Just wondering: I use konqueror for browsing now,
which has pretty cool cookie management, I
assume that once I reject all cookies from
WebBugsAreEvil.com (or it's real-life counterparts) I'd be safe, right?
Are there any other common ways in which an ad
company could spy on surfers?
Well it can really take a long time, it's an
over-night job for my 400 MHz machine.
Also, you need to compile things in the right
order, and you need to run these commands for
each package seperately - which makes it a drag
for a newbie.
If you have a compile script for all the KDE
packages and Qt it's easier, and comes down to
waiting, but unfortunately KDE doesn't provide
one.
There are some additional complications, too -
like compiling konqueror (you need to have
various other libraries installed to have all
features) and i18n packages seem to want to
default to/usr/local/something rather than
/opt/kde2
Having a good compile/install script which is
likely to work on most platforms would be a
worthwhile project, too..
There is also the problem that if the install
fails somewhere in the middle you now have a
broken desktop. (For example lets say a package
didn't download fully.) Then the user will
have a hard time fixing it (e.g. downloading
the package, but not having konqueror anymore).
These things are easy to solve for most of us,
but I think it's worthwhile for KDE to offer
an easier way to upgrade.
Well it seems a lot of people care about it, and I'm not sure why you would advocate "just give up". There seems no possible gain from this stance.
I think private freedom is the most serious issue at stake here (assuming basic needs are met, which is definately the case). Is making more money more important than freedom?
Many of the founders of the US thought that personal freedom was valuable enough to risk losing their life or property.
It seems you just want to believe you can't do anything, so that you don't have to take action. And this consumer attitude you call "reality 101" - in fact it's just being lazy.
The problem is processor manufacturing.
You can implement a processor in a FPGA, of
course, but such an implementation wouldn't
run at speeds above the 33 MHz range.
(I'm actually just doing this, so I know that's a
realistic number.)
In order to achieve higher speed you need custom
chips - for which the plant will charge you
in the $10k range (that's for getting *one*
prototype made). Even that is still the ASIC
range, for full-custom chips you need to pay more.
Something which is in the Intel/AMD league
requires access to specialized plants - such as
Intel and AMD have.;)
This is were the true challenge in processor
design is, too - not the architecture (cache,
ALU, floating point units...) but the manufacturing
technology. To make chips which can transport
data from a registers through some logic and
into another register in 2 ns!
So if you consider how close you are in making
your own RAM chip as an open source project, that's
about the same challenge as making an open source
processor.
It's a different story if you're looking for
embedded processors which go on a FPGA - but
what's the benefit to the user? Presumably
you want to get something out of it, not just
saving some chip design company a bit of money...
KDE has a translation team for basque, here is
their web page:
http://kde.eu.euskal-linux.org/
Being not a Basque speaker, I don't know how
far they are in there efforts, but you might want
to check it out. Or help out, if you like, I'm
sure they'd be glad to have someone who has good
English.
I think this shows why market share is important
for Linux. As long as microsoft owns the market
they can provide solutions like this - tieing the
consumer to their OS, because the media won't
be accessible on other systems. And the
entertainment industry will happily provide
MS-only content to their conditions.
I dunno - what's actually "new" in the MS GUI?
It seems it's mainly a collection of elements
which have been around for a long time.
The start menu is just a variation of the root
menu - just tied to a button rather than to the
root window - big deal. Same for the task
bar/panel the elements are there in openwin and
CDE, too. For example CDE can give you a little
box with icons representing your running apps -
you click on the one you want and it pops into the
foreground. Very similar to a taskbar really. That
was around long before Windows 95, too. Clicking
on icons on the desktop? - openwin had it. Drag
and drop also was around on SUN desktops.
What's innovative about putting the clutch on the
left, brake in the middle and the accelerator on
the right?
It makes a lot of sense to standardize on these
things, and I'm glad KDE and Gnome won't go for
this "everything has to be different" philosophie.
I just wonder... you sit in cubicle land with
20 other computer users. Everybody is talking
*all the time*.
How would you get any work done in this sort
of environment?
Use for handicapped people is a great application,
though.
Well - in all likelyhood we'll never know the
exact effects. Come on, this system is ludicrously
complex and to observe change reliably would
take decades and lots of resources. To what gain,
either it will heat up/cool down and the climate
will change - then it's to late, or nothing will
happen - then we don't care.
So we can either hope for the best, because we
don't know, or we can take precautions.
The "hope approach" just seems silly to me.
We have enough resources to work on the pollution
problem and play it safe, why shouldn't we?
Konqueror has a really nice cookie management.
