While this is exactly how I learned to type Dvorak myself, there is something to be said for keeping the keycaps in qwerty layout and taping a reminder sheet somewhere to your monitor.
Changing the keycaps encourages you to look at the keyboard, while you'll probably want to touch-type Dvorak. It took me a while to un-learn looking down all the time even though I already knew the positions of the keys.
Plus, it keeps the little "bumps" on the "f" and "j" keys in the right place.
Also, the theory of quantum consciousness [overview] suggests that what's going on in our brains is fundamentally unpredictable because quantum effects are involved. Excerpt from the page:
I spent twenty years studying how computer-like structures called microtubules inside neurons and other cells could process information related to consciousness. But when I read The emperor's new mind by Sir Roger Penrose in 1991 I realized that consciousness may be a specific process on the edge between the quantum and classical worlds. Roger and I teamed up to develop a theory of consciousness based on quantum computation in microtubules within neurons. Roger's mechanism for an objective threshold for quantum state reduction connects us to the most basic, "funda-mental" level of the universe at the Planck scale, and is called objective reduction (OR). Our suggestion for biological feedback to microtubule quantum states is orchestration (Orch), hence our model is called orchestrated objective reduction, Orch OR.
My story is very similar - when my old 21" monitor started to deteriorate, I looked at my options, and bought the exact same Samsung monitor you mention. One thing I noticed is that the introduction of LCD's has already significantly affected the diversity in available CRT models, this Samsung was the only monitor below EUR 300 that met my requirements.
I can also greatly recommend this monitor, in addition to the technical quality you mention, it's very slim & light - the outside dimensions are more or less the same as my 17" LG Flatron monitor and I don't have to ruin my back carrying it around like with my old HP RISC workstation monitor.
One reason I'm sticking to CRT's is that the affordable LCD's I've seen suffer from the problem that the colours are only right as long as I'm exactly in front of the monitor. If I move my head to the right too far, I notice the left edge of the screen slowly changing colours. Not even that bad in itself since I don't usually have much reason to move to the sides so far, but I've noticed that when I'm doing graphical work on an LCD, I get paranoid about "odd" colours and have to move my head around a bit to make sure it's not caused by the LCD.
Another problem I have is that most affordable LCD's have a 1280x1024 (aspect 5:4) resolution. In a world where widescreen TV is promoted as being more "natural" for the human brain (something I actually tend to agree with), why go from 4:3 to a narrower 5:4 resolution?
For now, I'm staying with CRT's, and I'm re-evaluating once 1600x1200 LCD's with a wide viewable angle are affordable.
I've followed the thread on the mailinglist as it progressed, and don't think it's right to say it "should have been" 4.0 . Opinions differ on the matter, and many sources already use 3.1 (including a book, the "Debian 3.1 bible", about to be printed). Also, this page, which has been there for ages and is the first google hit for "debian sarge", lists 3.1 as the most likely release number.
The debate seems a bit similar to the discussion whether the new kernel should be 2.6 or 3.0 . Personally, bumping major version numbers too regularly reminds me of commercial software that has to go from 1.0 to 10.0 in a few years just to keep customers upgrading (and buying). Sarge has some important changes over Woody, but I don't think they're big enough to warrant going to 4.0; maybe Etch (the successor to Sarge) might, with the introduction of SELinux, X.org, etc..
This is why i love gentoo and won't ever use any other linux distro
So basically you are saying that regardless of whether oster distros offer, or might in the future offer, comparable or even superior functionality, you will stay with gentoo?
I think gentoo is a very nice distro indeed (though I'm a Debian guy myself), but vowing to stay with any distro regardless of what will happen in the future sounds to me like a sign that your motivations are not primarily of a technical nature...
The final masterpiece of one of the greatest filmmakers, Sergio Leone. (who at least did get a couple of movies on the list) Makes me wonder whether they only considered the (severely crippled) version that was shown in theatres.
A very interesting theory, IMHO. Recommended reading for people who, like me, can't accept the idea that our minds are basically just very advanced computers with consciousness being an illusion resulting from sufficiently complex computations, but want to stay far from the spiritual/religious mumbo-jumbo as well.
If they *really* want an unbreakable scheme, let them encrypt all HDDVD's using one-time pad encryption, then securely delete the key.
If they do it right, pirate copies will be truly impossible. Granted, no one will be able to play the legit copies either, but it's my impression that this is only a minor concern to the companies involved.
They have some valid points too:
What other browser has a "throbber" displaying its logo while pages loads, an image-rendering library called "libpr0n", a code name like "Seamonkey" (see monkey), or a slogan like "free the lizard"?
