Ok, now I'm just confused. I spent $100 on TurboZoom fans and a BigBlue radiator to keep my puter cool and now you're telling me I need a hot spare? What gives?
YOU SIR are an un-American, un-patriotic terrorist loving scumbag that has no gratitude for what your Great Uncle Sam has done for you!
When the Chinese invasion begins and you're mindlessly posting to your internet friends, you better HOPE that somebody in the Bush administration has alerted the media. Otherwise CNN will still be running stories about missing white chicks and loopy record execs running from Nigerian internet scammers. We'll miss the live video of all the hummers rolling into Red Square.
Thanks for taking the time to reply in a thoughtful manner. I figured the post would be modded troll and ignored by everyone. I also posted it a lot later than I had hoped, so I guess most didn't see it at all.
I was just venting about many points I've observed, but most of them hold more truth than some people writing here likes to admit. It's not going to change the world, but I feel better having posted it.
Funny thing is I'm actually a bit more tech savvy than the average user myself. If I have trouble with something, the real average user hasn't a prayer.
You're Apple comment is classic. I and many other average users are headed in that direction, but Apple will have to change their marketing campaign if they want to attract a large percentage of us. The money isn't the issue for many; they just think Apple is still a graphics professional's machine. That and they don't want to give up their scroll-wheel, multi-button mouse. ; )
People point to 19th century company "towns" as modern serfdom, but if that's what you want to do, go for it. Sell you soul to the company store if you can get a good enough price for it.
Wow, are you really comparing 19th century company towns to Google offering a place to eat on campus? Let's compare. One was built specifically to support and directly profit from its underpaid, uneducated, unskilled labor, which was working the only job around. The other is an organization that has many PhDs competing for highly paid positions, in an industry that already pays well above-average compared to most of the working class in the world? That's incredible. And to think, this whole time I thought folks smart enough to work for Google were actually smart enough to think for themselves. Someone needs to call and tell them about their evil slum lord's true intentions.
It's not wrong. It's just not for me.
I didn't say it was for you or even that you should participate. I simply asked if you were aware that some people find the idea of onsite meals attractive. It's not your lifestyle, and that's fine. But I don't see why it's not fine for people who choose that lifestyle.
You see, some people find work that they really enjoy. These people sometimes work for other people and sometimes work for themselves, but one thing they have in common is that they really enjoy their work. They enjoy it so much that they don't feel like someone is trying to steal their soul when provided a means to have a meal in the same building in which they work.
How can you have a social life at 80 hours per week? How can you date or support a marriage? How can you have time to see your children before they grow up and move away? Why bother with a dog if you never have time to walk it? Why bother renting an apartment or buying a house? Just rent a mailbox and sleep in your cubicle!
Gee, you know, I never thought of all of that. Nor, I bet, have all the people who choose to work at Google. Millions of people work long hours, yet they still manage to live happily with wives, children, dogs, and homes. Those who work long hours and hate it should do something else.
Think of all the benefits: no more distracting hobbies, no more distracting friends, no more distracting relationships, no more distracting individualism.
I'm starting to get the feeling that you think it has to be an all-or-nothing proposition. As I stated earlier, it's a lifestyle choice. Some people can and do manage to balance their work and personal lives very well, despite putting in more time than the average worker. Those people tend to be much happier and more individualistic than the conspiracy theorists and the whiners. I wonder why that is? (rhetorical question.)
If by "good conditions" you mean working your ass off on long hours... they serve breakfast, lunch AND dinner in their marvelous cafeteria. All your home is for is to sleep at.
Do you realize that many people find this whole idea rather attractive? Not everyone is rushing to get away from their jobs or their coworkers at 5pm. A lot of folks actually love what they do for a living and like the people they work with. So much so, that it's not a job to them; it's a lifestyle. Granted, it's not the lifestyle for everyone. But I don't understand why so many people feel that it's wrong for a company to operate this way. Especially when everyone working there has made the choice to be there.
Hell, I'd love to find an environment like that to work in. One that wasn't full of negative paranoid slackers. I already love what I do; I just don't have the support staff or amenities to make it an enjoyable lifestyle.
