True. But that's kind of my point. I suppose the question I'm posing is this: Does he really deserve compensation for acting in his own interest, and to our detriment?
Admittedly the US legal system doesn't make it easy to fight an action like this even if you're innocent, but I don't think this kid has done the rest of us any favours by settling out of court. In fact the FUD generating by doing this has only made it easier for the RIAA to imtimidate others into submission.
So I won't be contributing. I'd be more likely to contribute the legal defense fund of someone with the balls to stand up to this criminal organzation.
This is exactly what happened in the UK. After the Monopolies and Mergers Comission was disbanded, it fell to the UK telco regulator "Oftel" alone, to ensure that BT didn't abuse its monopoly. However a process dryly referred to as "regulatory capture" had occurred and Oftel signally failed to rein in the voracious giant, instead becoming inordinately compliant and understanding about BT's difficulties, and stone deaf to the complaints of users and all the new smaller telco operators and ISPs.
It became particularly obvious during the advent of broadband, with numerous fledgeling free ISPs collapsing after Oftel's failure to force BT to adopt a fair pricing structure, and broadband market entrants bailing out after it became clear that Oftel would not after all force the LLU (local loop unbundling) issue. What had looked like becoming a free market with a host of competing businesses eager to roll out broadband to every home in the country disappeared to leave a relatively small handful of rather scaled back and much less ambitious client companies, and just two cable operators who were themselves almost bankrupt by then.
There is still no adequate explanation as to why Oftel abrogated their duties in this way, allowing so many smaller companies to be forced out of business - even though chairman Dave Edmonds has since then publicly admitted that he hadn't dealt with BT as firmly as he should have.
I can't make up my own mind as to whether he acted with incompetence or bad faith. It's hard to imagine anyone being stupid enough to allow it to happen by mistake. It's almost as hard to imagine any *truly* independent regulator attempting to get away with such a blatant whitewash for reasons of personal gain. I am forced therefore to the conclusion that BT must have leant on the UK government (it's a matter of public record that they and other firms like Murdoch's BskyB have done this many times) and that Oftel was subject to political interference. Bear in mind that they are supposed to be, by charter, an *independent* regulator.
ln my opnion that's nothing short of corruption. If we were a republic we would call it treason.
I don't know if the truth will ever come out but it's in the nature of the way the UK is run (and in the sheep-like nature of the electorate) that even if it did, and even if the full cost of Oftel's failure to act in the public interest were to be revealed, almost certainly nothing significant would come of it. Maybe one person would be asked to resign, but that's about all.
So in the UK, just as in the US, democracy (in the sense of representative government) appears to have been repurposed to serve the interests of a few very large and wealthy corporations at the expense of the rest of us.
Maybe when Mr Blair talked about "UK Plc" that's what he really meant.
--
Naturally the common people don't want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.
Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering (at the Nuremberg Trials after WWII)
Hey, check out my user id serial no: 11346... only 5 digits, and a low one, at that;o)
I don't why but I tend to imagine that the mean and the modal) age of the slashdot crowd would be around the mid-to-late-twenties. Perhaps because that's what it's like where I work, and I'm 40 so I'm used to experiencing a bit of a generation gap. I don't know where all the other old tech guys went.
Apologies for more or less duplicating this post from another I posted under the traffic camera story.
Consider this move together with existing laws to deny people the right to protect their data with encryption, and the increasing number of urban and traffic surveillance cameras, an increasing number of which are to be upgraded to use AI able to recognize vehicle registration number plates (i.e. "license plates" in the US) so any vehicle's location can be pinpointed and tracked in real time. They have also revealed that they are developing technologies to track your location in real time via your mobile phone more easily.
I even saw a piece in one of the more respectable UK papers that described another technology currently in development that allows them to use shortwave EM from mobile phone masts to "X-Ray" buildings - allowing them to monitor your activities inside your own home or office, with the resulting computer generated images being automatically transmitted to a remote receiving station at some arbitrary location. These can be forwarded over the internet or whatever in real time to whoever has authority to see them.
So very soon it will be entirely possible for the authorities to know cheaply and routinely exactly where you are all the time and precisely what you are doing. Without even getting out of their seats, for God's sake!
