I'm not sure that the reason behind AOL being such a big player is america's "fear" of technology. More so it's america's lack of drive, or at least curiosity. When i was a kid, i used to break all kinds of s#it just because i wanted to know how the hell it worked. I'm sure everyone who reads this can identify. (i've even destroyed a $500 cable box in the search of knowledge, and free cable.)
My mother, on the other hand, won't even take the time to learn how to hook up her fscking box! i don't attribute this to her being afraid of breaking the box (it's got a Cyrix chip in it, so for all intents and purposes it's already broken), but rather to her lack of curiosity or drive to learn it. From what i've seen...this is the case with most americans. even my friend that's pursuing a CS/EE degree gets a glazed look on his face when i start talking about anything even remotely related to computers or the internet.
Coming from and ex-AOL employee, let me clear this up by saying there are two possibilities as to why AOL is so popular:
A) People are too lazy to care about the difference.
B) People are too stupid to care about the difference.
Basically this kind of inet crap is why i try to leave my CC number off places like ebay wherever possible.
Unfortunately, people are failing to realize that the internet is an inherently unsafe place for information. Any data that can be retrieved via copper wire is a free for all (read: cracking). Example: quite a few colleges actually keep web pages of their students' social security numbers. Is this info you want made publicly available.
As far as data encryption is concerned, allow me to throw in my two cents. Keep in mind that encryption algorythms are all breakable. Sure some can take a while to break, but they are ALL breakable. Anyone remember the name of that Israeli optical box that broke a 512 bit crypto key in something like 48 hours?
-FluX: --I am the people my parents warned me about.
Lynx: Upside - very stable, tens of pretty colors to look at. you can use it in any term Downside - text based only, that pr0n pic of Chloe Jones you downloaded doesn't look very good represented in ascii.
Netscape: Upside - mouse and/or keyboard use. Communicator provides a decent mail client for p*ssies who can't figure out how to configure fetchmail with pine. And those pr0n pics of Chloe look OUTSTANDING!!! Downside - it's buggy as hell. crashes quite a bit.
Conclusion? - Which is better, snowboarding or skiing?? NEITHER (read: preference)!!!!
BTW - if i hear one more hammer/screwdriver allusion, i'm going to go f*cking postal! -FluX
And it is an attack. It it not a "boycott" as so many seem to say
Umm, maybe i just fell down the stairs a few too many times when i was a kid but how can this possibly be a DOS attack? Usenet doesn't work like email in that messages don't get bounced, they just don't get propagated - so you won't see bouncemail flooding back to @home (ironically, they probably have the bandwidth to handle it.)
Secondly, it is not possible for a news daemon to actively delete posts off another server - that would be what we hardcore "31337 h4x0rz" like to call a "gaping security hole."
The UDP is simply an active agreement between SA's stating that we won't pass spam from one network onto another.
If the UDP were a passive, mass refusal to carry traffic from @home, I would support it.
So...you support it then?!
--FluX What's tiny, yellow, and VERY, VERY dangerous? a canary with the super user password
My goal here is to get a hollowed out sun E450 box and stick all my hardware in that. Sweet looking case - also, sweet look on your friends' faces when they see a "$45,000 box" sitting under your desk.
i think we need to take the implied meaning of the original post to mean, who are the top ten "science minded" people of the millenium. In no way, in working reality, do Bill Gates or Linus Torvalds even come close to hitting that mark. (read: Einstein, Hawking, Newton, Galileo). No offense - but no where else in the world, other than a place like Slashdot or Freshmeat would you see Linus given even a nomination. Don't get me wrong, he's the man! but we're talking about FUCKING GENIUSES!!!!! not super smart guys.
Oh yeah, Darwin would be up there in my book but unfortunately, there are just too many people who edge him out.
Einstein has got to be it. Relativity, the A-bomb (he wasn't even allowed to work on it...and yet he is almost entirely responsible for the manhattan project's success.)
For my money, Hawking and Newton are tied for second. - Side note: if you think Newton should be number one for trig and gravity...consider this - Einstein has worked on quantum theory and other disciplines that we haven't even begun to comprehend (two hundred years from now - physicists will be saying "holy shit! i just figured this damned equation out!!!").
