I think its ludicrous of Labour to propose spending $4 billion of my hard earned tax dollars wiring up people who probably voted for the government to wash their hands of the telecoms market.
it's not 4 billion of your hard-earned tax dollars.
it's 4.7 billion dollars from the proceeds of the sale of Telstra (you remember the T3 float, don't you?)
personally, i think that the infrastructure should have been split off from Telstra before it was privatised, but what's done is done.....and i don't think that it's at all unreasonable for some of the proceeds of the sale of our ex-public telco being used to fund public telecommunications infrastructure.
1. using infra-red for cooking isnt exactly non-obvious. infra-red lamps/heaters may have been new tech in the 1960s but they're basic stuff these days. this gives an unfair advantage to the first person to make a product (a grill heater) out of someone else's invention (infrared lamp).
patents should be real inventions, basic research, not for something as obvious as putting parts together.
2. if patents are only 20 years (i thought it was meant to be 17 years), and the "invention" was in the 1960s, why is the patent only expiring now? this would, on the fact of it, appear to be an ever-greening abuse of the patent system, to extend a 20 year patent to approx 40 years.
as in why would anyone want to swap fast native apps running in local memory out of local disk for slow, bloated web apps running on a remote server over slow internet bandwidth, possibly on an overloaded server?
just as significantly, why would anyone want to store their documents on someone else's server, outside of their control?
And if you think reading the Bible is enough to learn church doctrine, for ANY Christian church, you have been misinformed.
yeah, you need church officials to tell you which bits of it are the literal word of god, and which bits of it you should just silently ignore because they're inconvenient or embarassing. you also need them to tell you other things which are also the literal word of god even though they're not actually in the bible, or are contradicted by the bible. and you also need them to explain how they're not just making shit up to serve their own interests as you might naively suspect if you didn't have the benefit of their wisdom to show you the truth.
otherwise, for example, you might make the mistake of thinking that lending money for interest is a sin just because the bible says it is. when clearly that is an archaic and old-fashioned way of thinking.
this is just another instance of the Fallacy of Ubiquity - i.e. the claim that the reason why Microsoft Windows has so many viruses, trojans, etc is that it is ubiquitous....this is a bald-faced lie perpetrated by MS shills.
the actual reason why Microsoft programs have so much malware targetting them is because they are insecure pieces of crap that are trivially easy to exploit.
> > [...] that we don't stand for this sort of garbage > [...] We not only do stand it, we appear to prefer it. > I'm surprised it's taken the world this long to figure it out.
actually, we're surprised that it's taken you so long to figure it out. we've known it for decades. it's obvious to anyone who looks.
that article was obviously written by someone with a vested interest in web-bugs and other marketing spyware.
the magazine industry has always been advertising-funded, and has thus always been in bed with marketing vermin.
'don't protect yourself from our snooping! it's too hard! and not worth the hassle! honest, you can trust us"
the biased dismissals of Adblock Plus and Greasemonkey share the same motivation.
IMO, NoScript and Adblock Plus are the two MUST-HAVE firefox add-ons. i wouldn't use FF without them. and the fact that they exist is reason enough to choose FF over all other browsers.
> I think you're trolling, you can count the number of servers you admin on one hand, or you're inexperienced.
wrong on all three counts. i've admined hundreds of servers for over 10 years.
> You might say it's because I'm a lazy slob, I might say it's because I have several hundred machines
so? that's not unusual.
apt-get install kernel-package
(i'll presume you already have ssh installed for scp and dont need to install it)
> While groups of them are the same (6 here, 12 there, etc.), it'd be absurd to even consider what you're suggesting
it's not difficult. you just need to manage your kernel.config files. copy them in and out of/usr/local/src/linux as required, and use "make oldconfig" to answer any new/changed questions in newer kernels, and keep copies of each config for each machine/kernel-version combo. e.g. cp.config../CONFIGS/config.machine.version
> not to mention the insanity a security update could bring.
you mean you let apt upgrade your kernel automatically? that's not just lazy and slobbish, that's cretinously negligent.
the main reason to compile custom kernels for machines is not for size or speed, it's so that you, as sysadmin, know exactly what is compiled into that kernel.
> When you start with Linux, you use the stock kernel, because it is easily available and works. > When you gain experience, you start to compile your own.
so far, so good. reasonably accurate.
