This is very, very bad news, but there is a solution that will shortly be presented that will be claimed to save the day. This miracle solution will be the subject of my regular column this week, which will appear, as usual, on Thursday. Please come back then. Because while there is a solution, I believe that many people will see the cure as being nearly as bad as the disease.
Doh! What is the answer! Enquiring minds want to know! And how could the cure possibly be worse than the disease(which he says could "bring the internet to a complete standstill and we all go back to watching TV")? What could possibly be worse than DoSing the entire net to the point of unusability? Damn you! Tell us!
Steven
Didn't anyone read the article?
on
Bionic Nurses
·
· Score: 2
This is a lifting-only device. It doesn't seem to have any capabilities of lifting and walking. In the extended state, when it is helping lift, it seems semi-rigid.
It's essentially a forklift designed in three wedge shapes, stacked in different directions alternately, which get progressively wider thereby forcing the frame upwards and supporting the arms of the nurse doing the lifting. The cool thing, from a tech standpoint, is the logic that determines how much pressure to put into the lifting supports is keyed off of the pressure the nurse exerts attempting to lift the patient. They also seem to have a method of slow and steady increases in the size of the wedges to provide a gentle lift. The whole thing is primarially pneumatic.
Bottom line? This won't replace gurneys, but it will make simple tasks like lifting patients to clean up messes or just routine changing of sheets. That is where most of the injuries to nurses come, in the routine things. During states of emergencies, they have more than enough hands to move a patient from a gurney to a table or vice-versa. But during the routine times a nurse often has to handle a patient by themselves with one helper to swap the sheet as the other nurse holds the patient. This will make those two-nurse teams much more effective and less hazardous to the health of our nurses. Also keep in mind that most hospital beds are mobile, so a nurse lifting a patient off a bed and holding him while another nurse wheels the gurney out of the way and the bed into position under the patient the first nurse is holding isn't out of the question.
Personally I'm much more interested in how they made the frame flexible enough to allow movement, specifically moving the hands under a prone patient with enough flexibility to be gentle, and yet rigid enough to lift patients who weigh more than the nurse. I'll keep my eye out for more references to this technology.
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if he reads Slashdot:)
I would be shocked as hell if he reads Slashdot. Usually the people making news don't sit around and read it all that much. Since Slashdot is such a huge time sink, I'd be suprised if he reads it at all.
Here is the fundamental reason books won't be pirated like music is the difference in HOW we enjoy them.
Music is a fundamentally passive experience for the listener. A person doesn't care how the sound is generated(gramaphone, MP3, CD, etc) as long as it hits the airwaves and they can hear it. Pleasant background noise is the primary reason for most music that get's pirated. In the car, in the office, wherever.
Reading is a fundamentally active experience for the reader. I read in bed at night and I kick back on my sofa to read too. I can listen to music without being active with the media, but with a book, I have to interact witht ehmedia to get the message.
Until tiny little e-books become mainstream, I don't see the pirating of books becoming a problem. Sure I could download the latest novels to read, but no one wants to sit at the computer and read for recreation. It will just be a non-issue until that point and by then either the content industry will have won or we'll have reclaimed our freedom to the point where these kind of draconian restrictions are not tolerated.
I had a very interesting discussion with a friend of mine about libraries the other day. It went something like this.
Me: My wife and I are waiting for the next book in the series we've been reading. It's currently only available in hardcover, but the local library had a copy so we had it put on hold and went out to borrow it. When it hits softback we'll probably buy it. We have all the other books in the series.
Her: I love reading whole series of books. I read probably two or three series a year. I can't remember how much money I've spent on books.
Me: Library! Library good! You can borrow a book, read it and if you like the series go pick up copies.
Her: I don't do libraries. If I go to the library and get a book, I won't buy it, and I like to own my books, especially if I like them. If I want to read a book I'll just go buy it.
Me: (boggle) Ok, well you know that you can borrow a book, and if you like it, you can still go buy a copy. If you don't read it before you buy it then you won't know if you like it or not and you might spend cash on a book that isn't worth it.
