How long do you think it'll be before they OCR your license plate using cameras spread around town, track where you go, where you park, and then advertise to you based on your shopping habits?
Imagine teaching your mother to use one account for installs, and another for her email and browsing, then throw in some stuff that will only work under admin and you'll quickly see where this goes.
Somewhere in Linux-land, a phone rings....
Hello? Oh, hi mom. Yeah, I can help you install a program on your computer. What do you want to install? Oh, cool. Have you downloaded it? Good job. OK, open up a terminal.... it's a command line interface, where you type commands. Much more powerful than a GUI. Where did you save the file? You don't remember? Hmm. Just type "cd". Now type "ls". Do you see the file name? Great! OK, type "tar -zxf "
It didn't work? What does it say? OK. What is the name of the file you downloaded? Oh, well, that is a bzip file, not a tar and gzipped file. So type the same thing as before, but use "bzip2" instead of "tar".
What? Why didn't it work? Oh, it doesn't have the same syntax. Crap. Go to the man page. Oh, man stands for manual. Type "man bzip2". What does it say?
(20 minutes later)
OK, now we have uncompressed the files you need. No, not yet. Type "./configure" No, it's OK, it is figuring out what kind of computer and software you have.
OK, now type "make" OK, call me back when it is done.
(15 minutes later)
OK, now type "make install" What? Why not? What does it say? No, not that. Oh, wait, you have to be root. It is an administrator user. Because not just everyone can install programs, for security reasons. Look, just change to the admin user by typing "su". OK, now enter the root password. I DON'T KNOW! You mean you don't know your root password?
(10 minutes later)
Mom, you should NOT use the dog's name as the password. Because it is insecure! Nevermind. Just type "make install". There. Now it is installed.
No, there is no icon, you have to type the name of program to run it. Type it. What? I don't know, what was the name of the binary after you compiled it? A binary file is a program you run. You compiled it when you typed "make". Hmm, let's look in the Makefile. Type "vi Makefile". What do you mean it is blank? Oh, wait. Use capital M. Type ":r Makefile" with a capital M.
OK, now you are in vi, the most powerful editor ever. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU PREFER EMACS!!!!
I don't know what kind of P1 you have, but it's been my experience that modern linux distros (Mandrake, SuSE, RedHat) run like crap on anything less than a p2-333.
Seriously, use IceWM or some other lightweight window manager. It will make all the difference. I got a free P90 laptop, and it is unusable with KDE on it, but IceWM makes it work. Not all that fast, mind you, it is still a P90. But it is usable.
Read the book "intel Inside". The insider account of the culture of fear and paranoia fostered at Intel, with propaganda posters on the wall about how "it's nice to work at Intel", constant employee surveillance, the Randall Schwartz of Perl fame lawsuit, etc etc.
I haven't heard of this book, but may have to check it out. One of my oldest friends works there, we grew up together (in our 30's now). I was just out visiting him, and I have to tell you that Intel seems like a nice place to work. He gets very nice stock options. He has been getting decent to very good bonuses for the last 7 years. After 7 years, they get a sabattical - 3 months paid time off, plus his vacation for the year.
He gets to telecommute 1 day a week, as does most of the other people he works with. They have a very casual attire policy.
He said their policy is to always compensate their employees better than the industry average, and much better than the industry average during times when the economy is bad. Which is much better than where I work now, where I am consistently reminded that "I am lucky to even have a job." But he is a quality control engineer, I am a software guy. I know this guy, and he wouldn't bullshit me. He really loves his job at Intel.
Now that says nothing about their business practices. He did say they are very careful about trade secrets, and there is this feel that people are watching you. But Intel does have trade secrets that a lot of people would like to steal.
Seriously... I've recycled a bunch of old pentium-class machines that were headed for the landfill by setting up a "smoothie" and giving them away to ppl.
Pentium systems are fantastic as firewalls. It is more processing power than you need, and they are quiet. Mine doesn't even have a CPU or case fan, just the power supply. The only disadvantage is that they are usually kind of big. Other than that, they are perfect. If you use a bootable firewall (or customize your own CD) then you can get rid of the hard drive too.
