I haven't dual booted Linux since Redhat 5.something. When I build a box for someone I set it up to dual boot, hoping they will at least take a look at what that Linux partition does, but I never dual boot my own machines. Most Linux users I know have several machines (in my case I have ~20, and that's not unusual). I build machines as I need them, get hand-me-downs from work (or friends employers) and give the old stuff away when I run out of room. I've heard the argument that "I can only afford one machine", and I call BS. Yeah, I can only afford to build one new box a year to keep up with hardware advances, but older machines are pretty much free. I've found AS400's sitting next to dumpsters that worked fine; the last one my former roommate dragged home on his skateboard becuase he "found a big computer" that I might use for parts or something. I keep a windows machine around for gaming, just an overpriced console. Most geeks I know do the same thing.
You need swap. I've got 2 gigs of RAM on my work machine and will still use swap occasionally. I'd rather have an program slow down (usually when moving lots of files around) than crash.
Bleh. I dated one... big mistake. The psycho e-mails are finally starting to taper off (two months after we split), so things are improving. YMMV, but while looking at them is fine I wouldn't reccomend going out with one. Fun while it lasts, though.
Nothing, the circuit board in the middle of the two sets of keys that shows the caps lock light and whatnot caught fire. Nothing had been spilled in it, not abused in any way, but the damn thing caught fire. Never seen that before; I didn't think there was enough current.
Yeah, that works well for me. I've also set up one machine with a manual, mechanical hard drive selector switch. Yeah, I know, it's easy to put the cable on the other drive, but that's how the guy wanted it (friend at work). I didn't know that you could buy those, but you can. The wiring inside isn't pretty, but at least you don't have to open the case to make the switch, and only one drive is connected at a time. Hell, if you have a fast LAN VNC over SSH isn't a bad solution either, although I wouldn't try it for gaming.
I've been looking for an OS to replace RH9 on my machines that use it... this makes Fedora (actually, any distro using 2.6) look bad. On the other hand, I don't think this bug would affect me. I have one dual boot machine, with two primary master hard drives in it. One with RH9, one with W2k. If I wanted to boot into W2k (haven't in a couple of years, but you never know) I power down the machine and swap the IDE cable. Yeah, that's primitive, but it works. Computers are cheap these days, and it's just a matter of time in my opinion before a worm that can hose windows AND linux is released, that I'd rather have each OS on a seperate machine or at least separate drive. I'd guess a lot of slashdotters have a windows gaming machine (I do) that doesn't run linux and is basically disposable as far as the OS goes. If my gaming machine gets borked, I just ghost it back and hit windows update. That way it doesn't affect any real work. Unless you can't afford more than one machine, why would you want to dual boot?
Old 300ZX? They ALL did that. What I hate is shops who charge for diagnostics (usually just means plugging the car into a scanner for five minutes) and make a "diagnosis" that's WRONG. Case in point (I used to be a professional mechanic, I worked through college): A lady brought her car in, late 80's Olds that wouldn't idle. She had already taken it to another shop who charged her $50 to "put it on the scanner" (which showed a trouble code for a bad idle air control motor), $197 for the part, and $50 to install it. $300 later the car ran just as bad as when she first brought it in, and they told her that they had to do MORE diagnostic work. At that point she brought it to me. The car had a HUGE vaccuum leak through a defective PCV valve, which couldn't really be heard because it was sucking air from inside the valve cover. Common problem, though. All the idle air control warning on those OBD systems really told you was that the mixture was lean, not WHY. I think we charged her $2.00 for the new PCV valve, no labor charge because we felt kind of sorry for her at that point, and told her to get her money back on the parts she bought at the other shop. The service you get just depends on the shop. If I don't have time to fix my car I pay extra (higher labor) to take it someone who knows what they're doing rather then let an idiot throw parts at it. It's much cheaper in the long run.
The Microsoft Natural Elite is the only keyboard that I have ever seen literally go up in smoke. I like the ergonomics, but I have to get a new one every six months or so and I always keep a spare. (I keep using them because they're comfortable, and cost like $10 with other hardware).
I have a dual pentium box that's been happily working for about three years. Dual 1 gig procs, two gigs of ram. Hell, that thing has even been hit by lightning and all I lost was a drive in the raid array and a disk controller. Don't ask me why the motherboard lived, but it's still running. Abit motherboard, crucial ram. I don't need to reboot it unless I have to unplug it when I move (yes, it's linux, Redhat 7.3 right now but getting ready to migrate due the EOL thing). If you had a lot of problems with dual proc boards, I'm guessing it was hardware.
