On a more serious note, why are we still building telescopes on Earth with the limitations we face on the ground? (Atmospheric distortion comes to mind... And I do understand they'll probably build this thing in a remote area to avoid the obvious: smog, city lights, etc. Still, though, there are some inherent limitations that they give a telescope like this by building it on and designing it for Earth.)
It would seem much more logical to put this money toward a space based (a la Hubble, but much more advanced) telescope. (Yes, I know they're sometimes expensive and slow, but...) This way, it would seem, our returned photographs would be of optimal quality.
All right. You have a flying 100 meter telescope. Ready for the problems?
1. 100 meters is the aperture. That means you've got a telescope that's going to be F^[/ing big. Let's say, oh, 500 meters long. (That's a guesstimate based on the scopes I saw at Yerkes, the observatory where Einstein is photographed in front of a huge telescope and was featured in the movie Chain Reaction.) That's a flying freight train bent on itself. And sizeable enough to cause eclipses and to be a threat to the planet (think meteor).
2. The weight of this thing is prohibitive to space travel. Yerkes' big telescope, a 36 incher (will confirm) is 6 tons. It's so large that it needs its own separate foundation. (And it has what's probably the world's largest elevator to let scientists view some different angles; it's the size of a basketball court.)
3. With a large enough aperture and a good location (think middle o' the desert in a ddesignated no-fly area), the atmospheric factors are reduced.
What matters with telescopes is the size of the aperture. Larger aperture = more light collected = sharper images. (Example: Yerkes' big scope caught an image of Pluto below the plane of the solar system before the boys in Arizona found it. Why? It was the largest optical scope in the world.)
I have two rigs I use with daily frequency. Both run Linux, the 2.2.14 kernel, and are virtually identical in the software arena (yes, one has WordPerfect and XEmacs, but I don't use them that much;)
One is a C433 with 96 M ram, a PCI sound card, and a Voodoo2 3000 accelerator card. I can play Q3A and it sings (except for a minor sound problem.. damned/dev/dsp!) I can cram through an oversampled MP3 (like, oh.. 256 kbps stereo) and it sounds quite bloody good.
Now, the other rig is a P100 laptop with 40 MB ram and 350+M swap (for now.. i needed the insane swap to get certain apps running right!). I play a regular 128 kbps stereo MP3, and it belches out the audio in fits and spurts. Audio sucks even on lower quality MP3s because the ability to process the large amounts of data ain't there.
Then comes in the handheld MP3 player. Of course it plays 'em good; after all, THAT'S ALL IT DOES!
Moral of the story: A properly engineered dedicated device can do more with less processing power than a non-dedicated box.
I mean, think about it! MPEG-2 decoding is insane on system resources! Loads of ram and tons of cycles are needed to chew through the frames and the damned CSS coding!
A dedicated DVD player is built to crank out IMAGE without the overhead of an OS and multiple uses (beyond CD player, but a 386 can play a CD!!)
.. there's always FreeNetting it or remailing it anonymously or pseudonymously;)
I'm somewhat fortunate, in that I'm working for a company that Has A Clue(tm) [yes, it's a Linux-centric consultancy.. hey, travel, a four-day workweek, fat pipe, and a six figure salary means good times!] and they have clear distinctions in what is GPLd and what is.. ahem.. not.
The basic rule most companies should use is that of relevancy. If the GPL project is sufficiently close to the company's prop projects, like someone at Intuit working on GnuCash, then there should be some restriction (after all, if our hypothetical hacker knows the details of QuickBooks files inside and out, and the company wants it secret, he would probably be covered under an NDA or trade secret laws and cannot legally do so).
However, if someone who works with spreadsheet code helps out the Gimp, or some vector-graphics coder props up KDE and GNOME (I like both.. the war stops here!), that is completely different and should be reasonably out of bounds.
Relevance should be the criterion, not the fact that the microserf works for you.
Understand: I am not a lawyer (though I play one on the Net) and a lawyer clueful in netlaw would be your best advisor.
My understanding of The Way Things Work is that if you put a rig online, and are paying the costs of connection (rig itself, net feed, etc.) you have the final say on what goes on there, subject to your internet connection provider and local and national laws. (For instance, trading bomb recipes is ok, spam and kiddie porn are not.)
If your ISP (or whoever) is OK with the honeypot/honeynet, and you declare open season on going in, then it should be as kosher as an orange. Of course, the responcibility will fall on you to prevent relay attacking (going from one telnet site to another to [somewhat] hide the attacker's origins) and spamming etc. (Jail sucks, from what I've been told;)
If you are good at what you're doing, and are 110% sure that no one can get out from your honey*, then go for it. The information gained from such a net are really useful.
However, be forewarned.
Windows.. Good for targeting rocks.
The more common standard is 802.11b. This operates by transieving 100mW at 2.4 GHz. This can ferry about 11 Mbps of data. You know this one more intimately; virtually every wireless networking card utilizes 802.11b.
There's another standard, 802.11a, which pipes through 55 Mbps at around 5 GHz. For those of you who want less people trying to pirate connections, this will work, because 802.11a is MUCH less utilized. (There is also a somewhat more limited range, as transmissions at this level are increasingly more LOS and can't work with walls too well..
As far as internal wiring, many new and remodeled structures in my general area (north side of Chicago) are, in fact, pre-wired for 10baseT (or 100baseTX) networks, and pitch this in their listings! (Talk about a timesaver!)
Only downside I could see to this is if the construction is drekky and the wires get fragged, you're stuck running cat5 along the floorboards...
pak chooie unf Windows.. Good for targeting rocks.
Like most people here, I hate the really heavy sites, those that use endless graphics, multiple columns, those f***ing annoying Flash animation ads, etc, aian.
Consider that no small number of 'web designers' use The Evil Empire as their base of operations, and probably use Back Door, err.. Front Page as their page creation engine. (Personally, I prefer emacs or vim. Oh, yeah.)
Most of the graphics don't have alt tags because these people making eye-candy sites expect the persons at the receiving end to be able to see the damned thing.
I agree that the basic technological premise is good, however, how do they determine 'color depth'? What makes #00558F more or less than #55008F? Do they CMYK or HSV the images? (If so, I know a certain GPL software project that could use such code.:)
My mom types out proposals for her workplace and other related locales. She doesn't do much online except read her email and checking out websites relevant to her employ. She doesn't need to grok the Gimp or code, nor would I wager will she ever learn to do these things. Windows is a good fit for her; it sorta does what she needs to do and that's that.
My bro works sales for a large retail chain. He only surfs for images of a questionable nature and for cheats to his favorite games *cough* Sims *cough*. Windows will fit for him as well.
But... my sis is an artist. I'm teaching her the basics of Python so she can make funky 3d with the Blender (http://www.blender.nl ; free, tiny 3d image creation and animation proggie, kicks ass!) and so she can play with Pyth-Fu in the Gimp (which she uses with my drawing tablet.) She likes to make webpages, and she checks them with Mozilla. I've taught her to cold-code HTML in emacs. She likes the power and flexibility of Linux.
