The UN performs thorough studies regarding the state of the environment. They recently released a new report. (The link goes to the press release, with a link to the full report at the top) It's really something you have to read to realise how much we've screwed up the planet. Some quotes:
"Twelve per cent or 1 183 of birds and nearly a quarter or 1 130 mammals are currently regarded as globally threatened."
"Just under a third of the world's fish stocks are now ranked as depleted, overexploited or recovering as a result of over-fishing fueled by subsidies estimated at up to US$20 billion annually."
"The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that forests, which cover around a third of the Earth's land surface or 3 866 million ha, have declined by 2.4 per cent since 1990."
Not all news in there is bad. In fact, a lot of it is good. But it should be better, a lot better.
Anyway, I strongly suggest reading the full report. It's very educational.
Well, in _this_ page the foreground isn't modifying the background. But css2 can do things like cast shadows, so... It is possible. Nobody can do it yet though because of IE's sucky support.
Re:rpm/deb solves the wrong problem
on
Is RPM Doomed?
·
· Score: 1
Actually, I suggest you follow your own advice and install potato packages in unstable. You may be surprised by what happens.
As someone who runs a stable/testing/unstable hybrid system, I can assure you debian doesn't know these problems because debian package maintainers actually do their job, not because there is only one dpkg-based distribution.
You should have just installed debian X and put it "on hold" (look it up, I've done it, but I don't remember how), and then installed your neato cvs X on top of that. That way the package system wouldn't have tried to upgrade X.
I wouldn't say that the r* tools are fundamental tools - every UNIX admin that hasn't been living under a rock has that stuff disabled on a public machine.
You'd like to believe that huh?
In reality, a lot of UNIX systems have admins who are primarily windows users and had to take on the maintenance of the unix system too. They're happy if they can just keep the system running, let alone keeping it secure.
The major problem is that most linuces and older unices (hp-ux, irix,...) actually still install the r services by default, sometimes in addition to the s services (which I don't understand). And most beginning *nix users (forced in an admin role) often don't know about the flaws in the r services. Installs sometimes have telnet and ssh running side by side. Why would anyone want that?
Besides, the same goes for the windows stuff. All the flaws in the list are things that patches exist for. All people need to do is apply them.
Not true. "Most users" are dumb. They have no clue what is the difference between "document" and "program". They can't or don't want to change settings. They just click the icon when asked and execute the virus or trojan.
There are no dumb users, only dumb programs.
A perfect program can not be used in an improper manner, and always does what the user means. The first property (not being used in an improper manner) is possible today. It just costs too much. The second demand is still some years away.
I've always been quite partial to the star trek computer. Allows you to get into the guts of the system, but if you don't want to you can just ask it a question in normal english, and if it can't do what you want you can ask "why?" and gives a usable answer.
Don't know if that's ever going to be possible, but it's a nice fantasy:)
I have a Duron 800 w/ 192 megs of RAM, too... Not that big of a system...
You're kidding right?
I'm currently typing this on a pII/233 with 128 megs of ram, and that's luxurious for most of my desktop activities, but then I run windowmaker on debian.
My other system is an Athlon 700 with 256 megs of ram, and that's ridiculously big. (I am often reminded of the scene in spaceballs when they go to ludicrous speed when I use the system) I've been feeling sorry I bought it, because it's money wasted (I don't need a system that fast). But at least it'll give me a chance to use KDE in everyday life, so it's not a complete waste. Oh yeah, and I can run the very latest games, that's pretty cool too. Even though I enjoy a game of minesweeper just as much as a game of black and white.
The university I go to had a reasonably good solution.
Some projects would be solitary, and you wouldn't be allowed to cooperate. Some of the projects (often the more theoretical ones) would be solitary, but cooperation would be allowed, and some of the projects would be group assignments.
The group assignments often worked the same way, where during the project you had to regularly come tell what everybody did. The C++ programming project was very good in the way that every week every teammember had to put on the site what they did. If someone coasted by it was very obvious from what they typed on the site. If someone lied about what they did there would either be work not in the result (coming down back on them), or dual entries in different logbooks, which also was obvious very quickly.
Eventually we got one person who didn't cooperate (there's _always_ somebody in the team not cooperating), and we had to bring it up to the higher management (the team coordinator). They guy got a zero for his group assignment, while the rest of us got high marks.
You don't have to take it if someone doesn't add to the result. What is crucial though in a team is well defined leadership. somebody (or sometimes two people) needs to be in charge and his or her decisions are final. Otherwise you lose half your time in discussions.
I think Douglas Adams described this "public comment" period best in "The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy":
Mr Prosser said: "You were quite entitled to make any suggestions
or protests at the appropriate time you know."
"Appropriate time?" hooted Arthur. "Appropriate time? The first I
knew about it was when a workman arrived at my home yesterday. I
asked him if he'd come to clean the windows and he said no he'd
come to demolish the house. He didn't tell me straight away of
course. Oh no. First he wiped a couple of windows and charged me
a fiver. Then he told me."
"But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning
office for the last nine month."
"Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see
them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your
way to call attention to them had you? I mean like actually
telling anybody or anything."
"But the plans were on display..."
"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find
them."
"That's the display department."
"With a torch."
"Ah, well the lights had probably gone."
"So had the stairs."
"But look, you found the notice didn't you?"
"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom
of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a
sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard."
