Thanks for the link. I've looked at a couple of distros, but I've never downloaded them. This one is downloading now - next time I move that laptop out of my way, I'll put it on my workdesk. All I need to do is overcome my lazy arsed inertia.
Ditto - running on a 286 chip!! Rugged sucker, it was built for the DOD, then handed off to the Department of Agriculture. HUGE 40 MB hard drive, among other features.
I sure wish it had a 386 instead of the 286 - even Linux doesn't like it very much!
A bit of redundancy, there. The US Navy includes a medical corps, a supply corps, and a marine corps. Just pointing out an obvious fact that most people never seem to notice.
To lazy to look for citations - but this scenario was envisioned in Sci-fi literature long before the advent of the internet. And, in fact, I believe the north-east has experienced such a thing at least twice, probably more than that. Brown outs and black outs due to local overloads aren't a new concept at all, nor is the idea of cascading failures. All that I see here, is the idea of inducing one or more local overloads via the internet.
Of course, there are any number of "experts" who claim that this is not possible. They claim that internet connected computers are isolated from the machines that actually regulate power delivery, power generation, and power usage. But, I'm left scratching my head over all the wireless devices that have been incorporated into the system. I suppose that they have some magical security system that all us peasants are unaware of.....
I'm an American, you insensitive clod. I speak American English. WE KNOW what a buffalo is. When we feel it necessary to translate for you outsiders, we will refer to bison. KTHXBAI
A: Creating a restricted account is done by default in all *nix installations that I have experience with
B: Many infected Windows machines were breached by way of a combination of vulnerabilities, including escalation of privileges. Not every machine that I've ever "repaired" had browsed the web using an admin account.
C: You seem to be dismissing the real value of my original suggestion. Curing the symptom of ignorance. User's ignorance causes the VAST majority of computer problems, including viral infections.
You err on one point at least, regarding the "user model". Invoking SUDO doesn't persist until logoff. I think it's actually 18 minutes - some arbitrary number that someone, somewhere, pulled out of their ass. Specifically, I installed some updates last night before going to bed. I just went to the terminal, did sudo -s and was asked for my password.
As for the virii claims - I don't recall saying that Linux is immune. I'm perfectly aware that the first computer virus ever written ran on Unix. Please, I may be ignorant in some respects, but I'm not brain dead.
What I DID CLAIM, is that just going through the motions of setting up Linux and getting it running will cure the majority of people of the worst symptoms of their ignorance.
Compare your statement, "Combine the small market share and the educated userbase together" with my own, "Ignorance is drastically reduced". In fact, you seem to be proving my statement. In fact, you seem to expand on my statement, saying that MOST people PREFER to be ignorant. Now - who is sitting on a high horse?
Excuse me, I have to find an appropriate LOLCAT for your post.
I might be willing to admit that I swallowed the "popular wisdom" that was spoon fed to me as a child.
I remember the year of 1960. I remember the migratory birds literally darkening the skies - at that point in my life, the concept of "millions" was beyond my grasp. But, there HAD to be millions upon millions of birds in the sky to produce the effects that I recall. My grandfather would point to them, and identify them for me.
I haven't seen those darkened skies in ages. Geese, ducks, you name it - they pass overhead dozens at a time, sometimes hundreds. I can't recall when I last saw flocks that might number thousands.
My question for you, is this. If DDT wasn't responsible for these reductions in populations, as we've all been taught, then WHAT WAS?
And, IF all the dogma regarding DDT is just political propagandistic dogma, THEN, how might it be corrected? From that link: "William Ruckelshaus, the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency who made the ultimate decision to ban DDT in 1972, was a member of the Environmental Defense Fund. Ruckelshaus solicited donations for EDF on his personal stationery that read "EDF's scientists blew the whistle on DDT by showing it to be a cancer hazard, and three years later, when the dust had cleared, EDF had won. But as an assistant attorney general, William Ruckelshaus stated on August 31, 1970 in a U.S. Court of Appeals that "DDT has an amazing an exemplary record of safe use, does not cause a toxic response in man or other animals, and is not harmful. "
I am accustomed to the idea that political lackeys are two faced SOB's who will give lip service to whoever pays them the most. I might be willing to dismiss popular wisdom. But, again, how do we get reliable tests going? I can't see it happening.
I'll note that I got lost for quite a while in their treatment of the global warming scams. Nice site - I'll be returning to it.
Linux is part of the cure. It helps in treating one symptom of the disease. Ignorance is drastically reduced after just one installation of any unix like operating system.
Of course, there are those who take pride in their ignorance. Some of those individuals insist on running as root when they finally upgrade to Linux.
