Back in the days of dot matrix printers, my trusty Citizen 120-D {FX-80-alike - weren't most 9-pin dotties?} used to support multiple sheets of vertical and horizontal tab stop definitions, so you could do stuff like multi-page forms without the computer having to think too hard about it. Of course, you had to line up the paper with the printing head by eye and hope it never slipped:-) Also, it could print stencils for Gestetner machines {a primitive kind of hand-cranked [motorised on 'de luxe' models] printing press commonly used in schools before photocopiers became cheap}. Try doing that with an inkjet or laser!
I don't know of any software that actually made use of such a feature, and I never made use of it myself; but it was probably used by some firms for in-house stuff.
There is a school of thought amongst the more extreme vegans and vegetarians that it is wrong to eat artificial meat {vegeburgers, soya mince &c.} as these products are effectively legitimising the natural product -- imitation as flattery. Likewise, some say fake fur is almost as bad as real fur; a more moderate position is that obvious fake fur {bright pink &c.} is fine, but not "realistic" looking fake fur.
I'm tempted to think the Community should not support MS file formats on general principle. We document our file formats, after all, and there would be nothing stopping MS from adopting an SGML-based file format. Although, it does rather feel like cutting off one's dick to annoy one's balls. Maybe it would be better to import MS files, but not export them. After all, anybody can eat vegan food, not jsut vegans; just because you're an omnivore does not mean you have to eat natural meat all the time. Windows users can always install an open source WP / spreadsheet, Free Software users cannot.
I was made to do some text editing in MS Word in my last job. I had to modify a document somebody else had started.
Beside attempting to do table formatting with strings of spaces {I know this is acceptable, even encouraged, in programming, when monospaced fonts are used; but it totally breaks proportional spacing}, the author also had manually numbered the pages.
I was heavily tempted to refuse to do the editing on the grounds that (a) the original material was unfit to use as a starting point and (b) I was having difficulty finding a copy of MS Word.
And now, the point, part one. What I'm really looking for is a word processor that can take such childish attempts and format them properly. Work out where the author was trying to line up the tabs, and change the space-spaced stuff to proper tabbed columns.
Or, maybe someone could make a USB shotgun accessory that will blow a luser's head off if they try certain effects. Such as
Attempting to format using spaces
Attempting to generate page numbers, tables of contents, or anything else that the computer can do for you, by hand *
Using more than three fonts in a document
Using the font 'comic sans MS' for anything at all
The point, part two, is that WordPad is not a word processor. It does not incorporate a spelling checker. Whose priorities are so warped that they would omit such a basic necessity while incorporating changeable fonts and colours? It matters not what meretricious decorations are applied to the text if the spelling is all cocked up! It does not even qualify as a text editor; it is a viewing tool. And a poor one at that, because its output often does not resemble the output of Word.
* I have actually heard of someone creating a spreadsheet, then adding up the figures with an idiot-calculator and entering this in the total box
That is typical Microsoft FUD. Mandrake &c. are widely reckoned to be easier to install than Windows. This is true in my experience. Debian and Slackware are harder, but they are more specialised. There are distributions based on both which have various features added to make them easier to use. Knoppix is based on Debian, and don't forget the Slackware LiveCD. Both are contenders for the "new tomsrtbt" title.
Looking at your choice of phraseology, your Microsoft bias is glaring. Why would people be less likely to want Linux "pushed in their face" than the pushing-in-the-face they already get with Windows?
I still contend that if you shew some complete newbie who had never ever used a computer before, one with a well-installed GNU/Linux system on it, they would have fewer problems with it than if it had been a typical out-of-the-box Windows installation.
Telstra dial-up and broadband users will be given a "starter pack" CD which installs a standardised Linux distro, with the only customisations being PPP support and modem drivers / ADSL stuff. It will make telephone support much easier if people are using proper software on their home PCs, instead of the gick that Microsoft push.
Most of the problems I have to diagnose by telephone for work involve users who are invariably running different software than I am, which is a royal PITB. I can't be expected to install every version of every piece of software ever released. At least with Linux, the cost of upgrading to the latest application version is negligible {even if your broadband isn't working, you can just pick up a new CD from a store} so it's safe to assume everyone is using it / force them to upgrade if not.
It's also a fair assumption that if someone is smart enough to set up their own Linux how they want, they will be able to make use of the configuration info from the CD. But that's what/usr/local is for..... specify the install process to go somewhere under/usr/local on a pre-existing system, and it won't interfere with anything else.
Typical closed-source argument. "You probably wouldn't gain anything of value if we shew it to you, therefore, we're not going to show it to you." Unfortunately {like anything closed-source!} I don't buy it. Judging by the sheer number of vulnerabilities in MS code, at least some of them must be visible on first inspection.
Also, with Open Source, testing is incremental and changes propagate easily. Those who know they are guinea pigs are more likely to tread carefully at first - and then deliberately try to break it under controlled conditions. In fact, there are people out there who do nothing but test other people's software. But with closed source, all the testing {and therefore the disclosure of results} is sponsored by the manufacturer, changes are lumped together, everyone gets the same version at the same time, and changes take too long to propagate throughout the user base - especially if the "change" consists of releasing a whole new paid-for package, which some people will not pay for.
Basically, it comes down to the fact that closed-source software is written and tested purely for money {which will still be there if the software is faulty}; but open source software is written for the love of writing software, which will only be there if the software is right, and tested for the love of breaking it, which will only be there if it isn't right.
A strong professional body for granting certified status, backed by a public unwillingness to buy software that didn't have a signature on it
Like the Open Source Community? We need to educate people. IF THEY WON'T SHOW YOU THE SOURCE CODE, THERE IS OBVIOUSLY SOMETHING WRONG WITH IT! OTHERWISE THEY WOULD NOT FEEL THE NEED TO HIDE IT FROM YOU! Which part of that is so hard to understand?
"Surely software can't be made safe if anyone can look at the source!"
Where can I get some of whatever you're smoking? Software can't be made safe unless anyone can look at the source! If the author is hiding something from the users, the users have no cause to trust the author.
The group of OSS developers have released the source code for anyone to examine and thereby determine its suitability for deployment in their application. If it does something you didn't expect, well, you should have read the source code, or paid an independent expert to read it for you.
The closed source company, by refusing to show you the source code, have taken this responsibility entirely upon themselves.
