Wow, I'm glad I live in the USA and not whatever US you live in.
They are one and the same.
Over here, there are plenty of jobs which don't involve being a target, even with minimal education,
Like 7-11 clerk? There's one up the street from my work that's robbed on a weekly basis. How about a McDonald's attendant? Of course, a 16-year-old girl in the area was stabbed to death after she was followed from her job at Micky-D's. Hmm...I know! You could work retail in a store! Wait, that doesn't work either, with the gang shootings at the local mall taking place. Jeez, this is getting harder by the minute.
...and being poor, as in actually being unable to afford food, is so rare as to be essentially nonexistent.
That would explain the people I see sleeping under a bridge with no food. Better yet, it would also include those people that go fishing for breakfast out of the city garbage cans, an event I see on a near-daily basis. Hey, I won't even bring up the time that I had to go on food stamps and go pick up donations of rock-hard stale bread, moldy produce, expired milk, rancid unrefrigerated meat (I didn't know meat could turn rainbow shades of green), and 10-year-old peanut butter from the local food bank. After all, I'm being fed food, right? Yum!
Even the jobless usually plenty of support... hell, most of them can afford televisions, cell phones, and cigarettes!
The last person I talked to who was jobless for any significant period of time couldn't afford television, a cell phone, or cigarettes. The only reason they could afford to eat and have shelter is because his wife had a job - one that just barely paid the bills. Of course, they were lucky in that they didn't have to choose between heat and food in the winter months, an issue that still affects many in my area.
Our military is all-volunteer, and has plenty of people from rural areas as well as the cities, roughly according to population. National law means that even a minimal tour of duty ensures an excellent secondary education, and as a result people with an interest in protecting their fellows in the country get a leg-up over those that don't, which pretty much everyone agrees is reasonable. My family on both sides has benefitted greatly from this system.
You're very lucky, and very blessed. I'm not trying to be sarcastic when I say that. I truely mean it. There are many that go into the service, but no-one talks about the few that don't come back. I hope that you never face that loss.
You really should consider immigration, just petition the local embassy to 'reality' in your country.
I don't have to. I already live here.
I'm not saying the millitary is evil.
I'm not saying that no-one should volunteer for service.
I AM saying that poverty, hunger, and strife do exist, right here, right now, in the United States of America. Please don't tell people that no-one goes without, because thousands DO go without on a daily basis. I know - not only have I been there, but I see it every day.
P.S. Mark me as a Troll if you want, it still doesn't change the fact that I have seen and experienced what I just described. You can bury your head in the sand and ignore the truth, or you can try to face it head on.
The problem is that a raw dollar amount tells you absolutely nothing about the health of the educational system - its testing results, do.
I agree, but I was trying to point out that underfunding education is a bit like making an underfunded investment - sure, you get something in the end, but it had the potential to be more if you would have put a bit more funding into it, instead of scrimping. I'm not entirely disagreeing, but rather, pointing out that we pay less and less = less and less to go around for buildings, materials, and educators = less and less prospects of your "investment" paying off.
Wrong. They're smart and know very well what they're doing. The problem are the uninformed, uneducated masses who rush to vote for them as soon as any proposed new law has either "terrorism" or "children" attached to it. They're taking advantage of this, and there's nothing you can do to avoid it, other than informing and educating as many people as you can. Do you think it's a coincidence that the education budget in the US is being cut?
No, I don't. I grew up in the Reagan Years and watched as education was repeatedly cut over and over again to make way for defense spending. What we are experiencing now with Bush isn't new, it's old; it's just a continuation of the same policies, almost by the same people.
Frankly, the group of people in the current government are following a plan that has been described and layed out for many many years. The American occupation of Iraq is simply one in a series of numerous steps that are followed in a long checklist of things that these people feel need to happen to them soon. The end-game is not quite clear but we are more than half-way though it now; the permanent airbases in Iraq should be an indicator to anyone that there's more to this than meets the eye.
I pity you Americans. Your country is going down the drain.
Not all of us are sleepwalkers. Some of us are awake. But it's becoming more and more dangerous to do anything else other than to pretend to sleep. Those who are unfortunately making alot of noise right now will simply be marked for future reference (in a morbid way, I'm curious as to how that will play out - will they simply be rounded up quietly, vans being filled with people at 3am?). The rest of us - those who are keeping quiet - are making plans to leave. Know of some kind countries that allow American immigrants without alot of hassle?
It is very unsettling to know that someone else has had the same vision of their future life in their golden years. I said something similar to this not too long ago. My only comfort is in knowing that I am not alone. That, in itself, is not much to comfort me when I read the words of the parent poster.
This is just par for the course; I expect that it will pass as law soon.
You call double-digit hacks a growing trend? Where do these folks live, under a rock? Don't tell me you've never heard of Attrition.org? Just how many HUNDREDS of sites were defaced in the past?
The reality is that DRM is a tool, and it's not the tool that's malicious, but some of its potential uses.
Tell me what non-malicious use this tool can be used for? I understand that you're separating the tool from the decision of the tool-user (same arguement used by gun control critics, "guns don't kill, the person who pulls the trigger does") but it neatly sidesteps what the tool can and can't be used for. In the case of guns, this is a tool specifically designed to create a devistating, damaging impact from a lump of lead and/or copper at a specific point in space. Leaves little to the imagination, doesn't it? The same can be said of DRM; it is a tool specifically designed to control exactly what program can run on a given piece of hardware and/or control the flow of data on the same piece of hardware. Guns can be used for hunting (a use that is recognized as valid by a majority of people) or for murder (a use that is considered invalid by a vast majority of people). DRM can be used to secure information (a use that many would consider valid) or to directly control what you can or can't do with your computer (a use that many would consider invasive, unethical, and in some cases, immoral). There's just one last piece to this arguement: in the case of a gun, the owner of the tool uses the tool to affect a 3rd party (who is the recipient recieving the bullet), and the person pulling the trigger is (hopefully) the gun owner (i.e. the tool owner is using the tool). In the case of DRM, this is reversed; the owner of the computer is the recipient of the tool's effect, and a 3rd party decides on wheather or not they "pull the trigger". If you "own" your computer, then why does someone else have the right to determine what you can and can't do with it? Thus, it becomes an issue not of protecting copyright interests or preventing software piracy, but one of incredible vendor control. Want to use a software package that competes with a package that is also owned by Microsoft? Too bad. Microsoft can stop you from running that program. Your choice will be one choice - and that choice might not be what you want.
I honestly don't care if Windows won't let you play a song without putting a quarter in your floppy drive. What I care about is that there are valid alternatives; that shipping a general purpose box that only allows one OS to be run on it is seen as anti-competitive, no matter what boogeyman we use to scare Congress (or whatever your local law-making body is called).
You will care if the music is your legal posession and you have already paid for it. Now, a 3rd party could charge you over and over and over again for the "privledge" of listening to "your" music. This is already happening with printed material, which, ironically, was predicted by Stallman himself. He clearly understands the danger it presents not just to you the consumer/buyer/owner, but to society at large.
There will be no valid alternatives, unless you can afford to mask your own chips, fab your own motherboards, etc. As far as shipping a single-use box goes, it is not illegal; and we certainly can't claim monopoly action, can we? (Double-jeopardy rules apply now that the manufacturer of Windows has already been found a monopolist). Frankly, the whole point of TPM was to provide Microsoft a means of complete control.
Pot. Kettle. Black. In essence, you have just pointed out that you believe the current "flat earth" economic theories that have been spouted for decades.
Capitalism does one thing really well. It allocates scarce resources efficiently. As oil diminishes prices will rise and demand will fall. The market will clear. This isn't good news for consumers and those of us raised on $15 a barrel oil. It isn't good news if you own a gas guzzeling SUV. It isn't good news for unemployment.
Define your point of view when you say "Efficient". If you mean "Bread is scarce, people are starving (going without), I will have enough money to by a loaf of bread, but you will starve", then do you think I'll really be motivated by economics when I can just get a gun, kill you, take the bread, and feed myself (and my family)? Do you really think that anyone will care that "the market has cleared"?
If the prior sentence shows an "externality" of economics, then what happens when you have millions of people that become "externalities"? Do they behave like rational economic consumers? Or do they fight in a civil war over scarce resources? Will they show restraint due to "ethics" or "morals", even though they are starving? In other parts of the planet, where people ARE starving, have they been peaceful? (Hint: see Africa)
"It isn't good news for unemployment". Holy oblivious statement, Batman! If there is no employment, then how will people obtain the money they need to purchase goods and services? If there is no demand for goods and services, what will that do to the capitalists running the businesses that make them money? What will that do to the economy as a whole?
