And, thankfully, my fiancee is not all doped up on diamonds like most women. She wanted a $250 sapphire from Sam's Club for her engagement ring. Yes, gentlemen....I have found the perfect woman:)
I got you beat. My wife didn't even see the point in an engagement ring (we eloped to Vegas, anyway). Our wedding bands are made of silver. Grand total for both (with shipping): $100. 6.5 years of marriage, and going strong.
Though she does like red stones. If I had bought her a red garnet ring, she would have liked that just as much. She thinks gold and diamonds are pretty tacky, though.
They had a kickass Salt Lake back in the 80s when it threatened to take over the entire basin and attacked I-80...
Is that when the state spent millions on those honkin' huge pumps that were never utilized? Lots of taxpayer money wasted for nothing, as I recall.
I just wish the Lake would swallow up that hideous "tree of life" sculpture a few miles east of the Bonneville Salt Flats. At least those "sun tubes" in NW Utah are kinda cool. I don't know what the hell the sculptor who made that tree was thinking.
Insightful?!? I want whatever the moderators are smoking!
But seriously... I'd worry more about the tons of salt spread on the roads during the winters. The rare redneck who thinks its fun to ruin the mud flats with his Jeep or F350 doesn't really need to worry much about the salt from the lake as compared to the typical salt/sand slurry that UDOT spreads after a heavy snow.
I've been a long-time user of Turbo tax (since early '90s). Last year, after the whole copy protection thing, I switched to TaxACT (per a recommendation here on Slashdot -- good advice, BTW).
This year, I decided my time was just too scarce, so I went to H&R Block. It cost me about $200 (which I can write off next year), but I got a lot more back than I would have otherwise. I even paid for their little audit guarantee (I'm sure it's about as valuable as an extended warranty at Circuit City, but the $27 seemed reasonable).
Now I'm not endorsing H&R Block specifically, but I'd say most of us profressionals here on/. would be better served by simply having a professional do their taxes for them, whether it be a tax return mill like H&R Block, the neighborhood CPA, or someone else. I can tell you that I'll never go back to doing it myself.
And yes, I'm the type of guy who's more than willing to take his car to the local shop for a oil change and lube for $30 than waste the time on it himself.
My wife and kids see far less of me than I like already. Life's too short to piss it away on oil changes and tax returns.:)
Ah, DESQView... now there was a classy, lean, multitasker. It's a shame it got canned by Quarterdeck, then sold off. DV/X sucked ass, but it never really got the chance for refinement.
It was the only OS (for lack of a better word) in those days that could survive running "format a:" in 2 windows at the same time. Not that there was much point -- the disks were totally unusable afterwards -- but it was my stress test of choice. DOS/Windows failed the test, OS/2 failed, Win95 failed, and Windows NT (3.1 at the time) failed. I think they simply all locked up. But DESQView simply hummed along, not really caring that what you were doing was pointless, but doing it nonetheless.
I used to have a copy of the last DV version (2.46, was it?) and the last QEMM version, which I would break out on occasion to refesh my memory on those days. However, I lost it (along with my stash of other DOS classics) when I threw a poorly-labeled CD-R into the circular bin.:(
So if anyone knows where to locate this gem, along with Direct Access 5.0 (menu program), Professional Write, and PC Tools 5.x (remember them? Central Point, I think), please provide a URL.
I'd say that Karma is alive and well, then. Wouldn't you? Good old Dutch couldn't remember his little commie list now if his life depended on it, could he?
Maybe that's a cruel remark, but I never knew that Reagan had a role in the blacklists. He deserves to have his mind rot.
I don't know what's more warped: that someone has the balls to auction it or that someone would actually buy a 2nd hand item of this sort. Can you say eeeew!?
I think the grsecurity patch (linux only) allows you to grant specific UIDs the ability to bind to specifid ports. So, for example, only user "www" could bind to port 80.
I don't think any of the BSDs have such a mechanism. The best thing they have is jail, which is pretty damned cool and useful.
I was going to suggest the geothermal heat pump, but the parent beat me to it.
Planning on a small solar install myself, I've been doing a lot of reading on the topic for the past few years (subscribe to Home Power Magazine). A rule of thumb is that for every $1 you spend in conservation of electricity, you will save $10 in generation. So, if it costs you $200 to replace every incadescent bulb in your house (save maybe the oven and refrigerator) like I have, that's $2000 less in solar panels you'll need to buy (about 4 panels at 100W). That $200 investment has saved me, on average, $15/month, and has already paid for itself (and I haven't even bought a solar panel yet).
