So it means to just apply the special case of 'it', not that lacking apostrophes is the signifier for all possessive case nouns/pronouns. Actually, the sig wasn't very specific.
Why is the computer becoming FUBARed a definite with Linux and something that wont happen with Windows
Well, one may ask. Myself, I've had a blinding revelation these past two days: There is, in fact, no difficulty with computers at all, for anyone. There is no such thing as a computer illiterate person. There is nothing to stop ALL of us from becoming our own Linux Torvalds. There is only the TriezGamer's, pomo monster's, and EZLeeAmused's out there.
They work for Microsoft. Or they volunteer to do it's dirty work because Microsoft is part of their stock portfolio, anyway. Microsoft would never have made a penny, if they could not convince people that, against the evidence of their own senses, they are too stupid to figure out a computer. As Neal Stephenson has noted in Command Line essay, at the time that Microsoft first started, charging money for computer software was a strange concept. Every computer came with some rudimentary programming language. Programming, back in the late 80's, was something that just any old body could do at all.
So you launch a campaign where you essentially hire a group of human parrots to scream "You'reTooStupid!You'reTooStupid!You'reTooStupid!" all the time. People lose confidence. You close up source code and send lawyers to harrass every competitor out of business. You drive people to enslave themselves to you, by convincing them that they can't live without you.
This explains where just about every MS user in here craps such red hot pokers every time we say "Let's give Linux to somebody." That's one more user who won't get their crack. That's why I have a volley of trolls dogging me every time I try to teach somebody something, and the trolls are all screaming "He's wrong! Visual Basic is better than C!.NET is the perfect language! All the others give you herpes!" That scares them almost as much: somebody learning something about computers, and proving that they're not so stupid, after all?
I regret that I only have one life to devote to defeating such intentional ignorance.
Maybe it's time we explored some of YOUR guts, since I'm done spilling mine:
You sit there and equate Windows with stupid people
Who said "people are stupid"? y, o, u. Not I. The whole POINT of my speech (and my life's work) is that people are just as smart as they want to be. It's a fact, science backs me up, whether you accept it or not. But then you turn around the next time and disown what you've said and try to put the words in *my* mouth. Perhaps, you are disgusted by your own behavior?
You're in a minority, and most people have absolutely NO interest in the computers themselves or the operating systems running on them
Based on your experience in tech support? That's all you're going to give me? Sir or madam, I sincerely hope you fall on the same hard times that the desperate and destitute all over the world live in every day, just so somebody like the "you" you are now comes up to you when you're scraping for a chance to pull your family up out of crack central by working your ass off 12 hours a day sustained only on a can of beans and tells you, "You're too stupid. You're here because you just don't want to succeed." That's exactly your attitude towards them. You're not even pretending to care. Amazing!
But hearing all this from you, you're making a case that *YOU* have the best ideas how to help the impoverished? Based on your attitude, I think you'd rather they all died starving and freezing while you piss on them!
Thank you anyway for the enlightenment. I have always wondered what the agenda of Window-worshipers was whenever the subject of computers for charity comes up. I was indifferent to your kind before. Now, I see grounds for a full-on war.
That attitude says it all, doesn't it? That's such a common thing to hear from you Microsofties. Well, then, you go right ahead and be stupid! The rest of us will go ahead and get smart. We promise to remember you.
You're the one who's getting incredulously defensive over a dissenting opinion in a debate about something that doesn't even truthfully affect you one way or the other.
What you don't know would fill a book. I already dumped exactly WHY this issue in fact is the CENTRAL FOCUS OF MY ENTIRE LIFE RIGHT HERE, and how convenient that the same retort works for you as well!
How, exactly, is it that you figure that people who GIVE SOFTWARE AWAY (Linux? GNU? Free software? Free source code? Heard of them? Duh, stoooopid?) have no interest in whether the poorest segment of the population recieve the benefit of their work? In fact, the whole entirety of GNU and FOSS is one big charity from day one. Where's Bill Gates' open-sourced, non-restrictively-licensed, free in both cost and freedom operating system, huh? The day we have an open source GPL'd Windows version free to download, modify, and use, is the day Microsoft is welcome at this discussion. In the meantime, GNU, Linux, BSD, Open Solaris, OS X, and Plan9 are doing just fine putting free computer resources in the hands of the masses, thank you very FUCKING much.
