You say, "Take my word for it, I'm a seriously fucking technical guy... let's keep Linux stable and robust for hard core needs."
I say, it works easier if you unplug the power and use vasoline.
Oh yeah, about free software. It's far more transparent than something that I can't tweek. Ease of use is comming and it won't disturb stablity at all. An excellent example of that is the program "abcde". Linux on the desktop rocks. Once you get it configured or, gasp, pay someone to do it for you.
The one thing all your problems have in common is you.
Except for the fact that MS would have a very hard time proving any malfeasance on the part of the consumer.
Generally the end user has to prove their innocence to avoid costs beyond the audit. A piece of email from an employe, who may or may not work at M$ when the next campus crack down occurs, is not helpful. No one messes with students, right?
Wrong. In case you missed it, four students are looking at $97,000,000,000 in RIAA fines for indexing other student's windoze shares. Who's to say the BSA is not going to sweep campuses next looking for unauthoized versions of M$ Word or the elusive NOT.NET?
It's issues like this that keep me away from comercial software. It was never really worth the cost and now it's not worth the trouble. 14ghz should just forget about that CD collection and look into software with a more promissing future.
Your questions show how much is already lost.
on
NARA Goes Online
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
"Daddy, is it true you used to have the right to privacy?"
First the question won't be asked because the meaning of the word privacy will have been altered beyond recognition. You child will think they have a "right to privacy" and that it's worth dying for, but they will have no clue to what this means:
"Amendment IV The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
The "right to privacy" is a diluted positively asserted thing which can and does allow unreasonable searches without warrent specified by the much more powerful limit on government action above.
"Daddy, is it true you used to have the right to see the evidence against you and defend against it?"
"Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
Your child won't know what a Grand Jury is and due process of law has already been perverted so no such thing is needed. The secret court says you are a terrorist, knowing how they know would alowy you to hurt more people off to jail you go.
What's all this fuss over anyway? We stared at the Soviets and global destruction for 50 years without becoming a police state. China is still around. Now, becase some jackass in Afganistan manages to kill a few thousand people we panic?
What do we think we are going to stop? Terrorists WILL get their hands on nukes, they will take out cities and nothing can be done about it anymore than Israel can keep people from pipe bombing cafes. The world will go on.
The only thing we can assure is what kind of world that will be. We can become another slave state or we continue to offer hope to the world for a better tomorrow. If we get lazy and turn on each other not only will the terrorist have won, they will have been right.
Ecash, sure. The government abuses travel and credit card records let's give them the rest of the work too. We know that they would never abuse ownership of universal bank cards. It's creepy to think of them knowing where I vacation and about every purchase over $20 that I make. I suppose they might as well know when I purchase bubble gum.
A free economy would have private banks issuing certificates backed by some tangible asset as currency. Greenbacks and other trust bassed currencies inspire anything but trust.
That's very nice of your future government. Force everyone to delete their digital data. I'm sure they will comply with their own law and delete the public copy of the information they collect too. With the great expense of making backups, we can be sure that no one will keep that data if their not supposed to, especially the government. If they do that, the terrorist will have won. Sarcasm off.
The whole approach is wrong. Data never collected can't be abused. It's shocking that the public would tollerate a misuse of public money for this purpose. What good can government actually do with the information?
I think it speaks for itself, but the author claims that hitting the streets made a difference. The Harvard definition is something closer to sitting on your ass for a few extra hours of overtime while bitching, emasculated and without effect. Sounds like Harvard.
Oh yeah, it was hard to find that link. A search for "Second superpower" -moore "Patrick" "Tyler" pulled up a big three links. Flush.
and see three big hits. Kinda wimpy after the 813 hits to inofensive blather Also shocking after a New York Times article then a Quote from the Secratary General of the UN, no?
The point of the Register article is that Google can be bombed. People who wish to influence public opinion can set up a few web pages and screw Google over. I noticed this durring the 2000 presidential election where Al Gore used his great knowledge of the internet to capture the first 100 hits for three articles published in various pages all with duplicate text for the phrase search "Al Gore" "liar".
The difference was subtle, but the point was how Google got bombed with the second meaning. The Register noticed that the "NPR" version filled up all but three of the first 30 Google search results for "Second Superpower". It's not a big deal as long as you know that Google is not always the best source of information.
