How exactly is SuSe package management "braindead". You provide no definition for this. Do you mean "braindead" as in "it doesn't work" (because it does, and you'd be wrong), or "braindead" as in "anyone can do it" (because that would be true)?
Actually, pretty much all programming languages think alike. The logic behind operations and constructs is essentially the same no matter where you go, so once you learn your first language mastering any other is more like learning a local dialect. A matter of syntax and idiom, is all.
Where exactly is the realism in that? Historically - and a fundamental notion in economics - monopolies are good for the monopoly and bad for everyone else. Supporting a monopoly is a sure-fire way to *damage* a capitalist economy, not strengthen it.
About the only thing Shrub might be doing here is attempting to bolster the stock market, since MS's stock prices are vastly overinflated. But I find even that argument weak since at no time in history has the entire stock market been wounded by a single company's troubles. MS is big, but they've got nothing on Exxon or GM; and most consumers don't give a rats ass what happens to Bill or his minions since there's no material connection to the health of their own machines.
At least in this the consumers are complete idiots.
Bullshit. You have no evidence whatsoever that breaking up MS would adversely affect the economy. In fact, I could argue that the initial remedy ordered by Jackson would stimulate economic growth by allowing new software companies to form and compete with MS. Lower-priced software for consumers, more jobs for programmers.
Bush doesn't see any "bigger picture". I doubt he sees much of anything except his picture in the history books, along with alot of grandiose-sounding words he looked up in a thesaurus.
This doesn't just apply to the minimum wage phone tech support folks the average joe calls when something goes wrong. I've found over the years that much of what is said here also applies to most of the folks in many large IT departments. My conversations with various IT techs over the years often run along these lines:
Me: "Hi, the network is having problem X (give details)".
Tech: "No, the network is fine. No one here has said anything about a problem with the network. It must be on your end."
Me: "Well, no, I analyzed the problem with with tool suite Y and here are the results (give results)."
Tech: (pause, obviously doesn't understand a word I said) "There isn't anything wrong with the network. You must have done something on your end."
Me: "Look, all you have to do is procedure Z to fix the problem. Do you want me to walk you through it?"
Tech: (getting flustered) "There's nothing wrong with the network! If there were I'd know about it! I'm in IT so I know what I'm talking about!"
Conversation generally devolves at this point. Problem later solved when either a) I finally get a hold of someone clueful and tell them what's up, or b) said clueful person figures it out on their own.
What has always mystified me is this: I can see how phone tech support for the average joe gets hired, but how is it that so many IT departments hire so many idiots? And KEEP them??? Is there some sort of 'secret handshake' involving a blowjob for the boss, something I was never let in on?
SuSe 7.3. You set up your NIC on install the same as Windows (sans asking for the driver disk and endless reboots) and you're good to go. Just tested it out a few days ago and the install for everything is *easier and faster* than windows.
Even my most clueless friends can install and use this distro.
Most cable providers don't support Linux either because the company doesn't see the point in training reps for such a small user base. If Roadrunner is convinced that the user base for XP is also going to be small compared to 95/98/2000, then how are they at fault for not wasting their time with support?
If the user base does become large I've no doubt that Roadrunner would change it's tune, just as they would if a significant minority of their customers started using Linux. I doubt they'd choose not to support XP simply out of spite.
My @home folks told me that they wouldn't support Linux; I was welcome to try, but if it didn't work then I shouldn't go crying to them. Works fine for me - my new SuSe 7.3 worked right out of the box, no problems. And if there are any problems in the future, well, I know the score, don't I?
Legislation isn't needed here. What the EU could do instead is set up guidelines that it expects 'honest' web sites to follow re cookie use disclosure. Commercial web sites could then submit an application to an EU advisory board stating that they comply with the EU directives, at which point the site would be 'certified' as EU-privacy-approved.
At this point you could benefit the average joe in one of two ways:
- any 'certified' site would be able to put the words 'EU Certified' in the cookie pop-up, telling you that the EU thinks the site is generally honest;
- a more extensive approach would be to develop a plug-in which downloads a list of 'certified' sites and then warns the user whenever a site attempts to load a cookie onto the users machine that isn't EU-approved.
Either one would work without legislation while at the same time leaving the choice up to the individual as to whether or not they care about EU approval for sites. It also allows companies/web sites to decide for themselves the same thing. A completely voluntary system all-around.
I don't understand the motivations of folks who think they have some basic right to stick their nose in my business.
If you have a problem with other people desiring privacy, the difficulty isn't with these people but with you for trying to interfere in their lives. My private life isn't your concern; what I say to my friends and family isn't for you or anyone else to spy on and evaluate.
People who discount privacy are fine to do so for themselves - your choice. However, you have no right whatsoever to make that determination for me. None. At all.
The higher murder rate in the U.S. as compared to most European nations has nothing to do with firearms. More than 90% of all murders in the States are committed with 'weapons of opportunity', e.g., blunt instruments followed by knifes (mainly steak knives from kitchens).
The simple fact is that nearly everyone who commits a murder does so in a sudden fit of rage. They aren't thinking about anything at all other than bashing in the brains of the person in front of them. So they grab whatever's handy and go for it, *even if a gun is on the premises*. The gun is certainly more efficient, mind you, but efficiency isn't at the top of the list of the average person who commits murder.
The presence of a gun has never been correlated with a higher murder rate (i.e., guns do *not* promote violence). Most murders are committed with non-firearm weapons even if a firearm is available. The murder and violent crime rate in the U.S. is *much* higher than most other First World nations, but the scientific, empirical evidence clearly shows that gun ownership has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
In other words, Americans would murder each other with the same frequency as they do now whether or not guns were outlawed. It's not the gun, it's the American; and why, I don't know, since I'm an American and my people don't strike me as being a particularly violent sort on a person-to-person basis.
