Minor detail: a third degree burn involves charring of the skin. This is very difficult to do with what is essentially liquid water. The Stella Awards are aptly named after this old bat who's probably still laughing all the way to the bank.
I like my coffee hot, not tepid. I take responsibility for not being stupid and spilling a hot liquid that I have purchased specifically because its hot on myself. Its also been shown that people talking on their cell phone while driving are more likely to get in an accident. By your argument, someone who gets into an accident while talking on the phone and driving should be able to sue the cell phone manufacturer or their cellular provider because its known that this is dangerous behavior. Or would you have the cell phone manufacturers build in a motion sensor that cuts off transmissions at above say 5 mph?
BTW, McDonalds serves their coffee at 180 degrees F because PEOPLE LIKE IT THAT HOT. Duh.
You are free to pay cash for all transactions, to not have a phone, to not drive a car, etc. It is only when someone wants credit, to communicate over public telecommunications media, operate a motor vehicle on governement built roads, etc. that they must identify themselves to both other private citizens and/or the governement. Or would you have the governement not be allowed to have the white pages of the phone book, you know, with all that personal identification information like your name and phone number and maybe even your address?
And, yes, I know the phone companies are, in theory, private companies. By public media, I simply mean that anyone can get a phone who can afford to pay the charges involved or, as an example, can buy a set of FRS radios (no FCC licensing). In order to participate in the "modern" world, you have to make yourself known to others and that may mean that someone who you'd rather not have that information can also get it.
Likewise, you are free to drive an un-licensed, unregistered car on private property. It just when you want to actually go someplace that you need that license, etc. So you are free to not interact with the governement for things like licensing your car... you just have to negotiate with each property owner between here and there permission to drive your car across their private property. That doesn't sound like too good of an idea to me so I'd just as soon let the governement build the road and determine who can and who cannot drive on it with me. And somewhere along there, for better or for worse, the governement makes up some silly regulations (like seatbelt laws) about what you can and can't do while driving.
Finally, pay cash for EVERYTHING. It kind of makes buying stuff on the internet or from a catalog difficult but at least no one can track your transactions. Also, you'll find big purchases like cars and houses to be a little bit difficult but just keep tucking that money under the matress (you can't put it in a bank or other people including the governement will know about it) until you've saved up enough and hope inflation stays low. Or do you expect a bank or store to extend credit to you simply on your good looks since NO ONE has any record of your past ability to pay?
If you ask a victim of identity theft whether they "think things are relatively agreeable at present" you will probably find out that not everyone agrees with that assessment. Privacy and activity requiring "automated identification" (e.g., on-line, electronic banking, voting, commerce, etc.) are mutually exclusive. The only way you can be positively identified is if a trusted third party has sufficient knowledge of you that they can verify that you really are who you say you are (good-bye privacy) or you have some sort of unique identification that cannot be forged and that absolutely identifies you (hello government IDs).
Turn the clock back to the '50s or earlier and the only thing that has really changed is you know who knows about you. People were trusted on a simple hand-shake or signature because the person extending the trust already knew who they were extending the trust to plus where they lived, who they worked for and, most of all, whether they could be trusted. That's why people worried about their "reputation"; the local banker didn't need a credit reporting agency to find out whether you paid your bills on time. Likewise, the corner grocer didn't need to ask someone buying alcohol for an ID to prove they were old enough because the grocer knew his or her customers and their kids.
We can't turn back the clock so get used to the idea that positive identification will probably happen.
A phone converstion using VoIP has the same privacy protections as a phone conversation using rotary dial telephones. Yes, they can be tapped by the government but only if the government has a court order authorizing the tapping. To claim otherwise would be the equivalent of saying something like a phone conversation over fibre-optic lines can be tapped since it isn't really a phone conversation; its just photons. Its still a phone conversation regardless of the technology used to transmit the voice.
I see lots of complaints because the U.S. government is supposedly doing data mining looking for terrorists but no one complaining that the data is available for anyone to mine if they have the time, money and expertise (as long as they're not the government). A huge amount of data about what we each buy, owe on, how timely we pay our bills, own vs. rent, who we talk to (phone), interests (magazine subscriptions plus those little "tell about yourself" cards), etc. is floating around in and between various private databases that are sold to whoever wants to buy them.
