There seems to be way too much uninformed criticism about Prosper and the like. Here's a few points I would like to make:
You get to see the credit score from Experian ScoreX (SM) credit score if you register through Prosper (you don't need to loan any money to register). And lending isn't mandatory: you get to decide how much risk you are willing to take on.
Some people are saying, "How can you trust people to pay you back??" Well, for the same reasons that a bank would lend to those people. If you are a borrower, your Prosper loan shows up on your credit report. Late payments become part of your credit report, just like any form of credit.
Just like any investment, there's a certain element of risk, and the amount of risk depends on the investment. There's people on Prosper who have PERFECT credit history, and have not missed a payment for 25 years. What's a safer investment: General Motors stock or that individual?
The beauty of this system is that you, as a lender, decide how much you are willing to loan your money for. You pick the lowest interest rate you are willing to loan your money for. And the borrower decides the maximum interest rate they are willing to take this loan for.
If you don't like banks, this is perfect for you! It lets you loan money to and from other human beings.
Please keep in mind that there are many different kinds of people asking for money for many different kinds of reasons. There's professional real estate managers with perfect credit history who want a $25,000 loan to spruce up a house and then sell it back. There's also single mothers with horrible credit history who want a measly $1,000 to pay rent for themselves and their daughter (who happens to have leukemia) and avoid getting evicted; to make matters worse, no bank is willing to loan them any money.
Being able to loan money to and from people you don't even know is not that much different from buying and selling anything from people you don't know (see eBay). It's a sign of healthy financial markets, and at the very least it may force banks to lower their interest rates: applaud it!
Set compression level to n. A value of 0 for n disables compression. Default is to use the default compression level of zlib (normally 6).
--compress-algo n
Use compress algorithm n. Default is 2 which is RFC1950 compression. You may use 1 to use the old zlib version (RFC1951) which is used by PGP. The default algorithm may give better results because the window size is not limited to 8K. If this is not used the OpenPGP behavior is used, i.e. the compression algorithm is selected from the preferences; note, that this can't be done if you do not encrypt the data.
Therefore the Unix model of tar and then a separate compression program makes more sense - even though tar is such a crusty and wasteful format.
Joerg Schilling, the author of the famous cdrecord, probably disagrees with you. tar has everything you need, and a lot more. The problem is that all the different tar implementations suck. GNU tar, for example, is _not_ POSIX-compliant. 'file' recognizes this and will tell you what kind of archive it is. gnutar also doesn't support very large files.
Joerg Schilling has written an excellent tar program by the name of star. To overcome the limitations of the "other" tar formats, he has produced his own, without any limitations. Features of star that completely blow away anything else:
- fully ANSI/Posix 1003.1 compatible
- ACL support
- automatically detects several common archive formats and adopts to them. Supported archive types are: Old tar, gnu tar, ansi tar, star, POSIX.1-2001 PAX, Sun's Solaris tar (GNU tar supports only one foramt--its own)
- stores/restores all 3 times of a file (even creation time)
- pattern matcher
Thank you for your interest in Movielink. We want you to take part in the powerful Internet movie rental experience that Movielink delivers; however, you currently do not meet our minimum system requirements. You will need to adjust the following:
* You Need Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP
They are severely limiting their audience here. While "normal" people will simply go to Blockbuster and rent the DVD, the Internet community doesn't allow have "Windows 98, ME, 2000, or XP".
As I (obviously) can't browse through the webpage, could someone tell me how format these are going to be distributed in?
[BTW, I'm running Mozilla 1.1 on SuSE 8.1 Professional.]
I don't know anything about the Australian governmental system, but wouldn't something like this presumably get shot down by the courts?
It's a clear violation of freedom of speech. Any Australians care to comment?
Re:A better way - have computers do more work.
on
Just One Page a Day
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Although your method of "proofreading" is actually useful for most documents, it is _not_ a good method for Project Gutenberg (as a contributor to DP, I can attest to this).
