Thanks for that, you Informative bastard. My version of Konqueror is pretty unstable, and I'm starting to consider moving back to Firefox. This information means I win either way.
onebadmutha asks: "I'm technology admin for a very rapidly growing company. We've gone from a fractional T-1, to supplementing that with a snappy DSL line, and now we're running out of reasonable options... bla bla bla tech speak bla bla skip this part bla bla bla... Microsoft madness. bla bla bla make a joke about a game called "Microsoft Madness" bla bla bla, without completely unlimited budgets for bla bla bla?"
Get a decent browser, and you'll be able to type "wp: price gouging" in the address bar and find these things out for yourself instead of starting a long, boring Slashdot discussion. From the resulting article:
Price gouging is a frequently pejorative reference to a seller's asking a price that is much higher than what is seen as 'fair' under the circumstances. In precise, legal usage, it is the name of a felony that obtains in some of the United States only during civil emergencies. In less precise usage, it can refer either to prices obtained by practices inconsistent with a competitive free market, or to windfall profits. In colloquial usage, it means simply that the speaker thinks the price too high, and it often degenerates into a term of demagoguery.
Sorry Mr. Question Asker, I tried my best to save your Ask Slashdot from mindless Slashbot mutual reassurance, but judging from the comments so far, which have almost exclusively echoed my frosty piss to the letter without being marked redundant, I have failed you. I apologise sincerely and vow to turn my brain in during the next amnesty on inadequacy.
Oops. Normally I'm quite good at keeping the two separate as well. What I really meant was that even though it's nice to sell the idea of open source using the ideological aspects of it, what with the main open source stuff being idealistic GPL'd Linux Free Software stuff, it's the practical benefits that really close the deal 'at the end of the day'.
And don't be so quick to assume that I'm just another one of those pesky anti-Linux fanatics. My point about ideology was intended to be objective, not another lame +5 Insightful dig at teh Lunix.
Most genetic fathers turn out to be Dads or Milkmen or Outcasts, actually.
That'll teach those foolhardy warriors to go out galavanting across the lands slaying dragons! While they tally, their wenches are back in the castle being courted by uncouth suitors!
Ontopic though, my reason for my point is my very casual observations of humans (and animal friends) seemingly universally getting off from fighting each other. It's perfectly possible that my negative views of this make me exaggerate it.
Let's get it out of the way early, because I can feel this wave of antipathy coming...
Please do your best to find an alternative first. Look into alternatives before succumbing and compensating these worthless parasites for their land grabbing.
Good points, but surely the default desire is to enter and win the fight if possible? And if these guys are the Dads and Milkmen of the world, shouldn't their instincts still lead them to want to climb the social ladder by being one of the strong guys fighting each other? They're practically stating this much when they talk about how they're "forced to buy things" and being a "superhero for a night".
IANAEB, but I hereby declare my point as still standing.
"Boys have these warrior fantasies picked up from popular culture, and schools sort of force that out of them," he said. In these fantasies, "The good guys always resort to violence, and they always get the glory and the women."
From popular culture? Bullshit. Those fantasies come from the very darkest reaches of our stupid monkey brains. Ever watched a bunch of monkeys? The guys fight, and the winner gets the girl. That stretches back pretty much to as early as organisms became complex enough to fight each other. Fuck him and his pseudo-intellectual attempt at being counter-culture. And fuck USATODAY.com and their pseudo-technical attempt at DRM. I have all the time in the world to type out my blockquotes by hand if needs be.
We're constantly told to buy things we don't need,
I'm trying to avoid pigeonholing these guys as impressionable fans trying to live out their Fight Club fantasy, but stuff like that is making it very difficult indeed.
Dude, he's a university professor! Don't try to lecture him on common sense! He knows sociology! One day you're just walking along the street, whistling some new Eminem song, and BAM!!, he descends from the rafters, slices your head off with a 200-page dissertation on the causal relationship between videogames and violence, and gets like 6000 boners all at once. And that's what I call Real Ultimate Power!
What an incredibly geeky idea. Broken down into drills? Holy Liver Cancer, Batman! I've been into all sorts of moderately extreme sports, among them skating, skateboarding, karting and basketball, and none of them were learned through drills (and yes, I've done okay in all of them, with a few trophies/medals to show for my efforts in basketball and karting).