I somehow have trouble getting all excited because the U.S. governement has become yet another one of the customers for this information. I'm more ticked off that the data is out there about me and I don't own it or control it, may not even know if it exists and, at best, just get to be annoyed at yet another batch of junk mail I don't want killing trees and stuffing my mailbox because someone else bought information about me.
An easy work around for the new modutils package is to just make sure that everything your system has to have in order to boot up and run is built into the development kernel you're playing with. That is, not a module. That way, you can leave modutils alone, let the development kernel boot and then modprobe any "optional" modules in after the system has booted. Examples of optional stuff would be things like sound, "other" file systems, etc.
Come to think of it... if some functionality is required to boot up and/or run, why have it as a module anyway unless you're building kernels for multiple systems that have different configurations? Its gotta be there so you might as well build it in.
Regardless of whether you use lilo or grub, you can have the option of booting multiple kernels as long as you have room for them in/boot. When you install a new, development kernel, edit the appropriate boot loader configuration file to make sure you can still boot to a stable kernel (e.g., 2.4.X). I have only had a couple of instances where a new development kernel either wouldn't boot or was unstable once it did. I documented the bug, in a couple instances helped test the patch and could always drop back to my stable kernel while things didn't work. Also, once you get a development kernel that seems stable with your rig, that joins the stable production kernel in your boot configuration. If nothing else, putting "milage" on even a less than current development kernel helps since there *could be* a lurking time dependent error (haven't hit one but could happen).
So you end up with usually three and sometimes a few more kernels to choose from when you boot:
1) stable production (2.4.X) 2) seems to be stable development 3) current development
When a "current development" kernel seems to be stable, it becomes your new "seems to be stable" dev kernel and you can drop the old "seems to be current" version. Just be sure to weed out old kernels from/boot so you don't fill the partition.
Unless your rig is a completely stock retail box, chances are your specific combination of peripherals and software are unique. So there is no guarantee that your specific configuration will be stable with a development kernel. The beauty of it is, that's a question only you can answer.
I always keep the console REALLY simple (e.g., you could put it up on a monochrome, 25x80 text monitor) so I didn't even think about console frame buffers. I think one of the reasons I ended up pulling down the X source and compiling it was that 4.1 whigged out against 2.5 at some point and I decided I may as well bring X up to current. That would have probably been about when X 4.2 came out so its a while ago. Once I got bit with the "keep current" bug, I went to X 4.3 when it was released.
Try pulling down the XFree86 source and recompiling it against the 2.5 kernel headers. Seems to work fine on my dev box at home (Tyan Tiger MPX mobo, 2 x 1900+ Athlons)
[dave@bend ~]# X -version
XFree86 Version 4.3.0 Release Date: 27 February 2003 X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0, Release 6.6 Build Operating System: Linux 2.5.61 i686 [ELF] Build Date: 04 March 2003
At some point I'll rebuild X aginst the current (2.5.66 for the moment) dev kernel. Its hard enough keeping up with the various kernels so I only recompile X when I have to.
Yes, but all "artists" are not equal. Not every musician is a virtuoso and not every painter is a great master. So I would hardly equate someone who has never had a programming class but can string together enough visual basic to get the job done (and is probably called a programmer) with say an Alan Cox or Linus Torvalds any more than I would equate a sketch "artist" at an amusement park with Rembrandt.
There is a huge range of skill levels that get applied to the problem set called computer programming. Some fall way below what I would call engineers. To call them enginers would be like saying that someone who fells a tree to get across a stream is a civil engineer or someone who picks up a rock to bludgeon something is a mechanical engineer. At the other extreme, some, if anything, are more at the genius level.
Computer programming describes the problem set. People who write computer programs to solve problems in this problem set are called programmers. Some of the problems in the problem set require the exercise of engineering disciplines in order to solve them effectively. The people who work on these problems could also be called engineers.
