I accidently stumbled across a fun trick - make your answering machine message short and sweet. Mine is "Hi, this is $RL.Name, leave me a message. It's short enough that many telemarketers miss it between when it picks up, and when they get patched in to talk. So I get things like, "Hello? <silence> Hello? Hello? <silence> Sir, can you hear me? Hello? <click>"
I have to agree. I've been a longtime windows user, and have toyed with Linux in various flavors on and off. When I have issues with windows, I hit the web, and wander all over looking for answers. Microsoft's knowledge base is a central repository, but often not very helpful at all.
At the same time, often my issue is with how a program interacts with windows - that usually means I have to look for product-specific info rather than windows info. All in all, a major pain in the ass, and there's no "standard" way for me to search, nor a central place to start from.
When I have had issues with Gentoo, I can go to the gentoo forums. And 90% of the time I find my answer there. If not, I can find enough info that I can refine my google search and figure out how to fix my problem.
And yes, my OS has failed me if I need to go looking for help - at least with Gentoo I have a really good starting point. On top of that, I have yet to get a "suck it up - that's the way it is" "solution" to my problem under Linux. If it's major, you can almost bet that someone, somewhere is working on it. Often there is already a beta fix for the issue. Compare that to the last 3-4 versions of windows, and fixes are a long time coming, and often don't happen at all.
Oh, and I don't even want to talk about useful error messages and logs...if my OS breaks, I want to know why and where. I don't want a screen of useless info, which doesn't indicate what program broke, doesn't return any really relevant info, and doesn't log the info clearly, if at all. Windows.
No, this is Trolling v3.1. I mean, anyone who reads this site most likely saw this the first time around. Even if they didn't, they read the original article, or the massive tech-website and/or blog coverage of it.
This is indeed the new form of trolling - except way better than ever before. With no way to mod the article, submitter, or editor, this new trolling can go on for months or years. Rather than troll 1-2 people who then get modded "-1 offtopic", and the troll modded "-1 troll", they can now troll entire articles by submitting dupes. No mods, no karma hit, no being buried by higher-modded comments.
I've been there, but while helping a buddy of mine install Win2k on a dialup connection. It still boggles my mind how it happened. To be absoultely sure, I scanned all the backups that went back onto that computer, and everything was clean. At least, according to fully functional and updated Norton AV and AVG scans.
As far as I can tell, he actually managed to get infected on DIALUP before he had a chance to fully patch Win2k, and get Norton updated.
And that is why I just did my first gentoo kernel update on my spare computer, and why I've started to clean up this machine (win2k) and back up all the files I have on it.
I can deal with tweaking config files and fighting with audio issues - I can't deal with the fact this computer would be dead if I didn't have a decent AV running behind a firewall, with me using Firefox and being somewhat intelligent.
I don't want to be scared about one point of failure compromising my computer. Running a moderately secure/obscure (to most malicious coders) OS behind a firewall with a solid browser makes me sleep a little better at night. I'm paranoid enough that I've been doing my banking from my linux system only. While it's not 100% safe, it scares me far less than using my win2k machine for stuff like that.
I'm about 95% sure my Win2k system is clean - but I know that it only takes a slight mistake to infect it, and within 30 seconds it could be unusable. My love of games not withstanding, I'm taking my ball and going to play in linux-land. I'll fight with wine - it will probably take less time than worrying about all the potential crap that could happen to windows.
Well, if you ever need another beta tester, let me know. I have a fair amount of free time on my hands this summer. And I've just started a hardcore ascension in KOL, which means I have even more free time on my hands, due to very limited adventures.
Or new games that are light. While it's not multiplayer, KOL can be a blast if you have someone to talk to and discuss ideas with. It's a blast regardless, but sharing the amazing content and quotes with others makes it all the more fun.
By default. With a little editing, you can have a browser as cool as mine - Mozilla Plush Minotaur. I highly recommend it. It has tabbed browsing and anti-popup features. It's almost as good as Mozilla Stalwart Tendriculos, which I was using yesterday...
