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Linux works without purity because it's not designed to be pure. It's designed to be taken apart and reoutfittied as necessary.

The interesting thing is probably, that most of the issues, that arise when using Linux are fundamental, that is they are high top (you may call it deep bottom depending on viewpoint) design problems.

There are only some of those points where Programmer Joe with no clue has implemented something he did not understand in a variation of C that nobody else understands. These are rare, but they exist.

You will find the real problems at locations like the in the generic device-driver infrastructur, the USB bus-to-driver interface or even the VM-subsystem that is to closely tied to the rest of the kernel. Things constantly change there, they are not stable and nobody seems to be able to agree on how they are done correctly. The well-known bikeshed is calling in its tribute here.

The Bazaar approach seems very incapable to define standards, i.e. to reach an agreement on certain voluntary restrictions to their own freedom for the better of the project.

There are two ways to solve this problems:

• The Lockeian (after John Locke) way, where everybody gives up a piece of his personal freedom for the public good.
• The Hobbesian (after Thomas Hobbes) way, where you force everybody to comply to the rules.

Since the first way seems not to work well within most parts of the open source community (neither does it with any type of pure free market economy), Sun uses the second with the Java programming language specification. That may cause a major uproar, everytime it is discussed, but it results in the specification to clean, stable and actually looking to be made by someone having a remote clue of what he is doing.

The real way to go would be for everybody to learn, that it is necessary to abandon certain freedoms to reach a higher goals ... for example to let a design to be done by a (small) comittee ;-). But that surely is not true right now, so what are the options left?

#pragma OldFart

Somewhere in the attic I still have the ancient Digital Group Z-80 system that I put together in 1979: 4.5 MHz Z-80 (Overclocked!) with 18 K static RAM (two 8K cards plus 2K on the CPU card) that cost as a solder-it-yourself kit about US$2000 in 1979. According to this site that equates to a bit over $5000 today. Dang!

It did come with a version of the original Lunar Lander, though...

http://www.artfiles.org/mozilla.org/firefox/releas es/1.0/(Germany)
ftp://ftp.lab.kdd.co.jp/Mozilla/firefox/releases/1 .0/
http://ftp.kaist.ac.kr/pub/mozilla/firefox/release s/1.0/
ftp://ftp.kaist.ac.kr/pub/mozilla/firefox/releases /1.0/
ftp://ftp.rediris.es/mirror/mozilla/firefox/releas es/1.0/
http://ftp.rediris.es/mirror/mozilla/firefox/relea ses/1.0/
http://sunsite.rediris.es/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/ releases/1.0/
ftp://sunsite.rediris.es/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/r eleases/1.0/
ftp://sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch/mirror/mozilla/firef ox/releases/1.0/
ftp://mozilla.isc.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/rele ases/1.0/ (US)
ftp://trillian.cc.gatech.edu/pub/mozilla.org/firef ox/releases/1.0/
ftp://mozilla.ussg.indiana.edu/pub/mozilla.org/fir efox/releases/1.0/
ftp://mozilla.oregonstate.edu/pub/mozilla.org/fire fox/releases/1.0/
http://mirrors.kernel.org/mozilla/firefox/releases /1.0/ (US)
ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/mozilla/firefox/releases/ 1.0/ (US)

ftp://mozilla.isc.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/rele ases/1.0/
ftp://mozilla.ussg.indiana.edu/pub/mozilla.org/fir efox/releases/1.0/
ftp://mozilla.oregonstate.edu/pub/mozilla.org/fire fox/releases/1.0/
Official mozilla.org torrent for Win32:
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/rele ases/1.0/win32/en-US/Firefox%20Setup%201.0.exe.tor rent

Of course, this metadata will be so much cooler when something like spotlight is there to take advantage of it...

Or for a longer term perspective, try this graph of constant-price gas prices.

Remebered I had access to another server, so here's the movies I've made.

