To parents interested in buying the popular Hooked on Phonics learn-to-read programs, the company made a firm promise on its Web site: It would never sell or rent their personal information to other marketers. But that pledge was empty.
The children are Hooked on Phonics, and now the parents are Hooked on Phony Emails.
open source code has marginally worse quality than closed source code of the same maturity
So they compared the source code of an open-source project with what ? the disassembled code of a closed-source project ? how would they know if the source code of the latter has better quality than the former's, since by definition, you can't get the source code of the latter ?
I believe the guy is talking about the quality of the whole project, not source code quality.
Upgrade your MDA video card, you'll see it's pretty good at being a desktop box. Where the hell did you get that ?
-Stable: old
Possibly, but it's stable. That's the main reason to use it. Caldera OpenLinux, which was supposed to be robust as a primary goal, also had outdated but well-tested packages (before Caldera let it grow too old it was useless to everybody).
-Unstable:looking for trouble, and still old
No and no. I use unstable with no problem at all, and I don't find it very out of date. Some things are, but most of the packages are fairly current.
-Licensing issues, cool apps missing
That's partially true. But you can always add non-free sources in your/etc/apt/sources.list. And you can always compile the tarballs if you really need to.
-No xfree 4.3, no mplayer
No mplayer ? hello ? ppc@akula:~$ apt-cache search mplayer mplayer-mozilla - Embedded video player for mozilla mencoder-386 - MPlayer's Movie Encoder acidrip - ripping and encoding DVD tool using mplayer and mencoder mencoder-686 - MPlayer's Movie Encoder mplayer-k6 - The Ultimate Movie Player For Linux mplayer-doc - Documentation for mplayer mplayer-fonts - Fonts for mplayer kplayer - A KDE media player based on MPlayer mencoder-k6 - MPlayer's Movie Encoder lumiere - A GNOME frontend to mplayer mplayer-386 - The Ultimate Movie Player For Linux mplayer-686 - The Ultimate Movie Player For Linux
-Unfriendly community
Unfortunately, that's true, at least partially.
-Everyone now has apt or an improved version of it -Installer sucks -Dselect sucks
dselect and installer do suck, yes. But it's worth the pain IMHO.
WARNING : THIS IS NOT A FLAMEBAIT. I LOVE DEBIAN, BUT READ ON...
I started using Linux with SlackWare when it was the only distro available out there. I used to love them tarballs, but then at the time systems still had manageable sizes, so one really could compile everything in a reasonable time.
Then I had the (mis?)fortune of being hired by a certain Caldera spinoff and was forced to use OpenLinux 1.2. That was my first contact with RPM, and that was a painful contact. Part of my work also involved writing and maintaining specfiles for various cross-platform packages. That's when I learned that (1) RPM was better than tarballs because it had dependencies, (2) RPM dependencies are not powerful enough and (3) RPM isn't backward-compatible. In short, RPM is not good but it's better than nothing.
At that company, I also had the misfortune of meeting a Debian fanatic. Note that I say he's a fanatic of Debian, not that Debian made him a fanatic. Having tried Debian long ago myself, when it wasn't ready for prime-time, and having found it complicated and messy at the time, I was conforted in this idea by the truly detestable way this guy was patronizing everybody who didn't use Debian, and was turned off Debian for another 2 years.
Then, several months ago, it was a sunday afternoon, my local computer shop was closed, and I couldn't find my RH CD to reinstall my box. I though : what the hell, I'm no more stupid than the average Debian user and I have nothing to do, let's try the Debian network-install. Well, I went through a little pain (it's not quite totally polished yet), but I've never looked back. dpkg and apt-get are just a godsend, and I too am now a convert today.
Moral of the story : I avoided using Debian for several years entirely due to the advocacy of one (well, several actually) Debian bigot. You can always say that I should have been more intelligent and I should have made my own opinion, but I never had time and the experience you get from other users do count for me.
In conclusion : what's the biggest good that could happen to Debian ? that other distros' package management got better so Debian bigots wouldn't have such an powerful incentive to behave like asses and disgust other people of Debian before they even try it. Or better still, that the Debian bigots start realizing that they won't win anybody to Debian by being patronizing.
