Will the general population continue to value "cheap" and "more" above all else? This will force companies to cut costs above all else. "Evil" corporations aren't successful for no reason at all.
I once heard a statistic that the profit margin from a PC was used up in one tech support call. That sounds a tad extreme, but I remember the tiny, tiny markup on computer parts from when I worked at a small family-owned computer store. When my mom worked at Koenig's Art Emporium, the manager refused to carry anything he couldn't mark up more than 40%. Aquarium stores average 50% (operation costs on livestock must be considered, but the markup is on everything). We probably would have killed for 20 in most cases. It was not uncommon to make only a few dollars on a hard drive. I suspect the situation has worsened rather than improved, and there were companies underselling us at the computer shows (usually with lesser warranties).
[Of course, being in a small shop, I was building/fixing systems while taking tech support calls, so that wasn't a big hit for us.]
Ever tried Cinelerra? Used to be called Broadcast 2000. I don't really know what your needs are since I mostly do audio work, but I'm surprised that you didn't mention it since I always thought it was "the" video editing app on Linux.
Also, if your goal is "100% Microsoft Free", then why not do your work on the Apple platform?
Yes, that's my point. Perhaps I was unclear: I don't want to run Linux on my PDA, but I do want it to sync with my Linux desktop. Running Linux on a PDA that only syncs well with a Windows desktop sounds terrible to me, which is one of the main reasons I don't use my VTech Helio anymore. I can run Linux on it, but then it's not as good of a PDA, and I can't really sync it well with Linux at all.
The concept of a PC that can replace carrying a notebook around doesn't apply to me, because I don't do that anyway. I've bought 2 Thinkpads; I gave one away, and only used the other one when my house was having severe power issues recently. fsck reported that it hadn't checked the root filesystem in (IIRC) 670 days:)
I look at what this article and the resulting discussion are talking about, and I can't help but think that I must be crazy. Everyone else seems to want a completely different device than I do.
Playing movies on a PDA? Browsing the Web from it? MP3s? Who cares!? I don't even want to read stuff on a PDA. If I want a book, I'll buy a book. If I want to do just about anything else computer-related, I'll use my computer.
What I want a PDA to do is to remember my contacts, appointments, and lists of stuff (movies I want to see, etc.). THAT IS ALL. I don't want color, sound, video, Bluetooth, or anything like that, and I probably don't even want a keyboard. I just want something with its own rechargable battery that lasts a good long while between charges and syncs to Linux reasonably well.
From what I've seen, I'm going to need to buy an old refurbished Visor Edge, because absolutely no one makes a PDA like this anymore.
I said I had all of the games that were released in the US and worth playing. For the Sega Genesis, IMHO, that amounts to exactly three: Shining Force 1, Shining Force 2, and Landstalker. We had more than that, but it was really unnecessary:)
If you have any suggestions based on those, of course, I'd love to hear them. We gave away our originals, so I probably wouldn't feel too bad checking out 1 or 2 "new" classics. I'm still mad at "the man" for only translating 1/3 of Shining Force 3 anyway.
Aphex Twin uses a software called Max for Mac OS, and the Linux/IRIX OSS version (developed by the same company as a successor to Max) is called jMax (the GUI is Swing and the backend is C, IIRC.)
It's basically a musical programming language. You can type it in textually, or arrange and connect elements graphically. It's a completely different way of making music than most people are used to.
As for games, I've run Linux on all of my desktops for years, and I can easily fire up Liquidwar, xscorch, or pretty much any NES/SNES/Genesis game worth playing (I owned all the ones that were sold in the US, so you can stick any self-righteous ROM-bashing right back where it originated). I could also wander one room over and turn on the Gamecube, or downstairs for the PS2, Dreamcast, or Saturn. I sure don't have a shortage of games to play.
Sometimes it would be nice to be able to run a certain Windows game, but it's not worth the hassle of running Windows as my desktop. Yes, I'm much more productive under Linux, but then I don't run a "desktop environment" that's trying to mimic Windows. If I wanted Windows, I could get it for $10 from the university.
