The FCC charging people for air and forcing them to redistribute it for free. You can enforce all the archaic rules you like when you pay for your own infrastructure instead of making others pay to do all the work for you. If this public disservice ever comes to be, I'm going to use it solely for running an encrypted porn site.
Here's the print version for those who don't want to scroll constantly because of the massive ad-walls. Really, I don't mind ads, but use them tastefully.
I'm fine with copyright lasting as long as the creator, due to the narrow focus of copyrights. I can't copyright operating systems in general, just the ones I write. Though the 'lifetime+n' term that some countries have set leaves a rather bad taste in my mouth, as it ceases to benefit the people actually responsible for the works at that point. As for patents, they should only last long enough for the covered product to 'take root', rather than preventing competition for years after. (In that same vein, I believe that patents have absolutely no place in something as fast-paced as software development.) The only thing that should matter after you have a product out there is securing your brand.
(Replace all instances of '* should' with 'I think * should'.)
Actually, you could probably do pretty well setting up a VPS service. An upside of this being that you can leave a good deal of the work to the customers, and you'll be more likely to get people who know what they're doing. Though it's a bit more of an investment than simply hosting files, since you won't know what users will do and you'll have fewer users per machine. The only real problem I can see with this, aside from money, is the headache support would be.
At least not yet. Do yourself a favor and torture yourse-- get your feet wet beforehand.
First, set up a bare-bones Linux/BSD box with only the processes you'll need. Rent a dedicated server or a VPS so you can avoid splurging on bandwidth for now. Iptables, Apache, MySQL/Postgre, Denyhosts (Don't set that to email you. Just don't.), BIND9 and vsftpd are a good start. Chroot users and force SSL when configuring vsftpd, use mpm-itk when setting up Apache (vhosts run as a specific user and users don't have to worry about chmodding scripts). Also, you should probably install Postfix and configure it to only send mail; so many forum/blog scripts use email verification. Now tie all that together with some control panel.
Now that you're done with the technical parts (that I can remember), grab a bottle of Asprin and start advertising. Charge something small like $4/month (don't accept credit) and set up a free service with ads. The goal here is to look like a faceless organization instead of a person with the capacity to get pissed, so automate the hell out of everything and make the main site look like a big, ugly ad for itself with tons of flashy features. Just look at any $5/month host for an example.
After a few months of this, you'll either know what you're doing, or you'll be bald. Get started.
Graphs show CO2 actually rises directly after an increase in temperature not before. You know, there's a reason for the term 'runaway greenhouse effect'. Hint: That extra CO2 released by the increased heat doesn't help cool anything.
You make it sound as if we're all somehow 'entitled' to blog about what we had for dinner or what color we died our hair. I could hold out a bag of rabbit feces, but it doesn't mean you have to accept it.
Don't forget that you can't feel a prosthetic, which makes it that much harder to coordinate. As for your comment on traction, what do you think we wear shoes for?
Not like drug dealers aren't killing each other daily. When's the last time you heard about a spammer shootout over a bad deal? When hijacking machines and flooding disks around the world ceases to be easy money, I predict that a lot of these parasites will simply move on to something else. Yes, I am advocating the idea that we legalize spammer hit-lists. Opt-out, of course. =p
X-forwarding and NAS are your friends. A P3's more than enough for a thin client and you could probably do the same with those P2's. Alternatively, you could crack it open and sell the individual parts, probably for more than you could get off the whole thing. Depending on the age of the P2 laptops (and thus case size), you could probably swap out the internals for a better screen and a PicoITX board, getting at least another five good years out of them.
Who cares about having a single UI? Do you want the exact same room as everyone else with the exact same paint - that black bar at the bottom, those mountains in the background, and the news/weather to the right? It may seem silly, but it's the screen we spend a good portion of the day staring at, it's practically another room. You're going to have a hard time convincing those working on FVWM, XFCE, Fluxbox, and all the other non-KDE/GNOME desktop environments that a universal paint color has been decided upon and that they should all just roll over and accept it.
Slashdot Mirror
Whichever is most toxic, heavy, and flammable. I'm going to have to put my $5 on the oil.
Or it may as well be. On the bright side, I did just learn a great lesson about the importance of download mirrors.
