I have a Russian PDP-11 clone called BK-0010-01. I got it in 1988 and it was one of the few consumer-level household microcomputers available in USSR. I learned my programming skills on that baby and my first computer language was therefore a beasty called "Focal". BK had a horking 32K RAM (16k video) and an LSI-11 processor (clone).
Still in working condition.:) I'd put it on e-bay, but I don't have it at hand -- it's over the ocean at my parents' house. Wonder how much cash "exotic hardware collectors" would give me for this...
Also, "pictures of naked children" and "child pornography" are two separate entities. Pictures of naked children are sold in your local Barnes-and-Noble -- check out the "Photography" section. Please don't label any nudity as obscene and offensive right away -- most non-Americans treat nudity very differently and have a by far healthier attitude towards it.
If some parent in, say, Italy posts pictures of his young kids taking a bath, that would not be even remotely considered pornographic. In fact, the idea itself would be considered preposterous if not downward offensive to the parent. Please don't judge everything by the US standards. The world is a big place and hang-ups of one country are out of place in many others.
Nothing besides the fact that it's not open-source. And I don't mean the "FSF definition of open-source", but the fact that you can't get the source for yast. Now, is it just me, or does someone else find it odd that open-source distribution would use a proprietary installer?
I liked SuSE until I found out that 7.0 shipped with a broken software raid. Now that's just wrong.
I am in this situation right now. My domain at NetSol is expiring early August, so I decided to transfer it to register.com. After I paid $35 transfer fee, I received an e-mail from NetSol asking me to authorize the transfer. I did authorize it, but just a few days ago register.com sent me an e-mail that NetSol denied my transfer request.
I sent an e-mail to Customer Service at NetSol, but they haven't responded to it. Neither was I successful at trying to contact them by the phone.
I don't want to wait till my domain expires in order to renew it, and i DEFINITELY don't want to pay NetSol any more. They're probably the worst registrar out there right now. I am hoping this will get resolved, otherwise I might lose my domain, which would suck severely.
I am hoping/. is read by the VeriSign people and it gets through to their head how dissatisfied people are with their service.
Their G4-powered iPitcher is oriented at minor league players and throws perfect goofballs, which come out in graphite, flower power, and blue dalmatian variety.
Not to mention that Bakula is entrenched in the minds of most Sci-Fi fans from his role in Quantum Leap. One thing that trek had going for it in the past was that the actors were relatively new to the minds of viewers, and therefore could be easily molded to the character.
Well, have you ever watched StarGate SG1? Do you know of anyone who yells "McGyver!" every time Colonel O'Neal is on the screen? Talk about the legacy here. Yet, the series are widely accepted among the Sci-Fi populous.
This scares me. While on paper I like the idea of rectifying genetic diseases and abnormalities, who is to control this?
I like to be the prophet of doom as much as the next guy, but let's not overdo here. Take a look at natural selection -- it assures that only the fittest members of the species survive. From the view of evolution this is an ingenious process, however if you view this from the point of view of human values, it's outright immoral. Our society has incorporated the values that killing off weaker members of our tribe is wrong, albeit this is counter-intuitive to the whole idea of natural selection. The point is -- even if there appears some sort of "control" over genetic manipulation, it can't ever become any more "immoral" than the process of natural selection. Human morals and evolution of species have very separate and sometimes mirror-opposite value scales.
I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with genetic manipulation (apart from the fact that right now it's more like me breaking out a hex-editor and trying to hand-edit the binary for Windows and hoping it will work). However, the driving factor should be the universal agreement that genetically manipulated humans have no extra rights over the humans done "good old-fashined way, right here in Zion".
There is a turn-of-the-century (20'th century) Russian novel written by Mikhail Bulgakov about a neurosurgeon and his attempts at human brain translplantation. The novel deals with so much more than that, but in it Professor Preobrazhenski utters this: "Is it worth the effort to try and re-create a genius, if any woman on earth is capable of producing one at any given time?" As a special education teacher, specializing in working with gifted and talented children I can tell you this -- the toughest challenge is in identifying a gifted student, not in his/her upbringing.
