Those guys aren't trolls, they're merely annoying and for some reason like the label "troll". And they don't even know the difference, which is odd. SexyKellyOsbourne is a troll (and actually a fairly entertaining one as these things go); these others are just wankers.
Anyway, you can mostly successfully futz with your settings such that you never have to see them.
If I am the network admin for a small city local govt, it using this software internally for my own needs deemed to be "for commercial use" now?
No clue. IANAL. You might try looking through ucop.edu for a liason or contact that can answer your question.
-B
Here's the UC license that comes with it
on
SDSC Secure Syslog
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· Score: 5, Informative
I don't need the karma or anything, but I've seen a lot of people mention (deride) the license under which the software was released. No, it's not GPLed, BSDed, whatever. However, it is essentially open, except for commercial use. You get source if you want it, you can modify it. I'd never actually seen the UC license, so I decided to see what the actual COPYING file that comes with the tarball says. Here is is:
Copyright 2002 The Regents of the University of California
All Rights Reserved
Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute any part of this
SDSC-syslog program for educational, research and non-profit purposes,
without fee, and without a written agreement is hereby granted, provided
that the above copyright notice, this paragraph and the following paragraphs
appear in all copies.
Those desiring to incorporate this SDSC-syslog program into commercial
products or use for commercial purposes should contact the Technology
Transfer Office, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive,
La Jolla, CA 92093-0910, Ph: (619) 534-5815, FAX: (619) 534-7345.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BE LIABLE TO ANY PARTY FOR
DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, INCLUDING LOST
PROFITS, ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SDSC-syslog PROGRAM, EVEN IF THE
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
THE SDSC-syslog SOFTWARE PROVIDED HEREIN IS ON AN "AS IS" BASIS, AND THE
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA HAS NO OBLIGATION TO PROVIDE MAINTENANCE, SUPPORT,
UPDATES, ENHANCEMENTS, OR MODIFICATIONS. THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA MAKES NO
REPRESENTATIONS AND EXTENDS NO WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER IMPLIED OR
EXPRESS, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR THAT THE USE OF THE
SDSC-syslog SOFTWARE WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY PATENT, TRADEMARK OR OTHER RIGHTS.
SDSC-syslog is developed by Tom Perrine at San Diego Supercomputer Center at
the University of California, San Diego. Support for this effort is provided
by Commerce Net (CN-NGI01-009).
After some not-so-trivial digging, I found the UC guidelines for releasing software. Essentially, any software written by a UC employee can be made "public" as long as procedures are followed and it's released for non-commercial use (with a license statement accompanying the software stating such).
Bash away at the software's non-GPLness, but I for one think it's pretty spiffy that anything a UC faculty, student of staff member writes can be given away, in source form, to the public. Anyone who works in the private sector who is allowed give away software written on the corporate dime can either speak up or hush up.
Anyway, cut 'em a little slack, would ya? They're trying.
-B
Re:free for non commerical use, aka...
on
SDSC Secure Syslog
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· Score: 4, Insightful
free for slow adoption.
They're trying to open source. But recall that this whole thing is under the auspices of the University of California system. That means lawyers. Government lawyers. And red tape creating, rubber stamp-wielding pensioners... don't forget about them. The whole system moves about as fast as the glaciers (and with about as much unstaoppable force, too).
Holy cow. Sistina LVM (Logical Volume Manager) rocks. It is a partition system/file system of the future that really makes RAID sort of unnecessary. It is true that it is done by the host OS, but when integrated right it does not matter
I saw the LVM stuff, and was going to use it on a new install with two 80GB drives (and a separate boot/OS drive). But I wasn't sure about redundancy. How does it handle that? I mean, can I use a "RAID1-esque" pairing with it? Does it do that already? From what I saw, the LVM stuff is really just a move away from BIOS partitions (and terribly cool for those times when/usr/local starts to run low). I'm looking for data security through redundancy, but like the features LVM has.
The machine I'm talking about is a samba/NFS fileserver on a 100mbit (full-duplex, switched) LAN, so I'm not all that concerned about speed as much as I am about recoverability -- as long as disk reads and writes are faster than what comes in over the network I'm plenty happy. The ability to grow "partitions" would be a wonderful added bonus.
Personally, I'm getting wary of various AMD products. I continually see issues w/ AMD and games...
I've been using home-built AMD-based PCs since the K6 series. I've run Linux, Windows (various flavors), one or two BSDs and BeOS on them -- with all manners of software. I've never had any issues whatsoever with the processor. I have had issues with dodgy motherboards/chipsets, but never the CPU (e.g., same CPU, different mainboard or new BIOS clears up the problem). I'd look elsewhere for the source of your problems. Heat, specifically, would be a good start. I'd check memory next (a lot of the "weird", or at least intermittent, errors I've seen have had to do with one of the two).
