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Ibiblio has torrents for a lot of their content. The seeds are some of the main servers and therefore are fast, plus the added client bandwidth probably helps a lot too.

One interesting conclusion from this study showed that even users with a high "Spyware IQ" have a nearly 100% chance of visiting a dangerous site during 30 days of typical online searching and browsing activity."

Since I'm running firefox on linux, then the chances of me visiting a site and not being infected are 100%. Anyone not using IE on windows with decent AV and maybe Ad-Aware installed should also come away uninfected.

So, the idea is not to try and guess whether the site might be safe or not, but to wear a fucking condom !

If all else fails, run firefox in DSL through QEMU.

Note to self, always check the links before submitting: Anyway here is the direct link to the image:http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/manet/m anet.monet-studio.jpg

Yeah, but Manet was influenced by the younger Monet and then began to paint in a more impressionist style. And Manet was only eight years older than Manet. Even so one could say Monet had "prior-art" for the impressionist style ;)

Manet even painted Monet. http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/manet/ from http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/manet/

Yeah, but Manet was influenced by the younger Monet and then began to paint in a more impressionist style. And Manet was only eight years older than Manet. Even so one could say Monet had "prior-art" for the impressionist style ;)

Manet even painted Monet. http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/manet/ from http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/manet/

The Grateful Dead also give you a unique variation of every song in a show, instead of LIP-SYNCING the lyrics, using a recorded track, or just playing through the motions.(ever try to find Madonna's/band on stage??? same for many other pop-singers==canned music is stale)

The Grateful Dead also strived for quality while keeping the prices down.
    In the mid-80s, they had the largest travelling speaker system (more speakers==less output per speaker with less distortion overall). They were also the highest grossing concert band by about double the nearest 2nd place (in 1990 they grossed around $19M while 2nd was 11M and 3rd 9M, I think Peter Gabriel).

At the same time, they FINALLY got only 1 song to near the top of the charts -- Touch of Grey.

Their act of letting people share music had the OPPOSITE EFFECT, and increased ticket sales, instead of tickets leading to albums.

Yes, this does require work and touring, but are the musicians just in it for the money, or do they like their music at all???

Grateful Dead tickets are still around $40-60, and they help keep them low and keep scalpers from bumping prices by selling a good portion directly to fans through regulated (4 max/per address) advance mail-order. Gov't Mule and others are following both this ticket model and many band use the music-sharing model. Is Warren Haynes suffering?? (A: NO.)

You can either keep happy loyal customers, or reluctant trapped customers, but happy works better. The trapped customers stop buying and settle for free/radio/P2P etc.

William /TuneTree
http://www.ibiblio.org/infoport/tunetree

Go install MEPIS then come back and tell me that install is "too hard" (download)
Now this is a newbie oriented distro, and we are all quite friendly to them in the IRC channel and the forums

http://www.ibiblio.org/rcip//vb.html#pagebegin

For a non-trivial application, it is very often impossible to create a configuration GUI that is as clear, capable, and useable as the text config file it is meant to replace/hide.

Bullshit. All you're doing is mapping screens to a data structure, same as any gui app. The complexity of the gui will stem from how complex and machine-parsable the config file is. Thing is, writing a 100% complete GUI is just time consuming as hell compared to adding an option to a config file. This is why GUIs that only cover 75% are so common. That, and engineers generally suck at gui design.

The only config file that can't have a gui is sendmail.cf, because sendmail.cf looks like an ancient Babylonian dialect of perl encoded in utf32 viewed with cat. The gui would end up looking like a Hieronymus Bosch triptych.

On a side note, it has been my experience that people who rely on GUIs to configure non-trivial apps never seem to have a good idea what's actually going on. They simply try something and if that doesn't work, they try something else. People who've actually invested the effort to learn how to modify the config file generally know exactly what change is required to get the desired change in behavior.

GUIs lower the bar because being easier and, ideally, quicker than modifying a config file are their raison d'être. Your point is a tautology: "The people who know how to configure the app are better than the people who do not". Thank you, Socrates, for pointing that one out. Guess what! The people who don't know what they are doing gravitate towards the gui because less prequisite knowledge is required to get things going. The people who do know what they are doing can use either the config file or the gui, and it is just a matter of preference at that point.

Me? I gravitate towards the config files due to ssh being a fantastic low-calorie way to get at a remote server.

Press Release: ibiblio proposes BLiNG tag to W3C
http://ibiblio.org/

You can get around this problem by running the traffic conditioner script from the Routing-Howto cookbook section. Even with sacrificing a bit of download speed I've been using it with great success for the last year or so (upstream bandwidth never fails to max out even if I'm downloading at 350KBytes/sec.)

