Why? Why would you want to use something like Publius for that? If you already own the track, then encode it yourself. If you haven't, then you're only interested in pirating it, right? If you had a legitimate use (e.g., evaluating a band before deciding to buy it) you wouldn't need the full 20 minute epic, and a 2 minute sampler should suffice, and may even fit in the 100K limit at low quality. If you like it, go and buy the CD...
Perhaps he wants to pirate it. The use doesn't have to be legitimate, you know;)
right now Gnome-1.2 crashes at just about *everything*. I can't even change my window manager because Control-Center dies before I can do anything.
Have you sent in bug reports to HelixCode/GNOME describing these issues? I don't have problems like the ones you describe with GNOME 1.2, or even really problems with it in general, but then again my setup is probably not the same as your setup. In the same vein, your setup is probably not like any setup at HelixCode, so I'd bet they're interested in your bug reports.
Do you know if there's some way to program the Revo as itself (no PC)? I heard something about OPL, but haven't seen any real good info...
A quick Google search turned up this. It seems like it's a way to put OPL on the revo (taking up about 40K), although I can't tell you if it works or not.
With all the PDA's out there, is anyone really buying any that aren't Palms right now?
At least one:) I just purchased a Psion revo, and I have to say I'm very impressed. It's very stylish, fast, and has a great user interface at a pretty high resolution (for a PDA). I used to own a Palm III, but when that broke I decided to try something different. The revo is exactly that -- different. It's a whole different kind of device... it has a word processing application, spreadsheet program, E-Mail program (better than the Palm's there), agenda, contact list... Opera has even been ported to it! I'm very satisfied, excepting the fact that AFAIK there isn't any way to sync it with Linux.
When the domain name was registered it doesn't matter what content the owner post at his site. You are not legally bound to post commercial info or anything of any nature at ones.com site. If that's the case then the "Internic" needs to formally alert people of this BEFORE they register a domain name.
Actually, I never thought any of the official domain registrars encouraged using.com for things that were not commercial,.org for things that were not non-profit, and.net for things that were not networks. Apparently, though, they want money more than they want to keep the domain names "pure" -- I believe it is Network Solutions who has something on their site to the effect of, "You can register any domain no matter who you are or what you do!"::shrug:: I guess I thought keeping the TLD's in line with what they stood for isn't a priority any longer (was it ever?).
What are they trying to target? Are they making a back-end renderer (Gecko) a web browser for PCs, or a standardized interface for web pads?
Perhaps all three. To be honest, I don't know.
As for you opinion of the speed, that is very subjective.
Yeah, I know. That was in response to some other people who claimed that Mozilla wasn't as slow as I thought it was. I wasn't trying to claim that Mozilla is blazing fast for everyone.
Also, the problem is that people DO care about the platform. Most people spend nearly all their time in one platform. Thus it is more important to make all apps on that platform similar than it is to make that one app similar on all platforms.
I'd say that's true for desktop machines. For "internet appliances," however, application consistency is probably more important than knowing what OS you run. If you're a normal consumer, and you just bought this nifty AOL/Transmeta webpad, you don't care if it runs Linux or Windows or MacOS or QNX. You bought it because you wanted something to surf the web with, not because you wanted a specific operating system. In the same vein, you're also going to want to be able to use your friend's webpad without too much trouble. I think this is a similar situation to how WinCE/PocketPC devices are: they all run WinCE, but have various processors inside. One doesn't necessarily need to know what processor they have to use the thing; it looks the same no matter what's inside the machine. Of course, the company that makes the handheld can customize it, but in general things are the same from device to device. I've never used one of these things, so I may be wrong about it, but at least my point still stands:)
But yes, for desktop machines, it would be nicer (and probably faster) to have native widget sets.
And by the way, I compiled Mozilla using the instructions in this comment and found it to be very fast and pretty stable.
Sure internet devices may be the wave of the future, but there is no point in cluttering up the interface for the time being where there ARE no internet devices.
