"Opinions like the ones Rob stated seem to me to be rationalizations of "why we should hate amazon"."
There are plenty of reasons not to patronize Amazon..
..unless you're so deeply sunk into middle-American consumerism that you have no awareness whatsoever of the social and political issues that have made Amazon something to avoid for some time now.
If all you want is cheap prices, don't let any other issues get in your way. Let your pocket book think for you.
And as a counterpoint, I've bought scores of books (Sure: Linux is free, but be prepared to spend a fortune on books..) from {*} and I've always received prompt confirmations (how about instantaneous..) and very prompt delivery, using only the standard service.
Maybe you're too blinded by all the baubles and *cheep prices* at Amazon...
"Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence..."
...and your very own.sig line betrays what the issue is.
The vast majority of business or governmental users of Word don't even begin to have a clue about these wonderful *features* that Micro$oft keeps coming up with.
"While the cookie issue is a potential concern, it shouldn't be a big deal to bypass.
After all. How hard is it to modify your cookie files?"
Are you kidding?
How many worker in a business or governmental setting are aware that the PC they work on probably has a full-time, always-on internet connection, even when they're *not* running IE?
And of those people, how many would even begin to think that using Word, or viewing a Word document, would initiate a connection out onto the internet that involved the setting a reading of cookies?
Here's a hint: nobody.
The issue is that once again, there is a *feature* in a Micro$oft product which exposes unsuspecting, unknowledgeable users to a wide range of potential risks that they are utterly unaware of.
Hell, most IS sections are probably unaware of this issue, and too busy to do something about it if they knew what to do...
Micro$oft built this into Word, acting as though the entire universe works in some ideal, secure bell jar, far, far away from crackers and script kiddies.
The real world is nothing like that at all.
Hell, today at work I got *yet another* one of those life-phases.txt.txt (or whatever the hell it was..) attachments in some email.
Remember that wonderful *feature* from Micro$oft: default excecution of a VB script email attachement?
Micro$oft has no clue about the real world: they're too ingrown and monolithic.
...they could do a little work on RFC 1480 itself:
The US Domain hierarchy is based on political geography. The basic name space under US is the state name space, then the "locality" name space, (like a city, or county) then organization or computer name and so on.
For example:
BERKELEY.CA.US
PORTLAND.WA.US
Last time I heard, Portland was in Oregon...
Or has this got something to do with plate tectonics?
Aazure.595
net.general,net.unix-wizards
utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ihnss!cbosg!teklabs!te kmdp!azure!randals
Thu Mar 4 07:01:43 1982
WARNING: There is another system
It's time to go public with my discovery about a serious flaw
in security the standard UUCP software in V7, 2BSD, and 4BSD.
I have successfully constructed a shell command file which will execute
ANY desired command(s) on ANY system running vanilla UUCP. What's more,
the command is executed as (not root, darn) the "uucp" login, thus
allowing access to the L.sys and USERFILEs, which in turn yields more system
names to "attack". The actual commands executed are also untraceable,
but if you look through the LOGFILE, you can at least tell that somebody
is doing something (but not what they do).
I do not know if this is the same bug found by Berkeley People
(anyone out there that knows what they did please confer with me),
but I will be glad to share my knowledge with any properly identified
system administrator.
I will send computer mail only to "root" of any system that requests
the information. My uucp address is:
>From ittvax!decvax!ucbvax!ihnss!houxi!houxs!hansen Thu Feb 18 03:43:20 1982
To: houxi!ihnss!ucbvax!decvax!ittvax!qumix!msc
Re: demon definition
Following are the definitions for daemon, demon, dragon and phantom, all related terms, taken from the hackers-jargon dictionary compiled and
maintained at Stanford and MIT. Enjoy!
Tony Hansen
DAEMON (day'mun, dee'mun) [archaic form of "demon", which has slightly
different connotations (q.v.)] n.
A program which is not invoked
explicitly, but which lays dormant waiting for some condition(s) to
occur. The idea is that the perpetrator of the condition need not
be aware that a daemon is lurking (though often a program will
commit an action only because it knows that it will implicitly
invoke a daemon). For example, writing a file on the lpt spooler's
directory will invoke the spooling daemon, which prints the file.
The advantage is that programs which want (in this example) files
printed need not compete for access to the lpt. They simply enter
their implicit requests and let the daemon decide what to do with
them. Daemons are usually spawned automatically by the system, and
may either live forever or be regenerated at intervals.
Usage:
DAEMON and DEMON (q.v.) are often used interchangeably, but seem to
have distinct connotations. DAEMON was introduced to computing by
CTSS people (who pronounced it dee'mon) and used it to refer to
what is now called a DRAGON or PHANTOM (q.v.). The meaning and
pronunciation have drifted, and we think this glossary reflects
current usage.