Her: I know, but I like to own my books. If I go buy a book that I've already read, it's no fun to buy it. I'll just see it in the bookstore and say "been there, done that" and not buy it, even if I really liked it. I like the thrill of coming home with a new book and reading it for the first time and then, if I like it, not having to give it back. I know it's irrational, but it's how I like to do things.
When I was a lad(about the same time period as you) all I had were a few Lego sets from McDonalds Happy Meals. I had a couple of the helicoper sets and a car. These had about ten to twelve pieces each, with three to four of them being specialized pieces. Everything from a full-body chassis for a car to a 2X2 block with eyes on the side and a propellor piece. I took these pieces and built a robot on a skateboard with a beenie propellor hat. The chassis of the car was the skateboard and the eyes of robot were the blocks which had eyes on them. I won a contest with that little bot. I was up against people who had built huge spaceports, but they had followed directions and made minor modifications to existing designs. My design was completely original and strikingly different from the original designs those pieces were part of the sets for. That win sparked my love of Lego and I now have thousands of pieces, including several Mindstorms sets. Lego engineers are really engineers, and creativity, be it with special-purpose pieces, or with general-purpose pieces, is really king. I've taken the heads of R2-D2 that came with my droid developer kit and turned them into a beachball. And I've never seen a more specialized piece than that.
My brother is the manager of the IT department for a local utilities concern. He got the job when the power co bought the telco he worked for. They've started rolling out DSL service in addition to voice and power. They have a few DSLAMs(a fairly small service area, one county in North Texas) and on the other end of the DSLAM is a tie into TWO DS3s. That's right, they have TWO DS3s as their pipe into their DSLAM, and a T1 for backup. Not only that, the DS3s are tied to two different networks so if one is having problems, they re-route. It's a great setup and makes me wish I lived in their service area.
My local grocery chain has done something like this. There was a start-up called GroceryWorks.com which was bought by the chain and they've done fairly well. They have reasonable prices and since they're affiliated with the grocery store, they process the orders at the store and all the driver has to do is pick them up and deliver them. I see them pull into stores all the time. They're down at the moment for a site re-design, but they're going to be adding even more products and selections when they come back up. They're also going to work out a deal with Safeway and Tesco(my guess is this won't affect me, Safeway pulled out of my area years ago).
My wife and I don't use GroceryWorks because we're bargain shoppers and they don't serve the private-label brands(probably not enough of a profit margin on them). Plus they recently opened a new store near us which has a built-in supervised playroom for the children with CCTV monitors throught the store so we can keep an eye on the kids while we shop. Very nice and the kids love it. But the GroceryWorks service seems to do fine and I know several people, mostly soccer moms who are always running here and there and don't have time to shop, who use the services and are thrilled with them. They even take coupons and have free delivery after a certain price threshold is met.
The payment systems they want to use are often cumbersome, and require disclosing far too much information for my comfort. If I'm paying for the right to search for and download articles, why do they need to know what my job is or how much I make every year? No real-world business asks that kind of stuff before they'll let me pay for things.
Ah, but they're starting to. I was in Micro Center the other day to buy a new ethernet card(finally getting DSL) and they're asking me for all kinds of info, and I'm paying cash. I walk into Staples to buy a new trackball(that's all I bought) and they're asking me for info, again, my green is on the counter and that's not good enough. They want to know who I am, not just the color of my money. Radio Shack has done this for years. Because of progenitors like Radio Shack, there are huge databases out there. All Staples asked for was my zip code, but I bet that with that and my name they can access tons of other info about me. Even if I'm paying cash, they ask for this info. Pretty soon the online systems will catch up and they won't ask you for your info for every site anymore. Know why? This is why. Once that is done the online sites won't have "cumbersome" pay systems anymore. But you won't have privacy either.
