whereas slowly putting the chemicals in at a slower rate (such as humans slowly spewing C02 and other chemicals into the atmosphere) will have a much more pronounced effect
CO2 does not need to react with anything to cause a problem. In fact, if it reacts with something, it's no longer a greenhouse gas.
It would seem to me that putting the CO2 in the atmosphere slower would be better, since it would result in lower atmospheric concentration, and therefore less greenhouse effect.
I also have a card and use it actively. I would also very much approve of giving it to the FSF, although I'm not sure exactly what OSDL would do with it. As long as it's spent on real free software that lots of people really use (like GNU or Linux), and not eaten up by administration costs, I'll be happy.
I rather doubt that the police would be waiting down a dark, quiet sidestreet at 1am just to catch a driver slightly over the limit
You'd be wrong, at least where I live. You are much more likely to get busted going down side streets than if you go down main roads. The police know where the bars are, and know the routes from the bars to residential neighborhoods, and they wait between 1am and 2am to catch drunk drivers. And the penalty is not lightened just because the person posed no real risk.
Firstly, maybe in your example 99 times out of 100 he'll get home safelyv on an empty road. But what about that one time there's a cyclist? Or a pedestrian in dark clothes? Or it's raining and visibility is reduced?... Then I doubt that has anything to do with being at 0.09. At that BAC and 20-25 mph, many people have plently of time to avoid bicycles or to see a pedestrian, even in the rain, 100 times out of 100 (if they are being careful). If visibility is so far gone that they don't see something until it hits the windshield, I have a tough time blaming alcohol. I'd say that it's much more likely that a pedestrian or bicycle is hit by someone not being extra attentive and careful than by someone with a 0.09 that is being extra attentive and careful.
a line has to be drawn somewhere
Yeah, that's why it exists as-is right now. I'm just complaining because it causes what seems to be an injustice for some people. I don't really have a solution.
Maybe it's not ideal, but if it saves even one life...?
That argument can be used for all sorts of bad legislation. You could ban smoking, hiking, skydiving, skiing, and all kinds of other risky behavior (heck, I think statistically speaking, many sexual behaviors are far more risky than driving at 0.09). However, as a society, we've decided that the fun of those activities is worth the lives lost to them.
You are, of course, quite right about phones and such
Yeah, my primary point is that it's hard to legislate against being a moron, but there's sort of a problem because many people who are morons aren't able to be punished, but some people who aren't being morons but just cross some imaginary line are punished harshly.
Also, the whole enforcement mechanism is slanted against the lower middle class and in favor of more wealthy people. If you have a newer car or SUV, it naturally looks like you're driving more smoothly, but an suv is much less maneuverable and probably worse to drive intoxicated in.
My post was not saying that the alcohol doesn't impair.
However, you have to put the impairment in perspective. How much judgement and reaction time does someone need if he's driving slowly (say 20-25 mph) on a sidestreet and he's the only car? And what if he's very attentive? I doubt he's going to cause an accident.
Why is a person in that situation judged so harshly? He knows he's had a drink, so he's more careful. What's going to happen? Maybe he'll hit a cat at worst. I just don't see many things that can go wrong at 20-25 mph on a sidestreet at a BAC of 0.09 if the driver is attentive and careful.
I know you can come up with a situation where alcohol is bad; anyone can. But I'm talking about the situation where it really doesn't matter, and then the guy gets thrown in jail and loses his license.
You make a good point, and I think the distinction is important. However, there are many factors not taken into account in the laws that make a huge difference.
Let's say that you're at 0.09. You leave a bar at 1:45 am and drive down a couple simple turns in your neighborhood to your house. If you're aware that you've had a drink or so, and you are intentionally being more careful, more alert, and driving more slowly, you're being a fairly responsible driver. In fact, you're less likely to cause an accident in that situation than the way many people drive while sober (not paying attention, worried about other things, speeding, talking on phone, adjusting radio, intense music, etc).
However, the first situation is very likely to get you a serious penalty, and the second one has no chance (unless you actually hit someone). If you're actually being careful, and actually reasonably capable of driving safely at the speed you're going, what's the big deal?
Also, many of these things have to do with degree. Like the vision study: we all know that as you move away it's harder to see the small detail. But how much detail is lost? In a criminal trial, the eyewitness testimony could fall into three categories: (1) Positive ID: you saw the whites of their eyes, and they were wearing their driver's license as a badge. (2) Corroberating evidence: Someone matching that description was seen running away. (3) Ruling out suspects: a small woman was seen running away, but the suspect is a big man.