The buffalo wasn't finished off because the white invaders ate them up. The Army wanted the herds destroyed, with the goal of depriving natives of food. Around the same time, the railroads promoted trophy hunting, because the herds were a threat to the trains.
The near extinction of the buffalo would be less shameful if they had been hunted for food. Millions of buffalo were slaughtered, just to rot in the sun.
"Of course, the fact that they're gone means we can actually go to New Zealand safely..."
Dude, you haven't been paying attention. All the badass critters have been killed off, because there are badass PEOPLE living there!! Between the Maori and the Anglos, you're likely to be eaten if you visit there!!
I pretty much agree - but the ISP's already monitor traffic for a variety of reasons. Mostly bad reasons, but the monitoring is in place. It really isn't hard to determine that a machine's excessive traffic is due to viral infections. Shutting them down seems like a good idea. When the customer calls to complain, tech support has a kindergarten teacher on hand to explain how simple it is to upgrade to a safe unix-like operating system to avoid future infestations.
It appears that porting apps isn't terribly difficult. No, I haven't tried yet, but it looks pretty straight forward. Grab the source, and compile it. Or, did you mean Windows apps? I'll check for Wine the next time I fire it up.
Is there any chance of getting some DNA, cloning a few of these dudes, so that we can set them loose in the cities? I can see the population problem slowly improving. I can see the gene pool improving, at the same time. This idea has promise.....
It does look interesting. The single most interesting thing is that Google is in on the conspiracy to force me to purchase a larger monitor. I mean, NO WAY can I read any print, except the largest headlines!!
Interesting, yes. Potentially useful, yes. I'm afraid I'm not jumping on the bandwagon though.
I saw what you did there! You linked to some Macho-man Pr0n to distract the simple minded!! Don't worry, I'm reporting you for spamming the forum!! You're really a Hilti marketing agent, right?
I'll make you a deal. You come to my house, renew my card, and leave a few boxes of studs for the powder actuated gun, and I won't report you. Fair enough?;^)
More seriously - no, I don't have my own gun. I sure wish I had invested in one. The people I work with now have this stupid, ancient remington brand thing that you have to hit with a hammer. It's a little better than worthless, but not much. There's seldom a need for it, until you are in a confined space - then there's no room to swing a hammer!! DUHHHH!! But, the plus side is, the manager who bought the blasted thing saved 50 bucks all those years ago.....
I've used that HOSTS file on Windows as well as Linux, to speed up browsing. Reading the HOSTS file might take me a couple minutes, but the computer does it in an instant or two. Why should I download all the trash the ad servers offer, when the content I want makes up only a fraction of the entire page? With limited bandwidth, HOSTS can make browsing a lot more enjoyable, as well as making a browser hijack somewhat less likely. Ever been Rick Rolled? Are you always aware of cross site scripting as your page loads? HOSTS is your friend, in more ways than one.
To be honest, I've no experience with Be. I've downloaded the CD, and I'm going to create a VM sometime today, or tonight. It's uncharted territory for me. I don't know the history, or much of anything about it.
I'm not going to pick at your logic. I understand what you're saying, and I can't really beat it with an argument. About all I can do, is test it, learn it, and recommend it to people who MIGHT want an alternative.;^)
"They want somebody to sell them a computer that Just Works."
Interesting concept. Is there any place on Planet Earth that I can find such a thing? "Just works" as in, I don't have to set up any antivirus, don't have to pay for antivirus again next year, don't have to defrag routinely - I could go on, but why bother?
My point is, *nix "just works" as much as Windows does. The windows crowd doesn't realize that they have just been trained to accept a number of irritants and inconveniences that they don't HAVE to accept. I would rather spend a few days, or even a few months, learning a system, than to spend some undefined quantity of time, money, and effort maintaining what I see as a broken system.
When Corporate America is liable for billions of dollars in losses due to their operating system's vulnerabilities, that OS is obviously not ready for the big time.
People who think like this scare me. What about people like myself who just don't fit into any mold? Bahhhh.
I suppose you don't like motorcycle riders either. They don't fit any standards. (Well, to be fair, there are two standards for bikers - the fat professional having a midlife crisis who wants to think he's tough, and the guys who just don't give a damn - two distinctly different standards)
If I'm reincarnated 200 years from now, and find a world that uses one standard OS, I'll just set out to wreck it. Actually, that sounds like a good movie plot, as well as a life mission. I like it!!
Stuff happens. The first automobile wrecks may have delayed what we see today by a few years. The first trucking companies to experience disastrous wrecks may have slowed things down - a few months? The wrecked aircraft of yesteryear caused government to get involved in licensing and so forth. But, stuff happens.
