No. Why do I say that? Because even countries like China, as bad as its rights record is, is seen as more popular and less of a threat to world peace than America.
Ah yes, this is why the Chinese have a more extensive space based weaponry program than the USA does. They've been developing small A-SAT weapons that piggyback on their conventional launches....which makes them hard to detect and track. They've been developing ground based energy weapons for destroying sats. Why do they have this extensive program? They feel they need an edge in case they want to invade Taiwan and we don't want them to. Our military is increasingly dependent on space. Our bombs are GPS guided, as are our aircraft and ships at sea. Military communications is routed through communication sats, and we gain a lot of intelligence from our spy sats. Their plan is to, in case of war, knock our our space capabilities first to give their military forces an edge. Our new push for weapons in space is in response to the Chinese, so we can defend what we have, and have the ability to strike back. Space Superiority is the new Air Superiority.
Do you realise how many people are killed every day in auto accidents? My bet is this will be much, much safer per passenger than cars. Even assuming your worst case scenario...I'm betting cars still kill way more people. We still build and drive cars do we not?
Now all those people who, in school, took MS Office (since schools don't teach general word processing anymore, just "MS Office") classes will have to relearn everything, be confused about new interfaces (since they were never taught how to use more than one), and generally bitch about how hard "computers" are.
Seriously, kids in High School these days are being taught "MS Office, and IE" as their "computer" classes....to "prepare them for the workplace." Not too prepared now are they?
So we have another case of RIAA (and their partners, like the MPAA) violating your rights. Copy protection and Digital Rights Management have absolutely nothing to do with copyright. While they do help maintain a copyright holder's control on what is released...they also violate your rights under copyright law, mainly to "fair use." RIAA and their push for all media to be put under DRM, are pushing for your rights to be violated. In my opinion, this makes them no better, and just as evil, as those who violate any other right.
Once you obtain media, you have a right to use it yourself however you see fit, so long as you do not copy for distribution, particularly for profit. And I for one, don't know why so many people let the RIAA, MPAA, and others get away with violating this right.
Unfortunately Linux isn't as easy to use for most people. How about suggesting that they use a Mac? Macs are secure and are easy to use.
What makes Linux "hard to use" is merely that it's different. So then, how are Macs any more "easy to use" when they are just as different?
My computer illiterate Grandfather uses SuSE Linux and it works for him just fine. Prefers it over the Windows he used to use. If it can work for him...it can work for anybody. They just have to be willing to change.
Yeah I love bringing up Cahokia to people. Many people don't know that there was an actual civilization in what is now the United States before any Europeans arrived here. It was quite the civilization in it's day. Grand public marketplace with goods from all over North America, large temples, a stonehenge-like solar calendar, thousands of people, and many smaller outposts and villages spread throughout the Mississippi River region. They even worked copper.
However, from the sound of it...I don't believe the person you're saying "not quite" to is American. But hey, you never know, maybe the Aborigines did have some ancient lost civilization that nobody's found yet...
Yes, we should use the SSN the way it was originally intended to be used. It was never intended to be used as a form of ID. Not only that, but when it was instituted the people of the United States were assured it would never be such. And yet today....the SSN has basically been made into a form of ID, required by many unrelated government agencies...as well as private parties. It's governmental feature creep, and a damn good example of why governments should be kept weak, subservient, and on a short leash.
GNOME looks the same, generally, on FreeBSD. So does KDE. The apps avaliable are generally the same, and BSD can certainly run specifically Linux applications...provided the system is kept up to date. FreeBSD however, isn't a Linux, nor is Linux a BSD. We are however, based around similar standards.
Windows apps do indeed run on Linux without emulation....so long as you keep WINE up to date, and no, WINE isn't an emulator. It's an API library, a set of directories, and program to tie these together with Windows apps.