Judging by the number of urban surveillance and traffic cameras about, we're not really all that far away from that situation right now, as it happens.
Just think for a moment, people: this may all seem reasonable to you now, but are any of you old enough to remember reading George Orwell's "1984" and shuddering with horror at the very idea of living in such a world? I can tell you that the police state we are now heading for would have been completely unthinkable as recently as 1975. After all, wasn't that precisely why the people of Britain fought the second world war and endured the tension of the cold war - to prevent enslavement by a totalitarian regime? Wasn't it? Well it seems to have all been a waste of time because that is exactly what we are headed for now.
The public are being very naive if they think that these surveillance capabilities will only ever be used principally to catch those we people we currently think of as criminals. History has shown time and time again how governments don't often relinquish powers which suppress dissent and maintain their own hegemony, instead they use them to squash opposition while they continue to increase those powers. And "criminals" includes whatever people the law says. In such totalitarian regimes, "criminals" can mean protesters and dissidents of all kinds - like authors, journalists, even people who just said the wrong thing in public - ordinary people like you and me, law-abiding as we understand the term now.
Once ubiquitious surveillance has been a commonplace for a few years and we are all used to it being used to track lawbreakers, it won't seem such a shock when the odd government department is occasionally caught using it for their own nefarious purposes. Just as governments at both ends of the political spectrum have already been caught time and time again using any and all available surveillance technologies to defeat their political opponents.
If current public apathy is any guide, a few years down the road after that such incidents will be off the front page (if they make the news at all) and won't even cause raised eyebrows.
By that point, if not well before, organized public opposition to any government policy will have become practically impossible as the authorities will always know in advance exactly what you are planning and will put a stop to it before it happens. In fact that's already similar to what happened at this year's (and last year's) UK May Day celebrations.
As for the justification that it will make it easier to catch criminals - let me remind you of the incisive words of Benjamin Franklin (often quoted
Consider this move together with existing laws to deny people the right to protect their data with encryption, the Home Office's current plans to introduce National ID cards (these will probably be smart cards and will very likely employ some biometric identification technology) and the increasing number of urban surveillance cameras. They have also revealed that they are developing technologies to track your location in real time via your mobile phone more easily.
I even saw a piece in one of the more respectable UK papers that described another technology currently in development that allows them to use shortwave EM from mobile phone masts to "X-Ray" buildings - allowing them to monitor your activities inside your own home or office, with the resulting computer generated images being automatically transmitted to a remote receiving station at some arbitrary location. These can be forwarded over the internet or whatever in real time to whoever has authority to see them.
So very soon it will be entirely possible for the authorities to know cheaply and routinely exactly where you are all the time and precisely what you are doing. Without even getting out of their seats, for God's sake!
Judging by the number of urban surveillance and traffic cameras about, we're not really all that far away from that situation right now, as it happens.
Just think for a moment, people: this may all seem reasonable to you now, but are any of you old enough to remember reading George Orwell's "1984" and shuddering with horror at the very idea of living in such a world? I can tell you that the police state we are now heading for would have been completely unthinkable as recently as 1975. After all, wasn't that precisely why the people of Britain fought the second world war and endured the tension of the cold war - to prevent enslavement by a totalitarian regime? Wasn't it? Well it seems to have all been a waste of time because that is exactly what we are headed for now.
The public are being very naive if they think that these surveillance capabilities will only ever be used principally to catch those we people we currently think of as criminals. History has shown time and time again how governments don't often relinquish powers which suppress dissent and maintain their own hegemony, instead they use them to squash opposition while they continue to increase those powers. And "criminals" includes whatever people the law says. In such totalitarian regimes, "criminals" can mean protesters and dissidents of all kinds - like authors, journalists, even people who just said the wrong thing in public - ordinary people like you and me, law-abiding as we understand the term now.
Once ubiquitious surveillance has been a commonplace for a few years and we are all used to it being used to track lawbreakers, it won't seem such a shock when the odd government department is occasionally caught using it for their own nefarious purposes. Just as governments at both ends of the political spectrum have already been caught time and time again using any and all available surveillance technologies to defeat their political opponents.
If current public apathy is any guide, a few years down the road after that such incidents will be off the front page (if they make the news at all) and won't even cause raised eyebrows.
