And when they did discover that the terminal emu did everything that the console did, they still didn't grasp the idea that they could have more than one terminal on the screen at once.
What are you talking about? Didn't you ever have two or more NT consoles open? (Or MS-Dos prompt or whatever it is called in 9x) Any halfway knowledgable windows user knows about those. (I don't talk office drones, but office drones don't need a console)
Aside: I like to push Ctrl-Alt-F1 when I'm under Linux, not because I don't like term emu, but for command line I prefer the full screen version, actually when under Linux, being in X is more the exception than the rule.
Not only that: a year ago they had quite a nice example of a Concorde crashing fully loaded on a hotel. I guess that was shown on TV everywhere in the world. Perhaps an inspiration source for terrorists who saw the potential?
My sympathy is with the families of the victims. I think this was one of the saddest days in history of mankind.
Look at it as if it were an intergalatic snowballfight....of course we shooudn't complain if they send a dozend of comets back...we started after all! But it's not "war", it's all fun and games.
I recall a Sim-like game involving running a beer distributorship.
I don't know this one specifically...but I remember another one that was very funny: Pizza Tycoon...create your own restaurants, pizzas etc. Only problem is that you had to do some Maffia stuff (but it was very funny).
Other games that are not to violent are the stated SimAnything, and of course the good old sierras/lucasarts. I loved the Monkey Island and Space Quest series. It really depends how "violence" is qualified. If blowing up a terminator-robot counts as violence they cannot be used....but then it was self-defence;-)
Further more Theme Hospital springs to mind, and also RailRoad Tycoon and Transportation Tycoon (now I loved that one), but of course you need to be economically inclined. I don't think that literacy is a big barrier, my brother is not the brightest light and he loves Transportation Tycoon.
One of the most funniest ripoffs of the Tycoon-like games was something called "Klomanager" (german for toilet-manager). Manage your own public toilet booths and try to build up a toilet empire. No I'm *not* making this up.:-)
Well they could use Eudora, it supports IMAP as far as I know (I only use the POP3 part). It is very easy to use, actually, I trained my mom to use it:-)
And last week I finally decided to get rid of the ads...it's not such an expensive package, it does it's job well, warns you for viruses and in combination with a decent and up to date antivirus program (Norton for me), I never had any virus coming trough.
To stay on topic: I'm fairly new to Linux and it's security. I have no clue how to secure a Linux box that is directly connected to the internet. Currently I feel quite safe because I have a commercial Router/Firewall running on NT that protects my network. The ultimate goal would be to replace it by a Linux (or better OpenBSD) firewall/router.
I have had 2 different laptops and over their lifetime (one got 3 years old before breaking) and the current one is 5 years old battery lifetime kept about the same (perhaps 85% of original lifetime). Both machines had NiCad batteries which are known for memory effect: batteries tend to "remember" when they are fully charged even if they are not. You probably do something wrong (which a lot of people tend to do), namely plug in the power supply when your battery is half charged. If your are on battery, use it until you get the warning that battery is nearly empty. If you are impatient, write a little script that writes alot on the disk to drain the batteries.
I do not have laptop experience with LiIon or NiMH batteries, but I heard they don't have the same problems as NiCad batteries. My cellphone has LiIon and it seems that I can recharge it even when no completely empty, but I prefer not to.
I think, with a bit discipline the Aibo batteries could last very long:-)
You have a point there, and it was the first thing I thought of when reading the parents post. However it could be interesting to lock the ignition and be able to override it with, let's say, a 8-digit code to be pushed in under the hood or so, if you do this and drive, the cops should be alarmed.
It seems rediculous, but it would prevent the very-highly intoxicated guy that is not able to stand on his feet to start the car. You on the other hand, only sligtly in the wind, will push in the code, help your buddy...and if the cops find you it's a good thing because they are likely to be able to help your wounded buddy.
OT: I did my share of drunk-driving, and payed hard enough for it, a device like this would have caused me a lot less sorrow.
One simple reason: it is fun...that's all. Why shell out $49 if you've got the thing lying around anyway?
I'm not convinced of the electricity....Even a 486 only consumes nothing more than a big light-bulb, and how many people forget to put out that light bulb in their room....Nah, it won't make a big difference. Besides those tranfo's that come with those appliances get hot, so I think they consume quite a lot of electricity too.
Luxembourg has got to be the only country in the world where a single/. poster constitutes a significant fraction of the populace...
