When I entered the corporate world years ago, I felt rather important when I was invited to attend meetings. I was part of the decision-making process!
WOO-HOO!
After my first promotion, attendance at meetings was no longer optional. Still, I was part of the decision-making process.
Woo-hoo.
After my second promotion (to department head), I had to conduct the meetings. I *was* the decision-making process.
Bleh.
Having attended hundreds, perhaps thousands, of meetings, I have learned that the overwhelming majority of meetings can be boiled down to five minutes of useful interaction/dialogue. All the necessary information is conveyed in about five minutes. The rest of the hour (or five) is filler. Blather to show one's knowledge or special insight.
(1) The author had to create symbolic links to make Firefox and Thunderbird work.
(2) "A quick bit of googling" was required to get the missing library installed.
Read the first quoted paragraph again. Note the author had to unzip and untar the files into the directory "where Debian likes to keep them," and make the symlinks where "where the system expects to find them." Does the Debian distro put Firefox and Thunderbird in a different directory than the Ubuntu or Fedora? How about Slackware?
The author indicated he downloaded and installed Firefox and Thunderbird. He did not use Debian's install mechanism to install the software. He got the apps directly from Mozilla. It is for this reason that he needed to create the necessary symbolic links and had to correct errors with libraries. This is not a Debian problem. The author installed "non-Debian" software and had to exert a bit of effort to get it to work problem.
You want the masses to migrate to Linux? Make application installations "point and click" operations, including all necessary dependency checks and library installations as part of that initial click of the mouse button. Installing apps has to be that easy.
Again, had the author simply used Debian's 'apt-get' method of installing, all of the extra work would have been unnecessary. If anything, his installation of Firefox and Thunderbird demonstrate the freedom of Linux, not the difficulty of it.
> Also WTF is a phone line? VoIP goes over the net (re: ethernet) not a POTS > (otherwise what's the f'ing point?). > > Why not integrate a PS3 into it while you're at it?
What is a phone line? While Reading The Fine Article, I came across this statement:
"With one jack connected to the house phone and the other linked to the ground telephone line, the TeleSky(TM) can switch the house phone connection between PSTN and VoIP networks."
Also, the Fine Article listed some of the features of the product such as "I/O 2 RJ 11 connectors for phone and PSTN cable."
It would seem, then, that the motherboard has a couple RJ-11 connectors for what is commonly referred to as a telephone line. Of course, if you have telephones with RJ-45 connectors then this becomes moot, but most telephones have RJ-11 connectors and so a means for attaching one's telephone(s) to the computer becomes necessary.
That may be true, actually. I remember reading about Richard M Stallman's Emacs config file that only containes a couple changes from the default configuration. In other words, the default configuration for Emacs is, essentially, RMS' preferred settings. Why shouldn't XP's default background be Bill G's favorite picture?
With your relatively small storage requirements, I suggest a 250-500GB drive with a cron job running rsync every night. I do this with my significantly smaller storage requirements. I have a drive in my system to which I copy via rsync/home/user1 and/home/user2 (basically, the entire contents of/home). The great advantage to this is if/home dies (it is a separate drive), I can simply edit/etc/fstab and mount the backup drive as/home. All my files are there. Since this is for home use, I cannot imagine that you have frequently changed files. If this is the case, nightly (weekly? monthly?) backups would suffice. This method provides you with a drop-in replacement without the need to actually "drop-in" anything.
Not quite - current researchers say they're about 3-5 years away from starting human trials in repairing spinal cord injuries with stem cells. More here, though due to the halt on federal funding, this has been somewhat derailed (we were 5 years away in 2000).
Due to the halt? What halt? As a few other commenters have noted, President Bush is the first president to authorize federal monies to be used for embryonic stem cell research. He also banned federal monies from being used on any new embryonic stem cell lines. (The current lines allowed have already been "harvested," that is, the cells are already dead and thus federal monies are not being used to take life.) To say that federal funding has been halted is akin to saying that The US Military has halted its war against Michigan.
Who's "bashing" Bill Gates? Whether or not this is illegal is irrelevent. The story is simply about how Gates is prepared to act in order to get his way. That's not a criticism, it's an observation.
Heh. Did you *read* my post? Allow me to quote myself (this should seem vaguely familiar...)
"Um...this is Slashdot, you insensitive clod. We *need* to bash Bill Gates. Stop taking away our fun with real facts. Sheesh. Facts... Did I mention this is *Slashdot*?"
It is neither. It is definatly not blackmail, since there is no criminal act or discreditable information. It is not extortion because the act of close the office and firing the people would not be illegal. Also it was not made in private. It is definatly arm twisting or making a threating comment. Not sure how illegal that would be.