By that point, if not well before, organized public opposition to any government policy will have become practically impossible as the authorities will always know in advance exactly what you are planning and will put a stop to it before it happens. In fact that's already similar to what happened at this year's (and last year's) UK May Day celebrations.
As for the justification that it will make it easier to catch criminals - let me remind you of the incisive words of Benjamin Franklin (often quoted around here and even more often misquoted):
Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty
For crying out loud, will everybody quit bitching! The community - i.e. *us* to large extent - campaigned for this and the W3C actually listened to us. This was one case where people power actually worked. Whether or not it was what you wanted personally, you should be grateful that we as a community do still seem to have some sort of meaningful democracy still available to us.
We should be thankful for that and move on to the next phase, i.e. campaigning to prevent the balkanization you've predicted.
Presumably he has filed with the patent office but no patent has been granted yet. However his idea would still be protected should anyone else try to file an application covering the same idea.
basically, that's the cat's way of saying "I've tried to teach you how to hunt, you don't seem to get it, so if I bring you thins maybe you won't starve. But get off your duff and start killing your own food!"
:o)
Unlikely, though, since they know all too well that it's me who provides most of their food.
Having watched my cats "play" with their little rodent friends I'm inclined to think that the death of latter is often incidental, at least when the cat isn't particularly hungry. The cats' behaviour certainly doesn't look like typical rage response anyway. They simply like to play with these cuddly little creatures and it's just too bad that the poor mouse or mole or whatever tends to not make such a good playmate after being tossed up in the air a dozen times. It seems to be these times when the cat brings the limp little corpse into the house afterwards. They're usually unmarked so the cat must have been pretty careful with its teeth and claws. It's generally assumed that this is meant to be a present for the owner, but who really knows? Maybe they're really hoping somebody can get it moving again!
Bush is surely no Christian. Christ preached tolerance and forgiveness, whereas Bush declares war before he even has an enemy. "You are either with us or against us" he says. Then he bombs the crap out of Afghanistan. Then he bombs the crap out of Iraq. Then he starts making menacing noises at Syria. If this is Christianity...
But no, this isn't any kind of Christianity and Bush is no Christian. He is just a belligerent hypocrital imbecile whose controllers have their own self-serving agenda, and the people of your country can only come to harm while they are running the show.
Because of this and other things I feel fortunate that I'm not American, but the continual stream of bad news I read here on this site makes me feel truly sorry for those of you who are. It wouldn't be so depressing if there was any sense that you knew where you wanted to go and how you were going to get there, but none of you seem to have realized yet that there can be no solution under your current political system - which is evidently no longer in the hands of the general citizenry.
Do we really want a Chavez or a Berlusconi in the White House?
It's worse than that Jim. You have George Walker Bush in the White House. A man invented specifically for the purpose by his corporate backers. A man whose personal record alone (substance abuse, draft dodging) would have disqualified him from any public office otherwise. A man who is hardly articulate enough for any public speaking role. A man who allows himself to be led into waging war, with weapons of mass destruction, upon civilians. A man hell bent on tearing up his country's constitution. Ah, enough.
Heavily Democratic, as measured how exactly? Gore had requested a recount in those counties because the Rep/Dem split was quite close, as originally counted. Is this not so? What would be the point in Gore demanding a recount in counties that had already shown a clear lead for the Democrats? Your assertion is nonsensical.
You may be right but mine are both males. Neutering doesn't seem to have affected their hunting ability either. Oddly, it's the big lazy-looking one who's the most prolific hunter. He's always trying to bring birds into the house. You'd never guess, going by his appearance alone.
A couple of years ago I moved into a house in the country, which was full of mice. The previous occupants had laid down traps and poison, to no avail.
Shortly after moving in we got ourselves two kittens, just weaned. By the time they were six months old there were no more mice! Any new would-be immigrants get dealt with by the time they reach the garden. We are also free from rats, moles, voles, shrews and anything else that moves. Pretty much as you would expect!
The secret is not to overfeed them so they stay healthy, agile and a little bit hungry most of the time.
They're also very nice cats as it happens, very loyal, affectionate and playful. They're always goofing around and making us laugh. It feels like they're part of the family.
It's not really a question of which distribution, as all distributions tend to include the same core packages and you don't have to install what you don't need or what you don't have sufficient disk space, RAM or CPU cycles for.