You could actually keep two pads, one of which decrypts the cyphertext to the information you're trying to hide, and one which decrypts it to something far less useful that is of the same length. Someone comes over and beats you, give him the one that decrypts the cyphertext to the useless information.
Actually, my last name is "Meek" (no really!). Since I'm a geek as well, does that mean I'll inherit two earths? Think it would look nice if I set them up in a "double star" kind of way?
No it can't. Conventional encryption relies on the fact that it is very hard to factor large numbers; and a quantum computer can break that since it can quickly factor large numbers.
However, quantum cryptography does not rely on large numbers that are hard to factor, but on the fact that it is impossible (according to currently known physics, as correctly pointed out) for someone to eavesdrop without being detected.
The basic idea of cryptosystems (B) is as follows. A sequence of correlated particle pairs is generated, with one member of each pair being detected by each party (for example, a pair of so-called Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen photons, whose polarisations are measured by the parties). An eavesdropper on this communication would have to detect a particle to read the signal, and retransmit it in order for his presence to remain unknown. However, the act of detection of one particle of a pair destroys its quantum correlation with the other, and the two parties can easily verify whether this has been done, without revealing the results of their own measurements, by communication over an open channel.
So to use this for safe communication, you would send some random data through the connection, and once you are sure there were no eavesdroppers, you can use this random data as the key for normal symmetrical encryption. And if the random key is as large as the data you encrypt with it, even normal symmetrical encryption can't be cracked with a quantum computer.
Releasing software into the public domain makes the software itself free but says nothing about the environment it's released into.
Releasing software under the GPL makes the software in a way less free, but it creates an environment that is more free than the "normal" environment since copyright law can never apply (laws are quite clearly a reduction of freedom in my opinion).
Although you may not agree, I feel that creating a copyright-less environment is in a way creating freedom (from the law). Thus, the GPL does also mean free, it's just a different kind of freedom.
As a side note, let me point out that public domain software is not guaranteed to remain "free forever, for everyone". It's perfectly possible for a government to pass a law that would restrict it (such as forbidding the use and distribution of non-government-released software). That's ofcourse very unlikely to happen, but it does mean that public domain software can still be restricted by law.
I look at it this way: The GPL is a wall that keeps copyright out.
People looking at it from the outside say "It reduces freedom, because it prevents the software inside from getting out." They are right.
People inside say "It increases freedom, because it keeps the non-free force of copyright from getting in." They are also right.
If the world would be entirely free of copyright, the wall would only reduce freedom. This is not the case however. The GPL removes one restriction to freedom at the cost of introducing another; and since freedom can't be measured in numbers one cannot state that the sum of this is either negative or positive.
Just in case you still don't get what I'm trying to say: The fact that the author doesn't restrict freedom on something does not imply that it is completely free. It still allows copyright law (which restricts freedom) to be applied to derivatives. In fact, when someone releases a derivative, he can even restrict the distribution in unaltered form of that derivative!
Completely free means that no restrictions can ever be applied, by no one. This can only be reached by abolishing copyright law and all similar laws completely.
Don't let the GNU/Propaganda fool you
Thanks for the warning, but I'm perfectly capable of seperating propaganda into fact and opinion and forming my own opinion based solely on facts and logic. If you think my facts and/or my logic are flawed, feel free to point out any specific mistakes.
Sorry, you're right. I should have said Free Software Foundation. To my defense though, I did write Free Software (capitalized), so I think most people understood what I meant;-)
By the way, I agree that free does not mean GPL, but I think GPL does mean free. Within the GPL community, copyright law is effectively disabled because no one can abuse it to restrict further distribution of a modified program. Public domain software may be formally less restricted, but anyone who modifies it can release a version that is restricted by copyright.
Both sides have their own kind of freedom, I don't think either can be considered more free. In a copyright-free world, public domain software would be more free, but in that case the GPL would also become meaningless.
it's that he can't explain his side without sounding like some cult leader. Plus Stallman can't relate to ordinary users.
There are enough people who can. Let them do that. RMS doesn't let his opinions be clouded by the desire to be loved and understood by everyone. That may not be desirable in a PR person, but it sure as hell is in the person who founded the free software community.
As long as there are others to explain the advantages of Free Software to the people who care just about using computers, I say let RMS remain RMS.
That depends on what exactly you consider "secure". If you completely want to obscure the fact that "abnormal" communication is taking place, yes, than you would have to do something like the thing you mention.