Okay, now that was funny.:-) Okay, okay, I admit, I felt flamish today (worked by the way) and just got a bit upset because I was merely stating facts and someone rediculised my post. Of course Luxembourg is small, we even make fun of our own military because we say they have to go three times around the block when there is a military parade on the national holiday.
Go bitch another country, please.... Luxembourg is a wonderfull place to live: it is clean, with a relatively low crimerate, people are living well, and your privacy is valued. What you say isn't even remotely funny (even when modded that way), it is not because it is a small country that it counts for peanuts: it has the European Court of Justice, European Bank of Investment (I worked there too), parts of European Commission. Oh, and didn't I mention it? Luxembourg is respected banking site. No, not for money laundring as the fairy tales aways tell. It is also a cultural and historical city (country even) People like Goethe or Victor Hugo and William Turner enjoyed Luxembourg. You should visit it, or just at least take a visit the website .
Besides, the system is extremely evident...of course, it is...there aren't 200 diffent ways to easily number a large number of people. When reading the posts a bit further I noticed Denmark has a similar system but with 4 extra numbers instead of 3.
Remind me to bitch on your country the next time you post something about it. My only purpose was to enable others to compare "what exists" around the world.
I don't know about other European countries, but the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg has a Social Security Number System which uniquely identifies you. It is composed YYYY MM DD ABC, where YYYYMMDD is your birthday and ABC is a special checksum. One of the funny things is that if B is even you are female, and if B is odd you are male...We all knew males were odd;-) (I have a 5 there, so this is no flamebait)
Normally the only ones who are entitled to ask this number are doctors, social security itself, your employer and official institutions. Note that even kids have such a number. I had the luck to work for the Laboratoire Nationale de la Santé which uses those codes for the lookup of patients (I programmed the lookup of the code in the pathology). The code is called RPNI, but I forgot what it stands for. (link to civil state adiministration (french)) I actually do not ever heard of abuse of those numbers, but I think the usage is protected by law.
Finally a comment with sense! I agree completely: games are completely task-oriented. In the UI of a OS you need to do everything, in a game, let's say a car-driving game you have to be able to select a car: show a car, then the track, show the track. It is very linear.
OS-es are not designed that way, at least not multitasking OSes. They are inherently more complex. If you want game-like UI's for applications, make them full-screen with clear buttons and don't allow anything other than the applic itself because otherwhise it will confuse normal users. If I had mod points you'd have got a +1,Insightful from me...:-)
There are numerous small distributions. The one I use, because I'm bandwith-challenged too (single-line-ISDN) is Peanut Linux . It's a fine distribution including KDE2 with KOffice. The installation is a bit harder than mainstream SuSE or Redhat, but it guides you quite well by giving the commands to type or simple text-menu's. This together with a bit common sense is enough. (Well, installing on an ext2 partition requires you to know about mke2fs *grin*)
I personally would like to migrate to Slackware or Debian because I'd like to configure my system to my needs. Peanut comes "as-is", which is not a bad thing for starting of with Linux, IMHO. I started downloading Slack 8.0 once, but 600Meg is indeed just too much for my slow connection:-(
Oh, and for the "programming-own-drivers" part: I never touched a driver in my life and everything seems to work quite well for me. The only thing that was a bit harder was to make a weird (actually, just uncommon) SCSI PCMCIA card run. I once stated that problem in a comment on/. (while staying ontopic) and someone promptly redirected me to a site which had the info required to make it run.
In the article you state that due to the OEM Licence agreements it wasn't possible to include new PC's with a special bootloader to allow dual boot. What OEM manufacturers could have done is to preinstall BeOS (like Hitachi did) in a hidden partition and include, with the computer, a CD to activate this partition.
Why this way? We all know Microsoft controls the bootloader and the desktop, so you can't put an icon to "change bootloader" on the desktop (easiest solution) But we also all know the behaviour of joe-normal-user: he stuffes any CD that comes with his new shiny computer into the drive and the CD will autostart (a feature that I hate). I have seen this numerous times (that is one way PC's get overloaded with resident crap, but that is another story) Of course I don't know the "trade secret licence agrement" so my idea could still be violating it.
Now finally a word about BeOS, I was intrigued by it and I once downloaded the personal edition...just to find that it needed a FAT-ish partition which I didn't have. I created one, and tried the OS and it looked fine. It looked sleek and of course I had to get used to the UI. I nearly ordered it, but after adding shipment prices I quickly changed my mind because it would have *doubled* the price...it's the curse of living in Europe. So I'm still on NT/Linux/OpenBSD.