The problem with running modern distributions on modern hardware is that modern "integrated desktop enviroments" such as KDE and Gnome, and modern browsers such as Mozilla, are very heavy on features and eye candy, and all that tends to consume the resources listed above.
For example: I remember running the Fvwm2 window manager on a 2.0 kernel with Netscape 4, on an old 486DX2/66MHz with just 32MB EDO RAM - and it was pretty snappy. Introducing KDE version 1 slowed things down a bit, but a new machine with an AMD K6-II/233Mhz and 64MB SDRAM solved that problem.
However I'm now running KDE 3.1.1 and Mozilla 1.3 on a 2.4.20 kernel and even though this is on a Athlon Thunderbird/1.2GHz with 256MB SDRAM at 133MHz FSB, I'm having serious problems with memory management and UI response times. My older boxes which I use for file server duties (nothing more powerful than a Pentium/166MHz) are still fine though, even when I fire up one of the older window managers.
So my advice to you is, if you're hardware limited, to put together your own cut-down distro CD's based an any current distribution you like (Debian would probably be the best for this purpose with Slackware a close second) but leaving out the heavyweight desktop packages (those which come with an object framework and a bunch of background demons) and all the Kapplications and Gapplications that require them.
Does this suck? Yes, it does. You can blame the lazy programmers who don't give a damn about memory requirements or people with older hardware.
The good news is that you can still have all the server packages, all the nifty GNU command-line stuff, gvim, a good modern lightweight browser (Phoenix/Firebird?), all of Perl, a lightweight desktop like Fvwm2, xv for viewing images, a load of basic X and Motif apps...all the functionality is there, in fact all you are really missing is fancy motion video viewers and some worthless eye candy.
The answer is simple enough. It's just another hack attack. Don't let them onto your box, and they can't harm you.
If you want to share files, do it from a separate DMZ/proxy server, and be careful what traffic you allow across your internal firewall (the one between you and the DMZ). If you're wondering about the cost, it's only really the cost of the electricity that should matter to you. You can use very cheap hardware for both the gateway and the DMZ/proxy (I use ancient P166's). Use a cheap 5400rpm disk for serving up the files.
And avoid DOS attacks on your network by not drawing attention to yourself, i.e. by not continually downloading illegal copies of copyrighted material.
You could even set up a process to monitor your firewall output for signs of a DOS attack and retaliate in kind with (eg) a flood ping - but bear in mind they may well have spoofed their own address so you could wind up hitting some innocent third party. Plus your ISP might not be so happy. On the other hand, war is war...
Slashdot Mirror
True. But that's kind of my point. I suppose the question I'm posing is this: Does he really deserve compensation for acting in his own interest, and to our detriment?
Admittedly the US legal system doesn't make it easy to fight an action like this even if you're innocent, but I don't think this kid has done the rest of us any favours by settling out of court. In fact the FUD generating by doing this has only made it easier for the RIAA to imtimidate others into submission.
So I won't be contributing. I'd be more likely to contribute the legal defense fund of someone with the balls to stand up to this criminal organzation.
Even worse if they put that goatse picture on the back of your pants...
It became particularly obvious during the advent of broadband, with numerous fledgeling free ISPs collapsing after Oftel's failure to force BT to adopt a fair pricing structure, and broadband market entrants bailing out after it became clear that Oftel would not after all force the LLU (local loop unbundling) issue. What had looked like becoming a free market with a host of competing businesses eager to roll out broadband to every home in the country disappeared to leave a relatively small handful of rather scaled back and much less ambitious client companies, and just two cable operators who were themselves almost bankrupt by then.
There is still no adequate explanation as to why Oftel abrogated their duties in this way, allowing so many smaller companies to be forced out of business - even though chairman Dave Edmonds has since then publicly admitted that he hadn't dealt with BT as firmly as he should have.
I can't make up my own mind as to whether he acted with incompetence or bad faith. It's hard to imagine anyone being stupid enough to allow it to happen by mistake. It's almost as hard to imagine any *truly* independent regulator attempting to get away with such a blatant whitewash for reasons of personal gain. I am forced therefore to the conclusion that BT must have leant on the UK government (it's a matter of public record that they and other firms like Murdoch's BskyB have done this many times) and that Oftel was subject to political interference. Bear in mind that they are supposed to be, by charter, an *independent* regulator.
ln my opnion that's nothing short of corruption. If we were a republic we would call it treason.