As for the "everyone tests on Intel", well, possibly. But they also probably test on AMD, and it really shouldn't matter much anyway since the two are essentially completely compatible as far as your game is concerned. In addition, I know a lot of people using AMD now in fairly intensive environments (for things like clustering) since you can effectively reduce the cost per cycle in half. I haven't heard them complain of "glitchy errors" or "general weirdness". I imagine when the Hammer line comes out they will be even more popular, especially on the low cost high-end.
All I see are Windows and Mac versions on their download page. That's, um, mostly useless to a lot of folks (as in the kind of folks into crypto who are more likely to be running Linux or Solaris or *BSD than Joe eMachine is).
I fail to see how the PGP vs. GPG question isn't settled on this very point. PGP won't even run on many platforms, so any ease-of-use claims should be dimissed out of hand on that basis alone. The choice is really between GPG (which is being actively developed) and freeware PGP (which looks to be getting pretty old). That isn't much of a choice.
I suggest that you could allow everyone to die as a matter of policy.
I must have made my point poorly as amny people don't seem to understand what I was saying. I was not saying people should starve, or that food shoul dnever be given out at all. I was trying to say that as long as the balance of giving is shfted more towards food rather than methods to provide food, then the charity does nothing but perptuate the need.
Of course there should be relief efforts (wherever they are needed; some people seem to think that I don't mind giving starving people in Arkansas handouts, but don't want to give to African nations and this couldn't be more wrong). But why can we ride out the occasional regular disasters but African nations cannot? That is my point. If we really want to help them, we'll help them get to the point where they don't need us in order to get by during the lean times or ecologial emergencies.
I understand your plight with all of this, but you must understand that some people simply cannot be helped.
If I was starving, I'd want help. I'd probably want food, too. But I'd want to have help in making my own way, whether that be with job training or farming training. If someone doesn't want help then that's their own business.
This isn't a world where the clever white guy needs to send over his knowledge to help those stupid Africans work out how to feed themselves. Its a world where the white north owns 90% of the worlds resources and can help out when areas are having a rough time. If it wants to.
And you say my views are outdated and patronizing? You're actually suggesting that the western, developed world does not need to do things like invent and then provide cheap stoves which burn less fuel (and dung), allowing more people to cook and purify water while not stripping fuel supplies bare? They don't need The Evil White Man's help with that. That we don't need to provide human-powered pumps for better irrigation? I'm sure they have their own foundries and engineering talent that can create those, if they need them at all. That we shouldn't provide condoms to those that need them? Africa can handle AIDS, and doesn't need a bunch of whities telling them how to slow the spread of disease.
You're basically saying we should not actually help them help themselves become self-sufficient, but only continue to give them more of what we have in order to keep them afloat ecologically, right? I might have missed something, but that's basically what I get out of the statement above.
I'm sorry if you think I'm too white or something, or you think the 1st world owns too many things, but what you're saying is the most cracked thing I've read in a long time. So let's not actually help them or anything, let's just give them handouts and perpetuate their state of being in desparate need. Yeah, that'll help. Sure. There's nothing Africa can use from us except food handouts. Right. Look, if the places they live can't support human life due to environmental conditions, what good is us giving them food going to do?! The real answer is they need to move to a new niche, or make where they are habitable.
Get that racial chip off of your shoulder and realize what the western world can really do to help places like Africa. I never said we shouldn't give them emergency food relief. I'm saying that if that's the bulk of our giving, we're not actually helping anything.
Are we still talking about Farscape, or starving africans?
What is the difference? One is a metaphor for the other. Have you ever heard that saying "don't feed a stray cat?" It's sad that the pitiful, starving creature is mewling at your door, but if you feed it, you will always have to feed it. It's the same with the current popular welfare mentality. Continue to just give food to starving people and you'll just keep otherwise starving people alive -- as long as you feed them. Pay for an "extinct" show to stay on the air and you'll have an extinct show on the air -- as long as you pay for it. Better is to find a way for the object of your sympathy to be able to exist on its own (in fact, I would argue that it's cruel and lazy to do otherwise). That is actually helping the situation.
Blindly contirbuting money to Farscape is nice and heartfelt and gives the sometimes necessary short term feelgoods, but it won't help keep the show on the air. Giving money to this cause won't keep Farscape on the air any more than giving rice to Africa will teach Africans learn how to farm rice paddies.
Figure out how to keep Farscape alive and viable on it's own merits. Or let it die and something else take its place. Surprisingly, some people just fail to understand this reality.
Please check your facts before generalizing about charitable funding.
I was necessarily generalizing. I used Save the Children only as an example, and one that came to mind (I was recently in London and saw ads for it there, which reminded me of ads here in the States). It's probably a nice charity and it probably helps many people in the short term, when they (arguably) need it most. It probably also doesn't help "break the cycle" of hunger very much in the long term. Sorry. I don't see less hunger as time has gone on if the focus is primarily on feeding the hungry with food donations.
Has Save the Children increased or decreased its funding drives for countries in which it operates over the time it has operated there? How many people has it helped that it hasn't had to help repeatedly? What's the recidivism rate for those receiving donations/help from Save the Children? Do many kids get a fresh start or do they only create new kids who need similar help? Are we propping up their "economy" of need?
