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Simputer Runs Into Problems
dejaffa writes "It seems that an Indian Linux-based "computer for the poor" is having financial issues. This has implications for the world digital divide. The story is here (MSNBC, I know, I know). There were originally great hopes for it, as seen here, but money is proving to be the stumbling block."
...Well, this'll be a first for me if I actually make it in in time...
fp
Trolling Stones' soon to be famous lyrics quiz for 7/15!
See if you can get them all without using a search engine
You must provide the artist and song title for full credit.
Post your answers below.
1) H to the Izzo
V to the izzay
fo shizzle my nizzle see me dribble down the VA
2) cold silence has a
tendecy to atrohpy any
sense of compassion
3) the words of the profits were written on the studio wall
concert hall
and echoes with the sounds of salesmen
4) he used to carry his guitar in a gunny sack
and sit beneath the trees by the railroad track
5) wrapped up like a deuce
another runner in the night
First post by Cubeman...
... th story about Mandrake Hits Wal-Mart who are selling computers for less than twice the price is interesting....
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia -- The defense attorney for American-born Taliban John Walker Lindh said Monday in federal court that a plea agreement had been reached.
"We have a plea agreement," said James Brosnahan, Walker Lindh's attorney.
The 21-year-old California native has agreed to plead guilty to aiding the Taliban and carrying explosives in carrying out that crime, Brosnahan said.
Each charge carries a maximum 10-year sentence, for a total maximum of 20 years, though he could be eligible for probation, CNN Correspondent Bob Franken said.
The agreement came as hearings were to start over a 10-count indictment.
In exchange for his agreement to plead guilty to the two charges, government prosecutors agreed not to pursue the other charges.
Walker Lindh was in the courtroom Monday morning, Franken reported.
The announcement came as Walker Lindh's attorneys were scheduled to appear in court Monday to try to block the U.S. government from using statements, including a CNN interview the American Taliban made following his capture in Afghanistan, as evidence in his upcoming trial.
The hearing was scheduled before District Judge T.S. Ellis at the U.S. District Courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia.
Walker Lindh was among fighters taken into custody by the U.S. military in Afghanistan. He was identified as an American following a bloody prison uprising in late November during which CIA agent Mike Spann was killed.
He is scheduled to stand trial in late August on a number of charges, including conspiring to kill Americans overseas, providing support to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, and using firearms and other destructive devices during crimes of violence.
If convicted of all the charges, he could receive up to three life sentences, plus 90 years in prison
After his capture, Walker Lindh gave statements to the FBI and to journalist Robert Pelton, who was working for CNN as a free-lance contributor at the time.
Walker Lindh's attorneys argue that his statements to U.S. authorities should be suppressed because he was held for 55 days under what they call "torturous conditions" and was "completely intimidated, broken, mentally and physically."
In court documents filed last month, Walker's attorneys said U.S interrogators failed to read Lindh his Miranda rights, which requires suspects be told they have the right to an attorney and to remain silent.
His attorneys contend he should have been brought before a magistrate within 48 hours of his capture and allowed to see an attorney.
Prosecutors reject those arguments, saying that Walker Lindh was "treated with exceptional regard for his health, his safety and his security." They say Walker Lindh voluntarily waived his Miranda rights before being interrogated.
Additionally, U.S. prosecutors call Lindh an "unlawful enemy combatant," a U.S. legal designation that they say makes the Miranda rights not applicable to U.S. soldiers in a war zone who are debriefing captured enemy combatants.
Walker Lindh's attorneys also want to suppress the December 1, 2001, CNN interview that was conducted by Pelton. In it, Walker Lindh describes fighting with the Taliban and training at a camp run by terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.
The defense argues that Pelton was, in effect, an agent of the U.S. government because he was traveling with the Special Forces troops who took Walker Lindh into custody.
The government wants the videotape of the interview admitted, arguing in papers filed earlier this month that "Pelton is a private citizen who was not acting on behalf of any United States agency, civilian or military, when he interviewed Lindh."
Pelton may be called to testify at the hearing. He tried to quash a subpoena to appear, saying that requiring him to appear would "threaten the safety and independence" of all war correspondents.
Judge T.S. Ellis brushed aside that argument, saying that Walker Lindh's Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial outweighed any First Amendment concerns.
"I do not see that the First Amendment gives a testimonial privilege to [journalists]," he said.
