Actually, if you go to TransGaming's website, you can get the proper WineX files to run many Windows games under Linux - Including Jedi Knight 2, Max Payne, and others.
You're probably sceptical - I was too, at first - that recent 3D games will even be playable since they aren't native Linux versions. In fact, they are very playable. I played RTCW under WineX before the native Linux version was released - was very playable; and since I've played through JK2 and MaxPayne without any hiccups =)
Anyway, they offer two means of getting the WineX files. Firstly, you can grab the code from their CVS servers - it's the most up to date, but does not include certain proprietary / protected code (like stuff for accessing copy-protected CDs). The other option is to become a subscriber (for $5 / month) and then you can download pre-compiled versions that are much easier to install. Other subscriber benefits include the ability to vote on what TransGaming should work to support next, get help from others in their game-specific forums, and other useful stuff.
Anyway, just thought you might like to know =) With TransGaming's WineX and Ogle's DVD player, I was finally able to completely knock Windows off my box forever without any regrets =)
There is no such consensus because it doesn't seem to bother those who are exploited, and the exploitation is purely voluntary in nature. The people that seem to be really bothered are the whiny protestors who go around destroying public and private property and then don't seem to understand why they are more hated than the corporations they are protesting against.
...
Yes, you have a right to PEACEFUL protest, that does not mean you can go march up to the doorstep of the G-whatever meeting and bang on the windows where the world leaders are meeting with your 10000 closest friends, many of whom are violent anarchists.
Firstly, In most of these protests, the "violent anarchists" represent an extremely small percentange of the protesters (easily less than 10%). I would hardly call that "many." Why do most people think it's "many?" Because that's the way the media thinks that it's more likely to get the public's attention: by saying "punk-anarchists blow up a poor man's store" than pointing out that this was one of 10,000 people, the other 9,999 of whom had something to say that was ignored.
Secondly, the violent people at some of these demonstrations have been under very shady circumstances, in some cases much wonder has gone into whether they were direct instigators in line with the police (one protest involved a small group in masks, 10 people or less, getting in a fight, and because of this the police (in full riot gear) charged the entire peaceful protest group while the original people fighting were seen to walk themselves straight into a police vehicle without restraints).
Thirdly, the exploited people most certainly DO protest against this. The problem? One is probably that the media here is more apt to print stories about how someone was shot to death in their apartment than riots in some "third world" country. Another is that their governments typically don't have nearly the problem with just gunning down the whole crowd as the United States police forces do. Nonetheless, there are countless instances where the affected countries have spoken out. Here are a few: Algeria (1988: More than 200 killed), Bolivia (1985: strikes involving riot police; 2000: mass protests), Ecuador (1987, 1999, 2000: protests, strikes, marches), Jamaica (1985: protests), Jordan (1989, 1996: riots), Nigeria (1986: peaceful student protesters massacred, 1989: more killed in riots, 1990, 1992: protests, strikes), Uganda (1990: student protesters killed as police fire into crowd), Venezeula (1989: 600 people killed in rioting, 1992: military coup attempted to end Structural Adjustment Program in place from IMF/WB (leader of coup elected president in 1999)).
I seems to me too much emphasis and reliance is placed upon the American media today - many are misinformed, or at least make uninformed inferences and assumptions.
Hopefully that provides a little more background - if you've got other evidence, please feel free to provide it! =)
I totally agree that cultural homogenization is horrendous, but the vast majority of people the world over apparently don't agree! That doesn't prevent small, unique businesses and institutions from existing! There are still mom-and-pop ISPs out there! There are still small manufacturing companies!
Why do you folks insist that the world is coming to an end, and that multinationals are taking us there?? Reading too much cyberpunk fiction?
If you call the Wall Street Journal "cyberpunk fiction," then yes, I apparently read it one too many times. They ran an article not but a couple months ago regarding the degree to which WalMart has virtually wiped out small business in Mexico. I mention this because it not only is contradictory to your belief that small business will prevail, but also provides some evidence that multinationals taking over business prospects actually destroys the choice we have in purchasing from small business.
While choice in what I can purchase is not what I consider to have anything to do with democracy, it seems that most of the world thinks capitalism and democracy are the same thing, and thus what you are able to choose to buy is a big deal...
I would argue that the expansion of large multinational corporations and this wiping out of small businesses that is occurring not only destroys the freedom to choose where we would like to buy things from, but also destroys our own say in the "democratic" government by which we are ruled. Why? As JonKatz points out, the largest political force isn't the people of the US, it's the corporations. Our own cherished democracy (although moreso a repbulic if you ask me) is being harmed as a result, which can be seen as it takes thousands of activists getting tear-gassed and shot at in order for anyone to listen to their peaceful demostrations and voices about the abhorent things going on in the world behind the scenes.
Perhaps campaign finance reform is more what is in order, but in any case, I'd rather not be under the governance of WalMart or McDonald's to even the slightest degree.
(Unfortunately the Wall Street Journal requires you to have a subscription in order to view any of their articles online, and in particular those older than 30 days... As such, I can't cite the article, but I do promise it was in there if you care to visit your local library or have a subscription yourself and are able to login to WSJ's site.)
