Well, hogwash or no, Norton has never made any Windozer I've installed it on unbootable. Can't say that about McAfee. However, I am seriously looking at AVG because...well...you can't beat the price. NAV is a decent proggie for a less than extortionate price. If AVG can find the same number of viruses that NAV can, however, it's history here at Catseye Labs.
Actually that episode was originally called "The F Word"...I wouldn't be surprised if that was yet another cut by The N.
This looks really, really good...
on
nForce2 Preview
·
· Score: 2
...except for one little consideration. NVidia has not released full drivers for Linux for the nForce. Are they going to be any better for nForce 2?
I am definitely looking at an nForce 2 based solution to upgrade a Windozer of mine, but this would be a splendid solution for Linux if they had the drivers for it. I hope NVidia gets on the ball this time.
Actually Max Headroom is more apropos to modern media than it was back when it first aired. It won't be long until the networks, the RIAA and the MPAA run things for real, all TV sets lose their on/off switches, and they put TV sets in alleys so that homeless people can watch. Why, there even is a computerized talking head that reads the news! 20 minutes into the future? More like 20 seconds now...
With the Cartoon Network starting their "Adult Swim" bloc of animation, I was hoping that maybe the WB and MGM cartoons that CN has on its "banned list" might resurface. Unfortunately CN doesn't have the cojones to do it. So nobody gets to see amazing cartoons like "Coal Black And De Sebben Dwarves", "Tin Pan Alley Cats" and "Blitz Wolf" because they're not politically correct.
Some Bugs Bunny cartoons like "Bugs Bunny Nips The Nips" and "All This And Rabbit Stew" are on the "banned list" which meant that in 2000, when the pre-1948 WB cartoons and the 1948-on WB cartoons were "reunited" as AOL Time Warner properties, they couldn't air all the Bugs Bunny cartoons on June Bugs like they originally wanted to.
This crap also goes on with newer cartoons too. The incredibly good animated series "Daria" finished its run on MTV this year, and is now being aired on "The N" which is what Noggin calls itself after 5pm.
Now, Noggin is a joint partnership between MTV Networks' Nickelodeon channel and the Childrens' Television Workshop, best known for Sesame Street. This means that a lot of stuff gets cut from "Daria". So much so that some episodes get turned into meaningless mush after the schoolmarm censors get done with it. There are also episodes that will not air on The N.
At least I have my tapes of the episodes as they originally aired. [sigh]
If we could get the electric company to deliver last mile solutions (i.e. from the distribution station to your house/business), a small shack could have routing equipement and ISPs would vie for specific WWNs on the local net.
Who's your power company? I live in the City of Los Angeles (at least until 11/5/2002) and luckily I have the DWP as my power company. However, if I lived a couple of miles north of here, in the City of San Fernando, I would have Southern California Edison as my power company, and SCE is still recovering from the manufactured power crisis of last year.
I would trust the DWP with Last Mile, but god forbid I'm stuck in SCE or Pacific Gas and Electric territory...I'd be up a creek then, wouldn't I?
However, I agree with the basic premise of the article: the current Internet infrastructure is fuxored and it needs to be taken out of the hands of for-profit entities. I think this should happen sooner than later.
Absolutely Fabulous, darling. That justifies Comedy Central's existence more than anything else. And the original Whose Line Is It Anyway. Thank British TV, everyone...
Listen, if this had existed 30 years ago when I was in elementary school I wouldn't have the problems with mathematics that currently bedevil me.
Fundamentals are fine but they don't hold kids' attention spans. If you can get kids doing something FUN then show them how it relates to math and science, they'll soak it up big time.
In fact, this is very reminiscent of my trusty G3 Blue-and-White, aka "Yosemite":
http://www.xoxide.com/ecmid.html
It's reasonably priced too...
--.\\-H--
I think people are missing the point here
on
Robot Wars
·
· Score: 2
What would you rather have in the line of fire in a war, humans with parents and spouses and children, or robots? Seriously...think about that a little. Human beings are going to fight wars whether we like it or not...why not minimize our human casualties? Certainly it would be neater (in both senses of the word) if both sides fought with entirely cybernetic armies, but better a robot lay its metal ass on the line rather than a human.