The question isn't whether or not the support staff knows Linux, but whether they're any bloody good at their jobs. An experienced, talented admin will adapt to any system running any OS (mainframe, server, or pc) and any application suite in short order; a nitwit with no talent can probably barely master the "I"m an MCSE, when in doubt reboot" mentality.
If you have a whisper of actual skill learning a new environment isn't the same as learning a foreign language. The equipment is similar, the concepts are virtually identical, even the commands used are often familiar; it's more like mastering a dialect of the same language, or at worst picking up a different but similar language relatively quickly (e.g., German and Dutch).
I've heard this same crap from 'programmers' who know one language but bitch and moan about having to learn another. Heeeeellloooo! The logic is pretty much the same across just about every programming language; how fucking hard can it possibly be? Are you honestly going to tell me that once you know C it's just as difficult to learn Perl, Python, or Java as it was C the first time around? Hell no! It's just a matter of mastering syntax and quirks, that's all.
And the same goes switching from a Linus to Windows or Windows to Linux networking environment. If you're any good you won't have much of a problem with it; if you're an incompetent asshole, as is the rest of your team (hence the reliance on Windows), then the idea of moving to Linux will fill you with dread.
(If you're competent the reverse will fill you with despair.)
The cost in transitioning depends on how good your support staff is - do they have actual skill? Talent? You'll find out soon enough in how long it takes them to adapt to the new environment. Anyone who isn't fundamentally competent with Linux in a month after working as an admin in another OS should take up something more his speed - like flipping burgers at Mickey D's.
(This rant brought to you by yet another day spent working with idiotic Bill G. fanboys in my department. Incompetent pricks.)
Jesus H. Christ, do a little reading. There's no 'selective' about it in evolution; everything that can breeds does, and the better-adapted offspring tend to win out over generations. This is utterly different than what you assert.
Furthermore, nature doesn't determine fitness to survive because NATURE DOESN'T DETERMINE A GODDAMNED THING. Nature is not sentient - it's not even real, just a concept that human beings made up. You keep ascribing directed characteristics to something that doesn't exist and even in its least abstract form is unable to 'choose' anything at all since it lacks any form of consciousness or motivation.
Finall, there is no 'fitness to survive' anywhere in the theory of evolution - you'd know that if you weren't pulling your assumptions out of your ass.
Evolution is random. The better mutations tend (and I say *tend*) to result in a greater number of offspring over time than the less beneficial ones. Results may vary. That is IT in a nutshell.
I'm not a "peacenik", as you call it, but I can honestly say I don't give a rats ass for Israel or any other country in the Middle East. As far as I'm concerned, we've no more right to interfere in the affairs of that particular neighborhood than the countries in the area have the right to interfere with what goes on in the U.S.
So long as whatever nation or nations wins out continues to sell us oil I say let them slaughter each other. We're under no moral obligation to provide arms, broker peace, or attempt to maintain a balance of power of any kind. If the Jews and the Arabs are set on killing one another then they're going to kill one another regardless of what we do. Why should we back one particular side, or attempt to interfere?
Perhaps because of past transgressions we'll remain a target of fundamentalist Islamic groups; undoubtedly this would probably be the case even if we hadn't forced Israel upon the Middle East, along with the Brits, 50 years ago. But at the very least we won't waste billions in aid and further dirty our name any more than we already have.
Some argue that if Israel were destroyed then OPEC would be a real factor, even capable of denying the U.S. oil. Bullshit - money always talks, and the billions we spend on oil is too much for any nation to pass up. No matter who wins, they'll sell; they can't help themselves.
So lets divest ourselves of a loser's game and walk away, saying "Pax Americana is over with, go ahead and massacre each other if that's what you really want".
As an American I'm *tired* of this obsession our presidents have with measuring dick size through pissing people off, especially people in the Middle East. Every time we step into a situation like this we only mire ourselves deeper in the problems of others, problems we really don't need to add to our own.
If we had to pay for our delayed entry in WW2, then I'd say that 50 years of supporting Israel just about covers it. Enough is enough.
Time, yes, but the money part doesn't always apply in the world of open source. The Linux kernel is a prime example of good software that took a hellacious amount of time but no money.
This isn't evolution; it's breeding. The two concepts have nothing to do with one another. Evolution is *random*, completely and utterly; breeding is directed and non-random.
Once again, breeding and evolution have nothing whatsoever to do with one another. And again, if anyone has a problem with the concept of evolution there are a great many basic bio texts which go into the idea in detail.
It's been said before and I'm sure it'll be said again: let's fork the web. Drop out any and all support for the crap used to sell commercial web sites (e.g., Flash).
People will say "but the masses won't go to an alternate web!" and I say "but isn't that what you want? you bitch and moan about the vapid, overcommercial, shallow Joe Sixpack nature of the original web; wouldn't a fork be just what you're looking for?"
It sure as hell would be something I'd be interested in. A web with only a few million people on it, most of those technically oriented or academics looking for a noise-free environment for common publishing. Throw in all the usual minority cranks and you've got a web with no commercials, no businesses, no glut of two-bit one page home sites abandoned a few hours after the new owner got bored, and yet just enough color to be wacky and interesting.
Imagine a web where you could easily track down the information you want or need from academic and technical sources (less likely to be talking out of their ass, at least in their field of expertise), hold a semi-intelligent conversation that doesn't involve mixing letters with numbers (D00D), and go post on a forum with your favorite band of wackos with a much smaller chance of having to deal with noise from trolling assholes.
Christ, gimme that web. I don't need the other unless I'm looking for pics of Natalie Portman, and with any luck some of the wackos that move to the new web will start Natalie fan sites.
About a year ago I had the pleasure of experiencing my one and only fan/heatsink failure in all the thousands of computers I've dealt with. The failure, in this case, came from my own stupidity in letting the college morons who worked in the back of the local computer store install the motherboard, cpu, and fan/heatsink since I was too lazy to do it myself. Never again.