<snip>
Ahh.. and I thought it stood for something boring like Device Access
and Execution MONitor. I like Randall Howard's thought that it is
something that lies halfway between God and Man.
Incidentally, Randall I deduce that you are a fellow Britain.
[from the mythological meaning, later rationalized as the acronym `Disk And Execution MONitor']
A program that is not
invoked explicitly, but lies dormant waiting for some condition(s) to occur. The idea is that the perpetrator of the condition need
not be aware that a daemon is lurking (though often a program will commit an action only because it knows that it will implicitly
invoke a daemon). For example, under ITS writing a file on the LPT spooler's directory would invoke the spooling daemon,
which would then print the file. The advantage is that programs wanting (in this example) files printed need neither compete for
access to nor understand any idiosyncrasies of the LPT. They simply enter their implicit requests and let the daemon decide
what to do with them. Daemons are usually spawned automatically by the system, and may either live forever or be regenerated at
intervals.
Daemon and demon are often used interchangeably, but seem to have distinct connotations. The term `daemon' was introduced
to computing by CTSS people (who pronounced it/dee'mon/) and used it to refer to what ITS called a dragon; the prototype was
a program called DAEMON that automatically made tape backups of the file system. Although the meaning and the
pronunciation have drifted, we think this glossary reflects current (2000) usage.
Not that I would have expected anything else, I guess..
Atekcad.116
net.general
utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ihnss!cbosg!teklabs!te kcad!franka
Sat Feb 27 14:14:20 1982
Video Vegetables
Video Vegatables
(or I hated the stuff mom used to cook so why bring it up?)
Lets face it folks, there are a lot of useless vegetables out there. You know, the ones that nobody in their right minds ever ate. OK, maybe your parents ate them once or twice a year, but otherwise, they were never even thought about, let alone eaten. I'm not refering to the vegetables that kids generally hate, e.g., brocolli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, etc., but the really STRANGE ones, such as squash, rutibaga, eggplant, turnips, and others too numerous to mention. Now nobody really ever liked these vegetables then
(remember that your father (who would eat ANYTHING) didn't ask for seconds on rutibaga) and nobody really likes them now (when was the last time your favorite local restaurant had turnips as a choice of vegetable?). We have a responsibility to future generations to stamp out these disgusting, noxious, icky, gross vegetables and for this reason, I am advocating the formation of
a group called the NASODNIGV, the National Association to Stamp Out Disgusting, Noxious, Icky, Gross Vegetables!
Sure, it will be tough going at first, what with all those high school Home Economics teachers out there with nothing better to do than shove eggplant down some poor kid's unsuspecting throat and there will always be some nutritional looney out there to tell us that these vegetables really are good for us and we should shut up and eat them because there are starving children in (China, India, Bangladesh, Harlem, fill in the name of your favorite underdeveloped country here) who would be OVERJOYED to have a few bites of rutabaga, not to mention the women's magazines who could no longer write trash articles on "101 Uses for that Lonely Turnip in Your Vegetable Crisper", but with hard work and perseverence, we could overcome even these formidable obstacles.
We must realize that federal grants could not be expected (what with the federal budget in the shape its in), so we must find a way to make our
own way in the world. However, I believe that I have hit upon a solution not onlt to make a large amount of money, but to also teach the nation's youth anti-turnip values at the same time. I propose that we market a new video game (Ta da da da da da!):
FUNGUS MAN
In this game, a figure of a man runs through a giant refrigerator full of junk food, meats, fruits and good vegetables, gobbling them up as
he goes. However, at fixed intervals, a group of icky vegtables come up from the vegetable crisper and chase the man. If they catch him, he must eat
them and dies with a horrid taste in his mouth, unless he can pick up one of several fungus spores lying around the fridge. If he gets to a fungus spore he can, for a short period of time, mold the icky vegatables and throw them out of the refrigerator into a waiting garbage disposal (where they belong anyway). After a while, though, the spores die and its look out again, Charlie!
I think that this game would be an instant hit (if only for its extreme originality) and would certainly bring in the bucks to fund our fledgling organization.
There is only one more thing to do and that is to decide an agenda as to how to stamp out these horrid vegetables in our lifetime. I propose that we start with lobbying Congress to give money to farmers not to grow these disgusting vegetables (we do for useful vegetables now). If this did
not work, we could arrange a march up Pennsylvania Avenue followed by a vegetable burning in front of the White House. Finally, as a last resort, we could all become "vegetable revolutionaries", kidnapping high governmental officials and force-feeding them squash and rutabagas until the
government met our demands!
So, I think its about time to stop this vegetative scourge upon our great nation. We must mobilize if we wish to have a eggplant-free world where our children would not have to cope with the fear of rutabagas!