In Texas this is the law. Go with the flow. It doesn't matter what the speed limit is, you are expected to match your speed, within a few MPH, of the majority of the other drivers around you. I never even look at my speedometer anymore. I just match my speed up with the person in front of me and hit cruise. In my state, it's trying to be the flow that gets you in trouble.(ask my wife)
The really funny thing is when the entire flow gets busted. A friend of mine was driving out to visit us when we were living in a small college town. My friend habitually drives about 150% of the speed limit. Well, on the highway this corresponds to about 105. It was dark so the limit was actually 60 and he was going about 90. Well, there were about seven other cars on the road fairly close to him and they were all going about the same speed. What I had forgotten to tell my friend, whom I knew to be a habitual speeder, was that there is a stretch of highway between us and him that you DO NOT speed on. It's a little town in one of the few parts of Texas where we have hills. The cops in this town are notorious for hiding behind the hills and snagging speeders. Well, when you're in a group(unless the car you're driving happens to be red), you're usually safe, after all the law is to go with the flow. Not in this town. He told me he had never seen a flock of cops come down on a gaggle of speeders before, but they busted everyone. There were at least eight cop cars and they busted all the cars on the road. It was pretty funny, he said "I was going with the flow, they busted the flow!"
Sigh. We know the Slashdot editors don't read the articles. I had hoped for better from the comments. From the Biography on the page you linked to.
In addition to raising two children, Erin and partner Mara Purl have co-written Act Right, a professional guide for actors. Erin and her husband the noted Cinematographer Richard Hissong are currently producing a video on one of her favorite subjects, Chi Kung & Tai Chi.
Not only is she an accomplished actress, and damn fine looking, she is happily married and has two children. Beyond that, she could probably easily kick your ass. Erin Grey is a renaissance woman.
When I boot Linux I see a little pic of Tux and a line saying something like "ABCXYZ Bogomips"
According to Linus's definition, this information is useless. It doesn't help me debug anything and isn't necessary for the system. I think it's a cool thing personally, but I can undestand concern that this bootlog space would be used for spamming the Linux using community. And whenI say Linux using community I'm not talking about sysadmins who tweak out their systems to the utmost. You're not users guys, you're not the audience Linux needs to reach.
I'm not sure if this re-inforces my point or is a complete red herring, but the link is ultra cool! I'm breaking out the Monopoly board tonight! I can already picture some of the things I'll be thinking.
Oh sure, go ahead and buy Ventor Ave, spend your money. FOOL! Don't you know that Illinois Ave is the spot most likely to be landed on IN THE ENTIRE GAME! Now I just have to decide, do I buy the spaces that are rarely landed on when I hit them because I might not hit them again for some time or do I buy the ones with the highest probability so I can be earning trickles of income while I go around and around trying to complete my sets of property? Aaahhh! My brain hurts!
I think everyone needs to remember, there will still be a remedy applied in this case. It's just Judge Jackson's remedy of Microsoft being broken up(and I think the way he suggested breaking it up would not have helped at all because the two pieces would have continued to have dominance in their respective spheres instead of having to compete against each other) is being rejected. They are sending this case back down to a circuit court who may or may not recommend a more lenient penalty. Sure all the pundits say it will be lenient, but it could well be harsher. What could be harsher than breakup? An industry appointed panel of experts who have full access to Microsoft code for any new projects and protocols they develop to be sure they aren't breaking things in subtle ways. That would cripple Microsoft's main strategy of Embrace, Extend (Extinguish).
Believe it or not I really think the Boardwalk is to Park Place as Microsoft is to Linux is a pretty good analogy.
Whoever controls both dominates the board and anyone who even comes close to their area(even if all the other squares on the board represent embedded systems, mainframe systems, etc and aren't subject to control by either of these entities) will be breaking out in a cold sweat. There is a term in the business world, it's borrowed from physics, but it's devestating nonetheless. Leverage. And everyone remember, the odds of landing on Boardwalk are the same as landing on Park Place(assuming no improvements on either), but there is a large differential between the payouts for each action. And as much as we'd like to think it's not about the money(it's about the ideology or it's about freedom), wake up, it's about the money.