And a study like that could help the jury categorize how to view the evidence.
It's not silly at all when you read the arguments others make about linux's shortcomings. That's the whole point.
It used to be the arguments against linux were more along the lines of being totally incapable of accomplishing work. Now the arguments against desktop linux are so trivial that the article in question made windows look to be not ready for mainstream use.
The fact that windows is preinstalled on the hardware goes a LONG way towards it's "ease of use". Even office and other assorted software packs are usually preinstalled.
If you don't want suicide bombers, you have to prevent people from WANTING to do it in the first place.
When we're members of the nation with the largest GDP, there are bound to be people whose interests are mutually exclusive with our interests. These people have all kinds of motives. Many of the suicide bombers do it so that a dictator will pay off their family, or because of a lot of religious propoganda combined with the fact that their lives are worth almost nothing to begin with. Making these kinds of people happy with us should not be a primary foreign policy goal, and to attempt to do so would probably attract more terrorism. After all, if it gets results, they will keep it up.
The ways you really eliminate terrorism are: (1) Keep those types of people out of the country (2) Attack sources of funding for terrorism
Everyone says that, but a browser is not that simple.
Most people expect a browser to display html, download files, handle multimedia content (flash at a minimum), make use of cookies and have the associated management tools for the cookies, have javascript support and associated management tools and options (e.g. disallow sites from opening popups, but have a little icon so you can enable for a certain site), have java support with associated options, have tabbed browsing with associated options for all links (e.g. open in new window vs open in new tab), etc, etc.
A browser is a platform upon which many types of applications can be built, that handles a variety of very different content and executable code. And it's all supposed to be so user-configurable that even if someone has cookies and javascript disabled, the application is supposed to be functional. And it's supposed to look good no matter what the font settings or resolution on the local system.
This is why web applications and web browsers are complicated. If you really want a browser to just "browse," get netscape 3 or lynx or something.
That's why the defense is allowed a lawyer and given an opportunity to refute the claims of the prosecution.
If the client really is innocent, it should be easy to refute that claim by cross examining a prosecution witness and asking if they've ever shopped online using SSL encryption.
But if he actively installed crypto software, or software to help in the crypto process, and then used that software to selectively encrypt files related to a crime, that looks an awful lot like he's covering his tracks. And if he's hiding files related to that unspeakable crime, he can't claim ignorance of his crime.
First off, there's no Constitutional right to privacy. Privacy is far to vague anyway; the Constitution preserves specific aspects of privacy (like what's in the 4th Amendment), and nothing more. There are laws which protect privacy in limited ways, however.
Second, as others have said, it's just a tool. It's legal to do lots of things; it's a free country. However, many of those actions can be held as evidence against you.
If you take your absolutist approach to criminal justice, and combine that with your absolutist approach to the nebulous concept of privacy, you could really never convict anyone at all. A trial would go something like:
Prosecution: "We'd like to present the smoking gun -- the murder weapon -- found at the victim's house, with the defendent's fingerprints on it."
Judge: "It's perfectly legal to hold a gun at a private residence. Perhaps he didn't know it was the murder weapon. I won't admit that evidence."
Prosecution: "We have eyewitness testimony."
Judge: "What was the witness doing spying on the private residence?"
Can you give me a reference to show that you can be held in contempt in criminal court for not turning over encryption keys?
It would seem to me that you would be protected by the 5th Amendment. After all, you have the right to remain silent, right? You can just sit there and never say a word and wait for them to acquit you, right?
But if you selectively encrypt some documents and not others, it implies that you may have a particular reason to hide those documents. That makes it unreasonable to claim that you didn't know it was wrong.
If all your documents are encrypted, or at least many documents that aren't related to a crime, there's no implication that you're hiding something in particular. Then you can make the "I didn't know" argument.
I think that the main point is that it should be admitted as evidence if he selectively encrypted some files and not others.
If you're just paranoid and you encrypt everything, then that's not really evidence that you were hiding anything in particular. A good example of this is using SSL connections to websites, which is used so often that it doesn't imply hiding anything at all.
However, if you selectively encrypt some files and not others, that implies that you were hiding them. I suppose you could use the 5th Amendment to refuse to turn over the keys though, but it seems like they had the evidence against him already.