Shit, I recently made the mistake of trying to walk into my local courthouse with a pocketknife (I was trying to pay a ticket, and the knife had a 2.5" blade). I can see the need for security, but what they have now borders on paranoia. Their metal detectors go off on the foil in a pack on cigarettes, for pete's sake. I didn't get charged with anything, but they gave a HELL of a hassle over it.
Try installing win2k from two-year old disks and see how well that works. You'll have a worm (or three) long before that download completes. If I go to a client's site and they DONT have broadband, I go home and burn it onto a disk. Much safer, and much less hassle. See, you have patience... that blaster worm running on some other complacent user's box doesn't.
These people have obviously never tried to download a Microsoft service pack or new version of IE... then again, why would they? A significant percentage probably don't know what a service pack is, why they would want it, or whether or not their AV is up to date. If they don't want broadband, it's perfectly fine with me.
If you're using Bellsouth, the problem might be that you have the wrong type of connection. Bellsouth tech support told me line was PPOE, and they had a Roaring Penguin download on their FTP server, but the connection was PPOA. It was a bitch figuring that out and getting it working (RedHat 6.2-7.3 at the time with internal 3Com PCI DSL modem). Now they claim to support both, but only support PPOE in my area. You might want to make sure you're connecting to the type of network they tell you that you are... even their training manuals (FOR training tech support) were wrong at the time. I don't know if it ever got fixed. Also, call tech support LATE at night if you want Linux tech support from Bellsouth. They don't officially support it, but where I live the only *nix geeks work the night shift and have probably had the same problem on their home machines at some time. So yes, at the time I caught hell getting DSL working on Linux, but it wasn't RedHat's fault. It was crappy documentation from the phone company. The guy who wrote this article would, if he were trying to fix that DSL problem now, be bitching about something out of the control of the distro.
You're talking about some pretty unusual lawyers, aren't you? I guess you've never been fucked over by one. Just wait till you get hit by a driver with no insurance, get divorced, whatever. You'll quickly run into the usual sort of attorney. Have fun.
I've seen the same thing... and I'll give you another perspective: welfare isn't always available for those who need it for what it was meant for. Welfare was intended to be a safety net, not something that supports you for life. Let's take a real life example here that I recently saw: single college student loses job. No means of support. Can't get food stamps unless they work 20 hours per week. College work study only offers 19 hours per week. They can't find another job, and are screwed. Meanwhile the woman across the street can get welfare benifits because she is disabled; ie, too fat to work and has kids. The system is so fucked it's no wonder people game it. I'm sure some do it because they're lazy, but I'm sure just as many do it out of desperation.
And how do you propose a would-be good samaritan CHECK to see if he's dead or alive? Tap him on the shoulder, shake him, kick him in the ribs? If you are dealing with a typical "bum" (read mentally ill homeless person) I don't any of those is a real bright idea. Give it a try for a week, please, and repost and let us know how it turned out for you.
That's more than made up for by the people with actual experience and hundreds of thousands of rounds worth of trigger time... see, the crackhead really can't tell the difference, now can he?
That's exactly true... I don't know anyone who bothers calling the police unless somebody's bleeding, and then it's only to get the ambulance and/or insurance adjuster there. You pull a gun, mugger runs off, I'd bet that 3 out of 4 go unreported (and that's being conservative).
Ok, this needs a response... the first of knife fighting is YOU'RE GOING TO GET CUT. The second rule is... well, you get the idea. Yeah, I've had training in taking knives away from bad guys, and I've tried this once in the real world(crackhead tried to mug me). Guess what happens when the crackhead tries to run, trips, and you've got his arm grabbed when you both fall? Yeah, you guessed it, I got cut. Also the "skilled in martial arts" thing is bullshit: If you're tired, and your would-be-mugger is on drugs and doesn't give a shit, bad things can still happen. Even skinny crackheads can be stronger than they look, and the don't say HAI! or use martial arts moves. They either try to hurt you (in some fucked up way that you never practiced for) or run off. You don't want to get close enough to a mugger for a punching match if you have a choice. Another bit of advice: carry a big gun, or as big as you can hide. Pull a little one and the hopped up mugger might not notice. Yeah, that happened once too... but the dumbass ran into a store and called the cops on ME for pulling a gun when he realized what was going on. Now I carry a bigger one. Yeah, he got arrested (dumbass) and he was probably typical. See, muggers aren't real smart. If they were they wouldn't be muggers. If you live in a free country that allows such things carry a large, effective gun, and take it out if you really think your life is in danger. That usually ends it... the mugger runs off BEFORE he gets close enough to cut you. You get to go home and have a beer in peace without having to explain to the SO why you're bleeding on the rug, or having to explain to the cops why John Doe crackhead is bleeding all over the sidewalk. Enough said.