Graduating is way more important. And as long as they've got that paper over you, they are God. Don't ever think the law comes into play. My advice is to suck it up, write an apology, secretly get what legal & PR advice you can afford, and do whatever it takes to get your degree.
A lot of times I hear things like this and it kind of disturbs me. There needs to be a distinction made between ease of life and your standards of living. If it would make my life "easier"(read reduce the amount of people I have to yell at and who yell at me, or allow me to keep working on my degree instead of having to start over) to cave in on my principles, then I'm not sure which I would choose. My principles are important to me. Comprimise is a very difficult thing to keep in focus. It's necessary, especially in college, but I'm not sure I'd be willing to give up my principles for convenience's sake. My principles are pretty important to me and I'd be very, very reluctant to give them up, even for something which would be as potentially damaging to my ease of life as expulsion from a University in my senior year.
I understand not wanting to start over, but if I have to undermine who I am(comprimise my principles) in order to keep going, I'd rather start over.
Thank you. Now that I know what the acronyms mean, I understand. In fact, I've used many of those programs, just never heard them called the various M* category programs.
And your comment is a telling remark on why this "better HOWTO" is a long way away.
The Necessity of MTAs and how to choose one.
Choosing a MUA and basic configuration.
I'm a techie and I don't know what these acronyms mean. I haven't been exposed to the innards of email/PGP systems. If you tell me what the acronym means and a simple statement of what it does, I'm probably going to be fine from there, but if you talk over my head from the get go(and I have a lot more technical knowledge than Joe Sixpack) then you've just completely failed to sell me on this "feature" of your product.
Here's the crux though, we're not fighting in the same arena. We bash Microsoft on Slashdot, or in the newsgroups, or on the net. That doesn't matter in the long run because we aren't fighting in the right places. We don't have lobbies. We don't have salespeople to wine and dine tech managers who decide what software gets used. Right now, even though we do a ton of whining and bitching, we're still not making ourselves heard above the background noise to the people that Microsoft is whispering in the ears of. We don't have the ears of lawmakers, judges, or management. So all our Microsoft bashing, even if we manage to mature as a community and stop the mindless and juvenile "M$ is 3v1l!" junk, comes to naught because Microsoft is at the adult table playing to the powerful audiences, and we're stuck at the children's table that is Slashdot and it's ilk.
Both parties are honorable. I remember reading a story not long ago in Brill's Content(even though it's an old story) about Microsoft's PR group and the tricks they pulled on IBM when they were their "main threat" because of OS/2. Here is a little excerpt.
The evangelists were charged with proselytizing as many independent software developers as possible to write for Windows, not OS/2. IBM had a corporate policy at the time that barred any IBM employee from disparaging a competitor's product. Microsoft had no such restriction and exploited the situation masterfully. "We took maximum advantage of it," says Rick Segal, who led a 15-member evangelical team. As his group lobbied the developers and the forums, IBM had no idea of the strategic importance of these groups, he says, and the behemoth was vulnerable to the evangelists' attacks. "The issue that mattered most to me was how to make sure OS/2 never got a foothold to take over our operating system, our franchise."
Today it's the judges, technology managers, and legislators that Microsoft is focusing on. Linux geeks don't "get it" when it comes to legal, or managerial matters. This is a war, make no mistake about it. Microsoft, even if they're smart enough to not out and out say "Linux is a cancer" they most certainly think it and will attempt to persuade others to think that as well. When one person fights and the other just stands there taking punches, well, the person taking punches may be more "honorable" but that doesn't mean they'll win. Like it or not, Ghandi died without accomplishing his goals(even though he did win India's independence from Britan, his real goal was religious tolerance between Hindus and Muslims).
Now, weather or not we should stoop to that level in our own retaliations is another issue. But we can't afford to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt in everything they do. They have proven, time and again, that they will use any methods they feel will be effective. Up until now they have been very effective, let's not forget that.