The $6.4e10 (that's about Darth Vader^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Bill Gates' net worth;) questions are making a simple (set of) window manager(s) for Linux and XWS (for ease of gui program coding); superior functionality with the myriad high-speed data ports (1394, USB, potentially the parallel ATA standards); and getting the apps people want into Linux, from the high-end (like moviemaking, CMYK and HSV art, prepress tools, CAD/CAM) to the lowest common denominator (all together now: games! napster!) and making everything run well without necessarily needing to run some things as root.
Then again.. what was the last Microsoft innovation?
The GUI and mouse-control? Turned useable at the Xerox PARC, turned user-friendly by Apple.
Web browser? Licensed from Spyglass, commercial port to NSCA's Mosaic.
Networking? NetBIOS is a twisted protocol which (correct me if wrong) was also a PARC product.
TCP/IP stack? It is a rotten importation of the Winsock program, designed to allow 32bit networking on a 16 bit Win3.1.
I will be the first to admit that Windows has a place at the desks of those who neither need nor desire a truely powerful computing environment. (These are the sales types and those who want basic word processing and to play that damned Solitaire. I prefer to play GNU Chess with my pc's spare cycles;)
However, as an ISP I see NT and its constant maintenance and massive security holes as highly - and possible litigiously - unresponsible. I would wager that you either have needed or will be needing in the near future some form of professional securing of systems which will leave your paper tiger confused and dizzy.
(And yes, all MCSE's are paper tigers. Try taking LPI or LCA tests. They actually require siginificant knowledge of the workings of Linux, XWS, TCP/ip and other networking..;)
Don't tell me about their 'innovation.' From what I read, it looks like you've a microsoft.com email.
Windows.. Good for targeting rocks.
From the mouth of Robert Steele, former CIA spook and runner of OSS.net (Open Source Secrets), a site which offers information to businesses and others on open information which is encoded in that most hard to crack of codes, other languages:
"The Morris Worm was the worst thing to happen to the CIA, because then system administrators looked for all those cracks in security!"
Full audio at h2k.net. Windows.. Good for targeting rocks.
I believe, backdoors notwithstanding, that the NSA port of Linux has great potential. I mean, they'd probably rebuild Linux to B1 or better in the Orange Book. (This puts it in the same class as BSDi (I believe), Trusted Irix, and other Unixes with high security standards.) Manditory Access Controls are made stronger, Access Control Lists are part of the OS, probably paranoia levels of logging, good crypto. Good times.
For those of you who are concerned about this port, pay close attention to this next line.
GPL/OSS's strength is in the availablity of source which can be audited.
For those of you cryptonauts and paranoids who don't quite know C (present company included), you've a very good reason to learn. Reading the multitudinous (ooh! big word!) kilos and megs of kernel source ain't my idea of a great vacation, but the results of the extensive audit will be worth it. (B1 operating systems are, shall we say, DAMNED hard nuts to crack.)
If that's not enough, there's an article (name, site, and url escape me) where Linus says that audited parts of the NSA port may well be injected into the source tree.
For those of you being harassed.. please read the whole thing. I know/. cuts off, but trust me.
Here's my rant about you "Christians".
There is no such thing as a "Christian" in Western churches. You have Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Mormons, Quakers, Puritans, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
And to be fair, there are not "Christians" in the Eastern churches; however, at least they are closer to the original Christian religion, and all identify themselves as Orthodox, with only ethnic lines causing distinctions.
They may share the same basic belief that Emmanuel (aka Jesus) was the spawn of the Deity, he did some amazing things (like turn a small set of code, err.. fish and bread out onto a cast of thousands and still received plenty to fill twelve baskets of waste and that trippy water-to-wine thing), was crucified by the Romans (NOT THE PHARISEES! They were so minor in 30 AD they were unimportant, and they were added in a later Gospel because the Pharisees had gained some power and authority by the time it was writen, in the 70's!) for spreading a message which was 'subversive', was buried in a tomb, and walked outta there three days hence. (That's what Easter's all about, for those of you who have been living on Mars and are unaware of this whole Christ-based religion.)
HOWEVER.. All the various churches have their own spin on things. The Orthodox and the Catholics have the most in common, but are completely different in history. (Example: Orthodoxy kept the Byzantine Empire together for a thousand years plus. Catholicism was the only tie that the feudal society of the West of Europe had with each other.) And unlike Western Europe, the former Byzantine Empire had scholarly debates on theosophy which were more accessible than the arcanum of Rome (At least all the people in the BE could undersand Greek, as opposed to the West where only clergy and the most highly educated knew Latin well enough to converse in it.) and had a small problem called the Ottomans to prevent and preclude fragmentation. (Religion, because it was culturalised (meaning: it was unified in spirit but fragmented in language (if the word is wrong, correct me!)), became the only force that kept community in an age where people were treated like cattle, bartered and sold and moved frfom place to place.)
The Western Christianity is, IMHO, such bullshit. You have fundamentalist bastards trying to anti-prove Darwin with the Bible, which is historically stupid because the first six chapters of Genesis are myth. ("Religion has no place within these walls, just like facts have no place within organized religion." --Supt. Chalmers) These fundamentalist folks are the real threat to America.
(I wonder what would happen if someone was to swap out all their churches' Bibles with copies of the Kama Sutra. Hey, It's a holy book!)
The there are the ones that at least try to interpret the bible, but in their own way. (Abortion, anyone?)
I hate it when people just call themselves "Christians" because, in all likelyhood, their religion does stuff which would be considered very un-Christian. Take missionaries for example. "The Bible says to spread the word." No, it says to show people your faith by doing it and living it. There are some basic tenets to Christianity.. like the rule of doing onto other as they would do to you. How would YOU feel if some native tribesman came to you to pitch your faith? Hmm??? Especially if they had the food and your sorry ass was starving.
Calling yourself a Christian is like calling yourself an American: it only gives an idea of what your deal is. It means much more to say you're from Manhattan, or Boston, or DC, or Chicago, or Denver, or LA, or SanFran. Your religion is not Christian, unless you are following the practices of the early Christian cultists which were very close to the mark. (Invite anyone to your home lately to break bread and share wine?)
And as far as the intellect deal.. I'm Greek Orthodox. In order to be a part of an Orthodox church, you need to learn the language spoken there, be it Greek, Serbian, Russian, Ethiopic, or Korean, to understand the service. I am a polyglot (I can converse in English, Spanish, French, Italian, and Greek; I know a little German and can read Korean.) and am learning more languages to get the real deal on the religions of the world by reading their holy books in the native tongue. (Comparing the Torah to the Koran sounds like fun.)
I am in practice a mystic. I have eccentric proactices, like going without food for three days just to experience it. I believe that there is magic in the world... I know there's much more to reality than this (and the science backs me up; most of the stuff in the universe is so-called dark matter, which is FOIAP invisible [jk]), with things like the astral.