I wouldn't say that either of my jobs is a "dream", but I could certainly do much worse, and have.
Half of my job for UMBC is regular ol' sysadmin. The Physical Plant wanted a bit more support than the on-campus IT staff could give them. My users tend to run more interesting software than in a typical office (which probably means a lot of them will be using Windows for quite some time, but I'm learning to manage.) I like being a sysadmin, though, so this is just the "less cool" part, not bad.
The other part is more interesting. We're collecting a lot of geospatial data about the university and building a really accurate map (the goal is an error margin of a few inches). I get to learn about a whole new field (GIS), and now I have an excuse to learn LISP because we're trying to integrate AutoCAD and PostgreSQL.
My other job, freshmeat.net, is pretty cool. Some of you may be familiar with the site:) I work via a standard browser from anywhere, and have co-workers in other countries.
In both cases, I feel like I'm contributing to a good cause (education and OSS/*nix). University jobs aren't without their own set of...challenges, and freshmeat makes tax time less fun (self-employment taxes are annoying), but I'd rather be here than helping someone write reports about MegaWidget3000.
Besides, I know it could be worse. I've done janitorial type stuff (not for long at all, but that was enough), fast food, and T-shirt printing (which might not sound bad unless you realize that the ink is heat-dried, making it hotter inside than outside even in the summer, and people were getting robbed at gunpoint across the street.).
I read the comments on the "bad jobs" article a short while ago, and I'm glad I managed to dodge a lot of those. Am I happier when I'm at home playing music or doing martial arts? Of course. I have things in perspective; I'm reading financial books and trying to figure out ways to retire early (or maybe just become a nomad). But it could be a lot worse.
Massive, complex, integrated closed systems like Windows and Office XP can indeed seem to be "moody". The more complicated something is, the more difficult it can be to diagnose, and the flakier it will seem.
But my computer doesn't do that. I start up Mutt and it Just Works. Every time, for years. Vim doesn't spew weird error messages at me; if there is a message, there's a definite REASON and there's something that I can clearly do about it.
I'm not claiming that OSS is immune here; the larger, more complex software starts to get into that magical zone again. Mozilla has sometimes given me problems (although GNUCash hasn't so far, and it's been almost a year). That is, however, part of my point. The more the software tries to tailor itself to the human instead of the other way around, the more error-prone it is.
Will things get better for complex software? Probably. It's unfortunate that the learning curve for apps like Mutt is not for everyone, but I think that eventually the right combination of good programmers and good marketing will produce a system which is reasonably usable by people who don't want to spend much time with it. I'm glad I don't have to wait for it to get MY work done, though.
And cars are less complicated than computers. If many people can't be bothered to remember to change the oil, ignore "Check engine" lights and loud, unpleasant, repeated noises until the car doesn't start anymore, how can we expect that they will take better care of their computers?
People cut their hair over the sink and then complain about expensive plumbers. A large segment of the population just doesn't pay attention to, learn about, or take care of their stuff. I have no idea what they're running around doing; apparently it's mostly watching TV and paying too much for crappy food.
The problem is that computers, as they are now, cannot be used in the way that many people expect to be able to use them (as a result of marketing campaigns). They see all the cool features and want some of that, but have the impression that they can just use it like a toaster when it's really much more complicated.
I think that both ends are going to have to be moved. People will have to learn a few things about How Stuff Works, and computers will continue to get better at taking care of things when they can. But yes, there's some really complicated stuff going on in the background with a lot of variables. It's simply not going to be as easy as people seem to have been lead to believe.
"War on Terrorism" is crap, just like the "War on Drugs." It is not something that can ever be solved without continuous monitoring of every human on earth 24/7. As this is obviously not acceptable (or shouldn't be), it is a "war" without an end, as the stated goals cannot be achieved. It therefore serves only as a tool for those in power to do what they like in the name of patriotism and America. I find this to be repulsive.
That's why there are public keyservers. If Mutt sees a message signed with a key that it doesn't recognize, the key can be automatically retrieved from a public keyserver. Whether or not you trust the key depends upon who has signed it; if people whose keys you have signed have signed it with their key, that indicates a degree of trust that the holder of that key is who they say they are.