> When you become a professional sysadmin, you use the stock kernels, because they are easily available and work.
no, that's when you've become a lazy slob. don't project your faults onto others.
real professional sysadmins compile a custom kernel that is perfectly suited to the particular server, with exactly the drivers it needs either compiled in or as loadable modules....plus a bunch of extra network card etc drivers compiled in as modules in case they're needed for an emergency replacement if a NIC dies (i.e. drivers for whatever's common and/or cheap and available from any computer shop in an emergency...doesn't matter if it sucks, as long as you can get the machine running quickly while you get the real card replaced).
> It's like the US, except you call the loser of the election 'Mister President'...
to be fair, that's just an experimental new method they've been trialing for the last few elections. they'll probably realise their mistake and discard it soon enough.
> The problem with your reasoning, though, is that many people don't believe the RIAA would win in court > (most of the time), and I don't think the RIAA is too confident either. They are basing entire lawsuits > on a single IP address with little more to go on, and some of their methods are very questionable
precisely.
the real problem with the RIAA lawsuits is the abysmal standard of evidence. all they have is an IP address and maybe a filename.
they don't even bother to prove:
1. that the IP address is, or can be, directly associated to a specific individual at a specific time 2. that their systems' clocks are in sync with the clocks of the ISPs they have subpoenad for id details 3. that the person whom the ISP records identifies as being logged in on that IP at that time actually *IS* the person who was using that IP at that time, and not someone else who had access to the computer or who had hacked their account 4. that the filename accurately reflected the contents of the file (i.e. that the file actually contained copyrighted material belonging to their clients)
all they do is say "someone downloaded a file called WHATEVER at such-and-such a time, on x.x.x.x IP address". that's nowhere near enough to even establish that an infringement has actually occurred, let alone that a particular individual was responsible.
in most courts, such shoddy evidence gathering wouldn't stand up for even a minute. unfortunately, because it's about "computer stuff", some judges and some courts are bamboozled into ignoring or over-riding their usual rules of evidence. end-result: mere accusation is proof of guilt.
why so complicated? all you need is a cron job that runs "HEAD http://your.server/HERE_I_AM >/dev/null 2>&1", every hour or so.
alternatively, instead of fetching the non-existing "HERE_I_AM", make it fetch a cgi script which logs everything that's sent to it...then the cron-job can send more details in a POST request if necessary (can't see that anything more than an IP address would be that useful, though).
then if your laptop gets stolen, grep your apache logs to get the IP address.
...a whole bunch of visual basic weenies porting their crapware to linux.
watch out for the flood of non-designed, badly implemented crap software written by people who think that writing spreadsheet macros is a genius-level accomplishment.
most businesses are better off with linux desktops than windows desktops. staff can run word processors, spreadsheets, email clients, web browsers and other standard applications. without the viruses, trojans, keyloggers, botnets, spamware, spyware and other malware. and the system will be locked down, so that the users can't install games, stupid screensavers and other crap that either make the system unstable or are a vector for virus/trojan infection or both.
there's also gnucash, sql ledger, and other financial applications. or Crossover Office if they really need to run MYOB or Quickbooks (dunno if they run on Wine yet).
then their office computer will be an appliance for actually doing work, rather than a toy for wasting time and fiddling with the settings.
gamers might need windows because of the huge range of games available for windows. office workers don't.
what do you expect when you leave your email in someone else's control?
if you don't want your email to be at risk of someone else's policies (or accidents) then either run your own mail server or regularly download your mail and save it on your own machine.
if the recipient didn't explicitly ask for it, or sign up for it, then it's spam - regardless of whether you (as the sender) think it's legitimate or not.
OTOH, if the recipient did ask for it, then it's NOT spam, regardless of the content - and regardless of whether or not they're a moron who forgot that they subscribed.
spam is an issue of CONSENT, not CONTENT.
Capitalism needs marketing
so? that's not an excuse for inflicting unwanted advertising on people. why does someone else's business need translate to ME having to bear the burden and expense of THEIR marketing?
Well, obviously you are a special kind of idiot. The kind who thinks it OK that people should have to register and report on any comms they have w/ elected officials.
actually, you've just demonstrated that YOU'RE a special kind of idiot - the kind that thinks that companies and corporations and other organisations are PEOPLE, and that they should have the same rights and priviledges as people.
that is *precisely* what has led to the fucked up condition that the world is currently in, the corporate fascist state.
companies, corporations and other kinds of organised lobbyists should have to register. individual people, acting on their own behalf, shouldn't.
and i mean *ALL* organisations, every single one of them that lobbies govt or comments on political issues (explicitly not just the ones i disagree with). like i said, knowledge of the speaker's agenda or bias is ESSENTIAL to making informed decisions.