Actually they bought Linux software, and the entire company that goes with it. See, Shake was being used for Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring to make all sorts of fantastic effects. Apple got wind of this, and all the hype around the movie....and bought Shake. Mainly so they could claim that Apple helped make Lord of the Rings, and so they could "kill" the Linux product and make money off a Mac version instead (this is why Apple priced the Linux version higher). Thing is, the Mac version hasn't gone over nearly as well as the more expensive Linux version, because nobody in their right mind is going to build a large renderfarm out of Apple machines. Far too expensive, and troublesome. Linux and cheap commodity hardware works much better and is easier to repair/replace, so they pay for the more expensive Linux version. Plus, many workstations in Hollywood are Linux based, so it's natural for them to buy the full Linux version for them as well, rather than just get a bunch of all new Apple hardware just for compositing.
So because most "white" people aren't poor, this somehow makes class issues into race issues...even though there are poor "white" people just like there are poor "black" people?
This nonsensical way of thinking intregues me. Please tell me more.
So....even though Americans usually love their land, people, culture....yet don't always like their government (just like Russians), and even though America has had multiple governments in it's history (just like Russia has had multiple governments, but further back in our history), and even though Americans generally will continue to love America regardless of government...somehow Americans just don't love America as much as Russians love Russia? This is your point?
Maybe you could try explaining your view to your crack dealer...maybe he'll understand how this works.
And in conservative America, everyone likes to pretend that class and race are distinct issues.
Oh yes, everyone knows that in America only "black" people are poor, and all rich people are "white."
There were times, as a child, when I was sleeping on the floor in a run down house with many other people, that was how I lived. Kids' showers were shared to save on the water bill. Food was as often provided by charity as by purchase. I was lucky to even have a few small toys. Here's the shocker for you....I'm "white." There are plenty of poor "white" people out there, I know, I've seen them, lived among them, been one of them.
And there are a fair number of rich "black" people as well.And no, not all of them in sports
Class and race are different issues. The people who do not see that, who say that they are one...well, they are both racist and ignorant.
"You conveniently forgot the Byzantine Empire and the Republic of Venice, which were doing just fine at that time."
Doing what? Spreading Christianty like a virus? Makes me vomit just thinking about it.
No, you're thinking of Rome. The "Byzantines" were a very sophisticated culture, a fusion of Greek and Roman influences (more so than Rome itself had previously been), they had a large city with sophisticated architecture, conducted extensive trade, and were the most sophisticated society in Europe at the time (they invented "greek fire", developed a military doctrine not too different than Sun Tzu's, and did many other things). They were, essentially, a classical civilization in a post-classical age.
Venice on the other hand, was a powerful merchant empire based in their city-state. They dominated trade in the Mediterranean. They were patrons of the arts, and as a result, was one of the most beautiful cities throughout the entire era...and their goods were as much in demand as asian goods. Venician glassworks were legendary. They never had any agenda of "spreading Christianity."
That is the prevalent idealogy of Nordic Christianity. Anyone who dares to challenge your innate belief in the racial superiority of the "Aryan Race" (as Japan did) deserves to be murdered en-masse and demonized. Your ignorant and hatemongering statements will only be believed by other Nordic Christians, not by thinking people who have actually studied real history.
Gee, what a racist, hatemongering statement this is...
which finally fell to the conquest by Narses of Constantinople in 552, who made Emperor Iustinian the first East Roman (byzanthian) emperor of both Rome and Constantinople.
You know, I never did feel comfortable with calling it, the "Byzantine Empire." That's a modern designation, nobody in the time period refered to it as such. The people of Europe at the time called it the East (or Eastern) Roman Empire, and the people of that Empire called themselves Romans. And the "fall of the Roman Empire" also seems a bit of a misnomer, only the west (and one of it's two capitols) fell after all.
The concept of America here is tied into the government because it is the only one that has existed here.
Not true, not true at all. You must be ignorant of history.
During the Revolution, when the ideas of "American" and "United States of America" were first taking shape, we were governed by the old Colonial governments...and the Continental Congress. A rather weak provisional government.
After the Revolution, we established the Articles of Confederation. This government also called itself the United States of America. It had a Congress, and a President (one very few remember). Unfortunately due to the bad design of the government and it's constitution, the government couldn't hold itself together...
At this point we decided to get rid of that government entirely, scrapped the Articles of Confederation, and started new, with the Constitution of the United States. This United States, far different in government than the previous versions of the United States. We tend to count Presidents only from this one...starting with Washington, because this is when the United States as we know it came into existance.
