The thing I have always liked best about Chuck Moore is that, whether you agree with him or not on a particular point, his ideas are always interesting and original. He's not afraid to follow his own judgment wherever it leads, and while he may perhaps end up following more blind alleys than a conventional thinker, it's people like him who will also make the most breakthroughs. In this day of C++/Java/XML/insert-other-orthodoxy-here, it's good to have someone like Chuck Moore around to remind us that computing can still be exploratory and experimental, and that you can still make a living without following the herd.
It is also the anniversary of the groundbreaking for the construction of the Pentagon back in 1941. Pure coincidence, I'm sure, but an interesting one.
Imagine a world in which there are no search engines impartially indexing the web. You'd end up with a few popular outlets that would either showcase their own subsidiaries or sell listings to their partners.
Bing! You have reinvented TV, but with online ordering capabilities. Having failed to create interactive television, Big Business is systematically destroying those elements of the web that made it better than interactive TV.
Your spoonfeeding, already in progress, will now resume.
Something??? This is unbelievably crude, and the OSS community should be embarrased.
I reluctantly have to agree. Linux is great for a number of different tasks, but anything related to graphic design and desktop publishing is so much better served by Windows and MacOS applications that anyone suggesting Linux for these tasks ought to be laughed out of the room for being the clueless nutball that they are. It is endlessly frustrating to me that I have to keep Windows around to have a full-featured word processor and page layout software, but that's just how it is right now.
I think most Linux users recognize this as an unfortunate fact of life, and it's a natural consequence of the dominant interests of the average Linux user (myself included). Unfortunately, there is a small faction consisting of people who have never used word processors or layout software extensively who think that WordPad clones like AbiWord are "good enough", and they probably are for those users. Likewise with the people who can seriously suggest that the GIMP is a workable replacement for Photoshop, which is a laughable notion for anything except web graphics. When newbies come to Linux, ask where the serious publishing apps are, and get pointed to the GIMP and StarOffice, you can hardly blame them for sticking with commercial apps.
A huge step in the right direction would be the sort of droolproof, unified handling of fonts one sees in Windows and MacOS, especially if TrueType and Type1 fonts were managed through the same interface. On-screen antialiasing at the X level is another must. That we should still be lacking for this sort of fundamental GUI feature in 2001 is a clear sign that someone -- I wish I knew who -- still doesn't get the distinction between programmer/users and application users.
Now that the tech industry has declined and much of the recent boom has been shown to have been based on overinflated expectations and pure bullshit, it will be more difficult for proprietary software advocates to argue that the economy is driven by software sales. (Of course, that notion was laughable from the outset, but there's no use in shouting over the gold rush.) This is therefore an excellent time to push for adoption of free software by businesses and governments.
There is a sense in which software drives the economy: good software makes it possible for people to do more work and therefore be more productive. Commercial software and free software alike contribute to productivity, but only free software does so without imposing burdensome licensing costs which drain profits and therefore reduce the amount of liquid assets available for reinvestment. One wonders what the Fortune 500 could have accomplished with the billions they've paid Microsoft in recent years if they'd had that money to spend on new business ventures.
I confess I entirely fail to see the point of the hairsplitting going on over whether Pluto is a "major" or "minor" planet, and I sure hope it's being conducted by privately-paid scientists who don't have anything better to do. It's not as if major and minor planets exist as natural categories, like the distinction between neutrons and protons, or even between housecats and weasels. It's an artificial categorization, and a very vaguely defined one at that: if it were well-defined, settling the debate would be as simple as comparing Pluto's properties to the list of requirements for major planet status.
Personally -- and I am not an professional astronomer -- I think the qualifications should be these:
It should never have been large enough to ignite nuclear fusion, i.e., a planet is not a star or a stellar remnant.
It should not be orbiting another planet, i.e., a planet is not a moon.
And finally, it should be large enough for its gravity to crush it into a spherical shape.
Of course, my layman's approach is just as pointless as that of these professional scientists, at least until someone can step forward and explain what use the major/minor distinction has.
Isn't this a MAJOR invasion of privacy? I can't remember exactly, but I seem to remember that ISPs were told they were NOT allowed to do that to modem users, as it violates several privacy issues. You're required to get a warrant prior to initiating any snooping whatsoever.
Yes, it's an invasion of privacy, but the question is whether it is an illegal invasion of privacy. If it was a government agency doing it, then yes, they'd need a warrant. For a private company to monitor what its customers are doing with company equipment is another matter altogether, and in many cases may be perfectly legal.