I didn't say anything about "clutterng up the interface." I said that the widgets being the same on all platforms will make it easier to use Mozilla, especially in situations where people don't care about the platform.
This is the 99% thing again. 99% of people will use this thing on their desktop. Why totally ruin the experience (or severely hamper it) for those 99% so you can access that 1%?
I don't see how using the same widget set across all platforms will ruin or severely hamper any experience, no matter what you're running Mozilla on.
Also, the Mozilla UI barely runs on a 700MHz Athlon, so you really think it will run on Internet stations with 5X less power? I seriously doubt they can tweek it THAT much!
I'm not talking about the UI. I'm talking about the widget sets. I would doubt very much that the widgets are the major component behind the Mozilla slowdown.
IMO, this is another shortcoming of the whole Java write-once-run-everything bullshit, as well as this Mozilla thing. There is a reason why some people give a shit about what platform they run - because they like the way it looks and behaves. These cross platform pricks then come along and strip us of the very reason there are different platforms (and why we should even have more).
You've got a point there, but think about devices as opposed to systems. You can work just about any microwave, oven, blender, or toaster because the devices have a consistent user interface. There are slight variations, of course, but in general it doesn't take too much head-scratching to figure out how to operate your neighbor's toaster. In much the same way, electronic devices (now that we have the capability for things more advanced than, say, a portable CD player) should be consistent in their interface, so that using my webpad shouldn't be a chore just because you're used to your webpad which runs another OS/comes from a different manufacturer.
Not to say that I like Mozilla's interface. It's just a step in the right direction when looked at from a consumer's point of view.
People don't give a damn if the widgets on different platforms looks the same, because people tend to use one platform, and are used to THOSE widgets.
So take away the platform. That way, a user could be using a WinCE web terminal, a Linux web terminal, a QNX web terminal (this post assumes that Mozilla will eventually get ported to some more platforms), etc. and still have the same "experience." I guess this would be exactly what Microsoft was so afraid of: the experience of using webapps, reading e-mail, or just surfing the web will probably be similar on all platforms, which is kind of cool.
Unless you're using Mozilla in its present state, at which point it becomes rather slow and painful to use (and this on an Athlon 700MHz with 128MB of RAM).
Or could this possibly be a downside of Redhat... What? You mean Linux can sometimes have downsides too? Hmm, who would have thought...
I've never argued that Linux was perfect, but the nice thing about it is that when there's a deficiency in Linux, it can get fixed rather quickly. I guess a problem could get fixed rather quickly in Windows, too, but one would have to wait for Microsoft to A) admit the problem was there and B) put out a free fix for it. With Linux, odds are that someone will come out with a fix very quickly.
If memory serves, Linux had a patch for teardrop in 48 hours or something like that, and it took Microsoft a couple of months. That seems awfully long on Microsoft's end, but that's what I heard.
Apparently, someone (I wonder who) filed for opposition on January 31, 1995
Uh, whoops. I guess I'm a better researcher than I am reader/understander of trademarks. Octium was published for opposition on January 31, 1995. I can only guess at what that means, so I will: I guess that the USPTO said, "Hey, can anyone oppose this patent now?" on that date.
they found that the names hexium,septium, octium, nonium(sp?),etc had all being copyrighted by a bunch of sly folk, in the hopes that intel would by the name from them.
I knew there was a reason I did all the research for this post!
Basically some guy named Eric Rosenfield (I think it was Rosenfield, could have been Rosenfeld or some variant) owns Hexium. He used to own Sextium, but abandoned it on June 16, 2000 (hmm...). Intel Corporation owns Septium, however.
And just in! (or, just searched for...) This Eric Rosenfeld (whoops, sorry about that) character also owned Octium, but abandoned that on June 16, 2000 as well! Apparently, someone (I wonder who) filed for opposition on January 31, 1995, which is about five months before Intel registered Septium.
Nonium and Decium are not registered. I guess nobody thought Intel would release a 986 or 1086.
