fine, s/bombs/bricks through the windows of starbucks/ -- same difference. Being viewed as the enemy of property and the status quo. You shouldn't hate "closed source" software just because its closed source and you shouldn't use open source software just because its open source.
Use whatever is the best tool for the job, taking all things into consideration. BSD and Linux allow me to have all the software that I need to do the things I want to do. Most of the software that I use is f/oss - but sometimes its worth it to pay to get a commercial solution to a problem where the f/oss solution either doesn't exist, or isn't as good.
One problem I can see with the f/oss movement is that it is largely centered around "scratching an itch" -- ie, developing for oneself and peers. When the majority of the user base has at least some level of experience in programming, then whether or not the system's code is available to them is a concern. For the most part though, people who use computers rather than do computers don't care.
The developers at Microsoft and Apple aren't doing it for themselves, they're doing it for other people to use. Their customers and end users don't really care about the philosophical and political implications of using a closed source driver - they just want their graphics card to do the things the company promised; they want their software to work and that be that.
No, certain segments of software I can certainly see the benefit in having be open and free - particularly for maths and sciences. Software the aids in the furthering human knowledge and advancement should be freely available to everyone. On the other hand, games -- not so much.
But, until Octave is a fully drop-in replacement for MatLab, there is still going to be a market for MatLab on Linux. Until nVidia opens their specs and/or drivers -- or they can be fully and completely reverse engineered, then people are still going to use the closed drivers so that they can use Compiz, or whatever it is that they're trying to do.
But unless we can get some rich bastard like Shuttleworth to put up the funding for a company to make open hardware, f/oss is always going to be playing second fiddle in the driver game. Unless we can get university maths and science departments to use Octave or wxMaxima instead of MatLab, we're going to be playing catch up and the "clone" game.
And frankly, until we stop making software a political statement, we're going to end up driving away a lot of people who just want to use the computer to do useful (to them) work and not make the computer their life. Its bad enough that Apple and MS have the images of being linked to the Democrat-Republican divide (although Rush seems to enjoy the Mac); Does f/oss really want to be linked to bomb-throwing anarchists at the world trade meetings?
Churchill is remembered for WWII but I hate him for things he did between 1918 and 1922, as well as for serving in the 2nd Boer War.
In the Boer Wars, the British invented the concept of the Concentration Camp, which was later perfected by the Nazis.
Later, the blighter was responsible for sending over the Tans to rape, ravish, pillage and generally terrorize the oppressed inhabitants of a certain island directly to Britain's west. In fact, the whole British cabinet (Chamberlain, Lloyd George, etc) of that time period is pretty much the worst bunch of warmongering scoundrels that the world has ever seen. Let us not forget the orders to shoot soldiers who would not knock off the impromptu Christmas Truce with the Germans.
But then, they're still not as bad as Oliver Cromwell, may he burn in hell (I'm not a believer, but I wish it were real just to punish that bastard).
There were small irregular units, yes. However the false history is saying that those units won the war. Von Stueben training the American army in close order drill and bayonet tactics at Valley Forge, and the French armada blocking off the Chesapeake during the siege of Yorktown (where I grew up) won the war.
I wasn't taking a jab at PhDs -- I meant it. If am wrong in my assertions, I want someone knowledgeable to correct me. The best way to make sure you can always learn something is to not believe in anything -- that way you don't mind being corrected.
You asked if it means that you have a problem due to admiring Nelson Mandela as a rebuttal to the apparent assertion that admiration for Obama, or any other politician, indicates some sort of disorder. Obama is just another jackass lawyer* trying to jack the reins of power, whose father happens to have been black. Mandela actually accomplished substantive change.
George Washington organized a uniformed militia under the authority of a duly elected legislature and met the army of another country on the open battle field. Washington != terrorist. The Sons of Liberty, however, yes - they were terrorists.
*I don't support McCain and I'll probably end up voting for Obama because Nader pisses me off and I don't like anyone I know that supports Bob Barr.
Nelson Mandela blew up government buildings under direction of the Soviet-backed African National Congress. Whether he did it for the right reason or not, is not the point. The point is that he used violence to affect political outcome. That makes him a terrorist.
Obama is not, as far as I can tell, a terrorist. He's just a politician - and that means saying and doing whatever is convenient at the time. It's the same now as it always was.
History has provided, from time to time, true statesmen - but they are are far and few between - and their status is usually guaranteed or denied to to political considerations at the time.
