Your anti-hysterical dose of reality is much appreciated, but I must take exception to one particular point. Without a well defined entity to declare war upon, there should be no war declared. War is a drastic and extreme measure to be reserved for a threat to our nation's sovereign existance.
Sure, it is noble to eradicate drug abuse and terrorism. While were at it, why not poverty? We should definitely use our military force against these evils, because a bloody battle is the best solution to these problems. Simply kill all citizens that live below the national poverty level, and we can finally declare victory. But then what do we do with the soldiers who are unemployed after the end of the skirmishes? Well, there was a WWII, after all.
These metaphysical enemies in our media wars cannot be feasibly defeated, as they are merely symptoms to deeper societal ills. We can protect our nation without persecuting our citizens, or even our non-agressive neighbors. There are plenty of criminal laws to deal with violent criminals without the need to resort to military exemptions, martial law or autocracy.
While I appreciate your rebutting the absurd parent, I must play devil's advocate for the last point (as odious as it was) just because it plays into my point. Did the Second Bush Administration declare "war" against the Taliban, or "terrorism?" Terrorism takes place throughout most of the world. "Terrorism" is poorly defined.
Could "terrorism" include histrionic rants comparing irrellevant or tenuously-related events in history between a Plutocratic-Republic
and a pseudo-Socialist Autocracy? Even if I don't agree with the crappy connections in the parent post, I should defend the posters right to express these insipid comparisons. So I must oppose the "War on Terrorism".
All of what extends from the "dynamic duo"? How do you mean? Iraq was the focus of a previous Bush, why hasn't Clinton addressed the problem in the last 8 years? I guess it didn't jibe with MTV's playlist or the Arsenio Hall show. During the 90's I really was more concerned with "boxers or briefs" than the Middle East conflicts. Hey, Clinton, the first "liberal" in a generation (the Pepsi generation?) with Mr. GHoar would have been in a great position to push an alternative energy policy to us. Failing that, he at least could have kept an eye on the world's petroleum peddlers and their tumultous region of the world.
As for your biggest annoyances, I sympathise with you but not about the source - that "all stems from" everybody in the public media ignoring the fact that we are not at war. Only Congress and the first lady can declare War.
( Oh yeah, how is Nancy's War coming along anyway? Historically, the only thing worse than a politician is a politician's wife. Has Mrs. W pulled a Hillary-Roddham-Tipper yet?)
The relatively recent Freedom of Information Act was a great step towards reducing the opacity of our federal institutions. I must praise the Clinton Administation for letting that through, as the FBI has abused its power in the past, and we must not allow the U.S. to become a police state.
As for liberty vs security, the burden of proof should be on the government institutions: exactly how do further restrictions on our current freedoms provide us with more security? If the previous laws weren't being properly enforced, how does adding new stricter laws help the situation? Confiscating nail clippers does not improve the safety of airline passengers. A terrorist armed with only a bowie knife could not hijack a plane that contains at least 10 unarmed yet able-bodied passengers. A suicidal terrorist with an explosive would have better odds, but then, explosives are already illegal on planes. See, it is easy to prove that the right to board a public plane with a souvenier hand grenade is worth sacrificing for the security of the passengers on the flight. Now, why exactly can't I have a plastic knife to cut my microwave chicken?
As for civil liberties, which should I sacrifice, and exactly how will that protect anybody's safety? The onus is on whosoever would violate the Bill of Rights to convince The People, otherwise The People can be as flippant as they like - though to be frank, I'm not sure which flip reamrks you refer to. "Don't tread on me", or maybe "Live free or die"? The defense of our most precious documents is not inaction, but rather our sacred duty as citizens of this great republic.
Good point. Maybe I should reconsider renouncing my U.S. citizenship in favor of Iraqistan.
Sure, "They" are pretty backwards. That is no excuse for the U.S. to stoop, even slightly, to a behaivor that we proclaim to be above. There is a reason why the U.S. is better, lets not sully ourselves because others fight dirty. Without full authority of the Constitution to protect unpopular citizens, the U.S. might as well be an evil empire. We should have nothing to hide, we are the shining example of the world.
Oh, Auntie Em, you'll never believe the dream I had, you were all there...
... if you believe that the government is lead by a bunch of windbags. Sure, the abundance of hot air should lead to economies of scale leading to lower energy cost, but they are called high-priced politicians for a reason.
And I'll bet this really burns up some fossil-fuel backed government officials.
If candles are really not pro-union, then why wax?
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Linux 2.4.19 Released
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Of those 10 points, point 10 is the only significant "Question Every Business Should Ask About the GNU General Public License (GPL)".
10. Do you have any existing obligations that might preclude your use of GPL software?
The answer is NO, there is nothing precluding anybody from using GPL software once they have access to it. The deceptive answer immediatele switches the bait to the use of "GPL code", which implys a significantly different animal. In any case, there is nothing stopping you from using the code however you se fit. The only restriction involved is in who you give the GPL code/software to, and how you go about it. Not "Every Business" is in the business of distributing computer code.
Every other Question is irrelevant with the context in which this treatise was presented.
Oh, and I didn't notice any variant of the word "terror" in this thread.
"Sure, Linux 2.2 is old, but it's heavily tested, and stable as hell". Fair enough, when when you start upgrading to a later brank of the kernel, you aren't running that "heavily tested stable as hell" kernel any more.... same level of testing and abuse... stable but 3 years out of date.... yada yada.
If your hardware is brand new and only supported by unstable Linux, then it isn't considered stable hardware. If your Linux is brand new and only supported by unstable GNU then it isn't considered a stable kernel. If your server had more than one client, then you sould have been foolish to do all the hard of of upgrading, patching, etc etc yourself to the latest unstable Stable Linux. Much better to track a distribution's less volatile path towards your desired featureset even if it isn't "up to date." Most distributions of GNU have proven over time their priorities regarding stability versus featuritis. Choose one that reflects your comfort level.
The point of Debian is that you don't have to do the hard work of upgrading and patching yourself. When pointing at an appropriate APT repository, you type "apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade". While Debian Potato isn't considered Stable (offically sanctioned by the Debian Project) with Linux 2.4, that doesn't mean that it isn't stable. As for the hard work of DIY, Google for "Debian Potato 2.4" and feel the pain of typing "apt-get dist-upgrade".
Debian Stable is perfect for servers because it is stable. By definition, a 2.2 kernel is more stable than a 2.4 kernel, and arguably a 2.0.39 kernel would be best if you want to minimize uncertainties and surprises. That would explain the continuing development into 2.0.40 and the 2.2.x tree.
Althogh I know of people running idle "servers" that have money to burn for bragging rights, most serious server administrators actually have a budget. Hobby or professional, that means that 1000bT and RAID aren't usually purchased until the previous component is actually a bottleneck. Does SAN really exist outside of the enterprise? How many home servers are on SMP capable motherboards (including the infamously unstable BP6)?
Perhaps your 120GB of data really is crap, which could explain why instead of being properly partitioned, it is existing on a filesystem almost certainly an order of magnitude larger than it should be (according to any Unix administration rule of thumb). If this is the case, then maybe you won't care about your files falling corrupt when your journalling FS sacrifices them for the sake of metadata cohesion. I'm certain that a home server has no feasible means of backup for such a filesystem, so if the data weren't crap, the filesystem should be at least as stable as ext2 with asynch writes disabled.
Again, the point of Debian Stable, in case you didn't catch it, is that it is stable. Many servers are values more for their robustness, which is a typical byproduct of maintained stability. Flaws are addressed by backporting fixes without new features exposing new flaws. The latest featured advances in Linux based systems are definitely useful, but contradictory to the goal of stability. Rather than mad haphazard patching, Debian suggests tracking their Stable tree, which maintains well tested patches that don't add features. If this is a public system, then security takes a justifiable front seat to stability, and so follow that tree as well.