So, Sobig is a worm that infects your machine and sends spam ? Let me rephrase this : Sobig is a worm that infects your *Windows* machine and sends spam.
Since Microsoft has started a crusade against Spam (to free-up bandwidth for their own humongous patches and service packs no doubt, they never do anything without a reason), shouldn't they start by fixing the very platform that makes it possible for worms to send spam ?
Pat Gelsinger, chief technology officer for Intel Corp, the world's biggest computer chip maker, said Wi-Fi was cost-effective, growing rapidly around the world and particularly appropriate for developing nations because it was neither government-regulated nor licensed and was built using industry-wide and worldwide standards.
Read : Pat Gelsinger, CTO for Intel Corp, recently visited Kofi Annan to do a sales pitch that went successfully.
Hey Pat, how about Intel donates some WiFi equipment to third world countries, to jumpstart the market if nothing else ?
How about giving reliable electricity, then computers to poor third world countries first (and also drinkable water and sufficient food, since you're there) ?
Not everything in your home country looks as shiny as your UN office Mr. Annan...
... you'd be hard pressed to get Linux support from Microsoft.
Of course you can get Linux support from Microsoft.
Call them and ask them to solve a sendmail problem for example (assuming you want to waste $$$ on the support call that is) and you can bet they'll answer something like "Hmm, I think you really do need IIS sir. Would you like to hear more about it ?".
So you see, they do give you advices to help you solve your Linux problems...
With the crap you get on TV (terrestrial, cable, satellite, whatever...), is it worth risking that much money and jail time ?
I could set up an illegal repository of OCRed books, a la Gutemberg project, but with recent releases, and probably only risk a nasty slap on the hand in court compared to this guy, despite the fact that I would provide content that often requires a lot more work and talent to make, and would give people a lot more culture than, say, Jerry Springer. Funny...
My understanding is that certain ads, especially good funny ones, are watched more than other. So, what do advertisers derive from the fact that, for example, the ad with the chihuahua that says "Yo quiero Taco Bell" is a hit ? that people love Taco Bell food ? that they love cute undersized doggies in ads ? that they love funny ads ?
In the case of Taco Bell, since their food is mainly about calories per dollar, the answer is pretty clear. But it might not be the case for other products. I can't see that data being very meaningful.
A group of Xbox security researchers say they have found a way to run Linux on the Xbox game console without a so-called mod chip and will go public with the technique if Microsoft won't talk to them about releasing an official Linux boot loader.
Wtf is a "XBox security researchers" ? Anyway, here's why the "researchers" are stupid: Xbox security researchers: Hey Microsoft, either you release an official Linux bootloader or we tell everybody what your Xbox flaw is.
Microsoft VP of engineering, to Microsoft engineer: what's that John, do we really have a flaw in the Xbox ?
John: Dunno boss, why don't you ask them?
MSVPE, to XSR: Hmm, well, okay then. But you need to tell us how you install Linux on the Xbox, cuz we don't know how to do it, we don't do Linux here.
XSR: Pfft, easy does it, them M$ morons don't know anything about computing ark ark ark! You do this, then you do that, then you exploit this hole your stupid engineers left here, then presto Linux runs:-)
MSVPE: Okay. We'll get back to you as soon as we're done.
MSVPE, to MSE: John, here's the problem. You fix that RIGHT NOW so we can release uncrackable Xboxes from now on.
So, the "researchers" are stupid because:
- MS doesn't acknowledge (most likely), they go ahead and publish the hack, and the entire community looks like a group of whining threat-makers.
- MS releases the Linux bootloader, then fix the flaw in later XBoxes and screws the rest of us Linux people, while at the same time, looks like the poor company that got its arm twisted by the 3v17 h4x0rs.
They should just have gone ahead and posted it, instead of trying to look like they can play with the big boys. Real hackers share the knowledge immediately, they "just do it", they don't try to make their story foam first.
Decoupling mind and body
on
Altered Carbon
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
On a deeper level, this novel asks some real hard questions, that get to the heart of what it means to be human. If you can digitize, back up and restore people, what is the meaning of death?
That subject is a recurrent question in the Culture series of SF novels by Ian M. Banks : in the Culture, people's mind states are regularly backed-up, people change bodies, can be "restored" in younger bodies after death,...etc...