It turns out that although they placed the fan/heatsink atop the cpu, they forgot to actually secure the clips in place. So my computer was chugging merrily along when I heard this 'whump' as the fan/heatsink assembly dropped off the CPU and onto the bottom of the case. I was laying on the couch watching TV at the time and it took me a few moments to match the probable cause to the sound itself. About 55 seconds, I'd guess; then another 5 seconds where I yelled "oh shit!" and dived for the computer to shut it down.
This was an AMD 1.2 ghz chip, supposedly very hot; and yet it took no damage whatsoever from going 60 seconds without being cooled. ASUS probe, a software monitoring program that worked with my old (then new) motherboard, didn't even sound an alarm, which it would've done had the CPU temperature exceeded critical limits (about 85 C). And even had the CPU passed the critical point ASUS would've shut it down anyway.
In any event, no damage at all from going completely uncooled for a minute. The temperature didn't spike uncontrollably, the CPU didn't melt, all the doom that anti-AMD folks warned of didn't come to pass. Everything was fine.
I'd still recommend monitoring software that'll allow you to turn your computer off or halt the CPU if things go bad. But I'd recommend this for any machine regardless of CPU brand. And I now know for a fact that my CPU can live completely uncooled through boot until ASUS loads and evaluates it, so I have no worries about 'sudden heat death'.
I can say that because it's part and parcel of the definition of evolution. You should've learned this in Bio 101. It matters not a whit where I am in the system because human beings defined the process; it wasn't defined for us by some cosmic power.
Evolution is simply the observed phenomena of organisms changing over time due to mutation and inbreeding, usually adapting to environmental conditions (because those mutations that don't adapt die out, not because there's any 'invisible hand' at work directing the adaption).
There's no argument to be had here. This is simply the definiton of evolution. Anything else isn't evolution as any biologist or geneticist would understand it. If you're having trouble with the concept or never covered evolution in a biology class there are plenty of good, scientific books which can explain it to you in detail.
In biological evolution the only actual measure of fitness is whether or not you manage to pass your genes on to the next generation. Fail to do so and by definition you aren't fit - your genes are lost and out of the evolutionary race. The actual subjective quality of the organism (by whatever mechanism you use to measure such a nebulous thing) is irrelevant.
Obviously this isn't what you want in a computer program. But a computer program has purpose as defined by its maker (even through something like a fitness function) whereas evolutionary biology has no purpose at all. It simply happens; there is no guiding hand or principle.
Survival of the offspring is the only measure of 'success' in real-world evolution. Fitness functions in computer programming have nothing to do with biological evolution at all; there is no counterpart you can point to.
Not being a conscious or directed process, evolution has no end goal. That's a fallacy in the thinking of those who don't actually understand biological evolution.
Real-time games simply don't cut it in terms of strategy. Strategy requires time to think, to plan, to ponder; by definition RTS attempts to limit this in order to push the adrenalin rush. And this has proven a real market winner, since most game players are younger and enamored of having a maximum amount of adrenalin coursing through their bloodstream at any given moment.
Don't get me wrong, this isn't a bad thing. I'm quite fond of Warcraft, C&C, Starcraft, and all the others; but nobody can convince me that these games contain an ounce of strategy. Or of tactics, for that matter - there's nothing tactical about 'rushing' an enemy. This doesn't mean the game is bad by any stretch, just that it has nothing to do with strategy or tactics.
So what's needed for a strategy simulation. Here are a few ideas:
(1) Time. The player needs time to ponder what she's going to do. The clock can't be ticking. That means that either you need a turn-based game, or a real-time game that you can pause at any moment for as long as you like to review the situation and issue new orders. Either one works.
(2) Order structure. Giving orders and having them followed are two entirely different things. In a strategy you'd give orders and watch to see what the results were. Sometimes commanders might decided, when faced with a new situation, to abandon their orders and take initiative. This might be good, or it might be bad, but either way it isn't what you planned on.
(3) No 'fighting to the death'; this almost never happens in actual combat. And this is a *good* thing, since a unit that needlessly sacrifices itself is a unit comprised of idiots. When faced with an unwinnable situation, units should withdraw or at least cease offensive tactics.
(4) Incorporate real-world factors. Examples include poor morale, supply problems, inexperienced leadership, fatigue, or just plain confusion. All of these will affect your plans.
(5) Logistics. Not a big thing in tactical games, absolutely necessary to strategy games. You need lines of supply and actual supply to send along those lines. The mere morale effect of being 'cut off', even if you have all the fuel and ammo in the world, is enormous; units which historically held the advantage have up and surrendered upon realizing that they no longer had logistical support, even if they could've regained this support with minimal effort.
(6) Fog of war. Absolutely required in strategy games. You can't know about anything that you aren't currently monitoring. Inadequate intelligence leads to unpleasant surprises.
(7) Randomness! Shit happens. Your elite, fully equipped, high-morale, well-rested and ready-to-go division of pumped-up uber-soldiers could encounter a run-down, poorly equipped, ill-led rag-tag band of the enemy and get its ass whupped. Sometimes, everything that can go wrong does. Murphy lives for the battlefield.
(8) A big map. In order for strategy to work you need a well-defined, large playing area. If there aren't multiple avenues of approach then all your strategy boils down to building lots of units and sending them to area x,y where the enemy is camped out - because they're always camped out there, the map doesn't allow for anything else.
That's good for a start. Off-topic, this made me realize that years ago, out of frustration over the lack of strategy in strategy games, I actually wrote a developers copy of a medieval-era strategy game that outlined all of the mechanics in about 105 pages. That is, how everything worked was spelled out in detail; anyone could take a copy of this and code the game from start to finish with this manual. I still have the thing and found it fun to read it over again, as well as somewhat depressing since I still haven't run into a game that utilizes the concepts I incorporated into my own design. Maybe someday....