The works put out by Project Gutenberg are going to be around for decades, if not, centuries. 95% accuracy is shit for those purposes. An issue that comes up on the PG mailing list (gutvol-d) every once in a while is whether or not to correct spelling mistakes that appear in the real, dead-tree versions of the books. What if, for example, it's obvious to almost any reader that the author meant the word "by" instead of "bye". Surprisingly (or not, depending on the way you look at it), the general response is *not* to correct those kinds of "mistakes". The rationality being that PG is -not- an editor, but simply a library (which is actually its legal status).
So, in short, for works with millions of characters that are going to be around for many decades, 95% accuracy. The "bar" might be high, and, when proofreading for DP, I strive for 100%.
Absolutely. exp(pi*sqrt(163)) is right. As you can find out from reading the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton was _opposed_ to the idea of a Bill of Rights. His reason was that stating that, for example, the press _ought_ to be free does nothing to increase freedom of the press. It's just the same as saying there _ought_ to be no slavery, and that the government _ought_ to derive its powers from the people.
The subscriber in the test case has amassed a collection of more than 600 songs which can be downloaded by other internet users with the right software.
Only 600?? Even most people with dialup have more than that.
I don't care what part of the political spectrum he is. He explains what is wrong with the voting system elegantly, in depth, and in concrete terms with examples.
Your comment, on the other hand, provided _no_ details, ramblings on "bleeding-heart morons" and Nazis, _no_ outside references, personal attacks on the author, and absolutely nothing worth reading.
That said, I'm leading raisethefirst.com right now...
Please, note, folks: it's not out yet. SuSE actually listens deeply to its customers, and if people don't like it, it will be fixed (of course, SuSE listens more to the real customers who hang out at the suse-linux-e mailing list which generates >200 messages a day.)
Please note, also, that SuSE is not designed for the "Average Joe", which the OSNews.com review brings up all the time. SuSE is designed more for the intermediate-professional level. One piece of evidence for that is the existence of a NCurses (i.e., console) version of YaST2.
Eugenia Loli-Queru, the author, also bitches about the ability to remove system libraries and about the ability to find which pickage provides a certain library (or what needs it). Frankly, I find that a lovely feature, and will be sure to use it.
The author ends with the question: "Does this truly solves the problem for the customer?" The answer is a true yes (IMO), because SuSE's customers are not first-stage newbies. As a longtime SuSE user, I have found that if SuSE has to choose between power and simplicity, power will win, and I applaud them for that.
As one of the few Linux companies with a _profitable_ software division, there's real concrete proof that SuSE knows what they are doing. At least wait until the product launches before writing a scathing review...
As a faithful SuSE customer, I first appalled that SuSE would start charging per-user licensing fees. I noticed that many others felt the same way from the last Caldera, as long as I can remember, has charged per-seat. Thus, on the economic side of UnitedLinux, _nothing has changed_. The licensing is still the same. It's just that all the certified products are going to interoperate from the bottom-up (i.e., binaries, scripts, etc.).
It may be interesting to some of you that Honda is releasing (for its 2003 model year) a hydrid version of its Honda Civic, named Honda Civic Hybrid. It is a four-door sedan with gas mileage in the upper-40s / lower-50s.
This proves that electric hydrids are not only available technologically-speaking, but that they are commercially viable. Now imagine what would happen if a tax break (perhaps coinciding with George W. Bush's huge breaks) were offered for electric hybrid vehicles. It would stimulate the economy _and_ lower taxes. Of course, the oil industry wouldn't be too happy because of lower profits. Boo-hoo. Gas mileage has been going _down_ since 1986, when it peaked in the upper-20s (about 29).
Yes, the author is amazingly optimistic about human intelligence in general. They should not be taken seriously. I saw an interview with this guy on TechTV during an airing of The Screensavers, and I feel I can safely state that the author would agree with me in saying that it's not the foretelling that's important, but rather the intentions and thoughts behind them.