Of course I am very well aware of that fact. That is the reason why some merchants do not support credit cards.
The AC replying to you states that those costs are -of course- billed over to me. That last is not true: I never got a price cut because I paid cash. Perhaps I'm just not lucky;-) This could have two causes: the merchant increases his prices seen globally to count credit card transactions in, which screws the cash-paying client, or those fees are minimal and can be declared as business expenses (taxes off etc...every merchant loves that)...either way: I don't feel as if I personally paid anything for the service. I know it is kind of pychological thing but I didn't get billed. Get the point?
Now I know this may sound as flamebait (it isn't, it is just stating the obvious) but actually we should be glad the average credit card debt is 40000$ per familiy. You know why? Because it is those people who keep the credit card companies profitable. Yes, you read that right: I do have a credit card but I "play by the rules", this means I just never have to pay any interest until I breach the magical wall of 2500$ per month, which of course I never do (it covers food + fuel expenses each month easily). This means that the credit card company never ever earned any dime from me. (Except perhap on exchange rates when in a foreign country) If everyone did this, no credit card company could stay in business for a long time. So let the "average familiy" be in debt: they pay for you and that is good.
Over 250 submissions on a subject that includes HAL and artificial intelligence that mimics a little child....and no-one cited the shutdown sequence of HAL in 2001 A Space Odissey where he sings a children-song (at least I think it is)??? What happens to slashdot?
Woudn't this be a cruel omission? Here we go:
HAL:My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you'd like to hear it I can sing it for you. Dave Bowman:Yes, I'd like to hear it, HAL. Sing it for me. HAL: It's called "Daisy." [sings while slowing down] Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I'm half crazy all for the love of you. It won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage. But you'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two.
"Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V." ?!? Aren't those guys broke and gone by now? For those who don't know it: it's a Belgian company that promisied speech products already years ago. The founders have been arrested for fraud (see here in german or here in english. I don't think the arrests had to do anything with the technology tough.
To stay on topic: I still use Netscape 4.76 and the reason is that I like the profiles that are stored *not* as a part of the user configuration but in a separated directory ([ProgramFilesDir]\Netscape\Users). This is very usefull if you have multiple computers and want to be able to use the same profiles all over the network: just share the directory and load your profiles on the central computer (the router in my config).
I know what you think: hey, but just use a domain server where you store remote user profiles (W2K and NT4 workstations) and voilà, same profile everywhere due to the duplication at login. True, this works...at work....not at home where I do *not* have a dedicated domain server in sitting the cave and that we lay the network cables only when needed. Local browsing can still be done, you just need to add a "Local" netscape profile on the harddisk of each machine, and of you go.
With Mozilla and Internet Explorer, I cannot use this setup because user preferences are stored as a part of the Windows User profile. Implementing a domain server is not an issue: I do not have an machine lying around to take over this task (can this be done using Linux by the way? Using Samba? Presumably!).
I'm sure my family will get pissed off if when I tell them: oh, bookmarks will now be local to the machine: you'll have to update your bookmarks on every machine:-(
(As a reply to the Anonymous Coward)
Did you actually take the time to visit his homepage?!? Ugly? If you think that girl (which I presume is one of his daughters) is ugly, you either date Nathalie. Portman or you have absolutely no eye for beauty. But enough flaming (well, I'd call it defending an innocent damsel *grin*).
ReidMaynard was absolutely on topic: I think he tried to be funny, in a cynical way, but the fact is that still most 15 year old boys do not care about anything more than that the girl next door notices them (and they mostly don't succeed). No, as matter of fact this article talks about a very small minority of younsters that do exceptional things. People forget that there have been bright kids all over history that acquired astonishing knowlegde about particular subjects. These kids are no exception, only being on a hip "medium" makes them more exposed.
I can't believe I'm posting this...ah, so what...it's only Karma!