I don't mean to agitate, and I don't mean to be overtly contrary (honestly). I just don't see much in the way of progress. Why feed when you can teach how to feed? Why give food when you can give shovels and hoes and pumps and condoms and learning? I admit that I'm not much of a social scientist, but it would do the charity well to emphasize how much they help people to feed themselves rather than tugging at American and European heartstrings for food money. Africa (especially) could be a very wealthy continent, certainly well off enough to feed itself. Find out why it isn't (I'd humbly suggest examining the political structure of central Africa for reasons why so many are starving), and fix the problems. Until then any short-term charity there just feeds the cycle of need and creates a dependancy on further aid. That's how it is. That's reality. Tell me what facts I need to check in order to controvert that fact.
I'm sorry if that not sufficiently compassionate. I don't mean to denigrate the work anyone does to help others, but I do submit that relief efforts should be focused more towards self-sustaining solutions and less towards short term aid. Yes, that will hurt. People will die. But in the long term society (especially "their society") will be better off. I stated that I'll contribute to long-term solutions and I stand by that statement no matter what "facts" you'd have me check.
My point stands: the richer nations should do what they can to help poorer/hungrier nations feed their populace by contributing to sustainable long-term efforts rather than just bulk fodstuffs and money which only cure ills in the short term (or worse: feed warlords and create situations like the ones in Somalia and Rawanda). Nobody should go hungry in the 21st century. Blind compassion and wonton gifts of money and food don't further that aim, they only perpetuate it by creating a horrible, low-end welfare state with (barely) tenuous funding.
Find a charity that actually helps those it tries to help and I'll give. I already do give charitably (quite a bit in fact), but I'll never give a dollar when I can give knowledge on how to make dollars. I'll never give food when I can give knowledge that helps create food forever. I'll always help someone get on their feet, and never help them stay in a position of need. If you feel differently than you're certainly free to do whatever it is you want to do. More power to you. It's my belief that your help could be put to better use. It's hard to say that but that's the way it is.
Without being argumentative, if you can show me facts that prove giving food versus giving food-making technologies helps those in need, I'll recant what I've said in full. Until then I maintain that it's best to help someone in such a way so they won't need more help over time. I'm sorry if that upset you, or if you took it personally, but I don't see reality being reflected any other way. I'm a highly compassionate person, and I just don't see many so-called "charities" helping to do much of anything but ensure they stay in business.
$1,000,000 is an awful lot of money, and the first thing that came to mind is that an amount like that could feed a fair number of mouths
Until the money ran out and the mouths got hungry again, the needy wouldn't need as much. You're completely correct. You premise that we'd be helping people by feeding them, however, is completely flawed. That money would buy a lot of food, but when I thought of how much that million was, I thought it would buy a lot of tools and education and basic agricultural reform.
I won't dontate money to "needy" charities unless I know the money goes towards things which help build a less needy future, not non-sustainable, stopgap measures. For exmple, I'd give to "Feed the African Children", or whatever, only if I knew the money was going towards improving farming methods, animal husbandry skills, education, water supply improvement, birth control and reproductive education, etc. rather than just plain food (which is usually just stolen and sold anyway). I all I continue to give is just food, when will I be able to stop? When will the people I feed get to the point where they no longer need my help and can provide for themselves?
Yeah, there are grey areas here (it's a shame the US destroys perfectly good crops to keep prices balanced, for example), but by and large terminally hungry people could use the ability to make food as opposed to merely food. Has Sally Struthers helped anyone get out of poverty and become self-sustaining? Have those "adopt a kid" programs gotten to the point where they've run out of kids? I'm not being cynical or contrary; I just can't help but think of it as the orgnic system it is. Energy is constantly flowing into it, but energy demand only increases as more flows in (probably due to unsustainable growth). Rather than building any sort of foundation, all the food does is create a positive feedback loop of needing more food. The hungriest nations are not going to get less hungry if we continue to feed them. They need to know how to help themselves. Looked at one way, one caould say that we're almost doing them a disservice by helping them. Metaphorically speaking, we're putting phosphates in the pond and complaining that all the algae don't have enough to eat. We're not part of the solution.
I know you need to have the basics first, and that there will always be the itinerant and/or temporarily hungry, but the handout mentality really needs to shift towards helping people help themselves or the needy will be forever needful. IM(H)O.
People without degrees will willingly hire people without degrees.
This has not been my experience. I've worked in a tech field for 4 employers in two states since 1994. I have no advanced degree (I was 12 units away from a BS in Geosciences when I recruited away from school to California, FWIW) yet I've worked continuously for the last 8 1/2 years. I was only hired once based solely on my resume. All other times, I had some working relationship and/or professional reputation with those who hired me (ie, they knew -- or knew someone who could vouch for -- what I could do). The one time I was hired based on my resume was by a person without a technical degree.
