The example that comes to mind is the guy that called tech support wondering why his computer wasn't working- WHEN THE POWER WAS OUT. People like that shouldn't be allowed to even use a toaster, for god's sake. That's just lack of common sense!
You're going to see a LOT of this in web-based stuff... classic mistake of prepending 19 instead of adding 1900 to the number. The standard localtime() struct stores the year as (year - 1900) so 1999 = 99,and 2001 = 101. This is a novice mistake that no one should make if they've read the llama book.;)
high-speed net access is a must, of course. That pretty much goes without saying. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that even though most of us here are geeks, that doesn't mean that all we need is a warm dry place with a computer and a big pipe... I do occasionally leave the house.;) Assuming this is true, the requirements are not that different from your average non-geek person. Everybody wants a safe environment (safe from murder, burglary, etc). Besides that, some people will want some night life, cool places to hang out, etc.
The truth of the matter is that most people will be reasonably happy wherever they are. Barring any major problems, most people just live where they've been living. Case in point? places like minnesota. I could never live there, as I'm from california... i'm too much of a wimp. People who live in minnesota obviously don't have too much of a problem living there.
This was way too funny to pass up. In their 'snapshot' of what the web site looked like in 1995, they have a rather prominent button on their main page that says "MICROSOFT RESPONDS TO DOJ." Check it out:
Netscape has copies dating back to their first release available on their ftp site. I can't give you a direct link right now, as all three of netscape's ftp servers seem to be down... how cute.
The difference between MS and Open Source software is that you don't pay for it. Remember the big piece of FUD from earlier this year?
"What if something happens because of the software? There's no one to be held accountable!" You can look at it as either an advantage or a detriment, but there's no way someone who writes OSS could be held accountable for something like this. Now, there's a difference between the Melissa Virus case and something like UltraHLE (The reverse-engineered N64 Emulator.) I'm talking about legitimate software here.
You're using a very US-centric viewpoint here, and also making the mistake of assuming that just because that's how we in the US currently do things, it's the correct way to do things. In many countries, a 17-year-old can in fact purchase a copy of Hustler. Why should it be more difficult for them to acquire it online? Why shouldn't the 17-year-old be able to acquire this copy of Hustler? Do you really think that he/she can't get a copy of the magazine anyway, even with some arcane laws imposed upon bookstores?
Well, the point is that "censorware" is client side. Just because I put it on my kid's pc doesn't mean some kid in europe can't view all the porn he wants. I'm saying the law can be applied based on where you are- it's not like routers all over the internet should censor porn.
[snip]
That's entirely relevant to this discussion. You're proposing extending bad laws to cover the Internet merely because they're laws that already exist. I'd have to oppose that. While it may not be feasible in some cases to change the bad laws, we can at least prevent them from being extended to cover the Internet.
Why is it not feasible to change a law? Because the majority agrees with it? I would sure like to see a society where anyone can choose to disagree with a law and not follow it without any consequences.
[snip]
That's not possible, since the Internet is a multi-national medium. Should we impose Afghani laws on the Internet? US laws? British laws? Iranian laws? Chinese laws?
The laws are imposed at the point of delivery. By the way, chinese laws aren't exactly a good example here- there is country-wide censorship of all internet traffic. That is an entirely different problem, which is not what I'm proposing.
This truly is a problem, but it is still sidestepping the issue. What do you think should be done about the availability of pornography on the net? Is there any other alternative to censorware?
>>Age laws draw no distinction on maturity. >This isn't something to be proud of.
Well, it's great that you think that way, but how do you propose we test the maturity of minors? Age limits are easy to impose, but maturity is not. The downside? An overly mature 14 year old has to wait 4 years to buy porn. Boo-hoo.
Now suppose, hypothetically, that rock-solid guarantees could be made. Where, and how, do you draw the age line? The actual age of majority differs somewhat among the states, but let's assume it is 18. Should a 17 year old be scrutinized as closely as a 9 year old?
