Buck up you whiner - discrimination is a fact of life, it will never go away because people are inherently tribal.
I'll have to remember that quote next time someone complains they couldn't get the job because they're black?
I had no idea that some discrimination is acceptable and those discriminated against just need to put up with it, and some isn't and we need to take action immediately to rectify it... who decides?
I think he was using typical US-centric boogeymen.
In the UK.:)
I referred to "moralists" because typically, people seem to get accused of being "moralists" for having morals like... homosexuality is immoral. Most homosexuals are not accused of excessive morality. That's not the word usually used to describe them. Specifically, I used it to refer to people that think homosxuality, communism, or atheism is wrong for a reason other than an organized religion like Christianity, Islam, Bhuddism, or what have you.
I can go with that. Anyone can be self-righteous, even if you believe there's no such thing as "righteousness." On the other hand, self-righteous still implies Christianity.
That and people define it very differently. Some people think "self-righteous" is there when it's really just a "high moral standard." Most people seem to think all Christians are self-righteous, for example, when many Christians actually consider self-righteousness to be Biblically sinful.
How about just "some people" or "bad people." Completely vague and open to anyone's interpretation. Or perhaps "Angry" people would work...
You don't need one, no. And there are two arguments on slashdot; one is that Windows 7 should have been ALL 64 bit because we need to get rid of that old 32 bit architecture; the other is that 64 bit is overkill already and we were fine with 32 bit.
I, for one, am glad that some companies look far enough ahead and plan compatibility now. I am glad my switch to 64 bit - when I made it completely about two years ago - was a lot less bumpy than what it originally was with XP x64 (blech! no drivers! etc...). It's taken a while for device drivers to come out with x64 versions.
Besides, a lot of people DO need 4GB+ of RAM. I frequently use ~5GB+ for my music stuff (Sibelius + sampled sounds running + normal applications, etc). I doubt I'm the only Sibelius + East West Symphonic Orchestra user in the world.
People will band together and participate in government-sanctioned stalking of atheists, commies, homosexuals, or whomever else they just don't like.
By "people," you apparently mean Christians, capitalists/conservatives, heterosexuals, and moralists. I guess atheists, communists, homosexuals, etc., are all peace-loving hate-hating people that have an inherent aversion to stalking or harassing or any sort of "bad behavior," whereas others - like Christians and conservatives - only profess to believe in "higher authority," God, law-biding citizens, etc....
You probably just mentioned the ones that you particularly dislike or feel are discriminated against/harassed (I could show you a lot of Christians/capitalists/conservatives/heterosexuals/moralists that are, though....), but it's an interesting bias?:)
It's comparing two separate things. What market share are they talking about? The online user base or the consoles-sold user base? The real question would be how many active online users, not how many consoles sold. It's comparing two separate and independent statistics.
I wonder who the number one market share is, anyways.
Really, it is? um, NO. Win 7 64 bit is a joke, well aside from the fact that it works (for which you deserve credit)
Uh. So... what did you want it to do, if not work?
but why is there even a 32 bit version? why in 7-64 is there a program files (x86) folder? that was your kludge for working with 32 bit apps? Really?
It's been that way since XP x64. It separates 32 bit apps from 64 bit apps in the directory tree. What's the problem? You can install programs anywhere you want. Just like always. And there is a 32 bit version because not everyone runs 64 bit processors. Say, for example, the Intel Atom. Or my old original Intel dual core laptop. Oh, but I guess Microsoft should intentionally shoot themselves in the foot and not release a 32 bit version and thus lose that entire market share. Pardon me for asking. By the way, why do Linux distros insist on keeping 32 bit versions?
I wondered about the 1 hour a day bit. I figured it was something like that but was not sure.:)
Living lives without being a threat to us I suppose is good... for dangerous people. Although I'm not sure what I think about simply letting them freely live. It seems like they should pay/work their way through life just like I have to, even if they are being kept separate...
Thanks for clarification on the punish bit. I misinterpreted that.