You can also use a Pentium class machine to run a good ol' Quake MegaTF server. You can get those as bootable CDs too.:-)
Are you aware that there is already a very well established protocol called X12? I guess they'd have to pick another name for it, if they even did it for some reason.
Maybe it's not as elegant or easy as M$ Windows...
I guess that depends on your definition of elegant.
If you mean elegant as in "refined", then I would agree. But in engineering there is this definition, which is more befitting to Linux:
adj. [common; from mathematical usage] Combining
simplicity, power, and a certain ineffable grace of design. Higher
praise than `clever', `winning', or even cuspy.
The French aviator, adventurer, and author Antoine de
Saint-Exupe'ry, probably best known for his classic children's book
"The Little Prince", was also an aircraft designer. He gave us
perhaps the best definition of engineering elegance when he said "A
designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing
left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
Like our head engineers always says: It takes a lot of work to outsmart factory engineers. And several million dollars.
Hmm, I don't know about that. While it does take a lot of work, I doubt the million dollar argument.
Case in point, one Jim Conforti. If you are a BMW enthusiast, you probably know who he is. He is a motronics expert, and has been programming chips (when they still used to use chips) for a long time. I have one of his in my '88 M3, and I appreciate his genius. He is generally accepted as one of the authorities on BMW reprogramming. And the BMW factory engineers are certainly no dummies.
Normally aspirated: Add a small bit of horsepower (normally less than you can feel in a double blind test) and lose significant mielage
Sometimes the gains aren't so small, and can definitely be felt on a "butt-dyno". Check out some of these numbers on his chips. Now these are on his chips, for pre-OBDII computers. But they are quite impressive.
His software isn't as easy as plugging in a laptop and fiddling with some numbers, but I wouldn't want to do that on MY car anyway.
So admit (and I'm sure most people agree) that the main reason for the existence of mod chips is to pirate games. So the main use of a car is transportation. The main use of alcohol is "entertainment". Guns, however, I don't see any reason they exist other than to kill something, so you are right there. So the difference is the intended purpose. Pillows are made to cushion your head, but you can also use it to smother someone, so we should ban it? Doesn't make sense.
What is the intended purpose of mod chips? If you read the websites, it is to make backups. P2P is for filesharing. Nothing illegal there.
Of course the argument is ridiculous - that is the point. The attempt to ban something that has legal uses. That is why I advocate supporting those uses, and helping them to grow, so the illegal uses are in the minority.
Yeah, sure, most modchippers are doing it for perfectly legitimate purposes, just like most Kazaa users are sharing music files from bands that have authorized it.
Most drivers go over the speed limit in their cars. Yet cars are still legal. Cars are used in homocides every day, yet cars are still legal. Guns are used to commit crimes, yet guns are still legal in the US. Alcohol is consumed by underage people, yet it is still legal in this country.
If you want to outlaw something because it has illegal uses, let's be fair across the board.
Having said that, I think that the *main* users of mod chips use them to pirate games. There are certainly legal uses of them however. There are legal (and quite useful) uses for P2P, even though the majority *right now* is for illegal activity. I think the key is to develop those legal uses, to have something to back up the technology.
Obviously, the absolute best way to maintain your systems is to install Windows Update. But since Linux is stuck in the dark ages, you'll have to manage your systems like the cavemen did.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go reboot 100 systems.
It's neither piracy or stealing, it's called "copyright infringement"...that's the term the LAW uses exclusively. And even then, it's only for those cases of P2P exchange which are done outside of the allowable exemptions to copyright law.
I have been downloading more music in the past few months. I got a car CD player that plays MP3s from CD. Nice.
So am I breaking the law? No, I am not.
...
Am I downloading music off the internet?
Yes.
Is that illegal?
No.
...
Before you get your panties in a bunch, clear your mind from all the corporate brainwashing. I download music that the artists WANT me to download. See, it is only illegal if you are downloading copyrighted works without permission to do so. I download music WITH permission from the copyright holder. I have to delete a lot of music because it isn't to my taste, but I get to listen to a lot of good stuff too.