I heartily agree with other suggestions on evaporative cooling (known as a "swamp cooler" in my area), if you live in a dry climate. Adding extra south-facing shade does wonders, too, as well as light-colored curtains/blinds for the south and west windows to reflect the sun.
Regarding the thought of powering your neighbor's home -- highly unlikely unless you do a (poor) install without a permit. What you'll need (to pass any pre-approval and inspection) is called an intertie inverter, one that will dump your excess juice back to the grid (i.e., spinning your meter backwards -- hope your locale has a favorable "net metering" law), will draw from the grip when you exceed your generation capacity, and will disconnect you from the grid when the grid goes down. This, in fact, is what's recommended for most urban homes -- no batteries to maitain, so it's cheaper and less maintenance.
18 months ago, I moved 150 miles from my employer, which is a large state university in the state capital, to a rural town with 698 people (2000 census). I'm a unix admin, and I can do 95% of my work via ssh and screen over 56k modem. For that other 5% I drive into the office once a week to physiclaly handle machines, eat pizza with my peers, and try to stay somewhat in tune with what's going on.
While I haven't taken any local work (other than helping a neighboor retiree with his PC in return for his grandson mowing my lawn), I suspect I could drum up some work doing basic fixing of Wintel boxes. Heck, the owner of the wireless ISP provider the next town 5 miles over was needing someone of my skills, but I didn't jump on that (rural wages -- going down to $8/hr -- did not fit my lifestyle at the time).
I just recently picked up a half-time job (evenings) telecommunting to a place 500 miles away in another state. I wasn't even looking for a 2nd job -- it was a friend-of-a-friend kind of referral. I've never met -- and don't ever forsee meeting -- my co-wokers there in person. Nice. Easy extra money to facilitate my next move.
In a few months, I'll be moving 200 miles even further -- 20 miles from the nearest blacktop and 15 miles from the nearest utility pole. I'll be using satellite internet/phone from this location.
While researching the nearest satellite internet installer to the remote location, the owner of the dealership sounded very interested in having someone with my computer background available to him for regional installs (farms, ranches, etc. -- I live deep in the West).
The point of my rambling? Well, firstly, your current employer may be receptive to keeping you on from a remote location. Next, without even trying too hard, I found several good potential employment opportunities, even in my very rural area. If you put in the time and effort, I'm almost certain you can round up a living wage wherever you end up.
I guess all I'm trying to do is offer you hope, rather than specific advice. I feel your pain, as my wife sounds just like yours -- she can't stand living in a city or the 'burbs. If she can't have her chickens out on the lawn legally, she won't live there.
And if you find the slower rural lifestyle fulfilling, there's nothing shameful with things like construction or plumbing. Hell, the plumber out here can command more per hour than I can fixing PCs. There's even nothing wrong wth talking a significant pay-cut, if that's required. If your wife is worth keeping, she'll realize that the two of you can't (easily) maintain a big-city lifestyle in a rural area.
I have to disagree with you and the parent post. I just completed the entire original Battlestar Galactica on DVD via Netflix, and while I admit it shows its age, it was a fun experience for the entire family.
I'm 31, so when it made its run in 1978, I was 6 years old. Yeah, the effects are a little on the weak side, but taking its age into account the show still holds its own (IMO). My wife, being 4 years younger than me, never saw the original run or the reruns, but she liked it a lot. My kids, 5 and 8, who have grown up on Pixar animation, and CG blockbusters, also loved it.
There's also the value of historical context. A plot device of the final episode of BG has them picking up ghost transmissions of Earth's lunar landing. My kids didn't know the significance of those sounds and images, so we educated them. That whole Terra / Eastern Alliance thing smacked of WWII Nazism and Cold War Era politics. Granted that plot arc was a major low point in the show, but it certainly gave some insight into American mindset in 1978.
And since we live in Utah, while not LDS, we caught the obvious Mormon references (the producer -- or was it writer -- was LDS, I believe).
And as far as the "silly robots" comment goes... WTF?!? Let's let alien races be alien races. While I enjoy my "Star Trek: TNG" on DVD, it still annoys me that 98% of all alien races are humanoids with cosmetic differences in skin color and head/facial geometry. At least "Space: Above and Beyond" had that part right.:)
And while I'm at it, here's a mini-survey for those of you who remember BG in any detail: Were Hector and Vector more annoying than ewocks or Jar Jar Binks?;-)
After having my childhood memory robbed blind by Jim Carey in "The Grinch", I say let's have original programming -- or reruns -- rather than these bloody remakes. I can watch the originals and enjoy them -- I rarely can make the same statement about remakes.