As for your parting shots, Debian Stable is indeed suitable for large systems, especially when it is hard for physical RAM to reach "large" in personal class servers. RAM too large to autodetect in less-than-recent kernels is easily accessible by passing the value to the kernel during boot. Multiprocessor systems are definitely useable, the latest advances in 2.5 don't negate the previously available SMP functionality of 2.2. If you are maxxing out your SMP hardware, maybe less stability would be a valuable tradeoff for improved SMP utilization. Is your home server stressing the locking schemes? Remeber, Seti@home won't benefit from improved SMP - you still have to run multiple instances of the client. If you use "PC" in the Intel-x86 sense, then you couldn't be further from the mark. Debian Stable supports a wider range of platforms than any competing GNU distribution's latest release. Higher Debian releases support even more architectures. I don't think SGI or IBM servers could really fall within the scope of semi-pro or personal without aiming half a decade into the past. As for attached storage, propose a home or semi-pro serving situation where there will be heavy writing activity which may benefit from a journaling FS so that I know where you are coming from. Most serving implies reading, not writing of files, and serving from a read-only filesystem might even be prudent. (Notice my previous comment about partitions.) As for your pissant serving tasks, wouldn't stability still be top priority? To promote further discussion, please point out which distros handle routing and firewalling better then Debian, and just how so. Which features are better than stability?
Honestly, I don't think any distro yet available will stop you from shooting yourself in the foot if you insist on running a "server" without following standard administrative guidelines... what does your fstab look like? Does your primary serving task involve MPEG2 rips of LotR, Shindlers List and Dances with Wolves? Please, choose between personal, semi-pro, or enterprise class serving. (SAN? give me a break.)
Thank you for the link. Although you probably won't see this response as an AC, I will respond because you bothered to use a link.
As stated in the article, fluoride is naturally occuring. As a result of industrialization, there is now more fluoride in the environment (air, water and foods) then any recomended minimum set by the FDA. Note that the FDA has not done any studies on the effects of Fluoride since the WWII era, when nuclear weapons factories started producing the flouride byproduct.
As stated in the first paragraph of the ADA article, Flouride only occurs in counpounds. Naturally occuring fluoride which is good for the teeth is better called "Calcium Fluoride". Why does the ADA recommend just "fluoride" even after admitting that there is no such molecule? So that they can get paid off by industries who can now easily dispose of their toxic wastes, specifically "Sodium Fluoride" and "Potassium Fluoride".
Vitamin C is water soluble, so that excess ascorbic acid can fairly easily be expelled from the body as liquid waste, making it very difficult to take a harmful dose. Vitamin A is fat soluble, and like many dieters can attest, it is much more difficult to excrete excess fat. If too much Vitamin A builds up before the body can properly excrete it, that too can be harmful. Sodium Fluoride harms your organs at much lower dosages, and build up in your bones. Bone matter tends not to be excreted, so fluoridosis is a cumulative danger. The very bones and teeth that (Calcium) fluoride was supposed to protect instead become mottled and brittle. Hell, why do you think it is so important not to ingest toothpaste?
Your body need to ingest nutrients systemically to utilize them beneficially. Topical toothpaste applications are minimally harmful if swallowing is minimized. Adulterating the water supply on the otherhand, is insidious exploitation of misinformation that directly harms public health.
I agree with most of your sentiments. One disagreement I have concerns Debian, as it truly is it's own OS which just happens to use Linux, as opposed to being a standard "Linux distribution." If your little spat with Debian about who gets to play with Perl is the only thing you had against her, then perhaps you should give it another look. All you need to do is put Perl on "hold", and Debian will bite her lip and keep her hands to herself.
A large part of Debian is the policies, which illustrate the commonly accepted "best practices" which would alleviate this problem you have with your system repeatedly "blowing up." If you like, you can still go about things your own way, but you need to inform the system so that it doesn't step on your toes.
That means that you should compile your own Perl in/usr/local, so that the system will never touch it, and leave the system's/usr/perl alone, as it is a vital compenent of much of the Debian system's functionality. It wouldn't necessarily be a good idea to have the standard/usr/perl be a different version then it expects to find.
If you insist on only having your version in the standard location, then tell the package manager not to meddle with Perl by placing the package on "Hold" and it won't ever try to upgrade it for you again. Use apt-set, or dselect ot aptitude if you would prefer a GUI.
Even though you arent incredibly concerned with security, I would still advise against keeping a compiler on any public box. While 4.4BSDs and Gentoo simplify package compilation, only using precompiled packages can be more secure in a public box. The ideal solution from a security perspective might be to compile your version of Perl into a.dpkg on a different machine, and then install the onto your Internet MySQL box. This way APT knows what version of Perl it has, and can satisfy dependancies to and from Perl appropriately. It can still tell you when a newer (bug-fixed) version is available, and you can either tell it to "Hold" or to upgrade itself.
Of course, Debian's policies and documentation still aren't as thorough as that of the 4.4BSD derivatives in most cases, so maybe that would be a better way to go. Debian does offer source through the APT system, and the BSDs offer precompiled packages in many cases. Gentoo's BSD make-like system would be great for a developer box that needed SMP, but I don't know that I'd trust it to the public, unless I could keep up-to-date (security wise) with every installed component.
If I were you, I'd just use OpenBSD on the SMP system until it is clear that the CPU load really needs use of both CPU's. When that becomes clear, either OpenBSD will have more SMP functionality (not likely), you and Debian will get along (if you give it another shot) or you can just go with FreeBSD if all else fails.
Either way, good luck, I hope this was helpful. And please invest in a backup system that won't "blow up".
P.S. Personally, Between OpenBSD and Debian, the two best representatives on the two different view of "freedom", I really can't see the need for any other free Unix. Of course, choice is usually good.
I don't know about Canada, but the US FDA doesn't seem to have much of a problem with Nico Water being sold. It is touted as a supplement rather than a drug, which has anti-tobacco groups up in arms.
That doesn't really make sense to me, because it truly is a healthier alternative to smoking, and virtually eliminates the possibility of second hand smoke. If you really wanna strech, perhaps a truckload of this stuff could dump into some groundwater, or you might accidentally spill a bottle on somebody leading to dermal absorption - but those idiots should give it a rest. It is even labeled against sale to minors.
If they really need something to protest about, why aren't they protesting the fluoride water whive I've seen for sale. This shit is actually targeted at children, and it never got FDA approval either. Tabacco is carcinogenic because of the other hundred some toxins - while nicotine can be dangerous, it is far less toxic than the industrial waste known as fluoride. That fluoride products can be marketed to children is criminally irresponsible, especially in light of the "Camel Joe" fiasco.
The point of "backup" is almost unrelated to the point of RAID. RAID uses Redundancy to overcome the problem of drive failure. Modern drives are far more reliable then their users, operating systems, power sources, etc. RAID can't protect against an accidental #rm -rf.temp* or against the latest MSVBnudeWifeVirus.jpg.exe.
If you plan on using a RAID 3 or other redundant setup, then I'll assume you have the drives in sleds. Much better would be to actually use one of the drives for manual "backup", and then take it offline, out of the system. Regularly rotate your drives, while only using 1 drive's worth of space for improves security, or just use 1 drive for your least replaceable data.
You can be a Troll and bite it too
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VMware and Games?
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· Score: 2
Your entire first paragraph is garbage. Do you have proof for the first sentence? Assuming "perfect emulation" means complete emulation, you are 0 for 2. The last sentence is misleading as the hardware is not the bottleneck. Windows is NT 4.0 workstation, XP Server and 3.11 for workgroups. If you post a more meaningful comment I'll post a better rebuttal.
Why is your "only necessary Windows" subset any better than a standard Windows install?
I don't know about your zealots, but a consciencious Free Software supporter (e.g. RMS) would suggest you don't buy any new games... almost like you plan not to do... unless they support your morals. As for the software you already own, it is fine to keep them until you can find (write) a free replacement.
Mostly, (the lack of a "Linux" port for Tombraider) isn't the fault of the Linux community or of MS, but of Eidos, because they won't allow anyone the necessary information to make good (i.e., 95+% performance) emulations, which would be possible.
Oh? Eidos shouldn't have to release it's sources? Why should Microsoft? DOS was the platform for games, not Windows. Microsoft developed, promoted, and improved DirectX to the point where it can be considered comparable to OpenGL in many aspects, and the preferred target for most modern games. The Linux community is responsible for a kernel, not an OS, and much less a game. Microsoft is responsible for a Kernel, an OS, and an "industry standard" gaming interface, why should they be responsible for an interactive showcase for monstrous breast renderings?
Sorry, troll, try again.
Re:Have some cake - Offtopic entymology
on
VMware and Games?
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· Score: 2
I believe the quote has been attributed to Marie Antoinette during the time of the French Revolution. Disregarding the veracity of this common belief, the lower classes were starving, while the rich were using wheat products to make hair products. Think not of baked goods, but of the residue "caked" on the pans.
