Do business schools teach their students that it is somehow a good idea to accept the terms of a "discount" from one supplier that require you to ship a POS product, when if you go with another supplier, it's absolutely free and you can sell whatever you want?
It seems people were buying the EeePC just the way it was, with Linux and all, and using it just fine. I can't speak to it myself, as I have no use for such a device. However, what rationale is there for screwing up a perfectly good market just to make Microsoft happy, when they weren't a player to begin with?
I didn't even think I'd get modded for that. I also don't work for the govt... I work for a political non-profit.
I'm paid from this "pro-life" group. I'm not really pro-life, but they're not really a group.
Half the time I write letters on tax or gun issues... then they keep pimping me to National Right to Work foundation. We work out of their office.
NRTW does, in fact, try to win elections. We don't try to get pro-life people elected unless they're Right to Work people, though. So, not a real group.
It's just a direct-mail fund raising scheme that occasionally works as proxy for RTW.
However, it doesn't stop there.
Really, we're a front for a FOR-PROFIT organization which rents mailing lists to other clients.
Sometimes I wish the Teamsters would just burn our friggin' building down. My father was an ALPA union officer. There is no way I would help those RTW scabs on purpose if I hadn't been duped into this job. However, I'm leaving.
Point is -- Bush is small potatoes compared to the real corruption -- lying to little old ladies to milk them for their last dollars, then turning around and selling their names and addresses.
Sometimes it makes me want to puke. I can't wait to go back to school. At least Ohm's Law is what it is...
In my current job, I've met over 50 Republican members of Congress and leaders of the "vast right-wing conspiracy," all the way back to the source of it all -- Richard Viguerie.
I remember being a kid and watching Ruby Ridge, Waco, et cetera. I remember going to gunshows with my dad and stocking up on stuff, coming home and watching Red Dawn. I remember hating Bill Clinton and Janet Reno with a passion.
I most certainly did not feel SMUG about being an American before Bush -- but I can tell you, I did feel PROUD.
That is now long gone. Between the antics of Bush et al, and the bullshit, lies, half-truths and innuendos I have to endure at work, I am now perhaps the least "conservative" person I deal with on a daily basis anymore.
I am leaving my job and leaving Washington to go back to school for mechanical engineering (I had started out as a comp sci and bio double the first time, ended coming out with a BA in English 'cause my heart wasn't in it at the time) and doing school right this time.
I now hate politics with a passion and I can pretty much guarantee that I hate those in power now more than you ever will. I wanted to buy what they were selling before, but now not only do I want my money back, I want to sue for damages.
I used to be a Ron Paul fan, but even in the last few months I've become so fed up that frankly, I don't want to have anything to do with any of those "let the market sort it out" people who only care what happens to you until you're born, then throw you to the wolves.
Oh, by the way, they're the wolves.
The corner stone of the whole operation, the lynch pin, the original vampire, is the National Right to Work foundation. They operate front groups, pimp fake economic numbers, et cetera.
They're the ones that need to go down first, because they're the ones that have been pushing this crap since the 60s.
Anyway... sorry for the rant. It's been a long week.
I'm not sure if that was sarcasm or not. However, it might sort of backfire on F/OSS, creating a sort of extreme "you get what you pay for" condition.
If Free or Open Source software is not taxable, that is because it has no value. Why do I want something that has no value?
F/OSS DOES have value. It just usually has no cost associated with it. This is hard enough to explain as it is.
Companies such as Red Hat, then, would not have to pay tax on Free software. This is good. But they're selling it. This means that they'll probably get rounded up in the IP tax scheme anyway, which is bad.
I suppose if it were based on how much a company claims it lost due to "infringement," then it wouldn't be an issue for RH, but still... you know its just going to get assessed.
Even if I give away real estate, the person who gets it is going to have to pay tax on it. If I give away software, are they going to be liable for the tax?
Anyway... enough rambling. I only took a a real estate law class one time. I am not a lawyer. Don't mind me.
... that we reached 6 billion. I looked it up to refresh my memory and it seems that happened on 12 October, 1999.
Still, almost 700,000,000 more people in just 9 years is an awful lot. Certainly can't help with environmental or economic stability, though I'm not sure there is too much we can really do about it.
Yes, but you sort of have to go out of your way to become a victim of Cupertino.
We all (probably) have gmail accounts, use Google search, etc -- sure, its by choice, but when we first developed these habits, Google was a straight "good guy" with a service that was actually the best.
