It's the code behind (arguably) the most popular weblog out there. (at least for geeks like us)
It's not meant for smaller sites. It's meant to be on it's own server, taking millions of hits, and performing well under pressure.
Using Slash for a smaller weblog is sortof like using an SUV to transport one person (yourself) a very short distance (two blocks) and back. It's overkill. It's wasteful of resources, and it doesn't really gain you anything.
Now, if they made a stripped-down veresion of Slash, specifically catered to smaller weblogs, but with a compatible config format, so that when/if the weblog became popular, upgrading was fairly painless - that would be something =)
If the site is blocked, there's a good chance they won't see it. If they don't see it, they can't decide whether it's "indecent" or not. Therefore, they won't vote to unblock it.
Now conceivably, you could turn *off* these filters - but would the standard AOL web filters still be in place?
Would you get a truly *uncensored* view of the web with the filters turned off, or would you simply get a larger subset, lacking what AOL's execs/censors have decided that you don't need to see?
No thanks - I'll stick with a direct connection where *I* control what I can see, and what my family can see. I don't want my 'net experience "filtered" by a company's views - or even worse, by some glorified hivemind's views.
---
"Everything is objectionable to someone, and sheeple are easily swayed to the views of someone with conviction. Therefore, they will vote in the manner proscribed to them by those with conviction. Without an opposing viewpoint, there becomes a monopoly on public opinion."
Although I'm sure Linus knew that/.ers would read his reply, it definitely was not written in technical terms.
Who wouldn't acknowledge that DaVinci, Newton, Einsten, etc... were fundamental to our current understanding of science? I don't think even the marketers would go so far as to scorn their achievements.
Who hadn't heard that quote from Newton before (even if it was WAY back in grade school) - I'd imagine even many business majors would remember that one. It's powerful, and VERY relevant.
Linus' reply was VERY well-written, and I doubt that even the stuffed shirts will disagree with the points that he makes. He may not have responded in financial terms - but the terms he did respond in should be fairly universal.
Even my fiancee, who isn't technically minded, said "wow - he's good" when I read Linus' response to her. I'd say that's a pretty good indicator. =)
I don't think there are enough people who have all three of - 1) a day job, 2) significant expertise in a certain area, 3) the desire to use the expertise without financial reward - to provide us with the consumer goods we desire to enhance our standard of living.
Well, if you want to ignore the government-imposed financial class structure here in the states, there are some people who conceivably *could* fit this bill.
The children of the excessively wealthy.
You're right in the fact that holding down a day job, and trying to do research "on the side" is just unrealistic - people who are holding down a day job to make ends meet aren't going to have the time nor the drive to do that kind of research. They're going to be much more concerned with paying rent, and keeping food on the table.
Once those things are easily afforded, the person in question becomes "middle class", where the government wants a MUCH bigger piece of his/her earnings - making it tougher to put aside money and time to research, or even into investments, where the return on small investments is almost nil.
The excessively wealthy don't have this problem. The legal/financial atmosphere here in the states caters to them, with tax shelters and loopholes and such, which keep their money in their pockets - and the stock market, which keeps their money growing (the return on very large investments is quite good).
The children of the excessively wealthy generally don't have to "put in their time" working as a bagger in a grocery store, or as sales staff on a retail outlet while they are young. Granted, they're quite often sent to boarding schools - but they have so few worries that it's not inconceivable a few brilliant minds could be polished.
They don't have to worry about keeping the family fortune growing -- they hire people to do that.
Conceivably, once they finish their education, they could use some of that money to better humankind, by doing research themselves, or even by using a small portion of their vast fortunes to fund other scientists and/or universities to research things which MAY NOT produce a direct benefit, but which may raise our collective level of scientific understanding and lead to other, side benefits.
Of course, this will never happen. Our society here is so firmly entrenched in greed and personal gain that I doubt those of high financial standing even care about advancing the species. They're too busy advancing their own wallets.
Re:Deciding when you are using the net.
on
Virtual Addiction
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· Score: 2
Broadband access at our house has been excellent - we'll be watching a movie or reading a book or a newspaper article, and be able to pull up additional information. This would often spawn off conversations...
Same here. We also use it to pull up things like episode summaries and translation guides for various undubbed/unsubbed anime - which is REALLY helpful.
Even worse are cable companies whose tech support assumes, even in the face of evidence, that you are a moron.
For example, the situation in January when, after 2 weeks of having my cable modem installed, I was still getting randomly dropped packets, and a generally unstable connection (cable link light flickering).
After troubleshooting it myself (hooking up a local network and testing connectivity and file transfer with >1gb files, replacing every bit of coax and cat5 I could get my hands on (out to the wall socket - I would replace the line from the socket to the basement, but it goes into a lockbox, so I can't get at the basement end of it) - I couldn't fix the problem. So, I assumed it was either a bum modem or problems down the line. Either way, I needed to call support.
So...I gathered up some logs, did a few traceroutes, and basically got as much evidence of the problem as I could. Then I started the process.
Call AT&T support
Navigate their 5 level touch-tone automated menu
Listen to hold music, interspersed with ads proclaiming how great their service is - for half an hour.