And as for the more general concept of keeping shelved TV shows alive, I say keep it up. I'm anxiously awaiting the DVD release of "Millenium" (supposedly due out this year). If they ever get the 2nd season of "Twin Peaks" onto DVD, I'll be buying that series, too.
As it stands, there's enough good TV on DVD now that I don't plan on ever receiving TV broadcasts again, even for free. Complete series runs on DVD is the future of my TV habits (that, and some movies). Time shifting doesn't get any better than being able to watch an entire show sequentially and whenever you want to watch it.
I, too, love Earl Grey, especially any of the double bergamot varieties. Though I like mine with healthy doses of sugar and cream.
If you want the wholesome goodness of the high antioxidants green teas generally have, you really should check out rooibos (often called African "red tea") or goldenbush tea (same continent, slightly different stuff). They're both high in antioxidents (rooibos is very high, the green rooibos being obscenely high), and they have lovely, subtle flavors. You can even order rooibos in common flavors like Eral Grey or Darjeeling.
Oh, the rooibos and goldenbush are caffiene free.
For those of you in living in the Mountain West, you can harvest some good ol' fashioned "Mormon tea" (i.e., Ephedra aspera). It's quite easy to spot -- though a bit bitter. Still, since you can't buy ephedrine tabs anymore (how I miss my Mini Thins!), it's a good alternative.
Without upgrading you mean, ok fair enough. Although I'm not sure why I'd care about what version openssh is (unless it's a security errata -- in which case it's coming from my vendor anyway). But using a better example of evolution or whatever...
My specific gripe was Redhat 7.1, I think -- the ssh version is woefully out of date and vulnerable. There are no more vendor upgrades (I don't know if LegacyFedora.org has the updates). The point was that sometimes you run into "dependancy hell" on systems that aren't current.
Ta-da you've now got the same problem plus a billion symlinks. You could argue that putting a serious amount of crack in the PATH and/or LD_LIBRARY_PATH could save you...
From a system standpoint, it doesn't really matter how much spaghetti is under the hood, does it? For my hand-maintained version of my tree, I have scripts that traverse the tree, removes all of the links, then re-links them whenever I install a new "stable" version. Yes, this is inefficient, as I do all of them, rather than only the new packages -- but I only maintain maybe 100 apps this way, so it works for me. More intelligent automation would re-link only those items whose "stable" pointer had changed. It really does work.
I'd disagree, openssl is pretty notorius of breaking backward compat. on library upgrades.
I think you totally missed the point. With this system, you can install as many new/old/cvs versions of openssl you wish. Binaries linked against a particular version will still point directly to/mfs/pkg/program/version/lib/foo.a. If you're thinking that that apps are built to link to the symlinked libraries in/mfs/lib/foo.a you have a point, but that's not what I do.
The benefit is that you can install any package, and it will never affect another package.
Sure, you can wind up with lots of cruft, but an intelligent package manager will track these and know when a particular dependancy is no longer needed then, finally, remove it.
Understatement of the century. Be very affraid of any "package management" system that hand waves away problems like this
I never suggested that a "package management" system be this sloppy. I only stated that it could be done -- I do it on less complex packages. It works, too, until I get around to re-linking the tree.
Good points, but I think you underestimate the flexibility of the system.
That, my friend, is awesome! I'm browsing the site now. The tree structure is just what I describe (more or less). I don't know if they use a decent package manager, but I'll keep reading.
(I apologize for this lengthy off-topic post, but I had to respond to the parent's desire for concurrent multiple versions in a package system. Maybe someone with coding skill -- unlike myself -- could run with it.)
For example, making it easy to run multiple versions of, say, gcc on the same system and switch between them at will...
I have a home-brew system like this, and I would die of joy if something like Debian's apt or {Free,Open}BSD's ports system would integrate it.
I actually can't take credit for it, and I really don't know if it's that unique, but the people I've introduced it to love it. And thanks, Lou, for showing it to me. It's a shame this post won't get a larger audience (then again, maybe it's a conceit to believe anyone would actually care.:)).
Okay, here goes...
I have on all of my machines (or "boxen", just to annoy those of you who loathe the term), a directory called/mfs -- "my file system". The philosophy is that of/opt or/usr/local: a place to install custom software without colliding with the main system tree.
