Sydneyfong typed: "Anybody who has even a slight understanding of Chinese history know that if there is widespread dissatisfaction with the government, the government WILL fall, no matter what opressive practices the government tries to do. Many emperors in recent dynasties tried to prevent uprising from the people by various dubious means, but they all failed -- and they are remembered in history for that."
Yes, of course--all up until the the invention of gunpowder.
Do you remember hearing about "the Boxer Rebellion?" Do you think there would have been a "Cultural Revolution" if not for guns and gunpowder, plus any other embellishments and "tools" and techniques which were brought to China courtesy of the British? Add the fact that you didn't have to train a soldier for a minimum of ten years, they way you had to for those amazing kung-fu warriors that previously the Emperors were always requesting of the Shao Lin (and other) Temples to take in and train?
To just say "gunpowder" like this is a gross simplification of course--yet it is the case that modern warfare technology has changed everything.
There was more that I wanted to write and post about; but everyone has good points and the discussion has been and is going very well; most of what I would say will most certainly be covered by someone else along the way... and anyway, I'd rather take this moment to post a couple of quotes I read today, which seem to say what I'd wanted to say, only better. These came to me in today's ICH newsletter to which I am subscribed. They seem to address something that bothered me when I was reading various posts in this thread; in the way that people think that something good will come of trying to compare the Government of the PRC with "other" Governments (one's own, perhaps?;-) as if doing that will actually yield something useful. Anyway, here you go:
"Patriotism in its simplest, clearest and most indubitable signification is nothing else but a means of obtaining for the rulers their ambitions and covetous desires, and for the ruled the abdication of human dignity, reason, conscience, and a slavish enthrallment to those in power": Leo Toystoy - Demanding the Impossible: a History of Anarchism by Peter Marshall (fontana press 1992) p374
"The vested interests - if we explain the situation by their influence - can only get the public to act as they wish by manipulating public opinion, by playing either upon the public's indifference, confusions, prejudices, pugnacities or fears. And the only way in which the power of the interests can be undermined and their maneuvers defeated is by bringing home to the public the danger of its indifference, the absurdity of its prejudices, or the hollowness of its fears; by showing that it is indifferent to danger where real danger exists; frightened by dangers which are nonexistent." Sir Norman Angell 1872 - 1967 -----
I kept trying to put the TOC from the site in this comment, but Slashdot kept saying that the line length was too short. Since it was just plain text, I do not understand what was going on with that. So sorry, but the link really is worth checking out. Good reading!
You fucking arrogant little shithead. Not everybody is as saavy with computers as you are. Some people are a bit overwhelmed being in front of a computer, and take for granted that the information presented to them is factual and authoritative. I'm sure there are lots of scams YOU would fall for if you were placed into another field without training. Say, an aircraft pilot. Or an auto mechanic.
You're joking, right?
I have never flown a plane...so, you're telling me, that if I were suddenly thrust into the field of aviation, say, then I would suddenly begin falling for penis enlargement scams and etc? Or are you speaking for yourself?;)
Can't you just look at your caller ID and record the telephone number? That's enough information to get the rest.
Oh, come on! Since when have you ever had a telemarketer call with their caller ID and telephone number visible? They always show up as "OUT OF AREA".
There was one credit card company who's telephone number DID show up, and it was long-distance...I called it anyway, and was given the runaround--they said that if I wanted to be removed from their call list (I was receiving their phone calls every other day for months), that I had to call this other number (long distance), and speak to a certain extension, who would then tell me who to call (of course this would also be a long-distance number...) I finally just gave up.
It will be interesting to see if they call now, since my number is on the national "Do Not Call" list.
To all of you who are defending the RIAA and their ways...
HEY--I heard it on the radio and liked it; so I bought it on 45 (RPM). Then, I decided to buy the album--and did so. But then 8-track came out, so I bought the album on 8-track, because my new stereo system had a lousy record player, but a nice 8-track tape system. But the 8-track version wore out; and I had bought a good cassette system by now. So, I bought it on cassette; the album was scratched, and when I tried recording it at home, that recording I made on cassette sounded poor, anyhow. Perhaps I could have bought superior sound equipment--but at the time, that equipment costed way too much; plus I am not an audio engineer... But then, CD's came out, and by now I had played my poor store-bought cassette of it to death; plus it had been hot out there in my car. So, I bought the CD version. But then, these nifty little things that let you listen to music from RAM, called "Rio" came out. So, bought one of those...but I cannot rip from the CD--it cannot be played in my computer! So now what do I do? And how much have I spent just for the "privilege" of listening to my favorite song?
So, what do I have to do for the RIAA? *Bleed* for them? At least, with music-sharing services, I've been able to listen to today's current music, and realize that I don't have to buy it and waste that money to know that it all SUCKS! It is great, because I just can't stand this garbage that passes for music these days...one thing I do like to do, is to download all that old Blues music...John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, etc. etc. And I don't think that is stealing--Muddy Waters is dead, and Hooker recently died as well [respectful pause of silence to morn our loss]... So I really don't see how it could possibly be considered "stealing"...and if some RIAA person is unable to purchase their fourth yacht because of my downloads, then too bad for them! (So far I've pretty much kept to things that I already have on CD or two other types of paid-for media, anyhow; if I like it, I've already paid for it, so what's the problem? I've been so disgusted with recent artists, that I delete them just as soon as I hear them!) My heart just *bleeds* for them, thinking about how much they are going to suffer because they are having trouble stealing from a dead man...
-- Life sucks when the flock starts fleecing you back...
I'm sure that you could go in & order a Coke or something, and just pay the three bucks for the access. McDonald's is primarily a very efficient fountain soda pop vendor. It is how they make their money; the food is just the way they get you in there.
In every library I've been in, there is a children's book section. And whenever there are computers, there's always more than one.
Why not put special "Children's Access" computers in the children's section?
If we keep the majority of books away from children (when I was a child I remember being barred from entering the "Adult" section of the library, until I told them I couldn't find Ronald Clark's biography of Albert Einstein where I had already been looking, so they let me go in there that day), then it makes sense to keep them from the worst areas of the Internet. But this should only apply to the children's area!
Once they reach teen-age, kids should be allowed to use the unfiltered computers (and be told they will be banned from the library altogether if they are caught downloading pornography, unless they can show that it was an accidental "pop-up" or something that momentarily displayed an ad for pr0n.)
