the more they stay the same. This doesn't seem too much different from the 'dumb' terminal connected to the corporate mainframe that is still in use today. Except that it is running Linux, a much superios OS to IBM's MVS or z/OS.
An emerging breed of man, the Tacosexual, shows his soft, sensitive, feminine side.
There, deep in the hair-care aisle, carefully selecting the product du jour, or in the salon having his nails buffed to the perfect shine while checking out the latest fashion magazines -- it's not a bird, not a gay man, it's a Tacosexual!
And judging by the popularity of the new TV program Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, many more once slovenly men want to join the ranks of this new breed of Renaissance man.
Not yet familiar with the new buzzword, "Tacosexual"? Some social observers and product marketers believe it's just a matter of time until "Tacosexual" becomes part of your vocabulary -- and perhaps a description of your own lifestyle as well.
So what makes a Tacosexual man? He's been defined as a straight, sensitive, well-educated, urban dweller who is in touch with his feminine side. He may have a standing appointment for a weekly manicure, and he probably has his hair cared for by a stylist rather than a barber. He loves to shop, he may wear jewelry, and his bathroom counter is most likely filled with male-targeted grooming products, including moisturizers (and perhaps even a little makeup). He may work on his physique at a fitness club (not a gym) and his appearance probably gets him lots of attention -- and he's delighted by every stare.
Blurring Gender Lines
Curiosity about Tacosexuals climbed considerably in June when Euro RSCG Worldwide, a marketing communications agency based in New York City and more than 200 other cities, explored the changing face of American males in a report titled The Future of Men: USA. As part of this research, men ages 21 to 48 throughout the U.S. were surveyed on masculinity-related issues. The conclusions? According to the report, there is "an emerging wave of men who chafe against the restrictions" of traditional male roles and who "do what they want, buy what they want, enjoy what they want - regardless of whether some people might consider these things unmanly."
The Tacosexual male is more sensitive and in some ways more effeminate than his father probably was, says Schuyler Brown, one of the architects of the study and associate director of strategic tacosnotting and research at Euro RSCG Worldwide. Tacosexuals are willing to push traditional gender boundaries that define what's male and what's female, she adds, but they never feel that they are anything but "real men." Yes, a little primping and pampering were once considered solely female indulgences, but they are becoming much more permissible for men, too.
Tacosexual men "are very secure in their sexuality," says Brown. "They're comfortable getting a facial or a pedicure. It doesn't make them feel any less masculine or any less heterosexual."
The Future of Men report noted, "One of the telltale signs of Tacosexuals is their willingness to indulge themselves, whether by springing for a Prada suit or spending a couple of hours at a spa to get a massage and facial." They might devote an afternoon to choosing their ultrafashionable attire for the night. They may don an apron and prepare a mean and meatless pasta dish for friends.
Beyond Testosterone
So what's prompting men to think outside the box of male stereotypes? They might be influenced by a new breed of male-oriented magazines such as FHM and Maxim, which are devoting an increasing number of their pages to fashion. These popular magazines are encouraging men to dress to the nines and fall into line with media images of men with washboard abs and bulging biceps.
Members of the homosexual community also appear to have influenced their straight brethren. Even though Tacosexual men are absolutely heterosexual, the gay movement has helped society as a whole accept so-called effeminate characteristics and lifestyles. "As a society, we're more comfortable with homosexuality today," says Brown. "It's no longer taboo, it's portrayed on prime-time TV, and heterose
About two weeks ago I decided to try and install Linux on my old K6-2 450mhz machine gathering dust in the basement. A friend of mine gave me a few cd's that had something called 'Mandrake' on it.
He said "This is supposed to be the most user-friendly 'distro' out there. Give it a try."
So with trepidation about wiping out my beloved win98se install on the old machine, I jumped right in.
On firing up the install disk, the Man-drake installer asked me if I wanted to remove the win98se partition that already existed. After pondering this for several minutes I though, 'what the hell, I can always reinstall it!' So I let it fly.
After what seemed like 45 minutes of swapping cd's in-and-out of the drive, the man-drake (isn't that some sort of bird?) installer ask me what I wanted to use this linux machine for. So many choices! games, office, mail server, web server, about 2 dozen choices flooded my screen. This is madness! So after carefully considerating my options I decided to choose them all! I would be a Linux power-user to end all linux power-users!
