That's a damned good point. I often think the same thing when the issue of searching for alien life comes up.
Imagine if an alien intelligence were watching us. Do you think they'd be keen to make contact with us after witnessing our war-torn past? Even over the last couple of years, we've invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, destroying what was left of both places ( and of course we're to blame for the state they were in to start with ).
I think an alien intelligence would stay well clear of us until we proved we were mature enough to interact with them.
Yes there are far more important things for us to worry about than going into space. In fact I think a lot of our current problems exist specifically because our technology has matured faster than our society has.
Don't see any way your post is related to reality.
And even if I did incite others to graffitti ( which I never have and most likely never will ), you argument still licks arse as much as you to because the other side are doing far worse than graffitti - for example bombing the Christ out of Iraq.
Your storm in a tea-cup over my alleged graffitti-inciting is a pretty pathetic point, and unfortunately for you makes up your entire post.
Good work. I sent one to her too. I don't really hold much hope of being successful, but at least I can say I went to reasonable lengths to have my opinion heard.
Living in a pro-liberal area is not such a bad thing. Buy yourself some spray paint and graffiti the whole damned place. And don't just stop at the FTA. There's plently to pick on:
- truth overboard - weapons of mass deception - 'strengthening' medicare - public funding of private schools - kyoto protocol
Have a look on http://www.howardlies.com which seems to be down at the moment ( maybe they've gotten another court order to take it down? )
The vast majority of the stock in Australia is owned by retirees, the average person like you and I.
Got some links to prove that? I think you'll find that, like everywhere else, the vast majority of stock is not owned by 'the average person' via retirement funds, but is in fact owned by a very small percentage of the population. What were the figures... 90% of the wealth being owned by 1% of the population? Which 'average person' were you referring to? Many of the people who do own stick through retirement funds will never see the money because the stock will have dried up by the time they retire. This is already happening in the US - many large superannuation funds are simply disappearing, leaving 'the average person' with nothing.
Also, forced investment in the stock exchange doesn't change the fact that the stock exchange is fundamentally flawed with respect to the way that it affect resource allocation. There are better ways to decide what to do with our resources. For example we could have a more democratic method of resource allocation. That would scare the stock brokers, I'm sure...
As for your comment about the Greens policies, I simply don't care enough to do any serious research into their problems.
Exactly. Typical neo-conservative apoligist. Full of praise for the stock markets and finanicial institutions, and devoid of any knowledge of what the growing opposition to them is saying. Stick your head back in the sand, and remember to keep buying McDonalds, watching Fox News, deriding the refugees, voting for fucking Howard and waving the American flag when Baby Bush comes back into town.
Well, it's very simple. A year or so ago, the socialist alliance held a demonstration near the Australian Stock Exchange, on the basis that the stock exchange turns over X million dollars a day, and doesn't give any of it to the needy. [ie: Socialists].
I see. Well I wasn't with them when this was happening - it must have been just before I joined. But I can see the point. The stock market is responsible for transporting the profits made in 3rd world countries ( sweat shops, natural resource 'gathering' etc ) back to foreign investors. Considering the difference in standard of living between those making millions on the stock exchange and those starving in the 75% of the world, I think this protest was justified.
And your quip about the socialists wanting the money for themselves is another stupid attempt at FUD. The Socialist Alliance have a policy similar to the Scottish Socialist Party where they refuse to accept wages over the national average. If you do some research on socialism, you'll discover that we are actually thinking of OTHER people. It's the capitalists such as yourself who are the ones that want all the money for [THEMSELVES].
As for the Greens policies, I think if you were serious about what you were doing you could discover exactly what their intentions are. But you're not serious. You're just a pathetic whiner who can't see past the tip of your own nose. Keep it up and you may become president of the USA ( if you were born there of course ).
That's an interesting bit of FUD there. Unfortunately the sentence about the stock exchange doesn't really make any sense. Maybe if you rephrase it I can't respond to the point you're trying to make?
And every policy they have shows that they understand VERY well how the world works, and want to change it. There is a lot for us to be ashamed of currently.
And the Greens are extremists, right? What's more extreme: wanting to protect the environment, invading a defenseless country based on a known lie over the infamous 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' (tm). There are certainly some extremists in our political system. The Greens aren't among them.
That's one of the many reasons why I've become an active supporter of the Socialist Alliance leading up to the federal election.