The music is out there, and the RIAA attacking the method of distribution is asanine. DOWNLOADING MUSIC IS NOT ILLEGAL. The RIAA's grip on the music world is slipping. It doesn't own the music industry anymore. The internet is giving the power back to the people. If you don't think this is true, then why is the RIAA all up in arms over downloading? They see the writing on the wall, and are trying to kill it. They may win, but I sure hope not. I am going to do my part, and support independent artists as much as I can. I suggest you do the same. Believe me, there are independent artists out there who are just as good as those popular one.
I think you're talking about psDooM (Credit to grub as it was posted earlier)
Wel,, that explains why I couldn't find it under Quake searches. Duh. Thx for the link too. I knew I couldn't have been the only one who remembered that.
I am barely in the target audience they mention (34) and I watch less TV. Because it sucks. There is one show I can't miss (Simpsons) and several that I really enjoy (Survivor, American Chopper, Good Eats) but cable channels show re-runs enough that I can catch them when I miss them.
I think the future is in paying per episode. Think about it - what if you could buy an episode of a show at a REASONABLE price, say $0.50. You could watch it when you wanted. Maybe they include the commercials, and you have to manually skip them. Big deal. Technical aspects aside (I am guessing TiVO like devices) imagine what this would do to TV as we know it. There wouldn't be any scheduling wars for the networks. They wouldn't have to plan out when a show is aired, or change up the schedules, or see who they are up against. No more "Must See TV", no more "LOL Sunday" (ugh). They could still release the shows on a certain time schedule, but you could watch it when you wanted. Of course, I suppose they could still have their schedules, and just release the shows for purchase the next day, so they could still cash in on those who don't have the TiVO like devices, or who want to watch it when it airs (like SNL).
Of course, the networks would never ever do this, because 1) it is a good idea for the customer and 2) they have to change the way they do business. Instead, they will just hang on for dear life to the (soon to be) outdated business model they have gotten fat on. Are you listening RIAA?
First person shooter. Kill the bugs, capture the features...
I searched around on Google for a while, but I couldn't find it. Anyone else out there remember the Quake client on Linux that you could run to kill processes? It was awesome. You ran around chasing these monsters, and you could id them by process name. You would shoot them to kill the process. It wasn't really effective as an admin tool, but very cool. Until you killed X. D'oh!
Let's be honest and clear about this too - it is not just the FCC who is doing this, they are getting lots of pressure from the religious right on these issues. This is a perfect example of how a specialty group is directly influencing the government.
The FCC looks like a bunch of idiots over these issues. They are bringing up issues that are *YEARS* old, and fining people for them. The issue they are fining Howard Stern over is from 2001.
I listen to Stern on occasion, and have been more frequently recently. This morning was a fantastic illustration of how stupid this all is. He played a clip from the Jimmy Kimmel show, where Jimmy was defending Howard. He said that they should be going after the filthiest person on TV - Oprah. Jimmy then played a clip from the Oprah show, where she was talking with some women about sex things. They were laughing and having a good time. One of the women mentioned "tossing salad" , and then proceeded to describe what it was. When Howard played this clip, it was bleeped (time delay removed) from his show. He begged his GM to let him play the clip. It was from Oprah, which runs in the mid-afternoon.
Here is the point - Oprah can get away with this kind of talk on her show, but Howard gets fined for something not nearly as graphic from 2001? He has a great argument - if they play the clip and get fined, the FCC would HAVE to fine Oprah. They would never fine Oprah. If they didn't, they would be obvious hypocrites, and if they did they would be showing the world how stupid they are behaving. You don't mess with Oprah. It would make national news if Oprah was fined for indecency.
It is all a big joke, and the religious right is standing firmly behind this one. They have strong ties to Senators (giving them cheap housing) as well as other government officials. Hell, some government officials ARE part of the religious right - all the way up to the drunk-driving President and Vice President. (1 and 2 offenses respectively)
Instead of streaming it, why not just link to the partial mp3 itself? Sheesh.
Probably to stop automatic download bots from scraping every mp3 off the site, and hammering their servers into oblivion.