Number 4. Galileo (for obvious reasons.) Number 5. DaVinci (ummmmmmm.)
OK, those are my top 5. you can argue about the rest. BTW - if hawking isn't on your top 10 list. you REALLY need to re-evaluate it!
but the fact of the matter is this A)Whether you like it or not, if you don't vote, you're acquiescing. B) If you're under 18...you can bitch...but watch what you say - i knew all too many minors who swore up and down they were going to "rock the vote" come their 18th birthday. Unfortunately, much like the majority of our politicians, when the time came to act on those declarations, there was something more important to do. and finally C) as far as 50% of the vote is concerned, this is a pipe dream. In the last presidential election, americans managed to scrape together a 47% voter turnout. so, we can infer that basically less than a quarter of the 300 odd million people we have living in the united states (minus citizens under 18 and non-citizens) picked our last president.
One final thought. one of the largest problems in the united states is the misconception of how the voting process works. Most people don't vote because they feel that their vote "doesn't count." I could spend my time giving you all the same old rigamarue about how a vote is a choice, etc. etc. but instead i will impart the misinformed with this wisdom: The President of the United States of America is NOT chosen by the public. He or She is chosen by the Electoral College - the states citizens vote, the electoral college votes for the president for them (This is why Colorado gets 3 votes, New York gets something like 10, etc. etc.) Then those electoral votes are tallied to pic the president. If i remember correctly it's something like 250 votes in total. Think about it this way. If 47% of the registered voters in my state, Colorado, turned out to vote - that's something like 1 million people, and let's say that it was 50/50 between two equally crappy candidates. that means that my vote is going in with only 500,000 people, not 300 million like most people believe. All of the sudden - my vote starts to look like it might make a little more of a difference. Just a thought.
If "pro" is the opposite of "con"... what's the opposite of progress?? -FluX
heh, i did my time too. i'm telling you though, tech support workers should get hazard pay. I've seen what happens when the guy with the broken cup holder on his HP Pavillion calls back one too many times..it isn't pretty.
Internal clause: Internal Helpdesk people have deen denied right to post to this thread due to the luxury of supporting only corporate users. If you think that's hard, try listening to Farmer John use his three teeth to explain why the thingy broke off the big white deal over yonder. "it looks like it should be on there somewhere, what's your opin - hold on a sec' - shaddup darlene next time i'm gonna use the trowel!" I've heard em do it. Hicks are multitasking - they can beat their kids and get tech support from AOL at the same time. Fascinating!
I can't think of one person i would pick to be my man of the year. Linus MIGHT have been it a few years ago, but this isn't the year of Linux...this is the year of his creation (for a few). Clinton was on that list a few years back, but today i can't think of one damned person who i thnk of and say "you know...that person is a Role Model!"
By the way. let's get off this internet kick if we're going to seriously discuss the person of the year...Steve Jobs (or the Mac if you want to get technical) was on that list because the personal computer revolutionized the WORLD! E-commerce is changing the way 28 fucking people shop. When was the last time you got toilet paper and some dinty more beef stew off e-bay? Ask yourself - who changed the WORLD this year???
With the incarnation of Corel Linux and others like Mandrake (seemingly a dumbed down version of RedHat) where do you see the Linux community going in terms of maintaining a true "hacker" ethic, while at the same time becoming increasingly inclusive to a not-so-technical user base? Do you think we're approaching a trend, much like DOS and Win3.1, where the user base becomes too dependant on ease of use? How is the linux community going to cope with an influx of ex windows users who don't know much about the actual workings of a *nix environment?
oh well...so much for my theory. hehe. I pretty much prefer to get my products at stores anywho. you know what you're getting and, in most cases, at approximately the same price.
i still kinda like waht my dad gave me for x-mas. good ole fashioned cash!