There are people who are dumbed by religion, true. And there are the dumb in religion. (Please note that fundamentalist religions carry these people en masse, regardless of which faith they are in.)
The only people who are really stupid are those who refuse exposure to other religions with the "My God Is better than Your God" argument. Bullshit. No one's deity is bigger, faster, stronger than anyone elses, because in the end religion is supposed to provide the framework for a morality which is supposed to RESPECT ALL PEOPLE, REGARDLESS OF THEIR BELIEFS.
Reading over my rant, I'm left to wonder, how does this relate to the problem of bullies?
I think it would be interesting for the larval-stage hacks (the real ones doing code and sharing knowledge wrather than the w4r3z d00dz and the skript kiddies) to call in the cops when they are abused by other students. I wish I had thought of that in school.. I was picked on from the time I was in kindergarten to midway through junior year. That sort of shit really screws with you.
The only reason, I think, that people stopped picking on me was that by junior year, I knew my way around the Internet well enough to have literally hundreds of pages of documents on how to build explosives or guns out of pens and Zippos etc. (Fortunately, this was in the pre-Columbine era. Now, a kid does that, he's expelled. Anytime i think of this, it freaks me out to think I may have been one of the first to call a school violence incident happening on such a grand scale..)
Most of the people hear talking about this probably feel as tied as I do recalling this drek.
It sucks to be the outsider.
But.. on the bright side, those of us who are extremely computer literate will have the last laugh at those godforsaken reunions.
Bully: "hey, I know you. I picked on you in school."
Me: "Yeah, well, that's in the past. What are you up to?"
Bully: "Uh.. well.. I'm a manager at a convenience store. And you?"
Me: "I'm CEO of a consulting firm. Clearing seven figures per annum."
Others around: They drop their conversations and swarm around me. (I went to a private HS and am *highly* doubtful anyone there will beat that within a few years. Success is the best revenge.)
For those of you who are being harassed, evidence is a Good Thing. If you team up with others being picked on, you could become part of the Camcorder Truth Jihad and put harassment on tape. That's what's called, in layman's terms, evidence.
La policia can be your friend. Last I checked, unless the bastard[s]/bitch[es] is a part of a gang or organized crime syndicate, the long arm of the law and a trip to Juvie (or County if they're older) isn't too appealing. (A criminal record will hold someone in sports from an athletic scholarship.)
They will screw with you unless and until you screw them harder. The cops are a force of sufficient size to scare most folks. (Especially if you have a friendly contact in the local police deparetment or the DA's. office..)
Also, please note that most bullies do so because of insecurity. Discern the ir triggers. If you can find out what their deal is, you have an element off control over them. Just don't do anything illegal.
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
I was writing the above response on-the-fly on a less-than-reliable netfeed. (I use a laptop with a 14.4 modem. Heavy sites like slashdot, in addition to having other windows filled with graphics-heavy marketdroid drek, in addition to a few times getting kicked offline without getting my two cents worth in get to ya.
So... AFA the units: Sorry to have offended you. Perhaps you can clarify if the SI unit is "cycle".
And AFA the XHF notation:
The way I've experienced the radio spectrum, and according to my ARRL Handbook, you can split the RF into three discrete parts. Note that the top and of each range overlap in characteristics at times with the bottom of the range of the next type; ex. a 60 MHz transmission is more likely to act like a VHF wave and duct tropospherically rather than get ionospheric bounce.
Less than 60 MHz: These are long waves. These waves bounce off the ionosphere, which is between 50 and 650 clicks up. Some of the layers only work during daylight hours, and these higher levels bounce the higher frequencies. (You can listen to the BBS arounf 17500 kHz during the day and have to settle for somewhere in the 6000 kHz range at night.)
Antennas are LARGE. From wire dipoles meters long to huge yagis and quads, the antennas need to be very large for any reasonable gain.
60 - 1000 MHz: These can be 'ducted' in the troposhpere, which extends from where you are now to about cruising altitude, 10 clicks up. Ducting is pretty tough and pretty tricky unless you're either damn lucky or damn skilled. It's a really funky process.. these signals are weird that way. You can miss a friend's call from across town, but you can hear people from thousands of miles away on a lark. These signals, though, can be directed (useful in moonbounce communications) or broadcast in a spherical pattern (look at your TV or radio).
Antennas for these frequencies are considerably smaller. Any kind of antenna can work, with the exception of bullhorn antennas (used for microwave work.. read on). Huge dishes, yagis, quads, hell, walkie-talkies use rubber-ducks!
Above 1 GHz: These freqs are increasingly limited to LOS. You can get some propagation on the lower end, but the higher you go in freq, the smaller the stuff that conflicts with the signal. (Above 10 GHz, water vapor and O2 can affect the signal!)
Bouncing off airplanes is possible, and done by some to, ex. communicate over a mountain.
Directionality becomes important here. This increases the beam's focus, and you don't accidentally fry yourself with microwaves. That's why dishes and bullhorns are used with these signals.
OK? Lather, rinse, repeat, chill!
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
That's the only real problem with XHF transmissions.. (XHF is basically anything above a gigahertz).. they are all line-of-sight.
Clouds, though, shouldn't realy be a problem unless they're VERY thick. The wavelength of a 2.2 GHz wave (I'm assuming 2.2 GHz because I know 2.4 is occupied, and it's the same drek in a different package) is:
c / freq == 300Mm/s / 2.2GHz ==.136 m / Hz.
The wavelength is 13 cm or so. That's mighty small (when you consider that AM 1000 is 300m and FM 100.0 is 3m), but they can pass through anything short of a heavy rainfall or a blizzard. (I have a DBS system and can receive in virtually all conditions. Idiot involvement, though, seems to screw everything up royally.)
The short wavelength dictates the LOS and the power of the frequency will determine the range.
I have to commend Sprint's good timing, since a lot of DSL'rs got screwed when northpoint Comms. went bankrupt.
And now, for the coup de grace that'll get me jacked on wireless broadband: It's two-way. According to this marketdroid page, it's completely free of the telephone grid.
However, for you QUAKErs, your ping time may be slightly slower than it would be on a comparable hard-wired connection. This appears (from what little data that's available) to be (at least in part) a party-line system.
1. It's running on RF frequencies, which means that, depending on your paranoia level, you may not want it since quality receivers are available that can receive above 2GHz. And it's not protected by the anti-cell-scanner bills (not like anyone interested in cracking t
2. IP Masquerade is probably the best way to go. They seem to be MScentric. (They are intending to charge an additional ten bucks a month per extra rig online. I didn't know IP's were that rare;)
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
I'm pissed my little off-the-cuff ideological run got nil moderation. For somethine that looks that decent (lemme get your opinion), I wish I could've gotten a bit of karma!!
Secondly, this article talks about a 'New Jerusalem'. I can't think of another word or name (besides God, itself) which is so inherently religiously charged. I mean, the city was founded by the Hebrews as their capital and was the home of the Temple of Solomon and the Ark of the Covenant's resting place.