Also, when you write Open Source software, you are conscious that any mistake you make will be seen by millions of people. And they will laugh at you, or call you names, or want to kill you, if there is so much as a punctuation mark out of place. {How often have you written in BASIC, IF a$<>"" THEN... when IF a$>"" THEN... would have done. A string is hardly going to be less than null. But I digress.} So you show it to a few people on the quiet, just to make sure. Then you release it. A few more people see it. The number of people seeing it builds up over time, and with that the chance of an exploit being found. But it's still early days yet. You warned people it was an early release and to keep checking back for updates. Maybe they will find one, maybe they won't, maybe there isn't even one to find. Sooner or later, a Distributor finds it, checks it out and decides it's probably fit to use.
At any one time, there are three groups of people looking for exploits:
Crackers looking for exploits in closed-source software which they can use for mischief
Crackers looking for exploits in open-source software which they can use for mischief
Hackers looking for exploits in open-source software which they notify to the community at large before anyone else uses them for mischief
I said before that the source code should absolve you from the requirement to offer a guarantee. Maybe I should have phrased that differently. The guarantee of performance would be in lieu of the source code. Also, I would make source code subject to subpoena.
Send out an absolute stackload of emails in one go
Have the certificate revoked
Don't pay for certificate
???
Profit!
Goto 1
What we really need is a pay-per-message system. It would work just like mobile phones: you buy "credit" from your ISP, it doesn't get topped up until they've actually seen the money, and it goes down each time you send a message.
But it might not be necessary if everyone just configured their SMTP servers properly, checked the HELO/EHLO and refused anything without a valid reverse DNS lookup, and barred anything with Inappropriate Attachments. {I once got sent a.exe attachment. They still haven't found all the bits of the sender. Nobody has EVER sent me a.doc that could not have been sent in the text of the message, nor are they ever likely to}. I personally don't accept attachments, period. People can use my FTP server if they want to send me stuff..... it's configured with a one-way trapdoor {incoming directory can't be read at all by anon users, can only be overwritten on the same session as it was sent}.
The idea of software being distributed without warranty dates all the way back to the first ever spreadsheet. The software company's lawyers were worried that if someone used the programme to design a suspension bridge, and it later collapsed and investigation proved that it was due to a flaw in the software, they might get sued. Furthermore, it would have been a physical impossibility to test the software in all circumstances. These were the days of 2MHz 8080 processors, lest we forget.
The sane response would have been "let them try, we'll never have what they're asking for and you can't be sued for what you've not got." Instead, that company explicitly disclaimed any warranty on their software, and the situation has persisted since. Today, one company is responsible for a lot of software, and they could easily afford to pay for several suspension bridge failures. But the law has not caught up with reality.
The solution is simple and everyone will like it except the distributors of substandard software.
My proposed solution is to require all software to be guaranteed to perform substantially as indicated on the packaging. If you buy any other product, and it doesn't do what the literature said it was going to do, then you are entitled to a refund.
The only exception to the requirement for a guarantee would be where the source code is available for scrutiny. IMHO, reading the source code before deploying a mission-critical application is just Due Diligence. It has been stated by some that this is a lot of work to expect people to do. It is, but there is nothing to say independent bodies could not audit software for a fee. The GPL does not seek to prohibit anyone from making money out of their own work; only by misappropriating other people's work.
Whilst stopping short of my Ultimate Ideal, I think this is a fair compromise. Most goods are required to be guaranteed, why should software be any different? But Open Source software is more like self-assembly furniture: you {or a suitably qualified person in your pay} can examine the pieces {source code} before they are put together {compiled and installed}, determine suitability for your application, and make a decision: use as-is, use slightly-modified or reject outright. You only get your money back on kit-built stuff if there are actually any pieces missing; everyone understands that circumstances of deployment are beyond the control of the supplier.
There is an easy way to avoid the tech support issues. Just put an OS and application software right there on the CD. There are two popular architectures that need catering for {80586 and G3/G4}; everybody else probably already has an OS of their own already installed and knows what to do with an unfamiliar CD. So you have two different boot images, depending upon which architecture is found; then/bin &c. get linked to either/pc/bin &c. or/mac/bin &c. by something somewhere in/etc/rc.d. If you already have an OS installed, you can read your files from it.
Of course, if you wanted to be really nasty, you could put an ext2 file system on the CD instead of a Joliet one..... Works really well, gets around the restrictions wonderfully, and no TRANS.TBL either.
What is the big deal about killing trees? Trees are just plants. Nobody complains when they pull up potatoes to make chips, or lettuce to be put into sandwiches to be carefully picked out before eating.
When you cut down a tree to make paper -- at least in a country with private ownership of land -- you have to plant another one in order to keep the value in the land you own. Sure, it takes awhile to grow a tree in human terms, but it isn't long in tree terms. You can also do this in parallel, as long as you have enough land available.
Recycling options for paper include paper feedstock, composting and energy recovery. It is quite biodegradeable if suitably cut up.
Making CDs, on the other hand, uses up oil which will take much longer to replace than a few trees, and ties it up with aluminium. Recycling options for a CD are building materials or energy recovery. CDs are not biodegradeable.
By the way, why does every pet care "expert" make out that newsprint is poisonous to rodents? If this was the case, then wouldn't city rats all be dead from eating the discarded newspapers you see in every city? I suspect a plot by the pet shops to sell more bedding!
The obvious solution would be to write something web-based with an SQL backend. The buzzword - actually, it's an acryonym - is LAMP, standing for Linux, Apache, Mysql and some scripting language that starts with a P. That could be Perl, PHP or Python according to whichever you feel most comfortable with. {Note: you can actually embed PHP in the output of a Perl script, and a correctly-set up Apache server will interpret it. This has many possibilities for causing your successor unnecessary headaches. You can also generate JavaScript on the fly with any server-side script.}
One of my first ever bits of Perl programming was a simple message board. It then turned into a more complex message board, and then developed into a slagging contest. Finally, the long-standing threat that the privilege would be withdrawn in the event of abuse, became a promise.
At any rate, it shouldn't be too hard to write a textbook exchange. It's really just a special kind of message board.
Have some code for free: CREATE TABLE books4sale(id INT(11) AUTO_INCREMENT, vendor_login VARCHAR(20), isbn CHAR(10), title VARCHAR(80), author VARCHAR(80), courses VARCHAR(255), condition CHAR(1), price DECIMAL(6,2) PRIMARY KEY (id)); --MS EULA: Sharing is theft. BSD: Sharing is not theft. GPL: Not sharing is theft.
Way back when I was doing my O-levels {shows age..... O-levels were what we had before GCSE's} my school physics department had a cadmium-vapour lamp. This glew with a particularly wonderful electric-blue colour.
