Show me an enjoyable activity that does not release dopamine.
Exactly. When you get down to the nitty-gritty details, pain and pleasure are not as simple as they seem, anyway. A release of dopamine doesn't mean much, absent any context. Common usage of the terms "pain" and "pleasure" makes it seem otherwise, of course, and I have no idea where "addiction" comes into play...
ok.. Any intelligence which is that conceited, petty and needy has no buisness being worshipped. Actually such an intelligence wouldnt even have my respect.
A jealous lover of human liberty, deeming it the absolute condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity, I reverse the phrase of Voltaire, and say that, if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him. - Mikhail Bakunin
Just like you are free to buy internet access from someone who hasn't made a similar arrangement.
I've never had more than three choices for an ISP; I've only lived in a few towns in an affluent state with a large IT infrastructure (Connecticut). In some cases I only had one choice.
This "vote with your wallet" stuff only works if: A. You have choices. B. You have enough money to choose based upon other factors besides cost. C. Every one of your choices isn't engaging in the dubious behavior you're trying to avoid.
...and I think it's best to go with Eeebuntu and then just get rid of the cruft from the initial install. There are a lot of things I don't like about the choices in Eeebuntu (an MSN client by default, really?!) but out-of-the-box it offers scripts to fix known bugs/hardware problems with your model of the eeepc, the kernel customized for your eeepc, plus the netbook-launcher if you want it. I tried Ubuntu Eee back in September, but it wasn't as well-polished as Eeebuntu back then. Maybe it is now that it's EasyPeasy.
You can also go with a vanilla Ubuntu install and make all these tweaks yourself...I was an "early adopter" of the Eee PC 1000, so I can vouch that there's plenty of info out there on the inets if you plan to take that route.
So basically, Canonical is allowed to choose different "flavors" for marketing reasons, but when Microsoft does it it's evil because you have to pay for it?
Yeah, that makes sense.
Proprietary software is evil for reasons that go beyond the software-as-a-product business model Microsoft pushes on the world, a model which must lock in users to survive. When Canonical commits the crimes Microsoft does, then we can start to make a comparison between the two. Even if Canonical sunk as low as Microsoft or Apple (something difficult for Canonical to do because it has to answer to the FOSS community), no single entity owns GNU/Linux.
The primary issue, again, is freedom; there's plenty of writing out there on FOSS that explains this so it's not worth getting into here.
I guess I have to mention something which should be self-explanatory, however: cost-free (gratis) software removes barriers to entry, barriers that have a serious impact on the survival and liberation of the poor in an increasingly tech-driven world. You may not care about this issue, and Microsoft and Apple surely don't, but I do. I applaud those developers who have decided to sacrifice time and effort to give back to the FOSS community without monetary compensation, and those businesses that generate revenue through other means than crippling users.
7 official versions of Ubuntu alone. You were saying..?
What's your point? It's very easy to switch between the Ubuntu versions and cost-free. It's just a matter of installing/uninstalling certain packages with apt/synaptic. Canonical chooses those "flavors" of Ubuntu for marketing reasons, and others have spun Debian and Ubuntu into many different versions that are more-or-less compatible. This is all very healthy for the free software community and computer users in general.
The bottom line is that you have the freedom to customize your OS with GNU/Linux, adding or removing certain features as you wish. The different Windows versions are based upon a pricing tier that disables or rips out certain features if you don't pay enough money, or if you don't qualify as the type of customer Microsoft is targeting.
Slashdot needs to get rid of the "-1 Troll" function altogether. If it gets modded up, great; if not, modding "troll" for mere disagreement (or merely becuase a particular troll got mod points that day) only hurts the system.
I can't tell you how much I agree. I've had perfectly fine comments, which weren't modded up or down at the time the story was on slashdot's frontpage, suddenly modded troll many days later. I suspect I pissed some people off with more recent comments, and they decided they had nothing better to do than mod down my old comments.
