I'm guessing by the tone of your post that you don't care for Bush (or the Republicans). The real question is (since all he is doing is signing the bill congress sent him), did you vote for any of the 18 Democratic senators that voted FOR the bill:
How about the 50 Democratic representatives that also voted for passage of the bill:
Baird
Bean
Berry
Boren
Boucher
Boyd
Case
Chandler
Cooper
Costa
Costello
Cramer
Cuellar
Davis (AL)
Davis (IL)
Davis (TN)
Edwards
Emanuel
Ford
Gonzalez
Gordon
Harman
Higgins
Hinojosa
Holden
Kanjorski
Kind
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Lipinski
Marshall
Matheson
Meeks (NY)
Melancon
Michaud
Moore (KS)
Moran (VA)
Murtha
Peterson (MN)
Pomeroy
Rahall
Reyes
Ruppersberger
Scott (GA)
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Tanner
Tauscher
Taylor (MS)
Wu
Are there any projects equivalent to Turbo Tax or the other tax products out there for the OSS community?
You could always not pay. I mean, just ask Bill Gates, right? All OSS supporters are evil communists that want to destroy America, capitalism and the free market economy. None of us would want to pay taxes.
This always bugs me when I see it. In 2001, US military spending was at an all time low of 3.0% of the GDP. Even with the "huge" increases since 9-11, we are up to a whopping 3.7% of GDP (reference). If you really want find extra money in the budget, convince the politicians to quit funding their pork projects. (Note: fat chance on that.)
Why don't we encourage that instead of having bills introduced--'Oh, you can't do this because it's interfering with somebody's idea of the functioning of the marketplace...a municipality is a democratically run institution. They can make their own decisions. They don't need the Bells. They don't need the Administration, and they don't need me telling them what kind of decision they should be making.'
Someone in the federal government actually understands the role of the federal government? Sad to say, he probably won't last long.
What about code that is more complex? Now that compilers have matured over years and have had many improvements, I ask the Slashdot crowd, what they believe the compiler can be trusted to optimize and what must be hand optimized?
Programmers cost lots more per hour than computer time. Let the compiler optimize and let the programmers concentrated on developing solid maintainable code.
If you make code too clever in an effort to try to pre-optimize, you end up with code that other people have difficulty understanding. This is leads to lower quality code as it evolves if the people that follow you are not as savvy.
Not only that, but the vast majority of code written today is UI-centric or I/O bound. If you want real optimization, design a harddrive/controller combo that gets you 1 GBps off the physical platter (and at a price that consumers can afford).
They have it, why not create a sourceforge like site for their own projects instead of using the good will of other open source companies?
If they use a common resource like SourceForge, the will avoid accusations that they may later revoke access.
E.g., IBM starts a new site called IBMForge.net. People will jump and scream because, rather than use existing resources (like SourceForge), they are trying to keep a tight reign on "their" code. By going GPL and using SourceForge they have chosen what is probably the best solution given the circumstances.
I think you should have made the file an AAC out of spite. Or, maybe a WMA out of deep admiration for Microsoft.
Why not an OGG? I have experimented with both OGG and MP3 for encoding speech. I have no idea how it performs for music. But for speech, I can get decent quality for a much smaller size that I can with MP3. Not only that, but OGG is Free Software(TM). I would think that Slashdot would rather promote a free alternative over a patent encumbered and technically inferior alternative.
I admit I only skimmed, but I'm actually pretty impressed about how Martin Taylor handled an interview with the world's greatest mass of Microsoft-haters - specifically, without lying or resorting to their usual business tactics to justify themselves. Good interview!
Not only that. He gave the impression, especially for a non-technical guy, that Microsoft is very methodical and serious about how they evaluate their competition. I am not talking about the "club them over the head" approach. I am specifically talking about the "several hundred" Linux servers they run. The evaluations of usability and features that they do.
I enjoy a good MS bashing as much as the next guy, but I think this really shows that the Open Source movement has truly begun to achieve one of its stated goals: better software. Whether you use F/OSS (which I think is better), or MS products, the quality is proving because of the competition. Top it off with MS lowering their proces to compete with "free" and there is no denying that everyone wins in this situation.
Or, you could post to the article that inspired yours(and was cited in it), regarding the Fedora boot process.
That was not my post. I just remember seeing it on debian-devel. Besides, the if you follow the links from the fedora-devel post you refer to, all you get is a couple of png images of the boot processes. The guy who did the Debian version explains how he did it and also provides links to the necessary tools.