Yes, they should! What is this, a new country called "internetland"? We still live in a country where it is illegal for a 9 year old OR a 17 year old to buy pornography from the magazine rack at a store, but they can go home and download it for free. But then the censorship paranoia freaks yell "freedom of speech! what if they're looking for information about abortion and get blocked?" Then the "censorware" is not doing it's job.
Censorware when done right should impose the same level of censorship that we apply to everyday life. You can go to a library and with enough searching find books on abortion, sexual problems, even steamy novels for housewives- but you won't find the latest issue of Hustler.
But because the internet is different, we shouldn't prevent our children from finding this crap, we should be watching over their shoulder 24/7. Believe me, I was a kid once too- and that's not something I would have done when mom was watching. You can't watch kids all the time.
What if the 9 year old is particularly mature, the 17 year old particularly immature?
Age laws draw no distinction on maturity. Maturity is not exactly something you can prove easily, like your birthday. It is the exception and not the rule that a 9 year old would be mature enough to look at hardcore porn, smoke cigarettes, and drink alcohol. For that reason, the age to smoke/buy porn is 18, and the drinking age is 21.
Before anyone says anything about how the age requirements should be lower for any of this stuff, that is not relevant to this discussion. Take it up with the laws that exist already.
And by the way, some states grant far more independent rights to minors than do most states or the federal government. For example, in California and Florida, a first trimester pregnant 14 year old has exactly the same right to an abortion as does a first trimester pregnant 30 year old no parental consent or judicial approval is required. (The U.S. Constitution sets minimum standards for individual rights; the states can not drop below the federal minimums, but they can, and some do, recognize more rights as a matter of independent state law.) If a 14 year old California girl has a right to an abortion without parental consent, would you give the parent access to the log of abortion-related web sites the girl has visited?
Yes! and in all 50 states, it is STILL illegal for a 14 year old to buy hardcore pornography! However, it is NOT illegal for minors to look at information about abortion. Since you're trying to say that censorware lumps all this information in to one category, we should just do the same?
Honestly, just listen to what you're saying. Since we don't agree with the laws, we shouldn't apply them to the internet? Most of these proposals aim to bring the internet to parity with existing laws. Free information is great and everything, but there are limits imposed in the "real" world that don't exist on the internet. Yeah, I know it's great. I still wouldn't want my kids looking at porn that they shouldn't be seeing. Most of the stuff in this article was pure FUD... "censorware doesn't work, so we should get rid of it." What about censorware that TRULY WORKS? "But that will never happen!" Bullshit. Anything is possible, and the software that is out there is getting better. I'm not trying to say I agree that the censorware out there is good enough, it's not. But there will be a day when it is, and I'll be there to buy a copy to put on my kid's iMac.
One of the other problems with RedHat for example is it's out of the box security. It is very liberal with the ammount of services it starts automatically. If you go ahead and check the 'install everything' box, you get telnet, ftp, nfs, samba, named, linuxconf, nntp, smtp, pop, imap- just to name a few. I know that linux can be *made* to be secure, but that sure is a lot of holes that could possibly have security problems.
I think that out of the box, linux distros (my experience is with redhat here) should be a little more paranoid.
Turn off telnet, nfs, crap like that... new users don't even know what nfs stands for.
Put in a restrictive hosts.allow.
Inform the user of this so there aren't 10000 'telnet isn't working' posts to comp.os.linux.
Distributions like Mandrake are coming a long way,but most linux distro's assume you know something when you're starting this. I'll tend to agree with Samuel L. Jackson on this one- When you make an assumption, you make an ass out of you and umption.
Along these lines, there was a case in italy about a year ago where it was ruled that a woman that was wearing tight blue jeans who was raped had to have helped her attackers, because they were so difficult to get out of. The judge said this shows consent, and she _couldn't_ have been raped. Strange, but true.
