"Ordinary" citizen, that cruises around town following cell towers with a microwave receiver tuning into and recording signals from a specific network user and shooting the results directly to Connelly's people.
Here is part of an interview with couple who taped the call; take it for what it's worth. I got it here: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/congress/january97/ cellular_1-14.html
Sounds pretty ordinary to me.
ALICE MARTIN: We're just scared.
JOHN MARTIN: We're just scared.
ALICE MARTIN: We really are.
KWAME HOLMAN: There they were on December 21st, they said, driving from their home in Fort White, Florida, to do some Christmas shopping in nearby Lake City. They were listening to a police scanner John Martin had gotten for his birthday. Also, there was a small cassette tape recorder in the car.
JOHN MARTIN: We kind of record stupid jingles and stuff off the TV set--off the TV and off the radio in the car and--
KWAME HOLMAN: At the same time the Martins were on the road so was Congressman John Boehner, a top member of the House Republican leadership. He was driving through the Lake City area, the last leg of a trip from his home in Ohio, to Marco Island off of Florida's West Coast. But then Boehner pulled off the road and picked up his car phone to join a conference call.
ALICE MARTIN: I was excited. I mean, I was so excited to think that I actually heard a real politician's voice.
KWAME HOLMAN: The Martins picked up the call on the police scanner and after a few minutes began recording it.
JOHN MARTIN: We thought it was just a part of history really. I mean--
KWAME HOLMAN: Among those participating in the conference call with Boehner were Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey, Republican Whip Tom Delay, New York Congressman Bill Paxon, and House Speaker Newt Gingrich, discussing possible responses to Ethics Committee charges against Gingrich to be disclosed later that day.
ALICE MARTIN: We're going to have a grandson at the end of January, and we were thinking how neat it would be to play this tape for him and him hear the voices of people that we thought were important. That's really all it was going to be is a little tape we put aside and when he was old enough to hear it, he could hear it.
KWAME HOLMAN: Included on the tape reportedly is this conversation: Congressman Paxon: "If we have several hours or a day go by when our members are out there without a response, it will be a disaster. That's right." Congressman Armey: "Right." Paxon: "When will we see your statement, Newt?". Speaker Gingrich: "My guess is--and I think they are running about 15 minutes late--my guess is we will have our statement out before noon." The Martins, long-time Democrats, gave the tape to Florida Congresswoman Karen Thurman, who later gave it back to the Martins and recommended they give it to Congressman Jim McDermott, the ranking Democrat on the Ethics Committee investigating Gingrich. In Washington last Wednesday the Martins waited for McDermott outside the Ethics Committee room in the capitol.
Oh fooey! The cell call was intercepted in D.C. not Florida. Ever try to get the cell tower just a quarter mile away? And you don't just stumble across the cell phone band on your Sony. In fact you can't legally buy a reciever that tunes the 850 Mhz band in the U.S.
Are you just trolling, or are you unable to comprehend written words?
The cell phone call was intercepted in north Florida, according to this web page: http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/01/10/g ingrich.ethics/index.shtml
As I recall, it was a conference call in which one of the members of the call was talking on a cell phone in Florida. I could probably find a link for you but you seem to need some practice using Google.
As far as monitoring cell phone calls, it has only relatively recently become illegal to sell scanners that can pick up the cellular bands. Many people still have scanners much older than that law. In addition, try a google for "Scanner mods" and see what you can see. Other people buy their scanners in countries which allow you to monitor all transmissions which pass through your body, not just the ones the government wants you to hear. Finally, RF scanners are not exactly rocket science; home hobbyists could easily construct a scanner which could pick up cell transmissions.
But you fail to address the issue. Here we have the Dems making hay by publicizing a private conversation. What happened? Nothing.
Let's go over this again, slowly. The link I posted earlier takes you to a page which states that the people who taped the conversation were fined $500 for violating the law. The Congresscritter who leaked the tape had to step down from the Ethics committee. What happened? Something.
The point of that article was that not much really happened as a consequence of the leak. You wanna know why? Because the tape itself was EMBARASSING for the Republicans and they probably didn't WANT to make a big issue of it.
Dems and the media just had a big laugh about what a fun little caper it was.
The 'Dems' were not caught spying on cell phone call. The call was intercepted by a couple in Florida who paid a $500 fine.