Let's not forget that Americans living during the 1900s lived in slums in the major cities of New York and Chicago. They invisioned flying cars and personal spacecraft before stumbling onto the Great Depression and two world wars. Let's not _underestimate_ human achievement either.
The author's intentions in this is to show what _can_ happen, given the proper circumstances and funding. I personally feel that if and when some glorious invention / annovation is made (e.g., time travel or "cure" for aging), it will be developed (and thus _patented_) by a whatever company creates it, and thus, most people will never see its hayday, until half a century later when politicians realize what a fucked up world it is. I can envision a world where time travel is patented by Sony and there's a huge Nike swoosh over Mars. Basically the worst parts of the Bible and The Matrix.
IMO, the author simply wants to foster intelligent conversation among people who care: this is what the world can be like. Here's what has to be done to prevent that... The power rests in your hands. Welcome to the Real World.
Re:Why SuSE?
on
SuSE 7.3 vs XP
·
· Score: 5, Informative
As Linux becomes more and more popular, the question becomes more and more important: which distribution should I use?
I use SuSE Linux for several reasons. Firstly, it is the most LSB-compliant distribution. It comes with huge amounts of software (6 CDs of binaries for the Professional version, and (arguably) SuSE has the largest security team. SuSE updates are free and released often. Announcements are even GPG-signed. According to LWN.net research, SuSE has the best security after TurboLinux (which much less security-related bugs than RedHat.
On a more subjective note, many consider SuSE to be the most polished distribution, and YaST2 is considered one of the best all-around system configuration utilities.
There's little question that Vorbis is impressive. The question is, what is its competition? MP3 (created using LAME) is currently the most popular digital audio compression algorithm, but anyone will tell you Vorbis rocks its world. That can't be it, then... is RealAudio/WMA the true competition? How about Quicktime? Perhaps Vorbis is playing to different audience than the "big boys," mainly for the home enthusiast? Vorbis is not quite ready for streaming (e.g., not yet perfectly tuned for 22.1kHz like for 44.1kHz, not very low bitrates, etc.), so until then it seems Real will lead the pack in that arena.
When, however, Vorbis gets these features, I feel it will even be able to replace Real and WMA.
Slashdot Mirror
Being able to loan money to and from people you don't even know is not that much different from buying and selling anything from people you don't know (see eBay). It's a sign of healthy financial markets, and at the very least it may force banks to lower their interest rates: applaud it!
Direct Link
Nice comment.
BTW, does anyone know of any good magazines or websites that deal with good games, not just blockbusters?
Personally, I think GTA3 is over-rated.
Interestingly, my college, the Rochester Institute of Technology will be the first college in the United States to offer a Video Game major.
Perhaps even more interestingly, it will be in the field of Information Technology, not Computer Science.
Therefore the Unix model of tar and then a separate compression program makes more sense - even though tar is such a crusty and wasteful format.
:)
Joerg Schilling, the author of the famous cdrecord, probably disagrees with you. tar has everything you need, and a lot more. The problem is that all the different tar implementations suck. GNU tar, for example, is _not_ POSIX-compliant. 'file' recognizes this and will tell you what kind of archive it is. gnutar also doesn't support very large files.
Joerg Schilling has written an excellent tar program by the name of star. To overcome the limitations of the "other" tar formats, he has produced his own, without any limitations. Features of star that completely blow away anything else:
- fully ANSI/Posix 1003.1 compatible
- ACL support
- automatically detects several common archive formats and adopts to them. Supported archive types are: Old tar, gnu tar, ansi tar, star, POSIX.1-2001 PAX, Sun's Solaris tar (GNU tar supports only one foramt--its own)
- stores/restores all 3 times of a file (even creation time)
- pattern matcher
As you can see, the "tar" format no longer sucks.
Schilling has written a very good comparison between star and gnutar, entitled STARvsGNUTAR. I highly recommend reading it. Another cool document is a listing of bugs in every other implementation of tar.
You can grab LSB-compliant RPMs of this at my RPM page.
