They have. I just installed Windows XP SP2 on a system with a SATA dvd burner and 2 SATA drives. No PATA stuff on the system, no probs detecting the SATA drives and burners. Boot the CD, install (wait wait wait etc).
I didn't have any microsoft related problems with the install, except that there's like 60MB of windows updates to download and my ISP sucks. But the update thing will be the same whether it's XP or Kubuntu or Suse (actually Suse 10.2 is MUCH worse - skip it and go to 10.3 - yast is still bad but not abysmal as in 10.2).
Well maybe the regular dupes are because the Slashdot editors are using a prototype brain backup device and every so often they use move instead of copy.:)
Fair point. How about life imprisonment then (and lose leadership position etc)? I don't quite like the idea of torture though, and many sociopaths don't care about short term pain - and it's those sort of leaders you worry about:).
I'm normally against the death penalty too. I make an exception in this case since I believe war is an exceptional case (or should be;) ). War involves people making lots of people kill lots of people and having them believe that it is the right thing to do.
If the proposed war involves not killing any people, then yes it's fair to have no death penalty.
90/year is better than nothing BUT he spent a fair bit of money for those savings.
While monetary price may not be the most accurate measure of resource consumption, with the fairly low margins on many computer products I suggest that it's not that far off. USD200+USD130+USD65 of monitor+modem+printer does include the energy and resource cost of building them (and nowadays some products include the cost of recycling or trashing it).
Basically I doubt many of those items are priced much cheaper than the energy and resources used to make them. Sure there could be distortions but I'd need to see more proof that saving USD90/year of electricity by immediately buying USD400 of stuff is so much better than waiting for your old stuff to actually stop working first or become genuinely inadequate for your needs. The way I read it, USD44 of the savings were achieved just by turning on power management on his machine.
A lot of consumer grade computer equipment stops working within 5 years anyway. So if you're say spending USD400 every 3 years (USD133/year) instead of 5 (USD80/year), where's the bulk of your USD90/year savings going? If you exclude savings from power management to try to get savings from buying that new stuff, then you might be talking about only USD40+/year "savings" which is negated by you spending an extra USD53/year (USD133-USD80) because you are buying stuff more often.
If you have an SUV, switch to a smaller car and you'd save a lot more.
If you want to be more cynical, this story is just more slashvertising that encourages yet more consumerism. "Buy that new LCD monitor", "Buy that new printer", it's good for the environment. Blah blah blah.
I suggest that more people would bother to vote if they could cast "No" votes for candidates that count as -1.
Total up the scores and the candidate with the most positive or least negative total wins.
Then even if you think a candidate would still win, it might still be worth voting just for the chance of him/her winning with net negative votes and being asked questions about it on TV, or just being heckled about it regularly...;)
Spoiling a vote or not voting says "none of the above" and is not the same thing.
By only having "Yes" votes you lose a fair bit information about what voters want.
"I'm not so sure about putting the leaders who recommended war on death row, though."
I'm curious. Why not? Please do give reasons.
IMO if you as a leader don't think a proposed war is worth risking your life for, then I don't see why others should be made to risk their lives for your stupid/evil whims and fancies.
Even more so in democratic countries where leaders are NOT one of those ancient kings with slaves and subjects who have to serve them. AFAIK most elected leaders are supposed to serve the country (in theory anyway;) ).
With my proposal it's easy enough for citizens to get their leaders out of death row - just vote in the "redemption" referendum. If the voting system is not diebolded, even sociopathic leaders would not start a war lightly.
Last but not least, war is not some football game. War will destroy lives in your country AND/OR lives in the _target_ country. The target or victim country does deserve some consideration too.
I bet the real reason why the Israelis didn't get further in was more political than tech. They were already bombing practically any building they wanted in Lebanon.
AFAIK Israel doesn't really want Lebanon or other countries, they want Israel. Judging from the UN Security Council "vetoes" and other similar stuff they've already got the USA by the balls.
"Interesting how when your own kids are at risk, war doesn't seem quite so wonderful"
My proposal so far is that for there to be an _offensive_ (not defensive[1]) war or other significant military action, there needs to be a referendum first. If there are not enough votes (people just decided to stay at home or had more important things to do like go shopping), the leaders proposing the war get put on death row.
