Some genius who applies their intelligence to social skills and reading people is a teacher's worst nightmare
Oh, yes...
Both my sister and I have reasonably high IQ scores; however, I'm the more scientific one, while she's the more sociable one.
I liked school (mostly, at least), while she didn't - so she used her intelligence to entertain herself during classes. She would 'read' every single teacher, find their weakest spots and pound on them just to get on their nerves.
They didn't like her, but neither did she like them, so that was OK with her... and they really couldn't stop her because she really was smarter than most of them (at least the ones I'd met were morons).
Forgot to mention: I'm not American.
So some things, like writing to my congressman, just do not apply.
However, given all the idiocies they've written in their EULA, and the fact that examining someone's computer does not bind you to the EULA since you are not the end user, I maintain that I'd be able to defend them just by logically disassembling RetroSoft's lawyer's claims.
Oh, don't worry... they can't possibly win this case.
The EULA only enforces certain rules if you want to use the program. If you do not use the program - which would mean running the binaries, if I'm any judge - you may not use the program.
It would be most interested to see whether their EULA contains something along the lines 'this software is provided as-is, and is not fit for any express purpouse' - something similar can IIRC be found in MS Office. That clause would counter and dispel the clause that claims it can not be used in spyware research - regardless of the fact that the program does not have to be running for it to be examined. It doesn't even have to be installed, and the EULA doesn't even have to be read, let alone agreed to.
The package can be extracted, binaries examined... And, if the sued company wants to be evil, they can just claim that any software that forbids the end-user to include it in spyware research (and how in the world would you enforce that rule against NOD32's heuristics and automatic mailing suspicious binaries to their lab really escapes me) deserves to be added to their spyware list. They never had to get past reading the EULA to add the program to their list, so they never would have installed it and, of course, never agreed to the EULA in the first place. If they never installed the program, the EULA is unenforceable.
Finally, proving a negative is not what the US court system is based on, at least from what I've heard about it - innocent until proven guilty (unless it's a terrorism accusation, but I don't really want to troll right now). So the spyware maker has to prove that there was no possible way for the sued company to examine their binaries without agreeing to their EULA. If the sued company can prove that there is at least one way for them to do that, the spyware maker cannot prove that they didn't do it. Innocent until proven guilty.
Hell, I could successfully defend them against this, and IANAL.
Sorry, in my dictionary, if you're celibate, you're neither homo- nor heterosexual. You are not sexual at all.
I consider the above statement to be nothing more than finely worded hypocrisy.
Then again, consider the politicians - they do not word their hypocrisies so finely.
Why do straight people always assume that everyone else is too?
The. Kid. Is. Eight.
For his own sake, I do hope he's had no chance yet to discover he's either straight or gay or anything else of the sort.
(Luckily for him, he's probably not Catholic.)
Besides, it was a joke. Not all blondes are stupid, either.
I'll even daresay not all Macintosh fans are gay, despite the abundant evidence to the contrary.
These are the main reasons as to why I'd like to see a modular office package based on Enlightenment's graphical libraries.
I have a rather old computer, and although Linux itself is rather snappy - despite my terribly badly supported graphic card - OO.o is a pain in the posterior.
The new Enlightenment's (E17) libs look great - at least from my point of view, which is a designer's one, not a coder's one.
Unfortunately.
Anyway, I'm just losing my mind over a rather simple table that wasn't doable in the last 2.0 beta I tried - 'selected table cells are too complex to merge'. I'm still using 1.1, but I tried doing it on my father's 2.0 as well, and it still isn't done right.
When I recall how it was done in WP and how easy it has become even in MS Office, I must say I'm rather disappointed with OO.o, although it's a great program.
I might have bought that if English was the only language I spoke.
It isn't, though.
I'm quite certain that said implement is not called 'igla' in Croatian, yet we have the same saying in Croatian which uses said word, meaning (sewing) needle.
