Don't get me wrong, I like getting a little web-traffic (I said a little so no/.ing please!), but when I look through my logs and see searches where Google is referring people to my site inappropriately, I almost want to scream at the mindlessness they use to catagorize my web pages. On the one hand, I'm flattered, but on the other hand it's disturbingly out of context. I even put the <meta NAME="robots" CONTENT="noindex,noarchive"> line in the headers that were giving me headaches, but people still end up at my site looking for that damned lemonparty.jpg just because I mentioned it in my blog once.
I prefer "The enemy of my enemy is convenient." I saw someone post that once here on Slashdot, but I forget who or where, because I'd gladly attribute it. I don't have to approve of IBM and their historical abuse of patents to approve of what they will likely do to SCO.
It goes without saying, but it needs to be said: SCO threatens the existence of free (as in freedom) software, and for now, IBM has taken up the sword in defense of that principle. If SCO where to somehow prevail, the nightmare of endless litigation would be of biblical proportions. No matter how you feel about IBM, SCO must be stopped.
Now after this is all over with, will I become a Big Blue groupie? Probably not. But it does influence my future buying decision when I'm looking for a new laptop built with consideration for using Linux.
The recording industry survey was carried out by Quantum Market Research using a sample of about 1000 people. It suggests that 31 million homemade CDs are given away as gifts each year (about four for each of the eight million Australians it says receive them). If, as seems reasonable, 31 million homemade CDs are kept rather than given away, the total number created each year would top 62 million.
I'm just wondering if every one of those CD-R's they're counting are music disks. I buy CD-R's in bulk for archiving purposes. Are they counting those as well?
Also, what were the demographics of the 1000 people? If they were just interviewing 13 to 24 year olds, then probably many of the CD-R's consumed would be used for custom music CD's, but beyond that, the CD serves as an excellent storage device for keeping archives of web pages, photographs, home movies, financial documents, software backups, etc... Even my parents give me CD's they've burned like the time Mom took her digital camera on vacation.
Heck, my downloaded collection of Linux distro's from ISO's in the past year has used over 50 CD's. I've given out about half of them as gifts. Are they including such uses in their results?
How to destroy western civilization:
--------------------
Step 1: Learn how to fly commercial airliner(s)
Step 2: Get on board short flights with lots of fuel.
Step 3: Storm the cockpit and take over the controls
Step 4: Fly plane into World Trade towers
Step 5: Watch American government toss all human rights and civil liberties out the window.
OK, my point may be a bit extreme, but with enough resources and cunning, you can commit any atrocity or other crimes regardless of the so called security measures. Any idiot can burn down a barn.
This just happens to be a pretty nifty wonder gadget for the home. It's too rich for my blood, but after seeing the demo, I'm impressed with the concept. Somehow though, I doubt it will catch on in the mainstream, but not for lack of system security.
Don't get me wrong G of T. I've seen a lot of other posts on here whining about how insecure they think this concept is, and I just picked yours out because you actually took the time to think up a step by step approach to circumventing it.
It's good to be concerned, and sometimes a little paranoia can be your friend, but this looks like a well thought out system that deserves better than a snide dismiss.
So what we had plans, not a serious OP or we would have done it.
Yes, but why don't we have plans to switch away from fossil fuels? Why don't we have plans to make a more self-reliant society? Why don't we have plans to benefit all of mankind?
It's kind of sad to look back at the ignoble plans we have made and realize that we haven't really changed.
I've seen a few people touch on this comment already, but I thought I'd state it in my own words: Why would you regulate something you don't know for certain is going to be a standard? It's almost like regulating the sales of pet rocks or cabbage patch dolls because they look like they might be the next big thing. Sure, things flare up and look wildly popular for a time, but did you actually think that beanie babies would replace currency?
The only reason to regulate a utility is when the importance of a utility to the establishment has exceded the capacity of the providers of said utility, thus requiring government imposed regulation to ensure the maintained existance of the utility for the general welfare of the people within the establishment.
VoIP is NOT essential. While it may be a novel way for a few companies to deal with communications and their costs, the POTS are by far the most essential means for people to communicate, and is in no danger of being surplanted any time in the near future.
Seriously, we need to stop legislators from making laws like this. It is pure follie to believe that it is possible to write a good law that is intended to be pre-emptive of future advances. Only fools would allow such things.
Err... in Australia, 'College' is used very loosely. Commonly referred to as 'a school, especially a private school, or (in some cases) a seinor secondary school' in my case.
Yeah, but I'm sure you could kick my butt when it comes to computers, and I've been working with them since I was 13... Wow... 20 years of computing, and for what?!