Nah, actually, the first 10% is the hardest. Once 10% of the people (and that's a 60 million people or so out of 600,000,000 computer users) know about a product, it becomes mainstream enough for most people to feel confortable trying it. most people are sheep and don't want to get in front where the wolves are. (nothing wrong with this strategy by the way)
True. It's like the saying, "the first million dollars is the hardest".
As to what the article said about Firefox's growth being unsustainable. Hasn't the same been said about Microsoft for the last 20 years? I mean, for 20 years people have been saying "there is no way Microsoft can keep growing that quickly", and they have continued to grow. Only recently have we seen an indication that they may be slowing down.
If there is a site out there that acts as a repository of all the "Here is how to configure Postfix/Sendmail/Exim/Qmail/Etc to be secure and spam-free as possible" then I have yet to see it.
Would you mind posting the URL of the detailed HOWTO you wrote following your experience?
Seriously. I dislike seeing poeple complain that documentation sucks for open source software who then go to lots of trouble and odn't document what they do. Even creating a script(1) of your session and posting that would be useful.
I have started being much more proactive about documenting the stuff that I do. When I document something I think may be useful to others I post messages announcing it to places where I think the users might benefit from it. You should do the same.
Look for people walking around with pizza boxes tucked under their arms... That's what'll end up happening after people get tired of carrying their laptop around like it's a pizza.
Especially since your average sized laptop ways 6-8 pounds, which is quite a bit more that your average pizza. It would be like holding a gallon bucket full of water out at arms length.
Just out of curiousity, how would this thing work when travelling by air? Would airport security just let go by with it? What about when you have to open it? Then everyone knows what is in there.
After attending Trinity Christian Academy from kindergarten,making good grades, doing well in every way, and paying a lot in tuition to go to private school, the school kicked him out just before graduation because they found out he was gay. That's your christian values.
Did you even read the article? First sentence:
A top student and varsity athlete at a Texas Christian school was forced out after administrators found he was running a Web site about homosexuality.
It's not just "because he's gay."
Religion is about money, power, and control.
This is exactly why it is important not to confuse religion and faith. They are not the same thing. (Read James 1:26)
So what do you do when public schools want to teach your children that a literal interpretation of the biblical story of creation is provably false, and that evolution and the big bang are how the universe actually began?
Any statement can be proven true or false with the appropriate assumptions. I can prove to you that $2 + 2 \neq 4$. That being said, it doesn't prevent schools teaching things that can't be proven as fact. Science is just the one area where it is most apparent.
Do you put your kids in a private religious school?
When my children are old enough, I intend to put them in private Christian school. However, it has more to do with the overall poor quality of public education than the specific things they teach. I can correct incorrect teaching on specific points at home. I cannot, however, completely compensate for a substandard educational system. If I tried to do that, I may as well homeschool my children. I would like to, but I don't have the time.
Do you support laws that place evolution on an equal footing with creation (or that outlaw the teaching of evolution)?
Of course, I don't support such laws. In fact, I am against any laws that dictate what must be taught or what cannot be taught. To limit education in such a way is to make it impotent. How else will children's minds grow?
I remember a while back (when I was in junior high) hearing about a law that was being proposed to require that government and civics classes could only teach about democracy. That, to me, is flat out ridiculous.
What do you do about the taxes you pay that go to teaching something that may directly contradict your religious beliefs?
Matthew 22:17-21, Mark 12:14-17, Luke 20:22-25, 1 Timothy 2:1-4, 2 Peter 2:9-10. Pay the taxes and pray for those in positions of authority.
I'm so SICK AND TIRED of being told what I can and can't watch/hear by other people. I wish there was someplace left on this earth I could go start my own nation./sigh
Thank you. I am a fundamentalist Christian (Baptist) Libertarian (who sometimes agrees with the Republicans). I have always held that people have a choice. Heck, it even says so in the Bible. GOD gave us choice for a reason.
Regardless, my beliefs are no excuse for me to forcibly impose my beliefs on others. I think that government should stay out of matters like these as much as possible. Since it should be a matter of personal choice, the way I "impose" my beliefs on others is by evangelising and telling people what I believe is right according to the Bible. If they don't want to listen, they can choose (there's that personal choice again) not to.
If I don't want my children to have access to Howard Stern, Playboy, or any other material that I consider objectionable, I am the one that makes sure that they don't have access. Remember, lots of conservatives don't like the prospect of the government "censoring" becuase not all of us have the same definition of objectionable content.