In other words, and to put it into a context of genetic engineering -- wasting great effort on genetically manipulating a genome into producing a "superbaby" is flawed. Spontaneous genetic manipulation occurs every time a baby is conceived, except that here we have an advantage of sheer numbers: out of millions of babies born every year, a good number will be geniuses. Our concern should be providing good education opportunities in order for their genetic predispositions to actually develop. Nature is great, but nurture is still crucial in the making of a "genius". An Einstein born into a white-trash trailer or into a family living in a ghetto is highly unlikely to succeed, whatever "Good Will Hunting" would want us to believe.
So, I say "bring on genetic manipulation", as long as it's done responsibly (too many ways for it to go very wrong and produce monsters). This is a necessary step for humankind and the only way for us to actually learn something about ourselves. If it ends up killing us as species -- well, it's the natural selection at work, stupid.
Of course the fact that the OS is Linux doesn't matter much for them since they don't have any copyright laws there anyway.
It's interesting, because I've just recently found out that in Russia, too, it is illegal to do the whole "licensing" thing. By Russian laws, when you buy a piece of software, you can do whatever you wish with it, as long as you're not making profit. I could buy a copy of W2k and burn it for all my friends and that would be perfectly legal as long as I don't charge them.
In fact, the whole MS EULA is illegal, since it prohibits me to do what I am entitled to by Russian consumer laws. It's pretty interesting and I personally find it funny, that the actions of Microsoft (or in fact any license-enforcing company including the likes of RIAA, MPAA, etc) violate the laws of the country...:)
It's very easy to speak about "Chechen freedom fighters" out of the comfort of your very remotely located arm-chair. Unfortunately, the situation is not black and white, but a bizarrely twisted spectre of problems. Chechen republic in early 90's was a lure for various criminal elements coming from all over Southern former-USSR and taking hold there because law was anything but enforced there. We are talking kidnapping, slave labor, extorsions -- the whole slew of horrid crimes. "Chechen Mafia" was one of the strongest criminal groups all over former-USSR, Eastern Europe, and some of it in Asia and Western Europe.
The war is not against Chechens as people, but against criminal formations. You may think of it as of a bust on a MAJOR criminal cartel -- and you do this in US, don't you? The Chechen military groups are not comprized of chechens at most, anyway, and nobody wants to wipe chechens as a nation -- why?
Of course, you may continue limiting your views to what CNN feeds you, but there is more to any story you hear, especially if it's spoon-fed to you by CNN and the like.
We are a virus, feeding of off those greater than we are, and our time will surely pass.
Who let the troll out?
OK, you've been watching "the Matrix" far too often and were taking the things said in it far too seriously. You must remember, my friend, that although "the Matrix" is an immensely enjoyable movie, it is still a work of fiction, and as science fiction it sucks donkey's ass.
First off, let me enlighten you -- agent Smith was dead wrong when he said that "every living creature lives in an equilibrium with the surrounding ecosystem". "Buzz" -- wrong! Every living being on Earth is preoccupied with survival and will take advantage of any means possible in order not to die and procreate as many times as possible. The only reason there is equilibrium is because for every species out there, another species exists which takes advantage of it, and in many places you see life-death cycles. I witnessed it myself when I was working on far North of Russia: first year there were few lemmings around. Next year there were more lemmings around. Third year there were HORDES of lemmings around -- they were everywhere, you could hardly walk on tundra without stepping on them. However, with the increase of lemming population, there was a steady increase of predator birds who prey on lemmings as their primary food source. Then there was a massive epizootic (epidemic) among lemmings which wiped nearly half of them all, and the rest of lemming population was severely reduced by predators. Next year, there were hardly any lemmings, and tons of predators, who failed to procreate since they couldn't feed their young, and the cycle started again.
So, you see -- every living creature will procreate given a chance. You don't seriously think that some lemming conciously tries to "live in equilibrium" with the rest of the ecosystem? Do you think he sits in his hole in the ground and thinks "well, hell, there just are too many of us around -- I think I'll jerk off for the rest of the summer for the good of the ecosystem"? Right.
