Well, checking the oil I'd put more akin to checking free resources. Same for most of the other fluids in the car, short of fuel. fuel's akin to turning the thing on in the first place. Do these people need to know how to operate the turn signals, trunk release, windshield wipers, domelight, etc? I'd rate them as your basic intelligent car owner.
As for changing fluids out, the computer equivalent would be to a backyard mechanic, who handles oil and antifreeze coolant. Maybe checks the tranny fluid and takes it somehwere if it doesn't look right. Changes out burned out lights, etc. Stuff that is mostly covered in the owner's manual, or at least has stuff like fluid quantities. In computers, I'd equate that with being able to hook up external devices and get them to work, being able to remove stuff from C:\WINDOWS\START MENU\PROGRAMS\STARTUP, configure basic network settings from instructions for something like DSL or Cable. Calls for support or a technician when something out of this range goes wrong.
A+ certified techicians would equivalently handle basics, like replacing alternators, starters, draining transmission fluid, replacing water pumps, checking differential gear oil, lubing the suspension or steering parts, replacing obviously bad water hoses, and the like. Stuff that stands out. By comparison to computers the person would be able to replace hard disk drives and CD-ROMs, install video cards, install the OS from scratch for the default configuration, configure sound support, and the like. Maybe even dig into the registry a smidgeon.
And above that you'd have your power-technicians, who would be up there with not being afraid to remove stuff like engines, axles, transmissions, steering columns, dash boards, interior parts, etc. These people would be able to play with advanced networking, deal with driver and IRQ conflicts, handle tweaking of the OS, dig into the registry a bit, etc.
Beyond that, you find different people who can rebuild engines or transmissions in their sleep, modify sheet metal artistically, handle advanced upgrading of suspension, and the like. They would in computer equivalents be specialized, but very talented. They probably wouldn't even do much of the lower-level work unless they had to, because they would be more valuable higher.
That particular code was written and migrated from AT&T UNIX into BSD, where it received the BSD license terms for distribution. So, SCO may have a copy from UNIX, but we have a copy from BSD. Pretty much all UNIX from before a certain date is all available via BSD.
"Ok, cool. But why would someone do that on a Saturday? Should have done it during the week when their customers might be more likely to try to get to their site."
Call me crazy, but I don't see how the effect would damage SCO, based on the number of customers that I have seen...
...for some software developers whose code was misappropriated by a certain publicly traded company to start filing cease-and-desists against that company for violation of copyright. I wonder how much of SCO's products would be unsellable under such conditions.
This isn't to say that everyone else is perfect, but then again, everyone else hasn't tried to benefit from open source licenses only to turn around and bash the concept while still using the technology that they gained from such licensing.
Let's say that I want to build something, and I want to sell it for profit. I can either take a lot of time and duplicate work that has already been done many, many times, or I can use something that I am legally allowed to, as long as I respect the license that it is available to me through, and I am good to go. I may make modifications to code, but if I provide this code to the people that I distribute the product to (and to the developers who wrote the original code, if they want it), all is good.
If I were creating something like what I've described, I wouldn't be making my money with the software. I'd be making it with the hardware, the "thing" that someone would be buying. A thing where Linux would either not be important to the customer or would simply be a nice attribute, not the defining characteristic that sells the product. What the product's end results or operations are is what would sell this hypothetical product.
I believe that what should make my product sell above what others could do similar is the quality of the craftsmanship. Linux is a part of that, but my own labor for what I have personally created, be it something electronic, something furniture-wise (depending on what this device does), and the like is where I show my stuff.
No one is forced to buy my product. They could develop one themselves, or they could buy one from someone else, but the quality of my product should set it apart.
If Linksys et al. had been playing good with the GPL in their embedded wireless routers, I would say that they would be the model of how this should work. Unfortunately they haven't been. Their own pieces of the puzzle are their interface drivers and their user-configuration stuff, as far as software is concerned, and their hardware is obviously all theirs. This is valid. Not releasing the GPLed code that they've modified is where I have a beef with them.
