Why was so much of this space taken up with questioning underage sex?
Well, duh...
We'll forward 10 of the highest-moderated questions to Piers tomorrow, and will run his answers (verbatim, as always) as soon as he gets them back to us.
This is how it works, remember? Barring foul play by the editors, these questions are a democratic representation of what troubles the mind of an average slashdotter.
Everyone loves pointing out that anyone can get their hands on the tools necessary to modify open-source software, but they tend to conveniently ignore the fact that not everyone has the programming skills necessary to do so.
If I had to name one major downside to open source software, it would be that it has taught people to expect, nay demand, something for nothing. In the olden days you used to shut up, put up, and pay up.
Now factor in that you'd want a programmer good enough to be trusted with mucking around with the kernel for Very Important Systems -- systems important enough, at least, that you aren't willing to even take the next big jump in kernel versions.
Here's me still running Linux 0.13 on my beer cooler. I don't let anybody near it, *especially* Finnish kernel hackers.
So they plan to put a signature checker into windows installer and push for crypto acceleration as part of standards PC chipsets. Big deal.
I'm about as sceptical of Microsoft as the next slashdotter, but these conspiracy hysterics are getting ridiculous.
I'm all for having crypto acceleration in PC chipsets. That can only mean better security for the individual (until they discover the inevitable NSA backdoor, anyway).
As for Windows refusing to install unsigned software, fat chance. If they really do that, we can expect a lot more users and former Windows software developers in the Linux/BSD camp very shortly.
Oooh, verdamnt, not once more! Back to ze dravink board es ist. Igor, clear out ze body and vasche ze beakerz! Schnell! Ich must vork on the formula some more! Hunh...
I recall a user we had on our network who thought it'd be cute to install BlackIce on his box, to better secure it. Nevermind the fact that I, and the rest of the admins at my company, had firewalls in place and had never had an intrusion on our network.
I hate to tell you this but, at this day and age when everything is being outsourced, some users feel they need to protect their machines against the "IT support".;-)
Oh I'm not disputing that at all. Cultural backgound and environment play a huge part. Genetics is a factor as well. Admittedly, all things being connected, environment is a key factor in culling the gene pool.
This is what's wrong with us today. Assuming things about people based on their race or their appearance.
Oh come off your high horse! That's how the human mind works. We try to perceive generalities and rules and we apply those to individuals we meet. We make assumptions about *everybody* we come across. Assumptions are based on probabilities. The thing is to recognize those assumptions for what they are and not hold them as absolute truth. None of us are stereotypes.
The poster was making a point that black athletes are, in general, more accomplished than white athletes. Being white, I could get offended by that, but the thing is that he's probably right. Better genes for that sort of thing, no doubt.
As soon as people start downloading from me, my incoming connection grinds to a halt.
This is a good point, especially with highly asymmetric systems like cable connections (asymmetry can be as high as 1:40 on these beauties). Some of the uplink capacity is needed for TCP protocol acknowledgement packets. If the uplink becomes congested, the downlink clogs down as well.
Isn't there any way to make P2P software play nice with the connection and only use the unused outgoing bandwidth?
It's possible but it requires support from the OS. A quality-of-service implementation like DiffServ can help solve the problem. Packets belonging the P2P traffic could be assigned to the lowest service class so that precendence is always given to other traffic.
Hey, we can clear your land mines with our cool laser technology for only $200,000,000.
Hate to disappoint you, but this is probably designed for not having to get out of the armored vehicle and do it the hard way in battlefield conditions. There are more efficient ways for clearing land mines in peace time conditions.
A lot of the posters seem to be missing the point here. Of course it would be easy to recompile remove the adds. That is not the point. The question is, would people be willing to put up with the adds voluntarily to support a cool opensource project? This is a good question especially to those, who feel they should contribute somehow but do not have the necessary computer skills. (Slashdot may be the wrong audience to ask this question, though.)
It wasn't intended as such, as you surely realize. These things do happen, however.
Second, you have no evidence that violent crime rates are higher because of the legality of concealed carry.
