I am so sick and tired of people saying silly things like "Its only an operating system," or "use what's best," or other justifications for taking crap that we MUST STAND UP AGAINST.
What are you referring to? This seems pretty incoherent, and not related to any of the topics brought up by the story.
There are people actively trying to destroy freedom and they are doing it slowly with incremental steps. This is just another step.
How does not specifying a particular format destroy freedom? I think you have it backwards. Specifying a particular format would reduce your freedom, and be antithetical to "exploring alternate systems", which you advocate.
Overall, your post sounds like doublespeak or propaganda - "Up is down", "freedom is restriction", that kind of thing.
I beg to differ. They are well aware how this technology will be used besides the Olympics
I think you missed the point there. Did you not detect even a trace of sarcasm in the GP post? He was saying that IBM knew full well what the Nazis were going to use the technology for - just like they know today how it is going to be used in China. The whole point was that IBM was a Nazi collaborator in WWII.
It's a lot more than 'a few bags' - it can make a significant impact in the targeted areas.
So, why would the seed companies go out of business by selling significant amounts of seed? Wouldn't they make more profit? You argument is completely illogical. Companies usually don't go out of business when they sell more product.
What on earth makes you think this? Are you just making it up now as you go along? At least argue with facts instead of what you pulled out of your arse.
Well, if you are poor, you're likely to get your seed from saving from the last season's crop. And if you're going to buy it, you would buy it locally, not buy it from America. And it's implied by your argument that they weren't buying the seed in the first place, as you claim the extra demand will cause the seed companies to go out of business. If they were already buying it, why would demand go up?
Books cost very little - a lot less than computers.
Wrong. Books are very expensive. More expensive than computers. And they require a lot more infrastructure to support. All that, and they are constantly becoming obsolete, and turning into waste that must be dispoased of. If a company is trying to build an education infrastructure from the ground up, paper books are a really stupid way to go about it.
And then you harm the companies that sell seed. Meaning that they go out of business and so now the country doesn't have any companies that can sell seed for the next year.
Companies that sell seed will go out of business just because we give a few bags to starving countries? I don't think so. The starving countries were never paying for seed in the first place, so how would they lose profits because of this? If anything, they would gain profits, because of charities buying seed to give to starving countries.
I don't think I've ever heard a more stupid argument against helping people.
Technically speaking, ogg delivers lossy compressed audio with adequate compression and sound quality
No. Technically speaking, ogg is a container for video or audio, or other types of file that are compressed lossily, complessed losslessly, or not compressed at all. vorbis is a lossy audio CODEC.
What they forget to mention is that nearly every single electric company since the introduction of this technology had first embraced, then completely denounced solar cell usage by not allowing these folks to receive stipends for energy THEY produced.
In most civilized countries they have to pay you for that extra capacity by law. Anyway, how are they going to force you to hook your car up to the grid? The only way they are going to get you to do that is by paying you.
In Australia we have people blocking wind farms because it will hurt birds. I am not kidding.
You mean right-wing members of the Liberal party wre using the "hurts birds" argument to shut down plans for wind power in Australia. Not environmental types. Not anybody that actually cares about birds. Right-wing politicians who wre opposed to wind power because it is a threat to their BHP shares. they used "hurt birds" as a disingenuous argument. They don't really care about the birds. Actual environmentalists supported the wind power plants. Sounds like you really swallowed the Kool-Aid.
solar power cannot keep up with all our usage, especially in non-sunny areas of the world.
So why not simply reduce how much energy we use? There's no way we need to waste energy at the rate we do. We could reduce energy consumption by at least a few orders of magnitude just by very basic energy conservation methods.
It is also difficult to build huge power lines because of NIMBY from a large number of property owners. [...] Nuclear power stations can be built much closer to the places where the power is needed.
Yeah, there will be no NIMBY outrage over nuclear power stations close to residential areas at all. Oh, and you need BOTH nuclear power stations and power lines. One doesn't work without the other. So you have double the NIMBYism.
No the teacher's dont, those guaranteeing that they exist and have a job do.
So, why didn't you write that, instead of the barely comprehensible text you did?
Same with teachers. Their job is guaranteed, they're merely feeding at the trough.
WTF? Since when were teachers' jobs guaranteed? Having a thankless job with average-to-low wages is "feeding at the trough"? Seriously, WTF?
They usually have a real job elsewhere.
Teaching isn't a real job? Why not?
Tax feeders usually don't produce as much as they consume...
So what does that have to do with teachers, who produce more than they consume?
Judging by your poor abilities with the written word, I think you might be bitter that teachers didn't just implant knowledge into your brain directly. Learning requires active involvement from the student. You can't blame a teacher just becaase you weren't motivated to learn.