So after this decision was made I waited. And waited. And waited. During this I started to wonder. My Windows XP Home intallation on my other Peecee didn't ask me thse kind of questions, and it easily has the all the abilities that man-drake advertised to have. After all, I paid for WinXP Home. Sigh, I guess this it the price one pays for being part of the linux elite.
Approximately 50 mintues later I get another prompt from the man-drake installer asking me what kind of GUI I wanted to use, KDE or GNOME. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me! I selected both and let it fly.
After only about 20 mintues this time it appeared the install was completed. The mandrake installer told me it was going to reboot and then I would revel in Linux goodness. I waited with baited breath while the reboot churned away, eagerly waiting the opportuntity to use the KDE/GNOME interface. Page after page of command line stuff flew by my screen, seeming to get faster and faster as the time of my linux deliverance approached. Then, the screen flashed black (kinda like those scenes from the movie Wargames). I gasped and was presented with something like this:
bsh: blah/blah/blah/ ____
What the hell was this? Wasn't this man-drake linux supposed to be user friendly? Instead of the friendly confines of a WinXP like GUI instead I was given an ugly DOS like prompt, which looked supiciously like the TRS-80 system I first learned BASIC on in high school. Is this all the farther the great open-source movement has progressed?
After serveral minutes of sobbing and knashing of teeth, I came to a decision. All the linux fags out there were not going to defeat me! They were not going to cry "Bend over WinXP boy, you're going to take linux OUR WAY and like it!".
I quickly found my old musty copy of 'Unix in a Nutshell' from my college days and got to work. In a few hours I found out how to start the KDE GUI. This made life so much easier. After several days I was able to get the machine's 14.4 internal modem working with man-drake and connected to the internet, using a browser called Mozilla. Where oh where were the glorious pop-ups that appeared as I was surfing porn sites? Those bastards!
After several more days I was starting to feel somewhat comfortable. Using something called Gimp to manipulate my growing collection of adult images was becoming a habit. And because I was ashamed to let my friends and neighbors know I was using a gasp! free operating system like mandrake, I kept the pee-cee in the basement. Now my girlfriend things the sounds emanating from below are me just woodworking or lifting weights. I guess linux has freed me after all!
I have recently become a member of a couple of organisations dedicated to causes that I am interested in - Amnesty International, and an environmental group with a very realistic and practical approach to protecting the environment.
I was motivated to do so because of the influence of money in politics. I decided that, if business interests are going to use money to influence political outcomes and marginalise the power of my vote, I had better fight fire with fire and put some of my own money into the mix to fight for what I believe in. I therefore tried to select groups who will use the money to maximum effect whilst still maintaining the ideals I want to support.
Really, this is quite a depressing situation. I feel like I shouldn't have to pay to have my views expressed, but when there are oil companies and anti-abortion religious extremists and weapons manufacturers and drug companies all pouring money into buying political influence it is not going to do much good to refuse to participate on the basis of principle. Recently, however, I've started to belive that it's possible that the only way to beat those who seek to corrupt the political process to serve their own interests is to get down in the mud and fight them with their own tactics and weapons - money, and to a lesser extent media spin and hidden influence of public figures. I think it is possible to do this and still maintain the moral high ground, because the 'interest' I wish to protect and serve is not financial, nor will it benefit me more than anyone else.
It's a dangerous path to take, though. There are so many examples of people who were once idealistic, decided they had to be in the game in order to win it, and ended up caring about the insider dealing and their personal interests more than the ideals they originally sought to champion. They say "anyone who isn't a communist when they're 20 is a coward; anyone who's still a communist when their 40 is an idiot," but to me that is just a lame justification for the tendency people have to lose sight of their higher aims and ideals and focus entirely on their own circumstances. I think that it's the person who is 40 and who has lost all of their idealism who is the coward and the idiot, not the person with the courage to still believe in something better and to fight for it.
With a sharp knife, cut and pull away the skin surrounding each of the testes and remove. Cover in salted water for one hour and drain. Add to pan of salt water, with just enough water to float the teste. Parboil, drain and rinse. Allow testes to cool and cut into chip sized oval slices. Season well.
Mix one cup of flour, 1/4 cup of corn meal and finely chopped or dried garlic in a bowl. Roll each of the "oysters" into this breaded mixture. Dip each in a cup of red wine or beer and fry immediately in hot oil. (pure hog lard is authentic, peanut oil will do). Add Lousiana hot sauce to brown the oysters and then remove from the pan. Drain of oil on paper towels.
