That's a great idea: block sendmail's web host. Maybe then more people would use better MTA's such as qmail, postfix, etc.
The thing that scares me is what if this sort of effort was applied to something other than spam, some other unpopular thing. You really want people coercing ISPs into blocking sites based on content? Already got enough flack from the gov't and various software companies trying...
Did you consider PostgreSQL?. DB2's a fine database, I'm sure, but from your post it doesn't seem you are aware of alternatives to MySQL in the Open Source world... PostgreSQL 7 is a lot more fully featured than MySQL, and 7 is much faster than previous releases... faster than MySQL if certain benchmarks are to be believed. (I do not know, however I could understand if it scales better than MySQL...) For a little more info: Why OpenACS does not use MySQL.
Note: above post is not meant as a flame towards MySQL, I am just trying to point out possible alternatives which may have been overlooked. Thank you.
I'm surprised you are having so much trouble with Mozilla on a 650MHz Athlon. I run it on a 466MHz Celeron, 64MB RAM, and although it takes a bit more time than Netscape to load, its not unusuable.
I dual-boot Debian and FreeBSD 4.0 on my IBM Thinkpad i1440 with absolutely no problem at all. This problem only seems to affect some laptops, contrary to what the slashdot blurb says...
The IBM Tech report lists this:
Affected configurations
Any IBM ThinkPad A20, A21, T20, T21, or X20.
Crap hardware in a few machines... no reason to jump on IBM's back necessarily (though there are probably plenty of other reasons)
Although, the attitude in the Tech report was a bit nasty: "Do not install unsupported operating systems, FreeBSD is not a supported operating system." What are they going to do, come knocking on your door?
You just might want to take another look at LyX nowadays. I installed it at the beginning of this semester, and haven't looked back (I used to use Wordperfect). It's quite easy to use, you don't have to know LaTeX, but if you do you can still use LaTeX commands. I write all my math/engineering homework, and my history papers in it, its quite nice now. Outputs LaTeX, so that you can use your favorite LaTeX processor on it (I use teTeX). For those who require PDF... there's always ps2pdf. And LyX does spell checking, has a nice equation editor, handles all your footnotes and cross-references, etc. Definitely worth taking a look at, especially for those who shy away from non-GUI interfaces.
Why do they want to switch to Exchange? It seems an awful lot of trouble to fix something that ain't broke... or is it? Or is this truely a case of Microsoft drones trying to insinuate their software just for the sheer sake of it? But before rushing to conclusions, their may be a particular reason why they insist on this; perhaps whatever functionality they need could be duplicated on the Unix systems?
Maybe if more people voted for who they believed to be the right person then this whole damn partisanship mess wouldn't have happened? Enough! Nader did not cause Gore to lose, Gore caused Gore to lose, and if Gore supporters say otherwise then they are poor losers. And if Bush supporters, or Buchanan, or Browne, or anyone, says that as well, then those comments are in poor taste. (This is all presuming Gore loses of course.)
And you yourself think Gore had the least-obnoxious statement on the whole thing.
"Vote for me, I'm less obnoxious!"
Hardly a stunning promotion, I would think. But in this day and age...
Now just imagine: a database so big it turns into a black hole. The poor company that ran it would get sucked in, maybe take the internet with it.:)
That sucking sensation, its not just your cash being drained by Microsoft anymore! Or maybe Microsoft would become the black hole. Not that their code isn't about to collapse under its own weight anyway:) (ok enough stupid jokes)
The real problem here is that the Microsoft tools are teaching kids C and C-derivative languages. C is a broken language, and has been since the beginning. It doesn't even have first-class functions! If you want to give a kid a good solid grounding in computer programming, please teach them a real programming language so that they will know better when they do eventually learn C or a C-derivative. Take Scheme, for instance: Scheme is very easy to learn, it is very powerful and elegant, and implementations such as DrScheme are portable as well (as well as having a decent IDE). As for people who balk at functional programming: Have you ever considered that using pipes to connect two programs in the Unix shell is analagous to using lazy evaluation to connect two functions in a functional programming language? The functions run concurrently and values are only returned from one function when the other function needs it. Maybe you should read up on it before passing judgement. Here is a paper (Yes, Scheme does not support lazy evaluation as a first-class construct, yet it has other advantages such as easy syntax and capability to program in other styles)
Sharing someone's software work is theft. Sure, it's possible to frame in terms that make it seem not like theft: that it
costs nothing to distribute and nothing to allow others to change the code and nothing to let others use the code in ways
you hadn't intended. It is, I think, dishonest of RMS to trivialize intellectual property rights, and the right of people to capitalize on their
intellectual creations.
