--you are a very rude and obnoxious poster. I don't BS,there is absolutely no need for it, I just discuss various things here on slashdot. And yes, I use alternative energy. We run on solar PV panels here, I've outlined our rigs several times before on slashdot. We also have several fuel generators, the largest being a 3 cylinder diesel that does 12 kw. Our water supply is exactly as stated. We have propane as primary heat source, with wood as a backup. I have both a landline phone I use for web, and a cell for voice, and I have ham radios for emergencies as well. We eat storebought food, as well as having extensive gardens. So what? Maybe some of you urbanites or suburbanites think that is strange, but I can assure you that this is quite normal across the land. Solar is still behind, although I know of two other families local that also use solar, but fuel generators as backups are extremely common, in fact, I cannot think of any neighbors who DON'T have backup power, and everyone here until you get very close to town uses wells. The reason why is that they are needed. Grid supplied power fails several times a year, usually at the worst possible time to lose power, during storms. You don't tell farmers that they will lose their stock, or tell families too bad, you can't have water or lights for days to a week, they'd laugh in your face. You don't tell people "too bad, you use the approved electricity ONLY or you can't have any" and then mandate it by law. People live in the real world, not some slashdot posters fantasy island world. Are you really that unknowing about parts of the united states, actually the bulk of the land mass? Your uncaring part is indisputable, you can read it in your hate filled post, you don't care, but I am amazed at your unknowingness.
I am failing to understand why desiring, for myself and other millions of people who don't have access to broadband, that the competition be opened up and to not want to rely on some government bureaucracratic run service or mandated corporate fascistic monopoly. Why is this wrong or bad? Competition is somehow evil? This is 2003, I would think it's maybe time that the huge areas of the nation that have no access other than very expensive and buggy satellite broadband service and are being ignored, aren't. It's beyond business decisions in a lot of cases, it's also based on this "law" thing that restricts the right of ways, etc, to some local monopoly who could care less. There's an offer of dsl service here, but you must reside within 2 miles of the nearest switching building, if you don't, it's not available. And even if you can get it, it's a lot more expensive then other prices I have read about here on slashdot that people pay. This is just data, and it's not like there's only a few people in this situation, this is millions and millions and millions of people across the united states. Every single one of my neighbors have computers, but we use staticy phone line dialup. There's a local cable monopoly,in the nearest city, they have exclusivity contracts in the community, but don't bother to offer internet access at all. You see, they have the monopoly, there's no need for them to worry about it. they sell the slow expensive dsl, so they are covered by their contract. The contract has NO END POINT. And this isn't "wilderness" area, this is just plain old very normal rural. I live 20 miles from a walmart, fast food, home depot, etc, it's just not that isolated, merely rural. And I've seen this on slashdot before, from lots of people commenting they are in the same sort of situation, they have NO access whatsoever, and at least 1/2 the problems are the laws are set up to grant local telcos or cable companies exclusive access. Like, when are the phone lines put in back in the 40s going to be "paid off"? They've been riding that economic excuse mule for a long time now. Government issued monopolies are a bad idea, especially with communications. 60 years ago, maybe, now? there is no need any longer, they are stifling innovation, not encouraging it. I wo
I guess what I meant to say they were overly interested in the oil states. The other places where they go things tend to be a bit less organized or maybe less successful. and that's an understatement.
A few random UN links relating to recent "not nice" behavior..perhaps. You may assert these are all lies, I am merely supplying some backup data. What is propaganda? Throwing away real events down the memory hole, as if they never happened? That is a form of propaganda, too, yes?
unicef, with it's interesting "howto" manual for children-yes, it apparently exists
(google cache, original has poofed) http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:BbmI1L9t06wJ: www.washtimes.com/national/20020511-32784532.htm++ U.N.-financed+sex-education+manual+for+teens+that+ promotes+abortion,+homosexuality+and+even+sex+with +animals&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
behavior of troops and some ngos and corporations working with the un
Hiss, well, two trials, appeals to the supreme court, he lost, convicted spy. Not sure how to classify that other than he was certainly found guilty. Was chambers lying all the way through? I don't know, neither does anyone really, just hiss and chambers really know. Chambers should have never been given immunity, IMO, he was just as guilty and moreso, self admitted.
The rest, ehh, we'll agree to disagree. It's no "joke" to millions of people. The treaties are there, and the impetus. Agenda 21 is just...foul. I've read quite a bit of the fine print in the arms control agendas, sounds great on the surface,laudable goals, I would agree on the WMD parts, but underneath, there's some things in there I don't like, eliminating private ownership of defensive weapons-small arms- as a goal and stated effort. Eventual sublimation of the US (and other national) armies to the UN. The eventual metering of all water sources, say even to our private well. I believe that one is in the desertification treaty, IIRC. Take over and control of US natural resources, like our parks, and other land grabs and forced migrations. When WHO "accidentaly" included sterilization drugs in with other vaccines in underdevloped countries, denying women free will and choice. On and on. Quite a few things really. Using food as a weapon to make countries do what they want article/speech from the UN,I could find them, but little point, it's there, anyone can find it. I've spent some time and backed up a few things I said, there are the urls for you, well, unless you dispute their validity. If so, oh well. Taken as a whole, it's just too big a subject for short posts back and forth, so we'll agree to disagree. It would literally take me entire days in my spare time to even begin to provide references and details,on a variety of UN related issues, just not prepared to do that for an internet forum. heh, I use google for bookmarks, it's just handier. A lot of this that I have is quite frankly from reading pre-internet to me, just socked away in the bio drive. And I never said it was "all the way" there yet, just that that is it's goal, one world army eventually, one world government, etc, which I don't think is a very good idea. That would be a full stalinist model implemented at that point, if they follow what they say are their goals. Or pick any other name for that sort of top down uber command structure. I use stalinist from it's years of origin as a base model reference, and yes, your description is most adequate.
It's like a house fire, it might start slow, but it's still a house fire, something to think about and deal with. It can be a nice cozy fire
To eliminate them you have to at least make it lawful for them to even compete. A lot of places they simply cannot, even if some new company wanted to come in. That would be a nice start on getting competition going. Why is this wrong again, for people to have some choices? Or for a business to be able to start if they wanted to?
As to my water, it's a private well. If that for some reason runs out, there's a pond we have. If that goes, there's a year round spring very close by. If that runs out... we're fscked I guess. Have to go a 1/2 mile away to the trout stream. If THAT runs out, it's one of those once every millenia drought deals, or something like that. I would have moved before then.
--if they were building it to be a dragster, maybe it has the wrong rear end in it for a daily driver and better mileage. You might be better off to just go for what's called a "taller" read end. Goto you nearest gear heads they will look at your differential and tell you what you have and what you need to change inside it, or perhaps a straight differential swap. Not as fast off the line, but you could probably be just as happy, it will still be plenty fast enough, and you'll get a lot better mileage. Then maybe start fooling with the fuel injectors. I'm sorta dated, all my stuff has only ever had carbs.....