That's all I feel like searching for today, but perhaps this gives some insight (::cough cough::, moderators:) into what Intel will be naming its next processor. No way I'd ever put anything called a septium in my machine, though... "Septium Inside" makes it sound like I have a direct sewer line coming into my machine (a sewage-cooled processor?)!
Why would I do a stupid thing like that? Give me *some* credit, will you?
OK, OK!::backs off and smiles:: I really don't know you personally, have never met you, etc. It wasn't clear from your post what you were asking.
I just thought there was something special about IRC clients, like maybe letting many people on IRC know my IP address when I run as root or something.
The only thing I can think of is that if there were some kind of exploit in your IRC client that allowed file access/program execution as the user running the client, running as root would present a major security problem.
Why, again is it stupid? I know it is stupid but, why?
One reason is that running as a normal user is somewhat more of a "sandbox." If I give you a file called "freeporn.sh" containing
#!/bin/sh
rm -rf/
and you ran it as root, you'd delete pretty much everything on your system. Run as a user, it would only delete stuff that the user has permission to delete. Also makes you think a little bit more when you're about to do something. If you're su'ing into root to delete a directory, you're probably going to be paying more attention and may not just fire off an "rm -rf / home/jimmy." That's never a good thing to do;)
Only when someone accuses his opponent of being a Nazi. Simple mentioning 'nazi' does not count. Actually... to quote the Jargon File's entry: "[Usenet] 'As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.' There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups."
You haven't been around long enough to tell the difference, it seems. I'll just let the quote above respond to this one...
the tobacco is the freedom to decide what you want to do with your body rather than the gov't deciding.
While I agreed with the vast majority of your post, this part I'm not so sure about. I'd be perfectly content to let anybody who smokes do so freely, but the problem is that whenever they're smoking when I'm around they're directly hurting me with their secondhand smoke. With your alcohol example, I'm not getting hurt as a direct result of anyone's drinking. With tobacco, that's not the case. I'm still not sure what I would do about this if I had any power in government, though. I'm 100% for freedom, but not getting cancer is nice, too.
If it isn't rumours that Novell, IBM, or Sun is going to buy Corel, then it is vaporware promises of WordPerfect Office for Java. Bottom line: Read the financial statements, not the press releases.
Not to nitpick, but there was at least a beta of WordPerfect Office for Java. My friend was testing the German version. I didn't get to see a lot of it, but it did look complete and relatively fast.
What Jon is reporting here today strikes me as completely insane. Far from the normal drivel of laws and regulations put out by our society, this particular "program" is designed (even if this is unintentional) to conform us to what is "normal."
This is the design of the entire program. If you're scared to death of being smart, of knowing what you're doing on the computer, of playing the games that relieve so much tension built up thoughout the day, then you must conform. There is no other option. If you're not smart, you will become "average" in intelligence (or at least appear that way). If you don't know what you're doing on the computer, you will only be average at it. If you don't play computer games, you'll have to play other sports all the time like everyone else. In short, you will become the norm.
Technically, though, how are geeks different from the much-celebrated "jocks" and cheerleaders in our society? Both groups are relentlessly dedicated to one particular thing (be it computers, sports and girls, or guys and makeup). Both groups spend large amounts of time working at their particular field of intrest (again, computers, sports and girls, or guys and makeup). Why, psychologically, do we as a culture shun one group and exult the other? The answer is simple, if you look hard enough past the propaganda.
Geeks are a threat. People are scared of us. We can do things that they can't do; that they can't control. In their minds, everyone who plays Quake has the plans for an atomic bomb and is just waiting for a chance to use it. In their minds, everyone who can program or use the internet well is someone who can change their lives; delete their records and make sure that they never existed. These people think that being smart should be a crime, because it allows geeks to break free of the cultural bonds that bind them.
This is why we must take action.
