Slashdot Mirror

The writer of a LOT of truly superb Linux Weekly News articles on how the kernel works is Valerie Henson. Valerie works at Intel. This means that there's a 10% chance a corporation doing heavy, front-line R&D in Linux will have a chance to hire a brilliant mind. (Unfortunately, the place I work is two states away, so there's no hope here.)

Then we become him/her.

>>The health insurance industry is a parasite the purpose of which is to interfere with your patient-doctor relationship and to deny your treatment.

>Oh yes, no doubt that millions of people invest their money in companies that are formed specifically to deny people health care treatments.

"Obscure" can mean "not well known". It can also mean "cryptically written". There is an obscure book called Have Fun At Work. It's about learning how to use complex systems by shedding your dysfunctional beliefs about them. Honest, I'm going somewhere with this.

"The Purpose of a System Is What It Does" ("POSIWID") is the first amoung the author's insights. For example, stop driving yourself crazy by thinking the government is here to protect national security. Regard it as a machine for sending money to contractors in the districts of key Congressmen and you can begin to get things accomplished, for example by siting $VITAL_FACILITY in $HOME_STATE_OF_APPROPRIATIONS_COMMITTEE_CHAIRMAN. That's why we have so many NASA centers: Kennedy and Johnson knew the way to land on the Moon was to put jobs in all the right districts.

Fast forward to today. What's the purpose of health insurance companies? On paper it's to collect premiums and rationally allocate them to health care while paying the employees and investors. But what do they *do*?

I'm still waiting for the book before Genesis on the origin of God, It should make quite the prequel.

http://infohost.nmt.edu/~mlindsey/asimov/question. htm (the story)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Question (about the story)

I think the problem was the school you attended. I also got a BS in CS (2002). My experience was very different to say the least. The CS degree program at my school New Mexico Tech wasn't perfect but it sure prepared me better then that. I was required to take several general programming classes and many more specialized classes (data structures, software design, computer architecture, compiler writing, networking/security, databases, etc). All of which required significant to insane amounts of programming/design. My largest CS class was 45 people, my smallest was 7. Just doing the class work produced a software engineer of decent caliber, a extra work on your part would make a excellent one. I never worried about business or management skills, I wanted to be a software engineer.

I guess the purpose of the rambling post is to point out that experiences vary and you only get out what you put into it. If you really work at it you will excel, as apposed to doing the minimum to graduate with a C+ GPA.

On a side note, what managers want and what they can get are usually two different things. Managers would love to hire software engineers that are C/C++/C#/Java/.Net/CORBA/... experts, used to programming under ISO and CMMI level 5, invented the TCP/IP stack, and also independently wealthy and willing to work for Dr. Pepper. These kind of people are hard to find, they will have to stick with us entry level types who are will to learn.

~nate

My issue is less with the colour scheme and more with news posts like this one. This is basically implying all women are stupid. If your teenage sister writes like this post, then slashdot is basically implying that all women have the mentality of a teenage girl.

I think this extract from "How to encourage more women in Linux" explains it better than I can:

Sexist jokes are the number one way to drive women out of any group, and they are more common than many people realize. I have more than once heard a man say that he doesn't make that kind of joke, and then hours or minutes later, hear the same person make a joke about pregnant women or PMS. Sometime he just doesn't realize that he made a sexist joke, for example, "blonde jokes" are actually "dumb women" jokes. Sometimes he tells me that it's okay to make a sexist joke if it's true, or it's funny (funny to whom?). What some people fail to realize is that jokes about gender of any sort almost always make fun of women, and will make most women angry, regardless of the context. It doesn't help to first make a sexist joke about men and then one about women.

Taco says that 98.3% of slashdot readers are men. Assuming that's a real statistic, I bet by tomorrow that figure will be even higher. I'd like to see read what some real female slashdot users actually think of this year's april fools joke.