The evidence, as you say, is inconclusive either way. Common sense, however, dictates that the more people carry guns around on their person, the more likely it is that guns are used in altercations. If you can't prove conclusively that concealed carry improves overall safety, the default assumption should be that it doesn't.
The psychological effect is even more difficult to quantify. From a small child I have been taught to respect human life, and that pointing a gun towards a human being is wrong. No exceptions. Concealed carry, however, brings with it the mindset that, in certain circumstances, it is ok to point a gun at another person and pull the trigger. These guns are owned for that and only that purpose.
The issue is no longer absolute, but many different shades of gray. What, then, do you tell your child, when he/she asks why you have a gun under the seat? Will you teach him/her to use it when, inevitably, the question comes up?
If you ask me, the high violent crime rate in the United States is due to completely different factors, such as poverty, racial segregation, poor education, or maybe even the hormones in our food.
Undoubtedly true, but somewhat beside the point. Surely the availability of guns in general is also a factor in lethal crime rate.
I have noticed that as well. Sarcasm also appears to be difficult to grasp. And never try black humour.;-> [Attention moderators: the term black humour does not refer to racial issues]
Grass? Sun? Wind? We're talking about Unisys making a profit here!
Certainly. They sells their expertese to whoever is willing to pay for it.
What I have noticed, however, is that in many companies the number of people who really do get opensource has been increasing rapidly. The university nerds who grew up with Linux projects have real jobs now. In some case the management hasn't woken up to it yet. I think we're going to see some interesting developments in the future.
the reason why I own and carry a concealed weapon is because, if it comes to a matter of life or death, them or me, I want overwhelming force on my side.
Besides, it's handy to have along if you lose your job/girlfriend/motorcycle, go bonkers, and decide to shoot 20 people at an airport.
No offense, but a lot of people carrying guns for "personal protection" just means that there are a lot of guns on the street, bought and carried for the sole purpose of shooting people (only under extreme duress, of course, or heat stroke).
Point of fact: in my country the ratio of weapons to population is 3 to 5. Death by shooting is extremely rate. Why? Because people are not allowed carry guns in public. Most of the killings that do happen, happen at home. By ordinary people who own a gun for sports or hunting.
256 pennies would be 100 hex cents, not 100 hex dollars.
Not quite. 256 *anything* equals $100. Several symbolic assemblers represent hexadecimals with a $ prefix. This has nothing to do with money. Claiming that the number is in fact a fixed point decimal representation is just semantics, not visible in the assembly code.
So what you're saying is that Europeans are ignorant of American culinary practices.
No, that's what you're saying. I was saying Americans aren't famous for them in Europe. Whether that is because Europeans don't travel to US or because they just don't like the food, you tell me.
I mentioned McDonalds, because usually you only get nice dinner restaurants on these tourist guides (this was in Rome, by the way). Apparently, for authentic US cuisine (whatever that is), McDonalds was probably the only thing they could find in Rome.
That said, they have, IMO, worse food than American astronauts.
Well, in Europe, Americans are not exactly famous for their culinary prowess. Did you know that in some European tourist guides McDonalds restaurants are somewhat humorously listed under ethnic category?
Im my city some of the best and most expensive restaurants are Russian (no, I don't live in Russia).
I dont think that word means what you think it means....
tripe
1: lining of the stomach of a ruminant (especially a bovine)
used as food
2: nonsensical talk or writing [syn: folderol, rubbish, trumpery,
trash, wish-wash, applesauce, codswallop]
Somehow I doubt he meant the inside of a stomach...
Slashdot Mirror
802.11, 11b and 11g are 2.4 GHz. 11a is 5 GHz.
Why was so much of this space taken up with questioning underage sex?
Well, duh...
We'll forward 10 of the highest-moderated questions to Piers tomorrow, and will run his answers (verbatim, as always) as soon as he gets them back to us.
This is how it works, remember? Barring foul play by the editors, these questions are a democratic representation of what troubles the mind of an average slashdotter.
If I wanted something that is easy to use I would buy a banana.
If I wanted to make Linux accessible to monkeys I would shape it like a stick and place it under a banana tree.
