Posts by brolin_1911a1

Linux Works and Many of Us Are Happy With What Works

I started using Ubuntu close to ten years ago and loved it. It worked, it was simple to install. And it didn't have the DRM management headaches with peripherals that MS Vista tried to impose. Then Canonical decided that Ubuntu was no longer "shiny" and they had to go to the Unity GUI to make my desktop monitor look like a fondleslab. I spent two weeks searching for a way to get around Unity and go back to something that worked and with which I was accustomed. And I found Linux Mint 14. I'm up to Mint 17 Cinnamon now on two desktops and a laptop and haven't booted into Windows in so long I'm not even sure I still have that option. Since Mint 17 is an LTS version, I don't expect to upgrade further for quite a few years. When friends ask about Linux, I either burn them a Linux Mint distro DVD or I point them to a linuxmint.com repository so there's no need for them to go searching.

As others have pointed out DDG respects my privacy while Google sells my search information -- haven't used Google for anything in at least two years. In short, a judgement based upon the number of Google searches for new Linux distros is going to be doomed to grossly underestimate the number of people migrating to Linux.

I'm rather more intrigued by the "How" rather than the "Why" or "What" of PirateBay's (probably temporary) removal. When I saw this article, I tried a "ping" of PirateBay unsuccessfully. My ISP's DNS reported PB's address as 194.71.107.15 but no packets were returned. Curious about where the link was broken, I tried a TraceRoute on PirateBay. TraceRoute correctly looked up 194.71.107.15, then returned the address of my modem/router, the address of my local ISP's local switch and then nothing beyond that.

I live in a semi-rural area and generally a traceroute to even my ISP's corporate webpage results in hops through a dozen or so nodes. For it to stop at the local telco switch connection would seem to indicate a net-wide banning of that IP address.

The Police Acted Appropriately

I am appalled at the anti-police, idiotic comments here by people who seem to feel that any action on the part of the police is automatically wrong and morally criminal. Even the commenter who quoted that the man "was acting aggressively" failed to mention that he was also "armed with an iron bar."

Do any of the outraged pacifists on here have any idea of the physical damage that a crazed psycho (he was naked and acting aggressively) can do with an iron truncheon? Unless those officers were wearing riot gear, at across-the-room distances said psycho was easily capable of killing or hospitalizing one or more of those officers within seconds or less.

They tried pepper spray;he was too whacked out to be affected. They tried verbal commands; they were ignored. The only options left involve physical force, i.e, truncheons, taser, or firearms. Use of a nightstick would almost guarantee one or more officers injured at best. Use of firearms would mean almost certainly killing him. The taser was the best option offering the best chance of everybody including the perpetrator leaving alive and unhurt. The fact that the wacko died simply means that even the best odds offer no guarantees but at least the good guys went home safe and alive that night.

In short, the police did what they had to do and doing that is what keeps idiots who criticize them from the safety of their homes alive to continue criticizing.

Deliberate Misrepresentation

Zoom in on that photo and you can see that's not a bottle of booze. Instead, it looks like a 1lb jug of smokeless propellant for reloading cartridges. There's a gun shop/sporting goods store in the background. Obviously, the guy has just purchased a rifle (bolt action with scope if you zoom in) and some reloading supplies and is now crossing the street to his car.

I live several states east and south of this Rapid City bloke but can assure you that he'd get as little attention were he doing the same in my own town. My town, approx. 10,000 in population, has eight gun shops with at least three of them selling handloading/reloading supplies like the powder he's carrying. When I first began teaching 4-H shooting sports nearly a decade ago, every one of the kids signing up, including the three eight-year old girls, already had their own rifles. Our local newspaper regularly publishes photos of young people with the deer and turkey that they've harvested along with the rifles or shotguns they used.

It's really hard to comprehend the tofu-eating please-keep-us-helpless mentality of you Brits.