This already exists now; we just need software that's dead simple to use and an effective "marketing campaign".
1. What problems have you had with TweakUI? It's always worked well for me. I've never used those other two pieces, but then I only use Windows while I'm at work.
2. The fact that it's unsupported still doesn't make it less amusing that two pieces of software coming out of Microsoft, one of which is (allegedly) an integral component of the operating system, don't play together as nicely as one of those pieces and a 3rd-party application.
I would love to see the "resume" feature in Mozilla (because I think Opera's UI is wretched). Hmm, I should check to see if anyone's filed a wishlist bug...
I'm sure you'll agree that it needs something like AbiWord has, where you can set an option to have textboxes work like a Vim window:) That's the one advantage w3m has over Mozilla when you're editing a lot of text online (like with my freshmeat job), but I'm so much more productive with Mozilla in other ways that I've learned to adapt to Mozilla's text editing (which is more than a dumb text editor, but you have to use chording. Ack.)
You don't use two banks already? I have a checking account with M&T that I use all the time, and also an account with a credit union that I don't touch. I don't transfer money between the two, so that's not a problem, but one of my co-workers said that he can do that online with M&T and SECU (which isn't my credit union, but still).
If/when I get a house, it will probably be through the credit union, as they'll likely give me a much better deal.
I'm just nervous about having all my money in one spot. Yes, I was a member of that one bank where Levitt (sp?) was arrested and the bank shut down. Maybe you get your money back eventually, but what if I need it in between? Bad things do tend to happen in groups. So I have two bank accounts and two jobs, even though I could be OK with one of each. Backups, you know:)
Does it strike anyone as ironic and terrible that in our search for a solution to the commercial exploitation of email, we're considering...the commercialization of email?
Others want to replace SMTP altogether. Let me know when you've managed to force people to upgrade to IPv6 and stop using BIND 4.x.
What I would like to see is easy-to-use, cross-platform software for PGP, along with an effective campaign telling people why they want to use it. My ideas:
1. If you tell your friends and have them get keys too, you can be sure that email saying it's from them is from them.
2. If you convince all your friends, you can tell your mail client (via CoolNewSoftware) to classify signed messages as higher priority. Spammers won't sign messages. If they do, you can hold them to the CAN-SPAM act's promises, or filter their key.
3. Sending email today is like a postcard. With PGP, it's like a private courier with body armor. Got a secret message? Passwords? Phone numbers? Business secrets? Medical data? Don't risk it falling into the wrong hands.
I am a sysadmin/PostgreSQL+PHP weenie, and not qualified to write such software. But I would be willing to coordinate effort, help with "marketing", etc.
If you follow the link the grandparent poster provided, you would see that you can tell the Direct Marketing Association exactly what sort of junk mail you would like to get. There are all sorts of categories, and it's free if you print it out and mail it yourself (plus $.37 postage, of course).
You've stated the problem along with your solution in the form of an example. How's that IPv6 deployment coming?
Most sysadmins are as resistant to change as the general population. Windows For Workgroups and BIND 4.x are still in use.
My suggestion is to use a pre-existing standard: PGP. Write good PGP software and push it as a solution to spam. "Tell all your friends to get PGP keys! Keep email safe from prying eyes! Avoid viruses by making sure you know the email really came from where it says!"
I think solving the problem in this way would be much easier. On one hand, you have to come up with standards, write software, and get people to switch. On the other hand, you have to write software and get people to use it.
That's why I never bother to read most "reviews" of Linux distributions. All they talk about is the installation and maybe, if you're lucky, 3 days of usage.
This is silly. I installed Debian on my machine in 1999, and never again. The installer happened once; I don't really care about it. Everything after that was APT. I want to know how your shiny new distribution looks after years of installing new software, upgrading kernels, and buying new hardware. Mine looks GREAT.
Wireless cards are apparently a weak spot in Linux right now. If they can be addressed as well as other former weak spots (SMP, latency, etc.), I will be happy (and unsurprised).