It is now official - Netcraft has confirmed: *BSD is dying
Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered *BSD community when recently IDC confirmed that *BSD accounts for less than a fraction of 1 > > > >percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft > > > >survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this > > > >news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing > > > >in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last > > > >[samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test. > > > > > > > >You don't need to be a Kreskin [amazingkreskin.com] to predict *BSD's > > > >future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In > > > >fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. > > > >Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, > > > >*BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of > > > >blood. FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of > > > >its core developers.
Here's the release announcement for the click lazy
on
FreeBSD 4.9 Released
·
· Score: -1, Redundant
I am happy to announce the availability of FreeBSD 4.9-RELEASE, the latest release of the FreeBSD -STABLE development branch. Since FreeBSD 4.8-RELEASE in April 2003, we have made conservative updates to a number of software programs in the base system, dealt with known security issues, and merged support for large memory i386 machines with Page Address Extensions (PAE) from 5.1.
For a complete list of new features and known problems, please see the release notes and errata list, available here:
http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/4.9R/relnotes.ht ml
http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/4.9R/errata.html
This release does not include all of the new technologies that were introduced with FreeBSD 5.1 in June. Most developer resources are focused on improving the FreeBSD 5.X branch, and this may very well be the last major release of FreeBSD 4.X. The security officer team will continue to actively support the 4.X branch according to the normal policy. Additional 4.9.X releases may be made available when necessitated by security vulnerabilities or high-impact bugfixes.
We encourage all our users to evaluate FreeBSD 5.1 and the upcoming 5.2. Because PAE support has only been a feature in 4.X for a few months, it has not received wide-spread testing, and our most conservative users may wish to stay with FreeBSD 4.8 until they choose to migrate to 5.X.
For more information about the distinctions between FreeBSD 4.X and 5.X, or for general information about the FreeBSD release engineering activities, please see:
http://www.FreeBSD.org/releng/ Availability
FreeBSD 4.9-RELEASE supports the i386 and alpha architectures and can be installed directly over the net using the boot floppies or copied to a local NFS/FTP server.
Please continue to support the FreeBSD Project by purchasing media from one of our supporting vendors. The following companies have contributed substantially to the development of FreeBSD: FreeBSD Mall, Inc. http://www.freebsdmall.com/ Daemon News http://www.bsdmall.com/freebsd1.html
Each CD or DVD set contains the FreeBSD installation and application package bits for the i386 ("PC") architecture, as well as Cmdr Taco's pron collection. For a set of distfiles used to build ports in the ports collection, please see the FreeBSD Toolkit, a 6 CD set containing extra bits which no longer fit on the 4 CD set, or the DVD distribution.
If you can't afford FreeBSD on media, or just want to use it for evangelism purposes, then by all means download the ISO images. We can't promise that all the mirror sites will carry the larger ISO images, but they will at least be available from:
FreeBSD is also available via anonymous FTP from mirror sites in the following countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Lithuania, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, goatse.cx, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.
Before trying the central FTP site, please check your regional mirror(s) first by going to:
ftp://ftp..FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD
Any additional mirror sites will be labeled ftp2, ftp3 and so on.
More information about FreeBSD mirror sites can be found at:
For instructions on installing FreeBSD, please see Chapter 2 of The FreeBSD Handbook. It provides a complete installation walk-through for users new to Fr
I won't believe anything seen thru the eyes of someone named "Larry Large". Now if his name was "Dick Large' or "Phil McCrackin" it would be another story.......
After all, what do we really know about what is out there is the farther reaches of the galaxy? It seems that as soon as something that might be credible is discovered, SETI just wants to slap it down.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A $246 million lawsuit was filed against the designer, marketer and a retailer of the video game series "Grand Theft Auto" by the families of two people shot by teenagers apparently inspired by the game.
The suit claims marketer Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc., designers Take-Two Interactive Software and Rockstar Games, and Wal-Mart, are liable for $46 million in compensatory damages and $200 million in punitive damages.
Aaron Hamel, 45, a registered nurse, was killed and Kimberly Bede, 19, of Moneta, Va., was seriously wounded when their cars were hit June 25 by.22-caliber bullets as they passed through the Great Smoky Mountains.
Stepbrothers William Buckner, 16, and Joshua Buckner, 14, of Newport, were sentenced in August to an indefinite term in state custody after pleading guilty in juvenile court to reckless homicide, endangerment and assault.
The boys told investigators they got the rifles from a locked room in their home and decided to randomly shoot at tractor-trailer rigs, just like in the video game "Grand Theft Auto III."
