Telemarketing is fraud because there are no legitemate services advertised in this way. Even the long distance carriers routinely commit fraud by claiming to have one plan when they talk to you and charging you something completely different when you join. If you complain you have no proof because you did not sign a normal paper contract (or internet contract) and the only records of what you were told, if any, are held by the telemarketing company. Even if you were somehow able to prove what was told you without being put in jail for illegal wiretapping the company would just claim it was a temp who they fired, etc.
Most of the telemarketers calling you are calling for some phony scam. They want your credit card number so they can run up a bill and leave the country or sell it on the black market. A good number are "charities" that keep the money sent them. This is one reason I am especially steamed about the exemption for charities and surveys in the US DNC list. Those are the prime offenders for fraud, and besides the "surveys" are usually a thinly veiled sales pitch or a plea for a donation to $politicalparty or $charity. It would be bad enough if the money even went there, but again these are generally scams which operate to take your money.
Let's face it. If someone is calling people up at random asking for their credit card numbers, they are probably a scam artist, pure and simple. A legitemate business does not have to do that, so they are already up to something shady. They are not willing to be honest with you and deal with you on an even footing, because what they promise you cannot be recorded or enforced and what you give them is certainly enforced. This "industry" is rife with what even the prosecuting attorneys of this country would agree is outright fraud and in my view the lot is fraud.
Then there is the really seedy area of the business, which is the same as spamming. This is where companies build, buy, and sell lists of victims^wcustomers to call and/or the dubious service of calling them on the behalf of $company. This is where the real money in spamming and telemarketing is and the real reason companies are trying to preserve it. They don't have to sell a single thing, they don't even have to have anything to sell and they still make money *legally* because their "product" is bothering you during your slumber/dinner/work. This in my view is also fraud masquerading as business.
I don't understand -- I've never met any USian who did not know Mao. Hm, excepting children.
Usians alive in the 50s and 60s know Mao because he was alive and on the news then. He was very much on people's minds at the time. People born in the 70s are far less likely to know or care about Mao, and those born in the 80s less so.
" >> Suffice it to say if there were conditions in the United States which called for revolution, there would be a literal army of already trained potential guerrillas and terrorists ready for action. "
In the event of conditions calling for revolution gun owners will shack themselves up in an orgy of panic and self-congratulation that will do the country no good. With the EFF filing suit against Diebold which controls the election process, I could argue conditions already are. Gun owners are such because they think guns will enhance their personal safety or they just like guns. Only kooks have delusions about winning revolutions with (private) guns in these times. In this country, that is. Afghanistan is another matter.
One might argue that many gun owners would not be too upset about Diebold since they are fixing the race for Republicans and Republicans are falsely associated with supporting gun rights. When 9/11 generated a furor over terrorism, reporters asked Bush what had become of the domestic terrorists so prevalent during the Clinton years, such as the militias, the Timothy McVeighs, etc. Bush commented rightly that the militias have grown strangely quiet. I think it is because they believe his regime represents their agenda fairly closely.
You may feel the time is right for revolution because you see that rights are being trampled which you care about and do not agree with the direction of government. But for it to happen, a significant number of people have to feel that way and feel that there is no alternative.
I personally feel that a revolution is in order that does not require the use of arms. I think that the Internet is a medium through which democracy can be revived and preserved forever. There are obviously some who oppose democracy and feel the same way, thus the attacks on the internet and technology. I think part of the plan with Diebold is to make sure people will not trust electronic elections, because they have potential to allow more people to vote and even replace the government with a direct democracy. That cannot be allowed to happen if the current brood are to retain power.
The problem with democracy is that once you give even a semblance of democracy to the people you open the door to change. If enough people can be convinced to go in a certain direction it does not matter what the oligarchy thinks anymore. They will be forced to yield to the will of the people. The Internet allows more people a voice, a way off expressing ideas to one another and gathering and disseminating information which cannot be controlled. The genie is out of the bottle.
"Maybe they (clarification for the clueless: "they" is a reference to the ISP Telia) should have blocked the ones sending out SPAM, instead of everybody!"
I hate to tell you doc, but based on context, the reference to "they" could have easily been interpreted as AOL -- even if Telia makes more sense. The followup response about the ISP not being innocent was in reference to Telia with the assumption that your previous reference to "they" meant AOL.