I'd love to see Google treat wikipedia like they treat everyone else. Won't happen, but it would mean Google would have more meaningful search results.
Some analysts have claimed that Google would have much less meaningful results if Wikipedia were treated like everyone else:
Then Google had a brainwave. Realizing that few searchers explore beyond the top three results, it decided to give a powerful boost to Wikipedia. Nevermind the 6 billion junk pages - Google need only ensure users clicked on the two million Wikipedia entries. As a consequence, Wikipedia entries rose to the top of the rankings. During 2006, Wikipedia entries eclipsed all others, and typically feature in the top three SERPs, or the top search result.
I don't know enough about Google's search to judge, but it seems likely that Google would want to favor Wikipedia entries to increase the relevance of search results, in the face of so many challenges from bots, junk pages, cybersquatters, link farms, etc.
I personally like seeing Wikipedia at the top of Google's search because I think Wikipedia helps to break the hegemony of academia on the dissemination of knowledge. Even with all its flaws, Wikipedia is more democratic than any other encyclopedia and has changed the way information is shared around the world.
These days there are a number of OSs derived from Debian and Ubuntu that should be considered. Mint is superior. Also Mepis, I believe is now based upon Debian.
I suspect that many Ubuntu users who try these lesser known derived distros would prefer them.
I've switch a lot of "average Windows users" over to Ubuntu over the past few years, and I've installed it on all kinds of hardware (servers, "media center" PCs with odd hardware setups, "legacy" machines, netbooks, and so on).
I tried the Mint liveCD out on an old Dell Latitude the other day, and I can say I was definitely impressed. Mint does take the work out of migrating Windows users to GNU/Linux, but it makes some questionable choices for the user and encourages what seems like Windows-like security (giving users easy access to root commands, discouraging the use of sudo).
Mint also automatically installed the proprietary nvidia drivers and enabled compiz, which could be considered pragmatic but I think is dangerous to freedom in the long term. Although I use proprietary drivers on some of my systems, I think it's a choice for users to make themselves. If distros that automatically install proprietary drivers gain a lot of popularity, there will be much less pressure for vendors to release FOSS drivers and there will also be less momentum behind the development of alternative FOSS drivers. I feel the same way about the software that's usually bundled with the ubuntu-restricted-extras metapackage.
Also, it may not be wise to automatically start compiz just because it's possible...I have some machines with graphics cards that can *just* handle GLX, but I wouldn't slow them down with compiz. But I know that they're not necessarily trying to cater to old machines.
If the poster's terms of enrollment state that his scholastic output belongs to the institution, then his output *isn't his to GPL.*
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't think you give up the copyright to your work just by handing it in to a professor, which is all you need to publish it under your own terms (unless the university forces students to agree to the equivalent of a non-disclosure agreement, which would be a terrible thing). If you're doing research with university resources, grant funding, or as a university employee, the situation is more complex, and I doubt you'd retain the copyright to your work in most cases.
Anyway, here's my revised advice: Find out if you retain the copyright to your code, in varying scholastic situations. If you can, GPL it. If you're worried about violating patents, you should find another line of work besides writing software.
...or another free software license. I know this isn't the answer you're looking for, but I'm actually surprised more of the/. community isn't replying with the same answer. We live in an age where a huuuuge amount of source code is freely shared, and software-as-a-product is dying. At the very least, it's a bad business decision.
Share your code under the GPL, and others will be able to modify your code. However, their modifications must be available to you unless they intend to keep them private...which isn't what you're worried about anyway.
You can release your GPL'd code to a community of developers, and hopefully (if the idea really is that good) you can gain support and a critical mass so you can build "TheNextBigThing". When the project is in a state of maturity, you and other developers can decide what direction to take it, or if it really is the proverbial "killer app", or whatever. And along the way, if money is your motivation, you can work out a business plan.
If you really do have "TheNextBigThing", licensing under the GPL protects your code by making sure you will have access to it and its derivatives. It also creates the potential for working with a large community of developers to improve the software. If the software gains popularity, it would also be very tough for competitors (even powerful institutions) to squash it.
I might add, as well, that proprietary apps are, more and more each day, being spanked by the FOSS competition. "Live Free or Die!" has a new meaning in the world of software...
I keep seeing those netbooks, with a camera, running linux, and wonder what people do with them?
People with those netbooks use Ekiga or Skype with no hassles. Or at least I've never had laptop camera trouble, on a Toshiba, Thinkpad, System76, and Eee PC. I've never used aMSN and don't intend to, but it's no big surprise a free software client for The Microsoft Network doesn't do everything as well as Microsoft's proprietary client.
Nearly everything else yahoo has is pretty worthless, though. Last I checked, although you can customize your yahoo page, you can't remove the F***ING HOROSCOPE! That actively pisses me off every time I set eyes on the page.
Similar, but less annoying, problem with Myspace. I've sent them multiple complaints to no avail. Still can't find a way to hide the zodiac sign in the profile with CSS, without also hiding other stuff in the profile.
Slashdot Mirror
I cut my teeth on html using Geoshitties, 'round 97. What a mess, but god bless the free tinkering space.
Same here...I still have a copy of those pages but I don't think they're worth resurrecting...
Show me an enjoyable activity that does not release dopamine.
Exactly. When you get down to the nitty-gritty details, pain and pleasure are not as simple as they seem, anyway. A release of dopamine doesn't mean much, absent any context. Common usage of the terms "pain" and "pleasure" makes it seem otherwise, of course, and I have no idea where "addiction" comes into play...
ok.. Any intelligence which is that conceited, petty and needy has no buisness being worshipped. Actually such an intelligence wouldnt even have my respect.
A jealous lover of human liberty, deeming it the absolute condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity, I reverse the phrase of Voltaire, and say that, if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him. - Mikhail Bakunin
Hello, China? I think I have something you may want, but it's gonna cost you...that's right -- all the tea.
FYI, Symantec has a gratis removal tool available here. In case that helps anyone unfortunate enough to be using Windows AND infected by Conficker :P
Since this is /. I feel I have to correct this: Chewbacca is a Wookiee.
Just like you are free to buy internet access from someone who hasn't made a similar arrangement.
I've never had more than three choices for an ISP; I've only lived in a few towns in an affluent state with a large IT infrastructure (Connecticut). In some cases I only had one choice.
This "vote with your wallet" stuff only works if:
A. You have choices.
B. You have enough money to choose based upon other factors besides cost.
C. Every one of your choices isn't engaging in the dubious behavior you're trying to avoid.
...and I think it's best to go with Eeebuntu and then just get rid of the cruft from the initial install. There are a lot of things I don't like about the choices in Eeebuntu (an MSN client by default, really?!) but out-of-the-box it offers scripts to fix known bugs/hardware problems with your model of the eeepc, the kernel customized for your eeepc, plus the netbook-launcher if you want it. I tried Ubuntu Eee back in September, but it wasn't as well-polished as Eeebuntu back then. Maybe it is now that it's EasyPeasy.
You can also go with a vanilla Ubuntu install and make all these tweaks yourself...I was an "early adopter" of the Eee PC 1000, so I can vouch that there's plenty of info out there on the inets if you plan to take that route.
So basically, Canonical is allowed to choose different "flavors" for marketing reasons, but when Microsoft does it it's evil because you have to pay for it?
Yeah, that makes sense.
Proprietary software is evil for reasons that go beyond the software-as-a-product business model Microsoft pushes on the world, a model which must lock in users to survive. When Canonical commits the crimes Microsoft does, then we can start to make a comparison between the two. Even if Canonical sunk as low as Microsoft or Apple (something difficult for Canonical to do because it has to answer to the FOSS community), no single entity owns GNU/Linux.
