Exactly. Or take a directory of files named file001 through file999 delete file001 and file002 and move the rest of all of the filenames down two numbers - do that with your mouse!
People who don't understand the CLI don't realize that it's actually a programming language file, but you only get to see one line at a time (default file size is 500 lines) - you can change that, you can search, edit, switch to multi-line mode, write little scripts, change the copyright year notices on all of your webpages on Jan. 1 with a simple one-line command, etc...
Extending the argument that GUI is better, what you're actually saying is more like questioning why we should use C or C++ or Java or basic or any programming language that has to be typed in, let's just point and click our way to writing software programs!
Furthermore, why should we even use the English alphabet or the keyboard? We can do everything we need to do with a mouse - that way, you get carpal tunnel sooner, which means you can quit your job and get paid more than half of what you were earning for having people do surgery on you!! Great idea, huh?
English is a language, just like Perl is a language, just like C is a language, just like any other programming language. And you know what? Bash, the Linux default shell, it is also a programming language. That's the whole point. You can type your business letters with your keyboard or you can type them with your mouse...
On top of everything else, if you make it so darned easy for anyone to do anything on a computer, you will outsource yourself to someone making minimum wage. Since when is being stupid a desired thing? I think we need to get over the idea that computers have to be "easy" to use - it's a skill - take 6 months to learn how to use a REAL operating system the right way - what is life expectancy - 65+ and growing? What is 6 months out of that to learn how to use a tool that you are going to use for the rest of your life?
Setting stupidity as a goal is counterproductive. I think it would be better if the goal were that computer operators learn the skills necessary to use something like Linux or BSD. The basics are something you only need to learn once - they are more like concepts - so if the computer operators learn how to use the computers properly, we will have a more realistic computing environment - because no matter how "dumb" you make something or how "dumb" you make a job description, it's always someone else's job to come and fix it when it doesn't work anyway. What I don't understand is why intelligence and skills aren't the focus - they are in almost anything else? You don't hear someone say - "They ought to make theoretical physics easier... it's too hard!", or "They ought to make Partial Differential Equations easier... they're too hard!". C'mon, people... get with it already.
They re-turned all domains on (I mean blocking so this crap won't happen to anyone)- they turned it on by default on Oct 31 for all domains, at least according to an e-mail I got some time ago.
No reason to freak out unless, perhaps you are with some registrar that doesn't offer the blocking service.
Don't panic. This can only be attributable to human error.
I think if I understand this properly, it's the G5 processor (and the previous ones too) that have the Altivec engine, which provides a level of "vector" capabilities that other CPU's simply don't have.
While there may be a bias (personally I am sick of the way EVERY FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD post is being mishandled - it's unprofessional and destructive, and irresponsible given/.'s place in the IT community:), but I think it's worth mentioning that (correct me if I am wrong) - that the G5 (and G4 before it) have floating point, or "vector" capabilities, which really set them apart from the other PC processors such as the AMD and Intel. And probably better vector capabilities than a lot of RISC CPUs as well.
The G5 is an elegant, very cool processor, it's unfortunate that it's so locked into Apple's proprietary format - it would be so cool to build your own with parts, and have a choice of parts.
It's really an awesome processor. As to whether or not there's a bias, perhaps there is... but I think that when it comes to supercomputing clusters, the G5 has some unique capabilities that set it apart from other processors (unless, of course, you want to buy Crays and things like that). It would be interesting to see if there were some way (and this is way in the future, but just in terms of where things are headed) - it would be interesting to see DragonFlyBSD paired with a G5, or maybe at that point in the future it will be a G6 (who knows?). DragonFlyBSD is working on a way to (I can't find the info right now) improve clustering performance - if that comes to pass, and their PowerPC port comes to pass, even with purchasing a machine from Apple directly, you might have some very cool things going on.
I didn't used to complain when people borrow a book, and I willingly lent books that I found interesting out to other people because I was excited about what the books had to offer and I wanted to share the passion and curiousity that I had about the book with others. Absolutely.
But I don't do that anymore, nor would I because I never get them back. So if a book means something to me, I keep it. People can buy their own. Why should I buy two?
Say you buy a vintage Ferrari. "Wow... cool... can I borrow that, dude?" Uh huh.
That reminds me - I had purchased an interesting Miles Davis double-album, and I had taken it to work. A co-worker, who was "into" Miles Davis, the first words out of his mouth - "Wow, that looks like a cool album... can I make a copy of it?". The first words out of his mouth.
See, that's when I think that the culture needs to be reworked a little bit. What my co-worker said bothered me. LITERALLY the first words out of his mouth "Wow, that's cool, can I make a copy of that". Is that rude or am I just out of touch? I changed the subject and I have been avoiding that individual. I can appreciate that he might enjoy jazz or whatever, and I am not trying to be a jerk about this, but there is just something about the way he said it, the ease with which he said it, as if it was the best course of action... I just didn't think that was right.
So generally speaking, I think that when the culture has gotten to the point where making copies is the default, then yes, there is a problem as far as the artist-audience connection. People ought to be in a situation where they realize that their financial contribution to an artist is making it possible for that artist to continue to produce works of art that people will continue to enjoy. Sneaking around and copying this and copying that only seems to be a correct course of action to many people because they can't see how it will hurt anything if they make a copy. It's a small person vs big record company attitude, instead of a beneficial audience-artist connection, audience contributing to artist as a form of appreciation and to encourage further development of artwork in the future.
On the other hand, I do think that boxed sets, and many things, as a matter of fact, when you can't afford them, seem to be a lot better than what they actually are. The music albums / movies take on a more spiritual, dream-like quality when you can't afford them, but when you finally save up the money and finally have the money to afford it, all too often it's not really as wonderful as you imagined that it might be, kind of a let down sometimes.. but you aren't willing to admit it to yourself, having saved up your money for so long. There is too much HYPE and not enough creativity going on - mainly as a result of there not being enough opportunities for artists, musicians, and filmmakers to express themselves.
Furthermore, file sharing is also one of those thing that eventually people will get sick of, and, as such, "fighting" it isn't really going to accomplish anything, because the "fight" that needs to be taking place should be happening in the artistic and creative parts of the mind of the consumer - in other words - deliver a quality product, and help the talented individuals reach the consumers, and create a culture where the consumers can feel free to explore their own personalities, likes, and dislikes, while enabling a greater variety and diversity of filmmakers and musicians an opportunity to cater to the evolving likes and dislikes of the audience.
