Which library? (unless there's reason not to tell)
Howso "independent"? I don't really know the Texas public library system, but if you have Independent School Districts, I guess you can have Independent libraries;)
I like / want tabbed browsing for libraries because when searching for books, usually an initial phase of the search will get me to a list of books that might match, sometimes a long list.
With tabs, I can clickaclickaclicka load them up and then look at each entry separately. (So, when searching from home on my own computer, it's great:))
At the machines at the library itself, though, they use a different interface (wish they wouldn't), and kiosk / IE machines -- never mind tabs, you can't even start new browser instances, so you have to pursue each possibility on the list one at a time, click, then read, then click Back to try the next one.
That's why:)
standards compliance and reasonable security are great, but I might even prefer IE to Mozilla if the which-has-tabs situation were reversed. Well, and if IE ran on Linux without bothersome add-on software.
and maybe "checking email" wasn't the keenest example to pick out by itself.
But though it obviously can cut both ways, I like the idea of (when it's possible) being able to decouple internet access from location.
Right now, I'm in Utah, and parked at a Flying J truckstop, posting to Slashdot and (yes) checking email. $5 for a daypass, $25 for a month. WiFi is getting widespread enough that (with planning) it's an OK way to work from the road by hopping between such sites, but the reason I mentioned The Canyonlands... it would have been much more pleasant to be able to camp there overnight, work part of that time, but then do some exploring (and some use out of my Nat'l Parks Passport;)). Since I'm on my way from El Paso to Seattle at the moment, there are a lot of places I wish I could have stopped and enjoyed the scenery, but didn't have time to, this round.
there are a lot of places in N. America where your options for internet service are either nothing or nothing. With a service like this, one could go camping at Big Bend, Yellowstone, or Canyonlands National Park, and check email in the heat of the day:)
For a house, sure, it's not ideal when cable / DSL is available and cheap, but for mobility, this would be great. (At least, and I'm hoping-guessing, if it doesn't take ultra-finicky setup like current sat. options do.)
I used to work (at one remove -- I was employed by an ad agency) for Dell, and among my picayune responsibilities was confirming that certain 800 numbers reached where they were supposed to. Dell is big into analyzing responses by assigning different 800 numbers to different demographics, so they can say "Ah, small business owners reached [in April/in the Southwest / from Spam database X] bought more OptiPlex systems..." etc.
I would hate to actually have to reach Dell for support, because a) many of the numbers were *not* correct (until we fixed them) and b) often they just descended into IVR hell ; sounds like you did well that way though. (I also have some horror stories from a friend who worked in their tech support. He reports among other things that the computer running his corner of the Dell tech support world was... a Compaq;))
"In Windows 95/98 you could get rid of the login screen by deleting the pwl files and then using a blank password. In Windows 2000/XP you get a login screen unless you use TweakXP to auto-login."
OK.
"I myself have a laptop and a Linksys wireless card.. and an internal mini-PCI wireless card. Knoppix detects neither and I have to use ether to go online with it. I had installed the Linksys in Windows XP and it just works. I plug it in and it works, I pop it out and it's off. No troubles. I suspect that some of the other issues you are having may be preventing it from working. If it's a Dell and they were smart enough to buy the service plan, they should use it."
Funny how things work, isn't it?:) Strange interactions between computer / peripherals / operating system lead to opposite experiences.
The laptop that refused the linksys card was actually a Compaq; the semi-crippled one I used for part of the last week was a Dell, but I suspect no longer covered by any warranty, I dunno.
People who are well versed in Windows have a better time with it.
I see a fair number of people's Windows machines (not a huge number, but computers belonging to friends / acquaintances / family members), and in my limited sample, most of them provide evidence for the "Windows is Flaky" point of view. (And I'm mostly ignorant of Windows, fall into the same category.)
Partly this is the fault of malicious (or merely thoughtless) 3rd party software (there are people who seem to think that Microsoft is basically a real-life Virtucon intent only on ransom money, impaling infants on pikes, etc, but I am not one of these:)), partly it's a matter of user interface.
(How many Windows login screens are there out there with a blank password that the user would just as soon skip altogether, but has gotten used to hitting return to get past? Of the motley Windows installs I've seen, I'd say 90% of the users have just gotten used to clicking through that screen... maybe it no longer appears in XP, I'm a bit behind, can't recall.)
Past the login screen, there are cryptic error messages all over the place that non-guru Windows users just shrug at and click past. Maybe they shouldn't, but that's the time/effort decision many users have come to accept. Whenever I work on Windows machines, I tend to agree.