In some states, for example, you can legally record (your own) telephone calls without informing the party at the other end. Tennessee is one of those states. Maryland -- as Linda Tripp learned to her dismay -- is not.
Please bear in mind that there are extraordinary restraints on the actions of government agencies because they have extraordinary powers. Private citizens and private companies are under much lesser restraints. Moreover, analogies between telcos and ISPs (or between the telco branch of Big Fnarking Company and its ISP branch) are flawed because there are very specific laws governing common carriers, which telcos are, and few laws governing ISPs which are not, I repeat not, common carriers.
I'm not saying this is the way it should be, but in the absence of laws to the contrary, that's just how it is. Considering that ISPs can and have been held responsible for the actions of their customers in some instances, management may feel like they have to cover their butts by snooping. Of course, they may also just be tired of losing money on MP3-and-warez-sucking bandwidth hogs.
The author suggests that the Open Source world has been slow to embrace Java. What a load of malarkey. Half the apps on Freshmeat in a given day are Java apps, and not all of them are trivial.
Second, and more importantly, since when has feeding the fires of corporate IS departments been the prime motivator of free software development? It's a pity so many otherwise intelligent people have swallowed this poison pill of believing that profits are the sole metric of human accomplishment. What is important is this: How many people have a choice that they would not otherwise have, at work or, better still, in their private lives? How many people have we helped ?
That's all that matters in the Big Picture. Everything else is just ego games with twisted little men in suits who fancy themselves alpha males because they have a bigger number in the bank database than you do.
Don't mind them -- it's all part of the technically-arrogant too-serious-to-play faction that swoops down on any/. story about non-electronic hardware tinkering. You have to wonder how many of the snotty, cynical posts about the Darwin Award are coming from people who might themselves be eligible for one if they were imprudent enough to use simple power tools. (No, Dremels don't count as "power" tools.)
I'm skeptical of the kite theory simply because we haven't run across any paintings or etchings of people using them to raise the stones.
Except that there are no contemporary paintings or carvings of the pyramids being built and, in fact, relatively few representations of building construction in general. It is important to remember that it is only since the 17th century or so that mere toolmakers have been venerated as exemplars of society. Before that, like all manual laborers, they were considered to be a lower form of life.
Now I'm by no means suggesting that these guys are correct about the kites -- it seems more likely to me, like an earlier poster suggested, that the clever use of pulleys might have been used, but they probably would have gotten a bunch of people to pull the rope instead of messing with kites. What I am saying is that it is foolish to expect that a culture with very different values than ours would choose to immortalize something they considered to be of little importance.
Now, philosophy and metaphysics: Many people of a religious bent seem to be of the notion that this planet is special and unique, that we are THE (as in, the only) children of God, and that the idea of intelligent life out there is just so much poppycock. Were life to be discovered "out there", it would become rather more difficult to hold that position.
Considering that the Biblical creation myth had been utterly demolished by 19th century science, the Noachic flood had been disproven by the early 20th, and much of the mundane historical content of the Bible was laid waste by late 20th century archaeology, what makes you think that finding microbes on Mars will be the critical fact that makes 1.2 billion Bible-believing Christians wake up one morning, look at the paper, and say, "Well, damn! I guess it was just medieval superstition all along!"
People believe what they want to believe. The exceptions are so rare that they are actually awarded prizes.
Let's see -- it costs more than most decent laptops, has a smaller screen, and in the absence of a keyboard, it's far less capable.
Pass.
Jesus, all I want to be able to do is read/. and Gutenberg texts at a readable point size while I'm sitting on the sofa. For that kind of money, I'm better off buying a mid-range HP laser printer and several cartons of paper.
I know people with HUGE media collections. They collect their media of choice either to support the artists, or because they simply can't stand to be without these 160 albums or these 233 books or whatever.
Since when do 160 albums or 233 books constitute a "huge" collection? My father-in-law has about that many books, and I've always thought of him as an illiterate slob.
Rule of thumb: it's not huge until it starts affecting the placement of furniture in three or more rooms. And paperbacks don't count.
Damn it, what ever happened to pleasing the customer?
It's never been an issue in those cases where the customer is willing to take the abuse. If you keep buying abuse, they'll keep selling it. The same thing happens with women's clothing.