I don't see why this idea hasn't been considered.
If resources are limited in a particular library, then when someone wants to use a computer, they should be given a card with a password on it; and this password allows them to log in to the computer. Children under the age of 13 would be given a different password; and it would log them in with the filters running.
Linux of course would be ideal for this, but I don't know if there are filtering programs written for Linux. But Windows XP has pretty good separate logins, this should be pretty easy to do.
> I'm not surprised. As far as features, >ease-of-use and stability go, XP wins hands down. > >Exactly how would Linux have been a better choice >for your friend?
Well for starters, he is always asking me for advice and assistance with his system...and I have to go through and find ways to deal with the system settings, the control panel, all of that. Since I don't use Windows, it is tedious. The way things are arranged seems goofy (and I'm willing to bet that Linux seems goofy to Windows users).
Another thing: have you used the latest Red Hat, or SuSE? Red Hat 7.3 is far easier than Windows--easier to set up, easier to find help for it, works impeccably, and when the GUI crashes (I'm trying to use Gnome; I used to use KDE which strikes me as being more stable), the computer doesn't really "crash", only the GUI stops running (the X-server needs re-starting). Data isn't ruined. And with the disk journaling, rebooting after a power loss is faster than Windows (except Windows XP starts nicely as long as it doesn't have to check disk integrity). Linux with disk journaling (well, filesystem journaling I guess) doesn't need to scan the drive and take forever to re-start.
In fact, both Red Hat Linux ad SuSE installed so easily that the most annoying thing was having to change the CD's during the install process. Effortless! Almost boring, there's no "challenge" anymore.
You mention XP's "features, ease-of-use, and stabiliy"--as for features, yes XP has features; but there is NO WAY it can be said to beat the "features" that come with a full install of the various Linux distros. Does XP have a full-fledged word processor? "WordPad" doesn't cut it. Or do you mean "features", as in all the features of MS WORD, which does everything, including spreadsheet functions--I think a better term than features would be "BLOATWARE";-) I'm not complaining; WORD is an excellent program, and XP is an excellent upgrade from Windows 2000 & Me. Very nice, but you can do more with Linux. Most people who haven't used Linux for a few months don't EVEN realize how much there is you can do! It takes months just to go through and check out everything that has a shortcut in the Gnome or KDE taskbar menus. Nevermind the list of Gnu utilities that automatically come with the typical distro.
"Ease-of-use" is WAY too subjective for any rational discussion; I think that KDE and Gnome are far more easy to use, and far more customizable than XP. There are certain things that you can do with XP in terms of customization, and THAT'S IT. But a GUI is a GUI, and it is just an abstraction layer over a command line...with Linux you have the CHOICE of using that command line directly, which is not what most people want to do, but it is there, and you can do wildcard re-naming of files in a way that cannot be done with a GUI interface (rename all the files that have the name of G(bunch of letters)-1999-(two digits)-(two digits), to G(bunch of letters)-1998-(two digits)-(two digits) (f you have the year wrong when those files were created, and you don't want to go through and change one number in each filename by hand, when there are around 1200 of them!)
And stability? XP is by far the most stable of any of the Windows products--yet it still crashes more often than my Linux box--and perilously looses data in the process! --Although it conviently offers to "Send a Bug Report," as consolation I suppose...!:-) Here I am thinking of my father's system, running XP, and he knows far more about computers than I do--he was a field engineer for Unisys (used to be Burrough's) and he has full certification, like MSCE and Novell and some other simple certifications that he got later on in his life, he usually worked on the mainframes made by Burrough's but still his XP system is as well-configured as any).
When you're starting out new to computers, then you don't have a built-in dependency to WORD-format documents, nor the need to use Microsoft Office, the way you would if that is what you use at work, for instance. My friend had never used any office software, or any software at all for that matter; and a Red Hat Linux license is cheaper, and comes with StarOffice, and other office programs that are a part of the two big GUI's: AbiWord, KOffice, whatever. You can get used to these right away, and then have no problems, like coming up with the CA$H to upgrade to the latest version of Office.
Also you get graphics packages with Red Hat and the other distros which do rival their equivalent Microsoft pounterparts--but you don't have shell out more dough for each on, such as Publisher, or diagram-generator programs, or etc.
Plus, compare the cost of Photoshop to the GIMP...my friend is interested in graphic manipulation (he likes the idea of it and would like to explore it further, he either has a digital camera, or is going to get one. He used to take professional-quality photographs, have them made into large frameable pictures to hang on the wall and either sold them or gave them to friends).
And you get a complete development environment for C and C++, the same languages that the programs and even the OS itself that you use are written in, if you wish to get into writing your own apps or extensions. When I first got a computer, and went to install Windows 3.11, I had no idea what to expect (the last I had used a computer, I was using CP/M and then an Apple IIe), and I could write in BASIC, or assembly, and there were debugging tools (DDT: Kills Bugs Dead!) and all that. So, I was looking forward to, well, perhaps not a full "C" environment with Windows, but at least VISUAL BASIC! But then I found out that this costs a lot of money--money I didn't have! (I am disabled). And then to really be successful, it is best to join the MSDN--yuck! Just to get to know the secrets to the API. And the expenditure in books for learning, and the cost of certification...geez! Linux comes with full documentation, tutorials, www.linxdoc.org, MAN pages, everything!
IMHO Linux is better in every way. If someone is used to Windows, because they use it or have used it somewhere before, then sure, switching might be hard, staying with Windows would be the best choice (Windows XP, anyway!) It isn't that there is a "steep learning curve" for Linux; it is rather that suddenly, there are so many things that you can do that you simply cannot with Windows--it is called FREEDOM! But if you 're "raised" on it (it is your first introduction to a computer, that it runs Linux), then why not go that route? Learning Windows first would strongly limit a person's choices later on. If all they ever want or would want is an Internet-ready appliance that they take home, and browse the Internet, send & receive Email, write a letter or two now & then and print them out, maybe keep an address book, maybe make a coompilation music CD of your fav songs from all the CDs you own, well then Windows will work quite well for this, and perhaps be quite free of any problems or the need to ever THINK--but if you ever have the desire to go farther; try your hand at writing a game, perhaps, or set up a home network (easier with Linux) or just have a computer that never crashes, and runs faster, and can have more programs open simultaneously than Windows-- or whatever...in all it would have been good if he could have went with Linux (or what the heck any of the *bsd's or something). But Microsoft has the money & clout to be able to make it seem like second-rate software is your only choice.