Case in point: For the last few days, I was using a borrowed laptop -- wireless connection worked only with the one I was using, and my housemate can't find the documentation for the wireless box. (More complicated that that, but suffice it to say it was easier to just borrow.) On startup, Windows pops up an error message about a missing.dll file, and Norton's utilties pop up another dialogue box saying that some minor file other is missing, and instructs the user to remove and reinstall the Norton package. In all, four error messages pop up on boot, and the owner, not into computers except as things on which to write / check email / *use*, doesn't know how to resolve them, so... they remain, and the computer seems to work.
Trying to bring up his wireless card's special driver software (privded by SBC) tells the user that the access point cannot be found or is not connected -- even though in fact, it seems to be working fine:) [Much better than the opposite situation, which seems to be more common.] The laptops's owner showed me this, to ask me why it said that (on the basis that I know something about computers), but as usual I had to point out that I know little about computers and far less than that about Windows;)
(That machine, a Dell Inspiron, a few years old, is running Windows 2000 Pro, crashes frequently... could be the hardware, or maybe the software is primarily to blame -- all I know is that the combination fails a lot!)
So far, in my experience, all operating systems suck ["'PC load letter?' WTF does *that* mean?!" is a universal experience] but I've had far happier experiences with Linux and other Unixy operating systems (and with the pre-X Mac OS as well) than with Windows. Personality, prior experience, expectations, aesthetics all play into it. In matters of taste, there can be no dispute;)
wrt to the claim (made frequently, and close to what you've said here) that under Windows "things just work, snap in a driver disk and click some arrows", I've found that to be a mixed bag when trying to help my dad install software while on family visits. Some things (scanner, one printer) worked fine, just click-click-click; other things he's had and tried repeatedly, and with telephone tech help, to install, with no luck. His color laser printer, he *never* got to work under Windows 98, and eventually reached a tech who confided that many other people had the same experience, with no solution in sight. [Under Windows XP, it finally works as expected -- Yay! -- but I was somewhat smug in pointing out it was supp
I just posted those (italicized) words to the page; However, I did add the snippet (non-italic) at the end about the folks vying to replace the UC system in managing LANL.
As soon as I hit the 'submit' key, both of those thoughts sprung to mind;) Also, and I will assert in advance that this is only an illusion, but nano feels faster too. Which is silly, since they're both ridiculously fast, so I can't claim it's really true.
However, PINE is not a bad mail client... I was a PINE user for about a decade, then switched to mutt. I think overall I like mutt better (hence the switch, of course), but there are things l like better about PINE. Specifically, the actual sending of a completed message in mutt is a bit more awkward.
What I'd like to see is a G5 in a (headless) shoebox form. Half-a-grapefruit is a nice shape for breakfast:)
The iMacs really are nice, but... a shoebox mac (heck, a G4 would be perfectly fine, a later G3 would please me, too) I could hook up to my KVM and go, without bringing the picture of a new monitor into the picture (on a new monitor).
I'll third or fourth or whatever here, but bend the recommendation toward nano instead. Why? Because it's free-as-in-Debian, and can therefore be ever-so-slightly more easily installed after a quick dumping of Knoppix or Mepis onto a hard drive:)
re: Mujahideen -- yes, I spoke too loosely in saying that they "went on to form" the Taliban; you're certainly right in saying that the Mujahideen were composed of factions which took part in power struggles after the Soviets had packed their toys, and it's only a small part that went on to form the un-fun patrol of the Taliban. (Not *all* of their toys, since they left a number of toys behind that happened to actually be explosives disguised as toys...) I should have narrowed that statement quite a bit:)
"As for motives. Let's be honest, every major power which takes an interest in the middle-east does so because of oil." Yes, agreed. Not that "oil" is a simple factor... oil = money = energy = stability (that is, the world hums more happily when oil at least appears to be flowing steadily, since we use it for so many things...) = peace (since stability and peace are just about, though not perfectly, synonomous) etc etc etc. But oil is certainly the most powerful source of influence throughout the middle east. Possession (even hypothetical, uncertain or imagined) of nukes and other massively destructive type items is no small one, either. (Among official allies, official sorta-friends, and official bad buys.) Religion counts, too (to the U.S. in the middle east, that means Islam) since religion can provide motive and infrastrucure for actions not in line with government interests, and therefore concerns governments (home team and away).
And when all of those things are in the picture, the sphere that consitutes "middle east" stretches a bit, too. Algeria, for instance, falls into the 'round-the-med stew, though it's not a country thought of in the usual Egypt / Jordan / Israel jostling.