The internet is the one last stand for the geeks. This is where we can say what we want. This is where we can express ourselves to the fullest extent without fear of retribution or ridicule. We can speak our minds, reach for the future, and declare, freely, that 2 + 2 does indeed equal 4. But they're trying to take it away from us.
If the school counselors get us; if our parents decide that we should be off the computer permanantly, this last stand will dissolve almost overnight. The internet will be taken over for the uses of the media and the government, just like everything else in this country. Your news for nerds will be the news they want you to hear, and if you think that you'll be able to reply you're in a dreamworld. Will you find any sites like the EFF? I'd doubt it. When they have rwxrwxrwx access to all the files on every server, pages that proclaim our right to free speech will at best be deleted, and at worst modified.
Does the above paragraph seem farfetched? It shouldn't. It's only a few steps away, once we geeks are taken off of the computer systems. Remember, the mass media will report only the news that it gets, and if the only news that it gets is that Mosaic 2000 is going to help reduce school shootings, that's all it's going to report. Because, obviously, we would never be so dangerous if we didn't have access to the internet. The nightly news isn't going to tell us about our encryption abilities being taken away from us. We'll just have to sit back, relax, and watch the telescreen... er... television...
This is not the future I want to live in, and I'd bet that most of you don't want to live there, either. But what can we do? Older geeks, I beseech you. Do what we minors can't. Vote responsibly for people who are against this thing. Tell your senators what you feel as a tax-paying citizen. Speak out at school board meetings. Geeks like me -- any age under 18 -- FIGHT THIS! Talk about it in school. Mention it to your friends. Everyone, geeks old or new, can do other things. Write letters to the editor. Put messages about Mosaic 2000 and similar programs in your.signature. Hold protests.
If we work together, we can stop this kind of action now, instead of when its too late. For if we fail, in the end, we will be just as helpless as Orwell's protagonist to resist; for once ignorance is strength and 2 + 2 = 5, we have no hope. Our only possibility will be to sit back, relax, drink some Victory Gin, and let the telescreen lull us to sleep. But somehow, I know that there is the spirit of the fighter in some of us. We will stop this thing, and not only will we have stopped it, but we will have assured ourselves a place where bounds are endless and where we are truly free.
I dislike the CyberPatrol product as a whole. Censorship is a very bad thing, and that's what CyberPatrol brings. If parents want to be with their kids when they surf the Internet, that's fine. Censorware is just a bad thing in general.
::Ahem:: Back to your question: I think that it's not unreasonable to ask your ISP to move the adult content to another server, but they may want to compromise (i.e. have redirect scripts from the old pages to the new pages). -Evan
The thing is, if people come over to Linux/UNIX from Windows, they don't want things to be entirely different. I use Blackbox, but only after a long progression of window managers -- from windows like to entirely different. If I dropped my Windows using family onto my desktop now, they'd be at a loss. I'd start them out with KDE, which has something like the Start Menu, Control Panel, etc. There needs to be something for hackers and non-hackers alike.
Actually, while we may need to destroy some food in the US, that doesn't mean that all our surpluses aren't going somewhere. First world farmers fuel third world populations. It's that simple.
If you have trouble understanding this, consider this scenerio: You have 2 mice, one male and one female, in a cage that has an automatic feeder in it. You can adjust the amount of food that they get from the feeder. So, let's say that you decide to give out 2 pellets every day, where each pellet has enough nutrients to sustain 1 mouse for 1 day. If you continue giving out only 2 pellets, you're only going to have 2 mice in there, because you can't make mice out of air or clay, so it has to be food. If there's not enough food for a mouse to subsist on, it won't live. Since there is only enough food for 2 mice, you'll only have 2 mice. Now, let's say that you decide to stick 10 pellets a day in there. Guess how many mice you're going to have? 10! No more, no less (on average). But let's say that 10 pellets per day is kind of expensive, and you only want to give out 5. If you only give out 5 pellets per day, I bet you can guess how many mice you will have.
