The memory usage of Firefox is indeed a problem. I dont think, or I doubt, that this has anything at all to do with its features, but perhaps caching of data, the way it handles data. The way the firefox process grows in size seems to indicate it has memory leaks and allocation issues. I dont think features should be blamed for this.
Perhaps fair use was the wrong term. Copyright law, does allow you to make copies for your own personal use, as long as you are not distributing them to other parties. I dont feel bad about using the same copy of windows on computers that I own. I believe Microsoft has a near monopoly on OSs and charges way too much for Windows, and Bill Gates has way too much money.
From what I hear, it will be even harder than it was for XP, to reuse the same copy of Windows, legally on computers that you own. I consider using the single copy of Windows that I bought on all of my computers to be Fair Use. I think technological impairments of free use are wrong, and really should not be permitted.
Maybe someone will figure out a way to circumvent whatever nasty restrictions it has regarding this.
This is truly quite frightening. There are technologies which later proved to be crucial, which perhaps were not useful for much years, or decades after they were originally developed. One example is electromagnetism. It took decades for that technology to be fully developed, for radio, electric generation, motors, and so on to become used. Often, it can be the technology which has the least apparent immediate profit making value which has the greatest benefits for humanity. It appears that with this increasing worship of the profits, and the restrictions and limitations that pure research finds itself under, we may be stifling some of the greatest advancements in technology yet to come.
There are lots of people in the US who are very tired of the administrations policies, and want to see them replaced. Many did believe the lies about the war, that it would improve safety, that it would expand freedom and democracy, when it has done the opposite. It has in fact, I believe, made this country much more dangerous, by doing the exact things the extremists have said they despise, invading their countries, and done horrific damage in the countries we have invaded and caused the situation there to become far worse than it was before. Weve turn them into the very breeding grounds of extremism that the liars in the administration said we were attempting to prevent. This was all predicted before the war began, but people were fed constant lies and misinformation by the media. It is ironic that while we have a president that blathers on about freedom and democracy, is actions have indicated that he desires none of these things. Increasing evidence shows he wasnt even elected both times. I think Americans, are constantly assaulted with this disinformation, and for those who have only watched the major media outlets or faux news, of course they are going to make poor decisions. It was evident in the lebanon conflict as well, where I at least saw more sympathy being given to Israel than the to the innocent people of Lebanon, who have as been as victimised as the Israelis have. The aggressions lauched by both sides were in fact, highly illegitimate.
I am all for promoting democracy and freedom, but I am furthermore against the use of violence to promote these things. There must be better ways, and there are. For instance, Gandhi is an example.
I think that video, especially HD video, would be quite effective at filling up the bandwidth. There should be little problem here. I am quite sure that we will find ways to use it. Actually, bandwidth is still a tad expensive and we constantly here the telecos complaining about how their poor networks are straining under the load of video and other media people are downloading, and that they should be able to restrict peoples access based on which sites pay them and which dont. If we believe them, we are in desperare need for more bandwidth. Of course this is a dangerous precedent, of allowing telecos to censor content flowing over their network. I certianly think that telecos should not be allowed to modify or block access to content and we do ned net netruality legislation.
I think what they need is more regulation and not be encouraged to provide substandard service.
I do tend to prefer yahoo over gmail myself. I do like the feature rich user interface rather than the spartan one. For searching, I think that the simple interface google has works well for me. But when it comes to mail and other services, I prefer something that is a bit richer and has more bells and whistles. The plain interface can get a bit dull after a while in my opinion, I do like having some eye candy. I think the google talk feature could use some more capability, perhaps some chat rooms and games, and I that more people will use it. I do think people are drawn to this eye candy when it comes to those sorts of things.
My favourite means of accessing mail however is imap, particularly due to flexibility. Since the mail is downloaded in a formatted form, it is much eisier to do sorting and you arent limited as much by the software at the provider end, but only by what you have at your end, which you can change at will.
Wouldnt having at least your web browser running under a non-priveleged account other than root protect you from buffer overflows being able to damage the system? Another issue to be concerned about, in addition, is the setuid root binaries on the system. A none root user could run them, and if there is a vulnerability where they can feed it some bad data when the program is run, this can be exploited to run code as root. I think it is good to scan the entire system for setuid binaries, and get rid of the setuid permissions whenever you can. Another danger area is servers that run as root, such as X, and sendmail. Ideally, no servers should run under root, and I am still wondering why X cannot just be given the specific permissions it needs to access video hardware, and nothing else. Cant X access video hardware through a/dev file? Why dont video cards have/dev files? What is the technical issue preventing this, and could some mechanism to allow video hardware access but not root permissions be added to the OS?
Qmail seperates out different parts of mail delivery so programs not running as root actually interact with clients, and the mail delivery is in a seperate program from the server.