I have never been able to find one. I wouldn't mind one though..... even though it used some sort of high voltage power supply and toxic cadmium, that colour really made it worth all the dangers. {I think, from my spectroscopy experiment I did, that there is one red, one green, one blue and one violet line, but there may well be some invisible ones}.
You can do this! Take an old light bulb, preferably a clear one. It doesn't matter if the filament is broken. You also need a piezo gas igniter {the type used for lighting ovens when the built-in electric ignition has failed..... pound stores sell them}, some well-insulated HT cable {spark plug cable is fine..... obviously}, a hot-melt adhesive gun, a high-power soldering gun and various other home lab items.
Determine which of the two contacts on the base of the bulb connects to the longer bit of filament, and solder the HT cable to it. This needs a high-power soldering gun as the contacts are themselves made out of solder. Alternatively, you could just splay the wire ends out and connect to both the terminals.
Check the connection is sound {if you didn't heat it enough, or there was any dirt about, the wire will come off with a single tug} and then douse the whole thing with plenty of hot melt adhesive. The metal side part of the bulb base {with the locking pins} is not electrically connected to the two filament terminals, but should be insulated anyway otherwise a spark could jump from the terminal to the base, and from the base to your hand. Build up that adhesive. Set the whole thing in some kind of base, with the HT lead coming out the side. Don't bend it too sharply.
Remove the metal guard from the end of the gas igniter, and push the spark electrode into the HT cable. If it is a loose fit, wrap aluminium foil, copper wire, or basically just about anything conductive around it to make it a better fit. Add much hot-melt.
Darken the room. Place your hand on the bulb and click the igniter like mad. That's it!
If it all goes wrong, the most likely thing to check for is that the igniter might be sparking back to the return terminal, either sometimes or always. Better insulation is the answer. Hot melt adhesive will easily withstand the voltage that can jump 10mm., which is about 30kV.
You may obtain slightly better results if you ground the apparatus. Just run a length of green and yellow insulated wire from the terminal which used to press against the metal guard on the igniter to the earth terminal of a nearby power point.
Usual disclaimers apply; if this doesn't work, or if you hurt yourself, then don't complain to me.
I'd block **AA sites from access my site before AOL and have it show them a note saying they're prohibited from visiting my site and any attempt to get around it violates the DMCA.
This has to be the one of the best things I've ever read on/. Now I wish I hadn't wasted those mod points..... oh, wait, they expired yesterday..... bother.
Java Bytecode is basically interpretable code better optimised for machine-readability than human-readability. The "Java Virtual Machine" is just a fancy name for an interpreter. Although, I would guess it would be perfectly possible to implement a processor capable of interpreting Java Bytecode as its native instruction set..... then again, you most probably could make a processor capable of interpreting perl as its native instruction set, if you really wanted to. The code it interprets may be binary in nature {saves space} but it is interpreted, nonetheless, and therefore probably quite easy to reconstruct the source code from. All the "compiler" does is parse the code, replacing all those object-oriented method calls and property accesses with regular subroutines and the fancy loop structures with IFs and GOTOs. {several OO devotees probably are now wearing the same facial expression as a child who has just discovered that their favourite dessert is made with vegetables}. C and friends tend to perform various optimisations on the fly. For example, evaluating `i++` in void context is somewhat useless {you don't need to remember the previous value of i if you're only going to throw it away} so the compiler actually changes it to `++i`. Compiled C code is as distinguishable from raw assembler as Dreamweaver's output is from hand-coded HTML. And the compiler leaves in much "unnecessary" information {variable and function names; bit structure details} unless you strip the binary it produces.
Read it again. What I was saying was if, by modifying the software with a $200 card I can get the same functionality as a $400 one, then there should not be any law stopping me from doing so. That's a lot easier to administrate than actually making greed illegal. If the law feels the need to say anything about it at all, it should say that the company can't do anything about it if I try.
As customers, we pay their wages. They must never be allowed to forget that.
He owns the hardware; therefore, he has a right to make use of it. The details required to write a driver form a part of the operating instructions for the hardware, and anyone claiming them to be "proprietary secrets" should be laughed out of court with a dusty bootprint on their arse.
Is it a proprietary secret that "Esc", "K", followed by a two-byte binary number presented units-first between 1 and 480, followed by that many bytes, is the code used to select bit-image mode on an Epson-compatible Dot Matrix Printer? Of course not! why, Back In The Days, when if you wanted software you pretty much had to write your own, the printer would have been useless without such information. So the manufacturers used to provide it in the handbooks. Kit that didn't come with adequate documentation, didn't get bought.
Today, with pre-written software in abundance, manufacturers are becoming sloppy and not documenting fully how to interact with their products. For the casual user, this isn't a big problem, because they were never going to do anything with this information anyway, so why waste paper or plastic telling them it? But if there is even one user who wishes to do more than what it says on the box, then it suddenly becomes a very big deal indeed.
My analogy is that he used "reasonable force" to obtain information to which he was entitled, after polite request had failed. The law is quite clear that in certain situations, reasonable force may be used. This situation is more "gentle" and relies less on quick decisions than, say, physically moving a person who is trying to resist. {He could have obtained said information by holding a knife to someone's throat at the manufacturer; this would likely be seen as more than reasonable force.}
We should be writing to our elected representatives now to make sure it becomes mandatory for manufacturers to supply full hardware specifications, gratis or at cost, to anybody who wants them. Concealing details is a dirty, lowdown, scumbag, coward's trick that will cost companies sales. Please don't betray your cowardice by bleating about "competitors gaining an advantage" - you will have access to your competitors' documents, too, and if your competitors manage to do a better job than you, then you failed it! I have no sympathy, either, for those who whine that people might find it easier to break the law if they were given certain information. It is already more than easy enough to break the law. A few extra ways aren't going to make any difference here or there. You shouldn't rely on doing crap design and keeping things secret; it's another form of corner-cutting. Do it properly or not at all.
If the guy is ever taken to court, his best chance is to push for a trial by jury an hope that, out of twelve people, he can convince two of them that, although he does not deny what he did, it is the law that is wrong this time and they can acquit him. If this happens often enough the law will be changed.
Neither reason is legitimate. If they can make a profit by selling the card for $200, they should sell it for $200. Asking $400 for basically the same piece of hardware with a minor change in software is pure and simple greed. It should just be out and out illegal, but it wouldn't actually have to be illegal if there was a better reason than the law not to do it..... I'd say a public that buys a graphics card for $200, tweaks some software and gets $400 functionality out of it was a good enough reason.
