This guy, despite brilliant mental gifts, went to work for a convicted monopolist. Why should we care that he's probably now dead? There are plenty of innocent people who deserve more sympathy than this sellout who willingly joined forces with a criminal organisation.
I have never seen a distro yet that installs the proprietary drivers for the user, by default, in such a way that both [A] works and [B] has 3D acceleration enabled.
They will be interested precisely up until the point where they find that they can't play the games that they just bought from their local CompUSA (or PC World, or whatever).
Or until they try plugging in an arbitrary device and find that it doesn't work.
Or until they install one of the rare Linux games and find that the open-source nvidia or ATI drivers are so insanely slow as to make the game unplayable, due to lack of proper 3D acceleration support.
None of this stuff is the Linux community's "fault", per se. In fact, all of it is due to the hostile and pro-monopolist (read: pro-Microsoft) attitude of the software and hardware industries.
That doesn't, however, make it any more tolerable to the average user.
2) The Bible makes it quite clear that God "changeth not". God's fundamental character and his set of morals do not change from the Old Testament to the New Testament. So if God thought slavery, and slave-beating, were not fundamentally immoral in Old Testament times, he still thinks so now.
You are welcome to contact me via email to caspiancoder (AT) gmail (DOT) com if you wish to continue this discussion.
Christ on a cracker... Can you fundamentalist lunatics stay out of ANY discussion? EVER? Please take your homophobic, misogynistic, pro-slavery, mass-murdering, jealousASSHOLE of a God and go the fuck AWAY with him.
Given that 'pirating' music primarily hurts not the artists, not the "little guy", but the RIAA and its army of lawyers... I'd say that anyone whose 'crime' is pirating music is pretty much a saint.
With all the genuine evil, cruelty and nastiness that goes on on this planet, why does anyone give half a rat's ass about copying files, legally or otherwise?
Our priorities are so incredibly fucked up. This sort of shit shouldn't even register on the radar. This isn't theft. This is poor college kids bootlegging music.
The University... has refused to forward individual letters without a valid subpoena.
Well-intentioned, but ultimately VERY BAD for the "little guy'.
Think about it. Instead of giving the students who tick off the RIAA a warning, they won't tell the students anything is going on until they're subpoenaed (read: summoned to court).
God, what a stupid move. This is just going to end up depriving the RIAA's victims of any sort of advance warning. GOOD ONE, UW-M!
Oh. Okay. Yeah, they're just another "fundamentalist American". Ugh. Criticise away.:)
Re:Bill Gates says "Jump", the world says "HOW HIG
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High Tech High 2.0
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· Score: 1
I know quite a few Christian apologists. They all, without fail, try to work negatives into positives, simply ignore them, or shrug and say "Man cannot always understand God". Religion is like that, and in America, capitalism is the state religion as much as fundamentalist Christianity is.
Bill Gates says "Jump", the world says "HOW HIGH"
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High Tech High 2.0
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· Score: 4, Insightful
"Committee politicians reportedly embraced virtually all of the suggestions made by Gates..."
Infuriating, but not at all surprising. Outside the geek world-- and very few geeks seem to realise this-- people think Bill Gates is a role model to be followed. He's the richest guy in the world, so people in our highly capitalist, money-obsessed society are prone to hang on his every word. Much like Christian apologists, they note the good ("Bill Gates gives billions to charity") whilst ignoring the bad (e.g. "he made those billions via anticompetitive, illegal means" / "his Foundation is a huge tax break and PR boost for himself, and has been used as a tool to push Windows on developing nations who can't afford it"). They believe that simply because he is obscenely wealthy, he is necessarily a good guy. Everyone likes to root for the biggest fish in the pond. Everyone likes to root for the winner, and Bill Gates is undoubtedly a winner. It's sad, but true-- most of the world thinks Gates is a great guy.
History doesn't look upon, say, Andrew Carnegie as a good guy simply because he gave away obscene amounts of money, but the average American today is lot more greedy, selfish and short-sighted than their counterpart of Carnegie's time, evidently...
Are you sure you responded to the right comment? I'm an American expat living in the EU, and I left America because of its rampant stupidity. I'm a "self-hating American", I suppose. And I found this guy's post to be very humble and critical of his own country. Nowhere in his post did he say that people outside the US have fewer rights than people in the US (nor would I make that idiotic claim). Are you just a troll? Honestly, there are plenty of perfectly good "stupid-ass redneck American" posts out there on Teh Intarweb without you having to fabricate outrage over a post which, really, is on the side of good (read: "unafraid to criticise the Big Bad US, even from the inside").