Hopefully they arent circumcised, or the aliens will think we are a barbaric race that mutilates each others private parts, and as well fail to give them an accurate picture of real male anatomy. It said that the hosts are from Europe, where they are a more decent and civilised society that respects the basic bodily integrity rights of all persons and do not mutilate helpless children, so I am sure they are intact. In fact, 80% of the worlds population is intact (although it should be 100%, except for those who have made their own choice as an adult). Otherwise they would not be given an accurate picture of the real, complete human body if we sent them pictures of mutilated men, in fact, mutilated men are missing one of the most fascinating and wonderous parts of their body, the most densely innervated and spiritual parts of the body which is designed for the specific purpose of giving its owner intense and unwordly pleasures. The foreskin is probably the most densely innervated fine touch centre on the human body, MGM removes over 20,000 specialised nerve receptors.
Do not believe the myths. The foreskin is a very healthy and normal part of the body. In fact, in Europe and Japan, where circumcision is nearly unheard of, the life expectancies are in fact the highest in the world, and far ahead of the US. Japan is #6. Sweden, also a mostly intact country, is #7. The US is #48. Sure there are other factors, but this shows MGM is not needed for good health and that people do fine without it. They also have an AIDS rate that is half that of the US and a penile cancer rate in Europe that is lower than that of the US. In fact, nearly all problems the foreskin is blamed on can be fixed without circumcision, or are often not serious at all to require such a drastic amputation. Amputation must only be considered a last resort option, in the most extreme necessity.
Circumcision is nothing less than an unnecessary mutilation of the male body, decision to make greedy doctors money, an unnecessary amputation of a healthy body part without their owners consent, and a stealing of up to 95% of erogenous pleasure from men for the rest of their life, and a deprivation of their most basic human right to a whole body. If an adult wants to have them selves circumcise, go ahead, its your choice, and your body. But do not do it to children, who are too easily coerced and cannot give full consent. By prohibiting unnecessary, elective MGM of children we are preserving the persons right to make the decision for themselves as a fully informed and consenting adult, when they have the best chance of making the right decision for themselves. Its our bodies and it should be our choice, regarding such clearly unnecessential and unnecessary mutilations.
Very few or no console editors on Linux seem to fit my needs. Ive tried vim but it seemed as useless to me as the others. For instance, I need soft line wrapping, that is, the editor wraps the line on the screen without inserting a line break. This is so if you add something in the middle it doesnt throw everything else out of alignment below. This is also called continuous line wrapping. I also like to have a constant display of the line number on the screen, and modeless editing. Really, the only thing that works somewhat decently for me on the console, is DOS edit, with its drop down menus and such. Is there something similar on linux?
Nope, I disagree. I think the scientists have entered new territory on this one, and they are playing games with our health. Scientists really dont know if nature codes genes in certian ways, there may be reasons nature does things in very specific ways, and these specific ways we may depend on in the food we eat for our proper nutrition. Americans are so gullible that they would eat hydrochloric acid if they were told it was good for them.
People also get GMOs confused with traditional cross breeding technologies. The two are totally different things. Cross breeding and mating plants still leaves the actual coding of the DNA to nature, it still is a natural procreation process. GMO is the direct modification of an organisms DNA on the other hand by scientists.
I am not assured by the statements of the FDA, who we know is run by the agribusiness companies. The FDA is not an independant agency anymore. I consider it to be more of a public relations arm of the agribusiness companies. All they are cared about is profits, not the safety of food, nor consumers choice to not have this GMO crap forced on them.
Not true!!!! Genetic modification is the direct alteration of the genetic code of an organism. This is totally difference from cross breeding and mating plants, since that traditional method still allowed nature to code the genes, it did not involve direct manipulation of the DNA. Totally different.
I meant to say: I think, like other artificial things in food, people should be able to avoid this GMO foods and the possible risk that it entials. But the mere nature of GMOs is a threat to the very idea of choice, due to their ability to reproduce and cross breed with other plants where they are not wanted.
I dont want GMOs in my food. I dont trust it because I dont think scientists or anyone really knows what harmful effects their could be, and perhaps, there are things it is doing but we just arent associating it with GMOs.
They found that the rate of food related illnesses since GMOs were introduced in 1994 in the USA, have increased 10 fold, but in sweden where they are banned, the rates stayed the same. Seems suspicious to me.
GMOs are artificial foods, programmed at the genetic level. Who knows, maybe there is a reason why nature programs genes in certian ways, that are so subtle that we do not understand them, but when we interfere, may have very harmful effects on us.
I think, like other artificial things in food, people should be able to enjoy this GMO foods and the possible risk that it entials. But the mere nature of GMOs is a threat to the very idea of choice, due to their ability to reproduce and cross breed with other plants where they are not wanted.
Technology is fine for computers, but when it comes to what goes into my body, I want nature, not technology. I think we humans have evolved for thousands of years eating certian foods and are bodies are best equipped to process natural foods, and when we get away from this, our bodies find it more difficult to handle these artificial foods we are eating. It could be subtle at first but very harmful and the effects may not be attributed to GMOs. Who knows, maybe modifying the genes directly interferes with natures plan, maybe nature does things in certian ways very carefully, subtle ways we will never understand. Perhaps GMOs foods may have harmful chemical protiens in them that our bodies are not able to handle. Things are done a certian way by nature perhaps on purpose and good reason, and when we interfere at the genetic level, regarding what goes into our bodies and what we depend on for well being, I am concerned great harm can be done.