Here's what former President Clinton had to say about Globalization and how it relates to the September 11 tragedy, more specifically, how he thinks it can be used to "win the war":
Nobel Laureate Speaks Out, and other thoughts...
on
Globalization
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· Score: 2, Informative
Interesting to see this kind of debate on Slashdot, but I recently read an article dealing with the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas) - ostensibly the embodiment of globalization to a large degree. Joseph Stiglitz is the man to speak out against it, this year's Nobel Prize winner in Economics. What does he know about globalization, you might ask? Well, he also served as the chief economist for the World Bank, that is, until he resigned due to his advice being largely ignored. What's the significance of the World Bank? The World Bank was setup to help aid countries in need of financial assistance. The problem, however, is that as a condition for giving loans to countries, the World Bank forces countries to accept Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) which essentially restructure the countries economy to be very free-market oriented (ala globalization). So, in a sense, it gives us some first-hand evidence of how these free market tactics help out countries. The results? By the World Bank's very own studies, more than half of their projects fail: many countries being put into more debt and poverty than they were in before accepting the free market illness of the Structural Adjustment Programs. We're not just talking about wages dropping as a result, either, but with the privatization of education and health care in these countries people can no longer afford to get medical assistance or an education. If that's your idea of democracy, I pity you if you should lose your fortune (which for the truly rich of the world is mostly inherited and not really earned) and thus have no hope of life afterwards.
But what does Stiglitz have to say? Well, feel free to read the whole article (linked below), but here's a quote from it:
More than ever, given the current context, the United States should focus on fiscal policies and aim government spending at combating the effects of the terrorist attacks. The recovery of the economy, which could take a long time, depends on effective stimuli from the government, he said.
Globalization, in its fully implemented form, would take government out of having any role whatsoever in controlling such things. Thus, the money-bearing entities would truly control the world. In essense, we would also be dissolving ourselves of an active role in our own government, as well, as we would be placing power in corporations (which are not democratically controlled by us) rather than the government we purport to democratically elect. Erazim Kohak has some interesting words to think over, as well (from Voices of Democracy, see below):
"The demands of the privileged on the finite resources of individual societies as well as of the globe as a whole have accelerated the pauperization of the underprivileged... In the days when populations appeared finite and resources infinite, the affluent north and west of the globe dismissed the problem with the consolation that increasing prosperity of the prosperous would marginally generate prosperity for the deprived. Popularly this came to be known as the 'trickle-down' theory which John Kenneth Galbraith is said to have described as feeding the bird by giving oats to the horse. Unfortunately, that theory has worked only to assuage the consciences of the privileged, not to alleviate the lot of the deprived. In the past fifty years, the gap between the haves and the have-nots has increased precipitously. The global south today is desparately poor and getting poorer, the affluent north is opulently affluent and becoming more so... We can't run a world polarized between incredible wealth and desperate poverty."
I would encourage people to look at the other criticisms that have been proposed, both of globalization raping the already destitute nations to further enrich the rich and of its effects on a true sense of democracy for any nation, including the United States. Some recommended reading:
It's not just about legal issues. My campus is heavily debating a ban - our sysadmins for the most part hate censoring anything, but our single T1 line simply cannot handle it (we're talking about transfer speeds sustaining 50 - 90 KB/s prior to Napster's release, and not even being able to sustain 1 KB/s after people started using it en masse).
In the past, there was a loosely enforced policy in effect where students could only run Napster in the off-peak hours of 1 - 5 AM so as not to interfere with legitimate academic usage. Now the school has budgeted for a second T1 line, which has been completely dedicated to academic machines (faculty, labs), leaving the other for students to fight over themselves. Needless to say, accessing anything from your dorm room here still runs at about 50 - 500 bytes/sec - aka 0.5 KB/s max. I couldn't care less about people downloading songs and what not, but when it takes minutes on end of waiting to load simple web-pages something needs to be done. It's not denying people of an education to block the Napster website, it's ignorant Napster users who spout "Why do my songs take so long to download on Napster?" while 150 people are simultaneously downloading from their machine that deny us of an education...
I agree that censorship is not in any way an American ideal, and it's anyone's choice to break the law and pirate copyrighted music, but I fail to see what other choice is available when Napster users are robbing others (like myself) of their tuition money that goes towards school-provided Internet access.
I'm open to any suggestions anyone might have as a step to resolve such issues, or any advice on alerting the campus of the obviously rampant problem and steps that can be taken to resolve it... Feel free to drop me a line at cmgroteATthethirdDOTnet. Hopefully there will be enough bandwidth for your message to go through =)
How does it feel to have Microsoft type BS come from one your most revered companies?
Yes, well, the key here would be to note, in your own words, that this is just one of "our" companies - others do exist to which we can turn our business if we so choose. Microsoft on the other hand is the only Windows manufacturer. In short it doesn't invoke any real feeling in me, I've never been a large fan of RedHat's corporate outlook. Nothing about such feelings stops me from thoroughly enjoying using Linux, though. If RedHat digs themselves into a hole, so be it, Linux will certainly move on =)
This is to any Transasia-related readers. You might want to look into suing the companies related to these sites as well - each of them appeared before your site on Yahoo when searching for the word "Leonardo":
And the list of course goes on and on. Check for yourself, because several of these sites are run by people who have pirated your trademarked word and used it as part of their name! You should fine them billions AND have them tortured to death!
This is almost funny to the point of seeming completely fake, but after reading about the police raid it literally makes me want to vomit. This has got to be the stupidest lawsuit I've ever heard of.
Why doesn't this corporation sue Leonardo DiCaprio for millions because he's using their trademark as his first name?
Why don't they demand every original work of Leonardo Davinci's, since he's done the same, and compounded interest based on the years the works haven't been in their possession compared to the appreciation the works have gained over such time?
If I go out and trademark the word "the" or "and", does that mean I can sue every publishing house and website in existence for all the money in the world, and especially the search engines since they don't even use my trademarked word(s) in their search routines?