I have to do phone support sometimes too, and it's a mare when the person on the other end is using a different OS to what I'm using {Windows 98 SE usually; CRT for accessing the Linux servers; when re-install time comes around, or I get a new box, I'm going to dual-boot 98SE with Debian or maybe Slackware}. They are often using XP, and the user interface is subtly different.
I think the best thing an ISP could do to promote Linux acceptance would be to create a Linux distribution that would include all the relevant software to enable a new user to get onto the Internet via their servers. If we're going with KDE, then it should include Kmail, KPPP &c. with some interactive configuration scripts. If you build the setup scripts into a package which depends upon the relevant packages, then you can ensure that all these packages will get installed. If your package format is Debian or RedHat, then you should also make a.tar.gz version for other distributions. An end-user doing a from-scratch install would have the ISP access package installed by default. A more advanced user with an existing installation need only install the ISP-access package {and resolve its dependencies if necessary}. This way, you can be sure that your customers are starting from basically the same point.
Now that might sound like a tall order for one small ISP; but how about an alliance of small, independent {for that human touch you just don't get with big corporations} ISPs {in separate regions so they are not competing directly with one another}, sharing a basically common Linux distribution {with all the advantages that would entail} with just subtle differences in the config scripts? Each would also provide some space on an FTP server for their own boot CD and as part of a distributed mirror for packages, and maybe MySQL or PostgreSQL server space for a knowledge database.
It Could Happen. Certainly, working for an ISP, it is something I have thought about doing.
There were six flavours of ice cream - and this was the proper sort, made with real full cream milk, not the vegetable fat imitation used in cheap ices - to choose from, and Nicki liked them all. Chocolate. Strawberry. Vanilla. Mint choc chip. Toffee. Tutti Frutti. Which one, which one? Chocolate..... but Nicki had eaten a Twix earlier that day. So, by that reasoning, toffee also was out. Vanilla was available anywhere else, but this was special vanilla, and nicer than any other. Strawberry or Tutti Frutti sounded a bit "healthier" than the others, but even Nicki knew that they were all so processed and refined that it barely mattered. The mint choc chip was probably Nicki's least favourite, but not enough to reject it out of hand. After all, it was still ice cream..... yet, even as Nicki struggled to make a decision, the six flavours of fresh dairy ice cream were melting into a lukewarm pool of unappetising gunge.
Now the moral. Choice can be a curse as much as a blessing, for some people. When you are in prison, you do not have to worry about where you are going to go. When you have to wear a uniform, you do not have to worry about that to wear. When there is a fixed menu, you do not have to worry about what you are going to eat. When you're married, you don't have to worry about..... well, you get the picture.
Linux always has been highly customisable. For that matter, so is Windows. But Windows has a default look and feel which is mostly consistent across implementations.
The truly clueless {some of whom, IMHO, would be able to get their jobs done better without a computer} just want something that works. Many workers are conditioned to think that only managers are allowed to make decisions. But even managers, to an extent, don't really want to make decisions where there might be consequences to put up with. But the fact is, someone has to make a decision, and stick with it until it becomes patently obvious that that decision was wrong..... and we all know what happens then.....
So the Community is {rightly, for the Community} extolling the virtues of choice; but there is a group of people outside of the Community for whom Too Much Choice is A Bad Thing. Cubicle-dwellers, Grannies &c. don't need the choice of operating environments, they do need something that works and is consistent. But the Community are by and large libertarian types, and the idea of imposing one's preference upon others is considered anathema. Introducing people to Linux is a special case. These people are not yet ready to make up their own minds about certain things. One day, they will be ready.
As horrible as it sounds, lack of choice can be a real benefit in some circumstances. We need a stripped-down-to-basics, introductory distribution that aims to get as many people as possible beginning to use Linux; it preferably should also, somehow, make it almost impossible not to participate in the Community. {This is going to require financial backing at first. As more broadband users come on-line, we can begin to use a more distributed model.} But right now, all we need are arses on seats. As the users we introduced with our special distro begin to grow out of it, then they can start making choices. Of course, our "inclusivityware" will be distribution-independent, available as a.tar.gz,.rpm or.deb. {Maybe there is room for a script right inside the.tar.gz that will automagically repackage it as an.rpm or a.deb?}
Listen to an "all request" radio show and I guarantee that the same songs will be played over and over again, because the people asking for them always ask for what they know. You will only hear anything fresh on shows where the
The point I was trying to make was that if prehistoric humans had not shared their discoveries with others, or had actively tried to prevent this, they would most probably have perished and the secrets of weapons and fire along with them.
I'll grant that it's far-fetched to assume they could have invented the concept of a secret at that stage of development, though.....
Why bother sending drivers tickets at all? Surely it would be simpler to require drivers to provide a bank account number that can be automatically debited anytime you exceed the speed limit, enter a bus lane during its hours of operation {because, after all, it's perfectly OK to drive in a bus lane when there are no buses scheduled} or whatever. No need for police officers, traffic wardens or courts or any of that nonsense. Let the computers do all the work for you! Meanwhile, coppers get freed up to bust people for "suspicious behaviour" {translation: being a pedestrian}. In fact, why don't we just routinely take a sample of everybody's DNA at birth, so we don't need to trawl around pulling suspects in? If you've done nothing wrong you should be proud to show it! Your DNA sample is there not because we don't trust you, but because we do trust you, and you want to show us how good you are!
I have to say I don't think this would happen in any other European country. Mainlanders just wouldn't stand for this kind of interference. Go to France or Spain and whereever you see a "defense de fumer" or "prohibido fumar" sign, there will be a cendrier or a cenicero nearby; and probably full to overflowing at that. We just aren't used to being told what to do; an Englishperson's business is nobody else's but their own. It comes as so much of a shock when someone tries to meddle in our business, that we react as conditioned: assume that the meddling is in order {because we can only assume that they, like us, must have been brought up to respect Other People's Business; if such meddling were at all suspect, they surely would not attempt it}, being done for a perfectly good reason {an Englishperson never does anything without a perfectly good reason, though said reason be their business and nobody else's} and therefore accept it.
Of course, this is The Sun we're talking about - for Readers in Less Civilised Nations, The Sun is low-grade reading matter for an immature, sexist, homophobic readership who almost take a pride in their own uselessness - and the article is more likely just a way to whip up readers into a hate frenzy.