Now, they've taken advantage of inertia to to expand their power base, data aggregation etc. They are hoping their cool factor will get us to accept further developments, whether they are good for us or not.
Apple also makes things that have intrinsic value. When you buy an Apple product, you actually get something (more or less) worth your money. Google is "free" for us, but then they turn around and advertise at us out the wazoo. Chances are that it'll just get worse, but in a frog in a pot of water sort of way.
Meanwhile, their dominance in their market is matched only by MS's dominance of theirs. Apple is still more or less a bit player -- and one that we wouldn't even be paying attention to if OS X weren't certified UNIX with a BSD core with people like Jordan Hubbard (former FreeBSD lead developer guy) working on it. Up through OS 9, MacOS was a toy OS.
Jobs may be a lunatic, but Google has an awful lot of people by the balls -- whether they realize it or not.
Well, with Microsoft's fortune's in the wane, we need to start ramping up so that once Google becomes the target of choice we'll already have all the mems in place.
I think he is hinging his comment around the term "nondiscriminatory" in the summery. One could interpret that, if it is indeed a word used by the Congressman, as insinuating this legislation is intended to make it illegal to provide lower-quality service to minority-heavy areas.
That is not what "net neutrality" is about, but since people in Congress rarely have a clue about these things, then it might be easy for them to misinterpret the crux of the argument -- especially since Slashdotter types seem to like to make net neutrality sound like a "civil rights" argument.
Thus, a bill is being introduced making it illegal to offer degraded service to the 'hood, 'cause of civil rights... all that will probably mean is that they'll degrade service to the burbs, call it fair and tell customers to stufu because "its the law now, we have to do this."
However, the reason Hollywood was set up in California was to avoid the IP laws of the day so they could pirate Edison's stuff.
Then again, hypocrisy knows no bounds. Given that its derived from the classical Greek word for "stage actor," its also no surprise that it would abound in the "entertainment" industry.
Actually, if you take the slashdot poll thing that they're pimping (not the front page one, the one that takes like 10 minutes to do), it's listed as a social networking site... so either Taco is just trying to be "hep" and "web 2.0," or its true.
Of course, it doesn't seem true in the same sense as Facebook or MySpace -- those sites don't exist to foster intellectual discussion... or even a half decent flame fest.
Any 'tard can come up with ideas -- doesn't mean they're any good. It also doesn't mean they'll work, and without a prototype requirement, then there is no way to prove that a so-called "idea" is going to go anywhere to people you're trying to sell the patent to.
I'm not sure I feel sorry for people who blow money on whatever it is these people are pushing.
"Sure, you could look at the source code. It is Open Source, after all. But what if you don't know Java? I don't particularly want to learn Java just so I can review Freenet's code. As a C++ developer I might be able to read and understand most of it, but I don't trust myself to review something so important without years of prior Java experience -- the chance that I'd miss something is just too great."
And if they wrote it in C++ then a Java developer could say the same thing (and have much more of a case as to why they shouldn't be trusted with a code audit).
That sounds like a personal problem, although -- yes. I wouldn't trust freenet with anything that I had to keep hidden for fear of loss of life or liberty either... but not because I've not coded java in 5 years.
I tried using Freenet a few years ago... chances are if I hadn't given up or gotten rid of the machine, i'd still be trying to fetch something -- anything -- off of it.
Has anyone used it recently to testify to any speed/reliability increase?
Well, seeing as how this thing was burnt to a crisp in the photos (before the/.ing), i'm not sure thermite would really help... perhaps dropping in a box filled with white phosphorous into the bottom of the abyss?
btw -- this story is linked to the one about week ago about the sheer thinning of Xenon. This drive had the data for that experiment.
I think the bigger question is, since when are we the "technorati" -- i thought pretentious words like that were reserved for Apple fans and the like? You know, the turtle-neck wearing, New York Times-reading, latte-sipping "sophisticates" for whom consumer electronics are more interesting than anything they could build on their own?
Next question is, even if we qualify, do we really want to?
To this day the most pleasant computing experience I have ever had was Red Hat 5.2. Unfortunately, that's a tad out of date.
Frankly, and in all seriousness, I'd recommend Slackware based on your requirements above. it's whatever you want it to be and (at least used to) uses the nice BSD init as opposed to SysV.