RMS is giving you the right to modify GNU software. He is giving you the right to distribute GNU software. Anyone who licenses under the GPL is doing the same. Where is the theft in this? How is sharing GPL'd work called theft?
I see this time and time again: people who think that the existence of the GPL somehow compels them to release under it. Well I assure you, you have absolutely no obligation whatsoever to release under the GPL, provided you are not using GPL'd code in your program (or are not planning on distributing it at all). If you don't want to take part in the free software/open source movement, whatever you call it, you don't have to! But calling people who willingly choose to use and write free software 'thieves' is patently absurd, and it is dishonest of you to trivialize the efforts of free software authors and their intellectual creations.
Please note that the above rant is not meant to be taken as a personal insult or flame, the second person tense is being used in a broad sense.
However, I don't agree with much of RMS's convictions. I create, and I expect to benefit. No one has the right to take or
benefit from my efforts, expressed as "intellectual property", without my permission and a proper exchange of value (in
the world today, primarily money); this is called looting, and insults my ability to conceive and implement ideas. I don't
work for insults.
I think you misunderstand the GPL. Amazingly enough, no one is forcing you to use it. If you choose to release under your own strict commercial license that says the user must sacrifice his/her first born son on your altar, you are free to put that there (legalities aside..). The GPL is simply a handy and widespread license for the use of people who agree with it. If I release something under the GPL, like Achilles, I not only expect people to look and possibly modify the source code; I want them to! Surely this would not be considered 'looting' if the creator encourages it? Of course, I could have released it as BSD or public domain (is there a difference?:) but I chose the GPL because I think that any modifications to what is essentially a scientific application should remain open source in future incarnations. Saying that releasing under the GPL encourages 'looting' (you don't say this outright, but it is implied) is about as silly as saying plants encourage 'stealing of oxygen'.
Of course I may have just misinterpreted your comment completely, in which case, excuse me.
What a terrible waste that would be! Applying the unintuitive and clunky file system concept when you have the capability for the ultimate in spatial interfaces! What use could the filesystem metaphor be, when you can simply create and manipulate 'objects' in 3D?
I must say, commuting down route 1-9 to the swamp^H^H^H^H^Hmeadowlands every day sucks (old crappy cramped road, no central divider, and lots of big trucks bouncing around going 60mph, and especially when you can see the NJ turnpike from the office but cannot reach it) but it sure as hell beats commuting into NYC, to wall st even! Oh the air does smell down there, but the rest of NJ is decent. Well as decent as you can expect a suburb to be...(thats just the north-eastern part, the rest is hicksville)
Has anyone actually read the Arthur C Clarke story? He at least got some of the specs right. Geo-stationary orbit IS NOT 50km. I dont remember at the moment (and will dig out the calculations later) but it is much much much greater. #2, he used fiber made from diamond as his support. I don't know about any diamond fiber now, nor do I know about the possibility of it in the next 50 years, nor do know whether it can support thousands of km worth of its own weight (much less the passengers!) Space elevator sounds like a nice idea, until you realize what you need to do it. And this is not to mention all of the various other problems associated with it, that people have mentioned here!
Just one issue with your assertion that different packaging systems == different dbs. There's no reason why software can't be written to convert from one style to another. There is the 'alien' package for debian which does exactly that for RedHat, Stampede, and Slackware packages. Unless there is a fundamental difference in the underlying system, most packages should be translatable. (unlike English idioms which usually do not translate into other languages well, or at all) Since the Linux distributions share a lot in common, this shouldn't be a problem. Likewise with the *BSDs. Whether a package translator could work between Linuxes and BSDs is up for speculation however.
>This is ridiculous. I produce fake evidence that
>you are a child pornographer. You are charged
>with a sex offense. Information just harmed you.
Libel laws cover this, and have done so for ages in all sorts of mediums.
>My child sees racist propaganda on
>stormfront.org. Despite my best efforts to talk
>with him about this and why it's wrong, how do I
>know that it hasn't permanently affected him?
>Information just harmed him.
Ahem, you know that the Internet is not the only source of racist propaganda. In fact, racism existed long before the Internet did and thrived quite well. So tell me, what makes racist propaganda on a website so much more potent than racist propaganda propagated by his/her peers?