Moreover, theres rarely (if ever) a good reason to go armed, unless you're in a very small minority of people, mostly professionals who are licensed anyway. Home protection is a bullshit argument. Personal protection is a bullshit argument.
Screw your strawman arguments and look to the quote above, from your original post. You say that both home and personal protection are "bullshit", yet according to a 1995 study commissioned by the FBI somewhere between 800,000 and 1.6 million violent crimes are *prevented* every year because the supposed victim was armed with a gun. Please explain to me how owning and carrying a firearm is "bullshit" in light of those figures.
The common thread among those quotes isn't training, but the fact that ownership of a firearm is a fundamental right. Furthermore, this ownership was considered essential to prevent government from becoming a tyranny. Hell, those are just some of the relevant quotes; read the Constitution papers if you want a more in-depth analysis of why the 2nd Amendment was considered to be so important by the Founders.
As for your claim that 200 years makes a difference, I refute that utterly. The principles of freedom are the same today as they were 200 or 2000 years ago; nothing in human nature has changed one whit in that time. It's the refuge of a man with no foundation to stand on to claim that his arguments are somehow more relevant than those of far greater intellect and wisdom simply because of the separation of time.
You don't even come close to the Founders, sir. Don't flatter yourself in thinking otherwise.
If you don't like the 2nd Amendment you can repeal it through the amendment process embodied in the Constitution itself. So if you believe your own tripe, get off your ass and lobby for a repeal.
I find it amazing that anti-gun nuts will go to any lengths to circumvent the 2nd Amendment and yet don't have the balls to actually challenge the amendment through constitutional means. Really, if your arguments made any sense at all and you had a broad base of support this should be a cakewalk; after all, we repealed alcohol in the '20's, how hard could this be?
I suspect that the reason the anti-gun folks don't try to repeal or modify the 2nd Amendment is because they realize that the vast majority of Americans don't agree with them and would never consent to alter the Constitution. So the fanatics resort to chipping away at the 2nd, limiting its powers over time through step-by-step legislation designed to eventually do away with it altogether.
"Would Rather Not Say"
By Charles Laurence in New York
(Filed: 21/10/2001)
THE most detailed analysis yet of the contested Florida votes from last year's presidential election - with the potential to question President Bush's legitimacy - is being withheld by the news organisations that commissioned it.
Results of the inspection of more than 170,000 votes rejected as unreadable in the "hanging chad" chaos of last November's vote count were ready at the end of August.
The study was commissioned early this year by a consortium including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the New York Times, the nation's most powerful newspapers, and the broadcaster CNN. It was regarded as a means of supplying final answers to the nagging questions over President Bush's razor-thin victory margin. The cost was more than £700,000.
Now, however, spokesmen for the consortium say that they decided to "postpone" the story of the analysis by the National Opinion Research Centre (NORC) at the University of Chicago for lack of resources and lack of interest in the face of the enormous story of the September 11 attacks and the subsequent "war on terrorism".
Newspapers were saying last week that the final phase of the analysis, the actual counting of the 170,000 votes, had been "postponed" but would become known at an appropriate time.
America's liberal newspaper establishment originally set up the commission in the belief that it would discover that Al Gore was the winner of the Florida count. Their hope for a Gore victory appears to have been sacrificed on the altar of patriotism and a perception that America needs to be led into war by a strong president.
"Our belief is that the priorities of the country have changed, and our priorities have changed," said Steven Goldstein, the vice-president of corporate communications at Dow Jones and Co, the owners of the Wall Street Journal.
Catherine Mathis, a spokesman for the New York Times, said: "The consortium agreed that because of the war, because of our lack of resources, we were postponing the vote-count investigation. But this is not final. The intention is to go forward."
However David Podvin, an investigative journalist who runs an independent web page, Make Them Accountable, said he had been tipped off that the consortium was covering up the results. He refused to disclose his source other than to
describe him as a former media executive whom he knew "as an accurate conduit of information" and who claimed that the consortium "is deliberately hiding the results of its recount because Gore was the indisputable winner".
He also claims that a New York Times journalist who was involved in the recount project had told "a former companion" that the Gore victory margin was big enough to create "major trouble for the Bush presidency if this ever gets out".
He believes that the inspection, carried out over months by a team from NORC, proves that Mr Gore on Florida and, therefore, the election. That theory, however, is countered by the NORC staff who say that they designed the inspection programme so that no one has yet counted the votes and no outcome could be known.
Dr John Mason, a professor of political science at William Paterson University, in New Jersey said: "The goosiness, the sensitivity, that the press which organised this analysis is showing to publishing the results and the persistence of questions about the Florida ballots raise questions. There is a sensitivity over the legitimacy of this president."
Staff at NORC have been puzzled by the idea that the media would lack the resources because, according to them, they have computer programs already designed and fitted for the final count.
Julie Antelman of NORC said: "They are all ready to go, and could have the count and the result within a working week."
She added: "We very carefully kept our distance from the political implications of whatever the result may be. We do not know the outcome, and do not want to. "Our job was to prepare the raw data which goes into the counting programs: we are simply waiting for the order to deliver this data to the consortium, which we expected within the first two weeks of September."
NORC analysts studied each of the 170,000 votes which were discarded because they were considered spoiled or simply unreadable. Each ballot paper has now been analysed and recorded to the ballot box and constituency where it was cast. French and Canadian newspapers suggest that the black-out can only raise suspicions, and the issue is being
increasingly aired on the internet.
Dr Mason said: "It would be responsible to complete this study and produce the result, whatever it may be."
So here's a reprint of the article. No doubt you'll immediately find flaw with it and discount it in some fashion or another, but for what it's worth....
Slashdot Mirror
How exactly is SuSe package management "braindead". You provide no definition for this. Do you mean "braindead" as in "it doesn't work" (because it does, and you'd be wrong), or "braindead" as in "anyone can do it" (because that would be true)?