And if the mugger got shot, that's a BAD thing? Personally, it wouldn't bother me much. I think firearms training or a skill test should be required before carry permits are issued, but only to maximize the dead mugger/dead victim ratio.
On the other hand, what would we do if we get nuked first? And what if we knew the bomb or it's materials were supplied by rogue Pakistani scientists? Who do we nuke then? I don't think we would have a good response, to be honest. It would be stupid/useless/counterproductive to nuke ANYONE if terrorists were responsible. Which is why I think we should get back to the business of killing as many terrorists as possible, as soon as possible. Forget nation building; just tell Iraq and Afghanistan "OK, you're free now, it's your country" and leave with a warning that we'll come back if they cause trouble again. America needs to let the nations that they have invaded do their own thing... yeah, they'll probably fuck up and revert back to dictatorships/mullahs/whatever the totalitarian flavor of the week is in that part of the world. Why should we care? On the other hand, if a someone poses a threat, and you're sure, and you can FIND them, just fucking kill them. Yeah, you won't get to question them that way, but it's a lot less hassle than trying to capture them and if your intel was good enough to find them in the first place you probably don't need to question them anyway. I know a lot of people would object to this approach... due process, right to trial, the usual objections. If the alternative is risking making a lot of innocent people part of a parking lot, why is just finding and killing the terrorists and their supporters a problem? Especially since a country becoming a parking lot, as a lot of/.'s like to joke, isn't at all unthinkable anymore. It's probably more likely to happen now then in the cold war, since we can't exactly keep ICBMs pointed at bin Laden, can we?
I think this one has been tried... ever hear of "hueristics"? Norton, for example, claims to do this. I personally think that they're lying. Run a virus of your choice through an executable compressor and see if your AV still recognizes it. It doesn't, although the code should still (and usually does) do the exact same thing. I'd say more work is needed here.
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I haven't dual booted Linux since Redhat 5.something. When I build a box for someone I set it up to dual boot, hoping they will at least take a look at what that Linux partition does, but I never dual boot my own machines. Most Linux users I know have several machines (in my case I have ~20, and that's not unusual). I build machines as I need them, get hand-me-downs from work (or friends employers) and give the old stuff away when I run out of room. I've heard the argument that "I can only afford one machine", and I call BS. Yeah, I can only afford to build one new box a year to keep up with hardware advances, but older machines are pretty much free. I've found AS400's sitting next to dumpsters that worked fine; the last one my former roommate dragged home on his skateboard becuase he "found a big computer" that I might use for parts or something. I keep a windows machine around for gaming, just an overpriced console. Most geeks I know do the same thing.
You need swap. I've got 2 gigs of RAM on my work machine and will still use swap occasionally. I'd rather have an program slow down (usually when moving lots of files around) than crash.
Bleh. I dated one... big mistake. The psycho e-mails are finally starting to taper off (two months after we split), so things are improving. YMMV, but while looking at them is fine I wouldn't reccomend going out with one. Fun while it lasts, though.
Nothing, the circuit board in the middle of the two sets of keys that shows the caps lock light and whatnot caught fire. Nothing had been spilled in it, not abused in any way, but the damn thing caught fire. Never seen that before; I didn't think there was enough current.
Yeah, that works well for me. I've also set up one machine with a manual, mechanical hard drive selector switch. Yeah, I know, it's easy to put the cable on the other drive, but that's how the guy wanted it (friend at work). I didn't know that you could buy those, but you can. The wiring inside isn't pretty, but at least you don't have to open the case to make the switch, and only one drive is connected at a time. Hell, if you have a fast LAN VNC over SSH isn't a bad solution either, although I wouldn't try it for gaming.
I've been looking for an OS to replace RH9 on my machines that use it... this makes Fedora (actually, any distro using 2.6) look bad. On the other hand, I don't think this bug would affect me. I have one dual boot machine, with two primary master hard drives in it. One with RH9, one with W2k. If I wanted to boot into W2k (haven't in a couple of years, but you never know) I power down the machine and swap the IDE cable. Yeah, that's primitive, but it works. Computers are cheap these days, and it's just a matter of time in my opinion before a worm that can hose windows AND linux is released, that I'd rather have each OS on a seperate machine or at least separate drive. I'd guess a lot of slashdotters have a windows gaming machine (I do) that doesn't run linux and is basically disposable as far as the OS goes. If my gaming machine gets borked, I just ghost it back and hit windows update. That way it doesn't affect any real work. Unless you can't afford more than one machine, why would you want to dual boot?
