MajesticTreeFrog

For those complaining about price, go get a mac mini. Including the cost of software it costs about the same as any random computer, but it looks nicer, isn't loud, and you don't have to worry/deal with malware.The weakness I see in the mac lineup is the step up from the mini. It is a huge jump to the imac. That, and there low end powermac's are overpriced.

ok, thats all well and good with the history and such. But what do solipists believe/think EXACTLY??(not sophists as you said. You aren't talking about sophists. Or if you are, you have no idea what you are talking about).

No one is talking about the terrorist attacks. They are talking about things like tidal waves. Did humans cause tidal waves?(perhaps for environmental reasons they have a hand in it, but overall, no) Unlike terrorism, which is a humans choice, no human is choosing a tsunami. The question is why(if there is a god), HE chooses to cause natural disasters. Certainly humans cause even more damage, but that isn't the point. In fact, you could ask why God created us with the ability to feel greed and hate. Seems a design flaw to me.

My point is that you can't really claim to know 'the way the world works'. Your view, like mine, is filtered by what things you pay attention to and what you don't. For instance, you say that I am talking about how I would like things to be, by which I am not sure if you are referring to how I would like human nature to be, or how I would like society to be, or both. In any case, 'the way the world works' is mutable. Always has been, always will be. And if you take the time to read some history, or even current events world wide, you would see there are many many versions of 'how things work'. Some seem better than others, but all of them MUST come from 'human nature' if there is truly such a thing. So, since human nature can clearly create a variety of different 'ways of working', there is no 'way the world TRULY works'. You are deluding yourself if you think so. You like the way the world works? I don't think you really have anything more than some ideal. And I do to. But don't claim knowledge you don't have. Especially without any strong data to back your ideas up.

Oh, You are the expert on human nature? Its only an abstract solution since I didn't post something like an entire tax code. Its no more or less abstract than the words 'free market economy' that you are so fond of. There are MANY MANY ways to set up markets, and the rules that govern them, unless you want no rules. Which is just outright foolish.

You want the intuos 3. Pick a size. When you are buying tablets, you get what you pay for. If it is expensive for you now, just wait and save up.

That sounds more like what happens in life. But I don't think the 'meaning of life' involves getting a wife in kid necessarily. Many religious traditions have honored celibacy, so there might be something to that for some. How does one measure 'doing something cool'? Is it whatever you find cool, or is there a higher 'supreme' standard. And making cash is only necessary to life. As far as I can tell the pursuit of cash tends towards sapping the meaning to life not making it.

But the problem for linux is and still probably will be useability. In copying windows to try and get people to switch, linux has copied many of their huge useability mistakes. Then, to make matters worse they tweak them so that even much of the advantage of familiarity is lost. If linux truly wants to take over, the Gnome and KDE people need to get together and produce a robust, highly consistent GUI with a well documented interface standard(eg learn from apple). Then, do similar improvements in core consumer applications: the GIMP, openoffice, whatever film-gimp is now called, Nvu,and say XMMS or some other music player. Also, for source code crap, adopt a system like Gentoo where compilation is simplified and combine it with debian dependency handling and then give it a nice gui placed in a logical place(and call it system update). For binaries, use debian's method, once again with a good gui that conforms to the above mentioned standard interface paradigm. I also suggest they get a file system like Apple's HFS+, with its universal file locating ability and so on (this allows you to move a file but still have all applications know where it is).

Well, this was for something the people I was doing it for wanted the rights to. Otherwise that would be fine. Still, thanks for the link, I am sure that will be very usefull in the future.

I have a monitor with a 15 ms response time and it was fine. But you should test each monitor because the rating companies give their monitors doesn't necessarily reflect normal usage. As for contrast ratio, 350:1 is a good minimum. You can go as low as 300:1, but I would'n go lower. These days LCDs come in 450 and 500:1 models. I suggest getting one of those if you can. Also, make sure to look at screen clarity and the company's dead pixel policy.

I gave an answer, you just didn't read carefully. To break it down: Total freemarket capitalism = failure Total communism/socialism = failure Both failures occur because the differences between the haves and the have-nots becomes too extreme and volatile(either too big or too small or too random). The answer is a basic market system with progressive regulation to keep these extremes from occuring.

Thanks tux. Not quite what I really want but it did just fine in a pinch. Really I should have realized something and made my life easy but I was being a dipshit. Oh well, such is life.

Ok, the one problem I have with photoshop is that it doesn't provide a good way to test if a graphic I am making tiles. Is there a program anyone know of that does?

Well, if you didn't say free I would say photoshop under wine. As is, try GIMP for digital painting/design. Word processing will be easily handled by OpenOffice.

Recently in my home state in a near city, an event happened which touches on this topic. A gay man was followed by I think it was 6 men who shouted anti-homosexual phases and slurs, then eventually caught up and beat him. He had to go to the hospital with broken bones and I am sure quite a few bruises. What I would like to say is this: disliking a group of people because of some affiliation instead of how they treat others is unreasoning hate.If you have a problem with homosexuality, please look inside yourself and realize that this is what fills you. Find a way to put out that hate. Please.

There is a 20GB MP3 player from iAudio that might do it for you. It is nice and small as well.