Imagine if all conflicts were settled with Battlebots/Robot Wars-style bot fights! That would rule! Gives new meaning to the term "Rock 'em, Sock'em Robots!"
You'd think/. would know better by now. Sony is NOT your friend. Sony is a member of both the RIAA and the MPAA and would like nothing better than to control everything you put into your machine.
There are so many other companies that make laptops. Vaios are cute and kawaii but then again so is the Fujitsu Lifebook. And Fujitsu belongs to neither the RIAA or MPAA. Plus you can get a spiffomundo Crusoe chip in the thing, so you can say that you've got Linus Inside! How cool is that?
"The RIAA and the MPAA are a bad, evil corporate conspiracy...OOOH! Shiny objects! I want!!!"
I live very near Berman's district, if not IN his district. Berman, like Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, my two Senators, is 100% 0wn3d by the RIAA and the MPAA.
It's really screwed...whenever there's a bill like this, I can't write my congresscritters because I know they will not be very sympathetic to my viewpoint. So much for representative democracy... [sigh]
What a shame. XP is such a wretched, bloated mess that it really likes 512MB RAM and a 500MHz or better processor. It also can't stand ISA cards anywhere in the system. Picky, picky, picky.
Conversely I have seen 2K running contentedly on a 300MHz PII with 64MB RAM, and really zooming on a 300MHz K6-2 with 256MB. 2K can run with even less, the trick is to install as much RAM as you can. It's a lot like Linux in that regard.
Unfortunately what slows XP down is its garish, whiz-bang GUI. It mimics its model, OS X, very well in that regard. Luna is as much of a drag on the proceedings in XP as Quartz/Aqua is in OS X. I wouldn't install OS X on my Blue and White G3 350MHz, and I wouldn't install XP on a 350MHz PIII.
Unless Microsoft comes out with an XP "Lite", there will still be millions of users standing pat with 2K or even 98SE. And of course, that will happen when pigs fly. And I don't mean the next Pink Floyd tour either.;-)
They can have my 2K when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
You realize that "The Amazing Criswell" was making predictions like these 50 years ago. Never mind that he was completely and totally full of it, and that he was basically a huckster who made his "prophecies" up as he went along. (xref "Ed Wood.")
He had a couple of scary hits: "President Kennedy will not run for re-election in 1964 because of something that will happen to him in November 1963" and "A blonde bombshell will die a tragic death in Dixie" (Jayne Mansfield's weird death by decapitation) were the biggies. But since his "prediction" career went on between the 1950s, through the '60s and into the '70s, you'd expect him to get a couple right just by chance. Kinda like Nostradamus and his "Hister" quatrains.
He predicted doomsday on August 18th, 1999. Heh.
Anyway, basically what I am saying here is that it is very easy to pull broad, sweeping predictions out of your butt. Criswell certainly could do it, so can the World Wildlife Federation.
However, if this gets some people interested in reviving the space program...;-)
The AC's right. Palladium is basically the XBox phase 2 or phase 3, so if someone figures out how to boot Linux on an UNmodded (not modded, folks, just like the challenge rules) XBox we have a Linux kernel that will boot a Palladium-hobbled PC-like entertainment device.
This is going to be very important in the years ahead.
Sometimes Microsoft breeds them. They don't need to be brainwashed by outside forces.
Look, I'm an MCSE. I spent a year learning Windows 2000 inside and out. I knew even more than some of my teachers when I was done. Recently I have been doing contract work with an eCommerce company which is almost 100% a Windows shop. There are a few Macs there, but mostly everyone's running on Windows.
One of the things I'm doing there is an inventory. We need to match up licenses on the machines. Some are running the original OSes they were running when the company got them. This usually means Windows 98, Windows 98SE and (Goddess help me) Millenium Edition. Some have been moved up to Windows 2000, and that's where the "match the license to the machine" game comes in.
Then there's the servers which are a completely different kettle of fish. I suspect the company will be buying a few more licenses before all this is over.
If the whole shop was Macintosh it wouldn't be a problem. No serial number, no certificate, no BSA assholes looking for people to nail. But no, they can't do that..."we can't go backwards" says my boss.
