Not that easy. Today's straight A honour-roll student may get hooked on drugs next year. The quiet guy in accounting may have a large stash of child porn at home, and get raided 2 weeks after you accept his "friend" request. And how many murderers seemed like such nice guys to the whole town?
About the only way out is not to join Facebook in the first place.
It seems the the desktop developers have forgotten what computers are for. They're used to get things done; email, web-browsing, documents, spreadsheets, scientific calculations, video games, etc, etc. *THAT* is why I bother getting a computer in the first place. I use ICEWM because it stays out of the way, and lets me run apps.
I don't go for this garbage about... * it's relational * it's 4th generational * it's got abject ornamentation * yes folks, thanks to multiple inheritance, it's both a toothpaste and a floor wax
When a desktop environment requires MySQL as a dependancy, you know they've gone off into la-la-land.
And what about when Michael Jackson died in the early summer of 2009? TV+Radio became "all Michael Jackson all the time" for a couple of weeks. The web saved my sanity back then.
> And how was it that this new approach to their neighbors became their policy? > I seem to recall a history of invading their neighbors, stealing their resource, enslaving > their neighbors and even using their neighbors as subjects in medical experimentation
The Japanese had great teachers for that, namely the USA. Their WWII "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" was but a pale imitation of what the USA did to them in their first "trade treaty". See http://www.corvalliscommunitypages.com/asia_pacific/japan/perryinjapanall.htm and do a Google search on Admiral Perry for more info.
> But according the the stricter, older guidelines, they can only sell > the public info (which is why they try to redefine newly added > "links" as public and force you to re-add your old info as links).
I have altered the guidelines; pray that I do not alter them further.
> I have noticed this odd trend. More and more users > (including companies) hold on to old computer > hardware. The argument is that it is good enough. > But when the same people install and run the latest > software which require a more powerful computer > they blame the software engineers. This happened > with Vista and is a common complaint with Firefox.
Firefox suffers from the Microsoft disease. It seems whenever an extension is downloaded by a dozen users, the Mozilla people decide to include it in the base product, e.g. spell-checking. Then there was the "abortion bar" fiasco. And to support it, they had to build in an SQL database. Believe me, I didn't want or need "abortion bar" or spell-checking. I would've loved to have been able to stick with Firefox 2.x. Unfortunately, with exploits being discovered every so often, you can't safely run old versions. I recently switched to Opera out of sheer disgust. The thing that triggered it was an article in Slashdot about the "new and improved" Firefox 4 that is currently in beta.
> a "fractured internet" is bad for the network, so if it ever > came to that it would just mean typing: > tech.slashdot.org.internic
Not even that. Simply point/etc/resolv.conf at a DNS server you trust, which is part of a group you trust. That's already happening today. effing greedy big ISPs are hijacking NXDOMAIN results, and people are switching their DNS to OpenDNS or Google
Right on. I was one of those people who was yelling and screaming for a lightweight browser when Mozilla 0.95 was in its "about:kitchen_sink" stage. Pheonix seemed like the answer. Then it gradually got bigger and more bloated. I feel betrayed.
Obligatory car analogy... in the early 1960's, the first Beetles and the first Japanese imports were starting to take away market share from Detroit manufacturers. So they introduced smaller cars. GM intoduced the Chevelle Malibu as a smaller alternative to the Impala. By 1973, the 1973 Chevelle Malibu was just as long as, and 500 pounds heavier than, the 1963 Impala (You do not want to ask about the 1973 Impala). This same Detroit was cranking out slmodt nothing but honking big SUVs and minivans until recently. And people wonder why Detroit ran into so many problems.
The same thing has happened to Firefox. You'd think they would've learned from...
1) Sun's Java fiasco, when they tried to make their browser plugin into a pseudo-OS that ran apps from the internet.
2) AOL's fiasco, when AOL tried to turn Netscape into a pseudo-OS that ran apps from the internet.