If you have Linux and simply NEED to run a Windows App or game, well I haven't tried WINE, but VMWare has an excellent product which allows you to run XP (or Win2000) in a window in KDE or Gnome (or whatever windowing environment you choose--you have freedom to choose in Linux). VMWare does work, you can even try different distros of Linux in the VMWare window, to see if you like that distro better.
Rather a lot of words to answer a simple question, but yes I feel Linux would have been a better choice for my friend, ESPECIALLY since he was new to computers.
It was no invention. It happened exactly the way I told it. And remember, later in the post I mentioned that Google was finally reached via the "Favorites" menu. I do not use XP enough to know whether it will always crash when the full URL is type in--and I don't care, since I don't run XP on my computer.
You say "I've never had the system crash, lockup or BSoD while going to www.google.com in IE" well good for you! And OF COURSE whatever happens to YOU, happens the same to everyone else--you're the reference point of the Universe!
As for "inventing things" just to petulantly add to the "list of faults" of XP--I have much better things to do than that (I would hope!) WHO CARES! And as for self--appointed omniscients who "Just Know" it "Couldn't Have Happened That Way", well, I didn't see you in the room with me while I was using my father's XP, so where did you hide the camera?
I do not understand this juvenile compulsion for people to flame others for no reason. If someone calls me a liar when I know that I am not; what to do? Do you insist that you are smarter than me, somehow; and you find it necessary to force me to realize that I don't have the ability to remember, or comprehend my own perceptions? You don't even know me; why start things off like this? How old are you anyhow?
I typed "google" in the URL window in Internet Explorer on my father's XP machine, AND A PAGE CAME UP THAT SAID "If you would like to search the Internet, use MSN.COM" -- and then re-directed me automatically to http://www.msn.com/. It really happened just this way! But I have no way to really prove it; and I do not know if it happens all the time, I haven't been on that machine since then. But it IS odd, don't you think? And yes I do believe that Microsoft did this, somehow. Considering this, has anyone else had this happen? This wasn't an error, nor was it an accident. It had to be deliberate, and the intent seems obvious. Microsoft makes money whenever they get eyeballs to view their home page, MSN.COM. And I am not saying that this is either good or bad. What harm is it? It just seems a little sneaky, but so what? This militant "group-think" of "everybody MUST bash Microsoft" is BORING, yet here I am being accused by Sandman1971 of indulging in it--and of LYING, too!
I saw what I saw. Sandman, you were not there. What if others get this same result? What then? And BTW, yes there are "plenty of faults" with Microsoft, but what are the "plenty of faults" of Windows XP, as you say? XP appears to be a damn fine GUI, and is very difficult to crash. A lot of good work went into it; perhaps Microsoft is finally on a roll! If I were to go back to Microsoft, I would use XP, instead of Windows 2000. XP is definitely more stable.
But the browser in XP did decide that I should do my searching from MSN.COM, rather than Google! Perhaps Microsoft feels that anyone who types in "google" by itself is being ambivalent about what they want to do, and is equating Googling with searching as a generic practice, and so feel that they, as the providers of the Windows XP OS, have a responsibility to their customers to make sure they know that there is more out there to search from than Google--for instance, there's...MSN.COM!:-)
This seems to be a similar situation; in that Microsoft is intercepting data entered in a browser, and acting upon the contents of that data:
My father has a couple of computers, and I had to run a program on his Windows XP machine, because I needed to use the "QTopia Desktop" synchronization software that came on the CD accompanying my handheld Linux-based Sharp Zaurus (why they didn't give software on the CD that would work with a Linux-OS computer, I'll never understand...)
Anyway, I needed to do a search for some Zaurus sites (I didn't want to bother to go and check the URLs I had on my computer which was in the other room...so, not thinking, I cleared the URL window in Internet Explorer, and typed in "google" (to get the full URL automatically, the way you can in Mozilla). When I did this, I got a page that said: "If you wish to search the Internet, use MSN.COM"-- complete with the four-color butterfly/Windows XP logo...then, I was transferred to MSN.COM! I didn't even get a chance to say whether or not I really wanted to "Go There Today".
OK fine...I figured it was my fault, I should have typed in the full URL, I should have guessed that Microsoft would do this. So, I cleared the URL window again, and typed in "http://www.google.com/". The computer LOCKED UP-- then came a glimpse of the "Blue Screen of Death" (I think, I am not sure), and then the computer simply rebooted!
When I told me father about this, he laughed, and then when the computer had booted again, he drilled down through his "Favorites" menus, and came to the entry for "Google," and I was finally able to "Google". Since then, I only use the "Favorites" to get to Google whenever I'm using my Dad's machine, so that I don't get rebooted again.
Another thing: if you want to find a book online, Windows XP does it's level-best to make you buy it from Barnes & Noble. I have nothing against B&N, but I do like to use Amazon.com, or ThinkGeek, or some of the other tech bookstores online. But Barnes & Noble is paying Microsoft to be first with XP, and so they get all the traffic if somebody is new to computers, like a friend of mine who recently bought his first computer (this is how I learned about XP's desire to make you buy books only from B&N). My friend's system came with XP pre-installed.
At the time he was looking for a computer, I couldn't convince him that Linux would be a better choice (anyway, all the $800 dollar systems advertised in the newspapers come pre-loaded with XP, no Linux systems in sight) and now he's been spooked because the folks at the place where he bought the computer told him they couldn't (wouldn't?) help him if he switched the operating system (I said "So What! I'll help you!), but it seems that someone there implied that he would lose ALL support if he put Linux on his computer--that it would "Void the Warranty". They can't say it officially, but I wasn't there when the threat was made. Now my friend won't even consider switching; he is having problems with the CD-RW, a hardware problem. (In fact, nobody seems to know how to make it work; it just keeps screwing up blank CD's.)
