185 karma · joined October 13, 2011
Actually it is pretty irrelevant how many non-programmers are capable of compiling or meaningfully editing the C program. The point is that a programmer cannot (reasonably) edit to restrict you freedom.
However, after rethinking what I wrote, I should clarify that while the underlying principles are the same regarding what RMS is trying to do here (limit programmers to protect users), the GPL has nothing really to with this particular fiasco.
This is one of those, frankly, pretty rare cases where the users actually feel a limitation of the GPL (mostly because people that use Emacs has a significant overlap with programmers where the line between developer and end user is very blurry).
I almost imagine doing something like this in a physical system is easier than at the cryptographic level, but that probably is to be expected considering my physics background. I mean, using quantum phenomena seems to be an obvious way to do it this albeit completely infeasible at this time.
To me the nice thing about GNU/Linux on the desktop is that each person can have the interface they want. This has secondary benefits where if you have your interface which is significantly different from my preferred interface, it forces application developers that really care about supporting their users to develop high quality abstraction layers that support both. The same goes for software packaging, driver support, general compatibility of proprietary software, etc. So, by all means, keep using Mint, it is in my best interest if you do (and yours, and everybody elses).
The real answer is that things like Vim and Emacs long ago came up with interfaces that don't require toolbars/menubars. They were added a long time ago, but I am amongst the people that turn them off and don't use them even though they are available. For many of us, mousing is less efficient than well tuned muscle memory.
This person probably deserves the ridicule, maybe he needs to step down, maybe we should all switch to IceWeasel to really show them (by the way, that would be a much more positive route to take as opposed to putting all our eggs in the webkit basket), but one of the nice things about Free Software is that you can have a reprehensible person in charge of it and there is something that you can do about it besides simply not using it.
I guess that is why this statement feels weird. It seems akin to finding out that the inventor of the hammer, all those millennia ago, had slaves, so you decide that from now on you are going to use screws and that you will try to get other people to turn their backs on hammers as well.
It honestly feels like there is some kind of problem with the system swapping (or failing to swap some memory) or some memory leak that I can't quite track down. Maybe something got fixed somewhere in the last two years...
I will be upgrading fairly early; probably at the end of April. I have a big deadline in late April and upgrading Ubuntu will be my reward/punishment. I suppose I will listen for any disgruntled users before I make the plunge, however, and reassess if things look too problematic.
Note: this is for a work machine, but a PC, not a server or something like that.
Note that there is no reason that I can see that this wouldn't simultaneously make the same software available for OS X and any other system that can run Wine.
> I went with Linux to avoid needing the willpower to not play games and get on with learning / working ;-)
heh
> Really, I like what they're trying to do with Unity. But if your goal is to improve the user experience, you don't ship wacky, half finished stuff to a shit-ton of users.
Amen to this.
But you can still stream a Chrome tab, so... maybe they are not really preventing anything except good audio sync.
I guess it isn't about the competency of the host/crew but rather the fact that pushing out a show every night means that you must degrade the quality of your analysis, guests, and general information that you are reporting on.
It is ironic in a way, but it is only a valid criticism if you consider that you should have the freedom to restrict other peoples freedoms. This is generally considered to be immoral in modern society.
Word to the wise, you get basically no T-Mobile customer service once you switch to pre-paid. I have been on contract with them before and they are very helpful, but on pre-paid it seems like you are on your own.
The worst instance of abuse was once, for a couple months, I used tethering as my only home Internet access as my land lady was dragging her feet on getting Internet access installed. During one of those months I decided to watch the first few seasons of The Mentalist and that uses data plenty quick. An hour of video is still several hundred MB even with these fancy new encodings.
It is worth noting, however, that T-Mobile has some serious problems. There are large swaths of this country where T-Mobile simply doesn't have service. For instance, last time I drove from Denver to Chicago I lost reception 1 hour into the trip and got it back a few hours before I arrived. There was perhaps one town where I had service during the drive. I thought that this couldn't possibly be right, but I stopped by a T-Mobile store and confirmed that this is the case. I thought that mobile providers worked to ensure that your phone would work at least when you are on an interstate, but not with T-Mobile.
Also, unlimited Internet doesn't really mean unlimited Internet in practice. They throttle so heavily after I hit my 5 GB cap that they might as well have cut off the data plan. Programs stopped working as the requests would time out and the app would assume I had no connectivity.
If you leave it up to the prisoners, they will both rat each other out resulting in the worst possible outcome (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma). Assuming that consumers will decide what is best for the whole of society is simply incorrect. "Internet innovation" is very much one of those big picture goals where I think some community planning (e.g. government intervention) would help the outcome.