So you admit it's awesomer! Let's focus on the awesomeness. A huge cable, stretching all the way to the heavens, sparkling with gold and platinum, made out of carbon nanotubes which probably sparkle like diamonds...
*faints*
They're cheaper, safer, better, awesomer, and nowhere near as Rube Goldberg-esque as the shuttle. Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy explores the topic of a space elevator on Mars in some depth. There it's a problem because it makes space travel too easy.
Evolution isn't a "theory" in that sense of the word, any more than the theory of gravity is "just a theory". Both are fact as far as the scientific community is concerned.
And what could be worse than hell? Could it be ignorance?
I always compile from source in slackware because often it's easier than mucking around with packages whenever dependencies are involved. I also get the most current version, and I can put it in the right place. Using utilities like checkinstall makes this almost painless. However, having recently put gentoo on my laptop, I am having to make excuses for not converting all my other machines to gentoo as well (my current one is laziness). It also compiles everything from source, but finds all the other stuff you need to compile too, downloads it all, and keeps track of everything, so it's more than not painless, it's a pleasure.
I've tried some building some big programs with lots of dependencies from source in slackware. Some I have succeeded (mplayer, gEDA), some I have failed (gnucash, miserably), but gentoo gets them all right with no problems at all.
Package managers are good for people who don't know what's going on, but they're even better for those who do. Because both parties benefit from the convenience, but only the latter can work around when they break. I guess what I'm trying to say is if there could ever be an heir to slackware, gentoo is probably it. But if you're like me, you spent a lot of time tweaking your slackware machine to get it where you like it. The point is that I achieved the same tweak level in a fraction of the time with gentoo.
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So you admit it's awesomer! Let's focus on the awesomeness. A huge cable, stretching all the way to the heavens, sparkling with gold and platinum, made out of carbon nanotubes which probably sparkle like diamonds... *faints*
Space elevator.
They're cheaper, safer, better, awesomer, and nowhere near as Rube Goldberg-esque as the shuttle. Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy explores the topic of a space elevator on Mars in some depth. There it's a problem because it makes space travel too easy.
Evolution isn't a "theory" in that sense of the word, any more than the theory of gravity is "just a theory". Both are fact as far as the scientific community is concerned. And what could be worse than hell? Could it be ignorance?
I always compile from source in slackware because often it's easier than mucking around with packages whenever dependencies are involved. I also get the most current version, and I can put it in the right place. Using utilities like checkinstall makes this almost painless. However, having recently put gentoo on my laptop, I am having to make excuses for not converting all my other machines to gentoo as well (my current one is laziness). It also compiles everything from source, but finds all the other stuff you need to compile too, downloads it all, and keeps track of everything, so it's more than not painless, it's a pleasure.
I've tried some building some big programs with lots of dependencies from source in slackware. Some I have succeeded (mplayer, gEDA), some I have failed (gnucash, miserably), but gentoo gets them all right with no problems at all.
Package managers are good for people who don't know what's going on, but they're even better for those who do. Because both parties benefit from the convenience, but only the latter can work around when they break. I guess what I'm trying to say is if there could ever be an heir to slackware, gentoo is probably it. But if you're like me, you spent a lot of time tweaking your slackware machine to get it where you like it. The point is that I achieved the same tweak level in a fraction of the time with gentoo.