And giving an example of a Microsoft Word 2000 document is pretty idiotic. Let's start with a WriteNow 1.0 document, how's Word handle that?
Is your head comletely in the sand? Like it or not, Microsoft Office is the present de facto standard for personal and business documents. I'd be willing to bet that no more than 0.5% of my entire customer base have ever even HEARD of "WriteNow", letalone have need to open a document in same.
I dare say, sir, that your example is more "idiotic" than mine, and suggest that you wake up to the world around you before making further ill-considered comments.
Not when they're asking you to leave your (virtual) doors open at all times they're not. If a handful of clients are making demands that could put the data belonging to all of your clients at risk, sorry, but those clients just aren't going to get their way.
Talk to your management about cost-benefeit analysis some time.
The client often demands for users to be able to 'recover' passwords without changing them, so there's not an awful lot we can do about it, in many cases. Of course, whenever this feature isn't requested passwords are encrypted.
"If I can recover your password, so can a malicious user. Your temporary password is... "
>> If an "average K-Mart buying linux user"{sic} wishes to keep their computer's performance and features up to par with what's currently available, they should keep their packages, including their kernel, up to date.
In general, the way to keep a given piece of hardware's performance up to par with what's currently available is not to upgrade anything.
If you'd respond to what I said, it's just the opposite, actually. Or were you going for a contradiction?
New software generally fixes bugs and adds features/functionality, the kernel included (especially). Modern desktop users, for example, would greatly appreciate KDE 3.1's appearance and functionality over that of KDE 1.0.
I'd be willing to put WriteNow 1.0 running on a 512k original Mac under Mac OS 3.2 up against a fully kitted up box of your choice running the latest kitchen sink word processor.
One of my clients just sent me a Microsoft Office 2000 document. Let's open them at the same time and see who's editing the text first, shall we?
Sorry chum, but out in the real world you can't use an ancient, obsolete hardware and software combination merely because it's quick at a single task at a time. My clients need to have an e-mail client, word processor, spreadsheet, accounting package, web browser, and, say, fax software open simultaneously. They need the up-to-date functionality and document import/export functionality of modern software packages. If that means they have to replace their computers every 2-3 years (or upgrade piece-meal as required), so be it.
Any clients we have running Windows'95 the first thing we reccomend is an upgrade. Pretty soon, when it goes EOL, Windows'98 would be in the same boat. By the same token, SuSE 5, Slackware 3, RedHat 5, etc. users would be given the same reccomendation. Those distributions are just too old to meet current requirements.
As far as the home users are concerned, they start to get cheesed when they can't view the web pages their mother-in-law keeps e-mailing them about, or open the documents their friends send them, or...
If we were just talking about a machine on which a letter was inputted from the keyboard, perhaps saved for future reference only, and printed off, sure, I'd agree with you. But nowadays it's entirely impractical to waste the hydro and real estate on such a paperweight.
Those automatic installers have a bad tendency to blast right over any custom configuration or custom installations of programs. The worst is when the package manager decides to put the config file in one place, while the "make install" for the program puts it elsewhere. Then you've got two copies of the thing floating around and it quickly turns into a huge hassle.
I see you've never looked at Gentoo before.
The short answer is; you have nothing to worry about. Portage does it right.
Before you ask why don't I only install things when a binary package is put out, the answer is I'd rather not wait for that, and I'd rather have complete control over what happens with the installation.
I have exactly that control with Gentoo. Might want to give it a whirl.
I think the argument is (since long, long ago, I was doing tech support too), that sometimes it's hard enough to get people to POINT AND CLICK over the phone, much less, type things.
Shell scripts can be linked to with a pretty icon of your choosing, and placed on users' desktops and/or graphical interface menus. With some tweaks, as I mentioned previously, you can make your shell script a seamless back-end to a purdy GUI interface.
Read your shell script (or even better, a perl script) out loud, and that might just give you the slightest on how hard it might be to do something like that over hte phone.
Tech support? Shell code? Telephone? Why? If they can't figure out a proper implementation of my pseudocode, they probably can't figure out how to find and install Windows software, either.
Click icon.
Type search term.
Click desired package.
Rinse, Repeat.
How do you expect them to otherwise download and install Windows software?
Find software search site.
Type search terms.
Select desired software package.
Find download link.
Save software installer to "somewhere" on disk.
Locate said saved software, double click.
Follow instructions.
Repeat as needed.
See, the benefeits of Linux distributions' software distribution methods is the all-inclusive nature of it. If it's worth having, it's probably already in there. When you seloect one of them for installation, the package management system does all the work for you. Heck, my pseudocode could be written into one shell script that's portable for all command-line based package management systems with a few if/then/else and some environment variables.
Now; why do they need to know the contents of the shell script again? As far as they're concerned, it's an icon, a program, an installer, a gift from Tux, whatever. The beauty of such a system is the fact that they never have to know!