Should we sue all those sites that put false META tags in their pages so that they can get the top hits from a search engine? (actually, this would be useful;)
What disgusts me most is that the police actually carried out the raid. THIS IS INSANE! If I were an officer and someone handed me an order to take a bunch of my colleagues and break into an 80 year-old woman's house to confiscate pieces of paper with the word "Leonardo" printed on them, I'd laugh at the joke - but not much, because it'd seem TOO STUPID. Upon finding its reality I'd simply turn in my badge and give looks of pity at the utter stupidity of those who actually carried out the order.
That's about all I care to say... After all, I don't want some corporation suing me for billions of dollars based on "slander" that was posted on a website (heaven forbid, the Internet has such possibilities?!). Then again, I did use that trademarked word a couple times in my post, so I can probably already be fined a few million dollars and look forward to a SWAT team crashing through my front door to show me the world wide web on my own home PC! WOOHOO!
I think it is somewhat of a good idea to release the Linux binaries separately, so that they can keep track (with some degree of accuracy, albeit not 100%) of the number of people interested in running it on a Linux box.
Most people I know that run Linux go to Windows to play games client-side, but as far as servers go, we stick to Linux for running a dedicated game. GT should keep this in mind, and release the Linux binaries immediately upon release of the game in stores (which I suppose is today).
One of the main factors they should also keep in mind is that not everyone has a T1+ connection to the net, so if they're going to be releasing binaries that add up to several MBs worth of data, they had better plan on mirroring it in several FAST places - not just their site and cdrom.com (or another heavily-loaded mirror)...
I fear that Quake3's boxed Linux version won't gain as many buyers as it was once expected, due simply to the nature of the game in comparison with id's past games, but UT has a real chance here. Unreal was a horrid game over a network, but UT looks very promising (especially over a LAN =9 Add in random taunts to your victims to phenomenal looks, and you've got a fun game!
What's really sad is that a large percent of these people claiming that RedHat is a god-send are clueless... If you think RedHat is that great (and you're running it on something other than a 386), try another distribution!
Mandrake IS based on RedHat, but they've gone through and recompiled the ENTIRE distribution for use with modern processors (i.e. processors created in the last few years (586+ class) rather than the last decade+). Most will argue that this shouldn't make much of a significant (read "visible") difference in performance, to which I say: TRY IT. From my experience, it's the kind of difference you'd see between running Windows 98 on a 486 with 8MB RAM and a Pentium with 16MB RAM - while not like the difference between an 386 and a new Alpha running NT, it's still a very noticeable difference.
IMHO RedHat is disgustingly slow - after trying 5.2 (when it was the latest) I had strong doubts about ever wanting to look at it again. Then I heard numerous reports about how unstable it was compared to other distros (Slackware, for instance), which made me start wondering why it seems to be so liked by the Linux world...
We need to realize that just because a company has the most publicity, that company does NOT necessarily make the best product (in this case, RedHat arguably has the most publicity (or close to it) of the Linux distros)... I mean, come on, MS Windows has more publicity than Linux overall, and does anyone truly believe Windows is a better OS?
And as to the #linux channel, I whole-heartedly agree... I went in to ask about a new boot-loader for use on a multi-boot system because I couldn't find any documentation anywhere, and what response did I get?
Answer:> Why don't you just use LILO? It does more than you think, and besides, it's obviously the accepted one.
Me:> I'm using Linux to learn and play (that and to use a real OS) - if I was going to do what was "accepted" and only stick with the defaults, why would I be using Linux? No development is done without some form of testing, and the only real testing that can be done is for people all over to try the program under development... If everyone is going to "stick with what's accepted," the Linux environment overall would go nowhere.
The other annoying part was the vast quantity of people trying to communicate at once (granted that's going to happen when there's 150+ ppl in the channel)... IMO some people need to go in and divide up the channel into some sub-channels (installation, general help, chat, etc).
PRE-SCSI My first installation of Linux, Slackware 3.6, revealed that the tulip driver in the kernel didn't quite support my network card (2.0.35 or so) - so all I did was check the website for my card and they pointed to a new driver to include in the kernel compilation (which I was about to do). Then I found that it was already supported under the new kernel series, so all I had to do was rebuild one of those on my box and boot it. So I did, and everything worked A-OK.
Next were RedHat 5.2 (needed kernel upgrade for network card), SuSE 6.1, Mandrake 6.0, and now Mandrake 6.1 - all of which were painless to install and get working, EVEN for someone who had NO (as in 0) previous knowledge about UNIX and/or Linux OSes! All I had to do was a little bit of research and reading up on the matter and I was set (and damn fast, too, because there is a PLETHORA of information out there on it).
Oh, and the best fact? YOU ONLY HAVE TO REBOOT THE LINUX OS ONCE - 1 TIME!!!!!! (after all packages are installed)
Now to Windows... (with SCSI) Let's see... 1. I had to disable my on-board IDE controller in BIOS just to get Windows to realize that I had a SCSI HDD installed in the system... (let's see a newbie computer user do that.) 2. I didn't keep track of how long actual file copying and "auto-detection" of hardware took, but at least 20-30 minutes, and then... 3. Windows boots for the first time, "auto-detects" the monitor and needs to reboot. 4. Windows detects a few system devices (motherboard stuff) and needs to reboot. 5. Windows does this a few times, reboot after reboot, etc, etc. 6. Then I finally get into Windows and things look pretty crappy - I need to get the latest drivers for my video card, and while I'm at it update all my other drivers. 7. Windows then lets me know that it doesn't have a very good driver for my SCSI controller by running like Quake2 at 1 frame / hour. 8. I install the latest drivers for the SCSI Adapter, and everything seems OK for a bit. 9. Then it slows to a crawl again and I go into device manager - there's suddenly a cute little yellow exclamation point over the controller. 10. I reinstall the same drivers, and it works again... Then it does the same thing. 11. I reboot my system and the error is corrected... Hmmm... *(Just before this Windows installation I had been running Mandrake 6.0 for a solid 2 months straight - no reboots - so I'm thinking it's not the hardware.) 12. It did this for a while, then I upgraded to Windows 98 SE (which has newer drivers for the 2940U2W), and didn't even bother with upgrading the drivers.