It was hilarious to me because I think Digg is a joke. It's been overrun by idiots and is full of nothing but AOL'esq style, useless comments. Sure, some interesting stories are posted in quick fashion. The overwhelming majority though, are useless links to some dork's ad-riddled blog, with less than intelligent commentary, which then links to some other page, where the story may or may not have originated. Even slashdot, with it's less than stellar S/N ratio, at least enables some form of editorial review and semi-adult conversation.
The fact that stories show up on Digg, or where ever, a day or two before slashdot doesn't concern me in the least. I learned long ago to let all the folks who, must know now!, filter through all the junk before I waste my time on it. I get more facts and less speculation that way. That's why I will often cruise slashdot stories that are days old. Those in-the-know have pretty much corrected all the misinformation by then.
Digg was a great idea initially but, it's sadly developed into a great mess. Kevin and crew should be able to do better than that. What value does Digg provide that I can't get already through a decent RSS aggregator? The concept of social bookmarks simply falls apart when overrun by those who submit and collect bookmarks like their on crack.
Don't take my views personally. If you like 'em, great. I just prefer to spend my time reading opinions that go a little further than, "OMG u got 2 C this."
woohoo! If this guy can get a poorly written, totally speculative, and factually incorrect article posted to slashdot; even I've got a shot at it. Digg can kiss my ass.
By the way, you do realize that once I've shown up on your website, all your nerd cred is pretty much done with - don't you?
Speaking as a representative for the average computer user, I will try to explain the average pc user to the F/OSS crowd. Please note that I do not have a great deal of free time to carry on a dialog after this is posted. I will however try to reply to any serious questions as time permits.
First, as average pc users, we don't really care about the whole F/OSS concept. We will never write code and we couldn't care less about the philosophical purpose behind what you write and distribute for free. Of course we can relate to free beer; that gets us excited. But more than just free software, what we want is software that just works and doesn't make us jump through hoops to make it work. We want to be able to pop in a CD or download a file and click something to make it work. We don't care what is going on under the hood. As long as it's not sending our credit card numbers to thieves or revealing our porn to our wives, we simply don't care how or why it works. If one organization could sell or give us a master program that did anything we wanted it to do, we would be very happy, clueless campers. We would not care in the least if an evil monopolist was controlling the entire computer industry - as long as our email, chat, photos, music, games, banking, and porn just worked.
The adventurous among us, that have investigated this F/OSS concept, have simply been intimidated or confused by the overwhelming amount of indiscernible information we're faced with. We've downloaded several of the so-called easy versions of something related to Linux, but we've ultimately given up because everything takes a lot of research and fumbling to get it working right. Every time we look for answers to a question about how to do X, we're faced with cryptic messages about compilers, command lines, wrappers, shells and whatnot. We don't want to know how to compile anything. We don't care what a command line is. We can't tell the difference between a shell and a GUI. Why should we have to? Quite simply, we are not interested in being programmers - we have other interests, jobs, and time consuming responsibilities.
Now the really, really determined amongst us will seek out knowledge by frequenting newsgroups, forums, or websites devoted to this free software. Unfortunately, the predominate thing we see happening in these areas is a bunch of infighting and bitching about how one distro is better than another, or how Microsoft is Satan incorporated. There's always a lot of talk about security and clueless users but, rarely is there any real substance that actually helps moving us clueless users into a more secure environment; at least not without requiring us to take a couple CS courses.
What's worse is the general attitude amongst a lot of the F/OSS community, which seems to believe they are somehow intellectually superior to those of us in the world that choose to spend our time learning something other than operating systems and protocols. As we see it, we don't expect you to know how to perform open heart surgery; or perhaps how to knit a woolen sweater, yet you are able to benefit from both of those, thanks to our hard work. All we ask is that you likewise provide us with a product which we can use without needing to know how you produced it or how it works.
In closing, it's not that we don't appreciate the efforts you put forth, we just ask you to remember that we are average users. Our skills and aptitudes vary widely. Also remember that we will gladly adopt anything that makes our lives easier, more productive, more secure, or just more interesting. What we will not accept however is the premise that we must devote an inordinate amount of time to learning how to install, use, and maintain your software; no matter what the perks are. There are at least two companies which already sell us stuff that just works; for the most part.
Slashdot Mirror
Burn in hell, Joe Sixpack.
But, what did I do?
And my Hemi 'cuda will smoke your Chevy. Can't back up though - lost R about three years ago.
I backup my stuff to the recycle bin, so I always know where it is.