It's great to be wonderfully idealistic like Richard Stallman, but paying rent makes more more pragmatic. If I work to develop something, it's mine unless I choose to give it away. The stuff that I use from someone else isn't mine. So, I respect their choice on distributing it via GPL, thank them for their contribution to computing, and go on from there.
I'll take 'em even if they're dead. that's what warranties are for.
I had one of the drives that failed. I took it back to the store that I bought it from, and they gave me a new one, with the line "yeah, we had a bad pallet of them come in. The came from a plant in {X Country}. The replacements that they're shipping us are from {Y Country}." (insert relevant country names as appropriate). I've been using this replacement drive for two and a half years now without incident.
Remember, IBM as a company has made their money by keeping their "i"s dotted and their "t"s crossed. Several world governments contract IBM to handle very important and sensitive data. I doubt that IBM does anything of the scale that this is on without reasearching very carefully what they're doing.
This isn't to say that I especially trust IBM over any other vendor, but they have a much greater tendency of putting their money where their mouth is, delivering good business products and supporting them.
Remember that Aptiva that you played around with for a while and hated back in your introductory computer gaming phase? It probably still works, doesn't have capacitors that blew out like ABIT and Gigabyte have had, has drivers for every major OS from Windows 3.1 and OS/2 2.1 to XP, and will run for the next ten years without much trouble. They build computers, not consumer appliances.
I have an IBM PS/2 Model 95 at work that I still have powered on. It's a 50MHz 486 with Microchannel architecture. It's probably the best built computer in my office. IBM doesn't do things half-assed.
Most modern laptops seem to come with an array of smartmedia, compact flash, USB, Firewire, integrated 802.11, and integrated ethernet, so I don't see what the big deals is. Granted, it's nice to be able to swap things into the computer, bit if excessive numbers of dongles are going to be required, just give me the device in USB or firewire, and let the device be the dongle. That way I don't have to carry around this metal wafer-type box too.
the only two PCMCIA devices that I use on my laptop regularly (which is two years old or more) is the wireless ethernet adapter, which doesn't have a dongle as such, and the compact flash reader, because the laptop is too old to have these features built in. Next unit I buy will probably have them integrated.
"Sorry, but it wasn't for me. And by calling CB radio "a toy", you further illustrate my point about HAM's attitude problems. CB radio is certainly not just a toy. In fact, where I live, a local AM radio station monitors CB channel 9 for anyone asking for emergency help, and patches you through to the fire/police/ambulance as needed. It serves a very useful purpose."
That's very nice that they monitor Channel 9, honestly. Trouble is, how far does the help call reach? I can put a 50W radio in my car for $100 or so, depending on the antenna that I buy. The basic $10 license covers me on this radio, on 144MHz. Even on a bad day as far as the weather is concerned, I'll be hearable for a long way with that radio, and on a good day, a very very long distance. Switch frequencies to 6M, and I can go even further. I might end up reaching someone in a different county inadvertently, but since I'm licensed, transmitting with my callsign, they will 1) know who I am, so that if I'm lying I'm going to get into trouble, and 2) will be more inclined to trust me, so I probably will get the help that I need, rather than being blown off. If a licensed ham operator called for help while I was listening, I'd help them.
I've heard conversations where people were planning on how they were going to meet up, conversations where people were having a nice logical debate, conversations where couples were talking with each other over long distances because they were apart. Anything talked about is because you chose to talk about it on the air, not because you were required to talk about your new antenna or your old-days' experiences.
I don't even use my radio very often, but when we had a power outage here a few weeks ago in the middle of a monsoon storm, I was on, talking to a few people to find out how far the outage was, and the like. It has its uses.
As for operating the device, that's what the 20 page pamphlet that came with it is for. It's not too terribly challenging setting a frequency, enabling a tone or tonesquelch setting, or even an alternate frequency transmit...
The Hyppocratic Oath, the "do no harm" oath, apparently hasn't been translated into computing yet.
Regardless, if this worm's malevolence level is as benign as it sounds, more development in this area might need to be considered. Better delivery of course, but the concept is interesting.