Seriously, though, a nice user interface never hurt anybody. Just let us geeks keep our command line and we'll be happy.
Everyone loves pointing out that anyone can get their hands on the tools necessary to modify open-source software, but they tend to conveniently ignore the fact that not everyone has the programming skills necessary to do so.
If I had to name one major downside to open source software, it would be that it has taught people to expect, nay demand, something for nothing. In the olden days you used to shut up, put up, and pay up.
Now factor in that you'd want a programmer good enough to be trusted with mucking around with the kernel for Very Important Systems -- systems important enough, at least, that you aren't willing to even take the next big jump in kernel versions.
Here's me still running Linux 0.13 on my beer cooler. I don't let anybody near it, *especially* Finnish kernel hackers.
Earlier, Babakin Space Center spokeswoman Lidia Avdeyeva confirmed the landing, but efforts to locate the vehicle so far have failed to bear fruit.
And now somebody is sporting the coolest inflatable mattress ever! Keep an eye out for it next time you go to the beach.
So they plan to put a signature checker into windows installer and push for crypto acceleration as part of standards PC chipsets. Big deal.
I'm about as sceptical of Microsoft as the next slashdotter, but these conspiracy hysterics are getting ridiculous.
I'm all for having crypto acceleration in PC chipsets. That can only mean better security for the individual (until they discover the inevitable NSA backdoor, anyway).
As for Windows refusing to install unsigned software, fat chance. If they really do that, we can expect a lot more users and former Windows software developers in the Linux/BSD camp very shortly.
*THUDDUD*
Oooh, verdamnt, not once more! Back to ze dravink board es ist. Igor, clear out ze body and vasche ze beakerz! Schnell! Ich must vork on the formula some more! Hunh...
I recall a user we had on our network who thought it'd be cute to install BlackIce on his box, to better secure it. Nevermind the fact that I, and the rest of the admins at my company, had firewalls in place and had never had an intrusion on our network.
;-)
I hate to tell you this but, at this day and age when everything is being outsourced, some users feel they need to protect their machines against the "IT support".
Oh I'm not disputing that at all. Cultural backgound and environment play a huge part. Genetics is a factor as well. Admittedly, all things being connected, environment is a key factor in culling the gene pool.
This is what's wrong with us today. Assuming things about people based on their race or their appearance.
Oh come off your high horse! That's how the human mind works. We try to perceive generalities and rules and we apply those to individuals we meet. We make assumptions about *everybody* we come across. Assumptions are based on probabilities. The thing is to recognize those assumptions for what they are and not hold them as absolute truth. None of us are stereotypes.
The poster was making a point that black athletes are, in general, more accomplished than white athletes. Being white, I could get offended by that, but the thing is that he's probably right. Better genes for that sort of thing, no doubt.
As soon as people start downloading from me, my incoming connection grinds to a halt.
This is a good point, especially with highly asymmetric systems like cable connections (asymmetry can be as high as 1:40 on these beauties). Some of the uplink capacity is needed for TCP protocol acknowledgement packets. If the uplink becomes congested, the downlink clogs down as well.
Isn't there any way to make P2P software play nice with the connection and only use the unused outgoing bandwidth?
It's possible but it requires support from the OS. A quality-of-service implementation like DiffServ can help solve the problem. Packets belonging the P2P traffic could be assigned to the lowest service class so that precendence is always given to other traffic.
Hey, we can clear your land mines with our cool laser technology for only $200,000,000.
Hate to disappoint you, but this is probably designed for not having to get out of the armored vehicle and do it the hard way in battlefield conditions. There are more efficient ways for clearing land mines in peace time conditions.
A lot of the posters seem to be missing the point here. Of course it would be easy to recompile remove the adds. That is not the point. The question is, would people be willing to put up with the adds voluntarily to support a cool opensource project? This is a good question especially to those, who feel they should contribute somehow but do not have the necessary computer skills. (Slashdot may be the wrong audience to ask this question, though.)
How does the taxing compare to Switzerland or Monaco?
First of all, I resent the characterization.