Mandrake is ripping you off by not supplying you with a.config file used in the configuration of the kernel you are running.
I wouldn't go that far... At least I never had to pay them for it! After briefly trying out 9.2, I'm gonna hold my breath for 10.0 before I consider sending them a dime. (IMHO 9.2 just sucked.)
Hunt a kernel-source package for you kernel, and copy the.config file from the top of the kernel tree into/lib/modules/2.4.21-0.13mdk/build/
But of course! I did an urpmi kernel-source-2.4.21-0.13mdk and everything started falling into place... Until it was time to load the driver... It seems that while everything else was working out fine, the driver itself (ivtv) never actually compiled.:-P
Screw it... I'm going to bed. Whenever I wake up, the computer had better be on its best behaviour or I'll wave a Windows ME installation disk in front of it.
Welcome to 2004!
Re:I don't think it's going to work.
on
Exporting Myself?
·
· Score: 1
As you can see, an I.T. worker making 50k a year would make 22k on unemployment.
I too live in Ohio, and this past year I made around 22k working 40 hours a week in a factory. (I would have made more but I took a 30 day personal leave over the summer.)
It's hard for me to stomache the plight of a shiny faced geek who can't find cubical work when I don't see any hint of industrial dirt on their hands.
When I realized I wasn't really cut out for the political gambit of the cubical farms, I took to making a living on different terms.
My life is not a disaster. I pay all my bills and mortgage on time, and I have pleasant and comfortable surroundings. No, I'm not rich, but I'm not on the brink of backruptcy. With just a modicum of financial self-control it can be done. And yes, I have enough to dine-out, go to the movies, purchase books, take the occasional extended vacation, and buy lots of computer toys. I'm financially self-sufficiant and solid, and in many ways that speaks for itself.
The only thing that has made living with my decision difficult is the pervasive classism in this country that believes because I do manual labor, I'm somehow "less equal" than others.
At one time I thought I wanted to be a computer programmer. Oh the folly! (I had the desire but no talent.) Perhaps one day I'll get around to chasing my other dream of opening my own little brick and mortar store. It's a little tough to find the right niche that is both profitable and inspires, so I'm just going to have to be patient.
If all goes well, it will be worth the wait. If it doesn't, then rushing in wouldn't have made any difference.
I recently wrote this in an e-mail to a friend. I think it's topical, and I meant to post it somewhere. Here is as good a place as any:
Bring Back The Home Grown BBS!
Well, I'm not thinking that
a dial-up BBS would be popular today, but I'm looking toward the future when
this internet "fad" self-immoliates. Don't get me wrong, the concept and idea
behind the internet is really sound and strong, but legislators and
multinational conglomerates are hell bent on re-creating it into a bigger and
bigger cash-cow pipeline that only serves their interests. Eventually the
internet's usefullness will gradually fade to the same level as a black and
white television, but not for lack of features or technology.
In fact it may become "over-technosized" so the major players can feel more
secure in *their* control over the whole system. It may be a decade or so
down the road, but eventually the "smart" people will start to peel away from
it and seek a new medium to freely and openly exchange ideas (and other
things) away from the prying eyes of government and corperate interests.
Abandoned notions such as the old-time BBS might just be what they will turn
toward, but most likely there will be a new twist: You'll connect to a BBS
that is web-browser enabled or developed using similar technology. Since the
lan connection has replaced the com ports as a primary means of
computer-to-computer communication, setting up multi-node systems won't be
the problem they used to be, and even small networks may erupt with the
individual owners of the BBS's making aliances to allow interconnectivity
between one another, and to allow their users to have access to more and more
resources.
Ultimately, we may actually end up with a system that works almost exactly
like the current system, but where no single interest can inflict their
ideology and legislation upon the masses.
Interesting and yet this still does not get me any closer to figuring out how to get my Hauppauge 250 working under Mandrake 9.1 using the 2.4.21-0.13mdk kernel. It just craps out with the following:
[dollar70@localhost driver]$ make
Makefile:11:/lib/modules/2.4.21-0.13mdk/build/.config: No such file or directory
make: *** No rule to make target `/lib/modules/2.4.21-0.13mdk/build/.config'. Stop.
What does that have to do with a 512MB video card? I dunno, but my focus has changed since Dec. 18th.
You started college when you were 6 years old? Wow. I'm 33 and still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up.
Thanks for playing, my friend, and have a happy new year!:-)
I don't really mean to sound cruel by this, but if you can't even find the time to set up your computer's printer, what makes you think you're ever going to manage to get your fridge online?