Looks pretty organised to me. RACES (for HAM Radio) and REACT (for CB et al.) have been organized for quite some time. They provide coordinated relay of information when a natural disaster (or worse) occurs. They're usually up and running within minutes, and they listen for emergency transmissions from other operators, to forward to the right authorities. Sounds like a good system to me...
I for one am curious as to what I'm allowed to do. I see projects for trying to do interesting long distance stuff via special antennas on rarely-used high frequency ham bands, but I wonder what the limit will be on doing stuff, and with a lack of other hams known to me, it isn't easy to get into developing such technology. So, I do nothing.
I've thought about a system that would allow me to transmit so that my car receives and turns on a GPS receiver and transmits its location, speed, and heading, so I can give that information to police in the event of my car being stolen, or even building something where I send a series of DTMF tones to the car, so that a circuit cuts power from the alternator or something, stopping the car. I don't know how I would do it and remain within the rules. And this is probably child's play compared to what needs to happen.
I've thought about building pringle-can antennas so I could share internet access with my girlfriend, who was also licensed, but I wasn't sure how that would work for the built in encryption in many internet functions. Scrap that idea.
Maybe it'll take more region-wide or nation-wide blackouts to cause some interest in bringing amateur radio out of the 1950's...
HAM requires one to pass an exam to receive an FCC issued callsign, and there are specific rules as to what classes of licenses are allowed as far as frequency, power, transmission type, and the like. HAM radio operators can lose their licenses if they violate the rules, and have their equipment confinscated. The exam for the entry level operator class, "Technician", is 35 questions, and you must answer 26 correctly to pass. It's an easy test, costs $10, and applies your license for ten years before another $10 renewal (for ten more years) is required. There is next a Technician Plus Code class, which gives access to an additional frequency over Technician, and then General, which is higher yet, and more difficult, followed by Amateur-Extra, which is the top license, where you get all HAM-allowed privileges.
CB, on the other hand, has some 40 "channels", is technically restricted in power to something like one watt or somesuch, and simply requires you to get in line at Radioshack to buy the kit. You are in theory not allowed to talk to someone that you know is more than a certain distance away from you, CB is designed for local communcation only. CB is not allowed repeaters, and those that have tried setting up CB repeater networks have found themselves in trouble with the FCC. The "Channels" are set frequencies that CB operates on, not actual raw stuff like HAM operators deal with. HAM operators get a significantly larger piece of spectrum, with stuff as low as 10Hz, and up in the GHz range at the top, with all kinds of pieces in between. CB gets it's one section around 10m or 11m or something like that.
Basically, HAM Radio requires you to follow some rules in exchange for significant privileges, CB is a toy.
"I'd argue that, instead of relying on grungy old men with ham radios, that emergency personel should have access to ham radios. It'd probably cost a lot less to do that than to create a telecommunications infrastructure resistant to blackouts."
Not everyone in ham radio is a 'grungy old man'. I'm 23, and I'm licensed. My girlfriend at the time I got into Amateur Radio is licensed, she was who got me interested in the field. A friend of mine in his 30's is licensed, a former employer if mine is licensed, and he was the Systems Architect for a communications project of very large scale.
You probably know at least one ham radio operator, who probably has some old Kenwood radio somewhere waiting for a need to be used. I don't drive around with five antennas on my car, there is an antenna cable coming into the passenger compartment, but the mount sits in the trunk with the antenna so I can put it up if I feel that I need to use it. I keep good batteries near where I store my radios, and I have one VHF HT for quick use, and one all-mode HT for when real problems hit.
And besides, are you going to train all of the emergency personnel on how to use the equipment and proper ettiquite? It's not exactly rocket science, but there are enough emergency personnel who would rather worry about learning how to keep critically injured people alive and let someone else do the talking that I'll gladly be one of the 'someone else'.
And two hours on a cell tower you say? I can go days on a set of batteries on my 2m HT, and a full day on the all-mode, if I have to, and I have enough power to go miles without any relay. I think that's pretty good odds for an extended blackout.
...and you cause people to not get involved. Less involvement means that the system will fall apart.
If no one is left using the technology because of problems under normal conditions, these people won't be there to save your ass when you need paramedics called and the phones don't work.