Ok, so the merchant is the victim in your case. Credit card fraud is not "free," someone incurs a loss. I don't see why merchants (or insurance companies) should not be considered victims if they get something stolen from them or that a criminal should be allowed to not repay (or at least try!) simply because the merchant is the one that incurred the loss, and it was indirect.
The extremely simple case example would be shoplifting. To me, it makes sense to have to pay for what you took... not go to jail for 30 days and get whatever you took for free. Of course, the merchant/victim/whatever is at liberty to forgive the debt, give mercy, etc. But that's not for the criminal to decide, that's for the victim, judge, and jury to decide...
And they aren't complaining because they are insured against this sort of loss.
No wonder insurance premiums are high.
Seriously, this seems to be the prevailing attitude of Americans (I'm an American, I can say bad things about Americans. hehe) - it doesn't matter because [such and such entity] will pay for it - so who cares. Hence getting loans you can't pay and foreclosing (I have mortgage insurance!), etc.
I suppos ether'es nothing illegal about it. But I don't think we should complain about how high insurance premiums are if we pass off these sorts of situations and just say "oh well, insurance will pay for it" - as though nobody pays the insurance companies.
All right, how will a guy whose main skills are computer related be able to pay back victims of identity theft? Would it be, by any chance, by holding a profitable job where he works with computers? Or do you want to go back to debt prisons where people are kept, at taxpayers expense and without profitable occupation, until they pay back the debt?
Debtor's prisons were stupid. Let me just say that much.
I know, you can't pay back if you don't have a profitable job. But just because you went to jail doesn't mean you shouldn't have that debt to pay. I'm not saying that they should stay in jail until they can pay it back. I'm saying they shouldn't "get out of debt free" simply because of jail time. That's not reparation.
In reality, most people will not be able to pay back the victims in their lifetime, let alone in the time after which we think is reasonable to stop punishing someone and let them move on with their lives.
Hm. So, the poor criminal stole too much and he can't pay it back? I'm not sure if I have much sympathy for him. Maybe he should have thought of that before he stole it? Unfortunately, our current legal system doesn't really provide much incentive to think about that kind of problem if you're caught. 6 years of jail for stealing a ton of money in credit cards doesn't seem to be much of a deterrent, and certainly didn't rehabilitate this guy too well...
As for "better the society in general," I don't have a problem with that except that his debt isn't to society in general... it's to his victims, is it not? I would think they should reap any possible reparation before society does...
Uh. How many chances? It's not like this person just went "oops, I just made a major cyber crime. I messed up. It was a simple mistake." Aren't these things planned and thought out, and take a fair amount of resources and time? He had a life time of chance... so far, he's used his life and made a lot of people's lives pretty messy (I imagine that having my credit card stolen will make my life pretty messy for a while). What about them, don't they get a second chance?
IMO, let's give him a second chance. After he pays back those people he harmed or stole from. Even if the credit card company pays it back or whatever, then he's in debt to the credit card company for what he stole from then, basically. No second chance if you haven't even made good on your first "accident."
It seems that we always want to make it sound like the offender is just a poor guy who got caught up in a crime and needs a chance to prove himself... but we forget that the victims don't have that chance, and the victims were the ones hurt in the first place. This guy wasn't hurt, he did the hurting. If he wants a second chance, he needs to make up - to the people or entities that he harmed in the first place.
I agree, "23" hours of bare concrete isn't necessarily a better choice. IMO, they should "work for their living," like the rest of society presumably does.
I think prison should be used as punishment. I guess that's just a difference between our thoughts. Which is cool. The problem I have with rehabilitation isn't rehabilitation itself - it's that it's pretty difficult to measure. How do we KNOW this person was rehabilitated, whatever that means?
That and I think some offesnes should not have that option. If someone killed someone, I see no reason I should let that person freely wander around amongst people again. It seems only just; the person took someone's life and caused them never to walk this earth again. It seems the proper justice would be to, at least, not let the person that took that life be allowed to enjoy walking the earth again, either. "Justice" is not something that necessarily cares about "rehabilitation." I guess that's my main beef with the typical rehabilitation-promoters: there's no more justice.