It comes down to knowing people or being in the right place at the right time, in my experience. You have to know people and they have to know what you can do. Your working life should be thought of as one long probationary period from which future employers can draw by taking a peer's word that you are a good employee. You should also be able to find out a lot about an employer through similar methods. Either that, or you have to look really good on paper and somehow stand out from the crowd.
The best employment experiences I've had were ones where I knew them and they knew me (at least second-hand).
In the mean time, there are a lot of UNIX sysadmin positions that still require Solaris knowledge. So, it makes sense to run Solaris on cheap x68 hardware to get some trainning if you are going to apply for one of these jobs.
While getting training on Solaris is invaluable for any *nix sysadmin worth his/her salt, it's my belief that when it comes to experience helping secure a job getting that experience on x86 hardware lies somewhere between "next to useless" and "better than nothing" on the usefulness scale. Anyone that wants Solaris software experience will also want Sparc hardware experience (disk arrays, remote mgmt cards, sbus legacy stuff, etc -- things you don't normally see on commodity PCs). They'll probably want someone who knows enough "Sun" to know what the difference beween an E420 and a SunBlade is and won't get surprised to discover that one of them doesn't have anything more than a console attached to it.
If you want Solaris experience for a job, then you'd be better off buying an old Ultra 5 for 80 bucks than paying for beta x86 software. You'll at least be able to say during your interview that although you don't have any "real world" Sun experience, you have been playing with an old Ultra in your spare time in order to get up to speed or round out your professional experience. I've seen a few people get jobs this way in fact.
You have a much better chance if you get an old Sparc, stick it in the corner, hook up a serial cable to it and run BIND on it for internal DNS or something than playing with x86 Solaris on a PC.
In the Wages of SiN expansion pack (came out in 99) for the game SiN there was an "alternate fire" mode for the rocket launcher that put you in the nose cam, flying the missle. It was deadly (especially if someone caught you up on the roof, staring off into space). Sound was done very well, too. You could just sort of hear distorted sounds from the missle's travel, but could also hear things happening around your "body". The effect of wearing googles to steer the missle was very well done.
There was also a Tribes 1 mod that allowed you to deploy a base station which you could load with various missle types (my favorite was the one that exploded in poison gas) and then fly them around the map. You had to put them on the ground or on a structure, and you could only carry one missle ata time, so they had to be near an inventory station. My brother and I found a bug which allowed you to delpoy them on these floating, mid-air platforms with inventory stations. He'd fly a bomber waaaay up into the sky, I'd jump out, deploy the platform, fall to my death. He'd fly above the platform, jump out onto it, then set up a transporter. I'd respawn in the base, set up the other transporter, and wind up on the base in the sky. Then we'd set up missle stations and fly around destroying things. The best was when you had a missle in the air and you saw a scout car (really fast one-man vehicles). They were the same speed as the missles (except for one type) and catching them was a challenge. Occasionally, we'd get three people flying missles around. It took about 4 minutes to gain air superiority over most of the map. It took about 8 minutes for the other team to find our base in the sky and blow it up (or try, we'd defend it pretty well).
Anyway, flying missles around is great in CTF-type FPS games, especially when they have ultra-large, indoor/outdoor maps like in Tribes -- it gives the game a "Gulf War" flavor.
Also, now is as good a time as any - get your ass over to the Copyright Office [copyright.gov] and let them know how the DMCA has legitimately infringed on your fair use rights
I just went there with the full intention of submitting. The problem is that I don't have time to wade through their fairly obtuse, 36K Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies document so that my submission must follow the "format detailed in the notice of inquiry". Specifically, I wasn't able to determine what the proposed class or classes of copyrighted work(s) to be exempted were, nor whether they met the requirements laid out in the scope of term "class of works". Briefly, the term "class of works" means:
The Register found that the statutory language required that the Librarian identify a ``class of works'' primarily based upon attributes of the works themselves, and not by reference to some external criteria such as the intended use or the users of the works. The phrase ``class
of works'' connotes that the shared, common attributes of the ``class'' relate to the nature of authorship in the ``works.'' Thus a ``class of works'' was intended to be a ``narrow and focused subset of the the broad categories of works of authorship * * * identified in section 102.'' Commerce Comm. Report, at 38.
The starting point for a proposed
exemption of a particular class of works must be the section 102
categories of authorship: literary works; musical works; dramatic
works; pantomimes and choreographic works; pictorial, graphic and
sculptural works; motion pictures and other audiovisual works; sound
recordings; and architectural works.
Is the CD collection I habitually store in MPEG and/or OGG format a "musical work" or a "sound recording"? Can I just pick one? I don't know.
Worse than that, I don't know if I can submit comments at all. If I understand their requirements for argument(s) in support of the exemption proposed, I'm not sure I can say that adding lame, easily circumvented copy proctection to CDs is enough to allow me to ask for an exemption. Here's what they say I need to tell them:
In the last rulemaking the Register determined that the burden of
proof is on the proponent of an exemption to come forward with evidence
supporting an exemption for a particular class of works. Therefore, the
initial comment period in this rulemaking specifically seeks the
identification of this information from proponents of exemptions.