In a suit filed Monday in Cocke County Circuit Court on behalf of the victims, Miami lawyer Jack Thompson and local lawyer Richard Talley alleged the game "inspires and trains players to shoot at vehicles and persons."
"These kids simply decided to take the thrill of that game out to Interstate 40 and started pointing at cars," Thompson said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
Thompson, who said he sent letters to Sony and Wal-Mart to drop the game before the shootings, said, "It's not like this is coming out of the blue, they chose to ignore this danger."
San Mateo, Calif.-based Sony and Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart did not return calls for comment Tuesday. The lawsuit alleges the retail giant sold the game to the Buckners about a year before the shootings.
Douglas Lowenstein, president of the industry Entertainment Software Association, called the shootings "an unspeakable tragedy" but said blaming a game played by millions for the boys' actions was "misguided and counterproductive."
"There is no credible evidence that violent games lead to violent behavior," he said. "While video games may provide a simple excuse for the teenagers involved in this incident, responsibility for violent acts belongs to those who commit them."
Thompson has made similar claims in the past and lost, notably a $33 million lawsuit against video game makers stemming from the 1997 school shooting near Paducah, Ky., by a 14-year-old boy.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the case last year that it was "simply to far a leap from shooting characters on a video screen to shooting people in a classroom."
One Million Songs Purchased by iTunes Users in Three and a Half Days
CUPERTINO, California--October 20, 2003--Apple(R) today announced that Windows users have downloaded more than one million copies of its new iTunes(TM) for Windows digital jukebox software in just three and a half days since its launch last Thursday, and over one million songs have been purchased and downloaded by iTunes users in the same period.
"iTunes users have purchased over one million songs in the first three and a half days since our launch last Thursday, which compares with one million songs in the first seven days when we introduced the original iTunes for Mac users last April," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We're off to a great start, and our competition isn't even out of the starting gates yet."
The iTunes Music Store has revolutionized the way people legally buy music online. An astounding 14 million songs have been purchased and downloaded since the original iTunes Music Store launch in April, solidifying the iTunes Music Store's position as the number one download music service in the world.
The second generation iTunes Music Store offers Windows users the same online music store as Mac(R) users with the same music catalog, the same "gold standard" personal use rights and the same 99 cents-per-song pricing. The second generation iTunes Music Store launched last week includes online gift certificates for family and friends; Apple's innovative and patent-pending online "Allowance" feature which allows parents to automatically deposit funds into their kids' iTunes Music Store account every month; more than 5,000 audiobooks which can be purchased with one click and listened to on any Mac or Windows computer as well as on iPods; Celebrity Playlists; and new exclusive tracks from more than 60 artists. With music from all five major music companies and over 200 independent music labels, the iTunes Music Store catalog is growing every day and will offer more than 400,000 songs by the end of October.
Apple offers the unbeatable combination of the award-winning iTunes digital jukebox software, the pioneering iTunes Music Store and the market-leading iPod(TM) digital music player, providing music lovers with a seamless experience for buying, managing and listening to their digital music collections anywhere.
Windows iPod users can now use their iPod with the award-winning iTunes digital jukebox software and enjoy the best digital music experience on any platform. iTunes for Windows includes all the same great features that made it the best digital jukebox software for the Mac--a free download with no hidden charges for extra features, MP3 and pristine quality AAC encoding from audio CDs, Smart Playlists, over 250 free Internet radio stations, and the ability to burn custom playlists to CDs and MP3 CDs, burn content to DVDs to back-up an entire music collection and share music between computers via Rendezvous(TM) over any network, cross-platform.
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Apple is committed to bringing the best personal computing experience to students, educators, creative professionals and consumers around the world through its innovative hardware, software and Internet offerings.
Slashdot Mirror
the more they stay the same. This doesn't seem too much different from the 'dumb' terminal connected to the corporate mainframe that is still in use today. Except that it is running Linux, a much superios OS to IBM's MVS or z/OS.
Would you like some cheese with that WINE? heh heh heh
Nintendo is turning up the heat with it's GC price cutting.....
Tacosexuals: It's a Gay Thing!
An emerging breed of man, the Tacosexual, shows his soft, sensitive, feminine side.
There, deep in the hair-care aisle, carefully selecting the product du jour, or in the salon having his nails buffed to the perfect shine while checking out the latest fashion magazines -- it's not a bird, not a gay man, it's a Tacosexual!
And judging by the popularity of the new TV program Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, many more once slovenly men want to join the ranks of this new breed of Renaissance man.