Banks portrays the Culture society as bored, its people always seeking thrills in ultra-dangerous activities, joining the Culture's secret services sections called Contact and Special Circumstances usually because it adds spice to life. He also describes people who voluntarily engage in dangerous activities without being backed-up, or let themselves grow old and die naturally, and generally describes quite well the choices those people make in a Culture where death, poverty and suffering are banished.
Read Banks, you'll be glad you did. Some Culture novels (not in order):
Excession The player of games Consider Phlebas Look to windward
The same thing is happening today. I'm here to tell you that the bar code's days are numbered.
When DigitalConvergence 's CEO and entrepreneur extraordinaire J. Jovan Philyaw hears about this, he'll start making free RFID scanners (CueDogs?) before you know it.
Slacker friends' education
on
RFID Explained
·
· Score: 1, Funny
But for your slacker friends that need an RFID education in one easy-to-digest article, here you go
Most of my slacker friends need an education period.
Take a phone book and add every number in that phone book to the do not call list.
Man, we're in 2003. I suggest you make a script that queries www.whitepages.com and leave it run overnight instead of typing the entire phone book manually.
Slashdot Mirror
To parents interested in buying the popular Hooked on Phonics learn-to-read programs, the company made a firm promise on its Web site: It would never sell or rent their personal information to other marketers. But that pledge was empty.
The children are Hooked on Phonics, and now the parents are Hooked on Phony Emails.
open source code has marginally worse quality than closed source code of the same maturity
So they compared the source code of an open-source project with what ? the disassembled code of a closed-source project ? how would they know if the source code of the latter has better quality than the former's, since by definition, you can't get the source code of the latter ?
I believe the guy is talking about the quality of the whole project, not source code quality.
What i dont like about debian:
/etc/apt/sources.list. And you can always compile the tarballs if you really need to.
-Only good for servers
Upgrade your MDA video card, you'll see it's pretty good at being a desktop box. Where the hell did you get that ?
-Stable: old
Possibly, but it's stable. That's the main reason to use it. Caldera OpenLinux, which was supposed to be robust as a primary goal, also had outdated but well-tested packages (before Caldera let it grow too old it was useless to everybody).
-Unstable:looking for trouble, and still old
No and no. I use unstable with no problem at all, and I don't find it very out of date. Some things are, but most of the packages are fairly current.
-Licensing issues, cool apps missing
That's partially true. But you can always add non-free sources in your
-No xfree 4.3, no mplayer
No mplayer ? hello ?
ppc@akula:~$ apt-cache search mplayer
mplayer-mozilla - Embedded video player for mozilla
mencoder-386 - MPlayer's Movie Encoder
acidrip - ripping and encoding DVD tool using mplayer and mencoder
mencoder-686 - MPlayer's Movie Encoder
mplayer-k6 - The Ultimate Movie Player For Linux
mplayer-doc - Documentation for mplayer
mplayer-fonts - Fonts for mplayer
kplayer - A KDE media player based on MPlayer
mencoder-k6 - MPlayer's Movie Encoder
lumiere - A GNOME frontend to mplayer
mplayer-386 - The Ultimate Movie Player For Linux
mplayer-686 - The Ultimate Movie Player For Linux
-Unfriendly community
Unfortunately, that's true, at least partially.
-Everyone now has apt or an improved version of it
-Installer sucks
-Dselect sucks
dselect and installer do suck, yes. But it's worth the pain IMHO.
WARNING : THIS IS NOT A FLAMEBAIT. I LOVE DEBIAN, BUT READ ON ...
I started using Linux with SlackWare when it was the only distro available out there. I used to love them tarballs, but then at the time systems still had manageable sizes, so one really could compile everything in a reasonable time.
Then I had the (mis?)fortune of being hired by a certain Caldera spinoff and was forced to use OpenLinux 1.2. That was my first contact with RPM, and that was a painful contact. Part of my work also involved writing and maintaining specfiles for various cross-platform packages. That's when I learned that (1) RPM was better than tarballs because it had dependencies, (2) RPM dependencies are not powerful enough and (3) RPM isn't backward-compatible. In short, RPM is not good but it's better than nothing.
