Wow, impressively persistent Goatse trolling! I salute you!

Too bad it's probably more constructive than all the silly nationalist discussion threads.

>>This will exactly meat the requested specifications,
>As long as it's not beef.

No problem: it easily passed pear review.

>Priuses (Prii?)

'Priuses' is the only plural that makes sense. 'Prius' *is* a Latin word from the start - Wikipedia says that its correct plural form is 'priora', with caveats. Latin is a tricky language and any guess is likely to be unluckly. Stick to English plurals when in doubt, and see http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2139/what-is-the-plural-of-penis for an entertaining and insightful read on the topic.

While I'm at it: 'penii' is wrong, and 'virii' is completely, utterly wrong. Viruses and penises are great, see the article for the actual Latin plural of penis (there is no such thing for 'virus').

Thank you for today's Linux troll post. It was above-average.

Wow, that's bad. Here in Finland, it's usually one year of specifically stated store warranty, and often more.

Only when there's a second or third year of warranty is it common to have to deal with the manufacturer.

This subthread is so political that I suspect nothing of what I say will get across. That said, I'll still try - it won't be a lot of wasted effort in any case.

When Shuttleworth compares people to the Tea Party here, he's not talking about the party's ideals. That would make no sense: how could adherence to the US Constitution be relevant to open source development?

Instead, he's referring to the actions of the party. This is pretty good, really: any party can say nice words, but should really be judged by its actions and results. The Tea Party has been doing its best to retard legislation for weeks.

Co-operation is fundamental to politics, both when it comes to countries and open source software. No matter what the principles are, someone who says "no" all the time will be called stubborn. If the Tea Party wants to get its ideals across, it will have to grow up and negotiate solutions with others. No one else will negotiate for them.

In the same way, the Ubuntu naysayers will have to put up or shut up. I actually think Shuttleworth is pretty arrogant, and that Ubuntu is getting worse. But if Mir ships before Wayland, the latter really won't be looking very good. OTOH, if Mir becomes this thing which only Ubuntu ever supports, then Shuttleworth will be stuck being the stubborn one.

A small clarification: Richard F. Post is an actual person: http://www.aip.org/history/acap/biographies/bio.jsp?postr

So, despite appearances, the above post is NOT "F. Post" troll. I'm actually a bit disappointed.

If aliens read Slashdot they'd use their superior, high-performance tech toFhR05TY PI22 0MG P0NIES C0WB0YNEALS BREARD

What does public perception have to do with what science is? They're two completely different things. How do you know what "most people" think about this?

You say science today is not what it should be. Do you realise it never has been? The founders of natural science were known to work based on strange religious ideas, not to mention the whole alchemy background thing. Christianity continued to shape science significantly right up to the 20th century. By that point, the social sciences you so seem to loathe had already been founded. Add to this the fact that the very definitions of science we use today are from the 20th century.

I do not know when you think this time of better science took place. But, rest assured, science was far from any ideal then, too. Just like any other human endeavour it's just an approximation of the right way. And a wonderful approximation it is.

I've only used Windows 7 for a little bit, but the configuration options I've seen are vastly superior to the current Ubuntu LTS (which mostly means they simply exist). You can tell it to stack/not stack things in the taskbar, for one.

If you're saying not all the computer-using youth will configure things, then you are absolutely right. But with pretty much 100% computer use the amount of more savvy users should also be larger.

Not to mention that if it is indeed harder to configure a desktop GUI than it is to buy software with *real money*, then someone is doing something horribly wrong.

I'll look at it again, then. I should probably try a fresh install after all these years, too.

While it apparently has options, strictly speaking, that's really not far away from having to edit xorg.conf. If it has no visible GUI element, it's very close to "you have to edit a text file" level, since there's no way of knowing I wonder who thought a menu called "System Settings" needs to be dumbed down? I'm on the LTS version, too, so it should be polished (Lucid Lynx certainly was).

There's no right-click menu for the dock, either. Clicking the empty dock area with any mouse button does...nothing. Useful.

I don't really dislike Unity because of itself. I dislike it because Canonical keep crippling it through stupid mistakes and omissions.

Tried the "built-in" KDE. Was impressed by its configurability (separate language and localisation, finally!). However, I read that apparently it's normal that you can't set the "mode" it boots into. I wanted the desktop mode as default, but if any other mode was used last it would boot to that.

I'm amazed they didn't include a setup option for that. The way it would boot into something random every time, along with subpar graphics support stopped it. I'll try some more distros soon though.

The thing is, the users aren't just SysAdmins or idiots. There are people who have used computers for ages, but have chosen not to learn to code or compile themselves. The computer-savvyness of youth means this group is growing fast. Ubuntu has turned its back on this group.

I used the Gnome Ubuntu earlier and it was fine. Then came Unity. I tried to use the built-in KDE/Gnome, but they were buggy and slightly broken - no point to a distro if it doesn't work with itself.

Oh well, tried Unity instead. The main interface element (dock) has NO configuration options. Nothing. Basically: I'm supposed to either be their slave or install a working interface myself. No thanks. Too bad Ubuntu still appears to have a superior update system: I don't feel like going to Mint's "good until you have to hack your upgrade". I had enough of that with the earlier Ubuntus.

Wonderful post. : )