I do not believe GM is a safe technology, and I feel safer eating natural foods. GM food is artificial, even more so than foods that have additives added to them, since they have been manipulated at the genetic level.
Humans have evolved for thousands of years eating natural foods with DNA codes by nature. The idea is the further we move away from nature regarding what we put into our bodies, generally, the harder it becomes for the body to make good uses of these nutrients. The human body has evolved to be able to process naturally coded foods for thousands of years, suddenly changing this is a dangerous proposition, especially since we really dont have much of an idea what we are doing, and scientists, as much as they like to think they know everything, likely no very little about why nature does things a certian way. It could be one small gene here or there that a scientists may consider useless, but which activates some seemingly useless or unimportant feature, but which in fact can cause a whole range of subtle problems for those who eat these foods. I do believe that the GMO organisms can be significantly different and have unexpected effects, caused by unusual protien structures, that perhaps we are unable to process well.
There could very well be complex interdependancies for genes and a gene could have all sorts of functions that we have absolutely no idea about. Modifying one gene for all we know could have a cascade effect throughout the entire organism which are entirely unpredictable to us. The DNA system, we think we can understand, but I believe that its workings may be so subtle and there are so many things we do not know, that our tamperings with it could have unintended consequences. GE is an unpredictable and dangerous game, tampering with nature like this, and may have harmful effects.
Scientists as well are known to use virus and bacteria DNA in the process of inserting genes into an organism, and some of the virus and bacteria DNA can be inserted along with it. As well, we are taking genes out of fish and crossing species boundaries, breaking a natural limit, doing something that has never been done before, mixing genes from completely different organisms. The effects of this are all unpredictable, and it adds FAR more uncertianty to me than just eating the same naturally programmed foods we have been eating for thousands of years. There are all sorts of new dangers and novel potentials that are being introduced here that didnt exist before, that could cause chaos.
Scientists have indeed programmed their organisms and have noted totally unexpected results, potatoes that were way too starchy but lacked other nutrients for instance. Certian types of GMO corn have been shown to possibly trigger allergies. There were numerous reports of corn allergies in individuals who were eating taco shells believed to have been contaminated with star link corn. What if there are other effects from this food which may be effecting people, but which may not be associated back with GMOs as being a cause?
There is a study where it was found that since 1994 when GMOS were introduces in the US there has been a 10 fold rise in food related illnesses in the USA. But, in Sweden, where GMOs have been banned, the rate of food related illnesses have stayed the same. It seems suspicious to me.
You say that the natural programming process is random, but we really dont know that. There could be a reason that nature uses very specific DNA patterns in an organisms. Nature may do things in a very subtle way, that we dont understand, too subtle for our understand, but which is essential to the easy digestion and good nutrition of our food. Perhaps, there is a metaphysical force behind the programming of the DNA that makes sure it is programmed in beneficial ways.
The fact that the natural coding process is completely out of our control is actually a comforting thought to me, since I know nature doesnt have an agenda, perhaps an agenda to create a crop that is ultra resistant to pestic
I do not quite understand why they didnt move into the x86/Linux server market, including the low end market, and perhaps, even desktops. This seems to be where the most demand is.
It surprises me that we are still having these kinds of security problems.
A lot of it is due to to poor configuration conventions that continue to this day. This involves running servers as root, and a system setuid root programs, such as X. I am quite perplexed that simple steps have not been taken to remedy these problems, such as by running X under its own user and only giving that user access to the video hardware that X needs to run.
Setuid root is a problem since if there is a vulnerability in a server for instance that is not running as root, it could look for setuid binaries on the system that have their own vulnerabilities to compromise the system.
I disagree with this. The difference is very noticeable between HD and regular TV. A much crisper or realistic picture. I do think there is a real reason to upgrade.
I think at this point players are just too expensive. And they need to come out with a player that plays both DVDs and HD-DVDs, and which sells for $99. Then it wil take off. Once more movies are released for HD-DVD, we will begin seeing more sales. Also, this stupid format war also is slowing things down. Most people dont want to be stuck with a boat anchor so will wait until one format wins.
I think another application for HD-DVD is computers. When will we see an affordable HD-DVD recordable drive? That will become a popular item.
I am against GMOs, completely. I believe that there may be dangers and things we simply do not understand that could lead to health issues from the consumption of these ideas. That the genes are manipulated at all is a concern for me. This is not natural food, but as artificial as you can get, modified at the genetic level, the basic building blocks. In regards what goes into my body, I dont want high technology and things devised by scientists in lab coats on my plates, frankenfoods, but something natural. The philosophy is our bodies are best able to process natural foods that are programmed by nature, rather than something cooked up in a lab. There is a concern that GMOs may be causing allergic reactions triggered by novel protien stuctures, and that we do not fully understand what we are doing and the complex interdependancies between genes, changing one could set off a dominoe effect with unpredictable results. There have been cases where scientists have noted totally unexpected results by changing a seemingly small gene, far beyond what they expected. They really have little idea what they are doing and what they full effects will be. The real concern as well is since GMOs can self replicate, they may contaminate non GMO crops where they are not wanted. Consumers deserve the right to avoid this tech nology, with the proliferation in almost all commercial food items, it is almost impossible, and the intrinsic nature of GMOs undermines the avialability of choice. GMOs should be made illegal.