This is not happening - people are "high" on file-sharing, and eventually they will come down, because you can't share something that doesn't exist. Just like if you won the lottery and could buy any music or movie you wanted to... eventually you would sort of come down. You can't buy something that doesn't exist - the problem is that these things could exist - it's not so much how the consumer acquires it, the problem is how do you make it happen - how do you turn it from an idea in someone's head into a real live work of art? Making this process more real, more visible, more personal to the consumer, instead of the typical Hollywood "shock and awe" marketing and promotion that many films, and to some extent new music releases recieve, will allow individuals to make that crucial connection to the artist, the hard work of the artist, and infuse the consumer world with concerns about the future well-being and continued success of that artist.
I think that there are some things that Groklaw gets really, really right. The overwhelming majority of the articles that they put out are quite good and represent a point of view that is in fact very necessary.
Personally, I have found the opportunity to interact with other like-minded UNIX/Linux/BSD programmers very useful, even if it's somewhat off-topic - there are no doubt many coders with tons of experience who post there and as far as a forum goes, it's excellent.
I think that there is a minority of posts that are getting Groklaw the type of reputation that this issue is riding on. So, setting my personal desire to "hang out" and interact with the best and the brightest, it seems to me that perhaps the idea of it still being a "blog", or the idea of people posting comments be reconsidered. I wouldn't suggest it because I know it's not going to happen, but that's just one way to present a more serious face, I suppose.
It's a minority of the posts that show an affect - a type of personality that can be seen in the writing style - a type of cynicism... this is, no doubt, creating problems such as this one we are discussing today. If you have a problem with the facts, then you have a problem with the facts and you can dispute those facts. It's attitude, demeanor, and rhetoric that are going to create these types of problems.
In any case, most of the information avilable at Groklaw is invaluable. But there is a minority of posts and opinions that I have seen on Groklaw that are unnecessary and too negative. It's nonsensical. I just weed through those.
It would be absolutely wonderful to have the information that is presented on that website be presented in a professional, matter-of-fact way, sans comment, sans cynical rhetoric and humor. The information that is presented is in no way factually incorrect, nor is it inappropriate, nor is it in violation of any one thing or another. The absolute need in the online world of the point of view and the type and depth or factual data that Groklaw provides isn't deserving of the negativity, however minor, that can be found not only in the comments but at times, in the narrative top-level comments themselves.
Not that it's any big deal, but it's those little things that create these kinds of problems. It weakens the position, and makes the whole thing look somewhat less professional than it could be. But there may be other problems associated with that as well - there's safety in numbers, etc...
Perhaps individuals should just chill out and weed through the negative stuff and comments and realize how much valuable info there is available at that website.
Since the left wing has been traditionally associated with Hollywood to a greater or lesser extent, it would seem that this is a political move designed for an election year.
Notice that part of what is being said, at least - is going after the pre-internet problems - piracy in Asia, and that area. This has been a problem since before there was even such a thing as Windows or Apple.
So I noticed in the article that there is some effort being spent in going after actual "piracy" as it has been defined for decades, in an international sense, with a focus on Asia, perhaps India - and there are education programs and so on for kids here at home.
If you notice Cheney's remark about the dot com; if you saw Rumsfeld's anger at how easy it is to transmit photos electronically and how he just "wasn't prepared for that" and, and if you you saw the man himself, the great Mr. Wrong, suggest last night that those who lose their jobs to outsourcing (many of whom hold BS and MS degrees) should go back to their local community colleges and get educated for "the jobs of the 21st century", it becomes obvious that this administration is not really all that aware of what's going on.
I think that they might be pumping out the fear, but as far as this affecting individuals too much, I wouldn't hold my breath. I think we'll still come out ahead of many other countries in the amount of freedoms and personal choices we have in many areas. These republicans might be scary, but it's Kerry who wants more cops. Either way, it's probably going to boil down to court decisions in the end.
Like they said in the article, Wal-Mart's philosophy is to sell things as cheap as possible - and I don't doubt that's part of the problem. Stockholders, on the other hand, have become millionares. What does this do to "as possible"? As cheap as possible while still making stockholders millionares? How does the stock value relate to the way that the employees are treated, the sourcing of the products from overseas and how those employees are treated, and what are they really doing to get the price as low as possible? It's not rocket science, you know...
On my Linux machine, I manually start up SETI when I remember to, with a -nice 19 at the end, and it goes for weeks and weeks... I totally can't tell the difference whether it's there or not because it backs off when it needs to.
But I do realize that with the processor I have, a fairly fast Athlon XP, in terms of watts, it's probably sort of like having a light bulb on 24/7. There's always a light on at my house for intelligent life from outer space.
And I understand that some of these Pentium IV's tend to use up even more juice - so in any case, it is like leaving a light bulb on.
Also, I would imagine that if there was, say for instance a backup program or some sort of program that did some kind of cpu-intensive task, it might run slower, just from the OS trying to figure negotiate between the two processes - I have seen this with compression - killing off SETI, even at nice level of 19, speeds up compression - most noticably in my instance I have noticed this when creating / undoing flac audio files. I always kill seti before doing that, so a backup with gzip or bzip2 WOULD probably be affected - just a guess, but better safe than sorry, right?
So there are reasons, but that supervisor guy is so intelligent that he scares me! I've never been afraid of intelligence like that before.
Speaking of compression - the aac's and the mp3s, while they might sound very well, are not anywhere near as good as lossless formats - so not only do you get DRM, you also get a lower quality audio format as well. What a deal!
There is a way to standardize DRM - do away with it. Then all content providers will be able to compete on a level playing field.
It seems to me, with at least with ABC, NBC, CBS, and perhaps PBS, maybe other local stations, maybe more in the future, that it should be as easy as possible for citizens to get the broadcasts.
I know that I personally tend to associate cable or satellite services with TV programs, but the idea that an individual could tune in to a publically available broadcast that is broadcast for the public good, as a public service - I think that this is a good idea.
To complicate the process, to put up roadblocks can't be a good idea. People should be able to tune into to TV programming, or HDTV programming, and it shouldn't be bogged down with unnecessary things.
Maybe there is some way to watermark things like movies and other "premium" content, but still find a way to keep news and other important public-service type content as easy as possible for as many people as possible to tune in to. Educational programs, informational programs, news and other programs - all of these are in the public interest, and it really goes against the whole concept to place all kinds of barriers in the way of individuals being able to access those programs.
It's interesting... I've never seen this before. This particular post was sitting at 5 points, and not 24 hours later, it's down to 1 point - it started at 2. That's because I have excellent karma (whatever that means).
Anyway, I said at the outset that I had never heard a similar point of view expressed save for one place on Usenet, and I guess that it shows.
In any case, I don't really care all that much - I don't post very often. I just wanted to share this point of view that I had heard, and you know...it does kind of make sense to me, at least. I used to think that Java was something that was absolutely required on a Linux system and that you couldn't be cool without it, but now it's been at least a couple of years since I had Java of any kind on my machine and I don't miss it one bit.