Its analogous to proprietary software: you can't just buy the algorithm: you have to buy the whole package (and support and perhaps hardware too). In much of current GM technology you can't just buy the nifty new gene, you have to buy the whole potato (w/a limited selection of potato types if any choice at all) *and* you're just leasing the potato *and* you have to keep buying the upgrades each year.

Problems with the closed-source methods of GM tech include:

• GM isn't the only solution. Word isn't the only way to write a document. Golden rice isn't the only way to get more vitamin A to people.
• Opportunity Costs- what do you lose if you spend a big chunk of money on a single proprietary solution? You lose flexibility. Continuing with Golden Rice: sure, its gets people more vitamin A, and no one wants blind babies (think of the children!). But what about veggies which already contain high quantities of beta-carotene (yams? carrots? Other richly-colored veggies and fruits filled with other vitamins / phytochemicals we've smart-bred in for 3000+ years). The royalty payments for Golden Rice could instead pay for a variety of other seeds. And if you do want to up the A content of rice, should people get to choose which varieties get upgraded?
• Useful applications get locked away. Losing a beautiful algorithm in software? Sad. Losing 100,000 lives per year?...more of a life-or-death choice. If it weren't for the facial hair application those people'd be back to injecting arsenic medicine with its 1/20 chance of death and the feel of injecting bleach.
• The food itself is secondary to locking you into a company's support products and support cycle. The problem that Montanto is trying to solve isn't "how can farmers improve crop yields and reduce weeds?" Monsanto's problem is "How can we lock farmers into using our weedkillers?"
• The proprietary product is often based on (taken from / stolen from) older open source projects. Documented cases of stealing? the Neem patent- patenting a 2000 year old method of using the Neem tree oil as a pesticide. Or the Enola yellow bean patent where an American company got a patent on a bean they'd bought from Mexican bean farmers. They then sued those farmers exporting yellow beans into the US. They're not only violating the GPL, but patenting the software they've borrowed.
• Standards for patents can be low. I argue that they're often not being novel. Take BT: is simply moving a gene that original?
• They're closed source, top-down implementations that lead to monocultures and kill off smaller but better competitors. Monocultures = bad: think 1/4 the US corn crop wiped out in one season.
• they have all or nothing security models (they focus on zero tolerance for weeds / pests: in the long run this will be more expensive than "accep

We all should have seen this comming. It is as Thomas Hobbes says in his writting, Leviathan. Basically, we give up some of our rights, so that a large beast, our government, can come in and take over to restore order. The difference is we are not the Fiji islands asking the British for help. We raised this one ourselfs. So bring out the offering plates, I think he's getting hungry again.

you're KILLING my babies

* http://kde.pandmservices.com/
Location: Hartford, Conneticut
Provided by P & M Services, LLC

* http://kde.oregonstate.edu/
Location: Corvallis, Oregon
Provided by Oregon State University

* http://kde.intissite.com/
Location: New York
Provided by BITS inc

* http://kde.feratech.com/
Location: Boston
Provided by Feratech, Inc

Umm, I think that the number of people who would be getting back something like $1200 in your example would be far greater than the number of people getting back something like $18,750.
Of course. But 15 times more? That's a good question for staticians to answer, and one that's not too useful consider I just used example numbers.

I would also claim that having $1200 reduction in taxes for a person making $20,000 per year improves that person's standard of living more than a $18,750 reduction in taxes for a
That is in fact true. However, it is a hypothetical point since in real life people making 20,000 a year pay $0 in income tax, and end up getting a heft Earned Income Tax Credit in most cases.

When they feel that a certain increase in taxes on the rich decreases efficiency in a way that outweighs the gain in equity, then they won't support such increases
Thats provably false, and you know. Until Kennedy cut marginal tax rates, and then Reagan cut them again, income tax rates were confiscatory and there was no talk of equity. For example, in 1950 any income over $40,000 (a princely sum for those days, but equal to CEO pay today) you paid 50%. If you made $100,000 you paid 68%, if you made $400,000 you paid 84%.