Got Front Line Tech #337, who took my personal info, and proceeded to attempt to walk through my Windows settings (I run linux) - I politely informed the gentleman that while I was not running Windows, and understood that they didn't provide direct support for linux, that I could give him ANY information he might need about my network card, it's settings, and anything else he might want. Got put back on hold.
20 minutes this time.
Got Front Line Tech #891, who explained that if I wasn't running Windows, they couldn't get the proper information from my PC (what bull!) - So, I asked "What information do you need?" - turns out he wanted the MAC address of my network card, and the serial number off the bottom of my cable modem. Gave him those. (Why I'd need to be in Windows in order to see my MAC address is beyond me - although I can understand they might not know to have a clueless user run/sbin/ifconfig -a. Why I'd need to be running Windows in order to READ a number printed on the cable modem is another matter entirely...)
back on hold for 15 minutes
Front Line Tech #233 answers and wants my personal info again, as well as a description of the problem. "Umm...I already gave this to you - why do you need it again?"
back on hold - 30 minutes. I'm starting to get pissed.
Front Line Tech #233 answers again, and apologizes for the mixup earlier. Asks if I can hold for a level 2 tech. Fine. Ask how long it'll be - don't get an answer, just get thrown back into the hold system.
15 minutes.
Level 2 tech "Andrew" answers - asks me to get to a DOS box and type ping www. I do the equivalent on my end - 66% packetloss. He takes my MAC address again, then asks me to hold on a sec. I see my cable modem's link light go out (again) - I notify him of this. Lots of frantic typing, followed by "can I put you on hold? This is going to take a while" - I notify him I've spent more time on hold than actually speaking with people, but if that's twhat it takes, that's what it takes.
10 minutes on hold.
"Andrew" picks up, asks me if my link light is back on. Yep. Asks me to ping their webserver again. 33% packetloss. Has me repeat it. 66% packetloss. "Andrew" decides my problem is bigger than him, so puts me back on hold while I'm transferred to someone in Administration.
5 minutes on hold
Get "Jim" from Administration, who informs me there's some "network trouble" in my area that they're aware of, and it should be fixed sometime this week. He can't be any clearer or more specific.::sigh:: Fine. The afternoon is gone now, and I'm no closer to having the problem solved.
The problem continues to this day. I've called them 3 more times, and gotten the run-around each time. I've asked SPECIFICALLY if I could get a tech to come to my apartment, open the lockbox, and allow me to replace the coax that drops from the apartment to the basement - nope - they can't do that. Even if I supply the cable, run it to the basement myself, and have their tech watch over me as I make the switch.
DSL won't be available until August - even then I am leery of getting it, considering the recent troubles in THAT industry. I can't get a stable connection to a dialup ISP through the 50 year old copper in the building anyway...
I've been considering 2 way sattelite, but that is MONSTROUSLY expensive out here.
Yep. I did tech support for a year and a half at a dialup ISP.
Low pay.REALLY low pay. The big bucks go to the sales people and management. Tech support got paid $8 an hour, on average, and most had to tie down a second job to stay afloat, while management and sales showed off their new cars, and bragged about their bonuses.
High stress - getting yelled at ain't fun. Especially when it comes from BOTH sides - the customer yelling at you because their POS Dell Winmodem won't handshake on the 50 year old noisy power lines - management yelling at you because the customer is pissed off.
No respect - management considers tech support the lowest point on the totem pole. Ask for better wages, or better equipment, or training, or anything else, and get denied out of hand. But when something goes wrong, who do they blame? You guessed it.
More stress - busy time of year? Lots of people calling? Ask management for more people to throw at the problem, and get told that it's not manpower, but that you are the problem because you're not being "efficient" enough.
Long hours during undesirable times - When is tech support most needed? When people are home. When are people home? Nights and weekends, or during really bad weather (blizzards, etc...). 'nuff said.
So it's really no wonder that the techs don't want to be there. Overworked, underpaid, non-respected employees have a valid REASON to not want to be there.
So they bide their time until they have the skills to move elsewhere. Then they quit, and move on to a job with better pay, better hours, better respect, and less "public" contact.
This isn't to say that tech support should suck - it's just saying that there are valid reasons why it sucks, and until those reasons get addressed, things aren't going to get better.
And this doesn't even touch on the fact that the people you need to deal with, as support personnel, are generally VERY clueless - to the point that seemingly SIMPLE instructions are NOT simple to them. I'm not even going there. You've all heard the war stories before.
By submitting bids that request PC systems without an Operating System due to a Microsoft site license, you can earn points and win!
(emphasis mine)
It's not "PCs sold without an OS", it's "*new* PCs sold to companies that possess (or claim to possess) a site license, which request that the seller not include an OS on the PCs" - Basically MS is trying to track down companies that are claiming they have a site license (in order to get a discount per unit on new PCs they order), but in fact are just using one copy of Windows that gets "passed around".
Still, it's kind of dirty pool, in a "guilty until proven innocent" way. MS calls up your IT department, and tells them they're suspected of piracy, and need to PROOVE they're innocent.