Linux appliances don't seem to be the sure-sell that everyone thought they would be.
Damn, I wish hardware vendors would get this through their heads. Repeat after me: Special-purpose "information appliances" don't sell. No one wants them. Pundits have been running at the mouth about information appliances and digital convergence and the death of the PC since the 80's and it just isn't happening. I can't think of a single dumb idea that's been "the next big thing" for nearly as long. How many times does this crap have to crash and burn before VCs stop pouring money into it?
I suppose that you threw out your color TV for that black and white model? Or even better- back to the radio?
Actually, I have both a TV and a radio. You see, one's good for some things, and one's good for other things. Having both gives me a choice. Up until OS/X came out, using a Macintosh would have meant I didn't have a choice -- I'd have to use a GUI even if it made the job more difficult.
Of course, OS/X came out several years too late to matter. There are free Unixes all over the damn place, running on cheap and even obsolete hardware.
But your point is valid. Why don't TV's have built-in radio tuners?
Without the influence of Jobs and Apple we'd probably all be stuck with a CLI.
If it wasn't for the Macintosh, I'd never have discovered Linux. It worked like this:
Apple abandons the Apple II line in favor of the Macintosh.
I abandon Apple and go to the IBM-PC, which still has a useful CLI interface in the form of Microsoft DOS.
In the drive to compete with Apple, Microsoft abandons DOS in favor of Windows. At first (v3.x), this is just annoying, but later (Win95 and after), it really gets shoved down your throat.
I abandon Microsoft as soon as a friend introduces me to an early version of RedHat Linux, which still has a useful CLI.
Six years later, I wonder how the hell I ever got along without bash. I occasionally hear that Apple and Microsoft are still in business, but it's no longer relevant.
So thank you, Steve Jobs! If not for your insistence on twiddleware, I'd probably still be buying Apple products.
They may not be Illustrator yet, but the concept of "good enough" is not to be underestimated.
Congratulations, sir! You obviously possess the necessary qualifications to serve as Vice President of Product Development at Corel. Please report to your office at 8am sharp, Thursday morning.
Even asking the question betrays some mental habits I wouldn't be comfortable admitting that I had. The answer, of course, is choice. The corresponding question, "Why doesn't everyone use my favorite language?" is also easily answered: Everyone isn't like you -- or anyone else.
Personally, I love C, and I think any language that doesn't give you pointers and low-level control with the accompanying ability to shoot yourself in the foot if you don't pay attention is an underpowered piece of crap. That is, however, just my personal opinion based on my own history and needs, and I don't expect everyone else to adopt it. I certainly don't go running around every time a new language comes out asking, "Why do we need a new language? We've already got C!"
Conformity is a wretched mental habit. It may have its uses in a business environment, but I'd think the Slashdot crowd, if no one else, would be clued into the fact that some people program for pleasure, too. You'd also think that programmers would have a better understanding of the pleasure that comes from successfully doing something difficult.
@Home has always seemed to have some strange priorities to me. They don't carry alt.binaries.warez.*, but they do carry alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.*, and they've got a more complete collection of rape and child-molestation related binaries groups than Newsguy, whose feed I actually use.
Copyright makes for some strange bedfellows, no pun intended. It's okay by @Home management to facilitate the distribution of pictures of four-year-olds being raped, but you can't get pirated copies of Photoshop from their news servers. That sounds really backwards to me.
Clever puns aside, I thought it was kind of jarring, too. A lot of us got into PCs precisely because Apple dumped the Apple II series in favor of the Mac. In any event, the Mac doesn't represent a continuation of the Apple I/II tradition; it is a departure into totally different territory.
(This was not an anti-Mac flame. I'm totally okay with the fact that just under 5% of computer owners buy the wrong kind of machine. More power to their silly, misguided souls.);-)
I don't think the Journal's recent attitude towards Microsoft is one of hostility. The reporters at WSJ try very hard to get the facts straight because it actually matters at the bottom line. (In contradistiction to, say, the op-ed page, where the connection between opinion and fact is much more tenuous.) What it does mean is that "The Establishment" has gotten at least a partial clue about the economic potential of free software, and they are calling Microsoft's bluff in this one instance. It doesn't mean that they're going to dump their MS stock or urge the states' Attorneys General to sue them again.
You say the jobs are there... no, these are "junk" jobs.