(As an aside, try replacing a motherboard in Windows versus Linux and see which one goes bananas.)
Red Hat's CEO seems to think that Linux isn't for the desktop, so I doubt they'll be making a big investment in anything related to the higher end of consumer video cards.
I would say a very long time. Until last year, I was using a TNT with the unified NVidia drivers, and I only switched because I managed to pick up a TNT2 for $10 or $20 (the TNT 1 was Asus's excellent model, but it wasn't good at doing 1600 x 1200).
If they're supporting a card that old, I don't think you're going to have to worry anytime soon. I'm impressed that they're supporting their entire post-Riva lineup with a single driver.
Personally, the Free drivers never worked for me; X just looked mangled. I installed NVidia's binary driver by following the directions (gasp!) and everything Just Worked, and has continued to Just Work. Recently, I used the patches from minion.de to upgrade to Linux 2.6, and yet again it's working fine. I've never heard of the console corruption or X locking problems until reading the comments on this article.
The monolithic installer certainly does make things easier. You don't have to separately install the GL libraries and the kernel module anymore. It's just one file for whatever post-Riva card you have.
I've been able to run OpenGL demos, and the power in my area is less stable than X11 (out when I left for work this morning).
Am I a big proponent of Free as in libre? Yes, certainly. But NVidia released good software which works with the hardware I had already. Same reason I still use my MP3 discman; I don't know of a company that has an Ogg-compatible CD-ROM player (my music collection is too big to constantly fiddle with hardware players, sorry). Broadcast radio in Baltimore sucks and I need music. I prefer the Free alternative when it's practical, but sometimes it's not. You definitely find that out working for a physical plant (specialized software needs).
(replying to this partly because some people don't read ACs)
Indeed. IIRC, default installations of slink and potato didn't even include "less" or "man". I think that "man" is included now, but that gives you an idea how how stripped down Debian is "out of the box".
Of course, tasksel (or whatever it's called now) will prompt you to install sets of packages after installing the base system, but you can Just Say No.
A lot of Debian packages are very modular so that you can only install what you need. PHP is this way. GAIM and Xchat have GNOME and non-GNOME versions so that people who don't want the sizable mass of GNOME can forego some of the eye candy.
You must explicitly compile in support for removing modules in order to be able to do it, and last time I checked, it wasn't on by default. What's nice is that there's also an option to allow forcibly removing a module ("...mostly used by developers or desperate users.")
I like to compile a modular kernel as well, especially since I've left myself a smaller/boot partition (I have a weird disk setup) than perhaps I should have. Remember when you could actually still use "make zimage"?
Just remember, kids: never compile drivers needed to access the filesystem/lib/modules lives on as modules:) Unless you set up initrd, of course.
You have likewise been added to my friends list (after looking at some of the other posts in your history to be sure).
I have not looked at the Quakers, but I do think that the Universalist Unitarians have a pretty good handle on understanding and living by the teachings of Christ.
Of course, not everyone who calls themselves a Christian is corrupt in their values, but I'm sure you know that. I do wonder as to the percentage, though, but I'm not sure how you'd go about trying to calculate something like that. There are also extremists amongst the Jews and the Muslims, and I'd really like to get some sort of metric of "true believers" versus "not really".
I also think that many misled "Christians" really do believe what they're preaching. Maybe the minister with the sign reading "God hates fags" is just badly misguided and can't see the basic contradiction in even the first two words of that sentence.
(For the record, I was raised in a very laid-back and accepting Presbyterian way, but I'm trying to figure out what to call myself now. I'm going with Unitarian for the time being, but I'm always checking out new directions. It's not that my core beliefs are really changing, but a question of expression.)
It may be different for commercial stations, but every year, WMBC has to submit 3 day's worth of playlists (from a time period selected by BMI). (We do AM as well as Internet broadcasting, but I don't think it makes much of a difference).
Now, I agree that the tracking requirements for Internet radio originally proposed by the RIAA were onerous (track how many listeners heard each song, as well as a lot of personal information about listeners that seemed unnecessary). However, tracking what is actually played is the only way to avoid a "give half of it to Britney" situation.