Um...this is Slashdot, you insensitive clod. We *need* to bash Bill Gates. Stop taking away our fun with real facts. Sheesh. Facts... Did I mention this is *Slashdot*?
Actually, since you spelled it as "definatly", you seem well aware this is Slashdot...
Feh. Big deal. It is moving 1,500,000 miles per hour, and that is a mere "fraction" of the speed of light. Let us have some *real* perspective here. The radius of our solar system is approximately 80AU. That is 7,436,471,008 miles. Add another astronomical unit from the sun to the earth and you get 7,529,426,895. At its current speed, if that thing enters our solar system opposite the earth, we have 209 *days* to get out of the way. Sheesh. Even if it enters our solar system on our side, it still would have to travel 80AU or 7,436,471,008 miles to hit earth. Gee. That shortens our time to duck to "only" 206 days. "Yikes."
Currently, Social Security is running a hefty surplus; the payroll tax brings in more dollars than what goes out in benefits. By law, Social Security invests that surplus in Treasury securities, which it deposits into a reserve known as a trust fund, which now holds more than one and a half trillion dollars. But by 2018, as baby boomers retire en masse, the system will go into deficit. At that point, in order to pay benefits, it will begin to draw on the assets in the trust fund.
Except the surplus does *not* go into a trust fund. This is why Al Gore spoke of a Social Security "lock box" four years ago. The fact is there was not a balanced budget under Bill Clinton, though the Federal Government actually spent less than the revenues it received. The "balancing" was achieved by using the Social Security surplus. Back in the 1980's the Congress decided to include Social Security revenue in the general budget in an effort to make the deficit appear less bad. It is like saying Mr. Jones earned $5000 more than he spent and Mr. Smith spent $5000 more than he earned, therefore Mr. Jones and Mr. Smith collectively have a balanced budget. The problem is Mr. Jones' budget is supposed to remain separate from Mr. Smith's.
You can't ignore the largest Unix vendor in the world: Apple. You're just cutting your own throat if you ignore a huge segment of the market for your software. Projects succeed when people USE the software.
Let us be *very* generous and say that Apple accounts for 10% of the desktop market. Focusing on the remaining 90% (plus) of the desktop market is in *no* way "cutting [their] own throat." Projects do indeed succeed when folk use the software. At least nine times as many folk do not use Apple's Unix than do. OpenOffice.org is appealing the overwhelming portion of the "market."
Uh...using a windshield to store information such as, say, secret plans for a car, is not new. Sheesh. This was done back in the late 60's. Right, Chim Chim?
whats the big deal....as long as you can read it does it matter how i write??????? does it really matter how concisely i frame my thoughts or if i mispell a word...the whole point of business is simply communicating with one another!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! how much does proper punctuation and grammar really affect my job performance....get a grip!!!!!!!!
sorry for the rant...i have to get back to work....i am going to email my manager about that raise....
Really? Why haven't they found [the wmd's] after more than a YEAR of being there.
good question. perhaps you should ask al gore who said in september, *2002*, "We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
"There is a definite connection between Iraq and 9/11." How interesting. The 9/11 commission just declared none.
according to the washington times, bill clinton himself said there is a connection between iraq and al-qaeda. http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040624-112921- 3401r.htm
These are facts. Aren't you upset that we have been misled?
these, too, are facts. are *you* upset at having been misled?
Let the third-party Debian distributions deal w/that. Debian users are a special breed.
I really get sick of this elitest crap, that somehow a specific group is somehow "special". Before going off to become an engineer, I used to be a hardcore Linux user of Slackware and Debian
I have had enough, I plan to use the Reagan formula 'Are you better off than you were 4 years ago???' No, bye bye Repubs... it's that easy. I don't care if there is Gay marrige, cats and dogs living together, whatever as long as I can provide for my family. Thats the bottom line, the rest of it is window dressing.
this sounds like a vote *against* a candidate. who (kerry?) who is going to make your life better over the next four years? i will give you a hint: it is not the winner of the election in november. i get very tired of hearing about what this president's policies did this to the economy or that candidate's policies will do to the economy. the fact is *you* have the most control over your life and the quality of it. are you worse off than you were four years ago? what have you done about it? what *will* you do about it? vote? that is not enough.
Even GNU/Linux is such a small part of what is linux. Their is so much non GNU free software involved in what we consider linux. You have X, KDE, VIM, xmms, mozilla, samba and alot more.
see? gnu/linux is just not descriptive enough, nor does it properly credit all the projects involved. that is why i run gnu/xfree86/enlightenment/vim/zinf/mozilla/samba/m utt/linux.
"Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Ben Franklin
"The fetters imposed on liberty at home have ever been forged out of the weapons provided for defence against real, pretended, or imaginary dangers from abroad." -- James Madison, 4th US president (1751-1836)
The facts are that Ronald Reagan provided weapons and support to both Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Donald Rumsfeld shook hands with Saddam in 1984, months after he killed hundreds of Kurds using American helicopters. Until we admit these things, we're destined to do it again.
no, ronald reagan did not supply weapons to bin laden. the cia provided some weapons and *logistical* support to native afghani fighters. bin laden had personal wealth and the wealth of saudi arabia to arm his fighters. there were *two* groups fighting the russians in afghanistan. the first, of course, was made up of native afghani people. the second was made up of foreign arabs who were furious with russia for daring to attack/invade a muslim country. giving support to one does not require (necessarily) giving support to the other.
the real mistake in american foreign policy was the mistaken notion that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. in the 1980's the enemies of iraq were also enemies of the united states. the united states foolishly assumed, then, iraq was its friend. this mistake will not be made again - at least under the current president.
He talks about #3 all the time even though it makes no sense. When Bin Laden was working with the CIA to free Afghanistan from the Russians, he liked freedom well enough. The Army of God has killed 3 people and injured over 100 in 4 bombings (Olympic Park, 2 Women's Clinics, and a Gay Bar). They fail tests #1 and #2, so Bush never mentions them.
er, sorry. your facts are incorrect. there were two groups fighting against the russians. one group was comprised of native aghanis and the other was comprised of foreign fighters (read mercenaries). the cia aided the afghani fighters, not the foreign fighters.
this is/. so the following link will probably have an extra space in it...
Slashdot Mirror
Meetings suck. Avoid them.
When I entered the corporate world years ago, I felt rather important when I was invited to attend meetings. I was part of the decision-making process!
WOO-HOO!
After my first promotion, attendance at meetings was no longer optional. Still, I was part of the decision-making process.
Woo-hoo.
After my second promotion (to department head), I had to conduct the meetings. I *was* the decision-making process.
Bleh.
Having attended hundreds, perhaps thousands, of meetings, I have learned that the overwhelming majority of meetings can be boiled down to five minutes of useful interaction/dialogue. All the necessary information is conveyed in about five minutes. The rest of the hour (or five) is filler. Blather to show one's knowledge or special insight.
Meetings suck. Avoid them, indeed.
Two points of interest here:
(1) The author had to create symbolic links to make Firefox and Thunderbird work.
(2) "A quick bit of googling" was required to get the missing library installed.
Read the first quoted paragraph again. Note the author had to unzip and untar the files into the directory "where Debian likes to keep them," and make the symlinks where "where the system expects to find them." Does the Debian distro put Firefox and Thunderbird in a different directory than the Ubuntu or Fedora? How about Slackware?
The author indicated he downloaded and installed Firefox and Thunderbird. He did not use Debian's install mechanism to install the software. He got the apps directly from Mozilla. It is for this reason that he needed to create the necessary symbolic links and had to correct errors with libraries. This is not a Debian problem. The author installed "non-Debian" software and had to exert a bit of effort to get it to work problem.
You want the masses to migrate to Linux? Make application installations "point and click" operations, including all necessary dependency checks and library installations as part of that initial click of the mouse button. Installing apps has to be that easy.
Again, had the author simply used Debian's 'apt-get' method of installing, all of the extra work would have been unnecessary. If anything, his installation of Firefox and Thunderbird demonstrate the freedom of Linux, not the difficulty of it.
> Also WTF is a phone line? VoIP goes over the net (re: ethernet) not a POTS
> (otherwise what's the f'ing point?).
>
> Why not integrate a PS3 into it while you're at it?
What is a phone line? While Reading The Fine Article, I came across this statement:
"With one jack connected to the house phone and the other linked to the ground telephone line, the TeleSky(TM) can switch the house phone connection between PSTN and VoIP networks."
Also, the Fine Article listed some of the features of the product such as "I/O 2 RJ 11 connectors for phone and PSTN cable."
It would seem, then, that the motherboard has a couple RJ-11 connectors for what is commonly referred to as a telephone line. Of course, if you have telephones with RJ-45 connectors then this becomes moot, but most telephones have RJ-11 connectors and so a means for attaching one's telephone(s) to the computer becomes necessary.
And probably why it is everyone else's default.