It's exactly people with this sort of pompous, bullshit attitude who deserve to be homeless. I worked restaurant and retail sales jobs until I got my first tech job (web design and programming) in 1996, and my salary went up and up until this past year. Since then, I've been through four tech jobs after leaving a stable but relatively low paying job with a public school system to work at Intel, getting laid off there, and then getting laid off by another startup, and finally ending up at a web entertainment company that is actually pulling a modest profit. I never saw the gigantic salaries of the Silicon Valley people -- I was never willing to put up with that lifestyle -- but $65k/yr wasn't too bad for never breaking a sweat or forming a callus and seldom working over 40 hours a week.
In between "real" jobs, I grabbed any temp opportunity I could, and flipped burgers a few times, too. I didn't have any trouble finding "junk" jobs on account of my background -- low-level retail managers expect a high turnover rate anyway, and there's no "couple years" of training involved in working a cash register. I'm still behind on a lot of bills, but not nearly as far as I would have been if I had sat around believing that I was actually worth what I had been paid during the bullshit-fueled internet boom.
The real world isn't Disneyland, no matter how much it might have looked that way to the VC junkies in parts of the tech industry. Reality -- and what is so far a pretty minor downturn -- has come home to roost, and if these cream puffs are throwing up their hands and getting in soup lines because they're too full of shit to wash dishes, I don't want to know what they'll do if the economy goes into a full recession.
Slashdot Mirror
The thing I have always liked best about Chuck Moore is that, whether you agree with him or not on a particular point, his ideas are always interesting and original. He's not afraid to follow his own judgment wherever it leads, and while he may perhaps end up following more blind alleys than a conventional thinker, it's people like him who will also make the most breakthroughs. In this day of C++/Java/XML/insert-other-orthodoxy-here, it's good to have someone like Chuck Moore around to remind us that computing can still be exploratory and experimental, and that you can still make a living without following the herd.
It is also the anniversary of the groundbreaking for the construction of the Pentagon back in 1941. Pure coincidence, I'm sure, but an interesting one.
One heart.
Imagine a world in which there are no search engines impartially indexing the web. You'd end up with a few popular outlets that would either showcase their own subsidiaries or sell listings to their partners.
Bing! You have reinvented TV, but with online ordering capabilities. Having failed to create interactive television, Big Business is systematically destroying those elements of the web that made it better than interactive TV.
Your spoonfeeding, already in progress, will now resume.
Obi Europe! You're our only hope!
I reluctantly have to agree. Linux is great for a number of different tasks, but anything related to graphic design and desktop publishing is so much better served by Windows and MacOS applications that anyone suggesting Linux for these tasks ought to be laughed out of the room for being the clueless nutball that they are. It is endlessly frustrating to me that I have to keep Windows around to have a full-featured word processor and page layout software, but that's just how it is right now.
I think most Linux users recognize this as an unfortunate fact of life, and it's a natural consequence of the dominant interests of the average Linux user (myself included). Unfortunately, there is a small faction consisting of people who have never used word processors or layout software extensively who think that WordPad clones like AbiWord are "good enough", and they probably are for those users. Likewise with the people who can seriously suggest that the GIMP is a workable replacement for Photoshop, which is a laughable notion for anything except web graphics. When newbies come to Linux, ask where the serious publishing apps are, and get pointed to the GIMP and StarOffice, you can hardly blame them for sticking with commercial apps.
A huge step in the right direction would be the sort of droolproof, unified handling of fonts one sees in Windows and MacOS, especially if TrueType and Type1 fonts were managed through the same interface. On-screen antialiasing at the X level is another must. That we should still be lacking for this sort of fundamental GUI feature in 2001 is a clear sign that someone -- I wish I knew who -- still doesn't get the distinction between programmer/users and application users.
Now that the tech industry has declined and much of the recent boom has been shown to have been based on overinflated expectations and pure bullshit, it will be more difficult for proprietary software advocates to argue that the economy is driven by software sales. (Of course, that notion was laughable from the outset, but there's no use in shouting over the gold rush.) This is therefore an excellent time to push for adoption of free software by businesses and governments.
There is a sense in which software drives the economy: good software makes it possible for people to do more work and therefore be more productive. Commercial software and free software alike contribute to productivity, but only free software does so without imposing burdensome licensing costs which drain profits and therefore reduce the amount of liquid assets available for reinvestment. One wonders what the Fortune 500 could have accomplished with the billions they've paid Microsoft in recent years if they'd had that money to spend on new business ventures.