I'm going to laugh my ass off when someone finds a trivial way to defeat whatever DRM MS puts into this to make sure the content is legal, and they get sued for helping distribute copywrited material.
Not laugh because they get sued, but laugh because I can almost guarentee that MS has the money and the lawyers to get off on the "we didn't host it" argument. And in doing so, they are big enough to set precident, and will thus free every other p2p software maker as well.
Of course, how damn amusing would it be if their P2P was used to share...illegal copies of MS products?
...and a poorly written, poorly researched blog is great for submitting to slashdot. Most likely it will run on the front page and get flamed into oblivion by posters who obviously have more sense than the editors who accept such submissions. Often more than once...
I was half jesting there - while I've never owned a mac, I've been drooling over the stuff in Tiger. Drooling, to the extent, that I've been tearing through the tech specs and learning how it does what it does. And man, is it pretty interesting, and fairly radical, as a whole compilation.
While I don't have first-hand experience, I'm well read, and really interested in what they are doing with OSX. I think that apple may start to take a more sizable chunk of the market, as I'm now seriously considering buying some Mac stuff, for the first time ever. I imagine that there are plenty of others (and I know a few) who are feeling likewise.
Good to hear that the kids can use this - if it can also be explained to adult computer users, we should be all set. I wonder if we can get the kids to draw a picture about how it works...
Not using apple at the moment, I'm entirely unqualified to respond, but I'll never let such a trivial problem stop me.
As long as enough metadata is tagged to a file, you'll be able to track it down. I.E., the program it was created with, the user who created it, and the date. If you've lost a spreadsheet you were working on last week, open a "spreadsheets from last week" folder, and there it is.
If you need a document from last year, open a "documents from last year, not having x,y,z tags, created by me, etc, etc" folder. Enough metadata is added that you shouldn't be able to lose documents.
In contrast, in windows, if you don't save to the right folder, and you don't remember the name, it's far harder to find your file. I don't believe there is a "created by" field to search on, and you have to rely upon extension rather than program which created it. And it can be anywhere in a tangled directory structure. Spotlight means (I think) that the worse case scenario is you pull up all items created using X program by user Y, during time period Z. And that's better than windows can do.
Think NetHack with stick figures and a lot more humor merged with something like Zork. It's amazing, once you get the hang of it. Try it for 2 days. You'll be hooked forever.
I'm in the same boat. I like Win2k, but am *never* going to move on to XP or whatever they come out with next.
Because of this, I've already converted my two backup computers to Gentoo. I haven't had time for the massive backing-up and repartitioning needed to do this on my main machine, but I think that it will happen over the summer. I plan to dual boot, until I stop booting back into windows at all.
Rather than jump in head first, I started with my older computers. And took my time learning about a fairly different world. It's not my first foray into linux, but it's by far my most involved. Am I thrilled with Linux now? Not 100%, because Gentoo (any Linux flavor, really) takes a lot more effort to get games working than windows usually does. But I like computers, I like poking around in the OS, and I think I can make it work for me.
So far, Gentoo has been a pain in the ass. Not more of a pain in the ass than windows, just a different pain in the ass. It took me awhile to get sound and video working well. It took a little time and effort to get java working in Firefox. But all the irritations of Gentoo are simply in different areas than those of windows. To start with, I no longer hunt for program or system downloads, nor do I really worry about worms or spyware.
Recently, I had some issues with windows hanging on boot for 30 seconds. If I disabled the lan connection, it booted normally. It took me ages to track down that I had a mapped network drive to a computer I no-longer shared a lan with. For some reason, win2k felt the need to ping it and wait for the response to time out before it finished booting. Every time. Without notifying me, or logging it anywhere I could find. And without this "boot item" showing up anywhere I could see.
I've had issues getting TeamSpeak, UT2004, and my headset to play nicely together. Often I'll get a crash with no useful error information. Generally any failed starts or crashes in Gentoo produce moderately detailed error messages. In windows, I get nothing.
