This is exactly the reaction that Trey Parker and Matt Stone were looking for.
If you watch the episode, the members of South Park conclude that the only way to _NOT OFFEND_ Muslims is to put him in a bear suit.
Unfortunately, it looks like in the real world, the Muslims are even more crazy than South Park has depicted them to be. It shows exactly how wacko the muslim community is.
It's similar to the Scientology episode...except, they didn't actually get sued by Scientologists. I daresay, that Scientologists are more sane in this regard than Muslims.
I agree with the grandparent, and I went to public schools.
The teachers were so bad, so unenthusiastic, and the curriculum so dumb, that I decided by my 10th grade year to sleep during school and learn on my own at home.
Thank god for the internet, or I would have never had the education that I decided to take for myself.
Extenders. Amazing UI. Xbox 360/Zune integration. Tuners, tuners, and more tuners. Media Center Studio.
Let's not forget that it's easy to setup any other programs that run on Windows (Let's be honest here, most GAMES) and integrate into Media Center too with Media Center studio.
Why play on Xbox 360, when I can play on my Media Center (with an Xbox 360 controller) and get better graphics and better performance?
And if I really, really want to view Hulu, or use XBMC, or use Boxee, or use the-next-best-thing, you can just have a plugin.
To be honest, the only problem I've ever had with Media Center is Media Player's tendency to replace folder.jpg artwork in the album folder. It's not like I have to code to fix it though, I simply checked a box for it not to cache the artwork. (Which I found by doing a google search).
It's difficult arguing for a Microsoft application on Slashdot (Perhaps, a prince of FOSS), but in my experience it really beats out the competition.
Let me ask you the same question: What are the downsides you see? Is cost the only downside? What do other applications do that Media Center can't replicate?
To be honest, your story of your friend doing a driver update sounds more like a Ubuntu/Linux story. A quick google search for "Pulseaudio problems with XBMC" will prove my point.
I'm not trying to one-up you here, but in my school (Georgia, USA) we started learning algebra in 5th grade. In 12th grade I was doing Calculus.
From my perspective, I think (in America) it's the middle schools and high schools that fail to challenge students enough. I would have done more math in high school, but Calculus was as high as it went.
And we all know that the internet demands information be free.
I think journalism is a dying trade. Soon we will have "investigators" who simply follow feeds of regular people around the world, find the good, juicy stories, and publish them as a refined (pay for) product for display.
...says that the more buyers and sellers you have in a market, the more efficient the market becomes and the less profit can me made from said market. Assuming a completely free market, the profit margins available will always approach zero.
The internet is one of the most free markets in existence, and it's not surprising at all that many basic services will not lead you to a profit on the internet these days.
Enforcement of property law is the essential purpose of government. Since every individual (even in group-think societies) may have a different opinion on how something should be done, it is necessary to create a concise definition of the agreement. This is the social contract that is so often referred to in works like Leviathan.
Capitalism is a wonderful idea that drives our society, but it is flawed because it assumes that the people who are able to make the most money are also those who act in the best interest of everyone. Government can change the rules of the game so that capitalism truly is for everyone's benefit.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs asserts that the most important thing to the human race is survival. If that is true, then humans must act collectively in the best interests of all to survive.
Without government, businesses would selfishly pollute the environment, and work only in the interest of pleasing the few powerful without providing additional means for human survival on this planet (or on other planets).
Of course, I have choice words for the extreme level of corruption in our American government that breaks just about every good thing that we originally gave them power to do, but non-corrupt governments elsewhere in the world do a whole lotta good.
Another interesting point about this list: Notice that democratic countries *without* group think are significantly lower than those *with* group think.
Slashdot Mirror
The anonymous coward watches high def movies on his netbook and never, ever has any problems.
Ever.
This is exactly the reaction that Trey Parker and Matt Stone were looking for.
If you watch the episode, the members of South Park conclude that the only way to _NOT OFFEND_ Muslims is to put him in a bear suit.
Unfortunately, it looks like in the real world, the Muslims are even more crazy than South Park has depicted them to be. It shows exactly how wacko the muslim community is.
It's similar to the Scientology episode...except, they didn't actually get sued by Scientologists. I daresay, that Scientologists are more sane in this regard than Muslims.
I agree with the grandparent, and I went to public schools.
The teachers were so bad, so unenthusiastic, and the curriculum so dumb, that I decided by my 10th grade year to sleep during school and learn on my own at home.
Thank god for the internet, or I would have never had the education that I decided to take for myself.
Who cares if your browser games are in flash or HTML5? Or if video is flash or HTML5?
I only how fast the video loads, and how responsive the games are. And from my testing of YouTube's HTML5, HTML5 loads faster and smoother than flash.
Extenders. Amazing UI. Xbox 360/Zune integration. Tuners, tuners, and more tuners. Media Center Studio.