Thanks for raising the point that Israel is a major factor to the U.S. in the M.E., and that plans for the (intended) stabilization though topping of Iraq's then-government are not the sole hatchling of a parody mad-scientist Bush.
That there is an "interest" (mild word) in oil driving not just the current Iraq adventure but middle-east policy at large is undeniable.
However, the idea that France (or, say, Russia) is above "feet wet in some shitty Arab country that means nothing to most people, except of course GW Bush and his oil frenzied cronies" does not match the facts. Russia (in the form of the USSR) certain got its feet wet (and often blown off) in Afghanistan, where the U.S. strangely enough trained or flowed money to a lot of people (the Mujihideen, spelling loose;)) fighting the Soviets, who then went on to form the Taliban government; Russia was one of the major oil trading partners with Iraq while that country was under sanctions... swing your partner, do-si-do.
The high-level U.S. motives in Iraq I consider partly cynical, though they're mixed with some good ones. Are they *mostly* cynical, and the good ones are only in there as window dressing, or is it a matter of inextricably linked attributes? That's not a rhetorical question.
[Note: I think the U.S. should stay out of this sort of adventure unless truly necessary, but even though it sounds definitive, "truly necessary" is a tough standard to agree on. A lot of people consider WWII to have been obvious (U.S. involvement, that is), but it sure wasn't at the time. The UN had found it necessary to place a series of arms-inspection teams (by most accounts ineffective due to manpower constraints as well as their acceptance of rather bizarre rules) into Iraq, and the uncooperation those teams faced is one thing that goaded the U.S., with greater support than it now enjoys for it, into war; this has always struck me as one of the most bizarre aspects of the whole thing.]
a) Maybe Windows is right for you. If it works well for you, you're happy with it, and you see no compelling reason to switch, then I guess you shouldn't:)
"1. Printer does not work"
Some printers don't and probably never will work with Linux, especially the so-called WinPrinters (like WinModems) that rely on processing to be done on the CPU. This is a clever idea, if the back-end software has a guaranteed-compatible home, less so in a multi-platform environment.
Of the others (non WinPrinters), Linux support varies. The WinPrinters of the world tend to be low-end inkjets; recent (last several years) laser printers and mid-grade or better inkjets are generally supported. If your system has KDE (even if you're running another desktop environment), I recommend the KDE printer setup tool. If your printer is supported, it's a better-than-average (less evil) interface than the last Windows printer setup program I encountered. (That was for my father's Minolta/QMS MagiColor color laser, which never did work right under Windows 98.) I'm using a low-end Lexmark b/w laser (model e210), which was less than a hundred bucks on sale, and is supported (even listed by name) with KDE's printer-setup program.
"2. Cannot go on the internet - does not recognize/install DSL."
Boy, it took Covad 5 visits to set up DSL, you think a Linus distro can do it on its own?:) Without more info (and maybe even with it), I don't have a good non-flippant response to that part of your complaint. Setting up networking can be frustrating, and I'm no expert. If your connection uses a DHCP connection to supply an address + DNS server, consider trying Knoppix (or the very similar Mepis) as a trial run. Knoppix tends to do a good job of setting up networking. (And Mepis IMO has a nicer interface for setting up static IPs, if you have one assigned.)
"3. Scanner does not work." Here's a useful site which may be helpful in setting up a scanner, assuming it's one that's supported by Linux. (Epsons tend to be; with other brands, it's model-dependent.) This is another area that is a bit more complicated than would be ideal: assigning permissions to the scanner, playing with USB device names is fiddly to say the least. (I've *heard* of people just plugging in their USB scanners and finding they work, but evidently those people are luckier than me... I always end up googling when setting a scanner up on a new machine. So thanks, you've reminded me I haven't done it yet on my current desktop;))
However: once the hardware is set up, I prefer (am spoiled by) Xsane (included with many distros) to any other scanner software which I have seen. I'll admit though, my bases of comparison are getting pretty outdated, since I haven't scanned on Mac OS or Windows in a few years.
A lot of people are complaining here that low-bitrate recording is useless / stupid / so 1988 etc. Fine for them:) I'm glad that people are fanatic about sound quality and that storage prices make it reasonable for many people to use nothing but lossless codecs etc., and to care about the difference between 192kbps and 256kbps MP3s. Lossless is certainly a good storage answer for the long term, as the file can be inflated and re-squashed with the latest n' greatest lossy codecs as appropriate.
