Fusion can provide us (essentially) unlimited amounts of energy. The big fusion reactor in the sky pumps out more energy that we could *ever* use, and the mechanics of a solar power satellite, although exotic, are not beyond reason. Regardless of whether mankind's fusion reactors ever become feasible, the vast quantity of energy found in the sun's radiation dwarf any possible use us Earth dwellers could fashion.
Think of it this way: The universe has been "lighting" volumes of space far, far larger than your living room with nothing so elegant or efficient as an LED light bulb. The sun is not a finely designed tool of illumination, its a vicious, wasteful mofo of a nuclear reaction releases energy in all sorts of frequencies into the void of space, at magnitudes that are beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend.
Tapping into a small fraction of that would make the notion of efficiency goofy. Beyond that, even competing with the amount of radiation "deposited" at the Earth's atmosphere (yes, including that which is radiated back into space), there simply aren't enough metals on this planet for us to really have to worry about ambient temperatures, even if human society spent the rest of its days building machines that converted solar energy into ambient heat.
The solar system is a torrent of wild energies. Explosions, collisions, implosions, and nuclear reactions happen on scales which dwarf the activities of mankind. Understanding these forces, and learning to harness them effectively certainly reduce the necessity of efficiency.
In modern society, emphasis on efficiency is capitalism's response to rising costs of an energy supply that is not effectively scaling against our population or usage rates. All you have to do to reduce the need for efficiency is drive energy production at a rate quicker than our ability to consume, and there's no reason that solar power cannot do that in the intermediate term (100 years). Of course, we'll have to start investing in that kind of thing, but that sort of decision making is neither here nor there when it come to establishing theoreticals.
Although Apple hates preemptive disclosure, this goes right along with their "OS X is industrial grade" strategy.
All over the place Apple advertises that OS X is "Industrial UNIX at the core".
Now, with ZFS, Apple can advertise having a next-generation omega filesystem to replace the long-in-the-tooth Journaled HFS+, which was significantly better than NTFS.
NX is fast and responsive over dial-up, and usable over GPRS.
NX is fast enough that you may want to consider setting up an NX server in your server farm, and proxy your RDP connections through it. It does an excellent job of this.:)
The difference between NX and plain X is incredible, and having used both, I prefer working with NX over RDP.
1. SSH stuff. Konsole works well for SSH, and Konqueror can do SSH tricks that blow the pants off Windows SSH clients. (Think fish:// ioslave). 2. Remote Desktop. You haven't looked at NX (or FreeNX). Faster than anything on the windows side, supports sound, network shares, and printing. Vastly superior to the Windows one, and extremely slick.
For the most part, I agree with you on Linux & Media production, but that's just because I use Final Cut Studio on OS X, and that's a dream to work with.
Similar to smoking pot: You can share Apple's DRM-free MP3s, but you have to take a modicum of precausions. When you smoke pot, you probably should avoid smoking in public places.
I also almost totally agree with you regarding copyright. I believe that copyright should not last longer than the time it takes to recoup an artist (or music companies) investment on music, with a 100% profit margin (that's customary in most manufacturing). Given that modern distribution can be free or nearly free (P2P), it seems unreasonable that copyright should guarantee everlasting profit. I'd be happy with 6 months to 1 year on music, and I believe that most people could live with that.
Want to get the latest, greatest music from a new band? Buy it for $0.99 a track. After a year? Download it for free.
When you run a program under Intel's VT-x paravirtulization, you aren't emulating it, you are running it natively.
It's true that you have the overhead of two operating systems, but neither operating system requires much of the "oomph" of a dual core system with a gig of ram. Both can be near idle; and that's why you get excellent performance with modern implementations.
The question is whether or not they can pass through most of the 3D stuff. If they've implemented a virtual driver in the virtual machine that passes instructions through to the server's OpenGL subsystem, it could be very fast. This would be complicated, but it could be fast.
You don't see much of a speed hit running stuff inside Paralells. Maybe 10-20%. Nothing huge; and most non-high-end gamers could live with 10-20% fewer FPS.
1. You don't know what the speed cost is. It could be minimal, or it could be significant. You have no evidence either way; if it manages to pass most instructions through to the host OS it could be very fast. Wine, for example, is quite fast, but there's a good deal more overhead in Parallels.
2. You're not the target market for this app. You only use OS X for Safari. Most Mac users aren't like you; we primarily use OS X, and are "forced" to use Windows occassionally for one app or game. This covers most switchers too; how do I know? We just switched our company, and everyone has the choice of OS X or XP. Guess what? OS X has won out on every user, and no one uses boot camp. Just Parallels.