I don't know if the truth will ever come out but it's in the nature of the way the UK is run (and in the sheep-like nature of the electorate) that even if it did, and even if the full cost of Oftel's failure to act in the public interest were to be revealed, almost certainly nothing significant would come of it. Maybe one person would be asked to resign, but that's about all.
So in the UK, just as in the US, democracy (in the sense of representative government) appears to have been repurposed to serve the interests of a few very large and wealthy corporations at the expense of the rest of us.
Maybe when Mr Blair talked about "UK Plc" that's what he really meant.
--
Naturally the common people don't want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.
Mmmmm! ... Marmite ... Peanut butter ... (gargle)
Hey, check out my user id serial no: 11346 ... only 5 digits, and a low one, at that ;o)
I don't why but I tend to imagine that the mean and the modal) age of the slashdot crowd would be around the mid-to-late-twenties. Perhaps because that's what it's like where I work, and I'm 40 so I'm used to experiencing a bit of a generation gap. I don't know where all the other old tech guys went.
Consider this move together with existing laws to deny people the right to protect their data with encryption, and the increasing number of urban and traffic surveillance cameras, an increasing number of which are to be upgraded to use AI able to recognize vehicle registration number plates (i.e. "license plates" in the US) so any vehicle's location can be pinpointed and tracked in real time. They have also revealed that they are developing technologies to track your location in real time via your mobile phone more easily.
I even saw a piece in one of the more respectable UK papers that described another technology currently in development that allows them to use shortwave EM from mobile phone masts to "X-Ray" buildings - allowing them to monitor your activities inside your own home or office, with the resulting computer generated images being automatically transmitted to a remote receiving station at some arbitrary location. These can be forwarded over the internet or whatever in real time to whoever has authority to see them.
So very soon it will be entirely possible for the authorities to know cheaply and routinely exactly where you are all the time and precisely what you are doing. Without even getting out of their seats, for God's sake!
Judging by the number of urban surveillance and traffic cameras about, we're not really all that far away from that situation right now, as it happens.
Just think for a moment, people: this may all seem reasonable to you now, but are any of you old enough to remember reading George Orwell's "1984" and shuddering with horror at the very idea of living in such a world? I can tell you that the police state we are now heading for would have been completely unthinkable as recently as 1975. After all, wasn't that precisely why the people of Britain fought the second world war and endured the tension of the cold war - to prevent enslavement by a totalitarian regime? Wasn't it? Well it seems to have all been a waste of time because that is exactly what we are headed for now.
The public are being very naive if they think that these surveillance capabilities will only ever be used principally to catch those we people we currently think of as criminals. History has shown time and time again how governments don't often relinquish powers which suppress dissent and maintain their own hegemony, instead they use them to squash opposition while they continue to increase those powers. And "criminals" includes whatever people the law says. In such totalitarian regimes, "criminals" can mean protesters and dissidents of all kinds - like authors, journalists, even people who just said the wrong thing in public - ordinary people like you and me, law-abiding as we understand the term now.
Once ubiquitious surveillance has been a commonplace for a few years and we are all used to it being used to track lawbreakers, it won't seem such a shock when the odd government department is occasionally caught using it for their own nefarious purposes. Just as governments at both ends of the political spectrum have already been caught time and time again using any and all available surveillance technologies to defeat their political opponents.
If current public apathy is any guide, a few years down the road after that such incidents will be off the front page (if they make the news at all) and won't even cause raised eyebrows.
By that point, if not well before, organized public opposition to any government policy will have become practically impossible as the authorities will always know in advance exactly what you are planning and will put a stop to it before it happens. In fact that's already similar to what happened at this year's (and last year's) UK May Day celebrations.
As for the justification that it will make it easier to catch criminals - let me remind you of the incisive words of Benjamin Franklin (often quoted
I even saw a piece in one of the more respectable UK papers that described another technology currently in development that allows them to use shortwave EM from mobile phone masts to "X-Ray" buildings - allowing them to monitor your activities inside your own home or office, with the resulting computer generated images being automatically transmitted to a remote receiving station at some arbitrary location. These can be forwarded over the internet or whatever in real time to whoever has authority to see them.