And I know I probably won't make any friends with this next statement either, but if your cooking skills are limited to the equivelent of "paint by numbers", then maybe you ought to just buy pretty appliances that are only there for show and buy the foods you want down at the local deli.
I just don't see how convergent technology inside of kitchen appliances is really going to be of any real benefit in the long run. If you're a lousy cook with basic kitchen utilities, you'll be a lousy cook with expensive high tech toys.
Which house will you buy next? The one built by a master carpenter with over 10 years of homebuilding experience, or the one build by "Fred" who just bought a franchise, but don't worry, he's got the internet ready tools (e-Hammer(TM) and e-Saw(TM)) to show him how it's done!
Again, I'm not trying to be mean about it, but if you've got enough cash to afford the infrastructure and maintenance of such merchandise, then you've got enough cash to pay someone else to prepare your food for you, and professionals are probably going to do a better job of it.
Besides, no one is ever impressed with that "I made it myself" line when it comes to food anymore. They always kill the moment by asking far too many questions: "What's in it?", "Did you use Salt? I can't have salt. How much salt did you say?", "My doctor told me I can't have any carbs.", "Have you ever tried putting pecans in it instead of almonds?", "Oh my gosh! This contains nuts! Oh no! I'm Allergic to nuts!"
Just flap out a box and let the brand name speak for itself: "Ooooooo! Krispy Kreme!", "Hey, check it out! It's Domino's!", "Cool! Doritos!", "Oh my! I just love Sarah Lee cheesecake!"
If you're going to cook, learn to cook. If your going to impress, go to the professionals. If you want to look stupid and pretentious in one stroke, buy an e-Ready(TM) fridge.
Could it be that this gathering of data is illegal?
(IANAL)- I doubt it. Companies with Linux servers openly advertise what OS they have over the internet. They could easily gleen info from places like Netcraft and others, not to mention the use of other forms of web-crawlers that are hardly to be considered illegal.
The entire point of computers is that they are general purpose devices.
Yes, but when people go to "Best Buy" or "Dell" and ask for a "computer" these days, what they're really asking for is an interactive television. They don't understand the concept of operating systems or programming, they just identify those things as buzz-words that make you look smart if you use them correctly in a sentence.
Would I rather want my workplace to be a collection of specialized devices, or a single device that can be configured to be any of the others, plus whatever else or new is necessary?
If this were fantasy land, I want a collection of devices that can individually be configured to be anything I need them to be.</drool>
I'm not so sure about that BH. I don't think that OSS is a bad thing, but proprietary closed source software firms (and perhaps even a few open source firms) will constantly be writing new software, letting their creations become standards, then attack people who develop open source applications around their standards with submarine patents.
Down the road you will have people getting sued over "Hello, world!" applications. Let's face it, when a few lines of java-script to annoy people with pop-under advertisements can get a patent, and companies like like SBC are patenting an obvious use for image mapping and frames, what chance does an open source programmer have when some jerk out there will try to patent the use of a ; at the end of a line of code?
I hate to beat a dead horse, but let's face it: We're probably legislating a lot of programmers out of business with software patents. How much incentive to program will you have when anything you write could potentially get you sued? Unless you work in a firm with the paralegal-lawyer-power to cover your butt, you might as well be testing grenades by pulling the pins and waiting to see if it does anything.
You're quite welcome. I've been going to Computerfest every chance I get. The various Linux seminars are actually pretty lame, but I like to go see them all the same. There's just something hypnotically sureal about a redneck explaining Redhat.
You're right. No need to waste a perfectly good computer show on Ohio. I'm just so tickled that we still have Computerfest!
(For those who don't know, it's mostly a big computer junk sale. Who knew that bugs in a computer system could be taken so litterally? {No Grace Hopper jokes please...})
I fantasize that one day I will escape from this state. Maybe in about 30 to 40 years when all my relatives are dead I'll be able to leave. I'll travel to a land where you could ask a question about an OS or piece of hardware and not get that look as though you had three eyes.
There's never any Linux or *BSD conventions in the Northwest.:-(
You should thank God you don't live in Ohio. People in these parts buy computers because it was on sale at Sears. They don't see anything wrong with the phrase, "I like Juno." Even the geeks speak with "twang". The traveling computer shows stopped coming here because they got tired of explaining why you couldn't connect a USB keyboard to a 386. In Ohio, old men masquerading as consultants buy PC's with twice the computing power of anyone they know, install 3 different anti-virus programs, brag about how great their computer works, then turn around three weeks later asking people if they know anything about computers because theirs stopped working for some reason.
I'd love to see something like LinuxWorld in Ohio.
