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Comment: Re:ISO 8601 (Score 1) 214

by Xtifr (#46488691) Attached to: Happy Pi Day

Here's a quick comparison:

Fields in the correct position: European: 1; American: 0
Fields in the correct order: European: 0; American: 2

By that measure the American style gets two things correct; twice as many as the European.

In addition, when the year is omitted (very common), the results are even more striking:

Fields correctly ordered and placed: European: none; American: all.

I don't think anyone has anything to brag about here, except perhaps the Chinese and Japanese. :)

Comment: Re:Curious (Score 1) 83

I agree that education has a value, and I still wouldn't buy this for $2400, or even $1200 or $600. When you consider that it is just video material --- it's definitely not worth so much.

Ah, well, I can't comment on this particular course, since I know nothing about it, but in general, courses designed for working professionals whose companies want them to learn new skills and continue to be useful for the company are not cheap. It's not like taking classes at your local community college.

Of course, the fact that you're talking about spending your own money suggests that you don't work at a company that values ongoing education for its employees, in which case, sucks to be you! :p ;)

Comment: Re:Feigned outrage (Score 1) 200

by Xtifr (#46437069) Attached to: <em>Portal 2</em> Incompatible With SELinux

The same people complaining about Valve instructing people do disable SELinux are the very first people to recommend doing exactly the same thing when someone online asks "How do I do [basic thing] in Linux? It doesn't seem to be working." There isn't a single message board dedicated to Linux that isn't filled with "disable SELinux" posts.

Really? The same people? You have proof of this, I assume? 'Cause there's a hell of a lot of people using Linux these days, in all sorts of forms, and all sorts of environments. Many of these people have (and I realize this may come as a complete shock) wildly differing opinions on things! Some love SELinux, some hate it, and some are neutral. Some even think it's appropriate in some situations but not others, and these might fit in your hypothetical category, but in my experience, most of those think SELinux is mainly useful for servers, and a waste of time for personal desktop systems, which makes it unlikely that they'd be complaining in this instance.

Now I don't mind some hyperbole. I personally know several linux subforums that contain no mention of SELinux, pro or con, but I understand what you meant by your last sentence, and agree with the underlying notion, even if the words aren't literally true. But your suggestion that it's actually the same people who say "disable SELinux" who are complaining in this case strikes me as so preposterous that it needs to be challenged. You're basically trying to paint all Linux users with the hypocrite brush. (Or, at least, all those with an opinion on SELinux.) And I want some damn good evidence before I buy that line of crap!

Do you also think the people who proclaim that consoles are dead and that PC gaming is king are the same ones out buying all the new consoles? Because that makes just about as much sense. They're all gamers, and all gamers think exactly the same. Right?

Really not sure how you got modded "insightful", but hey, this is slashdot...

Comment: Re:Curious (Score 3, Insightful) 83

by Xtifr (#46436893) Attached to: $2,400 'Introduction To Linux' Course Will Be Free and Online This Summer

The kind of person who thinks an education has value?

The kind of person who prefers to learn things in an orderly fashion, rather than digging through random piles of source code and "free" advice from the internet of questionable utility and accuracy? And who is willing to pay for that privilege, or who works for a company that has a budget for ongoing education?

Comment: Re:That's not "why it doesn't work"....that's you (Score 1) 66

by Xtifr (#46422861) Attached to: Getty Images Makes 35 Million Images Free For Non-Commercial Use

"The problem is that if the FSF actually intends people to use GNU code in their own creations, then giving people at least the option of relicensing that code in any way that might support their business model will go a long way towards doing that."

I don't see how what Getty is doing here (use it for free in this way, or pay money to use it some other way) is any different from what many companies are doing with GPL'd code (use it this way for free or pay money to use it some other way). Other than "in this case, it affects ME-E-E!!"

Comment: Re:not good news... now there isn't a precedent (Score 1) 40

by Xtifr (#46415265) Attached to: US Drops Link Sharing Charges Against Barrett Brown

As long as the government just keeps dropping it, then the EFF can just keep spending time and money sending in motions!

And that's the sort of thing that Anti-SLAPP laws are designed to prevent. If you live somewhere that doesn't have anti-SLAPP laws, I strongly recommend never doing anything that might piss off someone with money, whether government or private.

Comment: Re:Why? (Score 2) 768

by Xtifr (#46392833) Attached to: The Next Keurig Will Make Your Coffee With a Dash of "DRM"

You and your colleagues have horrible taste! :p

As for the just-one-cup issue, there are dozens of other options, from single-use filters to single-cup-size presses to simple espresso machines. I have a press that doubles as a travel cup.

Folgers or another brand, etc.

I rest my case on the horrible taste issue. No one with any taste in coffee would ever mention Folgers, except as a how-NOT-to! :D

Comment: Re:Why would I pay any money for an OS? (Score 1) 178

by Xtifr (#46314031) Attached to: Microsoft Said To Cut Windows Price 70% For Low Cost Devices

You're doing it wrong. For pure Unix, you need to start with a SysV source license. It's a little more work that way, but the results should be more than worth it! :D

Of course, it might be a bit tricky to get your hands on one at the moment, since owner Novell had a tiny falling out with exclusive license reseller SCO. Still, you might be able to pick one up on the second-hand market. I understand that Daimler-Chrysler has one they're no longer using--at least according to their response to SCO's subpoena.

Comment: Re:No. Linux is not a UNIX emulator... (Score 1) 281

by Xtifr (#46106639) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Is Linux Set To Be PC Gaming's Number Two Platform?

It doesn't even meet the POSIX specs which would be required (it ignores part of that just because they don't really make any sense).

Since a version of Linux was certified to meet the Single Unix Spec (SUS) years ago, simply by adding STREAMs (which Linus has refused to add to the mainstream kernel for good reason), and since SUS is far stricter than POSIX, I doubt this. (Also, STREAMs were made optional in more recent versions of the SUS, so any random vanilla Linux system might well be certifiable as a True Unix(tm) today, if anyone actually cared.)

I suspect you are A) getting your standards mixed up, and B) relying on out-of-date information, but please feel free to prove me wrong with specific examples from POSIX, if you can.

POSIX is a really low bar to meet. In fact, some elements of it were specifically designed to allow VMS to meet the standard (which is how NT was also able to do so, at one point). If you're trying to suggest that VMS or NT is a better "emulation" of Unix than Linux, I can only conclude that you've never used any of the systems in question! :)

Comment: Re:Fullscreen doesn't work in latest OSX (Score 4, Insightful) 106

by Xtifr (#46077887) Attached to: Fancy Yourself a Tycoon? OpenTTD 1.4.0 On Its Way

They've also had an announcement on the front page of their website for at least a year asking for help with the Mac port. If they don't own Macs and aren't familiar with the platform, and can't test, I don't know how you think they can magically fix these things.

This is open source, not charity.

Comment: Re:Please no? (Score 1) 79

by Xtifr (#46062519) Attached to: Fixing Broken Links With the Internet Archive

You do realize we're talking about the Internet Archive/Wayback Machine here? They already have backups of the old 4chan threads! This is just a way to make it easier to access that data.

The Archive, like Google, already crawls the web and caches pretty much everything. The difference is that Google replaces the contents of their caches when they crawl something a second time, while the Archive archive keeps both copies, with timestamps.