If you want to obscure both the contents of the communication and who exactly the reciever (or, on the other side, the sender) is, technologies like Freenet allow you to do this. It's still possible for someone with a packet sniffer to find out that you are running a Freenet node, but not with which other people on Freenet you are communicating.
And just sending encrypted e-mails is in a way pretty secure too, it's just that it might draw suspicion... (that probably goes for Freenet too, though)
If this is safety in the same way that Windows provides ease of use, it will certainly help a lot of people shoot themselves in the foot.
Re:Viruses on Linux? Yeah, right.
on
Linux in Canada
·
· Score: 1
As already pointed out in this thread, the most important data to most people (the homedir) can already be deleted by programs (viruses?) running as that user.
There's something else that does help though: for a file to be executed under Linux, it has to have the executable access permission set, which is normally not the case when you download/save a file from a browser or e-mail program. As long as mail programs take very good care not to execute things, this means we're pretty safe after all.
But it would still really help to have more fine-grained access control such as provided by SELinux, Systrace and LIDS.
Slashdot Mirror
Changing the keycaps encourages you to look at the keyboard, while you'll probably want to touch-type Dvorak. It took me a while to un-learn looking down all the time even though I already knew the positions of the keys.
Plus, it keeps the little "bumps" on the "f" and "j" keys in the right place.
I spent twenty years studying how computer-like structures called microtubules inside neurons and other cells could process information related to consciousness. But when I read The emperor's new mind by Sir Roger Penrose in 1991 I realized that consciousness may be a specific process on the edge between the quantum and classical worlds. Roger and I teamed up to develop a theory of consciousness based on quantum computation in microtubules within neurons. Roger's mechanism for an objective threshold for quantum state reduction connects us to the most basic, "funda-mental" level of the universe at the Planck scale, and is called objective reduction (OR). Our suggestion for biological feedback to microtubule quantum states is orchestration (Orch), hence our model is called orchestrated objective reduction, Orch OR.
I can also greatly recommend this monitor, in addition to the technical quality you mention, it's very slim & light - the outside dimensions are more or less the same as my 17" LG Flatron monitor and I don't have to ruin my back carrying it around like with my old HP RISC workstation monitor.
Another problem I have is that most affordable LCD's have a 1280x1024 (aspect 5:4) resolution. In a world where widescreen TV is promoted as being more "natural" for the human brain (something I actually tend to agree with), why go from 4:3 to a narrower 5:4 resolution?
For now, I'm staying with CRT's, and I'm re-evaluating once 1600x1200 LCD's with a wide viewable angle are affordable.
The debate seems a bit similar to the discussion whether the new kernel should be 2.6 or 3.0 . Personally, bumping major version numbers too regularly reminds me of commercial software that has to go from 1.0 to 10.0 in a few years just to keep customers upgrading (and buying). Sarge has some important changes over Woody, but I don't think they're big enough to warrant going to 4.0; maybe Etch (the successor to Sarge) might, with the introduction of SELinux, X.org, etc. .
I say we let RMS carry the guns, then turn him loose.
So basically you are saying that regardless of whether oster distros offer, or might in the future offer, comparable or even superior functionality, you will stay with gentoo?
I think gentoo is a very nice distro indeed (though I'm a Debian guy myself), but vowing to stay with any distro regardless of what will happen in the future sounds to me like a sign that your motivations are not primarily of a technical nature...
The final masterpiece of one of the greatest filmmakers, Sergio Leone. (who at least did get a couple of movies on the list) Makes me wonder whether they only considered the (severely crippled) version that was shown in theatres.
Glad to see Brazil on there though.
A very interesting theory, IMHO. Recommended reading for people who, like me, can't accept the idea that our minds are basically just very advanced computers with consciousness being an illusion resulting from sufficiently complex computations, but want to stay far from the spiritual/religious mumbo-jumbo as well.
If they do it right, pirate copies will be truly impossible. Granted, no one will be able to play the legit copies either, but it's my impression that this is only a minor concern to the companies involved.
answer:
Who'd have thought.
Besides, your /. UID is lower, so you're right no matter what he says ;-)
They have some valid points too:
What other browser has a "throbber" displaying its logo while pages loads, an image-rendering library called "libpr0n", a code name like "Seamonkey" (see monkey), or a slogan like "free the lizard"?
You could actually keep two pads, one of which decrypts the cyphertext to the information you're trying to hide, and one which decrypts it to something far less useful that is of the same length. Someone comes over and beats you, give him the one that decrypts the cyphertext to the useless information.
Have you actually seen the user agent string for Internet Explorer? It starts with Mozilla.