One of the best reasons to use Linux in Ohio: "Hey, you know something about computers, don't you?"
"Sorry, can't help. I only work on Linux based PC's."
Should we consider these creations of ours, no matter how sophisticated and intelligent nothing more than machines?
Just because it looks humanoid does not mean that it too has sentience. It's a piece of hardware that carries out mathmatical formulas to emulate human movement. A marvelous achievement to say the least. I would even say it is a beautiful piece of art. But let's not get the cart before the horse.
When we actually have created synthetic sentience, then and only then we need to start wondering about the rights we may afford to our creations.
These are mechanical puppets... and God knows I want one! I'm going to start stealing old people's prescriptions so I can lure one to me!
There are some thing you have to pay for with linux.. Games is one of them.
I wouldn't mind going to my local computer store and purchasing the latest "Duke Quake'em 3-D" FPS for Linux. Trouble is, they don't sell them that way.
Minimum System Requirements:
100% IBM or PC Compatible
4GHz Pentium 5 or faster
512MB Video RAM*
2GB System RAM
High Speed Internet Connection (for use with credit card)
Yeah, I was wondering about the connection myself. After all, Mandrake hasn't gotten a lot of air-time on Slashdot lately (not that it's a bad thing necessarily), but two articles in two days? I was thinking, "Wow!" And what do I find? A lot of polarizing bigotry here in the comments.
I also find it disturbing that it's being associated with my preferred distro, Mandrake. I'd like to see more upbeat conversation of how Mandrake is helping people make the switch to Linux and open source, and not to argue over old political diatribes that should have been settled long ago.
I think it's great if any coutry wants to look into Open source, Linux, GNU/Linux (regardless of distro) because it can only mean better developement for all Linux platforms in the long run.
Only one problem, no one wanted it. Very few people used it, most spent their time fighting Win98 to get rid of the damn active desktop crap and decrying any attempt to push anything down their throats.
You're right. At that time the net was more heavily saturated with people who used computers as computers. Today, the home computer is being pushed onto the "garden variety" consumer as an entertainment device.
Back in the Win95/98 days (and even further back to the days of TRS-80, Commodore, and Apple ][), most of us computer users were trying to get our computers to do things that were useful. We were more concerned with getting more space out of a 512MB hard drive, and we even had special programs in the works to emulate more RAM through compression! Oh the glory days...
But back to the situation in the present, we see computers being sold everywhere, and everyone thinks they need to have one. We all know someone who's grandma bought a computer for her grandkids because she heard that kids today need a computer for school. We all know people who couldn't format a floppy disk but still climb on AOL. We can all find examples around us of people who don't need computers, but have them anyway. And this is why "push" technology is going to work this time.
Back when only the geeks, nerds, and other technologically gifted individuals were the super-majority, you couldn't dictate to them what they were allowed/not allowed to do with their computer. They bought the computer to be a computer. But the typical computer owner has drastically changed. They are not computer litterate. They are useless eaters! They want to be spoon fed. In fact, they are practically demanding it.
As for the "spam" threat... nah... way off base. People hear the hype about spam and go ape for no reason. If you're getting too much spam, it's because you are either stubborn, stupid, or both. If you are just emotionally stuck on using your "spamme@iwontchange.com" address, you're stubborn, and if you give it to a website to get free stuff, you're stupid. It takes very little effort to change to a different e-mail account. It takes just a modicum of self-control not to give out your personal e-mail to those who may use it to spam you.
People (or in this case "sheeple") hear about spam and start to over-react. They feel like they gotta complain about something, so they whine about "spam". After all, they heard some "talk-radio" guy complaining about it, so it sounds chic to them. Spam is mostly a family size can of Red Herring that any respectable computer geek can avoid.
And you're right- Back in the day, most computer users hated the push technology idea, but now the new computer user is the same guy who thinks owning a plasma TV is a smart investment.
These are the people who draw new attentions to the computer, and they aren't doing any of us any favors. I bought a computer... no... I built my computer to do what I want it to do. But thanks to Dell, HP, Gateway, Best Buy, Circuit City, etcetera, etcetera, ad nausium, people are buying them with expectations of a deus ex machina.
And who is going to provide them with all of this extraordinary content for their magical interactive TV? Why, the same fine folks who already provide you with the magical content you're used to getting. They just want legal control over it, and remote control over the magical box that's making it all possible.
They'll get their way, and destroy the only intelligent reason to own a computer in the first place-
Computer: A device used to store and manipulate data.
There are plenty of other special interest groups working on that too. Software/method patents, copyrights, DRM/Paladium/Longhorn, and the looming H.R.3261 will all work together to ensure that the internet becomes nothing more than the consumer equivelent of an interactive-television commercial.