The point of it all is that right, now taxes for the poor, lower income, and middle income are the lowest they've ever been. Check it out. If you made $4,000 in 1970 you paid 22.50% federal income tax. Inflation injusted, that is $16,500 dollars. What rate do people pay on that now? 15%, with a $4,850 standard deduction, (meaing that you only pay taxes on $12,000 of it).

Claiming that the poor, low, and middle class earners pay too much income tax is a joke.

Err, as others have stated, the goal of the IODP (and before that, the ODP) isn't to find mineral deposits. It's strictly a research vessel to carry out science.

Quite a bit of interesting science has been carried out. Last year, Dr. Alan Mix, a professor who worked on the ship, spoke at our school for a seminar. He dealt with paleoclimates. Using the ODP to extract cores from the sea floor, he was able to determine global temperatures from the amount of Oxygen-18 (I believe?) isotopes that were trapped in fossilized diatoms.

In short, RTFA instead of posting knee jerk reactions to an article that contains the word "oil" in it. :-P

In the early 1970's, a new variety of corn was released in the US; the "Texas male sterile". This variety had many desirable properties, and growers were excited about it, planting it over miles and miles of corn acreage in US . It was, of course, bred to be resistant to the most common corn diseases. However, it did not have genes for resistance to a previously unimportant strain of a fungal disease; the southern corn leaf blight (caused by the fungus Helminthosporium maydis). Ninety percent of the corn sowed in the US in 1970 was genetically susceptibility to this pathogen. The fungus encountered all this acreage of susceptible host and wiped out one fourth of the US corn crop in 1970, a loss of over one billion dollars in production! If the corn acreage hadn't been such a monoculture, the fungus wouldn't have been able to spread as rapidly, as it would have encountered barriers of genetically resistant plants.

"the overall problem with current biotechnology is that it is proprietary / closed source / locked hood genetics. The applications might be wonderful, but the methodology and implementations leave a lot to be desired if you like open source science.

Just like with proprietary software, if you see some nifty new feature you'd like to add you your own application, you can't. In proprietary software you can't just buy the algorithm: you have to buy the whole package (and perhaps the support package and perhaps the computer to run it on). In much of current biotechnology you can't just buy the nifty new gene, you have to buy the whole potato (and you only get a limited choice of potato types if any choice at all) *and* you're just leasing the potato *and* you have to keep buying the upgrades each year. Smart Breeding, in contrast, is a close equivalent of open source software."

Ways in which Locked-hood genetics is like proprietary software:

• The (food/software) itself is secondary to locking you into a company's support products and support cycle treadmill
• The proprietary product is often based on (taken from / stolen from) older open source projects.
  
• they have all or nothing security models
  
• They break standards.
  
• they're closed source, top-down implementations that lead to monocultures.
• Specific problems solved by (closed source / locked hood) genetic engineering can also be solved in other ways. Word isn't the only way to write a document. Golden rice isn't the only way to get more vitamin A to people.
• Opportunity Costs- what do you lose if you spend a big chunk of money on a single proprietary solution? You lose flexibility.

This also applies to version 9.1.

Project page here.

FAQs:
here here here here here and here.

Project page here.

FAQs:
here here here here here and here.

Project page here.

FAQs:
here here here here here and here.

Project page here.

FAQs:
here here here here here and here.

Project page here.

FAQs:
here here here here here and here.

Project page here.

FAQs:
here here here here here and here.

Project page here.

FAQs:
here here here here here and here.

Project page here.

FAQs:
here here here here here and here.

If those plants were very cheap, I'd guess they'd cost about 300-400 million, putting your figure of oil independance at 3-4 trillion $, just to build the plants

Which, if it is spent to end dependence on foreign oil (and reduce the environmental footprint of our economy as a side effect) would be cheap at the price. It's not an expense, it's an investment with potentially huge benefits economically, evironmentally, diplomatically, and militarily.

For comparison, the Manhattan Project cost $20 billion or thereabouts in 1945. In 2004 dollars, that's about $1.25 trillion. Add in the expense of our nuclear arsenal over the years, and it comes to about $6.4 trillion. (In 2004 dollars.) We're talking about a similarly large strategic and economic benefit. If this process really works as described, it's worth the investment.