And so I'm slowly moving to Linux. It will take me awhile (because Gentoo takes so damn long to compile, naturally) but I'll be MS free by the time Longhorn is available. I've fiddled with some flavor of Linux for a month or so for during each of the last 3 years. To date, I've always gone back to Win2k. Now, I think Linux is really getting mature. If you haven't tried it lately, try it. Unlike windows which has been stagnant for years, Linux is moving, and moving fast.
Um, this is slashdot. I'm willing to put down $20 that your story will *also* get accepted. I mean, this is a google story, after all, and we always need more google...
In addition, if you want to hide your mic, you don't use wireless. A wireless mic will have to emit a fairly powerful, distinct signal for it to be of any use at all. It would be trivial to bulid something to detect this transmission. You might not be able to break the encryption, but you could definitly walk around and figure out where the mics are located.
This, combined with the massive amount of processing power needed to sift through audio data, means you are unlikely to catch any moderately intelligent criminals. (The dumb ones you would catch eventually anyway.) Leaving these good for....monitoring noise.
Saying "Everything around the code is not free" is at least somewhat true for MS products as well. Support for MS products is definitely not free. Nor is IT training. Few IT staffers are set for life with their current skill set. Had I the choice of IT staffers trained to fudge workarounds in windows, and IT staffers trained to code problem fixes in Linux, I'd take the fix, even if it cost a little more.
And I've often wondered how much IT time and money could be saved if we trained users in the first place, instead of just assuming they were competent to use a windows machine. Even if it's just Excel, Word, Outlook, and a browser, many users could use some training. It would probably help quite a bit to run a "don't download random toolbars, 'buddies' or click on flashy ads" seminar for your general users.
More and more we're seeing lack of control of their own software bite people in the ass. While the inital cost of switching to open software is probably higher than continuing to use MS products, I'd bet it costs less than finding that your vendor has locked you out of your own data.
One major problem with teleportation is the bandwidth needed. Consider: to teleport a person, you need to transmit the exact state of all their cells. If they show up with less oxygen, food, too much waste, etc in their cells, they can die. If their neurons don't have the *exact* chemicals in the *exact* placement as when they left, they loose some/all their memories.
I believe that the number of cells in the human body is on the order of 10e14, give or take a factor of 100. Even assuming 10e10 cells, not only do you have to transmit the exact chemical makeup of the cells, plus the exact placement of all the celuar 'bits', but also the exact dna/rna structure, because without that, cells won't be able to reproduce, and the teleportee would die off as their cells did.
I'm not caffinated enough to try to do the calculation, but outside of scanning in real-time, transmitting that data, and re-assembling the person, you still have the bandwidth restrictions listed above. I doubt it will ever be possible.
More accurately, you'd have to be a martial artist running a website which told people to stand up to muggers, and gave information on how to disarm people wielding guns.
If that was the case, then when you tossed them your wallet, the GP comment about not practicing what you preach would have been much more justified.
But for gods sake, emerge openoffice-bin, not the straight, uncompiled version (emerge openoffice). That is, unless you're up for 19hrs of compiling, for no real advantage.
I'm jumping into my first gentoo install, and managed to screw a fair amount up, and I had some wacky hardware issues to fight through. With that being said, as long as you can read, know about http://forums.gentoo.org/search.php, and have a friendly gentoo expert available to answer the occasional odd question, you should be all set.
The longest part of the install for me was emerging kde and openoffice-bin. I started at 10pm, and kde was still compiling when I left at 7:30 the next morning. Both were done by 4:30pm. FWIW, I'm running an XP1900 with 1/2 gb ram.
Looking at the number of posts since this story hit the front page, I can only assume that everyone is captivated by this article and unable to post. I have rarely, in my many years of perusing/., seen such an insightful and relevant topic.
I would say that everyone reading the article must have fallen asleep, but since nobody rtfa...
Slashdot Mirror
I accidently stumbled across a fun trick - make your answering machine message short and sweet. Mine is "Hi, this is $RL.Name, leave me a message. It's short enough that many telemarketers miss it between when it picks up, and when they get patched in to talk. So I get things like, "Hello? <silence> Hello? Hello? <silence> Sir, can you hear me? Hello? <click>"
Unlike my post, which suffered from the aforementioned moderation issues inherent in trolling. Except that it wasn't...