The tape was, in fact, leaked to the media by a democratic congressperson, according to this article (which is not friendly to the congressperson): http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/co nnelly/70397_joel1 5.shtml
It is disingenuous, at best, to call what happened an example of "spying" on phone calls by Democrats. An elected official received the tape from ordinary citizens; no goverment employees or party apparatchiks involved in the interception of the call.
I would also like to see some evidence to support your contentions about "big laughs" and "fun little caper".
I don't think that it's treason, but it's damn near.
I think you misunderstand both Watergate and treason.
The original Watergate crime was part of a much larger pattern. Besides that, it wasn't the breakin which caused Nixon to quit rather than be impeached and convicted. Obstruction of justice during the cover-up was the "High Crime".
Treason is defined very precisely in the Constitution. It has nothing whatsoever to do with this investigation. Not close by any stretch of the imagination.
Famine is generally not a food problem so much as a problem of powerlessness and poverty. See North Korea, for example a few years ago. For example look into North Korea a few years ago; their parnaoid dictatorship bascially prevented any real aid from entering the coutnry and tried to hide the extent of the problem. Google is your friend if you want a link.
I believe Amartya Sen won a Nobel Prize in economics for research showing that democracy and empowermednt of the populace may prevent famine.
Don't get me wrong, heterogeneous computing is a wonderful thing, but I'd also hate to see governments, corporations, or anyone else making decisions based on computing philosophy instead of technical need and justification..
If you are the Chinese government, or any other government who may one day end up on the wrong end of a war with us, avoiding US computing domination may be enough of a reason.
Imagine if they become hopelessly locked into MS products then the US government decided to stop allowing the export of products to China.
Most of the disadvantages of Linux based computing are the chicken and egg problems of no apps because there is no market for apps, and there is no market for apps because there are no apps.
China just laid a big golden egg which could make the difference. And in this case, Microsoft has built their own cage. They forgot that the market for computers is still in it's INFANCY, and have been so arrogant in the treament of their installed base that they have managed to put Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt into the minds of the governments of the world.
Microsoft has shown plainly to the world why they should not trust Microsoft, with BILLIONS of new users still to come online in the next two decades.
You're right, of course. I should have been more specific in my previous post.
For some reason, whenever Michael Robertson does something with Linux/Lindows/whatever there are posts like the one I was replying to that say he is not going to supply source or that he has some nefarious scheme to become the next Bill Gates by using Linux or some other GPL software so it seems that every time there is a Lindows story on Slashdot, I have to remind someone that GPL still applies.
The BOFH's who populate Slashdot for some reason think that Michael Robertson's attempts to make a grandma-friendly distro and then market it to ordinary humans rather than uber-geeks is an affront to common decency.
I think he's on the right track, and should be getting some props around here for his efforts. LindowsOS is aggressively pursuing the home desktop market; no other distro is even trying.
I would predict that this will not exactly be "free to download." Perhaps free to download with your subscription to Lindows.
You have heard of the GPL haven't you?
Actually this is Mozilla Public License, but still basically the same as GPL for most purposes.
I like the bottom of the Lindows page:
Copyright (C) 2003 Lindows.com, Inc. All rights reserved. Lindows.com is not endorsed by or affiliated with Microsoft Corporation in any way - in fact, we don't even really like them because they are suing us.
I generally agree with what you say, but I think the point I was trying (poorly) to make is that there are two separate issues here:
1. Clueless users. 2. Insecure technology.
Put the two together and you have problems. The supply of clueless users is endless and growing. In a few years there will be BILLIONS of new internet users around the planet.
Technology companies will continue to make the same tradeoffs they have been making-- if it's insecure it's easier to support.
WLAN is just one more example of insecure technology which will be Out There because it is easier to install and support if the default settings are wide open.
I just don't think this is that big of a deal when you look at all the other problems caused by rampant cluelessness-- spyware, adware, malware, fwd-ware, whateverware.
If I had one hour of every users' time I would spend it educating them about the social engineering they will be subjected to on the internet rather than the technical details of securing their WLAN.
Too many apps to mention. You need to think this through.
it's these same home users that will probably not take the time and effort to learn how to secure their network.
Sometimes the paranoia around here is so thick you can smell it.