Overall experience? Took at least an hour to get it up and running flawlessly (well, for Windows, even if the base I/O of your computer (SCSI) doesn't work, that's pretty flawless for Windows) and a few months if you take into account getting the SCSI controller working correctly. Add to that the dozen re-boots, and it's even longer. Oh, and I've installed Windows from the CD more than 20 times, I'm sure, so consider me a professional who can do it about as fast as it can be done.
Linux on the other hand? Worked out of the box without problems, and didn't take a fraction of the time to install.
What can I say? Windows is a pain in the ass to get running compared Linux.
My system: Abit BH6 mainboard (on-board IDE) 384MB Micron CAS2 PC125 SDRAM Celeron 300a (464MHz - I know, I know =P Adaptec AHA-2940U2W SCSI-3 Controller IBM UltraStar 9ES 7200RPM LVD HDD (9.1GB) Teac 6x/24x CD-R (SCSI) Pioneer 6x/32x DVD-ROM (slot-load SCSI) Western Digital 6.4GB EIDE HDD Matrox Millenium G200 8MB SGRAM AGP Linksys LNE100TX 10/100 network (tulip) Creative Labs Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold PRE-SCSI My first installation of Linux, Slackware 3.6, revealed that the tulip driver in the kernel didn't quite support my network card (2.0.35 or so) - so all I did was check the website for my card and they pointed to a new driver to include in the kernel compilation (which I was about to do). Then I found that it was already supported under the new kernel series, so all I had to do was rebuild one of those on my box and boot it. So I did, and everything worked A-OK. Next were RedHat 5.2 (needed kernel upgrade for network card), SuSE 6.1, Mandrake 6.0, and now Mandrake 6.1 - all of which were painless to install and get working, EVEN for someone who had NO (as in 0) previous knowledge about UNIX and/or Linux OSes! All I had to do was a little bit of research and reading up on the matter and I was set (and damn fast, too, because there is a PLETHORA of information out there on it). Oh, and the best fact? YOU ONLY HAVE TO REBOOT THE LINUX OS ONCE - 1 TIME!!!!!! (after all packages are installed) Now to Windows... (with SCSI) Let's see... 1. I had to disable my on-board IDE controller in BIOS just to get Windows to realize that I had a SCSI HDD installed in the system... (let's see a newbie computer user do that.) 2. I didn't keep track of how long actual file copying and "auto-detection" of hardware took, but at least 20-30 minutes, and then... 3. Windows boots for the first time, "auto-detects" the monitor and needs to reboot. 4. Windows detects a few system devices (motherboard stuff) and needs to reboot. 5. Windows does this a few times, reboot after reboot, etc, etc. 6. Then I finally get into Windows and things look pretty crappy - I need to get the latest drivers for my video card, and while I'm at it update all my other drivers. 7. Windows then lets me know that it doesn't have a very good driver for my SCSI controller by running like Quake2 at 1 frame / hour. 8. I install the latest drivers for the SCSI Adapter, and everything seems OK for a bit. 9. Then it slows to a crawl again and I go into device manager - there's suddenly a cute little yellow exclamation point over the controller. 10. I reinstall the same drivers, and it works again... Then it does the same thing. 11. I reboot my system and the error is corrected... Hmmm... *(Just before this Windows installation I had been running Mandrake 6.0 for a solid 2 months straight - no reboots - so I'm thinking it's not the hardware.) 12. It did this for a while, then I upgraded to Windows 98 SE (which has newer drivers for the 2940U2W), and didn't even bother with upgrading the drivers. Overall experience? Took at least an hour to get it up and running flawlessly (well, for Windows, even if the base I/O of your computer (SCSI) doesn't work, that's pretty flawless for Windows) and a few months if you take into account getting the SCSI controller working correctly. Add to that the dozen re-boots, and it's even longer. Oh, and I've installed Windows from the CD more than 20 times, I'm sure, so consider me a professional who can do it about as fast as it can be done. Linux on the other hand? Worked out of the box without problems, and didn't take a fraction of the time to install. What can I say? Windows is a pain in the ass to get running compared Linux.
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The games are the same one's you play under Windows, the software that let's you play them under Linux is from TransGaming.
Actually, if you go to TransGaming's website, you can get the proper WineX files to run many Windows games under Linux - Including Jedi Knight 2, Max Payne, and others.
You're probably sceptical - I was too, at first - that recent 3D games will even be playable since they aren't native Linux versions. In fact, they are very playable. I played RTCW under WineX before the native Linux version was released - was very playable; and since I've played through JK2 and MaxPayne without any hiccups =)
Anyway, they offer two means of getting the WineX files. Firstly, you can grab the code from their CVS servers - it's the most up to date, but does not include certain proprietary / protected code (like stuff for accessing copy-protected CDs). The other option is to become a subscriber (for $5 / month) and then you can download pre-compiled versions that are much easier to install. Other subscriber benefits include the ability to vote on what TransGaming should work to support next, get help from others in their game-specific forums, and other useful stuff.
Anyway, just thought you might like to know =) With TransGaming's WineX and Ogle's DVD player, I was finally able to completely knock Windows off my box forever without any regrets =)
There is no such consensus because it doesn't seem to bother those who are exploited, and the exploitation is purely voluntary in nature. The people that seem to be really bothered are the whiny protestors who go around destroying public and private property and then don't seem to understand why they are more hated than the corporations they are protesting against.