"MainWin is the answer for being the first in the Linux market with industrial-quality, mature applications."
<snip>
"MainWin is Mainsoft's Windows platform for UNIX systems including Linux. MainWin includes the implementation of Win32 APIs and Windows NT-based services on UNIX. Through strategic agreements with Microsoft, Mainsoft has access to source code for Windows NT® and Windows 2000®. Mainsoft has incorporated several million lines of original source code for Windows NT into MainWin."
<snip>
"No development required. Instead of taking months to rewrite the code, take days to rehost it on Linux using MainWin. MainWin provides native Linux performance with full Windows functionality."
<snip>
"MainWin is more than a porting technology: MainWin is a full Windows implementation on UNIX, allowing you to rehost your entire Windows application code base on UNIX."
<snip>
"MainWin for Linux is now in limited beta release, with general customer availability scheduled for early first quarter of 2000."
Wow!
"Mainsoft has incorporated several million lines of original source code for Windows NT into MainWin."
...this sort of thing will *really* bring the fundamentalist, right-wing christian lunatic fringe out of the woodwork.
For those of you not from the good 'ol USofA, it'll be an eye-opener!
Quoting from the web site mentioned somewhere below:
"Many Christians believe that, before long, an antichrist system will appear. It will be a New World Order, under which national boundaries dissolve, and ethnic groups, ideologies, religions, and economics from around the world, orchestrate a single and dominant sovereignty. Such a system will supposedly be free of religious and political extremes, and membership will tolerate the philosophical and cultural differences of its constituents."
hmm.. that last point, is that a *bad* thing?
To the right-wing lunatic fringe christians, it is.
Remember, the only one-world-order they want established is the one under their lord, jesus christ..
..and only using *their* jesus christ, not yours.
'Course, if ol' GeeDubYa gets elected to the White House, the lunatic fringe christians won't have much to worry about, 'cause they pretty much still own the Republican party...
Just some thoughts from someone who's been watching this stuff for about 45 years...
Not to beat a dead horse, but check this out: this guy's got some instructions for all of us...
Things I Hate (idea)
I'm a nice guy. I tend to be very accommodating and compromising, but there are a few things that just really get me mad.
<snip>
About people...
I'm probably one of the most tolerant and patient people you could meet. Perhaps it's a character flaw, but I tend to be pretty conscious about what other people think about me, and it makes me feel bad when somebody doesn't like me. Of course that doesn't mean people don't do things that regularly annoy me.
<snip>
All talk, no action. I pretty regularly get into a few heated debates on Slashdot, and I regularly see people posting all sorts of evil comments about their local government, the national government, about how much the world sucks nowadays, etc. This in itself doesn't seem to bother me, but when I suggest that these people get off their Internet surfing butts and write a letter to their legislature explaining these concerns, I get all sorts of excuses about how the government doesn't listen, how legislatures never read or return letters, and how it's a big waste of time. And they wonder why things "suck" as bad as they seem to think...
<snip>
About driving...
Firstly, I'm a very safe driver. I always look where I'm going and use signals religiously. I have never in my life been in an accident (if you don't count the moron that was parked stupidly back in high school), and have only gotten one speeding ticket (and I speed with the best of them).
<snip>
About "friends and family" tech support...
Never ever tell me, "It doesn't work." If you do not have an error message or SOMETHING with more information than that, don't bother contacting me, because I can do nothing for you.
<snip>
Don't be so quick to give up and a) re-install the program or your system; or b) take the machine back and get a new one. Often times it's something very easy to fix.
<snip>
BE SPECIFIC when reporting problems. If someone asks you for an error message and you say, "It said it wasn't found," that is frequently meaningless information. What said what wasn't found? Give details always, and NEVER generalize or make
<snip>
About movie theaters...
Do not save an excessive number of seats. I think 5 seats saved per person is adequate. Putting two people on the ends of an entire row to save seats for your entire extended family is annoying as hell.
<snip>
Put laser pointers away before the movie starts. Yes, they're great fun during all of the slide shows (I know), but please get rid of them when the movie proper begins.
<snip>
And it goes on and on and on and on...
This guy's got it all figured out for us!
I wish to hell I'd come across his thinking, oh, maybe forty years ago.
"I can still get a JOB. I can still sustain my survival. I don't think there is a single "privacy-invading" piece of technology that is a requirement in my life."
Then you're willing to get rid of your over-wrought, self-absorbed web site?
...this sort of thing will *really* bring the fundamentalist, right-wing christian lunatic fringe out of the woodwork.
For those of you not from the good 'ol USofA, it'll be an eye-opener!