However, there are reasons and times where the lossy stuff, even hugely lossy stuff like this listening test focuses on, makes a lot of sense and has no big downside. For me, squashing audiobooks is this way. I can fit about 30 hours of book into one CD-R size chunk of hard drive as a series of (extremely listenable) quality zero mono ogg vorbis files. Beats carrying 30 CDs around.
The word "narcotic" is also stretched to mean much more than it used to / ought to. In particular, government agents talking about drugs will use the term as if it were equivalent to any currently illegal psychoactive. Cocaine, for instance, is frequently labeled a narcotic, which it isn't.
We direct photographers to capture Slashdot readers around the world. Bwuhahahaha!
It's amusing to me that both you and the guy who put in the access point both saw this story;)
Iowa is a good state to put WiFi in this way -- it's not the easiest state in which to find an unsecured signal. The last time I drove through it, things got pretty desperate;)
I've hit at least one Flying J that was completely open; the buy-a-subscription page wouldn't even come up;)
However, generally those APs are *not* free for all; a month costs $25, a year costs $180, $5 gets you an hour (or maybe it's $3)...
I bought a month of Flying J service on a recent road trip, it works quite well and is a fair bargain, especially if you're willing to indulge in some buffet food once in a while and seek out an electrical outlet to recharge;)
Drinks at the Flying J buffets are gigantic, too -- ultra-super-sized.
You mention that you use a real player from the BBC to play real and mp3 formats; can you elaborate on that? I've never heard of such a thing, or at least can't recall it, and a scan on the BBC site hasn't yielded anything...
Mplayer as provided on Mepis works for me to play some things but not others... there might be ways around this, but I just put Mepis on this laptop last night and like you hate tweaking things for hours of frustration;)
(tangential: I found that to play DVDs on my Toshiba Satellite laptop with the version of Mepis I downloaded, I think it's 2004-06-3b, the only thing that works is VLC. Xine crashes after flashing its GUI on the screen, mplayer brings up a gui but doesn't actually play the disk. VLC works great though, after I downloaded the decss library, and VLC itself of course.)
OK, *most* of the way is New Jersey (unless you opt for a Pennsylvania route), but it's not the only part!
There's also Delaware (easy to miss if a gnat gets in your eye for about 7 seconds... if not for the tollbooths) and Maryland, which is your last chance to turn back before entering the fell swamp city of corruption, presumption and arrogance. (If you're going south, at least.) Nice thing about the NJ part though (and I think the northernmost plaza in MD) is that they have Cinnabons! Mmmm, cinnabon. I wish cinnabon had a pneumatic tube reaching my house, with an attached credit card swiper... it would be like those rat/cocaine experiments.
Are there any USB 802.11 devices that simply work, without kernel recompiling or similar extra work?:)
It would be great to add this to the list of Things Good To Demo On Random Laptops With Knoppix! Actually, what would be even better to demonstrate is the USB WiFi+kitchen scoop long-distance antenna:)
Shoebox computers in particular tend to have precious PCI slots, and (unless you add an semi-expensive* adaptor) no PCMCIA slots, so this would be a great way to add wireless networking to them.
timothy
*semi-expensive in this case means in particular "as expensive as the low-end USB wireless sticks."
In some states, they're dirty and usually sort of creepy. (Arkansas has some of these.)
In some places they're functional (I'm thinking of the turnpike plazas along the DC-NYC corridor), with fast food, usually working restrooms, gas stations. Not a place to spend much time, and I know that at least some of the NJ ones have a 2-hour limit, so not a good place -- not just for that reason! -- for a nap.
In some places they're actually friendly; the big state-entry ones in Tennesee, Colorado and Texas, for instance. Since I prefer to travel by car vs. airplane when possible, I've hit a lot of bad ones and a lot of good ones; Texas is high on the Good list in my experience. Also, Texas has a fair number of no-facilities parking rest stops out in the sticks, where there might be a few shaded picnic tables -- if fatigue creeps up, these are (literally) lifesavers when on rural roads with few places to stop. And free WiFi? Hey, even better:)
Slashdot Mirror
Which library? (unless there's reason not to tell)
;)
Howso "independent"? I don't really know the Texas public library system, but if you have Independent School Districts, I guess you can have Independent libraries
timothy (who needs to brush up on his Texan lore)
I like / want tabbed browsing for libraries because when searching for books, usually an initial phase of the search will get me to a list of books that might match, sometimes a long list.