Picture this instead: boy born in ghetto in the early 70's. Boy grows up poor, not a lot to do, but desktop computers come out and he manages to get his hands on one that somebody tosses out. He's intrigued; this is before Microsoft, when all computer systems were open and came with programming tools installed. Eventually, he cruises the public library grabbing every book he can get his hands on about computers. Pretty soon, he's the neighborhood nerd, and gets computers free for the price of fixing them, and even gets paid for the occasional job. When he discovers Linux, that's just a normal continuation of his previous experience. Eventually, he has managed to educate himself to the point where he can get full-time jobs that would normally require degrees, but he can just demonstrate that he knows his stuff, or get a ground-level job with looser requirements and then work his way up to the position he wanted. He is able to do this several times, before at last ending up in the console of the operations center of one of the world's largest multinational financial institutions. He is the only one there *without* a diploma, and the college graduates keep getting handed to *him* to train! He pulls that stint for nearly a decade, managing to finally retire from it to start his own online business, a Linux-focused site supported by web/graphics design jobs, minor local programming/support jobs, and the occasional advertisement. Nobody has ever once asked him about Microsoft Word, but if you ask him nicely, he'll produce a similar program for you in one of the dozen programming languages he knows by now.
I'm just positive you're saying that's impossible. It damn well is...for you! But it's a TRUE STORY, THAT KID IS ME, AND YOU, YOU STUPID FUCKING BASTARD, COULDN'T STOP ME!!!
And I'm not done with you at all. Now I devote every moment I can spare to contribute back to the community which gave me so much. And it's worth it just to spite you, to educate as many other underpriveledged as I can, to reach out and lift up those people you're trying to beat down just like you(or people like you) tried to beat me(or people like me) down! It's WORTH it to see you in a flop sweat, kissing your Microsoft stock value goodbye, as one more user discovers the truth about Linux behind all the bullshit you spew about it!
I can see a but any time by dropping my pants and looking at it in the mirror, thank you. Direct all further BS you have on the topic to/dev/null, OK? Nobody taught my kids a damn thing about Linux, they just watched and played and learned. Same way I learned computers BEFORE THERE EVER WAS A MICROSOFT. UNDERSTAND? MICROSOFT DIDN'T EXIST BEFORE. IT WAS NOT PRESENT AT GOD'S CREATION. Google "history of computers". Computers were not impossible without Microsoft. Ever. End of story. See my jornal, field guide..., bullet #2.
Man alive, what is that sweat breaking out on the brows of you Microsoft Shillboys whenever we dare to suggest that we bring Linux and a poor person together? What are you afraid of, huh? That that ghetto denizen might free up some of his/her copious time to read a book, take his time, learn something, and someday know more than you? Terrifying when the peasants get culture, isn't it, your Highness? It isn't long after that that they roll out the guillotine. Hmmm, yes, that pretty much explains it.
"Something is happening here but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?"
Check, another MS shill flaming FUD upon anything that isn't Windows. Duly noted. If Windows had succeeded in their bid to provide the software for the $100 laptop, you'd be waving your pompoms cheering it on.
How long will it take until she wants to play a game that's Windows-only?
She's *seen* games that are Windows-only. In school. They cost money. To her, they're no different. Drop in on the average Windows machine and you'll see only a few games installed; granted, each are blockbuster titles, but only a few nonetheless; they cost money and suck up hardware space and resources. Linux, you can have all the free games you want. And Linux is catching up...just because it has a long way to go, doesn't mean it will never get there. Besides, she has the traditional gaming console that you hook up to the TV, anyway.
My latest pet theory on what happened to the US: We have this lousy selection of enemies. Back in WW2, we had to push our science resources to the max to stay ahead of Japanese technology and German engineering. During the Cold War, we got so paranoid about the Russians beating us into space that we had to beat them to the moon. During that golden age for US science and education, our cultural heros were more apt to be Einstein.
Now, our primary enemies are in the Middle East, and their chief skill is pumping oil out of the ground and making gobs of money at it. So our culture now values wealth and the acquisition of it above all else, no matter how. We've grown fat and lazy collectively, ripe for the plucking by the next nation which cracks the books and studies ahead of us.
useful things they can do like use the web, write documents, touch up photos, etc, then Windows/Mac is a better option.
Oh, I know just what you mean. I use Mandriva 10.1 right now, and it sure is a pain having to type everything in hex from the console. Pictures especially. I sure wish they could get some of those cool Windows programs into Linux, like Firefox, OpenOffice, and Gimp.