Are you getting the picture yet? Powerful organisations (and politicians) really CAN and DO get away with anything they want. Microsoft is a prime example. I'll be very surprised if they ever get in any serious trouble for this (and no, for MS, a multi-million-dollar fine is not "serious trouble", it's a slap on the wrist. A $10,000,000 fine wouldn't hurt them. A $10,000,000,000 fine... maybe, yes.
...a nail in the coffin of the franchise known as Microsoft Office...
Please. Office isn't going anywhere. As long as there are Microsoft-loving managers, MS Office will be overwhelmingly dominant. Frankly-- and bear in mind that I hate MS-- Office is a far sight better than OpenOffice.org, which I've always found to be bloated and amateurish.
This whole "OOH OFFICE IS GOIN' DOOOOOOOOWN" mentality strikes me as wishful thinking.
Yes, but the American government has shown that it is willing to break FAR more ancient and important laws than the DMCA. Like, say, the writ of habeas corpus.
In any sane world, people restricting the use of the words "games", "Vancouver" and "winter" would prompt an immediate response from the masses. People would be calling and writing into Ottawa to complain.
In this world, people do nothing, and only us geeks get up in arms.
Consider what's been happening lately. It's been demonstrated that companies can and will be granted exclusive patent rights on obvious things, that other companies can and will be granted rights to parts of the human genome, and now that the very use of certain common and ancient words is being restricted.
When will this shit stop?
The governments of the western world talk a good talk about "freedom", but doesn't "freedom" mean the freedom to say "winter", the freedom to study human genetics, the freedom to write software without fear of patent suits?
Are we really "free", or merely "freer"? (Freer than, say, the North Koreans...)
If any old schlub can successfully masquerade as a holder of multiple degrees in God-ology, well... let's just say that no matter what the titles-- B.A., M.A., Ph.D. or anything else-- a degree in theology is B.S.
Helpful hint: This may, in fact, apply to many other degrees as well.
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This guy, despite brilliant mental gifts, went to work for a convicted monopolist. Why should we care that he's probably now dead? There are plenty of innocent people who deserve more sympathy than this sellout who willingly joined forces with a criminal organisation.
I have never seen a distro yet that installs the proprietary drivers for the user, by default, in such a way that both [A] works and [B] has 3D acceleration enabled.
Show me one and I will stand (sit?) corrected.
They will be interested precisely up until the point where they find that they can't play the games that they just bought from their local CompUSA (or PC World, or whatever).
Or until they try plugging in an arbitrary device and find that it doesn't work.
Or until they install one of the rare Linux games and find that the open-source nvidia or ATI drivers are so insanely slow as to make the game unplayable, due to lack of proper 3D acceleration support.
None of this stuff is the Linux community's "fault", per se. In fact, all of it is due to the hostile and pro-monopolist (read: pro-Microsoft) attitude of the software and hardware industries.
That doesn't, however, make it any more tolerable to the average user.
No.
1) You make the mistake of assuming I am a man.
2) The Bible makes it quite clear that God "changeth not". God's fundamental character and his set of morals do not change from the Old Testament to the New Testament. So if God thought slavery, and slave-beating, were not fundamentally immoral in Old Testament times, he still thinks so now.
You are welcome to contact me via email to caspiancoder (AT) gmail (DOT) com if you wish to continue this discussion.
There is no "open-minded" way in which the verses I linked to are acceptable.
You didn't even FOLLOW my links, obviously. I linked to BibleGateway.com-- a major site (run BY CHRISTIANS) which lets you read the Bible online.
So, in effect, I linked TO the Bible.
Specifically, the King James Version.
Read the links, moron.
Christ on a cracker... Can you fundamentalist lunatics stay out of ANY discussion? EVER? Please take your homophobic, misogynistic, pro-slavery, mass-murdering, jealous ASSHOLE of a God and go the fuck AWAY with him.
Given that 'pirating' music primarily hurts not the artists, not the "little guy", but the RIAA and its army of lawyers... I'd say that anyone whose 'crime' is pirating music is pretty much a saint.
With all the genuine evil, cruelty and nastiness that goes on on this planet, why does anyone give half a rat's ass about copying files, legally or otherwise?
Our priorities are so incredibly fucked up. This sort of shit shouldn't even register on the radar. This isn't theft. This is poor college kids bootlegging music.
Well-intentioned, but ultimately VERY BAD for the "little guy'.