Justice for stealing? You have to pay it back. Justice for graffiti? Clean it up. Justice for illegal drugs? I don't know, that's a hard one. One thing I do know; if I steal something and later am "rehabilitated," that doesn't mean that I don't owe anyone anything anymore because I'm a "better" person. It just means I am hopefully less likely to re-offend... but I should still be made to pay back what I took.
Rehabilitation... well, I think that depends. I'm all for letting them work or letting them learn a skill. I'm not for forcing them or paying to try to force them. If they don't want to learn, they're not going to.
And if you murder someone, I don't know what rehabilitation there is for you. Or rape. Or any other violent crime like that.
The stats for repeat offenders is pretty high, as I recall. Rehabilitation isn't working so well. Maybe because you're not changing anything but their external observances, temporarily, so they can just get out of jail? Rehabilitation tends to miss one rather important aspect of life - that people are not naturally good and just have bad circumstances. You can be the richest person on earth and able to do whatever you want to do, and still commit some of the worst crimes. Rehabilitation seems to take the same aspect as communism... in a perfect world, it'd probably work great. So far, it hasn't. Maybe this isn't a perfect world, and maybe people don't naturally want to be good, happy citizens looking out for their neighbor... maybe they actually do crime and violent things because *gasp* they like doing crime and violent things? And teaching them job skills won't change them liking crime/violence...
Considering most of them are in their for minor drug charges and are no more evil than you or me...
That depends on what you mean by "evil."
My ideology/religion/worldview/whatever says everyone is evil. Some people are more "moral" and some are more "law-abiding" however. A minor drug charge is a shift in moral/law-abiding. Read on, though, I'll probably end up agreeing with you...
And that most of the tax money goes into the hands of the private corporations running the prisons and use the inmates for sub minimum wage labor at a profit which none goes back to the tax payers.
Using inmates for labor seems like a good idea to me, frankly. Why simply let them live at the taxpayers' expense? Why not have them work for it? And frankly, not sure why they should even necessarily be paid much, if at all... they aren't there to make money, they are there to be punished, yes? Although, the view seems to be circulating more widely that prison is for "reformation" of the person or whatever, not to pay the penalty of his crime. I'm all for reforming people, but the whole point of having laws and penalties is... well... so that people are punished for those law-breakings...
So simple solution... Reform the laws and decriminalize these minor offenses and revoke the contracts with the private corporations running these prisions.
Agree with reformation of laws, at any rate. Decriminalize minor offenses - not sure about that. However, I certainly agree that some offenses get too much time, and some offenses get way too little time. The idea that you can kill someone and get out of jail after 10 or 20 years is ridiculous... not even from a "penalty" standpoint but from a protection-of-society standpoint. And I am not sure if I care - with respect to time-locked-up - if the person was "temporarily insane," that just makes him more dangerous, doesn't it? Or, since the Duggard case is in the news... he got out in something like 7 years after kidnapping and raping? And look what happened, he went on to continue exactly what he was doing before. Surprise!...
I'm not sure really how to fix those issues. But I really don't think that people that rape, murder, steal, etc., should just go on vacation [slightly sarcastic there, I realize its' not vacation...]. There's something wrong when "jail" means TV, internet, etc.
And there is something to be said about multiple small offenses increasing the penalty each time... depending on the offense, of course. Jaywalking multiple times may not be in the same category as stealing women's purses multiple times.
So, in other words - until you agree with all the laws that land you in jail, you don't think jail should be punitive in any way? Just a pleasant vacation?
Not that it's a "pleasant vacation" now, but just curious about that. It seems to me that laws are always going to be disagreed on by people, including drug possession... but what's the use of laws if they are not enforced at all unless 100% of the population agrees with them? I bet I could find a lot of people that disagree with a lot more laws than you do. In fact, I probably just have to walk to the nearest penitentiary.
So... I'm not sure what the point is, then? What control over your own computer are you not getting?
