...but only as part of a complete hardware/software package that is marketed to the home user.
I personally think this is an opportunity that screams for a PC manufacturer to pursue.
Make a top quality PC, one that anyone would be proud to own. Make a Linux distribution that is self-branded and custom tailored to this PC. It should come pre-installed, but if it needed to be re-installed, it should consist of nothing more than sticking the CD in and maybe pressing Enter a couple times.
Said distro should contain nearly every piece of useful or fun Open Source software, and maybe some non-Free stuff like Loki games (I bet they could get a cheap bulk license). It certainly should include Flash, Realplayer,and Java if at all possible. (No flames needed; that's just the reality of what end users expect.)
A set of manuals should come with it -- a manual for getting started, using the office suite software, connecting to the Internet, etc. I think it should also include documentation for graphics apps like Gimp, sodipodi, and even Blender -- all in paper book form with pretty pictures. Another book to introduce "power user" concepts like simple programming (probably in Python) and databases would be a nice touch. Show them how to set up a database and connect it to OpenOffice (which of course should be made easier than it normally would be).
Sell it at a price where they could make a couple hundred bucks per unit, market the crap out of it to home users, and I think they'd do well.
Ok that's cool, but I don't think the two behaviors are mutually exclusive.
When the middle button is pressed, Firebird could check to see if there is selected text, and if so, if it looks like a URL. If it does, it should open it. If not, it should activate scroll mode.
> I'm still patiently waiting for some mid-mouse AutoScroll, Opera and Firebird seem to be able to deal with this as meaning "paste" when on a textarea
If you didn't know it, that's standard X behavior. Clicking the middle mouse button in any text entry area will paste the last thing you highlighted with the mouse.
As far as Firebird goes, I like the middle button auto scrolling, but I'd kind of like to have the Mozilla Seamonkey behavior where you can highlight a URL that is not an HTMl link and middle click it to go there. I haven't found a way to do that in Moz Firebird.
My goodness! Parent post is about the most blatant flamebait/troll I've ever seen on Slashdot, yet it's a 5???
Look at this stuff:
> The problem is that its core democratic of poor middle aged southern white racist men do not have much in the way of buying power.
Good grief!
Certainly, Fox is to the right of CNN, NY Times, et al. But they are obviously left of center, so how is that bad? Even if Fox really was biased toward Republicans, is that so bad, since most of the other media is biased toward Democrats?
Also it should be noted that Fox, along with the Congressional Black Caucus, hosted two of the Democratic candidate debates. Some other media, when referencing the debate, made reference to the CBC but not Fox.
Hannity & Colmes has a conservative and a liberal host. I find it quite a bit more refreshing than most other news talk programs. Colmes is a blatant liberal, yet he has as much voice as Hannity.
Bill O'Reilly tends to be more conservative than not, but he's not exactly a Republican hack either. He calls it like he sees it, and sometimes bashes Republicans.
Displays perfectly, user can copy and paste, but slightly harder for spambots.
micah@yoderdev.com
There was a Slashdot story about someone's research on this topic a while ago, and they found that entities do decrease the amount of spam significantly.
Of course, the $#@%$# spammers probably figured that out by now.:(
Pulled it out of my arse. It's estimated, but real. A company that doesn't have to spend $$$ on R&D will be able to sell for less.
> If RSA patent is valid then why are you happy that it expired?
Because they had 17(?) years to capitalize on monopolizing it. That's enough, and IMHO too long. Seems like patent time should be 10 years MAX, especially in fast moving industries like I.T.
That doesn't quite cut it. If you're first to market, and someone else can offer the same service for 25% cheaper in two months, in a capitalistic society people will buy from the latter.
Face it, patents are valid on some things. But they should be limited to things that really DO take a lot of research to invent. And yeah, that even could potentially include software stuff. Much as it sucked, RSA was probably a valid patent. Thank goodness it's expired though.:)
Hmm, cool, that's actually a good idea that we could perhaps try before moving to IM2000. But IM2000 still has a potentially significant advantage: it would allow blocking messages based on *individual users*, not just domains. Obviously for Joe Sixpack's domain (on which he has root) that won't matter, but for a large ISP it could be a huge advantage. If one bozo on AOL or Earthlink is sending out crap, he could be individually blacklisted by the community, or the ISP could delete his outgoing mail before some of it is retreived.
> You can't download all your messages, and read them later (well, you can, but that would defeat the single advantage of it).