Just set up "Reject all cookies from this domain"
for doubleclick, and you're set. I guess that
should mostly stop them from collecting your data.
I'm a bit weary of blocking their ads altogether,
though (like with editing the hosts file). At
least for some of the web sites I visit I want to
make sure, that the site gets their advertising income.
Or is there some movement in lawyers' organizations to protect people's rights, something like a jurisprudential EFF?
The ACLU, I suppose?
I don't think this approach is going to help, though. Let's start the rant::^)
There are too many lawyers! The US has the majority of the world's lawyers - there is not enough work for them. Therefore they will create their own work - needlessly consuming everybody's time, energy and resources. Nobody can afford that many unproductive lawyers for long.
The big law schools need to reduce their output of lawyers to approach the numbers a society actually needs - the numbers they produce now undermine the workings of society and destroy civil liberties.
Actually, there is another aspect of German law
that comes into play here:
you can't change a
contract after you've completed a sale.
Seems a pretty obvious restriction, but this means that shrinkwrap licenses are not legally
binding in Germany. So therefore they have no claim to a license status.
So, assuming script kiddies are such a big problem, what are the ethics of writing these scripts? Does that serve any purpose, other than weakening security?
I really don't understand why some people seem to be so totally bound to either command line or GUI.
They each provide features which the other can't deliver in a reasonable way.
For example I have directories with photographs which I take with my digital camera - the file names just represent the date on which they are taken. (Which is nice when you want to view them in order, and also just they way they come out of the camera.) - Ok now I want to send some pics to my family - I look at the directory with the file manager (enabling the image preview) and drag the pics I want to the mail tool. There is just no sensible way to do this via command line.
Another application is this: I resynthesize the code for a computer chip. It needs to run through two different tools, and then be transported to another machine in the lab. (Different building, different company.) No problem, I just write a script which runs the tools, packs the results in a tar ball and mails them to me. A GUI would be a total pain in the ass in this case...
I guess in the end it's a gamble, and BT is going to take it.
That's one of the problems here - it's not gambling. It's stealing.
It never ceases to amaze me how lawyers seem to think that stealing via court order is morally justifiable. It's not, and who engages in it is nothing but a petty thief.
I think your view is exactly the opposite to what actually happened:
The United States has cut its annual ozone output from
306,000 ozone depletion potential tonnes (ODP tonnes) to
2,500. The 12 nations that were then members of the
European Union have reduced their use from 301,000 to 4,300
ODP tonnes, while Japan has cut its output from 118,000 ODP
tonnes to zero.
So earth has not "healed itself" - a concerted effort to repair the damage has been made and (according to these scientists) will likely succeed.
Some of the changes we make to our environment are causing us problems. If we want to get rid of these problems then we need to do something about it. If your drinking water makes you sick, you can calls this artifical or natural, it doesn't make any difference. The only thing which makes a difference is cleaning up the water supply.
So don't waste your time with debating the names of these problems, the real issue is how to fix them.
Well one problem is that imported words don't fit into the language structure. E.g. anyone who is new to computers will not know how to pronounce or spell the words. This creates a considerable barrier for people who are not fluent English speakers. - In any non-English speaking country that's the vast majority.
Another problem is that the words typically are redundant or overlap with already existing words - again that's a barrier for anyone just learning about computers.
Also English is unfortunately a good example for a ridiculous spelling system:^) - the spelling was derived from a number of different dialects, making learning to spell a ridiculously difficult task. You can see that on this board - even very educated people make considerable numbers of spelling mistakes. In most other languages spelling is a comparatively straightforward task. Importing many English words will create the same problems there.
On the other hand this is not a new problem - all languages have imported words from other languages, quite possibly most of the English terms in the computer field will disappear again within a few decades, leaving only a few remnants. While it makes sense to react on this development (support translations etc) I think it's also important not to go overboard and declare the death of Spanish/German/Greek/whatever just because of a handful of new words.
With all this french hating posts going on, let's not forget that this judge does exactly what the US has been trying to do already - censoring an international medium according to national law.
What he's banning is something he considers offensive. Is that right? Not in my opinion. But as a German I honestly think that Nazi memorabilia is more offensive then naked humans.
I still wouldn't want to have it banned, but I can sympathize.
Grrrr - I really hate made-up historical "facts". Can anyone point to a reference for this alleged saying? (I mean a reference indicating that "the Nazis" used it?)
I don't believe it, because it does not fit into the Nazi attitude. They were rather blatant about not caring about civil rights.
Not that I disagree with your argument, but this sort of thing really bugs me, since I first heard this lie about the Nazis introducing gun control - which they didn't.
