I like the RISC architecture because of it's tendancy to run cooler and that it's just a more efficient processor. However, I just don't see how (at this time) the benefits outweigh the costs of a PPC based system.
I've never understood this attitude. A is objectively better than B. It's niftier, and you like it better. But everyone else is going with B so you do too. Why? Why not throw some support behind A so that it will grow and everyone will be able to enjoy the benefits down the line when it becomes mainstream. Isn't this what killed Betamax and left us with VHS?
I've often thought you could make the same sort of argument for politics, with the minor difference that A is subjectively better than B. Throw your weight behind A rather than leaving us stuck with the Repubocrats. Third parties are good.
I liked the idea of Orion. I'd assumed it would be used far enough away from Earth that the radioactivity wouldn't have much effect. Heck, I bet you'd hit more rads on a Jupiter-flyby than cruising through Orion exhaust. Wouldn't solar wind disperse it, too?
For those that haven't heard of Orion, it was a concept for an interstellar spaceship. The propulsion method was basically chucking atomic bombs out the back end and letting them explode against a big reaction plate on the rear of the spacecraft. Theoretically you could approach speeds close to 0.1 c, IIRC.
I've also encountered several blind players on MUDs. I was one of the first wizards of Darkwind, and was often surprised to find that a certain successful player or prolific coder was, in real life, legally or completely blind.
I was going to say something to the same effect. It sounds like this Simon Wistow took the.SWF file format and reparsed it into XML. Hmm, sounds a lot like what SVG/SMIL are supposed to be.
And that bit about Macromedia opening the.SWF format. OK so it's open for people to read, but is there an external body in charge of updating it or is it still controlled by Macromedia?
Actually, morality springs from God. He is the definition of morality. Religion is a manmade construct. Christianity is about relationship, not religion.
Another flawed analogy, another straw man. Were I in a POW camp and ordered to kill someone or face torture, this is only objectionable because I have compunctions against killing people. God says, "Be kind to other people." Do you have compunctions against being a nice person? If so, I'm glad I don't know you. It's not hard to avoid hell. Just turn away from things that hurt yourself and hurt other people, and follow Christ.
Your last paragraph misses the third obvious motivation. You list two, both of which sound negative in tone.
Fear of repercussion. An authority will punish you. Those that follow biblical ethics because they see God as a mean old man who gave us a law book don't understand that He wants relationship. God says in Hosea, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings." It's not just about following rules.
Fear of retaliation. A peer will do the same to you. This is a useful definition of morality? If your morality is motivated by fear, I don't envy you. BTW, you mistake the Silver Rule for the Golden.
Love of family. This is the one you miss. I love my Father and I want to please Him. I understand that all mankind are my brothers and sisters, and want to help them, and this also pleases the Father.
I'm not seeking to avoid a negative, I'm seeking to attain a positive. I want a better relationship with God. I really want to help people, not for selfish motivations like protecting myself from them or from an authority, but because I want to help.
Yet even if I'm the nicest guy in the world, I still fall short. God is completely holy, a concept that our culture doesn't really understand any more, and cannot have even a trace of unholiness in His presence. But He is willing to forgive and cover that sin if we but ask Him to do so. When your standard is holiness, sin deserves death. But Christ paid that price so that we don't have to. That's the mercy of God.
Yes, God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. But you know what? He gave us free will, and that does mean free. He keeps his hands off our decisions. Sure, he knows what the decisions will be, but we must still make them.
The classic case is at the very beginning. God knew that if He created mankind, they would choose to indulge themselves (eat the fruit in the garden) rather than love Him completely (trust that He has their best interest in mind). God wants our true love, and there is no true love without the choice not to love. You have the choice. What are you going to do with it?
I completely disagree with your analogy. I would say it's a bit more like a loving parent telling his small child not to go outside the tall fence onto the busy freeway. The child doesn't recognize the parent's choices here, either. Is the parent being cruel by limiting the child's freedom to such a small zone? Or is the parent being loving by keeping the child safe from harm that the child's own actions might otherwise inflict? The child doesn't know - maybe there's something fun on the freeway.