Ellis said he could revisit the issue if he found the testimony to be unnecessary.
TOE--it's not just your feet. Conscious entities: 1. A conscious entity is the essence of free will. a. They are separate. b. They are identical. c. They are limited in number. d. They go forever forward and backwards in time. e. Upon death of a system, the entity moves out in a sphere expanding at the speed of light. 2. A conscious system is the fusion of a conscious entity with a seat of consciousness. Without this, a conscious entity cannot act or be acted upon. a. It cannot go on forever. b. A conscious system catches an entity as follows. The closest entity that has reached it is caught. 3. A conscious entity has a quantized waveform input and output, and a nonquantized infinite storage of previous input. a. The nonquantized storage resists attempts to glean information from it. Only the most traumatic and recent events can be recovered. 4. The universe is quantized in time and space, and finite in size. Meaning of conscious systems: The meaning of all conscious systems is to pursue one of two goals--love or power. All subgoals except L2 are unachievable. A conscious system... -Common subgoals: C1. controls reality. C2. knows reality. C3. has mastery of potential reality. C4. has mastery of the abstract plane. -Love subgoals: L1. and one other are the only conscious beings to exist for all time and space. L2. is bound by a seed of love to the other conscious being. -Power subgoals: P1. is the only conscious being to exist for all time and space.
A Linux user goes back.
/etc/fstab file so that it always automounted when plugged in. I was very impressed.
/dev/null, once I find where that actually is.
By Tony âoekNIGitsâ Collins.
Introduction...
In much of today's online news, we hear of how many people are migrating to GNU/Linux. What we don't seem to hear much of, is users going back to their old operating systems. The reason for this article is to say that I've done just that.
Yes, I've gone back. After three and a half years of trying to make GNU/Linux work on the desktop, I've decided that it's simply too hard for the average home user. Before I go into my reasons for going back, let me outline what I believe an 'average' home user is. Mr Joe Average is someone who wants to install their OS, boot it up, and it works. He wants to be able to upgrade his PC , and have the hardware work in a few short minutes. He wants to read email, browse the web, talk to his mates online, and play some games. Feel free to disagree with me, this is merely how I see myself. Note: I'm not referring to Grandma using Linux, or even my mum using it. I'm referring to average users who know a little about their computer.
Three and a half years; that's how long I've been trying to make Linux work on my desktop computer. Right about now, I'm sure that you are now screaming that I didn't try hard enough, or that I'm just plain stupid. Let me assure you that this is not the case. Stupid users don't doggedly stick at something for three and a half years, trying distribution after distribution in the hope of finding the holy grail of Linux desktops. They give up in less than a few hours of trying to (unsuccessfully) install RedHat Linux. Hear now my sad tale of why Linux isn't suitable for my desktop.
Some background...
The year is 1998. I've had my Windows '95 computer for around six months. Frustrated with the constant crashes, I desperately asked an online mate for help. Even though he was a windows user, he calmly suggested that I try something I'd never come across before...
âoeLinux, eh? Never heard of it.â
âoeOh, it's a free OS that you can download. Apparently it doesn't crash much. Just do an online search for it.â
Armed with this meagre knowledge, I set out on my quest for the ultimate stable operating system. I searched online, and found places where you could even buy copies of Linux! So, I left the comfort of my warm study, and returned forty minutes later with my first Linux boxed set â" RedHat Linux 5.2. After initially balking at the very basic installer (and few false starts), I had it up and running on my lovely AMD K6-233. I even got X working in no time at all. Then the system booted up for the first time.... and it was dead ugly. I had a very stable new OS, but I didn't even want to look at it. I was happy that I had several installed interfaces to choose from, but none of them appealed to me whatsoever. Wanting to download a nicer interface led me to my next problem.
I had absolutely no idea how to even get this nice, stable OS onto the internet! After reinstalling windows and RedHat in a dual-boot configuration, I got the help I needed by using Windows and USENET. Strangely enough, I can still remember the name of the long-suffering person who helped me get RedHat online, but that's another story. After looking around online, I discovered KDE. Only up to version one, it was the closest thing I had to a completely useable Linux system. I downloaded all the KDE packages for RedHat 5.2, only to discover another distro called Mandrake, that came with KDE preinstalled and configured. Back to my local distributor, and I was set.
