Of course, but it's faster and easier to have your physical auditors just running around looking for damaged goods than it is to have them walking around with clipboards counting everything.
You've got the bits/digits disctinction right, but I think you're confusing two other things here (cost issues). The 5-10 cent cost is for adding RFID to the mix, not for just the new 96-bit EPC (electronic product code), which will replace the 14-digit UPC code, which is about to replace the current 12-digit UPC code, which is running out of space.
I read the article to say that the current 12-digit UPC is already insufficient, so a stop-gap measure of switching to 14-digit UPC will be used starting next year. Both the 12- and 14-digit UPC's still only identify groups of products. The new 96-bit EPC will be used to identify individual products, and it will almost certainly be adopted within a few years. It's not stated plainly in the article, but it seems like there would be little or no extra cost in simoply moving from 12-digit (or 14-digit) UPC to 96-bit EPC, since they're both just printed on labels.
The adopters would also very much like to be able to add RFID tags to products marked with the new EPC code to allow remote queries, but this depends on the cost of RFID tags going down by a few orders of magnitude.
Tip: borrow an engraver from your local library (a free loan from most libraries in the US) and mark such items with something that identifies you (drivers' license number + state abbreviation is good) so that if the goods are found somewhere far from where they were stolen, the finders have a way to contact the owner.
Just recording serial numbers doesn't work well because it's likely that the people to whom you reported the items stolen will probably not be the same people who find the items (if anyone does at all). And they don't seem to have a system to exchange info about reported stolen property, so unless you want to go to every police auction in the country to check goods for your serial numbers, it's better to mark an item with something that identifies you rather than it.
Oh, wait, pebs! I know, tell that "SCOfromit" joke again!
That's a great one, especially over and over again!
Remember how you kept posting that joke, and like, getting modded +5 Funny, over and over again on the same joke, but then you found out that Funny mods don't count toward your karma, and you were all pissed and stuff, because you learned that? That was awesome! Heh.
Changing ISP's is a very costly event, and one that no company worth anything takes on lightly.
I disagree. If you design your system right, and know when you're going to do it, you can pull off a scripted switch in a few hours, with zero down-time if you have a few days of redundancy, and you can arrange it to be at the least active time just in case.
I'm sorry, I just don't buy that it's that big of a deal. Especially when compared to spam. Costly in certain cases maybe, but as the link above argues, in many cases you have been getting the low prices you enjoy now (and are so reluctant to lose) because of the subsidy provided by spammers to your ISP.
The only way to avoid this costly inconvenience to you is for everyone else to tolerate spam. That's unacceptable.
And that is perfectly OK! Really. Part of the reason that spam exists is it's largely unregulated environment. It's market-driven, and so SPEWS is a reasonable way of dealing with such a scourge when laws and regulations can't or won't help. Of course, by extension, it's perfectly OK for SPEWS to go away or fade into obscurity due to market backlash against it. It's worth noting that this did not happen. SPEWS was continuing to gain popularity.
But DDoS is not an OK way to make SPEWS go away. You know that. We all know that. Yet some people here are saying that the DDoS is OK because SPEWS is that bad. I take strong issue with that viewpoint.
How do you verify that at no point now or in the future will a spammer ever exist on your ISP's network?
Answer: YOU CAN'T!
Of course not. You can't be sure the contractor you hired last year will do a good job this year. You have to keep up on it, and you may have to change once in a while. We need ISPs to treat spam and spamming companies as seriously as lawyer takes client confidentiality or an EDA company treats an NDA -- violating propriety, or even looking as if you did, is a serious f-up, so extra steps are taken, with error margin, to prevent them. Once this is done for a while, it should cease to be a major problem as ISPs get the message that if they f-up, they will be out of business as thier customers will dump them in concert, immediately, if they facilitate spam.
An entire ip block may be rendered useless by overzealous blacklists, just because of one cracked computer.
You were doing good, but now this is FUD. As has been pointed out (successfully) already in this thread, it's just not that easy to get blocked, and there is a working procedure for getting un-blocked.
Aha, there it is. Someone finally said it. See, too many people choose their ISP based on cost and quality of service alone. That seems like a reasonable thing to do, of course, and it is a pretty reasonable thing to do when considering most service types. Without SPEWS, it was (and is, now again, I guess) a workable way to choose an ISP.