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Will the general population continue to value "cheap" and "more" above all else? This will force companies to cut costs above all else. "Evil" corporations aren't successful for no reason at all.
I once heard a statistic that the profit margin from a PC was used up in one tech support call. That sounds a tad extreme, but I remember the tiny, tiny markup on computer parts from when I worked at a small family-owned computer store. When my mom worked at Koenig's Art Emporium, the manager refused to carry anything he couldn't mark up more than 40%. Aquarium stores average 50% (operation costs on livestock must be considered, but the markup is on everything). We probably would have killed for 20 in most cases. It was not uncommon to make only a few dollars on a hard drive. I suspect the situation has worsened rather than improved, and there were companies underselling us at the computer shows (usually with lesser warranties).
[Of course, being in a small shop, I was building/fixing systems while taking tech support calls, so that wasn't a big hit for us.]
Ever tried Cinelerra? Used to be called Broadcast 2000. I don't really know what your needs are since I mostly do audio work, but I'm surprised that you didn't mention it since I always thought it was "the" video editing app on Linux.
Also, if your goal is "100% Microsoft Free", then why not do your work on the Apple platform?
Yes, that's my point. Perhaps I was unclear: I don't want to run Linux on my PDA, but I do want it to sync with my Linux desktop. Running Linux on a PDA that only syncs well with a Windows desktop sounds terrible to me, which is one of the main reasons I don't use my VTech Helio anymore. I can run Linux on it, but then it's not as good of a PDA, and I can't really sync it well with Linux at all.
:)
The concept of a PC that can replace carrying a notebook around doesn't apply to me, because I don't do that anyway. I've bought 2 Thinkpads; I gave one away, and only used the other one when my house was having severe power issues recently. fsck reported that it hadn't checked the root filesystem in (IIRC) 670 days
I look at what this article and the resulting discussion are talking about, and I can't help but think that I must be crazy. Everyone else seems to want a completely different device than I do.
Playing movies on a PDA? Browsing the Web from it? MP3s? Who cares!? I don't even want to read stuff on a PDA. If I want a book, I'll buy a book. If I want to do just about anything else computer-related, I'll use my computer.
What I want a PDA to do is to remember my contacts, appointments, and lists of stuff (movies I want to see, etc.). THAT IS ALL. I don't want color, sound, video, Bluetooth, or anything like that, and I probably don't even want a keyboard. I just want something with its own rechargable battery that lasts a good long while between charges and syncs to Linux reasonably well.
From what I've seen, I'm going to need to buy an old refurbished Visor Edge, because absolutely no one makes a PDA like this anymore.
I said I had all of the games that were released in the US and worth playing. For the Sega Genesis, IMHO, that amounts to exactly three: Shining Force 1, Shining Force 2, and Landstalker. We had more than that, but it was really unnecessary :)
If you have any suggestions based on those, of course, I'd love to hear them. We gave away our originals, so I probably wouldn't feel too bad checking out 1 or 2 "new" classics. I'm still mad at "the man" for only translating 1/3 of Shining Force 3 anyway.
Aphex Twin uses a software called Max for Mac OS, and the Linux/IRIX OSS version (developed by the same company as a successor to Max) is called jMax (the GUI is Swing and the backend is C, IIRC.)
It's basically a musical programming language. You can type it in textually, or arrange and connect elements graphically. It's a completely different way of making music than most people are used to.
As for games, I've run Linux on all of my desktops for years, and I can easily fire up Liquidwar, xscorch, or pretty much any NES/SNES/Genesis game worth playing (I owned all the ones that were sold in the US, so you can stick any self-righteous ROM-bashing right back where it originated). I could also wander one room over and turn on the Gamecube, or downstairs for the PS2, Dreamcast, or Saturn. I sure don't have a shortage of games to play.
Sometimes it would be nice to be able to run a certain Windows game, but it's not worth the hassle of running Windows as my desktop. Yes, I'm much more productive under Linux, but then I don't run a "desktop environment" that's trying to mimic Windows. If I wanted Windows, I could get it for $10 from the university.