(rant
'(Hmm, maybe you should accompany your child everywhere so that there isn't a chance of any suggestion of a controvertial issue reaching his/her innocent(ha!) ears. Let's keep this child in a state of perpetual childhood, not being able to form opinions because of ignorance. I'd rather have my children face the real world, not the imaginary construct of some sick senator's fantasies. Reality is harsh; discrimination abounds and trying to deny it exists is fruitless.
You must arm yourself against it, not with fallacies distributed by a misguided pedagogue, but with skepticism, cynicism, independence and individualism, a knowledge of the facts, self-confidence, the ability to reason logically and to think creatively.
Instead of wasting your time trying to protect and prevent for your child, spend it teaching them the above concepts, and your efforts will be rewarded by an independent thinking person (if there is any hope at all). If you object to your children being independent thinking persons, then you have other issues.))
>Such as the fact that the dissemination of this
>information causes such side effects. Information
>always has side effects.
Lets list a few side effects:
New ideas, inventions, genius, stimulation, knowledge, pleasure, happiness, etc..
Perhaps a few bad ones as well:
criminal behaviour (can be led to), sadness, disgust, anger, misdirection, libel, etc..
I don't know about you but I wouldn't ever sacrifice what is in the first list just because of what is in the second list.
>And a banana is bluer than a skunk, but only if
>there's no beer in Italy.
I'm afraid I'm not an authority to speak on the blueness of skunks or the availability of beer in Italy nor do I see your point in it....
Maybe its humor?:)
Of course, it is a good point that you raise that information is harmful. But by no means is it an excuse to censor it. It is one thing to post wrong information and be called a liar. It yet another thing to post wrong information and be censored (or worse).
Slashdot Mirror
That's a great idea: block sendmail's web host. Maybe then more people would use better MTA's such as qmail, postfix, etc.
The thing that scares me is what if this sort of effort was applied to something other than spam, some other unpopular thing. You really want people coercing ISPs into blocking sites based on content? Already got enough flack from the gov't and various software companies trying...
Did you consider PostgreSQL?. DB2's a fine database, I'm sure, but from your post it doesn't seem you are aware of alternatives to MySQL in the Open Source world... PostgreSQL 7 is a lot more fully featured than MySQL, and 7 is much faster than previous releases... faster than MySQL if certain benchmarks are to be believed. (I do not know, however I could understand if it scales better than MySQL...) For a little more info: Why OpenACS does not use MySQL.
Note: above post is not meant as a flame towards MySQL, I am just trying to point out possible alternatives which may have been overlooked. Thank you.
I'm surprised you are having so much trouble with Mozilla on a 650MHz Athlon. I run it on a 466MHz Celeron, 64MB RAM, and although it takes a bit more time than Netscape to load, its not unusuable.
That is the best argument for switching to LaTeX I have heard yet :)
The oldest lifeform on Earth has got to be that green, rotting thing in my refridgerator.
I dual-boot Debian and FreeBSD 4.0 on my IBM Thinkpad i1440 with absolutely no problem at all. This problem only seems to affect some laptops, contrary to what the slashdot blurb says...
The IBM Tech report lists this:
Affected configurations
Any IBM ThinkPad A20, A21, T20, T21, or X20.
Crap hardware in a few machines... no reason to jump on IBM's back necessarily (though there are probably plenty of other reasons)
Although, the attitude in the Tech report was a bit nasty: "Do not install unsupported operating systems, FreeBSD is not a supported operating system." What are they going to do, come knocking on your door?
Or maybe you should help along another project which is doing a very similar thing: LyX
LyX wasn't quite there yet
You just might want to take another look at LyX nowadays. I installed it at the beginning of this semester, and haven't looked back (I used to use Wordperfect). It's quite easy to use, you don't have to know LaTeX, but if you do you can still use LaTeX commands. I write all my math/engineering homework, and my history papers in it, its quite nice now. Outputs LaTeX, so that you can use your favorite LaTeX processor on it (I use teTeX). For those who require PDF... there's always ps2pdf. And LyX does spell checking, has a nice equation editor, handles all your footnotes and cross-references, etc. Definitely worth taking a look at, especially for those who shy away from non-GUI interfaces.