The human population has always been regulated using the same approach -- epidemics, wars, famines, but with the advent of technology things have changed. We have been able to choke off most epidemics by using vaccination and by washing hands; we are able to feed ourselves mostly (famines are now reduced to non-Western countries). This allowed us to procreate like crazy, but the regulatory measures of Nature will catch up with us some time in the future. We only need a couple of years of bad crops to re-introduce famine back into the Western world, or a non-curable mutated virus a-la plague or aids, but which would spread by air, to wipe out half the population.
So, you see, that is why we need to introduce such things as birth control, and the sooner the better. Having more than two children should be discouraged and having just one child should be rewarded (not the other way around). Not having many children surely beats seeing them starve and die of hunger, if you ask me.
About the "here and now" -- that's bullcrap. Truly great way to introduce stagnation and degeneration. Humankind just needs to learn how to achieve technological progress without undermining the well-being of our species, but I truly doubt that this will be possible without a harsh worldwide survival lesson caused by overpopulation. Until then, I'm afraid we won't do a thing.
I know, I know -- mod me down for being off-topic and feeding the trolls, but I'm just sick and tired of people throwing up their arms and moaning about "raping the planet". Every species does this, not just us. The only difference is that we have brains and should use them to see how this will come around and kick us in the arse before too long.
Mess with their house appliances, although I'm pretty certain it's going to be rather secure and you could turn off web-control by a turn of a switch. I don't think this will be exploited too much -- after all there isn't any monetary benefit from it.
You don't need to use technology when you want to annoy someone using an appliance. If you live in an apartment house with one rather weak central waterline and you want to get back at your neighbour for the ruckus he caused the night before by playing his music during early hours of the night... Well, just wait till he gets in a shower and then go and flush your toilet. Take my word -- his screams will be best music to your vengeful ears.
I mean, reliably and not in "linux emulation mode"? You may ask "well, who needs Java!". I do. I test my servlets on my local machine before I stick them on the production server (which is non-BSD as well for that and only that reason).
FOX Channel brings you a provocative documentary:
Mir re-entry was faked! Join us tonight as we explore the web of secrets and cover-ups and learn the never-before-heard truth about the Mir space-station and what really happened in March 2001.
Take this a step further -- I think this will be a great thing for independant artists like myself...
This is very true! In fact, I haven't bought an <evil>RIAA</evil> CD in over a year now, discovering all good independent artists on mp3.com and emusic.com. If it wasn't for these mediums I doubt I would have ever discovered these works of art and now I'm waiting anxiously for more releases from my favorite bands. (True, there is also a load of crap music out there, but at least you don't have to buy a CD first to discover that you don't like it!).
I haven't yet gotten into on-line video, since it's rather bothersome to watch it on Mozilla/Linux, but I can watch several broadband European TV channels and my German, French, and Dutch are improving rapidly.:)
So, things aren't as bad at all. There are huge benefits to be ripped off of big corp's big-brotherish desire to control stuff we own.
Remember -- big part of computer owners are broke and famished students. There was no way in hell I could afford a 3dmax package when I was a sophomore, so naturally I had to download it off of many warez sites, togeter with many other useful items (note to FBI officer reading Slashdot: since I'm running GNU/Linux, I do not own any stolen software for over three years now).
If there appears software that only runs on *protected PC's*, that means there will be a lot of demand for operating systems and software which DOESN'T require or use "copyright-enforcing", meaning more people will jump to alternative solutions, students and other poor people doing so 'en masse'. This will also NOT sit well with freedom-minded people out there and we can count on them joining the alternative/open OS movement as well.
So, the outcome would be -- a lot of 'young blood' will be entering life with GNU/Linux, BeOS, or some other platform experience, not at all attached to Wintel like we see it happening today, when a lot of students exiting college are incapable of un-learning their Where-is-my-start-button trained responses.
Not to stray too far off-topic, but it seems to me that we are headed for monstrous problems of biblical proportions, revealing the real lesson behind the parable of eating from the Tree of Knowledge. Mankind cannot be trusted with this information, because he can't help himself, even though he call himself a responsible scientist.
Well, this is only "god awful" from the perspective of humans. Think about the human race from a meta-stance. When kudzu takes over the habitat, we throw up our arms and say "oh, look what it did!". When we take over the habitat of, say, himalayan black bears and they face extinction, it's "oh well, we've got to live somewhere".