As the story goes, when confronted with this shortage of food among the poor, Marie supposedly said "Let them eat cake!". Imagine a shortage of dairy products, but all available milk was used to make Elmers glue. Elmer hears us all scream for Ice-cream, and replies "let them eat glue!"
It is not difficult to imagine the corruption of language and history bringing about the phrase in question. Perhaps those freaks who want to consume the lactation of a female bull without regard to the myriad health problems caused by such an unnatural act (including leaching of bone minerals) demand all of the milk Elmer has. He not only relinquished his supply of paste to the revolting fellows, he suggests that they eat it too.
come forth ye moderators. Let he who who is not redundant cast the first Offtopic, making thyself redundant in light of the title.
The nature of information is decidedly ephemeral compared to the static nature of much of the web. Perhaps the surge in Weblogging has altered this dynamic even more than the hypercommercialization, but I'll dispute the 60% figure if it is based only on those four phrases. Much of the early Web was fairly static research and information hosted on.edu domains from what I gather. Since the tide shifted away to.commercialization and tripe, the nature of "information" has little to do with the state of the web, and more to do with tidiness. How much of the Web is long abandoned fan sites and dusty old means abandoned from the "information superhighway"?
In fact, Information Superhighway would be a great data point for this subject. Another consideration, which would be difficult to accomodate, is the reality of mirrors and shuffling pages to different URLs.
Most importantly, I strongly hope that your "interesting application" never gets implemented, because I can see no application of the resulting data that doesn't make my blood run cold. Psychological Warfare and hostile advertising are the bane of the Post-WWII US, and (likely) the world. Propeganda is a pernicious technology, and I fear further development in this area.
Okay, I'll admit that was a touch trollish. Because the Psych. Warfare genie was already released from it's NAZI bottle and invited into the US (along with other valuable sciences), it's a little late to advocate repression of this technology. Yet I still reel from my country's increasingly malevolent commercialism aspects, which have spun off from Capitalism without any of Capitalism's redeeming social aspects. I almost want to become a socialist, until I consider that this state of affairs sprung from the National Socialist state.
In any case, while the WWW may be evolving, is certainly isn't in the Darwinian sense that was likely intended. Vestigal Geocities homepages long abandoned are plentiful, and are less temporary, giving search engines a better shot at crawling than dynamic, or "living" news portals. This sickly "creature" is more of a construction than the product of evolution (unless you consider pre-Charles Darwin senses of the word). If you want to research the nature of information and survivability/mutability, the Freenet Project would provide a much more fruitful environment, if it ever reached widespread useage. I would have less strenuous objections to classifying the Freenet an "ever-evolving creature".
Very interesting. Could you post more information? What is involved in the monthly tab of $913 million?
That would be sweet if Microsoft picked up Argentina. Perhaps a passport and dual-citizenship could be additional perks of working for Microsoft. Shrink-wrap licensing agreements could be legally binding and copyright violation could be a capital offense! Running Redhat could be an act of treason!
What about TCO, including hidden costs? Maintaining a military, currency and presiding over legal disputes could put a significant drain on even Microsoft's operating expenses. Does Argentina have sufficient connectivity, or would immense infrastructre need to be built as well? Perhaps then the soverign nation would have to build their own ISP, all the way to the backbone. If it were to be Microsoft, what OS would they choose to host their services?
BTW, Argentina is part of America... the South part. Perhaps the EU and the US would have to team up, maybe with the UN for some nice, draconian international standards against Microsoft. But then, that might incite Microsoft to declare war. The possibilities are fascinating.
Yeah, I don't think I would like to buy a nation such as Argentina for Internet connectivity purposes. Way too much administrative overhead, not to mention baggage. Could you imagine the "corporate culture"? Perhaps there would calmer waters off the coast of the UK.
May I suggest that you specify "liquid propane" at least once in the FAQ. It is best to define as many acronyms as possible to save me a trip to Acronym Finder. Very interesting nonetheless, and impressive redundancy. Do you know how long you can store gasoline before it goes stale? Have you considered Sun/wind/water power supplements? How about manually cranked generators attached to stationary bikes?
If you do find yourself hosting objectionable but non-sexual legal content, how do you respond? Block access to the specific page, delete the offending resource, cancel the account?
How do you respond to accounts that have links to content not approved by Netmar? You make valid points about conserving bandwidth by avoiding porn and contraband media. Taking the bandwidth issue out of this discussion, this is still an important issue for an "independant" web site. Would there be an issue if Netmar were to host an Indymedia type site, which hosted an article criticizing menbers of a Baptist group who allegedly mutialted an accused satanist; If the article contained explicit photographs of the remains; if the photo was hosted by another site? Do you prefer grape jelly or strawberry jam? How long is the regestration for the "free domain name registration?" Another important question for an independant site... what happens to that free domain if the account is terminated, for whatever reason? Would finding a less restictive alternative host mean sacrificing community name recognition?
Not yet seriously considering a year's commitment, this does seem to be a fairly worthy resource you offer. Instead of emailing staff@netmar.com, posting here offers a chance to answer these questions for posterity - of course until you get a chance to update the FAQ page. I can't wait until I am one of your customers, because I could really use some friends. Maybe we could go see a movie or something.
Touche! I guess I'm in a bad habit, diarrhea of the keyboard. My excuse is that my char limit is set to 32768. I'm also flirting with promotion of offtopic mods. I suppose playing Slashdot is cheaper then hanging in a bar.
Maybe I can afford a posting style that is a bit less "thorough", but then I might suffer some kind of Identity crisis. Thanks for the tip.
What do hippies have to do with the American left? I would guess that most hippies would fall somewhere between idealized anarchy and the Green Party. Both have very little to do with today's Democrat party. Also note that modern "liberals" have very little in common with classic Liberalism, and abolishionism isn't much of a platform for modern Republicans.
The "left" was never synonymous with personal freedoms. Personal freedoms were central to classic Liberalism, which was never the same as the corrupt "liberalism" which postures as an alternative to conservativism in the United States. The idea of right/left wings were imported into the US and associated with the current American Republican/Democrat system, which leads to such nonsense prases as "the radical right".
Classic Liberalism is a social concept, and would probably best align with Libertarian or anarchist ideology. Conservative means adverse to change, and is almost synonymous with moderate, but politically lines up with both Democrats and Republicans in the US. Conservative and Liberal are not opposites; conservative and radical are.
I agree with you that "conservatives" need to divorce the "religious right". The "religious right" is a fairly recent phrase concieved to breach the seperation of church and state by influencing the Republican party.
While neither Democrats or Republicans actually stand for personal freedoms or classic Liberalism, Democrats tend to violate personal freedoms more often than Republicans merely as a quirk of their true platforms, which are more economic in nature. Democrats tend to favor a welfare state, where the government is responsible for each individual's well being. Republicans tend to be more hands off towards individual finances, and even preach tax reduction, while mostly benefitting large corporations. Neither is satisfactory, because both seem to keep increasing government spending.
As for personal freedoms, it is true that much of the Republican party submits to the financial and political pressure of the "religious right" and other special interest groups, but at least they are fairly straightforward about it, and willing to let you hate them for their unfair decisions. The Democrats are equally guilty of pandering to special interest politics and payoffs, but try to pretend that they are more tolerant of individual freedoms. I personally find harsh reality less distasteful than two-faced lies.
While Clinton claimed to have smoked marijuana to impress the majority of MTV watching youths, marijuana arrests under the Clinton administrations were at record highs, with severe penalties. Don't forget which administration favored multiple online privacy and encryption restrictions, including the introduction of the "clipper" chip. I do not appreciate such policies from an administration that is pretending to be my friend, and then enforcing my private life "for my own good".
Worse than the Democratic leaders, are the unelected democratic wives. Something feels really rotten whenever I hear Ms. Clinton referred to with an official title, and if I never hear the name Tipper Gore again, it will be too soon. Bash on Ronnie's social policies all you want, or most unsavory Republican actions... as a whole, they have been much less likely to violate our Constitutional freedoms. If you weren't around in the 80's try watching VH1, maybe you'll catch a cheezy movie about Tipper's good deeds regarding our personal freedoms.