Those things in and of themselves aren't necessarily popular as classes, just generally abundant. However, there are specific instances of those things which are for some reason particularly popular, however have a lower practical value.
Clothes, for instance, have a purpose. A tank top that says "Tweety Bird with Attitude" which is 5 sizes too small from the Wal-Mart is popular, but not particularly practical (and generally offensives given the body types of the people I usually see wearing them).
Similarly, cars are useful. A two-seater BWM sport coup doesn't really have a practical value, but lots of people want them (ie, they are popular).
Cartoon drawings and stories aren't illegal as no actual children were involved.
Anyway, this bill would prevent Google for aiding the Great Firewall of China -- ie, helping to keep the Chinese from gaining access to information outside of China. It's not illegal to prevent Americans from obtaining something which is illegal in America.
Actually, that'd probably just help keep the American out of prison because then they couldn't end up in possession of something that they should not have.
I was in Ireland back in 2003, and watching Sky News from Britain. There had been a rash of shootings committed by, if i remember correctly, immigrants with connections to drugs.
the people that were being interviewed on Sky were calling for MORE GUN CONTROL!!! There're already pretty much outright banned as far as I can tell. How is MORE GUN CONTROL going to stop criminals? A more reasoned response would be to deport the fuckers who were committing the crimes.
It's not.
It has lead to increased stabbings, however.
It's just a case of the government and those who can't take care of themselves seeking to have a tool banned (gun, encryption, fetish pr0n) instead of punishing those who misuse them. The government especially is concerned about people using tools like guns against them.
Remember, it is perfectly clear from the writings of the founding fathers that the 2nd amendment is there so that the people have the final check and balance against the government -- not about "personal defense" or "hunting."
It's the means to revolution, nothing more. The difference between a citizen and a subject is the ownership of firearms. Just ask John Adams.
Slashdot Mirror
Do business schools teach their students that it is somehow a good idea to accept the terms of a "discount" from one supplier that require you to ship a POS product, when if you go with another supplier, it's absolutely free and you can sell whatever you want?
It seems people were buying the EeePC just the way it was, with Linux and all, and using it just fine. I can't speak to it myself, as I have no use for such a device. However, what rationale is there for screwing up a perfectly good market just to make Microsoft happy, when they weren't a player to begin with?
I didn't even think I'd get modded for that. I also don't work for the govt... I work for a political non-profit.
I'm paid from this "pro-life" group. I'm not really pro-life, but they're not really a group.
Half the time I write letters on tax or gun issues... then they keep pimping me to National Right to Work foundation. We work out of their office.
NRTW does, in fact, try to win elections. We don't try to get pro-life people elected unless they're Right to Work people, though. So, not a real group.
It's just a direct-mail fund raising scheme that occasionally works as proxy for RTW.
However, it doesn't stop there.
Really, we're a front for a FOR-PROFIT organization which rents mailing lists to other clients.
Sometimes I wish the Teamsters would just burn our friggin' building down. My father was an ALPA union officer. There is no way I would help those RTW scabs on purpose if I hadn't been duped into this job. However, I'm leaving.
Point is -- Bush is small potatoes compared to the real corruption -- lying to little old ladies to milk them for their last dollars, then turning around and selling their names and addresses.
Sometimes it makes me want to puke. I can't wait to go back to school. At least Ohm's Law is what it is...
In my current job, I've met over 50 Republican members of Congress and leaders of the "vast right-wing conspiracy," all the way back to the source of it all -- Richard Viguerie.
I remember being a kid and watching Ruby Ridge, Waco, et cetera. I remember going to gunshows with my dad and stocking up on stuff, coming home and watching Red Dawn. I remember hating Bill Clinton and Janet Reno with a passion.
I most certainly did not feel SMUG about being an American before Bush -- but I can tell you, I did feel PROUD.
That is now long gone. Between the antics of Bush et al, and the bullshit, lies, half-truths and innuendos I have to endure at work, I am now perhaps the least "conservative" person I deal with on a daily basis anymore.
I am leaving my job and leaving Washington to go back to school for mechanical engineering (I had started out as a comp sci and bio double the first time, ended coming out with a BA in English 'cause my heart wasn't in it at the time) and doing school right this time.
I now hate politics with a passion and I can pretty much guarantee that I hate those in power now more than you ever will. I wanted to buy what they were selling before, but now not only do I want my money back, I want to sue for damages.