What does amaze me is that there isn't an organisation dedicated to defending the rights of the motorist in Britain. We pootle about in little runabouts with 1600cc or smaller engines driving the front wheels via a 5-on-the-floor manual transmission {all good for fuel economy. Note: when comparing, remember a full UK gallon is equal to 1.25 US gallons -- seems like someone on board the Mayflower forgot there are 20 fluid ounces in a pint, not 16. Or just do it in litres and kilometres like every other country}, and are made to feel guilty for this while Other People are driving cars with considerably worse fuel economy. Yet they try to make us feel guilty about the drop in the ocean we are producing! Particularly as we could be using climate-change-free, non-fossil fuels like chip fat..... but as long as there are organs of disinformation like The Sun, idiots will believe everything they are told.
The time has passed when the motorist was in the minority. Today, non-motorists {me included!} are the minority. Yet the law has not come to reflect this reality; presumably because someone is getting fat off it..... In theory, if someone stood for election promising cheaper petrol, higher speed limits outside of built-up areas and no more road tax, they would be in before you could say "landslide victory". The only mystery is why they haven't!
Still, perhaps this will be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Or maybe it won't..... in which case we could well be headed for Interesting Times Indeed.
Slashdot Mirror
Back in the days of dot matrix printers, my trusty Citizen 120-D {FX-80-alike - weren't most 9-pin dotties?} used to support multiple sheets of vertical and horizontal tab stop definitions, so you could do stuff like multi-page forms without the computer having to think too hard about it. Of course, you had to line up the paper with the printing head by eye and hope it never slipped :-) Also, it could print stencils for Gestetner machines {a primitive kind of hand-cranked [motorised on 'de luxe' models] printing press commonly used in schools before photocopiers became cheap}. Try doing that with an inkjet or laser!
I don't know of any software that actually made use of such a feature, and I never made use of it myself; but it was probably used by some firms for in-house stuff.
Oh yeah. Went a bit off topic there.
There is a school of thought amongst the more extreme vegans and vegetarians that it is wrong to eat artificial meat {vegeburgers, soya mince &c.} as these products are effectively legitimising the natural product -- imitation as flattery. Likewise, some say fake fur is almost as bad as real fur; a more moderate position is that obvious fake fur {bright pink &c.} is fine, but not "realistic" looking fake fur.
I'm tempted to think the Community should not support MS file formats on general principle. We document our file formats, after all, and there would be nothing stopping MS from adopting an SGML-based file format. Although, it does rather feel like cutting off one's dick to annoy one's balls. Maybe it would be better to import MS files, but not export them. After all, anybody can eat vegan food, not jsut vegans; just because you're an omnivore does not mean you have to eat natural meat all the time. Windows users can always install an open source WP / spreadsheet, Free Software users cannot.
Beside attempting to do table formatting with strings of spaces {I know this is acceptable, even encouraged, in programming, when monospaced fonts are used; but it totally breaks proportional spacing}, the author also had manually numbered the pages.
I was heavily tempted to refuse to do the editing on the grounds that (a) the original material was unfit to use as a starting point and (b) I was having difficulty finding a copy of MS Word.
And now, the point, part one. What I'm really looking for is a word processor that can take such childish attempts and format them properly. Work out where the author was trying to line up the tabs, and change the space-spaced stuff to proper tabbed columns.
Or, maybe someone could make a USB shotgun accessory that will blow a luser's head off if they try certain effects. Such as
- Attempting to format using spaces
- Attempting to generate page numbers, tables of contents, or anything else that the computer can do for you, by hand *
- Using more than three fonts in a document
- Using the font 'comic sans MS' for anything at all
The point, part two, is that WordPad is not a word processor. It does not incorporate a spelling checker. Whose priorities are so warped that they would omit such a basic necessity while incorporating changeable fonts and colours? It matters not what meretricious decorations are applied to the text if the spelling is all cocked up! It does not even qualify as a text editor; it is a viewing tool. And a poor one at that, because its output often does not resemble the output of Word.* I have actually heard of someone creating a spreadsheet, then adding up the figures with an idiot-calculator and entering this in the total box
That is typical Microsoft FUD. Mandrake &c. are widely reckoned to be easier to install than Windows. This is true in my experience. Debian and Slackware are harder, but they are more specialised. There are distributions based on both which have various features added to make them easier to use. Knoppix is based on Debian, and don't forget the Slackware LiveCD. Both are contenders for the "new tomsrtbt" title.
Looking at your choice of phraseology, your Microsoft bias is glaring. Why would people be less likely to want Linux "pushed in their face" than the pushing-in-the-face they already get with Windows?
I still contend that if you shew some complete newbie who had never ever used a computer before, one with a well-installed GNU/Linux system on it, they would have fewer problems with it than if it had been a typical out-of-the-box Windows installation.
Telstra dial-up and broadband users will be given a "starter pack" CD which installs a standardised Linux distro, with the only customisations being PPP support and modem drivers / ADSL stuff. It will make telephone support much easier if people are using proper software on their home PCs, instead of the gick that Microsoft push.
/usr/local is for ..... specify the install process to go somewhere under /usr/local on a pre-existing system, and it won't interfere with anything else.
Most of the problems I have to diagnose by telephone for work involve users who are invariably running different software than I am, which is a royal PITB. I can't be expected to install every version of every piece of software ever released. At least with Linux, the cost of upgrading to the latest application version is negligible {even if your broadband isn't working, you can just pick up a new CD from a store} so it's safe to assume everyone is using it / force them to upgrade if not.
It's also a fair assumption that if someone is smart enough to set up their own Linux how they want, they will be able to make use of the configuration info from the CD. But that's what
Typical closed-source argument. "You probably wouldn't gain anything of value if we shew it to you, therefore, we're not going to show it to you." Unfortunately {like anything closed-source!} I don't buy it. Judging by the sheer number of vulnerabilities in MS code, at least some of them must be visible on first inspection.
Also, with Open Source, testing is incremental and changes propagate easily. Those who know they are guinea pigs are more likely to tread carefully at first - and then deliberately try to break it under controlled conditions. In fact, there are people out there who do nothing but test other people's software. But with closed source, all the testing {and therefore the disclosure of results} is sponsored by the manufacturer, changes are lumped together, everyone gets the same version at the same time, and changes take too long to propagate throughout the user base - especially if the "change" consists of releasing a whole new paid-for package, which some people will not pay for.
Basically, it comes down to the fact that closed-source software is written and tested purely for money {which will still be there if the software is faulty}; but open source software is written for the love of writing software, which will only be there if the software is right, and tested for the love of breaking it, which will only be there if it isn't right.
The closed source company, by refusing to show you the source code, have taken this responsibility entirely upon themselves.