My mug is Stainless steel why bother with ceramic. I can drop it from anywhere. And if I feel ambitious I can beat people with it. It can also break ceramic cups. Yes, I know it a ceramic cup contest but, why bother with ceramic.
I thought that undergraduate students at this "University" would be working on more meaningfull experiments.
Seems like this experiment belongs in High School. Reminds me of the high school egg drop contest.
First place was multiple ceramic cups with a very thick base.
Diffrent cups were dropped by each member until they broke. Each member had one drop.
I think that is called blind luck. And in a scientific comunity this test can not be reproduced.
Second place was a crumple zone thing.
Sure works well but, it is not practical and adds at least 50% if not more material.
Any forward thinking here? I don't think so.

First place:
http://news.umr.edu/news/2006/mugdrop06.html
second place:
http://infohost.nmt.edu/mainpage/news/2006/15feb01 .html

If you look at the press release from Tech, and not the USA Today article, they never mention university, so your rant is a bit off base.

Oh, and BTW, I went to Tech, too. I still like to call it School of Mines, though, as it was one of the land grant colleges from back in the 1890's. Freshmen retention has always been a big issue for Tech because most classes were decreasing by 30-40% between their freshmen and sophmore year. In my time there, they were fine with that decrease if it was due to students being unable to maintain the required course load, but they were doing studies to make sure it wasn't due to other problems.

i recently went through this drill in searching for my first job after graduate school. i did an extensive amount of research in the process, based on which i can state the following (general--YMMV) observations:

a) average pay for a person with given qualifications can vary widely (>20%), even within a given industry.

b) average pay can, and does, vary widely between industries (e.g. aerospace vs. electrical engineering).

c) despite how they may act upon initial contact, HR people are not your friends. their job is to make you feel like they're your buddy, and to create the appearance of "it's you and me against The Man," where "The Man" is the company in question, early on in the negotiation process.

d) after getting the go-ahead from the hiring manager, HR's job is to get you on board for the lowest possible amount of money. if you think about it, doing things significantly differently would be financially irresponsible from the company's standpoint in most cases.

e) do your homework. that way you can counter glib and/or arbitrary assertions from the HR person about salary with tangible facts. even then they will likely not concede an inch verbally, but it does make a difference.

f) in case it is not clear from points b) through e) above, HR people are weasels. i was incredibly lucky to receive seven offers from seven interviews. with one small exception, this was the case in all of them.

g) whoever names a number first during the negotiation process generally loses.

although the title makes it sound very much like a huckster's manual, jack chapman's book is actually pretty decent and worth a look. some of its advice may be inapplicable or unworkable for you, but it's a good place to start. you can find it at most big bookstores for about $10. (no, i have no affiliation whatsoever with him.)

some universities' career offices publish historical starting salaries for their graduates online. if this isn't your first job, these numbers may not be directly relevant to you, but it's another piece of information. stanford MIT.

other salary links: the wall street journal published two surveys in the november 5, 2004 issue, one showing average salary by location, another by degree/education, for computer engineers. my two links are both dead, but if you have access to a library or a subscription to the WSJ archives, those are worth a look.

cost-of-living calculators one, two, three, four, five. that last one is a general link to the ACCRA index. it is not published for free on the web AFAIK, but if you google around you may find snapshots posted in various places.)

finally, general salary negotiation advice links: one, two, three.

be prepared, and good luck! /CF

Introduction
The recent discovery of coal (black, fossilized plant remains) in a number of places offers an interesting alternative to the production of power from fission. Some of the places where coal has been found show indeed signs of previous exploitation by prehistoric men, who, however, probably used it for jewels and to blacken their faces at religious ceremonies.

The power potentials depend on the fact that coal can be readily oxidized, with the production of a high temperature and an energy of about 0.0000001 megawatt days per gram. That is, of course, very little, but large amounts of coal (perhaps millions of tons) appear to be available.

The chief advantage is that the critical amount is very much smaller for coal than for any fissile material. Fission plants become, as is well known, uneconomical below 50 megawatts, and a coal-driven plant may be competitive for small communities (such as small islands) with small power requirements.