Max
Actually, pretty much all programming languages think alike. The logic behind operations and constructs is essentially the same no matter where you go, so once you learn your first language mastering any other is more like learning a local dialect. A matter of syntax and idiom, is all.
Max
That should be:
At least in this the consumers aren't complete idiots.
Max
Where exactly is the realism in that? Historically - and a fundamental notion in economics - monopolies are good for the monopoly and bad for everyone else. Supporting a monopoly is a sure-fire way to *damage* a capitalist economy, not strengthen it.
About the only thing Shrub might be doing here is attempting to bolster the stock market, since MS's stock prices are vastly overinflated. But I find even that argument weak since at no time in history has the entire stock market been wounded by a single company's troubles. MS is big, but they've got nothing on Exxon or GM; and most consumers don't give a rats ass what happens to Bill or his minions since there's no material connection to the health of their own machines.
At least in this the consumers are complete idiots.
Max
Bullshit. You have no evidence whatsoever that breaking up MS would adversely affect the economy. In fact, I could argue that the initial remedy ordered by Jackson would stimulate economic growth by allowing new software companies to form and compete with MS. Lower-priced software for consumers, more jobs for programmers.
Bush doesn't see any "bigger picture". I doubt he sees much of anything except his picture in the history books, along with alot of grandiose-sounding words he looked up in a thesaurus.
Max
This doesn't just apply to the minimum wage phone tech support folks the average joe calls when something goes wrong. I've found over the years that much of what is said here also applies to most of the folks in many large IT departments. My conversations with various IT techs over the years often run along these lines:
Me: "Hi, the network is having problem X (give details)".
Tech: "No, the network is fine. No one here has said anything about a problem with the network. It must be on your end."
Me: "Well, no, I analyzed the problem with with tool suite Y and here are the results (give results)."
Tech: (pause, obviously doesn't understand a word I said) "There isn't anything wrong with the network. You must have done something on your end."
Me: "Look, all you have to do is procedure Z to fix the problem. Do you want me to walk you through it?"
Tech: (getting flustered) "There's nothing wrong with the network! If there were I'd know about it! I'm in IT so I know what I'm talking about!"
Conversation generally devolves at this point. Problem later solved when either a) I finally get a hold of someone clueful and tell them what's up, or b) said clueful person figures it out on their own.
What has always mystified me is this: I can see how phone tech support for the average joe gets hired, but how is it that so many IT departments hire so many idiots? And KEEP them??? Is there some sort of 'secret handshake' involving a blowjob for the boss, something I was never let in on?
Max
SuSe 7.3. You set up your NIC on install the same as Windows (sans asking for the driver disk and endless reboots) and you're good to go. Just tested it out a few days ago and the install for everything is *easier and faster* than windows.
Even my most clueless friends can install and use this distro.
Max
Most cable providers don't support Linux either because the company doesn't see the point in training reps for such a small user base. If Roadrunner is convinced that the user base for XP is also going to be small compared to 95/98/2000, then how are they at fault for not wasting their time with support?
If the user base does become large I've no doubt that Roadrunner would change it's tune, just as they would if a significant minority of their customers started using Linux. I doubt they'd choose not to support XP simply out of spite.
My @home folks told me that they wouldn't support Linux; I was welcome to try, but if it didn't work then I shouldn't go crying to them. Works fine for me - my new SuSe 7.3 worked right out of the box, no problems. And if there are any problems in the future, well, I know the score, don't I?
Max
Legislation isn't needed here. What the EU could do instead is set up guidelines that it expects 'honest' web sites to follow re cookie use disclosure. Commercial web sites could then submit an application to an EU advisory board stating that they comply with the EU directives, at which point the site would be 'certified' as EU-privacy-approved.
At this point you could benefit the average joe in one of two ways:
- any 'certified' site would be able to put the words 'EU Certified' in the cookie pop-up, telling you that the EU thinks the site is generally honest;
- a more extensive approach would be to develop a plug-in which downloads a list of 'certified' sites and then warns the user whenever a site attempts to load a cookie onto the users machine that isn't EU-approved.
Either one would work without legislation while at the same time leaving the choice up to the individual as to whether or not they care about EU approval for sites. It also allows companies/web sites to decide for themselves the same thing. A completely voluntary system all-around.
Max
I don't understand the motivations of folks who think they have some basic right to stick their nose in my business.
If you have a problem with other people desiring privacy, the difficulty isn't with these people but with you for trying to interfere in their lives. My private life isn't your concern; what I say to my friends and family isn't for you or anyone else to spy on and evaluate.
People who discount privacy are fine to do so for themselves - your choice. However, you have no right whatsoever to make that determination for me. None. At all.
Max
The higher murder rate in the U.S. as compared to most European nations has nothing to do with firearms. More than 90% of all murders in the States are committed with 'weapons of opportunity', e.g., blunt instruments followed by knifes (mainly steak knives from kitchens).
The simple fact is that nearly everyone who commits a murder does so in a sudden fit of rage. They aren't thinking about anything at all other than bashing in the brains of the person in front of them. So they grab whatever's handy and go for it, *even if a gun is on the premises*. The gun is certainly more efficient, mind you, but efficiency isn't at the top of the list of the average person who commits murder.
The presence of a gun has never been correlated with a higher murder rate (i.e., guns do *not* promote violence). Most murders are committed with non-firearm weapons even if a firearm is available. The murder and violent crime rate in the U.S. is *much* higher than most other First World nations, but the scientific, empirical evidence clearly shows that gun ownership has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
In other words, Americans would murder each other with the same frequency as they do now whether or not guns were outlawed. It's not the gun, it's the American; and why, I don't know, since I'm an American and my people don't strike me as being a particularly violent sort on a person-to-person basis.
Max
This is a great idea! Can you imagine the PR? I betcha the resulting outcry from MS would make CNN, eh?