...
Yes, you have a right to PEACEFUL protest, that does not mean you can go march up to the doorstep of the G-whatever meeting and bang on the windows where the world leaders are meeting with your 10000 closest friends, many of whom are violent anarchists.
Firstly, In most of these protests, the "violent anarchists" represent an extremely small percentange of the protesters (easily less than 10%). I would hardly call that "many." Why do most people think it's "many?" Because that's the way the media thinks that it's more likely to get the public's attention: by saying "punk-anarchists blow up a poor man's store" than pointing out that this was one of 10,000 people, the other 9,999 of whom had something to say that was ignored.
Secondly, the violent people at some of these demonstrations have been under very shady circumstances, in some cases much wonder has gone into whether they were direct instigators in line with the police (one protest involved a small group in masks, 10 people or less, getting in a fight, and because of this the police (in full riot gear) charged the entire peaceful protest group while the original people fighting were seen to walk themselves straight into a police vehicle without restraints).
Thirdly, the exploited people most certainly DO protest against this. The problem? One is probably that the media here is more apt to print stories about how someone was shot to death in their apartment than riots in some "third world" country. Another is that their governments typically don't have nearly the problem with just gunning down the whole crowd as the United States police forces do. Nonetheless, there are countless instances where the affected countries have spoken out. Here are a few: Algeria (1988: More than 200 killed), Bolivia (1985: strikes involving riot police; 2000: mass protests), Ecuador (1987, 1999, 2000: protests, strikes, marches), Jamaica (1985: protests), Jordan (1989, 1996: riots), Nigeria (1986: peaceful student protesters massacred, 1989: more killed in riots, 1990, 1992: protests, strikes), Uganda (1990: student protesters killed as police fire into crowd), Venezeula (1989: 600 people killed in rioting, 1992: military coup attempted to end Structural Adjustment Program in place from IMF/WB (leader of coup elected president in 1999)).
I seems to me too much emphasis and reliance is placed upon the American media today - many are misinformed, or at least make uninformed inferences and assumptions.
Hopefully that provides a little more background - if you've got other evidence, please feel free to provide it! =)
That's what I was going to say! =)
I totally agree that cultural homogenization is horrendous, but the vast majority of people the world over apparently don't agree! That doesn't prevent small, unique businesses and institutions from existing! There are still mom-and-pop ISPs out there! There are still small manufacturing companies!
Why do you folks insist that the world is coming to an end, and that multinationals are taking us there?? Reading too much cyberpunk fiction?
If you call the Wall Street Journal "cyberpunk fiction," then yes, I apparently read it one too many times. They ran an article not but a couple months ago regarding the degree to which WalMart has virtually wiped out small business in Mexico. I mention this because it not only is contradictory to your belief that small business will prevail, but also provides some evidence that multinationals taking over business prospects actually destroys the choice we have in purchasing from small business.
While choice in what I can purchase is not what I consider to have anything to do with democracy, it seems that most of the world thinks capitalism and democracy are the same thing, and thus what you are able to choose to buy is a big deal...
I would argue that the expansion of large multinational corporations and this wiping out of small businesses that is occurring not only destroys the freedom to choose where we would like to buy things from, but also destroys our own say in the "democratic" government by which we are ruled. Why? As JonKatz points out, the largest political force isn't the people of the US, it's the corporations. Our own cherished democracy (although moreso a repbulic if you ask me) is being harmed as a result, which can be seen as it takes thousands of activists getting tear-gassed and shot at in order for anyone to listen to their peaceful demostrations and voices about the abhorent things going on in the world behind the scenes.
Perhaps campaign finance reform is more what is in order, but in any case, I'd rather not be under the governance of WalMart or McDonald's to even the slightest degree.
(Unfortunately the Wall Street Journal requires you to have a subscription in order to view any of their articles online, and in particular those older than 30 days... As such, I can't cite the article, but I do promise it was in there if you care to visit your local library or have a subscription yourself and are able to login to WSJ's site.)
Here's what former President Clinton had to say about Globalization and how it relates to the September 11 tragedy, more specifically, how he thinks it can be used to "win the war":
t m
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1030-05.h
But what does Stiglitz have to say? Well, feel free to read the whole article (linked below), but here's a quote from it:
More than ever, given the current context, the United States should focus on fiscal policies and aim government spending at combating the effects of the terrorist attacks. The recovery of the economy, which could take a long time, depends on effective stimuli from the government, he said.
Globalization, in its fully implemented form, would take government out of having any role whatsoever in controlling such things. Thus, the money-bearing entities would truly control the world. In essense, we would also be dissolving ourselves of an active role in our own government, as well, as we would be placing power in corporations (which are not democratically controlled by us) rather than the government we purport to democratically elect. Erazim Kohak has some interesting words to think over, as well (from Voices of Democracy, see below):
"The demands of the privileged on the finite resources of individual societies as well as of the globe as a whole have accelerated the pauperization of the underprivileged... In the days when populations appeared finite and resources infinite, the affluent north and west of the globe dismissed the problem with the consolation that increasing prosperity of the prosperous would marginally generate prosperity for the deprived. Popularly this came to be known as the 'trickle-down' theory which John Kenneth Galbraith is said to have described as feeding the bird by giving oats to the horse. Unfortunately, that theory has worked only to assuage the consciences of the privileged, not to alleviate the lot of the deprived. In the past fifty years, the gap between the haves and the have-nots has increased precipitously. The global south today is desparately poor and getting poorer, the affluent north is opulently affluent and becoming more so... We can't run a world polarized between incredible wealth and desperate poverty."