It should be up to MS to prove them guilty, not the other way around. Although I'm not entirely sure HOW that could be accomplished without covert ops...;P
While it's surely possible to get the components into an enclosure smaller than an average mini-tower case, would you really want to? You need air space to cool those processors. You also need a fairly hefty power supply, which is also going to get pretty warm...
If they're going to claim ownership of my thoughts while I'm there, and thus limit what I can do when I'm not, then they had damn well better pay me for the work thoughts when I'm not there!
I'm really glad I'm free to do what I want on my own time and equipment, but I have friends who are bound by rather sickening (IMHO) strictures on what they can do in their off time - one was even told that he had to transfer ownership of his domain to his company, since they considered his webpage a "work" that they could claim ownership of. Needless to say, he quit the following day. Now he's working for 2 years in retail, as his noncompete disallows him from programming for anyone else for 2 years.
My only problem is the fact that the employee is only allowed to contribute to a project that would benefit his/her company in some way -- many of us are bound by contract in such a way that anything we do, regardless of whether it is on our own time, on our own equipment, in an area that our company does not and conceivably will not ever enter, belongs to the company.
For us, this would only partially eliminate the problem. What about those of us who work as webmonkeys but are audiophiles by night? It's inconceivable that a web company would branch into, say, audio compression/encoding software - so a development there wouldn't benefit the company in any conceivable way, even though the development may be of outstanding quality, and would help the project immensely.
I'd say that such a license should give far-reaching overrides on these IP clauses, in such a way that the employee would be able to contribute code done during off-hours on their own equipment to any free software project. That would be MUCH more helpful.
Now...if the code is developed on company time and/or equipment, I'd be one of the first to say that the company would be entitled to some say in what happens with that code, and a licence such as this one would help...unfortunately, I don't see many companies going for this - especially in this day and age of "Intellectual Property" cases springing up like weeds in a garden...
This would be a great way for companies to allow employees to contribute to OSS projects - but it doesn't address the whole problem, only a small part of it.
Note: I'm not bound by an agreement such as I describe - mine expressly allows me to develop whatever I want on my own time and equipment, so long as it doesn't compete with my work - fine by me. I do have several buddies who ARE in an agreement such as the one I described above, so I know second-hand the troubles involved.
I'm thoroughly convinced that the "ease of use" of Windows is a myth. It's simply that people are FAMILIAR with Windows, that things seem "easier" in Windows.
I've seen a complete computer newbie sit down at a PC running WinME and be completely confused. There's little pictures of things they can't quite recognize (yet) and just about everything moves, or pops up a window, or a menu, or something else. After an hours worth of coaching, they get the basics of how to doubleclick, how to click in a dialog box to type, possibly even how to start up IE/OE and browse the web, send email, etc...but it DOES take some time.
And they still can't figure out the filesystem. They don't understand the concept of a directory (even if you go with the "folder" analogy) - they don't know how to download a file anywhere but the default location - they don't know how to save an attachment from an email before they run it - half the time they don't know that the things they download ARE files. If it's not on their desktop, it doesn't exist.
Take this same person, now that they've "learned" Windows, and sit them down in front of a *nix box - OF COURSE they're going to be confused! *nix doesn't work the same way Windows does (and auguably, it *shouldn't*), so all that "knowledge" they have about the way Windows works can't be applied. (Well, not entirely true - moving the mouse around generally does still move the pointer, etc...)
Now - take a complete computer newbie, and sit them down in front of a *nix box. Again, confusion - the *same* confusion the total newbie had when they sat down in front of the Windows box. After an hour of coaching, they can be at the same level.
Configurability is another matter - and there's a signifigant hump to get over - that being that hardware manufacturers (who would be the ones who know their hardware the best) seldom provide l*nix drivers for their hardware. They tend to only provide Windows drivers. Why? Because Windows is what *most* people have - and *not* supporting Windows is going to hurt their bottom line. Compared to Windows, the *nix installed base of home/workstation systems is pretty low - so generally not supporting *nix doesn't hurt their bottom line.
In addition, they tend to be SO protective of their "intellectual property", that even if a third party developer approaches them and says "I know you don't support *nix, but I'd like to write a driver so people who want to buy your hardware and use it with *nix can do so" gets denied, or forced to sign so many NDA agreements that the final product would be incredibly tough to distribute anyway.
This sets up a catch-22 of sorts. End-users (home/office) want support for the latest and greatest hardware NOW - not 6 months from now when a few brilliant and dedicated people have finally been able to reverse-engineer, legally, the means with which to support that hardware at the most basic level. They don't want to have to do research before they go to the store, in order to buy hardware that is compatible, and well supported - they want to buy the newest, flashiest thing they can find on sale.
Without support from the manufacturer, you're not going to GET that kind of support with *nix. SO people stick with Windows, and turn the whole situation around, blaming *nix for a lack of hardware support, whin in fact the blame rests on the manufacturers for not providing drivers, and placing roadblocks in the way of third party drivers.
Add to this the recent legal developments with regard to reverse engineering (IE: DeCSS) and you have a VERY hostile environment for good hardware/consumer tech support on a *nix platform.
