I don't disagree, but volunteer effort isn't going to produce the polished professional documentation that the point & drool crowd needs. We who geek for the love of figuring this stuff out can use the LDP stuff, the source, etc; but we don't write what most would call serious docs. We write whatever docs we need, and pretty much stop there.
I know, I wrote some of the earliest usage documentation for the Linux 2.2 networking goodies. My stuff is mostly supplanted by HOWTOs now, and I haven't updated it in nearly a year. It fills my needs and apparently is still useful to others, it's had over 300k hits this year.
People still ask me fairly often about other sources of information, many of them seeking the comprehensive quality docs that these folks sound like they're aiming to write (I've never heard of the first book, sorry). None of them seem to be interested in doing something themselves to make better docs happen, either writing up notes on whatever they're doing so I could publish it for others to see, or sending money or hardware so that I could experiment further.
If I'd had hopes of making a living from documenting linux networking, they'd be crushed by now. What I did was for my own use and made public 'cuz it didn't cost me much to do it; there's been no material benefit from it.
So the point of the ramble, I guess, is that FascDot is right on the money; yer not gonna get rich selling your book.
Flame-ish ravings follow, skip if at all leftist...
"Anarchists are libertarian socialists," you say, which I've heard before... Anarchists are those who see no need for government, however they might dream of society without it, and I'm tired of having a heretofore useful and widely understood political label which I could self apply shanghai'd by the flakiest crusts of the fucking communists fer chrissake.
...and no, I ain't a Libertarian, either; violence is always an option.
I remember for the past several years all sorts of neat special purpose hardware that had drivers for NT or SCO... How long before there's some way to get that (possibly now obsolete and thus cheaply available) stuff running on linux, too?
In the same time frame, I've bought IBM SCSIs, Western Digitals, fushitsus, and Quantums IDEs; all of which live in the same conditions as the maxtors, and none of which have had any problems.
'cept for one of the DOAs and one that died after 3 months, the maxtors have all got bad sector troubles enough to prevent further writes to them.
Foundations. Pew Charitable Trust, Rockerfeller Bros Fund, Ford Foundation, etc... Listen to the "these are not ads, they're sponsor's announcements" ads they run. Those foundations are NOT big business, but they are worth as much scrutiny in their own right.
In the past year, I've bought bought 9 Maxtors... 7 of which are gathered on my desk here awaiting return. 4 DOA. and they won't even talk to you about returns until you run their DOS-based diagnostic program; which is a bitch when the drive is so screwed that having it connected causes the computer to hang hard during the boot sequence. I'm worried about the 2 that're still running, I'm aiming to replace them ASAP 'cuz I don't trust maxtor no more.
Maxtor used to be pretty reliable (my old 120Mb maxtor's are still running), but it seems like about two years ago they went down the tubes.
Thought of getting a polyphaser, as they were introduced to me, but haven't done so 'cuz of the expense, the fact that my local ham radio shop is better than 300 miles away, and the possibility that they'll do more harm than good.
The strike that toasted the motherboards was the second time I had trouble from lightning. After the second time I went and bought some APC coax surge protectors and grounded them all according to the docs. I've read that those are essentially the same thing as a polyphaser, and their presence did no good at all. Every other strike has just toasted the card, with the coax run end to end ungrounded. Takes a few minutes to fix, where the motherboards had me down for a week.
The line runs through heavy woods on what is the highest hill for miles; we and our neighbors lose phones, televisions, power transformers, etc. with depressing regularity. What information I've found about how to prevent ligntning damage tends to be contradictory about single or multiple ground points, in ground or above ground, etc. For my particular application that might all be moot anyway, as I suspect from the near random nature of the damage over the years that it's near field or ground surge rather than direct current that's causing most of it. About the only consistient information I've found on lightning protection is that lightning is funny stuff and does weird things.
I'm going to fiber before I run out of coax NICs anyway.
I've got a 1200 foot 10Mbit coax run between two buildings, and so far have a collection of over 20 fried NICs to show for it... and two mobos with traces actually vaporized from the board...