First, the commenter should identify the particular class of works that
is being proposed as an exemption, followed by a summary of the
argument for the exemption. The commenter should then specify the facts
and evidence providing a basis for this exemption and any legal
arguments in support of the exemption. Finally, the commenter may
include in the comment any additional information or documentation
which supports the commenter's position.
First of all, they'll say that the work is available on cassette and I can copy from that (a comparision between DVD and VHS is buried in that doc). Second, can I quantify adverse effects the lack of an exemption has caused or provide legal arguments in favor of an exemption? I don't know. Do I already have a legal right to use-shift or time-shift copyrighted works I've purchased? Search me; I'm not a lawyer. Do I need to know this before I research arguments towards an exemption? Good question.
I'm glad you mentioned the submission form, and I hope enough people with more free time on their hands than me can put together enough arguments that the DMCA ia reviewed and exemptions are provided. I'd just like to point out to people that it's not as easy as filling in a web form with "I need to be able to make my Eminmem MP3s..." They want people to say things like "If the only way to access the complete works of Charlie Parker are via DMCA-restricted means, then we need an examption" and then show them, in a way detailed enough for a government employee to understand, why that is the case.
You'll grow old at a young age trying to explain to people what liberty is good for. Use what you need, and let others do to the same. If they don't like it then they are welcome to develop an alernative for you.
I've really got no beef with MS as a whole. Sure, they've done some wacked things, but every company I've worked has done something less-than-scrupulous. MS just does it on a bigger scale is all.:-) They aren't my bag, but I don't mind if they are yours. Why would I?
So, unfortunately, I have to disagree that Linux (or UNIX in general) is the ideal development environment
I'm at home sick today, and I was planning on playing some Battlefield 1942 (mostly because it's gameplay goes so well with Dayquil), but just for that comment, I'm going to boot back into Linux, remote-display my IDE over ssh and get some work done...
You don't have to give up your soul (or worse: your privacy). Just get Opera or Mozilla, turn off pop-ups. They are both better browsers than IE anyway.
Legislating what should be changed through behavior and public pressure is never a good thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyway, you can mostly successfully futz with your settings such that you never have to see them.
-B
No clue. IANAL. You might try looking through ucop.edu for a liason or contact that can answer your question.
-B
Copyright 2002 The Regents of the University of California All Rights Reserved
Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute any part of this SDSC-syslog program for educational, research and non-profit purposes, without fee, and without a written agreement is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice, this paragraph and the following paragraphs appear in all copies.
Those desiring to incorporate this SDSC-syslog program into commercial products or use for commercial purposes should contact the Technology Transfer Office, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0910, Ph: (619) 534-5815, FAX: (619) 534-7345.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BE LIABLE TO ANY PARTY FOR DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, INCLUDING LOST PROFITS, ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SDSC-syslog PROGRAM, EVEN IF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
THE SDSC-syslog SOFTWARE PROVIDED HEREIN IS ON AN "AS IS" BASIS, AND THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA HAS NO OBLIGATION TO PROVIDE MAINTENANCE, SUPPORT, UPDATES, ENHANCEMENTS, OR MODIFICATIONS. THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS AND EXTENDS NO WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER IMPLIED OR EXPRESS, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR THAT THE USE OF THE SDSC-syslog SOFTWARE WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY PATENT, TRADEMARK OR OTHER RIGHTS.
SDSC-syslog is developed by Tom Perrine at San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California, San Diego. Support for this effort is provided by Commerce Net (CN-NGI01-009).
After some not-so-trivial digging, I found the UC guidelines for releasing software. Essentially, any software written by a UC employee can be made "public" as long as procedures are followed and it's released for non-commercial use (with a license statement accompanying the software stating such).
Bash away at the software's non-GPLness, but I for one think it's pretty spiffy that anything a UC faculty, student of staff member writes can be given away, in source form, to the public. Anyone who works in the private sector who is allowed give away software written on the corporate dime can either speak up or hush up.
Anyway, cut 'em a little slack, would ya? They're trying.
-B
They're trying to open source. But recall that this whole thing is under the auspices of the University of California system. That means lawyers. Government lawyers. And red tape creating, rubber stamp-wielding pensioners... don't forget about them. The whole system moves about as fast as the glaciers (and with about as much unstaoppable force, too).
Never underestimate the power of a bureaucracy.
-B
I saw the LVM stuff, and was going to use it on a new install with two 80GB drives (and a separate boot/OS drive). But I wasn't sure about redundancy. How does it handle that? I mean, can I use a "RAID1-esque" pairing with it? Does it do that already? From what I saw, the LVM stuff is really just a move away from BIOS partitions (and terribly cool for those times when /usr/local starts to run low). I'm looking for data security through redundancy, but like the features LVM has.
The machine I'm talking about is a samba/NFS fileserver on a 100mbit (full-duplex, switched) LAN, so I'm not all that concerned about speed as much as I am about recoverability -- as long as disk reads and writes are faster than what comes in over the network I'm plenty happy. The ability to grow "partitions" would be a wonderful added bonus.