Thank you for your interest in Movielink. We want you to take part in the powerful Internet movie rental experience that Movielink delivers; however, you currently do not meet our minimum system requirements. You will need to adjust the following:
* You Need Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP
They are severely limiting their audience here. While "normal" people will simply go to Blockbuster and rent the DVD, the Internet community doesn't allow have "Windows 98, ME, 2000, or XP".
As I (obviously) can't browse through the webpage, could someone tell me how format these are going to be distributed in?
[BTW, I'm running Mozilla 1.1 on SuSE 8.1 Professional.]
I don't know anything about the Australian governmental system, but wouldn't something like this presumably get shot down by the courts?
It's a clear violation of freedom of speech. Any Australians care to comment?
Although your method of "proofreading" is actually useful for most documents, it is _not_ a good method for Project Gutenberg (as a contributor to DP, I can attest to this).
The works put out by Project Gutenberg are going to be around for decades, if not, centuries. 95% accuracy is shit for those purposes. An issue that comes up on the PG mailing list (gutvol-d) every once in a while is whether or not to correct spelling mistakes that appear in the real, dead-tree versions of the books. What if, for example, it's obvious to almost any reader that the author meant the word "by" instead of "bye". Surprisingly (or not, depending on the way you look at it), the general response is *not* to correct those kinds of "mistakes". The rationality being that PG is -not- an editor, but simply a library (which is actually its legal status).
So, in short, for works with millions of characters that are going to be around for many decades, 95% accuracy. The "bar" might be high, and, when proofreading for DP, I strive for 100%.
Absolutely. exp(pi*sqrt(163)) is right. As you can find out from reading the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton was _opposed_ to the idea of a Bill of Rights. His reason was that stating that, for example, the press _ought_ to be free does nothing to increase freedom of the press. It's just the same as saying there _ought_ to be no slavery, and that the government _ought_ to derive its powers from the people.
The subscriber in the test case has amassed a collection of more than 600 songs which can be downloaded by other internet users with the right software.
Only 600?? Even most people with dialup have more than that.
I don't care what part of the political spectrum he is. He explains what is wrong with the voting system elegantly, in depth, and in concrete terms with examples.
Your comment, on the other hand, provided _no_ details, ramblings on "bleeding-heart morons" and Nazis, _no_ outside references, personal attacks on the author, and absolutely nothing worth reading.
That said, I'm leading raisethefirst.com right now...
Please, note, folks: it's not out yet. SuSE actually listens deeply to its customers, and if people don't like it, it will be fixed (of course, SuSE listens more to the real customers who hang out at the suse-linux-e mailing list which generates >200 messages a day.)
Please note, also, that SuSE is not designed for the "Average Joe", which the OSNews.com review brings up all the time. SuSE is designed more for the intermediate-professional level. One piece of evidence for that is the existence of a NCurses (i.e., console) version of YaST2.
Eugenia Loli-Queru, the author, also bitches about the ability to remove system libraries and about the ability to find which pickage provides a certain library (or what needs it). Frankly, I find that a lovely feature, and will be sure to use it.
The author ends with the question: "Does this truly solves the problem for the customer?" The answer is a true yes (IMO), because SuSE's customers are not first-stage newbies. As a longtime SuSE user, I have found that if SuSE has to choose between power and simplicity, power will win, and I applaud them for that.
As one of the few Linux companies with a _profitable_ software division, there's real concrete proof that SuSE knows what they are doing. At least wait until the product launches before writing a scathing review...
If you interested in what Blender can do (as I was), check out the galleries.
:)
I was pleasantly surprised. I'm sure you will be too.
Actually, just seeing the galleries makes me what to donate some money.
As a faithful SuSE customer, I first appalled that SuSE would start charging per-user licensing fees. I noticed that many others felt the same way from the last Caldera, as long as I can remember, has charged per-seat. Thus, on the economic side of UnitedLinux, _nothing has changed_. The licensing is still the same. It's just that all the certified products are going to interoperate from the bottom-up (i.e., binaries, scripts, etc.).