Then later another referendum is held to "redeem" them. If there are unsufficient votes, they get _executed_. If it was found later on that the leaders lied about reasons for the war, they get put on death row and another "save them" referendum is held. On the flip side, if the leaders got executed but turns out they were right about going to war, they get "purple heart" awards and everyone gets to cry and say nice soppy things about them.
To me this is much fairer. If you are a leader and you really believe there's a need for the war, then YOU put your life on the line first, rather than stay safe at home and cry fake tears for the fallen etc. In the old days, kings led their armies to battle (was often considered shameful to not do so). This is not practical nowadays, but I think my proposal allows it to be done "in spirit".
Also, people in the country you are attacking will be more at ease at wiping out your entire country - since > X% of you wanted to kill them in the first place. They would be less half hearted - no need to ask "am I committing genocide?".
So if the country really wants a war, they get a war. Otherwise fuck off and stop playing stupid games with OTHER people's lives.
I suspect other countries would feel much safer from a country that had such a law - why bomb it, just try to convince voters to stay at home and let their leaders die.
But so far hardly anyone seems to like this idea except me. Don't know why. I've heard objections of "that's a crazy and stupid idea", but no reasons were given.
Sure you _may_ lose an element of surprise, but hey you're the one who wants to kill someone else.
[1] Naturally defense is a different ball game. Perhaps you could allow treaties with likeminded (same rules for _offensive_ war) countries for mutual defense.
Not such a big problem if you are really using the subs for _defense_.
It does matter for the USA or other countries that need the ability to attack countries far away (for "self defense"/"regime change"/"whatever they think of next"/"The Glory of the Supreme Leader").
It doesn't really matter as long as most oil is priced in dollars.
Then the USA can just keep printing dollars to pay for the oil.
It makes the ones printing the dollars rich and the rest poorer, think of it as another way to tax. And since so many countries hold billions of USD, it means the USA gets to tax all of them.
Add the other scheme where the USA borrows money (another way of "printing" money) from China and Japan to buy stuff from them and you have an interesting situation.
It's lasted a fair amount of time, but I think wasting billions in Iraq might end it prematurely.
Don't know what the solution is, perhaps you're right that legislation isn't the way.
The thing is there just isn't much choice at the moment.
It's much cheaper and better if the house is built right first, than to modify it after.
There isn't much incentive to do it right first unless you build it yourself. Custom houses tend to be more expensive than mass produced houses.
I'm thinking that mass produced houses don't have to be crap but while demand is high enough and competition is low/fragmented builders don't need to care.
If he's actually cleaning things up, I hope he somehow escapes harm for a long long time - Nigeria does need a big clean up, and given the amount of oil and other stuff it has it could actually do very well if all the money just wasn't draining away due to corruption.
Better heat pumps would be good, I've heard some complain that while it's more efficient it just never gets warm enough. So you probably still need auxiliary heating which adds to the cost and complexity.
Looks like we really need better houses. Unfortunately it doesn't look like the advancements (if any) in "house tech" are getting to us fast.
Anyway, as you say the per dollar metric is helpful. If people had a better idea of which devices were using power and how much it costs them, then they might be able to make better decisions.
Interestingly I see really big differences in refrigerator power consumption figures.
And it's amazing how much power some devices seem to consume in "standby": http://www.pmb.co.nz/power_usage.htm
Most of the other devices are really bad compared to PC monitors in standby.
Thing is it's _usually_ easy to just switch the monitor off (unless the braindead manufacturer hides the switch somewhere). But often you're not supposed to turn off the cable/satellite tv decoder because it needs software/channel updates or other crap.
Anyway, too many people don't get it. Linux and MacOS are about as secure as windows = not very. In the default installation of Linux, MacOS, Windows, if something gets in via the browser it has full user privileges - can read your email, can make network connections, can listen in on your microphone if you have one etc.
I think we need something like this:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/156693
BTW Linux and MacOS both have perl installed by default. Would be interesting to see how the "antivirus" software vendors cope with malware written in perl;). No malicious code initially, just LWP/wget/curl, google, keywords + "I'm Feeling Lucky", eval...
Linux and MacOS are more secure the same way living in a small quiet village is more secure than living in the bad part of a city with planks over your windows and a reinforced metal door.
But with all of them, when you let someone in, they have full access to everything you normally have access to, except stuff in your safe. But not everyone keeps all their important stuff in the safe all the time;).