Similarly, if they went Open Source it wouldn't be a problem...in fact, it would have been even easier. It no longer becomes a question of which machine has a legitimate operating system...you could use one disk for everyone and it would be all good. It's the way it used to be with MacOS...up until System 7.0.1 MacOS was free as in beer. Of course there are other advantages with Open Source software, however, they don't usually matter to suits.
Dealing with XP is a pain, and so are programs with similar "Activation" schemes like Office 2000 and Office XP. But will they let me slap on Open Office 1.0 instead? "We have to be compatible with what's out there." the boss says to me. Never mind that to be compatible with what's out there you have to spend $600/seat. Never mind that trifle. You have to "be compatible with what's out there."
And if this crap isn't hard enough now, just wait until Palladium rolls in, and you have to not only deal with broken software but broken hardware too. This will become the ultimate "lock in"...you won't be able to run something that doesn't have the crypto signatures the hardware is expecting. Goodbye Linux, goodbye FreeBSD, goodbye OpenBSD, goodbye NetBSD, goodbye BeOS. That new Dell you just bought will only run on MS DRM OS. Or Windows 2004 or XP 2 or.NET desktop or whatever they will call this POS coming down the pike.
Forget the fact that I have been using Macs since 1995. I was using DOS well before that. Longer than I care to admit, actually. I actually LIKE Windows 2000...it is a nice, solid operating system that is very hard to crash. But the thing is, the ancillary bullshit surrounding Microsoft's sales terms and copy locks make anti-MS zealots out of all but the most sheepish followers of Redmond.
I am looking to wean myself personally from Microsoft. I will probably still support it where I work, wherever that may be. I am, after all, an MCSE. But once there's video and audio apps in Linux that rival Vegas Video, Premiere, ProTools, Sound Forge and After Effects I am dropping Windows like a bad habit. And I will be glad when I do.
I live in Panorama City, which used to be part of Pacoima until the 1950s when the locals petitioned the USPS for the name change for their post office because they didn't want to be associated with Pacoima. If you've ever seen "La Bamba" you know what Pacoima had become in the 1950s...a place where minorities were steered to by housing covenants. In short, a ghetto.
Panorama City is still kinda rough, and it's largely Latino. However, parents here scrimp and save to send their kids to Parochial school, and now they scrimp and save to buy their kids their own computers. It's the classic story...they want their kids to have a better life than they do.
About 3 years ago I started to see it: bus benches with the legend in Spanish, "Computadoras, credito facil." What does that mean? Computers on easy credit. It was then that I realized that the computer had gone from being a business tool and a hobby for the idle rich to being a device on the way to becoming as ubiquitous in households as the TV and the telephone.
How many poor families have you seen who still have a TV and a telephone? Prolly most of them. How many of these also have a game console? Probably the majority of the TV/Telephone owners. The computer is next on the horizon. 5 years from now computers will be ubiquitous even in poor homes.
It's true...the kids figured out how to use the thing. Maybe they couldn't pass the MOUS test but they were able to surf the Internet and draw pictures and write little notes to each other.
It seems like children have the natural curiosity needed to figure out complex machines like computers. The befuddled Dad who asks Junior to teach him how to use his computer has become a cliche.
I just want one of these Simputers. You can bet that as well as Hindi and Pali and Urdu and a few other dialects that the Simputer understands English. English is sort of the second language in India. Voice recognition that works? In a cute little package? I'm there, man.
I don't know what color the sky is on Dep's world, but here on Planet Earth KDE is the easiest to use and most stable Linux GUI I know of. Especially if you use KDE apps with it, it rocks and is rock-solid.
The version of KDE that came with Red Hat 7.2 was hardly as solid as KDE 3. Konqui in particular was touchy. However, after I moved to KDE 3 I was delighted by Konqui's improved stability and improved compliance with Web standards.
I was born Jewish. If anyone would get a "Nazi" vibe off of KDE, it would be me. I don't, this guy is silly, and KDE just works.
Now if only Red Hat would have everything working without tweaking, I'd be a happy camper. You still have to tweak things after you install, which is going to alienate J. Random Newbie.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, hogwash or no, Norton has never made any Windozer I've installed it on unbootable. Can't say that about McAfee. However, I am seriously looking at AVG because...well...you can't beat the price. NAV is a decent proggie for a less than extortionate price. If AVG can find the same number of viruses that NAV can, however, it's history here at Catseye Labs.