Yet, here we go again... Firefox is turning into another pseudo-OS that runs apps from the internet... - it's relational - it's 4th generational - it's got abject ornamentation - yes folks, thanks to multiple inheritance, it's both a toothpaste and a floorwax
> Well, first you register everybody and then you > send them an invoice for their membership fees
But many people don't want to be members, and would be publically embarressed to be listed as members... wait, I have an idea...
1) Create a sleazy dating site that people would be embarressed to be listed on 2) Threaten to sign up everybody to it, unless... 2)...people pay a $100/year "book-keeping fee" to keep themselves unlisted on request, just like telcos charge extra for unlisted numbers 3) Profit!!!
Exactly this type of stuff has been done many times in the past...
1) A couple of years before the analogue TV shutdown, it became mandatory for tuners in all TV sets above a certain size to be ATSC-capable. And companies that didn't comply were subject to fines... http://www.twice.com/article/242085-FCC_Cites_Two_For_DTV_Tuner_Violations.php It was legal to sell "monitors" (i.e no tuner), or dual (ATSC+NTSC) tuner, or ATSC-only tuners, but NTSC-only tuners were outlawed.
2) Before that, FM radios in cars were kick-started in the 1970's by a requirement that all factory-installed radios on new cars have FM tuners. You could sell a new car with no radio, or dual AM-FM radio, or FM-only, but AM-only was illegal.
3) And before that, to solve the chicken-and-egg problem for UHF TV, all new TV sets were required to be able to tune UHF channels, which at that time went up to 83.
So, yes, it has been done in the past, and can be done again.
> My wife went through a few mp3 players, and just the basic matter of > moving songs to/from the device ranged from annoying to hellish - it > was sad when it was easier to copy/paste the files directly to the > drive than to navigate the half-baked interface that Sony was pushing > a few years back.
Sony had a shitty music-player app. Apple's app is less shitty, but it's still the wrong approach. I have an older Samsung MP3 player that came without "an application". Plug it in to a computer's USB port, and it shows up as a USB drive. You can copy/paste/delete/whatever. *WHY THE BLEEP DO YOU NEED AN APP FOR THAT*. Simply use the native interface of whatever computer it's hooked up to. Heck, I could "cp" and "mv' and "rm" from the linux commandline in a pinch, although I do prefer mc (Midnight Commander).
Meanwhile, an Apple IPOD needs a few hundred megabytes of ITUNES, which... * doesn't run on my linux machine * would force Quicktime (son of Realplayer) onto a Windows computer * and would try to sneak Safari onto the Windows computer as well
> There is plenty of hardware around that does not support v6 addressing, > like network printers and most current home broadband routers. [...deletia...] > It is much easier for the ISP to provide a 6to4 gateway and let all the > users keep pretending they have an IPv4 address even though it's really IPv6.
Bingo...
* when UHF television channels 14..83 first came out in the 1950's, you could get an adapter box with a UHF tuner that translated UHF channels to channel 3 or 4 on your old VHF-only TV set
* when ATSC digital broadcast came out, you could get an adapter box that translated ATSC signals to channel 3 or 4 on your old NTSC analog TV set. The better ones had RCA outputs that fed directly into RCA inputs on newer NTSC TV sets.
This is exactly what Joe Lunchbucket needs. 99% of home users are *NOT* slashdotters, and haven't got a clue about IPV6. Giving people an IPV6 connection and an IPV4 translator, and they won't care. The geeks can bypass the translator and connect directly in native IPV6 mode.
> I agree that the MAC address based network address is > scary but I wonder how much of a signature they already > have from other properties of my computer.. I wonder > how long before the IPv6 address is used to try and > prove that it was a specific computer that generated > some traffic.
Here's a computer-user IQ test. Question "what is your MAC address?"
* Typical user... I don't got a Mac, I got a Winders PC.
* Competent user... checks his network config and supplies answer.
> as android user and a ios user (incredible and ip4) > > Honestly, the Incredible feels easily just as locked down as my iphone 4. > There are 5 or 6 Verizon branded applications, that you can't delete. When > i first got it, (and i had the model with froyo already installed) I was > prompted for an OTA update, I had read it stopped people from using the > one click root tool evolution, so i tried to opt out, by restarting, > saying no etc. Regardless it would remind me every 5 min, until i rooted, > or updated.