You know, it's one thing to be a linux enthusiast, and something entirely different to be a zealot. Gee, so Intel chose to use FBSD instead of Linux for something. They must be smoking crack because linux is always better than anything else! Get real. I use linux on my PC because it has the hardware support for all of the crap I have. FreeBSD has proven itself as a viable choice for a server os... (Yahoo, CDROM.com anyone?) What pisses me off more than anything are those linux users that are completely blind in their devotion to the OS. Linux is about having software that doesn't suck- I believe that's how linus himself said it. FreeBSD certainly falls under that model if you ask me.
I know someone that worked for verisign for a brief period of time, and they said that the company didn't have their act together *at all*. It sounded like most of the internal projects going on were horribly mis-managed, and that network security was an absolute joke. Apparently they use a lot of firewalls there, but there are so many holes punched in them that it defeats the purpose.
Anywho, all I know is that verisign is twice as expensive and takes twice as long as thawte to get ANYTHING done. This is a prime example of the word "monopoly"... nowhere else does the consumer get screwed and not know any better.
Re:Something else it might give us
on
A 140GB CD-ROM?
·
· Score: 1
not necessarily... there have been card CD-ROM's for a while now. They store about 10mb of data, and work in any CD-ROM drive. They have little 'nubs' on the bottom that make it sit in the mini-cdrom groves on just about every CD-ROM tray. One disadvantage is that they don't work in slot-load CD-ROMs. I just noticed that the company is now selling CD-R's too... pretty damn cool. check it out:
hmm, call me stupid but they have to have figured out something entirely different from CD or dvd. You figure CD is 650mb for a one-layer disk, and DVD is what, 4.5gb? They say they're using a 10-layer disk and getting 140GB... that's 14GB per layer!! That in itself is a technological jump.
THey don't know who I am, they have no way of getting personal information about me except my IP. Most of the time people expect that huge companies are going to use the info they _do_ have for some horrendous evil... but in reality, all they do is tailor the banner ads that show up to stuff that you might like. I don't find anything wrong with that. And what about cookies? Beeing a web developer, cookies can REALLY be useful sometimes. Sure, you can do it other ways. You can also walk from san francisco to new york instead of flying... which one do YOU think is easier?
I think paranoia is good, but too much is unhealthy. Lighten up a little, jeez... they're not listening to your brainwaves.
1. It will proably be far to expensive. I think 800$+ is a good estimate.
2. It won't be durable enough. It's been said before, but I think it bears repeating. Hard Drives don't stand up to punishment well. A couple of drops or a hard bump while the disk is spinning and what you have is a 800$ paperweight.
I doubt it, those laptop drives are extremely durable. They can withstand 100G's non operational, and a few g's operational. Besides, if you do frog the drive they're not _that_ expensive.
3. Harddrive + Magnet = MP3 Mush. Nuf said.
Audio tape + magnet = audio mush.
video tape + magnet = video mush.
floppy disk + magnet = data mush.
credit card + magnet = credit card mush.
but nobody complains about that. Honestly, if you subject any of those to a sufficiently large magnetic field, you're screwed... but when does that happen?
4. It will break on its own in time. I can't count the number of harddrives I have lost to corrupted sectors. On my PC I can at least isolate and try and eliminate them, but I doubt you'll have that capbility on this thing.
you've been buying cheap hard drives, tsk tsk. I haven't "lost a drive to bad sectors" since about 1990, when I had that 100mb kalok hard drive that had 50% bad sectors. I have a 4.3gb samsung drive, a 3.5gb maxtor, and a 16.8gb IBM drive and I haven't "lost" any of them to bad sectors... and i'm rough on my drives.
For those reasons I think I'll stick with my RIO, at least for a little while longer.