David Ben Gurion was a terrorist who blew up buildings and assassinated British soldiers and officers, yet he's the hero of Israeli independence. Michael Collins was the same for Ireland, and you have your Nelson Mandela.
Timothy McVeigh was a terrorist who blew up a government building hoping to start a revolution. Instead of an honourary doctorate and a country, he got executed. Everyone likes to admire a winner; only "fanatics" and "extremists" admire losers who use the same tactics.
Either way, trying to compare Obama to Nelson Mandela has got to be some sort of corollary to Godwin.
That there are hundreds of known competing creation stories, that makes it likely that one of them will get close to the mark. However, it also means that there is a rather tiny chance that any one in particular will be the right one.
Since the only real basis for belief that most people have is that one sect got to them before another sect, there is no real rational reason to pick one religion over another. From reading Tao of Physics, I can say that Eastern philosophies have a better metaphore for how things actually operate than Mid-Eastern religions. However, I also know that there isn't a 1:1 correlation.
As Plato's forms "theory" shows us, any idea that we have of "god" or anything else is just a poor shadow of the real, perfect thing. We can never perceive the original and know its true nature. That said, all religions are therefor equally (in)valid.
But then, these are all philosophical arguments, not scientific ones. Science is better at answering "how" than "why," looking at facts as opposed to truths. If you are on a quest for ultimate meaning, then its best done in the philosophy seminar surrounded by the works of Socrates and Plato, not in the science classroom surrounded by Feynman and Dawkins.
No, because the whole point of science is never knowing for sure. You can never stop investigating and experimenting, because there are always things you don't know that you don't know and you have to question everything.
Yes, you can have a significant body of evidence that supports a theory, which can reliably predict outcomes. Classical Newtonian Physics, for instance, works for most things you encounter in your daily life, but is hardly the last word on Physics. Hell, field theory and quantum mechanics pretty much undo it, at least at the microscopic level.
Similarly, Mendelin heredity more or less works, but is hardly the last word on genetics. Even since the discovery of DNA, we've learned all sorts of new things.
Evolution is an observable natural phenomena. Natural Selection seems to explain it, but there could be other things we don't know and so we have to search them out.
Hell, God *could* exist and *could* have intelligently designed the universe. It's highly unlikely, but not impossible. What *IS* certain however, is that the certainty with which ID/Creationist proponents cling to that crap belies any scientific credit that their approach has.
Certainty is the antithesis of science, at least in my view. I'm sure some PhD will come along and bitch slap me down now.
I'm less than a month past my 24th birthday and have just started getting into Jules Verne. He's not just for kids - its great literature and you can learn a lot. Verne was waaaay ahead of his time with some of the things he discusses.
For instance, he proposes hydrogen fuel cells (using electricity to separate the hydrogen and the oxygen) as an alternative to coal (which he predicts to run out in 250-300 years) in "The Mysterious Island," which is sort of the sequel to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
the USA only seems to import the luxury cars from Europe. In Spain and Italy, I have seen Mercedes-Benz garbage trucks, which shocked the hell out of my the first time when I was 15. Trips since then, barely noticed.
But the thing about a lot of Mercedes and BMWs and stuff -- especially the older ones: turbo diesel engines. Can't any diesel engine run biodisel unmodified? That was my understanding.
Yeah, and how do you think *I* feel?:-/ and yeah, napster was great... sure it was back in the days of dialup, but there were actually choices and stuff to download; well worth the time spent compared to the stuff i can get on limewire/frostwire.
Sure, I could just use iTunes or something, but its not worth the dollar and the hassle.
Well, since the girls in MMORPGS usually are just fat guys with all their hair on their backs instead of their heads, it probably feeds the stereotype about slashdotters, too.
Slashdot Mirror
fine, s/bombs/bricks through the windows of starbucks/ -- same difference. Being viewed as the enemy of property and the status quo. You shouldn't hate "closed source" software just because its closed source and you shouldn't use open source software just because its open source.
Use whatever is the best tool for the job, taking all things into consideration. BSD and Linux allow me to have all the software that I need to do the things I want to do. Most of the software that I use is f/oss - but sometimes its worth it to pay to get a commercial solution to a problem where the f/oss solution either doesn't exist, or isn't as good.
One problem I can see with the f/oss movement is that it is largely centered around "scratching an itch" -- ie, developing for oneself and peers. When the majority of the user base has at least some level of experience in programming, then whether or not the system's code is available to them is a concern. For the most part though, people who use computers rather than do computers don't care.
