I have to disagree with the above assumption about Echelon. It is a relatively old system (70's) agreed about by the Western English speaking countries. Based on Cold War paranoia. Echelon is a voicemail tracker, if you use certain keywords (eg. bomb, bioweapon, our glorious purpose and so on) it will start to record the conversation. It doesn't record conversations that don't contain keywords.
My sister and I amuse ourselves (childish I know) by inserting random probable keywords in phone conversations. Guess it wastes storage space.
I can understand why you post as an anonymous coward (aside from the fact that is what you are - be a real person - post with consequences).
It may be hard to comprehend the figure 6m (understandable really) but if you add that to the other people that Hitler killed (Gypsies, Poles, anyone who disagreed with him) I would not be surprised if the figure was not closer to 12m.
People like you (yes you AC) cannot comprehend the evil that happened 50 years ago. Fuck religion, fuck race, the Nazi fuckheads would kill people because they didn't fit into an ideal (it could boil down to hair colour). I bet that you wouldn't. You're probably a little different, most of us who post here are. The reason that there are laws in Europe to prohibit things like that are....it happened here. The US (not to dis people from there - but it didn't happen there) has been beautifully cocooned from a lot of horrible events in the world. If people like them win, we are all dead.
Bollocks I responded to an AC again.
Haven't read the replies yet but....
If you are moving from Windows to *NIX the GUI is a nice middle ground. I know how frustrating when thngs don't go how I expect them at least I can understand the schema. It is a starting point, I like GUIs, I know that they are not the be all and end all but they can help show me a starting point for using other tools.
BWS
Let me know if I'm wrong, but my impression was that an operating system was simply designed to allow a user to interact with hardware. If it runs on a CLI or a GUI (love those acronyms) so what.
X + KDE, GNOME et al = way of using CLI without seeing it
Look at win9x or even NT/W2K, deep down it is still an old, old OS with a lot of makeup.
A GUI simply represents CLI operations. As far as I can see *NIX/Windows/Mac/whatever seem to work fine for what you need it to do (I won't list the uses) regards BWS
If I want to play games on my Linux -you gonna stop me?
If I want to have a look a Microsoft.com - you gonna stop me?
It's my computer, my internet connection, I can do what the hell I want with it! It's my operating system, license lets me do what I want to it - you gonna stop me?/rant
Not a flame, just get pissed off when people say I can't do it.
I can use Linux for whatever I want. Same as I can use my car for whatever I want.
BWS
I'm looking at/. for the first time using opera (boy, it's good and fast) I haven't tried my Internet banking yet, but this may be my browser. My company is MS only (god I miss GroupWise) now but I know now that there are options.
BWS
Responding to a muppet, the shame! Native English speakers account for about 325m people. That's a lot of people who don't speak it. Chinese (Mandarin/Cantonese) - approx 1.2 billion. Various (alright, about 5000) Hindi dialects - approx 1.1 billion. Hell, French speakers account for about 130m. Ok, so English is usually the second or third language for an awful lot of people, but have a bit of respect. I could also note that a lot of ethnic minorities in Britain speak better English than people born here. I am sure that people in other countries (.us.ca.au etc etc) may agree with me.
It wouldn't surprise me if in 100 years we are speaking a variant of Chinese. Doesn't phase me, kids learn fast, I might have a couple one day.
That's all.
BWS
I used to work in casinos in the UK (6 1/2 years) and believe me, at least in Britain, where generally they rely on repeat local trade - especially outside of the large cities - this idea would be tantamount to commercial suicide. Now we don't have 100s of fruities like American or Aussie casinos but they are a good regular source of income (set to win between 10-28%) and every now and again the government allows a few more. I understand that in the States slot revenue now accounts for at least 1/2 of casino revenue. Dedicated gaming machines are finicky at the best of times and imagine what it would be like if they BSOD'd, like a constantly on and utilized Windows system can. All the punters would bugger off to the casino down the road where they have the traditional machines that only crash a couple of times a day, are most of the time fixed in a few minutes, and are fixable without having to debug.evt files. Want to upset the people that generate 1/2 your income? They would have to make the embedded OS practically bulletproof! Unfortunately my old company (won't name them just in case) got to be run by moronic accountants in the period up to when I left, and we all know that this sort of muppet never knows about the core business of a company.
just my 2p
BWS
All this is true to an extent. I have to disagree with most of what have seen before on the grounds that everyone seems to have the obsession with being noticed, must be seen sort of mentality. I would personally say that you should be yourself. Don't make an effort, don't try too hard, things will happen when you least expect it (trust me I know) and it will all be great in the end (well, that is what my mother says and she isn't usually wrong - bitch).