However he is getting wary of Microsoft, now that some of the things I told him would happen are coming true, plus worse things I didn't even think would be problems (hours on the phone, but nothing gets fixed when they finally answer; being bounced back & forth between Microsoft, the company that sold the machine, & the manufacturer; nobody taking responsibility for tech support, and his "Free MSN Subscription for TWO Years" being WORTHLESS, because he can never get connected: either the lines are busy, or he gets tossed offline during important "secure" transactions, and doesn't know if orders went through or not. He likes use uBid.com (I think it is called). He finally gave up & got a cable modem subscription, and never uses his "Free MSN account" anymore.
--MarkVII
Re:Why bother?
on
Lunar Lasers
·
· Score: 3, Informative
>Not to mention the fact that one side of the
>moon faces the sun at all times! Any solar
>collectors on Earth are subject to day/night
>cycles. The moon would rarely be impacted, when
>the lunar eclipses happen.
The Far Side of the Moon Consider how this picture would look if it had been taken during a "full moon:" since during a full moon the entire side of the moon that is facing the Earth is lit up, only the portion of the moon in this photograph that is said to be visible from Earth (see the pic's caption) would have any sunlight on it.
Far Side of the Moon, with animation showing the same side of the moon always toward the Earth. This doesn't show where the sun is in relation to the animation; but figure that the sun is way off the screen from the animation...the darkened part of the moon in the animation is representing the side of the moon we never see from Earth, NOT how the light hits the moon (the Earth does not illuminate the moon, although it does sometimes reflect a little of the sun's light onto the dark portion of the quarter moon...)
So, taking this into account, will it be useful to build these lasers on the moon, especially the power plant?
Apollo 11 Laser Ranging Retroreflector Experiment. "Laser beams are used because they remain tightly focused for large distances. Nevertheless, there is enough dispersion of the beam that it is about 7 kilometers in diameter when it reaches the Moon and 20 kilometers in diameter when it returns to Earth. Because of this very weak signal, observations are made for several hours at a time. By averaging the signal for this period, the distance to the Moon can be measured to an accuracy of about 3 centimeters (the average distance from the Earth to the Moon is about 385,000 kilometers)."
I feel that in large part it comes down to a matter of what Noam Chomsky said in an interview with the Boston Phoenix in 1999... Here's a quote:
"Handing over the digital spectrum, or for that matter the Internet, to private power -- that's a huge blow against democracy. In the case of the Internet, it's a particularly dramatic blow against democracy because this was paid for by the public. How undemocratic can you get? Here is a major instrument, developed by the public -- first part of the Pentagon, and then universities and the National Science Foundation -- handed over in some manner that nobody knows to private corporations who want to turn it into an instrument of control. They want to turn it into a home shopping center. You know, where it will help them convert you into the kind of person they want. Namely, someone who is passive, apathetic, sees their life only as a matter of having more commodities that they don't want. Why give them a powerful weapon to turn you into that kind of a person? Especially after you paid for the weapon? Well, that's what's happening right in front of our eyes."
I thought that there would be good discussion here...that's what I get for *thinking*, I suppose...(!!!)
Hey kiddies, learn to take things for what they are...and to not let your own inflated sense of worth and "itellectualisticism" get in the way. You're so busy trying to show how *smart* you are, that you fail to see what you are really doing -- don't you know that deconstructionism was *disproved* last CENTURY? It isn't anaysis, it is simply an excuse for not having an education. And being able to write in "C" is not a degree in PolySci.
KUDOS to those who posted in support of Richard, after all the children and the flakes got through kissing each other's butts. Let's see how far they'd get with Micro$oft, without Stallman's GNU software, and his GPL license.
--
... "Excuse me, sir, but your YOUTH is showing"
[[Is that tagline sexist? Are there any women involved in this free-for-all? Women generally have more CLASS than to be involved in this sort of thing, or so it seems generally...]]
NEVER check to see if you will be the first to post a comment -- in the few microseconds that it takes for you merely to *glance* down the page, just to NOTICE that there are no comments showing --> at least six people will be pressing their "SUBMIT" buttons! (At 'threshold=0' I counted six posts before yours, anyway...:-)
-----
--Me seriously considering 'threshold=5' these days...too easy to spend 36 hours straight at the computer screen, reading all the comments accompanying merely 3 interesting new topics...(Am I getting old, or what???:-)
~p
Someone wrote: "I hope open source succeeds and you never get to make a penny of software and you either starve, or you get a crappy minimum wage job at Burger King to pay for your computer hobby (suddenly coding becomes art and now you're not allowed to charge for your computer skills)."
WHO ever said anybody would be FORCED to write code for free? OPEN SOURCE came from the Free Software Movement, and the FSM is about FREEDOM!
Get it straight: If you write software, and wish to charge for it, go ahead! If you wish to share it with others, to get feedback, or help, or because you WANT TO, watch out: for if you used proprietary tools to make your code, you may not be ALLOWED to share it! THAT IS THE ISSUE! That is why this all started.
If you wish to use Microsoft products: go ahead! Nobody will stop you (they might jeer at you, but so what?;-)
If you wish to WORK FOR MICROSOFT, and write code for Microsoft, go ahead! They are still around, last I checked (though at this point M$ might be a "plurality"...)
It is up to you. Do what you want. The word is "Freedom". -- And as far as Metallica is concerned, well, see what you get for being a "fan" of that band? What a wonderful reward! You could have ALL THEIR ALBUMS, but try to download a few MP3's to listen to on your new MP3 device, and whoa! suddenly you're the band's new enemy! I don't think I could name even one song by them, for I've never heard (knowingly) anything by them. Yet all of a sudden, I don't WANT to hear anything they've done!
Slashdot Mirror
Sydneyfong typed: "Anybody who has even a slight understanding of Chinese history know that if there is widespread dissatisfaction with the government, the government WILL fall, no matter what opressive practices the government tries to do. Many emperors in recent dynasties tried to prevent uprising from the people by various dubious means, but they all failed -- and they are remembered in history for that."
Yes, of course--all up until the the invention of gunpowder.
Do you remember hearing about "the Boxer Rebellion?" Do you think there would have been a "Cultural Revolution" if not for guns and gunpowder, plus any other embellishments and "tools" and techniques which were brought to China courtesy of the British? Add the fact that you didn't have to train a soldier for a minimum of ten years, they way you had to for those amazing kung-fu warriors that previously the Emperors were always requesting of the Shao Lin (and other) Temples to take in and train?