That is how I interpreted it, indeed. You have to be careful with vagaries like they. You could mean anything. Even the amorphous "they" that is responsible for world conspiracies, windows backdoors, and all the missing pencils. Or you could mean the underpants gnomes. I chose to interpret "they" in this context as meaning AOL. really!:)
No, I never claim Debian is magical, I do assert that rather than trashing Debian for not doing every job, choose the right distro for the job, or be willing to do the work required to make Debian do the job. Asking Debian to support all the newest drivers and features in antitheitcal to the best part of the Debian distro. Nothing is in Stable that hasn't been shown to work reliably. If I diverge from stable, wether in the install kernel or what have you, that's on my own head to handle. This is fine for me, but not for everyone. My essential point all along has been, rather than putting pressure on Debian to do something they have never claimed to do (support all the latest gee whizz stuff) pick a different distro. There are literally hundreds of distros, one of them will suit your particular purpose. So instead of wasting time and breath arguing with Debian, or their zealots, why don't you exercise the power of choice. After all, isn't that at the heart of Free software, freedom of choice. Debian has the freedom to be slow, cautious and methodical, you have the freedom to choose a different distro if that doesn't fulfill your needs. I sincerely hope that Debian doesn't fundamentally change this aspect of the distro. But, if they do, I WILL select a different distro. I WON'T pester Debian, or it's new zealots to change back to the old way. If the decision is made to change this, oh well, I'll have to reconsider my distro. Ultimately this is how it should be, if every distro tries to satisfy everyone all the time, each will fail. So rather than harping on the zealots, or criticizing Debian for what they don't do well, find another distro, it is that simple.
Ok, which is it that debian supports and to what purpose does it serve? I said it did not support my three year old hardware and you said it was too old. I said it didn't support new hardware and you said not to expect gee-whiz stuff. By the way I would have to say that Hard Disk Controllers are pretty important things to support, particularly extremely common hard disk controllers. And given that debian seems to suggest installing over the network as the best solution, it should support common network controllers.
Nothing I am suggesting is, as far as I know, an "unstable" package in any way, shape or form including by debian's own definitions and packaging. But they are not available choices on the installation media.
Also, you need to remember perspective, here. Someone was on here touting debian and I pointed out why it did not work for me. I also mentioned several times that I do use a different distro. I am using Linux right now because it is my main OS. I am not using debian because it is essentially useless, and I explained why.
It would be simple for these problems to be fixed and they would not break what debian claims to stand for. However, the response instead is "stop picking on my distro!" or "we know it sucks, but if you don't like it you can shove it." Which is fine, but it is not a way to run anything.
You keep mentioning "doing the work and research." Do you realize that in order to fix this problem I would have had to install a different distribution and build my own installation media? None of that is beyond my capabilities, but why the hell would I do that? If I had to install a different distribution in order to get a working computer and therefore be able to create installation media, why would I choose debian? You do understand what an operating system is for, right? It is the software that makes your computer run and allows you to run applications. Why would I install something that does not fulfill this most basic requirement of an OS?
Heck, while I am at it, making distribution installation cds, why don't I go all-out and make my own distribution? After all, I'm already compiling a custom installation kernel and building new installation media, why not go the rest of the way?
My point is that whereas the debian maintainers are perfectl
Posters, too, are good for theatres. And someone mentioned flyers. I used to have a small business, and was able to promote it with free posters fairly decently.
$780,000 for 78 phone calls? This is waaay too harsh. Let's say that a programmer makes an innocent mistake which causes 50% of the DNC list to not work properly. Can you imagine how much money that would cost? If we continue to pass laws like this, businesses will find it increasingly hard to conduct business here in the US, and the recession we're just coming out of will seem like heaven.
Telemarketing is not "conducting business." Telemarketing is fraud and harassment, pure and simple, and should be outlawed outright. Of course Congress is too much a weinie (or rather too beholden to telemarketing companies) to do what is right, so we hav ethe namby pamby laws we have now.
It has to come from some manager's budget... he definitely won't be getting a bonus.
Plus, they most likely did not get $780,000 in returns from those calls. A part of the business that is bleeding money, with no real anticipated return is likely to be cut off.
Well for me the most annoying part of this story is that they made 78 calls to 29 people. That's right, not only did these people go to dnc.gov and put themselves on the Do Not Call List, but when AT&T called them they asked not to be called again, and yet AT&T made damn sure to call them at least once and in some cases twice more. Personally, I think AT&T deserves 10 times the fine at the very least for pulling a boner like that, but I'd say you are correct that AT&T probably did not make money on these calls:).
For those who don't get it: technically speaking, calling someone on the DNC list isn't a felony, it's a civil infraction.
No I think the poster was referring to the fact that many telemarketers are incarcerated when they are calling you. In other words, prisoners are employed by telemarketing companies. Also, since it is exceedingly difficult for felons to get normal jobs and trivial to get a telemarketing job it is not surprising how many not-currently-incarcerated felons are likewise working as telemarketers.
there is really nothing wrong with this either. if you pay for a location (or someone pays it for you) then i shouldn't have any right to interupt your interacions there because i don't like the clothes you were or your suv parked in the drivway. on the other hand i can stand safley away from you and hold a sign stating those beliefs as long as i don't interfere with your rites.
Perhaps you are under some illusion that the federal (and when he was governor, state) budget is from Bush's personal fortune. That's alright, he s under the same illusion. But that is not the case. Tax dollars come from the public, and belong to the public. Even when the Government takes this money it does not cease to be ours because the idea is that they are to spend it on things the majority agree are best.
Bush prevented protesters from using public areas which are paid for by tax dollars to protest. He was the first to formalize this by creating "free speech zones." He was the first governor of Texas and the first US President to publicly and forever ban protesters from coming near capitol buildings and his speeches.