I have to agree. I've been a longtime windows user, and have toyed with Linux in various flavors on and off. When I have issues with windows, I hit the web, and wander all over looking for answers. Microsoft's knowledge base is a central repository, but often not very helpful at all.
At the same time, often my issue is with how a program interacts with windows - that usually means I have to look for product-specific info rather than windows info. All in all, a major pain in the ass, and there's no "standard" way for me to search, nor a central place to start from.
When I have had issues with Gentoo, I can go to the gentoo forums. And 90% of the time I find my answer there. If not, I can find enough info that I can refine my google search and figure out how to fix my problem.
And yes, my OS has failed me if I need to go looking for help - at least with Gentoo I have a really good starting point. On top of that, I have yet to get a "suck it up - that's the way it is" "solution" to my problem under Linux. If it's major, you can almost bet that someone, somewhere is working on it. Often there is already a beta fix for the issue. Compare that to the last 3-4 versions of windows, and fixes are a long time coming, and often don't happen at all.
Oh, and I don't even want to talk about useful error messages and logs...if my OS breaks, I want to know why and where. I don't want a screen of useless info, which doesn't indicate what program broke, doesn't return any really relevant info, and doesn't log the info clearly, if at all. Windows.
No, this is Trolling v3.1. I mean, anyone who reads this site most likely saw this the first time around. Even if they didn't, they read the original article, or the massive tech-website and/or blog coverage of it.
This is indeed the new form of trolling - except way better than ever before. With no way to mod the article, submitter, or editor, this new trolling can go on for months or years. Rather than troll 1-2 people who then get modded "-1 offtopic", and the troll modded "-1 troll", they can now troll entire articles by submitting dupes. No mods, no karma hit, no being buried by higher-modded comments.
It's god-damned brilliant.
I've been there, but while helping a buddy of mine install Win2k on a dialup connection. It still boggles my mind how it happened. To be absoultely sure, I scanned all the backups that went back onto that computer, and everything was clean. At least, according to fully functional and updated Norton AV and AVG scans.
As far as I can tell, he actually managed to get infected on DIALUP before he had a chance to fully patch Win2k, and get Norton updated.
And that is why I just did my first gentoo kernel update on my spare computer, and why I've started to clean up this machine (win2k) and back up all the files I have on it.
I can deal with tweaking config files and fighting with audio issues - I can't deal with the fact this computer would be dead if I didn't have a decent AV running behind a firewall, with me using Firefox and being somewhat intelligent.
I don't want to be scared about one point of failure compromising my computer. Running a moderately secure/obscure (to most malicious coders) OS behind a firewall with a solid browser makes me sleep a little better at night. I'm paranoid enough that I've been doing my banking from my linux system only. While it's not 100% safe, it scares me far less than using my win2k machine for stuff like that.
I'm about 95% sure my Win2k system is clean - but I know that it only takes a slight mistake to infect it, and within 30 seconds it could be unusable. My love of games not withstanding, I'm taking my ball and going to play in linux-land. I'll fight with wine - it will probably take less time than worrying about all the potential crap that could happen to windows.
but you've got a lot of fans that admire you in both genders.
The fact that he has more than one gender is really creepy. However, that must nearly double his fan base...
Well, if you ever need another beta tester, let me know. I have a fair amount of free time on my hands this summer. And I've just started a hardcore ascension in KOL, which means I have even more free time on my hands, due to very limited adventures.
Or new games that are light. While it's not multiplayer, KOL can be a blast if you have someone to talk to and discuss ideas with. It's a blast regardless, but sharing the amazing content and quotes with others makes it all the more fun.
http://www2.kingdomofloathing.com/login.php
By default. With a little editing, you can have a browser as cool as mine - Mozilla Plush Minotaur. I highly recommend it. It has tabbed browsing and anti-popup features. It's almost as good as Mozilla Stalwart Tendriculos, which I was using yesterday...