Most of the people you are concerned about probably were hooked up direct to cable internet on a win98 box before they went wireless. Is it really that much worse to have an unsecured or poorly secured WLAN?
you can't have the decency to either pay them for their hard work, or wait two weeks to freeload.
I agree that it is a good idea to join the club or otherwise reward Mandrake financially for their fine efforts, but that doesn't mean it is impolite to set up or use a torrent. If you want to call it freeloading remember that Mandrake would not exist if they were not "freeloading" themselves.
I want Mandrake to succeed, but I think the best thing I can personally do to help them succeed is to use and help promote their software. Freeload yourself a couple iso's and then help your neighbor set up a dual boot box with 'em. I'll betcha Mandrake would be grateful.
Wordpad is utterly crippled. While you are absolutely correct that 80% of users use 20% of the featues of a good wordprocessor, I can't imagine anyone being happy with WordPad. It doesnt' even do double spacing.
Can you imagine the evil laugh in Redmond the day they thought of crippling the double space feature? I've had a couple users who created long documents in wordpad by hitting the return key at the end of every line. Try making major edits or format changes to that document later... bleh... double bleh... bleh bleh bleh.
I have a small stack of cd's with OOo and Moz for Windows on them which I hand out to those poor bastards who live in a world of crippled word processors and popups.
Happy Birthday OOo! 1.1 rocks. Microsoft has to be hearing the drums in the distance now.
On Slashdot you hear about it every time some company installs a couple Linux servers (although recently it's been more like countries, which is nice). I'm waiting to hear about major corporations making the switch to OOo.
ou can get a linux box for $199 at walmart, for christ's sake.
I agree with everything you say, but as an owner of one of those $199 boxes, I am sad to report it did not boot out of the box.
It came loaded with Lycoris; I don't remember now the issue, because it has been a couple months since I bought the machine, but when I took it out of the box all it did was display a Lycoris logo and an error message. Lycoris never responded to my tech suppport request.
I found a solution thanks to Google and was able to get in, but I installed Mandrake over it anyway. I prolly would have done so anyway, but I was saddened by my experience. Most buyers are probably just looking for a cheap second or third box and have the tech chops to fix their own problems, but I was hoping to see an inexpensive Linux box ready for the non tech masses. It wasn't.
But otherwise I'm doing exactly what you describe in your post. I'm learning how it works, mostly by breaking things and fixing things, and if it weren't for a couple of windows-only apps I cannot do without, and some unavailable drivers I would be ready to switch my main machine over. I have it set up for dual boot, but never go to the Linux side.
But I'm no where near ready to recommend anyone who is not a techie to switch their own machine. The best space for growth in Linux desktops right now is in managed machines/terminals in businesses. There are a lot of worker bees out there who would hardly notice if they were switched to OpenOffice.org, Mozilla, and KDE or GNome.
I understand the intent of your post; it just struck me as funny. There is truth in what you say, in fact. Many of the most advanced students are also the most responsible and will fix their own boo-boos.
Unfortunately, you are missing the key ingredient which is communication amongst the youths. If one person knows how to crack the box, then basically the whole student body will know also. Some percentage will not care, some percentage will be afraid to try, some percentage will break then fix their own machine, some percentage will not be able to fix their own machine, and finally some percentage will think it incredibly hilarious to break every machine they can get their hands on (and they will get their hands on a lot of them, somehow).
If you have any time on your hands, I recommend volunteering at your neighborhood middle school or high school technology department. You will get an education, that's for sure.
But just because it is hard to maintain computers for 6th graders doesn't mean we shouldn't try. A lot of the posts about this article say it is futile or stupid to be giving laptops to 6th graders.
I think it is inevitable.
Eventually we will get to a point where an ultra-hardened machine will be affordable for most districts and durable enough for even young students. The back to basics 3R's crowd fear the change represented, but they cannot stop the change. If we have any hope for the future we have to be on the forefront of the digital revolution.
The first country to issue all their schoolchildren internet connected laptops is going to be the world leader of the 21st century. You would think/.'ers would grasp that intuitively. I was surprised at the negative reaction of many in these threads. Oh, well.
I think I didn't make myself clear in my reply above. My intention was to say that I agree that laws are pointless because our laws only cover a small fraction of the world's population.