I agree, cloud/SaaS is the big thing, stupid or smart as it is... but I fail to see why it's an issue if Microsoft develops their cloud/software that they charge for the usage of it. As long as they don't charge me for using it when I install Windows and as long as I am able to use a different one, then... ? I don't have a problem with them putting hooks into their OS that make it easy to hook into some of their other services that they sell. If they start making it more difficult for other services to work, that's potentially an issue... but making it easier for theirs? I don't see how that's a problem, honestly.
Interesting that inmates have access to computers and TV. I'm glad we pay for that for them while normal citizens are having a hard time finding a job...
But who cares? So what if the internal OS functions use IE to do internal OS stuff, like browsing folders or what have you?
If the issue is *web browser* stuff, then that should be confined to *browsing the web* - right? And if they turn off IE to *browse the web* - thus allowing FF, Chrome, or what have you - isn't that what they asked for? They're not complaining that Microsoft can't use any of it's own applications for doing stuff within it's own OS. They're complaining that about the web browsing bit.
Forcing Microsoft to somehow completely remove any part of their OS that can interpret HTML because then it could be construed as a "web browser" - and thus have their own "browser" built-in - is silly. May as well decide notepad shouldn't be allowed to ship with Windows or something.
I'm all for being able to turn IE off, as a web browser. That seems relatively reasonable. But forcing them to take out all traces of HTML/"webpage" interpreting functionality seems a bit extreme.
I didn't intentionally use a poor driver - I tried both, and I wanted them to work... I eventually used fglrx and used Ubuntu for about a year on that machine as the only OS installed. It wasn't a change of tune; I mentioned the non-proprietary driver specifically, however, because when I mentioned video issues a while back in another slashdot comment post, the immediate reply was "did you try the open source driver?" - because fglrx isn't the best... and with openSuSE 11, I had to try numerous drivers before I finally got one to work. Had to be a relatively older version that was difficult to find, had to disable pretty boot screen stuff and do just a normal console boot, etc.
Using the binary drivers with Ubuntu wasn't that difficult, no, though I did run into some display issues. Actually, the Ubuntu experience with installing proprietary drivers was quite refreshing after some of the other distros.
First, I don't think I'm an idiot. I work with AIX, HPUX, Solaris, Linux (RH 4-5, SLES 9-11, all update versions) as my day job, including Veritas. I use Windows and Linux at home. I disliked Vista and found it slow and bulky. I used XP until I required 64 bit, then used Vista x64 only until I was able to use Windows 7 RC (x64) and now the RTM build.
I don't consider myself a musician wannabe, either. I was a composition major and have been performed many times. The most I tried to do with Linux, though, is run Amarok, Songbird, or Banshee and Firefox at the same time. No notation software, no JACK stuff. I used Audacity on occasion, but only to edit stuff, not really for recordings. I use Sibelius on a Windows box and briefly in a VM under openSuSE 10.3. I tried it in Wine once, but it didn't work too well.
ALSA did do nicely with common desktops apps. I switched BACK to ALSA from the default PulseAudio in Ubuntu (8.10 is when I made the necessary config file changes) because of the problem. I was not complaining about ALSA; I was complaining about PulseAudio. However. I still ran into issues where one application would tie up sound and not let any other app do that.
DVD playback - I did not have to install anything, and I have installed XP, Vista, and 7 from scratch in the last 2 years (as well as Ubuntu 8.10, 9.04, openSuSE 11.1, and a few others).
Define modern Linux? I had problems in Ubuntu 9.04. I tried various drivers given in the repo's. No luck with any of them/
Intentionally using a poor choice of video driver? I tried both the open/community version and fglrx (which took a little bit of work to get going well, too... sometimes xorg didn't like it too much).
I don't have an nVidia card in that machine. I've heard their drivers are better... but that doesn't help me with my ATI card all that much.
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Buck up you whiner - discrimination is a fact of life, it will never go away because people are inherently tribal.
I'll have to remember that quote next time someone complains they couldn't get the job because they're black?
I had no idea that some discrimination is acceptable and those discriminated against just need to put up with it, and some isn't and we need to take action immediately to rectify it... who decides?