Of course, to provide a counter-argument to this one, something that I do with a couple of linux-using friends is set them up with sshd and an account for me, tell them to get on the net and discover their ip address, and do it myself.
Yeah, I tried that too. I found that they remained quite useless, and were rather annoying to boot. I started taking a hands-off, "try it for yourself" approach, and lo and behold, they don't need to ask for help anymore.
A charge of murder requires premeditation of the act of murder.
I think you, and several other posters, are confused about the charge (and degrees) of "Murder".
The dictionary definition of murder indicates "The unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice." (emphasis added). Note that premeditation is not a mutually inclusive condition.
Some definitions, according to state statutes that I could find handily, but are essentially portable to most states in America, and quite similar to Canada's laws (if I can find them, I'll follow-up with them)
Additionally, there are manslaughter charges, which tend to be lesser. I believe you'll find that the minimum charge applicable to this case is Murder in the Third Degree, with Second Degree a definite possibility depending on the prosecutor and judge/jury.
You are correct, however, that drunk driving does not equate to premeditation, in that the driver does not, by virtue of consuming alcohol in and of itself, predetermine the taking of a specific human life. I'm sure there have been first degree murders committed while intoxicated, likely some comitted with a motor vehicle, but that's a whole nother kettle of fish.
Premeditation could be anything from I planned for three weeks that I was going to kill someone to I decided 5 seconds before I pulled the trigger.
Not quite. Premeditation, by nature, requires that you commit an act with the specific intention of carrying out a particular objective. If you've already got the gun in the store and kill someone as a side-effect of the armed robbery, the murder was not premeditated. You'd have to plan to kill a patron or the clerk and carry out the robbery with that intention in mind to be considered for premeditation. Of course, the prosecutor has to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that you did, in fact, premeditate the murder, otherwise the charge would be lesser.
Of course, you can take all of this with a suitable quantity of NaCL, due to the IANAL factor.
A so I have to write a shell script for her or maybe handle it remotely for her?
Yes this is all easier than her being self sufficent and clicking a setup file and being guided through. Thank you for enlightening us both.
Ahh.. So I see you've never written a shell script, then.
Since you're apparently so thick-skulled to understand, I'll enlighten you with some pseudo-code;
Present greeting / instructional text Input desired package name / search term(s) Search package system for above Present possible matches Request input - which package name to install? Change to requisite directory, run requisite installation commands Output indication of success / failure. Install more software, Mum?
The above pseudo-code is portable to FreeBSD and Gentoo both, as well as, I'm sure, Debian, with the exception that the latter two don't require the "Change to requisite directory" step, as their package systems are PWD agnostic.
If you wanted to get really fancy, you could even fire up a few quick GUI dialogue boxes requesting / outputting the information. If you wanted to go slightly further, I'm sure you could whip up an output dialog that actually allowed Mum/GrandMum to click on the desired package and send its name back to your oh-so-complex shell script.
Really tough, huh?
Or, if you're too lazy or strapped for time (or incompetent) that you can't write a ten-line shell script, so be it. You could have her use one of the many, many, many distribution-specific software installation/update tools. SuSE has a nice one, for example, where you click a category then select the package. It gives lovely descriptions of the software, and warns you that there are requisite dependancies (which it handles automagically for you, unless you tell it not to). It also comes bundled with software upgrade functionality.
Gee whiz, that's even more complicated. So now we have a one-stop-shopping application that will allow *Mum to upgrade or install any of a selection of thousands of packages on her system? Damn! This is getting WAY more difficult!
OR! we could tell her to download the proper distribution packages (RPMs,.DEBs, etc.) for her required application(s) from the software download page, save them to her home directory, and, using her desktop's file manager, {double} click the file and watch the magic unfold as file association sees the package installing, in an Xterm or a custom (again, distribution specific) GUI installation dialogue.
Man, this Linux stuff is, like, really difficult.
Hey, let me guess - you're an avid Slackware-for-lifer, or Linux-From-Scratch-Or-Die type who hasn't even bothered to look at a modern distribution that's targetted towards the end-user market because, of all things, your blind elitism inspired ignorance would prevent you from doing so, right? I mean, we wouldn't want a few facts to get in the way of a good Slashdot rant now, would we?
But it's a good thing you posted this as anonymous. I sure wouldn't want people laughing at me by name. Then again, I usually try to think before comitting my words to (e)paper.
Go on.... Why "should" people upgrade their kernel? What are "the benefits of upgrading"? (to the average K-Mart buying linux user),
"People" should upgrade their installed software as their distribution vendor tests and certifies it as stable and secure (to the best of their knowledge) and released it to the "stable" branch. Else, they should upgrade as new functionality, drivers, driver bases, etc. is desired (GigE, ACPI/APM enhancements, etc.)
People who run Linux as a hobby "should" upgrade as they feel neccesary, but they'll probably have atleast one workstation on the bleeding edge anyways, so they're a moot point.