Design of a Coal Reactor
The main problem is to achieve free, yet controlled, access of oxygen to the fuel elements. The kinetics of the coal-oxygen reaction are much more complicated than fission kinetics, and not yet completely understood. A differential equation which approximates the behaviour of the reaction has been set up, but its solution is possible only in the simplest cases. It is therefore proposed to make the reaction vessel in the form of a cylinder, with perforated walls to allow the combustion gases to escape. A concentric inner cylinder, also perforated, serves to introduce the oxygen while the fuel elements are placed between the two cylinders. The necessary presence of end plates poses a difficult but not insoluble mathematical problem.

Fuel Elements
It is likely that these will be easier to manufacture than in the case of fission reactors. Canning is unnecessary and indeed undesirable since it would make it impossible for the oxygen to gain access to the fuel. Various lattices have been calculated and it appears that the simplest of all, a close packing of equal spheres, is likely to be satisfactory. Computations are in progress to determine the optimum size of the spheres and the required tolerances. Coal is soft and easy to machine, so the manufacture of the spheres should present no major problem.

Oxydant
Pure oxygen is of course ideal but costly; it is therefore proposed to use air in the first place. However, it must be remembered that air contains 78% nitrogen. If even a fraction of that combined with the carbon of the coal to form the highly-toxic gas cyanogen, this would constitute a grave health hazard (see below).

Operation and Control
To start the reaction one requires a fairly high temperature of about 988oC. This is most conveniently achieved by passing an electrical current between the inner and outer cylinder (the end plates being made of insulating ceramic). A current of several thousand amps. is needed., at some thirty volts, and the required large storage battery will add substantially to the cost of the installation.

There is the possibility of starting the reaction by some auxiliary self-starting reaction, such as that between phosphine and hydrogen peroxide. This is being looked into. Once the reaction is started its rate can be controlled by adjusting the rate at which oxygen is admitted. This is almost as simple as the use of control rods in a conventional fission reactor.

Corrosion
The walls of the reactor must withstand a temperature of well over a 1000oF in the presence of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon monoxide and dioxide, as well as

• Deposition
• Lithofication
• Uplift
• Erosion
• Deposition (again)
• Lithofication (again)
• Uplift (again)
• Etc.

Or why not do the same with evolution? So why do you answer a question with a question? By doing so you dodge the question of why not prove something before believing in it. Because if you do it backwards you will end up believing whatever you cultural heritage suggests.

As far as your question goes - Ues starting by questioning evolution or old earth assumptiong is recommended. And yes, there is a preponderance of evidence to support evolution and old earth. Again, as in angular unconformities, I prefer the simple examples as evidence versus detailed technical arguements. For example, any physical geologic separation of life forms such as a continent, island or mountain range are attendent with variations of life forms and formation of related species. Look at Madagascar, Australia, Gelapagos islands, or Sierra Nevada mountains. Predicted and actually required by evolution but not predicted or even suggested by creationism.

Doctor Hovind has not made _any_ contributions to science or geology. He has no formation training in science. If Hovind has been dishonest in his credentials, question everything he has to say. Beware of the individual who is "dishonest for god".

Unconformities do not typically involve bending of rock. Which makes it more difficult to deal with on a short time frame. Many unconformities, such as ones at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, do not have significant bending - so to have them tilted as "soft muds" with no distortions would be improbable if not impossible. To have large sections of the earth move in parallel requires lithification or solidification before tilting and uplift and erosion. A few nice examples:

Example 1 Example 2 Example 3 Example 4

BTW bending of solid rock is not difficult at high hydrostatic pressures and temperatures.

Again, I haven't read a lot of actual science studies on geology I don't think you necessarily need to. You need a little scepticism, discernment and common sense to appreciate angular unconformities and other geological structures. For example, in this photo photo which deposition layer represents the flood. These are gravel layers separted by lava flows. Presumptions are not required to understand the earth is old and tortured.

BTW you last arguemenst sounds a lot like relativism. Truth does not care about your relative view point.