Quoting from the web site mentioned somewhere below:
"Many Christians believe that, before long, an antichrist system will appear. It will be a New World Order, under which national boundaries dissolve, and ethnic groups, ideologies, religions, and economics from around the world, orchestrate a single and dominant sovereignty. Such a system will supposedly be free of religious and political extremes, and membership will tolerate the philosophical and cultural differences of its constituents."
hmm.. that last point, is that a *bad* thing?
To the right-wing lunatic fringe christians, it is.
Remember, the only one-world-order they want established is the one under their lord, jesus christ..
..and only using *their* jesus christ, not yours.
'Course, if ol' GeeDubYa gets elected to the White House, the lunatic fringe christians won't have much to worry about, 'cause they pretty much still own the Republican party...
Just some thoughts from someone who's been watching this stuff for about 45 years...
Rad the effing article yourself, you pompous poot.
"What percentage of the voting public would desire or permit the government to mandate implanted tracking devices?"
What percentage of the voting public (now down to what? 30%?) has any say in what politicians do anyway, these days? Where have you been for the last 30 years? Politicians pass laws all the time that no one has had any significant control over...
It doesn't have to be mandatory: there's one idiot farther down the page who wants to put one in his 3 year-old kid! What does she have to say about it? What would you have to say about it if your surgeon implanted one while you were under anesthesia? It doesn't have to be mandatory to be bad, for those who like their privacy and their autonomy.
"Do you really think a rice-sized device is going to put out as much RF energy as your cell phone?"
Sheesh.. from the actual web page:
"All these components will be combined into a unit the size of a dime."
You continue:
"Location is simply a side-effect and a nifty other purpose.."
A side effect? If you consider being able to be tracked, real-time, via a radio-based network a "side effect" you're 'way more trusting than I am, or than the majority of posters here..
"I seriously doubt there is going to be a significant "global network" capable of receiving transmissions from these devices such as what you're seeing with cell phones."
Well, I seriously believe you'd buy into anything anyone wanted to put over on you...
"15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Don't forget the article right here on good 'ol/.not too long ago:
"Tom's Hardware has posted up their dealings with the new PIII 1.13GHz processor. Apparently without a special board with a new bios from Intel it will not even run correctly. Any motherboard that has not got the special micro code update for this very processor will ultimately fail. The review has some interesting facts about the processor as well."
Seems the Intel PIII pretty much stank up the place, when it could be made to run..
Anybody think this new vapor-chip will perform any better?
And does anybody think this thing'll run with an aftermarket mobo?
"Let's keep our perspective here. This company owns the building, machines, connection and the "good business". The could choose to keep all the machines off the net, it is theirs to do as they see fit. <snip> If people do not like the restrictions, they can go somewhere else."
I think that's missing the point here, although it does suggest one of the standard cop-outs used by those who are charged with implementing someone else's censorship.
"Screw it, I'm getting paid, who cares.."
That is the point here: this person does care, so what does this particular person do when he's asked, for pay, for hire, to implement censorship that he personally doesn't agree with.
Such moral dilemmas are the stuff of which life is made.
It's a cop-out to just say, "..screw it, I'm getting paid, it's their machines, the customers can go someplace else.." although a hell of a lot of people live their lives disengaged from the consequences of what they do.
Personally, I'd make my position on the general topic known to my bosses, and then do the best damn job I could to be sure that what every tools I was given to do the job were set up as well as possible...
..although "as well as possible" might not be very good at all, given how poorly most censorware works.
..by the whole tone of this article and the apparent fact that we're supposed to take it seriously:
"Never to be daunted, (Read: we went ahead and did it anyway, without 'em!) we ordered the servers, and installed Mandrake ourselves. One of the servers (our file server to be) wouldn't load, wouldn't boot, and wouldn't even give us a good error indication.
What? You bought their boxen, with what? No OS? Or you wiped what they had put on? And then you tried to install something that they didn't sell and didn't support, and you couldn't even get the box to boot? Or give -- what? -- a meaningful POST beep code?
I'm not buying this.
Do you guys have any idea what you're doing?
"This is exactly why we chose VA, customer support. We returned the server and requested an immediate replacement."
Customer support for what? To train you in building boxes, and to train you to put on a distro they don't even sell?
And all of this is VA's fault?
Last time I heard, VA was a systems shop, not a tech school.
Completly aside from the other posts here about more plausible [bad] experiences with VA and their stuff, it sounds to me like you guys just need to take Computer Building 101.
And I think this article makes you guys (viata.com? - "e-commerce solutions for internet travel transactions! TravelCentric software and portal sites" hmmm..) look kinda dumb...
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe this is what I meant ;-)
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
"Coming Soon!
We recently registered our domain name at...
Register.com!
Additional Services"
Ah,yes: "Check those url's"
How 'bout if you just try 'em?