Population is directly linked to food availability. I don't mean that if the US has a 20% increase in food production, that the US will see a 20% increase in population. The _world_ will see a net increase of 20% in population, assuming that we're not factoring in the productions of other countries. Birth control, education, or anything else will not stop this.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you know if there's some way to program the Revo as itself (no PC)? I heard something about OPL, but haven't seen any real good info...
A quick Google search turned up this. It seems like it's a way to put OPL on the revo (taking up about 40K), although I can't tell you if it works or not.
Good luck!
With all the PDA's out there, is anyone really buying any that aren't Palms right now?
:) I just purchased a Psion revo, and I have to say I'm very impressed. It's very stylish, fast, and has a great user interface at a pretty high resolution (for a PDA). I used to own a Palm III, but when that broke I decided to try something different. The revo is exactly that -- different. It's a whole different kind of device... it has a word processing application, spreadsheet program, E-Mail program (better than the Palm's there), agenda, contact list... Opera has even been ported to it! I'm very satisfied, excepting the fact that AFAIK there isn't any way to sync it with Linux.
:)
At least one
No, I don't work for Psion
The resurrection of Jesus is a as fully established as any other historical fact of the era.
If every historical fact of an era is "shaky," then no historical fact of that era is "shaky?"
When the domain name was registered it doesn't matter what content the owner post at his site. You are not legally bound to post commercial info or anything of any nature at ones .com site. If that's the case then the "Internic" needs to formally alert people of this BEFORE they register a domain name.
.com for things that were not commercial, .org for things that were not non-profit, and .net for things that were not networks. Apparently, though, they want money more than they want to keep the domain names "pure" -- I believe it is Network Solutions who has something on their site to the effect of, "You can register any domain no matter who you are or what you do!" ::shrug:: I guess I thought keeping the TLD's in line with what they stood for isn't a priority any longer (was it ever?).
Actually, I never thought any of the official domain registrars encouraged using
What are they trying to target? Are they making a back-end renderer (Gecko) a web browser for PCs, or a standardized interface for web pads?
Perhaps all three. To be honest, I don't know.
As for you opinion of the speed, that is very subjective.
Yeah, I know. That was in response to some other people who claimed that Mozilla wasn't as slow as I thought it was. I wasn't trying to claim that Mozilla is blazing fast for everyone.
Also, the problem is that people DO care about the platform. Most people spend nearly all their time in one platform. Thus it is more important to make all apps on that platform similar than it is to make that one app similar on all platforms.
:)
I'd say that's true for desktop machines. For "internet appliances," however, application consistency is probably more important than knowing what OS you run. If you're a normal consumer, and you just bought this nifty AOL/Transmeta webpad, you don't care if it runs Linux or Windows or MacOS or QNX. You bought it because you wanted something to surf the web with, not because you wanted a specific operating system. In the same vein, you're also going to want to be able to use your friend's webpad without too much trouble. I think this is a similar situation to how WinCE/PocketPC devices are: they all run WinCE, but have various processors inside. One doesn't necessarily need to know what processor they have to use the thing; it looks the same no matter what's inside the machine. Of course, the company that makes the handheld can customize it, but in general things are the same from device to device. I've never used one of these things, so I may be wrong about it, but at least my point still stands
But yes, for desktop machines, it would be nicer (and probably faster) to have native widget sets.
And by the way, I compiled Mozilla using the instructions in this comment and found it to be very fast and pretty stable.
Sure internet devices may be the wave of the future, but there is no point in cluttering up the interface for the time being where there ARE no internet devices.
I didn't say anything about "clutterng up the interface." I said that the widgets being the same on all platforms will make it easier to use Mozilla, especially in situations where people don't care about the platform.
This is the 99% thing again. 99% of people will use this thing on their desktop. Why totally ruin the experience (or severely hamper it) for those 99% so you can access that 1%?
I don't see how using the same widget set across all platforms will ruin or severely hamper any experience, no matter what you're running Mozilla on.