3. Most people are willing to exchange some speed for security. Staying in OS X means you know that your computer will always work; no worrying about viruses and the like.
At the same time, if you're talking about civil disobedience, than why are you trying to remain anonymous?
Either you:
A) Believe in copyright, and don't pirate, or B) Pirate because you like free stuff, or C) Pirate because you don't believe in copyright, and are practicing civil disobedience.
If you believe in A or C, than you shouldn't care that the song's ID3 tags have your personal information. Anything you buy with a credit card comes with your personal information on the receipt, is tracked in a database, and is kept in the retailers info. Part of civil disobedience is being willing to expose the unjust law to the masses; otherwise, you're just being sketchy.
If you are B, and have an IQ above 40, you'll know that you can either burn the AAC to CD, or convert it to MP3, or edit the ID3 tags, and remove that information.
If you are B, and an idiot, then I might see how you can care.
And you don't shop at those electronics stores that ask for your name and phone number.
And you don't let people give you cards, Hallmark or otherwise.
And you don't care credit cards in your wallet.
And you don't keep documents in your laptop/iPod/desktop computer or, hell, your backpack/briefcase/purse with your name on them.
Otherwise, what's your problem? Their putting your name and e-mail on files then send to you. If you burn them to CD, or convert them to MP3, that information is removed.
I agree with you, but I believe your reasoning is wrong.
The issue here is partly regulated markets. Your example of California is *dead wrong*.
What happened in California with electrical deregulation was that part of the market (supply) was deregulated, without releasing all the intermediate price controls. As such, you had electrical distributors purchasing energy at a higher price than they were permitted to sell it, resulting in huge debts. Unsuprisingly, some unsavory individuals found ways to profit in this setup, and without the proper oversight avaliable during this deregulatory process there was quite a bit of profiteering.
The issue was that we had an opaque, partially regulated free market. It was poorly regulated, and no one really knew what was going on. You can hardly blame the blackouts on deregulation.
The situation with the telecos and other communication companies is similar. Pick a beast in the field; AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, or any of the other major providers. Each and every one of these companies is an ugly monopoly that was built by local and federal governments. In terms of infrastructure, pricing, and even the attitudes of personnel, these companies are not used to competing, and really didn't see the need to move quickly or to innovate. Case in point; AT&T. AT&T, before the breakup, was a sloth of a company.
Worse, the markets remain regulated, be in weird, strange ways, with all of the hinderances of regulation and none of the benefits. Oversight is poor, local governments are being limited in their means to affect the telecos/cablecos, yet the telecos and cable companies retain the legal tools to chase out competitors (without competing on merit). In many places in this country we are stuck with the worst of all worlds.
That being said, many places have managed to deregulate some aspects of the industry while maintaining the oversight necessary to insure that these monopolies need to prevent unsavory individuals from profiteering. In these places, we've seen impressive investments in broadband deployment. Verizon is committed to FTTP, AT&T is wavering on FTTP while throwing itself into FTTN, Comcast, RCN, and the other cable companies are going to DOCSIS 3.0 and purchasing vast networks of fiber. EVDO and UMTS are blanketing the country, with unlimited usage rates (particularly from Sprint) that are vastly cheaper than what you can find abroad.
The state of the industry is changing in the U.S., but in a patchy fashion. The areas that are lagging need to replicate the legal frameworks of the areas that are accelerating, and governments should act to reduce the costs (either by subsidy or tax break) of deployment in non-target areas (less profitable). However, any of this must come with oversight.
In sum, I do feel that free markets work, and work well; however, when you talk about communications, we are talking about a market that has never been free, and will not be free for a long time. Baby steps towards laissez-faire can work, and partial deregulation done badly is not representative of what can happen.
As much as Comcast has both a terrible service department and a terrible PR department, how they do it is correct.
You pay a "high" price for service ($45-60) per month, depending on the plan, and you can have as much bandwidth as you want, as long as you aren't adversely affecting the node that you are on.
This means be reasonable. Right now, their "flexible" bandwidth cap is 200 GB. Even better, it's not like that boot you after one month of 200 GB usage; and they don't charge you again, either. They monitor your usage over a couple months, and if you're over 200 GB on average, they send you a warning, and then boot you.
It's also notable that this number has gone up significantly as they've upgraded their network, and I suspect it will continue to go up.
At my office we pay approximately $275 for a dual T1. This gets us, at most, 900 GB per month (that's maxing out the connection 24/7/365). I'm happy to pay 18% of that for 22% of the bandwidth, with burst speeds vastly in excess of that (my cable modem bursts at 24 Mbps for up to 10 minutes).