On the other hand, I lucked into a bunch of 10bt NICS cheap, so I can afford to go through 4 pair a year (what I'm averaging), and at the time I installed the link fiber would have been too expensive. I still plan to upgrade as soon as I can kick the budget loose.
If you can swing fiber, you'd be a fool not to. The Netgear GA620 uses duplex SC fiber connectors, retails for $350 or less, pulls 20MB/sec or better TCP bandwidth in linux, and with the distance you've got to travel you can probably get a pre-made fiber patch cord long enough. If you have to terminate the fiber yourself, well, that'll be a bit more expensive.
Good luck convincing your neighbors to let you string cord across their yards/houses, and good luck keeping that cord away from lawnmowers, squirrels, kids, etc.
upwards of 50% of the pump price of gas in the US is tax (can't be bothered to look up the exact figure, think that's close). Europe/the rest of the world taxes gas at much higher rates.
How is it that if you raise my tax rates by 5% instead of 10%, you've given me a tax cut? How is a lower tax rate on gas a subsidy?
Does wally whirled keep track of everything you buy? You betcha! Look around back of your local WM sometime, see the satellite dish? That's for nearly REALTIME tracking of what they've sold. While I don't know for a fact that they do it, I'd be amazed if they can't correlate purchases with customers via checking account or credit card numbers, too. All of that, and they can't keep my brand of pizza in stock...
That was unintended, I hope? Evocative thought though, I'd say something more like an open high pressure gas bonfire type thing though... Think a bunch of oxy-acetylene torches, maybe, individually brilliant and hot, if they dance together a little bit wrong you have explosions, a stone bitch too cook a pizza with; capable of grilling a brontosaurus if properly directed.
...and I pre-emptively suggest that when the grammarians drop in and start appending the inevitable "that's a similie" notes to each response to this article, we strap them down in front of a home shopping channel until their brains explode.
That's not a reason not to use yer awesome godlike skillz for charitable work. If you don't want to go completely nuts, however, find something you're interested in, something you care about, and find somebody in that interest area that needs you.
The big causes are well served and well funded (and mostly indistinguishable from big business but for selling intangibles), but there's almost certainly some collection of idealists out there who share yourt views who will value and appreciate your contributions. Whatever the cause, from helping educate cute and fuzzy critters to the Toe Jam Liberationist front, there's a protest and/or advocacy group for everything these days. Find one whose rhetoric agrees with you and go to town.
I know whereof I speak; I get paid next to nothing for unholy working hours, and I don't care because I beleive in what I'm doing and I like my work. I can use some help, too. Anybody wanting to donate time, money, hardware, whatever to my cause (which thinks that limited, constitutionally proscribed governemnt, private property rights, and individual freedom are goals worth working for) have a look at our sites, and if you still want to help use the contact info to be found there.
...so I'll rant to a more receptive audience. Warning, partially coherent frothing follows, just skip to the next if yer easily offinded.
Read linuxsucks. the top reasons especially; specifically, the last comment on the page (as I write this, "Luke from [IP address]).
OK. The PhD in AI. I've done x86 assembler, bare metal stuff, and I've done and read quite a bit of AI... informal but I have some knowledge. I've done and am doing some AI-ish stuff. The two DO NOT mix. There's brains in AI work, there's brains in OS work; I don't think the two can co-exist. If you think they can, please tell me your brand, I could use a shot. In short, I laugh. VMS bigot anyway.
Next up, Chris 2/17. Damn. Anybody know a "chris" at microsloth? Perhaps a high-up in marketing? The editor's note helps confirm my suspicion that I wants a shot of his brand.
The screed above that, well, that's sorta suspiciosly like my (semi-illiterate) 14yr old nephew would write after an evening of stoking up on, say, Ziff Davis publications. Really, the shameless propaganda with no redeeming social value has got to stop. Will no one think of the children?
And I'd love to rant a bit more about that page, but that's it. How long has this been up? Granted I'll say these comments are probably worth reading, but 3? That's it? What kind of criticism is that? Any propaganda meister worth his salt ought to know that the key principle is REPITION... I'm sure you've got it in you somewhere.