How it could miss a freaking NYT article? Well, it's probably because the New York Times makes it difficult to link to themselves. They take down older articles and charge for "research" forcing most people to trudge off to the library or do without. Most people who don't want to look like loons pointing to non-extant links don't point at the NYT and so the NYT is going to sink very low in Google results. They deserve it.
Just the same, we should all be aware that Google can and does miss the originators of ideas. It's a huge step up over pulp publications which could miss entire social movements or hoplessly prevert them according to the world view of the publisher. Google can shine it's light on fledgling ideas you would never have found 20 years ago, much less in today's consolidated media. Yet for all it's goodness, it has not earned its PhD yet.
OGG - a patent and royalty free means of sharing music.
Bad:
OGGS - a patent and royalty free means of preventing music sharing or even listening.
Really, Really Bad:
These methods applied to textbooks, technical publications and other "real" information.
Why should I "reconcile" myself to those who treat me like a criminal? No thanks, I don't need their stuff and want them to stay out of mine. For instance, indexing files on a local network is not a crime. I'm never going to buy DRM crippled stuff because it interferes with my ability to use what I buy.
Admire the hilt on this pig sticker.
on
Open Source DRM
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
At first glance it's not so bad. Looks like they simply encrypt files and demand a license through their client to decrypt them so you can hear it. The devil may be in the details and the moral premis is evil.
How does the client prevent piping of the decrypted output? Without that, you might as well skip the encryption. With that you get right back to the nasty non free world of files you can't write and someone else owns your computer.
DRM is an attempt to prop up and extend the whole dead tree publishing model that has no place in the digital world. Trying to force the restrictions of old technology on new is evil. Creating restrictions that older did not exist in older technology is even worse. DRM seeks this and is an abomination. A new revenue model must be made and people should be encouraged to share their information as well as create it. Obscuring information so that permision is required for each and every read, and that's what this can do, is even more restrictive than printed work which is durable and human readable.
GPLing this code is like making a dagger out of gold.
It's disgust mostly, sometimes respect for other's skills. I don't program my VCR because there is nothing worth recording. I only change my oil when I don't the cash to let someone else do it. I'm too lazy to walk to the TV though I'm energetic enough not to want to watch it. I'm sick of new copier interfaces and gladly give the work to a specialist, aka the secretary. My microwave has two knobs and two modes of operation and cooks my food just right becase I have a brain. My wife does the sewing, though I'd love to learn more if I had the time. Cloth is a great material for all sorts of lightwheight toys.
There are two common theme here. One is that the feature bloat on what should be simple houshold devices is generally not worth the trouble of learning. It's especailly agrivating when the "features" break a device that should have lasted forever, such as a sewing machine. The other is that I've got better things to do than fool with oil filters, the dude at the right lube shop will do a better job than me.
my wife is already 'afraid' of windows... she just does not 'get' computers.
Good for her! You should not trust things you do not understand and because Windoze is closed source it's imposible to understand or trust. As has been documented here many times, Microsoft uses it's software to report things that are none of it's business without notice. The notice is now in the EULA, where Microsoft granted themselves control of your computer with a new one and in the one for Media Player. Late admission of such spying is hardly grounds for trust but is a clear indication of intent and lack of respect. If your wife bothered to fool with the computer long enough, she would notice the unusual hangs such nonsense generates. You have to wonder why they keep doing that kind of thing. M$ has enough trouble making it's "normal" software work.
A smiling Bill Gates shook hands with Stallman in a conference room at the newly renamed Bill and Melinda Gates Center for Free Software, formerly known as the "Free Software Foundation office."
It reminds me of this . Bill Gates had better watch out now, one of his fanboys might kill him and that will be the end of this "shared source" trial. Oh, I'd almost trade my freedom for the stability of free software but I know it can't be.
Actually, given the lack of upgrade options, I would be hard pressed to recommend this system to anyone. It does look good, fits into small spaces, and doesn't take up a whole lot of space. But I don't know anyone who has these items on the absolute top of their priority list.
He does not know my wife, her mom, my mom and what must be greater than 50% of the US market. They want small, out of the way stuff like this like you would not belive. They are buying those dinky Bose bookcase systems. They don't care if the sound is not as good as a real stereo because they mostly listen to crap on the radio anyway.
It's shocking how clueless they are. Last weekend, I brought my old P90 laptop home to play some music for my mom. "You mean your computer can be your stereo?", she asked me. Wow, I was taken back by that one. We plugged it into her little Bose, which my wife loves, and played my wife's Beatles tunes all night long. My mom was particularly impressed by the fact that my wife's entire Beatles collection fit on half a CDROM. They loved it.
