I live on the border, I can tell you without a doubt that Americans* are COMPLETELY out of control. They are myopic and ignorant. Watching CNN is about 1% of what its like in the street.
Gee whiz, you live on the border and that makes you an expert?
CNN isn't an accurate representation of America. CNN has a financial interest in covering the exciting parts of the war. Conflict sells commercials. CNN made itself famous during it's coverage of Gulf War I.
Before you sterotype, I can think of over a hundred personal associates who are opposed to this war, and only a few who are for the war.
So geeze, don't go over the edge there. You have allies here, in the very same country that's bombing Iraq right now...
I don't consider P75's to be very old. You can run Linux + Blackbox + KDE with some defaults turned off. It's slow, but perfectly usable.
On the other hand, I've seen people try to give away stacks and stacks of old 386's which were rotting in a basement somewhere. Half were broken (everything from cracked motherboard to super dirty or dusty, or electronically damaged chips for whatever reason) beyond repair, and if you did fix them, what useful software could you run? Why even bother, when you can get stacks of old Pentiums for about the same amount of effort.
The organization I worked with tried to experiment with Win95 or Linux + lightweight Window Managers, but then they couldn't even give them away.
I've recycled dozens of computers for charities, and recently helped a group install Linux on 300 refurbished (Pentium 75+) computers to be sent to Equador.
You wouldn't believe some of the crap I've had to wade through. Broken monitors, burned motherboards, piles of 8086's.
Most groups would rather live without a computer then take your old 386 with a green screen monitor. They need a computer that can run modern or semi-modern software, without a techie to help them deal with unfamiliar or primitive UI's.
If, and when, there is another dictator like Saddam, we'll take him out, too.
Don't you get it? All it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.
But we're not talking about Good Men. The US Boosted dictators like Saddam & Pinochet, and governments like the Taliban, into power because it served our short term needs.
What, you going to support a dictator this decade, only to take him out next decade?
If anything good comes out of this, I'm hoping to high heaven that the Bush administration starts a precedent to drop the "Enemy of my enemy is my friend" policy. Did he use WMD? Commit genocide? Torture political dissidents? Then don't support the bastard.
Yeah, but do you lay in bed at night, worried about Nazis or Communists? Not anymore we don't.
No, I lay awake at night, worried about the imperialists in my own government, fighting questionable wars over oil, breaking alliances... and I dream of the consequences to come.
I enjoy technology also, but it's not the be-all/end-all of life. There are other things in the world. Beautiful wonderful things.
Heck, there are even different beautiful, wonderful technological things in the world. Portions of Vietnam have these facinating water-distribution systems, dating back hundreds of years, where a set of "water men" (which are sometimes considered holy) distribute water to the various rice patties and agricultural fields using small conduits, canals, dams, etc. Recently, people have started to look at replacing these holy water men with 1989-era Macintosh computers. May not be your cup of tea, but there is more to technology then coding on a PDA.
When I went to Europe, I was so occupied with studying the architecture, culture, politics, the train system in Germany, buildings bolted to a mountaintop in the Swiss Alps, that I didn't have any interest in coding whatsoever. I was there to get away and do something different. Drink beer. Talk with the locals. Eat elaborate ice cream sculptures for 2-euros during the 100-year-heat-wave. Heck, I went to hardware stores, spent some time learning about the German electricity grid, talked with locals about Linux.
My god, why would you spend thousands of dollars to go to Vietnam, and spend your time coding... heck, if you're interested in technology, there are dozens of Vietnamese technologies to be investigated.
A vacation lets you explore some of those other things.
I'm interested in computers because they are tools to be used to improve other aspects of your life. There are technologies which are interesting unto themselves, but mostly I'm interested in how technology can be used.
If your head is stuck inside your monitor for too long, it's easy to forget these things.
Before we left my wife asked what I would do if I couldn't program for a month
Err, I think that was your wife's way of asking you nto not program for a month. After all, you were on vacation in Vietnam, and it's a good time to relax.