I think he was using typical US-centric boogeymen.
In the UK. :)
I referred to "moralists" because typically, people seem to get accused of being "moralists" for having morals like ... homosexuality is immoral. Most homosexuals are not accused of excessive morality. That's not the word usually used to describe them. Specifically, I used it to refer to people that think homosxuality, communism, or atheism is wrong for a reason other than an organized religion like Christianity, Islam, Bhuddism, or what have you.
I can go with that. Anyone can be self-righteous, even if you believe there's no such thing as "righteousness." On the other hand, self-righteous still implies Christianity.
That and people define it very differently. Some people think "self-righteous" is there when it's really just a "high moral standard." Most people seem to think all Christians are self-righteous, for example, when many Christians actually consider self-righteousness to be Biblically sinful.
How about just "some people" or "bad people." Completely vague and open to anyone's interpretation. Or perhaps "Angry" people would work...
Why am I here arguing this? I have no idea :)
My ignorance. I've only looked at the netbook ones. Wasn't aware that there were 64 bit Atom processors, actually. :)
You don't need one, no. And there are two arguments on slashdot; one is that Windows 7 should have been ALL 64 bit because we need to get rid of that old 32 bit architecture; the other is that 64 bit is overkill already and we were fine with 32 bit.
I, for one, am glad that some companies look far enough ahead and plan compatibility now. I am glad my switch to 64 bit - when I made it completely about two years ago - was a lot less bumpy than what it originally was with XP x64 (blech! no drivers! etc...). It's taken a while for device drivers to come out with x64 versions.
Besides, a lot of people DO need 4GB+ of RAM. I frequently use ~5GB+ for my music stuff (Sibelius + sampled sounds running + normal applications, etc). I doubt I'm the only Sibelius + East West Symphonic Orchestra user in the world.
Meh... besides, Windows 8 is a long way off.
People will band together and participate in government-sanctioned stalking of atheists, commies, homosexuals, or whomever else they just don't like.
By "people," you apparently mean Christians, capitalists/conservatives, heterosexuals, and moralists. I guess atheists, communists, homosexuals, etc., are all peace-loving hate-hating people that have an inherent aversion to stalking or harassing or any sort of "bad behavior," whereas others - like Christians and conservatives - only profess to believe in "higher authority," God, law-biding citizens, etc....
You probably just mentioned the ones that you particularly dislike or feel are discriminated against/harassed (I could show you a lot of Christians/capitalists/conservatives/heterosexuals/moralists that are, though....), but it's an interesting bias? :)
It's comparing two separate things. What market share are they talking about? The online user base or the consoles-sold user base? The real question would be how many active online users, not how many consoles sold. It's comparing two separate and independent statistics.
I wonder who the number one market share is, anyways.
Really, it is? um, NO. Win 7 64 bit is a joke, well aside from the fact that it works (for which you deserve credit)
Uh. So... what did you want it to do, if not work?
but why is there even a 32 bit version? why in 7-64 is there a program files (x86) folder? that was your kludge for working with 32 bit apps? Really?
It's been that way since XP x64. It separates 32 bit apps from 64 bit apps in the directory tree. What's the problem? You can install programs anywhere you want. Just like always. And there is a 32 bit version because not everyone runs 64 bit processors. Say, for example, the Intel Atom. Or my old original Intel dual core laptop. Oh, but I guess Microsoft should intentionally shoot themselves in the foot and not release a 32 bit version and thus lose that entire market share. Pardon me for asking. By the way, why do Linux distros insist on keeping 32 bit versions?
I recall hearing similar things when 64 bit architectures started coming out.
I wondered about the 1 hour a day bit. I figured it was something like that but was not sure. :)
Living lives without being a threat to us I suppose is good... for dangerous people. Although I'm not sure what I think about simply letting them freely live. It seems like they should pay/work their way through life just like I have to, even if they are being kept separate...
Thanks for clarification on the punish bit. I misinterpreted that.
I had no idea that TV was considered preparation for re-entry into society...