Since we came up with the concept of "American" we have had 3 different governments, all of which were named United States of America. Not one, 3. But in every case we were Americans. We may (unlikely, but we might) very well, eventually, toss out our existing governmental form and create another...we will still be Americans.
Then you don't believe the same thing about rights that the Founding Fathers did when the Constitution, and even the Declaration of Independence were written. They strongly believed in the concept of "natural rights." They believed, essentially, that people simply have rights, by nature of them being people. And that governments themselves have none, only what the people give up to establish one.
However, never once despite what Pat Robertson may say did a document fall from the sky and tell people 'These are your rights'.
Nobody said one did. We don't need mandate from anyone, not even God (whichever one you feel qualifies). People have rights by nature of them being people. God(s) or no, those rights are inherent. No document necessary to "establish rights" because rights are not established....they simply exist.
Suppose for a second, that I was all alone on an island, no government, no God telling me anything, no mystical documents... Would you believe I have no rights in that situation? That's a foolish notion.
Again, I ask you to actually read your "living, breathing document" sometime, read what it says about rights, read the Bill of Rights as well...you might notice it says nothing about the People granting themselves rights, nor them being established through the "will of the People" using the government. It merely states what the Federal government can not do, not what we can do.
"The IT industry spends a huge amount of money on security -- and yet worms, spyware, and other relatively mindless attacks are still able to create massive havoc. Why?
I'm not joking when I say....Windows. Windows is simply so much more exploitable than other operating systems. That's proven time and time again. This is because security cannot be an afterthought, patched into a design that wasn't originally designed to be secure. Yet this is what Microsoft has done since the beginning. Ignore security, then when they have a problem try to make an "insecure by design" OS secure. Add in the monopoly they held for years, and continue to hold when it comes to PCs (refering to the x86, no Mac flames please) in stores...which means that for most people, all they know is Windows. Monocultures are always less secure, as a single virus can effect everyone (or nearly). So the monopoly itself adds a layer of insecurity.
That's one thing that the Russians have over the Americans. True national pride.
(Although its not actually "national" pride, since 99% of the people there hate and have always hated the goverment. It's more like pride in Mother Russia no matter what stupid goverment happens to be running it at the time.)
I don't know how different that is than American pride. A lot of people love America, the ideal, the cultures, the general way we do things in the American civilization....but don't really like the government running things, regardless of which party is in charge.
Of course not. In those times, nobody ever tried to distribute an application for more than one platform.
Did you get a good bump on the head there? I mentioned a popular (at the time) application that was supported on more than one brand of computer, Visicalc.
No, it doesn't have to be. But it should be. Standards save time and money for software developers by allowing them to target the largest possible customer base.
One monopolistic system is not the same as a standard. Linux does, for the most part, have standards.
Until you have those standards, you won't have any Linux applications, since very few companies would want to put in time and effort to target a specific distribution. The Linux market is small enough already, and selling to only a fraction of it is hardly sensible in business.
Oh that must explain why Linux has next to no working software for it... No, wait a minute...there's quite a bit of software out there that'll run on various Linux systems. Even commercial software if you know where to look. I really don't see this lack of applications you speak of. Lack of certain specific, branded applications maybe, but not lack of applications.
The lack of a usable standard to develop toward. When distributing a program, you have to support many distributions. That means multiple package formats, different file paths, different configuration file formats (init scripts being the worst, if your program is a daemon), different libraries bundled, different desktop types and ways to make your program visible, etc.
You know, I actually remember back when home computers were new....and actually called home computers (or, sometimes, microcomputers). Back then every computer brand was utterly different, different OS, different base language, often a different processor. It was chaos and it was glorious. There were a massive amount of computer systems to choose from, from extremely light, low end, cheap systems like the Timex-Sinclair 1000, to the mid-range C-64, to the expensive IBM PC. All were different. All had a wealth of software avaliable for them. Developers wrote software for their chosen machines, their chosen OS, but often they wrote completely different versions of the same software for multiple types of machines (Visicalc was a good example of this). Nobody complained to my knowledge.
Too many people have grown up in a monopolist, monoculture society, they think computing has to be that way and always has been.