Also, when you write Open Source software, you are conscious that any mistake you make will be seen by millions of people. And they will laugh at you, or call you names, or want to kill you, if there is so much as a punctuation mark out of place. {How often have you written in BASIC, IF a$<>"" THEN
At any one time, there are three groups of people looking for exploits:
- Crackers looking for exploits in closed-source software which they can use for mischief
- Crackers looking for exploits in open-source software which they can use for mischief
- Hackers looking for exploits in open-source software which they notify to the community at large before anyone else uses them for mischief
I said before that the source code should absolve you from the requirement to offer a guarantee. Maybe I should have phrased that differently. The guarantee of performance would be in lieu of the source code. Also, I would make source code subject to subpoena.- Get a certificate on credit
- Send out an absolute stackload of emails in one go
- Have the certificate revoked
- Don't pay for certificate
- ???
- Profit!
- Goto 1
What we really need is a pay-per-message system. It would work just like mobile phones: you buy "credit" from your ISP, it doesn't get topped up until they've actually seen the money, and it goes down each time you send a message.But it might not be necessary if everyone just configured their SMTP servers properly, checked the HELO/EHLO and refused anything without a valid reverse DNS lookup, and barred anything with Inappropriate Attachments. {I once got sent a
The idea of software being distributed without warranty dates all the way back to the first ever spreadsheet. The software company's lawyers were worried that if someone used the programme to design a suspension bridge, and it later collapsed and investigation proved that it was due to a flaw in the software, they might get sued. Furthermore, it would have been a physical impossibility to test the software in all circumstances. These were the days of 2MHz 8080 processors, lest we forget.
The sane response would have been "let them try, we'll never have what they're asking for and you can't be sued for what you've not got." Instead, that company explicitly disclaimed any warranty on their software, and the situation has persisted since. Today, one company is responsible for a lot of software, and they could easily afford to pay for several suspension bridge failures. But the law has not caught up with reality. The solution is simple and everyone will like it except the distributors of substandard software.
My proposed solution is to require all software to be guaranteed to perform substantially as indicated on the packaging. If you buy any other product, and it doesn't do what the literature said it was going to do, then you are entitled to a refund.
The only exception to the requirement for a guarantee would be where the source code is available for scrutiny. IMHO, reading the source code before deploying a mission-critical application is just Due Diligence. It has been stated by some that this is a lot of work to expect people to do. It is, but there is nothing to say independent bodies could not audit software for a fee. The GPL does not seek to prohibit anyone from making money out of their own work; only by misappropriating other people's work.
Whilst stopping short of my Ultimate Ideal, I think this is a fair compromise. Most goods are required to be guaranteed, why should software be any different? But Open Source software is more like self-assembly furniture: you {or a suitably qualified person in your pay} can examine the pieces {source code} before they are put together {compiled and installed}, determine suitability for your application, and make a decision: use as-is, use slightly-modified or reject outright. You only get your money back on kit-built stuff if there are actually any pieces missing; everyone understands that circumstances of deployment are beyond the control of the supplier.
There is an easy way to avoid the tech support issues. Just put an OS and application software right there on the CD. There are two popular architectures that need catering for {80586 and G3/G4}; everybody else probably already has an OS of their own already installed and knows what to do with an unfamiliar CD. So you have two different boot images, depending upon which architecture is found; then /bin &c. get linked to either /pc/bin &c. or /mac/bin &c. by something somewhere in /etc/rc.d. If you already have an OS installed, you can read your files from it.
..... Works really well, gets around the restrictions wonderfully, and no TRANS.TBL either.
Of course, if you wanted to be really nasty, you could put an ext2 file system on the CD instead of a Joliet one
What is the big deal about killing trees? Trees are just plants. Nobody complains when they pull up potatoes to make chips, or lettuce to be put into sandwiches to be carefully picked out before eating.
When you cut down a tree to make paper -- at least in a country with private ownership of land -- you have to plant another one in order to keep the value in the land you own. Sure, it takes awhile to grow a tree in human terms, but it isn't long in tree terms. You can also do this in parallel, as long as you have enough land available.
Recycling options for paper include paper feedstock, composting and energy recovery. It is quite biodegradeable if suitably cut up.
Making CDs, on the other hand, uses up oil which will take much longer to replace than a few trees, and ties it up with aluminium. Recycling options for a CD are building materials or energy recovery. CDs are not biodegradeable.
By the way, why does every pet care "expert" make out that newsprint is poisonous to rodents? If this was the case, then wouldn't city rats all be dead from eating the discarded newspapers you see in every city? I suspect a plot by the pet shops to sell more bedding!
The obvious solution would be to write something web-based with an SQL backend. The buzzword - actually, it's an acryonym - is LAMP, standing for Linux, Apache, Mysql and some scripting language that starts with a P. That could be Perl, PHP or Python according to whichever you feel most comfortable with. {Note: you can actually embed PHP in the output of a Perl script, and a correctly-set up Apache server will interpret it. This has many possibilities for causing your successor unnecessary headaches. You can also generate JavaScript on the fly with any server-side script.}
One of my first ever bits of Perl programming was a simple message board. It then turned into a more complex message board, and then developed into a slagging contest. Finally, the long-standing threat that the privilege would be withdrawn in the event of abuse, became a promise.
At any rate, it shouldn't be too hard to write a textbook exchange. It's really just a special kind of message board.
Have some code for free: CREATE TABLE books4sale(id INT(11) AUTO_INCREMENT, vendor_login VARCHAR(20), isbn CHAR(10), title VARCHAR(80), author VARCHAR(80), courses VARCHAR(255), condition CHAR(1), price DECIMAL(6,2) PRIMARY KEY (id));
--MS EULA: Sharing is theft.
BSD: Sharing is not theft.
GPL: Not sharing is theft.
Way back when I was doing my O-levels {shows age ..... O-levels were what we had before GCSE's} my school physics department had a cadmium-vapour lamp. This glew with a particularly wonderful electric-blue colour.
..... even though it used some sort of high voltage power supply and toxic cadmium, that colour really made it worth all the dangers. {I think, from my spectroscopy experiment I did, that there is one red, one green, one blue and one violet line, but there may well be some invisible ones}.
I have never been able to find one. I wouldn't mind one though
You can do this! Take an old light bulb, preferably a clear one. It doesn't matter if the filament is broken. You also need a piezo gas igniter {the type used for lighting ovens when the built-in electric ignition has failed ..... pound stores sell them}, some well-insulated HT cable {spark plug cable is fine ..... obviously}, a hot-melt adhesive gun, a high-power soldering gun and various other home lab items.