Mandrake with KDE was exactly what I needed at that stage in my Linux using life, and I stuck with it for over a year and a half. Always seeking the 'perfect' desktop OS, I followed releases from version 5.3 all the way through to 7.0. Eventually I became dissatisfied with Mandrake, and briefly tried a number of other distros until I finally settled on Debian. I was impressed by the simple power, configurability, and the ease of upgrade that is apt-get. I felt good about being among the uber-elite Debian user community. Needless to say, I learned a lot about how to configure hardware under Linux during my time with Debian. I learned to sift through the old HOWTOs on Linux Doc until I found something suitable and accurate, I learned to utilize the power of USENET and IRC. Life was good.
Right now you must be wondering; âoeWhere is this leading? This guy seemed quite happy with Linux!â. True, I was. After a while, I decided I didn't want to have fine-grained control. I wanted something simple. I was getting tired of the 'stable' Debian release being so out of date, and the 'unstable' distribution being so... well... unstable. I got tired of having to recompile my kernel every time I got new hardware. I got tired of using command line to talk to my PC. It was time for a change. I had good experiences years ago with Mandrake, so I figured I'd try it again. As good as Mandrake 8.1 was, it wasn't what I was after. SuSE Linux 8.0 Professional (boxed set) was installed onto my PC instead.
I have to stop at this point, and say that SuSE Linux 8.0 (Pro) is the best Linux distribution that I've ever used. It has an easy installer, reasonable hardware support, and comes with the very good KDE 3.0. The box contains seven CDROMS, one DVD and three decent books that would help even the most inexperienced user get up and going. YaST2 is a decent graphical system configuration tool. When (not if) I go back to Linux, I'll definitely try SuSE again. However, there are quite a number of things that have improve (or change completely) before I'll consider going back. Read on for my brief list of things that must must get better before I'll switch back from the Microsoft camp.
Where GNU/Linux needs to improve...
X11
The X Window System is an awesomely powerful, network transparent graphical subsystem. It's perfectly suited to running applications from remote servers. However, this is NOT what a home user needs. My experience with X is that it's too big, bloated, slow and unstable to be any good to the home user. Most crashes that I ever experienced with Linux have been X's fault. My servers don't run X, and they never crash.
What home users need is something small and fast, so they can run local applications efficiently. I would like to see the X Window System dumped in favour of a hardware accelerated framebuffer, running something like directFB or Qtopia. Home users need a small, fast graphical subsystem, with built in 3d support. BeOS seemed to be on the right track before they went under.
Fonts are truly awful under X. Most distributions ship with appalling fonts, and there is no standard way to add additional (nicer) fonts to the system. Even after extra fonts have eventually been added, many applications (eg Abiword, Staroffice) refuse to use the new fonts anyway. Perhaps the framebuffer-based graphical subsystem I suggested could incorporate decent font support, and use a readable naming scheme as well.
Drivers
While having access to the latest version of the kernel is a good thing for developers, for home users it can be a nightmare. Got RedHat Linux 7.3? Perhaps you run SuSE 7.3 or Debian 2.2. You'll have to download a binary package specific to your distro. (I'm assuming that home users won't change their default kernel, but if they did, that binary package wouldn't even work!) Hardware manufacturers should be able to provide one single driver that works on all minor versions of a major kernel release. This way it would work will all current distros, instead of having to provide multiple binaries or source code. Hardware manufacturers don't want to give out the source, as this often gives away trade secrets about how their hardware is designed.
The solution seems to be to make binary drivers work on a variety of kernel versions. I'm not sure if this is even possible with the way the kernel is designed (I'm no kernel hacker), but it would go a long way toward making Linux more accessible to the home user. Even if the kernel needs to be redesigned to support this, then in my opinion, it should be done. Linux users are always clamouring for drivers... perhaps if the kernel had something like this, it might one day become a reality.
Hardware setup
While SuSE Linux 8.0 gave me some good experiences with hardware detection (such as automatic download of NVIDIA drivers), it also let me down as in this area.
The good: I recently borrowed a digital camera from a mate at work, to take photos of my case mod. Imagine how happy I was when I plugged it into my nearest USB port, and it was automatically configured (as a SCSI device) and mounted! SuSE even added it to my
The bad: Along came my new IDE CDRW drive. At AU$99, I couldn't pass up the purchase. Plugging it in gave me no joy. I was very disappointed that a device so common couldn't be detected and automatically configured under a modern operating system. The instructions on the SuSE support site said to add lines to lilo.conf and reboot. While this is a perfectly acceptable way to get hardware working for a geek familiar with *NIX, I believe that a home user shouldn't have to do more than plug it in. It's an IDE device, it's not that complicated!