But that was bad. Really bad. Because it created an environment that favored ISPs who let a spammer on at least once and a while, then moved them around or temporarily suspended their service (only to re-instate them after the heat died down). ISPs can generate income from excess bandwidth pretty easily and at their convenience by allowing spamming customers, and they can make a nice premium if they do so. This extra income allowed the unethical ISPs to make their prices more competitive, and possibly even afford to buy better equipment or more support staff. This gave (gives) an advantage to the spam-facilitating ISPs and a disadvantage to the honest, spam-hating ISPs.
People who choose their ISP based on cost and quality of service alone, disgregarding what annoying and in some cases illegal activities the ISP might be supporting, are the reasons that a SPEWS-less environment favors spam-friendly ISPs. This means you.
Consider one who does business with criminals. Maybe all available business in the area seems to be criminal, or all the legit folks are too costly or inconvenient to do business with. Or maybe he didn't bother to check on them and really didn't know. If his nefarious business associate slips him a counterfeit $100-bill which he then deposits at his bank, the Secret Service won't reimburse him when they take the bill away. He's out $100 because of the actions of those who he chose to do business with. His reasons for doing business with them in the first place, no matter how compelling, are irrelevant.
It's one of those unfortunate situations that sometimes arise in a system that's mostly unregulated and primarily left to market forces. It kinda sucks, but it's nothing new. Caveat emptor
Well gee, thanks Mr. Obvious. No need to get your panties in a wad.
I'm not too worried about being "stuck" with the current situation myself. In fact, I'm not upset at all, much less upset with "people choosing what [I] don't want them to choose". In fact, I never said that I cared what anyone chose in particular, or expressed a preference for one choice or another. So, I really don't know where you're coming from, other an anger and possibly low blood-sugar.
I was just trying to help the first poster undersdtand the point of the article, since he didn't understand and asked for clarification. If you read my posts carefully (or at all, really) you'd note that I neither agreed nor disagreed with the article. I just tried to help someone understand the points presented -- that's neither explicit nor implicit support for said points. I think you're the one with something you need to get over.
My own email provider (Fastmail.fm) is very proactive about eliminating spammers and has a very strict anti-spam policy; however, it has been erroneously listed on Spamcop on at least one occasion causing problems for all of its legitamite users.
How do you know, other than by the facade they present to you, how pro-active or strict their antispam policy is? How do you know the listing was erroneous? Bottom line: you don't.
I read the blow-by-blow you posted, and it includes a blatant admission of guilt which completely contradicts the claims you made above. The page you cited doesn't include denial of spamming. On the contrary, the guy admits that spammers were (and are!) using his service. He even goes to great lengths to prove the that ratio of "good" email to spam from his service is very large, like 100k to 1 or something, and then argues that he shouldn't be listed bcause the spam originating from his company is so small in relation to the real mail.
Like so many posters here angry with SPEWS, this totally misses the point! SPEWS isn't a gentle suggestion to reduce your ISP spam output, or to make sure yor real mail/spam ratio is high. It is hardcore non-negotiable insistance that your ISP have ZERO spam tolerance. That's hard for some ISP's that are used to even the occasional pink contract for a little extra income. But it's the only way to avoid the list (except I guess DDoS now, yay).
Ok. So your purpose is to get the end-users pissed off at you instead of the spammers.
Well done. I'm one of them
And we should care because . . . why again?
Look, angry one: it works. Better than anything else. And, the few things a few loud voices are crying about are the very things that make (made) SPEWS work. It's really kind of funny to watch the round-and-round: "I don't spam but SPEWS blocked me!", "OK, change ISP's", "I can't", "Why not?", "I signed a contract", "Oh, too bad. Try smarthosting", "But it's not fair", "Yes, it is. Effective too.", "I hate SPEWS", "SPEWS loves you, though. It wants to be your friend. Pick a good ISP so that it can be your friend", "I want to keep my ISP", "OK, that's fine too. We just don't want your emails then", "But that's not fair! You should only block the actual spammers", "No, this way works. We like it this way; it stops spam.", "Well, I don't spam but SPEWS blocked me anyway", . . . lather rinse repeat.