They could always add support for something like Debian, which is known for its outstanding stability in spite of its lack of big commercial backing. Dell could then offer graduated support options, including, no support. I'm sure lots of businesses that would jump at the opportunity to get a server with Linux preinstalled (that way they are sure all hardware is working and configured out of the box) even if they have no need of a full support package.
However, Microsoft fixed all these security problems by January 2003, when they had their source code cleaned up enough to show to 60 countries including China.
Clearly, China was so overwhelmed with Microsoft's security improvements that they went out and bought a million Windows machines from Dell. Oh, wait a minute. They actually bought a million Linux machines from Sun. My mistake. Maybe Microsoft doesn't have its act as together as you think.
Why would anyone want to pay 36 USD for an operating system which isn't capable of networking and multitasking past 3 programs?
Because many people simply run only one app at a time. The system may be capable of multitasking, but the user may not be. I know people who will not open more than one window at a time and will nearly freak when an application opens a new window that shows up in the task bar.
One of the additional benefits that I see is that it will make it more difficult for worms/viruses to exploit (i.e., self-replicate and spread) a system with significantly reduced resources. I know it is artificial, but it just might help.
So for example, in one Firefox window you see the contents of your hard drive (or network folders) pretty much the same way as the Windows Explorer or Gnome/KDE/MacOSX show it to you today BUT if you click the middle mouse button on a directory (or select "open in new tab") you end up with the new directory being open in a new tab.
This is possible right now. Just type "file:///" on *nix or "file://C:\" on windows (not sure about the last one as I am not a windows guy). The only improvement that really needs to follow is a modification of the way FF renders the icons and layout.
and I hate hate hate hate hate Microsoft-- but one percentage point is simply not statistically significant.
Statistically, no. Numerically, yes. One percent of ~100,000,000 is ~1,000,000 (or whatever number you attribute to existing MS Windows installations).
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, I didn't vote for the idiot.
I'm guessing by the tone of your post that you don't care for Bush (or the Republicans). The real question is (since all he is doing is signing the bill congress sent him), did you vote for any of the 18 Democratic senators that voted FOR the bill:
Bayh (D-IN) Bingaman (D-NM) Cantwell (D-WA) Carper (D-DE) Conrad (D-ND) Dodd (D-CT) Feinstein (D-CA) Johnson (D-SD) Kohl (D-WI) Landrieu (D-LA) Lieberman (D-CT) Lincoln (D-AR) Nelson (D-NE) Obama (D-IL) Reed (D-RI) Rockefeller (D-WV) Salazar (D-CO) Schumer (D-NY)
from: the Senate's roll call listing
How about the 50 Democratic representatives that also voted for passage of the bill:
Baird Bean Berry Boren Boucher Boyd Case Chandler Cooper Costa Costello Cramer Cuellar Davis (AL) Davis (IL) Davis (TN) Edwards Emanuel Ford Gonzalez Gordon Harman Higgins Hinojosa Holden Kanjorski Kind Larsen (WA) Larson (CT) Lipinski Marshall Matheson Meeks (NY) Melancon Michaud Moore (KS) Moran (VA) Murtha Peterson (MN) Pomeroy Rahall Reyes Ruppersberger Scott (GA) Smith (WA) Snyder Tanner Tauscher Taylor (MS) Wu
from: the House's roll call listing
Or did you conveniently forget that there is more to the government than just the President?
Are there any projects equivalent to Turbo Tax or the other tax products out there for the OSS community?
You could always not pay. I mean, just ask Bill Gates, right? All OSS supporters are evil communists that want to destroy America, capitalism and the free market economy. None of us would want to pay taxes.
(ahem colossal military budget)
This always bugs me when I see it. In 2001, US military spending was at an all time low of 3.0% of the GDP. Even with the "huge" increases since 9-11, we are up to a whopping 3.7% of GDP (reference). If you really want find extra money in the budget, convince the politicians to quit funding their pork projects. (Note: fat chance on that.)
Why don't we encourage that instead of having bills introduced--'Oh, you can't do this because it's interfering with somebody's idea of the functioning of the marketplace...a municipality is a democratically run institution. They can make their own decisions. They don't need the Bells. They don't need the Administration, and they don't need me telling them what kind of decision they should be making.'
Someone in the federal government actually understands the role of the federal government? Sad to say, he probably won't last long.
What about code that is more complex? Now that compilers have matured over years and have had many improvements, I ask the Slashdot crowd, what they believe the compiler can be trusted to optimize and what must be hand optimized?
Programmers cost lots more per hour than computer time. Let the compiler optimize and let the programmers concentrated on developing solid maintainable code.
If you make code too clever in an effort to try to pre-optimize, you end up with code that other people have difficulty understanding. This is leads to lower quality code as it evolves if the people that follow you are not as savvy.
Not only that, but the vast majority of code written today is UI-centric or I/O bound. If you want real optimization, design a harddrive/controller combo that gets you 1 GBps off the physical platter (and at a price that consumers can afford).
They have it, why not create a sourceforge like site for their own projects instead of using the good will of other open source companies?
If they use a common resource like SourceForge, the will avoid accusations that they may later revoke access.
E.g., IBM starts a new site called IBMForge.net. People will jump and scream because, rather than use existing resources (like SourceForge), they are trying to keep a tight reign on "their" code. By going GPL and using SourceForge they have chosen what is probably the best solution given the circumstances.
I think you should have made the file an AAC out of spite. Or, maybe a WMA out of deep admiration for Microsoft.
Why not an OGG? I have experimented with both OGG and MP3 for encoding speech. I have no idea how it performs for music. But for speech, I can get decent quality for a much smaller size that I can with MP3. Not only that, but OGG is Free Software(TM). I would think that Slashdot would rather promote a free alternative over a patent encumbered and technically inferior alternative.
I admit I only skimmed, but I'm actually pretty impressed about how Martin Taylor handled an interview with the world's greatest mass of Microsoft-haters - specifically, without lying or resorting to their usual business tactics to justify themselves. Good interview!
Not only that. He gave the impression, especially for a non-technical guy, that Microsoft is very methodical and serious about how they evaluate their competition. I am not talking about the "club them over the head" approach. I am specifically talking about the "several hundred" Linux servers they run. The evaluations of usability and features that they do.
I enjoy a good MS bashing as much as the next guy, but I think this really shows that the Open Source movement has truly begun to achieve one of its stated goals: better software. Whether you use F/OSS (which I think is better), or MS products, the quality is proving because of the competition. Top it off with MS lowering their proces to compete with "free" and there is no denying that everyone wins in this situation.
Or, you could post to the article that inspired yours(and was cited in it), regarding the Fedora boot process.
That was not my post. I just remember seeing it on debian-devel. Besides, the if you follow the links from the fedora-devel post you refer to, all you get is a couple of png images of the boot processes. The guy who did the Debian version explains how he did it and also provides links to the necessary tools.
Originally posted on the debian-devel list: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/11/msg00 547.html
Nah, actually, the first 10% is the hardest. Once 10% of the people (and that's a 60 million people or so out of 600,000,000 computer users) know about a product, it becomes mainstream enough for most people to feel confortable trying it. most people are sheep and don't want to get in front where the wolves are. (nothing wrong with this strategy by the way)
True. It's like the saying, "the first million dollars is the hardest".
As to what the article said about Firefox's growth being unsustainable. Hasn't the same been said about Microsoft for the last 20 years? I mean, for 20 years people have been saying "there is no way Microsoft can keep growing that quickly", and they have continued to grow. Only recently have we seen an indication that they may be slowing down.
And here is the whole thing, all one page: No ad version
AMD65
Is this the competitor to Intel's VIIV?
If there is a site out there that acts as a repository of all the "Here is how to configure Postfix/Sendmail/Exim/Qmail/Etc to be secure and spam-free as possible" then I have yet to see it.
Would you mind posting the URL of the detailed HOWTO you wrote following your experience?
Seriously. I dislike seeing poeple complain that documentation sucks for open source software who then go to lots of trouble and odn't document what they do. Even creating a script(1) of your session and posting that would be useful.
I have started being much more proactive about documenting the stuff that I do. When I document something I think may be useful to others I post messages announcing it to places where I think the users might benefit from it. You should do the same.
Look for people walking around with pizza boxes tucked under their arms... That's what'll end up happening after people get tired of carrying their laptop around like it's a pizza.
Especially since your average sized laptop ways 6-8 pounds, which is quite a bit more that your average pizza. It would be like holding a gallon bucket full of water out at arms length.
Just out of curiousity, how would this thing work when travelling by air? Would airport security just let go by with it? What about when you have to open it? Then everyone knows what is in there.
After attending Trinity Christian Academy from kindergarten,making good grades, doing well in every way, and paying a lot in tuition to go to private school, the school kicked him out just before graduation because they found out he was gay. That's your christian values.
Did you even read the article? First sentence:
It's not just "because he's gay."
Religion is about money, power, and control.