Besides, the saying originates in 1500s - believe you me, they'd have had a different name for the tool.
My ex-mother once told me that she'd given birth to me, so she could kill me as well.
I really fail to see what in your answer makes you less an asshole than what this comment made her.
BTW I'm quite certain that the USA will lose much more than, say, Croatia if the Internet splits up.
You have much to lose, even if you don't see it yet.
The UN is the body who controlled what we did over there (...) Everyone assumes that since the US is in someone's country during a peacekeeping operation, that the US is who is calling the shots...not so. Especially in that case. Things would have been done much differently...successfully.
Oh. You mean, like in Iraq?
.
.
.
.
.
As for the rest of your post, read my previous posts on this topic... then read your post again. Repeat until you get it.
I have no time for people like you. Too disgusted.
P.S. Free advice: don't try to offend me. You'll just look stupid.
(troll)P.P.S. Oh, look. You have just been corrected by a non-native speaker. The quality of your education system seems pretty evident to me.(/troll)
Furthermore, I also "block" TV ads - I either leave the room and do something else while the ads are on or do a fast-forward if I had taped the bloody thing.
What I want and what I need from an advertisement is simple information: what's the product, is it any good, how much does it cost.
What I get from advertisements is a wholly different matter - first of all, I get lies. Modern advertising is all about lying[1], misleading, appealing to the potential customer's supposed passions...
I hate being tricked, you know... I hate seeing other people get tricked as well.
That's why I spend some of my time explaining Multi-Level and Network Marketing schemes when such discussions occur - on one of the forums I visit it has resulted in an explicit ban on MLM discussions and some people using my questions for annoying ML-Marketers in real life as well.
Ads simply have no positive effect on me - if I like the ad, it doesn't mean I will like the product. However, if the ad is annoying and ubiquitous and an insult to my intelligence, I will refuse to buy it even if I have to settle for a second-grade product instead.
I like to think with my own head, thank you very much, so whenever ads tell me to do something, I ask myself 'why should I?' - and regularly find no reason to, and quite a few reasons not to.
I don't block Google Ads on GMail - they're unintrusive, built into the interface seamlessly and only visible when I take a direct look at them. They have never been useful enough for me to click on them, but it doesn't matter - I don't see them when I don't need to, so that's OK.
However, when my favourite forum incorporated Google Ads in a pretty intrusive way, I blocked them instantly - I do not need them there, even if they do get their financing from them.
Call me a freeloader if you will, but notice the faulty logic: if you believe the site will not get its financing because of me, evil adblocker who doesn't look at the ads, you disregard the fact that the ads were annoying enough that I wanted to turn them off. They were not useful - they were annoying. If I couldn't have turned them off, I would probably have suffered them for a time, never clicking a single one of them, before taking off forever.
[1] recent studies have shown that the two least trusted professions are marketing agents and used car salesmen. In that order. See the trend?
No, my point is that I'd rather live in a country whose ways may be wrong, but are straightforward than in a country whose ways may be equally wrong, but is populated by people who put their hands over their collective ears and shout LALALALALALALA.
As for your comment on how many people move to your country - why would i care? [Insert the all-famous what-if-all-your-friends-jumped-off-a-bridge here.]
And if you truly believe my opinion is based solely on a few opinions here, [karma burn]get a brain and learn how to read[/karma burn].
Anyway, I have nothing to prove to you. It's a mind over matter business - I don't mind, you don't matter. Let me know when you stop acting like a baby.
... which brings us back to my point: how come that apparently the majority of/. readers endorses such behaviour, yet the same readership is stereotypically pro-OpenSource?
And as for sacrifices you or your country made, let us just say that it is not the way it is percieved here. The aforementioned arrogance has caused most of the world to distrust you, to say the least.
I may yet decide to compete for the grant, although I'm still in two minds (at least;)) about it.
As Emperor Gregor would say, Let's see what happens.
First of all, I'm not bashing the USA because of one person's postings.