The rio works, and is solid state and all... but there needs to be a larger storage medium than nvram.... it's waaay to expensive.
yeah, that's a one-time shot... then they can press as many as they want for a dollar a piece. Did you ever notice that VHS tapes when they first come out cost about 100 bucks, and after a few months drop down to reasonable prices? This is because of the time required to make a vhs tape. As someone already posted, it takes about 45 minutes. Take that against about 30 seconds to make a dvd.... hmm, looks like DVD is a little more efficient.
It seems that to do anything useful in PERL these days I have to have 15 CPAN extensions which balloon the running size of PERL to ridiculous sizes. PERL has becoming increasingly utilities-centric around here, and we are forsaking PERL for Pike and PHP on the web server. Even mod_perl is monstrous.
hah! that's a good one. If you have to install 15 cpan "extensions" as you call them (I think you mean perl modules), whoever wrote the code is module-happy. It also depends on what you're trying to do... if you want database access, you have to have DBI. If you want to do CGI's, you better have CGI.pm. If you want to turn on your coffee maker, you better have some X10 perl module. I'd like for you to point to a language that has small code size, is as fast as perl, and has EVERYTHING built in that perl can do with a module. Yeah, I thought so. Besides, installing a module is as easy as perl -MCPAN -e install DBI. As for mod_perl being monstrous- did you pull this out of your ass, or are you just plain stupid? mod_perl couldn't be any easier, and it makes using perl CGI's in a high traffic environment a viable solution.
hrm, maybe you should read the info on mozilla's page before spouting off about it. The reason they aren't supporting glibc 2.0 is because of some rather large bugs in it that require workarounds. They may add support in the future, but it would require a lot of work.
This is a canned response... it's used on any government multi-user machine. I get the same thing when I log in to the boxes at work (I work at NASA.) As for using hours on a cray, someone would obviously notice... supercomputers use batch schedulers so that people have to "wait in line" for time on the machine... there's no way someone could just stick a process on there sucking CPU without anyone noticing.
Check out the lirc project... i think i put a link to it under my software section. Basically I open a pipe from one of the utilities that comes with lirc and prints a line whenever a key is hit. I'm going to post the perl script I wrote, as soon as I plug the player back in and get it off the drive in it... check back on the web page in a bit, or just e-mail me.
Slashdot Mirror
good point.
The example that comes to mind is the guy that called tech support wondering why his computer wasn't working- WHEN THE POWER WAS OUT. People like that shouldn't be allowed to even use a toaster, for god's sake. That's just lack of common sense!
For those that don't know:
;)
You're going to see a LOT of this in web-based stuff... classic mistake of prepending 19 instead of adding 1900 to the number. The standard localtime() struct stores the year as (year - 1900) so 1999 = 99,and 2001 = 101. This is a novice mistake that no one should make if they've read the llama book.
high-speed net access is a must, of course. That pretty much goes without saying. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that even though most of us here are geeks, that doesn't mean that all we need is a warm dry place with a computer and a big pipe... I do occasionally leave the house. ;) Assuming this is true, the requirements are not that different from your average non-geek person. Everybody wants a safe environment (safe from murder, burglary, etc). Besides that, some people will want some night life, cool places to hang out, etc.
The truth of the matter is that most people will be reasonably happy wherever they are. Barring any major problems, most people just live where they've been living. Case in point? places like minnesota. I could never live there, as I'm from california... i'm too much of a wimp. People who live in minnesota obviously don't have too much of a problem living there.
This was way too funny to pass up. In their 'snapshot' of what the web site looked like in 1995, they have a rather prominent button on their main page that says "MICROSOFT RESPONDS TO DOJ."
.com/misc/features/features_flshbk_hp2.htm
Check it out:
http://www.microsoft
Netscape has copies dating back to their first release available on their ftp site. I can't give you a direct link right now, as all three of netscape's ftp servers seem to be down... how cute.
The difference between MS and Open Source software is that you don't pay for it. Remember the big piece of FUD from earlier this year?
"What if something happens because of the software? There's no one to be held accountable!"