First, they let the geeks do all the hard work in making it technically possible, then they attract attention to all the bells, whistles and general hype, they solidify the sale with the educational angle, then legislate it into a tasteless substance that no one in their right mind would ever swallow.
But the public will have bought the infrastructure, hook, line, and sinker. It's like watching Jethro Clampet get excited over them fancy city folk fads.
I could do more with a 56K dialup connection on a P120 with 16megs of RAM than I'll be able to do with a Pentium 7, 24Ghz with 16Tb of RAM and a connection speed at twice the speed of light.
Most of the people will be content just to "oooooo" and "aaaaah" the blinky lights.
If you don't mind older software, try "AOLpress". I still use it. Here's why:
It's basically a browser that also acts as a wysiwyg editor. You can also see/edit the source of the page. It has a pretty decent parser for cleaning up the code, and it does a decent job of checking the syntax on simple HTML. All this, and it's free as in beer (though not as in speech).
Here's why not:
It's out of date abandon-ware. I don't know if it's legally obtainable, but many people (like this guy) still have copies of it sitting around on their websites for you to freely download.
Whatever you do, please don't judge it by my website. I have little to no talent when it comes to web design... but that will never stop me from trying.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't get me wrong, I like getting a little web-traffic (I said a little so no /.ing please!), but when I look through my logs and see searches where Google is referring people to my site inappropriately, I almost want to scream at the mindlessness they use to catagorize my web pages. On the one hand, I'm flattered, but on the other hand it's disturbingly out of context. I even put the <meta NAME="robots" CONTENT="noindex,noarchive"> line in the headers that were giving me headaches, but people still end up at my site looking for that damned lemonparty.jpg just because I mentioned it in my blog once.
It goes without saying, but it needs to be said: SCO threatens the existence of free (as in freedom) software, and for now, IBM has taken up the sword in defense of that principle. If SCO where to somehow prevail, the nightmare of endless litigation would be of biblical proportions. No matter how you feel about IBM, SCO must be stopped.
Now after this is all over with, will I become a Big Blue groupie? Probably not. But it does influence my future buying decision when I'm looking for a new laptop built with consideration for using Linux.
The recording industry survey was carried out by Quantum Market Research using a sample of about 1000 people. It suggests that 31 million homemade CDs are given away as gifts each year (about four for each of the eight million Australians it says receive them). If, as seems reasonable, 31 million homemade CDs are kept rather than given away, the total number created each year would top 62 million.
I'm just wondering if every one of those CD-R's they're counting are music disks. I buy CD-R's in bulk for archiving purposes. Are they counting those as well?
Also, what were the demographics of the 1000 people? If they were just interviewing 13 to 24 year olds, then probably many of the CD-R's consumed would be used for custom music CD's, but beyond that, the CD serves as an excellent storage device for keeping archives of web pages, photographs, home movies, financial documents, software backups, etc... Even my parents give me CD's they've burned like the time Mom took her digital camera on vacation.
Heck, my downloaded collection of Linux distro's from ISO's in the past year has used over 50 CD's. I've given out about half of them as gifts. Are they including such uses in their results?
--------------------
Step 1: Learn how to fly commercial airliner(s)
Step 2: Get on board short flights with lots of fuel.
Step 3: Storm the cockpit and take over the controls
Step 4: Fly plane into World Trade towers
Step 5: Watch American government toss all human rights and civil liberties out the window.
OK, my point may be a bit extreme, but with enough resources and cunning, you can commit any atrocity or other crimes regardless of the so called security measures. Any idiot can burn down a barn.
This just happens to be a pretty nifty wonder gadget for the home. It's too rich for my blood, but after seeing the demo, I'm impressed with the concept. Somehow though, I doubt it will catch on in the mainstream, but not for lack of system security.
Don't get me wrong G of T. I've seen a lot of other posts on here whining about how insecure they think this concept is, and I just picked yours out because you actually took the time to think up a step by step approach to circumventing it.
It's good to be concerned, and sometimes a little paranoia can be your friend, but this looks like a well thought out system that deserves better than a snide dismiss.
Yes, but why don't we have plans to switch away from fossil fuels? Why don't we have plans to make a more self-reliant society? Why don't we have plans to benefit all of mankind?
It's kind of sad to look back at the ignoble plans we have made and realize that we haven't really changed.
The only reason to regulate a utility is when the importance of a utility to the establishment has exceded the capacity of the providers of said utility, thus requiring government imposed regulation to ensure the maintained existance of the utility for the general welfare of the people within the establishment.