Excellent point. Mao is hardly known to people, as is Chang. You bring up either and you get blank stares for the most part.
In the US, and mainly because people in the US sleep in History class particularly because it is purposefully made boring and cast as irrelevant. If anyone knows about Ghandi in the US it is either because they paid attention in history class or because everybody and their brother wants you to believe they are Ghandi when they start preaching on CNN.
" Um, the only thing *civilized* governments fear is people in the streets (not a correction to the quote, a correction to the idea). Take China, for instance. People marched in the street, and even stood up to tanks. Then they got mowed down by machine gun fire and were run over by the tanks. "
Actually it sounds to me as if the Chinese government was very afraid, why else massacre the marchers? Unfortunately I don't have the information to know if those peoples deaths led to the chinese government trying to improve the situation so the same thing wouldn't happen again, or if fact if it caused them to tighten their grip so the same thing wouldn't happen again. One thing I do know is that the chinese government was truly afraid and I suspect they were extremely fortunate that they didn't lose power. You can fight a person, you can fight a group of people, you can even fight a large march as the chinese government showed, but what happens when you have to fight an entire city or even a nation? I strongly suspect if the protest had spread just a little more widely then China would be a very different place today. No the Chinese government was definately afraid.
I agree that they were afraid, but as far as improving things, I would say they made things even worse. First they hunted down all those dissidents, even when they fled to Hong Kong. China getting Hong Kong back helped a lot. They made sure everyone knew that they had been put into prison at hard labour.
They also made sure that it was understood that the US would do nothing to help them. Bush Sr gave China Most Favoured Nation status as a reward for the Tienanmen Square massacre. Clinton, who campaigned on the premise that he would reverse that and be tougher on China accepted milions of dollars from the Chinese government, continued Bush Sr's program of giving China military technology, and went on a speaking tour in China in which it was publicly announced that he had been ordered by Beijing that he not say the word freedom or speak of it. To celebrate Clinton's coming the Beijing government executed four dissidents and made hay of the fact Clinton said nothing against it. It should also be noted that many of these dissidents tried to come to the US and were denied visas.
The students in Tienanmen square only wanted minor reform to the existing government. They were not even asking for real freedom or democracy, and they got mowed down and then hunted to extinction. If anything, especially because of collusion from sympathetic "leaders" in the US who agree with their ideology and methods, the Beijing government is more powerful today than before.
It may also be worth noting that the american constitution has a way to change leadership reletivly easily. This process weather or not flawed in operation basically takes on the point of revolution. Also the military personel take an aoth to uphold the constitution (in a matter of ways) so if the political powers decided no tot step down, it may be possible that the colums of military might be marching on the side of the revolution. Of course the revolutionaries would need a good reson for it. until that reason is understood by the majority of people, they would be considered terrorist or some other type of criminal.
Of course, the president and congress swear an oath to the constitution but it doesn't stop them passing laws they admit publicly are unconstitutional. The German army swore an oath to the constitution but they broke it for Hitler. Hopefully the US Military are better.
and kalishnakovs per household. I know few people that own guns, (I live in the city) and know nobody that has an assult rifle. Grandparent should back up statistics that gun ownership in the US is higher than Iraq.
Lots of gun owners own kalishnakovs and other assault rifles. Of course, Bush Sr and Clinton fought to reduce these numbers. However, the guy further up that claimed that gun owners were untrained is an idiot. Firstly, most gun owners practice regularly with their guns. Secondly, many are veterans or current military and were certainly trained. Then you have the militias to contend with.
Suffice it to say if there were conditions in the United States which called for revolution, there would be a literal army of already trained potential guerrillas and terrorists ready for action. Then there are the gangs to consider. Part of the problem we are having in Iraq now is the gangs who Saddam kept in check now coming out of the woodwork to consolidate their power.
Maybe they should have blocked the ones sending out SPAM, instead of everybody! Do you honestly think that innocent companies and individuals should be punished? Oh, and without notice by the way.
The ISP is not innocent; it is their job to enforce policies and to be a good citizen on the net. Unfortunately to block an ISP you do block customers by extension, but this is the only way to get ISPs to do something.
" Yes, most of the time those 2 issues are no longer a big deal on the PS2 but it took a lot of developer cleverness to do it."
The worst thing about the ps2's three cpu's is that they are a bitch to program for and everything requires cleverness.
Actually, I consider this a good thing. Do you really want non-clever programmers writing the software for your platform? That's the way Microsoft went and look where it landed them! The whole OS and all the applications are written by script kiddies!
"oh wait, we have no Windows 2003 for the desktop - doh! Just missed an opportunity to sell a new round of OS upgrades - cr*p!"
That's why Longhorn is initially coming out for the desktop. Server will follow in a couple years when 2003 starts to fall off of support.
Besides, Windows Server 2003 is the server OS of the same generation as XP. In other words, they already did the same thning as longhorn in the XP space.