Determine which of the two contacts on the base of the bulb connects to the longer bit of filament, and solder the HT cable to it. This needs a high-power soldering gun as the contacts are themselves made out of solder. Alternatively, you could just splay the wire ends out and connect to both the terminals.
Check the connection is sound {if you didn't heat it enough, or there was any dirt about, the wire will come off with a single tug} and then douse the whole thing with plenty of hot melt adhesive. The metal side part of the bulb base {with the locking pins} is not electrically connected to the two filament terminals, but should be insulated anyway otherwise a spark could jump from the terminal to the base, and from the base to your hand. Build up that adhesive. Set the whole thing in some kind of base, with the HT lead coming out the side. Don't bend it too sharply.
Remove the metal guard from the end of the gas igniter, and push the spark electrode into the HT cable. If it is a loose fit, wrap aluminium foil, copper wire, or basically just about anything conductive around it to make it a better fit. Add much hot-melt.
Darken the room. Place your hand on the bulb and click the igniter like mad. That's it!
If it all goes wrong, the most likely thing to check for is that the igniter might be sparking back to the return terminal, either sometimes or always. Better insulation is the answer. Hot melt adhesive will easily withstand the voltage that can jump 10mm., which is about 30kV.
You may obtain slightly better results if you ground the apparatus. Just run a length of green and yellow insulated wire from the terminal which used to press against the metal guard on the igniter to the earth terminal of a nearby power point.
Usual disclaimers apply; if this doesn't work, or if you hurt yourself, then don't complain to me.
Java Bytecode is basically interpretable code better optimised for machine-readability than human-readability. The "Java Virtual Machine" is just a fancy name for an interpreter. Although, I would guess it would be perfectly possible to implement a processor capable of interpreting Java Bytecode as its native instruction set ..... then again, you most probably could make a processor capable of interpreting perl as its native instruction set, if you really wanted to. The code it interprets may be binary in nature {saves space} but it is interpreted, nonetheless, and therefore probably quite easy to reconstruct the source code from. All the "compiler" does is parse the code, replacing all those object-oriented method calls and property accesses with regular subroutines and the fancy loop structures with IFs and GOTOs. {several OO devotees probably are now wearing the same facial expression as a child who has just discovered that their favourite dessert is made with vegetables}. C and friends tend to perform various optimisations on the fly. For example, evaluating `i++` in void context is somewhat useless {you don't need to remember the previous value of i if you're only going to throw it away} so the compiler actually changes it to `++i`. Compiled C code is as distinguishable from raw assembler as Dreamweaver's output is from hand-coded HTML. And the compiler leaves in much "unnecessary" information {variable and function names; bit structure details} unless you strip the binary it produces.
Read it again. What I was saying was if, by modifying the software with a $200 card I can get the same functionality as a $400 one, then there should not be any law stopping me from doing so. That's a lot easier to administrate than actually making greed illegal. If the law feels the need to say anything about it at all, it should say that the company can't do anything about it if I try.
As customers, we pay their wages. They must never be allowed to forget that.
He owns the hardware; therefore, he has a right to make use of it. The details required to write a driver form a part of the operating instructions for the hardware, and anyone claiming them to be "proprietary secrets" should be laughed out of court with a dusty bootprint on their arse.
Is it a proprietary secret that "Esc", "K", followed by a two-byte binary number presented units-first between 1 and 480, followed by that many bytes, is the code used to select bit-image mode on an Epson-compatible Dot Matrix Printer? Of course not! why, Back In The Days, when if you wanted software you pretty much had to write your own, the printer would have been useless without such information. So the manufacturers used to provide it in the handbooks. Kit that didn't come with adequate documentation, didn't get bought.
Today, with pre-written software in abundance, manufacturers are becoming sloppy and not documenting fully how to interact with their products. For the casual user, this isn't a big problem, because they were never going to do anything with this information anyway, so why waste paper or plastic telling them it? But if there is even one user who wishes to do more than what it says on the box, then it suddenly becomes a very big deal indeed.
My analogy is that he used "reasonable force" to obtain information to which he was entitled, after polite request had failed. The law is quite clear that in certain situations, reasonable force may be used. This situation is more "gentle" and relies less on quick decisions than, say, physically moving a person who is trying to resist. {He could have obtained said information by holding a knife to someone's throat at the manufacturer; this would likely be seen as more than reasonable force.}
We should be writing to our elected representatives now to make sure it becomes mandatory for manufacturers to supply full hardware specifications, gratis or at cost, to anybody who wants them. Concealing details is a dirty, lowdown, scumbag, coward's trick that will cost companies sales. Please don't betray your cowardice by bleating about "competitors gaining an advantage" - you will have access to your competitors' documents, too, and if your competitors manage to do a better job than you, then you failed it! I have no sympathy, either, for those who whine that people might find it easier to break the law if they were given certain information. It is already more than easy enough to break the law. A few extra ways aren't going to make any difference here or there. You shouldn't rely on doing crap design and keeping things secret; it's another form of corner-cutting. Do it properly or not at all.
If the guy is ever taken to court, his best chance is to push for a trial by jury an hope that, out of twelve people, he can convince two of them that, although he does not deny what he did, it is the law that is wrong this time and they can acquit him. If this happens often enough the law will be changed.
Neither reason is legitimate. If they can make a profit by selling the card for $200, they should sell it for $200. Asking $400 for basically the same piece of hardware with a minor change in software is pure and simple greed. It should just be out and out illegal, but it wouldn't actually have to be illegal if there was a better reason than the law not to do it ..... I'd say a public that buys a graphics card for $200, tweaks some software and gets $400 functionality out of it was a good enough reason.
I have to do phone support sometimes too, and it's a mare when the person on the other end is using a different OS to what I'm using {Windows 98 SE usually; CRT for accessing the Linux servers; when re-install time comes around, or I get a new box, I'm going to dual-boot 98SE with Debian or maybe Slackware}. They are often using XP, and the user interface is subtly different.
.tar.gz version for other distributions. An end-user doing a from-scratch install would have the ISP access package installed by default. A more advanced user with an existing installation need only install the ISP-access package {and resolve its dependencies if necessary}. This way, you can be sure that your customers are starting from basically the same point.
I think the best thing an ISP could do to promote Linux acceptance would be to create a Linux distribution that would include all the relevant software to enable a new user to get onto the Internet via their servers. If we're going with KDE, then it should include Kmail, KPPP &c. with some interactive configuration scripts. If you build the setup scripts into a package which depends upon the relevant packages, then you can ensure that all these packages will get installed. If your package format is Debian or RedHat, then you should also make a
Now that might sound like a tall order for one small ISP; but how about an alliance of small, independent {for that human touch you just don't get with big corporations} ISPs {in separate regions so they are not competing directly with one another}, sharing a basically common Linux distribution {with all the advantages that would entail} with just subtle differences in the config scripts? Each would also provide some space on an FTP server for their own boot CD and as part of a distributed mirror for packages, and maybe MySQL or PostgreSQL server space for a knowledge database.