I happen to have the good fortune to work on The Magdalena Ridge Observatory Interferometer. We're beginning construction very soon, and it is the successor to the COAST telescope in Cambridge.

The advantage of interferometers is that we can have the effective aperture of 400m (so obtaining high angular resolution) without the problem of building and maintaining a distortion-free enormous mirror. Of course, we don't get the sensitivity, but we do get the resolution.

Incidentally, COAST (Cambridge Optical Aperture Synthesis Telsecope), which was built in the late '80s has a better angular resolution than Hubble (although we do have a lot of atmosphere in the way!), and has managed to sucessfully image detail on the surface of stars.

After browsing through, I spotted some names that were familiar. Yet another fine literary work with a New Mexico Tech grad co-author. After Dan McKay's award earlier this year, it's pretty clear the school is on a roll.
Put Dan's work into this format... now that would be cool.

link
another link

This is called compare-by-hash. There is a great paper by Val Hensen http://infohost.nmt.edu/~val/review/hash.html on the subject

Maybe, just maybe some standards will evolve on how to properly design, write and test software prior to releasing it to the public

It's called cleanroom programming (it's also known as "zero defect" see my school's cs427 about half way down the page)

Evidence: Average salary of BS in CS from NMT $70,750 Source, versus $38,000 for LSU Source

This obvious is affected by location, parterships the school has, connections professors have, quality of program, reputation, etc..(doesnt really matter what affects it, this is the bottom line) My advice to you find the school that has the highest rate of successful placement of CS majors and the highest average salary and go to either one or the one if they happen to match and I expect they will.. MIT anyone?

You will never reach light speed, but you can still outrun light, as long as you start accelerating at more than a distance of c^2/A away from the light source, where A is your proper acceleration and c is the speed of light (assuming constant proper acceleration). Consider this spacetime diagram; any light emitted beyond the indicated Rindler "event horizon" (blue 45-degree line) will never intersect the worldline of the accelerated observer (red hyperbola).

AT LEAST ITS NOT A MINING SCHOOL LOL

Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

Linux kernel hacker Val Henson had LASIK last year and he writes about it (including lots of recent research) online.

This course is interesting in that it was a bit like the "civics" course in Heinlein's "Starship Troopers"; you don't get a grade for it (it's pass/fail), and it's required, but it's mostly discussion and reading.

http://www.nmt.edu/~kscott/video/

Site response is already slow here...

Mirror from 13:15 GMT -7

Antartica may have more to offer than the Artic, an equally inhospitable place. We're not in Antartica because we've signed treaties saying we'll leave it alone. Mount Erebus, a volcano in Antartica, is the only place I know of where you can breathe fumes that contain gold.

or did you write this?

apt-get install cinepaint dv-utils kino transcode vcr

Cinelerra
Video Capture and Editing under Linux
Consumer Video Editing in Linux
Linux Tutorial: Video, DVD, TV and Multimedia

Now let's all repeat after me...
Google is my friend.

Seriously, are you people just to lazy to type 3 frickin words into Google?

Surak wrote:

'Almost certainly'? I love how astrophysists base their hypotheses on theories that are so far from being conclusively proven that it's ridiculous.

Such is science, all science.

There is no such animal in science as a theory that has been "conclusively proven". You want conclusive proofs, guarantees of truth and falsehood, go to mathematics (and steer clear of fundamental Set Theory while you're there)

First off, how do we know that the Universe is 13 billion years (or whatever?) We don't.

You're right, we don't. What we have is some evidence that the universe is 13-14 billion years old, and some evidence that it's older (and some that it's younger). The "true" age will

The scientific method, honest science, doesn't strive for "truth", it strives for a framework of prediction that becomes more and more accurate and useful as scientists work on them. For example, Newton's theory of accelleration (F=ma) has been disproven, we know it's incorrect, but we still find use in it; Einstein's accelleration theories is more precise, particularly at high speeds and near dense objects. As far as I know, Einstein's theories haven't been disproven, but I'd bet they will be before the end of this century.