Those who think Labor are providing 'opposition' to the Liberals and their neo-conservative buddies in the Whitehouse should have a good hard think about Labor's position on the Free Trade Agreement ( among other things ).
Vote out Howard, but don't give Latham & Labor a landslide - give your first vote to left-wing parties such as Socialist Alliance and the Greens, and give your preferences to Labor - send Labor a message that we aren't 100% with them.
I wouldn't worry too much. Although some people talk up the ability to drop in a faster CPU down the track, this is largely either not possible or not worthwhile.
For example, I've got an EPOX motherboard ( can't remember which one ) and an Athlon 2100XP. It's got a 266MHz FSB ( from memory - I may be wrong ). I'm pretty sure if I wanted to, I could put a 3200XP chip into it. But at the moment, I really don't see the point. This runs all games quite well indeed ( partly due to my video card of course ). I don't see much point in upgrading until I can get a 4000XP equivalent ( ie twice as fast as what I've got ). And even then I may wait, depending on my needs at the time ( eg games ). At that point, I really wouldn't consider putting a brand new CPU into this motherboard, whether it would work or not. It would be time to upgrade for a number of reasons, mainly new technology.
So don't look at a motherboard being any more permanent than the CPU that's plugged into it. If you do, you're looking at things the wrong way.
We make extensive use of SPs, especially in the billing section of the database. And no, not for adding / editing data - just for viewing it.
If we didn't have views / stored procedures, then accessing billing information would be:
a) Very difficult coding - you'd have queries all over the place and you'd have little discrepancies pop up that some manager would have my head roll over. Centralised queries is a very good thing indeed.
b) Very slow. I don't care that SPs are pre-compiled. Being able to use nested views / SPs is where we get most of our speed from.
Triggers I'm not so fond of. They are handy in some small cases, but as I'm sure everyone else will be pointing out, they can make debugging interesting.
It's working, I swear, but... no... I can't actually search for anything.
MMMMmmmm. Sounds like the stuff alright.
Reading up on WinFS might be something that some people think is cool, but it really doesn't interest me at all. Reading up on Reiser4 - now that's something that interests me. And as I've said before, it actually works.
But that WinFS stuff with 'searching currently broken' - that sounds good too.
I hope you like supporting that Linux install... And like fielding questions like: "I just bought a brand new digital camera etc etc
Of course. Happened just 2 weeks ago. Canon Digital camera. I ssh'd into the box, installed gphoto and gtkam, set up permissions, made sure there was a menu entry, and told them about it. Not so hard. And I've talked people through setting up a print SERVER over the phone.
Then I would hope that you got caught and spent a few years in jail to think about it, and have it on your record for the rest of your life. Maybe you'll be branded as a terrorist!
Oh GOD no! Please don't brand me a terrorist! Right now everyone who calls others a terrorist is most likely to be a terrorist themselves. Take Baby Bush and his owners, the Bin Ladens, for example. And try to keep in mind I'm just making a point. If I actually wanted to write a virus, do you think I'd be so stupid as to post about it here?
A) What are reasonable steps?
How about:
- firewall
- antivirus software
- no Internet Explorer
- no Outlook / Outlook Express
- keeping Windows up-to-date
Is that so hard. If everyone did that, there would be so few viruses that we wouldn't be talking about it now.
B) What is secure? If I get an email from "you" telling me to run the attached security update to my computer, and don't know any better, and I run it, and it is an emailing worm, then I am now hosed. Worms do this all the time. Do I blame you because I thought I could trust you, or do I blame the worm author who masqueraded as you through their program.
WTF? Dude what I'm talking about is people taking some fucking responsibility and learning about what they have to do to keep their computer secure. I don't really see where this point is coming from.
Have you ever had your hard disks wiped clean with all of your hard work on them?
No, because I've taken some responsibility for my computer, and don't get bothered with such garbage. I take it you've had problems though...
With Reiser3, doing `emerge -up --deep world` on my Gentoo box would usually take about 10 seconds after the progress spinner had started.
Now with Reiser4, it takes about 2 seconds after the progress spinner starts.
The speed really is absolutely amazing.
And from what I've read of Reiser4, it has all the database niceties for managing files and contents of files that WinFS is promising. Of course Reiser4 currently exists and is working on my home gaming maching and 4 machines here at work. WinFS is just marketing speak.
I really am sick of viruses. Being an IT professional, I get on average 1 request per week to remove viruses / spyware / browser hijacks etc from people's computers.