VoIP is NOT essential. While it may be a novel way for a few companies to deal with communications and their costs, the POTS are by far the most essential means for people to communicate, and is in no danger of being surplanted any time in the near future.
Seriously, we need to stop legislators from making laws like this. It is pure follie to believe that it is possible to write a good law that is intended to be pre-emptive of future advances. Only fools would allow such things.
Yeah, but I'm sure you could kick my butt when it comes to computers, and I've been working with them since I was 13... Wow... 20 years of computing, and for what?!
Mandrake is ripping you off by not supplying you with a .config file used in the configuration of the kernel you are running.
I wouldn't go that far... At least I never had to pay them for it! After briefly trying out 9.2, I'm gonna hold my breath for 10.0 before I consider sending them a dime. (IMHO 9.2 just sucked.)
Hunt a kernel-source package for you kernel, and copy the .config file from the top of the kernel tree into /lib/modules/2.4.21-0.13mdk/build/
But of course! I did an urpmi kernel-source-2.4.21-0.13mdk and everything started falling into place... Until it was time to load the driver... It seems that while everything else was working out fine, the driver itself (ivtv) never actually compiled. :-P
Screw it... I'm going to bed. Whenever I wake up, the computer had better be on its best behaviour or I'll wave a Windows ME installation disk in front of it.
Welcome to 2004!
I too live in Ohio, and this past year I made around 22k working 40 hours a week in a factory. (I would have made more but I took a 30 day personal leave over the summer.)
It's hard for me to stomache the plight of a shiny faced geek who can't find cubical work when I don't see any hint of industrial dirt on their hands.
When I realized I wasn't really cut out for the political gambit of the cubical farms, I took to making a living on different terms.
My life is not a disaster. I pay all my bills and mortgage on time, and I have pleasant and comfortable surroundings. No, I'm not rich, but I'm not on the brink of backruptcy. With just a modicum of financial self-control it can be done. And yes, I have enough to dine-out, go to the movies, purchase books, take the occasional extended vacation, and buy lots of computer toys. I'm financially self-sufficiant and solid, and in many ways that speaks for itself.
The only thing that has made living with my decision difficult is the pervasive classism in this country that believes because I do manual labor, I'm somehow "less equal" than others.
At one time I thought I wanted to be a computer programmer. Oh the folly! (I had the desire but no talent.) Perhaps one day I'll get around to chasing my other dream of opening my own little brick and mortar store. It's a little tough to find the right niche that is both profitable and inspires, so I'm just going to have to be patient.
If all goes well, it will be worth the wait. If it doesn't, then rushing in wouldn't have made any difference.
Bring Back The Home Grown BBS!
Well, I'm not thinking that a dial-up BBS would be popular today, but I'm looking toward the future when this internet "fad" self-immoliates. Don't get me wrong, the concept and idea behind the internet is really sound and strong, but legislators and multinational conglomerates are hell bent on re-creating it into a bigger and bigger cash-cow pipeline that only serves their interests. Eventually the internet's usefullness will gradually fade to the same level as a black and white television, but not for lack of features or technology.
In fact it may become "over-technosized" so the major players can feel more secure in *their* control over the whole system. It may be a decade or so down the road, but eventually the "smart" people will start to peel away from it and seek a new medium to freely and openly exchange ideas (and other things) away from the prying eyes of government and corperate interests.
Abandoned notions such as the old-time BBS might just be what they will turn toward, but most likely there will be a new twist: You'll connect to a BBS that is web-browser enabled or developed using similar technology. Since the lan connection has replaced the com ports as a primary means of computer-to-computer communication, setting up multi-node systems won't be the problem they used to be, and even small networks may erupt with the individual owners of the BBS's making aliances to allow interconnectivity between one another, and to allow their users to have access to more and more resources.
Ultimately, we may actually end up with a system that works almost exactly like the current system, but where no single interest can inflict their ideology and legislation upon the masses.
zsh?
zshell?
z? Z?
I got it! Zombo!
This is ZomboShell! You can do anything at ZomboShell. The infinite is possible at ZomboShell! Yes, This - is - ZomboShell!
In case you don't get it...
[dollar70@localhost driver]$ make /lib/modules/2.4.21-0.13mdk/build/.config: No such file or directory
Makefile:11:
make: *** No rule to make target `/lib/modules/2.4.21-0.13mdk/build/.config'. Stop.
What does that have to do with a 512MB video card? I dunno, but my focus has changed since Dec. 18th.
You started college when you were 6 years old? Wow. I'm 33 and still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up.