This is a lose-lose situation. You have a choice between a phone controlled by a control-freak manufacturer (Apple), or a by a control-freak phone company (Verizon in your case).
I have a pay-as-you-go "dumbphone", and I plan to get a netbook and subscribe to "mobile internet". I'll use the "dumbphone" for phone calls, and the netbook for computing. I could also use cheap voip on the netbook if it has a microphone+speaker.
> However, in my opinion, Windows Phone 7 will not be able to kill off the iPhone > because it's missing too much core functionality (copy/paste and I believe > secure Exchange support) but it is still a step up from WM 6.5. And what about breaking microSD cards? See http://ars.samsung.com/customer/usa/jsp/faqs/faqs_view_us.jsp?SITE_ID=22&PG_ID=2&PROD_SUB_ID=557&PROD_ID=558&AT_ID=344529 Yup, stick a microSD in a Win7 phone, and it's unreadeable, *AND UNFORMATTABLE* by any other device. That alone is a reason not to buy Win7 phones.
> Some notable improvements over the initial beta release include > 'reduced memory usage, improved text rendering and a 60% install > size reduction on Android (from around 43 MB to 17 MB).'
Can I run Fennec on my desktop? Pretty please? Scrap the crap they call a desktop browser, and use Fennec instead.
I remember way back when Mozilla 0.9x was a painfully slow and bloated browser-cum-mailclient-newsreader-HTMLgenerator. People were yelling and screaming for a *LIGHTWEIGHT WEB BROWSER* dammit. Phoenix was such a revelation, as it blew the doors off of Mozilla, and used a lot less space.
Now Firefox is a painfully slow and bloated browser-cum-RDBMS-cum-internet_app_platform. Can we please have a fast browser... period... end of story? BTW...
$ ll -og/usr/portage/distfiles/firefox-3.6.11.source.tar.bz2 -rw-rw-r-- 1 51423291 Oct 26 23:42/usr/portage/distfiles/firefox-3.6.11.source.tar.bz2
Yes, the *BZIPPED TARBALL* is 51 megs fer-cryin-out-loud.
> If I write something in Java it will probably (for a very high > value of "probably" too) work on any of a dozen platforms.
Write once for Java 1.2.3.4.5 and run anywhere... that Java 1.2.3.4.5 is installed. Not Java 1.2.3.4.4 or Java 1.2.3.4.6, but only Java 1.2.3.4.5. Unlike any decent C/Fortran/whatever program that will run on Windows through umpteen service packs or on linux through umpteen different kernels. Sure you can re-compile it for a different Java runtime, but then you can re-compile Firefox for Linux/Windows/etc. So what's the point?
And while we're at it, write a program for DOS and use Dosbox on a dozen platforms or write a program for linux, and use QEMU-KVM or VMWare on a dozen platforms.
> A major stalling point is Windows XP. It can have IPv6 added to > it, but it doesn't support it by default. No problem on Vista and > 7, but there's still a good amount of XP systems floating about.
If you were Steve Ballmer, or even an ordinary Microsoft shareholder, you'd absolutely *LOVE* IPV6 to come along and obsolete XP. Think of the millions of people who would have to buy new computers == more "Windows Tax" royalties for MS.
> Google is in the same position, they should just do it, because > then in 1 day, the problem just won't exist.
And the reason it won't exist after 1 day is because every user that runs into problems will switch that same day to Bing or Yahoo or Altavista (Remember them?). The only "benefit" to Google is that MS will no longer be able to claim that Google is a monopoly;) And people who have shorted Google shares will be happy.
Slashdot Mirror
At least numbers are infinite. What is Ubuntu going use for the name of the version after "Zealous Zebra"?
> 3. Choose good friends.
Not that easy. Today's straight A honour-roll student may get hooked on drugs next year. The quiet guy in accounting may have a large stash of child porn at home, and get raided 2 weeks after you accept his "friend" request. And how many murderers seemed like such nice guys to the whole town?
About the only way out is not to join Facebook in the first place.