But it isn't the end of the world. We will end up living in a more energy efficient world. We will end up using other forms of power (solar, nuclear, coal, gas, etc.) Humankind will not be wiped out. Democracy will not die.
It is the end of the world if you die of starvation. At least, from your own point-of-view.
Yes, we will be in a very very very energy efficient world, I don't disagree. How that world looks might be something we do disagree on.
All other forms of power combined would not be enough to replace the energy used from refined oil.
There are strong indications (but nothing more than theory) that the earth's human population is 3 times larger than can be sustained; the theory more-or-less ties human population growth to the availability of cheap energy. Anyone care to prove or disprove this theory? Either way, what does it say about long-term prospects for the human race?
Democracy IS dying. For shit's sake, our national government has all but removed the bill of rights, if not in name (on paper), then in spirit. Total Information Awareness?The ADVISE software project, just recently announced in slashdot to tie together internet communications (websites, blogs, IM chat)? Our President admitting that he's all for
domestic spy programs?The push for a national ID card? This is Seriously Evil Shit.(tm) Any of this ring a bell? Papers, please.
You state that capitalism can't deal with this. I think this is the only thing c
50 comments and not a single one zeros in on the concept of a monoculture grain system being promoted by Monsanto (and friends) along with the potential effect it could have on grain stocks when (not if!) there comes to pass a blight or other form of crop failure.
A simple challenge to you: if you're simply laughing at the prior sentence, then consider that you will die should it happen. If you're not laughing and you're seriously considering the effects, you too would consider a little biodiversity...
Luckily, the oil is not going to disappear overnight. Even as we approach the end of the available reserves, the flow of oil will just slow, not stop. Long before that, as the easy-to-reach oil reserves are depleted, the price will rise as the needed oil is drawn from less and less accessible sources. At some point extracting oil from shale and tar sands will become cost-effective.
There are a number of things that you haven't said here.
First the easy-to-reach oil reserves are ALREADY depleted. Third-generation Techniques such as "bottle-brush drilling" are already the NORM, not the exception. The technology used in oil drilling and extraction is becoming more and more, shall we say, desperate?
Second, the price of your energy has NOTHING to do with the quality, density, reliability, availability, or EROEI (Energy Return on Energy Invested).
Third, extraction of oil from shale and tar sand is ALREADY monitarily cost-effective; but it completely ignores other factors, namely that it will create more pollution than existing oil refineries, and that it will take enourmous amounts of energy to extract the oil in the sands, which means the amount of "energy" you extract from it may not be the same as the amount of "energy" you put into the extraction process.
As the price gradually rises, more and more alternatives to oil will become cost-effective. As use of alternative sources increases, the investment into them will improve their efficiency, through process improvements and through mass production, making them even better competitors.
Alternatives such as wind and solar are ALREADY cost-effective; the prohibition here is not that they have a negative monetary return, but rather that it takes a longer time to see a return on monetary investment. If you factor in the energy returns on energy invested, you'll find that some power sources are not what they seem...some make more sense...
The transition from oil to other energy sources will occur naturally, through normal market forces, and without any extreme shocks. No "outside shove" is required to make the energy source transition. That said, I think there is value in governmental influence pushing toward cleaner energy sources, since market forces won't naturally push us in that direction. I think "pollution taxes" (or pollution credits, which are similar) are a good idea as they can both bring market forces to bear on keeping the environment clean and can also provide funding for alternative energy research.
The transition from oil to other energy sources will be a shock, because there is so much already tied to the use of oil besides the use of it as an energy resource. That restaurant salad in a plastic container you just ordered is positively DRIPPING in oil. Oil was used to create the fertilizers that are used in American agriculture. Oil is used to make the pesticides that allow for large, cheap crops to be grown. Oil was used to lubricate the machinery that is used to harvest and transport that food. Oil was used to make the fuel that allowed for the salad greens to be planted, harvested, transported, and in some cases stored for extended periods. Oil was used in the manufacture of the plastic shell that the salad comes in, and it too had oil used for the manufacture and transportation of that plastic shell. But it doesn't end there! After you eat that salad, the plastic shell is disposed of into a plastic bag (made with oil); the bag is transported to a disposal site (oil for lubrication and fuel again); hell, even the final resting place of the salad greens you ate, well, let's just say that municipal sewer treatment plants are powered by electricity, a large portion of which is coming from natural-gas fired turbines; natural gas is a common by-product from drilling....oil wells.
Pollution tax and credit spending is a nice idea, I agree, but it becomes a political shell game of what we define as "pollution". Given how "honest" big energy has been in the past (let
What API CAN'T you write for on Windows? We have the shitty POSIX subsystem, SFU, cygwin, win32,.net, qt, gtk, xlib, perl, python, php, java, etc etc etc. So where exactly am I locked in, again?
Win32 POSIX: Has never worked properly from day one, and never will. Next, please...
SFU: Should have been named Microsoft STFU for Unix folks. Does a complete assrape of your registry to "bend over backwards" for Unix compliance. This is embarrassing given that there are commercial products that perform similar functions without the degrading treatment given to your already degraded Windows server.
win32: It's an embarrassment when there were environments like Intuition on the Commodore Amiga that did more work in less lines of code...Intuition was not exactly the pinnacle of GUI achievement but it makes my point about where Win32 programming really stands.
cygwin: why again are we porting a Unix-style environment to Win32? Isn't Win32 good enough to do real work in? Ya know, you could always just wipe your Windows install and do something like a Linux distro, FreeBSD, etc. Oh wait, that wasn't the point, was it...
.net: as in Microsoft's patented Systems.Forms.net? Tell me again why the Mono project had to come up with their own replacement for Systems.Forms?
qt AND gtk: that's some great crack you're smoking there...let me know when they make it non-addictive. (read: I have yet to see developers/vendors banging the doors down to write apps for Qt/GTK, UNLESS they were planning on doing the Win32 version as an afterthought and their primary product as something *nix based)
perl: a first-rate language in the Unix world, reduced to a 2nd-class citizen in Win32 land. Cry tears for the poor perl programmer stuck in Win32 hell.
python: don't get me started. I just finished a "portable" python script, using "Official" python interpreters. Tell me why my script doesn't run on Windows, Linux, and OS X without minor changes? Hint: it runs on both Linux and OS X with NO changes.
php: another first-rate language made into another 2nd-class citizen in Win32 land. In Unix land, there are adequate tools to allow for a fairly painless build and setup. Just how long did it take to get it to compile, install, and wedge into IIS? Are you even using IIS still?
java: Remember J++? How about MS Java? Lawsuits, anyone? Sure, they settled for millions of dollars, and admitting that their implementation was bork'd on purpose from the beginning...erm...wait...
When you get around to it, it seems people continue to use tools that gear code to Win32 for a reason. It also seems that the reasoning isn't along the lines of "gee, we can code for just about anything on Win32 and make it really feasible for production use". It also seems that there is a dearth of products that are being ported from Win32 to X-Windows, Qt, GTK, or other "non-Microsoft" platforms. Why is that? Market Share? What does Market Share have to do with the abstract concept of "portability"? Could it be that it really does help if you are the biggest monopoly on the block? Does it help when you can throw your weight around and "sway" vendors to do as you say? If you write code for Win32, are you a -- dare I say it and summon the Monkey Boy of Redmond -- a "Developer"? If you're a developer, are you writing software to become a vendor?
Here's a better one:
Why are they breaking about 60% of all existing Win32 software with Vista? Could it be that the platform was such a cluster in terms of design that they simply can't extend the cruft for much longer without the whole thing collapsing in on its own weight?
Now...tell me...just WHY you want to write for Win32 again?
Has it occured to anyone here that over time, more and more OSS is going to become "borderline illegal"? That we may end up with VLC as a program that you can't import into the USA (because of its DVD capabilities); that Asterix will move out of the states (because it provides private communication without a corporate entity, and will eventually be "regulated" in such a way that only telcos could use it); that even simple tools like GNU shred will "disappear"? B.S. like the E911 service are merely thinly vieled threats against existing VoIP providers, by way of legislation from the dominate telcos to ensure that VoIP doesn't take off...without them leading the way, of course.
I'm beginning to think that I should hoard source code like never before...