That may be true, actually. I remember reading about Richard M Stallman's Emacs config file that only containes a couple changes from the default configuration. In other words, the default configuration for Emacs is, essentially, RMS' preferred settings. Why shouldn't XP's default background be Bill G's favorite picture?
With your relatively small storage requirements, I suggest a 250-500GB drive with a cron job running rsync every night. I do this with my significantly smaller storage requirements. I have a drive in my system to which I copy via rsync /home/user1 and /home/user2 (basically, the entire contents of /home). The great advantage to this is if /home dies (it is a separate drive), I can simply edit /etc/fstab and mount the backup drive as /home. All my files are there. Since this is for home use, I cannot imagine that you have frequently changed files. If this is the case, nightly (weekly? monthly?) backups would suffice. This method provides you with a drop-in replacement without the need to actually "drop-in" anything.
You are entitled to the source code to the missiles that just landed on your head under the terms of the GPL?
Yes; a CD with the source code will be included with each missile.
Not quite - current researchers say they're about 3-5 years away from starting human trials in repairing spinal cord injuries with stem cells. More here, though due to the halt on federal funding, this has been somewhat derailed (we were 5 years away in 2000).
Due to the halt? What halt? As a few other commenters have noted, President Bush is the first president to authorize federal monies to be used for embryonic stem cell research. He also banned federal monies from being used on any new embryonic stem cell lines. (The current lines allowed have already been "harvested," that is, the cells are already dead and thus federal monies are not being used to take life.) To say that federal funding has been halted is akin to saying that The US Military has halted its war against Michigan.
Who's "bashing" Bill Gates? Whether or not this is illegal is irrelevent. The story is simply about how Gates is prepared to act in order to get his way. That's not a criticism, it's an observation.
Heh. Did you *read* my post? Allow me to quote myself (this should seem vaguely familiar...)
"Um...this is Slashdot, you insensitive clod. We *need* to bash Bill Gates. Stop taking away our fun with real facts. Sheesh. Facts... Did I mention this is *Slashdot*?"
It is neither.
It is definatly not blackmail, since there is no criminal act or discreditable information.
It is not extortion because the act of close the office and firing the people would not be illegal. Also it was not made in private.
It is definatly arm twisting or making a threating comment. Not sure how illegal that would be.
Um...this is Slashdot, you insensitive clod. We *need* to bash Bill Gates. Stop taking away our fun with real facts. Sheesh. Facts... Did I mention this is *Slashdot*?
Actually, since you spelled it as "definatly", you seem well aware this is Slashdot...
Feh. Big deal. It is moving 1,500,000 miles per hour, and that is a mere "fraction" of the speed of light. Let us have some *real* perspective here. The radius of our solar system is approximately 80AU. That is 7,436,471,008 miles. Add another astronomical unit from the sun to the earth and you get 7,529,426,895. At its current speed, if that thing enters our solar system opposite the earth, we have 209 *days* to get out of the way. Sheesh. Even if it enters our solar system on our side, it still would have to travel 80AU or 7,436,471,008 miles to hit earth. Gee. That shortens our time to duck to "only" 206 days. "Yikes."
Currently, Social Security is running a hefty surplus; the payroll tax brings in more dollars than what goes out in benefits. By law, Social Security invests that surplus in Treasury securities, which it deposits into a reserve known as a trust fund, which now holds more than one and a half trillion dollars. But by 2018, as baby boomers retire en masse, the system will go into deficit. At that point, in order to pay benefits, it will begin to draw on the assets in the trust fund.
Except the surplus does *not* go into a trust fund. This is why Al Gore spoke of a Social Security "lock box" four years ago. The fact is there was not a balanced budget under Bill Clinton, though the Federal Government actually spent less than the revenues it received. The "balancing" was achieved by using the Social Security surplus. Back in the 1980's the Congress decided to include Social Security revenue in the general budget in an effort to make the deficit appear less bad. It is like saying Mr. Jones earned $5000 more than he spent and Mr. Smith spent $5000 more than he earned, therefore Mr. Jones and Mr. Smith collectively have a balanced budget. The problem is Mr. Jones' budget is supposed to remain separate from Mr. Smith's.
You can't ignore the largest Unix vendor in the world: Apple. You're just cutting your own throat if you ignore a huge segment of the market for your software. Projects succeed when people USE the software.
Let us be *very* generous and say that Apple accounts for 10% of the desktop market. Focusing on the remaining 90% (plus) of the desktop market is in *no* way "cutting [their] own throat." Projects do indeed succeed when folk use the software. At least nine times as many folk do not use Apple's Unix than do. OpenOffice.org is appealing the overwhelming portion of the "market."