I understand that business needs security, speed and reliability to make profit. The internet doesn't provide any of those, that is true, but at least it is there *now* and that is why it is used. (Again they start about that video-on-demand-stuff, never understood that, but I disgress)
So do we need more control by companies, less freedom on the internet?? (well, I knew the pre-web days...so I saw the changing). I don't think so, but coudn't it be possible to gradually upgrade all the internet connections (takes time, I talk long term) so that speed is guaranteed? This for the technical (hardware side)
Now comes the more interesting part: I want coexistence. The internet as we know it and the one companies wish. I think it could be done (but then I'm not a network specialist) So implement a "network" (virtual of course) on TCP/IP that does QoS and encrypts everything that is transferred. How it could be done, I have no idea, but there are bright people around. Usual internet traffic can go on, but for the "uber-network", you pay a small extra fee to access it (and the companies could pay too...after all we have to finance the hardware upgrades described above), which makes life better for everyone. Companies can do business on a firm base, and we can meddle around posting on/. and surfing for p0rn, not that I do that;-)
Okay...my real issue: you seem to know about slack. I want to customize my distro hard...only what I need. I have an old laptop who doesn't need much and a modern computer that can cope a lot of things.
Is the slack CD just another of those fancy 'I wanna install Linux' installs or can I do whatever I want? If I am at the mercy of an installer I'm not interested.
(Moderators: mod down my post without text, I deserve it!)
Ehm, I'm at work right now, so I prefer not to check out too much sites...but try AdCritic . They have a search-facility but unfortunately it is quite American-Based (I don't know what CN is, so I guess it is American), so most of my fav ads are not there. All movies in Quicktime.
Recall the episode of The Simpsons, when Homer got the chance to design a car? Well, technically there is nothinig more like a "consumer" than Homer: it just became a nightmare for the constructor....so I think it is unwise so solely listen to the consumer.
Slashdot Mirror
What are you talking about? Didn't you ever have two or more NT consoles open? (Or MS-Dos prompt or whatever it is called in 9x) Any halfway knowledgable windows user knows about those. (I don't talk office drones, but office drones don't need a console)
Aside: I like to push Ctrl-Alt-F1 when I'm under Linux, not because I don't like term emu, but for command line I prefer the full screen version, actually when under Linux, being in X is more the exception than the rule.
My sympathy is with the families of the victims. I think this was one of the saddest days in history of mankind.
Look at it as if it were an intergalatic snowballfight....of course we shooudn't complain if they send a dozend of comets back...we started after all! But it's not "war", it's all fun and games.
I don't know this one specifically...but I remember another one that was very funny: Pizza Tycoon...create your own restaurants, pizzas etc. Only problem is that you had to do some Maffia stuff (but it was very funny).
Other games that are not to violent are the stated SimAnything, and of course the good old sierras/lucasarts. I loved the Monkey Island and Space Quest series. It really depends how "violence" is qualified. If blowing up a terminator-robot counts as violence they cannot be used....but then it was self-defence ;-)
Further more Theme Hospital springs to mind, and also RailRoad Tycoon and Transportation Tycoon (now I loved that one), but of course you need to be economically inclined. I don't think that literacy is a big barrier, my brother is not the brightest light and he loves Transportation Tycoon.
One of the most funniest ripoffs of the Tycoon-like games was something called "Klomanager" (german for toilet-manager). Manage your own public toilet booths and try to build up a toilet empire. No I'm *not* making this up. :-)
And last week I finally decided to get rid of the ads...it's not such an expensive package, it does it's job well, warns you for viruses and in combination with a decent and up to date antivirus program (Norton for me), I never had any virus coming trough.
To stay on topic: I'm fairly new to Linux and it's security. I have no clue how to secure a Linux box that is directly connected to the internet. Currently I feel quite safe because I have a commercial Router/Firewall running on NT that protects my network. The ultimate goal would be to replace it by a Linux (or better OpenBSD) firewall/router.
You probably do something wrong (which a lot of people tend to do), namely plug in the power supply when your battery is half charged. If your are on battery, use it until you get the warning that battery is nearly empty. If you are impatient, write a little script that writes alot on the disk to drain the batteries.
I do not have laptop experience with LiIon or NiMH batteries, but I heard they don't have the same problems as NiCad batteries. My cellphone has LiIon and it seems that I can recharge it even when no completely empty, but I prefer not to.
I think, with a bit discipline the Aibo batteries could last very long :-)
It seems rediculous, but it would prevent the very-highly intoxicated guy that is not able to stand on his feet to start the car. You on the other hand, only sligtly in the wind, will push in the code, help your buddy...and if the cops find you it's a good thing because they are likely to be able to help your wounded buddy.
OT: I did my share of drunk-driving, and payed hard enough for it, a device like this would have caused me a lot less sorrow.
User: Oh, I have Windows 97
Me: *bangs head on table*
Yes, Windows has become computing for the user, worse: Office has become computing for for the user (corporate one that is).
One simple reason: it is fun...that's all. Why shell out $49 if you've got the thing lying around anyway?