Suddenly, that 15-CD debian distro looks better and better, provided the source code is provided.
RMS may sound like a crackpot to our facist overlords^W^Wcorporate lobby, but he's right on the money - if the source code to a program can be controlled (by hardware, software, or firmware, no difference) then you really don't have any freedom as to what you can do. And that kind of freedom scares some people, but not for the reasons that are presented in the nightly news; you have to remember, never in human history have you had a world-wide connected information network that spanned cultures, beliefs, and challenged the status quo in every case. What we are seeing is the slow relentless progress of those entities - governments, transnational corporations, and hyper-wealthy private interests - to "dumb down" or take away from that potential. If people woke up one day and realized that they didn't have to work for someone else to provide for themselves, well, they jig would be up and the few in privledge would find themselves fighting to maintain control, as they always have through the ages. This isn't about political spectrums such as right vs left, democracy vs communism; this is about power, and the maintenance of power. Money, which years ago used to actually have a value of some sort, has degenerated into just another form of power. In this case, CALEA is power applied for both the telcos (who suddenly are felling the heat from VoIP) and government interests (in this case, the existing regime^W administration wants to extend its powerbase).
(Yawn) enough ranting for today, go outside and play...
I would like to license your term, Seriously Evil Shit(tm) for use in my own discussions. I'll have my lawyers call you shortly with our standard contract terms.
"Seriously Evil Shit" is (C) and (TM) suzerain@slashdot.org, all rights reserved.
First, before anything else, I'm going to get this off my chest - The United States of America is slowly becoming a facist state controlled by the dictates of large business interests (which in some cases, is the same as the business owner), with political parties merely providing the illusion of a semi-functional democracy. You can flame, rant, throw a tantrum, turn blue in the face, etc. but it doesn't change the recorded facts about what has been happening inside the country for the last twenty years (yes, it's been that long). Which leads to my next interjection - that this is one of those recorded occasions where facist political power is being solidified. I think that people will be hard-pressed to argue against this point given the situation described and the intended consiquences mentioned below...
The objective here is to have a chilling effect on Internet communcations by the suppression of filesharing. Which is scarier to most people - the "3 years and a fine" part (which has never stopped people in the past) or the "may potentially be sharing" part, which has been left intentionally vague for this purpose?
As a side-effect, did anyone bother to notice that this will stifle dissenting opinions, by the very nature that you may or may not be arrested for media that "could be copyrighted", and therefore, subject you to anal probes of the non-UFO kind? Are you willing to take the chance, to put up an MP3 recording of a dissenting opinion and hope that you're not arrested, hauled off, and found innocent later, all because "it's an MP3! S/he's pirate scum! Arrest that person now!"? Hell, given the powers of PATRIOT and it's spawn, PATRIOT II, you could be considered a terrorist...which means no lawyer, indefinite detainment, torture as needed, no public notification of your detainment, etc.
Seriously, this is all about power and control of language. Orwell was right...by narrowing the discourse of discussion, one can effectively limit or stop altogether any dissenting opinion from being heard. I fully expect that arguements to the contrary will use similar tactics, i.e. I don't believe that it exists, therefore, it doesn't, despite evidence to the contrary (a popular method with the "right", and the "left" is fast learning this as well). I'm suprised as to how many people have no clue as to what happened in Germany in the mid-1930's, and how a certain despot came to power...people that I talk to (carefully, of course) seem to think that:
It can't happen here. This is the US, and by virtue alone of it being the US, it is an impossibility.
Rebuttal: this is a form of blind patriotism. It's fairly obvious to anyone of mediocre intelligence that there is no logic or proof to support this statement.
It can't happen here. This happens only in bad places, and this is a good place, so it's not possible.
Rebuttal: this is a variant of the above, but along a different line, one of social indoctrination. You've been told this from an early age, for most of your younger life, and were told to believe it or else you would fail your schooling...you'll be branded socially as "stupid", "class fool", "outcast"...but what does schooling/peer pressure have to do with this, if not for the sole purpose of ensuring a conforming view?
It can't happen here. There are laws and constitutional rights to protect people from this kind of treatment.
Rebuttal: most of those laws and rights now have very large loopholes, courtesy of the US PATRIOT act. Go read up. BTW, I fully expect the elimination of 3 of our constitutional rights within the next 10 years through carefully planned and worded ammendments...we repealed prohibition because of "popular demand", so what's to stop our congresscritters from doing the same
when there's a horrible horrible terrorist attack of some sort, contrieved for the sole purpose of panicing the public and herding...er, guidin
Something I've noticed in all posts, the price is a prime factor, but the original poster also seems concerned about access times (hence DVDs not being an option, due to the time it takes to retrieve data).
For simplicity, I'm not going to go into RAID tradeoffs, etc. and just stick with "striped data", which gives you maximum bang for the buck. You should draw up a simple spreadsheet with the following headings:
Media Type: Enter the type of media, it's manufacturer, etc. here. Example: HDD, Hitachi, Model XYZ, 320Gb.
Size: How much raw data the medium will store. All figures should be in Gb.
Speed: The expected data transfer rate of a single unit of storage. IDE drives vary and can range from 5mb to 30mb/sec, tape also ranges. All figures in Mb/sec.
Watts per Unit: how much power does each media unit draw? Tape drives will be difficult here, but HDD units are typically around 20-30 watts. Go conservative and plan on allocations of 30 watts for HDD units.
Cost per Unit: How much does it cost for 1 HDD/Tape/whatever?
Cost per Gb: [Size] divided by [Cost].
Units Needed: Given a target of 1024 Gb (1 Terabyte), how many units of storage are needed to reach that size, assuming data striping and no RAID-5? Forumula is '1024' divided by [Size]. then round all decimals up to the nearest whole number.
Expected Size: Take [Units Needed] times [Size]. If you have 4 units of 320, you'll end up with 1280 Gb (sans redundancy).
Total Cost: cost of non-redundant array. [Cost Per Unit] times [Units Needed].
Aggregate Speed: Assuming a 1:1 ratio of controllers to units, what kind of speed can we expect? [ Units Needed ] times [Speed]. All figures in Megabytes. Note: a huge array of 1+ TB can be made unusable if you can only process 10 megabytes a second.
Power Consumed: [ Units Needed ] times [ Watts per Unit ]. Important - your power supply should be rated at about 120% of this figure to make everything work reliably. Also, if you're going above 400-500 watts, then plan on some additional cooling - there will be an increase in BTU's
It's not exactly a great spreadsheet layout, but it should be enough to enter everything in and start seeing what is practical and what isn't. I'm sure that someone else would be able to enhance this a little further - any takers?
By the way, you really should think about RAID-5 at the very least. All it would take is just one drive to hose your data completely. Besides, as the array grows in size, the price tradeoff becomes smaller and smaller, to the point where it's really not worth your time to stripe all of your data without redundancy. I believe that the md drivers in linux support up to 32 devices per RAID set. That takes your overhead from 1/5 of your array (in a 5-drive setup) down to 1/32 of your array.
A SAN-style setup lends itself well to this, but the price is very prohibitive to "the common man", as it requires very expensive hardware. You can emulate something like this via GFS support in Linux, which (theoretically) would allow you to aggregate your data.
If there is a requirement to keep the data online at all times, you'll need to spend more on some PC cases, as well as some networking to string the units together. Pick a reasonably-priced case that will house all the media units, have adequate power (at least 250 Watts, 300+ would be ideal) and keep them cool. Use a motherboard that is reliable, and can adapt to several different clock speeds for a given CPU; you'll want something that can be thrown out for less than $99.00 if it should go bonkers on you, but if the CPU burns up, you should be able to still get parts off the shelf and get the Motherboard running again. Stick will the "commodity" or low-end CPUs, as (a) they tend to be cheaper, and (b) having been through a complete lifecycle, any bugs or issues with the CPUs will be well-known by now. Don't worry about the speed of the board or CPU at this point, as most "modern"
Let's go over this one more time...apologies in advance to people who are going to be pissed off, I'm just trying to reach out to people here:
I make no money off of my site and I can't afford to spend any money sending email
The proposal has NOTHING to do with money. If you read the site carefully, you'll see that it is about using computational power, not your hard-earned cash.
anybody that is new to you gets a very anti-social message about not accepting your mail till you do something wierd
Two things:
You assume that anyone should have a say in how I run my mail server. Guess what? It's not yours - or any other stranger who's trying to entice me with "body part enlargement" ads - to run, it's mine. And while I will do my best to be a good well-informed secure social net-citizen, I still determine what I will accept, and I determine the rules for my site. What's that I hear you say? But everyone else does it... um, no, wrong, everyone else does what I'm describing, they are in charge of their email systems. If the email admin of a site doesn't have a sufficiently large set of naturally enlarged body parts to tell their users to deal with it, then it's that site's problem, not mine or yours.