... Ahh, that feels better. But really, ya'll, is bombing the form gonna do any good? Lookit this forum; we knows there's dipshits abounding who happen to be around, do we need to prove it yet again?
For some reason "freedom@freedom.org" seems to be the forged From: address of choice for some of the more annoying perverts and losers on usenet...
How often can you explain that, no, we don't know that person, he's not a user of ours, *we* don't condone tying down 8 year old boys to be raped by big dogs, etc, before giving up?
Torture. Instead of correcting these folks, hunt them down and start removing body parts, using increasingly painful techniques, for each error they've made. I suggest some sort of standard punishment scale be published, so that other freelance grammar police can tell at a glance what atrocities upon the english language a given person has comitted in the past, and take that into account in their enforcement activities. "An eye for I before E", kind of thing.
I happened to be playing with WHOIS last night, and noticed that one of the (registered) domains I was looking at was showing a different registrar with different queries. That domain is registered with either NSI, or Hughes Electronic Commerce Inc, apparently depending on which server you get out of a round robin load sharing arrangement or something.
I reccomend BW Whois for those who want a whois client that functions like it's supposed to. Nice little perl script that even knows how to strip NSI's "drop dead before using this data" disclaimers.
"The images of Michelangelo's statues that appear on this web page are the property of the Digital Michelangelo Project and the Soprintendenza ai beni artistici e storici per le province di Firenze, Pistoia, e Prato. They may not be copied, downloaded and stored, forwarded, or reproduced in any form, including electronic forms such as email or the web, by any persons, regardless of purpose, without express written permission from the project director Marc Levoy. Any commerical use also requires written permission from the Soprintendenza. "
Truly the younger generation has gone to hell in a handbasket. Let's kill 'em all and try again with the next set; they might not be totally ruined yet.
What's this? A rational, reasonable, polite response to criticism of one of your hobbies? How'n hell you ever gonna get anywhere with that attitude?:)
Maybe "mindlessly" was a bit harsh, perhaps "uncritically" would be more accurate. I'll allow that some rules, for example about specturm use, possibly even language, are not necessarily bad. How many of the regulations binding you in the pursuit of your hobby fall into the category of useful, and how many are desk-jockey make work? In my opinion, too many.
"...just about everyone listening doesn't want to hear it"... Hmm. Spam, or the moral (airborne?) equivalent thereof. Ain't we free not to listen? Ain't there enough bandwidth to switch channels? Wouldn't there be if the FCC had a little more sense when it came to spectrum allocation? Perhaps we can better use the limited spectrum available legally by using encryption or some such... but that ain't legal either, is it?
I admit my ignorance of most of the rules under which hams operate, having mostly forgotten the little bit I learned back when. I'm arguing from gripes I've heard and read from (mostly former, I think) hams there. Personally, I'm the type who'll violate rules for which I can't see reasons just for the doing of it. In short, I could well be wrong. Perhaps my reflexive disgust at a governmental body claiming ownership of the air blinds me to the self-evident need for, say, rules against using temporary propagation phenomena because they're not reliable; or spectrum allocation policies firmly rooted in the days when 100Mhz was about all the bandwidth there was.
My daily phone, and indeed, face to face conversations aspire to the giddy excitement of podiatry, mostly. (...and now, for your enjoyment, the National Podiatrist's Assocations presents an educational musical play about the dangers of athelete's foot: "Pus in Boots!"... sorry)
The continous party is a good analogy; occasionly you can have fun walking into a room full of strangers and just meeting new people... It doesn't happen to me that often. Usually I meet crashing bores, those utterly convinced that they must convert me to whatever their faith of the moment is (hindu, green party, fundamentalist christian, whatever), and folks who are most chairitably described as maladjusted. To each their own, I guess.
...ah, hell, I started out to make a point around here a minute ago... oh, yeah: "self-policing" community? what can ye do but snitch? Certainly there's folks who if they have a problem will work it out, but can even you call 'em a majority? When I used to listen to 2m, well, it was just hair raising the "I'll tell mamma on you" festivals that they'd get going.