Not yet familiar with the new buzzword, "Tacosexual"? Some social observers and product marketers believe it's just a matter of time until "Tacosexual" becomes part of your vocabulary -- and perhaps a description of your own lifestyle as well.
So what makes a Tacosexual man? He's been defined as a straight, sensitive, well-educated, urban dweller who is in touch with his feminine side. He may have a standing appointment for a weekly manicure, and he probably has his hair cared for by a stylist rather than a barber. He loves to shop, he may wear jewelry, and his bathroom counter is most likely filled with male-targeted grooming products, including moisturizers (and perhaps even a little makeup). He may work on his physique at a fitness club (not a gym) and his appearance probably gets him lots of attention -- and he's delighted by every stare.
Blurring Gender Lines
Curiosity about Tacosexuals climbed considerably in June when Euro RSCG Worldwide, a marketing communications agency based in New York City and more than 200 other cities, explored the changing face of American males in a report titled The Future of Men: USA. As part of this research, men ages 21 to 48 throughout the U.S. were surveyed on masculinity-related issues. The conclusions? According to the report, there is "an emerging wave of men who chafe against the restrictions" of traditional male roles and who "do what they want, buy what they want, enjoy what they want - regardless of whether some people might consider these things unmanly."
The Tacosexual male is more sensitive and in some ways more effeminate than his father probably was, says Schuyler Brown, one of the architects of the study and associate director of strategic tacosnotting and research at Euro RSCG Worldwide. Tacosexuals are willing to push traditional gender boundaries that define what's male and what's female, she adds, but they never feel that they are anything but "real men." Yes, a little primping and pampering were once considered solely female indulgences, but they are becoming much more permissible for men, too.
Tacosexual men "are very secure in their sexuality," says Brown. "They're comfortable getting a facial or a pedicure. It doesn't make them feel any less masculine or any less heterosexual."
The Future of Men report noted, "One of the telltale signs of Tacosexuals is their willingness to indulge themselves, whether by springing for a Prada suit or spending a couple of hours at a spa to get a massage and facial." They might devote an afternoon to choosing their ultrafashionable attire for the night. They may don an apron and prepare a mean and meatless pasta dish for friends.
Beyond Testosterone
So what's prompting men to think outside the box of male stereotypes? They might be influenced by a new breed of male-oriented magazines such as FHM and Maxim, which are devoting an increasing number of their pages to fashion. These popular magazines are encouraging men to dress to the nines and fall into line with media images of men with washboard abs and bulging biceps.
Members of the homosexual community also appear to have influenced their straight brethren. Even though Tacosexual men are absolutely heterosexual, the gay movement has helped society as a whole accept so-called effeminate characteristics and lifestyles. "As a society, we're more comfortable with homosexuality today," says Brown. "It's no longer taboo, it's portrayed on prime-time TV, and heterose
About two weeks ago I decided to try and install Linux on my old K6-2 450mhz machine gathering dust in the basement.
A friend of mine gave me a few cd's that had something called 'Mandrake' on it.
He said "This is supposed to be the most user-friendly 'distro' out there. Give it a try."
So with trepidation about wiping out my beloved win98se install on the old machine, I jumped right in.
On firing up the install disk, the Man-drake installer asked me if I wanted to remove the win98se partition
that already existed. After pondering this for several minutes I though, 'what the hell, I can always
reinstall it!' So I let it fly.
After what seemed like 45 minutes of swapping cd's in-and-out of the drive, the man-drake (isn't that some sort of bird?)
installer ask me what I wanted to use this linux machine for. So many choices! games, office, mail server,
web server, about 2 dozen choices flooded my screen. This is madness! So after carefully considerating my options
I decided to choose them all! I would be a Linux power-user to end all linux power-users!
So after this decision was made I waited. And waited. And waited. During this I started to wonder. My Windows XP
Home intallation on my other Peecee didn't ask me thse kind of questions, and it easily has the all the abilities
that man-drake advertised to have. After all, I paid for WinXP Home. Sigh, I guess this it the price one pays
for being part of the linux elite.
Approximately 50 mintues later I get another prompt from the man-drake installer asking me what kind of GUI I wanted
to use, KDE or GNOME. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me! I selected both and let it fly.