You have the freedom to drink booze, smoke pot, pop pills, and watch your health deteriorate. But God says your body is a temple to Him, so take care of it. God doesn't sound very mean to me.
You have the freedom to have sex with every man, woman, and creature you want. And you can find yourself unsatisfied, going from partner to partner swapping diseases, leaving broken hearts in your wake and suffering emotional trauma. God says that the marriage union is holy and should be inviolate, and studies confirm that faithful partners are more satisfied. God doesn't sound cruel.
You have the freedom to lie to, steal from, and kill anybody you want in an effort to get ahead. Of course, you risk that someone will do the same to you. God says don't tell falsehoods, don't covet, don't murder. I think God had our best interests in mind.
God understands our condition. He knows that we have a fascination with what we can't have. All He asks is that we trust Him. There really isn't withholding anything fun out in the middle of the freeway, He just doesn't want us to hurt ourselves.
There is no threat of eternal torment in Christianity. Eternal separation from God for those who don't accept Christ is simply the reality of the situation, and that's tormenting. Christianity offers a way out of that. Turn from sin and follow Christ.
The moral life that Jesus lived, and calls others to live, is impeccable. Jesus was, and still is, radical. If you want to get ahead, put others first and yourself last. If you want to be rich, give away everything you have to the poor. They sure don't teach that in "Success" magazine, but that's what Jesus said. Christian charity has done more good in this world than any other movement you care to name.
So it's all about perspective. It's not, "Choose God or else, buddy!" It is, "Let Christ save you from hell." It's your choice. God doesn't condemn you; you do that to yourself. God's there to save you from yourself.
If the society doesn't deliberately spread educational resources through all social classes, then the poor will eventually get frozen out.
Then let society do that...at a state level. It's not the fed's responsibility.
The founders set up the rules the way they were because it was the only compromise they could come up with to get all of them (who were representatives from the various colonial provinces/states) to accept ANY kind of national government (since they were naturally reluctant to replace a central monarchy with an equally-strong central presidency).
Isn't that what I was just saying? They didn't trust a strong centralized agency to not muck up their states! The US under the Articles was envisioned as even weaker, not much more than a mutual defense contract, if I may oversimplify. The Constitution made the US a bit stronger, but most power was still reserved for the states and the people.
In recent times, with the growth of large national & global special interests, the federal government has assumed a lot of power in a reaction to the presence of those entities.
Explain to me how this has anything to do with education and why the fed is taking control of it from parents.
Yes, it's the duty of the state to look after the interests [...]
I don't buy this at all. The same argument could be said of states in relation to counties. One state has no jurisdiction in another state. How could it influence the residents there? States will cooperate out of mutual interest and benefit. Sure there will be competition, but that will improve all parties.
Of course, you can argue that the current federal government is not properly representing the interests of the whole country, rather the interests of the monied. I'm afraid I'd agree with you there, although it doesn't change my opinion that the federal government should have the power appropriate for performing its duty of maintaining the overall country's health.
Yup. People with money will always have power. That's another reason to curtail the authority of the fed. Why centralize the power grab? There's also the question of what is the overall country. Are we states forming a union, or are we a nation with districts? I believe the founders made us states first, and I believe that was a good idea.
Bleys_of_Amber makes a good point that you haven't addressed. If I feel the gov't is not doing a good job at education and want to pull my kids out, I am still compelled to pay for it. This reduces my ability to provide for them the kind of education I want them to have. You say that only the monied would have access to education if the fed didn't fund it...I say that only the monied have access to good education when the fed does fund it. What defines "good" education? The parents of the children. It's their right and responsibility to have the final say, not the fed's.