Anyone that is new to me would know ahead of time to do this, because I would tell them so when I give them my email address; otherwise, they are probably someone I wouldn't know...like a spammer...besides, what is to stop me from adding that person's email address to the whitelist, anyway?
Better yet, a third idea:
I could integrate my existing, valid email addresses into a single LDAP listing by compiling a list of senders from my email logs and dumping that in there. An automatic whilelist would develop for every existing relationship and none of this would happen.
Someone is doing something illegal lets charge them for doing it
You missed the point. The point is that a fine bit of social engineering will occur - people who are sending "reasonable" volumes of email will do the computation once. People who are trying to shitcan the internet as we know it to make a fast buck and support their crack cocaine habits, well, it just got all that harder to do so. Let's put it in perspective with a crappy example (sorry that it's a bad example). Let's say I run a red light. Illegal, yes, and I get a fine for it. I pay the fine, and promise not to do it again (that is to say, I pay my initial postage, and now that I've done so, it's no longer an issue). Now here's Mr. "Ima FreeRide" (aka spammer), but he has a whole fsck'd fleet of trucks, hundreds of them, some of them are even triple-trailer, and he wants to run all of them at 100 mph through the same red light all at once. Well, that's a really BIG fine, and unless Ima FreeRide can afford that big a fee, it's not in Ima's interest to even try. But what will really happen is that Ima FreeRide will completely ignore that intersection (ie. the spammer never will see the notice because they are forging the header address better than 80% of the time, therefore the spammer will not receive the correct link to obtain the postage they need), so he'll go off to some other road and try there instead. But wait, there's more! Let's say that Ima is a real asshat, and decides that he's gonna run the light anyways. Now the local sherrif gets involved, and sets up a trap at the light and starts directing traffic one at a time - in a very slow fashion - to the point where Ima doesn't want to try anymore (ie the spammer tries to get through anyways, but the computational time to send 250,000 messages slows everything to a crawl). Let's go even further - Ima is not only an asshat, he's a crafty asshat. He's figured out a way to run the light. Guess what? On the other side is both a photo radar van and three motorcycle cops, waiting for him (ie. even if the tokens could be for
You're kidding, right? I already told you this twice: your comment was so rambling and senseless that I didn't even bother trying to decipher it past the first graf or two.
Let's see if we're in the same boat again here.
Ah...I see clearly your modus operandi. You ignore things arbitrarily, to suit your needs. Despite the fact that I went back and did a second post to my first, and followed up with your conversation, and even provided you with the link to said follow-up, you continue to write off anything that "doesn't fit into your world view". And of course, this supposedly gives you ammo to write off this second converstational thread as well. If it doesn't fit then it isn't real?
Fine. I'll make life easy for both of us (as we keep bumping into each other). I'll set you to Foe in my prefs, mark you as -5, and you'll disappear; that way you and I are not embarrassed.
PS. You only told me ONCE, you ninny!
PPS. If you would have bothered to follow up then the part about "going rate for conversations" would have made sense. Of course, that would (again) not fit in your world view, nevermind that it shreds your original arguement into little bite-sized pieces.
OK, grand juries. We know what that means: you have to be indicted before you can be charged. Double jeopardy: can't be tried for the same crime twice. Self-incrimination: you can't be compelled to testify against yourself. Due process: no summary judgments. No arbitrary seizures without compensation. Got it.
There's the rub, eh? Are we dodging details again? A decision made by the highest court, which overrides the state's court; the decision mandates that you must give this information to any police officer when requested; and that same information could be self-incrimination? Or does that possibility not exist in your world? I'm curious, will you delcare this "an edge case" and say that the probability of prior statement occuring approaches nil; or will you claim "irrelevence" due to the possibility of arrest by other means? Here's an old one to trot out: the CS Monitor article is discredited because the summary of the judgement is incorrectly stated, and therefore the news article provided is unreliable. Or is there some other "Ace" you have? I want to know - Elaborate!
So what is your going rate for conversations? Of course, you'll have to get me to agree to your contractual terms, but we'll work out something equitable. After all, we all know that everyone agrees to these terms, at all times, because you've explained this before.
Oh, who am I kidding? You didn't even finish part of the last conversation we had. Why should I expect you to follow-through now?
Here's a great offer for you: Look, I can admit I'm wrong when I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, fine - I'll admit it here, in front of everyone else. I'm human. I have the unfortunate possibility that there can be an error on my part in any part of my judgement. So...prove me wrong, no harm done, you get to look good, everyone goes back to work, some will be patching crappy Windows servers, some will not, and we're all happy. You'll have to do two things though; provide obtainable, well-known references for your statements, and provide a logical connection between all statements to facilitate the concept you'll use to prove me wrong. It's really simple, it's fun, educational, and we'll both have a great time!
PS. of course, the first three arguements I've given in the request to elaborate all have logical fallicies in them and are, therefore, ineligible for your reuse.
We've deployed 30+ clients. Like most new software deployments, some people like it, some people don't care, and there's that 1-2% that can't stand it at all. LDAP support of our Active Directory domain has been decent (not super-fine-dandy, but usable for email addresses), and we now integrate each new deployment with LDAP address book support. TLS support has been good enough that I connect from home to our email system, no problems there either.
Ah, you didn't pay attention to the ending. If you go back, you'll see a bird fly by, which he seems to track in the distance as his head moves to the left while shielding his eyes from the sun - indicating that there is some kind of ecology "on the surface" and hence, the possibility that he can sustain himself.
You need to provide more context; or at least, a pretense or "open strand" of context that presents the reader the opportunity to examine. So far, you have clipped the original meaning of each dialog and changed not just the context but the dialog itself. I've read through the other replys to your posts, but you seem to be reaching all the right people for all the wrong reasons.
What is the basis of this?History. How many brilliant software innovations have come from guys who work in a bar and write code during their free time?
Ok, I'll accept that answer (for now - but it still requires research before I put my own "stamp of approval" on it). But you still didn't answer the second question that followed: This statement is also ambigious - by what measure of success? Money? Fame? Ubiquity? All of the above? Something else? Expound!
Time doesn't grow on trees, it is merely an abstraction of the 4th dimension of my universe.Are you kidding me? Is this supposed to be funny?
I'm not sure if you're 'dodging' or simply unable to grasp the original context. Here's your original quote: The point is that time, tools, and intellect do not grow on trees. They are not free. There is an opportunity cost, and almost always a direct dollar cost, associated with each. Am I reading this right - Time is not free? Let us follow this for a moment - so if time is not free, then time has value (implied in the first sentence; also, we're setting aside the concept of null values have valuation - something that should immediately tell you that the premise is flawed, because it makes such things - like the concept of zero - cease to exist). Is that value always economic, or can it be perceived otherwise? It appears to be monetary-based (implied by the second and third sentences). If all time is monetarily valued, then is time equal to money? I can only assume at this point that you are following this line of reasoning, which happens to be a common phrase that is well known - "Time is Money". If all time is equal to money, then money existed at the same point that time began (a requirement for equality)? Did we start cranking out currencies at the Big Bang/Cosmic Egg/7 Days of Creation/[Insert Favorite Belief System Here]? But this isn't 100% correct. Time comes before currency - we don't have a record of prehistoric animals buried with large amounts of cash - so the existence of currency appears to be a subset of the existence of time. This implies inequality (because the scope of each existence is not equal), so your statement is false until you can provide different information to work with.
I'm really having to make alot of assumptions here (which is why I just berated you with the opening paragraph on context), but if the "path" of thought I've choosen is close yours, then I'm going to assume (ack! more assumptions) that you've confused something called "the labor proposition" with some other things. It goes like this - "I'll pay you money in exchange for the time it takes you to work for me." Inside of this proposition, time and money have direct value, monetary value even, because it is a result of the existence of the proposition itself. Outside of it, well, it's the King's new clothes - it's pretty transparent to see that the valuation only occurs within that proposition. The construct is not naturally occuring - we don't just go out and mine 'labor propositions' out of rocks; it is a perceived state shared between two (or more) people, i.e. an agreement. But this agreement is but a microcosm in comparison to the universe itself (which we just demonstrated by the fact that the valuation only occurs within the proposition, not outside of it); the mistake made (frequently by many) is that the agreement encompasses everything. Well, not everything in existence agreed to this proposition, OK? Because if I'm wrong, then this posting (and the last one) were not free, and you owe me some money. Come to think of it, Cmd
Ever heard of leisure time - why can't I work in a bar _and_ write software whan I get home?You can. You just aren't going to be very successful at it.