But there is one question that still bothers me... where is Java going to be 25 years from now? What does the future hold for Java? That's something that I have been thinking about the past few days.
OK. Java. I saw a Usenet posting one time a long time ago, that expressed an opinion about Java that I really haven't heard in many other places. But it helps explain why Java, properly done, properly implemented, is an extremely powerful thing.
Looking at it from a single OS perspective, it goes like this. You have Linux, for instance. So along comes Java, and it places this huge, clunky, more or less proprietary, what used to be very inefficient and slow but has now gotten better code between you and Linux (or BSD, or Windows, or System V, or whatever). So now I can run a Java-based web browser - a Java-based FTP client that is how many times slower than the same application written in C or C++ for Linux. Linux has everything necessary to develop software for itself - why would someone come along and plop this gigantic layer of functionality between the end-user/programmer and the software development tools for Linux that duplicates functionality that already exists? Java is, in its nature, or at least, it can be, an evil thing.
Java takes steps towards making the underlying OS irrelevant. Say for instance, you have a Java Desktop System - and it works well, people are happy with it - and it runs on Linux. Well, you can transparently remove the Linux part and replace it with something else, say, like Solaris. I am not saying that Sun does that, or that Sun is evil-intentioned or anything - it's just the concept, the potential that Java has in the long term to making the OS irrelevant. When something like that is tied to one particular company they had better expect that any and all potential patent holders are going to start coming out of the woodwork. Java has incredible potential - at least in theory - perhaps even greater potential than Windows - at least in theory. Apparently that's good enough for the legal department to do something.
One would think that if software were written in a portable fashion in any portable programming language, that something like Java would be unnecessary. One would think that if internet and other standards and protocols were platform-neutral and were adhered to something like Java would be unnecessary. But in any case, Java is there, and it has some incredible potential. Java has the ability to ooze its way into any OS, any platform, any application - that can be a good thing, and it can be a bad thing - it depends on the person implementing that power and whether that power is being used for personal or corporate gain or for the greater good.
In any case, Java has incredible potential. It is not some small helpless corporation trying to get started, now being destroyed by opportunistic patent pool meanies. Java would have even greater potential if it could be broken loose from Sun and released into the public domain. Whether or not what Kodak has done will come any closer to having that occur is doubtful, but the fact remains that Java is powerful and has incredible potential and anything that is powerful and has incredible potential is going to cause patent holders to emerge out of the woodwork.
Java is a big deal. It's important. That's probably one of the reasons this is happening.
Obviously, there is a difficulty in debating things if they never make it to court, or any other forum where some kind of precedent can be established; furthermore, there is a definite sense of severity and fear.
But it would be interesting to look at this one aspect of the situation: How many hours there are in a day. How many movies, how much multimedia, how much music can one single human being (assuming that this is for personal use) possibly listen to or watch in any given period of time?
This is where the distinction between personal use, sharing on the internet via some software application, or mass-producing for profit can be drawn. The people doing the suing and the raiding and the lobbying are interested in getting their point across, even if the punishment doesn't fit the crime. Somehow, it seems that this is what the whole point has become, up and down the ladder of authority.
But I think if you were to really look at the legal situation, the legal details, aside from any pre-set fines of any kind, the actual financial liability that any one human being could be liable for - the one thing that you couldn't really get past is that there are only 24 hours in one day, 365 days in one year, and that the average life span of a single human being is so and so. And then, of course, an individual must sleep and do other things besides listen to music or watch movies, so any potential financial liability should be calculated around that figure.
This only applies to personal use, however... it does not apply to sharing or mass piracy for profit - but I think that it is important to draw a distinction between these things. You could have terabytes upon terabytes of stuff, but you would eventually end up having more stuff than you could ever listen to or watch in your entire lifetime - if you download a song but never listen to it, where has there been any kind of financial damages occured to the artist?
Also, it is good to have a forum of some sort - the ability to share - say, for instance, if a group of friends gets together for dinner and a movie, and each time they get together a different person out of the group brings a movie to share... that way they can share and discuss their likes and dislikes. This is good for the individuals, it's good for the culture, and it's good for the artists involved as well. Whether this type of forum takes place on the internet or in someone's house shouldn't really make that much of a difference.
Yes, not exactly what I was trying to say... I guess I worded that badly. I understand where you are coming from though.
What I meant to say was that DRM should be done away with. I guess I was thinking in an abstract sense that infringement, or the criminal aspect of copyright infringment, is something that falls outside of the process of distribution. The act of creating a work of art of some sort and sharing that work of art with the world is (should be) a completely seperate and distinct process from hauling people into court for plagiarism or other infringement type actions.
For instance, a photographer would distribute his or her photography in whatever way they chose to distribute it, and then if the unfortunate were to happen and someone were to infringe on the copyright or other property rights of that photography then the steps would be taken to deal with this as a distinct and seperate process. I also think it's more effective this way - you don't know exactly what is going to happen or exactly how it's going to be dealt with.
It just seems to me that content distribution IS DRM - which would be a type of preventative action, perhaps - my idea was that if the legal threat were strong enough, DRM wouldn't be necessary. This might also allow the concept of fair use to be fully realized. You could just distribute the content and warn people that they stand a good chance of being sued or having some other type of entanglement if they infringe. It just seems to me it's better to just identify the places the infringement takes place and deal with them in a proper, legal manner then and there, rather than try to have everyone make concessions and cripple the products.
I think this goes hand in hand with the products being priced reasonably to begin with. How much does DRM add to the price of a product?
It looks like, if you really look at it with a sense of "the big picture", that the U.S. Govt. doesn't like the internet. Just like it's easy for citizens and average computer users to be "infringing" without knowing or realizing it, it's easy for the legislators to be disliking the internet without realizing it. So the end result is, is some ways, not unlike China - although on the surface it simply appears that the legislators want to pick and choose those parts of cyberspace that will please the campaign contributions for the incumbents. But they are rapidly becoming enemies of the internet and free speech, without even realizing it.
But it's also time to move on. It's not the responsiblity of the content distributors to enforce copyright laws. So in that sense, this bill makes some sense - if there are laws to enforce, it's the government that should be enforcing them.
The problem is that it's way to easy to get in trouble without even realizing what you are doing - sort of like driving a car that has no speedometer - better yet, driving a car that has no windshield so you can't see who you are running over. Anonymous p2p is going to solve this problem in the future. It is going to 1) further free speech, freedom of expression, and create a forum where artists and fans can share and learn and experience new things; 2) protect unwitting, inexperienced computer users from breaking harsh laws unknowningly. It may also protect parents from their kid's evil friends, and roommates from each other.