Christianity adopted the city by having the titular founder Emmanuel (aka Jesus Christ) die there and resurrect a couple of clicks away in a private tomb.
And the Muslims, who thought (and, one can argue, still think) that a) they were the rightful heir of Abraham and b) converting the Jews would be easy and to their advantage, adopted aspects of the Judaic religion (eg. the ban on pork and certain alcoholic beverages) and Judaic holy sights, namely the Temple Mount.
That makes up, oh.. about a THIRD OF THE WORLD'S POPULATION. Maybe more.
That means that, to no less than every third person you talk to, Jerusalem has a religious significance.
My particular rant was based upon a more reasonable assumption than the troller that started the thread: that neither side was necessarily Good v. Evil (hell, I'm working on a script based around a more realistic set of spectra of gender, sexuality, politics, and morality. Talk about a mind f~(k.) , and that the current scenario in the Middle East wasn't a good analogy.
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
It's like comparing a pair of black Levi's to a pair of black Lee's.
They are basically the same, but the cut, the feel, and the way they wear are different. Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
Besides, the analogy is flawed; the Hebrews were there first, and the problem is because the early Muslims tried to convert the Jews, and towards that end, they co-opted the Judaic holy sites.
A better analogy would be the Romans as M$ and the Jews as hackers...
Wait.. This is good.
In the beginning, the Jews (Open Source hackers) were. They were going along pretty good. Admittedly, they started to fracture. In these new scenaria, they still were as they were within their area, but others were unwelcome.
Some, like Stallman, sought a purity of faith through esoteric cults (like the kaballah and the Zealots).
When the Jews/hackers were fractured, the Romans (Microsoft) came in. They brought some of the Jews in, and within the new structure, they felt they were in the same position. To those outside, though, they were traitors.
The Romans weren't all bad; they brought infrastructure. Roads, sewers, water poisoned by the lead pipes they were in. Microsoft did something similar; they brought people in by the mega to purchase PC's and try the murky waters of the Internet.
Before the Romans, travel between towns was a bitch and unsafe. With them, it was easier. Without the Micronazis' influence, the PC and the Net would not have come around as quickly.
When the Christian cultists started to spread The Word (tm), the Pax Romana let them go anywhere, until they spread FUD about their intentions.
Similarly, the Net and availability of M$ rigs allowed those of us seeking The Good News of GNU/Linux (present company included). M$ didn't care until it looked like a real threat. Now, they're involved in an active disinformation campaign.
The Christians beat the Romans in the end.
Let's hope we get there. Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
It's very nice to see this (as I mentioned in another post).
The savings are going to be significant; not only do they not have to spend the annual licensing fees for the useless OS's, they can also need not upgrade their hardware as often.
HOWEVER: With the old Mexican regime's propensity towards graft and embezzlement, my concern is that 'the poor' will be redefined to be 'friends of the bureaucrats'.
two cents worth
d.valued Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
Still.. A LOT of smaller sites have to pay through the nostrils to get hosted.
Pipe costs less today than last year, granted, but offering up sweet MP3/Ogg Vorbis audio and glitzy, high-grade vids will still eat up bandwidth.
Sometimes, a back-to-basics approach is called for. Simplifying your index.html (getting rid of extraneous tags and fancy font calls) may be minor, but if you get a thousand.. ten thousand hits, those bits add up.
If you're in a major metro area, you could try DSLing your own personal web server.. if you're sure the provider is reliable (and you can afford the symmetric DSL rates... )
Still.. As with most things that are worth it, getting a website up, hot, and active takes money.
Right now, though, don't count on your website to be your day job (unless design, creation, and maintenance thereof IS your day job, in which case, bravo!)
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
The thought that a PS3, a consumer level box, will have more processing ability than the highest of high end rigs today, is shocking.
Mr. Moore's laws have been accelerated..
Are they still talking USD 300 price? If so, this is the first step in the post-PC "designer box" era when each desired set of actions is made to require a distinct, discrete, 'copy-proofed' system.
I just hope the Linux port for PS3 gets out faster than the PS2 port did;)
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
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Completely fair?
Tell me.. Who's been the biggest beneficiary of the US government's actions as of late?
The f***ing rich.
These are the people who own sizeable chunks of GE, Boeing, the telcos, 'defense' contractors, etc.
These companies pay niente in taxes, and occasionally get an obscene refund.
Their shareholders receive multiple boons: dividends and increased share prices, which are already taxed at a lower rate than earned income.
And the upper management.. Jesus! Stock options... multi-million dollar salaries (which are approaching 500x the pay of their lowest-paid underling, compared to less than 50 (on average) for every other industrialized country)... company perks... and when they 'bail', they get a 'golden parachute' which keeps them swimming in moolah.
Don't ask me to pity them.
The reason the rich pay most of the taxes is because the top 1% of Americans (by worth) control 90% of the wealth.
Why shift their fair share to the backs of the working poor?
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
(I guess Bush don't realize that the satellites to project his gross image transglobally are the product of the space program.)
/* Rant follows. Flamebait fresh from the oven. */
What you are witnessing now, ladies and gents, is what happens when you incarcerate a sizeable percentage of your population.
Prisons are the most important thing in the US, as can be witnessed by the private prison industry's exponential growth.
Schools are not important.
Why?
Prisons are a source of cheap labor.
Neo-slavery, if you will...
We're in a country that thinks that public health care is a 'socialist' idea, whereas every other industrialized nation has realized in law that health is a basic human right.
Sorry about the rant.. I just got started...
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
FUD, Fud, everywhere, and not a drop to drink...
on
Alan Cox on a Chip
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· Score: 1
Every version of Windows has BSOD's.
I have seen (and caused) BSOD's on Ick2K.
Wanna try?
Get to a java-heavy site with multiple windows of (your favorite/forced choice browser) and switch between them.
Download an ISO image of a CD through a 56K modem.
Or some other such insane stunt.
I have - and can - pull off stunts like these in Linux without crashing the OS.
Amen.
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
You're obviously an Ugly American, the kind that would complain (and would attempt to) drive on the right in the UK, speaks on-ly in-En-ga-lish in France and wonders why they're so damned rude, and asks for a cold beer.
Pay attention class, and repeat after me:
THERE'S MORE TO THE WORLD THAN AMERICA!
Why does there have to be a European distro, an Asian distro (or ten), an African distro, hell, a Latin American distro?
Simple, the world doesn't speak just one language!
Granted, most modern scientific texts' authoritative versions are in English, but a scant thirty years ago, you needed to know German to get a chemistry degree.
Most of the people (by number) on Earth speak a dialect of Chinese.
Europe is a plethora of linguistic traditions.
Not to mention the myriad character entry systems (read: keyboards) that are needed, I'm typing on a kb doubled-up for use with Greek. And the accentation! What a pain in the butt!
The reason different distros exist is because there are regional differences that smaller companies can more easily adapt to.