Old 300ZX? They ALL did that. What I hate is shops who charge for diagnostics (usually just means plugging the car into a scanner for five minutes) and make a "diagnosis" that's WRONG. Case in point (I used to be a professional mechanic, I worked through college): A lady brought her car in, late 80's Olds that wouldn't idle. She had already taken it to another shop who charged her $50 to "put it on the scanner" (which showed a trouble code for a bad idle air control motor), $197 for the part, and $50 to install it. $300 later the car ran just as bad as when she first brought it in, and they told her that they had to do MORE diagnostic work. At that point she brought it to me. The car had a HUGE vaccuum leak through a defective PCV valve, which couldn't really be heard because it was sucking air from inside the valve cover. Common problem, though. All the idle air control warning on those OBD systems really told you was that the mixture was lean, not WHY. I think we charged her $2.00 for the new PCV valve, no labor charge because we felt kind of sorry for her at that point, and told her to get her money back on the parts she bought at the other shop. The service you get just depends on the shop. If I don't have time to fix my car I pay extra (higher labor) to take it someone who knows what they're doing rather then let an idiot throw parts at it. It's much cheaper in the long run.
The Microsoft Natural Elite is the only keyboard that I have ever seen literally go up in smoke. I like the ergonomics, but I have to get a new one every six months or so and I always keep a spare. (I keep using them because they're comfortable, and cost like $10 with other hardware).
I have a dual pentium box that's been happily working for about three years. Dual 1 gig procs, two gigs of ram. Hell, that thing has even been hit by lightning and all I lost was a drive in the raid array and a disk controller. Don't ask me why the motherboard lived, but it's still running. Abit motherboard, crucial ram. I don't need to reboot it unless I have to unplug it when I move (yes, it's linux, Redhat 7.3 right now but getting ready to migrate due the EOL thing). If you had a lot of problems with dual proc boards, I'm guessing it was hardware.
Shit, I recently made the mistake of trying to walk into my local courthouse with a pocketknife (I was trying to pay a ticket, and the knife had a 2.5" blade). I can see the need for security, but what they have now borders on paranoia. Their metal detectors go off on the foil in a pack on cigarettes, for pete's sake. I didn't get charged with anything, but they gave a HELL of a hassle over it.
Their biggest investor is saying (in the Cnet article) "your products are crap, just stick to suing people". This is good news for SCO?
Try installing win2k from two-year old disks and see how well that works. You'll have a worm (or three) long before that download completes. If I go to a client's site and they DONT have broadband, I go home and burn it onto a disk. Much safer, and much less hassle. See, you have patience... that blaster worm running on some other complacent user's box doesn't.
These people have obviously never tried to download a Microsoft service pack or new version of IE... then again, why would they? A significant percentage probably don't know what a service pack is, why they would want it, or whether or not their AV is up to date. If they don't want broadband, it's perfectly fine with me.
If you're using Bellsouth, the problem might be that you have the wrong type of connection. Bellsouth tech support told me line was PPOE, and they had a Roaring Penguin download on their FTP server, but the connection was PPOA. It was a bitch figuring that out and getting it working (RedHat 6.2-7.3 at the time with internal 3Com PCI DSL modem). Now they claim to support both, but only support PPOE in my area. You might want to make sure you're connecting to the type of network they tell you that you are... even their training manuals (FOR training tech support) were wrong at the time. I don't know if it ever got fixed. Also, call tech support LATE at night if you want Linux tech support from Bellsouth. They don't officially support it, but where I live the only *nix geeks work the night shift and have probably had the same problem on their home machines at some time. So yes, at the time I caught hell getting DSL working on Linux, but it wasn't RedHat's fault. It was crappy documentation from the phone company. The guy who wrote this article would, if he were trying to fix that DSL problem now, be bitching about something out of the control of the distro.
I'd run across your comic a couple of times in the past, but never would have thought you were a /.'er. Nice site.
You're talking about some pretty unusual lawyers, aren't you? I guess you've never been fucked over by one. Just wait till you get hit by a driver with no insurance, get divorced, whatever. You'll quickly run into the usual sort of attorney. Have fun.