But that wasn't the point either. Ham ain't for me, despite the surface attractions the restrictions make it unappealing. I don't see any prospects for it ever regaining the freedom and wide open thrill of discovery that it must once have had. Computers, on the other hand, have that freedom and thrill now, and with any luck will never lose it.
...still up, still working, ranting and frothing for no good purpose... If I wasn't self-employed I'd strangle my boss.
(I'll bet this gets called flamebait, perhaps rightly so... I'm just feeling contrary 'cuz I'm working instead of partying and blowing stuff up tonight)
I had the pleasure of attending the Dayton Hamvention this year; any technically inclined person should probably go at least once. I was amazed at the efforts some of the old timers were making to reach out to people like me... not licensed, but with enough interest in the field to be there. Linux advocates need to learn from those folks, they're polite, helpful, informative, and effective. Unfortunately, their attitude is not representative of most of the hams I've known.
Hams have always struck me, as a group, as being far too willing to not only unquestioningly follow whatever arrbitrary rules are laid upon them by appointed officials, but to expend considerable efforts to make others toe those lines too. I don't mean reasonable stuff like frequency allocation or interference regulations, I mean stuff like language regulations and the morse code requirements. Others have mentioned the morse requirments being relaxed, but that's just one example. Ever speak to somebody over 155 miles (possibly I've got the number wrong) away on a CB? That's illegal, you know... Even with legal equipment.
It's not even so much that there are so many ill considered or marginally useful regulations, it's the pervasive feeling I get from hams that if they have to observe all this crap, anybody who wants into their clique had better do so too. Moreover, many seem to revel in the regimentation, seemingly feeling that the fewer hams there are, the more special that makes them.
Finally, what has ham radio to offer? There's a lot of talking, but very little communication, from what I've heard. UseNet or even Slashdot provides far more interesting discussion in an average hour than I've ever heard on any ham band in days. Building a transciever might be fun, but theat effort, or the money to buy equipment, plus the effort to get licensed etc, and what do you have when you've succeded? The opportunity to discuss your latest foot troubles for hours on end? The chance to have some 45 year old who still lives with his parents make it his life's work to get your equipment confiscated, if not your body imprisoned, 'cuz he doesn't beleive you've got a better than average antenna, not an illegal amplifier?
-- h2odragon, unlicensed; not transmitting on a freqency near you, unless you happen to have FCC markings...
Slashdot Mirror
[dragon@fubar rfc]$ grep -ilc "cerf" rfc*.txt | wc -l
2805
[dragon@fubar rfc]$ grep -ilc "postel" rfc*.txt | wc -l
3478
...this is a statistical argument; no discussion of the rigor (or lack thereof) of my method is relevant.
I don't disagree, but volunteer effort isn't going to produce the polished professional documentation that the point & drool crowd needs. We who geek for the love of figuring this stuff out can use the LDP stuff, the source, etc; but we don't write what most would call serious docs. We write whatever docs we need, and pretty much stop there.
I know, I wrote some of the earliest usage documentation for the Linux 2.2 networking goodies. My stuff is mostly supplanted by HOWTOs now, and I haven't updated it in nearly a year. It fills my needs and apparently is still useful to others, it's had over 300k hits this year.
People still ask me fairly often about other sources of information, many of them seeking the comprehensive quality docs that these folks sound like they're aiming to write (I've never heard of the first book, sorry). None of them seem to be interested in doing something themselves to make better docs happen, either writing up notes on whatever they're doing so I could publish it for others to see, or sending money or hardware so that I could experiment further.
If I'd had hopes of making a living from documenting linux networking, they'd be crushed by now. What I did was for my own use and made public 'cuz it didn't cost me much to do it; there's been no material benefit from it.
So the point of the ramble, I guess, is that FascDot is right on the money; yer not gonna get rich selling your book.
I've got 6 short and 8 full height drives, 2 dual ppro systems, powers supplies fans & so on, in less space than a single full size tower case.
though I'm a big SCSI fan, I got to admit the single 8' SCSI cable is much more of a bitch to deal with than the IDE cables.