Or maybe you mean eiffel.com?
Who knows?
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
My research indicates that over 80% of the posts to any /. article are AC spam.
Most people very deliberately don't even come close to having something intelligent to say...
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
There are plenty of reasons not to patronize Amazon..
If all you want is cheap prices, don't let any other issues get in your way. Let your pocket book think for you.
And as a counterpoint, I've bought scores of books (Sure: Linux is free, but be prepared to spend a fortune on books..) from {*} and I've always received prompt confirmations (how about instantaneous..) and very prompt delivery, using only the standard service.
Maybe you're too blinded by all the baubles and *cheep prices* at Amazon...
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
The vast majority of business or governmental users of Word don't even begin to have a clue about these wonderful *features* that Micro$oft keeps coming up with.
"While the cookie issue is a potential concern, it shouldn't be a big deal to bypass.
After all. How hard is it to modify your cookie files?"
Are you kidding?
How many worker in a business or governmental setting are aware that the PC they work on probably has a full-time, always-on internet connection, even when they're *not* running IE?
And of those people, how many would even begin to think that using Word, or viewing a Word document, would initiate a connection out onto the internet that involved the setting a reading of cookies?
Here's a hint: nobody.
The issue is that once again, there is a *feature* in a Micro$oft product which exposes unsuspecting, unknowledgeable users to a wide range of potential risks that they are utterly unaware of.
Hell, most IS sections are probably unaware of this issue, and too busy to do something about it if they knew what to do...
Micro$oft built this into Word, acting as though the entire universe works in some ideal, secure bell jar, far, far away from crackers and script kiddies.
The real world is nothing like that at all.
Hell, today at work I got *yet another* one of those life-phases.txt.txt (or whatever the hell it was..) attachments in some email.
Remember that wonderful *feature* from Micro$oft: default excecution of a VB script email attachement?
Micro$oft has no clue about the real world: they're too ingrown and monolithic.
And they're too arogant to care.
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
Oh.
You mean that Vancouver -- the one nobody's heard of?
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
The US Domain hierarchy is based on political geography. The basic name space under US is the state name space, then the "locality" name space, (like a city, or county) then organization or computer name and so on.
For example:
Last time I heard, Portland was in Oregon...
Or has this got something to do with plate tectonics?
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
net.general,net.unix-wizards
utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ihnss!cbosg!teklabs!t
Thu Mar 4 07:01:43 1982
WARNING: There is another system
It's time to go public with my discovery about a serious flaw in security the standard UUCP software in V7, 2BSD, and 4BSD.
I have successfully constructed a shell command file which will execute ANY desired command(s) on ANY system running vanilla UUCP. What's more, the command is executed as (not root, darn) the "uucp" login, thus allowing access to the L.sys and USERFILEs, which in turn yields more system names to "attack". The actual commands executed are also untraceable, but if you look through the LOGFILE, you can at least tell that somebody is doing something (but not what they do).
I do not know if this is the same bug found by Berkeley People (anyone out there that knows what they did please confer with me), but I will be glad to share my knowledge with any properly identified system administrator.
I will send computer mail only to "root" of any system that requests the information. My uucp address is:
or
(many other systems also know about us... check your local maps)
Randal L. Schwartz
Tektronix Microcomputer Development Products
Beaverton, Oregon
Hello, Randal! How good of you to be here!
God! This stuff is too much!
Sombody: put together a best-of!
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
Thu Feb 18 03:43:20 1982
To: houxi!ihnss!ucbvax!decvax!ittvax!qumix!msc
Re: demon definition
Following are the definitions for daemon, demon, dragon and phantom, all related terms, taken from the hackers-jargon dictionary compiled and maintained at Stanford and MIT. Enjoy!
Tony Hansen
DAEMON (day'mun, dee'mun) [archaic form of "demon", which has slightly different connotations (q.v.)] n.
A program which is not invoked explicitly, but which lays dormant waiting for some condition(s) to occur. The idea is that the perpetrator of the condition need not be aware that a daemon is lurking (though often a program will commit an action only because it knows that it will implicitly invoke a daemon). For example, writing a file on the lpt spooler's directory will invoke the spooling daemon, which prints the file. The advantage is that programs which want (in this example) files printed need not compete for access to the lpt. They simply enter their implicit requests and let the daemon decide what to do with them. Daemons are usually spawned automatically by the system, and may either live forever or be regenerated at intervals.
Usage: DAEMON and DEMON (q.v.) are often used interchangeably, but seem to have distinct connotations. DAEMON was introduced to computing by CTSS people (who pronounced it dee'mon) and used it to refer to what is now called a DRAGON or PHANTOM (q.v.). The meaning and pronunciation have drifted, and we think this glossary reflects current usage.