Furthermore, I don't see how you can pass a bill that places the enforcement of a three-year or greater felony in the hands of minimum-wage movie theater employees. Someone is bound to get hurt.
I think that the injustice that is sort of being looked at or thought about here is when an innocent yet enterprising group of individuals comes together and decides to make software, and then a large organization, or an opportunistic organization destroys the effort to their own, perhaps percieved, benefit.
On the other hand, if such a group of enterprising individuals were to come together for the purposes of turning a profit, it is at least equally likely that they would choose Windows as a platform, and not choose open source or free because they have no desire to donate anything. There are plenty of enterprising individuals who would rather go with MS Windows, and to be honest, there are some good third party Windows applications out there.
Therefore I doubt that Microsoft would do anthing that would start a patent war. They might be afraid of Oo.org, they may want to keep an eye or two on it, they may want to protect themselves, but I seriously doubt that they will attack it. The message that Micrsoft wants to send to the world, I think, is that if you want to make software, and not give it away for free, in other words... if you want to make software for profit, then choose our platform. If Microsoft were to unleash a patent wars on anyone - open source, free, they would be placing the stability of the entire software industry, and the reliability of their own platform as a "money maker", as a place where small enterprising software developers can feel confident they will be reasonably secure from ligitation, at risk. Microsoft might not be about giving away things for free, but by no means do they want to create a litigous atmosphere for those profit-driven individuals who choose to develop third-party applications for their platform.
unfortunately, many parts of the entertainment industry, including parts of Hollywood, are engaging in what can only be characterized as greedy practices. There is a certain degree of price fixing going on, not to mention that the media would be less expensive if they stopped wasting money on copy protection technology.
I understand that it costs lots of money to make CGI and other things, and this is also part of the problem, part of the lack of any real choices for the consumer.
It would be better if it were acceptable to make movies on lower budgets; it would be better if more talented artists, directors, producers, etc... could have an opportunity to express themselves to a wider audience, and if these types of things were to take place, naturally, the price of a DVD would go down somewhat. Maybe not a whole lot, but somewhat - and it might also vary from movie to movie.
I cannot help but to think that there is greed occurring on the part of the entertainment industry - that greed is just as unethical as what is called "piracy" today. Of course you still have probably some areas of the world where people make illegal copies and sell them - that's something else entirely. These days, piracy and copy protection are really aimed at the consumer. That's greed - it's greed because it's unnecessary to aim it at the consumer. Maybe Spock would say, "Greed isn't logical."
So circumventing the copy protections is nothing more than bringing the greedy companies to justice - in a way. Circumventing copy protections is a necessary evil, so to speak. But of course it would be better if it wasn't necessary at all. Perhaps many people wouldn't even mind purchasing two copies, in case one gets scratched up or something - it's just that they are too expensive, so no one does that.
You see those commercials about what happens if you don't get enough art in school - well, listen to people tearing apart this movie and about how this thing or that thing is incorrect.
Who cares? That's not the point. I was very, very, very, and I mean VERY sceptical before I saw the movie. I read all of the websites that are critical of Moore. You could say that I had a pretty good idea about what was in the movie, and what was wrong with what was in the movie, before I ever watched it.
But then I said OK - I am going to watch this movie. And it's a cool movie. I like it. I think that if you want to tear apart the movie because it's supposed to be a "documentary" and it's "factually inacurrate" or WHATEVER is irrelevant, that's not really the way it was presented.
You have to use your imagination to understand the larger concepts and the abstract things that make the movie what it is, and similarly, you have to use your imagination to try to believe that tearing those larger, abstract concepts apart has any relevance or merit.
The movie may or may not be this or that, but one thing we need in America is a greater appreciation for art and abstract concepts.
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I think that what happened with the oil crisis, the Iran hostage crisis - which lead to the Reagan era is a natural sort of balancing out of the excesses that America still represents. Getting fundamental, conservative, and thumping bibles isn't going to stop the natural balancing acts that nature performs on superpowers, or those that try to be and/or become superpowers.
Look at Russia. They were once trying to be a superpower. Look at how now they are completely unable to prevent terrorism. The theatre, and now the school. This is what happens to superpowers. It's not good.
So while fighting against the natural balancing acts that the global environment is presenting to America might be one numb-sculled approach, the end result, the lesson that we should all learn is that it's not good to be a superpower. If you want to drive fast and not get pulled over, don't put sporty stripes and fancy spoilers on your car.
More art, less neo-con philosophy, and a greater ability to defend (that's DEFEND - not preempt). Even peace-loving hippy folks take marital arts self-defence courses from time to time. The neo-con philosophy has its own dictionary entry for defense - what most normal folks would call offense. Micheal Moore, appropriately, has his own dictionary entry for documentary - and if you don't get enough art, you won't "get" that.
There are 32-bit processors, which is probably not what certain scientists and others who need lots of memory want.
At first I thought that this was a joke, you know... a scam or something - but I guess that's wrong - these machines are real. I suppose they might have some interesting uses.
Probably the greatest drawback is that they aren't 64 bit.
A few days ago, we had a post from the person from the Stargate website, asking for donations. Common sense would dictate that perhaps a more objective source than one of the parties involved in the litigation... oh well.
Today there was a Mozilla vulnerability thing and I clicked on the "proof of concept" and my X server almost locked up and I had to ssh in from another machine to kill it. "As if" someone wouldn't notice there was something wrong.
Now, this.
Where does one go to get an objective opinion of things. You know?
It just ain't right. People need to chill out, man... life ain't that grim!
I just had to kill X - it took over all my system resources - it was trying to do something but it didn't work. It tried to open up a full-screen window, but it was obvious that something unusual was going on.
I call that a "wierd" website or webpage or something. Going to have to do a little better to try to convince me that nothing unusual is going on.
This guy is obviously a questionable character - putting up an article like this is just feeding hundreds, perhaps thousands of dollars of donations into his hands.
Whom can you trust these days?
Obviously, not slashdot. The link to the article on the guy's own website, written by the guy himself, is a bad idea. Linking to a third-party article, that's a different story - linking to a blog where this is discussed - this is another story.
It is quite apparent that lots of people have been ripped off by this individual and giving him a voice in such a public place as here is really quite irresponsible. Either that, or all of us who read slashdot are just a huge group of blind wooly mammoths following other wooly mammoths who are about to fall off a gargantuan cliff with a sheer drop and have absolutely no clue about it.
I am glad to see the law enforcement doing their jobs. Individuals such as this person here BELONG behind bars, where they perhaps might learn a little something about showing respect to their fellow human beings. I hope he gets what's coming to him. He certainly deserves it.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly. Or take a directory of files named file001 through file999 delete file001 and file002 and move the rest of all of the filenames down two numbers - do that with your mouse!