I used to be a Ron Paul fan, but even in the last few months I've become so fed up that frankly, I don't want to have anything to do with any of those "let the market sort it out" people who only care what happens to you until you're born, then throw you to the wolves.
Oh, by the way, they're the wolves.
The corner stone of the whole operation, the lynch pin, the original vampire, is the National Right to Work foundation. They operate front groups, pimp fake economic numbers, et cetera.
They're the ones that need to go down first, because they're the ones that have been pushing this crap since the 60s.
Anyway... sorry for the rant. It's been a long week.
I'm not sure if that was sarcasm or not. However, it might sort of backfire on F/OSS, creating a sort of extreme "you get what you pay for" condition.
If Free or Open Source software is not taxable, that is because it has no value. Why do I want something that has no value?
F/OSS DOES have value. It just usually has no cost associated with it. This is hard enough to explain as it is.
Companies such as Red Hat, then, would not have to pay tax on Free software. This is good. But they're selling it. This means that they'll probably get rounded up in the IP tax scheme anyway, which is bad.
I suppose if it were based on how much a company claims it lost due to "infringement," then it wouldn't be an issue for RH, but still... you know its just going to get assessed.
Even if I give away real estate, the person who gets it is going to have to pay tax on it. If I give away software, are they going to be liable for the tax?
Anyway... enough rambling. I only took a a real estate law class one time. I am not a lawyer. Don't mind me.
... that we reached 6 billion. I looked it up to refresh my memory and it seems that happened on 12 October, 1999.
Still, almost 700,000,000 more people in just 9 years is an awful lot. Certainly can't help with environmental or economic stability, though I'm not sure there is too much we can really do about it.
Yes, but you sort of have to go out of your way to become a victim of Cupertino.
We all (probably) have gmail accounts, use Google search, etc -- sure, its by choice, but when we first developed these habits, Google was a straight "good guy" with a service that was actually the best.
Now, they've taken advantage of inertia to to expand their power base, data aggregation etc. They are hoping their cool factor will get us to accept further developments, whether they are good for us or not.
Apple also makes things that have intrinsic value. When you buy an Apple product, you actually get something (more or less) worth your money. Google is "free" for us, but then they turn around and advertise at us out the wazoo. Chances are that it'll just get worse, but in a frog in a pot of water sort of way.
Meanwhile, their dominance in their market is matched only by MS's dominance of theirs. Apple is still more or less a bit player -- and one that we wouldn't even be paying attention to if OS X weren't certified UNIX with a BSD core with people like Jordan Hubbard (former FreeBSD lead developer guy) working on it. Up through OS 9, MacOS was a toy OS.
Jobs may be a lunatic, but Google has an awful lot of people by the balls -- whether they realize it or not.
Well, with Microsoft's fortune's in the wane, we need to start ramping up so that once Google becomes the target of choice we'll already have all the mems in place.
It's just good strategery.
I think he is hinging his comment around the term "nondiscriminatory" in the summery. One could interpret that, if it is indeed a word used by the Congressman, as insinuating this legislation is intended to make it illegal to provide lower-quality service to minority-heavy areas.
That is not what "net neutrality" is about, but since people in Congress rarely have a clue about these things, then it might be easy for them to misinterpret the crux of the argument -- especially since Slashdotter types seem to like to make net neutrality sound like a "civil rights" argument.
Thus, a bill is being introduced making it illegal to offer degraded service to the 'hood, 'cause of civil rights... all that will probably mean is that they'll degrade service to the burbs, call it fair and tell customers to stufu because "its the law now, we have to do this."
However, the reason Hollywood was set up in California was to avoid the IP laws of the day so they could pirate Edison's stuff.
Then again, hypocrisy knows no bounds. Given that its derived from the classical Greek word for "stage actor," its also no surprise that it would abound in the "entertainment" industry.
Actually, if you take the slashdot poll thing that they're pimping (not the front page one, the one that takes like 10 minutes to do), it's listed as a social networking site... so either Taco is just trying to be "hep" and "web 2.0," or its true.
Of course, it doesn't seem true in the same sense as Facebook or MySpace -- those sites don't exist to foster intellectual discussion... or even a half decent flame fest.
As to the rest of your post, bravo.
plus, as we all know, "pimpin' ain't easy."
Any 'tard can come up with ideas -- doesn't mean they're any good. It also doesn't mean they'll work, and without a prototype requirement, then there is no way to prove that a so-called "idea" is going to go anywhere to people you're trying to sell the patent to.