Tell ya one nice carb set up I saw once, 6 weber two barrels on a v-12 (real flat V, 178 degrees) ferrari boxer a friend had, all stainless stell linkage. Sounded like a dragon, it was nice...real different from a detroit car, but dang nice
It's fairly complex, and there's a lot of involved topics, everything from agenda 21 efforts (really spooky from property rights angles and the ability to work and live as one chooses), to who was what in the korean war, to global disarmament, especially from the potential "little guy" victims of rogue governments, to the use of "food as a weapon" to force countries to aquiesce to various demands. And on and on. Although it *appears* to be somewhat US based, it was really way more stalinist russian based and designed. You need to really take a hard look at the history of the thing, the players, the wordings. There's even some layers above that, with very old big banking money,and creating conflicts for profits, but that might take you some time to get to it, to see it. Like I said, really involved.
Lately, the past few years, you could see how, with my reference to the parent post above mine, the UN basically ignores mass slaughter in some areas, whereas in other areas it seems "interested", like where there's "oil" and who will own and administer it. More than a bit suspicious to me. More than a bit. Their gestalt over all goal is to subjugate nations and peoples,to make them sub servient to the UN (and some controlling factions above that) in all matters, to make people lose soverignty, even nations, so we have this global government deal, complete with supreme rulers, no jury trials,dictates and edicts far removed from "the people" that these edicts apply to, and things of that nature, a stalinist model, centralised top to down heavy handedness(I know that isn't extremely and specifically accurate, but I hope it's descriptive enough for conversational purposes and also considering the time period during which the UN was formed) following the bulk of the major players interest who were there with its creation and had a major influence in it's setup and early administration and to how things just got done. Wheels within wheels within wheels. You can spend a long time on it obviously. Here is one page that lays it out very simply,some of the more gross generalities anyway, and will give you enough references to go a-googling further if you are so inclined:
http://www.etherzone.com/2002/stang101102.shtml
Personally, I think the *concept* of a UN-like thing has some merit, but this particular implementation of it is flawed in a lot of areas. I think nations need a forum where they can meet and hash things out, that seems reasonable. Oh, hmm, things like I would like to see global voluntary reduction and elimination of WMD. *Voluntary*, because everyone would agree it might be a good idea. I don't have any problem with things like working towards a cleaner planet, and more energy efficiency, better food and health care, etc,and less dictatorships, etc, I just don't think this exact method they have and a lot of their stated agendas jibe with the notion of the basic human right of personal freedom, identity, and soverignty. You don't get rid of dictatorships by making even huger dictatorships for example. It is TOO top heavy in goals, and from where I sit, the bigger the government, the more extreme into command and control it gets. Human nature, the lure of power, megalomania sets in. Always happens unfortunately. It seems to be the case with all governments,in all historical examples, so I must reluctantly "vote" a preference away from an absolute planetary government at this time.
When humans have evolved enough socially to deal with the size governments they have NOW without major screwing up, then perhaps another try at it. I think right now it needs to be knocked down a peg or two, along with such other command and control entities as the IMF/world bank loan shark bait and switchers, certain of the international arms merchants corporations, and the energy and food and pharmco monopolists, let alone any semblance of old styled forced-imperalism. Those are even a further tangential, but I hope this one reference URL is enough to at least partially answer your question. Searching will get you really a LOT of other good pages.
BTW, one of the better places to go digging with gopher is back in the obscure UN dusty cyber basements.
... many moons ago, had a buddy of mine who, like a lot of real young guys, wasn't all that swift with his finances yet. Comes new plate registration and insurance time for his bike, he found himself a scosh short, as in, beer pizza rent, whoops, no money for the ride that week. He's stuck, no idea, he knows he'll get nailed while he drives to work until the next paycheck. Idea! He's an amateur artist, a fair renderer. He got a set of testor's model paints and reproduced his plate with this years colors and "sticker" in the corner!
We all thought this was funny, and he swore he'd drive cool "until next week" when he got his check and got legit. YEARS later he was still doing the same thing!
note: not to be construed as advocating being irresponsible or avoiding social and economic liabilities, provided under the "fair funny old story" license
For the camera idea in general, this is just more obvious conditioining efforts for "the herd" to keep everyone all "commanded and controlled" up. Same in the US, they just go at it a little different, but basically the same. I mean, anyone REALLY think they will NEVER not use any advanced surveillance tech, if I can mangle all those negatives? MOO, MOO, no one says "boo" to them, everyone sucks it up, one step at a time. Oh well, fingerprinting, well, that's as far as it goes! oh well, dna sampling, that's as far as it goes though! and etc. One step at a time, OF COURSE they are going to keep puting cameras everywhere. and microphones and sniffing traffic and whatever they feel like, once they have the ability to do it. The implantable tracking chips are coming,too, it's definetly on the table, and most people will stand still and take those things. And after tracking, just surveillance? It will be electro-chemical emotional control, and maybe worse than that. Any and all tech that will make big bros job easier and more efficient,in their favor of course, they will do, and charge you cash for the privelege of having it done to you.
those labels and artifical schisms you put yourself into are really old, doncha think? If you really look at it, follow the cash around? Example,Murdoch is bosom buddies with the commie chinese, he can't wait to bend over for them. Is that right wing, or left wing? Reality is, the big media networks, and the print media, are "establishment" mostly, fascists,globalists, they laugh at that left / right deal that keeps people tied to those artifical voting blocs thinking there's any major differences. These high level dudes all own stock and sit on each other's boards, share each others banks, go to the same big bucks casinos and resort places, play golf together, bang each other's spouses, and etc. That conservative/liberal jazz is political psychodrama more than reality anymore. I mean, geez loweez, I was a major anti war and anti draft slavery protester way back when, when the "liberal democrats" controlled both houses and the presidency. There was just as much corporate fascism under them as there is now with the situation reversed. It's a scam, man, look higher, you'll see it. "Vote for me! I'll only knee ya in the nads! And it's all those other guys fault you are in pain! Vote for me, I'll only bash ya in the head! And it's all those other guys fault that you are in pain!" I mean, how long does this have to happen, and in how many ways, before it becomes politically acceptable to "notice" it? At least that's how I see it. Both "wings" at the higher organized levels want to pick my pocket, and tell me what to do, on just about everything, so do the teensy little details that are mostly just campaign re-electioneering rhetoric garbage that means nothing really matter in the big picture? Maybe it does, but I sure haven't seen any major profound differences. What I HAVE seen is a slow rise to more totalitarianism, with both "wings" going along with it, they just play to their respective audiences, who they play for saps and suckers. they are GOOD at it, too, because year after year, they suceed at it. And it's gotten worse. Slow, steady, once in awhile they will throw a bone to one side or the other, which gets them all hotted up again,and keeps the divisions all fresh, but all in all, nope, slow steady march to "e-vile" as "law".
The romans designed it, it worked for them, "divide and conquer", and keep them amused with "bread and circuses". It's the same ole crap, 2,000 years later, with a new layer of "ooh, look, shiny!" all over it..
NO one there runs a low watt station? I won't call them "pirates" that's a government demonization term. You can whip out something for well under 1,000 clams.
...big brother actually getting to the point of owning and maintaining all the telco and net pipe? Seems like it's bad enough now with them at least having to jump through one or two small hoops in order to monitor. If they OWNED it all? Use your highway and trucks and cars analogy. We'd have the great wall of the US within a month, and you'd need a license to connect to the net, approved hardware with inspections, very limited traffic and a lot of restrictions on what you can and cannot do, what ports, etc, you can use, massive censorship (most likely, toss P2P away almost immediately), and the cost would be higher than it is now, because government needs at least a 50% (something like that, a WAG) higher work force to accomplish similar tasks as private contractors working for profit. You might even need a commercial net-driving (server) license if you were conducting business on the net. yada yada yada.