Add to this the *nix community's distaste for binary-only releases of proprietary hardware drivers, and you have a REALLY bad situation.
For configurability under *nix to match that of Windows, we need manufacturers to support, or at the very least allow third party drivers to be written, with proper documentation of their hardware's features. In order for this to happen, the *nix community has to give a little, and allow for the possibility of proprietary, binary-only driver releases (at least until an open-source alternative can be developed). Both of these are big steps, and both sides quibble about taking small ones, let alone big ones like these. It's going to be a while before the situation gets better here.
Probably for "Direct from the source" downloads, pay first isn't such a bad idea - maybe $15 for an ISO is a bit much, but if the price stabilized to around $4-5 or so (so that it wouldn't be cheaper to get an actual CD delivered from CheapBytes), I can't see it being that bad. It'll at least help the bandwidth charges for the source of the distro.
(possibly with some kind of download verification, so those of us with unstable connections (*cough*AT&T Broadband,MA*cough*) wouldn't have to pay 4-5 times to get the download to finish (having the u/p expire after a couple of days might not be unreasonable) )
Once mirrors go up everywhere, the downloads from those could be cheaper, or free. THis would give people an incentive to use a free, local mirror, rather than clogging the main site. The decrease in people downloading from the main site would mean the mirrors could get the ISOs faster - so that's another advantage.
Since the distro companies won't be making a huge sum of cash off of the downloads of their distros (most are free downloads now) - they don't lose anything by doing this (and gain some extra cash to offset their now-slightly-lower bandwidth charges).
If users have broadband (or REALLY want to download multiple 700MB files over their modem) and want/need the updated distro *at* release - they can pay a small sum to do it, otherwise they wait 12-24 hours for their local mirror to sync up, and grab it free. (or pay a comparable sum to get a cd mailed from CheapBytes).
Willing to wait a couple months for a better package? Wait for the stores to carry the boxed copies (with printed manuals and such) with support/etc... (as is the case now)
I'd call it a win-win situation for all parties involved.
ahh...but would THAT 1000 bit number be random, or compressible on it's own?
Once you can drop 1000 bits from the file, you can play with the offset itself, which has a good chance of being compressible or at the very least expressible in a smaller format.
AOL's IM was created for their own personal use, there is no one in this world that can force them to allow others to intermix with their own private property (their servers, their databases, their bandwidth)
This is, of course, true. BUT there are a couple of points that you are missing.
AOL does allow access to their "private property" - through the TOC protocol, which is arguably MORE resource intensive than Oscar, due to it's nature.
The "official" AIM client for linux doesn't display any banners (I've used the Windows one sparingly, and only ever saw ads for AOL itself there - maybe they've changed since then) - so they're not making any money off ads being shown to linux users of their "official" client.
IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT I WOULD CHOOSE (I wouldn't choose a phone company that solely used themselves and no one else) REGARDING THIS ISSUE. AOL HAS MADE THEIR POLICY AND IT IS STICKING TO IT, REGARDLESS IF IT SUITS ANYONE.
Again, true, but it is extremely poor business practice to ignore the preferences of your clients. While it is entirely within AOL's rights to run a closed-doors IM service (until such time as they add videoconferencing, re: the FTC AOL/TW agreement, blah, blah blah) , it's extremely poor foresight for them to do this.
Eventually (maybe not within 5 years, but certainly within 20) I think IM will be a service quite similar to today's telco system. Multiple providers inter-operating to provide communications. Noone's forcing this to happen - but I think it will. If AOL doesn't change their tune before then, they will *probably* be left out in the cold, as far as IM goes.
The sick thing is that even if they remain a closed-doors IM during that time, if they do open it up, they'll probably become dominant (or at least a key player) simply due to their size and focus (on giving their particular flavor of access to the clueless who don't know any better).
As you state "using x or y company for yadda yadda", well the solution is to simply find another "telco" now isn't it? Which means if AOL is so rotten, incompatible, you know what? No one is forcing anyone to use, let Jabber, Gaim, Faim, whatever make their own servers and stop bitching
Agreed that there is noone forcing anyone to use AIM (well, other than AOL themselves, if you use them for a provider -- MS is nearly as bad by "integrating" MSN Messenger with OE in WinMe/WinXP -- removing the "choice" as to whether or not to run a given IM program). BUT - in order to talk to a clueless friend/relative who uses AOL and doesn't have the expertise to install another client (or is too stubborn/thickheaded/clueless to see that there is a whole world outside of AOL's blinders) you don't have much choice BUT to use an AIM client (for IM -- phone is always an option - email less so due to the large ammount of spam on AOL). This is what AOL counts on, as far as a force to drive users to use THEIR IM over someone else's -- "all your clueless relatives are belong to AOL".
...as long as you're tracking stable. If you track testing or unstable, there are some "issues" with the Ximian debs. There's a rather thorough discussion of the issues on the debian-user list. The general consensus seems to be if you're tracking unstable, stick with the unstable Gnome debs - if you're tracking testing, you're on your own.
...and the new patent on "single gesture response to Amazon's patents"...
