Naw, its more like being sick of Linux gurus telling me _I'm_ stupid for wanting everything my own way. Well... that's how commerce works. Gotta satisfy the customer. I understand you fully. A lot of people who have strong opinions on this issue are not able to understand the other side. I have exactly the same experience as you, but worse. You see, "wanting everything my own way" includes:
1) having websites which I want to look at be written according to accepted web standards, so they will display properly in all standards-compliant browsers
2) to not have to pay money to buy specific programs in order to open documents which people send me in proprietary formats
OpenOffice just as good as Microsoft Office? Well... then why does this statement always get followed by a disclaimer that all those functions the Microsoft has that OpenOffice doesn't,... "good" is subjective, OpenOffice could very well be perceived as better by many people for other reasons, right? Wasn't that the point you were making, in reverse? For example, OpenOffice can save its documents in a standard, open file format, and it is free (as in beer), which lets people try it out without paying up front, and free (as in speech), which lets people pay for it in other ways than spending cash (more on that later in my post).
There's a website that I (finally) found that claims that getting Call of Duty 4 to run on Linux under WINE is no harder than any other game For someone who says "I'll never run Linux 'cuz...", you seem somehow conflicted. Why do you waste your time (and the "finally" indicates --- a lot of time) looking for websites about running a game under Linux?
... The stated reason that Qualcomm didn't port it to Linux was that they perceived that Linux users expect their software for free, which is ANOTHER thing I dsagree with. If a person wants something of value to him, he should be willing to pay for it,... In some ways, I fully agree with you, here, and in others I disagree. I agree that people should be willing to pay for things of value to them. However, I think your definition of "pay for it" is rather narrow. Some of us pay for our free open-source software by, well, writing more free open-source software (or fixing bugs in existing software). The work we do is worth money. Others pay by providing support on forums, or to our immediate surroundings. Or by posting bug reports and enhancement requests. And then there are some of us who actually do click the "donate" button (if it is provided).
Where I disagree with you is that I believe that there are many people who are willing to pay, but do not have the means to do so (in a significant public fashion, at least), and I strongly believe these people should still be able to use free software.
while those that spend some significant chunk of their lives creating it, whether its a bridge or a simulation of one, deserves to be paid for their efforts. That includes artists, such as musicians, which is why I believe that downloading copyrited music for free is stealing. No, I don't care how many people agree about that... it is an absolute truth. I didn't understand this point. When I, out of curiosity, downloaded the free music from Nine Inch Nails, even though the artist wanted me to download it for free (I had never been exposed to his music), I was stealing? You are philosophically opposed to anyone giving anything away for free? Curious. Is your reason that they therefore compete with others who want to make money?
Its funny that any Linux discussion is always characterized by Linux gurus assuring me I don't "need" this or that.
Clue: It ain't about "need", its about "want." I _want_ to be able... If not, then maybe I have to replace this computer eventually with something I don't _want_, but it still won't be Linux. So to summarize your position: Linux gurus are stupid to tell me that I don't want all kinds of things which don't run under Linux, but if anyway I can't have what I want (and am therefore limited to only things which could run under Linux), I still wouldn't run Linux.
If you irrationally would never run Linux, there's no point in discussing this with you. Or did I misunderstand something? I don't get the impression you wouldn't be running Linux because you prefer plan9 or GNU Hurd.
You start to sound like a bot programmed to always reply with Iraq and Bush. What's with you? I've been trying my utmost to move this thread away from them, and you obsessively keep coming back. Please try to refer to Bush and Iraq only to the extent they are connected with Bin Laden's behavior, and how much you think (irrespective of who is the president and/or how idiotic he is) the US should change its foreign policy to appease the risk of international terrorism, which you did not disagree as being actually quite small compared to a lot of other everyday risks.
> So maybe your right, maybe Bin Laden has an agenda like Bush
No, that's not at all what I said, and the only way what I said could be twisted into something even close to that would be if one believed that Bush believed that attacking Iraq in 2003 was the only way he would manage to be reelected, something which seems very unlikely since after 9/11 his approval rating hit the roof.