It comes down to wanting control of my own life, free of gov't interference. I can't provide for my own retirement, because Uncle Sam takes my money so he can do it for me. I can't provide my own children's education, because Uncle Sam takes my money so he can do it for me. The list goes on. I'd rather keep my own money to take care of myself rather than have it filter through inefficient gov't bureaucracy! The fed must assume that its populace is becoming less and less competent. Maybe some are incompetent. Well, if I had any money, I'd be able to donate more to private charities to look out for them.
When the gov't is big enough to give you everything you need, it's big enough to take everything you have.
Very likely. You'd have to kill me before you'd get me to stay in a city the size of Boston or LA for more than a week. I'd be miserable there. My wife and I want to leave Des Moines because we think it's too big.
The only problem is that you find the $$$ jobs in the cities. Sure, I might find a job in a town like Sioux Falls or Davenport, but it isn't going to pay much, and the majority of our expenses are fixed - primarily school loans. The "cost of living" argument doesn't hold water. We can't afford to take a salary cut. We're barely keeping up, and don't do anything extravagent.
My wife and I often wonder if a college education is worth it. Sure you can do what you want to do, but you can't live where you want to live. I could have gotten a construction job in a small town when I was 18 (almost a decade ago, egads) and been making relatively decent money, probably well ahead of where I'm at now when you consider the debt. But then I wouldn't have enjoyed my work and 99% of my talent would have been wasted. It's a real dilemma.
There's a good question. How old am I going to be before this "college gamble" pays off? How long does it take to pay off one's college debt and catch up to where one would have been if one had started work immediately after high school?
I think that's an overly broad reading. And the 10th Amendment agrees with me.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
If it's not explicitly given to the feds, they shouldn't be doing it. Education is the parents' right and responsibility and it should not be taken from them. The states may set up programs to assist, but the fed should stay out.
Presidents in the 19th century would not sign disaster relief bills because the fed wasn't given authority to be a charity. (I wish I could find the quote again.) Quite a bit different than today, eh?
When a government is big enough to give you everything you need, they're big enough to take everything you have.
I've heard this one before. Believe me, we aren't going to create a generation of illiterates if the fed is removed from education. (At least no more illiterate than now.) Society has an interest in education, so it will continue. The slack will be picked up by the individual states, that's all.
The founders knew the danger of overly centralized power. They envisioned a union of states, not the nation of districts we have today. This may sound archaic to everyone that believes we live in a democracy (we don't, it's a republic, to prevent the tyranny of the majority from happening) but this is the reason that states get equal representation in the Senate. It's the reason that the EC electors are chosen by state laws. There's nothing that says the state has to hold a popular election for the president; they could have the state legislatures vote. In fact, Senators were originally chosen that way, until the 17th Amendment. The Senate was supposed to the states' voice in the federal gov't.
It's the duty of the states to look after the interest of their residents. The duty of looking after the people is being unrightly assumed by the federal gov't, distancing it further from influence by the people. If asked which you'd think would be more responsive to petition, would you say a county, state, or federal agency? My money's not going to be on the feds.
I don't want the government telling me what is and what is not appropriate for my children. I'll make that decision.
Then quite frankly, you really should not be sending your children to an institution where the government acts in loco parentis.
In other words, if you don't want the government dictating the way your kids are raised, don't let the government raise your kids.
And this is exactly why the federal gov't should not be involved in education in any way, shape, or form. Where in Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution is the federal gov't given authority to have any say in educational matters? Nowhere.
A Democratic president is expected to sign this into law. The Republicans no longer have this plank in their platform. Don't expect this to change any time soon. The Constitution party supports parental control of their children's education though. The Libertarians have a somewhat similar view. Limit the gov't to what it's actually allowed to do, and we'd be better off. Doesn't the Constitution matter any more?
We don't need vouchers. What we do need is for the federal gov't to not tax us for education in the first place. Let parents choose where their children go to school, and let them finance it directly, or at a county or state level. All the DOE is good at is wasting money while test scores continue to drop.