The *only* way for the record industry to get rid of Gnutella is to somehow make it illegal, as the MPAA has tried to do with DeCSS with very little success.
Read the briefs again. 2600 is
losing
their fight. The DMCA, which was bought by the mega-corps, is kicking 2600's butt. Sure, we all hold out hope that they'll win in the end because their case seems self-evidently "right" to the geek population. But it's not self-evident to legislators or judges. Never confuse justice with law, that's a good way to have your illusions shattered.
Slashdot Mirror
Doh! What is the answer! Enquiring minds want to know! And how could the cure possibly be worse than the disease(which he says could "bring the internet to a complete standstill and we all go back to watching TV")? What could possibly be worse than DoSing the entire net to the point of unusability? Damn you! Tell us!
Steven
This is a lifting-only device. It doesn't seem to have any capabilities of lifting and walking. In the extended state, when it is helping lift, it seems semi-rigid.
It's essentially a forklift designed in three wedge shapes, stacked in different directions alternately, which get progressively wider thereby forcing the frame upwards and supporting the arms of the nurse doing the lifting. The cool thing, from a tech standpoint, is the logic that determines how much pressure to put into the lifting supports is keyed off of the pressure the nurse exerts attempting to lift the patient. They also seem to have a method of slow and steady increases in the size of the wedges to provide a gentle lift. The whole thing is primarially pneumatic.
Bottom line? This won't replace gurneys, but it will make simple tasks like lifting patients to clean up messes or just routine changing of sheets. That is where most of the injuries to nurses come, in the routine things. During states of emergencies, they have more than enough hands to move a patient from a gurney to a table or vice-versa. But during the routine times a nurse often has to handle a patient by themselves with one helper to swap the sheet as the other nurse holds the patient. This will make those two-nurse teams much more effective and less hazardous to the health of our nurses. Also keep in mind that most hospital beds are mobile, so a nurse lifting a patient off a bed and holding him while another nurse wheels the gurney out of the way and the bed into position under the patient the first nurse is holding isn't out of the question.
Personally I'm much more interested in how they made the frame flexible enough to allow movement, specifically moving the hands under a prone patient with enough flexibility to be gentle, and yet rigid enough to lift patients who weigh more than the nurse. I'll keep my eye out for more references to this technology.
Steven
"let's distribute a protected cd for free to see if anyone complains, and they can't return it because it's free"
Oh I can't return it eh? Does tying it to a brick and hurling it through the window of the local RIAA office count? I think it does.
Steven
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if he reads Slashdot :)
I would be shocked as hell if he reads Slashdot. Usually the people making news don't sit around and read it all that much. Since Slashdot is such a huge time sink, I'd be suprised if he reads it at all.
Steven
Or, why books and music aren't the same.
Here is the fundamental reason books won't be pirated like music is the difference in HOW we enjoy them.
Music is a fundamentally passive experience for the listener. A person doesn't care how the sound is generated(gramaphone, MP3, CD, etc) as long as it hits the airwaves and they can hear it. Pleasant background noise is the primary reason for most music that get's pirated. In the car, in the office, wherever.
Reading is a fundamentally active experience for the reader. I read in bed at night and I kick back on my sofa to read too. I can listen to music without being active with the media, but with a book, I have to interact witht ehmedia to get the message.
Until tiny little e-books become mainstream, I don't see the pirating of books becoming a problem. Sure I could download the latest novels to read, but no one wants to sit at the computer and read for recreation. It will just be a non-issue until that point and by then either the content industry will have won or we'll have reclaimed our freedom to the point where these kind of draconian restrictions are not tolerated.
Steven
I had a very interesting discussion with a friend of mine about libraries the other day. It went something like this.
Me: My wife and I are waiting for the next book in the series we've been reading. It's currently only available in hardcover, but the local library had a copy so we had it put on hold and went out to borrow it. When it hits softback we'll probably buy it. We have all the other books in the series.