Slashdot Mirror
Are there any other common ways in which an ad company could spy on surfers?
Well it can really take a long time, it's an
/usr/local/something rather than
over-night job for my 400 MHz machine.
Also, you need to compile things in the right
order, and you need to run these commands for
each package seperately - which makes it a drag
for a newbie.
If you have a compile script for all the KDE
packages and Qt it's easier, and comes down to
waiting, but unfortunately KDE doesn't provide
one.
There are some additional complications, too -
like compiling konqueror (you need to have
various other libraries installed to have all
features) and i18n packages seem to want to
default to
/opt/kde2
Having a good compile/install script which is
likely to work on most platforms would be a
worthwhile project, too..
There is also the problem that if the install
fails somewhere in the middle you now have a
broken desktop. (For example lets say a package
didn't download fully.) Then the user will
have a hard time fixing it (e.g. downloading
the package, but not having konqueror anymore).
These things are easy to solve for most of us,
but I think it's worthwhile for KDE to offer
an easier way to upgrade.
Well it seems a lot of people care about it, and I'm not sure why you would advocate "just give up". There seems no possible gain from this stance.
I think private freedom is the most serious issue at stake here (assuming basic needs are met, which is definately the case). Is making more money more important than freedom?
Many of the founders of the US thought that personal freedom was valuable enough to risk losing their life or property.
It seems you just want to believe you can't do anything, so that you don't have to take action. And this consumer attitude you call "reality 101" - in fact it's just being lazy.
The problem is processor manufacturing.
;)
You can implement a processor in a FPGA, of
course, but such an implementation wouldn't
run at speeds above the 33 MHz range.
(I'm actually just doing this, so I know that's a
realistic number.)
In order to achieve higher speed you need custom
chips - for which the plant will charge you
in the $10k range (that's for getting *one*
prototype made). Even that is still the ASIC
range, for full-custom chips you need to pay more.
Something which is in the Intel/AMD league
requires access to specialized plants - such as
Intel and AMD have.
This is were the true challenge in processor
design is, too - not the architecture (cache,
ALU, floating point units...) but the manufacturing
technology. To make chips which can transport
data from a registers through some logic and
into another register in 2 ns!
So if you consider how close you are in making
your own RAM chip as an open source project, that's
about the same challenge as making an open source
processor.
It's a different story if you're looking for
embedded processors which go on a FPGA - but
what's the benefit to the user? Presumably
you want to get something out of it, not just
saving some chip design company a bit of money...
...it might be interesting to note that :)
;)
these terrorists are probably using guns.
So presumably we need to outlaw guns in the US,
so that the terrorists won't have any... uhm
Don't flame me, I'm joking... or am I?
KDE has a translation team for basque, here is
their web page:
http://kde.eu.euskal-linux.org/
Being not a Basque speaker, I don't know how
far they are in there efforts, but you might want
to check it out. Or help out, if you like, I'm
sure they'd be glad to have someone who has good
English.
There is also a KDE hebrew team, btw:
http://www.kde.org/il/hebrew
I think this shows why market share is important
for Linux. As long as microsoft owns the market
they can provide solutions like this - tieing the
consumer to their OS, because the media won't
be accessible on other systems. And the
entertainment industry will happily provide
MS-only content to their conditions.
I think it shows quite clearly that most people
here are concerned with the actual facts, not
just with making Linux look good.
Would make a nice reference the next time
Microsoft fakes a benchmark.
I dunno - what's actually "new" in the MS GUI?
It seems it's mainly a collection of elements
which have been around for a long time.
The start menu is just a variation of the root
menu - just tied to a button rather than to the
root window - big deal. Same for the task
bar/panel the elements are there in openwin and
CDE, too. For example CDE can give you a little
box with icons representing your running apps -
you click on the one you want and it pops into the
foreground. Very similar to a taskbar really. That
was around long before Windows 95, too. Clicking
on icons on the desktop? - openwin had it. Drag
and drop also was around on SUN desktops.
What's innovative about putting the clutch on the
left, brake in the middle and the accelerator on
the right?
It makes a lot of sense to standardize on these
things, and I'm glad KDE and Gnome won't go for
this "everything has to be different" philosophie.
How would you get any work done in this sort of environment?
Use for handicapped people is a great application, though.
Well - in all likelyhood we'll never know the
exact effects. Come on, this system is ludicrously
complex and to observe change reliably would
take decades and lots of resources. To what gain,
either it will heat up/cool down and the climate
will change - then it's to late, or nothing will
happen - then we don't care.
So we can either hope for the best, because we
don't know, or we can take precautions.
The "hope approach" just seems silly to me.