Within/mfs, there's dist, src, obj, & pkg. I place the tarballs in dist, I unpack the source into (you guessed it) src, I (sometimes) build in obj, and I install into pkg.
My most common use is installing OpenSSH onto various platforms, so I'll use that to illustrate.
I download the tarballs into my dist dir: tcp_wrappers_7.6.tar.gz, openssl-0.9.6l.tar.gz, zlib-1.2.1.tar.gz, & openssh-3.8p1.tar.gz.
Next, I unpack them into src, where I usually build them, though sometimes I build them in obj.
Sometimes, it's a matter of a simple --prefix paramater to the config script. Sometimes it takes modifying Makefiles. But usually without fail, I can shoehorn most any application into it's proper place:/mfs/pkg/package/version.
The goal is to totally isolate the application within its own directory -- even it's own etc, tmp, var (or whatever) directories. If it's possible (never mind the convenience of making it happen), that program will never collide with another version of that program on the system:.pid files, logs, sockets - nothing.
Each, of course, has all of the etc, bin, lib, include, sbin, var, tmp, and man directories the app needs to run.
Once this structure is in place, it's pretty obvious where it leads: you can painlessly have concurrent versions of any program and/or library you could ask for. Since apps are linked to a specific library version, installing a new version of that library won't collide with the old one.
Ever try installing a current SRPM of openssh onto an older Redhat release? It's a nightmare! The RPM requires a current version of openssl, but the KDE libraries all require openssl 0.9.5 (or some such). You just cannot get it to work.
So you may now be thinking to yourself, "Okay, that's kinda useful. But when you have hundreds (or thousands) of apps, your PATH would be insanely long. This just won't work."
That's a good point -- but there's a solution. Use the "lndir" command from within/mfs, to link your desired package into the root/mfs directory:
cd/mfs && lndir pkg/openssh/3.8p1
Now, thanks to the lndir command, you now have the directories/mfs/{bin,etc,sbin,man} populated with symbolic links to the actual programs. Now you can set your PATH, MANPATH, and even init scripts to point to the "main"/mfs directories.
I don't have links handy, but there have been plenty of instances where people have been deprived of their freedom (i.e.,detained) and cash because the amounts they had on-hand were "suspicious". Airports seem to be bad, though heaven forbid you get caught with more than a few hundred bucks if a state trooper ever fabricates a reason to search your car.
Every once in a while, the topic of hoarding/carrying large wads of greenbacks presents itself on misc.survivalism and it's thrashed about pretty good.
I personally use lots of cash. A few years ago, when I heard about the Clinton Administration's "Know Your Customer" mandate for banks, I decided to establish a pattern of regularly suspicious behavior -- every payday, I pulled every penny from my bank account and used postal money orders to pay bills and everything else was cash only. I established a baseline of never having cash in the bank and making regular large withdraws. I'm not sure what good this actually does for me, but it's a matter of principle in these times of Bush, Cheney, and Aschroft.
It's kinda liberating, really, knowing that 50% of my spending habits were no longer on file. I also had that warm fuzzy feelig of knowing that the blood-sucking bank of mine (Wells Fargo) wasn't earning interest on my "Free Checking" account.
Sure, most people will think I'm a tinfoil-hat-wearing paranoid freak. But I challenge the state of MA to tell me where my money goes.;-)
Am I the only one who thinks this would be a neat thing to embed in a clear drumstick...
Hey, that's a pretty cool idea. While not on the drumline of my high-school marching band (I played trumpet in the brass line), I imagine such a thing would have been well-received during a half-time show.
The frivolous uses of these little gizmos are almost unlimited.:)
How about embedded onto speaker assemblies? Different colors for different cone sizes (or whatever -- I'm no audiophile). Could be rather neat-looking, no?
I did my homework. The radiation emmited by these things is about as low-power as you get (even in nature). If you ingest the stuff, however, better file your will in a month or two. The stuff reacts as normal hydrogen, and is diffused throught the food chains (hydrocarbons -- fats!) and water supplies. Contamination is the major problem. But I'm guessing the mercury & lead in my 19" CRT would be far worse upon disposal, as well as the PCBs in my PC.
Sure, I wouldn't give one to my kids (which I'm done having, btw), but it's safe. What were those military lights called? Watchlights? Watchglasses? Whatever -- they were regarded as safe, I believe.