"Anarchists are libertarian socialists," you say, which I've heard before... Anarchists are those who see no need for government, however they might dream of society without it, and I'm tired of having a heretofore useful and widely understood political label which I could self apply shanghai'd by the flakiest crusts of the fucking communists fer chrissake.
...and no, I ain't a Libertarian, either; violence is always an option.
...much, much better now
I remember for the past several years all sorts of neat special purpose hardware that had drivers for NT or SCO... How long before there's some way to get that (possibly now obsolete and thus cheaply available) stuff running on linux, too?
In the same time frame, I've bought IBM SCSIs, Western Digitals, fushitsus, and Quantums IDEs; all of which live in the same conditions as the maxtors, and none of which have had any problems.
'cept for one of the DOAs and one that died after 3 months, the maxtors have all got bad sector troubles enough to prevent further writes to them.
Foundations. Pew Charitable Trust, Rockerfeller Bros Fund, Ford Foundation, etc... Listen to the "these are not ads, they're sponsor's announcements" ads they run. Those foundations are NOT big business, but they are worth as much scrutiny in their own right.
Maxtor used to be pretty reliable (my old 120Mb maxtor's are still running), but it seems like about two years ago they went down the tubes.
# end rant
The strike that toasted the motherboards was the second time I had trouble from lightning. After the second time I went and bought some APC coax surge protectors and grounded them all according to the docs. I've read that those are essentially the same thing as a polyphaser, and their presence did no good at all. Every other strike has just toasted the card, with the coax run end to end ungrounded. Takes a few minutes to fix, where the motherboards had me down for a week.
The line runs through heavy woods on what is the highest hill for miles; we and our neighbors lose phones, televisions, power transformers, etc. with depressing regularity. What information I've found about how to prevent ligntning damage tends to be contradictory about single or multiple ground points, in ground or above ground, etc. For my particular application that might all be moot anyway, as I suspect from the near random nature of the damage over the years that it's near field or ground surge rather than direct current that's causing most of it. About the only consistient information I've found on lightning protection is that lightning is funny stuff and does weird things.
I'm going to fiber before I run out of coax NICs anyway.
I've got a 1200 foot 10Mbit coax run between two buildings, and so far have a collection of over 20 fried NICs to show for it... and two mobos with traces actually vaporized from the board...
On the other hand, I lucked into a bunch of 10bt NICS cheap, so I can afford to go through 4 pair a year (what I'm averaging), and at the time I installed the link fiber would have been too expensive. I still plan to upgrade as soon as I can kick the budget loose.
If you can swing fiber, you'd be a fool not to. The Netgear GA620 uses duplex SC fiber connectors, retails for $350 or less, pulls 20MB/sec or better TCP bandwidth in linux, and with the distance you've got to travel you can probably get a pre-made fiber patch cord long enough. If you have to terminate the fiber yourself, well, that'll be a bit more expensive.
Good luck convincing your neighbors to let you string cord across their yards/houses, and good luck keeping that cord away from lawnmowers, squirrels, kids, etc.
How is it that if you raise my tax rates by 5% instead of 10%, you've given me a tax cut? How is a lower tax rate on gas a subsidy?
There's gonna be a hot time in the old town tonight...
As to resturaunts, ever made reservations?
That was unintended, I hope? Evocative thought though, I'd say something more like an open high pressure gas bonfire type thing though... Think a bunch of oxy-acetylene torches, maybe, individually brilliant and hot, if they dance together a little bit wrong you have explosions, a stone bitch too cook a pizza with; capable of grilling a brontosaurus if properly directed.
...and I pre-emptively suggest that when the grammarians drop in and start appending the inevitable "that's a similie" notes to each response to this article, we strap them down in front of a home shopping channel until their brains explode.
That's not a reason not to use yer awesome godlike skillz for charitable work. If you don't want to go completely nuts, however, find something you're interested in, something you care about, and find somebody in that interest area that needs you.