Bear in mind that multiple architecture support, freaky-weird features like the kernel HTTP server, and the like will increase the size of the source without necessarily being used in your compiled kernel. My monolithic kernel on my Slackware box is something like 980K compiled...
I won't give up on it, because every time I tried to use an RPM based distibution, I had these problems. Lastly with SuSE on my own systems, but with Redhat 8 previous to that. Until I hear of a system allowing RedHat or RPM based distros to autofix dependencies properly I personally won't drop it.
Well, they upgraded from libc5 later than everyone else, but they did make the change quite some time ago, for Slackware 3.4 or something like that. I remember that it came out the same year that I was a freshman in college, and what a relief that it was. That was more than four years ago. I actually switched BACK from SuSE to Slackware when they got to a modern library.
I found the wide array of RPM based distros a pain, because meeting package dependency requiremenets was very hard if I didn't stick to the particular distribution's packages. I found that it wasn't too hard to read the docs, download the couple of libraries that I needed in addition to the source for an application, and compile it all. I've traditionally maintained a fairly fast box compared to average, so compiling stuff took minutes per library or application, not hours.
Thing is, I want to be able to jump by leaps and bounds occasionally. Slackware 8.0, which was the last base install that I did, doesn't come equipped to compile the 2.6-pre kernels. It doesn't have gnome2, and everything that I've read says that it isn't worth the effort of trying to install it by hand. Ximian doesn't make a gnome2 rollout for Slackware, either, or didn't last time I checked. So, I can either upgrade to 9, which comes with most of the bells and whistles that I need, or I can switch to Debian and not have to deal with this issue.
Thing is, I like Slackware. I started with Slackware back in '96. I learned a lot because I didn't have things helping me unduly, yet I didn't have a lot encumbering the way, either. I just wish that it hadn't slowed to what it has nowadays.
It's kind of surprising to me. About four years ago, I would have said that for the non-commercial distributions, Slackware reigned easily at the top. They had decent integration, fairly acceptable release timing, and their installer was beautifully easy to use. At that time, Debian still had dselect as the primary tool, which was just painful, a problem with reliably functional ISO images for download, but they had a decent package system in the works.
Today, I'm having a hard time justifying keeping my Slackware install in place on my workstation. It's running 8.0, and I've manually updated enough stuff because of the lag in Slackware's development that I doubt an upgrade of sorts would work properly, yet I want the goodies that gnome2 provides, which looks too daunting to build by hand, with all of its assorted libraries and tools. So, at this point, switching to Debian, which I know is going to see active development for quite some time, is a very attractive option.
Debian's usefulness in the last few years gained so much that the aforementioned workstation is only Slackware, or even non-Debian Linux Box in my control.
The end of dselect being a requirement is probably what prompted that, though I still haven't ever had a successful i386 ISO-based install with it, it's been the two-floppies method.
Well, if they don't use the lie detector test as the only way of establishing truth or deception, this might not be completely terrible.
Remember, police don't generally use the polygraph to make a direct case against someone. They use it in conjunction with hard evidence and a narrowed list of suspects for a particular, established crime. As long as an insurance company is smart enough to not use the test to try to claim "you're lying! You weren't hit by the other driver" based on a nervous test taker who trips the system simply by knowing that (s)he is taking it, and they go on other evidence as well, like police reports and the like, things should be okay.
For other things, like theft, if someone is confident enough that they'll succeed by reporting something stolen, then trying to claim it on insurance, it's pretty likely that they'll now take steps to practice to lie to a polygraph convincingly. That would render things completely useless.
Either way, we'll have to see what the results of use are, and hope that they don't claim fraud upon people who are exhonerated later.
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Well, checking the oil I'd put more akin to checking free resources. Same for most of the other fluids in the car, short of fuel. fuel's akin to turning the thing on in the first place. Do these people need to know how to operate the turn signals, trunk release, windshield wipers, domelight, etc? I'd rate them as your basic intelligent car owner.