What is the basis of this? From what data or insight do you arrive at this conculsion? This statement is also ambigious - by what measure of success? Money? Fame? Ubiquity? All of the above? Something else? Expound!
Or temporary unemployment or disability or any number of reasons why you cannot blithely and naively equate time and money?If you're unemployed, you need to spend your time finding a source of income, not on counting angels on the head of a pin. And if you're disabled, I'm sure you're going to have enough trouble finding a way to pay for your medical needs.
What wonderful assumptions! Again, your predicates are not very clear - so I'll have to guess. Unemployment = absolute requirement for employment as a source of income, and Disabled = constantly in a state of medical need? Are these absolutes? Is it really that black and white, or are there exceptions? After all, everyone requires employment, right? And everyone who is disabled requires constant medical care, right? And by extension of this business owners, lottery winners, investors, and other owners of large fortunes are merely employees and my wife requires constant medical care, despite the fact she doesn't? You'll have to do better than that. Oh, that right...business owners, investors, lottery winners...all of them, they can be fired at any time, that's the ticket, yeah...
Your flawed logic implies that everything worthwhile ever accomplished by any human being should be measured in dollars alone and that all intellectual works should be patentable too.Oh, please. "It's not about dollars, man! That's just your greed talking!" Whatever. The point is that time, tools, and intellect do not grow on trees. They are not free. There is an opportunity cost, and almost always a direct dollar cost, associated with each. Who's going to pay your mortgage while you take a year off to write the Next Big Thing in software?
Time doesn't grow on trees, it is merely an abstraction of the 4th dimension of my universe. Tools do not grow on trees, they are made by my own means. Intellect does not grow on trees, it is excercised by the challenges of my life. Time and intellect come free of charge - what are you going to do, sell me my time and intellect? At what price do I receive these things? Tools, well, that depends on weather or not you believe in public property, because I'll need resources to make tools, and the resources can't be taken from private property of someone else without theft, but could be taken from my own private property. If you don't believe in it, then free is impossible, because any form of free becomes theft (it requires that you take something that has a prior claim of ownership - that predicates theft as a result). If you DO believe in public property, then I am merely taking only what I need to make my own tools, but then you have already weakened your own arguements against the concept of non-free, haven't you? But if all forms of free are theft, then gift cease to exist? Oh, that's right, I would be robbing myself, but that is an oxymoron, isn't it, because theft means taking property from someone else, but I'm only taking from myself. You forgot one thing in your arguement - that I can give a gift, one that from your vantage point, is free to you (yes, there is cost to me - the very definition of a gift implies this - but why you are so concerned about my costs is unclear to me - so for clarification, cost doesn't enter into the picture when you are discussing a gift I give to you). Given that I have satisfied all three requirements for "free" (in a value/materialist sense), this last paragraph of yours, in my own opinion, is a large dungheap of broken ideas.
I for one have no non-free, commercial software and the fact that most people do is hardly a proof t
So...if you use a pretend scientific method as a debate framework, you win?
No, there isn't a "win". There is simply here, and now. (Note subtle irony/sarcasm which was misinterpreted on first pass) Stop segregating me from you (ie assuming that party politics will provide a cohesive answer, when by their very nature, they place us apart), and I'll stop labeling you from me (i.e. calling you by party labels such as "Democrat", "Republican", "Libertarian", "Monarchist" - all of these really don't have meaning other than the metadata they bring). Fair?
Sorry, bud.
Ok, no apologies needed, you engaged gray matter and at least brought something to the table.
Try: Stringent Democrat whose version of "making a real fucking difference" is by running for office and founding a replicator/assembler tech company and bootstrapping counter-institutional arts organizations.
Arts?
Try: Individualist who doesn't care what politics you bring provided that:
You don't harm me.
You don't harm someone else.
You can agree to disagree, and still follow agreements (1) and (2).
You can be responsible for your own actions.
You can compromise when we are in dispute, so we both can reach mutual satisfaction or mutual dissatisfaction.
Slashdot Mirror
They are one and the same.
Over here, there are plenty of jobs which don't involve being a target, even with minimal education,
Like 7-11 clerk? There's one up the street from my work that's robbed on a weekly basis. How about a McDonald's attendant? Of course, a 16-year-old girl in the area was stabbed to death after she was followed from her job at Micky-D's. Hmm...I know! You could work retail in a store! Wait, that doesn't work either, with the gang shootings at the local mall taking place. Jeez, this is getting harder by the minute.
That would explain the people I see sleeping under a bridge with no food. Better yet, it would also include those people that go fishing for breakfast out of the city garbage cans, an event I see on a near-daily basis. Hey, I won't even bring up the time that I had to go on food stamps and go pick up donations of rock-hard stale bread, moldy produce, expired milk, rancid unrefrigerated meat (I didn't know meat could turn rainbow shades of green), and 10-year-old peanut butter from the local food bank. After all, I'm being fed food, right? Yum!
Even the jobless usually plenty of support... hell, most of them can afford televisions, cell phones, and cigarettes!
The last person I talked to who was jobless for any significant period of time couldn't afford television, a cell phone, or cigarettes. The only reason they could afford to eat and have shelter is because his wife had a job - one that just barely paid the bills. Of course, they were lucky in that they didn't have to choose between heat and food in the winter months, an issue that still affects many in my area.
Our military is all-volunteer, and has plenty of people from rural areas as well as the cities, roughly according to population. National law means that even a minimal tour of duty ensures an excellent secondary education, and as a result people with an interest in protecting their fellows in the country get a leg-up over those that don't, which pretty much everyone agrees is reasonable. My family on both sides has benefitted greatly from this system.
You're very lucky, and very blessed. I'm not trying to be sarcastic when I say that. I truely mean it. There are many that go into the service, but no-one talks about the few that don't come back. I hope that you never face that loss.
You really should consider immigration, just petition the local embassy to 'reality' in your country.
I don't have to. I already live here.
I'm not saying the millitary is evil.
I'm not saying that no-one should volunteer for service.
I AM saying that poverty, hunger, and strife do exist, right here, right now, in the United States of America. Please don't tell people that no-one goes without, because thousands DO go without on a daily basis. I know - not only have I been there, but I see it every day.
P.S. Mark me as a Troll if you want, it still doesn't change the fact that I have seen and experienced what I just described. You can bury your head in the sand and ignore the truth, or you can try to face it head on.
No.
A shame.
Or, possibly, it's a good thing that people don't understand what is going on.
I agree, but I was trying to point out that underfunding education is a bit like making an underfunded investment - sure, you get something in the end, but it had the potential to be more if you would have put a bit more funding into it, instead of scrimping. I'm not entirely disagreeing, but rather, pointing out that we pay less and less = less and less to go around for buildings, materials, and educators = less and less prospects of your "investment" paying off.
No, I don't. I grew up in the Reagan Years and watched as education was repeatedly cut over and over again to make way for defense spending. What we are experiencing now with Bush isn't new, it's old; it's just a continuation of the same policies, almost by the same people.
Frankly, the group of people in the current government are following a plan that has been described and layed out for many many years. The American occupation of Iraq is simply one in a series of numerous steps that are followed in a long checklist of things that these people feel need to happen to them soon. The end-game is not quite clear but we are more than half-way though it now; the permanent airbases in Iraq should be an indicator to anyone that there's more to this than meets the eye.
I pity you Americans. Your country is going down the drain.
Not all of us are sleepwalkers. Some of us are awake. But it's becoming more and more dangerous to do anything else other than to pretend to sleep. Those who are unfortunately making alot of noise right now will simply be marked for future reference (in a morbid way, I'm curious as to how that will play out - will they simply be rounded up quietly, vans being filled with people at 3am?). The rest of us - those who are keeping quiet - are making plans to leave. Know of some kind countries that allow American immigrants without alot of hassle?