(Incidentally, that's also why a $100 cellphone would be a much better use of resources than MIT's $100 laptop, but I digress.)
It is my sincere hope that you are re-incarnated as a begger's child in a third-world hellhole where your only hope of escaping a life of desperation and despair is to learn a skill, and the only computer available to you costs $999, holds you hostage with DRM so that you must pay more money for every word you read and every sound you hear from it, and needs electricity which your village doesn't have.
Nobody over the age of ten will admit this, and it's not even their fault; they're simply mind-locked from twenty years of Windows-serfdom. But teach a kid Linux first, then take them to the Windows PC.
Show them that instead of Firefox, they have IE, or they can download Firefox for Windows. Show them they have Paintbrush instead of Gimp, but they can download Gimp for Windows or buy Photoshop. Show them they have Outlook instead of Thunderbird, but etc... Show them they have Notepad or Word instead of the 50-some editors in Linux. Show them they have freecell-hearts-minesweeper-solitaire instead of the 50-some games on Linux. Be sure to point out that they can no longer switch to alternate virtual desktops, have their pick of ten different window managers, or have all the software they want for it free. Teach them the new keyboard combination "Ctrl-Alt-Del", and remind them that they have to pay attention to virus reports now, because they apply to them.
Of course with my kids, nobody did this with them. They just saw and learned Linux at home, saw and learned Windows at school, and took it to be the natural order of things. Young minds are open; let's not spoil it. They'll be old and mean and dumb just like we grownups soon enough.
Linux will give the kids a harder time, and they will be disappointed that they can't run all the software that they expected.
Do you really consider that a given? My kids learned Linux on the various PCs around the house just by osmossis. Watched mom and dad and did what they did. My daughter is now a connoisseur of live CDs, with Wolvix gaming edition and Linux Live Gaming Project her current favorites, and Knoppix + Knoppix-like running second. She can still function using Windows at school and the library, though she figuratively holds her nose with one hand while doing so, and has taken to informing people when Windows crashes that "they're not supposed to do that!". And she arrived at that attitude quite independently. To her way of thinking, more games run on Linux than run on Windows.
I'd stick with Windows...as a big Linux/UNIX user.
Has it come to this? I like Linux and use Linux, too. Should I rend my hair shirt, flog myself bloody, roll in mud and parade the streets on my knees to show everyone my shame? "Whatever you do, people, do not do what I do! I am a bad example!"
Guy said it's for kids who aren't familiar with computers at all. In every case I've seen kids absorb Linux like a sponge, learn to equate later exposure to Windows and Macs with it. They just take it as a given and keep learning. Why? Because they haven't had 20 years of brainlock in Windows-Only-World.
My daughter has no trouble at all using Linux at home and Windows at school and at the library. The only way it's affected her as far as the outside world is concerned is that she giggles and points when Windows crashes (because they're not supposed to do that) and she shakes her head in disgust when she sees that her only games are freecell/hearts/solitaire/minesweeper. Oh, wait, lemme second-guess the flame-fighters on this one: I'm abusing my children by showing them Linux, right?
See, we're ranging wide of the kind of arguments which could be proven by now. All replies have given me something to think about. I submit two further points for consideration:
the allocation of scarce resources
One of the goals of technological advancement is to make goods less and less scarce.
Most people I know don't want stuff per-se, they want the status that goes with having certain stuff.
Let me guess: most of the people you know are 20th/21st-century Americans? The geek culture has other ways of marking status; specifically the "meritocracy" of achievement. Write a good program - get hired as a cunsultant. Establish a major innovation - get supported the rest of your life on lecture tours and book contracts. People value money, for example, because they have a TV set blasting at them showing them all the stuff they still don't have and all the oppulence and slendor the upper class enjoys. Other societies through history have not had such a monomaniacal single-minded pursuit of riches for riches sake. On that note:
You know what I think the problem with America now is? It's our lousy choice of enemies. Back when we fought the Japanese and Germans, we were inspired to drive our own engineering and science to stay two steps ahead of theirs. That was a tough call in the face of German engineering and Japanese technology. Or when we competed with the Soviets, our paranoia dared not let us be second to reach the moon. Boy, you could study science back in the 50's and 60's and really *BE* somebody! But now it's the 21st century, and our biggest enemies pump oil out of the ground and sell it to make gobs of money... Our culture forgets why Einstein was ever somebody and now worships the Trumps and Gates. Our challenges are so nil that we grow fat and lazy, ripe to be picked off by the next nation that decides to read a book or two and know anydamnthing.