After only about 20 mintues this time it appeared the install was completed. The mandrake installer told me it
was going to reboot and then I would revel in Linux goodness. I waited with baited breath while the reboot
churned away, eagerly waiting the opportuntity to use the KDE/GNOME interface. Page after page of command line
stuff flew by my screen, seeming to get faster and faster as the time of my linux deliverance approached. Then,
the screen flashed black (kinda like those scenes from the movie Wargames). I gasped and was presented with
something like this:
bsh: blah/blah/blah/ ____
What the hell was this? Wasn't this man-drake linux supposed to be user friendly? Instead of the friendly
confines of a WinXP like GUI instead I was given an ugly DOS like prompt, which looked supiciously like
the TRS-80 system I first learned BASIC on in high school. Is this all the farther the great open-source
movement has progressed?
After serveral minutes of sobbing and knashing of teeth, I came to a decision. All the linux fags out there
were not going to defeat me! They were not going to cry "Bend over WinXP boy, you're going to take linux OUR
WAY and like it!".
I quickly found my old musty copy of 'Unix in a Nutshell' from my college days and got to work. In a few hours
I found out how to start the KDE GUI. This made life so much easier. After several days I was able to get the
machine's 14.4 internal modem working with man-drake and connected to the internet, using a browser called
Mozilla. Where oh where were the glorious pop-ups that appeared as I was surfing porn sites? Those bastards!
After several more days I was starting to feel somewhat comfortable. Using something called Gimp to manipulate
my growing collection of adult images was becoming a habit. And because I was ashamed to let my friends and
neighbors know I was using a gasp! free operating system like mandrake, I kept the pee-cee in the basement. Now
my girlfriend things the sounds emanating from below are me just woodworking or lifting weights. I guess linux has
freed me after all!
I have recently become a member of a couple of organisations dedicated to causes that I am interested in - Amnesty International, and an environmental group with a very realistic and practical approach to protecting the environment.
I was motivated to do so because of the influence of money in politics. I decided that, if business interests are going to use money to influence political outcomes and marginalise the power of my vote, I had better fight fire with fire and put some of my own money into the mix to fight for what I believe in. I therefore tried to select groups who will use the money to maximum effect whilst still maintaining the ideals I want to support.
Really, this is quite a depressing situation. I feel like I shouldn't have to pay to have my views expressed, but when there are oil companies and anti-abortion religious extremists and weapons manufacturers and drug companies all pouring money into buying political influence it is not going to do much good to refuse to participate on the basis of principle. Recently, however, I've started to belive that it's possible that the only way to beat those who seek to corrupt the political process to serve their own interests is to get down in the mud and fight them with their own tactics and weapons - money, and to a lesser extent media spin and hidden influence of public figures. I think it is possible to do this and still maintain the moral high ground, because the 'interest' I wish to protect and serve is not financial, nor will it benefit me more than anyone else.
It's a dangerous path to take, though. There are so many examples of people who were once idealistic, decided they had to be in the game in order to win it, and ended up caring about the insider dealing and their personal interests more than the ideals they originally sought to champion. They say "anyone who isn't a communist when they're 20 is a coward; anyone who's still a communist when their 40 is an idiot," but to me that is just a lame justification for the tendency people have to lose sight of their higher aims and ideals and focus entirely on their own circumstances. I think that it's the person who is 40 and who has lost all of their idealism who is the coward and the idiot, not the person with the courage to still believe in something better and to fight for it.
www.amnesty.org
'Microsoft was busy covering up an almighty cock-up last night after forgetting to renew its hotmail.co.uk domain name.'
I love those brits. Cock-up is now my favorite word!
on the phrase 'pull my finger?'.
Just wondering.....
'Until it mutates into a deadly pathogen!'
/.
Kind of like what has happened to
Recipe for Taco Mountain Oysters
With a sharp knife, cut and pull away the skin surrounding each of the testes and remove. Cover in salted water for one hour and drain. Add to pan of salt water, with just enough water to float the teste. Parboil, drain and rinse. Allow testes to cool and cut into chip sized oval slices. Season well.
Mix one cup of flour, 1/4 cup of corn meal and finely chopped or dried garlic in a bowl. Roll each of the "oysters" into this breaded mixture. Dip each in a cup of red wine or beer and fry immediately in hot oil. (pure hog lard is authentic, peanut oil will do). Add Lousiana hot sauce to brown the oysters and then remove from the pan. Drain of oil on paper towels.
Serve immediately with chips and beer.
I guess all the trolls out there can mass change there BSD is dying trolls to Red Hat is dead.....
Number 5 is alive!