That is the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard of. How do they intend to compel the Aussie to go to Germany to stand trial? I guess it goes to show that wacky court rulings are not limited to the US.
You will probably want to wait for the next Netscape 6.x version. Mozilla has lots of debug code in it yet, so it will be slow on your P100. It's pretty acceptable on the PII-233 here at work, but I doubt I'd want to go slower. N6 is reportedly pretty buggy yet, so I haven't bothered with it.
If you want to experiment with it, grab the latest nightly build of Mozilla. Yeah it will be slow, but lately I've seen better stability from them than the "official" releases. And they have more features/fixes too.
not a mozilla, more like a netscape milestone
on
Mozilla .6 Released
·
· Score: 1
Am I right in reading the roadmap? This is the Netscape branch, not the Mozilla trunk. Basically this is Netscape 6 with some more Mozilla stuff that didn't make it in time for the original branching. So I think I'll wait for Mozilla 0.9, unless they snuck in the fix for bug 2800 when I wasn't looking. I'm sure Mozilla is farther ahead than N6+some recent bits.
There is no privacy infringement in Opera 5! This comes straight from Tollef at Opera, the guy "in the know" about the Linux port. He says if Opera puts out spyware, he and a good deal of other people he knows will leave Opera.
OK, that said...I'm using my karma bonus (which I rarely do) so maybe this will get noticed. Opera is a good browser, and, I think, a good company. I registered as an alpha/beta tester for their Mac port, and have been following Opera for over two years now. I've been reading the opera.* NGs for the past week as info about Opera 5 has been leaking out. I know what I'm talking about.
The ads are served independently of the web page. They are part of the UI. They don't tell anybody what you were looking at. They only report if the ad was clicked. You get to customize the ads you see...it's not based on your browsing patterns. Read the privacy policy if you're still not convinced. (That means you, CmdrTaco.)
If you like Opera, you'll pay the $39 to register it and remove the ads. However, a free version is a great way for designers to test with more browsers, in particular, a very compliant browser. I see this as a good thing. If you're really paranoid, then fine, don't use it.
I don't think/. is Linux-focused by intentional design, but rather for the reasons swordgeek mentioned. Linux currently has all the hype. If Linus had been hit by a truck at age 6, we'd probably be doing all this with FreeBSD instead.
Slashdot is "News for Nerds" not "News for Linux-heads". If nerddom moves on to something other than Linux, Slashdot will (more than likely) evolve with it.
the country really needs to be run by the people who exist in the information age, not the agrigatian age
Who are you to say the country should be run a certain way? Are you really that arrogant? So what if "the hicks won" the election. It's their country, too. Are city-dwelling "tech-minded" people the only ones suitable for making decisions that will affect everybody's lives? No, thanks, count me out of your proposed metropolarchy.
Slashdot Mirror
I've never understood this attitude. A is objectively better than B. It's niftier, and you like it better. But everyone else is going with B so you do too. Why? Why not throw some support behind A so that it will grow and everyone will be able to enjoy the benefits down the line when it becomes mainstream. Isn't this what killed Betamax and left us with VHS?
I've often thought you could make the same sort of argument for politics, with the minor difference that A is subjectively better than B. Throw your weight behind A rather than leaving us stuck with the Repubocrats. Third parties are good.
I liked the idea of Orion. I'd assumed it would be used far enough away from Earth that the radioactivity wouldn't have much effect. Heck, I bet you'd hit more rads on a Jupiter-flyby than cruising through Orion exhaust. Wouldn't solar wind disperse it, too?
For those that haven't heard of Orion, it was a concept for an interstellar spaceship. The propulsion method was basically chucking atomic bombs out the back end and letting them explode against a big reaction plate on the rear of the spacecraft. Theoretically you could approach speeds close to 0.1 c, IIRC.
You're concerned about power consumption and you're looking at x86? PPC, man. You can use x86 to toast bread.