I'd have to pass, I prefer just eliminating the local monopolies, I can live with a few more cables on the poles, or line of sight laser relays or microwave relays, or other wireless whatevers. whatever might work and someone feels like going into business with. Investment money is sorta stagnant now too, I think there might be some of it out there before it evaporates as the US buck devalues, get it tied into hardware contracts maybe while it's worth something. At LEAST providing connectivity for a price and maybe on demand content and perhaps VOIP is a legit business idea and model. If current local monopoly A is such and such for such and such, and for only ten bucks (whatever) more I can get twice as much, I'll pop the extra ten clams. In this economy, "mo money" is de king. And HUGE areas of the nation and millions of people still do NOT have any choice of broadband, and millions can't get it at all, except for that on again off again weirdo satellite stuff.
... really doesn't know yet if SCO got anything on them or not. It certainly looks weird so far. Perhaps they are just stalling as long as it takes so their own auditors can go over it once, twice and thrice so they don't pull a boner in court. Probably interviewing a lot of past programmers as well. The last place you want to find out stuff is in discovery.
methinks that wasn't an appropriate saying for slashdot......
Thanks for answering my question, and doing it in depth, on behalf of all the "little guys" out here. I'm going to let this thread develop for a couple of days then save the entire thing.
more or less this is true. You really don't have any clear cut separation anymore, so it's chicken/egg came first. It's exactly the same guys near as I can see. I actually like just "junta". Everyone knows what you mean then. It's politicians SLAP no they control these large multinationals, it's the multinationals SLAP no they control the politicians, it's the military SLAP no they both go into big business on "retirement" or become politicians, or both. It's a junta. Right now it's too scary for most people to really admit it,even though when you talk to people quietly in "the real world" they sort of admit it now,but not quite that actual final step, because then it would require them to make some serious ethical considerations, it's much easier to ignore it and say "dictatorships only exist way over in yonderstan someplace". Masses of people would have to treat the government and it's workers completely different then, and masses of government workers would be forced to choose between still cashing the checks, or deciding being any part of the hoplessly corrupt system is immoral and not worth it, no matter their function or position or title.
And if it WASN'T *hopelessly corrupt*, IMO, I wouldn't say that, but I think the overwhelming evidence shows that it is, and the trends are clear, worse and worse daily, from here on out. I don't say that lightly either, about 40 years in politics now, it's much worse than it was way back when near as I can see. We have full grown adults with families and kids who physically aren't old enough to have any frame of reference anymore to when it was still only 1/2 corrupt and a lot more free. They probably don't even remember when the crime rate was extremely lower, or when a single lower middle class income was more than enough to support buying a decent home,a decent car,and having a flock of kids, and all the normal utilities and food and various gee gaws were all affordable, and made in the USA to boot. And STILL be able to get that family vacation every year, and sock away some savings. Stuff like that. That's as best as I can remember, about 1/2 free,much better economy, but still significantly *moreso* than whatever passes for "USA brand freedom and prosperity" today..Not perfect, still a lot of flaws back then, but none of those flaws have improved enough to overcompensate for the artificially introduced NEW flaws and corruption. It's been a bad trade.
Kinda bogus, but oh well, we'll let the computer pick our next leader this next election, why they all tell me it will be better then!:p
Saying they are going to do it and pulling it off are two completely different undertakings. Even throwing x-amount warm bodies and money at it is still quite the iffy proposition. If it was really that simple, they could pull a truckload of cash out of the bank and sprinkle it all over redmond from aeroplanes.
It's gotten so bad with microsoft and "normal" joe users I have started to refuse all microsoft tech related "help me please" requests from people I know. One, is most of the time I really can't help them, fixes and problems are way beyond my interest or expertise any more, I just plain stopped even trying to use it. The second is--what's the point? Really, what's the point? Even if it was completely 100% "fixed"(I doubt at this time they can do it really) it would still be...just plain wrong, from my viewpoint on what software should be now and what it is for and what is the best for people and what legitimate business should be. I do not seperate money from ethics in my life. Note, that is merely my personal opinion on it, anyone on the planet can choose to still use and "support" them, I just choose not to, similar to a few other large corporations that I consider to have "crossed the line" into sophisticated international thuggery and criminality. I REALLY DO consider them to be an unethical and immoral company, and their products reflect that, again, IMO. I am sorry for the people who work there and aren't crooks or bad people, I am sure most of them are just fine regular old folks just trying to make a buck,and I am not trying to put them down or anything, but at this time that company and managerial and directorial mindset needs to be scattered to the winds of business history. At one time, and for many years, they were more or less fine, I didn't consider them the way I do now, but what has been revealed with them, and watching the evolution of their products and influence on all of our technological society has changed my opinion of them, and shows me it's just a big bully criminal gang now who happen to be in the software business. Same as any other gang out there, I am not concerned with "reforming or fixing" the mafia or it's "products" for example, even if a large part of the mafia now has morphed and is considered "legitimate business", they got there in the first place by being crooks and thugs whenever they could get away with it.
It's sort of sad in a way, too, there is no joy or gloating over it from my viewpoint, it just is reality.
--you are correct in your analysis of the UN and most of it's actions. The REASON is that the UN was extremely based on the stalinist-brand "communist" model, although that isn't a fair way to really label it, it's the closest you can get at readily that most people could grasp easily. Most of the heavy lifting on it, the design and implementation, that continues to this day, was done by stalinists.
And sad to say, I was way past formal schooling before I ever found that out, and to this day, I would venture to say most of the planet still doesn't know that, although the historical documents and people involved are all there to research.
I guess that makes the graduated income tax -a tax applied most unequally revolving around over a zillion definitions of what and where income "is" that no one honest or sane could truthlly say they understood completely- illegal then....whoops, it's "de law" enforced by state sponsored terrorism basically.
The US government-or should I say organized criminal cartel or junta- does whatever it wants to do, the constitution has nothing to do with it anymore, nor do the english language words used in the constitution have any basis in what they call "the law". You can go through it paragraph by paragraph, use websters first dictionary as a guide-the only true reference over what the words as originally written really meant, and find obvious exceptions that are "enforced" on people. In particular,all of our born-with rights. 180 degrees from that concept now, whatever the guys with guns and so called "legal authority" say is theirs, is theirs. It was a decent attempt,had some geat promise, the implementation has turned into a disaster. What we have now is called a power and money accumulation centered fascist dictatorship. Those with the most corporate~money and political bribery ties call the shots, it's pretty obvious.
"Copyright" has been turned into de facto "forever". The trends are definetly past a single human life span, that means "forever" for current innovators to use and build from previous works for further development unimpeded. The big players want it that way, so it happened. What used to be "legal" just an historical short time ago is now most "illegal", not only with copyrights, but with a lot of human endeavors. You would be semi hard pressed to come up with any normal human day to day activity now that doesn't have a corporgovernmental "you must get our permission to do it or else you are considered a criminal" clause sneaked in there someplace, even it is a layer or two from the surface.