As for the different distributions of Linux....yes, they are different distributions of Linux, but they are not really different "distributions" of the same OS. Essentially they are different operating systems, each built around GNU and the Linux kernel. Do we call OS X a "distribution" of BSD? No, not really, it's a unique OS qith it's own quirks, and it's own top layer, and it's customised. Linux distros are no different. Most take GNU and the Linux kernel, and add a top layer of their own. That top layer may itelf be just mildly customised versions of the "standard" along with a few custom libraries and integrated applications (Mandriva, SuSE, etc...) or it may be more radical (GNUStep). Sometimes, they are even proprietary (Linspire). And they all usually customise the kernel to suit their needs, so between them even the kernel is different. They are all different competing operating systems, based around the same standards and low level components, rather than different "versions" of the same OS. For that, you need to look at the different versions within the same distro.
I don't exactly know what people's problem with multiple distros is. Different companies and people have different ideas for what a good OS should be, and so modify Linux to suit their needs. And what's wrong with having competing distros? Competition is a good thing, it's what made our capitalist society so great! Competition and "survival of the fittest" are also the mechanisms by which we humans came to exist as a species. And monoculture is always a bad thing, particularly in computing as Microsoft kept showing us...so why do so many people push for "one distro to rule them all"? Seems like Microsoft thinking to me... Why would we want to encourage that?
After my last "hunt" for drivers in windows XP and 2000, I don't even find them "well supported" anymore. But then again, I have exotic hardware, not a 499 + 500 dollar rebate PC from walmart.
Heh, and many people claim this is the problem with Linux, and that Windows is superior because "all your hardware" is supported. Of course, anyone who knows anything about computers knows that Windows has the same kinds of problems with exotic or old hardware, that Linux has with exotic or some newer hardware. And Linux wouldn't have as much of a problem if Microsoft didn't want Windows only hardware products. I wonder what Microsoft's problem is though...aside from being run by an sociopath with dreams of world domination.
Actually, from my read of your post...it seemed that you were saying that rights are something you must fight tooth and nail for in order for the government to grant them to you in the first place. My argument was that the rights are already there, by nature of the people being sovereign, we just choose to specifically protect certain ones in order to have a government to establish an ordered, functioning society. Although it's true we have to fight the corruption in government that wishes to take away our rights for some political ideology.
Are you changing your mind now, or suggesting that your entire post was sarcasm? Because it certainly looks to me like your whole argument went on the assumption that government grants rights.
Well, on a Linux or Unix system, it gets nicely sandboxed by the permissions system. Running a program as user simply doesn't give the program root authority.
ActiveX on the other hands, runs on Windows, and has basically full root access to the machine.
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Do you realise how many people are killed every day in auto accidents? My bet is this will be much, much safer per passenger than cars. Even assuming your worst case scenario...I'm betting cars still kill way more people. We still build and drive cars do we not?
Now all those people who, in school, took MS Office (since schools don't teach general word processing anymore, just "MS Office") classes will have to relearn everything, be confused about new interfaces (since they were never taught how to use more than one), and generally bitch about how hard "computers" are.
Seriously, kids in High School these days are being taught "MS Office, and IE" as their "computer" classes....to "prepare them for the workplace." Not too prepared now are they?
So we have another case of RIAA (and their partners, like the MPAA) violating your rights. Copy protection and Digital Rights Management have absolutely nothing to do with copyright. While they do help maintain a copyright holder's control on what is released...they also violate your rights under copyright law, mainly to "fair use." RIAA and their push for all media to be put under DRM, are pushing for your rights to be violated. In my opinion, this makes them no better, and just as evil, as those who violate any other right.
Once you obtain media, you have a right to use it yourself however you see fit, so long as you do not copy for distribution, particularly for profit. And I for one, don't know why so many people let the RIAA, MPAA, and others get away with violating this right.
What makes Linux "hard to use" is merely that it's different. So then, how are Macs any more "easy to use" when they are just as different?
My computer illiterate Grandfather uses SuSE Linux and it works for him just fine. Prefers it over the Windows he used to use. If it can work for him...it can work for anybody. They just have to be willing to change.