Why do they want to switch to Exchange? It seems an awful lot of trouble to fix something that ain't broke... or is it? Or is this truely a case of Microsoft drones trying to insinuate their software just for the sheer sake of it? But before rushing to conclusions, their may be a particular reason why they insist on this; perhaps whatever functionality they need could be duplicated on the Unix systems?
You can't click on Adult?! I don't wanna see no kiddy sections...
Maybe if more people voted for who they believed to be the right person then this whole damn partisanship mess wouldn't have happened? Enough! Nader did not cause Gore to lose, Gore caused Gore to lose, and if Gore supporters say otherwise then they are poor losers. And if Bush supporters, or Buchanan, or Browne, or anyone, says that as well, then those comments are in poor taste. (This is all presuming Gore loses of course.)
And you yourself think Gore had the least-obnoxious statement on the whole thing.
"Vote for me, I'm less obnoxious!"
Hardly a stunning promotion, I would think. But in this day and age...
Wow. Earthlings still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
Now just imagine: a database so big it turns into a black hole. The poor company that ran it would get sucked in, maybe take the internet with it. :)
That sucking sensation, its not just your cash being drained by Microsoft anymore! Or maybe Microsoft would become the black hole. Not that their code isn't about to collapse under its own weight anyway :) (ok enough stupid jokes)
The real problem here is that the Microsoft tools are teaching kids C and C-derivative languages. C is a broken language, and has been since the beginning. It doesn't even have first-class functions! If you want to give a kid a good solid grounding in computer programming, please teach them a real programming language so that they will know better when they do eventually learn C or a C-derivative. Take Scheme, for instance: Scheme is very easy to learn, it is very powerful and elegant, and implementations such as DrScheme are portable as well (as well as having a decent IDE). As for people who balk at functional programming: Have you ever considered that using pipes to connect two programs in the Unix shell is analagous to using lazy evaluation to connect two functions in a functional programming language? The functions run concurrently and values are only returned from one function when the other function needs it. Maybe you should read up on it before passing judgement. Here is a paper (Yes, Scheme does not support lazy evaluation as a first-class construct, yet it has other advantages such as easy syntax and capability to program in other styles)
I'm holding out till 3.x :)
3.1.4 i can't wait for the Pi release
sooner yet I'll have the e release, 2.7.1, to look forward to... possibly
Sharing someone's software work is theft. Sure, it's possible to frame in terms that make it seem not like theft: that it costs nothing to distribute and nothing to allow others to change the code and nothing to let others use the code in ways you hadn't intended.
It is, I think, dishonest of RMS to trivialize intellectual property rights, and the right of people to capitalize on their intellectual creations.
RMS is giving you the right to modify GNU software. He is giving you the right to distribute GNU software. Anyone who licenses under the GPL is doing the same. Where is the theft in this? How is sharing GPL'd work called theft?
I see this time and time again: people who think that the existence of the GPL somehow compels them to release under it. Well I assure you, you have absolutely no obligation whatsoever to release under the GPL, provided you are not using GPL'd code in your program (or are not planning on distributing it at all). If you don't want to take part in the free software/open source movement, whatever you call it, you don't have to! But calling people who willingly choose to use and write free software 'thieves' is patently absurd, and it is dishonest of you to trivialize the efforts of free software authors and their intellectual creations.
Please note that the above rant is not meant to be taken as a personal insult or flame, the second person tense is being used in a broad sense.
In the interests of both freedom and better software, I demand his source code.
Why does doctor mode in Emacs come to mind? (M-x doctor, for those who don't know)
However, I don't agree with much of RMS's convictions. I create, and I expect to benefit. No one has the right to take or benefit from my efforts, expressed as "intellectual property", without my permission and a proper exchange of value (in the world today, primarily money); this is called looting, and insults my ability to conceive and implement ideas. I don't work for insults.
:) but I chose the GPL because I think that any modifications to what is essentially a scientific application should remain open source in future incarnations. Saying that releasing under the GPL encourages 'looting' (you don't say this outright, but it is implied) is about as silly as saying plants encourage 'stealing of oxygen'.
I think you misunderstand the GPL. Amazingly enough, no one is forcing you to use it. If you choose to release under your own strict commercial license that says the user must sacrifice his/her first born son on your altar, you are free to put that there (legalities aside..). The GPL is simply a handy and widespread license for the use of people who agree with it. If I release something under the GPL, like Achilles, I not only expect people to look and possibly modify the source code; I want them to! Surely this would not be considered 'looting' if the creator encourages it? Of course, I could have released it as BSD or public domain (is there a difference?