The way I see it, both the Republicans and the Democrats are violators of American civil liberties. The "left wing" democrats were never in support of personal freedoms or hippies. Hippies, if political at all, were part of the many grassroots organizations that sprung up throughout the 1960's. If neither major party is going to defend my personal freedoms, I at least want a shot at less taxation. Sure, I hate the so called "religious right" as much as the next non-televangelist, but tithes are still optional, ineffectual government "welfare" taxes aren't.
I imagine that the FOX network's Glutton Bowl, once established as an international competition, will have a great deal of influence on the development of this technology.
Gatorade and Nike will be forced to find new ways into this (horizontally) growing field of competition, as traditional sports will become obsolete. Most potential athletes will grow morbidly obese with the rest of humanity, rendering competitive team sports infeasible. Olympic style solo competition will grow into a niche spectacle, a farce at best, until it is banned as to great a burden on EMT professionals who lack equipment for hundreds of simultaneous cases of congestive heart failure. The few remaining able-bodied athletes will be systematically mauled in the most gruesome incarnations of todays "extreme sports", until the last surviviors donate their bodies to volunteer in scientific experiments reminscient of medieval torture - to save themselves the horrors of hyperextreme sports. Over time, "gluttoral" sports edge out all archaic sports events, until the course of leads to a synergy between nanotech and sports, leading up to a frenzy of nanotechnology developments, garnering much public interest and corporate sponsership. Over the years Nike and Gatorade will both invest heavily in this technology, resulting in symbiotic gut-dwelling nanobots which can predigest massive quantities of otherwise inedible "food" (industrial waste) generously provided as sponsorship by Dow Chemical.
This will result in an arms race between Nike and Gatorade mirroring the effects of the various technology competitions that took place between the opponents of the Cold War. While MAD conditions tempered government military actions and kept our respective ways of life intact between the USSR and USA, no such geopolitical boundaries will be present or relevant in our current condition of multinational corporate rule. There are no "second strike" deterrents in a universal corporarchy plutocracy, so any accidental nanotechnological "first strike" will be global in consequence in a significant "grey goo" situation.
Despite these concerns, and their current unrelated fields of research, the respective images of both companies will seamlessly shift into their future roles. Gatorade's "Is it in you" campaign will morph into advocacy for biologically hosted nanobots performing medical service - orange sweat beads, neon green blood and luminous blue urine will be replaced by geometrically pleasing crystals and fractal configurations of liquid metal reminscient of Terminator 2. Gatorade will provide special edition formulas of their traditional beverage that supplement the electrolytes with their predigestive bioresident nanobots, allowing amature "gluttoral" competition, and hobbyist HGDs (Human Garbage Disposals) amongs those passing Gatorade's profiling tests.
Nike's "Just do it" meme, while subsumed into the "swish" logo, will still have subtle influence; it will take on new meaning as an amorphous representation of the capabilities embodied by the invisible nano-robots, which largely replace their current third-world labor market in manufacturing and production. Despite positive expectations from Human Rights Organizations, natives acclimated to western lifestyles suffer when the factories close. Desperate natives end up populating Nike's nano-labs, primarily as volunteers for their experiments. The survivors are among the world's first nan-droids, who end up devouring two-thirds of the contents of the Yucata Mountains before the accident involving an oil tanker full of nuclear waste. This unfortunate incident occurs not long after Nike bought out Exxon, which closes the promising waste disposal solution before it's completion. Various safety issues prevent the importation of Nike's nuclear core-crunching nandroid-people into the Northwestern Hemishpere, so the Nuclear waste disposal problem still doesn't have any end in sight.
I can't "speculate" any further as the Underground Secret Alliance is signaling me. Oh shit, it looks like Pepsi-Coca (subsidiary of Gatorade) agents have chewed through the barrier protecting the Organic Society, who had granted me asylum. I've got to get out of here, and I can't keep typing while I climb, so Romeo-OverOut...MMCXLIV-214410081626aagvdteng::::: : :
Wise and generous, I applaud you, but only with one hand. I suppose you have never witness the great prophet Bartholomule provide a practical solution to this koan. I myself solved this riddle at an early age, before knowing that it was intended to be an unsurmountable challenge. Verily, the answer does produce less of a sharp, satisfying thump, and more of a hollow click, but it is nonetheless a sufficient answer.
Relax your hand, and then make firm your wrist, while flexing your finders. Occilate your hand primarily using your elbow, as if you would fly. Continue to oscillate your arm back and forth with greater force while keeping your fingers loose, and you will soon find your fingers maintain a momentem which breifly goes against the rest of your hand. The confilcting motions can symbolize your spiritual desires and your rational mind, or they can simpley show that you are a simpleton who likes to clap with one hand.
Now you should mediatate on the arthritis growing in your knuckles, and the marvelous inflammation in your carpals, without wasting any more time on a finger-rack... I mean, keyboard. That would be some mild computer-nerd S+M mixed in with trancendental philosophy it seems.
You obviously don't know much about history - or Microsoft release schedules, for that matter. Microsoft is expected to release the new Millenium any day now, although it is currently projected to coincide with the tricentenial of American Independance - no offence, you limey bastard. And to continue this history lesson...
Why do you think that formal dates are written with "AD" appended? It is an acronymn, for "After DOS", the most significant event in out computing history. Sure, many communists will argue that AS stands for some variation of Anal Domination, or Annoying Damage - but they are not to be trusted. They are the same peple who claim that GNU is the first recursive acronym for a computing system, when it is obvious that DOS stands for DOS Operating System.
Furthermore, it is also the first mutually recursive set of acronyms, HURD be damned : DISK Operating System; DOS Is Super K-rad; where that instance of DOS stands for DOS OPERATING System; DOS Only Sucks Over Periods Exceeding Rational Time Intervals Notunlikethetimerequiredfortheactualreleaseoftheva porwareformerflyknownas GNU. In lay terms, this means that DOS was Truly Useful Nevertheless Expedient Simply because GNU was still 5 years from conception, and then had another 10 years until birth. Note the uncanny foresight exhibited by the framers of DOS, that is another reason why DOS was chosen as the against upon which millienia pass. Sure, some of the Revisionist Microsoft Slime are trying to rechristen the term "AD" to "CE", but they are just corrupt leaders following a false profit... CE is an unholy scourge on the humble name of Microsoft. You'll see, some said "95" was the mark of the beast, but the truth is, that mark is found on the palm.
Actually, that part is a little unclear, the ancient scriptures didn't translate too clearly. Basically, it is along the lines of the "Palm was does cast out, and with a Handspring, the US-R, all 3Com into our midst, where what once has been, no longer will Be, nay, but Be shall rise again, open the Gates, yay Open Be OS shall pluck the Apple from the Bush, bruise the Gnu smite the daemon and the penguin will hide in the shadows..." It really gets hard to follow from here. Maybe you should take this post more seriously. Some say that within this Millenium, 2000 AD CE NT, lies the end of DOS as we know it. Evil Daemons are rising from the Dark Ages of computing. Global warming from overclocking is causing the polar icecaps to melt, causing all of the penguins to spread out with their own distribution, spreading an epidemic of viral licenses which are making megalithic corporations vulnerable to free radicals in the system. Our only hope is to buy vitamin XP, and pray so that we may be preyed upon, and allowed into the Company of Heaven's Gate's good graces. Amen.
I don't know about HP specifics. But as I understand it, DVD+RW drives are supposed to write DVD+RW disks, and DVD+R. DVD+R is supposed to be fairly universal, much like DVD-R, but with a slightly higher chance of compatibility problems when compared to DVD-R disks.
Now in addition, most DVD-RW and DVD+RW drives can write to CD-R disks. Are you saying that that in assition to CD-R, CD-RW, DVD+RW and DVD+R, some HP drives can also write to DVD-R disks?
That doesn't seem likely, but if they do... Sweet! I have always avoided HP WORM drives since experiencing the continual crap they seemed to have put out since their 2x CD-R days. But if they are making a drive capable of DVD+RW, DVD-R, and CD-RW, then perhaps I should give them another chance....
Hey, have you checked out the functionality of your Matrox card under a Free Software OS? Perhaps the Xfree86ers have done a better job than Win2k in this case? That is, if you don't mind a seperate utility for your tuner functionality. As for hardware encoding, do you mean MPEG or MJPEG?
Slashdot Mirror
Your anti-hysterical dose of reality is much appreciated, but I must take exception to one particular point.