> I would much rather make the assumption that someone is sincere about a feeling > of violation of soverenty than some dark vision of world conquest
"dark vision of world conquest" is something you have pulled out of your own dark subconscious. My comment only pointed out that Bin Laden would need to continually pull out more "issues" with the US or the West in order to remain in a position of influence and power, it said nothing about his wanting to conquer the world, just that he very likely might want to remain personally important.
I would guess this would depend on the velocity it had when it was created, no? The "doomsday" scenario would be that it is created with a velocity vector which would put it into an orbit around the center of mass of the Earth where that orbit intersects the Earth (including the atmosphere). The black hole then starts slowly absorbing Earth's mass, contantly growing and decaying into orbits closer and closer to the Earth's center. After an unknown amount of time, the entire Earth is eaten by it.
At least one science fiction story has used this or variations on this as an alien weapon which is designed to destroy the Earth.
> I see that as a more reasonable attitude and one that maybe both you and I would support if say France > had a military base in New Orleans, just for our safety and protection.
Your analogy is a strawman unless you pad it out with the remaining details: in that analogous reality, France is much more powerful than the US, and the military base is there by mutual agreement of the legal governments of the two nations.
> I don't think he cares about what we do in our own country, just get out of his.
Ah, so he wouldn't care if we publish somewhat anti-Islamic cartoons in our newspapers, or publish books dealing with Islamic related themes. Perhaps you are correct now, that these are not major issues for Bin Laden since he can concentrate on the US presence in Saudi Arabia, but I think you are naive if you believe that if the US were to withdraw from Saudi Arabia the result would be that Bin Laden would "retire" and disband Al Qaeda. I find it much more likely that he would desire to maintain his position of power, and merely find another issue to use to rally his followers.
> Bin Laden had a more specific goal, that of getting our presence out of his country and the holy lands
So, your argument is that the risk of international terrorism against the US makes it worthwhile to the US to withdraw from Saudi Arabia (and perhaps also to stop supporting Israel)? Frankly, I guess that Israel supplies a lot of useful intelligence to the US, but of course, I cannot be sure.
1) Thanks for the reference, I'd always wondered about that. What song is it from? 2) I think the problem with your theory is that it was already (at least partially) flamebait in the original context. Flamebait is flamebait, even if it has a pop-cultural basis. 3) "The Mods REALLY hate the Dead Milkmen." => You ignore Hanlon's Razor. 4) Even insightful, informative comments which are unconnected to the topic of the article are fair game for Offtopic mods. That would, of course, include this comment.
You're dreaming if you think Microsoft software will accurately read documents in Microsoft formats which are arbitrarily old.
Unfortunately, the governments will probably still waste their money trying...
I wouldn't be surprised if in the long term, the best way to accurately read old Microsoft formats would be to use the appropriate version of corresponding OSS (which had to try to be as compatible as possible to that format) running in a virtual machine.
> Water molecules evaporating from the trees, vegetation, lakes and oceans carry an ionic charge up to the clouds with them.
What kind of ionic charge (positive or negative)? What is the mechanism involved?
> Turbulence within the clouds also help charge build up.
How?
Your turbulence explanation sounds like the "when clouds collide they rub against each other and generate massive static electricity" explanation-for-children I remember from (old) books of my tender youth.
How clouds accumulate the charge separation necessary for lightning is not well understood, as far as I know. There is still a lot of research trying to pin this down. I remember seeing an article which claimed that when a water droplet freezes it causes a charge imbalance to be generated along some axis of the ice crystal, and this in addition to a lot of hypothesizing as to how the charges could get separated was proposed as one mechanism which might enable clouds to accumulate the charges necessary for lightning.
> And yes, we keep up to date, the latest books and fresh articles. >... > did they homework while studying
Frankly, I think most of the problem is that many doctors specialize after graduation, and subsequently lose touch with pharmacological advances in other specialties. I heartily agree with the advice to double-check everything with a pharmacist you trust.