So very soon it will be entirely possible for the authorities to know cheaply and routinely exactly where you are all the time and precisely what you are doing. Without even getting out of their seats, for God's sake!
Judging by the number of urban surveillance and traffic cameras about, we're not really all that far away from that situation right now, as it happens.
Just think for a moment, people: this may all seem reasonable to you now, but are any of you old enough to remember reading George Orwell's "1984" and shuddering with horror at the very idea of living in such a world? I can tell you that the police state we are now heading for would have been completely unthinkable as recently as 1975. After all, wasn't that precisely why the people of Britain fought the second world war and endured the tension of the cold war - to prevent enslavement by a totalitarian regime? Wasn't it? Well it seems to have all been a waste of time because that is exactly what we are headed for now.
The public are being very naive if they think that these surveillance capabilities will only ever be used principally to catch those we people we currently think of as criminals. History has shown time and time again how governments don't often relinquish powers which suppress dissent and maintain their own hegemony, instead they use them to squash opposition while they continue to increase those powers. And "criminals" includes whatever people the law says. In such totalitarian regimes, "criminals" can mean protesters and dissidents of all kinds - like authors, journalists, even people who just said the wrong thing in public - ordinary people like you and me, law-abiding as we understand the term now.
Once ubiquitious surveillance has been a commonplace for a few years and we are all used to it being used to track lawbreakers, it won't seem such a shock when the odd government department is occasionally caught using it for their own nefarious purposes. Just as governments at both ends of the political spectrum have already been caught time and time again using any and all available surveillance technologies to defeat their political opponents.
If current public apathy is any guide, a few years down the road after that such incidents will be off the front page (if they make the news at all) and won't even cause raised eyebrows.
By that point, if not well before, organized public opposition to any government policy will have become practically impossible as the authorities will always know in advance exactly what you are planning and will put a stop to it before it happens. In fact that's already similar to what happened at this year's (and last year's) UK May Day celebrations.
As for the justification that it will make it easier to catch criminals - let me remind you of the incisive words of Benjamin Franklin (often quoted around here and even more often misquoted):
In your opinion.
For crying out loud, will everybody quit bitching! The community - i.e. *us* to large extent - campaigned for this and the W3C actually listened to us. This was one case where people power actually worked. Whether or not it was what you wanted personally, you should be grateful that we as a community do still seem to have some sort of meaningful democracy still available to us.
We should be thankful for that and move on to the next phase, i.e. campaigning to prevent the balkanization you've predicted.
Presumably he has filed with the patent office but no patent has been granted yet. However his idea would still be protected should anyone else try to file an application covering the same idea.
Unlikely, though, since they know all too well that it's me who provides most of their food.
Having watched my cats "play" with their little rodent friends I'm inclined to think that the death of latter is often incidental, at least when the cat isn't particularly hungry. The cats' behaviour certainly doesn't look like typical rage response anyway. They simply like to play with these cuddly little creatures and it's just too bad that the poor mouse or mole or whatever tends to not make such a good playmate after being tossed up in the air a dozen times. It seems to be these times when the cat brings the limp little corpse into the house afterwards. They're usually unmarked so the cat must have been pretty careful with its teeth and claws. It's generally assumed that this is meant to be a present for the owner, but who really knows? Maybe they're really hoping somebody can get it moving again!
But no, this isn't any kind of Christianity and Bush is no Christian. He is just a belligerent hypocrital imbecile whose controllers have their own self-serving agenda, and the people of your country can only come to harm while they are running the show.
Because of this and other things I feel fortunate that I'm not American, but the continual stream of bad news I read here on this site makes me feel truly sorry for those of you who are. It wouldn't be so depressing if there was any sense that you knew where you wanted to go and how you were going to get there, but none of you seem to have realized yet that there can be no solution under your current political system - which is evidently no longer in the hands of the general citizenry.
It's worse than that Jim. You have George Walker Bush in the White House. A man invented specifically for the purpose by his corporate backers. A man whose personal record alone (substance abuse, draft dodging) would have disqualified him from any public office otherwise. A man who is hardly articulate enough for any public speaking role. A man who allows himself to be led into waging war, with weapons of mass destruction, upon civilians. A man hell bent on tearing up his country's constitution. Ah, enough.