I would encourage people to look at the other criticisms that have been proposed, both of globalization raping the already destitute nations to further enrich the rich and of its effects on a true sense of democracy for any nation, including the United States. Some recommended reading:
It's not just about legal issues. My campus is heavily debating a ban - our sysadmins for the most part hate censoring anything, but our single T1 line simply cannot handle it (we're talking about transfer speeds sustaining 50 - 90 KB/s prior to Napster's release, and not even being able to sustain 1 KB/s after people started using it en masse).
In the past, there was a loosely enforced policy in effect where students could only run Napster in the off-peak hours of 1 - 5 AM so as not to interfere with legitimate academic usage. Now the school has budgeted for a second T1 line, which has been completely dedicated to academic machines (faculty, labs), leaving the other for students to fight over themselves. Needless to say, accessing anything from your dorm room here still runs at about 50 - 500 bytes/sec - aka 0.5 KB/s max. I couldn't care less about people downloading songs and what not, but when it takes minutes on end of waiting to load simple web-pages something needs to be done. It's not denying people of an education to block the Napster website, it's ignorant Napster users who spout "Why do my songs take so long to download on Napster?" while 150 people are simultaneously downloading from their machine that deny us of an education...
I agree that censorship is not in any way an American ideal, and it's anyone's choice to break the law and pirate copyrighted music, but I fail to see what other choice is available when Napster users are robbing others (like myself) of their tuition money that goes towards school-provided Internet access.
I'm open to any suggestions anyone might have as a step to resolve such issues, or any advice on alerting the campus of the obviously rampant problem and steps that can be taken to resolve it... Feel free to drop me a line at cmgroteATthethirdDOTnet. Hopefully there will be enough bandwidth for your message to go through =)
How does it feel to have Microsoft type BS come from one your most revered companies?
Yes, well, the key here would be to note, in your own words, that this is just one of "our" companies - others do exist to which we can turn our business if we so choose. Microsoft on the other hand is the only Windows manufacturer. In short it doesn't invoke any real feeling in me, I've never been a large fan of RedHat's corporate outlook. Nothing about such feelings stops me from thoroughly enjoying using Linux, though. If RedHat digs themselves into a hole, so be it, Linux will certainly move on =)
This is to any Transasia-related readers. You might want to look into suing the companies related to these sites as well - each of them appeared before your site on Yahoo when searching for the word "Leonardo":
e onardo_DiCaprio.html / leonardo.html o _leonardo/index.html o _ext.html r do.html . html / leo.html 4 /index.html / a in_lc.html h tml 7 / . html x .html / index.html h tml e xangl.html e nt/actors/dicaprio/
http://www.leonardo-dicaprio.com/
http://www.fansites.com/leonardo_dicaprio.html
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/4932/L
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/5986
http://www.absolutes2.net/celebrities/d/dicapri
http://www.dgsciences.com/leonardo/
http://www.ocaiw.com/leonardo.htm
http://banzai.msi.umn.edu/leonardo/
http://www.mos.org/sln/Leonardo/
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/ftptoc/leonard
http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/1070/leona
http://208.4.223.8/lecagot/leonardo.html
http://www.leonardo.net/
http://webtalk.elet.polimi.it/museo-1.html
http://members.aol.com/OSaraBaraO/index.html
http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/2923/leo
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/1743
http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/bungalow/490
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/2551
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/set/1711/
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/4525
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/5301/m
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/4362/
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/8483/
http://www.indiana.edu/~baiu/leo.html
http://www.geocities.com/vienna/1217/
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/2515/
http://members.tripod.com/~keyser_fan/leosucks.
http://members.tripod.com/~Ilovedicaprio/
http://howto.yahoo.com/ask/980803a.html
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Rhodes/4731/
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Bungalow/423
http://www.admiringdicaprio.athome.to/
http://www.leofest.com/
http://surf.to/leowd
http://nkntr.dynip.com/vic/leoportal/amy/
http://www.angelfire.com/hi/absolutelyleo/index
http://angelfire.com/az/LWDnoodle/index.html
http://galileo.imss.firenze.it/news/mostra/inde
http://www.davinci-museum.com/
http://www.fee.unicamp.br/~leonard1/
http://www2.fortunecity.com/lavender/python/298
http://mrshowbiz.go.com/people/leonardodicaprio
http://www.leonardodicaprio.com/
http://www.ecf.toronto.edu/apsc/davinci/
http://members.tripod.com/~leodv/leobirth.html
http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~mberglan/antileo.
http://surf.to/dicraprio
http://perso.cybercable.fr/faldc/Site%20web/ind
http://www.ams.com.br/leoveira/
http://www.di.ufpe.br/~lms/
http://www.chasque.apc.org/lvx/mensmald.html
http://www.leonardodibujos.com/
http://w3.nai.net/~merlindl/home.htm
http://www.thepassword.com/Magazines/entertainm
http://www.kcweb.com/superm/l_dicaprio.htm
http://www.qis.net/~tony/leo.html
http://defiant.inf.ufrgs.br/u2/
http://www.leonardos-bride.com.au/
http://ieva05.lanet.lv/~sd50074/killleo.html
http://dicaprio.uninhibited.net/_mlist
And the list of course goes on and on. Check for yourself, because several of these sites are run by people who have pirated your trademarked word and used it as part of their name! You should fine them billions AND have them tortured to death!
This is almost funny to the point of seeming completely fake, but after reading about the police raid it literally makes me want to vomit. This has got to be the stupidest lawsuit I've ever heard of.
;)
Why doesn't this corporation sue Leonardo DiCaprio for millions because he's using their trademark as his first name?