As I said; their PR doesn't explain this well, and their service people (both on the ground and at their call centers) tend to be not up to part with their competitors. However, the companies polices are more than reasonable, and they do an excellent job upgrading their network. I would have never thought that the cable cos would be competitive with FTTN or FTTP, but Comcast is beating the crap out of AT&T's U-verse, and is approaching the speeds of Verizon's FTTP network.
You guys really should stop whinning. 200 GB a month is plenty in this day and age, and I pity the people who pay $15,$30, or more for 1-70 GB a month.
Commercial means "closed source". Not for use at business.
Like QT, you have two choices. Either:
A) Distribute a LINA powered application under the GPL, with all your source available, or B) Distribute a LINA powered application under (choose your closed source EULA here), keeping all your source modifications to yourself.
If you choose to go with route B), you pay LINA $XXX.
This is slightly closer to BSD than pure GPL, because if you want to take the source and close it, your welcome to, but you'll end up paying licensing fees.
It's a poor use of the word "commercial", I agree.
If MS/BSA ever decides to try an audit us, my response isn't going to be, "We don't use MS products, period."
My response is going to be, "It would be administratively impossible for us to list the software packages in use throughout our company."
Then, when they kick the doors in, and find not a spec of MS software, our lawyers will have a nice round of settlement discussions with their lawyers.
From what I've read, the Rage II drivers are in Xorg, and are part of the atimisc X server. They will be automagically loaded if you specify the Xorg module "ati".
If you've got a working Linux install, I'd try that.
I have no knowledge of Debian at all, but it seems to be a valid result from a google search.
As you can see: Section "Device"
Identifier "ATI Technologies, Inc. 3D Rage IIC 215IIC (Mach64 GT IIC)"
Driver "ati"
BusID "PCI:0:18:0"
Option "UseFBDev" "true"
Uses the Driver "ati" . I believe you should have no problems with your card, and shouldn't have to download anything to get it working. Has it given you trouble before?
I've had an ATI card refuse to boot with a given motherboard once, which was weird, but wasn't anything I could fix from Linux. Other than that, I've never really had a problem with older ATI cards, just newer ones which aren't supported by the built-in Xorg drivers.
Are you saying you'd prefer Mercenaries, as opposed to, say, the Khmer Rouge?
The Khmer Rouge held morals "with which one (I) disagree", while most mercenaries have few, if any, morals.
The traditional spectrum is (Good) ---- (Neutral) ---- (Evil), and as much as that is trite D&D stuff, I find it very difficult to generalize amoral as "worse" than having morals with which I disagree with.
However, when it comes to video cards, it has been my experience that there are very, very few video cards that don't work in VESA (SVGA) mode out of the box with Linux.
As the other poster said: 1. You should *always* get POST output. If not, card=dead 2. You should almost always get Linux console (vga=normal) output. If not, you've got a very crazy card or an esoteric configuration. Note; I'm talking about standard 80x25. 3. You should almost always get VESA output. This can be slightly more unlikely than #2, since there are a few cards out there with broken VESA implementations. These are generally crazy integrated Savages or SIS chipsets, particularly cut-down mobile version. Even then, some VESA modes should work (800x600 at low refresh rates has never failed me). Generally, if VESA output is messed up, you've got a card or a monitor that is misrepresenting its capabilities to the OS, and you should simply try a lower resolution.
Unfortunately, I know very little about Debian or Ubuntu. I can tell you that SaX2, which is the SuSE X configuration tool, is excellent at probing out weird configurations.
It seems that there maybe Ubuntu packages for SaX2 here: http://sax.berlios.de/ . It is a GPL package, so I don't know why it hasn't been ported around, as to me, it's rather brilliant. There are build instructions for Ubuntu on that link, and googling around it seems there are at least some of the SaX2 packages in Debian Universe (is that a correct name for the repository?).
1. Console mode should work regardless. Driver, Shmiver. 2. VESA mode should work regardless. You should be able to get into Xorg if need be. Also, this is how any of the major graphical installers will work. 3. That's an older card; I'd be shocked if that wasn't automatically discovered by . I suspect that SaX2 (from openSuSE) would do it. 4. The GATOS http://gatos.sourceforge.net/supported_cards.php project seems to indicate that it would support your card, and that has been merged into Xorg.
In sum; I think you should put that puppy in and boot. I don't think you'll have any problems.
Configure everything from YaST, and install a couple of key packages from the Packman repository, and you'll have a GUI configurable, rock solid, mp3 playing, MPEG-4/DiVX/DVD/X264/Quicktime/Realplayer playing monster.
It doesn't put law enforcement officers in danger. What it does do is reveal informants and undercover law enforcement agents; this is a category of government officers that we could refer to as Secret Law Enforcement.