Her: I love reading whole series of books. I read probably two or three series a year. I can't remember how much money I've spent on books.
Me: Library! Library good! You can borrow a book, read it and if you like the series go pick up copies.
Her: I don't do libraries. If I go to the library and get a book, I won't buy it, and I like to own my books, especially if I like them. If I want to read a book I'll just go buy it.
Me: (boggle) Ok, well you know that you can borrow a book, and if you like it, you can still go buy a copy. If you don't read it before you buy it then you won't know if you like it or not and you might spend cash on a book that isn't worth it.
Her: I know, but I like to own my books. If I go buy a book that I've already read, it's no fun to buy it. I'll just see it in the bookstore and say "been there, done that" and not buy it, even if I really liked it. I like the thrill of coming home with a new book and reading it for the first time and then, if I like it, not having to give it back. I know it's irrational, but it's how I like to do things.
(boggle)
Steven
When I was a lad(about the same time period as you) all I had were a few Lego sets from McDonalds Happy Meals. I had a couple of the helicoper sets and a car. These had about ten to twelve pieces each, with three to four of them being specialized pieces. Everything from a full-body chassis for a car to a 2X2 block with eyes on the side and a propellor piece. I took these pieces and built a robot on a skateboard with a beenie propellor hat. The chassis of the car was the skateboard and the eyes of robot were the blocks which had eyes on them. I won a contest with that little bot. I was up against people who had built huge spaceports, but they had followed directions and made minor modifications to existing designs. My design was completely original and strikingly different from the original designs those pieces were part of the sets for. That win sparked my love of Lego and I now have thousands of pieces, including several Mindstorms sets. Lego engineers are really engineers, and creativity, be it with special-purpose pieces, or with general-purpose pieces, is really king. I've taken the heads of R2-D2 that came with my droid developer kit and turned them into a beachball. And I've never seen a more specialized piece than that.
Steven
My brother is the manager of the IT department for a local utilities concern. He got the job when the power co bought the telco he worked for. They've started rolling out DSL service in addition to voice and power. They have a few DSLAMs(a fairly small service area, one county in North Texas) and on the other end of the DSLAM is a tie into TWO DS3s. That's right, they have TWO DS3s as their pipe into their DSLAM, and a T1 for backup. Not only that, the DS3s are tied to two different networks so if one is having problems, they re-route. It's a great setup and makes me wish I lived in their service area.
Steven
My local grocery chain has done something like this. There was a start-up called GroceryWorks.com which was bought by the chain and they've done fairly well. They have reasonable prices and since they're affiliated with the grocery store, they process the orders at the store and all the driver has to do is pick them up and deliver them. I see them pull into stores all the time. They're down at the moment for a site re-design, but they're going to be adding even more products and selections when they come back up. They're also going to work out a deal with Safeway and Tesco(my guess is this won't affect me, Safeway pulled out of my area years ago).
My wife and I don't use GroceryWorks because we're bargain shoppers and they don't serve the private-label brands(probably not enough of a profit margin on them). Plus they recently opened a new store near us which has a built-in supervised playroom for the children with CCTV monitors throught the store so we can keep an eye on the kids while we shop. Very nice and the kids love it. But the GroceryWorks service seems to do fine and I know several people, mostly soccer moms who are always running here and there and don't have time to shop, who use the services and are thrilled with them. They even take coupons and have free delivery after a certain price threshold is met.
Steven
The payment systems they want to use are often cumbersome, and require disclosing far too much information for my comfort. If I'm paying for the right to search for and download articles, why do they need to know what my job is or how much I make every year? No real-world business asks that kind of stuff before they'll let me pay for things.