The Ultimate Traffic Conditioner: Low Latency, Fast Up & Downloads

or use the WonderShaper script, probably a lot easier than wading through the docs. Although I haven't used this...

Land area of texas 261,914 sq miles
http://www.netstate.com/states/tables/st_size.htm
Population of the earth 6601891967
http://www.ibiblio.org/lunarbin/worldpop

math?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=lang_en&q=26 1%2C914+sq+miles+%2F+6601891967+

102.751476 m2

Yep, you can build a house for everyone in that 10 meters on a side parcel.
Your can have the top L5 section
http://paces.geo.utep.edu/seeley/proterozoic_seque nce8.jpg

enjoy!

and the People http://www.ibiblio.org/lunarbin/worldpop we find that it's .02 km sq per person.

and thats weird...

I think it's worthwhile to note that the movement of people through air travel in the US would be a signifigant vector for the spread of an infectious disease considering that nearly 800 million people are expected to move through the US by air in 2007

That's 12% of the population of the planet

An ebook should be universally readable. I want to be able to see it on my pda, website, linux, windows, mac osx. Only a universal, non-proprietary, open standards, DRM-free format allows all this. Namely plain text, OpenDocument, and ACID2-conformant HTML. I think for-profit books will never quite fit into the world of computers because of this. They will perpetually stumble over how to limit access, as there is no such system possible that cannot be circumvented (with enough effort).

Project Gutenburg has it right. They are the only true ebooks in my mind. All their books are plain text files. You can download a DVD with 10,000 public domain books from them, and it all fits on a DVD!

ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/1/0/8/0 /10802

If they need toys why don't they go play corewar or life? Or just read some jargon?

It's not like there's a lack of toys out there if you're willing to look a little... Of course, getting that initial spark going can be a little more difficult.

Or maybe they're somewhat "sensitive" about the normal lack of hair and have taken action to alleviate the situation.

Thank god that the members of the open source community are all highly intellectual and outwit all the MS employees. Here's an example for the never-ending cleverness of OSS enthusiasts:

"On
that hopefully not too far distant day that I piss on Microsoft's
grave, I sincerely hope none of it will splash on you." (Eric S. Raymond)

I would recommend How to Think Like a Computer Scientist: Learning with Python.

It's a textbook that until last year was used for the Intro to Comp Sci class at my university. They switched to a different textbook because this one didn't come with enough prewritten homework assignments for them, but I'm sure it'll be perfectly fine for you. You can probably skip Chapter 1, it's mostly terminology.

Someday we will have a meltdown for which the "Progressives" shall be wholly responsible. Sometimes their devolutionary ideas of society are so outrageous. We will call it the "Postmodernists Subjectively Take All Act". Any conscious person who votes against this should go to prison.
Meanwhile, in his grave, Stalin enjoys a healthy chuckle.

Being that Linux is open source and this allows anyone to modify it to run on most any hardware..... Even Linus Himself created an Embedded Linux while working for Transmeta called Modori - http://midori.sourceforge.net/ ... and there is Damn Small Linux - http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ ....and BasLinux (Basic Linux)
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/baslinux/ (running it on a camera????)

So what is MS really saying?

Its called Libel. And its really more against the programmers than it is against any F/OSS project(s).
It is as well very arrogant, as it insinuates that only Microsoft or proprietary works developers are capable of programming.

Microsoft has been doing this illegal act for quite some time. When is it time to have a class action lawsuite against the jackass that coined the phrase "software pirates" when he called hobbist such, when these hobbist first discovered they can themselves create and fix software?

Need Legal representation for such a case? Where is the EFF? What about funding? Considering who would lose the case and pay the bill, don't we know that teh initial money can be raised (i.e. firefox raising of funds for advertising...)

So why is MS being allowed to continue this falseness, this libel it promotes???

Or Doesn't teh F/OSS communiyty understand that teh more people using F/OSS the more backing it will receive for development and hardware support....

No way! The modern workplace is a sensitized, racially/sexually level playing space for us all to explore our professional choices.
Let's have no sour grapes from displaced WASPs here. It's all about Liberalism and Progress. Old-school fascists need not apply.
By the way, I totally agree with you, and believe nothing of what I have just said.
It's a collision between post-modern nihilism and existentialist schizophrenia.
Stalin's victory is complete. Props to ESR for details.