It's certainly interesting stuff...
-B
I've been using home-built AMD-based PCs since the K6 series. I've run Linux, Windows (various flavors), one or two BSDs and BeOS on them -- with all manners of software. I've never had any issues whatsoever with the processor. I have had issues with dodgy motherboards/chipsets, but never the CPU (e.g., same CPU, different mainboard or new BIOS clears up the problem). I'd look elsewhere for the source of your problems. Heat, specifically, would be a good start. I'd check memory next (a lot of the "weird", or at least intermittent, errors I've seen have had to do with one of the two).
As for the "everyone tests on Intel", well, possibly. But they also probably test on AMD, and it really shouldn't matter much anyway since the two are essentially completely compatible as far as your game is concerned. In addition, I know a lot of people using AMD now in fairly intensive environments (for things like clustering) since you can effectively reduce the cost per cycle in half. I haven't heard them complain of "glitchy errors" or "general weirdness". I imagine when the Hammer line comes out they will be even more popular, especially on the low cost high-end.
-B
-B
Heh heh. Right on. I get your point. I think we're on the same page...
-B
I fail to see how the PGP vs. GPG question isn't settled on this very point. PGP won't even run on many platforms, so any ease-of-use claims should be dimissed out of hand on that basis alone. The choice is really between GPG (which is being actively developed) and freeware PGP (which looks to be getting pretty old). That isn't much of a choice.
Go ahead and flame away...
-B
I must have made my point poorly as amny people don't seem to understand what I was saying. I was not saying people should starve, or that food shoul dnever be given out at all. I was trying to say that as long as the balance of giving is shfted more towards food rather than methods to provide food, then the charity does nothing but perptuate the need.
Of course there should be relief efforts (wherever they are needed; some people seem to think that I don't mind giving starving people in Arkansas handouts, but don't want to give to African nations and this couldn't be more wrong). But why can we ride out the occasional regular disasters but African nations cannot? That is my point. If we really want to help them, we'll help them get to the point where they don't need us in order to get by during the lean times or ecologial emergencies.
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If I was starving, I'd want help. I'd probably want food, too. But I'd want to have help in making my own way, whether that be with job training or farming training. If someone doesn't want help then that's their own business.
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And you say my views are outdated and patronizing? You're actually suggesting that the western, developed world does not need to do things like invent and then provide cheap stoves which burn less fuel (and dung), allowing more people to cook and purify water while not stripping fuel supplies bare? They don't need The Evil White Man's help with that. That we don't need to provide human-powered pumps for better irrigation? I'm sure they have their own foundries and engineering talent that can create those, if they need them at all. That we shouldn't provide condoms to those that need them? Africa can handle AIDS, and doesn't need a bunch of whities telling them how to slow the spread of disease.
You're basically saying we should not actually help them help themselves become self-sufficient, but only continue to give them more of what we have in order to keep them afloat ecologically, right? I might have missed something, but that's basically what I get out of the statement above.
I'm sorry if you think I'm too white or something, or you think the 1st world owns too many things, but what you're saying is the most cracked thing I've read in a long time. So let's not actually help them or anything, let's just give them handouts and perpetuate their state of being in desparate need. Yeah, that'll help. Sure. There's nothing Africa can use from us except food handouts. Right. Look, if the places they live can't support human life due to environmental conditions, what good is us giving them food going to do?! The real answer is they need to move to a new niche, or make where they are habitable.
Get that racial chip off of your shoulder and realize what the western world can really do to help places like Africa. I never said we shouldn't give them emergency food relief. I'm saying that if that's the bulk of our giving, we're not actually helping anything.
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What is the difference? One is a metaphor for the other. Have you ever heard that saying "don't feed a stray cat?" It's sad that the pitiful, starving creature is mewling at your door, but if you feed it, you will always have to feed it. It's the same with the current popular welfare mentality. Continue to just give food to starving people and you'll just keep otherwise starving people alive -- as long as you feed them. Pay for an "extinct" show to stay on the air and you'll have an extinct show on the air -- as long as you pay for it. Better is to find a way for the object of your sympathy to be able to exist on its own (in fact, I would argue that it's cruel and lazy to do otherwise). That is actually helping the situation.
Blindly contirbuting money to Farscape is nice and heartfelt and gives the sometimes necessary short term feelgoods, but it won't help keep the show on the air. Giving money to this cause won't keep Farscape on the air any more than giving rice to Africa will teach Africans learn how to farm rice paddies.
Figure out how to keep Farscape alive and viable on it's own merits. Or let it die and something else take its place. Surprisingly, some people just fail to understand this reality.
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I was necessarily generalizing. I used Save the Children only as an example, and one that came to mind (I was recently in London and saw ads for it there, which reminded me of ads here in the States). It's probably a nice charity and it probably helps many people in the short term, when they (arguably) need it most. It probably also doesn't help "break the cycle" of hunger very much in the long term. Sorry. I don't see less hunger as time has gone on if the focus is primarily on feeding the hungry with food donations.