Of course you'll download your messages, and it won't defeat anything.
The way I see it working, when you click "Check Mail," your mail client will fetch all the tokens from your ISP's mail server. It will then fetch all the messages in a multithreaded way.
That wouldn't defeat the purpose, because if someone sends a large block of spam, the server would likely already be blacklisted by the time you clicked "Check Mail" and the spam would never be downloaded.
> You can no longer archive your messages. It becomes a serious hassle to send e-mail to anybody. You can no longer batch-process messages (a serious disadvantage for those with lots of traffic)
I have no clue where you got that idea. Messages would still be saved locally. Sending e-mail will be as simple as clicking "Send email." Your MUA will automatically stick it in your ISP's out-box. Batch-processing would work the same way. In fact check the link, it has MANY advantages for listservs. Other legitimate mass mail should work fine, as long as it doesn't get tagged as spam by too many people. Personally, I think there should be a separate priority level, stored in the token that sent for message notification. That way, bulk email from web sites and stuff can be downloaded last.
> your IP address will be instantly exposed to whomever sends you messages.
Well, that could be proxied if it's a problem. I doubt most people will care.
> Worst of all, the speed with which you can go from message to message, depends on the sender's bandwidth, meaning that e-mail from your friend in Barbados is going to take forever to load, etc.
You're assuming the messages will be loaded when you click on the header in your MUA. I believe they should all be loaded at once when you click "Check Mail."
> With all the disadvantages, and only one, small, potential advantage, it is never going to gain popularity, and for good reason.
No serious disadvantages. And the advantages go quite a ways beyond less spam. Especially for listservs.
> IM2000 is a whitepaper, not software. Maybe if DJB ever gets around to coding it, people might consider switching to it, otherwise it's a waste of time to even talk about it.
Which is exactly why I was asking if someone knew of any actual code...
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. We need to dump SMTP and switch to something like Internet Mail 2000. The sooner we do it, the better. Some people here have voiced concerns, but I'm convinced that this proposal is well thought out and will work. Any inconvenience (which would be minor, and only for a small fraction of users) would be trumped by its benefits, by a wide margin.
Anyone know if anyone is actually coding up a sample server and client for IM2000? A google search for "internet mail 2000" comes up with some proposals that go beyond Bernstein's site, but I haven't seen any evidence of code yet. It really shouldn't be that complicated and, yeah, I'd be willing to help!
They discriminate against religion, mainly. They'll refuse to defend a religious person whose rights are being violated, but they'll stand up for the rights of criminals when it suits their agenda.
I'm all for protecting the Bill of Rights, but let's do it in a fair way.
That is of course silly. Sample size doesn't have much to do with scientific poll accuracy. In an open internet poll, you can easily get hordes of "voters" who want to express their opinion, and their opinion is usually fairly homogenious compared to the population as a whole. Zogby and other pollsters CHOOSE the people to ask.
It's neat to flash back to the early history of KDE.
Back in early 1998, I was setting up a Linux system with a custom program I wrote to help my church manage ticket sales. It ran a KDE 1.0 beta. The hardware? 486/100 with 16MB RAM. For the most part it ran fine!
One has to wonder why it takes longer now to do anything in KDE 3.1 on a 64MB machine than it did under KDE 1.0 on a 16MB 486.
Slashdot Mirror
...but only as part of a complete hardware/software package that is marketed to the home user.
I personally think this is an opportunity that screams for a PC manufacturer to pursue.
Make a top quality PC, one that anyone would be proud to own. Make a Linux distribution that is self-branded and custom tailored to this PC. It should come pre-installed, but if it needed to be re-installed, it should consist of nothing more than sticking the CD in and maybe pressing Enter a couple times.
Said distro should contain nearly every piece of useful or fun Open Source software, and maybe some non-Free stuff like Loki games (I bet they could get a cheap bulk license). It certainly should include Flash, Realplayer,and Java if at all possible. (No flames needed; that's just the reality of what end users expect.)
A set of manuals should come with it -- a manual for getting started, using the office suite software, connecting to the Internet, etc. I think it should also include documentation for graphics apps like Gimp, sodipodi, and even Blender -- all in paper book form with pretty pictures. Another book to introduce "power user" concepts like simple programming (probably in Python) and databases would be a nice touch. Show them how to set up a database and connect it to OpenOffice (which of course should be made easier than it normally would be).
Sell it at a price where they could make a couple hundred bucks per unit, market the crap out of it to home users, and I think they'd do well.
