In fact, to people with a brain, flourescents are already cheaper, there's no need for another attempt by government to micromanage the population by taxing - taxes are supposed to be a necessity to collect money used to run government, not change our behavior.
These bans are an affront to personal freedoms. I hear so many people claiming they want personal freedoms, yet a lot of these same people are thrilled when the government oversteps their boundries to control, through threat of fines or imprisonment, peoples behavior.
Personal freedoms are an illusion. They are a useful illusion but an illusion nonetheless. Planet earth is a finite system and resource base. While it seems large, we can afford the notion of personal freedoms. But when there are 10 people for every bathroom you no longer have freedom to use the bathroom as you please, do you?
The core problem which so few people wish to discuss is that of overpopulation. GHG emissions are a problem because the total emissions by the given human population exceeds the capacity of the ecosystem to absorb without deleterious side effects. Water availability issues are, at their core, overpopulation issues. Excessive soil erosion issues are also overpopulation issues. In an overshoot population situation, personal freedoms lose meaning and may even have to be abandoned in order to simply ensure survival. The correct overall solution is to lower the population - not just stop growth but actively lower it. In the meanwhile, we will continue to see these sorts of hackneyed "solutions" thrown about because no one wants to touch the real problem - overpopulation. Even most of the "greens" are unwilling to discuss the population problem. But fear not! If we don't solve it, nature will. The only difference between us solving it ourselves and nature solving it is that most of us may not like nature's choice of methods.
Even worse than that, after 5 years when Microsoft pretends to have divinely discovered these features, they will try to patent them. And the PTO, being run by lobotomized monkeys, won't reject that patent forcing small companies into long arduous legal battles with deep-pockets Microsoft. Microsoft doesn't care that they will ultimately lose such battles because they know they will financially ruin anyone they sue before their own money runs out or before the case is closed.
Microsoft is evil. They are a pathologically manipulative corporation. Patents on right click? Patents on human skin as an electrical conductor for computer signals? Yes, indeed, Microsoft owns such "patents" and will sue you if you go anywhere near those ideas even though one is obvious and predates their patent by years and the other is a simple fact of nature, which the patent office is not even supposed to allow to occur.
I'll stop despising Microsoft when Microsoft stops despising me.
If subsequent versions of GNU code move to GPL V3, then Novell cannot use those versions. Nor can they just backport changes from GPLV3 packages into GPLV2 code forks without permission of the original authors. Further, if GPLV3 versions undergo significant rewrites, then the problem of backporting becomes even larger. Nor can you just take the V3 code and fork it under a V2 license. That would be like taking V2 code and forking it under a BSD license - not legal at all. This means that Novell would have to hire hundreds of programmers (or find their entire own open source support community) to replicate the FSF work to date and then to maintain it ever after. If FSF code moves to GPL V3, then Novell is done, end of story, unless they can get Microsoft levels of funding to support their own fork to the OS. I do not believe that Novell can get that sort of funding. Do you? Where will those maintenance dollars come from, pray tell?
When I came into the industry, microcomputers were just taking off. And it was microcomputers that drove my interest. Back in those days I wrote code, lots and lots of code. And I read code, lots and lots of code. My projects back then were rewriting my BIOS on my 64K RAM Z80 so I could squeeze in more features, replacing my BDOS and CCP with ZDOS and ZCPR (both public domain replacements for the core of the CP/M OS), writing modem software for telecommunications, and writing simple scripting tools.
Later on at work, I was fortunate enough to end up working on IBM mainframes that were running VM/CMS instead of MVS. I learned a huge amount about scripting languages there dabbling with Rexx and writing extensions to Xedit, the mainframe's default text editor. At home I skipped the entire MS-DOS period, staying with Z80s then jumping to Interactive Unix when I could buy my first 386. When Minux began to explode, I was there and reading people's code as well as contributing small bits. Until a few years ago I still had my "brick" of floppy disks that contained all the code from my Linux 0.12 build. By that time at work I was working exclusively on Unix workstations and servers and got into a professional project that ended up with some of my work going into the X11R4 release of the XServer. Again, I was writing lots of code and reading lots of code.
Along the way I was also reading the heavyweights of the industry as well. I got some insight into how and why they chose to do things and it greatly influenced my thinking.
If there is one thing I continually recommend to young computer science students I meet it is this - get a full Linux distribution, install it, then begin reading the code, and writing your own. Start small. Write a command line utility. Then write an application program with no GUI, just the core logic. Maybe manage all your CDs and DVDs with it. Then rewrite it with a GUI. Then go back and do it again with something more complex. If you think your application is slick and useful to someone, release it under an open source license, create a project for it on SourceForge, then read the criticisms that flow in. Along the way, learn to let go of your ego and not take technical criticism personally ever, at all. All of this will make you a far better programmer.