<snip>
Ahh.. and I thought it stood for something boring like Device Access and Execution MONitor. I like Randall Howard's thought that it is something that lies halfway between God and Man.
Incidentally, Randall I deduce that you are a fellow Britain.
Thanks for the information everbody.
Mark Callow
And now, from www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon /html/entry/daemon.html
daemon /day'mn/ or /dee'mn/ n.
[from the mythological meaning, later rationalized as the acronym `Disk And Execution MONitor']
A program that is not invoked explicitly, but lies dormant waiting for some condition(s) to occur. The idea is that the perpetrator of the condition need not be aware that a daemon is lurking (though often a program will commit an action only because it knows that it will implicitly invoke a daemon). For example, under ITS writing a file on the LPT spooler's directory would invoke the spooling daemon, which would then print the file. The advantage is that programs wanting (in this example) files printed need neither compete for access to nor understand any idiosyncrasies of the LPT. They simply enter their implicit requests and let the daemon decide what to do with them. Daemons are usually spawned automatically by the system, and may either live forever or be regenerated at intervals.
Daemon and demon are often used interchangeably, but seem to have distinct connotations. The term `daemon' was introduced to computing by CTSS people (who pronounced it /dee'mon/) and used it to refer to what ITS called a dragon; the prototype was
a program called DAEMON that automatically made tape backups of the file system. Although the meaning and the
pronunciation have drifted, we think this glossary reflects current (2000) usage.
Not that I would have expected anything else, I guess..
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
net.general
utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ihnss!cbosg!teklabs!t
Sat Feb 27 14:14:20 1982
Video Vegetables
Video Vegatables
(or I hated the stuff mom used to cook so why bring it up?)
Lets face it folks, there are a lot of useless vegetables out there. You know, the ones that nobody in their right minds ever ate. OK, maybe your parents ate them once or twice a year, but otherwise, they were never even thought about, let alone eaten. I'm not refering to the vegetables that kids generally hate, e.g., brocolli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, etc., but the really STRANGE ones, such as squash, rutibaga, eggplant, turnips, and others too numerous to mention. Now nobody really ever liked these vegetables then (remember that your father (who would eat ANYTHING) didn't ask for seconds on rutibaga) and nobody really likes them now (when was the last time your favorite local restaurant had turnips as a choice of vegetable?). We have a responsibility to future generations to stamp out these disgusting, noxious, icky, gross vegetables and for this reason, I am advocating the formation of a group called the NASODNIGV, the National Association to Stamp Out Disgusting, Noxious, Icky, Gross Vegetables!
Sure, it will be tough going at first, what with all those high school Home Economics teachers out there with nothing better to do than shove eggplant down some poor kid's unsuspecting throat and there will always be some nutritional looney out there to tell us that these vegetables really are good for us and we should shut up and eat them because there are starving children in (China, India, Bangladesh, Harlem, fill in the name of your favorite underdeveloped country here) who would be OVERJOYED to have a few bites of rutabaga, not to mention the women's magazines who could no longer write trash articles on "101 Uses for that Lonely Turnip in Your Vegetable Crisper", but with hard work and perseverence, we could overcome even these formidable obstacles.
We must realize that federal grants could not be expected (what with the federal budget in the shape its in), so we must find a way to make our own way in the world. However, I believe that I have hit upon a solution not onlt to make a large amount of money, but to also teach the nation's youth anti-turnip values at the same time. I propose that we market a new video game (Ta da da da da da!):
In this game, a figure of a man runs through a giant refrigerator full of junk food, meats, fruits and good vegetables, gobbling them up as he goes. However, at fixed intervals, a group of icky vegtables come up from the vegetable crisper and chase the man. If they catch him, he must eat them and dies with a horrid taste in his mouth, unless he can pick up one of several fungus spores lying around the fridge. If he gets to a fungus spore he can, for a short period of time, mold the icky vegatables and throw them out of the refrigerator into a waiting garbage disposal (where they belong anyway). After a while, though, the spores die and its look out again, Charlie!
I think that this game would be an instant hit (if only for its extreme originality) and would certainly bring in the bucks to fund our fledgling organization.
There is only one more thing to do and that is to decide an agenda as to how to stamp out these horrid vegetables in our lifetime. I propose that we start with lobbying Congress to give money to farmers not to grow these disgusting vegetables (we do for useful vegetables now). If this did not work, we could arrange a march up Pennsylvania Avenue followed by a vegetable burning in front of the White House. Finally, as a last resort, we could all become "vegetable revolutionaries", kidnapping high governmental officials and force-feeding them squash and rutabagas until the government met our demands!
So, I think its about time to stop this vegetative scourge upon our great nation. We must mobilize if we wish to have a eggplant-free world where our children would not have to cope with the fear of rutabagas!