That being said, when encountering such a sight, you may want to question why the government needs secrecy? With a de jure monopoly on the use of force, as well as broad information gathering capabilities, the only need for secrecy in law enforcement is either to a) enforce unjust laws or b) provide the illusion of respecting someone's constitutional protections.
I do not see the need for undercover law enforcement; and frankly, if you're dealing in that evil trade (most likely busting drug users), I feel no sympathy or pity.
The government should enforces laws in the open, and use tools that require no stealth or intrigue. There's no excuse for secrecy in government, particularly with a peacetime government or a government vastly more powerful than any similar political organ. In the U.S., we have both.
I feel that there is no justification for undercover law enforcement officers, and there particularly isn't a place in this world for criminals turned deal makers.
In my humble opinion, there is too much stress on victimless deviant behavior, and little or none on the rights of the innocent, law abiding person just trying to live an abnormal life doing their own thing.
Decriminalize victimless crimes, and make law enforcement a very visible, high speed response organ of the state. Make it so that anyone, anywhere, can receive assistance as quickly as possible, place an emphasis on violent crime and robbery, and you have no need for undercover cowboys and snitches.
Realize that if there is a black market in a good, that good should probably be legal. Understand that eliminating crime in a poor area is not about hunting out drug dealers, but is about rendering their profession irrelevant and unfruitful, as well as insuring that poor areas have the same sub-5-minute 911 response time as rich areas.
Wonder why there isn't much crime in rich suburbs? No one is desperate to make a buck, and if something gets out of hand the cops are _always_ there in a few minutes. Wonder why there is so much crime in poor urban areas? Everyone is desperate, the police presence is minimal, and trade in contraband is extremely lucrative.
Legalize Drugs, and the majority of violent crime in the U.S. will melt away (gang wars, dealer enforcement, etc . ..)
One time, when I was following my girlfriend in her car (I was driving my car), I saw her pulled over. To make a long story short, after a few minutes, the cops walked away from her car, and we continued on home. I called her up, expecting her to be crying over a ticket, or scared about a warning.
In reality, they pulled her over to ask for her phone number, and her friend's (who was sitting in the passenger seat) phone number.
This made my blood boil.
You see another man hitting on your girlfriend or wife? You kindly tell him to give up. You see a cop hitting on your girlfriend or wife while pursuing their "official" duties (I'm talking lights flashing on a major, crowded public street), what do you do? Walk up to him and expect to get tazered?
Another one:
A few days ago, after the Cubs/Soxs game at Wrigley Field, I was out on Lincoln having a drink. We're walking to a restaurant around 7 pm, and I see a cop (sitting in the passenger seat of cop car, with another officer driving) get out of his vehicle, and walk up to a bar to talk to some bouncers. Interestingly enough, I see his hand cupped around something.
It was a can of Miller Light. Now, what would the cop have done had he seen me getting out of a passenger-side door with a can of beer. Tackle me?
I hate this kind of legal inequity. Police should not be above the law. Acting as if they are, and enforcing unjust laws will result in this kind of anti-police speech, and it should.
Do their families deserve to be put in danger? I doubt every undercover agent is single, many of them would have extended family as well. Regardless of what you think of undercover agents, you can't believe that there families should also be put at risk. It doesn't need to be said that they're are some very ruthless people in the drug trade.
Let's apply that logic to non-violent drug users:
Do their families deserve to be put in danger? I doubt that every drug user is single, many of them would have extended family as well. Regardless of what you think of drug users, you can't believe that their families should be put at risk. It doesn't need to be said that they are some very ruthless people in the law enforcement community.
Should non-violent drug users be arrested at gun point? Should non-violent drug users whom support children and spouses be sent to jail for years? Should non-violent drug users be forced to through the economic hardship of an expensive legal defense with an iffy outcome?
If you get into the undercover agent business, hunting for random people smoking pot, dropping LSD, and snorting coke, you deserve all the shit that comes your way. If you're married to one of these scum bags, leave them. That's all there is to it.
I have no respect for these people. None at all. They are in the business of ruining lives.
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Irradiated substances aren't the problem. The issue is radioactive substances; and cleaning a radioactive substance is simply a matter of filtration.
So the answer is "yes", but the energy cost might be high.
You're not thinking big enough.
Fusion can provide us (essentially) unlimited amounts of energy. The big fusion reactor in the sky pumps out more energy that we could *ever* use, and the mechanics of a solar power satellite, although exotic, are not beyond reason. Regardless of whether mankind's fusion reactors ever become feasible, the vast quantity of energy found in the sun's radiation dwarf any possible use us Earth dwellers could fashion.