Let's not forget that it's easy to setup any other programs that run on Windows (Let's be honest here, most GAMES) and integrate into Media Center too with Media Center studio.
Why play on Xbox 360, when I can play on my Media Center (with an Xbox 360 controller) and get better graphics and better performance?
And if I really, really want to view Hulu, or use XBMC, or use Boxee, or use the-next-best-thing, you can just have a plugin.
To be honest, the only problem I've ever had with Media Center is Media Player's tendency to replace folder.jpg artwork in the album folder. It's not like I have to code to fix it though, I simply checked a box for it not to cache the artwork. (Which I found by doing a google search).
It's difficult arguing for a Microsoft application on Slashdot (Perhaps, a prince of FOSS), but in my experience it really beats out the competition.
Let me ask you the same question: What are the downsides you see? Is cost the only downside? What do other applications do that Media Center can't replicate?
To be honest, your story of your friend doing a driver update sounds more like a Ubuntu/Linux story. A quick google search for "Pulseaudio problems with XBMC" will prove my point.
Ask someone on the street, and I'm sure they don't know anything about Mono OR Gnome.
poor guy.
Why settle for Boxee, XBMC, Hulu, etc?
I use Windows Media Center 7 with Boxee, XBMC, and Hulu desktop plugins. Who said you can't have best of both worlds?
I'm not trying to one-up you here, but in my school (Georgia, USA) we started learning algebra in 5th grade. In 12th grade I was doing Calculus.
From my perspective, I think (in America) it's the middle schools and high schools that fail to challenge students enough. I would have done more math in high school, but Calculus was as high as it went.
And we should always proscribe policy change/medication/jobs/educational opportunity based upon it.
Always.
And we all know that the internet demands information be free.
I think journalism is a dying trade. Soon we will have "investigators" who simply follow feeds of regular people around the world, find the good, juicy stories, and publish them as a refined (pay for) product for display.
Three numbers:
36 - 24 - 36.
...says that the more buyers and sellers you have in a market, the more efficient the market becomes and the less profit can me made from said market. Assuming a completely free market, the profit margins available will always approach zero.
The internet is one of the most free markets in existence, and it's not surprising at all that many basic services will not lead you to a profit on the internet these days.
Internet Explorer
Yeratu
Swallow
Tires
I made these up of course, but to your average user, that's exactly what they'll see when they see:
Internet Explorer
Firefox
Opera
Chrome
What browser do you think they will choose? Hmmmm?
Last.fm has lost me, and my family.
I also sent a mass email to about 100 friends warning them to avoid last.fm because of this.
Big mistake, CNN / last.fm.
http://globaltext.terry.uga.edu/
We're working to make 1000 free text books available in at least 4 languages worldwide.
1) Do you have:
1Ghz processor, 1.25GB of RAM, and 15GB of disk space per Windows virtualization?
Then run this standalone app:
http://www.grc.com/securable.htm
That was easy.
The **AA would enforce SecureROM and have the CD/DVD emit a zombie creating poison upon play if they could get away with it.
Don't forget about Web Developer Tools:
Saves me from horrible javascript debugging.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60
I imagine that it might drive the crickets off in such a way that it actually *kills* them...
That's what it would cost you if you bought their ultimate cable package with internet and phone service.
Enforcement of property law is the essential purpose of government. Since every individual (even in group-think societies) may have a different opinion on how something should be done, it is necessary to create a concise definition of the agreement. This is the social contract that is so often referred to in works like Leviathan.
Capitalism is a wonderful idea that drives our society, but it is flawed because it assumes that the people who are able to make the most money are also those who act in the best interest of everyone. Government can change the rules of the game so that capitalism truly is for everyone's benefit.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs asserts that the most important thing to the human race is survival. If that is true, then humans must act collectively in the best interests of all to survive.
Without government, businesses would selfishly pollute the environment, and work only in the interest of pleasing the few powerful without providing additional means for human survival on this planet (or on other planets).
Of course, I have choice words for the extreme level of corruption in our American government that breaks just about every good thing that we originally gave them power to do, but non-corrupt governments elsewhere in the world do a whole lotta good.
...in societies with a large, non-diverse population.
The best form of government is indeed the smallest possible, but even then there are things that the government does much better than individuals.
Taxes and government control works even better in democratic societies with group-think, such as Nordic societies and oriental societies.
All you have to do to see the benefits are to look at life expectancy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy#List_by_the_United_Nations_.28average_for_the_2005-2010_period.29
Another interesting point about this list: Notice that democratic countries *without* group think are significantly lower than those *with* group think.
Read the headline and thought, "By George! Mozilla is using the Gecko rendering engine in space now?!"
I'll down a two liter if I need to pull an all nighter, but honestly, I don't touch the stuff otherwise.
Let them die, I say.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/business/media/29paper.html