We have nothing to fear but turnips themselves!
Yours, In Disgust for Icky Vegatables,
F. A. Adrian
(ucbvax!teklabs!tekcad!franka)
The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright© 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.
t_t_b
OK: it's not anonymous, but, damn!
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
mainsoft.com
"MainWin is the answer for being the first in the Linux market with industrial-quality, mature applications."
<snip>
"MainWin is Mainsoft's Windows platform for UNIX systems including Linux. MainWin includes the implementation of Win32 APIs and Windows NT-based services on UNIX. Through strategic agreements with Microsoft, Mainsoft has access to source code for Windows NT® and Windows 2000®. Mainsoft has incorporated several million lines of original source code for Windows NT into MainWin."
<snip>
"No development required. Instead of taking months to rewrite the code, take days to rehost it on Linux using MainWin. MainWin provides native Linux performance with full Windows functionality."
<snip>
"MainWin is more than a porting technology: MainWin is a full Windows implementation on UNIX, allowing you to rehost your entire Windows application code base on UNIX."
<snip>
"MainWin for Linux is now in limited beta release, with general customer availability scheduled for early first quarter of 2000."
Wow!
"Mainsoft has incorporated several million lines of original source code for Windows NT into MainWin."
Now, that's good news...
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
Oooo..
"..green on the outside, red on the inside..."
I get it!
They're all a bunch of communists!
Kinda reminds me of when my right-wing uncle used to rant about "...long-haired men and short-haired women..."
Now, those were the days!
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
For those of you not from the good 'ol USofA, it'll be an eye-opener!
Quoting from the web site mentioned somewhere below:
"Many Christians believe that, before long, an antichrist system will appear. It will be a New World Order, under which national boundaries dissolve, and ethnic groups, ideologies, religions, and economics from around the world, orchestrate a single and dominant sovereignty. Such a system will supposedly be free of religious and political extremes, and membership will tolerate the philosophical and cultural differences of its constituents."
hmm.. that last point, is that a *bad* thing?
To the right-wing lunatic fringe christians, it is.
Remember, the only one-world-order they want established is the one under their lord, jesus christ..
'Course, if ol' GeeDubYa gets elected to the White House, the lunatic fringe christians won't have much to worry about, 'cause they pretty much still own the Republican party...
Just some thoughts from someone who's been watching this stuff for about 45 years...
t_t_b
What'd I tell ya?
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
Things I Hate (idea)
I'm a nice guy. I tend to be very accommodating and compromising, but there are a few things that just really get me mad.
<snip>
About people...
I'm probably one of the most tolerant and patient people you could meet. Perhaps it's a character flaw, but I tend to be pretty conscious about what other people think about me, and it makes me feel bad when somebody doesn't like me. Of course that doesn't mean people don't do things that regularly annoy me.
<snip>
All talk, no action. I pretty regularly get into a few heated debates on Slashdot, and I regularly see people posting all sorts of evil comments about their local government, the national government, about how much the world sucks nowadays, etc. This in itself doesn't seem to bother me, but when I suggest that these people get off their Internet surfing butts and write a letter to their legislature explaining these concerns, I get all sorts of excuses about how the government doesn't listen, how legislatures never read or return letters, and how it's a big waste of time. And they wonder why things "suck" as bad as they seem to think...
<snip>
About driving...
Firstly, I'm a very safe driver. I always look where I'm going and use signals religiously. I have never in my life been in an accident (if you don't count the moron that was parked stupidly back in high school), and have only gotten one speeding ticket (and I speed with the best of them).
<snip>
About "friends and family" tech support...
Never ever tell me, "It doesn't work." If you do not have an error message or SOMETHING with more information than that, don't bother contacting me, because I can do nothing for you.
<snip>
Don't be so quick to give up and a) re-install the program or your system; or b) take the machine back and get a new one. Often times it's something very easy to fix.
<snip>
BE SPECIFIC when reporting problems. If someone asks you for an error message and you say, "It said it wasn't found," that is frequently meaningless information. What said what wasn't found? Give details always, and NEVER generalize or make
<snip>
About movie theaters...
Do not save an excessive number of seats. I think 5 seats saved per person is adequate. Putting two people on the ends of an entire row to save seats for your entire extended family is annoying as hell.
<snip>
Put laser pointers away before the movie starts. Yes, they're great fun during all of the slide shows (I know), but please get rid of them when the movie proper begins.
<snip>
And it goes on and on and on and on...
This guy's got it all figured out for us!
I wish to hell I'd come across his thinking, oh, maybe forty years ago.
Woulda saved me a lot of work...
How old do ya think this genius is?
Maybe 22?
whoa!
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
Then you're willing to get rid of your over-wrought, self-absorbed web site?