I am thrilled that people are actually doing something that should ultimately prove useful. NASA is a dinosaur that failed to live up to it's expectations. Let's move forward.
When dial up internet finally became available in my area, pages loaded fairly quickly. Sometimes, I had to wait for a page, but overall, pages loaded fairly quickly. As time went on, and Flash and Java became more and more embedded in pages, my browser slowed more and more. Javascript slowed it even more. The browser itself became ever larger, both in code size and memory requirements. Near the end of my dial up experience, browsing was definitely painful. Even with Adblock, HOSTS, and other optimizations, pages would often take 15, 20, 30 seconds to load. That is NOT "browsing".
I've had ADSL for 25 months now. Pages still don't just snap up, like they do at the community college, where they have a sizeable pipeline. My latency blows, and my real speed is only about 80% of the advertised 384/128. Spoiled? I'm sure there are a lot of spoiled people out there enjoying connections that never lag, and downloading the biggest movies in an hour or less. I assure you, I'm not one of them.
Most of that 80% of the population that is likely to kill a patient is likely to do so out of ignorance - not stupidity.
The most likely scenario for killing your own patient is carelessly moving a patient who has a spinal injury. Given one short semester in a classroom, all but the stupidest can be trained to recognize patients at risk of spinal injury, AND trained to move those patients relatively safely.
Again - I say that high intelligence is NOT required of either a firefighter, or a first responder/EMT.
I wonder how many people of average or even below average intelligence are scared away from these professions by people who assume that high intelligence is required? Granted, an idiot is going to be worthless - no, worse than worthless - in these fields. But, a high IQ is NOT a necessity.
Just average people who can safely operate motor vehicles, handle firearms, cook, and care for children are smart enough to become EMT's, and even nurses and paramedics. Or, firefighters. Or, even cops.
I mean, it isn't like an EMT has to INVENT a procedure or method to save a life. He only needs to apply methods and procedures that other people have invented, and passed on to him, through training. The motor head who can tune his own car up has the intelligence to kickstart a heart - if someone just shows him how, and he cares enough to pay attention.
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Thanks for the link. I've looked at a couple of distros, but I've never downloaded them. This one is downloading now - next time I move that laptop out of my way, I'll put it on my workdesk. All I need to do is overcome my lazy arsed inertia.
I also forgot to read all the disclaimers that tell me that no one is responsible for anything.
Ditto - running on a 286 chip!! Rugged sucker, it was built for the DOD, then handed off to the Department of Agriculture. HUGE 40 MB hard drive, among other features.
I sure wish it had a 386 instead of the 286 - even Linux doesn't like it very much!
"The U.S. Navy's and Marine Corp's"
A bit of redundancy, there. The US Navy includes a medical corps, a supply corps, and a marine corps. Just pointing out an obvious fact that most people never seem to notice.
To lazy to look for citations - but this scenario was envisioned in Sci-fi literature long before the advent of the internet. And, in fact, I believe the north-east has experienced such a thing at least twice, probably more than that. Brown outs and black outs due to local overloads aren't a new concept at all, nor is the idea of cascading failures. All that I see here, is the idea of inducing one or more local overloads via the internet.
Of course, there are any number of "experts" who claim that this is not possible. They claim that internet connected computers are isolated from the machines that actually regulate power delivery, power generation, and power usage. But, I'm left scratching my head over all the wireless devices that have been incorporated into the system. I suppose that they have some magical security system that all us peasants are unaware of.....
I'm an American, you insensitive clod. I speak American English. WE KNOW what a buffalo is. When we feel it necessary to translate for you outsiders, we will refer to bison. KTHXBAI
A: Creating a restricted account is done by default in all *nix installations that I have experience with
B: Many infected Windows machines were breached by way of a combination of vulnerabilities, including escalation of privileges. Not every machine that I've ever "repaired" had browsed the web using an admin account.
C: You seem to be dismissing the real value of my original suggestion. Curing the symptom of ignorance. User's ignorance causes the VAST majority of computer problems, including viral infections.
You err on one point at least, regarding the "user model". Invoking SUDO doesn't persist until logoff. I think it's actually 18 minutes - some arbitrary number that someone, somewhere, pulled out of their ass. Specifically, I installed some updates last night before going to bed. I just went to the terminal, did sudo -s and was asked for my password.
As for the virii claims - I don't recall saying that Linux is immune. I'm perfectly aware that the first computer virus ever written ran on Unix. Please, I may be ignorant in some respects, but I'm not brain dead.