I also agree with your goal of taking the profit out of spam, but I believe most attempts to stop spam make it more profitable for the individual who succeeds in circumventing the anti-spam system. It's like prohibition or the war on drugs. It leaves the activity in the hands of amoral thugs who will stop at nothing to move the product.
(they'll just send the spam from another country you idiots!).
Why don't people get this? It seems pretty simple to me.
I think most anti-spam efforts cause more harm than good. The reason we get spam is because it is profitable. Antispam measures such as blackholing only raise the bar high enough to keep out the laziest of spammers thus making it more profitable for the most sleazy and organized spammers.
If it were SO EASY to send spam that anyone could do it, it would drive out the serious players and leave only amateurs, who are easily dealt with--Bayesian filters, etc.
All the blood, sweat, and tears that have gone into anti-spam efforts have had NO EFFECT. I still get dozens of spams every week. I just don't have to see them thanks to Bayesian Filtering.
The solution to the spam problem is not more rules and regulations by ISP's and governments. The solution is economic. If professional spamming is not profitable, then there will be no professional spammmers.
If all goes well I think I will be trashing Word soon..
It's a glorious day when you do. I trashed Office a half a year or so ago and haven't missed it once. I look forward to the day when people send.sxw files the way they mindlessly send.doc files.
Has the start-up time been reduced for this release?
It looks like their website is groaning under the load right now, so I can't give you a link, but there is a roadmap up somewhere which says startup time is one of the highest priority goals for version 2.0.
Startup is still quite slow even on speedy hardware, but I don't think it has been one of their highest priorities yet.
It took a geeky Scandanavian grad student with much more moderate views to take that on and do it.
I don't see what Linus' views have to do with anything.
Linus was just in the right place at the right time. Yes, his personality helps a lot because he is independent, fair, insightful, and humorous. But the real reason Linux exists is the GPL, which as I understand it comes from GNU and RMS.
RMS wants GNU to be the star. It's an institution he wants to continue, so he fights for it. But the real star of his philosophy has been the GPL. The widespread adoption of the license far surpasses the significance of his plan for GNU announced 20 years ago.
Most of the petulance of RMS comes, I think, from a misdirected belief that if we don't give credit to GNU for it's contributions to free software, then he has failed. The truth is, he has succeeded in laying the legal foundation and precedent for producing free software.
Second, interesting thing is that the problem is fixed by a *software upgrade* and not something physical.
I believe one of the most significant aspects of the SHT as a technology is that it is basically a robot. There is no mechanical connection between the rider's input and the behavior of the vehicle. A car must turn left when you turn the steering wheel left; there is no such mechanical connection in the SHT, so the behavior of the vehicle is entirely programmable--they could program it to turn left when you turn the wheel to the right or control the accelration, braking and other handling characteristics (up to the physical limits of the hardware), entirely in the software.
That's one reason the SHT is not just another scooter. It would be relatively trivial for a programmer with access to the code to hack the SHT to do things like control by GPS or maybe network a flock of them with wi-fi to play soccer cooperatively or even possibly do something useful.
Slashdot Mirror
Here is part of an interview with couple who taped the call; take it for what it's worth. I got it here: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/congress/january97
Sounds pretty ordinary to me.
Oh fooey! The cell call was intercepted in D.C. not Florida. Ever try to get the cell tower just a quarter mile away? And you don't just stumble across the cell phone band on your Sony. In fact you can't legally buy a reciever that tunes the 850 Mhz band in the U.S.
g ingrich .ethics/index.shtml
Are you just trolling, or are you unable to comprehend written words?
The cell phone call was intercepted in north Florida, according to this web page:
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/01/10/
As I recall, it was a conference call in which one of the members of the call was talking on a cell phone in Florida. I could probably find a link for you but you seem to need some practice using Google.
As far as monitoring cell phone calls, it has only relatively recently become illegal to sell scanners that can pick up the cellular bands. Many people still have scanners much older than that law. In addition, try a google for "Scanner mods" and see what you can see. Other people buy their scanners in countries which allow you to monitor all transmissions which pass through your body, not just the ones the government wants you to hear. Finally, RF scanners are not exactly rocket science; home hobbyists could easily construct a scanner which could pick up cell transmissions.
But you fail to address the issue. Here we have the Dems making hay by publicizing a private conversation. What happened? Nothing.