It seems the the desktop developers have forgotten what computers are for. They're used to get things done; email, web-browsing, documents, spreadsheets, scientific calculations, video games, etc, etc. *THAT* is why I bother getting a computer in the first place. I use ICEWM because it stays out of the way, and lets me run apps.
I don't go for this garbage about...
* it's relational
* it's 4th generational
* it's got abject ornamentation
* yes folks, thanks to multiple inheritance, it's both a toothpaste and a floor wax
When a desktop environment requires MySQL as a dependancy, you know they've gone off into la-la-land.
And what about when Michael Jackson died in the early summer of 2009? TV+Radio became "all Michael Jackson all the time" for a couple of weeks. The web saved my sanity back then.
> And how was it that this new approach to their neighbors became their policy?
> I seem to recall a history of invading their neighbors, stealing their resource, enslaving
> their neighbors and even using their neighbors as subjects in medical experimentation
The Japanese had great teachers for that, namely the USA. Their WWII "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" was but a pale imitation of what the USA did to them in their first "trade treaty". See http://www.corvalliscommunitypages.com/asia_pacific/japan/perryinjapanall.htm and do a Google search on Admiral Perry for more info.
> But according the the stricter, older guidelines, they can only sell
> the public info (which is why they try to redefine newly added
> "links" as public and force you to re-add your old info as links).
I have altered the guidelines; pray that I do not alter them further.
This is Slashdot, after all.
No-smoking-in-the-workplace laws to trucks too. Truckers have been fined for smoking on the job in an enclosed workspace, i.e. their truck. I kid you not
http://www.driving.ca/Truckers+furious+after+driver+fined+smoking/2081408/story.html
And "gone gay" started as an Amish description of members of their community who had left the strict religious life, and joined modern civilization.
> I have noticed this odd trend. More and more users
> (including companies) hold on to old computer
> hardware. The argument is that it is good enough.
> But when the same people install and run the latest
> software which require a more powerful computer
> they blame the software engineers. This happened
> with Vista and is a common complaint with Firefox.
Firefox suffers from the Microsoft disease. It seems whenever an extension is downloaded by a dozen users, the Mozilla people decide to include it in the base product, e.g. spell-checking. Then there was the "abortion bar" fiasco. And to support it, they had to build in an SQL database. Believe me, I didn't want or need "abortion bar" or spell-checking. I would've loved to have been able to stick with Firefox 2.x. Unfortunately, with exploits being discovered every so often, you can't safely run old versions. I recently switched to Opera out of sheer disgust. The thing that triggered it was an article in Slashdot about the "new and improved" Firefox 4 that is currently in beta.
> a "fractured internet" is bad for the network, so if it ever
> came to that it would just mean typing:
> tech.slashdot.org.internic
Not even that. Simply point /etc/resolv.conf at a DNS server you trust, which is part of a group you trust. That's already happening today. effing greedy big ISPs are hijacking NXDOMAIN results, and people are switching their DNS to OpenDNS or Google
Right on. I was one of those people who was yelling and screaming for a lightweight browser when Mozilla 0.95 was in its "about:kitchen_sink" stage. Pheonix seemed like the answer. Then it gradually got bigger and more bloated. I feel betrayed.
Obligatory car analogy... in the early 1960's, the first Beetles and the first Japanese imports were starting to take away market share from Detroit manufacturers. So they introduced smaller cars. GM intoduced the Chevelle Malibu as a smaller alternative to the Impala. By 1973, the 1973 Chevelle Malibu was just as long as, and 500 pounds heavier than, the 1963 Impala (You do not want to ask about the 1973 Impala). This same Detroit was cranking out slmodt nothing but honking big SUVs and minivans until recently. And people wonder why Detroit ran into so many problems.
The same thing has happened to Firefox. You'd think they would've learned from...
1) Sun's Java fiasco, when they tried to make their browser plugin into a pseudo-OS that ran apps from the internet.
2) AOL's fiasco, when AOL tried to turn Netscape into a pseudo-OS that ran apps from the internet.
Yet, here we go again... Firefox is turning into another pseudo-OS that runs apps from the internet...