I'm not convinced of the electricity....Even a 486 only consumes nothing more than a big light-bulb, and how many people forget to put out that light bulb in their room....Nah, it won't make a big difference. Besides those tranfo's that come with those appliances get hot, so I think they consume quite a lot of electricity too.
Okay, now that was funny. :-) Okay, okay, I admit, I felt flamish today (worked by the way) and just got a bit upset because I was merely stating facts and someone rediculised my post. Of course Luxembourg is small, we even make fun of our own military because we say they have to go three times around the block when there is a military parade on the national holiday.
It is also a cultural and historical city (country even) People like Goethe or Victor Hugo and William Turner enjoyed Luxembourg. You should visit it, or just at least take a visit the website .
Besides, the system is extremely evident...of course, it is...there aren't 200 diffent ways to easily number a large number of people. When reading the posts a bit further I noticed Denmark has a similar system but with 4 extra numbers instead of 3.
Remind me to bitch on your country the next time you post something about it. My only purpose was to enable others to compare "what exists" around the world.
I don't know about other European countries, but the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg has a Social Security Number System which uniquely identifies you. It is composed YYYY MM DD ABC, where YYYYMMDD is your birthday and ABC is a special checksum. One of the funny things is that if B is even you are female, and if B is odd you are male...We all knew males were odd ;-) (I have a 5 there, so this is no flamebait)
Normally the only ones who are entitled to ask this number are doctors, social security itself, your employer and official institutions. Note that even kids have such a number.
I had the luck to work for the Laboratoire Nationale de la Santé which uses those codes for the lookup of patients (I programmed the lookup of the code in the pathology). The code is called RPNI, but I forgot what it stands for. (link to civil state adiministration (french))
I actually do not ever heard of abuse of those numbers, but I think the usage is protected by law.
OS-es are not designed that way, at least not multitasking OSes. They are inherently more complex. If you want game-like UI's for applications, make them full-screen with clear buttons and don't allow anything other than the applic itself because otherwhise it will confuse normal users. If I had mod points you'd have got a +1,Insightful from me... :-)
Cut the binding with the filesharing on TCP/IP (In the Network card applet). And indeed you should be firewalling anyway as said "Wakko Warner".
I personally would like to migrate to Slackware or Debian because I'd like to configure my system to my needs. Peanut comes "as-is", which is not a bad thing for starting of with Linux, IMHO. I started downloading Slack 8.0 once, but 600Meg is indeed just too much for my slow connection :-(
Oh, and for the "programming-own-drivers" part: I never touched a driver in my life and everything seems to work quite well for me. The only thing that was a bit harder was to make a weird (actually, just uncommon) SCSI PCMCIA card run. I once stated that problem in a comment on /. (while staying ontopic) and someone promptly redirected me to a site which had the info required to make it run.
Why this way? We all know Microsoft controls the bootloader and the desktop, so you can't put an icon to "change bootloader" on the desktop (easiest solution) But we also all know the behaviour of joe-normal-user: he stuffes any CD that comes with his new shiny computer into the drive and the CD will autostart (a feature that I hate). I have seen this numerous times (that is one way PC's get overloaded with resident crap, but that is another story) Of course I don't know the "trade secret licence agrement" so my idea could still be violating it.
Now finally a word about BeOS, I was intrigued by it and I once downloaded the personal edition...just to find that it needed a FAT-ish partition which I didn't have. I created one, and tried the OS and it looked fine. It looked sleek and of course I had to get used to the UI. I nearly ordered it, but after adding shipment prices I quickly changed my mind because it would have *doubled* the price...it's the curse of living in Europe. So I'm still on NT/Linux/OpenBSD.
Of course I am very well aware of that fact. That is the reason why some merchants do not support credit cards. ;-) This could have two causes: the merchant increases his prices seen globally to count credit card transactions in, which screws the cash-paying client, or those fees are minimal and can be declared as business expenses (taxes off etc...every merchant loves that)...either way: I don't feel as if I personally paid anything for the service. I know it is kind of pychological thing but I didn't get billed. Get the point?
The AC replying to you states that those costs are -of course- billed over to me. That last is not true: I never got a price cut because I paid cash. Perhaps I'm just not lucky
Now I know this may sound as flamebait (it isn't, it is just stating the obvious) but actually we should be glad the average credit card debt is 40000$ per familiy. You know why? Because it is those people who keep the credit card companies profitable.