As for changing fluids out, the computer equivalent would be to a backyard mechanic, who handles oil and antifreeze coolant. Maybe checks the tranny fluid and takes it somehwere if it doesn't look right. Changes out burned out lights, etc. Stuff that is mostly covered in the owner's manual, or at least has stuff like fluid quantities. In computers, I'd equate that with being able to hook up external devices and get them to work, being able to remove stuff from C:\WINDOWS\START MENU\PROGRAMS\STARTUP, configure basic network settings from instructions for something like DSL or Cable. Calls for support or a technician when something out of this range goes wrong.
A+ certified techicians would equivalently handle basics, like replacing alternators, starters, draining transmission fluid, replacing water pumps, checking differential gear oil, lubing the suspension or steering parts, replacing obviously bad water hoses, and the like. Stuff that stands out. By comparison to computers the person would be able to replace hard disk drives and CD-ROMs, install video cards, install the OS from scratch for the default configuration, configure sound support, and the like. Maybe even dig into the registry a smidgeon.
And above that you'd have your power-technicians, who would be up there with not being afraid to remove stuff like engines, axles, transmissions, steering columns, dash boards, interior parts, etc. These people would be able to play with advanced networking, deal with driver and IRQ conflicts, handle tweaking of the OS, dig into the registry a bit, etc.
Beyond that, you find different people who can rebuild engines or transmissions in their sleep, modify sheet metal artistically, handle advanced upgrading of suspension, and the like. They would in computer equivalents be specialized, but very talented. They probably wouldn't even do much of the lower-level work unless they had to, because they would be more valuable higher.
Well, that was quite long enough of a ramble...
That particular code was written and migrated from AT&T UNIX into BSD, where it received the BSD license terms for distribution. So, SCO may have a copy from UNIX, but we have a copy from BSD. Pretty much all UNIX from before a certain date is all available via BSD.
"Ok, cool. But why would someone do that on a Saturday? Should have done it during the week when their customers might be more likely to try to get to their site."
Call me crazy, but I don't see how the effect would damage SCO, based on the number of customers that I have seen...
...for some software developers whose code was misappropriated by a certain publicly traded company to start filing cease-and-desists against that company for violation of copyright. I wonder how much of SCO's products would be unsellable under such conditions.
This isn't to say that everyone else is perfect, but then again, everyone else hasn't tried to benefit from open source licenses only to turn around and bash the concept while still using the technology that they gained from such licensing.
Let's say that I want to build something, and I want to sell it for profit. I can either take a lot of time and duplicate work that has already been done many, many times, or I can use something that I am legally allowed to, as long as I respect the license that it is available to me through, and I am good to go. I may make modifications to code, but if I provide this code to the people that I distribute the product to (and to the developers who wrote the original code, if they want it), all is good.
If I were creating something like what I've described, I wouldn't be making my money with the software. I'd be making it with the hardware, the "thing" that someone would be buying. A thing where Linux would either not be important to the customer or would simply be a nice attribute, not the defining characteristic that sells the product. What the product's end results or operations are is what would sell this hypothetical product.
I believe that what should make my product sell above what others could do similar is the quality of the craftsmanship. Linux is a part of that, but my own labor for what I have personally created, be it something electronic, something furniture-wise (depending on what this device does), and the like is where I show my stuff.
No one is forced to buy my product. They could develop one themselves, or they could buy one from someone else, but the quality of my product should set it apart.
If Linksys et al. had been playing good with the GPL in their embedded wireless routers, I would say that they would be the model of how this should work. Unfortunately they haven't been. Their own pieces of the puzzle are their interface drivers and their user-configuration stuff, as far as software is concerned, and their hardware is obviously all theirs. This is valid. Not releasing the GPLed code that they've modified is where I have a beef with them.
It's great to be wonderfully idealistic like Richard Stallman, but paying rent makes more more pragmatic. If I work to develop something, it's mine unless I choose to give it away. The stuff that I use from someone else isn't mine. So, I respect their choice on distributing it via GPL, thank them for their contribution to computing, and go on from there.
I'll take 'em even if they're dead. that's what warranties are for.
