On one hand, Hindi support brings computer access to millions of people (in a best case scenario). On the other hand, the fact that software is being specialized to work under certain languages establishes barriers for non-Hindi speakers. Hindi software will have to break down to the english language at some point on the code level, but documentation and system-specific language operations will reduce portability.
Although many deny it, English dominates the languages of the world in terms of the power wielded by English-language speakers. I respect, and am, in fact, facinated by non-English languages. However, while Hindi support is definatly a plus for Linux, we need to keep in mind that the end goal is to open the possibility of communications between everyone, not one single group.
Freeloading bandwidth? I doubt that dialpad doesn't get a bill every month for the bandwidth they use. And as far as the university goes - they have a right to disallow students to _request_ bandwidth for dialpad.com. Dialpad isn't barging in on the university - students pay the university through tuition/room/board costs to use bandwidth for whatever purpose they wish, agreeing to follow the guidelines of the university. One could argue that slashdot it "freeloading" just as much as dialpad under your philosophy.
Actually, my university has succeeded in blocking both Napster and FTP servers on student machine. Apparently the proxy/firewall they have in place blocks FTP requests by looking at the actual data request, not just a port number.
If anyone knows how to search for internet gateways and dns servers on a network, clue everyone in! I figure the proxy server needs an unblocked connection to the net somewhere, and perhaps they use a separate "clean" gateway IP address rather than have the proxy log in. I just haven't figured out how to a) search for gateways in an ip range (quickly), and b) figure out what the ip addresses of the DNS servers on the network are (I'm in NT using DHCP...where is the DNS info hiding?)
Any students threatened by such a policy should notify the administration that discount calling card services can be used to the same effect - that is, to avoid the usually high-rate long distance charges brought on university students. If the university is going to threaten net long distance service, the university should be threatened by a mass boycot of the existing service with calling cards, which would, in all liklihood, be more detremental to the university due to the simple fact that many students have a computer capable enough for long distance, but all the capablity for calling card service. My university charges 25+ cents a minute, whereas the local service in the town is 12 cents and my calling card is 8 cents.
That's not exactly correct. The people behind Seti@Home know that any signal they received would fit a specific pattern as the signal enters and leaves the focus of the receiver. In that sense, it might be easier to find a SETI signal than a Mars Lander signal (which is masked by extreme interference, if it's there). In addition, the Seti project is much less likely to turn up anything useful or interesting (in terms of a signal) anytime soon, but the potential for verifying the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence and possibly learning from that intelligence far outweighs the potential for the Mars Lander to find anything extremely useful. That's not to say a Mars@Home or distributed.net project wouldn't be a great idea, however.
As far as immortality goes, I would prefer that the conscious entity I perceive myself as becomes immortal, rather than some copy of myself. Yeah, it is rather cool that I could run a brain on silicon rather than carbon, but I would prefer it to be me, rather than a copy of me. So here's what I propose - use nanotechnology to slowly convert your brain one neuron at a time to a brain of mechanical neurons that operate in every manner like biological neurons. Our bodies are replacing the matter in our brains all the time on a regular basis, and yet we still perceive ourselves as a single, continuous conscious being. Perhaps if we tweak our body's maintainence package to make our neurons a little more sturdy and a little faster (i.e., silicon), we can reach immortality for ourselves, not for a mechanical copy of us.
Slashdot Mirror
C'mon, we know that as a series, the Indy trilogy was better.
Buy Empire for the best of the seven (SW+Indy), Raiders for the best of Indy, and Phantom for no one but Natalie.
Jar Jar sucked. Big time. So did his computer animated buddies.
Although many deny it, English dominates the languages of the world in terms of the power wielded by English-language speakers. I respect, and am, in fact, facinated by non-English languages. However, while Hindi support is definatly a plus for Linux, we need to keep in mind that the end goal is to open the possibility of communications between everyone, not one single group.
Hey, we employ more nerds than any organization on the planet! Cut us some slack!
And, no, it isn't solving the problem, just frustrating students who have ligit reasons to access their computers remotely.
Freeloading bandwidth? I doubt that dialpad doesn't get a bill every month for the bandwidth they use. And as far as the university goes - they have a right to disallow students to _request_ bandwidth for dialpad.com. Dialpad isn't barging in on the university - students pay the university through tuition/room/board costs to use bandwidth for whatever purpose they wish, agreeing to follow the guidelines of the university. One could argue that slashdot it "freeloading" just as much as dialpad under your philosophy.
If anyone knows how to search for internet gateways and dns servers on a network, clue everyone in! I figure the proxy server needs an unblocked connection to the net somewhere, and perhaps they use a separate "clean" gateway IP address rather than have the proxy log in. I just haven't figured out how to a) search for gateways in an ip range (quickly), and b) figure out what the ip addresses of the DNS servers on the network are (I'm in NT using DHCP...where is the DNS info hiding?)
Any students threatened by such a policy should notify the administration that discount calling card services can be used to the same effect - that is, to avoid the usually high-rate long distance charges brought on university students. If the university is going to threaten net long distance service, the university should be threatened by a mass boycot of the existing service with calling cards, which would, in all liklihood, be more detremental to the university due to the simple fact that many students have a computer capable enough for long distance, but all the capablity for calling card service. My university charges 25+ cents a minute, whereas the local service in the town is 12 cents and my calling card is 8 cents.
That's not exactly correct. The people behind Seti@Home know that any signal they received would fit a specific pattern as the signal enters and leaves the focus of the receiver. In that sense, it might be easier to find a SETI signal than a Mars Lander signal (which is masked by extreme interference, if it's there).
In addition, the Seti project is much less likely to turn up anything useful or interesting (in terms of a signal) anytime soon, but the potential for verifying the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence and possibly learning from that intelligence far outweighs the potential for the Mars Lander to find anything extremely useful.
That's not to say a Mars@Home or distributed.net project wouldn't be a great idea, however.
As far as immortality goes, I would prefer that the conscious entity I perceive myself as becomes immortal, rather than some copy of myself. Yeah, it is rather cool that I could run a brain on silicon rather than carbon, but I would prefer it to be me, rather than a copy of me. So here's what I propose - use nanotechnology to slowly convert your brain one neuron at a time to a brain of mechanical neurons that operate in every manner like biological neurons. Our bodies are replacing the matter in our brains all the time on a regular basis, and yet we still perceive ourselves as a single, continuous conscious being. Perhaps if we tweak our body's maintainence package to make our neurons a little more sturdy and a little faster (i.e., silicon), we can reach immortality for ourselves, not for a mechanical copy of us.
Might want to add *.flycast.com to that restricted list, too.