The primary issue, again, is freedom; there's plenty of writing out there on FOSS that explains this so it's not worth getting into here.
I guess I have to mention something which should be self-explanatory, however: cost-free (gratis) software removes barriers to entry, barriers that have a serious impact on the survival and liberation of the poor in an increasingly tech-driven world. You may not care about this issue, and Microsoft and Apple surely don't, but I do. I applaud those developers who have decided to sacrifice time and effort to give back to the FOSS community without monetary compensation, and those businesses that generate revenue through other means than crippling users.
Ubuntu Desktop Edition
Ubuntu MID Edition
Ubuntu Server Edition
Ubuntu Netbook Remix
Kubuntu
Xubuntu
Edbuntu
7 official versions of Ubuntu alone. You were saying..?
What's your point? It's very easy to switch between the Ubuntu versions and cost-free. It's just a matter of installing/uninstalling certain packages with apt/synaptic. Canonical chooses those "flavors" of Ubuntu for marketing reasons, and others have spun Debian and Ubuntu into many different versions that are more-or-less compatible. This is all very healthy for the free software community and computer users in general.
The bottom line is that you have the freedom to customize your OS with GNU/Linux, adding or removing certain features as you wish. The different Windows versions are based upon a pricing tier that disables or rips out certain features if you don't pay enough money, or if you don't qualify as the type of customer Microsoft is targeting.
When you actually take a look at the icons for the topics, it's amazing how outdated they are: http://slashdot.org/topics.shtml
Is it funny? I dunno, kinda.
Slashdot needs to get rid of the "-1 Troll" function altogether. If it gets modded up, great; if not, modding "troll" for mere disagreement (or merely becuase a particular troll got mod points that day) only hurts the system.
I can't tell you how much I agree. I've had perfectly fine comments, which weren't modded up or down at the time the story was on slashdot's frontpage, suddenly modded troll many days later. I suspect I pissed some people off with more recent comments, and they decided they had nothing better to do than mod down my old comments.
I'd love to see Google treat wikipedia like they treat everyone else. Won't happen, but it would mean Google would have more meaningful search results.
Some analysts have claimed that Google would have much less meaningful results if Wikipedia were treated like everyone else:
Then Google had a brainwave. Realizing that few searchers explore beyond the top three results, it decided to give a powerful boost to Wikipedia. Nevermind the 6 billion junk pages - Google need only ensure users clicked on the two million Wikipedia entries. As a consequence, Wikipedia entries rose to the top of the rankings. During 2006, Wikipedia entries eclipsed all others, and typically feature in the top three SERPs, or the top search result.
I don't know enough about Google's search to judge, but it seems likely that Google would want to favor Wikipedia entries to increase the relevance of search results, in the face of so many challenges from bots, junk pages, cybersquatters, link farms, etc.
I personally like seeing Wikipedia at the top of Google's search because I think Wikipedia helps to break the hegemony of academia on the dissemination of knowledge. Even with all its flaws, Wikipedia is more democratic than any other encyclopedia and has changed the way information is shared around the world.
And the way he did it is with the brilliant "You Can't Come" technique...
These days there are a number of OSs derived from Debian and Ubuntu that should be considered. Mint is superior. Also Mepis, I believe is now based upon Debian. I suspect that many Ubuntu users who try these lesser known derived distros would prefer them.
I've switch a lot of "average Windows users" over to Ubuntu over the past few years, and I've installed it on all kinds of hardware (servers, "media center" PCs with odd hardware setups, "legacy" machines, netbooks, and so on).
I tried the Mint liveCD out on an old Dell Latitude the other day, and I can say I was definitely impressed. Mint does take the work out of migrating Windows users to GNU/Linux, but it makes some questionable choices for the user and encourages what seems like Windows-like security (giving users easy access to root commands, discouraging the use of sudo).
Mint also automatically installed the proprietary nvidia drivers and enabled compiz, which could be considered pragmatic but I think is dangerous to freedom in the long term. Although I use proprietary drivers on some of my systems, I think it's a choice for users to make themselves. If distros that automatically install proprietary drivers gain a lot of popularity, there will be much less pressure for vendors to release FOSS drivers and there will also be less momentum behind the development of alternative FOSS drivers. I feel the same way about the software that's usually bundled with the ubuntu-restricted-extras metapackage.
Also, it may not be wise to automatically start compiz just because it's possible...I have some machines with graphics cards that can *just* handle GLX, but I wouldn't slow them down with compiz. But I know that they're not necessarily trying to cater to old machines.
2009: The year of Terminal on the cell phone. Take that iPhone!
...I had the terminal on my iPhone in 2008. I had to jaibreak it and install it via cydia, but still.
...also I Am Not a Lawyer. My comments should not be misconstrued as the recommendations of a lawyer.
If the poster's terms of enrollment state that his scholastic output belongs to the institution, then his output *isn't his to GPL.*
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't think you give up the copyright to your work just by handing it in to a professor, which is all you need to publish it under your own terms (unless the university forces students to agree to the equivalent of a non-disclosure agreement, which would be a terrible thing). If you're doing research with university resources, grant funding, or as a university employee, the situation is more complex, and I doubt you'd retain the copyright to your work in most cases.
Anyway, here's my revised advice: Find out if you retain the copyright to your code, in varying scholastic situations. If you can, GPL it. If you're worried about violating patents, you should find another line of work besides writing software.
...or another free software license. I know this isn't the answer you're looking for, but I'm actually surprised more of the /. community isn't replying with the same answer. We live in an age where a huuuuge amount of source code is freely shared, and software-as-a-product is dying. At the very least, it's a bad business decision.
Share your code under the GPL, and others will be able to modify your code. However, their modifications must be available to you unless they intend to keep them private...which isn't what you're worried about anyway.
You can release your GPL'd code to a community of developers, and hopefully (if the idea really is that good) you can gain support and a critical mass so you can build "TheNextBigThing". When the project is in a state of maturity, you and other developers can decide what direction to take it, or if it really is the proverbial "killer app", or whatever. And along the way, if money is your motivation, you can work out a business plan.
If you really do have "TheNextBigThing", licensing under the GPL protects your code by making sure you will have access to it and its derivatives. It also creates the potential for working with a large community of developers to improve the software. If the software gains popularity, it would also be very tough for competitors (even powerful institutions) to squash it.
I might add, as well, that proprietary apps are, more and more each day, being spanked by the FOSS competition. "Live Free or Die!" has a new meaning in the world of software...
I keep seeing those netbooks, with a camera, running linux, and wonder what people do with them?
People with those netbooks use Ekiga or Skype with no hassles. Or at least I've never had laptop camera trouble, on a Toshiba, Thinkpad, System76, and Eee PC. I've never used aMSN and don't intend to, but it's no big surprise a free software client for The Microsoft Network doesn't do everything as well as Microsoft's proprietary client.
I hate to be a pest, but it's Wile E. Coyote.
...this sounds like something Joe The Plumber® might be involved in.
*ducks*
Nearly everything else yahoo has is pretty worthless, though. Last I checked, although you can customize your yahoo page, you can't remove the F***ING HOROSCOPE! That actively pisses me off every time I set eyes on the page.
Similar, but less annoying, problem with Myspace. I've sent them multiple complaints to no avail. Still can't find a way to hide the zodiac sign in the profile with CSS, without also hiding other stuff in the profile.
You're gonna have to delete more than just that SecuROM directory. Seems other folks have been having problems similar to yours.
...make sure you let /. know if your cock-punching attempts are successful :)
Here are instructions and a link to the SecuROM uninstaller.
Anybody know how this will effect projects like AWN and distros that feature a dock environment by default (e.g. gOS)?