Recently I started turning them down, but offer to install Linux on their computer instead of trying to fix their Window installation.
If I were writing a worm, however, I'd take a different approach. I'd make it spread quietly, and then destroy the Windows install completely 1 day after infection. The whole fucking lot. People who get viruses are asking for it. If you put your computer on the internet, you have a responsibility to do the right thing by everyone else. If you stick your head in the sand and click on all the 'click here' and 'free hardcore XXX' links, then come bitching to me when the whole thing comes crumbling to the ground then you really only have yourself to blame.
ALL computer users should take reasonable steps to keep their computers secure. ALL computer users who don't take these steps should have their hard disks wiped clean.
Once a few viruses start doing this, people will get the hint and keep their systems secure.
If this was the work of the US Government, I stand corrected. However, lets not put such a distinction between Corporate America and US Federal Politics. They are one and the same. Heard of Dick Cheney? Heard of Halliburton? Well the same relationship exists between EVERY ONE of your politicians and big business interests.
As for not worrying about the nuclear waste in your own backyard, your attitude it quite foolish. I won't be as harsh to explain to you what sort of a death your family might look forward to as a result of being exposed to so much nuclear radiation, and will instead leave it up to your googling skills and your imagination.
And please don't push the 'only viable alternative is fossil fuel' argument. There are plenty of alternatives, from solar cells to biomass to wind power, etc. Sure they will take some work... and some BIG expenditure. But at least they are responsible solutions.
Firstly, you get some greedy scum of the calibre of Enron.
Next you allow them to create nuclear waste.
Lastly you tell them to please clean up after themselves, like good wealthy energy company executives.
The rest falls into place quite neatly.
All those who complain about the 'not in my backyard' syndrome should be forced to live near this site, and have their kids play in the waste. We'll see who cries 'not in my backyard' after a decade of exposure...
The do-gooders clearly must all be lined up and shot.
If anyone tries to administer such a drug to me I'd fucking rip them limb from limb.
It sounds a lot like the Jewish idea of forced genital mutilation to prevent the children from decending into a life of sin later on. Problem is that sin gets defined by parents and by society, whereas it should always be defined by the individual. Things change, and opinions differ.
Right now the establishment will have you believe that ecstacy is the drug of the devil and alcohol and nicotine are God's candy. But there are the more wise among us who protest that the reverse is in fact true.
Pushing one set of value ( even the dominant set, I admit ) onto everyone at birth, permanently , is an unbelievable crime that I could only expect to come out of one of the 'Axis of Evil' countries ( US, UK, Australia ). I can see Bush, Blair, Howard, and all the drug companies with patents for new drugs laughing all the way to the bank on this one.
For what I recommend you avoid, Sony is at the top of the list, because of their attitude towards their customers. They are one of the major backers of the DMCA & TCPA. Sony's latest round of advertisements here in Australia highlight their understanding of their customer's perception of them. I'm not sure if you get the ads whereever you are, but they're basically trying to achieve a soft, artistic, humanistic image by avoiding mentioning their product at all through ads that show eccentric artistic people doing things that make you want to smile, with happy Reggae music playing in the background and basically everyone's happy and cool, and then at the end, the advert says "It's a Sony". Like adding those 3 words at the end somehow connects the preceding images to their company. I think not.
Apart from my general boycott of Sony products, I've also found them to be quite overpriced compared to products of similar or better quality from the competition.
I bought a Canon MV600i around 9 months ago, and I'm *very* pleased with it.
I made a mini-documentary of a Stop Bush ( Dubya ) protest in Canberra when the bastard came to Australia, and used Kino to edit it. I'll be releasing it for download soon, at my site: http://enthalpy.homelinux.org. When I say 'soon', I mean 'in the next couple of weeks', so if you're interested, bookmark it and come back later...
The quality is absolutely amazing. No problems with compatibility. No problems with capture. Optical & digital zoom is also amazing.
I think the MV600i is replaced with the 700i or something now. If I were buying another one, I'd certainly buy a Canon.
china? india? peru? hong kong? You've got to be kidding, right? These places are the WORST examples you could have used. They are stuctured much like your own country ( I trust you are a proud American, right? ). There is a 5% elite class that own everything, that buy everything, that control everything. Then there is the rest of the people ( 95% for the American among us ) that live in the factories or in makeshift shelters just outside the factories. They process our toxic waste, recycle our electronic equipment ( that has many poisonous materials, including lead ), have NO possessions, and live under constant fear of their police and government. That's some example you've got there. Good for the 5% mentioned earlier though.
why do you think people are willing to leave their farms and families?