I've seen the same thing... and I'll give you another perspective: welfare isn't always available for those who need it for what it was meant for. Welfare was intended to be a safety net, not something that supports you for life. Let's take a real life example here that I recently saw: single college student loses job. No means of support. Can't get food stamps unless they work 20 hours per week. College work study only offers 19 hours per week. They can't find another job, and are screwed. Meanwhile the woman across the street can get welfare benifits because she is disabled; ie, too fat to work and has kids. The system is so fucked it's no wonder people game it. I'm sure some do it because they're lazy, but I'm sure just as many do it out of desperation.
And how do you propose a would-be good samaritan CHECK to see if he's dead or alive? Tap him on the shoulder, shake him, kick him in the ribs? If you are dealing with a typical "bum" (read mentally ill homeless person) I don't any of those is a real bright idea. Give it a try for a week, please, and repost and let us know how it turned out for you.
That's more than made up for by the people with actual experience and hundreds of thousands of rounds worth of trigger time... see, the crackhead really can't tell the difference, now can he?
That's exactly true... I don't know anyone who bothers calling the police unless somebody's bleeding, and then it's only to get the ambulance and/or insurance adjuster there. You pull a gun, mugger runs off, I'd bet that 3 out of 4 go unreported (and that's being conservative).
Ok, this needs a response... the first of knife fighting is YOU'RE GOING TO GET CUT. The second rule is... well, you get the idea. Yeah, I've had training in taking knives away from bad guys, and I've tried this once in the real world(crackhead tried to mug me). Guess what happens when the crackhead tries to run, trips, and you've got his arm grabbed when you both fall? Yeah, you guessed it, I got cut. Also the "skilled in martial arts" thing is bullshit: If you're tired, and your would-be-mugger is on drugs and doesn't give a shit, bad things can still happen. Even skinny crackheads can be stronger than they look, and the don't say HAI! or use martial arts moves. They either try to hurt you (in some fucked up way that you never practiced for) or run off. You don't want to get close enough to a mugger for a punching match if you have a choice. Another bit of advice: carry a big gun, or as big as you can hide. Pull a little one and the hopped up mugger might not notice. Yeah, that happened once too... but the dumbass ran into a store and called the cops on ME for pulling a gun when he realized what was going on. Now I carry a bigger one. Yeah, he got arrested (dumbass) and he was probably typical. See, muggers aren't real smart. If they were they wouldn't be muggers. If you live in a free country that allows such things carry a large, effective gun, and take it out if you really think your life is in danger. That usually ends it... the mugger runs off BEFORE he gets close enough to cut you. You get to go home and have a beer in peace without having to explain to the SO why you're bleeding on the rug, or having to explain to the cops why John Doe crackhead is bleeding all over the sidewalk. Enough said.
And if the mugger got shot, that's a BAD thing? Personally, it wouldn't bother me much. I think firearms training or a skill test should be required before carry permits are issued, but only to maximize the dead mugger/dead victim ratio.
On the other hand, what would we do if we get nuked first? And what if we knew the bomb or it's materials were supplied by rogue Pakistani scientists? Who do we nuke then? I don't think we would have a good response, to be honest. It would be stupid/useless/counterproductive to nuke ANYONE if terrorists were responsible. Which is why I think we should get back to the business of killing as many terrorists as possible, as soon as possible. Forget nation building; just tell Iraq and Afghanistan "OK, you're free now, it's your country" and leave with a warning that we'll come back if they cause trouble again. America needs to let the nations that they have invaded do their own thing... yeah, they'll probably fuck up and revert back to dictatorships/mullahs/whatever the totalitarian flavor of the week is in that part of the world. Why should we care? On the other hand, if a someone poses a threat, and you're sure, and you can FIND them, just fucking kill them. Yeah, you won't get to question them that way, but it's a lot less hassle than trying to capture them and if your intel was good enough to find them in the first place you probably don't need to question them anyway. I know a lot of people would object to this approach... due process, right to trial, the usual objections. If the alternative is risking making a lot of innocent people part of a parking lot, why is just finding and killing the terrorists and their supporters a problem? Especially since a country becoming a parking lot, as a lot of /.'s like to joke, isn't at all unthinkable anymore. It's probably more likely to happen now then in the cold war, since we can't exactly keep ICBMs pointed at bin Laden, can we?
I agree, and call bullshit on the grandparent. The linked story was about LACK of innovation, wasn't it? When is Longhorn due? 2006? 2008?
I think this one has been tried... ever hear of "hueristics"? Norton, for example, claims to do this. I personally think that they're lying. Run a virus of your choice through an executable compressor and see if your AV still recognizes it. It doesn't, although the code should still (and usually does) do the exact same thing. I'd say more work is needed here.