And remember: SuSE didn't 'bite it', they are the #1 Linux distro in Europe and probably in the top three worldwide.
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
Slashdot Mirror
Let's put this in perspective.
;)
/dev/dsp!) I can cram through an oversampled MP3 (like, oh.. 256 kbps stereo) and it sounds quite bloody good.
I have two rigs I use with daily frequency. Both run Linux, the 2.2.14 kernel, and are virtually identical in the software arena (yes, one has WordPerfect and XEmacs, but I don't use them that much
One is a C433 with 96 M ram, a PCI sound card, and a Voodoo2 3000 accelerator card. I can play Q3A and it sings (except for a minor sound problem.. damned
Now, the other rig is a P100 laptop with 40 MB ram and 350+M swap (for now.. i needed the insane swap to get certain apps running right!). I play a regular 128 kbps stereo MP3, and it belches out the audio in fits and spurts. Audio sucks even on lower quality MP3s because the ability to process the large amounts of data ain't there.
Then comes in the handheld MP3 player. Of course it plays 'em good; after all, THAT'S ALL IT DOES!
Moral of the story: A properly engineered dedicated device can do more with less processing power than a non-dedicated box.
I mean, think about it! MPEG-2 decoding is insane on system resources! Loads of ram and tons of cycles are needed to chew through the frames and the damned CSS coding!
A dedicated DVD player is built to crank out IMAGE without the overhead of an OS and multiple uses (beyond CD player, but a 386 can play a CD!!)
Windows.. Good for targeting rocks.
.. there's always FreeNetting it or remailing it anonymously or pseudonymously ;)
I'm somewhat fortunate, in that I'm working for a company that Has A Clue(tm) [yes, it's a Linux-centric consultancy.. hey, travel, a four-day workweek, fat pipe, and a six figure salary means good times!] and they have clear distinctions in what is GPLd and what is.. ahem.. not.
The basic rule most companies should use is that of relevancy. If the GPL project is sufficiently close to the company's prop projects, like someone at Intuit working on GnuCash, then there should be some restriction (after all, if our hypothetical hacker knows the details of QuickBooks files inside and out, and the company wants it secret, he would probably be covered under an NDA or trade secret laws and cannot legally do so).
However, if someone who works with spreadsheet code helps out the Gimp, or some vector-graphics coder props up KDE and GNOME (I like both.. the war stops here!), that is completely different and should be reasonably out of bounds.
Relevance should be the criterion, not the fact that the microserf works for you.
Windows.. Good for targeting rocks.
Understand: I am not a lawyer (though I play one on the Net) and a lawyer clueful in netlaw would be your best advisor. My understanding of The Way Things Work is that if you put a rig online, and are paying the costs of connection (rig itself, net feed, etc.) you have the final say on what goes on there, subject to your internet connection provider and local and national laws. (For instance, trading bomb recipes is ok, spam and kiddie porn are not.) If your ISP (or whoever) is OK with the honeypot/honeynet, and you declare open season on going in, then it should be as kosher as an orange. Of course, the responcibility will fall on you to prevent relay attacking (going from one telnet site to another to [somewhat] hide the attacker's origins) and spamming etc. (Jail sucks, from what I've been told ;)
If you are good at what you're doing, and are 110% sure that no one can get out from your honey*, then go for it. The information gained from such a net are really useful.
However, be forewarned.
Windows.. Good for targeting rocks.
There is more than one 802.11 standard.
The more common standard is 802.11b. This operates by transieving 100mW at 2.4 GHz. This can ferry about 11 Mbps of data. You know this one more intimately; virtually every wireless networking card utilizes 802.11b.
There's another standard, 802.11a, which pipes through 55 Mbps at around 5 GHz. For those of you who want less people trying to pirate connections, this will work, because 802.11a is MUCH less utilized. (There is also a somewhat more limited range, as transmissions at this level are increasingly more LOS and can't work with walls too well..
As far as internal wiring, many new and remodeled structures in my general area (north side of Chicago) are, in fact, pre-wired for 10baseT (or 100baseTX) networks, and pitch this in their listings! (Talk about a timesaver!)
Only downside I could see to this is if the construction is drekky and the wires get fragged, you're stuck running cat5 along the floorboards...
pak chooie unf
Windows.. Good for targeting rocks.
Like most people here, I hate the really heavy sites, those that use endless graphics, multiple columns, those f***ing annoying Flash animation ads, etc, aian.
:)
Consider that no small number of 'web designers' use The Evil Empire as their base of operations, and probably use Back Door, err.. Front Page as their page creation engine. (Personally, I prefer emacs or vim. Oh, yeah.)
Most of the graphics don't have alt tags because these people making eye-candy sites expect the persons at the receiving end to be able to see the damned thing.
I agree that the basic technological premise is good, however, how do they determine 'color depth'? What makes #00558F more or less than #55008F? Do they CMYK or HSV the images? (If so, I know a certain GPL software project that could use such code.
Windows.. Good for targeting rocks.
I agree with you.
;) questions are making a simple (set of) window manager(s) for Linux and XWS (for ease of gui program coding); superior functionality with the myriad high-speed data ports (1394, USB, potentially the parallel ATA standards); and getting the apps people want into Linux, from the high-end (like moviemaking, CMYK and HSV art, prepress tools, CAD/CAM) to the lowest common denominator (all together now: games! napster!) and making everything run well without necessarily needing to run some things as root.
Cases in point:
My mom types out proposals for her workplace and other related locales. She doesn't do much online except read her email and checking out websites relevant to her employ. She doesn't need to grok the Gimp or code, nor would I wager will she ever learn to do these things. Windows is a good fit for her; it sorta does what she needs to do and that's that.
My bro works sales for a large retail chain. He only surfs for images of a questionable nature and for cheats to his favorite games *cough* Sims *cough*. Windows will fit for him as well.
But... my sis is an artist. I'm teaching her the basics of Python so she can make funky 3d with the Blender (http://www.blender.nl ; free, tiny 3d image creation and animation proggie, kicks ass!) and so she can play with Pyth-Fu in the Gimp (which she uses with my drawing tablet.) She likes to make webpages, and she checks them with Mozilla. I've taught her to cold-code HTML in emacs. She likes the power and flexibility of Linux.
The $6.4e10 (that's about Darth Vader^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Bill Gates' net worth
Windows.. Good for targeting rocks.
Then again.. what was the last Microsoft innovation? The GUI and mouse-control? Turned useable at the Xerox PARC, turned user-friendly by Apple. Web browser? Licensed from Spyglass, commercial port to NSCA's Mosaic. Networking? NetBIOS is a twisted protocol which (correct me if wrong) was also a PARC product. TCP/IP stack? It is a rotten importation of the Winsock program, designed to allow 32bit networking on a 16 bit Win3.1. I will be the first to admit that Windows has a place at the desks of those who neither need nor desire a truely powerful computing environment. (These are the sales types and those who want basic word processing and to play that damned Solitaire. I prefer to play GNU Chess with my pc's spare cycles ;)
However, as an ISP I see NT and its constant maintenance and massive security holes as highly - and possible litigiously - unresponsible. I would wager that you either have needed or will be needing in the near future some form of professional securing of systems which will leave your paper tiger confused and dizzy.