Every time I see discussions over whether life could exist on other planets, it always comes up about how much oxygen and water they have. But couldn't life evolve to, say, breathe helium and drink alkaline, for instance? I grant that temperature extremes are an inhibitor, but I don't know if there's a rule that says, "Anything in the universe that's alive has to breathe (carbon dioxide|oxygen), drink water, be carbon-based, etc."
*shrug* Guess I should have studied more science and read less science fiction...
That would take several rounds each of silver bullets, wooden stakes, holy water vials, and several pounds of garlic. Not to mention black candles, a goat sacrifice, and a prayer to Cthulhu not to send IE back from the void after we dispatched it.
See, that's the focus, that's the whole point, that's where the line is drawn dividing the 21st century geek from the previous stages to their evolution: money-money-money. The geek culture counts other kinds of valuables. Consider the future. If/When we attain this marvelous society we keep daydreaming about with our space exploration and our DNA research, and we colonize space and create superhumans who live for centuries, what will money even mean, then? Money is just one more marker, a convenience to substitute for barter. To someone whose motivation is to build a better world for us all, money is meaningless as long as they have the necessities, and the tools to do their job. But when they innovate technology, they are *creating* wealth, instead of merely trading it with each other.
This is *why* free software is $-free as well as @-free. If it was about money, there would be no free software in the first place. And this is what's killing Microsoft: It's still thinking in chess, while the rest of the tech world is playing Go. I've said many times, that Linux could be Microsoft's best friend, if MS could only get a grip on themselves. Dual-booting Linux and Windows fixes nearly every problem with Windows - nothing like having Linux tools nearby to secure your Windows partitions! You can enjoy the best of both worlds. MS could turn around and *boost* Linux and release a Windows version that doesn't Godzilla all over your master boot record, a co-operative system that is designed to work with other systems... Instead, they have only the mentality to *kill* and be the only one left to survive, while the rest of the world is happy to co-operate with each other...
Don't even think the threats to Microsoft will end with Linux, BSD, GNU, OS X, and Open Solaris. We're just getting started. Hell, we haven't crawled out of the nursery, yet!
It is getting there. I've been toying with the idea of simply refusing traffic at a site if the agent is IE or requesting system Windows. Just show 'em a message "This site does not support your browser/system for security reasons, go here to download Firefox/Linux"...
Think about it. Where do ALL of the security problems come from? Thus, a big shortcut to security would simply be to eliminate all Windows traffic. They've been talking about splitting up the Internet - let Microsoft start it's own Internet, then they can stay on it and we can close off their loop and leave them all infecting each other. Won't be our problem anymore.
Oh, yes, and it would also be nice if money grew on trees.
Slashdot Mirror
on the same Internet where a picture of slightly distorted text can defeat a script, like with a captcha?
I can too spell grammar, but I didn't that time!
http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/casepossgen.htm
9
http://www.bartleby.com/64/82.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe_%28mark%2
Well, one may ask. Myself, I've had a blinding revelation these past two days: There is, in fact, no difficulty with computers at all, for anyone. There is no such thing as a computer illiterate person. There is nothing to stop ALL of us from becoming our own Linux Torvalds. There is only the TriezGamer's, pomo monster's, and EZLeeAmused's out there.
They work for Microsoft. Or they volunteer to do it's dirty work because Microsoft is part of their stock portfolio, anyway. Microsoft would never have made a penny, if they could not convince people that, against the evidence of their own senses, they are too stupid to figure out a computer. As Neal Stephenson has noted in Command Line essay, at the time that Microsoft first started, charging money for computer software was a strange concept. Every computer came with some rudimentary programming language. Programming, back in the late 80's, was something that just any old body could do at all.
So you launch a campaign where you essentially hire a group of human parrots to scream "You'reTooStupid!You'reTooStupid!You'reTooStupid!" all the time. People lose confidence. You close up source code and send lawyers to harrass every competitor out of business. You drive people to enslave themselves to you, by convincing them that they can't live without you.
This explains where just about every MS user in here craps such red hot pokers every time we say "Let's give Linux to somebody." That's one more user who won't get their crack. That's why I have a volley of trolls dogging me every time I try to teach somebody something, and the trolls are all screaming "He's wrong! Visual Basic is better than C! .NET is the perfect language! All the others give you herpes!" That scares them almost as much: somebody learning something about computers, and proving that they're not so stupid, after all?