Max
The question isn't whether or not the support staff knows Linux, but whether they're any bloody good at their jobs. An experienced, talented admin will adapt to any system running any OS (mainframe, server, or pc) and any application suite in short order; a nitwit with no talent can probably barely master the "I"m an MCSE, when in doubt reboot" mentality.
If you have a whisper of actual skill learning a new environment isn't the same as learning a foreign language. The equipment is similar, the concepts are virtually identical, even the commands used are often familiar; it's more like mastering a dialect of the same language, or at worst picking up a different but similar language relatively quickly (e.g., German and Dutch).
I've heard this same crap from 'programmers' who know one language but bitch and moan about having to learn another. Heeeeellloooo! The logic is pretty much the same across just about every programming language; how fucking hard can it possibly be? Are you honestly going to tell me that once you know C it's just as difficult to learn Perl, Python, or Java as it was C the first time around? Hell no! It's just a matter of mastering syntax and quirks, that's all.
And the same goes switching from a Linus to Windows or Windows to Linux networking environment. If you're any good you won't have much of a problem with it; if you're an incompetent asshole, as is the rest of your team (hence the reliance on Windows), then the idea of moving to Linux will fill you with dread.
(If you're competent the reverse will fill you with despair.)
The cost in transitioning depends on how good your support staff is - do they have actual skill? Talent? You'll find out soon enough in how long it takes them to adapt to the new environment. Anyone who isn't fundamentally competent with Linux in a month after working as an admin in another OS should take up something more his speed - like flipping burgers at Mickey D's.
(This rant brought to you by yet another day spent working with idiotic Bill G. fanboys in my department. Incompetent pricks.)
Max
Jesus H. Christ, do a little reading. There's no 'selective' about it in evolution; everything that can breeds does, and the better-adapted offspring tend to win out over generations. This is utterly different than what you assert.
Furthermore, nature doesn't determine fitness to survive because NATURE DOESN'T DETERMINE A GODDAMNED THING. Nature is not sentient - it's not even real, just a concept that human beings made up. You keep ascribing directed characteristics to something that doesn't exist and even in its least abstract form is unable to 'choose' anything at all since it lacks any form of consciousness or motivation.
Finall, there is no 'fitness to survive' anywhere in the theory of evolution - you'd know that if you weren't pulling your assumptions out of your ass.
Evolution is random. The better mutations tend (and I say *tend*) to result in a greater number of offspring over time than the less beneficial ones. Results may vary. That is IT in a nutshell.
Max
I'm not a "peacenik", as you call it, but I can honestly say I don't give a rats ass for Israel or any other country in the Middle East. As far as I'm concerned, we've no more right to interfere in the affairs of that particular neighborhood than the countries in the area have the right to interfere with what goes on in the U.S.
So long as whatever nation or nations wins out continues to sell us oil I say let them slaughter each other. We're under no moral obligation to provide arms, broker peace, or attempt to maintain a balance of power of any kind. If the Jews and the Arabs are set on killing one another then they're going to kill one another regardless of what we do. Why should we back one particular side, or attempt to interfere?
Perhaps because of past transgressions we'll remain a target of fundamentalist Islamic groups; undoubtedly this would probably be the case even if we hadn't forced Israel upon the Middle East, along with the Brits, 50 years ago. But at the very least we won't waste billions in aid and further dirty our name any more than we already have.
Some argue that if Israel were destroyed then OPEC would be a real factor, even capable of denying the U.S. oil. Bullshit - money always talks, and the billions we spend on oil is too much for any nation to pass up. No matter who wins, they'll sell; they can't help themselves.
So lets divest ourselves of a loser's game and walk away, saying "Pax Americana is over with, go ahead and massacre each other if that's what you really want".
As an American I'm *tired* of this obsession our presidents have with measuring dick size through pissing people off, especially people in the Middle East. Every time we step into a situation like this we only mire ourselves deeper in the problems of others, problems we really don't need to add to our own.
If we had to pay for our delayed entry in WW2, then I'd say that 50 years of supporting Israel just about covers it. Enough is enough.
Max
Time, yes, but the money part doesn't always apply in the world of open source. The Linux kernel is a prime example of good software that took a hellacious amount of time but no money.
Max
This isn't evolution; it's breeding. The two concepts have nothing to do with one another. Evolution is *random*, completely and utterly; breeding is directed and non-random.
Once again, breeding and evolution have nothing whatsoever to do with one another. And again, if anyone has a problem with the concept of evolution there are a great many basic bio texts which go into the idea in detail.
Max
It's been said before and I'm sure it'll be said again: let's fork the web. Drop out any and all support for the crap used to sell commercial web sites (e.g., Flash).
People will say "but the masses won't go to an alternate web!" and I say "but isn't that what you want? you bitch and moan about the vapid, overcommercial, shallow Joe Sixpack nature of the original web; wouldn't a fork be just what you're looking for?"
It sure as hell would be something I'd be interested in. A web with only a few million people on it, most of those technically oriented or academics looking for a noise-free environment for common publishing. Throw in all the usual minority cranks and you've got a web with no commercials, no businesses, no glut of two-bit one page home sites abandoned a few hours after the new owner got bored, and yet just enough color to be wacky and interesting.
Imagine a web where you could easily track down the information you want or need from academic and technical sources (less likely to be talking out of their ass, at least in their field of expertise), hold a semi-intelligent conversation that doesn't involve mixing letters with numbers (D00D), and go post on a forum with your favorite band of wackos with a much smaller chance of having to deal with noise from trolling assholes.
Christ, gimme that web. I don't need the other unless I'm looking for pics of Natalie Portman, and with any luck some of the wackos that move to the new web will start Natalie fan sites.
Max
About a year ago I had the pleasure of experiencing my one and only fan/heatsink failure in all the thousands of computers I've dealt with. The failure, in this case, came from my own stupidity in letting the college morons who worked in the back of the local computer store install the motherboard, cpu, and fan/heatsink since I was too lazy to do it myself. Never again.