Personally -- and I am not an professional astronomer -- I think the qualifications should be these:
Of course, my layman's approach is just as pointless as that of these professional scientists, at least until someone can step forward and explain what use the major/minor distinction has.
Yes, it's an invasion of privacy, but the question is whether it is an illegal invasion of privacy. If it was a government agency doing it, then yes, they'd need a warrant. For a private company to monitor what its customers are doing with company equipment is another matter altogether, and in many cases may be perfectly legal.
In some states, for example, you can legally record (your own) telephone calls without informing the party at the other end. Tennessee is one of those states. Maryland -- as Linda Tripp learned to her dismay -- is not.
Please bear in mind that there are extraordinary restraints on the actions of government agencies because they have extraordinary powers. Private citizens and private companies are under much lesser restraints. Moreover, analogies between telcos and ISPs (or between the telco branch of Big Fnarking Company and its ISP branch) are flawed because there are very specific laws governing common carriers, which telcos are, and few laws governing ISPs which are not, I repeat not, common carriers.
I'm not saying this is the way it should be, but in the absence of laws to the contrary, that's just how it is. Considering that ISPs can and have been held responsible for the actions of their customers in some instances, management may feel like they have to cover their butts by snooping. Of course, they may also just be tired of losing money on MP3-and-warez-sucking bandwidth hogs.
Second, and more importantly, since when has feeding the fires of corporate IS departments been the prime motivator of free software development? It's a pity so many otherwise intelligent people have swallowed this poison pill of believing that profits are the sole metric of human accomplishment. What is important is this: How many people have a choice that they would not otherwise have, at work or, better still, in their private lives? How many people have we helped ?
That's all that matters in the Big Picture. Everything else is just ego games with twisted little men in suits who fancy themselves alpha males because they have a bigger number in the bank database than you do.
If you actually have to ask that question, then yes, you definitely qualify for a job as a patent examiner.
Don't mind them -- it's all part of the technically-arrogant too-serious-to-play faction that swoops down on any /. story about non-electronic hardware tinkering. You have to wonder how many of the snotty, cynical posts about the Darwin Award are coming from people who might themselves be eligible for one if they were imprudent enough to use simple power tools. (No, Dremels don't count as "power" tools.)
--
Except that there are no contemporary paintings or carvings of the pyramids being built and, in fact, relatively few representations of building construction in general. It is important to remember that it is only since the 17th century or so that mere toolmakers have been venerated as exemplars of society. Before that, like all manual laborers, they were considered to be a lower form of life.
Now I'm by no means suggesting that these guys are correct about the kites -- it seems more likely to me, like an earlier poster suggested, that the clever use of pulleys might have been used, but they probably would have gotten a bunch of people to pull the rope instead of messing with kites. What I am saying is that it is foolish to expect that a culture with very different values than ours would choose to immortalize something they considered to be of little importance.
--
Considering that the Biblical creation myth had been utterly demolished by 19th century science, the Noachic flood had been disproven by the early 20th, and much of the mundane historical content of the Bible was laid waste by late 20th century archaeology, what makes you think that finding microbes on Mars will be the critical fact that makes 1.2 billion Bible-believing Christians wake up one morning, look at the paper, and say, "Well, damn! I guess it was just medieval superstition all along!"
People believe what they want to believe. The exceptions are so rare that they are actually awarded prizes.
--
Pass.
Jesus, all I want to be able to do is read /. and Gutenberg texts at a readable point size while I'm sitting on the sofa. For that kind of money, I'm better off buying a mid-range HP laser printer and several cartons of paper.
--
Since when do 160 albums or 233 books constitute a "huge" collection? My father-in-law has about that many books, and I've always thought of him as an illiterate slob.
Rule of thumb: it's not huge until it starts affecting the placement of furniture in three or more rooms. And paperbacks don't count.
Damn it, what ever happened to pleasing the customer?
It's never been an issue in those cases where the customer is willing to take the abuse. If you keep buying abuse, they'll keep selling it. The same thing happens with women's clothing.
--
Damn, I wish hardware vendors would get this through their heads. Repeat after me: Special-purpose "information appliances" don't sell. No one wants them. Pundits have been running at the mouth about information appliances and digital convergence and the death of the PC since the 80's and it just isn't happening. I can't think of a single dumb idea that's been "the next big thing" for nearly as long. How many times does this crap have to crash and burn before VCs stop pouring money into it?