So in closing, let me simply recommend what most everyone else here is recommending - write lots of code and read lots of code. It's the best way to excel in this business.
Have you seen the sorts of patents the USPTO allows? How about patenting right click? Yeah, they have allowed that. Also the PTO has a LOUSY record of recognizing prior art with software with thousands of "patents" ending up invalidated by obvious prior art. Microsoft has a patent on human skin, because it conducts electricity and might, just maybe, somehow, someday be used to transmit computer signals. There's no specificity in that patent at all. The PTO is manned by lobotomized monkeys who wouldn't know an original idea from the 5 billionth printing of a Bazooka Joe comic.
I'll have to disagree with you here. Linux doesn't mean complexity nor does Linux mean complexity has to show. Have you even used Redhat or Fedora Core or SUSE (Novell) Linux distros lately? For example, the SUSE startup screen looks way cleaner and more professional than Windows does anyway.
The only key thing about Linux is that it is open which means that if I want to change something I can. There is no requirement that I do change things, only that I have the choice. With Microsoft I have no choice at all. It's Microsoft's way or the highway. That's the difference. And with the arrival of professional level office suites like Open Office, as well as support from all the good browsers, mail programs, etc., about the only thing missing from Linux these days are games. Frankly, games are the only reason I still have a Windows partition. If game companies start delivering Linux versions, I'll completely ignore Vista and send my money to Novell or Red Hat (or some other distro maker) as well.
that all blogs are about inane and irrelevant BS. This is not necessarily so. Two of my favorite blogs are written by mathematicians applying mathematics to various real world problems. It's illuminating, given that I've not used the math I got in college decades ago as much as I would have preferred. And another blog I read is written by a group of engineers and a college professor. Again, it contains such a wealth of data and references that it is like having an irregular portable classroom on that topic.
The problem is not blogs, but wading through the sheer number of blogs to find those that are truly worthwhile. Solve that and you might be able to make money.
It's the ultimate in shallow games and this "expansion" pack doesn't change squat. It's just several months of delayed monthly content wrapped in a new box./yawn
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In fact, to people with a brain, flourescents are already cheaper, there's no need for another attempt by government to micromanage the population by taxing - taxes are supposed to be a necessity to collect money used to run government, not change our behavior.
These bans are an affront to personal freedoms. I hear so many people claiming they want personal freedoms, yet a lot of these same people are thrilled when the government oversteps their boundries to control, through threat of fines or imprisonment, peoples behavior.
Personal freedoms are an illusion. They are a useful illusion but an illusion nonetheless. Planet earth is a finite system and resource base. While it seems large, we can afford the notion of personal freedoms. But when there are 10 people for every bathroom you no longer have freedom to use the bathroom as you please, do you?
The core problem which so few people wish to discuss is that of overpopulation. GHG emissions are a problem because the total emissions by the given human population exceeds the capacity of the ecosystem to absorb without deleterious side effects. Water availability issues are, at their core, overpopulation issues. Excessive soil erosion issues are also overpopulation issues. In an overshoot population situation, personal freedoms lose meaning and may even have to be abandoned in order to simply ensure survival. The correct overall solution is to lower the population - not just stop growth but actively lower it. In the meanwhile, we will continue to see these sorts of hackneyed "solutions" thrown about because no one wants to touch the real problem - overpopulation. Even most of the "greens" are unwilling to discuss the population problem. But fear not! If we don't solve it, nature will. The only difference between us solving it ourselves and nature solving it is that most of us may not like nature's choice of methods.
Even worse than that, after 5 years when Microsoft pretends to have divinely discovered these features, they will try to patent them. And the PTO, being run by lobotomized monkeys, won't reject that patent forcing small companies into long arduous legal battles with deep-pockets Microsoft. Microsoft doesn't care that they will ultimately lose such battles because they know they will financially ruin anyone they sue before their own money runs out or before the case is closed.
Microsoft is evil. They are a pathologically manipulative corporation. Patents on right click? Patents on human skin as an electrical conductor for computer signals? Yes, indeed, Microsoft owns such "patents" and will sue you if you go anywhere near those ideas even though one is obvious and predates their patent by years and the other is a simple fact of nature, which the patent office is not even supposed to allow to occur.
I'll stop despising Microsoft when Microsoft stops despising me.