I think self-powered and self-contained light sources are really cool. I'd rather have a Glowring, but they can't be imported for resale in the US/Canada. Any enterprising folks across the pond wish to work out a deal and get me some?;-)
And you're recommending a $150 device to a college student? Where's the beer money going to come from?
If they're anything like the beer drinkers in my dorm, they get it from the local plasma lab (which was conveniently located walking-distance to a bar).
Rather than modifying the existing contract, wouldn't it be easier just have your own boilerplate addendum that specifically suspercedes the standard contract with your own requirements?
A few months ago, I performed a for-sale-by-owner home transaction, without agents or lawyers on either side. We signed my state's standard contract, then several addendums to shore up the few things we needed clarified.
Any lawyers or HR folks wish to comment on how this would work? Heck, with this approach, there could be boilerplate addendum (complete with checkboxes, like on real estate contracts) drawn up by some altruistic lawyer and released to the public domain to help out people like the OP.
The topic at hand is drinking coffee, not the coffee enemas those bean-srpout-eating herbalist homeopathic types like to brag about.;-)
That said, I like the French press. I have myself a Zassenhaus hand mill, and a Nissan Stainless vacuum press.. I nuke the water in the microwave (or boil it on the stove, if at home), the mill is quiet, and the press keeps the stuff warm for a good while and won't break.
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I got you beat. My wife didn't even see the point in an engagement ring (we eloped to Vegas, anyway). Our wedding bands are made of silver. Grand total for both (with shipping): $100. 6.5 years of marriage, and going strong.
Though she does like red stones. If I had bought her a red garnet ring, she would have liked that just as much. She thinks gold and diamonds are pretty tacky, though.
Is that when the state spent millions on those honkin' huge pumps that were never utilized? Lots of taxpayer money wasted for nothing, as I recall.
I just wish the Lake would swallow up that hideous "tree of life" sculpture a few miles east of the Bonneville Salt Flats. At least those "sun tubes" in NW Utah are kinda cool. I don't know what the hell the sculptor who made that tree was thinking.
But seriously... I'd worry more about the tons of salt spread on the roads during the winters. The rare redneck who thinks its fun to ruin the mud flats with his Jeep or F350 doesn't really need to worry much about the salt from the lake as compared to the typical salt/sand slurry that UDOT spreads after a heavy snow.
This year, I decided my time was just too scarce, so I went to H&R Block. It cost me about $200 (which I can write off next year), but I got a lot more back than I would have otherwise. I even paid for their little audit guarantee (I'm sure it's about as valuable as an extended warranty at Circuit City, but the $27 seemed reasonable).
Now I'm not endorsing H&R Block specifically, but I'd say most of us profressionals here on /. would be better served by simply having a professional do their taxes for them, whether it be a tax return mill like H&R Block, the neighborhood CPA, or someone else. I can tell you that I'll never go back to doing it myself.
And yes, I'm the type of guy who's more than willing to take his car to the local shop for a oil change and lube for $30 than waste the time on it himself.
My wife and kids see far less of me than I like already. Life's too short to piss it away on oil changes and tax returns. :)
It was the only OS (for lack of a better word) in those days that could survive running "format a:" in 2 windows at the same time. Not that there was much point -- the disks were totally unusable afterwards -- but it was my stress test of choice. DOS/Windows failed the test, OS/2 failed, Win95 failed, and Windows NT (3.1 at the time) failed. I think they simply all locked up. But DESQView simply hummed along, not really caring that what you were doing was pointless, but doing it nonetheless.
I used to have a copy of the last DV version (2.46, was it?) and the last QEMM version, which I would break out on occasion to refesh my memory on those days. However, I lost it (along with my stash of other DOS classics) when I threw a poorly-labeled CD-R into the circular bin. :(
So if anyone knows where to locate this gem, along with Direct Access 5.0 (menu program), Professional Write, and PC Tools 5.x (remember them? Central Point, I think), please provide a URL.
Maybe that's a cruel remark, but I never knew that Reagan had a role in the blacklists. He deserves to have his mind rot.
But this is.
I don't know what's more warped: that someone has the balls to auction it or that someone would actually buy a 2nd hand item of this sort. Can you say eeeew!?
I don't think any of the BSDs have such a mechanism. The best thing they have is jail, which is pretty damned cool and useful.