It is very unsettling to know that someone else has had the same vision of their future life in their golden years. I said something similar to this not too long ago. My only comfort is in knowing that I am not alone. That, in itself, is not much to comfort me when I read the words of the parent poster. This is just par for the course; I expect that it will pass as law soon.
You call double-digit hacks a growing trend? Where do these folks live, under a rock? Don't tell me you've never heard of Attrition.org? Just how many HUNDREDS of sites were defaced in the past?
Tell me what non-malicious use this tool can be used for? I understand that you're separating the tool from the decision of the tool-user (same arguement used by gun control critics, "guns don't kill, the person who pulls the trigger does") but it neatly sidesteps what the tool can and can't be used for. In the case of guns, this is a tool specifically designed to create a devistating, damaging impact from a lump of lead and/or copper at a specific point in space. Leaves little to the imagination, doesn't it? The same can be said of DRM; it is a tool specifically designed to control exactly what program can run on a given piece of hardware and/or control the flow of data on the same piece of hardware. Guns can be used for hunting (a use that is recognized as valid by a majority of people) or for murder (a use that is considered invalid by a vast majority of people). DRM can be used to secure information (a use that many would consider valid) or to directly control what you can or can't do with your computer (a use that many would consider invasive, unethical, and in some cases, immoral). There's just one last piece to this arguement: in the case of a gun, the owner of the tool uses the tool to affect a 3rd party (who is the recipient recieving the bullet), and the person pulling the trigger is (hopefully) the gun owner (i.e. the tool owner is using the tool). In the case of DRM, this is reversed; the owner of the computer is the recipient of the tool's effect, and a 3rd party decides on wheather or not they "pull the trigger". If you "own" your computer, then why does someone else have the right to determine what you can and can't do with it? Thus, it becomes an issue not of protecting copyright interests or preventing software piracy, but one of incredible vendor control. Want to use a software package that competes with a package that is also owned by Microsoft? Too bad. Microsoft can stop you from running that program. Your choice will be one choice - and that choice might not be what you want.
I honestly don't care if Windows won't let you play a song without putting a quarter in your floppy drive. What I care about is that there are valid alternatives; that shipping a general purpose box that only allows one OS to be run on it is seen as anti-competitive, no matter what boogeyman we use to scare Congress (or whatever your local law-making body is called).
You will care if the music is your legal posession and you have already paid for it. Now, a 3rd party could charge you over and over and over again for the "privledge" of listening to "your" music. This is already happening with printed material, which, ironically, was predicted by Stallman himself. He clearly understands the danger it presents not just to you the consumer/buyer/owner, but to society at large.
There will be no valid alternatives, unless you can afford to mask your own chips, fab your own motherboards, etc. As far as shipping a single-use box goes, it is not illegal; and we certainly can't claim monopoly action, can we? (Double-jeopardy rules apply now that the manufacturer of Windows has already been found a monopolist). Frankly, the whole point of TPM was to provide Microsoft a means of complete control.
Pot. Kettle. Black. In essence, you have just pointed out that you believe the current "flat earth" economic theories that have been spouted for decades.
Capitalism does one thing really well. It allocates scarce resources efficiently. As oil diminishes prices will rise and demand will fall. The market will clear. This isn't good news for consumers and those of us raised on $15 a barrel oil. It isn't good news if you own a gas guzzeling SUV. It isn't good news for unemployment.
But it isn't the end of the world. We will end up living in a more energy efficient world. We will end up using other forms of power (solar, nuclear, coal, gas, etc.) Humankind will not be wiped out. Democracy will not die.
You state that capitalism can't deal with this. I think this is the only thing c
As we blithely await potential catastophes that directly impact all of us, we'll see more and more of this kind of action being taken. Guess what - the next president will be....a Republican. Not to hard to guess there (although I guessed the last election well before it completed). Don't you see a pattern occuring? It truely pains me to see the most obvious of actions being spun in a different light, yet every seems content or oblivious.
A simple challenge to you: if you're simply laughing at the prior sentence, then consider that you will die should it happen. If you're not laughing and you're seriously considering the effects, you too would consider a little biodiversity...
There are a number of things that you haven't said here.
First the easy-to-reach oil reserves are ALREADY depleted. Third-generation Techniques such as "bottle-brush drilling" are already the NORM, not the exception. The technology used in oil drilling and extraction is becoming more and more, shall we say, desperate?
Second, the price of your energy has NOTHING to do with the quality, density, reliability, availability, or EROEI (Energy Return on Energy Invested).
Third, extraction of oil from shale and tar sand is ALREADY monitarily cost-effective; but it completely ignores other factors, namely that it will create more pollution than existing oil refineries, and that it will take enourmous amounts of energy to extract the oil in the sands, which means the amount of "energy" you extract from it may not be the same as the amount of "energy" you put into the extraction process.
As the price gradually rises, more and more alternatives to oil will become cost-effective. As use of alternative sources increases, the investment into them will improve their efficiency, through process improvements and through mass production, making them even better competitors.
Alternatives such as wind and solar are ALREADY cost-effective; the prohibition here is not that they have a negative monetary return, but rather that it takes a longer time to see a return on monetary investment. If you factor in the energy returns on energy invested, you'll find that some power sources are not what they seem...some make more sense...
The transition from oil to other energy sources will occur naturally, through normal market forces, and without any extreme shocks. No "outside shove" is required to make the energy source transition. That said, I think there is value in governmental influence pushing toward cleaner energy sources, since market forces won't naturally push us in that direction. I think "pollution taxes" (or pollution credits, which are similar) are a good idea as they can both bring market forces to bear on keeping the environment clean and can also provide funding for alternative energy research.
The transition from oil to other energy sources will be a shock, because there is so much already tied to the use of oil besides the use of it as an energy resource. That restaurant salad in a plastic container you just ordered is positively DRIPPING in oil. Oil was used to create the fertilizers that are used in American agriculture. Oil is used to make the pesticides that allow for large, cheap crops to be grown. Oil was used to lubricate the machinery that is used to harvest and transport that food. Oil was used to make the fuel that allowed for the salad greens to be planted, harvested, transported, and in some cases stored for extended periods. Oil was used in the manufacture of the plastic shell that the salad comes in, and it too had oil used for the manufacture and transportation of that plastic shell. But it doesn't end there! After you eat that salad, the plastic shell is disposed of into a plastic bag (made with oil); the bag is transported to a disposal site (oil for lubrication and fuel again); hell, even the final resting place of the salad greens you ate, well, let's just say that municipal sewer treatment plants are powered by electricity, a large portion of which is coming from natural-gas fired turbines; natural gas is a common by-product from drilling....oil wells.
Pollution tax and credit spending is a nice idea, I agree, but it becomes a political shell game of what we define as "pollution". Given how "honest" big energy has been in the past (let
DOS? Please demonstrate an int13 call in Windows 2000.
When you get around to it, it seems people continue to use tools that gear code to Win32 for a reason. It also seems that the reasoning isn't along the lines of "gee, we can code for just about anything on Win32 and make it really feasible for production use". It also seems that there is a dearth of products that are being ported from Win32 to X-Windows, Qt, GTK, or other "non-Microsoft" platforms. Why is that? Market Share? What does Market Share have to do with the abstract concept of "portability"? Could it be that it really does help if you are the biggest monopoly on the block? Does it help when you can throw your weight around and "sway" vendors to do as you say? If you write code for Win32, are you a -- dare I say it and summon the Monkey Boy of Redmond -- a "Developer"? If you're a developer, are you writing software to become a vendor?
Here's a better one:
Why are they breaking about 60% of all existing Win32 software with Vista? Could it be that the platform was such a cluster in terms of design that they simply can't extend the cruft for much longer without the whole thing collapsing in on its own weight?
Now...tell me...just WHY you want to write for Win32 again?
Has it occured to anyone here that over time, more and more OSS is going to become "borderline illegal"? That we may end up with VLC as a program that you can't import into the USA (because of its DVD capabilities); that Asterix will move out of the states (because it provides private communication without a corporate entity, and will eventually be "regulated" in such a way that only telcos could use it); that even simple tools like GNU shred will "disappear"? B.S. like the E911 service are merely thinly vieled threats against existing VoIP providers, by way of legislation from the dominate telcos to ensure that VoIP doesn't take off...without them leading the way, of course.
I'm beginning to think that I should hoard source code like never before...
Suddenly, that 15-CD debian distro looks better and better, provided the source code is provided.