If subsequent versions of GNU code move to GPL V3, then Novell cannot use those versions. Nor can they just backport changes from GPLV3 packages into GPLV2 code forks without permission of the original authors. Further, if GPLV3 versions undergo significant rewrites, then the problem of backporting becomes even larger. Nor can you just take the V3 code and fork it under a V2 license. That would be like taking V2 code and forking it under a BSD license - not legal at all. This means that Novell would have to hire hundreds of programmers (or find their entire own open source support community) to replicate the FSF work to date and then to maintain it ever after. If FSF code moves to GPL V3, then Novell is done, end of story, unless they can get Microsoft levels of funding to support their own fork to the OS. I do not believe that Novell can get that sort of funding. Do you? Where will those maintenance dollars come from, pray tell?
When I came into the industry, microcomputers were just taking off. And it was microcomputers that drove my interest. Back in those days I wrote code, lots and lots of code. And I read code, lots and lots of code. My projects back then were rewriting my BIOS on my 64K RAM Z80 so I could squeeze in more features, replacing my BDOS and CCP with ZDOS and ZCPR (both public domain replacements for the core of the CP/M OS), writing modem software for telecommunications, and writing simple scripting tools.
Later on at work, I was fortunate enough to end up working on IBM mainframes that were running VM/CMS instead of MVS. I learned a huge amount about scripting languages there dabbling with Rexx and writing extensions to Xedit, the mainframe's default text editor. At home I skipped the entire MS-DOS period, staying with Z80s then jumping to Interactive Unix when I could buy my first 386. When Minux began to explode, I was there and reading people's code as well as contributing small bits. Until a few years ago I still had my "brick" of floppy disks that contained all the code from my Linux 0.12 build. By that time at work I was working exclusively on Unix workstations and servers and got into a professional project that ended up with some of my work going into the X11R4 release of the XServer. Again, I was writing lots of code and reading lots of code.
Along the way I was also reading the heavyweights of the industry as well. I got some insight into how and why they chose to do things and it greatly influenced my thinking.
If there is one thing I continually recommend to young computer science students I meet it is this - get a full Linux distribution, install it, then begin reading the code, and writing your own. Start small. Write a command line utility. Then write an application program with no GUI, just the core logic. Maybe manage all your CDs and DVDs with it. Then rewrite it with a GUI. Then go back and do it again with something more complex. If you think your application is slick and useful to someone, release it under an open source license, create a project for it on SourceForge, then read the criticisms that flow in. Along the way, learn to let go of your ego and not take technical criticism personally ever, at all. All of this will make you a far better programmer.
So in closing, let me simply recommend what most everyone else here is recommending - write lots of code and read lots of code. It's the best way to excel in this business.
Have you seen the sorts of patents the USPTO allows? How about patenting right click? Yeah, they have allowed that. Also the PTO has a LOUSY record of recognizing prior art with software with thousands of "patents" ending up invalidated by obvious prior art. Microsoft has a patent on human skin, because it conducts electricity and might, just maybe, somehow, someday be used to transmit computer signals. There's no specificity in that patent at all. The PTO is manned by lobotomized monkeys who wouldn't know an original idea from the 5 billionth printing of a Bazooka Joe comic.
I just tested Firefox 1.5.0.7 and it is not vulnerable.
So just what version are you discussing here?
I'll have to disagree with you here. Linux doesn't mean complexity nor does Linux mean complexity has to show. Have you even used Redhat or Fedora Core or SUSE (Novell) Linux distros lately? For example, the SUSE startup screen looks way cleaner and more professional than Windows does anyway.
The only key thing about Linux is that it is open which means that if I want to change something I can. There is no requirement that I do change things, only that I have the choice. With Microsoft I have no choice at all. It's Microsoft's way or the highway. That's the difference. And with the arrival of professional level office suites like Open Office, as well as support from all the good browsers, mail programs, etc., about the only thing missing from Linux these days are games. Frankly, games are the only reason I still have a Windows partition. If game companies start delivering Linux versions, I'll completely ignore Vista and send my money to Novell or Red Hat (or some other distro maker) as well.
Linux == open
Linux == choice
Microsoft == closed
Microsoft == no choice
It's that simple.
that all blogs are about inane and irrelevant BS. This is not necessarily so. Two of my favorite blogs are written by mathematicians applying mathematics to various real world problems. It's illuminating, given that I've not used the math I got in college decades ago as much as I would have preferred. And another blog I read is written by a group of engineers and a college professor. Again, it contains such a wealth of data and references that it is like having an irregular portable classroom on that topic.
The problem is not blogs, but wading through the sheer number of blogs to find those that are truly worthwhile. Solve that and you might be able to make money.
It's the ultimate in shallow games and this "expansion" pack doesn't change squat. It's just several months of delayed monthly content wrapped in a new box. /yawn