I wouldn't say that either of my jobs is a "dream", but I could certainly do much worse, and have.
:) I work via a standard browser from anywhere, and have co-workers in other countries.
Half of my job for UMBC is regular ol' sysadmin. The Physical Plant wanted a bit more support than the on-campus IT staff could give them. My users tend to run more interesting software than in a typical office (which probably means a lot of them will be using Windows for quite some time, but I'm learning to manage.) I like being a sysadmin, though, so this is just the "less cool" part, not bad.
The other part is more interesting. We're collecting a lot of geospatial data about the university and building a really accurate map (the goal is an error margin of a few inches). I get to learn about a whole new field (GIS), and now I have an excuse to learn LISP because we're trying to integrate AutoCAD and PostgreSQL.
My other job, freshmeat.net, is pretty cool. Some of you may be familiar with the site
In both cases, I feel like I'm contributing to a good cause (education and OSS/*nix). University jobs aren't without their own set of...challenges, and freshmeat makes tax time less fun (self-employment taxes are annoying), but I'd rather be here than helping someone write reports about MegaWidget3000.
Besides, I know it could be worse. I've done janitorial type stuff (not for long at all, but that was enough), fast food, and T-shirt printing (which might not sound bad unless you realize that the ink is heat-dried, making it hotter inside than outside even in the summer, and people were getting robbed at gunpoint across the street.).
I read the comments on the "bad jobs" article a short while ago, and I'm glad I managed to dodge a lot of those. Am I happier when I'm at home playing music or doing martial arts? Of course. I have things in perspective; I'm reading financial books and trying to figure out ways to retire early (or maybe just become a nomad). But it could be a lot worse.
Massive, complex, integrated closed systems like Windows and Office XP can indeed seem to be "moody". The more complicated something is, the more difficult it can be to diagnose, and the flakier it will seem.
But my computer doesn't do that. I start up Mutt and it Just Works. Every time, for years. Vim doesn't spew weird error messages at me; if there is a message, there's a definite REASON and there's something that I can clearly do about it.
I'm not claiming that OSS is immune here; the larger, more complex software starts to get into that magical zone again. Mozilla has sometimes given me problems (although GNUCash hasn't so far, and it's been almost a year). That is, however, part of my point. The more the software tries to tailor itself to the human instead of the other way around, the more error-prone it is.
Will things get better for complex software? Probably. It's unfortunate that the learning curve for apps like Mutt is not for everyone, but I think that eventually the right combination of good programmers and good marketing will produce a system which is reasonably usable by people who don't want to spend much time with it. I'm glad I don't have to wait for it to get MY work done, though.
And cars are less complicated than computers. If many people can't be bothered to remember to change the oil, ignore "Check engine" lights and loud, unpleasant, repeated noises until the car doesn't start anymore, how can we expect that they will take better care of their computers?
People cut their hair over the sink and then complain about expensive plumbers. A large segment of the population just doesn't pay attention to, learn about, or take care of their stuff. I have no idea what they're running around doing; apparently it's mostly watching TV and paying too much for crappy food.
The problem is that computers, as they are now, cannot be used in the way that many people expect to be able to use them (as a result of marketing campaigns). They see all the cool features and want some of that, but have the impression that they can just use it like a toaster when it's really much more complicated.
I think that both ends are going to have to be moved. People will have to learn a few things about How Stuff Works, and computers will continue to get better at taking care of things when they can. But yes, there's some really complicated stuff going on in the background with a lot of variables. It's simply not going to be as easy as people seem to have been lead to believe.
"War on Terrorism" is crap, just like the "War on Drugs." It is not something that can ever be solved without continuous monitoring of every human on earth 24/7. As this is obviously not acceptable (or shouldn't be), it is a "war" without an end, as the stated goals cannot be achieved. It therefore serves only as a tool for those in power to do what they like in the name of patriotism and America. I find this to be repulsive.
That's why there are public keyservers. If Mutt sees a message signed with a key that it doesn't recognize, the key can be automatically retrieved from a public keyserver. Whether or not you trust the key depends upon who has signed it; if people whose keys you have signed have signed it with their key, that indicates a degree of trust that the holder of that key is who they say they are.