It wasn't intended as such, as you surely realize. These things do happen, however.
Second, you have no evidence that violent crime rates are higher because of the legality of concealed carry.
The evidence, as you say, is inconclusive either way. Common sense, however, dictates that the more people carry guns around on their person, the more likely it is that guns are used in altercations. If you can't prove conclusively that concealed carry improves overall safety, the default assumption should be that it doesn't.
The psychological effect is even more difficult to quantify. From a small child I have been taught to respect human life, and that pointing a gun towards a human being is wrong. No exceptions. Concealed carry, however, brings with it the mindset that, in certain circumstances, it is ok to point a gun at another person and pull the trigger. These guns are owned for that and only that purpose.
The issue is no longer absolute, but many different shades of gray. What, then, do you tell your child, when he/she asks why you have a gun under the seat? Will you teach him/her to use it when, inevitably, the question comes up?
If you ask me, the high violent crime rate in the United States is due to completely different factors, such as poverty, racial segregation, poor education, or maybe even the hormones in our food.
Undoubtedly true, but somewhat beside the point. Surely the availability of guns in general is also a factor in lethal crime rate.
The above is a high availability response if I ever saw one!
Even recently I'm working with a customer who wants a compromise between price and availability - but it still needs five nine's
;-)
$999.99
Problem solved.
oderators are obviously metaphor challenged :)
;-> [Attention moderators: the term black humour does not refer to racial issues]
I have noticed that as well. Sarcasm also appears to be difficult to grasp. And never try black humour.
Grass? Sun? Wind? We're talking about Unisys making a profit here!
Certainly. They sells their expertese to whoever is willing to pay for it.
What I have noticed, however, is that in many companies the number of people who really do get opensource has been increasing rapidly. The university nerds who grew up with Linux projects have real jobs now. In some case the management hasn't woken up to it yet. I think we're going to see some interesting developments in the future.
the reason why I own and carry a concealed weapon is because, if it comes to a matter of life or death, them or me, I want overwhelming force on my side.
Besides, it's handy to have along if you lose your job/girlfriend/motorcycle, go bonkers, and decide to shoot 20 people at an airport.
No offense, but a lot of people carrying guns for "personal protection" just means that there are a lot of guns on the street, bought and carried for the sole purpose of shooting people (only under extreme duress, of course, or heat stroke).
Point of fact: in my country the ratio of weapons to population is 3 to 5. Death by shooting is extremely rate. Why? Because people are not allowed carry guns in public. Most of the killings that do happen, happen at home. By ordinary people who own a gun for sports or hunting.
Think about it.
Grass grows towards the sun no matter which way the wind blows on top of it.
256 pennies would be 100 hex cents, not 100 hex dollars.
;-)
Not quite. 256 *anything* equals $100. Several symbolic assemblers represent hexadecimals with a $ prefix. This has nothing to do with money. Claiming that the number is in fact a fixed point decimal representation is just semantics, not visible in the assembly code.
Just to make it completely clear.
256 equals $100. We're being shafted.
So what you're saying is that Europeans are ignorant of American culinary practices.
No, that's what you're saying. I was saying Americans aren't famous for them in Europe. Whether that is because Europeans don't travel to US or because they just don't like the food, you tell me.
I mentioned McDonalds, because usually you only get nice dinner restaurants on these tourist guides (this was in Rome, by the way). Apparently, for authentic US cuisine (whatever that is), McDonalds was probably the only thing they could find in Rome.
That said, they have, IMO, worse food than American astronauts.
Well, in Europe, Americans are not exactly famous for their culinary prowess. Did you know that in some European tourist guides McDonalds restaurants are somewhat humorously listed under ethnic category?
Im my city some of the best and most expensive restaurants are Russian (no, I don't live in Russia).
I dont think that word means what you think it means....
tripe
1: lining of the stomach of a ruminant (especially a bovine)
used as food
2: nonsensical talk or writing [syn: folderol, rubbish, trumpery,
trash, wish-wash, applesauce, codswallop]
Somehow I doubt he meant the inside of a stomach...