So the burning question of the day is, can we re-train all the liberal-arts majors out there working at McD's to say, "Do you want freedom fries with that?"
But, "French Fries" aren't French. Reaching way back to my high school French, I think the term in French is, "Le pommme de terre frite." (sorry if I butchered that but I remember the phonetic pronunciation better than the spelling. Hey, its only been 30 some years!). If I recall correctly, the British came up with the term "French Fries" for deep fried potatoes since they associated deep frying with the French.
So, I kind of find the whole "French Fries" vs. "Freedom Fries" thing humorous since the French are probably asking, "What's a 'french fry?'"
Re:Separating Content from Presentation a Good Thi
on
Office 2003 and XML
·
· Score: 1
You seem to be "new around here" too.
1) "New around here" is the excuse used when someone complains about about "normal" slashdot behavior: flames, trolls, condescending responses, knee-jerk rhetoric, etc. All of the things that make this place "interesting". It has NOTHING to do with how long someone has been a member. (Thus, my comment about you also being "new around here.")
2) If someone asks a valid, non-trivial question (i.e., one that can't be easily answered with a minute or two of research on Google), I'll generally respond with an answer if I get a chance. However, when someone voices a technical position that is wrong, they should be prepared for flamage. My rules. If you don't like them, set your preferences accordingly.
My suggestion is lighten up, have fun and don't take yourself or anything you read here too seriously. I don't.
Re:Separating Content from Presentation a Good Thi
on
Office 2003 and XML
·
· Score: 1
You must be new around here. Being condescending and inflammatory when you correct people is the/. way.
Re:Separating Content from Presentation a Good Thi
on
Office 2003 and XML
·
· Score: 1, Flamebait
Bzzzzztttt!!! Wrong answer.
A well-formed SGML or XML document should have absolutely NO formatting information contained within the content. This allows the document to be completely portable since most formatting is dependent on the output media/device. Keeping the formatting out of the content means the output can be made to look correct regardless of whether the document is printed, displayed directly, converted to say PDF, displayed on a high res monitor or output on somebody's text capable cell phone by simply providing the appropriate style sheet. As soon as you put formatting into the content, you restrict the output to devices and media that support that formatting. Not a great example but even in HTML, the document is more portable if you use an <EM> tag instead of say a <B> tag since the output device can interpret emphasis a number of different ways but bold means bold.
At one point in my career, I was writing software to tag documents (SGML) that were originally intended to only be printed. We went through HELL developing code to recognize the myriad different ways the original authors had put in formatting as content and then trying to figure out what the formatting meant with regard to the document structure.
Re:Separating Content from Presentation a Good Thi
on
Office 2003 and XML
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I have to agree. The the basic concept behind SGML and its diminutive offspring, XML, was to separate content, structure and presentation. This just means that you have to share a style sheet, FOSSI, or whatever when you share a document if you expect the person you share it with to be able to view it.
There may be other *valid* criticisms of what Microsoft is doing but this isn't one of them.
root@fwupdate2:~/ # uname -a Linux fwupdate2.vericept.com 2.2.16-22 #1 Tue Aug 22 16:16:55 EDT 2000 i586 unknown root@fwupdate2:~/ # uptime 10:12pm up 153 days, 14:51, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00 root@fwupdate2:~/ # cat/proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : CyrixInstead cpu family : 5 model : 7 model name : Cyrix MediaGXtm MMXtm Enhanced stepping : 4 fdiv_bug : no hlt_bug : no sep_bug : no f00f_bug : no coma_bug : no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 2 wp : yes flags : fpu msr cx8 cmov 16 mmx cxmmx bogomips : 88.27
root@fwupdate2:~/
Re:I'll see your 2.5.64 and raise you a XFree86 4.
on
Kernel 2.2 - It Lives!
·
· Score: 1
Should be sufficient. I've had a couple of quotes questioned so I've been picking on this site to make sure I have them correct.
Enjoy, if you like quotes.
I'll see your 2.5.64 and raise you a XFree86 4.3.0
on
Kernel 2.2 - It Lives!