Remember also, this process can be used to reform practically any organic waste, including plastics and even PCB's.

So here's a private business plan for you: Aquire the mineral rights to a huge old landfill. Build one of these plants nearby. Mine it to feed your waste-to-oil converter, seperating the metals and other inorganics as you go and selling what you can as raw materials.

Continue until the landfill site is empty, then keep digging and processing to clean the contaminated earth under it. Cover it with remediated or remanufactured soil, and open a park or a turkey ranch. Meanwhile, keep operating your plant with waste from the city that created the landfill in the first place.

Sure, you're left with a pile of nasty heavy metals and inorganics that no one wants, but now they're in some much more pure form and can be appropriately processed and sequestered.

If this technology is any good at all, it should be possible to turn at least a modest profit over the long haul.

White teas offer more health benifits (they have more Catechin polyphenols) but typically cost about 20% more than green teas per ounce but should be enjoyed for the more nuanced flavors they have.

I think the point is not that it isn't useful but that it was already being used. My relatives in South Africa know about this trick. The boy scouts use it there for goodness sake. I've been looking around and apparently the "inventor" never even checked the interior temperature of his device. Also the same article seems to indicate the social impacts reported were not indipendantly verified, but reported by Abba himself....

Also, since modern farming has been done for decades now, if there was some effect destroying the soil we should know about it, yes?

The "Green Revolution" is not a way of getting more for less. It has a high cost in natural resources, a non-sustainable scheme that is the equivalent of a solving financial crisis by borrowing. It's a credit card, not a cash deposit in humanity's checking account, and the interest is piling up.

All industrial areas gets cheaper over time.

Until the time comes when the pollution needs to be cleaned up and the resources run out. But that's not figured into the cost of the industrial development, it's left as a burden to the taxpayer (or it's just left in place to poison people).

Oh, and then there's the pesky matter of how that industrial farm equipment is powered. OPEC tightened it's grip on the world's balls today by 4%, which will increase the cost of gasoline for tractors (as well as the petroleum feedstocks for synthetic fertilizers).

Cisco Systems, a popular wide area networking company from the United States provided China with the technology to build the firewall. A top Chinese network engineer who wishes to remain anonymous5, claims Cisco developed a device specifically designed for the governments telecom monopoly we have the capability to look deep into the packet. He also reports that the Chinese government has purchased many thousand of the devices from Cisco at approximately $20,000 each (Gutmann, 2002, p1-2).

The article cited in the student's paper is from the Weekly Standard (Who Lost China's Internet? 2/25/02, pp. 2-3), one of many publications to chronicle Cisco's and other American companies' profiteering in the electronic enslavement of the Chinese people.

1000 1954 dollars would clearly be worth more than 4000 today. According to the CPI from 1800 to 2004, $1000 from 1954 would be worth $(1000)(1/0.144) 2004 dollars, or about $7000 /nitpick

While the "distro" community sorts all this stuff out, I think I'll just ease back in my chair with a bottle of Shiner, start the 4.4 compile/build, and have a pinch of Skoal in the ready...

"Distro"? Sounds to much like "destructro" anyways...here's your aspirin

Head to OSU's Surplus Property site. Specifically, the Online Auctions page.

Head to OSU's Surplus Property site. Specifically, the Online Auctions page.

High fructose corn syrup is actually 75% sweeter than sugar. Thus, you do not need to buy as much, and the calories per serving are less.

The following is a full list of the primary and secondary mirrors that have Firefox 0.8 builds. This list will also be maintained and updated.

Apologies for not listing one per line, but slashdot rejects posts with "too few characters per line".