It Could Happen. Certainly, working for an ISP, it is something I have thought about doing.
Let me begin with a fable .....
..... but Nicki had eaten a Twix earlier that day. So, by that reasoning, toffee also was out. Vanilla was available anywhere else, but this was special vanilla, and nicer than any other. Strawberry or Tutti Frutti sounded a bit "healthier" than the others, but even Nicki knew that they were all so processed and refined that it barely mattered. The mint choc chip was probably Nicki's least favourite, but not enough to reject it out of hand. After all, it was still ice cream ..... yet, even as Nicki struggled to make a decision, the six flavours of fresh dairy ice cream were melting into a lukewarm pool of unappetising gunge.
..... well, you get the picture.
..... and we all know what happens then .....
.tar.gz, .rpm or .deb. {Maybe there is room for a script right inside the .tar.gz that will automagically repackage it as an .rpm or a .deb?}
There were six flavours of ice cream - and this was the proper sort, made with real full cream milk, not the vegetable fat imitation used in cheap ices - to choose from, and Nicki liked them all. Chocolate. Strawberry. Vanilla. Mint choc chip. Toffee. Tutti Frutti. Which one, which one? Chocolate
Now the moral. Choice can be a curse as much as a blessing, for some people. When you are in prison, you do not have to worry about where you are going to go. When you have to wear a uniform, you do not have to worry about that to wear. When there is a fixed menu, you do not have to worry about what you are going to eat. When you're married, you don't have to worry about
Linux always has been highly customisable. For that matter, so is Windows. But Windows has a default look and feel which is mostly consistent across implementations.
The truly clueless {some of whom, IMHO, would be able to get their jobs done better without a computer} just want something that works. Many workers are conditioned to think that only managers are allowed to make decisions. But even managers, to an extent, don't really want to make decisions where there might be consequences to put up with. But the fact is, someone has to make a decision, and stick with it until it becomes patently obvious that that decision was wrong
So the Community is {rightly, for the Community} extolling the virtues of choice; but there is a group of people outside of the Community for whom Too Much Choice is A Bad Thing. Cubicle-dwellers, Grannies &c. don't need the choice of operating environments, they do need something that works and is consistent. But the Community are by and large libertarian types, and the idea of imposing one's preference upon others is considered anathema. Introducing people to Linux is a special case. These people are not yet ready to make up their own minds about certain things. One day, they will be ready.
As horrible as it sounds, lack of choice can be a real benefit in some circumstances. We need a stripped-down-to-basics, introductory distribution that aims to get as many people as possible beginning to use Linux; it preferably should also, somehow, make it almost impossible not to participate in the Community. {This is going to require financial backing at first. As more broadband users come on-line, we can begin to use a more distributed model.} But right now, all we need are arses on seats. As the users we introduced with our special distro begin to grow out of it, then they can start making choices. Of course, our "inclusivityware" will be distribution-independent, available as a
Listen to an "all request" radio show and I guarantee that the same songs will be played over and over again, because the people asking for them always ask for what they know. You will only hear anything fresh on shows where the
?
.....
The point I was trying to make was that if prehistoric humans had not shared their discoveries with others, or had actively tried to prevent this, they would most probably have perished and the secrets of weapons and fire along with them.
I'll grant that it's far-fetched to assume they could have invented the concept of a secret at that stage of development, though
Why bother sending drivers tickets at all? Surely it would be simpler to require drivers to provide a bank account number that can be automatically debited anytime you exceed the speed limit, enter a bus lane during its hours of operation {because, after all, it's perfectly OK to drive in a bus lane when there are no buses scheduled} or whatever. No need for police officers, traffic wardens or courts or any of that nonsense. Let the computers do all the work for you! Meanwhile, coppers get freed up to bust people for "suspicious behaviour" {translation: being a pedestrian}. In fact, why don't we just routinely take a sample of everybody's DNA at birth, so we don't need to trawl around pulling suspects in? If you've done nothing wrong you should be proud to show it! Your DNA sample is there not because we don't trust you, but because we do trust you, and you want to show us how good you are!
..... but as long as there are organs of disinformation like The Sun, idiots will believe everything they are told.
..... In theory, if someone stood for election promising cheaper petrol, higher speed limits outside of built-up areas and no more road tax, they would be in before you could say "landslide victory". The only mystery is why they haven't!
..... in which case we could well be headed for Interesting Times Indeed.
I have to say I don't think this would happen in any other European country. Mainlanders just wouldn't stand for this kind of interference. Go to France or Spain and whereever you see a "defense de fumer" or "prohibido fumar" sign, there will be a cendrier or a cenicero nearby; and probably full to overflowing at that. We just aren't used to being told what to do; an Englishperson's business is nobody else's but their own. It comes as so much of a shock when someone tries to meddle in our business, that we react as conditioned: assume that the meddling is in order {because we can only assume that they, like us, must have been brought up to respect Other People's Business; if such meddling were at all suspect, they surely would not attempt it}, being done for a perfectly good reason {an Englishperson never does anything without a perfectly good reason, though said reason be their business and nobody else's} and therefore accept it.
Of course, this is The Sun we're talking about - for Readers in Less Civilised Nations, The Sun is low-grade reading matter for an immature, sexist, homophobic readership who almost take a pride in their own uselessness - and the article is more likely just a way to whip up readers into a hate frenzy.
What does amaze me is that there isn't an organisation dedicated to defending the rights of the motorist in Britain. We pootle about in little runabouts with 1600cc or smaller engines driving the front wheels via a 5-on-the-floor manual transmission {all good for fuel economy. Note: when comparing, remember a full UK gallon is equal to 1.25 US gallons -- seems like someone on board the Mayflower forgot there are 20 fluid ounces in a pint, not 16. Or just do it in litres and kilometres like every other country}, and are made to feel guilty for this while Other People are driving cars with considerably worse fuel economy. Yet they try to make us feel guilty about the drop in the ocean we are producing! Particularly as we could be using climate-change-free, non-fossil fuels like chip fat
The time has passed when the motorist was in the minority. Today, non-motorists {me included!} are the minority. Yet the law has not come to reflect this reality; presumably because someone is getting fat off it
Still, perhaps this will be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Or maybe it won't