Drills are useful, especially in a team sport like basketball where they are vital for true competitive success, but a complex skill on its own doesn't necessarily require drills.
Shame it's a worthwhile read and not actually FUD at all. Honestly, I have the word Linux branded all over my Slashdot account and my website, and apparently even I am viewing the world more objectively than many Slashdotters.
Open source software gives everyone equal access to the same tools, regardless of social class. It threatens the entire model of top-down hiearchy, as open source is a means for equalizing all access to information and exchange of information. Anyone can put together an Apache webserver and begin experimenting with having their own website, for free. No need for expensive schooling, as information is freely available to teach yourself.
I disagree quite strongly with you. All OSS does is to remove one secondary barrier to entry, and it's still only the social elites who have full access. Illiteracy and poor education remain, OSS documentation is hard to understand at the best of times for the most technical of us, and given that anyone can also get pirate copies of non-free software, the difference is looking pretty insignificant.
This is why I think open source is only worth a shit socially if it's part of a much wider process of social change (and why I support the $100 laptop project). Otherwise it's piss in the wind.
Microsoft makes a living out of making its software customizable while still closely guarding its source code.
But it's not the worthless astroturfing that some are rushing to dismiss it as:
Governments may be wise to choose open source. They just shouldnt count on it to do much more than what software does best: process the data of the information age.
Are we really so insecure in our convictions that the slightest whiff of Microsoft makes us cry 'shill'?
In practical terms OSS is only relevant as a part of a wider policy. Brazil's Digital Inclusion (Google translation) is a good example. OSS barely even figures in the rhetoric for this. It's just one enabling factor.
This is how it's always going to be as well. Example: People don't move to Firefox because it's open source. They move to it because they're told it's better than IE, and they then stick with it because it's demonstrably better.
At the end of the day ideology is irrelevant to most people.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for that, you Informative bastard. My version of Konqueror is pretty unstable, and I'm starting to consider moving back to Firefox. This information means I win either way.
Many eyes make all bugs shallow.
Sorry Mr. Question Asker, I tried my best to save your Ask Slashdot from mindless Slashbot mutual reassurance, but judging from the comments so far, which have almost exclusively echoed my frosty piss to the letter without being marked redundant, I have failed you. I apologise sincerely and vow to turn my brain in during the next amnesty on inadequacy.
I know! I even pooed on this myself in a journal post.
And don't be so quick to assume that I'm just another one of those pesky anti-Linux fanatics. My point about ideology was intended to be objective, not another lame +5 Insightful dig at teh Lunix.
Oh, and I think you've violated the DMCA or something by even looking at the site.
Ontopic though, my reason for my point is my very casual observations of humans (and animal friends) seemingly universally getting off from fighting each other. It's perfectly possible that my negative views of this make me exaggerate it.
Please do your best to find an alternative first. Look into alternatives before succumbing and compensating these worthless parasites for their land grabbing.
IANAEB, but I hereby declare my point as still standing.
s/Obligatory/Voluntary
s/Funny/Overrated
Dude, he's a university professor! Don't try to lecture him on common sense! He knows sociology! One day you're just walking along the street, whistling some new Eminem song, and BAM!!, he descends from the rafters, slices your head off with a 200-page dissertation on the causal relationship between videogames and violence, and gets like 6000 boners all at once. And that's what I call Real Ultimate Power!
Drills are useful, especially in a team sport like basketball where they are vital for true competitive success, but a complex skill on its own doesn't necessarily require drills.
Shame it's a worthwhile read and not actually FUD at all. Honestly, I have the word Linux branded all over my Slashdot account and my website, and apparently even I am viewing the world more objectively than many Slashdotters.
This is why I think open source is only worth a shit socially if it's part of a much wider process of social change (and why I support the $100 laptop project). Otherwise it's piss in the wind.
Dear Sir,
This is is not a story about desktop Linux. Please take your hackneyed flamewar with you as you leave.
Yours,
A plate of my balls
This is how it's always going to be as well. Example: People don't move to Firefox because it's open source. They move to it because they're told it's better than IE, and they then stick with it because it's demonstrably better.
At the end of the day ideology is irrelevant to most people.