I'm not that rash.
Second, worry not: it wouldn't be the Americans paying for my education. Not by far.
So don't be so sure about things you're only guessing about.
The one reason I find the offer tempting is, well, your universities are good. That, and experiencing myself the wonders of your country - which includes the people, whom I wouldn't like much in all probability. Some of my good friends went to school there, and based on what they've told me, I sincerely doubt I would like it.
The fact you find it the bestest place *evar* to live in is probably based on the fact that there is no place like home.
I don't say there's something wrong with it - after all, it is one of the reasons I would absolutely hate certain aspects of life in the USA. (I hate certain aspects of life in Croatia as well, in case you've been wondering.)
However, your (collective) arrogance shows once more in your post - you presume much about my ignorance, yet I probably know more about your country than you do about mine; you talk about the supposed sacrifices you've made for other nations, but neglect that rarely has anyone asked for it, or at least - except for you, of course - profited on it.
Like it or not, my opinion is as informed as it can be without me living there. And as for people in my country, you should see me bashing them - but they are not the issue here.
As for the topic at hand, I believe that the Internet should be controlled by a body that is as independent as possible - no matter who invented the bloody thing. Unless there are strong arguments to the contrary, which there are none and will be none more.
You may think it funny, but I'd sooner go live in China then in the USA.
Many we've-got-the-Bomb Denis Leary-style answers modded +5 Insightful just reinforce my conviction on that matter.
I'm actually amazed at how apparently the same people (as in:/. readers) can at the same time support Open Source and unilateral control over the Internet.
In my mind, these two concepts clash horribly.
But thank you all for making some things easier for me. I have an opportunity for a year in some American university or other, all costs paid, with a small grant on the side - and while I've been thinking on whether to compete for it or not, my mind's all made up now.
This scientist will never ever give any American the merest hint of a reason to be this arrogant about something.
I can live with the Internet being controled by one entity or another; I don't really give a damn. Should the Internet stop meeting my needs, I'll find another medium. No worries there.
However, the level of American arrogance just makes me sick.
And I repeat: I'd sooner live in China. Or anywhere else in the world, including right here where I am.
The Chinese government may be oppressive, but at least they're up-front about it. From where I stand, the American government is even more oppressive (for one, the Chinese don't wage war on everyone else), even to their own citizens, who relinquish their freedoms with appaling ease. The freedom you speak about sounds more like doublespeak to me with every passing day.
I know most of you won't like this post, but, to use your saying I've read quite a few times so far on this very topic, fuck you and the horses you rode in on.
I'm just glad Linux wasn't invented in the USA.
MS is going to support another company's format (PDF) but they won't support OpenDoc - an OASIS format they indirectly helped create?
Well, I guess there is a cure for that...
TFA says that they had received a huge number of requests for PDF support, so they decided to implement it.
Let us forget about the whole of the Massachussets' government for a moment and file a request for making Open Document - not OpenDoc, that was Apple's project - their default format. If they should get enough requests, they won't have to think too much about including it.
The only question left now is: [The Voice]Can slashdot do it? Will our heroes find it in themselves to go to the MS site and file a request? Or will the bad guys finally prevail?
Watch us again next week, same slash-time, same slash-channel[1]...[/The Voice]
Creoles are contact languages (pidgins, to be more precise) that have become native to at least some of their speakers.
Therefore, if they are creoles - which they most certainly are not - they have native speakers. Q.E.D.
The are not pidgins, either - they are actually not contact languages at all.
OK, so Klingon can serve as a lingua franca at Star Trek conventions, but that's beside the point;)
(Yeah, I know this is offtopic, but I just can't let this kind of thing go unpunished.)
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, yes...
Both my sister and I have reasonably high IQ scores; however, I'm the more scientific one, while she's the more sociable one.
I liked school (mostly, at least), while she didn't - so she used her intelligence to entertain herself during classes. She would 'read' every single teacher, find their weakest spots and pound on them just to get on their nerves.