Also, the Mozilla UI barely runs on a 700MHz Athlon, so you really think it will run on Internet stations with 5X less power? I seriously doubt they can tweek it THAT much!
I'm not talking about the UI. I'm talking about the widget sets. I would doubt very much that the widgets are the major component behind the Mozilla slowdown.
IMO, this is another shortcoming of the whole Java write-once-run-everything bullshit, as well as this Mozilla thing. There is a reason why some people give a shit about what platform they run - because they like the way it looks and behaves. These cross platform pricks then come along and strip us of the very reason there are different platforms (and why we should even have more).
You've got a point there, but think about devices as opposed to systems. You can work just about any microwave, oven, blender, or toaster because the devices have a consistent user interface. There are slight variations, of course, but in general it doesn't take too much head-scratching to figure out how to operate your neighbor's toaster. In much the same way, electronic devices (now that we have the capability for things more advanced than, say, a portable CD player) should be consistent in their interface, so that using my webpad shouldn't be a chore just because you're used to your webpad which runs another OS/comes from a different manufacturer.
Not to say that I like Mozilla's interface. It's just a step in the right direction when looked at from a consumer's point of view.
People don't give a damn if the widgets on different platforms looks the same, because people tend to use one platform, and are used to THOSE widgets.
So take away the platform. That way, a user could be using a WinCE web terminal, a Linux web terminal, a QNX web terminal (this post assumes that Mozilla will eventually get ported to some more platforms), etc. and still have the same "experience." I guess this would be exactly what Microsoft was so afraid of: the experience of using webapps, reading e-mail, or just surfing the web will probably be similar on all platforms, which is kind of cool.
Unless you're using Mozilla in its present state, at which point it becomes rather slow and painful to use (and this on an Athlon 700MHz with 128MB of RAM).
Or could this possibly be a downside of Redhat... What? You mean Linux can sometimes have downsides too? Hmm, who would have thought...
I've never argued that Linux was perfect, but the nice thing about it is that when there's a deficiency in Linux, it can get fixed rather quickly. I guess a problem could get fixed rather quickly in Windows, too, but one would have to wait for Microsoft to A) admit the problem was there and B) put out a free fix for it. With Linux, odds are that someone will come out with a fix very quickly.
If memory serves, Linux had a patch for teardrop in 48 hours or something like that, and it took Microsoft a couple of months. That seems awfully long on Microsoft's end, but that's what I heard.
Apparently, someone (I wonder who) filed for opposition on January 31, 1995
Uh, whoops. I guess I'm a better researcher than I am reader/understander of trademarks. Octium was published for opposition on January 31, 1995. I can only guess at what that means, so I will: I guess that the USPTO said, "Hey, can anyone oppose this patent now?" on that date.
they found that the names hexium,septium, octium, nonium(sp?),etc had all being copyrighted by a bunch of sly folk, in the hopes that intel would by the name from them.
I knew there was a reason I did all the research for this post!
Basically some guy named Eric Rosenfield (I think it was Rosenfield, could have been Rosenfeld or some variant) owns Hexium. He used to own Sextium, but abandoned it on June 16, 2000 (hmm...). Intel Corporation owns Septium, however.
And just in! (or, just searched for...) This Eric Rosenfeld (whoops, sorry about that) character also owned Octium, but abandoned that on June 16, 2000 as well! Apparently, someone (I wonder who) filed for opposition on January 31, 1995, which is about five months before Intel registered Septium.
Nonium and Decium are not registered. I guess nobody thought Intel would release a 986 or 1086.
I believe that Intel does have trademarks on hexium, sextium, heptium, septium and all plausible variations.
:) into what Intel will be naming its next processor. No way I'd ever put anything called a septium in my machine, though... "Septium Inside" makes it sound like I have a direct sewer line coming into my machine (a sewage-cooled processor?)!
Hmm... from http://www.uspto.gov/...