Thanks for playing, my friend, and have a happy new year! :-)
And I know I probably won't make any friends with this next statement either, but if your cooking skills are limited to the equivelent of "paint by numbers", then maybe you ought to just buy pretty appliances that are only there for show and buy the foods you want down at the local deli.
I just don't see how convergent technology inside of kitchen appliances is really going to be of any real benefit in the long run. If you're a lousy cook with basic kitchen utilities, you'll be a lousy cook with expensive high tech toys.
Which house will you buy next? The one built by a master carpenter with over 10 years of homebuilding experience, or the one build by "Fred" who just bought a franchise, but don't worry, he's got the internet ready tools (e-Hammer(TM) and e-Saw(TM)) to show him how it's done!
Again, I'm not trying to be mean about it, but if you've got enough cash to afford the infrastructure and maintenance of such merchandise, then you've got enough cash to pay someone else to prepare your food for you, and professionals are probably going to do a better job of it.
Besides, no one is ever impressed with that "I made it myself" line when it comes to food anymore. They always kill the moment by asking far too many questions: "What's in it?", "Did you use Salt? I can't have salt. How much salt did you say?", "My doctor told me I can't have any carbs.", "Have you ever tried putting pecans in it instead of almonds?", "Oh my gosh! This contains nuts! Oh no! I'm Allergic to nuts!"
Just flap out a box and let the brand name speak for itself: "Ooooooo! Krispy Kreme!", "Hey, check it out! It's Domino's!", "Cool! Doritos!", "Oh my! I just love Sarah Lee cheesecake!"
If you're going to cook, learn to cook. If your going to impress, go to the professionals. If you want to look stupid and pretentious in one stroke, buy an e-Ready(TM) fridge.
(IANAL)- I doubt it. Companies with Linux servers openly advertise what OS they have over the internet. They could easily gleen info from places like Netcraft and others, not to mention the use of other forms of web-crawlers that are hardly to be considered illegal.
Yes, but when people go to "Best Buy" or "Dell" and ask for a "computer" these days, what they're really asking for is an interactive television. They don't understand the concept of operating systems or programming, they just identify those things as buzz-words that make you look smart if you use them correctly in a sentence.
Would I rather want my workplace to be a collection of specialized devices, or a single device that can be configured to be any of the others, plus whatever else or new is necessary?
If this were fantasy land, I want a collection of devices that can individually be configured to be anything I need them to be.</drool>
Down the road you will have people getting sued over "Hello, world!" applications. Let's face it, when a few lines of java-script to annoy people with pop-under advertisements can get a patent, and companies like like SBC are patenting an obvious use for image mapping and frames, what chance does an open source programmer have when some jerk out there will try to patent the use of a ; at the end of a line of code?
Sorry, I'm just too damned cynical today...
I hate to beat a dead horse, but let's face it: We're probably legislating a lot of programmers out of business with software patents. How much incentive to program will you have when anything you write could potentially get you sued? Unless you work in a firm with the paralegal-lawyer-power to cover your butt, you might as well be testing grenades by pulling the pins and waiting to see if it does anything.
You're quite welcome. I've been going to Computerfest every chance I get. The various Linux seminars are actually pretty lame, but I like to go see them all the same. There's just something hypnotically sureal about a redneck explaining Redhat.
(For those who don't know, it's mostly a big computer junk sale. Who knew that bugs in a computer system could be taken so litterally? {No Grace Hopper jokes please...})
I fantasize that one day I will escape from this state. Maybe in about 30 to 40 years when all my relatives are dead I'll be able to leave. I'll travel to a land where you could ask a question about an OS or piece of hardware and not get that look as though you had three eyes.
You should thank God you don't live in Ohio. People in these parts buy computers because it was on sale at Sears. They don't see anything wrong with the phrase, "I like Juno." Even the geeks speak with "twang". The traveling computer shows stopped coming here because they got tired of explaining why you couldn't connect a USB keyboard to a 386. In Ohio, old men masquerading as consultants buy PC's with twice the computing power of anyone they know, install 3 different anti-virus programs, brag about how great their computer works, then turn around three weeks later asking people if they know anything about computers because theirs stopped working for some reason.
I'd love to see something like LinuxWorld in Ohio.
One of the best reasons to use Linux in Ohio:
"Hey, you know something about computers, don't you?"
"Sorry, can't help. I only work on Linux based PC's."
Just because it looks humanoid does not mean that it too has sentience. It's a piece of hardware that carries out mathmatical formulas to emulate human movement. A marvelous achievement to say the least. I would even say it is a beautiful piece of art. But let's not get the cart before the horse.