I'd never much bothered with music on my computers before. I fooled around with dinky software on a windoze box two years ago and never bothered with it again until a few weeks ago. Here's what worked:
abcde. Ablsolutely the easiest thing ever for ripping CDs. OGG tools work just fine. Installing this on Debian with a working sound card is as easy as looking it up in dselect.
Sounblaster sound cards and MediaGX. One fancier sound card I had did not work right and played back oggs too fast. I have yet to look through my collection of PCI sound cards, but some of them might work too.
This Lindows box needs to have some better software for organizing music, but I'm sure that people like my mom and my wife would love to have one if it were easy enough to use. No, the M$ box is not easy enough to use either. Easy is stand alone operation, perhaps with TV remote control use.
Unlike a water spigot, which is also paid for, you can connect without notice.
The Roman formula for exile was to deny water and fire to the person exiled. Only an ass would hoard what's essential and plentiful and only a criminal should be denied such things. This was not theft anymore than drinking from someone's running water hose on a hot day.
Wireless has the potential to set us all free from per byte communication charges. Meshworks can eliminate the need for wires a comunity network can take the place of the failed public tuilities. It's not hard, the equipment is cheap and it will benifit everyone. We will get there faster if we have the right attitude about it.
Agreed, you might as well cry because the pay phone gave you your $0.35 back. No direct costs were had by the "victim".
Sharing stuff like that is one of those things you want to do for your neighbors. Would I care if someone logged onto my wireless from time to time? No. I'm paying for my connection regardless of how much I use it. Would I mind if it started slowing me down? Yes and I'd figure out something to make things painful for me. Neighbors should share more than fences. What goes around, comes around.
It's pretty simple but without such basic courtesy, the internet would not work. Think about what would happen if there were no peering arangments. How about what would happen if people decided to block off all of their networks and make nothing public? Of course, that's the direction we are going and I suppose that's why the question came up. When neighbors don't talk to each other or trust each other, no lines of communication are needed.
Wouldn't it be illegal for ISP's to bust SSL users?
No because your private papers are not copyright. Go figure, an empty ink cartridge gets protected, but you have "no reasonable expectation" of privacy in your email. It's unAmerican but it might happen anyway. I'm disgusted.
Imagine for a second Bestbuy's reaction to the fact that it's popular cable-modem routers and wireless access points have all become illegal.
The device won't be outlawed, using it without a fee will be. BestBuy sells cable modems too.
The problem is that this outlaws anything not explcitly alowed by your telcom. While doing some things has already got people Raided by the FBI, this will extend things considerably. It essentially redefines the alrady broken definition of "common carrier" to the point where you can't do squat. Instant messaging, VoIP, secure shells and more will all be outlawed or provided as a $ervice open to your provider's clerks. Looks like we won't have to worry about the internet making a real free press or helping people protect their fourth amendment rights.
The smarter you make the internet, the less you can do.
Unless you have been lost at sea for the last two years, you must have noticed that:
Hacking has been associated with anti-US activity and war time sabotage.
Copying files has been criminalized by the No Electronic Theft act and DMCA.
Modifying hardware has been criminalized by the DMCA
A massive propaganda effort has been launched to support this kind of control.
The propaganda effort is most distrubing and effective. It includes the first item but also includes children's shows, such as The Proud Family, intimidation and guilt by association. The argument goes that unrestricted copying will deprive artists of their livelyhoods. Paradoxially, people are being made to think that their own work has no value and is open to all. The best example of this is the "no expectation of privacy" for email. The government's efforts to get at that information and the images they have created for people like Kevin M, are very distrubing. The upshot is that people are starting to believe that they have no control over their computers or personal data, but that this is a necessary and good thing. Many government, entertainment, publishing and telcom groups have the same goal in mind.
In the short term they will sugar coat things by promising more movies and other entertainment for your PC if only you give up a little control. As soon as enough people have given up enough control for long enough laws will be passed to enforce that control universally.
This effort represents the greatest threat to free speech and press ever. If hardware control is placed on all devices capable of copying digital data, there will be no free presses.
Now, what is the access level of system administrator, backup operator, software vendor? You're going to do anything like this on a pc??? You want any of that mess on a home computer??? Don't think so.