I've also encountered several blind players on MUDs. I was one of the first wizards of Darkwind, and was often surprised to find that a certain successful player or prolific coder was, in real life, legally or completely blind.
I was going to say something to the same effect. It sounds like this Simon Wistow took the .SWF file format and reparsed it into XML. Hmm, sounds a lot like what SVG/SMIL are supposed to be.
And that bit about Macromedia opening the .SWF format. OK so it's open for people to read, but is there an external body in charge of updating it or is it still controlled by Macromedia?
Actually, morality springs from God. He is the definition of morality. Religion is a manmade construct. Christianity is about relationship, not religion.
Another flawed analogy, another straw man. Were I in a POW camp and ordered to kill someone or face torture, this is only objectionable because I have compunctions against killing people. God says, "Be kind to other people." Do you have compunctions against being a nice person? If so, I'm glad I don't know you. It's not hard to avoid hell. Just turn away from things that hurt yourself and hurt other people, and follow Christ.
Your last paragraph misses the third obvious motivation. You list two, both of which sound negative in tone.
I'm not seeking to avoid a negative, I'm seeking to attain a positive. I want a better relationship with God. I really want to help people, not for selfish motivations like protecting myself from them or from an authority, but because I want to help.
Yet even if I'm the nicest guy in the world, I still fall short. God is completely holy, a concept that our culture doesn't really understand any more, and cannot have even a trace of unholiness in His presence. But He is willing to forgive and cover that sin if we but ask Him to do so. When your standard is holiness, sin deserves death. But Christ paid that price so that we don't have to. That's the mercy of God.
Yes, God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. But you know what? He gave us free will, and that does mean free. He keeps his hands off our decisions. Sure, he knows what the decisions will be, but we must still make them.
The classic case is at the very beginning. God knew that if He created mankind, they would choose to indulge themselves (eat the fruit in the garden) rather than love Him completely (trust that He has their best interest in mind). God wants our true love, and there is no true love without the choice not to love. You have the choice. What are you going to do with it?
I completely disagree with your analogy. I would say it's a bit more like a loving parent telling his small child not to go outside the tall fence onto the busy freeway. The child doesn't recognize the parent's choices here, either. Is the parent being cruel by limiting the child's freedom to such a small zone? Or is the parent being loving by keeping the child safe from harm that the child's own actions might otherwise inflict? The child doesn't know - maybe there's something fun on the freeway.
God understands our condition. He knows that we have a fascination with what we can't have. All He asks is that we trust Him. There really isn't withholding anything fun out in the middle of the freeway, He just doesn't want us to hurt ourselves.
There is no threat of eternal torment in Christianity. Eternal separation from God for those who don't accept Christ is simply the reality of the situation, and that's tormenting. Christianity offers a way out of that. Turn from sin and follow Christ.
The moral life that Jesus lived, and calls others to live, is impeccable. Jesus was, and still is, radical. If you want to get ahead, put others first and yourself last. If you want to be rich, give away everything you have to the poor. They sure don't teach that in "Success" magazine, but that's what Jesus said. Christian charity has done more good in this world than any other movement you care to name.
So it's all about perspective. It's not, "Choose God or else, buddy!" It is, "Let Christ save you from hell." It's your choice. God doesn't condemn you; you do that to yourself. God's there to save you from yourself.
Don't you mean sapient life? Sentience (feeling) does not imply sapience (thinking).
Then let society do that...at a state level. It's not the fed's responsibility.
Isn't that what I was just saying? They didn't trust a strong centralized agency to not muck up their states! The US under the Articles was envisioned as even weaker, not much more than a mutual defense contract, if I may oversimplify. The Constitution made the US a bit stronger, but most power was still reserved for the states and the people.
Explain to me how this has anything to do with education and why the fed is taking control of it from parents.
I don't buy this at all. The same argument could be said of states in relation to counties. One state has no jurisdiction in another state. How could it influence the residents there? States will cooperate out of mutual interest and benefit. Sure there will be competition, but that will improve all parties.