The developers at Microsoft and Apple aren't doing it for themselves, they're doing it for other people to use. Their customers and end users don't really care about the philosophical and political implications of using a closed source driver - they just want their graphics card to do the things the company promised; they want their software to work and that be that.
No, certain segments of software I can certainly see the benefit in having be open and free - particularly for maths and sciences. Software the aids in the furthering human knowledge and advancement should be freely available to everyone. On the other hand, games -- not so much.
But, until Octave is a fully drop-in replacement for MatLab, there is still going to be a market for MatLab on Linux. Until nVidia opens their specs and/or drivers -- or they can be fully and completely reverse engineered, then people are still going to use the closed drivers so that they can use Compiz, or whatever it is that they're trying to do.
But unless we can get some rich bastard like Shuttleworth to put up the funding for a company to make open hardware, f/oss is always going to be playing second fiddle in the driver game. Unless we can get university maths and science departments to use Octave or wxMaxima instead of MatLab, we're going to be playing catch up and the "clone" game.
And frankly, until we stop making software a political statement, we're going to end up driving away a lot of people who just want to use the computer to do useful (to them) work and not make the computer their life. Its bad enough that Apple and MS have the images of being linked to the Democrat-Republican divide (although Rush seems to enjoy the Mac); Does f/oss really want to be linked to bomb-throwing anarchists at the world trade meetings?
Yes, because after all, this is clearly just an elaborate rouse to deflect the criticism of slashdot hoards and FCC /totally/ equals FBI+NSA.
I think that he's insinuating that IE8 is such a POS that it makes FF2 look super fast and stuff.
Churchill is remembered for WWII but I hate him for things he did between 1918 and 1922, as well as for serving in the 2nd Boer War.
In the Boer Wars, the British invented the concept of the Concentration Camp, which was later perfected by the Nazis.
Later, the blighter was responsible for sending over the Tans to rape, ravish, pillage and generally terrorize the oppressed inhabitants of a certain island directly to Britain's west. In fact, the whole British cabinet (Chamberlain, Lloyd George, etc) of that time period is pretty much the worst bunch of warmongering scoundrels that the world has ever seen. Let us not forget the orders to shoot soldiers who would not knock off the impromptu Christmas Truce with the Germans.
But then, they're still not as bad as Oliver Cromwell, may he burn in hell (I'm not a believer, but I wish it were real just to punish that bastard).
ok, he was a non-state-actor who used violence to affect political outcome. THAT makes him a "terrorist."
And Yes, Churchill was just about the worst person ever, less Cromwell.
There were small irregular units, yes. However the false history is saying that those units won the war. Von Stueben training the American army in close order drill and bayonet tactics at Valley Forge, and the French armada blocking off the Chesapeake during the siege of Yorktown (where I grew up) won the war.
I wasn't taking a jab at PhDs -- I meant it. If am wrong in my assertions, I want someone knowledgeable to correct me. The best way to make sure you can always learn something is to not believe in anything -- that way you don't mind being corrected.
Well, it appears that we mostly agree although our phrasing could have been clearer. I suppose that about clinches it up then, so glad to know you.
You asked if it means that you have a problem due to admiring Nelson Mandela as a rebuttal to the apparent assertion that admiration for Obama, or any other politician, indicates some sort of disorder. Obama is just another jackass lawyer* trying to jack the reins of power, whose father happens to have been black. Mandela actually accomplished substantive change.
George Washington organized a uniformed militia under the authority of a duly elected legislature and met the army of another country on the open battle field. Washington != terrorist. The Sons of Liberty, however, yes - they were terrorists.
*I don't support McCain and I'll probably end up voting for Obama because Nader pisses me off and I don't like anyone I know that supports Bob Barr.
Nelson Mandela blew up government buildings under direction of the Soviet-backed African National Congress. Whether he did it for the right reason or not, is not the point. The point is that he used violence to affect political outcome. That makes him a terrorist.
Obama is not, as far as I can tell, a terrorist. He's just a politician - and that means saying and doing whatever is convenient at the time. It's the same now as it always was.
History has provided, from time to time, true statesmen - but they are are far and few between - and their status is usually guaranteed or denied to to political considerations at the time.
David Ben Gurion was a terrorist who blew up buildings and assassinated British soldiers and officers, yet he's the hero of Israeli independence. Michael Collins was the same for Ireland, and you have your Nelson Mandela.