(And yes, all MCSE's are paper tigers. Try taking LPI or LCA tests. They actually require siginificant knowledge of the workings of Linux, XWS, TCP/ip and other networking.. ;)
Don't tell me about their 'innovation.' From what I read, it looks like you've a microsoft.com email.
Windows.. Good for targeting rocks.
From the mouth of Robert Steele, former CIA spook and runner of OSS.net (Open Source Secrets), a site which offers information to businesses and others on open information which is encoded in that most hard to crack of codes, other languages:
"The Morris Worm was the worst thing to happen to the CIA, because then system administrators looked for all those cracks in security!"
Full audio at h2k.net.
Windows.. Good for targeting rocks.
I believe, backdoors notwithstanding, that the NSA port of Linux has great potential. I mean, they'd probably rebuild Linux to B1 or better in the Orange Book. (This puts it in the same class as BSDi (I believe), Trusted Irix, and other Unixes with high security standards.) Manditory Access Controls are made stronger, Access Control Lists are part of the OS, probably paranoia levels of logging, good crypto. Good times.
For those of you who are concerned about this port, pay close attention to this next line.
GPL/OSS's strength is in the availablity of source which can be audited.
For those of you cryptonauts and paranoids who don't quite know C (present company included), you've a very good reason to learn. Reading the multitudinous (ooh! big word!) kilos and megs of kernel source ain't my idea of a great vacation, but the results of the extensive audit will be worth it. (B1 operating systems are, shall we say, DAMNED hard nuts to crack.)
If that's not enough, there's an article (name, site, and url escape me) where Linus says that audited parts of the NSA port may well be injected into the source tree.
Windows.. Good for targeting rocks.
For those of you being harassed.. please read the whole thing. I know /. cuts off, but trust me.
Here's my rant about you "Christians".
There is no such thing as a "Christian" in Western churches. You have Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Mormons, Quakers, Puritans, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
And to be fair, there are not "Christians" in the Eastern churches; however, at least they are closer to the original Christian religion, and all identify themselves as Orthodox, with only ethnic lines causing distinctions.
They may share the same basic belief that Emmanuel (aka Jesus) was the spawn of the Deity, he did some amazing things (like turn a small set of code, err.. fish and bread out onto a cast of thousands and still received plenty to fill twelve baskets of waste and that trippy water-to-wine thing), was crucified by the Romans (NOT THE PHARISEES! They were so minor in 30 AD they were unimportant, and they were added in a later Gospel because the Pharisees had gained some power and authority by the time it was writen, in the 70's!) for spreading a message which was 'subversive', was buried in a tomb, and walked outta there three days hence. (That's what Easter's all about, for those of you who have been living on Mars and are unaware of this whole Christ-based religion.)
HOWEVER.. All the various churches have their own spin on things. The Orthodox and the Catholics have the most in common, but are completely different in history. (Example: Orthodoxy kept the Byzantine Empire together for a thousand years plus. Catholicism was the only tie that the feudal society of the West of Europe had with each other.) And unlike Western Europe, the former Byzantine Empire had scholarly debates on theosophy which were more accessible than the arcanum of Rome (At least all the people in the BE could undersand Greek, as opposed to the West where only clergy and the most highly educated knew Latin well enough to converse in it.) and had a small problem called the Ottomans to prevent and preclude fragmentation. (Religion, because it was culturalised (meaning: it was unified in spirit but fragmented in language (if the word is wrong, correct me!)), became the only force that kept community in an age where people were treated like cattle, bartered and sold and moved frfom place to place.)
The Western Christianity is, IMHO, such bullshit. You have fundamentalist bastards trying to anti-prove Darwin with the Bible, which is historically stupid because the first six chapters of Genesis are myth. ("Religion has no place within these walls, just like facts have no place within organized religion." --Supt. Chalmers) These fundamentalist folks are the real threat to America.
(I wonder what would happen if someone was to swap out all their churches' Bibles with copies of the Kama Sutra. Hey, It's a holy book!)
The there are the ones that at least try to interpret the bible, but in their own way. (Abortion, anyone?)
I hate it when people just call themselves "Christians" because, in all likelyhood, their religion does stuff which would be considered very un-Christian. Take missionaries for example. "The Bible says to spread the word." No, it says to show people your faith by doing it and living it. There are some basic tenets to Christianity.. like the rule of doing onto other as they would do to you. How would YOU feel if some native tribesman came to you to pitch your faith? Hmm??? Especially if they had the food and your sorry ass was starving.
Calling yourself a Christian is like calling yourself an American: it only gives an idea of what your deal is. It means much more to say you're from Manhattan, or Boston, or DC, or Chicago, or Denver, or LA, or SanFran. Your religion is not Christian, unless you are following the practices of the early Christian cultists which were very close to the mark. (Invite anyone to your home lately to break bread and share wine?)
And as far as the intellect deal.. I'm Greek Orthodox. In order to be a part of an Orthodox church, you need to learn the language spoken there, be it Greek, Serbian, Russian, Ethiopic, or Korean, to understand the service. I am a polyglot (I can converse in English, Spanish, French, Italian, and Greek; I know a little German and can read Korean.) and am learning more languages to get the real deal on the religions of the world by reading their holy books in the native tongue. (Comparing the Torah to the Koran sounds like fun.)
I am in practice a mystic. I have eccentric proactices, like going without food for three days just to experience it. I believe that there is magic in the world... I know there's much more to reality than this (and the science backs me up; most of the stuff in the universe is so-called dark matter, which is FOIAP invisible [jk]), with things like the astral.
There are people who are dumbed by religion, true. And there are the dumb in religion. (Please note that fundamentalist religions carry these people en masse, regardless of which faith they are in.)
The only people who are really stupid are those who refuse exposure to other religions with the "My God Is better than Your God" argument. Bullshit. No one's deity is bigger, faster, stronger than anyone elses, because in the end religion is supposed to provide the framework for a morality which is supposed to RESPECT ALL PEOPLE, REGARDLESS OF THEIR BELIEFS.
Reading over my rant, I'm left to wonder, how does this relate to the problem of bullies?
I think it would be interesting for the larval-stage hacks (the real ones doing code and sharing knowledge wrather than the w4r3z d00dz and the skript kiddies) to call in the cops when they are abused by other students. I wish I had thought of that in school.. I was picked on from the time I was in kindergarten to midway through junior year. That sort of shit really screws with you.
The only reason, I think, that people stopped picking on me was that by junior year, I knew my way around the Internet well enough to have literally hundreds of pages of documents on how to build explosives or guns out of pens and Zippos etc. (Fortunately, this was in the pre-Columbine era. Now, a kid does that, he's expelled. Anytime i think of this, it freaks me out to think I may have been one of the first to call a school violence incident happening on such a grand scale..)