I am not against cross breeding, facilitating the natural breeding process by selecting plants with desirable characteristics and mating them, since this leaves nature in control of the coding process, which I do think is safer. It doesnt completely gaurantee safe food (one time they ended up with toxic celery), but, I think it is safer than the GMO crap they are trying to force on us.
This is indeed a valid point. Supporting a vast array of hardware is a daunting challenge for an OS. Indeed, I mentioned this in my post, that one of the things that prevents people from having OS choice is the fact that most drivers are written for windows. This is a pity, since the hardware cannot be used on any other OS. Perhaps there should be a universal device driver API of some sort. I suppose different kernels have different internal designs so it may not be practical to try to implement a universal kernel API, but perhaps some compatability layer could be devised? Perhaps each OS could have its own native kernel API but also a universal API that is built on top of that. This way, manufacturers would have one API to program for all OSs. There might be a performance hit or, perhaps not. A manufacturer could still write versions of their driver for certian native APIs as well as the universal API. I say, however, it is better to have complete good quality hardware drivers that may be a little slower, than none at all.
Apple ought to go on and market its OS to regular PCs, they could probably gain market share this way as well, which will make Mac OS X a much more prominant platform and encourage software companies to develop products for Mac OS X since it has an increased user share. There are many users who would not purchase a Mac computer but who would purchase OS X to install on their PC. I do not understand at all why Apple is actually taking efforts to prevent Max OS from running on PCs. This is pathetically stupid and makes no sense. Apple could probably make a much greater profit margin from selling the OS than they would be selling an entire computer system.
I also think it would also help for Mac OS X to support FreeBSD drivers or even Linux drivers, so Mac OS X users can be benefit from the drivers on those platforms, and of course, an underlying Unix and X11 environment to allow Mac O S X users to benefit from being able to run Unix software, which they haev done but it should be installed by default. I believe the only way we can beat Microsoft is instead of thinking along the lines of trying to dominate the OS market and take Microsofts position, instead to realise that we need to encourage source compatability of applications between different OSs and the best way to do that is through following Unix conventions, it is already the most common and popular shared convention on APIs, libraries, command line and development environment. I dont think one OS can overtake Microsoft, but I think a community of OSs sharing the same application software and even hardware device driver community can. This is the right thing to do as well, since people deserve a right to decide what OS to use and computer to use, they deserve the freedom to have choices to choose from, and OS developers and Computer manufacturers should also be able to have the freedom to offer their products as well. In order to have choice of OS people must be able to run their applications and hardware on any OS they choose. Source compatability is where each OS supports the same APIs allowing software to be compiled without modification even if it was written on another OS.
Each OS and computer manufacturer often does well on focusing on a certian niche, and giving users the choice to choose the OS that best fits their needs while allowing them to use the same apps and drivers no matter which one they use would tend to I believe create stronger opposition to Microsoft. I think the OS are better off being intercompatable and feeding off each others inertia rather than putting up walls of incompatability. Microsoft can conquer by keeping its opposition divided in the area of compatability, and thus true user choice and freedom, and thus posing no real challenge to it. Compatability and freedom to choose ones OS live together well.
Hopefully this will mean there will be continued improvements to OpenGL, especially to keep up with competing microsoft products. OpenGL should provide cross platform compatability so these apps can run with few modifications on many platforms. Microsoft unfortunately, just cant have this and has been pushing its own technologies and neglecting OpenGL, which is a move designed to lock software onto the windows platform. Microsoft of course cannot tolerate competitition and cohabitating in the marketplace with others, it has to have it all for itself and will use anti-competitive tactics to prevent compatability between different OSs.
I think the basic idea behind CSS is good, I do think we need precise controls over how content is displayed. I think if it is not done in an open source manner it will be done in a proprietary manner, such as with flash, which you have to download proprietary plugins to use that dont work on many platforms.
It is very true that many problems with CSS lie in the browser implementation. There really ought to be a common reference implementation of a standard. I think one of the reasons we have so much incompatabilities with anything, is the fact that there is no open source implementation and thus no reference standard. Then we end up with several implementations which all implement things in a slightly different way.
I do not know if those will work, perhaps they might. It would be nice if they would however, one of the best uses of a DOS is running older software such as this. Perhaps someone else knows. I think there is also OpenDOS (http://www.drdosprojects.de/), which is actually based on DR-DOS which was made open source a few years ago by Caldera (which ironically became the now-evil SCO). I am not sure if that will work any better either. I think Linux and FreeBSD also have some sort of DOS emulation layer. (http://www.dosemu.org/)
Slashdot Mirror
The memory usage of Firefox is indeed a problem. I dont think, or I doubt, that this has anything at all to do with its features, but perhaps caching of data, the way it handles data. The way the firefox process grows in size seems to indicate it has memory leaks and allocation issues. I dont think features should be blamed for this.