Yeah I love bringing up Cahokia to people. Many people don't know that there was an actual civilization in what is now the United States before any Europeans arrived here. It was quite the civilization in it's day. Grand public marketplace with goods from all over North America, large temples, a stonehenge-like solar calendar, thousands of people, and many smaller outposts and villages spread throughout the Mississippi River region. They even worked copper.
However, from the sound of it...I don't believe the person you're saying "not quite" to is American. But hey, you never know, maybe the Aborigines did have some ancient lost civilization that nobody's found yet...
Yes, we should use the SSN the way it was originally intended to be used. It was never intended to be used as a form of ID. Not only that, but when it was instituted the people of the United States were assured it would never be such. And yet today....the SSN has basically been made into a form of ID, required by many unrelated government agencies...as well as private parties. It's governmental feature creep, and a damn good example of why governments should be kept weak, subservient, and on a short leash.
Ok...late reply to this, didn't notice it...
GNOME looks the same, generally, on FreeBSD. So does KDE. The apps avaliable are generally the same, and BSD can certainly run specifically Linux applications...provided the system is kept up to date. FreeBSD however, isn't a Linux, nor is Linux a BSD. We are however, based around similar standards.
Windows apps do indeed run on Linux without emulation....so long as you keep WINE up to date, and no, WINE isn't an emulator. It's an API library, a set of directories, and program to tie these together with Windows apps.
So your argument here isn't quite so air tight.
Actually they bought Linux software, and the entire company that goes with it. See, Shake was being used for Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring to make all sorts of fantastic effects. Apple got wind of this, and all the hype around the movie....and bought Shake. Mainly so they could claim that Apple helped make Lord of the Rings, and so they could "kill" the Linux product and make money off a Mac version instead (this is why Apple priced the Linux version higher). Thing is, the Mac version hasn't gone over nearly as well as the more expensive Linux version, because nobody in their right mind is going to build a large renderfarm out of Apple machines. Far too expensive, and troublesome. Linux and cheap commodity hardware works much better and is easier to repair/replace, so they pay for the more expensive Linux version. Plus, many workstations in Hollywood are Linux based, so it's natural for them to buy the full Linux version for them as well, rather than just get a bunch of all new Apple hardware just for compositing.
So because most "white" people aren't poor, this somehow makes class issues into race issues...even though there are poor "white" people just like there are poor "black" people?
This nonsensical way of thinking intregues me. Please tell me more.
So....even though Americans usually love their land, people, culture....yet don't always like their government (just like Russians), and even though America has had multiple governments in it's history (just like Russia has had multiple governments, but further back in our history), and even though Americans generally will continue to love America regardless of government...somehow Americans just don't love America as much as Russians love Russia? This is your point?
Maybe you could try explaining your view to your crack dealer...maybe he'll understand how this works.
Oh yes, everyone knows that in America only "black" people are poor, and all rich people are "white."
There were times, as a child, when I was sleeping on the floor in a run down house with many other people, that was how I lived. Kids' showers were shared to save on the water bill. Food was as often provided by charity as by purchase. I was lucky to even have a few small toys. Here's the shocker for you....I'm "white." There are plenty of poor "white" people out there, I know, I've seen them, lived among them, been one of them.
And there are a fair number of rich "black" people as well.And no, not all of them in sports
Class and race are different issues. The people who do not see that, who say that they are one...well, they are both racist and ignorant.
No, you're thinking of Rome. The "Byzantines" were a very sophisticated culture, a fusion of Greek and Roman influences (more so than Rome itself had previously been), they had a large city with sophisticated architecture, conducted extensive trade, and were the most sophisticated society in Europe at the time (they invented "greek fire", developed a military doctrine not too different than Sun Tzu's, and did many other things). They were, essentially, a classical civilization in a post-classical age.
Venice on the other hand, was a powerful merchant empire based in their city-state. They dominated trade in the Mediterranean. They were patrons of the arts, and as a result, was one of the most beautiful cities throughout the entire era...and their goods were as much in demand as asian goods. Venician glassworks were legendary. They never had any agenda of "spreading Christianity."
Not true, not true at all. You must be ignorant of history.