Let's go over this again, slowly. The link I posted earlier takes you to a page which states that the people who taped the conversation were fined $500 for violating the law. The Congresscritter who leaked the tape had to step down from the Ethics committee. What happened? Something.
The point of that article was that not much really happened as a consequence of the leak. You wanna know why? Because the tape itself was EMBARASSING for the Republicans and they probably didn't WANT to make a big issue of it.
What exactly did you expect to happen?
Dems and the media just had a big laugh about what a fun little caper it was.
o nnelly/70397_joel1 5.shtml
The 'Dems' were not caught spying on cell phone call. The call was intercepted by a couple in Florida who paid a $500 fine.
The tape was, in fact, leaked to the media by a democratic congressperson, according to this article (which is not friendly to the congressperson):
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/c
It is disingenuous, at best, to call what happened an example of "spying" on phone calls by Democrats. An elected official received the tape from ordinary citizens; no goverment employees or party apparatchiks involved in the interception of the call.
I would also like to see some evidence to support your contentions about "big laughs" and "fun little caper".
I don't think that it's treason, but it's damn near.
I think you misunderstand both Watergate and treason.
The original Watergate crime was part of a much larger pattern. Besides that, it wasn't the breakin which caused Nixon to quit rather than be impeached and convicted. Obstruction of justice during the cover-up was the "High Crime".
Treason is defined very precisely in the Constitution. It has nothing whatsoever to do with this investigation. Not close by any stretch of the imagination.
Famine is generally not a food problem so much as a problem of powerlessness and poverty. See North Korea, for example a few years ago. For example look into North Korea a few years ago; their parnaoid dictatorship bascially prevented any real aid from entering the coutnry and tried to hide the extent of the problem. Google is your friend if you want a link.
I believe Amartya Sen won a Nobel Prize in economics for research showing that democracy and empowermednt of the populace may prevent famine.
Thanks for the warning, I neeed a burner that will work with Mandrake 9.2. I will be sure to double check for compatibility.
Anyone know of manufacturers out there supplying good Linux drivers?
I wanna DVD Burner, but I haven't time to sort through the acronyms to figure out what all that +-rw is about.
Don't get me wrong, heterogeneous computing is a wonderful thing, but I'd also hate to see governments, corporations, or anyone else making decisions based on computing philosophy instead of technical need and justification..
If you are the Chinese government, or any other government who may one day end up on the wrong end of a war with us, avoiding US computing domination may be enough of a reason.
Imagine if they become hopelessly locked into MS products then the US government decided to stop allowing the export of products to China.
Most of the disadvantages of Linux based computing are the chicken and egg problems of no apps because there is no market for apps, and there is no market for apps because there are no apps.
China just laid a big golden egg which could make the difference. And in this case, Microsoft has built their own cage. They forgot that the market for computers is still in it's INFANCY, and have been so arrogant in the treament of their installed base that they have managed to put Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt into the minds of the governments of the world.
Microsoft has shown plainly to the world why they should not trust Microsoft, with BILLIONS of new users still to come online in the next two decades.
Oops.
You're right, of course. I should have been more specific in my previous post.
For some reason, whenever Michael Robertson does something with Linux/Lindows/whatever there are posts like the one I was replying to that say he is not going to supply source or that he has some nefarious scheme to become the next Bill Gates by using Linux or some other GPL software so it seems that every time there is a Lindows story on Slashdot, I have to remind someone that GPL still applies.
The BOFH's who populate Slashdot for some reason think that Michael Robertson's attempts to make a grandma-friendly distro and then market it to ordinary humans rather than uber-geeks is an affront to common decency.
I think he's on the right track, and should be getting some props around here for his efforts. LindowsOS is aggressively pursuing the home desktop market; no other distro is even trying.
I would predict that this will not exactly be "free to download." Perhaps free to download with your subscription to Lindows.
You have heard of the GPL haven't you?
Actually this is Mozilla Public License, but still basically the same as GPL for most purposes.
I like the bottom of the Lindows page:
Copyright (C) 2003 Lindows.com, Inc. All rights reserved.
Lindows.com is not endorsed by or affiliated with Microsoft Corporation in any way - in fact, we don't even really like them because they are suing us.
I generally agree with what you say, but I think the point I was trying (poorly) to make is that there are two separate issues here:
1. Clueless users.
2. Insecure technology.
Put the two together and you have problems. The supply of clueless users is endless and growing. In a few years there will be BILLIONS of new internet users around the planet.