North America: mozilla.isc.org (http) mozilla.isc.org (ftp) trillian.cc.gatech.edu (http) trillian.cc.gatech.edu (ftp) mozilla.ussg.indiana.edu (http) mozilla.ussg.indiana.edu (ftp) mozilla.oregonstate.edu (http) mozilla.oregonstate.edu (ftp) mozilla.gnusoft.net (http)

Europe: sunsite.rediris.es (http) sunsite.rediris.es (ftp) sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch (ftp) ftp.cvut.cz (ftp) www.artfiles.org (http) ftp.rediris.es (ftp) ftp.rediris.es (http) ftp.task.gda.pl (ftp) ftp.task.gda.pl (http) sunsite.icm.edu.pl (ftp) (Windows only) sunsite.icm.edu.pl (http) (Windows only) ftp.mirror.ac.uk (ftp)

Asia/Australia: ftp.lab.kdd.co.jp (ftp) ftp.kaist.ac.kr (http) ftp.kaist.ac.kr (ftp) ftp.nctu.edu.tw (ftp) mozilla.mirror.pacific.net.au (ftp) mozilla.mirror.pacific.net.au (http)

The following is a full list of the primary and secondary mirrors that have Firefox 0.8 builds. This list will also be maintained and updated.

Apologies for not listing one per line, but slashdot rejects posts with "too few characters per line".

North America: mozilla.isc.org (http) mozilla.isc.org (ftp) trillian.cc.gatech.edu (http) trillian.cc.gatech.edu (ftp) mozilla.ussg.indiana.edu (http) mozilla.ussg.indiana.edu (ftp) mozilla.oregonstate.edu (http) mozilla.oregonstate.edu (ftp) mozilla.gnusoft.net (http)

Europe: sunsite.rediris.es (http) sunsite.rediris.es (ftp) sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch (ftp) ftp.cvut.cz (ftp) www.artfiles.org (http) ftp.rediris.es (ftp) ftp.rediris.es (http) ftp.task.gda.pl (ftp) ftp.task.gda.pl (http) sunsite.icm.edu.pl (ftp) (Windows only) sunsite.icm.edu.pl (http) (Windows only) ftp.mirror.ac.uk (ftp)

Asia/Australia: ftp.lab.kdd.co.jp (ftp) ftp.kaist.ac.kr (http) ftp.kaist.ac.kr (ftp) ftp.nctu.edu.tw (ftp) mozilla.mirror.pacific.net.au (ftp) mozilla.mirror.pacific.net.au (http)

Since mozilla.org is slashdotted, here are the primary mirrors:

And the google cache for more mirrors.

Since mozilla.org is slashdotted, here are the primary mirrors:

And the google cache for more mirrors.

USA:
California
Georgia
Indiana
Oregon
Europe:
Spain

The full list may be found on the google cache

Oregon State FTP

Since nobody has (yet) taken the pains of posting the mirror list (yea, yea, I know, this is /.) -- here it is:

Hmm .. I wonder if the /. lameness filter was designed so that people couldn't post whole mirror lists themselves. Telling me that I don't have enough characters per line. I think I'll just ask the KDE people to create a static fast-serving no-css page full of mirrors for KDE whenever a release happens. That way, at least some amount of trouble would be saved. Goes off to mail KDE team ...

(pulled from KDE Mirror List)

WARNING: VERY BAD FORMATTING to get around the lame lameness filter.

mirrors.isc.org. . .ibiblio.org. . .ibiblio.org. . .ftp.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu. . .ftp.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu. . .
mirrors.midco.net. . .mirrors.midco.net. . .ftp.oregonstate.edu. . .kde.oregonstate.edu. . .download.uk.kde.org. . .
download.at.kde.org. . .download.at.kde.org. . .ftp.eu.uu.net. . .ftp.tiscali.nl. . .ftp.du.se. . .
ftp.solnet.ch. . .ftp.rutgers.edu. . .ftp.rutgers.edu. . .kde.uk.themoes.org. . .kde.us.themoes.org. . .
ftp.de.kde.org. . .ftp.de.kde.org. . .ftp.gwdg.de. . .ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de. . .ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de. . .
ftp.uni-kl.de. . .download.au.kde.org. . .ftp.roedu.net. . .ftp.fi.muni.cz. . .ftp.fu-berlin.de. . .
ftp.tu-chemnitz.de. . .sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de. . .filepile.tiscali.de. . .ftp.tuniv.szczecin.pl. . .ftp.tuniv.szczecin.pl. . .
sunsite.icm.edu.pl. . .sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch. . .ftp.se.kde.org. .