Moreover, I scanned your posts in this thread and each one I read convinced me a little more that you are, indeed, a spammer who has been caught in the SPEWS net. Of course you're not happy about that. But, also of course, everyone else is. We just wish SPEWS would come back really soon. And I assure you that it, or something very much like it, will.
The innocents are unable to do anything about the people they are affiliated with.
Really? What law requires the "innocents" to stay with a spam-friendly ISP? Or did you mean unwilling instead of unable?
in the short term, the people punished have no real control over the situation.
Other than the 100% control afforded by their free choice of any ISP they want to go with, yeah, I guess you're right.
The honest non-spammers will continue to not spam, but be incredibly inconvenienced, while the spammers will ignore the edict and run around spamming on other networks.
Ah, but as long as SPEWS is up and running, and as more and more admins use SPEWS or similar, the behavior and work-around attempts of the spammers becomes more and more irrlevant.
If it didn't/doesn't work, why were so many spammers unhappy with SPEWS?
So, write down in your day planner, right there on the date that your current contract is due to expire, this simple action item: negotiate next contract duration to be dependent on the provider not being blacklisted.
Maybe this time it's a decent excuse, but next time you know. And any provider not willing to include a clause that lets you out if they get blacklisted is probably knowingly hiding spammers.
As to whether the provider is really "fine otherwise", to me that's like saying "my new dog keeps chewing the neighborhood kids' finger off, but otherwise he's fine . . . "
I'm really sorry that SPEWS has been a hassle for you and others, but it's worth it to me, and I wish more providers used SPEWS or similar (well, if it ever comes back). And, now that you know, you can plan for this sort of eventuality in the future, because it's only going to get more and more common as spam continues to grow.
I know what you're trying to say, but that's a bad analogy. If you're on house arrest, and you're honest (and abide by the law), you stay inside. Those who we're trying to control, however, are not law-abiding, and they will ignore the house-arrest edict. While tucked away on house arrest, how will the law-abider do anything to the law-breaker running around outside?
Moreover, putting someone on house-arrest without cause is a violation of their basic rights. No one has a right to email anyone. And, everyone has the right to refuse email from anyone.
Again, I know what you mean -- several people (who clearly have been burned by SPEWS, at least in thier own minds) have tried to express this point here and failed, primarily because of excessively-ambitious analogies. But don't let that stop you! Keep trying to get your message through. You've got the desire to do it, so now all you lack is a solid argument and/or a valid, well-presented analogy. Go for it!
Right, and I could choose to use TVWM for some reason, and then realize that there's little support for it, and that it sucks.
Of course, this would be a particularly bad choice since about 40% of everything out there works best with KDE, about 40% works best with Gnome, and about 20% works best with something else. But, even if I did choose KDE or Gnome, still about 60% of everything I might want to use would work better had I chosen differently. Also, I'd say that development efforts fall along a similar distribution, so 60% of all the fine folks working on OSS projects aren't really particularly interested in supporting my choice. And, 60% of the help/FAQ/HowTO info I cleverly find with google will make no sense to me in context of my GUI, since I chose the "other one".
It's super to provide choices, no doubt. But when none of the choices are all that great, most people would rather see available efforts focused on one choice to make it great before adding another choice.
Especially Garmin, which makes some nice GPS systems, but will rob you blind on accessories if you're not wise enough to spot a BNC cable or notice that the built-in antenna is detachable.
Garmin sells a remote antenna kit for $99 which is basically an 8' BNC cable and an antenna not much different than the one that comes with the GPS units (which you can buy without the BNC cable for $60.) Just an 8' cable with no antenna is $38!
These cables are trivial to find for under $5 elsewhere. Or for free if you have old network crap lying around as I do.
Nice sarcasm, but you're missing the point. You can have a standard, or at least most popular by a big margin GUI, and still maintain the freedom to install any window manager you want. Just like I can replace Windows explorer with another shell, or replace the Solaris CDE default with Gnome.
Both Windows and Solaris have what most would call a standard GUI, and that's a benefit in that (1) any program made is almost certain to work well and consistently with the standard GUI, (2) user help found on the web or otherwise will make sense to most users because GUI context is the same as what they have on thier desktop, and (3) development of GUI-related tools and apps is focused, usually producing one better implementation as opposed to many not-as-good ones.