As for teachers being in demand, they aren't, good teachers are always in demand, because the best ones are those we meet in real life, not in school, but somehow those who spend money that isn't their own (all tax fed institutions) proclaim they know what's best for everyone, and they don't, but they got all the guns in most societies
In most societies, the teachers have all the guns and spend other people's money? Wow, that's one seriously weak grasp of reality you have right there.
I guess the difference is that wikipedia contains a fairly large amount of factual errors and the Britannica much less.
But Wikipedia also covers a much wider range of topics than Britannica. You can find info on Wikipedia that Britannica just won't cover. I think that's a fair trade-off. Better to have some information that is possibly flawed than to have none at all.
Another note on this - people have often criticised Apple computers (at least pre-Intel) as being "proprietary". But they were made from parts available off-the-shelf, just with Motorola or IBM processors, instead of Intel. So, are they non-proprietary by your definition, or are there double-standards involved?
Go ahead and stick with your English-professor defintion of the term 'proprietary.' I'll stick to the electronics/tech industry usage.
If it were actually a widespread usage in any industry, it would be in the dictionary. But I'll play along here. What actually is your definition of "proprietary" as far as the electronics/tech industry goes? From what I gather from your previous post, it means "not available off the shelf". But that is a completely useless definition. It would make Microsoft Windows non-proprietary. It would make basically any product non-proprietary. Just because some people in an industry use a term sloppily, doesn't make it correct.
So, would you care to tell me what the specific definition you are using is?
IHBT
No, I'm afraid not. I'm not trolling. I'm just annoyed at the way people in the industry throw words around without thinking, and what people to define what they mean, and think about those meanings. Really, the tech industry is terrible in its use of terminology, it shows a lot of immaturity. A serious industry should be more careful with language.
So, what's the difference? The end result is the same.
Students should be taught to be skeptical of all sources - rather than having one considered "bad" and others considered "correct". Because they can all be wrong.
No, that's a story about a school blocking access to Wikipedia. It doesn't say that the students were banned from reading it on their own computers at home.
You're nuts. You don't know what you're talking about.
I think you might be the one who is losing it. Did you even look up the definition of "proprietary"?:
belonging to a proprietor.
being a proprietor; holding property: the proprietary class.
pertaining to property or ownership: proprietary wealth.
belonging or controlled as property.
manufactured and sold only by the owner of the patent, formula, brand name, or trademark associated with the product: proprietary medicine.
privately owned and operated for profit: proprietary hospitals.
-noun
an owner or proprietor.
a body of proprietors.
American History. the grantee or owner, or one of the grantees or owners, of a proprietary colony.
ownership.
something owned, esp. real estate.
Chips that are published in vendor catalogs with standard part numbers are not proprietary.
Why not? That's practically the definition of proprietary. Something manufactured and sold by a commercial vendor. Intel owns the IP rights to their product. They didn't release their chip designs to be openly copied. They are sold under the Intel trademark.
How is any of that NOT proprietary?
You yourself said that IBM wouldn't allow someone to just copy the BIOS if they read IBM's specifications. Doesn't that sound rather proprietary? If the BIOS wasn't proprietary, why would they try to protect it like that?
Under your definition, a Commodore 64 itself is not proprietary, because I can order one off-the-shelf with a part number. Same for an Apple iPod. I can order one from a catalog with a part number. Therefore it musn't be proprietary. See how your definition doesn't stand up to scrutiny or logic?
Oh, wait! It will still be proprietary, since the 2N3906 transistors and the 1N4148 transistors are made by a company and have that company's part numbers.
Exactly! Any company may be able to make a diode, but companies have their own proprietary implementations of how to make them.
An 8088 XT motherboard has:
an 8255
an 8237
an 8253
an 8288
an 8284
an 8259
and an 8088
Which were all designed to support a proprietary instruction set. The IBM-PC and its clones are classified as such, because they meet IBM's specifications. Not some open coalition of nerd's specification - IBM's proprietary specifications, made to profit IBM.
Proprietary chips are things like the SID chip on the C-64. Produced for a single company for that company's target product. If you want a replacement, you cannibalize an old C-64 to get one.
Right, but it's no more proprietary than Intel's chips. How is Intel not a company with proprietary interests, but Commodore is? Intel makes chips for one company's benefit - Intel. Do you think Intel can just go and copy AMD's chip designs? Even though they might be "compatible"?
Practically all hardware is proprietary. There's no equivalent of "open source" in the hardware world. Because in software, an individual can create a program and distribute it freely. Modern computer hardware requires manufacture in massive factories with very expensive equipment. That requires proprietary interests almost by definition.
Regarding the SID chip - if someone reverse-engineered it, and made copies available off-the-shelf, would it suddenly become "non-proprietary"? I don't think so.
If you don't know what you're talking about, please don't continue to embarass yourself in front of the adults.
How condescending. You can't even use a simple word correctly, and you somehow think you're more adult than others? Please. One of the signs of an adult is that they don't use bizarre alternate meanings for words. When communicating, they are clear in their terminology.
Note that he says this about those who fully ban students from reading Wikipedia. He doesn't say that those who "downplay" the project are bad educators, he says that those who fully ban students from even reading the website are bad.
But this is a problematic statement, because he's attacking a stawman. Is there any evidence of teachers banning students from simply reading Wikipedia? I know many teachers ban their students from citing Wikipedia, but that's nothing like banning students from reading it. So, who is he referring to?
Slashdot Mirror
What are you referring to? This seems pretty incoherent, and not related to any of the topics brought up by the story.
There are people actively trying to destroy freedom and they are doing it slowly with incremental steps. This is just another step.How does not specifying a particular format destroy freedom? I think you have it backwards. Specifying a particular format would reduce your freedom, and be antithetical to "exploring alternate systems", which you advocate.
Overall, your post sounds like doublespeak or propaganda - "Up is down", "freedom is restriction", that kind of thing.
I think you missed the point there. Did you not detect even a trace of sarcasm in the GP post? He was saying that IBM knew full well what the Nazis were going to use the technology for - just like they know today how it is going to be used in China. The whole point was that IBM was a Nazi collaborator in WWII.
So, why would the seed companies go out of business by selling significant amounts of seed? Wouldn't they make more profit? You argument is completely illogical. Companies usually don't go out of business when they sell more product.
What on earth makes you think this? Are you just making it up now as you go along? At least argue with facts instead of what you pulled out of your arse.Well, if you are poor, you're likely to get your seed from saving from the last season's crop. And if you're going to buy it, you would buy it locally, not buy it from America. And it's implied by your argument that they weren't buying the seed in the first place, as you claim the extra demand will cause the seed companies to go out of business. If they were already buying it, why would demand go up?
Wrong. Books are very expensive. More expensive than computers. And they require a lot more infrastructure to support. All that, and they are constantly becoming obsolete, and turning into waste that must be dispoased of. If a company is trying to build an education infrastructure from the ground up, paper books are a really stupid way to go about it.
Companies that sell seed will go out of business just because we give a few bags to starving countries? I don't think so. The starving countries were never paying for seed in the first place, so how would they lose profits because of this? If anything, they would gain profits, because of charities buying seed to give to starving countries.
I don't think I've ever heard a more stupid argument against helping people.
No. Technically speaking, ogg is a container for video or audio, or other types of file that are compressed lossily, complessed losslessly, or not compressed at all. vorbis is a lossy audio CODEC.
In most civilized countries they have to pay you for that extra capacity by law. Anyway, how are they going to force you to hook your car up to the grid? The only way they are going to get you to do that is by paying you.
You mean right-wing members of the Liberal party wre using the "hurts birds" argument to shut down plans for wind power in Australia. Not environmental types. Not anybody that actually cares about birds. Right-wing politicians who wre opposed to wind power because it is a threat to their BHP shares. they used "hurt birds" as a disingenuous argument. They don't really care about the birds. Actual environmentalists supported the wind power plants. Sounds like you really swallowed the Kool-Aid.
So why not simply reduce how much energy we use? There's no way we need to waste energy at the rate we do. We could reduce energy consumption by at least a few orders of magnitude just by very basic energy conservation methods.
Yeah, there will be no NIMBY outrage over nuclear power stations close to residential areas at all. Oh, and you need BOTH nuclear power stations and power lines. One doesn't work without the other. So you have double the NIMBYism.
Uhhh... isn't that the point? You get paid for the electricity you feed back into the system.
So, why didn't you write that, instead of the barely comprehensible text you did?
Same with teachers. Their job is guaranteed, they're merely feeding at the trough.WTF? Since when were teachers' jobs guaranteed? Having a thankless job with average-to-low wages is "feeding at the trough"? Seriously, WTF?
They usually have a real job elsewhere.Teaching isn't a real job? Why not?
Tax feeders usually don't produce as much as they consume...So what does that have to do with teachers, who produce more than they consume?
Judging by your poor abilities with the written word, I think you might be bitter that teachers didn't just implant knowledge into your brain directly. Learning requires active involvement from the student. You can't blame a teacher just becaase you weren't motivated to learn.
In most societies, the teachers have all the guns and spend other people's money? Wow, that's one seriously weak grasp of reality you have right there.
You grow your own coffee beans?
But Wikipedia also covers a much wider range of topics than Britannica. You can find info on Wikipedia that Britannica just won't cover. I think that's a fair trade-off. Better to have some information that is possibly flawed than to have none at all.
Another note on this - people have often criticised Apple computers (at least pre-Intel) as being "proprietary". But they were made from parts available off-the-shelf, just with Motorola or IBM processors, instead of Intel. So, are they non-proprietary by your definition, or are there double-standards involved?
If it were actually a widespread usage in any industry, it would be in the dictionary. But I'll play along here. What actually is your definition of "proprietary" as far as the electronics/tech industry goes? From what I gather from your previous post, it means "not available off the shelf". But that is a completely useless definition. It would make Microsoft Windows non-proprietary. It would make basically any product non-proprietary. Just because some people in an industry use a term sloppily, doesn't make it correct.
So, would you care to tell me what the specific definition you are using is?
IHBTNo, I'm afraid not. I'm not trolling. I'm just annoyed at the way people in the industry throw words around without thinking, and what people to define what they mean, and think about those meanings. Really, the tech industry is terrible in its use of terminology, it shows a lot of immaturity. A serious industry should be more careful with language.
So, what's the difference? The end result is the same.
Students should be taught to be skeptical of all sources - rather than having one considered "bad" and others considered "correct". Because they can all be wrong.
No, that's a story about a school blocking access to Wikipedia. It doesn't say that the students were banned from reading it on their own computers at home.
You're nuts. You don't know what you're talking about.
I think you might be the one who is losing it. Did you even look up the definition of "proprietary"?:
Chips that are published in vendor catalogs with standard part numbers are not proprietary.
Why not? That's practically the definition of proprietary. Something manufactured and sold by a commercial vendor. Intel owns the IP rights to their product. They didn't release their chip designs to be openly copied. They are sold under the Intel trademark.
How is any of that NOT proprietary?
You yourself said that IBM wouldn't allow someone to just copy the BIOS if they read IBM's specifications. Doesn't that sound rather proprietary? If the BIOS wasn't proprietary, why would they try to protect it like that?
Under your definition, a Commodore 64 itself is not proprietary, because I can order one off-the-shelf with a part number. Same for an Apple iPod. I can order one from a catalog with a part number. Therefore it musn't be proprietary. See how your definition doesn't stand up to scrutiny or logic?
Oh, wait! It will still be proprietary, since the 2N3906 transistors and the 1N4148 transistors are made by a company and have that company's part numbers.
Exactly! Any company may be able to make a diode, but companies have their own proprietary implementations of how to make them.
An 8088 XT motherboard has:
an 8255
an 8237
an 8253
an 8288
an 8284
an 8259
and an 8088
Which were all designed to support a proprietary instruction set. The IBM-PC and its clones are classified as such, because they meet IBM's specifications. Not some open coalition of nerd's specification - IBM's proprietary specifications, made to profit IBM.
Proprietary chips are things like the SID chip on the C-64. Produced for a single company for that company's target product. If you want a replacement, you cannibalize an old C-64 to get one.
Right, but it's no more proprietary than Intel's chips. How is Intel not a company with proprietary interests, but Commodore is? Intel makes chips for one company's benefit - Intel. Do you think Intel can just go and copy AMD's chip designs? Even though they might be "compatible"?
Practically all hardware is proprietary. There's no equivalent of "open source" in the hardware world. Because in software, an individual can create a program and distribute it freely. Modern computer hardware requires manufacture in massive factories with very expensive equipment. That requires proprietary interests almost by definition.
Regarding the SID chip - if someone reverse-engineered it, and made copies available off-the-shelf, would it suddenly become "non-proprietary"? I don't think so.
If you don't know what you're talking about, please don't continue to embarass yourself in front of the adults.
How condescending. You can't even use a simple word correctly, and you somehow think you're more adult than others? Please. One of the signs of an adult is that they don't use bizarre alternate meanings for words. When communicating, they are clear in their terminology.
Another sure sign of an adult is t
Earth isn't the largest planet in the world? If you define "the world" as Earth (as most people do), then it definitely is.
But this is a problematic statement, because he's attacking a stawman. Is there any evidence of teachers banning students from simply reading Wikipedia? I know many teachers ban their students from citing Wikipedia, but that's nothing like banning students from reading it. So, who is he referring to?
Not even Britannica is 100% correct, so I'm not sure there's any substance to the point you're trying to make.
Are you planning to breed them? Brings a new twist to an od phrase - "Hey you two, get a roomba!"
That's not booting. That's loading software.