To just say "gunpowder" like this is a gross simplification of course--yet it is the case that modern warfare technology has changed everything.
There was more that I wanted to write and post about; but everyone has good points and the discussion has been and is going very well; most of what I would say will most certainly be covered by someone else along the way... and anyway, I'd rather take this moment to post a couple of quotes I read today, which seem to say what I'd wanted to say, only better. These came to me in today's ICH newsletter to which I am subscribed. They seem to address something that bothered me when I was reading various posts in this thread; in the way that people think that something good will come of trying to compare the Government of the PRC with "other" Governments (one's own, perhaps?
"Patriotism in its simplest, clearest and most indubitable signification is nothing else but a means of obtaining for the rulers their ambitions and covetous desires, and for the ruled the abdication of human dignity, reason, conscience, and a slavish enthrallment to those in power": Leo Toystoy - Demanding the Impossible: a History of Anarchism by Peter Marshall (fontana press 1992) p374
"The vested interests - if we explain the situation by their influence - can only get the public to act as they wish by manipulating public opinion, by playing either upon the public's indifference, confusions, prejudices, pugnacities or fears. And the only way in which the power of the interests can be undermined and their maneuvers defeated is by bringing home to the public the danger of its indifference, the absurdity of its prejudices, or the hollowness of its fears; by showing that it is indifferent to danger where real danger exists; frightened by dangers which are nonexistent." Sir Norman Angell 1872 - 1967
-----
--mVIIs
Here is a neat site that I found (yep, using Google):
Great Papers in Computer Science:
http://bit.csc.lsu.edu/~chen/GreatPapers.html
I kept trying to put the TOC from the site in this comment, but Slashdot kept saying that the line length was too short. Since it was just plain text, I do not understand what was going on with that. So sorry, but the link really is worth checking out. Good reading!
You fucking arrogant little shithead. Not everybody is as saavy with computers as you are. Some people are a bit overwhelmed being in front of a computer, and take for granted that the information presented to them is factual and authoritative. I'm sure there are lots of scams YOU would fall for if you were placed into another field without training. Say, an aircraft pilot. Or an auto mechanic.
You're joking, right?
I have never flown a plane...so, you're telling me, that if I were suddenly thrust into the field of aviation, say, then I would suddenly begin falling for penis enlargement scams and etc? Or are you speaking for yourself? ;)
Can't you just look at your caller ID and record the telephone number? That's enough information to get the rest.
Oh, come on! Since when have you ever had a telemarketer call with their caller ID and telephone number visible? They always show up as "OUT OF AREA".
There was one credit card company who's telephone number DID show up, and it was long-distance...I called it anyway, and was given the runaround--they said that if I wanted to be removed from their call list (I was receiving their phone calls every other day for months), that I had to call this other number (long distance), and speak to a certain extension, who would then tell me who to call (of course this would also be a long-distance number...) I finally just gave up.
It will be interesting to see if they call now, since my number is on the national "Do Not Call" list.
To all of you who are defending the RIAA and their ways...
HEY--I heard it on the radio and liked it; so I bought it on 45 (RPM).
Then, I decided to buy the album--and did so.
But then 8-track came out, so I bought the album on 8-track, because my new stereo system had a lousy record player, but a nice 8-track tape system.
But the 8-track version wore out; and I had bought a good cassette system by now. So, I bought it on cassette; the album was scratched, and when I tried recording it at home, that recording I made on cassette sounded poor, anyhow. Perhaps I could have bought superior sound equipment--but at the time, that equipment costed way too much; plus I am not an audio engineer...
But then, CD's came out, and by now I had played my poor store-bought cassette of it to death; plus it had been hot out there in my car. So, I bought the CD version.
But then, these nifty little things that let you listen to music from RAM, called "Rio" came out. So, bought one of those...but I cannot rip from the CD--it cannot be played in my computer!
So now what do I do? And how much have I spent just for the "privilege" of listening to my favorite song?
So, what do I have to do for the RIAA? *Bleed* for them? At least, with music-sharing services, I've been able to listen to today's current music, and realize that I don't have to buy it and waste that money to know that it all SUCKS! It is great, because I just can't stand this garbage that passes for music these days...one thing I do like to do, is to download all that old Blues music...John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, etc. etc. And I don't think that is stealing--Muddy Waters is dead, and Hooker recently died as well [respectful pause of silence to morn our loss]... So I really don't see how it could possibly be considered "stealing"...and if some RIAA person is unable to purchase their fourth yacht because of my downloads, then too bad for them! (So far I've pretty much kept to things that I already have on CD or two other types of paid-for media, anyhow; if I like it, I've already paid for it, so what's the problem? I've been so disgusted with recent artists, that I delete them just as soon as I hear them!)
My heart just *bleeds* for them, thinking about how much they are going to suffer because they are having trouble stealing from a dead man...
--
Life sucks when the flock starts fleecing you back...
I'm sure that you could go in & order a Coke or something, and just pay the three bucks for the access. McDonald's is primarily a very efficient fountain soda pop vendor. It is how they make their money; the food is just the way they get you in there.
In every library I've been in, there is a children's book section. And whenever there are computers, there's always more than one.
Why not put special "Children's Access" computers in the children's section?
If we keep the majority of books away from children (when I was a child I remember being barred from entering the "Adult" section of the library, until I told them I couldn't find Ronald Clark's biography of Albert Einstein where I had already been looking, so they let me go in there that day), then it makes sense to keep them from the worst areas of the Internet. But this should only apply to the children's area!
Once they reach teen-age, kids should be allowed to use the unfiltered computers (and be told they will be banned from the library altogether if they are caught downloading pornography, unless they can show that it was an accidental "pop-up" or something that momentarily displayed an ad for pr0n.)
I don't see why this idea hasn't been considered.
If resources are limited in a particular library, then when someone wants to use a computer, they should be given a card with a password on it; and this password allows them to log in to the computer. Children under the age of 13 would be given a different password; and it would log them in with the filters running.
Linux of course would be ideal for this, but I don't know if there are filtering programs written for Linux. But Windows XP has pretty good separate logins, this should be pretty easy to do.