No one is suggesting the removal of your choices or the reduction in the number of choices available, rather just creating a more common standard for most people to use, leaving you free to replace it with anything you want if it's important to you.
Well, one, or the other, in this distro, or that one. But no standard one. I think the point is that newbies don't always choose well, and sometimes the problems arising from a bad choice of GUI (which maybe just the default selection) turn people off of Linux, or confuse them because something they want to do seems to be easier in the "other" GUI.
It's a decent point, but I can see compromise in the Middle East coming sooner than a merger of KDE and Gnome.:)
WTF? This snake oil is on sourceforge? Your website reminds me a lot of this, but just not as cool (or funny). You know, another poster said it nicer, but I'm going to be blunt(er): nix the ABSOLUTELY AMAZING OUTSTANDING SUPERFRAGILISTIC carny huckster snake-oil salesman copy on that site, please. I couldn't stand it enough to see if you do bring TRUE AI TO THE DESKTOP or not. And now my eyes and head hurts.
I can't moderate here because I've posted in this thread, but this isn't a troll folks. Just because it's written from an evil spammer perspective doesn't make it a troll. It includes several good points. If this is a troll, then so is every other post in this thread.
Why would SPEWS watch usenet for mistakes if they never happend?
I think you misunderstood. SPEWS doesn't "watch usenet for mistakes", they watch for groveling repenters who say something to the effect of "OK, we screwed up and let spammers in, but we kicked them off, we promise, really this time, and we know you'll roast us if we're lying, so we aren't, so pretty please, un-list us? Mkay? Thanks."
I don't use it, but is I had a bigger (and more public) mail server, I would, and I would advertise that fact. It's a plus, IMHO, but each potential user should have a choice whther or not to use an ISP/mail provider that filters.
Slashdot Mirror
You'll always have a need to do a physical audit.
Of course, but it's faster and easier to have your physical auditors just running around looking for damaged goods than it is to have them walking around with clipboards counting everything.
You've got the bits/digits disctinction right, but I think you're confusing two other things here (cost issues). The 5-10 cent cost is for adding RFID to the mix, not for just the new 96-bit EPC (electronic product code), which will replace the 14-digit UPC code, which is about to replace the current 12-digit UPC code, which is running out of space.
I read the article to say that the current 12-digit UPC is already insufficient, so a stop-gap measure of switching to 14-digit UPC will be used starting next year. Both the 12- and 14-digit UPC's still only identify groups of products. The new 96-bit EPC will be used to identify individual products, and it will almost certainly be adopted within a few years. It's not stated plainly in the article, but it seems like there would be little or no extra cost in simoply moving from 12-digit (or 14-digit) UPC to 96-bit EPC, since they're both just printed on labels. The adopters would also very much like to be able to add RFID tags to products marked with the new EPC code to allow remote queries, but this depends on the cost of RFID tags going down by a few orders of magnitude.
Tip: borrow an engraver from your local library (a free loan from most libraries in the US) and mark such items with something that identifies you (drivers' license number + state abbreviation is good) so that if the goods are found somewhere far from where they were stolen, the finders have a way to contact the owner.
Just recording serial numbers doesn't work well because it's likely that the people to whom you reported the items stolen will probably not be the same people who find the items (if anyone does at all). And they don't seem to have a system to exchange info about reported stolen property, so unless you want to go to every police auction in the country to check goods for your serial numbers, it's better to mark an item with something that identifies you rather than it.
Haha, that's a good one!
Oh, wait, pebs! I know, tell that "SCO from it" joke again!
That's a great one, especially over and over again!
Remember how you kept posting that joke, and like, getting modded +5 Funny, over and over again on the same joke, but then you found out that Funny mods don't count toward your karma, and you were all pissed and stuff, because you learned that? That was awesome! Heh.
Changing ISP's is a very costly event, and one that no company worth anything takes on lightly.
I disagree. If you design your system right, and know when you're going to do it, you can pull off a scripted switch in a few hours, with zero down-time if you have a few days of redundancy, and you can arrange it to be at the least active time just in case.
I'm sorry, I just don't buy that it's that big of a deal. Especially when compared to spam. Costly in certain cases maybe, but as the link above argues, in many cases you have been getting the low prices you enjoy now (and are so reluctant to lose) because of the subsidy provided by spammers to your ISP.