People who run servers, casually or professionally, "should" track updates and understand their impact on the remainder of their systems. Their professional, corporate, mission-critical, or otherwise important (generally in the context of "to paying customers", "management" or "other employees") "should" be updated on a semi-regular basis as neccesitated by (potentual/actual) stability or security issues, and after a sufficient testbed period and impact analysis.
In general, an upgrade as major as a kernel (major revision) should be taken with all due consideration. Mostly I'd reccomend a distribution version upgrade (ie; an all-encompassing upgrade procedure that will account for the C library and compiler, all system libraries, shells, and related utilities, as well as the userland).
If an "average K-Mart buying linux user"{sic} wishes to keep their computer's performance and features up to par with what's currently available, they should keep their packages, including their kernel, up to date. With modern GUI-based upgrade procedures as simple as scan, select, apply, ignore, the kernel is just another package, and pre-compiled binary kernels will often come with all the requisite modules and configure itself to become bootable. Minimal input is required by the user, except for perhaps "This upgrade didn't work, I'll boot the previous option and revert."
I know that my workstations are noticeably more responsive since upgrading to 2.4, and I make extensive use of much of the added/enhanced functionality. However, if what you're running works for you, does the job, is stable and secure, and still being maintained (which kernels as far back as 2.0.x still are), there's no definite reason to upgrade. If it ain't broke, and all that. That's the very same reason I still service a lot of Windows'98(SE) customers, and the very reason I'll often reccomend that they stick right where they are. To Linux, FreeBSD, etc. users I'll offer the same advise. Anyone doing otherwise is offering a disservice.
When yer mum calls you regarding her shpanky new FreeBSD box and the fact that "some book... or library.. that's it.." needs upgrading are you going to tell her to fire up an xterm, cd into/ports/ and make all install clean. Then claim that's just as easy as double-clicking on a "setup" icon?
Incidentally, that is exactly the reason most people don't want to bother trying linux. You have to manually mess with so many things that ought to be handled automatically by the installer. Now if I were an android with tons of spare time on my hands, I wouldn't mind...
emerge rsync emerge world -u
Is there a step I've missed here? I agree, it does seem like a lot of work. Oh, and if I had to update several boxes, I'd be forced to add "b" and "k" to the "-u" sequence and put the packages on an NFS server.
How about RFID tags I'm sure they could be embeded in the paper quite easily.
Yep. That's possibly the stupidest idea I've ever heard. Being that paper sells for, what, 0.6 cents, CDN$ retail (based on a $3 pricetag for a package of 500 sheets, 20lb stock), and is sold at such a price based on a production run of millions of sheets per hour, and the existing complexity of presses just to maintain that level of production, how do you expect for a) this to be plausible for manufacturers, or b) consumers to pay the egregious markups on the new-and-improved paper? Paper isn't merely mass produced, it's MASS produced. Ink and toner cartridges can easily have such technology implemented because they can each handle hundreds, or thousands of print jobs.
Of course, now we have to consider that an average consumer will go through, what, two packages of paper per year? Perhaps three or four if they have kids in school. What about the businesses who purchase paper by the truckload? How are they going to handle inter-operability between their $10,000 network printers and their $100,000 photocopiers? Or their fax machines? Or the equipment at other offices? Other companies? So now paper can no longer be safely transferred from location to location without a brand marking to indicate which equipment it can be used in. So now we have to take up real-estate on the paper, or separate paper into individual envelopes/cartons, and offices that deal with several other companies (hint: lots of them do) will have to either increase their equipment budgets ten-fold to maintain compatability across all hardware vendors, or attempt to purchase (likely expensive) "multi-vendor" licensing firmware for their hardware.
Conspiracy theories may be fun around the campfire, but let's step back into reality, shall we?
I dunno... I know plenty of people who price out printers, and price out replacement cartrages for it at the same time, to see what the total cost will be...
Technical and retail experience, however, dictates that the majority of "typical consumers" want a printer that costs them less NOW. Later is irrelevant. If I could sell them a printer for $10, they'd eat it up and come back for more.
Also keep in mind that most major chains, and even a lot of smaller ones, are taking to distributing printers for free with a system purchase. Usually the 'free' printers are the ones that sell at cost for around $30-$50 (CDN).
Roughly a year ago I bought a $300 laser printer made by Brother. (it's $250 today) I'm still on the original cartridge. I'm probably would have bought at least 2 or 3 ink replacement cartridges for my old inkjet by now. Frankly, I don't like futzing with that. Sometimes the ink just evaporates.
Approximately seven years ago, my parents bought an Epson ActionLaser 1500. I bought it from them a year ago, and all these years and about 10k pages later, the toner cartridge finally dropped to 2/5th capacity. Print quality is still exemplary.
The moral of the story? Buy a high-end printer and it'll last you forever. Buy a low-end printer and you'll replace it every 1-2 years. Not to mention the ease and convenience of never having to worry about the toner level. I figure I've got another two or three cases of paper to go before I have to consider re-investment versus retirement.