I've also had experience where a doctor was blithely willing to prescribe a(n expensive) medication without asking me what medication I might be taking for a different condition about which I informed him. In my case it just would have caused the medicine he prescribed to have little or no effect, not killed me, however. I.e., wasted money.
1) You are confusing two different wars in Iraq; only the first one preceded 9/11. A lot of your comments are therefore off-topic, and BTW, my comment did not imply that I thought the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a good idea.
2) You dismiss my argument by claiming that my example (OKC bombing) was a strawman (for multiple reasons). Yet even if that were the case, you ignore the argument itself, which was presented in the line:
>>..., he [Bin Laden] also doesn't believe in democracy. Let's stop that craziness and then we'll be perfectly safe, right?
My argument is: the danger of international terrorism is tiny compared to other dangers, therefore we should only adjust our behavior to mitigate its small risk if there is almost no cost to doing so.
Please address this argument. I invite you to consider how much you change your behavior to mitigate your risk of injury in a car accident, and compare it to your risk from international terrorism.
It's a bit short for my tastes. I often end up having to invest a lot of effort to squeeze down to the character limit.
Of course, your observation is correct for the post you commented on --- however, the poster might have split the subject text between the subject field and the comment for humorous effect, eh?
Apologies if you were going for the Funny, also; my "whoosh" detection isn't all that great...
Judging from the article linked from the comment above, in the softwood case in question, the WTO backed the US, and NAFTA was the international body which supported the Canadian position.
Either you and lots of mods are dreamin', or you're talking about a different trade conflict with Canada...
Ah, but then you should know about my filing #938320383 "Characterizing AJAX users' Slashdot ID's and posting behavior" :
Claim 1. A method for inferring the Slashdot user id, and/or propensity for posting on Slashdot as Anonymous Coward, of an entity using AJAX, via the use of a priori knowledge.
Claim 2. A method for inferring the Slashdot user id, and/or propensity for posting on Slashdot as Anonymous Coward, of an entity using AJAX, via the use of a posteriori knowledge.
Claim 3. A method for inferring the Slashdot user id, and/or propensity for posting on Slashdot as Anonymous Coward, of an entity using AJAX, via the use of both a priori and a posteriori knowledge.
I have a vague memory of a case documented (on Slashdot?) where the judge ordered the frivolous side's lawyers to pay a fine for wasting the legal system's time. I suppose that's not particularly common, though.
Yeah, after I posted it I understood the point you make, which is perfectly valid, and I kind of regretted the inaccuracy of my statement (being a pedantic math type). However, from a practical point of view, a country not changing its original vote isn't particularly notable, and rather reminds me of Franco still being dead.
> it was our presence in the Middle East that Bin Laden was pissed about.
Ur, last time i checked, he also doesn't believe in democracy. Let's stop that craziness and then we'll be perfectly safe, right?
The Wikipedia article on the McVeigh bombing states that the prosecution's hypothesis was that he was driven by hatred of the US because of various things including: tax increases, the Waco siege and Ruby Ridge. After that bombing, you immediately supported the elimination of tax increases and FBI raids on paramilitary organizations, so you would be safer, right?
Learn to stop cowering in fear. Life has risks and major terrorist attacks are not very high on that list.
> With a little bit of work, you can download pretty much any book on the market today, yet books are still > being sold everyday. Wonder why that is?
Sorry to undermine you point (which I agree with) but it could very well be because society hasn't made the shift to preferring ebooks to paper ones, for whatever reasons.
You should have used music for your example instead, since it seems to me that society has made the shift in that sector.
The only news here is (possibly) the insight the article gives as to why and how India has been and will be voting against OOXML, therefore the "India Votes Against OOXML" title is really stupid.
Re:"not properly document" criticism is invalid
on
India Votes Against OOXML
·
· Score: 5, Informative
It doesn't matter whether OOXML is properly documented --- as Stephane Rodriguez explains, even if it were properly documented, it doesn't accomplish what a standard should, which is to enable interoperability (with Office 2007).