Has Save the Children increased or decreased its funding drives for countries in which it operates over the time it has operated there? How many people has it helped that it hasn't had to help repeatedly? What's the recidivism rate for those receiving donations/help from Save the Children? Do many kids get a fresh start or do they only create new kids who need similar help? Are we propping up their "economy" of need?
I don't mean to agitate, and I don't mean to be overtly contrary (honestly). I just don't see much in the way of progress. Why feed when you can teach how to feed? Why give food when you can give shovels and hoes and pumps and condoms and learning? I admit that I'm not much of a social scientist, but it would do the charity well to emphasize how much they help people to feed themselves rather than tugging at American and European heartstrings for food money. Africa (especially) could be a very wealthy continent, certainly well off enough to feed itself. Find out why it isn't (I'd humbly suggest examining the political structure of central Africa for reasons why so many are starving), and fix the problems. Until then any short-term charity there just feeds the cycle of need and creates a dependancy on further aid. That's how it is. That's reality. Tell me what facts I need to check in order to controvert that fact.
I'm sorry if that not sufficiently compassionate. I don't mean to denigrate the work anyone does to help others, but I do submit that relief efforts should be focused more towards self-sustaining solutions and less towards short term aid. Yes, that will hurt. People will die. But in the long term society (especially "their society") will be better off. I stated that I'll contribute to long-term solutions and I stand by that statement no matter what "facts" you'd have me check.
My point stands: the richer nations should do what they can to help poorer/hungrier nations feed their populace by contributing to sustainable long-term efforts rather than just bulk fodstuffs and money which only cure ills in the short term (or worse: feed warlords and create situations like the ones in Somalia and Rawanda). Nobody should go hungry in the 21st century. Blind compassion and wonton gifts of money and food don't further that aim, they only perpetuate it by creating a horrible, low-end welfare state with (barely) tenuous funding.
Find a charity that actually helps those it tries to help and I'll give. I already do give charitably (quite a bit in fact), but I'll never give a dollar when I can give knowledge on how to make dollars. I'll never give food when I can give knowledge that helps create food forever. I'll always help someone get on their feet, and never help them stay in a position of need. If you feel differently than you're certainly free to do whatever it is you want to do. More power to you. It's my belief that your help could be put to better use. It's hard to say that but that's the way it is.
Without being argumentative, if you can show me facts that prove giving food versus giving food-making technologies helps those in need, I'll recant what I've said in full. Until then I maintain that it's best to help someone in such a way so they won't need more help over time. I'm sorry if that upset you, or if you took it personally, but I don't see reality being reflected any other way. I'm a highly compassionate person, and I just don't see many so-called "charities" helping to do much of anything but ensure they stay in business.
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Until the money ran out and the mouths got hungry again, the needy wouldn't need as much. You're completely correct. You premise that we'd be helping people by feeding them, however, is completely flawed. That money would buy a lot of food, but when I thought of how much that million was, I thought it would buy a lot of tools and education and basic agricultural reform.
I won't dontate money to "needy" charities unless I know the money goes towards things which help build a less needy future, not non-sustainable, stopgap measures. For exmple, I'd give to "Feed the African Children", or whatever, only if I knew the money was going towards improving farming methods, animal husbandry skills, education, water supply improvement, birth control and reproductive education, etc. rather than just plain food (which is usually just stolen and sold anyway). I all I continue to give is just food, when will I be able to stop? When will the people I feed get to the point where they no longer need my help and can provide for themselves?
Yeah, there are grey areas here (it's a shame the US destroys perfectly good crops to keep prices balanced, for example), but by and large terminally hungry people could use the ability to make food as opposed to merely food. Has Sally Struthers helped anyone get out of poverty and become self-sustaining? Have those "adopt a kid" programs gotten to the point where they've run out of kids? I'm not being cynical or contrary; I just can't help but think of it as the orgnic system it is. Energy is constantly flowing into it, but energy demand only increases as more flows in (probably due to unsustainable growth). Rather than building any sort of foundation, all the food does is create a positive feedback loop of needing more food. The hungriest nations are not going to get less hungry if we continue to feed them. They need to know how to help themselves. Looked at one way, one caould say that we're almost doing them a disservice by helping them. Metaphorically speaking, we're putting phosphates in the pond and complaining that all the algae don't have enough to eat. We're not part of the solution.
I know you need to have the basics first, and that there will always be the itinerant and/or temporarily hungry, but the handout mentality really needs to shift towards helping people help themselves or the needy will be forever needful. IM(H)O.
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This has not been my experience. I've worked in a tech field for 4 employers in two states since 1994. I have no advanced degree (I was 12 units away from a BS in Geosciences when I recruited away from school to California, FWIW) yet I've worked continuously for the last 8 1/2 years. I was only hired once based solely on my resume. All other times, I had some working relationship and/or professional reputation with those who hired me (ie, they knew -- or knew someone who could vouch for -- what I could do). The one time I was hired based on my resume was by a person without a technical degree.