It's the public's cravings for cheap > all other qualities that's led to all these loss-leader products and ink/toner that costs more than the original hardware. That's why Lexmark wants to protect their toner aftermarket.
For the record; their Optra 12xx and 18xx line of printers are phenomenal performers. Solid as a rock. 20k pages in one year printed on an 1855(?) without fail.
Unless there was a MOTD that stated who can and can not access what and where. I'm pretty sure there has been legislation passed stating that. But I am not a lawyer, I've just seen mnay, many servers citing it in the past.
Oh, you mean like the Internet Privacy Act and similar legislation that 'protects' pirates from law enforcement and copyright holders? Yeah, sure.
Public, anonymous FTP sites can and will be crawled by a plethora of spiders, and the "requirement" to provide a valid e-mail address is an optional tracking system, essentially honour-system based, not a legal requirement. Want precedent? Tell me the e-mail addresses passed by Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, Squid, etc. in connecting to FTP sites.
I do believe that any remotely technically adept judge with any ounce of common sense or grasp of the law would tell you that if you don't want people to access your files, don't make them available to the world. Moreover, if you're making illegal content available to the public at large, expect repercussions and be prepared to deal with them.
Send them a bill for the bandwith used.
Then take them to small claims court when they don't pay!
I suppose, then, that I should also send a similar bill to Google, Ask Jeeves (Taeoma), and all the other web search engines that hit my site every day, hmm?
They provide an open, anonymous FTP service. People are more than free to connect and browse the site. It's implied by leaving the port, and access to the service on the port, open and freely available.
And no, it's not like a wicker basket, a convenience store, arcade, car dealership, household, tea party, donut shop, sheep farm, or anything else. It is running an openly accessible file service to the global Internet. Period.
Want to see what it looks like when you don't run an anonymous FTP server?
Feb 27 07:42:44 zeus proftpd[6051]: zeus.snerk.org (65.163.236.131[65.163.236.131]) - FTP session opened. Feb 27 07:42:45 zeus proftpd[6051]: zeus.snerk.org (65.163.236.131[65.163.236.131]) - no such user 'anonymous@ftp.adobe.com' Feb 27 07:42:45 zeus proftpd[6051]: zeus.snerk.org (65.163.236.131[65.163.236.131]) - USER anonymous@ftp.adobe.com: no such user found from 65.163.236.131 [65.163.236.131] to 64.56.236.215:21 Feb 27 07:42:46 zeus proftpd[6051]: zeus.snerk.org (65.163.236.131[65.163.236.131]) - FTP session closed. Feb 27 13:32:51 zeus proftpd[19433]: zeus.snerk.org (61.21.160.185[61.21.160.185]) - FTP session opened. Feb 27 13:32:51 zeus proftpd[19433]: zeus.snerk.org (61.21.160.185[61.21.160.185]) - FTP session closed. Feb 27 13:33:35 zeus proftpd[19436]: zeus.snerk.org (61-21-160-185.home.ne.jp[61.21.160.185]) - FTP session opened. Feb 27 13:33:44 zeus proftpd[19436]: zeus.snerk.org (61-21-160-185.home.ne.jp[61.21.160.185]) - FTP session closed. Feb 27 14:50:45 zeus proftpd[22443]: zeus.snerk.org (217.167.52.229[217.167.52.229]) - FTP session opened. Feb 27 14:50:46 zeus proftpd[22443]: zeus.snerk.org (217.167.52.229[217.167.52.229]) - FTP session closed. Feb 27 17:35:45 zeus proftpd[28643]: zeus.snerk.org (comprint.oklaosf.state.ok.us[204.62.24.205]) - FTP session opened. Feb 27 17:35:45 zeus proftpd[28643]: zeus.snerk.org (comprint.oklaosf.state.ok.us[204.62.24.205]) - no such user 'Anonymous' Feb 27 17:35:45 zeus proftpd[28643]: zeus.snerk.org (comprint.oklaosf.state.ok.us[204.62.24.205]) - USER Anonymous: no such user found from comprint.oklaosf.state.ok.us [204.62.24.205] to 64.56.236.215:21 Feb 27 17:35:45 zeus proftpd[28643]: zeus.snerk.org (comprint.oklaosf.state.ok.us[204.62.24.205]) - FTP session closed.
I get probably, on average, about ten attempts per day, every day. I suspect that the vast majority of them are automated robots, perhaps even the BSA has tried a time or two (I rarely investigate these probes).
Were I running an anonymous FTP server, I'd have to accept the consequences of people connecting, like above, at random, and perhaps actually utilizing the service. Tracking down these robots and attempting to charge them bandwidth utilization for all of five minutes is patently ridiculous, and you'd never get a law authority to take you even remotely seriously.
Now please, can we skip the usual rhetoric and try to see the big picture?
Oh, my apologies, I seem to have forgotten where I am...
wrong as phoenix has doubles in size over the past few releases..