Ok that's cool, but I don't think the two behaviors are mutually exclusive.
When the middle button is pressed, Firebird could check to see if there is selected text, and if so, if it looks like a URL. If it does, it should open it. If not, it should activate scroll mode.
> Only make sure you have several hours free. The "wait for the kernel to compile" stage is a real bugger.
:)
Huh? Waiting for the kernel to compile is nothing compared to waiting for gcc+glibc to compile. Or XFree. Or Mozilla. Or (gulp) KDE or OpenOffice!
Still, I agree that Gentoo is well worth it.
I recommend bootstrapping Gentoo from Red Hat or Knoppix. Then you can at least surf the net and play games while you compile the basic stuff.
> I'm still patiently waiting for some mid-mouse AutoScroll, Opera and Firebird seem to be able to deal with this as meaning "paste" when on a textarea
If you didn't know it, that's standard X behavior. Clicking the middle mouse button in any text entry area will paste the last thing you highlighted with the mouse.
As far as Firebird goes, I like the middle button auto scrolling, but I'd kind of like to have the Mozilla Seamonkey behavior where you can highlight a URL that is not an HTMl link and middle click it to go there. I haven't found a way to do that in Moz Firebird.
Netscape 4.x, IIRC, also had roaming profiles. That was released in, what, 1998?
STUPID USPTO
> Fox is left of center?
Ooops, sorry, I meant to say that CNN, NYT, etc are left of center. I should use "they" more carefully.
> Alan Colmes is there for comic relief and to be Sean Hannity's punching bag, and the show does not even try to allude otherwise.
That might be stretching it a bit....
Part of that is due to the media. Any prime time cable TV show that wants ratings needs to not get too intellectually deep into things, unfortunately.
My goodness! Parent post is about the most blatant flamebait/troll I've ever seen on Slashdot, yet it's a 5???
Look at this stuff:
> The problem is that its core democratic of poor middle aged southern white racist men do not have much in the way of buying power.
Good grief!
Certainly, Fox is to the right of CNN, NY Times, et al. But they are obviously left of center, so how is that bad? Even if Fox really was biased toward Republicans, is that so bad, since most of the other media is biased toward Democrats?
Also it should be noted that Fox, along with the Congressional Black Caucus, hosted two of the Democratic candidate debates. Some other media, when referencing the debate, made reference to the CBC but not Fox.
Hannity & Colmes has a conservative and a liberal host. I find it quite a bit more refreshing than most other news talk programs. Colmes is a blatant liberal, yet he has as much voice as Hannity.
Bill O'Reilly tends to be more conservative than not, but he's not exactly a Republican hack either. He calls it like he sees it, and sometimes bashes Republicans.
There's still plenty of freedom of choice within Open Source.
You can choose between Fedora, Debian, Gentoo, or Mandrake.
You can choose between KDE or Gnome.
You can choose between OpenOffice or AbiWord/Gnumeric or KOffice
You can choose between Sendmail or Postfix
You can choose between Linux or BSD or (eventually maybe) something like AtheOS.
Part of nature??? Most of them were apparently caused by an arsonist!
Outside the country, MS gives no discounts. And it's there where discounts are likely needed the most.
Displays perfectly, user can copy and paste, but slightly harder for spambots.
:(
micah@yoderdev.com
There was a Slashdot story about someone's research on this topic a while ago, and they found that entities do decrease the amount of spam significantly.
Of course, the $#@%$# spammers probably figured that out by now.
> emerge redhat-sources
But I think that's just the stock RH9 kernel. The Enterprise kernels have more high end features patched in and are tested even more thoroughly.
Yes, it should certainly be possible to make an ebuild for it though.
> What would you say is a good time period for say biology or medicine?
I dunno, that's really up for debate. But I think we SHOULD have that debate as a society. It would be worthwhile to re-think this stuff.
Seems like 10 years is a pretty good number for just about anything.
> I don't know where you get the 25% figure from.
Pulled it out of my arse. It's estimated, but real. A company that doesn't have to spend $$$ on R&D will be able to sell for less.
> If RSA patent is valid then why are you happy that it expired?
Because they had 17(?) years to capitalize on monopolizing it. That's enough, and IMHO too long. Seems like patent time should be 10 years MAX, especially in fast moving industries like I.T.
That doesn't quite cut it. If you're first to market, and someone else can offer the same service for 25% cheaper in two months, in a capitalistic society people will buy from the latter.
