What on earth are you babbling about? Look, I like free stuff as much as anyone, but content (whether it's a football game or a sitcom) doesn't appear out of thin air. It takes money.
How exactly you arrive at the logic that content producers have no right of ownership, I fail to understand. Please do explain.
Sorry, who the fuck in IT is going to create a position for $8 an hour? I've seen interns get paid more than that, for fuck's sake. Any dolt can flip burgers for better pay.
I started out doing tech support for an ISP at $8.25/hr. Of course, this was 13 years ago.
Hmm...flip burgers or spend 8 hours a day telling retirees how to double click? Not an easy choice there.
It's just buzzword (or bullshit) bingo. These kiddies will be the same ones talking about paradigm shifting your out of the box thinking in a proactive way, or whatever the buzzwords are in 20 years when they have jobs.
Clearly.
I took an informal poll of my fellow sysadmins at work, and not one could define "Web 2.0." More importantly, none cared.
Not that I've tried it, but I'm fairly sure that if I took the same poll of the marketing department, everyone within earshot would sip their Starbucks thoughtfully and launch into a 20 minute speech - utterly devoid of content, naturally.
We beyond a doubt went to the moon, and anyone who thinks otherwise needs to do some homework and wake up
The really disturbing part is that the student quoted is studying civil engineering. I hate to think that someone this gullible and incapable of critical thinking will be working on large public projects in the future.
All arguments that the moon landings were smoke and mirrors can be negated by one simple point...
To pull it off, hundreds of people would have to have been directly complicit in the conspiracy. How likely is it that all these people could have maintained the secret for almost 40 years? "Not very" would be a dramatic understatement.
So therefore surely a significant percentage of the intelligence community should be out of a job by now, right?
A significant percentage of those tasked with interpreting intelligence, yes.
More importantly, the civilian leaders who elected to launch a war based on what they knew should be out of a job. Many of them now are. Unfortunately, we have to wait another two years for the last of them.
With the Democrats now controlling Congress, I imagine we'll see investigations of the events leading up to the war. If those investigations turn up enough evidence to prove criminal conspiracy as opposed to just plain stupidity, then obviously those involved should be prosecuted.
The Generals and Admirals, according to the Nuremburg Trials, as well as the Uniform Code of Military Justice, are required to say NO when the orders are as bogus as the ones to invade Iraq this time. Their own intelligence told them that President Bush was either lying or simply insane.
I tend to believe that a significant percentage of the intelligence community (and I include senior military commanders here) actually did believe that Iraq represented a legitimate threat. You can argue all day that this belief was based on laughably thin evidence, and I wouldn't disagree with you, but that's not the point.
I have absolutely no doubt that there were senior officers who voiced their opposition because they thought the intelligence was bad, the invasion plan was bad, the post-invasion scenario was unrealistic, or any combination of the above. They made their doubts known, and they were ultimately ignored by senior civilian leadership at the pentagon.
What then? Refuse to obey based on the theory that they were being issued illegal orders? Interesting. The UCMJ says...
A general order or regulation is lawful unless it is contrary to the Constitution, the laws of the United States, or lawful superior orders or for some other reason is beyond the authority of the official issuing it.
I suspect that not even the Supreme Court could render a consistent verdict as to whether or not the order to invade Iraq violated US law based on the evidence available to senior military leadership at the time. Stupid? Yes. Illegal? Debatable.
I don't now about you, but I wouldn't be willing to risk my career and (likely) criminal prosecution on the likelihood that my interpretation of the legality of the Iraq invasion was correct.
Americans have a problem. They think that if a country does not do things the conventional way, they that country is "not worth much." That's why they've been surprised in IRAQ. Mind you, IRAQ's command and control infrastructure was "destroyed" in the first two weeks of the war. So half of the mission was complete. Despite all the technology, IEDs are still hitting them hard. By the way, IEDs are 1940s technology.
Let's be careful with blanket statements. Anyone who's spent more than 15 minutes studying the military history of the late 20th century knew damn well that Iraq was going to turn into a guerrilla nightmare. You can be assured that the military academy graduates who run the US armed forces fall into that category.
One of the problems with being a senior military officer in a democracy is having to say, "Can do, Sir!" with a smile on your face when your civilian leadership asks you to carry out an order. Even when you know those orders are stupid.
"(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied
males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section
313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a
declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States
and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the
National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are -
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard
and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of
the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the
Naval Militia."