We have enough resources to work on the pollution
problem and play it safe, why shouldn't we?
Yeah ok, fuel technology is nice, but come on:
just lay of the SUVs, is that really such a big deal?
Sure they are nice for some things, but the
trade-off against clean air is just ridiculous.
Konqueror has a really nice cookie management.
Just set up "Reject all cookies from this domain"
for doubleclick, and you're set. I guess that
should mostly stop them from collecting your data.
I'm a bit weary of blocking their ads altogether,
though (like with editing the hosts file). At
least for some of the web sites I visit I want to
make sure, that the site gets their advertising income.
The ACLU, I suppose?
I don't think this approach is going to help, though. Let's start the rant: :^)
There are too many lawyers! The US has the majority of the world's lawyers - there is not enough work for them. Therefore they will create their own work - needlessly consuming everybody's time, energy and resources. Nobody can afford that many unproductive lawyers for long.
The big law schools need to reduce their output of lawyers to approach the numbers a society actually needs - the numbers they produce now undermine the workings of society and destroy civil liberties.
you can't change a contract after you've completed a sale.
Seems a pretty obvious restriction, but this means that shrinkwrap licenses are not legally binding in Germany. So therefore they have no claim to a license status.
So, assuming script kiddies are such a big problem, what are the ethics of writing these scripts? Does that serve any purpose, other than weakening security?
Just wondering what people think about this...
I've only tried AIM and ICQ myself, but those work fine.
For example I have directories with photographs which I take with my digital camera - the file names just represent the date on which they are taken. (Which is nice when you want to view them in order, and also just they way they come out of the camera.) - Ok now I want to send some pics to my family - I look at the directory with the file manager (enabling the image preview) and drag the pics I want to the mail tool. There is just no sensible way to do this via command line.
Another application is this: I resynthesize the code for a computer chip. It needs to run through two different tools, and then be transported to another machine in the lab. (Different building, different company.) No problem, I just write a script which runs the tools, packs the results in a tar ball and mails them to me. A GUI would be a total pain in the ass in this case...
That's one of the problems here - it's not gambling. It's stealing.
It never ceases to amaze me how lawyers seem to think that stealing via court order is morally justifiable. It's not, and who engages in it is nothing but a petty thief.
The United States has cut its annual ozone output from 306,000 ozone depletion potential tonnes (ODP tonnes) to 2,500. The 12 nations that were then members of the European Union have reduced their use from 301,000 to 4,300 ODP tonnes, while Japan has cut its output from 118,000 ODP tonnes to zero.
So earth has not "healed itself" - a concerted effort to repair the damage has been made and (according to these scientists) will likely succeed.
Some of the changes we make to our environment are causing us problems. If we want to get rid of these problems then we need to do something about it. If your drinking water makes you sick, you can calls this artifical or natural, it doesn't make any difference. The only thing which makes a difference is cleaning up the water supply.
So don't waste your time with debating the names of these problems, the real issue is how to fix them.
Well one problem is that imported words don't fit into the language structure. E.g. anyone who is new to computers will not know how to pronounce or spell the words. This creates a considerable barrier for people who are not fluent English speakers. - In any non-English speaking country that's the vast majority.
:^) - the spelling was derived from a number of different dialects, making learning to spell a ridiculously difficult task. You can see that on this board - even very educated people make considerable numbers of spelling mistakes. In most other languages spelling is a comparatively straightforward task. Importing many English words will create the same problems there.
Another problem is that the words typically are redundant or overlap with already existing words - again that's a barrier for anyone just learning about computers.
Also English is unfortunately a good example for a ridiculous spelling system
On the other hand this is not a new problem - all languages have imported words from other languages, quite possibly most of the English terms in the computer field will disappear again within a few decades, leaving only a few remnants. While it makes sense to react on this development (support translations etc) I think it's also important not to go overboard and declare the death of Spanish/German/Greek/whatever just because of a handful of new words.
What he's banning is something he considers offensive. Is that right? Not in my opinion. But as a German I honestly think that Nazi memorabilia is more offensive then naked humans.
I still wouldn't want to have it banned, but I can sympathize.
I don't believe it, because it does not fit into the Nazi attitude. They were rather blatant about not caring about civil rights.
Not that I disagree with your argument, but this sort of thing really bugs me, since I first heard this lie about the Nazis introducing gun control - which they didn't.
Well I suppose if you really, really want to miss the point of an argument, then you can. :^)
- Government creates spec
- Company wins contract (hopefully)
- Product is developed
- Government pays for the completed product
Of course then you'd be in a good position to bid on added features.Also there'd be a major incentive to finish the product, too. :^)
Might work.