmatic' side; there are already laws against child abuse (in this and other countries) [similarly there are already fraud, slander, libel and other laws so that certain cyber-law extension are not, imho, totally necessary. This has been discussed on /. before]
I expect the SC will rule in favor of the current law; the west coast federal ciruit (is it the 9th) is considerably more liberal than the SC on most issues, which is unfortunate, but the way things are going these days.
Another thing which bothers me, and I don't mind if someone corrects me on this, is follows: in the US at least, porn is fine; it's obscene material which can be banned, and that is defined as, among other things, lacking serious artist/literary merit; child porn seems to be defined more or less as the depiction of children engaging in sexual acts, regardly of literary merit [see 1st paragraph of article linked from /. article]. I find this troubling, since at least at local levels in the US there have been attempts to ban the film version of The Tin Drum (for example) for exactly this, which I think (and would hope) would offend and strike most /.ers as ridiculous. Anyway, enough random comments for a while.
Actually ... 2 points. 1) languages in isolation do not change much at all. Examples include: small groups in Switzerland and one of the best examples: Iceland (Icelandic is 'practically' Old Norse) 2) languages in contact regularly change. In fact, the 'data' you presented supports this: the areas you mentioned aren't isolated (unless you mean far away from Europe or North America). Within a small area there are many languages; through contact and a need to differentiate themselves they are quite different. If you want more data and more articles on this process, I would be more than willing to provide the linguistic evidence.
Just a note -- it's a Dutch ad -- not a German one. (regarding both the people who did it and the 'location')
However, it is a hilarious video.
Hey, at least those little feet weren't Gnome feet ... that would be too much.