Ummm, I think you missed the word "partial". The clips are only about 30 seconds long. If those get downloaded by bots - free advertising - what a terrible thing.
I couldn't preview any songs by clicking on the "Listen" buttons for an artist. Winamp was giving me a "synch error with mpeg".
If you have the same problem, save the m3u file, copy-n-paste the contents into your browser. It would then launch winamp and I could preview the songs. I don't know if it was Winamp's problem or not, but what a PITA. Instead of streaming it, why not just link to the partial mp3 itself? Sheesh.
Now on the service, I wish it were a little cheaper, but I might check them out. I have been mass downloading songs from MP3.com, burning them to a CD, and listening to them in my car. (MP3 capable car CD player - best thing EVER) It is kind of cool to hear indie artists, but you do get a lot of garbage in there too, just guys in their basement. But it is still interesting.
Slashdot Mirror
I have three words for you...
big porn billboard
Imagine teaching your mother to use one account for installs, and another for her email and browsing, then throw in some stuff that will only work under admin and you'll quickly see where this goes.
Somewhere in Linux-land, a phone rings....
Hello? Oh, hi mom. Yeah, I can help you install a program on your computer. What do you want to install? Oh, cool. Have you downloaded it? Good job. OK, open up a terminal.... it's a command line interface, where you type commands. Much more powerful than a GUI. Where did you save the file? You don't remember? Hmm. Just type "cd". Now type "ls". Do you see the file name? Great! OK, type "tar -zxf "
It didn't work? What does it say? OK. What is the name of the file you downloaded? Oh, well, that is a bzip file, not a tar and gzipped file. So type the same thing as before, but use "bzip2" instead of "tar".
What? Why didn't it work? Oh, it doesn't have the same syntax. Crap. Go to the man page. Oh, man stands for manual. Type "man bzip2". What does it say?
(20 minutes later)
OK, now we have uncompressed the files you need. No, not yet. Type "./configure" No, it's OK, it is figuring out what kind of computer and software you have.
OK, now type "make" OK, call me back when it is done.
(15 minutes later)
OK, now type "make install" What? Why not? What does it say? No, not that. Oh, wait, you have to be root. It is an administrator user.
Because not just everyone can install programs, for security reasons. Look, just change to the admin user by typing "su". OK, now enter the root password. I DON'T KNOW! You mean you don't know your root password?
(10 minutes later)
Mom, you should NOT use the dog's name as the password. Because it is insecure! Nevermind. Just type "make install". There. Now it is installed.
No, there is no icon, you have to type the name of program to run it. Type it. What? I don't know, what was the name of the binary after you compiled it? A binary file is a program you run. You compiled it when you typed "make". Hmm, let's look in the Makefile. Type "vi Makefile". What do you mean it is blank? Oh, wait. Use capital M. Type ":r Makefile" with a capital M.
OK, now you are in vi, the most powerful editor ever. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU PREFER EMACS!!!!
You really need to see if your XBox emulator, running on a Linux machine, will run Linux.
Then you could run the Xbox emulator on that....
Seriously, use IceWM or some other lightweight window manager. It will make all the difference. I got a free P90 laptop, and it is unusable with KDE on it, but IceWM makes it work. Not all that fast, mind you, it is still a P90. But it is usable.
I haven't heard of this book, but may have to check it out. One of my oldest friends works there, we grew up together (in our 30's now). I was just out visiting him, and I have to tell you that Intel seems like a nice place to work. He gets very nice stock options. He has been getting decent to very good bonuses for the last 7 years. After 7 years, they get a sabattical - 3 months paid time off, plus his vacation for the year. He gets to telecommute 1 day a week, as does most of the other people he works with. They have a very casual attire policy.
He said their policy is to always compensate their employees better than the industry average, and much better than the industry average during times when the economy is bad. Which is much better than where I work now, where I am consistently reminded that "I am lucky to even have a job." But he is a quality control engineer, I am a software guy. I know this guy, and he wouldn't bullshit me. He really loves his job at Intel.
Now that says nothing about their business practices. He did say they are very careful about trade secrets, and there is this feel that people are watching you. But Intel does have trade secrets that a lot of people would like to steal.