:))
:)
With tabs, I can clickaclickaclicka load them up and then look at each entry separately. (So, when searching from home on my own computer, it's great
At the machines at the library itself, though, they use a different interface (wish they wouldn't), and kiosk / IE machines -- never mind tabs, you can't even start new browser instances, so you have to pursue each possibility on the list one at a time, click, then read, then click Back to try the next one.
That's why
standards compliance and reasonable security are great, but I might even prefer IE to Mozilla if the which-has-tabs situation were reversed. Well, and if IE ran on Linux without bothersome add-on software.
timothy
and maybe "checking email" wasn't the keenest example to pick out by itself.
... it would have been much more pleasant to be able to camp there overnight, work part of that time, but then do some exploring (and some use out of my Nat'l Parks Passport ;)). Since I'm on my way from El Paso to Seattle at the moment, there are a lot of places I wish I could have stopped and enjoyed the scenery, but didn't have time to, this round.
But though it obviously can cut both ways, I like the idea of (when it's possible) being able to decouple internet access from location.
Right now, I'm in Utah, and parked at a Flying J truckstop, posting to Slashdot and (yes) checking email. $5 for a daypass, $25 for a month. WiFi is getting widespread enough that (with planning) it's an OK way to work from the road by hopping between such sites, but the reason I mentioned The Canyonlands
timothy
there are a lot of places in N. America where your options for internet service are either nothing or nothing. With a service like this, one could go camping at Big Bend, Yellowstone, or Canyonlands National Park, and check email in the heat of the day :)
For a house, sure, it's not ideal when cable / DSL is available and cheap, but for mobility, this would be great. (At least, and I'm hoping-guessing, if it doesn't take ultra-finicky setup like current sat. options do.)
timothy
I used to work (at one remove -- I was employed by an ad agency) for Dell, and among my picayune responsibilities was confirming that certain 800 numbers reached where they were supposed to. Dell is big into analyzing responses by assigning different 800 numbers to different demographics, so they can say "Ah, small business owners reached [in April/in the Southwest / from Spam database X] bought more OptiPlex systems ..." etc.
... a Compaq ;))
I would hate to actually have to reach Dell for support, because a) many of the numbers were *not* correct (until we fixed them) and b) often they just descended into IVR hell ; sounds like you did well that way though. (I also have some horror stories from a friend who worked in their tech support. He reports among other things that the computer running his corner of the Dell tech support world was
Tim
"In Windows 95/98 you could get rid of the login screen by deleting the pwl files and then using a blank password. In Windows 2000/XP you get a login screen unless you use TweakXP to auto-login."
:) Strange interactions between computer / peripherals / operating system lead to opposite experiences.
OK.
"I myself have a laptop and a Linksys wireless card.. and an internal mini-PCI wireless card. Knoppix detects neither and I have to use ether to go online with it. I had installed the Linksys in Windows XP and it just works. I plug it in and it works, I pop it out and it's off. No troubles. I suspect that some of the other issues you are having may be preventing it from working. If it's a Dell and they were smart enough to buy the service plan, they should use it."
Funny how things work, isn't it?
The laptop that refused the linksys card was actually a Compaq; the semi-crippled one I used for part of the last week was a Dell, but I suspect no longer covered by any warranty, I dunno.
Cheers,
Tim
But, here's how to get a story posted on Slashdot.
timothy
People who are well versed in Windows have a better time with it.
:)), partly it's a matter of user interface.
... maybe it no longer appears in XP, I'm a bit behind, can't recall.)
.dll file, and Norton's utilties pop up another dialogue box saying that some minor file other is missing, and instructs the user to remove and reinstall the Norton package. In all, four error messages pop up on boot, and the owner, not into computers except as things on which to write / check email / *use*, doesn't know how to resolve them, so ... they remain, and the computer seems to work.
:) [Much better than the opposite situation, which seems to be more common.] The laptops's owner showed me this, to ask me why it said that (on the basis that I know something about computers), but as usual I had to point out that I know little about computers and far less than that about Windows ;)
... could be the hardware, or maybe the software is primarily to blame -- all I know is that the combination fails a lot!)
;)
I see a fair number of people's Windows machines (not a huge number, but computers belonging to friends / acquaintances / family members), and in my limited sample, most of them provide evidence for the "Windows is Flaky" point of view. (And I'm mostly ignorant of Windows, fall into the same category.)
Partly this is the fault of malicious (or merely thoughtless) 3rd party software (there are people who seem to think that Microsoft is basically a real-life Virtucon intent only on ransom money, impaling infants on pikes, etc, but I am not one of these
(How many Windows login screens are there out there with a blank password that the user would just as soon skip altogether, but has gotten used to hitting return to get past? Of the motley Windows installs I've seen, I'd say 90% of the users have just gotten used to clicking through that screen
Past the login screen, there are cryptic error messages all over the place that non-guru Windows users just shrug at and click past. Maybe they shouldn't, but that's the time/effort decision many users have come to accept. Whenever I work on Windows machines, I tend to agree.
Case in point: For the last few days, I was using a borrowed laptop -- wireless connection worked only with the one I was using, and my housemate can't find the documentation for the wireless box. (More complicated that that, but suffice it to say it was easier to just borrow.) On startup, Windows pops up an error message about a missing
Trying to bring up his wireless card's special driver software (privded by SBC) tells the user that the access point cannot be found or is not connected -- even though in fact, it seems to be working fine
(That machine, a Dell Inspiron, a few years old, is running Windows 2000 Pro, crashes frequently
So far, in my experience, all operating systems suck ["'PC load letter?' WTF does *that* mean?!" is a universal experience] but I've had far happier experiences with Linux and other Unixy operating systems (and with the pre-X Mac OS as well) than with Windows. Personality, prior experience, expectations, aesthetics all play into it. In matters of taste, there can be no dispute
wrt to the claim (made frequently, and close to what you've said here) that under Windows "things just work, snap in a driver disk and click some arrows", I've found that to be a mixed bag when trying to help my dad install software while on family visits. Some things (scanner, one printer) worked fine, just click-click-click; other things he's had and tried repeatedly, and with telephone tech help, to install, with no luck. His color laser printer, he *never* got to work under Windows 98, and eventually reached a tech who confided that many other people had the same experience, with no solution in sight. [Under Windows XP, it finally works as expected -- Yay! -- but I was somewhat smug in pointing out it was supp
dread_minerva wrote that, not me :)
I just posted those (italicized) words to the page; However, I did add the snippet (non-italic) at the end about the folks vying to replace the UC system in managing LANL.
timothy
As soon as I hit the 'submit' key, both of those thoughts sprung to mind ;) Also, and I will assert in advance that this is only an illusion, but nano feels faster too. Which is silly, since they're both ridiculously fast, so I can't claim it's really true.
... I was a PINE user for about a decade, then switched to mutt. I think overall I like mutt better (hence the switch, of course), but there are things l like better about PINE. Specifically, the actual sending of a completed message in mutt is a bit more awkward.
However, PINE is not a bad mail client
timothy
What I'd like to see is a G5 in a (headless) shoebox form. Half-a-grapefruit is a nice shape for breakfast :)
... a shoebox mac (heck, a G4 would be perfectly fine, a later G3 would please me, too) I could hook up to my KVM and go, without bringing the picture of a new monitor into the picture (on a new monitor).
The iMacs really are nice, but
I still lust after this one.
I'll third or fourth or whatever here, but bend the recommendation toward nano instead. Why? Because it's free-as-in-Debian, and can therefore be ever-so-slightly more easily installed after a quick dumping of Knoppix or Mepis onto a hard drive :)
timothy
re: Mujahideen -- yes, I spoke too loosely in saying that they "went on to form" the Taliban; you're certainly right in saying that the Mujahideen were composed of factions which took part in power struggles after the Soviets had packed their toys, and it's only a small part that went on to form the un-fun patrol of the Taliban. (Not *all* of their toys, since they left a number of toys behind that happened to actually be explosives disguised as toys ...) I should have narrowed that statement quite a bit :)
... oil = money = energy = stability (that is, the world hums more happily when oil at least appears to be flowing steadily, since we use it for so many things ...) = peace (since stability and peace are just about, though not perfectly, synonomous) etc etc etc. But oil is certainly the most powerful source of influence throughout the middle east. Possession (even hypothetical, uncertain or imagined) of nukes and other massively destructive type items is no small one, either. (Among official allies, official sorta-friends, and official bad buys.) Religion counts, too (to the U.S. in the middle east, that means Islam) since religion can provide motive and infrastrucure for actions not in line with government interests, and therefore concerns governments (home team and away).
"As for motives. Let's be honest, every major power which takes an interest in the middle-east does so because of oil." Yes, agreed. Not that "oil" is a simple factor
And when all of those things are in the picture, the sphere that consitutes "middle east" stretches a bit, too. Algeria, for instance, falls into the 'round-the-med stew, though it's not a country thought of in the usual Egypt / Jordan / Israel jostling.