The guy who wrote the paper admits at the end of the article to occasionally "enjoying drinking 12 beers in a night".
I guess that means that his results are dismissable. But then that means his beer drinking should not affect how we look at his results. Which means that his results...
I can't begin to tell you how true this rang for me personally (well, rather, I could begin but it would be pointless).
Just out of curiosity, does this developer who displaced you have a life?
I had never thought of this advantage before to FSF's paradigm of assigning copyright: even if you do not retain copyright, ingrates who follow you can't claim copyright either, even if they intentionally rewrite the code you wrote. Might even help to discourage such shenanigans.
Slashdot Mirror
- 1) having websites which I want to look at be written according to accepted web standards, so they will display properly in all standards-compliant browsers
- 2) to not have to pay money to buy specific programs in order to open documents which people send me in proprietary formats
OpenOffice just as good as Microsoft Office? Well... then why does this statement always get followed by a disclaimer that all those functions the Microsoft has that OpenOffice doesn't,Where I disagree with you is that I believe that there are many people who are willing to pay, but do not have the means to do so (in a significant public fashion, at least), and I strongly believe these people should still be able to use free software. while those that spend some significant chunk of their lives creating it, whether its a bridge or a simulation of one, deserves to be paid for their efforts. That includes artists, such as musicians, which is why I believe that downloading copyrited music for free is stealing. No, I don't care how many people agree about that... it is an absolute truth. I didn't understand this point. When I, out of curiosity, downloaded the free music from Nine Inch Nails, even though the artist wanted me to download it for free (I had never been exposed to his music), I was stealing? You are philosophically opposed to anyone giving anything away for free? Curious. Is your reason that they therefore compete with others who want to make money?
BTW, you should stop hiding the display of your paid subscription to Slashdot, it makes you look hypocritical.
Clue: It ain't about "need", its about "want." I _want_ to be able
If you irrationally would never run Linux, there's no point in discussing this with you. Or did I misunderstand something? I don't get the impression you wouldn't be running Linux because you prefer plan9 or GNU Hurd.
Of course! He runs it zippety quick in a virtual machine under Vista!
You start to sound like a bot programmed to always reply with Iraq and Bush. What's with you? I've been trying my utmost to move this thread away from them, and you obsessively keep coming back. Please try to refer to Bush and Iraq only to the extent they are connected with Bin Laden's behavior, and how much you think (irrespective of who is the president and/or how idiotic he is) the US should change its foreign policy to appease the risk of international terrorism, which you did not disagree as being actually quite small compared to a lot of other everyday risks.
> So maybe your right, maybe Bin Laden has an agenda like Bush
No, that's not at all what I said, and the only way what I said could be twisted into something even close to that would be if one believed that Bush believed that attacking Iraq in 2003 was the only way he would manage to be reelected, something which seems very unlikely since after 9/11 his approval rating hit the roof.
> I would much rather make the assumption that someone is sincere about a feeling
> of violation of soverenty than some dark vision of world conquest
"dark vision of world conquest" is something you have pulled out of your own dark subconscious. My comment only pointed out that Bin Laden would need to continually pull out more "issues" with the US or the West in order to remain in a position of influence and power, it said nothing about his wanting to conquer the world, just that he very likely might want to remain personally important.
I would guess this would depend on the velocity it had when it was created, no? The "doomsday" scenario would be that it is created with a velocity vector which would put it into an orbit around the center of mass of the Earth where that orbit intersects the Earth (including the atmosphere). The black hole then starts slowly absorbing Earth's mass, contantly growing and decaying into orbits closer and closer to the Earth's center. After an unknown amount of time, the entire Earth is eaten by it.
At least one science fiction story has used this or variations on this as an alien weapon which is designed to destroy the Earth.
> I see that as a more reasonable attitude and one that maybe both you and I would support if say France
> had a military base in New Orleans, just for our safety and protection.