Without a well defined entity to declare war upon, there should be no war declared. War is a drastic and extreme measure to be reserved for a threat to our nation's sovereign existance.
Sure, it is noble to eradicate drug abuse and terrorism. While were at it, why not poverty? We should definitely use our military force against these evils, because a bloody battle is the best solution to these problems. Simply kill all citizens that live below the national poverty level, and we can finally declare victory. But then what do we do with the soldiers who are unemployed after the end of the skirmishes? Well, there was a WWII, after all.
These metaphysical enemies in our media wars cannot be feasibly defeated, as they are merely symptoms to deeper societal ills. We can protect our nation without persecuting our citizens, or even our non-agressive neighbors. There are plenty of criminal laws to deal with violent criminals without the need to resort to military exemptions, martial law or autocracy.
While I appreciate your rebutting the absurd parent, I must play devil's advocate for the last point (as odious as it was) just because it plays into my point. Did the Second Bush Administration declare "war" against the Taliban, or "terrorism?" Terrorism takes place throughout most of the world. "Terrorism" is poorly defined.
Could "terrorism" include histrionic rants comparing irrellevant or tenuously-related events in history between a Plutocratic-Republic
and a pseudo-Socialist Autocracy? Even if I don't agree with the crappy connections in the parent post, I should defend the posters right to express these insipid comparisons. So I must oppose the "War on Terrorism".
All of what extends from the "dynamic duo"? How do you mean? Iraq was the focus of a previous Bush, why hasn't Clinton addressed the problem in the last 8 years? I guess it didn't jibe with MTV's playlist or the Arsenio Hall show. During the 90's I really was more concerned with "boxers or briefs" than the Middle East conflicts.
Hey, Clinton, the first "liberal" in a generation (the Pepsi generation?) with Mr. GHoar would have been in a great position to push an alternative energy policy to us. Failing that, he at least could have kept an eye on the world's petroleum peddlers and their tumultous region of the world.
As for your biggest annoyances, I sympathise with you but not about the source - that "all stems from" everybody in the public media ignoring the fact that we are not at war. Only Congress and the first lady can declare War.
( Oh yeah, how is Nancy's War coming along anyway? Historically, the only thing worse than a politician is a politician's wife. Has Mrs. W pulled a Hillary-Roddham-Tipper yet?)
The relatively recent Freedom of Information Act was a great step towards reducing the opacity of our federal institutions. I must praise the Clinton Administation for letting that through, as the FBI has abused its power in the past, and we must not allow the U.S. to become a police state.
As for liberty vs security, the burden of proof should be on the government institutions: exactly how do further restrictions on our current freedoms provide us with more security? If the previous laws weren't being properly enforced, how does adding new stricter laws help the situation? Confiscating nail clippers does not improve the safety of airline passengers. A terrorist armed with only a bowie knife could not hijack a plane that contains at least 10 unarmed yet able-bodied passengers. A suicidal terrorist with an explosive would have better odds, but then, explosives are already illegal on planes. See, it is easy to prove that the right to board a public plane with a souvenier hand grenade is worth sacrificing for the security of the passengers on the flight. Now, why exactly can't I have a plastic knife to cut my microwave chicken?
As for civil liberties, which should I sacrifice, and exactly how will that protect anybody's safety? The onus is on whosoever would violate the Bill of Rights to convince The People, otherwise The People can be as flippant as they like - though to be frank, I'm not sure which flip reamrks you refer to. "Don't tread on me", or maybe "Live free or die"? The defense of our most precious documents is not inaction, but rather our sacred duty as citizens of this great republic.
Good point.
Maybe I should reconsider renouncing my U.S. citizenship in favor of Iraqistan.
Sure, "They" are pretty backwards. That is no excuse for the U.S. to stoop, even slightly, to a behaivor that we proclaim to be above. There is a reason why the U.S. is better, lets not sully ourselves because others fight dirty. Without full authority of the Constitution to protect unpopular citizens, the U.S. might as well be an evil empire. We should have nothing to hide, we are the shining example of the world.
Oh, Auntie Em, you'll never believe the dream I had, you were all there...
... if you believe that the government is lead by a bunch of windbags. Sure, the abundance of hot air should lead to economies of scale leading to lower energy cost, but they are called high-priced politicians for a reason.
And I'll bet this really burns up some fossil-fuel backed government officials.
Of those 10 points, point 10 is the only significant "Question Every Business Should Ask About the GNU General Public License (GPL)".
10. Do you have any existing obligations that might preclude your use of GPL software?
The answer is NO, there is nothing precluding anybody from using GPL software once they have access to it. The deceptive answer immediatele switches the bait to the use of "GPL code", which implys a significantly different animal. In any case, there is nothing stopping you from using the code however you se fit. The only restriction involved is in who you give the GPL code/software to, and how you go about it. Not "Every Business" is in the business of distributing computer code.
Every other Question is irrelevant with the context in which this treatise was presented.
Oh, and I didn't notice any variant of the word "terror" in this thread.
"Sure, Linux 2.2 is old, but it's heavily tested, and stable as hell". Fair enough, when when you start upgrading to a later brank of the kernel, you aren't running that "heavily tested stable as hell" kernel any more.... same level of testing and abuse...
stable but 3 years out of date.... yada yada.
If your hardware is brand new and only supported by unstable Linux, then it isn't considered stable hardware. If your Linux is brand new and only supported by unstable GNU then it isn't considered a stable kernel. If your server had more than one client, then you sould have been foolish to do all the hard of of upgrading, patching, etc etc yourself to the latest unstable Stable Linux. Much better to track a distribution's less volatile path towards your desired featureset even if it isn't "up to date." Most distributions of GNU have proven over time their priorities regarding stability versus featuritis. Choose one that reflects your comfort level.
The point of Debian is that you don't have to do the hard work of upgrading and patching yourself. When pointing at an appropriate APT repository, you type "apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade". While Debian Potato isn't considered Stable (offically sanctioned by the Debian Project) with Linux 2.4, that doesn't mean that it isn't stable. As for the hard work of DIY, Google for "Debian Potato 2.4" and feel the pain of typing "apt-get dist-upgrade".
Debian Stable is perfect for servers because it is stable. By definition, a 2.2 kernel is more stable than a 2.4 kernel, and arguably a 2.0.39 kernel would be best if you want to minimize uncertainties and surprises. That would explain the continuing development into 2.0.40 and the 2.2.x tree.
Althogh I know of people running idle "servers" that have money to burn for bragging rights, most serious server administrators actually have a budget. Hobby or professional, that means that 1000bT and RAID aren't usually purchased until the previous component is actually a bottleneck. Does SAN really exist outside of the enterprise? How many home servers are on SMP capable motherboards (including the infamously unstable BP6)?
Perhaps your 120GB of data really is crap, which could explain why instead of being properly partitioned, it is existing on a filesystem almost certainly an order of magnitude larger than it should be (according to any Unix administration rule of thumb). If this is the case, then maybe you won't care about your files falling corrupt when your journalling FS sacrifices them for the sake of metadata cohesion. I'm certain that a home server has no feasible means of backup for such a filesystem, so if the data weren't crap, the filesystem should be at least as stable as ext2 with asynch writes disabled.
Again, the point of Debian Stable, in case you didn't catch it, is that it is stable. Many servers are values more for their robustness, which is a typical byproduct of maintained stability. Flaws are addressed by backporting fixes without new features exposing new flaws. The latest featured advances in Linux based systems are definitely useful, but contradictory to the goal of stability. Rather than mad haphazard patching, Debian suggests tracking their Stable tree, which maintains well tested patches that don't add features. If this is a public system, then security takes a justifiable front seat to stability, and so follow that tree as well.
As for your parting shots, Debian Stable is indeed suitable for large systems, especially when it is hard for physical RAM to reach "large" in personal class servers. RAM too large to autodetect in less-than-recent kernels is easily accessible by passing the value to the kernel during boot.
Multiprocessor systems are definitely useable, the latest advances in 2.5 don't negate the previously available SMP functionality of 2.2. If you are maxxing out your SMP hardware, maybe less stability would be a valuable tradeoff for improved SMP utilization. Is your home server stressing the locking schemes? Remeber, Seti@home won't benefit from improved SMP - you still have to run multiple instances of the client.