No. Because they are forced to. The US will typically help in this 'forcing', too. The World Bank and the IMF will pressure the host government to implement 'structural adjustments' that leave large sections of the population unemployed and without any form of safety net. The US is also often involved because of their ties to local militia and involvement in civil wars that leave the country in ruins. People leave their farms because they are forced to.
do you really wish we had subsidized and protected the cotton gin producers so we could still have those jobs around?
No. Read my post. I said the exact opposite. Literacy problem?
the world is changing and i can't imagine why you want it to stay in one place. companies can't ever move? industries can never die out?
Again, read my post. I have nothing wrong with companies 'moving' as you so lightly put it. It's just that they need to take some responsibility for the welfare of the people who they've been exploiting to receive all those tasty profits.
you want all wages to go up regardless of demand for that particular job? thats not a market. thats the Soviet Union
Oh my. A cheap shot at socialism by pointing to the Soviet Union. And you even managed some capital letters this time! At no point in the Soviet Union's socialist history did wages go up regardless of demand for a particular job. And lets not confuse true socialism with the disaster that Stalin made of the USSR. They were actually doing quite well until he came along.
Your entire posts smacks of a selfish little brat who would take absolutely no responsibility for the consequences of their actions. That's understandable for someone coming from a country run by the likes of George Dubya Bush. I just hope you come from the US, otherwise you've got some catching up to do.
I agree with your stance on protectionism. No government should slug their people to support an inefficient industry.
But your argument that outsourcing is OK rests on one very flawed assumption: that the people of the world are nothing more than labour.
From the point of view of the elite who own basically everything, people are just labour. But for the rest of us, there are some very important issues underneath the surface of outsourcing and globalization.
Look at the countries where the jobs are going. There's a good reason why these workers are more 'productive' than workers in developed counties... because they're getting paid slave wages while working twice the hours that we do.
The companies that take advantage of the lack of various military dictatorships Indonesia ( until recently ) and China etc claim that they need to do this in order to remain competitive. This is partly right. It is true that as soon as one company starts using slave labour there are economic pressures on the others. Individual companies don't see many alternative in this situation. This is why we have governments. When the market fails to uphold the values a society decides are important, governments should step in and insist on these values being upheld. They can do this by making sure that foreign workers are paid according to award wages in the company's home country instead of the point of production.
If foreign workers can product a better / cheaper product while being these award wages instead of slave wages, then I see less problems with outsourcing.
There are other problems. I have read of many cases where a company will set up a sweat shop in one city, attracting labour from far and wide. Many people leave their farms and families because of severe drought and hardship, and flock to the city for a new chance. The company stays in the city for years. A whole economy grows around the sweat shop, and tens of thousands of people rely on the sweat shop for survival. Then the company makes a deal with some other 3rd world country for even cheaper labour, and splits, leaving these tens of thousands of people to rot. There are no other jobs. There are no farms to go back to; the bank now owns them. Who is responsible? The company is only following 'market conditions'. But the company is directly responsible for far more deaths than what the US is screaming over after your 2 towers came crumbling down. Both situations were cold, calculated decisions.
Globalisation, when described by a right-wing apologist, sounds like it might even work. But it has failed in every single host country it's been tried in, unless you ask the local corrupt governments, or the companies taking all the profits back to the US.
I migrated to Gentoo in disgust after seeing one too many newbie being flamed by the self-appointed Gods of alt.os.linux.slackware in response to what were honestly not-too-bad questions. And for the record, no it was not me getting flamed - apart from when I told the resident dickheads to grow up or risk alienating all users - newbies or not.
I simply didn't want to associate with people with that sort of attitude.
The Gentoo forums were a very refreshing change. They have a real community 'feeling', and seeing any flames on any topic is a rare thing indeed.
I have nothing but the highest level of respect for Pat. How anyone can put together a distro of the calibre of Slackware, basically by themselves, is beyond me. If I were setting up a server for someone else in a hurry, I'd probably choose Slackware because of it's stability and simplicity. But keep me away from the users, please!
Slashdot Mirror
That's a damned good point. I often think the same thing when the issue of searching for alien life comes up.