I'm not sure I feel sorry for people who blow money on whatever it is these people are pushing.
So, I guess that's the secret to getting Vista up and running... for a more pleasurable user experience, I assume?
"Sure, you could look at the source code. It is Open Source, after all. But what if you don't know Java? I don't particularly want to learn Java just so I can review Freenet's code. As a C++ developer I might be able to read and understand most of it, but I don't trust myself to review something so important without years of prior Java experience -- the chance that I'd miss something is just too great."
And if they wrote it in C++ then a Java developer could say the same thing (and have much more of a case as to why they shouldn't be trusted with a code audit).
That sounds like a personal problem, although -- yes. I wouldn't trust freenet with anything that I had to keep hidden for fear of loss of life or liberty either... but not because I've not coded java in 5 years.
I tried using Freenet a few years ago... chances are if I hadn't given up or gotten rid of the machine, i'd still be trying to fetch something -- anything -- off of it.
Has anyone used it recently to testify to any speed/reliability increase?
Well, its the one they are showing on the website with the article. That's the best I can do.
http://www.blocksandfiles.co.uk/contentimages/small/Challenger_drive.jpg
that photo is clearly linked to the article above -- which also doesn't even seem to actually be slashdotted... totally a fritter.
Well, seeing as how this thing was burnt to a crisp in the photos (before the /.ing), i'm not sure thermite would really help... perhaps dropping in a box filled with white phosphorous into the bottom of the abyss?
btw -- this story is linked to the one about week ago about the sheer thinning of Xenon. This drive had the data for that experiment.
I think the bigger question is, since when are we the "technorati" -- i thought pretentious words like that were reserved for Apple fans and the like? You know, the turtle-neck wearing, New York Times-reading, latte-sipping "sophisticates" for whom consumer electronics are more interesting than anything they could build on their own?
Next question is, even if we qualify, do we really want to?
To this day the most pleasant computing experience I have ever had was Red Hat 5.2. Unfortunately, that's a tad out of date.
Frankly, and in all seriousness, I'd recommend Slackware based on your requirements above. it's whatever you want it to be and (at least used to) uses the nice BSD init as opposed to SysV.
Those things in and of themselves aren't necessarily popular as classes, just generally abundant. However, there are specific instances of those things which are for some reason particularly popular, however have a lower practical value.
Clothes, for instance, have a purpose. A tank top that says "Tweety Bird with Attitude" which is 5 sizes too small from the Wal-Mart is popular, but not particularly practical (and generally offensives given the body types of the people I usually see wearing them).
Similarly, cars are useful. A two-seater BWM sport coup doesn't really have a practical value, but lots of people want them (ie, they are popular).
phones good; iphone == popular.
see?
Cartoon drawings and stories aren't illegal as no actual children were involved.
Anyway, this bill would prevent Google for aiding the Great Firewall of China -- ie, helping to keep the Chinese from gaining access to information outside of China. It's not illegal to prevent Americans from obtaining something which is illegal in America.
Actually, that'd probably just help keep the American out of prison because then they couldn't end up in possession of something that they should not have.
World War II was a lot more interesting than anything going on today. I'd probably be more likely to go seen it if it were.
EMACS makes a lot more sense once you stop thinking of it as an editor and realize it's really a LISP machine implemented in software.
I have the nVidia drivers running fun on Mint; I tried out the fancy-schmancy 3d things for a while, then realized that I really didn't want them.
Not sure you're missing too much.
I was in Ireland back in 2003, and watching Sky News from Britain. There had been a rash of shootings committed by, if i remember correctly, immigrants with connections to drugs.
the people that were being interviewed on Sky were calling for MORE GUN CONTROL!!! There're already pretty much outright banned as far as I can tell. How is MORE GUN CONTROL going to stop criminals? A more reasoned response would be to deport the fuckers who were committing the crimes.
It's not.
It has lead to increased stabbings, however.
It's just a case of the government and those who can't take care of themselves seeking to have a tool banned (gun, encryption, fetish pr0n) instead of punishing those who misuse them. The government especially is concerned about people using tools like guns against them.
Remember, it is perfectly clear from the writings of the founding fathers that the 2nd amendment is there so that the people have the final check and balance against the government -- not about "personal defense" or "hunting."
It's the means to revolution, nothing more. The difference between a citizen and a subject is the ownership of firearms. Just ask John Adams.