After I purchased a Dell Mini netbook for my wife a few weeks ago, I can see why 98% of netbooks (or whatever the stat was) now ship with Windows.
While I utterly despise Windows, why the f*ck was Dell shipping the piece of crap that is Ubuntu Netbook Remix or whatever the hell it's called.
It is a piece of utter crap. The first thin I did with her netbook was wipe it out and install a real copy of Ubuntu.
My wife has been using Linux for ~5 years now, and she couldn't stand the crap that Dell pre-installed. Is it any wonder why customers are picking Windows when their other choice is UNR?
UNR turned what could have been a decent netbook experience into something that gave me visions of playing with my first pocket organizer. The interface was utter garbage and counter-intuitive.
It also doesn't help the way Dell made their touchpad. The right and left mouse buttons are built into the touchpad surface--so if you use one finger to move the mouse and another to 'tap', the mouse suddenly zooms across the screen because it thinks you moved your finger.
I purchased a Dell back in ~1997. Crap. I purchased a netbook in 2010. Crap. I'm done with Dell. So much for trying to support a company because they are supporting open source.
Next time I'll buy an HP/Compaq laptop, pay the Microsoft tax, and then put Ubuntu on it.
Quite true. However, inventing devices specifically to inflict pain, is something very different from misusing a general purpose device to this end. The whole mentality of painful non-lethal weapons should be questioned: e.g., one could disable people with foam, or by throwing a net over them etc..., which is painless, or one could disable people with painful Tasers. See the difference in attitudes?
Yes. I see the difference.
If there is a huge mob of rioting people, I am of the opinion that you can try stopping them with nets, foam, or whatever. If that doesn't work, use the microwave gun and or a TASER. If that fails, start shooting.
Of course I advocate those moves from the perspective of a private citizen defending their property. I don't advocate the government doing it unless it is in a war zone. (i.e. not the police doing it in United States)
How often must the government / industry claim there is a lack of qualified workers in some field before people just laugh and wonder who wants to bring down whose salary?
How about giving them loans for training which are paid back as part of their salary once they've secured a job?
Maybe their premise is wrong. There doesn't appear to be a lack of qualified IT workers. (My boss is searching for a go-out-and-replace-this-motherboard technician, and a majority of the applicants are 'big players'--like former Oracle DB developers). I think the correct question is "Why aren't we getting a lot of IT people wanting to work in the medical industry?".
My guess is the horribly insane regulations like HIPAA, SOX, etc... that make the job more 'risky'.
If someone hacks into a windows box at...say...a construction firm, it's not a huge deal. Make sure everything gets fixed/patched and continue on.
If someone hacks into a windows box at...say...a hospital, and you're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on cleanup, notifying patients, HIPAA fines, credit reports, and possibly getting fired because someone hacked into your system.
As a fun side-note, none of my Linux boxes (~45) have been hacked in the last 30 days, but I've had 5 compromised Windows machines out of approximately 150. (The linux boxes have no antivirus software, all 150 Windows machines are running either Symantec or McAfee).
Proponents of ADS believe the system may help limit civilian deaths in counterinsurgency operations and provide new, safer ways to disperse crowds and control riots, but opponents fear that the system's long-term effects are not fully known and that the device may even be used for torture. Regardless, if ADS is successful in the field, we'll probably see this mobile microwave at your next local protest or riot."
In other news, OCZ has released a new 1,000 watt power supply. Proponents believe it will help power the next generation of high-powered workstations and servers. Opponents think it could even be used for torture.
And a pencil could be used for torture. ...and a baseball bat...and a knife, and a screwdriver.
Morons: Anything can be used for torture. What matters is the character of individuals. You don't take away screwdrivers because they *could* be used for torture. You find the person using the screwdriver to torture someone, and put a bullet between their eyes.
What should DNS server administrators do to sign our own domains, and configure our servers to pay attention to DNSSEC when performing lookups?
I learned how to configure BIND a decade ago, and it's mostly just been smooth sailing since then. I have no idea what's involved in setting up DNSSEC, whether it's something I can figure out how to enable in 20 minutes or a huge project that really won't be feasible for me to undertake at all. Can somebody point me in the right direction?
It's apparently been over a decade since you've tried to look up information on the internet too. We no longer use gopher. There's this new thing called HTTP and WWW. There's also an upstart new search engine company that'll probably die out in a few years--but you can use them here.
