Yup -- believe it or not you can burn lots of extra calories by fidgeting. Tap your leg to music, chew sugarless gum, twitch. You'll lose any remaining friends you have but you'll be thinner.
I still have some of the stuff that came with the Infocom games. My all times favorite was the Enchanter series, but I've spent lots and lots of hours playing Zork. If you search on Google there are still copies floating around.
"That is not entirely correct. If you put your Linux install far enough back on the disk it will still be there. The Toshiba recovery program only makes the filesystem, it does not destructively format the disk, so only the first couple of gigs get overwritten. "
That would make sense. It would make it easier for them to have multiple drive sizes and still use the same DVD.
No, you'll not be able to non-destructively resize if you don't defrag. I did this many, many times during preparation for some installation notes and even with a large chunk of free space at the end, a non-defragged disk meant a wiped partition.
If it's a regular Windows installation on an NTFS disk you can still install Linux by resizing. You can use either Partition Magick or the first disk of the Mandrake 9.1 set to resize the NTFS disk. Make sure to defrag the NTFS partition from within Windows first before doing this procedure or else the contents will be destroyed.
The problem seems to be that the image is the size of the disk so reinstallation of Windows, once Linux is already installed, will overwrite all partitions. It's just a complete disk image on the DVD. One workaround is to do the Windows installation, install Linux, use something like g4u to create a copy of your disk.
Or, use dd from the Linux partition to copy the Windows image once it's all installed.
I've always purchased boxed sets of my favorite distros as a way of helping the revolution. But RH seems to be doing a smart thing. I get a lot better value from joining the redhat network than purchasing things I'll never use (installation manual, pretty box, etc). In fact, I usually just drop the ISOs onto a server so that I can loopback mount them or just copy all the RPMs to a directory. RedHat probably gets more from a subscription than an equivalent boxed set anyway. So almost everybody wins. The people left out may be those that are browsing the aisles at a local computer store and see the (usually outdated) copy of Suse or Mandrake or RH in some bin or clearance rack.
I dunno. Sounds interesting on the front of it, but I certainly don't agree. First, gnumeric does run perfectly well under my KDE desktop. Second, if the developers did it for the glory of Gnome, then so be it; they are free to call it whatever they want. Now I've purchased a few RedHat and Mandrake distributions but have never sent anything to the Gnome foundation itself (something I hope to remedy in a month or so). If they want to call their excellent program ElephantAss I'm certainly not going to argue. In any case, you are free to name your menu shortcuts whatever you want. E.g., RedHat doesn't call their email client "Evolution" but "Email". It still runs Evolution, but the user doesn't need to know that.
I have a separate email address on some of my business cards for a non-computer business. Within a few weeks of handing them out I started getting spam to the address. Since this email addy doesn't appear anywhere online on either my webpage or in any document, it must have been input from someone else. Maybe someone's digital Address Book got pilfered or whatever... I suspect some Outlook virus that harvested my address from someone's vulnerable computer. Point is that even a non-digital address is not safe.
I knew there was something wrong with my recent crop of Maxtors. I went through *FOUR* defective units in a row. Luckily, I bought a $10 extended warranty at CompUSA (though I never bought them before). After the second failure I contacted Maxtor and they denied that there was anything wrong with the 40G units, though the technician hinted that the one I bought was a "low end" model. It was almost as if he was saying, "You get what you pay for. Tough."
The May 2003 issue of Linux Journal features Linux and sound. Check out Linux Journal then navigate to the May 2003 issue in the archive section. The ones they mention are still in beta or development stages but some are useful, according to the articles.
Keep this in mind: The focus of the mouse pointer determines what each key sequence does. This can be confusing at first but makes it easier later. In other words, if your pointer is in the modeling window then keys will have a different effect than if you're in the controls pane. The alternative may have been to assing a modifier sequence, but you could argue that this forces you to put two hands on the keyboard. As it is, you keep one hand always on the mouse and the other always on the keyboard.
I've played with the demo version from the Alias site, but it does not do justice to the real program. For one, it watermarks all pages, has the incompatible format that you mentioned, and is extremely crash-prone. I ended up getting the Maya Complete version (still paying back the credit card). Oh, it's also only for Win2K/MacOS.
Actually, yes. I own the Windows version and have been learning Maya for the past year. But you quite obviously didn't read my post or else you wouldn't have made such a comment. Maya can do many things that Blender cannot, but the $1200 price tag puts it out of reach for many people who just want to experiment.