Yup. People with money will always have power. That's another reason to curtail the authority of the fed. Why centralize the power grab? There's also the question of what is the overall country. Are we states forming a union, or are we a nation with districts? I believe the founders made us states first, and I believe that was a good idea.
Bleys_of_Amber makes a good point that you haven't addressed. If I feel the gov't is not doing a good job at education and want to pull my kids out, I am still compelled to pay for it. This reduces my ability to provide for them the kind of education I want them to have. You say that only the monied would have access to education if the fed didn't fund it...I say that only the monied have access to good education when the fed does fund it. What defines "good" education? The parents of the children. It's their right and responsibility to have the final say, not the fed's.
It comes down to wanting control of my own life, free of gov't interference. I can't provide for my own retirement, because Uncle Sam takes my money so he can do it for me. I can't provide my own children's education, because Uncle Sam takes my money so he can do it for me. The list goes on. I'd rather keep my own money to take care of myself rather than have it filter through inefficient gov't bureaucracy! The fed must assume that its populace is becoming less and less competent. Maybe some are incompetent. Well, if I had any money, I'd be able to donate more to private charities to look out for them.
When the gov't is big enough to give you everything you need, it's big enough to take everything you have.
Very likely. You'd have to kill me before you'd get me to stay in a city the size of Boston or LA for more than a week. I'd be miserable there. My wife and I want to leave Des Moines because we think it's too big.
The only problem is that you find the $$$ jobs in the cities. Sure, I might find a job in a town like Sioux Falls or Davenport, but it isn't going to pay much, and the majority of our expenses are fixed - primarily school loans. The "cost of living" argument doesn't hold water. We can't afford to take a salary cut. We're barely keeping up, and don't do anything extravagent.
My wife and I often wonder if a college education is worth it. Sure you can do what you want to do, but you can't live where you want to live. I could have gotten a construction job in a small town when I was 18 (almost a decade ago, egads) and been making relatively decent money, probably well ahead of where I'm at now when you consider the debt. But then I wouldn't have enjoyed my work and 99% of my talent would have been wasted. It's a real dilemma.
There's a good question. How old am I going to be before this "college gamble" pays off? How long does it take to pay off one's college debt and catch up to where one would have been if one had started work immediately after high school?
I'm one credit away from an MS in Comp Sci. Why can't I find anywhere that will even offer a salary like that?
So they can keep you right where they want you, feeding at the federal trough. Once you're on the dole, it's hard to leave.
That's why gov't aid to religious charities is equally evil. It would corrupt these independent organizations and make them beholden to gov't.
I think that's an overly broad reading. And the 10th Amendment agrees with me.
If it's not explicitly given to the feds, they shouldn't be doing it. Education is the parents' right and responsibility and it should not be taken from them. The states may set up programs to assist, but the fed should stay out.
Presidents in the 19th century would not sign disaster relief bills because the fed wasn't given authority to be a charity. (I wish I could find the quote again.) Quite a bit different than today, eh?
When a government is big enough to give you everything you need, they're big enough to take everything you have.
I've heard this one before. Believe me, we aren't going to create a generation of illiterates if the fed is removed from education. (At least no more illiterate than now.) Society has an interest in education, so it will continue. The slack will be picked up by the individual states, that's all.
The founders knew the danger of overly centralized power. They envisioned a union of states, not the nation of districts we have today. This may sound archaic to everyone that believes we live in a democracy (we don't, it's a republic, to prevent the tyranny of the majority from happening) but this is the reason that states get equal representation in the Senate. It's the reason that the EC electors are chosen by state laws. There's nothing that says the state has to hold a popular election for the president; they could have the state legislatures vote. In fact, Senators were originally chosen that way, until the 17th Amendment. The Senate was supposed to the states' voice in the federal gov't.