Think of it this way: The universe has been "lighting" volumes of space far, far larger than your living room with nothing so elegant or efficient as an LED light bulb. The sun is not a finely designed tool of illumination, its a vicious, wasteful mofo of a nuclear reaction releases energy in all sorts of frequencies into the void of space, at magnitudes that are beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend.
Tapping into a small fraction of that would make the notion of efficiency goofy. Beyond that, even competing with the amount of radiation "deposited" at the Earth's atmosphere (yes, including that which is radiated back into space), there simply aren't enough metals on this planet for us to really have to worry about ambient temperatures, even if human society spent the rest of its days building machines that converted solar energy into ambient heat.
The solar system is a torrent of wild energies. Explosions, collisions, implosions, and nuclear reactions happen on scales which dwarf the activities of mankind. Understanding these forces, and learning to harness them effectively certainly reduce the necessity of efficiency.
In modern society, emphasis on efficiency is capitalism's response to rising costs of an energy supply that is not effectively scaling against our population or usage rates. All you have to do to reduce the need for efficiency is drive energy production at a rate quicker than our ability to consume, and there's no reason that solar power cannot do that in the intermediate term (100 years). Of course, we'll have to start investing in that kind of thing, but that sort of decision making is neither here nor there when it come to establishing theoreticals.
Although Apple hates preemptive disclosure, this goes right along with their "OS X is industrial grade" strategy.
;-)
All over the place Apple advertises that OS X is "Industrial UNIX at the core".
Now, with ZFS, Apple can advertise having a next-generation omega filesystem to replace the long-in-the-tooth Journaled HFS+, which was significantly better than NTFS.
NTFS versus ZFS is a joke
All I can say is try it :)
:)
NX is fast and responsive over dial-up, and usable over GPRS.
NX is fast enough that you may want to consider setting up an NX server in your server farm, and proxy your RDP connections through it. It does an excellent job of this.
The difference between NX and plain X is incredible, and having used both, I prefer working with NX over RDP.
Two minor points:
1. SSH stuff. Konsole works well for SSH, and Konqueror can do SSH tricks that blow the pants off Windows SSH clients. (Think fish:// ioslave).
2. Remote Desktop. You haven't looked at NX (or FreeNX). Faster than anything on the windows side, supports sound, network shares, and printing. Vastly superior to the Windows one, and extremely slick.
For the most part, I agree with you on Linux & Media production, but that's just because I use Final Cut Studio on OS X, and that's a dream to work with.
I have it on authority that you are an idiot, because they posted HalfLife 2 Support on the parallels blog, and HalfLife 2 uses Direct 3D
I guess I mostly agree with you.
Similar to smoking pot: You can share Apple's DRM-free MP3s, but you have to take a modicum of precausions. When you smoke pot, you probably should avoid smoking in public places.
I also almost totally agree with you regarding copyright. I believe that copyright should not last longer than the time it takes to recoup an artist (or music companies) investment on music, with a 100% profit margin (that's customary in most manufacturing). Given that modern distribution can be free or nearly free (P2P), it seems unreasonable that copyright should guarantee everlasting profit. I'd be happy with 6 months to 1 year on music, and I believe that most people could live with that.
Want to get the latest, greatest music from a new band? Buy it for $0.99 a track. After a year? Download it for free.
And?
When you run a program under Intel's VT-x paravirtulization, you aren't emulating it, you are running it natively.
It's true that you have the overhead of two operating systems, but neither operating system requires much of the "oomph" of a dual core system with a gig of ram. Both can be near idle; and that's why you get excellent performance with modern implementations.
The question is whether or not they can pass through most of the 3D stuff. If they've implemented a virtual driver in the virtual machine that passes instructions through to the server's OpenGL subsystem, it could be very fast. This would be complicated, but it could be fast.
You don't see much of a speed hit running stuff inside Paralells. Maybe 10-20%. Nothing huge; and most non-high-end gamers could live with 10-20% fewer FPS.
1. You don't know what the speed cost is. It could be minimal, or it could be significant. You have no evidence either way; if it manages to pass most instructions through to the host OS it could be very fast. Wine, for example, is quite fast, but there's a good deal more overhead in Parallels.
2. You're not the target market for this app. You only use OS X for Safari. Most Mac users aren't like you; we primarily use OS X, and are "forced" to use Windows occassionally for one app or game. This covers most switchers too; how do I know? We just switched our company, and everyone has the choice of OS X or XP. Guess what? OS X has won out on every user, and no one uses boot camp. Just Parallels.
3. Most people are willing to exchange some speed for security. Staying in OS X means you know that your computer will always work; no worrying about viruses and the like.
Huh?
How can your music files "innocently" get into the P2P network.
Either you're committing copyright infringement, or your not. There's no, "Oops, I Limewire'd again!".