Socrates wasn't banished. He was forced to either kill himself or be killed. I'd say that's a bit beyond banishment.
This exists: http://www.lycoris.com/ .
Actually that episode was originally called "The F Word"...I wouldn't be surprised if that was yet another cut by The N.
...except for one little consideration. NVidia has not released full drivers for Linux for the nForce. Are they going to be any better for nForce 2?
I am definitely looking at an nForce 2 based solution to upgrade a Windozer of mine, but this would be a splendid solution for Linux if they had the drivers for it. I hope NVidia gets on the ball this time.
Actually Max Headroom is more apropos to modern media than it was back when it first aired. It won't be long until the networks, the RIAA and the MPAA run things for real, all TV sets lose their on/off switches, and they put TV sets in alleys so that homeless people can watch. Why, there even is a computerized talking head that reads the news! 20 minutes into the future? More like 20 seconds now...
With the Cartoon Network starting their "Adult Swim" bloc of animation, I was hoping that maybe the WB and MGM cartoons that CN has on its "banned list" might resurface. Unfortunately CN doesn't have the cojones to do it. So nobody gets to see amazing cartoons like "Coal Black And De Sebben Dwarves", "Tin Pan Alley Cats" and "Blitz Wolf" because they're not politically correct.
Some Bugs Bunny cartoons like "Bugs Bunny Nips The Nips" and "All This And Rabbit Stew" are on the "banned list" which meant that in 2000, when the pre-1948 WB cartoons and the 1948-on WB cartoons were "reunited" as AOL Time Warner properties, they couldn't air all the Bugs Bunny cartoons on June Bugs like they originally wanted to.
This crap also goes on with newer cartoons too. The incredibly good animated series "Daria" finished its run on MTV this year, and is now being aired on "The N" which is what Noggin calls itself after 5pm.
Now, Noggin is a joint partnership between MTV Networks' Nickelodeon channel and the Childrens' Television Workshop, best known for Sesame Street. This means that a lot of stuff gets cut from "Daria". So much so that some episodes get turned into meaningless mush after the schoolmarm censors get done with it. There are also episodes that will not air on The N.
At least I have my tapes of the episodes as they originally aired. [sigh]
I hate censorship.
Who's your power company? I live in the City of Los Angeles (at least until 11/5/2002) and luckily I have the DWP as my power company. However, if I lived a couple of miles north of here, in the City of San Fernando, I would have Southern California Edison as my power company, and SCE is still recovering from the manufactured power crisis of last year.
I would trust the DWP with Last Mile, but god forbid I'm stuck in SCE or Pacific Gas and Electric territory...I'd be up a creek then, wouldn't I?
However, I agree with the basic premise of the article: the current Internet infrastructure is fuxored and it needs to be taken out of the hands of for-profit entities. I think this should happen sooner than later.
Absolutely Fabulous, darling. That justifies Comedy Central's existence more than anything else. And the original Whose Line Is It Anyway. Thank British TV, everyone...
Listen, if this had existed 30 years ago when I was in elementary school I wouldn't have the problems with mathematics that currently bedevil me.
Fundamentals are fine but they don't hold kids' attention spans. If you can get kids doing something FUN then show them how it relates to math and science, they'll soak it up big time.
In fact, this is very reminiscent of my trusty G3 Blue-and-White, aka "Yosemite":
http://www.xoxide.com/ecmid.html
It's reasonably priced too...
--.\\-H--
What would you rather have in the line of fire in a war, humans with parents and spouses and children, or robots? Seriously...think about that a little. Human beings are going to fight wars whether we like it or not...why not minimize our human casualties? Certainly it would be neater (in both senses of the word) if both sides fought with entirely cybernetic armies, but better a robot lay its metal ass on the line rather than a human.
Imagine if all conflicts were settled with Battlebots/Robot Wars-style bot fights! That would rule! Gives new meaning to the term "Rock 'em, Sock'em Robots!"
Wow.
/. would know better by now. Sony is NOT your friend. Sony is a member of both the RIAA and the MPAA and would like nothing better than to control everything you put into your machine.
You'd think
There are so many other companies that make laptops. Vaios are cute and kawaii but then again so is the Fujitsu Lifebook. And Fujitsu belongs to neither the RIAA or MPAA. Plus you can get a spiffomundo Crusoe chip in the thing, so you can say that you've got Linus Inside! How cool is that?
"The RIAA and the MPAA are a bad, evil corporate conspiracy...OOOH! Shiny objects! I want!!!"
I live very near Berman's district, if not IN his district. Berman, like Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, my two Senators, is 100% 0wn3d by the RIAA and the MPAA.
It's really screwed...whenever there's a bill like this, I can't write my congresscritters because I know they will not be very sympathetic to my viewpoint. So much for representative democracy... [sigh]
$28? No way!
I'll stay with my burgundy Swingline stapler, thank you very much.
Besides, the damn thing does NOT look like the one in "Office Space." It's just...wrong.
...I've changed my .SIG.
What a shame. XP is such a wretched, bloated mess that it really likes 512MB RAM and a 500MHz or better processor. It also can't stand ISA cards anywhere in the system. Picky, picky, picky.
;-)
Conversely I have seen 2K running contentedly on a 300MHz PII with 64MB RAM, and really zooming on a 300MHz K6-2 with 256MB. 2K can run with even less, the trick is to install as much RAM as you can. It's a lot like Linux in that regard.
Unfortunately what slows XP down is its garish, whiz-bang GUI. It mimics its model, OS X, very well in that regard. Luna is as much of a drag on the proceedings in XP as Quartz/Aqua is in OS X. I wouldn't install OS X on my Blue and White G3 350MHz, and I wouldn't install XP on a 350MHz PIII.
Unless Microsoft comes out with an XP "Lite", there will still be millions of users standing pat with 2K or even 98SE. And of course, that will happen when pigs fly. And I don't mean the next Pink Floyd tour either.
They can have my 2K when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
They aren't retiring the MCSA/MCSE 2K because they haven't even retired the MCSE NT4!!
There was such a hue and cry over the expiration of MCSE NT4 that Microsoft decided they wouldn't expire them after all.
I suspect that I will be an MCSE 2K practically forever.
Or, you run that copy of Office97 under Codeweavers Office in Linux. Problem solved.
He had a couple of scary hits: "President Kennedy will not run for re-election in 1964 because of something that will happen to him in November 1963" and "A blonde bombshell will die a tragic death in Dixie" (Jayne Mansfield's weird death by decapitation) were the biggies. But since his "prediction" career went on between the 1950s, through the '60s and into the '70s, you'd expect him to get a couple right just by chance. Kinda like Nostradamus and his "Hister" quatrains.
He predicted doomsday on August 18th, 1999. Heh.
Anyway, basically what I am saying here is that it is very easy to pull broad, sweeping predictions out of your butt. Criswell certainly could do it, so can the World Wildlife Federation.
However, if this gets some people interested in reviving the space program... ;-)
The AC's right. Palladium is basically the XBox phase 2 or phase 3, so if someone figures out how to boot Linux on an UNmodded (not modded, folks, just like the challenge rules) XBox we have a Linux kernel that will boot a Palladium-hobbled PC-like entertainment device.
This is going to be very important in the years ahead.
Sometimes Microsoft breeds them. They don't need to be brainwashed by outside forces.
.NET desktop or whatever they will call this POS coming down the pike.
Look, I'm an MCSE. I spent a year learning Windows 2000 inside and out. I knew even more than some of my teachers when I was done. Recently I have been doing contract work with an eCommerce company which is almost 100% a Windows shop. There are a few Macs there, but mostly everyone's running on Windows.
One of the things I'm doing there is an inventory. We need to match up licenses on the machines. Some are running the original OSes they were running when the company got them. This usually means Windows 98, Windows 98SE and (Goddess help me) Millenium Edition. Some have been moved up to Windows 2000, and that's where the "match the license to the machine" game comes in.
Then there's the servers which are a completely different kettle of fish. I suspect the company will be buying a few more licenses before all this is over.