:)
Face it, patents are valid on some things. But they should be limited to things that really DO take a lot of research to invent. And yeah, that even could potentially include software stuff. Much as it sucked, RSA was probably a valid patent. Thank goodness it's expired though.
Hmm, cool, that's actually a good idea that we could perhaps try before moving to IM2000. But IM2000 still has a potentially significant advantage: it would allow blocking messages based on *individual users*, not just domains. Obviously for Joe Sixpack's domain (on which he has root) that won't matter, but for a large ISP it could be a huge advantage. If one bozo on AOL or Earthlink is sending out crap, he could be individually blacklisted by the community, or the ISP could delete his outgoing mail before some of it is retreived.
No way.
> You can't download all your messages, and read them later (well, you can, but that would defeat the single advantage of it).
Of course you'll download your messages, and it won't defeat anything.
The way I see it working, when you click "Check Mail," your mail client will fetch all the tokens from your ISP's mail server. It will then fetch all the messages in a multithreaded way.
That wouldn't defeat the purpose, because if someone sends a large block of spam, the server would likely already be blacklisted by the time you clicked "Check Mail" and the spam would never be downloaded.
> You can no longer archive your messages. It becomes a serious hassle to send e-mail to anybody. You can no longer batch-process messages (a serious disadvantage for those with lots of traffic)
I have no clue where you got that idea. Messages would still be saved locally. Sending e-mail will be as simple as clicking "Send email." Your MUA will automatically stick it in your ISP's out-box. Batch-processing would work the same way. In fact check the link, it has MANY advantages for listservs. Other legitimate mass mail should work fine, as long as it doesn't get tagged as spam by too many people. Personally, I think there should be a separate priority level, stored in the token that sent for message notification. That way, bulk email from web sites and stuff can be downloaded last.
> your IP address will be instantly exposed to whomever sends you messages.
Well, that could be proxied if it's a problem. I doubt most people will care.
> Worst of all, the speed with which you can go from message to message, depends on the sender's bandwidth, meaning that e-mail from your friend in Barbados is going to take forever to load, etc.
You're assuming the messages will be loaded when you click on the header in your MUA. I believe they should all be loaded at once when you click "Check Mail."
> With all the disadvantages, and only one, small, potential advantage, it is never going to gain popularity, and for good reason.
No serious disadvantages. And the advantages go quite a ways beyond less spam. Especially for listservs.
> IM2000 is a whitepaper, not software. Maybe if DJB ever gets around to coding it, people might consider switching to it, otherwise it's a waste of time to even talk about it.
...
Which is exactly why I was asking if someone knew of any actual code
I usually use Domain Maniac. $15/year -- not the cheapest, but the admin tools are easy.
Of course, I used to work for them...
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. We need to dump SMTP and switch to something like Internet Mail 2000. The sooner we do it, the better. Some people here have voiced concerns, but I'm convinced that this proposal is well thought out and will work. Any inconvenience (which would be minor, and only for a small fraction of users) would be trumped by its benefits, by a wide margin.
Anyone know if anyone is actually coding up a sample server and client for IM2000? A google search for "internet mail 2000" comes up with some proposals that go beyond Bernstein's site, but I haven't seen any evidence of code yet. It really shouldn't be that complicated and, yeah, I'd be willing to help!
> What problem do you have with them?
They discriminate against religion, mainly. They'll refuse to defend a religious person whose rights are being violated, but they'll stand up for the rights of criminals when it suits their agenda.
I'm all for protecting the Bill of Rights, but let's do it in a fair way.
Of course, the ACLU is just under the Democrats, well above both Republicans and Fox News. The ACLU is solidly liberal.
One might wonder why Fox News is listed by CNN isn't. Oh well, they have NY Times, which is probably more weasely than CNN.
That is of course silly. Sample size doesn't have much to do with scientific poll accuracy. In an open internet poll, you can easily get hordes of "voters" who want to express their opinion, and their opinion is usually fairly homogenious compared to the population as a whole. Zogby and other pollsters CHOOSE the people to ask.
It's neat to flash back to the early history of KDE.
Back in early 1998, I was setting up a Linux system with a custom program I wrote to help my church manage ticket sales. It ran a KDE 1.0 beta. The hardware? 486/100 with 16MB RAM. For the most part it ran fine!
One has to wonder why it takes longer now to do anything in KDE 3.1 on a 64MB machine than it did under KDE 1.0 on a 16MB 486.