Your analogy is a strawman unless you pad it out with the remaining details: in that analogous reality, France is much more powerful than the US, and the military base is there by mutual agreement of the legal governments of the two nations.
> I don't think he cares about what we do in our own country, just get out of his.
Ah, so he wouldn't care if we publish somewhat anti-Islamic cartoons in our newspapers, or publish books dealing with Islamic related themes. Perhaps you are correct now, that these are not major issues for Bin Laden since he can concentrate on the US presence in Saudi Arabia, but I think you are naive if you believe that if the US were to withdraw from Saudi Arabia the result would be that Bin Laden would "retire" and disband Al Qaeda. I find it much more likely that he would desire to maintain his position of power, and merely find another issue to use to rally his followers.
> Bin Laden had a more specific goal, that of getting our presence out of his country and the holy lands
So, your argument is that the risk of international terrorism against the US makes it worthwhile to the US to withdraw from Saudi Arabia (and perhaps also to stop supporting Israel)? Frankly, I guess that Israel supplies a lot of useful intelligence to the US, but of course, I cannot be sure.
1) Thanks for the reference, I'd always wondered about that. What song is it from?
2) I think the problem with your theory is that it was already (at least partially) flamebait in the original context. Flamebait is flamebait, even if it has a pop-cultural basis.
3) "The Mods REALLY hate the Dead Milkmen." => You ignore Hanlon's Razor.
4) Even insightful, informative comments which are unconnected to the topic of the article are fair game for Offtopic mods. That would, of course, include this comment.
You're dreaming if you think Microsoft software will accurately read documents in Microsoft formats which are arbitrarily old.
Unfortunately, the governments will probably still waste their money trying...
I wouldn't be surprised if in the long term, the best way to accurately read old Microsoft formats would be to use the appropriate version of corresponding OSS (which had to try to be as compatible as possible to that format) running in a virtual machine.
> Water molecules evaporating from the trees, vegetation, lakes and oceans carry an ionic charge up to the clouds with them.
What kind of ionic charge (positive or negative)? What is the mechanism involved?
> Turbulence within the clouds also help charge build up.
How?
Your turbulence explanation sounds like the "when clouds collide they rub against each other and generate massive static electricity" explanation-for-children I remember from (old) books of my tender youth.
How clouds accumulate the charge separation necessary for lightning is not well understood, as far as I know. There is still a lot of research trying to pin this down. I remember seeing an article which claimed that when a water droplet freezes it causes a charge imbalance to be generated along some axis of the ice crystal, and this in addition to a lot of hypothesizing as to how the charges could get separated was proposed as one mechanism which might enable clouds to accumulate the charges necessary for lightning.
> And yes, we keep up to date, the latest books and fresh articles. ...
>
> did they homework while studying
Frankly, I think most of the problem is that many doctors specialize after graduation, and subsequently lose touch with pharmacological advances in other specialties. I heartily agree with the advice to double-check everything with a pharmacist you trust.
I've also had experience where a doctor was blithely willing to prescribe a(n expensive) medication without asking me what medication I might be taking for a different condition about which I informed him. In my case it just would have caused the medicine he prescribed to have little or no effect, not killed me, however. I.e., wasted money.
Multiple problems here. :-)
..., he [Bin Laden] also doesn't believe in democracy. Let's stop that craziness and then we'll be perfectly safe, right?
1) You are confusing two different wars in Iraq; only the first one preceded 9/11. A lot of your comments are therefore off-topic, and BTW, my comment did not imply that I thought the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a good idea.
2) You dismiss my argument by claiming that my example (OKC bombing) was a strawman (for multiple reasons). Yet even if that were the case, you ignore the argument itself, which was presented in the line:
>>
My argument is: the danger of international terrorism is tiny compared to other dangers, therefore we should only adjust our behavior to mitigate its small risk if there is almost no cost to doing so.
Please address this argument. I invite you to consider how much you change your behavior to mitigate your risk of injury in a car accident, and compare it to your risk from international terrorism.
> 1. Boring, plain subjects (like this one) don't get attention, and don't get moderated.