I regret that I only have one life to devote to defeating such intentional ignorance.
You sit there and equate Windows with stupid people
Who said "people are stupid"? y, o, u. Not I. The whole POINT of my speech (and my life's work) is that people are just as smart as they want to be. It's a fact, science backs me up, whether you accept it or not. But then you turn around the next time and disown what you've said and try to put the words in *my* mouth. Perhaps, you are disgusted by your own behavior?
You're in a minority, and most people have absolutely NO interest in the computers themselves or the operating systems running on them
Based on your experience in tech support? That's all you're going to give me? Sir or madam, I sincerely hope you fall on the same hard times that the desperate and destitute all over the world live in every day, just so somebody like the "you" you are now comes up to you when you're scraping for a chance to pull your family up out of crack central by working your ass off 12 hours a day sustained only on a can of beans and tells you, "You're too stupid. You're here because you just don't want to succeed." That's exactly your attitude towards them. You're not even pretending to care. Amazing!
But hearing all this from you, you're making a case that *YOU* have the best ideas how to help the impoverished? Based on your attitude, I think you'd rather they all died starving and freezing while you piss on them!
Thank you anyway for the enlightenment. I have always wondered what the agenda of Window-worshipers was whenever the subject of computers for charity comes up. I was indifferent to your kind before. Now, I see grounds for a full-on war.
At least I'm not raising any annonymous cowards.
That attitude says it all, doesn't it? That's such a common thing to hear from you Microsofties. Well, then, you go right ahead and be stupid! The rest of us will go ahead and get smart. We promise to remember you.
You're the one who's getting incredulously defensive over a dissenting opinion in a debate about something that doesn't even truthfully affect you one way or the other.
What you don't know would fill a book. I already dumped exactly WHY this issue in fact is the CENTRAL FOCUS OF MY ENTIRE LIFE RIGHT HERE, and how convenient that the same retort works for you as well!
How, exactly, is it that you figure that people who GIVE SOFTWARE AWAY (Linux? GNU? Free software? Free source code? Heard of them? Duh, stoooopid?) have no interest in whether the poorest segment of the population recieve the benefit of their work? In fact, the whole entirety of GNU and FOSS is one big charity from day one. Where's Bill Gates' open-sourced, non-restrictively-licensed, free in both cost and freedom operating system, huh? The day we have an open source GPL'd Windows version free to download, modify, and use, is the day Microsoft is welcome at this discussion. In the meantime, GNU, Linux, BSD, Open Solaris, OS X, and Plan9 are doing just fine putting free computer resources in the hands of the masses, thank you very FUCKING much.
SCUM!
Picture this instead: boy born in ghetto in the early 70's. Boy grows up poor, not a lot to do, but desktop computers come out and he manages to get his hands on one that somebody tosses out. He's intrigued; this is before Microsoft, when all computer systems were open and came with programming tools installed. Eventually, he cruises the public library grabbing every book he can get his hands on about computers. Pretty soon, he's the neighborhood nerd, and gets computers free for the price of fixing them, and even gets paid for the occasional job. When he discovers Linux, that's just a normal continuation of his previous experience. Eventually, he has managed to educate himself to the point where he can get full-time jobs that would normally require degrees, but he can just demonstrate that he knows his stuff, or get a ground-level job with looser requirements and then work his way up to the position he wanted. He is able to do this several times, before at last ending up in the console of the operations center of one of the world's largest multinational financial institutions. He is the only one there *without* a diploma, and the college graduates keep getting handed to *him* to train! He pulls that stint for nearly a decade, managing to finally retire from it to start his own online business, a Linux-focused site supported by web/graphics design jobs, minor local programming/support jobs, and the occasional advertisement. Nobody has ever once asked him about Microsoft Word, but if you ask him nicely, he'll produce a similar program for you in one of the dozen programming languages he knows by now.
I'm just positive you're saying that's impossible. It damn well is...for you! But it's a TRUE STORY, THAT KID IS ME, AND YOU, YOU STUPID FUCKING BASTARD, COULDN'T STOP ME!!!