The only way to avoid this costly inconvenience to you is for everyone else to tolerate spam. That's unacceptable.
So, the boycotters become the boycotted.
And that is perfectly OK! Really. Part of the reason that spam exists is it's largely unregulated environment. It's market-driven, and so SPEWS is a reasonable way of dealing with such a scourge when laws and regulations can't or won't help. Of course, by extension, it's perfectly OK for SPEWS to go away or fade into obscurity due to market backlash against it. It's worth noting that this did not happen. SPEWS was continuing to gain popularity.
But DDoS is not an OK way to make SPEWS go away. You know that. We all know that. Yet some people here are saying that the DDoS is OK because SPEWS is that bad. I take strong issue with that viewpoint.
How do you verify that at no point now or in the future will a spammer ever exist on your ISP's network? Answer: YOU CAN'T!
Of course not. You can't be sure the contractor you hired last year will do a good job this year. You have to keep up on it, and you may have to change once in a while. We need ISPs to treat spam and spamming companies as seriously as lawyer takes client confidentiality or an EDA company treats an NDA -- violating propriety, or even looking as if you did, is a serious f-up, so extra steps are taken, with error margin, to prevent them. Once this is done for a while, it should cease to be a major problem as ISPs get the message that if they f-up, they will be out of business as thier customers will dump them in concert, immediately, if they facilitate spam.
An entire ip block may be rendered useless by overzealous blacklists, just because of one cracked computer.
You were doing good, but now this is FUD. As has been pointed out (successfully) already in this thread, it's just not that easy to get blocked, and there is a working procedure for getting un-blocked.
Aha, there it is. Someone finally said it. See, too many people choose their ISP based on cost and quality of service alone. That seems like a reasonable thing to do, of course, and it is a pretty reasonable thing to do when considering most service types. Without SPEWS, it was (and is, now again, I guess) a workable way to choose an ISP.
But that was bad. Really bad. Because it created an environment that favored ISPs who let a spammer on at least once and a while, then moved them around or temporarily suspended their service (only to re-instate them after the heat died down). ISPs can generate income from excess bandwidth pretty easily and at their convenience by allowing spamming customers, and they can make a nice premium if they do so. This extra income allowed the unethical ISPs to make their prices more competitive, and possibly even afford to buy better equipment or more support staff. This gave (gives) an advantage to the spam-facilitating ISPs and a disadvantage to the honest, spam-hating ISPs.
People who choose their ISP based on cost and quality of service alone, disgregarding what annoying and in some cases illegal activities the ISP might be supporting, are the reasons that a SPEWS-less environment favors spam-friendly ISPs. This means you.
Consider one who does business with criminals. Maybe all available business in the area seems to be criminal, or all the legit folks are too costly or inconvenient to do business with. Or maybe he didn't bother to check on them and really didn't know. If his nefarious business associate slips him a counterfeit $100-bill which he then deposits at his bank, the Secret Service won't reimburse him when they take the bill away. He's out $100 because of the actions of those who he chose to do business with. His reasons for doing business with them in the first place, no matter how compelling, are irrelevant.
It's one of those unfortunate situations that sometimes arise in a system that's mostly unregulated and primarily left to market forces. It kinda sucks, but it's nothing new. Caveat emptor
Well gee, thanks Mr. Obvious. No need to get your panties in a wad.
I'm not too worried about being "stuck" with the current situation myself. In fact, I'm not upset at all, much less upset with "people choosing what [I] don't want them to choose". In fact, I never said that I cared what anyone chose in particular, or expressed a preference for one choice or another. So, I really don't know where you're coming from, other an anger and possibly low blood-sugar.
I was just trying to help the first poster undersdtand the point of the article, since he didn't understand and asked for clarification. If you read my posts carefully (or at all, really) you'd note that I neither agreed nor disagreed with the article. I just tried to help someone understand the points presented -- that's neither explicit nor implicit support for said points. I think you're the one with something you need to get over.
YAAASP - Yet Another Anecdotal Anti-SPEWS Post.
This is getting tiresome . . .
My own email provider (Fastmail.fm) is very proactive about eliminating spammers and has a very strict anti-spam policy; however, it has been erroneously listed on Spamcop on at least one occasion causing problems for all of its legitamite users.