If the whole shop was Macintosh it wouldn't be a problem. No serial number, no certificate, no BSA assholes looking for people to nail. But no, they can't do that..."we can't go backwards" says my boss.
Similarly, if they went Open Source it wouldn't be a problem...in fact, it would have been even easier. It no longer becomes a question of which machine has a legitimate operating system...you could use one disk for everyone and it would be all good. It's the way it used to be with MacOS...up until System 7.0.1 MacOS was free as in beer. Of course there are other advantages with Open Source software, however, they don't usually matter to suits.
Dealing with XP is a pain, and so are programs with similar "Activation" schemes like Office 2000 and Office XP. But will they let me slap on Open Office 1.0 instead? "We have to be compatible with what's out there." the boss says to me. Never mind that to be compatible with what's out there you have to spend $600/seat. Never mind that trifle. You have to "be compatible with what's out there."
And if this crap isn't hard enough now, just wait until Palladium rolls in, and you have to not only deal with broken software but broken hardware too. This will become the ultimate "lock in"...you won't be able to run something that doesn't have the crypto signatures the hardware is expecting. Goodbye Linux, goodbye FreeBSD, goodbye OpenBSD, goodbye NetBSD, goodbye BeOS. That new Dell you just bought will only run on MS DRM OS. Or Windows 2004 or XP 2 or
Forget the fact that I have been using Macs since 1995. I was using DOS well before that. Longer than I care to admit, actually. I actually LIKE Windows 2000...it is a nice, solid operating system that is very hard to crash. But the thing is, the ancillary bullshit surrounding Microsoft's sales terms and copy locks make anti-MS zealots out of all but the most sheepish followers of Redmond.
I am looking to wean myself personally from Microsoft. I will probably still support it where I work, wherever that may be. I am, after all, an MCSE. But once there's video and audio apps in Linux that rival Vegas Video, Premiere, ProTools, Sound Forge and After Effects I am dropping Windows like a bad habit. And I will be glad when I do.
I live in Panorama City, which used to be part of Pacoima until the 1950s when the locals petitioned the USPS for the name change for their post office because they didn't want to be associated with Pacoima. If you've ever seen "La Bamba" you know what Pacoima had become in the 1950s...a place where minorities were steered to by housing covenants. In short, a ghetto.
Panorama City is still kinda rough, and it's largely Latino. However, parents here scrimp and save to send their kids to Parochial school, and now they scrimp and save to buy their kids their own computers. It's the classic story...they want their kids to have a better life than they do.
About 3 years ago I started to see it: bus benches with the legend in Spanish, "Computadoras, credito facil." What does that mean? Computers on easy credit. It was then that I realized that the computer had gone from being a business tool and a hobby for the idle rich to being a device on the way to becoming as ubiquitous in households as the TV and the telephone.
How many poor families have you seen who still have a TV and a telephone? Prolly most of them. How many of these also have a game console? Probably the majority of the TV/Telephone owners. The computer is next on the horizon. 5 years from now computers will be ubiquitous even in poor homes.
It's true...the kids figured out how to use the thing. Maybe they couldn't pass the MOUS test but they were able to surf the Internet and draw pictures and write little notes to each other.
It seems like children have the natural curiosity needed to figure out complex machines like computers. The befuddled Dad who asks Junior to teach him how to use his computer has become a cliche.
I just want one of these Simputers. You can bet that as well as Hindi and Pali and Urdu and a few other dialects that the Simputer understands English. English is sort of the second language in India. Voice recognition that works? In a cute little package? I'm there, man.
I don't know what color the sky is on Dep's world, but here on Planet Earth KDE is the easiest to use and most stable Linux GUI I know of. Especially if you use KDE apps with it, it rocks and is rock-solid.
The version of KDE that came with Red Hat 7.2 was hardly as solid as KDE 3. Konqui in particular was touchy. However, after I moved to KDE 3 I was delighted by Konqui's improved stability and improved compliance with Web standards.
I was born Jewish. If anyone would get a "Nazi" vibe off of KDE, it would be me. I don't, this guy is silly, and KDE just works.
Now if only Red Hat would have everything working without tweaking, I'd be a happy camper. You still have to tweak things after you install, which is going to alienate J. Random Newbie.