Think about it. Instead of giving the students who tick off the RIAA a warning, they won't tell the students anything is going on until they're subpoenaed (read: summoned to court).
God, what a stupid move. This is just going to end up depriving the RIAA's victims of any sort of advance warning. GOOD ONE, UW-M!
Here's to the Apocalypse. It's been a good run, but you're right, we're totally broken. *Raises a beer to toast the coming World War III*
This is an attempt to make the most boring distro on earth slightly less boring! ;)
(I kid, I kid! I like Debian.)
Someone with Ahh-nold's accent would stick out even more here than in the States.... ;)
So I think we're safe.
The act ITSELF was an abuse.
Is there really a difference?
Everyone knows what they've been saying on the phone: endless variants on "B0rk b0rk b0rk!"
Oh. Okay. Yeah, they're just another "fundamentalist American". Ugh. Criticise away. :)
I know quite a few Christian apologists. They all, without fail, try to work negatives into positives, simply ignore them, or shrug and say "Man cannot always understand God". Religion is like that, and in America, capitalism is the state religion as much as fundamentalist Christianity is.
Infuriating, but not at all surprising. Outside the geek world-- and very few geeks seem to realise this-- people think Bill Gates is a role model to be followed. He's the richest guy in the world, so people in our highly capitalist, money-obsessed society are prone to hang on his every word. Much like Christian apologists, they note the good ("Bill Gates gives billions to charity") whilst ignoring the bad (e.g. "he made those billions via anticompetitive, illegal means" / "his Foundation is a huge tax break and PR boost for himself, and has been used as a tool to push Windows on developing nations who can't afford it"). They believe that simply because he is obscenely wealthy, he is necessarily a good guy. Everyone likes to root for the biggest fish in the pond. Everyone likes to root for the winner, and Bill Gates is undoubtedly a winner. It's sad, but true-- most of the world thinks Gates is a great guy.
History doesn't look upon, say, Andrew Carnegie as a good guy simply because he gave away obscene amounts of money, but the average American today is lot more greedy, selfish and short-sighted than their counterpart of Carnegie's time, evidently...
Are you sure you responded to the right comment? I'm an American expat living in the EU, and I left America because of its rampant stupidity. I'm a "self-hating American", I suppose. And I found this guy's post to be very humble and critical of his own country. Nowhere in his post did he say that people outside the US have fewer rights than people in the US (nor would I make that idiotic claim). Are you just a troll? Honestly, there are plenty of perfectly good "stupid-ass redneck American" posts out there on Teh Intarweb without you having to fabricate outrage over a post which, really, is on the side of good (read: "unafraid to criticise the Big Bad US, even from the inside").
Are you getting the picture yet? Powerful organisations (and politicians) really CAN and DO get away with anything they want. Microsoft is a prime example. I'll be very surprised if they ever get in any serious trouble for this (and no, for MS, a multi-million-dollar fine is not "serious trouble", it's a slap on the wrist. A $10,000,000 fine wouldn't hurt them. A $10,000,000,000 fine... maybe, yes.
Please. Office isn't going anywhere. As long as there are Microsoft-loving managers, MS Office will be overwhelmingly dominant. Frankly-- and bear in mind that I hate MS-- Office is a far sight better than OpenOffice.org, which I've always found to be bloated and amateurish.
This whole "OOH OFFICE IS GOIN' DOOOOOOOOWN" mentality strikes me as wishful thinking.
Yes, but the American government has shown that it is willing to break FAR more ancient and important laws than the DMCA. Like, say, the writ of habeas corpus.
The masses really ARE that stupid.
In any sane world, people restricting the use of the words "games", "Vancouver" and "winter" would prompt an immediate response from the masses. People would be calling and writing into Ottawa to complain.
In this world, people do nothing, and only us geeks get up in arms.
Consider what's been happening lately. It's been demonstrated that companies can and will be granted exclusive patent rights on obvious things, that other companies can and will be granted rights to parts of the human genome, and now that the very use of certain common and ancient words is being restricted.
When will this shit stop?
The governments of the western world talk a good talk about "freedom", but doesn't "freedom" mean the freedom to say "winter", the freedom to study human genetics, the freedom to write software without fear of patent suits?
Are we really "free", or merely "freer"? (Freer than, say, the North Koreans...)
If any old schlub can successfully masquerade as a holder of multiple degrees in God-ology, well... let's just say that no matter what the titles-- B.A., M.A., Ph.D. or anything else-- a degree in theology is B.S.
Helpful hint: This may, in fact, apply to many other degrees as well.