Perhaps fair use was the wrong term. Copyright law, does allow you to make copies for your own personal use, as long as you are not distributing them to other parties. I dont feel bad about using the same copy of windows on computers that I own. I believe Microsoft has a near monopoly on OSs and charges way too much for Windows, and Bill Gates has way too much money.
From what I hear, it will be even harder than it was for XP, to reuse the same copy of Windows, legally on computers that you own. I consider using the single copy of Windows that I bought on all of my computers to be Fair Use. I think technological impairments of free use are wrong, and really should not be permitted.
Maybe someone will figure out a way to circumvent whatever nasty restrictions it has regarding this.
This is truly quite frightening. There are technologies which later proved to be crucial, which perhaps were not useful for much years, or decades after they were originally developed. One example is electromagnetism. It took decades for that technology to be fully developed, for radio, electric generation, motors, and so on to become used. Often, it can be the technology which has the least apparent immediate profit making value which has the greatest benefits for humanity. It appears that with this increasing worship of the profits, and the restrictions and limitations that pure research finds itself under, we may be stifling some of the greatest advancements in technology yet to come.
There are lots of people in the US who are very tired of the administrations policies, and want to see them replaced. Many did believe the lies about the war, that it would improve safety, that it would expand freedom and democracy, when it has done the opposite. It has in fact, I believe, made this country much more dangerous, by doing the exact things the extremists have said they despise, invading their countries, and done horrific damage in the countries we have invaded and caused the situation there to become far worse than it was before. Weve turn them into the very breeding grounds of extremism that the liars in the administration said we were attempting to prevent. This was all predicted before the war began, but people were fed constant lies and misinformation by the media. It is ironic that while we have a president that blathers on about freedom and democracy, is actions have indicated that he desires none of these things. Increasing evidence shows he wasnt even elected both times. I think Americans, are constantly assaulted with this disinformation, and for those who have only watched the major media outlets or faux news, of course they are going to make poor decisions. It was evident in the lebanon conflict as well, where I at least saw more sympathy being given to Israel than the to the innocent people of Lebanon, who have as been as victimised as the Israelis have. The aggressions lauched by both sides were in fact, highly illegitimate.
I am all for promoting democracy and freedom, but I am furthermore against the use of violence to promote these things. There must be better ways, and there are. For instance, Gandhi is an example.
I think that video, especially HD video, would be quite effective at filling up the bandwidth. There should be little problem here. I am quite sure that we will find ways to use it. Actually, bandwidth is still a tad expensive and we constantly here the telecos complaining about how their poor networks are straining under the load of video and other media people are downloading, and that they should be able to restrict peoples access based on which sites pay them and which dont. If we believe them, we are in desperare need for more bandwidth. Of course this is a dangerous precedent, of allowing telecos to censor content flowing over their network. I certianly think that telecos should not be allowed to modify or block access to content and we do ned net netruality legislation.
I think what they need is more regulation and not be encouraged to provide substandard service.
I do tend to prefer yahoo over gmail myself. I do like the feature rich user interface rather than the spartan one. For searching, I think that the simple interface google has works well for me. But when it comes to mail and other services, I prefer something that is a bit richer and has more bells and whistles. The plain interface can get a bit dull after a while in my opinion, I do like having some eye candy. I think the google talk feature could use some more capability, perhaps some chat rooms and games, and I that more people will use it. I do think people are drawn to this eye candy when it comes to those sorts of things.
My favourite means of accessing mail however is imap, particularly due to flexibility. Since the mail is downloaded in a formatted form, it is much eisier to do sorting and you arent limited as much by the software at the provider end, but only by what you have at your end, which you can change at will.
Wouldnt having at least your web browser running under a non-priveleged account other than root protect you from buffer overflows being able to damage the system? Another issue to be concerned about, in addition, is the setuid root binaries on the system. A none root user could run them, and if there is a vulnerability where they can feed it some bad data when the program is run, this can be exploited to run code as root. I think it is good to scan the entire system for setuid binaries, and get rid of the setuid permissions whenever you can. Another danger area is servers that run as root, such as X, and sendmail. Ideally, no servers should run under root, and I am still wondering why X cannot just be given the specific permissions it needs to access video hardware, and nothing else. Cant X access video hardware through a /dev file? Why dont video cards have /dev files? What is the technical issue preventing this, and could some mechanism to allow video hardware access but not root permissions be added to the OS?
Qmail seperates out different parts of mail delivery so programs not running as root actually interact with clients, and the mail delivery is in a seperate program from the server.