What kind of real-life stressful situation involves the person being stuck in a chair without a computer and without access to the internet?
Ok...uh..let me think....
Got it. You're the network admin for the small-town ISP in Jericho Kansas. You look up from browsing Slashdot and drinking coffee to notice a mushroom cloud in the distance. The boss rolls in at full-tilt and says "The interweb just went down!"...
No, not VB. We prefer to use a combination of Microsoft Word documents pasted into Microsoft Front Page 97, served up by Microsoft's Personal Web Server. (Yeah. Remember that one? Ugh.)
what a load of crap. do people actually believe your nonsense????
What crap? Are you saying the government doesn't have volumes of regulations, requirements, and permits to obtain, produce, handle, sell, and/or export nuclear material?
Yeah--and they have legions of people devoted to dealing with the bureaucratic red tape required by the DoE and other federal agencies. And yeah, that includes lobbyists too.
And when I'm pretty sure companies are still willing to cash government checks... I guess I don't understand "shortages" in synthesized isotopes. I heard a while back there is another isotope synthesized in Canada that we have to buy because there isn't enough in the US or something like that. I don't get it.
There are several situations like that in the US. Sure, private companies could make synthesized isotopes. We have the brainpower and tools to do it. Unfortunately we have ming-numbingly huge government red tape that gets in the way. Fines, fees, inspections, reports, surveys, permits, clearences, investigations, and on and on and on. I mean--you don't really expect the government would just/let/ someone start manufacturing nuclear anything for any reason, do you?
Is it wise to put the md5 hash of a mission statement that is likely to be subject to frequent change on a logo which should not?
Yeah--think of poor NASA. They'd have to re-print all their letterhead and fix all their signs after changing their mission from "Explore space" to "Tell third-world countries how awesome their contribution to science and technology are".
would you rather buy a car from a company that treated a recall about the engine exploding and killing you the same way they treat a recall about the light in the trunk failing?
What is all this bitching about the price of tools, with MSDN out there for almost nothing? Frankly, if you dont have $2K for an Enterprise MSDN licensing, you really have no business doing a start up, do you?
The point of starting a company is to make money. Money for you, and money for the investors. Lighting a pile of money on fire just to get access to development tools is throwing away money that could be in your pocket or your investors.
If you can do something for free, why would you choose to pay $2,000 for it?
Back in the late 90's, I developed for a Microsoft shop. By 2001, I was playing with linux, and by 2002 I made the switch. I haven't run into anything I couldn't do just as easily in Linux.
True. But they opened the first can of worms by collecting it in the first place.
Am I missing something? They collected samples of data bring brodcast from open wireless access points.
Are you going to bitch next if Google happens to capture the text on a billboard while mapping I-5? It's information being broadcast in *public*.
So there was a Paradise, but then the Universe crashed when the Fruit was a null pointer, and God is running the backup recovery ever since?
Man, that explains everything!
I've never seen so many strawmans in one paragraph before. You must love straw. Scarecrows too. You must be planning on hosting your own Wizard of Oz convention. That explains everything!
I wouldn't call it an argument. You're about as likely to recover your data from/dev/random as creating life from nothing by simply waiting for long periods of time.
After all, who created/dev/random? Some say it simply sprang into existence. Others believe in the intelligent design of Linus.
# Ban Microsoft shares
# Ban NFS
# Put users on Linux and servers on NetBSD
If you are banning MS style shares, and also banning NFS, how exactly *do* you want all your users on Linux desktops to access their data on the BSD servers? Might as well just ban all TCP/IP traffic from the network, and note that you now have much more available bandwidth.
Slashdot Mirror
After I purchased a Dell Mini netbook for my wife a few weeks ago, I can see why 98% of netbooks (or whatever the stat was) now ship with Windows.
While I utterly despise Windows, why the f*ck was Dell shipping the piece of crap that is Ubuntu Netbook Remix or whatever the hell it's called.
It is a piece of utter crap. The first thin I did with her netbook was wipe it out and install a real copy of Ubuntu.
My wife has been using Linux for ~5 years now, and she couldn't stand the crap that Dell pre-installed. Is it any wonder why customers are picking Windows when their other choice is UNR?