Blender is definitely a great success story. Like Gimp is to Photoshop, Blender is to Maya. Though Photoshop is still the heavyweight tool for photo manipulation and though I'm an experienced Gimp user, I know that there are things that Photoshop can do that Gimp cannot do as easily. But the $500 price tag for Photoshop makes me a big, big Gimp fan. It does everything I need. Same for Blender. It is not in the same class as Maya but with a little work, can do many of the same things. In fact, it's at the point where it competes well against many of the lower end commercial packages costing hundreds of dollars.
This is interesting. Lots of responses so far have said that putting a database into volatile memory is preposterous. But from reading the article I'm not certain if it's such a bad idea in some situations. There are often sites that have a lot of relatively static data in their databases. These sites often use a backend database because it's easier, programmatically and as far as maintenance is concerned, to do so rather than create lots of static pages. Writes to the database could be done as a pass-through so they do get written to the disk "backup". A good example may be Google's cache -- the pages do not need to be re-indexed all the time but speed is critical. If RAM can be faster and, possibly even use less power than a hard drive, then there is a benefit. In Google's case, there is no writing, only queries.
This means that in any situation where data is unchanging except for periodic updates this could be a good idea.
Static linking might be useful as a workaround for the more esoteric distros, but it has its problems. For one, if you statically link your application then anytime there's a security fix or change to the linked library you'll need to recompile the application, not just upgrade the library. This would probably cost more in administration time than upgrading a single library since multiple applications may be dependent on the one library.
I'll preface this by saying that I am a Linux user through and through. I can't stand Microsoft for practical and philosophical reasons. That said, I've noticed a lot of comments rated as "Funny". As evil as the company is, it is not funny. They are a bueiness with the goal of making dollars, billions of dollars, and nothing more. This may be the reason for their anti-trust tactics, for their anti-consumer EULAs, for their buggy software. I don't know. I do know that they have billions of dollars to convince people that Windows 2003 is the only solution. How? They repeat a thing over and over. It doesn't matter at all if it's true or not, as long as people keep hearing something they will start to believe.
It works simply: Run a few marketing ads full of outright lies or half-truths. These ads get picked up by some page two newspaper columnist to write a fluff piece and lend it credibility. Soon others start repeating the original advertisement as truth. Sadly, newspaper columnists are under a lot of deadlines and a technical piece may not get the rigorous fact-checking that other news gets. Pretty soon even level-headed folks start hearing the ads from a reputable source. It might be enough to even sway someone who is familiar with other technologies.
And it would be so easy to implement some form of computer check.
I think that if it were being designed from scratch it would be almost trivial to implement this. The problem is that there are thousands upon thousands of shipping sites, and many of them have the traditional barcodes that contain only a package ID and service level information. There's no destination ZIP or "extra" information that will tell where the package gets routed. This means that the system would have to, as the package is being sorted, query a central database over the spotty wireless link. This must happen for millions of packages in a three-four hour sort span. As you know this won't work.
The alternative is to overload the package bar code with all this information. The scanner unit would then only need to maintain a database of ZIPs that are correct for a particular feeder. It would then produce a warning beep if the package is incorrect (such as a NDA package being loaded into a ground vehicle or an incorrect ZIP entirely). These high-information barcodes are being used in some facilities that have automated sorting machines (e.g., Bullfrog).
I helped deploy the Symbol technology in the South Florida District a few years ago and we were one of the original beta sites. We had lots of problems with the scanners dropping into "batch mode" and sometimes locking up. Battery issues were also common. The sort shifts were around 3-4 hours but the batteries, though rated for that length, didn't really live up to the claims. Still, the technology was still fairly cutting edge during the delployment.
Eventually the technology was supposed to help loaders determine which packages went into each feeder, but this would require more information (such as destination zip code, service level) to be present on each barcode; or, have some way for the scanners to query a central database in real-time. It would also allow packages to be "intercepted" and rerouted at a request from the shipper.
Anyhow, the technology that lets a relatively low performance terminal (in this case a wearable scanner) query a much more powerful server (PC or even mainframe) is pretty cool. There's a very, very strong case for putting Linux on these devices rather than some other proprietary solutions.
1) You're limiting the randomness of the characters. You'll have 10+26+26 possible characters for your password.