Just wondering...
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
For those of you not from the good 'ol USofA, it'll be an eye-opener!
Quoting from the web site mentioned somewhere below:
"Many Christians believe that, before long, an antichrist system will appear. It will be a New World Order, under which national boundaries dissolve, and ethnic groups, ideologies, religions, and economics from around the world, orchestrate a single and dominant sovereignty. Such a system will supposedly be free of religious and political extremes, and membership will tolerate the philosophical and cultural differences of its constituents."
hmm.. that last point, is that a *bad* thing?
To the right-wing lunatic fringe christians, it is.
Remember, the only one-world-order they want established is the one under their lord, jesus christ..
'Course, if ol' GeeDubYa gets elected to the White House, the lunatic fringe christians won't have much to worry about, 'cause they pretty much still own the Republican party...
Just some thoughts from someone who's been watching this stuff for about 45 years...
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
"What percentage of the voting public would desire or permit the government to mandate implanted tracking devices?"
What percentage of the voting public (now down to what? 30%?) has any say in what politicians do anyway, these days? Where have you been for the last 30 years? Politicians pass laws all the time that no one has had any significant control over...
It doesn't have to be mandatory: there's one idiot farther down the page who wants to put one in his 3 year-old kid! What does she have to say about it? What would you have to say about it if your surgeon implanted one while you were under anesthesia? It doesn't have to be mandatory to be bad, for those who like their privacy and their autonomy.
"Do you really think a rice-sized device is going to put out as much RF energy as your cell phone?"
Sheesh.. from the actual web page:
"All these components will be combined into a unit the size of a dime."
You continue:
"Location is simply a side-effect and a nifty other purpose.."
A side effect? If you consider being able to be tracked, real-time, via a radio-based network a "side effect" you're 'way more trusting than I am, or than the majority of posters here..
"I seriously doubt there is going to be a significant "global network" capable of receiving transmissions from these devices such as what you're seeing with cell phones."
Well, I seriously believe you'd buy into anything anyone wanted to put over on you...
Why, you probably even trust your government!
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
I told ya, I told ya, I told ya!
"15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Revelation 13:15-17 (KJV)"
Ha!
We're all gonna die!
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
Clearly it is.
Really.
C'mon now, guys, I'm not kidding!
Really!
Look it up.
It's in the bible.
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
"Tom's Hardware has posted up their dealings with the new PIII 1.13GHz processor. Apparently without a special board with a new bios from Intel it will not even run correctly. Any motherboard that has not got the special micro code update for this very processor will ultimately fail. The review has some interesting facts about the processor as well."
Seems the Intel PIII pretty much stank up the place, when it could be made to run..
Anybody think this new vapor-chip will perform any better?
And does anybody think this thing'll run with an aftermarket mobo?
Not me...
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
Processor monopoly?
Ever hear of AMD?
Where's the corresponding competition in OS-land for M$ Windoze?
t_t_b
ps: never fail to run your agenda, even when it's bullshit.
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
I think that's missing the point here, although it does suggest one of the standard cop-outs used by those who are charged with implementing someone else's censorship.
"Screw it, I'm getting paid, who cares.."
That is the point here: this person does care, so what does this particular person do when he's asked, for pay, for hire, to implement censorship that he personally doesn't agree with.
Such moral dilemmas are the stuff of which life is made.
It's a cop-out to just say, "..screw it, I'm getting paid, it's their machines, the customers can go someplace else.." although a hell of a lot of people live their lives disengaged from the consequences of what they do.
Personally, I'd make my position on the general topic known to my bosses, and then do the best damn job I could to be sure that what every tools I was given to do the job were set up as well as possible...
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
"Never to be daunted, (Read: we went ahead and did it anyway, without 'em!) we ordered the servers, and installed Mandrake ourselves. One of the servers (our file server to be) wouldn't load, wouldn't boot, and wouldn't even give us a good error indication.
What? You bought their boxen, with what? No OS? Or you wiped what they had put on? And then you tried to install something that they didn't sell and didn't support, and you couldn't even get the box to boot? Or give -- what? -- a meaningful POST beep code?
I'm not buying this.
Do you guys have any idea what you're doing?
"This is exactly why we chose VA, customer support. We returned the server and requested an immediate replacement."
Customer support for what? To train you in building boxes, and to train you to put on a distro they don't even sell?
And all of this is VA's fault?
Last time I heard, VA was a systems shop, not a tech school.
Completly aside from the other posts here about more plausible [bad] experiences with VA and their stuff, it sounds to me like you guys just need to take Computer Building 101.
And I think this article makes you guys (viata.com? - "e-commerce solutions for internet travel transactions! TravelCentric software and portal sites" hmmm..) look kinda dumb...
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®