Timothy McVeigh was a terrorist who blew up a government building hoping to start a revolution. Instead of an honourary doctorate and a country, he got executed. Everyone likes to admire a winner; only "fanatics" and "extremists" admire losers who use the same tactics.
Either way, trying to compare Obama to Nelson Mandela has got to be some sort of corollary to Godwin.
That there are hundreds of known competing creation stories, that makes it likely that one of them will get close to the mark. However, it also means that there is a rather tiny chance that any one in particular will be the right one.
Since the only real basis for belief that most people have is that one sect got to them before another sect, there is no real rational reason to pick one religion over another. From reading Tao of Physics, I can say that Eastern philosophies have a better metaphore for how things actually operate than Mid-Eastern religions. However, I also know that there isn't a 1:1 correlation.
As Plato's forms "theory" shows us, any idea that we have of "god" or anything else is just a poor shadow of the real, perfect thing. We can never perceive the original and know its true nature. That said, all religions are therefor equally (in)valid.
But then, these are all philosophical arguments, not scientific ones. Science is better at answering "how" than "why," looking at facts as opposed to truths. If you are on a quest for ultimate meaning, then its best done in the philosophy seminar surrounded by the works of Socrates and Plato, not in the science classroom surrounded by Feynman and Dawkins.
Its OK, no education is involved either.
No, because the whole point of science is never knowing for sure. You can never stop investigating and experimenting, because there are always things you don't know that you don't know and you have to question everything.
Yes, you can have a significant body of evidence that supports a theory, which can reliably predict outcomes. Classical Newtonian Physics, for instance, works for most things you encounter in your daily life, but is hardly the last word on Physics. Hell, field theory and quantum mechanics pretty much undo it, at least at the microscopic level.
Similarly, Mendelin heredity more or less works, but is hardly the last word on genetics. Even since the discovery of DNA, we've learned all sorts of new things.
Evolution is an observable natural phenomena. Natural Selection seems to explain it, but there could be other things we don't know and so we have to search them out.
Hell, God *could* exist and *could* have intelligently designed the universe. It's highly unlikely, but not impossible. What *IS* certain however, is that the certainty with which ID/Creationist proponents cling to that crap belies any scientific credit that their approach has.
Certainty is the antithesis of science, at least in my view. I'm sure some PhD will come along and bitch slap me down now.
Mathematically, it would raise the average no matter what you spent it on - so long as all the people who have died because of the war lived.
agreed!
I'm less than a month past my 24th birthday and have just started getting into Jules Verne. He's not just for kids - its great literature and you can learn a lot. Verne was waaaay ahead of his time with some of the things he discusses.
For instance, he proposes hydrogen fuel cells (using electricity to separate the hydrogen and the oxygen) as an alternative to coal (which he predicts to run out in 250-300 years) in "The Mysterious Island," which is sort of the sequel to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
the USA only seems to import the luxury cars from Europe. In Spain and Italy, I have seen Mercedes-Benz garbage trucks, which shocked the hell out of my the first time when I was 15. Trips since then, barely noticed.
But the thing about a lot of Mercedes and BMWs and stuff -- especially the older ones: turbo diesel engines. Can't any diesel engine run biodisel unmodified? That was my understanding.
I think you mean 20th.. he was frozen just at midnight on new years of 2000 and wouldn't know anything about the 21st century...
if you copied that from some place, I sense plot hole.
about said genetic abnormalities? I have one that caused me(and my brother) to be born with 6 fingers....
I know someone who is looking for you...
Yeah, and how do you think *I* feel? :-/ and yeah, napster was great... sure it was back in the days of dialup, but there were actually choices and stuff to download; well worth the time spent compared to the stuff i can get on limewire/frostwire.
Sure, I could just use iTunes or something, but its not worth the dollar and the hassle.
Yeah, like your average slashdot geek knows about penetration... /sarcasm
Except for the part where this story is clearly about "art," not Jackson Pollock; He's left out by definition.
...at some point it 'breaks the camels back' and no business can hope to maintain something so large and unwieldy.
So, you're saying that in the future, all programmes will be written in perl?
Well, since the girls in MMORPGS usually are just fat guys with all their hair on their backs instead of their heads, it probably feeds the stereotype about slashdotters, too.
if it makes any difference, I managed to notice.
Well, so much for my well-timed Colbert Report reference...