It comes down to knowing people or being in the right place at the right time, in my experience. You have to know people and they have to know what you can do. Your working life should be thought of as one long probationary period from which future employers can draw by taking a peer's word that you are a good employee. You should also be able to find out a lot about an employer through similar methods. Either that, or you have to look really good on paper and somehow stand out from the crowd.
The best employment experiences I've had were ones where I knew them and they knew me (at least second-hand).
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While getting training on Solaris is invaluable for any *nix sysadmin worth his/her salt, it's my belief that when it comes to experience helping secure a job getting that experience on x86 hardware lies somewhere between "next to useless" and "better than nothing" on the usefulness scale. Anyone that wants Solaris software experience will also want Sparc hardware experience (disk arrays, remote mgmt cards, sbus legacy stuff, etc -- things you don't normally see on commodity PCs). They'll probably want someone who knows enough "Sun" to know what the difference beween an E420 and a SunBlade is and won't get surprised to discover that one of them doesn't have anything more than a console attached to it.
If you want Solaris experience for a job, then you'd be better off buying an old Ultra 5 for 80 bucks than paying for beta x86 software. You'll at least be able to say during your interview that although you don't have any "real world" Sun experience, you have been playing with an old Ultra in your spare time in order to get up to speed or round out your professional experience. I've seen a few people get jobs this way in fact.
You have a much better chance if you get an old Sparc, stick it in the corner, hook up a serial cable to it and run BIND on it for internal DNS or something than playing with x86 Solaris on a PC.
-B
There was also a Tribes 1 mod that allowed you to deploy a base station which you could load with various missle types (my favorite was the one that exploded in poison gas) and then fly them around the map. You had to put them on the ground or on a structure, and you could only carry one missle ata time, so they had to be near an inventory station. My brother and I found a bug which allowed you to delpoy them on these floating, mid-air platforms with inventory stations. He'd fly a bomber waaaay up into the sky, I'd jump out, deploy the platform, fall to my death. He'd fly above the platform, jump out onto it, then set up a transporter. I'd respawn in the base, set up the other transporter, and wind up on the base in the sky. Then we'd set up missle stations and fly around destroying things. The best was when you had a missle in the air and you saw a scout car (really fast one-man vehicles). They were the same speed as the missles (except for one type) and catching them was a challenge. Occasionally, we'd get three people flying missles around. It took about 4 minutes to gain air superiority over most of the map. It took about 8 minutes for the other team to find our base in the sky and blow it up (or try, we'd defend it pretty well).
Anyway, flying missles around is great in CTF-type FPS games, especially when they have ultra-large, indoor/outdoor maps like in Tribes -- it gives the game a "Gulf War" flavor.
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Something you don't have to type in every time you post.
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I just went there with the full intention of submitting. The problem is that I don't have time to wade through their fairly obtuse, 36K Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies document so that my submission must follow the "format detailed in the notice of inquiry". Specifically, I wasn't able to determine what the proposed class or classes of copyrighted work(s) to be exempted were, nor whether they met the requirements laid out in the scope of term "class of works". Briefly, the term "class of works" means:
Is the CD collection I habitually store in MPEG and/or OGG format a "musical work" or a "sound recording"? Can I just pick one? I don't know.Worse than that, I don't know if I can submit comments at all. If I understand their requirements for argument(s) in support of the exemption proposed, I'm not sure I can say that adding lame, easily circumvented copy proctection to CDs is enough to allow me to ask for an exemption. Here's what they say I need to tell them:
First of all, they'll say that the work is available on cassette and I can copy from that (a comparision between DVD and VHS is buried in that doc). Second, can I quantify adverse effects the lack of an exemption has caused or provide legal arguments in favor of an exemption? I don't know. Do I already have a legal right to use-shift or time-shift copyrighted works I've purchased? Search me; I'm not a lawyer. Do I need to know this before I research arguments towards an exemption? Good question.I'm glad you mentioned the submission form, and I hope enough people with more free time on their hands than me can put together enough arguments that the DMCA ia reviewed and exemptions are provided. I'd just like to point out to people that it's not as easy as filling in a web form with "I need to be able to make my Eminmem MP3s..." They want people to say things like "If the only way to access the complete works of Charlie Parker are via DMCA-restricted means, then we need an examption" and then show them, in a way detailed enough for a government employee to understand, why that is the case.
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I've really got no beef with MS as a whole. Sure, they've done some wacked things, but every company I've worked has done something less-than-scrupulous. MS just does it on a bigger scale is all. :-) They aren't my bag, but I don't mind if they are yours. Why would I?
Keep on truckin' man...
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I'm just glad we have the choice, you know? Right tool for the job, I say.
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I'm at home sick today, and I was planning on playing some Battlefield 1942 (mostly because it's gameplay goes so well with Dayquil), but just for that comment, I'm going to boot back into Linux, remote-display my IDE over ssh and get some work done...
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Wouldn't your wife's in-laws be your parents?
Sorry, couldn't resist... :-)
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Legislating what should be changed through behavior and public pressure is never a good thing.
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