·
· Score: 1
Ah, but are you runing 2.5.64 with XFree86 4.3.0 like me? And, yeah, its on a dualie Athlon box.
[root@bend mail]# uname -a Linux bend.local.davenjudy.org 2.5.64 #1 SMP Thu Mar 6 16:42:57 MST 2003 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux
and
[root@bend mail]# head/var/log/XFree86.0.log
XFree86 Version 4.3.0 Release Date: 27 February 2003 X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0, Release 6.6 Build Operating System: Linux 2.5.61 i686 [ELF] Build Date: 04 March 2003
I'm still driving my 1987 Nissan Pathfinder I bought new in January of 1988. It still starts easily, doesn't require additional oil between changes on the normal schedule and gets me through the Eisenhower Tunnel (11,000+ ft. above sea level) summers for mountain climbing and winters for skiing.
Slashdot Mirror
Minor detail: a third degree burn involves charring of the skin. This is very difficult to do with what is essentially liquid water. The Stella Awards are aptly named after this old bat who's probably still laughing all the way to the bank.
I like my coffee hot, not tepid. I take responsibility for not being stupid and spilling a hot liquid that I have purchased specifically because its hot on myself. Its also been shown that people talking on their cell phone while driving are more likely to get in an accident. By your argument, someone who gets into an accident while talking on the phone and driving should be able to sue the cell phone manufacturer or their cellular provider because its known that this is dangerous behavior. Or would you have the cell phone manufacturers build in a motion sensor that cuts off transmissions at above say 5 mph?
BTW, McDonalds serves their coffee at 180 degrees F because PEOPLE LIKE IT THAT HOT. Duh.
You are free to pay cash for all transactions, to not have a phone, to not drive a car, etc. It is only when someone wants credit, to communicate over public telecommunications media, operate a motor vehicle on governement built roads, etc. that they must identify themselves to both other private citizens and/or the governement. Or would you have the governement not be allowed to have the white pages of the phone book, you know, with all that personal identification information like your name and phone number and maybe even your address?
And, yes, I know the phone companies are, in theory, private companies. By public media, I simply mean that anyone can get a phone who can afford to pay the charges involved or, as an example, can buy a set of FRS radios (no FCC licensing). In order to participate in the "modern" world, you have to make yourself known to others and that may mean that someone who you'd rather not have that information can also get it.
Likewise, you are free to drive an un-licensed, unregistered car on private property. It just when you want to actually go someplace that you need that license, etc. So you are free to not interact with the governement for things like licensing your car... you just have to negotiate with each property owner between here and there permission to drive your car across their private property. That doesn't sound like too good of an idea to me so I'd just as soon let the governement build the road and determine who can and who cannot drive on it with me. And somewhere along there, for better or for worse, the governement makes up some silly regulations (like seatbelt laws) about what you can and can't do while driving.
Finally, pay cash for EVERYTHING. It kind of makes buying stuff on the internet or from a catalog difficult but at least no one can track your transactions. Also, you'll find big purchases like cars and houses to be a little bit difficult but just keep tucking that money under the matress (you can't put it in a bank or other people including the governement will know about it) until you've saved up enough and hope inflation stays low. Or do you expect a bank or store to extend credit to you simply on your good looks since NO ONE has any record of your past ability to pay?
If you ask a victim of identity theft whether they "think things are relatively agreeable at present" you will probably find out that not everyone agrees with that assessment. Privacy and activity requiring "automated identification" (e.g., on-line, electronic banking, voting, commerce, etc.) are mutually exclusive. The only way you can be positively identified is if a trusted third party has sufficient knowledge of you that they can verify that you really are who you say you are (good-bye privacy) or you have some sort of unique identification that cannot be forged and that absolutely identifies you (hello government IDs).
Turn the clock back to the '50s or earlier and the only thing that has really changed is you know who knows about you. People were trusted on a simple hand-shake or signature because the person extending the trust already knew who they were extending the trust to plus where they lived, who they worked for and, most of all, whether they could be trusted. That's why people worried about their "reputation"; the local banker didn't need a credit reporting agency to find out whether you paid your bills on time. Likewise, the corner grocer didn't need to ask someone buying alcohol for an ID to prove they were old enough because the grocer knew his or her customers and their kids.