RMS may sound like a crackpot to our facist overlords^W^Wcorporate lobby, but he's right on the money - if the source code to a program can be controlled (by hardware, software, or firmware, no difference) then you really don't have any freedom as to what you can do. And that kind of freedom scares some people, but not for the reasons that are presented in the nightly news; you have to remember, never in human history have you had a world-wide connected information network that spanned cultures, beliefs, and challenged the status quo in every case. What we are seeing is the slow relentless progress of those entities - governments, transnational corporations, and hyper-wealthy private interests - to "dumb down" or take away from that potential. If people woke up one day and realized that they didn't have to work for someone else to provide for themselves, well, they jig would be up and the few in privledge would find themselves fighting to maintain control, as they always have through the ages. This isn't about political spectrums such as right vs left, democracy vs communism; this is about power, and the maintenance of power. Money, which years ago used to actually have a value of some sort, has degenerated into just another form of power. In this case, CALEA is power applied for both the telcos (who suddenly are felling the heat from VoIP) and government interests (in this case, the existing regime^W administration wants to extend its powerbase).
(Yawn) enough ranting for today, go outside and play...
I would like to license your term, Seriously Evil Shit(tm) for use in my own discussions. I'll have my lawyers call you shortly with our standard contract terms.
"Seriously Evil Shit" is (C) and (TM) suzerain@slashdot.org, all rights reserved.
The objective here is to have a chilling effect on Internet communcations by the suppression of filesharing. Which is scarier to most people - the "3 years and a fine" part (which has never stopped people in the past) or the "may potentially be sharing" part, which has been left intentionally vague for this purpose?
As a side-effect, did anyone bother to notice that this will stifle dissenting opinions, by the very nature that you may or may not be arrested for media that "could be copyrighted", and therefore, subject you to anal probes of the non-UFO kind? Are you willing to take the chance, to put up an MP3 recording of a dissenting opinion and hope that you're not arrested, hauled off, and found innocent later, all because "it's an MP3! S/he's pirate scum! Arrest that person now!"? Hell, given the powers of PATRIOT and it's spawn, PATRIOT II, you could be considered a terrorist...which means no lawyer, indefinite detainment, torture as needed, no public notification of your detainment, etc.
Seriously, this is all about power and control of language. Orwell was right...by narrowing the discourse of discussion, one can effectively limit or stop altogether any dissenting opinion from being heard. I fully expect that arguements to the contrary will use similar tactics, i.e. I don't believe that it exists, therefore, it doesn't, despite evidence to the contrary (a popular method with the "right", and the "left" is fast learning this as well). I'm suprised as to how many people have no clue as to what happened in Germany in the mid-1930's, and how a certain despot came to power...people that I talk to (carefully, of course) seem to think that:
It can't happen here. This is the US, and by virtue alone of it being the US, it is an impossibility.
Rebuttal: this is a form of blind patriotism. It's fairly obvious to anyone of mediocre intelligence that there is no logic or proof to support this statement.
It can't happen here. This happens only in bad places, and this is a good place, so it's not possible.
Rebuttal: this is a variant of the above, but along a different line, one of social indoctrination. You've been told this from an early age, for most of your younger life, and were told to believe it or else you would fail your schooling...you'll be branded socially as "stupid", "class fool", "outcast"...but what does schooling/peer pressure have to do with this, if not for the sole purpose of ensuring a conforming view?
It can't happen here. There are laws and constitutional rights to protect people from this kind of treatment.
Rebuttal: most of those laws and rights now have very large loopholes, courtesy of the US PATRIOT act. Go read up. BTW, I fully expect the elimination of 3 of our constitutional rights within the next 10 years through carefully planned and worded ammendments...we repealed prohibition because of "popular demand", so what's to stop our congresscritters from doing the same when there's a horrible horrible terrorist attack of some sort, contrieved for the sole purpose of panicing the public and herding...er, guidin
For simplicity, I'm not going to go into RAID tradeoffs, etc. and just stick with "striped data", which gives you maximum bang for the buck. You should draw up a simple spreadsheet with the following headings:
It's not exactly a great spreadsheet layout, but it should be enough to enter everything in and start seeing what is practical and what isn't. I'm sure that someone else would be able to enhance this a little further - any takers?
By the way, you really should think about RAID-5 at the very least. All it would take is just one drive to hose your data completely. Besides, as the array grows in size, the price tradeoff becomes smaller and smaller, to the point where it's really not worth your time to stripe all of your data without redundancy. I believe that the md drivers in linux support up to 32 devices per RAID set. That takes your overhead from 1/5 of your array (in a 5-drive setup) down to 1/32 of your array.
A SAN-style setup lends itself well to this, but the price is very prohibitive to "the common man", as it requires very expensive hardware. You can emulate something like this via GFS support in Linux, which (theoretically) would allow you to aggregate your data.
If there is a requirement to keep the data online at all times, you'll need to spend more on some PC cases, as well as some networking to string the units together. Pick a reasonably-priced case that will house all the media units, have adequate power (at least 250 Watts, 300+ would be ideal) and keep them cool. Use a motherboard that is reliable, and can adapt to several different clock speeds for a given CPU; you'll want something that can be thrown out for less than $99.00 if it should go bonkers on you, but if the CPU burns up, you should be able to still get parts off the shelf and get the Motherboard running again. Stick will the "commodity" or low-end CPUs, as (a) they tend to be cheaper, and (b) having been through a complete lifecycle, any bugs or issues with the CPUs will be well-known by now. Don't worry about the speed of the board or CPU at this point, as most "modern"
I make no money off of my site and I can't afford to spend any money sending email
The proposal has NOTHING to do with money. If you read the site carefully, you'll see that it is about using computational power, not your hard-earned cash.
anybody that is new to you gets a very anti-social message about not accepting your mail till you do something wierd
Two things:
Better yet, a third idea:
Someone is doing something illegal lets charge them for doing it
You missed the point. The point is that a fine bit of social engineering will occur - people who are sending "reasonable" volumes of email will do the computation once. People who are trying to shitcan the internet as we know it to make a fast buck and support their crack cocaine habits, well, it just got all that harder to do so. Let's put it in perspective with a crappy example (sorry that it's a bad example). Let's say I run a red light. Illegal, yes, and I get a fine for it. I pay the fine, and promise not to do it again (that is to say, I pay my initial postage, and now that I've done so, it's no longer an issue). Now here's Mr. "Ima FreeRide" (aka spammer), but he has a whole fsck'd fleet of trucks, hundreds of them, some of them are even triple-trailer, and he wants to run all of them at 100 mph through the same red light all at once. Well, that's a really BIG fine, and unless Ima FreeRide can afford that big a fee, it's not in Ima's interest to even try. But what will really happen is that Ima FreeRide will completely ignore that intersection (ie. the spammer never will see the notice because they are forging the header address better than 80% of the time, therefore the spammer will not receive the correct link to obtain the postage they need), so he'll go off to some other road and try there instead. But wait, there's more! Let's say that Ima is a real asshat, and decides that he's gonna run the light anyways. Now the local sherrif gets involved, and sets up a trap at the light and starts directing traffic one at a time - in a very slow fashion - to the point where Ima doesn't want to try anymore (ie the spammer tries to get through anyways, but the computational time to send 250,000 messages slows everything to a crawl). Let's go even further - Ima is not only an asshat, he's a crafty asshat. He's figured out a way to run the light. Guess what? On the other side is both a photo radar van and three motorcycle cops, waiting for him (ie. even if the tokens could be for
You're kidding, right? I already told you this twice: your comment was so rambling and senseless that I didn't even bother trying to decipher it past the first graf or two.
Let's see if we're in the same boat again here.
Ah...I see clearly your modus operandi. You ignore things arbitrarily, to suit your needs. Despite the fact that I went back and did a second post to my first, and followed up with your conversation, and even provided you with the link to said follow-up, you continue to write off anything that "doesn't fit into your world view". And of course, this supposedly gives you ammo to write off this second converstational thread as well. If it doesn't fit then it isn't real?
Fine. I'll make life easy for both of us (as we keep bumping into each other). I'll set you to Foe in my prefs, mark you as -5, and you'll disappear; that way you and I are not embarrassed.
PS. You only told me ONCE, you ninny!
PPS. If you would have bothered to follow up then the part about "going rate for conversations" would have made sense. Of course, that would (again) not fit in your world view, nevermind that it shreds your original arguement into little bite-sized pieces.