This is exactly why it is important not to confuse religion and faith. They are not the same thing. (Read James 1:26)
So what do you do when public schools want to teach your children that a literal interpretation of the biblical story of creation is provably false, and that evolution and the big bang are how the universe actually began?
Any statement can be proven true or false with the appropriate assumptions. I can prove to you that $2 + 2 \neq 4$. That being said, it doesn't prevent schools teaching things that can't be proven as fact. Science is just the one area where it is most apparent.
Do you put your kids in a private religious school?
When my children are old enough, I intend to put them in private Christian school. However, it has more to do with the overall poor quality of public education than the specific things they teach. I can correct incorrect teaching on specific points at home. I cannot, however, completely compensate for a substandard educational system. If I tried to do that, I may as well homeschool my children. I would like to, but I don't have the time.
Do you support laws that place evolution on an equal footing with creation (or that outlaw the teaching of evolution)?
Of course, I don't support such laws. In fact, I am against any laws that dictate what must be taught or what cannot be taught. To limit education in such a way is to make it impotent. How else will children's minds grow?
I remember a while back (when I was in junior high) hearing about a law that was being proposed to require that government and civics classes could only teach about democracy. That, to me, is flat out ridiculous.
What do you do about the taxes you pay that go to teaching something that may directly contradict your religious beliefs?
Matthew 22:17-21, Mark 12:14-17, Luke 20:22-25, 1 Timothy 2:1-4, 2 Peter 2:9-10. Pay the taxes and pray for those in positions of authority.
I'm so SICK AND TIRED of being told what I can and can't watch/hear by other people. I wish there was someplace left on this earth I could go start my own nation. /sigh
Thank you. I am a fundamentalist Christian (Baptist) Libertarian (who sometimes agrees with the Republicans). I have always held that people have a choice. Heck, it even says so in the Bible. GOD gave us choice for a reason.
Regardless, my beliefs are no excuse for me to forcibly impose my beliefs on others. I think that government should stay out of matters like these as much as possible. Since it should be a matter of personal choice, the way I "impose" my beliefs on others is by evangelising and telling people what I believe is right according to the Bible. If they don't want to listen, they can choose (there's that personal choice again) not to.
If I don't want my children to have access to Howard Stern, Playboy, or any other material that I consider objectionable, I am the one that makes sure that they don't have access. Remember, lots of conservatives don't like the prospect of the government "censoring" becuase not all of us have the same definition of objectionable content.
I just don't believe it. Anything -- even an exploit -- working in all browsers would be unprecedented!
Lynx appears to be unaffected.
They could always add support for something like Debian, which is known for its outstanding stability in spite of its lack of big commercial backing. Dell could then offer graduated support options, including, no support. I'm sure lots of businesses that would jump at the opportunity to get a server with Linux preinstalled (that way they are sure all hardware is working and configured out of the box) even if they have no need of a full support package.
However, Microsoft fixed all these security problems by January 2003, when they had their source code cleaned up enough to show to 60 countries including China.
Clearly, China was so overwhelmed with Microsoft's security improvements that they went out and bought a million Windows machines from Dell. Oh, wait a minute. They actually bought a million Linux machines from Sun. My mistake. Maybe Microsoft doesn't have its act as together as you think.
Just in case someone actually wanted the address for the archives it's http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/
FYI. Turn on cookies or you receive this extremely helpful error message:
Otherwise, it's pretty cool.
Why would anyone want to pay 36 USD for an operating system which isn't capable of networking and multitasking past 3 programs?
Because many people simply run only one app at a time. The system may be capable of multitasking, but the user may not be. I know people who will not open more than one window at a time and will nearly freak when an application opens a new window that shows up in the task bar.
One of the additional benefits that I see is that it will make it more difficult for worms/viruses to exploit (i.e., self-replicate and spread) a system with significantly reduced resources. I know it is artificial, but it just might help.
So for example, in one Firefox window you see the contents of your hard drive (or network folders) pretty much the same way as the Windows Explorer or Gnome/KDE/MacOSX show it to you today BUT if you click the middle mouse button on a directory (or select "open in new tab") you end up with the new directory being open in a new tab.
This is possible right now. Just type "file:///" on *nix or "file://C:\" on windows (not sure about the last one as I am not a windows guy). The only improvement that really needs to follow is a modification of the way FF renders the icons and layout.
and I hate hate hate hate hate Microsoft-- but one percentage point is simply not statistically significant.
Statistically, no. Numerically, yes. One percent of ~100,000,000 is ~1,000,000 (or whatever number you attribute to existing MS Windows installations).
It's a big deal.