People who don't understand the CLI don't realize that it's actually a programming language file, but you only get to see one line at a time (default file size is 500 lines) - you can change that, you can search, edit, switch to multi-line mode, write little scripts, change the copyright year notices on all of your webpages on Jan. 1 with a simple one-line command, etc...
Extending the argument that GUI is better, what you're actually saying is more like questioning why we should use C or C++ or Java or basic or any programming language that has to be typed in, let's just point and click our way to writing software programs!
Furthermore, why should we even use the English alphabet or the keyboard? We can do everything we need to do with a mouse - that way, you get carpal tunnel sooner, which means you can quit your job and get paid more than half of what you were earning for having people do surgery on you!! Great idea, huh?
English is a language, just like Perl is a language, just like C is a language, just like any other programming language. And you know what? Bash, the Linux default shell, it is also a programming language. That's the whole point. You can type your business letters with your keyboard or you can type them with your mouse...
On top of everything else, if you make it so darned easy for anyone to do anything on a computer, you will outsource yourself to someone making minimum wage. Since when is being stupid a desired thing? I think we need to get over the idea that computers have to be "easy" to use - it's a skill - take 6 months to learn how to use a REAL operating system the right way - what is life expectancy - 65+ and growing? What is 6 months out of that to learn how to use a tool that you are going to use for the rest of your life?
Setting stupidity as a goal is counterproductive. I think it would be better if the goal were that computer operators learn the skills necessary to use something like Linux or BSD. The basics are something you only need to learn once - they are more like concepts - so if the computer operators learn how to use the computers properly, we will have a more realistic computing environment - because no matter how "dumb" you make something or how "dumb" you make a job description, it's always someone else's job to come and fix it when it doesn't work anyway. What I don't understand is why intelligence and skills aren't the focus - they are in almost anything else? You don't hear someone say - "They ought to make theoretical physics easier... it's too hard!", or "They ought to make Partial Differential Equations easier... they're too hard!". C'mon, people... get with it already.
They re-turned all domains on (I mean blocking so this crap won't happen to anyone)- they turned it on by default on Oct 31 for all domains, at least according to an e-mail I got some time ago.
No reason to freak out unless, perhaps you are with some registrar that doesn't offer the blocking service.
Don't panic. This can only be attributable to human error.
I think if I understand this properly, it's the G5 processor (and the previous ones too) that have the Altivec engine, which provides a level of "vector" capabilities that other CPU's simply don't have.
/.'s place in the IT community :), but I think it's worth mentioning that (correct me if I am wrong) - that the G5 (and G4 before it) have floating point, or "vector" capabilities, which really set them apart from the other PC processors such as the AMD and Intel. And probably better vector capabilities than a lot of RISC CPUs as well.
While there may be a bias (personally I am sick of the way EVERY FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD post is being mishandled - it's unprofessional and destructive, and irresponsible given
The G5 is an elegant, very cool processor, it's unfortunate that it's so locked into Apple's proprietary format - it would be so cool to build your own with parts, and have a choice of parts.
It's really an awesome processor. As to whether or not there's a bias, perhaps there is... but I think that when it comes to supercomputing clusters, the G5 has some unique capabilities that set it apart from other processors (unless, of course, you want to buy Crays and things like that). It would be interesting to see if there were some way (and this is way in the future, but just in terms of where things are headed) - it would be interesting to see DragonFlyBSD paired with a G5, or maybe at that point in the future it will be a G6 (who knows?). DragonFlyBSD is working on a way to (I can't find the info right now) improve clustering performance - if that comes to pass, and their PowerPC port comes to pass, even with purchasing a machine from Apple directly, you might have some very cool things going on.
I didn't used to complain when people borrow a book, and I willingly lent books that I found interesting out to other people because I was excited about what the books had to offer and I wanted to share the passion and curiousity that I had about the book with others. Absolutely.
But I don't do that anymore, nor would I because I never get them back. So if a book means something to me, I keep it. People can buy their own. Why should I buy two?
Say you buy a vintage Ferrari. "Wow... cool... can I borrow that, dude?" Uh huh.
That reminds me - I had purchased an interesting Miles Davis double-album, and I had taken it to work. A co-worker, who was "into" Miles Davis, the first words out of his mouth - "Wow, that looks like a cool album... can I make a copy of it?". The first words out of his mouth.
See, that's when I think that the culture needs to be reworked a little bit. What my co-worker said bothered me. LITERALLY the first words out of his mouth "Wow, that's cool, can I make a copy of that". Is that rude or am I just out of touch?
I changed the subject and I have been avoiding that individual. I can appreciate that he might enjoy jazz or whatever, and I am not trying to be a jerk about this, but there is just something about the way he said it, the ease with which he said it, as if it was the best course of action... I just didn't think that was right.
So generally speaking, I think that when the culture has gotten to the point where making copies is the default, then yes, there is a problem as far as the artist-audience connection. People ought to be in a situation where they realize that their financial contribution to an artist is making it possible for that artist to continue to produce works of art that people will continue to enjoy. Sneaking around and copying this and copying that only seems to be a correct course of action to many people because they can't see how it will hurt anything if they make a copy. It's a small person vs big record company attitude, instead of a beneficial audience-artist connection, audience contributing to artist as a form of appreciation and to encourage further development of artwork in the future.
On the other hand, I do think that boxed sets, and many things, as a matter of fact, when you can't afford them, seem to be a lot better than what they actually are. The music albums / movies take on a more spiritual, dream-like quality when you can't afford them, but when you finally save up the money and finally have the money to afford it, all too often it's not really as wonderful as you imagined that it might be, kind of a let down sometimes.. but you aren't willing to admit it to yourself, having saved up your money for so long. There is too much HYPE and not enough creativity going on - mainly as a result of there not being enough opportunities for artists, musicians, and filmmakers to express themselves.
Furthermore, file sharing is also one of those thing that eventually people will get sick of, and, as such, "fighting" it isn't really going to accomplish anything, because the "fight" that needs to be taking place should be happening in the artistic and creative parts of the mind of the consumer - in other words - deliver a quality product, and help the talented individuals reach the consumers, and create a culture where the consumers can feel free to explore their own personalities, likes, and dislikes, while enabling a greater variety and diversity of filmmakers and musicians an opportunity to cater to the evolving likes and dislikes of the audience.
This is not happening - people are "high" on file-sharing, and eventually they will come down, because you can't share something that doesn't exist. Just like if you won the lottery and could buy any music or movie you wanted to... eventually you would sort of come down. You can't buy something that doesn't exist - the problem is that these things could exist - it's not so much how the consumer acquires it, the problem is how do you make it happen - how do you turn it from an idea in someone's head into a real live work of art? Making this process more real, more visible, more personal to the consumer, instead of the typical Hollywood "shock and awe" marketing and promotion that many films, and to some extent new music releases recieve, will allow individuals to make that crucial connection to the artist, the hard work of the artist, and infuse the consumer world with concerns about the future well-being and continued success of that artist.