We can't turn back the clock so get used to the idea that positive identification will probably happen.
A phone converstion using VoIP has the same privacy protections as a phone conversation using rotary dial telephones. Yes, they can be tapped by the government but only if the government has a court order authorizing the tapping. To claim otherwise would be the equivalent of saying something like a phone conversation over fibre-optic lines can be tapped since it isn't really a phone conversation; its just photons. Its still a phone conversation regardless of the technology used to transmit the voice.
BTW, IANAL.
I see lots of complaints because the U.S. government is supposedly doing data mining looking for terrorists but no one complaining that the data is available for anyone to mine if they have the time, money and expertise (as long as they're not the government). A huge amount of data about what we each buy, owe on, how timely we pay our bills, own vs. rent, who we talk to (phone), interests (magazine subscriptions plus those little "tell about yourself" cards), etc. is floating around in and between various private databases that are sold to whoever wants to buy them.
I somehow have trouble getting all excited because the U.S. governement has become yet another one of the customers for this information. I'm more ticked off that the data is out there about me and I don't own it or control it, may not even know if it exists and, at best, just get to be annoyed at yet another batch of junk mail I don't want killing trees and stuffing my mailbox because someone else bought information about me.
Are they hiring?
An easy work around for the new modutils package is to just make sure that everything your system has to have in order to boot up and run is built into the development kernel you're playing with. That is, not a module. That way, you can leave modutils alone, let the development kernel boot and then modprobe any "optional" modules in after the system has booted. Examples of optional stuff would be things like sound, "other" file systems, etc.
Come to think of it... if some functionality is required to boot up and/or run, why have it as a module anyway unless you're building kernels for multiple systems that have different configurations? Its gotta be there so you might as well build it in.
You know the law: Use a pun; go to prison!
Regardless of whether you use lilo or grub, you can have the option of booting multiple kernels as long as you have room for them in /boot. When you install a new, development kernel, edit the appropriate boot loader configuration file to make sure you can still boot to a stable kernel (e.g., 2.4.X). I have only had a couple of instances where a new development kernel either wouldn't boot or was unstable once it did. I documented the bug, in a couple instances helped test the patch and could always drop back to my stable kernel while things didn't work. Also, once you get a development kernel that seems stable with your rig, that joins the stable production kernel in your boot configuration. If nothing else, putting "milage" on even a less than current development kernel helps since there *could be* a lurking time dependent error (haven't hit one but could happen).
/boot so you don't fill the partition.
So you end up with usually three and sometimes a few more kernels to choose from when you boot:
1) stable production (2.4.X)
2) seems to be stable development
3) current development
When a "current development" kernel seems to be stable, it becomes your new "seems to be stable" dev kernel and you can drop the old "seems to be current" version. Just be sure to weed out old kernels from
Unless your rig is a completely stock retail box, chances are your specific combination of peripherals and software are unique. So there is no guarantee that your specific configuration will be stable with a development kernel. The beauty of it is, that's a question only you can answer.
I always keep the console REALLY simple (e.g., you could put it up on a monochrome, 25x80 text monitor) so I didn't even think about console frame buffers. I think one of the reasons I ended up pulling down the X source and compiling it was that 4.1 whigged out against 2.5 at some point and I decided I may as well bring X up to current. That would have probably been about when X 4.2 came out so its a while ago. Once I got bit with the "keep current" bug, I went to X 4.3 when it was released.
Yes, but all "artists" are not equal. Not every musician is a virtuoso and not every painter is a great master. So I would hardly equate someone who has never had a programming class but can string together enough visual basic to get the job done (and is probably called a programmer) with say an Alan Cox or Linus Torvalds any more than I would equate a sketch "artist" at an amusement park with Rembrandt.