I went to Europe for 3 weeks last summer. In 3 weeks, I spent 5 minutes on the computer booking a train reservation. 3 weeks. No computer. Beautiful.
The really really scary thing about this is that no one who has been infected is getting better.
But how long have people had the disease? If it's only been a week, then it's not a big problem.
Last year I was hit with a really nasty flu during a very stressful time in my life. With a weakened immune system, I was sick for over 3 weeks (First Flu, then presumably some secondary infection). Even in my battered state, I was probably healthier then many people in other parts of the world.
What's the difference between this latest outbreak and any other outbreak?
These articles talk about a strain influenza virus (and then they talk about a second disease) which is spreading to dozens of countries and which has killed hundreds of people in Asia. WHO issued an advisory. The deaths are tragic, but these happenings don't seem very unusual to me. Thousands of people die from influenza every year, WHO issues advisories every year, viruses spread every year.
So how is this new disease different? I couldn't get a good sense from the articles.
Is this just hype? Perhaps now that we're on the verge of war, and many folks (at least here in the US) are scared of a biological attack. Perhaps that fear is just contributing to the hype?
There are many legitimate comments here regarding Diamonds and human rights.
If you are not interested in getting a diamond from DeBeers or some terrorist organization, start asking family members.
Especially grandparents who got screwed by banks during the depression, or who "ran a business" during the prohibition.
I know several different couples who each got engaged, got the engagement ring, had lunch with the family, grandparents, godparents, etc. and came back with several old pieces of jewlery and some diamonds. They never asked, some of the family memebers were holding onto the jewlery for a special occasion, and when the engagement was announced, the jewlery came out of the woodwork. They then took the diamonds and incorporated them into their special-made ring.
Note: These diamonds weren't spectaular, high value diamonds. They were average grade. But I'd take have a low-end diamond given to me by my grandmother over a high-end diamond from a DeBeers' sales clerk any day. Wedding rings are about sentiment and family, not about value.
I'd like to know, is it a good idea to use Wiki, and is it possible to achieve decent documentation quality this way?
I prefer Wiki's over message boards because information in a Wiki usually has better organization (a good heirarchy) then in a Message Board, and it doesn't contain the level of kruft that you get in a BBS.
The thing I hate about Wiki's is that much of the information is of poor quality, questionable, or is way out of date. You often need a person to constantly go through the Wiki and fix info, remove old articles and goatcsx links, etc.
Some day, I dream of designing a Wiki that contains a rating system: Allow users to rate the info; and mark old info as "stale", which would hopefully encourage someone to update it.
I have a small network of RHAT workstations and admin them, all I do is ssh -X into them remotely and run up2date...depending on what gets updated they are fully up2date at the next reboot.
Out of curiosity, have you looked at using Thin Clients with one central server instead of multiple installations?
Slashdot Mirror
And 15 minutes after your post, massive explosions everywhere in Baghdad...
Interesting how the scene can change so quickly.
I live on the border, I can tell you without a doubt that Americans* are COMPLETELY out of control. They are myopic and ignorant. Watching CNN is about 1% of what its like in the street.
Gee whiz, you live on the border and that makes you an expert?
CNN isn't an accurate representation of America. CNN has a financial interest in covering the exciting parts of the war. Conflict sells commercials. CNN made itself famous during it's coverage of Gulf War I.
Before you sterotype, I can think of over a hundred personal associates who are opposed to this war, and only a few who are for the war.
So geeze, don't go over the edge there. You have allies here, in the very same country that's bombing Iraq right now...
I guess we disagree on what "old" means.
I don't consider P75's to be very old. You can run Linux + Blackbox + KDE with some defaults turned off. It's slow, but perfectly usable.
On the other hand, I've seen people try to give away stacks and stacks of old 386's which were rotting in a basement somewhere. Half were broken (everything from cracked motherboard to super dirty or dusty, or electronically damaged chips for whatever reason) beyond repair, and if you did fix them, what useful software could you run? Why even bother, when you can get stacks of old Pentiums for about the same amount of effort.