The FCC charging people for air and forcing them to redistribute it for free. You can enforce all the archaic rules you like when you pay for your own infrastructure instead of making others pay to do all the work for you.
If this public disservice ever comes to be, I'm going to use it solely for running an encrypted porn site.
Here's the print version for those who don't want to scroll constantly because of the massive ad-walls.
Really, I don't mind ads, but use them tastefully.
THIS is what XP was like. I guess MS is really slipping if Vista's supposed to be the new Win2k.
My servers are still running Synergy and I see no reason to upgrade in the near future.
That's my IP! :o
I'm fine with copyright lasting as long as the creator, due to the narrow focus of copyrights. I can't copyright operating systems in general, just the ones I write. Though the 'lifetime+n' term that some countries have set leaves a rather bad taste in my mouth, as it ceases to benefit the people actually responsible for the works at that point.
As for patents, they should only last long enough for the covered product to 'take root', rather than preventing competition for years after. (In that same vein, I believe that patents have absolutely no place in something as fast-paced as software development.) The only thing that should matter after you have a product out there is securing your brand.
(Replace all instances of '* should' with 'I think * should'.)
Actually, you could probably do pretty well setting up a VPS service. An upside of this being that you can leave a good deal of the work to the customers, and you'll be more likely to get people who know what they're doing. Though it's a bit more of an investment than simply hosting files, since you won't know what users will do and you'll have fewer users per machine. The only real problem I can see with this, aside from money, is the headache support would be.
At least not yet. Do yourself a favor and torture yourse-- get your feet wet beforehand.
First, set up a bare-bones Linux/BSD box with only the processes you'll need. Rent a dedicated server or a VPS so you can avoid splurging on bandwidth for now.
Iptables, Apache, MySQL/Postgre, Denyhosts (Don't set that to email you. Just don't.), BIND9 and vsftpd are a good start. Chroot users and force SSL when configuring vsftpd, use mpm-itk when setting up Apache (vhosts run as a specific user and users don't have to worry about chmodding scripts). Also, you should probably install Postfix and configure it to only send mail; so many forum/blog scripts use email verification. Now tie all that together with some control panel.
Now that you're done with the technical parts (that I can remember), grab a bottle of Asprin and start advertising. Charge something small like $4/month (don't accept credit) and set up a free service with ads. The goal here is to look like a faceless organization instead of a person with the capacity to get pissed, so automate the hell out of everything and make the main site look like a big, ugly ad for itself with tons of flashy features. Just look at any $5/month host for an example.
After a few months of this, you'll either know what you're doing, or you'll be bald. Get started.
Could be worse. The AC I responded to failed at printing a line.
You make it sound as if we're all somehow 'entitled' to blog about what we had for dinner or what color we died our hair. I could hold out a bag of rabbit feces, but it doesn't mean you have to accept it.
Muninite?
Don't forget that you can't feel a prosthetic, which makes it that much harder to coordinate. As for your comment on traction, what do you think we wear shoes for?
Not like drug dealers aren't killing each other daily. When's the last time you heard about a spammer shootout over a bad deal? When hijacking machines and flooding disks around the world ceases to be easy money, I predict that a lot of these parasites will simply move on to something else. Yes, I am advocating the idea that we legalize spammer hit-lists. Opt-out, of course. =p
Keep in mind that a lot of Windows malware only works because everyone runs as root.
X-forwarding and NAS are your friends. A P3's more than enough for a thin client and you could probably do the same with those P2's.
Alternatively, you could crack it open and sell the individual parts, probably for more than you could get off the whole thing. Depending on the age of the P2 laptops (and thus case size), you could probably swap out the internals for a better screen and a PicoITX board, getting at least another five good years out of them.
Who cares about having a single UI? Do you want the exact same room as everyone else with the exact same paint - that black bar at the bottom, those mountains in the background, and the news/weather to the right? It may seem silly, but it's the screen we spend a good portion of the day staring at, it's practically another room.
You're going to have a hard time convincing those working on FVWM, XFCE, Fluxbox, and all the other non-KDE/GNOME desktop environments that a universal paint color has been decided upon and that they should all just roll over and accept it.
I think OP meant Glasnost has been Slashdotted. (Though I almost didn't know that, thanks to PCWorld also being 'dotted.)