Most of the people hear talking about this probably feel as tied as I do recalling this drek.
It sucks to be the outsider.
But.. on the bright side, those of us who are extremely computer literate will have the last laugh at those godforsaken reunions.
Bully: "hey, I know you. I picked on you in school."
Me: "Yeah, well, that's in the past. What are you up to?"
Bully: "Uh.. well.. I'm a manager at a convenience store. And you?"
Me: "I'm CEO of a consulting firm. Clearing seven figures per annum."
Others around: They drop their conversations and swarm around me. (I went to a private HS and am *highly* doubtful anyone there will beat that within a few years. Success is the best revenge.)
For those of you who are being harassed, evidence is a Good Thing. If you team up with others being picked on, you could become part of the Camcorder Truth Jihad and put harassment on tape. That's what's called, in layman's terms, evidence.
La policia can be your friend. Last I checked, unless the bastard[s]/bitch[es] is a part of a gang or organized crime syndicate, the long arm of the law and a trip to Juvie (or County if they're older) isn't too appealing. (A criminal record will hold someone in sports from an athletic scholarship.)
They will screw with you unless and until you screw them harder. The cops are a force of sufficient size to scare most folks. (Especially if you have a friendly contact in the local police deparetment or the DA's. office..)
Also, please note that most bullies do so because of insecurity. Discern the ir triggers. If you can find out what their deal is, you have an element off control over them. Just don't do anything illegal.
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
I was writing the above response on-the-fly on a less-than-reliable netfeed. (I use a laptop with a 14.4 modem. Heavy sites like slashdot, in addition to having other windows filled with graphics-heavy marketdroid drek, in addition to a few times getting kicked offline without getting my two cents worth in get to ya.
So... AFA the units: Sorry to have offended you. Perhaps you can clarify if the SI unit is "cycle".
And AFA the XHF notation:
The way I've experienced the radio spectrum, and according to my ARRL Handbook, you can split the RF into three discrete parts. Note that the top and of each range overlap in characteristics at times with the bottom of the range of the next type; ex. a 60 MHz transmission is more likely to act like a VHF wave and duct tropospherically rather than get ionospheric bounce.
Less than 60 MHz: These are long waves. These waves bounce off the ionosphere, which is between 50 and 650 clicks up. Some of the layers only work during daylight hours, and these higher levels bounce the higher frequencies. (You can listen to the BBS arounf 17500 kHz during the day and have to settle for somewhere in the 6000 kHz range at night.)
Antennas are LARGE. From wire dipoles meters long to huge yagis and quads, the antennas need to be very large for any reasonable gain.
60 - 1000 MHz: These can be 'ducted' in the troposhpere, which extends from where you are now to about cruising altitude, 10 clicks up. Ducting is pretty tough and pretty tricky unless you're either damn lucky or damn skilled. It's a really funky process.. these signals are weird that way. You can miss a friend's call from across town, but you can hear people from thousands of miles away on a lark. These signals, though, can be directed (useful in moonbounce communications) or broadcast in a spherical pattern (look at your TV or radio).
Antennas for these frequencies are considerably smaller. Any kind of antenna can work, with the exception of bullhorn antennas (used for microwave work.. read on). Huge dishes, yagis, quads, hell, walkie-talkies use rubber-ducks!
Above 1 GHz: These freqs are increasingly limited to LOS. You can get some propagation on the lower end, but the higher you go in freq, the smaller the stuff that conflicts with the signal. (Above 10 GHz, water vapor and O2 can affect the signal!)
Bouncing off airplanes is possible, and done by some to, ex. communicate over a mountain.
Directionality becomes important here. This increases the beam's focus, and you don't accidentally fry yourself with microwaves. That's why dishes and bullhorns are used with these signals.
OK? Lather, rinse, repeat, chill!
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
That's the only real problem with XHF transmissions.. (XHF is basically anything above a gigahertz).. they are all line-of-sight.
.136 m / Hz.
.5 to 1.5 Mbps range.
;)
Clouds, though, shouldn't realy be a problem unless they're VERY thick. The wavelength of a 2.2 GHz wave (I'm assuming 2.2 GHz because I know 2.4 is occupied, and it's the same drek in a different package) is:
c / freq == 300Mm/s / 2.2GHz ==
The wavelength is 13 cm or so. That's mighty small (when you consider that AM 1000 is 300m and FM 100.0 is 3m), but they can pass through anything short of a heavy rainfall or a blizzard. (I have a DBS system and can receive in virtually all conditions. Idiot involvement, though, seems to screw everything up royally.)
The short wavelength dictates the LOS and the power of the frequency will determine the range.
I have to commend Sprint's good timing, since a lot of DSL'rs got screwed when northpoint Comms. went bankrupt.
And now, for the coup de grace that'll get me jacked on wireless broadband: It's two-way. According to this marketdroid page, it's completely free of the telephone grid.
However, for you QUAKErs, your ping time may be slightly slower than it would be on a comparable hard-wired connection. This appears (from what little data that's available) to be (at least in part) a party-line system.
According to the site (use zip 60625 if asked), the max d/l is 5 Mbps, and they project 'typical' to be in the
They have an upload cap of 256 kbps.
A few things worth keeping in mind:
1. It's running on RF frequencies, which means that, depending on your paranoia level, you may not want it since quality receivers are available that can receive above 2GHz. And it's not protected by the anti-cell-scanner bills (not like anyone interested in cracking t
2. IP Masquerade is probably the best way to go. They seem to be MScentric. (They are intending to charge an additional ten bucks a month per extra rig online. I didn't know IP's were that rare
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
I'm pissed my little off-the-cuff ideological run got nil moderation. For somethine that looks that decent (lemme get your opinion), I wish I could've gotten a bit of karma!!
Secondly, this article talks about a 'New Jerusalem'. I can't think of another word or name (besides God, itself) which is so inherently religiously charged. I mean, the city was founded by the Hebrews as their capital and was the home of the Temple of Solomon and the Ark of the Covenant's resting place.
Christianity adopted the city by having the titular founder Emmanuel (aka Jesus Christ) die there and resurrect a couple of clicks away in a private tomb.
And the Muslims, who thought (and, one can argue, still think) that a) they were the rightful heir of Abraham and b) converting the Jews would be easy and to their advantage, adopted aspects of the Judaic religion (eg. the ban on pork and certain alcoholic beverages) and Judaic holy sights, namely the Temple Mount.
That makes up, oh.. about a THIRD OF THE WORLD'S POPULATION. Maybe more.
That means that, to no less than every third person you talk to, Jerusalem has a religious significance.
My particular rant was based upon a more reasonable assumption than the troller that started the thread: that neither side was necessarily Good v. Evil (hell, I'm working on a script based around a more realistic set of spectra of gender, sexuality, politics, and morality. Talk about a mind f~(k.) , and that the current scenario in the Middle East wasn't a good analogy.