Ah, but they're starting to. I was in Micro Center the other day to buy a new ethernet card(finally getting DSL) and they're asking me for all kinds of info, and I'm paying cash. I walk into Staples to buy a new trackball(that's all I bought) and they're asking me for info, again, my green is on the counter and that's not good enough. They want to know who I am, not just the color of my money. Radio Shack has done this for years. Because of progenitors like Radio Shack, there are huge databases out there. All Staples asked for was my zip code, but I bet that with that and my name they can access tons of other info about me. Even if I'm paying cash, they ask for this info. Pretty soon the online systems will catch up and they won't ask you for your info for every site anymore. Know why? This is why. Once that is done the online sites won't have "cumbersome" pay systems anymore. But you won't have privacy either.
Steven
In Texas this is the law. Go with the flow. It doesn't matter what the speed limit is, you are expected to match your speed, within a few MPH, of the majority of the other drivers around you. I never even look at my speedometer anymore. I just match my speed up with the person in front of me and hit cruise. In my state, it's trying to be the flow that gets you in trouble.(ask my wife)
The really funny thing is when the entire flow gets busted. A friend of mine was driving out to visit us when we were living in a small college town. My friend habitually drives about 150% of the speed limit. Well, on the highway this corresponds to about 105. It was dark so the limit was actually 60 and he was going about 90. Well, there were about seven other cars on the road fairly close to him and they were all going about the same speed. What I had forgotten to tell my friend, whom I knew to be a habitual speeder, was that there is a stretch of highway between us and him that you DO NOT speed on. It's a little town in one of the few parts of Texas where we have hills. The cops in this town are notorious for hiding behind the hills and snagging speeders. Well, when you're in a group(unless the car you're driving happens to be red), you're usually safe, after all the law is to go with the flow. Not in this town. He told me he had never seen a flock of cops come down on a gaggle of speeders before, but they busted everyone. There were at least eight cop cars and they busted all the cars on the road. It was pretty funny, he said "I was going with the flow, they busted the flow!"
Steven
Not only is she an accomplished actress, and damn fine looking, she is happily married and has two children. Beyond that, she could probably easily kick your ass. Erin Grey is a renaissance woman.
Steven
Even better, try entering CmdrTaco. Just be sure you have the mature content filter on(it is by default). Don't turn it off for the love of god!
Steven
When I boot Linux I see a little pic of Tux and a line saying something like "ABCXYZ Bogomips"
According to Linus's definition, this information is useless. It doesn't help me debug anything and isn't necessary for the system. I think it's a cool thing personally, but I can undestand concern that this bootlog space would be used for spamming the Linux using community. And whenI say Linux using community I'm not talking about sysadmins who tweak out their systems to the utmost. You're not users guys, you're not the audience Linux needs to reach.
Steven
I'm not sure if this re-inforces my point or is a complete red herring, but the link is ultra cool! I'm breaking out the Monopoly board tonight! I can already picture some of the things I'll be thinking.
Oh sure, go ahead and buy Ventor Ave, spend your money. FOOL! Don't you know that Illinois Ave is the spot most likely to be landed on IN THE ENTIRE GAME! Now I just have to decide, do I buy the spaces that are rarely landed on when I hit them because I might not hit them again for some time or do I buy the ones with the highest probability so I can be earning trickles of income while I go around and around trying to complete my sets of property? Aaahhh! My brain hurts!
Steven
I think everyone needs to remember, there will still be a remedy applied in this case. It's just Judge Jackson's remedy of Microsoft being broken up(and I think the way he suggested breaking it up would not have helped at all because the two pieces would have continued to have dominance in their respective spheres instead of having to compete against each other) is being rejected. They are sending this case back down to a circuit court who may or may not recommend a more lenient penalty. Sure all the pundits say it will be lenient, but it could well be harsher. What could be harsher than breakup? An industry appointed panel of experts who have full access to Microsoft code for any new projects and protocols they develop to be sure they aren't breaking things in subtle ways. That would cripple Microsoft's main strategy of Embrace, Extend (Extinguish).
Steven
Believe it or not I really think the Boardwalk is to Park Place as Microsoft is to Linux is a pretty good analogy.