Planning on a small solar install myself, I've been doing a lot of reading on the topic for the past few years (subscribe to Home Power Magazine). A rule of thumb is that for every $1 you spend in conservation of electricity, you will save $10 in generation. So, if it costs you $200 to replace every incadescent bulb in your house (save maybe the oven and refrigerator) like I have, that's $2000 less in solar panels you'll need to buy (about 4 panels at 100W). That $200 investment has saved me, on average, $15/month, and has already paid for itself (and I haven't even bought a solar panel yet).
I heartily agree with other suggestions on evaporative cooling (known as a "swamp cooler" in my area), if you live in a dry climate. Adding extra south-facing shade does wonders, too, as well as light-colored curtains/blinds for the south and west windows to reflect the sun.
Regarding the thought of powering your neighbor's home -- highly unlikely unless you do a (poor) install without a permit. What you'll need (to pass any pre-approval and inspection) is called an intertie inverter, one that will dump your excess juice back to the grid (i.e., spinning your meter backwards -- hope your locale has a favorable "net metering" law), will draw from the grip when you exceed your generation capacity, and will disconnect you from the grid when the grid goes down. This, in fact, is what's recommended for most urban homes -- no batteries to maitain, so it's cheaper and less maintenance.
18 months ago, I moved 150 miles from my employer, which is a large state university in the state capital, to a rural town with 698 people (2000 census). I'm a unix admin, and I can do 95% of my work via ssh and screen over 56k modem. For that other 5% I drive into the office once a week to physiclaly handle machines, eat pizza with my peers, and try to stay somewhat in tune with what's going on.
While I haven't taken any local work (other than helping a neighboor retiree with his PC in return for his grandson mowing my lawn), I suspect I could drum up some work doing basic fixing of Wintel boxes. Heck, the owner of the wireless ISP provider the next town 5 miles over was needing someone of my skills, but I didn't jump on that (rural wages -- going down to $8/hr -- did not fit my lifestyle at the time).
I just recently picked up a half-time job (evenings) telecommunting to a place 500 miles away in another state. I wasn't even looking for a 2nd job -- it was a friend-of-a-friend kind of referral. I've never met -- and don't ever forsee meeting -- my co-wokers there in person. Nice. Easy extra money to facilitate my next move.
In a few months, I'll be moving 200 miles even further -- 20 miles from the nearest blacktop and 15 miles from the nearest utility pole. I'll be using satellite internet/phone from this location.
While researching the nearest satellite internet installer to the remote location, the owner of the dealership sounded very interested in having someone with my computer background available to him for regional installs (farms, ranches, etc. -- I live deep in the West).
The point of my rambling? Well, firstly, your current employer may be receptive to keeping you on from a remote location. Next, without even trying too hard, I found several good potential employment opportunities, even in my very rural area. If you put in the time and effort, I'm almost certain you can round up a living wage wherever you end up.
I guess all I'm trying to do is offer you hope, rather than specific advice. I feel your pain, as my wife sounds just like yours -- she can't stand living in a city or the 'burbs. If she can't have her chickens out on the lawn legally, she won't live there.
And if you find the slower rural lifestyle fulfilling, there's nothing shameful with things like construction or plumbing. Hell, the plumber out here can command more per hour than I can fixing PCs. There's even nothing wrong wth talking a significant pay-cut, if that's required. If your wife is worth keeping, she'll realize that the two of you can't (easily) maintain a big-city lifestyle in a rural area.
Good luck.
I'm 31, so when it made its run in 1978, I was 6 years old. Yeah, the effects are a little on the weak side, but taking its age into account the show still holds its own (IMO). My wife, being 4 years younger than me, never saw the original run or the reruns, but she liked it a lot. My kids, 5 and 8, who have grown up on Pixar animation, and CG blockbusters, also loved it.
There's also the value of historical context. A plot device of the final episode of BG has them picking up ghost transmissions of Earth's lunar landing. My kids didn't know the significance of those sounds and images, so we educated them. That whole Terra / Eastern Alliance thing smacked of WWII Nazism and Cold War Era politics. Granted that plot arc was a major low point in the show, but it certainly gave some insight into American mindset in 1978.
And since we live in Utah, while not LDS, we caught the obvious Mormon references (the producer -- or was it writer -- was LDS, I believe).