Try spelling it right! Dictionary.com definitely DOES have that word!
http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=vehiculate
http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=vehiculate
http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=vehiculate
You say:
;-) I'm not complaining; WORD is an excellent program, and XP is an excellent upgrade from Windows 2000 & Me. Very nice, but you can do more with Linux. Most people who haven't used Linux for a few months don't EVEN realize how much there is you can do! It takes months just to go through and check out everything that has a shortcut in the Gnome or KDE taskbar menus. Nevermind the list of Gnu utilities that automatically come with the typical distro.
:-) Here I am thinking of my father's system, running XP, and he knows far more about computers than I do--he was a field engineer for Unisys (used to be Burrough's) and he has full certification, like MSCE and Novell and some other simple certifications that he got later on in his life, he usually worked on the mainframes made by Burrough's but still his XP system is as well-configured as any).
> I'm not surprised. As far as features,
>ease-of-use and stability go, XP wins hands down.
>
>Exactly how would Linux have been a better choice
>for your friend?
Well for starters, he is always asking me for advice and assistance with his system...and I have to go through and find ways to deal with the system settings, the control panel, all of that. Since I don't use Windows, it is tedious. The way things are arranged seems goofy (and I'm willing to bet that Linux seems goofy to Windows users).
Another thing: have you used the latest Red Hat, or SuSE? Red Hat 7.3 is far easier than Windows--easier to set up, easier to find help for it, works impeccably, and when the GUI crashes (I'm trying to use Gnome; I used to use KDE which strikes me as being more stable), the computer doesn't really "crash", only the GUI stops running (the X-server needs re-starting). Data isn't ruined. And with the disk journaling, rebooting after a power loss is faster than Windows (except Windows XP starts nicely as long as it doesn't have to check disk integrity). Linux with disk journaling (well, filesystem journaling I guess) doesn't need to scan the drive and take forever to re-start.
In fact, both Red Hat Linux ad SuSE installed so easily that the most annoying thing was having to change the CD's during the install process. Effortless! Almost boring, there's no "challenge" anymore.
You mention XP's "features, ease-of-use, and stabiliy"--as for features, yes XP has features; but there is NO WAY it can be said to beat the "features" that come with a full install of the various Linux distros. Does XP have a full-fledged word processor? "WordPad" doesn't cut it. Or do you mean "features", as in all the features of MS WORD, which does everything, including spreadsheet functions--I think a better term than features would be "BLOATWARE"
"Ease-of-use" is WAY too subjective for any rational discussion; I think that KDE and Gnome are far more easy to use, and far more customizable than XP. There are certain things that you can do with XP in terms of customization, and THAT'S IT. But a GUI is a GUI, and it is just an abstraction layer over a command line...with Linux you have the CHOICE of using that command line directly, which is not what most people want to do, but it is there, and you can do wildcard re-naming of files in a way that cannot be done with a GUI interface (rename all the files that have the name of G(bunch of letters)-1999-(two digits)-(two digits), to G(bunch of letters)-1998-(two digits)-(two digits) (f you have the year wrong when those files were created, and you don't want to go through and change one number in each filename by hand, when there are around 1200 of them!)
And stability? XP is by far the most stable of any of the Windows products--yet it still crashes more often than my Linux box--and perilously looses data in the process! --Although it conviently offers to "Send a Bug Report," as consolation I suppose...!
When you're starting out new to computers, then you don't have a built-in dependency to WORD-format documents, nor the need to use Microsoft Office, the way you would if that is what you use at work, for instance. My friend had never used any office software, or any software at all for that matter; and a Red Hat Linux license is cheaper, and comes with StarOffice, and other office programs that are a part of the two big GUI's: AbiWord, KOffice, whatever. You can get used to these right away, and then have no problems, like coming up with the CA$H to upgrade to the latest version of Office.
Also you get graphics packages with Red Hat and the other distros which do rival their equivalent Microsoft pounterparts--but you don't have shell out more dough for each on, such as Publisher, or diagram-generator programs, or etc.
Plus, compare the cost of Photoshop to the GIMP...my friend is interested in graphic manipulation (he likes the idea of it and would like to explore it further, he either has a digital camera, or is going to get one. He used to take professional-quality photographs, have them made into large frameable pictures to hang on the wall and either sold them or gave them to friends).
And you get a complete development environment for C and C++, the same languages that the programs and even the OS itself that you use are written in, if you wish to get into writing your own apps or extensions. When I first got a computer, and went to install Windows 3.11, I had no idea what to expect (the last I had used a computer, I was using CP/M and then an Apple IIe), and I could write in BASIC, or assembly, and there were debugging tools (DDT: Kills Bugs Dead!) and all that. So, I was looking forward to, well, perhaps not a full "C" environment with Windows, but at least VISUAL BASIC! But then I found out that this costs a lot of money--money I didn't have! (I am disabled). And then to really be successful, it is best to join the MSDN--yuck! Just to get to know the secrets to the API. And the expenditure in books for learning, and the cost of certification...geez! Linux comes with full documentation, tutorials, www.linxdoc.org, MAN pages, everything!
IMHO Linux is better in every way. If someone is used to Windows, because they use it or have used it somewhere before, then sure, switching might be hard, staying with Windows would be the best choice (Windows XP, anyway!) It isn't that there is a "steep learning curve" for Linux; it is rather that suddenly, there are so many things that you can do that you simply cannot with Windows--it is called FREEDOM! But if you 're "raised" on it (it is your first introduction to a computer, that it runs Linux), then why not go that route? Learning Windows first would strongly limit a person's choices later on. If all they ever want or would want is an Internet-ready appliance that they take home, and browse the Internet, send & receive Email, write a letter or two now & then and print them out, maybe keep an address book, maybe make a coompilation music CD of your fav songs from all the CDs you own, well then Windows will work quite well for this, and perhaps be quite free of any problems or the need to ever THINK--but if you ever have the desire to go farther; try your hand at writing a game, perhaps, or set up a home network (easier with Linux) or just have a computer that never crashes, and runs faster, and can have more programs open simultaneously than Windows-- or whatever...in all it would have been good if he could have went with Linux (or what the heck any of the *bsd's or something). But Microsoft has the money & clout to be able to make it seem like second-rate software is your only choice.
If you have Linux and simply NEED to run a Windows App or game, well I haven't tried WINE, but VMWare has an excellent product which allows you to run XP (or Win2000) in a window in KDE or Gnome (or whatever windowing environment you choose--you have freedom to choose in Linux). VMWare does work, you can even try different distros of Linux in the VMWare window, to see if you like that distro better.
Rather a lot of words to answer a simple question, but yes I feel Linux would have been a better choice for my friend, ESPECIALLY since he was new to computers.
--MarkVII
It was no invention. It happened exactly the way I told it. And remember, later in the post I mentioned that Google was finally reached via the "Favorites" menu. I do not use XP enough to know whether it will always crash when the full URL is type in--and I don't care, since I don't run XP on my computer.
:-)
You say "I've never had the system crash, lockup or BSoD while going to www.google.com in IE" well good for you! And OF COURSE whatever happens to YOU, happens the same to everyone else--you're the reference point of the Universe!
As for "inventing things" just to petulantly add to the "list of faults" of XP--I have much better things to do than that (I would hope!) WHO CARES! And as for self--appointed omniscients who "Just Know" it "Couldn't Have Happened That Way", well, I didn't see you in the room with me while I was using my father's XP, so where did you hide the camera?
I do not understand this juvenile compulsion for people to flame others for no reason. If someone calls me a liar when I know that I am not; what to do? Do you insist that you are smarter than me, somehow; and you find it necessary to force me to realize that I don't have the ability to remember, or comprehend my own perceptions? You don't even know me; why start things off like this? How old are you anyhow?
I typed "google" in the URL window in Internet Explorer on my father's XP machine, AND A PAGE CAME UP THAT SAID "If you would like to search the Internet, use MSN.COM" -- and then re-directed me automatically to http://www.msn.com/. It really happened just this way! But I have no way to really prove it; and I do not know if it happens all the time, I haven't been on that machine since then. But it IS odd, don't you think? And yes I do believe that Microsoft did this, somehow. Considering this, has anyone else had this happen? This wasn't an error, nor was it an accident. It had to be deliberate, and the intent seems obvious. Microsoft makes money whenever they get eyeballs to view their home page, MSN.COM. And I am not saying that this is either good or bad. What harm is it? It just seems a little sneaky, but so what? This militant "group-think" of "everybody MUST bash Microsoft" is BORING, yet here I am being accused by Sandman1971 of indulging in it--and of LYING, too!
I saw what I saw. Sandman, you were not there. What if others get this same result? What then? And BTW, yes there are "plenty of faults" with Microsoft, but what are the "plenty of faults" of Windows XP, as you say? XP appears to be a damn fine GUI, and is very difficult to crash. A lot of good work went into it; perhaps Microsoft is finally on a roll! If I were to go back to Microsoft, I would use XP, instead of Windows 2000. XP is definitely more stable.
But the browser in XP did decide that I should do my searching from MSN.COM, rather than Google! Perhaps Microsoft feels that anyone who types in "google" by itself is being ambivalent about what they want to do, and is equating Googling with searching as a generic practice, and so feel that they, as the providers of the Windows XP OS, have a responsibility to their customers to make sure they know that there is more out there to search from than Google--for instance, there's...MSN.COM!
--MarkVII
This seems to be a similar situation; in that Microsoft is intercepting data entered in a browser, and acting upon the contents of that data:
My father has a couple of computers, and I had to run a program on his Windows XP machine, because I needed to use the "QTopia Desktop" synchronization software that came on the CD accompanying my handheld Linux-based Sharp Zaurus (why they didn't give software on the CD that would work with a Linux-OS computer, I'll never understand...)
Anyway, I needed to do a search for some Zaurus sites (I didn't want to bother to go and check the URLs I had on my computer which was in the other room...so, not thinking, I cleared the URL window in Internet Explorer, and typed in "google" (to get the full URL automatically, the way you can in Mozilla). When I did this, I got a page that said: "If you wish to search the Internet, use MSN.COM"-- complete with the four-color butterfly/Windows XP logo...then, I was transferred to MSN.COM! I didn't even get a chance to say whether or not I really wanted to "Go There Today".
OK fine...I figured it was my fault, I should have typed in the full URL, I should have guessed that Microsoft would do this. So, I cleared the URL window again, and typed in "http://www.google.com/". The computer LOCKED UP-- then came a glimpse of the "Blue Screen of Death" (I think, I am not sure), and then the computer simply rebooted!
When I told me father about this, he laughed, and then when the computer had booted again, he drilled down through his "Favorites" menus, and came to the entry for "Google," and I was finally able to "Google". Since then, I only use the "Favorites" to get to Google whenever I'm using my Dad's machine, so that I don't get rebooted again.
Another thing: if you want to find a book online, Windows XP does it's level-best to make you buy it from Barnes & Noble. I have nothing against B&N, but I do like to use Amazon.com, or ThinkGeek, or some of the other tech bookstores online. But Barnes & Noble is paying Microsoft to be first with XP, and so they get all the traffic if somebody is new to computers, like a friend of mine who recently bought his first computer (this is how I learned about XP's desire to make you buy books only from B&N). My friend's system came with XP pre-installed.
At the time he was looking for a computer, I couldn't convince him that Linux would be a better choice (anyway, all the $800 dollar systems advertised in the newspapers come pre-loaded with XP, no Linux systems in sight) and now he's been spooked because the folks at the place where he bought the computer told him they couldn't (wouldn't?) help him if he switched the operating system (I said "So What! I'll help you!), but it seems that someone there implied that he would lose ALL support if he put Linux on his computer--that it would "Void the Warranty". They can't say it officially, but I wasn't there when the threat was made. Now my friend won't even consider switching; he is having problems with the CD-RW, a hardware problem. (In fact, nobody seems to know how to make it work; it just keeps screwing up blank CD's.)
However he is getting wary of Microsoft, now that some of the things I told him would happen are coming true, plus worse things I didn't even think would be problems (hours on the phone, but nothing gets fixed when they finally answer; being bounced back & forth between Microsoft, the company that sold the machine, & the manufacturer; nobody taking responsibility for tech support, and his "Free MSN Subscription for TWO Years" being WORTHLESS, because he can never get connected: either the lines are busy, or he gets tossed offline during important "secure" transactions, and doesn't know if orders went through or not. He likes use uBid.com (I think it is called). He finally gave up & got a cable modem subscription, and never uses his "Free MSN account" anymore.