Well my answer as a buddhist is that there is nothing wrong with it. So, I neither hate the act or the people, so long as the relationship between them is solid and wholesome and free from abuse. In fact, I would like to see greater acceptance, as that would I think lower the abuse levels in the gay culture as well as providing a more welcoming culture so that people being abused don't fear coming out in order to expose it.

What is often missed is the nature of the choice itself. If a person is poor, uneducated, etc, then they do not have much of a future in 'society'. On the other hand, becoming a drug dealer or a hired gun pays well AND gets them up higher on a social ladder, just not the 'standard' social ladder. It should be no surprise to people who believe in free markets and 'rational self interest' that these people choose these professions. They can also make the exact claim, "I am not doing anything wrong, these people CHOOSE to buy drugs from me. It is their problem". And they would be right, to the same extent that I think webguide is right.The problem, as I see it is that we seek to put the blame on *single* source. We want to pretend things are unrelated or not dependent or conditional on other things. But this is not the case. All things are conditional and shaped by other things, in this case society and the individual shape each other.So, yes, the individual is responsible for making that decision. But, society is responsible for making that decision possible/attractive.This extends to things like gambling and such. Casinos and even our culture right now(due to world series of poker and such) try very hard to make gambling seem fun, cool, and a good idea. In casinos, they do everything they can to get people in the doors and then find ways to keep them inside and spending money. They work VERY hard to feed the possibilities of addiction to gambling.And so on with alcohol. We have a culture that values drinking. I see beer ads on TV. I notice that at every party I go to, there is a TON of alcohol. Worse, many times people go just to get drunk, because that is the only way they know to 'chill out' or relax. They have not been taught any alternatives, and alcohol is tied to the joys of friendship and fun. Once again, the conditions for the start of abuse have been set, so it shouldn't be surprising when it eventually happens.So yes, People have a choice. On the other hand, so does everyone else when they allow that choice to be made. And a whole bunch of choices before that regarding setting up the conditions where the choice to drink or to gamble are made.

No, neither of those things work for movies. What you want is adobe premier. You can also supposedly use virtualDub. I am sure there is a free OSS thing for video out there as well. Search sourceforge.net

Actually, it wouldn't work particularly well. This is because it would have to be self sufficient in order to survive as a commune. This sort of behavior works sometimes, but it doesn't scale to everything. Just as Free Market stuff doesn't work well for some things(health care for example). A carefull blend that keeps society from falling into extremes, either of growth or of downturn, is the best. Survival of the fittest is what it most clearly is not. Social Darwinism is BS. Society works in a much more lamark fashion: the traits acquired in life by the father are passed down. What occurs without carefull regulation is the have's trampling on the have nots. Power begets power. Thus, no 'survival of the fittest' occurs because the 'fit' determine what is considered fitness. It becomes a rigged game. Keeping power differences to a moderate level keeps this sort of abuse from happening. Similarly, totally communistic/socialistic systems suffer from similar problems. The strong Subisidize the weak and more and more people fake being weak in order to get more for less, and eventually it all falls down. Thus, you must keep the differences between the have's and have nots to a moderate level. Enough that the have nots are forced to strive for betterness, but not so large that the have's can 'rig the game'.

Actually, OpenBSD is open source as well, just not GPL OSS. Also, while it has fewer developers than FreeBSD, it benefits from the work done on FreeBSD by using much of the same code. The OpenBSD team just tests and patches stuff most of the time to kill any bugs or potential security threats. They do of course also write their own code, but FreeBSD is rather secure as well, so there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Hell, doing so would be more likely to introduce security holes.

Everything is probability. Everything is psychology. That is why at casinos the sound of someone winning is really loud, while the sound of losing is silence. It makes it seem as if winning was constant when really the house is making a killing. The way to stop is to JUST STOP. Give up. There is no secret formula. If there was, someone would have found it years ago, and the rules changed to handle it. You may think you have found a secret, but you haven't. This is psychology again. The human mind strives to make connections between these things. It sees patterns where there are none sometimes. ESPECIALLY in random data, like games of chance. Simple rule for betting: IF you keep playing, you lose. The house WILL always win. Second rule: the only way to win at betting is to not play the house. Play other people and be much better than them. If you aren't much better than them, see the first rule. If you are only a little better the nature of probability and luck will eventually clean you out. Hell, even if you ARE much better than the others, this can still happen. Third rule: NEVER BET MORE THAN YOU CAN LOSE. Actually never bet more than half that amount, cause you are probably lying to yourself. If you can't hold yourself to that, then you shouldn't play. Find a way to stay away from gambling houses.

You misunderstand, I don't claim that people will not be on the bottom of the foodchain or anything of that sort. I am pointing out a difference in food chains, eg how low the bottom rung is and how much work and drive translate into being 'at the top'. The truth is once at the top the laws are such that they can stay there easily, as in, NO LONGER having drive and working and so on. Similarly, having an extreme difference between the top and bottom of society creates problems of its own. I am not saying there should not be a difference, simply not an extreme one. A middle way.

I use dreamweaver. Mainly just because the interface helps me manage sites and check whether or not code is working very quickly.

My one problem with opera is that it costs money unless you are willing to put up with the ads. Considering I left IE partly because of all the ads, and in light of the other free offerings, I don't see the point of getting opera.