--
Actually, I have both a TV and a radio. You see, one's good for some things, and one's good for other things. Having both gives me a choice. Up until OS/X came out, using a Macintosh would have meant I didn't have a choice -- I'd have to use a GUI even if it made the job more difficult.
Of course, OS/X came out several years too late to matter. There are free Unixes all over the damn place, running on cheap and even obsolete hardware.
But your point is valid. Why don't TV's have built-in radio tuners?
--
If it wasn't for the Macintosh, I'd never have discovered Linux. It worked like this:
- Apple abandons the Apple II line in favor of the Macintosh.
- I abandon Apple and go to the IBM-PC, which still has a useful CLI interface in the form of Microsoft DOS.
- In the drive to compete with Apple, Microsoft abandons DOS in favor of Windows. At first (v3.x), this is just annoying, but later (Win95 and after), it really gets shoved down your throat.
- I abandon Microsoft as soon as a friend introduces me to an early version of RedHat Linux, which still has a useful CLI.
- Six years later, I wonder how the hell I ever got along without bash. I occasionally hear that Apple and Microsoft are still in business, but it's no longer relevant.
So thank you, Steve Jobs! If not for your insistence on twiddleware, I'd probably still be buying Apple products.--
Congratulations, sir! You obviously possess the necessary qualifications to serve as Vice President of Product Development at Corel. Please report to your office at 8am sharp, Thursday morning.
--
Personally, I love C, and I think any language that doesn't give you pointers and low-level control with the accompanying ability to shoot yourself in the foot if you don't pay attention is an underpowered piece of crap. That is, however, just my personal opinion based on my own history and needs, and I don't expect everyone else to adopt it. I certainly don't go running around every time a new language comes out asking, "Why do we need a new language? We've already got C!"
Conformity is a wretched mental habit. It may have its uses in a business environment, but I'd think the Slashdot crowd, if no one else, would be clued into the fact that some people program for pleasure, too. You'd also think that programmers would have a better understanding of the pleasure that comes from successfully doing something difficult.
--
Copyright makes for some strange bedfellows, no pun intended. It's okay by @Home management to facilitate the distribution of pictures of four-year-olds being raped, but you can't get pirated copies of Photoshop from their news servers. That sounds really backwards to me.
--
(This was not an anti-Mac flame. I'm totally okay with the fact that just under 5% of computer owners buy the wrong kind of machine. More power to their silly, misguided souls.) ;-)
--
I don't think the Journal's recent attitude towards Microsoft is one of hostility. The reporters at WSJ try very hard to get the facts straight because it actually matters at the bottom line. (In contradistiction to, say, the op-ed page, where the connection between opinion and fact is much more tenuous.) What it does mean is that "The Establishment" has gotten at least a partial clue about the economic potential of free software, and they are calling Microsoft's bluff in this one instance. It doesn't mean that they're going to dump their MS stock or urge the states' Attorneys General to sue them again.
--
It's exactly people with this sort of pompous, bullshit attitude who deserve to be homeless. I worked restaurant and retail sales jobs until I got my first tech job (web design and programming) in 1996, and my salary went up and up until this past year. Since then, I've been through four tech jobs after leaving a stable but relatively low paying job with a public school system to work at Intel, getting laid off there, and then getting laid off by another startup, and finally ending up at a web entertainment company that is actually pulling a modest profit. I never saw the gigantic salaries of the Silicon Valley people -- I was never willing to put up with that lifestyle -- but $65k/yr wasn't too bad for never breaking a sweat or forming a callus and seldom working over 40 hours a week.
In between "real" jobs, I grabbed any temp opportunity I could, and flipped burgers a few times, too. I didn't have any trouble finding "junk" jobs on account of my background -- low-level retail managers expect a high turnover rate anyway, and there's no "couple years" of training involved in working a cash register. I'm still behind on a lot of bills, but not nearly as far as I would have been if I had sat around believing that I was actually worth what I had been paid during the bullshit-fueled internet boom.
The real world isn't Disneyland, no matter how much it might have looked that way to the VC junkies in parts of the tech industry. Reality -- and what is so far a pretty minor downturn -- has come home to roost, and if these cream puffs are throwing up their hands and getting in soup lines because they're too full of shit to wash dishes, I don't want to know what they'll do if the economy goes into a full recession.
--
This confusion is all Stallman's fault. ;-)
--