The technology is already out there, but whats more important for the implementation of clean water and energy is cost. There are many organizations I know of in this area ("Engineers Without Borders, Nourish International, etc) which engage in these types of prjects around the world and the bottom line is always cost. Perhaps now that more individuals and corporations are working towards simplifying and mass-producing these technologies, the price barrier will shring significantly, allowing the afore-mentioned organizations as well as governments of developing nations to make a significantly more tangible impact on what is a significant and immediate health problem facing hundreds of millions of people around the world.

http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/Dr-Fun/df200601/df2006 0116.jpg

STUNTS was a great driving game way back in the day... you could even create your own courses!

http://www.ibiblio.org/GameBytes/issue20/misc/stun ts.html

God is actually Charles Darwin according to this funny Dr. Fun cartoon. :D

It's tough, isn't it? I'd suggest you find a different career path, to be honest; perhaps you might try steel driving?

Or metalab. Or sunsite, if you remember those names and haven't kept up with the changes. (I liked the metalab name best of the three...)

Anyway, these guys have been around and hosting things like this for at least 10 years. Talk to them. You may need to host bug tracking and forums at a different site, but they can definitely handle a distro-sized download. Ask them about the stuff you want; I think they'll consider making pretty much any open tool available for you.

This cartoon illustrates what I was trying to say perfectly:

http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/Dr-Fun/df200601/df2006 0116.jpg

Marc Andreesen and Eric Bina wrote NCSA's Mosaic and went on to start Netscape Communications Corp. Please stop the FUD and read up.

Funny you should ask this. Sagan said it in Cosmos, I just read that portion last night. From a quick Google search:
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/ParticleAndN uclear/photon_mass.html
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answer s/960731.html
http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae180 .cfm
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/resources/basics/w onderquest/photonmass.htm
http://www.ibiblio.org/lunar/school/library/massph ot.html

Most texts I've read state simply that photons have no mass. Those that disucss the topic in depth usually indicate that most phycisists believe that photons do not have mass. Just because someone didn't have the same schooling/texts as you does NOT make them ignorant.

Oh, and for what it's worth, GWB was educated by Yale and Harvard. Too bad he didn't have the benefit of a quality education like one might receive in Texas.

I assume to be legal these days a Mix Artist needs a Microsoft sized legal team. I mean this is what it would be like for a painter if all the colors were copyrighted by different companies.
Imagine trying to secure the rights to display a Renoir!!

Or a musician who uses samples. Would it be legal today for the Art of Noise to produce their music? IANAL

Of python specific literature, thinkcspy is probably the best suited for absolute beginner who hasn't ever written a line of code in any language.

Python would be fantastic for you.

1.) Python's pre-cursor was ABC, a language for teaching kids to program.
2.) Guido specifically targets Python this way as a general purpose language for everybody.
(http://www.python.org/doc/essays/cp4e.html)

This means Python devs debate a lot before adding any new feature that may not be completly consistant with the whole design of the language.

I learned Python quite late and would not speak from experience about use as a first language but you may try these tutorials and see if you find them friendly.

http://www.ibiblio.org/obp/thinkCSpy/
(Quite Basic, despite that name, it is not *academic*)

http://www.byteofpython.info/
(Another well written one)

My first language was C, learned in a first year university introductory programming course, but when friends have asked me about learning programming I have recommended they start with python and the book How to Think Like a Computer Scientist: Learning with Python http://www.ibiblio.org/obp/thinkCSpy/. Its available free online. This is a good introductory book with no expectation of prior experience that teaches the ideas behind programming, not just the syntax of the language.

Though the term "information overload" was coined, I believe, by Jan Noyes in her book, User Centred Design, this problem has been recognised for many years, most relevantly by Vannevar Bush in his essay 'As We May Think'.

A couple of posters have already mentioned that they use the Internet as an aid to long term memory (btw - short term memory is different to what many people think - it only last a few seconds. Problems recalling information (or not remembering something you dealt with in great detail a while ago is a problem of long term memory [decoding error]). This does result in problems: people (myself included) often try to solve the same thing twice before realising that they've already done it; and other relevant documents may be couched in unfamiliar terms but are not retrieved from search engines because the wrong phrases are used (the problem of 'synonymy' seen in search engines).

What people tend to do instead of committing facts to memory for rapid recall is that people use computers and information sources as artifacts to help them find things at a later date. The cognitive strategies used by people differ and do change when the information environment is more amenable. There's stuff about information foraging by Pirolli and Card at Xerox Parc for those who are interested.

Molly Ivans seems to think democracy died in Texas, in 2002. There are signs it died ealier.

...or running Knoppix in Windows via QEMU? Or quick Damn Small Linux in similar fashion?

What makes this newsworthy today? The bizarre "run it as a screensaver" factor? What's the point?

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=21552&cid=2282 987

"I know it's just the INTP in me talking, but I have to wonder what kind of civil rights atrocities we're going to be looking at in the days and weeks to come.