Wow. I really wish I'd kept my sizes file, because it showed a difinitive decerease in the sizes of Phoenix's tarballs over a three month period. The Windows version has decreased the most in size at a decrease of 1.1MB from version 0.3 to 0.5, the Linux version dropping by 0.4MB, and the OS/2 version remaining static at 12.5MB (compared to the 16.5MB current release of Mozilla for OS/2).
The only thing that may have doubles{sic} in size over the past few releases is the phoenix directory, since they're now including builds for several more languages and system library versions.
Amazing how people will troll about anything, though.
Every time I hear one of my co-workers drop how fast they type (100wpm, etc.), I always break out the typing tutor software. They're always at least 50% off.
I've always sucked at typing tutor programs, but I know I'm a fast typist. (I've had several people make comments, and from my own experience I know I can bang out a letter / document in real short order, and watching other people type drives me up the wall). The problem I have with these programs is that they tend to require a person to type unnatural text. If you measured my input into this text box, for example, I'm sure I'd get a really high score, because the words flow from my brain easily. However, typing strange nonsensical word combinations that excersize one's command of the home-row and utilize as many letters as possible isn't quite realistic, IMHO.
I also know several people who can't type terribly quickly, but after having used one software package or another they become much faster - when using that software. Effectively, the software "teaches them for the test". As a result, they get these fantastic 100-150-200 WPM typing speeds, but couldn't type out a two page letter inside of an hour if their lives depended on it. I, on the other hand, can compose paragraphs upon paragraphs of text within minutes with great ease.
Sorry. </RANT>
For the record, I used to be able to type the snot out of my 1200BPS modem. I could type atleast two-three lines of text ahead of the modem, and could complete an entire BRE game (~20 turns) inside of 30 seconds, though the BBS was still sending me the screen updates. I was SO glas when Mehul made the menus 'collapse' when they were issued a command before they were drawn! When I discovered the macros, however, all bets were off! 20 turns = 30 keystrokes. {smile}
When I started getting heavily into echomail discussion, I almost immediately switched to offline mail, using BlueWave. Soon after I had a full Fido feed on my BBS running under OS/2, so I just used MsgEd (formerly GoldEd, but it was too bloated and excessively featureful for my tastes) with the ever venerable GOPGP! app for PGP, UUENCODE, tagline, and signature support. {smirk}
Anyways, Stewart Honsberger, formerly 1:229/604, signing off.
And I see you didn't have the sense to [X] Post Anonymously when spewing your drivel out over the internet, Stewart Honsberger.
No, I don't hide behind cowardly anonymizers, thank you.
Please, try and connect to one of your ftp servers over an ssh tunnel before replying again, so you can see for yourself what I mean.
Already done. What's the problem?
BTW - if the thread was about serving public, anonymous files; why were you digressing and talking about SSH tunneling? Did you want to feel better about yourself and your meagre accomplishments, or did you just not understand the question?
Don't bother responding if you're going to hide behind Slashdot. I'm not that terribly interested in what you have to say.
Slashdot Mirror
Is your head comletely in the sand? Like it or not, Microsoft Office is the present de facto standard for personal and business documents. I'd be willing to bet that no more than 0.5% of my entire customer base have ever even HEARD of "WriteNow", letalone have need to open a document in same.
I dare say, sir, that your example is more "idiotic" than mine, and suggest that you wake up to the world around you before making further ill-considered comments.
Not when they're asking you to leave your (virtual) doors open at all times they're not. If a handful of clients are making demands that could put the data belonging to all of your clients at risk, sorry, but those clients just aren't going to get their way.
Talk to your management about cost-benefeit analysis some time.
"If I can recover your password, so can a malicious user. Your temporary password is ... "
If you'd respond to what I said, it's just the opposite, actually. Or were you going for a contradiction?
New software generally fixes bugs and adds features/functionality, the kernel included (especially). Modern desktop users, for example, would greatly appreciate KDE 3.1's appearance and functionality over that of KDE 1.0.
One of my clients just sent me a Microsoft Office 2000 document. Let's open them at the same time and see who's editing the text first, shall we?
Sorry chum, but out in the real world you can't use an ancient, obsolete hardware and software combination merely because it's quick at a single task at a time. My clients need to have an e-mail client, word processor, spreadsheet, accounting package, web browser, and, say, fax software open simultaneously. They need the up-to-date functionality and document import/export functionality of modern software packages. If that means they have to replace their computers every 2-3 years (or upgrade piece-meal as required), so be it.
Any clients we have running Windows'95 the first thing we reccomend is an upgrade. Pretty soon, when it goes EOL, Windows'98 would be in the same boat. By the same token, SuSE 5, Slackware 3, RedHat 5, etc. users would be given the same reccomendation. Those distributions are just too old to meet current requirements.
As far as the home users are concerned, they start to get cheesed when they can't view the web pages their mother-in-law keeps e-mailing them about, or open the documents their friends send them, or ...