Whoever controls both dominates the board and anyone who even comes close to their area(even if all the other squares on the board represent embedded systems, mainframe systems, etc and aren't subject to control by either of these entities) will be breaking out in a cold sweat. There is a term in the business world, it's borrowed from physics, but it's devestating nonetheless. Leverage. And everyone remember, the odds of landing on Boardwalk are the same as landing on Park Place(assuming no improvements on either), but there is a large differential between the payouts for each action. And as much as we'd like to think it's not about the money(it's about the ideology or it's about freedom), wake up, it's about the money.
Steven
/me points and laughs. ROFLMAO!
Steven
Graduating is way more important. And as long as they've got that paper over you, they are God. Don't ever think the law comes into play. My advice is to suck it up, write an apology, secretly get what legal & PR advice you can afford, and do whatever it takes to get your degree.
A lot of times I hear things like this and it kind of disturbs me. There needs to be a distinction made between ease of life and your standards of living. If it would make my life "easier"(read reduce the amount of people I have to yell at and who yell at me, or allow me to keep working on my degree instead of having to start over) to cave in on my principles, then I'm not sure which I would choose. My principles are important to me. Comprimise is a very difficult thing to keep in focus. It's necessary, especially in college, but I'm not sure I'd be willing to give up my principles for convenience's sake. My principles are pretty important to me and I'd be very, very reluctant to give them up, even for something which would be as potentially damaging to my ease of life as expulsion from a University in my senior year.
I understand not wanting to start over, but if I have to undermine who I am(comprimise my principles) in order to keep going, I'd rather start over.
Steven
Thank you. Now that I know what the acronyms mean, I understand. In fact, I've used many of those programs, just never heard them called the various M* category programs.
Steven
I'm a techie and I don't know what these acronyms mean. I haven't been exposed to the innards of email/PGP systems. If you tell me what the acronym means and a simple statement of what it does, I'm probably going to be fine from there, but if you talk over my head from the get go(and I have a lot more technical knowledge than Joe Sixpack) then you've just completely failed to sell me on this "feature" of your product.
Steven
Your point was good, and it was quite funny.
Here's the crux though, we're not fighting in the same arena. We bash Microsoft on Slashdot, or in the newsgroups, or on the net. That doesn't matter in the long run because we aren't fighting in the right places. We don't have lobbies. We don't have salespeople to wine and dine tech managers who decide what software gets used. Right now, even though we do a ton of whining and bitching, we're still not making ourselves heard above the background noise to the people that Microsoft is whispering in the ears of. We don't have the ears of lawmakers, judges, or management. So all our Microsoft bashing, even if we manage to mature as a community and stop the mindless and juvenile "M$ is 3v1l!" junk, comes to naught because Microsoft is at the adult table playing to the powerful audiences, and we're stuck at the children's table that is Slashdot and it's ilk.
Steven
Any such interpretation of my post is the product of your own imagination.
Steven
Today it's the judges, technology managers, and legislators that Microsoft is focusing on. Linux geeks don't "get it" when it comes to legal, or managerial matters. This is a war, make no mistake about it. Microsoft, even if they're smart enough to not out and out say "Linux is a cancer" they most certainly think it and will attempt to persuade others to think that as well. When one person fights and the other just stands there taking punches, well, the person taking punches may be more "honorable" but that doesn't mean they'll win. Like it or not, Ghandi died without accomplishing his goals(even though he did win India's independence from Britan, his real goal was religious tolerance between Hindus and Muslims).
Now, weather or not we should stoop to that level in our own retaliations is another issue. But we can't afford to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt in everything they do. They have proven, time and again, that they will use any methods they feel will be effective. Up until now they have been very effective, let's not forget that.
Steven
Read the briefs again. 2600 is
- losing
their fight. The DMCA, which was bought by the mega-corps, is kicking 2600's butt. Sure, we all hold out hope that they'll win in the end because their case seems self-evidently "right" to the geek population. But it's not self-evident to legislators or judges. Never confuse justice with law, that's a good way to have your illusions shattered.Steven