Now, civil disobedience is another thing. But accidental copyright infringement? How does that happen?
At the same time, if you're talking about civil disobedience, than why are you trying to remain anonymous?
Either you:
A) Believe in copyright, and don't pirate, or
B) Pirate because you like free stuff, or
C) Pirate because you don't believe in copyright, and are practicing civil disobedience.
If you believe in A or C, than you shouldn't care that the song's ID3 tags have your personal information. Anything you buy with a credit card comes with your personal information on the receipt, is tracked in a database, and is kept in the retailers info. Part of civil disobedience is being willing to expose the unjust law to the masses; otherwise, you're just being sketchy.
If you are B, and have an IQ above 40, you'll know that you can either burn the AAC to CD, or convert it to MP3, or edit the ID3 tags, and remove that information.
If you are B, and an idiot, then I might see how you can care.
I suppose you don't buy software, then.
And you don't buy anything with a credit card.
And you don't shop at those electronics stores that ask for your name and phone number.
And you don't let people give you cards, Hallmark or otherwise.
And you don't care credit cards in your wallet.
And you don't keep documents in your laptop/iPod/desktop computer or, hell, your backpack/briefcase/purse with your name on them.
Otherwise, what's your problem? Their putting your name and e-mail on files then send to you. If you burn them to CD, or convert them to MP3, that information is removed.
What's the big deal?
I agree with you, but I believe your reasoning is wrong.
The issue here is partly regulated markets. Your example of California is *dead wrong*.
What happened in California with electrical deregulation was that part of the market (supply) was deregulated, without releasing all the intermediate price controls. As such, you had electrical distributors purchasing energy at a higher price than they were permitted to sell it, resulting in huge debts. Unsuprisingly, some unsavory individuals found ways to profit in this setup, and without the proper oversight avaliable during this deregulatory process there was quite a bit of profiteering.
The issue was that we had an opaque, partially regulated free market. It was poorly regulated, and no one really knew what was going on. You can hardly blame the blackouts on deregulation.
The situation with the telecos and other communication companies is similar. Pick a beast in the field; AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, or any of the other major providers. Each and every one of these companies is an ugly monopoly that was built by local and federal governments. In terms of infrastructure, pricing, and even the attitudes of personnel, these companies are not used to competing, and really didn't see the need to move quickly or to innovate. Case in point; AT&T. AT&T, before the breakup, was a sloth of a company.
Worse, the markets remain regulated, be in weird, strange ways, with all of the hinderances of regulation and none of the benefits. Oversight is poor, local governments are being limited in their means to affect the telecos/cablecos, yet the telecos and cable companies retain the legal tools to chase out competitors (without competing on merit). In many places in this country we are stuck with the worst of all worlds.
That being said, many places have managed to deregulate some aspects of the industry while maintaining the oversight necessary to insure that these monopolies need to prevent unsavory individuals from profiteering. In these places, we've seen impressive investments in broadband deployment. Verizon is committed to FTTP, AT&T is wavering on FTTP while throwing itself into FTTN, Comcast, RCN, and the other cable companies are going to DOCSIS 3.0 and purchasing vast networks of fiber. EVDO and UMTS are blanketing the country, with unlimited usage rates (particularly from Sprint) that are vastly cheaper than what you can find abroad.
The state of the industry is changing in the U.S., but in a patchy fashion. The areas that are lagging need to replicate the legal frameworks of the areas that are accelerating, and governments should act to reduce the costs (either by subsidy or tax break) of deployment in non-target areas (less profitable). However, any of this must come with oversight.
In sum, I do feel that free markets work, and work well; however, when you talk about communications, we are talking about a market that has never been free, and will not be free for a long time. Baby steps towards laissez-faire can work, and partial deregulation done badly is not representative of what can happen.
As much as Comcast has both a terrible service department and a terrible PR department, how they do it is correct.
You pay a "high" price for service ($45-60) per month, depending on the plan, and you can have as much bandwidth as you want, as long as you aren't adversely affecting the node that you are on.
This means be reasonable. Right now, their "flexible" bandwidth cap is 200 GB. Even better, it's not like that boot you after one month of 200 GB usage; and they don't charge you again, either. They monitor your usage over a couple months, and if you're over 200 GB on average, they send you a warning, and then boot you.
It's also notable that this number has gone up significantly as they've upgraded their network, and I suspect it will continue to go up.
At my office we pay approximately $275 for a dual T1. This gets us, at most, 900 GB per month (that's maxing out the connection 24/7/365). I'm happy to pay 18% of that for 22% of the bandwidth, with burst speeds vastly in excess of that (my cable modem bursts at 24 Mbps for up to 10 minutes).