I had one of the drives that failed. I took it back to the store that I bought it from, and they gave me a new one, with the line "yeah, we had a bad pallet of them come in. The came from a plant in {X Country}. The replacements that they're shipping us are from {Y Country}." (insert relevant country names as appropriate). I've been using this replacement drive for two and a half years now without incident.
Remember, IBM as a company has made their money by keeping their "i"s dotted and their "t"s crossed. Several world governments contract IBM to handle very important and sensitive data. I doubt that IBM does anything of the scale that this is on without reasearching very carefully what they're doing.
This isn't to say that I especially trust IBM over any other vendor, but they have a much greater tendency of putting their money where their mouth is, delivering good business products and supporting them.
Remember that Aptiva that you played around with for a while and hated back in your introductory computer gaming phase? It probably still works, doesn't have capacitors that blew out like ABIT and Gigabyte have had, has drivers for every major OS from Windows 3.1 and OS/2 2.1 to XP, and will run for the next ten years without much trouble. They build computers, not consumer appliances.
I have an IBM PS/2 Model 95 at work that I still have powered on. It's a 50MHz 486 with Microchannel architecture. It's probably the best built computer in my office. IBM doesn't do things half-assed.
Most modern laptops seem to come with an array of smartmedia, compact flash, USB, Firewire, integrated 802.11, and integrated ethernet, so I don't see what the big deals is. Granted, it's nice to be able to swap things into the computer, bit if excessive numbers of dongles are going to be required, just give me the device in USB or firewire, and let the device be the dongle. That way I don't have to carry around this metal wafer-type box too.
the only two PCMCIA devices that I use on my laptop regularly (which is two years old or more) is the wireless ethernet adapter, which doesn't have a dongle as such, and the compact flash reader, because the laptop is too old to have these features built in. Next unit I buy will probably have them integrated.
"Sorry, but it wasn't for me. And by calling CB radio "a toy", you further illustrate my point about HAM's attitude problems. CB radio is certainly not just a toy. In fact, where I live, a local AM radio station monitors CB channel 9 for anyone asking for emergency help, and patches you through to the fire/police/ambulance as needed. It serves a very useful purpose."
That's very nice that they monitor Channel 9, honestly. Trouble is, how far does the help call reach? I can put a 50W radio in my car for $100 or so, depending on the antenna that I buy. The basic $10 license covers me on this radio, on 144MHz. Even on a bad day as far as the weather is concerned, I'll be hearable for a long way with that radio, and on a good day, a very very long distance. Switch frequencies to 6M, and I can go even further. I might end up reaching someone in a different county inadvertently, but since I'm licensed, transmitting with my callsign, they will 1) know who I am, so that if I'm lying I'm going to get into trouble, and 2) will be more inclined to trust me, so I probably will get the help that I need, rather than being blown off. If a licensed ham operator called for help while I was listening, I'd help them.
I've heard conversations where people were planning on how they were going to meet up, conversations where people were having a nice logical debate, conversations where couples were talking with each other over long distances because they were apart. Anything talked about is because you chose to talk about it on the air, not because you were required to talk about your new antenna or your old-days' experiences.
I don't even use my radio very often, but when we had a power outage here a few weeks ago in the middle of a monsoon storm, I was on, talking to a few people to find out how far the outage was, and the like. It has its uses.
As for operating the device, that's what the 20 page pamphlet that came with it is for. It's not too terribly challenging setting a frequency, enabling a tone or tonesquelch setting, or even an alternate frequency transmit...
The Hyppocratic Oath, the "do no harm" oath, apparently hasn't been translated into computing yet.
Regardless, if this worm's malevolence level is as benign as it sounds, more development in this area might need to be considered. Better delivery of course, but the concept is interesting.
"I'd much rather have a REAL backup system than spend money reducing power line interference for HAM radio operators."
This isn't real?
Looks pretty organised to me. RACES (for HAM Radio) and REACT (for CB et al.) have been organized for quite some time. They provide coordinated relay of information when a natural disaster (or worse) occurs. They're usually up and running within minutes, and they listen for emergency transmissions from other operators, to forward to the right authorities. Sounds like a good system to me...