It's the duty of the states to look after the interest of their residents. The duty of looking after the people is being unrightly assumed by the federal gov't, distancing it further from influence by the people. If asked which you'd think would be more responsive to petition, would you say a county, state, or federal agency? My money's not going to be on the feds.
And this is exactly why the federal gov't should not be involved in education in any way, shape, or form. Where in Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution is the federal gov't given authority to have any say in educational matters? Nowhere.
A Democratic president is expected to sign this into law. The Republicans no longer have this plank in their platform. Don't expect this to change any time soon. The Constitution party supports parental control of their children's education though. The Libertarians have a somewhat similar view. Limit the gov't to what it's actually allowed to do, and we'd be better off. Doesn't the Constitution matter any more?
We don't need vouchers. What we do need is for the federal gov't to not tax us for education in the first place. Let parents choose where their children go to school, and let them finance it directly, or at a county or state level. All the DOE is good at is wasting money while test scores continue to drop.
That is the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard of. How do they intend to compel the Aussie to go to Germany to stand trial? I guess it goes to show that wacky court rulings are not limited to the US.
You will probably want to wait for the next Netscape 6.x version. Mozilla has lots of debug code in it yet, so it will be slow on your P100. It's pretty acceptable on the PII-233 here at work, but I doubt I'd want to go slower. N6 is reportedly pretty buggy yet, so I haven't bothered with it.
If you want to experiment with it, grab the latest nightly build of Mozilla. Yeah it will be slow, but lately I've seen better stability from them than the "official" releases. And they have more features/fixes too.
Am I right in reading the roadmap? This is the Netscape branch, not the Mozilla trunk. Basically this is Netscape 6 with some more Mozilla stuff that didn't make it in time for the original branching. So I think I'll wait for Mozilla 0.9, unless they snuck in the fix for bug 2800 when I wasn't looking. I'm sure Mozilla is farther ahead than N6+some recent bits.
It will be an Opera banner for a couple days, then the ads will start rotating.
Personally, I think the ad is a little big. But that's mostly because I don't like running maximized windows in most cases.
There is no privacy infringement in Opera 5! This comes straight from Tollef at Opera, the guy "in the know" about the Linux port. He says if Opera puts out spyware, he and a good deal of other people he knows will leave Opera.
OK, that said...I'm using my karma bonus (which I rarely do) so maybe this will get noticed. Opera is a good browser, and, I think, a good company. I registered as an alpha/beta tester for their Mac port, and have been following Opera for over two years now. I've been reading the opera.* NGs for the past week as info about Opera 5 has been leaking out. I know what I'm talking about.
The ads are served independently of the web page. They are part of the UI. They don't tell anybody what you were looking at. They only report if the ad was clicked. You get to customize the ads you see...it's not based on your browsing patterns. Read the privacy policy if you're still not convinced. (That means you, CmdrTaco.)
If you like Opera, you'll pay the $39 to register it and remove the ads. However, a free version is a great way for designers to test with more browsers, in particular, a very compliant browser. I see this as a good thing. If you're really paranoid, then fine, don't use it.
Posted with Opera 5.
I don't think /. is Linux-focused by intentional design, but rather for the reasons swordgeek mentioned. Linux currently has all the hype. If Linus had been hit by a truck at age 6, we'd probably be doing all this with FreeBSD instead.
Slashdot is "News for Nerds" not "News for Linux-heads". If nerddom moves on to something other than Linux, Slashdot will (more than likely) evolve with it.
Here are several other Slash news sites that I check in to at least semi-regularly:
For most of my needs, these are sufficient. At least until I get my own political Slash board running.
Who are you to say the country should be run a certain way? Are you really that arrogant? So what if "the hicks won" the election. It's their country, too. Are city-dwelling "tech-minded" people the only ones suitable for making decisions that will affect everybody's lives? No, thanks, count me out of your proposed metropolarchy.
Thanks much. I saw a reference to Perl 6 recently and thought it had been released. Maybe Larry's just been thinking out loud.