--you sound just like us, PROUD dozenaires! Proud I say!!! Like that new tax cut they just signed, that means I get to keep an extra...quarter? something like that... hhehhehehehe
My BIG drive, that I am using right now, is an 8 gigger fujitsu, running in my freaking red and dripping blood bleeding edge 1996 IBM 365, 200PP.....the drive that came with it is a 1.6 GB IBM drive that sounded from day one like acorns in a blender. I mean, it's like it was designed for audio monitoring, you can HEAR it work.. It's still plugged in on the cable, no idea what's on it anymore, mostly borked leenux experiments in noob kernel compiling.. yes, I still suck really well on that....
The funny part is, you can be running antique stuff like this, and e-vile haxors STILL want in. I should leave a welcome mat and just let them in, in exchange for occasional IRC tech support and help with my SPAM problems... I mean, as long as I would be hosting them and all....
I'm not sure now, but seems like just a week or so ago I was reading that. If that happens, AOL will need all the cash and free software it can get, which is exactly what this settlement does for them, coincidentaly. Being able to still use IE will cut them a lot of development R&D slack for a long time, so I bet they won't care what label is on the browser.
Here's a hoot of a thought, I wonder if any MAJOR ISP would consider being all free software based, and ENCOURAGE the alternatives out there, instead of defaulting to the borg? Maybe even an offshoot branded browser, moz based perhaps, for those folks who just love to be able to "insert a disk, klik hier, and get the intarweb"? maybe even an entire distro, that came with signup, had support with it? Geeks still wouldn't need it, but just maybe....
consider, the earthredrakemoztooiannetlinux ISP/OS/browser/office/etc combo
might help a scosh with funding of whatnot.. I know I'd sign with them.
just as an observation, all my mac drives going back to the 80's all still work quite well. Of course most of them are under 1 GB, but still...stout stuff it appears. You have to change the clock batteries on the MOBOs like once or twice (I don't know, that's as often as I do it) a decade or so,but that's it to keep the drives and the boxes they are in running just fine. I'd have to check again, but I *think* most of them are scsi, though.
.. and I read it here awhile back, was that they seemed to be putting attention on an entirely new kind of storage, some cubed action with individual drives all linked together. Not sure if it was what is considered raid or not. I forget the name of it or I'd look it up on a search engine and provide a link to it. So them selling off to hitachi is no big deal, they also maintained some sort of partnertship with them, IIRC.
They have plenty of other projects to deal with, I'm sure they are staying busy...and making money...
Besides, you HAVE to admit, "deathstar" really is a funny name, it would have happened to any company with a similar snafu, or even a product with just a funny name that could be morphed into something funny. We used to call kawasakis (mach IIIs mostly) in detroit "kowalskis"*, 3 guesses why, first two don't count.
*note-you need to know the demographics of detroit 30-40 years ago before it turned into something like beirut.
Re:Let me see if I understand this
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--that's what I thought too, instead of having to replace all the old desktops, just add a few really nice powerful ones someplace in the cluster.
but, because it's so cool...
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... and because it *stomps* all over the competition, it should be called "klompen".
Lucifers Hammer, Niven and Pournelle novel, classic in it's genre, probably (arguably) the best
Unintended Consequences, John Ross novel, very good detailed past to present to future look at politics, freedom issues,technical isses as related to the phenomenon of self defense as a born with right, and how the US has dealt with these topics and possible future scenarios (the government hates this book, should be a clue how good it is). It might drag the first 1/3 for maybe younger people, but being very similar in age and background and interests to the author, I have to emphasize the background is extremely important to "get" the entire novel.
Patriots, Surviving the Coming Collapse, James Wesley Rawles novel, similar to above, but all the technical details are absolutely correct, a rarity in most novels, and I'll assert that as his subject matter is my top interest and skill set. This is a technical manual disguised as a novel, a pretty interesting combination that was pulled off well.
Civil War II, by Tom Chittum analysis, future trends and probabilities, with the stats, details, etc documented so you can see where the analysis comes from, reads almost as fast as a good novel, and so far his predictions are almost completely correct
for fun,sort of stealth philosophy in an extremely good "americana" readable form, an older author now deceased, anything by Robert Ruark, earlier works better than latter
--the whole idea of developing a market skill is so you can market yourself. Dumping millions more microsoft admins and developers out there just dilutes anyone's marketability-at THIS TIME- it would appear. Seems like you have to walk a line between today and tomorrow, and I'd slap me money on open source eventually "winning" or at least increasing global market and mindshare. There simply have to be many Indians who can see this. also the comments section on the linked story tends to support that idea by a wide margin.
Everytime I look at it, it is obvious that microsoft feels the same way, else they wouldn't bother in offering incentives down to zero cost, giving away licenses, etc, because there would be no need if they didn't see it or believe it. They could even INCREASE prices if they didn't feel open source was a threat to their dominance. And also tending to lobby for legislative efforts that would further lock themselves in "legally" somehow, establish clear governmental and corporate ties mandated by law. It's a cliche but that is clearly-fascistic. That's a desperation move on their part, or seems so to me anyway.
IMO, this past year hit the turning point in open source being way good enough for about any use,for any user level. Before still a little clunky and rough around the edges, but now? Naw, plenty good enough to compete with microsoft, propieatry unixes, mac osx, etc for well over 90% of any conceivable use out there, at any level. Even a complete GUI person like moi has little problems with normal non exotic applications with Linux for example. 3 years ago I took a qucik look at it and didn't even bother trying, because I knew I couldn't use it effectively. last yerar I tried again, MUCH MUCH better, the advances were probably more obvious to someone like me than for someone who had been using linux whatever for many many years, because they saw the advances in very small incremental steps. What I "saw" was a decade worth of advancement in a year or two compared to windows or like previous mac classic. That was enough for me to predict eventual open source dominance. Open source went from a V2 rocket level to a Saturn V and moon landing in a few years, so that trend and rapidity of development will continue most likely.
And the price is sure right-on, trebly more important in areas of the planet where the average wage is dismal. The security is right-on. The customize-ability is right-on. The enthusiasm is right-on. The mindshare with younger geeks is right-on. The license choices are right-on. Hardware is getting cheaper and cheaper and now it's just a matter of time where choice of installed OS is just common, not an aberration at any retail level. Once that occurs it's a new wide open market again, and it's *this close* right now.
And as to "jobs", any nation makes more money by trading with itself as much as possible, and keeping the money recycliing as close to home, rather than exporting it. India and china in particular are in a unique position where there populations are simply so gigantic that they can take advantage of that. Sure, expat workers sending money back home helps, but CREATING the wealth and money in the first place at home is an economic force multiplier. An example opf that was when the US primarily did this with a more diversified economy, and vertical integration of the various sub niches of the economy. Since we went to exporting our developed ability to create wealth, we've gone from the worlds largest creditor nation to worlds largest debtor nation. India would be WAY smart to not duplicate that mistake,to listen to the thinkers rather than the high level market skimmers, and to seek to get more independent, not more dependent, in IT or anything else.