The organization I worked with tried to experiment with Win95 or Linux + lightweight Window Managers, but then they couldn't even give them away.
But not too old. From that page:
* Memory in quantities > 64 MB
* Desktop processors > 800 MHz
* Motherboards that support such processors
* Hard drives > 10 GB
* Laptops > 300 MHz
* Monitors, graphics cards, other similar goodies
I've recycled dozens of computers for charities, and recently helped a group install Linux on 300 refurbished (Pentium 75+) computers to be sent to Equador.
You wouldn't believe some of the crap I've had to wade through. Broken monitors, burned motherboards, piles of 8086's.
Most groups would rather live without a computer then take your old 386 with a green screen monitor. They need a computer that can run modern or semi-modern software, without a techie to help them deal with unfamiliar or primitive UI's.
For disposal, $15 is a pretty good deal.
As much as I would like to be optimistic, I have to ask: Can you give some examples, other than CH?
Brazil? Mexico?
Here's a list from the CIA world factbook listing ethnic percentages for various nations.
If, and when, there is another dictator like Saddam, we'll take him out, too.
Don't you get it? All it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.
But we're not talking about Good Men. The US Boosted dictators like Saddam & Pinochet, and governments like the Taliban, into power because it served our short term needs.
What, you going to support a dictator this decade, only to take him out next decade?
If anything good comes out of this, I'm hoping to high heaven that the Bush administration starts a precedent to drop the "Enemy of my enemy is my friend" policy. Did he use WMD? Commit genocide? Torture political dissidents? Then don't support the bastard.
Yeah, but do you lay in bed at night, worried about Nazis or Communists? Not anymore we don't.
No, I lay awake at night, worried about the imperialists in my own government, fighting questionable wars over oil, breaking alliances... and I dream of the consequences to come.
Let's hope it remains a dream...
While this is interestng news, it's pretty untimely.
My guess is that the Slashdot editors are using this article to push the Iraq debate one topic lower, and hopefully reduce the traffic...
1 hour, 900 posts. Holy crap.
I'm amazed that the birds are still chirping.
From the explosions, it's clear that the military has now gone beyond the "Target of Convenience" point in time.
Unless I'm hearing explosions caused bya coup inside Iraq...
It's 7:37 pacific. I hear many explosions on the Baghdad camera now.
Now it's really, really begun.
It's really odd. You can still hear the birds in Baghdad. The cars have stopped honking, however.
The world will be a better place once Saddam Hussein and his thugs are out of the picture.
And how long, I wonder, before the next dictator and his thugs are in place.
I enjoy technology also, but it's not the be-all/end-all of life. There are other things in the world. Beautiful wonderful things.
Heck, there are even different beautiful, wonderful technological things in the world. Portions of Vietnam have these facinating water-distribution systems, dating back hundreds of years, where a set of "water men" (which are sometimes considered holy) distribute water to the various rice patties and agricultural fields using small conduits, canals, dams, etc. Recently, people have started to look at replacing these holy water men with 1989-era Macintosh computers. May not be your cup of tea, but there is more to technology then coding on a PDA.
When I went to Europe, I was so occupied with studying the architecture, culture, politics, the train system in Germany, buildings bolted to a mountaintop in the Swiss Alps, that I didn't have any interest in coding whatsoever. I was there to get away and do something different. Drink beer. Talk with the locals. Eat elaborate ice cream sculptures for 2-euros during the 100-year-heat-wave. Heck, I went to hardware stores, spent some time learning about the German electricity grid, talked with locals about Linux.
My god, why would you spend thousands of dollars to go to Vietnam, and spend your time coding... heck, if you're interested in technology, there are dozens of Vietnamese technologies to be investigated.
A vacation lets you explore some of those other things.
I'm interested in computers because they are tools to be used to improve other aspects of your life. There are technologies which are interesting unto themselves, but mostly I'm interested in how technology can be used.
If your head is stuck inside your monitor for too long, it's easy to forget these things.