Now that's an iteresting question. How can I be root on a machine that contains information I should not look at and don't want to know about? I can imagine encryption scheemes based on files maintained by a user that I can't read. Hey, you might even try to use some kind of fancy authentication software like Kerbos. There has to be a way to do it with software and that can be translated on any platform. In any case, the answer is NOT to give control to M$ through Paladumb. In fact, you should never trust closed source code with anything important.
It is surreal how easily Microsoft is able to employ such blatant and souless cash grabs without sounding off alarms in the business sector.
The alarm whent off more than a year ago, despite the blither of the B$ trade rags and even they are looking around in panic. Anyone in IT not over 50 is looking hard at M$ alternatives. Anyone in IT who has not set up a Linux box yet is incompetent, a fanboy or both. The pooch is screwed and no amount of dumping can save them from free software that works better then their own.
Actually there is, while ycan use an ODBC driver with C# at a programmatic level, the IDE happily tells you that only Access and SQL Server are supported when you attempt to use the IDE's tools to access the datasource, link it with controls etc
Great! You can download the driver but M$ refuses to play with it. I suppose you can get the "pro" version and it will work for now?
http://www.computronics.com.au/pdr/
They are more akin to this toaster oven then a pinpoint source though.
500 Watts, wow! That would be a hell of a diode. You can get CO2 lasers like that now, but they will fry your eyes out and you can't put them in your pocket. Considering a 25 watt model can damage your eyes, I'd be afraid of what a 500W model can do.
What other operating systems from back then are still "supported" now ?
Solaris 2.6 maybe ? (Rapidly approaching EOL/EOS)
What else ?
Point is: NT4 is so old (and so BS), I can see why they want it to die (apart from the reason that they want to sell the new OSs)
If you have a sun, you will be provided with software with all the fixes free of charge. A friend of mine bought a nice ultraspark on Ebay a while back and he was provided with all that he needed.
If you simply have a 486, all the BSD and Linux distro you want, with all the fixes, are available under the same terms from way back.
Slashdot Mirror
I say, it works easier if you unplug the power and use vasoline.
Oh yeah, about free software. It's far more transparent than something that I can't tweek. Ease of use is comming and it won't disturb stablity at all. An excellent example of that is the program "abcde". Linux on the desktop rocks. Once you get it configured or, gasp, pay someone to do it for you.
The one thing all your problems have in common is you.
Generally the end user has to prove their innocence to avoid costs beyond the audit. A piece of email from an employe, who may or may not work at M$ when the next campus crack down occurs, is not helpful. No one messes with students, right?
Wrong. In case you missed it, four students are looking at $97,000,000,000 in RIAA fines for indexing other student's windoze shares. Who's to say the BSA is not going to sweep campuses next looking for unauthoized versions of M$ Word or the elusive NOT.NET?
It's issues like this that keep me away from comercial software. It was never really worth the cost and now it's not worth the trouble. 14ghz should just forget about that CD collection and look into software with a more promissing future.
First the question won't be asked because the meaning of the word privacy will have been altered beyond recognition. You child will think they have a "right to privacy" and that it's worth dying for, but they will have no clue to what this means:
"Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
The "right to privacy" is a diluted positively asserted thing which can and does allow unreasonable searches without warrent specified by the much more powerful limit on government action above.
"Daddy, is it true you used to have the right to see the evidence against you and defend against it?"
"Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
Your child won't know what a Grand Jury is and due process of law has already been perverted so no such thing is needed. The secret court says you are a terrorist, knowing how they know would alowy you to hurt more people off to jail you go.
What's all this fuss over anyway? We stared at the Soviets and global destruction for 50 years without becoming a police state. China is still around. Now, becase some jackass in Afganistan manages to kill a few thousand people we panic?
What do we think we are going to stop? Terrorists WILL get their hands on nukes, they will take out cities and nothing can be done about it anymore than Israel can keep people from pipe bombing cafes. The world will go on.
The only thing we can assure is what kind of world that will be. We can become another slave state or we continue to offer hope to the world for a better tomorrow. If we get lazy and turn on each other not only will the terrorist have won, they will have been right.
A free economy would have private banks issuing certificates backed by some tangible asset as currency. Greenbacks and other trust bassed currencies inspire anything but trust.
The whole approach is wrong. Data never collected can't be abused. It's shocking that the public would tollerate a misuse of public money for this purpose. What good can government actually do with the information?
Oh yeah, it was hard to find that link. A search for "Second superpower" -moore "Patrick" "Tyler" pulled up a big three links. Flush.