Slashdot Mirror
--you are a very rude and obnoxious poster. I don't BS,there is absolutely no need for it, I just discuss various things here on slashdot. And yes, I use alternative energy. We run on solar PV panels here, I've outlined our rigs several times before on slashdot. We also have several fuel generators, the largest being a 3 cylinder diesel that does 12 kw. Our water supply is exactly as stated. We have propane as primary heat source, with wood as a backup. I have both a landline phone I use for web, and a cell for voice, and I have ham radios for emergencies as well. We eat storebought food, as well as having extensive gardens. So what? Maybe some of you urbanites or suburbanites think that is strange, but I can assure you that this is quite normal across the land. Solar is still behind, although I know of two other families local that also use solar, but fuel generators as backups are extremely common, in fact, I cannot think of any neighbors who DON'T have backup power, and everyone here until you get very close to town uses wells. The reason why is that they are needed. Grid supplied power fails several times a year, usually at the worst possible time to lose power, during storms. You don't tell farmers that they will lose their stock, or tell families too bad, you can't have water or lights for days to a week, they'd laugh in your face. You don't tell people "too bad, you use the approved electricity ONLY or you can't have any" and then mandate it by law. People live in the real world, not some slashdot posters fantasy island world. Are you really that unknowing about parts of the united states, actually the bulk of the land mass? Your uncaring part is indisputable, you can read it in your hate filled post, you don't care, but I am amazed at your unknowingness.
I am failing to understand why desiring, for myself and other millions of people who don't have access to broadband, that the competition be opened up and to not want to rely on some government bureaucracratic run service or mandated corporate fascistic monopoly. Why is this wrong or bad? Competition is somehow evil? This is 2003, I would think it's maybe time that the huge areas of the nation that have no access other than very expensive and buggy satellite broadband service and are being ignored, aren't. It's beyond business decisions in a lot of cases, it's also based on this "law" thing that restricts the right of ways, etc, to some local monopoly who could care less. There's an offer of dsl service here, but you must reside within 2 miles of the nearest switching building, if you don't, it's not available. And even if you can get it, it's a lot more expensive then other prices I have read about here on slashdot that people pay. This is just data, and it's not like there's only a few people in this situation, this is millions and millions and millions of people across the united states. Every single one of my neighbors have computers, but we use staticy phone line dialup. There's a local cable monopoly,in the nearest city, they have exclusivity contracts in the community, but don't bother to offer internet access at all. You see, they have the monopoly, there's no need for them to worry about it. they sell the slow expensive dsl, so they are covered by their contract. The contract has NO END POINT. And this isn't "wilderness" area, this is just plain old very normal rural. I live 20 miles from a walmart, fast food, home depot, etc, it's just not that isolated, merely rural. And I've seen this on slashdot before, from lots of people commenting they are in the same sort of situation, they have NO access whatsoever, and at least 1/2 the problems are the laws are set up to grant local telcos or cable companies exclusive access. Like, when are the phone lines put in back in the 40s going to be "paid off"? They've been riding that economic excuse mule for a long time now. Government issued monopolies are a bad idea, especially with communications. 60 years ago, maybe, now? there is no need any longer, they are stifling innovation, not encouraging it. I wo
I guess what I meant to say they were overly interested in the oil states. The other places where they go things tend to be a bit less organized or maybe less successful. and that's an understatement.
/22702.shtml
.h tml
A few random UN links relating to recent "not nice" behavior..perhaps. You may assert these are all lies, I am merely supplying some backup data. What is propaganda? Throwing away real events down the memory hole, as if they never happened? That is a form of propaganda, too, yes?
unicef, with it's interesting "howto" manual for children-yes, it apparently exists
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/7/ 19
(google cache, original has poofed) http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:BbmI1L9t06wJ: www.washtimes.com/national/20020511-32784532.htm++ U.N.-financed+sex-education+manual+for+teens+that+ promotes+abortion,+homosexuality+and+even+sex+with +animals&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
behavior of troops and some ngos and corporations working with the un
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/5/ 6/ 151901.shtml
http://www.news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml? xm l=/news/2003/01/17/wleon17.xml
http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_080702_un
Hiss, well, two trials, appeals to the supreme court, he lost, convicted spy. Not sure how to classify that other than he was certainly found guilty. Was chambers lying all the way through? I don't know, neither does anyone really, just hiss and chambers really know. Chambers should have never been given immunity, IMO, he was just as guilty and moreso, self admitted.
The rest, ehh, we'll agree to disagree. It's no "joke" to millions of people. The treaties are there, and the impetus. Agenda 21 is just...foul. I've read quite a bit of the fine print in the arms control agendas, sounds great on the surface,laudable goals, I would agree on the WMD parts, but underneath, there's some things in there I don't like, eliminating private ownership of defensive weapons-small arms- as a goal and stated effort. Eventual sublimation of the US (and other national) armies to the UN. The eventual metering of all water sources, say even to our private well. I believe that one is in the desertification treaty, IIRC. Take over and control of US natural resources, like our parks, and other land grabs and forced migrations. When WHO "accidentaly" included sterilization drugs in with other vaccines in underdevloped countries, denying women free will and choice. On and on. Quite a few things really. Using food as a weapon to make countries do what they want article/speech from the UN,I could find them, but little point, it's there, anyone can find it. I've spent some time and backed up a few things I said, there are the urls for you, well, unless you dispute their validity. If so, oh well. Taken as a whole, it's just too big a subject for short posts back and forth, so we'll agree to disagree. It would literally take me entire days in my spare time to even begin to provide references and details,on a variety of UN related issues, just not prepared to do that for an internet forum. heh, I use google for bookmarks, it's just handier. A lot of this that I have is quite frankly from reading pre-internet to me, just socked away in the bio drive. And I never said it was "all the way" there yet, just that that is it's goal, one world army eventually, one world government, etc, which I don't think is a very good idea. That would be a full stalinist model implemented at that point, if they follow what they say are their goals. Or pick any other name for that sort of top down uber command structure. I use stalinist from it's years of origin as a base model reference, and yes, your description is most adequate.
It's like a house fire, it might start slow, but it's still a house fire, something to think about and deal with. It can be a nice cozy fire
To eliminate them you have to at least make it lawful for them to even compete. A lot of places they simply cannot, even if some new company wanted to come in. That would be a nice start on getting competition going. Why is this wrong again, for people to have some choices? Or for a business to be able to start if they wanted to?
As to my water, it's a private well. If that for some reason runs out, there's a pond we have. If that goes, there's a year round spring very close by. If that runs out... we're fscked I guess. Have to go a 1/2 mile away to the trout stream. If THAT runs out, it's one of those once every millenia drought deals, or something like that. I would have moved before then.
--if they were building it to be a dragster, maybe it has the wrong rear end in it for a daily driver and better mileage. You might be better off to just go for what's called a "taller" read end. Goto you nearest gear heads they will look at your differential and tell you what you have and what you need to change inside it, or perhaps a straight differential swap. Not as fast off the line, but you could probably be just as happy, it will still be plenty fast enough, and you'll get a lot better mileage. Then maybe start fooling with the fuel injectors. I'm sorta dated, all my stuff has only ever had carbs.....