This already exists now; we just need software that's dead simple to use and an effective "marketing campaign".
1. What problems have you had with TweakUI? It's always worked well for me. I've never used those other two pieces, but then I only use Windows while I'm at work.
2. The fact that it's unsupported still doesn't make it less amusing that two pieces of software coming out of Microsoft, one of which is (allegedly) an integral component of the operating system, don't play together as nicely as one of those pieces and a 3rd-party application.
I would love to see the "resume" feature in Mozilla (because I think Opera's UI is wretched). Hmm, I should check to see if anyone's filed a wishlist bug...
:) That's the one advantage w3m has over Mozilla when you're editing a lot of text online (like with my freshmeat job), but I'm so much more productive with Mozilla in other ways that I've learned to adapt to Mozilla's text editing (which is more than a dumb text editor, but you have to use chording. Ack.)
I'm sure you'll agree that it needs something like AbiWord has, where you can set an option to have textboxes work like a Vim window
You don't use two banks already? I have a checking account with M&T that I use all the time, and also an account with a credit union that I don't touch. I don't transfer money between the two, so that's not a problem, but one of my co-workers said that he can do that online with M&T and SECU (which isn't my credit union, but still).
:)
If/when I get a house, it will probably be through the credit union, as they'll likely give me a much better deal.
I'm just nervous about having all my money in one spot. Yes, I was a member of that one bank where Levitt (sp?) was arrested and the bank shut down. Maybe you get your money back eventually, but what if I need it in between? Bad things do tend to happen in groups. So I have two bank accounts and two jobs, even though I could be OK with one of each. Backups, you know
Does it strike anyone as ironic and terrible that in our search for a solution to the commercial exploitation of email, we're considering...the commercialization of email?
Others want to replace SMTP altogether. Let me know when you've managed to force people to upgrade to IPv6 and stop using BIND 4.x.
What I would like to see is easy-to-use, cross-platform software for PGP, along with an effective campaign telling people why they want to use it. My ideas:
1. If you tell your friends and have them get keys too, you can be sure that email saying it's from them is from them.
2. If you convince all your friends, you can tell your mail client (via CoolNewSoftware) to classify signed messages as higher priority. Spammers won't sign messages. If they do, you can hold them to the CAN-SPAM act's promises, or filter their key.
3. Sending email today is like a postcard. With PGP, it's like a private courier with body armor. Got a secret message? Passwords? Phone numbers? Business secrets? Medical data? Don't risk it falling into the wrong hands.
I am a sysadmin/PostgreSQL+PHP weenie, and not qualified to write such software. But I would be willing to coordinate effort, help with "marketing", etc.
If you follow the link the grandparent poster provided, you would see that you can tell the Direct Marketing Association exactly what sort of junk mail you would like to get. There are all sorts of categories, and it's free if you print it out and mail it yourself (plus $.37 postage, of course).
You've stated the problem along with your solution in the form of an example. How's that IPv6 deployment coming?
Most sysadmins are as resistant to change as the general population. Windows For Workgroups and BIND 4.x are still in use.
My suggestion is to use a pre-existing standard: PGP. Write good PGP software and push it as a solution to spam. "Tell all your friends to get PGP keys! Keep email safe from prying eyes! Avoid viruses by making sure you know the email really came from where it says!"
I think solving the problem in this way would be much easier. On one hand, you have to come up with standards, write software, and get people to switch. On the other hand, you have to write software and get people to use it.
That's why I never bother to read most "reviews" of Linux distributions. All they talk about is the installation and maybe, if you're lucky, 3 days of usage.
This is silly. I installed Debian on my machine in 1999, and never again. The installer happened once; I don't really care about it. Everything after that was APT. I want to know how your shiny new distribution looks after years of installing new software, upgrading kernels, and buying new hardware. Mine looks GREAT.
Wireless cards are apparently a weak spot in Linux right now. If they can be addressed as well as other former weak spots (SMP, latency, etc.), I will be happy (and unsurprised).