Hopefully they arent circumcised, or the aliens will think we are a barbaric race that mutilates each others private parts, and as well fail to give them an accurate picture of real male anatomy. It said that the hosts are from Europe, where they are a more decent and civilised society that respects the basic bodily integrity rights of all persons and do not mutilate helpless children, so I am sure they are intact. In fact, 80% of the worlds population is intact (although it should be 100%, except for those who have made their own choice as an adult). Otherwise they would not be given an accurate picture of the real, complete human body if we sent them pictures of mutilated men, in fact, mutilated men are missing one of the most fascinating and wonderous parts of their body, the most densely innervated and spiritual parts of the body which is designed for the specific purpose of giving its owner intense and unwordly pleasures. The foreskin is probably the most densely innervated fine touch centre on the human body, MGM removes over 20,000 specialised nerve receptors.
Do not believe the myths. The foreskin is a very healthy and normal part of the body. In fact, in Europe and Japan, where circumcision is nearly unheard of, the life expectancies are in fact the highest in the world, and far ahead of the US. Japan is #6. Sweden, also a mostly intact country, is #7. The US is #48. Sure there are other factors, but this shows MGM is not needed for good health and that people do fine without it. They also have an AIDS rate that is half that of the US and a penile cancer rate in Europe that is lower than that of the US. In fact, nearly all problems the foreskin is blamed on can be fixed without circumcision, or are often not serious at all to require such a drastic amputation. Amputation must only be considered a last resort option, in the most extreme necessity.
Circumcision is nothing less than an unnecessary mutilation of the male body, decision to make greedy doctors money, an unnecessary amputation of a healthy body part without their owners consent, and a stealing of up to 95% of erogenous pleasure from men for the rest of their life, and a deprivation of their most basic human right to a whole body. If an adult wants to have them selves circumcise, go ahead, its your choice, and your body. But do not do it to children, who are too easily coerced and cannot give full consent. By prohibiting unnecessary, elective MGM of children we are preserving the persons right to make the decision for themselves as a fully informed and consenting adult, when they have the best chance of making the right decision for themselves. Its our bodies and it should be our choice, regarding such clearly unnecessential and unnecessary mutilations.
For more info:
http://www.cirp.org/
http://www.nocirc.org/
Very few or no console editors on Linux seem to fit my needs. Ive tried vim but it seemed as useless to me as the others. For instance, I need soft line wrapping, that is, the editor wraps the line on the screen without inserting a line break. This is so if you add something in the middle it doesnt throw everything else out of alignment below. This is also called continuous line wrapping. I also like to have a constant display of the line number on the screen, and modeless editing. Really, the only thing that works somewhat decently for me on the console, is DOS edit, with its drop down menus and such. Is there something similar on linux?
Nope, I disagree. I think the scientists have entered new territory on this one, and they are playing games with our health. Scientists really dont know if nature codes genes in certian ways, there may be reasons nature does things in very specific ways, and these specific ways we may depend on in the food we eat for our proper nutrition. Americans are so gullible that they would eat hydrochloric acid if they were told it was good for them.
People also get GMOs confused with traditional cross breeding technologies. The two are totally different things. Cross breeding and mating plants still leaves the actual coding of the DNA to nature, it still is a natural procreation process. GMO is the direct modification of an organisms DNA on the other hand by scientists.
I am not assured by the statements of the FDA, who we know is run by the agribusiness companies. The FDA is not an independant agency anymore. I consider it to be more of a public relations arm of the agribusiness companies. All they are cared about is profits, not the safety of food, nor consumers choice to not have this GMO crap forced on them.
Not true!!!! Genetic modification is the direct alteration of the genetic code of an organism. This is totally difference from cross breeding and mating plants, since that traditional method still allowed nature to code the genes, it did not involve direct manipulation of the DNA. Totally different.
I meant to say:
I think, like other artificial things in food, people should be able to avoid this GMO foods and the possible risk that it entials. But the mere nature of GMOs is a threat to the very idea of choice, due to their ability to reproduce and cross breed with other plants where they are not wanted.
I dont want GMOs in my food. I dont trust it because I dont think scientists or anyone really knows what harmful effects their could be, and perhaps, there are things it is doing but we just arent associating it with GMOs.
They found that the rate of food related illnesses since GMOs were introduced in 1994 in the USA, have increased 10 fold, but in sweden where they are banned, the rates stayed the same. Seems suspicious to me.
GMOs are artificial foods, programmed at the genetic level. Who knows, maybe there is a reason why nature programs genes in certian ways, that are so subtle that we do not understand them, but when we interfere, may have very harmful effects on us.
I think, like other artificial things in food, people should be able to enjoy this GMO foods and the possible risk that it entials. But the mere nature of GMOs is a threat to the very idea of choice, due to their ability to reproduce and cross breed with other plants where they are not wanted.
Technology is fine for computers, but when it comes to what goes into my body, I want nature, not technology. I think we humans have evolved for thousands of years eating certian foods and are bodies are best equipped to process natural foods, and when we get away from this, our bodies find it more difficult to handle these artificial foods we are eating. It could be subtle at first but very harmful and the effects may not be attributed to GMOs. Who knows, maybe modifying the genes directly interferes with natures plan, maybe nature does things in certian ways very carefully, subtle ways we will never understand. Perhaps GMOs foods may have harmful chemical protiens in them that our bodies are not able to handle. Things are done a certian way by nature perhaps on purpose and good reason, and when we interfere at the genetic level, regarding what goes into our bodies and what we depend on for well being, I am concerned great harm can be done.