The ugly: Once the hardware was finally working (as a pseudo-scsi drive), the next hurdle was to find decent graphical tools to burn and copy CDs. I finally settled on CDBakeOven, an above average KDE application. It burned CDs from data on the hard drive, but for some reason cdrecord (the command line backend) refused to allow me to copy a cd directly. Yes, it was installed SUID root. CD copying is such a basic function nowadays, why is it so hard to do under GNU/Linux?
Software distribution
I'll put this simply. I'm a home user, not a programmer. Why on earth should I have to compile the software I want to use? I know that having the source available is a good thing, but I'll say it again: I'm no programmer. I just want to install software and run it.
This leads to another point. Although having package databases (such as the rpm and deb systems use) is great, there should definitely be seperation between system packages and additionally installed software. There needs to be a standard installer and database for user-installed applications such as word processors, email clients and games, and it should be seperate from the rpm or deb databases used for system software such as lilo, init and cron. This will make it much easier for home users to know what applications they have installed on their PC, and to easily uninstall them if necessary, without knowing some arcane commands and weird package names.
Support
There is a huge wealth of knowledge among the thousands (millions?) of people that run GNU/Linux around the world. If you have a problem, odds are that someone out there can help you, often for free. This is one of the linux platform's greatest strengths. However, Linux users are also its greatest weakness. This may not apply to most of the community, but there is a very vocal minority that gives Linux a bad name. To every Linux user that has ever helped a newbie, I thank you. I have been helped by many a guru, often when I've been asking the simplest of questions. It's the remainder that are a problem.
I once heard a song by Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie called Every OS Sucks, where Linux users were described as 'elitist nerdy shmucks'. Sadly this is true for much of the 'community'. Too many consider themselves better than the rest of the world because they run Linux. Can you believe that? It's just a computer operating system, but somehow they think that it makes them better than those people who run systems such as Microsoft Windows! Elitism drives people away, as does saying âoeRTFMâ or belittling people who choose a different distro from yourself.
'Nuff said about that.
So what now?
Well, I decided to go back to a Microsoft platform. Initially being paranoid after reading things about DRM and spyware, I bit the bullet and installed Microsoft Windows XP. Like every OS, it has good and bad points; most of which you can learn about from online reviewers. I'll just point out several things that make me want to keep using it instead of GNU/Linux.
Fast graphical subsystem: Windows has lighting quick graphics, both 2d and 3d. There's no denying it. When I move a window, it refreshes so fast that I don't miss X11 at all. While not quite as nice as some other operating systems, font support is outstanding compared to XFree86.
Drivers: Point and click to install (as a superuser, of course). Windows warns you if the driver isn't likely to work properly, and can roll back to working drivers if you deliberately choose to install one that hoses your system.
Hardware setup: My CDRW worked right away, without a hitch. I am able to drag and drop files from the Explorer file manager to the CDRW icon and they get added to the list of things to burn. A quick install of Nero Burning Rom, and I was able to make a backup copy of my game CDs. (I don't like taking originals to LANs where they can get destroyed or stolen).
Software distribution: All windows software comes in binaries, either with an installer or in a zip file. I hope to never compile an application ever again. Software designed for a different version of windows is 99% guaranteed to run, but if not, there is always 'compatibility mode'. One thing to note, however: Applications designed for single user versions of windows usually only run properly as a superuser, and this includes 3d games. I expect this to be rectified as the rest of the Windows world catches up to a multi-user environment.
I can't comment on the Windows using community yet. I've not yet had a problem that a simple point and click couldn't fix. However, I will say that my original concern with Windows '95 has been addressed in Windows XP. The stability is finally there.
Final Notes
In conclusion, I'd just like to make it known that I haven't completely abandoned the Linux community. My home server still runs Mandrake, and IPCop on my gateway/firewall. There is no way I'd ever put any form of Windows on my server, nor would I ever connect a Windows PC directly to the internet without a *NIX gateway in between. Microsoft has a history of poor security, so I protect myself the only way I know how; using Linux. I will continue to advocate the use of GNU/Linux in the server arena. This is where its strength lies at the moment.