Think about it for a minute. Elected officials work for us, not vice versa.
yes, they should be working for *people*, not for corporate lobbyists. which is precisely why organised lobbying and influence needs to be exposed to public scrutiny.
even if it does apply to you (and i still have doubts about that), so what?
it doesn't STOP you from saying whatever you want to say. it just means that you have to identify yourself and your bias.
or do you have a problem with your audience knowing that you're not just a disinterested neutral bystander, that you actually have some kind of agenda?
disclosure of potential bias or agenda is an ESSENTIAL component in informed decision making.
The person on staff at any organization who is responsible for maintaining email lists and crafting messaging is going to make more than 25k per year
the deciding issue (in the defeated bill) was "what proportion of their paid time is devoted to lobbying/propaganda"? if that proportion amounts to less than $25K/year then you wouldn't have had to register.
you're being panicked into supporting something that suits highly-paid professional astro-turfers who have run a successful campaign to convince you that a bill designed to force them to declare their bias will also apply to you (even though the wording of the bill makes it plain that it doesn't and wont).
Free, by definition, means without regulation or restriction. By definition, if you support regulating speech, you are against freedom of speech. It is only freedom of speech, if it is absolute or unconditional. Period. End of story.
you know, not everyone agrees with your fuckwit's definition of freedom. without restriction, certainly. without regulation is just bullshit that simpletons like you think is an essential requirement.
No one should have to reveal anything, or justify anything, or report anything, or licence anything, in order to speak their mind. People should be able to promote any political idea, when they want, how they want, for who they want, and the facists like you should keep your evil hands out of it!
if you're a lobbyist, then you certainly should declare your bias.
if you comment on any issue in which you have a financial or other interest, then you should also declare your interest.
your audience has a right to know what possible biases you have. failing to declare them is lying.
If I have to fill out a form to get freedom of speech, I don't have speech. If I need a licence to run a blog, it means the government can revoke my licence if it doesn't like what I say, based on some obscure technicality. Screw that!
yes, yes, get hysterical about absurdly exaggerated scenarios. with luck, nobody will notice that your scenarios are just made up bullshit and may end up being convinced by your shrill bleating.
Slashdot Mirror
it's not 4 billion of your hard-earned tax dollars.
it's 4.7 billion dollars from the proceeds of the sale of Telstra (you remember the T3 float, don't you?)
personally, i think that the infrastructure should have been split off from Telstra before it was privatised, but what's done is done.....and i don't think that it's at all unreasonable for some of the proceeds of the sale of our ex-public telco being used to fund public telecommunications infrastructure.
1. using infra-red for cooking isnt exactly non-obvious. infra-red lamps/heaters may have been new tech in the 1960s but they're basic stuff these days.
this gives an unfair advantage to the first person to make a product (a grill heater) out of someone else's invention (infrared lamp).
patents should be real inventions, basic research, not for something as obvious as putting parts together.
2. if patents are only 20 years (i thought it was meant to be 17 years), and the "invention" was in the 1960s, why is the patent only expiring now? this would, on the fact of it, appear to be an ever-greening abuse of the patent system, to extend a 20 year patent to approx 40 years.
> What is the sound of a bluescreen crashing alone while everybody uses Linux instead ?
If nobody uses MS Windows, does it still crash?
....is "Why?"
as in why would anyone want to swap fast native apps running in local memory out of local disk for slow, bloated web apps running on a remote server over slow internet bandwidth, possibly on an overloaded server?
just as significantly, why would anyone want to store their documents on someone else's server, outside of their control?
yeah, you need church officials to tell you which bits of it are the literal word of god, and which bits of it you should just silently ignore because they're inconvenient or embarassing. you also need them to tell you other things which are also the literal word of god even though they're not actually in the bible, or are contradicted by the bible. and you also need them to explain how they're not just making shit up to serve their own interests as you might naively suspect if you didn't have the benefit of their wisdom to show you the truth.
otherwise, for example, you might make the mistake of thinking that lending money for interest is a sin just because the bible says it is. when clearly that is an archaic and old-fashioned way of thinking.
this is just another instance of the Fallacy of Ubiquity - i.e. the claim that the reason why Microsoft Windows has so many viruses, trojans, etc is that it is ubiquitous....this is a bald-faced lie perpetrated by MS shills.
the actual reason why Microsoft programs have so much malware targetting them is because they are insecure pieces of crap that are trivially easy to exploit.