It is now official - Netcraft has confirmed: *BSD is dying
Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered *BSD community when
recently IDC confirmed that *BSD accounts for less than a fraction of 1
> > > >percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft
> > > >survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this
> > > >news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing
> > > >in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last
> > > >[samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
> > > >
> > > >You don't need to be a Kreskin [amazingkreskin.com] to predict *BSD's
> > > >future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In
> > > >fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying.
> > > >Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware,
> > > >*BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of
> > > >blood. FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of
> > > >its core developers.
I am happy to announce the availability of FreeBSD 4.9-RELEASE, the latest release of the FreeBSD -STABLE development branch. Since FreeBSD 4.8-RELEASE in April 2003, we have made conservative updates to a number of software programs in the base system, dealt with known security issues, and merged support for large memory i386 machines with Page Address Extensions (PAE) from 5.1.
:
/h andbook/mirrors-ftp.html
For a complete list of new features and known problems, please see the release notes and errata list, available here:
http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/4.9R/relnotes.ht ml
http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/4.9R/errata.html
This release does not include all of the new technologies that were introduced with FreeBSD 5.1 in June. Most developer resources are focused on improving the FreeBSD 5.X branch, and this may very well be the last major release of FreeBSD 4.X. The security officer team will continue to actively support the 4.X branch according to the normal policy. Additional 4.9.X releases may be made available when necessitated by security vulnerabilities or high-impact bugfixes.
We encourage all our users to evaluate FreeBSD 5.1 and the upcoming 5.2. Because PAE support has only been a feature in 4.X for a few months, it has not received wide-spread testing, and our most conservative users may wish to stay with FreeBSD 4.8 until they choose to migrate to 5.X.
For more information about the distinctions between FreeBSD 4.X and 5.X, or for general information about the FreeBSD release engineering activities, please see
http://www.FreeBSD.org/releng/
Availability
FreeBSD 4.9-RELEASE supports the i386 and alpha architectures and can be installed directly over the net using the boot floppies or copied to a local NFS/FTP server.
Please continue to support the FreeBSD Project by purchasing media from one of our supporting vendors. The following companies have contributed substantially to the development of FreeBSD:
FreeBSD Mall, Inc. http://www.freebsdmall.com/
Daemon News http://www.bsdmall.com/freebsd1.html
Each CD or DVD set contains the FreeBSD installation and application package bits for the i386 ("PC") architecture, as well as Cmdr Taco's pron collection. For a set of distfiles used to build ports in the ports collection, please see the FreeBSD Toolkit, a 6 CD set containing extra bits which no longer fit on the 4 CD set, or the DVD distribution.
If you can't afford FreeBSD on media, or just want to use it for evangelism purposes, then by all means download the ISO images. We can't promise that all the mirror sites will carry the larger ISO images, but they will at least be available from:
* ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/
* ftp://ftp3.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/
* ftp://ftp.tw.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/
* ftp://ftp6.tw.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/
* ftp://ftp{2,4,7}.de.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/
* ftp://ftp.au.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/
FreeBSD is also available via anonymous FTP from mirror sites in the following countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Lithuania, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, goatse.cx, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.
Before trying the central FTP site, please check your regional mirror(s) first by going to:
ftp://ftp..FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD
Any additional mirror sites will be labeled ftp2, ftp3 and so on.
More information about FreeBSD mirror sites can be found at:
http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books
For instructions on installing FreeBSD, please see Chapter 2 of The FreeBSD Handbook. It provides a complete installation walk-through for users new to Fr
It's really nice to have a legitimate question modded as Troll when it has so many good, insightful responses. Thanks mods!
Does anybody even play Diable II anymore?
Time to get out the flint and steel, bearskin rugs, and head for the hills!
Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh,
Chubby little buddy, all stuffed with fluff
it's Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh
little bitty silly ole' bear!
I won't believe anything seen thru the eyes of someone named "Larry Large". Now if his name was "Dick Large' or "Phil McCrackin" it would be another story.......
After all, what do we really know about what is out there is the farther reaches of the galaxy? It seems that as soon as something that might be credible is discovered, SETI just wants to slap it down.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A $246 million lawsuit was filed against the designer, marketer and a retailer of the video game series "Grand Theft Auto" by the families of two people shot by teenagers apparently inspired by the game.
.22-caliber bullets as they passed through the Great Smoky Mountains.
The suit claims marketer Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc., designers Take-Two Interactive Software and Rockstar Games, and Wal-Mart, are liable for $46 million in compensatory damages and $200 million in punitive damages.