Yes, you read that right: I do have a credit card but I "play by the rules", this means I just never have to pay any interest until I breach the magical wall of 2500$ per month, which of course I never do (it covers food + fuel expenses each month easily). This means that the credit card company never ever earned any dime from me. (Except perhap on exchange rates when in a foreign country)
If everyone did this, no credit card company could stay in business for a long time. So let the "average familiy" be in debt: they pay for you and that is good.
Woudn't this be a cruel omission? Here we go:
HAL:My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you'd like to hear it I can sing it for you.
Dave Bowman:Yes, I'd like to hear it, HAL. Sing it for me.
HAL: It's called "Daisy." [sings while slowing down] Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I'm half crazy all for the love of you. It won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage. But you'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two.
Shamelessly copy/pasted from IMDB
Aren't those guys broke and gone by now? For those who don't know it: it's a Belgian company that promisied speech products already years ago. The founders have been arrested for fraud (see here in german or here in english. I don't think the arrests had to do anything with the technology tough.
To stay on topic: I still use Netscape 4.76 and the reason is that I like the profiles that are stored *not* as a part of the user configuration but in a separated directory ([ProgramFilesDir]\Netscape\Users). This is very usefull if you have multiple computers and want to be able to use the same profiles all over the network: just share the directory and load your profiles on the central computer (the router in my config).
I know what you think: hey, but just use a domain server where you store remote user profiles (W2K and NT4 workstations) and voilà, same profile everywhere due to the duplication at login. True, this works...at work....not at home where I do *not* have a dedicated domain server in sitting the cave and that we lay the network cables only when needed. Local browsing can still be done, you just need to add a "Local" netscape profile on the harddisk of each machine, and of you go.
With Mozilla and Internet Explorer, I cannot use this setup because user preferences are stored as a part of the Windows User profile. Implementing a domain server is not an issue: I do not have an machine lying around to take over this task (can this be done using Linux by the way? Using Samba? Presumably!). :-(
I'm sure my family will get pissed off if when I tell them: oh, bookmarks will now be local to the machine: you'll have to update your bookmarks on every machine
Did you actually take the time to visit his homepage?!?
Ugly? If you think that girl (which I presume is one of his daughters) is ugly, you either date Nathalie. Portman or you have absolutely no eye for beauty. But enough flaming (well, I'd call it defending an innocent damsel *grin*).
ReidMaynard was absolutely on topic: I think he tried to be funny, in a cynical way, but the fact is that still most 15 year old boys do not care about anything more than that the girl next door notices them (and they mostly don't succeed). No, as matter of fact this article talks about a very small minority of younsters that do exceptional things. People forget that there have been bright kids all over history that acquired astonishing knowlegde about particular subjects. These kids are no exception, only being on a hip "medium" makes them more exposed.
I can't believe I'm posting this...ah, so what...it's only Karma!
So do we need more control by companies, less freedom on the internet?? (well, I knew the pre-web days...so I saw the changing). I don't think so, but coudn't it be possible to gradually upgrade all the internet connections (takes time, I talk long term) so that speed is guaranteed? This for the technical (hardware side)
Now comes the more interesting part: I want coexistence. The internet as we know it and the one companies wish. I think it could be done (but then I'm not a network specialist) So implement a "network" (virtual of course) on TCP/IP that does QoS and encrypts everything that is transferred. How it could be done, I have no idea, but there are bright people around. Usual internet traffic can go on, but for the "uber-network", you pay a small extra fee to access it (and the companies could pay too...after all we have to finance the hardware upgrades described above), which makes life better for everyone. Companies can do business on a firm base, and we can meddle around posting on /. and surfing for p0rn, not that I do that ;-)
Okay...my real issue: you seem to know about slack. I want to customize my distro hard...only what I need. I have an old laptop who doesn't need much and a modern computer that can cope a lot of things.
Is the slack CD just another of those fancy 'I wanna install Linux' installs or can I do whatever I want? If I am at the mercy of an installer I'm not interested. (Moderators: mod down my post without text, I deserve it!)
Ehm, I'm at work right now, so I prefer not to check out too much sites...but try AdCritic . They have a search-facility but unfortunately it is quite American-Based (I don't know what CN is, so I guess it is American), so most of my fav ads are not there.
All movies in Quicktime.
Recall the episode of The Simpsons, when Homer got the chance to design a car? Well, technically there is nothinig more like a "consumer" than Homer: it just became a nightmare for the constructor....so I think it is unwise so solely listen to the consumer.