If the Universe's existence *is* finite, what was there before the Universe? How did the Universe form? "Big bang"? And this happened how? Remember, there was no Universe, so there was nothing to make a big bang!

There are many ideas about this (what, you thought cosmologists forgot this question?) One popular one is that there's a big bang, the universe expands, runs out of steam, starts contracting, collapses in a "big crunch" which then becomes the next big bang. Another is that quantum fluctuations are capable of creating new universes.

The trouble is, assuming there was a big bang, anything that came before it is currently unverifiable, which means that any ideas about it are difficult or impossible to form a falsifiable hypothesis about it. Unless you have a falsifiable hypothesis to study, you're not doing science. So anything prior to the big bang is currently not subject to scientific analysis, and is therefore just interesting speculation.

It's all predicated on silly little assumptions that are based on no credible, reliable information. Just assumptions on top of assumptions.

No, it's predicated on little assumptions that are based on the best observation and analysis we currently have available. You follow these assumptions back far enough, and you find reach assumptions like "the fundamental laws of nature don't change over time" and "we can make useful observations of reality". While these are assumptions, and they really can't be proven, I think you will find them axioms that are hard to live without.

And then purported to be 'fact'.

A good, honest scientist will never purport anything to be fact beyond "When I did X, I observed Y". Note, this doesn't stop the media from attributing all sorts of "facts" to the scientist erroneously.

That's the problem with much of the scientific community -- too closed-minded.

You are the one sounding closed minded here, by scoffing about scientific theories you clearly don't understand.

My problem with the scientific community is that far too few of its members are the good, honest scientists that I described above, and far too many are administrators, or dishonest scientists more concerned with protecting their jobs and/or ego investments in their theories than keeping the body of understanding growing.

Science is not closed minded, but yes, too often the scientific community can be. We need more scientists in the scientific community.

Site's down.

Get it here

First, allow me to whore a bit...

---start whoring---
[ June 9, 2003 - Theora alpha 2 release ]

The libtheora reference implementation has reached its 'alpha 2' milestone. A lot of bugs have been fixed and new features added, including all the planned changes to the bitsteams format.

This is more of an internal milestone than a public release, but we are making a source tarball available for convenience. Nevertheless we recommend using the cvs version if possible. This release also requires cvs libogg and libvorbis to compile; you might try the cvs nightly tarball if you don't already have these checked out. You will need to build and install the 'ogg' and 'vorbis' modules.
---end whoring---

Note that it's not a user release, but a developer release.

Finally, here is a mirror, to help out with their bandwidth costs.

As the saying goes "Knowledge is power". ;-)

Check out here. That's a GPL'ed book a professor at my school (go NM Tech!) has written as an interesting freshman year physics book. It covers some basic QM, amonsgt the other things you usually get freshman year in physics.

In earnest, that book is a work in progress and it's really important to do the problems to get the full meaning from the text.

Hope that helps :)

Good lord, it's getting slow...
Try here for those files. It'll be a few minutes before the MP4 one is downloaded, but it'll be there. QT is there already.

"The worst fad has been these stupid little robots," said Minsky. "Graduate students are wasting 3 years of their lives soldering and repairing robots, instead of making them smart. It's really shocking."

Maybe if MIT had lazy grad students, they would get tired of soldering and repairing stupid little robots, and build some smart little robots to do the soldering ond repairing.

Those MIT guys are too smart for their own good, let some people at New Mexico Tech do it instead!

Screw MIT, NMT all the way! :)

The GNOMEs where pretty funny, though...

Their bandwidth is pretty low, so here's my copy.

/me wonders how the school server will respond to the /. monster

Not to brag, but the school I go to requires a class in compiler writing, where the language is on par with C (some years it is C). That's right, requires you to write a compiler in a small group, just to get your BS of CS.