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
There are differences between Linux and BSD.
It's like comparing a pair of black Levi's to a pair of black Lee's.
They are basically the same, but the cut, the feel, and the way they wear are different.
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
Let's not turn this into a political diatribe.
That's petty.
Besides, the analogy is flawed; the Hebrews were there first, and the problem is because the early Muslims tried to convert the Jews, and towards that end, they co-opted the Judaic holy sites.
A better analogy would be the Romans as M$ and the Jews as hackers...
Wait.. This is good.
In the beginning, the Jews (Open Source hackers) were. They were going along pretty good. Admittedly, they started to fracture. In these new scenaria, they still were as they were within their area, but others were unwelcome.
Some, like Stallman, sought a purity of faith through esoteric cults (like the kaballah and the Zealots).
When the Jews/hackers were fractured, the Romans (Microsoft) came in. They brought some of the Jews in, and within the new structure, they felt they were in the same position. To those outside, though, they were traitors.
The Romans weren't all bad; they brought infrastructure. Roads, sewers, water poisoned by the lead pipes they were in. Microsoft did something similar; they brought people in by the mega to purchase PC's and try the murky waters of the Internet.
Before the Romans, travel between towns was a bitch and unsafe. With them, it was easier. Without the Micronazis' influence, the PC and the Net would not have come around as quickly.
When the Christian cultists started to spread The Word (tm), the Pax Romana let them go anywhere, until they spread FUD about their intentions.
Similarly, the Net and availability of M$ rigs allowed those of us seeking The Good News of GNU/Linux (present company included). M$ didn't care until it looked like a real threat. Now, they're involved in an active disinformation campaign.
The Christians beat the Romans in the end.
Let's hope we get there.
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
Apple has done a very good job in their GUI's.
;)
No one can deny that.
However, their OS's needed work.
I mean, a 450 MHz processor dedicated to one thing at a time?
It needed to be gutted.
However, like many GNU purists, I think their decision to go with BSD over Mach is pretty short-sighted.
And, like many Linux purists, I would prefer the more fun, more chaotic environment of a less-mature, more malleable OS.
Besides, I prefer the look and feel of Linux on a Mac versus BSD
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
That's true, however old bureaucrats die hard.
No matter how 'good' the new guy is, the only guys that change are at the higher levels of the government.
The lower level guys usually stay the same.
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
It's very nice to see this (as I mentioned in another post).
The savings are going to be significant; not only do they not have to spend the annual licensing fees for the useless OS's, they can also need not upgrade their hardware as often.
HOWEVER: With the old Mexican regime's propensity towards graft and embezzlement, my concern is that 'the poor' will be redefined to be 'friends of the bureaucrats'.
two cents worth
d.valued
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
Still.. A LOT of smaller sites have to pay through the nostrils to get hosted.
Pipe costs less today than last year, granted, but offering up sweet MP3/Ogg Vorbis audio and glitzy, high-grade vids will still eat up bandwidth.
Sometimes, a back-to-basics approach is called for. Simplifying your index.html (getting rid of extraneous tags and fancy font calls) may be minor, but if you get a thousand.. ten thousand hits, those bits add up.
If you're in a major metro area, you could try DSLing your own personal web server.. if you're sure the provider is reliable (and you can afford the symmetric DSL rates... )
Still.. As with most things that are worth it, getting a website up, hot, and active takes money.
Right now, though, don't count on your website to be your day job (unless design, creation, and maintenance thereof IS your day job, in which case, bravo!)
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
Technology is something else, boys and girls.
;)
The thought that a PS3, a consumer level box, will have more processing ability than the highest of high end rigs today, is shocking.
Mr. Moore's laws have been accelerated..
Are they still talking USD 300 price? If so, this is the first step in the post-PC "designer box" era when each desired set of actions is made to require a distinct, discrete, 'copy-proofed' system.
I just hope the Linux port for PS3 gets out faster than the PS2 port did
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
Completely fair? Tell me.. Who's been the biggest beneficiary of the US government's actions as of late? The f***ing rich. These are the people who own sizeable chunks of GE, Boeing, the telcos, 'defense' contractors, etc. These companies pay niente in taxes, and occasionally get an obscene refund. Their shareholders receive multiple boons: dividends and increased share prices, which are already taxed at a lower rate than earned income. And the upper management.. Jesus! Stock options... multi-million dollar salaries (which are approaching 500x the pay of their lowest-paid underling, compared to less than 50 (on average) for every other industrialized country)... company perks... and when they 'bail', they get a 'golden parachute' which keeps them swimming in moolah. Don't ask me to pity them. The reason the rich pay most of the taxes is because the top 1% of Americans (by worth) control 90% of the wealth. Why shift their fair share to the backs of the working poor?
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
<satire>
Bush's proposals are very nice.
I, for one, would love to have a new Volvo.
Who cares about space? It's Empty!
</satire>
(I guess Bush don't realize that the satellites to project his gross image transglobally are the product of the space program.)
/* Rant follows. Flamebait fresh from the oven. */
What you are witnessing now, ladies and gents, is what happens when you incarcerate a sizeable percentage of your population.
Prisons are the most important thing in the US, as can be witnessed by the private prison industry's exponential growth.
Schools are not important.
Why?
Prisons are a source of cheap labor.
Neo-slavery, if you will...
We're in a country that thinks that public health care is a 'socialist' idea, whereas every other industrialized nation has realized in law that health is a basic human right.
Sorry about the rant.. I just got started...
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
Every version of Windows has BSOD's.
I have seen (and caused) BSOD's on Ick2K.
Wanna try?
Get to a java-heavy site with multiple windows of (your favorite/forced choice browser) and switch between them.
Download an ISO image of a CD through a 56K modem.
Or some other such insane stunt.
I have - and can - pull off stunts like these in Linux without crashing the OS.
Amen.
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
Knock, knock, human.
You're obviously an Ugly American, the kind that would complain (and would attempt to) drive on the right in the UK, speaks on-ly in-En-ga-lish in France and wonders why they're so damned rude, and asks for a cold beer.
Pay attention class, and repeat after me:
THERE'S MORE TO THE WORLD THAN AMERICA!
Why does there have to be a European distro, an Asian distro (or ten), an African distro, hell, a Latin American distro?
Simple, the world doesn't speak just one language!
Granted, most modern scientific texts' authoritative versions are in English, but a scant thirty years ago, you needed to know German to get a chemistry degree.
Most of the people (by number) on Earth speak a dialect of Chinese.
Europe is a plethora of linguistic traditions.
Not to mention the myriad character entry systems (read: keyboards) that are needed, I'm typing on a kb doubled-up for use with Greek. And the accentation! What a pain in the butt!
The reason different distros exist is because there are regional differences that smaller companies can more easily adapt to.
And remember: SuSE didn't 'bite it', they are the #1 Linux distro in Europe and probably in the top three worldwide.
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)