Why don't they demand every original work of Leonardo Davinci's, since he's done the same, and compounded interest based on the years the works haven't been in their possession compared to the appreciation the works have gained over such time?
If I go out and trademark the word "the" or "and", does that mean I can sue every publishing house and website in existence for all the money in the world, and especially the search engines since they don't even use my trademarked word(s) in their search routines?
Should we sue all those sites that put false META tags in their pages so that they can get the top hits from a search engine? (actually, this would be useful
What disgusts me most is that the police actually carried out the raid. THIS IS INSANE! If I were an officer and someone handed me an order to take a bunch of my colleagues and break into an 80 year-old woman's house to confiscate pieces of paper with the word "Leonardo" printed on them, I'd laugh at the joke - but not much, because it'd seem TOO STUPID. Upon finding its reality I'd simply turn in my badge and give looks of pity at the utter stupidity of those who actually carried out the order.
That's about all I care to say... After all, I don't want some corporation suing me for billions of dollars based on "slander" that was posted on a website (heaven forbid, the Internet has such possibilities?!). Then again, I did use that trademarked word a couple times in my post, so I can probably already be fined a few million dollars and look forward to a SWAT team crashing through my front door to show me the world wide web on my own home PC! WOOHOO!
I think it is somewhat of a good idea to release the Linux binaries separately, so that they can keep track (with some degree of accuracy, albeit not 100%) of the number of people interested in running it on a Linux box.
Most people I know that run Linux go to Windows to play games client-side, but as far as servers go, we stick to Linux for running a dedicated game. GT should keep this in mind, and release the Linux binaries immediately upon release of the game in stores (which I suppose is today).
One of the main factors they should also keep in mind is that not everyone has a T1+ connection to the net, so if they're going to be releasing binaries that add up to several MBs worth of data, they had better plan on mirroring it in several FAST places - not just their site and cdrom.com (or another heavily-loaded mirror)...
I fear that Quake3's boxed Linux version won't gain as many buyers as it was once expected, due simply to the nature of the game in comparison with id's past games, but UT has a real chance here. Unreal was a horrid game over a network, but UT looks very promising (especially over a LAN =9 Add in random taunts to your victims to phenomenal looks, and you've got a fun game!
What's really sad is that a large percent of these people claiming that RedHat is a god-send are clueless... If you think RedHat is that great (and you're running it on something other than a 386), try another distribution!
- --
Mandrake IS based on RedHat, but they've gone through and recompiled the ENTIRE distribution for use with modern processors (i.e. processors created in the last few years (586+ class) rather than the last decade+). Most will argue that this shouldn't make much of a significant (read "visible") difference in performance, to which I say: TRY IT. From my experience, it's the kind of difference you'd see between running Windows 98 on a 486 with 8MB RAM and a Pentium with 16MB RAM - while not like the difference between an 386 and a new Alpha running NT, it's still a very noticeable difference.
IMHO RedHat is disgustingly slow - after trying 5.2 (when it was the latest) I had strong doubts about ever wanting to look at it again. Then I heard numerous reports about how unstable it was compared to other distros (Slackware, for instance), which made me start wondering why it seems to be so liked by the Linux world...
We need to realize that just because a company has the most publicity, that company does NOT necessarily make the best product (in this case, RedHat arguably has the most publicity (or close to it) of the Linux distros)... I mean, come on, MS Windows has more publicity than Linux overall, and does anyone truly believe Windows is a better OS?
-----------------------------------------------
And as to the #linux channel, I whole-heartedly agree... I went in to ask about a new boot-loader for use on a multi-boot system because I couldn't find any documentation anywhere, and what response did I get?
Answer:> Why don't you just use LILO? It does more than you think, and besides, it's obviously the accepted one.
Me:> I'm using Linux to learn and play (that and to use a real OS) - if I was going to do what was "accepted" and only stick with the defaults, why would I be using Linux? No development is done without some form of testing, and the only real testing that can be done is for people all over to try the program under development... If everyone is going to "stick with what's accepted," the Linux environment overall would go nowhere.
The other annoying part was the vast quantity of people trying to communicate at once (granted that's going to happen when there's 150+ ppl in the channel)... IMO some people need to go in and divide up the channel into some sub-channels (installation, general help, chat, etc).
There's my $.02 on the matter...
My system:
Abit BH6 mainboard (on-board IDE)
384MB Micron CAS2 PC125 SDRAM
Celeron 300a (464MHz - I know, I know =P
Adaptec AHA-2940U2W SCSI-3 Controller
IBM UltraStar 9ES 7200RPM LVD HDD (9.1GB)
Teac 6x/24x CD-R (SCSI)
Pioneer 6x/32x DVD-ROM (slot-load SCSI)
Western Digital 6.4GB EIDE HDD
Matrox Millenium G200 8MB SGRAM AGP
Linksys LNE100TX 10/100 network (tulip)
Creative Labs Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold
PRE-SCSI
My first installation of Linux, Slackware 3.6, revealed that the tulip driver in the kernel didn't quite support my network card (2.0.35 or so) - so all I did was check the website for my card and they pointed to a new driver to include in the kernel compilation (which I was about to do). Then I found that it was already supported under the new kernel series, so all I had to do was rebuild one of those on my box and boot it. So I did, and everything worked A-OK.
Next were RedHat 5.2 (needed kernel upgrade for network card), SuSE 6.1, Mandrake 6.0, and now Mandrake 6.1 - all of which were painless to install and get working, EVEN for someone who had NO (as in 0) previous knowledge about UNIX and/or Linux OSes! All I had to do was a little bit of research and reading up on the matter and I was set (and damn fast, too, because there is a PLETHORA of information out there on it).