Sorry for this guys. What with all the holiday cheer, i just wanted to poll who was actually working on this fine festive occasion. (Unfortunately i am, but my arse is bursting with holiday flavor!).
woah, let's settle on the lawsuit here. the culprit was more than likely the USPS anyway - hence the lateness of MANY merchants shipments. Good luck getting any money out of the Post Office! heheh.
by the way...i ordered a few things off thinkgeek last friday, they didn't come untill yesterday. Moral: If you wait 'till just before christmas to get your stuff, odds are it's either going to be late, or a crappy present!
Merry Christmas - and remember, it's not just about giving, it's also about a capitalist marketing scheme based around the exploitation of a nonexistant deity. --FluX
Bah, these people are idiots! Anyone ever heard of a small time software company called IDSoftware?? Have you any phucking clue how much money they lost because of "qcrack"???????? the problem is that piracy is a grey area. no, adobe isn't losing money if i get photoshop for free (you're right. i wouldn't buy it if i couldn't crack it.) but IDSoftware IS losing money if you get a cracked copy of Q3 Arena...why?? because 99% of the people who crack it would have bought it if there was no crack.
Evaluate what is is that you're "pirating." If it's good software and you would have bought it anyway...go buy it. If everyone had cracked Quake instead of buying it, ID wouldn't have made Q2 or Q3...thusly we'd all still be posting to newsgroups about how Wolfenstein was the most advanced game ever made. Supply and demand kiddies...no one spends shitloads of money on RND to make stuff for free!
P.S. - the people who think piracy doesn't hurt are the same idiots who think that their vote doesn't count in elections.
The problem with the CNet rating is that they completely missed the point of Linux. It honestly pains me to see people starting linux using mandrake. That distro is basically RedHat with a default setup of KDE (done an ls on the CD lately?). You could use GNOME but it's not that much better. What's wrong with these WM's you ask? They're WIN3.1 for linux people! They're a nice, easy to use, buffer for newbie hackers who were told on usenet that they needed a linux box. CNET rated those distros on ease of use, not power or functionality. Already you can see people using linux who can play a CD on their box but don't even know the command to mount the damned thing!
Slashdot Mirror
My mother, on the other hand, won't even take the time to learn how to hook up her fscking box! i don't attribute this to her being afraid of breaking the box (it's got a Cyrix chip in it, so for all intents and purposes it's already broken), but rather to her lack of curiosity or drive to learn it. From what i've seen...this is the case with most americans. even my friend that's pursuing a CS/EE degree gets a glazed look on his face when i start talking about anything even remotely related to computers or the internet.
Coming from and ex-AOL employee, let me clear this up by saying there are two possibilities as to why AOL is so popular:
I don't know which one scares me more....
-FluX
Basically this kind of inet crap is why i try to leave my CC number off places like ebay wherever possible.
Unfortunately, people are failing to realize that the internet is an inherently unsafe place for information. Any data that can be retrieved via copper wire is a free for all (read: cracking). Example: quite a few colleges actually keep web pages of their students' social security numbers. Is this info you want made publicly available.
As far as data encryption is concerned, allow me to throw in my two cents. Keep in mind that encryption algorythms are all breakable. Sure some can take a while to break, but they are ALL breakable. Anyone remember the name of that Israeli optical box that broke a 512 bit crypto key in something like 48 hours?
-FluX: --I am the people my parents warned me about.
Lynx:
Upside - very stable, tens of pretty colors to look at. you can use it in any term
Downside - text based only, that pr0n pic of Chloe Jones you downloaded doesn't look very good represented in ascii.
Netscape:
Upside - mouse and/or keyboard use. Communicator provides a decent mail client for p*ssies who can't figure out how to configure fetchmail with pine. And those pr0n pics of Chloe look OUTSTANDING!!!
Downside - it's buggy as hell. crashes quite a bit.
Conclusion? - Which is better, snowboarding or skiing?? NEITHER (read: preference)!!!!
BTW - if i hear one more hammer/screwdriver allusion, i'm going to go f*cking postal! -FluX
And it is an attack. It it not a "boycott" as so many seem to say
Umm, maybe i just fell down the stairs a few too many times when i was a kid but how can this possibly be a DOS attack? Usenet doesn't work like email in that messages don't get bounced, they just don't get propagated - so you won't see bouncemail flooding back to @home (ironically, they probably have the bandwidth to handle it.)