You can look at it as either an advantage or a detriment, but there's no way someone who writes OSS could be held accountable for something like this. Now, there's a difference between the Melissa Virus case and something like UltraHLE (The reverse-engineered N64 Emulator.) I'm talking about legitimate software here.
You're using a very US-centric viewpoint here, and also making the mistake of assuming that just because that's how we in the US currently do things, it's the correct way to do things. In many countries, a 17-year-old can in fact purchase a copy of Hustler. Why should it be more difficult for them to acquire it online? Why shouldn't the 17-year-old be able to acquire this copy of Hustler? Do you really think that he/she can't get a copy of the magazine anyway, even with some arcane laws imposed upon bookstores?
Well, the point is that "censorware" is client side. Just because I put it on my kid's pc doesn't mean some kid in europe can't view all the porn he wants. I'm saying the law can be applied based on where you are- it's not like routers all over the internet should censor porn.
[snip]
That's entirely relevant to this discussion. You're proposing extending bad laws to cover the Internet merely because they're laws that already exist. I'd have to oppose that. While it may not be feasible in some cases to change the bad laws, we can at least prevent them from being extended to cover the Internet.
Why is it not feasible to change a law? Because the majority agrees with it? I would sure like to see a society where anyone can choose to disagree with a law and not follow it without any consequences.
[snip]
That's not possible, since the Internet is a multi-national medium. Should we impose Afghani laws on the Internet? US laws? British laws? Iranian laws? Chinese laws?
The laws are imposed at the point of delivery. By the way, chinese laws aren't exactly a good example here- there is country-wide censorship of all internet traffic. That is an entirely different problem, which is not what I'm proposing.
This truly is a problem, but it is still sidestepping the issue. What do you think should be done about the availability of pornography on the net? Is there any other alternative to censorware?
>>Age laws draw no distinction on maturity.
>This isn't something to be proud of.
Well, it's great that you think that way, but how do you propose we test the maturity of minors? Age limits are easy to impose, but maturity is not. The downside? An overly mature 14 year old has to wait 4 years to buy porn. Boo-hoo.
Now suppose, hypothetically, that rock-solid guarantees could be made. Where, and how, do you draw the age line? The actual age of majority differs somewhat among the states, but let's assume it is 18. Should a 17 year old be scrutinized as closely as a 9 year old?
Yes, they should! What is this, a new country called "internetland"? We still live in a country where it is illegal for a 9 year old OR a 17 year old to buy pornography from the magazine rack at a store, but they can go home and download it for free. But then the censorship paranoia freaks yell "freedom of speech! what if they're looking for information about abortion and get blocked?" Then the "censorware" is not doing it's job.
Censorware when done right should impose the same level of censorship that we apply to everyday life. You can go to a library and with enough searching find books on abortion, sexual problems, even steamy novels for housewives- but you won't find the latest issue of Hustler.
But because the internet is different, we shouldn't prevent our children from finding this crap, we should be watching over their shoulder 24/7. Believe me, I was a kid once too- and that's not something I would have done when mom was watching. You can't watch kids all the time.
What if the 9 year old is particularly mature, the 17 year old particularly immature?
Age laws draw no distinction on maturity. Maturity is not exactly something you can prove easily, like your birthday. It is the exception and not the rule that a 9 year old would be mature enough to look at hardcore porn, smoke cigarettes, and drink alcohol. For that reason, the age to smoke/buy porn is 18, and the drinking age is 21.
Before anyone says anything about how the age requirements should be lower for any of this stuff, that is not relevant to this discussion. Take it up with the laws that exist already.
And by the way, some states grant far more independent rights to minors than do most states or the federal government. For example, in California and Florida, a first trimester pregnant 14 year old has exactly the same right to an abortion as does a first trimester pregnant 30 year old no parental consent or judicial approval is required. (The U.S. Constitution sets minimum standards for individual rights; the states can not drop below the federal minimums, but they can, and some do, recognize more rights as a matter of independent state law.) If a 14 year old California girl has a right to an abortion without parental consent, would you give the parent access to the log of abortion-related web sites the girl has visited?