Yes it's still a good thing, but meanwhile has anyone invented an airconditioner/heater or car that's much more efficient but at the same time as practical and as affordable as the conventional stuff?
My airconditioner uses at least 1kW. 1 hour of airconditioning = 20 days of monitor standby.
For those of you who live in countries that need central heating, the standby power isn't going to hurt as much during winter since you want stuff warmer anyway.
I need a better designed house (to reduce cooling bills etc), but I can't afford one... An "Energy Star" legislation for houses here might be good, but I'm worried the builders will just use it as a way to make a lot more money.
"I am amazed that buildings such as Gehry's ever get built"
I'm not. There are lots of idiots with money to blow away, especially if it isn't really their money.
I'm fine with interesting looking buildings. But his buildings don't look that great (they probably looked dated the day they were drawn) and sure looks like many of them don't work well. They are probably the Ford Edsels of architecture.
Anybody can make something different that's crap. And you can often get away with it if you're just making "art". Just like those "artists" throwing paint onto a canvas, or writing songs that are just silence, or just bottling their "unique" excrement in jars.
But if you're making buildings they actually should work.
It takes real talent to make a distinctive looking building that actually works better than other stuff before it.
Take the Pentagon (building) for example. It was an amazing feat of design and engineering given the limitations of time and resources due to the ongoing war. It definitely looks different and it actually worked.
Slashdot Mirror
They have. I just installed Windows XP SP2 on a system with a SATA dvd burner and 2 SATA drives. No PATA stuff on the system, no probs detecting the SATA drives and burners. Boot the CD, install (wait wait wait etc).
I didn't have any microsoft related problems with the install, except that there's like 60MB of windows updates to download and my ISP sucks. But the update thing will be the same whether it's XP or Kubuntu or Suse (actually Suse 10.2 is MUCH worse - skip it and go to 10.3 - yast is still bad but not abysmal as in 10.2).
Carousel time for you then.
:).
And anyone else who gets it
Well maybe the regular dupes are because the Slashdot editors are using a prototype brain backup device and every so often they use move instead of copy. :)
He said activation keys for windows, so if the detection kit was really reading those then that's bad.
Anyway why would a bot or keylogger need to write to the registry?
Would be good if you could restrict the user account you use to run wow to only talking to blizzards IP range and local IP.
Fair point. How about life imprisonment then (and lose leadership position etc)? I don't quite like the idea of torture though, and many sociopaths don't care about short term pain - and it's those sort of leaders you worry about :).
;) ). War involves people making lots of people kill lots of people and having them believe that it is the right thing to do.
I'm normally against the death penalty too. I make an exception in this case since I believe war is an exceptional case (or should be
If the proposed war involves not killing any people, then yes it's fair to have no death penalty.
90/year is better than nothing BUT he spent a fair bit of money for those savings.
While monetary price may not be the most accurate measure of resource consumption, with the fairly low margins on many computer products I suggest that it's not that far off. USD200+USD130+USD65 of monitor+modem+printer does include the energy and resource cost of building them (and nowadays some products include the cost of recycling or trashing it).
Basically I doubt many of those items are priced much cheaper than the energy and resources used to make them. Sure there could be distortions but I'd need to see more proof that saving USD90/year of electricity by immediately buying USD400 of stuff is so much better than waiting for your old stuff to actually stop working first or become genuinely inadequate for your needs. The way I read it, USD44 of the savings were achieved just by turning on power management on his machine.
A lot of consumer grade computer equipment stops working within 5 years anyway. So if you're say spending USD400 every 3 years (USD133/year) instead of 5 (USD80/year), where's the bulk of your USD90/year savings going? If you exclude savings from power management to try to get savings from buying that new stuff, then you might be talking about only USD40+/year "savings" which is negated by you spending an extra USD53/year (USD133-USD80) because you are buying stuff more often.
If you have an SUV, switch to a smaller car and you'd save a lot more.
If you want to be more cynical, this story is just more slashvertising that encourages yet more consumerism. "Buy that new LCD monitor", "Buy that new printer", it's good for the environment. Blah blah blah.
I suggest that more people would bother to vote if they could cast "No" votes for candidates that count as -1.
;)
Total up the scores and the candidate with the most positive or least negative total wins.