2) The rand function may not be all that good, depending on implementation. For example, some rand()'s may use the clock as the seed to the function. If you know the time that the password was generated you can determine the password.
3) The passwords are difficult to remember, making it more likely that it will end up on a post-it.
4) If you know the length of your password you can brute force the password in many instances. For example: If the pw length is 6 and I have access to the hashed password table, I can generate [(10+26+26)^(6)] entries. Older Unix password hashes may use a 2 letter seed then the fixed length password hash. I can, within a couple hours on an Athlon 2400+, generate all the hashes for all 6 letter passwords. It's then just a matter of comparing the hashes. More recent Unix and Linux will use a different seed value that makes this an order of magnitude more difficult, but still possible with a dozen or so machines.
Of course, if I had to use (4), I'd probably try something else first.
These forms of passwords are much better than words, but still vulnerable if the other security mechanisms aren't in place. For example, accounts must be locked out after a certain number of illegal tries. This may seem a no-brainer, but many large organizations do not set failure thresholds precisely because they do not want to generate password reset requests to overburdened help desks (or pay more to outsourced desks).
The problem with first-letter of common phrase is that it can reduce the variability of letters. Some letters are much more common at the beginning of words than others. If there is no limit on failed attempts it becomes a simple matter to iterate through all options and try all via scripts.
As the article mentions though, the problem is not the complexity of the password but inadequate training to let employees (and CEOs) know the dangers of handing out passwords. For example, I could pick a large company at random and through googling around, find resumes of people who have worked at that organization. I could then, through google or through the receptionist, find employees at that organization. Knowing the names of their technical department I could then do something like, "Hello, this is Bob from IT Network Services in the Miami Field Support Office. There has been reports of someone attempting to use your account. What is your password?" Or something very similar. I've done it. It works, even after having employees go through a training session warning them about sharing passwords.
I've bought only CRTs recently, all of them at a used monitor store. The store usually sends a rep to the local computer show (MarketPro being the one in my area). 17" monitors can be had for about $50-$60.
They tend to be bigger and draw slightly more power than a new model but it would take over two years of usage to make up for the difference in cost. You do get to see the display on the same monitor you'll be buying, so there's no danger of the display model being better than the boxed ones. What you see is what you'll get.
Try running the monitor at the resolution and scan rate that your card supports. A game may look wonderful at 800x600 but text may be absolutely crappy. The same for pictures. Lots of stores put some pretty pictures of flowers on the screen; they look very detailed but have very little contrast and brightness is difficult to gauge. Definitely try opening a word processing document or something that will highlight the contrasts.
Depends. I live between Ft. Lauderdale and Miami in a little town called Pembroke Pines. There's a Century Village (home of Tillie Tooter) about 3 miles from me, but for the most part the population is younger. There's plenty of local excitement -- South Beach, Downtown Ft. Lauderdale, Coconut Grove, etc.. We have our share of massage parlors, strip joints, and I'm-not-pretty-enough-to-get-in night clubs. But we also have some decent libraries, nature centers, small playhouses, and a couple planetariums.
I get somewhere on the order of 400 spam emails a day between eight email addresses coming to my registered domains and the aliases for different jobs. My spamassassin filters snag about 80%-90% leaving 20-40 messages per day. Not a whole lot, but these messages require a few minutes a day to process. Because the ones that do make it past spamassassin appear legitimate, I need to check them in case they are potential customer requests. If it takes me two minutes a day to check this spam (and that's conservative), over a year it will cost me over 12 hours. If I multply that by my hourly rate then that's a good amount of money.
Contrast this to regular, *regulated* snail mail spam: 1) The sender pays for the advertisting. 2) There are no advertisements for, among other things, enlarging my penis, growing my hair, fixing my septic tank, or teenage blondes willing to do anything on Spring Break.
Point 1 is the important thing, IMO. Why should it cost me in time and resources for someone to advertise products in which I have absolutely no interest, and in fact, many of which I find repulsive? Freedom of speech? Bullshit. This is not a free speech issue. Advertisers can't break into my house and paper my walls with flyers and child porn. They are not allowed to call me at all hours of the day. They are not allowed to pretend to be legitimate persons in order to sell something.
I will defend a person or organization's right to publish materials on whatever topic they see fit. This does not mean that they can attempt to force their thoughts or their advertisements on me.