And as far as the "silly robots" comment goes... WTF?!? Let's let alien races be alien races. While I enjoy my "Star Trek: TNG" on DVD, it still annoys me that 98% of all alien races are humanoids with cosmetic differences in skin color and head/facial geometry. At least "Space: Above and Beyond" had that part right. :)
And while I'm at it, here's a mini-survey for those of you who remember BG in any detail: Were Hector and Vector more annoying than ewocks or Jar Jar Binks? ;-)
After having my childhood memory robbed blind by Jim Carey in "The Grinch", I say let's have original programming -- or reruns -- rather than these bloody remakes. I can watch the originals and enjoy them -- I rarely can make the same statement about remakes.
And as for the more general concept of keeping shelved TV shows alive, I say keep it up. I'm anxiously awaiting the DVD release of "Millenium" (supposedly due out this year). If they ever get the 2nd season of "Twin Peaks" onto DVD, I'll be buying that series, too.
As it stands, there's enough good TV on DVD now that I don't plan on ever receiving TV broadcasts again, even for free. Complete series runs on DVD is the future of my TV habits (that, and some movies). Time shifting doesn't get any better than being able to watch an entire show sequentially and whenever you want to watch it.
If you want the wholesome goodness of the high antioxidants green teas generally have, you really should check out rooibos (often called African "red tea") or goldenbush tea (same continent, slightly different stuff). They're both high in antioxidents (rooibos is very high, the green rooibos being obscenely high), and they have lovely, subtle flavors. You can even order rooibos in common flavors like Eral Grey or Darjeeling.
Oh, the rooibos and goldenbush are caffiene free.
For those of you in living in the Mountain West, you can harvest some good ol' fashioned "Mormon tea" (i.e., Ephedra aspera). It's quite easy to spot -- though a bit bitter. Still, since you can't buy ephedrine tabs anymore (how I miss my Mini Thins!), it's a good alternative.
It takes the concept part of the way, but does not take it to its logical extreme.
My specific gripe was Redhat 7.1, I think -- the ssh version is woefully out of date and vulnerable. There are no more vendor upgrades (I don't know if LegacyFedora.org has the updates). The point was that sometimes you run into "dependancy hell" on systems that aren't current.
Ta-da you've now got the same problem plus a billion symlinks. You could argue that putting a serious amount of crack in the PATH and/or LD_LIBRARY_PATH could save you ...
From a system standpoint, it doesn't really matter how much spaghetti is under the hood, does it? For my hand-maintained version of my tree, I have scripts that traverse the tree, removes all of the links, then re-links them whenever I install a new "stable" version. Yes, this is inefficient, as I do all of them, rather than only the new packages -- but I only maintain maybe 100 apps this way, so it works for me. More intelligent automation would re-link only those items whose "stable" pointer had changed. It really does work.
I'd disagree, openssl is pretty notorius of breaking backward compat. on library upgrades.
I think you totally missed the point. With this system, you can install as many new/old/cvs versions of openssl you wish. Binaries linked against a particular version will still point directly to /mfs/pkg/program/version/lib/foo.a. If you're thinking that that apps are built to link to the symlinked libraries in /mfs/lib/foo.a you have a point, but that's not what I do.
The benefit is that you can install any package, and it will never affect another package.
Sure, you can wind up with lots of cruft, but an intelligent package manager will track these and know when a particular dependancy is no longer needed then, finally, remove it.
Understatement of the century. Be very affraid of any "package management" system that hand waves away problems like this
I never suggested that a "package management" system be this sloppy. I only stated that it could be done -- I do it on less complex packages. It works, too, until I get around to re-linking the tree.
Good points, but I think you underestimate the flexibility of the system.
Thanks for the link!
For example, making it easy to run multiple versions of, say, gcc on the same system and switch between them at will...
I have a home-brew system like this, and I would die of joy if something like Debian's apt or {Free,Open}BSD's ports system would integrate it.
I actually can't take credit for it, and I really don't know if it's that unique, but the people I've introduced it to love it. And thanks, Lou, for showing it to me. It's a shame this post won't get a larger audience (then again, maybe it's a conceit to believe anyone would actually care. :)).
Okay, here goes...
I have on all of my machines (or "boxen", just to annoy those of you who loathe the term), a directory called /mfs -- "my file system". The philosophy is that of /opt or /usr/local: a place to install custom software without colliding with the main system tree.
Within /mfs, there's dist, src, obj, & pkg. I place the tarballs in dist, I unpack the source into (you guessed it) src, I (sometimes) build in obj, and I install into pkg.
My most common use is installing OpenSSH onto various platforms, so I'll use that to illustrate.
I download the tarballs into my dist dir: tcp_wrappers_7.6.tar.gz, openssl-0.9.6l.tar.gz, zlib-1.2.1.tar.gz, & openssh-3.8p1.tar.gz.