At that company, I also had the misfortune of meeting a Debian fanatic. Note that I say he's a fanatic of Debian, not that Debian made him a fanatic. Having tried Debian long ago myself, when it wasn't ready for prime-time, and having found it complicated and messy at the time, I was conforted in this idea by the truly detestable way this guy was patronizing everybody who didn't use Debian, and was turned off Debian for another 2 years.
Then, several months ago, it was a sunday afternoon, my local computer shop was closed, and I couldn't find my RH CD to reinstall my box. I though : what the hell, I'm no more stupid than the average Debian user and I have nothing to do, let's try the Debian network-install. Well, I went through a little pain (it's not quite totally polished yet), but I've never looked back. dpkg and apt-get are just a godsend, and I too am now a convert today.
Moral of the story : I avoided using Debian for several years entirely due to the advocacy of one (well, several actually) Debian bigot. You can always say that I should have been more intelligent and I should have made my own opinion, but I never had time and the experience you get from other users do count for me.
In conclusion : what's the biggest good that could happen to Debian ? that other distros' package management got better so Debian bigots wouldn't have such an powerful incentive to behave like asses and disgust other people of Debian before they even try it. Or better still, that the Debian bigots start realizing that they won't win anybody to Debian by being patronizing.
So, Sobig is a worm that infects your machine and sends spam ? Let me rephrase this : Sobig is a worm that infects your *Windows* machine and sends spam.
Since Microsoft has started a crusade against Spam (to free-up bandwidth for their own humongous patches and service packs no doubt, they never do anything without a reason), shouldn't they start by fixing the very platform that makes it possible for worms to send spam ?
VNUNET.COM
We're sorry, but vnunet.com is temporarily unavailable while we conduct essential upgrades.
Our technical team is working hard to restore the site as quickly as possible.
Please come back to vnunet.com shortly.
©VNU Business Publications Ltd
Essential upgrades huh ? I didn't know replacing melted-down ethernet cables counted as upgrading
From the article :
Pat Gelsinger, chief technology officer for Intel Corp, the world's biggest computer chip maker, said Wi-Fi was cost-effective, growing rapidly around the world and particularly appropriate for developing nations because it was neither government-regulated nor licensed and was built using industry-wide and worldwide standards.
Read : Pat Gelsinger, CTO for Intel Corp, recently visited Kofi Annan to do a sales pitch that went successfully.
Hey Pat, how about Intel donates some WiFi equipment to third world countries, to jumpstart the market if nothing else ?
How about giving reliable electricity, then computers to poor third world countries first (and also drinkable water and sufficient food, since you're there) ?
...
Not everything in your home country looks as shiny as your UN office Mr. Annan
Isn't "brazillian" officially called Portuguese ?
Of course you can get Linux support from Microsoft.
Call them and ask them to solve a sendmail problem for example (assuming you want to waste $$$ on the support call that is) and you can bet they'll answer something like "Hmm, I think you really do need IIS sir. Would you like to hear more about it ?".
So you see, they do give you advices to help you solve your Linux problems
if they brought that guy to NORAD and get them to play Tic-Tac-Toe against the WOPR to save the world, would that redeem him ?
...
No wait, the cold war is over. Sucks for him
With the crap you get on TV (terrestrial, cable, satellite, whatever ...), is it worth risking that much money and jail time ?
...
I could set up an illegal repository of OCRed books, a la Gutemberg project, but with recent releases, and probably only risk a nasty slap on the hand in court compared to this guy, despite the fact that I would provide content that often requires a lot more work and talent to make, and would give people a lot more culture than, say, Jerry Springer. Funny
According to a well-connected lobbyist group, they have determined there will be patents, and the only question is what kind.
Let's lobby for software patents that grant patent owners exclusive rights to exploit their invention for twenty hours.
I have a sister-in-law who actually got upset when I tried to switch stations to avoid ads.
Wow, sorry for you man. I suppose she doesn't have a TiVo then ? or does she have one to re-run the ads ?
My understanding is that certain ads, especially good funny ones, are watched more than other. So, what do advertisers derive from the fact that, for example, the ad with the chihuahua that says "Yo quiero Taco Bell" is a hit ? that people love Taco Bell food ? that they love cute undersized doggies in ads ? that they love funny ads ?