Pentium systems are fantastic as firewalls. It is more processing power than you need, and they are quiet. Mine doesn't even have a CPU or case fan, just the power supply. The only disadvantage is that they are usually kind of big. Other than that, they are perfect. If you use a bootable firewall (or customize your own CD) then you can get rid of the hard drive too.
You can also use a Pentium class machine to run a good ol' Quake MegaTF server. You can get those as bootable CDs too. :-)
Television: Corporate America in your mind.
Just thought I would make a little update to your sig...
RIAA: Corporate America down your throat.
Intellectual Property: Corporate American up your ass.
D'oh! I took the first google link, but I should have linked to the Official ASC X12 Site . Sorry.
Are you aware that there is already a very well established protocol called X12? I guess they'd have to pick another name for it, if they even did it for some reason.
I guess that depends on your definition of elegant.
If you mean elegant as in "refined", then I would agree. But in engineering there is this definition, which is more befitting to Linux:
adj. [common; from mathematical usage] Combining simplicity, power, and a certain ineffable grace of design. Higher praise than `clever', `winning', or even cuspy.
The French aviator, adventurer, and author Antoine de Saint-Exupe'ry, probably best known for his classic children's book "The Little Prince", was also an aircraft designer. He gave us perhaps the best definition of engineering elegance when he said "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
Hmm, I don't know about that. While it does take a lot of work, I doubt the million dollar argument.
Case in point, one Jim Conforti. If you are a BMW enthusiast, you probably know who he is. He is a motronics expert, and has been programming chips (when they still used to use chips) for a long time. I have one of his in my '88 M3, and I appreciate his genius. He is generally accepted as one of the authorities on BMW reprogramming. And the BMW factory engineers are certainly no dummies.
Normally aspirated: Add a small bit of horsepower (normally less than you can feel in a double blind test) and lose significant mielage
Sometimes the gains aren't so small, and can definitely be felt on a "butt-dyno". Check out some of these numbers on his chips. Now these are on his chips, for pre-OBDII computers. But they are quite impressive.
His software isn't as easy as plugging in a laptop and fiddling with some numbers, but I wouldn't want to do that on MY car anyway.
It actually has 1 front wheel and two rear wheels.
What is the intended purpose of mod chips? If you read the websites, it is to make backups. P2P is for filesharing. Nothing illegal there.
Of course the argument is ridiculous - that is the point. The attempt to ban something that has legal uses. That is why I advocate supporting those uses, and helping them to grow, so the illegal uses are in the minority.
Most drivers go over the speed limit in their cars. Yet cars are still legal. Cars are used in homocides every day, yet cars are still legal. Guns are used to commit crimes, yet guns are still legal in the US. Alcohol is consumed by underage people, yet it is still legal in this country.
If you want to outlaw something because it has illegal uses, let's be fair across the board.
Having said that, I think that the *main* users of mod chips use them to pirate games. There are certainly legal uses of them however. There are legal (and quite useful) uses for P2P, even though the majority *right now* is for illegal activity. I think the key is to develop those legal uses, to have something to back up the technology.
What, they just graduated college?
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go reboot 100 systems.
I have been downloading more music in the past few months. I got a car CD player that plays MP3s from CD. Nice.
So am I breaking the law? No, I am not.
Am I downloading music off the internet?
Yes.
Is that illegal?
No.
Before you get your panties in a bunch, clear your mind from all the corporate brainwashing. I download music that the artists WANT me to download. See, it is only illegal if you are downloading copyrighted works without permission to do so. I download music WITH permission from the copyright holder. I have to delete a lot of music because it isn't to my taste, but I get to listen to a lot of good stuff too.
The music is out there, and the RIAA attacking the method of distribution is asanine. DOWNLOADING MUSIC IS NOT ILLEGAL. The RIAA's grip on the music world is slipping. It doesn't own the music industry anymore. The internet is giving the power back to the people. If you don't think this is true, then why is the RIAA all up in arms over downloading? They see the writing on the wall, and are trying to kill it. They may win, but I sure hope not. I am going to do my part, and support independent artists as much as I can. I suggest you do the same. Believe me, there are independent artists out there who are just as good as those popular one.