(As an aside, try replacing a motherboard in Windows versus Linux and see which one goes bananas.)
Red Hat's CEO seems to think that Linux isn't for the desktop, so I doubt they'll be making a big investment in anything related to the higher end of consumer video cards.
I would say a very long time. Until last year, I was using a TNT with the unified NVidia drivers, and I only switched because I managed to pick up a TNT2 for $10 or $20 (the TNT 1 was Asus's excellent model, but it wasn't good at doing 1600 x 1200).
If they're supporting a card that old, I don't think you're going to have to worry anytime soon. I'm impressed that they're supporting their entire post-Riva lineup with a single driver.
Personally, the Free drivers never worked for me; X just looked mangled. I installed NVidia's binary driver by following the directions (gasp!) and everything Just Worked, and has continued to Just Work. Recently, I used the patches from minion.de to upgrade to Linux 2.6, and yet again it's working fine. I've never heard of the console corruption or X locking problems until reading the comments on this article.
The monolithic installer certainly does make things easier. You don't have to separately install the GL libraries and the kernel module anymore. It's just one file for whatever post-Riva card you have.
I've been able to run OpenGL demos, and the power in my area is less stable than X11 (out when I left for work this morning).
Am I a big proponent of Free as in libre? Yes, certainly. But NVidia released good software which works with the hardware I had already. Same reason I still use my MP3 discman; I don't know of a company that has an Ogg-compatible CD-ROM player (my music collection is too big to constantly fiddle with hardware players, sorry). Broadcast radio in Baltimore sucks and I need music. I prefer the Free alternative when it's practical, but sometimes it's not. You definitely find that out working for a physical plant (specialized software needs).
(replying to this partly because some people don't read ACs)
Indeed. IIRC, default installations of slink and potato didn't even include "less" or "man". I think that "man" is included now, but that gives you an idea how how stripped down Debian is "out of the box".
Of course, tasksel (or whatever it's called now) will prompt you to install sets of packages after installing the base system, but you can Just Say No.
A lot of Debian packages are very modular so that you can only install what you need. PHP is this way. GAIM and Xchat have GNOME and non-GNOME versions so that people who don't want the sizable mass of GNOME can forego some of the eye candy.
You must explicitly compile in support for removing modules in order to be able to do it, and last time I checked, it wasn't on by default. What's nice is that there's also an option to allow forcibly removing a module ("...mostly used by developers or desperate users.")
/boot partition (I have a weird disk setup) than perhaps I should have. Remember when you could actually still use "make zimage"?
/lib/modules lives on as modules :) Unless you set up initrd, of course.
I like to compile a modular kernel as well, especially since I've left myself a smaller
Just remember, kids: never compile drivers needed to access the filesystem
You have likewise been added to my friends list (after looking at some of the other posts in your history to be sure).
I have not looked at the Quakers, but I do think that the Universalist Unitarians have a pretty good handle on understanding and living by the teachings of Christ.
Of course, not everyone who calls themselves a Christian is corrupt in their values, but I'm sure you know that. I do wonder as to the percentage, though, but I'm not sure how you'd go about trying to calculate something like that. There are also extremists amongst the Jews and the Muslims, and I'd really like to get some sort of metric of "true believers" versus "not really".
I also think that many misled "Christians" really do believe what they're preaching. Maybe the minister with the sign reading "God hates fags" is just badly misguided and can't see the basic contradiction in even the first two words of that sentence.
(For the record, I was raised in a very laid-back and accepting Presbyterian way, but I'm trying to figure out what to call myself now. I'm going with Unitarian for the time being, but I'm always checking out new directions. It's not that my core beliefs are really changing, but a question of expression.)
It may be different for commercial stations, but every year, WMBC has to submit 3 day's worth of playlists (from a time period selected by BMI). (We do AM as well as Internet broadcasting, but I don't think it makes much of a difference).
Now, I agree that the tracking requirements for Internet radio originally proposed by the RIAA were onerous (track how many listeners heard each song, as well as a lot of personal information about listeners that seemed unnecessary). However, tracking what is actually played is the only way to avoid a "give half of it to Britney" situation.