As I said; their PR doesn't explain this well, and their service people (both on the ground and at their call centers) tend to be not up to part with their competitors. However, the companies polices are more than reasonable, and they do an excellent job upgrading their network. I would have never thought that the cable cos would be competitive with FTTN or FTTP, but Comcast is beating the crap out of AT&T's U-verse, and is approaching the speeds of Verizon's FTTP network.
You guys really should stop whinning. 200 GB a month is plenty in this day and age, and I pity the people who pay $15,$30, or more for 1-70 GB a month.
You misunderstand what they mean by commercial.
Commercial means "closed source". Not for use at business.
Like QT, you have two choices. Either:
A) Distribute a LINA powered application under the GPL, with all your source available, or
B) Distribute a LINA powered application under (choose your closed source EULA here), keeping all your source modifications to yourself.
If you choose to go with route B), you pay LINA $XXX.
This is slightly closer to BSD than pure GPL, because if you want to take the source and close it, your welcome to, but you'll end up paying licensing fees.
It's a poor use of the word "commercial", I agree.
We're an entirely Linux/OS X shop here, however.
If MS/BSA ever decides to try an audit us, my response isn't going to be, "We don't use MS products, period."
My response is going to be, "It would be administratively impossible for us to list the software packages in use throughout our company."
Then, when they kick the doors in, and find not a spec of MS software, our lawyers will have a nice round of settlement discussions with their lawyers.
There's a live DVD here: http://en.opensuse.org/Download
However, I don't think you need to go that far.
From what I've read, the Rage II drivers are in Xorg, and are part of the atimisc X server. They will be automagically loaded if you specify the Xorg module "ati".
If you've got a working Linux install, I'd try that.
Here's an xorg.conf that was automatically generated by the Debian X config utility. http://brenta.free.fr/IMG/txt/xorg.txt
I have no knowledge of Debian at all, but it seems to be a valid result from a google search.
As you can see:
Section "Device"
Identifier "ATI Technologies, Inc. 3D Rage IIC 215IIC (Mach64 GT IIC)"
Driver "ati"
BusID "PCI:0:18:0"
Option "UseFBDev" "true"
Uses the Driver "ati" . I believe you should have no problems with your card, and shouldn't have to download anything to get it working. Has it given you trouble before?
I've had an ATI card refuse to boot with a given motherboard once, which was weird, but wasn't anything I could fix from Linux. Other than that, I've never really had a problem with older ATI cards, just newer ones which aren't supported by the built-in Xorg drivers.
Huh?
Are you saying you'd prefer Mercenaries, as opposed to, say, the Khmer Rouge?
The Khmer Rouge held morals "with which one (I) disagree", while most mercenaries have few, if any, morals.
The traditional spectrum is (Good) ---- (Neutral) ---- (Evil), and as much as that is trite D&D stuff, I find it very difficult to generalize amoral as "worse" than having morals with which I disagree with.
Unfortunately, I believe it doesn't work (SaX2).
However, when it comes to video cards, it has been my experience that there are very, very few video cards that don't work in VESA (SVGA) mode out of the box with Linux.
As the other poster said:
1. You should *always* get POST output. If not, card=dead
2. You should almost always get Linux console (vga=normal) output. If not, you've got a very crazy card or an esoteric configuration. Note; I'm talking about standard 80x25.
3. You should almost always get VESA output. This can be slightly more unlikely than #2, since there are a few cards out there with broken VESA implementations. These are generally crazy integrated Savages or SIS chipsets, particularly cut-down mobile version. Even then, some VESA modes should work (800x600 at low refresh rates has never failed me). Generally, if VESA output is messed up, you've got a card or a monitor that is misrepresenting its capabilities to the OS, and you should simply try a lower resolution.
Unfortunately, I know very little about Debian or Ubuntu. I can tell you that SaX2, which is the SuSE X configuration tool, is excellent at probing out weird configurations.
It seems that there maybe Ubuntu packages for SaX2 here: http://sax.berlios.de/ . It is a GPL package, so I don't know why it hasn't been ported around, as to me, it's rather brilliant. There are build instructions for Ubuntu on that link, and googling around it seems there are at least some of the SaX2 packages in Debian Universe (is that a correct name for the repository?).
Hmmm?
Several points.
1. Console mode should work regardless. Driver, Shmiver.
2. VESA mode should work regardless. You should be able to get into Xorg if need be. Also, this is how any of the major graphical installers will work.
3. That's an older card; I'd be shocked if that wasn't automatically discovered by . I suspect that SaX2 (from openSuSE) would do it.
4. The GATOS http://gatos.sourceforge.net/supported_cards.php project seems to indicate that it would support your card, and that has been merged into Xorg.