How do you know, other than by the facade they present to you, how pro-active or strict their antispam policy is? How do you know the listing was erroneous? Bottom line: you don't.
I read the blow-by-blow you posted, and it includes a blatant admission of guilt which completely contradicts the claims you made above. The page you cited doesn't include denial of spamming. On the contrary, the guy admits that spammers were (and are!) using his service. He even goes to great lengths to prove the that ratio of "good" email to spam from his service is very large, like 100k to 1 or something, and then argues that he shouldn't be listed bcause the spam originating from his company is so small in relation to the real mail.
Like so many posters here angry with SPEWS, this totally misses the point! SPEWS isn't a gentle suggestion to reduce your ISP spam output, or to make sure yor real mail/spam ratio is high. It is hardcore non-negotiable insistance that your ISP have ZERO spam tolerance. That's hard for some ISP's that are used to even the occasional pink contract for a little extra income. But it's the only way to avoid the list (except I guess DDoS now, yay).
Ok. So your purpose is to get the end-users pissed off at you instead of the spammers.
Well done. I'm one of them
And we should care because . . . why again?
Look, angry one: it works. Better than anything else. And, the few things a few loud voices are crying about are the very things that make (made) SPEWS work. It's really kind of funny to watch the round-and-round: "I don't spam but SPEWS blocked me!", "OK, change ISP's", "I can't", "Why not?", "I signed a contract", "Oh, too bad. Try smarthosting", "But it's not fair", "Yes, it is. Effective too.", "I hate SPEWS", "SPEWS loves you, though. It wants to be your friend. Pick a good ISP so that it can be your friend", "I want to keep my ISP", "OK, that's fine too. We just don't want your emails then", "But that's not fair! You should only block the actual spammers", "No, this way works. We like it this way; it stops spam.", "Well, I don't spam but SPEWS blocked me anyway", . . . lather rinse repeat.
Moreover, I scanned your posts in this thread and each one I read convinced me a little more that you are, indeed, a spammer who has been caught in the SPEWS net. Of course you're not happy about that. But, also of course, everyone else is. We just wish SPEWS would come back really soon. And I assure you that it, or something very much like it, will.
The innocents are unable to do anything about the people they are affiliated with.
Really? What law requires the "innocents" to stay with a spam-friendly ISP? Or did you mean unwilling instead of unable?
in the short term, the people punished have no real control over the situation.
Other than the 100% control afforded by their free choice of any ISP they want to go with, yeah, I guess you're right.
The honest non-spammers will continue to not spam, but be incredibly inconvenienced, while the spammers will ignore the edict and run around spamming on other networks.
Ah, but as long as SPEWS is up and running, and as more and more admins use SPEWS or similar, the behavior and work-around attempts of the spammers becomes more and more irrlevant.
If it didn't/doesn't work, why were so many spammers unhappy with SPEWS?
Wow, you sound like a really angry spammer. It makes me happy to see spammers upset. I can't wait for SPEWS or its replacement to be back in business.
Spamming makes baby Jesus cry.
So, write down in your day planner, right there on the date that your current contract is due to expire, this simple action item: negotiate next contract duration to be dependent on the provider not being blacklisted.
Maybe this time it's a decent excuse, but next time you know. And any provider not willing to include a clause that lets you out if they get blacklisted is probably knowingly hiding spammers.
As to whether the provider is really "fine otherwise", to me that's like saying "my new dog keeps chewing the neighborhood kids' finger off, but otherwise he's fine . . . "
I'm really sorry that SPEWS has been a hassle for you and others, but it's worth it to me, and I wish more providers used SPEWS or similar (well, if it ever comes back). And, now that you know, you can plan for this sort of eventuality in the future, because it's only going to get more and more common as spam continues to grow.
I know what you're trying to say, but that's a bad analogy. If you're on house arrest, and you're honest (and abide by the law), you stay inside. Those who we're trying to control, however, are not law-abiding, and they will ignore the house-arrest edict. While tucked away on house arrest, how will the law-abider do anything to the law-breaker running around outside?
Moreover, putting someone on house-arrest without cause is a violation of their basic rights. No one has a right to email anyone. And, everyone has the right to refuse email from anyone.