Next, I unpack them into src, where I usually build them, though sometimes I build them in obj.
Sometimes, it's a matter of a simple --prefix paramater to the config script. Sometimes it takes modifying Makefiles. But usually without fail, I can shoehorn most any application into it's proper place: /mfs/pkg/package/version.
The goal is to totally isolate the application within its own directory -- even it's own etc, tmp, var (or whatever) directories. If it's possible (never mind the convenience of making it happen), that program will never collide with another version of that program on the system: .pid files, logs, sockets - nothing.
So when all's said and done, I now have:
Each, of course, has all of the etc, bin, lib, include, sbin, var, tmp, and man directories the app needs to run.
Once this structure is in place, it's pretty obvious where it leads: you can painlessly have concurrent versions of any program and/or library you could ask for. Since apps are linked to a specific library version, installing a new version of that library won't collide with the old one.
Ever try installing a current SRPM of openssh onto an older Redhat release? It's a nightmare! The RPM requires a current version of openssl, but the KDE libraries all require openssl 0.9.5 (or some such). You just cannot get it to work.
So you may now be thinking to yourself, "Okay, that's kinda useful. But when you have hundreds (or thousands) of apps, your PATH would be insanely long. This just won't work."
That's a good point -- but there's a solution. Use the "lndir" command from within /mfs, to link your desired package into the root /mfs directory:
cd /mfs && lndir pkg/openssh/3.8p1
Now, thanks to the lndir command, you now have the directories /mfs/{bin,etc,sbin,man} populated with symbolic links to the actual programs. Now you can set your PATH, MANPATH, and even init scripts to point to the "main" /mfs directories.
But wait, there's more! Let's say we h
Every once in a while, the topic of hoarding/carrying large wads of greenbacks presents itself on misc.survivalism and it's thrashed about pretty good.
I personally use lots of cash. A few years ago, when I heard about the Clinton Administration's "Know Your Customer" mandate for banks, I decided to establish a pattern of regularly suspicious behavior -- every payday, I pulled every penny from my bank account and used postal money orders to pay bills and everything else was cash only. I established a baseline of never having cash in the bank and making regular large withdraws. I'm not sure what good this actually does for me, but it's a matter of principle in these times of Bush, Cheney, and Aschroft.
It's kinda liberating, really, knowing that 50% of my spending habits were no longer on file. I also had that warm fuzzy feelig of knowing that the blood-sucking bank of mine (Wells Fargo) wasn't earning interest on my "Free Checking" account.
Sure, most people will think I'm a tinfoil-hat-wearing paranoid freak. But I challenge the state of MA to tell me where my money goes. ;-)
Hey, that's a pretty cool idea. While not on the drumline of my high-school marching band (I played trumpet in the brass line), I imagine such a thing would have been well-received during a half-time show.
The frivolous uses of these little gizmos are almost unlimited. :)
How about embedded onto speaker assemblies? Different colors for different cone sizes (or whatever -- I'm no audiophile). Could be rather neat-looking, no?
Sure, I wouldn't give one to my kids (which I'm done having, btw), but it's safe. What were those military lights called? Watchlights? Watchglasses? Whatever -- they were regarded as safe, I believe.
I think self-powered and self-contained light sources are really cool. I'd rather have a Glowring, but they can't be imported for resale in the US/Canada. Any enterprising folks across the pond wish to work out a deal and get me some? ;-)
If they're anything like the beer drinkers in my dorm, they get it from the local plasma lab (which was conveniently located walking-distance to a bar).
I guess the frozen yogurt market has some stiff competition these days, eh?
A few months ago, I performed a for-sale-by-owner home transaction, without agents or lawyers on either side. We signed my state's standard contract, then several addendums to shore up the few things we needed clarified.
Any lawyers or HR folks wish to comment on how this would work? Heck, with this approach, there could be boilerplate addendum (complete with checkboxes, like on real estate contracts) drawn up by some altruistic lawyer and released to the public domain to help out people like the OP.
The topic at hand is drinking coffee, not the coffee enemas those bean-srpout-eating herbalist homeopathic types like to brag about. ;-)
That said, I like the French press. I have myself a Zassenhaus hand mill, and a Nissan Stainless vacuum press.. I nuke the water in the microwave (or boil it on the stove, if at home), the mill is quiet, and the press keeps the stuff warm for a good while and won't break.