UNR turned what could have been a decent netbook experience into something that gave me visions of playing with my first pocket organizer. The interface was utter garbage and counter-intuitive.
It also doesn't help the way Dell made their touchpad. The right and left mouse buttons are built into the touchpad surface--so if you use one finger to move the mouse and another to 'tap', the mouse suddenly zooms across the screen because it thinks you moved your finger.
I purchased a Dell back in ~1997. Crap. I purchased a netbook in 2010. Crap. I'm done with Dell. So much for trying to support a company because they are supporting open source.
Next time I'll buy an HP/Compaq laptop, pay the Microsoft tax, and then put Ubuntu on it.
You can't get pregnant alone - nude or otherwise (unless you go shopping on the net for a sperm donor and a turkey-baster).
Either that, or you accidentally trip and fall into into the average slashdotter's sock hamper...
It reminds me of the difference between my back yard during the winter of 1921 and my back yard during the summer of 2010...
Quite true. However, inventing devices specifically to inflict pain, is something very different from misusing a general purpose device to this end. The whole mentality of painful non-lethal weapons should be questioned: e.g., one could disable people with foam, or by throwing a net over them etc..., which is painless, or one could disable people with painful Tasers. See the difference in attitudes?
Yes. I see the difference.
If there is a huge mob of rioting people, I am of the opinion that you can try stopping them with nets, foam, or whatever. If that doesn't work, use the microwave gun and or a TASER. If that fails, start shooting.
Of course I advocate those moves from the perspective of a private citizen defending their property. I don't advocate the government doing it unless it is in a war zone. (i.e. not the police doing it in United States)
How often must the government / industry claim there is a lack of qualified workers in some field before people just laugh and wonder who wants to bring down whose salary?
How about giving them loans for training which are paid back as part of their salary once they've secured a job?
Maybe their premise is wrong. There doesn't appear to be a lack of qualified IT workers. (My boss is searching for a go-out-and-replace-this-motherboard technician, and a majority of the applicants are 'big players'--like former Oracle DB developers). I think the correct question is "Why aren't we getting a lot of IT people wanting to work in the medical industry?".
My guess is the horribly insane regulations like HIPAA, SOX, etc... that make the job more 'risky'.
If someone hacks into a windows box at...say...a construction firm, it's not a huge deal. Make sure everything gets fixed/patched and continue on.
If someone hacks into a windows box at...say...a hospital, and you're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on cleanup, notifying patients, HIPAA fines, credit reports, and possibly getting fired because someone hacked into your system.
As a fun side-note, none of my Linux boxes (~45) have been hacked in the last 30 days, but I've had 5 compromised Windows machines out of approximately 150. (The linux boxes have no antivirus software, all 150 Windows machines are running either Symantec or McAfee).
Proponents of ADS believe the system may help limit civilian deaths in counterinsurgency operations and provide new, safer ways to disperse crowds and control riots, but opponents fear that the system's long-term effects are not fully known and that the device may even be used for torture. Regardless, if ADS is successful in the field, we'll probably see this mobile microwave at your next local protest or riot."
In other news, OCZ has released a new 1,000 watt power supply. Proponents believe it will help power the next generation of high-powered workstations and servers. Opponents think it could even be used for torture.
...and a baseball bat...and a knife, and a screwdriver.
And a pencil could be used for torture.
Morons: Anything can be used for torture. What matters is the character of individuals. You don't take away screwdrivers because they *could* be used for torture. You find the person using the screwdriver to torture someone, and put a bullet between their eyes.
What should DNS server administrators do to sign our own domains, and configure our servers to pay attention to DNSSEC when performing lookups?
I learned how to configure BIND a decade ago, and it's mostly just been smooth sailing since then. I have no idea what's involved in setting up DNSSEC, whether it's something I can figure out how to enable in 20 minutes or a huge project that really won't be feasible for me to undertake at all. Can somebody point me in the right direction?
It's apparently been over a decade since you've tried to look up information on the internet too. We no longer use gopher. There's this new thing called HTTP and WWW. There's also an upstart new search engine company that'll probably die out in a few years--but you can use them here.
;)
What kind of real-life stressful situation involves the person being stuck in a chair without a computer and without access to the internet?
Ok...uh..let me think....
Got it. You're the network admin for the small-town ISP in Jericho Kansas. You look up from browsing Slashdot and drinking coffee to notice a mushroom cloud in the distance. The boss rolls in at full-tilt and says "The interweb just went down!"...