"Second superpower" -moore Patrick Tyler
and see three big hits. Kinda wimpy after the 813 hits to inofensive blather Also shocking after a New York Times article then a Quote from the Secratary General of the UN, no?
The point of the Register article is that Google can be bombed. People who wish to influence public opinion can set up a few web pages and screw Google over. I noticed this durring the 2000 presidential election where Al Gore used his great knowledge of the internet to capture the first 100 hits for three articles published in various pages all with duplicate text for the phrase search "Al Gore" "liar".
How it could miss a freaking NYT article? Well, it's probably because the New York Times makes it difficult to link to themselves. They take down older articles and charge for "research" forcing most people to trudge off to the library or do without. Most people who don't want to look like loons pointing to non-extant links don't point at the NYT and so the NYT is going to sink very low in Google results. They deserve it.
Just the same, we should all be aware that Google can and does miss the originators of ideas. It's a huge step up over pulp publications which could miss entire social movements or hoplessly prevert them according to the world view of the publisher. Google can shine it's light on fledgling ideas you would never have found 20 years ago, much less in today's consolidated media. Yet for all it's goodness, it has not earned its PhD yet.
Good:
OGG - a patent and royalty free means of sharing music.
Bad:
OGGS - a patent and royalty free means of preventing music sharing or even listening.
Really, Really Bad:
These methods applied to textbooks, technical publications and other "real" information.
Why should I "reconcile" myself to those who treat me like a criminal? No thanks, I don't need their stuff and want them to stay out of mine. For instance, indexing files on a local network is not a crime. I'm never going to buy DRM crippled stuff because it interferes with my ability to use what I buy.
How does the client prevent piping of the decrypted output? Without that, you might as well skip the encryption. With that you get right back to the nasty non free world of files you can't write and someone else owns your computer.
DRM is an attempt to prop up and extend the whole dead tree publishing model that has no place in the digital world. Trying to force the restrictions of old technology on new is evil. Creating restrictions that older did not exist in older technology is even worse. DRM seeks this and is an abomination. A new revenue model must be made and people should be encouraged to share their information as well as create it. Obscuring information so that permision is required for each and every read, and that's what this can do, is even more restrictive than printed work which is durable and human readable.
GPLing this code is like making a dagger out of gold.
There are two common theme here. One is that the feature bloat on what should be simple houshold devices is generally not worth the trouble of learning. It's especailly agrivating when the "features" break a device that should have lasted forever, such as a sewing machine. The other is that I've got better things to do than fool with oil filters, the dude at the right lube shop will do a better job than me.
Good for her! You should not trust things you do not understand and because Windoze is closed source it's imposible to understand or trust. As has been documented here many times, Microsoft uses it's software to report things that are none of it's business without notice. The notice is now in the EULA, where Microsoft granted themselves control of your computer with a new one and in the one for Media Player. Late admission of such spying is hardly grounds for trust but is a clear indication of intent and lack of respect. If your wife bothered to fool with the computer long enough, she would notice the unusual hangs such nonsense generates. You have to wonder why they keep doing that kind of thing. M$ has enough trouble making it's "normal" software work.
Other software based on different principles is far more predictable. Even it's comercial varients are more trustowrthy.
It reminds me of this . Bill Gates had better watch out now, one of his fanboys might kill him and that will be the end of this "shared source" trial. Oh, I'd almost trade my freedom for the stability of free software but I know it can't be.
Actually, given the lack of upgrade options, I would be hard pressed to recommend this system to anyone. It does look good, fits into small spaces, and doesn't take up a whole lot of space. But I don't know anyone who has these items on the absolute top of their priority list.
He does not know my wife, her mom, my mom and what must be greater than 50% of the US market. They want small, out of the way stuff like this like you would not belive. They are buying those dinky Bose bookcase systems. They don't care if the sound is not as good as a real stereo because they mostly listen to crap on the radio anyway.
It's shocking how clueless they are. Last weekend, I brought my old P90 laptop home to play some music for my mom. "You mean your computer can be your stereo?", she asked me. Wow, I was taken back by that one. We plugged it into her little Bose, which my wife loves, and played my wife's Beatles tunes all night long. My mom was particularly impressed by the fact that my wife's entire Beatles collection fit on half a CDROM. They loved it.
I'd never much bothered with music on my computers before. I fooled around with dinky software on a windoze box two years ago and never bothered with it again until a few weeks ago. Here's what worked:
This Lindows box needs to have some better software for organizing music, but I'm sure that people like my mom and my wife would love to have one if it were easy enough to use. No, the M$ box is not easy enough to use either. Easy is stand alone operation, perhaps with TV remote control use.