..."
My experience indicates that the only things you have to avoid are:
1) leaving the subject "Re:
2) using a subject which lacks content
I get lots of positive mods using straightforward, rather boring, subjects.
-ly?
It's a bit short for my tastes. I often end up having to invest a lot of effort to squeeze down to the character limit.
Of course, your observation is correct for the post you commented on --- however, the poster might have split the subject text between the subject field and the comment for humorous effect, eh?
Apologies if you were going for the Funny, also; my "whoosh" detection isn't all that great...
Judging from the article linked from the comment above, in the softwood case in question, the WTO backed the US, and NAFTA was the international body which supported the Canadian position.
Either you and lots of mods are dreamin', or you're talking about a different trade conflict with Canada...
Ah, but then you should know about my filing #938320383 "Characterizing AJAX users' Slashdot ID's and posting behavior" :
....
Claim 1. A method for inferring the Slashdot user id, and/or propensity for posting on Slashdot as Anonymous Coward, of an entity using AJAX, via the use of a priori knowledge.
Claim 2. A method for inferring the Slashdot user id, and/or propensity for posting on Slashdot as Anonymous Coward, of an entity using AJAX, via the use of a posteriori knowledge.
Claim 3. A method for inferring the Slashdot user id, and/or propensity for posting on Slashdot as Anonymous Coward, of an entity using AJAX, via the use of both a priori and a posteriori knowledge.
Claim 4.
I have a vague memory of a case documented (on Slashdot?) where the judge ordered the frivolous side's lawyers to pay a fine for wasting the legal system's time. I suppose that's not particularly common, though.
Yeah, after I posted it I understood the point you make, which is perfectly valid, and I kind of regretted the inaccuracy of my statement (being a pedantic math type). However, from a practical point of view, a country not changing its original vote isn't particularly notable, and rather reminds me of Franco still being dead.
> it was our presence in the Middle East that Bin Laden was pissed about.
Ur, last time i checked, he also doesn't believe in democracy. Let's stop that craziness and then we'll be perfectly safe, right?
The Wikipedia article on the McVeigh bombing states that the prosecution's hypothesis was that he was driven by hatred of the US because of various things including: tax increases, the Waco siege and Ruby Ridge. After that bombing, you immediately supported the elimination of tax increases and FBI raids on paramilitary organizations, so you would be safer, right?
Learn to stop cowering in fear. Life has risks and major terrorist attacks are not very high on that list.
> With a little bit of work, you can download pretty much any book on the market today, yet books are still
> being sold everyday. Wonder why that is?
Sorry to undermine you point (which I agree with) but it could very well be because society hasn't made the shift to preferring ebooks to paper ones, for whatever reasons.
You should have used music for your example instead, since it seems to me that society has made the shift in that sector.
India voting against OOXML is not news, they already voted against it in September.
The only news here is (possibly) the insight the article gives as to why and how India has been and will be voting against OOXML, therefore the "India Votes Against OOXML" title is really stupid.
It doesn't matter whether OOXML is properly documented --- as Stephane Rodriguez explains, even if it were properly documented, it doesn't accomplish what a standard should, which is to enable interoperability (with Office 2007).
Good choice, we need it to conduct both AC and DC!
The guy who wrote the paper admits at the end of the article to occasionally "enjoying drinking 12 beers in a night".
I guess that means that his results are dismissable. But then that means his beer drinking should not affect how we look at his results. Which means that his results...
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=metric+fuckton
... 4chan ...
>
Now I know you're trolling --- who could be familiar with 4chan and not "fuckton"?
> In general, I'm better off for having a life
I can't begin to tell you how true this rang for me personally (well, rather, I could begin but it would be pointless).
Just out of curiosity, does this developer who displaced you have a life?
I had never thought of this advantage before to FSF's paradigm of assigning copyright: even if you do not retain copyright, ingrates who follow you can't claim copyright either, even if they intentionally rewrite the code you wrote. Might even help to discourage such shenanigans.