Tell ya one nice carb set up I saw once, 6 weber two barrels on a v-12 (real flat V, 178 degrees) ferrari boxer a friend had, all stainless stell linkage. Sounded like a dragon, it was nice...real different from a detroit car, but dang nice
It's fairly complex, and there's a lot of involved topics, everything from agenda 21 efforts (really spooky from property rights angles and the ability to work and live as one chooses), to who was what in the korean war, to global disarmament, especially from the potential "little guy" victims of rogue governments, to the use of "food as a weapon" to force countries to aquiesce to various demands. And on and on. Although it *appears* to be somewhat US based, it was really way more stalinist russian based and designed. You need to really take a hard look at the history of the thing, the players, the wordings. There's even some layers above that, with very old big banking money,and creating conflicts for profits, but that might take you some time to get to it, to see it. Like I said, really involved.
Lately, the past few years, you could see how, with my reference to the parent post above mine, the UN basically ignores mass slaughter in some areas, whereas in other areas it seems "interested", like where there's "oil" and who will own and administer it. More than a bit suspicious to me. More than a bit. Their gestalt over all goal is to subjugate nations and peoples,to make them sub servient to the UN (and some controlling factions above that) in all matters, to make people lose soverignty, even nations, so we have this global government deal, complete with supreme rulers, no jury trials,dictates and edicts far removed from "the people" that these edicts apply to, and things of that nature, a stalinist model, centralised top to down heavy handedness(I know that isn't extremely and specifically accurate, but I hope it's descriptive enough for conversational purposes and also considering the time period during which the UN was formed) following the bulk of the major players interest who were there with its creation and had a major influence in it's setup and early administration and to how things just got done. Wheels within wheels within wheels. You can spend a long time on it obviously. Here is one page that lays it out very simply,some of the more gross generalities anyway, and will give you enough references to go a-googling further if you are so inclined:
http://www.etherzone.com/2002/stang101102.shtml
Personally, I think the *concept* of a UN-like thing has some merit, but this particular implementation of it is flawed in a lot of areas. I think nations need a forum where they can meet and hash things out, that seems reasonable. Oh, hmm, things like I would like to see global voluntary reduction and elimination of WMD. *Voluntary*, because everyone would agree it might be a good idea. I don't have any problem with things like working towards a cleaner planet, and more energy efficiency, better food and health care, etc,and less dictatorships, etc, I just don't think this exact method they have and a lot of their stated agendas jibe with the notion of the basic human right of personal freedom, identity, and soverignty. You don't get rid of dictatorships by making even huger dictatorships for example. It is TOO top heavy in goals, and from where I sit, the bigger the government, the more extreme into command and control it gets. Human nature, the lure of power, megalomania sets in. Always happens unfortunately. It seems to be the case with all governments,in all historical examples, so I must reluctantly "vote" a preference away from an absolute planetary government at this time.
When humans have evolved enough socially to deal with the size governments they have NOW without major screwing up, then perhaps another try at it. I think right now it needs to be knocked down a peg or two, along with such other command and control entities as the IMF/world bank loan shark bait and switchers, certain of the international arms merchants corporations, and the energy and food and pharmco monopolists, let alone any semblance of old styled forced-imperalism. Those are even a further tangential, but I hope this one reference URL is enough to at least partially answer your question. Searching will get you really a LOT of other good pages.
BTW, one of the better places to go digging with gopher is back in the obscure UN dusty cyber basements.
... many moons ago, had a buddy of mine who, like a lot of real young guys, wasn't all that swift with his finances yet. Comes new plate registration and insurance time for his bike, he found himself a scosh short, as in, beer pizza rent, whoops, no money for the ride that week. He's stuck, no idea, he knows he'll get nailed while he drives to work until the next paycheck. Idea! He's an amateur artist, a fair renderer. He got a set of testor's model paints and reproduced his plate with this years colors and "sticker" in the corner!
We all thought this was funny, and he swore he'd drive cool "until next week" when he got his check and got legit. YEARS later he was still doing the same thing!
note: not to be construed as advocating being irresponsible or avoiding social and economic liabilities, provided under the "fair funny old story" license
For the camera idea in general, this is just more obvious conditioining efforts for "the herd" to keep everyone all "commanded and controlled" up. Same in the US, they just go at it a little different, but basically the same. I mean, anyone REALLY think they will NEVER not use any advanced surveillance tech, if I can mangle all those negatives? MOO, MOO, no one says "boo" to them, everyone sucks it up, one step at a time. Oh well, fingerprinting, well, that's as far as it goes! oh well, dna sampling, that's as far as it goes though! and etc. One step at a time, OF COURSE they are going to keep puting cameras everywhere. and microphones and sniffing traffic and whatever they feel like, once they have the ability to do it. The implantable tracking chips are coming,too, it's definetly on the table, and most people will stand still and take those things. And after tracking, just surveillance? It will be electro-chemical emotional control, and maybe worse than that. Any and all tech that will make big bros job easier and more efficient,in their favor of course, they will do, and charge you cash for the privelege of having it done to you.
those labels and artifical schisms you put yourself into are really old, doncha think? If you really look at it, follow the cash around? Example,Murdoch is bosom buddies with the commie chinese, he can't wait to bend over for them. Is that right wing, or left wing? Reality is, the big media networks, and the print media, are "establishment" mostly, fascists,globalists, they laugh at that left / right deal that keeps people tied to those artifical voting blocs thinking there's any major differences. These high level dudes all own stock and sit on each other's boards, share each others banks, go to the same big bucks casinos and resort places, play golf together, bang each other's spouses, and etc. That conservative/liberal jazz is political psychodrama more than reality anymore. I mean, geez loweez, I was a major anti war and anti draft slavery protester way back when, when the "liberal democrats" controlled both houses and the presidency. There was just as much corporate fascism under them as there is now with the situation reversed. It's a scam, man, look higher, you'll see it. "Vote for me! I'll only knee ya in the nads! And it's all those other guys fault you are in pain! Vote for me, I'll only bash ya in the head! And it's all those other guys fault that you are in pain!" I mean, how long does this have to happen, and in how many ways, before it becomes politically acceptable to "notice" it? At least that's how I see it. Both "wings" at the higher organized levels want to pick my pocket, and tell me what to do, on just about everything, so do the teensy little details that are mostly just campaign re-electioneering rhetoric garbage that means nothing really matter in the big picture? Maybe it does, but I sure haven't seen any major profound differences. What I HAVE seen is a slow rise to more totalitarianism, with both "wings" going along with it, they just play to their respective audiences, who they play for saps and suckers. they are GOOD at it, too, because year after year, they suceed at it. And it's gotten worse. Slow, steady, once in awhile they will throw a bone to one side or the other, which gets them all hotted up again,and keeps the divisions all fresh, but all in all, nope, slow steady march to "e-vile" as "law".
The romans designed it, it worked for them, "divide and conquer", and keep them amused with "bread and circuses". It's the same ole crap, 2,000 years later, with a new layer of "ooh, look, shiny!" all over it..
YMMV
NO one there runs a low watt station? I won't call them "pirates" that's a government demonization term. You can whip out something for well under 1,000 clams.
...big brother actually getting to the point of owning and maintaining all the telco and net pipe? Seems like it's bad enough now with them at least having to jump through one or two small hoops in order to monitor. If they OWNED it all? Use your highway and trucks and cars analogy. We'd have the great wall of the US within a month, and you'd need a license to connect to the net, approved hardware with inspections, very limited traffic and a lot of restrictions on what you can and cannot do, what ports, etc, you can use, massive censorship (most likely, toss P2P away almost immediately), and the cost would be higher than it is now, because government needs at least a 50% (something like that, a WAG) higher work force to accomplish similar tasks as private contractors working for profit. You might even need a commercial net-driving (server) license if you were conducting business on the net. yada yada yada.