I do not believe GM is a safe technology, and I feel safer eating natural foods. GM food is artificial, even more so than foods that have additives added to them, since they have been manipulated at the genetic level.
Humans have evolved for thousands of years eating natural foods with DNA codes by nature. The idea is the further we move away from nature regarding what we put into our bodies, generally, the harder it becomes for the body to make good uses of these nutrients. The human body has evolved to be able to process naturally coded foods for thousands of years, suddenly changing this is a dangerous proposition, especially since we really dont have much of an idea what we are doing, and scientists, as much as they like to think they know everything, likely no very little about why nature does things a certian way. It could be one small gene here or there that a scientists may consider useless, but which activates some seemingly useless or unimportant feature, but which in fact can cause a whole range of subtle problems for those who eat these foods. I do believe that the GMO organisms can be significantly different and have unexpected effects, caused by unusual protien structures, that perhaps we are unable to process well.
There could very well be complex interdependancies for genes and a gene could have all sorts of functions that we have absolutely no idea about. Modifying one gene for all we know could have a cascade effect throughout the entire organism which are entirely unpredictable to us. The DNA system, we think we can understand, but I believe that its workings may be so subtle and there are so many things we do not know, that our tamperings with it could have unintended consequences. GE is an unpredictable and dangerous game, tampering with nature like this, and may have harmful effects.
Scientists as well are known to use virus and bacteria DNA in the process of inserting genes into an organism, and some of the virus and bacteria DNA can be inserted along with it. As well, we are taking genes out of fish and crossing species boundaries, breaking a natural limit, doing something that has never been done before, mixing genes from completely different organisms. The effects of this are all unpredictable, and it adds FAR more uncertianty to me than just eating the same naturally programmed foods we have been eating for thousands of years. There are all sorts of new dangers and novel potentials that are being introduced here that didnt exist before, that could cause chaos.
Scientists have indeed programmed their organisms and have noted totally unexpected results, potatoes that were way too starchy but lacked other nutrients for instance. Certian types of GMO corn have been shown to possibly trigger allergies. There were numerous reports of corn allergies in individuals who were eating taco shells believed to have been contaminated with star link corn. What if there are other effects from this food which may be effecting people, but which may not be associated back with GMOs as being a cause?
There is a study where it was found that since 1994 when GMOS were introduces in the US there has been a 10 fold rise in food related illnesses in the USA. But, in Sweden, where GMOs have been banned, the rate of food related illnesses have stayed the same. It seems suspicious to me.
You say that the natural programming process is random, but we really dont know that. There could be a reason that nature uses very specific DNA patterns in an organisms. Nature may do things in a very subtle way, that we dont understand, too subtle for our understand, but which is essential to the easy digestion and good nutrition of our food. Perhaps, there is a metaphysical force behind the programming of the DNA that makes sure it is programmed in beneficial ways.
The fact that the natural coding process is completely out of our control is actually a comforting thought to me, since I know nature doesnt have an agenda, perhaps an agenda to create a crop that is ultra resistant to pestic
The really important question they should be asking, will they play under Linux?
And, when will HD-DVD-R drives be avialable, so we can make our own data disks?
I do not quite understand why they didnt move into the x86/Linux server market, including the low end market, and perhaps, even desktops. This seems to be where the most demand is.
It surprises me that we are still having these kinds of security problems.
A lot of it is due to to poor configuration conventions that continue to this day. This involves running servers as root, and a system setuid root programs, such as X. I am quite perplexed that simple steps have not been taken to remedy these problems, such as by running X under its own user and only giving that user access to the video hardware that X needs to run.
Setuid root is a problem since if there is a vulnerability in a server for instance that is not running as root, it could look for setuid binaries on the system that have their own vulnerabilities to compromise the system.
I disagree with this. The difference is very noticeable between HD and regular TV. A much crisper or realistic picture. I do think there is a real reason to upgrade.
I think at this point players are just too expensive. And they need to come out with a player that plays both DVDs and HD-DVDs, and which sells for $99. Then it wil take off. Once more movies are released for HD-DVD, we will begin seeing more sales. Also, this stupid format war also is slowing things down. Most people dont want to be stuck with a boat anchor so will wait until one format wins.
I think another application for HD-DVD is computers. When will we see an affordable HD-DVD recordable drive? That will become a popular item.
I am against GMOs, completely. I believe that there may be dangers and things we simply do not understand that could lead to health issues from the consumption of these ideas. That the genes are manipulated at all is a concern for me. This is not natural food, but as artificial as you can get, modified at the genetic level, the basic building blocks. In regards what goes into my body, I dont want high technology and things devised by scientists in lab coats on my plates, frankenfoods, but something natural. The philosophy is our bodies are best able to process natural foods that are programmed by nature, rather than something cooked up in a lab. There is a concern that GMOs may be causing allergic reactions triggered by novel protien stuctures, and that we do not fully understand what we are doing and the complex interdependancies between genes, changing one could set off a dominoe effect with unpredictable results. There have been cases where scientists have noted totally unexpected results by changing a seemingly small gene, far beyond what they expected. They really have little idea what they are doing and what they full effects will be. The real concern as well is since GMOs can self replicate, they may contaminate non GMO crops where they are not wanted. Consumers deserve the right to avoid this tech nology, with the proliferation in almost all commercial food items, it is almost impossible, and the intrinsic nature of GMOs undermines the avialability of choice. GMOs should be made illegal.
I am not against cross breeding, facilitating the natural breeding process by selecting plants with desirable characteristics and mating them, since this leaves nature in control of the coding process, which I do think is safer. It doesnt completely gaurantee safe food (one time they ended up with toxic celery), but, I think it is safer than the GMO crap they are trying to force on us.
This is indeed a valid point. Supporting a vast array of hardware is a daunting challenge for an OS. Indeed, I mentioned this in my post, that one of the things that prevents people from having OS choice is the fact that most drivers are written for windows. This is a pity, since the hardware cannot be used on any other OS. Perhaps there should be a universal device driver API of some sort. I suppose different kernels have different internal designs so it may not be practical to try to implement a universal kernel API, but perhaps some compatability layer could be devised? Perhaps each OS could have its own native kernel API but also a universal API that is built on top of that. This way, manufacturers would have one API to program for all OSs. There might be a performance hit or, perhaps not. A manufacturer could still write versions of their driver for certian native APIs as well as the universal API. I say, however, it is better to have complete good quality hardware drivers that may be a little slower, than none at all.
Apple ought to go on and market its OS to regular PCs, they could probably gain market share this way as well, which will make Mac OS X a much more prominant platform and encourage software companies to develop products for Mac OS X since it has an increased user share. There are many users who would not purchase a Mac computer but who would purchase OS X to install on their PC. I do not understand at all why Apple is actually taking efforts to prevent Max OS from running on PCs. This is pathetically stupid and makes no sense. Apple could probably make a much greater profit margin from selling the OS than they would be selling an entire computer system.
I also think it would also help for Mac OS X to support FreeBSD drivers or even Linux drivers, so Mac OS X users can be benefit from the drivers on those platforms, and of course, an underlying Unix and X11 environment to allow Mac O S X users to benefit from being able to run Unix software, which they haev done but it should be installed by default. I believe the only way we can beat Microsoft is instead of thinking along the lines of trying to dominate the OS market and take Microsofts position, instead to realise that we need to encourage source compatability of applications between different OSs and the best way to do that is through following Unix conventions, it is already the most common and popular shared convention on APIs, libraries, command line and development environment. I dont think one OS can overtake Microsoft, but I think a community of OSs sharing the same application software and even hardware device driver community can. This is the right thing to do as well, since people deserve a right to decide what OS to use and computer to use, they deserve the freedom to have choices to choose from, and OS developers and Computer manufacturers should also be able to have the freedom to offer their products as well. In order to have choice of OS people must be able to run their applications and hardware on any OS they choose. Source compatability is where each OS supports the same APIs allowing software to be compiled without modification even if it was written on another OS.
Each OS and computer manufacturer often does well on focusing on a certian niche, and giving users the choice to choose the OS that best fits their needs while allowing them to use the same apps and drivers no matter which one they use would tend to I believe create stronger opposition to Microsoft. I think the OS are better off being intercompatable and feeding off each others inertia rather than putting up walls of incompatability. Microsoft can conquer by keeping its opposition divided in the area of compatability, and thus true user choice and freedom, and thus posing no real challenge to it. Compatability and freedom to choose ones OS live together well.
Hopefully this will mean there will be continued improvements to OpenGL, especially to keep up with competing microsoft products. OpenGL should provide cross platform compatability so these apps can run with few modifications on many platforms. Microsoft unfortunately, just cant have this and has been pushing its own technologies and neglecting OpenGL, which is a move designed to lock software onto the windows platform. Microsoft of course cannot tolerate competitition and cohabitating in the marketplace with others, it has to have it all for itself and will use anti-competitive tactics to prevent compatability between different OSs.
I think the basic idea behind CSS is good, I do think we need precise controls over how content is displayed. I think if it is not done in an open source manner it will be done in a proprietary manner, such as with flash, which you have to download proprietary plugins to use that dont work on many platforms.
It is very true that many problems with CSS lie in the browser implementation. There really ought to be a common reference implementation of a standard. I think one of the reasons we have so much incompatabilities with anything, is the fact that there is no open source implementation and thus no reference standard. Then we end up with several implementations which all implement things in a slightly different way.
I do not know if those will work, perhaps they might. It would be nice if they would however, one of the best uses of a DOS is running older software such as this. Perhaps someone else knows. I think there is also OpenDOS (http://www.drdosprojects.de/), which is actually based on DR-DOS which was made open source a few years ago by Caldera (which ironically became the now-evil SCO). I am not sure if that will work any better either. I think Linux and FreeBSD also have some sort of DOS emulation layer. (http://www.dosemu.org/)