Imagine if an alien intelligence were watching us. Do you think they'd be keen to make contact with us after witnessing our war-torn past? Even over the last couple of years, we've invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, destroying what was left of both places ( and of course we're to blame for the state they were in to start with ).
I think an alien intelligence would stay well clear of us until we proved we were mature enough to interact with them.
Yes there are far more important things for us to worry about than going into space. In fact I think a lot of our current problems exist specifically because our technology has matured faster than our society has.
Don't see any way your post is related to reality.
And even if I did incite others to graffitti ( which I never have and most likely never will ), you argument still licks arse as much as you to because the other side are doing far worse than graffitti - for example bombing the Christ out of Iraq.
Your storm in a tea-cup over my alleged graffitti-inciting is a pretty pathetic point, and unfortunately for you makes up your entire post.
Fucking moron!
Good work. I sent one to her too. I don't really hold much hope of being successful, but at least I can say I went to reasonable lengths to have my opinion heard.
Living in a pro-liberal area is not such a bad thing. Buy yourself some spray paint and graffiti the whole damned place. And don't just stop at the FTA. There's plently to pick on:
- truth overboard
- weapons of mass deception
- 'strengthening' medicare
- public funding of private schools
- kyoto protocol
Have a look on http://www.howardlies.com which seems to be down at the moment ( maybe they've gotten another court order to take it down? )
Got some links to prove that? I think you'll find that, like everywhere else, the vast majority of stock is not owned by 'the average person' via retirement funds, but is in fact owned by a very small percentage of the population. What were the figures
Also, forced investment in the stock exchange doesn't change the fact that the stock exchange is fundamentally flawed with respect to the way that it affect resource allocation. There are better ways to decide what to do with our resources. For example we could have a more democratic method of resource allocation. That would scare the stock brokers, I'm sure...
Exactly. Typical neo-conservative apoligist. Full of praise for the stock markets and finanicial institutions, and devoid of any knowledge of what the growing opposition to them is saying. Stick your head back in the sand, and remember to keep buying McDonalds, watching Fox News, deriding the refugees, voting for fucking Howard and waving the American flag when Baby Bush comes back into town.
I see. Well I wasn't with them when this was happening - it must have been just before I joined. But I can see the point. The stock market is responsible for transporting the profits made in 3rd world countries ( sweat shops, natural resource 'gathering' etc ) back to foreign investors. Considering the difference in standard of living between those making millions on the stock exchange and those starving in the 75% of the world, I think this protest was justified.
And your quip about the socialists wanting the money for themselves is another stupid attempt at FUD. The Socialist Alliance have a policy similar to the Scottish Socialist Party where they refuse to accept wages over the national average. If you do some research on socialism, you'll discover that we are actually thinking of OTHER people. It's the capitalists such as yourself who are the ones that want all the money for [THEMSELVES].
As for the Greens policies, I think if you were serious about what you were doing you could discover exactly what their intentions are. But you're not serious. You're just a pathetic whiner who can't see past the tip of your own nose. Keep it up and you may become president of the USA ( if you were born there of course ).
That's an interesting bit of FUD there.
Unfortunately the sentence about the stock exchange doesn't really make any sense. Maybe if you rephrase it I can't respond to the point you're trying to make?
And every policy they have shows that they understand VERY well how the world works, and want to change it. There is a lot for us to be ashamed of currently.
And the Greens are extremists, right? What's more extreme: wanting to protect the environment, invading a defenseless country based on a known lie over the infamous 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' (tm). There are certainly some extremists in our political system. The Greens aren't among them.
I see your logic, but you are wrong to put faith in them providing a real alternative to the Liberals.
Many have tried to reform the Labor party from within. All have failed.
It really is time for other parties to gain mainstream acceptance.
Exactly.
That's one of the many reasons why I've become an active supporter of the Socialist Alliance leading up to the federal election.
Those who think Labor are providing 'opposition' to the Liberals and their neo-conservative buddies in the Whitehouse should have a good hard think about Labor's position on the Free Trade Agreement ( among other things ).
Vote out Howard, but don't give Latham & Labor a landslide - give your first vote to left-wing parties such as Socialist Alliance and the Greens, and give your preferences to Labor - send Labor a message that we aren't 100% with them.
I wouldn't worry too much. Although some people talk up the ability to drop in a faster CPU down the track, this is largely either not possible or not worthwhile.