Introducing foreign species to habitats is destined to wreak havoc on those habitats, no question about that. However, it is dumb to think of nature in terms of status quo. Nature constantly adjusts and reworks its balanced structure. Today kudzu took over half the Southern US, tomorrow another organism will make use of this vast amount of food supply and kill off most of kudzu. The nature will find a way to regulate itself.
We, as humans, should be less concerned about "preserving nature", but really we should concern ourselves with the fact that we are making the environment unfriendly to the survival of our own species. Life has many forms and even if we screw the environment many times over, some sort of life will continue to exist. The problem is that Earth won't be suitable to sustain Homo Sapiens Sapiens and we will have to either live under glass roofs in an artificial environment, or modify ourselves in order to be able to survive in a new habitat.
Either way is rather grim, although some people wouldn't see anything wrong with genetic modifications (think X-men).:)
Re:One of the few remnants of communist Russia
on
Mir: Rest in Pieces
·
· Score: 2
I would disagree. People view this as an achievement of Russian people, not of the Soviet Regime. Besides, as a Russian, I would tell you that it was much more painful to read stories about an "ailing space station", and go over constant wise-cracks about Russians not being able to support it like they did.
People seem to forget, that Russia is smaller than Soviet Union was. We don't have Southern republics any more, and we don't even have Baikonur launch facilities -- they belong to Kazakhstan now. For over a decade Russia has been in a very bad economical and political situation. I mean -- US has an economical recession now and people scream bloody hell as NASDAQ falls below certain points. This is NOTHING compared to the situation in Russia, although things are looking much better than they did in the early nineties.
Don't forget, also, that we built a big part of the Alpha station -- and salaries for our engineers are incomparable to the ones at NASA.
I'd say that we should be DAMN proud of our history and of our achievements. And believe me -- you haven't heard the last of us yet.;) (in a good sort of way, of course).
Slashdot Mirror
I have a Russian PDP-11 clone called BK-0010-01. I got it in 1988 and it was one of the few consumer-level household microcomputers available in USSR. I learned my programming skills on that baby and my first computer language was therefore a beasty called "Focal". BK had a horking 32K RAM (16k video) and an LSI-11 processor (clone).
Still in working condition. :) I'd put it on e-bay, but I don't have it at hand -- it's over the ocean at my parents' house. Wonder how much cash "exotic hardware collectors" would give me for this...
Also, "pictures of naked children" and "child pornography" are two separate entities. Pictures of naked children are sold in your local Barnes-and-Noble -- check out the "Photography" section. Please don't label any nudity as obscene and offensive right away -- most non-Americans treat nudity very differently and have a by far healthier attitude towards it.
If some parent in, say, Italy posts pictures of his young kids taking a bath, that would not be even remotely considered pornographic. In fact, the idea itself would be considered preposterous if not downward offensive to the parent. Please don't judge everything by the US standards. The world is a big place and hang-ups of one country are out of place in many others.
Nothing besides the fact that it's not open-source. And I don't mean the "FSF definition of open-source", but the fact that you can't get the source for yast. Now, is it just me, or does someone else find it odd that open-source distribution would use a proprietary installer?
I liked SuSE until I found out that 7.0 shipped with a broken software raid. Now that's just wrong.
I am in this situation right now. My domain at NetSol is expiring early August, so I decided to transfer it to register.com. After I paid $35 transfer fee, I received an e-mail from NetSol asking me to authorize the transfer. I did authorize it, but just a few days ago register.com sent me an e-mail that NetSol denied my transfer request.
I sent an e-mail to Customer Service at NetSol, but they haven't responded to it. Neither was I successful at trying to contact them by the phone.
I don't want to wait till my domain expires in order to renew it, and i DEFINITELY don't want to pay NetSol any more. They're probably the worst registrar out there right now. I am hoping this will get resolved, otherwise I might lose my domain, which would suck severely.
I am hoping /. is read by the VeriSign people and it gets through to their head how dissatisfied people are with their service.
What a smashing way to turn one's boobs into a computational device.
Their G4-powered iPitcher is oriented at minor league players and throws perfect goofballs, which come out in graphite, flower power, and blue dalmatian variety.