When we actually have created synthetic sentience, then and only then we need to start wondering about the rights we may afford to our creations.
These are mechanical puppets... and God knows I want one! I'm going to start stealing old people's prescriptions so I can lure one to me!
I wouldn't mind going to my local computer store and purchasing the latest "Duke Quake'em 3-D" FPS for Linux. Trouble is, they don't sell them that way.
Meanwhile in Fantasy Land:[root@localhost /]# cd /mnt/cdrom ./build
[root@localhost cdrom]#
I know... Ain't never gonna happen that way. I can still dream, can't I?
I also find it disturbing that it's being associated with my preferred distro, Mandrake. I'd like to see more upbeat conversation of how Mandrake is helping people make the switch to Linux and open source, and not to argue over old political diatribes that should have been settled long ago.
I think it's great if any coutry wants to look into Open source, Linux, GNU/Linux (regardless of distro) because it can only mean better developement for all Linux platforms in the long run.
You're right. At that time the net was more heavily saturated with people who used computers as computers. Today, the home computer is being pushed onto the "garden variety" consumer as an entertainment device.
Back in the Win95/98 days (and even further back to the days of TRS-80, Commodore, and Apple ][), most of us computer users were trying to get our computers to do things that were useful. We were more concerned with getting more space out of a 512MB hard drive, and we even had special programs in the works to emulate more RAM through compression! Oh the glory days...
But back to the situation in the present, we see computers being sold everywhere, and everyone thinks they need to have one. We all know someone who's grandma bought a computer for her grandkids because she heard that kids today need a computer for school. We all know people who couldn't format a floppy disk but still climb on AOL. We can all find examples around us of people who don't need computers, but have them anyway. And this is why "push" technology is going to work this time.
Back when only the geeks, nerds, and other technologically gifted individuals were the super-majority, you couldn't dictate to them what they were allowed/not allowed to do with their computer. They bought the computer to be a computer. But the typical computer owner has drastically changed. They are not computer litterate. They are useless eaters! They want to be spoon fed. In fact, they are practically demanding it.
As for the "spam" threat... nah... way off base. People hear the hype about spam and go ape for no reason. If you're getting too much spam, it's because you are either stubborn, stupid, or both. If you are just emotionally stuck on using your "spamme@iwontchange.com" address, you're stubborn, and if you give it to a website to get free stuff, you're stupid. It takes very little effort to change to a different e-mail account. It takes just a modicum of self-control not to give out your personal e-mail to those who may use it to spam you.
People (or in this case "sheeple") hear about spam and start to over-react. They feel like they gotta complain about something, so they whine about "spam". After all, they heard some "talk-radio" guy complaining about it, so it sounds chic to them. Spam is mostly a family size can of Red Herring that any respectable computer geek can avoid.
And you're right- Back in the day, most computer users hated the push technology idea, but now the new computer user is the same guy who thinks owning a plasma TV is a smart investment.
These are the people who draw new attentions to the computer, and they aren't doing any of us any favors. I bought a computer... no... I built my computer to do what I want it to do. But thanks to Dell, HP, Gateway, Best Buy, Circuit City, etcetera, etcetera, ad nausium, people are buying them with expectations of a deus ex machina.
And who is going to provide them with all of this extraordinary content for their magical interactive TV? Why, the same fine folks who already provide you with the magical content you're used to getting. They just want legal control over it, and remote control over the magical box that's making it all possible.
They'll get their way, and destroy the only intelligent reason to own a computer in the first place-
Computer: A device used to store and manipulate data.
First, they let the geeks do all the hard work in making it technically possible, then they attract attention to all the bells, whistles and general hype, they solidify the sale with the educational angle, then legislate it into a tasteless substance that no one in their right mind would ever swallow.
But the public will have bought the infrastructure, hook, line, and sinker. It's like watching Jethro Clampet get excited over them fancy city folk fads.
I could do more with a 56K dialup connection on a P120 with 16megs of RAM than I'll be able to do with a Pentium 7, 24Ghz with 16Tb of RAM and a connection speed at twice the speed of light.
Most of the people will be content just to "oooooo" and "aaaaah" the blinky lights.
It's basically a browser that also acts as a wysiwyg editor. You can also see/edit the source of the page. It has a pretty decent parser for cleaning up the code, and it does a decent job of checking the syntax on simple HTML. All this, and it's free as in beer (though not as in speech).
Here's why not:
It's out of date abandon-ware. I don't know if it's legally obtainable, but many people (like this guy) still have copies of it sitting around on their websites for you to freely download.
Whatever you do, please don't judge it by my website. I have little to no talent when it comes to web design... but that will never stop me from trying.