If we were just talking about a machine on which a letter was inputted from the keyboard, perhaps saved for future reference only, and printed off, sure, I'd agree with you. But nowadays it's entirely impractical to waste the hydro and real estate on such a paperweight.
I see you've never looked at Gentoo before.
The short answer is; you have nothing to worry about. Portage does it right.
I have exactly that control with Gentoo. Might want to give it a whirl.
Shell scripts can be linked to with a pretty icon of your choosing, and placed on users' desktops and/or graphical interface menus. With some tweaks, as I mentioned previously, you can make your shell script a seamless back-end to a purdy GUI interface.
Tech support? Shell code? Telephone? Why? If they can't figure out a proper implementation of my pseudocode, they probably can't figure out how to find and install Windows software, either.
How do you expect them to otherwise download and install Windows software?
See, the benefeits of Linux distributions' software distribution methods is the all-inclusive nature of it. If it's worth having, it's probably already in there. When you seloect one of them for installation, the package management system does all the work for you. Heck, my pseudocode could be written into one shell script that's portable for all command-line based package management systems with a few if/then/else and some environment variables.
Now; why do they need to know the contents of the shell script again? As far as they're concerned, it's an icon, a program, an installer, a gift from Tux, whatever. The beauty of such a system is the fact that they never have to know!
Yeah, I tried that too. I found that they remained quite useless, and were rather annoying to boot. I started taking a hands-off, "try it for yourself" approach, and lo and behold, they don't need to ask for help anymore.
I think you, and several other posters, are confused about the charge (and degrees) of "Murder".
The dictionary definition of murder indicates "The unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice." (emphasis added). Note that premeditation is not a mutually inclusive condition.
Some definitions, according to state statutes that I could find handily, but are essentially portable to most states in America, and quite similar to Canada's laws (if I can find them, I'll follow-up with them)
Additionally, there are manslaughter charges, which tend to be lesser. I believe you'll find that the minimum charge applicable to this case is Murder in the Third Degree, with Second Degree a definite possibility depending on the prosecutor and judge/jury.
You are correct, however, that drunk driving does not equate to premeditation, in that the driver does not, by virtue of consuming alcohol in and of itself, predetermine the taking of a specific human life. I'm sure there have been first degree murders committed while intoxicated, likely some comitted with a motor vehicle, but that's a whole nother kettle of fish.
Not quite. Premeditation, by nature, requires that you commit an act with the specific intention of carrying out a particular objective. If you've already got the gun in the store and kill someone as a side-effect of the armed robbery, the murder was not premeditated. You'd have to plan to kill a patron or the clerk and carry out the robbery with that intention in mind to be considered for premeditation. Of course, the prosecutor has to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that you did, in fact, premeditate the murder, otherwise the charge would be lesser.
Of course, you can take all of this with a suitable quantity of NaCL, due to the IANAL factor.
If you wouldn't mind, could you share the "virtues" he was extolling?
I find myself extremely curious.
Ahh.. So I see you've never written a shell script, then.
Since you're apparently so thick-skulled to understand, I'll enlighten you with some pseudo-code;
The above pseudo-code is portable to FreeBSD and Gentoo both, as well as, I'm sure, Debian, with the exception that the latter two don't require the "Change to requisite directory" step, as their package systems are PWD agnostic.
If you wanted to get really fancy, you could even fire up a few quick GUI dialogue boxes requesting / outputting the information. If you wanted to go slightly further, I'm sure you could whip up an output dialog that actually allowed Mum/GrandMum to click on the desired package and send its name back to your oh-so-complex shell script.
Really tough, huh?
Or, if you're too lazy or strapped for time (or incompetent) that you can't write a ten-line shell script, so be it. You could have her use one of the many, many, many distribution-specific software installation/update tools. SuSE has a nice one, for example, where you click a category then select the package. It gives lovely descriptions of the software, and warns you that there are requisite dependancies (which it handles automagically for you, unless you tell it not to). It also comes bundled with software upgrade functionality.
Gee whiz, that's even more complicated. So now we have a one-stop-shopping application that will allow *Mum to upgrade or install any of a selection of thousands of packages on her system? Damn! This is getting WAY more difficult!
OR! we could tell her to download the proper distribution packages (RPMs, .DEBs, etc.) for her required application(s) from the software download page, save them to her home directory, and, using her desktop's file manager, {double} click the file and watch the magic unfold as file association sees the package installing, in an Xterm or a custom (again, distribution specific) GUI installation dialogue.
Man, this Linux stuff is, like, really difficult.
Hey, let me guess - you're an avid Slackware-for-lifer, or Linux-From-Scratch-Or-Die type who hasn't even bothered to look at a modern distribution that's targetted towards the end-user market because, of all things, your blind elitism inspired ignorance would prevent you from doing so, right? I mean, we wouldn't want a few facts to get in the way of a good Slashdot rant now, would we?
But it's a good thing you posted this as anonymous. I sure wouldn't want people laughing at me by name. Then again, I usually try to think before comitting my words to (e)paper.