I'm waffling I know (still a bit out of it - Amsterdam....) but STOP TRYING SO HARD, it's better that way!
w
Slashdot Mirror
I have to disagree with the above assumption about Echelon. It is a relatively old system (70's) agreed about by the Western English speaking countries. Based on Cold War paranoia. Echelon is a voicemail tracker, if you use certain keywords (eg. bomb, bioweapon, our glorious purpose and so on) it will start to record the conversation. It doesn't record conversations that don't contain keywords.
My sister and I amuse ourselves (childish I know) by inserting random probable keywords in phone conversations. Guess it wastes storage space.
I can understand why you post as an anonymous coward (aside from the fact that is what you are - be a real person - post with consequences). It may be hard to comprehend the figure 6m (understandable really) but if you add that to the other people that Hitler killed (Gypsies, Poles, anyone who disagreed with him) I would not be surprised if the figure was not closer to 12m. People like you (yes you AC) cannot comprehend the evil that happened 50 years ago. Fuck religion, fuck race, the Nazi fuckheads would kill people because they didn't fit into an ideal (it could boil down to hair colour). I bet that you wouldn't. You're probably a little different, most of us who post here are. The reason that there are laws in Europe to prohibit things like that are....it happened here. The US (not to dis people from there - but it didn't happen there) has been beautifully cocooned from a lot of horrible events in the world. If people like them win, we are all dead. Bollocks I responded to an AC again.
Haven't read the replies yet but....
If you are moving from Windows to *NIX the GUI is a nice middle ground. I know how frustrating when thngs don't go how I expect them at least I can understand the schema. It is a starting point, I like GUIs, I know that they are not the be all and end all but they can help show me a starting point for using other tools.
BWS
Let me know if I'm wrong, but my impression was that an operating system was simply designed to allow a user to interact with hardware. If it runs on a CLI or a GUI (love those acronyms) so what.
X + KDE, GNOME et al = way of using CLI without seeing it
Look at win9x or even NT/W2K, deep down it is still an old, old OS with a lot of makeup.
A GUI simply represents CLI operations. As far as I can see *NIX/Windows/Mac/whatever seem to work fine for what you need it to do (I won't list the uses) regards BWS
If I want to play games on my Linux -you gonna stop me? If I want to have a look a Microsoft.com - you gonna stop me? It's my computer, my internet connection, I can do what the hell I want with it! It's my operating system, license lets me do what I want to it - you gonna stop me? /rant
Not a flame, just get pissed off when people say I can't do it.
I can use Linux for whatever I want. Same as I can use my car for whatever I want.
BWS
I'm looking at /. for the first time using opera (boy, it's good and fast) I haven't tried my Internet banking yet, but this may be my browser. My company is MS only (god I miss GroupWise) now but I know now that there are options.
BWS
I considered patenting being drunk.
Responding to a muppet, the shame! Native English speakers account for about 325m people. That's a lot of people who don't speak it. Chinese (Mandarin/Cantonese) - approx 1.2 billion. Various (alright, about 5000) Hindi dialects - approx 1.1 billion. Hell, French speakers account for about 130m. Ok, so English is usually the second or third language for an awful lot of people, but have a bit of respect. I could also note that a lot of ethnic minorities in Britain speak better English than people born here. I am sure that people in other countries (.us .ca .au etc etc) may agree with me.
It wouldn't surprise me if in 100 years we are speaking a variant of Chinese. Doesn't phase me, kids learn fast, I might have a couple one day.
That's all.
BWS
I thought it was Excel (doom was so appropriate) BWS
I used to work in casinos in the UK (6 1/2 years) and believe me, at least in Britain, where generally they rely on repeat local trade - especially outside of the large cities - this idea would be tantamount to commercial suicide. Now we don't have 100s of fruities like American or Aussie casinos but they are a good regular source of income (set to win between 10-28%) and every now and again the government allows a few more. I understand that in the States slot revenue now accounts for at least 1/2 of casino revenue. Dedicated gaming machines are finicky at the best of times and imagine what it would be like if they BSOD'd, like a constantly on and utilized Windows system can. All the punters would bugger off to the casino down the road where they have the traditional machines that only crash a couple of times a day, are most of the time fixed in a few minutes, and are fixable without having to debug .evt files. Want to upset the people that generate 1/2 your income? They would have to make the embedded OS practically bulletproof! Unfortunately my old company (won't name them just in case) got to be run by moronic accountants in the period up to when I left, and we all know that this sort of muppet never knows about the core business of a company.
just my 2p
BWS
All this is true to an extent. I have to disagree with most of what have seen before on the grounds that everyone seems to have the obsession with being noticed, must be seen sort of mentality. I would personally say that you should be yourself. Don't make an effort, don't try too hard, things will happen when you least expect it (trust me I know) and it will all be great in the end (well, that is what my mother says and she isn't usually wrong - bitch). I'm waffling I know (still a bit out of it - Amsterdam....) but STOP TRYING SO HARD, it's better that way! w