Uh... violent crime is violent crime, whether it's over a girl, a car, drugs, or a bench in a park that you had claimed as yours two years previous...
Ok, so the merchant is the victim in your case. Credit card fraud is not "free," someone incurs a loss. I don't see why merchants (or insurance companies) should not be considered victims if they get something stolen from them or that a criminal should be allowed to not repay (or at least try!) simply because the merchant is the one that incurred the loss, and it was indirect.
The extremely simple case example would be shoplifting. To me, it makes sense to have to pay for what you took... not go to jail for 30 days and get whatever you took for free. Of course, the merchant/victim/whatever is at liberty to forgive the debt, give mercy, etc. But that's not for the criminal to decide, that's for the victim, judge, and jury to decide...
And they aren't complaining because they are insured against this sort of loss.
No wonder insurance premiums are high.
Seriously, this seems to be the prevailing attitude of Americans (I'm an American, I can say bad things about Americans. hehe) - it doesn't matter because [such and such entity] will pay for it - so who cares. Hence getting loans you can't pay and foreclosing (I have mortgage insurance!), etc.
I suppos ether'es nothing illegal about it. But I don't think we should complain about how high insurance premiums are if we pass off these sorts of situations and just say "oh well, insurance will pay for it" - as though nobody pays the insurance companies.
All right, how will a guy whose main skills are computer related be able to pay back victims of identity theft? Would it be, by any chance, by holding a profitable job where he works with computers? Or do you want to go back to debt prisons where people are kept, at taxpayers expense and without profitable occupation, until they pay back the debt?
Debtor's prisons were stupid. Let me just say that much.
I know, you can't pay back if you don't have a profitable job. But just because you went to jail doesn't mean you shouldn't have that debt to pay. I'm not saying that they should stay in jail until they can pay it back. I'm saying they shouldn't "get out of debt free" simply because of jail time. That's not reparation.
In reality, most people will not be able to pay back the victims in their lifetime, let alone in the time after which we think is reasonable to stop punishing someone and let them move on with their lives.
Hm. So, the poor criminal stole too much and he can't pay it back? I'm not sure if I have much sympathy for him. Maybe he should have thought of that before he stole it? Unfortunately, our current legal system doesn't really provide much incentive to think about that kind of problem if you're caught. 6 years of jail for stealing a ton of money in credit cards doesn't seem to be much of a deterrent, and certainly didn't rehabilitate this guy too well...
As for "better the society in general," I don't have a problem with that except that his debt isn't to society in general... it's to his victims, is it not? I would think they should reap any possible reparation before society does...
Uh. How many chances? It's not like this person just went "oops, I just made a major cyber crime. I messed up. It was a simple mistake." Aren't these things planned and thought out, and take a fair amount of resources and time? He had a life time of chance... so far, he's used his life and made a lot of people's lives pretty messy (I imagine that having my credit card stolen will make my life pretty messy for a while). What about them, don't they get a second chance?
IMO, let's give him a second chance. After he pays back those people he harmed or stole from. Even if the credit card company pays it back or whatever, then he's in debt to the credit card company for what he stole from then, basically. No second chance if you haven't even made good on your first "accident."
It seems that we always want to make it sound like the offender is just a poor guy who got caught up in a crime and needs a chance to prove himself... but we forget that the victims don't have that chance, and the victims were the ones hurt in the first place. This guy wasn't hurt, he did the hurting. If he wants a second chance, he needs to make up - to the people or entities that he harmed in the first place.
I disagree, you troll! ;)
23 hours? *blink* What happened to the other one?
I agree, "23" hours of bare concrete isn't necessarily a better choice. IMO, they should "work for their living," like the rest of society presumably does.
I think prison should be used as punishment. I guess that's just a difference between our thoughts. Which is cool. The problem I have with rehabilitation isn't rehabilitation itself - it's that it's pretty difficult to measure. How do we KNOW this person was rehabilitated, whatever that means?