Hexium (S/N: 74511486):
Filing Date: April 12, 1994
Owner: Eric Rosenfield
This Eric Rosenfield fellow also has the trademark on sextium (S/N: 74511485) but it was abandoned on... woah! June 16, 2000. Intel at work here?
Intel does own septium, however...
Septium (S/N: 74695931):
Filing Date: June 30, 1995
Owner: Intel Corporation
That's all I feel like searching for today, but perhaps this gives some insight (::cough cough::, moderators
Why would I do a stupid thing like that? Give me *some* credit, will you?
::backs off and smiles:: I really don't know you personally, have never met you, etc. It wasn't clear from your post what you were asking.
OK, OK!
I just thought there was something special about IRC clients, like maybe letting many people on IRC know my IP address when I run as root or something.
The only thing I can think of is that if there were some kind of exploit in your IRC client that allowed file access/program execution as the user running the client, running as root would present a major security problem.
One reason is that running as a normal user is somewhat more of a "sandbox." If I give you a file called "freeporn.sh" containing and you ran it as root, you'd delete pretty much everything on your system. Run as a user, it would only delete stuff that the user has permission to delete.
Also makes you think a little bit more when you're about to do something. If you're su'ing into root to delete a directory, you're probably going to be paying more attention and may not just fire off an "rm -rf / home/jimmy." That's never a good thing to do
Only when someone accuses his opponent of being a Nazi. Simple mentioning 'nazi' does not count.
Actually... to quote the Jargon File's entry: "[Usenet] 'As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.' There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups."
You haven't been around long enough to tell the difference, it seems.
I'll just let the quote above respond to this one...
Yes, and Goering is my favourite Nazi.
;)
Can one invoke Godwin's Law on a Slashdot thread?
the tobacco is the freedom to decide what you want to do with your body rather than the gov't deciding.
While I agreed with the vast majority of your post, this part I'm not so sure about. I'd be perfectly content to let anybody who smokes do so freely, but the problem is that whenever they're smoking when I'm around they're directly hurting me with their secondhand smoke. With your alcohol example, I'm not getting hurt as a direct result of anyone's drinking. With tobacco, that's not the case. I'm still not sure what I would do about this if I had any power in government, though. I'm 100% for freedom, but not getting cancer is nice, too.
Slashdotters, hear me out:
.signature. Hold protests.
What Jon is reporting here today strikes me as completely insane. Far from the normal drivel of laws and regulations put out by our society, this particular "program" is designed (even if this is unintentional) to conform us to what is "normal."
This is the design of the entire program. If you're scared to death of being smart, of knowing what you're doing on the computer, of playing the games that relieve so much tension built up thoughout the day, then you must conform. There is no other option. If you're not smart, you will become "average" in intelligence (or at least appear that way). If you don't know what you're doing on the computer, you will only be average at it. If you don't play computer games, you'll have to play other sports all the time like everyone else. In short, you will become the norm.
Technically, though, how are geeks different from the much-celebrated "jocks" and cheerleaders in our society? Both groups are relentlessly dedicated to one particular thing (be it computers, sports and girls, or guys and makeup). Both groups spend large amounts of time working at their particular field of intrest (again, computers, sports and girls, or guys and makeup). Why, psychologically, do we as a culture shun one group and exult the other? The answer is simple, if you look hard enough past the propaganda.
Geeks are a threat. People are scared of us. We can do things that they can't do; that they can't control. In their minds, everyone who plays Quake has the plans for an atomic bomb and is just waiting for a chance to use it. In their minds, everyone who can program or use the internet well is someone who can change their lives; delete their records and make sure that they never existed. These people think that being smart should be a crime, because it allows geeks to break free of the cultural bonds that bind them.
This is why we must take action.
The internet is the one last stand for the geeks. This is where we can say what we want. This is where we can express ourselves to the fullest extent without fear of retribution or ridicule. We can speak our minds, reach for the future, and declare, freely, that 2 + 2 does indeed equal 4. But they're trying to take it away from us.