Thanks for raising the point that Israel is a major factor to the U.S. in the M.E., and that plans for the (intended) stabilization though topping of Iraq's then-government are not the sole hatchling of a parody mad-scientist Bush.
timothy
That there is an "interest" (mild word) in oil driving not just the current Iraq adventure but middle-east policy at large is undeniable.
;)) fighting the Soviets, who then went on to form the Taliban government; Russia was one of the major oil trading partners with Iraq while that country was under sanctions ... swing your partner, do-si-do.
However, the idea that France (or, say, Russia) is above "feet wet in some shitty Arab country that means nothing to most people, except of course GW Bush and his oil frenzied cronies" does not match the facts. Russia (in the form of the USSR) certain got its feet wet (and often blown off) in Afghanistan, where the U.S. strangely enough trained or flowed money to a lot of people (the Mujihideen, spelling loose
A few tidbits about France's involvement in the export of Iraqi oil can be found here (globalpolicy.org/security/oil/irqindx.htm)
(And more on French involvement in Iraqi trade.)
The high-level U.S. motives in Iraq I consider partly cynical, though they're mixed with some good ones. Are they *mostly* cynical, and the good ones are only in there as window dressing, or is it a matter of inextricably linked attributes? That's not a rhetorical question.
[Note: I think the U.S. should stay out of this sort of adventure unless truly necessary, but even though it sounds definitive, "truly necessary" is a tough standard to agree on. A lot of people consider WWII to have been obvious (U.S. involvement, that is), but it sure wasn't at the time. The UN had found it necessary to place a series of arms-inspection teams (by most accounts ineffective due to manpower constraints as well as their acceptance of rather bizarre rules) into Iraq, and the uncooperation those teams faced is one thing that goaded the U.S., with greater support than it now enjoys for it, into war; this has always struck me as one of the most bizarre aspects of the whole thing.]
timothy
a) Maybe Windows is right for you. If it works well for you, you're happy with it, and you see no compelling reason to switch, then I guess you shouldn't :)
:) Without more info (and maybe even with it), I don't have a good non-flippant response to that part of your complaint. Setting up networking can be frustrating, and I'm no expert. If your connection uses a DHCP connection to supply an address + DNS server, consider trying Knoppix (or the very similar Mepis) as a trial run. Knoppix tends to do a good job of setting up networking. (And Mepis IMO has a nicer interface for setting up static IPs, if you have one assigned.)
... I always end up googling when setting a scanner up on a new machine. So thanks, you've reminded me I haven't done it yet on my current desktop;))
"1. Printer does not work"
Some printers don't and probably never will work with Linux, especially the so-called WinPrinters (like WinModems) that rely on processing to be done on the CPU. This is a clever idea, if the back-end software has a guaranteed-compatible home, less so in a multi-platform environment.
Of the others (non WinPrinters), Linux support varies. The WinPrinters of the world tend to be low-end inkjets; recent (last several years) laser printers and mid-grade or better inkjets are generally supported. If your system has KDE (even if you're running another desktop environment), I recommend the KDE printer setup tool. If your printer is supported, it's a better-than-average (less evil) interface than the last Windows printer setup program I encountered. (That was for my father's Minolta/QMS MagiColor color laser, which never did work right under Windows 98.) I'm using a low-end Lexmark b/w laser (model e210), which was less than a hundred bucks on sale, and is supported (even listed by name) with KDE's printer-setup program.
"2. Cannot go on the internet - does not recognize/install DSL."
Boy, it took Covad 5 visits to set up DSL, you think a Linus distro can do it on its own?
"3. Scanner does not work."
Here's a useful site which may be helpful in setting up a scanner, assuming it's one that's supported by Linux. (Epsons tend to be; with other brands, it's model-dependent.) This is another area that is a bit more complicated than would be ideal: assigning permissions to the scanner, playing with USB device names is fiddly to say the least. (I've *heard* of people just plugging in their USB scanners and finding they work, but evidently those people are luckier than me
However: once the hardware is set up, I prefer (am spoiled by) Xsane (included with many distros) to any other scanner software which I have seen. I'll admit though, my bases of comparison are getting pretty outdated, since I haven't scanned on Mac OS or Windows in a few years.
timothy
A lot of people are complaining here that low-bitrate recording is useless / stupid / so 1988 etc. Fine for them :) I'm glad that people are fanatic about sound quality and that storage prices make it reasonable for many people to use nothing but lossless codecs etc., and to care about the difference between 192kbps and 256kbps MP3s. Lossless is certainly a good storage answer for the long term, as the file can be inflated and re-squashed with the latest n' greatest lossy codecs as appropriate.