....with a GUI front end....
Built with Visual Basic I hope!!
No, not VB. We prefer to use a combination of Microsoft Word documents pasted into Microsoft Front Page 97, served up by Microsoft's Personal Web Server. (Yeah. Remember that one? Ugh.)
what a load of crap. do people actually believe your nonsense????
What crap? Are you saying the government doesn't have volumes of regulations, requirements, and permits to obtain, produce, handle, sell, and/or export nuclear material?
Uh, Bechtel makes Nucular reactors
Yeah--and they have legions of people devoted to dealing with the bureaucratic red tape required by the DoE and other federal agencies. And yeah, that includes lobbyists too.
And when I'm pretty sure companies are still willing to cash government checks... I guess I don't understand "shortages" in synthesized isotopes. I heard a while back there is another isotope synthesized in Canada that we have to buy because there isn't enough in the US or something like that. I don't get it.
There are several situations like that in the US. Sure, private companies could make synthesized isotopes. We have the brainpower and tools to do it. Unfortunately we have ming-numbingly huge government red tape that gets in the way. Fines, fees, inspections, reports, surveys, permits, clearences, investigations, and on and on and on. I mean--you don't really expect the government would just /let/ someone start manufacturing nuclear anything for any reason, do you?
Is it wise to put the md5 hash of a mission statement that is likely to be subject to frequent change on a logo which should not?
Yeah--think of poor NASA. They'd have to re-print all their letterhead and fix all their signs after changing their mission from "Explore space" to "Tell third-world countries how awesome their contribution to science and technology are".
would you rather buy a car from a company that treated a recall about the engine exploding and killing you the same way they treat a recall about the light in the trunk failing?
Yes. I like my Toyota, thank you very much.
Some shops don't patch Linux boxes regularly.
Bah! I patch weekly. ...but I only reboot about once a decade.
Like Novel said: "For servers that only go down when you bring them down"...
What is all this bitching about the price of tools, with MSDN out there for almost nothing? Frankly, if you dont have $2K for an Enterprise MSDN licensing, you really have no business doing a start up, do you?
The point of starting a company is to make money. Money for you, and money for the investors. Lighting a pile of money on fire just to get access to development tools is throwing away money that could be in your pocket or your investors.
If you can do something for free, why would you choose to pay $2,000 for it?
Back in the late 90's, I developed for a Microsoft shop. By 2001, I was playing with linux, and by 2002 I made the switch. I haven't run into anything I couldn't do just as easily in Linux.
True. But they opened the first can of worms by collecting it in the first place.
Am I missing something? They collected samples of data bring brodcast from open wireless access points.
Are you going to bitch next if Google happens to capture the text on a billboard while mapping I-5? It's information being broadcast in *public*.
Now Microsoft is fighting back, claiming its products are the most secure
And in related news, network admins are losing a lot of weight today by laughing their asses off...
So there was a Paradise, but then the Universe crashed when the Fruit was a null pointer, and God is running the backup recovery ever since?
Man, that explains everything!
I've never seen so many strawmans in one paragraph before. You must love straw. Scarecrows too. You must be planning on hosting your own Wizard of Oz convention. That explains everything!
Isn't that the exact argument for evolution?
I wouldn't call it an argument. You're about as likely to recover your data from /dev/random as creating life from nothing by simply waiting for long periods of time.
/dev/random? Some say it simply sprang into existence. Others believe in the intelligent design of Linus.
After all, who created
Snail mail my ass.
USPS/IP aka the Cliff Clavin protocol?
If you are banning MS style shares, and also banning NFS, how exactly *do* you want all your users on Linux desktops to access their data on the BSD servers? Might as well just ban all TCP/IP traffic from the network, and note that you now have much more available bandwidth.
sshfs
The whole point of /dev/null is that it's writable, but not readable.
Exactly. Backups to /dev/null, restores from /dev/random.
Leave the restore running long enough and eventually you'll get your data back...
The whole point of /dev/null is that it's writable, but not readable.
Exactly. Backups to /dev/null, restores from /dev/random.
"What, exactly, constitutes a 'True Data Disaster?"
Are we talking about a data leak that effectively kills a company's credibility dead?
No, we're talking about a massive sunspot that destroys the interweb.