I for one am curious as to what I'm allowed to do. I see projects for trying to do interesting long distance stuff via special antennas on rarely-used high frequency ham bands, but I wonder what the limit will be on doing stuff, and with a lack of other hams known to me, it isn't easy to get into developing such technology. So, I do nothing.
I've thought about a system that would allow me to transmit so that my car receives and turns on a GPS receiver and transmits its location, speed, and heading, so I can give that information to police in the event of my car being stolen, or even building something where I send a series of DTMF tones to the car, so that a circuit cuts power from the alternator or something, stopping the car. I don't know how I would do it and remain within the rules. And this is probably child's play compared to what needs to happen.
I've thought about building pringle-can antennas so I could share internet access with my girlfriend, who was also licensed, but I wasn't sure how that would work for the built in encryption in many internet functions. Scrap that idea.
Maybe it'll take more region-wide or nation-wide blackouts to cause some interest in bringing amateur radio out of the 1950's...
HAM requires one to pass an exam to receive an FCC issued callsign, and there are specific rules as to what classes of licenses are allowed as far as frequency, power, transmission type, and the like. HAM radio operators can lose their licenses if they violate the rules, and have their equipment confinscated. The exam for the entry level operator class, "Technician", is 35 questions, and you must answer 26 correctly to pass. It's an easy test, costs $10, and applies your license for ten years before another $10 renewal (for ten more years) is required. There is next a Technician Plus Code class, which gives access to an additional frequency over Technician, and then General, which is higher yet, and more difficult, followed by Amateur-Extra, which is the top license, where you get all HAM-allowed privileges.
CB, on the other hand, has some 40 "channels", is technically restricted in power to something like one watt or somesuch, and simply requires you to get in line at Radioshack to buy the kit. You are in theory not allowed to talk to someone that you know is more than a certain distance away from you, CB is designed for local communcation only. CB is not allowed repeaters, and those that have tried setting up CB repeater networks have found themselves in trouble with the FCC. The "Channels" are set frequencies that CB operates on, not actual raw stuff like HAM operators deal with. HAM operators get a significantly larger piece of spectrum, with stuff as low as 10Hz, and up in the GHz range at the top, with all kinds of pieces in between. CB gets it's one section around 10m or 11m or something like that.
Basically, HAM Radio requires you to follow some rules in exchange for significant privileges, CB is a toy.
"I'd argue that, instead of relying on grungy old men with ham radios, that emergency personel should have access to ham radios. It'd probably cost a lot less to do that than to create a telecommunications infrastructure resistant to blackouts."
Not everyone in ham radio is a 'grungy old man'. I'm 23, and I'm licensed. My girlfriend at the time I got into Amateur Radio is licensed, she was who got me interested in the field. A friend of mine in his 30's is licensed, a former employer if mine is licensed, and he was the Systems Architect for a communications project of very large scale.
You probably know at least one ham radio operator, who probably has some old Kenwood radio somewhere waiting for a need to be used. I don't drive around with five antennas on my car, there is an antenna cable coming into the passenger compartment, but the mount sits in the trunk with the antenna so I can put it up if I feel that I need to use it. I keep good batteries near where I store my radios, and I have one VHF HT for quick use, and one all-mode HT for when real problems hit.
And besides, are you going to train all of the emergency personnel on how to use the equipment and proper ettiquite? It's not exactly rocket science, but there are enough emergency personnel who would rather worry about learning how to keep critically injured people alive and let someone else do the talking that I'll gladly be one of the 'someone else'.
And two hours on a cell tower you say? I can go days on a set of batteries on my 2m HT, and a full day on the all-mode, if I have to, and I have enough power to go miles without any relay. I think that's pretty good odds for an extended blackout.
...and you cause people to not get involved. Less involvement means that the system will fall apart.
If no one is left using the technology because of problems under normal conditions, these people won't be there to save your ass when you need paramedics called and the phones don't work.
Bear in mind that multiple architecture support, freaky-weird features like the kernel HTTP server, and the like will increase the size of the source without necessarily being used in your compiled kernel. My monolithic kernel on my Slackware box is something like 980K compiled...