It may be interesting to some of you that Honda is releasing (for its 2003 model year) a hydrid version of its Honda Civic, named Honda Civic Hybrid. It is a four-door sedan with gas mileage in the upper-40s / lower-50s.
This proves that electric hydrids are not only available technologically-speaking, but that they are commercially viable. Now imagine what would happen if a tax break (perhaps coinciding with George W. Bush's huge breaks) were offered for electric hybrid vehicles. It would stimulate the economy _and_ lower taxes. Of course, the oil industry wouldn't be too happy because of lower profits. Boo-hoo. Gas mileage has been going _down_ since 1986, when it peaked in the upper-20s (about 29).
BTW, you might want to read a review of the Honda Civic.
Yes, the author is amazingly optimistic about human intelligence in general. They should not be taken seriously. I saw an interview with this guy on TechTV during an airing of The Screensavers, and I feel I can safely state that the author would agree with me in saying that it's not the foretelling that's important, but rather the intentions and thoughts behind them.
Let's not forget that Americans living during the 1900s lived in slums in the major cities of New York and Chicago. They invisioned flying cars and personal spacecraft before stumbling onto the Great Depression and two world wars. Let's not _underestimate_ human achievement either.
The author's intentions in this is to show what _can_ happen, given the proper circumstances and funding. I personally feel that if and when some glorious invention / annovation is made (e.g., time travel or "cure" for aging), it will be developed (and thus _patented_) by a whatever company creates it, and thus, most people will never see its hayday, until half a century later when politicians realize what a fucked up world it is. I can envision a world where time travel is patented by Sony and there's a huge Nike swoosh over Mars. Basically the worst parts of the Bible and The Matrix.
IMO, the author simply wants to foster intelligent conversation among people who care: this is what the world can be like. Here's what has to be done to prevent that... The power rests in your hands. Welcome to the Real World.
As Linux becomes more and more popular, the question becomes more and more important: which distribution should I use? I use SuSE Linux for several reasons. Firstly, it is the most LSB-compliant distribution. It comes with huge amounts of software (6 CDs of binaries for the Professional version, and (arguably) SuSE has the largest security team. SuSE updates are free and released often. Announcements are even GPG-signed. According to LWN.net research, SuSE has the best security after TurboLinux (which much less security-related bugs than RedHat.
On a more subjective note, many consider SuSE to be the most polished distribution, and YaST2 is considered one of the best all-around system configuration utilities.
Because vorbis.com is becoming slow, I have decided to post mirrors:
win32 binaries: vorbis-tools-1.0rc3-win32.zip
i386 RPM libao: libao-0.8.2-1.i386.rpm
i386 RPM libogg: libogg-1.0rc3-1.i386.rpm
i386 RPM libvorbis: libvorbis-1.0rc3-1.i386.rpm
i386 RPM vorbis-tools: vorbis-tools-1.0rc3-1.i386.rpm
To encode files, you need all the above RPMs.
There's little question that Vorbis is impressive. The question is, what is its competition? MP3 (created using LAME) is currently the most popular digital audio compression algorithm, but anyone will tell you Vorbis rocks its world. That can't be it, then... is RealAudio/WMA the true competition? How about Quicktime? Perhaps Vorbis is playing to different audience than the "big boys," mainly for the home enthusiast? Vorbis is not quite ready for streaming (e.g., not yet perfectly tuned for 22.1kHz like for 44.1kHz, not very low bitrates, etc.), so until then it seems Real will lead the pack in that arena.
When, however, Vorbis gets these features, I feel it will even be able to replace Real and WMA.
I have mirrored the patch and signature:
. bz2
. bz2.sign
patch-2.4.17.bz2 (388KB): http://home.earthlink.net/~noodlez84/patch-2.4.17
patch-2.4.17.bz2.sign (1KB): http://home.earthlink.net/~noodlez84/patch-2.4.17