Oh, and the best fact? YOU ONLY HAVE TO REBOOT THE LINUX OS ONCE - 1 TIME!!!!!! (after all packages are installed)
Now to Windows...
(with SCSI)
Let's see...
1. I had to disable my on-board IDE controller in BIOS just to get Windows to realize that I had a SCSI HDD installed in the system... (let's see a newbie computer user do that.)
2. I didn't keep track of how long actual file copying and "auto-detection" of hardware took, but at least 20-30 minutes, and then...
3. Windows boots for the first time, "auto-detects" the monitor and needs to reboot.
4. Windows detects a few system devices (motherboard stuff) and needs to reboot.
5. Windows does this a few times, reboot after reboot, etc, etc.
6. Then I finally get into Windows and things look pretty crappy - I need to get the latest drivers for my video card, and while I'm at it update all my other drivers.
7. Windows then lets me know that it doesn't have a very good driver for my SCSI controller by running like Quake2 at 1 frame / hour.
8. I install the latest drivers for the SCSI Adapter, and everything seems OK for a bit.
9. Then it slows to a crawl again and I go into device manager - there's suddenly a cute little yellow exclamation point over the controller.
10. I reinstall the same drivers, and it works again... Then it does the same thing.
11. I reboot my system and the error is corrected... Hmmm...
*(Just before this Windows installation I had been running Mandrake 6.0 for a solid 2 months straight - no reboots - so I'm thinking it's not the hardware.)
12. It did this for a while, then I upgraded to Windows 98 SE (which has newer drivers for the 2940U2W), and didn't even bother with upgrading the drivers.
Overall experience? Took at least an hour to get it up and running flawlessly (well, for Windows, even if the base I/O of your computer (SCSI) doesn't work, that's pretty flawless for Windows) and a few months if you take into account getting the SCSI controller working correctly. Add to that the dozen re-boots, and it's even longer. Oh, and I've installed Windows from the CD more than 20 times, I'm sure, so consider me a professional who can do it about as fast as it can be done.
Linux on the other hand? Worked out of the box without problems, and didn't take a fraction of the time to install.
What can I say? Windows is a pain in the ass to get running compared Linux.
My system: Abit BH6 mainboard (on-board IDE) 384MB Micron CAS2 PC125 SDRAM Celeron 300a (464MHz - I know, I know =P Adaptec AHA-2940U2W SCSI-3 Controller IBM UltraStar 9ES 7200RPM LVD HDD (9.1GB) Teac 6x/24x CD-R (SCSI) Pioneer 6x/32x DVD-ROM (slot-load SCSI) Western Digital 6.4GB EIDE HDD Matrox Millenium G200 8MB SGRAM AGP Linksys LNE100TX 10/100 network (tulip) Creative Labs Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold PRE-SCSI My first installation of Linux, Slackware 3.6, revealed that the tulip driver in the kernel didn't quite support my network card (2.0.35 or so) - so all I did was check the website for my card and they pointed to a new driver to include in the kernel compilation (which I was about to do). Then I found that it was already supported under the new kernel series, so all I had to do was rebuild one of those on my box and boot it. So I did, and everything worked A-OK. Next were RedHat 5.2 (needed kernel upgrade for network card), SuSE 6.1, Mandrake 6.0, and now Mandrake 6.1 - all of which were painless to install and get working, EVEN for someone who had NO (as in 0) previous knowledge about UNIX and/or Linux OSes! All I had to do was a little bit of research and reading up on the matter and I was set (and damn fast, too, because there is a PLETHORA of information out there on it). Oh, and the best fact? YOU ONLY HAVE TO REBOOT THE LINUX OS ONCE - 1 TIME!!!!!! (after all packages are installed) Now to Windows... (with SCSI) Let's see... 1. I had to disable my on-board IDE controller in BIOS just to get Windows to realize that I had a SCSI HDD installed in the system... (let's see a newbie computer user do that.) 2. I didn't keep track of how long actual file copying and "auto-detection" of hardware took, but at least 20-30 minutes, and then... 3. Windows boots for the first time, "auto-detects" the monitor and needs to reboot. 4. Windows detects a few system devices (motherboard stuff) and needs to reboot. 5. Windows does this a few times, reboot after reboot, etc, etc. 6. Then I finally get into Windows and things look pretty crappy - I need to get the latest drivers for my video card, and while I'm at it update all my other drivers. 7. Windows then lets me know that it doesn't have a very good driver for my SCSI controller by running like Quake2 at 1 frame / hour. 8. I install the latest drivers for the SCSI Adapter, and everything seems OK for a bit. 9. Then it slows to a crawl again and I go into device manager - there's suddenly a cute little yellow exclamation point over the controller. 10. I reinstall the same drivers, and it works again... Then it does the same thing. 11. I reboot my system and the error is corrected... Hmmm... *(Just before this Windows installation I had been running Mandrake 6.0 for a solid 2 months straight - no reboots - so I'm thinking it's not the hardware.) 12. It did this for a while, then I upgraded to Windows 98 SE (which has newer drivers for the 2940U2W), and didn't even bother with upgrading the drivers. Overall experience? Took at least an hour to get it up and running flawlessly (well, for Windows, even if the base I/O of your computer (SCSI) doesn't work, that's pretty flawless for Windows) and a few months if you take into account getting the SCSI controller working correctly. Add to that the dozen re-boots, and it's even longer. Oh, and I've installed Windows from the CD more than 20 times, I'm sure, so consider me a professional who can do it about as fast as it can be done. Linux on the other hand? Worked out of the box without problems, and didn't take a fraction of the time to install. What can I say? Windows is a pain in the ass to get running compared Linux.