Secondly, it is not possible for a news daemon to actively delete posts off another server - that would be what we hardcore "31337 h4x0rz" like to call a "gaping security hole."
The UDP is simply an active agreement between SA's stating that we won't pass spam from one network onto another.
If the UDP were a passive, mass refusal to carry traffic from @home, I would support it.
So...you support it then?!
--FluX
What's tiny, yellow, and VERY, VERY dangerous?
a canary with the super user password
My goal here is to get a hollowed out sun E450 box and stick all my hardware in that. Sweet looking case - also, sweet look on your friends' faces when they see a "$45,000 box" sitting under your desk.
--FluX
What about mike shanahan??? for god's sake man, he alone was responsible for the entire success of the broncos' west coast offense!
Good parody?? F*CKING HILARIOUS!!!! anyone seen the ASCII WARS site? http://www.asciimation.co.nz/
FluX
i think we need to take the implied meaning of the original post to mean, who are the top ten "science minded" people of the millenium. In no way, in working reality, do Bill Gates or Linus Torvalds even come close to hitting that mark. (read: Einstein, Hawking, Newton, Galileo). No offense - but no where else in the world, other than a place like Slashdot or Freshmeat would you see Linus given even a nomination. Don't get me wrong, he's the man! but we're talking about FUCKING GENIUSES!!!!! not super smart guys.
Oh yeah, Darwin would be up there in my book but unfortunately, there are just too many people who edge him out.
Einstein has got to be it. Relativity, the A-bomb (he wasn't even allowed to work on it...and yet he is almost entirely responsible for the manhattan project's success.)
For my money, Hawking and Newton are tied for second. - Side note: if you think Newton should be number one for trig and gravity...consider this - Einstein has worked on quantum theory and other disciplines that we haven't even begun to comprehend (two hundred years from now - physicists will be saying "holy shit! i just figured this damned equation out!!!").
Number 4. Galileo (for obvious reasons.)
Number 5. DaVinci (ummmmmmm.)
OK, those are my top 5. you can argue about the rest. BTW - if hawking isn't on your top 10 list. you REALLY need to re-evaluate it!
but the fact of the matter is this A)Whether you like it or not, if you don't vote, you're acquiescing. B) If you're under 18...you can bitch...but watch what you say - i knew all too many minors who swore up and down they were going to "rock the vote" come their 18th birthday. Unfortunately, much like the majority of our politicians, when the time came to act on those declarations, there was something more important to do. and finally C) as far as 50% of the vote is concerned, this is a pipe dream. In the last presidential election, americans managed to scrape together a 47% voter turnout. so, we can infer that basically less than a quarter of the 300 odd million people we have living in the united states (minus citizens under 18 and non-citizens) picked our last president.
... what's the opposite of progress??
One final thought. one of the largest problems in the united states is the misconception of how the voting process works. Most people don't vote because they feel that their vote "doesn't count." I could spend my time giving you all the same old rigamarue about how a vote is a choice, etc. etc. but instead i will impart the misinformed with this wisdom: The President of the United States of America is NOT chosen by the public. He or She is chosen by the Electoral College - the states citizens vote, the electoral college votes for the president for them (This is why Colorado gets 3 votes, New York gets something like 10, etc. etc.) Then those electoral votes are tallied to pic the president. If i remember correctly it's something like 250 votes in total. Think about it this way. If 47% of the registered voters in my state, Colorado, turned out to vote - that's something like 1 million people, and let's say that it was 50/50 between two equally crappy candidates. that means that my vote is going in with only 500,000 people, not 300 million like most people believe. All of the sudden - my vote starts to look like it might make a little more of a difference. Just a thought.
If "pro" is the opposite of "con"
-FluX
heh, i did my time too. i'm telling you though, tech support workers should get hazard pay. I've seen what happens when the guy with the broken cup holder on his HP Pavillion calls back one too many times..it isn't pretty.