There is a huge range of skill levels that get applied to the problem set called computer programming. Some fall way below what I would call engineers. To call them enginers would be like saying that someone who fells a tree to get across a stream is a civil engineer or someone who picks up a rock to bludgeon something is a mechanical engineer. At the other extreme, some, if anything, are more at the genius level.
Computer programming describes the problem set. People who write computer programs to solve problems in this problem set are called programmers. Some of the problems in the problem set require the exercise of engineering disciplines in order to solve them effectively. The people who work on these problems could also be called engineers.
The last Sun LX-50 I saw said it was running "White Rabbit" Linux. So, I guess this means the rabbit died.
So the burning question of the day is, can we re-train all the liberal-arts majors out there working at McD's to say, "Do you want freedom fries with that?"
But, "French Fries" aren't French. Reaching way back to my high school French, I think the term in French is, "Le pommme de terre frite." (sorry if I butchered that but I remember the phonetic pronunciation better than the spelling. Hey, its only been 30 some years!). If I recall correctly, the British came up with the term "French Fries" for deep fried potatoes since they associated deep frying with the French.
So, I kind of find the whole "French Fries" vs. "Freedom Fries" thing humorous since the French are probably asking, "What's a 'french fry?'"
You seem to be "new around here" too.
1) "New around here" is the excuse used when someone complains about about "normal" slashdot behavior: flames, trolls, condescending responses, knee-jerk rhetoric, etc. All of the things that make this place "interesting". It has NOTHING to do with how long someone has been a member. (Thus, my comment about you also being "new around here.")
2) If someone asks a valid, non-trivial question (i.e., one that can't be easily answered with a minute or two of research on Google), I'll generally respond with an answer if I get a chance. However, when someone voices a technical position that is wrong, they should be prepared for flamage. My rules. If you don't like them, set your preferences accordingly.
My suggestion is lighten up, have fun and don't take yourself or anything you read here too seriously. I don't.
You must be new around here. Being condescending and inflammatory when you correct people is the /. way.
A well-formed SGML or XML document should have absolutely NO formatting information contained within the content. This allows the document to be completely portable since most formatting is dependent on the output media/device. Keeping the formatting out of the content means the output can be made to look correct regardless of whether the document is printed, displayed directly, converted to say PDF, displayed on a high res monitor or output on somebody's text capable cell phone by simply providing the appropriate style sheet. As soon as you put formatting into the content, you restrict the output to devices and media that support that formatting. Not a great example but even in HTML, the document is more portable if you use an <EM> tag instead of say a <B> tag since the output device can interpret emphasis a number of different ways but bold means bold.
At one point in my career, I was writing software to tag documents (SGML) that were originally intended to only be printed. We went through HELL developing code to recognize the myriad different ways the original authors had put in formatting as content and then trying to figure out what the formatting meant with regard to the document structure.
I have to agree. The the basic concept behind SGML and its diminutive offspring, XML, was to separate content, structure and presentation. This just means that you have to share a style sheet, FOSSI, or whatever when you share a document if you expect the person you share it with to be able to view it.
There may be other *valid* criticisms of what Microsoft is doing but this isn't one of them.
Little donuts are for eating. Big donuts are for sitting on. Just ask someone hemroids.
This may explain why the universe was created. God has a bad case of hemroids.
Enjoy, if you like quotes.
Ah, but are you runing 2.5.64 with XFree86 4.3.0 like me? And, yeah, its on a dualie Athlon box.
/var/log/XFree86.0.log
[root@bend mail]# uname -a
Linux bend.local.davenjudy.org 2.5.64 #1 SMP Thu Mar 6 16:42:57 MST 2003 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux
and
[root@bend mail]# head
XFree86 Version 4.3.0
Release Date: 27 February 2003
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0, Release 6.6
Build Operating System: Linux 2.5.61 i686 [ELF]
Build Date: 04 March 2003
Pocket artillery. I like the idea that what I hit is going DOWN.
I'm still driving my 1987 Nissan Pathfinder I bought new in January of 1988. It still starts easily, doesn't require additional oil between changes on the normal schedule and gets me through the Eisenhower Tunnel (11,000+ ft. above sea level) summers for mountain climbing and winters for skiing.