But, I stated that I like Debian primarily for server installs. I haven't deployed many three year old servers this year, so I haven't had the problem which seems to be vexing you. However, I would counsel my clients against installing a three year old box as a new server, particularly in view of the trivial cost of hardware. Debian is perfectly suited for this job.
Debian did not have drivers for the new hardware that I bought this year, either.
I also use Debian for one of my home boxes, and no, the install kernel didn't like my primary drive controller either, but I looked around the Debian site and got the information I needed to do the job, and I have a quite nice desktop out of the deal. But, I was willing to do the research and the work. If you aren't willing to do both of these, than you should reconsider which distribution you use.
I did the research and the work, and chose a source-based distribution which, incidentally, included an install kernel with all the drivers I needed. It's really not that hard to do this. A kernel compiled with all the drivers in the world will easily fit on an iso and by the time you are using an iso, you really should not worry about less than a megabyte of extra space.
On behalf of the Debian users who tell you to compile your own kernel, I will suggest perhaps you should be using a different distribution. Ours works just fine thanks, we all seem to get along with it, there are dozens of distributions out there, if the one I choose isn't cookie-cutter enough for you, try another. But please stop criticizing Debian for this, Debian has provided the information and tools to do the job. If you don't like how Debian does it, you have many options, the least welcome of which is crticizing Debian.
If you cannot take criticism on something that is truly wrong, your distribution will never get better. The whole point of this discussion which you seem to fail to understand is that the installation kernels available should be ready to access at least the minimum of common hardware such as common drive controllers and network cards. I am speaking here of via ide chipsets, intell, 3com, and realtek network cards, stuff like that. If the user cannot install the operating system how do you expect them to build a kernel? Again you profess that debian is magical. Astounding what zealotry can do.
And what if the code in the firewall is as lax as his code. Theoretically, it could all be imperfect. This is basically trying to put off the responsibility. I would agree with him in that you can write the best you can and someone will likely find a whole. But given MS's starting point, this is hardly a justification. Think of this: It was until Windows Server 2003 that things like unnescessary services and "Everyone Full-Control" was even addressed in Windows.
Oh I agree there is not perfect software; I just don't agree with the philosophy that the software is unimportant, or that you should not try to do it right the first time. I mean this is cs101 stuff, here. Maintenance is 80% of the software deployment cycle, so you try to reduce maintenance by doing things right in the design phase. Of course Microsoft does not use a design phase; this is the problem.
I think it is funny that they still design everything around a single-user desktop OS that does not run things without people being logged in even at the server level. You say theyhave fixed it with Windows Server 2003, but I will have to see, and besides, they need to fix things on the desktop as well. Even Microsoft's products need administrator privileges to run, at leats the first time no matter what youdo, and at random times thereafter by default, because they install stuff again and again. Office, for instance, runs an install for each user that logs in and requires admin privileges. IE wants to install activex controls every 5 seconds on the web.
Microsoft has no concept of privilege seperation, installing things as an administrator then runing them with least privilege, etc. They continually suffer from buffer overflows, probably because their libraries suck. (To be fair, Linux has a similar library problem which is why all of the applications that have clean security records also have libraries completely reimplemented from scratch).
I have heard developers say "security is a process, not a product." But that process should be part of the software development cycle from the deign phase on through the end.
And Fox News Channel has Al Sharpton and Bernie Sanders on as guests on a regular basis. I guess they're not right-wing nutjobs afterall.
Fox news only brings liberals on the show to ridicule them. The inclusion of Al Sharpton is a good example, as he is easy to make fun of. NO one who is left leaning and makes any sense will make it on the Fox news channel for very long, and no liberals with the exception of the token Alan Colmes (who isn't really a true leftist) actually work for the news channel or have shows.
So we are now forbidden to write anything thats ever been used before?
Thats really going to screw up a lot of society.
That reminds me of the South Park episode Simpsons Already Did It where basically the conclusion was that anything you can think of doing has already been done, probably on the Simpsons.
As much as I love the Simpsons, Matt Groening isn't above threatening to sue people for stupid reasons.
The whole Illegal Art project is pretty neat.
Bunnyhole had to destroy an entire run of their magazine because Groening threw a hissy fit. This really annoys me because I love the Simpsons and Futurama. Especially the parodies.
It's fine for Groening to parody other people, but don't parody him.
Actually, it is proof that Matt Groening is a slashbot. He has no concept of IP law and confuses trademarks with copyrights. Consider:
Although Groening personally apologized to Tolentino for the suit, he later defended his actions in a Mother Jones interview (May 1999), saying, "If I don't vigorously pursue my copyright, then other people can steal it."
IANAL, but I do know you do not have to sue everyone for copyright violations to retain copyright as you do with trademarks. Besides, parody is neither a copyright nor a trademark violation. Oh well, at least he will read your post!
Slashdot Mirror
Ahem. It is Gandhi. Who is sleeping in history class?
I was sleeping on my keyboard at work when I wrote that.. honest! :P
I'm sorry, in what way is telemarketing fraud?