Censorship is prior restraint, and that's almost never used. They punish you only after what you say.
If someone has evidence that the government is abusing our freedom to speak, they can stand up and speak. If they are right, people will follow.
Congress has tried many times to limit our speech, and they have failed to limit our speech to the extent you describe. People were always able to stand up and bring down the laws that prevented political discussion.
The two primary violations of free speech happening now are (in my opinion): (1) The FCC. They created media oligopolies at the expense of free political exchange. (2) Campaign Finance Regulations. These laws prevent me from effectively supporting a third party candidate (for instance).
However, I am still free to speak and assemble supporters for a cause to destroy those two violations. So far I don't have many takers, so maybe I'm wrong, or maybe other people don't feel threatened.
You assume that the only reason for wanting anonymity is to avoid responsibility for breaking the law. You ignore, for example, the possibility that anononymity may be required to avoid illegal retribution from neighbors, employers, or (gasp!) corrupt officialdom.
People can speak anonymously from that standpoint, in the U.S. If you say something offensive, you can say it anonymously and nobody can get subpoenas or search warrants to determine who it was. However, if you say something illegal, I want the legal process to be able to figure out who published criminal material.
So, it's anonymous as long as it's legal. And that's fine with me. I have no use for freenet. It doesn't provide me any rights that I think are important to a free society.
In theory, freenet might not be so bad. But such a huge amount of the traffic will be bad that it's just not worth it.
If a serious crime is involved, usually they can find you.
And if not, usually the people who want to use the information for the wrong purposes would have difficulty finding it.
Freenet "solves" both of those problems, by making it easy for people to publish and locate information that constitutes a crime, and hard (or impossible) for law enforcement find the publishers, and well, enforce the law.
The only valid reason someone needs to spread information in a completely ananymous way like that is to escape government control where the government does not allow basic free speech rights.
I really supported freenet at first; even donated money. But I'm beginning to question the idea of anonymous speech. I think that speech carries some degree of responsibility, and I don't think it's bad if you're able to pin a statement on a particular person or publication.
The US constitution's first amendment guarantees the right of NAMBLA to express their views on a public webpage.
Maybe I misunderstand how that organization operates. I certainly don't want to know. But I don't see how conspiracy to rape children is protected by the first amendment any more than conspiracy to commit any other crime. This is a good example of why anonymous speech is bad, in my opinion.
No matter what freenet does technologically, it will always be marginalized because normal people just don't want other people to be able to speak anonymously. I'll tolerate or ignore whatever speech you want to give, but when you break the law with speech (by planning a crime or leaking classified government documents or slandering someone), I want the police to hold you accountable.
I see what you're trying to do, but it won't work. First off, is that $X profit? Is the research cost deducted from the profit? How about the research costs for other related projects that failed?
Also, why does a private company have to report how successful an individual project was? I think that's an unecessary intrusion on privacy. As long as they pay taxes, it's all good, they shouldn't have to say that one particular venture made exactly $X profit.
I am about to make my first attempt at a preliminary freebsd box that will turn production eventually (webserver).
Can someone please set me in the right direction with some basic guidelines like:
(1) What version should I use? I assume 5.4 is too new, but 4.x is too old, right?
(2) Are the defaults too conservative? If so, how should I tune it for webserving (i.e. what are some sane settings)?
(3) How well does SMP work? Is it pretty much out-of-the-box, or do I need to mess around with it?
(4) Are there any linux -> freebsd gotchas?
(5) Is there a linux -> freebsd guide?
(6) One of the primary reasons I'm trying to run the webserver on freebsd is security. Linux is fine, so long as you upgrade the kernel every release (which seems stupid to me), but I'm looking for an OS that I can forget about for a while longer. Can I expect to see some improvement in this area?
I can find stuff like "how to use ports" and all that, and I've run a basic freebsd os before with all the software installed. I just need something in between to tell me what to do to make a webserver (a real one with real settings).
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whereas slowly putting the chemicals in at a slower rate (such as humans slowly spewing C02 and other chemicals into the atmosphere) will have a much more pronounced effect
CO2 does not need to react with anything to cause a problem. In fact, if it reacts with something, it's no longer a greenhouse gas.
It would seem to me that putting the CO2 in the atmosphere slower would be better, since it would result in lower atmospheric concentration, and therefore less greenhouse effect.