Well, have you ever watched StarGate SG1? Do you know of anyone who yells "McGyver!" every time Colonel O'Neal is on the screen? Talk about the legacy here. Yet, the series are widely accepted among the Sci-Fi populous.
XHTML 1.1 incorporates Ruby.
Someone please mod it back down. It's a different "ruby", not the scripting language discussed.
Adult stuff is only 11% ?
I wonder if "erotic gallery" search string qualifies as "art". ;)
This scares me. While on paper I like the idea of rectifying genetic diseases and abnormalities, who is to control this?
I like to be the prophet of doom as much as the next guy, but let's not overdo here. Take a look at natural selection -- it assures that only the fittest members of the species survive. From the view of evolution this is an ingenious process, however if you view this from the point of view of human values, it's outright immoral. Our society has incorporated the values that killing off weaker members of our tribe is wrong, albeit this is counter-intuitive to the whole idea of natural selection. The point is -- even if there appears some sort of "control" over genetic manipulation, it can't ever become any more "immoral" than the process of natural selection. Human morals and evolution of species have very separate and sometimes mirror-opposite value scales.
I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with genetic manipulation (apart from the fact that right now it's more like me breaking out a hex-editor and trying to hand-edit the binary for Windows and hoping it will work). However, the driving factor should be the universal agreement that genetically manipulated humans have no extra rights over the humans done "good old-fashined way, right here in Zion".
There is a turn-of-the-century (20'th century) Russian novel written by Mikhail Bulgakov about a neurosurgeon and his attempts at human brain translplantation. The novel deals with so much more than that, but in it Professor Preobrazhenski utters this: "Is it worth the effort to try and re-create a genius, if any woman on earth is capable of producing one at any given time?" As a special education teacher, specializing in working with gifted and talented children I can tell you this -- the toughest challenge is in identifying a gifted student, not in his/her upbringing.
In other words, and to put it into a context of genetic engineering -- wasting great effort on genetically manipulating a genome into producing a "superbaby" is flawed. Spontaneous genetic manipulation occurs every time a baby is conceived, except that here we have an advantage of sheer numbers: out of millions of babies born every year, a good number will be geniuses. Our concern should be providing good education opportunities in order for their genetic predispositions to actually develop. Nature is great, but nurture is still crucial in the making of a "genius". An Einstein born into a white-trash trailer or into a family living in a ghetto is highly unlikely to succeed, whatever "Good Will Hunting" would want us to believe.
So, I say "bring on genetic manipulation", as long as it's done responsibly (too many ways for it to go very wrong and produce monsters). This is a necessary step for humankind and the only way for us to actually learn something about ourselves. If it ends up killing us as species -- well, it's the natural selection at work, stupid.
The Time Domain's website is timedomain.com (flash plugin required, tho).
This car uses a shitload of gas.
Of course the fact that the OS is Linux doesn't matter much for them since they don't have any copyright laws there anyway.
It's interesting, because I've just recently found out that in Russia, too, it is illegal to do the whole "licensing" thing. By Russian laws, when you buy a piece of software, you can do whatever you wish with it, as long as you're not making profit. I could buy a copy of W2k and burn it for all my friends and that would be perfectly legal as long as I don't charge them.
In fact, the whole MS EULA is illegal, since it prohibits me to do what I am entitled to by Russian consumer laws. It's pretty interesting and I personally find it funny, that the actions of Microsoft (or in fact any license-enforcing company including the likes of RIAA, MPAA, etc) violate the laws of the country... :)
That should clear up if you get more fiber in your diet.
Sooo... If you light up your shit, do you get fiber-optics then?
It's very easy to speak about "Chechen freedom fighters" out of the comfort of your very remotely located arm-chair. Unfortunately, the situation is not black and white, but a bizarrely twisted spectre of problems. Chechen republic in early 90's was a lure for various criminal elements coming from all over Southern former-USSR and taking hold there because law was anything but enforced there. We are talking kidnapping, slave labor, extorsions -- the whole slew of horrid crimes. "Chechen Mafia" was one of the strongest criminal groups all over former-USSR, Eastern Europe, and some of it in Asia and Western Europe.