There's the rub, eh? Are we dodging details again? A decision made by the highest court, which overrides the state's court; the decision mandates that you must give this information to any police officer when requested; and that same information could be self-incrimination? Or does that possibility not exist in your world? I'm curious, will you delcare this "an edge case" and say that the probability of prior statement occuring approaches nil; or will you claim "irrelevence" due to the possibility of arrest by other means? Here's an old one to trot out: the CS Monitor article is discredited because the summary of the judgement is incorrectly stated, and therefore the news article provided is unreliable. Or is there some other "Ace" you have? I want to know - Elaborate!
So what is your going rate for conversations? Of course, you'll have to get me to agree to your contractual terms, but we'll work out something equitable. After all, we all know that everyone agrees to these terms, at all times, because you've explained this before.
Oh, who am I kidding? You didn't even finish part of the last conversation we had. Why should I expect you to follow-through now?
Here's a great offer for you: Look, I can admit I'm wrong when I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, fine - I'll admit it here, in front of everyone else. I'm human. I have the unfortunate possibility that there can be an error on my part in any part of my judgement. So...prove me wrong, no harm done, you get to look good, everyone goes back to work, some will be patching crappy Windows servers, some will not, and we're all happy. You'll have to do two things though; provide obtainable, well-known references for your statements, and provide a logical connection between all statements to facilitate the concept you'll use to prove me wrong. It's really simple, it's fun, educational, and we'll both have a great time!
PS. of course, the first three arguements I've given in the request to elaborate all have logical fallicies in them and are, therefore, ineligible for your reuse.
We've deployed 30+ clients. Like most new software deployments, some people like it, some people don't care, and there's that 1-2% that can't stand it at all. LDAP support of our Active Directory domain has been decent (not super-fine-dandy, but usable for email addresses), and we now integrate each new deployment with LDAP address book support. TLS support has been good enough that I connect from home to our email system, no problems there either.
Ah, you didn't pay attention to the ending. If you go back, you'll see a bird fly by, which he seems to track in the distance as his head moves to the left while shielding his eyes from the sun - indicating that there is some kind of ecology "on the surface" and hence, the possibility that he can sustain himself.
What is the basis of this? History. How many brilliant software innovations have come from guys who work in a bar and write code during their free time?
Ok, I'll accept that answer (for now - but it still requires research before I put my own "stamp of approval" on it). But you still didn't answer the second question that followed: This statement is also ambigious - by what measure of success? Money? Fame? Ubiquity? All of the above? Something else? Expound!
Time doesn't grow on trees, it is merely an abstraction of the 4th dimension of my universe. Are you kidding me? Is this supposed to be funny?
I'm not sure if you're 'dodging' or simply unable to grasp the original context. Here's your original quote: The point is that time, tools, and intellect do not grow on trees. They are not free. There is an opportunity cost, and almost always a direct dollar cost, associated with each. Am I reading this right - Time is not free? Let us follow this for a moment - so if time is not free, then time has value (implied in the first sentence; also, we're setting aside the concept of null values have valuation - something that should immediately tell you that the premise is flawed, because it makes such things - like the concept of zero - cease to exist). Is that value always economic, or can it be perceived otherwise? It appears to be monetary-based (implied by the second and third sentences). If all time is monetarily valued, then is time equal to money? I can only assume at this point that you are following this line of reasoning, which happens to be a common phrase that is well known - "Time is Money". If all time is equal to money, then money existed at the same point that time began (a requirement for equality)? Did we start cranking out currencies at the Big Bang/Cosmic Egg/7 Days of Creation/[Insert Favorite Belief System Here]? But this isn't 100% correct. Time comes before currency - we don't have a record of prehistoric animals buried with large amounts of cash - so the existence of currency appears to be a subset of the existence of time. This implies inequality (because the scope of each existence is not equal), so your statement is false until you can provide different information to work with.
I'm really having to make alot of assumptions here (which is why I just berated you with the opening paragraph on context), but if the "path" of thought I've choosen is close yours, then I'm going to assume (ack! more assumptions) that you've confused something called "the labor proposition" with some other things. It goes like this - "I'll pay you money in exchange for the time it takes you to work for me." Inside of this proposition, time and money have direct value, monetary value even, because it is a result of the existence of the proposition itself. Outside of it, well, it's the King's new clothes - it's pretty transparent to see that the valuation only occurs within that proposition. The construct is not naturally occuring - we don't just go out and mine 'labor propositions' out of rocks; it is a perceived state shared between two (or more) people, i.e. an agreement. But this agreement is but a microcosm in comparison to the universe itself (which we just demonstrated by the fact that the valuation only occurs within the proposition, not outside of it); the mistake made (frequently by many) is that the agreement encompasses everything. Well, not everything in existence agreed to this proposition, OK? Because if I'm wrong, then this posting (and the last one) were not free, and you owe me some money. Come to think of it, Cmd
What is the basis of this? From what data or insight do you arrive at this conculsion? This statement is also ambigious - by what measure of success? Money? Fame? Ubiquity? All of the above? Something else? Expound!
Or temporary unemployment or disability or any number of reasons why you cannot blithely and naively equate time and money? If you're unemployed, you need to spend your time finding a source of income, not on counting angels on the head of a pin. And if you're disabled, I'm sure you're going to have enough trouble finding a way to pay for your medical needs.
What wonderful assumptions! Again, your predicates are not very clear - so I'll have to guess. Unemployment = absolute requirement for employment as a source of income, and Disabled = constantly in a state of medical need? Are these absolutes? Is it really that black and white, or are there exceptions? After all, everyone requires employment, right? And everyone who is disabled requires constant medical care, right? And by extension of this business owners, lottery winners, investors, and other owners of large fortunes are merely employees and my wife requires constant medical care, despite the fact she doesn't? You'll have to do better than that. Oh, that right...business owners, investors, lottery winners...all of them, they can be fired at any time, that's the ticket, yeah...
Your flawed logic implies that everything worthwhile ever accomplished by any human being should be measured in dollars alone and that all intellectual works should be patentable too. Oh, please. "It's not about dollars, man! That's just your greed talking!" Whatever. The point is that time, tools, and intellect do not grow on trees. They are not free. There is an opportunity cost, and almost always a direct dollar cost, associated with each. Who's going to pay your mortgage while you take a year off to write the Next Big Thing in software?
Time doesn't grow on trees, it is merely an abstraction of the 4th dimension of my universe. Tools do not grow on trees, they are made by my own means. Intellect does not grow on trees, it is excercised by the challenges of my life. Time and intellect come free of charge - what are you going to do, sell me my time and intellect? At what price do I receive these things? Tools, well, that depends on weather or not you believe in public property, because I'll need resources to make tools, and the resources can't be taken from private property of someone else without theft, but could be taken from my own private property. If you don't believe in it, then free is impossible, because any form of free becomes theft (it requires that you take something that has a prior claim of ownership - that predicates theft as a result). If you DO believe in public property, then I am merely taking only what I need to make my own tools, but then you have already weakened your own arguements against the concept of non-free, haven't you? But if all forms of free are theft, then gift cease to exist? Oh, that's right, I would be robbing myself, but that is an oxymoron, isn't it, because theft means taking property from someone else, but I'm only taking from myself. You forgot one thing in your arguement - that I can give a gift, one that from your vantage point, is free to you (yes, there is cost to me - the very definition of a gift implies this - but why you are so concerned about my costs is unclear to me - so for clarification, cost doesn't enter into the picture when you are discussing a gift I give to you). Given that I have satisfied all three requirements for "free" (in a value/materialist sense), this last paragraph of yours, in my own opinion, is a large dungheap of broken ideas.
I for one have no non-free, commercial software and the fact that most people do is hardly a proof t
No, there isn't a "win". There is simply here, and now. (Note subtle irony/sarcasm which was misinterpreted on first pass) Stop segregating me from you (ie assuming that party politics will provide a cohesive answer, when by their very nature, they place us apart), and I'll stop labeling you from me (i.e. calling you by party labels such as "Democrat", "Republican", "Libertarian", "Monarchist" - all of these really don't have meaning other than the metadata they bring). Fair?
Sorry, bud.
Ok, no apologies needed, you engaged gray matter and at least brought something to the table.
Try: Stringent Democrat whose version of "making a real fucking difference" is by running for office and founding a replicator/assembler tech company and bootstrapping counter-institutional arts organizations.
Arts?
Try: Individualist who doesn't care what politics you bring provided that: