TheRaven64's Journal: Register of Prejudices

Has anyone else thought of the idea of slashdot recording a list of each user's prejudices? It seems that a lot of slashdotters only want to read things posted by people who agree with them (I feel the opposite way, as Wilde said 'I hate it when other people agree with me, I always feel I must be wrong). To get the ball rolling, here are a few of mine:

• Microsoft: They're kind of evil, but in a low-grade doesn't-really-both-me kind of way. They make the OS I use the most, because it is stable (although it took them enough tries to get that right) and supports all my hardware with minimal fuss.
• Apple: I think this cartoon says it all. The author has never met me, or, to my knowledge heard of me, but it's uncanny. Although I don't own a beret. Seriously, anyone who's seen one of the new 17" PowerBooks and doesn't want one must be a bit strange, in my opinion.
• Linux - It always reminds me of a dog walking on its hind legs. Not surprising that it's done badly, surprising that it works at all. I use Linux a lot (I admin a network of Linux machines in university), and every time I find myself thinking 'hey, this is pretty cool actually' it goes and does something silly. Usually involving rpms.
• FreeBSD - Wow. A *nix that actually works. Out of the box. And has a make-stuff-work command (seriously

  portinstall gnome2

  downloads Gnome 2, builds it from source, and installs it. Looks like magic, tastes like magic, it may not be actual magic, but it's close enough for me.)

• GPL - 'We're in favour of freedom, but only our kind of freedom'. Have any of these guys read 1984? Or any history of Germany / Russia in the 1930s. Or America during the McCarthy era? In my opinion, whenever people start putting limits on freedom in the name of freedom, it's a Bad Thing(tm). If you want freedom, go BSD. If you want commercialism, that's also fine, but keep your pseudo-free 'workers of the world unite' ideals away from me.
• MPAA / RIAA - Does anyone actually like these guys?
• NTl - A business student's 'how not to run a business' project that got out of hand.

I've realised that more people read the stuff I post on slashdot than the stuff I post on my own site, so I'd suggest people look there as well (it should kill a few minutes...). Things posted there have one advantage over things posted here. I either think about them, or proof read them before posting. Sometimes I do both, but don't expect that kind of service too often.

In my opinion

[TheRaven64]

I've just noticed that I used the phrase 'In my opinion' twice in that entry. Since I am usually distrustful of people who use that phrase, I feel that I should be disagreeing with myself. Oh well. I'm sure I'll change my mind about something in a few days.

Linux

[Dr. Photo]

It's not really fair to judge an entire OS based on the most braindead package system to be found in any distribution.

Instead, try Debian or Gentoo (especially Gentoo, in which emerge foopackage autosnarfs the source, compiles according to local preferences, installs it, and keeps track of where it is for clean deinstalling, if necessary.)

Re:Linux

[TheRaven64]

It's not really fair to judge an entire OS based on the most braindead package system to be found in any distribution.
Umm, it was a list of prejudices, I think the whole point is that they're not fair. I might try gentoo (although the prospect of it taking an entire weekend to install has rather put me off so far) but I'm unlikely to try Debian, since so far I've grown to dislike every Debian evangelist I've met. Again, this is personal prejudice. I never claimed it was logical...

Re:Linux

[Dr. Photo]

Umm, it was a list of prejudices, I think the whole point is that they're not fair. [...] I never claimed it was logical...

Instead of a longer response, I'll just let that statement speak for itself. ;-)