I think that there are some things that Groklaw gets really, really right. The overwhelming majority of the articles that they put out are quite good and represent a point of view that is in fact very necessary.
Personally, I have found the opportunity to interact with other like-minded UNIX/Linux/BSD programmers very useful, even if it's somewhat off-topic - there are no doubt many coders with tons of experience who post there and as far as a forum goes, it's excellent.
I think that there is a minority of posts that are getting Groklaw the type of reputation that this issue is riding on. So, setting my personal desire to "hang out" and interact with the best and the brightest, it seems to me that perhaps the idea of it still being a "blog", or the idea of people posting comments be reconsidered. I wouldn't suggest it because I know it's not going to happen, but that's just one way to present a more serious face, I suppose.
It's a minority of the posts that show an affect - a type of personality that can be seen in the writing style - a type of cynicism... this is, no doubt, creating problems such as this one we are discussing today. If you have a problem with the facts, then you have a problem with the facts and you can dispute those facts. It's attitude, demeanor, and rhetoric that are going to create these types of problems.
In any case, most of the information avilable at Groklaw is invaluable. But there is a minority of posts and opinions that I have seen on Groklaw that are unnecessary and too negative. It's nonsensical. I just weed through those.
It would be absolutely wonderful to have the information that is presented on that website be presented in a professional, matter-of-fact way, sans comment, sans cynical rhetoric and humor. The information that is presented is in no way factually incorrect, nor is it inappropriate, nor is it in violation of any one thing or another. The absolute need in the online world of the point of view and the type and depth or factual data that Groklaw provides isn't deserving of the negativity, however minor, that can be found not only in the comments but at times, in the narrative top-level comments themselves.
Not that it's any big deal, but it's those little things that create these kinds of problems. It weakens the position, and makes the whole thing look somewhat less professional than it could be. But there may be other problems associated with that as well - there's safety in numbers, etc...
Perhaps individuals should just chill out and weed through the negative stuff and comments and realize how much valuable info there is available at that website.
Since the left wing has been traditionally associated with Hollywood to a greater or lesser extent, it would seem that this is a political move designed for an election year.
Notice that part of what is being said, at least - is going after the pre-internet problems - piracy in Asia, and that area. This has been a problem since before there was even such a thing as Windows or Apple.
So I noticed in the article that there is some effort being spent in going after actual "piracy" as it has been defined for decades, in an international sense, with a focus on Asia, perhaps India - and there are education programs and so on for kids here at home.
If you notice Cheney's remark about the dot com; if you saw Rumsfeld's anger at how easy it is to transmit photos electronically and how he just "wasn't prepared for that" and, and if you you saw the man himself, the great Mr. Wrong, suggest last night that those who lose their jobs to outsourcing (many of whom hold BS and MS degrees) should go back to their local community colleges and get educated for "the jobs of the 21st century", it becomes obvious that this administration is not really all that aware of what's going on.
I think that they might be pumping out the fear, but as far as this affecting individuals too much, I wouldn't hold my breath. I think we'll still come out ahead of many other countries in the amount of freedoms and personal choices we have in many areas. These republicans might be scary, but it's Kerry who wants more cops. Either way, it's probably going to boil down to court decisions in the end.
Like they said in the article, Wal-Mart's philosophy is to sell things as cheap as possible - and I don't doubt that's part of the problem. Stockholders, on the other hand, have become millionares. What does this do to "as possible"? As cheap as possible while still making stockholders millionares? How does the stock value relate to the way that the employees are treated, the sourcing of the products from overseas and how those employees are treated, and what are they really doing to get the price as low as possible? It's not rocket science, you know...
On my Linux machine, I manually start up SETI when I remember to, with a -nice 19 at the end, and it goes for weeks and weeks... I totally can't tell the difference whether it's there or not because it backs off when it needs to.
But I do realize that with the processor I have, a fairly fast Athlon XP, in terms of watts, it's probably sort of like having a light bulb on 24/7. There's always a light on at my house for intelligent life from outer space.
And I understand that some of these Pentium IV's tend to use up even more juice - so in any case, it is like leaving a light bulb on.
Also, I would imagine that if there was, say for instance a backup program or some sort of program that did some kind of cpu-intensive task, it might run slower, just from the OS trying to figure negotiate between the two processes - I have seen this with compression - killing off SETI, even at nice level of 19, speeds up compression - most noticably in my instance I have noticed this when creating / undoing flac audio files. I always kill seti before doing that, so a backup with gzip or bzip2 WOULD probably be affected - just a guess, but better safe than sorry, right?
So there are reasons, but that supervisor guy is so intelligent that he scares me! I've never been afraid of intelligence like that before.
Speaking of compression - the aac's and the mp3s, while they might sound very well, are not anywhere near as good as lossless formats - so not only do you get DRM, you also get a lower quality audio format as well. What a deal!
There is a way to standardize DRM - do away with it. Then all content providers will be able to compete on a level playing field.
It seems to me, with at least with ABC, NBC, CBS, and perhaps PBS, maybe other local stations, maybe more in the future, that it should be as easy as possible for citizens to get the broadcasts.
I know that I personally tend to associate cable or satellite services with TV programs, but the idea that an individual could tune in to a publically available broadcast that is broadcast for the public good, as a public service - I think that this is a good idea.
To complicate the process, to put up roadblocks can't be a good idea. People should be able to tune into to TV programming, or HDTV programming, and it shouldn't be bogged down with unnecessary things.
Maybe there is some way to watermark things like movies and other "premium" content, but still find a way to keep news and other important public-service type content as easy as possible for as many people as possible to tune in to. Educational programs, informational programs, news and other programs - all of these are in the public interest, and it really goes against the whole concept to place all kinds of barriers in the way of individuals being able to access those programs.
It's interesting... I've never seen this before. This particular post was sitting at 5 points, and not 24 hours later, it's down to 1 point - it started at 2. That's because I have excellent karma (whatever that means).
Anyway, I said at the outset that I had never heard a similar point of view expressed save for one place on Usenet, and I guess that it shows.
In any case, I don't really care all that much - I don't post very often. I just wanted to share this point of view that I had heard, and you know...it does kind of make sense to me, at least. I used to think that Java was something that was absolutely required on a Linux system and that you couldn't be cool without it, but now it's been at least a couple of years since I had Java of any kind on my machine and I don't miss it one bit.
But there is one question that still bothers me... where is Java going to be 25 years from now? What does the future hold for Java? That's something that I have been thinking about the past few days.