--MarkVII
>Not to mention the fact that one side of the
;)
;)
>moon faces the sun at all times! Any solar
>collectors on Earth are subject to day/night
>cycles. The moon would rarely be impacted, when
>the lunar eclipses happen.
Doh! One side of the moon always faces the EARTH! (synchronous rotation). We had never seen the far side of the moon until we sent something "back there" to take pictures.
So: that being the case, is it really possible that one side of the moon is always bathed in the light of the sun? If so, then how did we ever get visible pictures of the OTHER SIDE of the moon? Did we use a gigantic flashbulb, or something?
Map of the entire surface including the far side
The Far Side of the Moon Consider how this picture would look if it had been taken during a "full moon:" since during a full moon the entire side of the moon that is facing the Earth is lit up, only the portion of the moon in this photograph that is said to be visible from Earth (see the pic's caption) would have any sunlight on it.
Far Side of the Moon, with animation showing the same side of the moon always toward the Earth. This doesn't show where the sun is in relation to the animation; but figure that the sun is way off the screen from the animation...the darkened part of the moon in the animation is representing the side of the moon we never see from Earth, NOT how the light hits the moon (the Earth does not illuminate the moon, although it does sometimes reflect a little of the sun's light onto the dark portion of the quarter moon...)
So, taking this into account, will it be useful to build these lasers on the moon, especially the power plant?
Apollo 11 Laser Ranging Retroreflector Experiment. "Laser beams are used because they remain tightly focused for large distances. Nevertheless, there is enough dispersion of the beam that it is about 7 kilometers in diameter when it reaches the Moon and 20 kilometers in diameter when it returns to Earth. Because of this very weak signal, observations are made for several hours at a time. By averaging the signal for this period, the distance to the Moon can be measured to an accuracy of about 3 centimeters (the average distance from the Earth to the Moon is about 385,000 kilometers)."
Add to this, the fact that the moon wobbles...
Ah yes, here's a thought...
>> Of course, if you run the hotel, you get to say
>> who uses the pool...
>
>Yeah, but you can't control who pees in it.
More to the point, you usually don't demand
that ALL the guests must swim in the pool!
--
The United State's new National ID: Microsoft Passport
I feel that in large part it comes down to a matter of what Noam Chomsky said in an interview with the Boston Phoenix in 1999... Here's a quote:
"Handing over the digital spectrum, or for that matter the Internet, to private power -- that's a huge blow against democracy. In the case of the Internet, it's a particularly dramatic blow against democracy because this was paid for by the public. How undemocratic can you get? Here is a major instrument, developed by the public -- first part of the Pentagon, and then universities and the National Science Foundation -- handed over in some manner that nobody knows to private corporations who want to turn it into an instrument of control. They want to turn it into a home shopping center. You know, where it will help them convert you into the kind of person they want. Namely, someone who is passive, apathetic, sees their life only as a matter of having more commodities that they don't want. Why give them a powerful weapon to turn you into that kind of a person? Especially after you paid for the weapon? Well, that's what's happening right in front of our eyes."
From: "Who Runs America? Forty Minutes With Noam Chomsky" Interview by Adrian Zupp for the Boston Phoenix: Weekly Wire
--Mark VII
...Are the ones who are complaining about RMS.
... "Excuse me, sir, but your YOUTH is showing"
I thought that there would be good discussion here...that's what I get for *thinking*, I suppose...(!!!)
Hey kiddies, learn to take things for what they are...and to not let your own inflated sense of worth and "itellectualisticism" get in the way. You're so busy trying to show how *smart* you are, that you fail to see what you are really doing -- don't you know that deconstructionism was *disproved* last CENTURY? It isn't anaysis, it is simply an excuse for not having an education. And being able to write in "C" is not a degree in PolySci.
KUDOS to those who posted in support of Richard, after all the children and the flakes got through kissing each other's butts. Let's see how far they'd get with Micro$oft, without Stallman's GNU software, and his GPL license.
--
[[Is that tagline sexist? Are there any women involved in this free-for-all? Women generally have more CLASS than to be involved in this sort of thing, or so it seems generally...]]
Very amusing, Newbie-san! ;-)
:-)
NEVER check to see if you will be the first to post a comment -- in the few microseconds that it takes for you merely to *glance* down the page, just to NOTICE that there are no comments showing --> at least six people will be pressing their "SUBMIT" buttons! (At 'threshold=0' I counted six posts before yours, anyway...:-)
-----
--Me seriously considering 'threshold=5' these days...too easy to spend 36 hours straight at the computer screen, reading all the comments accompanying merely 3 interesting new topics...(Am I getting old, or what???
~p
zpengo wrote:
>Someone told me that www.verizonsucks.com might
>have some answers.
www. verizonREALLYsucks .com
Isn't this really what's at the heart of the battle over Napster (gnutella, etc.)? ;)
(Might as well work this into the discussion
Someone wrote: "I hope open source succeeds and you never get to make a penny of software and you either starve, or you get a crappy minimum wage job at Burger King to pay for your computer hobby (suddenly coding becomes art and now you're not allowed to charge for your computer skills)."
;-)
WHO ever said anybody would be FORCED to write code for free? OPEN SOURCE came from the Free Software Movement, and the FSM is about FREEDOM!
Get it straight: If you write software, and wish to charge for it, go ahead! If you wish to share it with others, to get feedback, or help, or because you WANT TO, watch out: for if you used proprietary tools to make your code, you may not be ALLOWED to share it! THAT IS THE ISSUE! That is why this all started.
If you wish to use Microsoft products: go ahead! Nobody will stop you (they might jeer at you, but so what?
If you wish to WORK FOR MICROSOFT, and write code for Microsoft, go ahead! They are still around, last I checked (though at this point M$ might be a "plurality"...)
It is up to you. Do what you want. The word is "Freedom".
--
And as far as Metallica is concerned, well, see what you get for being a "fan" of that band? What a wonderful reward! You could have ALL THEIR ALBUMS, but try to download a few MP3's to listen to on your new MP3 device, and whoa! suddenly you're the band's new enemy! I don't think I could name even one song by them, for I've never heard (knowingly) anything by them. Yet all of a sudden, I don't WANT to hear anything they've done!