Heavily Democratic, as measured how exactly? Gore had requested a recount in those counties because the Rep/Dem split was quite close, as originally counted. Is this not so? What would be the point in Gore demanding a recount in counties that had already shown a clear lead for the Democrats? Your assertion is nonsensical.
You may be right but mine are both males. Neutering doesn't seem to have affected their hunting ability either. Oddly, it's the big lazy-looking one who's the most prolific hunter. He's always trying to bring birds into the house. You'd never guess, going by his appearance alone.
A couple of years ago I moved into a house in the country, which was full of mice. The previous occupants had laid down traps and poison, to no avail.
Shortly after moving in we got ourselves two kittens, just weaned. By the time they were six months old there were no more mice! Any new would-be immigrants get dealt with by the time they reach the garden. We are also free from rats, moles, voles, shrews and anything else that moves. Pretty much as you would expect!
The secret is not to overfeed them so they stay healthy, agile and a little bit hungry most of the time.
They're also very nice cats as it happens, very loyal, affectionate and playful. They're always goofing around and making us laugh. It feels like they're part of the family.
So, if there are still 80 largish pieces of rock whizzing about up there what are the chances of another collision?
Curses! Foiled again!
But, never fear...one day I will return and have my revenge!
(Oh shit I forgot to post as AC)
ha ha ! I am the master!
Whoever dumped the log.
It's not really a question of which distribution, as all distributions tend to include the same core packages and you don't have to install what you don't need or what you don't have sufficient disk space, RAM or CPU cycles for.
The problem with running modern distributions on modern hardware is that modern "integrated desktop enviroments" such as KDE and Gnome, and modern browsers such as Mozilla, are very heavy on features and eye candy, and all that tends to consume the resources listed above.
For example: I remember running the Fvwm2 window manager on a 2.0 kernel with Netscape 4, on an old 486DX2/66MHz with just 32MB EDO RAM - and it was pretty snappy. Introducing KDE version 1 slowed things down a bit, but a new machine with an AMD K6-II/233Mhz and 64MB SDRAM solved that problem.
However I'm now running KDE 3.1.1 and Mozilla 1.3 on a 2.4.20 kernel and even though this is on a Athlon Thunderbird/1.2GHz with 256MB SDRAM at 133MHz FSB, I'm having serious problems with memory management and UI response times. My older boxes which I use for file server duties (nothing more powerful than a Pentium/166MHz) are still fine though, even when I fire up one of the older window managers.
So my advice to you is, if you're hardware limited, to put together your own cut-down distro CD's based an any current distribution you like (Debian would probably be the best for this purpose with Slackware a close second) but leaving out the heavyweight desktop packages (those which come with an object framework and a bunch of background demons) and all the Kapplications and Gapplications that require them.
Does this suck? Yes, it does. You can blame the lazy programmers who don't give a damn about memory requirements or people with older hardware.
The good news is that you can still have all the server packages, all the nifty GNU command-line stuff, gvim, a good modern lightweight browser (Phoenix/Firebird?), all of Perl, a lightweight desktop like Fvwm2, xv for viewing images, a load of basic X and Motif apps...all the functionality is there, in fact all you are really missing is fancy motion video viewers and some worthless eye candy.
thats not NAT, that's tunnelling.
The answer is simple enough. It's just another hack attack. Don't let them onto your box, and they can't harm you.
If you want to share files, do it from a separate DMZ/proxy server, and be careful what traffic you allow across your internal firewall (the one between you and the DMZ). If you're wondering about the cost, it's only really the cost of the electricity that should matter to you. You can use very cheap hardware for both the gateway and the DMZ/proxy (I use ancient P166's). Use a cheap 5400rpm disk for serving up the files.
And avoid DOS attacks on your network by not drawing attention to yourself, i.e. by not continually downloading illegal copies of copyrighted material.
You could even set up a process to monitor your firewall output for signs of a DOS attack and retaliate in kind with (eg) a flood ping - but bear in mind they may well have spoofed their own address so you could wind up hitting some innocent third party. Plus your ISP might not be so happy. On the other hand, war is war...