- it's relational
- it's 4th generational
- it's got abject ornamentation
- yes folks, thanks to multiple inheritance, it's both a toothpaste and a floorwax
People in Europe laugh at expensive USA cellphone/data plans
People in the USA laugh at expensive Canadian cellphone/data plans
Howsabout if you merely want to backup some stuff from the computer to a USB key?
> Well, first you register everybody and then you
> send them an invoice for their membership fees
But many people don't want to be members, and would be publically embarressed to be listed as members... wait, I have an idea...
1) Create a sleazy dating site that people would be embarressed to be listed on ...people pay a $100/year "book-keeping fee" to keep themselves unlisted on request, just like telcos charge extra for unlisted numbers
2) Threaten to sign up everybody to it, unless...
2)
3) Profit!!!
Exactly this type of stuff has been done many times in the past...
1) A couple of years before the analogue TV shutdown, it became mandatory for tuners in all TV sets above a certain size to be ATSC-capable. And companies that didn't comply were subject to fines... http://www.twice.com/article/242085-FCC_Cites_Two_For_DTV_Tuner_Violations.php It was legal to sell "monitors" (i.e no tuner), or dual (ATSC+NTSC) tuner, or ATSC-only tuners, but NTSC-only tuners were outlawed.
2) Before that, FM radios in cars were kick-started in the 1970's by a requirement that all factory-installed radios on new cars have FM tuners. You could sell a new car with no radio, or dual AM-FM radio, or FM-only, but AM-only was illegal.
3) And before that, to solve the chicken-and-egg problem for UHF TV, all new TV sets were required to be able to tune UHF channels, which at that time went up to 83.
So, yes, it has been done in the past, and can be done again.
> My wife went through a few mp3 players, and just the basic matter of
> moving songs to/from the device ranged from annoying to hellish - it
> was sad when it was easier to copy/paste the files directly to the
> drive than to navigate the half-baked interface that Sony was pushing
> a few years back.
Sony had a shitty music-player app. Apple's app is less shitty, but it's still the wrong approach. I have an older Samsung MP3 player that came without "an application". Plug it in to a computer's USB port, and it shows up as a USB drive. You can copy/paste/delete/whatever. *WHY THE BLEEP DO YOU NEED AN APP FOR THAT*. Simply use the native interface of whatever computer it's hooked up to. Heck, I could "cp" and "mv' and "rm" from the linux commandline in a pinch, although I do prefer mc (Midnight Commander).
Meanwhile, an Apple IPOD needs a few hundred megabytes of ITUNES, which...
* doesn't run on my linux machine
* would force Quicktime (son of Realplayer) onto a Windows computer
* and would try to sneak Safari onto the Windows computer as well
> There is plenty of hardware around that does not support v6 addressing,
> like network printers and most current home broadband routers.
[...deletia...]
> It is much easier for the ISP to provide a 6to4 gateway and let all the
> users keep pretending they have an IPv4 address even though it's really IPv6.
Bingo...
* when UHF television channels 14..83 first came out in the 1950's, you could get an adapter box with a UHF tuner that translated UHF channels to channel 3 or 4 on your old VHF-only TV set
* when ATSC digital broadcast came out, you could get an adapter box that translated ATSC signals to channel 3 or 4 on your old NTSC analog TV set. The better ones had RCA outputs that fed directly into RCA inputs on newer NTSC TV sets.
This is exactly what Joe Lunchbucket needs. 99% of home users are *NOT* slashdotters, and haven't got a clue about IPV6. Giving people an IPV6 connection and an IPV4 translator, and they won't care. The geeks can bypass the translator and connect directly in native IPV6 mode.
> I agree that the MAC address based network address is
> scary but I wonder how much of a signature they already
> have from other properties of my computer.. I wonder
> how long before the IPv6 address is used to try and
> prove that it was a specific computer that generated
> some traffic.
Here's a computer-user IQ test. Question "what is your MAC address?"
* Typical user... I don't got a Mac, I got a Winders PC.
* Competent user... checks his network config and supplies answer.