"People" should upgrade their installed software as their distribution vendor tests and certifies it as stable and secure (to the best of their knowledge) and released it to the "stable" branch. Else, they should upgrade as new functionality, drivers, driver bases, etc. is desired (GigE, ACPI/APM enhancements, etc.)
People who run Linux as a hobby "should" upgrade as they feel neccesary, but they'll probably have atleast one workstation on the bleeding edge anyways, so they're a moot point.
People who run servers, casually or professionally, "should" track updates and understand their impact on the remainder of their systems. Their professional, corporate, mission-critical, or otherwise important (generally in the context of "to paying customers", "management" or "other employees") "should" be updated on a semi-regular basis as neccesitated by (potentual/actual) stability or security issues, and after a sufficient testbed period and impact analysis.
In general, an upgrade as major as a kernel (major revision) should be taken with all due consideration. Mostly I'd reccomend a distribution version upgrade (ie; an all-encompassing upgrade procedure that will account for the C library and compiler, all system libraries, shells, and related utilities, as well as the userland).
If an "average K-Mart buying linux user"{sic} wishes to keep their computer's performance and features up to par with what's currently available, they should keep their packages, including their kernel, up to date. With modern GUI-based upgrade procedures as simple as scan, select, apply, ignore, the kernel is just another package, and pre-compiled binary kernels will often come with all the requisite modules and configure itself to become bootable. Minimal input is required by the user, except for perhaps "This upgrade didn't work, I'll boot the previous option and revert."
I know that my workstations are noticeably more responsive since upgrading to 2.4, and I make extensive use of much of the added/enhanced functionality. However, if what you're running works for you, does the job, is stable and secure, and still being maintained (which kernels as far back as 2.0.x still are), there's no definite reason to upgrade. If it ain't broke, and all that. That's the very same reason I still service a lot of Windows'98(SE) customers, and the very reason I'll often reccomend that they stick right where they are. To Linux, FreeBSD, etc. users I'll offer the same advise. Anyone doing otherwise is offering a disservice.
You've never written a shell script right?
Yes. Because, see, no Linux distribution has binary packages available. That's, like, against the law or something.
IBM made a line of machines called the "PS/2", or "Personal System 2" (as I recall). Sony made the "PS2" or "PlayStation 2".
Is there a step I've missed here? I agree, it does seem like a lot of work. Oh, and if I had to update several boxes, I'd be forced to add "b" and "k" to the "-u" sequence and put the packages on an NFS server.
Man, this Linux stuff is hard.
Yep. That's possibly the stupidest idea I've ever heard. Being that paper sells for, what, 0.6 cents, CDN$ retail (based on a $3 pricetag for a package of 500 sheets, 20lb stock), and is sold at such a price based on a production run of millions of sheets per hour, and the existing complexity of presses just to maintain that level of production, how do you expect for a) this to be plausible for manufacturers, or b) consumers to pay the egregious markups on the new-and-improved paper? Paper isn't merely mass produced, it's MASS produced. Ink and toner cartridges can easily have such technology implemented because they can each handle hundreds, or thousands of print jobs.
Of course, now we have to consider that an average consumer will go through, what, two packages of paper per year? Perhaps three or four if they have kids in school. What about the businesses who purchase paper by the truckload? How are they going to handle inter-operability between their $10,000 network printers and their $100,000 photocopiers? Or their fax machines? Or the equipment at other offices? Other companies? So now paper can no longer be safely transferred from location to location without a brand marking to indicate which equipment it can be used in. So now we have to take up real-estate on the paper, or separate paper into individual envelopes/cartons, and offices that deal with several other companies (hint: lots of them do) will have to either increase their equipment budgets ten-fold to maintain compatability across all hardware vendors, or attempt to purchase (likely expensive) "multi-vendor" licensing firmware for their hardware.
Conspiracy theories may be fun around the campfire, but let's step back into reality, shall we?
Technical and retail experience, however, dictates that the majority of "typical consumers" want a printer that costs them less NOW. Later is irrelevant. If I could sell them a printer for $10, they'd eat it up and come back for more.
Also keep in mind that most major chains, and even a lot of smaller ones, are taking to distributing printers for free with a system purchase. Usually the 'free' printers are the ones that sell at cost for around $30-$50 (CDN).
Approximately seven years ago, my parents bought an Epson ActionLaser 1500. I bought it from them a year ago, and all these years and about 10k pages later, the toner cartridge finally dropped to 2/5th capacity. Print quality is still exemplary.
The moral of the story? Buy a high-end printer and it'll last you forever. Buy a low-end printer and you'll replace it every 1-2 years. Not to mention the ease and convenience of never having to worry about the toner level. I figure I've got another two or three cases of paper to go before I have to consider re-investment versus retirement.
It's the public's cravings for cheap > all other qualities that's led to all these loss-leader products and ink/toner that costs more than the original hardware. That's why Lexmark wants to protect their toner aftermarket.