> Microsoft is to viruses/trojans as Europe was to the Black Plague
s/Europe/rat fleas/
they're the carrier, not the victim.
> > [...] that we don't stand for this sort of garbage
> [...] We not only do stand it, we appear to prefer it.
> I'm surprised it's taken the world this long to figure it out.
actually, we're surprised that it's taken you so long to figure it out. we've known it for decades. it's obvious to anyone who looks.
NoScript not worth the hassle?
that article was obviously written by someone with a vested interest in web-bugs and other marketing spyware.
the magazine industry has always been advertising-funded, and has thus always been in bed with marketing vermin.
'don't protect yourself from our snooping! it's too hard! and not worth the hassle! honest, you can trust us"
the biased dismissals of Adblock Plus and Greasemonkey share the same motivation.
IMO, NoScript and Adblock Plus are the two MUST-HAVE firefox add-ons. i wouldn't use FF without them. and the fact that they exist is reason enough to choose FF over all other browsers.
> I think you're trolling, you can count the number of servers you admin on one hand, or you're inexperienced.
.config files. copy them in and out of /usr/local/src/linux as required, and use "make oldconfig" to answer any new/changed questions in newer kernels, and keep copies of each config for each machine/kernel-version combo. e.g. cp .config ../CONFIGS/config.machine.version
wrong on all three counts. i've admined hundreds of servers for over 10 years.
> You might say it's because I'm a lazy slob, I might say it's because I have several hundred machines
so? that's not unusual.
apt-get install kernel-package
(i'll presume you already have ssh installed for scp and dont need to install it)
> While groups of them are the same (6 here, 12 there, etc.), it'd be absurd to even consider what you're suggesting
it's not difficult. you just need to manage your kernel
> not to mention the insanity a security update could bring.
you mean you let apt upgrade your kernel automatically? that's not just lazy and slobbish, that's cretinously negligent.
the main reason to compile custom kernels for machines is not for size or speed, it's so that you, as sysadmin, know exactly what is compiled into that kernel.
> When you start with Linux, you use the stock kernel, because it is easily available and works.
> When you gain experience, you start to compile your own.
so far, so good. reasonably accurate.
> When you become a professional sysadmin, you use the stock kernels, because they are easily available and work.
no, that's when you've become a lazy slob. don't project your faults onto others.
real professional sysadmins compile a custom kernel that is perfectly suited to the particular server, with exactly the drivers it needs either compiled in or as loadable modules....plus a bunch of extra network card etc drivers compiled in as modules in case they're needed for an emergency replacement if a NIC dies (i.e. drivers for whatever's common and/or cheap and available from any computer shop in an emergency...doesn't matter if it sucks, as long as you can get the machine running quickly while you get the real card replaced).
> It's like the US, except you call the loser of the election 'Mister President'...
to be fair, that's just an experimental new method they've been trialing for the last few elections. they'll probably realise their mistake and discard it soon enough.
you obviously haven't been paying attention for at least the last 4 years.
linux has applications. plenty of them. just about every application that any office computer user could need.
what it doesn't have is games. or, at least, not many of them.
for some people (home users and gamers mostly), that matters. for office workers, it doesn't - or shouldn't.
> The problem with your reasoning, though, is that many people don't believe the RIAA would win in court
> (most of the time), and I don't think the RIAA is too confident either. They are basing entire lawsuits
> on a single IP address with little more to go on, and some of their methods are very questionable
precisely.
the real problem with the RIAA lawsuits is the abysmal standard of evidence. all they have is an IP address and maybe a filename.
they don't even bother to prove:
1. that the IP address is, or can be, directly associated to a specific individual at a specific time
2. that their systems' clocks are in sync with the clocks of the ISPs they have subpoenad for id details
3. that the person whom the ISP records identifies as being logged in on that IP at that time actually *IS* the person who was using that IP at that time, and not someone else who had access to the computer or who had hacked their account
4. that the filename accurately reflected the contents of the file (i.e. that the file actually contained copyrighted material belonging to their clients)
all they do is say "someone downloaded a file called WHATEVER at such-and-such a time, on x.x.x.x IP address". that's nowhere near enough to even establish that an infringement has actually occurred, let alone that a particular individual was responsible.
in most courts, such shoddy evidence gathering wouldn't stand up for even a minute. unfortunately, because it's about "computer stuff", some judges and some courts are bamboozled into ignoring or over-riding their usual rules of evidence. end-result: mere accusation is proof of guilt.
let's hope they bother to distinguish between cybersquatters and individuals who happen to own a domain they want (or a domain they don't like).
it might have been "cute" and "well done", but it certainly wasn't "funny".
"repulsive" was the first word that occurred to me when i saw it on TV.
why so complicated? all you need is a cron job that runs "HEAD http://your.server/HERE_I_AM >/dev/null 2>&1", every hour or so.
alternatively, instead of fetching the non-existing "HERE_I_AM", make it fetch a cgi script which logs everything that's sent to it...then the cron-job can send more details in a POST request if necessary (can't see that anything more than an IP address would be that useful, though).
then if your laptop gets stolen, grep your apache logs to get the IP address.
...a whole bunch of visual basic weenies porting their crapware to linux.
watch out for the flood of non-designed, badly implemented crap software written by people who think that writing spreadsheet macros is a genius-level accomplishment.
most businesses are better off with linux desktops than windows desktops. staff can run word processors, spreadsheets, email clients, web browsers and other standard applications. without the viruses, trojans, keyloggers, botnets, spamware, spyware and other malware. and the system will be locked down, so that the users can't install games, stupid screensavers and other crap that either make the system unstable or are a vector for virus/trojan infection or both.
there's also gnucash, sql ledger, and other financial applications. or Crossover Office if they really need to run MYOB or Quickbooks (dunno if they run on Wine yet).
then their office computer will be an appliance for actually doing work, rather than a toy for wasting time and fiddling with the settings.
gamers might need windows because of the huge range of games available for windows. office workers don't.
well, duh!
what do you expect when you leave your email in someone else's control?
if you don't want your email to be at risk of someone else's policies (or accidents) then either run your own mail server or regularly download your mail and save it on your own machine.
if the recipient didn't explicitly ask for it, or sign up for it, then it's spam - regardless of whether you (as the sender) think it's legitimate or not.
OTOH, if the recipient did ask for it, then it's NOT spam, regardless of the content - and regardless of whether or not they're a moron who forgot that they subscribed.
spam is an issue of CONSENT, not CONTENT. so? that's not an excuse for inflicting unwanted advertising on people. why does someone else's business need translate to ME having to bear the burden and expense of THEIR marketing?
actually, you've just demonstrated that YOU'RE a special kind of idiot - the kind that thinks that companies and corporations and other organisations are PEOPLE, and that they should have the same rights and priviledges as people.
that is *precisely* what has led to the fucked up condition that the world is currently in, the corporate fascist state.
companies, corporations and other kinds of organised lobbyists should have to register. individual people, acting on their own behalf, shouldn't.
and i mean *ALL* organisations, every single one of them that lobbies govt or comments on political issues (explicitly not just the ones i disagree with). like i said, knowledge of the speaker's agenda or bias is ESSENTIAL to making informed decisions.
yes, they should be working for *people*, not for corporate lobbyists. which is precisely why organised lobbying and influence needs to be exposed to public scrutiny.
even if it does apply to you (and i still have doubts about that), so what?
it doesn't STOP you from saying whatever you want to say. it just means that you have to identify yourself and your bias.
or do you have a problem with your audience knowing that you're not just a disinterested neutral bystander, that you actually have some kind of agenda?
disclosure of potential bias or agenda is an ESSENTIAL component in informed decision making.
the deciding issue (in the defeated bill) was "what proportion of their paid time is devoted to lobbying/propaganda"? if that proportion amounts to less than $25K/year then you wouldn't have had to register.
you're being panicked into supporting something that suits highly-paid professional astro-turfers who have run a successful campaign to convince you that a bill designed to force them to declare their bias will also apply to you (even though the wording of the bill makes it plain that it doesn't and wont).
you know, not everyone agrees with your fuckwit's definition of freedom. without restriction, certainly. without regulation is just bullshit that simpletons like you think is an essential requirement.
if you're a lobbyist, then you certainly should declare your bias.
if you comment on any issue in which you have a financial or other interest, then you should also declare your interest.
your audience has a right to know what possible biases you have. failing to declare them is lying.
yes, yes, get hysterical about absurdly exaggerated scenarios. with luck, nobody will notice that your scenarios are just made up bullshit and may end up being convinced by your shrill bleating.