If the school counselors get us; if our parents decide that we should be off the computer permanantly, this last stand will dissolve almost overnight. The internet will be taken over for the uses of the media and the government, just like everything else in this country. Your news for nerds will be the news they want you to hear, and if you think that you'll be able to reply you're in a dreamworld. Will you find any sites like the EFF? I'd doubt it. When they have rwxrwxrwx access to all the files on every server, pages that proclaim our right to free speech will at best be deleted, and at worst modified.
Does the above paragraph seem farfetched? It shouldn't. It's only a few steps away, once we geeks are taken off of the computer systems. Remember, the mass media will report only the news that it gets, and if the only news that it gets is that Mosaic 2000 is going to help reduce school shootings, that's all it's going to report. Because, obviously, we would never be so dangerous if we didn't have access to the internet. The nightly news isn't going to tell us about our encryption abilities being taken away from us. We'll just have to sit back, relax, and watch the telescreen... er... television...
This is not the future I want to live in, and I'd bet that most of you don't want to live there, either. But what can we do? Older geeks, I beseech you. Do what we minors can't. Vote responsibly for people who are against this thing. Tell your senators what you feel as a tax-paying citizen. Speak out at school board meetings.
Geeks like me -- any age under 18 -- FIGHT THIS! Talk about it in school. Mention it to your friends.
Everyone, geeks old or new, can do other things. Write letters to the editor. Put messages about Mosaic 2000 and similar programs in your
If we work together, we can stop this kind of action now, instead of when its too late. For if we fail, in the end, we will be just as helpless as Orwell's protagonist to resist; for once ignorance is strength and 2 + 2 = 5, we have no hope. Our only possibility will be to sit back, relax, drink some Victory Gin, and let the telescreen lull us to sleep. But somehow, I know that there is the spirit of the fighter in some of us. We will stop this thing, and not only will we have stopped it, but we will have assured ourselves a place where bounds are endless and where we are truly free.
I dislike the CyberPatrol product as a whole. Censorship is a very bad thing, and that's what CyberPatrol brings. If parents want to be with their kids when they surf the Internet, that's fine. Censorware is just a bad thing in general.
::Ahem:: Back to your question: I think that it's not unreasonable to ask your ISP to move the adult content to another server, but they may want to compromise (i.e. have redirect scripts from the old pages to the new pages). -Evan
The thing is, if people come over to Linux/UNIX from Windows, they don't want things to be entirely different. I use Blackbox, but only after a long progression of window managers -- from windows like to entirely different. If I dropped my Windows using family onto my desktop now, they'd be at a loss. I'd start them out with KDE, which has something like the Start Menu, Control Panel, etc. There needs to be something for hackers and non-hackers alike.
Actually, while we may need to destroy some food in the US, that doesn't mean that all our surpluses aren't going somewhere. First world farmers fuel third world populations. It's that simple.
If you have trouble understanding this, consider this scenerio:
You have 2 mice, one male and one female, in a cage that has an automatic feeder in it. You can adjust the amount of food that they get from the feeder.
So, let's say that you decide to give out 2 pellets every day, where each pellet has enough nutrients to sustain 1 mouse for 1 day. If you continue giving out only 2 pellets, you're only going to have 2 mice in there, because you can't make mice out of air or clay, so it has to be food. If there's not enough food for a mouse to subsist on, it won't live. Since there is only enough food for 2 mice, you'll only have 2 mice.
Now, let's say that you decide to stick 10 pellets a day in there. Guess how many mice you're going to have? 10! No more, no less (on average). But let's say that 10 pellets per day is kind of expensive, and you only want to give out 5. If you only give out 5 pellets per day, I bet you can guess how many mice you will have.
Population is directly linked to food availability. I don't mean that if the US has a 20% increase in food production, that the US will see a 20% increase in population. The _world_ will see a net increase of 20% in population, assuming that we're not factoring in the productions of other countries.
Birth control, education, or anything else will not stop this.