Can't say why YOU might want to use it on the desktop, but there are many reasons for ME to use Linux on the desktop:
No big brother watching/controlling:)
Faster and more stable
Better use of resources
More secure. No virii or malware
Allows me access to all the Unix tools and scripting
Much better control over customizing my environment
Most advanced 3D desktop (Beryl)
We have no argument that Windows is a toy operating system in many ways, but none of the points you cite are relevant to a gamer.
I play a lot of games, I'm willing to put money into hardware to overcome the sloppy resource usage of Windows, I know how to use a virus scanner and how to avoid malware, and Cygwin provides all the desktop *ix tools I've ever needed.
Windows is compatible with all games, doesn't give me driver headaches, and does a perfectly acceptable job of performing mundane daily tasks like email and browsing Slashdot.
Which brings us back to the point - I can understand why you run Linux on the desktop, but expecting serious gamers to do so is rather silly.
Then buy a game console?? (Just a thought)
In any case, you CAN have a dual boot machine for such occasions... it isn't the end of the world. For me, if it doesn't exist or run under Linux, I have no interest in it anymore.
Because...
1) console controllers suck
2) console hardware is outdated the day it's released, if not months before
3) there are types of games (flight sims, strategy) which just don't translate to console
Dual booting is, at best, inconvenient.
I have a dedicated Linux box which serves very well as a torrent downloader/web server/mail server/perl dev machine - but (heresy!) I have yet to think up a good reason why I would ever use Linux on the desktop.
Wouldn't cyanide be faster acting, easier to obtain/manufacture, and much more difficult to trace?
I suppose the poisoner didn't want Litvinenko collapsing in the same place he was poisoned.
Spoken like someone who hasn't spent much time in the "asylum".
California has...
- The 5th or 6th largest economy in the world (depending on who's counting).
- The best weather in North America.
- An incredible range of ecosystems - desert, forest, alpine, the lowest and highest points in the contigious US, etc.
- 800mi./1200K worth of coastline
- A wide variety of urban environments and cultural attractions.
As a result, California has a higher population than Oregon and ALL of Canada combined. People want to live here. Some of those people are freaks. Most aren't.
Cold weather grapes are en entirely different question. I've tried eiswein. I like it. I'm also a fan of American Rieslings, the better examples of which are grown in upstate New York, an area which isn't exactly celebrated for its winter warmth.
Do you see much Merlot or Cab coming out of Eastern Canada?
Ok, right you are. Clearly, my knowledge of crush districts is lacking.
As to the geography of Napa/Sonoma you are also right that, technically speaking, they lie in the northern half of California. However, no one who lives in the "real" (i.e., non-urban) parts of nor-Cal considers the Bay Area "Northern". Recall the silly attempt to split California into three autonomous regions some years ago.
The vast majority of California winderies are in Central California, just north of San Francisco, where the temperature rarely approaches freezing.
I somewhat doubt the weather along the California-Oregon border is hospitable to wine grapes.
Slashdot Mirror
If you squint really hard, you might actually be able to see a sport in between the commercials.
What on earth are you babbling about? Look, I like free stuff as much as anyone, but content (whether it's a football game or a sitcom) doesn't appear out of thin air. It takes money.
How exactly you arrive at the logic that content producers have no right of ownership, I fail to understand. Please do explain.
I started out doing tech support for an ISP at $8.25/hr. Of course, this was 13 years ago.
Hmm...flip burgers or spend 8 hours a day telling retirees how to double click? Not an easy choice there.
Clearly.
I took an informal poll of my fellow sysadmins at work, and not one could define "Web 2.0." More importantly, none cared.
Not that I've tried it, but I'm fairly sure that if I took the same poll of the marketing department, everyone within earshot would sip their Starbucks thoughtfully and launch into a 20 minute speech - utterly devoid of content, naturally.
The really disturbing part is that the student quoted is studying civil engineering. I hate to think that someone this gullible and incapable of critical thinking will be working on large public projects in the future.
All arguments that the moon landings were smoke and mirrors can be negated by one simple point...
To pull it off, hundreds of people would have to have been directly complicit in the conspiracy. How likely is it that all these people could have maintained the secret for almost 40 years? "Not very" would be a dramatic understatement.
A significant percentage of those tasked with interpreting intelligence, yes.
More importantly, the civilian leaders who elected to launch a war based on what they knew should be out of a job. Many of them now are. Unfortunately, we have to wait another two years for the last of them.