Then even if you think a candidate would still win, it might still be worth voting just for the chance of him/her winning with net negative votes and being asked questions about it on TV, or just being heckled about it regularly...
Spoiling a vote or not voting says "none of the above" and is not the same thing.
By only having "Yes" votes you lose a fair bit information about what voters want.
Aww, and I didn't even get to the sharks part yet.
Anyway at "magnifying glass" levels you should still be able to start fires and do other naughty stuff remotely.
Isn't it illegal to do a "denial of service" attack on systems that you do not own?
Why should it be legal for Comcast to forge packets used in YOUR communications in order to slow things down?
The military would be interested in satellites that can transfer lots energy from the sun accurately to targets on the ground.
;).
Other countries might object a lot though
Yep so we should plant more trees, chop them down, convert them to furniture, buildings or landfill them.
:)
Reduce the recycling and reuse of wood. Or even paper IF the paper is produced in a not so energy and resource intensive process.
"I'm not so sure about putting the leaders who recommended war on death row, though."
;) ).
I'm curious. Why not? Please do give reasons.
IMO if you as a leader don't think a proposed war is worth risking your life for, then I don't see why others should be made to risk their lives for your stupid/evil whims and fancies.
Even more so in democratic countries where leaders are NOT one of those ancient kings with slaves and subjects who have to serve them. AFAIK most elected leaders are supposed to serve the country (in theory anyway
With my proposal it's easy enough for citizens to get their leaders out of death row - just vote in the "redemption" referendum. If the voting system is not diebolded, even sociopathic leaders would not start a war lightly.
Last but not least, war is not some football game. War will destroy lives in your country AND/OR lives in the _target_ country. The target or victim country does deserve some consideration too.
I bet the real reason why the Israelis didn't get further in was more political than tech. They were already bombing practically any building they wanted in Lebanon.
AFAIK Israel doesn't really want Lebanon or other countries, they want Israel. Judging from the UN Security Council "vetoes" and other similar stuff they've already got the USA by the balls.
1) Not everyone on Slashdot agrees on everything.
2) I don't think it takes that much to make a tag appear.
3) It might be a "meta" statement.
I bet there are more aircraft underwater than submarines ;).
:).
So far what I hear is US nuke submariners get really good food, and get game consoles. But you better not get claustrophobic or crazy
"Interesting how when your own kids are at risk, war doesn't seem quite so wonderful"
My proposal so far is that for there to be an _offensive_ (not defensive[1]) war or other significant military action, there needs to be a referendum first. If there are not enough votes (people just decided to stay at home or had more important things to do like go shopping), the leaders proposing the war get put on death row.
Then later another referendum is held to "redeem" them. If there are unsufficient votes, they get _executed_. If it was found later on that the leaders lied about reasons for the war, they get put on death row and another "save them" referendum is held. On the flip side, if the leaders got executed but turns out they were right about going to war, they get "purple heart" awards and everyone gets to cry and say nice soppy things about them.
To me this is much fairer. If you are a leader and you really believe there's a need for the war, then YOU put your life on the line first, rather than stay safe at home and cry fake tears for the fallen etc. In the old days, kings led their armies to battle (was often considered shameful to not do so). This is not practical nowadays, but I think my proposal allows it to be done "in spirit".
Also, people in the country you are attacking will be more at ease at wiping out your entire country - since > X% of you wanted to kill them in the first place. They would be less half hearted - no need to ask "am I committing genocide?".
So if the country really wants a war, they get a war. Otherwise fuck off and stop playing stupid games with OTHER people's lives.
I suspect other countries would feel much safer from a country that had such a law - why bomb it, just try to convince voters to stay at home and let their leaders die.
But so far hardly anyone seems to like this idea except me. Don't know why. I've heard objections of "that's a crazy and stupid idea", but no reasons were given.
Sure you _may_ lose an element of surprise, but hey you're the one who wants to kill someone else.
[1] Naturally defense is a different ball game. Perhaps you could allow treaties with likeminded (same rules for _offensive_ war) countries for mutual defense.
Not such a big problem if you are really using the subs for _defense_.
It does matter for the USA or other countries that need the ability to attack countries far away (for "self defense"/"regime change"/"whatever they think of next"/"The Glory of the Supreme Leader").
It doesn't really matter as long as most oil is priced in dollars.