Telemarketing is fraud because there are no legitemate services advertised in this way. Even the long distance carriers routinely commit fraud by claiming to have one plan when they talk to you and charging you something completely different when you join. If you complain you have no proof because you did not sign a normal paper contract (or internet contract) and the only records of what you were told, if any, are held by the telemarketing company. Even if you were somehow able to prove what was told you without being put in jail for illegal wiretapping the company would just claim it was a temp who they fired, etc.
Most of the telemarketers calling you are calling for some phony scam. They want your credit card number so they can run up a bill and leave the country or sell it on the black market. A good number are "charities" that keep the money sent them. This is one reason I am especially steamed about the exemption for charities and surveys in the US DNC list. Those are the prime offenders for fraud, and besides the "surveys" are usually a thinly veiled sales pitch or a plea for a donation to $politicalparty or $charity. It would be bad enough if the money even went there, but again these are generally scams which operate to take your money.
Let's face it. If someone is calling people up at random asking for their credit card numbers, they are probably a scam artist, pure and simple. A legitemate business does not have to do that, so they are already up to something shady. They are not willing to be honest with you and deal with you on an even footing, because what they promise you cannot be recorded or enforced and what you give them is certainly enforced. This "industry" is rife with what even the prosecuting attorneys of this country would agree is outright fraud and in my view the lot is fraud.
Then there is the really seedy area of the business, which is the same as spamming. This is where companies build, buy, and sell lists of victims^wcustomers to call and/or the dubious service of calling them on the behalf of $company. This is where the real money in spamming and telemarketing is and the real reason companies are trying to preserve it. They don't have to sell a single thing, they don't even have to have anything to sell and they still make money *legally* because their "product" is bothering you during your slumber/dinner/work. This in my view is also fraud masquerading as business.
I don't understand -- I've never met any USian who did not know Mao. Hm, excepting children.
Usians alive in the 50s and 60s know Mao because he was alive and on the news then. He was very much on people's minds at the time. People born in the 70s are far less likely to know or care about Mao, and those born in the 80s less so.
" >> Suffice it to say if there were conditions in the United States which called for revolution, there would be a literal army of already trained potential guerrillas and terrorists ready for action.
"
In the event of conditions calling for revolution gun owners will shack themselves up in an orgy of panic and self-congratulation that will do the country no good. With the EFF filing suit against Diebold which controls the election process, I could argue conditions already are. Gun owners are such because they think guns will enhance their personal safety or they just like guns. Only kooks have delusions about winning revolutions with (private) guns in these times. In this country, that is. Afghanistan is another matter.
One might argue that many gun owners would not be too upset about Diebold since they are fixing the race for Republicans and Republicans are falsely associated with supporting gun rights. When 9/11 generated a furor over terrorism, reporters asked Bush what had become of the domestic terrorists so prevalent during the Clinton years, such as the militias, the Timothy McVeighs, etc. Bush commented rightly that the militias have grown strangely quiet. I think it is because they believe his regime represents their agenda fairly closely.
You may feel the time is right for revolution because you see that rights are being trampled which you care about and do not agree with the direction of government. But for it to happen, a significant number of people have to feel that way and feel that there is no alternative.
I personally feel that a revolution is in order that does not require the use of arms. I think that the Internet is a medium through which democracy can be revived and preserved forever. There are obviously some who oppose democracy and feel the same way, thus the attacks on the internet and technology. I think part of the plan with Diebold is to make sure people will not trust electronic elections, because they have potential to allow more people to vote and even replace the government with a direct democracy. That cannot be allowed to happen if the current brood are to retain power.
The problem with democracy is that once you give even a semblance of democracy to the people you open the door to change. If enough people can be convinced to go in a certain direction it does not matter what the oligarchy thinks anymore. They will be forced to yield to the will of the people. The Internet allows more people a voice, a way off expressing ideas to one another and gathering and disseminating information which cannot be controlled. The genie is out of the bottle.
"Maybe they (clarification for the clueless: "they" is a reference to the ISP Telia) should have blocked the ones sending out SPAM, instead of everybody!"
I hate to tell you doc, but based on context, the reference to "they" could have easily been interpreted as AOL -- even if Telia makes more sense. The followup response about the ISP not being innocent was in reference to Telia with the assumption that your previous reference to "they" meant AOL.
That is how I interpreted it, indeed. You have to be careful with vagaries like they. You could mean anything. Even the amorphous "they" that is responsible for world conspiracies, windows backdoors, and all the missing pencils. Or you could mean the underpants gnomes. I chose to interpret "they" in this context as meaning AOL. really! :)
No, I never claim Debian is magical, I do assert that rather than trashing Debian for not doing every job, choose the right distro for the job, or be willing to do the work required to make Debian do the job. Asking Debian to support all the newest drivers and features in antitheitcal to the best part of the Debian distro. Nothing is in Stable that hasn't been shown to work reliably. If I diverge from stable, wether in the install kernel or what have you, that's on my own head to handle. This is fine for me, but not for everyone. My essential point all along has been, rather than putting pressure on Debian to do something they have never claimed to do (support all the latest gee whizz stuff) pick a different distro. There are literally hundreds of distros, one of them will suit your particular purpose. So instead of wasting time and breath arguing with Debian, or their zealots, why don't you exercise the power of choice. After all, isn't that at the heart of Free software, freedom of choice. Debian has the freedom to be slow, cautious and methodical, you have the freedom to choose a different distro if that doesn't fulfill your needs. I sincerely hope that Debian doesn't fundamentally change this aspect of the distro. But, if they do, I WILL select a different distro. I WON'T pester Debian, or it's new zealots to change back to the old way. If the decision is made to change this, oh well, I'll have to reconsider my distro. Ultimately this is how it should be, if every distro tries to satisfy everyone all the time, each will fail. So rather than harping on the zealots, or criticizing Debian for what they don't do well, find another distro, it is that simple.
Ok, which is it that debian supports and to what purpose does it serve? I said it did not support my three year old hardware and you said it was too old. I said it didn't support new hardware and you said not to expect gee-whiz stuff. By the way I would have to say that Hard Disk Controllers are pretty important things to support, particularly extremely common hard disk controllers. And given that debian seems to suggest installing over the network as the best solution, it should support common network controllers.
Nothing I am suggesting is, as far as I know, an "unstable" package in any way, shape or form including by debian's own definitions and packaging. But they are not available choices on the installation media.
Also, you need to remember perspective, here. Someone was on here touting debian and I pointed out why it did not work for me. I also mentioned several times that I do use a different distro. I am using Linux right now because it is my main OS. I am not using debian because it is essentially useless, and I explained why.
It would be simple for these problems to be fixed and they would not break what debian claims to stand for. However, the response instead is "stop picking on my distro!" or "we know it sucks, but if you don't like it you can shove it." Which is fine, but it is not a way to run anything.
You keep mentioning "doing the work and research." Do you realize that in order to fix this problem I would have had to install a different distribution and build my own installation media? None of that is beyond my capabilities, but why the hell would I do that? If I had to install a different distribution in order to get a working computer and therefore be able to create installation media, why would I choose debian? You do understand what an operating system is for, right? It is the software that makes your computer run and allows you to run applications. Why would I install something that does not fulfill this most basic requirement of an OS?
Heck, while I am at it, making distribution installation cds, why don't I go all-out and make my own distribution? After all, I'm already compiling a custom installation kernel and building new installation media, why not go the rest of the way?
My point is that whereas the debian maintainers are perfectl
Posters, too, are good for theatres. And someone mentioned flyers. I used to have a small business, and was able to promote it with free posters fairly decently.
$780,000 for 78 phone calls? This is waaay too harsh. Let's say that a programmer makes an innocent mistake which causes 50% of the DNC list to not work properly. Can you imagine how much money that would cost? If we continue to pass laws like this, businesses will find it increasingly hard to conduct business here in the US, and the recession we're just coming out of will seem like heaven.
Telemarketing is not "conducting business." Telemarketing is fraud and harassment, pure and simple, and should be outlawed outright. Of course Congress is too much a weinie (or rather too beholden to telemarketing companies) to do what is right, so we hav ethe namby pamby laws we have now.
It has to come from some manager's budget... he definitely won't be getting a bonus.
Plus, they most likely did not get $780,000 in returns from those calls. A part of the business that is bleeding money, with no real anticipated return is likely to be cut off.
Well for me the most annoying part of this story is that they made 78 calls to 29 people. That's right, not only did these people go to dnc.gov and put themselves on the Do Not Call List, but when AT&T called them they asked not to be called again, and yet AT&T made damn sure to call them at least once and in some cases twice more. Personally, I think AT&T deserves 10 times the fine at the very least for pulling a boner like that, but I'd say you are correct that AT&T probably did not make money on these calls :).
Yes, I know you're joking about the "felon" part.
For those who don't get it: technically speaking, calling someone on the DNC list isn't a felony, it's a civil infraction.
No I think the poster was referring to the fact that many telemarketers are incarcerated when they are calling you. In other words, prisoners are employed by telemarketing companies. Also, since it is exceedingly difficult for felons to get normal jobs and trivial to get a telemarketing job it is not surprising how many not-currently-incarcerated felons are likewise working as telemarketers.
so follow along with a truck and a kill switch
In a race with 20 killer ai robot cars? Are you mad?!
there is really nothing wrong with this either. if you pay for a location (or someone pays it for you) then i shouldn't have any right to interupt your interacions there because i don't like the clothes you were or your suv parked in the drivway. on the other hand i can stand safley away from you and hold a sign stating those beliefs as long as i don't interfere with your rites.
Perhaps you are under some illusion that the federal (and when he was governor, state) budget is from Bush's personal fortune. That's alright, he s under the same illusion. But that is not the case. Tax dollars come from the public, and belong to the public. Even when the Government takes this money it does not cease to be ours because the idea is that they are to spend it on things the majority agree are best.
Bush prevented protesters from using public areas which are paid for by tax dollars to protest. He was the first to formalize this by creating "free speech zones." He was the first governor of Texas and the first US President to publicly and forever ban protesters from coming near capitol buildings and his speeches.
Excellent point. Mao is hardly known to people, as is Chang. You bring up either and you get blank stares for the most part.
In the US, and mainly because people in the US sleep in History class particularly because it is purposefully made boring and cast as irrelevant. If anyone knows about Ghandi in the US it is either because they paid attention in history class or because everybody and their brother wants you to believe they are Ghandi when they start preaching on CNN.
" Um, the only thing *civilized* governments fear is people in the streets (not a correction to the quote, a correction to the idea). Take China, for instance. People marched in the street, and even stood up to tanks. Then they got mowed down by machine gun fire and were run over by the tanks.
"
Actually it sounds to me as if the Chinese government was very afraid, why else massacre the marchers? Unfortunately I don't have the information to know if those peoples deaths led to the chinese government trying to improve the situation so the same thing wouldn't happen again, or if fact if it caused them to tighten their grip so the same thing wouldn't happen again. One thing I do know is that the chinese government was truly afraid and I suspect they were extremely fortunate that they didn't lose power. You can fight a person, you can fight a group of people, you can even fight a large march as the chinese government showed, but what happens when you have to fight an entire city or even a nation? I strongly suspect if the protest had spread just a little more widely then China would be a very different place today. No the Chinese government was definately afraid.
I agree that they were afraid, but as far as improving things, I would say they made things even worse. First they hunted down all those dissidents, even when they fled to Hong Kong. China getting Hong Kong back helped a lot. They made sure everyone knew that they had been put into prison at hard labour.
They also made sure that it was understood that the US would do nothing to help them. Bush Sr gave China Most Favoured Nation status as a reward for the Tienanmen Square massacre. Clinton, who campaigned on the premise that he would reverse that and be tougher on China accepted milions of dollars from the Chinese government, continued Bush Sr's program of giving China military technology, and went on a speaking tour in China in which it was publicly announced that he had been ordered by Beijing that he not say the word freedom or speak of it. To celebrate Clinton's coming the Beijing government executed four dissidents and made hay of the fact Clinton said nothing against it. It should also be noted that many of these dissidents tried to come to the US and were denied visas.
The students in Tienanmen square only wanted minor reform to the existing government. They were not even asking for real freedom or democracy, and they got mowed down and then hunted to extinction. If anything, especially because of collusion from sympathetic "leaders" in the US who agree with their ideology and methods, the Beijing government is more powerful today than before.
It may also be worth noting that the american constitution has a way to change leadership reletivly easily. This process weather or not flawed in operation basically takes on the point of revolution. Also the military personel take an aoth to uphold the constitution (in a matter of ways) so if the political powers decided no tot step down, it may be possible that the colums of military might be marching on the side of the revolution. Of course the revolutionaries would need a good reson for it. until that reason is understood by the majority of people, they would be considered terrorist or some other type of criminal.
Of course, the president and congress swear an oath to the constitution but it doesn't stop them passing laws they admit publicly are unconstitutional. The German army swore an oath to the constitution but they broke it for Hitler. Hopefully the US Military are better.
and kalishnakovs per household. I know few people that own guns, (I live in the city) and know nobody that has an assult rifle. Grandparent should back up statistics that gun ownership in the US is higher than Iraq.
Lots of gun owners own kalishnakovs and other assault rifles. Of course, Bush Sr and Clinton fought to reduce these numbers. However, the guy further up that claimed that gun owners were untrained is an idiot. Firstly, most gun owners practice regularly with their guns. Secondly, many are veterans or current military and were certainly trained. Then you have the militias to contend with.
Suffice it to say if there were conditions in the United States which called for revolution, there would be a literal army of already trained potential guerrillas and terrorists ready for action. Then there are the gangs to consider. Part of the problem we are having in Iraq now is the gangs who Saddam kept in check now coming out of the woodwork to consolidate their power.
Maybe they should have blocked the ones sending out SPAM, instead of everybody! Do you honestly think that innocent companies and individuals should be punished? Oh, and without notice by the way.
The ISP is not innocent; it is their job to enforce policies and to be a good citizen on the net. Unfortunately to block an ISP you do block customers by extension, but this is the only way to get ISPs to do something.
these lame "jokes" are really getting old. why don't you use the four brain cells you have left for something more productive?
It's not a joke, though Outlook is. The parent post was +5 informative in my book. :)
" Yes, most of the time those 2 issues are no longer a big deal on the PS2 but it took a lot of developer cleverness to do it."
The worst thing about the ps2's three cpu's is that they are a bitch to program for and everything requires cleverness.
Actually, I consider this a good thing. Do you really want non-clever programmers writing the software for your platform? That's the way Microsoft went and look where it landed them! The whole OS and all the applications are written by script kiddies!
"oh wait, we have no Windows 2003 for the desktop - doh! Just missed an opportunity to sell a new round of OS upgrades - cr*p!"