They didn't like her, but neither did she like them, so that was OK with her... and they really couldn't stop her because she really was smarter than most of them (at least the ones I'd met were morons).
Hitler. End of thread.
No, wait...
Forgot to mention: I'm not American.
So some things, like writing to my congressman, just do not apply.
However, given all the idiocies they've written in their EULA, and the fact that examining someone's computer does not bind you to the EULA since you are not the end user, I maintain that I'd be able to defend them just by logically disassembling RetroSoft's lawyer's claims.
Oh, don't worry... they can't possibly win this case.
The EULA only enforces certain rules if you want to use the program. If you do not use the program - which would mean running the binaries, if I'm any judge - you may not use the program.
It would be most interested to see whether their EULA contains something along the lines 'this software is provided as-is, and is not fit for any express purpouse' - something similar can IIRC be found in MS Office. That clause would counter and dispel the clause that claims it can not be used in spyware research - regardless of the fact that the program does not have to be running for it to be examined. It doesn't even have to be installed, and the EULA doesn't even have to be read, let alone agreed to.
The package can be extracted, binaries examined... And, if the sued company wants to be evil, they can just claim that any software that forbids the end-user to include it in spyware research (and how in the world would you enforce that rule against NOD32's heuristics and automatic mailing suspicious binaries to their lab really escapes me) deserves to be added to their spyware list. They never had to get past reading the EULA to add the program to their list, so they never would have installed it and, of course, never agreed to the EULA in the first place. If they never installed the program, the EULA is unenforceable.
Finally, proving a negative is not what the US court system is based on, at least from what I've heard about it - innocent until proven guilty (unless it's a terrorism accusation, but I don't really want to troll right now). So the spyware maker has to prove that there was no possible way for the sued company to examine their binaries without agreeing to their EULA. If the sued company can prove that there is at least one way for them to do that, the spyware maker cannot prove that they didn't do it. Innocent until proven guilty.
Hell, I could successfully defend them against this, and IANAL.
Sorry, in my dictionary, if you're celibate, you're neither homo- nor heterosexual. You are not sexual at all.
I consider the above statement to be nothing more than finely worded hypocrisy.
Then again, consider the politicians - they do not word their hypocrisies so finely.
Let's just count our blessings.
No.
I was actually trolling about the Catholic priest paedophilia scandals.
Somehow it's not much fun when I have to explain it.
Besides, you cannot be a good Catholic and gay. You can, however, be a good Christian - those are two completely different things.
The. Kid. Is. Eight.
For his own sake, I do hope he's had no chance yet to discover he's either straight or gay or anything else of the sort.
(Luckily for him, he's probably not Catholic.)
Besides, it was a joke. Not all blondes are stupid, either.
I'll even daresay not all Macintosh fans are gay, despite the abundant evidence to the contrary.
Sheesh.
These are the main reasons as to why I'd like to see a modular office package based on Enlightenment's graphical libraries.
I have a rather old computer, and although Linux itself is rather snappy - despite my terribly badly supported graphic card - OO.o is a pain in the posterior.
The new Enlightenment's (E17) libs look great - at least from my point of view, which is a designer's one, not a coder's one.
Unfortunately.
Anyway, I'm just losing my mind over a rather simple table that wasn't doable in the last 2.0 beta I tried - 'selected table cells are too complex to merge'. I'm still using 1.1, but I tried doing it on my father's 2.0 as well, and it still isn't done right.
When I recall how it was done in WP and how easy it has become even in MS Office, I must say I'm rather disappointed with OO.o, although it's a great program.
Well, not much longer until Distro #8472.
Now, that'll be a killer distro...
I might have bought that if English was the only language I spoke.
It isn't, though.
I'm quite certain that said implement is not called 'igla' in Croatian, yet we have the same saying in Croatian which uses said word, meaning (sewing) needle.