Aaron Hamel, 45, a registered nurse, was killed and Kimberly Bede, 19, of Moneta, Va., was seriously wounded when their cars were hit June 25 by
Stepbrothers William Buckner, 16, and Joshua Buckner, 14, of Newport, were sentenced in August to an indefinite term in state custody after pleading guilty in juvenile court to reckless homicide, endangerment and assault.
The boys told investigators they got the rifles from a locked room in their home and decided to randomly shoot at tractor-trailer rigs, just like in the video game "Grand Theft Auto III."
In a suit filed Monday in Cocke County Circuit Court on behalf of the victims, Miami lawyer Jack Thompson and local lawyer Richard Talley alleged the game "inspires and trains players to shoot at vehicles and persons."
"These kids simply decided to take the thrill of that game out to Interstate 40 and started pointing at cars," Thompson said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
Thompson, who said he sent letters to Sony and Wal-Mart to drop the game before the shootings, said, "It's not like this is coming out of the blue, they chose to ignore this danger."
San Mateo, Calif.-based Sony and Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart did not return calls for comment Tuesday. The lawsuit alleges the retail giant sold the game to the Buckners about a year before the shootings.
Douglas Lowenstein, president of the industry Entertainment Software Association, called the shootings "an unspeakable tragedy" but said blaming a game played by millions for the boys' actions was "misguided and counterproductive."
"There is no credible evidence that violent games lead to violent behavior," he said. "While video games may provide a simple excuse for the teenagers involved in this incident, responsibility for violent acts belongs to those who commit them."
Thompson has made similar claims in the past and lost, notably a $33 million lawsuit against video game makers stemming from the 1997 school shooting near Paducah, Ky., by a 14-year-old boy.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the case last year that it was "simply to far a leap from shooting characters on a video screen to shooting people in a classroom."
Nice Troll! Too bad I didn't modify the text.....
One Million Songs Purchased by iTunes Users in Three and a Half Days
CUPERTINO, California--October 20, 2003--Apple(R) today announced that Windows users have downloaded more than one million copies of its new iTunes(TM) for Windows digital jukebox software in just three and a half days since its launch last Thursday, and over one million songs have been purchased and downloaded by iTunes users in the same period.
"iTunes users have purchased over one million songs in the first three and a half days since our launch last Thursday, which compares with one million songs in the first seven days when we introduced the original iTunes for Mac users last April," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We're off to a great start, and our competition isn't even out of the starting gates yet."
The iTunes Music Store has revolutionized the way people legally buy music online. An astounding 14 million songs have been purchased and downloaded since the original iTunes Music Store launch in April, solidifying the iTunes Music Store's position as the number one download music service in the world.
The second generation iTunes Music Store offers Windows users the same online music store as Mac(R) users with the same music catalog, the same "gold standard" personal use rights and the same 99 cents-per-song pricing. The second generation iTunes Music Store launched last week includes online gift certificates for family and friends; Apple's innovative and patent-pending online "Allowance" feature which allows parents to automatically deposit funds into their kids' iTunes Music Store account every month; more than 5,000 audiobooks which can be purchased with one click and listened to on any Mac or Windows computer as well as on iPods; Celebrity Playlists; and new exclusive tracks from more than 60 artists. With music from all five major music companies and over 200 independent music labels, the iTunes Music Store catalog is growing every day and will offer more than 400,000 songs by the end of October.
Apple offers the unbeatable combination of the award-winning iTunes digital jukebox software, the pioneering iTunes Music Store and the market-leading iPod(TM) digital music player, providing music lovers with a seamless experience for buying, managing and listening to their digital music collections anywhere.
Windows iPod users can now use their iPod with the award-winning iTunes digital jukebox software and enjoy the best digital music experience on any platform. iTunes for Windows includes all the same great features that made it the best digital jukebox software for the Mac--a free download with no hidden charges for extra features, MP3 and pristine quality AAC encoding from audio CDs, Smart Playlists, over 250 free Internet radio stations, and the ability to burn custom playlists to CDs and MP3 CDs, burn content to DVDs to back-up an entire music collection and share music between computers via Rendezvous(TM) over any network, cross-platform.
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Apple is committed to bringing the best personal computing experience to students, educators, creative professionals and consumers around the world through its innovative hardware, software and Internet offerings.
Sigh, I feared as much.
Thank you for your honesty, AC.
I've been seen a lot of BDS stories on /. lately.
I guess that means that BSD is not dying after all? Should I believe all the hype?