That's why Longhorn is initially coming out for the desktop. Server will follow in a couple years when 2003 starts to fall off of support.
Besides, Windows Server 2003 is the server OS of the same generation as XP. In other words, they already did the same thning as longhorn in the XP space.
But, I stated that I like Debian primarily for server installs. I haven't deployed many three year old servers this year, so I haven't had the problem which seems to be vexing you. However, I would counsel my clients against installing a three year old box as a new server, particularly in view of the trivial cost of hardware. Debian is perfectly suited for this job.
Debian did not have drivers for the new hardware that I bought this year, either.
I also use Debian for one of my home boxes, and no, the install kernel didn't like my primary drive controller either, but I looked around the Debian site and got the information I needed to do the job, and I have a quite nice desktop out of the deal. But, I was willing to do the research and the work. If you aren't willing to do both of these, than you should reconsider which distribution you use.
I did the research and the work, and chose a source-based distribution which, incidentally, included an install kernel with all the drivers I needed. It's really not that hard to do this. A kernel compiled with all the drivers in the world will easily fit on an iso and by the time you are using an iso, you really should not worry about less than a megabyte of extra space.
On behalf of the Debian users who tell you to compile your own kernel, I will suggest perhaps you should be using a different distribution. Ours works just fine thanks, we all seem to get along with it, there are dozens of distributions out there, if the one I choose isn't cookie-cutter enough for you, try another. But please stop criticizing Debian for this, Debian has provided the information and tools to do the job. If you don't like how Debian does it, you have many options, the least welcome of which is crticizing Debian.
If you cannot take criticism on something that is truly wrong, your distribution will never get better. The whole point of this discussion which you seem to fail to understand is that the installation kernels available should be ready to access at least the minimum of common hardware such as common drive controllers and network cards. I am speaking here of via ide chipsets, intell, 3com, and realtek network cards, stuff like that. If the user cannot install the operating system how do you expect them to build a kernel? Again you profess that debian is magical. Astounding what zealotry can do.
And what if the code in the firewall is as lax as his code. Theoretically, it could all be imperfect. This is basically trying to put off the responsibility. I would agree with him in that you can write the best you can and someone will likely find a whole. But given MS's starting point, this is hardly a justification. Think of this: It was until Windows Server 2003 that things like unnescessary services and "Everyone Full-Control" was even addressed in Windows.
Oh I agree there is not perfect software; I just don't agree with the philosophy that the software is unimportant, or that you should not try to do it right the first time. I mean this is cs101 stuff, here. Maintenance is 80% of the software deployment cycle, so you try to reduce maintenance by doing things right in the design phase. Of course Microsoft does not use a design phase; this is the problem.
I think it is funny that they still design everything around a single-user desktop OS that does not run things without people being logged in even at the server level. You say theyhave fixed it with Windows Server 2003, but I will have to see, and besides, they need to fix things on the desktop as well. Even Microsoft's products need administrator privileges to run, at leats the first time no matter what youdo, and at random times thereafter by default, because they install stuff again and again. Office, for instance, runs an install for each user that logs in and requires admin privileges. IE wants to install activex controls every 5 seconds on the web.
Microsoft has no concept of privilege seperation, installing things as an administrator then runing them with least privilege, etc. They continually suffer from buffer overflows, probably because their libraries suck. (To be fair, Linux has a similar library problem which is why all of the applications that have clean security records also have libraries completely reimplemented from scratch).
I have heard developers say "security is a process, not a product." But that process should be part of the software development cycle from the deign phase on through the end.
And Fox News Channel has Al Sharpton and Bernie Sanders on as guests on a regular basis. I guess they're not right-wing nutjobs afterall.
Fox news only brings liberals on the show to ridicule them. The inclusion of Al Sharpton is a good example, as he is easy to make fun of. NO one who is left leaning and makes any sense will make it on the Fox news channel for very long, and no liberals with the exception of the token Alan Colmes (who isn't really a true leftist) actually work for the news channel or have shows.
Hold on..
So we are now forbidden to write anything thats ever been used before?
Thats really going to screw up a lot of society.
That reminds me of the South Park episode Simpsons Already Did It where basically the conclusion was that anything you can think of doing has already been done, probably on the Simpsons.
As much as I love the Simpsons, Matt Groening isn't above threatening to sue people for stupid reasons.
The whole Illegal Art project is pretty neat.
Bunnyhole had to destroy an entire run of their magazine because Groening threw a hissy fit. This really annoys me because I love the Simpsons and Futurama. Especially the parodies.
It's fine for Groening to parody other people, but don't parody him.
Actually, it is proof that Matt Groening is a slashbot. He has no concept of IP law and confuses trademarks with copyrights. Consider:
Although Groening personally apologized to Tolentino for the suit, he later defended his actions in a Mother Jones interview (May 1999), saying, "If I don't vigorously pursue my copyright, then other people can steal it."
IANAL, but I do know you do not have to sue everyone for copyright violations to retain copyright as you do with trademarks. Besides, parody is neither a copyright nor a trademark violation. Oh well, at least he will read your post!