It turns out that although they placed the fan/heatsink atop the cpu, they forgot to actually secure the clips in place. So my computer was chugging merrily along when I heard this 'whump' as the fan/heatsink assembly dropped off the CPU and onto the bottom of the case. I was laying on the couch watching TV at the time and it took me a few moments to match the probable cause to the sound itself. About 55 seconds, I'd guess; then another 5 seconds where I yelled "oh shit!" and dived for the computer to shut it down.
This was an AMD 1.2 ghz chip, supposedly very hot; and yet it took no damage whatsoever from going 60 seconds without being cooled. ASUS probe, a software monitoring program that worked with my old (then new) motherboard, didn't even sound an alarm, which it would've done had the CPU temperature exceeded critical limits (about 85 C). And even had the CPU passed the critical point ASUS would've shut it down anyway.
In any event, no damage at all from going completely uncooled for a minute. The temperature didn't spike uncontrollably, the CPU didn't melt, all the doom that anti-AMD folks warned of didn't come to pass. Everything was fine.
I'd still recommend monitoring software that'll allow you to turn your computer off or halt the CPU if things go bad. But I'd recommend this for any machine regardless of CPU brand. And I now know for a fact that my CPU can live completely uncooled through boot until ASUS loads and evaluates it, so I have no worries about 'sudden heat death'.
Max
I can say that because it's part and parcel of the definition of evolution. You should've learned this in Bio 101. It matters not a whit where I am in the system because human beings defined the process; it wasn't defined for us by some cosmic power.
Evolution is simply the observed phenomena of organisms changing over time due to mutation and inbreeding, usually adapting to environmental conditions (because those mutations that don't adapt die out, not because there's any 'invisible hand' at work directing the adaption).
There's no argument to be had here. This is simply the definiton of evolution. Anything else isn't evolution as any biologist or geneticist would understand it. If you're having trouble with the concept or never covered evolution in a biology class there are plenty of good, scientific books which can explain it to you in detail.
Max
In biological evolution the only actual measure of fitness is whether or not you manage to pass your genes on to the next generation. Fail to do so and by definition you aren't fit - your genes are lost and out of the evolutionary race. The actual subjective quality of the organism (by whatever mechanism you use to measure such a nebulous thing) is irrelevant.
Obviously this isn't what you want in a computer program. But a computer program has purpose as defined by its maker (even through something like a fitness function) whereas evolutionary biology has no purpose at all. It simply happens; there is no guiding hand or principle.
Survival of the offspring is the only measure of 'success' in real-world evolution. Fitness functions in computer programming have nothing to do with biological evolution at all; there is no counterpart you can point to.
Max
Not being a conscious or directed process, evolution has no end goal. That's a fallacy in the thinking of those who don't actually understand biological evolution.
Max
Real-time games simply don't cut it in terms of strategy. Strategy requires time to think, to plan, to ponder; by definition RTS attempts to limit this in order to push the adrenalin rush. And this has proven a real market winner, since most game players are younger and enamored of having a maximum amount of adrenalin coursing through their bloodstream at any given moment.
Don't get me wrong, this isn't a bad thing. I'm quite fond of Warcraft, C&C, Starcraft, and all the others; but nobody can convince me that these games contain an ounce of strategy. Or of tactics, for that matter - there's nothing tactical about 'rushing' an enemy. This doesn't mean the game is bad by any stretch, just that it has nothing to do with strategy or tactics.
So what's needed for a strategy simulation. Here are a few ideas:
(1) Time. The player needs time to ponder what she's going to do. The clock can't be ticking. That means that either you need a turn-based game, or a real-time game that you can pause at any moment for as long as you like to review the situation and issue new orders. Either one works.
(2) Order structure. Giving orders and having them followed are two entirely different things. In a strategy you'd give orders and watch to see what the results were. Sometimes commanders might decided, when faced with a new situation, to abandon their orders and take initiative. This might be good, or it might be bad, but either way it isn't what you planned on.
(3) No 'fighting to the death'; this almost never happens in actual combat. And this is a *good* thing, since a unit that needlessly sacrifices itself is a unit comprised of idiots. When faced with an unwinnable situation, units should withdraw or at least cease offensive tactics.
(4) Incorporate real-world factors. Examples include poor morale, supply problems, inexperienced leadership, fatigue, or just plain confusion. All of these will affect your plans.
(5) Logistics. Not a big thing in tactical games, absolutely necessary to strategy games. You need lines of supply and actual supply to send along those lines. The mere morale effect of being 'cut off', even if you have all the fuel and ammo in the world, is enormous; units which historically held the advantage have up and surrendered upon realizing that they no longer had logistical support, even if they could've regained this support with minimal effort.
(6) Fog of war. Absolutely required in strategy games. You can't know about anything that you aren't currently monitoring. Inadequate intelligence leads to unpleasant surprises.
(7) Randomness! Shit happens. Your elite, fully equipped, high-morale, well-rested and ready-to-go division of pumped-up uber-soldiers could encounter a run-down, poorly equipped, ill-led rag-tag band of the enemy and get its ass whupped. Sometimes, everything that can go wrong does. Murphy lives for the battlefield.
(8) A big map. In order for strategy to work you need a well-defined, large playing area. If there aren't multiple avenues of approach then all your strategy boils down to building lots of units and sending them to area x,y where the enemy is camped out - because they're always camped out there, the map doesn't allow for anything else.
That's good for a start. Off-topic, this made me realize that years ago, out of frustration over the lack of strategy in strategy games, I actually wrote a developers copy of a medieval-era strategy game that outlined all of the mechanics in about 105 pages. That is, how everything worked was spelled out in detail; anyone could take a copy of this and code the game from start to finish with this manual. I still have the thing and found it fun to read it over again, as well as somewhat depressing since I still haven't run into a game that utilizes the concepts I incorporated into my own design. Maybe someday....