Since nobody has (yet) taken the pains of posting the mirror list (yea, yea, I know, this is /.) -- here it is:

Hmm .. I wonder if the /. lameness filter was designed so that people couldn't post whole mirror lists themselves. Telling me that I don't have enough characters per line. I think I'll just ask the KDE people to create a static fast-serving no-css page full of mirrors for KDE whenever a release happens. That way, at least some amount of trouble would be saved. Goes off to mail KDE team ...

(pulled from KDE Mirror List)

WARNING: VERY BAD FORMATTING to get around the lame lameness filter.

mirrors.isc.org. . .ibiblio.org. . .ibiblio.org. . .ftp.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu. . .ftp.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu. . .
mirrors.midco.net. . .mirrors.midco.net. . .ftp.oregonstate.edu. . .kde.oregonstate.edu. . .download.uk.kde.org. . .
download.at.kde.org. . .download.at.kde.org. . .ftp.eu.uu.net. . .ftp.tiscali.nl. . .ftp.du.se. . .
ftp.solnet.ch. . .ftp.rutgers.edu. . .ftp.rutgers.edu. . .kde.uk.themoes.org. . .kde.us.themoes.org. . .
ftp.de.kde.org. . .ftp.de.kde.org. . .ftp.gwdg.de. . .ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de. . .ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de. . .
ftp.uni-kl.de. . .download.au.kde.org. . .ftp.roedu.net. . .ftp.fi.muni.cz. . .ftp.fu-berlin.de. . .
ftp.tu-chemnitz.de. . .sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de. . .filepile.tiscali.de. . .ftp.tuniv.szczecin.pl. . .ftp.tuniv.szczecin.pl. . .
sunsite.icm.edu.pl. . .sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch. . .ftp.se.kde.org. .

http://kde.oregonstate.edu/
http://www.at.kde.org
http://kde.pandmservices.com/
http://kde.typhon.net/
http://www.se.kde.org/
http://kde.fredan.org/

Wait a sec... If you were talking about Linus Pauling , I might agree with you. Torvalds has done something else - stumbled on to the very powerful effect of peer production enabled by the Internet. What's so orginal about Linux? It's a variant of Unix. It's important to keep things in perspective. Personally I think Berners-Lee's achievement is much more impressive, without which Linux never would have happened.

Just like we did in the dark ages.

Welcome to the neo-Hobbesian nightmare.

There are some experimental Gentoo LiveCDs for x86 using the 2.6 test kernels at http://gentoo.oregonstate.edu/experimental/x86/liv ecd/

Not too useful if you're trying to run off the CD, but not bad if you want to test 2.6 compatability or need a rescue CD.

Here are the burnable ISO images:

Enemy Territory (torrent) (ftp)
America's Army ISO (ftp)

Here are the burnable ISO images:

Enemy Territory (torrent) (ftp)
America's Army ISO (ftp)

It was posted on freshmeat earlier today, the servers are loaded.

There is a mirror of the cd here though:
ftp://ftp.oregonstate.edu/pub/phlak/phlak-0.2.iso

Google cache of download page: http://www.phlak.org/modules/mydownloads/
NOTE: Planetmirror 404's -- looks like they don't have the phlak dir anymore. sorry.

Getting about 20KB/s on my ncftpbatch...

I believe new progress in transparent transistor technology could bring many new display types to reality.

Check out the research done at OSU. I spoke with several of the research students regarding this technology and it looks promising.

One of their goals is to make transparent displays like in minority report a reality.

I still can't understand why so many people in the U S of A (yes, it's the only country so far where I've heard such an abbreviation) keep calling milk what in fact is caffelatte...