That and I think some offesnes should not have that option. If someone killed someone, I see no reason I should let that person freely wander around amongst people again. It seems only just; the person took someone's life and caused them never to walk this earth again. It seems the proper justice would be to, at least, not let the person that took that life be allowed to enjoy walking the earth again, either. "Justice" is not something that necessarily cares about "rehabilitation." I guess that's my main beef with the typical rehabilitation-promoters: there's no more justice.
Justice for stealing? You have to pay it back. Justice for graffiti? Clean it up. Justice for illegal drugs? I don't know, that's a hard one. One thing I do know; if I steal something and later am "rehabilitated," that doesn't mean that I don't owe anyone anything anymore because I'm a "better" person. It just means I am hopefully less likely to re-offend... but I should still be made to pay back what I took.
Rehabilitation... well, I think that depends. I'm all for letting them work or letting them learn a skill. I'm not for forcing them or paying to try to force them. If they don't want to learn, they're not going to.
And if you murder someone, I don't know what rehabilitation there is for you. Or rape. Or any other violent crime like that.
The stats for repeat offenders is pretty high, as I recall. Rehabilitation isn't working so well. Maybe because you're not changing anything but their external observances, temporarily, so they can just get out of jail? Rehabilitation tends to miss one rather important aspect of life - that people are not naturally good and just have bad circumstances. You can be the richest person on earth and able to do whatever you want to do, and still commit some of the worst crimes. Rehabilitation seems to take the same aspect as communism ... in a perfect world, it'd probably work great. So far, it hasn't. Maybe this isn't a perfect world, and maybe people don't naturally want to be good, happy citizens looking out for their neighbor... maybe they actually do crime and violent things because *gasp* they like doing crime and violent things? And teaching them job skills won't change them liking crime/violence...
Considering most of them are in their for minor drug charges and are no more evil than you or me...
That depends on what you mean by "evil."
My ideology/religion/worldview/whatever says everyone is evil. Some people are more "moral" and some are more "law-abiding" however. A minor drug charge is a shift in moral/law-abiding. Read on, though, I'll probably end up agreeing with you...
And that most of the tax money goes into the hands of the private corporations running the prisons and use the inmates for sub minimum wage labor at a profit which none goes back to the tax payers.
Using inmates for labor seems like a good idea to me, frankly. Why simply let them live at the taxpayers' expense? Why not have them work for it? And frankly, not sure why they should even necessarily be paid much, if at all... they aren't there to make money, they are there to be punished, yes? Although, the view seems to be circulating more widely that prison is for "reformation" of the person or whatever, not to pay the penalty of his crime. I'm all for reforming people, but the whole point of having laws and penalties is... well ... so that people are punished for those law-breakings...
So simple solution... Reform the laws and decriminalize these minor offenses and revoke the contracts with the private corporations running these prisions.
Agree with reformation of laws, at any rate. Decriminalize minor offenses - not sure about that. However, I certainly agree that some offenses get too much time, and some offenses get way too little time. The idea that you can kill someone and get out of jail after 10 or 20 years is ridiculous... not even from a "penalty" standpoint but from a protection-of-society standpoint. And I am not sure if I care - with respect to time-locked-up - if the person was "temporarily insane," that just makes him more dangerous, doesn't it? Or, since the Duggard case is in the news... he got out in something like 7 years after kidnapping and raping? And look what happened, he went on to continue exactly what he was doing before. Surprise! ...
I'm not sure really how to fix those issues. But I really don't think that people that rape, murder, steal, etc., should just go on vacation [slightly sarcastic there, I realize its' not vacation...]. There's something wrong when "jail" means TV, internet, etc.
And there is something to be said about multiple small offenses increasing the penalty each time... depending on the offense, of course. Jaywalking multiple times may not be in the same category as stealing women's purses multiple times.
So, in other words - until you agree with all the laws that land you in jail, you don't think jail should be punitive in any way? Just a pleasant vacation?
Not that it's a "pleasant vacation" now, but just curious about that. It seems to me that laws are always going to be disagreed on by people, including drug possession ... but what's the use of laws if they are not enforced at all unless 100% of the population agrees with them? I bet I could find a lot of people that disagree with a lot more laws than you do. In fact, I probably just have to walk to the nearest penitentiary.