I love this place

On the risc of being a lil offtopic, I would like to share the following observations.
Interesting how our brain works. Powerpoint Syndrom is a very fine observation. English is not my first language( and that explains all the gramatical and spelling mistakes :-) ). However, it has been the language of my education. One of the tips'n'tricks that my english teacher from school told me was that in order to imporve my english, I should start thinking in it. The idea was that we our brain uses the first language (urdu in my case), and so our thoughts are limited by the expressions we can come up with using the language. Whatever language we learn afterwards is a process of run-time translations. But then with the passage of time we master other languages and we can train our brain to think in all these languages.

So whats the point in pointing out the obvious. We are taught the basics, like the alpabets, and then we build upon these basics. However our knoweldge, our way of thinking will always be limited by basics. Its just like the decimal system. There are only 10 digits. You ll only be re-using them again and again. Consider how difficult it would have been if we were all to use the binary system for our daily mathematics. Same goes for the possiblity of using hexa or maybe centa number systems.

Edward D. Bono pointed out in his book on lateral thinking the very same things. We are taught a basic way of thinking, of reasoning. Thats limits us in looking at things from a different prospective.

An interesting paper, Beyond Language: Cultural Predispositions in Business Correspondence disucsses this issue.

I guess hope is that increased efficiency will lead to increased efficacy. Problem being that in a lot of these domains, it is often the inefficiency itself that puts a throttle on abuse.

Frank Herbert has something interesting to say about this.

http://www.nmt.edu/~val/howto.html

Although it is written about Linux specifically, I think it applies to the topic at large. HOWTO Encourage Women in Linux

Another thing of interest was the occasional bit of envy we experienced when MIT or Caltech were mentioned (eg, when a Boston local mentioned that he was going next semester to the local school, MIT). A small school with a little ego problem. I doubt there are many schools with such a large fragment of insecurity complex per capita.

Another thing of interest was the occasional bit of envy we experienced when MIT or Caltech were mentioned (eg, when a Boston local mentioned that he was going next semester to the local school, MIT). A small school with a little ego problem. I doubt there are many schools with such a large fragment of insecurity complex per capita.

I don't know whether I'm more offended by that completely sexist remark, or the fact that it was modded up as "Funny".

By the way, even if you were joking, it's not funny. Personally, I find this incredibly insulting.

Oh, and for those of you who think it's okay to make these sorts of jokes, I highly suggest you read the "HOWTO Encourage Women in Linux" paper. It's a well-written summary of why so many women are scared to even go to computer events -- we're constantly stared at ("Oh my gosh! A female!"), heckled, and treated as sex objects even though those of us who dare to go usually have quite valid opinions.

I find this sort of behavior, even said as a joke, completely unacceptable. I would find it equally unacceptable if a similar joke were directed toward men, Jews, black people, or any other group. I seriously hope you give some thought to this next time you make a degarding commment about a group of people, even as a joke.

(Yes, I AM female. Damnit.)

Recommended reading

I don't think that he's referring to the average hacker, but more to programs at universities like New Mexico Tech's ICASA.

Too bad that it's in Socorro.

Australia

ftp://ftp.planetmirror.com/pub/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Brisbane)
Austria

ftp://ftp.univie.ac.at/systems/linux/Mandrake/8.2/ i586/ (Vienna)

ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/pub/linux/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Vienna)
Belgium

ftp://ftp.belnet.be/packages/mandrake/8.2/i586/
Costa Rica

ftp://ftp.ucr.ac.cr/pub/Unix/linux/mandrake/Mandra ke/8.2/i586/
Czech Republic

ftp://ftp.cesnet.cz/OS/Linux/Mandrake/mandrake/8.2 /i586/ (Brno)

ftp://ftp.fi.muni.cz/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Brno)

ftp://klobouk.fsv.cvut.cz/pub/linux-mandrake/Mandr ake/8.2/i586/ (Prague)

ftp://mandrake.redbox.cz/Mandrake/8.2/i586/

ftp://sunsite.mff.cuni.cz/OS/Linux/Dist/Mandrake/m andrake/8.2/i586/ (Prague)