With the Democrats now controlling Congress, I imagine we'll see investigations of the events leading up to the war. If those investigations turn up enough evidence to prove criminal conspiracy as opposed to just plain stupidity, then obviously those involved should be prosecuted.
I tend to believe that a significant percentage of the intelligence community (and I include senior military commanders here) actually did believe that Iraq represented a legitimate threat. You can argue all day that this belief was based on laughably thin evidence, and I wouldn't disagree with you, but that's not the point.
I have absolutely no doubt that there were senior officers who voiced their opposition because they thought the intelligence was bad, the invasion plan was bad, the post-invasion scenario was unrealistic, or any combination of the above. They made their doubts known, and they were ultimately ignored by senior civilian leadership at the pentagon.
What then? Refuse to obey based on the theory that they were being issued illegal orders? Interesting. The UCMJ says...
A general order or regulation is lawful unless it is contrary to the Constitution, the laws of the United States, or lawful superior orders or for some other reason is beyond the authority of the official issuing it.
I suspect that not even the Supreme Court could render a consistent verdict as to whether or not the order to invade Iraq violated US law based on the evidence available to senior military leadership at the time. Stupid? Yes. Illegal? Debatable.
I don't now about you, but I wouldn't be willing to risk my career and (likely) criminal prosecution on the likelihood that my interpretation of the legality of the Iraq invasion was correct.
Let's be careful with blanket statements. Anyone who's spent more than 15 minutes studying the military history of the late 20th century knew damn well that Iraq was going to turn into a guerrilla nightmare. You can be assured that the military academy graduates who run the US armed forces fall into that category.
One of the problems with being a senior military officer in a democracy is having to say, "Can do, Sir!" with a smile on your face when your civilian leadership asks you to carry out an order. Even when you know those orders are stupid.
Hell, half the software engineers involved in the project probably came over on the H1B anyway. Just buy the code from them.
The Russians were always good at airframes. Avionics is another story.
"(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard. (b) The classes of the militia are - (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia."
No big brother watching/controlling :)
Faster and more stable
Better use of resources
More secure. No virii or malware
Allows me access to all the Unix tools and scripting
Much better control over customizing my environment
Most advanced 3D desktop (Beryl)
We have no argument that Windows is a toy operating system in many ways, but none of the points you cite are relevant to a gamer.
I play a lot of games, I'm willing to put money into hardware to overcome the sloppy resource usage of Windows, I know how to use a virus scanner and how to avoid malware, and Cygwin provides all the desktop *ix tools I've ever needed.
Windows is compatible with all games, doesn't give me driver headaches, and does a perfectly acceptable job of performing mundane daily tasks like email and browsing Slashdot.
Which brings us back to the point - I can understand why you run Linux on the desktop, but expecting serious gamers to do so is rather silly.
Because...
1) console controllers suck 2) console hardware is outdated the day it's released, if not months before 3) there are types of games (flight sims, strategy) which just don't translate to console
Dual booting is, at best, inconvenient.
I have a dedicated Linux box which serves very well as a torrent downloader/web server/mail server/perl dev machine - but (heresy!) I have yet to think up a good reason why I would ever use Linux on the desktop.
Wouldn't cyanide be faster acting, easier to obtain/manufacture, and much more difficult to trace? I suppose the poisoner didn't want Litvinenko collapsing in the same place he was poisoned.
Me? Arrogant? Never. So I'm a couple million off. You get my point. Hey, look...I also misspelled "contiguous".
California has...
- The 5th or 6th largest economy in the world (depending on who's counting).
- The best weather in North America.
- An incredible range of ecosystems - desert, forest, alpine, the lowest and highest points in the contigious US, etc.
- 800mi./1200K worth of coastline
- A wide variety of urban environments and cultural attractions.
As a result, California has a higher population than Oregon and ALL of Canada combined. People want to live here. Some of those people are freaks. Most aren't.
Do you see much Merlot or Cab coming out of Eastern Canada?
As to the geography of Napa/Sonoma you are also right that, technically speaking, they lie in the northern half of California. However, no one who lives in the "real" (i.e., non-urban) parts of nor-Cal considers the Bay Area "Northern". Recall the silly attempt to split California into three autonomous regions some years ago.
The vast majority of California winderies are in Central California, just north of San Francisco, where the temperature rarely approaches freezing. I somewhat doubt the weather along the California-Oregon border is hospitable to wine grapes.