So... I'm not sure what the point is, then? What control over your own computer are you not getting?
I agree, cloud/SaaS is the big thing, stupid or smart as it is ... but I fail to see why it's an issue if Microsoft develops their cloud/software that they charge for the usage of it. As long as they don't charge me for using it when I install Windows and as long as I am able to use a different one, then... ? I don't have a problem with them putting hooks into their OS that make it easy to hook into some of their other services that they sell. If they start making it more difficult for other services to work, that's potentially an issue... but making it easier for theirs? I don't see how that's a problem, honestly.
Interesting that inmates have access to computers and TV. I'm glad we pay for that for them while normal citizens are having a hard time finding a job...
But who cares? So what if the internal OS functions use IE to do internal OS stuff, like browsing folders or what have you?
If the issue is *web browser* stuff, then that should be confined to *browsing the web* - right? And if they turn off IE to *browse the web* - thus allowing FF, Chrome, or what have you - isn't that what they asked for? They're not complaining that Microsoft can't use any of it's own applications for doing stuff within it's own OS. They're complaining that about the web browsing bit.
Forcing Microsoft to somehow completely remove any part of their OS that can interpret HTML because then it could be construed as a "web browser" - and thus have their own "browser" built-in - is silly. May as well decide notepad shouldn't be allowed to ship with Windows or something.
I'm all for being able to turn IE off, as a web browser. That seems relatively reasonable. But forcing them to take out all traces of HTML/"webpage" interpreting functionality seems a bit extreme.
I didn't intentionally use a poor driver - I tried both, and I wanted them to work... I eventually used fglrx and used Ubuntu for about a year on that machine as the only OS installed. It wasn't a change of tune; I mentioned the non-proprietary driver specifically, however, because when I mentioned video issues a while back in another slashdot comment post, the immediate reply was "did you try the open source driver?" - because fglrx isn't the best ... and with openSuSE 11, I had to try numerous drivers before I finally got one to work. Had to be a relatively older version that was difficult to find, had to disable pretty boot screen stuff and do just a normal console boot, etc.
Using the binary drivers with Ubuntu wasn't that difficult, no, though I did run into some display issues. Actually, the Ubuntu experience with installing proprietary drivers was quite refreshing after some of the other distros.
First, I don't think I'm an idiot. I work with AIX, HPUX, Solaris, Linux (RH 4-5, SLES 9-11, all update versions) as my day job, including Veritas. I use Windows and Linux at home. I disliked Vista and found it slow and bulky. I used XP until I required 64 bit, then used Vista x64 only until I was able to use Windows 7 RC (x64) and now the RTM build.
I don't consider myself a musician wannabe, either. I was a composition major and have been performed many times. The most I tried to do with Linux, though, is run Amarok, Songbird, or Banshee and Firefox at the same time. No notation software, no JACK stuff. I used Audacity on occasion, but only to edit stuff, not really for recordings. I use Sibelius on a Windows box and briefly in a VM under openSuSE 10.3. I tried it in Wine once, but it didn't work too well.
ALSA did do nicely with common desktops apps. I switched BACK to ALSA from the default PulseAudio in Ubuntu (8.10 is when I made the necessary config file changes) because of the problem. I was not complaining about ALSA; I was complaining about PulseAudio. However. I still ran into issues where one application would tie up sound and not let any other app do that.
DVD playback - I did not have to install anything, and I have installed XP, Vista, and 7 from scratch in the last 2 years (as well as Ubuntu 8.10, 9.04, openSuSE 11.1, and a few others).
Define modern Linux? I had problems in Ubuntu 9.04. I tried various drivers given in the repo's. No luck with any of them/
Intentionally using a poor choice of video driver? I tried both the open/community version and fglrx (which took a little bit of work to get going well, too... sometimes xorg didn't like it too much).
I don't have an nVidia card in that machine. I've heard their drivers are better... but that doesn't help me with my ATI card all that much.