Technology companies will continue to make the same tradeoffs they have been making-- if it's insecure it's easier to support.
WLAN is just one more example of insecure technology which will be Out There because it is easier to install and support if the default settings are wide open.
I just don't think this is that big of a deal when you look at all the other problems caused by rampant cluelessness-- spyware, adware, malware, fwd-ware, whateverware.
If I had one hour of every users' time I would spend it educating them about the social engineering they will be subjected to on the internet rather than the technical details of securing their WLAN.
Run wireless
Isn't that an oxymoron?
I'm questioning the purpose of wireless technolog
Too many apps to mention. You need to think this through.
it's these same home users that will probably not take the time and effort to learn how to secure their network.
Sometimes the paranoia around here is so thick you can smell it.
Most of the people you are concerned about probably were hooked up direct to cable internet on a win98 box before they went wireless. Is it really that much worse to have an unsecured or poorly secured WLAN?
Yeah the problem is, that the programs with most users will definitely get most votes.
It's for COMDEX, so that's probably a good thing. This is a chance to demonstrate mainstream apps to the mainstream.
you can't have the decency to either pay them for their hard work, or wait two weeks to freeload.
I agree that it is a good idea to join the club or otherwise reward Mandrake financially for their fine efforts, but that doesn't mean it is impolite to set up or use a torrent. If you want to call it freeloading remember that Mandrake would not exist if they were not "freeloading" themselves.
I want Mandrake to succeed, but I think the best thing I can personally do to help them succeed is to use and help promote their software. Freeload yourself a couple iso's and then help your neighbor set up a dual boot box with 'em. I'll betcha Mandrake would be grateful.
Wordpad is utterly crippled. While you are absolutely correct that 80% of users use 20% of the featues of a good wordprocessor, I can't imagine anyone being happy with WordPad. It doesnt' even do double spacing.
Can you imagine the evil laugh in Redmond the day they thought of crippling the double space feature? I've had a couple users who created long documents in wordpad by hitting the return key at the end of every line. Try making major edits or format changes to that document later... bleh... double bleh... bleh bleh bleh.
I have a small stack of cd's with OOo and Moz for Windows on them which I hand out to those poor bastards who live in a world of crippled word processors and popups.
Happy Birthday OOo! 1.1 rocks. Microsoft has to be hearing the drums in the distance now.
On Slashdot you hear about it every time some company installs a couple Linux servers (although recently it's been more like countries, which is nice). I'm waiting to hear about major corporations making the switch to OOo.
ou can get a linux box for $199 at walmart, for christ's sake.
I agree with everything you say, but as an owner of one of those $199 boxes, I am sad to report it did not boot out of the box.
It came loaded with Lycoris; I don't remember now the issue, because it has been a couple months since I bought the machine, but when I took it out of the box all it did was display a Lycoris logo and an error message. Lycoris never responded to my tech suppport request.
I found a solution thanks to Google and was able to get in, but I installed Mandrake over it anyway. I prolly would have done so anyway, but I was saddened by my experience. Most buyers are probably just looking for a cheap second or third box and have the tech chops to fix their own problems, but I was hoping to see an inexpensive Linux box ready for the non tech masses. It wasn't.
But otherwise I'm doing exactly what you describe in your post. I'm learning how it works, mostly by breaking things and fixing things, and if it weren't for a couple of windows-only apps I cannot do without, and some unavailable drivers I would be ready to switch my main machine over. I have it set up for dual boot, but never go to the Linux side.
But I'm no where near ready to recommend anyone who is not a techie to switch their own machine. The best space for growth in Linux desktops right now is in managed machines/terminals in businesses. There are a lot of worker bees out there who would hardly notice if they were switched to OpenOffice.org, Mozilla, and KDE or GNome.
I understand the intent of your post; it just struck me as funny. There is truth in what you say, in fact. Many of the most advanced students are also the most responsible and will fix their own boo-boos.
/.'ers would grasp that intuitively. I was surprised at the negative reaction of many in these threads. Oh, well.