http://ftp.fi.muni.cz/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Brno)
Denmark

ftp://ftp.dkuug.dk/pub/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Koebenhavn)

ftp://ftp.sunsite.dk/mirrors/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Aalborg)
Estonia

ftp://ftp.aso.ee/pub/os/Linux/distributions/mandra ke/8.2/i586/
Finland

ftp://ftp.song.fi/pub/linux/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Espoo)
France

ftp://ftp.ciril.fr/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Nancy)

ftp://ftp.club-internet.fr/pub/unix/linux/distribu tions/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Paris)

ftp://ftp.info.univ-angers.fr/pub/linux/distributi ons/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Angers)

ftp://ftp.lip6.fr/pub/linux/distributions/mandrake /8.2/i586/ (Paris)

ftp://ftp.proxad.net/pub/Distributions_Linux/Mandr ake/8.2/i586/ (Paris)

ftp://ftp.u-strasbg.fr/pub/linux/distributions/man drake/8.2/i586/ (Strasbourg)

ftp://linux.ups-tlse.fr/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Toulouse)
Germany

ftp://ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/Mandra ke/8.2/i586/ (Esslingen)

ftp://ftp.de.uu.net/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/

ftp://ftp.fh-giessen.de/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i58 6/ (Giessen)

ftp://ftp.fh-wolfenbuettel.de/pub/os/linux/mandrak e/dist/8.2/i586/ (Wolfenbuettel)

ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Goettingen)

ftp://ftp.join.uni-muenster.de/pub/linux/distribut ions/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Muenster)

ftp://ftp.leo.org/pub/comp/os/unix/linux/Mandrake/ Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Munchen)

ftp://ftp.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i5 86/ (Chemnitz)

ftp://ftp.tu-clausthal.de/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i 586/ (Clausthal)

ftp://ftp.uasw.edu/pub/os/linux/mandrake/dist/8.2/ i586/ (Wolfenbuettel)

ftp://ftp.uni-bayreuth.de/pub/linux/Mandrake/8.2/i 586/ (bayreuth)

ftp://ftp.uni-kassel.de/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i58 6/ (Kassel)

ftp://ftp.uni-mannheim.de/systems/linux/mandrake/8 .2/i586/ (Mannheim)

ftp://ftp.vat.tu-dresden.de/pub/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Dresden)

ftp://ramses.wh2.tu-dresden.de/pub/mirrors/mandrak e/8.2/i586/ (Dresden)

ftp://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/pub/Linux/ mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Aachen)
Greece

ftp://ftp.duth.gr/pub/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Thrace)

ftp://ftp.ntua.gr/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Athens)
Hong Kong

ftp://ftp.wisr.eie.polyu.edu.hk/linux/mandrake/8.2 /i586/
Hungary

ftp://ftp.linuxforum.hu/mirror/Mandrake/8.2/i586/
Ireland

ftp://ftp.esat.net/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/
Italy

ftp://bo.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Bologna)

ftp://ftp.edisontel.it/pub/Mandrake_Mirror/Mandrak e/8.2/i586/
Latvia

ftp://ftp.latnet.lv/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/
Netherlands

ftp://ftp.nl.uu.net/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/

ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/Mandrake/Man drake/8.2/i586/

ftp://ftp.surfnet.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/Mandrake/M andrake/8.2/i586/

ftp://ftp.wau.nl/pub/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Wageningen)
Poland

ftp://ftp.ps.pl/mirrors/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Szczecin)

ftp://ftp.task.gda.pl/pub/linux/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Gdansk)
Portugal

ftp://ftp.dei.uc.pt/pub/linux/Mandrake/Mandrake/8. 2/i586/ (Coimbra)

ftp://tux.cprm.net/pub/Mandrake/8.2/i586/
Russia

ftp://ftp.chg.ru/pub/Linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Chernogolovka)
Singapore