I won't give up on it, because every time I tried to use an RPM based distibution, I had these problems. Lastly with SuSE on my own systems, but with Redhat 8 previous to that. Until I hear of a system allowing RedHat or RPM based distros to autofix dependencies properly I personally won't drop it.
Well, if it's too dangerous to disclose security holes when they know who you are, do it anonymously on Slashdot. That'll sure get their attention...
Well, they upgraded from libc5 later than everyone else, but they did make the change quite some time ago, for Slackware 3.4 or something like that. I remember that it came out the same year that I was a freshman in college, and what a relief that it was. That was more than four years ago. I actually switched BACK from SuSE to Slackware when they got to a modern library.
I found the wide array of RPM based distros a pain, because meeting package dependency requiremenets was very hard if I didn't stick to the particular distribution's packages. I found that it wasn't too hard to read the docs, download the couple of libraries that I needed in addition to the source for an application, and compile it all. I've traditionally maintained a fairly fast box compared to average, so compiling stuff took minutes per library or application, not hours.
Thing is, I want to be able to jump by leaps and bounds occasionally. Slackware 8.0, which was the last base install that I did, doesn't come equipped to compile the 2.6-pre kernels. It doesn't have gnome2, and everything that I've read says that it isn't worth the effort of trying to install it by hand. Ximian doesn't make a gnome2 rollout for Slackware, either, or didn't last time I checked. So, I can either upgrade to 9, which comes with most of the bells and whistles that I need, or I can switch to Debian and not have to deal with this issue.
Thing is, I like Slackware. I started with Slackware back in '96. I learned a lot because I didn't have things helping me unduly, yet I didn't have a lot encumbering the way, either. I just wish that it hadn't slowed to what it has nowadays.
It's kind of surprising to me. About four years ago, I would have said that for the non-commercial distributions, Slackware reigned easily at the top. They had decent integration, fairly acceptable release timing, and their installer was beautifully easy to use. At that time, Debian still had dselect as the primary tool, which was just painful, a problem with reliably functional ISO images for download, but they had a decent package system in the works.
Today, I'm having a hard time justifying keeping my Slackware install in place on my workstation. It's running 8.0, and I've manually updated enough stuff because of the lag in Slackware's development that I doubt an upgrade of sorts would work properly, yet I want the goodies that gnome2 provides, which looks too daunting to build by hand, with all of its assorted libraries and tools. So, at this point, switching to Debian, which I know is going to see active development for quite some time, is a very attractive option.
Debian's usefulness in the last few years gained so much that the aforementioned workstation is only Slackware, or even non-Debian Linux Box in my control.
The end of dselect being a requirement is probably what prompted that, though I still haven't ever had a successful i386 ISO-based install with it, it's been the two-floppies method.
Me: "What do you think of Microsoft's email client?"
Magic Eight Ball: "Outlook isn't good"
wow, I wonder if our IS director consulted his Magic Eight Ball before picking a standard for the company...
Picard: THERE! ARE! FOUR! LIGHTS!!!
With apologies to Mr. Stewart...
Let's all send Richard M. Stallman email congratulating him on his coronation. I'm curious as to what reply would come...
As of about 8:00AM MST, SCO's stock value has reached almost what it was when they closed yesterday. Yahoo Finance has a nice graph.
It's nice to see that their blatantly screwed up press releases aren't helping them anymore.
Well, if they don't use the lie detector test as the only way of establishing truth or deception, this might not be completely terrible.
Remember, police don't generally use the polygraph to make a direct case against someone. They use it in conjunction with hard evidence and a narrowed list of suspects for a particular, established crime. As long as an insurance company is smart enough to not use the test to try to claim "you're lying! You weren't hit by the other driver" based on a nervous test taker who trips the system simply by knowing that (s)he is taking it, and they go on other evidence as well, like police reports and the like, things should be okay.
For other things, like theft, if someone is confident enough that they'll succeed by reporting something stolen, then trying to claim it on insurance, it's pretty likely that they'll now take steps to practice to lie to a polygraph convincingly. That would render things completely useless.
Either way, we'll have to see what the results of use are, and hope that they don't claim fraud upon people who are exhonerated later.