Get out, enjoy. Do other things.
Before we left my wife asked what I would do if I couldn't program for a month
Err, I think that was your wife's way of asking you nto not program for a month. After all, you were on vacation in Vietnam, and it's a good time to relax.
I went to Europe for 3 weeks last summer. In 3 weeks, I spent 5 minutes on the computer booking a train reservation. 3 weeks. No computer. Beautiful.
Just imagine what you could do with one of these!
Why, you could set it to blink green to notify you when ThinkGeek gets these things back in stock!!!
The really really scary thing about this is that no one who has been infected is getting better.
But how long have people had the disease? If it's only been a week, then it's not a big problem.
Last year I was hit with a really nasty flu during a very stressful time in my life. With a weakened immune system, I was sick for over 3 weeks (First Flu, then presumably some secondary infection). Even in my battered state, I was probably healthier then many people in other parts of the world.
What's the difference between this latest outbreak and any other outbreak?
These articles talk about a strain influenza virus (and then they talk about a second disease) which is spreading to dozens of countries and which has killed hundreds of people in Asia. WHO issued an advisory. The deaths are tragic, but these happenings don't seem very unusual to me. Thousands of people die from influenza every year, WHO issues advisories every year, viruses spread every year.
So how is this new disease different? I couldn't get a good sense from the articles.
Is this just hype? Perhaps now that we're on the verge of war, and many folks (at least here in the US) are scared of a biological attack. Perhaps that fear is just contributing to the hype?
Bah ha! They taught you how to network using Token Ring!
There are many legitimate comments here regarding Diamonds and human rights.
If you are not interested in getting a diamond from DeBeers or some terrorist organization, start asking family members.
Especially grandparents who got screwed by banks during the depression, or who "ran a business" during the prohibition.
I know several different couples who each got engaged, got the engagement ring, had lunch with the family, grandparents, godparents, etc. and came back with several old pieces of jewlery and some diamonds. They never asked, some of the family memebers were holding onto the jewlery for a special occasion, and when the engagement was announced, the jewlery came out of the woodwork. They then took the diamonds and incorporated them into their special-made ring.
Note: These diamonds weren't spectaular, high value diamonds. They were average grade. But I'd take have a low-end diamond given to me by my grandmother over a high-end diamond from a DeBeers' sales clerk any day. Wedding rings are about sentiment and family, not about value.
Or the ever famous:
"Hey, I was a good catch, but you missed it. Nyaa nyaa."
I have to agree. I primarily use RHN for the email notices.
I don't have time to be checking every single package to see if it's up to date. RHN does that for me.
I'd like to know, is it a good idea to use Wiki, and is it possible to achieve decent documentation quality this way?
I prefer Wiki's over message boards because information in a Wiki usually has better organization (a good heirarchy) then in a Message Board, and it doesn't contain the level of kruft that you get in a BBS.
The thing I hate about Wiki's is that much of the information is of poor quality, questionable, or is way out of date. You often need a person to constantly go through the Wiki and fix info, remove old articles and goatcsx links, etc.
Some day, I dream of designing a Wiki that contains a rating system: Allow users to rate the info; and mark old info as "stale", which would hopefully encourage someone to update it.
When it comes to package managers, SuSE also has much better network updates and doesn't require a paid subscription like Red Hat.
But for how long, I wonder.
I have a small network of RHAT workstations and admin them, all I do is ssh -X into them remotely and run up2date...depending on what gets updated they are fully up2date at the next reboot.
Out of curiosity, have you looked at using Thin Clients with one central server instead of multiple installations?
I'm curious why more people don't thin clients.
Yes clearly since ATI can't make a decent driver, the mozilla crew should drop everything and fork mozilla-ati to work around ATI's problems
Maybe it's a Mozilla bug and not an ATI bug?
Does this bug happen with all applications or just with Mozilla?
Or, if the problem is truely with ATI's driver and not with Mozilla, then why is Mozilla the only application affected by this bug?