I'd have to pass, I prefer just eliminating the local monopolies, I can live with a few more cables on the poles, or line of sight laser relays or microwave relays, or other wireless whatevers. whatever might work and someone feels like going into business with. Investment money is sorta stagnant now too, I think there might be some of it out there before it evaporates as the US buck devalues, get it tied into hardware contracts maybe while it's worth something. At LEAST providing connectivity for a price and maybe on demand content and perhaps VOIP is a legit business idea and model. If current local monopoly A is such and such for such and such, and for only ten bucks (whatever) more I can get twice as much, I'll pop the extra ten clams. In this economy, "mo money" is de king. And HUGE areas of the nation and millions of people still do NOT have any choice of broadband, and millions can't get it at all, except for that on again off again weirdo satellite stuff.
... really doesn't know yet if SCO got anything on them or not. It certainly looks weird so far. Perhaps they are just stalling as long as it takes so their own auditors can go over it once, twice and thrice so they don't pull a boner in court. Probably interviewing a lot of past programmers as well. The last place you want to find out stuff is in discovery.
methinks that wasn't an appropriate saying for slashdot......
oh well
--I have a backup scratched win 95 disk I can contribute to the pile, COMPLETE with googles url, so they can lookup their own serial #
Thanks for answering my question, and doing it in depth, on behalf of all the "little guys" out here. I'm going to let this thread develop for a couple of days then save the entire thing.
more or less this is true. You really don't have any clear cut separation anymore, so it's chicken/egg came first. It's exactly the same guys near as I can see. I actually like just "junta". Everyone knows what you mean then. It's politicians SLAP no they control these large multinationals, it's the multinationals SLAP no they control the politicians, it's the military SLAP no they both go into big business on "retirement" or become politicians, or both. It's a junta. Right now it's too scary for most people to really admit it,even though when you talk to people quietly in "the real world" they sort of admit it now,but not quite that actual final step, because then it would require them to make some serious ethical considerations, it's much easier to ignore it and say "dictatorships only exist way over in yonderstan someplace". Masses of people would have to treat the government and it's workers completely different then, and masses of government workers would be forced to choose between still cashing the checks, or deciding being any part of the hoplessly corrupt system is immoral and not worth it, no matter their function or position or title.
:p
And if it WASN'T *hopelessly corrupt*, IMO, I wouldn't say that, but I think the overwhelming evidence shows that it is, and the trends are clear, worse and worse daily, from here on out.
I don't say that lightly either, about 40 years in politics now, it's much worse than it was way back when near as I can see. We have full grown adults with families and kids who physically aren't old enough to have any frame of reference anymore to when it was still only 1/2 corrupt and a lot more free. They probably don't even remember when the crime rate was extremely lower, or when a single lower middle class income was more than enough to support buying a decent home,a decent car,and having a flock of kids, and all the normal utilities and food and various gee gaws were all affordable, and made in the USA to boot. And STILL be able to get that family vacation every year, and sock away some savings. Stuff like that. That's as best as I can remember, about 1/2 free,much better economy, but still significantly *moreso* than whatever passes for "USA brand freedom and prosperity" today..Not perfect, still a lot of flaws back then, but none of those flaws have improved enough to overcompensate for the artificially introduced NEW flaws and corruption. It's been a bad trade.
Kinda bogus, but oh well, we'll let the computer pick our next leader this next election, why they all tell me it will be better then!
Saying they are going to do it and pulling it off are two completely different undertakings. Even throwing x-amount warm bodies and money at it is still quite the iffy proposition. If it was really that simple, they could pull a truckload of cash out of the bank and sprinkle it all over redmond from aeroplanes.
It's gotten so bad with microsoft and "normal" joe users I have started to refuse all microsoft tech related "help me please" requests from people I know. One, is most of the time I really can't help them, fixes and problems are way beyond my interest or expertise any more, I just plain stopped even trying to use it. The second is--what's the point? Really, what's the point? Even if it was completely 100% "fixed"(I doubt at this time they can do it really) it would still be...just plain wrong, from my viewpoint on what software should be now and what it is for and what is the best for people and what legitimate business should be. I do not seperate money from ethics in my life. Note, that is merely my personal opinion on it, anyone on the planet can choose to still use and "support" them, I just choose not to, similar to a few other large corporations that I consider to have "crossed the line" into sophisticated international thuggery and criminality. I REALLY DO consider them to be an unethical and immoral company, and their products reflect that, again, IMO. I am sorry for the people who work there and aren't crooks or bad people, I am sure most of them are just fine regular old folks just trying to make a buck,and I am not trying to put them down or anything, but at this time that company and managerial and directorial mindset needs to be scattered to the winds of business history. At one time, and for many years, they were more or less fine, I didn't consider them the way I do now, but what has been revealed with them, and watching the evolution of their products and influence on all of our technological society has changed my opinion of them, and shows me it's just a big bully criminal gang now who happen to be in the software business. Same as any other gang out there, I am not concerned with "reforming or fixing" the mafia or it's "products" for example, even if a large part of the mafia now has morphed and is considered "legitimate business", they got there in the first place by being crooks and thugs whenever they could get away with it.
It's sort of sad in a way, too, there is no joy or gloating over it from my viewpoint, it just is reality.
--you are correct in your analysis of the UN and most of it's actions. The REASON is that the UN was extremely based on the stalinist-brand "communist" model, although that isn't a fair way to really label it, it's the closest you can get at readily that most people could grasp easily. Most of the heavy lifting on it, the design and implementation, that continues to this day, was done by stalinists.
And sad to say, I was way past formal schooling before I ever found that out, and to this day, I would venture to say most of the planet still doesn't know that, although the historical documents and people involved are all there to research.
*uniform* throughout the United States
I guess that makes the graduated income tax -a tax applied most unequally revolving around over a zillion definitions of what and where income "is" that no one honest or sane could truthlly say they understood completely- illegal then....whoops, it's "de law" enforced by state sponsored terrorism basically.
The US government-or should I say organized criminal cartel or junta- does whatever it wants to do, the constitution has nothing to do with it anymore, nor do the english language words used in the constitution have any basis in what they call "the law". You can go through it paragraph by paragraph, use websters first dictionary as a guide-the only true reference over what the words as originally written really meant, and find obvious exceptions that are "enforced" on people. In particular,all of our born-with rights. 180 degrees from that concept now, whatever the guys with guns and so called "legal authority" say is theirs, is theirs. It was a decent attempt,had some geat promise, the implementation has turned into a disaster. What we have now is called a power and money accumulation centered fascist dictatorship. Those with the most corporate~money and political bribery ties call the shots, it's pretty obvious.
"Copyright" has been turned into de facto "forever". The trends are definetly past a single human life span, that means "forever" for current innovators to use and build from previous works for further development unimpeded. The big players want it that way, so it happened. What used to be "legal" just an historical short time ago is now most "illegal", not only with copyrights, but with a lot of human endeavors. You would be semi hard pressed to come up with any normal human day to day activity now that doesn't have a corporgovernmental "you must get our permission to do it or else you are considered a criminal" clause sneaked in there someplace, even it is a layer or two from the surface.