During the Revolution, when the ideas of "American" and "United States of America" were first taking shape, we were governed by the old Colonial governments...and the Continental Congress. A rather weak provisional government.
After the Revolution, we established the Articles of Confederation. This government also called itself the United States of America. It had a Congress, and a President (one very few remember). Unfortunately due to the bad design of the government and it's constitution, the government couldn't hold itself together...
At this point we decided to get rid of that government entirely, scrapped the Articles of Confederation, and started new, with the Constitution of the United States. This United States, far different in government than the previous versions of the United States. We tend to count Presidents only from this one...starting with Washington, because this is when the United States as we know it came into existance.
Since we came up with the concept of "American" we have had 3 different governments, all of which were named United States of America. Not one, 3. But in every case we were Americans. We may (unlikely, but we might) very well, eventually, toss out our existing governmental form and create another...we will still be Americans.
Nobody said one did. We don't need mandate from anyone, not even God (whichever one you feel qualifies). People have rights by nature of them being people. God(s) or no, those rights are inherent. No document necessary to "establish rights" because rights are not established....they simply exist.
Suppose for a second, that I was all alone on an island, no government, no God telling me anything, no mystical documents... Would you believe I have no rights in that situation? That's a foolish notion.
Again, I ask you to actually read your "living, breathing document" sometime, read what it says about rights, read the Bill of Rights as well...you might notice it says nothing about the People granting themselves rights, nor them being established through the "will of the People" using the government. It merely states what the Federal government can not do, not what we can do.
You know, I actually remember back when home computers were new....and actually called home computers (or, sometimes, microcomputers). Back then every computer brand was utterly different, different OS, different base language, often a different processor. It was chaos and it was glorious. There were a massive amount of computer systems to choose from, from extremely light, low end, cheap systems like the Timex-Sinclair 1000, to the mid-range C-64, to the expensive IBM PC. All were different. All had a wealth of software avaliable for them. Developers wrote software for their chosen machines, their chosen OS, but often they wrote completely different versions of the same software for multiple types of machines (Visicalc was a good example of this). Nobody complained to my knowledge.
Too many people have grown up in a monopolist, monoculture society, they think computing has to be that way and always has been.
As for the different distributions of Linux....yes, they are different distributions of Linux, but they are not really different "distributions" of the same OS. Essentially they are different operating systems, each built around GNU and the Linux kernel. Do we call OS X a "distribution" of BSD? No, not really, it's a unique OS qith it's own quirks, and it's own top layer, and it's customised. Linux distros are no different. Most take GNU and the Linux kernel, and add a top layer of their own. That top layer may itelf be just mildly customised versions of the "standard" along with a few custom libraries and integrated applications (Mandriva, SuSE, etc...) or it may be more radical (GNUStep). Sometimes, they are even proprietary (Linspire). And they all usually customise the kernel to suit their needs, so between them even the kernel is different. They are all different competing operating systems, based around the same standards and low level components, rather than different "versions" of the same OS. For that, you need to look at the different versions within the same distro.
I don't exactly know what people's problem with multiple distros is. Different companies and people have different ideas for what a good OS should be, and so modify Linux to suit their needs. And what's wrong with having competing distros? Competition is a good thing, it's what made our capitalist society so great! Competition and "survival of the fittest" are also the mechanisms by which we humans came to exist as a species. And monoculture is always a bad thing, particularly in computing as Microsoft kept showing us...so why do so many people push for "one distro to rule them all"? Seems like Microsoft thinking to me... Why would we want to encourage that?
Actually, from my read of your post...it seemed that you were saying that rights are something you must fight tooth and nail for in order for the government to grant them to you in the first place. My argument was that the rights are already there, by nature of the people being sovereign, we just choose to specifically protect certain ones in order to have a government to establish an ordered, functioning society. Although it's true we have to fight the corruption in government that wishes to take away our rights for some political ideology.
Are you changing your mind now, or suggesting that your entire post was sarcasm? Because it certainly looks to me like your whole argument went on the assumption that government grants rights.Well, on a Linux or Unix system, it gets nicely sandboxed by the permissions system. Running a program as user simply doesn't give the program root authority.
ActiveX on the other hands, runs on Windows, and has basically full root access to the machine.
See the difference?