The war is not against Chechens as people, but against criminal formations. You may think of it as of a bust on a MAJOR criminal cartel -- and you do this in US, don't you? The Chechen military groups are not comprized of chechens at most, anyway, and nobody wants to wipe chechens as a nation -- why?
Of course, you may continue limiting your views to what CNN feeds you, but there is more to any story you hear, especially if it's spoon-fed to you by CNN and the like.
We are a virus, feeding of off those greater than we are, and our time will surely pass.
Who let the troll out?
OK, you've been watching "the Matrix" far too often and were taking the things said in it far too seriously. You must remember, my friend, that although "the Matrix" is an immensely enjoyable movie, it is still a work of fiction, and as science fiction it sucks donkey's ass.
First off, let me enlighten you -- agent Smith was dead wrong when he said that "every living creature lives in an equilibrium with the surrounding ecosystem". "Buzz" -- wrong! Every living being on Earth is preoccupied with survival and will take advantage of any means possible in order not to die and procreate as many times as possible. The only reason there is equilibrium is because for every species out there, another species exists which takes advantage of it, and in many places you see life-death cycles. I witnessed it myself when I was working on far North of Russia: first year there were few lemmings around. Next year there were more lemmings around. Third year there were HORDES of lemmings around -- they were everywhere, you could hardly walk on tundra without stepping on them. However, with the increase of lemming population, there was a steady increase of predator birds who prey on lemmings as their primary food source. Then there was a massive epizootic (epidemic) among lemmings which wiped nearly half of them all, and the rest of lemming population was severely reduced by predators. Next year, there were hardly any lemmings, and tons of predators, who failed to procreate since they couldn't feed their young, and the cycle started again.
So, you see -- every living creature will procreate given a chance. You don't seriously think that some lemming conciously tries to "live in equilibrium" with the rest of the ecosystem? Do you think he sits in his hole in the ground and thinks "well, hell, there just are too many of us around -- I think I'll jerk off for the rest of the summer for the good of the ecosystem"? Right.
The human population has always been regulated using the same approach -- epidemics, wars, famines, but with the advent of technology things have changed. We have been able to choke off most epidemics by using vaccination and by washing hands; we are able to feed ourselves mostly (famines are now reduced to non-Western countries). This allowed us to procreate like crazy, but the regulatory measures of Nature will catch up with us some time in the future. We only need a couple of years of bad crops to re-introduce famine back into the Western world, or a non-curable mutated virus a-la plague or aids, but which would spread by air, to wipe out half the population.
So, you see, that is why we need to introduce such things as birth control, and the sooner the better. Having more than two children should be discouraged and having just one child should be rewarded (not the other way around). Not having many children surely beats seeing them starve and die of hunger, if you ask me.
About the "here and now" -- that's bullcrap. Truly great way to introduce stagnation and degeneration. Humankind just needs to learn how to achieve technological progress without undermining the well-being of our species, but I truly doubt that this will be possible without a harsh worldwide survival lesson caused by overpopulation. Until then, I'm afraid we won't do a thing.
I know, I know -- mod me down for being off-topic and feeding the trolls, but I'm just sick and tired of people throwing up their arms and moaning about "raping the planet". Every species does this, not just us. The only difference is that we have brains and should use them to see how this will come around and kick us in the arse before too long.
Mess with their house appliances, although I'm pretty certain it's going to be rather secure and you could turn off web-control by a turn of a switch. I don't think this will be exploited too much -- after all there isn't any monetary benefit from it.
You don't need to use technology when you want to annoy someone using an appliance. If you live in an apartment house with one rather weak central waterline and you want to get back at your neighbour for the ruckus he caused the night before by playing his music during early hours of the night... Well, just wait till he gets in a shower and then go and flush your toilet. Take my word -- his screams will be best music to your vengeful ears.
http://www.curl.com/html/technology/documentation. jsp
I guess they can't afford to pay per-character for the use of CURL on their pages... :)
I mean, reliably and not in "linux emulation mode"? You may ask "well, who needs Java!". I do. I test my servlets on my local machine before I stick them on the production server (which is non-BSD as well for that and only that reason).
This may interest Slashdot readers because the online competition, which will be free to enter, will feature "e-mercials".
Oh, yeah? How about "no-mercyals"?
That's it, I'm downloading links...