--you sound just like us, PROUD dozenaires! Proud I say!!! Like that new tax cut they just signed, that means I get to keep an extra...quarter? something like that... hhehhehehehe
My BIG drive, that I am using right now, is an 8 gigger fujitsu, running in my freaking red and dripping blood bleeding edge 1996 IBM 365, 200PP.....the drive that came with it is a 1.6 GB IBM drive that sounded from day one like acorns in a blender. I mean, it's like it was designed for audio monitoring, you can HEAR it work.. It's still plugged in on the cable, no idea what's on it anymore, mostly borked leenux experiments in noob kernel compiling.. yes, I still suck really well on that....
The funny part is, you can be running antique stuff like this, and e-vile haxors STILL want in. I should leave a welcome mat and just let them in, in exchange for occasional IRC tech support and help with my SPAM problems... I mean, as long as I would be hosting them and all....
I'm not sure now, but seems like just a week or so ago I was reading that. If that happens, AOL will need all the cash and free software it can get, which is exactly what this settlement does for them, coincidentaly. Being able to still use IE will cut them a lot of development R&D slack for a long time, so I bet they won't care what label is on the browser.
Here's a hoot of a thought, I wonder if any MAJOR ISP would consider being all free software based, and ENCOURAGE the alternatives out there, instead of defaulting to the borg? Maybe even an offshoot branded browser, moz based perhaps, for those folks who just love to be able to "insert a disk, klik hier, and get the intarweb"? maybe even an entire distro, that came with signup, had support with it? Geeks still wouldn't need it, but just maybe....
consider, the earthredrakemoztooiannetlinux ISP/OS/browser/office/etc combo
might help a scosh with funding of whatnot.. I know I'd sign with them.
just a few thoughts..
just as an observation, all my mac drives going back to the 80's all still work quite well. Of course most of them are under 1 GB, but still...stout stuff it appears. You have to change the clock batteries on the MOBOs like once or twice (I don't know, that's as often as I do it) a decade or so,but that's it to keep the drives and the boxes they are in running just fine. I'd have to check again, but I *think* most of them are scsi, though.
.. and I read it here awhile back, was that they seemed to be putting attention on an entirely new kind of storage, some cubed action with individual drives all linked together. Not sure if it was what is considered raid or not. I forget the name of it or I'd look it up on a search engine and provide a link to it. So them selling off to hitachi is no big deal, they also maintained some sort of partnertship with them, IIRC.
They have plenty of other projects to deal with, I'm sure they are staying busy...and making money...
Besides, you HAVE to admit, "deathstar" really is a funny name, it would have happened to any company with a similar snafu, or even a product with just a funny name that could be morphed into something funny. We used to call kawasakis (mach IIIs mostly) in detroit "kowalskis"*, 3 guesses why, first two don't count.
*note-you need to know the demographics of detroit 30-40 years ago before it turned into something like beirut.
--that's what I thought too, instead of having to replace all the old desktops, just add a few really nice powerful ones someplace in the cluster.
... and because it *stomps* all over the competition, it should be called "klompen".
Lucifers Hammer, Niven and Pournelle novel, classic in it's genre, probably (arguably) the best
Unintended Consequences, John Ross novel, very good detailed past to present to future look at politics, freedom issues,technical isses as related to the phenomenon of self defense as a born with right, and how the US has dealt with these topics and possible future scenarios (the government hates this book, should be a clue how good it is). It might drag the first 1/3 for maybe younger people, but being very similar in age and background and interests to the author, I have to emphasize the background is extremely important to "get" the entire novel.
Patriots, Surviving the Coming Collapse, James Wesley Rawles novel, similar to above, but all the technical details are absolutely correct, a rarity in most novels, and I'll assert that as his subject matter is my top interest and skill set. This is a technical manual disguised as a novel, a pretty interesting combination that was pulled off well.
Civil War II, by Tom Chittum analysis, future trends and probabilities, with the stats, details, etc documented so you can see where the analysis comes from, reads almost as fast as a good novel, and so far his predictions are almost completely correct
for fun,sort of stealth philosophy in an extremely good "americana" readable form, an older author now deceased, anything by Robert Ruark, earlier works better than latter
--the whole idea of developing a market skill is so you can market yourself. Dumping millions more microsoft admins and developers out there just dilutes anyone's marketability-at THIS TIME- it would appear. Seems like you have to walk a line between today and tomorrow, and I'd slap me money on open source eventually "winning" or at least increasing global market and mindshare. There simply have to be many Indians who can see this. also the comments section on the linked story tends to support that idea by a wide margin.
Everytime I look at it, it is obvious that microsoft feels the same way, else they wouldn't bother in offering incentives down to zero cost, giving away licenses, etc, because there would be no need if they didn't see it or believe it. They could even INCREASE prices if they didn't feel open source was a threat to their dominance. And also tending to lobby for legislative efforts that would further lock themselves in "legally" somehow, establish clear governmental and corporate ties mandated by law. It's a cliche but that is clearly-fascistic. That's a desperation move on their part, or seems so to me anyway.
IMO, this past year hit the turning point in open source being way good enough for about any use,for any user level. Before still a little clunky and rough around the edges, but now? Naw, plenty good enough to compete with microsoft, propieatry unixes, mac osx, etc for well over 90% of any conceivable use out there, at any level. Even a complete GUI person like moi has little problems with normal non exotic applications with Linux for example. 3 years ago I took a qucik look at it and didn't even bother trying, because I knew I couldn't use it effectively. last yerar I tried again, MUCH MUCH better, the advances were probably more obvious to someone like me than for someone who had been using linux whatever for many many years, because they saw the advances in very small incremental steps. What I "saw" was a decade worth of advancement in a year or two compared to windows or like previous mac classic. That was enough for me to predict eventual open source dominance. Open source went from a V2 rocket level to a Saturn V and moon landing in a few years, so that trend and rapidity of development will continue most likely.
And the price is sure right-on, trebly more important in areas of the planet where the average wage is dismal. The security is right-on. The customize-ability is right-on. The enthusiasm is right-on. The mindshare with younger geeks is right-on. The license choices are right-on. Hardware is getting cheaper and cheaper and now it's just a matter of time where choice of installed OS is just common, not an aberration at any retail level. Once that occurs it's a new wide open market again, and it's *this close* right now.
And as to "jobs", any nation makes more money by trading with itself as much as possible, and keeping the money recycliing as close to home, rather than exporting it. India and china in particular are in a unique position where there populations are simply so gigantic that they can take advantage of that. Sure, expat workers sending money back home helps, but CREATING the wealth and money in the first place at home is an economic force multiplier. An example opf that was when the US primarily did this with a more diversified economy, and vertical integration of the various sub niches of the economy. Since we went to exporting our developed ability to create wealth, we've gone from the worlds largest creditor nation to worlds largest debtor nation. India would be WAY smart to not duplicate that mistake,to listen to the thinkers rather than the high level market skimmers, and to seek to get more independent, not more dependent, in IT or anything else.
well, do they list what other OSes they tried, and all the scores? There's GOT TO BE plenty 0 fun flamebait in that list!
no, BTW, didn't read any german article, thanks, I am only bilingual, english, and bubba.