The big causes are well served and well funded (and mostly indistinguishable from big business but for selling intangibles), but there's almost certainly some collection of idealists out there who share yourt views who will value and appreciate your contributions. Whatever the cause, from helping educate cute and fuzzy critters to the Toe Jam Liberationist front, there's a protest and/or advocacy group for everything these days. Find one whose rhetoric agrees with you and go to town.
I know whereof I speak; I get paid next to nothing for unholy working hours, and I don't care because I beleive in what I'm doing and I like my work. I can use some help, too. Anybody wanting to donate time, money, hardware, whatever to my cause (which thinks that limited, constitutionally proscribed governemnt, private property rights, and individual freedom are goals worth working for) have a look at our sites, and if you still want to help use the contact info to be found there.
Read linuxsucks. the top reasons especially; specifically, the last comment on the page (as I write this, "Luke from [IP address]).
OK. The PhD in AI. I've done x86 assembler, bare metal stuff, and I've done and read quite a bit of AI... informal but I have some knowledge. I've done and am doing some AI-ish stuff. The two DO NOT mix. There's brains in AI work, there's brains in OS work; I don't think the two can co-exist. If you think they can, please tell me your brand, I could use a shot. In short, I laugh. VMS bigot anyway.
Next up, Chris 2/17. Damn. Anybody know a "chris" at microsloth? Perhaps a high-up in marketing? The editor's note helps confirm my suspicion that I wants a shot of his brand.
The screed above that, well, that's sorta suspiciosly like my (semi-illiterate) 14yr old nephew would write after an evening of stoking up on, say, Ziff Davis publications. Really, the shameless propaganda with no redeeming social value has got to stop. Will no one think of the children?
And I'd love to rant a bit more about that page, but that's it. How long has this been up? Granted I'll say these comments are probably worth reading, but 3? That's it? What kind of criticism is that? Any propaganda meister worth his salt ought to know that the key principle is REPITION... I'm sure you've got it in you somewhere.
... Ahh, that feels better. But really, ya'll, is bombing the form gonna do any good? Lookit this forum; we knows there's dipshits abounding who happen to be around, do we need to prove it yet again?
For some reason "freedom@freedom.org" seems to be the forged From: address of choice for some of the more annoying perverts and losers on usenet...
How often can you explain that, no, we don't know that person, he's not a user of ours, *we* don't condone tying down 8 year old boys to be raped by big dogs, etc, before giving up?
Torture. Instead of correcting these folks, hunt them down and start removing body parts, using increasingly painful techniques, for each error they've made. I suggest some sort of standard punishment scale be published, so that other freelance grammar police can tell at a glance what atrocities upon the english language a given person has comitted in the past, and take that into account in their enforcement activities. "An eye for I before E", kind of thing.
I happened to be playing with WHOIS last night, and noticed that one of the (registered) domains I was looking at was showing a different registrar with different queries. That domain is registered with either NSI, or Hughes Electronic Commerce Inc, apparently depending on which server you get out of a round robin load sharing arrangement or something.
I reccomend BW Whois for those who want a whois client that functions like it's supposed to. Nice little perl script that even knows how to strip NSI's "drop dead before using this data" disclaimers.
Hmph. Let's email the picutes to HIM.
Truly the younger generation has gone to hell in a handbasket. Let's kill 'em all and try again with the next set; they might not be totally ruined yet.
How about all the DX2 "upgrades" that got sold? Increase your computer's speed by 50%, drop that old DX-33 for a DX2-50...
What's this? A rational, reasonable, polite response to criticism of one of your hobbies? How'n hell you ever gonna get anywhere with that attitude? :)
... Hmm. Spam, or the moral (airborne?) equivalent thereof. Ain't we free not to listen? Ain't there enough bandwidth to switch channels? Wouldn't there be if the FCC had a little more sense when it came to spectrum allocation? Perhaps we can better use the limited spectrum available legally by using encryption or some such... but that ain't legal either, is it?
...still up, still working, ranting and frothing for no good purpose... If I wasn't self-employed I'd strangle my boss.