In sum; I think you should put that puppy in and boot. I don't think you'll have any problems.
Instead of Ubuntu, try openSuSE.
Configure everything from YaST, and install a couple of key packages from the Packman repository, and you'll have a GUI configurable, rock solid, mp3 playing, MPEG-4/DiVX/DVD/X264/Quicktime/Realplayer playing monster.
It doesn't put law enforcement officers in danger. What it does do is reveal informants and undercover law enforcement agents; this is a category of government officers that we could refer to as Secret Law Enforcement.
That being said, when encountering such a sight, you may want to question why the government needs secrecy? With a de jure monopoly on the use of force, as well as broad information gathering capabilities, the only need for secrecy in law enforcement is either to a) enforce unjust laws or b) provide the illusion of respecting someone's constitutional protections.
I do not see the need for undercover law enforcement; and frankly, if you're dealing in that evil trade (most likely busting drug users), I feel no sympathy or pity.
The government should enforces laws in the open, and use tools that require no stealth or intrigue. There's no excuse for secrecy in government, particularly with a peacetime government or a government vastly more powerful than any similar political organ. In the U.S., we have both.
I feel that there is no justification for undercover law enforcement officers, and there particularly isn't a place in this world for criminals turned deal makers.
.)
In my humble opinion, there is too much stress on victimless deviant behavior, and little or none on the rights of the innocent, law abiding person just trying to live an abnormal life doing their own thing.
Decriminalize victimless crimes, and make law enforcement a very visible, high speed response organ of the state. Make it so that anyone, anywhere, can receive assistance as quickly as possible, place an emphasis on violent crime and robbery, and you have no need for undercover cowboys and snitches.
Realize that if there is a black market in a good, that good should probably be legal. Understand that eliminating crime in a poor area is not about hunting out drug dealers, but is about rendering their profession irrelevant and unfruitful, as well as insuring that poor areas have the same sub-5-minute 911 response time as rich areas.
Wonder why there isn't much crime in rich suburbs? No one is desperate to make a buck, and if something gets out of hand the cops are _always_ there in a few minutes.
Wonder why there is so much crime in poor urban areas? Everyone is desperate, the police presence is minimal, and trade in contraband is extremely lucrative.
Legalize Drugs, and the majority of violent crime in the U.S. will melt away (gang wars, dealer enforcement, etc . .
Silly Personal Anecdote:
One time, when I was following my girlfriend in her car (I was driving my car), I saw her pulled over. To make a long story short, after a few minutes, the cops walked away from her car, and we continued on home. I called her up, expecting her to be crying over a ticket, or scared about a warning.
In reality, they pulled her over to ask for her phone number, and her friend's (who was sitting in the passenger seat) phone number.
This made my blood boil.
You see another man hitting on your girlfriend or wife? You kindly tell him to give up.
You see a cop hitting on your girlfriend or wife while pursuing their "official" duties (I'm talking lights flashing on a major, crowded public street), what do you do? Walk up to him and expect to get tazered?
Another one:
A few days ago, after the Cubs/Soxs game at Wrigley Field, I was out on Lincoln having a drink. We're walking to a restaurant around 7 pm, and I see a cop (sitting in the passenger seat of cop car, with another officer driving) get out of his vehicle, and walk up to a bar to talk to some bouncers. Interestingly enough, I see his hand cupped around something.
It was a can of Miller Light. Now, what would the cop have done had he seen me getting out of a passenger-side door with a can of beer. Tackle me?
I hate this kind of legal inequity. Police should not be above the law. Acting as if they are, and enforcing unjust laws will result in this kind of anti-police speech, and it should.
Do their families deserve to be put in danger? I doubt every undercover agent is single, many of them would have extended family as well. Regardless of what you think of undercover agents, you can't believe that there families should also be put at risk. It doesn't need to be said that they're are some very ruthless people in the drug trade.
Let's apply that logic to non-violent drug users:
Do their families deserve to be put in danger? I doubt that every drug user is single, many of them would have extended family as well. Regardless of what you think of drug users, you can't believe that their families should be put at risk. It doesn't need to be said that they are some very ruthless people in the law enforcement community.
Should non-violent drug users be arrested at gun point?
Should non-violent drug users whom support children and spouses be sent to jail for years?
Should non-violent drug users be forced to through the economic hardship of an expensive legal defense with an iffy outcome?
If you get into the undercover agent business, hunting for random people smoking pot, dropping LSD, and snorting coke, you deserve all the shit that comes your way. If you're married to one of these scum bags, leave them. That's all there is to it.
I have no respect for these people. None at all. They are in the business of ruining lives.