If you use "PC" in the Intel-x86 sense, then you couldn't be further from the mark. Debian Stable supports a wider range of platforms than any competing GNU distribution's latest release. Higher Debian releases support even more architectures. I don't think SGI or IBM servers could really fall within the scope of semi-pro or personal without aiming half a decade into the past.
As for attached storage, propose a home or semi-pro serving situation where there will be heavy writing activity which may benefit from a journaling FS so that I know where you are coming from. Most serving implies reading, not writing of files, and serving from a read-only filesystem might even be prudent. (Notice my previous comment about partitions.)
As for your pissant serving tasks, wouldn't stability still be top priority? To promote further discussion, please point out which distros handle routing and firewalling better then Debian, and just how so. Which features are better than stability?
Honestly, I don't think any distro yet available will stop you from shooting yourself in the foot if you insist on running a "server" without following standard administrative guidelines... what does your fstab look like? Does your primary serving task involve MPEG2 rips of LotR, Shindlers List and Dances with Wolves? Please, choose between personal, semi-pro, or enterprise class serving. (SAN? give me a break.)
Thank you for the link. Although you probably won't see this response as an AC, I will respond because you bothered to use a link.
As stated in the article, fluoride is naturally occuring. As a result of industrialization, there is now more fluoride in the environment (air, water and foods) then any recomended minimum set by the FDA. Note that the FDA has not done any studies on the effects of Fluoride since the WWII era, when nuclear weapons factories started producing the flouride byproduct.
As stated in the first paragraph of the ADA article, Flouride only occurs in counpounds. Naturally occuring fluoride which is good for the teeth is better called "Calcium Fluoride". Why does the ADA recommend just "fluoride" even after admitting that there is no such molecule? So that they can get paid off by industries who can now easily dispose of their toxic wastes, specifically "Sodium Fluoride" and "Potassium Fluoride".
Vitamin C is water soluble, so that excess ascorbic acid can fairly easily be expelled from the body as liquid waste, making it very difficult to take a harmful dose. Vitamin A is fat soluble, and like many dieters can attest, it is much more difficult to excrete excess fat. If too much Vitamin A builds up before the body can properly excrete it, that too can be harmful. Sodium Fluoride harms your organs at much lower dosages, and build up in your bones. Bone matter tends not to be excreted, so fluoridosis is a cumulative danger. The very bones and teeth that (Calcium) fluoride was supposed to protect instead become mottled and brittle. Hell, why do you think it is so important not to ingest toothpaste?
Your body need to ingest nutrients systemically to utilize them beneficially. Topical toothpaste applications are minimally harmful if swallowing is minimized. Adulterating the water supply on the otherhand, is insidious exploitation of misinformation that directly harms public health.
I agree with most of your sentiments. One disagreement I have concerns Debian, as it truly is it's own OS which just happens to use Linux, as opposed to being a standard "Linux distribution." If your little spat with Debian about who gets to play with Perl is the only thing you had against her, then perhaps you should give it another look. All you need to do is put Perl on "hold", and Debian will bite her lip and keep her hands to herself.
/usr/local, so that the system will never touch it, and leave the system's /usr/perl alone, as it is a vital compenent of much of the Debian system's functionality. It wouldn't necessarily be a good idea to have the standard /usr/perl be a different version then it expects to find.
.dpkg on a different machine, and then install the onto your Internet MySQL box. This way APT knows what version of Perl it has, and can satisfy dependancies to and from Perl appropriately. It can still tell you when a newer (bug-fixed) version is available, and you can either tell it to "Hold" or to upgrade itself.
A large part of Debian is the policies, which illustrate the commonly accepted "best practices" which would alleviate this problem you have with your system repeatedly "blowing up." If you like, you can still go about things your own way, but you need to inform the system so that it doesn't step on your toes.
That means that you should compile your own Perl in
If you insist on only having your version in the standard location, then tell the package manager not to meddle with Perl by placing the package on "Hold" and it won't ever try to upgrade it for you again. Use apt-set, or dselect ot aptitude if you would prefer a GUI.
Even though you arent incredibly concerned with security, I would still advise against keeping a compiler on any public box. While 4.4BSDs and Gentoo simplify package compilation, only using precompiled packages can be more secure in a public box. The ideal solution from a security perspective might be to compile your version of Perl into a
Of course, Debian's policies and documentation still aren't as thorough as that of the 4.4BSD derivatives in most cases, so maybe that would be a better way to go. Debian does offer source through the APT system, and the BSDs offer precompiled packages in many cases. Gentoo's BSD make-like system would be great for a developer box that needed SMP, but I don't know that I'd trust it to the public, unless I could keep up-to-date (security wise) with every installed component.
If I were you, I'd just use OpenBSD on the SMP system until it is clear that the CPU load really needs use of both CPU's. When that becomes clear, either OpenBSD will have more SMP functionality (not likely), you and Debian will get along (if you give it another shot) or you can just go with FreeBSD if all else fails.
Either way, good luck, I hope this was helpful. And please invest in a backup system that won't "blow up".
P.S.
Personally, Between OpenBSD and Debian, the two best representatives on the two different view of "freedom", I really can't see the need for any other free Unix. Of course, choice is usually good.
If they could get away with it?
I don't know about Canada, but the US FDA doesn't seem to have much of a problem with Nico Water being sold. It is touted as a supplement rather than a drug, which has anti-tobacco groups up in arms.
That doesn't really make sense to me, because it truly is a healthier alternative to smoking, and virtually eliminates the possibility of second hand smoke. If you really wanna strech, perhaps a truckload of this stuff could dump into some groundwater, or you might accidentally spill a bottle on somebody leading to dermal absorption - but those idiots should give it a rest. It is even labeled against sale to minors.
If they really need something to protest about, why aren't they protesting the fluoride water whive I've seen for sale. This shit is actually targeted at children, and it never got FDA approval either. Tabacco is carcinogenic because of the other hundred some toxins - while nicotine can be dangerous, it is far less toxic than the industrial waste known as fluoride. That fluoride products can be marketed to children is criminally irresponsible, especially in light of the "Camel Joe" fiasco.
Those lucky storm survivors...
I guess you could say I'm green with envy!
The point of "backup" is almost unrelated to the point of RAID. RAID uses Redundancy to overcome the problem of drive failure. Modern drives are far more reliable then their users, operating systems, power sources, etc. RAID can't protect against an accidental #rm -rf .temp* or against the latest MSVBnudeWifeVirus.jpg.exe.
If you plan on using a RAID 3 or other redundant setup, then I'll assume you have the drives in sleds. Much better would be to actually use one of the drives for manual "backup", and then take it offline, out of the system. Regularly rotate your drives, while only using 1 drive's worth of space for improves security, or just use 1 drive for your least replaceable data.
Your entire first paragraph is garbage. Do you have proof for the first sentence? Assuming "perfect emulation" means complete emulation, you are 0 for 2. The last sentence is misleading as the hardware is not the bottleneck. Windows is NT 4.0 workstation, XP Server and 3.11 for workgroups. If you post a more meaningful comment I'll post a better rebuttal.
Why is your "only necessary Windows" subset any better than a standard Windows install?
I don't know about your zealots, but a consciencious Free Software supporter (e.g. RMS) would suggest you don't buy any new games... almost like you plan not to do... unless they support your morals. As for the software you already own, it is fine to keep them until you can find (write) a free replacement.
Mostly, (the lack of a "Linux" port for Tombraider) isn't the fault of the Linux community or of MS, but of Eidos, because they won't allow anyone the necessary information to make good (i.e., 95+% performance) emulations, which would be possible.
Oh? Eidos shouldn't have to release it's sources? Why should Microsoft? DOS was the platform for games, not Windows. Microsoft developed, promoted, and improved DirectX to the point where it can be considered comparable to OpenGL in many aspects, and the preferred target for most modern games. The Linux community is responsible for a kernel, not an OS, and much less a game. Microsoft is responsible for a Kernel, an OS, and an "industry standard" gaming interface, why should they be responsible for an interactive showcase for monstrous breast renderings?
Sorry, troll, try again.
I believe the quote has been attributed to Marie Antoinette during the time of the French Revolution. Disregarding the veracity of this common belief, the lower classes were starving, while the rich were using wheat products to make hair products. Think not of baked goods, but of the residue "caked" on the pans.