OK. Java. I saw a Usenet posting one time a long time ago, that expressed an opinion about Java that I really haven't heard in many other places. But it helps explain why Java, properly done, properly implemented, is an extremely powerful thing.
Looking at it from a single OS perspective, it goes like this. You have Linux, for instance. So along comes Java, and it places this huge, clunky, more or less proprietary, what used to be very inefficient and slow but has now gotten better code between you and Linux (or BSD, or Windows, or System V, or whatever). So now I can run a Java-based web browser - a Java-based FTP client that is how many times slower than the same application written in C or C++ for Linux. Linux has everything necessary to develop software for itself - why would someone come along and plop this gigantic layer of functionality between the end-user/programmer and the software development tools for Linux that duplicates functionality that already exists? Java is, in its nature, or at least, it can be, an evil thing.
Java takes steps towards making the underlying OS irrelevant. Say for instance, you have a Java Desktop System - and it works well, people are happy with it - and it runs on Linux. Well, you can transparently remove the Linux part and replace it with something else, say, like Solaris. I am not saying that Sun does that, or that Sun is evil-intentioned or anything - it's just the concept, the potential that Java has in the long term to making the OS irrelevant. When something like that is tied to one particular company they had better expect that any and all potential patent holders are going to start coming out of the woodwork. Java has incredible potential - at least in theory - perhaps even greater potential than Windows - at least in theory. Apparently that's good enough for the legal department to do something.
One would think that if software were written in a portable fashion in any portable programming language, that something like Java would be unnecessary. One would think that if internet and other standards and protocols were platform-neutral and were adhered to something like Java would be unnecessary. But in any case, Java is there, and it has some incredible potential. Java has the ability to ooze its way into any OS, any platform, any application - that can be a good thing, and it can be a bad thing - it depends on the person implementing that power and whether that power is being used for personal or corporate gain or for the greater good.
In any case, Java has incredible potential. It is not some small helpless corporation trying to get started, now being destroyed by opportunistic patent pool meanies. Java would have even greater potential if it could be broken loose from Sun and released into the public domain. Whether or not what Kodak has done will come any closer to having that occur is doubtful, but the fact remains that Java is powerful and has incredible potential and anything that is powerful and has incredible potential is going to cause patent holders to emerge out of the woodwork.
Java is a big deal. It's important. That's probably one of the reasons this is happening.
Obviously, there is a difficulty in debating things if they never make it to court, or any other forum where some kind of precedent can be established; furthermore, there is a definite sense of severity and fear.
But it would be interesting to look at this one aspect of the situation: How many hours there are in a day. How many movies, how much multimedia, how much music can one single human being (assuming that this is for personal use) possibly listen to or watch in any given period of time?
This is where the distinction between personal use, sharing on the internet via some software application, or mass-producing for profit can be drawn. The people doing the suing and the raiding and the lobbying are interested in getting their point across, even if the punishment doesn't fit the crime. Somehow, it seems that this is what the whole point has become, up and down the ladder of authority.
But I think if you were to really look at the legal situation, the legal details, aside from any pre-set fines of any kind, the actual financial liability that any one human being could be liable for - the one thing that you couldn't really get past is that there are only 24 hours in one day, 365 days in one year, and that the average life span of a single human being is so and so. And then, of course, an individual must sleep and do other things besides listen to music or watch movies, so any potential financial liability should be calculated around that figure.
This only applies to personal use, however... it does not apply to sharing or mass piracy for profit - but I think that it is important to draw a distinction between these things. You could have terabytes upon terabytes of stuff, but you would eventually end up having more stuff than you could ever listen to or watch in your entire lifetime - if you download a song but never listen to it, where has there been any kind of financial damages occured to the artist?
Also, it is good to have a forum of some sort - the ability to share - say, for instance, if a group of friends gets together for dinner and a movie, and each time they get together a different person out of the group brings a movie to share... that way they can share and discuss their likes and dislikes. This is good for the individuals, it's good for the culture, and it's good for the artists involved as well. Whether this type of forum takes place on the internet or in someone's house shouldn't really make that much of a difference.
Yes, not exactly what I was trying to say... I guess I worded that badly. I understand where you are coming from though.
What I meant to say was that DRM should be done away with. I guess I was thinking in an abstract sense that infringement, or the criminal aspect of copyright infringment, is something that falls outside of the process of distribution. The act of creating a work of art of some sort and sharing that work of art with the world is (should be) a completely seperate and distinct process from hauling people into court for plagiarism or other infringement type actions.
For instance, a photographer would distribute his or her photography in whatever way they chose to distribute it, and then if the unfortunate were to happen and someone were to infringe on the copyright or other property rights of that photography then the steps would be taken to deal with this as a distinct and seperate process. I also think it's more effective this way - you don't know exactly what is going to happen or exactly how it's going to be dealt with.
It just seems to me that content distribution IS DRM - which would be a type of preventative action, perhaps - my idea was that if the legal threat were strong enough, DRM wouldn't be necessary. This might also allow the concept of fair use to be fully realized. You could just distribute the content and warn people that they stand a good chance of being sued or having some other type of entanglement if they infringe. It just seems to me it's better to just identify the places the infringement takes place and deal with them in a proper, legal manner then and there, rather than try to have everyone make concessions and cripple the products.
I think this goes hand in hand with the products being priced reasonably to begin with. How much does DRM add to the price of a product?
It looks like, if you really look at it with a sense of "the big picture", that the U.S. Govt. doesn't like the internet. Just like it's easy for citizens and average computer users to be "infringing" without knowing or realizing it, it's easy for the legislators to be disliking the internet without realizing it. So the end result is, is some ways, not unlike China - although on the surface it simply appears that the legislators want to pick and choose those parts of cyberspace that will please the campaign contributions for the incumbents. But they are rapidly becoming enemies of the internet and free speech, without even realizing it.
But it's also time to move on. It's not the responsiblity of the content distributors to enforce copyright laws. So in that sense, this bill makes some sense - if there are laws to enforce, it's the government that should be enforcing them.
The problem is that it's way to easy to get in trouble without even realizing what you are doing - sort of like driving a car that has no speedometer - better yet, driving a car that has no windshield so you can't see who you are running over. Anonymous p2p is going to solve this problem in the future. It is going to 1) further free speech, freedom of expression, and create a forum where artists and fans can share and learn and experience new things; 2) protect unwitting, inexperienced computer users from breaking harsh laws unknowningly. It may also protect parents from their kid's evil friends, and roommates from each other.
Furthermore, I don't see how you can pass a bill that places the enforcement of a three-year or greater felony in the hands of minimum-wage movie theater employees. Someone is bound to get hurt.