However, there are reasons and times where the lossy stuff, even hugely lossy stuff like this listening test focuses on, makes a lot of sense and has no big downside. For me, squashing audiobooks is this way. I can fit about 30 hours of book into one CD-R size chunk of hard drive as a series of (extremely listenable) quality zero mono ogg vorbis files. Beats carrying 30 CDs around.
timothy
The word "narcotic" is also stretched to mean much more than it used to / ought to. In particular, government agents talking about drugs will use the term as if it were equivalent to any currently illegal psychoactive. Cocaine, for instance, is frequently labeled a narcotic, which it isn't.
Codeine, on the other hand, qualifies.
timothy
We direct photographers to capture Slashdot readers around the world. Bwuhahahaha!
;)
;)
It's amusing to me that both you and the guy who put in the access point both saw this story
Iowa is a good state to put WiFi in this way -- it's not the easiest state in which to find an unsecured signal. The last time I drove through it, things got pretty desperate
Cheers,
timothy
I've hit at least one Flying J that was completely open; the buy-a-subscription page wouldn't even come up ;)
...
;)
However, generally those APs are *not* free for all; a month costs $25, a year costs $180, $5 gets you an hour (or maybe it's $3)
I bought a month of Flying J service on a recent road trip, it works quite well and is a fair bargain, especially if you're willing to indulge in some buffet food once in a while and seek out an electrical outlet to recharge
Drinks at the Flying J buffets are gigantic, too -- ultra-super-sized.
timothy
Lorcha --
You're right; I'd meant to parse the name and add in a link (as I now have done) to the project's web page.
timothy
That's what I used.
;)
It's usually a crapshoot as to which of mplayer, xine, or vlc will play random video content, but very often at least one of them will
timothy
You mention that you use a real player from the BBC to play real and mp3 formats; can you elaborate on that? I've never heard of such a thing, or at least can't recall it, and a scan on the BBC site hasn't yielded anything ...
... there might be ways around this, but I just put Mepis on this laptop last night and like you hate tweaking things for hours of frustration ;)
Mplayer as provided on Mepis works for me to play some things but not others
(tangential: I found that to play DVDs on my Toshiba Satellite laptop with the version of Mepis I downloaded, I think it's 2004-06-3b, the only thing that works is VLC. Xine crashes after flashing its GUI on the screen, mplayer brings up a gui but doesn't actually play the disk. VLC works great though, after I downloaded the decss library, and VLC itself of course.)
timothy
OK, *most* of the way is New Jersey (unless you opt for a Pennsylvania route), but it's not the only part!
... if not for the tollbooths) and Maryland, which is your last chance to turn back before entering the fell swamp city of corruption, presumption and arrogance. (If you're going south, at least.) Nice thing about the NJ part though (and I think the northernmost plaza in MD) is that they have Cinnabons! Mmmm, cinnabon. I wish cinnabon had a pneumatic tube reaching my house, with an attached credit card swiper ... it would be like those rat/cocaine experiments.
There's also Delaware (easy to miss if a gnat gets in your eye for about 7 seconds
timothy
Are there any USB 802.11 devices that simply work, without kernel recompiling or similar extra work? :)
:)
It would be great to add this to the list of Things Good To Demo On Random Laptops With Knoppix! Actually, what would be even better to demonstrate is the USB WiFi+kitchen scoop long-distance antenna
Shoebox computers in particular tend to have precious PCI slots, and (unless you add an semi-expensive* adaptor) no PCMCIA slots, so this would be a great way to add wireless networking to them.
timothy
*semi-expensive in this case means in particular "as expensive as the low-end USB wireless sticks."
In some states, they're dirty and usually sort of creepy. (Arkansas has some of these.)
:)
In some places they're functional (I'm thinking of the turnpike plazas along the DC-NYC corridor), with fast food, usually working restrooms, gas stations. Not a place to spend much time, and I know that at least some of the NJ ones have a 2-hour limit, so not a good place -- not just for that reason! -- for a nap.
In some places they're actually friendly; the big state-entry ones in Tennesee, Colorado and Texas, for instance. Since I prefer to travel by car vs. airplane when possible, I've hit a lot of bad ones and a lot of good ones; Texas is high on the Good list in my experience. Also, Texas has a fair number of no-facilities parking rest stops out in the sticks, where there might be a few shaded picnic tables -- if fatigue creeps up, these are (literally) lifesavers when on rural roads with few places to stop. And free WiFi? Hey, even better
timothy