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... I understand the pressures placed upon us to help our family and friends to be able to make use of the technical gadgets around us. It is impossible to educate them all to make use of alternatives. In my work I have to support the very things I am ranting against. Just as you must deal with the realities of your respective situation. It is just that I personally will not deal with these organizations. If someone asks me to help set up their apple I will do it but if they ask me to help them purchase one I will not assist. But this is a personal stand and as such it is just stubbornness since it has really very little effect on the situation. My activities within FSF and EFF are more meaningful. But I have become used to being the gadfly that refuses to see the emperors clothes but rather keep my eye on his knife. I am stuck in a windowless office. My door was the only one on the sixth, fifth and fourth floors of XXXXX not to get a new plac and paint job because I refused to sign on to the Chairman's desire to convert the student labs to Apples. They went ahead and did it any way. Now those sections of the labs are totally unusable since there is no way to interface the macs to the instruments they bought and the computational software they purchased will not run on macs. We spend more money on MS Office then we spend on the hardware I install. Yet we could just as easily run on Open Office. I have been called an obstructionist, yet I end up being the one to make things work. I have been called an ideologue, yet I am the one that is constantly looking for better ways of getting things done regardless of the manufacturer. I live in a world where brand names mean more then proven specifications. Where technical decisions are made by people that have absolutely no ability to differentiate between the items under consideration.

I met a doctor the other day when I went in to have a nerve conduction test done. I had a book with me called "Advanced Linux Programming", when he saw it he went "Wow you know Linux" I replied yes and he told me that he had been working in Africa and he found that the hospital's administrator there banned the use of proprietary systems because he felt that it was a means of denying the poor information. He ended up learning Linux and GNU and had the whole hospital computerized within a year. Those working with him were glad to have the documentation available so that they could learn how to continue his work. When he returned here he was amazed at how impossible it was to introduce anything but the status quo. He commented how the mentality here was totally oriented toward buying things instead of making and learning how to use things. Unless it had a price tag on it he could not persuade anyone to use it. Unless it had a trade name on it it was totally disregarded. I told him about my situation and how XXXX and I had installed fifteen computers in one of the labs and how they looked better and were much better then the purchased systems around them and the only comment we got was, "How come there is no name on the cases." Well we stuck Debian emblems on them and they suddenly were OK with the units, until one of them went and tried to buy a "Debian machine" because he liked the unit so much at work and found out that there was no such thing. At that point he wanted us to remove all the "Debian machines" and replace them with "legitimate computers". It is only with the help of the theoretical chemists, who all run Unix machines of one sort or another that we were able to keep the "Debian machines" in place.

I have paid a price for maintaining my integrity but it is has been truly worth it. It reminds me of a seen in "Doctor Zhivago" where a man on a train holds up his shackled hands and declares that he is the only free man on that train. I may not live to see it but meeting that doctor makes me feel that there are people in this world that will resist the forces trying to shackle all of us and hopefully they will prevail. That is if we do not all end up dying because of the stupidity of the west.

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Originally posted by SignyM

I have paid a price for maintaining my integrity but it is has been truly worth it. It reminds me of a scene in "Doctor Zhivago" where a man on a train holds up his shackled hands and declares that he is the only free man on that train. I may not live to see it but meeting that doctor makes me feel that there are people in this world that will resist the forces trying to shackle all of us and hopefully they will prevail. That is if we do not all end up dying because of the stupidity of the west.

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Changed seen to scene in quote. :)

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Originally posted by SignyM:
... This follows a discussion about Apple and the (i)Pod People (Invasion of the Body Snatchers), apropos Apple's refusal to support non-Apple and free content, it's insistence on squeezing every last ounce out of DRM (which... among other things.. forbids you to read aloud to your friends!), and its ability to retroactively control/ delete content and applications which you have already purchased. The upshot was that we willingly... happily, even... sacrifice choice, free speech and independence for convenience.

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I applaud Apple's refusal to carry anyone's crap software - shouldn't this be a story about how a large-ish corporation isn't being greedy and just going for sales?

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
I can see both sides of the argument, really.

A computer or other electronic device that has been specifically assembled with parts from the same manufacturer, by that same manufacturer, then the compatibility can theoretically be more efficient.

On the other hand, some people out there like to build top of the line electronic computers from parts based on specifications and performance stats. The computer bursting into flames is just something to BRAG about.

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Originally posted by Niki2:
I agree with what most have said about Apple

Just wanted to add:

There are more and more of us who reuse those little plastic bags or recycle them, Little, my family among them. We reuse them until they're too dirty or torn to do so, then recycle them.

Takes time for these things to sink in; remember that cloth grocery bags are still pretty new in themselves.

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Mine wind up full of dogshit




Either you Are with the terrorists, or ... you Are with the terrorists

Life is like a jar of Jalapeño peppers.
What you do today, might Burn Your Ass Tomorrow"