Of course I may have just misinterpreted your comment completely, in which case, excuse me.
No slashdotting it please! Carnegie Mellon University connects through these folks and we've got enough problems as it is :)
What a terrible waste that would be! Applying the unintuitive and clunky file system concept when you have the capability for the ultimate in spatial interfaces! What use could the filesystem metaphor be, when you can simply create and manipulate 'objects' in 3D?
I must say, commuting down route 1-9 to the swamp^H^H^H^H^Hmeadowlands every day sucks (old crappy cramped road, no central divider, and lots of big trucks bouncing around going 60mph, and especially when you can see the NJ turnpike from the office but cannot reach it) but it sure as hell beats commuting into NYC, to wall st even! Oh the air does smell down there, but the rest of NJ is decent. Well as decent as you can expect a suburb to be...(thats just the north-eastern part, the rest is hicksville)
Head of state sounds more clintonish
Has anyone actually read the Arthur C Clarke story? He at least got some of the specs right. Geo-stationary orbit IS NOT 50km. I dont remember at the moment (and will dig out the calculations later) but it is much much much greater. #2, he used fiber made from diamond as his support. I don't know about any diamond fiber now, nor do I know about the possibility of it in the next 50 years, nor do know whether it can support thousands of km worth of its own weight (much less the passengers!) Space elevator sounds like a nice idea, until you realize what you need to do it. And this is not to mention all of the various other problems associated with it, that people have mentioned here!
In moderating this comment, a new category is needed: "Paranoid"
;)
Even paranoids have enemies
Just one issue with your assertion that different packaging systems == different dbs. There's no reason why software can't be written to convert from one style to another. There is the 'alien' package for debian which does exactly that for RedHat, Stampede, and Slackware packages. Unless there is a fundamental difference in the underlying system, most packages should be translatable. (unlike English idioms which usually do not translate into other languages well, or at all) Since the Linux distributions share a lot in common, this shouldn't be a problem. Likewise with the *BSDs. Whether a package translator could work between Linuxes and BSDs is up for speculation however.
>This is ridiculous. I produce fake evidence that
:)
>you are a child pornographer. You are charged
>with a sex offense. Information just harmed you.
Libel laws cover this, and have done so for ages in all sorts of mediums.
>My child sees racist propaganda on
>stormfront.org. Despite my best efforts to talk
>with him about this and why it's wrong, how do I
>know that it hasn't permanently affected him?
>Information just harmed him.
Ahem, you know that the Internet is not the only source of racist propaganda. In fact, racism existed long before the Internet did and thrived quite well. So tell me, what makes racist propaganda on a website so much more potent than racist propaganda propagated by his/her peers?
(rant
'(Hmm, maybe you should accompany your child everywhere so that there isn't a chance of any suggestion of a controvertial issue reaching his/her innocent(ha!) ears. Let's keep this child in a state of perpetual childhood, not being able to form opinions because of ignorance. I'd rather have my children face the real world, not the imaginary construct of some sick senator's fantasies. Reality is harsh; discrimination abounds and trying to deny it exists is fruitless.
You must arm yourself against it, not with fallacies distributed by a misguided pedagogue, but with skepticism, cynicism, independence and individualism, a knowledge of the facts, self-confidence, the ability to reason logically and to think creatively.
Instead of wasting your time trying to protect and prevent for your child, spend it teaching them the above concepts, and your efforts will be rewarded by an independent thinking person (if there is any hope at all). If you object to your children being independent thinking persons, then you have other issues.))
>Such as the fact that the dissemination of this
>information causes such side effects. Information
>always has side effects.
Lets list a few side effects:
New ideas, inventions, genius, stimulation, knowledge, pleasure, happiness, etc..
Perhaps a few bad ones as well:
criminal behaviour (can be led to), sadness, disgust, anger, misdirection, libel, etc..
I don't know about you but I wouldn't ever sacrifice what is in the first list just because of what is in the second list.
>And a banana is bluer than a skunk, but only if
>there's no beer in Italy.
I'm afraid I'm not an authority to speak on the blueness of skunks or the availability of beer in Italy nor do I see your point in it....
Maybe its humor?
Of course, it is a good point that you raise that information is harmful. But by no means is it an excuse to censor it. It is one thing to post wrong information and be called a liar. It yet another thing to post wrong information and be censored (or worse).