Unfortunately, you are missing the key ingredient which is communication amongst the youths. If one person knows how to crack the box, then basically the whole student body will know also. Some percentage will not care, some percentage will be afraid to try, some percentage will break then fix their own machine, some percentage will not be able to fix their own machine, and finally some percentage will think it incredibly hilarious to break every machine they can get their hands on (and they will get their hands on a lot of them, somehow).
If you have any time on your hands, I recommend volunteering at your neighborhood middle school or high school technology department. You will get an education, that's for sure.
But just because it is hard to maintain computers for 6th graders doesn't mean we shouldn't try. A lot of the posts about this article say it is futile or stupid to be giving laptops to 6th graders.
I think it is inevitable.
Eventually we will get to a point where an ultra-hardened machine will be affordable for most districts and durable enough for even young students. The back to basics 3R's crowd fear the change represented, but they cannot stop the change. If we have any hope for the future we have to be on the forefront of the digital revolution.
The first country to issue all their schoolchildren internet connected laptops is going to be the world leader of the 21st century. You would think
Have a nice weekend, eh.
if a kid was bright enough and had enough initiative to go ahead and do that, then the probably know enough to not fuck things up
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!! ROTFLMAO!!
LOL LOL LOL LOL!!
You made my day. Thank you.
I think I didn't make myself clear in my reply above. My intention was to say that I agree that laws are pointless because our laws only cover a small fraction of the world's population.
I also agree with your goal of taking the profit out of spam, but I believe most attempts to stop spam make it more profitable for the individual who succeeds in circumventing the anti-spam system. It's like prohibition or the war on drugs. It leaves the activity in the hands of amoral thugs who will stop at nothing to move the product.
(they'll just send the spam from another country you idiots!).
Why don't people get this? It seems pretty simple to me.
I think most anti-spam efforts cause more harm than good. The reason we get spam is because it is profitable. Antispam measures such as blackholing only raise the bar high enough to keep out the laziest of spammers thus making it more profitable for the most sleazy and organized spammers.
If it were SO EASY to send spam that anyone could do it, it would drive out the serious players and leave only amateurs, who are easily dealt with--Bayesian filters, etc.
All the blood, sweat, and tears that have gone into anti-spam efforts have had NO EFFECT. I still get dozens of spams every week. I just don't have to see them thanks to Bayesian Filtering.
The solution to the spam problem is not more rules and regulations by ISP's and governments. The solution is economic. If professional spamming is not profitable, then there will be no professional spammmers.
If all goes well I think I will be trashing Word soon..
.sxw files the way they mindlessly send .doc files.
It's a glorious day when you do. I trashed Office a half a year or so ago and haven't missed it once. I look forward to the day when people send
Has the start-up time been reduced for this release?
It looks like their website is groaning under the load right now, so I can't give you a link, but there is a roadmap up somewhere which says startup time is one of the highest priority goals for version 2.0.
Startup is still quite slow even on speedy hardware, but I don't think it has been one of their highest priorities yet.
It took a geeky Scandanavian grad student with much more moderate views to take that on and do it.
I don't see what Linus' views have to do with anything.
Linus was just in the right place at the right time. Yes, his personality helps a lot because he is independent, fair, insightful, and humorous. But the real reason Linux exists is the GPL, which as I understand it comes from GNU and RMS.
RMS wants GNU to be the star. It's an institution he wants to continue, so he fights for it. But the real star of his philosophy has been the GPL. The widespread adoption of the license far surpasses the significance of his plan for GNU announced 20 years ago.
Most of the petulance of RMS comes, I think, from a misdirected belief that if we don't give credit to GNU for it's contributions to free software, then he has failed. The truth is, he has succeeded in laying the legal foundation and precedent for producing free software.
Second, interesting thing is that the problem is fixed by a *software upgrade*
and not something physical.
I believe one of the most significant aspects of the SHT as a technology is that it is basically a robot. There is no mechanical connection between the rider's input and the behavior of the vehicle. A car must turn left when you turn the steering wheel left; there is no such mechanical connection in the SHT, so the behavior of the vehicle is entirely programmable--they could program it to turn left when you turn the wheel to the right or control the accelration, braking and other handling characteristics (up to the physical limits of the hardware), entirely in the software.
That's one reason the SHT is not just another scooter. It would be relatively trivial for a programmer with access to the code to hack the SHT to do things like control by GPS or maybe network a flock of them with wi-fi to play soccer cooperatively or even possibly do something useful.