Internal clause: Internal Helpdesk people have deen denied right to post to this thread due to the luxury of supporting only corporate users. If you think that's hard, try listening to Farmer John use his three teeth to explain why the thingy broke off the big white deal over yonder. "it looks like it should be on there somewhere, what's your opin - hold on a sec' - shaddup darlene next time i'm gonna use the trowel!" I've heard em do it. Hicks are multitasking - they can beat their kids and get tech support from AOL at the same time. Fascinating!
ummm...i think he means an integral part of his thrust bud. we're not all math majors. some of us have seen the big blue room.
I can't think of one person i would pick to be my man of the year. Linus MIGHT have been it a few years ago, but this isn't the year of Linux...this is the year of his creation (for a few). Clinton was on that list a few years back, but today i can't think of one damned person who i thnk of and say "you know...that person is a Role Model!"
By the way. let's get off this internet kick if we're going to seriously discuss the person of the year...Steve Jobs (or the Mac if you want to get technical) was on that list because the personal computer revolutionized the WORLD! E-commerce is changing the way 28 fucking people shop. When was the last time you got toilet paper and some dinty more beef stew off e-bay? Ask yourself - who changed the WORLD this year???
actually i think they've developed a fish kernel module. Also, i believe in early Jan. of this year linux was ported to the Trout.
In any event, look for a Dolphin and Shark distro coming in early 2001 - should be exciting.
With the incarnation of Corel Linux and others like Mandrake (seemingly a dumbed down version of RedHat) where do you see the Linux community going in terms of maintaining a true "hacker" ethic, while at the same time becoming increasingly inclusive to a not-so-technical user base? Do you think we're approaching a trend, much like DOS and Win3.1, where the user base becomes too dependant on ease of use? How is the linux community going to cope with an influx of ex windows users who don't know much about the actual workings of a *nix environment?
oh well...so much for my theory. hehe. I pretty much prefer to get my products at stores anywho. you know what you're getting and, in most cases, at approximately the same price.
i still kinda like waht my dad gave me for x-mas. good ole fashioned cash!
Sorry for this guys. What with all the holiday cheer, i just wanted to poll who was actually working on this fine festive occasion. (Unfortunately i am, but my arse is bursting with holiday flavor!).
woah, let's settle on the lawsuit here. the culprit was more than likely the USPS anyway - hence the lateness of MANY merchants shipments. Good luck getting any money out of the Post Office! heheh.
by the way...i ordered a few things off thinkgeek last friday, they didn't come untill yesterday. Moral: If you wait 'till just before christmas to get your stuff, odds are it's either going to be late, or a crappy present!
Merry Christmas - and remember, it's not just about giving, it's also about a capitalist marketing scheme based around the exploitation of a nonexistant deity.
--FluX
Bah, these people are idiots! Anyone ever heard of a small time software company called IDSoftware?? Have you any phucking clue how much money they lost because of "qcrack"???????? the problem is that piracy is a grey area. no, adobe isn't losing money if i get photoshop for free (you're right. i wouldn't buy it if i couldn't crack it.) but IDSoftware IS losing money if you get a cracked copy of Q3 Arena...why?? because 99% of the people who crack it would have bought it if there was no crack.
Evaluate what is is that you're "pirating." If it's good software and you would have bought it anyway...go buy it. If everyone had cracked Quake instead of buying it, ID wouldn't have made Q2 or Q3...thusly we'd all still be posting to newsgroups about how Wolfenstein was the most advanced game ever made. Supply and demand kiddies...no one spends shitloads of money on RND to make stuff for free!
P.S. - the people who think piracy doesn't hurt are the same idiots who think that their vote doesn't count in elections.
--FluX
The problem with the CNet rating is that they completely missed the point of Linux. It honestly pains me to see people starting linux using mandrake. That distro is basically RedHat with a default setup of KDE (done an ls on the CD lately?). You could use GNOME but it's not that much better. What's wrong with these WM's you ask? They're WIN3.1 for linux people! They're a nice, easy to use, buffer for newbie hackers who were told on usenet that they needed a linux box. CNET rated those distros on ease of use, not power or functionality. Already you can see people using linux who can play a CD on their box but don't even know the command to mount the damned thing!
-FluX