Slashdot Mirror
Yup -- believe it or not you can burn lots of extra calories by fidgeting. Tap your leg to music, chew sugarless gum, twitch. You'll lose any remaining friends you have but you'll be thinner.
Heh! How about Adventure!
I still have some of the stuff that came with the Infocom games. My all times favorite was the Enchanter series, but I've spent lots and lots of hours playing Zork. If you search on Google there are still copies floating around.
"That is not entirely correct. If you put your Linux install far enough back on the disk it will still be there. The Toshiba recovery program only makes the filesystem, it does not destructively format the disk, so only the first couple of gigs get overwritten. "
That would make sense. It would make it easier for them to have multiple drive sizes and still use the same DVD.
No, you'll not be able to non-destructively resize if you don't defrag. I did this many, many times during preparation for some
installation notes and even with a large chunk of free space at the end, a non-defragged disk meant a wiped partition.
If it's a regular Windows installation on an NTFS disk you can still install Linux by resizing. You can use either Partition Magick or the first disk of the Mandrake 9.1 set to resize the NTFS disk. Make sure to defrag the NTFS partition from within Windows first before doing this procedure or else the contents will be destroyed.
The problem seems to be that the image is the size of the disk so reinstallation of Windows, once Linux is already installed, will overwrite all partitions. It's just a complete disk image on the DVD. One workaround is to do the Windows installation, install Linux, use something like g4u to create a copy of your disk.
Or, use dd from the Linux partition to copy the Windows image once it's all installed.
I've always purchased boxed sets of my favorite distros as a way of helping the revolution. But RH seems to be doing a smart thing. I get a lot better value from joining the redhat network than purchasing things I'll never use (installation manual, pretty box, etc). In fact, I usually just drop the ISOs onto a server so that I can loopback mount them or just copy all the RPMs to a directory. RedHat probably gets more from a subscription than an equivalent boxed set anyway. So almost everybody wins. The people left out may be those that are browsing the aisles at a local computer store and see the (usually outdated) copy of Suse or Mandrake or RH in some bin or clearance rack.
I dunno. Sounds interesting on the front of it, but I certainly don't agree. First, gnumeric does run perfectly well under my KDE desktop. Second, if the developers did it for the glory of Gnome, then so be it; they are free to call it whatever they want. Now I've purchased a few RedHat and Mandrake distributions but have never sent anything to the Gnome foundation itself (something I hope to remedy in a month or so). If they want to call their excellent program ElephantAss I'm certainly not going to argue. In any case, you are free to name your menu shortcuts whatever you want. E.g., RedHat doesn't call their email client "Evolution" but "Email". It still runs Evolution, but the user doesn't need to know that.
I have a separate email address on some of my business cards for a non-computer business. Within a few weeks of handing them out I started getting spam to the address. Since this email addy doesn't appear anywhere online on either my webpage or in any document, it must have been input from someone else. Maybe someone's digital Address Book got pilfered or whatever... I suspect some Outlook virus that harvested my address from someone's vulnerable computer. Point is that even a non-digital address is not safe.
I knew there was something wrong with my recent crop of Maxtors. I went through *FOUR* defective units in a row. Luckily, I bought a $10 extended warranty at CompUSA (though I never bought them before). After the second failure I contacted Maxtor and they denied that there was anything wrong with the 40G units, though the technician hinted that the one I bought was a "low end" model. It was almost as if he was saying, "You get what you pay for. Tough."
The May 2003 issue of Linux Journal features Linux and sound. Check out Linux Journal then navigate to the May 2003 issue in the archive section. The ones they mention are still in beta or development stages but some are useful, according to the articles.
Keep this in mind:
The focus of the mouse pointer determines what each key sequence does. This can be confusing at first but makes it easier later. In other words, if your pointer is in the modeling window then keys will have a different effect than if you're in the controls pane. The alternative may have been to assing a modifier sequence, but you could argue that this forces you to put two hands on the keyboard. As it is, you keep one hand always on the mouse and the other always on the keyboard.
I've played with the demo version from the Alias site, but it does not do justice to the real program. For one, it watermarks all pages, has the incompatible format that you mentioned, and is extremely crash-prone. I ended up getting the Maya Complete version (still paying back the credit card). Oh, it's also only for Win2K/MacOS.
I started a page here. I'm preparing a section on shaders and animation that should be ready in a couple weeks.