Besides, the saying originates in 1500s - believe you me, they'd have had a different name for the tool.
Right.
My ex-mother once told me that she'd given birth to me, so she could kill me as well.
I really fail to see what in your answer makes you less an asshole than what this comment made her.
BTW I'm quite certain that the USA will lose much more than, say, Croatia if the Internet splits up.
You have much to lose, even if you don't see it yet.
Oh. You mean, like in Iraq?
.
.
.
.
.
As for the rest of your post, read my previous posts on this topic... then read your post again. Repeat until you get it.
I have no time for people like you. Too disgusted.
P.S. Free advice: don't try to offend me. You'll just look stupid.
(troll)P.P.S. Oh, look. You have just been corrected by a non-native speaker. The quality of your education system seems pretty evident to me.(/troll)
Quite so.
Furthermore, I also "block" TV ads - I either leave the room and do something else while the ads are on or do a fast-forward if I had taped the bloody thing.
What I want and what I need from an advertisement is simple information: what's the product, is it any good, how much does it cost.
What I get from advertisements is a wholly different matter - first of all, I get lies. Modern advertising is all about lying[1], misleading, appealing to the potential customer's supposed passions...
I hate being tricked, you know... I hate seeing other people get tricked as well.
That's why I spend some of my time explaining Multi-Level and Network Marketing schemes when such discussions occur - on one of the forums I visit it has resulted in an explicit ban on MLM discussions and some people using my questions for annoying ML-Marketers in real life as well.
Ads simply have no positive effect on me - if I like the ad, it doesn't mean I will like the product. However, if the ad is annoying and ubiquitous and an insult to my intelligence, I will refuse to buy it even if I have to settle for a second-grade product instead.
I like to think with my own head, thank you very much, so whenever ads tell me to do something, I ask myself 'why should I?' - and regularly find no reason to, and quite a few reasons not to.
I don't block Google Ads on GMail - they're unintrusive, built into the interface seamlessly and only visible when I take a direct look at them. They have never been useful enough for me to click on them, but it doesn't matter - I don't see them when I don't need to, so that's OK.
However, when my favourite forum incorporated Google Ads in a pretty intrusive way, I blocked them instantly - I do not need them there, even if they do get their financing from them.
Call me a freeloader if you will, but notice the faulty logic: if you believe the site will not get its financing because of me, evil adblocker who doesn't look at the ads, you disregard the fact that the ads were annoying enough that I wanted to turn them off. They were not useful - they were annoying. If I couldn't have turned them off, I would probably have suffered them for a time, never clicking a single one of them, before taking off forever.
[1] recent studies have shown that the two least trusted professions are marketing agents and used car salesmen. In that order. See the trend?
... but I wouldn't trust a car with a Start button.
No, my point is that I'd rather live in a country whose ways may be wrong, but are straightforward than in a country whose ways may be equally wrong, but is populated by people who put their hands over their collective ears and shout LALALALALALALA.
As for your comment on how many people move to your country - why would i care? [Insert the all-famous what-if-all-your-friends-jumped-off-a-bridge here.]
And if you truly believe my opinion is based solely on a few opinions here, [karma burn]get a brain and learn how to read[/karma burn].
Anyway, I have nothing to prove to you. It's a mind over matter business - I don't mind, you don't matter. Let me know when you stop acting like a baby.
Goodbye.
... which brings us back to my point: how come that apparently the majority of /. readers endorses such behaviour, yet the same readership is stereotypically pro-OpenSource?
And as for sacrifices you or your country made, let us just say that it is not the way it is percieved here. The aforementioned arrogance has caused most of the world to distrust you, to say the least.
I may yet decide to compete for the grant, although I'm still in two minds (at least ;)) about it.
As Emperor Gregor would say, Let's see what happens.
First of all, I'm not bashing the USA because of one person's postings.
I'm not that rash.
Second, worry not: it wouldn't be the Americans paying for my education. Not by far.
So don't be so sure about things you're only guessing about.