"If you thought the FBI wiretapping Little Nicky Scarfo on only a search warrant was horrifying, consider the bully stick that will be bandied about now. Encryption is bad. Terrorists using encryption got past all our intelligence. Outlaw encryption now! If we didn't have to go through all that judicial rigamarole to keep an eye on terrorists, we would have done better. We promise we won't wiretap anyone without a magistrate's approval who doesn't really, really, REALLY deserve it.

"As shocking and horrifying as what happened today is, and as unbelievable that the intelligence community knew nothing about it (or did they?), I am scared shitless about what we have ahead of us.
--
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake"

Perhaps it's time for a more realistic superhero:

http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/Dr-Fun/df200311/df2003 1114.jpg

But various studies[1] like this one[2] have indicated that speed limits have little effect on the frequency or number of accidents. In fact, in some cases, raising the speed limit actually lessens the risk of accidents.

Yes, speed is a contributing factor to the severity of the accident, but not to whether or not the accident actually occurs. Look at the Autobahn in Germany. Accidents are not nearly as common as they are on American freeways (I don't know anything about Canadian freeways and their accident rates), yet the speeds tend to be substantially higher.

Personally, I think the speed limits are mostly for police to engage in revenue collection. Yes, keeping speeds around 55-60mph usually results in fuel savings for most vehicles, but people should be free to move at any safe rate of speed, within appropriate limits for that particular roadway (and most people naturally drive at a safe speed for the road, even if it is higher than the posted limit), and have that choice be their own. If I choose to drive at 55 to save fuel, you'll find me in the slow lane with the semi trucks. If I choose to drive 85 because I'm late for an appointment, I'll be in the fast lane with other similarly-rapid vehicles.

I would posit that if one were to remove all speed limit signs, except for those around inherently dangerous sections of roadway (i.e. an upcoming sharp turn that requires a lower rate of speed), most people would drive slightly faster (maybe 70-80mph) than they do presently, but would still drive in a safe manner. I doubt that many would suddenly start going 140mph just because there's no signs.

[1] http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/p-sl.html
[2] http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irrel.html

But various studies[1] like this one[2] have indicated that speed limits have little effect on the frequency or number of accidents. In fact, in some cases, raising the speed limit actually lessens the risk of accidents.

Yes, speed is a contributing factor to the severity of the accident, but not to whether or not the accident actually occurs. Look at the Autobahn in Germany. Accidents are not nearly as common as they are on American freeways (I don't know anything about Canadian freeways and their accident rates), yet the speeds tend to be substantially higher.

Personally, I think the speed limits are mostly for police to engage in revenue collection. Yes, keeping speeds around 55-60mph usually results in fuel savings for most vehicles, but people should be free to move at any safe rate of speed, within appropriate limits for that particular roadway (and most people naturally drive at a safe speed for the road, even if it is higher than the posted limit), and have that choice be their own. If I choose to drive at 55 to save fuel, you'll find me in the slow lane with the semi trucks. If I choose to drive 85 because I'm late for an appointment, I'll be in the fast lane with other similarly-rapid vehicles.

I would posit that if one were to remove all speed limit signs, except for those around inherently dangerous sections of roadway (i.e. an upcoming sharp turn that requires a lower rate of speed), most people would drive slightly faster (maybe 70-80mph) than they do presently, but would still drive in a safe manner. I doubt that many would suddenly start going 140mph just because there's no signs.

[1] http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/p-sl.html
[2] http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irrel.html

I'm rather happy to see that Micro$oft is selling more software than (what I'm assuming to mean) Linux developers. Because there are still more Linux servers in use than Windows, that can only mean that people are downloading the bloody operating system for free. Not like there's any shortage of sites...

Note the difference between selling (distributing in exchange for a fee) and using (making it do useful work).

Yay, misleading statistics!!

Most BIOSes I have had in the past few years let you flash the bios from windows. For linux boxen, I just make a bootable freedos cd.

Why The Game of Life of course!

Video games will be so old by then. They probably be blowing bubbles. (Which will have gotten a bit more complex by then.)

And thanks in return for your link to http://www.ibiblio.org/lunarbin/worldpop
I be liking it.

"I don't like being told by experts in their choosen feild that I have other things I need to panic over." is hard not to sympathize with. Especially as we both know this issue will be surrounded by talking heads and mondo media hype. Experts in their chosen fields is all we've got, unless you happen to be an expert in the field yourself, and know exactly how to think about problems of this sort. I'm certainly not.

The scary bit, to me, is that the cluefull could be overruled by political considerations. As usual. So I sort of go off on anything that might promote bad numbers, on the theory that good numbers will be hard enough to come by, and will be important.

I'm probably just obsessing.

You're choosing an arbitrary number, totally plucked from the air, and developing odds from there. Unless you can give sources, anyway.

I could have sworn you were going to tell us it reminded you of this.

They've already got your PWI flame articles from long ago on Usenet.