FOX Channel brings you a provocative documentary: Mir re-entry was faked! Join us tonight as we explore the web of secrets and cover-ups and learn the never-before-heard truth about the Mir space-station and what really happened in March 2001.
Take this a step further -- I think this will be a great thing for independant artists like myself...
This is very true! In fact, I haven't bought an <evil>RIAA</evil> CD in over a year now, discovering all good independent artists on mp3.com and emusic.com. If it wasn't for these mediums I doubt I would have ever discovered these works of art and now I'm waiting anxiously for more releases from my favorite bands. (True, there is also a load of crap music out there, but at least you don't have to buy a CD first to discover that you don't like it!).
I haven't yet gotten into on-line video, since it's rather bothersome to watch it on Mozilla/Linux, but I can watch several broadband European TV channels and my German, French, and Dutch are improving rapidly. :)
So, things aren't as bad at all. There are huge benefits to be ripped off of big corp's big-brotherish desire to control stuff we own.
Remember -- big part of computer owners are broke and famished students. There was no way in hell I could afford a 3dmax package when I was a sophomore, so naturally I had to download it off of many warez sites, togeter with many other useful items (note to FBI officer reading Slashdot: since I'm running GNU/Linux, I do not own any stolen software for over three years now).
If there appears software that only runs on *protected PC's*, that means there will be a lot of demand for operating systems and software which DOESN'T require or use "copyright-enforcing", meaning more people will jump to alternative solutions, students and other poor people doing so 'en masse'. This will also NOT sit well with freedom-minded people out there and we can count on them joining the alternative/open OS movement as well.
So, the outcome would be -- a lot of 'young blood' will be entering life with GNU/Linux, BeOS, or some other platform experience, not at all attached to Wintel like we see it happening today, when a lot of students exiting college are incapable of un-learning their Where-is-my-start-button trained responses.
And that, my friend, is a beatiful thing!
Not to stray too far off-topic, but it seems to me that we are headed for monstrous problems of biblical proportions, revealing the real lesson behind the parable of eating from the Tree of Knowledge. Mankind cannot be trusted with this information, because he can't help himself, even though he call himself a responsible scientist.
Well, this is only "god awful" from the perspective of humans. Think about the human race from a meta-stance. When kudzu takes over the habitat, we throw up our arms and say "oh, look what it did!". When we take over the habitat of, say, himalayan black bears and they face extinction, it's "oh well, we've got to live somewhere".
Introducing foreign species to habitats is destined to wreak havoc on those habitats, no question about that. However, it is dumb to think of nature in terms of status quo. Nature constantly adjusts and reworks its balanced structure. Today kudzu took over half the Southern US, tomorrow another organism will make use of this vast amount of food supply and kill off most of kudzu. The nature will find a way to regulate itself.
We, as humans, should be less concerned about "preserving nature", but really we should concern ourselves with the fact that we are making the environment unfriendly to the survival of our own species. Life has many forms and even if we screw the environment many times over, some sort of life will continue to exist. The problem is that Earth won't be suitable to sustain Homo Sapiens Sapiens and we will have to either live under glass roofs in an artificial environment, or modify ourselves in order to be able to survive in a new habitat.
Either way is rather grim, although some people wouldn't see anything wrong with genetic modifications (think X-men). :)
I would disagree. People view this as an achievement of Russian people, not of the Soviet Regime. Besides, as a Russian, I would tell you that it was much more painful to read stories about an "ailing space station", and go over constant wise-cracks about Russians not being able to support it like they did.
People seem to forget, that Russia is smaller than Soviet Union was. We don't have Southern republics any more, and we don't even have Baikonur launch facilities -- they belong to Kazakhstan now. For over a decade Russia has been in a very bad economical and political situation. I mean -- US has an economical recession now and people scream bloody hell as NASDAQ falls below certain points. This is NOTHING compared to the situation in Russia, although things are looking much better than they did in the early nineties.
Don't forget, also, that we built a big part of the Alpha station -- and salaries for our engineers are incomparable to the ones at NASA.
I'd say that we should be DAMN proud of our history and of our achievements. And believe me -- you haven't heard the last of us yet. ;) (in a good sort of way, of course).