Because of their history of spreading virii, I don't use the applications that Microsoft has provided with Windows XP. My wife and I use Mozilla for web browsing and email, OpenOffice.org for word processing, and Psi (Jabber client) for instant messaging. All of these are true multi-user win32 programs, and are perfectly interoperable with their Linux counterparts.
I expect that the Linux community will have something to say about this article; I welcome comments and constructive criticism. Flames will be automatically sent to the Windows equivalent of
By Tony âoekNIGitsâ Collins
- poopbot: news for turds, stuff that splatters
epVonsBTRq
This is a slashdot troll post. There are many more like it. This one is mine.
Hmmmm ... look for water - or reinstall my OS ... Hmmm .. kill something with my barehands to feed my family of 70, or browse porn on the net ... I'm amazed this hasen't taken off yet ... Does Walmart understand the opportunity they are missing out on yet???
a slashdot post. what about you?
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
Reminds me of Cincinnati Ohio's plan to give free condoms to i.v. drug users, when they spread AIDS by sharing needles, not by sex. That was a ridiculous dogooder project. I think Coucilman Tyrone Yates came up with that one.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
How do you fuck over Slashdot? Fuck the sponsors. Take ThinkGeek.com, which sells massively overpriced items, sometimes 30-40% overpriced. For example the Cappuccino compact PC, currently selling for approx. $1040 plus shipping and handling. At pricewatch.com, the same item is listed for $749 + $15 shipping and handling.
The lesson here?
Don't buy anything at ThinkGeek, they are a ripoff!!!!
--JismTroll, once again posting at zero
The idea that everyone in India is naked and starving is just as true as the idea that everyone in America lives in a mansion and drives a lexus.
"The Palladium was a famous theater in London and another in Hollywood, and the name choice makes more and more sense to me as the story develops about Microsoft's computer security initiative of the same name. It certainly felt like theater, for example, when I received this week a very careful message on the subject from inside Microsoft. It's rare that I hear from any of the troops in Redmond, and the writer's message is an interesting one that made me think a lot -- not just about Palladium, but about the whole power structure behind the protection of intellectual property rights and just where Microsoft fits in. Frankly, I think we're being played for fools. The message follows (with my addition of capital letters where needed).
As a long time reader and watcher, I've always respected your insight. But you should know that you're pretty far off the mark with your recent Palladium commentary. It's basically content creator (be that ISV or copyright holder) driven only, and Microsoft only provides the infrastructure to let that happen. Obviously, I cannot comment on internal issues, but this public interview sums it up pretty accurately [cites a URL that you'll find is the first "I Like It!" entry this week]. Especially the following (an interview with Palladium product manager Mario Juarez published in Digital ID World):......
But hey, this is just Microsoft you say. Microsoft doesn't envision anything so diabolical. And I agree with that statement simply because I don't see Microsoft as a company having much vision at all. That's why it is possible for Palladium to be devised exactly as Mr. Juarez says, from the bottom up for purely altruistic reasons. In fact, I am sure that is how it happened. But then one day somebody near the top of Microsoft realized that what they had was a way of taxing the world, and suddenly, Palladium became strategic for Microsoft.
Now maybe I am a crackpot. And if I am, then you'll be able to take apart everything I have just written, point by point, showing how crazy it is. Please do. I'm waiting.
And I'm still waiting.
As a footnote here, I did a Google search on my writer from Microsoft, and found that he had submitted comments to the Department of Justice asking that Microsoft be dealt with leniently in the penalty phase of the current anti-trust trial. While the writer described himself to the DOJ as an "entrepreneur," he did not identify himself as a Microsoft employee. How entrepreneurial of him! I wonder how many of the positive comments received by the DOJ came from such closeted Microsoft people?
Now back to Palladium. One aspect of this story that really amazes me is the role of the recording, broadcasting, and film industries, which are accorded far more prestige than I think they deserve or that they would receive from Microsoft on a normal day. This is a company, remember, that is consistently acused of stealing intellectual property and has been found guilty of doing so. There is no respect for intellectual property rights that I can see there. Beyond Bill Gates's extensive video collection of Audrey Hepburn movies, I don't think the movie business makes much difference to Microsoft. It's all about the money."
see also: the horrors of becoming involved in some phony payper stock markup bookFUDging FraUDs, & ill eagle hostage ransom liesense scams
see also: VA Lairy et AL