For example, I've got an EPOX motherboard ( can't remember which one ) and an Athlon 2100XP. It's got a 266MHz FSB ( from memory - I may be wrong ). I'm pretty sure if I wanted to, I could put a 3200XP chip into it. But at the moment, I really don't see the point. This runs all games quite well indeed ( partly due to my video card of course ). I don't see much point in upgrading until I can get a 4000XP equivalent ( ie twice as fast as what I've got ). And even then I may wait, depending on my needs at the time ( eg games ). At that point, I really wouldn't consider putting a brand new CPU into this motherboard, whether it would work or not. It would be time to upgrade for a number of reasons, mainly new technology.
So don't look at a motherboard being any more permanent than the CPU that's plugged into it. If you do, you're looking at things the wrong way.
We make extensive use of SPs, especially in the billing section of the database. And no, not for adding / editing data - just for viewing it.
If we didn't have views / stored procedures, then accessing billing information would be:
a) Very difficult coding - you'd have queries all over the place and you'd have little discrepancies pop up that some manager would have my head roll over. Centralised queries is a very good thing indeed.
b) Very slow. I don't care that SPs are pre-compiled. Being able to use nested views / SPs is where we get most of our speed from.
Triggers I'm not so fond of. They are handy in some small cases, but as I'm sure everyone else will be pointing out, they can make debugging interesting.
The parts I like about Komodo are the debugger and object explorer.
You really can't program seriously without a good debugger.
MMMMmmmm.
Sounds like the stuff alright.
Reading up on WinFS might be something that some people think is cool, but it really doesn't interest me at all. Reading up on Reiser4 - now that's something that interests me. And as I've said before, it actually works.
But that WinFS stuff with 'searching currently broken' - that sounds good too.
I hope you like supporting that Linux install... And like fielding questions like: "I just bought a brand new digital camera etc etc
Of course. Happened just 2 weeks ago. Canon Digital camera. I ssh'd into the box, installed gphoto and gtkam, set up permissions, made sure there was a menu entry, and told them about it. Not so hard. And I've talked people through setting up a print SERVER over the phone.
Then I would hope that you got caught and spent a few years in jail to think about it, and have it on your record for the rest of your life. Maybe you'll be branded as a terrorist!
Oh GOD no! Please don't brand me a terrorist! Right now everyone who calls others a terrorist is most likely to be a terrorist themselves. Take Baby Bush and his owners, the Bin Ladens, for example. And try to keep in mind I'm just making a point. If I actually wanted to write a virus, do you think I'd be so stupid as to post about it here?
A) What are reasonable steps?
How about:
- firewall
- antivirus software
- no Internet Explorer
- no Outlook / Outlook Express
- keeping Windows up-to-date
Is that so hard. If everyone did that, there would be so few viruses that we wouldn't be talking about it now.
B) What is secure? If I get an email from "you" telling me to run the attached security update to my computer, and don't know any better, and I run it, and it is an emailing worm, then I am now hosed. Worms do this all the time. Do I blame you because I thought I could trust you, or do I blame the worm author who masqueraded as you through their program.
WTF? Dude what I'm talking about is people taking some fucking responsibility and learning about what they have to do to keep their computer secure. I don't really see where this point is coming from.
Have you ever had your hard disks wiped clean with all of your hard work on them?
No, because I've taken some responsibility for my computer, and don't get bothered with such garbage. I take it you've had problems though...
Think before posting.
We have NEVER been infected with ANYTHING since I took over here at work.
All requests to fix infections are fixing OUTSIDE problems.
Dude you sure are clueless. As if I'd rock up here and proclaim that I can't handle our LAN security. Are you a truck driver or something?
So I guess you can now do a query such as:
Right?
Give me a link to a screenshot of you doing this and I'll eat my words.
Damned right.
With Reiser3, doing `emerge -up --deep world` on my Gentoo box would usually take about 10 seconds after the progress spinner had started.
Now with Reiser4, it takes about 2 seconds after the progress spinner starts.
The speed really is absolutely amazing.
And from what I've read of Reiser4, it has all the database niceties for managing files and contents of files that WinFS is promising. Of course Reiser4 currently exists and is working on my home gaming maching and 4 machines here at work. WinFS is just marketing speak.
I really am sick of viruses.
Being an IT professional, I get on average 1 request per week to remove viruses / spyware / browser hijacks etc from people's computers.