"A gesture in which the third digit of either hand is extended while the rest remain closed, and the hand then placed in such a manner that the back of the hand faces towards the recipient, indicating displeasure"
As a test, I open a new Hotmail account about once every 6 months -- the last one I opened on Feb. 22nd, and by the 24th, it was receiving spam.
I just open the account, send a quick test message to it from a Yahoo mail account (to verify that it works), then wait. I make sure to say "NO" to all the "offers" and such that MS wants to shove down your throat when you sign up.
So - conceivably, the address shouldn't receive any mail at all. I don't give the address out -- I don't use the address for anything, and I haven't given MS permission to spam the address by agreeing to their "special offers" during signup.
In 2 days, I was receiving 10-15 spam a day. It's up to about 50 a day now (that's where it seems to plateau for hotmail). There's either a backdoor, MS is selling hotmail addresses to spammers, or both.
how many do we need to buy to drive M$ out of business?
It doesn't matter how many we buy - if there's one thing MS is good at, it's business - they'd be foolish to bet their core business on a game console. Sure - we could make them lose a signifigant ammount of capital - but the number of consoles produced will likely be VERY carefully balanced against the licensing fees they've already collested from prospective developers.
Slashdot Mirror
...of course in a few years, we'll have:
"The new GNUNUNU/Linux"
...or if they decide to expand it again...
"The new GNUNUNUNU/Linux"
...and when it uses a government plane for personal matters...
"The new GNUNUNUNUSununu/Linux"
Okay - this is getting WAY too silly.
Using Slash for a smaller weblog is sortof like using an SUV to transport one person (yourself) a very short distance (two blocks) and back. It's overkill. It's wasteful of resources, and it doesn't really gain you anything.
Now, if they made a stripped-down veresion of Slash, specifically catered to smaller weblogs, but with a compatible config format, so that when/if the weblog became popular, upgrading was fairly painless - that would be something =)
How exactly would this work for AOL users?
If the site is blocked, there's a good chance they won't see it. If they don't see it, they can't decide whether it's "indecent" or not. Therefore, they won't vote to unblock it.
Now conceivably, you could turn *off* these filters - but would the standard AOL web filters still be in place?
Would you get a truly *uncensored* view of the web with the filters turned off, or would you simply get a larger subset, lacking what AOL's execs/censors have decided that you don't need to see?
No thanks - I'll stick with a direct connection where *I* control what I can see, and what my family can see. I don't want my 'net experience "filtered" by a company's views - or even worse, by some glorified hivemind's views.
---
"Everything is objectionable to someone, and sheeple are easily swayed to the views of someone with conviction. Therefore, they will vote in the manner proscribed to them by those with conviction. Without an opposing viewpoint, there becomes a monopoly on public opinion."
Although I'm sure Linus knew that /.ers would read his reply, it definitely was not written in technical terms.
Who wouldn't acknowledge that DaVinci, Newton, Einsten, etc... were fundamental to our current understanding of science? I don't think even the marketers would go so far as to scorn their achievements.
Who hadn't heard that quote from Newton before (even if it was WAY back in grade school) - I'd imagine even many business majors would remember that one. It's powerful, and VERY relevant.
Linus' reply was VERY well-written, and I doubt that even the stuffed shirts will disagree with the points that he makes. He may not have responded in financial terms - but the terms he did respond in should be fairly universal.
Even my fiancee, who isn't technically minded, said "wow - he's good" when I read Linus' response to her. I'd say that's a pretty good indicator. =)
I don't think there are enough people who have all three of - 1) a day job, 2) significant expertise in a certain area, 3) the desire to use the expertise without financial reward - to provide us with the consumer goods we desire to enhance our standard of living.
Well, if you want to ignore the government-imposed financial class structure here in the states, there are some people who conceivably *could* fit this bill.
The children of the excessively wealthy.
You're right in the fact that holding down a day job, and trying to do research "on the side" is just unrealistic - people who are holding down a day job to make ends meet aren't going to have the time nor the drive to do that kind of research. They're going to be much more concerned with paying rent, and keeping food on the table.
Once those things are easily afforded, the person in question becomes "middle class", where the government wants a MUCH bigger piece of his/her earnings - making it tougher to put aside money and time to research, or even into investments, where the return on small investments is almost nil.
The excessively wealthy don't have this problem. The legal/financial atmosphere here in the states caters to them, with tax shelters and loopholes and such, which keep their money in their pockets - and the stock market, which keeps their money growing (the return on very large investments is quite good).
The children of the excessively wealthy generally don't have to "put in their time" working as a bagger in a grocery store, or as sales staff on a retail outlet while they are young. Granted, they're quite often sent to boarding schools - but they have so few worries that it's not inconceivable a few brilliant minds could be polished.
They don't have to worry about keeping the family fortune growing -- they hire people to do that.
Conceivably, once they finish their education, they could use some of that money to better humankind, by doing research themselves, or even by using a small portion of their vast fortunes to fund other scientists and/or universities to research things which MAY NOT produce a direct benefit, but which may raise our collective level of scientific understanding and lead to other, side benefits.