* l33t h@x0r d00d... what do you want it to be?
> as android user and a ios user (incredible and ip4)
>
> Honestly, the Incredible feels easily just as locked down as my iphone 4.
> There are 5 or 6 Verizon branded applications, that you can't delete. When
> i first got it, (and i had the model with froyo already installed) I was
> prompted for an OTA update, I had read it stopped people from using the
> one click root tool evolution, so i tried to opt out, by restarting,
> saying no etc. Regardless it would remind me every 5 min, until i rooted,
> or updated.
This is a lose-lose situation. You have a choice between a phone controlled by a control-freak manufacturer (Apple), or a by a control-freak phone company (Verizon in your case).
I have a pay-as-you-go "dumbphone", and I plan to get a netbook and subscribe to "mobile internet". I'll use the "dumbphone" for phone calls, and the netbook for computing. I could also use cheap voip on the netbook if it has a microphone+speaker.
> However, in my opinion, Windows Phone 7 will not be able to kill off the iPhone
> because it's missing too much core functionality (copy/paste and I believe
> secure Exchange support) but it is still a step up from WM 6.5.
And what about breaking microSD cards? See http://ars.samsung.com/customer/usa/jsp/faqs/faqs_view_us.jsp?SITE_ID=22&PG_ID=2&PROD_SUB_ID=557&PROD_ID=558&AT_ID=344529 Yup, stick a microSD in a Win7 phone, and it's unreadeable, *AND UNFORMATTABLE* by any other device. That alone is a reason not to buy Win7 phones.
> Some notable improvements over the initial beta release include
> 'reduced memory usage, improved text rendering and a 60% install
> size reduction on Android (from around 43 MB to 17 MB).'
Can I run Fennec on my desktop? Pretty please? Scrap the crap they call a desktop browser, and use Fennec instead.
I remember way back when Mozilla 0.9x was a painfully slow and bloated browser-cum-mailclient-newsreader-HTMLgenerator. People were yelling and screaming for a *LIGHTWEIGHT WEB BROWSER* dammit. Phoenix was such a revelation, as it blew the doors off of Mozilla, and used a lot less space.
Now Firefox is a painfully slow and bloated browser-cum-RDBMS-cum-internet_app_platform. Can we please have a fast browser... period... end of story? BTW...
$ ll -og /usr/portage/distfiles/firefox-3.6.11.source.tar.bz2 /usr/portage/distfiles/firefox-3.6.11.source.tar.bz2
-rw-rw-r-- 1 51423291 Oct 26 23:42
Yes, the *BZIPPED TARBALL* is 51 megs fer-cryin-out-loud.
> If I write something in Java it will probably (for a very high
> value of "probably" too) work on any of a dozen platforms.
Write once for Java 1.2.3.4.5 and run anywhere... that Java 1.2.3.4.5 is installed. Not Java 1.2.3.4.4 or Java 1.2.3.4.6, but only Java 1.2.3.4.5. Unlike any decent C/Fortran/whatever program that will run on Windows through umpteen service packs or on linux through umpteen different kernels. Sure you can re-compile it for a different Java runtime, but then you can re-compile Firefox for Linux/Windows/etc. So what's the point?
And while we're at it, write a program for DOS and use Dosbox on a dozen platforms or write a program for linux, and use QEMU-KVM or VMWare on a dozen platforms.
> A major stalling point is Windows XP. It can have IPv6 added to
> it, but it doesn't support it by default. No problem on Vista and
> 7, but there's still a good amount of XP systems floating about.
If you were Steve Ballmer, or even an ordinary Microsoft shareholder, you'd absolutely *LOVE* IPV6 to come along and obsolete XP. Think of the millions of people who would have to buy new computers == more "Windows Tax" royalties for MS.
> Google is in the same position, they should just do it, because
> then in 1 day, the problem just won't exist.
And the reason it won't exist after 1 day is because every user that runs into ;) And people who have shorted Google shares will be happy.
problems will switch that same day to Bing or Yahoo or Altavista (Remember them?).
The only "benefit" to Google is that MS will no longer be able to claim that
Google is a monopoly