Also, everyone knows you can't see ghosts in a mirror. Funny that some people didn't get the joke.
Ok, now I'm just confused. I spent $100 on TurboZoom fans and a BigBlue radiator to keep my puter cool and now you're telling me I need a hot spare? What gives?
YOU SIR are an un-American, un-patriotic terrorist loving scumbag that has no gratitude for what your Great Uncle Sam has done for you!
When the Chinese invasion begins and you're mindlessly posting to your internet friends, you better HOPE that somebody in the Bush administration has alerted the media. Otherwise CNN will still be running stories about missing white chicks and loopy record execs running from Nigerian internet scammers. We'll miss the live video of all the hummers rolling into Red Square.
Thanks for taking the time to reply in a thoughtful manner. I figured the post would be modded troll and ignored by everyone. I also posted it a lot later than I had hoped, so I guess most didn't see it at all.
I was just venting about many points I've observed, but most of them hold more truth than some people writing here likes to admit. It's not going to change the world, but I feel better having posted it.
Funny thing is I'm actually a bit more tech savvy than the average user myself. If I have trouble with something, the real average user hasn't a prayer.
You're Apple comment is classic. I and many other average users are headed in that direction, but Apple will have to change their marketing campaign if they want to attract a large percentage of us. The money isn't the issue for many; they just think Apple is still a graphics professional's machine. That and they don't want to give up their scroll-wheel, multi-button mouse. ; )
People point to 19th century company "towns" as modern serfdom, but if that's what you want to do, go for it. Sell you soul to the company store if you can get a good enough price for it.
Wow, are you really comparing 19th century company towns to Google offering a place to eat on campus? Let's compare. One was built specifically to support and directly profit from its underpaid, uneducated, unskilled labor, which was working the only job around. The other is an organization that has many PhDs competing for highly paid positions, in an industry that already pays well above-average compared to most of the working class in the world? That's incredible. And to think, this whole time I thought folks smart enough to work for Google were actually smart enough to think for themselves. Someone needs to call and tell them about their evil slum lord's true intentions.
It's not wrong. It's just not for me.
I didn't say it was for you or even that you should participate. I simply asked if you were aware that some people find the idea of onsite meals attractive. It's not your lifestyle, and that's fine. But I don't see why it's not fine for people who choose that lifestyle.
You see, some people find work that they really enjoy. These people sometimes work for other people and sometimes work for themselves, but one thing they have in common is that they really enjoy their work. They enjoy it so much that they don't feel like someone is trying to steal their soul when provided a means to have a meal in the same building in which they work.
How can you have a social life at 80 hours per week? How can you date or support a marriage? How can you have time to see your children before they grow up and move away? Why bother with a dog if you never have time to walk it? Why bother renting an apartment or buying a house? Just rent a mailbox and sleep in your cubicle!
Gee, you know, I never thought of all of that. Nor, I bet, have all the people who choose to work at Google. Millions of people work long hours, yet they still manage to live happily with wives, children, dogs, and homes. Those who work long hours and hate it should do something else.
Think of all the benefits: no more distracting hobbies, no more distracting friends, no more distracting relationships, no more distracting individualism.
I'm starting to get the feeling that you think it has to be an all-or-nothing proposition. As I stated earlier, it's a lifestyle choice. Some people can and do manage to balance their work and personal lives very well, despite putting in more time than the average worker. Those people tend to be much happier and more individualistic than the conspiracy theorists and the whiners. I wonder why that is? (rhetorical question.)
If by "good conditions" you mean working your ass off on long hours... they serve breakfast, lunch AND dinner in their marvelous cafeteria. All your home is for is to sleep at.
Do you realize that many people find this whole idea rather attractive? Not everyone is rushing to get away from their jobs or their coworkers at 5pm. A lot of folks actually love what they do for a living and like the people they work with. So much so, that it's not a job to them; it's a lifestyle. Granted, it's not the lifestyle for everyone. But I don't understand why so many people feel that it's wrong for a company to operate this way. Especially when everyone working there has made the choice to be there.
Hell, I'd love to find an environment like that to work in. One that wasn't full of negative paranoid slackers. I already love what I do; I just don't have the support staff or amenities to make it an enjoyable lifestyle.