Again, I know what you mean -- several people (who clearly have been burned by SPEWS, at least in thier own minds) have tried to express this point here and failed, primarily because of excessively-ambitious analogies. But don't let that stop you! Keep trying to get your message through. You've got the desire to do it, so now all you lack is a solid argument and/or a valid, well-presented analogy. Go for it!
Right, and I could choose to use TVWM for some reason, and then realize that there's little support for it, and that it sucks.
Of course, this would be a particularly bad choice since about 40% of everything out there works best with KDE, about 40% works best with Gnome, and about 20% works best with something else. But, even if I did choose KDE or Gnome, still about 60% of everything I might want to use would work better had I chosen differently. Also, I'd say that development efforts fall along a similar distribution, so 60% of all the fine folks working on OSS projects aren't really particularly interested in supporting my choice. And, 60% of the help/FAQ/HowTO info I cleverly find with google will make no sense to me in context of my GUI, since I chose the "other one".
It's super to provide choices, no doubt. But when none of the choices are all that great, most people would rather see available efforts focused on one choice to make it great before adding another choice.
...and GPS antennas.
Especially Garmin, which makes some nice GPS systems, but will rob you blind on accessories if you're not wise enough to spot a BNC cable or notice that the built-in antenna is detachable.
Garmin sells a remote antenna kit for $99 which is basically an 8' BNC cable and an antenna not much different than the one that comes with the GPS units (which you can buy without the BNC cable for $60.) Just an 8' cable with no antenna is $38!
These cables are trivial to find for under $5 elsewhere. Or for free if you have old network crap lying around as I do.
BNC is dead! Long live BNC!
Nice sarcasm, but you're missing the point. You can have a standard, or at least most popular by a big margin GUI, and still maintain the freedom to install any window manager you want. Just like I can replace Windows explorer with another shell, or replace the Solaris CDE default with Gnome.
Both Windows and Solaris have what most would call a standard GUI, and that's a benefit in that (1) any program made is almost certain to work well and consistently with the standard GUI, (2) user help found on the web or otherwise will make sense to most users because GUI context is the same as what they have on thier desktop, and (3) development of GUI-related tools and apps is focused, usually producing one better implementation as opposed to many not-as-good ones.
No one is suggesting the removal of your choices or the reduction in the number of choices available, rather just creating a more common standard for most people to use, leaving you free to replace it with anything you want if it's important to you.
Well, one, or the other, in this distro, or that one. But no standard one. I think the point is that newbies don't always choose well, and sometimes the problems arising from a bad choice of GUI (which maybe just the default selection) turn people off of Linux, or confuse them because something they want to do seems to be easier in the "other" GUI.
:)
It's a decent point, but I can see compromise in the Middle East coming sooner than a merger of KDE and Gnome.
WTF? This snake oil is on sourceforge? Your website reminds me a lot of this, but just not as cool (or funny). You know, another poster said it nicer, but I'm going to be blunt(er): nix the ABSOLUTELY AMAZING OUTSTANDING SUPERFRAGILISTIC carny huckster snake-oil salesman copy on that site, please. I couldn't stand it enough to see if you do bring TRUE AI TO THE DESKTOP or not. And now my eyes and head hurts.
Like the fastest one in the world, made by NEC, a Japanese company, with no connection to or assistance from HP? Oh, guess not.
HP does have connections to 2 of the top 5, but none of those has been touted recently, AFAICR. Which one(s) were you thinking of?
Can't recall where this is from, but my favorite error message:
ERROR: this can never happen
You better have an answer for this and I want^H^H^H^Hneed to know NOW.
I can't moderate here because I've posted in this thread, but this isn't a troll folks. Just because it's written from an evil spammer perspective doesn't make it a troll. It includes several good points. If this is a troll, then so is every other post in this thread.
Why would SPEWS watch usenet for mistakes if they never happend?
I think you misunderstood. SPEWS doesn't "watch usenet for mistakes", they watch for groveling repenters who say something to the effect of "OK, we screwed up and let spammers in, but we kicked them off, we promise, really this time, and we know you'll roast us if we're lying, so we aren't, so pretty please, un-list us? Mkay? Thanks."
I don't use it, but is I had a bigger (and more public) mail server, I would, and I would advertise that fact. It's a plus, IMHO, but each potential user should have a choice whther or not to use an ISP/mail provider that filters.