I also have a card and use it actively. I would also very much approve of giving it to the FSF, although I'm not sure exactly what OSDL would do with it. As long as it's spent on real free software that lots of people really use (like GNU or Linux), and not eaten up by administration costs, I'll be happy.
I rather doubt that the police would be waiting down a dark, quiet sidestreet at 1am just to catch a driver slightly over the limit
... Then I doubt that has anything to do with being at 0.09. At that BAC and 20-25 mph, many people have plently of time to avoid bicycles or to see a pedestrian, even in the rain, 100 times out of 100 (if they are being careful). If visibility is so far gone that they don't see something until it hits the windshield, I have a tough time blaming alcohol. I'd say that it's much more likely that a pedestrian or bicycle is hit by someone not being extra attentive and careful than by someone with a 0.09 that is being extra attentive and careful.
...?
You'd be wrong, at least where I live. You are much more likely to get busted going down side streets than if you go down main roads. The police know where the bars are, and know the routes from the bars to residential neighborhoods, and they wait between 1am and 2am to catch drunk drivers. And the penalty is not lightened just because the person posed no real risk.
Firstly, maybe in your example 99 times out of 100 he'll get home safelyv on an empty road. But what about that one time there's a cyclist? Or a pedestrian in dark clothes? Or it's raining and visibility is reduced?
a line has to be drawn somewhere
Yeah, that's why it exists as-is right now. I'm just complaining because it causes what seems to be an injustice for some people. I don't really have a solution.
Maybe it's not ideal, but if it saves even one life
That argument can be used for all sorts of bad legislation. You could ban smoking, hiking, skydiving, skiing, and all kinds of other risky behavior (heck, I think statistically speaking, many sexual behaviors are far more risky than driving at 0.09). However, as a society, we've decided that the fun of those activities is worth the lives lost to them.
You are, of course, quite right about phones and such
Yeah, my primary point is that it's hard to legislate against being a moron, but there's sort of a problem because many people who are morons aren't able to be punished, but some people who aren't being morons but just cross some imaginary line are punished harshly.
Also, the whole enforcement mechanism is slanted against the lower middle class and in favor of more wealthy people. If you have a newer car or SUV, it naturally looks like you're driving more smoothly, but an suv is much less maneuverable and probably worse to drive intoxicated in.
My post was not saying that the alcohol doesn't impair.
However, you have to put the impairment in perspective. How much judgement and reaction time does someone need if he's driving slowly (say 20-25 mph) on a sidestreet and he's the only car? And what if he's very attentive? I doubt he's going to cause an accident.
Why is a person in that situation judged so harshly? He knows he's had a drink, so he's more careful. What's going to happen? Maybe he'll hit a cat at worst. I just don't see many things that can go wrong at 20-25 mph on a sidestreet at a BAC of 0.09 if the driver is attentive and careful.
I know you can come up with a situation where alcohol is bad; anyone can. But I'm talking about the situation where it really doesn't matter, and then the guy gets thrown in jail and loses his license.
You make a good point, and I think the distinction is important. However, there are many factors not taken into account in the laws that make a huge difference.
Let's say that you're at 0.09. You leave a bar at 1:45 am and drive down a couple simple turns in your neighborhood to your house. If you're aware that you've had a drink or so, and you are intentionally being more careful, more alert, and driving more slowly, you're being a fairly responsible driver. In fact, you're less likely to cause an accident in that situation than the way many people drive while sober (not paying attention, worried about other things, speeding, talking on phone, adjusting radio, intense music, etc).
However, the first situation is very likely to get you a serious penalty, and the second one has no chance (unless you actually hit someone). If you're actually being careful, and actually reasonably capable of driving safely at the speed you're going, what's the big deal?
Also, many of these things have to do with degree. Like the vision study: we all know that as you move away it's harder to see the small detail. But how much detail is lost? In a criminal trial, the eyewitness testimony could fall into three categories:
(1) Positive ID: you saw the whites of their eyes, and they were wearing their driver's license as a badge.
(2) Corroberating evidence: Someone matching that description was seen running away.
(3) Ruling out suspects: a small woman was seen running away, but the suspect is a big man.
And a study like that could help the jury categorize how to view the evidence.
It's not silly at all when you read the arguments others make about linux's shortcomings. That's the whole point.