What I DID CLAIM, is that just going through the motions of setting up Linux and getting it running will cure the majority of people of the worst symptoms of their ignorance.
Compare your statement, "Combine the small market share and the educated userbase together" with my own, "Ignorance is drastically reduced". In fact, you seem to be proving my statement. In fact, you seem to expand on my statement, saying that MOST people PREFER to be ignorant. Now - who is sitting on a high horse?
Excuse me, I have to find an appropriate LOLCAT for your post.
I might be willing to admit that I swallowed the "popular wisdom" that was spoon fed to me as a child.
I remember the year of 1960. I remember the migratory birds literally darkening the skies - at that point in my life, the concept of "millions" was beyond my grasp. But, there HAD to be millions upon millions of birds in the sky to produce the effects that I recall. My grandfather would point to them, and identify them for me.
I haven't seen those darkened skies in ages. Geese, ducks, you name it - they pass overhead dozens at a time, sometimes hundreds. I can't recall when I last saw flocks that might number thousands.
My question for you, is this. If DDT wasn't responsible for these reductions in populations, as we've all been taught, then WHAT WAS?
And, IF all the dogma regarding DDT is just political propagandistic dogma, THEN, how might it be corrected? From that link: "William Ruckelshaus, the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency who made the ultimate decision to ban DDT in 1972, was a member of the Environmental Defense Fund. Ruckelshaus solicited donations for EDF on his personal stationery that read "EDF's scientists blew the whistle on DDT by showing it to be a cancer hazard, and three years later, when the dust had cleared, EDF had won. But as an assistant attorney general, William Ruckelshaus stated on August 31, 1970 in a U.S. Court of Appeals that "DDT has an amazing an exemplary record of safe use, does not cause a toxic response in man or other animals, and is not harmful. "
I am accustomed to the idea that political lackeys are two faced SOB's who will give lip service to whoever pays them the most. I might be willing to dismiss popular wisdom. But, again, how do we get reliable tests going? I can't see it happening.
I'll note that I got lost for quite a while in their treatment of the global warming scams. Nice site - I'll be returning to it.
Linux is part of the cure. It helps in treating one symptom of the disease. Ignorance is drastically reduced after just one installation of any unix like operating system.
Of course, there are those who take pride in their ignorance. Some of those individuals insist on running as root when they finally upgrade to Linux.
*cough cough*
The buffalo wasn't finished off because the white invaders ate them up. The Army wanted the herds destroyed, with the goal of depriving natives of food. Around the same time, the railroads promoted trophy hunting, because the herds were a threat to the trains.
The near extinction of the buffalo would be less shameful if they had been hunted for food. Millions of buffalo were slaughtered, just to rot in the sun.
"Of course, the fact that they're gone means we can actually go to New Zealand safely..."
Dude, you haven't been paying attention. All the badass critters have been killed off, because there are badass PEOPLE living there!! Between the Maori and the Anglos, you're likely to be eaten if you visit there!!
I've experience the very same thing in the Caribbean. I wonder if it's a conspiracy.
I pretty much agree - but the ISP's already monitor traffic for a variety of reasons. Mostly bad reasons, but the monitoring is in place. It really isn't hard to determine that a machine's excessive traffic is due to viral infections. Shutting them down seems like a good idea. When the customer calls to complain, tech support has a kindergarten teacher on hand to explain how simple it is to upgrade to a safe unix-like operating system to avoid future infestations.
Problem solved.
It appears that porting apps isn't terribly difficult. No, I haven't tried yet, but it looks pretty straight forward. Grab the source, and compile it. Or, did you mean Windows apps? I'll check for Wine the next time I fire it up.
Is there any chance of getting some DNA, cloning a few of these dudes, so that we can set them loose in the cities? I can see the population problem slowly improving. I can see the gene pool improving, at the same time. This idea has promise.....
It does look interesting. The single most interesting thing is that Google is in on the conspiracy to force me to purchase a larger monitor. I mean, NO WAY can I read any print, except the largest headlines!!
Interesting, yes. Potentially useful, yes. I'm afraid I'm not jumping on the bandwagon though.
I saw what you did there! You linked to some Macho-man Pr0n to distract the simple minded!! Don't worry, I'm reporting you for spamming the forum!! You're really a Hilti marketing agent, right?
I'll make you a deal. You come to my house, renew my card, and leave a few boxes of studs for the powder actuated gun, and I won't report you. Fair enough? ;^)
More seriously - no, I don't have my own gun. I sure wish I had invested in one. The people I work with now have this stupid, ancient remington brand thing that you have to hit with a hammer. It's a little better than worthless, but not much. There's seldom a need for it, until you are in a confined space - then there's no room to swing a hammer!! DUHHHH!! But, the plus side is, the manager who bought the blasted thing saved 50 bucks all those years ago.....