ftp://ftp.singnet.com.sg/opensource/linux/Mandrake /8.2/i586/
Slovakia

ftp://spirit.profinet.sk/mirrors/Mandrake/8.2/i586 / (Bratislava)
Spain

ftp://ftp.cesga.es/pub/linux/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Galicia)

ftp://ftp.cica.es/pub/Linux/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Sevilla)

ftp://ftp.rediris.es/pub/linux/distributions/mandr ake/8.2/i586/
Sweden

ftp://ftp.chello.se/pub/Linux/Mandrake/8.2/i586/

ftp://ftp.chl.chalmers.se/pub/Linux/distributions/ Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Gothenburg)

ftp://ftp.du.se/pub/os/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Dalarma)
Switzerland

ftp://ftp.pcds.ch/pub/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Neuhausen)

ftp://sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch/mirror/mandrake/8.2/ i586/ (Zurich)
Taiwan

ftp://linux.cdpa.nsysu.edu.tw/pub/Mandrake/mandrak e/8.2/i586/

ftp://linux.csie.nctu.edu.tw/distributions/mandrak e/Mandrake/8.2/i586/

ftp://mdk.linux.org.tw/pub/mandrake/8.2/i586/
Turkey

ftp://ftp.ankara.edu.tr/pub/linux/dagitimlar/Mandr ake/8.2/i586/ (Ankara)
United Kingdom

ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/sunsite.uio.no/pub/un ix/Linux/Mandrake/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Canterbury)
United States

ftp://ftp-linux.cc.gatech.edu/pub/linux/distributi ons/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Georgia)

ftp://ftp.cise.ufl.edu/pub/mirrors/mandrake/Mandra ke/8.2/i586/ (Florida)

ftp://ftp.cse.buffalo.edu/pub/Linux/Mandrake/mandr ake/8.2/i586/ (NY)

ftp://ftp.nmt.edu/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (New Mexico)

ftp://ftp.orst.edu/pub/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Oregon)

ftp://ftp.tux.org/pub/distributions/mandrake/8.2/i 586/ (Virginia)

ftp://ftp.umr.edu/pub/linux/mandrake/Mandrake/8.2/ i586/ (Missouri)

ftp://ftp.uwsg.indiana.edu/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586 / (Indiana)

ftp://linux-cs.tccw.wku.edu/pub/linux/distribution s/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (WKU-Linux, Western Kentucky University)

ftp://mirror.aca.oakland.edu/linux/mandrake/8.2/i5 86/ (Michigan)

ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/linux/Mandrak e/8.2/i586/ (Wisconsin)

ftp://mirror.mcs.anl.gov/pub/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Illinois)

ftp://mirrors.ptd.net/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Pensylvania)

ftp://mirrors.secsup.org/pub/linux/mandrake/Mandra ke/8.2/i586/

ftp://uml-pub.ists.dartmouth.edu/mirrors/ftp.mandr akesoft.com/pub/Mandrake/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (New Hampshire)

ftp://videl.ics.hawaii.edu/mirrors/mandrake/Mandra ke/8.2/i586/ (Hawaii)

http://mandrake.dsi.internet2.edu/Mandrake/8.2/i58 6/ (For Internet2 academic institutions only)

Here is something that may help

2. Is anyone worried about this tendency within the EU towards standardization and centralization? I mean, the French definitely want things back as they were in 1680, or thereabouts, with France in control of the continent. Does anyone think it's time for Europe to acquire a Bureau of Sabotage?

• A fileserver running Debian GNU/Linux stable and NFS, Samba, and Netatalk. Also does internal DNS.
• A gateway/firewall running Debian GNU/Linux and the IPMasq package.
• An AMD desktop machine running Debian GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, and Windows 2000. All three OS's mount /home off the file server.
• An iBook running Mac OS X, Mac OS 9, and Debian GNU/Linux. All three OS's mount /home off the file server.

As for something that might help you keep things synchronized, I know of something related that will at least help if you ever have to do a reinstall. It's called Gutinteg and was very widely used for reinstalling a machine from scratch with both Windows 95 and Linux dual boot at the NMT Computer Center.