Wel,, that explains why I couldn't find it under Quake searches. Duh. Thx for the link too. I knew I couldn't have been the only one who remembered that.
I think the future is in paying per episode. Think about it - what if you could buy an episode of a show at a REASONABLE price, say $0.50. You could watch it when you wanted. Maybe they include the commercials, and you have to manually skip them. Big deal. Technical aspects aside (I am guessing TiVO like devices) imagine what this would do to TV as we know it. There wouldn't be any scheduling wars for the networks. They wouldn't have to plan out when a show is aired, or change up the schedules, or see who they are up against. No more "Must See TV", no more "LOL Sunday" (ugh). They could still release the shows on a certain time schedule, but you could watch it when you wanted. Of course, I suppose they could still have their schedules, and just release the shows for purchase the next day, so they could still cash in on those who don't have the TiVO like devices, or who want to watch it when it airs (like SNL).
Of course, the networks would never ever do this, because 1) it is a good idea for the customer and 2) they have to change the way they do business. Instead, they will just hang on for dear life to the (soon to be) outdated business model they have gotten fat on. Are you listening RIAA?
I searched around on Google for a while, but I couldn't find it. Anyone else out there remember the Quake client on Linux that you could run to kill processes? It was awesome. You ran around chasing these monsters, and you could id them by process name. You would shoot them to kill the process. It wasn't really effective as an admin tool, but very cool. Until you killed X. D'oh!
Come on old-schoolers, help me out. Where is it?
Not to mention it could be written out to PDF format by OO.o, and not Word. That is a nice feature. I wonder if.... nahhhh.
Let's be honest and clear about this too - it is not just the FCC who is doing this, they are getting lots of pressure from the religious right on these issues. This is a perfect example of how a specialty group is directly influencing the government.
The FCC looks like a bunch of idiots over these issues. They are bringing up issues that are *YEARS* old, and fining people for them. The issue they are fining Howard Stern over is from 2001.
I listen to Stern on occasion, and have been more frequently recently. This morning was a fantastic illustration of how stupid this all is. He played a clip from the Jimmy Kimmel show, where Jimmy was defending Howard. He said that they should be going after the filthiest person on TV - Oprah. Jimmy then played a clip from the Oprah show, where she was talking with some women about sex things. They were laughing and having a good time. One of the women mentioned "tossing salad" , and then proceeded to describe what it was. When Howard played this clip, it was bleeped (time delay removed) from his show. He begged his GM to let him play the clip. It was from Oprah, which runs in the mid-afternoon.
Here is the point - Oprah can get away with this kind of talk on her show, but Howard gets fined for something not nearly as graphic from 2001? He has a great argument - if they play the clip and get fined, the FCC would HAVE to fine Oprah. They would never fine Oprah. If they didn't, they would be obvious hypocrites, and if they did they would be showing the world how stupid they are behaving. You don't mess with Oprah. It would make national news if Oprah was fined for indecency.
It is all a big joke, and the religious right is standing firmly behind this one. They have strong ties to Senators (giving them cheap housing) as well as other government officials. Hell, some government officials ARE part of the religious right - all the way up to the drunk-driving President and Vice President. (1 and 2 offenses respectively)
Probably to stop automatic download bots from scraping every mp3 off the site, and hammering their servers into oblivion.
Ummm, I think you missed the word "partial". The clips are only about 30 seconds long. If those get downloaded by bots - free advertising - what a terrible thing.
If you have the same problem, save the m3u file, copy-n-paste the contents into your browser. It would then launch winamp and I could preview the songs. I don't know if it was Winamp's problem or not, but what a PITA. Instead of streaming it, why not just link to the partial mp3 itself? Sheesh.
Now on the service, I wish it were a little cheaper, but I might check them out. I have been mass downloading songs from MP3.com, burning them to a CD, and listening to them in my car. (MP3 capable car CD player - best thing EVER) It is kind of cool to hear indie artists, but you do get a lot of garbage in there too, just guys in their basement. But it is still interesting.
I know, it is RTFA, not RTFM. Too many acronyms!