Recently I started turning them down, but offer to install Linux on their computer instead of trying to fix their Window installation.
If I were writing a worm, however, I'd take a different approach. I'd make it spread quietly, and then destroy the Windows install completely 1 day after infection. The whole fucking lot. People who get viruses are asking for it. If you put your computer on the internet, you have a responsibility to do the right thing by everyone else. If you stick your head in the sand and click on all the 'click here' and 'free hardcore XXX' links, then come bitching to me when the whole thing comes crumbling to the ground then you really only have yourself to blame.
ALL computer users should take reasonable steps to keep their computers secure. ALL computer users who don't take these steps should have their hard disks wiped clean.
Once a few viruses start doing this, people will get the hint and keep their systems secure.
If this was the work of the US Government, I stand corrected. However, lets not put such a distinction between Corporate America and US Federal Politics. They are one and the same. Heard of Dick Cheney? Heard of Halliburton? Well the same relationship exists between EVERY ONE of your politicians and big business interests.
... and some BIG expenditure. But at least they are responsible solutions.
As for not worrying about the nuclear waste in your own backyard, your attitude it quite foolish. I won't be as harsh to explain to you what sort of a death your family might look forward to as a result of being exposed to so much nuclear radiation, and will instead leave it up to your googling skills and your imagination.
And please don't push the 'only viable alternative is fossil fuel' argument. There are plenty of alternatives, from solar cells to biomass to wind power, etc. Sure they will take some work
It's easy.
Firstly, you get some greedy scum of the calibre of Enron.
Next you allow them to create nuclear waste.
Lastly you tell them to please clean up after themselves, like good wealthy energy company executives.
The rest falls into place quite neatly.
All those who complain about the 'not in my backyard' syndrome should be forced to live near this site, and have their kids play in the waste. We'll see who cries 'not in my backyard' after a decade of exposure...
The do-gooders clearly must all be lined up and shot.
If anyone tries to administer such a drug to me I'd fucking rip them limb from limb.
It sounds a lot like the Jewish idea of forced genital mutilation to prevent the children from decending into a life of sin later on. Problem is that sin gets defined by parents and by society, whereas it should always be defined by the individual. Things change, and opinions differ.
Right now the establishment will have you believe that ecstacy is the drug of the devil and alcohol and nicotine are God's candy. But there are the more wise among us who protest that the reverse is in fact true.
Pushing one set of value ( even the dominant set, I admit ) onto everyone at birth, permanently , is an unbelievable crime that I could only expect to come out of one of the 'Axis of Evil' countries ( US, UK, Australia ). I can see Bush, Blair, Howard, and all the drug companies with patents for new drugs laughing all the way to the bank on this one.
But 'save the fucking children', won't you?
For my recommendation, see my post: Canon.
For what I recommend you avoid, Sony is at the top of the list, because of their attitude towards their customers. They are one of the major backers of the DMCA & TCPA. Sony's latest round of advertisements here in Australia highlight their understanding of their customer's perception of them. I'm not sure if you get the ads whereever you are, but they're basically trying to achieve a soft, artistic, humanistic image by avoiding mentioning their product at all through ads that show eccentric artistic people doing things that make you want to smile, with happy Reggae music playing in the background and basically everyone's happy and cool, and then at the end, the advert says "It's a Sony". Like adding those 3 words at the end somehow connects the preceding images to their company. I think not.
Apart from my general boycott of Sony products, I've also found them to be quite overpriced compared to products of similar or better quality from the competition.
I bought a Canon MV600i around 9 months ago, and I'm *very* pleased with it.
I made a mini-documentary of a Stop Bush ( Dubya ) protest in Canberra when the bastard came to Australia, and used Kino to edit it. I'll be releasing it for download soon, at my site: http://enthalpy.homelinux.org. When I say 'soon', I mean 'in the next couple of weeks', so if you're interested, bookmark it and come back later...
The quality is absolutely amazing. No problems with compatibility. No problems with capture. Optical & digital zoom is also amazing.
I think the MV600i is replaced with the 700i or something now. If I were buying another one, I'd certainly buy a Canon.
china? india? peru? hong kong?
You've got to be kidding, right?