Slashdot Mirror
The UN performs thorough studies regarding the state of the environment. They recently released a new report. (The link goes to the press release, with a link to the full report at the top) It's really something you have to read to realise how much we've screwed up the planet. Some quotes:
"Twelve per cent or 1 183 of birds and nearly a quarter or 1 130 mammals are currently regarded as globally threatened."
"Just under a third of the world's fish stocks are now ranked as depleted, overexploited or recovering as a result of over-fishing fueled by subsidies estimated at up to US$20 billion annually."
"The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that forests, which cover around a third of the Earth's land surface or 3 866 million ha, have declined by 2.4 per cent since 1990."
Not all news in there is bad. In fact, a lot of it is good. But it should be better, a lot better.
Anyway, I strongly suggest reading the full report. It's very educational.
Given mozilla has a great built-in wysiwyg html editor itself, I don't see why such a feature would have to be IE only.
Well, in _this_ page the foreground isn't modifying the background. But css2 can do things like cast shadows, so ... It is possible. Nobody can do it yet though because of IE's sucky support.
Actually, I suggest you follow your own advice and install potato packages in unstable. You may be surprised by what happens.
As someone who runs a stable/testing/unstable hybrid system, I can assure you debian doesn't know these problems because debian package maintainers actually do their job, not because there is only one dpkg-based distribution.
You should have just installed debian X and put it "on hold" (look it up, I've done it, but I don't remember how), and then installed your neato cvs X on top of that. That way the package system wouldn't have tried to upgrade X.
I wouldn't say that the r* tools are fundamental tools - every UNIX admin that hasn't been living under a rock has that stuff disabled on a public machine.
...) actually still install the r services by default, sometimes in addition to the s services (which I don't understand). And most beginning *nix users (forced in an admin role) often don't know about the flaws in the r services. Installs sometimes have telnet and ssh running side by side. Why would anyone want that?
You'd like to believe that huh?
In reality, a lot of UNIX systems have admins who are primarily windows users and had to take on the maintenance of the unix system too. They're happy if they can just keep the system running, let alone keeping it secure.
The major problem is that most linuces and older unices (hp-ux, irix,
Besides, the same goes for the windows stuff. All the flaws in the list are things that patches exist for. All people need to do is apply them.
Not true. "Most users" are dumb. They have no clue what is the difference between "document" and "program". They can't or don't want to change settings. They just click the icon when asked and execute the virus or trojan.
:)
There are no dumb users, only dumb programs.
A perfect program can not be used in an improper manner, and always does what the user means. The first property (not being used in an improper manner) is possible today. It just costs too much. The second demand is still some years away.
I've always been quite partial to the star trek computer. Allows you to get into the guts of the system, but if you don't want to you can just ask it a question in normal english, and if it can't do what you want you can ask "why?" and gives a usable answer.
Don't know if that's ever going to be possible, but it's a nice fantasy
I have a Duron 800 w/ 192 megs of RAM, too... Not that big of a system...
You're kidding right?
I'm currently typing this on a pII/233 with 128 megs of ram, and that's luxurious for most of my desktop activities, but then I run windowmaker on debian.
My other system is an Athlon 700 with 256 megs of ram, and that's ridiculously big. (I am often reminded of the scene in spaceballs when they go to ludicrous speed when I use the system) I've been feeling sorry I bought it, because it's money wasted (I don't need a system that fast). But at least it'll give me a chance to use KDE in everyday life, so it's not a complete waste. Oh yeah, and I can run the very latest games, that's pretty cool too. Even though I enjoy a game of minesweeper just as much as a game of black and white.
The university I go to had a reasonably good solution.
Some projects would be solitary, and you wouldn't be allowed to cooperate. Some of the projects (often the more theoretical ones) would be solitary, but cooperation would be allowed, and some of the projects would be group assignments.
The group assignments often worked the same way, where during the project you had to regularly come tell what everybody did. The C++ programming project was very good in the way that every week every teammember had to put on the site what they did. If someone coasted by it was very obvious from what they typed on the site. If someone lied about what they did there would either be work not in the result (coming down back on them), or dual entries in different logbooks, which also was obvious very quickly.
Eventually we got one person who didn't cooperate (there's _always_ somebody in the team not cooperating), and we had to bring it up to the higher management (the team coordinator). They guy got a zero for his group assignment, while the rest of us got high marks.
You don't have to take it if someone doesn't add to the result. What is crucial though in a team is well defined leadership. somebody (or sometimes two people) needs to be in charge and his or her decisions are final. Otherwise you lose half your time in discussions.
I think Douglas Adams described this "public comment" period best in "The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy":
..."
Mr Prosser said: "You were quite entitled to make any suggestions
or protests at the appropriate time you know."
"Appropriate time?" hooted Arthur. "Appropriate time? The first I
knew about it was when a workman arrived at my home yesterday. I
asked him if he'd come to clean the windows and he said no he'd
come to demolish the house. He didn't tell me straight away of
course. Oh no. First he wiped a couple of windows and charged me
a fiver. Then he told me."
"But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning
office for the last nine month."
"Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see
them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your
way to call attention to them had you? I mean like actually
telling anybody or anything."
"But the plans were on display
"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find
them."
"That's the display department."
"With a torch."
"Ah, well the lights had probably gone."
"So had the stairs."
"But look, you found the notice didn't you?"
"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom
of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a
sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard."