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Comment Re:Not too surprising? (Score 1) 464

And this is why we have sellers such as

  • ZaReason—request just about any Linux distro you want, even if it's not in the drop-down field (my fave—the only OEM I've found selling systems with KDE and Xfce based distros in addition to GNOME ones)
  • System76—all Ubuntu
  • Dell—they finally have a desktop with Ubuntu 10.04, and there's some 9.04 & 9.10 laptops

Comment Re:A couple of notes (Score 1) 156

Well, here's another question: if Random Security Expert can hack into TPB, how do we know that Some **AA Hireling hasn't done the same??

Because that'd be illegal, and the evidence inadmissible in court. TPB could even sue for that, and the employees jailed.

Comment Re:That explains the pay difference... (Score 1) 706

The other thing that needs to be accounted for is the options women have that men don't. Women see having a family or having a career as a choice. They can do one, the other, or both. Men don't get to view that as a choice. For men, they must have a career, period. If they want to also be a father, they do it after they come home from the office.

BS. If a man wants to be a stay at home dad, he absolutely can. Now, some of his friends might give him crap for it, because it's not "manly" to have your wife being the breadwinner, but your comment just reiterates that sexist assumption and perpetuates the problem.

Comment Re:False analogy. (Score 1) 664

No, we pay to be told which pages of a textbook are relevant and take exams on the material. Classes are a waste of time. Skip them all, and read the textbook, and you'll learn it better than you will just listening to your professor gab. Twice now, I've discovered when reading the textbook just before an exam that hey, this stuff *can* be interesting, it's just the professors that make it boring! Stupid attendance points.

One exception: Gabe Parmer, GWU's new Operating Systems professor, can make confusing things like concurrency (spinlocks, semaphores, etc.) and page caches easy. After spending only one day on concurrency in his class, I got it. I overheard one student tell him that in a computer architecture class they'd spent 2 weeks on page caches without it making sense, but he'd just taught it in one day, and it made perfect sense. Such teachers are rare.

Comment Re:Use an Outbound Firewall (Score 1) 340

I wish this functionality was built into the OS, rather than having to do it manually (for example, a way to disallow internet access during installation) -- but at least it's doable on Android. I don't think any other phone platforms give this level of permission separation or control. I'm not so sure that app review would really fix the overall problem; it might catch the obviously-malicious phishing apps like in this story, but I bet that the app auditors' opinion on what is a privacy violation differs greatly from my own.

Maybe you're thinking of http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Rainbow, which implements http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Bitfrost, which does exactly what you're describing. It's currently in Debian ( http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/rainbow ) and Fedora ( http://ppc.koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/packageinfo?packageID=7262 ).

Comment Re:Let me translate (Score 1) 210

The answer is never "no" only "not yet" and pretty much always includes an explanation of what's missing. Often what's missing is documentation of what they've done, particularly testimonials that say you're helpful either on your wiki page or in the IRC meeting where the interview and vote happen. "Get a few more referrals and come back in a month or two" is a very common response.

Comment Re:Ubuntu is NOT how one uses open source (Score 1) 210

So, what you're saying is, all us Ubuntu Developers are incompetent with the command line, simply by virtue of being *Ubuntu* Developers and not Debian Developers? What about the ones that were Debian Developers before becoming Ubuntu Developers, like Colin Watson and Matt Zimmerman? Did they forget how to use a shell when they started working for Canonical?

Comment Re:Why not? (Score 1) 210

I think there's a bug open about that.

And he's not stepping down from Ubuntu or from the Technical Board or from the Community Council. He's just not going to be the CEO of Canonical anymore. He's still up at the top for Ubuntu. It just highlights the distinction between Canonical and Ubuntu.

Comment Re:Why not? (Score 1) 210

It was intended to be read as "we expect Mark to do what's right" ...as in "we're holding him to a higher standard" (that standard being the Leadership Code of Conduct). However, it tended not to be read that way, so it was removed.

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