I think that the injustice that is sort of being looked at or thought about here is when an innocent yet enterprising group of individuals comes together and decides to make software, and then a large organization, or an opportunistic organization destroys the effort to their own, perhaps percieved, benefit.
On the other hand, if such a group of enterprising individuals were to come together for the purposes of turning a profit, it is at least equally likely that they would choose Windows as a platform, and not choose open source or free because they have no desire to donate anything. There are plenty of enterprising individuals who would rather go with MS Windows, and to be honest, there are some good third party Windows applications out there.
Therefore I doubt that Microsoft would do anthing that would start a patent war. They might be afraid of Oo.org, they may want to keep an eye or two on it, they may want to protect themselves, but I seriously doubt that they will attack it. The message that Micrsoft wants to send to the world, I think, is that if you want to make software, and not give it away for free, in other words... if you want to make software for profit, then choose our platform. If Microsoft were to unleash a patent wars on anyone - open source, free, they would be placing the stability of the entire software industry, and the reliability of their own platform as a "money maker", as a place where small enterprising software developers can feel confident they will be reasonably secure from ligitation, at risk. Microsoft might not be about giving away things for free, but by no means do they want to create a litigous atmosphere for those profit-driven individuals who choose to develop third-party applications for their platform.
I say don't worry about it.
unfortunately, many parts of the entertainment industry, including parts of Hollywood, are engaging in what can only be characterized as greedy practices. There is a certain degree of price fixing going on, not to mention that the media would be less expensive if they stopped wasting money on copy protection technology.
I understand that it costs lots of money to make CGI and other things, and this is also part of the problem, part of the lack of any real choices for the consumer.
It would be better if it were acceptable to make movies on lower budgets; it would be better if more talented artists, directors, producers, etc... could have an opportunity to express themselves to a wider audience, and if these types of things were to take place, naturally, the price of a DVD would go down somewhat. Maybe not a whole lot, but somewhat - and it might also vary from movie to movie.
I cannot help but to think that there is greed occurring on the part of the entertainment industry - that greed is just as unethical as what is called "piracy" today. Of course you still have probably some areas of the world where people make illegal copies and sell them - that's something else entirely. These days, piracy and copy protection are really aimed at the consumer. That's greed - it's greed because it's unnecessary to aim it at the consumer. Maybe Spock would say, "Greed isn't logical."
So circumventing the copy protections is nothing more than bringing the greedy companies to justice - in a way. Circumventing copy protections is a necessary evil, so to speak. But of course it would be better if it wasn't necessary at all. Perhaps many people wouldn't even mind purchasing two copies, in case one gets scratched up or something - it's just that they are too expensive, so no one does that.
You see those commercials about what happens if you don't get enough art in school - well, listen to people tearing apart this movie and about how this thing or that thing is incorrect.
Who cares? That's not the point. I was very, very, very, and I mean VERY sceptical before I saw the movie. I read all of the websites that are critical of Moore. You could say that I had a pretty good idea about what was in the movie, and what was wrong with what was in the movie, before I ever watched it.
But then I said OK - I am going to watch this movie. And it's a cool movie. I like it. I think that if you want to tear apart the movie because it's supposed to be a "documentary" and it's "factually inacurrate" or WHATEVER is irrelevant, that's not really the way it was presented.
You have to use your imagination to understand the larger concepts and the abstract things that make the movie what it is, and similarly, you have to use your imagination to try to believe that tearing those larger, abstract concepts apart has any relevance or merit.
The movie may or may not be this or that, but one thing we need in America is a greater appreciation for art and abstract concepts.
-------------------
I think that what happened with the oil crisis, the Iran hostage crisis - which lead to the Reagan era is a natural sort of balancing out of the excesses that America still represents. Getting fundamental, conservative, and thumping bibles isn't going to stop the natural balancing acts that nature performs on superpowers, or those that try to be and/or become superpowers.
Look at Russia. They were once trying to be a superpower. Look at how now they are completely unable to prevent terrorism. The theatre, and now the school. This is what happens to superpowers. It's not good.
So while fighting against the natural balancing acts that the global environment is presenting to America might be one numb-sculled approach, the end result, the lesson that we should all learn is that it's not good to be a superpower. If you want to drive fast and not get pulled over, don't put sporty stripes and fancy spoilers on your car.
More art, less neo-con philosophy, and a greater ability to defend (that's DEFEND - not preempt). Even peace-loving hippy folks take marital arts self-defence courses from time to time. The neo-con philosophy has its own dictionary entry for defense - what most normal folks would call offense. Micheal Moore, appropriately, has his own dictionary entry for documentary - and if you don't get enough art, you won't "get" that.
There are 32-bit processors, which is probably not what certain scientists and others who need lots of memory want.
At first I thought that this was a joke, you know... a scam or something - but I guess that's wrong - these machines are real. I suppose they might have some interesting uses.
Probably the greatest drawback is that they aren't 64 bit.
I was using Firefox. It locked up my machine.
Had to ssh in to kill X.
A few days ago, we had a post from the person from the Stargate website, asking for donations. Common sense would dictate that perhaps a more objective source than one of the parties involved in the litigation... oh well.
Today there was a Mozilla vulnerability thing and I clicked on the "proof of concept" and my X server almost locked up and I had to ssh in from another machine to kill it. "As if" someone wouldn't notice there was something wrong.
Now, this.
Where does one go to get an objective opinion of things. You know?
It just ain't right. People need to chill out, man... life ain't that grim!
I just had to kill X - it took over all my system resources - it was trying to do something but it didn't work. It tried to open up a full-screen window, but it was obvious that something unusual was going on.
I call that a "wierd" website or webpage or something. Going to have to do a little better to try to convince me that nothing unusual is going on.
WTF?
This guy is obviously a questionable character - putting up an article like this is just feeding hundreds, perhaps thousands of dollars of donations into his hands.
Whom can you trust these days?
Obviously, not slashdot. The link to the article on the guy's own website, written by the guy himself, is a bad idea. Linking to a third-party article, that's a different story - linking to a blog where this is discussed - this is another story.
It is quite apparent that lots of people have been ripped off by this individual and giving him a voice in such a public place as here is really quite irresponsible. Either that, or all of us who read slashdot are just a huge group of blind wooly mammoths following other wooly mammoths who are about to fall off a gargantuan cliff with a sheer drop and have absolutely no clue about it.
I am glad to see the law enforcement doing their jobs. Individuals such as this person here BELONG behind bars, where they perhaps might learn a little something about showing respect to their fellow human beings. I hope he gets what's coming to him. He certainly deserves it.
and this one thing is done on purpose.
So do whatever you want, it doesn't matter.
It's cheaper to pay them than it is to go to court.
End of story.