Then the USA can just keep printing dollars to pay for the oil.
It makes the ones printing the dollars rich and the rest poorer, think of it as another way to tax. And since so many countries hold billions of USD, it means the USA gets to tax all of them.
Add the other scheme where the USA borrows money (another way of "printing" money) from China and Japan to buy stuff from them and you have an interesting situation.
It's lasted a fair amount of time, but I think wasting billions in Iraq might end it prematurely.
Don't know what the solution is, perhaps you're right that legislation isn't the way.
The thing is there just isn't much choice at the moment.
It's much cheaper and better if the house is built right first, than to modify it after.
There isn't much incentive to do it right first unless you build it yourself. Custom houses tend to be more expensive than mass produced houses.
I'm thinking that mass produced houses don't have to be crap but while demand is high enough and competition is low/fragmented builders don't need to care.
I wonder how long Umaru will live for.
If he's actually cleaning things up, I hope he somehow escapes harm for a long long time - Nigeria does need a big clean up, and given the amount of oil and other stuff it has it could actually do very well if all the money just wasn't draining away due to corruption.
Better heat pumps would be good, I've heard some complain that while it's more efficient it just never gets warm enough. So you probably still need auxiliary heating which adds to the cost and complexity.
Looks like we really need better houses. Unfortunately it doesn't look like the advancements (if any) in "house tech" are getting to us fast.
Anyway, as you say the per dollar metric is helpful. If people had a better idea of which devices were using power and how much it costs them, then they might be able to make better decisions.
Meanwhile some googling gets me:
http://www.bigfrogmountain.com/powerconsumption.cfm
Interestingly I see really big differences in refrigerator power consumption figures.
And it's amazing how much power some devices seem to consume in "standby":
http://www.pmb.co.nz/power_usage.htm
Most of the other devices are really bad compared to PC monitors in standby.
Thing is it's _usually_ easy to just switch the monitor off (unless the braindead manufacturer hides the switch somewhere). But often you're not supposed to turn off the cable/satellite tv decoder because it needs software/channel updates or other crap.
It's insightful not funny...
And many of the smart ones are less likely to pay for crap too, so you have to go to the trouble of actually making stuff that works well.
Anyway, too many people don't get it. Linux and MacOS are about as secure as windows = not very. In the default installation of Linux, MacOS, Windows, if something gets in via the browser it has full user privileges - can read your email, can make network connections, can listen in on your microphone if you have one etc.
;). No malicious code initially, just LWP/wget/curl, google, keywords + "I'm Feeling Lucky", eval...
;).
I think we need something like this:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/156693
BTW Linux and MacOS both have perl installed by default. Would be interesting to see how the "antivirus" software vendors cope with malware written in perl
Linux and MacOS are more secure the same way living in a small quiet village is more secure than living in the bad part of a city with planks over your windows and a reinforced metal door.
But with all of them, when you let someone in, they have full access to everything you normally have access to, except stuff in your safe. But not everyone keeps all their important stuff in the safe all the time
Yes it's still a good thing, but meanwhile has anyone invented an airconditioner/heater or car that's much more efficient but at the same time as practical and as affordable as the conventional stuff?
My airconditioner uses at least 1kW. 1 hour of airconditioning = 20 days of monitor standby.
For those of you who live in countries that need central heating, the standby power isn't going to hurt as much during winter since you want stuff warmer anyway.
I need a better designed house (to reduce cooling bills etc), but I can't afford one... An "Energy Star" legislation for houses here might be good, but I'm worried the builders will just use it as a way to make a lot more money.
"I am amazed that buildings such as Gehry's ever get built"
I'm not. There are lots of idiots with money to blow away, especially if it isn't really their money.
I'm fine with interesting looking buildings. But his buildings don't look that great (they probably looked dated the day they were drawn) and sure looks like many of them don't work well. They are probably the Ford Edsels of architecture.
Anybody can make something different that's crap. And you can often get away with it if you're just making "art". Just like those "artists" throwing paint onto a canvas, or writing songs that are just silence, or just bottling their "unique" excrement in jars.
But if you're making buildings they actually should work.
It takes real talent to make a distinctive looking building that actually works better than other stuff before it.
Take the Pentagon (building) for example. It was an amazing feat of design and engineering given the limitations of time and resources due to the ongoing war. It definitely looks different and it actually worked.