It used to be the arguments against linux were more along the lines of being totally incapable of accomplishing work. Now the arguments against desktop linux are so trivial that the article in question made windows look to be not ready for mainstream use.
The fact that windows is preinstalled on the hardware goes a LONG way towards it's "ease of use". Even office and other assorted software packs are usually preinstalled.
If you don't want suicide bombers, you have to prevent people from WANTING to do it in the first place.
When we're members of the nation with the largest GDP, there are bound to be people whose interests are mutually exclusive with our interests. These people have all kinds of motives. Many of the suicide bombers do it so that a dictator will pay off their family, or because of a lot of religious propoganda combined with the fact that their lives are worth almost nothing to begin with. Making these kinds of people happy with us should not be a primary foreign policy goal, and to attempt to do so would probably attract more terrorism. After all, if it gets results, they will keep it up.
The ways you really eliminate terrorism are:
(1) Keep those types of people out of the country
(2) Attack sources of funding for terrorism
I want a browser to do just that.... browse.
Everyone says that, but a browser is not that simple.
Most people expect a browser to display html, download files, handle multimedia content (flash at a minimum), make use of cookies and have the associated management tools for the cookies, have javascript support and associated management tools and options (e.g. disallow sites from opening popups, but have a little icon so you can enable for a certain site), have java support with associated options, have tabbed browsing with associated options for all links (e.g. open in new window vs open in new tab), etc, etc.
A browser is a platform upon which many types of applications can be built, that handles a variety of very different content and executable code. And it's all supposed to be so user-configurable that even if someone has cookies and javascript disabled, the application is supposed to be functional. And it's supposed to look good no matter what the font settings or resolution on the local system.
This is why web applications and web browsers are complicated. If you really want a browser to just "browse," get netscape 3 or lynx or something.
That's why the defense is allowed a lawyer and given an opportunity to refute the claims of the prosecution.
If the client really is innocent, it should be easy to refute that claim by cross examining a prosecution witness and asking if they've ever shopped online using SSL encryption.
But if he actively installed crypto software, or software to help in the crypto process, and then used that software to selectively encrypt files related to a crime, that looks an awful lot like he's covering his tracks. And if he's hiding files related to that unspeakable crime, he can't claim ignorance of his crime.
I'm sure there are other examples.
If by "other examples" you mean "pretty much any form of physical or circumstantial evidence introduced at all," I agree.
(that was supposed to be funny, but the idea behind it is that I agree with you, and I just think you understated your point)
Nobody would ever get convicted if you first had to prove that every bit of evidence that you introduce is illegal in and of itself.
First off, there's no Constitutional right to privacy. Privacy is far to vague anyway; the Constitution preserves specific aspects of privacy (like what's in the 4th Amendment), and nothing more. There are laws which protect privacy in limited ways, however.
Second, as others have said, it's just a tool. It's legal to do lots of things; it's a free country. However, many of those actions can be held as evidence against you.
If you take your absolutist approach to criminal justice, and combine that with your absolutist approach to the nebulous concept of privacy, you could really never convict anyone at all. A trial would go something like:
Prosecution: "We'd like to present the smoking gun -- the murder weapon -- found at the victim's house, with the defendent's fingerprints on it."
Judge: "It's perfectly legal to hold a gun at a private residence. Perhaps he didn't know it was the murder weapon. I won't admit that evidence."
Prosecution: "We have eyewitness testimony."
Judge: "What was the witness doing spying on the private residence?"
Prosecution: "We have video evidence."
Judge: "Invasion of privacy."
Prosecution: "We give up."
Can you give me a reference to show that you can be held in contempt in criminal court for not turning over encryption keys?
It would seem to me that you would be protected by the 5th Amendment. After all, you have the right to remain silent, right? You can just sit there and never say a word and wait for them to acquit you, right?
But if you selectively encrypt some documents and not others, it implies that you may have a particular reason to hide those documents. That makes it unreasonable to claim that you didn't know it was wrong.
If all your documents are encrypted, or at least many documents that aren't related to a crime, there's no implication that you're hiding something in particular. Then you can make the "I didn't know" argument.
I think that the main point is that it should be admitted as evidence if he selectively encrypted some files and not others.
If you're just paranoid and you encrypt everything, then that's not really evidence that you were hiding anything in particular. A good example of this is using SSL connections to websites, which is used so often that it doesn't imply hiding anything at all.