The one reason I find the offer tempting is, well, your universities are good. That, and experiencing myself the wonders of your country - which includes the people, whom I wouldn't like much in all probability. Some of my good friends went to school there, and based on what they've told me, I sincerely doubt I would like it.
The fact you find it the bestest place *evar* to live in is probably based on the fact that there is no place like home.
I don't say there's something wrong with it - after all, it is one of the reasons I would absolutely hate certain aspects of life in the USA. (I hate certain aspects of life in Croatia as well, in case you've been wondering.)
However, your (collective) arrogance shows once more in your post - you presume much about my ignorance, yet I probably know more about your country than you do about mine; you talk about the supposed sacrifices you've made for other nations, but neglect that rarely has anyone asked for it, or at least - except for you, of course - profited on it.
Like it or not, my opinion is as informed as it can be without me living there. And as for people in my country, you should see me bashing them - but they are not the issue here.
As for the topic at hand, I believe that the Internet should be controlled by a body that is as independent as possible - no matter who invented the bloody thing. Unless there are strong arguments to the contrary, which there are none and will be none more.
Thank you for your time.
I wish I had modpoints right now.
Q.E.D.
Your reply sums up my point perfectly.
Not to mention that it's almost word-for-word the answer I'd been expecting.
Were it not for the signature, there'd be no 'almost'.
You may think it funny, but I'd sooner go live in China then in the USA.
Many we've-got-the-Bomb Denis Leary-style answers modded +5 Insightful just reinforce my conviction on that matter.
I'm actually amazed at how apparently the same people (as in: /. readers) can at the same time support Open Source and unilateral control over the Internet.
In my mind, these two concepts clash horribly.
But thank you all for making some things easier for me. I have an opportunity for a year in some American university or other, all costs paid, with a small grant on the side - and while I've been thinking on whether to compete for it or not, my mind's all made up now.
This scientist will never ever give any American the merest hint of a reason to be this arrogant about something.
I can live with the Internet being controled by one entity or another; I don't really give a damn. Should the Internet stop meeting my needs, I'll find another medium. No worries there.
However, the level of American arrogance just makes me sick.
And I repeat: I'd sooner live in China. Or anywhere else in the world, including right here where I am.
The Chinese government may be oppressive, but at least they're up-front about it. From where I stand, the American government is even more oppressive (for one, the Chinese don't wage war on everyone else), even to their own citizens, who relinquish their freedoms with appaling ease. The freedom you speak about sounds more like doublespeak to me with every passing day.
I know most of you won't like this post, but, to use your saying I've read quite a few times so far on this very topic, fuck you and the horses you rode in on.
I'm just glad Linux wasn't invented in the USA.
... I, for one, welcome our new glasses-wearing girl overlords.
Any benevolent soul with an invite can just remove /.'s protection and send it to me.
Much obliged.
I don't really like the store, but they probably saved tens of thousands of dollars by putting RedHat on every POS.
TFA says that they had received a huge number of requests for PDF support, so they decided to implement it.
Let us forget about the whole of the Massachussets' government for a moment and file a request for making Open Document - not OpenDoc, that was Apple's project - their default format. If they should get enough requests, they won't have to think too much about including it.
The only question left now is:
[The Voice]Can slashdot do it? Will our heroes find it in themselves to go to the MS site and file a request? Or will the bad guys finally prevail?
Watch us again next week, same slash-time, same slash-channel[1]...[/The Voice]
[1] ie. when the dupe comes out.
Creoles are contact languages (pidgins, to be more precise) that have become native to at least some of their speakers.
Therefore, if they are creoles - which they most certainly are not - they have native speakers. Q.E.D.
The are not pidgins, either - they are actually not contact languages at all.
OK, so Klingon can serve as a lingua franca at Star Trek conventions, but that's beside the point ;)
(Yeah, I know this is offtopic, but I just can't let this kind of thing go unpunished.)