I'm going to laugh my ass off when someone finds a trivial way to defeat whatever DRM MS puts into this to make sure the content is legal, and they get sued for helping distribute copywrited material.
Not laugh because they get sued, but laugh because I can almost guarentee that MS has the money and the lawyers to get off on the "we didn't host it" argument. And in doing so, they are big enough to set precident, and will thus free every other p2p software maker as well.
Of course, how damn amusing would it be if their P2P was used to share...illegal copies of MS products?
...and a poorly written, poorly researched blog is great for submitting to slashdot. Most likely it will run on the front page and get flamed into oblivion by posters who obviously have more sense than the editors who accept such submissions. Often more than once...
I was half jesting there - while I've never owned a mac, I've been drooling over the stuff in Tiger. Drooling, to the extent, that I've been tearing through the tech specs and learning how it does what it does. And man, is it pretty interesting, and fairly radical, as a whole compilation.
While I don't have first-hand experience, I'm well read, and really interested in what they are doing with OSX. I think that apple may start to take a more sizable chunk of the market, as I'm now seriously considering buying some Mac stuff, for the first time ever. I imagine that there are plenty of others (and I know a few) who are feeling likewise.
Good to hear that the kids can use this - if it can also be explained to adult computer users, we should be all set. I wonder if we can get the kids to draw a picture about how it works...
Not using apple at the moment, I'm entirely unqualified to respond, but I'll never let such a trivial problem stop me.
As long as enough metadata is tagged to a file, you'll be able to track it down. I.E., the program it was created with, the user who created it, and the date. If you've lost a spreadsheet you were working on last week, open a "spreadsheets from last week" folder, and there it is.
If you need a document from last year, open a "documents from last year, not having x,y,z tags, created by me, etc, etc" folder. Enough metadata is added that you shouldn't be able to lose documents.
In contrast, in windows, if you don't save to the right folder, and you don't remember the name, it's far harder to find your file. I don't believe there is a "created by" field to search on, and you have to rely upon extension rather than program which created it. And it can be anywhere in a tangled directory structure. Spotlight means (I think) that the worse case scenario is you pull up all items created using X program by user Y, during time period Z. And that's better than windows can do.
One word: KOL. Free.
http://www3.kingdomofloathing.com/login.php
Think NetHack with stick figures and a lot more humor merged with something like Zork. It's amazing, once you get the hang of it. Try it for 2 days. You'll be hooked forever.
It's an elevator with only two floors, and one button: Go There.
I'm in the same boat. I like Win2k, but am *never* going to move on to XP or whatever they come out with next.
Because of this, I've already converted my two backup computers to Gentoo. I haven't had time for the massive backing-up and repartitioning needed to do this on my main machine, but I think that it will happen over the summer. I plan to dual boot, until I stop booting back into windows at all.
Rather than jump in head first, I started with my older computers. And took my time learning about a fairly different world. It's not my first foray into linux, but it's by far my most involved. Am I thrilled with Linux now? Not 100%, because Gentoo (any Linux flavor, really) takes a lot more effort to get games working than windows usually does. But I like computers, I like poking around in the OS, and I think I can make it work for me.
So far, Gentoo has been a pain in the ass. Not more of a pain in the ass than windows, just a different pain in the ass. It took me awhile to get sound and video working well. It took a little time and effort to get java working in Firefox. But all the irritations of Gentoo are simply in different areas than those of windows. To start with, I no longer hunt for program or system downloads, nor do I really worry about worms or spyware.
Recently, I had some issues with windows hanging on boot for 30 seconds. If I disabled the lan connection, it booted normally. It took me ages to track down that I had a mapped network drive to a computer I no-longer shared a lan with. For some reason, win2k felt the need to ping it and wait for the response to time out before it finished booting. Every time. Without notifying me, or logging it anywhere I could find. And without this "boot item" showing up anywhere I could see.
I've had issues getting TeamSpeak, UT2004, and my headset to play nicely together. Often I'll get a crash with no useful error information. Generally any failed starts or crashes in Gentoo produce moderately detailed error messages. In windows, I get nothing.