After all, just 90% of lawyers make the other 10% look bad...
Uh...using a windshield to store information such as, say, secret plans for a car, is not new. Sheesh. This was done back in the late 60's. Right, Chim Chim?
See? Technology follows fiction. Or something.
whats the big deal....as long as you can read it does it matter how i write??????? does it really matter how concisely i frame my thoughts or if i mispell a word...the whole point of business is simply communicating with one another!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! how much does proper punctuation and grammar really affect my job performance....get a grip!!!!!!!!
sorry for the rant...i have to get back to work....i am going to email my manager about that raise....
Will everyone stop with the Bash bashing, please?
So you watched the Democratic National Convention, huh?
Oh...
*bash* bashing. heh.
sigh. you liberals are so forgetful.
- 3401r.htm
Really? Why haven't they found [the wmd's] after more than a YEAR of being there.
good question. perhaps you should ask al gore who said in september, *2002*, "We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
"There is a definite connection between Iraq and 9/11."
How interesting. The 9/11 commission just declared none.
according to the washington times, bill clinton himself said there is a connection between iraq and al-qaeda. http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040624-112921
These are facts. Aren't you upset that we have been misled?
these, too, are facts. are *you* upset at having been misled?
Let the third-party Debian distributions deal w/that. Debian users are a special breed.
I really get sick of this elitest crap, that somehow a specific group is somehow "special". Before going off to become an engineer, I used to be a hardcore Linux user of Slackware and Debian
you must be a fedora user now...
Nothing, especially something as complicated as an ENTIRE OPERATING SYSTEM, is every completely, 100% bug free. That's just rediculous.
:-)
apparently, even spell checkers have bugs...
I have had enough, I plan to use the Reagan formula 'Are you better off than you were 4 years ago???' No, bye bye Repubs... it's that easy.
I don't care if there is Gay marrige, cats and dogs living together, whatever as long as I can provide for my family. Thats the bottom line, the rest of it is window dressing.
this sounds like a vote *against* a candidate. who (kerry?) who is going to make your life better over the next four years? i will give you a hint: it is not the winner of the election in november. i get very tired of hearing about what this president's policies did this to the economy or that candidate's policies will do to the economy. the fact is *you* have the most control over your life and the quality of it. are you worse off than you were four years ago? what have you done about it? what *will* you do about it? vote? that is not enough.
Even GNU/Linux is such a small part of what is linux. Their is so much non GNU free software involved in what we consider linux. You have X, KDE, VIM, xmms, mozilla, samba and alot more.
m utt/linux.
see? gnu/linux is just not descriptive enough, nor does it properly credit all the projects involved. that is why i run gnu/xfree86/enlightenment/vim/zinf/mozilla/samba/
"Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Ben Franklin
"The fetters imposed on liberty at home have ever been forged out of the weapons provided for defence against real, pretended, or imaginary dangers from abroad." -- James Madison, 4th US president (1751-1836)
The facts are that Ronald Reagan provided weapons and support to both Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Donald Rumsfeld shook hands with Saddam in 1984, months after he killed hundreds of Kurds using American helicopters. Until we admit these things, we're destined to do it again.
no, ronald reagan did not supply weapons to bin laden. the cia provided some weapons and *logistical* support to native afghani fighters. bin laden had personal wealth and the wealth of saudi arabia to arm his fighters. there were *two* groups fighting the russians in afghanistan. the first, of course, was made up of native afghani people. the second was made up of foreign arabs who were furious with russia for daring to attack/invade a muslim country. giving support to one does not require (necessarily) giving support to the other.
the real mistake in american foreign policy was the mistaken notion that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. in the 1980's the enemies of iraq were also enemies of the united states. the united states foolishly assumed, then, iraq was its friend. this mistake will not be made again - at least under the current president.
He talks about #3 all the time even though it makes no sense. When Bin Laden was working with the CIA to free Afghanistan from the Russians, he liked freedom well enough. The Army of God has killed 3 people and injured over 100 in 4 bombings (Olympic Park, 2 Women's Clinics, and a Gay Bar). They fail tests #1 and #2, so Bush never mentions them.
/. so the following link will probably have an extra space in it...
e .a sp?ID=5443
er, sorry. your facts are incorrect. there were two groups fighting against the russians. one group was comprised of native aghanis and the other was comprised of foreign fighters (read mercenaries). the cia aided the afghani fighters, not the foreign fighters.
this is
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticl
Hey, can you tell me what an *incorrect opinion* is?
sure. as far as i know, my opinions are correct. any opinion contrary to mine, then, is incorrect. see?