I've used that HOSTS file on Windows as well as Linux, to speed up browsing. Reading the HOSTS file might take me a couple minutes, but the computer does it in an instant or two. Why should I download all the trash the ad servers offer, when the content I want makes up only a fraction of the entire page? With limited bandwidth, HOSTS can make browsing a lot more enjoyable, as well as making a browser hijack somewhat less likely. Ever been Rick Rolled? Are you always aware of cross site scripting as your page loads? HOSTS is your friend, in more ways than one.
To be honest, I've no experience with Be. I've downloaded the CD, and I'm going to create a VM sometime today, or tonight. It's uncharted territory for me. I don't know the history, or much of anything about it.
I'm not going to pick at your logic. I understand what you're saying, and I can't really beat it with an argument. About all I can do, is test it, learn it, and recommend it to people who MIGHT want an alternative. ;^)
"They want somebody to sell them a computer that Just Works."
Interesting concept. Is there any place on Planet Earth that I can find such a thing? "Just works" as in, I don't have to set up any antivirus, don't have to pay for antivirus again next year, don't have to defrag routinely - I could go on, but why bother?
My point is, *nix "just works" as much as Windows does. The windows crowd doesn't realize that they have just been trained to accept a number of irritants and inconveniences that they don't HAVE to accept. I would rather spend a few days, or even a few months, learning a system, than to spend some undefined quantity of time, money, and effort maintaining what I see as a broken system.
When Corporate America is liable for billions of dollars in losses due to their operating system's vulnerabilities, that OS is obviously not ready for the big time.
People who think like this scare me. What about people like myself who just don't fit into any mold? Bahhhh.
I suppose you don't like motorcycle riders either. They don't fit any standards. (Well, to be fair, there are two standards for bikers - the fat professional having a midlife crisis who wants to think he's tough, and the guys who just don't give a damn - two distinctly different standards)
If I'm reincarnated 200 years from now, and find a world that uses one standard OS, I'll just set out to wreck it. Actually, that sounds like a good movie plot, as well as a life mission. I like it!!
Stuff happens. The first automobile wrecks may have delayed what we see today by a few years. The first trucking companies to experience disastrous wrecks may have slowed things down - a few months? The wrecked aircraft of yesteryear caused government to get involved in licensing and so forth. But, stuff happens.
I am thrilled that people are actually doing something that should ultimately prove useful. NASA is a dinosaur that failed to live up to it's expectations. Let's move forward.
Spoiled by speed. That is really funny.
When dial up internet finally became available in my area, pages loaded fairly quickly. Sometimes, I had to wait for a page, but overall, pages loaded fairly quickly. As time went on, and Flash and Java became more and more embedded in pages, my browser slowed more and more. Javascript slowed it even more. The browser itself became ever larger, both in code size and memory requirements. Near the end of my dial up experience, browsing was definitely painful. Even with Adblock, HOSTS, and other optimizations, pages would often take 15, 20, 30 seconds to load. That is NOT "browsing".
I've had ADSL for 25 months now. Pages still don't just snap up, like they do at the community college, where they have a sizeable pipeline. My latency blows, and my real speed is only about 80% of the advertised 384/128. Spoiled? I'm sure there are a lot of spoiled people out there enjoying connections that never lag, and downloading the biggest movies in an hour or less. I assure you, I'm not one of them.
Most of that 80% of the population that is likely to kill a patient is likely to do so out of ignorance - not stupidity.
The most likely scenario for killing your own patient is carelessly moving a patient who has a spinal injury. Given one short semester in a classroom, all but the stupidest can be trained to recognize patients at risk of spinal injury, AND trained to move those patients relatively safely.
Again - I say that high intelligence is NOT required of either a firefighter, or a first responder/EMT.
I wonder how many people of average or even below average intelligence are scared away from these professions by people who assume that high intelligence is required? Granted, an idiot is going to be worthless - no, worse than worthless - in these fields. But, a high IQ is NOT a necessity.
Just average people who can safely operate motor vehicles, handle firearms, cook, and care for children are smart enough to become EMT's, and even nurses and paramedics. Or, firefighters. Or, even cops.
I mean, it isn't like an EMT has to INVENT a procedure or method to save a life. He only needs to apply methods and procedures that other people have invented, and passed on to him, through training. The motor head who can tune his own car up has the intelligence to kickstart a heart - if someone just shows him how, and he cares enough to pay attention.