And so I'm slowly moving to Linux. It will take me awhile (because Gentoo takes so damn long to compile, naturally) but I'll be MS free by the time Longhorn is available. I've fiddled with some flavor of Linux for a month or so for during each of the last 3 years. To date, I've always gone back to Win2k. Now, I think Linux is really getting mature. If you haven't tried it lately, try it. Unlike windows which has been stagnant for years, Linux is moving, and moving fast.
Um, this is slashdot. I'm willing to put down $20 that your story will *also* get accepted. I mean, this is a google story, after all, and we always need more google...
This, combined with the massive amount of processing power needed to sift through audio data, means you are unlikely to catch any moderately intelligent criminals. (The dumb ones you would catch eventually anyway.) Leaving these good for....monitoring noise.
Stealth Pistol Represent!
I'm doing a report on web statistics for school. Could you tell me what percentage are crap?
T/Y...
Saying "Everything around the code is not free" is at least somewhat true for MS products as well. Support for MS products is definitely not free. Nor is IT training. Few IT staffers are set for life with their current skill set. Had I the choice of IT staffers trained to fudge workarounds in windows, and IT staffers trained to code problem fixes in Linux, I'd take the fix, even if it cost a little more.
And I've often wondered how much IT time and money could be saved if we trained users in the first place, instead of just assuming they were competent to use a windows machine. Even if it's just Excel, Word, Outlook, and a browser, many users could use some training. It would probably help quite a bit to run a "don't download random toolbars, 'buddies' or click on flashy ads" seminar for your general users.
More and more we're seeing lack of control of their own software bite people in the ass. While the inital cost of switching to open software is probably higher than continuing to use MS products, I'd bet it costs less than finding that your vendor has locked you out of your own data.
One major problem with teleportation is the bandwidth needed. Consider: to teleport a person, you need to transmit the exact state of all their cells. If they show up with less oxygen, food, too much waste, etc in their cells, they can die. If their neurons don't have the *exact* chemicals in the *exact* placement as when they left, they loose some/all their memories.
I believe that the number of cells in the human body is on the order of 10e14, give or take a factor of 100. Even assuming 10e10 cells, not only do you have to transmit the exact chemical makeup of the cells, plus the exact placement of all the celuar 'bits', but also the exact dna/rna structure, because without that, cells won't be able to reproduce, and the teleportee would die off as their cells did.
I'm not caffinated enough to try to do the calculation, but outside of scanning in real-time, transmitting that data, and re-assembling the person, you still have the bandwidth restrictions listed above. I doubt it will ever be possible.
Um, didn't a dingo steal your baby, Mrs. Coward?
More accurately, you'd have to be a martial artist running a website which told people to stand up to muggers, and gave information on how to disarm people wielding guns.
If that was the case, then when you tossed them your wallet, the GP comment about not practicing what you preach would have been much more justified.
But for gods sake, emerge openoffice-bin, not the straight, uncompiled version (emerge openoffice). That is, unless you're up for 19hrs of compiling, for no real advantage.
;)
I'm jumping into my first gentoo install, and managed to screw a fair amount up, and I had some wacky hardware issues to fight through. With that being said, as long as you can read, know about http://forums.gentoo.org/search.php, and have a friendly gentoo expert available to answer the occasional odd question, you should be all set.
The longest part of the install for me was emerging kde and openoffice-bin. I started at 10pm, and kde was still compiling when I left at 7:30 the next morning. Both were done by 4:30pm. FWIW, I'm running an XP1900 with 1/2 gb ram.
Oh, and the ultimate gentoo resource for new users?
http://mycroft.mozdev.org/download.html
Drop "gentoo forums" in the box and click the resulting link.
Looking at the number of posts since this story hit the front page, I can only assume that everyone is captivated by this article and unable to post. I have rarely, in my many years of perusing /., seen such an insightful and relevant topic.
I would say that everyone reading the article must have fallen asleep, but since nobody rtfa...
humm...perhaps I can get some discussion going...
Gentoo r0xors my world!!
karma--;