As the story goes, when confronted with this shortage of food among the poor, Marie supposedly said "Let them eat cake!". Imagine a shortage of dairy products, but all available milk was used to make Elmers glue. Elmer hears us all scream for Ice-cream, and replies "let them eat glue!"
It is not difficult to imagine the corruption of language and history bringing about the phrase in question. Perhaps those freaks who want to consume the lactation of a female bull without regard to the myriad health problems caused by such an unnatural act (including leaching of bone minerals) demand all of the milk Elmer has. He not only relinquished his supply of paste to the revolting fellows, he suggests that they eat it too.
come forth ye moderators. Let he who who is not redundant cast the first Offtopic, making thyself redundant in light of the title.
The nature of information is decidedly ephemeral compared to the static nature of much of the web. Perhaps the surge in Weblogging has altered this dynamic even more than the hypercommercialization, but I'll dispute the 60% figure if it is based only on those four phrases. Much of the early Web was fairly static research and information hosted on .edu domains from what I gather. Since the tide shifted away to .commercialization and tripe, the nature of "information" has little to do with the state of the web, and more to do with tidiness. How much of the Web is long abandoned fan sites and dusty old means abandoned from the "information superhighway"?
In fact, Information Superhighway would be a great data point for this subject. Another consideration, which would be difficult to accomodate, is the reality of mirrors and shuffling pages to different URLs.
Most importantly, I strongly hope that your "interesting application" never gets implemented, because I can see no application of the resulting data that doesn't make my blood run cold. Psychological Warfare and hostile advertising are the bane of the Post-WWII US, and (likely) the world. Propeganda is a pernicious technology, and I fear further development in this area.
Okay, I'll admit that was a touch trollish. Because the Psych. Warfare genie was already released from it's NAZI bottle and invited into the US (along with other valuable sciences), it's a little late to advocate repression of this technology. Yet I still reel from my country's increasingly malevolent commercialism aspects, which have spun off from Capitalism without any of Capitalism's redeeming social aspects. I almost want to become a socialist, until I consider that this state of affairs sprung from the National Socialist state.
In any case, while the WWW may be evolving, is certainly isn't in the Darwinian sense that was likely intended. Vestigal Geocities homepages long abandoned are plentiful, and are less temporary, giving search engines a better shot at crawling than dynamic, or "living" news portals. This sickly "creature" is more of a construction than the product of evolution (unless you consider pre-Charles Darwin senses of the word). If you want to research the nature of information and survivability/mutability, the Freenet Project would provide a much more fruitful environment, if it ever reached widespread useage. I would have less strenuous objections to classifying the Freenet an "ever-evolving creature".
Very interesting. Could you post more information? What is involved in the monthly tab of $913 million?
That would be sweet if Microsoft picked up Argentina. Perhaps a passport and dual-citizenship could be additional perks of working for Microsoft. Shrink-wrap licensing agreements could be legally binding and copyright violation could be a capital offense! Running Redhat could be an act of treason!
What about TCO, including hidden costs? Maintaining a military, currency and presiding over legal disputes could put a significant drain on even Microsoft's operating expenses. Does Argentina have sufficient connectivity, or would immense infrastructre need to be built as well? Perhaps then the soverign nation would have to build their own ISP, all the way to the backbone. If it were to be Microsoft, what OS would they choose to host their services?
BTW, Argentina is part of America... the South part. Perhaps the EU and the US would have to team up, maybe with the UN for some nice, draconian international standards against Microsoft. But then, that might incite Microsoft to declare war. The possibilities are fascinating.
Yeah, I don't think I would like to buy a nation such as Argentina for Internet connectivity purposes. Way too much administrative overhead, not to mention baggage. Could you imagine the "corporate culture"? Perhaps there would calmer waters off the coast of the UK.
May I suggest that you specify "liquid propane" at least once in the FAQ. It is best to define as many acronyms as possible to save me a trip to Acronym Finder. Very interesting nonetheless, and impressive redundancy. Do you know how long you can store gasoline before it goes stale? Have you considered Sun/wind/water power supplements? How about manually cranked generators attached to stationary bikes?
If you do find yourself hosting objectionable but non-sexual legal content, how do you respond? Block access to the specific page, delete the offending resource, cancel the account?
How do you respond to accounts that have links to content not approved by Netmar? You make valid points about conserving bandwidth by avoiding porn and contraband media. Taking the bandwidth issue out of this discussion, this is still an important issue for an "independant" web site. Would there be an issue if Netmar were to host an Indymedia type site, which hosted an article criticizing menbers of a Baptist group who allegedly mutialted an accused satanist; If the article contained explicit photographs of the remains; if the photo was hosted by another site? Do you prefer grape jelly or strawberry jam? How long is the regestration for the "free domain name registration?" Another important question for an independant site... what happens to that free domain if the account is terminated, for whatever reason? Would finding a less restictive alternative host mean sacrificing community name recognition?
Not yet seriously considering a year's commitment, this does seem to be a fairly worthy resource you offer. Instead of emailing staff@netmar.com, posting here offers a chance to answer these questions for posterity - of course until you get a chance to update the FAQ page. I can't wait until I am one of your customers, because I could really use some friends. Maybe we could go see a movie or something.
-castlan
Touche! I guess I'm in a bad habit, diarrhea of the keyboard. My excuse is that my char limit is set to 32768. I'm also flirting with promotion of offtopic mods. I suppose playing Slashdot is cheaper then hanging in a bar.
Maybe I can afford a posting style that is a bit less "thorough", but then I might suffer some kind of Identity crisis. Thanks for the tip.
What do hippies have to do with the American left? I would guess that most hippies would fall somewhere between idealized anarchy and the Green Party. Both have very little to do with today's Democrat party. Also note that modern "liberals" have very little in common with classic Liberalism, and abolishionism isn't much of a platform for modern Republicans.
The "left" was never synonymous with personal freedoms. Personal freedoms were central to classic Liberalism, which was never the same as the corrupt "liberalism" which postures as an alternative to conservativism in the United States. The idea of right/left wings were imported into the US and associated with the current American Republican/Democrat system, which leads to such nonsense prases as "the radical right".
Classic Liberalism is a social concept, and would probably best align with Libertarian or anarchist ideology. Conservative means adverse to change, and is almost synonymous with moderate, but politically lines up with both Democrats and Republicans in the US. Conservative and Liberal are not opposites; conservative and radical are.
I agree with you that "conservatives" need to divorce the "religious right". The "religious right" is a fairly recent phrase concieved to breach the seperation of church and state by influencing the Republican party.
While neither Democrats or Republicans actually stand for personal freedoms or classic Liberalism, Democrats tend to violate personal freedoms more often than Republicans merely as a quirk of their true platforms, which are more economic in nature. Democrats tend to favor a welfare state, where the government is responsible for each individual's well being. Republicans tend to be more hands off towards individual finances, and even preach tax reduction, while mostly benefitting large corporations. Neither is satisfactory, because both seem to keep increasing government spending.
As for personal freedoms, it is true that much of the Republican party submits to the financial and political pressure of the "religious right" and other special interest groups, but at least they are fairly straightforward about it, and willing to let you hate them for their unfair decisions. The Democrats are equally guilty of pandering to special interest politics and payoffs, but try to pretend that they are more tolerant of individual freedoms. I personally find harsh reality less distasteful than two-faced lies.
While Clinton claimed to have smoked marijuana to impress the majority of MTV watching youths, marijuana arrests under the Clinton administrations were at record highs, with severe penalties. Don't forget which administration favored multiple online privacy and encryption restrictions, including the introduction of the "clipper" chip. I do not appreciate such policies from an administration that is pretending to be my friend, and then enforcing my private life "for my own good".
Worse than the Democratic leaders, are the unelected democratic wives. Something feels really rotten whenever I hear Ms. Clinton referred to with an official title, and if I never hear the name Tipper Gore again, it will be too soon. Bash on Ronnie's social policies all you want, or most unsavory Republican actions... as a whole, they have been much less likely to violate our Constitutional freedoms. If you weren't around in the 80's try watching VH1, maybe you'll catch a cheezy movie about Tipper's good deeds regarding our personal freedoms.
The way I see it, both the Republicans and the Democrats are violators of American civil liberties. The "left wing" democrats were never in support of personal freedoms or hippies. Hippies, if political at all, were part of the many grassroots organizations that sprung up throughout the 1960's. If neither major party is going to defend my personal freedoms, I at least want a shot at less taxation. Sure, I hate the so called "religious right" as much as the next non-televangelist, but tithes are still optional, ineffectual government "welfare" taxes aren't.