Actually, yes. I own the Windows version and have been learning Maya for the past year. But you quite obviously didn't read my post or else you wouldn't have made such a comment. Maya can do many things that Blender cannot, but the $1200 price tag puts it out of reach for many people who just want to experiment.
Blender is definitely a great success story. Like Gimp is to Photoshop, Blender is to Maya. Though Photoshop is still the heavyweight tool for photo manipulation and though I'm an experienced Gimp user, I know that there are things that Photoshop can do that Gimp cannot do as easily. But the $500 price tag for Photoshop makes me a big, big Gimp fan. It does everything I need. Same for Blender. It is not in the same class as Maya but with a little work, can do many of the same things. In fact, it's at the point where it competes well against many of the lower end commercial packages costing hundreds of dollars.
This is interesting. Lots of responses so far have said that putting a database into volatile memory is preposterous. But from reading the article I'm not certain if it's such a bad idea in some situations. There are often sites that have a lot of relatively static data in their databases. These sites often use a backend database because it's easier, programmatically and as far as maintenance is concerned, to do so rather than create lots of static pages. Writes to the database could be done as a pass-through so they do get written to the disk "backup". A good example may be Google's cache -- the pages do not need to be re-indexed all the time but speed is critical. If RAM can be faster and, possibly even use less power than a hard drive, then there is a benefit. In Google's case, there is no writing, only queries.
This means that in any situation where data is unchanging except for periodic updates this could be a good idea.
Static linking might be useful as a workaround for the more esoteric distros, but it has its problems. For one, if you statically link your application then anytime there's a security fix or change to the linked library you'll need to recompile the application, not just upgrade the library. This would probably cost more in administration time than upgrading a single library since multiple applications may be dependent on the one library.
I'll preface this by saying that I am a Linux user through and through. I can't stand Microsoft for practical and philosophical reasons. That said, I've noticed a lot of comments rated as "Funny". As evil as the company is, it is not funny. They are a bueiness with the goal of making dollars, billions of dollars, and nothing more. This may be the reason for their anti-trust tactics, for their anti-consumer EULAs, for their buggy software. I don't know. I do know that they have billions of dollars to convince people that Windows 2003 is the only solution. How? They repeat a thing over and over. It doesn't matter at all if it's true or not, as long as people keep hearing something they will start to believe.
It works simply: Run a few marketing ads full of outright lies or half-truths. These ads get picked up by some page two newspaper columnist to write a fluff piece and lend it credibility. Soon others start repeating the original advertisement as truth. Sadly, newspaper columnists are under a lot of deadlines and a technical piece may not get the rigorous fact-checking that other news gets. Pretty soon even level-headed folks start hearing the ads from a reputable source. It might be enough to even sway someone who is familiar with other technologies.
And it would be so easy to implement some form of computer check.
I think that if it were being designed from scratch it would be almost trivial to implement this. The problem is that there are thousands upon thousands of shipping sites, and many of them have the traditional barcodes that contain only a package ID and service level information. There's no destination ZIP or "extra" information that will tell where the package gets routed. This means that the system would have to, as the package is being sorted, query a central database over the spotty wireless link. This must happen for millions of packages in a three-four hour sort span. As you know this won't work.
The alternative is to overload the package bar code with all this information. The scanner unit would then only need to maintain a database of ZIPs that are correct for a particular feeder. It would then produce a warning beep if the package is incorrect (such as a NDA package being loaded into a ground vehicle or an incorrect ZIP entirely). These high-information barcodes are being used in some facilities that have automated sorting machines (e.g., Bullfrog).
I helped deploy the Symbol technology in the South Florida District a few years ago and we were one of the original beta sites. We had lots of problems with the scanners dropping into "batch mode" and sometimes locking up. Battery issues were also common. The sort shifts were around 3-4 hours but the batteries, though rated for that length, didn't really live up to the claims. Still, the technology was still fairly cutting edge during the delployment.
Eventually the technology was supposed to help loaders determine which packages went into each feeder, but this would require more information (such as destination zip code, service level) to be present on each barcode; or, have some way for the scanners to query a central database in real-time. It would also allow packages to be "intercepted" and rerouted at a request from the shipper.
Anyhow, the technology that lets a relatively low performance terminal (in this case a wearable scanner) query a much more powerful server (PC or even mainframe) is pretty cool. There's a very, very strong case for putting Linux on these devices rather than some other proprietary solutions.
This would be nice except for a few things:
1) You're limiting the randomness of the characters. You'll have 10+26+26 possible characters for your password.
2) The rand function may not be all that good, depending on implementation. For example, some rand()'s may use the clock as the seed to the function. If you know the time that the password was generated you can determine the password.
3) The passwords are difficult to remember, making it more likely that it will end up on a post-it.
4) If you know the length of your password you can brute force the password in many instances. For example: If the pw length is 6 and I have access to the hashed password table, I can generate [(10+26+26)^(6)] entries. Older Unix password hashes may use a 2 letter seed then the fixed length password hash. I can, within a couple hours on an Athlon 2400+, generate all the hashes for all 6 letter passwords. It's then just a matter of comparing the hashes. More recent Unix and Linux will use a different seed value that makes this an order of magnitude more difficult, but still possible with a dozen or so machines.
Of course, if I had to use (4), I'd probably try something else first.
These forms of passwords are much better than words, but still vulnerable if the other security mechanisms aren't in place. For example, accounts must be locked out after a certain number of illegal tries. This may seem a no-brainer, but many large organizations do not set failure thresholds precisely because they do not want to generate password reset requests to overburdened help desks (or pay more to outsourced desks).
The problem with first-letter of common phrase is that it can reduce the variability of letters. Some letters are much more common at the beginning of words than others. If there is no limit on failed attempts it becomes a simple matter to iterate through all options and try all via scripts.
As the article mentions though, the problem is not the complexity of the password but inadequate training to let employees (and CEOs) know the dangers of handing out passwords. For example, I could pick a large company at random and through googling around, find resumes of people who have worked at that organization. I could then, through google or through the receptionist, find employees at that organization. Knowing the names of their technical department I could then do something like, "Hello, this is Bob from IT Network Services in the Miami Field Support Office. There has been reports of someone attempting to use your account. What is your password?" Or something very similar. I've done it. It works, even after having employees go through a training session warning them about sharing passwords.
I've bought only CRTs recently, all of them at a used monitor store. The store usually sends a rep to the local computer show (MarketPro being the one in my area). 17" monitors can be had for about $50-$60.
They tend to be bigger and draw slightly more power than a new model but it would take over two years of usage to make up for the difference in cost. You do get to see the display on the same monitor you'll be buying, so there's no danger of the display model being better than the boxed ones. What you see is what you'll get.
Try running the monitor at the resolution and scan rate that your card supports. A game may look wonderful at 800x600 but text may be absolutely crappy. The same for pictures. Lots of stores put some pretty pictures of flowers on the screen; they look very detailed but have very little contrast and brightness is difficult to gauge. Definitely try opening a word processing document or something that will highlight the contrasts.
Depends. I live between Ft. Lauderdale and Miami in a little town called Pembroke Pines. There's a Century Village (home of Tillie Tooter) about 3 miles from me, but for the most part the population is younger. There's plenty of local excitement -- South Beach, Downtown Ft. Lauderdale, Coconut Grove, etc.. We have our share of massage parlors, strip joints, and I'm-not-pretty-enough-to-get-in night clubs. But we also have some decent libraries, nature centers, small playhouses, and a couple planetariums.
I was thinking about this...
I get somewhere on the order of 400 spam emails a day between eight email addresses coming to my registered domains and the aliases for different jobs. My spamassassin filters snag about 80%-90% leaving 20-40 messages per day. Not a whole lot, but these messages require a few minutes a day to process. Because the ones that do make it past spamassassin appear legitimate, I need to check them in case they are potential customer requests. If it takes me two minutes a day to check this spam (and that's conservative), over a year it will cost me over 12 hours. If I multply that by my hourly rate then that's a good amount of money.
Contrast this to regular, *regulated* snail mail spam:
1) The sender pays for the advertisting.
2) There are no advertisements for, among other things, enlarging my penis, growing my hair, fixing my septic tank, or teenage blondes willing to do anything on Spring Break.
Point 1 is the important thing, IMO. Why should it cost me in time and resources for someone to advertise products in which I have absolutely no interest, and in fact, many of which I find repulsive? Freedom of speech? Bullshit. This is not a free speech issue. Advertisers can't break into my house and paper my walls with flyers and child porn. They are not allowed to call me at all hours of the day. They are not allowed to pretend to be legitimate persons in order to sell something.
I will defend a person or organization's right to publish materials on whatever topic they see fit. This does not mean that they can attempt to force their thoughts or their advertisements on me.