Yes! and in all 50 states, it is STILL illegal for a 14 year old to buy hardcore pornography! However, it is NOT illegal for minors to look at information about abortion. Since you're trying to say that censorware lumps all this information in to one category, we should just do the same?
Honestly, just listen to what you're saying. Since we don't agree with the laws, we shouldn't apply them to the internet? Most of these proposals aim to bring the internet to parity with existing laws. Free information is great and everything, but there are limits imposed in the "real" world that don't exist on the internet. Yeah, I know it's great. I still wouldn't want my kids looking at porn that they shouldn't be seeing. Most of the stuff in this article was pure FUD... "censorware doesn't work, so we should get rid of it." What about censorware that TRULY WORKS? "But that will never happen!" Bullshit. Anything is possible, and the software that is out there is getting better. I'm not trying to say I agree that the censorware out there is good enough, it's not. But there will be a day when it is, and I'll be there to buy a copy to put on my kid's iMac.
I think that out of the box, linux distros (my experience is with redhat here) should be a little more paranoid.
Distributions like Mandrake are coming a long way,but most linux distro's assume you know something when you're starting this. I'll tend to agree with Samuel L. Jackson on this one- When you make an assumption, you make an ass out of you and umption.
Along these lines, there was a case in italy about a year ago where it was ruled that a woman that was wearing tight blue jeans who was raped had to have helped her attackers, because they were so difficult to get out of. The judge said this shows consent, and she _couldn't_ have been raped. Strange, but true.
Moral of the story: Wear baggy clothes in italy.
You know, it's one thing to be a linux enthusiast, and something entirely different to be a zealot. Gee, so Intel chose to use FBSD instead of Linux for something. They must be smoking crack because linux is always better than anything else! Get real. I use linux on my PC because it has the hardware support for all of the crap I have. FreeBSD has proven itself as a viable choice for a server os... (Yahoo, CDROM.com anyone?) What pisses me off more than anything are those linux users that are completely blind in their devotion to the OS. Linux is about having software that doesn't suck- I believe that's how linus himself said it. FreeBSD certainly falls under that model if you ask me.
I know someone that worked for verisign for a brief period of time, and they said that the company didn't have their act together *at all*. It sounded like most of the internal projects going on were horribly mis-managed, and that network security was an absolute joke. Apparently they use a lot of firewalls there, but there are so many holes punched in them that it defeats the purpose.
Anywho, all I know is that verisign is twice as expensive and takes twice as long as thawte to get ANYTHING done. This is a prime example of the word "monopoly"... nowhere else does the consumer get screwed and not know any better.
not necessarily... there have been card CD-ROM's for a while now. They store about 10mb of data, and work in any CD-ROM drive. They have little 'nubs' on the bottom that make it sit in the mini-cdrom groves on just about every CD-ROM tray. One disadvantage is that they don't work in slot-load CD-ROMs. I just noticed that the company is now selling CD-R's too... pretty damn cool. check it out:
;)
http://www.romcard.com/
You may ask "well how the hell does it stay balanced?" Um, just like an airplane propeller.
hmm, call me stupid but they have to have figured out something entirely different from CD or dvd. You figure CD is 650mb for a one-layer disk, and DVD is what, 4.5gb? They say they're using a 10-layer disk and getting 140GB... that's 14GB per layer!! That in itself is a technological jump.
THey don't know who I am, they have no way of getting personal information about me except my IP. Most of the time people expect that huge companies are going to use the info they _do_ have for some horrendous evil... but in reality, all they do is tailor the banner ads that show up to stuff that you might like. I don't find anything wrong with that. And what about cookies? Beeing a web developer, cookies can REALLY be useful sometimes. Sure, you can do it other ways. You can also walk from san francisco to new york instead of flying... which one do YOU think is easier?