For the record; their Optra 12xx and 18xx line of printers are phenomenal performers. Solid as a rock. 20k pages in one year printed on an 1855(?) without fail.
Oh, you mean like the Internet Privacy Act and similar legislation that 'protects' pirates from law enforcement and copyright holders? Yeah, sure.
Public, anonymous FTP sites can and will be crawled by a plethora of spiders, and the "requirement" to provide a valid e-mail address is an optional tracking system, essentially honour-system based, not a legal requirement. Want precedent? Tell me the e-mail addresses passed by Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, Squid, etc. in connecting to FTP sites.
I do believe that any remotely technically adept judge with any ounce of common sense or grasp of the law would tell you that if you don't want people to access your files, don't make them available to the world. Moreover, if you're making illegal content available to the public at large, expect repercussions and be prepared to deal with them.
I suppose, then, that I should also send a similar bill to Google, Ask Jeeves (Taeoma), and all the other web search engines that hit my site every day, hmm?
They provide an open, anonymous FTP service. People are more than free to connect and browse the site. It's implied by leaving the port, and access to the service on the port, open and freely available.
And no, it's not like a wicker basket, a convenience store, arcade, car dealership, household, tea party, donut shop, sheep farm, or anything else. It is running an openly accessible file service to the global Internet. Period.
Want to see what it looks like when you don't run an anonymous FTP server?
I get probably, on average, about ten attempts per day, every day. I suspect that the vast majority of them are automated robots, perhaps even the BSA has tried a time or two (I rarely investigate these probes).
Were I running an anonymous FTP server, I'd have to accept the consequences of people connecting, like above, at random, and perhaps actually utilizing the service. Tracking down these robots and attempting to charge them bandwidth utilization for all of five minutes is patently ridiculous, and you'd never get a law authority to take you even remotely seriously.
Now please, can we skip the usual rhetoric and try to see the big picture?
Oh, my apologies, I seem to have forgotten where I am ...
Wow. I really wish I'd kept my sizes file, because it showed a difinitive decerease in the sizes of Phoenix's tarballs over a three month period. The Windows version has decreased the most in size at a decrease of 1.1MB from version 0.3 to 0.5, the Linux version dropping by 0.4MB, and the OS/2 version remaining static at 12.5MB (compared to the 16.5MB current release of Mozilla for OS/2).
The only thing that may have doubles{sic} in size over the past few releases is the phoenix directory, since they're now including builds for several more languages and system library versions.
Amazing how people will troll about anything, though.
Uhh, wow, that's... interesting. Now how does one go about disabling a plugin under Mozilla/Phoenix under Win32?
Been a while since I've seen reference to Topper! I hope all's well with him; it's been years since we last spoke!
Not to overly nit, but if he's running Linux, wouldn't batch files be pretty useless to him, in general?
(I think we call them shell scripts, and you don't need to '@' your commands; they won't be echo'ed by default here in *n?x-land)
I've always sucked at typing tutor programs, but I know I'm a fast typist. (I've had several people make comments, and from my own experience I know I can bang out a letter / document in real short order, and watching other people type drives me up the wall). The problem I have with these programs is that they tend to require a person to type unnatural text. If you measured my input into this text box, for example, I'm sure I'd get a really high score, because the words flow from my brain easily. However, typing strange nonsensical word combinations that excersize one's command of the home-row and utilize as many letters as possible isn't quite realistic, IMHO.
I also know several people who can't type terribly quickly, but after having used one software package or another they become much faster - when using that software. Effectively, the software "teaches them for the test". As a result, they get these fantastic 100-150-200 WPM typing speeds, but couldn't type out a two page letter inside of an hour if their lives depended on it. I, on the other hand, can compose paragraphs upon paragraphs of text within minutes with great ease.
Sorry. </RANT>
For the record, I used to be able to type the snot out of my 1200BPS modem. I could type atleast two-three lines of text ahead of the modem, and could complete an entire BRE game (~20 turns) inside of 30 seconds, though the BBS was still sending me the screen updates. I was SO glas when Mehul made the menus 'collapse' when they were issued a command before they were drawn! When I discovered the macros, however, all bets were off! 20 turns = 30 keystrokes. {smile}
When I started getting heavily into echomail discussion, I almost immediately switched to offline mail, using BlueWave. Soon after I had a full Fido feed on my BBS running under OS/2, so I just used MsgEd (formerly GoldEd, but it was too bloated and excessively featureful for my tastes) with the ever venerable GOPGP! app for PGP, UUENCODE, tagline, and signature support. {smirk}
Anyways, Stewart Honsberger, formerly 1:229/604, signing off.
No, I don't hide behind cowardly anonymizers, thank you.
Already done. What's the problem?
BTW - if the thread was about serving public, anonymous files; why were you digressing and talking about SSH tunneling? Did you want to feel better about yourself and your meagre accomplishments, or did you just not understand the question?
Don't bother responding if you're going to hide behind Slashdot. I'm not that terribly interested in what you have to say.