However, if you selectively encrypt some files and not others, that implies that you were hiding them. I suppose you could use the 5th Amendment to refuse to turn over the keys though, but it seems like they had the evidence against him already.
I don't think there's much evidence of that. I'd much rather my enemies had money than government powers.
Whether long or short term, it all boils down to ROI.
There's the possible exception of personal preference, but that doesn't play a direct role in business decisions.
Censorship is prior restraint, and that's almost never used. They punish you only after what you say.
If someone has evidence that the government is abusing our freedom to speak, they can stand up and speak. If they are right, people will follow.
Congress has tried many times to limit our speech, and they have failed to limit our speech to the extent you describe. People were always able to stand up and bring down the laws that prevented political discussion.
The two primary violations of free speech happening now are (in my opinion):
(1) The FCC. They created media oligopolies at the expense of free political exchange.
(2) Campaign Finance Regulations. These laws prevent me from effectively supporting a third party candidate (for instance).
However, I am still free to speak and assemble supporters for a cause to destroy those two violations. So far I don't have many takers, so maybe I'm wrong, or maybe other people don't feel threatened.
You assume that the only reason for wanting anonymity is to avoid responsibility for breaking the law. You ignore, for example, the possibility that anononymity may be required to avoid illegal retribution from neighbors, employers, or (gasp!) corrupt officialdom.
People can speak anonymously from that standpoint, in the U.S. If you say something offensive, you can say it anonymously and nobody can get subpoenas or search warrants to determine who it was. However, if you say something illegal, I want the legal process to be able to figure out who published criminal material.
So, it's anonymous as long as it's legal. And that's fine with me. I have no use for freenet. It doesn't provide me any rights that I think are important to a free society.
In theory, freenet might not be so bad. But such a huge amount of the traffic will be bad that it's just not worth it.
If a serious crime is involved, usually they can find you.
And if not, usually the people who want to use the information for the wrong purposes would have difficulty finding it.
Freenet "solves" both of those problems, by making it easy for people to publish and locate information that constitutes a crime, and hard (or impossible) for law enforcement find the publishers, and well, enforce the law.
That's why I no longer support freenet.
The only valid reason someone needs to spread information in a completely ananymous way like that is to escape government control where the government does not allow basic free speech rights.
I really supported freenet at first; even donated money. But I'm beginning to question the idea of anonymous speech. I think that speech carries some degree of responsibility, and I don't think it's bad if you're able to pin a statement on a particular person or publication.
The US constitution's first amendment guarantees the right of NAMBLA to express their views on a public webpage.
Maybe I misunderstand how that organization operates. I certainly don't want to know. But I don't see how conspiracy to rape children is protected by the first amendment any more than conspiracy to commit any other crime. This is a good example of why anonymous speech is bad, in my opinion.
No matter what freenet does technologically, it will always be marginalized because normal people just don't want other people to be able to speak anonymously. I'll tolerate or ignore whatever speech you want to give, but when you break the law with speech (by planning a crime or leaking classified government documents or slandering someone), I want the police to hold you accountable.
I see what you're trying to do, but it won't work. First off, is that $X profit? Is the research cost deducted from the profit? How about the research costs for other related projects that failed?
Also, why does a private company have to report how successful an individual project was? I think that's an unecessary intrusion on privacy. As long as they pay taxes, it's all good, they shouldn't have to say that one particular venture made exactly $X profit.
There are math books that are in the public domain. What is the barrier to using one of those?
I am about to make my first attempt at a preliminary freebsd box that will turn production eventually (webserver).
Can someone please set me in the right direction with some basic guidelines like:
(1) What version should I use? I assume 5.4 is too new, but 4.x is too old, right?
(2) Are the defaults too conservative? If so, how should I tune it for webserving (i.e. what are some sane settings)?
(3) How well does SMP work? Is it pretty much out-of-the-box, or do I need to mess around with it?
(4) Are there any linux -> freebsd gotchas?
(5) Is there a linux -> freebsd guide?
(6) One of the primary reasons I'm trying to run the webserver on freebsd is security. Linux is fine, so long as you upgrade the kernel every release (which seems stupid to me), but I'm looking for an OS that I can forget about for a while longer. Can I expect to see some improvement in this area?
I can find stuff like "how to use ports" and all that, and I've run a basic freebsd os before with all the software installed. I just need something in between to tell me what to do to make a webserver (a real one with real settings).