The Roman formula for exile was to deny water and fire to the person exiled. Only an ass would hoard what's essential and plentiful and only a criminal should be denied such things. This was not theft anymore than drinking from someone's running water hose on a hot day.
Wireless has the potential to set us all free from per byte communication charges. Meshworks can eliminate the need for wires a comunity network can take the place of the failed public tuilities. It's not hard, the equipment is cheap and it will benifit everyone. We will get there faster if we have the right attitude about it.
Sharing stuff like that is one of those things you want to do for your neighbors. Would I care if someone logged onto my wireless from time to time? No. I'm paying for my connection regardless of how much I use it. Would I mind if it started slowing me down? Yes and I'd figure out something to make things painful for me. Neighbors should share more than fences. What goes around, comes around.
It's pretty simple but without such basic courtesy, the internet would not work. Think about what would happen if there were no peering arangments. How about what would happen if people decided to block off all of their networks and make nothing public? Of course, that's the direction we are going and I suppose that's why the question came up. When neighbors don't talk to each other or trust each other, no lines of communication are needed.
No because your private papers are not copyright. Go figure, an empty ink cartridge gets protected, but you have "no reasonable expectation" of privacy in your email. It's unAmerican but it might happen anyway. I'm disgusted.
The device won't be outlawed, using it without a fee will be. BestBuy sells cable modems too.
The problem is that this outlaws anything not explcitly alowed by your telcom. While doing some things has already got people Raided by the FBI, this will extend things considerably. It essentially redefines the alrady broken definition of "common carrier" to the point where you can't do squat. Instant messaging, VoIP, secure shells and more will all be outlawed or provided as a $ervice open to your provider's clerks. Looks like we won't have to worry about the internet making a real free press or helping people protect their fourth amendment rights.
The smarter you make the internet, the less you can do.
The propaganda effort is most distrubing and effective. It includes the first item but also includes children's shows, such as The Proud Family, intimidation and guilt by association. The argument goes that unrestricted copying will deprive artists of their livelyhoods. Paradoxially, people are being made to think that their own work has no value and is open to all. The best example of this is the "no expectation of privacy" for email. The government's efforts to get at that information and the images they have created for people like Kevin M, are very distrubing. The upshot is that people are starting to believe that they have no control over their computers or personal data, but that this is a necessary and good thing. Many government, entertainment, publishing and telcom groups have the same goal in mind.
In the short term they will sugar coat things by promising more movies and other entertainment for your PC if only you give up a little control. As soon as enough people have given up enough control for long enough laws will be passed to enforce that control universally.
This effort represents the greatest threat to free speech and press ever. If hardware control is placed on all devices capable of copying digital data, there will be no free presses.
Now that's an iteresting question. How can I be root on a machine that contains information I should not look at and don't want to know about? I can imagine encryption scheemes based on files maintained by a user that I can't read. Hey, you might even try to use some kind of fancy authentication software like Kerbos. There has to be a way to do it with software and that can be translated on any platform. In any case, the answer is NOT to give control to M$ through Paladumb. In fact, you should never trust closed source code with anything important.
The alarm whent off more than a year ago, despite the blither of the B$ trade rags and even they are looking around in panic. Anyone in IT not over 50 is looking hard at M$ alternatives. Anyone in IT who has not set up a Linux box yet is incompetent, a fanboy or both. The pooch is screwed and no amount of dumping can save them from free software that works better then their own.
Great! You can download the driver but M$ refuses to play with it. I suppose you can get the "pro" version and it will work for now?
500 Watts, wow! That would be a hell of a diode. You can get CO2 lasers like that now, but they will fry your eyes out and you can't put them in your pocket. Considering a 25 watt model can damage your eyes, I'd be afraid of what a 500W model can do.
Yes it would be cool to get watts worth of heat from a milliwatt source.
No more fumbling with hot-metal iron pens. Shutter the light and it's cold!
That's true! When your eyes quit steaming, you'll quickly tire of soldering things by sense of touch and smell.
If you have a sun, you will be provided with software with all the fixes free of charge. A friend of mine bought a nice ultraspark on Ebay a while back and he was provided with all that he needed.
If you simply have a 486, all the BSD and Linux distro you want, with all the fixes, are available under the same terms from way back.