Of course, this will never happen. Our society here is so firmly entrenched in greed and personal gain that I doubt those of high financial standing even care about advancing the species. They're too busy advancing their own wallets.
Broadband access at our house has been excellent - we'll be watching a movie or reading a book or a newspaper article, and be able to pull up additional information. This would often spawn off conversations...
Same here. We also use it to pull up things like episode summaries and translation guides for various undubbed/unsubbed anime - which is REALLY helpful.
hehehe
;) )
;)
Mice are also small, dirty, disease-carrying animals that are capable of multiplying at a frightening rate inside your walls.
(note that *some* linux geeks I know also fit this description, although the gestation period for their young is a bit longer
They're commonly referred to as vermin.
Marketing: XFce - The vermin desktop environment
Actually (getting back on topic here) I tried out XFce a couple weeks ago - it's not bad, but as always I gravitated back to Windowmaker.
For example, the situation in January when, after 2 weeks of having my cable modem installed, I was still getting randomly dropped packets, and a generally unstable connection (cable link light flickering).
After troubleshooting it myself (hooking up a local network and testing connectivity and file transfer with >1gb files, replacing every bit of coax and cat5 I could get my hands on (out to the wall socket - I would replace the line from the socket to the basement, but it goes into a lockbox, so I can't get at the basement end of it) - I couldn't fix the problem. So, I assumed it was either a bum modem or problems down the line. Either way, I needed to call support.
So...I gathered up some logs, did a few traceroutes, and basically got as much evidence of the problem as I could. Then I started the process.
The problem continues to this day. I've called them 3 more times, and gotten the run-around each time. I've asked SPECIFICALLY if I could get a tech to come to my apartment, open the lockbox, and allow me to replace the coax that drops from the apartment to the basement - nope - they can't do that. Even if I supply the cable, run it to the basement myself, and have their tech watch over me as I make the switch.
DSL won't be available until August - even then I am leery of getting it, considering the recent troubles in THAT industry. I can't get a stable connection to a dialup ISP through the 50 year old copper in the building anyway...
I've been considering 2 way sattelite, but that is MONSTROUSLY expensive out here.
So it's really no wonder that the techs don't want to be there. Overworked, underpaid, non-respected employees have a valid REASON to not want to be there.
So they bide their time until they have the skills to move elsewhere. Then they quit, and move on to a job with better pay, better hours, better respect, and less "public" contact.
This isn't to say that tech support should suck - it's just saying that there are valid reasons why it sucks, and until those reasons get addressed, things aren't going to get better.
And this doesn't even touch on the fact that the people you need to deal with, as support personnel, are generally VERY clueless - to the point that seemingly SIMPLE instructions are NOT simple to them. I'm not even going there. You've all heard the war stories before.
*most* of the "PlanetX" sites (where X is any one of several games, Quake, Halflife, Unreal, etc...) are owned by GameSpy, IIRC.
From the article:
;P
By submitting bids that request PC systems without an Operating System due to a Microsoft site license, you can earn points and win!
(emphasis mine)
It's not "PCs sold without an OS", it's "*new* PCs sold to companies that possess (or claim to possess) a site license, which request that the seller not include an OS on the PCs" - Basically MS is trying to track down companies that are claiming they have a site license (in order to get a discount per unit on new PCs they order), but in fact are just using one copy of Windows that gets "passed around".
Still, it's kind of dirty pool, in a "guilty until proven innocent" way. MS calls up your IT department, and tells them they're suspected of piracy, and need to PROOVE they're innocent.
It should be up to MS to prove them guilty, not the other way around. Although I'm not entirely sure HOW that could be accomplished without covert ops...
While it's surely possible to get the components into an enclosure smaller than an average mini-tower case, would you really want to? You need air space to cool those processors. You also need a fairly hefty power supply, which is also going to get pretty warm...
Wow...a chance I could be first for once...;P
Wow - that *does* look cool...
Now...any chance the pad/touchscreen works in any other OS than Windows? If it did, I'd consider buying one - unfortunately I doubt that's the case.
** keying email to IBM sales **
here here!
If they're going to claim ownership of my thoughts while I'm there, and thus limit what I can do when I'm not, then they had damn well better pay me for the work thoughts when I'm not there!
I'm really glad I'm free to do what I want on my own time and equipment, but I have friends who are bound by rather sickening (IMHO) strictures on what they can do in their off time - one was even told that he had to transfer ownership of his domain to his company, since they considered his webpage a "work" that they could claim ownership of. Needless to say, he quit the following day. Now he's working for 2 years in retail, as his noncompete disallows him from programming for anyone else for 2 years.
My only problem is the fact that the employee is only allowed to contribute to a project that would benefit his/her company in some way -- many of us are bound by contract in such a way that anything we do, regardless of whether it is on our own time, on our own equipment, in an area that our company does not and conceivably will not ever enter, belongs to the company.
For us, this would only partially eliminate the problem. What about those of us who work as webmonkeys but are audiophiles by night? It's inconceivable that a web company would branch into, say, audio compression/encoding software - so a development there wouldn't benefit the company in any conceivable way, even though the development may be of outstanding quality, and would help the project immensely.