And I'm not done with you at all. Now I devote every moment I can spare to contribute back to the community which gave me so much. And it's worth it just to spite you, to educate as many other underpriveledged as I can, to reach out and lift up those people you're trying to beat down just like you(or people like you) tried to beat me(or people like me) down! It's WORTH it to see you in a flop sweat, kissing your Microsoft stock value goodbye, as one more user discovers the truth about Linux behind all the bullshit you spew about it!
I can see a but any time by dropping my pants and looking at it in the mirror, thank you. Direct all further BS you have on the topic to /dev/null, OK? Nobody taught my kids a damn thing about Linux, they just watched and played and learned. Same way I learned computers BEFORE THERE EVER WAS A MICROSOFT. UNDERSTAND? MICROSOFT DIDN'T EXIST BEFORE. IT WAS NOT PRESENT AT GOD'S CREATION. Google "history of computers". Computers were not impossible without Microsoft. Ever. End of story. See my jornal, field guide..., bullet #2.
Man alive, what is that sweat breaking out on the brows of you Microsoft Shillboys whenever we dare to suggest that we bring Linux and a poor person together? What are you afraid of, huh? That that ghetto denizen might free up some of his/her copious time to read a book, take his time, learn something, and someday know more than you? Terrifying when the peasants get culture, isn't it, your Highness? It isn't long after that that they roll out the guillotine. Hmmm, yes, that pretty much explains it.
"Something is happening here but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?"
Check, another MS shill flaming FUD upon anything that isn't Windows. Duly noted. If Windows had succeeded in their bid to provide the software for the $100 laptop, you'd be waving your pompoms cheering it on.
OK, but first you show me a mobile phone with a handcrank to re-generate your own electricity for free.
She's *seen* games that are Windows-only. In school. They cost money. To her, they're no different. Drop in on the average Windows machine and you'll see only a few games installed; granted, each are blockbuster titles, but only a few nonetheless; they cost money and suck up hardware space and resources. Linux, you can have all the free games you want. And Linux is catching up...just because it has a long way to go, doesn't mean it will never get there. Besides, she has the traditional gaming console that you hook up to the TV, anyway.
Now, our primary enemies are in the Middle East, and their chief skill is pumping oil out of the ground and making gobs of money at it. So our culture now values wealth and the acquisition of it above all else, no matter how. We've grown fat and lazy collectively, ripe for the plucking by the next nation which cracks the books and studies ahead of us.
Oh, I know just what you mean. I use Mandriva 10.1 right now, and it sure is a pain having to type everything in hex from the console. Pictures especially. I sure wish they could get some of those cool Windows programs into Linux, like Firefox, OpenOffice, and Gimp.
W0oT!!!11 U R s0 rit! 1 lern typ n MSN n 1 cn rit rel gd nw!
It is my sincere hope that you are re-incarnated as a begger's child in a third-world hellhole where your only hope of escaping a life of desperation and despair is to learn a skill, and the only computer available to you costs $999, holds you hostage with DRM so that you must pay more money for every word you read and every sound you hear from it, and needs electricity which your village doesn't have.
Show them that instead of Firefox, they have IE, or they can download Firefox for Windows. Show them they have Paintbrush instead of Gimp, but they can download Gimp for Windows or buy Photoshop. Show them they have Outlook instead of Thunderbird, but etc... Show them they have Notepad or Word instead of the 50-some editors in Linux. Show them they have freecell-hearts-minesweeper-solitaire instead of the 50-some games on Linux. Be sure to point out that they can no longer switch to alternate virtual desktops, have their pick of ten different window managers, or have all the software they want for it free. Teach them the new keyboard combination "Ctrl-Alt-Del", and remind them that they have to pay attention to virus reports now, because they apply to them.
Of course with my kids, nobody did this with them. They just saw and learned Linux at home, saw and learned Windows at school, and took it to be the natural order of things. Young minds are open; let's not spoil it. They'll be old and mean and dumb just like we grownups soon enough.
Do you really consider that a given? My kids learned Linux on the various PCs around the house just by osmossis. Watched mom and dad and did what they did. My daughter is now a connoisseur of live CDs, with Wolvix gaming edition and Linux Live Gaming Project her current favorites, and Knoppix + Knoppix-like running second. She can still function using Windows at school and the library, though she figuratively holds her nose with one hand while doing so, and has taken to informing people when Windows crashes that "they're not supposed to do that!". And she arrived at that attitude quite independently. To her way of thinking, more games run on Linux than run on Windows.
Has it come to this? I like Linux and use Linux, too. Should I rend my hair shirt, flog myself bloody, roll in mud and parade the streets on my knees to show everyone my shame? "Whatever you do, people, do not do what I do! I am a bad example!"
Guy said it's for kids who aren't familiar with computers at all. In every case I've seen kids absorb Linux like a sponge, learn to equate later exposure to Windows and Macs with it. They just take it as a given and keep learning. Why? Because they haven't had 20 years of brainlock in Windows-Only-World.
My daughter has no trouble at all using Linux at home and Windows at school and at the library. The only way it's affected her as far as the outside world is concerned is that she giggles and points when Windows crashes (because they're not supposed to do that) and she shakes her head in disgust when she sees that her only games are freecell/hearts/solitaire/minesweeper. Oh, wait, lemme second-guess the flame-fighters on this one: I'm abusing my children by showing them Linux, right?
the allocation of scarce resources
One of the goals of technological advancement is to make goods less and less scarce.
Most people I know don't want stuff per-se, they want the status that goes with having certain stuff.
Let me guess: most of the people you know are 20th/21st-century Americans? The geek culture has other ways of marking status; specifically the "meritocracy" of achievement. Write a good program - get hired as a cunsultant. Establish a major innovation - get supported the rest of your life on lecture tours and book contracts. People value money, for example, because they have a TV set blasting at them showing them all the stuff they still don't have and all the oppulence and slendor the upper class enjoys. Other societies through history have not had such a monomaniacal single-minded pursuit of riches for riches sake. On that note:
You know what I think the problem with America now is? It's our lousy choice of enemies. Back when we fought the Japanese and Germans, we were inspired to drive our own engineering and science to stay two steps ahead of theirs. That was a tough call in the face of German engineering and Japanese technology. Or when we competed with the Soviets, our paranoia dared not let us be second to reach the moon. Boy, you could study science back in the 50's and 60's and really *BE* somebody! But now it's the 21st century, and our biggest enemies pump oil out of the ground and sell it to make gobs of money... Our culture forgets why Einstein was ever somebody and now worships the Trumps and Gates. Our challenges are so nil that we grow fat and lazy, ripe to be picked off by the next nation that decides to read a book or two and know anydamnthing.
Come to that, we've been taping cassettes off the radio and CDs and bootlegged from concerts for, what, 25 years, now?
*shrug* Guess I should have studied more science and read less science fiction...
That would take several rounds each of silver bullets, wooden stakes, holy water vials, and several pounds of garlic. Not to mention black candles, a goat sacrifice, and a prayer to Cthulhu not to send IE back from the void after we dispatched it.
See, that's the focus, that's the whole point, that's where the line is drawn dividing the 21st century geek from the previous stages to their evolution: money-money-money. The geek culture counts other kinds of valuables. Consider the future. If/When we attain this marvelous society we keep daydreaming about with our space exploration and our DNA research, and we colonize space and create superhumans who live for centuries, what will money even mean, then? Money is just one more marker, a convenience to substitute for barter. To someone whose motivation is to build a better world for us all, money is meaningless as long as they have the necessities, and the tools to do their job. But when they innovate technology, they are *creating* wealth, instead of merely trading it with each other.
This is *why* free software is $-free as well as @-free. If it was about money, there would be no free software in the first place. And this is what's killing Microsoft: It's still thinking in chess, while the rest of the tech world is playing Go. I've said many times, that Linux could be Microsoft's best friend, if MS could only get a grip on themselves. Dual-booting Linux and Windows fixes nearly every problem with Windows - nothing like having Linux tools nearby to secure your Windows partitions! You can enjoy the best of both worlds. MS could turn around and *boost* Linux and release a Windows version that doesn't Godzilla all over your master boot record, a co-operative system that is designed to work with other systems... Instead, they have only the mentality to *kill* and be the only one left to survive, while the rest of the world is happy to co-operate with each other...
Don't even think the threats to Microsoft will end with Linux, BSD, GNU, OS X, and Open Solaris. We're just getting started. Hell, we haven't crawled out of the nursery, yet!
Think about it. Where do ALL of the security problems come from? Thus, a big shortcut to security would simply be to eliminate all Windows traffic. They've been talking about splitting up the Internet - let Microsoft start it's own Internet, then they can stay on it and we can close off their loop and leave them all infecting each other. Won't be our problem anymore.
Oh, yes, and it would also be nice if money grew on trees.