I think paranoia is good, but too much is unhealthy. Lighten up a little, jeez... they're not listening to your brainwaves.
1. It will proably be far to expensive. I think 800$+ is a good estimate.
2. It won't be durable enough. It's been said before, but I think it bears repeating. Hard Drives don't stand up to punishment well. A
couple of drops or a hard bump while the disk is spinning and what you have is a 800$ paperweight.
I doubt it, those laptop drives are extremely durable. They can withstand 100G's non operational, and a few g's operational. Besides, if you do frog the drive they're not _that_ expensive.
3. Harddrive + Magnet = MP3 Mush. Nuf said.
Audio tape + magnet = audio mush.
video tape + magnet = video mush.
floppy disk + magnet = data mush.
credit card + magnet = credit card mush.
but nobody complains about that. Honestly, if you subject any of those to a sufficiently large magnetic field, you're screwed... but when does that happen?
4. It will break on its own in time. I can't count the number of harddrives I have lost to corrupted sectors. On my PC I can at least isolate and try and eliminate them, but I doubt you'll have that capbility on this thing.
you've been buying cheap hard drives, tsk tsk. I haven't "lost a drive to bad sectors" since about 1990, when I had that 100mb kalok hard drive that had 50% bad sectors. I have a 4.3gb samsung drive, a 3.5gb maxtor, and a 16.8gb IBM drive and I haven't "lost" any of them to bad sectors... and i'm rough on my drives.
For those reasons I think I'll stick with my RIO, at least for a little while longer.
The rio works, and is solid state and all... but there needs to be a larger storage medium than nvram.... it's waaay to expensive.
yeah, that's a one-time shot... then they can press as many as they want for a dollar a piece. Did you ever notice that VHS tapes when they first come out cost about 100 bucks, and after a few months drop down to reasonable prices? This is because of the time required to make a vhs tape. As someone already posted, it takes about 45 minutes. Take that against about 30 seconds to make a dvd.... hmm, looks like DVD is a little more efficient.
It seems that to do anything useful in PERL these days I have to have 15 CPAN extensions which balloon the running size of PERL to ridiculous sizes. PERL has becoming increasingly utilities-centric around here, and we are forsaking PERL for Pike and PHP on the web server. Even mod_perl is monstrous.
hah! that's a good one. If you have to install 15 cpan "extensions" as you call them (I think you mean perl modules), whoever wrote the code is module-happy. It also depends on what you're trying to do... if you want database access, you have to have DBI. If you want to do CGI's, you better have CGI.pm. If you want to turn on your coffee maker, you better have some X10 perl module. I'd like for you to point to a language that has small code size, is as fast as perl, and has EVERYTHING built in that perl can do with a module. Yeah, I thought so. Besides, installing a module is as easy as perl -MCPAN -e install DBI.
As for mod_perl being monstrous- did you pull this out of your ass, or are you just plain stupid? mod_perl couldn't be any easier, and it makes using perl CGI's in a high traffic environment a viable solution.
hrm, maybe you should read the info on mozilla's page before spouting off about it. The reason they aren't supporting glibc 2.0 is because of some rather large bugs in it that require workarounds. They may add support in the future, but it would require a lot of work.
hrm, too bad rpmfind does all that.
by the way, DAV is not a proprietary spec... go to webdav.org and read.
This is a canned response... it's used on any government multi-user machine. I get the same thing when I log in to the boxes at work (I work at NASA.) As for using hours on a cray, someone would obviously notice... supercomputers use batch schedulers so that people have to "wait in line" for time on the machine... there's no way someone could just stick a process on there sucking CPU without anyone noticing.
Check out the lirc project... i think i put a link to it under my software section. Basically I open a pipe from one of the utilities that comes with lirc and prints a line whenever a key is hit. I'm going to post the perl script I wrote, as soon as I plug the player back in and get it off the drive in it... check back on the web page in a bit, or just e-mail me.