It was hilarious to me because I think Digg is a joke. It's been overrun by idiots and is full of nothing but AOL'esq style, useless comments. Sure, some interesting stories are posted in quick fashion. The overwhelming majority though, are useless links to some dork's ad-riddled blog, with less than intelligent commentary, which then links to some other page, where the story may or may not have originated. Even slashdot, with it's less than stellar S/N ratio, at least enables some form of editorial review and semi-adult conversation.
The fact that stories show up on Digg, or where ever, a day or two before slashdot doesn't concern me in the least. I learned long ago to let all the folks who, must know now!, filter through all the junk before I waste my time on it. I get more facts and less speculation that way. That's why I will often cruise slashdot stories that are days old. Those in-the-know have pretty much corrected all the misinformation by then.
Digg was a great idea initially but, it's sadly developed into a great mess. Kevin and crew should be able to do better than that. What value does Digg provide that I can't get already through a decent RSS aggregator? The concept of social bookmarks simply falls apart when overrun by those who submit and collect bookmarks like their on crack.
Don't take my views personally. If you like 'em, great. I just prefer to spend my time reading opinions that go a little further than, "OMG u got 2 C this."
It did get submitted to Digg.com which is better than slashdot anyways.
heh, Even I find that hilarious.
woohoo! If this guy can get a poorly written, totally speculative, and factually incorrect article posted to slashdot; even I've got a shot at it. Digg can kiss my ass.
By the way, you do realize that once I've shown up on your website, all your nerd cred is pretty much done with - don't you?
Speaking as a representative for the average computer user, I will try to explain the average pc user to the F/OSS crowd. Please note that I do not have a great deal of free time to carry on a dialog after this is posted. I will however try to reply to any serious questions as time permits.
First, as average pc users, we don't really care about the whole F/OSS concept. We will never write code and we couldn't care less about the philosophical purpose behind what you write and distribute for free. Of course we can relate to free beer; that gets us excited. But more than just free software, what we want is software that just works and doesn't make us jump through hoops to make it work. We want to be able to pop in a CD or download a file and click something to make it work. We don't care what is going on under the hood. As long as it's not sending our credit card numbers to thieves or revealing our porn to our wives, we simply don't care how or why it works. If one organization could sell or give us a master program that did anything we wanted it to do, we would be very happy, clueless campers. We would not care in the least if an evil monopolist was controlling the entire computer industry - as long as our email, chat, photos, music, games, banking, and porn just worked.
The adventurous among us, that have investigated this F/OSS concept, have simply been intimidated or confused by the overwhelming amount of indiscernible information we're faced with. We've downloaded several of the so-called easy versions of something related to Linux, but we've ultimately given up because everything takes a lot of research and fumbling to get it working right. Every time we look for answers to a question about how to do X, we're faced with cryptic messages about compilers, command lines, wrappers, shells and whatnot. We don't want to know how to compile anything. We don't care what a command line is. We can't tell the difference between a shell and a GUI. Why should we have to? Quite simply, we are not interested in being programmers - we have other interests, jobs, and time consuming responsibilities.
Now the really, really determined amongst us will seek out knowledge by frequenting newsgroups, forums, or websites devoted to this free software. Unfortunately, the predominate thing we see happening in these areas is a bunch of infighting and bitching about how one distro is better than another, or how Microsoft is Satan incorporated. There's always a lot of talk about security and clueless users but, rarely is there any real substance that actually helps moving us clueless users into a more secure environment; at least not without requiring us to take a couple CS courses.
What's worse is the general attitude amongst a lot of the F/OSS community, which seems to believe they are somehow intellectually superior to those of us in the world that choose to spend our time learning something other than operating systems and protocols. As we see it, we don't expect you to know how to perform open heart surgery; or perhaps how to knit a woolen sweater, yet you are able to benefit from both of those, thanks to our hard work. All we ask is that you likewise provide us with a product which we can use without needing to know how you produced it or how it works.
In closing, it's not that we don't appreciate the efforts you put forth, we just ask you to remember that we are average users. Our skills and aptitudes vary widely. Also remember that we will gladly adopt anything that makes our lives easier, more productive, more secure, or just more interesting. What we will not accept however is the premise that we must devote an inordinate amount of time to learning how to install, use, and maintain your software; no matter what the perks are. There are at least two companies which already sell us stuff that just works; for the most part.
heh, even I knew that.
You really shouldn't post your password to public fourms.
Dear Sir,
I find this open source you speak of compelling and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Is it FREE?