These places are the WORST examples you could have used. They are stuctured much like your own country ( I trust you are a proud American, right? ). There is a 5% elite class that own everything, that buy everything, that control everything. Then there is the rest of the people ( 95% for the American among us ) that live in the factories or in makeshift shelters just outside the factories. They process our toxic waste, recycle our electronic equipment ( that has many poisonous materials, including lead ), have NO possessions, and live under constant fear of their police and government. That's some example you've got there. Good for the 5% mentioned earlier though.
why do you think people are willing to leave their farms and families?
No. Because they are forced to. The US will typically help in this 'forcing', too. The World Bank and the IMF will pressure the host government to implement 'structural adjustments' that leave large sections of the population unemployed and without any form of safety net. The US is also often involved because of their ties to local militia and involvement in civil wars that leave the country in ruins. People leave their farms because they are forced to.
do you really wish we had subsidized and protected the cotton gin producers so we could still have those jobs around?
No. Read my post. I said the exact opposite. Literacy problem?
the world is changing and i can't imagine why you want it to stay in one place. companies can't ever move? industries can never die out?
Again, read my post. I have nothing wrong with companies 'moving' as you so lightly put it. It's just that they need to take some responsibility for the welfare of the people who they've been exploiting to receive all those tasty profits.
you want all wages to go up regardless of demand for that particular job? thats not a market. thats the Soviet Union
Oh my. A cheap shot at socialism by pointing to the Soviet Union. And you even managed some capital letters this time! At no point in the Soviet Union's socialist history did wages go up regardless of demand for a particular job. And lets not confuse true socialism with the disaster that Stalin made of the USSR. They were actually doing quite well until he came along.
Your entire posts smacks of a selfish little brat who would take absolutely no responsibility for the consequences of their actions. That's understandable for someone coming from a country run by the likes of George Dubya Bush. I just hope you come from the US, otherwise you've got some catching up to do.
I agree with your stance on protectionism. No government should slug their people to support an inefficient industry.
... because they're getting paid slave wages while working twice the hours that we do.
But your argument that outsourcing is OK rests on one very flawed assumption: that the people of the world are nothing more than labour.
From the point of view of the elite who own basically everything, people are just labour. But for the rest of us, there are some very important issues underneath the surface of outsourcing and globalization.
Look at the countries where the jobs are going. There's a good reason why these workers are more 'productive' than workers in developed counties
The companies that take advantage of the lack of various military dictatorships Indonesia ( until recently ) and China etc claim that they need to do this in order to remain competitive. This is partly right. It is true that as soon as one company starts using slave labour there are economic pressures on the others. Individual companies don't see many alternative in this situation. This is why we have governments. When the market fails to uphold the values a society decides are important, governments should step in and insist on these values being upheld. They can do this by making sure that foreign workers are paid according to award wages in the company's home country instead of the point of production.
If foreign workers can product a better / cheaper product while being these award wages instead of slave wages, then I see less problems with outsourcing.
There are other problems. I have read of many cases where a company will set up a sweat shop in one city, attracting labour from far and wide. Many people leave their farms and families because of severe drought and hardship, and flock to the city for a new chance. The company stays in the city for years. A whole economy grows around the sweat shop, and tens of thousands of people rely on the sweat shop for survival. Then the company makes a deal with some other 3rd world country for even cheaper labour, and splits, leaving these tens of thousands of people to rot. There are no other jobs. There are no farms to go back to; the bank now owns them. Who is responsible? The company is only following 'market conditions'. But the company is directly responsible for far more deaths than what the US is screaming over after your 2 towers came crumbling down. Both situations were cold, calculated decisions.
Globalisation, when described by a right-wing apologist, sounds like it might even work. But it has failed in every single host country it's been tried in, unless you ask the local corrupt governments, or the companies taking all the profits back to the US.
I've said it once and I'll say it again:
Slackware users are jerks.
I migrated to Gentoo in disgust after seeing one too many newbie being flamed by the self-appointed Gods of alt.os.linux.slackware in response to what were honestly not-too-bad questions. And for the record, no it was not me getting flamed - apart from when I told the resident dickheads to grow up or risk alienating all users - newbies or not.
I simply didn't want to associate with people with that sort of attitude.
The Gentoo forums were a very refreshing change. They have a real community 'feeling', and seeing any flames on any topic is a rare thing indeed.
I have nothing but the highest level of respect for Pat. How anyone can put together a distro of the calibre of Slackware, basically by themselves, is beyond me. If I were setting up a server for someone else in a hurry, I'd probably choose Slackware because of it's stability and simplicity. But keep me away from the users, please!