In the case of Taco Bell, since their food is mainly about calories per dollar, the answer is pretty clear. But it might not be the case for other products. I can't see that data being very meaningful.
a new TiVo technology which allows ad executives to see which ads are skipped on the DVRs
...
Do they need a new TiVo technology to know that all ads are skipped ?
It's like if my email client told bulk marketers which spam I didn't delete
A group of Xbox security researchers say they have found a way to run Linux on the Xbox game console without a so-called mod chip and will go public with the technique if Microsoft won't talk to them about releasing an official Linux boot loader.
:
:-)
:
Wtf is a "XBox security researchers" ?
Anyway, here's why the "researchers" are stupid
Xbox security researchers: Hey Microsoft, either you release an official Linux bootloader or we tell everybody what your Xbox flaw is.
Microsoft VP of engineering, to Microsoft engineer: what's that John, do we really have a flaw in the Xbox ?
John: Dunno boss, why don't you ask them?
MSVPE, to XSR: Hmm, well, okay then. But you need to tell us how you install Linux on the Xbox, cuz we don't know how to do it, we don't do Linux here.
XSR: Pfft, easy does it, them M$ morons don't know anything about computing ark ark ark! You do this, then you do that, then you exploit this hole your stupid engineers left here, then presto Linux runs
MSVPE: Okay. We'll get back to you as soon as we're done.
MSVPE, to MSE: John, here's the problem. You fix that RIGHT NOW so we can release uncrackable Xboxes from now on.
So, the "researchers" are stupid because
- MS doesn't acknowledge (most likely), they go ahead and publish the hack, and the entire community looks like a group of whining threat-makers.
- MS releases the Linux bootloader, then fix the flaw in later XBoxes and screws the rest of us Linux people, while at the same time, looks like the poor company that got its arm twisted by the 3v17 h4x0rs.
They should just have gone ahead and posted it, instead of trying to look like they can play with the big boys. Real hackers share the knowledge immediately, they "just do it", they don't try to make their story foam first.
On a deeper level, this novel asks some real hard questions, that get to the heart of what it means to be human. If you can digitize, back up and restore people, what is the meaning of death?
...etc...
:
That subject is a recurrent question in the Culture series of SF novels by Ian M. Banks : in the Culture, people's mind states are regularly backed-up, people change bodies, can be "restored" in younger bodies after death,
Banks portrays the Culture society as bored, its people always seeking thrills in ultra-dangerous activities, joining the Culture's secret services sections called Contact and Special Circumstances usually because it adds spice to life. He also describes people who voluntarily engage in dangerous activities without being backed-up, or let themselves grow old and die naturally, and generally describes quite well the choices those people make in a Culture where death, poverty and suffering are banished.
Read Banks, you'll be glad you did. Some Culture novels (not in order)
Excession
The player of games
Consider Phlebas
Look to windward
The same thing is happening today. I'm here to tell you that the bar code's days are numbered.
When DigitalConvergence 's CEO and entrepreneur extraordinaire J. Jovan Philyaw hears about this, he'll start making free RFID scanners (CueDogs?) before you know it.
But for your slacker friends that need an RFID education in one easy-to-digest article, here you go
Most of my slacker friends need an education period.
What do you mean "lack of good music recording/processing software on Linux" ? It's built in the OS for crying out loud :
/dev/dsp > my_music.raw /dev/dsp
Recording : cat
Processing : dd if=my_music.wav of=my_shorter_music.raw bs=1k count=10
Playing : cat my_shorter_music.raw >
Just try to do that on Windows!
Take a phone book and add every number in that phone book to the do not call list.
Man, we're in 2003. I suggest you make a script that queries www.whitepages.com and leave it run overnight instead of typing the entire phone book manually.
Submit it again in a few days, you still have your chances for the dupe.
I'm not particularly pleased that the US government now has a growing database tying email addresses to phone numbers.
Have you heard of hotmail ?
A 247 foot wingspan (a longer wingspan than the 747) that bends into a shallow U when aloft
...
Yeah. I'm sure the whales marvel at that graceful W shape on the ocean floor