Max
Moreover, theres rarely (if ever) a good reason to go armed, unless you're in a very small minority of people, mostly professionals who are licensed anyway. Home protection is a bullshit argument. Personal protection is a bullshit argument.
Screw your strawman arguments and look to the quote above, from your original post. You say that both home and personal protection are "bullshit", yet according to a 1995 study commissioned by the FBI somewhere between 800,000 and 1.6 million violent crimes are *prevented* every year because the supposed victim was armed with a gun. Please explain to me how owning and carrying a firearm is "bullshit" in light of those figures.
The common thread among those quotes isn't training, but the fact that ownership of a firearm is a fundamental right. Furthermore, this ownership was considered essential to prevent government from becoming a tyranny. Hell, those are just some of the relevant quotes; read the Constitution papers if you want a more in-depth analysis of why the 2nd Amendment was considered to be so important by the Founders.
As for your claim that 200 years makes a difference, I refute that utterly. The principles of freedom are the same today as they were 200 or 2000 years ago; nothing in human nature has changed one whit in that time. It's the refuge of a man with no foundation to stand on to claim that his arguments are somehow more relevant than those of far greater intellect and wisdom simply because of the separation of time.
You don't even come close to the Founders, sir. Don't flatter yourself in thinking otherwise.
If you don't like the 2nd Amendment you can repeal it through the amendment process embodied in the Constitution itself. So if you believe your own tripe, get off your ass and lobby for a repeal.
I find it amazing that anti-gun nuts will go to any lengths to circumvent the 2nd Amendment and yet don't have the balls to actually challenge the amendment through constitutional means. Really, if your arguments made any sense at all and you had a broad base of support this should be a cakewalk; after all, we repealed alcohol in the '20's, how hard could this be?
I suspect that the reason the anti-gun folks don't try to repeal or modify the 2nd Amendment is because they realize that the vast majority of Americans don't agree with them and would never consent to alter the Constitution. So the fanatics resort to chipping away at the 2nd, limiting its powers over time through step-by-step legislation designed to eventually do away with it altogether.
Sleazy tactics, at best. Criminal at worst.
Max
"Would Rather Not Say"
By Charles Laurence in New York
(Filed: 21/10/2001)
THE most detailed analysis yet of the contested Florida votes from last year's presidential election - with the potential to question President Bush's legitimacy - is being withheld by the news organisations that commissioned it.
Results of the inspection of more than 170,000 votes rejected as unreadable in the "hanging chad" chaos of last November's vote count were ready at the end of August.
The study was commissioned early this year by a consortium including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the New York Times, the nation's most powerful newspapers, and the broadcaster CNN. It was regarded as a means of supplying final answers to the nagging questions over President Bush's razor-thin victory margin. The cost was more than £700,000.
Now, however, spokesmen for the consortium say that they decided to "postpone" the story of the analysis by the National Opinion Research Centre (NORC) at the University of Chicago for lack of resources and lack of interest in the face of the enormous story of the September 11 attacks and the subsequent "war on terrorism".
Newspapers were saying last week that the final phase of the analysis, the actual counting of the 170,000 votes, had been "postponed" but would become known at an appropriate time.
America's liberal newspaper establishment originally set up the commission in the belief that it would discover that Al Gore was the winner of the Florida count. Their hope for a Gore victory appears to have been sacrificed on the altar of patriotism and a perception that America needs to be led into war by a strong president.
"Our belief is that the priorities of the country have changed, and our priorities have changed," said Steven Goldstein, the vice-president of corporate communications at Dow Jones and Co, the owners of the Wall Street Journal.
Catherine Mathis, a spokesman for the New York Times, said: "The consortium agreed that because of the war, because of our lack of resources, we were postponing the vote-count investigation. But this is not final. The intention is to go forward."
However David Podvin, an investigative journalist who runs an independent web page, Make Them Accountable, said he had been tipped off that the consortium was covering up the results. He refused to disclose his source other than to
describe him as a former media executive whom he knew "as an accurate conduit of information" and who claimed that the consortium "is deliberately hiding the results of its recount because Gore was the indisputable winner".
He also claims that a New York Times journalist who was involved in the recount project had told "a former companion" that the Gore victory margin was big enough to create "major trouble for the Bush presidency if this ever gets out".
He believes that the inspection, carried out over months by a team from NORC, proves that Mr Gore on Florida and, therefore, the election. That theory, however, is countered by the NORC staff who say that they designed the inspection programme so that no one has yet counted the votes and no outcome could be known.
Dr John Mason, a professor of political science at William Paterson University, in New Jersey said: "The goosiness, the sensitivity, that the press which organised this analysis is showing to publishing the results and the persistence of questions about the Florida ballots raise questions. There is a sensitivity over the legitimacy of this president."
Staff at NORC have been puzzled by the idea that the media would lack the resources because, according to them, they have computer programs already designed and fitted for the final count.
Julie Antelman of NORC said: "They are all ready to go, and could have the count and the result within a working week."
She added: "We very carefully kept our distance from the political implications of whatever the result may be. We do not know the outcome, and do not want to. "Our job was to prepare the raw data which goes into the counting programs: we are simply waiting for the order to deliver this data to the consortium, which we expected within the first two weeks of September."
NORC analysts studied each of the 170,000 votes which were discarded because they were considered spoiled or simply unreadable. Each ballot paper has now been analysed and recorded to the ballot box and constituency where it was cast. French and Canadian newspapers suggest that the black-out can only raise suspicions, and the issue is being
increasingly aired on the internet.
Dr Mason said: "It would be responsible to complete this study and produce the result, whatever it may be."
So here's a reprint of the article. No doubt you'll immediately find flaw with it and discount it in some fashion or another, but for what it's worth....
Max