I'd say that such a license should give far-reaching overrides on these IP clauses, in such a way that the employee would be able to contribute code done during off-hours on their own equipment to any free software project. That would be MUCH more helpful.
Now...if the code is developed on company time and/or equipment, I'd be one of the first to say that the company would be entitled to some say in what happens with that code, and a licence such as this one would help...unfortunately, I don't see many companies going for this - especially in this day and age of "Intellectual Property" cases springing up like weeds in a garden...
This would be a great way for companies to allow employees to contribute to OSS projects - but it doesn't address the whole problem, only a small part of it.
Note: I'm not bound by an agreement such as I describe - mine expressly allows me to develop whatever I want on my own time and equipment, so long as it doesn't compete with my work - fine by me. I do have several buddies who ARE in an agreement such as the one I described above, so I know second-hand the troubles involved.
I'm thoroughly convinced that the "ease of use" of Windows is a myth. It's simply that people are FAMILIAR with Windows, that things seem "easier" in Windows.
I've seen a complete computer newbie sit down at a PC running WinME and be completely confused. There's little pictures of things they can't quite recognize (yet) and just about everything moves, or pops up a window, or a menu, or something else. After an hours worth of coaching, they get the basics of how to doubleclick, how to click in a dialog box to type, possibly even how to start up IE/OE and browse the web, send email, etc...but it DOES take some time.
And they still can't figure out the filesystem. They don't understand the concept of a directory (even if you go with the "folder" analogy) - they don't know how to download a file anywhere but the default location - they don't know how to save an attachment from an email before they run it - half the time they don't know that the things they download ARE files. If it's not on their desktop, it doesn't exist.
Take this same person, now that they've "learned" Windows, and sit them down in front of a *nix box - OF COURSE they're going to be confused! *nix doesn't work the same way Windows does (and auguably, it *shouldn't*), so all that "knowledge" they have about the way Windows works can't be applied. (Well, not entirely true - moving the mouse around generally does still move the pointer, etc...)
Now - take a complete computer newbie, and sit them down in front of a *nix box. Again, confusion - the *same* confusion the total newbie had when they sat down in front of the Windows box. After an hour of coaching, they can be at the same level.
Configurability is another matter - and there's a signifigant hump to get over - that being that hardware manufacturers (who would be the ones who know their hardware the best) seldom provide l*nix drivers for their hardware. They tend to only provide Windows drivers. Why? Because Windows is what *most* people have - and *not* supporting Windows is going to hurt their bottom line. Compared to Windows, the *nix installed base of home/workstation systems is pretty low - so generally not supporting *nix doesn't hurt their bottom line.
In addition, they tend to be SO protective of their "intellectual property", that even if a third party developer approaches them and says "I know you don't support *nix, but I'd like to write a driver so people who want to buy your hardware and use it with *nix can do so" gets denied, or forced to sign so many NDA agreements that the final product would be incredibly tough to distribute anyway.
This sets up a catch-22 of sorts. End-users (home/office) want support for the latest and greatest hardware NOW - not 6 months from now when a few brilliant and dedicated people have finally been able to reverse-engineer, legally, the means with which to support that hardware at the most basic level. They don't want to have to do research before they go to the store, in order to buy hardware that is compatible, and well supported - they want to buy the newest, flashiest thing they can find on sale.
Without support from the manufacturer, you're not going to GET that kind of support with *nix. SO people stick with Windows, and turn the whole situation around, blaming *nix for a lack of hardware support, whin in fact the blame rests on the manufacturers for not providing drivers, and placing roadblocks in the way of third party drivers.
Add to this the recent legal developments with regard to reverse engineering (IE: DeCSS) and you have a VERY hostile environment for good hardware/consumer tech support on a *nix platform.
Add to this the *nix community's distaste for binary-only releases of proprietary hardware drivers, and you have a REALLY bad situation.
For configurability under *nix to match that of Windows, we need manufacturers to support, or at the very least allow third party drivers to be written, with proper documentation of their hardware's features. In order for this to happen, the *nix community has to give a little, and allow for the possibility of proprietary, binary-only driver releases (at least until an open-source alternative can be developed). Both of these are big steps, and both sides quibble about taking small ones, let alone big ones like these. It's going to be a while before the situation gets better here.
OK - enough rambling - back to work =)
Probably for "Direct from the source" downloads, pay first isn't such a bad idea - maybe $15 for an ISO is a bit much, but if the price stabilized to around $4-5 or so (so that it wouldn't be cheaper to get an actual CD delivered from CheapBytes), I can't see it being that bad. It'll at least help the bandwidth charges for the source of the distro.
(possibly with some kind of download verification, so those of us with unstable connections (*cough*AT&T Broadband,MA*cough*) wouldn't have to pay 4-5 times to get the download to finish (having the u/p expire after a couple of days might not be unreasonable) )
Once mirrors go up everywhere, the downloads from those could be cheaper, or free. THis would give people an incentive to use a free, local mirror, rather than clogging the main site. The decrease in people downloading from the main site would mean the mirrors could get the ISOs faster - so that's another advantage.
