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Comment Re:Honestly it all comes down to the extensions (Score 1) 282

Privoxy works just fine for me. I rather prefer having a browser-independent ad blocking solution. It's one less feature to worry about when 'shopping' around for browsers and as someone who uses more than one browser it means only having to manage one filter list, not two or four or whatever.

Comment Re:poor latin (Score 1) 337

Depends on the source. Knowing what I was looking for, I was able to find a listing of the whole conjugation table on wiktionary (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/adamo#Latin) and another site that used the standard 4 forms for listing a latin verb (http://www.latin-dictionary.net/info/word/728.html).

After playing around a bit with your translator, it looks like it translates any first person present latin verb into the english infinitive. So the confusion is coming from a bad translation convention.

Comment Re:poor latin (Score 1) 337

Wrong part of the word. It's not the addition of the ad- prefix that people are complaining about. That's rather clearly modifying the meaning in a sensible way. The issue is that with the suffix -o, the verb is in the first person present indicative whereas they're translating it as the infinitive (which would have the -are suffix).

Comment Re:Lol (Score 1) 936

Forget Debian/Ubuntu/etc. Then, ask yourself what an "apt" is. And why it has anything to do with installing programs.

I have the good fortune of being able to recognize "apt" as an (english) adjective which roughly means "suitable". So far so good: "apt" might be an attempt to describe quality rather than function. But hm, maybe it's an acronym. The "p" might be for "program" but in this case I'm coming in with enough knowledge to realize that I'm installing "packages" rather than programs. "a" for "advanced" because it's a pretty good buzz word. "t"? Nope, stumped, so let's just look it up ... "Advanced Packaging Tool". Huh, 2/3 guessed for how to get from "something that installs programs" to "apt".

Sure, I would never guess on my own that the installer was called "apt", but being able to recognize an adjective when I see one was enough for me to avoid confusion.

Then, still remembering that you're forgetting you know Debian/Ubuntu, ask why you need "install" at the end of "apt-get", which sounds like you're already asking the system to get the program you're asking for. Non-geeks don't care about the difference between "get" and "install", and the redundancy throws a wrench in their understanding.

And there's a very simple, already implemented way to work around any confusion coming from this hyphenation problem. People could simply stop telling new users to type in "apt-get install" and instead use "aptitude install". As a bonus, you don't have to use two different base commands for installing and searching since "apt-cache search" becomes "aptitude search".

Yes, this still leaves the "what does a word that means 'skill' or 'talent' have to do with installing programs" issue (oh, haha, the program has a 'talent' for installing programs). But giving things arbitrary-but-sometimes-maybe-sorta-related names applies as much to dogs (going back to the previous comparison). Or taking a well-known program: do people really wonder what 'firefox' has to do with the internet? Seems to me that the understanding is as simple as "there's this program that happens to be called firefox that you can use for browsing the internet".

Comment Re:It's about free software (Score 1) 583

Right now the situation is such that people are forced, whether at work or at home, to use software where you aren't allowed basic rights to the software you use: to use your software in any fashion, to modify it however you want, and to distribute it to whoever who want.

Of course, the Free Software movement's idea of basic rights covers developer rights that most users don't really care about and would happily waive. Getting proprietary software EULA-free is probably good enough for the average user (and even then there's probably enough people who don't realize that EULAs are a problem, thanks to not bothering to read any).

Comment Re:Anti-competitive my rear. (Score 1) 589

Two fields of competition. The GP's post wasn't referring to competition between Silverlight and Flash. He was referring to Silverlight's effect on OS competition. That is, if Silverlight's relevance to the internet increases without the plugin getting ported, then it's bad for the ability of other OS's to be/become competitive choices.

Comment Re:Will it matter? (Score 2, Insightful) 69

The point to the coalition is to defeat the government without causing a new election. If the governor general is even halfway reasonable, she'll allow the coalition to form the government rather than call another election.

Or maybe Harper will finally get it that in a minority government you need to try to work with the other parties at least some of the time. Yeah...

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