I imagine that the FOX network's Glutton Bowl, once established as an international competition, will have a great deal of influence on the development of this technology.
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Gatorade and Nike will be forced to find new ways into this (horizontally) growing field of competition, as traditional sports will become obsolete. Most potential athletes will grow morbidly obese with the rest of humanity, rendering competitive team sports infeasible. Olympic style solo competition will grow into a niche spectacle, a farce at best, until it is banned as to great a burden on EMT professionals who lack equipment for hundreds of simultaneous cases of congestive heart failure. The few remaining able-bodied athletes will be systematically mauled in the most gruesome incarnations of todays "extreme sports", until the last surviviors donate their bodies to volunteer in scientific experiments reminscient of medieval torture - to save themselves the horrors of hyperextreme sports. Over time, "gluttoral" sports edge out all archaic sports events, until the course of leads to a synergy between nanotech and sports, leading up to a frenzy of nanotechnology developments, garnering much public interest and corporate sponsership. Over the years Nike and Gatorade will both invest heavily in this technology, resulting in symbiotic gut-dwelling nanobots which can predigest massive quantities of otherwise inedible "food" (industrial waste) generously provided as sponsorship by Dow Chemical.
This will result in an arms race between Nike and Gatorade mirroring the effects of the various technology competitions that took place between the opponents of the Cold War. While MAD conditions tempered government military actions and kept our respective ways of life intact between the USSR and USA, no such geopolitical boundaries will be present or relevant in our current condition of multinational corporate rule. There are no "second strike" deterrents in a universal corporarchy plutocracy, so any accidental nanotechnological "first strike" will be global in consequence in a significant "grey goo" situation.
Despite these concerns, and their current unrelated fields of research, the respective images of both companies will seamlessly shift into their future roles. Gatorade's "Is it in you" campaign will morph into advocacy for biologically hosted nanobots performing medical service - orange sweat beads, neon green blood and luminous blue urine will be replaced by geometrically pleasing crystals and fractal configurations of liquid metal reminscient of Terminator 2. Gatorade will provide special edition formulas of their traditional beverage that supplement the electrolytes with their predigestive bioresident nanobots, allowing amature "gluttoral" competition, and hobbyist HGDs (Human Garbage Disposals) amongs those passing Gatorade's profiling tests.
Nike's "Just do it" meme, while subsumed into the "swish" logo, will still have subtle influence; it will take on new meaning as an amorphous representation of the capabilities embodied by the invisible nano-robots, which largely replace their current third-world labor market in manufacturing and production. Despite positive expectations from Human Rights Organizations, natives acclimated to western lifestyles suffer when the factories close. Desperate natives end up populating Nike's nano-labs, primarily as volunteers for their experiments. The survivors are among the world's first nan-droids, who end up devouring two-thirds of the contents of the Yucata Mountains before the accident involving an oil tanker full of nuclear waste. This unfortunate incident occurs not long after Nike bought out Exxon, which closes the promising waste disposal solution before it's completion. Various safety issues prevent the importation of Nike's nuclear core-crunching nandroid-people into the Northwestern Hemishpere, so the Nuclear waste disposal problem still doesn't have any end in sight.
I can't "speculate" any further as the Underground Secret Alliance is signaling me. Oh shit, it looks like Pepsi-Coca (subsidiary of Gatorade) agents have chewed through the barrier protecting the Organic Society, who had granted me asylum. I've got to get out of here, and I can't keep typing while I climb, so Romeo-OverOut...MMCXLIV-214410081626aagvdteng::::
Wise and generous, I applaud you, but only with one hand. I suppose you have never witness the great prophet Bartholomule provide a practical solution to this koan. I myself solved this riddle at an early age, before knowing that it was intended to be an unsurmountable challenge. Verily, the answer does produce less of a sharp, satisfying thump, and more of a hollow click, but it is nonetheless a sufficient answer.
Relax your hand, and then make firm your wrist, while flexing your finders. Occilate your hand primarily using your elbow, as if you would fly. Continue to oscillate your arm back and forth with greater force while keeping your fingers loose, and you will soon find your fingers maintain a momentem which breifly goes against the rest of your hand. The confilcting motions can symbolize your spiritual desires and your rational mind, or they can simpley show that you are a simpleton who likes to clap with one hand.
Now you should mediatate on the arthritis growing in your knuckles, and the marvelous inflammation in your carpals, without wasting any more time on a finger-rack... I mean, keyboard. That would be some mild computer-nerd S+M mixed in with trancendental philosophy it seems.
You obviously don't know much about history - or Microsoft release schedules, for that matter. Microsoft is expected to release the new Millenium any day now, although it is currently projected to coincide with the tricentenial of American Independance - no offence, you limey bastard. And to continue this history lesson...
a porwareformerflyknownas GNU. In lay terms, this means that DOS was Truly Useful Nevertheless Expedient Simply because GNU was still 5 years from conception, and then had another 10 years until birth. Note the uncanny foresight exhibited by the framers of DOS, that is another reason why DOS was chosen as the against upon which millienia pass. Sure, some of the Revisionist Microsoft Slime are trying to rechristen the term "AD" to "CE", but they are just corrupt leaders following a false profit... CE is an unholy scourge on the humble name of Microsoft. You'll see, some said "95" was the mark of the beast, but the truth is, that mark is found on the palm.
Why do you think that formal dates are written with "AD" appended? It is an acronymn, for "After DOS", the most significant event in out computing history. Sure, many communists will argue that AS stands for some variation of Anal Domination, or Annoying Damage - but they are not to be trusted. They are the same peple who claim that GNU is the first recursive acronym for a computing system, when it is obvious that DOS stands for DOS Operating System.
Furthermore, it is also the first mutually recursive set of acronyms, HURD be damned : DISK Operating System; DOS Is Super K-rad; where that instance of DOS stands for DOS OPERATING System; DOS Only Sucks Over Periods Exceeding Rational Time Intervals Notunlikethetimerequiredfortheactualreleaseofthev
Actually, that part is a little unclear, the ancient scriptures didn't translate too clearly. Basically, it is along the lines of the "Palm was does cast out, and with a Handspring, the US-R, all 3Com into our midst, where what once has been, no longer will Be, nay, but Be shall rise again, open the Gates, yay Open Be OS shall pluck the Apple from the Bush, bruise the Gnu smite the daemon and the penguin will hide in the shadows..." It really gets hard to follow from here. Maybe you should take this post more seriously. Some say that within this Millenium, 2000 AD CE NT, lies the end of DOS as we know it. Evil Daemons are rising from the Dark Ages of computing. Global warming from overclocking is causing the polar icecaps to melt, causing all of the penguins to spread out with their own distribution, spreading an epidemic of viral licenses which are making megalithic corporations vulnerable to free radicals in the system. Our only hope is to buy vitamin XP, and pray so that we may be preyed upon, and allowed into the Company of Heaven's Gate's good graces. Amen.
Standing up for the FSF,
Compiling a Linux kernel for a GNU system without an Intel compiler does not mean that you are running Intel/Linux OS.
Although there is a pretty good chance that whoever reads this is running GNU/Linux Intel.
I love the smell of propaganda in the morning... It smells like sour grapes...
I don't know about HP specifics. But as I understand it, DVD+RW drives are supposed to write DVD+RW disks, and DVD+R. DVD+R is supposed to be fairly universal, much like DVD-R, but with a slightly higher chance of compatibility problems when compared to DVD-R disks.
Now in addition, most DVD-RW and DVD+RW drives can write to CD-R disks. Are you saying that that in assition to CD-R, CD-RW, DVD+RW and DVD+R, some HP drives can also write to DVD-R disks?
That doesn't seem likely, but if they do... Sweet! I have always avoided HP WORM drives since experiencing the continual crap they seemed to have put out since their 2x CD-R days. But if they are making a drive capable of DVD+RW, DVD-R, and CD-RW, then perhaps I should give them another chance....
Hey, have you checked out the functionality of your Matrox card under a Free Software OS? Perhaps the Xfree86ers have done a better job than Win2k in this case? That is, if you don't mind a seperate utility for your tuner functionality. As for hardware encoding, do you mean MPEG or MJPEG?