Maybe "mindlessly" was a bit harsh, perhaps "uncritically" would be more accurate. I'll allow that some rules, for example about specturm use, possibly even language, are not necessarily bad. How many of the regulations binding you in the pursuit of your hobby fall into the category of useful, and how many are desk-jockey make work? In my opinion, too many.
"...just about everyone listening doesn't want to hear it"
I admit my ignorance of most of the rules under which hams operate, having mostly forgotten the little bit I learned back when. I'm arguing from gripes I've heard and read from (mostly former, I think) hams there. Personally, I'm the type who'll violate rules for which I can't see reasons just for the doing of it. In short, I could well be wrong. Perhaps my reflexive disgust at a governmental body claiming ownership of the air blinds me to the self-evident need for, say, rules against using temporary propagation phenomena because they're not reliable; or spectrum allocation policies firmly rooted in the days when 100Mhz was about all the bandwidth there was.
My daily phone, and indeed, face to face conversations aspire to the giddy excitement of podiatry, mostly. (...and now, for your enjoyment, the National Podiatrist's Assocations presents an educational musical play about the dangers of athelete's foot: "Pus in Boots!"... sorry)
The continous party is a good analogy; occasionly you can have fun walking into a room full of strangers and just meeting new people... It doesn't happen to me that often. Usually I meet crashing bores, those utterly convinced that they must convert me to whatever their faith of the moment is (hindu, green party, fundamentalist christian, whatever), and folks who are most chairitably described as maladjusted. To each their own, I guess.
...ah, hell, I started out to make a point around here a minute ago... oh, yeah: "self-policing" community? what can ye do but snitch? Certainly there's folks who if they have a problem will work it out, but can even you call 'em a majority? When I used to listen to 2m, well, it was just hair raising the "I'll tell mamma on you" festivals that they'd get going.
But that wasn't the point either. Ham ain't for me, despite the surface attractions the restrictions make it unappealing. I don't see any prospects for it ever regaining the freedom and wide open thrill of discovery that it must once have had. Computers, on the other hand, have that freedom and thrill now, and with any luck will never lose it.
FCC power regulations. Possibly there's a reason for the rule, somehow I doubt it. They the gubmint, they know best...
(I'll bet this gets called flamebait, perhaps rightly so... I'm just feeling contrary 'cuz I'm working instead of partying and blowing stuff up tonight)
I had the pleasure of attending the Dayton Hamvention this year; any technically inclined person should probably go at least once. I was amazed at the efforts some of the old timers were making to reach out to people like me... not licensed, but with enough interest in the field to be there. Linux advocates need to learn from those folks, they're polite, helpful, informative, and effective. Unfortunately, their attitude is not representative of most of the hams I've known.
Hams have always struck me, as a group, as being far too willing to not only unquestioningly follow whatever arrbitrary rules are laid upon them by appointed officials, but to expend considerable efforts to make others toe those lines too. I don't mean reasonable stuff like frequency allocation or interference regulations, I mean stuff like language regulations and the morse code requirements. Others have mentioned the morse requirments being relaxed, but that's just one example. Ever speak to somebody over 155 miles (possibly I've got the number wrong) away on a CB? That's illegal, you know... Even with legal equipment.
It's not even so much that there are so many ill considered or marginally useful regulations, it's the pervasive feeling I get from hams that if they have to observe all this crap, anybody who wants into their clique had better do so too. Moreover, many seem to revel in the regimentation, seemingly feeling that the fewer hams there are, the more special that makes them.
Finally, what has ham radio to offer? There's a lot of talking, but very little communication, from what I've heard. UseNet or even Slashdot provides far more interesting discussion in an average hour than I've ever heard on any ham band in days. Building a transciever might be fun, but theat effort, or the money to buy equipment, plus the effort to get licensed etc, and what do you have when you've succeded? The opportunity to discuss your latest foot troubles for hours on end? The chance to have some 45 year old who still lives with his parents make it his life's work to get your equipment confiscated, if not your body imprisoned, 'cuz he doesn't beleive you've got a better than average antenna, not an illegal amplifier?
-- h2odragon, unlicensed; not transmitting on a freqency near you, unless you happen to have FCC markings...