Actually, my last name is "Meek" (no really!). Since I'm a geek as well, does that mean I'll inherit two earths? Think it would look nice if I set them up in a "double star" kind of way?
However, quantum cryptography does not rely on large numbers that are hard to factor, but on the fact that it is impossible (according to currently known physics, as correctly pointed out) for someone to eavesdrop without being detected.
www.qubit.org has this explanation:
The basic idea of cryptosystems (B) is as follows. A sequence of correlated particle pairs is generated, with one member of each pair being detected by each party (for example, a pair of so-called Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen photons, whose polarisations are measured by the parties). An eavesdropper on this communication would have to detect a particle to read the signal, and retransmit it in order for his presence to remain unknown. However, the act of detection of one particle of a pair destroys its quantum correlation with the other, and the two parties can easily verify whether this has been done, without revealing the results of their own measurements, by communication over an open channel.
So to use this for safe communication, you would send some random data through the connection, and once you are sure there were no eavesdroppers, you can use this random data as the key for normal symmetrical encryption. And if the random key is as large as the data you encrypt with it, even normal symmetrical encryption can't be cracked with a quantum computer.
Releasing software into the public domain makes the software itself free but says nothing about the environment it's released into.
Releasing software under the GPL makes the software in a way less free, but it creates an environment that is more free than the "normal" environment since copyright law can never apply (laws are quite clearly a reduction of freedom in my opinion).
Although you may not agree, I feel that creating a copyright-less environment is in a way creating freedom (from the law). Thus, the GPL does also mean free, it's just a different kind of freedom.
As a side note, let me point out that public domain software is not guaranteed to remain "free forever, for everyone". It's perfectly possible for a government to pass a law that would restrict it (such as forbidding the use and distribution of non-government-released software). That's ofcourse very unlikely to happen, but it does mean that public domain software can still be restricted by law.
People looking at it from the outside say "It reduces freedom, because it prevents the software inside from getting out." They are right.
People inside say "It increases freedom, because it keeps the non-free force of copyright from getting in." They are also right.
If the world would be entirely free of copyright, the wall would only reduce freedom. This is not the case however. The GPL removes one restriction to freedom at the cost of introducing another; and since freedom can't be measured in numbers one cannot state that the sum of this is either negative or positive.
Just in case you still don't get what I'm trying to say: The fact that the author doesn't restrict freedom on something does not imply that it is completely free. It still allows copyright law (which restricts freedom) to be applied to derivatives. In fact, when someone releases a derivative, he can even restrict the distribution in unaltered form of that derivative!
Completely free means that no restrictions can ever be applied, by no one. This can only be reached by abolishing copyright law and all similar laws completely.
- Don't let the GNU/Propaganda fool you
Thanks for the warning, but I'm perfectly capable of seperating propaganda into fact and opinion and forming my own opinion based solely on facts and logic. If you think my facts and/or my logic are flawed, feel free to point out any specific mistakes.By the way, I agree that free does not mean GPL, but I think GPL does mean free. Within the GPL community, copyright law is effectively disabled because no one can abuse it to restrict further distribution of a modified program. Public domain software may be formally less restricted, but anyone who modifies it can release a version that is restricted by copyright.
Both sides have their own kind of freedom, I don't think either can be considered more free. In a copyright-free world, public domain software would be more free, but in that case the GPL would also become meaningless.
There are enough people who can. Let them do that. RMS doesn't let his opinions be clouded by the desire to be loved and understood by everyone. That may not be desirable in a PR person, but it sure as hell is in the person who founded the free software community.
As long as there are others to explain the advantages of Free Software to the people who care just about using computers, I say let RMS remain RMS.
If you want to obscure both the contents of the communication and who exactly the reciever (or, on the other side, the sender) is, technologies like Freenet allow you to do this. It's still possible for someone with a packet sniffer to find out that you are running a Freenet node, but not with which other people on Freenet you are communicating.
And just sending encrypted e-mails is in a way pretty secure too, it's just that it might draw suspicion... (that probably goes for Freenet too, though)
If this is safety in the same way that Windows provides ease of use, it will certainly help a lot of people shoot themselves in the foot.
There's something else that does help though: for a file to be executed under Linux, it has to have the executable access permission set, which is normally not the case when you download/save a file from a browser or e-mail program. As long as mail programs take very good care not to execute things, this means we're pretty safe after all.
But it would still really help to have more fine-grained access control such as provided by SELinux, Systrace and LIDS.
... must ... resist ... temptation ...
...
Oh well.
I, for one, welcome our new grumpy overlords!