Since the distro companies won't be making a huge sum of cash off of the downloads of their distros (most are free downloads now) - they don't lose anything by doing this (and gain some extra cash to offset their now-slightly-lower bandwidth charges).
If users have broadband (or REALLY want to download multiple 700MB files over their modem) and want/need the updated distro *at* release - they can pay a small sum to do it, otherwise they wait 12-24 hours for their local mirror to sync up, and grab it free. (or pay a comparable sum to get a cd mailed from CheapBytes).
Willing to wait a couple months for a better package? Wait for the stores to carry the boxed copies (with printed manuals and such) with support/etc... (as is the case now)
I'd call it a win-win situation for all parties involved.
ahh...but would THAT 1000 bit number be random, or compressible on it's own?
Once you can drop 1000 bits from the file, you can play with the offset itself, which has a good chance of being compressible or at the very least expressible in a smaller format.
AOL's IM was created for their own personal use, there is no one in this world that can force them to allow others to intermix with their own private property (their servers, their databases, their bandwidth)
This is, of course, true. BUT there are a couple of points that you are missing.
IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT I WOULD CHOOSE (I wouldn't choose a phone company that solely used themselves and no one else) REGARDING THIS ISSUE. AOL HAS MADE THEIR POLICY AND IT IS STICKING TO IT, REGARDLESS IF IT SUITS ANYONE.
Again, true, but it is extremely poor business practice to ignore the preferences of your clients. While it is entirely within AOL's rights to run a closed-doors IM service (until such time as they add videoconferencing, re: the FTC AOL/TW agreement, blah, blah blah) , it's extremely poor foresight for them to do this.
Eventually (maybe not within 5 years, but certainly within 20) I think IM will be a service quite similar to today's telco system. Multiple providers inter-operating to provide communications. Noone's forcing this to happen - but I think it will. If AOL doesn't change their tune before then, they will *probably* be left out in the cold, as far as IM goes.
The sick thing is that even if they remain a closed-doors IM during that time, if they do open it up, they'll probably become dominant (or at least a key player) simply due to their size and focus (on giving their particular flavor of access to the clueless who don't know any better).
As you state "using x or y company for yadda yadda", well the solution is to simply find another "telco" now isn't it? Which means if AOL is so rotten, incompatible, you know what? No one is forcing anyone to use, let Jabber, Gaim, Faim, whatever make their own servers and stop bitching
Agreed that there is noone forcing anyone to use AIM (well, other than AOL themselves, if you use them for a provider -- MS is nearly as bad by "integrating" MSN Messenger with OE in WinMe/WinXP -- removing the "choice" as to whether or not to run a given IM program). BUT - in order to talk to a clueless friend/relative who uses AOL and doesn't have the expertise to install another client (or is too stubborn/thickheaded/clueless to see that there is a whole world outside of AOL's blinders) you don't have much choice BUT to use an AIM client (for IM -- phone is always an option - email less so due to the large ammount of spam on AOL). This is what AOL counts on, as far as a force to drive users to use THEIR IM over someone else's -- "all your clueless relatives are belong to AOL".
...as long as you're tracking stable. If you track testing or unstable, there are some "issues" with the Ximian debs. There's a rather thorough discussion of the issues on the debian-user list. The general consensus seems to be if you're tracking unstable, stick with the unstable Gnome debs - if you're tracking testing, you're on your own.
...and the new patent on "single gesture response to Amazon's patents"...
"A gesture in which the third digit of either hand is extended while the rest remain closed, and the hand then placed in such a manner that the back of the hand faces towards the recipient, indicating displeasure"
=)
Check out:
There are others, but these are the 2 best I've found. I seem to prefer licq, but that's a personal preference. YMMV.
As a test, I open a new Hotmail account about once every 6 months -- the last one I opened on Feb. 22nd, and by the 24th, it was receiving spam.
I just open the account, send a quick test message to it from a Yahoo mail account (to verify that it works), then wait. I make sure to say "NO" to all the "offers" and such that MS wants to shove down your throat when you sign up.
So - conceivably, the address shouldn't receive any mail at all. I don't give the address out -- I don't use the address for anything, and I haven't given MS permission to spam the address by agreeing to their "special offers" during signup.
In 2 days, I was receiving 10-15 spam a day. It's up to about 50 a day now (that's where it seems to plateau for hotmail). There's either a backdoor, MS is selling hotmail addresses to spammers, or both.
Originally, Mandrake was a Redhat base, with bugfixes, some newer stuff, and KDE rather than enlightenment/gnome.
Since then, the've sortof gone their own way - they're still rpm-based, but AFAIK, they're not based on Redhat anymore.
I use Debian myself, though. If someone using Mandrake would correct me if i'm wrong, I'd appreciate it =)
how many do we need to buy to drive M$ out of business?
It doesn't matter how many we buy - if there's one thing MS is good at, it's business - they'd be foolish to bet their core business on a game console. Sure - we could make them lose a signifigant ammount of capital - but the number of consoles produced will likely be VERY carefully balanced against the licensing fees they've already collested from prospective developers.